Chapter 1: Don't ever water the flowers
Summary:
Izuku’s expression had hardly changed as he so casually dismissed the entire foundation of who Katsuki was.
Katsuki realizes the consequences of unknowingly falling in unrequited love.
Notes:
(8k+ words)
Content Warning: Read the tags. This chapter doesn't really have any specific warnings, but please make note of the tags for future chapters.
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
Katsuki knew that he was doomed.
As his foot pressed the gas pedal closer and closer to the floor, he knew.
As he adjusted his grip on the top of the steering wheel, he knew.
As he stared at the dark, empty road out his front windshield, he knew.
It was obvious by the nauseating, twisting anxiety in his gut and the increasing pressure on his chest.
It was obvious by how suppressing his emotions underneath anger wasn’t working anymore. As much as he was trying to—to rage and seethe and drive his car as fast as it would go—it wasn’t enough. There was something happening that refused to be hidden behind fury alone.
Music blasted so loudly through the speakers that the entire car shook with each beat of the bass, and yet he barely comprehended it. It was supposed to drown out everything else in his mind, but it was doing a poor job.
“Goddammit,” Katsuki cussed harshly, his grip tightening on the steering wheel until his knuckles ached and turned white. “Shit, shit, shit.”
He was doomed.
He could feel it all building up inside him.
Mere hours ago, in this very car, he’d said, “If someone said that they wanted to surpass me, I would’ve accepted them right away.”
In reply, he’d been met with only deafening silence. A glance in the rearview mirror had only showed Izuku smiling contently while staring almost vacantly ahead. Completely uncomprehending of any subtext or implication.
It was only once Kirishima, sitting in the passenger seat, had pointed out the obvious a few minutes later that Izuku had understood. “He turned down your offer, Bakugou! He just invited you to work at his agency, Midoriya!”
With wide eyes and a mildly surprised expression, Izuku had replied, “What?! Sorry, but that won’t happen.”
The abrupt, final, undeniable rejection had immediately caused a thousand things within Katsuki to boil up. It was instantly an unbearably overwhelming and almost painful feeling.
“Shut up, I get it!”
Move on.
Change the subject.
Stop looking at me, damn nerd.
In his moment of complete shock and overwhelming feeling, Katsuki had only been able to shove it aside. It was a classic “see if I care” moment. No one would ever catch Bakugou Katsuki dead giving more of a shit about someone than they did about him.
At the time, all he could do was protect his heart before it exploded from going over capacity. All he could do was defend and deflect until he could deal with the severity of emotion away from Izuku’s prying eyes.
But… now?
Now, as Katsuki was alone later that night and was forced to reconcile what he’d been expecting of his future for the past eight years with this new reality?
Now, it felt like the mental barrier that Katsuki had gotten better at upholding over the years was being challenged. Even with the rejection having been hours ago, no longer the freshest of wounds, it was still smarting like Izuku had just driven the knife through his chest.
His emotions slammed at that mental barrier—over and over and over again—making his vision flicker red. He felt a frantic need to do something to relieve the pressure. To yell, to hit something, to explode, to flip his car off the fucking road.
“Sorry…”
Shock, disbelief, confusion, disappointment, humiliation, rage.
It was all too much. He couldn’t hope to contain it all as it built up inside him. There just wasn’t any room left; he was going to burst.
“…that won’t happen.”
Katsuki was mortified, and there wasn’t enough anger in the world to drown it out.
Hours later, he still felt bad enough that that years-old need to defend himself still wanted to rise to the surface. That need to scream to anyone that would listen that he didn’t need anyone else, that of course he hadn’t completely planned on Izuku wanting to join his agency for the past eight years.
He was Bakugou Katsuki. He was the fucking best.
He could do anything on his own and like hell did he need any help.
He wasn’t weak.
“He turned down your offer, Bakugou!”
Katsuki had never coped well with the feeling of rejection. He’d never done well with people challenging his capabilities or his independence or strength.
The idea that someone was looking down on him had always felt unbearable. It was revolting to the point that Katsuki used to avoid the feeling at all costs; even if that meant avoiding entire situations or people who made him feel that way.
Anything so he wouldn’t have to feel like he was weak.
“If someone said that they wanted to surpass me, I would’ve accepted them right away.”
“He just invited you to work at his agency, Midoriya!”
If he put himself out there and made it seem like he needed someone else… and then was turned down?
“What?! Sorry, but that won’t happen.”
Well, somehow that felt so much more intolerable than an unprompted condescending comment ever could. The situation immediately put him at a disadvantage. It made it seem like he needed someone else when he was clearly not needed in return. It made him look comparatively weaker while establishing the other person as the one with all the strength.
Katsuki couldn’t stand the way it made him feel. He’d never been able to stand it.
Even now, when he was supposed to be older and past all that shit and better at regulating his emotions. Somehow, it felt just as intense and overwhelming as it had when he was a kid, if not more.
Even now, when he thought he’d gotten better at ignoring the instinct to fall back to defensive shouting whenever it arose. The feeling was so intolerable that it felt like defending himself was the only possible outlet that didn’t result in internal combustion.
Katsuki reached forward to turn up the music even more, gritting his teeth against the swell of emotions rising in his chest. It wasn’t doing enough to drown out everything in his head, so he just cranked it up more and pretended it was.
He couldn’t get that damn look on Izuku’s face out of his head. That damn passively content smile and big eyes. Izuku had always had such expressive eyes, and yet they’d looked so incredibly void of emotion in that moment. Uncaring and unreactive other than the slightest bit of surprise for a moment.
Katsuki wished he didn’t feel like smacking that look off his face.
All his life, Izuku had always been the best at making him feel inferior.
On that day when they were kids, when Katsuki slipped and fell off the log and into the river…
Katsuki had been fine. He was strong. He didn’t need anyone else. All their other friends got the memo. They weren’t even worried about him because they knew that a little fall wouldn’t affect Katsuki in the slightest.
But Izuku?
“Are you all right, Kacchan? Can you stand?”
Izuku wasted no time running down to stand over him, offering Katsuki a hand like he needed help. Katsuki had looked up at him—at those wide, worried green eyes—and couldn’t understand why Izuku didn’t seem to get what all their other friends so easily did.
Katsuki was strong. He didn’t need help. A little tumble wouldn’t do a damn thing to him.
Why didn’t Izuku understand that?
Why did he act like Katsuki was weak and he was strong? Like Katsuki was some victim? Someone who needed to be saved and protected, rather than the one doing the saving and protecting?
Didn’t he understand that he was the one who was Quirkless and weak?
Katsuki used to hate that part of Izuku. Even though he was nothing, it was like he was looking down on Katsuki. Somehow, nothing ever seemed to affect Izuku in the slightest. Getting beat up or yelled at or put down… Izuku still stuck close to him.
It was like he was above it all.
Like he thought he was better than Katsuki.
For years, it’d made that revolting feeling of inferiority surge up in Katsuki whenever he was nearby.
“Fuck,” Katsuki spat out as he felt all the emotions he didn’t want to feel refusing to keep themselves at bay as the distant, long-faded memory surfaced yet again. “God fucking dammit.”
He’d been so sure they were past all that by now.
Years of rivalry, of fights, of self-reflection… Katsuki had long ago recognized where his insecurities ended and Izuku began. He’d long stopped projecting that deep-rooted fear of inferiority onto Izuku’s actions. He’d recognized Izuku’s true character. He’d recognized that Izuku did such things—offering his hand to those in need—not because he thought that he was the strongest or invulnerable or superior.
It was just because Izuku was kind. It had never had anything to do with who Katsuki was, but just the fact that Katsuki had fallen was enough for Izuku to offer a hand.
Long ago, Katsuki was certain that he’d learned and accepted that sometimes it was okay to let someone watch his back, and he’d watch theirs next time.
It was okay to need saving sometimes, because everyone needed saving sometimes. Next time, he’d be the one doing the saving.
It was okay to lean on others, because next time, they could lean on him.
Katsuki was so certain that he’d learned and accepted all of this years ago.
So why was that old, revolting feeling writhing inside of him all over again?
Katsuki pressed his foot harder on the gas pedal, feeling the car rev as the music continued to shake the whole vehicle.
When he’d offered Izuku a spot at his agency, Izuku had rejected his offer so casually. So easily and quickly, with very little shock or surprise or gratitude. He said nothing else about it and didn’t ask anything further. He didn’t bring it up again or seem to register that Katsuki had been turning down everyone else for eight fucking years because none of them measured up.
Katsuki had turned everyone else away, because he’d been waiting for him. He’d been holding onto the idea of them and their dream this entire time.
Yet Izuku turned it down like it was nothing.
Drawing in a huge, heaving breath, Katsuki’s face twisted into a deeper scowl to try and hide a more pained grimace. Again and again, the surge of all the horrible, confusing emotions swelled up to test the barrier he had in place to hold them back.
He could never hope to identify everything that he felt. Thrown in the mix was definitely rejection, despair, hurt, confusion… but he could never hope to pick each of them out and give them a name.
Instead, it all just added up to feeling like too much.
Even the method of trying not to think of any of it was failing him. It all came to mind unexpectedly; Izuku’s voice echoed in his mind despite his best attempts to suppress the memory.
When Katsuki had been met with the initial silence and Izuku’s vacant smile, a few beats passed before he’d spoken again.
“You’ll keep teaching?” Katsuki had prompted in an effort to get Izuku’s reply.
“Yeah,” Izuku had responded without that damn smile faltering in the slightest. “I’ve been collecting data for the armor on days when I’m not teaching. Just like Aizawa-sensei did back in the day.”
Katsuki had stared emptily out the front windshield as he listened. Things had felt almost surreal in that moment, like he’d suddenly slipped into a bizarre, unfamiliar reality.
Izuku had gone on, “Several other schools invite me to give lectures and seminars, so I have the opportunity to share my experiences with students every day.”
When had Katsuki slipped into a completely different reality where Izuku was turning down using some of the most advanced armor in the world… to teach? Where Izuku used the armor on his days off rather than jumping to test every aspect of it, to push himself, to learn it inside and out until he knew it like an extension of himself?
Izuku was speaking in that tone of his that Katsuki hated. It was hard for him to describe it in words but… it was chocked full of optimism and gratefulness and yet somehow the words still felt hollow. Not so simple or obvious as a total lie, but just… empty. Surface level in a way that lacked complete sincerity.
Or maybe Katsuki was just reaching.
“The armor made me very happy,” Izuku said, “but my feelings haven’t changed. I think I’d enjoy being a teacher even if I still had One For All.”
Katsuki’s eye had twitched slightly at those words, but he said nothing.
“I have a job doing what I love and now I’m back being a hero with you guys!” Izuku had gone on, his tone rising in that peppy optimistic way. “That makes me so, so happy! Thank you, Kacchan and Kirishima!”
In that moment, Katsuki’s world had started to really crack for the first time in so very many years.
A crack that was spreading across his entire being, and damn it hurt like hell.
“FUCK!” Katsuki shouted suddenly, slamming his hand forward to hit the steering wheel—hard enough to jolt pain up his wrist that went ignored. His other hand still held the steering wheel in a death grip.
Again and again and again, all the indiscernible emotions slammed at the mental barrier inside of him. His arms trembled visibly, and he was breathing hard like he’d been sprinting.
His foot pressed harder on the gas, pushing the car even faster. The dark, empty road blurred by. Katsuki barely registered it. His eyes burned, and if there was one emotion he could very clearly give a name to it was furious.
He was furious, because he was actually feeling all those other things.
He was furious—at Izuku, at himself, at the entire goddamn universe.
Katsuki didn’t know how to reconcile what had occurred tonight with his understanding of who Izuku was and who they were. With one conversation in which Izuku had been so casually indifferent to his offer, Katsuki’s worldview had taken such a hard hit that it was all starting to come crashing down. What Katsuki had thought contrasted too sharply with what actually was.
There was the false reality that Katsuki had lived in for the past decade or so. A reality where Katsuki had wanted to become the Number One Hero and surpass All Might practically as long as he could remember. A reality where Izuku had wanted to take after All Might to become a hero as well. He’d been so determined to do it that he’d gone to insane lengths to accomplish it.
A reality where he’d been certain that Izuku wanted the same thing as he did.
That old dream—to surpass All Might and become the Number One Hero—had driven Katsuki all his life. It felt like he’d built himself around it. Even when he didn’t know anything else, at least he knew what he wanted. He knew what he was passionate about. He knew what he was going to do, because he was Bakugou Katsuki, and nothing could stand in his way.
At some point along the way, Izuku was integrated seamlessly into that dream. The successor to All Might. The chosen one himself. It only made sense that he was Katsuki’s biggest competition.
For all their complicated history, Katsuki had come to terms with it all back in that first year of high school. In the end, there was something exhilarating, he’d realized, about having someone to compete with. Someone always right next to you—a rival, a sparring partner… a friend.
Izuku had wanted the same thing as him.
When Izuku lost One For All, Katsuki felt like it had thrown a wrench in their future. But so what? Like hell was Katsuki going to let that stand in the way of their dream. Fuck that. He’d do anything and everything to get Izuku back to heroics.
Katsuki knew how he felt at the idea of Izuku being ripped away from what he wanted most in the world. So for Izuku… it must’ve been agonizing.
Katsuki had been so sure of it, back then. Even though Izuku had smiled and said everything was fine, Katsuki had been so damn sure that his final atonement for all the shitty stuff he’d done in middle school would be to haul ass to find Izuku a way back to their dream.
How else would Izuku be able to feel whole?
How else would Katsuki be able to feel whole?
That was the reality Katsuki had lived in for years. It was the reality he’d clung to when he’d needed something to stabilize him. When shifts had been long and grueling. When working tirelessly to earn money for the armor started to catch up to him. When he’d wake up and realize that it’d been weeks since he’d done anything but work. When he had trouble sleeping. When he felt lonely. When his body ached from physical pains old and new.
Now, the cracks were spreading across his being, fracturing his mind and memory and heart and soul. They spread across his chest and made sharp pain dig into his ribs. He didn’t know how to swallow any of this; it tasted too bitter on his tongue. The very thought of it all was turning his stomach nauseatingly.
He’d been so sure that Izuku wanted the same thing as him.
“What?! Sorry, but that won’t happen.”
He’d been wrong.
There was the true reality that Katsuki had yet to face. A reality that he would be forced to face now. A reality that already hurt like a bitch.
Katsuki turned sharply off the road into a parking lot, tires screeching loud enough to be heard even over the booming music.
It felt like he was being unraveled at the center. Everything felt increasingly off kilter as his entire being tried to merge the two realities together in his mind and make sense of what the hell had happened. Inside him, every tumultuous feeling swelled again, sending more fractures down the barrier in his mind.
Try as he might to stop it, the pressure was building too much. The difference on either side of the barrier was too great. He felt himself about to break under it all.
Katsuki knew without a doubt that he was doomed.
He swerved into a parking spot, slamming to a sudden stop.
He couldn’t stop hearing echoes of the damn conversation that had shattered what had apparently been nothing more than a childish fantasy for who knows how long.
“If someone said that they wanted to surpass me—”
“—turned down your offer—”
“—won’t happen.”
Katsuki shut off the car, and the music cut off abruptly. The contrast of the sudden silence was jarring. He quickly became aware of the frantic, palpable beating of his own heart in his chest.
Thump. Thump. Thump.
Izuku’s expression had hardly changed as he so casually dismissed the entire foundation of who Katsuki was. The entire structure of his reality.
“God…” Katsuki gripped the steering wheel with both hands, leaning forward to put his forehead on the top of it with a quiet thunk. “…dammit.”
As his ears adjusted to the lack of music, he distantly registered the muffled sound of crashing waves. As the cracks spread and his chest hurt like hell, he was certain about the inevitability of it all. His collapse, his upcoming misery, his doom.
In this moment, his only solace was his isolation. His was the only car in this deserted parking lot late at night. The heavy cloud cover kept even the moon and stars from witnessing his breakdown.
If everything was going to break apart, at least he wouldn’t have to worry about answering to anyone just yet.
Forcing himself to draw in a deep breath, Katsuki felt the air entering his lungs and expanding his aching ribcage.
Was it his imagination or was it hard to breathe?
Was the deep aching of his lungs all in his head?
Well, if it was all in his head… it wouldn’t be for long.
Katsuki grimaced as he pressed his forehead harder into the steering wheel, his entire body coiled tight. There was a nearly painful tension in his neck, back, and shoulders that he barely even registered in the face of everything else.
Because the truth was irrefutable. Katsuki knew it with absolute certainty. He’d fucked up irrevocably, and it would be the death of him sooner rather than later.
He’d fucked up, because it turned out that he’d mistaken the coincidental proximity of his and Izuku’s lives for fate. He knew they weren’t cut from the same cloth, but he’d mistakenly assumed that their lives were still woven tightly together. Life had always stuck the two of them firmly side by side. Whether or not Katsuki wanted it, Izuku had always been there.
Was it really so irrational that he came to this conclusion? That he assumed the trend would continue?
Based on their lives so far, Katsuki had come to assume that he and Izuku were woven into one—so twisted together and convoluted that they couldn’t escape each other if they tried.
Once they’d become friends again, Katsuki had slowly begun to recognize the beauty that also came from their intertwined lives. They had the same goals, the same drive… but they were so different. They could always keep moving, keep growing, keep learning, and keep challenging each other.
So years ago, Katsuki had made the foolish and irreversible mistake to intertwine the one goal that he’d built his life around—the very core of his being—with Izuku.
Katsuki grimaced again as the unbearable emotions began to break through and pushed their way up, forming a lump in his throat.
When he thought of his life—his past, his present, and everything he wanted in the future—it was all so entangled with Izuku that Katsuki hardly knew where he ended and Izuku began.
He hadn’t thought any of that was a problem before.
He tried to force another slow, steady inhale to calm himself from the exploding point he felt stuck at, but his breath caught for a moment.
When Izuku lost One For All back in high school, for a moment it had seemed like the world was finally starting to tear them apart. Katsuki remembered the painful feeling and the grief that had surfaced so quickly at the idea of Izuku being Quirkless again. More than anything in the world, Katsuki had just wanted to restore their future—their life together—back to the way it was supposed to be.
So, he’d gotten to work. In the end, Katsuki had convinced himself it was only a road bump, a small splitting at the seams. That was the thing about having someone to watch your back, someone who you’d always been side by side with. Life had tried to trip Izuku up, but Katsuki was determined to catch him before he fell. Life was trying to rip pieces of Izuku away, but Katsuki hadn’t seen it as an unsolvable problem.
Over and over, Katsuki rewrote what his future would look like… but carefully made space for Izuku each and every time. He’d patched the holes and found new patterns, but each time was careful to keep them intact.
He’d spent years after graduation thinking of little else but Izuku—funding his suit, how much he missed him, how much better it would be if Izuku was the one with him and not whatever random extra happened to be there.
Katsuki had thought of little else for over half a decade, convincing himself that his life could restart again when he’d gotten Izuku back in heroics. He’d convinced himself that things would stop feeling so… so…
Today had taught Katsuki that he was a massive fucking idiot. He’d failed to pay attention to how things had changed. He’d failed to notice that the real world didn’t match up with the fantasy in his head.
Without a doubt, Katsuki knew that he was doomed—as in, completely, royally fucked—because he’d grown up with the stories. He’d heard every warning. The gruesome details had been seared into his mind for years.
Katsuki knew what happened when one person built their life with another at the foundation, only to find out that person wasn’t there at all.
Everything fell apart.
“Don’t fall carelessly in love, Katsuki,” his mother had told him so many times as a child. “It’s very dangerous.”
Katsuki shoved himself up off the steering wheel, still gripping it tightly as he heaved in breaths that were a bit too shallow, a bit too uneven.
It seemed especially fucked up that he hadn’t even gotten close to a confession of his feelings.
All it had taken was this for Katsuki’s reality to crack and implode in on itself. All it took was Izuku’s quick dismissal of everything that Katsuki had worked tirelessly for, and now Katsuki understood that he’d signed his own death warrant.
Izuku and he were still close friends after high school; there’d never been any doubt about that. They still hung out semi-frequently and saw each other at class reunions every few weeks. Apparently, this had been enough to keep Katsuki from realizing the obvious.
Finally, earlier tonight—picking Izuku up for Todoroki’s celebration for his No. 2 Ranking, having dinner, saying goodbye to Izuku afterwards—he understood.
Katsuki understood, as he was surrounded by all his high school friends as they smiled and laughed and talked about how happy and successful they were. He understood, as Izuku so casually told him that being a hero at his agency didn’t fit with his teaching schedule. He understood, as he’d waved goodbye to Izuku and watched him run off to someone else without looking back once.
He understood that he was only one of many people in Izuku’s life. He understood that—even if he had been at some point—he was no longer closer to Midoriya Izuku than anyone else. He understood that Izuku had left their rivalry and their dream behind a long time ago.
Katsuki was doomed, because he was a passing thought in Izuku’s life now, while Izuku always sat at the forefront of his mind. He hadn’t even gotten close to a confession of his feelings, and he never would now.
Katsuki stared blankly out into the darkness beyond his car. The empty beach was spread out before him. His eyes had slowly started to adjust, so he could see vague outlines of the sand and the ocean beyond, even with the clouds covering the moon.
Thinking about it now, Katsuki honestly didn’t know how the hell he’d fucked up so badly.
How had he not realized that Izuku didn’t want anything that he’d used to want? How in the actual hell had he not realized that Izuku wouldn’t be interested in working together anymore?
It was mortifying.
It was infuriating.
It was arrogant.
He’d been so incredibly arrogant, hadn’t he?
Another surge of emotions slammed into his mental barrier. Another dangerously large crack ran down it.
Katsuki let go of the steering wheel, moving his hands up into his hair and gripping hard. Again, he leaned forward to rest his forehead on the steering wheel. For a moment, he could only yell—a loud, frustrated, indignant cry.
“Don’t fall carelessly in love, Katsuki.”
His cry dissolved into laughter—a humorless, unsettling sound that was laced with incredulousness and self-deprecation.
Katsuki used to think he’d never fall in love, because why the hell would he need love? He used to get pissed at his mom for reminding him about stupid shit that didn’t apply to him. He cared about being the Number One Hero.
He didn’t give a shit about love.
And then… years down the line when he’d started to fall in love, he never gave it a whole lot of thought. It had just seemed so natural, and foolishly he’d never been worried.
Like the arrogant dumbass he was, Katsuki realized that he’d always thought it’s just Izuku. It felt like a natural byproduct to how intimately their futures were intertwined anyways. It had just happened somewhere along the line.
Katsuki’s odd laughter was getting out of control.
He felt strange, like things were tilting even more off kilter with each passing second. Everything seemed increasingly unrecognizable as Katsuki’s life split at the seams. He was unraveling, but his life was so tangled up in Izuku’s that things were pulling and resisting and ripping. They would never separate cleanly, not with how Katsuki had crafted it.
Katsuki realized that the idea of the two of them—Bakugou Katsuki and Midoriya Izuku, Kacchan and Deku—was woven so intimately into who he was that he’d never given any of it a second thought.
When he’d fallen in love with Izuku, he’d never thought to be afraid.
Slowly, Katsuki’s laughter became gasping cries that were uneven, spasming painfully in his chest. Distantly, he realized that he was unavoidably about to lose it. Everything was moments from shattering as realities crashed and his feelings outgrew their home in his chest. The emotions pushed up his throat and his eyes burned with the threat of tears.
“Don’t ever water the flowers, Katsuki!”
There came his mother’s voice again. An immediate warning, sharp and reprimanding. How many times had she told him those very words throughout his life? Thousands, probably.
“FUCK!” Katsuki gripped his hair tighter, but the pain did little to ground him. “FUCK!!”
Why had he come here again?
Really, he’d just needed to drive somewhere. He’d felt like if he’d gone home after dropping his friends off that he’d end up blowing up his entire apartment building or something. Somehow, he’d thought driving would be enough to help him cool down.
He’d been wrong, and now he was parked at a random, deserted beach an hour from home.
“What?! Sorry, but that won’t happen.”
The memory of asking Izuku to join his agency and then being rejected in such a way was nauseating in a way that was only getting worse.
How could he deal with the fact that it was all so one-sided? That over the years he’d somehow ended up here?
Years ago, Katsuki had accepted that it was okay to lean on others, because then they could lean on him next time. Except now, he understood that Izuku never intended to lean on him. He’d never needed to or wanted to. If he was going to lean on someone, it wasn’t going to be Katsuki.
The complete apathy with which Izuku had turned him down was so jarring.
Hatred, resentment, rivalry… those were all things that he’d not only expected from Izuku throughout their lives but was well aware that he deserved. He knew that he’d been an asshole and a bully, and he’d been prepared for any number of things from Izuku over the years.
But… indifference? At what point had Izuku ever been indifferent to him?
“Wait, Kacchan! Kacchan!”
Katsuki clenched his jaw so hard that his teeth started to ache as memories from their early childhood resurfaced unbidden. Memories of Izuku chasing after him, scrambling to keep up as Katsuki ran ahead. Izuku always there, chasing after him, no matter what Katsuki did.
But now?
A few raindrops landed on his car’s front windshield.
Arrogantly, growing up it had never once occurred to Katsuki that he would end up here—on the receiving end of Izuku’s apathy.
Izuku had seemed relatively unchanged after the war, all things considered. Every time they saw each other, it was like nothing had changed. Why would Katsuki assume that their goals had deviated? Why would he ever have guessed that Izuku was mentally writing him out of his life, slowly but certainly?
Indifferently.
They were normal friends. They hung out semi-frequently. They caught up at class reunions. They kept in touch. But how had Katsuki not seen it? How had Katsuki not realized that normal friends that hung out semi-frequently was all they were now?
As his reality fractured, Katsuki began to look back at the past eight years with a new perspective.
Izuku hardly looked at him these days like he used to, or rather he hardly looked at him as much as he used to. They saw each other more infrequently as the years went on. Izuku didn’t make very many attempts to reach out; it was usually Katsuki who did. His interest in being a hero had faded, and it seemed any significant interest in Katsuki had faded with it.
Throughout their lives, Izuku was always sticking close to him, like his damn shadow. He’d always wanted to be near Katsuki in a way that Katsuki had always struggled to understand. But now, it was like Katsuki had turned to say something to him, only to discover that he wasn’t there.
He hadn’t been there for a long time.
After all this time, with all the damn work he’d put into becoming less of an asshole, was this really where Katsuki had ended up?
So entitled to Izuku’s attention that he’d treated it like a guarantee?
Katsuki grimaced.
This was his punishment for his cruelty to Izuku back then, wasn’t it? He deserved it, didn’t he? Izuku’s apathy. He should feel lucky that he got apathy. If Izuku was someone else, he could’ve ruined Katsuki’s life years ago by telling everyone the things he’d done to him when they were children.
Katsuki should be grateful.
He should just take it and bow out and continue on.
But he didn’t know how. And no matter what he did, he still felt everything so intensely that he couldn’t breathe.
Katsuki no longer knew which direction to step. He’d always been taking the same path, hadn’t he? He didn’t know any other way. Izuku and the others were all moving forward in the fluctuating world without so much as stumbling. They didn’t look back. They adjusted their lives and dreams and goals even as the world changed.
The rain was coming down more consistently now, drizzling.
He was Bakugou Katsuki.
He didn’t need anyone else.
He was going to be the best.
He was going to become the Number One Hero and surpass All Might.
Katsuki sat, struggling to breathe, in the car he’d bought recently after a years-long career, and for a moment he couldn’t figure out how the hell he’d gotten here. When had he become someone so unrecognizable to himself? Someone who put off their own career and life waiting for someone else to come along and make things feel right again?
Someone who’d dropped to No. 15 on the Hero Ranking and couldn’t seem to stop dropping further. Someone who kept getting criticized by the news for how he treated civilians. Someone who suddenly felt set adrift, directionless and alone.
Katsuki’s chest compressed painfully, and he wrapped his hand over the fabric over his heart.
He’d always been so determined to be seen as capable and strong and the best. He’d convinced himself that he was. How could he have been so wrong? How could he be so far behind not only Izuku, but everyone else?
Everyone else, smiling and moving on with their lives and making peace with the past. Everyone else, finding their hobbies and lives outside of heroics as time went on. Everyone else, going on ahead.
And then there was Katsuki.
Katsuki, who had clung to the same dream that he’d always had. Katsuki, who felt stuck in place even as the world kept turning. Katsuki, who didn’t feel like he knew how to handle any of this.
His eyes were starting to well with tears. Everything—every goddamn emotion that Katsuki had that he didn’t know how to name or deal with—shoved its way up all at once.
Don’t ever water the flowers.
Finally, he moved to open his door. He shoved his way up out of his car in an uncoordinated manner as his chest spasmed and his eyes watered and he scrunched up his face to futilely try to stop the inevitable.
It was cold as shit, but he didn’t so much as wince when it hit him. He slammed his car door shut, and then shoved his hands in his jacket pockets, hunching his shoulders up closer to his ears. He didn’t bother with the hood of his jacket, and the rain immediately began to soak his hair and face.
He’d always hated the cold, but he was somewhat grateful for it now. It was a feeling he could easily define. It was familiar, inarguable, certain. It was reliable, as Katsuki’s world continued to tilt dangerously on its axis.
As he all but stumbled forward, his shoulders heaved up and down with the intensity of his emotions, even as he tried not to sob.
It didn’t work, and the first pitiful cry forced its way out of his mouth as he crossed onto the sand. Unsteadily, he moved to sit, propping his knees up and resting his arms on them. The sand underneath him was cold enough to be felt even through his clothes.
His face was screwed into a tense grimace, and he squeezed his eyes shut, but the tears slipped out of his eyes all the same. The barrier holding everything back burst under the pressure of it all, and Katsuki couldn’t do a damn thing to stop it.
Don’t ever water the flowers.
As the rain poured down around him, Katsuki cried.
For a moment, he lost complete control of his emotions, sobbing so hard that his heaving breaths kept catching painfully in his chest and throat. His whole body was wracked with the force of his cries. Nothing was clearly discernable in the chaos of his mind as everything overflowed out of the broken remains of his mental barrier.
Miserable loneliness, shame, embarrassment, self-loathing, disbelief, confusion, uncertainty…
How could he ever hope to name everything that hurt so bad right now?
The rain picked up further, soaking Katsuki to the bone and adding to the cold, but he hardly comprehended it.
Eventually, he managed to draw in a few full breaths, calming himself from his total breakdown. His head rested in his hands; his hands again threaded into his hair.
What sort of grown man couldn’t control himself like this? He berated himself but couldn’t stop. He gritted his teeth, breathing heavily as he continued to cry even as his shame grew.
Don’t ever water the flowers.
His mom…
Fuck, what was he going to tell her?
How was he supposed to tell anyone how badly he’d fucked up?
As he cried, sobbing a bit quieter now, he stared down at the sand. The waves crashed somewhere in the darkness in front of him, and he felt like the life was draining right out of him. With each passing moment, he felt more and more exhausted.
The cold was numbing his body, but it felt like all the rest of him was fading into the background too. Distantly, he felt the hollow ache in his chest as he thought of tomorrow.
How was he going to face tomorrow, and every day after that?
It was cold, and the rain had soaked into Katsuki’s hair and clothes. He was drenched, shivering, and he couldn’t feel his fingers and toes.
Don’t ever water the flowers.
Dully, Katsuki stared at the ground.
Maybe tears traced his cheeks… or maybe it was the rain.
Here he was, sitting in the freezing rain, because even with not another soul in sight he needed a way to deny what he was doing. Out here, no one could accuse him of crying. He could lie to himself—that even as he sobbed uncontrollably that maybe it was actually just the rain and the wind and the waves. Maybe as he shook and trembled, it was only from the cold.
Here he was, trying to hide his disobedience.
Here he was, trying to deny that he was watering the flowers.
Katsuki moved one of his hands to clutch at the fabric of his jacket over his heart. Underneath his hand and the jacket and his shirt, sat old scar tissue from a day long, long ago. A day he had barely survived.
His chest spasmed again.
He squeezed his eyes shut.
It rained.
“I think it’s about time for you to start thinking more highly of yourself. Because otherwise, you won’t even notice the most obvious things.”
Katsuki didn’t know what he was expecting when he’d said that to Izuku earlier.
In that moment, he was still struggling to process the recent rejection and the abrupt end to something so integral to his life. His priority had been to deflect and defend his vulnerable heart, and he’d deviated to an old, old frustration.
Even after all this time, Izuku barely took himself into account. Despite everything, Izuku hadn’t considered the possibility that Katsuki was inviting him to work at his agency. He hadn’t realized until Kirishima had stated the obvious. He hadn’t factored himself into the equation at all.
“Thinking everyone is special means that no one is truly special to you.”
Maybe Katsuki said it in hopes that it would get Izuku to reconsider his quick shutdown of their old dream. Maybe he’d hoped that Izuku might wake the fuck up and realize that his life could be more than just being content with whatever cards he was delt. Maybe his life could be more than just going wherever he found himself to be the most useful. Maybe he could follow his own happiness again, rather than always prioritizing others’.
In the end, the joke was on Katsuki because in that moment this outcome hadn’t yet occurred to him.
It somehow didn’t occur to him that when Izuku woke the fuck up and went after what it was that he wanted, it wouldn’t be Katsuki. He hadn’t made the connection that he wasn’t special.
Was Katsuki surprised when his last efforts to get through to Izuku had resulted in Izuku going after Uraraka?
Truthfully… no.
As he’d watched Izuku walk away to find her without looking back once, he hadn’t been entirely surprised. He’d seen how they acted around each other back in high school when they would be nervous and smiley and would blush sometimes. He’d seen it and known that they’d had some sort of attraction to each other early on.
But honestly, Katsuki hadn’t thought about it in years. They hardly interacted, and Izuku never talked about her any more than he did anyone else. They were friends now, so when they interacted it seemed normal, lacking the blushing and stammering they used to do.
Izuku and Uraraka supported each other a bit after the war, but honestly Katsuki just… didn’t understand this outcome. To him it had seemed like a high school crush that had long faded. Katsuki hadn’t really thought that it compared at all to what he and Izuku had. Their history, how far they’d come, their familiarity, their goals, their dynamic…
Honestly, it had never even added up as the same damn thing to Katsuki.
Apparently, Katsuki was a self-centered bastard, and as he’d watched Izuku walk away, he’d realized that. Somehow, he’d missed something. Somehow, he’d missed Izuku having such intense feelings for someone else. Somehow, he’d been so wrapped up in the idea of them that he genuinely hadn’t realized that Izuku had been wanting someone else this whole time.
So… was he really that surprised? No.
Confused, hurt, and more than a little pissed off? Yes.
“Don’t fall carelessly in love, Katsuki. It’s very dangerous.”
“Fucking hell,” Katsuki muttered as he pulled his shirt and jacket up at the collar, using them to wipe at his eyes even as it continued to rain.
His mom had always warned him. So often, since he was young. She seemed so certain he would need to remember it, for some reason. She seemed so certain it would be a trap that he’d fall into.
Katsuki let out a low, strained laugh; it was a broken and empty sound that was hardly audible over the sound of the rain and the waves.
You were right, Mom, he thought as he smiled ruefully down at the sand, and the rain continued to fall. You were right about me.
He’d been doomed from the start, hadn’t he?
“Shit,” Katsuki grumbled as he wiped his eyes again for lack of anything else to do.
Numb, cold, and exhausted, Katsuki stared down at the sand, wholly lacking the motivation to so much as stand up and get back to his car.
Here, I am. He mocked himself mentally. Here I am, twenty-four fucking years old. Crying my goddamn eyes out alone in the freezing rain. What the fuck?
The bitter taste on his tongue was proving very hard to swallow.
It rained.
Katsuki hardly recognized himself anymore. Or maybe he just was never as great as everyone had always thought—everyone including himself.
What the hell was he doing anymore? What the fuck was he doing—if he worked alone at his agency and he was dropping down in the Hero Ranking and heroics as a career was becoming less significant?
Who was he anymore?
Apparently, he was the type to water the flowers.
Apparently, he was the type to get himself killed over a one-sided love.
Shocking even himself, his emotions surged up again, and Katsuki shoved his face into his hands as he shook with a few more gasping sobs. They were ragged and tore out of his throat painfully.
The darkness of nighttime concealed him, at least. The impartial nature of the rain and wind and sea hid him from the rest of the world. Their noise blocked out his childish, desperate cries that he shouldn’t be indulging in.
Not that anyone was looking or listening anyways.
Katsuki knew that he shouldn’t just be sitting here, letting this happen and wallowing in his feelings. If he was a smarter man, he would’ve driven right to the doctor after that dinner earlier tonight.
There were no physical signs yet, but he knew it was coming. It was inescapable now.
His sobs eventually died out again, leaving his eyes swollen and his nose congested. He slumped, leaning heavily on his arms that balanced on his propped-up knees. The physical and mental numbness were now indistinguishable. He felt half-conscious, half-real, half-alive. The hurt was pressed back behind a wall of exhaustion.
And still, it rained.
Katsuki might be an egocentric, delusional fool, but he wasn’t a complete idiot. He could feel the beginnings of the sharp, stabbing pain of grief in his chest. He could feel the realization settling in of the situation he’d put himself in.
His offered hand had not been taken.
His love was unrequited.
His death sentence was final.
He’d reached his limit. Not only was he struggling to reconcile his previous expectations with how incredibly one-sided everything he felt for Izuku was, but this whole thing had put him over the edge, somehow. Things that he’d been ignoring for a while were pushing to the surface as well. He was falling apart, with absolutely no clue how to put himself back together.
What was even the point of trying, seeing as he was a dead man anyways?
He knew that the emotions inside him would soon start to rot. They’d feed the flowers and start to replace the blood in his veins with poison. The roots would dig into the sides of his lungs. It would eat away at him, until very little remained.
The flowers would surely thrive, now that he’d watered them.
Katsuki knew, as he stared at the sand through puffy eyes half-lidded with exhaustion, that he was doomed.
Hanahaki disease.
It was one of those weird, mutated diseases that had shown up around the same time that the first Quirks did. It was a combination of old science and new, with components that weren’t fully understood despite all the money and research poured into studying it.
It was deadly, and with death came fear and uncertainty and superstition. There came misinformation and desperation. There were a thousand and one things people believed about the disease, but the basics were agreed upon:
Unrequited love was a death sentence.
Hanahaki disease was the agony of unrequited love that took the form of a flowering plant that grew in your lungs. It would continue to grow as long as your feelings remained one-sided, until it killed you.
Katsuki thought numbly of all the warnings he’d heard throughout his life. He thought of how he’d have to face tomorrow. Soon, he’d have to face his friends and family and tell them about the horrible mistake he’d made.
Maybe more tears traced down his cheeks, or maybe it was just raining.
As Katsuki stared vacantly into the endless darkness of the rolling sea, an old nursery rhyme chanted mockingly in his head, announcing the beginning of his end:
Don’t ever water the flowers.
Don’t give them room to grow.
Rip them up by the roots,
The moment that they show.
Nip it in the bud, my dear,
Or soon we’ll have to sow
A new tree in the groveyard,
With what’s left of you below.
Notes:
[Edit 2/28/25: I've edited this to hopefully be an easier read by adding more context about the chapter 431 references.]
I already wrote an angsty metaphor-heavy post-canon fic for Katsuki after chapter 430 but then chapter 431 came out. And idk how to cope with things except to write about it so here we are.
My socials and everything are here. Thanks for reading!
Chapter 2: Don't give them room to grow
Summary:
Was the Hanahaki thriving because there was so much room to grow inside of Katsuki’s lonely life?
Katsuki goes to a Class A reunion, feels a bit ill, and dreams of a memory from long, long ago.
Notes:
(11k+ words)
Content Warning
very brief mentions of homophobia, mentions of death/corpses, graphic depictions of illness, depression/mental health issues
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
part 1
left behind in the dust
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
“You good, man?”
Katsuki ignored Kirishima’s question as he pressed harder on the gas pedal, zipping in between two cars as he changed lanes.
“DON’T BLOCK BOTH FUCKING LANES!” Katsuki raged at the top of his lungs. “IF YOU’RE GOING TO DRIVE LIKE A TWO-HUNDRED-YEAR-OLD BLIND DOG THEN MOVE TO THE FUCKING SIDE!”
“You seem a little… stressed,” Kirishima tried again, a little wary.
Katsuki glared out the front windshield, left hand tightening where it rested on the top of the steering wheel.
Why the fuck had he agreed to go to another Class 1-A reunion so soon? At the moment, he couldn’t remember. There were so damn many of them, so it hardly would’ve been an issue if he’d stayed away for one of them while he got his shit together.
Though, truth be told, it’d been two weeks since the last one, and he’d not gotten a single fucking ounce of his shit together.
“Well, I know things were fine the last time you two saw each other but… well, is this about seeing Midor—”
“Shut the fuck up,” Katsuki cut him off harshly. “I’m so fucking serious right now. Shut up.”
“Woah, okay, yeah, got it!” Kirishima said immediately. In his peripheral, Katsuki saw Kirishima put up his hands placatingly. “My bad.”
Katsuki grinded his teeth together as he continued to weave between cars, pushing his car faster and faster.
“You know, if you drive faster that means we’re going to get there fast—”
“Kirishima.”
“Oh, shit, not the ‘Kirishima’,’” Kirishima said, pretending to be horrified.
“Dude, can you fuck off?!” he snapped back immediately, unable to stop himself. “Just shut up for five fucking minutes, will you?! Fuck!”
His patience was practically nonexistent these days. Tonight, right now, it most definitely was.
Unfortunately, years of friendship left Kirishima practically unphased and able to see directly through his bullshit.
“Yeah, I got it, I got it,” Kirishima replied, serious now. “I hear you. But I know something’s up, and if you need to talk about it, you know I’m always here, man.”
Katsuki’s heart squeezed painfully, and he scowled deeper.
For two weeks, he’d failed spectacularly to get his life together. For two weeks, he’d been unable to face the shit he needed to face. For two goddamn weeks, he felt on the verge of exploding every second of every minute.
There were still no physical signs of Hanahaki disease, so each day only brought increased anticipation, fear, and stress. He’d filled his days with boring shift after boring shift.
He hadn’t even gone to the doctor yet, and there was no valid reason for why. He knew the Hanahaki had to be growing, even if it wasn’t yet significantly affecting him. The pain and discomfort and exhaustion that he felt surely weren’t entirely mental.
He just hadn’t been able to get himself to do it.
He hadn’t gone to the doctor, and he hadn’t mentioned a single thing to anyone despite how it was all eating away at him.
Twenty-four fucking years old… and his pride was still such a massive barrier to overcome. All the time and effort he’d put into this shit, and when it came down to it, he still couldn’t stop from exploding when people questioned him. He couldn’t stop the urge to deflect, to work harder to prove himself, to reassert his place.
The issue was this was something he couldn’t do anything about. It was a terminal illness that there was no way around. Hanahaki was a disease, born of his own mind.
Katsuki wanted to fight it, but there was no one to fight this time.
And telling people… well, it felt like an admission of weakness. An admission that he was rejected, that he was unwanted. An admission that he was alone and couldn’t handle it. He could feel it already—the nauseating feelings of pity and sorrow and disappointment.
He knew how people treated Hanahaki and those who had it… he couldn’t stand thinking about it.
It didn’t help that the only person he’d gotten consistently better at being vulnerable both in front of and to over the years was goddamn Midoriya Izuku. And wasn’t that the fucking best? Because Katsuki couldn’t say shit to him about this.
Even knowing all of this, Katsuki was annoyed with himself. Kirishima was one of his best friends. He couldn’t figure out why the fuck his pride was so solidly in the way. As intensely as he needed to say something, he also couldn’t. The words all felt trapped somewhere deep inside him.
Even now, as Kirishima demonstrated how well he knew him and how much he cared, Katsuki was frustrated that telling him didn’t come any easier.
At the moment, his mind and body and feelings all felt too chaotic to pinpoint or organize into anything that made sense. He needed to start telling his friends and family, but so far… he couldn’t.
Which only made him even more frustrated, because why couldn’t he do anything? Why was he going on with life as if everything wasn’t different?
After a few minutes of silence, Kirishima carefully started again, “Can I just say something real quick?”
“Fine,” Katsuki gritted out.
“About Midoriya?”
“No,” Katsuki snapped, turning to shoot him a glare.
“Okay, fine,” Kirishima sighed. “About you then. Whatever it is you got going on is all good, man, but do you really think dinner tonight’s the best idea? I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with being pissed off, but if you end up losing it at Midoriya—or, uh, anyone else, of course—you’re just going to feel bad about it later, you know?”
Katsuki didn’t reply and just continued to glare out the front windshield.
He knew it wasn’t the best idea, but what the hell was he supposed to do?
That was the issue, wasn’t it?
He didn’t know what the hell to do. He couldn’t get any of his shit together despite how time was slowly but surely ticking away.
How long had he been feeling off kilter and not quite right recently? So fucking often.
For some reason, before that night two weeks ago, his brain had been convinced that Izuku coming back would fix everything.
Izuku would come back. They would work together as heroes. They’d train and push each other. Things would feel like they used to. Katsuki would feel invigorated and excited, and he’d be able to set things right again.
He’d been having a hard time dealing with the fact that that wasn’t an option anymore.
Izuku wasn’t coming back; he was going further away. Everything that Katsuki had been pushing off mentally—to deal with once he’d reset the foundation of his life—was still there. It was all still there, but Izuku wasn’t and he never would be and Katsuki was an idiot for ever thinking that he would be.
Katsuki didn’t know how to fix any of it. Realizing that Izuku had genuinely been his entire plan to fix things was increasingly humiliating the more and more he thought about it. The more he realized how wrong he’d been.
He was also having an impossible time trying to comprehend the idea that… this was it. After everything, this was how he was going out. Not with a bang, but with a fucking whimper.
Bakugou Katsuki.
No.15 Hero Ranking and dropping.
Good Quirk, but an attitude problem.
Known best for the fight that he nearly died in when he was seventeen.
He’d have to leave heroics without having done anything at all. Without doing anything greater than something he did in high school. Without becoming the best or surpassing All Might or even feeling like he’d given it everything he had.
Katsuki was having a very, very difficult time comprehending that he was going to die as the weak piece of shit that he’d always been trying to prove he wasn’t.
Soon, he would start to get physically ill. Soon, he would have to leave heroics for good. Surely, the general public would find it hilarious that the loose cannon with an anger problem died from Hanahaki. Surely, no one would find it remotely surprising, right?
Who the hell would want to deal with that attitude anyways?
Bitterly, he’d occasionally begun to wonder what the hell was the point of him surviving—
HOOOOOOOOOONK!
“OH FUCK OFF!” Katsuki shouted as the semitruck blared its horn at him when he cut right in front of it. “DON’T HANG OUT IN THE FAST LANE! YOU’RE A FUCKING SEMI, ASSHOLE!”
He flipped them off in the rearview mirror.
“Bakugou, what if we just—”
“I’m not—it’s not just Izuku, alright?!” Katsuki cut him off waspishly. “There’s a lot of shit going on. I’m not just gonna try to fucking fight him in the middle of the restaurant!”
“Yeah, I know but—”
“I got it, okay?!” Katsuki growled defensively. “Everything’s fucking fine!”
He swerved to the side, taking an exit off the highway.
At the silence that followed, he comprehended that his track record on reigning in his anger wasn’t all that great recently. Even considering how he normally was. Kirishima’s concern wasn’t unwarranted, as much as it was thoroughly pissing Katsuki off.
He shoved down the first, instinctual feeling of embarrassment. His mind, buzzing and overwhelmed, latched onto his bitterness about the subject.
Something smaller, more digestible than his impending doom.
Civilians loved to say shit about him, didn’t they?
“He’s got to fix that attitude!”
“He should be nicer.”
“He shouldn’t shout so much. It’s very off-putting!”
Not to mention all the comments from his friends that he received on the regular.
As he started to whip down the side streets towards their destination, he forced himself to take deep breaths that did very little to bring himself down from the brink of boiling over.
He could handle this.
He fucking would handle it.
They all thought he was just an out-of-control asshole, huh? They sighed and shook their heads and cringed away, right?
My attitude… Katsuki thought bitterly. Just gotta fix it, huh?
What did they think he was doing all this time? They really never thought that he was trying at all, did they? Everyone still really thought that he was such a piece of shit.
From the outside, it really looked like he was the same asshole he’d been in middle school, didn’t it? Just a kid who couldn’t control his anger.
Or rather… it seemed they thought he was a fucking asshole who wouldn’t control his anger.
All his effort, all his stupid self-reflection, and it had gotten him nowhere in the eyes of the public.
The thought was painful to dwell on.
“Bakugou, there’s nothing wrong with avoiding a situation that might set you off, you know?” said Kirishima earnestly.
Katsuki barely comprehended his words over the buzzing chaos in his own head.
“You and I could just go grab a drink somewhere else, turn off our hero alerts for the night or something. What d’you say, man?”
Katsuki swerved, tires screeching, into the parking lot of the restaurant. He shut off the car, moving to get out.
“Bakugou!” Kirishima said, hurriedly.
“What?”
“Just… are you sure about this?”
The worry in his voice was another stab to Katsuki’s flimsy pride.
It burned like pity.
It burned so badly that, for a moment, Katsuki hesitated. He hesitated, facing the door with his hand on the handle. In his peripheral, he could see his own reflection in the windows, a bit of his own face and deep scowl.
“You don’t need to prove anything,” Kirishima said, lowly. “Not to me, not to Midoriya, not to anyone. If you’re here for any reason except that you want to be… just… there’s no problem with missing tonight, bro. We can grab a drink or go back to mine and play video games or something.”
Katsuki couldn’t move.
Rationally, at the front of his mind, he knew that Kirishima wasn’t being condescending. He was being genuine. Surely, he was right. His friend wouldn’t willingly lead him astray.
But Katsuki couldn’t relax or so much as take his hand off the doorhandle, because it felt like there was something he needed to prove. There was something he needed to do. There was something he needed to see for himself.
He just wasn’t sure what it was yet.
“No one will mind,” Kirishima said quietly, assuredly. “It’s really not a big deal.”
Katsuki felt an irrational pang of hurt flare deep inside him. The words felt like another blow to his already massively sensitive pride, and he ducked his head lower as he scowled deeper.
Right… he was an arrogant asshole. That’s all he was. A stupid bastard that was so self-centered that it was literally going to be the death of him.
No one would mind. No one would give a shit if he wasn’t there.
Was that what he needed to see? That everyone really cared so little about him?
Was that really what he needed to prove? That he didn’t even need them to anyways?
That… he didn’t need him to care, anyways?
Did he really need to go in there so he could take a look at Izuku for himself, now that he wasn’t assuming the two of them were a guarantee? Did he really want to go and see Izuku, after his foundation had started to crumble? Did he really want to go and see Izuku, after realizing that Izuku wasn’t actually the second half to his whole, that he wasn’t there to watch Katsuki’s back, that he wasn’t intending to catch Katsuki when he fell?
It all felt so mortifyingly childish, but Katsuki still couldn’t let go of the doorhandle.
Kirishima began, “Bakugou, what—”
Katsuki opened the door and got out.
There was a part of him that needed to see Izuku again, he realized, in order to accept that he’d signed his own death warrant. Closure, acceptance, or maybe a last remaining bit of denial… whatever it was, he needed to see Izuku again before he could go on.
─────
Katsuki found it hard to keep up his anger in the face of such remarkable indifference.
Such impressive unawareness.
Izuku rejected him without a care two weeks ago, and now he didn’t even notice Katsuki’s mood. Or maybe he noticed and didn’t care, Katsuki had no fucking idea.
Katsuki felt like a fucking idiot, because when did this happen? Sure, maybe he was being a child about this, but Izuku used to care. He used to be attuned to Katsuki.
There was a part of Katsuki that had been certain that, in the same way that he knew Izuku best, Izuku knew him best too. Izuku had always seemed able to see right through his bullshit. Somehow, Izuku had always seemed to be able to see something good in Katsuki… even when Katsuki couldn’t see it himself.
It had never fully occurred to Katsuki just how much comfort that certainty had brought him until now.
He felt unusually… isolated.
It was ridiculous. It was infuriating. It was agonizing.
Increasingly, Katsuki felt a sense of loss settling into his bones. It was something he couldn’t stand to think too much about right now, but he could feel it. A distance and loneliness that he hadn’t yet fully comprehended.
Don’t give them room to grow.
For a brief moment, Katsuki felt bitterly regretful that he’d ever taken that aspect of Izuku for granted. He wondered what the hell he’d done to drive Izuku away—now, after all this time. Then, he resolutely shoved all of his spiraling thoughts away. He shoved it all aside, along with his anger.
He was left with an empty feeling. One that felt like that isolation that was slowly hollowing out his soul.
Now, Katsuki just stared blankly down at his glass of water on the table. His left hand was wrapped around it. The condensation trickled down the cup and onto his fingers, and still he just stared at it.
This Class 1-A reunion was at a rather shabby burger joint not too far from UA. Apparently, it was a place that Kirishima and Sero liked. It had wide tables and TVs hung up on the walls to watch sports and some pool tables on the far side. It was fairly crowded, and the combination of the TVs, conversation, and loud music resulted in quite a din. They’d commandeered a couple of big tables in a corner of the place for their class to eat and mingle at.
How long had they been here?
Not twenty minutes probably, and Katsuki already wanted to get the hell out of there.
Katsuki continued to stare down at his glass. His eyes were locked on it even as they drifted in and out of focus.
He’d gotten whatever it was that he came here for—some sick need to confirm his own mistakes.
Now, he was just exhausted.
All around him, his friends chattered excitedly. They did this at every gathering. They smiled and laughed and updated each other. So much excitement and energy.
It was all so loud and somehow still so hard to hear a goddamn thing.
Kirishima sat directly to his right. Though he shot the occasional concerned, obvious glance Katsuki’s way, he was otherwise as boisterous as ever. Currently, he was excitedly asking Izuku about one of his students—some UA third year that could be a good sidekick for him.
Izuku, who sat directly across from Katsuki.
He’d greeted Katsuki with the same cheery “Hi, Kacchan!” as always. He’d not so much as batted an eye at Katsuki’s apparent bad mood. None of his friends had. They’d all greeted him as normal.
That was fine, Katsuki had reminded himself hollowly. Izuku wasn’t a goddamn mind reader.
It was fine, except that Katsuki was dying.
He was dying and he was lost and he was upset, and Izuku didn’t look twice. He was dying, and he wished Izuku would look twice. Katsuki was a prideful man—how the hell was he supposed to ask for Izuku to look twice when he so clearly wasn’t intending to? How was he supposed to ask for more of Izuku’s time, when it was already so limited?
Katsuki… well, he didn’t want to ask. He didn’t want to have to. He didn’t think he’d ever have to.
Stupid. Entitled. Childish.
He gritted his teeth as bitterness surfaced for a moment before sinking back into the depths of all his repressed emotions.
Isolation carved away more of his soul.
Numbly, Katsuki wondered when he’d grown so genuinely stupid. When had he grown so accustomed to Izuku’s eyes on him?
Unfortunately, the answer to that was… the pattern of their entire lives.
Izuku still wore his suit from work—though he’d pulled off his tie and undid the first few buttons as he usually did. He smiled from ear to ear as his wide green eyes shined with delight. His cheeks were flushed a slight pink, and he eagerly chatted with the others.
It was like Katsuki had been slapped in the face by reality.
Because Izuku… really was so completely normal.
It all only made Katsuki feel like he was being even more immature, but it seemed he could only sit there and listen to Izuku prattle on with the others.
All his anger was still there, right below the surface, but it was like his brain had short-circuited. He was tense, quiet, overwhelmed. His temper was short, he could feel it. He wasn’t really in control of things, but if he sat there, just an observer… things were fine.
It was suffocating and if someone so much as bumped him on the shoulder he might literally explode, but it was fine.
His friends moved and talked and laughed around him, and he felt strangely separate from it all. Sitting there with a scowl on his face, Katsuki realized that life moved on.
It had been moving on, all this time.
It would move on without him.
His chest compressed. He could hardly breathe, but he didn’t move.
He wondered, distantly, if it was the roots, digging into his lungs? His eyes became more and more unfocused where they stared at his glass of water.
Was it the flowers, feeling out the new space the isolation was carving inside him?
Was the Hanahaki thriving because there was so much room to grow inside of Katsuki’s lonely life?
Katsuki couldn’t seem to move, and he could’ve sworn that he could feel it.
As Izuku hardly looked at him once.
As Uraraka sat shoulder to shoulder with Izuku.
As Izuku looked at her and blushed and smiled and stuttered like a schoolboy with a crush.
Katsuki could’ve sworn he felt the Hanahaki settling into his lungs.
Distantly, as he stared down at his hand wrapped around the glass, Katsuki admitted to himself that he really had no idea what to do. He’d genuinely, stupidly, arrogantly never expected to be in this situation. It was like, even now, he could feel part of himself battling with the idea. There was a strong sense of disbelief clashing with everything else, resulting in Katsuki feeling massively overwhelmed.
Even with all the warnings that were deeply engrained in Katsuki’s psyche when it came to Hanahaki disease, he’d never considered the potential danger around Izuku. How could he convince himself to be cautious around someone who’d always been in his life? How could he convince himself to be afraid of someone he’d never been able to rid himself of, even when he wanted to?
With no small amount of dismay, he realized that it really was solidly written into who he was. It was in his bones and heart and soul. It was ingrained in him the way that instinct and reflex was.
The presence of Izuku.
The promise of him.
He’d doomed himself, by mistaking Izuku for an intrinsic part of who he was. He’d doomed himself, by staying in denial about this for years.
Everyone else had moved on, after the war.
Izuku had moved on, and Katsuki had just… held on. He’d held onto that promise, trusting it to drag him through all the dust and the shit and the gritty parts of life. He’d held onto it, even as it burned his hands. He’d held onto it for years, only to realize that Izuku had let go years ago.
It was almost too horrific to process.
Katsuki had been trying for two weeks, and it still felt like he was being slapped in the face all over again. Like, without Izuku there to remind him, his brain had started to fall back into habit.
Thump. Thump. Thump.
Katsuki stared at the table with his eyes completely unfocused. His heart pounded dully but palpably in his chest. The voices of his friends drifted all around him.
What could he do about any of this?
What even was there to be done?
Katsuki suddenly felt like his body was being weighed down—like the earth’s gravity itself had increased. He finally moved his hand from his glass, moving to cross his arms on the table and lean onto them.
Izuku’s loud laugh broke him out of his own thoughts for second, and Katsuki’s eyes refocused and zoned in on his face.
Izuku threw his head back, laughing so hard that he couldn’t seem to stop for a moment.
Katsuki felt a violent sort of rage stir up at the sound of it. Even he could tell it was unjustified, but he couldn’t stop the irritation and the bitterness and everything else as it all poisoned his mood further. Barely able to keep from snapping at Izuku to shut up, Katsuki’s eyes glanced away from him.
The two spots next to Izuku were occupied: Todoroki on one side and Uraraka on the other.
Uraraka…
She also looked happy, blushing and laughing and sitting very close to Izuku. She was cute and cheery and supportive. She was badass and powerful and she’d overcome so much after the war.
Katsuki felt his gut twist painfully at the sight of her.
He respected her more than most people he knew.
He liked working with her.
He just didn’t understand. He didn’t understand her and Izuku… but he refused to dwell on that right now.
When had he become some ridiculous, jealous bastard? She didn’t deserve the level of animosity that he was increasingly feeling towards her. She had absolutely nothing to do with that. He knew that, and so he found he couldn’t look at her anymore either.
Katsuki’s eyes again fell dully to the table.
It was humiliating, how much Katsuki had allowed himself to not realize in the past eight fucking years.
Katsuki drew in a deep breath and let it out slowly. It did very little to release the tension from his shoulders or dispel the overwhelming feelings building up within him. It did very little to bring him back from the edge that he sat on.
At the very least, he knew that even if he couldn’t stop feeling all this, he should be able to hide it. But he couldn’t help it.
He was miserable, and he was shit at hiding it.
He resented the fact that he was miserable, and he was shit at hiding that too.
He could feel the twisted glare on his own face. The deep scowl that he didn’t know how to relax. He knew from how his friends were largely leaving him alone that he had to be practically radiating aggression.
Katsuki was overwhelmed, which meant that he was so incredibly angry. He couldn’t calm down—he didn’t know how—even though he knew that any respectable adult would be able to.
When he was upset like this, it all just came out looking like a bad mood. All he could do was suppress it or let it out explosively—neither of which were a good idea in a place like this. His friends would only laugh and tease him about his “bad attitude” and make things worse. He hadn’t exploded yet, but he felt increasingly out of control.
With some prodding, Katsuki knew that he would lose it.
He shouldn’t have come.
He needed to get the hell out of here.
Stiffly, Katsuki moved his left arm—propping his elbow on the table and resting his face on his hand. He moved his right arm to rest on his lap under the table. Slowly, he closed his hand into a tight fist, digging his nails into his palms so hard he could feel his hand shaking from the effort.
He focused on the dull pain from his nails. He focused on his breathing while doing his best not to think about what was growing in his lungs.
He tried to calm down just enough to be able to make some excuse and get out of here without biting someone’s head off.
Because despite how angry Katsuki was and how a part of him wanted to lose his shit, what he really wanted was to get the fuck out of here. He didn’t want anyone to look at him or talk to him. He couldn’t stand the stupid, happy-go-lucky expressions on all their faces. He couldn’t handle any of it, so he wanted out.
Katsuki stared down at the table. It was made of a light brown wood with an orangish tint, and it was all scratched up from the years of use. He focused on it, and the dull pain in his palms.
Everything was unbearably loud.
All the noise felt like it was grating on his ears, and each bout of laughter was scraping away at his paper-thin patience.
Someone sat down in the empty chair next to him. Katsuki turned his head slightly to glance over, registering it was Jirou who was sitting, greeting everyone at the table as she did so.
Thank god it wasn’t someone impossibly fucking annoying. He might’ve tried to bite their head off just for being too close to him. As it was, Jirou was one of the least annoying of his friends. She didn’t usually push his buttons—purposefully or otherwise—when he was genuinely pissed off like this.
Katsuki managed to stiffly nod in greeting, even as he didn’t meet her eyes.
“Did Kaminari dump salt in your water again?” asked Jirou.
Katsuki glanced over, meeting her eyes this time. She had a slightly teasing tone and a small smirk, but her eyes were more serious and looked at him carefully.
Katsuki looked back at his water that he’d most likely been staring daggers at for most of this dinner. With an almost insurmountable amount of effort, he let out a tiny scoff, and managed to say stiffly, “Not this time.”
Fuck, yeah.
And people claimed he hadn’t gotten better at controlling his emotions over the years. Fucking assholes, look at him now! Feigning normal-ish conversation on the edge of losing it like a pro.
“Good,” Jirou said back, but she clearly was still hoping he’d elaborate. “Last time ended rather… explosively.”
Katsuki quirked his eyebrow, shooting her an unamused look.
Jirou’s smile grew wider. “Alright, sorry, sorry!”
Katsuki scoffed again quietly, returning to look at his cup.
Despite how the pun made him cringe when said aloud… he did feel like he was going to explode. He couldn’t breathe. He was keeping all his endless bullshit emotions in, but they were crushing him with each passing moment. They compressed his lungs, his heart, his gut.
His fingernails dug into his palms.
He tried to breathe, and he couldn’t tell if it was working.
“If not that, then what’s up?” Jirou said, voice quieter. He barely heard her over all the background noise.
Izuku and Uraraka burst into laughter at the same time. It almost seemed to echo in Katsuki’s ears, mocking him. For his ignorance, his stupidity, his egocentric childishness.
Katsuki’s jaw clenched hard to bite back the immediate desire to start spitting out cruel words. The dull pain of his teeth clenched together… the dull pain on his palm where his nails dug in…
He stared at the table, not fully looking at Izuku or Uraraka, wishing that he couldn’t see them in his peripheral or hear them.
“Bad day,” he managed to say, voice low and like gravel.
Fuck anyone who said he couldn’t control himself, honestly. Fuck all those assholes who acted like it was so fucking easy.
He desperately hoped that Jirou would stop pressing. His temper was short, and he was afraid she’d trigger it somehow. He had little interest in snapping at her, but even if he tried to communicate how overwhelmed he was, he knew it would come out vicious. It would come out angry. It would sound personal, even though it was so far from it. He would look like an asshole, even though all he wanted to do was leave.
He was exhausted. He was exhausted and overwhelmed and tired of being the fucking bad guy. He was tired of being laughed at. He couldn’t handle it right now.
After a moment, Jirou said, “I was thinking that it might be fun to get the band back together, once a week, or every two weeks or something. You interested?”
Katsuki glanced at her briefly. Her face was relaxed, noncommittal, but attentive. Casual, in the right kind of way, he distantly thought. She clearly wanted him to, because she was going out of her way to ask, but didn’t plan on giving him shit if he said no.
He felt another wave of fatigue as he realized how much energy it was taking just to have the most normal of interactions.
He needed to get the hell out of here.
“Sure, whatever,” he managed to say lowly.
How the fuck did he get out of here without making a scene? He didn’t want questions or attention or anyone to so much as breathe too hard in his direction.
Fake a phone call, maybe? Fucking hell, he couldn’t think clearly. It felt like there was so much going on.
“Okay, sick,” Jirou responded, sounding a bit more upbeat. “I’ll text you… but you better actually respond this time, asshole.”
“Yeah, yeah,” Katsuki gritted out, but he was becoming aware of his heart thumping painfully hard in his chest.
It was like he could feel his own blood pressure rising. The tension built, inching closer and closer to an uncontrollable explosion. He realized that he was stressed the fuck out and now barely able to think past his own fury.
But he didn’t want conflict, he just wanted out. He wanted to be out of here, away from all this goddamn noise, to try to figure out how to breathe again.
Away from him.
Uraraka cut in by asking a question, drawing Jirou’s attention away. Katsuki stared down at his drink again. Next to it, there was a scratch that was sort of shaped like a weird “W” that his vision zeroed in on.
Laughter all around him.
Robotically, he took a sip of water.
The food had come at some point, he realized. He could only stare at it.
When Izuku laughed, it echoed in Katsuki’s ears.
When Katsuki distantly realized Izuku and Uraraka were holding hands, his chest compressed again.
His lungs protested slightly as he swore the air became a bit thinner.
It was hard to breathe.
Katsuki could feel it… the beginnings of it… growing into his lungs. A deadly disease, born of his own slowly rotting feelings. Watered by his despair and aided by his loneliness. He felt it, twisting his DNA and starting to decay him.
Fuck. Katsuki thought as he focused on breathing. Fuck, I need to get the fuck out.
He was starting to grow lightheaded.
“WHAT?!” Kaminari’s loud shout from the table right next to them barely registered, but his next words definitely did, “He’s gay?!”
Though he was already sitting still, Katsuki’s entire body somehow managed to freeze even more. His breath, already limited, stopped completely. It felt like even his heart froze in his chest for a moment.
“So?” Mina asked, sounding slightly putt off. “Just because he plays someone married to a woman doesn’t mean he’s straight! He’s an actor!”
Just one of their stupid movie debates, Katsuki distantly registered. He found that he still couldn’t relax, even though this had nothing to do with him.
“Well, it’s just sad,” Kaminari admitted, his voice stained with pity—the sort of vague, obligatory sorrow that came from feeling bad for someone that was dealing with something that he didn’t have to.
Katsuki’s reaction to his tone was visceral. His gut churned with nausea so intense that he almost dry heaved on the spot.
“Sad?” Mina parroted, confused.
“Yeah… it’s just that the statistics on Hanahaki disease for gay people are so horrible,” Kaminari replied, “so I’m just saying… it’s sad. I didn’t realize he was gay.”
Pity.
It spoke of knowing someone had it worse than you and being glad you weren’t them. It spoke of ignorance. It spoke of privilege.
Katsuki could feel his heart slamming away in his chest. He didn’t look up from the weird, W-shaped scratch on the table as he clenched his jaw, tried to remember how to breathe, and tried not to vomit.
Sero cut in, sounding skeptical, “Isn’t that mainly for people under 25 anyways? Isn’t this dude in his thirties or something?”
“Oh, I don’t know,” Kaminari admitted. “I’d just heard it was bad for them in general.”
Pity.
It was condescending. Katsuki couldn’t stand it.
He needed to get the fuck out now.
“It doesn’t mean that he’ll get Hanahaki just because he’s gay!” Mina sounded affronted. “What’s wrong with you?!”
Katsuki’s heart felt like it was going to beat right out of his chest, but he couldn’t move. His eyes were slightly widened, locked on the table.
He was overwhelmed, oh god so overwhelmed.
His attention was locked on the conversation a table over, but Izuku and the others were still talking and laughing away. The restaurant was so loud, with the rest of the tables packed and music playing in the background.
Too much.
It was too much.
He was going to explode or puke or lose his fucking mind, and he didn’t know which one would come first.
“Wh—I know that!!” Kaminari protested shrilly. “I wasn’t saying that at all, I swear! I just meant… you know… it’s just a higher risk of falling in love with someone who doesn’t—”
As Kaminari spoke, Katsuki’s stomach lurched, and he shifted his hand from his cheek to over his eyes. He tightened his grip, squeezing his temples. His hands felt hot and sweaty.
Fucking hell, was he going to vomit all over the table?
Was he going to explode his own fucking face off?
Was he going to actually lose his goddamn mind?
“Kaminari,” Jirou’s voice cut in, loud and sharp enough to catch the attention of most of their class based on how it quieted significantly directly around him.
Katsuki’s teeth were still clenched. He couldn’t seem to get his jaw to relax in the slightest. His hand over his eyes, gripping at his temples, only seemed to be making it all worse instead of better as he became distantly aware of a budding headache, but he couldn’t move.
Across the table, Izuku, Todoroki, and Uraraka had gone silent, likely staring at Jirou. Kirishima, who’d also been largely participating in the conversation, was also quiet. Even though all the sudden attention was on Jirou, not Katsuki, it still felt too close.
He sat right next to her, feeling incredibly exposed. Heat creeped up his neck to his face. Though he continued to lean into his hand and tried his best to remain extremely stoic, he was certain they’d all be staring at him.
They didn’t know, because how could they?
They didn’t know, but it felt like they did.
How could they know that Katsuki had fallen in love with someone who didn’t love him back? How could they know that apparently, Katsuki had turned out to be another goddamn statistic?
He felt exposed—unable to breathe, skin on fire, nauseous, losing his fucking mind. He started to feel strangely humiliated on top of it all—like he’d been caught in the middle of losing his mind.
He was struggling and now they were looking. He wasn’t holding himself together well and now they would see.
Bakugou Katsuki.
Bad manners. Attitude problem. Anger issues.
Wasn’t it so sad, how he died so gruesomely? Wasn’t it just so sad, how he was gay and fell in love with his childhood best friend? Wasn’t it such a pity?
“What?” asked Kaminari, sounding mildly startled from the interruption.
“Will you shut up?” Jirou gritted out, icily.
She was angry enough that Kaminari didn’t argue more, and after a few beats of silence, they continued talking about the celebrity without any further mention of his sexuality. A few beats more, and Katsuki’s table resumed talking.
Katsuki genuinely felt a few seconds from losing his mind so badly he’d probably drop a few hero rankings even off duty. Literally exploding, flipping tables, the whole works. Collapsing out of his chair and vomiting on the floor.
His stomach lurched again.
Kirishima started to say, “Hey man, you go—”
“Bathroom,” Katsuki said—not a clue what his tone or face seemed like—as he slammed up out of his seat and swiveled around to look for the bathroom.
When he spotted the bathroom sign, he stomped towards it, off balance, feeling like he was tilting forwards the entire time.
Oh god.
The restaurant had a few one-room bathrooms down a hallway in the back, and Katsuki all but fell into the door of the first one. He slammed it open, turning to lock it before stumbling into the wall next to the toilet.
He immediately started to dry heave. His nausea had grown so intense that he couldn’t think about anything else.
Within moments, he realized he genuinely couldn’t breathe. His breath caught, and he collapsed forward to brace himself with one hand on the wall and the other on the top of the toilet. After a moment, he started coughing violently. Stars danced before his vision as he fought to breathe, coughing and heaving and trembling.
After an agonizing amount of time that was likely less than a minute but felt like a few solid minutes of hell, Katsuki grew so lightheaded that he fell to his knees. He was forced to brace himself on the sides of the nasty fucking public toilet.
He coughed harder, practically hacking his lungs out as something got stuck in his throat.
With a few coughs that shook his entire body, he finally cleared it, spitting into the toilet.
Vision halfway dotted over, eyes wet from the force of coughing, Katsuki could only sit there and tremble. He heaved in massive breaths through his mouth that moved his whole torso with each one as he stared down into the toilet.
For a moment, he was frozen, eyes locked on what he’d spit up. The taste in his mouth was nauseating—metallic and bitterly sour.
In the toilet was a nauseating mix of blood, mucus, and… two small flower petals.
Cherry blossoms.
On his next inhale, the nausea in his gut peaked, and he again pitched forward.
This time, he threw up, vomiting so hard that it was all he could do to not collapse onto the floor afterwards. Instead, he rested his forehead on his own arm, trying to breathe.
For a long moment, he could only pant loudly into the gross bathroom air, shaking all over.
His head was swimming, and his ears were fucking ringing.
The moment he gathered an ounce of energy, he felt for the handle to flush the toilet. His eyes were screwed shut as he continued to tremble.
If only the image of those fucking petals wasn’t seared into his brain forever now.
They’d been disgusting—covered in his own bodily fluids—but in the water of the toilet one of them had gotten washed off partially, revealing the delicate, very light pink color.
His stomach lurched again at the memory, and he shifted forward to vomit again so hard that his chest hurt. He slammed the flush handle again as he fell back to slumping on the floor, leaning against his own arm.
For a long moment, he focused on breathing. He felt like he was going to pass out, and he really, really didn’t want to be found passed out in this shitty bathroom.
Thump. Thump. Thump. Thump. Thump. Thump.
His head spun precariously for far too long, his heart thumping so hard it somehow almost made him want to puke again.
He did his best not to think of what he’d just seen.
After several minutes of just breathing, Katsuki felt his exhaustion settling back in.
His limbs were all heavy, his head somehow both stuffed with cotton and made of lead, and his chest and throat hurt badly.
Realizing he’d been breathing with his mouth open this whole time, he closed it. Almost immediately, he opened it, spitting into the toilet.
It tasted like blood.
Again, he slammed the lever to flush the toilet and then shoved his way to his feet using the wall. He swayed dangerously with the quick change in movement. He knew it was unwise to get up so fast, but he felt frantic. He turned on the sink, ducking down to draw in some water and spit it out to wash the taste from his mouth.
When Katsuki finished, he slid back to the floor almost immediately, again panting loudly.
With his eyes half shut, he stared dully in the direction of the toilet.
He was exhausted.
He was lightheaded.
He was a dead man.
Tomorrow, he thought numbly. Tomorrow, I’ll go to the doctor.
Katsuki had no idea how long he sat on the floor of that bathroom, staring at the ugly multicolored tiles on the walls, uncomprehending.
He felt drained of life in more ways than one.
He needed… to go home.
The idea of getting off the floor felt impossible, but even in this moment Katsuki couldn’t see another option.
Even now, he realized bitterly, he felt it: his persisting pride, unwilling to show himself to others in this state.
Over the years, he’d done so much work to overcome it. He’d been forced into situations where he’d had to accept help. He’d been in situations where he realized it would be best to accept help.
It was like he’d been reset back to square one, with this. This wasn’t heroics. This wasn’t teamwork. This was something else, that would bring a reaction from others that he didn’t want to face.
He wondered faintly if it would be with him until the end. Would he be unwilling to accept aid or care, even in his dying moments?
It was very strange, he thought tiredly. To both desire care and despise it. To both want someone to come here and help him off the floor but want to vomit at the idea of actually letting them do it.
All the eyes on him.
The pity.
Katsuki shoved it all aside.
He needed to get up.
He took in a few more slow, deep breaths before grabbing the sink and pulling himself to stand. Carefully focusing on only the inhales and exhales—and not what might be growing inside his lungs—he washed his hands thoroughly.
Finally, he dared a look in the mirror.
For a moment, he took in the almost sickly pallor of his skin, the sweat on his brow, the darkness under his eyes and the hollowness of his cheeks. His blond hair stuck up as explosively as always, though some of it was hanging in his eyes. He shoved it out of his face with one of his hands and wiped off his face and mouth, before turning away.
He made for the door, feeling empty.
Soon, he would look far worse, he was sure. At the moment, he really only looked a bit tired and like he’d puked in a disgusting restaurant toilet.
Just get to the car, he thought. Get to Kirishima. Then get to the car.
He pulled open the door, breathing slow, measured breaths.
Tell them you’re not feeling well. He thought numbly.
Each step felt like a challenge that he might ultimately fail, resulting in passing out right on the restaurant floor for all to witness. He focused on breathing, turning the corner out of the bathroom hallway and spotting his friends.
The very moment he did, there was a very loud and distinct noise.
BEEP!
Immediately, Katsuki slumped against the wall, panting, as he watched all his friends shoot to their feet to answer the call. They drew the entire restaurant’s attention with all their clatter.
It was a hero alert, a noise that Katsuki knew as well as the rest of them did. It was a noise that had his heart jolting, an instinct within him that grabbed his attention. After all these years, he was essentially trained to react to it.
As it was, he just stayed in his spot against the wall. It took so much effort just to pull his phone out of his pocket and switch it to silent mode. Each breath heaved his whole torso, so he could only stand and watch as his friends moved. His head was still a bit woozy. His breaths sort of hurt; his throat and lungs felt rubbed raw. He was still shaking slightly.
He felt like he was watching something very far away—an observer and witness like the rest of these extras, not an active participant—as his friends scrambled out of their seats.
Most of their gatherings ended like this, didn’t they? He thought passively.
“Sorry for the disturbance!”
He heard Izuku’s voice, loud and serious and authoritative, ring through the air.
“Hero business!”
Calm, commanding, unwavering—that was Todoroki.
“Apologies!” this one was the loud, booming voice of Iida. “We will return shortly to pay the bill!”
All the other restaurant patrons cheered them on as they rushed out of the restaurant. Everyone chattered excitedly—heroes in action! How often did you get to see that sort of thing these days?
Katsuki watched it all with half open, lifeless eyes.
Look how excited they all got the moment there was one thing to chase, he thought vacantly. How excited… we all get.
Out the front window of the restaurant, he could see as they suited up to take off. Even if he couldn’t see them, he knew how these things always went.
So excited, to be chasing after one small thing.
And at the front of the pack…
Deku.
Always Deku.
Deku, with his eyes shining and his face determined.
Deku, suiting up and going ahead.
The rest of the class following.
Just like old times.
For a moment, even after they were out of sight, Katsuki could only stare after them. Then he sighed and finally looked towards the table. Drawing in a deep breath, he shoved off the wall, making his way over, slowly but surely.
They all missed it, too, didn’t they? The thought taunted him. They all talked about how happy they were and how much they loved whatever else they were doing now and how good it was that heroics was becoming obsolete.
But a part of them missed those old times, too.
Katsuki made it to the table, collapsing into his seat.
Deku always ran ahead first, and the rest of them followed despite Deku being the least experienced by now. They all missed it, too. So when they smiled… was that a lie? Were they all really able to pretend so well?
Katsuki drank the water from his glass, resolutely ignoring how his hand visibly shook.
Izuku…
He set down his glass and sighed loudly, rubbing at his tired eyes.
Katsuki wasn’t sure he’d ever fully understand Izuku.
Why did he run ahead with so much excitement each time? He seemed so determined and eager to be a hero… and yet…
“The armor made me very happy, but my feelings haven’t changed.”
Could anyone blame Katsuki for getting confused?
Would anyone be able to forgive him for condemning himself to death?
Katsuki stared vacantly around the table.
They’d run off, and left Katsuki behind. He wasn’t self-centered enough to take that personally, but he still found it a bit… symbolic. Weirdly, painfully symbolic.
They’d left him behind, in so many ways. They’d all moved on, and Katsuki didn’t know how. They’d gone so far ahead, and soon Katsuki wouldn’t be able to see them anymore.
Don’t give them room to grow.
Katsuki looked around at the empty table and felt his fatigue in every cell of his body.
It felt like they’d left him behind in the dust, running ahead. But Katsuki had no fucking clue where they were running to. It felt like they’d all been running the same way, once. Now, everyone deviated and zig-zagged all over the place. They went different directions.
Yet they always seemed so happy to run beside each other.
This was one of those things he’d been putting off thinking about, wasn’t it? This was one of those things that he didn’t think he’d have to worry about, because soon he’d have Izuku back.
Foolishly, Katsuki had been convinced that Izuku would always be on the same path as him. That they would race each other to the end, but always within each other’s sight.
Katsuki stared at where Izuku had sat, across the table.
In the end, he didn’t understand Izuku. He never had, and it seemed that he never would. He wasn’t sure he really understood what it was like to be any of his friends, so happy and smiling despite how things were so different. So happy and smiling, with only the occasional vague comment about a war that still haunted Katsuki’s nightmares so frequently.
Emptily, Katsuki wondered if it was really true that they were all just so much stronger than him. Was that really it? They were unbothered—by the profession they all could’ve died for becoming insignificant, by the dangers they’d had to face so young, by any of it?
Or was there something that he was missing?
Though, Katsuki supposed it didn’t matter if they ran ahead. He supposed it didn’t matter if they left him in the dust. He supposed it didn’t matter if he was alone—in his dreams, in his understanding, and in life. He supposed it hardly mattered, if they’d left him with all this emptiness—all this room for the flowers to grow.
He supposed it all hardly mattered in the end, because he was a dead man anyway.
With another sigh, Katsuki waved down the server.
All of his thoughts were still crushing him, even without the presence of his friends. Now that they weren’t held back by the idea of Izuku, everything that had been bothering him had been let loose on top of him.
It was all so heavy.
Katsuki was so tired.
His head swam as he handed the server his card, gesturing around the table, “All of it.”
He’d hardly need the money for much longer anyways. Didn’t need a goddamn retirement fund, did he? He barely registered the server’s gratitude, once again making himself stand to finally, finally make his way to his car.
─────
As Katsuki waited for Kirishima to return, he stared vacantly out the front windshield.
With the passing minutes, sitting in the safe silence of his car, he felt less and less like he was going to pass out at any moment. He slumped in the front seat, breathing evenly and moving as little as possible.
Still, he felt strange in a way that refused to go away.
It was like his mind was slowly catching up to everything that had just happened in the bathroom. The last bits of his sanity had shattered, and he was now trying to locate the pieces.
He was trying to figure out if picking them up was even worth it.
He’d known for two weeks now that, surely, he’d be developing Hanahaki disease. The stories had been very clear. But still… maybe there had been a part of himself that hadn’t quite believed it or accepted it.
Because the grief suddenly felt raw all over again. He sat slumped in his car, no energy to move or shout or cry, even though it felt like there was a gaping wound in his chest. He was in pain, but he couldn’t move.
What was there to do about his wound anyways? He couldn’t see it. How could he hope to treat a wound he couldn’t see? How could he hope to even find it?
And as much as he tried to not think of it…
The image of those disgusting petals was burned into his memory.
Cherry blossoms. He thought numbly.
It felt like a cruel joke.
One of the best moments of Katsuki’s life… that spring back in high school. A sunny spring day with a slight, warm breeze. He’d been there with All Might and Izuku. Sometime after school, on the UA campus surrounded by cherry blossom trees.
All Might had complimented them and congratulated them on their progress and successes.
Izuku had laughed and smiled so widely that it practically took up his entire face. His hair blew lightly in the wind. He’d looked so happy and mesmerizing in that moment that Katsuki remembered being momentarily caught off guard by his own heart skipping a beat.
Katsuki remembered that the genuine smile was breaking out on his own face before he could stop it. He found he didn’t care to pretend it wasn’t.
He remembered that everything seemed so bright and hopeful in that moment. Even with Izuku’s Quirk slowly leaving and the future not as certain as it should have been, Katsuki remembered feeling like they’d figure it out. He’d felt empowered back then—to carry on All Might’s legacy with Izuku. He’d felt light and free and… happy.
The cherry blossoms fell around them.
That felt like centuries ago.
Katsuki stared out at the dark street beyond his car windshield, coming back to the present as his chest compressed painfully.
It all felt so heavy… his eyelids, his limbs, his heart. His body was little more than a slowly rotting, poisoned corpse. The feeling of imminent doom and his aching grief felt intolerable when juxtaposed next to such an idyllic memory.
It felt too cruel, didn’t it?
Cherry blossoms.
Cherry blossoms, that bloomed in the spring.
New life, renewal, beauty.
Cherry blossoms, that died out within weeks.
The fleeting nature of life, impermanence, mortality.
Katsuki began to feel vaguely nauseous again, turning to lean his head against the window and forcing himself to focus on breathing again.
In.
Out.
He didn’t know how long he sat there in the silence of his car, forcing himself to just breathe, but he was brought out of it by a knocking sound.
Slowly, he turned to see the smiling face of Kirishima on the other side of the passenger window. He moved to unlock the door. Kirishima immediately tore it open, breaking the seal of silence that Katsuki had been wrapped within.
“Hey, man!” Kirishima said, jarringly loud, as he got in and started to get buckled. “You good? I rushed back when I realized you hadn’t come with. Figured you were done in the bathroom by now!”
Katsuki listened to his friend chatter on, feeling hollow inside.
“I thought you were gonna shit your pants when you ran away from the table like that!” Kirishima continued on teasingly, only glancing in his direction very briefly as he did something on his phone at the same time as he talked. “Glad you didn’t though, of course. Though you did miss out a bit on the villain this time man…”
His voice faded in Katsuki’s ears.
Katsuki gripped the steering wheel hard with both his hands.
He needed to say something.
To someone.
To anyone.
Don’t give them room to grow.
He couldn’t go on like this, with this suffocating reality. He couldn’t go on, without a single person knowing.
He was dying.
In the back of his mind, as his heart thundered away, he realized that he was terrified. There was an endless darkness—one that he hardly remembered but still had nightmares of—that he’d faced back in high school.
He was dying, and he didn’t feel ready.
Kirishima’s chattering cut off suddenly. “Bakugou? Are you okay?”
Katsuki’s entire body was tense, his grip on the steering wheel made of iron, and his stomach was vaguely nauseous again.
Say something.
“Hey, talk to me, man.”
Tell him.
With a massive amount of effort, Katsuki relaxed his jaw.
There was another loud knock on his car, and Katsuki almost startled visibly.
“Hey, Bakugou, can you drive us home please?” Kaminari’s voice cut through the air, lilting and teasing as usual. He clearly stood at the back door, though Katsuki didn’t turn to look.
Katsuki’s stomach turned.
“You look a little pale man, you good?” Kirishima said lowly, concerned.
“BAKUGOUUUU!” Mina this time, yanking on one of the back door handles in the way that Katsuki always shouted at her for.
Katsuki’s eye twitched.
“You can say no, man,” Kirishima said hurriedly. “You know that right? These idiots can take the bus.”
“Kacchan!” Kaminari called, loud and playful.
Katsuki nearly flinched.
“Let us in!” Kaminari continued.
Katsuki felt trapped in his suffocating numbness and grief.
He told himself that they were just teasing him. Normally, he’d shout at them for it, call them annoying losers or something. He felt incapable of anything so simple at the moment; he felt like he could only sit there in silence or commit murder. Nothing in between.
He also didn’t feel capable of moving, of making a decision. He didn’t feel like dealing with anything.
“Bakugou, just—” Kirishima began again.
Without being entirely certain why, Katsuki unlocked the door, listening to them clamor in. He could only sit there, feeling like he was somehow a thousand miles away from them all. He could only sit there, feeling like a shell of himself.
A thousand miles. That was a lot of empty space for the flowers to grow.
─────
That night, Katsuki dreamt of the first time that he really saw the consequences of Hanahaki disease.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
part 2
it feels rather lonely
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
One morning when Katsuki was eight years old, his mom laid out clothes for him and told him to get dressed. The clothes looked stuffy and formal, so at first Katsuki was skeptical. When he asked where they were going, his mom gave no answer. She only instructed him to hurry up.
Her tone was serious enough that Katsuki listened without further protest.
The drive was long, and Katsuki stared out the window as the city trickled out into countryside.
His parents were unsettlingly quiet. They so rarely were—especially his mom—but now they said nothing and not even the radio was on.
There was a strange energy in the air that Katsuki wasn’t able to place. It was making him a little anxious, though he’d never admit it.
He was Bakugou Katsuki after all. He had the best Quirk in his entire school. He was going to go to UA High School like All Might and then go on to surpass him. He wasn’t afraid, of course, because he was strong. He wasn’t like any of those other extras with their lame Quirks—not to mention Quirkless Deku.
There wasn’t any reason Katsuki would ever be afraid… but his parents were still acting very weird.
Despite his trepidation, Katsuki’s patience eventually grew thin.
“Where are we going?”
Peeking up at them from the backseat, Katsuki saw his parents glance at each other. He sat behind his mom in the driver’s seat, and his dad was in the passenger’s seat.
Though Katsuki definitely wasn’t afraid, his stomach still twisted itself into knots at the expression on his dad’s face as he traded looks with his mom.
“Katsuki,” his dad began, turning to look at him in the backseat. His tone was light, ostensibly casual. “Have you ever heard of a groveyard?”
Katsuki frowned grumpily at him. “A graveyard?”
“No, no… a groveyard,” his dad clarified, shaking his head, but offering a small smile of encouragement.
“What’s the difference?” said Katsuki as he crossed his arms and pouted slightly.
He hated not knowing things.
“Well…” replied his dad, “you remember how when grandma got sick, we went to the family grave?”
“Obviously,” Katsuki grumbled, rolling his eyes.
That had only been last year. He wasn’t a baby. He was one of the smartest people in his class! The only person who ever beat out his test scores sometimes was annoying Deku, but that was only because he was a massive nerd.
“Watch your attitude, Katsuki!” his mom cut in, voice sharp and strict.
Katsuki scowled at the back of her seat but said nothing as his dad continued on.
“Well, that was a graveyard,” his dad said. “A groveyard is similar. It’s where some people go after they die, the same as a graveyard.”
“What’s the difference?” Katsuki stressed, frustrated and impatient.
“You remember what Hanahaki Disease is?”
“Duh,” Katsuki rolled his eyes again.
“And…” his dad, raised his eyebrows, gesturing for him to continue.
Katsuki glowered at the fact that his knowledge was being questioned but replied, “It’s that sickness people get sometimes. Flowers grow inside their bodies. It’s the one that one rhyme is about… mom’s always saying that one line from it that’s like ‘don’t ever water the flowers.’ And—ohhh,” Katsuki gasped suddenly, sitting up straighter and eyes widening. “‘A new tree in the groveyard.’ That’s one of the lines!”
“Right,” his dad nodded. “So, the flowers start in the lungs but eventually move to take over their entire body. The flowers are very poisonous—”
“I know that,” Katsuki interrupted, annoyed.
He’d just learned this in science class!
“Good, that’s good,” his dad said a bit wearily, before continuing. “Well, someone dying of Hanahaki can still choose, uh, other options for after they pass, but many of them choose to go in a groveyard. Their flowers continue to grow even after they’re gone, and if allowed to keep going, it grows into a tree with flowers.”
“Woah,” Katsuki’s eyes were wide.
What a strange concept. A dead person becoming a tree. He couldn’t decide if it was gross or cool.
Why hadn’t they told them about that in class?
“Well… Katsuki…” his dad stopped to clear his throat, wincing. “My cousin died of Hanahaki disease a long time ago. Since it’s been ten years, we’re going to visit him. At the groveyard where he’s buried.”
“Woah,” Katsuki said again.
A part of him was disturbed, but another part of him was oddly curious. They’d told them that Hanahaki disease was one of those Quirk diseases. It was hard to get, but apparently very likely to kill you. His teacher said you had to fall very deeply in love with someone who doesn’t love you back.
Who cared about love anyways? Katsuki certainly didn’t. He cared about being a hero, like All Might.
After what Katsuki was sure was the longest drive that anyone had ever taken in the entire world, they parked.
When they got out, Katsuki looked around, but didn’t see any trees with flowers. It was just empty fields and hills as far as the eye could see. Then he turned and saw a forest in the distance.
“Is that—what’re you doing?” Katsuki started to ask about it but cut himself off when he looked at his parents.
They were putting on masks over their noses and mouths. He’d only ever seen ones like them on TV.
His mom grabbed another mask and then his face. She ignored his protests as she began to help him put it on.
As she did, she said, “Poisonous trees, remember Katsuki?”
“What?!” Katsuki was shocked, staring at her with wide eyes. “Are we going to eat them?”
“No!” his mom looked disturbed at the thought. “Groveyards are chocked full of all manner of dangerous toxins and poisons. So don’t touch anything there, and it’s best not to breathe it in without a mask.”
“Oh,” Katsuki said, making sure his mask was on securely. “Ew.”
His mother smacked him in the back of the head.
“Ow!” he protested, holding his head where she’d hit him.
“Show some damn respect, kid!”
Katsuki rubbed the back of his head and scowled but stayed quiet.
The forest was strangely far away, and they had to walk to reach it. Katsuki thought the walk was nice, though a bit quiet.
He could practically hear the wind whistling through the empty hills.
As they approached, Katsuki’s eyes widened as he looked carefully at the trees in the groveyard. They were all manner of shapes and sizes, and rather bizarrely spaced out. They looked fairly similar to normal trees, Katsuki thought, though they did seem to be very vibrant colors—both their flowers and the green of their leaves. He wasn’t sure he’d ever seen trees so colorful.
Katsuki walked along with his parents, following them into the trees.
It was quiet. Katsuki had never been in a forest that was so quiet. There weren’t birds or running water or other people. Just the occasional rustle of leaves. His parents didn’t speak, and Katsuki followed their example.
They stopped at a tree a few minutes into the forest. It was big—wide and tall with little white flowers all over it. Katsuki gaped up at it, tilting his head back to look upwards.
When he did, he noticed that even the tops of the trees didn’t meet. Their branches had open air between all of them. He looked back down, looking around. They were very obviously and weirdly spaced out.
Why did these trees need so much space to grow? Were they poisonous to each other somehow?
As he looked around, he thought that the whole groveyard was just very strange. It was eerie and quiet and everything was so spaced out… Katsuki had never heard of a place like this before. He thought of the family grave, so close to so many others, so many names and people, all together.
He looked back at the tree they were stopped in front of. His parents were crying. He blinked up at them and looked back at the tree.
This must be it. He realized.
His dad’s cousin’s tree. He hadn’t even known that his dad had a cousin, and now they were crying in front of his tree.
Katsuki stared at it.
It’s very beautiful here, he thought as his parents pulled him into a family hug. He went along with it, because he wasn’t used to his parents looking so sad. As they hugged him, he stared off into the distance. In some directions, the groveyard went as far as the eye could see.
Though… it feels rather lonely.
Notes:
left behind in the dust,
it feels rather lonelyMy socials and everything are here. Thanks for reading!
Chapter 3: Rip them up by the roots
Summary:
The Hanahaki surgery would try to take the memory of Izuku from him, but it would have to tear him to pieces to find every cell that held knowledge of him.
How could Katsuki even survive such a thing?
Katsuki goes to the doctor, accidentally ends up at game night with his friends, and catches a cold. As he's starting to feel a bit better, someone comes to check on him.
Notes:
(20k+ words)
Content Warning
mentions of terminal illness, panic attacks, depictions of mental illness/depression
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
part 1
though my heart is failing
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
“The problem is your heart.”
Katsuki wasn’t entirely surprised to hear the doctor say it, but it still made his stomach twist itself into knots.
He was currently sat, arms crossed, body tense, in one of the many exam rooms of the Quirk Diseases Unit at Central Hospital.
He was in one of two chairs that lined the wall that his back was to. The doctor’s desk was up against the wall directly to his left, and her swiveling stool allowed her to easily turn back and forth between facing him and the computer. The exam table was in the far-right corner of the room, and there was a sink in the far-left corner, on the other side of the doctor’s desk.
His eyes flicked back and forth between the doctor as she spoke and the CT scan of his chest that she currently had pulled up on the computer screen.
He wasn’t surprised to hear her bring up his heart, but it still dragged up old unbidden memories of when he woke up after that final battle when he was seventeen. When he’d been told that they weren’t sure if he’d ever get the use of his arm back.
When he found out that his heart was still weak and that he’d barely survived.
He wasn’t surprised, but he didn’t like how he became hyperaware of how his heart was currently beating quickly in his chest.
Thump. Thump. Thump.
It reminded him too much of the years following the war.
The doctor had introduced herself as Dr. Ito. Her thin frame, sharp facial bone structure, and tight bun holding back her black hair made her look like a stern high school principal. Yet when she spoke out of her thin, pursed lips, her voice was quite a bit gentler than he would’ve guessed.
It was a strange contradiction, and Katsuki couldn’t tell if he liked her or not yet. Admittedly, he’d hardly put much thought into it; he was too distracted by the endless barrage of less-than-great news.
“Your actual Hanahaki plant isn’t very progressed yet,” Dr. Ito went on. “You mentioned that it’s only been two weeks since you started feeling negative feelings of rejection, correct?”
“Yes,” replied Katsuki, somewhat curtly.
“Were you under any stress yesterday before you coughed and threw up?”
Katsuki looked away, glowering at the floor.
After a moment, he gritted out, “Yeah, I guess.”
“Right,” said Dr. Ito. “Well, I suspect any trouble breathing and nausea was heightened by your stress level. The plant itself hasn’t grown much yet, but some of it likely got sucked into your airway when you were breathing quicker.”
Katsuki looked up and returned the full force of his scowl to the CT scan of his chest as she spoke.
It was a black and white image—with the background being black and the parts of Katsuki’s body various colors of white and gray. It was a bit hard to tell what he was looking at, but the area that supposedly showed the Hanahaki was marked with small yellow arrows.
“Still, it’s good that you came in when you did,” Dr. Ito said, voice growing even more serious. “Even though you’re only in the first stage of the disease, your history of cardiac arrest makes you a very high-risk patient.”
Thump. Thump. Thump.
The feeling of his heart thumping away in his chest grew to an almost uncomfortably forceful level. It felt like his heart was well on its way to bursting—each contraction squeezing too hard and each release swelling too much.
It made him want to clutch at his chest and ask her to check his heart right now.
It felt so intense that it stirred up an old, yet familiar twisting feeling of anxiety in his gut. A sharp sliver of panic dug its way into his chest.
It felt like his heart might give out at any second.
And yet, he stayed still, though his entire body was tense as he continued to listen. It’d been years since he’d felt it so intensely, but he remembered this feeling. He knew it was psychosomatic, even if it was massively uncomfortable.
As Dr. Ito continued, she pulled up a graphic of the heart and lungs on the computer.
“As you can see here, the heart is located in between the two lobes of the lungs. Hanahaki disease is infamous for how irregularly it chooses to grow. For some people, it favors the lungs only at first. For others, it chooses to grow outward as well.”
She arranged the CT scan and the graphic side by side on the screen.
“It’s too early to tell the direction in which your Hanahaki will grow,” she said as she gestured again to the CT scan. “The problem is that it’s begun growing on the most medial sides of the interior of your lungs. In other words, it’s growing on the part of your lungs closest to the midline of the body.”
As she spoke, Katsuki stared at the little yellow arrows that carefully pointed out sections of white near the middle of the scan. Tiny, irregular splotches that supposedly were the Hanahaki.
“It’s also located near the beginning of your airway. This is likely why you coughed up flowers so soon. This also places it very, very close to your heart.”
She tapped the graphic that showed the heart—nestled carefully right between the lungs.
“If your Hanahaki plant grows out of the lungs at all, you have a very high risk of complications involving your heart.”
Thump. Thump. Thump.
The words filtered into Katsuki’s brain, but they had trouble taking root. She was throwing so much information at him, and he struggled to take it all in while his heart palpations continued so intensely.
He felt like things were going almost comically poorly, and that made it all feel a bit surreal. The racing heart and twisting of anxiety in his gut told him that he was processing it all somehow, but he still felt like he was having trouble comprehending everything he was being told.
Katsuki unclenched his jaw with a massive amount of effort. When he spoke, his voice sounded strange and disconnected even to himself, “I thought my heart was fully healed. They told me that years ago.”
“Right, you made a miraculous recovery,” Dr. Ito nodded in agreement. “There haven’t been a lot of cases like yours. However, the fact remains that your heart was physically damaged and without blood flow for a few short minutes. That’s enough time for permanent damage to occur, not to mention the scar tissue on your heart; that reduces your heart’s ability to pump as well.”
“But they told me my heart was fine,” Katsuki replied, a frustrated, defensive tone seeping into his voice. “When I graduated high school—they said everything was fine.”
“Your heart is fine,” Dr. Ito agreed, voice calm and reassuring in a careful, practiced manner.
It made Katsuki’s defensive fury surge, but he didn’t move. He only sat there—tensed all over with his arms crossed—as it grew in intensity.
She went on, “It’s functioning impressively well considering what you went through. But the heart is a sensitive organ, and I have concerns that it could cause you trouble far earlier on if your Hanahaki plant decides to grow out of your lungs. You have a higher risk of heart rhythm problems and heart failure.”
Thump. Thump. Thump.
Katsuki clenched his jaw tighter, looking off to the side. He stared uncomprehendingly at some PSA poster that was pinned up on the wall near the exam table. His hands tightened around where they gripped his own arms.
So… his heart was fine… for now.
“I’d like you to see a cardiologist again,” Dr. Ito continued as she pulled up his chart and started to type on the computer. “I’ll refer you to one of our specialists here at Central Hospital. He’s one of the best in the country.”
Thump. Thump. Thump.
“So… the hell’s all that mean? If the Hanahaki grows out of my lungs, I’m fucked?”
Katsuki’s tone came out far ruder than he’d intended but it was all officially spiraling out of his control. His heart palpitations and the anxiety twisting in his gut were feeding off each other. Every other emotion he had was also fighting beneath the surface, making the pressure in his chest build.
Keeping track of his tone of voice was so far down on his list of priorities.
“Your heart makes your timeline very uncertain at best and very short at worst,” replied Dr. Ito. “I recommend that you get surgery to remove the Hanahaki plant as soon as possible.”
Ah… right.
Katsuki’s stomach churned so intensely that he felt vaguely nauseous.
Rip them up by the roots,
The moment that they show.
The infamous Hanahaki surgery was a physical removal of the entire Hanahaki plant.
Even for those who knew very little about Hanahaki disease knew that once you had it, there were only three outcomes: the love becomes requited, surgery, or death.
Dr. Ito went on, “I know you’re a Pro Hero and a busy man, but I cannot stress enough how important it is for you to get this surgery as soon as possible. We can very clearly see the beginnings of it, so we can remove it now. No matter what, I still think you should see a cardiologist, but because of your heart I recommend that you get surgery immediately.”
The surgery was hugely invasive, though obviously more so when it was more progressed. Despite this, the likelihood of survival and full physical recovery from surgery was very high nowadays.
There was a massive catch, of course.
One of the most Quirk-like behaviors of the Hanahaki plant was that surgical removal erased all memory of the person that the patient was in love with; every trace of knowledge involving the person was completely gone.
Despite being well aware of the existence of the option, Katsuki hadn’t considered surgery for even a moment.
Because it wasn’t an option for him.
“I can’t do the surgery,” said Katsuki stiffly. “I’ll take whatever meds and shit you got.”
Dr. Ito stopped typing and looked over at him, her dark brown eyes peering intensely into his. She didn’t look surprised, and Katsuki didn’t know what to think about that.
Perhaps she was just a professional, but a part of him couldn’t help but think of that distant memory of the groveyard. Last night, he’d dreamed about it again. Even now, years later, he could still remember how many trees there were—as far as the eye could see.
Clearly, it wasn’t rare for people to opt out of getting surgery.
“I advise you to give it some thought,” Dr. Ito said after a moment. “I can provide you resources on previous stories. It has a very high success and recovery rate.”
Katsuki was shaking his head, jaw clenched, before she was even done talking.
The Hanahaki was not careful and selective about the memory removal. In most cases, if the person they loved was present in the memory, it would be completely gone. If the person had even influenced the memory or been thought of during the memory, it was torn apart too. It wasn’t uncommon for the years that they had known the person they loved to be left in total disarray with very little remaining.
There was no question about it. Katsuki had known Izuku for practically as long as he’d had a long-term memory.
He would lose everything.
His entire life would be left in tattered shambles. He hadn’t considered surgery at all, because the outcome would hardly be better than dying in his opinion.
“Doesn’t matter,” he bit out. “I can’t get it. What’re the other options?”
Dr. Ito looked at him for a few more seconds before she replied, “As I’m sure you’re aware, there aren’t very many other options. The surgery is the only medical option with any history of success.”
“Yeah, I—” Katsuki cut himself off when he felt his anger spiking dangerously, threatening to throw things out of control. After a pause, he continued tersely, “I know. How do I slow it, then? I gotta… just tell me how to slow it.”
Thump. Thump. Thump.
It was hard to focus on his breathing as he listened to the doctor and actively tried to ignore his persisting heart palpitations, so his head started to swim a bit from insufficient oxygen.
Dr. Ito’s naturally stern-looking face had taken on even deeper stress lines as she appeared to take in how serious he was about this.
“First and foremost, I have to stress that surgery is your best option, assuming that your love is definitely unrequited,” Dr. Ito said, looking carefully at Katsuki and then continuing when he said nothing. “Besides those two, Hanahaki has a 100% death rate. There has not been a single documented survivor. Medically speaking, this is practically unheard of.”
Thump. Thump. Thump.
Katsuki’s heart thundered in his chest. He drew in breaths that hardly seemed to be getting enough air. His head swam. His stomach twisted itself into knots. He felt like he was going to either pass out or explode.
“Yeah, I know,” he said again, tone fully irritated now.
“Is there a reason you’re so averse to the surgery?”
Thump. Thump. Thump.
For a long, agonizing silence, he couldn’t look at her and could only stare at the CT scan that documented the beginnings of his end.
He felt so on edge that for a moment he wasn’t sure that he could say anything without shouting. Ideally, he wouldn’t lose his shit at this woman, but he couldn’t seem to get his goddamn emotions under control.
He couldn’t stop staring at those goddamn arrows pointing at the thing that was killing him.
He forced himself to breathe deeply. Ripping his eyes away from the computer, he found a scuff mark on the floor near the exam table to stare pointedly at.
“I’ve known them my entire life,” Katsuki managed to say, low and gravelly. “As long as I can remember, anyways. If I got the surgery, I’m not sure any of—” His voice gave out and he cleared his throat, shifting his tense shoulders slightly. “I’m not sure what would be left.”
Katsuki was blindsided and mortified at the sudden urge to cry that spiked up while he was talking. He moved his hand up to cover his mouth, tightening his grip over it and staring daggers with even greater intensity at the scuff mark on the floor. He forced himself to take deep breaths through his nose, trying to wipe his mind of any and all thoughts. Absently, he jostled his leg.
He refused to cry right now.
After a moment, he dropped his hand and recrossed his arms, tightening his hands into fists. He curled the hand that was tucked out of sight into an even tighter fist, digging his fingernails into his palm.
He still didn’t look up from the floor. Whether he saw compassion or pity or understanding in the doctor’s eyes, he didn’t think he could handle it.
“I see,” Dr. Ito said after a long pause. “Well, firstly, I’d like you to know that there have been several cases of people in similar situations that were able to recover—”
“Fuck no,” Katsuki spat out before he could help it. He clenched his fists tighter as the urge to cry fought its way halfway up again. He shook his head and stubbornly shoved it aside. “Shit… just—just tell me what to do to delay it as long as possible.”
He was so tired of these breakdowns—of crying, of being unable to breathe, of being so angry he could barely think or keep it under control.
He had a lifetime of experience with being overwhelmed by his emotions, but it’d been a long time since he’d felt so out of control of them. Since he’d felt so strange and unlike himself. It felt like a slap in the face to all his years of progress with regulating his emotions.
All these years of trying to learn how to deal with shit, and he still felt like the weak little boy that got so irrationally overwhelmed by fury that they’d had to chain him up at the Sports Festival award ceremony in his first year at UA. He hadn’t been able to think back then either. There hadn’t been much at all but blinding rage.
Twenty-four years old, and he still felt like the sixteen-year-old kid that ended All Might because he’d been too weak to not get kidnapped. He felt just as trapped and overwhelmed and uncertain and miserable as he’d felt leading up until the night that he’d dragged Izuku out to Ground Beta to fight him.
There would be no fighting Izuku at Ground Beta this time.
No punching Izuku to direct the anger that was boiling him alive outward.
No screaming his grievances at Izuku to release the pressure in his chest.
No crying as he let the details of his agony spill out into open air for Izuku to witness.
Katsuki forced the memories from his mind. He focused in on the dull pain of his nails biting into his palms.
All of those were memories that he would lose if he got the surgery, of course.
He breathed in sharply, his face twisting into a slight grimace as he almost broke, but he drew in a huge breath, shifted to dig his nails into a new part of his palms, and tried to swallow past the lump in his throat. He was still jiggling his leg rapidly like a hyperactive kindergartener, glaring at the dark scuff mark on the floor.
Thump. Thump. Thump.
He wanted to go home.
There was nothing that would change his outcome and he knew that and he just wanted to go home.
“I put in that cardiologist referral,” Dr. Ito said finally after yet another pause. “I want you to go as soon as you are able. I can also give you medications and some resources that I’d like you to read up on. And I want to see you here weekly.”
Katsuki nodded curtly. He felt lightheaded.
“If you are certain about your choice,” Dr. Ito went on, tone a bit more cautious, “I advise you tell any friends and family that you haven’t told yet. To be very, very candid with you, your heart adds a very concerning factor to this.”
Thump. Thump. Thump.
His heart was fine for now.
Thump. Thump. Thump.
But not for very long.
“So, am I gonna die tomorrow or what?” asked Katsuki.
He pushed the words out forcefully with the initial intention of covering them up with an angry tone, but they came out sounding strangely lacking in much of any emotion at all. As if he were asking about a routine examination rather than discussing his own imminent death.
Maybe the weight of his mortality was far too heavy to comprehend in that moment, much less be contained in so few words, so they were simply left empty. Floated without feeling into the air, while all the weight of the incomprehensible grief was left behind in Katsuki’s body and mind and heart.
“Hanahaki disease typically progresses in stages,” replied Dr. Ito. “Traditionally, these stages are marked by how the lungs are affected. Stage 2 is most obvious by frequent coughing and vomiting. Stage 3 is increased shortness of breath and needing supplementary oxygen. Stage 4 is full time oxygen, and often in-hospital care.
“This is because most often, Hanahaki disease occurs in the lungs primarily, and the rest of the body holds out. Because of your heart, I worry that it may not be able to hold out as long. This is the case for many people with preexisting conditions, unfortunately. Your progression through the stages may not be as uniform or certain.”
Katsuki listened to it all. It filtered through his mind slowly, excruciatingly. It all piled up; each new bit of information only made it all feel heavier and heavier on his shoulders.
“That’s all to say that I can’t give you a steadfast progression to reference,” Dr. Ito concluded. “I advise you to keep that in mind when it comes to making decisions going forward.”
Thump. Thump. Thump.
Katsuki still couldn’t look at her as he felt his broken, scarred heart continue beating away in his chest.
─────
Katsuki was slouched so low on his couch that he was nearly horizontal with his legs crossed and kicked up on the coffee table. He was staring vacantly at said coffee table and had been for a good long while.
Though his eyes were unfocused, the pamphlet and small paper bag that sat on top of the coffee table seemed to taunt him. Even without looking directly at it, he was annoyingly hyperaware of the items—and the new medication and inhaler that sat in the paper bag.
He’d gotten back from the doctor half an hour ago, and he still couldn’t quite get the motivation to get up off the couch.
Thump. Thump. Thump.
Though they had lessened slightly in intensity, his heart palpitations were ongoing. It’d gotten beyond frustrating, but it also sort of blended in with all the other shitty things that were happening in his life at the moment.
“Fuck,” Katsuki huffed out, his head falling back to rest on the back of the couch. “Fuck.”
Now, he could stare vacantly at the ceiling instead. He blinked slowly, his eyelids unexpectedly heavy considering how it was only early afternoon. Despite how quickly he’d fallen asleep the night before, in the morning he’d hardly felt much more rested. The memory of the lonely groveyard was burned into the front of his mind.
It taunted him—his new, distant future.
Though it was much closer than he’d realized.
He’d known for years that his heart was a problem that would likely come up again when he was older. He’d known about the Hanahaki for two weeks now. But somehow hearing this news felt like he’d had the wind knocked out of him all over again.
They’d mentioned his heart might be weaker after the entire ordeal, but somehow, he’d only ever pictured it causing him heart problems earlier than the rest of his friends when he was in his forties or fifties or something.
Of course, he’d never pictured getting Hanahaki disease. Not once.
There was a sense of unease growing inside him. No matter how much he tried not to think of it, the memories of that day that the life was struck right out of his heart kept surfacing. Distant, faded memories of pain and hopelessness.
Katsuki remembered being in so much pain that it was hard to think straight, so his mind had drifted to Izuku.
How many times has Izuku fought while in pain like this? He’d thought. Izuku has already endured this and overcame it.
Back then, he remembered being overcome with a strong, all-encompassing sense of duty.
Gotta win… right, Izuku?
He’d been hurt, he’d been scared, but he remembered thinking of Izuku and knowing with certainty what he needed to do. He’d walked willingly to his own demise, and it was a goddamn miracle that he’d survived.
This time around, things would be different.
Katsuki stared blankly up at his ceiling as his chest compressed painfully from numbly aching grief.
This death… was far slower.
Try as he might, he couldn’t find the honor and duty in it. There was no flashiness like last time. This time, he’d decay slowly before the eyes of his friends until he was unrecognizable. He wouldn’t leave behind the image of a war hero, but rather a fool who died because of his own feelings.
He’d already fallen so far—from the energized fifteen-year-old with a dream to an exhausted twenty-something that was no closer to that dream.
He’d already fallen so far, but he would be unrecognizable by the end.
It was all so unbearable.
Thump. Thump. Thump.
Katsuki felt hyperaware of his heart in a way that he hadn’t been in years.
Where would he be when he died this time?
Would he die, still thinking of Izuku and how far out of reach he was?
Abruptly, Katsuki shoved himself up from where he was slouching. He leaned forward to snatch the pamphlet off the table—anything to get out of his own goddamn head. He knew he had to face all this shit sooner rather than later, but at the moment he couldn’t bear it a second longer.
He’d assured Dr. Ito that he already knew what he needed, but she insisted he take the damn Hanahaki info pamphlet anyways. He flipped it open and began to skim it.
Hanahaki disease is a Quirk-related disease that is characterized by the growth of a tumor that replicates a plant in cellular structure.
Growing bored, he skimmed faster, skipping over paragraphs of shit he already knew.
There is a large amount of superstition involving the disease, but there are a few confirmed correlations. We will discuss the correlations here. Patients are advised to check the sources of any information not found in his pamphlet. Superstition and fear historically have spread harmful misinformation about Hanahaki disease.
Worsened mental or physical state allows the disease to progress faster in the overwhelming majority of cases. It’s important to maintain both mental and physical health during treatment. Factors such as more muscle mass, high calcium levels, and improved mental health have been shown to have a positive correlation with slowed Hanahaki growth.
Katsuki nearly scoffed. Improved mental health when dying?
Again, he skimmed ahead.
Whether or not physical contact with or proximity to the one that a patient is in love with helps varies significantly. In some cases, it has been correlated to a much quicker death while in others it seems to improve symptoms. Current research is inconclusive. The generally agreed upon hypothesis is that it depends on the patient.
Well, that was really fucking helpful, wasn’t it? So much of this shit was “we don’t know” and “it depends.”
Additionally, the method in which a patient’s specific Hanahaki plant chooses to grow will affect both how quickly they die and the official cause of death. Since the flowers grow in the lungs first, most of the time suffocation or complications in the lungs is the cause of death. In other cases, the plant may begin to grow roots into the rest of the body before it has completely taken over the lungs. Thus, death may result from any number of complications such as organ damage, blood infection, or heart failure.
For a long moment, Katsuki’s eyes lingered on the last two words.
Thump. Thump. Thump.
Eventually, he read on, skipping to an entirely new section out of a desire to escape that train of thought.
Hanahaki’s toxins are also a modern mystery. It appears to simulate a Quirk in that it doesn’t follow pre-Quirk chemical or biological rules. The toxins are undoubtedly caused by the patient’s own genetic code, and yet they appear specifically designed to break down the body with speed and precision. It seems to be a destructive contradiction of the biological instinct to preserve the self.
The toxins work to help slowly weaken and break down the body while alive. However, the moment the patient has died, it grows far more potent—
Katsuki shut the pamphlet and tossed it on his coffee table. He was frustrated, but not entirely surprised, to see that his hands were shaking.
“Fuck,” he gritted out, putting the heels of his palms to his eyes and rubbing them hard.
He moved his hands up his face to thread into his hair, ducking forward. He kept his eyes closed so that he didn’t have to look at the pamphlet or the paper bag holding the massive bottle of pills they’d given him.
Three times a day, every day, just to try and slow it.
They also gave him an inhaler—for regular use and emergency use. They gave him a meal plan and an exercise plan, even though he’d scoffed at it. They insisted he had to upkeep it even when he grew weaker.
For over two weeks, he’d known what was coming.
How did it still feel so surreal?
Why did it still hurt so bad?
It felt as raw as that first day, leaving him in a near constant state of anguish. He felt constantly overwhelmed as his emotions crushed him from within. It often left him feeling restless and almost physically ill.
His gut hadn’t stopped twisting itself into anxious knots. His chest still ached. His breathing was a touch too shallow.
Katsuki felt his phone buzz in his pocket.
He still had all his unread messages thanking him for dinner last night. He knew from checking briefly before his appointment that a few of his friends had asked if he was okay.
Katsuki felt stuck again—which in and of itself was suffocating. He was already at his limit, and yet things hadn’t even started.
He hadn’t told anyone.
He hadn’t told his parents or any of his friends.
This really did feel like a much worse version of when he’d been plagued by responsibility for All Might’s fall, didn’t it? Now that he’d had the thought in the doctor’s office, he saw the parallels everywhere.
Katsuki’s weakness and mistakes leading to massive, irreversible consequence.
Plaguing his mind constantly, even if he tried not to think about it.
On edge all the time.
Countless, undefinable emotions swirling inside him that all resulted in feeling like he was going to lose it.
The difference this time was the nature of the consequence of course, but also that he couldn’t tell Izuku.
Both times, Izuku was right in the middle of things. Story of Katsuki’s goddamn life. Everything involved Izuku somehow.
Katsuki grimaced, hands releasing he grip he had on his own hair that had grown painfully tight.
There was no question about it; he couldn’t tell Izuku this time.
Of course, he’d have to tell Izuku that he was sick. There was no way Izuku wouldn’t find out even if he didn’t. But he couldn’t let Izuku find out that he was the one that Katsuki had fallen in love with.
They might not be as close as they used to be, but Katsuki still knew Izuku’s heart. He knew that Izuku cared about him, even if not in the same way or as intensely as Katsuki had allowed himself to think. He knew that Izuku cared about him, even if that was just because Izuku cared about everyone. He knew that Izuku had a hero complex and a fixer. He’d want to save and fix and make everything okay again.
Izuku wouldn’t be able to accept that Katsuki was dying. Learning that Katsuki was dying because of him would practically break his brain.
Knowing Izuku, he might resort to trying to force himself to love Katsuki. The very thought of it made Katsuki feel nauseous and mortified. Not to mention that when Izuku wasn’t able to successfully do it and Katsuki still died, the guilt would stay with Izuku forever.
At least Izuku seemed less inclined to his hero complex these days. He’d actually chilled out and embraced teaching, which honestly Katsuki still couldn’t wrap his head around.
It was good though, Katsuki realized numbly. They’d grown apart. Izuku was busy.
Katsuki’s death would hurt him. He knew Izuku cared about him a lot, so it would probably hurt him bad. But… it would probably hurt him less than Katsuki might’ve guessed a year ago.
Katsuki bitterly realized he’d found the one silver lining in all this.
Izuku would be okay. Izuku wasn’t like him.
While Katsuki was being ripped apart because he’d tried to leave so much room for Izuku… Izuku was fine on his own.
Katsuki stared blankly at the table in front of him. He distantly registered that there were tears running down his cheeks, but he didn’t move. His chest was contracting painfully, his heart aching badly in his chest, but he barely so much as blinked.
Izuku bounced back so easily from so much, Katsuki reminded himself. How quickly had Izuku gotten over the war? Izuku was used to hardship and pain.
He’ll be okay, Katsuki thought. As long as he doesn’t find out. As long as he doesn’t know it was him that I fell in love with, he’ll be okay.
His phone buzzed in his pocket again, and he pulled it out while pointedly ignoring the shaking of his hands.
Kirishima was texting him again.
Wyd? Can we talk?
Katsuki’s hand that held his phone fell down to rest on the couch.
The sharp pain of grief flared around his heart. He realized that the tears had dried on his cheeks and now they itched from the salt. He hastily scrubbed at his face with the collar of his shirt.
It was time, wasn’t it?
He had to tell everyone. If he didn’t, he might die from heart failure and leave them all blindsided.
His eyes trailed down to look at his phone.
He needed to do this shit in person, and he needed to deal with his parents first. Then Kirishima and his other friends.
Ideally, he’d hold off telling Izuku as long as possible.
Whether Izuku suddenly wanted to cling to him or not, Katsuki felt overwhelmed simply at the idea of dealing with him. Izuku would ask who and unlike everyone else, Katsuki couldn’t tell him.
With a self-deprecating scoff, Katsuki wondered if he’d even have to tell anyone else who he was in love with. They could probably all figure it out. It wasn’t like Katsuki liked very many people in general, and there was only one person that made a whole lot of sense.
Though Katsuki was certain that most of his friends would be able to guess, he took comfort in the knowledge that Izuku would never figure it out on his own.
Midoriya Izuku was quite possibly one of the most oblivious people on the planet when it came to romantic intentions. Though it seemed his self-esteem had improved enough to see that his feelings for Uraraka were reciprocated, Katsuki highly, highly doubted he could ever arrive at this conclusion about Katsuki on his own.
Katsuki’s phone started to buzz repeatedly. He tilted the screen so he could read the caller ID. He wasn’t the least bit surprised that it was Kirishima.
Katsuki didn’t know why he answered. He didn’t really think about it, and then he was doing it.
“What?” he said, lifelessly.
“Holy shit, you actually answered!”
Kirishima’s upbeat voice crackled through the phone, and Katsuki could only stare emptily at his coffee table again. It felt jarring to hear his friend’s voice right now. Chipper and energetic and normal in a way that contrasted sharply with the strange state of mind Katsuki was in.
Kirishima went on, “I was just wondering if you’re good, man? You seemed really off last night, and I feel bad because I haven’t really had a sec to ask you about how things have been after Midoriya turned you down.”
Katsuki… was tired. The weight of his exhaustion was returning tenfold the more Kirishima spoke.
Why had he answered the damn phone?
“I know you’ve gotta be bummed,” Kirishima went on.
Bummed?!
Katsuki was quite literally dying.
“Honestly,” said Kirishima, “I was really surprised about what he said. Sometimes I don’t understand that guy, I’ve gotta say.”
Katsuki said nothing. He had no interest in getting into that line of conversation right now.
“Anyways, how’re you doing?” Kirishima said after a moment, sounding slightly more uncertain. “I know you were looking forward to that… and I just wanted to make sure you’re okay.”
Katsuki felt heat creeping up his neck as embarrassment rose up yet again. Kirishima was asking so casually.
He almost wanted to laugh. He felt crazed amusement bubbling up inside of him along with an urge to just snap and lose it. He barely kept it all down.
How fucking dramatic was he? Everything else wasn’t nearly so serious for anyone else. Izuku turned down his offer to work together because it didn’t fit into his schedule. It was as simple as that for Izuku. He’d hardly given it a second thought before he’d moved on and left it behind forever.
But it’d been the most serious thing in the world for Katsuki. It was a casual invitation that was actually wrapped up in his lifelong dream that made up the core of who he was.
Why did Katsuki have to cross so many lines when it came to Izuku? Why couldn’t he just get over it like a normal person? Instead, he was dying over it?
It felt suddenly hilarious.
“Fuck,” Katsuki breathed out as a rueful expression twisted on his face. “It’s whatever.”
The words rang into the air, and they sounded hollow and off even to Katsuki himself.
“You… you sure?”
“Yes, fuck off,” Katsuki snapped back before he’d given it a second thought.
There was a long silence, in which Katsuki glared a hole in the table and could practically hear Kirishima thinking.
“Alright… well, listen, man…” Kirishima eventually went on. “I just wanted to let you know… now that I have my own agency, I was hoping to partner up with you a lot more.”
Katsuki’s eyes widened as a stab of pain shot right through his chest and for a moment he forgot to breathe.
“I know you were looking forward to working with Midoriya,” Kirishima was still talking, “and I know you two had a rivalry going on, but I just wanted to bring that up in case you were feeling… well, I don’t know. I know you don’t have any sidekicks or anything at the moment. So, I just wanted to remind you that the rest of us are still here for you, you know? We all love working with you.”
Katsuki’s face twisted into a grimace as the urge to cry shot up yet again, and he gripped his hand over his eyes. He did his best not to breathe weird into the phone, clenching his teeth to keep it all back. The pain in his chest had grown so intense that he knew he couldn’t keep this shit back much longer.
He was going to break. Again.
“Thanks, Kirishima,” he managed to say lowly, voice a bit hoarse.
He knew from the stunned silence that his reaction did not make Kirishima feel any less stressed about things, but he didn’t have the energy to care at the moment.
“You… you sure you’re good, man?” Kirishima asked, doubtfully.
With limited options, Katsuki just hung up. He dropped his phone in his lap and put his head in his hands. Almost immediately, his chest contracted with a sob that was quickly followed by others. They racked his torso almost painfully as he tried and failed to keep them at bay.
Miserably, he again watered the flowers growing in his diseased lungs.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
part 2
I'll pretend it's fine
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
As Katsuki sat on the massive L-shaped couch in Jirou’s living room, he fought off intense feelings of irritation.
For one thing, he was exhausted. He’d been exhausted for days, and it was undeniably contributing to his irritability. Not to mention that he would often catch himself feeling lightheaded and realize he was short of breath. It was impossible to know how much of it was psychosomatic and how much of it was physical. He didn’t know if it mattered anyways. At the end of the day, this shit sucked, he couldn’t breathe, and he was so damn tired.
For another thing, he was sitting here, surrounded by many of his loudest friends, very much not playing any damn instruments.
“I thought this was a band practice,” he’d grumbled when he was first met with the unwelcome sight of all the people in Jirou’s living room.
Even his very real disappointment was hitting more intensely than usual. So what if he’d been looking forward to it? Things were shit these days. He just wanted to turn off his brain and slam on the drums for a while.
“Sorry, Bakugou. I… well, Kaminari let it slip to the others and then it got turned into game night,” Jirou had offered in explanation.
Katsuki found this to be a massive issue.
It felt like his entire life had again been thrown off course, and he didn’t know how to pivot and deal with this new situation. Even if rationally he knew this change of plans shouldn’t be a big deal, he couldn’t stop his frustration from souring his mood.
There was also the major issue of the fact that he was dying, and he still hadn’t told any of his friends. He definitely wouldn’t have shown up if he’d known it was going to be social hour rather than band practice.
It was now the Friday after his first doctor’s appointment. He was going to his parents’ place for lunch tomorrow, where he intended to tell them about his diagnosis. He’d intended on telling them first, then his friends.
That was a great plan, except that now he was surrounded by his friends, and none of them knew. They were all as energetic and loud as usual. Everyone’s lives were going on as normal. Everyone else was so happy to catch up and play board games or whatever the fuck.
Honestly, he would’ve left already if it weren’t for the fact that he felt strangely rooted to the spot. Even as he knew how bad of an idea this was, he couldn’t just get up and leave.
He wasn’t entirely sure why. He’d never had a problem leaving before.
“Ha HA!” Kaminari slammed a box down on the coffee table triumphantly. “Found it! I knew I’d left this here a while back.”
Katsuki glanced down at the box, narrowing his eyes.
TABOO
“What are we, twelve?” he drawled. “Lame.”
Katsuki couldn’t get up and leave, and he felt like he was playacting in his own skin. There was a degree of separation between him and the world around him that was hard to explain or fully put his finger on. Like he was playing a video game that he’d played a thousand times. He knew what to do and what to say but felt very little of the emotion that should go along with it. Maybe it was his intense exhaustion, but everything felt a touch surreal.
He felt so strange, and yet it all came so easily. He fell into an old routine, an old attitude, and old habits with an ease that would’ve been unsettling if he’d allowed himself to think about it for too long.
Though everything he did felt emptier than usual and inauthentic to Katsuki himself, none of his friends questioned him or called him out on it. So, he just continued to sit there and act out his usual role.
“Come on, man!” said Kirishima excitedly where he sat on Katsuki’s left, right at the end of the couch. “It’ll be fun!”
“How should we decide teams?” Sero asked. He sat on Katsuki’s right.
The gathering had the other band members of course—Yaomomo and Tokoyami also sat along the couch on Sero’s other side. Katsuki glanced at them mournfully, wishing that Kaminari knew how to keep his damn mouth shut.
The remaining party crashers were Todoroki, Uraraka, and…
Izuku.
In Katsuki’s strange state of removal from his environment, at least half of his current irritation was simply due to the fact that Izuku was here.
There was a foreign dichotomy taking place in Katsuki’s fatigued brain. There was the usual urge to be near Izuku that he’d never really paid much attention to until the last few weeks. And then there was the newly formed urge to get the fuck away.
Katsuki didn’t want to get away out of fear. The feeling was born of something else. It was like his brain still hadn’t finished putting everything back together from that night three weeks ago when Katsuki’s worldview had been smashed to pieces.
Izuku, sitting across from him on the couch, chatting happily with Uraraka and Todoroki.
Izuku, completely normal and happy as Katsuki’s life fell apart right next to him.
It was like Katsuki’s brain still couldn’t fully compute the truth.
Katsuki had been living in this delusion carried over from childhood where Izuku and he were closer to each other than anyone else. A delusion that he had solidly lived in and drawn strength and motivation from for years.
A delusion that would’ve had him convinced that even with all Katsuki’s faults—his issues expressing himself and his defenses and his anger—that Izuku would’ve still noticed how badly he was hurting.
Seeing Izuku like this while he himself was doing so poorly was almost headache-inducing, like it was forcing his mind to try and process this new reality faster than it was ready to do so.
Instinct told him that Izuku would notice and care and be there for him. Reality told him Izuku didn’t notice and would care because Izuku cared about everyone. Reality told him he wasn’t special to Izuku.
They’d grown apart. Izuku was busy.
He’ll be okay. Katsuki’s thoughts echoed his musings from after his appointment.
This time, the thought that Izuku would so easily move on after his death didn’t bring him comfort. Seeing Izuku, so smiley and normal like always was entirely unsurprising, but it still made Katsuki feel a bit ill all the same.
It was highly unfortunate that, even though he wasn’t sat next to Izuku, it was like his mind put a spotlight on him. Even when Katsuki wasn’t looking in his direction, he was so aware of his presence. He automatically picked out Izuku’s voice and laugh out of all the others.
How long had it been like this?
Had it always been like this?
Had he always been so goddamn aware of Izuku?
He probably hadn’t noticed before, because it had just felt normal and natural. He probably hadn’t noticed, because he was usually sitting right next to Izuku at any of these gatherings.
Katsuki’s eyes trailed over to the spot next to Izuku. He usually sat there… where Uraraka now sat.
He felt his stomach turn nauseatingly, and he looked away. He clenched his teeth until they ached as he felt heat creeping up his neck. Even though no one was paying attention to him, he felt miserably watched and embarrassed.
What the hell was he doing?
He really had the nerve to be jealous of Uraraka as if he’d ever been in the goddamn running.
It was humiliating and unbearable and—
Katsuki nearly jolted when he glanced back up and locked eyes with Izuku. He watched as Izuku brightened, a shine in his eyes as he shot to his feet.
Then, Katsuki realized that a bunch of his friends were moving around, standing up and crossing to different parts of the couch. He’d been fully not paying attention, though he hardly cared enough to ask what was happening.
He sighed and rubbed at his eyes. He was really fucking tired. His eyelids felt heavy, and the general chatter of his friends was all bleeding together into a racket that grated on his ears.
“Kacchan!”
Katsuki nearly startled again when Izuku’s voice cut through his hazy mind, head jerking to the side to see that Izuku had sat down next to him—on his right where Sero had just been. For a moment, Katsuki could only stare at him, wondering why the hell he was so close.
A feeling of utter dismay began to overtake him when he realized that he hadn’t been so close to Izuku in weeks.
Izuku—with his work clothes but a removed tie and his hair parted but a bit messy and sticking up here and there. For half of an absolutely terrible second, Katsuki realized that he could smell Izuku; some combination of the laundry detergent he used and his soap and everything that just spelled out something that his brain recognized on a subconscious level as distinctly Izuku.
Katsuki was dismayed at the realization that there was still a longing to be even closer. There was a desire, a comfort, a familiarity that was consuming him now that all his senses had recognized Izuku’s presence and proximity.
Katsuki’s gut churned uneasily, but his thoughts were cut off when Izuku continued talking.
“We’ve got this,” said Izuku, grinning at Katsuki with a look that broke through Katsuki’s surreal haze to make his heart stutter.
His green eyes were alight with that determination and competitiveness that Katsuki had grown to crave seeing over the years. They practically blazed as Izuku’s hand curled into a fist held aloft in front of himself.
Katsuki’s heartrate picked up. For a moment, he couldn’t breathe.
“Hah?” he said.
Very intelligently, of course.
Izuku’s face fell slightly as confusion started to take over his features.
“Uh… we’re on the same team,” Izuku explained, gesturing around to where their noisy friends were still getting situated around the coffee table—piled on the couch with a few people sat on the floor. “I was just saying… well, I was just saying that we’re going to win.”
For a few short beats, Katsuki’s hazy brain struggled to bring itself into the present. It seemed that at least half of his brain power was devoted to just dealing with Izuku’s presence.
He glanced around, his eyes zoned in on the table with the game sitting on it, and his friends who’d divided into two teams.
Strange… he felt so strange.
He was exhausted.
He was dying.
Nothing was okay.
But he was still rooted to the spot, and he found it disturbingly easy to continue to playact. He found it simple enough to speak and act out of habit rather than allow himself to be driven by the mess of emotions going on inside himself currently.
He turned back to Izuku, scoffing slightly and offering a knowing smirk back at him. It was halfhearted, and probably looked at least a little bit tired, but since no one seemed inclined to call him out on any of this shit, the show would go on.
“Against these idiots?” Katsuki said tauntingly. “We’re gonna crush them!”
The volume and tone of his voice drew their friends’ attention.
“Wait, that’s not fair!” Kaminari shot to his feet, pointing at the two of them. “Bakugou and Midoriya can’t be on the same team!”
“Shut up, dunce face!” Katsuki snapped. “I’ll crush you no matter who’s on my team!”
“But you picked the teams?” Izuku said at the same time, in a questioning and openly baffled tone.
“Ughhhh,” Sero groaned. “He’s right though. We should’ve split you two up.”
“HAH?! Stop making excuses and let’s get this shit over with!” Katsuki barked, his irritation spiking easily from where it was trapped just underneath the surface.
“But you two can practically read each other’s minds!” Kaminari wailed in distress.
Katsuki’s face twisted into one of disgusted disbelief, and then he glanced over at Izuku who had the same stupid, shitty smile on his face that he always had these days.
Katsuki honest-to-god laughed. The laughter snuck up on him, bursting out of his mouth so suddenly that he could hardly stop it. In this strange, surreal moment, the assured way in which Kaminari had said something so wrong was just too hilarious for Katsuki’s fractured brain to handle.
Sure, he understood what Kaminari meant. Kaminari was referring to their dynamic. Their familiarity that resulted in knowing what the other was likely to do or the pattern in which they thought. But the idea that Katsuki could read whatever went on in Izuku’s dumb brain was suddenly so goddamn funny. The deeper motivations and intentions of Izuku had always been a mystery to Katsuki.
He might know what Izuku was going to do or say, but he often didn’t know why. He thought he’d gotten better at that over the years, but three weeks ago he’d been shown how severely wrong he was about that.
He didn’t know a goddamn thing that went on in Izuku’s head, and it was literally going to be the death of him.
He laughed so hard that it brought tears to his eyes and made his side hurt. He had no idea how long he laughed for, but he wasn’t sure he could even remember the last time he’d laughed so hard.
Katsuki stopped when he ran out of breath, wiping his eyes on his shirt. The amusement felt light in his chest, even if a bit off and out of place. There was a small, amused grin still on his face when he looked up and made eye contact with Izuku.
Izuku was staring at him. He was clearly puzzled, but there was a small smile on his face too that was almost fond.
It made Katsuki want to throat punch him.
He looked away quickly as heat started to creep up his neck, only to see everyone else was looking at him too. They all had various confused and perturbed expressions.
Defensive anger quickly surged up inside him.
“The fuck are you idiots looking at?!” Katsuki shouted. “It was just fucking hilarious how upset he sounded about it! Show’s over, assholes!”
“Right!” Kirishima said, clapping his hands together and officially breaking through the weird energy that had settled in the room. “Let’s do this!”
─────
Their fears had been warranted, of course. Katsuki and Izuku were a lethal team. Though they were technically on a team with other people, they hardly needed it.
One person on the team would stand and grab a card with a word on it. They would need to get their team to guess the word without saying the word or any of the words listed underneath.
When Izuku was up, it was too easy.
“Uh… have it in the mornings,” Izuku said, then pointed at Katsuki. “You hate—”
“Coffee.”
“Uh… bathroom thing. You always need new ones because you’re so aggressive—”
“Toothbrush.”
“You failed this part of the provisional—”
“Rescue,” Katsuki deadpanned. “Fuck you.”
“My limited addition All Might Christmas Album—”
“CD?”
“Yes! Uh… Oh! You always turned in class to throw—”
“Paper.”
“Green,” he pointed at himself, then at Katsuki.
“Orange.”
“In Otheon I was wanted for?”
“Murder.”
“Ooh! Yours was in front of mine in—”
“Desk.”
They flowed seamlessly, and it really did make it seem like they could read each other’s minds.
“You guys aren’t supposed to just talk to each other,” Sero complained loudly after Izuku’s turn was up.
“Says who?!” Katsuki barked, glaring at him.
The same was the case when it was Katsuki’s turn.
“Spider-Man’s from—”
“New York!”
“Your damn All Might nameplate.”
“Uh… custom?”
“I have one but most of you bums—”
“A license!”
Katsuki grabbed the next card but did a double take and froze.
BLOSSOM
FLOWER
BUD
SPRING
PLANT
TREE
Katsuki felt like he’d been slapped hard across the face, startling him out of a daydream. He gaped down at it as if his brain had short-circuited.
Thump. Thump. Thump.
“Kacchan?”
Katsuki stared. His heart was pounding wildly in his chest. The sounds and movements of his friends started to swim and blend together around him; his mind was somehow simultaneously blank and buzzing with too many thoughts at once.
He felt like he’d been yanked so solidly off course that he struggled to regain his balance. He didn’t know how to fall back in step and continue to playact like he was just doing. He could only stare down at the words.
“Oi, Bakugou, you good?”
His friends were talking all around him.
“Bro, what’s up? You gotta say something for us to guess man!”
They were all looking at him.
“Time’s almost up!”
Those disgusting petals, floating in his own bodily fluids in a nasty public toilet flashed through his mind.
Thump. Thump. Thump.
He was dying, remember?
He was dying, and here he was, acting as if anything was normal.
“Kacchan?”
Katsuki felt strangely out of breath, but didn’t even have the brain power to make himself breathe any faster or deeper to try and fix that.
“Describe it, man, come on!”
He looked up slowly, feeling like he was underwater. Almost instantly, he locked eyes with Izuku, who was looking at him intently. There was a concerned furrow to his brow. His piercing green eyes were trained on him with their full analytical power.
Katsuki suddenly felt quite nauseous.
“I need a new card,” he finally managed to mumble out, turning down to look at the pile.
“Uh, that’s not how the game works, dude,” Sero protested, annoyed.
“What’s the card?” someone asked. Katsuki didn’t know who.
He leaned down to put the card back, and there was a distant sort of horror that began to strangle him when he saw how visibly his hand shook.
Sero yanked the box away. “Dude! You can’t just pick a new card!”
“I’ve gotta put this one away!” Katsuki snapped back sharply.
“That’s not how the game works!”
“I don’t care!” Katsuki spat back at him as rage unfitting of the situation started to overtake him.
“What’s the card? Lemme see—” Kaminari was leaning across the table and holding out his hand.
“Hey, uh, maybe we should—” Izuku started to say, his tone slightly nervous.
“Let me put it back!” Katsuki shouted loud enough to thunder over all the other voices. His goddamn ears were ringing. “I said I’m not doing this fucking card!”
He barely comprehended the alarmed look on Sero’s face.
Someone brushed Katsuki’s arm, and he lurched away from them. He jerked his head over, furious glare finding Kirishima, who’d moved closer. His movements were all unsteady and reactive. His eyes were a bit wild, like he was a spooked animal.
“Sorry, bro,” Kirishima’s hands were up in a placating gesture. His wide eyes were surprised and perplexed. “Just wanted to see the card.”
“It doesn’t matter!”
Katsuki’s head spun. He couldn’t think and there was too much happening and he was feeling too much and the card was burning his hand. Their faces all blended together in his vision—every variation of exasperated and confused—as they all talked at him.
Again, his eyes caught on Izuku, who didn’t look annoyed or frustrated at all. He just looked increasingly worried and puzzled.
“Clearly it does if it’s that big a deal, man,” Sero said warily.
Katsuki felt the nausea surge in his gut.
It was a card.
A goddamn card with the word blossom on it.
He was a goddamn child.
Why the hell was he freaking out over this right now?
What the hell was wrong with him?
He knew was acting like a child, but no amount of berating himself was actually helping him get any of his shit under control.
Katsuki clenched his hand into a fist, crumpling the card.
“Ah, dude! My card!” Kaminari shrieked.
“What sort of offensive word could they have put to have Bakugou losing his shit over it?” someone wondered aloud.
“Let’s see it!” someone else asked.
Katsuki exploded the card in his hand.
His friends all startled, going silent and gaping at him for a moment.
“DUDE! MY CARD!” Kaminari wailed, hands flying to his hair.
“I’ll buy you a brand new fuckin’ deck,” Katsuki snapped at him, before twisting his face into a deep glower to cover up whatever the hell else was happening in his brain and turning to stride out of the room. “I gotta piss.”
He stomped off with the charred remains of the card still in his hand, ignoring the protests called after him.
Why did it have to be a big deal?
Why did all this have to be a big deal?
Why did he have to freak out over something so tiny and insignificant?
He slammed open the bathroom door, shutting it behind himself and locking it. He dropped the charred and very unreadable remains of the card into the trash can near the toilet.
Thump. Thump. Thump.
With the noise of his friends faded, Katsuki became far more aware of the frantic beating of his own heart.
He gripped the edge of the sink, rocking his weight forward to lean on his hands. He looked at himself in the mirror. Mostly, he looked relatively normal, though he had darker bags under his eyes to show off his poor sleep as of late. Even considering his usual complexion, he did look especially pale.
In an effort to lessen his lightheadedness, Katsuki turned his attention to his breathing. He tried to focus on only inhaling and exhaling. He needed to get his fucking act together and get the hell out of here.
Why did he stay when he found out it wasn’t a band practice? He could’ve stormed out without anyone batting an eye. It hardly would’ve been the first time.
Katsuki tried to breathe, but he couldn’t fucking breathe.
There was something growing in his lungs, after all.
Slowly taking over.
Thump. Thump. Thump.
Katsuki breathed in, and he could’ve sworn he could feel the rustling of the poisonous plant in his lungs. Revulsion stirred within him, and his hands tightened around the edges of the sink.
Thump. Thump. Thump.
He tried to clear his mind. He tried to focus on nothing but breathing in and breathing out.
Thump. Thump. Thump.
His eyes widened as his focus was drawn to his heart slamming against his ribcage.
“Fuck…” he muttered, moving one of his hands from the sink to grip over his heart.
Thump. Thump. Thump.
His heart felt like it was going to beat right out of his fucking chest. It thumped uncomfortably hard, but also—
“’S too fast,” he gasped, his grip tightening on his shirt as his hand trembled. “Fuck… too fast.”
“If your Hanahaki decides to grow out of your lungs… You have a higher risk of heart rhythm problems and heart failure.”
“Shit,” Katsuki gasped out as his mind whited out with utter panic.
He stumbled back, clutching both hands over his shirt.
He couldn’t breathe. He couldn’t fucking breathe.
It was like there was no oxygen in the room.
His shitty lungs weren’t working.
Thump. Thump. Thump. Thump. Thump. Thump.
“No,” Katsuki gasped out, barely registering his own horrified, blanched face in the mirror as he stumbled back until his back slammed against the door.
He felt frantic, desperate, terrified.
He wasn’t ready.
He wasn’t ready.
He slid down to sit on the floor.
He hadn’t told anyone—
Tomorrow, he was going to—
No one knew yet.
He couldn’t—
“Bakugou?” Kirishima’s muffled voice cut through the fog that was suffocating Katsuki; he was on the other side of the door.
Katsuki was gasping for air, clutching his heart.
He needed to tell them to call an ambulance.
He needed—
His head was spinning.
Thump. Thump. Thump. Thump. Thump. Thump. Thump. Thump. Thump.
His heart was going to give out.
The doorknob next to his head jostled.
“Bakugou, unlock the door!” Kirishima ordered.
Katsuki’s vision was all hazy.
His heart.
Shit.
His heart…
Had the Hanahaki grown out of his lungs?
“Your heart makes your timeline very uncertain at best and very short at worst.”
He was dying. He would die right fucking now if he didn’t move.
He scrambled to unlock the door. His hands shook badly and everything looked hazy, so it took twice as long. No energy left for anything else, he shoved himself aside—still on the floor—so they could open the door.
“Shit!” Kirishima was suddenly taking up the entirety of his vision, clutching his shoulders firmly. “Bakugou, look at me! You’re okay!”
“No,” Katsuki gasped out.
His entire body was heaving with his quick, short breaths.
“Breathe, man!” Kirishima’s hands tightened where they gripped his shoulders.
“My h-heart,” Katsuki wheezed out, frantically grappling at one of Kirishima’s arms with the hand that wasn’t clutching his heart.
“Your heart’s fine,” Kirishima said firmly. “Remember?! Doc said you were okay!”
Katsuki’s panic and lack of oxygen was making him feel faint.
No, no, no.
Kirishima was wrong.
He didn’t know.
He didn’t know.
“Medics,” Katsuki managed to spit out. “Hospital.”
“It’s just a panic attack, remember?” Kirishima said vigorously. “Bakugou, look at me! Breathe!”
“N-no!” Katsuki gasped out, a new horror filling him. “My heart…”
“Dammit—Jirou!”
He was going to die because Kirishima didn’t know.
Kirishima thought this was one of his stupid fucking panic attacks that he’d occasionally have in the years after he was resuscitated. The times when he’d get intense heart palpitations and then become convinced that his heart was going to give out.
Kirishima didn’t know that Katsuki was actually dying this time.
Kirishima didn’t know about the Hanahaki growing towards his heart.
“Bakugou, I can hear your heart.”
Katsuki’s blurry eyes couldn’t focus entirely, but he realized Jirou had arrived at some point. He wasn’t sure where her earphone jack was, but he’d known her long enough to know with certainty that she could hear his heart and breathing with perfect clarity.
“Your heart’s a little fast, but well within normal range,” she was saying, firm but loud. “It’s steady and strong. You’re okay. Your heart’s fine, Bakugou.”
Katsuki stared in her direction, entire chest still heaving with each short, shallow breath.
Was she lying?
Why would she lie?
“Come on, man,” Kirishima’s grip flexed on his shoulders again. “Your heart’s fine. You need to breathe. Count ‘em out.”
“No, Kirishima—” he looked at him wildly, begging him to understand.
The word Hanahaki was on the tip of his tongue.
“Jirou said your heart’s fine!” Kirishima cut him off vehemently. “Either way, you gotta breathe, man!”
“I—”
“Count ‘em out, Bakugou! Come on!” Kirishima’s voice was louder, more strained as his worry fed his frustration.
Katsuki realized that Kirishima was tapping the fingers of one of his hands on his shoulder rhythmically. Old instinct had him latching onto it, counting the taps as he inhaled.
He inhaled, counting out the seconds.
He held his breath, counting.
He exhaled, counting.
He didn’t know how long he sat there, feeling Kirishima tapping his fingers on his shoulder. At some point his eyes had fallen shut, and he realized from the itchiness of his cheeks and the slight puffy feeling in his eyes that he’d been crying.
Eventually, he slumped against the wall. A heavy exhaustion had settled over him like a weighted blanket.
When his breathing was slowed enough, he cracked open his eyes and weakly shoved at Kirishima’s arms.
“You good?” asked Kirishima quietly as he pulled his arms back.
Katsuki glanced around, seeing Kirishima sitting on the floor across from him with Jirou next to him. She was sat back to give him space, but her earphone jack was still pressed to the wall.
“You hear anything?” he grumbled lowly, narrowing his eyes at her.
“No, your heart sounds great,” she said. “A little fast still, but good.”
He didn’t have the energy to direct a full glare at her, but he did his best. She could hear well. She could probably hear the goddamn Hanahaki in his lungs every time he inhaled.
“You fuckin’ sure about that?” he growled.
She raised her eyebrows slightly in surprise at his reaction. “Yes. Your heart sounds good.”
For another moment, he stared, waiting for her to break and tell him that his lungs and heart were actually fucked. Then he looked away, head falling back against the wall behind him.
He had to go to the cardiologist on Tuesday anyways.
Movement in his peripheral caught his eye, and he looked at the open doorway. Izuku was standing there, holding a cup. He was looking down at Katsuki with those goddamn concerned and watchful eyes.
The flare of defensive fury inside of Katsuki felt strange and childish, but there wasn’t anything he could do about it. It had been years since he’d interpreted Izuku’s kindness as being condescending. He knew Izuku wasn’t out to lord his self-proclaimed superiority over anyone.
And yet, Katsuki felt the reactive urge to snap at him to get the fuck out.
He also felt humiliated, even if everyone present had seen him have a panic attack at least once back in high school.
“Here, Kacchan,” Izuku crouched down reaching out to hand him the cup. “I brought—”
“Don’ wan’ it,” Katsuki gritted out.
“But Kacchan—”
Katsuki ignored him, expending his remaining energy to start to move his lethargic body.
“What’re you doing, man?” asked Kirishima warily.
“Kacchan, wait, just sit for a moment!”
Katsuki ignored them, reaching a hand to wrap around the edge of the sink and pushing his other hand to the floor to help shove himself upward. Despite his friends’ cries and protests, he continued to get to his feet unsteadily. Stars danced before his vision, nearly completely clouding it over. His limbs felt about a thousand times heavier than normal—as if they’d been wrapped in lead.
He swayed dangerously, and suddenly all his friends were in front of him, panicked faces with wide eyes.
“Bakugou!”
“Kacchan, don’t!”
“Careful!”
Each inhale and exhale still took massive amounts of brain power and energy. Katsuki felt like he could fall asleep or pass out at any second, but his need to get out of the bathroom was overwhelming; it suddenly felt much too small and crowded. He could hardly think. He was feeling too much and he was too tired and he was dying.
He said obstinately, “I’m goin’ home.”
“Bakugou, you need to sit down for a sec,” Kirishima ordered earnestly.
“Don’t tell me what to do!” Katsuki snapped, shoving back against the wall to get away from the hands grabbing at him.
“Kacchan, careful!” Izuku lurched slightly in his direction, eyes wide with alarm.
“Shut up, shitty nerd!” Katsuki tried to shout, but his voice came out as a weak rasp. He was still heaving in big, exaggerated breaths. “I’m going the fuck home!”
“Alright, alright, just chill, man,” Kirishima said.
Katsuki swung his head to glare at him viciously. Defiantly, he took a step towards the door.
“Kacchan!” Izuku’s wide, worried green eyes took up his entire vision.
Izuku’s voice from a distant childhood memory echoed in his brain, “Wait, Kacchan! Kacchan!”
“Move,” Katsuki ordered in his still strained, but undoubtedly furious voice.
“Bakugou—” Kirishima started.
“You should sit for another few—” Izuku said at the same time.
“I said move!” Katsuki half-shouted, hand braced on the wall for balance.
“No, Kacchan, just let me—”
Katsuki swayed dangerously. Izuku reacted, reaching out to steady him.
An old, deep repulsion flared to life inside Katsuki as Izuku reached for him.
Rationally, he knew Izuku wasn’t looking down on him or pitying him. If he’d had the energy to think it through, he would’ve come to that conclusion, anyways.
But he didn’t think it through, and when Izuku reached for him, it felt the same as it had all those years ago. It felt like Izuku’s hand, reaching out to him when they were children. Offering Katsuki help because he was weak and Izuku was strong and clearly Katsuki was someone who needed help when he fell.
Izuku’s hand reached for him, and the feeling of repulsion was so strong that, for a moment, it was all Katsuki could feel. He felt sick and desperate with the need to get away.
Despite the years he’d spent regretting not taking Izuku’s hand back then, history repeated itself.
“Don’t fucking touch me,” Katsuki hissed viciously as he slapped Izuku’s hand away, unintentionally pushing himself back into the sink when he lost his balance a bit.
He only briefly glimpsed Izuku’s wide eyes and furrowed brow—genuine shock and confusion and concern—before he shoved forwards. He slammed into Izuku’s shoulder hard as he went past—which admittedly wasn’t intentional at all.
Katsuki made it to Jirou’s front door before he had to pivot to take a seat on the bench she had there. His vision was nearly completely clouded over. His ears were ringing. It was a goddamn miracle he was still conscious.
“I’ll drive you home, man,” Kirishima’s voice came from right in front of him.
Katsuki’s vision cleared a bit. Enough to see Kirishima putting on his shoes.
“I’m headed home anyways,” Kirishima continued.
Katsuki glanced at him and then down the hall. There was no sight of Jirou… or Izuku.
A heavy feeling of remorse was already growing inside him as he belatedly comprehended his own actions, but Katsuki let it sink down with all the rest of his misery. It would have to wait its turn.
He looked back at Kirishima, who was staring at him with an unnervingly blank expression.
“Fine.”
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
part 3
the roots dig too deep
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
When Katsuki woke up the next morning, he felt like shit.
In fact, it’d been years since he’d felt this immensely shitty.
For a moment, he just thought it was some fucked up symptoms left over from his panic attack. But then he realized he couldn’t breathe through his nose, his throat hurt when he swallowed, and his exhaustion was reaching record highs.
He stared blankly at the ceiling as he slowly woke up.
Had he seriously… caught a fucking cold?
On top of everything else, it just felt like an unnecessary, cruel taunt. The universe was laughing at him these days, kicking him when he was already down.
Just seeing how much he could take before he broke, huh?
After expending everything he had and more—Plus fucking Ultra—just to get up and go to the bathroom, Katsuki realized with a heavy sense of defeat that he’d have to cancel lunch with his parents.
He fell back into bed after shooting them a text, allowing himself the luxury of just letting his eyes drift shut again.
─────
The following days were rough, to say the least.
Katsuki dragged himself to an urgent care on Monday when he hadn’t felt any better out of concern that it was related to Hanahaki.
The answer was yes and no.
Because he had Hanahaki disease, his body had “acquired immune deficiency” which meant that the disease was weakening his immune system. The original reason that he was sick was that he’d caught a virus, but the extent of his symptoms was worsened by the disease.
He’d felt like slamming his head repeatedly into a wall when they told him that. Dr. Ito had briefly mentioned his immune system, but he’d barely comprehended it. It’d been sandwiched in with about a hundred other bits of terrible news.
Absolutely wonderful.
Fucking fantastic.
On top of everything else, he was immunocompromised.
After the urgent care, he’d dragged himself back home and just fell back asleep immediately.
Katsuki couldn’t remember the last time he’d felt so sick. His limbs felt achy and ten times heavier than normal. He closed his eyes and woke up feeling no less tired than when he went to bed. His congestion never seemed to lessen no matter how often he blew his goddamn nose.
The worst of it was his lungs and throat, which was entirely unsurprising. He coughed so thoroughly and so often that his lungs and throat hurt perpetually. Most of the time, his coughs were the usual gross cold coughs.
Every once in a while, he felt something get stuck in his throat and he’d have to cough until his tongue tasted of metal. A few of the times, the sight of his own blood and the occasional petal made him nauseous enough to vomit.
Katsuki could do little more than sleep for days. He ate the bare minimum, took his meds, drank water, and numbly answered his texts. Even taking his medication and eating was a task that required every single ounce of strength and motivation in his body.
The timing of the cold was so shit, because he still, still hadn’t told anyone about his Hanahaki diagnosis.
His dreams—either from the cold or the cough medicine—were twisted and vivid. They taunted him with visions of cherry blossoms and blood.
Sometimes he stood in a groveyard alone.
Sometimes he wasn’t alone, but no one seemed to be able to hear him.
Sometimes, someone was laughing at how foolish and arrogant he was.
Often, it was Izuku.
Lying around in bed or on his couch only made Katsuki feel far worse about it all. He was too exhausted to do much else, so he was trapped with his own thoughts. There were multiple times where he thought that he might go mad before he was well again.
His isolation combined with mental and physical agony drove him to a point where he almost just called his parents and told them everything. When Kirishima had called to check on him halfway through the week, he’d almost caved then too.
But he hadn’t been able to go through with it. He still wanted to tell everyone in person.
─────
By the following Thursday, Katsuki felt slightly less like death warmed over.
He was still exhausted, still coughing here and there, and still somewhat congested. But he could get out of bed and actually stay upright without feeling like he was going to collapse at any moment. His voice still sounded strained and off as a lasting part of being sick.
Even so… today was not a good day.
Katsuki found himself lying on his couch, staring blankly at the ceiling. He’d been doing that a lot recently. It was like his brain was a bit too fuzzy to do much else. At some point in the week, everything that was plaguing him and the sickness and exhaustion had built up until he was consumed by it. There was a numbness that was almost suffocating that surrounded him at all times; if he let himself think about it for too long, he’d lose his fucking mind.
He’d also gone to see Dr. Ito earlier this morning.
She’d said that he was nearly in the second stage already. A month into having it.
She’d also explained that the stages were based on the symptoms in the lungs and were not created equal, though that’d hardly provided him much comfort.
“The stages are meant to correlate to easily definable signs for patients, but they’re not all the same length. Your lungs aren’t used to there being anything else in there—so coughing and vomiting usually shows up within weeks of developing Hanahaki. ‘Stage 2’ sounds intense, but you will likely be in Stage 2 for quite a bit longer than Stage 1.”
“And my heart?”
She hadn’t liked that he’d had to cancel his cardiologist appointment earlier that week. Of course, she understood that he was sick but ensured that he had another one scheduled to make up for it.
“Your heart is still a concern. Once the data from your heart monitor is in, we can discuss further. We’ll keep a close eye on it.”
Now, he was scheduled to go see the cardiologist Monday morning.
So… today was not great.
But when the hell had things been great recently?
When had they even felt okay?
Katsuki was lying down on his couch, his hands folded together and resting on his stomach. His gut churned and tied itself in knots, and Katsuki couldn’t make himself get up just yet.
He’d rescheduled his lunch with his parents for this Saturday. In two days, he would have to tell his parents that he was dying. Even though it was supposed to have happened days ago, he felt no more prepared than he had then.
Katsuki was overwhelmed and sick. So, it was a no-brainer to cancel on the Class 1-A reunion planned for tonight. Several of his friends already knew he was sick, so he was sure it would hardly come as a surprise.
Currently, his plan was to order dinner, watch some random shit on TV, and make himself stay awake until 6pm at the earliest. Though at the moment, he was just lying here, trying to gather the motivation to get up, feeling strangely distant from all his problems even as his stomach churned.
It was weird. Like his body was reacting to an anxiety that he couldn’t consciously feel or put his finger on.
KNOCK. KNOCK.
Katsuki slowly tilted his head to look in the direction of his front door, squinting slightly at it.
Who the fuck…
Katsuki had no idea who it was, and he had very little desire to find out.
In the last few days, he’d generally slacked off on everything but the bare necessities of hygiene. His lips and skin were dry. His hair was unwashed, and he was wearing his rattiest sweatpants and baggiest t-shirt. He probably looked awful; he certainly felt awful.
This morning, he’d used the fact that he was wearing a mask to his appointment as an excuse to skip out on shaving entirely. This decision meant that the stubble on his face was more obvious than it’d been in years. He normally preferred a clean-shaven look, but he hadn’t been able to justify expending valuable energy.
Nothing about his routine had been easy to upkeep over the last week. He’d hardy managed the most basic of his needs. At the moment, he likely rivaled even Aizawa-sensei himself in scruffy and exhausted appearance.
His apartment, which he usually took great care to keep tidy, was in dire need of cleaning. He’d gotten behind on dishes, and the floor needed a good sweep. His bedroom was a mess he didn’t want to think about, though it was unlikely that anyone would be going in there anyways.
Basically… he was not prepared to host anyone or really even see anyone.
KNOCK. KNOCK.
Katsuki huffed out a frustrated sigh, shoving himself into a sitting position. His body protested the entire way. As he got to his feet and made his way over to the door—annoyed at the lingering light headedness from his illness—he felt his irritation growing.
Most likely, this was one of his dumbass friends coming to check on him because he’d cancelled.
The nearly constant physical and mental misery of the last few days left him in a strange state of mind. He felt a bit out of it and more than a little waspish. Human interaction was unlikely to be a good idea with how short he could feel his temper currently was.
Slouching with his hands in his pockets, he leaned forward to look out the peephole.
Izuku.
He sucked in a sharp breath in surprise.
What the hell?
On the other side, Izuku’s distinct green-haired head and wide green eyes were unmistakable even with the fish-eyed distortion of the peep hole.
For a long moment, Katsuki was frozen. It was like he was actively being pulled in two directions, and it left him stuck in place.
There was the foremost desire to be left alone. Katsuki looked and felt disgusting, he was tired, and he didn’t want to have to deal with anyone’s concern. He knew that his irritability was at an all-time high, and that he felt off from some combination of the virus he’d caught and his general mental state.
Not only that, but he was well aware of the strange, contradicting feelings that Izuku’s presence had invoked in him the last few times they’d been near each other.
But there was also an urge that came more from instinct than rationality; a desire born more from familiarity and habit than from logic. His chest had a strange and empty ache that made him have to consciously focus on breathing.
If he didn’t answer, Izuku would go away eventually. Unless he thought that Katsuki was hurt or dead—which Katsuki assumed wasn’t the case if he was knocking so politely—he would respect Katsuki’s boundaries.
Thump. Thump. Thump.
Katsuki’s heart had started to race, and he could feel his pulse in his throat. This, at least, was normal. His heart wasn’t failing. It was just Izuku’s presence.
Izuku…
Katsuki felt a thousand things that he could never hope to define. He felt a bit sick, a bit uneasy, a bit angry. He felt an urge to run.
And yet…
Katsuki put his hand on the doorknob.
It was a years-old instinct, to seek out Izuku. For all their complications in the past, Katsuki had always sought out Izuku in his vulnerable moments. There was a familiarity there that was forged from time and proximity.
He’d always been so certain that Izuku understood him. Even though things between them were complicated, there was a certain degree of comfort that came from being sure that Izuku would know him best.
Katsuki felt a brief stabbing pain through his chest when he remembered that they weren’t actually as close as he’d let himself think. That there were two options: that Izuku had realized how much things meant to Katsuki when he turned him down a month ago and simply didn’t care, or he hadn’t realized how much it had meant to Katsuki.
Neither option was great.
Still, he felt drawn to him. He felt a desire for that comfort that came from familiarity. Even if things weren’t the way Katsuki had thought, Izuku was still reliably predictable in most ways, and he still understood him better than anyone else ever had.
Even if this time he couldn’t let everything off his chest for Izuku to witness or punch Izuku until he ran out of steam, he still tightened his hand around the doorknob.
He realized with a small tug of his heart, that the isolation was getting to him a bit.
KNOCK. KNOCK. KNOCK.
Katsuki wasn’t stupid; he recognized what was happening. He was overwhelmed but this wasn’t—this couldn’t—be like Ground Beta where he cracked under the weight of all his emotions.
He was drawn to Izuku because he was drowning in his emotions and losing his mind and Izuku knew him.
Izuku knew him, but not as well as he’d thought.
Rationally, he recognized that this was probably a bad idea.
Izuku would care, because he cared about everyone, but he would never care about Katsuki as much as he wanted him to.
He would never be desired by Izuku in the way that he’d really, really hoped that he was.
Izuku would never need him in the same way that he needed Izuku.
With a miserable, self-deprecating jolt of horror, Katsuki realized that he didn’t care at the moment. He didn’t care, because even if they weren’t as close as he’d allowed himself to think, Izuku still knew him.
Katsuki realized with a painful twist of his gut that he still trusted Izuku to try and pull him out of where he was drowning. As he felt well on his way to losing his mind, he still trusted Izuku to find him every time.
Goddammit.
Katsuki kept the chain on his door but unlocked it and pulled it open; he kept his hand on the doorknob and the entirety of himself hidden behind the door like the coward he apparently was now.
“Persistent bastard,” he gritted out. “The hell do you want, nerd?”
He could hear it in his own voice—how raspy and horrible he sounded from the nearly week-long cough.
“Kacchan! Hi!” Izuku piped up, voice high and light with surprise and utter elation. “I just wanted to check on you, because you cancelled.”
“I’ve just got a damn virus,” Katsuki grumbled.
“Right, but I thought you were feeling better?”
“How the hell would you know?” Katsuki scowled, even though Izuku couldn’t see him.
“Uh, well you’ve been sick for a while, haven’t you?” Izuku replied. “Your agency said you’ve been out, but then the other day Kirishima said you were feeling better than before, so—”
Katsuki scoffed.
Right. Izuku was a damn nerd.
Unsurprising, expected, predictable.
“Stop stalking me!” he snapped back, but it lacked any real heat. “Thought you got over that creepy shit by now.”
A pause, and then Izuku replied, “I… I was just worried, is all. And I know you’re fine, obviously! I just… well… uh…”
There was an undercurrent of anxiety and uncertainty in his tone that was reminiscent of years and years ago.
Why did it feel like their relationship was devolving? Like as Katsuki unraveled, he was dragging them backwards in time and undoing their progress. First, the instinct to slap Izuku away after he panicked last week. And now… how long had it been since Izuku had stuttered at him like this?
Katsuki shut his eyes and breathed air into his poisoned lungs. They felt like they almost rattled, and the urge to cough built up a bit.
“I’m just sick, Izuku,” he replied, slightly terse. “Everyone gets sick.”
“I know, just…” Izuku sounded increasingly anxious and beseeching. “Can you let me in? I brought tea, and I can make soup! I brought ingredients, if you’ll just let me in. You can go back to bed, if that’s where you were. I just… well, everyone else went out to get food and I wanted to make sure you got some. Tonight.”
Katsuki stared at the back of his own door, feeling the deep, exhausted glower settled on his own face.
There was something else in Izuku’s tone. Katsuki was having a hard time placing what it was, but there was a certain desperation to his tone—a slight strain and the occasional waver—that was making Katsuki feel a bit uneasy.
“You’re gonna get sick, idiot.”
“I brought a mask if you want me to wear it,” Izuku replied quickly. “You’ve been sick for a while, too. You’re probably not contagious anymore.”
Was Katsuki really going to do this?
Was he really going to subject himself to an entire evening with Izuku in the state he was in?
The last time he’d seen Izuku… simply the word blossom had sent him spiraling into a panic attack. There was a big chance that this did far more harm than good.
Was he really, in his current state, going to let in the one person who’d always been great at setting him off?
Was he really going to give into his instinct to be closer to Izuku even though he knew how far his instincts had led him astray recently?
“Please, Kacchan,” Izuku spoke again when the silence dragged on for so long. “Even if I get sick… well, I have a good immune system! I won’t be mad at all. I fully accept the risk.”
Katsuki blinked slowly and vacantly at the back of his own door.
“Acquired immune deficiency.”
His heart thudded dully in his chest.
He was so tired.
“I just… well, I haven’t seen you much recently,” Izuku went on, rambling. “I realized that I’ve been so busy. It’s been, uh, well… weeks or maybe months, hasn’t it? Since just you and I hung out. I wanted to see how you were doing.”
With sudden clarity, Katsuki realized the desperation in Izuku’s tone stemmed from guilt. There was a certain downturn to his voice that spelled out I feel bad.
This was the distance between them, Katsuki realized with a hollow ache. The distance between them meant that it took a month for Izuku to get any sense of there being something off with him, even though he was dying.
Rather than feel just humiliation and anger, Katsuki also felt that isolated feeling that he’d felt so intensely at the burger joint two weeks ago.
Don’t give them room to grow.
Izuku was on the other side of the door, but he might as well have been on another planet.
“Kacchan… please,” Izuku sounded like he was begging now.
“Wait, Kacchan! Kacchan!”
Katsuki’s breaths were shallow.
He shut his eyes.
His lungs rattled on each inhale and exhale.
“We don’t have to talk or anything,” Izuku started to ramble again. “A-actually, I’m not even here to make you soup, I just was feeling like eating soup! And well, the class wasn’t getting soup tonight, but, uh, I still didn’t want to eat alone. So, really, you’d be doing me a favor by eating my leftovers, you know, Kacchan?”
Katsuki grimaced as he listened to Izuku prattle on and on, unwilling to give up because Katsuki hadn’t yet closed the door in his face.
Relentless bastard.
“Thinking everyone is special means that no one is truly special to you.”
Katsuki knew it was a bad idea even as he shut the door.
“Wait—Kacchan!”
He thought of how Izuku walked away from him that night that everything changed. He thought of how Izuku didn’t even look back once as he reached to undo the chain.
He pulled open the door, watching in real time as the devastation on Izuku’s face morphed into elation when he realized Katsuki had only closed the door to unlock it all the way.
It was honestly unfair how Izuku took his breath away.
It was unfair how, even as a deep ache grew in his heart, the world suddenly seemed a bit brighter.
As always, Izuku wore his teacher clothes, though his tie was still carefully done up and his hair still on the professional side of messy. His clean, formal appearance reminded Katsuki abruptly of his own very unkempt look, but Izuku didn’t so much as bat an eye.
Unfortunately, it was one of the reasons that Katsuki loved him. They’d seen each other in every stage of life. So while a part of him was embarrassed, there was unfortunately still the very much alive part of him that was entirely unashamed.
It’s just Izuku. That part of himself was relaxed.
The familiarity born from lifelong proximity that Katsuki had mistaken for intimacy.
His reactions to Izuku really were all over the place these days. There was the draw towards the relationship he’d thought they had a month ago. There was an old, dug up defensive instinct that had surfaced when Katsuki had realized how wrong he’d been about them.
It was all so confusing.
Katsuki felt out of control of all of it.
He was so tired.
But apparently, he was the type of person to get himself killed over a one-sided love. So he stepped aside, nodding his head in the direction of his apartment to indicate for Izuku to come in.
“Thanks, Kacchan!” Izuku’s face was so bright, so relieved.
Katsuki watched him blankly as he crossed the threshold and shut the door behind him.
─────
As Izuku cooked, Katsuki sat at the counter, facing him.
Izuku had started to chatter away almost immediately, updating him about his students, his guest lectures of late, and the most interesting Quirks that had emerged recently.
Katsuki’s heart rate actively picked up as Izuku shrugged off his suit jacket. His eyes zeroed in on where Izuku’s scarred hands were pulling his tie loose and then all the way off. He felt his face heating up as Izuku unbuttoned the first few buttons of his dress shirt. When Izuku didn’t stop chattering or even look over at him, Katsuki almost scoffed at himself.
How goddamn depraved was he that just watching Izuku take off his damn tie was doing it for him?
Katsuki slumped forward, resting his elbows on the counter, and hanging his head. He shook it slightly in disbelief at himself.
Even as he felt annoyed, his heart didn’t stop thumping away inside his chest.
As the minutes ticked by, there was a strange sort of achy feeling growing in Katsuki’s chest as he watched Izuku move around his kitchen. He watched Izuku move his dirty dishes into the sink without so much as pausing his yapping. He would’ve been embarrassed except that he’d seen the state of Izuku’s kitchen much worse than this on several occasions.
Izuku chopped up ingredients and boiled water with ease as he chattered away, filling the silence. He took Katsuki’s presence as a sign to talk; Katsuki had clearly chosen to sit here with him rather than going to another room, so that was plenty enough excuse for him to continue to prattle on endlessly.
It was all incredibly domestic. But unlike all the times they’d done stuff like this before, Katsuki was now well aware that there was a line drawn in the sand that he wasn’t allowed to cross.
A line that he’d never before even thought to look for.
So rather than feel completely relaxed and content, Katsuki felt… sad. He still felt more numb than anything else, but he slowly realized that he really missed Izuku. He really, really missed when he’d thought Izuku was going to be a major part of his life forever.
Wallowing in the achy, hollow feeling in his chest and slowly getting weighed down by exhaustion, Katsuki sat and listened to Izuku talk. For as weird and strange and potentially unhelpful as this all was, Katsuki didn’t move to leave the room.
He still felt that instinctual draw to Izuku underneath it all. It remained prevalent enough to keep him rooted to the spot.
When Izuku looked at him, smiling at him as if he was normal and praising him like he’d done anything noteworthy as of late, Katsuki felt the stirrings of his old motivation and energy and happiness. He was hurting, and for some fucked up reason it felt like Izuku’s attention soothed the ache a bit. It felt like Izuku was filling in that void of empty numbness that had opened up inside of him during his growing isolation.
Katsuki realized that his body was subconsciously recognizing Izuku as the cure.
The antidote is right there, it desperately told him. He’ll make you feel better.
It made Katsuki want to scoff. To laugh. To cry. To scream. To explode.
Rather than feel defensive, for a moment he could only feel empty and a touch bitter.
He was Bakugou Katsuki.
That used to mean something. That used to mean he could do anything on his own. That he would be the best. That he would win every time.
Now it meant that he was so dependent on someone else that he was dying without them.
His body might be right, but the antidote was still out of reach. He’d known the cure all along, but he didn’t have it.
He couldn’t have it.
Izuku would leave—he would only ever leave—and Katsuki would continue to rot away.
The Hanahaki was poisoning him and bringing him closer to death, and Izuku could only ever be a temporary reprieve before Katsuki ultimately died from this damn disease.
Katsuki watched vacantly as Izuku dished him up a bowl of the soup he’d made. They moved to his kitchen table, and Izuku set down the food in front of him.
“Thanks, Izuku,” said Katsuki lowly as he picked up his utensils. “Looks good.”
His first words since opening the door. Izuku’s face brightened from the praise, and he beamed as his cheeks pinkened slightly.
“Of course, Kacchan!” he said cheerily. “Anytime!”
Katsuki had very little appetite, but he still began to eat. It was good—very good—but Katsuki felt so drained that he didn’t really want to keep eating.
“Hey, Kacchan?” Izuku began, tentatively.
Katsuki glanced up at him with raised eyebrows.
“I just was wondering… what’ve you been up to these days?” Izuku asked. “I’ve, uh, heard you’ve been working less—even before you were sick, I mean—and there’s less work in general these days. I feel like I haven’t gotten a chance to talk to you in weeks.”
Izuku looked at him expectantly, wide green eyes curious and searching.
Katsuki stared blankly back at him.
“I—well, I mean, you don’t have to tell me, obviously,” Izuku immediately backtracked, sounding a bit nervous. “I just wondered if you weren’t talking about it because you didn’t think it was everyone’s business—not that it’s my business, I know that! I just… well, I’m just curious, to be honest. I, uh, I just want to know. What you’ve been up to… I guess.”
He finished lamely, eyeing Katsuki for a reaction.
Katsuki’s expression didn’t change as Izuku rambled on. He remained rather stoic, forcing himself to not react. He felt the pit of emptiness digging itself deeper and deeper inside of him with each additional word.
As Izuku spoke, Katsuki could pick out the nuances of his speech with an instinctual ease. He could read him so easily—his nervousness, his hesitation, his concern. Katsuki felt so incredibly attuned to Izuku that he could practically feel his anxiety. He knew him intuitively; there wasn’t a conscious effort or a guessing game, he just knew him.
Maybe Katsuki and Izuku had never been great at guessing each other’s deeper intentions and feelings, but they were very physically attuned to each other. It was like an awareness, an ability to sense each other. Katsuki knew if Izuku was uncomfortable or afraid or excited. Even if he didn’t know why, Katsuki knew what he was feeling. He knew how Izuku was probably going to act or what he was going to say.
It was what made them such good hero partners whenever they’d fought together. They hardly needed to speak to be on the same page and to understand the other’s train of thought.
Rip them up by the roots,
The moment that they show.
Katsuki could only stare blankly at Izuku, feeling an earth-shattering level of despair creeping up on him.
“I really cannot stress enough that you need to get the surgery immediately.”
The Hanahaki surgery…
He’d never considered it, because he’d generally been under the impression that it would be like getting total amnesia. Who knew if he’d wake up even remembering his own damn name.
But as he stared at Izuku, sitting across the table from him, he felt a cold fear working its way into his blood.
If the Hanahaki was removed, it would take all traces of Izuku with it. He’d heard the stories of people meeting the one that they’d loved afterwards, and it was like meeting a complete stranger.
Katsuki stared at Izuku as flashes of his life—each painful and complex stage that brought them to where they stood now—swam through his mind. They knew each other like two sides of the same coin, like separate parts of a whole.
There was a reason Katsuki had mistaken Izuku for his other half.
How could he stand before Izuku and not know him at all? How could he completely forget someone he’d known his entire life?
How could it possibly erase all of Izuku?
Would there be a part of him that still remembered? Some muscle memory that refused to forget?
Would Izuku be near him, and Katsuki would wonder why he recognized the smell of him so intensely even though he couldn’t place where he’d smelled it before?
Would Izuku speak and Katsuki would understand the nuances of his tone, even if he was certain they’d never met?
Would Izuku offer him a hand and Katsuki would hesitate for a moment even if he couldn’t remember why?
The idea of forgetting someone so integral to who he was and his life as a whole was incomprehensible.
Rip them up by the roots,
The moment that they show.
Previously, Katsuki had thought that he would have near-complete amnesia, but now he wondered if he’d just be braindead.
If they removed the Hanahaki, it would try and steal away all of Izuku with it, but it would run into trouble trying to do so.
It would find that Izuku ran through his veins along with his blood. That knowing Izuku was muscle memory. That every one of his senses knew Izuku instinctively. That so much of his past involved Izuku that it would have to tear Katsuki’s brain apart to try and find every memory that he haunted.
The Hanahaki would try to take Izuku from him, but it would have to tear him to pieces to find every cell that held knowledge of him.
How could Katsuki even survive such a thing?
If he did, what would even be left of him?
He realized with no small amount of horror that he’d be an empty shell once the Hanahaki had torn out all of Izuku. Though he’d never had any intention of considering the surgery, as he sat before Izuku now it was only confirmed.
He had no desire to endure a life such as that. He’d already fallen so far; he was a pale imitation of who he used to be. He had no desire to fall further. He wouldn’t try and cheat death a second time.
He knew now how cheating death led only to more suffering anyways.
Katsuki pushed his chopsticks around his soup, the mortifying desire to cry rising. He bit it back. He’d already cried far too many times recently.
Don’t water the flowers. He reprimanded himself harshly.
“Kacchan?” Izuku said, pulling Katsuki from his thoughts.
Katsuki looked up at him, seeing that goddamn look on his face. The genuine concern, the attentive, observant eyes. It was the look that Katsuki used to hate, and the one that later fooled him into thinking that he was special.
“Thinking everyone is special means that no one is truly special to you.”
Izuku gave so much of himself to others that he had to be reminded to care about himself, too. Katsuki was not special, for receiving Izuku’s attention.
He’d just known him the longest.
Without Izuku, apparently Katsuki would die. Meanwhile Izuku…
Izuku bounced back so easily from so much. Izuku was used to hardship and pain.
He’ll be okay, Katsuki reminded himself, and the thought came along with the hollow feeling and that pinch of bitterness. As long as he doesn’t find out. As long as he doesn’t know it was him that I fell in love with, he’ll be okay.
Katsuki was exhausted. The massive difference between the two of them and their feelings was overwhelming.
“Are you… is everything okay?” Izuku asked hesitantly.
Just like after his panic attack a week ago, Katsuki felt his telltale, age-old defenses flaring up. Even as he rationally told himself that Izuku wasn’t being condescending, Katsuki felt the need to deny his concerns adamantly.
He was Bakugou Katsuki.
He was always okay.
Nothing stood in his way.
Katsuki felt his hackles rise, and with it rose everything else until he felt on the verge of suffocation again.
“I mean, I know you’re sick, obviously,” Izuku sounded strained and uneasy as he continued after a short pause. “I just mean… well, in general. Did something happen? Not that you, uh, can’t handle it or anything, obviously. I just was… wondering. You can talk to me… if you want.”
Thump. Thump. Thump.
Katsuki’s heart thudded hard enough to make him almost dizzy.
Suddenly, he was being crushed under the weight of it all. He didn’t know how to convey any of it to Izuku, or if he even wanted to try.
“I’m just… tired,” Katsuki responded, finally finding his voice. It sounded like gravel, low and rough and uneven. There was a touch of tense bitterness that bled into it.
Izuku still looked concerned but now was completely at a loss. He looked doubtful, thrown off, apprehensive.
Katsuki huffed out a laugh, that was more weary and resigned than anything else. It sounded hollow in his own ears, but hoped it sounded more normal out loud.
“Don’t worry about it, nerd,” he said. “I’m just sick.”
He was tired.
So, so tired.
He was suffocating and overflowing. He didn’t know how to let it all out in a normal way. If Izuku kept worrying and prying, Katsuki felt like he might eventually snap.
“Right,” Izuku replied quietly. “Right, I know… just…”
Katsuki narrowed his eyes back at him, but in more of a glare. It was all building inside of him with the flimsy shield of defensive anger over top of it all.
And just like that, he decided he didn’t want Izuku to keep looking at him. He wanted Izuku to look away, so that he could swallow his poison with some remaining dignity. If he was doomed to die from being a fucking idiot, then at least Izuku needed to stop looking. This whole thing started because clearly Izuku didn’t look at him nearly as much as he used to.
A petulant, bitter part of Katsuki wanted to snap at him because why the hell did he think he could look now? Now that the damage was already done?
Why did he think he was allowed to show up a month late and act all concerned?
“Just… you seem… I don’t know…” Izuku struggled for words, his eyes darting back and forth across Katsuki’s face.
Katsuki’s scowl deepened. “I seem what?”
Izuku’s eyes widened at the obvious aggression in his tone, sputtering and nervously flailing his hands. “I—I don’t know! Different, I guess!”
“Different how?”
Katsuki was losing control. It was all snowballing together; all the pain and regret and fury and endless undefinable emotions in his mind and body were boiling up until he could barely think.
Maybe if it was someone else, Katsuki would’ve recognized the signs that he was about to lose it and leave the room or something. But it was Izuku, and he’d never been very good at not engaging with him or walking away from him.
“Quieter, I guess?!” Izuku said, cautiously. “Less—I don’t know how to say it! Less… well, for a while, even before you were sick, you’ve just seemed down! You seem reserved, I guess. It’s not a problem, I just wanted to check and—”
“Quieter?” Katsuki gritted out dangerously. “You’re worried because I’ve been quieter?!”
Izuku gaped, brow furrowing.
Katsuki’s emotions slammed at his flimsy mental barrier yet again. It was like his brain had whited out from the pressure of it all, and he started to shout in purely defensive anger. Another old habit that easily came out to play.
“Isn’t that what everyone wanted?!” Katsuki demanded, testily. “For me to stop shouting and being rude all the damn time?! For me to fix my shitty manners and start acting normal for once?!”
“I—I don’t—” Izuku sputtered some more. “No, Kacchan, that’s not what I—”
“Look around you, Izuku!” Katsuki snarled, hands tightening around his utensils. “This ain’t fuckin’ grade school anymore! Everyone else is acting different, too! It’s called being a fucking adult, idiot. You’ve got a fucking problem with that?”
The words came out of his mouth feeling strange. A bitter stream of consciousness that he wasn’t entirely meaning to say or thinking through, but he couldn’t stop.
“No, of course not!” Izuku protested, shaking his head. “I just meant—”
“Take you for example!” Katsuki cut him off sharply, slamming his utensils down, putting his elbow on the table, and jamming his pointer finger accusingly in Izuku’s direction. “You used to be a crazy son of a bitch. Absolutely batshit crazy and relentless in your goal to take over as All Might’s successor. Breaking all your bones until you’d nearly permanently disabled yourself, training day in and day out, taking it all on. Nothing would’ve stopped you, back then! Nothing.”
Katsuki could hear the cuttingly vicious tone to his own hissed out words. Izuku sat, frozen and gaping with eyes blown wide as he spoke.
“Now look at you,” Katsuki scoffed, sounding more disgusted than he meant to. “I hardly recognize you. You’re like a fucking—” he gestured lazily with his hand as he sought the words, “—pale imitation of yourself.”
He was being cruel. He knew that.
Why couldn’t he stop?
He was bitter, and he couldn’t stop. Suddenly he was overcome with rage, and all his endless grief was fueling it. His emotions had found an outlet, and they were all rushing towards it without a care for what sort of outlet it was.
It almost felt like some of the pressure inside him was being relieved, if only for a moment.
“You were supposed to be All Might’s successor,” Katsuki accused, eyes burning with fury. “Now, you’re satisfied with a 9 to 5 and a 401k.”
Izuku reeled back like he’d been slapped.
“I—that was a long time ago,” he protested, voice uneven and clearly hurt. “All Might… well, he doesn’t need a successor anymore! Heroics are declining anyways. These things—teaching and making sure kids get the help they need—it’s more important.”
“I know, dumbass!” Katsuki roared. “That’s my fucking point, isn’t it?! It’s called being a fucking adult! The world’s a whole lot different from when you’re a kid, right?! Your dreams fucking die and you move the fuck on! End of story!”
Katsuki knew all this, didn’t he?
Katsuki was the only one who was still a child, left behind in the dust. He was the only one who couldn’t move forward with the rest of his classmates and the rest of the world. He was the only one who couldn’t let go of his childhood dream—the dream of becoming the Number One Hero.
His dream that had somehow become surpassing Deku to become Number One, so now that Deku wasn’t there, it wasn’t the same.
He knew, dammit.
He fucking knew the world wasn’t the way he’d thought it was and wanted it to be back then.
He just didn’t know how to let it go like everyone else so easily did. He didn’t know how to find other interests outside of heroics. He didn’t know how to meet up with his old classmates so often and talk so cheerily about how everything was just so goddamn great even though it wasn’t; everything was so much darker and stranger and more boring than it used to be.
He didn’t know how to go from what they were then—training with insane passion and tenacity up until the war—to what they were now.
He didn’t know how to reconcile with the fact that they’d been running full speed ahead for so long, but everyone else seemed fine with dropping off and slowing down before they’d gotten anywhere at all.
They all seemed fine with their accomplishments. They all seemed fine with the heights they’d reached before the age of eighteen.
Izuku seemed fine with all of it.
Izuku was supposed to be the one person by Katsuki’s side through it all, and yet even he was content to leave him alone to drop off into a life so different than they’d dreamed of for so long.
Maybe it was best that Katsuki would die young after all.
“Are you mad at me?” said Izuku, cutting into his mental spiral.
Katsuki’s face twisted into an incredulous look of disgust as he looked up at Izuku. For a long moment, his brain couldn’t comprehend what the hell Izuku had just said.
“What?”
“Are you mad at me, or something?” Izuku seemed uneasy, off-kilter. He spoke slower than usual, seeming to think every word wasn’t safe—that a landmine could be under each one. “I know… well, I think that you’d just tell me, obviously. But I just… wanted to be sure. That I didn’t… I didn’t do something that pissed you off without… without realizing.”
Katsuki could only stare in disbelief.
Was he… mad at Izuku…
It seemed so ridiculous. So simplified. As if any of this was an easy, quick answer. As if Katsuki was just annoyed at him for one singular thing and was being immature and refusing to bring it up.
Didn’t he know that Katsuki was a mess that wasn’t so easily untangled?
Didn’t he know that Katsuki was made of thousands of pages—currently out of order and confusing and sometimes in languages he himself didn’t even know how to read?
If only people were so simple, Katsuki wanted to laugh or cry or scream or explode. If only I was just mad at you. If only I were such an easy fix.
“Fuck off,” he said, shaking his head. He was so angry, so exhausted, so overwhelmed that he almost felt lightheaded.
Izuku still seemed at a loss, but he was relentless.
“Kacchan, I don’t understand. I might not know why exactly, but you do seem different. And I’m just worried, okay? I want to make sure that you know that I’m—”
“I know, alright?!” Katsuki shouted, temper snapping abruptly as he slammed his fist down on the table hard enough for it to clatter all the dishes. “I know you’re here for me, so stop fucking worrying! I told you that things are fucking different now! The world is different now, idiot! So leave it alone, for fuck’s sake!”
He heaved in a few huge breaths that moved his whole torso, then spat out, “You’ve done your rounds, nerd. You’ve been a good friend and checked in on me, so move along. Get the fuck out.”
Izuku’s brow furrowed and his eyes hardened, seeming to grow frustrated for the first time.
“You think this is just me checking on you because I feel obligated, Kacchan?!” he asked, affronted. “You’re my friend, and I just want to make sure you’re okay! And I wanted to make sure I hadn’t done something wrong, because it feels like you never want to talk to me these days! Plus, the other day, when you had a panic attack, you—”
But Izuku’s anger had only ever been fantastic fuel for Katsuki’s flames.
Katsuki pushed himself to his feet, slamming his fist down onto the table again as he leaned forward onto it. He was suffocating under the weight of everything, and his emotions were slamming to escape. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d breathed clearly, and he wasn’t sure he’d ever breathe clearly again.
“My life doesn’t revolve around you!” Katsuki yelled, practically blind with rage.
The words sounded strange again. Empty.
Projection.
Lies.
“So, what if I’m tired sometimes?!” Katsuki roared, spitting mad. “So what if I’m quieter?! What—you’re really showing up here thinking all my problems would be solved the moment Izuku blesses me with his presence?!”
His chest hurt so bad that he could barely stand it. He couldn’t stop yelling, and he wanted to tear his heart right out of his chest if that would save him from the agony.
“No! Kacchan—”
“Well, don’t fucking worry, you bastard! I hardly give you any thought these days because of all the shit going on!”
His shouting was starting to wear down his sore, tormented throat.
“Kacchan, just let me talk—”
“You really think I sit around, wondering what Izuku is doing?! What, puzzling over every little thing you say and then pouting about it? Keeping it to myself like some passive aggressive fuck?! HAH?!”
“Listen to me!” Izuku also shot to his feet now, increasingly indignant and the distress written all over his face even behind his irritation.
“Allow me to absolve you of your guilt, Izuku!” Katsuki snarled, voice growing sharp and cruel. “You’ve come here and done your heroic duty! My life and my problems are just what fucking happens when you get older! I’m not some annoying extension of your life that only reacts to what you do! I’m perfectly fucking fine! Everyone else has shit going on too! We’re all fucking adults about it!”
“Please, just—” Izuku cried, imploring.
“I don’t need you to do a wellness check on me, Izuku! How fucking dare you—”
When Katsuki drew in his next breath, it caught in his chest. For a moment, he couldn’t breathe, heaving his chest to try and get air in.
His heart dropped.
His eyes widened.
“Kacchan?” Izuku asked, warily.
Katsuki tried to expand his lungs, but it didn’t work.
Something was blocking his airway.
Notes:
though my heart is failing
I'll pretend it's fine
the roots dig too deepWhen I first planned this fic out and wrote the first draft I didn’t intend for each chapter to be so long so sorry about that (or you’re welcome?) but they’ll all probably be a bit lengthy. I’m sure you’ve noticed by now that each chapter vaguely revolves around each line of the rhyme from the first chapter. So I don’t really want to split up the chapters any more than this.
I've seen various depictions of the Hanahaki surgery. Memory is a bit of a finicky and irregular thing. It's based on personal perception and bias. I've chosen to write it this way because in my version of it you have to be very seriously in love with someone (and thus very mentally entangled) in order to develop it. So in this, the Hanahaki is much cruder about removing the memories. When it's surgically removed (and thus forcefully pulled away) it just rips the memories out of you with it. It's not selective and careful with the intention of keeping things intact. It takes whatever it can with it.
Anyways, thanks for reading! Thank you especially to all the comments you all left. I really love reading them and hearing all your thoughts and theories and feedback. I hope you all are doing well! My socials and everything are here.
Chapter 4: The moment that they show
Summary:
If things were simpler, then Katsuki could just get the surgery.
If things were simpler, he could untangle Izuku from his memories and heart and soul and leave something of worth behind, but he knew that wouldn’t be the case.
Katsuki must finally face his loved ones.
Notes:
(23k+ words)
Content Warning
mentions/memories of past bullying, graphic depictions of illness (!!!), depression/mental illness, mentions of death, grief
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
part 1
trapped with you
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Katsuki’s hands flew up to grapple frantically at his throat.
He wheezed out the slightest breath, and then his whole body jerked as his chest spasmed and his lungs demanded air.
He slapped a hand to his mouth; the urge to cough was suddenly overwhelming and he shoved away from the table hard enough that it scooted slightly on the floor and clattered all the dishes.
“Kacchan! What is it?! What’s wrong?!”
Katsuki barely registered Izuku’s voice.
He stumbled towards the bathroom.
He couldn’t breathe.
“Kacchan?!”
His shoulders shook with each spasm of his chest. Keeping the cough at bay was nearly impossible, and he couldn’t fucking breathe.
Reaching the bathroom, he practically fell into the door and then kicked it shut behind him hard enough that it rattled the doorframe.
The very moment he did, the cough ripped its way out of his throat. He collapsed to the floor on his hands and knees, coughing once and then inhaling deeply instinctually—only to be met with resistance again.
I can’t breathe.
His eyes shot wide as he tried to breathe and cough and nothing worked.
Panic rushed the blood in his veins.
Izuku.
Just as he’d resolved himself to try to get Izuku’s attention—just as his vision started to black out—he coughed so hard that his chest hurt.
Finally, whatever was stuck moved.
His whole body shook with the coughs, loud and wet and forceful. The obstruction in this throat and lungs heaved up, sickly sweet and sour and metallic and disgusting. He coughed and spat it out—desperately and mindlessly heaving as his mind could only focus on trying to breathe.
With all his remaining strength, he dragged himself the short distance to the toilet. He was still coughing so hard that his chest and throat hurt, and his head spun so badly it was a wonder he hadn’t passed out from the vertigo.
For another moment, he coughed into the toilet, but unsurprisingly—as had happened many times before—the force of his heaving triggered some rolling nausea in his gut. He started to vomit, retching so hard that his eyes watered and tears spilled over.
For what felt like an unending amount of time, all Katsuki could do was clutch at either side of the toilet and alternate between vomiting and coughing and dry heaving.
Even once it cleared up, he could only sit there and clutch at the toilet as he trembled all over and heaved in huge breaths that moved his whole torso with each one.
Thump. Thump. Thump. Thump. Thump. Thump.
Despite how his airway had cleared, his blood still rushed with the residual panic of being denied oxygen. Nausea still rolled faintly in his gut. He still gasped in breaths that hardly felt like enough. His ears rung loudly, and his heart thumped wildly in his chest.
For a moment, he couldn’t even pry his hands off the sides of the toilet to flush it. He was forced to stare down at his own bodily fluids with eyes that were blurry with tears and vertigo.
It was a disgusting, revolting mess. He’d coughed up blood and bile and cherry blossoms and part of a stem. His vomit had brought up the soup. The smell was nauseating—metallic and sweet and savory and sour—and he scrambled to flush the toilet the moment he felt capable of moving his hands.
It was all too much.
Heavily, Katsuki collapsed back onto his ass and then slumped sideways against the bathtub next to the toilet. Each breath was a huge, necessary effort that came out as a loud, wet gasp. He squeezed his eyes shut, the light suddenly far too much to handle.
Thump. Thump. Thump.
His heart pounded uncomfortably against his ribcage.
The breaths came easier now with his throat cleared, but the terror refused to die down. There was a part of him that was certain he would be denied air again at any moment. He could’ve sworn he could physically feel the Hanahaki plant growing in his lungs—right near his airway and far too close to his heart.
Once again, it was impossible to know if it was all in his head and it didn’t matter either way.
Whether or not it was psychosomatic in this moment, he was still a dead man. It was a disease born of his own mind and thoughts and feelings, and it was killing him. His lungs were slowly being invaded by something that wasn’t an invader at all. His blood was being poisoned by something that his own DNA was betraying him to code.
Did it matter if it was psychosomatic, if in the end he just felt like shit?
Katsuki felt like his strings had been cut, like he’d hacked out the last of his energy. He slumped back further, until he was half lying down with his back against the tub. It wasn’t exactly comfortable, but he felt incapable of even moving to fully lie down on the floor at the moment.
“Kacchan…”
The sound of Izuku’s voice startled Katsuki so badly that his heart stuttered almost painfully hard. His eyes flew open despite how it made them ache inside his skull. Though he didn’t move his body at all, his eyes quickly found Izuku.
Izuku was standing at the entrance to the bathroom, next to the sink.
Staring at Katsuki.
Izuku looked so pale that he might as well have been the one who’d just vomited and coughed up blood. The expression on his face was of alarm and bewilderment—wide eyes, slightly furrowed brow. He had a hand braced on the wall next to him as if he needed the support to remain standing. The door stood open behind him, and he had a glass of water in his other hand.
He looked like he was fighting to comprehend something unfathomable, and all it resulted in was him standing there, frozen in place.
A surge of emotion—panic and shock and fury—all rose up in Katsuki so suddenly that he almost threw up again. His heart beat with such intensity that he wondered if this time it really would give out.
What the fuck is he doing in here?! Katsuki thought, enraged.
When Katsuki made eye contact with him, Izuku jolted slightly.
He pushed himself a step or two forward before jerking to a stop. His wide eyes were gaining a frantic, uncertain look to them that was making Katsuki’s skin crawl. He extended his hand to offer the water, almost too close to Katsuki’s face.
Katsuki’s eyes fell to it, and it visibly shook in Izuku’s hand. The water almost sloshed over the side with how much his hand trembled.
If he’d had the energy, Katsuki would’ve thrown the water back in his face.
Did he look like he wanted to grab the glass right now?
“Floor,” Katsuki wheezed out.
He felt a distant, exhausted pang of annoyance at being required to expend the energy to even say something.
Why the hell was Izuku in here?!
Thump. Thump. Thump. Thump. Thump.
“What?” asked Izuku, staring wide, uncomprehending eyes into Katsuki’s before jolting slightly again. “Oh—right, s-sorry! Yes! I’ll put it right here.”
He bent down, his other hand sliding along the wall for continued support and placed the glass near where one of Katsuki’s hands rested limply on the floor.
Katsuki breathed in rattled breaths as he watched him, a growing terror in his chest that he most certainly didn’t feel equipped to handle right now. His stomach valiantly churned even now, and he really, really hoped he wasn’t going to puke again.
He was so tired and sick and even though people had to find out eventually, he still felt the unbearable dread growing in his chest. It bloomed side by side with a soul-crushing grief.
He had to tell people, but he hadn’t been prepared to right at this moment.
He had to tell people, but the fact would always remain that he wished he didn’t have to. More than anything, he wished that he wasn’t dying so he could avoid this altogether.
What the hell was the shitty nerd thinking right now? He could practically hear Izuku’s panicked thoughts—so many all jumbled together that it was probably just incomprehensible and overwhelming buzzing. A thousand nerdy questions.
How much had he seen? Katsuki had flushed the toilet, so with any luck Izuku had stayed away until after then.
Katsuki’s heavy, aching eyes followed Izuku’s movement as he shoved himself back up.
Izuku was staring blankly at the wall behind Katsuki’s head, but then his eyes darted to the side and away again. When he did the same thing again, with a numb sort of horror, Katsuki followed his gaze.
He’d flushed the toilet but…
His eyes trailed down to the floor—blood and mucus and what was undeniably red-stained cherry blossoms were splattered on the floor in the path from the door to the toilet.
The damning evidence that he’d coughed up before making it all the way there.
Thump. Thump. Thump. Thump. Thump. Thump.
For a moment, Katsuki could only stare in muted shock at the bloody flowers that had officially ratted him out.
When Izuku moved, Katsuki’s eyes were pulled away to follow him again. Something about Izuku’s reaction was unsettling and unexpected to him, though he couldn’t pinpoint what it was.
Katsuki watched as Izuku pulled open the cabinets across from the sink and grabbed a washcloth.
There was a heavy weight in his chest, though everything was muted behind an anxious anticipation as he waited and watched for any real reaction from Izuku.
Why was Izuku picking right now to be silent for the first time in his entire goddamn life?
The silence was excruciating. If Katsuki had the energy, he likely would’ve yelled at him. He didn’t have a damn clue what the nerd was thinking, and everything inside of Katsuki was slowly and steadily building up; he was on the brink of bursting.
Thump. Thump. Thump. Thump. Thump. Thump.
In his chest, his heart thundered, but even as he just wanted to scream and explode something and demand that Izuku speak to him, he could only slump against the tub and try not to pass out. He felt so weak; he couldn’t move.
Izuku moved over to the sink.
He was trembling visibly, and he looked concerningly pale. His eyes were blown wide—they had been this entire time—and seemed almost slightly unfocused. All his movements were shaky and robotic—jerking and jolting like he was a crude animatronic being remotely controlled.
Katsuki breathed through the stabbing pain in his chest.
It was more than unusual for Izuku to act like this. It was so strange it was unnerving, and Katsuki was so infuriated he wanted to scream.
The fact that Katsuki lacked the strength to move and grew increasingly exhausted as his emotions crushed him was also mortifying. Each second passed, and Katsuki’s frustration grew about the fact that he was stuck on the floor.
Flipping on the sink, Izuku tested the water temperature for far too long and then wet the cloth. He wrung it out; the shaking of his hands intensified when he exerted the force to do so.
Katsuki could hear his own breathing, loud and wheezing. It sounded especially loud in the heavy silence of the room.
Katsuki waited for Izuku to say something, because he had little other choice. Izuku seemed unwilling or incapable of doing so.
Still moving unsteadily, Izuku turned and approached, looking up to meet his eyes.
Katsuki realized that Izuku’s face was twisting into a grimace; it was slowly moving from a state of shock to becoming more pained and scrunched up. He’d known Izuku his entire life, so he knew without a doubt that he was suppressing the urge to cry.
It felt like someone had wrapped a hand around Katsuki’s heart and squeezed it painfully tight.
“I… it’s for your face,” Izuku’s voice was quiet and strained and shaky.
He started to lift his hand to offer the washcloth to Katsuki, but his hand froze halfway.
Katsuki watched—oddly entranced despite all the emotions suffocating him—as Izuku’s eyes flitted back and forth between Katsuki’s own. He watched as Izuku’s eyes darted to the petals on the floor.
He watched as the dismay and pain and disbelief and uncertainty battled it out on Izuku’s features. Every emotion Izuku felt was playing so clearly on his face.
Each one was a movie Katsuki had seen a thousand times.
Katsuki watched Izuku and knew what he was feeling with such intensity that it felt like his chest was compressing from the weight of Izuku’s emotions as well as his own.
Rip them up by the roots,
The moment that they show.
Would he ever really be able to look at Izuku and not remember each time he’d seen those expressions on his faces?
Would he not remember the times that taught him what exactly each expression meant?
Would he really be able to look at Izuku and be undeservingly spared the guilt of remembering the times he’d caused each of those expressions on Izuku’s face?
How could he look at Izuku and not know him at all?
How could any Quirk or surgery or force in the universe unwrite the story of their lives while leaving Katsuki intact?
Izuku still seemed a bit frantic, a bit distant and off, but he tore his eyes from the bloody mess of petals and looked back at Katsuki.
“I can—I can do it,” he said, sounding a bit out of breath and more than a little pained. He held up the washcloth. “If you let… I can wipe your face.”
As he spoke, he crouched down in front of Katsuki and fell forward onto his knees. He had a hand once again on the wall for support as the other gripped the washcloth.
Katsuki watched him and thought that he was far too close. He felt the strange, unsettling feeling creeping up inside him again, as he glanced to the side and saw the disgusting blood and petals that he’d spit up; it lay not too far from Izuku’s knee.
Izuku looked up at him, holding the washcloth. His eyes were pleading, wide and wet and imploring. His face was twisted slightly, on the verge of tears.
Katsuki hated that seeing that look on his face was also dragging up the urge to cry within himself. It made him so mad he could barely stand it, but he couldn’t move without throwing up again and that made him mad too. When had he become so weak and incapable? When had he become this?
“Can I… please, Kacchan.”
Katsuki stared at Izuku’s hand.
He had very little energy. His ears still rung slightly and he felt lightheaded. He had no plans to move to get up anytime soon.
Honestly, Katsuki had barely noticed his face on top of everything else. There was probably some amount of blood and vomit on his face. It just went to show how overwhelmed that he already was, that he couldn’t even find it in himself to cover his face or be embarrassed.
If Izuku wasn’t here, there was a massive chance that he would’ve wiped his face with his shirt or just let it dry where it was—as disgusting and shameful as that might be.
Even so, he found he couldn’t accept Izuku’s offer. There was a mental barrier in place.
His persisting pride.
He wondered faintly if it would be with him until the end. Would he be unwilling to accept aid or care, even in his dying moments?
Katsuki would not sit here and let Izuku clean his face off while he lay here boneless. As if he was weak and Izuku was strong, because even though that was a fact of life Katsuki felt obstinately called to resist it.
It was a fact of life, and yet Katsuki was so furious at the unfairness of it all that he couldn’t yield to the idea of it in that moment.
Even as Izuku’s presence here marked the beginning of everything ending.
Everyone would soon find out just how weak he was.
He refused to give up all his dignity just yet.
Not while he still could lift his hand. Not while he could still physically manage to do it on his own.
“No,” he wheezed out, lifting his hand—which shook worse than Izuku’s—to take the cloth.
More than anything he’d ever wanted in his life, he wished Izuku wasn’t here. He would sell his soul to go back in time and slam the door in his face.
There was a time, so recently, where Katsuki likely would’ve secretly welcomed Izuku’s attention. Not long ago, Katsuki had felt secure in the idea of the two of them. He might’ve let Izuku wipe his face and help him up, because he’d know that he would do the same for Izuku if their roles were reversed. He would’ve offered his trust and his weakness to Izuku without shame, because they were closer to each other than anyone else.
Katsuki had fallen in love thinking that they had something special. He might’ve offered his vulnerability to Izuku, because was it even being vulnerable to show weakness in front of your other half? Was it even weakness, if Izuku was holding onto their strength for the moment? At another time, Katsuki could hold onto their strength and allow Izuku to be weak.
But the two of them…
Things weren’t the way Katsuki had allowed himself to believe they were.
Their relationship felt so nauseatingly separate and unequal; it hadn’t felt like this since they were kids. How could Katsuki stand a dynamic like this? How could Katsuki stand always being weak while Izuku was always strong? How could Katsuki stand needing someone else, but not being needed back?
It was impersonal and isolating, to be in Izuku’s life like this.
Izuku was strong, so he’d never need Katsuki’s help. Izuku would never turn to Katsuki for comfort. He wouldn’t ask for anything from him even if he needed something from someone. If Izuku was going to turn to anyone—to give them more of his attention or love or trust—Katsuki had now learned that it wouldn’t be him.
Izuku’s eyes were on Katsuki now, but only because Katsuki was weak and in need of help. Katsuki was activating Izuku’s hero complex.
Now—not in rivalry or friendship or anything so disgusting and ridiculous as love—Izuku was here. Izuku was looking at Katsuki, but just as someone who was in need of help and not anything more.
Izuku was looking at him now, because Katsuki wasn’t special.
He was just like everyone else that Izuku would give his life to help.
It was all so intolerable that Katsuki felt like screaming, but he knew that would accomplish nothing. He knew nothing would get Izuku to leave; nothing he had the physical strength to do at the moment anyways. Certainly not his anger that Izuku had an insanely high tolerance for.
He was trapped with Izuku now.
He was trapped with Izuku, who would always care about him more than anyone else ever would, but not nearly as much as Katsuki’s greedy heart wanted.
Not nearly as much as Katsuki had thought he did.
He was trapped with Izuku, who would look at him and cry and care so intensely that Katsuki would remember why he was fooled into thinking that he was special. Only to remember a second later that everyone was special to Izuku. And when Izuku gave it any thought, he offered his extra time and attention to someone who wasn’t Katsuki.
“Kacchan, please—”
“No.”
Katsuki didn’t know what Izuku’s expression was, because he stared at his own extended, trembling hand until Izuku stopped hesitating and handed the washcloth to him.
Sucking in breaths like he’d been sprinting, Katsuki shifted and messily wiped over his own face and chin and neck. He scrubbed roughly and quickly across his face, rubbing harshly at the stubble on his chin and neck until the skin there was rubbed raw.
When he was done, his hand dropped to the floor, chest heaving massively from such a small action.
“Kacchan…” Izuku’s voice was quiet and strained and concerned.
Katsuki’s reaction was visceral. He felt a strong sense of revulsion from what his entire body was screaming at him to be pity. His defenses were slamming into place. There was a desire to show Izuku that he didn’t need his pity or his help or him.
How could Katsuki not find this condescending? Even if Izuku’s intentions were good, how could Katsuki escape such a situation with any amount of dignity? How could Izuku not look down on him from his superior place in life?
With a very significant amount of effort, Katsuki lifted his eyes from the floor to meet Izuku’s; his wide green eyes were watery. His face scrunched as he still appeared to be trying not to cry.
Katsuki glared with the most force that he could muster, though it wasn’t much.
“Can I help you to bed?” Izuku offered. “Or the couch?”
There he went, trying to fix. Izuku would go to the ends of the earth to fix this for him—just like he would do with anyone else.
Too bad nothing could fix this.
Why did it have to be Izuku that had knocked on his door?
Why couldn’t it have been anyone else on the planet?
Izuku would probably always want to be near him now, because Katsuki was dying and he’d want to save him. He wouldn’t stop trying to save him until they put him in the ground.
Katsuki would always be torn between his pride and disgust, and his unbearable grief for the intimacy he’d allowed himself to think he had. He’d always have to fight the urge to want Izuku near him, because instinct told him that Izuku was safe and familiar.
They could only cause each other pain now.
“No,” Katsuki bit out immediately, his eyes boring into Izuku’s and trying to transfer how intensely he wanted Izuku to go away through them.
He was fairly certain that Izuku was receiving the message, but he was a bastard so he wouldn’t listen anyways.
“Do you… want to shower or something?” Izuku tried again, voice growing more desperate as he searched for something he could do.
“No.”
“Tell me what you need,” Izuku said, beseeching. “Please, Kacchan.”
Katsuki, still slumped against the tub and breathing audibly loud, scowled up at him.
“Leave.”
Izuku startled, blinking rapidly as his face contorted further with hurt and apprehension. His eyes shone with unshed tears, and he started to shake his head. His agitated, wobbly state just made his movements even more exaggerated; he shook his head too intensely and for too long.
“No… no, no, Kacchan, I’m not just going to leave!” Izuku argued adamantly.
Katsuki seethed as he continued to catch his breath. He glared up at Izuku, though it probably looked far weaker than he would’ve liked.
“Just—” In his rather frantic state, Izuku’s eyes were darting all around, seemingly unwilling to settle on one specific thing.
They flitted over Katsuki’s face, then over towards the bloody petals that were still splattered on the floor—taunting Katsuki—and back.
“Just l-let me help, please, Kacchan!” Izuku pleaded. “I’ll—just let me help you to bed and I’ll go, okay? I’ll call whoever you want to come instead, but I’m not leaving you on the floor!”
He started to reach towards him.
Katsuki’s scowl deepened as the defensive feelings surged inside him. He shoved Izuku’s hand aside and tried his best to shrink away from him at the same time. With little energy and little room to move, Katsuki was limited on how to best get him away but with any luck he was making himself very clear on how he felt about receiving Izuku’s help at the moment.
“No,” he spat mulishly.
“Kacchan!” Izuku protested, the distress growing on his face and in his tone. “You’re clearly not feeling well, so let me help! You remember that time I had the flu and almost collapsed from fatigue? You’re the one who carried me home! This is nothing compared to that! I owe you, okay? And I want to help you like you helped me!”
Katsuki recognized Izuku’s clear attempts to skirt around his pride. Both the fact that it usually worked and that Izuku knew it did were only making him feel even more pissed off at the moment.
This was not the same as the fucking flu. This wasn’t the same as anything that had ever happened to either of them before. He didn’t need a goddamn workaround—a goddamn excuse for why it was okay for Izuku to help him. He was well aware of the imbalance in their dynamic now and nothing would change that.
He just wanted Izuku to go away.
“Out,” Katsuki spat forcefully, looking pointedly from Izuku to the door behind him.
“Kacchan, please!” Izuku begged again, and his tears spilled over onto his cheeks.
Katsuki glared at him.
Izuku wanted to fix this. He wanted to play hero, but this wasn’t a fucking game, and Katsuki wouldn’t be his fucking damsel in distress. He most certainly would fucking not.
Izuku was here now when Katsuki was weak and sick and Izuku thought he needed a goddamn hero.
But Izuku wasn’t there before when Katsuki was strong and well and wanted a goddamn friend and partner.
Was Katsuki really just another damn extra to this guy? Really?
He was so mad he wanted to punch his fucking lights out.
“Izuku,” he heaved out. “Get. The fuck. Out.”
Izuku stared at him, appalled as tears continued to escape his eyes and trace down his cheeks. His face contorted with pain, and he let out a sob, though he quickly wiped at his face with a trembling arm and forced a deep breath.
Katsuki could only stare daggers at him. The pain in his chest hadn’t left even with the rage inside of him. The grief warred with hurt and guilt and sorrow, and it was all blanketed in fury and irritation. This was not how he’d wanted Izuku to find out. If Izuku had stayed behind the closed door like a normal, decent person, he wouldn’t be crying right now.
If only Katsuki had made it to the toilet before coughing anything up.
“This… this is Hanahaki, isn’t it?” Izuku managed to say, weakly and painfully after a moment.
Katsuki’s heart dropped at the word. His whole body tensed.
Thump. Thump. Thump.
Obviously, Izuku knew what it was.
Obviously, the cat was out of the fucking bag.
Katsuki had known that, but he still felt massively unprepared to hear the word Hanahaki come out of Izuku’s mouth. It felt like even with all his efforts to accept everything, hearing it from Izuku shattered a barrier of safety in his mind that he hadn’t even known was there.
He was exposed.
All his weakness, all his pain, all his mistakes… it lay in a bloody puddle on the floor for Izuku to witness and judge and pity him over. No more avoiding it. No more hiding from it.
It felt like his throat had closed up.
His gut churned yet again.
His next inhale rustled the flowers in his lungs.
“Kacchan,” Izuku pleaded as despair became clearer in his tone. “It’s Hanahaki disease, right?”
“Yes,” Katsuki bit out, tersely.
Lying was pointless with the damn flower petals lying on the floor next to them.
Izuku sobbed out a quiet sound through his teeth—an anguished, frustrated noise—and slapped a hand over his mouth right after. He shook his head rapidly.
“But—but—” the words were muffled behind his hand.
Katsuki’s eyes drifted towards the floor. It felt like there was an open wound somewhere and that his energy was actively bleeding out of it. All the pain had capped out, and Katsuki started to feel increasingly numb and overwhelmed at the same time.
He could only stare at the tiled floor as Izuku panicked.
“But I don’t understand!” Izuku gasped out. “How—when—”
Katsuki’s eyes drifted halfway shut. He suddenly felt his exhaustion settle back in tenfold. If Izuku had finally found his voice and intended to bombard him with questions, he was sure that he was bound to snap. He was far too tired for a goddamn interview.
What time was it now? He’d been planning on going to bed early tonight before Izuku showed up.
He wished Izuku hadn’t shown up. He didn’t want to deal with this right now. He hadn’t been prepared to deal with this right now.
“Who is it?!” asked Izuku, distressed and imploring.
Katsuki wasn’t surprised to hear him ask, but it still made it feel like a hand was tightening around his heart. He didn’t move to open his eyes any further.
“Kacchan,” Izuku’s stupid, whiny voice filtered through Katsuki’s mind.
Katsuki’s eye twitched.
Couldn’t he see that Katsuki wasn’t feeling good? That he’d coughed shit out of his lungs and puked and now could barely sit up? Fuck him for this.
“Kacchan, who are you in love with?” Izuku sounded closer. “Please, tell me!”
He sounded more desperate, more scared. Frowning, Katsuki lifted his eyes to look at him.
Unsurprisingly, Izuku was crying, but his tears welled in his eyes and streamed down his cheeks, ignored. His eyes were ablaze, determined and furious. It was a look that had never failed to inspire Katsuki before. Now, he just felt overwhelmed and pissed off.
Because Izuku was a fixer… but he couldn’t fix this. But Katsuki was doomed to watch him doggedly try.
“Kacchan, please!” Izuku ground out, angry and sad and on a mission that could never succeed. “Please talk to me! How did this happen?!”
Katsuki’s eyes drifted back to the floor, and he said nothing.
“Who is it, Kacchan?” Izuku sounded more strained, more desperate, leaning closer.
“Outta my face!” Katsuki snapped, heaving in breaths from the effort of saying so many words so indignantly.
Gruesomely, he wondered if he did tell Izuku, would Izuku’s solid, irrefutable rejection kill him on the spot?
At the moment, he felt weak enough that the possibility wasn’t zero.
Izuku sat back on his heels and began to ramble shakily, his distress clear in his voice and how he flailed his arms and moved to grip his own hair and arms and generally would not fucking sit still.
“Kacchan, please tell me who it is. I didn’t know anything about this! I—I just—do they know? Were you rejected? What happened? How progressed is—oh my god, this is why you’ve been sick? Is this why you were acting strange before that too?” His voice grew shrill and pained towards the end.
“I can’t believe—how did I not notice?!” Izuku asked, sounding horrified and ashamed. “You seemed off, but at first, I just figured you were tired or something. I—I—Kacchan, what happened? Tell me who, please. What do we… surgery, right? There’s a surgery that fixes this? Why haven’t you gotten it? Kacchan, you have to go to the doctor! You—your heart is vulnerable from before, Kacchan! You can’t let the Hanahaki grow any further!”
Izuku was speaking so quickly that it all blended together in Katsuki’s exhausted, dazed state.
Katsuki just stared forward with narrowed eyes as he rambled and flailed his hands and tears streamed out of his eyes, ignored.
“Please, Kacchan,” Izuku begged, rushed, as he ducked down to try and make eye contact.
Katsuki blinked slowly, annoyed, and looked at him. Izuku was so goddamn lucky that he felt so poorly because otherwise he would’ve strangled him by now.
“Have you gone to the doctor?” asked Izuku.
“Yes,” Katsuki gritted out curtly.
“And… the surgery? Did you know about that?”
“Yes,” Katsuki glared at him.
Had Izuku lost his damn mind? Of course Katsuki knew about the surgical option.
“You do? Did you schedule it? Is it soon? Please tell me it’s soon, Kacchan,” Izuku rambled.
“No,” Katsuki said, frowning deeply.
“Why not?! Kacchan—”
“Not gettin’ surgery.”
Izuku looked at him like he’d kicked a puppy. “What?”
Katsuki huffed out a frustrated breath, closing his eyes.
“Kacchan, you can’t—”
“Shut up!” Katsuki snapped, voice raspy and weak enough that Izuku winced slightly. “Mind your business.”
Izuku looked shocked and ready to protest.
Katsuki squeezed his eyes shut, realizing that escape was the only way out now. He felt like he might pass out if he tried to move, but he decided that he’d rather be unconscious than lie here on this goddamn bathroom floor and listen to Izuku’s incessant rambling for another second.
“I’m going… to get up now…” Katsuki managed, pausing to take loud breaths.
“No, wait—”
“And you… are going to make… yourself useful… and make sure… I don’t fall.”
Izuku started to nod rapidly part of the way through. “Yes, of course I—”
“I’m goin’ to the couch,” Katsuki grumbled.
“Right,” Izuku stood up, and then again reached his hand down to offer it.
For a moment, Katsuki only stared at it.
This time, his exhausted brain finally put together what had been so unexpected and unsettling to him about Izuku’s reactions to all this.
A part of him had been waiting for revulsion. He’d been waiting for Izuku to shy away—from him, from the petals, from the Hanahaki. Katsuki had instinctively been waiting for Izuku to be disgusted by him—as if being near the petals could infect him or the air near Katsuki was poison or the Hanahaki would spread to him if they touched.
In the next moment, Katsuki remembered the most obvious thing in the world.
Izuku was Quirkless.
He couldn’t get Hanahaki disease.
There was no fear or revulsion because even if Hanahaki spread like a damn virus, Izuku was immune. He’d been expecting the disgust at Hanahaki disease that he’d seen in people’s eyes before, but it would never be in Izuku’s, because he’d never had anything to fear.
The fact that Izuku couldn’t get Hanahaki disease was something Katsuki knew well, and yet he hadn’t given it much thought in a very long time.
So he knew, but he hadn’t put it all together until this moment. He’d never expected to get Hanahaki and there wasn’t a reason for him to think about whether or not Izuku would get Hanahaki, so his brain was only now piecing together all the information he had from long, long ago.
He knew how people felt about Hanahaki, but his brain had neglected to remind him that logically Izuku wouldn’t give a shit.
It made more of Katsuki’s energy bleed out of the open wound he couldn’t see. Somehow, a weight settled even heavier on his chest and shoulders, and he wished he could just sink into the floor.
The idea of taking Izuku’s hand made him want to vomit, but the idea of staying here while Izuku bombarded him with questions felt even worse. Stuck between a rock and a hard place, Katsuki wondered what the hell he’d done to deserve this hell.
He huffed out a breath in resignation and took Izuku’s hand.
─────
One of Katsuki’s earliest memories was of Izuku crying.
It’d been a long time since Katsuki could remember why Izuku had started crying, only that he was crying a lot. He cried carelessly. Unashamedly.
Katsuki remembered being shocked—almost scandalized—to see how openly he cried.
“Izuku, stop crying!” Katsuki shouted.
His little voice was shaky even as he tried to order his friend around. Izuku did not stop crying, and Katsuki grew more panicked.
“Stop!” Katsuki cried out, shoving him backwards. “Izuku, you dummy, stop crying!”
Izuku stumbled, fell back onto his butt, and only cried harder. He sobbed loudly, wiping his eyes messily on the sleeves of his hoodie even as the downpour didn’t let up in the slightest.
Katsuki crouched down in front of him, “Shh, Izuku, stop! I’m sorry, okay? You have to stop crying!”
Little Katsuki felt his confusion and worry blending with fear and uncertainty.
Didn’t Izuku know that it was dangerous to cry?
Didn’t his mother warn him too?
“Don’t ever water the flowers, Katsuki!”
Katsuki didn’t remember much more of that day, only that he was terrified and confused and wished Izuku would stop crying.
He didn’t want Izuku to die. He couldn’t be crying like this.
On a different day, Katsuki remembered dragging Izuku to their neighborhood’s library and using one of the computers.
If Izuku’s mom wouldn’t protect him, Katsuki would.
It took a while for Katsuki to type out Hanahaki, but the autofill search helped quite a bit.
“See, Izuku?” Katsuki pointed at the screen, at an artistic diagram that someone had drawn with flowers in the lungs. “Flowers will grow in your lungs!”
“Why?” asked Izuku, staring at the computer wide-eyed.
Katsuki frowned. He hated not knowing things. Like hell would he admit that he didn’t have all the answers.
“It’s one of the Quirk diseases.”
Izuku’s eyes lit up. “It has to do with Quirks?”
“It’s a Quirk disease, dummy!” Katsuki pinched him on the arm, ignoring how Izuku gasped and pulled his arm away.
“Ouch! Kacchan, that hurt!”
“But you can’t cry, because it can make it worse. It can water the flowers! You’ll die!”
“How do you know?” Izuku’s eyes were wide, his pain forgotten. “Can you read this?”
Katsuki pouted. Of course he could read. He could read better than anyone else in their class! But whoever wrote this article was clearly out to get him, because they’d chosen words he hadn’t yet gotten around to learning!
“I don’t gotta read it to know! Everyone knows this stuff!”
“Oh,” Izuku’s wide eyes turned back to the screen, looking at the stylized diagram.
He reached up to touch the screen, tracing over the artistic depiction of the purple flowers.
“They’re sort of pretty though, don’t you think, Kacchan? My mom has flowers like these ones.”
Katsuki looked at him, disturbed.
“What’s wrong with you?! They grow inside your body!” he jammed his finger into Izuku’s ribcage. “It kills you!”
“Ouch!” Izuku leaned away from him, swatting his hand away. His face fell a bit. “Yeah… I guess you’re right.”
“So, no more crying, Izuku!” Katsuki stood on his chair, pointing down at his friend. “You hear me?! I mean it!”
“Okay, Kacchan!” Izuku nodded but then tilted his head. “But… but we don’t even know our Quirks yet, Kacchan. So… we probably can’t get this until we’re older, right?”
“So?!” Katsuki huffed defensively, plopping back down. “You have to start now, dummy! If you get used to crying, you’ll get it one day!”
“Oh,” Izuku’s face had been twisted in confused distress, but he nodded to show his understanding.
Despite Katsuki’s best efforts, Izuku did not stop crying.
Then, Izuku was Quirkless.
Izuku became Deku.
Deku didn’t stop crying.
He cried a lot.
Carelessly.
Unashamedly.
Arrogantly.
Stupid Deku… flaunting his ability to cry to everyone.
Deku was weak. He didn’t have a Quirk, and yet he still thought he was better than everyone else, huh? He could cry, because he had nothing to fear from the deadly Hanahaki disease.
If Katsuki so much as shed a tear, his mom would smack him on the back of the head and tell him to toughen up. She’d remind him about the flowers and about how he needed to be strong. She told him he’d need to be strong to be a hero anyways, so it killed two birds with one stone.
It was difficult, because Katsuki often felt like crying, but he learned how to get rid of that.
Anger was allowed. He clung to that.
He raged. He dug his nails into his own skin until it nearly bled. He snapped and lashed out.
But he didn’t cry.
Katsuki was disturbed by Deku for a lot of reasons, but this was certainly one of them. Crying was a shameful, private thing, but Deku was so open about it.
Time passed and still Izuku cried. He cried when he did most things. He cried when he was sad. When he was overwhelmed. He cried when Katsuki beat him up.
Katsuki didn’t even feel bad when he made him cry, because Izuku was the one rubbing it in all their faces.
In early middle school, they had a unit on Quirk diseases.
They had to get permission slips signed, and then the teacher showed them the pictures. There were medical images of someone’s chest—slowly overtaken by white.
There were pictures of someone’s torso throughout Hanahaki. They lost weight, and then eventually, there were pictures that showed something under their skin. Some later pictures showed things growing out of their skin.
Katsuki remembered thinking it was disgusting. Many of his classmates voiced something similar.
“Not everyone’s Hanahaki plant grows outward or visibly while they’re alive,” their teacher had said. “But after death, it will. Eventually, it’ll grow into a flowering tree.”
Katsuki remembered keeping his arms crossed and his face forcefully in a glower to hide the revulsion he felt. One of his classmates asked to leave because they were feeling sick. Even if it was gross, Katsuki could handle it, and he’d prove that.
Katsuki didn’t remember what else they’d learned that day, only that the images of the ridges right underneath their skin or the plant poking through their skin was utterly disgusting.
Even as they were packing up to leave for the day, Katsuki couldn’t stop the vague feeling of nausea in his gut.
“You’re lucky, Midoriya,” someone murmured behind him. “You don’t have to worry about this stuff.”
Katsuki’s irritation surged as he heard it. His head snapped to look over at where a few of his classmates were actually talking to Deku. They were actually jealous of him, as if he was the one who was better than all the rest of them.
“A-ah, yes, um,” stuttered out stupid Deku.
Katsuki felt his rage boiling over. His face twisted into a cruel sneer, and he walked over to Deku, slinging an arm around the back of his neck in a move that was outwardly friendly but too forceful to be anything but a show of intimidation and strength.
Katsuki was taller and bigger than Deku, though that wasn’t difficult with how scrawny the nerd was.
“Oh, h-hi, Kacchan,” Deku glanced at him and then away, ducking his head.
His eyes were wide with an uncertainty and anxiety that made Katsuki feel victorious.
“Guess the universe was looking out for you this one time, Deku,” Katsuki jeered. “It’s good you can’t get Hanahaki, because no one would ever love you back!”
“Kacchan, t-that’s mean!” Deku muttered, trying to shove away from him, but Katsuki’s firm hold around his neck kept them close.
“Who would want such a crybaby Quirkless nerd anyways?” Katsuki mocked. “Thank your lucky stars, Deku! Or you’d be a shoo-in for the groveyard!”
“Kacchan, stop it!” Deku’s face had gone red, his eyes averted, and he tried to shove away again.
Katsuki let him go, smirking at him in challenge as Deku looked at him with a momentary fire in his eyes like he was going to say something. His blood thrummed, the rush of power and superiority had long chased away any nausea.
Katsuki’s grin widened as he held up his hand to show off the explosions of his Quirk.
Sure, Deku couldn’t get Hanahaki, but he was clearly the inferior one here. Sure, Deku could cry freely, but that was a good thing because his life was so pathetic.
Katsuki wouldn’t let him forget it. He wouldn’t let any of their classmates forget it.
It’s just Deku. Katsuki wanted them all to realize.
Nothing impressive there. Deku—who was always there with his wide, watery eyes whether or not Katsuki wanted him to be there. Deku wouldn’t be going anywhere for the time being, so he needed to remember his place—a pebble beneath Katsuki’s feet.
Deku averted his watery eyes.
Katsuki didn’t want to look at him anymore. He wished he never had to look at him ever again and see the shameless tears in his eyes.
Katsuki hadn’t been able to escape Deku yet, but he hoped to one day soon. After all, Katsuki was going to go to UA and become the Number One Hero.
And Deku? Deku was just Deku, so hopefully, he’d be nowhere in sight.
─────
Karma.
As Katsuki stared at Izuku and thought back to the various, distant memories of how Hanahaki had come up in their childhood, he realized that that’s what this was.
Karma. Poetic irony. Some sort of sick joke from the universe.
“I don’t…” Izuku was saying shakily. “I don’t understand.”
Katsuki took another sip of water before leaning forward to place the cup on his coffee table.
Somehow, he’d been able to make it to the couch on his own, with the wall for support and Izuku shadowing him nervously the entire time.
Izuku had brought his water and then ran to grab some more soup and some crackers. Katsuki had been working on the water but still felt too ill for the food.
Generally, he felt like he’d recovered quite a bit and his breath had mellowed out. Still, he was exhausted and wanted to sleep for at least twelve hours.
Now, as Katsuki slumped on the couch, Izuku stood across from him, alternating between pacing and practically bouncing on his feet.
And for the entire time… he hadn’t shut the fuck up.
“You’re not supposed to get Hanahaki unless you’re really in love with someone!” Izuku was mumbling like a crazy person, eyes wide and wild.
Katsuki glared pointedly at him, unamused, following him back and forth with his eyes as Izuku paced and mumbled like the fucking idiot he was.
How bitterly ironic this all was.
Katsuki had been a little asshole, shoving Izuku around and calling him unlovable, and now look at him.
Unloved by Izuku.
There was a numb, rueful sort of acceptance that was settling in Katsuki’s heart. He watched Izuku pace, and he thought of their very distant past, and he wondered if the universe had been taking note of his crimes all this time.
All his attempts to atone hadn’t been enough, it seemed. His efforts to be better were all for nought.
His cruelty and selfishness to Izuku during their childhood was unforgivable.
His sentence was death.
“It’s not just like a little crush,” Izuku paced and muttered and mimed writing on his hands. “You have to be fully in love with someone! But who is Kacchan in love with? He spends all his time working! I didn’t realize he’d fallen in love. Who—”
“Will you shut the hell up?!” Katsuki barked, glaring at him. “For fuck’s sake! Giving me a goddamn migraine. Are you ever going to leave, nerd?!”
“Am I right?” Izuku asked, spinning on him and fully ignoring what he’d said.
His eyes were comically wide, his expression so perplexed and nerdy that Katsuki wanted to throw something at him.
“About what?” Katsuki gritted out as he looked around for something to throw at Izuku.
His water glass? No, it still had his water in it.
Pillows? Too soft, not enough damage.
Maybe he could just ask Izuku to get closer so he could punch him?
“You can’t get Hanahaki from a simple crush?”
Katsuki returned the full force of his ugliest glare to Izuku.
“Do I look like Google to you, shitty nerd?! Do your fucking book report on your own time!”
“So, you’re in love?!” Izuku’s eyes flew open wide.
Katsuki wasn’t entirely certain he recognized the exact look on his face.
Shock? Yes.
Confusion? Certainly.
But it leaned more towards affronted rather than curious. Katsuki didn’t know what to make of it, and he most certainly didn’t have the energy to dwell on it.
He clenched his jaw, looking off to the side as heat rushed his face. He felt watched, called out, embarrassed. Here he was, dying over this motherfucker, and Izuku was just here being a goddamn idiot like usual.
Fucking hell.
“It’s good you can’t get Hanahaki, because no one would ever love you back!”
Katsuki wondered if Izuku even remembered the times he’d said such cruel things to him. He wondered if Izuku resented him at all for it. Izuku was Izuku, so somehow, he never seemed to resent Katsuki for anything at all.
Katsuki knew this about him, and yet he still would never understand it.
How did it not even occur to Izuku to rub this in his face right now?
How did it not even look like Izuku was resisting rubbing it in his face?
“What’s it to you?” Katsuki bit out, eyes flicking back over to look at Izuku.
He wished he wasn’t sharply tuned in to catch some sort of reaction he wasn’t going to get. As if he deserved Izuku’s jealousy, much less his love.
“But… but…” Izuku’s face had just gone a bit blank. “But you…”
“What—I’m an asshole incapable of love?” Katsuki drawled, but his chest hurt. “You’re so shocked beyond belief that someone such as I could ever—”
“No, no, no, no, no,” Izuku rushed to deny, shaking his head and waving his hands around in front of him frantically. He looked a bit dismayed. “That’s not what I meant, Kacchan! I—I just—I’m confused! I didn’t know you were dating anyone!”
“Did you slip on a goddamn Lunchable and hit your head at work today, idiot?!” Katsuki barked sharply.
Izuku stared at him blankly, blinking wide eyes. “W-what?”
“I’m not dating anyone, dumbass! Why the fuck do you think I’m dying of Hanahaki?!”
Izuku went white so fast it was almost impressive. Shock took over his face all over again.
Katsuki huffed out a sigh, feeling the exhaustion settling impressively further into his bones.
He wasn’t ready.
Somehow, after all this time, he wasn’t ready for any of this.
The more his fatigue and nausea had receded after his vomiting episode, the more a deep-rooted anxiety had started to twist in his gut. Everyone was about to know everything, and he wasn’t ready to face it.
He definitely hadn’t been ready to face Izuku and to listen him talk and theorize about a love that Katsuki secretly harbored that was killing him. He hadn’t been ready. He felt exposed and weak and tired.
It built up inside him and was leaking out as irritation.
After a pause, Izuku asked him again, baffled, “You’re… Kacchan, why haven’t you scheduled a surgery to remove it?”
“Why don’t you mind your fucking business?!” Katsuki growled, staring daggers at him.
His chest hurt. It hurt so bad that he wanted to explode or rip his own heart out or scream.
“The surgery… doesn’t it have a high success rate?!” Izuku sounded increasingly distressed and insistent. “Isn’t it highly recommended?! Kacchan?!”
“WHAT DID I SAY ABOUT NOT BEING A FUCKING SEARCH ENGINE, DAMN NERD?!”
Katsuki shouted so loud that he made himself out of breath and lightheaded. His head fell back to lean against the back of the couch, and he focused on breathing in a way that wouldn’t make him pass out or throw up. Shallow, measured breaths.
“S-sorry, Kacchan,” Izuku looked panicked again, flailing his arms. “I… I’m sorry. Do you need, uh… are you—”
“If you don’t… shut up… I’m going… to kill you,” Katsuki seethed out even through his respiratory distress. “I’ll strangle you… right fucking here… and they can put us… both in the ground.”
“Please don’t joke about that,” Izuku turned away, putting his hands into his hair. When he started to frantically pace again, Katsuki saw the tears streaming out of his eyes.
Izuku… who always cried so carelessly.
Katsuki followed him lazily with his eyes, remembering how it had repulsed him so intensely as a child.
He remembered how later, it had been one of the reasons he’d felt okay crying in front of Izuku in high school.
Now, he wasn’t sure what he felt as he watched him cry, only that it hurt.
Everything hurt.
Everything hurt, and he was exhausted and annoyed and so goddamn done with all this and yet there was no way to escape any of it.
“Oh god, please,” Izuku was shaking his head. “Don’t joke about it.”
“I’m not… joking,” Katsuki gritted out. “I’ll kill you.”
“Not—god, not about that!” Izuku cried, upset and pleading. “Kacchan, please!”
“Oh, for the love of fucking god, Izuku,” Katsuki sighed out, eyes trailing from Izuku up to the ceiling. “I’m too tired for this. Can’t you just leave? We’ll talk about this later.”
“Kacchan, I just found out you’ve got Hanahaki disease out of nowhere—”
Katsuki narrowed his eyes at the ceiling.
He felt a—potentially unjustified—stab of bitterness at how completely unaware of this Izuku was.
“—and now you won’t talk to me!”
“Izuku,” he gritted out. “I’m tired, okay? I’m fucking exhausted. This ain’t any of your fuckin’ business, and I didn’t mean for you to find—”
“I thought we were past this!” Izuku cried out, stopping directly across from him, exasperation growing in his tone.
Katsuki’s eyes fell from the ceiling to bore into Izuku’s.
Izuku stared back at him. He was still crying, but there was so much emotion in his eyes—fury and anguish and a thousand things. It was a look that usually made Katsuki’s heart skip a beat; it did so even now. Even with his limited energy and dying body, his heart expended the effort to react to Izuku, and the reminders of a dream that would never be reached.
If he got the surgery, would he look into Izuku’s eyes and feel nothing?
Would his heart no longer remember him either and not trip over itself when they made eye contact?
How was it possible to stop something so automatic and out of his own control?
Would the Hanahaki tear apart his heart when it refused to give up Izuku?
“I thought we’d gotten past this, Kacchan!” Izuku went on, sounding less and less frustrated and more and more upset. “I thought you and I were f-friends. I thought you…” his voice broke, and he wiped his teary eyes on his sleeves like he did when he was a kid.
It was bizarre to watch him wipe his eyes on the sleeves of his button-up shirt. It was a sight that was so familiar; Katsuki had seen it a thousand times. He’d done it back then—when the two of them were so young they didn’t know their Quirks yet and Katsuki had feared that his best friend would die because he was crying.
It was familiar, but Izuku was clearly older—both in how he dressed and how his face had matured.
He supposed some things never changed. Izuku would always be a crybaby. Openly, carelessly, shamelessly, in a way that Katsuki would never be able to understand or replicate.
How many tears would he shed for Katsuki before he forced himself to move on?
Katsuki’s heart ached, and for a moment he focused on breathing, if only so he could gather the air to speak.
“Izuku,” Katsuki said lowly, and repeated himself, “I’m exhausted.”
“I know,” Izuku gripped at his hair. “I know. I’m sorry, Kacchan. I—I just—I don’t understand what’s happening.”
Katsuki scowled at him.
After a moment he barked, “Sit down before you pass out and then I gotta call you a fucking ambulance!”
Immediately, Izuku sat down on the other end of the couch as if Katsuki had forcefully tugged him down. Katsuki watched him out of the corner of his eye.
Izuku—expressive, heart on his sleeve Izuku—was visibly struggling. His face contorted from a pained grimace to furrowed brows of distress to wide eyes of fear.
There was a minute of heavy silence that Katsuki had little desire to break if only because he was too tired to keep talking. But as usual, he was out of luck, because after a moment, Izuku’s expression settled.
Hero Deku was back—the resolve had returned to his eyes. The urge and determination to fix that which was broken.
“Kacchan, who is it?” Izuku asked again, tone lower and more solemn than before.
Katsuki rolled his head over so he could glare at him easier and more directly.
“I’m not going to tell you, so stop asking,” he said tersely.
“Why not?” Izuku’s brow furrowed slightly.
Katsuki’s eyes went back to the ceiling. “Because I don’t want them to know, so I’m keeping this shit to myself.”
“Wha—you think I’d tell them?!” said Izuku, offended.
Katsuki glowered at the ceiling.
Thump. Thump. Thump.
This felt dangerous.
This conversation felt far too risky to be having with Izuku.
“Wait, wait, wait,” said Izuku, rushed. “They don’t even know?! Kacchan, how do you know it’s unrequited?! You have to tell them!”
Katsuki’s eyes bored into the ceiling.
What had he done to deserve this on top of everything else?
What had he done to end up here?
It’s just Deku. He’d thought as he’d shoved Izuku around without remorse.
It’s just Deku. He’d thought as he’d directed endless cruel words his way.
It’s just Izuku. He’d thought as he cried and raged and let it all out at Ground Beta.
It’s just Izuku. He’d thought as he’d carelessly fallen in love.
Right.
That’s what.
He’d treated Izuku like a guarantee. Like an extension of himself—fine to mistreat or care for or fight alongside or love because he wouldn’t go anywhere anyways.
He’d fallen in love without even realizing it or giving it a whole lot of thought, because he’d mistaken Izuku for a part of himself.
“I know they don’t love me like that, Izuku,” Katsuki murmured, his voice lifeless.
I know you don’t love me like that, Izuku.
Izuku seemed to struggle for words. Katsuki didn’t even have to look at his face to know his confusion and uncertainty was clearly all over his face.
Eventually, he said, “Kacchan, you have to get the surgery.”
Katsuki’s limbs felt heavy. His exhaustion pressed in on all sides.
“Can’t, ‘Zuku,” he muttered, dull eyes roaming down from the ceiling to stare into Izuku’s wide and searching eyes. “I need those memories.”
Izuku seemed at a loss again.
After all, he wanted to fix this, even though he wouldn’t be able to. This wasn’t something with such an easy solution, and Katsuki wished that everything wasn’t so complicated.
If things were simpler, then he could get the surgery.
If things were simpler, he could untangle Izuku from his memories and heart and soul and leave something of worth behind, but he knew that wouldn’t be the case.
He owed the man he was today largely to Izuku. Any redeemable qualities he had were built to try and become someone worthy of Izuku’s partnership. All the best parts of him were born of Izuku, for Izuku, and every other part of him involved Izuku anyways.
“Kacchan, surely you don’t need them!” Izuku managed to protest, the distress clear on his screwed-up face.
Just like that, his tone was angry enough that it easily pulled the short trigger on Katsuki’s temper.
Katsuki’s emotions slammed at the barrier inside of him all at once.
“You don’t know what the hell you’re talking about!” Katsuki snapped sharply, defensively.
“Kacchan, you can make new memories!” Izuku reacted to his fury with increased insistence and energy. “You can write down the things you need to remember! There’s no way those memories are more important than your life!”
There was a dead, heavy silence as Katsuki said nothing and stared at Izuku with a painful grief clawing its way up his throat. It stabbed pain through his chest that felt like it was begging to spread until it consumed him. He didn’t know how to hold it back, despite how intensely he wished he could.
Izuku didn’t understand.
Izuku was more than a love he didn’t want to forget. He haunted every corner of Katsuki’s being. For all his life, Izuku had been there influencing everything, intentionally or not.
More important than his life?
The memories were Katsuki’s life. They were indistinguishable.
“You don’t even know what the memories are,” Katsuki bit out, his suppressed emotions straining his tone. He cleared his throat and continued, increasingly defensive in a pointless but instinctive attempt to cover up his other feelings, “You think I haven’t thought about all this?!”
“Kacchan, the longer it goes on, the worse it gets!”
“You must think I’m real slow if you’re telling me all this basic shit,” Katsuki snarled.
“I just don’t understand!” Izuku cried, hands digging into his own hair again. “Kacchan, what’s happening? You… you’re you, Kacchan! You never give up, you win every time, and you’re just, what, giving up now?! How dare you?!”
Izuku’s idealism was unbearable at the moment.
So simple, it was all so simple in Izuku’s mind. As if this was a goddamn battle to fight. A villain to conquer. Something broken to be fixed.
“I’m not giving up!” Katsuki snapped.
“Yes, you are!” Izuku protested immediately, eyes wide. “You can make new memories, Kacchan! You can even fall in love again if you want!”
Katsuki stared at Izuku—face flushed from crying, hair a mess from how he’d tugged his hands through it, green eyes wide and pleading and so caring that they’d tricked Katsuki into thinking he was desired.
Goddammit, Katsuki thought as his heart raced.
He was certain that he’d never seen anyone more captivating in his life, and that very thought was enough to make everything inside him hurt that much more.
Katsuki grimaced slightly and looked away from him. He’d stared at Izuku for so long that he must’ve forgotten to breathe properly. The vertigo made him lay his head back to rest it again.
“No, I can’t,” Katsuki said in a low, strained voice, staring up at the ceiling.
Even if he could make new memories… it could never be worth losing the ones he’d had before. Even if he fell in love again, how could it ever compare to what they had? Who could replace a lifetime of history—of proximity, of growing up together, of hurt and healing?
Not to mention, Katsuki didn’t deserve to forget his wrongdoings. Even the uglier parts of his past—all involving Izuku—were things he needed to remember. How else was he supposed to remember why he had to try to be better?
When it was quiet for too long, his curiosity won out and he glanced back at Izuku.
Izuku looked like he’d been punched in the gut. He was staring at Katsuki like he was a stranger. He’d deflated slightly, looking shocked.
When they made eye contact, he said in a tone that sounded off and more unsure than before, “What… yes, you can, Kacchan!”
“Shut the fuck up!”
Katsuki clenched his jaw hard. His chest was heaving again. He felt like crying in a way he wasn’t sure how long he could hold off on.
Izuku deflated a bit more, looking increasingly dismayed.
There was another suffocating pause.
“How… how long have you known this person?” Izuku asked, nervously. “Would… if you got surgery, would you really lose that much?”
Silence.
I’d lose everything.
“Oh god,” Izuku collapsed back further onto the couch, sprawling backwards, boneless. “Oh god.”
Katsuki’s eyes felt so heavy that he wouldn’t be surprised if he closed his eyes and fell asleep within seconds.
“Is it… someone from Class 1-A?” asked Izuku, quietly.
“We’re not doing this, Izuku,” Katsuki cut him off sharply. “Shut up.”
“Kacchan,” said Izuku, leaning forward again suddenly with widened eyes. “I’ve known you your entire life.”
For a horrible, horrible moment it felt like Katsuki’s heart might’ve fully stopped. The disbelief paralyzed him, and he could only stare at Izuku with his mouth slightly agape.
Had Izuku figured it out?
“I can fill you in on anything you forget,” Izuku went on, adamantly.
Katsuki’s heart restarted, and he wasn’t sure what he was feeling.
Relief?
Disappointment?
He could never hope to untangle his emotions in order to name each one of them.
“I’ve been there for all of it, Kacchan!”
That’s the problem, isn’t it? Katsuki thought ruefully.
“Please,” Izuku was begging as if for his own life.
Katsuki wished he could go back in time to shut the door in his face.
Izuku rambled on, distress having him tugging at his own hair and unable to retain eye contact with Katsuki, “I promise I’ll tell you anything you forget. We… we’ve got lots of photos and videos! And—and I have journals from some of it! If you lose any memory from your hero training, I can help you get back to where you were before! I have a lot of notes on your Quirk, so if it’s your hero career you’re worried about…”
His voice faded into the background for Katsuki after a moment, because there would never be anything he could say that would convince him anyways.
Though vaguely, Katsuki thought through what that would look like. Say he went through the surgery—which tore him to shreds—and Izuku would be there to dutifully try and rebuild him afterwards.
Would Izuku make him into an idealized version of himself? Would he be a better person, if he was the way Izuku always saw him?
Too bad he was too much of a selfish coward to find out.
As Katsuki stared at Izuku, a new horror was growing within him. He felt his heart sinking even further.
If Katsuki went through the surgery… and Izuku helped him recover…
How could he not just fall in love with Izuku again?
An all-encompassing feeling of hopelessness—a suffocating numbness—grew by the second.
Assuming he even survived the surgery… he would be doomed because Izuku would never leave him alone. He would just fall in love again. Get Hanahaki again.
Katsuki’s life felt like a tragedy written by the universe itself. It felt too cruel… the idea of trying so hard and sacrificing everything to escape his death, only to still meet the same fate he’d tried so hard to run from.
Death was the only way Katsuki could escape the agony of loving Izuku.
Katsuki stared blankly ahead. He couldn’t take this anymore.
“Izuku,” he said, cutting off whatever Izuku had been rambling on about.
Izuku’s eyes snapped over to meet his.
“Shut up.”
For a moment, they just stared at each other.
Then Izuku’s eyes watered, grimacing yet again.
“I just don’t understand why you won’t get the surgery, Kacchan,” Izuku said quietly, imploringly. “I… you won’t be able to remember them, Kacchan. You could move on.”
Katsuki flinched, and he looked away, off to the side.
His frustration still sat right under the surface, but he held back from lashing out. If he just kept snapping at Izuku, he’d never give up asking and trying to understand. Izuku wasn’t scared by Katsuki’s anger.
He’d always been far more frightened of Katsuki’s vulnerability.
“I can’t get the damn surgery,” he bit out yet again. “It’s not a choice… there ain’t a fucking choice for me. They… they made me who I am, okay? There wouldn’t be anything left of me.”
Izuku’s eyes flew wide, and he suddenly looked affronted.
“How dare you?!” Izuku cried out, shooting to his feet. “How—I understand you’re in love, Kacchan! I know, but how dare you say that you—that you’d be nothing without them! You don’t need them! You can overcome this, no matter how long you’ve known them! Please, Kacchan!”
Katsuki stared lifelessly at him, the words filtering into his mind sounding sort of unreal. Sort of like they were mocking him.
It’s you.
The words were on the tip of his tongue, though he’d never let them out. They sat on the tip of his tongue, but he would bite it off before he let the words make it past his teeth.
It’s you, don’t you get it, Izuku?
“Shut up!” he barked as his chest compressed under the intensity of the ache.
“How can you give up?!” Izuku cried, indignant. “You never give up!”
As if it was so simple. So straightforward.
“Fuck you,” Katsuki hissed out. “I told you. I’m not giving up. I’m not just rolling over and dying, you bastard! The surgery ain’t an option for me. That’s just how it’s gotta be.”
“Why?!” Izuku cried out even louder, begging to understand.
“Why do you think I have this stupid fucking disease, Izuku?!” Katsuki snapped, chest heaving, furious.
He felt the desire to cry rising. There was very little hope of keeping it at bay forever.
He went on, voice strained, “Why the fuck do you think?! Take a wild fucking guess!”
Izuku’s eyes were streaming tears again. His face was contorted into a grimace, and he seemed unable to look at Katsuki for more than a few seconds.
The grief and agony on Izuku’s face was so raw that it felt like the wind was knocked out of Katsuki all over again. Even with all the conflicting emotions and his exhaustion, the urge to cry rose further. Even with how angry he was at Izuku, the anguish and distress on Izuku’s face apparently was still enough to tug painfully hard on Katsuki’s heartstrings.
“You know me, Izuku,” Katsuki said, and his voice came out so strained it was barely there.
Izuku nearly winced, his grimace contorting further at the statement, and he put a hand to his mouth. He stared at the ground with a horrified, lost look in his teary eyes.
“Izuku… look at me.”
Izuku’s eyes tore away from the ground to meet his.
They could only cause each other pain now, but Katsuki refused to let himself look away.
“You know me, Izuku,” Katsuki gritted out, emotion momentarily overwhelming him so intensely that he had to take a moment to breathe before he continued. “Better than anyone. Do I do anything halfway?”
Izuku was crying harder. His chest was jerking slightly as he suppressed fully breaking into sobs. He was looking at Katsuki like it pained him to do so, but he didn’t look away either.
“Do I?!” Katsuki demanded. A touch of aggression leaked into his voice that hardly did anything to mask everything else.
Izuku shook his head, silent sobbing shaking his body harder. Though he still didn’t look away.
“Then you know I wouldn’t half-ass loving someone either.”
Katsuki said it with his full chest, goosebumps racing up his arms as he stared into Izuku’s wide, achingly familiar green eyes.
Thump. Thump. Thump. Thump. Thump. Thump.
His heart raced in his chest, and maybe it would give out or maybe it was just Izuku. He’d never be able to confess his feelings, and he was fine with that, but he needed Izuku to acknowledge the existence and the intensity of his love, if nothing else.
Katsuki wasn’t sure why he needed that from Izuku. He didn’t know what good it would even do. But he still needed it.
Izuku gaped at him for a long time with a wide-eyed look that looked somewhat awed, somewhat bewildered, somewhat uncertain.
After a moment, he shook his head slightly like he was coming out of a daze and then muttered out, “I know... I know you wouldn’t, Kacchan.”
Katsuki was still oddly enraptured by the astonished look in his eye. Even if Izuku didn’t return his love, Katsuki found his heart racing at the idea of something else.
If he couldn’t have Izuku’s love, then maybe at least…
“I don’t understand why you’d die for someone who doesn’t love you back, Kacchan,” Izuku nearly whispered, cutting through Katsuki’s train of thought. “You… I understand you love them, but… what about your hero career? What about—what about becoming the best? This… this isn’t like you! This doesn’t make sense.”
If he’d been standing, the wave of pain Izuku’s words brought might’ve sent Katsuki to his knees. The urge to cry had been hovering not too far below the surface, and it broke its way out before Katsuki could do anything to stop it.
Don’t ever water the flowers.
Tears welled in his eyes, and he looked down to let his hair hang in his face. The tears traced down his cheeks. He tried to let them out slowly in hopes that he wouldn’t be led to a full breakdown.
Katsuki’s misery was making it hard to think. There were a thousand things he could say, if only he could figure out where to start and where to go with it and if it was a good idea anyways. Could he even hope to articulate himself well enough about this?
Finally, he managed to try.
“Have you ever been to a groveyard before, Izuku?”
He stared blankly down at his own lap as tears traced out of his eyes. His voice was low and solemn.
“No,” Izuku responded softly.
“I’ve been a few times,” Katsuki murmured. “My dad had a cousin that died of Hanahaki before we were born. My family goes to visit him sometimes… rarely.”
He paused, reminiscing.
The air was heavy and Katsuki spoke quietly. It was almost suffocating, and yet oddly reverent.
“You said it yourself,” Katsuki went on eventually. “Hanahaki disease is rare. You have to really be in love to develop it. The feelings of rejection and grief and confusion have to be very extreme to trigger it.”
Katsuki drew in a deep breath, sighing it out in a pointless attempt to loosen the knot of emotions in his chest.
“It’s rare… but I went to that groveyard, and there were trees as far as the eye could see, Izuku,” he said. “Hanahaki surgery has been around almost as long as the disease itself has but…”
Katsuki forced his eyes up to look at Izuku, who jolted when they made eye contact. Izuku then startled forward, panic in his eyes as his hands flailed in distress.
“Kacchan!” he cried out. “Y-you’re not supposed to cry, right?! Please don’t cry! Don’t—”
“It’s superstition,” Katsuki gritted out, cutting him off sharply.
Izuku froze in his tracks, eyes wide as they blinked at him. “W-what?”
“The shit about watering the flowers,” Katsuki managed to say, even as the weight on his chest made it hard to breathe. He had to manually force himself to inhale and exhale. “It’s just a metaphor.”
“It… it is?” Izuku stared at him, clearly baffled.
“It means don’t wallow in your misery,” Katsuki muttered hollowly. “Don’t just resolve yourself to negativity and give in to it.”
It was strange, how he could know something to be true, and still hear his mother’s voice in his head berating him every time that he cried.
He knew crying wouldn’t kill him, but somehow it felt like he could feel the flowers growing and thriving with each tear that escaped out of his eyes. He could say the words out loud to Izuku, but he was a hypocrite because, superstition or not, he couldn’t rid himself of the shame.
“Oh,” Izuku still looked and sounded incredibly confused.
“There’s no actual evidence or proven causation between the act of crying, and the worsening of Hanahaki disease,” Katsuki went on, monotonously.
“But… but you…”
Katsuki knew why he was confused. After all, he was the one that’d taught Izuku this—with kindness and worry, with cruelty and pain, with desperation and jealousy.
“My parents watched someone they knew and loved die of Hanahaki disease,” he explained, looking away as his cheeks heated and shame burned in his chest. “They’re about as superstitious as you can get. To them, Hanahaki might as well be the damn plague.”
Izuku didn’t fully understand, because he was Quirkless and therefore immune. Izuku sat here so fearlessly, when so many wouldn’t dare to stand so close. Nowadays, there was less of that, but generally people still stayed away. Even if people weren’t worried that they could catch Hanahaki, there was still a certain amount of shame and avoidance and pity that went with it.
Hanahaki grew poisonous flowers in the lungs. People were terrified of what was in that Quirk-made poison. Having Hanahaki disease was about as isolating as it got. It announced to the world its host’s pain and rejection, drawing attention to it. It broke them down and killed them and condemned them to isolation in death as well.
A disease so deadly, so morbid, so lonely… how could it not inspire a fear that matched it in intensity?
When it’d first emerged, it created full blown panic. Even years later, superstition and misinformation ran rampant.
Izuku couldn’t fully understand why the superstitions held so much weight with people, and that just made Katsuki feel more ashamed for bullying him about it. It wasn’t even true; people were just afraid.
Katsuki had resented Izuku for his immunity. An immunity that he had no control over.
“O-oh,” Izuku said again.
He looked pained, puzzled, unsure. Past all that, his nerd brain was clearly working overtime.
There was a heavy silence where they just stared at each other. Izuku looked like he wanted to ask a thousand things but again seemed at a loss for where to start. He just had a look in his eye that was pained.
A look that was nauseatingly close to pity.
Was it pity?
Katsuki could never hope to know for sure.
But it burned just like pity all the same. The repulsion Katsuki felt towards it writhed under the surface. He gritted his teeth and had to look away.
“Izuku…” Katsuki asked in a low murmur. “Why do you think groveyards exist? Why would so many people condemn themselves to isolation even in death? To being buried without their loved ones? Why would so many people do that, Izuku? Why were there trees as far as I could see?”
He asked, and a desperation bled into his tone as if Izuku could offer him a perfect, easy answer to such morbid questions.
When Izuku didn’t respond, Katsuki glanced back at him and searched his face. Izuku looked no less confused than he had a second ago.
A quiet, huffed laugh surprised Katsuki as it burst through his own lips.
“This might shock you, because I doubt anyone could change you if they tried for a thousand years,” he said, a touch wryly, “but for the rest of us, the people around us make us who we are.”
Izuku looked taken aback, frowning deeply and opening his mouth as if to speak, but seemed momentarily lost for words.
Katsuki went on before he could find them, “Sometimes, someone changes us. Sometimes, someone is so integral to who we are, that to remove them would leave us with nothing.”
Izuku deflated, but then shook his head and said, “But Kacchan, I told you that you don’t need someone else to—”
“Aren’t you listening, shitty nerd?!” Katsuki demanded, voice frustrated and pained. “It’s not about needing, it’s about what already happened! It’s about the memories that make me who I am. I refuse to live on like that. I won’t do it. I can’t do it.”
“But—”
“You would hate it, too,” Katsuki cut him off sharply. “If you think I’m acting unlike myself right now, you would crumble to dust witnessing what the surgery would do to me.”
“Kacchan…”
“I’m tired, Izuku,” he muttered, heaving in a huge breath. His head fell back onto the back of the couch. “I’m done talking about this for now.”
He closed his heavy eyes and could barely believe it when he was met with silence. For once, it seemed like Izuku was inclined to oblige him.
After an amount of time that could’ve been a minute or an hour, Katsuki distantly registered sound as Izuku presumably stood. He cracked open his eyes slightly, seeing Izuku turn to walk out.
“I wouldn’t hate it,” Izuku said, quietly but forcefully. “You would still be you, and I would never hate you, Kacchan.”
Katsuki peeled his eyes open further, boring them into Izuku’s back as he watched him go. He stared after him with exhausted, hazy eyes as his heart beat dully in his chest.
I would still be me, huh? He thought numbly. Agree to disagree.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
part 2
enduring grief
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“I… I have Hanahaki disease.”
Katsuki couldn’t look his parents in the eye as he said it.
He’d told himself he would, but when it came time to actually do it, he couldn’t manage it. His eyes dropped to the floor, his cheeks heated from shame, and he barely managed to whisper it out through his hoarse throat. His heart was beating so hard that he could practically feel his pulse in his throat and head.
“The hell are you talking about?” his mom said sharply.
Katsuki looked up at the harsh tone. His gut churned with anxiety, and he could only stare blankly at his mom for a moment.
His eyes flicked back and forth between his parents.
Admittedly, this was not what he’d been expecting.
His parents sat across the dining table from him. Though his mom had teased him about wanting such a formal setting, they’d obliged him when they saw how serious he was about this.
Currently, they were both gaping at him… in open confusion.
There was no grief or pain or sadness. There wasn’t even any anger or disappointment. They just were looking at him as if he’d started speaking a different language.
Katsuki was too fucking stressed out to deal with this shit. He felt his overwhelming emotions surge and threaten to trigger his short temper.
“What the fuck?” he said, staring back at them incredulously. “Hanahaki disease?! I know you know what—”
His mom cut him off, “I thought you were in love with Izuku.”
It was like she’d punched the wind right out of his gut. Katsuki gaped at her as his own confusion began to grow too. His mind was already buzzing with stress and grief and shame, and he felt at a loss for what to do with this specific reaction.
Though it was extremely off-putting how casually his parents were speaking about this, he tried to shake away his shock. He tried to clear his head, reminding himself that of course they knew he was in love with Izuku.
Though it made him almost queasy with the confusing mix of emotions it brought up, he tried to shake it off.
“Fucking hell…” Katsuki said, trying not to sound so winded. “I am, old hag! That’s the damn problem!”
As he watched, his parents remained fully confused, turning to exchange bewildered looks with each other.
“What the hell’s the problem with that?” his mom demanded, looking at him like he’d grown a second head.
Katsuki’s heart dropped into his stomach. His heart thundered, and again for a moment he could only stare at his parents.
What was happening?
He’d expected horror, crying, potentially a beating from his mother for not heeding any of her damn warnings.
But this? What the hell?
“What’s the problem with having Hanahaki disease?!” Katsuki replied, and his voice came out far more strained with hurt than he’d meant it to.
“Why the fuck do you keep talking about Hanahaki?!” his mom barked, seeming almost annoyed at him for it. “You and Izuku having problems or something?!”
“Problems?!” Katsuki bit back at her. “The problem is he’s not in love with me!”
“HA!” his mom barked out a laugh. “Bull-shit!”
Katsuki was so startled by her amusement that he didn’t know what to do except stare at her. He glanced over at his dad, who was peering at him with greater intensity and watchfulness than his mother, but he looked just as confused.
With a slow sort of horror rising within him, Katsuki realized that the way he talked about Izuku must’ve fooled them. He’d had only been broken out of his own shitty delusions a month ago, so his parents had been hearing his stupid, lovesick point-of-view for years.
Bitterly, painfully, he started, “Look, I know you haven’t heard updates from me about him from me recently but—”
“No, because you’re a terrible son who never keeps in touch!” his mom scolded him so casually that it made Katsuki lightheaded.
It felt like they were in two different universes.
“Just because I don’t answer every damn time you call doesn’t make me a bad son!” Katsuki barked back. “I’m busy! Anyways, I haven’t updated you on any of this shit recently but—”
“You don’t need to!” his mom cut him off, annoyed. “I hear about you from Izuku!”
How many times would it feel like he was getting punched in the fucking gut?
“What?”
“Izuku is a good son,” his mom continued. “He keeps in touch with his mom and keeps her updated. He visits her often. He comes over here with her for dinner sometimes.”
“WHAT?!” Katsuki shoved himself to his feet. “WHY THE HELL HAVE I NOT HEARD ABOUT THIS?!”
“I figured Izuku would tell you,” his mom replied, shrugging.
“Izuku is shit at communicating!” Katsuki shouted. “And he’s busy, too! Why didn’t you ever mention this shit?! Didn’t think to invite your own son?!”
“I’ve tried to tell you,” his mom snapped back, “but you never pick up the damn phone! Plus, it isn’t that often that he comes over here.”
“Ever heard of a fucking text?!”
“Alright, let’s calm down for a sec,” his dad cut in, mildly distressed and placating. “Katsuki, we’re sorry. We genuinely thought since you and Izuku saw each other fairly frequently that he’d mentioned it.”
“Humph,” Katsuki huffed out a noise of annoyance to cover up genuine bafflement and hurt.
“As I was saying,” his mom said pointedly, glaring at her son. “Izuku talks about you all the damn time! So, what the hell are you talking about right now?”
Katsuki sat back, crossing his arms. He felt heat creeping up his neck.
Izuku’s admiration was another thing that’d tricked him into thinking that they were on the same page. It somehow was both not surprising and incredibly painful to realize that he’d easily and unintentionally tricked other people too—Katsuki’s own goddamn parents, no less.
“You’re my parents,” he snapped, but his voice was strained with pain and mortification. “Of course he’s going to talk to you about me.”
His mom looked unimpressed. “Inko says he does it all the time to her, too. He’s always done that, Katsuki. He never shuts up about you.”
Katsuki started to feel the pain in his chest worsening exponentially. His heart was being compressed, his chest compressed, until he felt like he could barely breathe. The familiar urge to cry surged up, and he looked to the side, taking measured breaths to try and keep the tears at bay. He was so tired of crying goddammit.
Why the hell was this happening to him?
“Not… recently…” he said, his voice sounding far away. “He hasn’t done that recently.”
His dad’s brow furrowed. “Katsuki, what’s wrong?”
“He—Izuku—” Katsuki fought to speak past the compression of his chest.
He had to pause again as the urge to cry shot back up. It was so strong—all the emotions pressing on his chest and up into his throat—that he knew he wouldn’t last long before he succumbed to it. It was inevitable, even with how desperately he wished he could keep himself under control. His hands curled into fists under the table, digging his nails into his palms even as he felt that it was likely fruitless this time.
“Are you two fighting or something?” his mom asked, voice careful and gentle—her version of gentle, anyways.
They’d both finally grown more somber. It was what Katsuki had been expecting originally, but somehow it only made his chest compress more. He couldn’t speak. His emotions were all stuck in his throat, and he knew he would cry the moment he tried to broach the subject of Hanahaki again.
His mom would only reprimand him for it.
Katsuki shook his head. Desperately, desperately, he tried to get himself under control, but he couldn’t. There was nowhere else for the emotions to go. They didn’t fit anywhere anymore. He could dig his fingernails into his palms until they bled, and it wouldn’t do anything to suppress all this pain.
“What’s the issue then?” she asked, earnestly. “Katsuki, what’s this shit about Hanahaki? If that was a joke, then that’s very insensitive to your father—”
“I wouldn’t joke about this shit!” the words burst out of his throat, ripping out hoarse and pained. He half shouted, staring at them in fury and pain as his eyes watered to his own mortification.
Katsuki looked over at his father, who was staring at him with wide eyes that held the beginnings of fear and disbelief.
He couldn’t stand it. He hung his head as the first tears fell from his eyes down his cheeks. He wanted to wipe them away, but he didn’t because it would give him away and his first instinct was to hide it as long as possible.
He was crying, and his mother would scold him.
It didn’t matter.
He couldn’t help it.
“Katsuki,” his mother said in a voice that was so calm and comforting that Katsuki immediately felt nauseous.
He wanted to shove away from it, to tell her he wasn’t weak. He wasn’t weak and things were fine and he could handle them, but he couldn’t gather himself together enough to speak.
He hunched forward as he fought back sobs. He clutched at his own chest—the fabric of his shirt right over his heart. He couldn’t even speak to say what he needed to say, because he was so overcome by it all.
“You can’t get Hanahaki if your love’s requited,” she went on in a reassuring tone. “Even if Izuku and you fight, you have nothing to worry about. You don’t need to be afraid of—”
“Stop, stop, please,” Katsuki begged through gritted teeth, shaking his head as the tears streamed continuously from his eyes. He still couldn’t breathe or speak clearly or reign any of it in, but he couldn’t stand to hear another word from her.
Somehow, the idea that they weren’t getting it was making it ten times more miserable.
As he struggled to breathe for a moment, his parents stayed quiet. Finally, the air in the room had grown heavy in the way he’d been expecting from the get-go. It was suffocating, and Katsuki couldn’t breathe, and he hated it.
“He doesn’t love me,” Katsuki sobbed out, hunching forward and bawling it out like he was a child having a breakdown. His voice tremored and was wracked with obvious hurt and heartbreak.
It felt like his chest was breaking in half. His parents would finally be forced to see the tragic reality of their disappointing son.
Katsuki couldn’t look at them and kept his eyes squeezed shut.
“I… I have Hanahaki,” he gasped out, sobbing loudly again. “D-diagnosed. I—I’m so s-sorry.”
For a moment, he could only sob. He cried so hard that he could barely manage to breathe in between.
He clutched at his shirt and leaned forward as if to protect what was clearly an open would in his chest. His heart was torn open, and the amount of pain and mistakes and grievances and sins that were escaping would likely drown him soon enough.
He couldn’t bear to look at them as the shame and anguish ate him alive.
All the years they’d spent, warning him of this. All this effort, to save him from such an unbearable fate.
And he’d blindly walked right into it anyways.
How could he have done this to them?
How could he do something so unforgivable?
How could he doom them to watch this disease kill someone they loved again, but this time with their own son?
“I’m so sorry,” he repeated, stammering it out with his voice so strained and wracked with pain that it was barely a whisper.
He heard the scraping of chairs and tensed all over, knowing that he was either going to be hit or hugged and he didn’t know which he preferred. He didn’t know if he could handle either one.
Don’t ever water the flowers.
Katsuki knew he couldn’t just sit here and cry forever. He needed to get it together, but goddammit he couldn’t even catch his fucking breath. He could barely think.
The chair next to him scraped along the floor, and then his dad put a hand on his shoulder and pulled him into a hug.
Katsuki all but collapsed, boneless, as his sobbing intensified. He was bigger than his dad was now—wider and taller—but he held Katsuki with such firm and familiar strength that Katsuki hardly gave it a second thought.
“I’m so sorry, dad,” he sobbed, clutching with all his strength at his dad’s shirt.
God, he was so ashamed.
His dad had watched his cousin die such a gruesome death, and now his son? Katsuki couldn’t stand it. He couldn’t stand how he’d only ever brought his parents pain and stress, and now he’d ruined their lives.
“I’m sorry,” he said, begging for a forgiveness that he didn’t deserve.
Katsuki felt his mom lean down to hug the both of them, and the honest shock of how his parents held him so securely both loosened a tension in his chest and drove the knife of grief in further.
For a long, long moment, Katsuki couldn’t pull himself together in the slightest. He was trying, but the pain fueling his breakdown felt endless. The floodgates had been forced open, and everything was pouring out.
He cried and cried and held onto his parents. They whispered hushed words of comfort, and Katsuki knew they were crying too, even if in a quieter and more controlled manner than he himself was.
“It’s okay, son,” his dad said gently, rubbing his back. “It’s not your fault.”
Katsuki clutched desperately at his father, grappling as if he was going to fall even though his father’s hold hadn’t slackened in the slightest.
His chest was compressing so intensely that he struggled to breathe. He wasn’t sure he’d ever hurt so bad in his life. The pain in his chest was agonizing, but he knew with certainty that this wasn’t physical. It was tearing him apart, but he couldn’t stop it. There was no wound to bandage. No way to fix this.
There was no way to treat this pain.
The only way through this grief was just to endure it.
─────
Katsuki thought it felt odd to have his parents comfort him like this.
It’d been so long since they had. It’d been so long since he’d needed it or wanted it or would’ve accepted it. He wasn’t entirely sure how he felt about it now, after calming down a bit.
First and foremost, he felt exhausted. He was so tired that his entire body felt like it was glued to the couch that he was now sitting on. His eyes were puffy and ached from crying.
Despite a certain level of shame and uneasiness that came with such a clear show of emotion, Katsuki also found that he didn’t have it in him to be too bothered by it. In the wake of feeling the intensity of his own pain, he was left feeling hollowed out and aching.
At the very least, Katsuki hadn’t yet lost his mind. Things had felt so overwhelming for weeks that he hadn’t known what to do with it. As he cried, it’d all felt so intense he was sure that he was dying or that something would break mentally before he was done letting all his pain out.
Though he fought back a feeling of comparison—what sort of grown man are you to cry to your parents—he found himself somewhat grateful that his mind hadn’t broken in half. He didn’t know what that would look like, but he was glad he hadn’t found out.
Would he know madness, before the end?
Somehow, with the way he felt right now—and the many ways he’d felt over the last month—it didn’t sound like too foreign a concept.
Katsuki accepted the tea his mom handed him. As he took the mug, her hand fell to his shoulder and squeezed it once before she retreated back out of the room.
“Can you explain a little more?” his dad began quietly. He eyed Katsuki very carefully, and he asked in a tone that clearly implied it was fine if Katsuki couldn’t explain more.
His dad’s eyes were ringed in red, his brown hair even spikier and more askew than usual. He kept removing his glasses to wipe at his eyes, and Katsuki knew that he wouldn’t even bother putting them back on if he wasn’t blind as a bat without them.
Katsuki knew his dad was trying his best to hide the extent of his pain for the sake of his son, but his despair was clear all the same. Maybe it was just because he was his dad, but Katsuki could practically feel it radiating off him.
Katsuki looked away and stared down at the tea as the smell wafted up towards him. It was oolong tea—his mother’s favorite that she’d been buying at the same tea shop for over twenty years. His hands wrapped around the mug, and he could feel the scalding heat through the skin of his palms. It didn’t bother him, of course.
“I was wrong,” Katsuki rasped, though his voice was weak and started to break again quickly. “I’m sorry. I swear I listened to all your warnings—”
“Katsuki, it’s alright,” his mom spoke evenly and softly as she walked back in the room. She dropped her hand to his shoulder again and pressed a kiss to the top of his head before walking around the couch to sit with them. “Stop apologizing. We just want to know what happened.”
In the wake of his breakdown, Katsuki’s defenses had started to rebuild themselves. When she touched him gently in comfort, he was grateful for her understanding.
But even so, he felt an instinctual sort of aversion to it.
He desired their support… but he wasn’t supposed to need it. He wasn’t weak. He felt the need to defend himself, and he was sure if her hand had lingered that he might’ve snapped and shoved her away.
With a dull, bitter sort of feeling, he realized that although he felt hollowed out, he still felt no more in control of his emotions.
His pride was still crashing intensely with reality. His desire to prove his strength and independence and power and superiority was still having an incredibly difficult time reconciling with the reality of what he was. His defenses were still up, because he was expecting his parents to suddenly become angry.
He stared blankly forward. He’d cried his tears dry, and now he sat and stared with the hollow feeling in his chest.
His defenses were still up, because he was expecting to need to prove his strength. He would need to prove to them that he could overcome this.
But… he wasn’t strong. He wouldn’t overcome this.
It was over.
What need did he have for pride?
What was there to be proud of?
Bakugou Katsuki.
He had the Quirk, the athleticism, the intelligence…
Fuck, he was going to be someone once. He was supposed to be great, wasn’t he? That starry eyed kid that’d watched All Might fight four villains and win against them all was going to grow up and surpass even the Symbol of Peace.
Back then, he’d been so sure that he was going to be the best. The strongest. The Number One Hero.
A numb pressure was building in his chest. It was spreading, shoving its way into his brain until his head felt oddly empty, too.
It was over.
His dreams were dead. Soon, he would be too.
His parents weren’t even mad at him, because the standard was gone. His parents weren’t even mad, because he couldn’t overcome this. Katsuki found that he wasn’t nearly as embarrassed or ashamed about his display of weakness as he should be.
Was the standard for himself gone as well?
Was his pride finally on its way to abandoning him?
He needed the comfort from his parents. He needed them to hold him together, because he couldn’t do it himself.
There was no point in denying it anymore.
He was weak.
He wasn’t anything like Izuku; he wasn’t strong like Izuku was… but he’d known that for a while, hadn’t he?
Fuck, arguably, it was something he’d known his entire life. On his own, he wasn’t nearly as unwavering or immutable as Izuku.
On his own, he was weak.
Katsuki was supposed to be a grown man, and yet he was crying like a child on his parents’ couch. He was supposed to be a grown man, but he hadn’t been able to move on from his childhood dream like all his peers so effortlessly had.
Katsuki was supposed to be an adult and yet, so far in adulthood, the world had felt like it was crushing him long before he’d developed Hanahaki disease. He’d been ignoring it, because he’d become convinced that Izuku returning to work with him was what would fix everything and make it all right again.
Twenty-four years old…
He stared numbly and blankly ahead.
Twenty-four years old, and he felt somehow both far younger and far more worn out than he should be. He was childish, holding onto old dreams and old ways that his friends had left behind years ago. And yet he was exhausted and worn down without entirely being able to pinpoint why.
He was weak, because he couldn’t handle the way things were even before he learned that he was dying.
Not for the first time, the thought occurred to him that maybe it was for the best that he would die young after all.
So… he accepted his parents’ comfort with a numb sort of gratitude even as it sort of burned with shame to do so. The residuals of his pride… Katsuki was certain they would die out soon enough. He clung to the growing numbness like a safety blanket. He hoped that it would suffocate the last bits of his pride to make all of this easier.
“Katsuki,” his mom cut into his thoughts, voice grave. “You’ve gone to the doctor?”
“Yes,” he muttered, rubbing at his itchy eyes.
“How did this happen?” she sounded a touch horrified, and it squeezed at his numb, empty heart again.
Ah, sorry mom. He thought. You have such a weak son.
Too weak to avoid being kidnapped.
Too weak to stand alone.
Too weak to face reality, so instead he’d clung to his childhood dream—the hopes and loves and highs that it brought—until he was forced to wake up and realize that his childhood had left him behind long ago.
Izuku had left him behind, and he didn’t even look back once.
Katsuki’s numb heart gave another muted, pained squeeze.
He was even too weak to die alone.
How terribly sad that he would be buried alone, but he supposed that was his punishment.
“So, what, is he not gay?” his mom asked in genuine confusion.
Katsuki’s head lifted to look at her, face twisting in shock at her bluntness. It was jarring to be pulled out of his thoughts so suddenly by such a direct question.
“Mom, what the fuck?”
“What?” his mom asked, a bit defensively. “I’m just asking!”
“He’s not gay,” Katsuki mumbled, peeved at this new line of questioning. “He’s… seeing a woman.”
His parents both looked at him, appalled.
“You’ve got Hanahaki, and Izuku is still seeing some random woman?” his mom said it with such utter disbelief.
“It’s not a random woman, it’s Uraraka,” he deadpanned. “And so the hell what?”
His parents looked at each other, and then back at him with such synchronicity that it was almost amusing.
“Izuku… is still seeing her?” his dad repeated, skeptical.
“Yes, what the hell is so hard to understand about this?” Katsuki’s short temper snapped easily.
“He’s not even bi?!” his mom sounded so thrown off. “That was a little gay boy if I’ve ever seen one. I can’t believe this. He’s straight?!”
“How the hell am I supposed to know?!” Katsuki bit out sharply.
“Katsuki, if he was into men at all, he would not have denied your request and stayed with a woman after finding out you were dying of Hanahaki,” his mom said, seriously. “That boy loves you—that is not up for debate—so the only reason he wouldn’t marry you on the spot is if he couldn’t. Can’t change your sexuality, can you? God, I can’t believe Inko and I were so wrong!”
“Hah?” Katsuki gaped at her, scandalized and baffled by the sudden barrage of information. His mind, stuffed with cotton, was having trouble keeping up with her. “What the hell are you yapping about?”
His mom waved her hand dismissively, seeming to be unable to speak through her consternation for a moment.
“How… how is Izuku doing? How did he react?” his dad asked, lowly.
“Honestly, I’m surprised he didn’t sign himself up for gay conversion therapy,” his mom cut in again, still sounding stunned and almost offended. “Like to convert himself to be gay, I mean! Who the hell knows if they even have those, but if they do, I wouldn’t be surprised if he went!”
“What?” Katsuki gawked at her. “What the fuck are you even talking about?!”
“I’m surprised Izuku didn’t try to convert himself gay when you told him that you were in love with him!” she barked.
“I haven’t told him that I’m in love with him!” Katsuki bit back sharply, irritation spiking again.
Both his parents swiveled to look at him, confused all over again.
“What?” his mom asked as if she wasn’t sure she’d heard him correctly.
“He doesn’t know.”
“He doesn’t know you have Hanahaki?!”
“He doesn’t know that it’s him,” Katsuki bit out through his teeth.
“How do you know he doesn’t love you?!” his mom demanded.
“Mind your damn business!” he spat as his face started to heat up.
Katsuki wasn’t sure why, but even with his dying pride the idea of recounting that night where Izuku had so casually turned him down felt intolerable right now.
“I know how he feels about me, and I don’t want to talk about it!” he gritted out furiously.
“Kat—”
“He doesn’t know,” Katsuki said, vehemently. “And I’m not going to tell him. Neither are either of you.”
“Like hell—” his mom started.
“Or I’ll never fucking speak to you again,” he threatened lowly. “You’re not going to tell him.”
His parents were silent. He looked at both of them, hoping that they could see just how gravely serious he was about this.
“If it’s not my fault for falling in love with him, it’s definitely not his fault he can’t love me,” Katsuki said. “He’d try his best to love me, and he’d never get over it when he failed. Or even afterwards, finding out that I died because I fell in love with him would ruin him.”
“Katsuki—”
“No,” Katsuki repeated firmly, furiously. “Just… no. If you tell him, I’ll never forgive you.”
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
part 3
in the heavy silence
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Katsuki felt his stomach stirring with hunger, but he couldn’t get himself to move.
Even as his stomach felt like it was practically eating itself, he just lay there.
Once again, he was lying on his couch. This time on his side, staring blankly at his living room as he found himself unable to get up. He felt about as alive as someone in a medically induced coma, and he currently couldn’t seem to gather the motivation to so much as sit up.
When the rapid-fire knocks banged on his door, the only thing he felt was a mild flare of irritation.
KNOCK! KNOCK! KNOCK! KNOCK! KNOCK!
Would it never end?
Within such a short span of time, he’d been forced to discuss this shit with both Izuku and his parents.
Wasn’t that enough?
Couldn’t the punishment end?
KNOCK! KNOCK! KNOCK!
Apparently, the punishment couldn’t end, but Katsuki had no intention of getting up this time. They’d have to call the goddamn fire department to bash his door down because he was not getting up.
KNOCK! KNOCK! KNOCK!
“BAKUGOU!” Kirishima shouted from the other side.
Katsuki’s heart dropped so suddenly that he actually jolted.
KNOCK! KNOCK! KNOCK!
“BAKUGOU, OPEN THE DOOR!”
“You’ve gotta be fucking kidding me,” Katsuki muttered, reluctantly shoving himself into a sitting position.
He was fucking exhausted. He couldn’t do this shit right now.
Why the hell was Kirishima here?
Did he know?
How the hell could he know?
Katsuki felt so numb that he’d resolved himself to just pretending he wasn’t home when he heard the distinct sound of a key going into the keyhole.
Then he remembered the key he’d given Kirishima for emergencies.
“Oh, fuck me,” Katsuki said, collapsing back onto the couch and putting his arms up over his eyes.
The door banged open.
“Bakugou?!”
“Kacchan?”
Katsuki’s eyes flew open at the sound of Izuku’s voice, and it was like Izuku was the spark that set fire to all his numb, broken-down emotions.
He was furious.
Katsuki was on his feet and stomping over to the entryway so quickly that his head spun but he resolutely ignored it. When he reached them, he slapped his hand to the wall to maintain balance while he waited for the vertigo to fade.
“What the actual fuck are you doing?” Katsuki hissed out, rage directed at Izuku.
Tellingly, Izuku cringed away, face burning red and he flailed, moving his arms to cover his face. “Kacchan, I’m sorry, I—”
Kirishima stepped closer and partially in front of Izuku, clearly demanding Katsuki’s attention. His eyes were wide, and his face was pale. His hair wasn’t styled and hung down, slightly messy.
“Bakugou, is it true?”
Katsuki found it significantly easier to glare with the fury of a thousand suns at Izuku than to look Kirishima in the eye, so for another few seconds he took the coward’s way out.
Katsuki looked past Kirishima to try and set fire to Izuku with just the rage in his eyes. “What the hell did you do?!”
“I… I’m so sorry, Kacchan,” Izuku sounded breathless with stress and guilt. “I assumed, well, I assumed because it seemed so progressed that you’d already told people.”
“You assumed wrong,” Katsuki growled. “Fucking—goddammit!”
“Bakugou, why the hell haven’t you told me about this?!” Kirishima demanded, half-shouting. The hurt in his voice was so raw that it nearly made Katsuki flinch.
“I’m gonna kill you,” Katsuki, still the coward, continued to threaten Izuku.
Izuku rambled on, “I really am sorry, Kacchan. I shouldn’t have assumed! I just… well, I figured maybe you hadn’t told me because I hadn’t seen you in a while or because I’m Quirkless and—”
“Oh—for fuck’s sake, Izuku!”
“Bakugou!” Kirishima said again, sounding increasingly pissed off.
Katsuki lifted his hand and jammed his pointer finger accusingly in Izuku’s direction. If Kirishima wasn’t sort of in between them, he would’ve found a way to inflict physical damage on the idiot somehow.
“You fucking talk to him, because this is your fault!” he hissed out. “I’m too tired for this shit!”
“Right, uh,” Izuku began, nervously. “Kirishima, I’m so sorry. I didn’t realize you didn’t know already—”
But Kirishima had had enough, and he grabbed the front of Katsuki’s shirt and forcefully yanked him so that they were face to face.
“Bakugou, you bastard, look at me!” Kirishima roared, the undercurrent of hurt straining his voice slightly.
“Get the fuck off me!” Katsuki’s temper flared, and he shoved him back.
“Then fucking talk to me!” Kirishima shouted as he let him go. “I don’t give a fuck about whether or not Midoriya should’ve told me! You… you should’ve told me before, man! What the hell?!”
His voice grew increasingly offended and upset. Now that Katsuki was forced to look him in the eyes, the clear agony was all over his face too. He looked devastated, and Katsuki gritted his teeth against the onslaught of pain that immediately started digging its way through his chest.
Katsuki was exhausted. He was numb and tired and he’d already had to deal with too much today.
He couldn’t handle this too.
He couldn’t, but he’d have to.
For a moment, he was trapped, staring in horror at his best friend, who stared back at him in much the same way. He realized that he felt short of breath, and his chest ached badly. Again, he moved his hand to brace against the wall, because he felt unsteady in so many ways.
“I hadn’t told anyone,” he explained, and his voice came out strained and weak from how out of breath he found himself. “I only just told my parents this morning. The only reason that damn nerd knows is because he was here when I got sick on Thursday and he’s a nosy motherfucker. Who’s apparently—” Katsuki expended the energy to rip his gaze from Kirishima’s to offer Izuku another infuriated look. “—no good at keeping his fucking mouth shut!”
“Sorry,” Izuku muttered out again, ducking his head in apology. “We just ran into each other and—”
“I don’t care!” Kirishima cried, cutting him off in order to force Katsuki’s attention back on the interrogation at hand. “You’re getting sick from this shit? Isn’t that—fuck! Isn’t that pretty progressed already?! Why the hell have you waited so long to talk to me?!”
Katsuki was exhausted. His grief and regrets had been running rampant and eating him alive all day. His emotional state was tentative at best, and it all rose up in him quickly and painfully as Kirishima yelled at him.
“You think this shit is easy?!” Katsuki shouted back. “You think I want to be dealing with this shit?! You think I haven’t spent nights lying awake trying to figure out how the hell I was going to tell my best friend that I was dying?!”
Katsuki was breathing hard by the time he finished, chest heaving and breath rattling.
Kirishima looked appalled. The agony that was written out on his face had somehow grown in intensity, even in comparison to a few seconds ago.
Katsuki couldn’t stand to look at him or Izuku, and he looked off to the side, gritting his teeth. His emotional state was still a total mess, because despite how his day had been so far, he still felt like crying again.
For fuck’s sake.
After a few long seconds of heavy silence, Katsuki spat furiously, “You think I don’t know how much of an asshole this makes me? You think I don’t feel like a piece of shit over this?!”
Katsuki’s shouting had made him lightheaded, and he leaned more weight onto his hand that was braced on the wall. He heaved in breaths, trying not to get caught up in his head about his breathing and have a fucking panic attack again. He looked back at Kirishima, feeling like his heart was being stabbed right through.
“Fuck, man,” Kirishima breathed out audibly, squeezing his eyes shut and shaking his head. He put his hands up behind his own head, turning away and then back, looking utterly overwhelmed and pained. “Fuck…”
“I was going to tell you,” Katsuki managed to say, at a normal volume now, wishing he didn’t sound so goddamn out of breath. “I have to quit working soon… so I was going to tell everyone then.”
Kirishima’s face scrunched up and he winced.
Katsuki finally glanced at Izuku, who was unsurprisingly crying again. There were too many pained nuances to his expression for Katsuki to uncover now.
He regretted looking.
“Fuck,” Kirishima said again, shaking his head still as if he was denying the entire situation.
“I’m sorry, okay?” Katsuki said, voice strained as his shoulders slumped. “I’m so fucking sorry. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you and I’m sorry I got this stupid shit in the first place.”
“Shit, you don’t gotta apologize for that, man,” Kirishima huffed out, looking up at him. His face looked upset, frustrated, broken. “It’s not your fault. Fuck…”
Katsuki scoffed self-deprecatingly, looking off to glare off to the side, away from the two of them.
“It’s not,” Kirishima insisted, vehemently. “But… I mean when did it first show up?”
Katsuki knew where this line of questioning was headed. As much as he dreaded it, the guilt of keeping this from his friend for so long drove him to continue. He stared furiously at the ground.
“About a month or so ago.”
“WHAT?!” Kirishima yelled, outraged.
“Kacchan,” Izuku gasped out at the same time, almost as if reprimanding him.
Katsuki just shook his head, his exhaustion coming back to him tenfold. With how tired he was and how hard it was to breathe, he decided he was done standing in the damn entryway. He moved back towards the couch.
The moment these idiots freed him, he swore he’d be out the moment he shut his eyes.
“You… you’ve known for a month?” asked Kirishima as he followed him into the apartment. “Are you fucking serious, man?”
“Can we do this tomorrow or some shit?” Katsuki groaned, rubbing at his eyes as he slumped onto the couch. “I’m fucking exhausted.”
“Why the hell haven’t you gotten it removed?!”
Katsuki clenched his jaw, tensing all over.
Dead silence.
“Katsuki,” Kirishima snapped. “Why the hell do you still have it?”
Katsuki didn’t look at him, scowl deepening.
“Kacchan—”
“I can’t, okay?” he cut off the very first sounds of Izuku’s voice.
It was suddenly unbearable to think about his presence. He was so hyperaware of it even as he currently refused to look at him.
“You can’t,” Kirishima parroted, unimpressed. “Why the hell not?”
Katsuki took a deep breath, feeling the shifting of the poisonous plant in his lungs.
Was it psychosomatic?
He may never know. It didn’t matter.
“The surgery removes your memories,” Katsuki bit out. “Can’t do that.”
“Only your memories of—” Kirishima cut himself off so quickly that Katsuki looked up at him in mild concern.
Kirishima was frozen. His eyes were wide, his mouth was slightly agape, and he looked at Katsuki with such immense dismay that Katsuki felt himself grow immediately alert and alarmed.
“Of… the person you’re in love with,” Kirishima finished lamely. To Katsuki’s immense horror, he turned—very obviously—to look at Izuku, and then back at Katsuki. “Who… who is it?”
Katsuki hoped the fury in his eyes was well enough to get through Kirishima’s thick skull.
“I can’t get the surgery,” Katsuki said, pointedly through gritted teeth. “I need those memories, Kirishima.”
Kirishima went dangerously pale in real time, his eyes glancing again from Katsuki to Izuku. Katsuki wanted to hit him over the head for how obvious he was being.
There was a brand-new look of despair building up in Kirishima’s eyes as he began to fully grasp the weight of the situation. Practically stumbling back, he collapsed into an armchair. He put his head in his hands, and Katsuki couldn’t stand to look at him for another second as shame and mortification tried to force their way up again.
Katsuki let his eyes drop to the floor, wishing he could’ve spared his best friend this pain.
The silence that followed was heavy.
Katsuki suffocated in it, but he didn’t move.
“Kacchan,” Izuku said quietly. “We’ll find a way.”
Katsuki looked over at him slowly. His eyelids were heavy with exhaustion.
Izuku was sitting in the other armchair. His hands were digging into the front of his shirt like it was suffocating him as he struggled to breathe past his quiet, suppressed sobs.
Katsuki peered over at him.
Izuku.
Optimistic, idealistic Izuku.
Izuku was used to being able to strong hand his way to things he wanted. He was resolute, persistent, indefatigable. He was used to having to work for it, but he was so damn willing to do so. He was strong in a way that had nothing to do with physical strength or Quirk. Izuku simply was strong at heart in a way that Katsuki had never been and certainly never would be now.
Izuku was a hero. He was a fixer.
Even without knowing that Katsuki was in love with him, Izuku wouldn’t stop trying to save him until the day he died. He’d likely find a way to blame himself when he failed and Katsuki died anyways.
Katsuki was trapped with him now.
They would only cause each other pain.
“Maybe…” Izuku managed to speak, even though he was still crying heavily. “Maybe we can find someone with the right Quirk. Maybe a memory Quirk of some kind. Maybe someone can make a copy of your memories or something.”
Katsuki looked over and saw the defeated expression on Kirishima’s face. His best friend looked depressingly resigned—especially in comparison to the hope that still shone in Izuku’s eyes. He was crying silently, staring forward at nothing with unfocused, pained eyes. To see him like that made a weight settle in Katsuki’s stomach.
“Kacchan, promise me you’ll let me try,” Izuku said abruptly.
“Hah?” Katsuki remarked distractedly, squinting his eyes as he looked back over at him.
“If I find a way around this, will you please try? A memory Quirk, or something?”
Katsuki stared him down wearily. “You think people haven’t been trying to figure this shit out since it started, nerd?”
Izuku grimaced. “I know, but… please.”
Katsuki’s eyes bored into his, then he said in a low, lifeless voice. “Just don’t beat yourself up when it doesn’t work.”
“It will work!” Izuku shot to his feet, eyes ablaze with determination—as if Katsuki’s approval meant that this hopeless situation now had hope. “I’ll find something.”
Katsuki stared up at him, eyes flitting over his face.
Don’t give them room to grow.
He felt so far away from Izuku. They stood in the same room, but Katsuki felt like they existed in entirely separate realities.
When had the distance become so wide?
“I’ll save you, Kacchan,” Izuku looked so certain that Katsuki’s heart made a valiant attempt to skip a beat.
Katsuki felt his heart react, but even that felt strange; it was like his heart was skipping a beat in whatever reality Izuku was existing in. Meanwhile, in this reality, Katsuki was completely drained of life and his heart would likely give out soon anyways.
He had no doubt that Izuku would tear the world apart to find a way to make good on his word. It was unfortunate that he could look everywhere and never find anything that would work as good as himself—the way that Katsuki’s childish mind had imagined him to be.
─────
“What’re you gonna do?” asked Kirishima.
His voice was low and rough. It was the first time he’d spoken in a while.
It was later in the evening by now. Izuku had finally left, albeit reluctantly. Apparently, he had morning plans. When he said he’d cancel to stay later, Katsuki had whipped a couch pillow at his face and told him to stop pissing him off.
After he left, Katsuki and Kirishima were stuck in a heavy silence for a while. Kirishima stared at the ground, unblinking. It’d been dark out for several hours, but they sat in the living room with only a few lamps on. It felt very late into the night, though Katsuki had no idea what time it actually was.
Katsuki roughly wiped at his eyes that were threatening to spill tears all over again. He’d cried more in these last few weeks than he could ever remember crying in his entire life. It made him feel even less like himself than he already felt.
“You clearly haven’t told him,” Kirishima went on when Katsuki only glared at a point on the wall in lieu of a response.
“And I’m not gonna tell him,” Katsuki replied, voice hoarse from some combination of exhaustion, emotion, and the enduring pain in his throat and lungs.
Kirishima was silent. When Katsuki turned to look at him, Kirishima was gazing back him intently, somber and tense.
Usually, Kirishima was an upbeat and friendly guy, all wide smiles and optimism and support. He wasn’t a man easily put down or discouraged, and he’d seen his fair share of shit over the years working as a hero. His usual demeanor was so reliable that it just meant his sorrow was being showcased undeniably.
It made his quiet, pained tears and the lost look on his face twice as obvious and severe. His eyes were bloodshot and so tired that they made him look much older than twenty-four. His sadness was almost palpable as it practically radiated from him.
“Don’t you think he’d want to know?” Kirishima asked, quietly.
Katsuki sighed, rubbing his tired eyes again.
“Fuck… I don’t care what he wants,” he mumbled.
There was another silence. Each silence was as heavy as the last, pressing down the weight of grief and guilt and exhaustion on Katsuki’s shoulders and chest.
“This is because… shit, man,” Kirishima cut himself off, shaking his head as he seemed to be trying to compose himself for a moment. Then he went on, “That night—Todoroki’s party—that was the night, wasn’t it?”
Katsuki let out a quiet, derisive laugh that was little more than an exhaled breath.
“Yeah,” he muttered. “Fuckin’ embarrassing.”
Kirishima’s face contorted into a pained grimace, shaking his head in disagreement. When he spoke, his voice was indignant.
“No, man,” he said. “Stop it, okay? Look, I was an idiot for not realizing all this earlier, and I shouldn’t have acted like it wasn’t a big deal when you asked him. I just remember trying to diffuse the situation, because Midoriya clearly wasn’t getting it, but I was being an ass, and I’m sorry if—”
Katsuki scoffed. “Without you there, that idiot wouldn’t have understood at all what was happening.”
“But then afterwards… he turned you down,” Kirishima said weakly, wincing. “I didn’t expect him to do it like that, honestly.”
“It’s whatever,” Katsuki murmured, as if it wasn’t what was killing him. “Whether you said anything or not, I would’ve realized how delusional I was sooner or later.”
There was a pause as Kirishima frowned at him. Then he said, “What d’you mean?”
“Just the eight years of saving up for his hero suit,” Katsuki said scornfully, “and turning everyone else down because they couldn’t measure up to him. Eight goddamn years of being certain Izuku would want to come back to hero work if he just had the means.”
Kirishima was looking at him, frowning pensively for a long moment before he replied, “Bro… don’t take this the wrong way, but… when he turned you down about working together… was that all that happened?”
“What?” asked Katsuki as he narrowed his eyes into an irritated glare.
“You’re like… in love with Midoriya?”
“Do you even know what Hanahaki disease is, dumbass?” Katsuki snapped back testily.
“Yes! That’s why I’m asking!” Kirishima countered, a bit shrilly. “I’m just checking, okay? You’ve never really mentioned this before, and I mean it makes a whole lot of sense now that I’m thinking about it, but I was just checking!”
“Checking what?” asked Katsuki, beyond exasperated as he offered his best friend one of his ugliest and most annoyed scowls.
Kirishima struggled for words for a moment before he said, “Uh… well, Midoriya turned you down about a job offer, bro! Which, I mean he’s also started having a thing with Uraraka, so I know there’s more to this stuff, but I just wanted to make sure I didn’t miss anything!”
“A job offer?” Katsuki hissed, immediately affronted. “Are you fucking kidding me?!”
“Uh, that’s not what I meant,” Kirishima shook his head, growing serious. “Bakugou, bro, I know what it meant to you, okay? I just didn’t realize that you had feelings for Midoriya that were, uh, romantic or sexual or whatever—”
Katsuki rolled his eyes, slumping backwards onto the couch with a groan. He rubbed at his temples with his knuckles to try and stave away his growing headache.
“Are you being serious right now? For fuck’s sake.”
“Only because you never talked about it!” Kirishima exclaimed, voice again going slightly higher pitched as he scrambled to defend himself. “You didn’t tell me you were in love with him! I should’ve read between the lines, I know—”
“What lines are you talking about, Kirishima?!” Katsuki remarked, confounded. “I know the first time we got drunk together I talked about Izuku’s thighs for at least an hour! You don’t have to read between the fucking lines, idiot! The lines were gay as fuck too!”
“I thought you were just talking about—I don’t—I thought it was just from an appreciative point of view!” Kirishima stammered, voice fully shrill now. “The man does have fantastic quads!”
“I know I talked about his ass too,” Katsuki said monotonously.
“Yes, he has great glutes as well!”
“You thought I talked about Izuku’s thighs and his ass for that long in a straight way?!” Katsuki demanded, looking at him incredulously.
“I thought you were just wondering about his workout regimen! He’s a very manly guy, and I thought as a fellow hero you appreciated the body he’d worked so hard to build!”
“I do appreciate his body in a gay way, you stupid fuck!” Katsuki hissed. “What sort of grown man talks about another grown man like that in a straight way?!”
“I talk about people’s bodies all the time in a platonic way!” Kirishima said adamantly. “We’ve speculated together about people’s workouts and shit before too!”
“Kirishima,” Katsuki said lowly, rubbing again at his temples though it seemed to be doing jack shit for his headache. “I know for a fact that the last time we drank I went into detail about what exactly I want to do to Izuku.”
“Well…” Kirishima hesitated, squinting as he gave it some thought. “Yeah… that shit was pretty gay, I will say.”
“I’m gay!” Katsuki barked. “I didn’t realize I had to spell that out for you! What, did I need to make you a card with rainbows on it?! Should I have made a giant fucking deal about it?! Maybe throw a whole goddamn party so you can figure out I want to fuck Izuku in a gay way!”
“Yeah, yeah, I got it now!” Kirishima nodded, cringing. “Sorry, man. I mean, I… I don’t know. When you talked about Midoriya, it was usually about how you missed training with him. And like… how you wanted him to be back in heroics. So, shit, I don’t know! I didn’t ever put a whole lot of thought into it before today!”
Katsuki sighed, shaking his head in disbelief and leaning his head onto the back of the couch. He glowered up at the ceiling.
“So… I don’t know,” Kirishima said, sounding uncomfortable again. “I guess what I’m trying to say is… what happened? Did Midoriya… I mean… are you sure about his feelings?”
The heavy silence returned, the weight settling over Katsuki all over again.
“You were there, Kirishima,” Katsuki muttered. “He had no interest in working with me. He turned it down without a second thought.”
“Yeah, I know,” Kirishima winced at the memory, “but Midoriya’s a weird guy. A lot of things fly over his head, Bakugou! Maybe—”
“You know that shit I told him?” asked Katsuki. “About thinking more highly of himself? About how he can’t think everyone is special, because then no one is?”
Kirishima hesitated, brows scrunching in thought. “Uh, yeah. Vaguely, I guess.”
“That’s what made him want to talk to Uraraka more,” Katsuki said dully. “When he heard what I said and put two seconds of thought into what he wanted and who was special to him, he ran off to her. He turned down my offer that I spent eight years working on, and he ran to her.”
Wow, it somehow sounded even more pathetic when he said this shit out loud. Katsuki gazed at the ceiling and missed when he had enough dignity and energy to give a shit about how pitiful he was coming across. As it was, he was exhausted and completely worn out on every level. His defenses only rose weakly inside him and died immediately. His pride didn’t rush to his aid, even though his scowl deepened to hide how he cringed at himself.
The silence was unbearably stifling. Katsuki didn’t look away from the ceiling.
“How do you know that’s what made him talk to her more?” Kirishima asked quietly. Not doubtfully, just curiously.
“I heard him muttering about it,” Katsuki bit out, “and he ran off to find her after Todoroki’s party.”
“Maybe—”
“There’s no maybe,” Katsuki interrupted sharply, exasperated. “This is a tale as old as time, man! Gay guy falls for his straight best friend! Kaminari was talking about it not that long ago!”
“Kaminari’s an idiot!” Kirishima protested immediately. “And you know he wouldn’t have said that shit if he knew—”
“Doesn’t matter if he knew or not, because it’s fucking true!” Katsuki yelled.
For a moment, they just stared at each other, frustration adding another unbearable layer to the weight of everything hanging in the air. Katsuki’s chest rose and fell quickly, breathing noticeably harder just from raising his voice.
“Come on, Kirishima,” Katsuki said gruffly, but an imploring tone snuck underneath it. “You know Izuku and you know me. Don’t make me explain this to you. You know how fucked this is and that there’s jack shit I can do about it.”
Kirishima frowned, looking away and shaking his head, huffing out a long, shaky breath. His sadness visibly settled back on him as his frown deepened and his shoulders slumped.
“What d’you want from me, man?” Kirishima said eventually, voice thick. Slowly, he wiped at his eyes with one of his hands, dragging his fingers downward. “Obviously, I think you should talk to Midoriya. I think you should try everything. Fuck, bro, I would want you to try the surgery, if only because it would save your life. But I know you won’t want to do it. So, what do you need from me?”
“I don’t need anything,” Katsuki replied lowly. “It is what it is.”
“This is your life, bro!” Kirishima protested, sitting up straighter and looking appalled. “You can’t just say that. This thing is going to kill you if you don’t figure out how to stop it!”
“You think I don’t know that?!” Katsuki snapped, irritably.
“I think you—” Kirishima cut off his own shout sharply, gritting his teeth. After a moment, he seemed to change tactics, voice quieter and imploring when he went on, “You can’t just give up, man.”
“I’m not giving up!” Katsuki said defensively, furiously. “There’s not anything to be done about this!”
Kirishima looked like he disagreed, but he paused and then only shook his head, rubbing his eyes again.
“He’s not going to give up,” he said, quietly. “Even if you don’t tell Midoriya, he’s not going to accept this as easily as you have.”
Katsuki’s eyes bored into the floor.
Oh boy, did he know.
“I’m tired,” he muttered eventually. “We can talk more later.”
Kirishima sighed, then stood. Katsuki stood too, trying not to be too frustrated about how much exertion the simple movement required. Standing was becoming less of an unconscious action and more of an effort with each passing day.
“Midoriya’s not going to give up,” Kirishima said again as they started to walk to the door. “And neither am I. None of us are, okay? We’ll find a way.”
The sentiments fell on Katsuki’s ears sounding a bit hollow. This was a goddamn Quirk disease. It was a certainty that he would die. What was there to give up or not? It wasn’t giving up; it was deluding yourself or not. He’d definitely been expecting this sort of pointless hope from his friends, but the attempts at reassurance filtered in and out of his brain as empty words that carried nothing. From them, he derived no hope or encouragement. If anything, it only made the gap between himself and his friends feel even wider.
Don’t give them room to grow.
He said nothing in response.
They crossed to the door, and Kirishima turned to face him. He lifted his arm up, palm to the side. Katsuki took it, and they pulled each other in. Unlike usual, Kirishima didn’t let go right away, instead keeping him firmly in the hold.
Katsuki welcomed the hug. Kirishima was solid, familiar, and comforting. Reliable. For as stressful as this had been—and how pissed he was that Izuku had carelessly shared his business—he was glad that Kirishima knew.
“Love you, man,” Kirishima said sincerely.
“Love you, too,” Katsuki muttered back, breathing past a flash of pain in his ribs as his heart squeezed.
“Get some sleep,” Kirishima said as they pulled back. “You look exhausted.”
“Yeah, yeah,” Katsuki grumbled, sticking his hands in his pockets as Kirishima moved to put on his shoes.
“I’ll text you tomorrow,” Kirishima said, then threatened, “Answer or I’ll show up here again.”
Katsuki rolled his eyes but let his friend out with an aching fondness in his chest.
How strange it was, to be dying, Katsuki contemplated as the door shut. All the bad parts of life hurt, but sometimes it felt like the good parts hurt worse.
Notes:
trapped with you
enduring grief
in the heavy silence[Does it count as the ao3 author curse if life has been fucking me over long before I started posting fics again? Anyways I have to delete the personal rant I put here for safety/privacy reasons. Thanks to everyone who offered me support at the time though. I appreciate you all so much.]
Thank you for reading and to those who left kudos and comments. I can't express enough how much I appreciate your comments and enjoy reading all of your thoughts and theories about this fic. I hope you're all doing well !! :) My socials and everything are here.
Chapter 5: Nip it in the bud, my dear
Summary:
Death was the only way he could escape the agony of loving Izuku.
Katsuki talks to his friends and family some more. He thinks of the past. Izuku stops by for a visit. Katsuki does his last shift as a hero.
Notes:
(40k+ words)
Content Warning (!!!)
discussions of mortality, graphic depictions of illness, mental illness/depression/CPTSD, passive suicidal ideation (don't know if this is the right warning because it's complicated but basically warning for SI)
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
part 1
the sound of your heartbeat
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Katsuki rapped his knuckles sharply on the door and then moved to shove his hands back in his pockets. It was getting colder out. He’d have to take out his winter clothes soon.
It took a moment, but the door opened to reveal a slightly confused Jirou.
“Oh, hi, Bakugou,” she said, blinking up at him in surprise. “You’re early.”
Finally, they were supposed to have an actual band practice. Admittedly, Katsuki was looking forward to it, but he knew there was something he needed to do first.
“Yeah, sorry,” he grumbled out as he stepped inside and toed off his shoes. “Needa talk to you.”
Though he wasn’t looking at her, he could feel her eyes on him.
In the first year of high school, they’d become reluctant almost-friends from playing in the band in the School Festival together and being grouped together in a few different instances. They’d grown closer over the years, generally bonding over a shared love of music. Together, they’d always made a great team for hero work—Jirou was the scout and Katsuki was the attack dog. Without a doubt, the fact that she’d been watching his back for years with hero work contributed to his unshakable trust in her now.
Katsuki considered Jirou a close friend, though maybe it was because he didn’t have a whole lot of those. They got along well, and he thought very highly of her. Though he usually was careful not to tell her that shit because she’d definitely make fun of him. She took all the brash parts of him in stride and seemed to be pretty good at telling when he was actually upset rather than just being his usual irritable self.
Even so, despite the strength and longevity of their friendship, they didn’t ever… talk. Not about anything serious anyways, but Katsuki was realizing as this Hanahaki bullshit went on that he didn’t really do that with anyone all that often before this. They’d hung out plenty of times, but Katsuki wasn’t surprised to feel her eyes on him. He knew this sort of thing was abnormal coming from him.
“Right, yeah, sure,” said Jirou, sounding a bit… nervous almost.
Katsuki straightened up from taking off his shoes. Jirou was staring at him, eyes slightly widened. When they made eye contact, she blinked and tried to offer him a smile. He saw the shakiness around the edges.
Yeah, that was definitely anxiety in her eyes, but just like he’d expected, she didn’t seem all that surprised.
“Want something to drink?” she said as she led the way further into her place. “Tea or water or something?”
“I’m fine, thanks,” Katsuki replied lowly.
His heart had picked up speed and his stomach had started to churn just from the knowledge of how he’d have to have yet another one of these conversations.
Though… this was a bit different than the others. A part of Katsuki was fairly certain that Jirou already knew about the Hanahaki. Her hearing was incredible, and he found it hard to believe she hadn’t noticed something the last few times they’d seen each other. The silence alone was telling, heavy and tense in a way Katsuki couldn’t seem to escape these days.
Katsuki sat down at the little table in her kitchen, slouching down in his chair and crossing his arms. Jirou’s face was somber as she took the seat across from him.
“So, what did you want to talk about?” asked Jirou, finally looking at him. The grave seriousness on her face gave her away as well, though her tone made the flimsiest attempt to sound casual.
“Don’t bullshit me,” Katsuki said immediately. He said it quietly, exhausted. It was less an accusation and more of a plead before they began the conversation. “I’ve got Hanahaki disease, but you already knew that, didn’t you?”
Jirou became very still, her eyes widening slightly. Her face drained of all color, and she looked so startled that for a moment Katsuki’s confidence wavered. He looked at her carefully, a bit thrown off that she seemed so genuinely surprised.
“You… you do?” asked Jirou, barely louder than a whisper.
“There’s no way you didn’t know,” Katsuki’s voice had grown more accusing and incredulous to cover up everything else he was feeling. “I know you would’ve heard something, back at that shitty game night.”
“I…” she started, then looked away, ducking her head slightly. A shaky hand came up to her mouth as she seemed to take a moment to process and get herself together. Her eyes were still too wide, and her face was too pale.
Katsuki felt an echo of her pain in his own chest, and he also looked away. He had to make a conscious effort to breathe around everything churning inside of him; it all added up to feeling horrible and anxious and guilty and pained and tired. It was too many things, and Katsuki drew in deep breaths to try and dispel it at least a little.
“I suspected something,” Jirou finally managed to say, voice shaking slightly. “I could hear something in your lungs, but… well, at the time you were asking about your heart. From the sound of what I could hear in your lungs, it wasn’t small, so I figured there was no way you didn’t know about it already. I didn’t think it was my place to say anything. I’m sorry if you wanted me to. I-I just figured you would talk about it when you were ready.”
Katsuki didn’t know what he felt in response to her words. Everything was conflicting, and it sort of equated to feeling pained in a way he couldn’t really place.
“To be honest,” Jirou started again, her voice thick with emotion, “I’d thought of Hanahaki disease, but I was hoping that wasn’t it. A while back, at that burger place, you seemed to be having a rough time. Then, well, then Kaminari and them started talking loudly about—”
She cut herself off sharply, looking over at him with wide, slightly panicked eyes.
Katsuki was already looking at her carefully. He was admittedly curious to hear what she was going to say. Obviously, he knew the moment she was talking about, but he hadn’t given her role in it a whole lot of thought. At the time, he’d been too overwhelmed with all the other bullshit going on in his head.
“Um,” Jirou swallowed visibly, looking at him a bit uncomfortably all of a sudden, “at first, I’d just wanted him to shut up. But after hearing something in your lungs, I’d looked back at it and realized you might’ve been affected by the talk of the Hanahaki disease.”
Katsuki narrowed his eyes at her, reading between the lines that she was clearly crafting very carefully. Jirou looked back at him, eyes darting away and back sort of anxiously. Despite himself, Katsuki felt a warm fondness in his heart as he also felt a sort of delirious, incredulous amusement as he began to suspect what she was doing.
“You’re not gonna ask who it is?” he said finally.
He quirked his eyebrow at her, not smiling but knowing that the amusement surely showed on his face by now.
Jirou looked at him cautiously, before asking, evenly, “Who is it?”
Katsuki scoffed out a laugh, shaking his head. “As if you don’t know!”
“W-well, what do you want me to say, Bakugou?!” she sputtered, voice strained with anxiety and slight defensiveness as her cheeks pinkened a bit. “I’m not trying to assume!”
“You’ve already made the assumptions, Ears!” Katsuki barked, unsure why he was struggling so much to hold back his smile.
The light feeling in his chest, a bubbling laughter, wanted to come up for reasons he couldn’t pinpoint. Maybe it was that he’d been stressed for weeks, stressed for this damn conversation, and the thought of what was happening was so incredibly hilarious in light of that.
“You’ve never talked to me about any of this!” she was fully red in the face now, but her face was twisting in confused amusement as she took in Katsuki’s expression. “Obviously I’m not—I wouldn’t—”
“Jirou, I’m gay,” Katsuki said monotonously, though he was unable to keep back his amused smirk entirely.
It just felt so strange. So incredibly, laughably normal. He came here to talk to Jirou about how he was dying, but it hadn’t occurred to him that he might have to come out.
Katsuki hadn’t given a lot of thought to the idea of coming out before. It always seemed like such an unnecessarily formal declaration for something that felt so normal to him. He’d always cared most about being a hero anyways, so announcing something that was so normal, but also so private, felt strange to him. He’d always been more the kind to just say gay shit when he felt like it and let everyone else realize, but apparently his dumbass friends all wanted him to throw glitter too or something.
It felt hilarious to come out, because he was dying and he was a goddamn statistic—a gay guy who fell in love with his most-likely-straight childhood best friend—but here he was, talking about his sexuality to someone who already knew it.
He didn’t even want to think about how he’d had to come out to Kirishima, which had just felt ridiculous and unnecessarily redundant considering the things he knew he’d said in his friend’s presence over the years.
It felt almost surreal, to have to inform his closest friends about this. Katsuki had been content with the fact that surely a lot of people knew but he’d been discovering that wasn’t the case. He was dying, and yet here he was formally coming out to his friends of so many goddamn years as if they were still in high school and as if this was a big deal when it was so incredibly normal to Katsuki.
Jirou nodded, smiling slightly back at him even as she looked a bit confused at how he was acting. “Thank you for tell—”
“What did I say about bullshitting me, Ears?!” Katsuki accused, but he couldn’t seem to wipe the smile completely off his face. “You already knew this shit!”
“I didn’t want to pressure you into talking about it!”
Katsuki leaned back and huffed out another laugh, somewhat astounded by the whole situation. He shook his head slightly in disbelief, feeling momentarily lighter, even though the ache in his chest never faded entirely.
“Thanks,” he managed, looking back at her, lips still upturned slightly.
Her consideration felt oddly formal, but he knew that she’d clearly been giving him an out to not talk about it if he didn’t want to. After all, despite how comfortable and normal Katsuki was with his sexuality, it wasn’t like being gay didn’t come without its societal impacts. Even in this day and age, Japan remained a more traditional and conservative country when compared to many other countries. Hanahaki disease’s higher rate of death in gay people had only added an extra layer of separation to an already commonly stigmatized minority.
Katsuki hadn’t needed her caution, but he was immensely appreciative of it all the same.
Jirou looked slightly taken aback for a moment. “Of course.”
“How long have you known?” asked Katsuki, raising an eyebrow.
Jirou winced, looking away. “Uh… well…”
Katsuki narrowed his eyes as his brain clicked the pieces into place. He stated rather than asked, “You told Kaminari to shut up when he was generalizing about gay people because you knew.”
“Yes,” Jirou nodded, face red and visibly remorseful. “I could tell you were upset, and I saw how you froze when he started talking. It wasn’t until later that I put together that your reaction might’ve been about the Hanahaki bit too. I was really hoping I was wrong, but…” she shrugged helplessly. “I don’t know. I wanted to ask you, but you… you seemed…”
She trailed off, searching for the right word.
“Preoccupied,” she said finally.
At the same time, Katsuki deadpanned, “Bitchy.”
Jirou startled out a laugh, before shaking her head. “No, I mean, I understood something was up. I think all of us did, honestly.”
Katsuki felt his face warming up, and he looked away.
“Honestly, I don’t know how I didn’t put it all together earlier,” Jirou admitted quietly. “I mean Midoriya and Uraraka started hanging out more and—” she cut herself off, looking at him. “It… it is Midoriya, right?”
Katsuki sighed, rolling his eyes. He was entirely unsurprised that she put it together. Even with her and Kirishima apparently requiring him to spell out his gayness, at least it was telling that they both immediately knew who he was gay for.
“Yeah.”
“Right, well they started seeing each other more,” Jirou went on. “Which everyone was shocked by, to be honest. We didn’t think they still felt anything for each other—”
Katsuki scoffed slightly, staring at his own fingers drumming lightly on the tabletop. His chest felt tight, and that disgusting twisting in his gut as he thought of them was entirely unwelcome. Really, he didn’t want to get into this with Jirou right now. A part of him knew that if he got going, there was a chance he’d send himself into a rage as he ranted about how much he didn’t understand Midoriya and Uraraka as a couple.
Undoubtedly that would make him sound more pathetic than anything else ever had to date.
“Bakugou…” Jirou started hesitantly. “Have you… have you actually told Midoriya?”
Katsuki looked up, narrowing his eyes. “No, and—”
“Why not?” Jirou said, sitting up straighter as her eyes widened. “Bakugou, how can—”
“Fuck! I’m tired of having this conversation with people,” Katsuki snapped. “I won’t do that to him, okay? I thought he… I thought we wanted the same things, and I was wrong. I won’t force him into a life he didn’t want, and when he can’t love me and I still die, he’ll never get over it.”
Jirou was gaping slightly at him, an incredulous look in her eye.
“No one’s telling him,” he ordered. “Call it my dying wish or whatever.”
Jirou stared at him for a long moment before saying, “You two have always been so shit at communicating. You really don’t think it would be worth talking it out?”
“No, I don’t,” Katsuki hissed out immediately, a flare of defensive fury burning inside him. “I don’t think it would be worth it. I would tell Izuku I’m in love with him and have to watch that dumbass expression on his face and listen to a billion questions and—”
“How do you know how he feels if you haven’t talked about it?” asked Jirou, clearly distressed.
Katsuki huffed out an exasperated sound, taking a deep breath to try and settle the irritation that sparked to cover up his mortification.
“For years, I was under the impression that he and I were on the same page about everything,” Katsuki muttered, looking away as his cheeks burned. “I was a real fucking delusional idiot. Izuku… he hasn’t wanted the same thing as me for a while now, but I wasn’t willing to… fuck, I just didn’t notice, until he turned down my offer to work at my agency.”
“What?!” Jirou squeaked out. “He did?!”
“Yes,” he bit out tersely.
Jirou looked so startled that for a long moment she didn’t speak, and Katsuki felt a small amount of gratification in how clearly surprised she was by Izuku’s actions. He was a piece of shit, so he kept finding small victories in each moment when someone else found what Izuku had done to be unexpected.
After a moment, she said, indignantly, “Bakugou, that doesn’t mean he doesn’t feel the same way!”
“You don’t understand, but I know what that shit meant, okay?” Katsuki snapped defensively, scowling deeply.
“This is the most Bakugou and Midoriya thing ever!” Jirou exclaimed, throwing her hands up in frustration. “One conversation, and you’re making all these assumptions—”
“Goddammit, Jirou,” Katsuki cut her off sharply. He battled a thousand emotions—frustration and hurt and offense among them—with all of it blanketed by fury. “Stop, for fuck’s sake! I was making assumptions before this conversation, that was the issue!”
“The situation is more complex than that!” Jirou protested, slightly imploring. “You have to realize that, Bakugou! Just because Midoriya doesn’t want to work with you—which I’m sure he has his reasons for—doesn’t mean—”
“Izuku is not fucking complex!” Katsuki argued back heatedly. “I told him that he needed to pay attention to what’s in front of him! I told him he needed to stop treating everyone as equally special so that some people could be more special to him, and what did he do?! He fuckin’ ran to Uraraka, didn’t he?! He turned down my offer without a second fucking thought—without even blinking or without—”
His face was growing hot as he spoke out loud. It all still sounded so childish out loud no matter how many times he said any of it. How could he find the words to make it clear to someone who wasn’t him or Izuku? Instead, his words made him sound like an idiot, and he hated it.
“Look, I don’t want to go into it all,” Katsuki slumped, his ever-present exhaustion creeping up on him again. “I’m not telling him. I know exactly how it would go, and I can’t deal with it on top of everything else.”
He admitted the last words in a quiet grumble, looking at the table. Maybe he hadn’t meant to go that far into his own vulnerabilities, but his emotions were so out of whack these days that it’d just happened. Maybe his pride really was dying, because he found that he still couldn’t summon the energy to care despite making such an admission.
I can’t take how it’ll rub in how incredibly unequal our relationship and lives are.
The silence was heavy, and Katsuki’s chest hurt. He took measured deep breaths, and each one ached as the air expanded his diseased lungs.
“You asked how long I’ve known you were gay,” Jirou said eventually.
Katsuki dragged his exhausted gaze up to look at her. She looked back, expression serious and frowning deeply.
“Well, I’ve never known your sexuality for certain, but I’ve known you liked Midoriya specifically since high school,” she went on.
Katsuki’s eyes widened slightly. He hadn’t even fully figured it out for himself all that he’d wanted from Izuku back in high school.
“Your heartrate used to pick up when he was nearby,” she explained.
Katsuki scoffed in disbelief, feeling heat flood his face impressively fast. “What the hell, Jirou? Nosy, much?”
“It wasn’t intentional!” Jirou said quickly. “I just noticed because… well, I don’t know. There were a few instances where it was fairly obvious. I thought it might be because he stressed you out, but then I paid closer attention—”
“Nosy!”
“Oh shut up, I know you like eavesdropping on people too, Bakugou!” Jirou argued, annoyed.
“I don’t eavesdrop!” Katsuki snapped back. “How’s it my fault if people talk about important shit out where anyone can hear?!”
“Oh, please,” Jirou scoffed. “You think I don’t remember the times in high school that you tapped me on the shoulder and asked me to listen in on conversations?”
“I didn’t ask you to listen in!” Katsuki defended himself adamantly. “I just told you they were probably talking shit!”
“And you wanted to know!”
“Like hell did I care what any of those extras were up to!”
“Uh huh, sure,” Jirou said, heavy sarcasm in her tone.
Katsuki leaned forward, elbow on the table and jamming his pointer finger at her accusingly. “Listening to people’s heartrates is cheating!”
“You’d do it if you could!” she protested.
Katsuki’s mouth snapped shut, and he crossed his arms and looked away, pouting.
“I… I wasn’t actually trying to be nosy,” Jirou said quietly after a moment, her voice taking on a serious tone again. “I used to listen to your heart a lot… after… after that last fight with Shigaraki, I mean.”
Genuinely surprised, Katsuki’s eyes widened and flicked back to look at her. Jirou’s cheeks were a bit pink again, and she was looking away with embarrassment.
“Just… for arrythmias and such,” she explained hurriedly, waving her arms nervously. “I figured… I don’t know. I figured that I would be able to hear any issues the earliest. Maybe even before it affected you. So… I just ended up making a habit of it.”
Katsuki’s own face heated, and he looked down as he tried to process this new information.
“Nosy,” he said again, but his voice was low and strained with emotion.
“So that’s sort of how I first realized it,” said Jirou quietly. “Or… suspected anyways.”
Katsuki shook his head, rubbing his hand over his mouth absently. He was still reeling from the realization of just how much Jirou had been looking out for him. He’d trusted her to have his back lots of times in hero work. His eyes burned slightly with a sudden urge to cry as he tried to comprehend the extent to which she’d been there for him even outside of work.
He hadn’t known this shit; he hadn’t even thought that she’d liked him all that much back then. Sure, they played in the band together, but this was a level of friendship he didn’t think he’d earned by that point.
How could he ever repay her for that? How could he ever hope to have her back the way she’d always had his? He felt an unbearable pain in his chest, a squeezing around his heart, when he realized he wouldn’t live long enough to repay her kindness. It made him feel sort of sick, and he felt a strange sort of shame burning underneath the surface.
He felt entirely unworthy of that level of friendship, and it almost made him wish she hadn’t done it.
“I did get a little nosy after that, though,” Jirou said, sheepishly.
Her tone drew Katsuki out of his spiraling thoughts. He looked at her, brow furrowing in question.
“I had a reason to listen to your heart,” Jirou went on, “but I listened to Midoriya’s out of pure nosiness, I guess.”
Katsuki could only continue to stare at her. His heart was thumping palpably in his chest. He felt frozen, as if paused, waiting for her to go on.
“Well, Midoriya’s heartrate also picked up around you,” she said, forwardly.
Katsuki heard the words, and they filtered slowly through his mind. His brain tried to process them, but it struggled to do so.
“People’s heartrates change for a lot of reasons,” he muttered, his voice coming out gruff.
“I was very thorough in my investigations,” Jirou countered, sounding almost offended.
“So goddamn nosy,” he scoffed, but it was all breathless from a lack of air.
He felt lightheaded and moved forward to prop his elbows on the table and lean on them. He felt sort of dizzy.
“Even if he felt that way once,” Katsuki managed to say lowly. “He doesn’t anymore.”
“Don’t you think it’s worth talking to him?!” Jirou asked, dismayed. “This is your life, Bakugou. You know Midoriya—better than anyone! You have to know he would do anything to save—”
“He’d do anything for anyone!” Katsuki cut her off, almost frantic in his sudden rush of desperate, painful, defensive anger.
His head buzzed with this new information, struggling to process what it could mean. But in the end, it only sunk in and tumbled around with the rest of his miserable thoughts.
He went on, increasingly fuming and insistent, “He’s just like that, Jirou! And I don’t want him to be with me out of obligation! Fuck—just saying it makes me feel sick! I’m not a fucking charity case or—or some civilian for him to save! He and I were… goddammit, I won’t do it like this. I would rather die than have Izuku be with me just to save my life!”
Jirou’s eyes were teary, and she was shaking her head. “But how could you know? You asked him to work together, Bakugou! You didn’t ask him out! He could have so many reasons for turning you down for that, but I assure you he has no idea about—”
“And it’s gonna stay that way!” Katsuki hissed out. “You don’t get it, but Izuku and I—”
Katsuki cut himself off when he felt a surge of emotion. He drew in a deep breath, letting it out slowly, trying to regain control of his overwhelming emotions.
“Izuku and I are very different, okay?” Katsuki gritted out, glaring down at the table. “We’ve always been connected through hero shit. We’ve always been the same in that way. I don’t—we don’t—dammit! Never mind. He’s got his own life outside of hero work that’s got nothing to do with me, and I’m not messing with that. Just… stop asking about this shit, okay? It’s not like I want to die, but this is how it’s gotta be.”
After he finished talking, he looked up at her. She was frowning at him, and he didn’t like that look in her eye.
Eventually, she said, “I think you should tell him.”
“Didn’t you hear any of the shit I just said?!” Katsuki growled.
“I did,” Jirou replied evenly, “and I still think you should tell him.”
“You think I should saddle him with inescapable guilt that’ll fuck him up for the rest of his life?!”
“I think you should give him a chance to figure out his feelings.”
“Oh, fuck off!” Katsuki snapped, scowling.
“Bakugou, do you really think he won’t find out?” Jirou asked, exasperated. “He’s definitely going to find out!”
“Is that a threat?!” Katsuki barked back.
“It’s not a threat, it’s a fact!” Jirou said. “However he feels about you, you have to know that he cares about you more than almost anyone. He always has! So you can try not to think of it or make any excuses you want, but you know Midoriya is going to have a hard time if you die. The two of you have known each other forever, and he’ll be facing life for the first time without you in it.”
Katsuki was breathing hard, spitting mad, but he couldn’t find any words. Hearing her say that made the hollow ache in his chest intensify unbearably. He gritted his teeth and tried to get his shit together.
“How ever he feels about you, Bakugou, Midoriya loses his mind a bit when it comes to you,” she said. “We’ve all seen it or heard about it—every time you’ve been in danger he gets so angry that he—”
“He’s just like that!” Katsuki shouted, cheeks hot and eyes wet. “He cares about people! He would do that shit for anyone!”
A tear escaped out of his eye, and he roughly wiped it away, mortified. He looked away, clearing his throat, setting his jaw resolutely.
The silence was so heavy and tense and excruciating that Katsuki could barely stand it.
“Fine,” Jirou said stiffly after a long pause. “I can’t make you see how much he cares about you if you don’t want to see it, but—”
“Fuck right off, I know how he is!” Katsuki spat out viciously. “All this shit was the reason I thought he and I were on the same page. Because he’s like that, and I was stupid enough to think that meant something. So… fuck off.”
Jirou glared back at him. “Fine, say he does this for everyone. Say you die, and Midoriya’s dealing with it.”
Katsuki’s heart panged sharply, and he twisted his face into a deeper scowl. His hands curled into fists in his lap, and he dug his nails into his palms. He hated that the dull pain did nothing at all to ground him, completely incomparable to the agony in his heart.
“He will go through a stage of anger,” Jirou said, adamantly. “That’s a part of grief, anyways. And we all know Midoriya. When he sets his mind to something, nothing will stop him. Nothing.”
Katsuki felt his heart grow heavier.
That was yet another part of the damn problem.
“He’s relentless,” Jirou went on. “He’ll want somewhere to direct his anger. I’m not saying he’d want to do anything to whoever you’re in love with, but he would want to know. He would want to know where to direct his anger, and if you think he won’t try to figure it out—drive himself crazy trying to figure it out then—”
“He won’t figure it out!” Katsuki spat, confident in this if nothing else. “He’s an oblivious, shitty nerd!”
“He won’t need to!” Jirou said, her voice taking on a more obvious anger and pain. “If you die, it’s still gonna be a long damn life for the rest of us, Bakugou. You’re deluding yourself if you really think he’ll never find out. All it takes is one person cracking. Once. One person, one time, at some point in his long, long life.”
Katsuki was grinding his teeth together and glared furiously down at the table, uneasiness stirring inside his gut. He didn’t want to think about this shit. His stomach was twisting itself in knots, he couldn’t breathe through the ache, and the urge to cry was far too close to the surface for comfort.
Everything was too close to the surface for comfort. The barrier of emotions inside him was currently held together by a thread. His overwhelming emotions took up all the space inside him, suffocating him.
“You know he will, Bakugou,” Jirou said, insistent. “He will find out.”
“Fuck off,” Katsuki gasped out.
“So, don’t you think it would be best if he heard it from you?” Jirou pressed, but her voice had grown softer. It was unbearable. “That way, you can say everything you want to him, and he can search his feelings. See what he finds there.”
“He won’t find anything,” Katsuki bit out immediately.
“Ha!” Jirou let out a sardonic laugh. “Okay, sure. Maybe he will. Maybe he won’t.”
Katsuki stared blankly down at the table. Both his parents and Jirou were so certain, but they didn’t understand.
They didn’t understand Izuku and him, because the way they worked was built on years and years of history that no one else could hope to understand just from hearing it secondhand. It was one of many things that made it all so painful, after all, but it didn’t change that they simply couldn’t get it when looking from the outside.
Hearing their doubts only made him feel worse.
“Either way, the outcome for him will be the same,” Jirou went on, voice soft again. “But if you tell him, your life could be saved.”
Crushing, suffocating silence.
Katsuki stared down at the table. His stomach kept twisting itself in knots, over and over until he almost felt nauseous with anxiety.
His life wouldn’t be saved, and he’d have to deal with Izuku reeling with the realizations. He’d have to deal with Izuku’s wide, disbelieving eyes. He’d have to deal with Izuku’s embarrassment and confusion and guilt.
“Just give it some thought, okay?” Jirou said, gently. “You don’t have to decide now but really think about it. I can see you’re hurt from Midoriya turning you down, and you’re completely valid for that, but you do this kinda stuff when you get hurt, Bakugou. You get defensive, and you want to avoid it.”
“I’m not avoiding shit!” Katsuki argued… defensively. “I just know how this’ll go, so it’s pointless to drag him into it when he never asked for any of this!”
“I think you’re afraid of him hurting you more, so you’ve given up on all of it!” Jirou said, distress clear in her tone.
Katsuki startled, reeling slightly as if she’d slapped him in the face. Jirou looked just as surprised, maybe because of his reaction.
“Bakugou, I’m—”
“I haven’t given up,” Katsuki replied, voice strained with irritation and pain and a thousand other things as he slumped forward to lean his arms on the table, hanging his head.
His first instinct was to yell at her for saying something so stupid. He could feel his anger writhing under the surface, but he also felt drained. The suffocating emotions were crushing the life out of him, and so much of his body hurt so badly.
He continued, “This isn’t giving up, and I’m tired of everyone saying that. So what if I don’t want him to say more shit to me? So what if I don’t want to deal with more rejection from him? Is it really so fucking bad to want to retain some of my dignity as this shit kills me? It’s gonna kill me either way, and it’s got jack shit to do with giving up or not.”
He’d meant to sound mad or at least firm, but his voice came out far too beseeching and tired.
“Your dignity?” Jirou repeated, sounding alarmed. “Bakugou, what’re you talking about?”
A knock on the door startled them both. It seemed the rest of the band was finally starting to arrive.
“Dammit,” Jirou muttered. “Look, let’s talk more later, okay?”
“Whatever,” Katsuki sniffed in loudly, wiping his eyes roughly again. “Fuck… I’m gonna go to the bathroom real quick while you let them in.”
He shoved to his feet, turning to go, but Jirou stood too and stepped forward.
“Bakugou, wait!” she said.
He paused, looking back at her. She grabbed his arm and pulled him to face her and wrapped her arms around him.
Katsuki froze for a moment. He’d considered Jirou a close friend for years, but he couldn’t remember the last time they’d hugged like this. After a moment, he wrapped his arms around her too.
She was quite a bit shorter than him by now, but she held him so securely that he felt another surge of emotions—pain and grief and guilt and so many more. For a moment, with his face out of view of hers, his face contorted in response to the agony he was feeling.
Jirou pulled back, looking him in the eyes again. Her eyes were shiny with tears. “Please, give it some thought, Bakugou. Please think about telling him.”
Katsuki knew he could and would give it a whole lot of thought but felt an inescapable sense of doom. No matter what, he’d arrive at the same conclusion.
“I will,” he replied, unable to look in her eyes in case he saw hope there.
He couldn’t handle that.
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part 2
the pain of your presence
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Katsuki quickly decided that the worst part about dying was undoubtedly how everyone felt entitled to just show up at his apartment unannounced.
Izuku and Kirishima both kept doing it, though to be fair they usually texted him and then showed up when he didn’t respond. Jirou was the only one of his friends who was decent enough to confirm their plans rather than try to force them on him.
His parents would try to show up to make him dinner every few days, despite Katsuki’s protests. Sure, they were his parents and he loved them and understood it, but Katsuki was short-tempered these days. While he knew they were his parents and he was dying and they wanted to see him, things unfortunately weren’t that simple.
Katsuki was already feeling so exhausted and overwhelmed most of the time. When his parents showed up, it made the shame inside him spike unbearably. There was something about his parents being in his space and pestering him that just triggered some instinct of irritation in Katsuki. His parents showed up and suddenly, he was a hormonal teenager again whether he wanted to be or not.
Maybe he wouldn’t hate it so much if he had any energy to spare. As it was, Katsuki didn’t feel like he could handle much of anything. He was always exhausted, hurting, and often felt on the verge of exploding from how overwhelmed everything made him feel.
Already, he felt like the only one of his peers unable to adjust to growing up. Already, he was struggling intensely with his conflicting pride and unreliable emotions and increasing physical pain that added to his irritability. So when his parents showed up to make him dinner and ask him a thousand questions and eye him like he was already half crumpled to dust, it certainly didn’t help Katsuki feel like less of a child. It made him feel babied and helpless in a way that he hated.
As much as Katsuki loved his parents and also deep down did want to see them, he found himself resenting their presence like a petulant child—thoughtlessly, almost viscerally. He did his best to hold back his anger and annoyance, if only because he was well aware that it wasn’t valid and he was supposed to be past this, but he struggled to fake happiness or even neutrality entirely.
Mostly, when his parents were there, he sat there quietly and tried to keep his impossibly short temper from being triggered.
On one such day, about two weeks after he first told them, his parents were cooking in his kitchen, and he was too tired to sit at any of the barstools at the kitchen island. Instead, he sat at his kitchen table—separated from his parents by the island—slumped back against a chair.
“How’ve you been?” his dad asked from where he stood at the stove, stirring the large pot of soup they were working on making.
“The same,” Katsuki muttered, feeling his jaw ache when he released it to speak. He realized he’d once again been clenching it for far too long without noticing.
“It’s been a month and a half, right?”
“Yeah.”
“Katsuki, don’t you think it’s progressing a bit quickly?” his mom asked.
Katsuki didn’t look up to see the concerned look that he knew was on her face. He couldn’t stand to see it. He said nothing, because that was a stupid fucking question. How the hell was he supposed to have any control over this shit?
“Katsuki?”
“What?”
“Don’t you think you’re pretty sick, considering it’s only been like six weeks?” she said, more insistently. “You’ve already been coughing up flowers and you’ve been so tired. And you look like you’ve lost weight!”
Katsuki hated that she sounded so accusatory when she said it.
“The hell do you want me to do about it?” he asked, glaring at her.
His mom hesitated for only a moment before she said, “Have you seen Izuku recently?”
“I don’t want to talk about him,” Katsuki snapped back immediately. “I’m not fuckin’ telling him and I’m tired of arguing about this shit.”
“I’m not talking about that,” his mom said, sounding increasingly annoyed. “Have you seen him or not?!”
They’d been interrogating him so often since they’d found out. They wouldn’t stop pestering him to talk to Izuku. They’d mentioned talking to Inko too, which Katsuki had been very pissed off about. They weren’t setting up a fucking playdate.
“Yes, okay? He shows up here all the fucking time just like you two! Trying to bring me food and shit. It’s so goddamn annoying! Why the fuck is everyone acting like I can’t cook all of a sudden?! For fuck’s sake.”
He was slightly winded by the end of his rant, and he bitterly did his best not to show it.
Of course, despite his complaints, Katsuki didn’t really have a whole lot of energy to cook these days. He generally didn’t have much of an appetite. Everything he made was simple and easy.
That didn’t mean he had to like that everyone was babying him.
“Katsuki, you’ve lost weight,” his mother said, her worry coming out as increased frustration in the same way Katsuki’s often did.
“I know that!” Katsuki barked testily. “That shit was gonna happen whether or not everyone I know keeps forcing food down my throat. Fucking hell.”
“Alright, let’s not fight, okay?” his dad cut in, distress clear in his voice and on his face. “Let’s just try to enjoy the evening together.”
They both scowled, looking away. Katsuki felt the pang of guilt flare at his dad’s expression. With his and his mother’s temper, escalation came so naturally. It was familiar and instinctual even with the undertone of dread that hung in the air practically all the time now. If anything, that additional factor only made it easier for the two of them to get angry with each other.
For a few minutes, it was quiet except for the sounds of his parents cooking.
When his mom spoke again, her voice had grown very somber.
“Katsuki, listen to me,” she said. “This is important, okay? You remember that old nursery rhyme about Hanahaki?”
“Obviously,” Katsuki replied tersely, still slumped in his seat and refusing to look up. “Why the hell are we talking about it right now?”
“You know the nip it in the bud line?” his mom said, voice scarily even and grave. “Do you know what it means?”
Nip it in the bud, my dear.
“It’s just talking about the surgery,” Katsuki grumbled back, irritation lashing to get out. “Get it earlier on before it worsens or something.”
“In part,” his mom said. Katsuki really didn’t like her tone. Like she was delivering him bad news. “But that’s what the ‘ripping them up’ part is about. Nipping it in the bud also means to cut something off before it can grow anymore. Cutting off pieces of the whole.”
“Stop being so cryptic, old hag!”
Katsuki was met with a silence that stretched for long enough that his unease grew to an intolerable level. He was ready to snap and completely lose it. Finally, he looked up at his mom. She looked serious enough that Katsuki’s gut churned with nauseating anxiety.
“If you’re not going to tell Izuku, you need to cut things off with him,” his mother said, forcefully.
Katsuki tensed, narrowing his eyes at her. His voice came out more strained and uneven than he’d wanted it to, “The hell are you talking about? He and I aren’t together. That’s the whole goddamn problem!”
“I don’t mean romantically, brat!” his mom snapped, before continuing in a calmer, but still stern tone. “I mean at all. You need to cut him out of your life.”
Katsuki was so taken aback that his heart dropped to his stomach. He didn’t even know what to say for a moment.
“Why are you saying this?” Katsuki hissed, angry and defensive to cover up his genuine shock. “You love Izuku. You’ve known him his entire life!”
“This has nothing to do with how I personally feel about Izuku!” his mom shot back, furious. She was enraged, but her eyes shone with unshed tears and Katsuki had to look away when a stab of pain shot through his heart at the sight. “This is about you. If you insist on being a stubborn idiot and dying rather than having a damn conversation with him then—”
“I’ve already explained this shit!” Katsuki cried, voice even more strained now from exasperation and the pain of the deep ache in his chest. “What would be the point of a fucking conversation?! He can’t just make himself love me, so he’ll just feel guilty about it for the rest of his life! It’ll destroy him!”
He paused, heaving in breaths, and they just stared at each other. His mom’s eyes were still watery, and the tense lines of her face betrayed her deeper agony. His dad stood off to the side, face set in a deep frown and equally shiny eyes showcasing his sorrow and vulnerability as he kept the stove from catching on fire.
Katsuki’s own throat and eyes were starting to burn slightly, threatening him with the urge to cry.
Still, he went on, obstinate, “You know him, Mom. It’ll destroy him. I won’t do that shit to him, and I don’t want to deal with it either.”
“Then you need to cut him out of your life, Katsuki,” his mom insisted firmly. “You’ve gotten worse so quickly.”
“That’s got fuck all to do with him!” Katsuki shouted as his temper snapped again, so easily triggered.
“Katsuki, it definitely has to do with him,” his mom replied, sounding incredulous at his continued protests. “The entire disease has to do with him! His presence makes it worse! It’s growing way too fast!”
“There’s not real, consistent evidence to prove that shit,” Katsuki argued stubbornly. “That’s superstition.”
“The hell it is!” his mom yelled, affronted. “Katsuki, you have to do this!”
“You think Izuku would accept that shit?” Katsuki snorted humorlessly. “You think if I was suddenly like, ‘hey never speak to me again,’ that he wouldn’t have questions?”
“I don’t care whether or not he’ll want to accept it,” his mom countered angrily. “You need to do it.”
“I’m not doing that.”
His parents said nothing for a moment and Katsuki stared blankly down at the table. The oven started to beep in the background, and it took a long moment for his dad to turn and shut it off.
“He’s not good for you, Katsuki,” his mom said, though her voice had grown a touch gentler. “I can tell, even just now. It makes you sadder to be near him.”
“No, it doesn’t,” Katsuki denied hoarsely, looking away as he forced the reactive grimace of pain on his face to twist into an angry scowl. “You don’t know what the hell you’re talking about!”
“Katsuki, for fuck’s sake!” she threw her hands up before turning to her husband, ordering, “You talk to him, Masaru. I need a minute.”
She walked out of the room, and Katsuki looked over at his dad with that ever-present feeling of dread growing in his gut. His stomach twisted in knots, his chest felt compressed, and a hand wrapped around his heart and squeezed painfully tight.
His dad sighed, pulling off his glasses and cleaning them with his shirt. The set of his jaw was tense—from obvious stress, not anger. His lips were pulled downward, every muscle in his face making his pain and exhaustion so incredibly clear to Katsuki.
Katsuki looked away again, because he could never bear it to look anyone in the eyes these days. Much less his father that he’d let down so irrevocably.
“Don’t, dad,” Katsuki muttered, and his strained voice became pleading so fast he surprised even himself. “I’m so tired. Not right now… please.”
There was a long silence.
After a minute, his dad said, quietly, “I really think you should think about what your mom said. Spending less time with Izuku… it might be helpful for you. He’ll want to be around you of course, but… if you turn him away, he’ll respect it, I’m sure.”
Katsuki said nothing.
Like hell would Izuku respect that.
“I know you probably want to be around him, too,” his dad continued, “but, all things considered, son… I really don’t think it’ll be helpful for you.”
Katsuki could feel his heart thumping in his chest.
Did he want to be around Izuku? Had it ever been that simple? Could he ever hope to separate out the complex way his feelings around Izuku were tangled up in order to know what he wanted?
“I think at the very least, time apart could do you some good,” his dad said. “It doesn’t have to be goodbye forever—”
Katsuki’s heart dropped to his toes at his dad’s words.
Goodbye…
Forever…
Despite everything, it shot an unwelcome and shocking terror through his veins, spiking his heart rate. It was completely out of his control and entirely shocking even to himself. Something about the permanence of the words dug its way sharply through the growing feeling of numbness he’d been increasingly shrouded in for weeks; it jolted his wrecked survival instinct to life momentarily.
“—but staying away most of the time would be better for you. You two have a long history, so whenever you’re in conflict, it impacts you a lot, Katsuki. And you have enough on your plate.”
Katsuki ducked his head, face caught between the scowl he was trying to force and the pained grimace that fought back.
After a long moment, his dad asked quietly, practically begging, “At least consider it?”
“Fine,” Katsuki replied curtly practically the millisecond his dad finished speaking. “Yes. I’ll think about it. Can we stop talking about this?”
With a slow nod, his dad agreed. Katsuki only saw his nod out of his peripheral, because he refused to look at his dad. The weight of it all… the weight of his failures and how he’d doomed his dad to this…
Katsuki already couldn’t breathe.
He’d conceded, but he knew this all wasn’t as simple as cutting Izuku off.
First of all, based on that damn pamphlet Dr. Ito had given him, avoiding Izuku wasn’t guaranteed to hurt or help him. That was one of the many bullshit, “it depends” things about Hanahaki.
Whether or not physical contact with or proximity to the one that a patient is in love with helps varies significantly. In some cases, it has been correlated to a much quicker death while in others it seems to improve symptoms. Current research is inconclusive. The generally agreed upon hypothesis is that it depends on the patient.
Katsuki knew his parents had a long history of being understandably wary of Hanahaki disease. It was entirely unsurprising that they supported him cutting off contact with Izuku—even if it was Izuku. Even so, Katsuki found himself feeling oddly hurt and almost offended by the suggestion. It made the dull ache in his heart throb to realize yet another consequence of this whole situation was that his parents were clearly blaming Izuku for this to some extent.
His parents’ friendship with Midoriya Inko and their fondness for Izuku had endured for decades. Would he really be the cause of a fracture in such an enduring relationship between their families?
Katsuki’s stomach turned uneasily when he realized he’d always been the main cause of conflict between their two families. He definitely didn’t have the energy to go down that train of thought right now.
His parents’ blaming of Izuku made him increasingly livid the more he thought about it. Because again, Izuku didn’t do anything. He didn’t ask for this. Not to mention Inko hadn’t done anything.
The second main reason things weren’t as simple as cutting off Izuku was that…
Well, Katsuki had spent plenty of time avoiding Izuku in recent weeks. He’d been struggling to process everything, and it’d been far from easy. It was most accurate to say that Katsuki’s mood around Izuku was inconsistent at best and incredibly unstable at worst. He’d generally swung between anger and exhaustion and the lingering desire to lean on Izuku. There was still the old instinct of Izuku’s familiarity and the understanding that came from that, but it constantly conflicted with lingering feelings of rejection and isolation.
Katsuki had no idea if Izuku hurt or helped.
To Katsuki, it hardly mattered how he felt about Izuku, because it wasn’t like he could ever rid himself of him anyways. It’d never mattered to the world how much Izuku had hurt him. It’d never mattered how much pain or worry or insecurity or desire or rage Izuku caused him to feel. He was always there, wasn’t he?
Except when Katsuki had asked him to be, of course.
Did Katsuki want to be around Izuku?
It wasn’t as simple as wanting Izuku or not wanting him. The idea of considering what Katsuki wanted felt almost silly. It clearly had never mattered what Katsuki wanted. When Katsuki wanted Izuku gone, he never was. When Katsuki wanted him to stay, he was nowhere in sight.
Why pretend like it mattered at all what he wanted? Nothing ever went how he expected, much less how he wanted.
Katsuki didn’t know what to do about Izuku. Some part of him had given up getting rid of Izuku so long ago that now it didn’t even feel like a viable option, much less a possible one.
Even if it was, Katsuki just felt like it was far too little, too late.
Nip it in the bud, my dear.
The expression referred to cutting something off early on, right? If there was any hope of saving Katsuki using this route, he would’ve had to have successfully rid himself of Izuku well over a decade ago.
Now, even assuming he could cut Izuku off, he couldn’t untangle himself from Izuku. He could maybe physically remove Izuku from his presence, but he couldn’t find each branch and stem and vine that’d grown as a result of him to cut it off.
It felt like a belated, pitiful, futile attempt to reverse the irreversible. It felt like trying to remove the sunlight after an invasive plant had already tangled its way in and killed half the native species.
Death was the only way he could escape the agony of loving Izuku. He had no choice in the matter, and he wasn’t sure he ever had.
─────
Katsuki admittedly had zero desire to endure another situation where he had to reveal his approaching death to others. Sure, he’d gotten the most “difficult” ones out of the way, but he still felt exhausted at the very idea of it. If he had his way, he’d just mind his business and die quietly. Really, he could do without all the reactions and pity and well-wishes that felt empty and the hope that felt even emptier.
Realistically, he knew he had to just get it out of the way. There was a Class 1-A gathering coming up. His plan was to show up, wait for the right moment, tell everyone, and then promptly leave if everyone was being too unbearable. He’d like to see them try and stop him with how short and explosive his temper was these days.
In his head, it wasn’t going to be a big deal. He could just say it and leave. That’s how it would go.
But when he found himself standing in Yaomomo’s expansive living room, surrounded by everyone from his high school class, Katsuki’s heart wouldn’t stop pounding. His gut was twisting itself in anxious, uncomfortable knots. He was practically sweating just from the knowledge of what he was going to have to do and endure.
All the grief and pain and protest and questions.
Yaomomo had a massive house—generationally wealthy, not to mention being successful herself. This room was both wide and tall with a bunch of couches, chairs, and cushions for everyone to talk and eat and mingle at. Along one wall, she’d set up a table with dozens of fancy appetizers and drinks. Only she would go so all-out for a gathering that wasn’t even an occasion, but just an ordinary get-together.
“Bakugou,” Jirou said as she materialized out of the crowd to greet him as he stared at the different food options. “How are you?”
Katsuki scowled and glanced at her. “Fine.”
“Did you think about what we talked about?” Jirou said pointedly, eyeing him carefully.
“Not happening.”
His gut churned and his body practically buzzed with slightly frantic, nervous energy. He couldn’t deal with this conversation right now. He’d been here for minutes, and already he was reaching his limit. It was loud in here, all his classmates laughing and talking as usual. The normalcy of his friends’ lives contrasted so jarringly with his own, and he hadn’t gotten better at enduring it even after all these weeks.
“You have to—” Jirou started, lowly.
“Hey, man,” Kirishima also appeared and clamped a hand on his shoulder. “How are—”
“Goddammit, I’m fine,” Katsuki snapped, glowering even more and shoving his hand off because being touched was too much on top of everything else. “Besides the fact that I’m gonna lose my mind if one more person asks me how the hell I’m doing. I’m exactly the fucking same as the last time I saw you!”
“Okay, man,” Kirishima put his hands up placatingly, but there was a concerned furrow to his brow. “Just wondering.”
“Kacchan! Hi!”
Katsuki spun to face Izuku’s voice, ready to shout at him for asking the same damn question as the others before he even could but was stopped by the sight of Izuku walking hand in hand with Uraraka.
While a part of Katsuki had been braced for the sight of Izuku, this specific scene knocked the wind out of him. Izuku wore his usual teacher outfit—minus the tie, of course. He had a wide, bright smile but his eyes were sharp and attentive as they locked in on Katsuki. Uraraka… well, she looked as cute as always in a white blouse and long, flowy dark pants. Her brown hair hung down a bit past her chin in its usual style.
They both had light blushes dusted on their cheeks and wide, happy eyes. Their fingers were intertwined.
Katsuki’s mind flashed back to the long-faded memory from all those years ago. A day when he fell into the river, and Izuku reached out a hand. A day when Katsuki refused to take it.
Why didn’t I just take his hand back then?
Katsuki’s heart ached deeply, though he knew well enough by now that one moment—when they were so young and things were far from set in stone—wouldn’t have changed anything. Izuku offered his hand to everyone, not just Katsuki. Even back then, he’d been arrogant enough to think Izuku’s offer was specific to himself and not just the way that Izuku was.
Izuku offered his hand to anyone who needed it. It was allowing and wanting their hand to stay in his own that was the real challenge. It was a challenge that Katsuki hadn’t realized until recently.
Katsuki scowled even more as the pain twisted like a knife in his gut. Seeing them together like this shouldn’t have felt as startling as it did.
It shouldn’t have felt as painful as it did.
“Hi,” Katsuki said lamely, eyes flicking back and forth between them and then away.
Goddammit. The jealousy was unbearably intense.
Katsuki felt incapable of containing the feeling, and it quickly soured his mood even further. He felt almost… displaced by the sight of their hands intertwined, like the world was off-kilter and unfamiliar and no longer had a real place for Katsuki to exist. It was almost dizzying and certainly was nauseating on top of Katsuki’s current state of anxiety.
In their presence, the longing he felt for Izuku felt unreasonably slighted, creating an unpleasant concoction that was excruciatingly painful. As a result, he felt bitterly angry and defensive. He’d never been forced into a situation like this and was entirely unequipped to handle how it made him feel.
In this moment, he could very much understand the benefit of cutting Izuku out of his life.
“Hi guys!” Uraraka smiled in a friendly manner and nodded at all of them, though her smile faded slightly after a second, glancing around at them and then to Izuku. “Um, is everything… alright?”
Katsuki frowned at her in confusion and noticed Izuku doing the same. He then glanced at his friends on either side of him. He was slightly confused at first, seeing the tense, sort of closed off looks on both Kirishima and Jirou’s faces—very atypical expressions for both of them. Then he realized how they were positioned on either side of him, ever so slightly in front of him.
With his head already buzzing with the intensity of his anxiety and his gut twisting with the force of his jealousy, Katsuki could only glance between his friends as his brain tried to keep up and figure out what the hell was happening.
“So… you guys officially together now?” Kirishima offered the blankest and most unconvincing smile Katsuki had ever seen him produce, staring intently at Izuku.
Izuku seemed momentarily taken off guard by the question, his eyes darting over to meet Katsuki’s and darting away just as quickly.
“Yes!” he nodded, again grinning widely as his blush deepened. He ducked his head, seeming bashful and awkward at the direction of conversation, but undoubtedly pleased. “We decided to make it official last night!”
Katsuki’s eyes drifted to the side to stare at the food table they were all apparently just going to linger next to. He hoped that he came off as bored more than anything else, because truthfully, he felt entirely unable to hide how intensely angry he felt.
He was angry, of course, because he was actually feeling a thousand other things he was quickly losing the ability to name. It all surged up so fast that white noise practically buzzed between his ears. He shoved his hands in his pockets because he wasn’t sure if they were shaking or not.
He couldn’t tell if the air was tense and uncomfortable, or if it was just his own rotting feelings leaking out of his pores as he overflowed with them. Was the energy strange, or did Katsuki just hate this?
“Congrats,” Kirishima nodded to both of them, his weak smile weakening even more.
“Thanks!” Izuku sounded a bit embarrassed and shy but happy, eyes still averted.
Katsuki realized that he was finding it hard to breathe when his vision blurred at the edges.
Nip it in the bud, my dear.
Katsuki forced air into his lungs and back out.
“He’s not good for you, Katsuki,” his mom had said. “I can tell, even just now. It makes you sadder to be near him.”
“Thank you,” Uraraka added a second later in response to Kirishima’s sentiment.
Her slightly off tone of voice made Katsuki glance up, and he saw that she was looking between the three of them with an increasingly confused and almost uneasy expression.
“How… unexpected,” Jirou said, smiling in a way that was also obviously forced. “You two didn’t really keep in touch much these last… what… eight years?”
“That’s why we decided to start talking more!” Izuku replied brightly as he looked up and nodded eagerly, far more oblivious to the weird energy than Uraraka seemed to be. “And things have been going well! It’s really been so nice, and we get along so well.”
It was then that Katsuki belatedly realized that his two friends were positioned like guard dogs, and that they were being way too goddamn weird and obvious about this whole situation. If there was anything his dying pride could not handle at the moment, it was having Izuku and Uraraka connect any fucking dots.
Pointedly, he stepped forward slightly to be in line with his friends, shooting them both sharp looks.
Why the hell were they picking sides like this was a fucking soap opera? God, this was humiliating. Katsuki wanted to explode everyone here to hell and leave. He wanted to pretend he wasn’t here and that he hadn’t seen Izuku blush and smile and hold Uraraka’s hand securely in his own.
Katsuki’s offered hand had not been taken.
His love was unrequited.
His death sentence was final.
Katsuki inhaled, but his diseased lungs weren’t happy. It felt a bit like he was suffocating, and it was slowly starting to make his head spin. The urge rose to cough and heave and rip open his chest—anything to clear out the rot inside him. His brain was slowly shifting away from jealousy and anger to pain and unease with each passing second.
How much space were those damn flowers taking up in there?
Katsuki shifted on his feet, trying not to appear like he was slowly but surely on his way to passing out. Around him, the others were still talking, and he didn’t comprehend a damn word of it.
With each passing second where Katsuki couldn’t breathe, he was reminded of the truth. Things like jealousy and holding hands and blushing and longing were a thing of the past. Katsuki didn’t have that luxury anymore. They were normal things for normal, living people.
Katsuki wasn’t that.
He was a slowly rotting corpse, being broken down by the disease eating away at him.
Perhaps he felt so off kilter at the sight of Izuku holding hands with someone else because it was really a reminder of just how far apart they were.
Katsuki had allowed himself to entangle Izuku into his childhood dream and pulled him into the very center of his heart. He’d really believed that Izuku could be his… that their inability to escape each other meant they could belong to each other. He’d assumed that they were woven together—so twisted together and convoluted that they couldn’t escape each other if they tried.
For eight years after high school, Katsuki had devoted the majority of his time, resources, and energy to trying to bring their future back to where it was supposed to be. To trying to restore their dream after Izuku became Quirkless again.
The dichotomy between Katsuki’s feelings for Izuku and how he wasn’t special to Izuku was so jarring and mortifying every time he was forced to witness it—even all these weeks after the delusion had been shattered.
While Katsuki was dying because the parts of himself that belonged to Izuku were fueling the Hanahaki, Izuku… had gotten a girlfriend.
It was almost laughable.
Katsuki did yet again feel the urge to laugh—to scream, to explode, to tear open his own chest to relieve the pressure—but the urge to cough to try and clear out his lungs was rising above all that. His focus was being drawn more and more to the very physical pains of the obstruction in his lungs.
The conversation around him—that he’d been ignoring in favor of his own spiraling thoughts—was interrupted by a chiming noise. They all turned to face Yaomomo, who was tapping her spoon lightly on a glass.
“Hi, everyone!” she said brightly, ever the perfect and gracious host. “Thank you all for coming!”
Katsuki barely comprehended what she said because on his next inhale, his chest caught, and he coughed slightly to clear his throat. It wasn’t loud—it was barely a cough—but in his peripheral he noticed how Izuku, Kirishima, and Jirou all turned to look at him. He twisted his scowl deeper, pointedly ignoring them all and breathing shallowly.
Dammit, he had to cough so bad, but he was determined to wait until Yaomomo was done to cough or make his escape. If everyone turned to look at him as his friends babied him, he might actually explode.
Aw, hell. Why didn’t he just send a damn email about this shit? A group text?
[No reply] FYI: I’ve got Hanahaki disease, extras.
Yaomomo was going on about charity work or some shit, and Katsuki head spun with lack of oxygen.
He let out another suppressed cough, mouth stubbornly shut, hoping to alleviate it all enough to hold off for another minute. Unfortunately, it only made it worse as it triggered the urge to cough even more. He coughed again into his elbow. This time, it was loud and wet, and it felt like it was only making things worse. It was stirring things up in his lungs.
As always happened when Katsuki’s breathing was being threatened, his ability to comprehend anything was narrowed to a significantly smaller view. A quick glance saw that everyone had turned to look at him.
It wasn’t a surprise. When he coughed like this, he sounded sick.
Fuck, I can’t breathe. He thought.
With each second, his ability to have any thought outside of desperation to cough and hack until he could breathe was dwindling. He had seconds before he did something irreversibly mortifying like hack out the contents of his lungs onto Yaomomo’s pristine floors.
Katsuki turned and shoved his way out of the room. He ducked into the hallway and beelined for where he knew the nearest bathroom to be. He held in the desire to fully cough mostly by not breathing and letting out small, short coughs without opening his mouth. He opened the door and shut it, completely ignoring how he could see that Kirishima had followed him. As he flipped the lock, he finally let himself cough.
It was as painful as always, his throat and chest screaming in protest as he heaved and forced breath in and out of his lungs. His coughs were wet and ragged, and for a moment he couldn’t stop. Eventually, something was pulled up into his mouth. He tasted the metallic tang of blood and leaned forward to spit into the sink.
Mucus and blood splattered against the pristine white porcelain, and Katsuki turned on the water to wash it down as he heaved in breaths.
Though he didn’t feel well, he also didn’t feel like there was any part of the shitty plant blocking his airway. He intended to get out of here before it did. So far, every time he coughed up any part of it, it would hurt like hell and make him exhausted. If any part of the flowers themselves came up… Katsuki always threw up.
For some reason vomiting always made him feel like he was on the verge of passing out. It practically ruined him for the rest of the day, and he really would rather die than need to be carried out of here under everyone’s watch.
Katsuki stared at the water rushing out of the sink into the drain. It’d long washed away the blood. His throat felt torn up, and his chest ached with how hollow it felt. Fatigue was settling back into his bones again. His exhaustion hung around him constantly these days; the weight of it all always returning back to him sooner or later.
How soon would it be before it never left him?
How soon until he couldn’t remember what it was like to feel rested and well?
Katsuki ducked down to rinse out his mouth and then shut off the water. As he wiped his mouth off on his sleeve, he looked up at himself in the mirror. His cheeks had hollowed out even more recently; the skin of his face was beginning to familiarize itself more with his bones. The darkness around his eyes never faded either. He looked sickly, and in the lighting of the bathroom he looked half dead already.
Katsuki sighed and hung his head as he braced his hands on either side of the sink and leaned onto his hands for a moment while he caught his breath.
He didn’t have the luxury of jealousy and holding hands and blushing and longing. Those things were for normal, living people. They were for his friends who’d left him behind so easily. Everyone else got to move on from the past and fall in love and adjust so easily to this unrecognizable world.
Katsuki couldn’t seem to escape the past and the phrase in love felt too tame for the all-consuming feeling that was feeding the flowers and he was so unbearably lost in this unrecognizable world.
Katsuki was a slowly rotting corpse, being broken down by the disease eating away at him.
He gazed down into the sink, slowly blinking his eyes that’d grown heavier in the last few minutes.
When had this happened?
When had he gone from Bakugou Katsuki—Quirk: Explosion, future Number One Hero—to… whatever the hell was happening in his life now?
Katsuki inhaled again, his chest aching badly. Absentmindedly, he rubbed his knuckles over his sternum as he turned to the door; while his lungs undoubtedly ached with each movement, the ball of agony in the center of his being flared up to put it to shame.
Pulling open the door, he was met with a distressed Kirishima pacing back and forth quickly in front of the bathroom.
“Bakugou!” he said, looking relieved. “Are you—”
“’M fine,” Katsuki cut him off, ignoring how his voice was so hoarse it barely made any noise as he turned to walk back to the room their classmates were in.
“Hey, man, maybe we should just go?” Kirishima suggested, sounding very stressed as he kept pace with him.
Katsuki ignored him and strode right into the room. Everyone was talking, but quite a few people glanced his way when he reappeared. He felt oddly numb outside of the rapid, uncomfortably palpable beating of his heart and the lingering pain in his chest and throat. His eyes locked on the long table of food and beverages, spotting the water bottles towards one end. Before he could make his way over, he was addressed.
“Bakugou!” Kaminari called, scolding him in a teasing tone. “If you’re sick, you should’ve worn a mask! You used to yell at us about that in high school!”
His loud voice drew almost everyone’s attention.
Katsuki’s exhaustion made his irritation spike. It also made it so that he no longer gave a shit about subtlety. After very nearly coughing up flowers in front of all his classmates, Katsuki realized that he’d rather have some control over the sharing of this news.
Even if only like this.
“I don’t have the damn flu,” Katsuki tried to snap back, but the torn hoarseness of his throat annoyingly took the power out of his tone. At least it wasn’t completely gone like when he’d replied to Kirishima. “I’ve got Hanahaki disease, Dunce Face.”
The temperature in the room dropped. The remaining conversations stopped short, and absolutely everyone was gaping at him with various degrees of horror. He saw the expected reactions of a few people taking slight steps away from him.
So it begins.
Thus far, Katsuki had attributed the lack of being shunned and treated like a leper to a few things.
Firstly, only his closest friends and family knew. Among them, his parents and Izuku both had nothing to worry about in terms of “catching” Hanahaki—his parents were obviously in a requited love and Izuku was Quirkless.
Secondly, Katsuki was in the early stages of it. Most people didn’t believe that Hanahaki was “contagious” these days, but most people still had a significant disgust of the flowers and the physical signs of the sickness. The Quirk-made poison produced by the flowers made people uneasy. He’d attributed Kirishima and Jirou’s lack of reaction or disgust to the fact that the disease wasn’t that progressed yet; they’d not yet had to see the flowers covered in blood or the roots growing under his skin.
Katsuki always suspected it had to be lonely at the top; if you were the best of the best, everyone else started to look like extras after all.
He didn’t want to look at Izuku. He couldn’t.
Katsuki was finding rock bottom to be isolating as well. And with this moment, with all his classmates staring at him like this, none of them standing too close, he realized it was official that he would always be alone now. He could already picture his lonely tree in the groveyard, so spaced out that even the branches hung into open air.
The distance between himself and his classmates stretched out before him.
“Don’t worry, assholes,” Katsuki gritted out, shoving his hands in his pockets. He scowled, defenses flaring in preparation for the reactions he knew were coming and to try and control the hollow ache in his chest. “It’s in the early stages. I’ll stop coming to these little meetups soon, so you don’t gotta worry about catching it or whatever. Or getting sick from the poison and shit. I’ll be all locked away by then.”
The stifling silence didn’t dissipate. His heart slammed against his ribcage in his chest, which—in combination with his fatigue—just made him feel sicker. His scowl didn’t falter as his eyes flitted around the crowd of his friends, all frozen in place.
Though he still couldn’t bear to look in Izuku’s direction.
Instead, he narrowed his eyes in a show of annoyance and then stomped forward to grab a bottle of water.
“Hanahaki disease?!” Kaminari was the one to speak first, and his appalled voice came out high-pitched and squeaky.
Katsuki chugged down some water.
“Bakugou,” Todoroki pushed his way forward, slightly widened eyes focused in on Katsuki’s face. “Are you being serious?”
Katsuki didn’t deem that question worthy of a response and continued drinking.
“How—when did this happen?” Yaomomo asked shakily, eyes wide and starting to water.
“Are you getting surgery soon?!” Kaminari asked frantically. “You should right away, right?!”
“Wait, who even is it?” Sero asked from where he was sat off to the side, frowning deeply. “Is it someone else in heroics?”
Katsuki drained the rest of the water bottle. He was exhausted and numb, and his tolerance for everything was really low. The noise, the questions, the pity, all of it.
The first instinct that rose inside him was an old feeling that Katsuki hated. It was the desire to shove them off and yell, to insist that he was fine and that they shouldn’t look down on him. He felt watched, judged, and unsteady around his classmates in a way he hadn’t felt since early high school.
It made heat creep up his neck and did nothing to help him feel more balanced or centered in the world.
Katsuki couldn’t take much more of this. He was ready to leave.
“I’m not doin’ a damn interview,” he barked testily. “Just figured I’d let you know I didn’t walk in here with the flu.”
“But Bakugou, when’s your surgery?” Yaomomo asked, eyes wide and shiny with unshed tears, her hand held up over her mouth as she looked at him, aghast.
Katsuki looked away, glaring at the floor. His emotions teetered at the edge of overflowing, and he was exhausted. He was out of time; if he stayed too much longer, he might really revert back to high school and start shouting at them all.
“I’m outta here,” he muttered.
“No, wait!”
“Bakugou!”
“Wait!”
Various voices called around him. His classmates were all moving around him, all talking over one another, all concerned and confused and horrified and pitying. They all scrambled to speak or to catch his eye.
“Bakugou, we’re here for you!”
“You’ll get through this, okay?”
“We can help you after the surgery!”
“You’re gonna be okay! The surgery cures it!”
All around him were his Pro Hero friends. As he watched, worry changed to determination. Concern turned to problem solving. Despair turned to hope. They were ready to stand beside him, to fight, to support him.
They all meant well. They were all heroes. They didn’t have the same context that Kirishima or even Jirou had. They were reacting like it was an enemy to fight or a problem to solve.
There was no enemy to fight.
There was no problem to solve.
The words rang hollowly in Katsuki’s ears, too loud and too hopeful and too…
Katsuki blinked slowly, emotions simmering right at the edge of overflowing. His jaw was clenched tight. He glanced around at them all—resolute, hopeful eyes and heroic energy.
All his classmates rallying together like this, feeding off each other’s hope and determination and joining together to beat this… they’d been here before. Katsuki recognized it so easily, and it only made him feel more tired and isolated.
They’d all done this during the war several times—before the first fight, when they found out about Aoyama being the UA traitor, before that last fight. Led by Deku, his classmates had stayed hopeful and positive and motivated. They’d been able to forgive Aoyama and gather their courage to fight.
Strangely, in that moment, Katsuki suddenly didn’t feel like a child among adults at all. He felt old, about to keel over and crumple to dust. Though his friends were so determined to keep him upright that they’d likely scramble to catch even the dust before it blew away in the wind and try to reassemble his shape.
Their hope—like Izuku’s had—felt like unbearable idealism. But while Izuku’s idealism had felt like an expected core part of his identity, this felt different. While Izuku was completely, immutably, delusionally hopeful, it just felt like the rest of them were following his lead. They clung to the idea of optimism, because that’s what they’d done back then, too.
Katsuki couldn’t put his finger on it at the moment, but their echoes of Izuku’s idealism felt childish. Rather than hopeful in any capacity, it felt naïve.
He looked around at them, seeing that familiar hope in their eyes and enthusiasm and zest for life in so many of their faces. Not all of them, but most. They all blended together in Katsuki’s increasingly exhausted state.
With an ache in his hollowed-out chest, Katsuki realized he couldn’t remember the last time he’d shared such a feeling as they were all experiencing. Had he ever? He’d definitely been inspired by Deku but somehow seeing them all like this didn’t allow him to recall sharing in this specific energy.
The space between Katsuki and his friends was impossibly wide. He stood alone, and he didn’t know how long he’d done so. He knew now that he would die this way and remain so in death.
Katsuki didn’t stand with them, but now he no longer knew which direction he was from them.
Was he so far behind them all?
Was he so far ahead?
Was he on a different plane of existence?
“Gotta go,” Katsuki muttered rather than join in on or acknowledge the naively hopeful cheers that rang hollow in his ears.
As he did, his eyes caught on Uraraka, who was crying and openly staring at him with her sad, wide eyes. His gaze lingered on her for a moment. She didn’t look blindly hopeful; she looked terribly sad and horrified. Her wide brown eyes were watery and spilling tears. Her face didn’t carry blind hope—only disbelief, confusion, and devastation.
He hated all this, because he respected and cared for her so much but at the moment, he could only feel resentful. He hated that he and her could not be more different, that their demeanors and looks and genders were complete opposites. He hated that he couldn’t even feel some form of comfort from the fact that she wasn’t brushing this off in favor of blind hope—even without knowing any of the context. He hated that he wasn’t strong enough to keep his feelings for Izuku separate from his friendship with her.
Finally, still ignoring everyone that was clamoring for his attention, Katsuki turned to go. He did so with his eyes on the floor, without looking at anyone else—not Kirishima or Jirou. Not Todoroki or Kaminari or Yaomomo.
Definitely not Izuku.
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part 3
the strength we don't share
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Despite the intensity of Katsuki’s exhaustion, he struggled to fall asleep when he got home.
His exhaustion was so immense that it felt like gravity had strengthened just for him, pressing his body deep into the mattress. It made even the idea of moving to get up feel like a massive effort, even with how his brain refused to yield to unconsciousness. Even grabbing his phone or watching TV to pass the time felt like a task far too impossible.
Thus, time passed by with agonizing slowness. He tossed and turned, growing increasingly frustrated. His mind had long turned hazy and sluggish, but it never went dark completely.
Eventually, his mind drifted into that half state between wakefulness and sleep. It was a vulnerable state that left many gates of his mind wide open as his brain tried to relax enough to shut down for a while.
Gates that he normally kept closed tight.
Because Katsuki was struggling to fall asleep, his brain lingered too long in this state. It called up all the memories he tried to never think of, which would jolt him fully awake, clutching at his heart or his neck.
Here, Katsuki saw flashes of the cruel eyes of Shigaraki as he held him aloft by his neck. Here he remembered old agony—stab wounds and a chest just torn open and haphazardly sowed back together and a decayed, broken limb; his wounds were long healed, but for a moment the memories cut so deep he almost felt the pain again.
Even though his eyelids weighed a thousand pounds, he had to force them open so that he could comfort himself with reality. He wasn’t cuffed to a chair surrounded by villains or watching Izuku fight Shigaraki in the air while helpless to stop the inevitable stealing of One For All and his disintegration.
If nothing else, he wasn’t back at that Coffin in the Sky.
It was on nights like this that Katsuki would roll over to turn on his bedside light like a child scared of the dark. He illuminated the room if only to comfort his subconscious with the fact that no monsters—no old, long dead villains—were here to try and get at him again.
It was on nights like this that Katsuki would end up rolling onto his back and staring blankly at the ceiling. Only in the quiet isolation of his room with his scarred, slowly failing heart thumping furiously against his ribcage did he allow himself something self-indulgent. Something hypocritical and nonsensical, like self-pity.
Katsuki had done it all without ever looking back. He’d fought and moved forward and taken the hits. He’d died and came back and kept walking. He had a goal in mind, after all.
Katsuki was going to become the Number One Hero.
In light of his approaching demise and the numb acceptance of how he would never reach that goal, Katsuki felt more exhausted and worn out than anything else. He felt less like a hero and more like a broken toy soldier, all glued back together after being played with too much.
As he longed so desperately for sleep that wouldn’t come, his heart soured with something like bitterness. Old frustrations and misunderstandings and regrets dug themselves up. In that half-awake state before sleep, he couldn’t escape the weight of all the pain in his life.
The weight would crush him, though.
Katsuki knew he couldn’t bear it.
Not right now.
So he shifted his heavy limbs to push himself into a sitting position with the intention of heading to the bathroom to reset his mind a bit. With the blind hope of an exhausted man who just wanted to rest, he hoped that if he exerted the energy to move there and back that maybe when he returned, he could just collapse into unconsciousness before any more old pains could resurface.
Katsuki got to his feet rather slowly. His breath came heavier just from such minimal effort. Sluggishly, he made his way to the bathroom, squeezing his eyes shut against the brightness of the light when he flipped it on. Before he made it to the toilet, he caught sight of himself in the mirror and stilled. He usually slept without a shirt, and tonight was no exception. Even though he knew what he looked like, the sight of his own torso was jarring.
He’d been losing weight for a few weeks, but it’d only just started to show noticeably. In general, he looked smaller than he had in years, and he felt so weak that it was probably making him feel even smaller than he actually was.
Too exhausted to remain fully upright, Katsuki all but fell forward onto his palms, resting them on the bathroom counter. His vision was blurred ever so slightly from how tired he was.
Inhaling deeply and trying not to think about his diseased lungs, Katsuki’s eyes trailed down to his scars. The stab wounds on his left shoulder and abdomen were long healed over, faded only slightly with time. They hadn’t healed super well, seeing as Katsuki had continued to fight after getting them; twisting and moving his arms and torso had pulled at the skin during the healing process. The large scar over his heart from where his chest had been torn open was entirely marred and discolored even after all these years.
A broken toy soldier, all glued back together after being played with too much.
For a moment, Katsuki wondered what it would feel like to wake up in this body without knowing the story behind each of the scars. After all, each one came from a tale that starred Izuku so centrally that there was no chance that he would emerge from surgery with any recollection of how they got there.
Assuming he even survived surgery, the person that remained would be left with old aches and pains that they didn’t even know the origin of. They’d be given his imperfect, scarred body and forced to live in it without knowing why.
It sounded like a cruel fate.
And try as he might, Katsuki couldn’t picture the person that emerged from the surgery as being himself in any way that mattered. He pictured it as a different person entirely, someone who was nearly twenty-five and yet probably wouldn’t be able to do basic shit.
It felt like a separate person, but Katsuki knew that it was his body and his destroyed brain that would be forced through the process. It wouldn’t be him, but it would be some scattered remains of him that would probably have to be taken care of for the rest of his fucking life.
Katsuki’s heavy eyelids were barely open as he blinked slowly.
His family and friends all wanted him to get surgery, of course. He understood why. They didn’t want to say goodbye. They didn’t want him to die so young.
Goodbye forever…
Yeah… he understood why. His chest ached so deeply that he winced slightly. While he would have to say goodbye no matter what, he supposed the surgery would prolong the need to grieve for his family.
Katsuki’s head felt too heavy to hold up, so he just let it hang down. The idea of moving even to sit felt momentarily impossible, and he leaned much of his weight on his arms.
It was a dilemma: was Katsuki to be selfish or selfless?
Would he be selfish, and die of the disease that was killing him? Would he let nature take its course, because the alternative sounded like an odd form of hell? Would he doom his friends and family to grieving him sooner rather than later because the idea of going on sounded exhausting?
Or would he be selfless? Would he get the surgery and live on as some strange echo of himself? Would he allow the person he was to be ripped from his broken body, and then hand over the remains to his friends and family so they didn’t have to grieve his death just yet? Would he allow them all to play with the broken toy soldier once he was all hollowed out and ready to go again?
Selfish or selfless.
Grieve now or later.
Katsuki’s misery and end was inescapable in any scenario.
His arms grew tired and threatened to give out, so he finally gained the motivation to move. He did his business and returned to bed, all but collapsing onto it and pulling himself under the covers.
Blinking his heavy eyes, he lay on his back and stared at the ceiling. Absently, he rubbed at the scar over his chest. The skin over his sternum was stretched thin in some places; it had caused him some minimal pain over the years even after healing, but he felt like he noticed it a lot more recently.
He didn’t know if the pain was psychosomatic or not. Like everything else, it didn’t matter at all.
As Katsuki traced over the scar—pressing on it in places to feel the pressure of it even when he couldn’t feel the sensation of his own touch—his mind returned to the Coffin in the Sky unbidden. The memories resurfaced so easily, but at least Katsuki was more awake now than before. His mind wasn’t as vulnerable as when he was half asleep, so the memory couldn’t sneak up on him and stab him quite so deep.
That day…
A day he’d been given a second chance.
A day where he’d briefly met death.
Edgeshot had nearly given his own life to give Katsuki a second chance at life. Edgeshot, Best Jeanist, Mirko… everyone had tried so hard to save him, so certain that he’d met a fate that he wasn’t yet ready for. They’d all been so certain that he was too young, that he was an unacceptable loss, and that he had more life left to live.
Yet, in that moment, in his delirious haze of utter, inescapable exhaustion, Katsuki couldn’t help but wonder if he was supposed to die back then. Maybe he was meant to die in that Coffin in the Sky, holding off Shigaraki for as long as possible until Izuku arrived.
Katsuki knew he’d caused a lot of hurt throughout his life. The universe had been taking note of everything he’d done all this time, and his attempts to atone hadn’t been enough. He’d wondered recently if the universe had sentenced him to death for his wrongdoings.
Was the universe sentencing him to death or simply coming to collect its toll a decade late?
Was he being punished or was he just on stolen time that was about to run out?
He’d done a lot of horrible things, but maybe escaping death was his worst crime of all.
Bakugou Katsuki
Quirk: Explosion
Explosion allows the user to excrete nitroglycerin-like sweat from their palms and ignite it at will to create explosions of various sizes.
Katsuki lifted his hands and looked at them in the soft light of his bedside lamp. His arms felt far too heavy, and it required so much more effort than it should have.
He was a living explosive. His Quirk was such a perfectly honed result of evolution, and he’d been told so his entire life. Explosions burned bright and powerful and loud. They did a whole lot of damage all at once.
And then they died out just as quickly, leaving destruction in their wake.
Katsuki’s hands trembled, and he let them drop because he couldn’t stand to see it.
He was built for extremes. For power. For fire. For life.
Had the universe intended for him to go out with his explosions back then? Going out with a bang… it was practically in his nature.
Katsuki felt tears trail out of the corner of his eyes, tracing down the sides of his face. He blinked as his eyes blurred over to clear them, chasing a few more tears down the same path as the first ones. They ran down his temples, dripping off his ears. He made no move to acknowledge them besides blinking a few times.
Edgeshot, Best Jeanist, Mirko… they’d given so much to try and save him. Edgeshot had given up his career to save him, and he’d been fully prepared to give up his life.
Katsuki’s shame and misery was so unbearable that he wanted to claw out his heart, but he couldn’t move. Gravity had again intensified just for him, but he still was not asleep. His eyes weren’t even closed, forced open even though they ached with exhaustion.
There was a certain amount of feeling alive that he remembered feeling back in high school. Back when Izuku had a Quirk, and they became true rivals. Back when Katsuki had been working hard on self-reflection and atonement, determined to prove he was better than his past mistakes.
Back when things had seemed so bright and the sun hung in the sky and there were only cherry blossoms because it was springtime.
Katsuki could practically taste it back then… a future full of everything he’d ever wanted.
Waking up after the war, nothing had felt the same.
He was alive; they’d successfully pieced the broken toy soldier back together so he could keep playing war a little longer. He was alive, but when his body and mind came back, they weren’t really the same, were they? It wasn’t Edgeshot or Best Jeanist’s fault, it was simply irreversible what’d happened to him.
It’d all been broken and glued back together slightly askew.
Some things were missing… Izuku’s Quirk, the same element of excitement, that old shiny, hopeful lens of youth.
Some things were broken… skin and bone and hearts and minds.
Katsuki realized that he’d known something was missing even back then. He’d known that the pieces hadn’t fit together in the same way, but since one of the first things he learned was that Izuku was Quirkless…
That’s what he’d clung to. The idea that he was going to lose Izuku. He’d thought that was everything that was wrong. All he had to do was get Izuku back—to hell if he had a Quirk or not—and life would go back to where it needed to be.
Not only was Izuku not coming back, but Katsuki’s chest compressed so deeply when he realized—really realized—that Izuku was never his perfect fix anyways.
Izuku wasn’t a cure or an antidote to fix his broken body and mind. The Hanahaki might belong to him, but the rest of this rot and filth and broken jagged pieces? Izuku wouldn’t be able to fix any of that even if he did love him back.
In that moment, Katsuki bitterly, numbly wished that Edgeshot hadn’t saved his life—that he hadn’t been there or thought of it or been willing to risk it. The guilt of yet another thing he could never repay before the end—a life debt—was so much on top of everything. He was already breaking at his glued-together seams.
They’d given everything to save him, but Katsuki wondered if it would’ve been kinder to just let him die. There’s no way they could’ve known the life they were dooming him to, but how had they not realized as they glued the toy soldier back together that maybe they were interfering with fate? With his destiny?
Katsuki pressed down harder on a thinner bit of scar tissue over his sternum, so close to the bone. Underneath the bone were his scarred heart and diseased lungs.
Was there any part of him not broken beyond repair?
Was there anything left of Bakugou Katsuki—future Number One Hero?
Was there anything salvageable in his mess of a life?
He supposed it hardly mattered, in the end. He would be dying soon anyways.
Katsuki sighed out a long breath through his nose. Finally, he forced himself to roll over to switch off his bedside lamp and then he collapsed onto his side, eyes still wide open. With his eyes not adjusted from the sudden loss of light, his open eyes looked into a completely black void.
Despite how he’d died back when he was seventeen, of course there was nothing to recall from that brief moment in time. Instead, the void of space between when Shigaraki had stopped his heart and when he woke up was all that remained to haunt him.
Katsuki stared into the darkness of his bedroom and thought of that gap in time and consciousness.
The void of death, even darker than the lightless room he stared into now.
THUMP. THUMP. THUMP.
Katsuki would face it again soon.
Death.
Goodbye forever…
Unbidden, his mind flitted back to earlier that day. His friends and their hopes and optimistic sentiments.
He knew the war had hurt them all in some way. His classmates had all emerged from the war not quite the same. They’d all seen pain and blood and felt fear and hopelessness.
Katsuki was not egotistical enough to think that he was completely alone in what he’d endured. He knew that some of his classmates—Izuku, Uraraka, and Todoroki namely—had all endured their own uniquely painful situations.
And yet…
There was something broken in Katsuki’s mind that wasn’t in theirs.
They all had moved on, happily taking up their mediocre careers as society began to make heroics insignificant. They all smiled at each class gathering and updated each other on how wonderful their lives were. If they were hiding their pain, they retained an energy to do so that Katsuki didn’t. They grew up, because that’s what growing up was—life changes and people change and you deal with it.
He’d grown too exhausted to keep all his thoughts straight or pin down exact reasonings for why, but his mind couldn’t seem to leave the past behind like all of theirs did.
They’d all gone to war, but Katsuki was the only one left behind in the dust. He was the only one who couldn’t move forward with the rest of his classmates and the rest of the world. He was the only one who couldn’t seem to “grow up” and accept that life changed and people changed and that he was just meant to deal with it.
They’d all survived the war, but maybe Katsuki wasn’t supposed to.
Nip it in the bud, my dear.
Katsuki’s mind traced back to his recent conversation with his mother, bastardizing her words for his own purpose.
“Nipping it in the bud also means to cut something off before it can grow out anymore.”
Did he sometimes feel like a child when compared to his peers because he’d been broken as one?
Were his growth plates and growth hormones and everything that was meant to carry him forward and grow up with the rest of them damaged beyond repair?
Which part of his mind had broken back then that his peers had managed to keep intact?
Maybe Katsuki had lived, but it seemed he himself had been nipped in the bud back then. He would grow no further in the direction of his friends but would grow in a new direction all together. He could never grow up as they had, because he’d been cut off far too early, some vital part of him removed so that his life would go a different way from his peers.
Now, he was the only one who couldn’t let go of his childhood dream—the dream of becoming the Number One Hero. His dream that had somehow become surpassing Deku to become Number One, so now that Deku wasn’t there, it wasn’t the same.
Even though his dream was dead, somehow the desire remained to hold onto it with weakening fingers. If he could never have it, he wanted to hold it gently in his heart as the roots and stems and flowers took over his lungs and grew all around it.
Katsuki couldn’t seem to stop clinging to his childhood dream, because without it… what was the point of all that suffering?
Why was he littered in scars and old pains and cursed with the exhausted eyes of a much older man if not for some greater purpose? What was it all for, if not to become the Number One Hero? What was it all for, if not to compete with Izuku for that spot?
Why was Katsuki so broken if he was always going to end up here anyways—twenty-four years old, slowly rotting while still forced to be alive, and crying alone in the dark?
Katsuki was well aware that the world wasn’t the way he’d thought it was and wanted it to be back when he was less broken. He just didn’t know how to let it go like everyone else so easily did. There was some part of him that’d broken that they’d all managed to keep intact.
He didn’t know how to find other interests outside of heroics. He didn’t know how to meet up with his old classmates so often and talk so cheerily about how everything was just so goddamn great even though it wasn’t; everything was so much darker and stranger and lonelier than it used to be.
He didn’t know how to go from what they were then—training with insane passion and tenacity up until the war—to what they were now.
He didn’t know how to reconcile with the fact that they’d been running full speed ahead for so long, but everyone else seemed fine with dropping off and slowing down before they’d gotten anywhere at all.
They all seemed fine with their accomplishments.
They all seemed fine with the heights they’d reached before the age of eighteen.
But Katsuki?
Katsuki had woken up from dying to a world that wasn’t the same as it’d been minutes before. He had been pieced back together and had the scars to prove it. He didn’t know how to let his dream die when it was what he’d been clinging to as the reason for all his pain and hardship for years.
Katsuki wasn’t strong like Izuku was.
Izuku was supposed to be the one person by Katsuki’s side through it all, and yet even he had been content to leave him alone to drop off into a life so different than the one that they’d dreamed of for so long. Izuku had no qualms leaving their dream behind, because he didn’t need to hold on to anything for support. He was steady and unshakeable in his soul in a way that Katsuki had always sensed and now knew he could never be.
Izuku broke himself purposefully to get the upper hand in battle or to save lives or sometimes just to prove points and get through to people.
Izuku mastered One For All in less than two years—one of the most powerful Quirks ever—and then lost it, and what did he do? He adjusted. He adapted. He moved on.
Katsuki was ridiculous for ever thinking Izuku and he were the same in any way. Izuku led the way of their classmates moving on and letting things go.
Izuku… can I still catch up to you?
Izuku ran ahead. He always had.
Katsuki dragged his heavy forearm up so he could again rub his fingers over the scar tissue over his chest; it was uneven and bumpy under his fingertips. Tracing it lightly, the skin of his chest felt no sensation of his fingers. He pressed down until he could feel the pressure.
It was a small sensation of pressure, distinguishable from the agonizing weight of his regrets and pains and dead dreams compressing his lungs.
Foolishly, Katsuki used to think they would be each other’s strength when they needed it. Because he was a broken child who clung to the long-faded past for comfort, Katsuki thought that they would stay side by side forever and watch each other’s backs and fill in the space left by the broken cracks of each other’s lives.
Katsuki’s heavily scarred body had seemed commendable when Izuku stood beside him looking much the same. When they stood together, they were heroes. They’d taken hits and gotten back up. They would’ve given everything and very nearly did. Together, they were impressive and battle-hardened successors to the Symbol of Peace.
Together, Katsuki’s scars and fractured mind had happened for a reason. It was all nothing but steppingstones on the path to becoming the greatest heroes with Izuku.
But… alone?
Alone, Katsuki just looked like the broken remains of a boy shipped off to war before he was old enough to understand what that meant.
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part 4
I know every part of you
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Katsuki was ready to explode Izuku’s face off.
Though he was hardly his only friend that kept endlessly pestering him, Izuku was without a doubt the most persistent. He kept showing up at Katsuki’s apartment more often than his damn parents did. He also wouldn’t leave until Katsuki opened the door.
This was the third time this week.
Katsuki had been determined to ignore Izuku until he left. It’d taken him so long to fall asleep last night after coming home from Yaomomo’s. Even after all that, he’d woken up four hours later and been unable to return to sleep despite how exhaustion clung to every inch of his body. He’d spent most of today trying to be productive—sorting out his affairs and trying to arrange his remaining hero shifts and doctor’s appointments. His exhaustion made it all go slowly and not very easily, and he’d arrived at the evening not entirely sure if he’d done anything at all.
On top of all that, Katsuki couldn’t stop hearing his mother’s goddamn voice in his head.
“If you’re not going to tell Izuku, you need to cut things off with him.”
He’d already found the idea of cutting Izuku out of his life to be a futile attempt to reverse the irreversible. Too little, too late. But now that he’d realized that Izuku truly wasn’t any sort of cure to his broken life, Katsuki wasn’t under the illusion that allowing Izuku to be near him or not would impact the progression of the disease in any significant way.
Still, there was the other thing his mom had said:
“He’s not good for you, Katsuki. I can tell, even just now. It makes you sadder to be near him.”
Instead, it came down to something far simpler than life-ending diseases.
Completely unrelated to whether or not Izuku’s proximity would impact the Hanahaki growth, Katsuki just didn’t think he had the energy to deal with him. Sure, it’d never mattered to the universe what Katsuki wanted, but he still wasn’t sure that he wanted to see Izuku right now.
Katsuki was pissed off at him. He was pissed off at him for being an oblivious idiot that held someone else’s hand, because if Katsuki was gonna be childish might as well go the whole way.
Was he entitled to Izuku? No. But also the way that Izuku walked in and out of Katsuki’s life as much as he pleased was pissing Katsuki off because everything pissed him off these days. Maybe Katsuki was annoyed because the difference in their lives felt too great, and he didn’t know how to handle it on top of everything else.
More than pissed off and jealous, Katsuki was being crushed by much deeper feelings of shame and inadequacy. He was still comprehending the fact that, in the end, he really was so much weaker than Izuku. All his life of trying to prove to himself and everyone else that he was strong, and it turned out that he wasn’t.
Katsuki was broken beyond repair, and Izuku was unbreakable.
Katsuki was weaker, and some part of him had broken irrevocably during the war that all of his peers had managed to keep intact.
Truthfully, he didn’t know if he could look Izuku—strong, indomitable, immutable Izuku—in the eyes right now. While his classmates had all echoed out sentiments of optimism and hopefulness, Katsuki knew that Izuku believed these things in his heart.
He knew that once Izuku set his mind to something, he wouldn’t stop until he got it. But in this case, it was simply impossible. He knew that Izuku was the unstoppable force that would soon meet the immovable object of Katsuki’s death.
Izuku was a fixer.
Katsuki knew he couldn’t be fixed, and at the moment, watching Izuku try sounded more intolerable than ever before.
Too much. It was all too much.
Everything that Katsuki was feeling—and feeling for Izuku specifically—was too much right now.
So yeah, maybe he understood a bit of what his mom said about how Izuku wasn’t good for him. How Izuku made him sadder. It was an oversimplification, but it wasn’t entirely wrong.
Nip it in the bud, my dear.
Katsuki couldn’t rid himself of Izuku forever, they were trapped together now, after all. Even if he could free himself from Izuku, it wouldn’t save him. It wouldn’t fix him.
Still, that didn’t mean he wasn’t pissed at Izuku for being so oblivious and getting a girlfriend while Katsuki was fucking dying. That didn’t mean that he didn’t wish Izuku had stayed away for just a bit longer, because the weight of last night’s realizations was still dragging him down significantly. He was tired, and he didn’t want to look at Izuku or have Izuku look at him.
He ripped open the door after Izuku had been knocking periodically for twenty goddamn minutes.
“I’m calling the fucking police,” spat Katsuki furiously. “Go away!”
“Hi, Kacchan!” replied Izuku, unphased at his rage and beaming at him.
“I’m gonna get a restraining order, I swear to god!” Katsuki threatened, seething. “Why the fuck do you keep showing up unannounced, nerd? You askin’ to die?”
“No, I just brought dinner!” Izuku said, lifting up the reusable bag in his hands to show it off.
Katsuki looked down at the bag and then back up at Izuku’s face very slowly. Each time Izuku showed up he brought something, and it was getting on Katsuki’s damn nerves.
“Izuku,” he said, low and menacing, “if you don’t stop bringing me food like a goddamn housewife, I’ll—”
“I can’t be a housewife if you don’t let me in to the house, Kacchan!” Izuku interrupted, a hint of frustration seeping into his annoyingly cheery tone. Then he frowned slightly, glancing behind him. “Well, it’s an apartment, but you know what I mean.”
For a moment, Katsuki gaped at him incredulously. Interacting with Izuku was feeling strangely surreal in the light of day. He was realizing just how sleep deprived he still was and how exhausted his unproductive day had left him; his eyes were aching in his skull and his body was weighing him down that much more.
Despite how Izuku’s consistency and energy was part of the whole damn issue, Katsuki was still finding it so off-putting that every time something in his life only got worse, he would be met with Izuku who seemed exactly the fucking same.
“Just let me in, Kacchan!” Izuku tried again, eyes wide and pleading. “Please? I—”
Katsuki recovered from his shock, looking away and scowling deeply.
Too much. It was all too goddamn much.
“Fuck no.”
“Why not?” Izuku’s face fell.
“Because I’m fucking tired and I don’t want to deal with your whiny ass!”
“I won’t whine I swear!” Izuku promised, shaking his head rapidly. “Or say anything! I just want to give you this food and talk for a sec!”
Katsuki eyed him suspiciously. The last few times, Izuku usually just forced him to take whatever food and stuff he’d brought. He didn’t usually try to force Katsuki to hang out with him or anything if he indicated he wasn’t in the mood.
“How can you talk without saying anything, you fucking moron?” Katsuki jeered at him, glaring.
Izuku’s eyes narrowed slightly, and Katsuki’s irritation sparked along with his heartrate at the challenge in his green eyes. This damn nerd really didn’t know when to give up, did he?
Fucking hell… Katsuki hated him.
He loved him too, and that was the whole issue.
“Kacchan, I have too many leftovers,” Izuku stated forcefully. “If you don’t eat them, they’ll go to waste.”
“Maybe you should eat them, you’re looking a bit thin these days,” Katsuki criticized sharply. “All that desk work, hah? Too much lecturing and not enough collecting data for the armor!”
“Look who’s talking!” Izuku retorted, affronted.
“Fuck off, I have an excuse for losing weight!” Katsuki barked. “I’ve got a terminal illness, jackass!”
“You do which is why you need to take this food,” Izuku insisted, lifting the bag up again for emphasis. “Kacchan, you have to eat! This food will go to waste anyways!”
They stared each other down. Katsuki seethed, teeth clenched and eyes narrowed. Izuku’s eyes didn’t leave his as they blazed with frustration and determination; it was clear that he was resolved to stay here until Katsuki took the food.
Unsurprising, but maddening.
“I have food,” Katsuki snapped mulishly. “Don’t need it, shitty nerd.”
“Really?” Izuku narrowed his eyes. “It’s getting late. What’re you having for dinner tonight?”
“I don’t have to tell you shit!”
“Kacchan, just take the food!” Izuku insisted, but there was an undertone of something that had Katsuki freezing before he could retort with don’t tell me what to do!
Habit and exhaustion had gotten Katsuki caught up in the argument, but he was startled back to reality at the tone of Izuku’s voice.
It was strained, a touch frantic.
THUMP. THUMP. THUMP.
Katsuki stared, becoming aware of how his heart was pounding away forcefully in his chest. Here, staring at Izuku, hearing his pain slipping through in his voice as he grew more insistent, Katsuki snapped out of his exhausted, self-pitying daze that he’d apparently allowed himself to fall into.
He was pissed at Izuku. He wished Izuku had stayed away for just a bit longer, because the weight of last night’s realizations was still dragging him down significantly. He was tired, and he didn’t want to look at Izuku or have Izuku look at him.
Katsuki’s eyes trailed down to the reuseable bag, clasped tightly in Izuku’s fist.
But it’d never mattered what Katsuki wanted before. When Katsuki wanted Izuku gone, he never was. When Katsuki wanted him to stay, he was nowhere in sight.
Why pretend like it mattered at all what Katsuki wanted?
THUMP. THUMP. THUMP.
“Kacchan?” asked Izuku, and his eyes were more cautious now, looking carefully at Katsuki’s face.
Izuku was a hero. He was a man of action, even if the action was just to bring Katsuki food because there was little else he could do against something that was a health problem, not a villain. He was a fixer… who was trying desperately to fix. He wanted to save, to fix, to help.
But still… he couldn’t fix this.
Nothing could fix Katsuki, because everyone had already done their best to put him back together and still nothing was the same.
What happened when Izuku met something he couldn’t fix or beat or overcome?
He didn’t just give up.
He kept going, until he was hungry and tired and alone and still he walked on in the rain, like when he left UA at the beginning of what was supposed to be their second year. He kept going, breaking his bones and sacrificing every part of himself that he needed to. He kept going, until he got what he wanted… or it destroyed him.
Watching Katsuki die would destroy him, even without knowing that Katsuki was in love with him. Watching Katsuki slowly decay while nothing he did could help would destroy him.
They could only cause each other pain now.
Katsuki suddenly felt a sense of utter despair compress his chest; it was an all-consuming feeling of desperation within himself as he stared at Izuku, who was incapable of being broken by outside forces, but would break himself on purpose for someone else.
Katsuki didn’t know what to do. He didn’t know how to save Izuku from himself—from his own urge to fix. He didn’t know how to save Izuku, and he realized that he wanted to more than anything he’d ever wanted.
How could he keep Izuku from getting dragged down with him?
“Kacchan?!” Izuku repeated, slightly louder, taking a half-step forward with his brows scrunched up in concern.
Numbly, Katsuki held out his hand.
“Fine,” he muttered out, staring down at the bag and not into Izuku’s eyes as he relented. “Give it here. There’s enough goddamn food waste in the world.”
“Well, actually, uh—” Izuku’s hand jerked back.
Katsuki looked at him, blinking at him in disbelief.
Was Izuku taking it back?
“I—well, I brought enough for two!” Izuku said, that determined expression back on his face as he seemed prepared for Katsuki to challenge him again. “So… we could eat together while we talk.”
Katsuki stared at him.
Right.
Izuku wanted to talk, too.
When had it ever mattered what Katsuki wanted?
But… what if all he really wanted was to save Izuku?
“Or, rather, I brought my own dinner, too,” Izuku clarified, a bit sheepish now. “There’s actually more than enough for two so that you’d have leftovers if you wanted them. I mean I also brought my own serving so that we could maybe eat together?”
Katsuki felt the sudden urge to do something. His hand twitched, but he didn’t move because he wasn’t entirely certain if he wanted to sock Izuku in the face or shove him to the ground or kiss him before he did either of those things.
He felt so goddamn unstable these days.
Why couldn’t Izuku have stayed away? Just for a bit longer?
“You’re so fucking annoying,” Katsuki bit out in a strained voice, stepping aside stiffly to let Izuku pass. His chest was tight with a thousand emotions, but undoubtedly that included despair and a longing that hurt more than anything else. “Don’t know when to give up, do you?”
“Thanks, Kacchan!” Izuku chirped as a wide smile broke out across his face again. He moved to walk in. “I promise you’ll like what I brought!”
The surge of emotion—led by a strong, overwhelming irritation—that Katsuki felt when Izuku walked in so happily was overpowering. Izuku thought he’d won. The bastard. He had no goddamn idea how complicated all this shit was.
Katsuki kicked him in the shin as he walked by.
“Ow!” Izuku gasped out, flinching.
“Gimme that!” Katsuki leaned forward and snatched the bag out of Izuku’s hand as he bent to grab at his shin.
“Kacchan!”
For good measure, Katsuki put his hand on Izuku’s face and shoved him away. “Outta my face, nerd!”
“AH!” Izuku let out a startled noise as he stumbled, slapping his hand on the wall of the entryway to keep his balance. Baffled, he rebuked, “Kacchan, you got in my—”
“Finish taking your damn shoes off!” Katsuki ordered, stepping out of the entryway and moving towards the kitchen. “Track mud on my floors and I’ll kill you!”
“Kacchan!” Izuku called, tone scolding, but Katsuki ignored him, marching into the kitchen.
His face was on fire, so damn what? It was warm in here, that was all.
“It’s kinda cold in here, Kacchan,” Izuku appeared a moment later, rubbing his arms as he moved into the kitchen too, across the island from him.
Katsuki turned to offer him the full power of his glare, practically snarling, “I didn’t ask you to be here! You invited yourself over, and you’re complaining?!”
“I know! No, I’m not, sorry!” Izuku waved his hands placatingly as he grabbed the bag and opened it, starting to unpack the food. “Just… can I borrow a sweatshirt? All I have is my heavy jacket that I hung by the door.”
“No, you can’t!” Katsuki barked as his stomach twisted and his heart longed and he felt sick. “What, you just gonna move in next?!”
Izuku paused what he was doing and perked up, looking at him with wide, hopeful eyes. “Can I?”
Katsuki’s face burst into flames, but his heart twisted so painfully that it took him a moment to remember how to breathe.
Izuku… goddamn, oblivious Izuku. Izuku, who had a goddamn girlfriend and stared at Katsuki with those wide, concerned eyes that looked like they cared but that was just because he cared about everyone.
Izuku, who had no idea at all the damage he did so easily every time he opened his stupid mouth.
Because rationally, Katsuki knew exactly what Izuku was doing. He was just being Izuku. He was still following the urge to save Katsuki and patch things up in his life. There was no part of it that was romantic, and Izuku never would say this shit in any other context. Still, seeing Izuku ask to move in with him with that hopeful look in his wide eyes made Katsuki’s heart skip a beat. And wasn’t that just the most frustrating thing… when his heart refused to listen to his head.
He glared at Izuku with the force of a thousand suns.
“I’m going to kick your ass,” he growled out, but his voice betrayed him by coming out weakened and strained. “Why the hell would I want you to sit here and baby me all the goddamn time? Do I look like a charity case to you?!”
“No, no!” Izuku’s expressive face shifted into a look of horror, and he waved his arms around wildly as he denied it. “That’s—that’s not what I meant, Kacchan! It’s just…”
His words faded out, and although Katsuki’s face was on fire, and surely Izuku noticed, he had to admit he was damn curious to see how Izuku planned to justify wanting to move in with him without talking about his hero complex.
“What?” Katsuki demanded furiously when Izuku struggled for words a bit too long. “What could you possibly mean by that?! I know I’m sick, but that doesn’t mean your ass needs to linger around all the time just to feel helpful. It’s not your job to do this, got it?! You’re not clocked into a goddamn hero shift, and I ain’t a fucking civilian, do you understand me?!”
He spat it out like an insult, but his heart ached deeply.
They stared each other down, food momentarily forgotten. Katsuki, furious—because he was actually hurt and desperate and annoyed and tired—and Izuku, still searching for words with a bit of an anxious look on his face.
“I… well, Kacchan, as you know… I’ve been researching Hanahaki disease,” Izuku began tentatively.
Katsuki scoffed harshly, looking away and shaking his head in disbelief.
“I don’t give a fuck about your nerd shit right now!” he spat out forcefully.
“Wait, wait, wait!” Izuku scrambled to say. “I just mean that—that later on, uh, with the disease…”
He was still struggling badly for words, and Katsuki’s face twisted into more of a confused and disgusted look as he watched. Izuku’s pure anxiety as he spoke was a terrible sign. It stirred some mirror of unease in Katsuki’s gut, twisting and turning his stomach nauseatingly.
“I just… well, I saw that later on, when things…” Izuku was struggling worse, eyes darting away from Katsuki’s more frequently than they looked at him. His voice was strained, with nerves but also something more pained. He was stumbling over his words more than Katsuki could remember him doing in a long time. “You might need, uh, just when things get worse, you know? You might need, uh, a caretaker or some—”
“Oh, go eat shit, Izuku!” Katsuki shouted as his temper immediately snapped.
He was practically seeing red as everything boiled over inside him. He felt like he was suffocating in it all. He was suffocating in his emotions and his diseased lungs and this goddamn nightmare of a cycle that he was trapped in with Izuku.
“Kacchan, I’m Quirkless, so the government would pay me to be your caretaker!” Izuku argued, persisting stubbornly. “Quirkless people get paid more to be caretakers for Hanahaki disease, did you know that?!”
“Eat. Shit.” Katsuki spit the words out, clipped and forceful.
“So I just wanted to offer in case you wanted someone you knew rather than a stranger!” Izuku said, speaking quickly and purposefully as if he’d planned this out. “I know you hate strangers in your space, and I know it’s me, but at least I know you and know your boundaries. I just wanted to offer it as an option rather than you not getting one at all!”
Katsuki felt like his chest was being pressed in right at the center. Mortification burned through him, because a part of him recognized that Izuku was right. Soon, despite everything, Katsuki wouldn’t be able to care for himself. He’d been avoiding thinking about it, but the dreaded day was inevitably coming.
Twenty-four fucking years old and needing someone to do a bunch of necessary shit for him… god, he hated it so much he couldn’t breathe. He hated that Izuku was offering, but also… of course Izuku was offering.
How could he free them from this nightmare?
This nightmare where Izuku was here, not in rivalry or friendship or anything so disgusting and ridiculous as love, but because Katsuki was weak and in need of help.
This nightmare where Katsuki was face to face with Izuku, who would always care about him more than anyone else ever would, but not in the way that Katsuki’s greedy heart wanted.
Caretaker…
Izuku was looking at him now, because Katsuki wasn’t special. He was just like everyone else that Izuku would give his life to help.
How did he end this intolerable cycle?
God, Katsuki couldn’t breathe. He missed being able to breathe. He missed when he thought Izuku and he were equals—equally important to each other, equally ready to fill in the gaps of each other’s lives. Even if it was a delusion, goddammit he missed it so much if only because he missed being able to breathe.
“Of course I’m not saying that you specifically need a caretaker, Kacchan!” Izuku rambled quickly on, though his voice grew increasingly nervous again, “just that in general, after a while, you know? Hanahaki weakens the body and makes breathing hard.”
“No shit,” Katsuki bit out.
As if he didn’t know.
Izuku winced slightly, but rambled on, “So, I just wanted to offer. And really, it wouldn’t even be caretaking, because, uh, that’s, um, a weird word. Just… helping out, er, I guess more just like a roommate! Yeah, like a roommate! I always cook too much food living on my own anyways, so really it would—”
Katsuki’s inability to clearly breathe combined with the intensity of his rage was starting to make him feel genuinely woozy. His emotions surged up with such strength that not exploding and screaming and throwing shit was taking every fiber of his being; keeping it all in seemed to almost be taking a physical toll. His ears practically rang, and he moved to brace a hand against the counter before he started to visibly waver on his feet.
“Shut. Up. Now,” Katsuki cut him off, tersely annunciating each word. He gripped a hand over his eyes, trying to force himself to breathe. “I don’t want to talk about this right now.”
“O-okay,” Izuku relented, sounding conflicted and distressed. “I won’t… I just… even if… not that. Even if not something like that, Kacchan. I just… if you ever need anything, please—”
“You’re making me regret letting you in,” Katsuki spat out, ignoring how the force of speaking was making his head spin. He intended to sound furious, but it came out far more breathless than he would’ve liked. “Shut up, Izuku. I’m being so fucking serious right now.”
“Right, sorry, Kacchan,” replied Izuku, quieter.
In desperate need of something to do, Katsuki turned to focus on the food. He started to slam the dishes and cabinets around, as if those small actions could somehow release any of the tension in his body. He couldn’t stop himself from doing it, even if it did nothing. With how he felt at the moment, no less than blowing up an entire mountain would get enough of his anger out.
He was well aware that he was huffing out loud, forceful breaths, but neither of them acknowledged it. His ears were still ringing, and his vision was a bit fuzzy at the sides. He was so angry, and yet he ignored it. He felt on the edge of completely losing it, but goddammit he had shit he needed to say.
But with his head wiped clean of anything but feeling overwhelmed, all there was to do was wait for things to simmer down ever so slightly. Just enough to think.
They said nothing to each other as Katsuki handed Izuku dishes and Izuku served up the food. They said nothing as they heated it up and then moved to sit. They said nothing as they began to eat, Izuku without pause and Katsuki more slowly. He wasn’t hungry but he forced it down anyways. There was a chance he’d throw it up later, but whatever. He knew Izuku would say some shit if he didn’t eat, and he was still trying to calm down.
The minutes ticked by, and Katsuki’s emotions finally simmered down ever so slightly. They were still right there—he could feel them right under the surface—but he had a tentative control over them again. The buzz in his head and ears had quieted enough for him to notice Izuku’s nervous energy; it practically radiated off him.
By the time Izuku had finished his food, Katsuki had eaten maybe a quarter of his own. Still, he set his utensils down and crossed his arms, leaning back in his chair and looking up to glare at Izuku.
Izuku was already looking back at him, wide eyes watching him with a concerned furrow to his brow.
Katsuki finally asked the main thing that was bothering him, trying to say it evenly but it still came out annoyed, “Why the hell would you even offer that shit? I know you’ve got no fucking free time as it is. You’ve got work and now you’ve got, what, dates and shit too?”
“Right, uh,” said Izuku, looking away and rubbing the back of his neck nervously. “I… quit my job, actually.”
Katsuki blanched. It was like Izuku had punched him in the fucking gut, and for a moment he could only stare at him. Then he asked, “What the fuck did you just say?”
His voice sounded hollow and completely skeptical, like he genuinely thought he’d hallucinated for a second. He’d better have hallucinated.
“I… uh,” Izuku wouldn’t meet his eyes, and then started to ramble, “I quit my job! It does take up a lot of my time, and I’ve been thinking that I would want to go part-time for a bit now, actually. I mean, I’d originally been thinking that I would split my time teaching at other schools and do more guest lectures to switch things up, but now I actually was thinking—”
“You quit… your job…” Katsuki repeated, dangerously slowly. “Your job… the teaching job that you kept saying you loved so goddamn much?!”
Something so much more complicated than hurt was slicing Katsuki’s chest open. It felt like, once again, Izuku was rewriting his entire world without a care for how it affected Katsuki. His head spun again, his emotions picking up again where they left off, and he shifted forward to lean his crossed arms on the table.
Why was he acting like his job was inconsequential when he’d been unwilling to leave it before? When he said he loved it so much that he’d still enjoy it even if he still had All Might’s goddamn Quirk?
Why was he doing this when he’d turned Katsuki down all those weeks ago because he’d rather teach?
“Why the fuck would you do that?!” asked Katsuki. His voice had grown strained as his anger joined with horror, desperation, and pleading.
He felt like the ground was falling out from beneath him. He was tumbling into a void—the world spinning and spinning around him until nothing was recognizable—and yet he hadn’t moved.
“Well, I wanted a change of pace,” Izuku said, grimacing slightly, eyes only briefly meeting Katsuki’s.
Katsuki stared at him for a long moment, feeling nothing at all. Then, the tidal wave of all-consuming rage surged back up from where he’d barely managed to suppress it. Katsuki shot to his feet, stomping over towards Izuku even as the ringing in his ears intensified and his body protested the movement by sending a wave of vertigo surging through him.
“K-Kacchan, wait! Listen—”
Katsuki ignored him. He accidentally hip-checked the table hard as he almost lost his balance, but he barely felt the pain from the impact. Reaching forward, he grabbed Izuku by the front of the shirt and yanked him to his feet. It took so much more effort than it should’ve, but Katsuki gritted his teeth and exerted the energy, unwilling to yield even with his own failing body.
“WHY THE FUCK WOULD YOU DO THAT?!” Katsuki raged and screamed right in his face, shaking him with all his strength. He was breathing so goddamn hard. His head was spinning and his vision was tunneling more and more, but he was so angry that he was determined to ignore it until he couldn’t anymore.
“Kacchan, listen, please!” cried Izuku ardently, hands wrapping around Katsuki’s wrists tightly. “I swear I didn’t do it because of you! It’s more complicated than—”
“DO YOU THINK I’M STUPID?!”
“No! Kacchan—”
He could feel his vertigo tilting the world and he almost swayed on his feet. Furiously, he covered it up by shifting to slam Izuku against the wall right next to the table even though it made them both stumble slightly. Izuku’s hands left his wrists to brace against the wall as they moved.
He leaned his weight forward onto where he had Izuku in his grip, pretending his fury was why he was doing so. His slight lean forward put them practically right at eye level. Heaving in massive breaths from the physical exertion, Katsuki glared at Izuku with all the force he could muster.
God… he couldn’t breathe. Willpower could only get him so far against the physical failings of his body, and he knew his time was about to run out. That only made him so angry that emotion surged up his throat and behind his eyes.
Katsuki was suffocating. He was suffocating in his rage and confusion and how trapped he felt in this nightmare with Izuku.
“Kacchan, let go!” Izuku shook his head rapidly, hands wrapping around Katsuki’s where they held Izuku’s shirt in a death grip. “Please, let go!”
“As if you—” Katsuki started to challenge him back but cut himself off right away.
As if you can’t fight back.
With another gut punch of horror, Katsuki released Izuku like he’d burned him, shoving back and stumbling away at the same time. His vision tunneled and he staggered visibly.
“Kacchan!” Izuku cried out, reaching out towards him with the clear intent of steadying him.
But Katsuki used his remaining energy to stumble to the side, his shoulder colliding with the wall probably too hard—another pain he didn’t register. He was sucking in huge, heavy breaths that didn’t feel like enough, but it really didn’t feel like a panic attack this time.
It felt like there was something in his lungs; they were almost heavier, and he was still suffocating. Each inhale took more effort, made his lungs ache, and he could hear that his breathing sounded strange. He was wheezing as he forced his breath in and out of his contaminated lungs; there was a strange pitch that almost whistled.
“Kacchan! Can you hear me?!”
Izuku was close. Katsuki was pretty sure he was holding him by the shoulders, but his vision was mostly dotted over and Izuku sounded far away.
Katsuki breathed in and out, wanting to claw Izuku’s hands off him even though he could barely feel them, because he was already so goddamn overwhelmed. He heaved in breaths, staring downward and not moving, until his vision cleared a bit.
“Why don’t you sit down?” Izuku’s voice was ever so slightly louder. “You can just slide down. I’ve got you.”
Katsuki’s brain kickstarted, and he shoved at Izuku’s hands until they dropped from his shoulders. His eyes trailed up to look into Izuku’s worried face.
As if you can’t fight back.
Izuku wasn’t helpless. Even when Katsuki was at full strength, even Quirkless, Izuku could hold his own. They’d been on what Katsuki considered good terms for years up until recently. If they had conflicts, Izuku wasn’t one to just sit there and take it. Not anymore. Not for many years.
So… if Izuku wasn’t fighting back, it was because he didn’t want to. He was letting Katsuki shout and yank him around and yell at him.
Katsuki’s gut lurched nauseatingly. His head spun again, and he let it drop until his chin rested on his chest. That made it harder to breathe, but his exhaustion had once again started to weigh him down and even his head felt too heavy to lift at that moment.
Why?
Why?
When was the last time they’d had a conflict that’d gone this way? Before all this Hanahaki shit, they hadn’t fought so seriously in… fuck, Katsuki didn’t even remember.
They were regressing.
The two of them were regressing in such horrible, horrible ways. They’d been doing so, on and off, for weeks since that day. It made Katsuki sick every time he became aware of it. He knew it was entirely his own fault, seeing as Izuku hadn’t changed in the slightest.
Katsuki was the one devolving. Unraveling. Slowly but surely, he was becoming unrecognizable in comparison to what he was before. To the person he’d been striving to be.
Izuku… needed to go away. Katsuki needed him to go away.
If Katsuki was doomed to unravel, at the very least he didn’t want Izuku to be here while it happened. If he was doomed to devolve and backtrack, Izuku was the worst person to be there for that, wasn’t he?
Katsuki was here, yanking Izuku around and shoving him and shouting at him like he was still a middle school bully. Izuku was taking it in stride and not fighting back. Katsuki’s head spun. Was Izuku really letting him do this? He felt sick. He didn’t know what was happening. He couldn’t handle this.
Katsuki felt out of control of himself, of the situation, of everything. He was trapped, hurtling in whichever direction the world had thrown him in, and there wasn’t anything he could do to stop it. He could barely even stand. Nothing made sense and he didn’t know what the hell he was doing and he was trapped.
“He’s not good for you, Katsuki.”
“Kacchan!” Izuku’s voice was too loud now. “Do you need to sit? What do you need?”
“I need you…” Katsuki managed to wheeze out, voice weak, “…to say you didn’t quit your fucking job.”
Head still hung down, he peered up so he could look through his bangs to see Izuku.
Izuku blinked at him, uncomprehending, mouth slightly gaped. “Huh?”
“I need you…” Katsuki forced out lowly, “…to tell me you didn’t quit your fucking job… that you never shut up about… for the past however many years. The job you chose… over being a hero.”
Izuku stared back wide-eyed, his brow furrowing to form some expression that was a mix of too many emotions for Katsuki to name.
“I… can always go back to teaching,” he said after a pause, his own voice strained.
The words hung heavily in the air. It took Katsuki’s woozy brain a second to comprehend what the hell he’d said, then his eyes widened, genuinely stunned.
Teaching would still be around after he died. That’s what Izuku was saying.
Katsuki slumped back against the wall fully—shifting until his back was to it—as the rest of his energy drained out of him.
“Wait, wait,” Izuku rushed to say a moment later, moving around to stand in front of Katsuki, “I—I meant that I can go back anytime in the future, you know?! Just… I’m just saying that my heart’s not in it right now! I want to do other things, too, and that’s fine, you know?!”
He knew Izuku was bullshitting. He knew Izuku was bullshitting so hard, because he knew Izuku. He wanted to devote his time to fixing Katsuki, to saving him.
Nip it in the bud, my dear.
They could only cause each other pain now.
Had they ever caused each other anything but pain? In Katsuki’s increasingly dazed state, he could only remember so much pain. He could only remember ever causing Izuku so much hurt. The bullying, the shoving around, the yelling, the criticizing. Forcing him to fight him and face off against him.
Standing in his way.
It was all years ago now, but in the years since Katsuki didn’t know if he understood anything that’d happened at all. He used to think he did, but Izuku’s rejection had painted it all in an uncertain light. How much of their friendship was Izuku indulging him, because he was a good person? How much of their friendship was Izuku tolerating him, because he admired the heroic side of Katsuki?
If Izuku wasn’t Izuku, he never would’ve stuck around all this time.
Katsuki’s head spun, and he felt so exhausted that he just slid down the wall to sit on the ground heavily. He felt his body trembling uncontrollably; it almost felt like he was shivering. He still felt like he couldn’t quite breathe properly. Maybe he wasn’t breathing at all.
Each passing second felt a little less real as Katsuki sat there and wheezed air out of his flower-filled lungs. His anger was fading under the weight of everything settling back onto him far too fast, and the physical struggles of the past however-many minutes were officially catching up to him.
Katsuki didn’t feel like himself at all, in this increasingly surreal time and place. He wasn’t sure who or what he felt like, but he was certain he’d never felt so weak and confused and strange in his entire life.
Was there any part of him not broken beyond repair?
Was there anything left of Bakugou Katsuki—future Number One Hero?
Was there anything salvageable in his mess of a life?
Katsuki wasn’t sure he recognized himself much at all, anymore.
“Kacchan!”
But… he recognized Izuku.
“Kacchan! What’s wrong?! Do I need to call someone?” asked Izuku frantically.
Izuku’s green eyes filled Katsuki’s vision, and Katsuki stared at him. He had no idea what his own face even looked like, but inside he was begging to understand. He’d always struggled to understand Izuku, but in that moment, it all felt too confusing.
“It makes you sadder to be near him.”
It was a bit of an oversimplification but… well, Katsuki did feel sad, among everything else. He realized as he slumped against the wall and the floor, that he most definitely did feel extremely, heartbreakingly sad.
Why was Izuku so willing to give anything to save Katsuki, but not want to stand beside him once he had? He’d quit his job that he loved so much and offered to live with Katsuki just to take care of him… but only to save him.
Not because Izuku loved him in the way that he wanted. Not because he was special.
Katsuki’s heart ached so badly that he wondered if it would give out here and now. He ached and he stared at Izuku and he wanted to understand. His emotions were clawing up his throat and pushing at his eyes again; the urge to cry was growing and only delayed by his exhaustion and increasingly sluggish brain.
What sort of enigma was Izuku?
How could Izuku devote so much of himself to everyone else like this? How could Izuku look at Katsuki and cry and care so intensely, but not feel the same?
How could someone care so much for everyone?
How could someone wear their heart on their sleeve so openly?
Katsuki grimaced as a sharp pain shot through his chest. His chest, where his heart was carefully tucked away, and still far more scarred and broken than Izuku’s.
Katsuki stared at Izuku, and he felt like his mind didn’t have the capacity to comprehend a person such as him. Throughout their lives, he’d hated so many parts about Izuku and loved so many more, but still, he didn’t understand him. He’d been asking these same damn questions for years and years, and still he was no closer to solving the puzzle of Midoriya Izuku.
So… did Izuku make him sad?
Yes. It was incredibly sad how Katsuki had felt so loved but he wasn’t loved any more than anyone else. Not in the way he’d allowed himself to think that he was, anyways.
“Kacchan?!” Izuku’s brow was furrowed, his green eyes searching and taking up Katsuki’s entire vision. “Please talk to me. Does something hurt? Are you having trouble breathing?”
Hurt?
Yes. He was hurt and sad and confused.
Trouble breathing?
Also yes. Katsuki felt like it’d been years since he’d not had trouble breathing.
Katsuki tried to take a deep breath, and immediately something caught in his throat. Too exhausted to move much more, he just ducked his head into his elbow and started to cough violently from where he sat. It hurt so bad that tears immediately sprung to his eyes; it made his chest, throat, and back all flare painfully as each cough forced his entire torso to move.
As he fought to breathe and each cough made stars dance before his eyes, he felt Izuku forcefully press something into his hands.
“Here, Kacchan. Cough into this.”
Katsuki barely heard him over the growing ringing in his ears, but Izuku guided his hand up to his mouth and he figured it out easily enough. He hacked his lungs out, desperately trying to clear his throat as his head spun worse and worse.
In the haze of his mind and ringing of his ears, an additional element of panic laced through it all. Though there was nothing he could do about it, he realized if he passed out right now, he could actually suffocate to death.
His heart thumped wildly with panic, which just added to the chaos.
There was a long moment where his chest and throat contracted and nothing happened—no sound, no cough, no movement of the obstruction in his airway. Katsuki was so exhausted that he wondered if this was really it, simply because he was about to choke and run out of strength to keep coughing. His head spun wildly as his vision clouded over, but he tried again, and it dislodged. He coughed several more times, tears streaming out of his eyes from how badly it hurt.
It felt like something solid was in his throat, tearing through the flesh as he forced it up. He gasped and choked and it all hurt so goddamn bad. Finally, he managed to cough it up, so hard that for a moment he could only remain hunched forward and gasp for air.
And cry. Tears streamed out of his eyes, and Katsuki realized belatedly that he was sobbing uncontrollably. The noises coming out of his mouth didn’t sound like himself, and for far too long he couldn’t stop. Eventually, he was able to slow his breathing and calm himself from his confusing, painful, somewhat panicked state.
He heaved in breaths that came in and out clearer with the obstruction finally removed from his throat. He stopped sobbing, just gasping in breaths that came slower and slower.
Eventually, he realized that his mouth tasted of blood and faintly of something sweet that was turning his stomach. For a moment, he thought he was going to vomit, so he forced himself to breathe a bit more shallowly—trying to move only his ruined lungs and not his abdomen—because it felt like somehow that would keep his stomach from forcing his food back up.
As his vision cleared, he realized Izuku was kneeling in front of him, a hand braced on his shoulder. His hand was firm where it pressed into his shoulder, ready to support him if he passed out or slumped forward.
Katsuki continued to breathe shallowly as his head spun around and around, leaving him in a sickly daze that was so unpleasant it made him wish he were unconscious. He was so exhausted that he wanted to just slump forward into Izuku’s waiting hands. He couldn’t remember why that wasn’t okay, but he still stayed still because he knew it wasn’t even if he didn’t know why.
In that moment, Katsuki felt so weak. Weak in a way he wasn’t sure that he’d ever felt before. Before, he’d felt weak in that he was inadequate or not as strong as he wanted or needed to be. Even in the past when he’d been recovering from injuries or illness, he hadn’t felt this way. He’d always felt weak, but there’d lived a determination inside him that had abandoned him now. Back then, he’d always been under the assumption—the delusion—that he could get better and get stronger again.
Now, he felt genuinely, objectively weak. Maybe it was knowing that he would only grow weaker. Maybe it was that his dream was dead and his pride was dying and he didn’t know if anything was left of the old Bakugou Katsuki anyways. Maybe it was because he knew that he was broken so irreparably and his body was trying to kill him, and he was tired.
He was so damn tired.
Katsuki stared emptily down at the floor, still huffing out breaths but much slower now. The smell and taste of his own blood was nauseating, and his eyes trailed down to what he was holding in his hand.
It was a handkerchief.
Undoubtedly, it was Izuku’s. Besides the obvious fact that Izuku had handed it to him… who the hell carried a handkerchief around these days other than him? It was still drilled into him, because his mom would ensure he always had one because of how often he cried as a kid.
Izuku… who always cried so carelessly.
On the handkerchief was part of a stem, with a bud at the end of it. Covered in bright red blood.
Nip it in the bud, my dear.
Katsuki stared at it, wishing he’d passed out because he felt so awful both physically and mentally. He stared and his mind struggled to think and comprehend and remain present because of how fucking exhausted he was.
The smell of his own blood contaminated each breath in and out. The metallic tang lingered on his tongue, in his nose, in his throat. He hated it, and yet he felt there was nothing he could do about it.
“Kacchan?” Izuku’s voice again, quiet and cautious and worried.
Slowly, Katsuki looked up, peering through his bangs to look at Izuku without having to move his head all that much.
Katsuki’s eyes traced over Izuku’s face. His expression was tense, and his eyes were attentive and serious. Besides this, it was clear from how watery his eyes were and how blotchy his face was that he’d been crying.
He looked closer at the familiar details of Izuku’s face.
Katsuki had looked at Izuku many times in his life. Potentially more than he’d looked at anyone else. His was a face Katsuki could pick out of any crowd or draw from memory, and yet Katsuki still felt the need to stare for a little longer. It was like his hazy brain sought something grounding and recognizable in a moment so strange, and it was entirely unsurprising that it latched onto Izuku.
The freckles on his cheek… the scar that marred his other cheek, stealing away the freckles that used to be there, too. There was a slight furrow in his brow, and the tip of his other scar stuck out to just below his hairline. His hair was a mess, even more so than usual. His lips were slightly bitten, slightly chapped, and pulled into a faint frown. He could feel Izuku’s hand on his shoulder, large and steady and strong.
Izuku was… so close.
There was a sudden desire in Katsuki’s heart that was so strong it was like a physical pull.
He wanted… oh god, he wanted.
He wanted so badly that it consumed him, and he wasn’t entirely sure he could even articulate in the moment all it was that he wanted.
Katsuki didn’t recognize himself anymore, but he recognized Izuku.
This whole evening had left him very dazed, weak, and fatigued. It felt like he’d run through every possible emotion in such a short amount of time, and it left him feeling hollowed out and unsteady. He felt disconnected, surreal, and like he was breaking apart even at his glued-together seams.
Katsuki didn’t feel well, and it was hard to think past his exhaustion. Without thought, that left instinct.
And it was a years-old instinct, to seek out Izuku.
For all their complications in the past, Katsuki had always sought out Izuku in his vulnerable moments. There was a familiarity there that was forged from time and proximity. He’d always been so certain that Izuku understood him. Even though things between them were complicated, there was a certain degree of comfort that came from being sure that Izuku would know him best.
Comfort that he currently needed so very badly.
Katsuki felt undeniably drawn to him. He wanted Izuku to pull him out of where he was drowning. As he felt well on his way to losing his mind, he wanted Izuku to find him.
He wanted to borrow some of Izuku’s strength and stay side by side with him forever. He wanted Izuku to fill in the broken cracks of his life until he couldn’t even tell that he was broken anymore, or it didn’t matter because Izuku was holding him together.
Some part of Izuku had to be human too, right? Some part of Izuku had to be hurt from all that had happened to them, even if Katsuki had never seen it?
Maybe… maybe Katsuki could hold him together one day, if Izuku held him together now. He wanted so badly for Izuku to hold him together now and remind him who he was simply because when they were together, things made sense.
The idea of the two of them—Bakugou Katsuki and Midoriya Izuku, Kacchan and Deku—was woven so intimately into who he was that all Izuku had to do was hold him together and Katsuki would remember who he was.
Katsuki was sure of it.
There was a time… where Katsuki thought they’d be competing with each other for the rest of their lives. He’d thought they were on the same page in terms of what they wanted from life. That they both wanted to be the greatest heroes like All Might.
There was a time there when…
Katsuki looked into Izuku’s eyes… such a familiar shade of green. Dark brows scrunched in concern, a deep frown that made Katsuki want to kiss it away…
Katsuki wanted to press his lips to Izuku’s until he couldn’t breathe from that instead of because his lungs were diseased. He wanted to kiss Izuku and feel his lips against his own. He wanted to magnetize himself to Izuku’s skin so he could hold him together. He wanted to trace over those endless scars that made his own feel like they meant something besides that he was broken. He wanted Izuku’s weight and scent and skin to ground him in reality so he remembered who he was and where he was and what he was meant for.
There was a time when he’d thought that Izuku might feel the same way as he did.
“Well, Midoriya’s heartrate also picked up around you.”
Katsuki’s eyes dropped down to Izuku’s chest as his lethargic mind dug up something Jirou had said not that long ago. Something she’d said so quickly, but that’d bothered Katsuki more than most things.
Did Izuku’s heartrate really also pick up back then?
“He will find out.”
Did Izuku’s heart race anymore when Katsuki was nearby?
“So, don’t you think it would be best if he heard it from you? That way, you can say everything you want to him, and he can search his feelings. See what he finds there.”
Katsuki wanted…
Was it really so bad to want to lean on Izuku?
Was it so bad to borrow his strength, just so he didn’t fall apart? To anchor himself to his immutability, just until he found himself again?
“Kacchan, can you hear me?” Izuku asked quietly, his hand flexing on Katsuki’s shoulder as he gripped harder.
Katsuki blinked sluggishly as if he’d just woken up, and he still felt like he was in some sort of dazed, surreal state. Still, he nodded ever so slightly, blinking slowly.
“Can you sit up okay?” Izuku muttered, eyes searching his carefully.
Katsuki nodded again before he realized what it meant, and when Izuku drew his hand away he nearly made a reflexive grab for it. His eyes widened as he was suddenly left reeling, like Izuku took every part of him that made any sense along with him when he drew away. As if Izuku’s hand on his shoulder—on his shirt, not even his skin—was the only thing keeping him grounded in reality.
He wanted…
“Let me take this,” Izuku said, moving quickly and calmly to move his hands over Katsuki’s and fold the ruined handkerchief closed, pulling it from Katsuki’s shaky hands. “I’ll be right back.”
He darted out of view, and Katsuki was left staring at the spot he’d just been. He felt like he’d been jolted out of his daze and slammed back into some twisted form of reality. As if a moment ago, he’d been in some trance that’d broken the moment Izuku was gone.
Katsuki was sitting on the floor, so exhausted he was finding just sitting up to be a task worthy of effort. His lungs, throat, and back ached in one way or another. His mouth tasted of blood. His scarred heart was thundering far too fast in his chest.
He wanted…
It didn’t matter what he wanted.
Izuku wasn’t a cure or an antidote to fix his broken body and mind, remember? The Hanahaki might belong to him, but the rest of this rot and filth and broken jagged pieces? Izuku wouldn’t be able to fix any of that even if he did love him back.
How could he ask Izuku to try and fix him when he knew he couldn’t be fixed?
Katsuki was sitting on the floor, mouth tasting of blood because he’d coughed up part of the plant that was killing him. Slowly, he looked down at himself, slumped on the floor, helpless and exhausted.
Katsuki realized that it made very little sense for Izuku to love him. Maybe Izuku’s heart used to race because he admired him back in high school. Maybe he forgave him as easy as breathing, because that’s just who he was. Izuku was Izuku, so he didn’t hold Katsuki’s cruelties or flaws against him in any real way. He didn’t resent him or hate him for any of it.
But why the hell would Izuku love him?
THUMP. THUMP. THUMP.
The dull thudding of his heart in his aching chest was steady and palpable.
Maybe it made sense for Izuku’s heart to race back in high school. Because Katsuki was supposed to be someone back then. He was going to be someone back then.
But this?
Katsuki sat on the floor, weakened, dying. Before this, he still was dropping in the hero charts. He was unable to get his life together. He was still delusionally holding onto an old childhood dream that was long gone. He was a pale imitation of what he’d thought he was going to be back then.
Katsuki looked down at himself, and he knew that he could never ask this of Izuku.
How could he ever ask Izuku to love him, when he knew how much of a failure he’d turned out to be? How could he ever ask Izuku to hold him, when he understood why Izuku didn’t want to be around him more before all this? How could he ever ask Izuku to save him, when he knew that he wouldn’t be able to? How could he take advantage of Izuku’s hero complex, knowing that Izuku couldn’t fix him even if he tried?
Who could love this? Katsuki thought emptily. What is there to love?
So, Izuku didn’t love him, and Katsuki understood why. It didn’t matter what Katsuki wanted, because no amount of wanting Izuku would magically make Izuku the cure for all his problems.
Finally, belatedly, his mind woke up enough to remember what the hell he was supposed to be doing. His mind cleared of the exhausted fog just enough to remember why he’d let Izuku inside in the first place.
Izuku was a fixer who was trying desperately to fix something that he wouldn’t be able to.
Watching Katsuki die would destroy him, even without knowing that Katsuki was in love with him. Watching Katsuki slowly decay while nothing he did could help would destroy him.
Katsuki wanted a lot, but what he wanted most was to save Izuku from himself. To free them both from this doomed cycle of hurt that they were both trapped in. They’d only ever caused each other pain… Katsuki had only ever caused Izuku pain. He’d only ever stood in Izuku’s way. How could he be the reason Izuku felt even more hurt?
Katsuki needed to try and keep Izuku from getting dragged down with him, even if it likely wouldn’t work. He had to try. All he could do was try and cut Izuku free, because he was stuck here from some fucked up sense of duty and heroism.
Izuku returned, holding a packet of wet wipes in one hand and two cups in the other. Katsuki watched him passively as he crouched down until he was sitting on the floor across from him. Then looked up to catch Katsuki’s eye. Izuku had a determined look in his eye—Katsuki could see it hidden behind a stoic seriousness.
“I brought some wet wipes for your face,” Izuku said, voice quiet but even. “I found them under the sink. And—” He dropped the wipes and then put a cup in each hand. “—I brought some water. There’s an extra cup, if you want to rinse your mouth out and spit into it.”
Katsuki glanced at him and back down at the cups, unmoving.
“Or, uh, we can also go to the sink, I thought this might just be easier for the moment,” Izuku muttered, uncertainty creeping into his tone.
Katsuki reached out and took them, trying to ignore how his face grew hot at how nasty it felt to swish the water around and then spit it into a cup. He did his best not to look at what came out, but he saw the faded red in his peripheral and his stomach lurched. He handed the cups back to Izuku without looking at him.
Izuku took them, offering him the wipes while he got up to return the cups to the kitchen.
Katsuki took them, cleaning himself up a bit before Izuku came back. His hands shook as he cleaned them off, followed by his face and neck. He wiped away any remaining tears, blood, sweat, and snot, feeling his face heat even more when he realized just how disgusting this whole thing had been.
When he was done, he was still breathing sort of heavily. He leaned back to rest against the wall, and his head was tilted slightly back as Izuku walked back in holding a small plastic bag. He held it out for Katsuki to toss the wet wipes in and then set them aside.
Katsuki was tired, vaguely nauseous, and in so much pain that he just wanted to fall asleep for several days. There was something he needed to do first, though, if only so he could feel like he’d tried to save them as best he could.
“Kacchan, maybe we can move to sit at the table,” Izuku suggested, looking back over his shoulder at the table as he shifted closer to Katsuki, clearly intending to help him up. “Or maybe the couch—”
“Izuku,” Katsuki cut him off.
His voice was quiet and raspy. It sounded as weak as he felt, but Izuku stopped talking the moment he spoke. Izuku’s head whipped back around, and he looked at him, expectantly. He was so close… almost too close.
Dazed, exhausted, numb, sick… Katsuki stared back.
Nip it in the bud, my dear.
“Izuku, you can’t save me,” he murmured, eyes boring into Izuku’s.
His voice was quiet, but it rang out clearly in the otherwise dead silence of the room. His heart was thumping so noticeably and uncomfortably in his chest, which only made him feel more ill. It ached so badly, and it felt like someone was squeezing it tighter and tighter with each passing second.
Izuku looked like Katsuki had slapped him, blanching and startling slightly.
“It’ll kill you to watch this,” Katsuki went on. “You can’t save me, so don’t do this. It’s okay.”
Izuku was still frozen, staring at him with confusion and growing dread. Katsuki knew that even these words would hurt him, but if he could only get Izuku to leave, then they could be free.
They didn’t have to be trapped together anymore.
Katsuki’s heart was being sliced right through with the sharp sting of grief, but he went on.
“It’ll destroy you,” he whispered, his eyes flitting back and forth between Izuku’s.
He raised his trembling hand and grabbed the front of Izuku’s shirt. He should shove Izuku away, but he wanted to pull him closer. Instead, he did neither and just held his hand there in an attempt to ground himself as he tried to get through to Izuku.
“Sometimes people die, Izuku,” Katsuki rasped, holding the front of Izuku’s shirt with a grip that he wished didn’t feel so shaky. “Sometimes, they just die, and you can’t save them. I know you know that, but I also know that you have a damn hard time accepting that most of the time.”
Izuku’s eyes were welling with tears, his face grimacing more and more with a look Katsuki knew so very well; it was the one that meant he was trying his best not to cry. Still, Izuku didn’t so much as blink as he stared back.
“Why’re you saying this?” Izuku forced the words out as if they hurt to say. He looked confused, disturbed, and almost offended. “Why’re you talking like this?”
“This’ll tear you apart to watch, Izuku,” Katsuki said, more adamant even as his voice scraped painfully at his raw throat. He knew that soon enough he’d have to cough again. “So… just look away… please, look away.”
Izuku’s face screwed up more as tears escaped and streamed down his cheeks. He was shaking his head, a frown pulling down his lips.
“What’re you saying, Kacchan?” asked Izuku, more desperate and pleading now. “Why’re you… you…”
“It’s okay to look away,” Katsuki said, blinking when his vision grew blurry. He felt tears trace down his own cheeks—that he’d just cleared of old tears—when he did so. “It’s okay to not be here while I die, you know.”
Though most of Katsuki was certain this wouldn’t work, a small hope lived deep in his heart that it might. Born more from desperation than out of belief in Izuku’s ability to leave him alone, that hope desperately wished that Katsuki’s permission would allow Izuku to go.
“You… you’re not going to die,” Izuku gasped out, his tears running down his cheeks. “Kacchan, stop talking like this!”
“I am, ‘Zuku,” Katsuki murmured. “I’m dying, and I know it’s hard to watch. You… just stay away.”
His grip went slack, and it started to loosen from where it was twisted in Izuku’s shirt. His heart stuttered when Izuku’s hand shot up to cover his own. His grip was so strong it was nearly painful, but it kept Katsuki’s hand in place.
Katsuki’s heart stuttered and goddamn butterflies turned in his stomach, and for a moment, that was so startling that he just gaped at their hands until Izuku spoke again.
“How could you ask me to do that?” Izuku gritted out the words, affronted and pained. “I’m not going anywhere!”
“Please, Izuku,” Katsuki realized he was so exhausted that he was genuinely begging. “Whether you’re here or not, I’ll die anyways.”
His heart was thundering and the desperation was starting to consume him. He wanted Izuku to leave. He wanted Izuku to not watch this any more. His mind was still mostly foggy with exhaustion, and his emotions started to take him over more and more.
“You’re not going to die!” cried Izuku, vehemently. He almost sounded angry.
His grip tightened over Katsuki’s to where it hurt, but Katsuki didn’t say anything. It hardly hurt more than any other part of his body did, after all. He’d rather Izuku was touching him, even if it hurt, and damn if that wasn’t the unhealthiest shit.
“You’ve done the research,” Katsuki said, and he heard the pain and imploring tone in his own voice, but he couldn’t stop any of this. “I know you know how impossible this is. I know you’re just denying it because it hurts, but lying to yourself won’t fix this, Izuku. It’ll only waste time, and you’ll end up more hurt in the end.”
“Wha…” Izuku messily wiped at his eyes with his free hand. “Kacchan, I don’t care about that! I don’t care about myself! I just want to help! Why are you talking like this?!”
“I know,” Katsuki muttered, emptily. “You want to help, because you’re a hero, Deku.”
He twisted his hand. Izuku released it immediately, but Katsuki didn’t pull away. He just clenched his hand into a fist and moved so it rested over Izuku’s sternum. His arm felt heavy, and it required an embarrassing amount of effort to keep it aloft without Izuku holding it. Still, he kept his knuckles pressed over Izuku’s chest, shifting slightly to press over where he knew Izuku’s heart would be beating underneath.
“You’re a hero,” Katsuki repeated, staring at his own hand rather than Izuku’s eyes.
Was that Izuku’s heart racing under his fingertips, or was his own pulse racing so intensely under his skin that he could feel it everywhere?
“And you want to save me, but you can’t, okay?” Katsuki went on. “I’m tired, and it’ll kill you to watch this. You’ll never… just please, go away, Deku.”
Go away, so we can both be free of this.
“Kacchan…” Izuku sobbed out, and Katsuki could feel his chest spasm under his knuckles. It was oddly entrancing, in this weird, sickly state he was in.
Izuku as a whole was oddly captivating, like this. A bit unreal, even as he was so incredibly familiar. It’d made sense why he’d fallen into a state of nearly ruining everything a few minutes ago. It would be so easy to get lost in him, with how strange and unstable Katsuki felt.
“Kacchan,” Izuku repeated, gasping in a breath. “It’s not about that. It’s not about me, or whether or not I can save you. I just want—”
“Yes, it is,” Katsuki rasped lowly. “I know you, Izuku. You want to fix this and save me, and you’re not going to be able to.”
As Izuku cried and seemed momentarily unable to speak past his sobs, Katsuki watched him. He could feel the tears tracing down his own cheeks, watering the flowers that already flourished so well.
I know you. So well that to forget you would kill me. He thought distantly.
Katsuki wondered if even his tree in the groveyard would know Izuku. If it would bloom a little brighter in his presence. He wouldn’t find it surprising at all if his tree reacted to the one it was made for.
“K-Kacchan, I don’t care about that,” Izuku sobbed out, shaking his head. “I-I don’t care if—this isn’t about—I don’t care about that!”
“You do,” Katsuki muttered quietly as he let his hand drop from Izuku’s chest, “and it’s okay. Go home, Izuku.”
“No, stop!” Izuku cried out, sobbing loudly and shaking his head. “Stop, Kacchan! Please stop talking like this.”
Katsuki breathed deeply through the pain in his chest. It was agonizing. His chest rattled, and he was very certain that it was the plant in his lungs. He could feel it moving around. It was probably protesting how he was hurting Izuku. It probably cared more for Izuku than it did Katsuki… the same as Katsuki himself.
It was born from his own mind and body and DNA, after all.
“P-please,” Izuku’s hands dug into his own hair, pulling tight. “I don’t—I don’t just want to be here as a hero or something, Kacchan. I… I’m your friend.”
Katsuki felt a pang of something in his numb heart. Friend… it sounded like the word was hard for Izuku to say, and yet it didn’t feel like enough. Friend… even if Katsuki was nothing more to him, friend still felt like too simple a word for whatever the hell they were.
Friend…
It was too short. Too uncomplicated. Friend could be anything. There was no history and hurt and healing and growth and mistakes guaranteed by the word friend.
Katsuki didn’t know what other word would work, though. He didn’t know if such a word existed.
“We’re friends, aren’t we?” Izuku asked, voice thick. He wiped at his eyes, looking up at Katsuki with wide, watery, pleading eyes. “Can’t I want to be here as your friend?”
Katsuki stared at him, feeling that tiny, delusional hope in his heart dying. How could he ever get Izuku to leave? How could he think he could get Izuku to leave, when he never could before?
He was never very good at getting Izuku to leave when he wanted him to. It was the staying that’d been the issue. Izuku came and went as he wished, and Katsuki felt himself sink further into his numb heart.
Katsuki was tied to Izuku, but Izuku could go anywhere he wanted.
He breathed in, chest rattling.
He breathed out, lungs aching.
“I just want to be here as your friend, Kacchan,” Izuku said, voice shaky but growing more determined. “Please believe me. It… just… whatever happens, I want to be here. Please, let me be here.”
Believe him?
Katsuki didn’t.
Let him be there?
As if Katsuki had any authority over what Izuku did. Izuku could come and go from Katsuki’s life as he pleased, hadn’t he realized that? It was Katsuki who couldn’t hold onto him.
“Go home, Izuku,” Katsuki muttered, one last desperate time, though his tone was weak and defeated.
“Please, let me be here,” Izuku begged more tearfully. “Kacchan, please.”
Katsuki was exhausted. He looked away, out towards the hallway, where his bed was down the hall. He looked back at Izuku and felt the ache of all the things he so selfishly wanted that didn’t matter at all to the universe.
Katsuki’s heart felt like it was physically pulling towards Izuku. It was like some part of him was screaming at him. It begged for Izuku to hold him, for him to hold Izuku. That part of him again longed with such sudden intensity that Katsuki’s already exhausted mind went a bit fuzzy again. The desire dug up again, and his hazy mind had a hard time remembering why it wasn’t okay to pull Izuku closer.
He had to put all his energy into not moving so that he wouldn’t cross a line and hug Izuku like that was something they’d ever done. Like Katsuki could offer Izuku any comfort at all while he cried, when he’d only ever caused him pain.
“’M not stoppin’ you,” Katsuki murmured grumpily, as if it wasn’t yielding. Admitting defeat.
Izuku blinked, looking at him with those wide, shiny eyes. “Huh?”
Katsuki felt incredibly exhausted and increasingly resigned to this painful death he was walking towards.
“I’m tired,” he mumbled, voice barely there. “Want to go to bed.”
“Right, yes,” Izuku shifted onto his feet, sitting back on his haunches. “I know, I’m sorry. Let me help you, please. Our argument triggered your cough, so let me make it up to you. I know I showed up unannounced, too. So… let me make it up to you, Kacchan.”
Katsuki distantly listened to Izuku’s voice filter into his ears.
Izuku was good at this. He had a lifetime of practice dealing with Katsuki, after all. He was good at coming up with excuses for why his helping Katsuki wasn’t a big deal.
“Yeah, fine,” Katsuki huffed out, staring dully at the ground.
Two simple words, said so easily, but Katsuki felt a part of him break a bit as he said them. Some last wall in his mind crumpled, and Katsuki was now completely in ruins. Unrecognizable to himself in every way.
Izuku was strong and Katsuki was weak and finally, he relented.
THUMP. THUMP. THUMP.
In his chest, Katsuki felt his heart still thumping intensely. When Izuku shifted closer, it picked up despite how Katsuki felt half-dead. It was almost impressive, though Katsuki resented how it only made him feel worse. He hoped it would give out sooner rather than later. Why drag all this out? If Izuku wasn’t going to look away, why make him watch longer?
In that moment, Katsuki didn’t feel afraid to die. He just felt exhausted.
That void of nothingness… it sounded sort of nice, actually. He couldn’t hurt or cause any more hurt there. There, he could rest.
“Can you stand?” Izuku asked carefully. Katsuki squinted his eyes at him, mildly irritated from how exhausted he was. “If I pull you up and support you, can you walk?”
Katsuki blinked at him, trying to think through everything in his fuzzy, broken mind.
“Are you all right, Kacchan? Can you stand?”
For just a moment, that old memory resurfaced. That day where Katsuki fell in the river, and Izuku had ran down to help him. It faded back into nothingness within seconds.
Everything was in ruins… couldn’t Izuku see that?
Could he stand?
Could he walk?
He had no idea.
“I can carry you, too,” Izuku said, wincing slightly, “but I’m not sure that would be very comfortable for you. I don’t want you to puke.”
“I can stand,” Katsuki muttered, even though he didn’t know.
It felt like his brain had started to shut down at the promise of sleep.
Izuku moved to crouch in front of him, grabbing his hand and wrapping his own around it in a firm grip.
Katsuki watched it all passively. Izuku didn’t offer his hand this time, he just took it. He just wrapped his hand carefully and securely in his, because Katsuki needed it.
Izuku did the same thing with his other hand, grabbing it and wrapping his hand around it. Katsuki realized both of their hands were sweaty, but that Izuku’s hands were hotter than his own. That was strange, because Katsuki usually ran hot. Especially in his explosive palms.
Izuku shifted, settling back and standing. Quietly, professionally, he directed Katsuki on how to stand and helped him to his feet. When Katsuki was up—breathing audibly loud—Izuku shifted quickly to pull his arm over his shoulder. He wrapped his own arm under Katsuki’s back.
Katsuki was tired, and Izuku murmured that he could take his weight if he needed to lean on him. Katsuki leaned on him and let Izuku move him back towards his room.
He let him, because he was weak and Izuku was strong.
Because Izuku was a hero and he wanted to help and Katsuki was in need of help. He physically couldn’t do it himself. His pride had gone silent under the weight of it all.
What need was there for pride?
What was there to be proud of here?
Would his pride be with him until the end?
A part of Katsuki had been so certain he’d die with his pride and dignity intact. There was an unbearable misery that echoed deep in his heart when he realized that hadn’t been the case, but he was too exhausted to linger on it.
Katsuki practically fell into bed when they reached it, shoving the comforter aside and collapsing. He heard Izuku say something, and he wished he’d caught the words. Even so, he was too tired to ask him to repeat them. It was probably for the best, because he might’ve also asked him to stay.
As his mind drifted off, Katsuki wished he didn’t ache so intensely for the feeling of Izuku’s skin against his own. That he didn’t crave his body heat, his smell, his touch. The security of his presence. He wished that walking here hadn’t been so exhausting, and that he’d been able to actually enjoy Izuku’s proximity.
He felt tears slip out onto his cheeks. He wished that he was crying because he was dying, rather than the truth.
Instead, Katsuki was crying because of how intensely he wanted to be held together by Izuku as he fell apart.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
part 5
but to what end
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
The alarm blared loudly.
Katsuki stared up at the huge screens on the wall. They were displaying live security footage of an underground lab. Empty hallways, offices, labs, and control rooms were all ominously void of people and flashing emergency lighting. The largest screen—front and center—was the main source of the trouble.
There’d been an explosion in one of the largest labs. There was a massive amount of damage to the room, but the cause of all the panic was the damage to the nuclear reactor.
So many heroes had responded to the call for help, and they were all gathered together to receive the rundown from the incident commander—a member of the police force running the operation. A large auditorium in the above-ground portion of the lab’s research building was serving as the makeshift headquarters that they were operating out of.
Everyone had evacuated the lab and it’d been sealed off for now, but the building was unstable. Worse, the explosion that’d caused the damage in the first place had been caused by a malfunction in the system. Another explosion wasn’t unlikely, and radiation had leaked through the entire facility.
If the seal on the building was compromised, radiation would leak into the open air.
Katsuki stood off to the side, about halfway back in the crowd of heroes. Despite how many of them there were, a quick glance upon arrival revealed no one that he gave a shit about. He’d shifted his attention to the front and tried to focus on the briefing.
He’d slept poorly yet again last night. Rather, he’d fallen asleep and slept for a long time but woke up feeling just about as exhausted as when he went to bed. He was really feeling the disease physically today, and it was dragging his mood down far more than he wanted to admit to himself. His lungs hurt. Most of his body radiated dull pain of varying intensity. He’d coughed and vomited that morning before work, and his throat still felt scraped raw from it.
There’d been a distant hope inside him that work would take his mind off things, but now he was quickly finding that to be very far from the case.
Instead, as Katsuki stood surrounded by the chaos and feeling the exhaustion in his bones and pain throughout his body, it was suddenly clearer to him than it had ever been that things would never be the same again.
He was so tired, so sick, so pained, and yet so numb that as he stood and stared up at the screens, he realized that he genuinely just wanted to go back home and lie down. He felt overwhelmed, but not by the intensity or severity of such a dire situation, but just because the alarm was so damn loud that it was giving him a headache. A newbie hero was standing way too close behind him, practically breathing down his fucking neck.
He was overwhelmed by his own body and mind, completely separate from the very real dangers occurring not too far from him.
It was clear that things weren’t ever going to be the same again, because Katsuki realized with a distant sort of disturbed feeling that he didn’t give a shit. As radiation poured out of a damaged nuclear reactor at an alarming rate, he found that he still felt more numb than anything else. He didn’t feel stressed or worried or determined or attentive.
No, he just felt sick and tired. Even though the alarm was so damn loud and he could see the stress on everyone’s faces around him, it was like it wasn’t even fucking registering on all levels of Katsuki’s brain.
His heart was beating harder and faster than normal so some small part of him was clearly registering the situation, but even that felt weirdly out of place to him. The feeling was more uncomfortable and annoying than anything else.
On a rational, conscious level Katsuki recognized that this situation was really fucking bad… but he still didn’t feel anything. Like he was watching it on a movie screen, completely separate from him as if he wasn’t standing way too fucking close to a radioactive lab that could explode at any moment.
He kept forgetting to pay attention because his lower back ached so badly just from standing up and he had to keep shifting his stance in an effort to relieve it. He kept getting distracted by the extra without a sense of personal space that was practically up his ass from how close they were standing. He kept getting distracted by the loud, monotonous blaring alarm that was still going. Was that really damn necessary? Couldn’t they fucking shut it off now that everyone got the picture?
He kept coughing slightly, though he kept his mouth shut and suppressed it. His mouth had tasted vaguely of blood all day, and it was nauseating.
It was all a fucked-up cycle because the fact that he wasn’t enjoying work was making everything feel worse. It made things feel too different. This sort of situation was just the sort of intense, high-profile shit that he’d missed doing in recent years as crime rates had gone down and heroics as a whole had become more and more mundane.
And yet… Katsuki didn’t want to be here. At all.
There was a deep feeling of anguish that sat at the back of his mind because of it. The change here was distinct, definitive, irreversible.
Why wasn’t he invested in this?
Hadn’t this right here—high-stakes heroics—been a huge part of the goal all this time?
Wasn’t he supposed to love this shit? Be in his element?
The alarm blared loudly. The officer’s voice boomed over it, but Katsuki only vaguely listened.
Goddammit… he was so damn tired. Inattentively, he massaged one of his temples with his fingers. There was a bitch of a headache forming.
That deep anguish was a feeling of something heavy and suffocatingly painful that’d been slowly building inside Katsuki for weeks. It felt like it was reaching its peak as he realized with each passing minute that there wasn’t a place for him here anymore.
A dying man, too tired to be any good as a hero. Too tired and sick to give enough of a shit. Increasingly pained and physically weak.
Katsuki knew that soon he would only be a hinderance to his colleagues, and like hell would he willingly do that. He was already pretending like he didn’t notice that his hero costume didn’t fit him as well as it used to.
Even these realizations didn’t hurt the same way as before. It was a deep, deep ache, but it was familiar by now. It was dulled by time and the beginnings of acceptance. It was pushed behind the wall of exhaustion and numbness with everything else.
Katsuki stood there, and he wanted to leave. He knew he should leave if he couldn’t focus and bring himself to give a fuck.
Despite all that, his feet wouldn’t move. His mind spun chaotically and yet it felt like there was nothing happening in it at all. His heart thundered, and he just stood there.
He told himself that he wouldn’t be helpful here. He was overwhelmed and didn’t feel well and he was tired. His dream and love for heroics had apparently slipped out through the broken cracks of his mind at some point. There was nothing to be done about it, but it was undeniable that his lifelong love for this felt irrevocably faded now.
Still, he was entirely rooted to the spot. There was a heavy weight in his gut pushing down on him that kept him from moving.
Katsuki’s head buzzed and the noise blared all around him and people were all around him.
And yet, he was still standing there, pointlessly and distantly wishing things were different. Wishing he had energy and that he didn’t hurt. Wishing he could give a shit but he didn’t.
Thinking of Bakugou Katsuki, future Number One Hero, Dynamight… he didn’t feel like that person anymore. At the moment, he couldn’t even remember what it felt like to be that person. Thinking of it was like trying to recall a dream. When he thought very hard, he could recall the details, but they would easily slip away from him.
Katsuki could remember the feelings that came with being that person, but he didn’t really remember what it actually felt like so much as he knew that he had felt them at some point.
At some point, he’d felt happy. Fulfilled. Determined. Strong.
Hadn’t he?
But in the next moment, he wasn’t even sure that he had. In the moment after that, he stopped thinking about it because he was tired and it didn’t matter anyways.
Katsuki knew that nothing would ever be the same again, and that it accomplished nothing for him to stay here right now anyways.
And yet, he was standing there, because walking away today felt like an end.
A goodbye forever.
The idea of returning to his apartment, exhausted without having done anything at all, only to collapse into bed felt unbearable. He’d never walked away from a shift before like this. Even if it didn’t have to be his last… it felt like it meant something.
It felt definitive.
It felt like defeat. Like giving up in the way that everyone kept telling him that he was.
Katsuki knew that he’d not become anything he’d dreamed about when he was younger but somehow knowing it and acting on it were proving to be separate things. Breaking habit and giving in to all that he rationally knew was being met with resistance from parts of himself he couldn’t even locate or define.
Katsuki realized he was gripping his hands into fists at his sides. He lifted them to see all the half crescents pressed into his palms, so deep they were on the verge of cutting through the thick, reinforced skin of his explosive hands.
He hadn’t even noticed that his gloves weren’t on but still tucked into his belt.
He stared.
“Listen up, everyone!” a cop from the front of the room called loudly over the din. “We’ve got an update!”
Feeling dazed, Katsuki dropped his hands and looked up. He pulled his gloves from his belt and put them on, more out of habit than anything else.
There was no place for him here anymore. He thought of the off-kilter feeling of seeing Izuku and Uraraka hand-in-hand. He thought of Izuku’s rejection. He thought of his scars and his broken mind. He thought of the person he was, in his distant dream-like memory.
There wasn’t a place for him anymore, if there ever was. The thought brought only more exhaustion. The tenseness of his shoulders was so tight that it ached.
He zoned back in as much as he was capable of.
The alarms were blaring loudly all around him.
“Hatsume Labs is working closely with us,” the officer was saying from the front of the room. “Hatsume Mei herself has assured us that she’s personally developing a robot to go into the lab to fix things as we speak. She said it will take a bit of time due to the radiation level and the complexity and specificity of the damage. So in the meantime, we need to work on evacuating the surrounding areas.”
“Time? How much time?” a hero somewhere towards the back asked.
“She estimated 30-90 minutes.”
“Do we have that time?”
The officer looked grim. “Hatsume says there’s a 50% chance the seal of the lab doesn’t hold and a 40% chance it explodes before then, but she’ll try to send in other robots to improve those odds.”
Katsuki’s shock finally began to shove its way through the haze of his mind. He still felt strangely separated from the situation, but the conscious knowledge that the situation was fucked was gaining slightly more ground. His heartrate picked up even more, and he tried to force his exhausted mind to focus that much more.
“Those aren’t good odds,” a hero near the front said. “Is there nothing we can do?”
“The radiation levels in there are not survivable,” the officer replied somberly. “Radiation Quirks are practically unheard of, and we don’t have anyone who could withstand that sort of thing. There are a few active heroes that might be able to, but thus far we haven’t been able to reach them. Any suit that could potentially help withstand this is within the sealed part of the building, and even those can’t fully stop this level of radiation.”
“So, our only option is to wait?” the same hero said, sounding disapproving.
The officer looked out over the crowd of heroes with a serious but composed expression. “Hatsume is working as fast as she can, and in the meantime, we’ll work on evacuation. We have communications coordination happening remotely, and you should all report in to receive further instructions. We need to get the nearby metropolitan areas cleared as much as possible. Time is of the essence here. The further away we can get everyone, the better. Thank you all for being here.”
The alarm continued to blare as the heroes around Katsuki burst into action, moving to exit the room. They talked into their earpieces or each other, each of their faces set with that familiar heroic brand of determination.
Katsuki didn’t move. He slowly looked from the officer up to the screens showcasing security cameras from the lab. Flashing emergency lighting. Damaged controls and machines and exposed mechanical components and wiring.
An odd feeling started to overtake him.
His heart was beating faster and palpably in this chest and his stomach had started to twist itself into knots, but the rest of him had gone completely quiet.
Because everything happening was so eerily familiar in a very specific way.
Katsuki drew in a slow breath that expanded his aching ribcage.
Moments ago, he’d struggled to recall what it felt like to be the person he was before he’d started to decay away. Even now, most of it sat far away in his foggy mind. But this specific feeling… he remembered this. More and more with each passing moment, he remembered.
He’d been here before, when he was seventeen. This was familiar in a way that felt increasingly right deep in his bones. He knew what had to be done, because he’d done it before.
Katsuki’s eyes trailed around him. The alarms were blaring and people were rushing about. The lab was on the edge of the city, and there were so many civilians nearby that could die or at the very least get sick from the radiation if it got out.
Buying time.
He could do that.
THUMP. THUMP. THUMP.
Even his racing heart and the distant feeling of anxiety was familiar. It’d been this way back then, too. It told him some part of him was afraid, maybe that remaining survival instinct of his.
But he knew that being brave was about being afraid and doing what you had to anyways. Duty was about doing what needed to be done at any cost.
A sense of rightness settled into Katsuki’s heart for the first time in many, many years. The weight on his shoulders and pain of his disease weren’t so much gone as suddenly inconsequential.
Through the fog in his mind, Katsuki remembered what he’d thought of all those years ago. How he’d accepted that he would never catch up to Izuku. How he’d chosen duty over life. How he’d known that in that moment, all his life was worth was more time for someone else’s.
He’d been okay with that, because that was his duty as a hero.
He would do what had to be done.
Katsuki straightened up, pulling back his shoulders. The ache in them was temporary now, and thus unimportant. He felt almost… lighter. As if knowing that he wouldn’t have to carry it all except to this nearby finish line gave him a burst of strength and energy.
He would do what needed to be done now. As he had before.
Finally, Katsuki was able to move. No longer rooted to the spot, he strode forward towards the incident commander.
The incident commander was a tall and heavily muscular man with close-cropped black hair and an impressively deep scowl as his resting face. He was standing around a table with laptops and equipment set up. Other people worked alongside him or rushed to and fro. Katsuki barely registered them.
THUMP. THUMP. THUMP.
Katsuki’s entire being remained calm and quiet as he grabbed hold of the familiarity of the moment and refused to let go.
As he approached, the officer looked up. He offered Katsuki a nod in greeting and said, “Dynamight, thanks for being here.” He immediately looked back down and returned to typing.
“I’ll go inside to shut it down,” Katsuki said solemnly.
Even the sound of his own voice rumbling in his chest and escaping into the air was familiar. Low and even as he simply said what he knew had to be done.
THUMP. THUMP. THUMP. THUMP. THUMP. THUMP.
“What?” the officer looked up at him sharply, slightly squinted eyes indicating that he thought he’d misheard.
“I’ll go inside the lab to shut it down.”
The officer stared at him for a moment, before frowning deeply. “Weren’t you here for the briefing? There are deadly levels of radiation in there. We’re not sending anyone in there if we can help it.”
“Those odds aren’t acceptable. There are thousands of civilians nearby.”
The officer hesitated, confliction twisting on his face. “It’s not, but we’re doing the best we can. We’re working on evacuation, and we would really appreciate your help with that.”
“I’m volunteering for this, officer.”
The officer looked disapproving, and more confused than anything else. His hands were frozen in midair, hovering above the laptop as he seemed to assess the seriousness of Katsuki’s statement. His face grew even graver.
Finally he said, “Dynamight, if you don’t die immediately, you will still be in excruciating amounts of pain. You’ll die within days of exposure at best.”
THUMP. THUMP. THUMP. THUMP. THUMP. THUMP.
“I have a terminal illness,” replied Katsuki. “I’ll be dead within a few months, most likely.”
The officer’s eyes widened. “Dynamight—”
“You know how much damage could be done if this goes wrong. No more weighing odds and lives.”
“There’s a chance the radiation would kill you before you’re able to shut everything down,” the officer’s voice came out low and the grimmest it had yet.
“Then I will shut down everything I can.”
For a long moment, the officer hesitated. He stared at Katsuki with a heavily furrowed brow and his mouth set in a firm line. Katsuki stared back calmly, settled fully into the familiar situation.
It was a testament to how dire the situation was that the officer eventually nodded slowly.
“If you’re willing to,” he said solemnly, “then I know that everyone will appreciate what you’ve done here today.”
The feeling of relief that surged through Katsuki made him feel so light and giddy that for the briefest, most bizarre moment, he almost smiled. It faded quickly as he refocused on his duty.
THUMP. THUMP. THUMP. THUMP. THUMP. THUMP.
As the officer turned away to relay the new development, Katsuki took a long, deep breath. It felt like the first clear breath he’d taken in months, maybe even longer. Things had felt so unfamiliar for so long that in this moment, the blanket of recognizable duty to the greater good comforted him.
Right now and never again would he be Bakugou Katsuki—Ranking No. 15 and dropping, anger issues, villainous attitude, unlikable, broken, collapsing, decaying. No longer would he worry about his heart giving out or the numbness or the roots digging deeper and deeper into his lungs.
Rankings and partners and old dead dreams were inconsequential. The past and the future meant nothing at all. People were in danger, and he would save them. He would buy time and lives with whatever remained of himself.
This was familiar. This was good.
He was a hero.
─────
The following minutes were a blur of instructions and breakdowns and warnings. He signed papers and listened carefully and nodded along. He put his full energy into listening and focusing on the task ahead.
THUMP. THUMP. THUMP.
The thumping of his heart in his chest continued. Just as it had that day, back at the Coffin in the Sky.
A feeling of something like peace had settled within him. He distantly felt that he’d come full circle, that he’d finally made it to where he was meant to be. He was supposed to die back then, but he didn’t. So now, his time had arrived, and its familiarity only made sense.
Besides the physical aspects of his racing heart and twisting gut, the rest of him was otherwise still silent under the heavy fogginess and persisting exhaustion. For the first time, he clung to that. He clung to that numb feeling of distance and thought only of the duty before him. He put the entirety of his thought process into what his mission would be.
Go into the lab.
Make his way to the control room.
Begin to shut things down and patch things up until he couldn’t anymore.
Buy time. It was his duty as a hero.
The rest of his thoughts and heart and mind remained quiet.
Just like before.
Katsuki signed the last paper, numbly surprised to notice his own hand shook slightly as he set the pen down.
A hand clamped down on his shoulder. His heart immediately dropped to his toes at the familiar action, even before his friend spoke.
This was not like before.
“Hey, man, what’s going on?” Kirishima asked as he rounded the way into Katsuki’s view. His face was serious, and he looked at Katsuki and then the officers that had turned away to finish getting things in order. “I only just got here. A lab exploded, right?”
For a long moment, Katsuki could only stare blankly at him as it felt like his chest was compressing rapidly all over again. Something was squeezing his heart painfully tight. There was a sudden void opening up inside him, and he felt entirely uncertain of what the hell to do.
“What’re you doing here?” he asked. His voice was still low and even, but it sounded distant and it echoed strangely in his own ears.
Kirishima’s eyebrows rose. “I’m a hero? I got the notification with everyone else. I was finishing up another call, so I’m a bit late.”
What Katsuki meant was, why are you here now?
Why not in ten minutes when Katsuki had already gone inside?
He felt almost exposed and increasingly frantic as the seconds ticked by. His very first instinct was to find a way to get Kirishima out of here without finding out. Even without giving it any thought, he knew Kirishima wouldn’t approve of this. He pushed aside that first instinct, though he still felt suddenly increasingly anxious. Almost jittery.
“What’s wrong?” Kirishima asked, frowning deeply as he peered at him carefully.
“There’s a 40% chance the damaged nuclear reactor will explode and a 50% chance the seal on the building is compromised from other damage,” Katsuki said somberly. “It’ll release radiation into the air and could harm or kill a whole lot of people.”
“What?!” Kirishima gasped, eyes darting around the room and then up at the screens.
The alarms blared around them.
“Hatsume is working on a robot to head in there,” Katsuki went on. He wished that his voice didn’t feel slightly more unsteady now. “But it’ll be a while.”
“Shit.” Kirishima had gone very pale. He put a hand to his forehead and breathed out a long huff of air. “Shit. This is bad. There’s no one with a Quirk that can handle radiation?”
“No.”
“Goddammit,” Kirishima said and huffed out another long breath. Then his eyes caught on Katsuki’s face and he stilled. “What? What is it?”
“Kirishima, listen to me…” Katsuki said, turning to fully face him.
The look of alarm in Kirishima’s eyes increased tenfold.
“I’m going in there,” Katsuki said, forcing himself to meet his friend’s eyes.
“In where?” Kirishima asked, but the dread in his tone indicated he already knew.
“The lab,” Katsuki said, jerking his head in the direction of the screens. “I’m going in and I’ll shut things down from the inside before the seal breaks or the reactor explodes.”
The open shock on Kirishima’s face stayed for many seconds too long. He was frozen, so still that it didn’t even look like he was breathing.
Katsuki wished his chest didn’t ache so badly. That it didn’t feel like a sharp feeling of anguish was suddenly trying to tear an open wound through his chest.
He wished that Kirishima wasn’t here.
“You…” Kirishima said, voice strained. “Bakugou, you can’t. Your Quirk doesn’t have anything to do with withstanding radiation.”
Katsuki inhaled slowly, trying to hold his friend’s gaze but failing in the end and looking away. “I’m a dead man anyways.”
Kirishima reeled back as if Katsuki had slapped him across the face. For a moment, he gaped, working his mouth as if he was going to speak but no sound came out.
“I’m the obvious choice here,” Katsuki insisted.
“No,” Kirishima found his voice, though it came out shaky. “No, no, no. Bakugou, you—”
A wall of defensive anger surged up from somewhere in the fog and suddenly, Katsuki’s temper was on the very verge of snapping. It wasn’t like Katsuki could make sense of his own dazed mind these days anyways. Maybe the anger had been right underneath the surface, and he hadn’t noticed it under the exhaustion and numbness and pain.
“This isn’t a goddamn debate,” Katsuki snapped viciously. “I’m going in there before this shit explodes and harms a whole lot of people.”
“But…” Kirishima stammered, eyes still blown wide and looking increasingly frantic. “You can’t!”
“I can and I’m fucking gonna,” Katsuki gritted out. “There’s too many lives at stake.”
“There’s… you said there was a 50% chance?” Kirishima asked hoarsely. “Surely the robot won’t take that long! Let’s just focus on evacuation!”
Katsuki’s entire being was still silent, but it was more like suffocation now than before. Like everything inside him felt pushed to the brim, quiet only because there wasn’t space to breathe or talk or think.
He could only feel angry, because didn’t Kirishima understand?
Didn’t Kirishima understand what was at stake?
Didn’t he care about the lives of the civilians who were nearby?
“Bakugou, that radiation will kill you,” Kirishima stepped closer, insistent, terrified. “If it doesn’t kill you immediately, it’ll still hurt like hell and you’ll die within… like days, right?!”
Katsuki clenched his jaw, wishing he didn’t feel so overwhelmingly livid. His chest ached badly and he couldn’t breathe, and he was so goddamn angry.
“Kirishima, use your brain for one fucking second!” Katsuki snapped fiercely. “I’m already dying, dumbass! I’m gonna die soon anyways!”
Grieve now or later.
Didn’t Kirishima understand?
Katsuki’s misery was inescapable no matter what option he took. His path was decided, and he would be gone soon no matter what.
He was tired of people demanding that he be selfless. That he get surgery and gut himself of everything he actually was proud of and who made up who he was, all so that they didn’t have to mourn him? That he remain, a shell of himself, so that they could feel better?
Didn’t Kirishima understand that this here was selfless too? That this way was the best possible outcome for everyone? That Katsuki was a hero, and all the rest of it didn’t matter?
Kirishima was shaking his head even as he spoke, staring at him incredulously. “You don’t know that!” he cried hoarsely.
“Don’t know what?”
“That you’ll die,” Kirishima replied in a shaky voice.
“I’ve got a terminal disease! It’s hardly a fucking mystery!”
For a long moment, they stared each other down. Kirishima searched his eyes and Katsuki glared back, trying not to flip his shit. Then, Kirishima’s eyes hardened and he started to frown deeply.
“You’ve got Hanahaki disease!” Kirishima hissed out vehemently. He glanced around and went on, “Can we talk in private?”
“There’s no time,” Katsuki said curtly.
“Come on,” Kirishima fully ignored him, dragging him to the edge of the briefing room.
Katsuki could tell by the tense set of his shoulders that he was pissed. Dammit, he didn’t have time for this right now.
“Oi, listen to me!” Katsuki barked sharply. “I get it, okay? I’m fucking sorry this is happening. But lives are at stake, and if you stop thinking about the damn disease for one second, you’ll realize this makes sense!”
“Makes—” Kirishima began to repeat his words, then cut himself off with a scoff of disbelief. “You know what, I don’t think you do get it!”
Katsuki glowered at him, snarling, “It’s my lungs that’re all fucked! I definitely get it, you bastard!”
“Bakug—Katsuki, listen to me,” Kirishima said, setting his shoulders and stepping forward, speaking soberly. “You’re sick, okay? You can’t—”
“That’s the whole fucking point!”
“No, listen!” Kirishima replied, fuming but increasingly imploring with each word. His chest was starting to visibly heave, and he was staring at Katsuki with an agitated expression. “You’re not well enough to make this decision right now, okay? You have to recognize that, man.”
“What the hell are you talking about?” Katsuki reeled back, affronted.
“You’re having a hard time,” Kirishima said, and his voice shook ever so slightly. “I know that. I’m sorry, but—”
“A hard time?” Katsuki spit out, rage boiling over violently. “I’m dying!”
“I know, I know! I’m so fucking sorry, okay? I’m sorry for everything you’ve had to deal with and I should’ve noticed—”
“It doesn’t matter,” Katsuki cut him off sharply as pain spiked in his chest. “It’s in the past, and I’ve gotta go.”
“No, no, Katsuki, fucking listen to me!” Kirishima’s voice went slightly shrill with a note of panic. “You can’t—You’ve been—you’re not thinking straight, man! You can’t make this decision right now!”
“Fuck you! The hell does that even mean?!”
Kirishima hesitated, seeming to struggle for words. Then he said, “I know you’ve got Hanahaki, but that’s not the same as having cancer or some shit. You know that. You’ve still got so much time left, Katsuki.”
“Time for what?!” Katsuki shouted back before he even knew what the hell he was saying, and his own voice came out strained as he all but begged Kirishima for an answer. “Time to waste away and die?! Time to quit my goddamn job and have to have everyone around me wipe my fuckin’ ass for me?! Fuck off!”
Kirishima stared him down, chest heaving. Finally, he asked quietly, “Did they ask for volunteers?”
“They didn’t fuckin’ need to.”
“No!” Kirishima cried, putting his hands to the side of his head. “Dammit, this isn’t the way to do it, man!”
“The way to save lives?” Katsuki barked. “You know what, fuck you, man. I’m not wasting time with this anymore. I’m sorry things turned out this way, but we’re wasting time.”
“Are you being serious right now?” Kirishima leaned forward, gaping at him in horrified disbelief.
Katsuki ignored him, turning to go.
“Katsuki,” Kirishima said sharply, snatching his arm. “Look me in the eyes and tell me you’re doing this because you’re worried about people dying.”
“Got any brain cells left up there, dumbass?” Katsuki hissed in his face as he shoved his hand off his arm. “I know you heard that shit about it exploding!”
Kirishima’s eyes flitted between his. After a moment, he said lowly, “You’re not out of time. You haven’t even tried talking to Midoriya yet.”
“Save me this bullshit,” Katsuki spat as the mention of that goddamn name drove a knife through his heart. He nearly winced from the intensity of the sudden pain. “This isn’t about me, anyways. Or you, or any of it!”
Kirishima’s eye twitched. He looked dangerously pale, and he clenched his jaw for a moment as they stared each other down. Then he breathed out a shaky breath and stepped closer. Katsuki stood up straighter at the open challenge, glowering at him.
“This is about saving lives,” Katsuki added vehemently. “And buying time.”
Kirishima stared, searching his eyes. His face was almost unnervingly stoic now, but Katsuki was so angry he could only think about punching him across the face. The rest of his brain only buzzed with static.
“You’re not going in there alone,” Kirishima said gravely.
Katsuki’s rage spiked and he barely resisted the reactive urge to shove Kirishima. Instead, he clenched his fists and snapped, “Fuck off! Yes, I am! Don’t think you can call my bluff, asshole!”
Again, they stared at each other.
“We don’t have time for—” Katsuki began, taking a step away.
“Fine,” Kirishima cut him off and nodded finally, his face smoothed over and serious. “You’re really doing this?”
“Yes.”
“To save everyone? Because the odds could get everyone killed?”
“Obviously,” Katsuki bit out.
Kirishima stared him down, and then he just walked away.
For a long moment, Katsuki stared after him. All at once, the anger was sucked out of him and left a vacuum in its place so vast that he felt unsteady. For a moment, he felt something like shock, like hurt, like regret for being such an asshole.
Where was Kirishima going?
Was that their goodbye?
Goodbye forever…
Katsuki shoved it aside, even though he felt significantly more unstable now than he had before Kirishima showed up. He felt off, and he hurt, and goddammit why did even this familiar situation have to suck so much more as an adult?
He turned away as Kirishima exited the room and moved his eyes back to the screens. He breathed in a deep breath, setting his expression.
He had a job to do.
People to save.
One last time.
Katsuki strode back to the front of the room to hear the last briefing of what he was to do. He tried not to think of his friend, who’d left without another word. He tried to ignore how many parts of his being were no longer wanting to be quiet but rather were turning restlessly in protest of the situation.
Uncertainty. Doubt. Confusion. Hurt.
Loneliness.
He thought of duty and tried his best to ignore how the physical pains of his body hurt so damn bad all of a sudden.
“You’ve got us on the other line the whole time,” an officer was saying to him, handing him a specialized earpiece. “We can mostly see the cameras, though some of them are down closer to the center. If you get confused further in, we’ll talk you through it.”
Katsuki nodded removing his normal earpiece to fit in the new one.
“Are you sure about this?” the incident commander asked. “Most likely, you’ll die within hours.”
Unlike before, the feeling in his chest wasn’t just light and familiar. It also hurt pretty damn bad. But Katsuki had made his decision. Even if the recognizable blanket of feeling that he remembered from when he was seventeen had been contaminated, he still held tight to his duty. He nodded.
“Good, I’m glad you’re sure about this!” The voice came from behind him, and Katsuki turned to see the still-infuriated face of Kirishima. His eyes were practically on fire with rage, but he offered an unsettling, humorless smile. His tone was light in an almost mocking manner. “What a brave hero you are!”
“What the hell are you doing?” Katsuki hissed, glancing from him to the officers, who looked on in confusion.
“I told you! You’re not going in there alone!”
“I told you that you can’t call my bluff, asshole,” Katsuki stepped forward, practically growling in his face. “I know you’re not stupid enough to—”
“I called Midoriya,” Kirishima said, not reacting in the slightest to Katsuki’s fury. “He’s almost here!”
Katsuki jolted backwards as his heart dropped to his toes, eyes flying open wide. “You… what?”
Kirishima smiled grimly. “He was already headed over to help out. I made sure to let him know exactly where to go.”
“What the fuck is wrong with you?!” Katsuki half-shouted, voice strained as a wave of emotion surged through him. “Why would you tell him?!”
He couldn’t breathe. He couldn’t breathe. Oh god, he hurt.
“You didn’t think I’d let you head into the light without your other half, did you?” Kirishima asked, staring him down.
Katsuki heaved in air, and his chest was tightening up again and oh god he couldn’t breathe.
Because Kirishima had successfully called his bluff.
If there was one person on this planet both dumb enough and self-sacrificial enough to blindly follow Katsuki into hell, it was Midoriya Izuku. Anyone else, Katsuki knew they wouldn’t get themselves killed alongside him if they didn’t have to.
But Izuku?
Izuku was fucking insane. Katsuki knew it better than anyone. He’d follow Katsuki into hell with more confidence than Katsuki had himself, if he thought it would save someone.
“You piece of shit,” Katsuki stepped forward, half-shouting in his face. “You’re gonna get him killed for no fucking reason! His death will be on your hands, asshole!”
“Still think the mission is essential?” Kirishima challenged, unaffected by his threats and not so much as taking a step back as Katsuki got up in his face. “Still think we can’t wait half an hour for Hatsume to finish the robot? Tell me, Katsuki, do you still think you’re doing this for the people you’ll save?!”
Furious, Katsuki shoved him aside forcefully and strode forward towards the door. His mind buzzed, his chest was tight, and goddammit he was fucking miserable again.
He was trapped, oh god he was trapped, remember?
There was a sense of heavy despair settling back into his bones, and it weighed so much that he wanted to collapse. The shackles were snapping around his wrists. He could feel them already, and already he missed those few minutes he’d breathed clearly. Those few moments where things felt okay and familiar and light.
It felt like he was cracking in half all over again, and his grip where he held onto his heroic duty was slipping quickly away.
He couldn’t think. He couldn’t breathe.
Why the hell did Kirishima have to show up?
Didn’t he understand a goddamn thing?!
Izuku walked through the front doors of the building right as Katsuki reached them.
“Kacchan!” Izuku said, those observant green eyes zoning in on him. “Are—”
“You’re not needed here,” Katsuki gritted out, grabbing his arm and yanking him back around to face the doors. “Go help with evacuation efforts.”
Izuku frowned, digging in his heels and tugging his arm free. “Kirishima told me you’re going into the lab.”
Katsuki faced him, glaring and heaving in air and suffocating. “Yeah, well, the lab could fucking explode and let radiation out into the air.”
For the first time, the words tasted bitter on his tongue.
Off.
Wrong.
“Right,” Izuku nodded, eyes hardening with resolve. “Kirishima mentioned that.”
Katsuki tried to breathe, but it wasn’t fucking working. There was an increasing feeling of desperation that was rising up in his chest. A pained agitation was starting to take over the limited space inside him that wasn’t suffocating under the exhaustion and fog and pain.
Didn’t anyone get it?!
“Yeah, so go help with evacuation in case it explodes before I get it all shut down,” Katsuki ordered harshly.
“I’m coming with you,” Izuku said, shaking his head.
There was that damn determined look in his eye, full force. The stubborn, unyielding, undaunted look that showcased who Izuku was at the very core of his being.
Unshakable.
Persistent.
Unbreakable.
“Like hell you are,” Katsuki growled back.
“I am, Kacchan!” Izuku protested, adamant.
It was like the sight of Izuku had already started draining every remainder of that light, freeing feeling back out of him. Because this… was also familiar.
Katsuki knew Izuku. He knew him even if nearly every part of himself suffocated under the weight of it all. Even if he didn’t recognize himself, he recognized Izuku.
Standing in front of Izuku, Katsuki clearly remembered what it felt like to be a hero. He saw that look in Izuku’s eyes, and he remembered with such agonizing intensity, why he’d wanted to compete with him for the rest of their lives. He remembered how it felt to be Bakugou Katsuki, future Number One Hero, Dynamight, all as it was before. He remembered how it felt to feel alive and motivated and determined.
He remembered, and that just made him feel worse because that wasn’t at all the same way he’d been feeling today. It made him feel worse, because those feelings were only memories. He hadn’t experienced them in a long time, and he never would again, except in this way. Except as brief echoes of a better time.
“Izuku, you can’t go with me,” Katsuki said, angry and pained and desperate.
“I can! I will!” Izuku’s eyes blazed.
“I’m already dying!” Katsuki’s voice was losing its anger as he started to beg.
The sense of doom was already settling back into him, and he wanted to scream because it was too heavy and he couldn’t breathe. He wanted to escape it more than anything.
He was going to escape it, if only Izuku let him.
Dammit, why didn’t anyone get it? It made sense for him to do this.
“I won’t let you do this alone,” Izuku declared firmly.
Everyone knew, once Izuku had set his mind to something, there was no talking him out of it. Katsuki knew that better than anyone, and it was that very reason that his strength was beginning to fail him already. The weight of his exhaustion was settling back into his aching bones far too quickly.
He could feel himself already giving in, in the face of Izuku’s heroism.
Juxtaposed next to Izuku’s straightforward readiness to charge after Katsuki to his own death, Katsuki’s motivations were revealed to be something far more complicated than just heroism.
Katsuki knew in his heart that if he walked into that lab with Izuku by his side, Izuku’s death would not fall to Kirishima’s conscience.
It would rest solely on Katsuki’s.
Katsuki drew in a long breath and coughed for a moment when it caught.
Somehow, the weight settling back onto him felt heavier than it had yet. How could he bear it? He felt like he was losing the strength to stand. Like it was going to crush him to death.
“You have to let me go,” Katsuki pleaded, strained. “I’m already dying, Izuku. It just makes sense.”
You have to. You have to. You have to. He begged mentally.
Please.
Let me do this, please. Let me die.
I’m so tired.
Let me go.
Look away.
He so badly wanted that light feeling back. He was suffocating. He was in pain.
“People’s lives are at stake!” Izuku argued vehemently. “If you’re going in there to save them, then I’m going with you, Kacchan.”
They stared at each other for a moment, heaving in huge breaths that lifted their torsos. Katsuki felt like he’d been slapped.
Not special, remember? Katsuki gazed at Izuku, and his despair crushed his chest at the reminder.
Izuku would give his life for anyone.
Goddammit. It was the unshakable heroism at Izuku’s core that had terrified him when they were children. It was one of the reasons he’d fallen in love with him when they were teenagers. It was what trapped him now.
“Izuku, you can’t,” Katsuki said lowly.
“You’re not going alone,” Izuku repeated, firmly. “You think I don’t know what you’re doing?”
Katsuki’s heart dropped and he stared at Izuku, wide-eyed. He felt more caught in that moment than he had yet.
But when Izuku continued, his heart only shriveled up in misery, “You didn’t talk about it back then, but I’ve heard about it. From Edgeshot and Best Jeanist and Mirko.”
Katsuki was frozen.
“You—you knew you were going to die,” Izuku’s voice grew thick and his eyes watered. “And you went anyways.”
Katsuki looked away as his face burned with shame.
“You were buying time until I could get there,” Izuku said, voice wavering.
Katsuki wanted to shout at him to shut up. To stop looking at him like that. Like he was any kind of hero. Because there was no way he could stand next to Deku and look anything like a hero. Not like this. Definitely not when his motivations were anything other than altruism.
Even if he’d been remembering the same day mere minutes ago, it was now clear to Katsuki that it wasn’t the same thing. The fact that Izuku thought it was the same made Katsuki feel so much self-loathing that he was almost nauseous with it.
Izuku wiped his eyes with his sleeve and then declared, “I won’t let you go alone this time, Kacchan.”
Katsuki’s breaths were shallow and painful. He couldn’t stand to look Izuku in the eye for any length of time. He clenched and unclenched his fists at his sides.
He wasn’t even sure why he was still trying to argue with Izuku. Maybe, just like when he’d been unable to walk away from this shift in the first place, there was a part of him that just didn’t want to yield to what he knew was true.
“This isn’t… this isn’t like back then,” Katsuki gritted out lowly. “You have to see that, Izuku. I’m already a dead man.”
“This isn’t just about that,” Izuku countered heatedly. “This is about lives being at stake! You’re going in there to save everyone, but you’re sick! What if you don’t make it before you die? I won’t let you die alone, and you can’t complete this mission alone anyways!”
Katsuki had no idea what his face looked like, but he felt like Izuku had stabbed him through the chest. The raw pain ripped through him so intensely that it overcame any sense of anger. He very nearly fell to his knees as his mind fully accepted that there was no escaping this.
There was no escaping the pain of his broken life.
There was no escaping even his slow death.
This felt like such a cruel moment on top of everything else. That Deku stood before him, so fundamentally heroic that Katsuki couldn’t hope to pose as one while by his side.
And yet, this all began because Izuku had no interest in being a hero anymore.
Katsuki raised a shaky hand upward and rubbed it down his face.
As the façade of heroism crumbled under the pressure Deku’s presence put on it, the more exhausted parts of Katsuki leaked out. His knees grew weak under the flood of emotion returning to his body. The realization that he wouldn’t be free of any of it today, and that he would have to return home to bed and wake up again tomorrow, was so suffocating that he didn’t feel like he could stand it.
“Kacchan, you can’t stop me,” Izuku insisted. “I’m coming with you.”
I know.
The look on his face was a look Katsuki had seen so many times. Stubborn, immutable, determined. Like a thousand other expressions of Izuku’s, Katsuki knew it well. He knew Izuku, and yet he somehow didn’t understand him at all. He would never understand him.
Katsuki’s eyes trailed to Izuku’s suit—his teacher outfit from work. He carried the briefcase that held the armored suit in his hands. Ready and willing to put it on, but only to follow Katsuki into hell.
Numbly, Katsuki looked at the case.
He hated that damn armor. He hated it. And he hated himself for hating it, because he’d spent so long seeing it as a massive piece of the puzzle that would fix his life.
In that moment, its presence felt like nothing more than a cruel mockery on top of an already cruel life.
“You’ll keep teaching?”
“Yeah.”
Why the hell was Izuku here, if he wanted to be a teacher?
“I’ve been collecting data for the armor on days when I’m not teaching.”
“I have the opportunity to share my experiences with students almost every day.”
Why the actual hell was he here right now?
Why was he on the front lines playing hero?
Why wasn’t he with his damn students?
Hadn’t Izuku given up his right to die by Katsuki’s side when he’d turned him down all those months ago? Why did he get to show up in Katsuki’s life whenever he chose and leave just as quickly?
“You bastard,” Katsuki managed to grit out in a strained voice.
“Kacchan, I’m going with you!” said Izuku obstinately yet again.
Katsuki barely heard him through the rushing in his ears. He stared into Izuku’s eyes which blurred into a thousand different versions. A thousand different memories.
In that moment of complete and utter defeat, Katsuki felt the temptation to beg. To ask questions of the universe as if it would answer back.
To Izuku, he wanted to say,
I’m tired. Let me go. It hurts. I can’t breathe. This is the best option for everyone.
To the universe, he wanted to ask,
Was it so wrong for me to choose this? Was it really so wrong that I volunteered for a suicide mission so I didn’t have to hurt anymore?
Was Katsuki really the one in the wrong here, just to want to end this all now, before his suffering dug more painful roots into his being, and sucked the life out of him for the rest of his days?
If anything, had this not been the least cruel option for them all?
This way, they could remember the best parts of him. They could remember him as a hero, rather than whatever he was becoming. They would have to mourn him, but no one would have to be held responsible. No one would’ve had to feel guilty or like there was more they should’ve done.
No ambiguity or what-ifs.
If Kirishima hadn’t done this, no one would’ve had to blame themselves when Katsuki died.
Katsuki could practically see the future he’d been dragged back to.
He’d been exhausted for months. He knew it would only be more of this and worse—exhaustion, pain, loneliness. More of these feelings that he couldn’t handle. More feeling inadequate and falling further away from what he’d once dreamed of. More roots and stems and flowers, growing in his lungs.
He knew that he was broken beyond repair, and there would be no fixing what’d been done to him. There would be no forgetting or moving on.
Nip it in the bud, my dear
“Nipping it in the bud also means to cut something off before it can grow anymore.”
Why was it so wrong to nip it in the bud here?
Why allow Katsuki to grow anymore? To what end?
To what painful end?
“Kacchan?” Izuku said, brow furrowing as he peered at him carefully.
Katsuki stared back at him, and the word slipped out before he could stop it, “Please.”
Izuku’s eyes widened. He blinked vacantly, clearly baffled.
“Please don’t do this,” Katsuki had lost control over the begging and pain in his shaky, strained tone.
Izuku continued to stare at him, and Katsuki could see the gears turning as that damn nerd brain finally picked up on something being amiss and struggled to figure out what the hell it was.
“Do… what?” Izuku asked hesitantly.
“Don’t come, Deku,” Katsuki pleaded, and his voice came out strained. “Let me do this alone.”
Izuku continued to stare at him, but he looked increasingly concerned. “Kacchan… are you alright?”
The question was almost laughable, and if Katsuki had any energy at all, maybe he would’ve laughed until someone dialed up the psych ward for him. As it was, his knees had grown weak and his body too exhausted.
His knees buckled, and he fell onto them hard. The pain was intense, radiating through his kneecaps, but he barely reacted. He barely registered it on top of all the other things.
“Kacchan!” Izuku cried, dropping to his knees with him, hands on his shoulders and distress all over his face. “What’s the matter?”
Katsuki swayed as the heavy weight of everything settled back onto him. His brief respite from it all was already long gone, and he felt almost dizzy with his fatigue.
“J-just sit down, okay?” Izuku said shakily. “You’re not going in there like this, Kacchan. Leave it to me, okay? I’ll save everyone.”
Katsuki very nearly laughed again. If he’d had the strength, he would’ve.
Because Kirishima had called his bluff, and now he was forced to face the truth of the matter.
“No,” he said.
“Kacchan, I promise I’ll save everyone,” Izuku said resolutely. “You can count on me.”
“We’re not going,” Katsuki muttered monotonously. “I’m not. You’re not.”
“What?” Izuku’s brow furrowed as he replied. “But what about—”
“Hatsume should have a robot ready soon. It’ll most likely hold off until then.”
There was that suffocating numbness, settling back into his bones. The cage he lived within. The suffering he couldn’t escape. It settled back around him, as heavy as before.
“What?” Izuku asked, brow furrowed. “But—but why were you going in there? Kacchan, are you sure?!”
Katsuki didn’t answer, moving to sit on his ass and putting his back to the wall.
Distantly, he registered Izuku calling someone on the phone and asking them to confirm it. Izuku hung up and was trying to ask him questions.
Katsuki only stared blankly at the floor.
Why? He thought distantly. Why had I been going in there?
Giving up…
Everyone kept saying that to him. They all kept insisting that he was giving up.
How many times had Katsuki angrily countered them, by assuring them he wasn’t giving up? Had they been right about him?
Had he been giving up this whole time?
Katsuki struggled to breathe in and out, suffocating under the weight of his life. Suffocating on the flowers in his lungs.
No… he thought as he felt his scarred heart beating in his chest.
Giving up, like this was some sort of fight. Giving up, like he was yielding. Giving up, like he was letting someone else win.
None of them seemed to get it.
Katsuki’s life and body and mind were fucked up irrevocably. Even if this were somehow a fight, there’d be no winning. Not if he fought forever.
Katsuki wasn’t giving up some sort of fight… he was just tired. He was tired, and he knew that nothing would change going forward anyways. His dream was dead and his mind had broken and his body was decaying. He was alone and nothing was the way it used to be.
Nothing would go back to the way it used to be.
There was no fight to be had. It was just… the way things were. It was called being a fucking adult.
Katsuki understood that now. He’d accepted it for a while now. But he didn’t know how to move on and grow up like everyone else had, did he? He didn’t know how to navigate this new world where his dream was dead and nothing was the same and he could barely remember what it felt like to be alive. He’d been nipped in the bud back as a teenager, and now he was fucked up forever. Now he was broken beyond repair, and he couldn’t adjust to life like he was expected to.
And… goddammit… he couldn’t breathe.
Katsuki blinked slowly, the pain excruciating and yet he was unable to move. What a unique hell this was.
He was exhausted, was it so wrong to want to rest?
Why?
Why was it so wrong to not want to do this anymore?
Izuku appeared in his vision again. Those green eyes and the mess of green hair and a freckled cheek and a scarred one.
In that moment, he wasn’t sure that anyone had done anything so cruel to him before as Kirishima had today.
Kirishima wasn’t saving him. Didn’t he see that? He wasn’t saving him, he was just dooming him to suffer longer so that they didn’t have to grieve him just yet. Katsuki had been trying to save them all from months and months of more pain.
You’ll have to grieve eventually, anyways. Katsuki thought bitterly. Damn you.
Kirishima appeared in his vision, and Katsuki didn’t even have the energy to curse him out like he wanted to. He found that he was far too tired to move or speak.
Instead, he stared down at Izuku’s stupid, stupid work shoes and remembered when he’d wear those shitty red high tops. He remembered when things had felt good and hopeful. He remembered that spring with Izuku back in high school when the cherry blossoms fell around them.
The memory was so clouded in shadow. He remembered that things had felt good and hopeful, but he couldn’t remember how it felt. He couldn’t even drag up some echo of the feeling. He couldn’t put it to words.
The cherry blossoms grew in his lungs now, so close to his heart.
Katsuki felt exhausted, and yet the thought of going home to his own bed, alone, to suffer until he died… he wanted to scream. He wanted to cry and explode and tear the skin off his bones. He wanted to breathe clearly. He wanted to feel okay again. He wanted to remember how it felt, to be that kid that was so ready to chase after Izuku for the rest of his life, because that meant he would be following his dream.
He wanted to do a lot of things, but under the suffocating weight he could barely find the energy to breathe.
Izuku was crouching in front of him, speaking to him with a look on his face that Katsuki hated. Wide, slightly watery green eyes displaying such clear and undeniable concern.
Why? Katsuki wanted to ask him. Why are you here?
Why would you turn me down back then, if you wanted to be by my side?
If you won’t love me, why won’t you at least let me escape you?
Why won’t you let me rest?
Notes:
the sound of your heartbeat,
the pain of your presence,
the strength we don't share.
I know every part of you
but to what end.There's fan art for this fic!! it's inspired by this chapter and you can check it out here! It's beautiful :) Shoutout to @mozetodobrze on twitter. Thanks again for making this and sharing it with us!!
My social media, sneak peeks and early content is all here. Thank you for reading and thank you to everyone who's left kudos and comments. I really love reading all of your comments and hearing all of your thoughts and theories for this fic!
Chapter 6: Or soon we'll have to sow
Summary:
Izuku might not be the cure to all Katsuki’s afflictions, but most days it definitely felt like he was the only respite from them.
Time passes in a haze. Katsuki gets some news from his doctor. He talks with Uraraka. He's forced to get a caretaker, and his mom doesn't approve of his choice. He shares some of his regrets with Izuku.
Notes:
(46k+ words)
Content Warning
depression/mental health issues (heavy on this warning, proceed with caution please), passive suicidal ideation, graphic depictions of illness, mentions of death/corpses
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
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part 1
fighting an unseeable enemy
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Things changed after that.
Some last part of Katsuki fell to ruin.
It was like his bones had finally grown too weak to hold himself up. Some last wall of something—some scrap of measly pride or obstinance or childish hope—that held back all the pain gave out, and it all washed over him.
He began to drown.
Maybe he’d been floundering for a while. Maybe for a long, long time, he’d been struggling to keep his head above the water.
Denying that he could no longer touch the ground. Denying that he was growing tired. Denying that he needed a lifesaver.
He wasn’t exactly sure how long things had been like this. He wasn’t sure how long it’d been since he’d last felt okay.
In the end, it didn’t matter, did it?
Because he was indisputably drowning now. He was fully aware of the water pressing in on all sides.
He sunk into the depths, deeper and deeper.
He couldn’t breathe.
He was tired.
─────
Being fully aware of the miserable, foggy state of his own mind only dragged Katsuki down to the depths exponentially faster.
It sort of felt like at any given moment, he was so tired that his brain was mostly asleep, though he remained conscious. It kept him in a strange reality where every moment of every day felt almost surreal.
The emotional numbness and mental sense of separation that he’d been dealing with for months—or maybe even longer—descended down upon him in full force. He existed in a haze of exhaustion and lightheadedness practically all the time… and he was so very aware of it.
It was heavy.
It suffocated him.
He had no way to escape it.
Time passed strangely. A few days felt like a few years sometimes, and yet when he looked back at the week, he couldn’t recall a single thing that’d happened. In the afternoon, when he tried to recall the morning, he struggled to remember anything that he’d done.
Had he eaten? Had he had any water? What day was it?
Generally, thinking became difficult. The exhaustion, the illness, whatever it was… Katsuki couldn’t focus. He couldn’t remember anything for shit. He had to order one of those complex daily pill providers for all his medications that did jack shit because he could never remember if he’d taken them or not.
Every task that was once so simple and subconscious—getting out of bed, walking around, eating—became an effort that required substantial energy and purposeful movement.
His weight loss increased rapidly, and he coped with it by simply ignoring it. Wearing clothes to cover himself constantly. Never looking in the mirror. Eyes going a bit unfocused when he was showering.
His chest and back never stopped aching now. It was a constant, dull pain that never left and only worsened. It sucked away his limited energy and patience. His throat and neck often hurt as well. He coughed and vomited constantly, and it made him feel so sick that there were many days that he could only lie in bed and wish he was already dead.
Predictably, each check-in with Dr. Ito only brought more bad news. More CT scans with little yellow arrows. More questions. More attempts to convince him to get surgery. More medications.
She’d also referred him to a physical therapist, and those appointments only made him feel even less like himself. It made him feel constantly like nothing was quite right. Nothing was quite real.
He used to be someone who was in peak physical condition. He used to hike mountains effortlessly and run miles without tiring. He used to be physically strong in a way he took great pride in.
Now, in physical therapy, when he struggled to lift his own limbs or do the most basic workouts, gasping for breath and trembling, he began to wonder why the hell he was even doing this. He would leave, walking slowly and painfully to his car and wonder why he was even trying.
Who was this person?
What was even left of him?
Katsuki felt like a rotting shell of a person.
He was waiting to die, because every day was misery anyways. All he could do was wish he’d die faster because he was tired of existing like this.
─────
His parents still came around a lot, of course.
When they did, Katsuki dragged himself up out of bed. He feigned wakefulness to the best of his ability. In a way that he had a few times before this, he felt almost like he was playacting as himself whenever they came around.
He knew they saw through it to some degree, but he still found himself putting on the act for some reason. He could hold something like a conversation with them. He’d brush off their concern and argue with his mother on occasion.
He didn’t know why, in the absence of excess energy, his mind still latched onto lying about the state of how badly he was doing rather than just being fully honest. He didn’t know where the energy to hide it came from, but most of the time it oddly felt like honesty and vulnerability would drain him so much more than putting up a flimsy façade.
Shouldn’t honesty require less energy?
Shouldn’t he have run out of motivation to playact by now?
It came more out of habit than conscious thought. It was disturbing to him sometimes when he let himself dwell on it, because he felt nothing like himself and yet he was so good at playing the part.
From the outside, could they even see all the rot and pain and emptiness?
He barely even felt ashamed when he caught the look in their eyes—the worry and the disappointment and the frustration—because he could barely feel anything at all. It would just make him sigh in exhaustion and wish his body didn’t hurt so bad. It would make him hope they would leave soon, if only so he could shut down completely again.
They would tell him he needed a caretaker, and he told them he had it handled to get them to shut up about it.
They would leave eventually, and he would lie back down in bed, because that was all he had the energy to do.
─────
The public found out that Katsuki was dying.
It wasn’t like he was much of a social media person, but waking up one morning to a barrage of texts made it hard for him to not hear about it.
Word had gotten out that he had a terminal illness… probably from those damn police officers. From a few minutes of Katsuki scrolling, it didn’t seem that anyone knew what his illness was.
At the first sight of the word Hanahaki—in the comment section under a post announcing he was sick—Katsuki shut off his phone and went back to sleep.
─────
Katsuki was still mad at Kirishima.
It wasn’t anger in a way Katsuki had ever felt it before. It wasn’t strong and overwhelming and violent. Instead, it was more a deep, exhausted resentment that came from somewhere inside the fogginess of his half-asleep brain.
It just came down to the fact that his only opportunity to escape all this pain had been thwarted by Kirishima’s meddling.
It didn’t matter to Katsuki that Kirishima had been trying to look out for him. It didn’t matter that they were best friends. It didn’t matter that he rationally understood why Kirishima had done everything that he had.
Some deep-rooted, subconscious feeling of something like shame and resentment fed by all his misery swirled around inside him. It made him not want to see Kirishima at all, and he couldn’t rid himself of it. He couldn’t make himself feel anything else towards his best friend as the days went on and he continued to drown.
After a few visits of general annoyance and silent treatment, Kirishima seemed to get the message.
He stopped coming around.
─────
Katsuki’s ears rang and his head spun. He rested his head against his own arms where they clutched at the sides of the toilet bowl as he gasped for air.
Part of a few budding flowers.
A stem.
Cherry blossom petals. So many of them.
He stared down at them, floating in the toilet with his own blood and mucus and bile. It was as disgusting as ever, though it wouldn’t be wrong to say that Katsuki had grown very familiar with the sight.
Was it any less disgusting? Objectively, no, but it had become far more of a normalcy in his mind. More than anything, he usually just felt tired when he was forced to see the flowers that were killing him.
Today, he felt something else.
His exhaustion weighed down his mind as it always did, and he stared down into the toilet.
He wouldn’t be escaping the flowers through an earlier grave. They were here to stay, and he would be forced to endure every agonizing second of their growth. They would continue to feed off his pathetic life. They would draw out all of Izuku and break down the rest of Katsuki’s corpse to feed the cherry blossoms. The roots would spread under his skin until they were more alive than the rest of him could ever pretend to be.
Katsuki stared.
His mind felt hazy.
He couldn’t remember what day it was. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d eaten anything.
He couldn’t remember how long he’d been awake. If he wasn’t in so much agony, the heaviness in his head might’ve easily convinced him that he wasn’t awake.
His heart thumped dully against his chest as tears started to run down his cheeks unbidden as he stared at the light pink petals floating in the gross, contaminated toilet water.
He trembled even as he still leaned down on his own arms. He felt a strange sense of loss that was almost sickening as it clashed with the usual feelings that always came from looking at the flowers.
Was the Hanahaki disease already tearing apart his mind?
Katsuki gasped out a sob as he stared.
His head felt so muddled and sluggish. He tried to think but it was hard to focus and wade through the fog. His head ached slightly and the rest of him ached badly, and that only made it all worse.
Were the flowers already stealing Izuku from him? As they sucked the life from him, were they already beginning to tear apart his mind to take back Izuku’s part in it all? Was that why his mind felt so fucked-up these days?
If it’d begun to steal from him, how could he tell? How could he know? It wasn’t like he could remember much. It could easily have taken parts of his memory without him noticing.
He cried harder as he grew increasingly frantic and confused and delirious.
No, no, no…
He hadn’t gotten the damn surgery, so it wasn’t allowed to steal the memories from him yet.
It wasn’t… it couldn’t…
Katsuki cried and he breathed in the nauseating smell of his own blood rather than flushing the toilet. He cried and he tried not to breathe too much because what if he coughed up more?
What if it ripped out more of Izuku until his dying mind was so foggy and empty that he was hardly better than the empty shell the surgery would make him?
Had this been part of the deal? Was this what happened when you didn’t choose surgery? You were forced to forget in pieces as your mind was broken down to feed the flowers? You were forced to remain awake and alive until you’d decayed enough to die?
He couldn’t remember if he’d read about this or if Dr. Ito had mentioned it.
Katsuki cried and trembled and clutched at his own hair.
Flushing the toilet suddenly felt impossible.
Had it taken memories from him already?
How could he get them back?
Katsuki felt the momentary, absurd urge to fish the flowers out of the toilet. He stared at them—heart thumping painfully hard and head swimming and body aching. There was a scrap of rationality somewhere within him that kept him from doing it, but the desire was so strong he almost didn’t give a fuck.
Because if Hanahaki disease was separating out the love he had for Izuku and the rest of him, it was pretty clear to Katsuki which side he had more loyalty to.
If his friends and family wouldn’t let him go in the heroic way, Katsuki had no intention of ripping up the flowers and destroying those memories of Izuku forever. No, if he was forced to endure this misery, he’d make sure the parts of himself that he treasured most would be what survived.
The broken body of a toy soldier all glued back together wrong… all hollowed out?
Or… the memories of what it felt like to be Bakugou Katsuki, who was closer to Midoriya Izuku than anyone else?
It wasn’t a choice, really.
Even if no one else understood, Katsuki knew that he couldn’t kill the memory of the person he was back then. The part of him that wanted to be better for Izuku before he even fell in love with him. That part of him had always felt more alive than any other part of him did anyways.
How it felt to be near Izuku… Katsuki wasn’t willing to gut himself of that. He wasn’t willing to scrape away all the flowers until he could stand near Izuku and feel nothing.
No… but Katsuki was certain by now that the cherry blossoms in the groveyard would bloom a little brighter in Izuku’s presence. He knew that they would. They would remember Izuku and what it was like to love him.
Hiccupping painful sobs, Katsuki flushed the toilet and wished it didn’t cause a massive well of grief to open up in his chest as he did so.
He told himself that he couldn’t reattach those parts of the plant anyways. He just begged the Hanahaki to grow into his heart and kill him. At this point, his breath was hardly doing him much good and was only serving to tear apart the cherry blossoms.
Was it so wrong to want to preserve the best parts of himself, as the rest of him decayed? Was it so wrong to want to keep some part of himself intact as everything else became increasingly unrecognizable?
─────
Kirishima was still staying away. Most of Katsuki’s other friends respected his boundaries. Though they didn’t say, he was certain that some of them avoided him because of the taboo of Hanahaki disease.
Unsurprisingly, one person didn’t fall into any of those categories.
Izuku still came around often, no matter how many times Katsuki ignored him or shouted at him to get a job or threw whatever he got his hands on at him. The bastard had got his hands on a key to Katsuki’s apartment somehow; Katsuki blamed Kirishima for that too. Not even the very real threat of charging him with trespassing would keep him away.
Izuku showed up—with his stupid, bullshit excuses—and was completely immune to anything Katsuki did.
“Here’s some soup, Kacchan! My mom sent me this new recipe but I didn’t like it much so you can have the rest!”
“Kacchan, since you hosted me for dinner I’m going to clean up!”
“The power’s out at my place, so I’m just going to hang out here for a bit, Kacchan!”
He also asked a billion questions.
No matter how often Katsuki threatened to explode him to hell or set him on fire or strangle him to death, Izuku wouldn’t stop asking questions. Even though the majority of the time, Katsuki didn’t bother to answer at all, he kept asking.
“Kacchan, have you told them yet?”
“Have you been to the doctor recently?”
“Did you find someone to help out here yet?”
The worst part of it all was that…
Even now, Katsuki liked when Izuku was around.
It wasn’t as simple as feeling happy because Izuku was there. No, he definitely felt so incredibly annoyed when Izuku was there most of the time.
It was that he didn’t feel as much like he was feigning normalcy for Izuku. He barked at him and complained about his pain and griped and snapped, and Izuku took it all in stride.
As had been the case several times before, Izuku was so consistently Izuku that Katsuki couldn’t help but get drawn back into feeling alive a bit when he was around. He called him Kacchan and updated him about the latest and greatest Quirks and news stories. He acted like everything was exactly the same as it’d always been, and it was hard not to feel a bit centered by the familiarity of it.
Katsuki didn’t feel as much like he was forcing himself to get up to pretend he was alive. It was strange to discover that he got up because he wanted to when Izuku was there. He didn’t really feel like he was playacting, he just felt slightly more settled into himself. Like the rifts between all the different parts of himself weren’t as wide when Izuku was there.
Izuku might not be the cure to all Katsuki’s afflictions, but most days it definitely felt like he was the only respite from them.
To Katsuki, in constant misery, those moments in Izuku’s presence were the only times he felt at all alive. The only times he remembered a bit about what it was like to be himself. To be Bakugou Katsuki.
When Izuku left, he always felt that much lonelier.
─────
Katsuki stared at the CT scan pulled up on the computer. All that white on a black background. All those little yellow arrows pointing out everything that wasn’t supposed to be there, as if it wasn’t obvious.
“I assume you’re still forgoing the surgery?” Dr. Ito’s voice filtered through the fogginess in his head.
Katsuki tore his eyes from the screen to look at her and nodded once in confirmation. She asked him some variation of this question every appointment. His annoyance had faded, if only because he was too tired to hold onto it.
Dr. Ito eyed him watchfully for only a few seconds before nodding and turning to pull up his chart and starting to type.
Katsuki’s eyes were drawn back to the screen like a magnet, even though the CT scan was hidden behind the program she was typing on now. Even with it gone, it felt burned into the front of his mind. So he stared at the computer screen as if keeping his vision averted required physical effort that his exhausted body didn’t have the capacity to exert.
“Your blood oxygen levels are too low,” Dr. Ito said after a moment, turning to look at him again. “This is one of the criteria for entering Stage 3.”
Katsuki glanced between her and the floor, too tired to even remember how he was supposed to react. “Stage 3” felt serious. It felt bad. But it also just swam around in the hazy misery that he already existed in and sort of equated to feeling nothing new at all.
He said nothing.
Dr. Ito went on after a short pause, “I’m going to prescribe you supplemental oxygen therapy, and you need to monitor your blood oxygen levels. Do you have a caretaker yet?”
Katsuki sighed, blinking heavy eyelids as he gazed blankly at a random spot on the floor. Lying to his parents to get them off his ass was one thing. Lying to his doctor was another.
“No.”
“Why not?”
Katsuki clenched his jaw, then forced out, “Don’t want some stranger in my house.”
It was more that he didn’t want anyone in his space to witness what he’d become, but whatever. Really, he just still despised the idea of needing someone else to do basic shit for him, even if he was currently actively failing to do those things for himself.
“Do you have anyone you know?” asked Dr. Ito. “A parent or a friend? It’s usually recommended that it’s someone Quirkless with medical training, but someone who is in a requited relationship is also allowed.”
Katsuki narrowed his eyes slightly at the floor and sighed again. Though these days, it was less of a sigh of exasperation and more that he’d often have to take a bigger breath every once in a while to try and replenish his lacking oxygen.
It was impossible not to think of Izuku’s offer, even as it made his chest dully ache.
“So I just wanted to offer in case you wanted someone you knew rather than a stranger!”
Dr. Ito went on when he didn’t reply, “These requirements have more to do with outdated laws than anything else. Current research shows that a person’s proximity to someone with Hanahaki disease isn’t correlated with a higher likelihood of them developing it, but often it takes politics a minute to catch up with science. So, if there was someone who didn’t fit those regulations, I could sign off on it too if we discuss it.”
Katsuki’s foggy brain barely registered what she was saying. It was hard to focus on all the words and keep up with them. Plus, he was still stuck on the memory of Izuku’s offer.
“There might be someone,” he grumbled.
“Okay, great. Look into it,” Dr. Ito said as she typed more on his chart. “It doesn’t have to be full-time. Just to help out with things. To help with food or if you’re feeling especially poorly. Ideally, they can also take your vitals and make sure you’re using the oxygen enough.”
Katsuki stared at the screen as she typed. He couldn’t really read it from this far away, even if his eyes weren’t slightly blurry and unfocused a lot of the time these days.
“I want you to find someone before the week is up,” Dr. Ito said. “In case you change your mind, there’s a database where you can search up certified Hanahaki caretakers. I’ll write it on your chart.”
Katsuki continued to stare vacantly at the screen.
Somehow, he didn’t think Dr. Ito would approve of his caretaker being the person who he was unrequitedly in love with. He knew his parents would freak out.
But the idea of some stranger being in his space, of meeting him the way he was now and having this be their first impression of him, of treating him like a patient and babying him… it felt so awful. How could that not make him feel worse? Even less like himself?
While Izuku’s initial offer had felt so condescending and horrifying… Katsuki was entirely unsurprised to find that he cared significantly less by now.
He still thought Izuku was an idiot. He still didn’t understand a damn thing about him. He still was really hurt if he let himself think about how Izuku was only doing all this because he was dying.
So he just… didn’t let himself think about it.
It was getting easier and easier these days to just not think about things. Most of the time, he hated the way his brain was so sluggish and out of it, so he took the advantages where he could get them.
Really, if he simply didn’t think about how Izuku turned him away so indifferently all those months ago, the choice would be obvious. If he didn’t think about the fact that he wasn’t special and Izuku was just like this, the choice would be obvious.
Katsuki was tired. It was hard to give a shit about most things. Izuku usually offered him respite from his misery in many ways.
He knew Izuku. He trusted Izuku to support him and come from a place of kindness. He knew Izuku’s endless patience and strength and attentiveness.
Katsuki sighed out a long breath, but that only made him cough slightly into the medical mask that covered his nose and mouth.
“Sound good?” Dr. Ito finished typing and spun to look at him.
Katsuki nodded once.
“Alright, do you have any other questions for me?”
Katsuki looked up at her, eyes focusing on her for the first time as he realized that he did have questions.
“Yeah,” he said. “The Hanahaki memory loss shit. Does that happen before the surgery at all?”
Dr. Ito eyed him curiously. “What do you mean?”
“I’ve… been forgetting shit,” he looked off to the side, speaking so lowly that he was almost mumbling. “Can’t ever focus or remember what I had for breakfast. Stuff like that.”
“Hmm,” Dr. Ito said, frowning curiously at him. “Have you been feeling spacey? Disconnected from yourself and your surroundings?”
“Yeah.”
“Are you having trouble thinking clearly?”
He nodded.
Dr. Ito folded her hands together, looking at him carefully. “Are you in therapy?”
Katsuki squinted at her in exhausted confusion. “Yeah, you told me to go a few days a week.”
“Not physical therapy. Behavioral therapy. For mental health.”
Katsuki blinked slowly and blankly at her. His back hurt really bad today and sitting in this chair for so long was making it worse. He shifted a bit in his seat, but it didn’t do anything to alleviate the ache.
“No,” he replied, unenthusiastically.
Dr. Ito raised her eyebrows in clear surprise. “Alright. Well, I’m going to recommend that you do that as well.”
As she typed in his chart, Katsuki felt so exhausted that he almost said nothing more. But eventually he muttered, “Why?”
Dr. Ito typed on the computer for a moment before turning to look at him again. She took a deep breath, looking at him intently.
“Memory loss prior to surgery isn’t a symptom of Hanahaki disease,” she said in an even and careful tone. “Everything you’re describing are very normal symptoms, but they’re symptoms of mental challenges such as depression or dissociation.”
Katsuki stared uncomprehendingly at her.
What the hell did that mean?
“Your chart lists a therapist,” she pushed the computer screen to face him a bit and pointed at it. “When’s the last time you saw them?”
Katsuki squinted at it. Even leaning forward, it took his eyes a second to focus on the name. “High school. For panic attacks and shit.”
Dr. Ito nodded. “You’re dealing with a very difficult situation. It makes sense that you’re suffering mentally from it, but the extent to which you’re describing is pretty severe. You need to address it.”
Katsuki stared at her some more, feeling a sort of sinking feeling in his gut as she spoke.
Why was this shocking, exactly? He was dying. Of course he wasn’t having a great time. What exactly did she want him to do about this?
Worse… why was she acting like he could do something about this?
“Hanahaki isn’t omniscient,” she continued. “It’s related to Quirk genetics, but it’s undoubtedly your genetics. It’s based off your feelings. Your feelings of rejection, your feelings of isolation, do you understand?”
Katsuki sighed. He knew that already. “So?”
“So,” Dr. Ito began, turning back to her computer to type, “Poor mental health makes things worse. You need to address it or the Hanahaki will work faster. All those symptoms you were describing were related to mental health.”
Katsuki continued to squint at her as a gaping hole of despair continued to hollow him out inside. He felt too exhausted to protest further, but he wanted to tell her that she was wrong.
She didn’t seem to understand what he was saying. His mind was being torn apart. It hurt. He couldn’t remember anything. He couldn’t fucking think or focus and he felt separated from himself most of the time. It was a very physical difference… but she was really trying to tell him it had nothing to do with Hanahaki disease?
His mind spun too quickly, and he couldn’t hold on to any of it because it all disappeared too quickly into the fog.
“I’ll also attach some resources for finding a therapist,” she said, clicking as she copied and pasted links into his chart. “You wanted answers for how to slow the Hanahaki growth. This will do it better than most other things at this point.”
Katsuki stared blankly at the computer screen as she printed his chart and clicked out of it—leaving the CT scan front and center on screen again.
All the little yellow arrows, all over the image.
It’d grown and spread so much. His back pain was at least partially from it growing through the back of his lungs. Plus, it’d started to grow more within his lungs as of late, which was why he couldn’t ever fucking breathe.
It hadn’t yet grown towards his heart. He almost wished it would.
“That all sound good?” Dr. Ito turned to him, once again peering at him watchfully.
Katsuki was too exhausted to protest, but he had no intention of going to any damn therapy. He had more questions, but his exhaustion was taking prevalence. He’d run out of motivation to continue the conversation.
He just wanted to get home.
He nodded.
─────
When Katsuki made it to his car and shut the door, he was shocked by the sudden assault of emotion that immediately overwhelmed him. From somewhere deep in the fog, a feeling of something like hopelessness shoved up his throat and he was crying before he knew what the fuck was happening.
“Memory loss prior to surgery isn’t a symptom of Hanahaki disease.”
Katsuki gasped for air and cried and choked on the force of his own sobs. He ducked forward and leaned his forehead onto the steering wheel, clutching at it with trembling fingers.
“You wanted answers for how to slow the Hanahaki growth. This will do it better than most other things at this point.”
What the actual fuck did that mean?!
Katsuki hadn’t the slightest idea of what any of this bullshit meant. A sense of doom that he’d been separated from for a while settled quickly back onto him.
Why couldn’t she have just told him it was part of Hanahaki disease? Why did she have to indicate this was something he could fix?
For the life of him, he couldn’t figure out how the hell that would be possible.
For one thing—again—he was fucking dying. Of course he felt like shit.
For another…
Well, Katsuki wasn’t an idiot. He knew what mental health was. It was taking time for yourself and getting sad during the winter and processing your damn emotions and shit. He’d had to get therapy a bit after the war when he kept panicking about his damn heart giving out.
The issue was that it was all so fucking vague.
Physical health was doctors and medicines and clear recovery plans and solutions. It was diagrams that pointed out the source of your pain clearly on a scan with little yellow arrows. It was something Katsuki could see. Something other people could see too.
Objective. Undeniable. Obvious.
But mental health?
His brain was stuffed full of fog. It had long cracked down the center and healed wrong. It was a place of confusion and misery and nightmares. There was nothing clearcut about it. No diagrams or scans that showed something objective for everyone to see.
Dr. Ito just basically told him: Hey, there is something wrong, but I can’t tell you what. You’ve gotta figure it out yourself! No one else can find it for you. You’ve just gotta wish it away somehow!
If this all was a fight that Katsuki was supposedly trying to give up, then…
This mental health bullshit that was supposedly fucking up his head to such a horrific degree? It was a fight against an enemy that he couldn’t see. Not only could he not see the enemy, but it had long infiltrated his own territory.
Whatever was stuffing his brain with fog and stealing his memories wouldn’t show up on a CT scan. He couldn’t see it. No one else could either.
In order to win a fight such as this, he had to identify the enemy that was currently blending in with everything else in the fog. His ability to win relied on his ability to identify some vague mental shit and… what exactly? Fix it somehow?
How the hell was he supposed to fight an unseeable enemy?
Fuck.
Therapy?
Katsuki had gone before, but even panic attacks made more sense than this. It was more clear cut. Have a panic attack, distract yourself and use breathing techniques. Shit like that.
He also was well aware that this shit was supposed to work for people. Therapy was where you went and talked to someone about your fucking feelings for an hour and then somehow it magically cured people over time.
That thought didn’t comfort Katsuki in the slightest.
Because there was no diagram or scan or obvious solution. There was just fucking therapy?
It all relied entirely on Katsuki’s own ability to recognize his emotions and thoughts and put them to words. It sounded like massive amounts of effort that he didn’t have the energy for. It sounded like forcing himself to focus on painful things and to pick apart old memories and mistakes and wounds.
No diagrams. No clear answers. Just Katsuki’s ability to pin down and articulate his own feelings. Just Katsuki’s ability to sort through the fog to find anything at all.
All that effort… and what would it even amount to in the end?
Katsuki was dying. It fucking sucked. How was talking to some stranger for an hour a week supposed to do jack shit? He was still dying. All the other shitty stuff in his life was still shitty.
He was exhausted, and it’s not like it was a damn mystery as to why he was having a shitty time. He knew why, he didn’t need to talk to some extra about it with his limited time and energy.
It was all in his head, that’s what she’d told him, point blank. His misery was all in his own fucking head.
He couldn’t believe it.
How the fuck did this have nothing to do with the Hanahaki disease?
It made no fucking sense.
Katsuki sat there and cried uncontrollably in his car, because he’d wanted answers about why he felt so sluggish and broken and forgetful, but he’d only been promptly turned back to face the fog. Standing alone, confused and tired and struggling to breathe or think or live, he’d been told to fight an unseeable enemy with the last of his energy until he died.
Maybe, if he was lucky, he could hold off the indiscernible enemy for a bit longer before the terminal disease ultimately won the war and killed him.
He cried and his chest compressed and his heart ached, because he wished she hadn’t acted like it was a fight he could so easily win.
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part 2
bleeding from invisible wounds
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“Kacchan, don’t sit too close,” said Izuku as he fluttered around Katsuki nervously. “The smoke could irritate your lungs.”
Katsuki narrowed his eyes up at him from where he sat in one of the chairs placed around the fire, beer in hand. “Shut up!”
“Should you be drinking?” asked Izuku, eyes darting rapidly back and forth from Katsuki’s face to his beer.
“If you don’t stop babying me, I’m going to throw it at you,” Katsuki gritted out testily. “Sit the fuck down!”
Izuku frowned down at him but relented and sat next to him stiffly in his own chair.
Today’s class reunion was an incomplete affair. It was at Todoroki’s fancy-ass mansion. There was a huge firepit in his yard that they were sitting around. A majority of the class had made it, but not everyone. Katsuki couldn’t help but wonder if any of them were avoiding him and his damn disease; he wouldn’t blame them.
He didn’t understand why they were sitting outside in this fucking freezing weather, though he didn’t say anything about it. He was wearing many layers of clothes anyways. His weight loss was obvious either way, but at least like this it wasn’t clear just how bad it was.
Plus, these days things such as extreme cold of the night air and the extreme heat of the fire were welcome feelings. Definable. Objective. Less ambiguous and confusing than the suffering within the numb haze of his mind.
Katsuki’s mask was currently pulled under his chin so he could drink. He wore it partially to make others feel better and partially because he was still fucking immunocompromised. Now that winter was here and people were getting sicker and he was getting weaker, it was more of a risk to go to events like this.
Luckily, he didn’t plan on attending many more. He was only at this one because he was tricked by goddamn Jirou. She told him she’d pick him up so he could come over to play the drums, but then afterwards sheepishly admitted that a lot of his classmates wanted to see him.
So, now he was mad at her too. He’d avoided looking at both her and Kirishima practically since arriving.
More than anything, Katsuki wished she hadn’t bothered. He’d felt the air shift the moment he’d walked through the doors, and it hadn’t recovered since. A strange energy hung in the air that was far from comfortable; it was an uneasy vacuum where the lack of normal cheeriness was obvious. Everyone still seemed determined to laugh and smile, but it was weak and clearly forced.
Maybe they’d said they wanted to see him, but he knew they didn’t actually want that. What they really wanted was for him to not be dying so they didn’t have to worry about him.
They wanted things to be fixed.
“If you guys don’t stop acting like I’m already dead, I’ll use the last of my energy to kick all your asses!” Katsuki barked the third time conversation failed into anxious, tense silence, and he caught his classmates glancing over at him.
“Bakugou, it’s just that…” Kaminari sat forward on his chair. He was also facing the fire, off to Katsuki’s left. “Well, what’s going on with you?”
Katsuki tensed, moving his glare from the fire to meet Kaminari’s concerned gaze.
“Are you really… not getting surgery?” Kaminari’s voice was strained and pitched weird from obvious anxiety and distress.
Katsuki sighed, taking a long sip of his beer. Technically, he wasn’t supposed to drink on the meds they gave him, but he was dying. He wanted a damn beer. Not that that was any of Izuku’s fucking business anyways.
“I’m not having this conversation today,” Katsuki muttered, mildly surprised to hear the exhaustion so apparent in his own voice.
The silence that followed was unbearable. Katsuki stared at the fire and pretended he didn’t notice even though it practically pressed in on him, an oppressive weight on every inch of his body.
He pretended he didn’t notice how they all seemed stuck in limbo. They all grasped for positives from the situation. For cheeriness and hopefulness. They sought solutions and fixes and a way to patch things up.
Still clinging to the idea of optimism.
“But you’ll die,” Kaminari whispered into the air, and it was the loudest thing anyone had said all evening.
Or soon… we’ll have to sow…
Katsuki stared at the fire. The ache in his chest had long grown familiar and faded under a cloud of numbness. The crushing pain of grief barely stood out under the haze of it all.
Soon…
He couldn’t breathe, but he couldn’t ever breathe these days.
It’s for the best, was his first, reflexive thought. There’s no fixing this shit.
The lingering, vague concept of therapy still hung threateningly in his mind. After several days, he’d finally worked up the motivation and called the number. They’d given him an appointment for next week, and he was dreading it.
He wasn’t under any real impression that it could fix everything that’d been fucked up in his head. If this shit going on with him—the memory loss, the inability to focus, the fogginess in his head—was all really entirely mental shit, then he didn’t know how the hell he could possibly get rid of it. With each passing day, the idea of those unseeable enemies hiding in the fog grew no less daunting.
How was he supposed to fight? How? There was nothing clear about any of this. There were years and years of fucked up shit in his head that he didn’t know how to sift through… let alone want to sift through.
He really had just made the appointment to show that he wasn’t giving up without trying everything. He’d try the stupid fucking therapy, even if he despised the very idea of it at the moment. Because although he felt a certainty in his heart that everything in his mind and heart and life was fucked up beyond repair, goddammit it wasn’t as simple as giving up.
He often fluctuated between resenting the idea that he was giving up and not giving a fuck whether he was or not, but in the end he just made the damn appointment.
It wasn’t like he was against the idea of somehow fixing this shit, it was just that… he didn’t know how. He couldn’t see the path forward… or even really where he was standing right now.
“We’d all help you recover,” Mina’s voice cut through his thoughts. “Whatever you forget, we’ll tell you anything and get you back up to speed.”
She sounded upset, though very earnest. He couldn’t bear to look at her and just stared into the fire with a slightly unfocused gaze.
A few people agreed with her, adding onto what she’d said.
He barely registered any of it. Instead, he just took another sip of his beer. One of the charred logs grew unstable and partially collapsed, and the fire shifted around for a moment before everything settled again.
Even with how out of it he felt, he still felt heat on the back of his neck from this particular brand of scrutiny. The looks his friends directed at him often still felt like nauseating pity more than anything else.
He felt exposed in a way that he despised. He was certain they could all tell how much weight he’d lost despite all his layers of clothing. Surely, they could see right through him—all the way to the flowers that were taking over his lungs more and more with each passing moment.
There was a stifling silence.
Katsuki could feel the eyes of his friends on him. He knew they were waiting for a response, but he stayed quiet.
More than anything, he didn’t speak because he wasn’t even sure what to say. His thoughts—of giving up and doomed battles and not knowing the way forward—sat in a much darker place than he knew any of them would be willing to go. The dichotomy between his internal world and the world around him left him feeling strange and… exhausted, as always.
They wouldn’t want to hear his negative thoughts. They wouldn’t know what to say to them. He was certain he also wouldn’t like their peppy reactions to those thoughts, and he wasn’t willing to play the excessively hopeful pretend things are okay game either.
So Katsuki just stayed silent and stoic and let the conversation recover and move on without his contribution.
Even so, the contrast between the attitudes of his peers and his own made the hollow ache in his chest flare painfully. It was that isolating feeling that he hadn’t been able to rid himself of since the beginning of this whole mess; that feeling of distance and loneliness that provided so much room for the flowers to grow.
Learning about all this shit that was apparently not caused by Hanahaki disease only served to emphasize that distance.
His friends wanted to be there for him. They wanted to fight beside him, as they had so many times before. The issue was that they thought the fight was Hanahaki disease alone. They thought it was so simple as getting rid of the flowers or not.
They didn’t know that the real trouble was a whole different fight that was happening—one that Katsuki was doomed to fight alone. It existed in his head, apparently completely separate from the flowers and roots and stems growing under his skin and with no wounds or blood or visible abnormalities to show for it.
A feeling of shame was emerging out of the fog within Katsuki’s mind. An exhausting, disgusting, writhing feeling of not being good enough. That feeling was as familiar as all this other shit and just as unwanted.
As his eyes trailed lazily around to look at his peers… watch as they tried to smile through the tense atmosphere… Katsuki felt that old feeling of inferiority rising up within him.
They’d all been in that war. They were all changed by it in some way.
Yet it really seemed that only Katsuki had broken.
He was weak.
He was the only one who couldn’t handle it.
Because he hurt. He hurt so bad in a way that apparently was entirely in his head.
He was bleeding from a wound he couldn’t see or find. It hurt, but there was no evidence. No scan or diagram or doctor to confirm it. No blood staining his skin. No clear connection to be drawn between what was hurting him and the fog in his mind that suffocated him.
They’d all been in that war…
Was he really the only one who still hurt? The only one bleeding from old, invisible wounds? Was he the only one who didn’t know how to stop the bleeding? The only one who didn’t even know how to find the wounds or the enemy?
Did they all just hide it so well? Or had they patched up their mental wounds with some method that he hadn’t yet learned?
Katsuki sighed, draining the last of his beer and setting it down on the ground next to his chair. He breathed in and out slowly and evenly, the now-familiar ache in his chest flaring.
It was strange to think there’d really been a time in his life when he hadn’t been in pain. He was always in pain now; it never went away, only got better or worse.
It was killing him. He was certain of it. Though it wouldn’t show up on a scan or leave a wound behind, he was certain that this mental battle was killing him just as much as Hanahaki disease was. It drained him of life and feeling and thought and motivation.
Unlike with Hanahaki disease, it was far less clear how long it’d been killing him. How long had the enemy been infiltrating his camp? How long had he been bleeding from open wounds?
Katsuki thought back to Izuku’s casual rejection of his offer to work together. He thought back to those eight years of constant working as he focused on nothing but his goal of funding the armored suit for Izuku. He thought back to graduation, to those last years at UA, to finding out Izuku was going to be Quirkless again, to the Coffin in the Sky, to shoving Izuku out of the way and getting stabbed…
Had he just been slowly bleeding out for years?
How could he possibly fix anything? His life, his mind, any of it. He had so little energy and was in so much pain. He didn’t want to stumble through the fog forever—detached, numb, unfocused, exhausted. The path was so unclear and so daunting.
Weak.
All around Katsuki, his friends chattered and talked about life and shot concerned glances his way. How many of them bled from mental wounds? Most likely, they all did in some capacity.
It was just Katsuki who was about to bleed out.
Despite everything, it was so hard to comprehend the idea that they were all doing so much better than him. Even though Katsuki arguably got some of the worst of it by literally dying and needing to be revived… they’d all been fucked up back then. Didn’t they understand? Didn’t any of them understand?
There was a type of youth they all missed out on the moment they signed up for that war. A war that took so much from Katsuki, but that had to have taken from the others as well. Even if it didn’t take the same things, he knew it had to have taken something from each one of them.
Was it really true that he was just the weakest out of them all? Was it really true that only he broke something back then and couldn’t handle everything? That he was so unworthy of standing among them and calling himself a hero?
His heart thudded painfully as he recalled his last hero shift.
Yeah…
He was weak, remember? He knew this.
He was so tired.
Katsuki was pulled sluggishly from his spiraling thoughts when something appeared in his vision, hovering right in front of him.
“Here, Kacchan.”
“Tch,” he made a weak, half-hearted noise of annoyance and snatched the can out of Izuku’s hand that he was dangling way too close to his face. He glanced at it, then followed Izuku as he went to sit down with narrowed eyes. “What the hell is this?”
“Sparkling water,” Izuku answered neutrally as if Katsuki had genuinely been asking what it was. “I noticed you were done with your drink, so I grabbed you one while I was up.”
Katsuki glowered at him furiously, irritation spiking in his numb, aching chest. “I don’t want this. I want a goddamn beer.”
“I don’t think you’re supposed to be drinking,” Izuku lowered his voice, leaning closer. His expression morphed into one of obvious concern.
Katsuki’s frustration only built up more and more. He wanted to smack the look right off the nerd’s face. “How the fuck is that any of your business?”
“Hmm, so you’re not supposed to be drinking,” Izuku’s eyes were trained carefully on his face, and he nodded once as if he found what he was looking for there.
“Motherfucker—” Katsuki’s annoyance surged inside him, and he practically spat out his words. “Fuck you! I’m dying, and I’m gonna drink a damn beer if I want to!”
“You can get it yourself then,” Izuku frowned at him, visibly upset and disapproving.
“Maybe I fucking will.”
Izuku’s expression wavered. “I… I really don’t think you should.”
Katsuki’s eye twitched as he seethed and continued to direct one of his ugliest scowls at Izuku. It was really just a matter of weighing his options. In order to get the beer himself, he’d have to exert all that effort to get up plus the effort of trying to hide how much of a struggle it was to do it. It would only really be for the sake of his pride. So since that part of him felt far more dead than alive these days, it was unsurprising that his exhaustion won out. He didn’t move to get up.
“It’s a can of fucking beer, Izuku!” Katsuki hissed as frustration at his own helplessness heated the back of his neck and made his eyes burn. “It’s almost nothing. Can you calm the fuck down?”
“Kacchan, this is serious!” Izuku scolded lowly, eyes pleading.
“As if I don’t know that!” Katsuki gritted out the words forcefully, trying to keep them low even as his fury overwhelmed him. “I’m the one who’s got shit currently burrowing through my fucking lungs! Shut up!”
Katsuki gnashed his teeth together angrily, turning away from him and sitting back in his seat to stare daggers at the fire. In his peripheral, he felt Izuku looking at him, but he only crossed his arms and glared stubbornly forward.
For a moment, he could only sit in his irritation. It was far too intense and overwhelming for such an insignificant situation, but that was just how unpredictable his damn emotions were these days. The annoyance appeared out of the fog and took up all the available space. He felt on the verge of exploding from such a minimal argument.
When another can appeared in Katsuki’s vision, he very nearly slapped it out of Izuku’s hand impulsively. In fact, he would’ve, except that Izuku moved the can when he tried to do so, lifting it so that he missed and his hand swung through open air.
Katsuki’s rage immediately consumed him. He turned his snarling expression up towards Izuku, ready to attack.
“Kacchan,” said Izuku quietly as he tapped the side of the can with his other hand to emphasize its presence.
Katsuki’s eyes dropped down to look at it.
It was a can of beer.
He narrowed his eyes even as his cheeks heated and glanced back up at Izuku.
“Just one more, okay?” said Izuku lowly. His voice was shaky, uncertain, and obviously disapproving, but he still held it out to him. The next word was whispered while looking down at the can rather than Katsuki, “Please.”
Katsuki felt his neck and face flood with heat for reasons he couldn’t get his head together enough to understand.
“Tch, whatever,” he grumbled, snatching the beer from his hand and cracking it open. He took a long drink of it as Izuku crossed over to again sit down next to him.
Katsuki’s face burned and his eyes did too again—though not from embarrassment this time—as the urge to cry rose up. Goddamn, his emotions were all outta whack. He clenched his jaw and forced himself to breathe, before he glanced sideways at Izuku.
“Thanks,” he said lowly.
Izuku looked over at him in obvious surprise, and Katsuki wished that didn’t hurt like hell.
“You’re welcome,” Izuku replied, also quietly.
His green eyes zoned in on Katsuki with that curious, analytical gaze. Katsuki had to look away, because it was far too familiar a look. It was far too Izuku, and it got under his skin far too easily.
It was the look that Katsuki used to hate, and the one that later fooled him into thinking that he was special.
“Thinking everyone is special means that no one is truly special to you.”
He wasn’t special, for receiving Izuku’s attention. He’d just known him the longest.
But when Izuku looked at him like that, it was so damn easy to remember why he’d allowed himself to think he was special.
He didn’t have the energy for any of this right now.
Luckily, Izuku turned away to join in on the conversation a few of their classmates were having nearby. Katsuki was again left to his quiet, miserable solitude.
Though it had hardly been another minute when his eyes trailed back over to Izuku unwittingly, and the hollowness in his chest partially filled with intense longing.
It was a years-old instinct, to seek out Izuku in moments of vulnerability.
There was that feeling right in the center of his chest that tugged him forward towards Izuku. The instinct to seek Izuku out, the familiarity they had that was forged from time and proximity… Katsuki had always gained comfort that from the certainty that Izuku would know him best.
Izuku had also gone through so much shit during the war. Practically the entire weight of the world had rested on his shoulders. He’d broken his body time and time again. He’d arrived at the fight to find Katsuki dead. He’d lost control of his body and used it as a fucking puppet with Blackwhip when he couldn’t move it anymore. He’d briefly lost both his fucking arms. He’d failed to save Shigaraki, and he’d lost One For All.
There’d been times here and there when Katsuki had seen small peeks of the way Izuku was affected by things. Somewhere in there, Izuku was human. Somewhere in there, he felt.
But Izuku could handle it all somehow. He was okay. He was good at being okay.
Katsuki wanted to be strong in the way that Izuku was, but he just… wasn’t.
As Katsuki drowned, the old instinct to seek out Izuku yet again clashed with the truth; Izuku didn’t need him the way he needed Izuku.
The deepest and most shameful parts of Katsuki quietly wished that the scales were more balanced. Why couldn’t he be the slightest bit stronger? Why couldn’t Izuku be the slightest bit weaker?
That secret, selfish part of him wanted Izuku to not be okay with him. He wanted Izuku to tell him things, but he knew that would never happen. He wanted to know if Izuku was upset about the things that’d happened to them. If there was any part of Izuku that was sad or angry that he’d lost One For All after breaking his body for it over and over again. If there was any part of Izuku that still thought about their childhood dream sometimes… about that day back at UA during springtime when they laughed and the cherry blossom petals fluttered down around them.
But it’d never mattered what Katsuki wanted and getting Izuku to talk about his damn feelings was like pulling teeth. Katsuki was certain at this point that Izuku didn’t even let himself think about his feelings.
After all, if their classmates were all avoiders, then Izuku was the master avoider. He set the standard for the rest of them with blind optimism and idealism. It was at the center of who he was.
What Katsuki wanted was impossible.
He wanted to be human with Izuku. Not heroes. Not rivals. Not childhood friends.
Just… human. Two people that’d grown up side by side and gone through so much unfair shit and that had delt with so much that had just sucked.
But the painful truth was that Izuku was strong and didn’t need him. They weren’t going to stay side by side forever. Izuku didn’t need him to watch his back or fill in any space in his life left by broken cracks.
Katsuki thought of Izuku’s sharp, attentive gaze.
Did he see through Katsuki too? Did he see the flowers in his lungs and how the rest of himself was rotting away? If Izuku knew him better than anyone else, surely he noticed every detail of just how disappointing Katsuki had become.
Katsuki gazed at Izuku for a moment as he talked across the fire to someone. His eyes were as expressive as always, and he was talking animatedly about something.
Izuku had to have noticed how Katsuki had changed. How he’d become a shell of his former self, exhausted, uncaring if he gave up. He had to feel some type of way about how Kacchan who’s so amazing was just this miserable, unrecognizable piece of shit now.
He had to… but he didn’t show it.
Izuku looked at him exactly the same way as he always had. A more intense, sharper pain grew in the center of Katsuki’s chest from the realization. While everything else in his life had changed, not only had Izuku not changed, but the way Izuku looked at him hadn’t changed either. He didn’t know what to do with that information.
Katsuki stared at what he could see of Izuku’s eyes from where he sat by his side. In the flickering light of the fire, he looked so damn good.
Though…
With a small jolt of his heart, Katsuki comprehended the slump of Izuku’s shoulders, the tension in his body, the shadows under his eyes, how he was constantly moving as if bursting with restless energy.
Had Izuku not been sleeping well? Small peeks of the way he was affected by things—his humanity and his feelings—were slipping through.
Was Izuku bleeding from invisible wounds? Katsuki’s eyes trailed down to his scarred fingers. Izuku broke and scarred himself on purpose, but…
Saying he was fine no matter what. Following after Katsuki without any care at all if it got him beat up. Breaking his bones so carelessly. Losing One For All but only ever smiling and talking about how blessed he was if anyone asked. Brushing off any questions that pried into his hardships.
Katsuki was certain that Izuku had always been that way. He would probably be like that until the day he died.
Katsuki used to have this quiet fear that the genuine, selfless part of Izuku’s spirit that made up the core of who he was would collapse under its own weight someday. That Izuku’s inability to take himself into consideration in the slightest would eventually bring everything crashing down.
But so many years later… Katsuki didn’t know if it was possible.
What horror was great enough to break the great Midoriya Izuku?
What was worse than all that he’d already endured?
Katsuki’s eyes trailed back up to Izuku’s face. For a long moment, he found himself mesmerized. He’d known Izuku his entire life, and he still didn’t understand a damn thing about him. He’d loved Izuku for years, and he still found him to be an enigma that he could never hope to decipher.
Katsuki was startled out of his daze by a loud shattering noise.
Everyone sitting around the fire turned to look. In Katsuki’s case, all he had to do was look slightly upwards from where he was looking at Izuku, as the noise had come from that direction. He glanced upward and his heart practically stopped right in his chest.
Uraraka was staring directly at him with eyes blown so wide that they practically took up half her face. Katsuki’s own eyes immediately mirrored hers as he felt caught.
“Uraraka!” someone cried, rushing forward.
“Are you okay?” someone else asked her.
Izuku had also stood and was speaking to her, asking questions.
Distantly, Katsuki registered that she must’ve dropped something and caused the shattering noise. But neither he nor her moved as they just stared at each other.
Katsuki felt the heat flooding up his neck and onto his face. She’d caught him staring at Izuku. He had no fucking clue what his face had looked like a moment ago, but somehow… she’d figured it out. The look of horror on her face was clear enough.
Her mouth dropped open, and Katsuki jerked his head away and broke eye contact, clenching his teeth as his heart beat erratically and panic surged through his exhausted body. He was weak and tired, so it just left him feeling jittery and vulnerable.
“What’s… going on?” someone asked.
Everyone had clearly noticed the staring. Katsuki could feel the tension in the air. He felt the eyes on him.
Uraraka finally moved, ignoring whatever she’d dropped to march around and stand directly in front of Katsuki.
Katsuki’s heart raced so fast he felt like he was going to vomit. He pressed back harder against the back of his chair in a subconscious effort to get away. Slowly, breathing hard enough that his wheezing was audible in the dead silence, he lifted his eyes to look at her. He wished he could hide his reaction, but his sudden terror and mortification were so intense he was sure it showed plainly on his face.
“The hell’re you doing?” he bit out weakly.
Uraraka’s brow was furrowed. She stood over him with her hands on her hips, searching his face carefully with something like growing horror on her overly expressive face.
Katsuki glanced away. His cheeks burned so bad that they might’ve been on fire for all he fucking knew. His foggy mind scrambled for a way out of this, but he couldn’t think. Panic increasingly raced in his veins, only growing worse and worse with each second.
Was she gonna tell everyone?
Right here and now?
He was horribly hyperaware of Izuku, still standing right off to the side where Uraraka had been a moment ago, surely watching the entire interaction with the same shock and confusion as everyone else.
Katsuki looked back at Uraraka, and her face had grown more frustrated and uncertain. It was more ambivalent in general, making it hard to tell exactly what she was feeling.
“Bakugou,” she began.
“Don’t,” the word burst out of his mouth before he could help it as terror shot through him. “Please.”
The tension all around them was suffocating. Katsuki felt lightheaded with panic. His face burned and the wheezing of his breathing sounded so fucking loud.
Was it loud enough for everyone to hear or was it only him who could hear it?
Uraraka looked startled by his pleading, though her eyes remained focused on his. Again, they just stared at each other for a long moment. Her wide brown eyes were always so damn perceptive in a way Katsuki fucking hated. They were wide and expressive and watchful; she was like Izuku in that way.
“Is everything… okay?” Izuku’s tentative, baffled voice cut through the silence.
In unison, they both turned to look at him. When they did, Katsuki made eye contact because Izuku was staring at him, though once they had Izuku’s eyes flitted back and forth between him and Uraraka.
Katsuki and Uraraka looked back at each other. Katsuki’s eyes widened as she opened her mouth again.
“Can I talk to you?”
It was a question, but her tone indicated it was more of an order. Anxiety twisted in Katsuki’s gut.
“No,” he said curtly.
“It’s important,” she said, pointedly. “Please.”
That’s what I’m afraid of. Katsuki thought.
“Then talk,” he bit out.
Rather than glancing away, her eyes narrowed. She said with even more emphasis on her words, “It’s private.”
Katsuki grinded his teeth together as he was overwhelmed more and more by desperation and dread.
How the hell did he get out of this?
What excuse could he find that would get him out of here?
“Why?” he asked lowly, though he didn’t really want an answer.
“I think you know. So unless you’d rather discuss here… can we speak in private?”
Katsuki finally looked back at her, and her eyes softened when they made eye contact. He hated it, because he knew she was reacting to the fear and uncertainty that was likely so obvious on his face.
He mentally cursed Jirou again for making him come here today.
“Fine.”
Katsuki put his beer down and moved to stand, putting the majority of his available energy into hiding his struggle to do so. The effort to get up left him slightly lightheaded and out of breath. He pulled up his mask as he straightened up, and despite his best efforts he wavered slightly where he stood.
“Kacchan, careful!” Izuku stepped closer, anxiety spiking in his voice and hands reaching out reactively.
“Shut up, I’m fine,” Katsuki hissed at him furiously, taking a step away from him without even looking at him. “God—just shut up!”
He abruptly felt so overwhelmed and mortified that he yet again felt the threat of tears. The attention, the pity, Izuku’s babying, his own weakness and helplessness…
His face burned, oh god it burned. He couldn’t look at anyone, and he wanted to sink into the floor. He was so overwhelmed that the threat of tears almost felt beyond suppression, so he started forward towards where Uraraka had started to lead the way.
He followed her out into Todoroki’s yard without looking at anyone else. The damn rich bastard had a lit-up walkway that went through his gardens.
Uraraka didn’t go far. She stopped when they were undeniably out of earshot, but still obviously within view of the bonfire. There was a massive koi pond with a bench next to it. She stopped and sat on one end of it, slightly turned to face him.
Katsuki clenched his teeth and tried to catch his breath as he sat.
Uraraka was kind and paid attention, so for a long, long moment she didn’t say anything and just let him catch his breath without so much as looking at him. As if to offer him some privacy to gather himself. For some reason, with her, it didn’t feel condescending. If Katsuki had the spare energy, he might’ve appreciated her kindness more for what it was.
When his breathing slowed, he finally said flatly as he looked down at the pond rather than her, “What do you want?”
But Uraraka didn’t say anything for long enough that he was forced to look over at her. She stared out at the pond, face set in a deep, pensive frown.
She glanced over to meet his eyes. “I still dream about Toga Himiko sometimes.”
Katsuki stared at her, perplexed. Admittedly, that wasn’t the first thing he would’ve guessed she was going to say.
“I have a lot of regrets,” she went on quietly. “There’s a lot of things I wish could’ve gone differently back then.”
Katsuki said nothing. Maybe years ago he would’ve lost his patience, but now he knew better. He knew that Uraraka had a point to make, he just didn’t know what it was yet. The anxiety sat heavy in his gut.
“I was the one in charge of stopping her and… well, she died. It’s hard not to have regrets. She was our age, and she died.”
Katsuki’s gut stirred with something mutedly painful as he listened. He recognized the depth of grief in her voice. Not because her tone was overly sad, but just that it was heavy. Something about it carried weight. He could feel Uraraka’s sadness and regret practically radiating off her, and it clung to every word even as her face remained mostly smoothed over and solemn.
Uraraka took a deep breath, turning to fully face him. Feeling oddly trapped, Katsuki faced her too. He was significantly taller than her, and yet he felt pinned under her gaze. She’d managed to read him a lot better than so many others had over the years, and he’d always hated it. She had a very deep and genuine care for other people, and an uncanny ability to see people for who they were.
Like Izuku, she was good at seeing past people’s outward flaws and actions to the person underneath.
But she wasn’t Izuku, which meant that she wasn’t blinded by their history. Unfortunately for Katsuki, this meant she periodically saw him for exactly who he was. In school, there were a few times when she’d fully—and accurately—called him out on his bullshit.
Katsuki stared down at her as if waiting for his sentence. As if she were judge, jury, and executioner, because at the moment it felt like she held such power in her hands.
Uraraka only gazed back at him with wide, sad, kind eyes.
It felt like it wasn’t just that she saw through him—through his bullshit and anger and right through his chest to where flowers grew—but that she was staring right into his fucking soul.
Katsuki grimaced slightly and glanced down for a moment before he gathered his pathetic wits and looked back at her.
“In my dreams, often she’s speaking to me,” said Uraraka wistfully. “I usually can’t remember what she said by the time I wake up. As much as I wish I did… usually I can’t.”
Katsuki stared at her stoically. His limited patience was bringing up the urge to snap at her if only because feeling so exposed was nearly painful, but he pushed it down.
“A few months ago, she kept showing up in my dreams over and over,” Uraraka continued, “and one of the days, I remembered what she said. She said, ‘I’ve lived exactly the way I wanted to. And since I loved you so much, Ochako, my wish is for you to live exactly like you want to.’”
Uraraka looked at him, and he looked back, and then she let out a sad-sounding laugh.
“The problem is,” she said, her voice sounding more and more thick as her eyes watered, “I don’t know what I want.”
Katsuki’s brows furrowed, open confusion taking over his face. He wasn’t following at all. Mainly, he wasn’t following why he was who she was talking to about this.
“Things aren’t as clear as they used to be,” she said, wiping at her eyes. “I know I want to help people, but… well, nothing really fills that void of old regrets and mistakes. There’s a part of me that… still holds on to everything that happened back then.”
Katsuki’s eyes widened, and he went very still.
He knew something about that. He knew a whole damn lot about regrets and mistakes and invisible wounds that didn’t seem to want to heal. He wasn’t entirely surprised to hear that she was one of his classmates that still felt stuck in the past. Unfortunately, he couldn’t find any comfort in it at the moment, if only because he was too hung up on the real reason he knew she’d asked to speak to him.
“Why’re you telling me this?” he asked, lowly and somberly but doing his best to keep his voice soft.
Uraraka laughed again, sounding sad. “Himiko always knew exactly what she wanted. Or even if it changed, she easily jumped from one thing to another. She easily adapted to everything and went after it. She just wanted to live the way she wanted. She wanted to feel okay being herself. That was all. But I…”
Uraraka shook her head, wiping at her eyes again. “I guess I’m not like that. I’m not sure exactly what I want. I don’t know what would make me happy or what would…” She put her hand up to her mouth for a moment, staring at the ground before drawing in an audible, shaky breath and continuing. “I don’t know how to make it all go away completely.”
Katsuki understood her. He did. The issue was that he didn’t have a damn helpful thing to say to her. He didn’t know any of the answers, and he was currently drowning under the weight of his own life. Not to mention, he highly doubted she was saying any of this because she sought his advice or comfort.
He was also still very distracted by the green-haired elephant in the fucking room.
“I’m telling you this because…” Uraraka breathed out a long, slow breath and then looked up at him with her teary eyes. “I think I was excited by the idea of remembering what Himiko said. I think in my desperation to move on and know what I want and how I want to live my life… I… I interfered with yours.”
Katsuki stared as his face contorted with confusion, heart thumping erratically in his chest. “Hah?”
“Am I wrong?” asked Uraraka evenly.
Katsuki felt heat start to creep up his neck as his worst fears started to become more and more realized. He felt hyperaware of their classmates nearby, sure that they were watching but refusing to so much as glance their way. “Let’s not—”
“Bakugou, am I wrong?” she demanded more forcefully. She looked up at him, eyes blazing with authority and increasing certainty. “I don’t think that I am. Tonight wasn’t the first time I’ve seen you look at him like that. In fact, I’ve suspected it was him since the moment you told everyone. But tonight it became so undeniably obvious to me that there wasn’t any other possible option.”
Katsuki’s mortification rose back to the surface so easily, again overwhelming him completely. The fact that she didn’t even say his damn name and yet it was obvious because there really wasn’t any other possible option.
“It ain’t your fuckin’ job to—I don’t—” he felt so out of his depth and thrown off by what was happening that he could only grow defensive.
“Bakugou, listen to me, please.”
Katsuki stared at her, eyes wide and breathing hard again simply from the stress and embarrassment of the interaction.
“He doesn’t know,” she said, seriously.
Katsuki’s mouth was sealed shut. He didn’t want to ask more. He didn’t.
“He has no idea,” she went on. “He’s been a bit obsessive about trying to figure it out.”
“What?” Katsuki reeled back slightly, heart slamming aggressively against his ribcage.
“Have you been to his apartment recently? He’s been researching the disease like a madman. He has entire theories on who it could be. He wrote out analysis for everyone in our class except for one person. Do you want to guess who?”
Katsuki gazed down at her, mouth stubbornly shut.
After a moment, Uraraka just sighed and said, “I asked him, ‘what about you?’ Why don’t you have any theories about yourself?”
“You did what?” Katsuki hissed, anxiety spiking dangerously and fueling his anger.
“I asked him, and at first he didn’t even understand what I was saying,” she shook her head in disbelief, staring off across the pond. “Then, he just laughed.”
Katsuki felt his expression contort into something of a grimace. The feeling inside him was hard to pinpoint—shock, offense, hurt. Mostly, he was confused. Why would he laugh?
Uraraka looked over and her eyes widened at the look on his face.
“It was like an awkward laugh,” she hurried to elaborate. “The kind he does when someone compliments him, and he doesn’t know what to say—you know the one. He went all red and shook his head a lot of times. He said, ‘I know it’s not me.’”
Katsuki couldn’t breathe. He didn’t move or blink and only his heart moved in his chest, slamming over and over again against his ribcage.
“I asked him how he knew,” she sighed. “He went on a rant about how first of all, he doesn’t know your sexuality, and he only included the men from our class for the sake of being thorough. And also because, as he says, ‘you never seemed all that interested in girls.’” She held up her hand to make finger quotes, her tone very wry and monotonous.
Katsuki put a hand to his face, mortified. He gritted out between clenched teeth, “That idiot.”
“He went on a rant about how he’s made all these theories for the sake of being thorough, but he knows it could never be him because you two have known each other for too long.”
“Hah?” the reaction burst out of Katsuki’s mouth before he could reel it in. “The hell does that mean?”
Uraraka looked at him pointedly, unamused, “You should ask him.”
“Tsk,” Katsuki clicked his tongue in annoyance, looking away.
“He just rambled on and on about how he knows you and how you feel about him,” she said. “How Hanahaki is a very serious thing, and how it was something that happened with someone you felt really connected to, who you couldn’t live without. It happened when you felt like you’d found your perfect person.”
Katsuki’s face contorted further into something of a scowl as she spoke.
“So… he doesn’t know,” she finished, looking up at him. Her eyes were so obviously sad that he couldn’t stand it.
Katsuki barely resisted the urge to look over in Izuku’s direction. A part of him wanted to scream, to march over to Izuku and sock him in the fucking face. A part of him wanted to demand from him right here and now what the hell any of the shit he’d said to Uraraka meant. If he really thought that Katsuki could live without him. If he even had a brain in that big head of his.
But he didn’t. Uraraka was still speaking.
“And…” she said, drawing in a deep breath. “I think you should talk to him.”
“I don’t need your goddamn pity,” Katsuki growled out immediately, feeling so humiliated his eyes burned with furious tears again.
“This isn’t pity,” she replied sharply. “This is me, owning my mistakes.”
“Mistakes?” he parroted, scoffing.
“Yes. I haven’t kept in touch well with him for years. I haven’t been interested in doing that for years. I like his friendship, and I… well, I’ve liked dating him, too.”
Katsuki’s stomach churned and he looked away as the jealousy stabbed him right through the gut. He was positive that it showed all over the fury on his face but there was jack shit he could do about it.
“But Bakugou… that’s not because I’m in love with him,” said Uraraka in a gentler tone. “I’ve liked dating him because he’s kind and caring and attentive.”
Katsuki stared at the ground grinding his teeth together slightly in his mouth as he tried to calm himself down.
“But I’m not in love with him,” she said again, earnestly. “Maybe I could be one day, but I’m not now. And I should’ve noticed—”
“Why’re we even having this conversation?” Katsuki bit out suddenly, chest spiking with a sharp pain as his jealousy, mortification, frustration, and a thousand other things cut right through him. “He still said yes to you and—”
“And he said no to you?” she retorted, almost affronted.
“Yes!”
Uraraka looked appalled. “What?!”
“Dammit,” Katsuki looked away, clenching his teeth as every fucking emotion in his chest tried to shove its way up his throat at the memory of that shitty fucking day all those months ago. “He—”
He cut himself off again when speaking about it was proving to be too much in this moment. He stared down at the ground, and the silence stretched.
“Bakugou, you’ve always been afraid of him,” said Uraraka quietly, “and how he makes you feel. And that’s okay but—”
“Shut the hell up,” Katsuki gritted out in a voice thick with emotion. He put a hand up to cover his eyes when he finally lost the battle against the tears that’d been trying to push their way up this whole time. “Just… please shut up.”
Uraraka did not, because she was more fearless than practically anyone else Katsuki knew and was not remotely afraid of him—even when he was in his prime. “So when I said did he say no to you, I meant did you tell him very clearly and obviously what you wanted? And he said no to that?”
Katsuki dropped his hand and faced her head-on even as tears escaped his eyes to trail down his burning cheeks. In a hoarse, infuriated voice, he demanded, “What’s happening right now, Uraraka? What the hell are you doing? Why’re you trying to set me up with your goddamn boyfriend? Fuck—what the hell?!”
“Izuku and I need to talk through things,” she countered solemnly. “Because he and I both did this without being aware of your feelings.”
“I told you I don’t want your—”
“Bakugou, it’s not pity!” she insisted, leaning closer and glaring intensely as her tone of voice grew even more insistent. “Listen to me! It’s not pity. It’s me saying that me living the way I want doesn’t involve this. If I want to catch up with old friends and date around and have more me-time, then I’ll damn well do that. But I’m not getting in between you two. Because I don’t want to, do you hear me? I care about both of you, and I think you two have things to figure out without me!”
Katsuki’s face was on fire and he was panting into his mask as he found it even harder to breathe than usual. They stared each other down for a long, tense moment.
“You leaving him isn’t going to make him love me,” Katsuki finally said. “It’s just going to make him sad and me feel like shit.”
“I don’t need to make him love you,” Uraraka stared at him, incredulous. “He already does!”
“Not in the way I want him to,” Katsuki said as his chest compressed at the ease of her words. He meant it to be an angry retort, but it came out weak and strained.
She looked at him, eyebrows furrowed.
“You… dammit… Uraraka, you doing this won’t change anything between us,” he said hoarsely. “It won’t make him… like guys or whatever. That’s not how this shit works.”
Uraraka cocked an eyebrow and scoffed lightly. “I know how sexuality works, Bakugou. And I think you should talk to him.”
Katsuki was frozen and staring at the ground.
“I’m doing this because I’m not going to give you two another damn excuse to do your usual BS!” she gestured wildly, indignant.
Katsuki raised his eyebrows. He deadpanned, “Our… ‘usual BS’?”
“Yes! You two, not ever talking to each other!”
Katsuki shook his head and glanced away from her and out at the pond, careful not to look once in the direction of their friends.
“Himiko wants me to live how I want,” she went on, earnestly. “I thought I wanted to get to know Izuku better again. That’s all it is, Bakugou. That’s why I’m stopping this. Izuku can be a dummy, we both know this. He can’t love you back if he doesn’t even know that it’s an option.”
Katsuki didn’t move. He breathed in and out, feeling the air rattling his lungs, whipping around and coming out with a wheezing noise. He coughed slightly and cleared his throat.
He felt strange. Like this news was hardly changing anything. It was just another person who didn’t understand Izuku and him when looking from the outside. Some of what she said buzzed around in his head, but it was so damn hard to think these days that he was struggling to process any of what was happening or comprehend what he’d been told in real time.
“Talk to him, Bakugou,” Uraraka insisted softly.
“I can’t.”
“Why not?”
“If I’m wrong… he’ll feel guilty for the rest of his life,” Katsuki’s voice was strained with emotion again as he said the line he’d used to protect himself over and over again. “He’ll never get over it.”
Uraraka’s brow was furrowed as she stared at him.
“I can’t do that to him,” Katsuki shook his head, looking down when looking into her eyes was too much.
“So… you’ll die rather than have a conversation with him?” asked Uraraka, unimpressed.
“A conversation that could ruin the rest of his life!”
“You think if you die that the rest of his life won’t be ruined?”
“He’ll be okay!” Katsuki argued back with what he’d been telling himself for months. “He’s—he’s the way he is! He’ll be okay!”
Uraraka let out an astonished scoff. “Have you lost your mind?”
“Hah?!”
“You think Midoriya Izuku would just be ‘okay’ if you died? Are we living on the same planet, Bakugou?!”
“He’ll… he’ll be fucked up, obviously,” Katsuki gritted out in a stilted tone as a sharp stab of pain drove right through his heart. “I just mean that he’ll be fine… eventually. He… he’s good at dealing with shit.”
Uraraka stared at him, aghast. Then, she looked very, very sad. “Bakugou, you’re making excuses.”
Katsuki glowered at her, but she just looked back at him sadly.
“I tried to save Himiko,” she said quietly. “I didn’t even know her nearly as well as you two know each other, and she still haunts my dreams all these years later. You two have known each other your entire lives. It would be much worse for you two. It’ll be much worse for him.”
Katsuki looked away when the heavy sadness returned to Uraraka’s voice, shame burning at his cheeks for a reason he didn’t want to think about. The pain in his heart only worsened, compressing under the weight of grief and regret and a thousand other things.
“I’ve thought about her death, over and over again since then,” she said.
Now she was crying again, and Katsuki felt like a piece of shit.
She went on, “I’ve tried to tell myself that even if she’d lived, she wouldn’t be happy. Or that I couldn’t know what would’ve happened. Just like you’re saying—you don’t know what would happen. You’re afraid of what could happen. You know the difference between that and now, Bakugou? Between you and Himiko?”
Katsuki said nothing, gaze still averted.
“You’re still alive.”
Katsuki grimaced as he felt goosebumps rise all across his skin under all his layers of clothing as a chill shot down his spine and across his skin. He stared at the pond rather than her, because he didn’t know how to look at her.
“You’re alive, so anything can happen. You can still make choices and talk to people and do what you want. Once you die, it’s over. It’s permanent. Everyone in your life will just be left with every what-if you left them with. And you won’t be around to do a damn thing.”
Katsuki gritted his teeth. The weight on his shoulders pressed down too much. He was so tired, and for the first time since they’d started talking, he began to feel very, very isolated again. The compressed pain in the center of his chest felt like it was making it even harder to breathe.
“You’re afraid of him,” she said, lowly and somberly as she repeated what she’d said a few minutes ago. “You always have been and you know it. I would’ve thought you’d learned how to be brave by now.”
“It’s not that simple,” Katsuki managed to speak finally, spitting out the words tersely.
“No, it’s not. It’s really not, but Izuku cares about you so much. He deserves to know.”
It’s not about deserving. Katsuki wanted to snap at her. He had so many things he wanted to argue back, but his exhaustion was weighing him down more and more by the second. He couldn’t breathe. He wanted to go home.
There wasn’t any point in arguing, and he was losing the motivation to continue this conversation.
“Don’t break up with him because of me,” he pleaded lowly, his stomach turning nauseatingly.
“It’s not that simple,” she countered, raising her eyebrows.
Katsuki made eye contact with her and sighed. “It’s not.”
“I think…” Uraraka sounded more hesitant now. “I think talking to him in general would be good, you know. I know you trust him, so why don’t you let him in?”
Katsuki went very still, staring vacantly at a point in the distance.
Another thing that wasn’t that damn simple. At all.
“You’ll talk to him?” Uraraka pressed, eyes wide, when the silence stretched for too long.
Katsuki looked over the pond and then finally over at the bonfire where their friends still sat. Izuku was looking in their direction, but who knew how well he could actually see them.
“I’ll think about it,” he grumbled, because he was tired and wanted to go home.
Uraraka frowned but eventually nodded.
When they returned to the fireside, Katsuki’s face felt hot even as his exhaustion began to consume every part of his being. He couldn’t look anyone in the eye—not Kirishima or Jirou. Not Uraraka or Kaminari or Mina.
Definitely not Izuku.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
part 3
in a battle so ill-defined
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
“H-hello?”
“Come pick me up from the hospital,” muttered Katsuki in his weakened and ragged voice.
“Kacchan?!” Izuku sounded far more awake now and very alarmed as his voice crackled through the phone. There was a loud thump from his end, presumably as he got out of bed somehow. “What?! Why—are you—”
“Thought I was dying, but I’m not dead yet so come get me.”
Katsuki heard muffled shuffling and banging noises through the phone.
“I-I’m coming!” Izuku huffed breathlessly, voice rising and falling in volume as the phone moved around. “Which hospital?! Kacchan, are you okay?! I’ll be there soon! I’m leaving right now!”
“Central Hospital.”
“Okay! I’ll be there in—”
Katsuki hung up, staring up at the ceiling.
He’d gotten a stern talking to from the doctor on staff here that’d left him more than a little pissed off. Who cares if the doctor had been correct, the guy had been a real asshole about it. Not only that, but he’d done it while Katsuki was too fucked up to properly argue back so he’d just had to sit there and fucking take it.
Katsuki’s gaze traced sightlessly over the ceiling tiles. His head still ached vaguely, so it was hard to think.
Though the oxygen mask they’d given him was doing wonders. He moved his hand to shift it back into place now that he’d finished his call. Secured back on his face, he drew in the high concentration of oxygen eagerly.
Why had he called Izuku?
Who knew.
Maybe because the doctor told him to call someone, and everyone else felt unbearable. Maybe because the doctor had laid into him for far too fucking long about being Stage 3 Hanahaki without a fucking caretaker. Maybe because the doctor had criticized his rapid weight loss, his clear lack of self-care, and his near critical levels of dehydration—which wasn’t even the reason he was in the hospital.
The reason he was here?
Hypoxia.
Critically low levels of oxygen in his blood.
He’d woken up in the early, early morning gasping for air with a splitting headache. He’d fumbled to turn on his bedside light only to discover that his fingers were visibly discolored; they looked like they were almost blue, especially under his fingernails. His heart was slamming far too fast against his ribcage, and in that moment, Katsuki had thought for certain that it was the end.
His only exhausted thought as he called emergency services and was transported to the hospital was that he wished the end didn’t feel so painful.
He couldn’t stop coughing, then he couldn’t stop vomiting, and he couldn’t breathe.
Oh god, he missed breathing clearly.
Katsuki blinked slowly as he breathed in through the mask supplying him oxygen. Even now, even as he breathed more clearly, each breath didn’t feel quite the same as it used to before all this. His breaths didn’t feel as deep, his chest catching before he’d finished inhaling all the way and forcing him to exhale again too soon.
Reduced lung capacity.
That’s what the asshole doctor had said as he’d laid into him for all this shit.
Katsuki wasn’t certain he’d ever felt so miserable in his life. He’d been tired for so long. Even lying on his back on a bed, his exhaustion tugged at every cell of his body in protest. It weighed him down, making each breath, each heartbeat, each thought feel like an effort.
Why had he called Izuku?
Maybe because he couldn’t stand to see the disappointment in the eyes of anyone else, and he selfishly knew that Izuku would only look relieved. His parents, his other friends… they knew the full extent of things, so Katsuki would feel their quiet protest and disapproval even if no one said anything.
He knew Izuku would humor him in his stupid pride workarounds. In the hospital, weak and tired and unfortunately still alive, Katsuki felt absolutely nothing like himself. Mostly, he felt exhausted. Even still, he knew Izuku would put every effort into offering him some shred of dignity, earned or not.
Maybe he called Izuku simply because it was instinct to seek him out in times of vulnerability. So… he followed his instinct. Even with all the pain that came with it, maybe Katsuki sought his familiarity and understanding and just… him.
Did he want to be around Izuku?
It wasn’t that simple. Rather, it felt like he needed Izuku for reasons his foggy mind couldn’t define. In the absence of thought and feeling and life and self, whatever was left of him still recognized Midoriya Izuku. And goddammit if that wasn’t the saddest thing. But he didn’t let himself think about it. He just followed that need and let himself have it, just this once.
The oxygen he was receiving through the mask was making it easier to breathe than it had been in weeks. He was realizing how hard it’d been to breathe all this time. How used to low oxygen levels that he’d grown.
How long had he been so unable to breathe?
Maybe Katsuki called Izuku because he was dying and suffocating and confused and didn’t recognize any parts of himself except the part that was in love with Izuku. To be around him hurt and healed in equal amounts. With each passing day, the ache of longing only hurt more.
Even if it hurt, the pain made Katsuki feel alive. All the rest of the pain sunk into a numb sea, but loving Izuku never stopped giving him new wounds.
Whatever the real reason was, Katsuki knew the answer as to why he called Izuku… was that he was selfish.
He was selfish, and that asshole doctor had acted like he was some sort of inconvenience for how much he’d fucked up. The doctor had told him to get a caretaker, or he would die of dehydration or hypoxia or starvation or a thousand other things far sooner than later.
Katsuki had never wanted to deck someone so much in his entire life, but seeing as he’d spent several hours with critically low oxygen, at the time he didn’t feel capable of so much as lifting a hand to do so.
There was a loud thump at the door.
It wasn’t a knock, but rather a duller sound like someone’s body had slammed into it. Even Katsuki’s eyes ached in his skull as he moved them to look towards the shut door.
The latch clicked a moment later, and then Izuku was scrambling into the room, panting as a voice shouted from in the hallway, “No running! This is a hospital!”
“Sorry!” Izuku squeaked out passively in a voice far too breathless and quiet for the owner of the shout to hear as he shoved into the room.
Wide, crazed green eyes whipped around to meet Katsuki’s and then he was dumping the backpack he had on onto the floor off to the side and darting over.
“Kacchan!”
His hair was a complete mess, sticking up all over the place as usual. His Red Riot hoodie was askew and his old UA sweatpants were on backwards. He was breathing hard and his voice was more a breathy, relieved gasp than anything else.
“What happened?!” Izuku walked towards him. “Are you—WAH!” He tripped over his untied shoelace and caught himself by grabbing the end of the bed before he slammed his face into it.
“Shit!” Katsuki gasped out in shock from the sudden movement of Izuku almost bashing his head open on his hospital bed. His exhausted heart jolted violently from seeing it, and then he was panting harder from just the small shock and from uttering one word.
“I’m good, sorry! Sorry!” Izuku said breathlessly, immediately righting himself and scrambling to stand next to his bed. “Are you okay?!”
“Caref-ful,” Katsuki tried to scold him, but his words caught in his throat and he started to cough, loud, wet, heavy.
After a moment he stopped, panting, stars dancing before his eyes. He blinked sluggishly, staring at the ceiling unseeingly.
“I’m sorry,” said Izuku quickly, his words rushed and jumbled. “I’m okay, I just tripped. I’m okay, I’ll be careful. Are you okay, Kacchan? What happened?”
Katsuki forced his exhausted head and eyes to roll over to look at Izuku. Izuku was standing over him, hands hovering uselessly halfway towards him. When Katsuki turned to look, Izuku quickly righted himself, standing up and pulling back quickly, eyes widening further.
“S-sorry,” he said immediately.
Katsuki hadn’t the slightest idea what he was apologizing for. He was too fucking exhausted to follow Izuku’s bullshit right now. Instead, he just stared at Izuku as the exhaustion pulled his body down into the bed with such force that he didn’t know how he would ever move to get up again.
There was a terror in Izuku’s eyes that was making his heart ache. It was a look he hadn’t seen in a while, but that he remembered so well from years and years ago.
Izuku’s brow was furrowed and there was a slightly vacant look in his wide eyes that indicated that he wasn’t entirely here in the present moment. That he was remembering something. Maybe many somethings, all trying to flood his brain at once and overwhelming him.
Katsuki’s heart ached numbly.
Looking at the frantic terror in Izuku’s eyes… thinking of what everyone in his life had told him… in moments like this, it was easy to remember why he’d become so convinced that his love was requited.
He wanted to ask. He wondered if Izuku loved him back, and he wanted to ask so, so much.
But how could he love me? He thought sadly.
Katsuki stared at him, and he wondered if the horror in Izuku’s eyes was due to how unrecognizable he’d become. He’d lost weight—so much of his hard-earned muscle mass had withered away in such a short amount of time. He was hardly the picture of the formidable hero that he’d been trying to be for so long.
Was Izuku disappointed like everyone else was, too? Or was he still somehow in denial that Katsuki was fading into nothingness?
“K-Kacchan,” Izuku stammered out, hands flailing and visibly tremoring as he straightened up and looked around.
Katsuki watched him in mild, tired confusion as he snatched a nearby tissue box and tore a couple out. He realized he was crying when Izuku came back to stand before him, pausing halfway towards reaching for his face.
“C-can I?” Izuku asked hesitantly. Almost immediately, he added, “Let me, please.”
Katsuki expended the energy to nod ever so slightly, blinking slowly.
Izuku’s expression morphed into one of determination as he nodded back, and he leaned forward. He was agonizingly gentle about patting away the tears on Katsuki’s face. He was careful of the mask, wiping around it but checking several times to make sure it was still in place. His own eyes were dangerously watery, but Katsuki could tell by the slightly twisted grimace he had on that he was forcing himself to not cry.
He was probably telling himself to prioritize Kacchan. To not cry because Kacchan needs him. Or some bullshit like that.
Katsuki stared at him as he finished up and turned to toss the tissues.
The numb ache sat so deep in Katsuki’s chest. Was there a time when he didn’t feel pain such as this? He couldn’t remember. He knew he used to be happy, once, if only because he remembered that smiling came so easily that day all those years ago.
That spring, when the cherry blossoms bloomed and the petals fluttered down around them and they smiled together as if it was the simplest thing in the world.
Izuku turned back around and caught his eye, slightly unfocused eyes zeroing in on his expression as he likely tried to deduce what Katsuki wanted purely from his mental bank of Kacchan-analysis.
Katsuki blinked sluggishly at him, breathing slowly. Chest rising, but never all the way, air whistling through the flowers and stems and branches growing in his lungs. Chest falling, and his breath fogging up the mask each time he exhaled.
Could Izuku possibly love him the same way?
Could he even ask? Did he even want to? Would any answer provide him the peace that he sought, when the true enemy slipped effortlessly past him to tear through his foggy mind?
Katsuki was so tired.
He couldn’t remember what it was like to feel less tired. Somehow, he’d used to run and scream and fight and fly. Now, he was hollowed out of that as more and more of who he was fed the flowers.
He couldn’t breathe.
He wanted to cry and sob to Izuku about how he couldn’t breathe.
He wanted to talk to Izuku, to say that he loved him, but he wasn’t sure that it mattered because everything felt so wrong and broken.
That he forgave him for not loving him back, because who would love this?
That he forgave him so wholly, he just wanted him to acknowledge his love for some reason.
He looked at Izuku—at the terror and relief and pain and anxiety in Izuku’s eyes—and he didn’t want to leave him, but the thought of living sounded so incredibly overwhelming that he couldn’t handle it.
He’d been fighting for so long.
He was bleeding all over.
Yet, there were no enemies to show for it.
No wounds.
Nothing.
Nothing but the damn flowers.
He looked at Izuku, and thought about how if he was wrong—wrong like he’d been when he’d asked Izuku to come fight beside him again—that he would saddle Izuku with guilt that would drag him down for the rest of his days. Even if his death alone wouldn’t break Izuku, he was worried that the guilt of being the “cause” might.
Katsuki didn’t know what to do.
He was so tired. It was hard to think clearly.
“Kacchan, do you need anything?” asked Izuku with those wide, watery eyes. “You don’t have to talk, just—”
There was a loud knock on the door, and then it opened. They both turned to see a nurse coming in to check on him. It was a young brunette woman, with her hair braided back. She’d been nice enough to Katsuki, but when she looked up her eyes immediately zeroed in on Izuku.
“Why aren’t you wearing a mask?” she demanded, horrified. “He’s a stage 3 Hanahaki disease patient! A P95 or above is required!”
Katsuki narrowed his eyes slightly in all he could manage of a glare. Was everyone working the shift today just a total dickhead?
“Stage 3?!” Izuku squeaked, whipping his head over to look at Katsuki and then back.
“Yes, and you need a mask!” the nurse commanded forcefully, glancing around to see if there was one lying around that he’d taken off.
“I-I’m Quirkless!” said Izuku quickly, waving his hands around a bit frantically.
The nurse froze, turning to look at him in surprise. “Oh, are you his caretaker?”
“Uh…”
Katsuki saw Izuku turn to look at him in his peripheral, but Katsuki didn’t look back as he just nodded in confirmation at the nurse.
“Good,” the nurse said as she crossed over towards them. “Dr. Mori will be happy to hear that.”
Dr. Mori can eat shit, Katsuki thought furiously.
He never thought he’d miss Dr. Ito’s stern but reliable professionalism so much.
“Do you have medical training?” the nurse asked Izuku as she started to check Katsuki’s vitals and various leads and tubes.
“Yes,” Izuku nodded frantically as he stood hovering over Katsuki’s bedside rather than sitting in the damn chair that was a few feet behind him. Katsuki only had the energy to be mildly annoyed about it, especially because he was surprised at Izuku’s answer.
He did?
“Even if you’re Quirkless, we recommend you wear a mask,” the nurse continued, shooting him a mildly judgmental look. “If you’re his caretaker, if you get sick from someone and give it to him, at this stage it could be very bad for him.”
“R-right, sorry!” Izuku stammered, cheeks flooding bright red and twisting with horror and visible upset. “I’ll—I’ll go get one. Be right back, Kacchan!”
He scampered out of the room and Katsuki watched him go before redirecting his attention to the nurse as she continued her checkup.
─────
A few hours later, Katsuki was cleared to go.
As the asshole doctor told Izuku everything—while Katsuki watched on numbly—Izuku nodded the whole time. Everything about him seemed vaguely frantic; he was fidgeting and moving around anxiously—even more so than usual. Though by now, his hands shook far less than before, and his stance was steady. His eyes were wide and bloodshot, sunken in shadow over the heavy-duty mask he had over his nose and mouth.
Katsuki sat there silently while the doctor spoke, because talking was exhausting. It wasn’t like the piece of shit doctor thought he could care for himself anyways; he was speaking entirely to Izuku. Even though Katsuki had expended the energy to explain that Izuku had only just started as his caretaker, the doctor still frowned disapprovingly at Izuku the entire time. While he was so disgusted with Katsuki that he barely looked at him, he directed plenty of shame at Izuku as well for Katsuki’s poor state of care.
Katsuki swore that if he ever regained the strength, he’d find the asshole and beat him into next week. The fact that the doctor was acting like this was all a massive inconvenience was infuriating, and he wanted to especially kick his ass for guilting Izuku—as if he’d had anything to do with this.
Well, Katsuki supposed he had something to do with this, but nothing that was his fault.
Finally, they brought in a wheelchair and Katsuki was so fucking ready to get out of this place.
They’d switched him over to a nasal cannula an hour or two ago—a tube that hooked under his nose and crossed either side of his cheeks to loop over his ears. It provided him with oxygen, but at a lower concentration. It was the same thing that he was supposed to be using for oxygen therapy but hadn’t gotten around to it yet.
Katsuki was so fatigued that he hardly felt anything but distant frustration as a nurse and Izuku both helped him sit up. He felt paper-thin and heavy at the same time. Like a puppet carved from heavy wood but with all the strings cut. So much smaller than he’d been in years and thinner than he’d been potentially since fucking middle school, and yet his limbs still felt too heavy for him to lift.
As Izuku helped him move to sit in the chair and get situated, speaking to him in low, neutral tones, Katsuki could only feel so very far removed from himself and his body. Like his mind was split into pieces, with some sort of separation between himself and his body and whoever it was that he used to be.
It was hard to feel normal in any capacity.
There was a time when the two of them had been strong and competing and racing to such a clear finish line. By now, that time felt like a true dream from childhood, in that it was so faded and wrapped in shadow that Katsuki could hardly remember much of it. The details of the feelings and memories of many smaller moments were barely there anymore, seconds from slipping away from him completely.
Even Izuku seemed so much smaller, but he’d been like that for a while. It was hard to say how much smaller because it was hard to compare the Izuku now to the Izuku in high school; the Izuku now was taller, visibly older and matured in the face when compared to then. It was more that Izuku seemed so much smaller than he should’ve been, if he’d continued to be a hero.
Too much teaching, not enough testing the armor. Izuku wasn’t weak, but he also was built like a teacher who hit the gym maybe a few times a week and skipped lunch to help a struggling student.
His scarred, gnarled hands stuck out from under his sweatshirt sleeves as he tucked the blanket around Katsuki’s shoulders and double-checked his nasal cannula.
Katsuki stared blankly at his hands. The reasons behind the scars—the reasons that had made it all make sense—seemed so, so far away from them now.
As they started to head out, Katsuki’s ears rang. He struggled even to keep his head upright on his neck. Even that was making stars dance before his eyes and all he could do was sit there and wait for them to get to the damn car.
In the elevator, he made eye contact with Izuku who looked down at him with an expression that was hard to read only because there was so much happening within it. Even so, he clearly was focused and serious above it all.
How did Izuku do it?
How did he deal with any of it? Any of these shitty parts of their fucked-up lives?
As Izuku helped him into the car, Katsuki numbly wished that Izuku was just a bit more human, because as he stared at his scarred hands and cheek and forehead—and pictured the vast scarring and grafting hidden underneath his clothes—he again remembered why he’d clung so intensely to the idea that Izuku was his other half.
Izuku could fill in his gaps.
Be strong when he was weak.
Give meaning to his own scars just by standing beside him.
Despite knowing Izuku didn’t need him, Katsuki still wanted.
As Izuku started the car, Katsuki’s head rolled over to look at him. The tense lines of his face, the shadows under his eyes, the frown pulling his lips downward.
He hadn’t looked this bad since the months right after the war. When half his head was shaved so they could stitch his scalp back together. When he looked like he hadn’t slept for weeks, and his eyes were a little too frantic and his movements a little too jittery. When, for a short period of time, it seemed like the pure, genuine spirit inside him was going to collapse and all come crashing down.
But it hadn’t back then.
Izuku had been okay. On his own, he’d been okay. He’d lost One For All and his dream and watched all his friends go on without him, and he’d only ever smiled and brushed it aside when anyone brought it up.
Katsuki stared at him as he started to drive. He wondered if Izuku really would be okay after this—after he died. He was inclined to think so, but no one else was. Even Uraraka had acted scandalized at the very idea.
After all this time, Katsuki just didn’t know what was going on in the damn nerd’s head.
More than anything, he wanted to ask. Even now, the rejection of that day sat as a painful reminder in his gut.
He wanted to know why. Why had Izuku dismissed him so casually back then? Why hadn’t he wanted what they’d dreamed of since they were children? Why did he barely use the armor that Katsuki had spent eight years working towards? Why could he only be bothered to show up when Katsuki was in need of help?
Was Katsuki really no one special to him?
Katsuki clenched his aching jaw when the train of thought grew too painful, and he had to veer away before it tore his paper-thin body in half.
“I only got the one room,” he said, mainly to distract himself from his thoughts.
His voice came out weak and ragged, and Izuku startled slightly, like he’d been lost in thought.
“Huh?”
“If you’re gonna be my roommate,” Katsuki rasped. “I don’t have another room.”
“Oh!” Izuku sounded so breathless and relieved that Katsuki’s stomach fluttered slightly… despite everything. It was so ridiculous that Katsuki almost wanted to cry. “T-that’s okay! I can sleep on the couch, really. Honestly, I sleep on the couch at my own place most nights!”
Katsuki eyed the side of his face. God, what he would do to be able to read this damn nerd’s mind.
“Why?” he asked.
Izuku blinked vacantly out the front windshield of the car for a moment before he smiled. It was weak and entirely unconvincing. “Uh… I like to watch TV while going to sleep. So really, it’s fine! Or… I have an extra futon somewhere. We can figure it out, really!”
Katsuki sighed; it was one of those that was more a need for more air than anything else. It felt like his heart was stealing his limited energy in order to beat frantically. The forceful palpitations only made him feel sicker. His eyelids felt so heavy, and he just let them slowly drift more and more shut.
“Doc says I need a shitty caretaker,” he grumbled.
“Mm,” Izuku made an upbeat noise of confirmation, nodding enthusiastically.
“Don’t want some extra to do it.”
“Mm.”
“Your ass still unemployed?”
“Yes!” said Izuku hurriedly in a tone that was far too exuberant for such a topic.
Katsuki scoffed quietly. There was a long silence, where Izuku just drove and Katsuki just stared at the side of his face through mostly-shut eyes. His hazy mind sifted through thoughts slowly, but it was hard to hold onto one train of thought.
The urge to fix…
Izuku quitting his job that he said he loved so much…
Trapped…
The insult burned, somewhere deep, deep in Katsuki’s chest, pressed underneath all the rest of his anguish and regrets and sorrows and physical pains. Somewhere in there, Katsuki still hated this.
But that hatred no longer stood out from anything else. Like everything else, it lived somewhere within the fog, only surfacing briefly, if at all. The feeling was dulled, and that made it almost bearable.
“You’re a piece of shit, you know that?” Katsuki eventually said, rasping lowly.
“Um…” Izuku stared blankly ahead and then spared him a confused glance.
Katsuki went on before he could come up with a reply, “Doc says I need someone to take my vitals and shit. I gotta take supplemental O2 and I need to monitor my blood O2. You know how to do that?”
“Yes!” Izuku was again nodding wildly, throwing his hair all over the place. “I have a first aid certification and I’ve been—uh…”
He cut himself off suddenly, eyes widening.
Katsuki waited, and when he didn’t go on, he prompted, “You’ve been what?”
Izuku shrunk slightly, cringing and sparing another glance at Katsuki. “It’s not just because of you, I promise, but I’ve been working on getting more advanced medical training. I swear it’s for other reasons, too. So please don’t get mad! I’m—I’m also a teacher and I work as a hero sometimes still to collect data for the armor and—and it’s important to—”
“Izuku,” Katsuki muttered lowly. “I get it.”
He knew that Izuku was lying, but unlike when Izuku had quit his job, he’d long since completely run out of energy to fight him on this. He’d long accepted that Izuku was like this, that he would follow Katsuki into hell but not anywhere else.
The temptation to ask why sat just behind his tongue, far closer than ever before.
Why?
Why would Izuku follow him into hell, but not anywhere else?
Why didn’t he want to be heroes together anymore? What changed? When did it change?
Katsuki’s head swam and it was so damn hard to think. The fogginess in his mind was worse today, in a way that he was certain was because of the lack of oxygen and this entire endeavor, but it was so frustrating that he couldn’t know for sure. He couldn’t know where the physical afflictions ended and the mental ones began.
It made him feel hopeless, because he would picture removing the flowers—even if Izuku did love him and his memory didn’t get torn to shreds—and still feeling like shit. He pictured still being unable to think or focus or remember or feel anything besides aching numbness. Nothing would hurt any less, except that he wouldn’t literally be dying and only be wishing that he was. Left with nothing tangible at all to show for his agony… the idea was somewhat terrifying.
Right, that’s the part you’ve got to figure out yourself! Everyone would say. It’s all in your head!
Katsuki stared sightlessly ahead, blinking slower as sleep rose up to take him again.
If it didn’t show up on a scan, why did it have to hurt so fucking bad?
If it was all in his head and he hadn’t found it yet, how would he ever?
Giving up…
Katsuki closed his eyes. How was he supposed to fight when he didn’t know anything about what he was fighting? There was nothing physical to attack or defend.
When had the battle begun? Could it ever end, when so much of what hurt him was just the way life was? Could it ever end, when so much of what ached were actually old scars—memories from along ago that seeped through his glued together seams?
“I’m so glad you’re okay,” Izuku’s voice broke through his thoughts, and the watery weakness of his voice had Katsuki peeling open his eyes to look at him.
Of course, the nerd was crying.
In that moment, Katsuki didn’t have the heart to tell him that he was very far from okay. Instead, he ordered, hoarse and sleepy, “Oi, focus on driving.”
“S-sorry!”
─────
It wasn’t like Izuku just moved in completely right away. At first, Katsuki ordered him to just show up in the mornings to help him with the oxygen and stuff.
He should’ve known that Izuku would take massive liberties with that.
Katsuki lacked the energy to fight him on most things, so when Izuku showed up earlier than planned to help him get up and make breakfast and take his meds, he’d relented far quicker than he would’ve done under normal circumstances.
It probably helped Izuku’s case that Katsuki really did need help. He’d been ignoring it for a long while, but most days recently he’d spent lying around and wishing he was dead. He did that when Izuku was there, too, but at least he didn’t have to worry about food or laundry or any of that shit.
Within a week, Izuku had moved onto his damn couch anyways.
Katsuki wished he cared enough to be upset about it, but he felt so out of it that the old pains of before all this felt very far away.
Everything felt far away.
Even recent rejections and any sense of pride or dignity.
At least he was able to tell everyone that he had a caretaker. His doctor, his parents… he even shot a few of his close friends a short message.
And yeah, maybe he didn’t tell them who it was, but he was sure they’d find out eventually. He was too tired to deal with it. He was too tired to explain himself to them.
─────
Therapy was… disappointing.
Katsuki hated that it was on a damn computer, for one thing. He found it fucking hard to hear what the guy was saying. The guy also kept asking questions and never offered any damn answers.
By the end of it, Katsuki was exhausted and left wondering what the hell that was meant to do. His head hurt, and he just went to bed because being awake was too overwhelming.
He was grateful that Izuku just let him.
─────
“Kacchan, I’m gonna take all your vitals this morning,” Izuku said after he’d corralled him out of bed one morning and eventually onto the couch in the living room.
“Why?” Katsuki muttered sleepily.
“Just to be thorough!” Izuku said, with one of those damn determined and nerdy expressions on his face.
Katsuki grumbled incoherently in annoyance but was too tired to argue. Until…
“Can you take your sweatshirt off?”
Katsuki stiffened. His eyes were still blurry from exhaustion, and he blinked them rapidly as he tried to look up at Izuku.
“Why?” he asked again.
“I’m going to take your blood pressure,” Izuku said, lifting the blood pressure cuff he was holding up for emphasis.
Katsuki’s heart slammed against his ribcage as he looked at it. Where the hell had that even come from? Though… he supposed there was a lot of random shit lying around that Izuku had brought. It wasn’t like he had the energy or the mental space to give a fuck.
More importantly, Katsuki hadn’t worn any less than two thick layers around anyone but medical professionals in… weeks? Months? The closest he’d come was when he was wearing the hospital gown, but somehow this felt different. He’d been too out of it then to care. He was out of it now, too, but… not nearly enough.
Katsuki stayed still.
They stared at each other.
Izuku’s brow furrowed more and more with each second that Katsuki didn’t move.
“Fine,” said Katsuki as his face flushed and he huffed out a breath. “I don’t want to hear shit, okay? I don’t.”
“What?” Izuku gaped at him, baffled.
“I don’t want to hear it right now,” he repeated forcefully as he leaned forward to start to tug on his hoodie.
It took a second to maneuver, as he always had a hand down to make sure his shirt didn’t ride up, too. Then he got it and pulled it over his head. His face felt hot by now, mortification making him feel nearly sick as he offered his arm to Izuku without looking at him.
In the slight hesitation before Izuku grabbed his arm, Katsuki knew that he had to have noticed.
With just a t-shirt on, Katsuki’s weight loss was undeniable. Undoubtedly, Izuku saw how the shirt hung off his frame and how the muscle mass had depleted on his arm.
But he said nothing, and Katsuki was damn grateful for that.
─────
When Katsuki woke up in the mornings, his body was made of lead. Uncooperative lead. He dragged himself up somedays. It was a slow and miserable process that usually felt ultimately pointless. When he’d lived alone, sometimes he’d give up on the task or procrastinate it a good bit longer.
Now, on those days when he’d give up, Izuku dragged him up.
“Kacchan? It’s time to get up.”
Unfortunately, Izuku did so even on Katsuki’s worst days. The ones where he woke up feeling like death warmed over. Everything hurting, exhausted, and mentally removed of any motivation or will to go on.
“You have to get up,” Izuku prodded, walking closer. “You’ll feel better once you do.”
Without opening his eyes, Katsuki could hear that he was standing right behind him over the bed now. He was also fucking lying, because Katsuki never felt better no matter what the hell he did.
“Fuck off,” Katsuki grumbled. “Don’ feel good.”
It was true… though he usually didn’t feel good.
“What’s wrong?”
“M’tired. Stomach hurts.”
There was a long enough pause that Katsuki started to drift off again. Then Izuku tugged on his covers. He didn’t pull them back all the way, he just tugged on them to get his attention.
“I’m sorry, but you’ve gotta get up, Kacchan,” Izuku pushed, though his tone was gentle and nauseatingly sympathetic. “You have physical therapy today. And you’ve gotta take your meds and everything.”
The heavy weight of Katsuki’s exhaustion was unbearable, and he wanted to punch Izuku in the gut for not fucking understanding that. His irritation spiked up quick, primed to attack.
“Didn’t you hear what the fuck I said?” Katsuki snapped. “Go away, asshole!”
“You can lay back down later,” Izuku bargained, “but you have to get up now. You’ll feel better once you’ve done your oxygen therapy.”
“I’m sick, you stupid shit!”
“You’re always sick, Kacchan,” Izuku said tentatively, mildly exasperated.
“Yeah and you’re my damn caretaker so you have to do what I say!” Katsuki barked, tugging his blankets closer.
“That’s… not what that means.”
“And I say pick up the damn O2 canister and beat yourself in the head with it!”
Izuku sighed loudly. When he didn’t speak again right away, Katsuki started to get dragged back to unconsciousness again.
“Kacchan, please,” Izuku pleaded. “Can you at least try to get up? I’ll h—um—” he cut himself off, and there was a long pause where he seemed to search for the right words. Eventually he said weakly, “Come on, Kacchan. I’ll help you. Please let me.”
Katsuki dragged his heavy eyelids open halfway. His vision was blurry. He faced away from the doorway and Izuku.
Goddammit… why did the raw pain in Izuku’s voice still have a distant effect on his decaying heart? It was infuriating that even as he’d lost all energy for anything at all, he still felt the disgusting stirrings of shame and guilt when Izuku resorted to obvious, desperate begging.
“I don’t want to,” he muttered, exhausted.
“I know,” Izuku whispered. “I’m sorry.”
Katsuki blinked sluggishly. He felt pressed into the mattress, zapped of strength. The haze in his mind was so awful that being conscious to endure it was a hell all on its own these days. He missed being able to think clearly. He missed being able to remember shit and function and feel like a human being.
“The oxygen therapy always makes you feel better,” Izuku said lowly after a moment. “And some food and water. I know you’re tired, so just let me do it. You don’t have to do much, I swear.”
“Fine,” Katsuki murmured.
Izuku carefully pulled back the comforter. Katsuki kept his eyes barely open as if that meant it wasn’t happening. As if that meant he wasn’t so weak and drained that Izuku wasn’t pulling him up and moving him into the wheelchair and moving him to the living room. As if that meant he wasn’t here, that he wasn’t faded away. As if that would keep him from noticing how much weaker he’d gotten in comparison to Izuku, who wasn’t even a damn active hero anymore.
Izuku indulged him and let him keep his eyes half closed and said nothing because, like Katsuki knew he would be, he was kind.
─────
Maybe Katsuki shouldn’t have been surprised that Izuku was a damn good caretaker and a damn good roommate. And he wasn’t really surprised, it was all just a bit strange at first.
Izuku kept things clean and organized. He was careful and respectful of Katsuki’s space. He cooked, obviously, and Katsuki begrudgingly admitted that it was usually pretty damn good, even if he often lacked an appetite.
He seemed suspiciously qualified to be a caretaker—setting up Katsuki’s medications to be delivered, organizing his schedule, and obviously all the medical shit. Katsuki wanted to accuse him of being a nerd even about this, but in the end he was too tired to go down that road.
Thinking too much about it still made him feel sick.
Just as Katsuki knew he would, Izuku also often tried to make room for Katsuki’s dead pride. Even though Katsuki hardly had any dignity left, Izuku acted like he did. When he could, he made excuses for why certain things he did were acceptable or didn’t draw attention to things that he thought might embarrass Katsuki.
Katsuki got prescribed a new medication that made his hands shake badly and kept getting frustrated by how difficult it was to shave. It made him itch angrily at his cheeks and neck where he could feel that he’d fucked up and missed some.
Izuku said nothing. Not a word. But he clearly noticed Katsuki’s frustration because he just walked in when he heard the buzz of Katsuki’s razor and helped him fix his shoddy shave job. He did so without ever forcing him to look him in the eye beyond the first glance when he reached for Katsuki’s razor the first time.
At first, Izuku poorly covered up his reason for coming into the bathroom by grabbing something random from his stuff, but as time went on, it would just end up that they would both shave in the mornings. Katsuki would go first and then Izuku would fix it and then shave his own face. Sometimes, they were both tired and said nothing. Other times, Izuku prattled on about something, completely unrelated to what he was doing.
Katsuki felt so deeply grateful to him in a way that almost hurt. He felt so grateful, even as he felt so very sad, because it felt like Izuku both knew him and didn’t. He knew him of course, but he also seemed to think that Katsuki was unchanging in the way that he himself was.
He was grateful for how Izuku made room for the parts of him that’d faded—his pride and dignity and personhood—if only because he himself might’ve forgotten about them if Izuku didn’t remind him. Still, sometimes he wondered how Izuku didn’t see it.
How did Izuku not see that he no longer cared, because he was without energy or self-respect and he was fading? Surely Izuku saw what he’d become.
Though maybe Izuku was just still in denial about it, because he still looked at Katsuki the same. There was never any real anger or frustration or disappointment in his eyes. There was sadness and worry and confusion, but also very real delight on his face when they watched TV together or Katsuki ate well or if Katsuki went as far as to crack a smile on the rarest of occasions.
He still often stared with attentive, starry eyes when Katsuki was speaking.
Sometimes the familiarity was comforting.
Other times it just hurt. Izuku looked at him like he was the same person—like he was still that praiseworthy hero—but… he wasn’t.
Besides that, it was just strange having Izuku living in his apartment in general.
Izuku wore his dumbass corny t-shirts and basketball shorts and worn-out sweatpants. His banged up red sneakers were placed neatly by the door. He stole Katsuki’s hoodie off the couch when he was cold. His shampoo and body wash were in the shower, his other stuff lined up carefully on the bathroom counter.
It was all so… domestic.
Seeing Izuku like this was arguably one of the things he’d missed so much in recent times, and yet Katsuki couldn’t even properly enjoy it. It only made him ache most days. On the occasional, particularly emotionally unstable days, the sight of Izuku in a stupid, cheesy shirt and All Might themed pajama pants made his eyes burn with the inexplicable urge to cry.
It was ridiculous.
On top of that—because he already felt so off and unlike himself and separated from reality—seeing Izuku make himself at home only served to make things feel more surreal. Like he wasn’t even awake but rather trapped between a nightmare and a blissful dream.
And yet he didn’t want Izuku to leave for reasons he didn’t want to think about.
Really, he didn’t want to think about any of it. And because his head was full of fog and he was constantly exhausted, it was almost disturbingly easy to just… not.
Not thinking about any of it made it easier for him to accept more and more of Izuku’s help. To say nothing when he’d occasionally realize that Izuku had cleaned or that he’d done Katsuki’s damn laundry or that he’d ordered more medical shit. To only gripe a little bit when Izuku ordered Katsuki an entirely new mattress that he insisted would help with Katsuki’s back and chest pain.
He was already drowning. Already suffocating in the fog. So could anyone blame him for leaning into it from time to time, since he couldn’t be rid of it anyways?
─────
Katsuki found therapy no more helpful each time he went.
He wondered if he just had a shitty damn therapist, because how the hell was hearing some random bastard say “I’m so sorry, that must’ve been so hard for you” supposed to do jack shit? How was that not supposed to feel incredibly condescending? Was this shit actually helpful for people? It was exactly the sort of bullshit that he hadn’t wanted to waste his energy on.
At least afterwards, Izuku let him go to bed if he wanted. Or Izuku would watch a movie with him on the couch, usually yapping the entire damn time.
It was nice to hear his voice, even if it was hard to focus on what he was saying or the movie or anything at all.
It was nice to hear his voice, even when he couldn’t always tell if he was dreaming or not.
─────
Nip it in the bud, my dear,
Or soon we’ll have to sow…
Of course, Katsuki couldn’t get away with what he’d done forever.
“Bakugou Katsuki!”
He jolted awake to the sharp hiss of his mother’s voice. Sleep-addled and alarmed, he forced himself to roll over in bed to see her looking down at him with the fire of a thousand suns, hands on her hips.
“You tell me right now why when I opened the door Izuku was sleeping on your fucking couch!” she continued to whisper-yell, steam coming out of her ears.
Katsuki’s heart was still hammering from being startled awake. When the fuck had his parents got a hand on his apartment key?! He glanced at his bedside clock and retorted hoarsely, “Maybe ‘cuz it’s the asscrack of dawn, old hag!”
“You know what the fuck I mean, you little brat!” his mom leaned in close, so mad that she’d gone red in the face.
“You told me to get a damn caretaker!” Katsuki protested in his raspy voice, coughing slightly. He could feel his neck heating up, because he was well aware that she had not meant Izuku when she’d said that.
“You damn well know how the fuck I feel about this!”
“Well, I didn’t fucking ask, did I?!”
“Katsuki, this is getting absolutely fucking ridiculous!” his mom fumed. “You tell him, right fucking now!”
Katsuki’s heart dropped as he painfully shoved himself into a sitting position, panting from the effort. His eyes darted to the open doorway in a panic. Izuku was just down the hall.
Was he awake? Could he hear them?
“What the hell are you doing?” his mom demanded, voice strained with every emotion sitting under the surface. “What are you thinking? Are you trying to get yourself killed, Katsuki?”
Katsuki was very, very certain that she wouldn’t like the answer to that question. He wasn’t even sure how he’d answer it, but the fact that his response wouldn’t be definitive would certainly be concerning enough.
“Shut up!” he snapped back, but his voice came out strained with fear as he kept glancing to the open doorway. He coughed again, into his elbow, the sound of it loud and wet and it hurt his throat. “It’s—” he lowered his voice to a whisper. “—I told you, he doesn’t make shit worse! He’s helping me!”
“You need to wake the fuck up!” his mom said, voice rising as she grew more agitated. “You need to wake up and take a look at that man out there and you need to tell him!”
Katsuki felt terror making his trembling worse and he struggled to move to the edge of the bed and swing his legs over. When he looked up, his mom was watching him with tears in her eyes. Shame burned in his chest and he was too fucking tired for this bullshit. Why did she have to come here?
“You can’t seriously think that he doesn’t love you when he’s sleeping on your fucking couch and wiping your fucking ass for you!” his mom said in a strained voice, lowering it at the very least.
Katsuki stared at her, horrified. “He does not do—”
“Katsuki. Is there something wrong with your eyes?! How can you still be in denial about this?! I thought you had a brain somewhere in there!”
Katsuki’s shoulders slumped. How many times had they had this argument?
He hated that she was here, saying this, because he was forced to remember that this little domestic situation was nothing more than a façade. Izuku would leave the moment he was well again, if that were possible.
The moment Katsuki wasn’t someone in need of help, Izuku would be gone.
Katsuki’s heart felt heavy at the reminder. In a bubble with Izuku, it was embarrassingly easy to remember why he was so completely in love with him. The way Izuku acted, it was easy to remember why he’d been fooled into thinking he was loved in return.
It was easy to lean into the blissful dream part of this nightmare.
“It’s not that simple,” he gritted out.
“Oh for the love of—” his mom cut herself off with a scoff, and then spun and stalked out of the room. “IZUKU!”
Terror surged through Katsuki’s veins, and he immediately forced himself up out of bed and stumbled forward.
“Mom, stop!” he shouted, and his voice broke and caught. He coughed for a moment. His vision tunneled slightly from the change in position so quickly, and his legs felt like they might buckle. He shoved his way out the door and halfway down the hall faster than he’d gone in weeks even as his ears started to ring and his vision started to dot over dangerously fast.
“Kacchan!” Izuku was suddenly right in front of him, eclipsing his entire vision with wide, panicked eyes and hair still a horrible mess from sleeping. “Careful!”
Katsuki went to shove him aside but ended up grabbing and holding onto his shoulder for balance as he panted heavily. Izuku was still facing him and trying to grab onto him, but Katsuki leaned heavily on his shoulder and frantically looked for his mom.
His mom stood in the living room, looking over at them with wide, incredulous eyes. She looked furious, confused, and almost disgusted as she observed them.
“Don’t you fucking dare!” Katsuki tried to scream but his voice gave out and then, mortifyingly, he realized that he was crying. “Don’t you dare!”
“K-Kacchan, let’s go sit, I’ve got you,” said Izuku, trying to shift but unable to move because of the iron grip Katsuki had on his hoodie that kept him from standing directly in front of him.
“I won’t forgive you,” Katsuki threatened, still trying to look at his mom but unable to see through his angry tears. He gasped and choked on his own breath; he was due for oxygen therapy and the sobbing made it harder to breathe. “I won’t ever fucking forgive you if you do this.”
“Kacchan!” Izuku said more forcefully. Then quieter, he leaned next to his ear and said, “You’re shaking and your legs are going to give out, so let’s move to the couch, okay? I’ve got you.”
Katsuki’s hand tightened on the fabric of his hoodie until his knuckles ached badly and his hand shook visibly. He squeezed his eyes shut for a moment as his lethargic and fucked up brain caught up to the situation. His face burned from mortification as two of the people he loved most bore witness to what he’d become.
Most of the time these days, it was so easy to just not think. He hated when he was faced with situations where he couldn’t escape. He hated when he was forced to face things, because he was too fucking tired to.
Then he gave the slightest nod and loosened his grip. Izuku finally shifted and turned, looping his arm behind Katsuki’s back and pulling Katsuki’s arm over his shoulder.
Tears continued to escape Katsuki’s eyes as they walked. He was trembling all over from fatigue and residual panic. His throat and lungs hurt badly, and he wheezed in breaths that were loud in the silence of the room. His gut twisted and turned and tied itself in anxious knots.
He knew before the hour was up he’d probably be coughing and vomiting his fucking guts out. Still, he was able to mostly support himself as they walked the short distance to the couch and Izuku helped him sit back onto it.
The moment he did, Katsuki forced his eyes open wider and found his mom, who’d circled around to stand in front of him. She looked so terribly upset and Katsuki’s empty, empty chest gave a valiant stab of agony. She also looked angry, disappointed, and a thousand other things, and Katsuki had to look down.
“I’ll get your meds and O2,” Izuku muttered as he pulled the blanket he’d just been using to sleep with up over Katsuki’s shoulders.
It was still warm, because Izuku had just been sleeping here, and Katsuki wished he didn’t notice. He wished he didn’t notice that it smelled like him. He wished he didn’t feel the temptation to grab Izuku before he could leave, so that he could continue to steady him just by being there.
Izuku darted out of the room towards the kitchen, where the meds were.
Katsuki reluctantly raised his gaze again. His mom looked at him, and he looked back, though his eyes flicked away every few seconds. Her narrowed red eyes were intense, judgmental, and he wanted to scream that she didn’t get it. She didn’t get it.
“This is getting ridiculous,” his mom said quietly, but she sounded sad and heavily disappointed. “Katsuki, you can’t be serious.”
Katsuki grimaced as a wave of something appeared out of the fog to suffocate him. “This isn’t any of your business.”
“It’s your life!” his mom cried, affronted. “It is definitely my damn business, kid!”
“I’m not talking about that!” Katsuki hissed, coughing for a moment when his throat caught. “I mean saying shit—that’s not up to you!”
“Are you going to say shit?! Are you going to wait until you’re on your fucking deathbed for dramatic effect?!”
Katsuki bit back his retort as Izuku walked back into the room, following him with his eyes. His mom did the same. The two of them watched as Izuku rushed over with averted eyes, set the meds and a cup of water down, and sat next to Katsuki on the couch. Then he looked up and caught Katsuki’s eyes, then glanced over and saw his mom staring too.
“O-oh, uh, sorry,” Izuku squeaked, face flushing. “I’ll go in a sec! I was just getting his meds and I’ll go!”
“Actually, Izuku,” his mom said in a sharp, critical voice, “you stay.”
“Don’t talk to him like that,” Katsuki barked immediately, his defensive streak flaring up when he heard her tone.
Maybe she wanted to blame Izuku for this shit behind closed doors, but he’d be damned if she wanted to do it to Izuku’s fucking face. Not on his watch.
“Uh, no, Kacchan, it’s okay!” Izuku shook his head rapidly, waving his hands around nervously to try to dispel the tension. “Um, Auntie Mitsuki, I’ll stay but I really can give you guys some privacy, it’s not a prob—”
“Izuku, do you know who Katsuki’s in love with?” his mom stared directly at Izuku as she said it.
“Shut the fuck up!” Katsuki tried to shout again as terror again rose up quick and overwhelming within him, but his voice failed him and he dissolved into coughing for a moment.
“Kacchan, have a bit of water,” Izuku prompted softly, holding the cup for him.
When Katsuki took it, Izuku darted to the side to grab his O2 cart and wheeled it closer.
“Izuku?” his mom pressed heatedly.
As Izuku worked to untangle the nasal cannula tubing he glanced nervously up at Katsuki as if looking for fucking permission to speak. When Katsuki didn’t react except to pant loudly and stare with widened eyes back at him, he scrambled his hands faster and said, “No. I don’t know.”
“Well, I do,” his mom declared. “Tell me, Izuku, have you ever been in love?”
Izuku froze for half a second before he continued what he was doing without looking up. “U-uh, no, I haven’t.”
“Stop this… now,” Katsuki wheezed out, wishing Izuku’s answer didn’t let off an almost crippling feeling of irrational rejection in his gut.
“Katsuki, do you really intend to give up without even trying?” his mom asked.
Giving up…
Katsuki felt the deep ache in his chest throb hollowly to remind him of its presence. His head swam.
“It’s not… that simple.”
Izuku finally untangled the nasal cannula and hooked it up to the oxygen. He reached forward, hooked it under Katsuki’s nose, and looped it over his ears before Katsuki could move to do it himself. As he secured the tubing under his chin, his face twisted with general unease—probably from the tension of this damn conversation.
“In the end, it really fucking is,” his mom was saying as she watched. “Because you haven’t even tried, and you’re dying. That’s giving up.”
Katsuki choked over something like a sob, then shot a glare at her and said, “Aren’t you paying attention?”
Didn’t you hear what Izuku just said? That he’s never been in love?
His mom only snorted, though she looked so far from amused. “Yeah, I fucking am, kid! Are you?”
Katsuki only clenched his jaw, breathing in the oxygen with relief. It cleared his head the slightest bit with each breath.
“Dammit, Katsuki, if you think you’re not loved back why don’t you fight for them?!” his mom asked.
Katsuki stared at her, unable to find the right words. Unable to find words that he thought she’d accept or understand. How did he explain that there was a whole different fight besides the one for Izuku’s love?
A fight to get through the fog. A fight against an unseeable enemy.
He was bleeding and bleeding and bleeding and there was no blood to show for it.
With each passing day, Katsuki was more and more certain that he couldn’t win. One way or another, he’d be dragging Izuku down with him. Which direction it was going to be was something Katsuki hadn’t yet decided on. He hadn’t been able to figure out which way he was going to have to doom the person he loved more than anyone else.
Would he tell Izuku he loved him, and risk it? One version, Izuku didn’t love him back and he died anyways, but Izuku was left with crippling guilt. The other, Izuku did love him back, but Katsuki was still fucked up and exhausted and losing a battle that he barely knew how to fight in the first place. That version felt daunting for reasons he didn’t have the mental energy to entirely explore.
Would he not tell Izuku, and die? It felt heavy. He felt ashamed knowing the pain it would cause.
But he was also exhausted.
“I’m—” he tried to begin, but he was crying again, and he didn’t even know why or how because he felt so disconnected and separated and all over the place. His chest hurt from some type of grief or shame or anxiety, but also his lungs inside his chest were in agony and flared in pain with each breath.
“Maybe we should come back to this discussion later,” Izuku said shakily, showing his hands placatingly in the way Katsuki’s father usually did. He was eyeing Katsuki with such obvious, nauseating concern that Katsuki wanted to shove his face away. He would’ve if he had the energy.
“I think you should tell Izuku,” his mom said firmly, eyeing Katsuki with the full intensity of her gaze. “I think he could help you, don’t you?”
“Mind your business,” Katsuki hissed.
“Izuku, what would you do to help him?”
“Don’t ask him that!”
“Anything,” Izuku answered easily, the word so immediate and wholehearted and uttered with the earnest tone of a promise.
Katsuki let out a sob, leaning forward as his hand came up to cover his eyes.
Because he knew that. He knew it. It told him nothing, didn’t his mom get it? Izuku would do anything for anyone. He didn’t need to be reminded about Izuku’s character. He understood.
“I—Kacchan and I will talk about it later,” said Izuku uneasily.
“You do that,” his mom said furiously. Then, much softer she said, “Katsuki, you know I love you more than anything in the world—”
Katsuki tensed, hand gripping over his eyes.
“—but I can live with you never speaking to me again if it means that you live.”
Katsuki grimaced, shaking his head as his chest spasmed with suppressed sobs. He was overwhelmed with misery that stemmed from so many different sources, and all he could do was sit there and wallow in it because he had no way to escape it.
Why was wanting to escape it so wrong?
“If you’re going to have Izuku as your caretaker, that’s fine,” his mom said, and Katsuki tensed even more as if she was going to deal the finishing blow, a horrified resignation descending on him for one horrible moment, “but if you won’t confide in him, I’ll be speaking with him.”
He heard her stride forward, and she ruffled his hair in her slightly aggressive, but affectionate way.
“I’ll be back soon, brat,” she said, gently. In little more than a whisper, she said, “I’m sorry.”
Then she was gone, and Katsuki cried.
He cried because he suddenly couldn’t stop.
He cried because he felt weak and out of control and lost. Because he wished it were as simple as telling Izuku and then being loved back. Because his mom was going to force his hand and he felt a gaping void of doom in the center of his being from the inevitability of it all.
He cried and cried like a fucking child.
Izuku gave him his meds and brought him food to set on the coffee table. He quietly placed a cold washcloth into his hands.
Katsuki grimaced as he pressed it to his aching, puffy eyes and felt the cold seep through his eyelids.
He cried because Izuku cared for him so diligently, and he wished that was enough to know if he was loved back the way he wanted to be.
He cried because even if Izuku loved him, he could never fix him.
He was supposed to fight this unseeable enemy while he searched himself for invisible wounds, but he was exhausted and lost in the fog and suffocating, and so, so tired.
A part of him felt certain that even if Izuku loved him, even if the Hanahaki disease went away, he would still never escape the fog that had descended on his mind. That part of him felt so sure that he would always be lost here, unable to focus or feel okay or breathe.
He cried because, if that was to be his fate, he just wanted to rest rather than always be fighting such an ill-defined battle for the rest of his days.
─────
Izuku would make him go on these damn “outings.”
Some bullshit about fresh air and enjoying the outdoors. Katsuki couldn’t give less of a shit about any of that right now, but as usual Izuku was unphased by his remarkable lack of enthusiasm.
One time, they went to the park and sat on a bench by a duck pond. Izuku fed the ducks as he chattered on and on about some theory of Quirk evolution.
Katsuki hated that he felt endeared by how much of a dork Izuku was. He hated that as exhausted as they made him, he did enjoy these outings. The air was always too cold in his nostrils, but when he breathed through his mouth it didn’t hurt as bad. The light was always too bright to his weary eyes, but it did feel nice most of the time.
Even though it was a muted feeling of contentment at best—merely an echo of any happiness he used to feel—in some moments he did feel something like peace.
Though they usually went to parks and enjoyed the outdoors if the weather permitted, Izuku sometimes tried to force him to do other things. Once, they went to fucking sightsee like they were some damn tourists.
Katsuki had only agreed to do that under the condition that they took extra care to disguise themselves. Even if he hardly checked online these days, he had no interest in making the news because some extra took a picture of his pathetic state.
Though, Katsuki officially drew the line at going to a damn amusement park.
Instead, they ended up going to a crepe stand by a little park near his apartment. The exercise was good for them, and it wasn’t far at all, so they just walked. Still, never in Katsuki’s life had such a short distance felt so far.
“What kind of crepe do you want, Kacchan?” asked Izuku as they started the walk.
“Don’t want one,” Katsuki grumbled, focusing on taking one step in front of the other and breathing. “I’m not hungry.”
“Well… we can split one!” Izuku suggested cheerily.
Katsuki couldn’t understand how Izuku was always so damn jolly even when he knew that he offered absolutely no energy in return.
The answer of course… was that he was Izuku. He’d always had a well of endless patience for all of Katsuki’s bullshit.
Katsuki wished his heart rate didn’t try and pick up even faster at the sight of Izuku’s smile and bright, excited eyes. He wished his stomach didn’t swoop with something that wasn’t at all painful but still unwanted and overwhelming and out of place.
“No the fuck we can’t,” Katsuki argued. He was breathing so hard despite their slow pace and the short distance.
“Why not?” Izuku sounded so upset and disappointed that Katsuki spared him an exasperated glance.
“Because we don’t want the same kind of crepe, dumbass!”
“O-oh,” said Izuku. Then his goddamn smile reappeared, “I’m okay with whatever you want!”
They argued all the way there, but in the end they found a crepe that they both liked. Katsuki relented and agreed to split it.
Katsuki didn’t understand why the hell Izuku had even suggested it, because it was messy, and they had to pass it back and forth. But in the end, the crepe was pretty good, even if Katsuki was fairly certain he’d be throwing it up later.
With the blue, cloudless sky overhead, wrapped in layers and layers to keep the cold at bay, and sitting next to animated and talkative Izuku, Katsuki felt that semblance of peace. When he looked at Izuku, who looked back at him with his cheeks and nose red from the cold and his wide, starry eyes, for a moment Katsuki could almost forget all of it.
He could almost remember what it felt like to be happy.
─────
There were some days when nothing caused Katsuki more agony than being touched by Izuku.
Of course, there were all the passing moments. Izuku touching his arm and hand when taking his vitals. Helping him move if he needed it. Shaving his face. These alone were already so much. Katsuki felt hypersensitive to his touch to an extent that was honestly embarrassing.
So the other moments were even worse.
Sometimes, Izuku would gently comb through Katsuki’s hair with his fingers. It was unbearably intimate, and he only ever did it when he thought that Katsuki was asleep. He never tried to do anything like it when he was awake.
Katsuki couldn’t figure out why Izuku would do it. He would push Katsuki’s hair out of his face or comb it one way or another. Sometimes it just felt like Izuku was fucking petting his hair, and it baffled Katsuki so entirely that a few times he’d almost, almost considered asking.
He never did, because in the end, he found he didn’t really care about why. Not nearly enough to sacrifice the possibility of it happening again, anyways.
Izuku’s hands were large and calloused and scarred. His spatial awareness was terrible when he wasn’t paying enough attention; it made him almost clumsy at times, tripping over his own feet or smacking his limbs on furniture as he passed by.
And yet, whenever he ran his hands through Katsuki’s hair it was incredibly gentle. Careful and precise. It was a soft scrape, and the feel of his fingers sent a pleasant tingling sensation through Katsuki’s scalp.
Katsuki was a piece of shit, so he pretended to be asleep whenever it happened. The idea of opening his eyes and having to face Izuku while it was happening was impossible. At least, if Izuku thought he was sleeping and Katsuki pretended he was, things would be fine.
Sometimes, especially the first few times, his heart beat out of his chest as Izuku did it. What if his eyelids fluttered? Was Izuku looking at him? How well could Izuku even see him in the dark?
Desperately, Katsuki didn’t want to be caught awake, because he didn’t want Izuku to stop. It felt so intimate in a way he kept trying to tell himself didn’t mean anything but it didn’t stop it from feeling so achingly, shamefully good.
It made Katsuki think back on their lives more and more.
When had they touched each other before? The only time he could recall them touching in anything like comfort was when Katsuki had caught him before he passed out right on the concrete back during the war. When Katsuki had apologized in the rain and Izuku had stared at him like he was looking at a stranger… a stranger that was actively growing a second head.
But…
Any other time?
They didn’t even hug or fist bump or touch at all when greeting each other or saying goodbye like Katsuki did with his other friends. They barely touched at all. Ever.
So… for as long as they’d known each other, this was something foreign. They’d touched in passing, in sparring, in frustration, in anger. They’d touched each other to offer a hand up or in brief, insignificant moments.
When considering their entire lives, they’d had physical contact plenty of times, but not like this.
Never like this.
The realization only made Katsuki feel even stranger. Had he really known someone his entire life, but touched them so little? Had he really fallen so irrevocably in love with someone who he was so daunted by the idea of touching?
It only made Izuku’s touch tingle that much more.
Because for as familiar as Izuku was… it was new.
Izuku’s hands lingering on him in any sort of way was very new. After all, it had always been getting Izuku’s hands to stay that was the problem, right? Was this what it felt like when Izuku stayed? The thought made Katsuki ache and want and long so deeply that it was painful.
He wanted.
And no matter how much Izuku touched him, he wanted more. By the time Izuku stopped, Katsuki always felt the loss of it with a physical pang in his gut. He always felt a desperation to get closer again.
He wanted more… but it felt like such an impossible barrier to overcome.
When Izuku ran his hands through his hair, it became clear to Katsuki that there was so much they had never done with each other.
They’d known each other for their entire lives and they’d never done this. Katsuki didn’t know how to touch him. He didn’t know what Izuku wanted or was okay with. Did Izuku even like being touched? Could he, when Katsuki had mostly touched him only to hurt him throughout their lives?
Even something so simple felt enormously complicated when it was between them. And that only made Katsuki’s exhausted mind feel that much more tired.
The longing ached so deeply in his chest, trying to pull him to Izuku with a force so strong that it almost felt physical sometimes.
Was it killing him faster?
Was it the only thing keeping him alive?
Izuku’s calloused, scarred hands on his skin made him shiver sometimes if he was caught off guard. He’d given up trying to hide it if only because he simply couldn’t sometimes. He knew Izuku had to notice it, but he never said anything about it.
Nothing hurt worse than being cared for by Izuku… almost held but never quite in the way he wanted.
Nothing hurt worse than Izuku living in his apartment, his chatter and energy filling every room so often. Cooking for him. His things by the door and in the fridge and on the counter and in the bathroom. Their laundry getting mixed together so often that Izuku seemed to forget which clothes were Katsuki’s and which were his own. Katsuki’s apartment smelling like Izuku’s soap after he’d just showered.
Though the ache added to the misery of Katsuki’s painful existence, it was distinct from the rest of his agony. He felt almost addicted to the feeling, and the pain largely came from the unforgettable knowledge in his heart that all this was temporary.
Sometimes Katsuki cried because it felt so excruciating. He would get caught up in Izuku, and he couldn’t think straight. He couldn’t figure out if he was just lonely and latching onto the smallest things or if Izuku really could have any feelings for him.
He’d made this mistake before, and he couldn’t seem to forget the intensity of the pain of rejection. He couldn’t seem to forget how it felt to be so apathetically dismissed by Izuku. Months later, he couldn’t forget that Izuku had reminded him back then that he wasn’t special.
So Katsuki would cry, because really, Izuku doing all these things for him didn’t prove a damn thing. He was a person in need, remember? He was weak and Izuku was strong and he might as well water the damn flowers some more with his heartache.
I’m not fucking special, he’d remind himself when the words of love and longing crept to close to his tongue.
He would remember the certainty of how he’d spent the last eight years and how it contrasted with Izuku’s apathy. So he would snatch the words back safely away, because it felt like an indifferent rejection from Izuku would kill him on the spot at the moment.
The other issue always loomed, of course.
Katsuki’s mind felt broken beyond repair. He couldn’t think or focus or feel things in any sort of normal way, and he hadn’t the slightest idea how to fix it. Fixing it felt no less daunting, no less impossible, than the day Dr. Ito had told him it was all in his head.
The days went on, and Katsuki felt the looming threat of what his mother had said. When would she decide enough was enough and force his hand?
What if the Hanahaki went away, and this fog in his head didn’t? Dr. Ito said it had nothing to do with the disease, but how was he supposed to function like this?
So he suffered in his confusion, his exhaustion, his indecision. He couldn’t figure out what the hell to do.
The days passed and Katsuki sat in limbo, avoiding questions from his parents and his friends and even from Izuku about what he was doing or how things were going.
Often, he continued to sink into the fog and clung heavily to the illusion of Izuku’s love born from his dedicated care. He hurt and coughed and suffered, and he was in agony when Izuku touched him.
He thought about all the lines they’d never even approached, much less crossed with each other. Their history bound their lives together but also trapped them in fixed positions in each other’s lives. Moving from their roles and how they knew each other felt dangerous, impossible. There was a mental block in place, keeping Katsuki from going there.
He wanted to be closer but… that wasn’t them. That wasn’t what Katsuki and Izuku had ever done. That wasn’t how Kacchan and Deku worked. They didn’t hug or touch for comfort or anything more. They barely even talked about how they felt. Throughout their entire lives, Katsuki could count the times they’d had serious talks on one hand, easily. Because that was also something they didn’t do.
The more he thought of it, it only made him value the new intimacy more. Even if Izuku thought he was asleep. Katsuki held onto it, because moving closer to each other had always been so difficult and he would never, ever take it for granted again.
─────
Izuku helped him clean up his shoddy shave jobs that came from his shaky hands, but he also helped cut Katsuki’s hair.
Katsuki couldn’t be bothered to go to his usual barber to get his hair cut. For one thing, it was an effort that required energy. For another, he still didn’t want to be recognized and end up on the news. From his occasional check-in on social media, word about his illness being Hanahaki disease didn’t seem to have spread.
So, his hair had gotten annoyingly long. Like with so many things, Izuku noticed.
When he’d first offered to cut it, Katsuki had told him to go to hell and he’d just deal with his hair being too long. Izuku had protested, insisting that he knew how to do it. He said that he’d taken a course a few years back. Katsuki had asked why, and he’d only received a ramble from Izuku about how he’d had a lot of free time after high school and started to pick up hobbies to pass the time.
Katsuki clenched his jaw as his heart squeezed painfully. The years after high school… when Izuku had lost One For All and the rest of them were starting their careers. Izuku had gone to college, and apparently, he’d also been doing fucking side quests that he’d never mentioned to Katsuki before.
Katsuki’s chest only ached more when he thought back to that time. They’d obviously kept in touch, but he couldn’t recall Izuku ever talking about this sort of thing. Izuku would only rave about how interesting his classes were or ask Katsuki about how work was going.
The ache was so all-consuming that Katsuki felt too weak to handle it at the moment.
“If you’re so good at it, then why does your hair always look like shit?” he accused in an effort to distract himself from his own realizations.
“It doesn’t!” Izuku frowned with something like an offended pout as he protested the statement. “But anyways, I know how to do it I swear.”
So as Katsuki sat on a chair they dragged into the bathroom, he watched as Izuku rolled open his goddamn hair cutting kit.
Despite how the sight of a professional-looking kit made Katsuki feel slightly better, he couldn’t resist a last jab, “If you fuck this up, you’re fired.”
“You don’t pay me anything, Kacchan,” Izuku replied distractedly. “So you can’t fire me.”
Katsuki’s face contorted into an ugly scowl and he glared at the side of Izuku’s face. “I mean you’re kicked out, shitty nerd!”
“You like sideburns, right?” Izuku ignored his threat and turned to him, frowning thoughtfully as he held some scissors aloft.
“’Like’ sideburns?”
“You always have them,” Izuku stepped forward and grabbed his chin, moving it to the side to look. “Down to like… here.” He reached his finger up to tap somewhere in front of his ear.
Katsuki’s heart jolted from the sudden, casual touch. Somehow, he hadn’t considered until this moment exactly what this meant. That Izuku was going to be touching him—his face, his head—and be right in his space.
Izuku’s lack of hesitation as he touched him also struck Katsuki very abruptly. When had they reached this point? He wasn’t complaining—he really fucking wasn’t—but in his foggy state of being he felt unexpectedly jerked awake for a moment.
Izuku seemed fully comfortable touching his damn face without even asking, and Katsuki realized that time had fucking passed recently.
How long had Izuku been here? How long had he been living here, in Katsuki’s damn apartment?
He knew it was also entirely possible that Izuku didn’t see this as a big deal and just considered it normal because he was cutting his hair, but that didn’t stop Katsuki’s heartrate from picking up.
Heat creeped up his neck and rather than ask his questions, he bit out, “Stalker.”
“So, sideburns and a trim on the sides and…” Izuku ignored him again—the bastard—and started to mumble to himself as his eyes darted around Katsuki’s face and head.
Katsuki glowered up at him petulantly, but his heart was fucking racing in his chest. It did so with such intensity that he almost felt sort of sick from it in his weak state. He had to remind himself that this here—his heart racing around Izuku—was normal. Even if he’d recently been lulled into a state of familiarity with Izuku where his constant presence was a comfort that calmed his heart rather than accelerated it… that didn’t mean that this was new.
“If you take off your shirt, you can just hop in the shower after,” Izuku said as he turned back to the kit to grab what he wanted.
Katsuki stiffened. Currently in a loose shirt and even looser hoodie, his body was completely hidden from sight.
Izuku turned back and paused at the sight of his face. “What?”
“Not… doin’ that,” Katsuki bit out, averting his eyes as his face heated.
At this point, Izuku had seen him in a t-shirt plenty of times. Katsuki had even let him listen to his lungs under his shirt when he checked his vitals, but he hadn’t actually taken his shirt off. The thought of doing so now and sitting here exposed for an unspecified amount of time made him feel ill. Not only because Izuku would be able to see, but because then he would be able to see himself.
Izuku peered at him with those damn watchful eyes. Katsuki clenched his jaw, on edge and ready to fight.
But Izuku only said, “Okay, sure. Can you take off your hoodie, though? And we’ll put a towel around your neck.”
“Fine,” Katsuki grumbled as he complied.
Finally, towel around his neck, Izuku got to work. He wet Katsuki’s hair with a spray bottle and then carefully began.
Katsuki had to keep forcefully relaxing his jaw when it would start to ache from unconsciously clenching it so much. The issue was that Izuku kept running his hands through his hair, to move it or to ruffle it or to do whatever the hell else. It wasn’t the same as what he did when he thought Katsuki was asleep—his hands never lingered or trailed across his scalp—but he still felt ridiculously hypersensitive to it. His whole body was tensed in an effort to not shiver or do some other embarrassing shit.
Nothing was helped by how there weren’t many places to look. Katsuki stared forward blankly. A lot of the time, he looked at Izuku—sometimes in the mirror and sometimes when Izuku moved to stand in his field of vision.
Izuku was so close. For as long as they’d known each other, they were never so often physically this close until recently. If they were, Katsuki’s attention wasn’t fully on Izuku. They would be doing something else, usually hero-related or with friends. But when they hung out? What reason had they ever had to stand so close? It just wasn’t something they did.
Now, Katsuki was able to see the freckles on his cheek, the texture of his scar and how his skin bunched up where the edge of it met his unmarred cheek. He still had some sleep in his eyes, on his lashes. There was the beginning of a zit on his forehead, partially hidden behind his hair. The faintest traces of Izuku’s own stubble were clear on his chin from this close.
Izuku shifted to stand in front of him, going to clean up his shave job and work on his sideburns.
Katsuki breathed in slowly through his nose. It was impossible not to smell Izuku when he was standing right in front of him, moving around and lifting his arms and shit. Izuku smelled like Izuku, like the deodorant he used and the body wash he used and just the way he always smelled. But Katsuki caught a whiff of his own laundry detergent, and he wished it didn’t make his heart flutter and ache in equal amounts.
Katsuki had grown tired from sitting up for so long, and his mind started to drift off halfway into staring. He found himself somewhat mesmerized.
This close up, Izuku’s eyes were captivating. They had lighter and darker shades of green and streaks of colors that almost looked white and brown. It all blended together to make the vibrant green color that Katsuki would know anywhere.
He only realized that Izuku had stopped cutting his hair and was staring back at him when he said something.
“Kacchan?” asked Izuku. He had pulled back slightly and was standing up straighter as he looked down at Katsuki with a slightly puzzled expression.
Katsuki blinked, bringing his focus from the tiniest details of Izuku’s face to the whole picture.
“Hmm?” he made a noise of question as his sluggish mind struggled to adjust and think past his mounting exhaustion.
“Is there something on my face?” asked Izuku hesitantly.
“No,” Katsuki mumbled a bit drowsily. “Your eyes are just really green.”
Izuku blinked at him uncomprehendingly. Slowly, his face flushed the slightest bit pink.
“Uh, yeah?” Izuku said it like a question, in that shaky, uncertain voice he used sometimes when Katsuki did or said things that he didn’t really know what to do with.
“It’s nice,” Katsuki muttered, eyes flicking away to stare blankly at the wall as he did so.
He wished that his own face didn’t feel hot and that his heart didn’t feel like it was trying to break right out of his chest. That in his haze where he felt half real, his body didn’t still react out of embarrassment. If he was going to feel numb all the time, his damn body didn’t get to pick and choose moments to react like this. It was so damn infuriating.
“I-It is?” Izuku sounded taken aback.
“Hmm.”
When Izuku didn’t move, Katsuki slowly looked back over at him, only to find that Izuku had gone bright red and was openly gaping at him. As soon as they made eye contact, Izuku visibly startled, before taking a step backwards and looking away, awkwardly rubbing at the back of his head, messing up his already disheveled hair even more.
“Ah, thanks, Kacchan,” he said in a weird, wavering tone. “I… well, they’ve always been green!”
Katsuki narrowed his eyes slightly in dulled exasperation as Izuku gave a weird, strained laugh. Figuring out what the fuck was happening was exhausting, and he already felt so damn tired.
“I know that,” he grumbled, vaguely irritated, though his words were weakened by how tired he was. “I’ve just never looked at them from so close before.”
“R-right,” Izuku stammered and turned to the counter as his face flushed an even darker red, messing with his stuff in a way that was obvious fidgeting.
Katsuki watched, oddly fascinated by his reaction even as his lethargic brain struggled to keep up with it.
Izuku was blushing and stuttering and fidgeting…
Katsuki’s hollowed out chest felt a strange pang as he witnessed it. Was this new? Had Izuku ever reacted to him like this before? He couldn’t remember, though he couldn’t remember much at all these days. Still, this felt… new.
Was he reacting to Katsuki or just the compliment? Izuku did have terrible self-esteem, so maybe he just wasn’t used to compliments. He was awkward about them sometimes, even in adulthood.
“What, no one ever complimented your eyes before?” asked Katsuki flatly.
Izuku tensed, shoulders hunching a bit as he continued to move his hair cutting tools around—with no apparent rhyme or reason—and not look at him. He dropped a pair of scissors two times before he got ahold of them and moved them where he wanted. “Uh… no, uh… people have, yes.”
Katsuki squinted at him, eyes trailing over the red flush of his neck and the tips of his ears. His foggy brain couldn’t piece together why it was happening. He knew he’d complimented Izuku before, but he’d never seen this reaction anywhere in recent memory.
Why now? Katsuki struggled to think.
Izuku turned back around, obviously avoiding Katsuki’s eyes and finally went back to cutting his hair. Though it had only been maybe half a minute when he paused again and stepped back. His face was still red.
“Can you just… can you look at something else please?” Izuku squeaked awkwardly, eyes darting from Katsuki’s face and away rapidly.
“Hah?” Katsuki eyed him as his face contorted slightly into a glare. “Your face is right in front of mine, nerd. Where the hell else am I supposed to look?”
“I-I know but—” Izuku shifted on his feet, then schooled his face into something of a slight glare as well. “It’s embarrassing, Kacchan!”
“What’s embarrassing?”
“You’re—you’re staring at my face!”
“You’re staring at my face!”
“But I’m doing something!” Izuku waved one of his hands, gesturing vaguely at Katsuki’s head as his face remained bright red.
“What the hell’s wrong with me looking at your damn face, hah?” Katsuki barked. His own face had again grown very warm.
Izuku sputtered nonsense for a moment before he said, “I just—I wasn’t—Kacchan!” He gave up and just said that damn nickname in an exhausted, pleading huff.
“Tch,” Katsuki made an annoyed noise, half rolling his eyes. “Don’t see what the big deal is.”
Despite his words, he humored him and looked away.
Izuku continued and worked quickly, though he wasn’t moving with as much confidence as before. Instead, he seemed slightly jittery and uncomfortable, and it made Katsuki’s stomach twist painfully. He was so damn attuned to Izuku that he could practically feel it all radiating off him.
It made the air feel tenser. The space between them suddenly felt thicker and practically alive with the strange energy swirling around them.
“What… I can’t say nice things?” Katsuki grumbled after a few minutes had gone by when the mortification and anxiety demanded some sort of outlet.
Izuku stilled again, and they made eye contact very briefly.
Katsuki wished the butterflies in his stomach would calm down. Izuku straightened up and looked away, cheeks still looking pink.
“You… you can,” he said, though he didn’t sound like he agreed with his own statement. “I just… it was unexpected.”
“Not like I’ve never said that shit to you before,” Katsuki mumbled grumpily.
“Said what to me?” Izuku blinked down at him vacantly.
Katsuki glowered and replied stiffly, “Nice… things.”
Izuku continued to stare at him blankly for a long moment, then he smiled unevenly and nodded. “No, you have, sorry. You—you’ve said a lot of nice things to me!”
Katsuki was suddenly far less sure that he had. When Izuku tried to continue, Katsuki pulled back slightly to try and catch his eyes, but Izuku’s eyes kept flicking rapidly away and his cheeks visibly darkened yet again.
Had he?
Katsuki suddenly couldn’t remember if he’d ever complimented Izuku’s appearance directly and obviously like he’d just done. The realization stirred a lot of feelings deep within him, muffled under the haze of his pain and exhaustion.
It was a strange thought. Katsuki hadn’t ever thought Izuku was bad looking even when they weren’t at all friendly. He was pretty sure that he’d rarely—if ever—insulted Izuku’s appearance.
Though… Katsuki supposed not-insulting wasn’t the same thing as complimenting.
Izuku was looking very red again, and increasingly like he was constipated. Katsuki felt a flash of a lighter feeling that felt strange in his aching chest—an odd urge to laugh or to make fun of him for it or to find a way to make him blush even more. Like he was pulling Izuku’s goddamn pigtails or something.
Unfortunately, in that moment, Katsuki couldn’t think of another compliment that wouldn’t immediately give away that he was violently in love with Izuku.
“Can we just stop talking about this right now?” Izuku scratched awkwardly at the side of his head, looking away. “Just let me finish doing this. I’m almost done.”
“Fine,” Katsuki looked away—uncertainty and confusion making him feel a bit sick and more fatigued—and let him continue.
He wished the air didn’t feel so unbearably tense.
It made it so hard to breathe.
─────
Sometimes, Katsuki’s dreams were so vivid, and his life so surreal that he would get confused as to what happened in a dream and what happened in real life. Other times, he wasn’t confused so much as intentionally blending them together as he grasped for any form of comfort through his misery, any sort of lifeline as he drowned.
He began to dream more and more of the groveyard. He would dream of a lone cherry blossom tree planted in its isolated home.
Sometimes, the tree wasn’t in the groveyard at all, but rather in an open field, near a beach, in a park… but no matter what, it was always alone.
When he would wake up from these dreams, to his gasping, decaying lungs and his dry throat and lips and tongue, he didn’t feel afraid of the end like he used to. In some ways, it didn’t even feel like an end. He could so clearly see the tree that would grow from his lungs, and he felt something like peace.
If after death, the best parts of him could live on and be remembered, what more could he want?
On those nights, when Katsuki had to debate between trying to sit up himself to get some water and abandoning all dignity to call for Izuku to get it for him, he wished sleep would draw him back into his dreams.
He would find a twisted sort of poetry in it all.
There was something poetic about dying with Izuku on his mind twice. Horribly tragic, yes. Unbearably so. But if he told himself there was poetry in the tragedy of it, then he could pretend it was beautiful.
He could pretend that the flowers he’d cared for and fed and watered were just like normal flowers, even though they were actually a disease that was killing him. He could pretend his love was notable even though it was never reciprocated. He could pretend that some part of him remained that wasn’t ugly or faded or broken.
Katsuki thought of the lone cherry blossom tree from his dreams.
The part of him that knew and loved Izuku was undoubtedly the most beautiful part of him.
That part of him that flourished whenever it was offered time in Izuku’s light…
Surely, there was something admirable about how his love could still produce something so beautiful even without reciprocation. It lived and grew within his chest, cared for and safely guarded somewhere deep within.
He made that. All on his own. He was more than destruction and ruin. He was more than anger and shouting and a bad attitude. He was more than a faded hero that never reached any higher than the heights he’d reached before the age of eighteen. He was more than a deserter that gave up the fight because he was too weak and tired.
He was more than that, he was more.
Maybe Katsuki just wanted some credit for trying. Because he had tried, even if no one had seen it. He’d tried so hard to be better. To be the best. He’d tried to shove aside his bleeding, invisible wounds the way everyone else did. He’d tried to be worthy of Izuku and dammit even if he wasn’t, couldn’t his effort be commendable in any sort of way?
Katsuki sort of liked the idea of people staring up at his tree in the groveyard as the cherry blossoms fell. He liked the idea of them struggling to associate explosive, callous Bakugou Katsuki with it.
It’s so beautiful, they would say. How could this have come from that?
As the wind whistled through the branches and the blossoms fluttered down, maybe they would wonder if somewhere inside Katsuki, there had been something gentle and good after all.
Maybe, maybe, maybe…
Katsuki didn’t know.
He didn’t know, but he knew that even though he couldn’t yet decide in which way he would doom Izuku to some horrible fate, that he could never cut the Hanahaki flowers out of himself. He could never get surgery. He would rather die every damn time than lose that part of himself and be forced to go on without it.
He would rather it long outlived him—that part of himself that originated with Izuku. Really, it was Izuku. Every good or redeemable part about himself involved Izuku somehow. In the way that Izuku would persist, the part of Katsuki that belonged to him would too. It only made sense that even the echoes of Izuku should live on to see another day.
Katsuki had to find poetry in it, didn’t he? Or else it would just be meaningless. It would feel so meaningless that it opened a void in Katsuki’s heart so endless and daunting that it felt like that nothingness of death.
So… he grasped at the lifeline as he drowned.
On nights like this, where he felt so decayed and broken and exhausted, Katsuki was certain that the most beautiful part of himself would flourish without the rest of him to drag it down. Without his pain and anger and mistakes. Without his stubborn, steadfast, irascible nature. Without who he was deep down, before he tried to change for Izuku.
The version of himself that was all tied up in Izuku would be free to thrive without the realities of what it was to be human.
Katsuki would think of that lone cherry blossom tree, and he saw the childhood dream that everyone he knew—that Izuku—had no problem leaving behind. Everyone was so content to kill theirs and leave it in the dust, so it only made sense that Katsuki would instead do whatever it took to allow it to thrive. It only made sense that Katsuki would do his best to make sure it lived on, even if it lived on alone.
The way I loved you was beautiful. Katsuki thought, as he floated in a half-awake state, in the past tense as he pictured himself already gone. The future I wanted for us was beautiful. We were happy there, in our own way. You left it behind, but I couldn’t. I’m sorry.
On those nights, Katsuki would lie awake for so long, with his throat uncomfortably dry and his mouth tasting faintly of blood. Even now, even with all he’d yielded for, he usually chose not to wake Izuku and instead let him sleep. He usually chose to suffer the dryness of his throat until he once again sunk back into unconsciousness, rather than to reach out for help.
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part 4
how can anyone emerge victorious
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Katsuki felt a bit delirious.
He was slumped, boneless, against the side of the bathtub, staring vacantly forward. He’d coughed and vomited for such a long time that he was still trying to catch his breath even several minutes after he’d last thrown up. This feeling—the lightheadedness, the vague nausea in his stomach, the tears in his eyes from the force of vomiting, the overall fatigue—had unfortunately grown very familiar.
That didn’t mean it felt any better, though. It just made him feel further and further away from the person he once was.
The ever-present feeling of numbness wrapped around him, suffocating him and protecting him in equal amounts. Unsurprisingly, despite spending most of his time asleep, Katsuki was exhausted. His entire body ached on varying levels. It was always so hard to breathe.
So… Katsuki felt strange; he often did these days. Tired, sick, pained… his sluggish thoughts were hard to sort through. His vision was the slightest bit blurry, though whether it was from exhaustion or vertigo he didn’t know.
Izuku sat on the floor next to him with his back to the wall, facing the sink.
Katsuki barely felt anything at all in response to his presence outside a distant awareness. It felt weird that he didn’t feel anything—shame or embarrassment or even defensiveness—but it wasn’t like he could do anything about it. He was just trying to regain his breath and try to keep the lingering nausea in his gut from surging up again. Used to it or not, he still hated vomiting. His throat hurt like hell.
He lay there, unwilling to attempt to move just yet. His thoughts flitted between fuzzy static and the lone cherry blossom tree that he’d dreamed of again last night.
“Kacchan, it’s getting really bad,” Izuku’s voice was slightly shaky as it rang out into the relative silence of the bathroom. It wasn’t loud, but it carried.
“Hmm?” Katsuki blinked slowly, only his eyes shifting to look at Izuku as he lacked the energy for anything else.
He didn’t know why Izuku so often sat with him while he puked, but he’d given up trying to get him to leave and he’d given up being embarrassed by it. Izuku’s relentlessness wore a person down like that. He figured that Izuku was worried he’d choke on his own body substances, and he eventually just grew too tired to keep protesting.
So now, here they were. Izuku and he, slumped on a bathroom floor arguably too cramped for two grown men.
Izuku was wearing a faded old Great Explosion Murder God Dynamight t-shirt that was fashioned to look like his hero costume with a big orange “X” across the front and his hero name in big, gaudy letters across the back in the same color. It was from the first merch drop he ever did.
Katsuki had laughed his ass off the first time he saw Izuku wearing it years ago, because Izuku hadn’t even asked him for it; he’d just gone to wait in line with all the extras to get one. Izuku’s face had gone red, but he’d stood his ground and said that he wanted to make sure he got everything so of course he went.
He was also wearing a pair of Katsuki’s old gray sweatpants—though they’d certainly would be way too big for Katsuki now that he’d lost so much weight. They were pulled taunt on Izuku’s legs with how he was currently sitting, legs crossed. He wore mix-matched All Might socks that Katsuki knew came from the same merch pack; he had the same one.
His green, frizzy hair was its usual mess, and Katsuki now knew it always looked so awful in part because Izuku didn’t use the right shampoo for his hair type. It was also a bit too grown out and hanging in his eyes; he constantly brushed it away or shook his head or blew it out of his eyes. He cut Katsuki’s hair but seemed to be forgetting to cut his own. Dumbass.
Izuku… with those green, green eyes. Each scar and freckle, every line and contour of his face was so achingly familiar.
Fuck… he was beautiful.
Katsuki stared, blinking his slow, heavy eyelids. In that moment, he was sure that he could stare at Izuku forever. Izuku, like this, sitting on the bathroom floor with him—unphased by how he’d just vomited his guts out. Izuku, dressed in something that wasn’t those goddamn suits he’d wear to work but instead in Katsuki’s clothes and merch. Izuku, the person who knew him better than anyone but somehow didn’t know the most important thing of all.
In moments like this, if Katsuki sunk far enough into the fog and used it as blinders, he could almost see Izuku loving him back as a possibility. If he thought of only right here and now, and not all their history that would tell him otherwise, it was a possibility.
Izuku was fidgeting with a loose thread in the outer side seam of the old sweats. His face was screwed up just a little, as if he was thinking and a little bit upset as he did so. He stared down at his own hands messing with the thread.
“It’s bad,” Izuku muttered, and Katsuki remembered that he’d spoken a minute ago. “Your… Hanahaki, Kacchan. It’s bad.”
Katsuki squinted at him. “What’re you getting at?”
“Just…” Izuku’s face screwed up more into a pained grimace, and he still didn’t look up as he mumbled. “Have you at least told them by now? The… them. The person you… you know...”
“I can’t hear you when you mutter,” said Katsuki, annoyed. “My fucking ears are still ringing from vomiting my guts out a minute ago. Speak up!”
“Sorry,” Izuku said, slightly louder. He still didn’t look up. “I was asking if you’ve told them. Is that an option at all? Them loving you back?”
His face screwed up towards the end of his words, grabbing hold of the thread and starting to yank on it.
“Don’t do that,” Katsuki scolded, kicking his foot out slightly to smack into Izuku’s ankle. “You’ll rip the seam. Those are mine, shitty nerd.”
“Sorry,” Izuku said again, releasing it and moving his legs to put his knees up. He crossed his arms and rested them on his knees, then rested his head on his arms and rolled it to the side to peer at Katsuki. “Have you talked to them?”
Katsuki stared at him intently. “Not about that.”
Izuku lifted his hand up to push it into his own messy hair and he continued to direct those wide green eyes at Katsuki with such obvious, open sorrow.
“Shouldn’t you do that, Kacchan? I mean… you told me that they don’t love you like that. That you knew it for certain, but—” He ducked his head down, hand digging into his own hair. “Shouldn’t you double check?”
“’Double check,’” Katsuki parroted, unimpressed.
“I just—I mean—” Izuku scrubbed his hand through his hair with increasing distress. “You said you wouldn’t do the surgery. At any costs, because you think they made you who you are—”
“I don’t think it, that’s the way it is,” Katsuki argued testily.
Izuku’s frown twisted slightly. “You said you won’t… you won’t give up the memories, so why don’t you try talking to them?”
Katsuki huffed out a long sigh. “Haven’t we talked about this shit before?”
“No, uh, I don’t think so. You never want to talk about it.”
“Hmm. Yeah, and I don’t want to now either.”
“Kacchan,” Izuku reprimanded, slightly exasperated but also imploring. “Please. If you won’t get surgery, why won’t you at least try to talk to them?”
“For one thing, they’re in a relationship,” Katsuki replied, staring blankly at the ground.
In his peripheral, he saw Izuku go very still. His eyes trailed up to Izuku’s alarmed eyes and his heart started to thump in his chest.
“Is it… a recent development?” Izuku squeaked out.
Katsuki narrowed his eyes at him, trying to gauge what the hell this reaction was. “I’m not playing any guessing games, nerd.”
“I just mean, is it serious?” Izuku elaborated quickly. “Could you… well, maybe if they broke up?”
Katsuki snorted. From his discussion with Uraraka, it was not serious, but that didn’t mean jack shit in the end.
It didn’t, because it didn’t mean Izuku loved him.
It didn’t, because it wouldn’t fix him.
Eventually, he just looked away, down at the floor, and said, “They don’t love me, Izuku.”
His hollowed-out chest ached.
“And they would blame themselves,” he added, leaning his head back against the wall as he sighed again. He’d need Izuku to go get his O2 in a second. “I don’t want them to.”
“Well, I blame them!” Izuku said sharply, suddenly.
Katsuki’s eyes flitted to him in surprise at the abrupt, intense anger.
He didn’t see Izuku’s anger often these days. Bits and pieces of frustration, sure, but anger like this? It’d been a long time. Izuku’s eyes were ablaze with fury, and it was the kind of look he got when he was fighting a villain. The sort of you hurt my friend, so I’m prepared to kill you sort of rage that Izuku had a particularly unsettling and unhinged brand of.
Katsuki glared at him ever so slightly. This wasn’t a fucking villain to fight.
“You shouldn’t,” he said. “It’s not their fault.”
“Yes, it is!” Izuku protested, glaring directly forward at the sink cabinets with the fury of a thousand suns.
“No, it’s fucking not,” Katsuki argued back, annoyed. “How the hell is it their fault if they don’t even know?”
Izuku seethed, chest heaving slightly from how quickly he’d worked himself up. The abrupt intensity of his anger made Katsuki wonder just how long he’d been holding this in.
It felt hilariously surreal and bizarre. His parents blamed Izuku for this… and Izuku blamed himself for this without knowing that he was the one Katsuki was in love with.
None of them seemed to be willing to accept that Katsuki was the problem, not the person he loved.
“If they didn’t—if they—dammit, Kacchan!” Izuku gritted out as he continued to try and set the cabinets on fire with his eyes. “If they didn’t exist, you wouldn’t be dying.”
“Oi, watch it!” Katsuki snapped, appalled by Izuku saying something so extreme. “The fuck’s wrong with you?!”
Izuku tilted his head, so he was facing away from him, but he said nothing. He didn’t take it back. Katsuki was left to glare at the back of his head.
“Izuku,” said Katsuki. He intended to sound forceful and angry, but with his wrecked voice he only sounded weak and sad. “Listen to me. You can’t just make yourself love someone. I don’t blame them for not loving me. That’s not how love works.”
Izuku still didn’t turn to look at him, facing away like a petulant child. He was trembling ever so slightly, and it made Katsuki’s heart ache hollowly. He felt the irrational desire to reach out to him, as if crossing that line between them was something so easily done.
Instead, he kicked his foot out to hit Izuku’s ankle again. “Izuku.”
“What,” Izuku muttered without turning his head, and his voice was thick enough that Katsuki knew he was crying.
Katsuki’s heart ached again, and he was so weak that he had to take a few breaths before he could speak.
“You can’t blame them,” he said softly. “It’s not their fault. It’s… it’s not that simple.”
Don’t blame yourself. It’s not your fault.
Izuku sniffled, wiping his eyes with the back of his hand. He cleared his throat, turning his head back to where he could glance over at Katsuki.
“Okay, so if telling them isn’t an option,” said Izuku lowly. “You have to get surgery.”
Katsuki narrowed his eyes. “I know we’ve talked about this.”
“Kacchan, you’ll die,” said Izuku, face grimacing as he said it and tears spilling out of his eyes. He ducked his head again.
Katsuki stared at him. This shit going on in his head was a curious thing. He ached and hurt, but it was more in reaction to Izuku’s visible agony than anything else. When he thought of his own death… he felt very little.
“I told you, you don’t have to watch,” he said quietly.
Izuku gaped at him and then said heatedly, “You’re a piece of shit, you know that?!”
Katsuki glanced at him in mildly amused surprise. Izuku had insulted him many times in their lives, but he usually went for less colorful terms. That one was one of Katsuki’s insults. It made Katsuki feel strange in a way he couldn’t gather the brainpower to understand.
“I told you I can help you after the surgery,” Izuku went on in the same tone. “I’ve been there for all of it. We can figure it out, I swear. I’ll train with you until you’re back in hero shape. I know all your moves. I—I have a bunch of notebooks. Kacchan, please, you have to… you have to…”
He dug his hand into his hair again as his voice faded in strength, looking up at Katsuki as if it pained him to do so.
Katsuki looked back, thinking again about how, if he did that, he really would just fall in love with Izuku a second time.
Trapped.
Always trapped.
His exhaustion pressed down on him, and his fatigue and lightheadedness and the ever-present fog made the moment feel about as real as one of his vivid dreams. He felt sick, and he was probably due for oxygen therapy based on how hazy everything had gone.
He thought again of his dreams—of the lone tree with the cherry blossoms and the petals falling down.
He just answered honestly… selfishly.
“I don’t want to forget them.”
Izuku stared at him intently, his face looking like he had a bitter taste in his mouth. “They won’t die if you get surgery, though. You can still see them. If you want, I guess.”
“I don’t want to forget who I am with them, who we are together,” Katsuki went on lowly, solemnly. “I don’t want to forget us.”
Izuku’s face only twisted into a more complex look of disapproval and disgust. It made a spark of life jolt through Katsuki for a moment as he comprehended Izuku’s judgement. His neck flushed hot with embarrassment when he realized the sappy shit he’d just said.
“Look, maybe you don’t get it,” Katsuki gritted out, defensively, hoarse voice threatening to give out every few words, “but I’ve told you before, they made me who I am! I don’t want to start back at ground zero with my fucking life, and I’m tired of everyone acting like I’m stupid for that!”
“You’re not stupid, but Kacchan you’re not only them!” Izuku argued, rising to Katsuki’s challenge indignantly. “It’s only some of your memories—just a part of you! And you—”
“The best part of me,” Katsuki cut him off, staring into those green eyes intently. Absentmindedly, he rubbed his knuckles over his sternum, where his diseased lungs and scarred heart sat in his chest underneath.
But Izuku’s face immediately fell and his eyes welled with tears again. He shook his head, once again wiping at his eyes with the backs of his hands.
“I wish you wouldn’t say stuff like that,” he muttered, voice thick and wobbly with emotion. “It’s not true, Kacchan.”
But Katsuki only watched him numbly. How could Izuku ever understand? Izuku was unchangeable. He was strong in spirit in a way that Katsuki had never been. The best part of Katsuki wasn’t who he was naturally, but who he’d become to try and live up to Deku.
That lone cherry blossom tree.
“Please don’t do this,” Izuku was begging for the hundredth time as he cried. “Please, Kacchan. Get surgery. We’ll support you, however you want us to!”
“I told you,” Katsuki averted his eyes, tired and grumpy again as he was forced to have this conversation another exhausting time. “I don’t want to live on like that.”
Izuku’s hands pressed to his eyes, chest spasming from a suppressed sob.
“It’s like this,” Katsuki muttered, delirious as his head spun slightly. “The Hanahaki is separating the part of me that knows and loves them, and the rest of me. I’ve gotta make a choice. Either the part of me that loves them lives or the rest of me does.”
“What?” Izuku asked, openly appalled. “What does that even mean?”
“The cherry blossom tree is the part of me that loves them. The choice is between that and the rest of me.”
“Huh?! How is that a choice?! Why don’t you choose living?!”
“I will be alive,” Katsuki murmured, staring into space and picturing the tree he’d seen so many times in his dreams, blowing in the wind. Lonely, but beautiful.
“H-huh?!”
“The best part of me will be alive,” Katsuki went on, eyes hazy as he pictured it. In his foggy state of mind, the dream felt as real as the moment he was currently in. “I’m not dying… I’m living another way.”
A way that would be quieter and slower, where he could rest. No more thinking and hurting and wishing he still recognized himself and wishing he was stronger. No more being ashamed of what he’d become. Just the best parts of him, his best efforts and happiest moments and biggest accomplishments. Just that, without all the shitty parts of him.
“Kacchan, what’re you saying?” asked Izuku, aghast. “You’re not making any sense. You won’t be alive! The Hanahaki plant is a disease that’s killing you! You can’t seriously think that—that—”
“It’s a tree that’s made from my DNA.”
“Kacchan, it’s a disease!”
“What, you don’t think they’re beautiful?”
“W-what?”
“The flowers?” Katsuki murmured, still staring off into space. “You don’t think they’re beautiful?”
When Izuku didn’t respond for a long pause, Katsuki glanced over at him. Izuku was gaping at him like he’d lost his mind. Katsuki felt a bit like he had, but he was too exhausted to care. He felt strangely stuck on this point, like he wanted Izuku to understand.
The beauty in their dead childhood dream. The beauty in the life they had together, the way Katsuki would’ve wanted it. The beauty in Katsuki, buried under all the other shit.
Katsuki prompted, “You like cherry blossoms, don’t you?”
Izuku almost looked affronted. “No.”
“Liar,” Katsuki accused immediately, hoarse voice scraping weakly against his throat. “You love them. Remember that time with All Might back in high school? Not to mention your eyes always get so shiny when you see them. You always make excuses to walk past them in the spring. I noticed that, dumbass. They were shitty excuses.”
Izuku stared at him with open horror, before abruptly ducking his head. He clutched at his own hair again, shaking his head aggressively in denial.
“How could you ask me this?” he bit out in a strained voice. “How could I—no, Kacchan. I don’t find the disease that’s killing you beautiful.”
Katsuki stared at him. “You…”
It’s a cherry blossom tree. He thought. Made of all our memories.
Even as he felt echoes of Izuku’s grief in his own chest, he still felt bizarre and oddly offended. He wanted Izuku to understand. He wanted someone to understand.
He knew that Izuku didn’t fully understand; he couldn’t, because he didn’t have the full context. Still, Katsuki wished he would. He wished for it so badly.
“Let’s not talk about this anymore,” Izuku’s voice was tight, clipped.
Katsuki couldn’t read his exact tone. Was he angry? Upset? Sad?
“You… you keep saying such mean things,” Izuku muttered shakily. “You’re not making any sense. Maybe you’re… dehydrated or something. Let’s check your vitals…”
His voice grew quieter as he spoke, shoving himself to his feet unsteadily.
Katsuki watched him, exhausted, sick, and so unbearably numb. He watched as Izuku shoved his way out of the room without looking back. He felt the emptiness in his chest ache, and he just wanted Izuku to understand.
─────
“I was going to be great,” said Katsuki lowly as he looked out over the landscape.
The endless trees. The rolling hills. The blue, blue sky. A river cut through the forest below them. The breeze was light and chilly, but at least he was wearing enough layers to mostly keep the cold at bay.
Izuku and he had hiked here together once before, a long time ago. It was probably about five years ago, but it felt like so much longer. Another time and place… it might as well have been another century, another planet, another universe.
Katsuki couldn’t really hike anymore, so Izuku had driven them to the highest lookout point for their outing today. Though he didn’t say, Katsuki wondered if Izuku remembered that day very well. If he remembered how much Katsuki had liked the hike. How happy he was.
Katsuki stared forward and it was hard not to feel how his life had changed. Nothing felt quite the same now as it did then. They looked at the same view through a lens that was different in a way Katsuki could hardly find the words to articulate. It was more a feeling, a way the air hung about that was altogether different. More somber.
More likely than not, it would be the last time he’d look out on this view. That knowledge alone colored everything in a slightly different light.
“What?” asked Izuku.
He sounded hesitant, almost fearful, as if he didn’t really want Katsuki to go on. That happened sometimes these days when Katsuki occasionally tried to talk about shit. His voice would get shaky, and Katsuki could almost feel Izuku’s urge to run away from any sort of emotional conversation rising up.
Yet, Izuku usually indulged him… likely because he was dying.
A part of Katsuki was happy to take bitter advantage of this. His thoughts flowed more easily out of his mouth these days, lacking a filter or hesitation or even a second thought. He didn’t know why. Maybe it was because his brain always felt like it was a bit too foggy. Maybe it was because he was tired. Maybe because he couldn’t seem to find enough of a reason to keep his mouth shut since the end felt so near in moments like this anyways.
Though Izuku rarely had anything to say of any help—and there was no fixing any of it anyways—something about saying the words out loud was slightly more helpful than keeping them in his head. As if speaking aloud made some part of Katsuki’s pain matter and mean something… even if only for just a moment in time that would soon pass.
Katsuki stared at the view, and his own mortality stared back. It was hard to think of a real reason to stay quiet in the face of that. Even if Izuku didn’t want to hear it. Even if they didn’t do stuff like this with each other.
“Back then,” Katsuki elaborated wistfully, “when we came here before. We were… what, nineteen? Fuck…” He huffed a breath out when the ache in his chest flared up and put pressure on his heart. “I really thought I was gonna be great. I thought I’d show everyone… I’d show everyone just how great I was.”
He could feel Izuku’s eyes on him like an almost physical force even without turning to look at him. As loose as his tongue sometimes became, he couldn’t ever bear to look at Izuku when he said any of the vulnerable shit that surfaced from somewhere deep within.
Sometimes, it almost felt like he was speaking about someone else entirely. There was a separation between each level of Katsuki’s being—the person sitting here, the person he was then, the words that came out of his mouth.
He would speak and speak in his increasing hurtle towards death and wait for someone to say something that would offer him any sort of relief. He didn’t know if he sought comfort or forgiveness or permission, but he found himself speaking anyways.
“I was going to be someone,” Katsuki muttered, blinking slowly as he stared ahead. “I was going to be the best there ever was.”
The words hurt in a distant sort of way; it still felt like they sort of belonged to someone else. The physical pain of his back and breathing hurt worse than saying the words did. Even the pain of grief in his chest somehow felt oddly disconnected from the words he said.
That ache sat right in the middle of his chest, squeezing around his heart as he remembered how desperately he’d wanted it back then. How proudly he’d declared it, over and over and over. How it had driven him every day of his life for as long as he could remember.
I’m going to surpass All Might and become the Number One Hero.
“When I think back to it, I can’t remember if I really believed that,” he admitted as he stared at the horizon. “How much of it was bravado and how much was genuine belief in my own superiority. I don’t think I ever let myself stop to think about it, to be honest… in the beginning, at least. I think it was always just what I was going to do. I was going to be the Number One Hero.”
Katsuki rubbed at his nose as he sat back more heavily against the back of the bench. He wished his nose and lips weren’t always so damn dry from the oxygen therapy. It felt like adding insult to injury; it was just one extra thing that sucked ass on top of all the other shit.
He could see the tiniest bit of Izuku in his peripheral vision, but he still didn’t turn to look. From the feeling, he knew Izuku was staring at the side of his face.
“Fuck, it’s so disappointing I can’t stand it,” Katsuki said breathily as he let out a long sigh.
He rubbed absently at his chest, as if that would make any of it feel any better. The words still sounded strange in his own ears. They were true, but they still hung in the open air sounding a bit off.
Maybe it just felt weird to expose this part of himself. The words—laced with nuances of vulnerability and regret—sounded odd spoken aloud, hearing it in his own voice.
“I can’t—fuck, I really thought you and I were gonna compete to be the next All Might, Izuku,” Katsuki admitted in a low, gravelly voice. He crossed his arms and inhaled a big, slow breath as he shook his head slightly for a moment. “A huge part of me really, really thought that.”
Izuku’s eyes on the side of his face were like a brand by now. They were practically pulling at Katsuki’s face to turn and look, and still he resisted because he was a goddamn coward. If he didn’t turn to look, maybe he was just talking to himself.
Maybe it was just him, trapped alone in a nightmare, with the grief of what could have been hollowing out his chest. Maybe Izuku was there only in memory, integrated so deeply into the life that Katsuki had wanted that it only made sense that he would appear in Katsuki’s mind now.
“At least you turned out to be someone,” Katsuki muttered. “You were happy enough—before all this shit anyways. At least you never changed. I… shit… I don’t even recognize myself anymore.”
The admission came out quiet and strained. It was another true statement, but the words still sounded so foreign. They were too vulnerable to belong to Bakugou Katsuki, spoken in Bakugou Katsuki’s voice. They were true, but they weren’t supposed to be out there like this.
Despite everything, Katsuki immediately felt a degree of unease grow under his skin at his own vulnerability. Not that he wanted to take it back, but rather that he’d sliced open his chest to let the admission out. He was now exposed and bleeding. He couldn’t take another hit.
“Kacchan…”
Katsuki’s spell of false solitude broke the moment Izuku’s voice cut through the haze. Immediately, his eyes flicked over and he turned his head slightly to look at him.
Izuku’s head was turned to look back at him, tilted forward ever so slightly. His increasingly ragged hair blew slightly in the wind. Tears were trailing down his cheeks even as his eyes remained unblinking. He stared at Katsuki so intently, as if he thought he would disappear if he blinked.
Katsuki hated that his chest compressed so much more. He hated that his stomach fluttered when they made eye contact. He hated so goddamn much that his first reaction was to be momentarily captivated by how beautiful Izuku looked.
“How could you say that?” asked Izuku, aghast. “You’re a Pro Hero! You’re not—not disappointing or—”
“Shut up,” Katsuki cut him off with a sigh, looking away back towards the horizon as he shook his head. “I don’t need you to bullshit me right now. I was just ranting or whatever.”
His tone sounded dull and tired. He felt a flare of irritation emerge out of the fog of his mind at the idea of enduring Izuku’s bullshit responses right now. He was trying to be genuine, and he couldn’t fucking handle the dismission.
If Izuku truly was ignoring the signs of Katsuki’s decay, fine. If Izuku really insisted on looking at him like nothing had changed and things were still the same, fine. If Izuku really wanted to pretend that Katsuki was the hero he once was and ignore all the signs that he wasn’t, fucking fine.
But Katsuki didn’t want to hear it right now.
“But Kacchan, it’s not true!” Izuku protested, sounding somehow pleading and indignant at the same time. “You are someone. You are great! Your career so far has been ama—”
“Shut up,” Katsuki hissed sharply as the words cut deep so suddenly.
Izuku’s words rang, empty and false, in his ears.
When Katsuki turned to look, he was unsurprised to see that the look in Izuku’s eyes hadn’t faded. The way he looked at Katsuki was still so unbearably consistent. Like the very idea of Katsuki’s failures was blasphemy.
In that moment, Katsuki didn’t care if this straight up denial of the truth was the only way Izuku knew how to cope. Even if Izuku needed to pretend Katsuki wasn’t a pale imitation of who he used to be, right now his words stabbed right through Katsuki’s chest. It felt like Katsuki was bleeding out right in front of him, and he was still denying it.
It hurt so goddamn bad, and he just wanted Izuku to see and realize that his mind was broken beyond repair. He wanted Izuku to realize what he himself had a long time ago. He wanted Izuku to acknowledge his pain and his failures and to stop looking at him like that.
Because when Izuku looked at him like that, he could only feel ashamed and humiliated. He could only feel his own inferiority as he fully failed to live up to the hero Izuku clearly still wished he was.
He was weak. He wasn’t strong like Izuku was.
“I don’t want to hear it,” he went on, growling the words out as he narrowed his eyes. “I don’t want your optimism bullshit right now, Izuku. I don’t want you to tell me how great a hero you think I am.”
“I—well, I’m not going to agree with you!” Izuku countered, sounding almost affronted. “You are a good hero! And—”
“Well I’m not a fuckin’ hero anymore,” Katsuki cut him off yet again as his chest compressed painfully again. “So let’s make that clear right now.”
“Even if you can’t work because you’re sick, you’re still a good hero,” said Izuku vehemently.
Katsuki’s scowl deepened as the pressure built inside him, fury at the front of it, as Izuku continued to miss the fucking point. “I’m not a hero anymore, Izuku. I’m not ever gonna be a hero again, so I’m not sure what kinda bullshit you’re trying to say to me right now. Just stop. Forget I said anything.”
“You don’t know that,” Izuku replied. The slight waver in his voice betrayed him.
“Know what?”
“That you won’t be a hero again.”
For a long moment, Katsuki glared back at him, seething. His mind spun but his brain was too foggy to hold onto any of it. He could only grow increasingly angrier as he continued to bleed out through all his old wounds and broken parts, and Izuku continued to deny it to his face.
He needed Izuku to see. To understand.
After a moment, he said, “What if I’m not a hero, Izuku?”
Izuku stared back at him, eyes wide and brow furrowed in obvious bafflement.
“I’m dying, and I know you don’t want to admit that,” Katsuki accused. “But don’t you get it? I don’t have a damn thing without heroics. That’s why I’m not someone of any significance. I didn’t do what I fucking said I would. I didn’t become Number One. I kept fucking up. I spent the last eight years focused on—on money rather than ranking.”
Money for that goddamn armor.
“Now I’m going to die without even reaching the top ten,” Katsuki’s voice came out thick and he had to look away again when his eyes unexpectedly welled.
He was almost surprised by his own tears and emotion in the same way he was his anger. They surged out of the fog and caught him off guard. The numbness sometimes made it so he wasn’t sure he could feel much of anything anymore. It made finding any of the emotions on command impossible, but they sometimes chose to surface randomly.
“So I don’t want to hear your shitty opinion,” Katsuki forced the words out. “I don’t want you to tell me how great you think I am or any other bullshit. I don’t—I fucking… I’m breaking apart here, can’t you see that? There isn’t a goddamn respectable thing about me anymore. All I had was being a hero, and I’m not a hero anymore no matter how many times you deny it.”
By the end, his voice had gone weak and strained. Deep, deep sadness that nearly blindsided him with its appearance and its strength was starting to consume him. He hung his head and wiped at his eyes with the backs of his shaky hands.
All I had was heroics. All I had was that childhood dream. All I had was us.
“There’s not a goddamn thing about me that anyone likes without my fucking Quirk and career,” he went on, the admission slipping out far too easily as he stared down at his hands resting in his lap. “It’s the only reason anyone ever tolerated my shit.”
“Kacchan—” Izuku started to speak.
“Not even you,” Katsuki cut him off with harshly whispered, bitter words as tears burned in his eyes. “So don’t lie.”
He turned his head to glare challengingly at Izuku. It hurt to look at those wide green eyes, so shocked and still appearing almost offended. It was hard not to look at him and see him at every stage of their lives, because really Izuku had hardly changed that whole time.
It was hard not to remember the wonder in Izuku’s eyes the first time he’d seen Katsuki’s Quirk. The tears the first time he beat him up. The pleading as he stood between Katsuki and another classmate to stand up for them. The anxiety when Katsuki shoved him around in middle school. The determination when he first challenged Katsuki back.
Those wide, watchful green eyes that in the years since had looked at Katsuki many, many times in many different ways.
Years later, the slight shock and apathy with which he told Katsuki that working together just wasn’t going to happen.
Izuku looked at him now in a way he didn’t often. It was one of the faces he made when Katsuki said something unexpected. More than unexpected, he could see that every time he did something like this, it broke Izuku’s worldview a bit.
Because Izuku was unchanging, constant somewhere deep in his heart. His continuous, flat-out denial of everything Katsuki had been going through was teaching Katsuki of one thing.
Either Izuku was in denial about how Katsuki wasn’t the man he was supposed to be… or Izuku genuinely didn’t realize that Katsuki wasn’t like him.
Somehow no matter how many times Izuku sat by him as he cried and puked his fucking guts out, Izuku still hadn’t realized that Katsuki was weak. He wasn’t a perfect, unbreakable hero. He wasn’t unchanging or unaffected. He was broken, dammit. He was broken and weak and so, so tired. Not just on the outside, but everything inside as well.
Maybe he was breaking Izuku’s worldview by finally showing him just how fucked up he was. The idea spurred Katsuki on.
“You told me years ago,” Katsuki bit out as more tears escaped his eyes, “that you thought I was amazing. That’s the reason you always stuck close even when I kicked your ass and shoved you away. Because I was this shiny hero right in front of you, right? You said some shit about how I was this amazing person who was closer to you than All Might.”
Izuku was still staring at him, frozen. Almost scared, in the way he looked whenever Katsuki got too emotional or vulnerable. His wide eyes didn’t even seem to blink as they flitted back and forth between Katsuki’s eyes.
Katsuki gritted out the next words with slightly more force to try and cover up how he was begging, “So don’t you fucking dare tell me that I’m anything without heroics because we both know you’ll be lying through your fucking teeth! Because I’m not a hero anymore and all that’s left is just an unlikable jackass!”
“No!” Izuku broke out of his trance, protesting with sudden, rushed indignance as his brow furrowed with his predictable pushback. “That wasn’t—it was still you, Kacchan! You—”
“I don’t think you understand a goddamn thing about me!” Katsuki snapped back.
“Yes, I do!” Izuku argued heatedly.
“Bullshit!” Katsuki twisted partially to face him, wishing his voice hadn’t gone so hoarse when he tried to raise it. “I was an asshole to you! I am an asshole! I bullied you—”
“That was so long ago—”
“—and yet you still tailed after me, because I was so goddamn heroic, right? Because I always won?”
Izuku visibly hesitated, and Katsuki wished being right didn’t hurt so bad.
“So what about now that I’m losing?” Katsuki challenged, staring him down.
The desire to break Izuku’s worldview was growing into an all-consuming desperation. There was a desire, a need, to make him realize the truth.
“What about now that I’m not a hero?!” Katsuki demanded forcefully. “What about now that I’m fucking dying? What about now that I’m weak and exhausted and giving up, hah?!”
Izuku looked undeniably ambivalent, but he shook his head, tears trailing down his cheeks as he did so.
“You’re not weak, Kacchan,” he said firmly. “Just because you’re sick—”
“God, shut up!” Katsuki was shouting again, his voice breaking and cutting out infuriatingly. “All that shit… fuck, that’s not me, don’t you get it?! Fucking… I’m weak, Izuku! I’ve always been weak!”
“You’re sick! It’s okay that—”
“Before I was sick! Before all this! I’m weak on the inside! Now I’m dying and I’m tired and all that’s left is the weak shit, don’t you see?!”
Katsuki realized he was breathing heavily, and his breaths were making those wheezing noises as they forced their way in and out of his diseased lungs. As the air forced its way past the flowers.
“I can’t—I can barely walk for any length of time,” Katsuki found himself ranting; a floodgate somewhere opened that he hadn’t intended to. “I can’t ever breathe and I’m always so exhausted! But even before all this happened, I—I was already cracking. You all can deal with shit being different from when we were kids and are fine with not being a hero, but that was all I had! All I ever had was my damn Quirk and everyone knew how great I was gonna be and I fucking knew it too! So now—now—”
He gasped in huge, wheezing breaths, staring down at the ground feeling increasingly agitated.
“Kacchan, stop!” said Izuku forcefully, but the worry bled into his tone. “You need to breathe, you’re—”
“I can’t breathe, Izuku! There’re flowers in my fucking lungs! I can’t ever breathe! I don’t remember what it was like to breathe clearly and—”
Katsuki paused to cough, pulling the tissues from his jacket pocket as he hacked up the blood and mucus into it. When he was done, tears escaped the corners of his eyes from the force of it. He crumpled the tissues in his trembling fist, shoving them back in his pocket. It was fucking disgusting, and it all just added and added to how horrible it felt to be alive.
“Kacchan,” Izuku’s voice was agonizingly soft.
“Shut up,” Katsuki bit out before he could go on. The words ripped painfully out of his hoarse throat, rubbed raw from the coughing. His chest ached so, so much. “I don’t want to hear it.”
For a long moment, neither of them said anything and Katsuki’s eyes returned to the horizon. The view looked less appealing now. It was just… there.
He was tired.
“Kacchan, you’re wrong.”
Eventually, Izuku spoke and he said it with that same damn obstinate tone he always used.
Katsuki’s fury stirred up bitter and sharp. His pain and exhaustion only fed into it this time, shortening his temper.
“I don’t want to hear it,” he growled out, turning to meet that blazing determination in those green eyes. He didn’t even know what the fuck Izuku was going to say, but he knew it would be some blanketed idealism that brushed shit aside. “I really, really fucking don’t.”
“You need to hear it!” Izuku protested forcefully. “This is what you’ve felt like all this time, but I—”
“No, I don’t! Don’t tell me what I need!”
“You want to hear what I have to say, or you wouldn’t have told me!”
“That’s not why I said any of that shit!”
“I think it is,” Izuku was frowning deeply. “I think—”
Something in Katsuki inexplicably and abruptly snapped. He rounded on Izuku reaching forward to grab at his shirt with all the strength that his aching, trembling, weak fingers could manage. Izuku looked startled and distressed, eyes again wide and brow furrowed.
“NO, I WANT TO HEAR YOU SAY THE TRUTH!” Katsuki was shouting, fury overflowing within him so suddenly there was no hope to contain it. With the strain on it, it hardly sounded like his own voice. “I WANT YOU TO FUCKING SAY IT!”
Katsuki’s chest heaved, out of breath from raising his voice. The shouting had torn through his throat even more, and it was so goddamn frustrating. He leaned closer to Izuku’s face and glared furiously.
He growled hoarsely, “Or if you won’t say it. I want to see it in your eyes.”
Izuku looked appalled, and his lips were frozen, halfway parted.
Katsuki felt insane, out of control, and desperate for some reprieve from his agony.
“I want you to stop looking at me like there’s anything worth looking at,” he spat furiously, ignoring the permanent strain weakening his voice and threatening to steal it completely. “Because I’m not a hero anymore, Izuku. And every other part of me is fucked. I’m an asshole. Can’t control my fucking emotions for shit. I want you to see it!”
Katsuki felt increasingly crazed. He leaned closer, baring his teeth as he glowered, challenging Izuku. His mouth, lips, and throat were dry and tasted like blood. He probably looked insane.
“I’m not a hero anymore. You denying it doesn’t make it true. I’m weak and I’m dying, and everything that made anyone give a shit about me is gone anyways. Come on, Izuku, wake up! Look at me!”
Izuku was looking at him, frozen and breathing hard and not even blinking.
“I want you to look at me, and I want you to realize what I realize,” Katsuki bit out, wishing it wasn’t tearing at his throat. Wishing his voice wasn’t thick with emotion. Wishing he could hide all the pain under his anger… but there was too much. “I’m not ever gonna be a fucking hero again. I’m halfway dead by now, and everything left isn’t worth shit anyways.”
Was Izuku trembling or was it all just Katsuki? He had no way of knowing.
“So stop looking at me like that!” Katsuki cried out, shaking him with all his limited strength. It was an infuriated, broken plead. “Stop looking at me as if I’m still a fucking hero. Get it through your head that I’m never going to be more than this ever again. I’m weak and I’m dying, and pretending I’m not only makes you look like a fucking idiot!”
The desperation was wrapped around every part of his being now. He wanted Izuku to see. For some fucking reason, he needed Izuku to see. See that he was a fucking failure. See that he was too weak to handle any of this. See that all that was left of him when you stripped those best parts of him away was a pathetic asshole.
See that he didn’t always win. Sometimes he lost. Sometimes he died.
Maybe this time, he would give up or he would lose or he would die—whatever the hell anyone wanted to call it.
He needed Izuku to see.
He wanted to break Izuku’s worldview and see the disappointment in his eyes as he realized just how fucked up Katsuki was.
“Come on, I can see that you want to say that shit to me again,” Katsuki went on, searching Izuku’s eyes for what it was he wanted. “I can see it in your eyes. Say that shit to me. Say that I’m not me if I give up. Say that I’m not me if I cry. Say it, Izuku. Say it!”
Izuku was just staring, with his face growing increasingly distressed. The fact that he wouldn’t move or speak was pissing Katsuki off to no end… the fact that he wasn’t fucking saying what Katsuki wanted him to was infuriating.
“Look at me, I’m giving up!” Katsuki began to rant hysterically as he trembled visibly and his vision went blurry at the edges. “You’re still here because you want to save me, but the parts of me worth saving are already gone. The parts of me you’ve always admired or that you actually fucking liked are gone. I’m a fully grown man that cries all the fucking time and can’t do basic shit for himself! Just admit that I’m not who you thought I was! I didn’t become the best! I didn’t even break top ten and I was dropping in the rankings and—and—”
He was breathing loud and fast, wheezing.
“K—” Izuku tried to interrupt.
But Katsuki wasn’t done, he went on, wishing he didn’t sound like he was begging, “I’m not a hero anymore. I’m weak, and I can’t handle any of this shit. I can’t handle—I can’t—fuck!”
Katsuki couldn’t breathe. He panted more, trying to finish what the hell he was saying.
“Kacchan, maybe…” Izuku’s voice was disgustingly concerned. “You should take a second to breathe.”
Katsuki barely even heard him, so determined to just finish what the hell he was trying to say. “I’m not strong… I can’t do this… I…”
His head spun dangerously.
“Kacchan, breathe!” Izuku spoke forcefully this time, and his hand covered Katsuki’s own where it gripped at his shirt.
Izuku’s familiar touch snapped Katsuki out of his frantic rant.
“I’m sorry, I know it’s hard to breathe,” Izuku’s voice trembled ever so slightly when he spoke, “but just focus on it for a second. I have the O2 in the car if we need it, okay?”
For a long pause, Katsuki just stared into his wide, green eyes. They were watery and concerned and upset, but he still saw none of what he was hoping for there. Izuku was still looking at him the same way. He didn’t get it. He didn’t see.
Katsuki’s eyes burned with mortified tears, and he shoved away from Izuku, turning to face away from him as he clenched his jaw. Nausea rolled in his gut, and he loosely covered his mouth with his hand as if that would actually do anything to keep him from vomiting. He followed Izuku’s instruction, only because now that he wasn’t ranting, he became aware of just how lightheaded he’d grown as he panted and tried to catch his breath.
Frustrated, ashamed tears streamed out of his eyes. He hadn’t finished talking. He had more to say. The pressure in his chest hadn’t been released in the slightest.
Weak, remember?
Weak, weak, weak.
Can’t even argue with Izuku anymore, let alone kick his ass like at Ground Beta.
He breathed shallowly in his attempt to replenish his oxygen without vomiting. Goddammit, he was so tired of throwing up.
With each passing moment he also grew more and more humiliated by his sudden outburst. What the hell was he thinking? Trying to get Izuku to give up on something? Much less “Kacchan”? Even he knew the very idea was ludicrous. Izuku’s level of persistent idealism had bordered on delusion many times. Was it so shocking to see it do so now?
When Katsuki regained some of his breath and the nausea had simmered down again, he reached a hand up to rub over his face. He choked on a sob and trembled as a few more tears escaped.
“Kacchan,” Izuku began quietly. He touched Katsuki’s shoulder lightly. “Should I—”
Katsuki leaned away, shoving his hand aside when his touch felt too overwhelming. Too heavy on top of everything else. He was already being crushed and suffocated. He couldn’t handle the agony of being touched.
“Don’t touch me.”
He hadn’t really meant for it to come out sounding like a plead, but it did and his voice broke towards the end. He ducked his head into his hands and shook it slowly, before letting out a frustrated guttural cry through his teeth. He could feel Izuku’s eyes on him and it made him want to rip his own skin off to escape it.
Too much. Too much. Too much.
Why did it always feel like Katsuki had all these emotions that Izuku just… didn’t?
“Didn’t you hear anything I said?” Katsuki asked desperately, furiously, as he pressed his palms into his eye sockets until they ached.
“I did,” Izuku’s answer came out immediately, rushed, but his next words were slower, quieter, more hesitant. “I’m… I just don’t want to upset you more.”
Katsuki let out a quiet, rueful scoff. His hands smoothed back to dig into his own hair. He continued to breathe shallowly, his stomach feeling too sensitive. Every time he threw up, it would make him feel ten times worse so all he wanted to do was prevent that for now. They had a long drive home.
Sitting like this was making his back pain flare, but he was exhausted and didn’t want to look at Izuku. He didn’t need to, either. He could clearly picture the look that would be on Izuku’s face right now as he stared at his pathetic, crying form.
Distressed, bewildered, uncertain, upset. He’d look shocked. His eyes would be wide and at the moment, he was undoubtedly going back and forth between his worry for Katsuki’s safety and his desire to magically make everything better again.
Why’d he ever think he’d convince Izuku to… what? Hate him?
If he was looking for permission to die or to hate himself or whatever, he’d never get it from Izuku. The bastard never knew when to give up. That was the whole goddamn issue.
If you won’t love me, why won’t you at least let me escape you?
I’m so tired.
Let me go.
Look away.
“Don’t fry your nerdy brain trying to think about how to fix this,” Katsuki grumbled throatily. “Just… forget what I said. Forget I said anything, I’m just—I’m fucking exhausted. Didn’t mean to say half that shit. Don’t even know what I was saying.”
There was a long pause in which Katsuki sighed and sat up. He leaned back against the bench again, all without looking over at Izuku. All while feeling Izuku’s eyes on him.
“I want to go home,” Katsuki said lowly as he stared at the horizon.
In his peripheral, he saw Izuku shift and then move into action.
“O-okay,” Izuku scrambled to stand, grabbing their things.
Katsuki didn’t look at him as he stood and meandered sluggishly to the car. He was very, very tired. Their outings usually left him with unbearable fatigue, and today’s emotional rollercoaster had been even more taxing than usual.
He wished that in this moment of total exhaustion, total pain and misery, he wasn’t still distinctly aware of Izuku. He wished he wasn’t aware of how Izuku was practically buzzing with anxious, uncertain energy. He wished Izuku’s disquieted state wasn’t pushing its way under his skin, so damn viscerally that he wanted to snap at him again.
Katsuki closed his eyes as Izuku started to drive, leaning back and pretending he wasn’t hyperaware of him.
It’d only been a minute when Izuku spoke. Despite the length of time since he’d last spoken, his words again came blurted out and uncertain, “I was wrong to say that.”
Katsuki peeled open his heavy eyelids, rolling his head to the side so he could look at Izuku.
Izuku stared out the front windshield, and his determined expression and squared shoulders didn’t entirely match his tone of voice.
“That thing you said,” Izuku went on. “You said you wanted me to say it again. That… that you weren’t you if you cried. Honestly, I barely remember saying that, but you meant back in high school, right? After that final fight?”
Katsuki said nothing, staring at the side of his face.
Izuku took his silence as confirmation without turning to look at him and went on, “I’d never seen you cry like that, back then. I was… I don’t know. Confused and maybe overwhelmed. I felt strange and off, and suddenly you were crying and talking about—”
Izuku cut himself off and cleared his throat before going on. “But I was wrong. I think I said it wasn’t like you to cry because it was so unexpected. Everything you were saying and doing… it was just really surprising, I guess. And you always said that crying was bad. It watered the flowers, and well… to be honest, back then I also didn’t know that was superstition. I only knew what you told me when we were kids. So I think a part of me was panicked because of that.”
Katsuki gazed steadily at the side of his face. From this angle, he couldn’t see Izuku’s scar. Only his freckles and the cut of his jaw and the slope of his nose. Despite his exhaustion and a budding headache, he stared.
“That didn’t mean you were wrong to cry, though,” Izuku said firmly, vehemently. “You’re still you if you cry, Kacchan. I mean… everyone cries sometimes.”
Izuku glanced briefly in his direction but could only meet his eyes for a half second before he looked back at the road. Katsuki saw him tense up more, as if he’d partially thought that Katsuki might not be listening up until this point and his rapt attention made him nervous.
“But…” Izuku started again, and the hesitation had made its way back into his tone so much that Katsuki narrowed his eyes slightly in suspicion. Izuku continued, and these words were more certain, “But you’re not you if you give up.”
Katsuki’s heart squeezed painfully. He didn’t even know what he felt in response to that. Lonely? Isolated? Misunderstood? It was something numb, distant, painful.
He was saying part of what Katsuki had wanted… but not in the way he’d wanted. He was saying it, but not with horrified realization. Not with disgust or disappointment because that version of Katsuki was dead and he’d failed to live up to it.
“You’re you because you don’t give up on winning,” said Izuku with an air of forceful conviction.
His sentiments fell hollowly on Katsuki’s ears. He was saying the words as if to motivate him, as if it was something so simple. He wasn’t understanding that Katsuki was telling him that that’s why everything worth saving was dead.
It just made Katsuki feel tired, because once again Izuku was refusing to see the truth.
Katsuki had tried to give up. He’d tried, that last hero shift he worked. He’d failed, but he’d spent many moments after wishing that he hadn’t. He felt the call to give up so endlessly, as his exhausted mind and body and soul suffocated and fought blindly and kept bleeding.
Katsuki wasn’t going to win.
His desire to win had been fading within him. His pride was so very faded—if it was alive at all. He wasn’t anything but a man who felt far older and more broken than he had any good reason to feel. He wasn’t himself anymore—not Bakugou Katsuki, the future Number One Hero. He was unrecognizable.
That’s what he was trying to tell Izuku. He was trying to tell him, and he wasn’t getting it. Though whether it was because Izuku was genuinely missing the point or stubbornly ignoring it, he couldn’t tell.
It all just left Katsuki feeling that distant, numb, lonely ache.
“Izuku, stop,” Katsuki muttered. “This isn’t helpful. It’s not going to change anything.”
“You told me you weren’t giving up,” Izuku said, almost accusingly, going on as if Katsuki hadn’t spoken. “You told me—back when I first found out you were sick. You said this was how it had to be.”
Katsuki drew in a long, slow breath and sighed it out.
Giving up…
They were just words to him. They just sounded like empty words. His friends and family wielded them against him like a weapon, but… maybe he was already in too much pain to feel the hurt now. He didn’t feel offended. He didn’t care what words were used. He was just fucking exhausted.
He was trying to get Izuku to see that it was because he didn’t give a shit whether or not he was giving up or not that he wasn’t himself anymore. He wasn’t offended or defensive by Izuku’s accusation. He felt nothing besides tired irritation despite Izuku’s accusation.
“You told me this was all unavoidable,” Izuku’s voice grew more strained again. “Were you… were you lying?”
Katsuki’s mind felt cleared of thoughts and replaced with cotton.
“Kacchan, if you were lying you need to tell me right now. You can still go to the hospital and get surgery—”
“No.”
“Kacchan, it isn’t like you to give up,” Izuku doubled down, sparing a glance his way, then he added after hesitating slightly, “but that doesn’t mean you haven’t tried before.”
Katsuki stared at him, puzzled and not entirely certain what the hell he was referring to. Was he talking about the situation with the radiation during his last hero shift? Was he sort of aware of things, but ignoring it?
“I know you haven’t told the person you love that you’re in love with them,” said Izuku. “But they still rejected you, right?”
Katsuki jolted as his heart practically stopped and he exclaimed hoarsely, “Hah?!”
Izuku’s jaw was set, and he was in damn analysis mode, talking with certainty now. “You don’t give up, unless you get caught up in other aspects of things. Like when you wanted to fail our first exams back in high school, rather than work with me to pass.”
Katsuki slumped in his seat again, breathing shallowly as Izuku got closer and closer to the point while knowing he’d always miss it at the end.
The point being that maybe he had been like that, but he wasn’t anymore. That person was long gone.
“You only try to give up if the importance of victory is clouded by something else,” Izuku said, matter-of-factly. “Usually anger or some other strong emotion. So… in this case… you’ve talked about how you can’t get surgery because of all your reasons. But you won’t even talk much about that other option—why you won’t tell them. You just get angry or make excuses or change the subject. It’s because they already rejected you somehow, isn’t it? They upset you and—”
“Can you please shut up?” Katsuki bit out sharply. “Your muttering is giving me a damn headache.”
“Am I right?” Izuku pushed.
Katsuki sighed. He was awake, but it almost felt like half his mind had started to drift off to sleep, and he looked at the world with a surreal haze once again.
The silence stretched.
“It’s not that simple,” Katsuki murmured eventually. “Nothing’s that simple anymore. We’re not fuckin’ teenagers anymore.”
Izuku’s frown was deep as he clearly tried to comprehend what the hell Katsuki meant by that.
“If you give up, you’ll die,” said Izuku, distressed as if Katsuki hadn’t begged him to look away so many times. He went on ardently, “Kacchan, in this case, victory is your life. Can’t you see that’s more important than anything? More than your anger or hurt or l-love or whatever it is. If you live, you can still recover. I’ll help you train, and you can still be a hero! You can’t let—”
“Izuku, stop talking,” Katsuki cut him off exhaustedly. “I just told you it’s not that simple. This isn’t like the shitty exam from when we were fourteen.”
“How?” Izuku demanded, but his tone was strained as he basically pleaded. “How is this different?!”
Katsuki didn’t know how to make him understand.
I’m tired. My brain’s broken and I have no idea how to fix it. I’m not sure it can be fixed.
I can’t do this. I want to rest.
How did he make Izuku understand that his mind was fucked up in a way he highly doubted could be fixed? How did he explain that living everyday inside his own foggy mind was just endless painful, suffocating misery?
“It’s just more complicated than that was.”
“How?! You haven’t told me anything! You haven’t even told me who it is!” Izuku’s voice grew shrill with desperation.
Katsuki gazed out at the road rushing by. His heart thudded palpably in his chest, the only proof that he was alive in his otherwise heavy, limp body.
Tell him who it is…
Izuku wasn’t his cure or his perfect antidote. He was only his occasional respite.
Katsuki had realized that by now. Hearing Izuku act like Katsuki knowing he was in requited love would fix everything so perfectly just made him feel isolated. Even now, Izuku clung to the idea that getting rid of Hanahaki disease and getting him back to his career was how to make it all better.
He didn’t get it. Still. He’d missed the point.
“Why won’t you tell me anything?” Izuku begged. “Don’t you trust me? Who would I even tell? I just want to help you, Kacchan, please talk to me!”
His tone was so clearly laced with dismay, but Katsuki hardly felt anything through the haze. He distantly wished he did, but he didn’t. He didn’t feel anything, as all of the remainders of his humanity sunk back down under the fog as he drifted closer to sleep.
Katsuki felt a heavy sense of lonely defeat sitting in his gut. He’d wanted Izuku to understand. To see. But he still just… didn’t.
“I did talk to you,” Katsuki said lowly, staring half-lidded at the road as he breathed evenly and felt sleep wanting to take him.
“…What?”
“Back on that damn bench just now,” Katsuki muttered, voice slurring more as he drifted off. “’s not my fault if you weren’t listening.”
“I was listening,” Izuku said hurriedly. “I just… I was just…”
You’re trying to fix it. Katsuki thought as his consciousness faded. You’re trying to make it better because you don’t know how to face the pain either. I know.
─────
When Izuku woke him up when they got back, they went through the usual routine to get Katsuki back inside and in bed.
Katsuki went through it all feeling half-awake and half-alive, going through the motions. It felt like it took an eternity for him to collapse into bed as Izuku pulled the comforter over him. He closed his eyes, intending to drift off when he was pulled back to consciousness by the bed shifting around unexpectedly.
He peeled his eyes back open to keep himself awake as mild confusion stirred up within him. He was laying on the side, facing the wall. His back was to the door and the rest of the bed. Turning to look was too exhausting an endeavor, but had Izuku just… gotten on the bed?
His question was answered a second later when Izuku spoke.
“Kacchan, are you awake?” he whispered.
Katsuki’s eyes were still forced open to keep himself from drifting off, and it was taking increasing effort to resist the weight of his eyelids. Izuku was clearly behind him… on the bed… but why?
“Hm,” he grunted noncommittally in response.
“Do you…” Izuku began uncertainly.
The bed shifted as he moved. Katsuki frowned at the wall, wishing he had the energy to turn and look but he barely had the energy to stay awake.
“Kacchan, do you think I’m not worth anything without a Quirk? Without One For All?”
Katsuki tensed as a good portion of his sleepiness was jolted right out of him at the question. His body and eyelids were still heavy with exhaustion, but he was snatched back from the brink of falling asleep.
“What the hell are you talking about?” he muttered back.
“I’m just wondering. Do you think I’m not anyone, now that I’m not a hero?”
More awake now, Katsuki could clearly tell that Izuku’s tone was obviously goading, not an attempt at vulnerability. He wasn’t looking for reassurance or really talking about himself, he was just making another poorly disguised attempt to get Katsuki to talk.
Even so, a sharp pain shot through Katsuki’s chest at the words. He couldn’t help but deeply wish that Izuku had been talking about himself or looking for comfort. Not because he wanted Izuku to be in pain, but because maybe his misery wouldn’t feel so isolated and one-sided if he knew Izuku felt any of these emotions, too.
He knew that made him a selfish asshole, though.
Still, he wondered… he wondered so much. Did Izuku ever miss One For All? Did he ever miss the way things were back then?
Katsuki’s mind also couldn’t help but linger on his phrasing “not a hero,” because it felt wrong.
What did Izuku mean by that? He was still a registered hero. He worked sometimes still, testing out the armor.
Katsuki didn’t ask or say any of that, of course. He knew Izuku wouldn’t give him a straight answer anyways.
“Shut up,” he said roughly, cutting off the bullshit he knew Izuku was pulling before it even began. “You can’t compare the two of us, nerd. You were always someone without a Quirk. You were always impressive and had other shit going for you. Don’t pull this shit. I’m too tired.”
“And I thought you were impressive before we ever had Quirks,” Izuku replied immediately, his voice so soft and sincere that it hurt. “I always thought you were amazing.”
Katsuki stared blankly at the wall as he thought of those far off, long faded memories. Izuku with those bright green eyes, looking at him in awe no matter what he did. Skipping rocks, playing ball, racing, playing heroes… any of it. They were just little kids, and the memories hurt.
“Always will,” Izuku added.
He spoke so quietly that the words were barely said. Katsuki could tell he was embarrassed just by the nuances of his tone and how quietly he said it.
Katsuki grimaced as his heart responded with a stab of pain.
Easily impressed bastard. He thought through the agony of Izuku’s love.
Because he was loved by Izuku, just not in the way he wanted. But because of who Izuku was, the way in which he loved and admired was so clear and it was so deep and heartfelt. It hurt to receive it and know that it still wasn’t enough.
Worse, it hurt because it felt like Izuku didn’t understand anything but was choosing to stay. He was ignoring the worst parts of Katsuki to focus on being hopeful and positive. He was refusing to see that only the worst parts were left. He was only here because he was picturing Kacchan who always won and was strong and whatever the fuck.
Izuku didn’t see him the way he actually was. He saw him in a shiny light, and he always had.
But now, Katsuki felt desperate for him to actually see him. To see his pain and anger. To see him—all the fucked up parts that were left. He wanted Izuku to see him, to acknowledge him, to realize that he wasn’t as strong or as immutable or as persistent as Izuku himself was.
And then he wanted Izuku to let him go.
“I’m never going to say what you want me to, Kacchan,” Izuku muttered quietly after a long silence.
Katsuki’s heart thudded so intensely despite his exhaustion. He could feel his pulse in his throat.
“I’m not going to say you’re not worth saving,” Izuku went on. “Or that… there’s nothing left of you worth saving.”
Katsuki felt the last dregs of energy drain right out of him. He said nothing, as the dull pain in his chest ached so very, very badly. He stared at the wall, still unwilling to close his eyes in case his exhausted body took hold of him and shut it all down.
Izuku shifted on the bed again. Katsuki had no idea what he was doing. Was he sitting? Lying down? He wasn’t under the covers, because Katsuki hadn’t felt them move. Still… what the hell was he doing?
“You’re always worth saving,” Izuku declared in that damn determined tone of his.
You think everyone’s worth saving. Katsuki stared vacantly at the wall. Doesn’t make me special, dumbass.
“I was listening to what you said,” said Izuku adamantly. “I was. I just… I just don’t agree with you.”
Katsuki very nearly closed his eyes. If they were just going to repeat the same bullshit, he didn’t want to endure it again. But Izuku spoke again and drew his attention back.
“You said that you don’t recognize yourself,” said Izuku. “You said all those things about you being… gone and all that. But well, I’ve known you my entire life. Kacchan... I recognize you.”
Though his words were spoken slowly and carefully, the conviction in them was clear. He was hesitant in speaking aloud, but the feelings behind the words were unwavering.
A tear escaped Katsuki’s eye unbidden and traced over the bridge of his nose. Still, he stared at the wall.
God, the ache in his heart was so intense. It felt like his chest was compressing on his already fucked-up lungs.
“You always do this sort of thing when you’re in pain,” said Izuku quietly but assuredly. “You lash out. You push people away. Your defenses are up higher. And that’s okay. I think… I think that it’s okay if you act a bit different when you’re hurting. It doesn’t mean you’re gone, Kacchan. It just means… you’re unsteady right now. That’s why you’re letting us take care of the things that you can’t take care of, right?”
Katsuki curled in on himself, clutching at his chest as he struggled to breathe around the pain and the rising urge to sob. More tears traced over his nose and down the side of his face even as he squeezed his eyes shut.
You bastard. He thought fiercely because he couldn’t manage to speak.
Izuku was a fucking bastard because he was stealing Katsuki’s own words to use against him. From a day a long, long time ago, when Katsuki stood before him in the rain and apologized for his wrongdoings from their childhood together. When he appealed to Izuku to let them all fight together against the villains.
Of course Katsuki fucking recognized them, because he’d spent hours and hours trying to figure out what to say to Izuku when he apologized. He spent so long trying to figure out how to get Izuku to stop running off on his own. The words felt like the most important ones of his life at the time, so they weren’t so much memorized as carved into his very soul.
“Everything you've done after inheriting One For All has been ideal. You've done nothing wrong. But right now, you're unsteady. There's a wall you can't overcome with just ideals. We'll take care of the things that you can't take care of.”
Katsuki’s hand dug into the shirt over his chest as it hurt so badly that he wondered for the first time in a while if his heart was going to give out right then and there. He couldn’t think or breathe or speak. He couldn’t even articulate why it was that he was suddenly in such agony, he was just forced to feel it.
“If winning this time is living, Kacchan,” Izuku went on. “Don’t try to win by yourself, remember? Back then, you told me that a few times. So… you don’t have to fight alone.”
This isn’t like that, Katsuki wanted to scream. It’s not the same thing at all.
Izuku moved again, shuffling around for a long moment and then Katsuki’s heart jolted again when he felt pressure against his back. It was too dark to see super well and Izuku was behind him anyways, but Katsuki would guess that he was sitting up, with his back pressed against his own with the covers in between them. He wasn’t fully leaning on him, as the pressure was light, but he was undeniably there as he pressed back firmly enough that Katsuki knew he wasn’t imagining it.
Katsuki tried not to tense up and tried to forcibly relax even as he was so fucking bewildered. They didn’t do… this. Whatever this was. Izuku only ever touched him casually—in comfort—when he thought Katsuki was asleep. But Izuku surely knew he was awake right now. Surely he could hear how Katsuki was sniffling and crying. Now that he was sitting against him, he would feel the uneven spasming of his chest as he struggled to breathe and not sob.
“I don’t know how to save you,” Izuku admitted so quietly that Katsuki almost didn’t hear it. “I don’t understand everything, and I don’t know why you won’t tell me, but I won’t stop trying. Not ever.”
Katsuki dug his hand further into his chest; it felt like it was trying to cave in and he was helpless to stop it. His heart would surely give out because there was no way the intensity of his pain was normal.
Izuku… would be Izuku forever, wouldn’t he? Unchangeable until the day he died. It should’ve been encouraging or inspiring or anything but so incredibly painful. But in the presence of such strength, Katsuki only felt even weaker. He only felt like more of a fraud as the inferiority that Izuku was so good at making him feel was pulled up from the depths.
Katsuki was only a mortal. He was exhausted and worn down and he wanted to rest. How could he ever make Izuku understand that? How could he ever get Izuku to see that the world had corroded him into nothing? How could he get Izuku to understand that not everyone was as strong as he was?
This isn’t like any time before. Katsuki wanted to scream.
This wasn’t like any time before, because Katsuki was fighting and wounded but there were no enemies to be seen and no blood to show for it. This time, Katsuki couldn’t clearly define anything about himself or his feelings. He didn’t know how he ended up here, in this horribly, foggy state of mind, and yet apparently he was the only one who could get himself out of it.
How could anyone know if there was a way out, if this shit didn’t even show up on a scan or any tests? Katsuki definitely didn’t fucking feel like this shit could be fixed. He knew some of the things definitely couldn’t be fixed.
This isn’t like before, so just look away and let me go.
Even still, Katsuki suffocated on his sobs rather than letting them out so that he could speak, because ultimately he was a selfish man who didn’t want to break the spell of whatever Izuku was thinking about right now. He wanted Izuku to shut up, but also a part of him deeply craved insight into his thoughts. It was something he was so rarely allowed, even just to this extent.
“I’ll keep trying to save you,” Izuku vowed. “Even if you don’t want me to I’m going to keep trying. Because you’re not gone, Kacchan.”
The pressure on Katsuki’s back increased as Izuku pushed back into him with more force as his voice lowered to little more than a shaky whisper, “You’re right here. I recognize you, I swear it. You’re right here… and I’m going to save you.”
His voice grew so quiet at the end that Katsuki wondered if he even intended for him to hear it. Whether he did or not, Katsuki heard him in the otherwise dead silence of the room.
And Katsuki hurt so damn bad because he loved him so much. He fell in love with this part of Izuku after all, but he felt entirely unworthy of it at the moment.
Izuku was a shining beacon of endless heroism, and Katsuki was just a rotting, lonely corpse. He was weak. He was giving up. He wasn’t worthy of such conviction or attention. He’d spent so long trying to be worthy of Izuku and to live up to this undeniable heroism at his core, and now he knew for certain that he would never get close.
Katsuki felt so incredibly far away from Izuku at the moment, miles and miles that he didn’t have the strength to cross. He felt so far from him, and it was agonizing because there’d been a time when he’d felt so close to him.
He could feel Izuku’s love and care that he gave to absolutely everyone—because that’s just who he was—and he wished Izuku would leave and look away as he decayed. But he knew he wouldn’t, because they were trapped together in this enduring, miserable cycle.
Against his back, Izuku shifted and pulled some of his weight off, though he didn’t move away completely. His presence was obvious in the light pressure that remained.
“You won’t ever convince me to give up on you, Kacchan,” Izuku muttered, quietly and stubbornly. “I know I don’t have One For All anymore and we’re not hero partners but… I’ve got your back like you’ve always had mine. You didn’t let me go off on my own all those years ago. I won’t either, even if you want me to leave you be.”
Something about his phrasing made Katsuki uneasy even as the words continued to add to his misery. It threw up a red flag in the back of his brain, made him want to linger on it for a moment longer. But when Izuku continued, his exhausted mind was dragged along.
“Before you give up, at least try using me,” Izuku insisted. “Talk to me. We’ll try everything. Just…”
He pressed back against Katsuki’s back again even more heavily than before. Katsuki could feel his uneven inhale even through the blankets. It both steadied him and threw his world upside down.
“Don’t give up, Kacchan,” said Izuku, so fervently that it made goosebumps rise on Katsuki’s body as his skin practically tingled in some subconscious reaction to Izuku’s tone. “Don’t get caught up in the other stuff and give up. Keep fighting and let me fight alongside you. We’ll find a way to beat this. All of it. Whatever it is that’s making you feel like giving up. Whatever rejection or—or… or anything. Whatever it is. We—you and I—well, I know it’s not the same as it was back then but…”
Izuku trailed off, and Katsuki held his breath as he listened, waiting. Against his back, it felt like Izuku also wasn’t breathing. For a long, long moment, the air was incredibly still as if for a moment in time, everything was paused. The air felt heavier as if everything they were feeling simmered within it.
Izuku spoke in a rushed tone at the same time that he leaned away and removed most of the pressure on Katsuki’s back. It broke the silence in a way that was almost jarring and left Katsuki feeling abruptly untethered and set adrift.
He rambled out, “It’s not just me, obviously. If you don’t want to talk to me, there’re so many others who you’ve helped over the years that just want to repay the favor. All our friends and your parents and everyone… just tell me who and I’ll bring them. I’ll talk to them for you or I can leave to give you privacy—anything. We’ll all help, Kacchan, please.”
Tears traced out of Katsuki’s eyes. He breathed through the compression of his chest and his head swam from exhaustion and probably from lack of oxygen.
You and I…
What was Izuku going to say? Katsuki wished so badly that he’d just said it. He missed when it felt like there’d been a “you and I.” A Deku and Kacchan, Izuku and Katsuki. When there was something tying them together, rather than just Katsuki being dragged along behind him as he held on to something long gone. Something that might’ve not been there in the first place.
“Just don’t give up,” said Izuku, slower and more forceful now. “Don’t say you’re okay losing. Fight.”
Katsuki grimaced as the pain flared again, a sharp stab right through his chest.
Izuku didn’t understand.
Nothing felt right anymore. Katsuki couldn’t think or act or feel in the same way that he used to. He broke something back during the war that all his peers had managed to keep intact. He was unhappy, and he had been for so long. He was tired, and he had been for so long. Existing in his own mind and life was the fight, and it made every moment of every day so agonizing.
How was Izuku supposed to fight alongside him, when it was all happening inside Katsuki’s fucked-up head and scarred heart?
It wasn’t that simple, didn’t Izuku understand? None of this was so simple as he was making it out to be. None of this was like anything they’d endured before.
“Win, Kacchan,” said Izuku vehemently.
Katsuki felt the pressure of Izuku sitting against his back. He heard his words, his determination, his passion. Izuku was right next to him, but he was so impossibly far away.
Win… if only it were so simple.
If he was in the middle of a fight—so vague and uncertain and painful—how could he ever hope to win? How could anyone win?
In a battle such as this, Katsuki didn’t truly believe that victory was possible.
He felt Izuku leaning against his back. He heard that endless determination in Izuku’s voice. He knew in his heart that when Izuku put his mind to something, nothing would stop him.
For the first time in a long, long time Katsuki felt something. He didn’t know if it was a will to fight or a desire to not give up or a spark of life. He didn’t know exactly what, but it was like despite how deeply he’d sunken into hopelessness… he could feel that there was a part of him that still wanted to keep going.
It was a feeling deep down of wanting to search through the fog until he could find Izuku’s outstretched hand.
“Win and live.”
Notes:
fighting an unseeable enemy,
bleeding from invisible wounds,
in a battle so ill-defined,
how can anyone emerge victoriousThe lovely @mozetodobrze did some more art for this fic!! You can check it out here!!
Thanks for reading! And especially to everyone who continues to comment and leave kudos :) I really love to hear everyone's thoughts. If it takes me a while to respond to your comment or you have a comment I haven't responded to yet know that I have read and appreciate your comment!! It takes me a while to get things done sometimes lol but know that I appreciate hearing everyone's feedback and thoughts so much!!
There's even more bkdk from here on out so hopefully the many thousands of words of buildup will feel worth it to you all haha. My social media and sneak peeks/early content for future chapters is all here.
Chapter 7: A new tree in the groveyard
Summary:
It was as if Katsuki had finally come to… only to find that he’d already been buried six feet under. There was a new tree in the groveyard despite how the rest of Katsuki hadn’t fully rotted away yet.
What good was a will to live to a dead man?
Katsuki thinks things over and then requires some assistance from Izuku. Kirishima comes over to talk, and later Izuku shares some news. Katsuki has a health complication and talks to his dad. Izuku and Katsuki visit somewhere they haven't been to together in a long time and talk some things over.
Notes:
Long time no see... I'll spare you all my endless excuses for my prolonged absence as I'm sure you want to get reading. Hopefully this will feel worth the wait for those of you who've been here all this time. I appreciate you all more than I can say.
An especially large apology to all the people who told me they gave my fic a chance despite how it's not yet complete. I thought of you all with much guilt over the past however many months. Unfortunately, the nature of this fic sort of made the wait unavoidable, but it will be completed if it's the last fucking thing I do. I dedicate this chapter to you all because I'm deeply flattered by how you've chosen to read and support this before its complete. I also know how frustrating it is to wait forever for a fic to update (and also how it feels to never get an update at all...) so again, I appreciate you all so very much!
(75k+ words) (does this make up for taking so long to update...? a little bit hopefully...?)
Content Warning
peak Izuku dumbassery (he's so stupid I'm so sorry), panic attacks, graphic depictions of illness, graphic depictions of injury, blood, discussion of death/corpses, mental illness/depression, and PTSD
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
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part 1
the changing of the seasons
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I can’t do this anymore.
Katsuki’s first thought when he woke up out of breath and lightheaded was one of defeat. His eyelids felt heavy, his whole body was in varying degrees of pain, and he felt so weak that just the idea of trying to get up sounded impossible.
It was so hard to breathe. Each inhale and exhale of his diseased lungs protested with sharp stabs through his chest. His throat felt thickened and painfully raw from all the yelling he’d done the day before.
Katsuki squeezed his eyes shut again and tried to force himself back to sleep to escape the agony for a bit longer. When the minutes passed by with little success, he peeled his eyes open again. He exerted the effort to roll over and check the time.
Just past 7:00am.
Normally, that would be way too early to try and force himself to be awake, but today his sluggish mind had already made a feeble attempt to kick into gear. It was so hard to think, so hard to breathe, so hard to be alive… but his hazy mind woke up more and the events of the night before slowly started to filter back into his mind.
It was hard to remember anything from his argument with Izuku in great detail. With the current state of his mind and memory, it wasn’t entirely surprising that he struggled to recall everything that’d been said. Mostly, he struggled to recall what he himself had said.
What internal weaknesses had he exposed to the open air?
What grievances had he offered for Izuku to hear in a selfish effort to lift some of the weight off his own chest?
Katsuki couldn’t recall exactly what he’d said, only that he’d shouted and cried and panicked. The more he tried and failed to sift through his hazy mind for details from the day before, the more a feeling of unease grew deep within his chest when he recalled just how vulnerable he’d been. The memory of all he’d said and shouted and shown of his own weakness brought little comfort. Instead, he found himself regretful that he’d exposed so many of his insecurities and showed a bit of just how horrible he felt inside.
The words had been true, but they weren’t supposed to belong to Bakugou Katsuki, spoken in Bakugou Katsuki’s voice. They weren’t supposed to be exposed to open air in the way that he’d so carelessly done.
Why had he sliced open his chest to let the admissions out? He was left exposed and bleeding, and the lingering feeling of unease within him today was answer enough on whether or not the wound had closed yet.
Doing his best to ignore the uncomfortable feeling of vulnerability—if only because he had no idea how to rid himself of it—Katsuki instead moved on to the words he did recall in far greater detail.
The things Izuku had said.
Specifically, the things Izuku had said as they sat in Katsuki’s dark bedroom and whispered into the still air with their backs to each other.
“You said that you don’t recognize yourself. Kacchan... I recognize you.”
Katsuki twisted to the side in bed, moving his shaky hands to grip at his own hair as emotion abruptly overwhelmed his foggy mind. It was a feeling far too complicated for him to define. It was as if he was feeling many things at once, but because his capacity for emotion was so low these days, he maxed out almost right away.
It just resulted in feeling like too much.
He tried to breathe through the pressure that spread across his being. He desperately needed an outlet, but anything he did would certainly make noise and alert Izuku. Not only that, but he felt weak and sick and had little energy… so what could he even do, assuming he were alone?
Instead, Katsuki could only lay there and endure a feeling of something like suffocation.
“Kacchan…”
He twisted in bed again, rolling over as he grew increasingly agitated without any way to relieve the pressure of overwhelming emotion and grief and physical pain and unease. His breathing was loud and felt insufficient, as it usually did these days.
“I recognize you.”
How was it possible that Izuku still recognized him?
Katsuki felt weak. He was weak. Physically, mentally, emotionally. Hanahaki disease had eaten away at his body and some unknown enemy had been hacking away at his mind for even longer. Something with a simple word that Katsuki didn’t understand in the slightest like depression or dissociation or PTSD. Words that meant nothing to him, because they were vague concepts that weren’t supposed to be things that affected him.
There was a battle raging that was all in his own head… and he was losing. How pathetic was that? He could try not to think of things, and they still came to mind unexpectedly. He could ignore them, and they still haunted him in those vulnerable moments before sleep.
He had fought it for years by shoving it aside, and eventually the things he’d shoved aside still built up until they took up more space than anything else in his head. They hadn’t disappeared but instead quietly weighed him down and waited to strike. They’d eaten away at him while he pretended it wasn’t happening. They’d clouded his mind until he could barely feel, barely think, barely live.
Something had broken within him all those years ago, and he’d stubbornly pretended that wasn’t the case.
“You always do this sort of thing when you’re in pain… and that’s okay.”
How could Izuku look at what he had become and still see Bakugou Katsuki so effortlessly? How could he look at him and still say Kacchan in much the same way as he had for their entire lives?
Katsuki was weak. He was faded. He was gone.
“I think… I think that it’s okay if you act a bit different when you’re hurting. It doesn’t mean you’re gone, Kacchan. It just means… you’re unsteady right now. That’s why you’re letting us take care of the things that you can’t take care of, right?”
A bit different, Izuku had said… but Katsuki felt nothing like he used to be. He felt nothing like the man he wanted to be. He barely felt alive. He hardly felt like a person.
How could Izuku look at him and still see anything of who he used to be? Not only that, but how could Izuku still look at him with those wide, starry eyes? As if Katsuki hadn’t changed in the slightest?
Izuku still didn’t get it, and his complete refusal to do so yesterday made something like embarrassment and shame burn within Katsuki for reasons he couldn’t articulate.
Katsuki felt impossibly overwhelmed. He wanted to scream, to explode, to claw at his own skin, to punch something over and over again until he could only feel the pain of that. Yet he could barely move or breathe, so he only lay there, staring blankly and wide-eyed ahead, feeling like if he stayed like this for much longer, that he would go insane.
He couldn’t breathe, and his lightheadedness intensified.
“Just don’t give up,” Izuku had said to him last night. “Don’t say you’re okay losing. Fight.”
Katsuki pushed his head into his pillow, grimacing and breaking into sobs so abruptly there was no hope of suppressing them, though he tried his best to muffle them.
I can’t, I can’t, I can’t…
Past all his agony, the more Katsuki woke up, the more he was certain that something felt different within him this morning. There was a new element of something desperate that had weaseled itself in between his ribcage. Something that had stirred up in reaction to Izuku’s words.
Katsuki cried because he felt so sick and so tired and dammit he didn’t want to give up, but he was so goddamn tired. He had been fighting, hadn’t he? He’d been fighting for so long. He’d been trying, he’d been pushing forward, he’d been pushing aside. He’d tried to fight, tried to win, but…
Was it really so wrong to not want to fight anymore? To not want to hurt anymore?
Katsuki sobbed and coughed and wheezed. It was so hard to breathe. He pressed his palms over his eyes as if that would stop the tears. He choked on his own sobs in hopes that Izuku wouldn’t hear and come running. It was a miracle he hadn’t already.
The awoken feeling inside of Katsuki writhed and protested how he was just lying here and dying, and he shied away from it because he was too weak for anything else.
Even if Katsuki wanted to live… even if he wanted to fight… it was impossible. There was a desire, fighting deep down to search for Izuku’s hand through the fog but what was the point?!
“Don’t give up, Kacchan.”
“Fuck,” he rasped quietly through his teeth, digging his palms harder into his eyes until he saw stars. “Fuck!”
As Katsuki laid there and tried to think, he could only meet dead end after dead end mentally.
Don’t give up… but he was so tired.
Keep fighting… but the enemy hid within his own mind.
He tried to picture a way forward from here, a way to keep fighting.
He would have to survive Hanahaki disease, which involved all but cutting his heart out and offering it to Izuku. He would have to gather his thoughts and feelings that he held so close to himself and expose those to open air. It would take far greater vulnerability than last night.
He would have to recover physically, which would be a long, exhausting road. He’d been down some version of this road before when he was healing his injuries after the war. It was hardly an easy path to walk. He’d have to endure emotional and physical vulnerability even more than he already was, and he’d have to continue enduring it for an indefinite amount of time.
Then at the end… what was the prize? After all that effort, what was he working towards?
Even with the massive assumption that Izuku could love him back, what the hell else did Katsuki have to offer? Not only offer Izuku but offer anyone. What did he even have to offer himself?
Izuku’s casual rejection of his invitation to work together as heroes resurfaced in his mind. Heroics was becoming obsolete overall, too. All of Katsuki’s friends were moving on and adjusting so easily.
Katsuki hadn’t been able to. He was the only one who wasn’t able to.
Was he really working towards the empty life he’d had before all this?
For all his ruminations in recent months, in the end he’d concluded that whether or not he was a child left alone in the dust or an old man too broken down to stand among his peers, one thing had remained clear…
I don’t know where I am. Katsuki wanted to scream as his hands again trailed up to grip at his own hair. I don’t know where to go.
He was alone. He didn’t stand with his peers, and he didn’t know what direction they were in. Was he so far behind them all? Was he so far ahead? Was he on a different plane of existence?
Did it matter in the slightest, when in the end it just meant that Katsuki was alone? That the world was strange and unfamiliar to Katsuki in a way that he just didn’t know how to handle?
Did any of it matter at all, when Katsuki saw battle after battle ahead with no true victory in sight, but he was very nearly out of strength?
Izuku… I can’t reach you. Katsuki thought miserably as he sobbed quietly, his entire weak frame wracking with the force of each cry. I can’t catch up to you. I’m just so fucking tired.
Yet even as the despair and usual fog pressed in on him, the new feeling within him was growing within his chest, branching out in painful stabs, growing and growing.
He couldn’t breathe.
“Don’t get caught up in the other stuff and give up. Keep fighting and let me fight alongside you.”
Katsuki gripped at his own hair even harder, barely registering the pain of his protesting scalp. His eyes were wide and sightless as he stared ahead, his vision completely blurry from tears.
He didn’t know where the enemy was. He didn’t know what the hell was wrong with his head and he was too tired and confused and his brain was too full of fog. He was bleeding out somewhere… there was some mental wound that he’d left unchecked for too long. It was surely festering and infected by now.
“Just don’t give up.”
The awoken feeling was still stabbing through Katsuki’s diseased chest, and every emotion he had that was managing to escape from the fog was still slamming at the barrier inside of him. The pressure was too intense. He was in too much pain. Too much, too much, too much.
He couldn’t breathe.
“Win, Kacchan.”
The new feeling was something old, something distantly familiar. He knew it so well, but there was no space for it here anymore. It was trying to make a home within him, and there was nowhere to go so it was just clashing with all that was left of Bakugou Katsuki.
Katsuki recognized Izuku… and Izuku recognized him back, somehow. Somehow, even as he suffocated under the weight of it all and lost sight of himself, Izuku was claiming that he easily looked right back at him. It made no sense… and yet Katsuki realized with some degree of misery, that Izuku’s reassurance had worked.
Because Izuku’s words were a challenge.
“Don’t say you’re okay losing. Fight.”
Izuku’s words were a reminder.
“Keep fighting and let me fight alongside you. We’ll find a way to beat this. All of it. Whatever it is that’s making you feel like giving up. Whatever rejection or—or… or anything. Whatever it is. We—you and I—well, I know it’s not the same as it was back then but…”
Somewhere inside of Katsuki, the part of him that had wanted to compete with Izuku for the rest of their lives responded in kind. Some part of him that so badly wanted to know what Izuku meant by you and I. Some part of him that hadn’t yet decayed or been broken down to feed the flowers was waking up.
Some part of him that he hadn’t even known was still around.
The awoken feeling was something like terror. It was something like a will to fight. It was something like his dying pride. It was something reminiscent of when he’d felt alive and motivated and determined. It was something reminiscent of Bakugou Katsuki, future Number One Hero, Dynamight, all as he was before.
It was only an echo, but it was enough that Katsuki felt it… and damn it hurt like hell. It hurt, because the feeling was a prideful, stubborn desire to prove to Izuku and everyone else that he wasn’t a quitter. Like hell would he lose. Like hell was he not even trying. Like hell would he just keel over and die.
That echo was clashing horribly with the fog and the pain and his diseased lungs and failing heart. It clashed incredibly painfully with the realization of how badly he was losing and how close he was to dying. It elicited an overwhelming feeling of doom when it clashed with the realization that he wasn’t fully certain the surface had anything to offer him anyways.
Katsuki cried, screwing his eyes shut, as the feeling spread within him wanting to drive him forward so he could keep up with Izuku and prove himself, but he couldn’t even breathe. He wanted to fight, but he lacked the strength to so much as sit up in bed.
He wanted to fight in the way that Izuku had told him to… but there was nowhere for the sudden desire to go. It met resistance. It met his broken body and mind and just fractured into painful pieces that were spreading across his chest.
Katsuki’s eyes flew open.
I’m not strong enough. I’ve given all I have… and it’s not enough.
The awoken feeling soured and wrapped around his lungs. It wrapped around his throat and squeezed. All at once, he went from lightheaded to his head fully spinning. His ears rang and his vision started to dot over at the edges. His blood turned to ice in his veins, paralyzing him further. It consumed him so wholly, until he could only suffocate on the terror that had spread across his entire being.
Izuku’s words last night had woken up something within him… but it was too late.
It felt like he’d decayed far more than he could ever hope to come back from. It also felt too late to fix his mind. If there was any hope of it, he needed to do it years ago. Now, there was too much. He didn’t know how. It was all this vague emotional shit killing him, and he didn’t even know where to start because there was no wound to treat or villain to take down.
He felt stuck. Impossibly stuck.
How could he ever hope to get back to something like he was before? Something like that kid who was determined to be Number One? Who was determined to show everyone how great he was going to be?
Even if Katsuki wanted to get back to some echo of who he was before… was it even possible, after he’d allowed Hanahaki disease to progress this much? After he’d allowed the mental wounds of his broken mind to fester for years?
From the moment Katsuki realized he was going to develop Hanahaki disease all those months ago, he’d known he was going to end up in the groveyard. It was like he’d been hit hard in the head and been dazed all this time as he got closer and closer to that fate.
A new tree in the groveyard.
It was as if Katsuki had finally come to… only to find that he’d already been buried six feet under. There was a new tree in the groveyard despite how the rest of Katsuki hadn’t fully rotted away yet.
What good was a will to live to a dead man?
Why spend his last moments clawing to the surface when he was doomed to suffocate regardless?
How could he hope to fight? To survive? How could he dig his way out of this grave he’d let himself be buried in while still alive? Didn’t he know it was hopeless to try?
Whatever Izuku had woken up within him only served to make him more self-aware of his own suffering. It was trying to push back the fog, but it could only do so enough to take away the blinders Katsuki had allowed himself as his only escape from his own suffering.
It’s too late. Katsuki thought miserably. It’s too late. I’m so tired. I’m in so much pain.
He’d already been buried alive.
He was six feet under, suffocating, without the strength to claw to the surface.
How could he hope to rebuild his life that he’d let fall to ruin? His career that he’d abandoned, his body that he’d allowed to decay, his friends that he’d driven away? How could he ever hope to survive now? How could he ever hope to get back to who he was before, now that he’d fallen so far? Fighting now was hopeless. He’d let himself wither away into nothing. He’d tried to give up like the weakling he was, and now here he was, too close to death.
How could he ask Izuku to love whatever he’d become… but how could he hope to survive without doing so?
Too late…
The time to fight would’ve been many months ago. The time to ask Izuku to love him would’ve been many months ago. The time to try and scrape some bits of his life back together would’ve been many, many months ago. By now, his body had rotted away, stripped of all muscle and fat until he was left only with scarred skin and fragile bone. He’d withered away to practically nothing, and the road ahead was so unclear.
Katsuki trembled and stared sightlessly at the ceiling with his vision completely blurred over. This strong, genuine desire to try and go on had abandoned him far too long ago, and it had shown up again far too late. Now, the enemy had overwhelmed him. He was six feet under and too weak. There was no hope of surviving now. He didn’t have the strength to go on and continue this fight. Not even if he wanted to. His body would fail him.
A new tree in the groveyard.
Katsuki had buried himself in the groveyard long before anyone else had. He’d done it so long ago now… and the earth above him was packed tight.
He struggled to breathe in and out.
Couldn’t he feel how the air was running out?
Thump. Thump. Thump. Thump. Thump. Thump.
His scarred heart thundered in his chest, and it slammed so uncomfortably that he wanted to rip it out.
It’s going to give out.
His body was failing him. Right now.
It’s too late.
The desire to fight was only making dying more agonizing, because it had robbed him of any façade of peace or feeble acceptance. It made him feel the fate he’d doomed himself to with greater intensity. It made him feel his own weakness, his own inability to win, his own helplessness.
Abruptly, something in Katsuki’s foggy mind gave way, and he was being bombarded with memories. His own weakness, laid out before him. Flashes of feeling, of memory, of pain, all washing over him in chaotic waves. Over and over.
Held hostage by the sludge villain, unable to breathe, fighting back but accomplishing nothing. Still trapped. Still helpless.
Kidnapped by the League of Villains. Completely misunderstood as someone who was villainous and uncontrollably violent. The end of All Might because of his own weakness.
Helplessly watching Deku fight up in the sky without being able to help him. Getting stabbed by Shigaraki and falling from the sky.
The Coffin in the Sky. Buying time. Bleeding out. Walking willingly into a fight he knew he couldn’t win.
Giving his all… but it not being enough to emerge victorious.
Katsuki was desperately sucking in breaths, but nothing was coming in. His hands scrambled at his throat, clawing at it to remove the ghost of Shigaraki’s hand that was wrapped around it. It didn’t work, of course, because there was no hand there despite how intensely Katsuki could feel it.
Katsuki gasped in breaths that did nothing. His shitty lungs were failing him. He could hear his own loud wheezing. He could feel how his chest caught before it expanded all the way, kept from going further by the disease that had spread throughout his chest.
If he couldn’t win so many times before… how could he ever hope to win now?
He didn’t even know what the fuck was happening with himself. He was weak, so how could he hope to prevail?
“Win and live.”
Katsuki could barely see, his vision tunneling and blurry and darkening around the edges. He was dying. He was dying, and it was so much worse than it’d ever been because the desire to fight back was still stabbing through his chest, but he was far weaker than ever before. He physically had almost nothing to offer. He couldn’t even breathe. He could barely move. He couldn’t speak and he could barely think with his lethargic, foggy mind.
But more than a desire to fight back, the desperate, awoken feeling that’d spread throughout his being brought with it something else.
Some echo of his very faded survival instinct.
Despite the hopelessness of his situation, in this moment, as he suffocated… he still couldn’t just accept it. Instead, he blindly, desperately fought it.
Didn’t he know that he’d never make it in time? That he was too weak to get out of this? That the time to fight was a long time ago?
Even as his mind unhelpfully supplied all the reasons it was pointless, as Katsuki struggled to breathe, he tried to shove it all aside and think.
I’m going to die.
Katsuki pushed at the sides of his coffin and tried to dig through the dirt, but he didn’t even know which direction the surface was in. He was suffocating, being buried alive, and no one would even know that in the end, he’d wanted to fight back.
He tried to hold tight to this renewed will to live, but he was so weak. It felt like it was slipping through his fingers already.
Thump. Thump. Thump. Thump. Thump. Thump. Thump. Thump. Thump. Thump. Thump. Thump.
Katsuki’s head swam. His heart thundered so fast it had to be moments from giving out.
“Keep fighting…”
Some distant, distorted echo of Izuku’s voice was somewhere in his mind.
“…and let me fight alongside you.”
Katsuki’s eyes shot open wider and his eyes darted around, though he still couldn’t see much of anything through the blurriness occluding his vision.
Izuku… He thought desperately.
Where was Izuku?! Perhaps belatedly—with his spinning head and failing heart and diseased lungs—Katsuki realized that he had to be making so much noise, and yet Izuku wasn’t here. He was crying and gasping and choking, and yet Izuku hadn’t materialized in the way he did so often these days. Sure he’d been trying to be quiet, but he knew that he couldn’t be that quiet.
“If winning this time is living, Kacchan, don’t try to win by yourself, remember? Back then, you told me that a few times. So… you don’t have to fight alone.”
Katsuki snatched at and held onto the idea of Izuku like a lifeline. He was being buried alive, but if Izuku knew where he was buried, he’d get him out. He was dying, but Izuku would save him if it were even possible to do so.
Head spinning, body and limbs shaking badly out of his control, Katsuki fought. His ears rang and his vision kept darkening at the edges. It was almost like he could feel his life actively draining out of him more and more by the second. Still, he fought.
He rolled onto his side, choking and suffocating and yanking his shirt and sweatshirt violently away from his neck when his twisting pulled them up against his throat. He used to sleep without a shirt, until he could no longer stand the sight of his own body for more than he absolutely had to. Eventually, he’d lost enough muscle and body fat that he was always cold to some degree; he’d used this as an excuse to cover himself up even more, even when he slept.
Now, the layers he wore to hide the truth from himself were strangling him.
Katsuki reached for his phone somewhat blindly on his bedside table and knocked it to the floor with his badly shaking hand. His vision blacked out for a second as his despair overwhelmed him in such a physical way. There was no way he could reach the floor to get his phone. He tried to call out or cry out, but his voice broke and failed him, and he made no more noise than he had been for the past few minutes.
Izuku did not come running.
Izuku…
Had he left? He never left without telling Katsuki, which normally pissed Katsuki off to no end. Izuku was determined to never leave him alone, so where the hell was he now?
Katsuki was shaking. His fingers and toes had started to tingle and go numb. His covers and clothes were suffocating him. He was dying and he wasn’t sure he wanted to but he was going to anyways. He was helpless now, and no one would know that he had tried to fight at the end.
They would all think he’d just given up.
Bakugou Katsuki… who’d always declared so boldly that he was going to be victorious… died from giving up. Oh, how the world would laugh at him for his weakness. How bitterly ironic… and this was a fate that he was sure many people would agree he deserved.
Katsuki wheezed and coughed and cried and pulled desperately at the clothes near his neck again, wanting to get them further away because he couldn’t breathe.
Surely, the general public would find it hilarious that the loose cannon with an anger problem died from Hanahaki disease.
He was crying and choking and writhing and sweating and—
Abruptly, Katsuki twisted, jerking his hand out towards his bedside table and detonating his palm. He hadn’t used his Quirk in so long that ridiculously, the idea hadn’t occurred to him right away. Somehow, only the painful feeling, the old reminder of who he used to be, even allowed him to remember that it was an option. It was so goddamn hard to think that it had taken a moment for his will to fight to connect with the overwhelming feeling of sweat covering his skin… and to remember how the fuck he used to fight in the first place.
He was out of practice. The explosion was much more than a warning shot or a little boom. It blasted the bedside table to the side, exploding it into pieces that only burst into a thousand tinier pieces upon impact with the wall. The kickback sent a burst of pain through his weak shoulder, and he winced.
A loud crashing and thumping from somewhere else in the apartment accompanied the explosion. Another second, and the door to Katsuki’s bedroom was slamming against the wall from the force of it being thrown open.
“Kacchan?!” Izuku’s strangled voice tore out into the air and the sound of it brought an immediate sense of relief to Katsuki even though it ultimately did very little to quell the overwhelming terror within him. Then Izuku himself was right in front of him, ripping the covers back. “What’s wrong?!”
Katsuki could only wheeze and cough, scrambling to grab hold of Izuku anywhere he could. He struggled for a moment, hands slipping before he was able to grab at Izuku’s arms. He dug his fingers in, swiveling his head to stare into Izuku’s eyes like he needed it to live.
Izuku’s eyes were blown wide, a bright, familiar green that Katsuki placed in the center of his tunnel vision. The world was blurry around the edges, but he just focused on Izuku’s face.
“Can’t…” Katsuki wheezed out painfully. “Breathe.”
Izuku didn’t waste a moment, and Katsuki could only lie there as he felt Izuku shove him onto his back. Katsuki’s consciousness zoned in on the feel of Izuku’s hands even though he was too out of it to fully keep up with what was happening.
Katsuki still felt like he was dying, like he was going to be sick, like he was going to lose… but now that Izuku was here a small degree of his hopelessness had left him.
If there was any chance at all of winning… of living… Izuku would find it. He wasn’t strong enough, but Izuku was. He’d given all he had, but Izuku hadn’t. He was unsteady, so Izuku would take care of whatever he couldn’t.
It was like the awoken feeling within Katsuki had faded a bit. Not like the fight had left him… but it wasn’t clashing with the rest of him quite as much. It was like Izuku’s presence was filling in the cracks of his broken mind. Easing the way between it all. Resettling his being and recentering his life to where it was meant to be, just with his presence.
Izuku could hold him together.
Katsuki might not recognize himself, but Izuku did and that had to count for something. Too young, too old, too far away, too broken, too different… none of it mattered, because Izuku knew exactly where he was and who he was.
Katsuki wasn’t alone, because Izuku was here.
Izuku moved him with sturdy, precise movements, not exactly gentle but still careful. He moved a pillow under his head and grabbed his face and chin to tilt his head back and his chin upward. Katsuki distantly registered as Izuku hooked the nasal cannula under his nose, the familiar oxygen hitting his system soon after.
“God—dammit!”
He heard Izuku curse sharply from somewhere off to the side, before he was again leaning over Katsuki.
Katsuki startled slightly as Izuku suddenly climbed onto the bed to loom over him and grabbed the collar of his shirt and sweatshirt with both hands. He distantly felt a degree of confusion when he realized Izuku wasn’t wearing a shirt but was immediately distracted when Izuku ripped every layer of his clothes down the center with his bare hands.
Katsuki’s eyes were blown wide from confusion and shock, but he didn’t move his head from the position Izuku had put it in. He felt the cool metal of a stethoscope against his ribcage and the slight pressure as the pulse oximeter—a small device that measured his heartrate and blood oxygen levels—was shoved onto one of his fingers. His chest caught and he coughed wetly for a moment before returning to his wheezing and panting.
“Huh…?” Izuku made a quiet noise of confusion, then seconds later said, “Oh! Shit!”
Then he was shoving himself up onto the bed again, leaning over Katsuki. “Kacchan, can you hear me?”
Katsuki looked at him as best he could, gasping for air and utterly exhausted. Izuku’s brow was furrowed, his face set in hard lines of determination and focus. The slight wideness of his eyes betrayed his own anxiety.
“You’re having a panic attack,” Izuku declared firmly. “You need to slow your breathing down!”
Katsuki gnashed his teeth together, a spike of white-hot rage carving through him all at once that set fire to every other overwhelming emotion he had. He very nearly exploded Izuku away from him as the fury burned through him, and he shuddered from the effort of not doing so. He couldn’t remember ever feeling so disgusted and affronted in his entire life, as Izuku insinuated that this feeling in which he was certainly dying was just a fucking panic attack. As in, the thing he’d had so many times before.
As in, the thing that was all in his goddamn head.
A ‘panic attack’… Katsuki wanted to spit. I’m dying, you asshole!
“I’m not saying there’s nothing else going on,” Izuku added on immediately, though his voice retained an air of authority, “but until you calm down I can’t figure out if there is!”
Katsuki screwed his eyes shut, jaw clenched hard, as his trembling intensified under the force of his fury and frustration. He couldn’t think or breathe, and his whole body was failing him. It felt like his heart was going to give out, assuming his lungs didn’t first.
The overwhelming emotions pressed outward again inside of him, and there was nowhere for them to go so it just made him feel like he was going to lose his mind or explode or pass out. It felt like they were pulsing and flaring under the force of his rage, so intense that it was making his blood boil in his veins and his head spin even faster. He felt like he was going to fall, despite how he laid flat on his back.
“Your blood oxygen levels are fine,” Izuku went on evenly. “Your airway is clear, and you have oxygen, Kacchan.”
Katsuki grimaced as the shame and agony and frustration consumed him. He’d woken up unable to breathe. He couldn’t ever breathe. His heart was failing him. His body was decaying. His chest kept catching and protesting, over and over, each breath rattling through his diseased lungs.
Yet… Izuku was saying this was all in his head. Yet again, it was just his fucked-up head and foggy mind and all the enemies he couldn’t see. A vague, invisible driving force behind a very physical, agonizing problem.
“You’re not struggling to breathe, you’re just breathing too quickly,” Izuku continued his attempt to reassure calmly.
It had the opposite effect. Upon hearing his words, Katsuki’s eyes flew open, and his face twisted into an infuriated scowl as he glared at Izuku heatedly. His hands that were curled into fists popped as the sweat on his palms still remained primed and ready to go. He was restraining himself, but he’d never felt so close to genuinely snapping and flying into a blind, uncontrollable rage in his entire life.
Izuku’s eyes immediately widened. He shook his head rapidly, rushing to add on, “I mean—! I meant that—I just meant that your accessory muscles aren’t overworking themselves! I meant that you’re hyperventilating, not—not that it’s not hard to breathe! I just—dammit!”
He slapped a hand to his own forehead, but only a second passed before he moved it and looked down at Katsuki with renewed determination in his eyes.
“You’re breathing too quickly, Kacchan,” he said again, voice hardened. “You’re panicking, and it’s making your other symptoms worse. It’s going to feel different from when your lungs were healthy. I’m sure it feels a lot worse than ever before, but your increased respiratory rate is a result of panic.”
Katsuki seethed and glared at him for a moment longer before he squeezed his eyes shut again because looking at Izuku was pissing him off too much. His chest heaved up and down shallowly, his head spun, and tears leaked out from under his eyelids. He coughed slightly for a moment, before returning to his quick, wheezing breaths.
A part of him had already accepted what he was being told, but a huge part of him—the part of him that found the idea of this just being a panic attack to be mortifying—was stubbornly resisting out of pure spite and a desire to avoid that shame and embarrassment.
When he felt Izuku’s hand on his shoulder, he shoved it away.
“You stubborn bastard!” Izuku’s voice cut through, frustration sharpening his words. Katsuki cracked his eyes open again to glower at him as much as he was able. “Your vitals are stable! You have to trust me, okay? You’re panicking!”
Katsuki’s glare faded at the increasing desperation bleeding into Izuku’s words. He again registered Izuku’s wide eyes, and his pride and stubborn resistance was forcefully stamped out a bit.
“Do you trust me?” Izuku demanded an answer, staring at him intently.
Always. Katsuki looked at him, moving his head the slightest amount in a nod.
“Then we have to stop your panic attack before anything else,” Izuku insisted. “Your lungs won’t be able to expand as much as they used to, and I’m sure your heart feels significantly worse than ever before but physically you’re okay at the moment. Trust me, Kacchan. Please. You’re panicking.”
Katsuki startled when he felt Izuku’s hand on his shoulder, before his fingers started to tap rhythmically. He was so frustrated that he wanted to scream. He was sick and tired and he couldn’t breathe… but he focused on the feel of Izuku’s hand and the rhythmic tapping.
He forced himself to breathe in, counting out the seconds, and exhale while doing the same thing. He kept getting cut off by sobs and coughs as he did. He tried to breathe, but the fact that his chest couldn’t inhale all the way before the pain of the flowers stopped him made the fear spike within him. It kept sending him spiraling backwards and making him breathe too quickly again.
Izuku’s hand would tighten on his shoulder—a quick, firm squeeze—and he would focus back on it.
After a while of this, Katsuki’s breathing slowed enough that everything settled down within him again. He felt like his body was made of lead. His heart still thumped uncomfortably. He still couldn’t breathe… but he wasn’t hyperventilating. The oxygen was having more of an effect, clearing his head the slightest bit. His irrationally strong anger had largely bled out of him as exhaustion took over.
Eventually, he was able to register the feeling of something dripping onto the bare skin of his face and chest every once in a while, and he cracked open his heavy eyelids to stare up at Izuku, frowning.
Izuku was leaning over him from the side, one hand braced next to his head and the other still resting on his opposite shoulder. He was staring down at Katsuki looking intensely focused, but he wasn’t crying; the dripping seemed to mainly be coming from his hair, which Katsuki now realized was wet. He was also way too fucking close, and Katsuki felt an unexpected and unwelcome wave of shame and self-consciousness wash over him.
“G’off me,” Katsuki slurred out, fatigue and breathlessness making his words weak and jumbled. He shut his eyes again as if that could erase anything that’d just happened. As if it could erase his own helplessness and humiliation about it.
Izuku jolted slightly and then immediately obeyed, shoving off of him. Rather than stand up like any normal person, he collapsed onto the bed next to him. Katsuki’s eyes were closed as he floated in the shitty hell he existed in, but he felt the mattress move as Izuku fell next to him and he heard Izuku’s loud, huffed, deep breaths.
Katsuki was too tired to voice any protest of Izuku’s actions for the moment, instead continuing to focus on breathing as much as he was capable of.
However, as they laid there and the minutes passed, Izuku’s breathing was audible in a way that had Katsuki cracking open his eyes in confusion. Izuku was taking measured breaths. They were loud enough that Katsuki could hear when he let out long, slow exhales, even if they were generally a good deal quieter than Katsuki’s own breathing.
When Katsuki rolled his head to the side to look, his heart jolted violently in alarm.
Izuku was naked.
Katsuki’s head spun ever so slightly from the force of his shock, but a second later he comprehended that Izuku wasn’t completely naked. He was wearing a towel, wrapped around his hips… but with the haphazard way it was tucked around him and how he was slumped boneless on the bed, it rode dangerously high up one of his thighs.
Katsuki stiffened slightly. A part of him felt that it was a bit absurd that Izuku’s almost-naked form was still forcing a reaction out of him despite how awful he felt and how eventful his morning had been. It only served to make him feel like he was being split into pieces. His sluggish mind struggling to think, his weakened physical state, and… the feeling of being suddenly hyperaware of himself and Izuku lying side-by-side in his fucking bed.
Katsuki clenched his jaw, glancing up at Izuku’s face. His green eyes were closed, and he was still taking those big, even breaths and huffing them out. He was fully collapsed on the bed, head on one of Katsuki’s pillows and his body half on the shoved-aside comforter and half not. The bed was easily big enough for two, but Izuku hadn’t gone far. His hair was darker because it was still wet, and it was tangled and unruly, spread across the pillow.
Katsuki’s expression twisted ever so slightly into one of bewilderment, because what the fuck was Izuku doing? If it weren’t for Izuku’s loud, clearly controlled exhales, Katsuki would’ve wondered if the guy had just laid down to take a nap—all but naked in Katsuki’s goddamn bed.
Katsuki’s heart skipped a beat, startled from his reverie, when Izuku’s lips parted and he huffed out under his breath, as if to himself, “Okay.”
Then he peeled open his eyes and shoved himself up until he was sitting up, hunching forward. Katsuki’s heart spiked again as Izuku shifted and adjusted his legs as he moved, the towel riding up further on both his legs.
Izuku didn’t even seem to notice, and it was paralyzing Katsuki with uncertainty. His own heart was racing, and yet he couldn’t get his head together enough to say anything. Not about what had just happened or about Izuku’s near-nakedness. His sluggish brain just felt overwhelmed, and he was exhausted, and it was so hard to think.
Still, after another moment in which Izuku didn’t move, Katsuki looked at him again carefully.
Izuku’s shoulders were slumped, and he was hunched forward slightly, still breathing deeply. With how he was sitting, it was hard to see his face. It was mostly his back that Katsuki had a view of—an expanse of toned muscle covered with scarred skin—all the way down to the towel that sat too fucking low on his hips. Katsuki couldn’t see his ass—not that he was fucking looking—but it was a close call. His hair dripped onto his shoulders and ran down his back. Katsuki let himself stare at the droplets as they trailed down because he couldn’t see much else of Izuku anyways.
Despite Katsuki’s slight distraction of Izuku’s back and general lack of clothing, he also was acutely aware that something was wrong with Izuku. Izuku’s body language, some nuances of his behavior, and the fact that it practically radiated off him all painted an obvious picture.
It was another completely absurd moment—as Katsuki was well aware that he was not in a position to be helping others—he suddenly burned with the intense desire to comfort. His fingers twitched as he looked at Izuku’s back, wanting to touch in an effort to ground him or comfort him or anything.
He wanted to speak, to ask what Izuku was thinking about, but he said nothing. He did nothing. He was once again paralyzed by indecision and uncertainty, and before he could get himself to do anything, Izuku spoke again.
“I’m so sorry, Kacchan,” said Izuku quietly as he stared downwards at where his own hands rested in his lap. “I was in the shower. I couldn’t… I didn’t hear you.”
Katsuki’s eyes widened a bit as his tired brain clicked the obvious into place. Guilt surged within him alongside the heightened, irrational desire to offer comfort.
What was wrong… was that Katsuki had scared him. The explosion, his inability to breathe… he’d thoroughly freaked Izuku out, and he could see it in the way he was trying to center himself. Izuku was calming himself down, because he’d been afraid.
Katsuki had to look away as his chest tightened and ached with some mix of fondness and guilt and longing. He gritted his teeth together, glaring off to the side and trying to will the overwhelming emotions to calm down ever so slightly. They felt like too much again, and it made it hard to think, and dammit he needed to be able to think if he was ever going to get through any of this.
“’S fine,” Katsuki huffed out, voice low and raspy.
Izuku continued to sit there with his head ducked. Katsuki watched his shoulders rise and fall slowly, and he did his best to breathe in tandem with him. It wasn’t as effortless as it might’ve been at any other point in their lives; Izuku could breathe in far deeper than he could, his healthy lungs expanding unrestricted until they’d had their fill. In contrast, Katsuki inhaled to the feel of the flowers rustling in his chest, growing all throughout to form a cage that offered resistance once he'd breathed in a certain amount.
Katsuki zoned out a bit, staring at Izuku’s back and fighting a sudden desire to press his ear to Izuku’s chest or back and listen to him inhale cleanly. To feel his lungs expand, and picture they were his own.
Oh, to be able to breathe clearly again.
“What happened?” Izuku’s question was a barely-there whisper that cut through Katsuki’s thoughts. “Did something cause you to panic?”
Katsuki stilled as the oppressive terror and panic immediately clawed halfway back up his throat. His eyes widened, and his exhausted, out-of-it brain registered that this was an opportunity. It was an opening, and he could say something now. He scrambled desperately to find words. Some words. Any words. Something that he could tell Izuku—to explain, to elaborate, to plead for help, to plead for love.
Thump. Thump. Thump. Thump. Thump. Thump.
His throat was jammed closed. His heart thundered in his chest. He didn’t know what to say. There were far too many things to say, and he didn’t know where to begin. He suddenly couldn’t get his thoughts together or sorted out at all. It would also require him to slice open his chest again and be vulnerable; making the move to actually make the cut was proving to be so fucking difficult.
Katsuki’s breath came faster as he struggled internally.
Izuku turned his head to direct an inquisitive gaze at Katsuki, then his eyes widened and he turned more fully, immediately adding in a nervous, much louder ramble, “I mean—I shouldn’t have—forget I asked! I shouldn’t have asked! I’m sorry, don’t—you don’t have to answer! I don’t know what I was thinking!”
His words had a degree of desperation and uncertainty. They trembled and wavered with obvious anxiety, and it made Katsuki’s chest tighten again. His nervousness was also clear in how his hands flapped around wildly.
“Oi, I’m fine,” Katsuki replied immediately, wishing his breathlessness didn’t make him sound like a liar. “It’s fine.”
Izuku’s eyes searched his face with a certain franticness, and his shoulders were tensed again, bunched up closer to his ears.
“R-right,” said Izuku after a very long pause, nodding and huffing out a long breath as he looked forward again. “Good, okay.”
Katsuki’s chest still felt tight, his throat stuck with all the words he needed to say. He struggled, again fighting internally to get himself together and speak. The more he failed, the more defeated and frustrated he grew.
His train of thought was thrown off when his eyes—that were darting around as he tried to think—caught on his own chest, which was still horrifically exposed to open air. Izuku had ripped his layers clean down the middle, including his thick sweatshirt.
For a long moment, now with the brain power to comprehend it fully, Katsuki just stared, completely astounded. Ripping a shirt was one thing, but ripping a shirt and a thick sweatshirt cleanly down the middle effortlessly? With one attempt? Where there was no existing seam or rip to aid the action?
Katsuki scoffed softly in disbelief, glancing back over at the part of Izuku’s head that he could see. He shifted the destroyed clothes so that they at least covered his bony, scarred torso a bit better; looking at it for too long made him feel queasy.
“You sure you’re Quirkless?” he grumbled.
“Huh?” Izuku turned to offer him a puzzled look.
Katsuki stared back, unimpressed. “My clothes, nerd.”
“Oh!” Izuku snapped into action, shifting quickly towards Katsuki as if to assist him and then yelping out a noise of distress and slapping his hand to his own hip when his towel was almost pulled loose from the movement.
Katsuki’s irritation spiked easily and perhaps irrationally, but he was far too tired to fight it much.
“If you flash me right now, I’ll kill you,” he gritted out as heat crept up his neck.
“R-right!” Izuku squeaked out shrilly, hands now in a death grip on his hip. His face had gone red, finally seeming to have become more aware of the fact that he wasn’t wearing any fucking clothes. “Sorry! I was in the shower when I heard the explosion—I didn’t know what was going on! So I didn’t want to take time to dry off and get dressed!”
Katsuki closed his eyes, leaning back onto his pillow with an exhausted huff and pretending he didn’t want to stare at how the flush spread down the back of Izuku’s neck. He wished his own cheeks didn’t feel so warm. “Don’ care.”
“Right,” Izuku said again, before there was shifting movement as he clearly got up from the bed.
Katsuki opened his eyes as the weight subsided, watching as Izuku crossed over to his fucking dresser.
“The hell’re you doin’?” he rasped, his tone of voice coming out far more critical than he intended due to his degree of exhaustion and embarrassment.
“I’m just going to borrow some clothes for a sec,” Izuku said as he dug around in the dresser. “I want to recheck your vitals and help you up before I finish showering and stuff, so I’m just going to throw something on. I’ll toss them in the wash after, don’t worry!”
Katsuki watched him dig around and pull clothes out. Not for the first time, the passage of time was slapped in his face. Rather, the gap in time that he’d experienced in the last few months from living in a haze all the time. When had they gotten to this level of closeness in which Izuku felt okay doing this so casually?
He knew Izuku had looked through his clothes a lot of times because he helped with his laundry. He occasionally grabbed them for Katsuki to save him the effort of walking over to get them. But watching Izuku dig around to grab himself clothes out of Katsuki’s drawers was a surreal feeling.
It was another one of those moments that was so domestic that Katsuki’s brain didn’t even really know what to do with it. It made the longing deepen within him, accompanied with the inability to forget that this was very far from any sort of normal domestic situation.
Still…
“Before you give up, at least try using me. Talk to me. We’ll try everything. Just…”
Katsuki clenched his jaw, resolve stirring up within him even as his stomach twisted itself in anxious knots. He needed to talk to Izuku. He needed to… once Izuku was wearing some fucking clothes.
He couldn’t even know if it was possible to survive—much less face any of the other shit—until he talked to Izuku. He couldn’t even make it past the first step towards winning this fight until he knew whether or not he could get rid of the Hanahaki disease.
That’s right… he needed to go one step at a time. Focus on one obstacle at a time. If he tried to take everything on at once, he’d get overwhelmed. He would always lose.
He needed a fucking strategy here, dammit. Here he was, panicking about going into battle like a fucking amateur. God, how embarrassing. If he was going to fight—if he was going to fucking win—he needed to face one problem at a time.
As he watched Izuku absently, lost in his thoughts, he was jolted back to the present moment by Izuku abruptly pulling off his towel.
“Holy shit,” Katsuki hissed out as he jerked his gaze up to the ceiling. The brief glimpse of Izuku’s naked ass that he’d seen was horribly burned into his memory, and his skin was hot and hypersensitive all over again. His voice went a bit shrill with horror and shock. “What the hell are you doing?!”
“Huh?” Izuku made a noise of confusion as he shifted around, getting dressed. “I just told you. I’m putting on clothes.”
I hate him, I hate him, I hate him. Katsuki thought furiously as he glared at the ceiling, jaw clenched as he saw Izuku continue changing in his peripheral. Embarrassment heated his skin to an unbearable level. The feelings that Izuku was eliciting from him while so carelessly stripping in front of him were ones that Katsuki was quickly using to fuel a defensive rage.
Katsuki was fucking flustered and the fact that the stupid oblivious fucking shitty damn nerd was just continuing on without a care was making him want to lose it.
“Why the fuck didn’t you leave to do that?” Katsuki gritted out.
“I—” Izuku paused to pull a shirt over his head. “I told you. I want to recheck your vitals and make sure you’re good before I leave.”
“Didn’t I just say not to flash me?” Katsuki berated him sharply.
“I didn’t!” Izuku protested as he walked up beside the bed. “I was over there!”
“Why the hell would you just drop your fucking towel like that?!”
“I—” Izuku glanced over to where he’d been standing and back. He seemed genuinely bemused. “It’s nothing you haven’t seen before!”
“It’s the principle of the thing, shitty nerd!” Katsuki hissed, hoping and praying that he wasn’t blushing too obviously. “This isn’t a locker room. This is my bedroom.”
Izuku actively flushed red at that, still looking completely thrown off and confused but increasingly embarrassed. Again, he glanced over to where he’d been standing and when he replied he sounded very unsure and lost, “I—I didn’t think you’d look.”
Katsuki’s face twisted into a deeper scowl and he lied through his teeth, “I wasn’t looking! You were standing right in my line of sight!”
At that, Izuku shot him a mildly exasperated look, as if he thought Katsuki was being ridiculous. It made Katsuki want to blast him into the wall alongside his destroyed bedside table.
Izuku reached to the side, grabbing for the stethoscope again, and Katsuki’s sluggish brain finally caught up to the fact that Izuku checking his vitals would involve him moving aside the tattered shirt again. He scrambled to yank his cover sheet up and over his chest as Izuku turned back around.
Izuku glanced at the cover sheet, then up to meet Katsuki’s eyes. “What’re you doing?”
“Get me a shirt,” Katsuki barked, completely out of patience and thoroughly irritated with Izuku now. “You ripped mine.”
Izuku stared blankly at him for a moment, wide green eyes blinking as he held the stethoscope aloft.
“I was going to listen to your lungs,” he said, slightly confused.
“Don’t care!” Katsuki bit out sharply. “Get me a shirt!”
“It’s… just me,” Izuku frowned down at him with increasing bewilderment. “Kacchan—”
“Goddammit, for once, can’t you just do what I ask?!” Katsuki burned with mortification when his voice came out shaky and his eyes welled. He clung desperately to his irritation, wielding it like a shield, but all the other emotions underneath were still doing their damn best to break out. He clenched his jaw, exhausted and mortified and overwhelmed.
Izuku startled slightly, then he immediately turned and crossed the room to grab him a shirt. He came back, offering it to Katsuki.
“Do you want—”
Katsuki snatched it from his hand. “Turn around!”
Izuku gaped. “What? Kacchan, I—”
“Turn. Around.” Each word was tense and clipped as he stared daggers at Izuku.
Izuku’s face was twisted into a look of complete bafflement and uncertainty, but he did as he was told, turning his back to face Katsuki.
Katsuki shoved the cover sheet off and shucked off the tattered remains of his ripped clothing, panting hard from the effort. He slipped the shirt over his head, not bothering to take off the nasal cannula to move it on the outside of his shirt, then collapsed back onto the bed.
He struggled to pinpoint just why he was so intensely upset. Maybe it was just that he was so mortified by the way his body looked. Though he undeniably appreciated the way Izuku looked, it was hard not to simultaneously feel the contrast between them. It was also hard not to feel the contrast between what he looked like now and what he looked like this time last year. It was so severe that Katsuki felt nearly physically ill from it.
Maybe because he was so self-conscious, and Izuku’s complete lack of self-consciousness was so off-putting that it was very nearly discouraging. Because if Izuku was attracted to him at all, shouldn’t he hesitate a bit more before getting fucking naked right in his line of sight?
Maybe because it wasn’t even 8:00am and it’d already been a massive rollercoaster of a day. The day had barely begun, and he felt so drained that he was just about ready to go back to sleep.
Izuku turned around hesitantly after a moment, and when Katsuki didn’t protest he stepped forward and started to take his vitals again.
“How’d you know for sure everything else was fine?” Katsuki muttered after a pause. “Like how’d you know it was a panic attack and not something else?”
He asked out of genuine curiosity—because even he had really been convinced it was something besides a panic attack this time—but also because the tension in the air was making it hard to breathe on top of everything else. He had no idea if it was something Izuku could feel too, but the air simmering between them was overwhelming Katsuki now that he wasn’t actively panicking or recovering. It wasn’t helpful for his already sour mood.
“Oh…” Izuku stepped back slightly and looked off to the side, fidgeting nervously, “well I wasn’t 100% sure but—”
“You were bluffing?!” Katsuki’s voice fully cracked like he was a fucking teenager under the force of his shock.
“Well, I’ve—I’ve seen you have a lot of panic attacks before!” Izuku flailed, waving his hands around and rushing to explain. “I was pretty certain that’s what was happening, and I didn’t want to call emergency services for a panic attack because I thought you’d be embarrassed!”
Katsuki scowled and looked away. He was right, unfortunately.
“If your breathing didn’t improve,” Izuku went on, “I was planning on calling them! Your vitals were fine—at least considering what they’re usually like these days—so I was pretty sure that you were panicking.”
“Tch.” Katsuki made a quiet noise of annoyance. “Whatever.”
Izuku hesitated for only a moment before he continued what he was doing.
“Why’d you rip my clothes?” Katsuki grumbled when Izuku was done listening to his lungs. “You’re damn lucky they weren’t ones I gave a shit about.”
“Oh, sorry, uh…” Izuku glanced up to meet his gaze distractedly before looking at the pulse oximeter on Katsuki’s finger. “It’s just something we were taught when I was learning emergency care.”
“To rip people’s clothes in half with superhuman amounts of strength?” asked Katsuki, voice heavy with skepticism as he scowled up at him.
“Hmm? No,” Izuku still sounded distracted, but he started to mumble in his nerdy way. “Visualizing. When I first came in, you spoke to me, so I knew your airway was clear. Then I figured that maybe the Hanahaki growth had messed with something in your lower respiratory tract. Your breathing was loud and you were wheezing—which you always do, but it was much louder than usual. You were coughing a bit too so I was just trying to see if you were belly breathing or if your accessory muscles were struggling—like the muscles around your collarbone and stuff. Those are signs of respiratory distress. I knew I was going to have to listen to your lungs too… so in the moment I was just trying to get the clothes out of the way.”
Katsuki openly gaped at him as he rambled. Just how much shit did he know about this?
“Nerd,” he accused, though he said it softly.
“And I couldn’t find my trauma shears,” Izuku added, a bit sheepish now. “And admittedly I was worried to waste time looking for them. I didn’t know what was wrong with you or if time was of the essence, you know?”
“‘Trauma shears’?”
Izuku lifted up two fingers and moved them against each other a few times to mime cutting. “Just like thick scissors basically, but for cutting clothes in a situation where you can’t take them off a patient… er, you probably could’ve just taken them off, but again, uh, at the time I wasn’t sure what was happening and I didn’t want you to have to move while you couldn’t breathe. Sorry, Kacchan.”
Katsuki only gaped at him, but Izuku didn’t hold his gaze, instead returning to checking his vitals. He continued to stare even as Izuku continued to avoid his eyes. His mind flitted back to when his mom had made her threat.
“Izuku, what would you do to help him?” she’d asked.
“Anything.” Izuku had replied immediately and earnestly.
Katsuki grimaced slightly as the dull ache in his chest grew. The flowers in his lungs rattled when he inhaled.
He didn’t need to ask to know that Izuku had learned emergency care for him. He remembered Izuku making shitty excuses about it months ago, saying he had his other reasons, but the timing was obvious. He did it now because of Katsuki.
Izuku, who quit his job and researched Hanahaki disease and learned first aid and emergency care—a whole lot more in depth than Katsuki even realized. Izuku, who moved in with him and dedicated all his time to helping him.
How was it possible that Izuku was like this with everyone?
How could he do all this and expect Katsuki not to think he was special to him?
Katsuki stared up at him and thought of how everyone in their lives was so certain that Izuku had feelings for him too, and yet…
Katsuki had absolutely no idea. None at all, and it was terrifying.
Izuku would go above and beyond for anyone… but wasn’t this a bit more than even above and beyond? Was it just because they were childhood friends? Surely, Izuku would do this for any of their friends that needed it.
Katsuki didn’t know, and he was reluctant to trust any of his instincts, because he’d been so wrong about Izuku before… he’d been so wrong about whether or not Izuku had still wanted to be a hero.
Katsuki squeezed his eyes shut when he felt terror form a lump in his throat. It was like, now that he’d regained some tiny, tiny will to fight, he was being slapped in the face with all the reasons he’d not yet won. All the reasons he was losing. All the reasons he was dying.
Because he didn’t know if Izuku loved him.
Because his body and mind were failing him.
Because he felt broken beyond repair.
Because he didn’t know where the hell he was in life or what he was doing.
“Okay, I think you’re doing okay for now.” Izuku’s voice broke through his spiraling thoughts. “At least, I think the panic attack was bad obviously, but nothing else seems to have changed. You have a doctor’s appointment tomorrow, though. We can go in early if you start to feel worse again.”
“’S fine,” Katsuki grumbled, sighing and slumping back into his mattress. “We’ll wait.”
“Okay,” Izuku agreed, then he added in a tone that sounded like he was trying his best to be cheery, “Guess what, Kacchan?”
“Hm.” Katsuki didn’t react to the attempt except to make a quiet noncommittal noise, not in the mood.
“It’s the first day of spring today,” Izuku said brightly.
Katsuki’s eyes flew open as his heart dropped. “Hah?”
Izuku looked at him in confusion, but Katsuki stared straight ahead.
The first day of spring?!
The information was overwhelmingly alarming in a way that renewed some sense of the terror that had begun to spread throughout him this morning. It was a sensation of missed time, but in a far worse way than randomly noticing how he and Izuku had grown closer. The seasons were changing, but he barely remembered anything from all of winter. His mind was hazy, and he struggled to recall the last few months, even as he sat there and actively tried.
Where had the time gone?
How much time had he wasted, allowing himself to be buried alive?
His panic attack had faded, but now it was like the awoken feeling was rising up inside him again. This time, he recognized the element of terror, and he kept it at bay the best he could. But as it grew, it moved to sit high in his throat as his stomach twisted in uncomfortable knots. It was a pit in his gut, a feeling of doom deep within. It consumed him so quickly and so wholly.
Just how far below ground was he buried? How long until he ran out of air? How long until he ran out of strength? How long until he ran out of this renewed will to fight?
How much time had he wasted, wishing that he could just be buried faster?
Katsuki was terrified all over again, because time was inevitably passing by. Each moment had passed, whether or not he remembered it.
As it had yesterday when they’d been at that place they’d hiked at years ago, Katsuki stared ahead and his mortality stared back. The difference was now that he was trying to fight, to give it a last pathetic attempt, and somehow that small difference had stolen any semblance of peace from him and replaced it with complete terror. His panic stayed in his throat and heart and gut. It was making it harder to think again as it buzzed under his skin and sent his foggy thoughts swirling. It made him feel surreal in a new sort of way. The world took on a filter that he struggled to put his finger on.
As he stared up at Izuku, Katsuki realized that he was startlingly aware of how little time he had. The temporary state of his life. He sat on the edge of a goodbye forever, and he was so scared because he didn’t know how to get off it without tipping in the wrong direction.
One thing at a time, he tried to remind himself. He tried to cling to his plan of attack. All he had to do was talk to Izuku… that was a starting point. Whatever happened there would determine his next moves.
“Are you okay?” Izuku’s voice was unbearably gentle.
Katsuki realized that there was a good chance the terror was showing plainly on his face.
No.
He stared, wide-eyed, up at Izuku.
All he had to do was talk to Izuku… step one was talking to him…
Izuku’s wide green eyes and concerned, watchful gaze stared back at him, and Katsuki… was a fucking coward.
Why did step one have to feel so impossible?!
“Yeah,” Katsuki replied before he even realized what the hell he was doing. “Fine.”
The feeling inside him didn’t spread out of control again, but it didn’t dissipate. It just sat there, slowly suffocating him alongside the flowers in his lungs.
─────
A little while later, Katsuki sat at the kitchen island counter as Izuku made breakfast. He felt like total shit and he knew he likely looked like total shit, too. But the uneasiness under his skin was so unbearable that he would do anything to not be left alone with it.
There was a feeling of desperation that sat deep within him that made him not want to be alone with an almost frantic intensity. He wasn’t sure if it was simply that he couldn’t cope with his own spiraling thoughts or if it was because Izuku helped him feel more centered. It was probably both, but either way he didn’t deny himself the intense urge to be within Izuku’s proximity.
Even the couch in the other room and the chairs at the dining table felt too far away, so he sat on one of the stools and slumped down against the counter despite how exhausted he was.
There was also the fact that Izuku told him to go sit on the couch and they’d argued about it before Katsuki told him to go die. So now he was also determined to sit here out of pure spite.
He watched as Izuku cracked eggs into a pan and struggled to mentally wake himself up enough to figure his life out before it was actually too late. Of course, the main issue was that his stupid fucking brain didn’t work these days so sorting his thoughts out was easier said than done.
There was one thing his mind kept going back to over and over again.
“Keep fighting and let me fight alongside you. We’ll find a way to beat this. All of it. Whatever it is that’s making you feel like giving up. Whatever rejection or—or… or anything. Whatever it is. We—you and I—well, I know it’s not the same as it was back then but…”
Katsuki had waited with bated breath so hear more about what “you and I” meant. But Izuku had only paused, the air had gone very still, and then he’d rushed onward and very clearly changed the subject.
“It’s not just me, obviously. If you don’t want to talk to me, there’re so many others...”
Katsuki stared at the back of Izuku’s head, wishing he could pry the thoughts out of there with pure willpower. Izuku had been about to say something last night, so clearly he still thought about their hero partnership and how well they worked together, too. To some degree, he thought there was something about the two of them together that might inspire Katsuki to fight, but he’d stopped talking at the last second.
Why? Why had he stopped talking?
Katsuki’s first guess was perhaps an obvious one. Izuku also hated talking about his feelings. There was a reason the two of them never fucking did it.
But as Katsuki thought back to that moment—to the silent tension when Izuku had paused and how quickly he’d changed the subject—he thought that maybe that moment showed something more than a dislike of emotional vulnerability. Maybe Izuku had cut himself off because he’d felt insecure or apprehensive of what Katsuki would say in response. Maybe…
Did Izuku chicken out because he hated talking about his feelings, or because he thought Katsuki wouldn’t be receptive to them?
Had Izuku been about to say something that he saw as crossing a line between them?
“He doesn’t know,” Uraraka had said to him when he’d last spoken to her. “He has no idea.”
It wasn’t a shocker that the damn nerd hadn’t made any connections on who Katsuki was in love with, so was he worried to cross that boundary? To cross any boundaries between them, in the way that Katsuki was?
“I think you should talk to him,” Uraraka had ordered him.
Katsuki scowled at the memory, glaring at the back of Izuku’s head as jealousy writhed in his gut. What was with his damn girlfriend trying to get them together anyways? What the hell was going on with the two of them at this point? Izuku hadn’t said anything about her in a long time.
Katsuki grinded his teeth together for a moment, before he forced himself to move on. He didn’t want to talk about it, because if the two of them were still together, then he knew the jealousy would show plainly on his face. He also hated feeling jealous, and it was pointless to sit here and force himself to.
Instead, he continued to try and think.
You and I…
Katsuki scowled deeper as doubt and insecurity rose up within him. He couldn’t tell if he was reading too much into this or not. Were his own feelings blinding him? Was he reaching for something that wasn’t even there?
Katsuki stared at Izuku’s back and his eyes narrowed as he belatedly comprehended what he was seeing. The damn nerd was still wearing his fucking clothes. He’d supposedly gone off to finish showering and then—what? Put Katsuki’s clothes back on? Fucking why?
In the cold light of day, Izuku was as confusing as ever to Katsuki. Nothing added up about the damn nerd in the slightest. Not a goddamn thing, and Katsuki hated it.
Why did everything with the two of them have to be so complicated?
“Kacchan,” said Izuku as he turned around, spatula in hand.
He immediately froze when he made eye contact with Katsuki, who of course was still gazing intently at the back of his head.
Katsuki was too tired and confused and pained and frustrated to bother looking away or to try and hide that he’d been looking. Instead, he continued to stare at Izuku as if he were a particularly difficult puzzle that he was trying to solve.
Izuku looked a bit thrown off, his cheeks going ever so slightly pink. For a short moment, the air in the room was very still and it simmered between them as it had so, so often recently.
“What?” Katsuki prompted, irritated, when Izuku didn’t go on right away.
“Do you, er, um…” Izuku was stammering like an idiot.
Katsuki couldn’t decide if the sight before him was appealing or annoying. Sure, there was a part of him that was definitely enjoying the sight of Izuku in his clothes and in his kitchen, making the two of them breakfast… but there was also a part of him that wanted to throw something at him because the bastard was so goddamn confusing.
Katsuki narrowed his eyes, projecting annoyance with greater intensity and Izuku immediately shook his head rapidly, as if shaking himself out of a daze. Then he spoke more normally, though there was a slight waver to his voice that faded more with each word.
“Your dad wants to come over,” said Izuku, his cheeks still pink and an uneasiness in his eyes that Katsuki hated.
Izuku wasn’t an easily intimidated man. He’d fought some of the most powerful villains in the world when he was only sixteen. He could take Katsuki’s rage and shouting in stride. He was tough in a way that few people were.
Why did he look so uncertain in small moments such as this?
What did it mean?
Did it mean anything at all?
A second later, Katsuki comprehended what Izuku actually said. “Hah? The old man?”
“My mom wants me to help her pack because she’s moving,” Izuku explained looking off to the side as he spoke and thought aloud, absently waving the spatula around a bit as he talked. “And your dad has been wanting to see you, so I figured that I would just run and help her for an hour or two while your dad came over. Maybe tomorrow morning or something. What do you think?”
Katsuki stared him down, mildly baffled and more than a little pissed off that his body was still reacting with strong feelings of endearment and longing at the sight of Izuku in his fucking clothes waving around a spatula in his kitchen. He scowled slightly as the words filtered through his brain and were slowly processed.
“Why’d my old man tell you that?” Katsuki asked grumpily, pulling his phone from his sweatshirt pocket.
Though he was often bad at responding these days, he tried to check his texts and at least read them. His dad hadn’t texted him this morning, and neither of his parents had asked to come over recently.
Katsuki scowled deeper as his sluggish mind realized all at once… No one had asked him if they could come over. Plenty of his friends periodically sent him texts hoping he was well, but none of them asked him how he was. None of them tried to call.
Very slowly, he moved his gaze from his phone up to Izuku slowly, a deep bafflement growing as he tried to make sense of things in his mind.
“Oh, I was just talking to him the other day,” said Izuku casually as he turned to the fridge and pulled it open. “I was trying to remember which brand of tea was your favorite when ordering groceries and you were asleep. He mentioned wanting to come see you.”
Katsuki glared at Izuku’s back with deep suspicion, watching as he moved from the fridge back to the stove as he talked. His mind fought viciously between another shitty, sappy flare of something at the domesticity of the situation and an enduring irritation. He got the sense that Izuku was lying about the reason he spoke to his dad, and it made him really want to chuck something at his head.
“So, would that work?” Izuku glanced over his shoulder, though he jerked his gaze away hastily when he met Katsuki’s eyes again.
“Your mom’s moving?” asked Katsuki flatly.
“Oh, uh, yeah!” Izuku nodded as he continued cooking. “Actually, she’s moving into a place closer to your parents’ house! I bought her a little house there—on the corner across from the park, you know the one? It’s a block from that convenience store that always smells like fish.”
“Yeah,” Katsuki replied distractedly as his sleep-addled, depressed stupid ass foggy brain struggled immensely to keep up with everything that was going on. Which in and of itself was so, so damn infuriating it made him want to scream and explode something.
Izuku went on about his mom’s preferences for a house and her grievances for her last place, and Katsuki distantly listened as he tried to wake his brain up enough to get with the fucking program.
He glanced down at his phone, in his hand resting on the counter. He hadn’t given it a whole lot of thought when his friends and family had started contacting him less. In the back of his mind, it had simply made sense. He was being an asshole. He also had Hanahaki disease, so most people’s desire to stay away was pretty much a given.
But now that he thought about it…
Izuku turned around again and paused. This time, he looked less embarrassed or uneasy and more worried.
“What’s wrong?” he asked.
Katsuki scowled grumpily and just clicked his tongue in annoyance. “Tsk.”
Izuku’s brow furrowed as his own face morphed into something more serious as he stared back at Katsuki, clearly trying to decipher what Katsuki’s mood was using his plethora of nerdy Kacchan knowledge.
His plethora of Kacchan knowledge… which apparently adding up to knowing jack shit about Kacchan’s feelings.
“Your dad only wants to come over for a bit, you know,” said Izuku, his eyes still locked on Katsuki’s face in obvious analysis mode.
Katsuki stared back, because with each passing moment he was growing increasingly certain of what the hell was going on. His friends and family weren’t contacting him… because they were contacting Izuku about him. He didn’t know entirely how he felt about it, but at the moment he largely felt extremely annoyed.
“What’re you? My secretary or something?” Katsuki asked sardonically.
Izuku immediately shook his head rapidly. “No, of course not! I told you, it just came up in conversation when I was asking about the tea!”
Katsuki stared at him intently, eyes narrowed in suspicion.
He didn’t believe him.
“Kacchan, you haven’t seen either of your parents in a little while, and I think it would be good, you know?” Izuku suggested neutrally. Then he added pointedly, “I think you would enjoy it.”
“Yeah, the old man can come over,” said Katsuki dismissively.
His dad was better than his mom anyways, but that wasn’t what was important right now. All of Katsuki’s limited available brain power was working overtime trying to unpuzzle Izuku.
“Oh, great!” Izuku brightened immediately, turning back to finish up the food.
Katsuki zoned out a bit, thinking things over and watching as Izuku plated the food before he turned back around, and they made eye contact again.
Izuku looked… well, he basically looked constipated now. His expression was so strange and uncomfortable that Katsuki nearly snorted at the sight of it.
“What?” Katsuki demanded when Izuku didn’t move or speak for a moment too long.
“Um, also…” Izuku strode forward and passed the plate across the countertop. “Kirishima wants to talk to you.”
Katsuki stared blankly in genuine surprise. Then he replied grumpily, “Thought you said you weren’t my damn secretary.”
Izuku had a weird look in his eye now. Something anxious, something distracted… his face still screwed up weirdly. He didn’t reply to Katsuki in the slightest, and Katsuki began to wonder if he’d even comprehended that he’d spoken.
“Izuku.”
Izuku’s eyes came into focus, and he zoned in on his face. “Huh? What?”
Katsuki scowled at him. “What’s wrong with you?”
Izuku immediately shook his head, forcing a smile onto his face that did very little to hide the strange look in his eye.
“Nothing, nothing!” said Izuku quickly. “I’m fine! So… Kirishima? I know you’re upset with him, but he really wants to talk to you.”
Katsuki stared intently but Izuku just looked back, face expectant. Whatever strange emotions he had were carefully tucked away somewhere far behind his eyes more and more with each passing moment.
After a few beats, Katsuki just sighed and looked away.
To say he was just upset with Kirishima didn’t feel like the right way to put it. It was rather that he felt many, many other things and he was too exhausted to deal with them. Shame, regret, guilt, grief, anger…
Back at that radiation lab, Kirishima had successfully called him out on something he hadn’t even wanted to admit to himself at the time. And Katsuki had been a total asshole about it.
It didn’t help that there were still many moments where Katsuki resented that Kirishima had stepped in. Resented that he’d taken that heroic end from Katsuki. In those moments of the worst pain, when it was the hardest to breathe, when being near Izuku was too agonizing, when the idea of the future was too overwhelming, when the fog clouded his mind and he felt certain he would never find his way out…
In those moments, Katsuki bitterly wished Kirishima hadn’t been there that day.
That moment could’ve been Katsuki’s redemption. It could’ve been his peace. It could’ve been the end. Dying was a strange and painful and complicated concept to Katsuki these days, so he sometimes craved the simplicity and finality that would’ve come with that quick and definitive end. That brutal, heroic, selfish end.
He wasn’t upset with Kirishima so much as… he was a coward.
Katsuki knew Kirishima had looked right at him that day and somehow been able to tell that his motivations were off. He’d called his bluff by involving Izuku. Afterwards, he’d backed off when Katsuki had made it clear that’s what he wanted.
Kirishima was his best friend… and he knew so much of the full context of this messed up situation. While Izuku might indulge him in some ways, Kirishima would not. Kirishima would demand answers, and he would make it seem like things were straightforward when that was so far from the case.
Katsuki just didn’t like the idea of being confronted with him right now. Today, he’d woken up and things were different. That awoken feeling lived painfully in his chest. He simply didn’t know if he could handle Kirishima pressuring him or any of his frustration, on top of everything else.
Katsuki sighed. “Why?”
“Why what?” asked Izuku distractedly.
Katsuki blinked and realized that Izuku had been staring off into space with a furrowed brow, a deeply pensive expression on his face.
“Why does Kirishima want to talk to me?”
“Um.” Izuku looked to the side, avoiding Katsuki’s eyes and shifting in a subtle but nervous way that Katsuki only caught because he’d known him his entire life. “He just said he needed to talk to you. That you don’t answer his texts or calls and stuff.”
Katsuki watched him carefully. “Yeah, I’m pissed off at him.”
Izuku stared down at his own plate of food, only glancing up to meet his eyes briefly before looking back down.
“I think you should talk to him,” he muttered.
“Hmph.” Katsuki huffed out a noise of irritation at Izuku’s unprompted input.
“I, uh, I have to run a few errands later today anyways,” Izuku added quickly. “So maybe he could come by this afternoon or this evening?”
Katsuki stared forward, his jaw set stubbornly. He was being obstinate more from habit than anything else. His head didn’t feel clear enough to think, and he was too tired to actually resist for long. Not when there was very much a part of him that wanted to see his friends and family as well, underneath all the shame.
He missed Kirishima… and he didn’t know how the hell to take this first step towards winning. Despite all the shit he was definitely going to get from Kirishima, maybe he could be of help.
“Kacchan, he just wants to see you,” said Izuku quietly. “It’s been a while and, well, you’re sick—”
“Fine, shut up,” Katsuki gritted out.
Izuku beamed, and Katsuki looked away with a grumpy frown. That look in his green eyes—that bright, shiny look in his eyes that he always had when he looked at Katsuki—it was still there despite Katsuki’s breakdown yesterday. It lived on, even after Katsuki had begged it to die. Even after Katsuki had lost it and demanded Izuku see his weak and pathetic state for what it was… Izuku remained unchanging.
Izuku remained steady, and he offered out his hand to Katsuki. A hand that he would offer to any person in need but…
You and I…
Katsuki’s terror grew alongside a far more dangerous feeling… not quite hope. It wasn’t strong enough to be hope. It was faint enough to blend with desperation and all his other feelings and he struggled to discern all of them. Still, it was undeniably there.
Could he be something more to Izuku?
Was it possible that Izuku only held back because he didn’t have any idea how Katsuki felt about him?
Everyone around them seemed so certain, but Katsuki still had no idea. His heart thundered, his gut twisted and turned, and he was terrified and uncertain and confused and a thousand other things. The feeling of terror tightened around his chest and throat.
The first day of spring. The changing of the seasons.
Time was ticking by.
There was so much he wanted to know, and not just about Izuku’s feelings towards him. He had so many questions and such a strong desire to see the inner workings of Izuku’s mind… and time was passing far too quickly.
Step one. The very first step to any hope of winning. Of surviving.
“You and I need to talk too,” said Katsuki, words embarrassingly jumbled together as they practically shoved their way out of his mouth.
Izuku stilled, looking at him with wide, perplexed eyes. “Uh… about what?”
“Just—” Katsuki’s throat closed up.
There came the overwhelming terror again as he stared into those achingly familiar green eyes. There it was, strangling him. There it was, heating his face and consuming him until he felt like he needed to get away from Izuku to escape being crushed under the weight of all his unbearable emotions.
“We have shit to talk about.” It was almost painful to force the words out, and his voice came out a bit stilted and strained.
“Okay.” Izuku’s brow furrowed slightly in confusion even as he nodded his agreement. Uncertainly, he added, “Um… we’re talking now?”
Katsuki gritted his teeth, face heating further and terror squeezing his chest at the idea of talking about anything right this instant. His breath wheezed in and out loudly as the flowers undoubtedly dug the roots in a little further to punish his weakness.
“Not… now,” he managed to say lowly. “Later.”
Izuku nodded rapidly, spurred into motion all of a sudden when Katsuki visibly struggled to breathe. Distractedly, he replied, “Okay, sure, of course. I’ll go grab your O2!”
He darted from the kitchen, towards where they’d left his oxygen tank in the bedroom, leaving Katsuki floundering in the wake of it all. He struggled to breathe past the flowers in his lungs and the fear in his heart and the physical and mental anguish of it all, and more than anything he was consumed by the shame of his own cowardice.
There was a part of him that was waiting for something within him to snap. He was waiting and hoping that his fear of death would overpower his fear of trying to talk to Izuku. Instead, he was horrified to find that his terror and shame and panic only grew and clashed more and more with each other. It only continued to feel like too much inside of him. It only ended with the words all jamming up in his throat as he panicked because he needed to say them or he would die.
This was so incredibly different than the last time he’d bared his soul to Izuku, all those years ago when he’d apologized for his wrongdoings. There was no sense of certainty and peace that grew within him. There was no calm resolve that this had to be done at any cost.
Instead, there was desperation because even if Katsuki didn’t confess his feelings, he had so many things he wanted to say and to know about Izuku before the end. There was desperation, but it was met blow for blow with mind-numbing fear and uncertainty that jumbled his already foggy thoughts.
He didn’t feel ready for this. He didn’t feel ready for things to change, no matter what direction they went. He was miserable at his current place in life, but any direction he turned was unfamiliar and daunting. It was so damn hard to think, and the consequences of the wrong step, the wrong move, the wrong direction all felt far too immense for what his dying body and mind could handle.
Katsuki put his head in his hands and tried to ignore how the emotions rising in his throat were making his eyes burn and tear up. He tried not to think about how he was suffocating to death. He tried not to think about how he was exhausted and in pain. He tried not to think about how he’d let himself give up, how he’d lied to himself about it, and how he still felt the desire to do so now, calling to him from the back of his mind.
Fuck… he tried not to think about how he couldn’t breathe, but it was so difficult.
─────
“I don’t want to talk about it.” Katsuki gritted out the words.
From his place on the couch, he looked up at Kirishima. Kirishima stood frozen before him, staring back at him with a look so blatantly horrified that Katsuki immediately had to look away.
Seeing his best friend again was just as conflicting as Katsuki had expected. There was undoubtedly a massive part of him that was happy to see him, that found comfort in Kirishima’s reliable presence, but the rest of the turmoil within him was definitely making itself known as well.
“Tch.” He added on a sound of annoyance when Kirishima didn’t respond right away, glaring slightly as he looked off to the side.
“About what?” Kirishima’s voice was vaguely strangled. “About what happened at the lab, or the fact that you look like you’re halfway in the grave already?”
Katsuki’s scowl deepened as heat crept up his neck and his heart squeezed painfully.
“Neither,” he snapped.
“Fuck, man.” Kirishima breathed out an audible breath, putting a hand to his own forehead as he looked momentarily faint. “Midoriya said you were doing bad but… holy shit.”
“Yeah, thanks, asshole.”
“You have to know you look awful!” Kirishima cried, eyes wide and wild.
“Dunno. Haven’t looked in the mirror in a while.”
“Maybe you should!”
“Fuck off,” Katsuki snapped, his weak voice straining and giving out when he tried to raise it. “The hell did you come here for anyways? Just to tell me I’m a jackass and I look like shit?”
“God knows Midoriya doesn’t do it enough! So maybe someone has to be honest with you!”
“Oh for fuck’s—”
“But no,” Kirishima cut him off firmly, “I didn’t come here to do that.” He drew in a deep breath. “I get you’re pissed at me for what happened at the lab.”
“It’s not that simple,” Katsuki bit out tersely, “and I don’t want to talk about it.”
“We’re not going to,” Kirishima replied immediately. “Not right now. I know you’re still mad and I stand by what I did so… it’s not important right now. I was just gonna say that despite how you’re pissed at me—and also like everyone else for that matter—I need to talk to you anyways.”
Katsuki glowered, irritation writhing freely within him as all the other painful emotions sat crammed together underneath it. “Then talk.”
“About Midoriya.”
Mild surprise softened Katsuki’s scowl slightly before it intensified again. He wasn’t sure why it was so surprising. Maybe because he’d been steeling himself for a conversation about the damn lab all day, so the pivot threw off his exhausted, sluggish mind.
“What about him?”
Kirishima drew in another long breath, sighing it out as he shook his head slowly. Much of the tension left him as his shoulders slumped. He strode forward to sit on the other end of the couch, and he sat back on it, crossing his arms and frowning deeply as he stared into space. His expression was deadly serious, and he was quiet for long enough that Katsuki was moments from snapping at him when he finally opened his mouth.
“Man, at this point…” Kirishima shook his head slowly, still staring into space, “you not telling Midoriya how you feel is public endangerment.”
“Hah?!” Katsuki’s face contorted with annoyance and genuine confusion.
“Neglect, even,” Kirishima went on, musing aloud. “Abandonment, possibly. All I’m saying is, at this point, it’s bordering on a punishable crime. I’m not going to press charges, but I can’t say the same about everyone el—”
“What the hell are you talking about?”
“You’re letting him run wild all over the city.” Kirishima sounded disapproving, almost disappointed or scolding. “I mean, it’s unlikely that anyone will prosecute now, only because I’m pretty sure crime rates have been down recently from how Midoriya stomps around looking so furious all the time.”
Katsuki stared at him uncomprehendingly. Again, he remarked, “Hah?!”
“Even if he’s not really an active hero, everyone recognizes that angry look in his eye, you know?” Kirishima looked at him expectantly. “That, like, crazy one? Maybe not everyone recognizes ‘Midoriya Izuku,’ but everyone recognizes Deku.”
“What’s your point?”
“Can you wrangle him in?” asked Kirishima, increasingly exasperated as he waved his arms around wildly for emphasis. “Give him some attention? Like comfort him and shush him until he stops barking and snapping at people? It’s scary!”
Katsuki stared at him, face still contorted into something of an annoyed scowl. “Why’re you talking about Izuku like he’s my dog?”
“Because you’ve got his damn leash, man!” Kirishima cried out, head falling back on the back of the couch and staring up at the ceiling with an expression that was more done than anything Katsuki had ever seen on his face.
“No, I fucking don’t!” Katsuki hissed. “What the hell are you talking about? What universe are you living in?!”
“No. Stop.” Kirishima didn’t move from his position, only waving a dismissive hand in Katsuki’s direction. “I can’t deal with your bullshit right now. I’m done. I won’t sit here and listen to it.”
“My ‘bullshit’?!”
“Yeah.” Kirishima frowned up at the ceiling. “Your whole thing you have going on where you’re genuinely convinced Midoriya isn’t in love with you. I don’t want to hear it right now.”
“Hah?!” Katsuki’s voice came out strangled.
Kirishima continued to stare directly up at the ceiling, a haunted look in his eye. “I did not endure feeling like Midoriya was going to end my life—without breaking, might I add—just to hear you say this. I could’ve told him any time who you’re in love with but I’m a damn good friend who was respecting your wishes. So I stayed strong in the face of like one of the scariest people on the planet as he looked willing to tear me limb from limb.”
“Why’re you being so dramatic, holy shit—” Katsuki scoffed, exasperated.
“I am not!” Kirishima’s head snapped over to look at him, visibly affronted.
“Izuku doesn’t even leave this damn apartment most of the time! The bastard refuses to leave and when he does it’s never for that long anyways. What the hell are you even talking about right now?”
“He’s not here now, which means he’s probably out there, terrorizing the general public!”
“Hah?! You’re talking about Izuku right now?!”
Very seriously, Kirishima said, “No one wants to be in between Midoriya and his precious Kacchan, I’ll say that much. I deserve a goddamn medal, and yet all I’m getting is—” He again lifted his hand to wave vaguely in Katsuki’s direction. “—this.”
Katsuki stared at him, completely at a loss. Kirishima’s words were so absurd and out of the blue that Katsuki’s first instinct was to assume he was joking. The seriousness of his tone and expression just left Katsuki confused.
“I should be a less good friend,” Kirishima sighed loudly, shaking his head at the ceiling. “The two of you are… gah. I’m so tired.”
“You know shit’s complicated with Izuku,” Katsuki gritted out defensively.
“Oh boy, do I,” Kirishima deadpanned.
“Hey, asshole, you’re the one who showed up here and brought this up!”
“Yeah, I did, because you’re my best friend!” Kirishima again turned his head to look at him, speaking fervently and sounding upset. “And I need to know, are you still finding any excuse you can for why Midoriya doesn’t love you or are you ready to admit to yourself that you’re fucking depressed?!”
“Of course I’m depressed! I’m dying!”
“NO! No.” Kirishima sat up abruptly, fuming mad. “You were depressed before all this shit! You have been for a long time!”
“Yes, okay?!” Katsuki’s weak voice strained when he tried to shout. “Yes, is that what you wanted to hear?! I was having a shitty time, and I told myself it was just because I missed Izuku! Is that what you wanted me to fucking say?!”
Kirishima looked stunned for a moment. The silence practically rang out in the wake of Katsuki’s confession. Though it was quickly broken by Katsuki’s audible, harsh breathing.
“Yeah, actually,” Kirishima replied, breathless from shock.
“Why?!” Katsuki snapped, tears burning suddenly in his eyes. “Why the hell did you need me to say that so bad?”
Kirishima ignored him to instead ask, “Do you also admit that Midoriya is in love with you?”
“I don’t know!” Katsuki growled out through gritted teeth as his chest hurt so bad that he wanted to scream. “Everyone really fucking seems to think so!”
“Yeah, well, to all of us who’ve had to resist wetting themselves from enduring his fury as of late, it’s pretty obvious he cares.”
“We know he cares,” Katsuki spat, sharp and bitter. “But Hanahaki disease is about more than that, dipshit.”
“You know what? Fuck this,” Kirishima said abruptly. He turned to face Katsuki, putting a leg partially up on the couch so he could face his entire torso in Katsuki’s direction. “I asked him, point blank. When he was grilling me about who you were in love with, trying to break me—and I could feel myself breaking because if he like started swinging or something I don’t—”
“Wait, wait, what?” Katsuki’s heart dropped so intensely that he felt vaguely faint. “You asked him what?”
“I asked him if he loved you.”
Katsuki’s eyes widened, a mix of horror and terror and curiosity flooding through him all at once. He was beyond being upset that Kirishima had inserted himself into the situation. Instead, he just snapped, “AND?!”
“And… Midoriya avoided answering the question like a damn pro.”
Katsuki scowled even as his heart thundered faster in his chest. “What?”
“If avoiding talking about your feelings was an Olympic event, he’d get a gold medal,” Kirishima went on, looking thoroughly peeved.
“Wait, wait, wait,” said Katsuki in a rushed tone, leaning closer. “You asked Izuku, point blank, and he didn’t say no?”
“At first, he didn’t say anything, he just kept finding ways to avoid answering,” Kirishima frowned deeply, staring off to the side as the irritation deepened on his face and in his tone.
“Kirishima!” Katsuki’s eyes were wide and his breathing was coming faster and more ragged with each breath. “You asked Izuku if he was in love with me, and he didn’t say no?!”
Kirishima frowned. “I guess… I didn’t ask if he was in love with you, technically.”
Katsuki narrowed his eyes.
“But it was sort of implied because we were talking about Hanahaki disease!” Kirishima added immediately.
Katsuki only sighed, shaking his head as he slumped back against the couch. His heart still raced in his chest, but that wasn’t the confirmation he was looking for. His brow furrowed slightly… because he realized that he desperately had been looking for confirmation. His heart thrummed away in his chest, and his mind raced.
Despite it all… the fog and the shit and the rot and the brokenness… Katsuki realized that he’d genuinely been hoping Izuku had told Kirishima. The feeling in his gut felt strange. Almost some sort of fear, as Katsuki realized that for the first time since this whole thing had started, he’d genuinely been ready to fully believe that Izuku was in love with him if Kirishima had said so.
For the first time since that day when he’d first watered the flowers, his first instinct had been to reach towards the idea of Izuku loving him rather than shy away from it. Looking for a lifesaver rather than being largely resolved to drowning. Trying to claw through the dirt to find which direction the surface was. The realization was almost dizzying for a reason he struggled to put words to.
Kirishima went on, cutting off his thoughts.
“Listen, man,” he said. His voice had grown so hesitant that Katsuki’s eyes immediately zeroed in on his face. Kirishima looked distressed and incredibly conflicted, before he shook his head and went on, “Dammit, okay… Midoriya… well, he reacted strangely to the question, okay? Like… fuck…”
He was struggling for words now, looking uneasy. In turn, it was making Katsuki feel increasingly alarmed.
“I promise you he understood what I was asking,” said Kirishima, voice a bit stilted. “And he… gah…” He seemed even more agitated, rubbing at his forehead. “Dammit! Look, he does not know you love him, okay? Let’s say that. He doesn’t have any idea what you think of him in the slightest. He’s got completely the wrong idea.”
“What do you mean?” Katsuki stared, heart thundering so wildly that he could feel his pulse beating in his throat. He was hanging off every word as Kirishima confirmed his suspicions and thoughts from earlier that morning.
He doesn’t know.
“Fuck,” Kirishima clenched his teeth, huffing out a breath of frustration. “Fuck. Fuck. Okay, you two need to talk this out, okay? I’m not getting in the middle of this. But Midoriya… he’s got a lot of weird emotional stuff going on.”
“‘Weird emotional stuff’?” Katsuki prompted, annoyed when Kirishima didn’t go on right away.
“Yeah,” replied Kirishima uncomfortably. “I don’t really get it, but it was almost… disturbing to watch. He avoided the question, then when I kept pushing he had to take a sec to gather himself, and then he got angry. He kept dismissing the idea of you loving him as—as like a topic that was an inconvenient waste of time. He got madder when I tried to insist it wasn’t.”
“How hard did you grill him?” asked Katsuki, gaping in disbelief as his mind spun erratically as it tried to process this new information.
“Dude, he was the one doing the grilling!” Kirishima protested shrilly. “Look, you guys are obviously ridiculously complicated beyond anything I could ever hope to understand, but you guys can’t go on like this—you quite literally cannot go on like this! You’ve known each other your entire lives and you never fucking talk to each other!”
“Yeah, well easier said than done.” Katsuki glowered, looking off to the side.
He felt like he could talk about all this to anyone but Izuku at this point. Several times throughout the day, he’d tried to say something, to begin a conversation, anything, and had failed horribly every time. As the hours had passed, the fear of rejection and the fear of death within him had not done what he’d hoped; they had not fought, with the fear of death coming out on top. Instead, they’d continued to feed into each other, joining forces to paralyze him with an overwhelming feeling of dread.
When he thought of saying anything serious or intense to Izuku… the entire floor fell out from beneath his feet. His heart dropped into the void and suddenly his entire life was on the line. Izuku held the fate of his entire life in his hands, and he didn’t even know it. The answer to whether or not Katsuki could potentially live on with his mind and memories intact sat within the unknowable mind of Midoriya Izuku.
It was beyond scary, beyond terrifying. It was a feeling that froze the blood in his veins and made his chest feel tight with all the words bursting to be said all at once. Worst of all, it was a feeling that kept his mouth glued shut despite how horribly aware he was of his own imminent demise.
“You want my guess?” asked Kirishima forcefully.
“No,” Katsuki replied flatly.
Kirishima paid him no mind. “I think he’s in love with you, but I have no idea if he even knows that or not.”
Katsuki looked at him, brow quirking slightly in confusion.
“For one reason or another, it’s so far from being a concept in his mind that he acted like it was a waste of time,” said Kirishima, brow furrowed as he seemed to recall the moment. “He did everything except say no. All he had to do was say no, even if it was a lie. And he didn’t. He didn’t, like he was trying to avoid it altogether. He grew agitated and defensive when I kept asking, because he insisted I was changing the subject for no reason. He kept saying stuff like ‘this isn’t about me’ and…”
His voice trailed off and he stared into space, his eyes darting around as he clearly thought carefully about what to say next.
Katsuki grew impatient quickly. “What?!”
“He said you would hate him.” The words burst from Kirishima’s mouth, all rushed. He said it, then looked a bit horrified that he’d said it. He put a hand to his forehead, leaning back against the couch again. “Dammit, I told myself I wouldn’t say more than this because I am not playing the middleman here. You two need to talk and I’m not qualified to mediate that for so many reasons!”
“That I… that I would hate him?” Katsuki’s gut churned so violently that he felt genuinely nauseous. The words sounded so ridiculous that his first, defensive instinct was to reject them completely. “Hate him for what, exactly?”
Kirishima looked a bit pale, but he gazed at the ceiling and said, “I think all my pushing about it freaked him out, because he told me I couldn’t tell you about any of our conversation because if… well, he was saying if you thought he had those kinds of feelings for you, that you’d hate him.”
“Those… kinds of feelings?” Katsuki repeated blankly as his heart thundered wildly in his chest.
“He didn’t say he did have feelings for you,” Kirishima added, wincing slightly. “He just seemed bothered by the idea of me telling you that he did. Or even telling you that I thought he did, I suppose. He acted like you would never look at him again if I brought this up to you. It was all very, uh, dramatic… and a bit weird.”
Katsuki’s chest caved in and every part of him felt like it was falling through the void left behind. If he hadn’t been sitting down, he might’ve swayed on his feet and lost his balance as the world tilted on its axis and threw him off kilter.
“Why… why would he think that?” Katsuki’s voice sounded far away to himself as he felt the desire to vomit rising in his gut. “How… how could he…”
How could Izuku believe, apparently so wholeheartedly, that Katsuki would hate him for something like this? That he could hate him at all?
The dichotomy between that idea and the truth was far too wide. The distance that stretched out between himself and Izuku felt further than it had in so, so long. It was isolating and terrifying and agonizing.
Katsuki suddenly felt like he was missing far more than he’d ever realized. His brain started to piece together an idea that he would’ve found ridiculous many months ago.
Was it possible that Izuku really had no idea how Katsuki felt about him? Not even romantically, but just in general. It seemed that Izuku had no idea just how much space he took up in Katsuki’s life—not even close.
Was it not incredibly obvious?
Was it not obvious in how eagerly Katsuki tried to make plans with him in the years after high school? Was it not obvious in how Katsuki hung onto every word about Izuku’s teaching career despite not really giving a fuck about teaching besides what it had to do with Izuku?
Was it not obvious by the armored suit that Katsuki had spent years saving and raising money for?
Had it not been so obvious in these recent times in which Katsuki had let Izuku into his space? In which Katsuki had let Izuku see so many vulnerable parts of himself as he struggled more than he ever had in his life?
The idea that Izuku held such a massive misconception about him was inconceivable. This morning, he’d started to wonder if Izuku didn’t cross any lines between them because he didn’t know Katsuki was in love with him… but this was so, so much worse than he’d considered.
“I don’t know,” Kirishima replied softly. “That’s… that’s why you really need to talk to him, man.”
Katsuki slowly laid back against the cushions as his ever-present exhaustion weighed him down more and more. He stared blankly ahead, struggling to comprehend it all. He tried to find a place for this new information and struggled to find one.
“He acted like you would never look at him again if I brought this up to you.”
Izuku…
From kindergarten, to elementary school, to middle school, to high school, to those years beyond… they’d known each other for as long as Katsuki could remember. Their relationship had changed so much over time, with so many years of questionable history overtaken by the years of friendship afterwards.
At least, that’s how it was in Katsuki’s mind.
Katsuki scrubbed his hand through his hair in complete distress. This all was a violent confirmation of his contemplations earlier that morning. It was worse, because it shifted his worldview even further from where he’d started to allow it to move.
Not only was Izuku possibly afraid to speak his mind to Katsuki, but he thought if he said the wrong thing that Katsuki would never look at him again? That he would hate him?
This all felt so strange and ridiculous. It wasn’t possible. They’d been friends and on good terms for years. Katsuki hadn’t gotten mad at him in any real way—before this Hanahaki bullshit anyways—since they were in high school. Hadn’t they talked through shit back then? Didn’t Izuku understand?
Izuku didn’t seem insecure or like he expected Katsuki to just up and end their friendship. Whenever Katsuki was angry, Izuku took it in stride better than anyone else on the fucking planet. He never seemed like he was afraid to share what he was thinking…
Did Izuku really hesitate to speak last night because he was scared of Katsuki’s opinion? Did he hesitate because he thought Katsuki would accuse him of overstepping? Was it really possible that Izuku had been walking on eggshells around him, sure that a wrong move could be the end of their friendship?
How was it possible that after all this time Izuku thought Katsuki was capable of hating him? He apparently feared it enough that he was horrified at the idea of Kirishima mentioning Izuku as a romantic option. The idea made Katsuki’s stomach lurch violently.
He thought again of his conversation with Uraraka.
She’d asked Izuku why he didn’t consider himself as an option when he was trying to figure out who Katsuki was in love with. She’d told Katsuki that Izuku had laughed at the idea.
“It was like an awkward laugh. The kind he does when someone compliments him, and he doesn’t know what to say—you know the one. He went all red and shook his head a lot of times. He said, ‘I know it’s not me.’”
Katsuki thought of how Izuku went red and got flustered when he’d complimented his eyes. So flustered that Katsuki hadn’t known what to think of it. How it had made Katsuki rethink so much of his life when he realized that he wasn’t certain he’d ever had the balls to compliment Izuku’s appearance before that in their entire lives.
It was weird, because he was always thinking these things, but did he really never say them?
“…he knows it could never be him because you two have known each other for too long… He just rambled on and on about how he knows you and how you feel about him. How Hanahaki is a very serious thing, and how it was something that happened with someone you felt really connected to, who you couldn’t live without. It happened when you felt like you’d found your perfect person.”
Izuku’s reasons for why he was so goddamn certain that Katsuki couldn’t be in love with him were that they’d known each other too long, he already knows how Katsuki feels about him, and that Hanahaki disease is a serious thing that you only felt with someone you felt really connected to. Someone you can’t live without.
Katsuki felt an overwhelming wave of irritation wash through him.
Izuku had really sat there and thought that description could fit anyone in their fucking class but himself? Was Izuku genuinely the most oblivious person alive? Had Izuku really listed reasons Katsuki might be in love with fucking Mineta before he considered the possibility that Katsuki might be in love with him?!
Katsuki was trying to regain some sense of internal balance, but the feeling of isolation and dread only spread more by the second. He knew that his frustration about this probably wasn’t a fair thing to be feeling, because it came from expecting Izuku to just understand him without ever having said anything.
Still, nothing changed the fact that Katsuki had spent all these years very certain that Izuku understood that they were best friends at the very least.
All these years, he’d lived securely in the knowledge that they both knew they were closer to each other than anyone else. In whatever way that meant, he still thought that was an indisputable fact.
Just how close did Izuku think that they were?
Just how close were they?
Katsuki suddenly felt horribly ashamed and overwhelmed. Just how egocentric was his worldview? What else had he missed? What else had he overlooked about Izuku all this time?
“How could he think that?” asked Katsuki again. His voice came out strained and raspy.
Kirishima looked at him for a long moment and then he just sighed. “I mean, did you guys ever talk through everything?”
“What’s ‘everything’?”
“Like… your entire lives?” Kirishima said it like it was obvious. “Your feelings? Really, like… anything?”
Katsuki scowled unhappily. “We fought at Ground Beta.”
“When are—holy shit, are you talking about in fucking high school?”
“Yeah. I told him I thought he was an annoying, condescending little shit the whole time we were growing up.”
“That’s it?!”
“No,” Katsuki snapped defensively, “then I apologized for thinking that when we went to go stop him from running off on his own during the war.”
Kirishima blinked at him incredulously. Again, he asked, “That’s it?!”
Katsuki glowered and then barked, “Back then I thought that resolved all our issues well enough, and then everything else would work itself out over time. What the hell else were we gonna talk about—before all this Hanahaki shit happened?”
“Uh… maybe how you actually feel about each other?”
“Who the hell sits around talking about their fucking feelings all the time?!”
“It—well, it doesn’t have to be all the time! Just some of the time! Anytime! You guys hung out all the time in the years since high school!”
“Yeah, and we’d talk about important stuff, like heroics.”
“For the love of—” Kirishima slapped a palm to his own face, huffing out a loud, exasperated sigh.
“When he lost One For All, I cried and told him how I’d thought the two of us would keep competing.” Katsuki frowned as he thought back. “He got super uncomfortable and just told me to stop crying basically, but I still said it. He should’ve been able to fucking figure it out.”
He should’ve been able to figure out how important he is to me.
Had it not been super obvious in that moment alone how much he valued their relationship? How much he valued Izuku?
“Yeah…” Kirishima squinted at him judgmentally. “That doesn’t count as talking either, man.”
“Fuck, I know, okay?” Katsuki snapped. “I know we haven’t talked about shit. I realized at the beginning of this whole Hanahaki disease bullshit that there’s a whole lot of stuff I don’t talk about, but this is so far beyond any of that! How the hell am I supposed to comprehend the idea that Izuku doesn’t—that he—”
Katsuki struggled to find the words as the horror again consumed him.
Just who the hell did Izuku think he was to Katsuki?
“How was he gonna know, man?” Kirishima sighed yet again. “Sounds like from his point of view, you hated him for like all of your childhood, you learned to tolerate him in high school when you had a rivalry, and then you were sad that he wasn’t going to be a hero anymore.”
“Yes, and then I busted my ass so that he could be a hero!” Katsuki half-shouted, digging his hands into his hair. “Because I thought that was what he wanted! How is that not extremely clear how I feel about him?”
Kirishima frowned pensively, then shrugged. “It sorta seems like it could just be you atoning for like… bullying him for being Quirkless when you were kids.”
“Well—” Katsuki hesitated, grimacing. “Well, it was partially atoning, but that’s only because I’ll probably feel like I’m fucking atoning for that for the rest of our lives. It wasn’t the entire reason! It wasn’t—goddammit, that wasn’t the reason I did any of that.”
“Yeah, well, maybe Midoriya just thought you felt bad for him. Maybe he thought you busting your ass for eight years was just to clear your conscience.”
Katsuki gaped at him for a moment, then his temper snapped.
“Shigaraki tried to kill me specifically because I was closer to Izuku than anyone else!” he cried, voice hoarse with his frustration. “He has to have some idea about who he is to me!”
“First of all,” Kirishima held up one finger, “Midoriya wasn’t even there to hear that. I only know about it from you, so if you’ve never told him, I’m not sure he even knows that’s why Shigaraki killed you specifically. I personally don’t plan to be around when you tell him, because it will probably set him off on a rampage and I’ve officially retired from ever being near one of those ever again.”
“I’m not telling him that!” Katsuki scoffed, nearly offended at the idea.
One thing they’d most definitely not talked about was the fact that Katsuki had been brutally murdered and was still very much so dead when Izuku showed up to the fight. He couldn’t just bring that shit up out of nowhere. He didn’t want to, either.
“Okay, so he doesn’t know,” said Kirishima, unimpressed. Then he held up a second finger. “Second of all, you’re forgetting the most important rule in the Bakugou-and-Midoriya handbook.”
Katsuki just glowered at him.
Kirishima raised his eyebrows and then elaborated, “It’s glaringly obvious to absolutely everyone how much you care about each other except for you two. Shigaraki read you two like a book, and yet here you are, a decade later, having a crisis because you don’t even know if Midoriya knows you’re, like… close friends.”
Katsuki gaped at him for a moment, before he ducked his head again, rubbing over his eyes. “Fuck. This is a fucking mess.”
“Yup. Tell me about it.”
Katsuki rubbed at his eyes some more. His head was swirling and it was so hard to think. He was reeling violently inside from all of this. The feeling of unease and guilt in his gut was almost physically painful. His breath wheezed in and out of his lungs shallowly, rustling the cherry blossoms growing there.
How could Izuku not know, when that spring back in high school, Katsuki smiled with more open, carefree joy than he had in years? How could Izuku not know, from how he knew he looked at him that day, a quiet, blissful, happy look that he remembered allowing to show so openly on his face?
He doesn’t know.
He has no idea.
He said you’d hate him.
You and I—
It was nauseating… the idea that Izuku might think Katsuki cared for him so little. It was completely unbearable, to think that Izuku was under the impression that Katsuki thought so little of him… but that Izuku still stuck around.
Izuku had spent months trying to help Katsuki with all this Hanahaki disease bullshit, and yet he thought Katsuki was capable of hating him over something like this. Not just that Katsuki wouldn’t feel that way about him or that the two of them weren’t like that… but that Katsuki would hate him for it. He’d been so worried about it that the very mention of it caused him visible distress, according to Kirishima.
Katsuki’s heart ached deeply in his chest. His gut twisted and turned and tied itself in knots. Everything hurt, and he was so incredibly far past knowing where the physical and mental pain began and ended. It didn’t matter… it hadn’t mattered for months and months now.
It all hurt, regardless of the origin.
Katsuki wanted to shout and throw things and lose it because… if this was true, then this whole situation was intensely mortifying.
Izuku was potentially under the impression that Katsuki—what? Just tolerated him?
And Katsuki was fucking dying because he was in unrequited love with him.
“Holy shit,” Katsuki muttered under his breath as he ran a hand into his own hair and gripped at it again tightly. His head was spinning, and he suddenly became aware of just how exhausted he was.
Katsuki felt like a selfish piece of shit, because apparently there was far more going on with Izuku than he’d ever realized. There was so much that he’d missed. Izuku and he had lived under the same damn roof for all this time, but apparently they existed in completely different realities.
Again.
Katsuki had a nauseating moment of déjà vu as he remembered the day he realized that he was doomed to die of Hanahaki disease. The day he realized that he’d been living in this universe where he and Izuku wanted to be heroes together, but that wasn’t the case.
Exactly what reality did Izuku live in? What did he think of Katsuki? What did he think that Katsuki thought of him? Why had he stopped wanting to be a hero? Why had he claimed he loved teaching so bad and then abandoned it so effortlessly?
The crisp crack of a can opening tore him from his thoughts, and he looked over towards Kirishima, who was offering him a can of beer.
Katsuki took it, quirking an eyebrow in question.
“I won’t tell your wife if you don’t,” said Kirishima, smiling tightly.
Katsuki only rolled his eyes, scoffing sharply.
“No, but seriously, Midoriya will probably kill me.” Kirishima’s smile dropped abruptly from his face.
Katsuki scowled and took a long swig of the beer as he felt a headache forming. He briefly wondered if he could get buzzed off this beer alone if he drank it fast enough. With his current body mass, it might be possible.
“The meds don’t do shit anyways,” Katsuki said grouchily. “It doesn’t matter.”
“So, he let’s you drink?” Kirishima asked skeptically.
“Hah?!” Katsuki’s head snapped over to glare at him. “He’s not my keeper, asshole. He can’t tell me what to do!”
“Isn’t that… literally what he is?”
“He’s my damn caretaker!” Katsuki barked. “That means I tell him what to do! He can’t stop me from drinking if I want to drink!”
He never tried to drink or asked Izuku to get alcohol, so it was a nonissue. But if he did, it wasn’t like Izuku could actually stop him, dammit!
“Right…” Kirishima still seemed highly doubtful. “Well, let’s still not tell him because I’m worried he’ll swiftly end my life.”
Katsuki ignored him, scowling as his annoyance grew again. He obviously knew that Izuku had a side of him that was somewhat insane, and it came out in specific contexts. He’d seen it plenty of times—most often when Izuku was fighting villains. Still, this whole thing Kirishima was doing where he was talking about Izuku like he was a public nuisance was pissing him off. He couldn’t tell if Kirishima was doing a bit, but the whole thing felt bizarre.
Though… he stilled when he recalled a conversation he’d had with Izuku not too long ago. His memory wasn’t great these days, but he remembered that he’d been talking about how he didn’t blame the person he was in love with for the fact that he was dying and Izuku had said something like:
“Well, I blame them!”
He supposed he’d seen a bit of Izuku’s anger about all this then but…
Katsuki sighed and raised his beer to his lips again, taking a sip. It wasn’t likely that the beer would do that much for him anyways with how slowly he was drinking it, but it was nice to drink one again.
He looked down at the can with a frown.
Yeah… Izuku would definitely try and snatch it right out of his hands if he were here, and just that thought made Katsuki take another, bigger sip in petulant protest.
“To be clear, I only brought these on the condition that you would actually talk to Midoriya,” Kirishima said suddenly, sharply. “With the assumption that you’re getting rid of this Hanahaki bullshit.”
Katsuki stared down at the can, overwhelmed as he tried to breathe past all of the emotion and confusion and realization and fear that was taking up way too much room inside of him. He tried to calm himself, despite his foggy mind and diseased lungs and scarred heart… all headed for an imminent death.
“Bakugou.”
“Yeah… we’re gonna talk,” said Katsuki quietly. “He and I do really need to talk.”
They needed to talk, not only because it was the first step towards any sort of victory for Katsuki, but because apparently they lived in completely separate realities… neither of which seemed to be in the same reality as everyone else.
They needed to talk because the two of them knew each other better than anyone else… but they really didn’t understand each other at all.
─────
When Izuku returned later in the evening after Kirishima had left—and taken the evidence with him—he was acting very strange.
He seemed weirdly restless and preoccupied and… sort of jumpy.
They went about their routine as usual. Mostly, things were normal, but Izuku had a weird, nervous energy that Katsuki couldn’t not notice.
It was so obvious that it had almost immediately killed Katsuki’s own apprehension about Izuku returning—now that Kirishima’s words and his new realizations were fresh in his mind. It had been on the tip of Katsuki’s tongue to demand why the hell Izuku thought Katsuki could ever hate him… but Izuku’s weirdness was so clear that it effectively distracted Katsuki for the time being.
Though, Katsuki very quickly reached the end of his patience with him. He’d tried to get Izuku to talk, and Izuku had only brushed it off and changed the subject over and over. Annoyed and exhausted, Katsuki stubbornly decided he didn’t give a fuck at the moment. Despite how he was dying and he was exhausted and overwhelmed, he’d still tried to offer Izuku a chance to talk about what was bothering him. Katsuki’s fatigue easily suffocated all his feelings and left only sharp irritation in their place. He resigned himself to stubbornly ignoring Izuku’s odd attitude.
But it was very difficult.
They ended up watching an old hero documentary, as Izuku insisted it was too early in the evening to go to sleep. Katsuki was exhausted but relented only because his curiosity about Izuku’s odd demeanor was still present.
Though it was immediately obvious that Izuku wasn’t paying attention to the documentary, which in and of itself was strange. It was clear by how he wasn’t attempting to talk about what was happening every few minutes. Not to mention the goddamn fidgeting.
Before Katsuki could snap and start yelling at him, about halfway through, Izuku randomly turned sharply to the side to fully face Katsuki. He asked in a tone so rushed that all the words nearly blended together, “What do you think about my relationship with Uraraka?”
Katsuki’s eyes cut to meet Izuku’s sharply as his heart fully jolted in his chest. He narrowed his eyes in a slight glare to contrast how his whole body tensed up with the abrupt question and intense scrutiny. That unwelcome feeling of jealousy and resentment rolled through him, and it only served to make him feel even more irritated.
Goddammit. He should’ve just gone to bed.
Izuku was turned to face him on the couch, eyes wide and zoned in on Katsuki’s face. His expression was hard to read; the slight furrow to his brow and intensity of his gaze could mean so many things.
“Hah?” Katsuki scowled at him. “The hell kinda question is that?”
His heart was slamming away in his chest. Under the scrutiny of Izuku’s gaze, Katsuki had to resist the urge to fucking squirm. What the hell was happening? Why was he asking? Why now?
“I’m just wondering.” Izuku’s damn attentive nerd-eyes were darting all over his face.
Clearly, he was looking for a reaction. Katsuki just didn’t know what the reaction was or why and it was making heat creep up his neck.
“Stop fuckin’ staring at me, nerd!” Katsuki barked, directing a disgusted look at him as he grew increasingly frazzled by the second. “Why the fuck would I have an opinion on your relationship?!”
“I just… well… she and I are breaking up,” Izuku said the words all rushed again, staring at Katsuki so intently that Katsuki’s face shifted more into a glare to cover up his sudden terror.
What was Izuku doing?
Why was he looking at him like that?!
Katsuki was so exhausted and so overwhelmed that he could barely even react to what he was being told. He couldn’t even focus much on Izuku’s words, because everything else about Izuku was so strange that he was well and thoroughly distracted.
“Okay…” Katsuki frowned, confusion clear in his tone. He desperately hoped the slight waver wasn’t noticeable to Izuku.
“And I don’t think I’m her type anyways!” Izuku rambled on, eyes darting away as he prattled on. “Plus, she wants a relationship, but I don’t think I’m the right person for that.”
Katsuki blinked vacantly at him. He was having a damn hard time trying to figure out what the fuck Izuku was doing. There was something off about him… off in that he seemed overwhelmed and jittery, but not in a way that really matched all that much with the situation.
Izuku was clearly trying to project some sort of energy to Katsuki, but what that was, Katsuki hadn’t the slightest idea. The most likely thing was that Izuku was upset and was trying to cover it up, but… Katsuki felt like Izuku’s unease was practically getting under his own skin. This didn’t seem like sadness… but Katsuki’s foggy mind couldn’t figure out what the fuck it actually was.
The strangeness of the situation gave Katsuki very little time to actually comprehend what Izuku was saying on any deeper level.
“What about you?” Katsuki asked in a stilted tone after a pause. “I thought… you liked her.”
“Well, I do!” Izuku said quickly, but all his words were so forceful that it was only making Katsuki feel stranger. “I like talking to her! I want to keep talking to her! Just… not like that, I think—I mean I know! I’m not looking for a relationship at the moment! I don’t want to date her!”
Katsuki had no idea how to feel. Besides the fact that Izuku was clearly covering up something, he didn’t know what to do with the idea that Izuku was again casually throwing away something in his life.
He’d casually thrown away Katsuki’s offer to work at his agency. He’d casually thrown away his job as a teacher, even after saying that it was what he wanted to do more than heroics. Now apparently, he’d casually thrown away his relationship, even though he’d run right to Uraraka after Katsuki told him to stop treating everyone as equally special all those months ago.
Katsuki didn’t understand a damn thing about Izuku… and trying to figure it out was fucking exhausting. They needed to talk, but Katsuki was out of energy at the moment. He wouldn’t be capable of initiating such a conversation tonight, and even being near Izuku was proving to be increasingly overwhelming.
Was no one special to Izuku at all? Not even her?
With a distant sort of thudding in his chest, Katsuki remembered that in response to if he’d ever been in love, Izuku had said no. At the time, Katsuki’s overwhelmed mind had just latched onto the fact that that meant he’d never loved Katsuki. But he realized now… that meant Izuku also didn’t love Uraraka. He hadn’t ever loved her.
Katsuki distantly wondered what sort of person Izuku even could love.
“She’s completely single!” Izuku went on, voice firm as if he were making grand declarations. “I really wouldn’t mind if someone else dated her right now! It would be completely fine with me! Actually, I didn’t even really want to date her!”
Katsuki was gaping at him now, completely at a loss as his chest ached worse and worse by the second. It felt like it was draining some last residual bits of his energy. The idea of Izuku caring so little about the relationship that had caused Katsuki so much heartache was strange enough that Katsuki almost felt lightheaded.
Though, Katsuki wasn’t fully inclined to take everything Izuku was saying at face value. After all, Izuku was clearly doing something right now, Katsuki just had no fucking idea what. It was so weird. His foggy brain just stirred the nothingness that was happening up there around in confusion as he continued to try and fail to figure out what the hell was happening.
“Okay…” Katsuki said, uncertainly, frowning in a way that was nearly a grimace as the pain smarted in his chest. “Then why did you date her?”
Izuku rambled so quickly that his words practically tripped over themselves, staring downwards and flapping his arms around as he spoke, “Well, after you said that thing about how if I treat everyone as special than no one is special, it was sort of on my mind at Todoroki’s dinner. And I glanced over as Uraraka was laughing, and she looked really pretty and I remembered how I used to have a bit of a crush on her in early high school.”
Katsuki’s heart thundered, and he felt so incredibly ridiculous when the jealousy churned up, sharply bitter inside him at Izuku’s words and obvious blush on his cheeks. As if this was new information.
“And I was thinking about how,” Izuku went on, “since I wasn’t working in heroics for so long it was really hard to keep in touch with everyone and though I saw everyone at the gatherings, those were infrequent enough, especially in the beginning because everyone was so busy establishing their careers, and I was going to school and starting to teach.
“I realized that she was the first friend I made in high school, and we used to be closer, and all this time we hadn’t been able to keep up much. I guess I sort of realized that it might be nice to talk to her more.”
Katsuki blinked, keeping his expression from twisting more. Being weirdly offended by “first friend I made in high school” made no sense. They’d known each other well before high school and had been friends as children. They hadn’t become friends again until later in high school. Katsuki didn’t even like to use the word friends for them, because it always felt far too simple a descriptor.
Still, his heart pinched slightly, as if it wanted some acknowledgement or reassurance from Izuku even though the damn conversation wasn’t even about him.
Pathetic.
It was truly pathetic, but Katsuki so desperately wanted to ask who he was to him. Who did he think that he was to Katsuki?
He didn’t say a word, because he was exhausted and they were talking about Izuku’s goddamn breakup, not the two of them.
“But, uh,” Izuku was increasingly nervous, not looking at him as his voice tremored slightly, “I think it was a childhood crush and she and I both work so much that we sort of got excited at the idea of a relationship, but the practicalities don’t really work out in the end and I do think she and I are better off as friends—forever. Permanently. I don’t think we’ll be dating each other ever again.”
Katsuki squinted at him, genuinely baffled. So much so that he didn’t really know what to do or say or how to react. He didn’t know why Izuku was acting so strange, but that there was definitely a reason for it. If his damn brain wasn’t so fucked up these days, then maybe he’d connect the dots. As it was, he started to think that maybe he was dreaming solely because this moment was so goddamn odd.
Was this Izuku’s weird way of asking for comfort?
Or his awkward way of updating Katsuki while making sure he wasn’t worried? Was he just trying to shove aside his sadness about this because he was trying to keep the focus on Katsuki?
“You’re… okay then?” Katsuki’s face started to contort into a grimace with how uncomfortable he felt on top of all the other pains and feelings writhing around inside him. “You’re okay with breaking up so soon?”
“What? Yes! I’m perfectly, 100% fine!” Izuku nodded eagerly, stretching his lips out into a wide smile that was painfully, obviously forced and giving him two thumbs up.
Katsuki gaped as he glanced from Izuku’s hands back to his eyes. He was almost disturbed by Izuku’s actions at this point. Maybe Izuku had lost it a bit.
“I like talking to her, but I really think breaking up was better for us!” Izuku added.
“Okay…” said Katsuki, shaking his head slightly in bewilderment and looking away, back at the TV.
He was only allowed a minute of tense silence—in which he struggled to sort out anything within his fucked-up head—before Izuku spoke again.
“She wants a relationship, though!” Izuku said, an odd, shrill note to his voice that made him sound almost anxious. “But I don’t want one, so it won’t work! But again, she still wants one! She’s very open to dating someone else.”
“Yeah, you said that already.” Katsuki shot him a look, mild annoyance starting to eat at him again the longer he couldn’t figure out what the hell Izuku was on today. “Since you’re clearly just fine, shut up and watch the damn movie!”
It was a partial lie, as he knew that Izuku was clearly not fine, but he also knew that he would’ve be getting any more out of Izuku today. He was exhausted and in pain, and he’d officially run out of energy to deal with whatever the hell was happening.
Izuku looked like he wanted to protest momentarily but then he just slumped back onto the couch. He said nothing more, but his leg bounced frantically for the remainder of the movie.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
part 2
the cherry blossoms flourish
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
“Kacchan?”
Katsuki opened his eyes at the sound of Izuku’s voice, though his vision was so blurry he couldn’t see much at all. He wiped clumsily at his eyes, numbly surprised when he realized that he was crying.
His mind was hazy, not holding onto the last dregs of sleep so much as still being dragged around by them. The dream he’d just been having still lingered in the forefront of his mind. In it, he’d been back in the groveyard looking up at the lonely tree covered in flourishing cherry blossoms.
It was so beautiful.
A new tree in the groveyard…
The first day of spring was yesterday. The cherry blossoms would be blooming very soon on the trees outside. In all likelihood, some of them had started to bloom already.
Time was passing.
Time was running out.
Just like that, yesterday’s feelings that had consumed Katsuki so wholly were flooding back into his system. His wakefulness still came on slowly and reluctantly, even as fear started to choke him. He remained groggy and his eyelids remained heavy even as a pit opened up in his stomach. It made him feel vaguely sick.
He also started to register the agonizing physical pain in his body more and more by the second.
“Are you awake?” asked Izuku quietly.
Katsuki barely registered that he was being addressed as he continued to try to blink away the blurriness in his eyes. His physical pain grew; it was a sharp, biting agony that webbed across his entire chest. The anxiety felt like it was choking him, and the physical pain bit into him every time he breathed. He was used to a degree of tightness and pressure in his chest by now, but it felt so much worse than usual for some reason.
“Fuck,” he rasped out in a voice that was barely there.
“Kacchan?” Izuku’s tone was far more concerned now, and he was standing very close.
Katsuki was in so much pain. Each breath in and out made his chest smart terribly, and it made him try to breathe even shallower. Even still, his first instinct was to feel incredibly angry at the pain for this poor, inconvenient timing. His mind spun, though with how he felt half-awake and half-alive, it just made it so hard to think. He felt more restless by the second, but with nowhere for the energy to go, it just made his eyes water and the pressure build inside of him. It made him want to rip himself apart just to be rid of it.
“I have—” He started to speak to Izuku, but his voice barely came out. He coughed and tried again, with a slight bit more success. “I have to talk to you.”
He needed to talk to Izuku, before it was too late.
Too late felt like it was knocking at the door.
“Oh, right,” said Izuku as his eyes traced over Katsuki with that watchful, careful gaze. “What—”
As Izuku spoke, Katsuki attempted to turn from his side onto his back and then cried out in pain through his teeth. He fell onto his back, but his torso curled in as he reacted to the agony right in the center of his chest by tensing as much as he was capable of.
Izuku was ripping his covers back in the next moment, talking to him. Katsuki processed nothing as he panted through the anguish.
This definitely was not a panic attack like yesterday… though he sort of felt like one was simmering in wait underneath it all.
It was deep in the middle of his chest, a sharp pain that flared up any time he breathed. When he’d tried to move onto his back, it’d intensified horribly. As he lay there, the pain died down to a more manageable level again. He clutched over his heart, slowly coming back into his body and distantly registering how Izuku was freaking out.
“It’s—” Katsuki paused to pant out a few shallow breaths, trying to move his chest as little as possible. “—just the roots.”
“What?!” Izuku sounded frantic.
“The damn—the Hanahaki plant. It’s the same pain… just like… ten times worse than usual.”
“We should go to the hospital,” said Izuku hurriedly. “Just to be—”
“Needa talk to you.” Katsuki looked over at Izuku as his stomach twisted and turned. Unease wormed under his skin and fear sat high in his throat.
Exhausted, sleep-addled, and in agony, he felt increasingly agitated as everything built without release. He didn’t want to have another panic attack like yesterday, but all of his emotions were drowning him. He was overwhelmed by pain and his fears of rejection and death alike.
He was buried six feet under and suffocating. He wasn’t dead yet, but if he didn’t cry out for help, he would be.
If he didn’t talk to Izuku—if he didn’t manage to accomplish step one of trying to live—then he would be.
“I—” Izuku hesitated, looking at him with a serious, pensive expression.
There was a fear in his eyes that Katsuki knew made sense, but he wanted to be rid of it. He wanted to be rid of all these horrible emotions that had become so normalized in recent months. He wanted Izuku to stop looking so scared and so worried. For so long, life had been nothing but misery. For so long…
Something had snapped inside of Katsuki since yesterday morning. It wasn’t quite like seeing a certain path to victory, but it was something else. Something lesser than a guarantee or a real solution.
Katsuki grimaced, squeezing his eyes shut and trying to keep back what felt like a wave of overwhelming emotion that threatened to make him break down into tears as he recognized that feeling.
At some point between yesterday morning and now, he’d started to hope. The beginnings of hope that he’d felt the day before had grown into something fully-fledged that actually took up a great deal of space within him.
The worst part was, he wasn’t even sure what it was that he hoped for. Maybe to be loved or to be held while he fell apart. Maybe to be able to breathe clearly again or to feel okay again someday. Maybe to remember what it felt like to be happy, in the way he knew he must’ve felt in his youth.
Maybe just to live to see that fear gone from Izuku’s eyes. The existence of that hope was enough to make seeing that fear now completely unbearable.
“Please.” Katsuki heard his own broken, strained voice. He felt the tears falling from his eyes and trailing down his cheeks. He opened his heavy eyelids again. “Just help me up, Izuku. I—I need to say something to you.”
Izuku’s eyes widened ever so slightly. He looked at Katsuki with that bewildered, uncertain look where it was obvious he was desperately trying to read the situation while also visibly overwhelmed with concern. Then he nodded.
“Of course, Kacchan, but…” His voice was unbearably soft and gentle. Katsuki nearly winced. “Well, we should go to the doctor first. If the pain is worse—”
“We’re going later,” Katsuki cut in, a pleading note to his voice that was almost shrill.
“Yes, I know, but we should go now if you can’t even move without excruciating pain.”
Izuku’s voice had taken on a slightly firmer tone. His worry was making him less accommodating, and Katsuki could see that Izuku wasn’t all that concerned with what they were going to be discussing. His body was tense, and he kept glancing down to where Katsuki’s hand gripped over his heart.
Katsuki’s agitation only grew because it was very obvious that Izuku didn’t understand the significance of this conversation. How could he? There was a huge chance that Izuku didn’t have any idea how much he meant to Katsuki, so how could he know?
Katsuki needed him to know. For both of their sakes, but also because his life quite literally depended on it.
“I need to talk to you,” he pleaded again. He was so overwhelmingly frustrated that his voice lacked the strength to add the power and anger that he wanted into it. “Now. J-Just get the O2, and we—we can talk.”
His voice was shaking uncharacteristically. His whole body was shaking, and he couldn’t breathe. He was being eaten alive by the terror that accompanied the severity of the pain in his chest that he was trying so desperately not to focus on. He was equally overwhelmed by his realization that he would have to speak, that despite how he was dying he’d have to cut open his chest to offer his broken, scarred heart to Izuku.
Katsuki knew that he would have to offer his feelings and heart and life to Izuku for judgement, and Izuku wasn’t even aware of the significance of his verdict. He was dying and in his current state of pain and weakness, he felt the irrational urge to beg Izuku to treat him gently. He wanted Izuku to simply understand his own significance without leaving it up to Katsuki and his ability to articulate it.
But that wasn’t how these things worked. For all these years, Katsuki had lived within a reality where he was certain that Izuku understood everything without any words needing to be exchanged about it.
How horrifically wrong he’d been.
Katsuki felt like he was going to vomit. He knew he would have to speak, and he didn’t feel ready, and it just didn’t matter if he wasn’t ready because if he didn’t speak he would die. He didn’t know what to say, but what if his heart was going to give out any second?
Time was nearly up.
“Now?” asked Izuku, visibly alarmed. “Can’t it wait? I’ll still be here after—”
“Now!” Katsuki half-shouted, which triggered a violent cough.
The cough sent the agony tearing through his chest again and he cried out from it, squeezing his eyes shut. He couldn’t stop coughing, and it hurt so bad that he nearly blacked out from the pain.
For a moment, the agony was all he could perceive. Waves and waves of searing, stabbing pain that started in the center of his chest and spread throughout his body. He’d developed quite the pain tolerance in recent months, but this blew right past that.
When it faded after what felt like an eternity, Katsuki peeled open his eyes. His ears were ringing. He felt lightheaded and his head spun so intensely that he almost felt like he was going to fall despite how he was surely still lying flat on his back. His chest hurt so bad, his throat, his lungs… his mouth tasted of blood and his limbs were tingling badly. The pain, the weakness, and the feeling in his head all made the world feel incredibly surreal. Like he was hallucinating or was dreaming again.
He rolled his head slightly to the side to look for Izuku, only to see his dad was there too. He panted out loud, wheezing breaths, watching as his dad and Izuku spoke to each other without perceiving much of what was being said.
He stared, taking in the sight of his dad’s disheveled and teary appearance. In contrast, Izuku was speaking firmly and calmly to him. His low, even voice was bringing some degree of comfort to Katsuki even if he didn’t have the brain power to comprehend what was being said.
For a long moment, Katsuki couldn’t figure out what the fuck his old man was doing here. Seeing his dad felt strange in a way that was hard to pin down. It felt like he hadn’t seen his dad in a very, very long time. For the life of him, he couldn’t remember how long it had actually been, but he knew it couldn’t have been nearly as long as it felt.
There was a deep ache in Katsuki’s chest that was hard to feel past the physical pain. That strange feeling like it had been a long time, the familiarity of his dad’s presence, and the deeply exhausted look on his dad’s face were all contributing factors. His dad’s eyes were sunken in, and the lines were more defined on his face than even a few months ago. It made Katsuki feel like shit… just like every time he saw his dad since this whole thing had started.
His dad’s sudden appearance made him feel like maybe he was asleep. That thought made a deep feeling of uneasiness grow within him as he realized he didn’t know for certain. The fogginess in his head was always so suffocating, always making everything feel a bit surreal, and now he felt genuinely so strange that he had no idea at all.
The physical pain was the only thing grounding him, but… he didn’t know if pain was something he could feel in dreams, too.
“Kacchan.” Izuku was facing him now, leaning over him and speaking to him. “I called an ambulance. They’ll be here any minute.”
Katsuki stared up at him. His vision was annoyingly blurred, and that made it difficult to focus on Izuku’s face. He was trying to read the familiar details, to see if there was something there that could ground him. Maybe something there could assure him that he was awake right now.
Was this a nightmare?
A hallucination on the brink of death?
How did he wake up?
Could he wake up?
He inhaled a little too deeply and groaned from the pain again.
He barely registered as Izuku gave him more oxygen and all but force-fed him some pills. Each moment made him feel like he was nearly blacking out from pain.
In the middle of it all, Katsuki hazily realized that looking at Izuku’s face was a terrible way to try and ground himself in reality. Izuku haunted his dreams and nightmares just as much as he’d haunted his entire life. If this were a hallucination on the brink of death, would it not make sense that Izuku were here, still? Did he not know Izuku’s face well enough to recreate it perfectly in his mind’s eye?
Then Izuku was walking away, and Katsuki followed him with his eyes until his dad stepped forward. He moved to look at his dad, squinting up at him.
“Why’re you here?” he asked hoarsely. His voice was barely there and sounded far away. Honestly, he was surprised that any words came out at all. His voice tore at his throat, but what was a bit of pain added to all the rest of it?
“Izuku said you and he were fine with me coming over today,” his dad replied gently. “But he said your pain is worse this morning, so we’ll head to the hospital.”
Katsuki stared at him for a long moment as he processed the words.
Oh, right.
His dad was already planning on being here this morning. Izuku was supposed to leave to go help his mom move. That was what they’d discussed yesterday, wasn’t it?
Then Izuku was back, with several strangers in tow.
Katsuki caught what he was saying to them, “—every time he moves. I just gave him his medication… and some additional pain medication.”
“What medications does he take?” one of the strangers asked.
“He takes—here, I have the list.” Izuku pulled out his phone.
Katsuki was staring at Izuku so intently that he didn’t register that two of the strangers had approached him and were speaking to him. Mildly annoyed, he shifted to look at them, grimacing when the pain in his chest spiked.
A woman was speaking to him. He didn’t comprehend much about her looks other than she looked vaguely like a mouse and she was wearing one of those heavy-duty medical masks.
Mouse-Face was saying, “—some chest pain.”
“Hah?” he remarked hoarsely.
“I hear you’re having some chest pain,” Mouse-Face repeated calmly. “We’re going to get you taken care of, okay?”
“Wait—” Katsuki gritted out, tensing again. “Don’ wanna go to—to the shitty ER.”
“Katsuki, you have to go get checked out.” His dad was still standing over near him, talking to him in a tone that clearly betrayed his own worry. He’d never been very good at being firm or authoritative, and he wasn’t all that successful at it now.
“I understand,” Mouse-Face replied with an annoying amount of sympathy. “It’s a hassle. Your caretaker told us that you’re in a lot more pain today than usual. So let’s just go get you checked out, okay?”
Katsuki’s eyes darted over to where Izuku was still talking to a different person. There was an onslaught of unwelcome feelings washing over him at hearing someone else refer to Izuku with the word caretaker. Obviously, that was what Izuku was… but it was wrong. It wasn’t what he wanted.
I need to talk to him. Katsuki thought with some degree of muted, horrified panic. His eyes widened as he realized. That’s what he’d been about to try and do before the pain had intensified so much.
Fuck, had he passed out at some point without realizing?
Katsuki was distracted when they rolled the stretcher into the room in his line of sight. His pain and confusion and frustration quickly began to turn to anger. He comprehended that Izuku had called the damn medics and that he would be forced back to the shitty ER before he had a chance to say anything. He’d been about to say something. It was surely about to be a shitshow where he was spouting senseless, sappy bullshit but he was going to try. He couldn’t go to the ER.
“How much can you move on your own?” asked Mouse-Face.
“Not goin’ to the damn ER!” Katsuki snapped, glaring at her and then looking over towards Izuku. His head spun and his chest stabbed outward in protest, but he pushed onwards as he grappled for what he saw to be his only real lifeline. “Izuku!”
At the call of his name, Izuku stopped talking mid-sentence and his head snapped over to look at him.
“Katsuki, just cooperate!” his dad begged.
“Not goin’!” Katsuki said obstinately. He coughed slightly before he added, staring directly at Izuku, “Needa talk to you!”
His dad startled so violently that Katsuki saw it in his peripheral, but he paid it no mind.
Izuku crossed over to him, eyes hardened as he stood over him. “Kacchan, we can talk later, but I’m worried about your heart. The pain is right in the center of—”
The force of Katsuki’s flaring anger was enough to increase the pressure within him and make his vision dot a bit at the edges. Izuku didn’t fucking get it.
“I’ve got Hanahaki disease!” he wheezed out, coughing harder, then adding, “What’re they gonna do about it?! You can help—” He coughed wetly, tasting blood as his head spun.
“They can give you surgery if it’s too close to your heart.” Izuku leaned in closer to him, speaking lowly but firmly.
Katsuki aggressively cleared his throat despite how it hurt like hell just so he could offer Izuku the meanest scowl that he could manage.
“Not gettin’ surgery, so tell them to fuck off!”
“Kacchan!” Izuku scolded him sharply, but his eyes watered despite the visible exasperation on his face.
“I don’ have to go if I don’ want,” Katsuki hissed at him.
This felt like a waste of time, he knew what he needed to do in order to live, and yet it was so hard to even think past the pain that all he could do was argue like a petulant child and repeat himself. He felt so helpless, and yet he couldn’t do a damn thing about it.
“You need to go,” Izuku ordered earnestly, leaning in even closer as they argued. He was practically right over him now. As if his proximity and their barely hushed tones of voice were providing them any sort of privacy for their argument.
“But I need—” Katsuki’s voice wavered and weakened from a spike of pain. “—to talk to you.”
“You can’t talk to me if you’re dead!” Izuku countered, voice strained with his distress.
Katsuki breathed shallowly for a moment, seething as they stared at each other and their wills clashed. Distantly, he became aware of the frantic, palpable beating of his weak, scarred heart. Belatedly, he comprehended what Izuku must have already thought.
“If your Hanahaki plant grows out of the lungs at all, you have a very high risk of complications involving your heart.”
They couldn’t cure Hanahaki disease, but if the disease was causing some issue with his heart then they could maybe help with that. Even in a situation where he got the words out that he needed to say and Izuku miraculously loved him back, he could still die from said complications.
It was only this that had him yielding. Some stubborn part of him crumpled to dust under the force of his pain.
“Fine,” Katsuki rasped, “but you gotta come w—”
He choked on a cough and then he was dissolving into coughs that were so intense they made his head spin all over again.
Then he was coughing up blood and mucus and a whole lot of flowers.
Then he was vomiting.
They were moving him and there were people he didn’t know touching him and he was so miserable he wished he were unconscious.
Eventually he comprehended that they were moving him out of his apartment. They were moving him into the ambulance.
Izuku wasn’t there.
Katsuki’s blurry, dazed eyes searched around, spotting only strangers and then his dad sitting in the ambulance with him. A note of panic tore through him, though he didn’t have the ability to voice his concerns.
When the pain started to fade and his thoughts started to float away from him far more than they usually did, he realized they’d fucking drugged him. His hazy consciousness started to slip away from him.
Izuku…
─────
“Where is he?” Katsuki rasped out the moment he was able to.
When he came to, he was back in the damn ER, with only his dad sitting next to him. He felt like death warmed over, but he was again consumed by desperation before he’d even fully woken up.
Izuku was unhelpfully nowhere in sight.
“Katsuki!” His dad had been looking down at his phone with a furrowed brow but sat up and leaned forward at the sound of his son’s voice.
“Where’s Izuku?” Katsuki tried again, glancing around the room. His voice was pathetically weak, even considering how it usually was these days. He fumbled for the controls of his hospital bed, stabbing at the buttons with clumsy, shaky fingers.
“Careful! What’re you doing?!”
“Just sitting up a bit, dammit,” Katsuki bit out as he pressed the button to do so. Despite everything, the panic rushed in his blood and the pit in his stomach was nauseating. He just wanted to sit up a bit, despite how he felt physically incapable of attempting to do so on his own. His body felt too heavy to even try such a thing.
“We should call the nurse now that you’re awake,” his dad said anxiously, reaching for the call button himself.
Katsuki ignored him as he did so, using his new slightly elevated vantage point to glance around the room. As if Izuku was hiding in some tiny spot he’d been unable to see before.
“Where is he?” he said again. “Needa talk to him.”
“You’re going to tell him?” His dad asked, and the hope in his voice made shame flare up within Katsuki.
Katsuki felt distressed and chaotic. He was sluggish enough that he realized the drugs couldn’t have completely faded from his system yet. This had him slumping back into his pillow more. He stared blankly at a point on the wall, suffocating and dying and losing his mind. At least he wasn’t in as much pain, as it was far more muted and manageable than before. Or really, he kinda couldn’t feel his body much at all. He felt so anxious and restless that his inability to move just felt like a hell all on its own.
Quietly, he replied to his dad, “Yes.”
It was easier said than done, but he was out of time, was he not?
“I… the doctor said you wouldn’t wake for several more hours,” his dad said quietly. He sounded sheepish enough that Katsuki flicked his eyes over to look at him in suspicion. “Izuku was clearly distressed, and I told him to go help his mom and come back afterwards.”
Katsuki stared at him, something like complete disbelief momentarily leaving him lost for words.
“He didn’t want to,” his dad winced slightly at his reaction, “but he’s very high-strung recently. He spends all his time with you, and I thought it would be good for him to go see his mother. And you… you were still asleep. And stable.”
For a long moment, Katsuki said nothing. He fought off the guilt and uncertainty that tried to stir up from hearing this information. He fought off everything wanting to get in the way as best he could, and he held onto his fear like a lifeline. He needed to talk to Izuku, and he couldn’t waste time thinking about whether or not he deserved Izuku or whether or not he should, because if he did, then he would die.
“When’s he get back?” he asked tersely.
“He left a few hours ago. So… maybe another hour or two?”
Katsuki blinked vacantly. “What time is it?”
“It’s…” His dad checked his phone. “It’s noon.”
Katsuki sighed, closing his eyes again.
Time was so strange these days. It felt like this morning was days ago, but it had only been a few hours. Not to mention, whatever drugs they’d given him were still fucking with him. Despite this, the tradeoff of the pain being so muted was pretty nice. The sharp pain in his chest that he’d felt before they’d drugged him… he hadn’t felt a pain so intense in many years.
He slowly lifted his arm towards his chest, intending to feel the scar over his heart.
“Careful!”
His dad’s cry had him freezing and peeling open his eyes.
“H-huh? Why?” Katsuki felt almost disoriented by his dad’s abrupt warning.
“You have stitches,” his dad said weakly, standing over him now with his hand halfway outstretched to him.
Katsuki stared at him, then glanced uselessly down at his own chest. Any bandages were covered with his hospital gown and several blankets. There was nothing to see.
“Your pain was partially caused by the plant compressing one of your arteries that leads to your heart,” his dad said, tearing up visibly as he said it.
Katsuki just stared blankly down at his own chest.
“They were worried it would lead to a heart attack,” his dad continued, though his voice grew increasingly thick as he spoke. “With your history and because of your illness, they didn’t want to delay so they made a small incision to access the affected area. They, uh… they put a stent in.”
Katsuki looked up at him slowly, leaning his head back into his pillow again. He hardly felt anything at all in reaction to the information. Mainly, he felt numb.
“The doctor has an accelerated healing Quirk of some kind, so they mostly healed around it,” his dad continued, wiping at his eyes. “But… well, I don’t know. The doctor should explain everything, but the stitches are still in for another few hours.”
Katsuki frowned as he fought to think past the drugs obviously still in his system. He had so many questions, and his head wasn’t clear enough to sort any of it out.
“A… stent?”
“They couldn’t remove any part of the plant without your consent, which you had not given previously and were not conscious enough to give,” his dad explained, clearing his throat and obviously trying to get himself back together. “The best compromise was to try to move the plant as much as possible and reinforce the artery it was compressing. So they put in, uh, like a little metal tube to prop open the artery.”
Katsuki paused for a beat as he attempted to process this new information. The heart bullshit had all become so normalized that he barely reacted to that. Instead, something else occurred to him. Maybe his priorities were all fucked, but he didn’t have it in him to care anymore.
Anger and disbelief and offense were stirring within him as he asked, “Izuku knew about this, and he left?”
He’d undergone another surgery involving his heart, and Izuku had been convinced to leave without being forcibly thrown out of this place? It was somehow harder to wrap his head around that fact than the fact that they’d cut open his chest again to try and keep his shitty heart from calling it quits.
His dad winced again, looking downwards and scratching his head. “Uh, he was very upset. It really was for the best.”
For a moment, Katsuki could only gape at him. Then he demanded, somewhat shrilly, “How is it for the best?! If he’s not here I can’t fucking talk to him!”
“Right, right,” his dad nodded rapidly, still looking uncomfortable. “Well, again, you weren’t supposed to be awake for a few more hours.”
“Tch.” Katsuki made a quiet noise of annoyance, shutting his eyes and relaxing back into his pillow again.
His state of consciousness was besides the point, in the end. He was peeved beyond reason that Izuku wasn’t here. Izuku was his damn caretaker, wasn’t he? Did anyone expect him to remember all the shit the doctor was going to spew at him? In his current state? Not to mention that he was coming off fucking opioids?
After a few minutes, he opened his eyes to ask his next question, one that came with a tightness in his chest from all the confliction of feelings.
“And Mom?” It was barely above a whisper.
“She was here, too,” his dad replied, wincing yet again. “She, uh, also stepped out for a moment. They said you weren’t supposed to be awake for a while longer.” He repeated the last fact yet again.
Katsuki felt his heart jolt and he asked in horror, “She and Izuku were both here?! At the same time?!”
His dad glanced up at him in confusion, then just sighed as he realized what Katsuki was saying.
“She didn’t tell him. I told her that you were trying to talk to him before we took you in. And that…” He sniffled loudly and his voice got thick with emotion again. “I-If you didn’t wake up, it wasn’t like Izuku could help you anyways.” He started to cry again, sobbing and blubbering as Katsuki averted his eyes.
Thump. Thump. Thump.
Katsuki’s ruined heart was still beating in his chest.
Thump. Thump. Thump.
But likely not for long.
His eyes trailed over to his dad, who had removed his glasses to more efficiently rub at the tears in his eyes.
I’m sorry. Katsuki thought as his chest ached numbly.
He watched as his father attempted to pull himself together. The desire to apologize was there, but he’d already apologized so many times for his failings as a son and the grief he’d caused. His dad never wanted to hear any of it. He knew words alone could never be enough anyways.
Katsuki stared blankly up at the ceiling, listening as his dad’s sniffling died down and watching him finish cleaning his glasses in his peripheral. His dad’s tears were making a deep grief and sadness echo equally within himself, and he was just so tired of all of this bullshit.
The best way he could help him right now… was to not get his son killed.
A nurse came in and checked on Katsuki, assuring him that the doctor would be in to speak with him soon enough. Katsuki only nodded, barely present enough even to answer her questions. She left quickly, and Katsuki returned to staring up at the ceiling vacantly.
There was a sudden desire to speak rising within him. There were words pushing towards his tongue and his trapped restlessness made resisting them very difficult. He wasn’t sure why he felt the sudden desire to be vulnerable and seek counsel from his dad of all people. It was more than likely just that he was already feeling exposed and out of his depth and he needed to try and sort out his thoughts a bit anyways. It was probably just that he was too anxious to feel remotely at peace or relaxed, but he was unable to move or do anything about it.
All these months having Hanahaki disease… all this time sharing space with Izuku and…
“I need to tell Izuku, but I don’t know how,” Katsuki admitted quietly, still staring up at the ceiling. “I don’t know why I thought it would feel easier—that all this would make it feel easier—but somehow it all just feels worse than ever before. The pressure is more intense, and the stakes are higher and if I fuck up or I’m wrong about his feelings… that’s it.”
His voice broke on the last word. Despite how unbidden tears were burning at his eyes, he rambled on. Some dam within him had broken, and the words were tumbling out. He wasn’t sure if he was making sense, but he couldn’t stop.
“And I waited so long, so everything hurts all the time, and I don’t know if I can ever fix any of it. I let things get this bad because I’m a goddamn coward. I’m supposed to be a grown fucking man. I’m almost twenty-five—fuck!”
Katsuki squeezed his eyes shut as he choked on a sob.
His birthday was next month. He would be twenty-five. Twenty-five fucking years old. It wasn’t something he’d allowed himself to think about all that much, and all of a sudden it was overwhelming him. Saying it out loud sounded so strange that it rattled some unsteady inner part of himself. It sounded like a big number—as stupid as that was. It sounded foreign and like it couldn’t belong to him at all.
When had he gotten here? How much time had he wasted? How much of his life had he wasted?
Halfway through his twenties. People had finished university and started careers. Heroes were starting to make names for themselves, if they hadn’t already. Years and years had passed since high school… and what did he have to show for it?
The emotions were rising in his throat, threatening to burst. Tears trailed out of the corners of his eyes, and he tried to breathe as deep into his diseased lungs as he could. He swallowed in a vain attempt to get the emotions to sink back down into the depths. They were so overwhelming that he didn’t feel capable of speaking without sobbing.
At the moment, the lack of control over himself and his emotions just felt like unforgivable, shameful weakness. Always so goddamn weak. His whole life, trying to escape his weakness only to end up having it shoved in his face over and over again.
Watering the flowers. Over and over again. For months now.
Almost twenty-five years old.
Whatever the hell that meant. Whatever being almost twenty-five years old meant, Katsuki knew it wasn’t supposed to be like this. It wasn’t supposed to be exhaustion and giving up. It wasn’t supposed to be a failing heart and a skin-and-bone body and fresh wounds cut into old aching scars. It wasn’t… it wasn’t…
There was a time when he would’ve put money on that he would be the Number One Hero by this age. In contrast to that shiny view of what he’d pictured for himself for so much of his life… reality was so much more painful.
“I’ve destroyed my life,” Katsuki rasped in a voice strained with regret and pain, grimacing and pressing his palms to his eyes hard. “I’m supposed to be starting my life, and I don’t—” He cut himself off sharply before the words slipped out. Even for this mess, it felt like too painful and vulnerable a confession.
I’m supposed to be starting my life, and I don’t even want to be alive most of the time.
“Everything’s so fucked,” he went on, voice thick. “It’s all so stupid because I was supposed to be better than this—I was supposed to be the best—and I’m just… I don’t even know. I’ve fucked up my life, and I’m so tired, and I…” He grimaced as frustration washed over him anew. “I still have to beg Izuku to feel something for me or I’ll have a fucking heart attack or—or choke on my own blood or suffocate on these stupid fucking flowers!”
He shuddered out a few sobs, gritting his teeth as he tried and failed to get himself under control in the slightest. The sobs wracked through his chest hard enough that he felt the pain even through the cushion of whatever medication was still in his system.
“I’ve wasted so much time,” he went on brokenly, “and I’ve always wanted to be a hero but I don’t know anymore and everyone’s got all their shit figured out but me and—” He paused, grimacing as he realized he’d been rambling about his insecurities which were not things that were part of the immediate fucking issue. “—and Izuku has a whole life that’s nothing like I expected for him that he… that I don’t understand at all. I don’t understand him at all, but I still have to somehow talk to him for the first time in like a goddamn decade and hope that what he says in response doesn’t kill me.”
He dissolved into sobs again, and they ripped through his chest with even sharper pain. He couldn’t even cry without causing himself more pain, and the thought of that only made his misery surround him that much more.
“How can I… still not know what… to say to him?” Katsuki gritted his teeth as bitterness and self-hatred swelled inside him. “Everyone’s acting like it’s so simple, but I… I still can’t just do it. It feels fucking impossible.”
He choked on a cough, and then groaned as he felt an intense, dull pain even through the cushion of the pain medication that radiated throughout his torso.
Why am I so weak? He thought miserably. Why do I always have to be so goddamn weak?
“Katsuki,” his dad said. His voice was quiet and soft, but Katsuki still startled because he’d been so caught up in his own emotions and spiraling thoughts. “You just woke up and you’re on a lot of medication. Give yourself some time to recover and wake up a bit more before you try to face all of this.”
Katsuki grimaced. His eyes were still squeezed shut, as if to hide himself from the shame of being a grown man who was broken and weak and crying in a hospital bed.
“Do your best to try and breathe and calm down,” his dad continued gently. His tone was carefully even, but even without opening his eyes Katsuki could tell somehow that his dad was still crying or actively trying not to cry. “It’s okay.”
“How is anything about this okay?” Katsuki asked, practically pleading as he swiped the back of his hand over his eyes clumsily with his increasingly shaky hand.
“You’re okay,” his dad replied firmly. “You didn’t have a heart attack, and they were able to buy you some time with the stent. You’re awake and you still have time to talk to Izuku.”
Katsuki’s lips stretched to something of a bitter, rueful smile that was still more a grimace than anything else. Scornfully, he asked, “‘Okay’ is just not having a heart attack?”
“‘Okay’ is relative. Sometimes, being okay is just that you’re still alive. That you survived.”
Katsuki clenched his jaw for a long moment. This was something he knew, and he also knew his reply was pointless and childish even before he said it.
“That’s so fucked up.”
“Life is fucked up,” his dad replied immediately.
Katsuki lightly scoffed out a laugh of surprise. “Yeah… yeah it is.”
He heard his dad’s quiet, weak chuckle in response. There was a pause, in which Katsuki tried his best to breathe air into his diseased lungs and stop crying, if only because it was really starting to bring the pain back into his chest.
Step one, remember? He thought forcefully. Not everything at once.
He hadn’t intended to say all of that out loud to his dad. He hadn’t even realized the words were sitting so close to his tongue, waiting for their chance to escape. Though all of it was definitely there and definitely a problem, he couldn’t win if he tried to fight all of it at once.
Step one. Step one. Step one. He repeated it like a mantra, trying to calm himself down so he could at least stop fucking crying.
Step one: talk to Izuku.
His breath hitched again when he realized that step one was still impossible to overcome. He was saved from sliding back into his breakdown by his dad speaking again.
“You haven’t destroyed your life.”
Katsuki tensed, though his eyes were still squeezed shut. When he drew in a sharp breath, he felt the desire to cough building in his chest. His crying had decidedly not helped with clearing his airways.
“You have time. So much time.” His dad obviously noticed that he was gearing up to protest because he added on hurriedly, “After you’ve talked to Izuku and gotten rid of the Hanahaki disease, you’ll have the rest of your life to recover and to be whoever you want to be.”
Katsuki sniffed, coughing slightly to try and clear his throat a bit.
But talking to Izuku feels just as impossible as the rest of it. He thought miserably.
“You can recover and go back to being a hero, or you can do something else.”
But who am I, if not a hero? Katsuki thought painfully of all his friends from his high school class, all moving on so easily and adjusting. He sunk back into his pillow, chest aching so very deeply, right in the center.
“You haven’t ruined anything,” his dad said softly. “You’re sick, Katsuki. You didn’t just ‘let’ these things happen.”
I let myself waste away for months.
“You’re sick, and you’ll need time to recover, but you can.”
What if I can’t? I’m so tired.
Katsuki wished his dad’s words brought him any reassurance. He wished his mind didn’t immediately come up with counters for each thing his dad said. Reasons why it couldn’t apply to him or why he didn’t deserve the comfort. He wished the words meant anything to him, that he didn’t still feel overwhelmed with dread.
He heard his dad’s long sigh, then he continued, “I remember being your age. It seems like everyone else has it figured out except you. It feels like life is rushing by and you can’t keep up. Everyone else is an adult, but sometimes you look around you and feel like you’re only pretending to be an adult.”
Katsuki frowned as the words filtered slowly through his brain. He finally peeled open his puffy eyelids to look over at his dad. His dad was looking off to the side, looking pensive. As if sensing his gaze, his dad looked over to meet his eyes. He offered him a small, sad smile.
“I’ll tell you this much,” he said. “No one’s got ‘all their shit’ figured out perfectly. I wish I could tell you there will be a moment where everything feels like it’s figured out and you know everything there is to know. You don’t turn twenty or twenty-five or thirty and magically everything makes perfect sense. It just doesn’t work that way.”
It felt like an obvious statement, but somehow hearing it aloud centered Katsuki a bit.
“Hell, even now I don’t have everything figured out,” his dad said with a quiet chuckle. “Sometimes I still look around and wonder how I got where I am. Sometimes I still feel like I’m figuring things out as I go or like I’m just a kid pretending to be an adult.”
Katsuki looked at him curiously. It was another thing that shouldn’t have been as strange to hear as it did. Despite how he was a long way from thinking his dad was an all-knowing adult in the way little kids often think of their parents, the admission still settled weirdly into his heart. Not quite comforting and not quite painful… or maybe it was a bit of both.
“If anyone thinks they’ve got everything perfectly figured out, then… well, it’s sort of a privilege, in some cases,” his dad said thoughtfully. “It’s a privilege to be healthy and not have to constantly think about your own mortality or the messed-up nature of the world. In other cases… well, hah, life is fucked up.” His dad repeated the earlier statement with another sad, watery half-smile. “Anyone who thinks otherwise… well, unfortunately, that’s a lesson they’ll have to learn eventually.”
Katsuki stared at him. It was sort of a surprisingly grim take from his dad, but something about it did register to him in sort of an… unexpected way.
Thump. Thump. Thump.
His scarred heart thumped in his chest, and he processed the words slowly. They sifted through his foggy head as he fought to comprehend them. He quirked his eyebrow at his dad.
“When did you get so wise, old man?” Katsuki rasped.
“Probably at some point between when I was a dumbass almost-twenty-five-year-old and when I became an old man,” his dad said, fondness in his eyes as he offered a small smile.
“Oi,” Katsuki protested weakly, narrowing his eyes jokingly at his dad. “You callin’ me a dumbass?”
His dad only smiled wider, but then he shook his head. His smile faded a bit and he said, “I wish I had all the answers for you. I wish there were answers. I wish I could tell you why things happened the way they did or how we ended up here.”
Katsuki stared into the distance numbly, blinking his heavy eyelids. His dad turned to face him more, and Katsuki’s eyes again flitted to the side to look at him without turning his head.
“But regardless,” his dad drew in a deep breath and let it out slowly, “we’re here.”
Katsuki looked away when the dread and terror writhed in his gut.
“Izuku doesn’t have it figured out perfectly either, you know,” his dad said quietly, “but you’ll only know that by talking to him.”
“That’s the whole issue.” Katsuki’s eyes burned and he squeezed his eyes shut again as if that would do a damn thing. “I don’t… I can’t…”
“You have a lot you want to say to him, right?”
Katsuki nodded ever so slightly.
“So… what exactly do you mean when you say that you don’t know what to say to him?”
Katsuki didn’t move as he tried to gather his thoughts and figure out how to say it.
“There’s just so much and I get overwhelmed,” he bit out hoarsely. “Every time I’ve talked to him before in our lives about serious stuff, I had a reason I needed to open up to him. And I felt fine with it because I’ve known him forever… but now it’s just… different. It’s just… I don’t…” Goddammit, it was so hard to get his thoughts together.
Izuku had always held significance in his life. In the few times they had talked about their feelings and their lives, Izuku’s role was indisputably important for various reasons, but it still hadn’t ever been anything like this situation.
At Ground Beta in their first year at UA, Katsuki didn’t go to Izuku out of something so simple as friendship. He hadn’t been expecting solutions to his problems so much as a confirmation of his suspicions about One For All and an outlet for his problems. When Katsuki apologized in the spring of what should’ve been the beginning of their second year, he hadn’t expected anything to change between them and had only hoped to break through to Izuku enough to get him to come with them to safety.
Now…
“I’ve never had to say anything like this before to him,” Katsuki said the obvious in a near whisper. He breathed in and out, the air rustling the flowers that were slowly draining the life out of him. “I’ve never… had to ask anything of him like this.”
The silence held for a few seconds as his dad seemed to think over what he’d said. Finally, he asked, “What do you mean?”
“Gah…” Katsuki made a noise of overwhelmed frustration as he wiped at his aching, watering eyes with the back of his hand again. “I don’t know. It’s just so different than anything we’ve ever done before… and so it just feels like a fucking impossible line to cross.”
There was another pause.
Katsuki clenched his jaw as his irritation built within him as he failed to get his thoughts together enough to articulate this. He didn’t feel like he was explaining it well at all, but he couldn’t figure out how to say it better. He knew he was just sounding stupid and childish at best, but how did he explain?
“You said before that you don’t understand him,” his dad started slowly. “But you can only begin to understand him by talking to him and hearing what he has to say.”
“I know, but—”
“Start with whatever feels the most familiar.” His dad cut him off but spoke gently. “If you’re overwhelmed with all of it, just start with whatever is easiest—er, I guess… whatever is most familiar, like I said. I know none of this is easy. If there’re things you can say to him that are less dependent on his answer that you still want him to know… that might be a good starting point, right?”
Katsuki stilled as he processed the words.
Step one… part one.
Right. He was dying. Even if he didn’t survive, there were things he wanted Izuku to know. There were things he wanted to know about Izuku, too, but even more than that… there were some things Izuku needed to hear. His panic about himself and his dwindling time to live and all his mistakes had almost made him forget about that.
“Yeah,” Katsuki muttered.
Before he could start to think through what that could even look like, he was immediately interrupted by his dad blurting out, “Also, I didn’t tell you the whole truth, before.”
“Hah?” Katsuki looked at him warily. “When?”
“About Izuku not being here now, well…” His dad sounded more hesitant now, but then he forged onward. “I’ll just say he was very angry that they wouldn’t remove the Hanahaki plant. He was also very angry with us for not supporting it—even though legally, it’s not like we could do anything anyways. Then he got mad when we wouldn’t tell us who you were in love with. He, uh… was asked to leave.”
Katsuki’s eyes widened. That made more sense than Izuku leaving on his own, but it still was surprising to the point of disbelief.
“Izuku caused a scene?” he asked, voice light with incredulousness.
“It… well, he was clearly trying to keep himself controlled and was doing pretty well, but… then your mom got involved.”
“Fuck,” Katsuki muttered under his breath.
“Izuku is… well, he’s definitely your childhood friend.” His dad sighed wearily. “Handles you and your mom’s anger like a champ, that kid does. Still, they were both, uh… asked to leave because they were being too loud.”
“You’ve gotta be kidding me,” Katsuki groaned, squeezing his eyes shut as his cheeks burned. “Izuku and the hag argued? And it was that bad?”
While Izuku didn’t have an issue with arguing with Katsuki, the damn nerd was still usually really respectful of people who were older than them. Even with Katsuki’s own parents—people he’d known for his entire life—Izuku tended to be extremely respectful. Even if Izuku was angry with them, it was hard to picture Izuku getting angry with his mom in the way that he sometimes got angry with Katsuki.
If he had… that wasn’t good.
“Yes… the situation has both of them very stressed out,” his dad admitted. “I wasn’t going to tell you because they’d both probably be embarrassed for you to know, but… I don’t want you taking Izuku’s absence as an indication that he doesn’t care for you or that he wasn’t worried for you. He was very worried, and he didn’t leave simply of his own choice.”
Katsuki rubbed over his puffy eyes, his face and neck still hot. In reply, he only rasped out, “He’s an idiot.”
“Maybe,” his dad replied with a quiet, half-hearted chuckle. Then he grew serious again, “But if you don’t talk to him, he might try to learn Hanahaki surgery removal and do it himself so… you should really do that.”
Katsuki only nodded slightly, still cringing slightly at this new information.
God, what the hell sort of shit did Izuku get up to when he wasn’t around? There was this shit, and there was everything Kirishima had told him the day before about Izuku apparently terrorizing the general public.
There was a strange, uncomfortable feeling growing inside Katsuki as a result of this new information. Not because Izuku’s anger was unfamiliar, but because he’d spent so much time with Izuku in the last few months and had seen very little of it. Izuku hadn’t gotten angry with him hardly ever, despite how he must be. If he was angry with others, he’d never once mentioned it to Katsuki, either, despite how he talked all the goddamn time.
It all just didn’t add up in Katsuki’s brain. His stupid, tired, foggy brain. He slumped back against the bed, exhausted but with a tension in his body that wouldn’t leave completely. He blinked his slow, heavy eyelids, staring vacantly ahead.
“Katsuki.” His dad’s soft voice had him waking up out of what was a half-asleep daze, and he forced his eyes open wider to look at him. “I’m going to run down to the cafeteria for a sec, and I’ll be right back, okay? Get some rest.”
“M’kay,” Katsuki acknowledged and absently watched his dad go.
In the silence of his sudden solitude, Katsuki realized that his pain had grown significantly worse throughout their conversation. His increased pain tolerance and baseline existence of being in a lot of agony anyways had made it so he hadn’t fully realized.
He groaned lowly as he shifted to press his head back into his pillow, closing his eyes and trying to move as little as possible. Despite his exhaustion, sleep did not overtake him completely and he wallowed in the physical pain and discomfort of his situation.
He was pretty sure he could feel where the incision had been made, as the intense pain was on a part of his chest that wasn’t typical for him.
“They were worried it would lead to a heart attack… The best compromise was to try to move the plant as much as possible and reinforce the artery it was compressing.”
Fresh wounds cut into old scars…
Katsuki opened his eyes because sleep refused to overtake him, but he only stared vacantly ahead.
Whatever being almost-twenty-five years old meant, it wasn’t supposed to be like this.
Katsuki realized as he lie there in a hospital bed, having just been through surgery, that he felt no different than he did before. Despite how he’d just been told that he’d nearly died. Despite how he’d undergone surgery. Despite how he could’ve had a heart attack.
Ultimately, there was no new feeling of grief or frustration that hadn’t been there before. The knowledge that his body was failing him wasn’t new. The knowledge that he was on the brink of death wasn’t new. Even the knowledge that his heart was the thing to give out first wasn’t new in the slightest. It was practically expected. He’d been expecting it for months and months now, if not far longer.
Thump. Thump. Thump.
Katsuki could feel his heart, beating away uncomfortably hard in his chest. As if it wasn’t functioning quite right even now, working overtime to unsettle him even before it fully gave out on him. It felt like his heart was well on its way to bursting—each contraction squeezing too hard and each release swelling too much.
Would it give out, or was it all in his head?
It was a question Katsuki had been asking himself for years, ever since his heart first stopped when he was seventeen. In high school, he’d attended therapy for his panic attacks. He’d learned how to remind himself that his heart wasn’t going to stop and it was just anxiety causing the palpitations.
It’d worked pretty well until his fears had been revived when he was diagnosed with Hanahaki disease. There was the panic attack he’d had at Jirou’s place all those months ago, when he’d been completely convinced his heart was going to stop. There was the panic attack he’d had yesterday, where yet again he’d been fully convinced that he was about to die.
That he was about to die… again.
It was so incredibly difficult to tell himself he wasn’t dying when dying was such a plausible option. It was so difficult to know because it all hurt, regardless if it was mental or physical.
As Katsuki lay in a hospital bed, with a tiny piece of metal being the only thing keeping him alive, he realized that he was currently in a rather fucked-up situation. He’d just had his chest cut open and sewn back together, and yet he felt no different to how he did before. He could’ve died, but he felt no different.
It was objectively horrible and serious to almost have a heart attack. Surgery, almost dying, all of it was very serious. If any of Katsuki’s friends and family were in his situation, he’d definitely be very worried and stressed out.
Yet, he felt no different. At some point along the way, “okay” meant just not being dead, so everything other than not being dead… was still okay. Despite how serious this whole thing was, despite how serious it would be if it happened to anyone else… it was normal for him.
Katsuki shifted in bed, moving his exhausted, pained body a bit to try and relieve some discomfort in his torso. It didn’t do much, and he just sighed, rolling his head over to look up at the display showing his vitals. He watched each tick of the electrical activity of his heart for a long moment.
Thump. Thump. Thump.
When had the feeling of his own heart beating become such a terrifying thing? If it was too fast or too slow, if it pounded away too forcefully… why was it always such a terrifying thing?
Why was he always suddenly back there? Back at that floating UA fortress. Back at that Coffin in the Sky.
Why was Katsuki always brought back there, not in body or even in mind but in the feeling? The terror always came back to him with such ease. The memory of how afraid he’d been, even as he’d pushed past it. The memory of how powerless he felt, realizing his biggest moves weren’t enough to do real damage, much less win against Shigaraki. The memory of pain, of not being enough, of knowing he would have to go on in spite of it all.
Thump. Thump. Thump.
On the screen, Katsuki could see the electrical spike of his heart going up and down.
Thump. Thump. Thump.
Why did he have to feel so afraid every time he felt his own heart beating?
Katsuki grimaced as a strange ache swelled inside of him that he struggled to understand. Something far too complicated to be one thing, but it was also new. At least, he couldn’t recall feeling like this ever before. Something maybe a little bitter, a little painful, a little lonely. It was something like realization, something like validation, something like acknowledgement.
The new ache came along with a thought that Katsuki knew he was probably having far too late. Rather, it was something that he was processing many, many years late. All of a sudden, he had the thought that there was something so deeply disturbing about not being able to trust your own heart to work properly.
His dad’s words came back to him:
“It’s a privilege to be healthy and not have to constantly think about your own mortality or the messed-up nature of the world.”
A privilege… that Katsuki hadn’t even realized he’d had before it was taken from him. He’d grown up as someone in peak physical condition with an ideal Quirk. He’d always been a boy with endless potential that everyone held such high expectations for.
Within minutes, it was taken from him.
Within minutes, his life was completely changed.
Of course, Katsuki had known that nothing had felt the same after the war. He’d known that he woke up alive but not the same. He’d known that he’d been broken and glued back together slightly askew. Some things were missing… Izuku’s Quirk, the same element of excitement, that old shiny, hopeful lens of youth. Some things were broken… skin and bone and hearts and minds.
Katsuki had always known that, but he also had always thought of it in the context of the people around him. Or… what he knew of the lives of the people around him.
In the context of everyone around him, Katsuki was only one of many who’d endured severe injury and trauma. He was only one of many who were changed forever. Many of his closest friends clearly endured a lot as well.
Everyone around him was trying to get back on their feet. They were determined to get back to training. They clung to the positives—everyone was alive, the heroes had won, and they were all back at school together. They’d all thrown themselves back into their studies and recovery. They’d all glossed over so much of what’d happened, determined to overcome it all.
And Katsuki… Katsuki had never been okay with being left behind.
All he saw was progress from his classmates, and he was determined to overcome it all too. He remembered in the moments of his greatest feelings of defeat, he’d berated himself for being so weak and so far behind. He remembered how angry he would get with himself during those months of recovery because progress was too slow. He remembered reminding himself over and over again that he had to catch up.
Why couldn’t he just recover when everyone else could? Why couldn’t he smile through it all when everyone else could? They’d all endured so much.
Katsuki had known something within himself wasn’t the same, but no one was the same as they’d been before.
So eventually that led to him asking himself…
What part of himself was broken that all his peers had managed to keep intact?
Despite how hard Katsuki had been trying to move on from everything alongside his classmates, he still felt the growing distance between himself and them all. He worked harder and trained more, but he still felt so unbearably isolated.
Somehow, from the moment the war was over, the distance between Katsuki and everyone else only kept widening. More and more, no matter what he did. No matter how hard he worked.
Somehow, he still ended up left behind in the dust.
Alone.
It’d only become clearer as time passed. Because things only continued to change more and more. The world itself changed. Heroics became more and more obsolete.
Katsuki had watched his friends adapt to it all and move on so easily in a way he hadn’t been able to understand, much less replicate. They’d all taken to adulthood and the abandoning of their childhood dreams with a casualness that he hadn’t been able to comprehend. They all got older, grew up, and went in different directions from even each other.
Where were they even running to?
Weren’t they all running the same way, once?
It was something Katsuki had been able to put off thinking too much about for years after high school, because he’d clung to the idea that Izuku would return. At the very least, Izuku and he had always been going the same direction. At the very least, things would make a bit more sense when Izuku was back in heroics again.
By the time Katsuki realized Izuku would not be coming back, the space between Katsuki and his friends had grown impossibly wide.
He stood alone, and he didn’t know how long he’d done so. He no longer even knew which direction he was from them all.
What direction had they all gone so effortlessly? How had they done it?
Was he so far behind them all?
Was he so far ahead?
Was he on a different plane of existence?
Katsuki had become lost. Hopelessly lost, despite all his attempts to catch up.
He was unable to smile so easily alongside his friends. He was unable to take up new hobbies and passions. He was unable to adjust to the world changing into something he didn’t recognize. He was unable to find a place for himself outside of heroics.
Despite how he gave it everything he had and more, Katsuki was still so far away from his classmates. So, what was wrong with him? What had he broken that his peers had kept intact? Why couldn’t he keep up? Why did he always have to be so weak?
Why was he always not enough, no matter how hard he tried?
Thump. Thump. Thump.
Katsuki lay in his hospital bed, staring blankly at the ceiling. Unbidden tears trailed out of the corners of his eyes.
He was… so damn tired. Hadn’t he been trying for so long? Hadn’t he been fighting to catch up? Hadn’t he been working so hard to overcome everything like his classmates did?
Hadn’t it yielded nothing at all, and left him feeling numb?
Hadn’t he still ended up so horribly isolated?
Maybe Katsuki wasn’t one to give up, but he’d been trying for years to catch up, and yet he sometimes felt a bit like he hadn’t moved at all. He certainly felt like it now, lying in a hospital bed with his chest cut open and sewn back together again.
Thump. Thump. Thump.
Katsuki felt his scarred heart beating away in his chest and grimaced slightly as the internal pressure in his chest built. Dammit… it already hurt so much.
He’d always thought of his injuries and everything he’d endured as his hardship to overcome. His classmates were all moving on. They were all overcoming it and making progress.
And he was Bakugou Katsuki.
He wasn’t weak.
He was going to be the best.
He was going to become the Number One Hero and surpass All Might. Like hell would he let anything stand in his way.
He could overcome anything.
Thump. Thump. Thump.
But… that hadn’t been true, had it?
As Katsuki lay there and felt his scarred heart beating in his diseased chest, he realized that it simply wasn’t true. He stared up at the ceiling as his chest ached so very deeply, right down to the center of his being. There was a pit in his stomach from a feeling of dread so overwhelming that it felt like it was an endless void.
He couldn’t overcome anything standing in his way. No amount of willpower could overcome a damaged heart muscle. Strength and weakness ultimately had nothing to do with it. He couldn’t do a damn thing about it, not then and not now.
Every one of his friends had endured injuries from the war. Many of them had healed into scars. It was just unfortunate that some of Katsuki’s scars were on one of the main organs meant to keep him alive. It was unfortunate that they weakened him so thoroughly… so irreversibly.
With a degree of almost surreal absurdity, Katsuki finally realized the answer to a question he’d been asking himself for months, each time he interacted with his old classmates.
What had Katsuki broken all those years ago during the war that his peers had managed to keep intact?
His heart. His chest had been torn open, and his insides had been ripped to shreds.
Katsuki gritted his teeth against the overwhelming emotion that came along with his realizations. He huffed out his quick, short, loud breaths as he tried to bear it. He tried to think past the overwhelming pit of anxiety and dread that was opening up further and further in his gut at the realizations.
Thump. Thump. Thump.
His heart… still pumping despite the scar tissue that’d replaced so much of the cardiac muscle. Still working, but not the same as before.
How does a person cope with the unchangeable fact that their heart was no longer reliable in the way that it once was? How does someone handle the fact that their life was very nearly taken from them, and they would never be the same because of it?
If the obstacle is literally one that cannot be overcome, where do you go from there?
Katsuki realized that, after the war, everyone had been making progress. Everyone, in their own ways, was moving on and overcoming everything. But the way ahead had been so thoroughly blocked for himself. High walls to climb. Unfamiliar pathways. Darkness. Confusion.
Death hiding behind every bend.
Katsuki let out a few muffled sobs, sniffling and trying to contain how much he was crying. It was difficult, because he’d finally realized that he’d found his answer as to why he felt so isolated.
Back then and in the years since, Katsuki hadn’t realized that what he’d been doing after the war was so fundamentally different from what his classmates were doing. He just thought they were all moving, all trying to get away from the past, all trying to overcome their respective challenges. He hadn’t started to register it at all until the years following high school, when things started to change and he wasn’t able to keep up at all.
It hadn’t been clear at first, but Katsuki realized now that he’d never been running alongside his classmates. Not from the very start. Not for one moment after the war had ended.
Katsuki and his classmates had all dove right back into training and heroics because they’d wanted to move on. They’d wanted to get away from memories they’d rather forget. They wanted to overcome their struggles and go beyond.
What was the easiest thing to do when things were difficult? Try to move on and get away. Distract yourself. Forget about it. Fix what you can, ignore what you can’t. Focus on the positives and ignore the negatives.
What else was there to do?
In their effort to keep going and get away from everything that’d happened, Katsuki’s classmates had all run ahead. Any direction was fine for them, as long as it wasn’t backwards. It didn’t matter if they ran together. It was nice to run alongside each other sometimes, but they could deviate and change things around all they wanted. Anything but backwards, because backwards held a past they’d rather forget.
Yet, from the moment the war ended, Katsuki had only gone backwards.
Katsuki had watched his friends run ahead, away from it all, and of course he understood the appeal. But while he’d learned over the years that he could run from a whole lot, even mentally…
Thump. Thump. Thump.
He couldn’t run from his own heart.
They’d all been running, ever since the war, but while his classmates ran ahead and tried not to look back, Katsuki was surrounded by the war and its consequences in all directions. Maybe others could forget or ignore what had happened to some degree, but Katsuki never would. He never could, because every time he felt his own heartbeat, he was taken right back there.
For Katsuki, moving forward would always lead to an unfamiliar world that was far darker than the one before. Any direction he chose would meet the same end. Any direction he chose, and things still wouldn’t be the way they used to be.
Katsuki didn’t have any clue how to navigate a world where he was so violently shown his own mortality. A world where years of his life had been stolen from him within a few minutes. A world where his body would never again function as reliably as before.
He didn’t know how to face a world in which he couldn’t trust the heart that beat in his chest with the same effortless, blind faith that he’d once had.
So, what was left when the obstacles ahead couldn’t be overcome? What was left, when the way ahead was blocked, unfamiliar, dark, confusing? What was left, when death hid behind every bend of the road ahead?
Turn around.
Go back the way he came. If he had to move, and he couldn’t go forwards, backwards is the only option.
So while any direction was fine for his classmates as long as it wasn’t backwards, Katsuki had been trying to do the impossible. He’d subconsciously been trying to escape back to the way things were as much as possible. He was trying to turn back time, to a simpler, easier time.
He’d tried, by ignoring what’d changed within himself as much as possible. He’d tried, by approaching his recovery in the same way he’d always approached things. He’d tried, by diving back into heroics and assuming he was doing the same thing as all his friends.
With a deep sense of quiet, defeated exhaustion, Katsuki realized that it made a lot of sense that he’d had far less luck than his peers, really. It made sense why he’d felt so horribly lost the more and more that the world changed.
It made a whole damn lot of sense why he’d held so tightly to the one thing he assumed he could still rely on. It made sense why he’d focused so entirely on getting back to the goal that he’d built his life around. The one that sat at the core of his being and identity.
Becoming the Number One Hero. The very goal that he’d made the foolish and irreversible mistake of intertwining with Midoriya Izuku.
Everyone else had moved on, after the war. Izuku had moved on, and Katsuki had held on because letting go wasn’t an option. He’d held onto that childhood dream, trusting it to drag him through all the dust and the shit and the gritty parts of life. He’d held onto it, even as it burned his hands. He’d held onto it for years, only to realize that Izuku had let go years ago.
There was a reason Izuku’s casual rejection of their joint future had immediately done such extreme damage to him.
Katsuki recalled how quickly his energy left him and his will to live had crumpled the moment he knew he had Hanahaki disease. It was a painful thought, but he realized that he’d been holding on by a flimsy thread for all these years. The moment he was cut loose and been left to face the world without his only lifeline, he had collapsed under the weight of it all.
He’d foolishly built his life with Izuku and their dream at the foundation. When Izuku had revealed his lack of intention to be there, he’d fallen apart immediately. He’d hit a dead end. He was exhausted and felt solidly out of options.
Katsuki realized as he lay there, weak and tired and dying. As he lay there, lost and isolated and confused. As he lay there, terrified of his own heart…
He realized that he couldn’t go backwards. It was impossible to turn back time. It was impossible to bring back the way things used to be.
Tears streamed down his cheeks as he stared blankly ahead. He clenched his teeth. His lip quivered. The oncoming wave of grief felt like it would drown him.
Katsuki realized he was holding onto something that would never be again. He was holding onto an image of himself that would never be again. That never could be again.
He was weak, now. Rather, he was weakened.
Katsuki just wasn’t who he used to be. He couldn’t ever get that person back.
Katsuki realized that there were heights he’d likely never reach, now. He might never be the best. He might not live to see forty-five, even assuming he lived to see next week. He wasn’t youthful physically or mentally, and his youthful dreams couldn’t match up with the body he’d been left with.
He wasn’t that kid with unlimited potential that everyone knew would succeed despite any of his personal flaws. That kid had died back at the Coffin in the Sky, buying time for Izuku to return. He’d done his duty as a hero, and for his efforts, his heart had been destroyed and stitched back together. He’d been cut up and left with scars and mental, bleeding wounds.
Bakugou Katsuki, who was going to be the best, who was the future Number One Hero… had died back then. He’d lost something that he’d never grieved and instead had been trying to pretend he still had. He’d been trying to fix things and power through, but his damn scarred heart just really wouldn’t let him.
He felt like his world shifted a bit on its axis all over again as he thought it all over. It all made a grim, sad sort of sense. It wasn’t that he hadn’t known he was broken beyond repair before this moment. Of course he knew that, and it was a huge reason for why he’d struggled so much in recent months. So much of what he was thinking over now, he’d already known.
Still, something about the moment had shifted his perspective on it all and allowed him to make connections. Maybe it was his dad’s words or how they’d cut open his chest again or how he faced death so imminently.
Maybe the fear of the end was breaking him all over again and allowing him to try and heal differently.
Katsuki wasn’t entirely sure why now was the moment that things were clicking into place in the way that they were, but things were settling in a slightly different way inside him. It was a way that still hurt and that he didn’t yet know if it was good or not, but the difference accompanied that new, complicated, aching feeling.
Somehow, the feeling inside him was something like closure. It was a bleak take on things, but it was somehow reassuring as Katsuki lay in the hospital bed, with a new cut sliced through old scar tissue and a piece of metal being the only thing keeping him from having a heart attack.
Life is pretty damn fucked up.
His realizations weren’t a perfect fix, but they were enough.
It was enough, to again feel some of that nauseating feeling of inferiority dissipate for the first time since that day Izuku turned him down.
Without his lifeline to the world, he’d been forced to pivot but he had no backup plan to pivot to. Yet, he had been Bakugou Katsuki, future Number One Hero. He wasn’t weak. He wasn’t inferior to his peers. Back when he’d lost the thing that’d been keeping him going for so long and he wasn’t able to recover while all his friends did… of course he’d simply blamed himself for not being strong enough. He’d blamed himself, because he’d had a lifetime of being a fuckup to support the idea that this was his personal failure.
Katsuki sniffled again, letting out a quiet sob.
To accept that life was fucked up was to accept that there wasn’t always a way to fix things. There wasn’t a way around it. No amount of ignoring it would make it actually go away. That sometimes, life was just really messed up in a way that he couldn’t change or run from.
It hurt like hell to acknowledge… but Katsuki was already in so much pain. He was on the verge of death, suffocating and buried six feet under. This shift in his reality hardly felt any worse than all the horrible moments he’d had over the last however many months.
Especially because it came with some small weight lifted off his own shoulders.
Maybe it was just because Katsuki had been in pain for so long, but these realizations were offering him a fucked-up kind of comfort. The weight on his shoulders was perhaps the slightest bit lighter, though he didn’t ultimately hurt any less. He’d been in so much pain for so long that the slightest relief offered by not blaming himself so intensely for his own failings and shortcomings was noticeable even now.
Maybe his dad’s words had offered him some kind of peace because for so long, he’d still felt like he had to try. The hero part of him that still wanted to run alongside his friends had felt the need to fix things and be better and be strong and be everything he’d once wanted to be. But maybe even if he couldn’t be any of those things… it wasn’t entirely his fault.
It wasn’t because he wasn’t good enough. It wasn’t simply his personal failings and shortcomings that were the reason why he couldn’t be fixed or why he couldn’t be like his peers. It wasn’t just because he wasn’t as strong as Izuku. It wasn’t just because he was left behind in the dust and didn’t know where the hell to go.
The realizations brought a different kind of pain rather than some cure or completely lifting the burden, but Katsuki still felt some inner part of himself begin to heal the slightest bit. He wasn’t certain that it was something so simple and complete as acceptance, but it was closer to it than ever before… and that was enough for now.
How did a man who mentally remembered what it was like to have limitless potential become someone who accepted their own shortcomings? How did a man who’d built his life around his own potential deal with having so much of it taken from him?
Who was he now? Katsuki had no fucking clue, and that was terrifying. Still, his current shameful, disappointing position in life… it wasn’t all because of his effort, or lack thereof. It wasn’t his strength or his weakness. It wasn’t all on his shoulders in the way he’d been trying to carry it.
It was just the unchangeable nature of his fucked-up life.
─────
Katsuki noticed the trees as his dad drove him home from the hospital.
The cherry blossoms were beginning to bloom. It was springtime now, after all, but he’d still somehow been caught off guard by the sight of them. The blossoms were largely in the earliest stages of bloom, but varying shades of pink had already begun to decorate the landscape.
The strong pain medication had fully worn off and he was exhausted and in agony. It was alarming how quickly the pain overwhelmed him and soured his mood. It hadn’t taken very long before the intensity of his pain—though familiar at this point—had his darker thoughts settling down upon him.
The ER doctor had luckily not been that bitchass Dr. Mori, but the man had still not wasted time mincing words.
“You have weeks at best,” the doctor had said as he pointed to the new CT scan they’d taken of Katsuki’s chest. “That’s the absolute best-case scenario, but you’re most likely to have severe complications again within the week.”
The scan had looked like a textbook case of Hanahaki disease. It was hard to comprehend that so much of his body had been taken over by the flowers.
Inside his chest, the cherry blossoms were flourishing.
Katsuki felt incredibly and completely worn out as he stared at the budding cherry blossoms outside the window. Each inhale and in and out was accompanied by the familiar pain and rustling feeling of the cherry blossoms that thrived within his chest.
I can’t, I can’t, I can’t… Katsuki’s thoughts chanted miserably as he shut his eyes to suppress the burn of more humiliating rears and to shut out the evidence of springtime. I can’t do this anymore.
He was in so much pain, so completely exhausted… for so long. So much of the same misery and hopelessness. What was the point of gaining some motivation right at the end, when he’d lost all strength?
A new tree in the groveyard.
Before Katsuki knew it, he was again drowning in the fog in his own mind and he couldn’t stand it. He was overwhelmed so quickly by how much he couldn’t fix a damn thing and all his doubts and anguish and worry and regrets. The feeling of dread and doom was opening up a pit in the center of his being, and he couldn’t do anything but panic in the face of it.
Step one… He tried to tell himself. Don’t think… don’t think… focus on step one.
Step one… talk to Izuku.
Katsuki hung his head as his heartbeat picked up in his chest at the very idea of what he still had to do.
He really didn’t feel like he had the energy left to talk to Izuku about any of this. Izuku was supposed to be meeting them back at Katsuki’s apartment soon, and Katsuki knew they’d have to talk. Time was up… arguably, it’d already been up and Katsuki was really pushing his luck.
I can’t, I can’t, I can’t… I can’t do this anymore.
Katsuki peeled open his eyes and looked out at the trees rushing past, including the occasional one that was beginning to bloom. So beautiful, and yet at the moment, he felt only nausea when he looked at them.
He couldn’t do this… but he would have to anyways.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
part 3
then the petals fall
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Katsuki stared up at the tree. It was big—wide and tall with little white flowers all over it. Everything was perfectly silent and still. Not even wind blowing through the branches or birds singing nearby.
It was a very beautiful tree.
He tilted his head back to look up towards the top of the tree. Just like in his memory, the top of the tree didn’t touch the branches of any nearby. He followed his gaze to a tree right next to it and back down towards the ground. It was spaced oddly far away, and when he looked beyond, the trees went on as far as he could see.
It was almost eerie. The feeling that hung in the air around him was odd enough to unsettle him a bit.
He looked back at the tree.
Beautiful… but rather lonely.
“Are you ready to go, Kacchan?”
Katsuki turned to look at Izuku, who was standing next to him and looking back at him.
“‘Go’?” he repeated uncomprehendingly.
Izuku pointed at his chest.
Katsuki looked down. He wasn’t wearing a shirt, leaving his scarred and boney chest again on display for Izuku to see. A moment later, blinding agony cut through his torso and he let out a strangled cry. He grabbed at his chest as he felt something moving within his body. As he watched, something moved under his skin.
He screamed in pain and fell to his knees as Hanahaki roots grew between his ribs and writhed under his skin as if they were wooden snakes burrowing through his flesh. It was some of the worst pain he’d ever felt, as the plant tore apart his body and poisoned every inch of it.
“Help,” he choked out, and then wheezed as he felt the roots twisting up towards his throat. They were snaking up through his lungs, towards his airway.
He looked up in frantic desperation, only to see that Izuku was staring at him in confusion.
“Help with what?” asked Izuku.
Katsuki’s eyes were wide as he stared at Izuku in dumbfounded horror.
“Wh—” he tried to demand what the hell kind of game Izuku was playing but one of his hands shot to his throat as the branches twisted up into it. He dry heaved violently as it triggered the urge to vomit.
His head jerked back down as the agony heightened further. The roots tore mercilessly through his flesh and finally broke free of the skin of his torso. He tried to scream as he watched the blood burst from each new wound, but he only managed a strangled noise. As the bright red covered his hands and chest, the roots twisted around his ribs and started to spread to all around his body.
Katsuki pulled at them, but he struggled to even move his arms and hands. His attempts did nothing to stop the flowers and roots and stems from continuing their growth. The metallic, nauseating taste of blood flooded his tongue as the plant dug up his airway, trying to spread into his neck and up into his mouth. He keeled over more to try and cough, but more blood came out than air. His eyes were wide and searching as his terror peaked.
In desperation, he again looked up at Izuku.
Surely he’s noticed by now. Katsuki thought.
“Kacchan?” Izuku hadn’t moved and was still looking at him in mild confusion. “What did you need help with?”
I’m dying. Katsuki couldn’t speak as he collapsed fully onto the ground. He convulsed from the unbearable agony as the roots dug out of his neck, ripping easily through the flesh and sending blood spurting from the wound. He felt the blood land on the skin of his face and neck. It hit his right eye, forcing him to squeeze it shut. He felt his body being torn apart, and he couldn’t even scream or breathe because they’d taken over his airway.
Why am I still alive?! He thought in horror as he weakly clawed at his throat to no avail.
His eye that was still open widened as he felt the ground beneath his back pressing against him harder. Somehow he knew the roots that’d broken free from his body had grown into the ground and had started to twist deeper in, pulling him downwards firmly against the dirt.
Finally, Katsuki’s vision started to go dark at the edges, though movement in his peripheral had him moving his eye to look… up at Izuku, who had shifted forward a step.
Izuku, who stared down at him with mild, almost polite concern.
No… Katsuki thought. I… I still had so much I needed to say to him…
He felt the roots and branches like an extension of his own body as they dug deeper and deeper into the ground and tore away at his flesh and poisoned his blood.
Thump. Thump. Thump.
He glanced down his body only to see his chest torn open. His heart seemed to be encased by branches, though it was hard to tell with the bloody mess that’d been made of his torso. Stems and branches were sprouting from his wounds, and flowers began to bloom and unfold from those as he watched. They were cherry blossoms with white petals, though each petal that was stained by his spurting blood absorbed it and turned a light pink color.
“You’re right, Kacchan.”
Katsuki looked up with a jolt of distant, painful hope to see Izuku was crouching over him, staring down at the mutilated mess of his body. He knew he was beyond saving, but somehow just knowing Izuku could see his suffering would be enough to grant him a moment of peace during this torturous end.
“These flowers are beautiful,” said Izuku, voice light with wonder. He reached out towards one of the pink ones that’d been dyed with Katsuki’s blood, sprouting from the center of his mangled chest.
Katsuki’s limited gaze zoned in on Izuku’s outstretched hand, open and reaching towards him. His dying heart jolted at the familiar sight, even as it bled out.
If I can grab it, he’ll see. Katsuki thought even as despair consumed him and his vision had gone halfway dark. He’ll see I’m dying. If it’s even possible to save me, he will. If he just sees…
With a last desperate effort, Katsuki’s arm shot out to try and grab Izuku’s hand. It was extended, wasn’t it? Izuku was reaching out his hand, and all he had to do was take it.
Katsuki’s fingers were inches away from Izuku’s when his arm spasmed and fell to the ground. As he watched in horror, his arm was torn apart, broken and twisted into a bloody, unrecognizable mess by the plant sprouting from within. His skin was stained a nauseating red, and though he was looking right at his hand, he couldn’t feel or move his fingers in the slightest. His vision distorted strangely at the sight, nausea and pain washing over him entirely. The feeling of wrongness that consumed his being at the sight of his own blood and unmovable arm and destroyed body was enough to feel like his sanity was ripping right down the center.
The fingers of Izuku’s outstretched hand instead reached the petals of one of the cherry blossoms, touching the pink petals gently.
No, wait—
Katsuki’s head was slammed backwards, colliding hard with the ground as he was pulled downward. The earth began to swallow him up, dirt shifting to make room for him as he started to sink into it.
Izuku just looked at the cherry blossoms with something like amazement or awe. His wide, shining green eyes stared at the flowers, seemingly oblivious to the fact that they were growing out of what was left of Katsuki’s body.
Please, wait—
Katsuki was abruptly pulled under into the dark. He struggled pointlessly, only his head moving slightly as the rest of his body refused to respond to him. The dirt pressed in on all sides, crushing and compressing him as he was buried alive.
He felt the flowers almost as an extension of himself, aware of them as they twisted and grew to form the beginnings of a tree. He felt them break to the surface, and yet he was left behind with the roots, six feet under. Nearly gone, as he suffocated and was torn apart to feed the flowers.
A new tree in the groveyard.
He couldn’t breathe. He couldn’t breathe.
Would he ever breathe again?
Katsuki’s eyes shot open, and he gasped out a noise that hardly sounded like it came from his own mouth. At the sight of the outstretched hand in front of him, his heart jolted violently hard in his chest, and he snatched at it without hesitation.
“Kacchan?!”
Katsuki panted hard, his breaths coming out as loud wheezes as it moved the flowers in his chest. Each inhale cut off abruptly short as his lungs reached capacity. It expanded but could only go so far with how the flowers took up so much room.
He stared with wide, wild eyes down at where he was holding Izuku’s hand in his own. His pale, bony hand had Izuku’s hand grasped in an iron hold. His eyes shot up to Izuku’s, panic still coursing through his veins.
Izuku stared back with his own eyes sunken in shadow and wide with alarm. He stood over Katsuki’s bed, right arm outstretched towards him and now held captive. He’d clearly intended to shake Katsuki awake.
“What’s wrong?!” asked Izuku.
The urgency of his tone and the intensity of the worried look in his eyes greatly outweighed the polite concern he’d had just moments ago. Even still, the question only made Katsuki’s heart jolt with greater panic, feeling as if it was dropping down into a void.
“What did you need help with?”
Katsuki couldn’t breathe.
“Izu… ku,” Katsuki wheezed out.
He pulled on Izuku’s arm, trying to pull himself up as he struggled to breathe in and move. He wheezed loudly again, and it felt like the air that was coming in brought no oxygen with it. The nasal cannula that he’d fallen asleep wearing felt like it wasn’t doing a goddamn thing.
“What? What is it? Careful!” Izuku shifted forward quickly, easily helping him sit up and using his free hand to shuffle his pillows around. He also was careful of the tubing of the nasal cannula still on Katsuki’s nose. He helped Katsuki lean back against the pillows, mostly sitting up now.
The cherry blossoms and roots and stems… Katsuki could feel them in his chest with each breath, each movement. He could still feel the echoes of how they felt in his dream, clawing up his throat, worming between his ribs, tearing apart his flesh, and lashing him into the ground.
It was a dream—it had to be—but it’d looked so goddamn real. It’d felt so goddamn real.
His panic, exhaustion, and foggy mind left him feeling disoriented and sick. He couldn’t think. He was so terrified. The ghost of the feeling of the roots clawing up his throat had him coughing slightly. Even the slight cough sounded wet and moved the flowers in his lungs.
The sight of his own chest torn open was all too horrifically vivid and familiar. The sight of his own blood, his own mutilated body, the feeling of dread and terror that came along with it all…
“Kacchan?” Izuku implored again, though Katsuki barely registered it.
What he did register was the slight movement of Izuku’s hand as he shifted it around.
Katsuki’s heart dropped painfully hard again, his eyes widening as he renewed his grip on Izuku’s hand hard enough to cause his shaky hands to make both of their joined hands and arms tremble visibly. It wasn’t clear if Izuku had even been trying to take his hand back, but the fear spiked in a way that was almost physically painful in Katsuki’s chest at the very idea.
He was holding Izuku’s hand like his life depended on it, and in that moment, it really felt like it did.
“You’re okay, Kacchan,” Izuku was saying in a gentle, even tone. “You were just dreaming, okay? It’s okay.”
Katsuki stared at their clasped hands, head spinning from panic and exhaustion and probably lack of oxygen. He stared at his own right arm and hand, pale and bony with old, faded scars… but no blood staining his skin.
Thump. Thump. Thump. Thump. Thump. Thump.
His heart slammed against his ribcage, beating so hard he felt nearly dizzy from it.
He stared at his arm, gaze trailing up to his hand where it grasped Izuku’s own. He flexed his fingers, rotating it ever so slightly, and it responded to him in the way that it should.
The dream had felt so real… because it’d drawn largely from memory, not from imagination.
His right arm was the one that he’d fought so hard to regain the use of after Shigaraki had destroyed it. He could feel it now. He could move it now. But it seemed his body remembered well enough how it’d felt back then.
“Just try to slow your breathing.” Izuku was still speaking. “Take your time, Kacchan. It’s okay.”
Katsuki looked up at him, meeting his eyes again. He felt so close to passing out again and so weak that all he could manage was a curt nod in acknowledgement of the words.
His wheezing always sounded so much louder when it was the only thing breaking the silence.
Gasping in his loud breaths, Katsuki’s gaze fell back to their joined hands. As he floundered, it felt like his lifeline. It grounded him.
Izuku’s hand was warmer than his own—a development that’d only happened since he’d gotten Hanahaki disease. Prior to this, Katsuki generally had warmer and sweatier hands than the average person due to his Quirk. His Quirk, of course, was still around, but other things had changed. Something related to his worsened health had likely led to poorer blood circulation, and thus colder limbs.
Izuku held Katsuki’s hand solidly, though not too tight in the way that Katsuki was probably gripping his. His hands were slightly larger than Katsuki’s own, with a larger palm and wider fingers. Though it looked like Katsuki’s own fingers were maybe a bit longer; it was hard to tell with their hands like this. Izuku had scarred hands and crooked fingers from all the times he’d broken them, but they were still strong and held firm.
Earlier, before Katsuki had gone to the ER, he’d searched Izuku’s face for familiar comfort. While he’d found it, he’d realized it was no guarantee that he was awake. The dream he’d had just now confirmed that.
Katsuki could dream of Izuku’s face and voice. He could dream of his own chest being torn open, of blood and pain, of dying. He could dream of such things with great accuracy, because he knew them. He’d experienced them, and they’d carved a permanent home in his psyche.
While Katsuki knew Izuku’s face well enough to recreate it in his mind, he couldn’t say the same for the feel of Izuku’s hand. It was still foreign. Every time they’d touched hands before in their lives, it’d been brief and often during a moment of many distractions. Usually, they’d both been wearing the gloves of their hero costumes.
As familiar as Izuku was, being touched by him for any prolonged amount of time or in any of the new ways he’d touched him recently, was foreign enough to ground Katsuki so solidly. If nothing else, this right here taught him that to dream about something he’d never experienced could never fully encapsulate reality.
Any dream Katsuki had ever had about Izuku could never hope to compare to this… to the simple feeling of holding his hand.
Even as Katsuki’s foggy brain fought to wake up fully and be present and ground him, his racing heart and increasing hyperawareness of Izuku told him everything he needed to know. Where his broken mind was failing him and sowing doubt within him about his state of wakefulness, his instincts were telling him this was indisputably Midoriya Izuku.
Thump. Thump. Thump. Thump. Thump. Thump.
Katsuki’s heart was racing, and he could feel his pulse in his throat, but his heart wasn’t failing. It was just Izuku’s presence, sending his heart beating faster so it could send his blood rushing with feeling and life and alert every inch of him that Izuku was so close by.
For the first time in a long time, Katsuki again thought of the surgical removal of Hanahaki disease, in which the Quirk disease stole all memory and knowledge of the person they loved.
How could he stand before Izuku and not know him at all?
Izuku ran through his veins along with his blood and the poison of the flowers. Did this moment alone not prove that knowing Izuku was muscle memory? That each of his senses knew Izuku instinctively?
Even though the feel of Izuku’s hand wasn’t something he yet knew by heart, Katsuki’s entire being recognized Izuku’s presence. His heart thundered in his chest for him, his blood sang for him, the butterflies within his stomach fluttered for him.
Within his lungs and chest, the flowers grew for him.
For a long moment, the warm feel of Izuku’s hand was all Katsuki could focus on and desperately try and draw comfort from. Though, as the minutes passed and his head stopped spinning quite as much, he belatedly realized what was happening.
Rather, he realized what he was doing. He was still holding Izuku’s hand.
I… should let go. Katsuki thought as he wheezed his loud breaths and stared down at their hands. I… I need to let go. This isn’t a normal thing to do.
He couldn’t. He couldn’t so much as get his hand or fingers to relax. His thoughts came from a rational part of his mind, but the rest of him felt no inclination at all to listen to them.
“Try to slow your breathing, Kacchan,” said Izuku quietly.
Katsuki dragged his eyes up to Izuku’s face.
Big green eyes, ringed in shadow. Dark brows, furrowed with concern. The scar stretching from his right eye down his cheek and his freckles dotting his left cheek. His messy green hair, parted unevenly to the side and sticking up everywhere and hanging almost over his eyes. Slightly chapped lips, pulled downwards a bit into a pensive frown.
Despite how Katsuki had seen Izuku that morning and saw him practically all the time for so long now, looking at him felt almost jarring for a moment. Unreal, but not in an unpleasant way. It was a feeling that was hard to place, but it left Katsuki mesmerized by a sight that maybe should’ve been mundane to him by now.
Izuku was looking at him with such a steady and kind gaze that he almost couldn’t stand it. He couldn’t stand it, yet he struggled to look away.
A familiar face, combined with the feeling of holding his hand that was far too unfamiliar to be making up. There was too much detail, too much warmth and pressure and the press of Izuku’s scarring… Katsuki was sure that he hadn’t previously held his hand for long enough to recall it with this level of detail.
His chest being torn open… that was just a dream, this time. Here and now, with Izuku, this was present reality. Now he remembered arriving home from the hospital and falling asleep while waiting for Izuku to return. His anxiety had been eating away at him, but his physical exhaustion had won out.
Now, Izuku was here.
So much I need to say to him…
The memory of having his ability to speak or cry out for help taken from him was beyond disturbing. He felt the irrational urge to claw at his throat and chest, despite how the flowers were all still carefully tucked away deep in his body.
Overwhelmed. He felt overwhelmed.
Katsuki choked on his fear, on his panic, on his uncertainty, but he couldn’t afford to do that any longer. He couldn’t keep suffocating on all of it because soon enough he could actually suffocate.
“I need… to talk to you…” Katsuki panted out desperately.
Izuku’s eyes darted back and forth across his face, searching it carefully.
“Right. Well, catch your breath first,” he said, offering a small smile of reassurance that was weakened slightly by the visible worry in his eyes. “I’m not going anywhere.”
Katsuki stared at him.
Not going anywhere… He felt halfway insane as Izuku’s words echoed in his mind. All his conflicting thoughts and realizations of late swam around in his exhausted thoughts. Thoughts of being trapped, of Izuku only being there because he was a person in need, of Izuku being gone when he wanted him to stay…
Katsuki only nodded in reply to Izuku’s words and continued to try and do as Izuku suggested. He dropped his gaze again back to their clasped hands, to the scars on Izuku’s hands that he’d seen a thousand times but didn’t know intimately enough to ever hold them like this. He felt the irrational, overwhelming desire to trace them—with his fingers, his knuckles, his lips—to memorize them as wholly as he had Izuku’s face.
Scars… like the ones all over both of their bodies and all over Katsuki’s heart.
There was no fixing the damage that’d been done to them. These scars were the best it would get. Yet, Katsuki hadn’t had an issue with that before all this Hanahaki bullshit because his own heavily scarred body had always seemed commendable when Izuku stood beside him looking much the same. They’d been heroes who would’ve given everything and very nearly did. Together, there was purpose and meaning to all that they’d endured.
Katsuki, with a heart so scarred it would likely kill him a few decades early, if not a whole lot sooner.
Izuku, with crooked bones and marred skin, all in the name of a Quirk he couldn’t even keep.
Katsuki had subconsciously sought comfort in Izuku here, too. They weren’t the same, but it was enough. It’d been enough to keep him going for years. Even as the world had become increasingly unrecognizable, he’d still held onto them.
Alone, Katsuki just looked like the broken remains of a boy shipped off to war before he was old enough to understand what that meant, but as long as he wasn’t alone…
He was a hero.
But now… neither of them were heroes anymore.
Katsuki could feel how his own hand was still trembling. Worse than it usually was, anyways.
“Kacchan?” asked Izuku softly.
Katsuki looked up at him again slowly, and his eyes zoned in on the scar on the side of Izuku’s face. Another piece of evidence of all they’d gone through. Subconsciously, he moved his own jaw around just to feel the slight pull of the scar on his own right cheek.
Katsuki wondered for a moment what they even were, if they weren’t heroes anymore. Were they simply broken boys who’d grown into scarred men? Was that all they were, without the attractive guise of heroics to paint the war in a colorful, impressive light?
“Does it hurt?” he found himself asking out of nowhere.
“What?” Izuku stared blankly at him.
Katsuki’s eyes flicked up from the scar to meet his eyes. “Does your scar hurt?”
“Uh, which one?” Izuku laughed hollowly, and Katsuki stared at him with something like fascination as he did. Izuku then looked away awkwardly, ducking his head slightly. “But no… I don’t really notice them anymore.”
Katsuki frowned at him, head swimming and body heavy from exhaustion. He suddenly wondered if Izuku was lying. He remembered the information he’d only just started to put together yesterday—that he had no idea just how much Izuku was hiding from him. That Izuku thought he was capable of hating him, and that he would do so if he even suspected Izuku had feelings for him beyond friendship.
Katsuki tugged their hands closer to him, pulling Izuku forward.
Izuku glanced down at him in confusion but went along with it without a word, though he was forced to sit down on the edge of the bed, next to where Katsuki’s legs were still under the comforter. He shifted one of his legs up onto the bed so that he could still face Katsuki and the hand that was keeping his own captive.
Katsuki ignored the frantic beating of his heart and the jittery nervousness that was trying to rise up in reaction to the situation. He ignored the fluttering in his stomach and the hyperawareness of Izuku’s presence and gaze.
Instead, he looked down at their hands, rotating them so he could look at Izuku’s scarring more closely. After all this time, most of the scars were flattened out rather than ridged, but they were all still a different color and texture from the rest of his skin.
“Ha, Kacchan—” Izuku started to protest, sounding uneasy.
There was the slightest bit of movement as Izuku weakly attempted to pull his hand back. Katsuki shot him a half-assed glare when his heart again jolted in protest. He tightened his grip as he returned to looking at the details of Izuku’s very scarred hands and gnarled fingers.
“Kacchan.” Izuku objected again in that way of his that sounded vaguely like he was scolding him. Though he didn’t try to take his hand back again. “Don’t make fun of me. I know how they look.”
Katsuki froze, then slowly looked up at Izuku with a slight scowl of disbelief. “Hah?”
Izuku’s face had gone slightly pink, and he looked visibly uncomfortable. “Just… let go.”
Katsuki stared at him intently, but for the first time in many months his first feeling wasn’t defensiveness at the apparent rejection. Instead, he felt deeply sad for reasons he couldn’t fully pin down. He felt his expression melt into something more neutral and when he spoke, his voice came out soft.
“Why?”
“I—” Izuku looked at him in surprise, though it quickly became uncertainty, glancing away from him and back a few times. Katsuki distantly comprehended just how close they were sitting. “Kacchan, what’re you doing?”
“Why would you think I was going to make fun of you?”
“I don’t—I’m just saying I know how they look,” Izuku rushed to say, shaking his head and lightly tugging at his hand again. Katsuki didn’t release it, and Izuku prompted quietly, “Let go, Kacchan.”
“How the fuck do they look?” Katsuki’s voice had turned angry by now, but not defensive so much as… openly offended, on both of their behalf.
Izuku’s expression flickered with confusion.
Katsuki leaned closer as something between a sneer and a scowl twisted on his face. Izuku’s eyes widened, jerking his head back slightly but unable to go far without ripping his hand away.
“If you think scars are so horrible to look at,” said Katsuki threateningly, “maybe don’t say that to the person who’s just as covered in them as you are, damn nerd.”
“What?!” Izuku cried shrilly, then he shook his head rapidly. “I—that’s not what I meant!”
“Yeah?” Katsuki’s tone was clearly skeptical. He almost sounded mocking.
“Yes!” Izuku nodded frantically, trying again to tug his hand away and squirming awkwardly when Katsuki still didn’t release it. “I wasn’t talking about you, Kacchan! I just meant—I just—you were staring at my hand! I thought you hadn’t ever noticed how messed up they are, and—”
“You think I’ve never seen your hands before?” asked Katsuki, completely incredulous now.
“No, that’s not what I… I just—I just—” Izuku was very red, and Katsuki distantly realized again that he was still right up in Izuku’s face. “Kacchan, please let go!”
Izuku tugged his hand back more urgently, but when Katsuki’s grip started to slip he physically startled as panic and dread bolted through him hard enough that it almost hurt.
“Wait—” Katsuki’s words came out sounding strangled and openly terrified as he snatched at Izuku’s hand again, tightening his hold again until he was surely crushing Izuku’s hand in his grip. “Don’t—just wait—please just—”
Izuku immediately froze and stopped trying to take his hand back, instead closing his fingers to grip Katsuki’s hand again.
Katsuki stared at him as terror suddenly started to consume him again. It was almost alarming how quickly Izuku could distract him from the immediate matter at hand… but that moment of distraction was over.
The roots… clawing up his throat. In the dream… how he’d reached out for Izuku’s hand and hadn’t made it in time. His weak, failing heart, beating slowly towards the end within his chest. He stared, wide-eyed at Izuku as it all washed over him again anew. It all compressed on his chest so fast that he had no defenses against it.
Don’t let go. Katsuki wanted to beg. Please don’t… don’t… I’ll…
The existential terror and threat of his fading mortality choked him abruptly, and he stared in horror at Izuku. It felt like there was a pit in his stomach.
“Kacchan, what’s wrong?” asked Izuku urgently, shifting slightly closer. “Talk to me.”
Katsuki could feel his movement because their hands were intertwined. He felt dizzy with it in a way that was hard to understand. Izuku was close enough to feel. To touch. He could feel Izuku’s movement… they were alive. They were both still alive. They almost weren’t… so many close calls… but they were alive.
I’m suffocating. Katsuki was frozen, staring at those familiar green eyes. If you let go, I’ll die.
The image of Izuku reaching out and of not being able to reach his hand, of Izuku instead admiring the cherry blossoms stained pink with his blood…
Katsuki couldn’t rid himself of the knowledge that if this went wrong, he’d never get to see Izuku’s eyes ever again. He’d never get to hold his hand like this again. The finality of it was incomprehensibly terrifying in that moment. He could only stare for a long moment as the feeling washed over him again and again, drowning him painfully in it.
Don’t let go.
Katsuki finally broke eye contact and ducked his head as a ball of overwhelming emotion suddenly shoved up his throat and sprung tears in his eyes. Choking back a sob, he hunched his shoulders slightly. He pulled their intertwined hands closer to himself until he was holding them near his chest. As if he could protect their connection by guarding it closer to his heart. As if he could save himself with nothing but the fact that he was holding Izuku’s hand captive.
It felt like his chest was hollowed out, and it ached unbearably. All the physical pain of his illness tore away at him, too. There wasn’t anything to be done about it except to endure it… but he felt so weak.
The physical and mental pain was too much. It was all too much.
You can’t. You can’t. You can’t. Katsuki begged mentally as the urge to cry overtook him completely.
Please.
Don’t let go, please. I’ll die.
I’m so tired.
Don’t let me go.
Stay.
Katsuki sobbed uncontrollably, which hurt his chest badly, and then he cried harder from the pain. It was all a mess. His head was foggy, and he felt sick and tired. The warm, firm—and by now rather sweaty—grip of Izuku’s hand felt like the only thing keeping him from losing his mind. The only thing tangible at all in his mess of a life. The only lifeline keeping him from drowning.
He was still buried six feet under. The only difference was that he’d managed to grab hold of Izuku’s hand this time. If he let go…
It felt like it was the only thing keeping him alive… and distantly, he comprehended how fucked up that was. But there was nothing he could do about it except hold on and hope Izuku didn’t make him let go just yet.
The memory of his nightmare only made a painful sob rip out of his chest. He winced and was left trembling. He could die today or tonight or tomorrow, and he knew it. He could die right now, by confessing to Izuku and being rejected. He could die because he choked on his words like a coward rather than managing to say anything at all.
Don’t let go. I’m unsteady. I’ll die.
Katsuki fought to gather his breath and thoughts enough just to say any of what he needed to out loud.
Hold my hand. Please, hold my hand. Please, hold me so I don’t fall apart.
Only sobs escaped, and his frustration mounted far too quickly as the emotion still overwhelmed him in waves. He needed to talk to Izuku or he would die, but he was struggling to say anything at all because he couldn’t even stop fucking crying.
Why? He thought as he cried and held Izuku’s hand like a child and couldn’t even gather himself enough to explain. Why can’t I speak? Why can’t I say anything, while I still can?
“Please tell me what’s wrong,” Izuku pleaded quietly, the slight tremor in his voice betraying his own apprehension. “Are you in pain?”
Yes. Katsuki thought but didn’t say. He knew that Izuku was referring to his physical pain, and while that was still happening it wasn’t the only thing. It wasn’t the main thing.
I can’t do this anymore.
His own inability to control his emotions left him feeling even more overwhelmed and agitated. It felt like a pressure within him, and the fog and despair pressed in on all sides.
Katsuki shifted their hands until he was pressing the back of Izuku’s hand over his thundering, scarred heart.
Izuku’s hand shifted in his grip, clutching firmly back. He shifted forward again, and his leg that was folded up on the bed bumped lightly against where Katsuki’s was still under the covers.
In that moment, as Katsuki sat there feeling a whole lot, but agony most of all, he thought that Izuku’s presence was a strange paradox. It was addicting yet overwhelming. It was grounding yet unfamiliar.
It helped… yet it hurt so very much.
“Just keep trying to slow your breathing down.” Izuku was murmuring quietly. His voice didn’t need to be very loud to be heard, because of how close they were sitting. “It’s okay. It’s okay. I’m not going anywhere, okay? I promise. It’s okay.”
Katsuki’s head was still ducked as he cried. He focused on the feel of Izuku’s hand, and the lightest press of their legs against each other. With how he had Izuku’s hand held captive, that left Izuku with little choice but to be very close to him. With his head hanging, Katsuki realized that Izuku’s torso was right in front of him.
Izuku…
Katsuki sniffled, using the back of his free hand to swipe over his eyes. He pressed their clasped hands to the center of his chest, over his heart.
Thump. Thump. Thump. Thump. Thump. Thump.
His scarred heart was thundering wildly in his chest.
Katsuki knew it for certain now, as he sat on his bed, a broken and dying man with the hand he was clutching to his chest serving as his only lifeline. He knew for certain that he didn’t just want Izuku. It wasn’t that simple.
As Katsuki faced his own demise so imminently, he realized with a degree of absurdity that he needed Izuku in order to live.
On the one hand, it was a comically ridiculous realization because he had Hanahaki disease. Of course he would die if Izuku didn’t love him. On the other hand, his realization involved his life completely separate from the disease as well.
I can’t do this anymore.
Thump. Thump. Thump.
Katsuki’s heart didn’t work the way it used to. He felt too young to be saying a statement such as that, and the fact that it was true just made it so much more painful. He wasn’t who he used to be, and he didn’t feel strong enough to go on alone.
Izuku was a hero. He’d give his life to save anyone.
But…
You and I…
Izuku’s acknowledgement of the two of them meaning something was so small, but Katsuki clung to it. He clung to the idea that maybe Izuku still viewed him highly. That he was potentially special to Izuku. That maybe Izuku would give his life to save anyone, but maybe he’d stick around once he’d saved Katsuki’s.
Izuku would offer his hand to anyone in need, but maybe he’d allow Katsuki’s to linger.
I can’t do this alone anymore.
Katsuki realized that he needed Izuku because he didn’t know where the hell he was anymore. He was lost. He was unsteady and weak, and he was so goddamn tired.
“Kacchan, please.” Izuku’s voice had traded some of its uncertainty for desperation by now. He shifted on the bed, pressing closer and moving their hands so he was pressing the back of his hand into Katsuki’s chest a bit more firmly. “Please talk to me. What’s wrong?”
The soft, familiar kindness in Izuku’s voice was unbearable for reasons Katsuki struggled to put a finger on.
Conflicted feelings were battling it out inside of Katsuki. He didn’t know why, when he was actually face-to-face with Izuku, the idea of asking him for anything at all felt so impossible. There were a thousand reasons and a thousand emotions to go along with it, and they fell over him again and again in waves even as he tried to get himself together.
I’m sorry. Katsuki’s shoulders shook as he choked on his cries.
He was so sorry. He was so sorry for all the pain he caused Izuku in their youth. He was sorry that Izuku had lost One For All—even if Izuku himself didn’t mind. He was sorry to have dragged them into this trapped fate. He was sorry that he’d fallen in love with Izuku, if only because of how much it had disturbed Izuku’s life.
He was sorry for the pain he was causing Izuku now. He knew how deeply Izuku cared, and he could tell just how much Izuku wanted to fix this for him. He knew that so much of what had happened since he’d developed Hanahaki disease had thrown Izuku for a loop.
He was sorry, because he was a coward. Even now, as he choked on his fear of death, he struggled to overcome the last barrier.
I’m sorry, but I need you. Katsuki thought as he watered the flowers that were killing him.
Izuku wasn’t his cure, but his only respite.
Not his perfect solution, but his only lifeline.
Not a complete fix… but enough of one.
I’m sorry. Katsuki thought as he tried to swallow his own pitiful cries. I need you. I need your strength… even if you don’t need mine.
He was buried six feet under. He needed someone to help dig him out. He was so tired. He was so lost.
Please. Katsuki thought. I’ll make it up to you one day.
He’d grown very fatigued as he cried, and his neck, shoulders, and back ached badly. Rather than lean backwards again like he probably should, he leaned forward until his forehead rested on one of Izuku’s shoulders. He slumped slightly further from the degree of his exhaustion. He squeezed his eyes shut as if that would change the fact that he was crossing so many invisible lines that divided them.
He felt Izuku’s surprised, sharp inhale and how he tensed from the unexpectedly intimate move.
When I’m better, I’ll take care of you, too. Katsuki vowed as his chest caught painfully over and over again as he sobbed harder. I’ll be whatever you need. I’ll be better. I’ll be kinder. I’ll be there for you, if you ever need anything at all.
Katsuki distantly knew that the promises were more for his own comfort than anything else. He was swearing an oath that he would hold himself to until the day he died, so that he could feel okay asking anything of Izuku. They were all things he’d do without needing to be prompted and not just because he owed anything, of course. But reminding himself of them made him feel better about what he was going to have to do in order to live.
This was an equal exchange, Katsuki was reminding his stupid, stupid brain and whatever was left of his pride. If Izuku agreed to anything, it would be a partnership, not anything less. Katsuki wouldn’t accept anything less.
“Kacchan,” Izuku implored so softly that Katsuki nearly winced again. It was obvious from how still he was sitting and how he wasn’t speaking directly into Katsuki’s ear that he hadn’t moved in the slightest, even to tilt his head to look at what Katsuki was doing. “Come on, please talk to me. Tell me what’s wrong.”
Tell me how to fix this. That’s what Izuku was saying. Katsuki knew that. He wanted to fix this… he saw this as an equal exchange… and maybe… maybe…
Katsuki felt tears trailing down his cheeks, dripping off his nose and chin likely onto Izuku’s arm. He ignored them. There was a pit in the middle of his chest, the agony blending so well with the sharp pains of the flowers and roots and stems in his lungs.
Thump. Thump. Thump. Thump. Thump.
As his crying finally died down and his chest stopped its uncontrollable spasming, Katsuki became more vividly aware of the hard hammering of his heart in his chest. He felt his pulse in his throat, in his temples, beating away so quickly.
He’d never felt so weak in his life. He wished he didn’t still feel so vulnerable. He wished he could feel okay with any of this, rather than have an automatic feeling of repulsion to the display of his own weakness.
Before he could mentally spiral at all, Izuku’s hand and arm shifted as he seemingly just adjusted slightly. Still, the loosening and then again tightening of his grip around Katsuki’s hand was enough to draw Katsuki’s attention to their clasped hands again.
“Kacchan?” Izuku’s voice was a whisper, barely there.
Katsuki sniffled, then let out a long wheezing breath and pushed himself up off Izuku’s shoulder.
“Sorry,” he murmured, again swiping pointlessly over his eyes with the back of his free hand.
“No, no, it’s okay,” Izuku rushed to say. “It’s fine—you’re fine.”
Katsuki finally pulled open his heavy, puffy eyelids to look at Izuku. They were still sitting very close, and Izuku’s eyes were unsurprisingly also shiny with tears.
“Are you… are you alright?” asked Izuku, with those damn concerned, attentive eyes looking right at him.
Katsuki scoffed out a light laugh that was more amused than mean. “I’ve just had a bit of a shitty day, y’know?”
“Kacchan,” said Izuku, lightly chiding his massive understatement.
“Shuddup.” Katsuki’s words were a bit muffled as he lifted the collar of his shirt to wipe over his face again. “I know, I know… but what the hell am I supposed to say, nerd? That everything’s sunshine and roses?”
“No, of course not!” Izuku replied, then started to ramble somewhat nervously, “Sorry, I meant I just… I was wondering if you wanted to talk about it. Or anything, really. You just… seemed very upset all of a sudden—which is totally okay, of course! I just wanted to offer, if you ever wanted—you know—if you wanted to talk about anything. Or, er, actually you said you did want to talk to me about something, which we can do now if you want to. Or anything you want, really.” He finished lamely and awkwardly, trailing off and looking at Katsuki with a slightly hesitant gaze.
“Hmm.” Katsuki made a quiet noise of acknowledgement as he stared back, heart in his throat.
Thump. Thump. Thump. Thump. Thump. Thump.
He could feel his heart slamming away in his chest. He felt the pressure of the back of Izuku’s hand on the other side of his ribcage from it, as he still pressed their clasped hands to his chest.
He wasn’t sure what made him think of it. Maybe it was just that his own heart was beating so hard and fast from Izuku’s proximity and the knowledge of what he would have to do. Whatever the reason, Jirou’s words from a while back came to mind.
“Midoriya’s heartrate also picked up around you.”
Katsuki’s eyes fell to Izuku’s chest. After only a moment of consideration, he shifted to move their hands. Izuku watched him carefully, not protesting or assisting the movement so much as just leaving his arm limp and letting Katsuki do what he wanted. He looked a bit puzzled but said nothing as Katsuki shifted so that he’d reversed their position from the moment before.
Katsuki gripped Izuku’s hand and pressed the back of his own against Izuku’s chest.
Right over his heart.
Izuku looked visibly curious and confused. There was a furrow to his brow that betrayed the bewilderment and the turning of the Kacchan gears in his mind, but he said nothing and offered no objection.
Thump. Thump. Thump.
Under Katsuki’s hand, Izuku’s heart was beating steadily. Katsuki couldn’t tell if it was fast or if it was racing. It just felt strong. Steady. It brought him a strange sense of comfort for reasons he couldn’t even fully figure out for himself. He raised his eyes from their intertwined hands to meet Izuku’s baffled gaze.
“If there’re things you can say to him that are less dependent on his answer that you still want him to know… that might be a good starting point, right?”
Looking into Izuku’s eyes, Katsuki’s next words came with refreshing ease. So much so that some dam broke within him immediately. All his emotions were stuck within him and trapped, but as he spoke something gave. It was an outlet, even if not yet the one that would save his life, and he felt the internal pressure lessen ever so slightly.
The resulting ache was deep, but not so simple as a bad feeling. It felt instead like how moving or stretching after being still for a while would. Aching and painful, but a relief from finally doing something that was much needed.
“Thank you for taking care of me,” said Katsuki.
He spoke in a tone so soft that he hardly sounded like himself, but he hoped that he still sounded sincere. He felt the tears tracing down his own cheeks. The emotion shocked him by again rising up in his throat to accompany these words that he meant so wholeheartedly.
Izuku’s eyes widened.
Thump. Thump. Thump. Thump. Thump. Thump.
Katsuki felt Izuku’s heart start to thunder underneath his hand, and his own heart responded in kind.
“You’ve done so much more for me than anyone else,” Katsuki went on. “You’ve really given up your entire life to help me with all this Hanahaki bullshit. I… that’s crazy, Izuku.”
For a long moment, Izuku only gaped at him as if he were speaking another language, then he started to shake his head and wave his free hand around somewhat frantically. He sounded uncomfortable and uncertain when he replied, “Y-you don’t have to thank me, Kacchan. You’d do the same for me.”
Katsuki looked at him in surprise. It was true, of course, but he felt suddenly like maybe Izuku did see how much he cared, if he thought that with such certainty.
“That’s… uh, I mean this is what heroes do, right?” added Izuku with a weak, wavering smile. “We look out for each other.”
Katsuki’s expression fell, and he stared at Izuku lifelessly. Izuku looked back, confused and distressed from his reaction.
“Right…?” Izuku winced, searching Katsuki’s face and clearly struggling to read his mood.
Izuku would do this for anyone.
Not special. Not special. Not special.
Katsuki was exhausted. Time was up. He felt like the moment he let go of Izuku’s hand, he might die. That made this moment both the most important of his life so far and potentially one of the last. Fear was already eating him alive. Maybe it was also because some small dam had broken within him, but for once his curiosity won out.
“Is that it?” Katsuki was asking before he could stop himself. “You’re here as a hero?”
“What? No! I—I’m here because we’re friends! I just meant—I just meant that we’re heroes, so it’s what we do, you know?”
Katsuki stared at him.
Thump. Thump. Thump. Thump. Thump. Thump.
Izuku’s heart was still racing. Katsuki wondered if Izuku even remembered where their hands were. If it had occurred to him that Katsuki could feel his heartbeat. If he was even aware that his heartrate was picking up so much.
“Hmm.” Katsuki eventually broke their eye contact and hummed noncommittally.
He felt the echoes of rejection and uncertainty and terror worming under his skin, leaving him faintly trembling all over. He was so scared… he wished he wasn’t, but he was. The moment felt oddly as if his life was balanced precariously on the edge of a cliff, making it feel strange and painful and surreal. As if he were truly speaking to Izuku from halfway in the grave, with it up to Izuku whether or not to let him fall into the abyss or pull him out.
His own heart wouldn’t stop thundering. He could feel Izuku’s doing the same, and that was the only thing he had to hold onto. Izuku’s hand and pounding heart… they were tangible things in this moment… so near the end.
“Is that what we are?” asked Katsuki quietly. He was looking away because he was a coward. He was looking away because it was the best he could do as he said words so vulnerable. “Friends?”
He felt Izuku tense, then reply, “I—I thought so, yes. Are we… not?”
Izuku sounded uneasy and awkward in a way that made Katsuki’s heart squeeze painfully.
“I don’t know,” Katsuki replied lowly. “I always thought that maybe that wasn’t the right word for us.”
Izuku didn’t say anything for long enough that Katsuki glanced back at him. It wasn’t entirely surprising, but the damn nerd was very obviously not following him in the slightest. He looked thoroughly confused and caught between uncertain and upset in a way that made Katsuki feel deeply sad again.
Izuku thought that he was saying they weren’t even friends. That they were something less familiar than that.
“Something more than that.” Katsuki glanced away and back, muttering the words that felt so embarrassing and difficult to say. “Something better… feels like we’ve known each other too long for ‘friends’ to be the right word.”
As if Izuku would shoot him down or laugh at him even for this. How ridiculous, that these words that only scratched the surface were making heat flood his face and neck.
Izuku’s wide eyes blinked almost uncomprehendingly at him for a second. There was the slightest moment of complete shock on his face, before suddenly he was beaming at Katsuki. It stretched wide across his face, so much so that his eyes squinted slightly.
Katsuki stared, suddenly out of breath all over again at the sight of Izuku’s smile.
“Yeah, you’re probably right,” Izuku agreed, his happiness so obvious in his tone as well as all over his face. “‘Friends’ doesn’t really cover it all, does it?”
He squeezed his hand that held Katsuki’s own once, then he nodded once.
Katsuki’s heart fluttered, fully overwhelmed by the casual intimacy of Izuku not only holding his hand but keeping it to his chest because Katsuki had moved it there. He was overwhelmed by not only the words Izuku had said but also the light squeeze of his fingers—a move so minor that it was strange that it made him feel so light in his chest.
As Katsuki stared at the look on Izuku’s face, he realized with some degree of horror that he couldn’t remember the last time he’d seen him fully, openly smile like this.
Though it certainly wasn’t the most recent time that Izuku had smiled so widely, it was impossible for Katsuki not to be transferred back to a spring years and years ago. That spring when the cherry blossoms fell around them and All Might praised them and everything seemed so purely good and hopeful for the first time in a long time.
Did Izuku treasure that memory too? Did he look back on those days with fondness too?
Would he maybe want to smile with him again next year, as the cherry blossoms fell around them?
Izuku’s smile melted away somewhat quickly out of nowhere, and Katsuki watched it go with some degree of grief. Izuku glanced down at his chest and back up to meet his eyes.
“How’re you feeling, Kacchan?” he asked softly, that damn look of concern back in his eyes.
Katsuki scowled grumpily. “Feeling like I got a bunch of flowers in my goddamn lungs.”
Izuku stared at him intently but said nothing. Katsuki could tell from the intensity of his gaze and the stiffness of his posture that he wanted to say something, but he remained silent as the seconds passed.
Katsuki was still stuck on the cherry blossoms in his lungs, feeling them each time he breathed or moved in the slightest. He was still stuck on that memory from all those years ago, and how the two of them had smiled so freely.
“We—you and I—well, I know it’s not the same as it was back then but…”
Izuku’s words from the other evening came to mind. Clearly, Izuku thought about back then sometimes, but what was it that he pictured? Did he miss those times at all?
What words did Izuku hold back? What words did he keep to himself?
“What were you going to say to me the other night?” Katsuki was asking lowly before he even realized the words had escaped.
The first dam that had broken had done its job, as more rushed through the opening, breaking more of it apart. The pressure was still there, keeping everything back, but it wasn’t completely blocked.
Izuku looked at him blankly. “When?”
“You were going to say something about you and I.” Katsuki stared at him carefully even as heat creeped up his neck.
He felt a desire to rip his hand free and turn away, but he didn’t.
Izuku looked momentarily thoughtful as he clearly tried to figure out exactly what Katsuki was referring to. The moment he did was also extremely obvious by the slight widening of his eyes and the morphing of his expression into something more uneasy as he looked off to the side.
“Uh… well, I…” His brow furrowed as confliction grew on his face, then he shook his head and jerkily forced his head back over to look Katsuki in the eye. “I was just going to say that you and I used to make a pretty good team. I was…”
Katsuki watched with some degree of pain and fascination as Izuku visibly lost his nerve. Every emotion flitted across his face, including his uncertainty and doubt most obviously. He looked away, shifting uncomfortably as he seemed to want to let go of Katsuki’s hand but when he squirmed and Katsuki’s grip didn’t loosen, he didn’t try any harder than that.
“You used to trust me, is all,” said Izuku, sounding a bit awkward. “I was hoping that you might again.”
“You think I don’t trust you?” Katsuki’s voice came out light and nearly breathless with shock.
Izuku’s head jerked up and he met his eyes, mirroring his surprise. “No—no, I meant, uh… I just meant that we—that—”
For a long moment, they just stared at each other. Sitting so close in a way much too intimate for them and clearly so far from anything they would’ve ever done before all this had happened. Neither of them moved to get away, but it still made the moment feel heavy with some kind of unspoken tension. As if the air itself had thickened, some energy between them simmering within it.
It felt so nearly tangible that Katsuki thought Izuku surely had to feel it too.
“I know things aren’t the same as they were back then,” said Izuku finally, his voice a bit strained as he did so. “I don’t expect them to be. I… I know they aren’t.”
Katsuki looked at him curiously, not entirely following his meaning as he waited for elaboration.
“I just…” Izuku lifted his free hand to scratch at the side of his face as he hesitated and then grew visibly uncomfortable again. “Well, I don’t think it would be very helpful, actually.”
“Hah?” Katsuki’s disappointment at his lack of willingness to go on was immediate and overwhelming.
“I, uh… I was just trying to help.” Izuku winced. His face twisted slightly in an awkward, uncertain way. “That’s all.”
Katsuki stared at him. His conversation with Kirishima and newest realizations came back to him all at once. He’d thought that Izuku never seemed like he was afraid to share what he was thinking…
But was that what was happening now? Was Izuku hesitating to speak?
Why? Was he scared of what Katsuki would say? That Katsuki would accuse him of overstepping?
“He acted like you would never look at him again if I brought this up to you. It was all very, uh, dramatic… and a bit weird,” Kirishima had said.
Katsuki was reminded that, when it came to Izuku, he was missing far more than he’d ever realized.
Was it possible that Izuku really had no idea how Katsuki felt about him? Not even romantically, but just in general. It seemed that Izuku had no idea just how much space he took up in Katsuki’s life—not even close.
Just how close did Izuku think that they were?
Just how close were they?
As Katsuki thought it all over again, it wasn’t anger that came back to him but a deep, forlorn feeling. It felt like he could almost see the distance stretching between them; it was so unbearably wide that it almost made Katsuki feel unsteady.
If there was a chance that Izuku felt the energy simmering in the air, was there a chance he felt the chasm between them, too? Katsuki felt the deep feeling of sadness in his being widen further as it occurred to him that Izuku could feel similarly isolated by all that space.
Did Izuku also feel isolated, but saw it as overstepping to get any closer? If Izuku thought Katsuki capable of hating him—of never looking at him again—then did Izuku make no attempt at all to get closer?
Katsuki again felt that feeling of disconnect. The dichotomy between his reality and Izuku’s. Somehow, he felt that he knew Izuku with his entire being and still didn’t know enough. He felt it then, that the two of them might know each other better than anyone else, but that they really didn’t understand each other at all.
Katsuki’s head swam with a thousand thoughts as his chest heaved with wheezing breaths.
“Izuku doesn’t have it figured out perfectly either, you know,” his dad had said, “but you’ll only know that by talking to him.”
Katsuki knew he needed to find a way to make himself talk, even as that feeling between the two of them that hung in the air hadn’t dissipated. Suddenly, it felt like that tension was highlighting the distance between them. They were sitting so close, yet the space that remained held a lifetime of history.
Katsuki wanted to cross that line drawn so firmly in between him and Izuku, but wasn’t that the very problem? How does one cross a lifetime within the span of a few seconds?
Katsuki drew in as deep a breath as he could manage as he met Izuku’s eyes steadily. He had no idea how to cross a distance so vast, but he suspected it didn’t hurt to start by taking a step.
“You do help,” said Katsuki softly.
The words came out, not because they were for himself, but out of a sudden desperation to make sure Izuku knew how much he was cared for and appreciated. There was a deep need—that accompanied the well of sadness in his chest—to bridge the gap between them, if there was even the slightest chance Izuku felt isolated by it too.
Somehow, Katsuki found the idea of Izuku being just as lonely as he was to be so very unbearable. And he found the idea that Izuku might not realize just how important he was to him to be unacceptable.
Izuku looked at him with a surprise that bordered on alarm.
“You’ve helped me more than anyone else,” Katsuki added. “Thank you.”
Izuku was frozen for a long moment, gaping, before he jerkily shook his head.
“I, uh, I told you, Kacchan, you don’t have to thank me! I—”
“But I am.”
Izuku looked nearly disturbed as he stared at him. His degree of complete bafflement offered Katsuki a random, inexplicable sense of amusement even as it caused his heart to squeeze painfully. Maybe it was just that the comically expressive look on Izuku’s face seemed far too dramatic for the situation.
“Er, okay,” said Izuku uncomfortably, glancing away and shuffling as if to move away again.
Katsuki felt heat creeping up his neck, and he dropped his gaze downwards again. He wasn’t sure what about the moment gave him courage. Maybe it was that he was holding onto life by a thread and he knew it. Maybe it was that he felt grounded by Izuku’s hand. He didn’t know, but he latched onto it.
“I have so much I need to say to you,” Katsuki admitted quietly. His brow quirked and he smiled a small, slightly nervous smile as he added, “I don’t even know where to start, to be honest.”
Izuku tensed so much that Katsuki noticed immediately. He couldn’t help but glance upward to gauge Izuku’s expression and saw that his green eyes were wide with alarm. Katsuki’s own eyes widened in automatic response. Despite how he had no idea what Izuku was reacting to, terror shot through him so fast he nearly felt lightheaded.
Izuku pulled back ever so slightly, and Katsuki’s heart jolted in his chest as it seemed that Izuku was going to try and take his hand back.
“Izuku, no, I—” The strangled, pleading words ripped out of Katsuki’s throat before he’d even realized.
“What’re you doing?” Izuku’s voice had hardened, and his question cut through Katsuki’s words as if he hadn’t heard him speak at all. He looked affronted, almost angry. Indignant, in that way of his where his eyes nearly glowed with the strength of it. His change in demeanor was abrupt, so much so that it left Katsuki reeling.
The state of Katsuki’s mind was again doing him a disservice. His memory was so shitty and it was so hard to think through the sluggish fog of his brain, and when he got confused it just made it so much worse. He scrambled to think over what they’d been talking about. Had he forgotten something? Lost track of the conversation somehow? His chest compressed with the intensity of his sudden anxiety, and he felt nauseous. The ground was falling out from beneath him.
He hadn’t even said anything yet Izuku was already pissed off. Heat creeped up his neck and the feelings of rejection were returning tenfold before said rejection even occurred.
“I j-just—” Katsuki’s voice stuttered and shook immediately, and he cut himself off as his eyes burned with mortified tears. “Can’t you—fuck, please just listen to me for a second!”
Izuku leaned forward. His rage was still blazing in his eyes, and it startled and captivated and terrified Katsuki in equal amounts.
“No,” Izuku practically growled out.
Katsuki gaped, and his stomach again twisted nauseatingly. He didn’t understand what was happening. Was he dreaming? He was so sure that he was awake up until now, but it suddenly felt like he was still in a nightmare.
“‘No’?” he repeated in a near whisper, completely taken aback at how Izuku fully dismissed him despite how he was practically on his deathbed and begging him to listen. “You just said we could talk!”
“Well, that’s before I realized what you were doing!”
“Huh?” Katsuki felt lightheaded with the intensity of his bemusement and all the other shit washing over him. “What’re you…”
“You can talk to me all you’d like after you get surgery!” said Izuku vehemently. “I won’t just sit here and let you say goodbye to me, Kacchan. I—” He gritted his teeth as tears welled abruptly in his eyes. “I won’t do it!”
“What?” Katsuki’s heart dropped into his stomach as the words sent his world spinning all over again.
Izuku thought he was trying to give his last words. Katsuki didn’t know why the realization shocked him so thoroughly.
“I won’t watch you die,” Izuku declared, and the tears spilled out of his eyes. Even still, he continued to stare at Katsuki defiantly. “I don’t care that you told me to look away. I won’t look away, and I won’t sit here and watch you die, either!”
“Huh?” Katsuki’s sluggish brain fought to comprehend the turn of conversation, and then it was again derailed when Izuku yanked his hand out of his hard. “Wait, n-no, Izuku—”
“This isn’t like you.” Izuku was on his feet, even further away, as he ranted out the words. “You—you talking like this and—and the way you’re acting!”
Katsuki stared at him, his hand now limp and empty in his lap. He felt embarrassingly off-kilter without Izuku’s hand steadying him. He felt like he was being crushed, like the flowers were more prolific the moment Izuku wasn’t there to keep them back.
It was hard to also comprehend Izuku’s words on top of all that, but after a moment he did.
“You told me I was still me even if I acted different right now!” Katsuki said, his voice coming out a bit shrill. It felt childish, and it sounded openly desperate and offended, but he didn’t have the energy to care. The roller coaster of emotions was too much for his exhausted body and mind. Weakly, he added, “You… you told me.”
Izuku froze in the pacing he’d started, eyes flitting over to meet Katsuki’s sharply. Half his anger had faded in an instant, and he stared at Katsuki for a moment as if he was completely lost.
“Why can’t I thank you without you thinking something’s wrong with me?!” Katsuki’s voice was still pitched weird from some combination of emotion and his fucked-up throat. “Why can’t I talk to you just because I want to?!”
Izuku looked somewhere between horrified and baffled as he gaped, then he jerked his head in a weird shake of his head. It was only then that Katsuki belatedly comprehended Izuku’s demeanor.
Izuku ripping his hand away and saying those words had completely taken up all the available space in his brain for a few moments. Now, as Katsuki stared, he comprehended a familiar, painful sight.
Izuku’s eyes were too wide; they kept darting around and coming in and out of focus. He was jostling his leg rapidly even as he stood still. His movements were strange and robotic, and he was frowning deeply. His hands wouldn’t stop moving, thumbing over his bottom lip or tugging at his hair or wringing them together. He was practically radiating anxiety and unease.
It felt like a hand wrapped around Katsuki’s weak heart and squeezed tight. He thought of yesterday morning, when he’d briefly wondered what was wrong with Izuku and then realizing it was him. Izuku was worried about him.
Katsuki’s guilt and desperation stirred up within him. There was the feeling again. That desire to see the fear gone from Izuku’s eyes that was so intense it felt woven into every cell of his body.
“You were in the hospital just now,” said Izuku lowly, as he stared at the ground. “You’re very sick, and things… things aren’t…” He flinched, ducking his head more. His hands clenched and relaxed at his sides. “What am I supposed to think, Kacchan?”
Katsuki stared at him, because he honestly didn’t have an answer. From Izuku’s perspective, what was he supposed to think when Katsuki abruptly started thanking him and wanting to talk?
Dammit, it was so hard to think, and Katsuki didn’t want to fuck this up.
“The hospital, the stuff with my heart, all of it… it freaked me out a bit,” Katsuki tried to offer in explanation, even as his voice wavered. “It just made me realize I needed to say what I needed to say. But it’s not easy… to say some of this shit.”
Izuku’s head jerked up, and his eyes were blazing again even as more tears spilled onto his cheeks.
“Because you’re trying to give up!” he accused furiously.
“I’M NOT, YOU DUMBASS!” Katsuki’s temper abruptly snapped as Izuku yet again drew the wrong conclusion. He shouted, and the words tore hoarsely from his throat and sent him coughing immediately.
“Fucking—hell—” Each cough made his chest and throat flare with agony.
“Kacchan!” Izuku’s anger was gone so quickly, terror replacing his tone, and he was again close to Katsuki.
Katsuki coughed wetly into his elbow. He glared up at Izuku as much as he was able and used his free hand to shove at Izuku’s torso to get him away. The feelings of rejection and uncertainty and irritation still lingered, and Izuku’s idiocy was overwhelming in that moment.
“I’m not—” Katsuki rasped out, then coughed again.
“Don’t try to talk!” said Izuku, voice high pitched and rushed, as he flapped his hands around to accompany his words.
“Shut the… hell up,” Katsuki half-said, half-coughed.
Another few coughs and he felt the familiar, horrible feeling of something in his airway. He gestured wildly towards the trash can near his bed, and Izuku snatched it and handed it over just in time.
For a long moment, Katsuki was just coughing big, painful coughs while Izuku helped support the trash can for him. He spit out the blood and mucus as it came up and then had to continue to cough and spit as petals upon petals fluttered up his throat. The feeling was as nauseating and sickening as ever.
Finally, he finished coughing and spitting out what had to be half a dozen cherry blossoms and quite a few additional petals. They sat in the bottom of the trash can, largely covered in his bodily fluids.
Katsuki retched for a moment, though nothing came up. The nausea and feeling in the base of his throat sent him dry heaving over and over, eyes watering enough to stream tears down his face.
After a minute, he was able to stop, breathing hard as he remained half hunched over the trash can. Another few grateful, loud huffs of air, and then he spit again, trying to clear the remaining blood and lingering petals from his mouth. One petal stuck to his lip, and he huffed out a breath to try and get it off. It came off, floating down into the trash with all the rest of them.
Katsuki stared down at the revolting mess. It didn’t seem possible that all of that had been in any part of his lungs.
Damn Quirk disease. He thought bitterly.
“Are you done?” asked Izuku.
The ringing in Katsuki’s ears made Izuku sound far away.
“Mhmm.” Katsuki made a feeble noise of confirmation.
Izuku tried to move the trash can away, but Katsuki grabbed onto it tighter.
Katsuki was still breathing hard through his mouth, staring down at the flowers he’d coughed up. It was sort of hard to tell, but they seemed to be a light pink.
It was hard not to think of the flowers in his dream, sprouting from his torn-apart chest. It was hard not to remember how they’d been dyed with his blood. Something about the sight of the petals, falling from his own lips, covered in blood, was making his head spin and his reality crack down the center.
“Kacchan?”
Katsuki finally loosened his hold and slumped back against his pillow as Izuku whisked the trash can away.
Exhausted, Katsuki followed Izuku with his eyes.
“I wasn’t trying to say goodbye,” he said hoarsely as Izuku was turning back around to face him.
Izuku stared at him intently, his pause and watchful gaze betraying his skepticism.
“I’m… trying to live,” Katsuki admitted in a whisper.
Izuku’s eyes widened.
“So I got shit I needa say to you,” Katsuki went on, speaking as firmly as he could with his ragged voice.
His neck burned from how obvious he was being, but he knew by the growing elation on Izuku’s face—and the lack of any other emotion—that the damn nerd wasn’t understanding him in the slightest.
“But how’re you going to live?!” Izuku was visibly jittery as he practically buzzed with increasingly anxious energy. “What does that mean?”
“I’m…” Katsuki clenched his jaw, staring into Izuku’s eyes as the pressure in his chest grew unbearable and his heart thundered; his stomach flipped and tied itself in knots. “I’m going to confess.”
Izuku’s eyes widened, and his mouth dropped open. “You are?!”
“Yes,” said Katsuki resolutely, as if saying the word with confidence would suddenly imbue him with more of the trait. He clenched his hands into fists, wishing he didn’t still feel so much more unsteady without Izuku holding his hand.
He huffed out his wheezing breaths, staring up at Izuku.
“Are you finally going to tell me who it is?!” Izuku’s eyes were wide and watery, and he seemed anxious and agitated as he bounced on his toes and wrung his hands.
“Yes.”
Izuku breathed out a long sigh of relief. He leaned forward to brace his hands on his knees as his shoulders slumped, as if he’d just been running and needed a breather. “Thank god. Just—”
“But I need to talk to you first,” Katsuki cut him off with a solemn tone.
Izuku tilted his head to glance up at him, uneasiness and confusion in his eyes. “First?”
“I’m not trying to say goodbye, dammit,” Katsuki snapped at him. Then he drew in as deep a breath as he could manage, staring at Izuku and imploring softly, “Just… please trust me.”
Izuku didn’t move for a long moment, staring at him with a slightly doubtful expression, before he nodded and pushed himself back into a standing position. He breathed out a long breath that sounded shaky, but then he nodded.
“Can we get out of here?” asked Katsuki before Izuku could say another word.
He hadn’t entirely planned on saying it before he did, but once he did he latched onto the idea more firmly.
Izuku blinked at him in disbelief. “What—now?”
“Yeah,” said Katsuki, a bit tersely as he glanced around his dark room that he’d spent months rotting in… if not longer. “Don’t wanna talk here.”
“You just had surgery!”
“So?” Katsuki gritted out. “Doc healed me up.”
Izuku looked unconvinced.
Katsuki frowned and added, very unenthusiastically, “I need some fresh air.”
Just as he expected, he watched Izuku’s expression light up. Izuku was always going on and on about how important fresh fucking air was for Katsuki. That’s what all his damn outings had apparently been for, after all.
“Okay!” Izuku nodded, though the apprehension hadn’t fully left him. “But—” He started to add something before immediately cutting himself off. He glanced at Katsuki, seeming to appraise him for a moment, then he rubbed at the back of his head. “Okay. Sure… did you want to go somewhere specific?”
“Do you remember that spring, back at UA after the war?” Katsuki asked quietly, peering up at him. “The cherry blossoms were blooming, and All Might told us how well we’d been doing?”
Izuku looked at him, and his expression was oddly vacant. His eyes were strangely empty as well. He nodded, but it was brief, curt. It didn’t help Katsuki’s nerves in the slightest.
“I remember that day fondly,” Katsuki admitted despite how exposed it made him feel. It felt like a confession all on its own. It felt like less of a hint and more of an obvious giveaway, despite how oblivious he knew Izuku was when it came to these things.
Izuku’s face visibly softened, and he smiled slightly. “Yeah, I do too.”
Thump. Thump. Thump. Thump. Thump. Thump.
Katsuki’s heart—caged in by the cherry blossoms growing around it in his lungs—thundered so hard it nearly made him feel lightheaded.
“It’s springtime,” he said. “The cherry blossoms might be starting to bloom now on the UA campus. We can go see if they are.”
The smile dropped from Izuku’s face, and he glanced very obviously down at Katsuki’s chest and back up.
“I know my Hanahaki flowers have probably ruined them for you a bit,” Katsuki went on quickly. His voice was strained from his depth of emotion and the soreness of his throat. “But you used to like the cherry blossoms. We could go and just remember that spring. We don’t have to think about all this, just for a few minutes.”
Izuku still looked frozen with indecision.
“Please, Izuku,” Katsuki pleaded lowly.
Izuku’s expression broke a bit, and he looked more torn.
“I’m sorry,” Katsuki was adding before he’d given it much thought.
Izuku’s eyes widened.
“I’m sorry for everything,” Katsuki went on. “I’m sorry that I ruined cherry blossoms for you, and that you’ve had to endure so much while here with me.”
Izuku’s brow furrowed, and his hands trembled at his sides.
“I’m sorry for more than I can ever say,” Katsuki said earnestly.
“Kacchan, please stop—” The words burst from Izuku’s mouth.
“If you help me today, I’ll spend the rest of our lives trying to make all this up to you,” Katsuki vowed aloud, and a chill shot across all his scarred, paper-thin skin. He meant it with his entire being; he hoped Izuku knew him well enough to sense that, despite how his voice was too weak to carry much weight. “I’ll do whatever it takes.”
Izuku’s eyes darted around, and he was still buzzing with anxious, uncertain energy as he shook his head rapidly. Then he paused and only shook his head again as if trying to shake himself out of a daze.
Katsuki waited for a bit longer for him to speak but quickly ran out of patience when Izuku only stood there standing blankly ahead.
“Will you take me to see the cherry blossoms, or not?” he asked wearily.
Izuku moved to thumb nervously at his lower lip, looking at Katsuki with a suddenly piercing gaze.
“Just…” His frame was tense, and his words were strained. “Why? It’s… well, spring just started. They’re probably not even blooming all that much yet.”
“Because I need out of this damn apartment,” Katsuki said honestly. “And I want to see the cherry blossoms.”
Izuku stared at him again for a long moment.
Katsuki could tell there was something holding him back, though he had no idea what. The hesitation in Izuku’s eyes bordered on wariness.
“The doc healed me up, I swear,” Katsuki added evenly. “I’m okay for now. Why can’t we go?”
“Your Hanahaki flowers are cherry blossoms.” Izuku blurted the words out abruptly, all rushed as if they’d been held back and then sent tumbling out all at once.
Katsuki’s eyes widened slightly. “Yeah… obviously.”
“Hanahaki flowers hold significance with the person you developed them for,” Izuku said matter-of-factly. “They’re not random.”
“No, they’re not,” Katsuki agreed quietly.
His face was hot, his body felt strange, and his heart hammered in his throat. Was Izuku really connecting the dots right now? He’d always considered it an impossibility, but he supposed he was being pretty obvious a moment ago.
“What if it makes it worse?” asked Izuku worriedly.
“What?”
“What if seeing cherry blossoms… makes it worse?” As Izuku said it, it was clear that he was voicing his main fear by how obvious it was in his voice and all over his face.
So… he hadn’t connected any dots.
Katsuki sighed. “Can’t get much worse than it already is.”
Izuku blanched, looking appalled.
“I just mean that—dammit.” Katsuki shut his eyes briefly, cursing his own words. “I only meant that things are already bad, it won’t do any significant damage.”
“Can’t you confess first and go after?” Izuku scrubbed a hand through his hair, looking one second from starting to pace around again.
“I want to go now,” Katsuki gritted out pointedly. “With you.”
Izuku frowned, clearly thinking hard as he stared right at him… and somehow still not getting it.
“But won’t the reminder of your Hanahaki flowers be painful, Kacchan?” asked Izuku softly. He sounded so very sad that it made Katsuki’s heart squeeze. “I mean… there’s no way you won’t think of… of them when we’re there. I know you will, no matter if you try to deny it.”
Katsuki gazed steadily at him. He hadn’t planned on denying that anyways.
The honest words came surprisingly easy, “Everything’s painful, but this is the good kind.”
“The good kind… of pain?” asked Izuku hesitantly.
“Yeah. It’s the kind that makes all the rest of it worth it.”
The kind that ached around the edges as he recalled a time long past that would never be again. The kind that compressed the chest just to remember how much better things had been back then. The kind he would rather die than forget.
Izuku blinked as he processed the words. His brow was furrowed, and then he seemed to wince slightly and he looked away.
“I don’t… want to do the wrong thing,” Izuku said the words so quietly it was clearly a divulgence of some kind.
“Hah? What d’you mean?”
“I want to take you where you want.” Izuku’s eyes watered again, and he spoke past the emotion in his voice. “But I don’t… I don’t know…”
His chest was heaving as he stared off to the side. His distress was visible, and Katsuki’s heart ached again.
“Izuku, trust me, please.”
A part of Katsuki was baffled at how many times he’d begged, only for Izuku to still resist. The other part of him knew that it was only because Izuku’s priority was Katsuki’s health, and he somehow saw this as a potential threat to that.
Izuku stood perfectly still for a long moment, staring off to the side. He was so still it seemed he was even holding his breath. Then he just nodded and turned. He moved to grab Katsuki’s wheelchair and bring it closer, then moved to stand next to Katsuki, ready to help him.
“Can you just—” Izuku added on in a sudden rush as Katsuki shoved his covers off his body. Katsuki looked up at him. “Can you promise me that you’ll confess right after we talk?”
Katsuki’s eyes widened slightly at the question, his heart dropping into his stomach from Izuku’s phrasing.
Izuku added on, “I’ll take you wherever or bring whoever, just…”
“I know,” Katsuki said somberly. He looked up to meet Izuku’s gaze, even as anxiety twisted his gut into nauseating knots. “I promise.”
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
part 4
and fleeting life comes to an end
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Spring had only just arrived, so the trees across UA’s campus were in varying stages of early bloom. Katsuki and Izuku found a small, somewhat secluded area not too far from where their old dorms had been. There was a grove of trees with some deserted benches interspersed around.
“I want to walk.” Katsuki spoke in his wrecked, raspy voice as Izuku shut off the car.
In his peripheral, he saw the wild movement of Izuku’s out-of-control hair as the damn nerd jerked his head over to look at him.
“Walk?!” asked Izuku. “You—I mean, you can’t really… you know…”
“Not far. I just want to walk to the bench rather than get in the wheelchair.”
There was silence, and Katsuki blinked heavy eyelids as he stared directly forward, out at the trees. The blossoms were mostly buds that hadn’t yet unfurled, but there was enough light pink interspersed around that it was a nice preview to what they’d look like in a week or two.
Katsuki breathed in and out of his diseased lungs with shortened, agonizing breaths.
He might not live to see that.
“I… Kacchan, you had surgery earlier today.” Izuku’s imploring voice was quiet and strained with anxiety.
“Will you help me?” Katsuki finally turned to look at him, meeting those familiar green eyes. The eye contact was accompanied with an uptick of his heartbeat and a fluttering in his stomach. “Please.”
Izuku’s face contorted slightly with something of a pained grimace as he looked back at him. For a long moment they only stared at each other. Katsuki had to fight the sudden urge to cry as he felt the rising grief and fear and confliction threatening to overwhelm him.
Then Izuku nodded, dropping his gaze and turning to get out of the car. As he walked around it, Katsuki shut his eyes and wished that he could take deep breaths to calm himself. As it was, his best attempts resulted in only shallow, wheezing, painful breaths.
Izuku moving Katsuki had become a familiar dance in recent months. With some degree of muted dissonance, Katsuki felt his mind and memory split in two as Izuku pulled open the door. As they maneuvered—Katsuki unbuckling and panting already as he swung around to the side, Izuku moving his O2 gear into a backpack to swing over his own shoulder and then shoving the door open as far as it would go—Katsuki felt the easy flow of comradery that the two of them had had since they’d become true rivals back in high school.
They moved without speaking, in a silence that was so unbearably thick with words unsaid and emotions unexpressed and two lives of history that overlapped more than they didn’t. Yet, it was as if they communicated in a whole different way. Just as when they used to fight side by side, they moved with a synchrony that had Katsuki remembering the time they’d played Taboo with their friends at Jirou’s place a few months back.
When everyone had realized that Izuku and Katsuki were on the same team, Kaminari had been whining and said something like, “But you two can practically read each other’s minds!”
Katsuki remembered that he’d found that so intensely amusing at the time, even if he understood what Kaminari had meant by it. As he and Izuku maneuvered around each other now—and when they worked together as heroes or in something so simple as a card game—he understood why it looked like they could see into each other’s heads with such ease.
As Katsuki moved his arm up to grab onto Izuku’s far shoulder, and Izuku shifted lower and grabbed his wrist to pull his arm tighter. As Izuku squatted down and looped his own arm across Katsuki’s back, helping take a lot of Katsuki’s weight as they shifted forward. As they made each slow, painful movement to get out of the car, to move to the bench a few feet away, to sit Katsuki down onto it…
As they moved, Katsuki could feel it. Despite how he lacked strength and thus any sort of grace or coordination, they moved quickly and efficiently. It was a push and pull. On a far smaller scale and in a very different context, it was the same kind of teamwork that they’d once shared when they’d worked as heroes together.
It was the kind of deep awareness and understanding that could only come from knowing and paying attention to another person for so very long. They couldn’t read each other’s minds in the slightest, but they’d spent so long trying that they knew the end results. They knew what the other would do, how they’d move.
There wasn’t a direct connection to their thoughts so much as that they traveled along the same wavelength. They were on the same page simply because they’d both been studying each other’s books for their entire lives.
Katsuki’s head spun with the intensity of his thoughts and memories and emotions as Izuku helped him sit down on the bench. He slumped slightly against the back of it, finding a good degree of frustration from the fact that the bench cut off so low. He’d have to support his upper back and neck all on his own.
Katsuki nearly smiled from some strange, fucked-up sense of amusement as he realized just how weak he’d become. On the grounds of the school where he’d once vowed to become the Number One Hero over and over again, he was exhausted simply by the idea of having to sit up on his own for a prolonged period of time.
“Are you alright, Kacchan?” Izuku’s voice cut into his thoughts.
Katsuki blinked his slightly blurry eyes, flitting them up to watch as Izuku moved to sit next to him on the bench. He only nodded in reply to the question, if only because there was nothing to be done about anything that was making him not alright.
Nothing except this conversation and its potential results.
Looking slowly from Izuku over to the trees, for a long moment Katsuki just watched them blowing slightly in the wind. This sight was one that contrasted so sharply with the groveyard from his memory and his dreams. These trees weren’t spaced so far apart and were placed far more randomly. The branches of neighboring trees overlapped without care.
It was as deserted and nearly as quiet as the groveyard had been, though. None of the strange eeriness was there, but besides the wind rustling the branches and the occasional birdsong, it was very quiet on the UA campus today.
“Where is everyone?” Katsuki murmured.
“It’s nearly April,” Izuku replied. “New school year, remember? Everyone’s on break right now.”
“Right,” Katsuki muttered distractedly.
He was asking despite how he didn’t really care and wasn’t really thinking about it. He was stalling, and his hammering heart knew it. He stalled even now, as the fear started to rise up inside him again.
Thump. Thump. Thump. Thump. Thump. Thump.
Katsuki felt like he might vomit from the intensity of his nervousness, but he also felt ready to keel over at any second. The fear of that was enough to move his throat and tongue and lips to force himself to speak. Tilting his head to look up, he gazed at the cherry blossoms that were in early stages of bloom. Overhead, the sky was so blue and clear in the same way as it’d been on the day all those years ago.
“That spring after the war ended… on that day when we were with All Might,” Katsuki began wistfully. “We were somewhere around here, weren’t we?”
“It was a bit closer to the school, I think,” Izuku said, turning to look briefly down the road towards the school.
Katsuki’s head jerked as he looked over at him in astonishment. “You remember that?”
“Well, kinda…” Izuku shrugged, turning back to look at him. “A lot of the campus looks pretty similar. Once you’re in the trees, anyways.”
Katsuki remembered that day better than most, but he still found himself a bit impressed. “You really are such a nerd… that was so long ago.”
Izuku completely ignored the jab, replying with a nod and a small smile. “Yeah… it feels like a lifetime ago, doesn’t it?”
Katsuki scoffed lightly, looking up at the trees as the memory swam before his hazy eyes. “Tell me about it.”
One of the best moments of Katsuki’s life… a sunny spring day with a slight, warm breeze. He’d been here with All Might and Izuku. Sometime after school, on the UA campus surrounded by cherry blossom trees. All Might had complimented them and congratulated them on their progress and successes.
Izuku had laughed and smiled so widely that it practically took up his entire face. His hair blew lightly in the wind. He’d looked so happy and mesmerizing in that moment that Katsuki remembered being momentarily caught off guard by his own heart skipping a beat.
Katsuki remembered that the genuine smile was breaking out on his own face before he could stop it; he didn’t care to pretend it wasn’t. He remembered that everything seemed so bright and hopeful in that moment. Even with the embers of One For All slowly fading and the future not as certain as it should have been, Katsuki remembered feeling like they’d figure it out. He’d felt empowered back then to carry on All Might’s legacy with Izuku. He’d felt light and free and… happy.
The cherry blossom petals had fallen around them, drifting on the breeze.
A lifetime ago, indeed.
Now, Katsuki stared up at the cherry blossoms that would soon be in full bloom. Life felt so much heavier. His entire body was in so much pain. He was exhausted to a degree he didn’t previously know was even possible. There was so much weighing him down and he just didn’t feel strong enough to carry it alone any longer.
Cherry blossoms… that bloomed in the spring.
New life, renewal, beauty.
Cherry blossoms… that died out within weeks.
The fleeting nature of life, impermanence, mortality.
Hanahaki disease had been exceptionally cruel to Katsuki when it’d chosen cherry blossoms to grow within his lungs. Really, nothing else would’ve made any sense, but he still found it to taste so bittersweet on his tongue. It was so fitting that it almost made him angry, and if he were still strong enough he might’ve done something like throw something or yell or explode.
As it was, Katsuki could only sit there, heart kept beating by a tiny piece of metal and lungs expanding as much as they could with how diseased they were. He could only sit there and wonder if he’d lost his sanity at some point along the way. If he’d lost his personhood, his ego, his sense of self. He remembered who he’d been all those years ago in high school… and now he had no idea who the hell he was.
Now, he was so very lost.
“Will you…” Izuku’s voice was hesitant, and he paused for a long moment before he tried again. “Will you let him come visit?”
Katsuki tensed, immediately gritting his teeth so hard that they ached. He didn’t have to ask to know who Izuku was referring to.
All Might.
“Shut up.”
“Kacchan—”
“I can’t… just stop, okay?” Katsuki heard the plea straining his irritated tone. “I… one thing at a time, dammit.”
“O-okay.”
Katsuki squeezed his eyes shut for a moment, breathing as much as he was able as he tried to get his head to stop spinning. He was so fucking overwhelmed, and he didn’t feel like he could do this. If there was one thing he didn’t want to think about, it was the possibility of All Might showing up right now to see how pathetic he’d become. He wanted to vomit at the very idea of it. He couldn’t—
Step one. He forced himself to think. Breathing the oxygenated air into his shitty, diseased lungs, he tried to shove it all from his mind.
If he didn’t focus, he would die. He would get overwhelmed, he would run out of time, and he would die. The branches and roots and stems would tear his body apart. The flowers would unfurl from his open wounds, so happy to finally be free of their cage made of rot and filth and diseased flesh.
Any further spiraling was cut off by Izuku speaking again, blurting out suddenly, “You were so cool.”
Katsuki glanced at him, his silence and attention a clear request for elaboration.
“I mean… back then, the doctors said you likely wouldn’t regain the use of your arm,” said Izuku, waving his hands in weirdly frantic circles to accompany his explanation. “Everything with your heart too… you overcame it all. It was amazing, Kacchan.”
Katsuki stared at the shine in Izuku’s eyes that came from the beginnings of unshed tears. He stared at Izuku’s wild movements and felt how the anxiety and distress were practically radiating off him.
The grief and shame and longing were drilling a hole in the center of Katsuki’s being, and it hurt so fucking bad. Still, he didn’t look away.
“I remember thinking on that day—back in high school,” Izuku added a bit tentatively as he looked off to the side, “that it was really nice to see you smile.”
Katsuki’s heart fucking stuttered in his chest from the unexpectedly forward comment, before kicking back into gear and going directly into overdrive. His stomach fluttered as he gaped at Izuku. It was such a simple statement, but… it just wasn’t the sort of thing they usually said to each other. It caught him off guard so much that his brain just didn’t seem to know what to do with it for a long moment. His face suddenly felt hot.
“I just mean that I saw some of how frustrating recovery was for you back then,” Izuku continued on in a rushed voice, still looking off to the side as he grew increasingly earnest as well as increasingly red in the face. “The lack of progress sometimes and the panic attacks and all of it… you didn’t let it keep you down, but I could tell that it would weigh on you sometimes. I hadn’t seen you smile like that in a little while, and… it was good to see you happy, is all I mean.”
Katsuki’s chest ached as something like fondness or nostalgia rose up and mixed with all the fear and dread that had made a home there. The comment was so overwhelming and unexpected that at first he didn’t even know what to say in response to it.
“Were you happy?” he found himself asking.
Izuku finally looked back at him, eyes widened slightly with surprise. Then he nodded and offered a smile. “Yeah, of course. I was with you and All Might. Cleanup and recovery after the war had been going well. It was spring, and the cherry blossoms were in full bloom.”
He glanced away as he said it, looking up to the trees again.
Katsuki watched him for a moment. He watched a strange, conflicted look flicker across Izuku’s face for a moment before it settled back to something more neutral.
“I’d decided to become a teacher, and UA had already agreed to give me a position,” Izuku continued. “You and the others were all going to officially become Pro Heroes. Things were going to be okay, and I was so happy about that.”
That smile pulled at his lips, the one that didn’t reach his eyes in the way that it should.
Katsuki stared at it as his heart thundered wildly. Some visceral stirrings of rejection and anxiety were stirring up in his gut as Izuku’s words sparked the memory of that night, all those months ago.
“The armor made me very happy, but my feelings haven’t changed. I think I’d enjoy being a teacher even if I still had One For All.”
That tone of Izuku’s was back now. The one that Katsuki hated on a soul-deep level. It was chocked full of optimism and gratefulness and yet somehow the words still felt hollow. Katsuki wasn’t sure how he knew something was off… he just did. He just knew Izuku from an entire lifetime of trying his best to understand him, and so he knew something had to be off even if he couldn’t read Izuku’s mind to know exactly what it was.
“I have a job doing what I love and now I’m back being a hero with you guys! That makes me so, so happy! Thank you, Kacchan and Kirishima!”
Not so simple or obvious as a total lie, but just… empty. Surface level in a way that lacked complete sincerity.
It still didn’t all add up to Katsuki.
If Izuku was completely fine and happy with life, why hadn’t he wanted to use the armor more when they gave it to him?
Izuku was a damn nerd to this day, and they’d handed him multimillion-dollar tech that was similar to the stuff All Might himself used to fight All For One. Yet, Izuku had ended up treating it like a side assignment that he would get around to if he had the time.
It still made Katsuki’s brain hurt a bit when he tried to accept that. He couldn’t, because he didn’t understand. Something wasn’t right. Something had to be not right, because otherwise nothing made sense.
Katsuki eyed Izuku carefully, and he thought that Izuku probably was grateful. To this day, the selfless bastard had no ability to take himself into account. He probably really, truly, assumed this was a life he should be grateful for.
Maybe Izuku’s words weren’t insincere so much as too simple… grasping for positivity and ignoring the rest of it.
What was Izuku hiding? Katsuki had only seen through the cracks here and there over the years, and apparently others had too, but otherwise Izuku only smiled and talked about how grateful he was. He was excited for all his friends becoming Pro Heroes despite how he hadn’t been able to join them at the time.
In retrospect, Katsuki also realized that Izuku hadn’t seemed too desperate to try, either. Despite how Izuku had originally planned on trying to be a Quirkless hero—long before All Might and One For All—once he was Quirkless again, he’d appeared to have no intention to try in the slightest.
Once he’d been given the armored suit and a clear path back to heroics, he hadn’t been in any hurry to join them then, either.
Izuku’s life dream had been to become a hero, and yet he’d acted like everything in high school was enough to satisfy that dream for him. He’d smiled through it all.
Katsuki wanted to understand. He wanted to easily accept the changes in Izuku’s life and desires and perspective, but he couldn’t because he just didn’t get it. None of it added up in his head in the way that it should.
He was no longer satisfied with the idea that it was because he didn’t know Izuku as well as he should. He’d been watching Izuku his entire fucking life, as much as he would’ve denied it adamantly a decade ago. He knew Izuku, and so even if he couldn’t understand Izuku’s thought process sometimes, he could usually parse together some kind of explanation behind why Izuku did what he did.
That’s why this situation had made so little sense. He’d spent months trying to figure it out and yet he still didn’t get it. Something still felt off.
Why would Izuku favor teaching over heroics? Why would the world’s biggest hero nerd ever choose anything over something that was actively working in heroics? Something that contributed directly to bettering heroics as a whole—gathering data for hero support tech?
Katsuki was determined to know the entire truth before the end, even if it was the last thing he ever did. There had to be something else, right?
…right?
If nothing else, Katsuki needed to have some answers for why this whole thing started.
“Do you ever miss it?” asked Katsuki.
Izuku turned his head to meet his eyes. “Hmm? Miss what?”
“You and I, working together like we used to.” All of Katsuki’s limited additional energy went into keeping his voice even and neutral. Not allowing it to waver or break. “The way things were back then. Do you ever miss it?”
There was Izuku with that damn smile as he looked away again. His passively content smile and the slightly vacant look in his eyes.
“I think I’ve said this before, but those few years with One For All were an exception for me—because I was born Quirkless,” he said in his shitty, overly positive tone. “It was a great honor. So… when it was gone, it was just back to the way it was before, but now I had so many new friends. I’d learned so much.” He offered Katsuki a soft smile. “Things between us were so much better too, and you were as amazing as ever.”
Katsuki wished the words didn’t make him feel nauseous. He forced his expression not to change even as he felt everything so intensely that he was using every remaining ounce of strength in his body to keep from keeling over.
“It was easier than it’d ever been to see all the amazing things you could do,” Izuku went on, then paused to let out a quiet laugh. “I guess we did grow up, though, because I stopped chasing after you, finally. I knew I’d had my time. I was happy to watch from where I was.”
Katsuki stared at him, chest rising and falling quickly with how little his lungs could expand at this point. He fought to comprehend what Izuku was saying. He knew the two of them were very different in many ways, but…
Well, Izuku had grown up Quirkless, but he’d been so determined to be a hero that he hadn’t let anything deter him for many years. Despite how every person in his life told him he couldn’t do it, he obstinately stuck to his dream. He’d admired how All Might saved people and inspired people, and he’d wanted to do the same.
Izuku had wanted it badly enough that he endured mockery from everyone around him. He’d wanted it badly enough that he’d kept going forward despite how many times Katsuki had shoved him down in their youth. He’d wanted it badly enough to break his own body over and over again once he had One For All…
It just didn’t make any sense. It hadn’t actually been Izuku’s goal to become the Number One Hero and win against villains… that’d been Katsuki’s goal. Izuku’s love of heroes and what he’d wanted for the future had always been less about accomplishments and more about a general inspiration and love of heroics. He liked saving people and clearly wanted to just try his best to embody All Might’s legacy.
Izuku had beat the most powerful villain in the world… but he hadn’t wanted to be a hero to fight villains. He’d always viewed fighting villains as a part of heroics, but not the main appeal.
Katsuki understood that the two of them were very different, but if anything, this difference would make more sense if Katsuki was the one who’d somehow decided he’d done it all. How had Izuku been fine with just having his time? How could he already feel like he’d accomplished everything he’d ever wanted?
“…stopped chasing after you…”
So Izuku saw himself as behind Katsuki, but he didn’t care to catch up? Or did he just not care about any of that anymore? Did he just not care where he was relative to anyone else and was content to go on alone?
“I guess we did grow up.”
Why did it all still not make any sense? Was Katsuki still just in denial about how behind he was in comparison to his peers? Did his desperation to hold onto the past actually just result in him being childish and immature? Was it really that simple? Was that really the answer? That he just needed to grow up?
Katsuki felt his face twist into a slight grimace as his gut twisted and writhed with anxiety and uncertainty. Much of what he’d talked about with his dad started to buzz around in the back of his mind. Everything his dad had said, about everyone around you seemingly having it figured out. The stuff about no one actually having it all figured out. The stuff about how you don’t turn a certain age and then magically have your life together.
Despite all that, at the moment Katsuki really couldn’t help but think that Izuku had to have some shit figured out that he didn’t. Because Izuku was saying it so definitively, as if growing up was a line he could see and had crossed.
Really, Katsuki didn’t feel like a child, he just felt lost. What the hell did growing up even mean for him? What had it meant for Izuku?
What did growing up mean when the road ahead looked so genuinely impossible to overcome? What did growing up mean… when Katsuki was almost twenty-five years old and he was so exhausted he could barely sit up? What did growing up mean, when he had a failing heart and a skin-and-bone-body and fresh wounds cut into old aching scars?
What the hell was growing up supposed to mean, when it’d already been so many years since he felt the way he’d felt as a child? When the good parts of his youth had long abandoned him?
Katsuki knew the world wasn’t the way he’d thought it was and wanted it to be back when he was a kid. He knew he couldn’t go back.
He just… didn’t know how to go forward like everyone else so easily did.
“How’d you do it?” Katsuki asked, in a somewhat stilted tone.
“What do you mean?” Izuku glanced at him, brow furrowed. “Do what?”
Katsuki gazed at him steadily, wishing he could pry all the answers right out of the damn nerd’s brain. For all their differences, Katsuki had still worked off the assumption for years that they’d both wanted to get back to their childhood dream. He’d still assumed Izuku would want to go backwards, too.
Maybe Izuku wouldn’t have a damn helpful thing to say to him, but he found there was a strong desire to keep asking. Katsuki felt vulnerable… and there was that old instinct to seek out Izuku.
“How’d you accept it?” asked Katsuki. “That your time as a hero was done so soon.”
How did you move forward?
“Oh…” Izuku frowned thoughtfully. “Well, like I said, I used to be Quirkless, so—”
“Doesn’t it hurt, though?” asked Katsuki. Desperation was greatly limiting his patience. “Doesn’t it ever piss you off?”
“Being Quirkless?” asked Izuku in complete confusion.
“All of it.” Katsuki stared at him intently, searching his face over and over again for some answer that made sense. Anything at all that added up correctly in his head. “That you had a Quirk and lost it. That you couldn’t go on to work as a hero after high school while all the rest of us did.”
Izuku nodded thoughtfully as he spoke, then replied, “I mean, sure, I was upset at first, but like I said, I was Quirkless before all this. So, I’d been there before in terms of not having a Quirk and not being able to do what my peers could.”
Katsuki’s agitation grew. He felt like they were going in circles, and he was no less confused about anything.
“So that’s it?” he asked heatedly. “You’re not pissed off that you’re back at square one?”
“I’m not back at square one,” Izuku countered immediately, shaking his head. “I wasn’t then, either. I have a lot of friends, and I’ve learned a lot. I have a close relationship with All Might and with you. I’m able to put all I’ve learned to good use. That’s way more than I had before, and way better than I ever could’ve hoped for if I hadn’t ever had One For All.”
Katsuki felt like he’d heard all this shit before. Hearing it again wasn’t making a goddamn difference.
“You’re not upset about any of it because you think you don’t deserve any better?” he asked, openly exasperated now. “That’s what you’re saying?”
“Uh… it’s not really about deserving, I think,” said Izuku, a bit uneasily as he seemed put off by Katsuki’s mounting frustration. “It’s just kinda… the way the world is. People aren’t born equal.”
“Hmm.” Katsuki made a low, noncommittal noise of acknowledgement before his shoulders slumped and he looked off to the side, back up at the trees.
The way the world is…
In a way, Izuku was saying something similar to the realization Katsuki had had earlier that day.
Life is fucked up.
It’s just the way the world is.
So Izuku had reached complete acceptance somehow. He’d moved forward a long time ago. He’d moved on long before he’d been offered the armor. He’d grown up and turned down the armor so entirely simply because he no longer cared about heroics. It was completely in the past for him somehow, because he’d moved on without any interest at all in looking back.
But… how?!
Katsuki tried to visualize the road ahead… tried to visualize any part of his life… tried to figure out where the hell he was right now, and he just couldn’t. He couldn’t picture a future not shrouded in darkness and uncertainty. He was so tired and nothing at all made any sense, and he had no idea where to go anymore.
Was the answer really just that Izuku was stronger than him? In the end, was it just that yet again Izuku was strong while he was weak? Was it simply that there was no road dark and unfamiliar enough that it would stop Midoriya Izuku from forging ahead?
Izuku had just accepted and moved forward. But how? Also, when?! When the hell did Izuku even accept any of this?
Izuku had pivoted his lifelong dream so effortlessly. He’d only ever smiled when the embers of One For All were fading away. He only ever smiled when Katsuki and all their classmates went on to be heroes without him.
It didn’t make any sense.
Katsuki rubbed over his aching, tired eyes. His lower back hurt more and more by the minute from sitting on this damn bench. Enough so that he was actually starting to really notice it, despite the overwhelming pain in his lungs and chest.
God, this sucked.
It’s just kinda… the way the world is.
Katsuki wished that explanation offered him any peace. He wished he understood, but he didn’t. He simply couldn’t conceptualize the idea of suddenly and easily changing the thing he’d dreamed of his entire life. It wasn’t how he was built… and he had been so certain that Izuku was the same way.
Maybe that’s what was throwing Katsuki off so entirely. For all their differences, he’d thought they were the same in this way. When Katsuki had always thought of his life—his past, his present, and everything he wanted in the future—it was all so entangled with Izuku that he hardly knew where he ended and Izuku began.
Katsuki had been so certain they were on the same path, racing each other to the same finish line.
Now…
If they’d always been together, going the same direction, then how the hell did Izuku know where to go? How did he so effortlessly adjust everything in his life?
Katsuki’s chest tightened as his agitation and desperation grew as he continued to try and sort everything out in his mind. He felt it boiling up so much that it felt like it was draining even more of his limited energy out of him.
None of it made sense, still. None of it.
The way the world was… the way the fucked-up world was. It wasn’t about deserving, it was just the way the world was. Everything was fucked up, and somehow Katsuki was supposed to just be okay with it.
How could this be the answer? How could the answer be just to grow up and accept that life sucked, so to be upset about the things that’d happened to him just made him childish? How was the answer to always smile and always point out the good parts and ignore the bad? How the hell did he even get to a point where he felt physically capable of doing that?
Fuck, Katsuki wanted to, but he didn’t know how.
Was he just too weak? Too easily overwhelmed by his emotions? Too angry? Too out of control? Was he really and truly doomed to always be so lost and isolated?
Katsuki glanced sideways at Izuku, seeing that Izuku was still staring pensively up at the trees.
Desperation was slowly turning into despair within Katsuki, and he clenched his jaw hard. If he wanted to move forward… wanted to fight… wanted to do anything at all, then he needed Izuku. He was so fucking lost, and if he wasn’t going to give up then…
Katsuki needed to figure out where the hell Izuku was. If he got to where Izuku was, then things would make sense again. Izuku didn’t seem to understand that it wasn’t that he just stopped chasing after Katsuki, but that the two of them just split off in completely opposite directions at some point.
It felt like his heart would explode out of his chest again, with how the pressure inside him built without release.
“I guess I’m just not there yet,” Katsuki gritted out, his voice hoarse and rough with the mounting confliction raging within him. “Maybe that makes me childish but… I’m still really pissed off.”
I’m pissed off my heart was destroyed and now it’ll never work the same way again. I’m pissed off that you had to give up One For All and we were separated. I’m pissed off that nothing’s the way I wanted it to be when we were kids.
“About what?” asked Izuku, a bit cautiously.
“About what happened back then.”
Katsuki answered vaguely, because he didn’t yet have it in him to voice the rest of it. He didn’t have the strength to listen to Izuku tell him that his heart being fucked up was just the way things were. He wanted answers that he knew he wouldn’t get, so he kept his grievances to himself like a coward.
“About all of it. There’s so much I still don’t understand.” Katsuki turned to look Izuku in the eye as the pressure in his chest became unbearable. “So explain it to me, Izuku. Tell me how the hell to move past this. Things are fucked up, and I get that, and I’m still angry. I’m still so angry about all of it.”
“You… are?” Izuku only gaped at him as if he’d said something completely appalling.
His complete bafflement only fed into Katsuki’s fury. Some old, defensive instinct flared violently at the reminder of Izuku’s apathy.
Right… Izuku could somehow brush off everything. Nothing was special to him, somehow. He was so good at not caring that he couldn’t even comprehend how Katsuki did care about the lives that they once had. The futures they once looked forward to.
Katsuki was once again battling these emotions that Izuku never felt or somehow let go of so easily. His desperation and agitation were pushing inside of him, shortening his temper and making him want to lose it. He was probably at the point where a decade ago, he would’ve started fighting Izuku. All these emotions he couldn’t do a damn thing about and couldn’t seem to get rid of… if only he wasn’t too weak to stand on his own. If only they were still children and beating each other up as an outlet was still acceptable.
“Do you really not care at all about being a hero?” asked Katsuki, all his emotion mixing into a tone that came out sharp and critical. “You’d really rather be a teacher? Is there really no part of you that’s pissed off about what happened back then, anymore? Is there really no part of you that misses working together? That misses One For All?!”
Izuku fully jerked backwards in shock. “Why… why would you even ask me that?”
Katsuki’s temper snapped abruptly.
“Because maybe I miss it, okay?!” he shouted, and his weak voice strained and broke under the weight of his emotion. “Maybe I’m just wondering if you give a shit at all that nothing’s the way we dreamed it would be! Maybe after we figured our shit out in high school, competing with you was the best part of being a hero for me!”
When Izuku just continued to gape at him, Katsuki’s angry tone became more imploring as he added, “Doesn’t any part of you miss back then?!”
“Of course I miss it,” Izuku replied immediately, with a tone that sounded almost offended.
Katsuki snatched onto the admission with a nearly frantic desperation. “But no part of you is angry about it all?!”
Izuku hesitated, the distress and confusion evident in his tone and on his face. “Kacchan… why does it seem like you want me to be angry about this?”
“Because I am!” Katsuki practically snarled as the fury rolled through him and sent the words sharply off his tongue. “Nothing’s the same as it used to be, and I can’t handle it like everyone else can! My heart exploded right out of my fucking chest, and it’ll never work right again!”
Izuku blanched, his expression dropping from his face as he stared at Katsuki in complete and utter dismay.
Katsuki felt the telltale, mortifying tears of frustration and anger and all his goddamn overwhelming feelings welling in his eyes. He coughed a few times from how badly he was straining his throat. He vaguely tasted blood and ignored it. His chest hurt so bad that in any other context he would probably lie down and let himself writhe around in pain. He heard as his own voice grew more uneven and pained with each passing minute.
“All you’ve done for years is smile and talk about how happy you are even though so much shit happened to us back then,” Katsuki rasped out, ducking his head and grimacing even as he was trying so hard to pretend he wasn’t in agony.
“Wait, Kacchan, I—”
“I’m not done!” Katsuki snapped as harshly as his wrecked voice could handle. “All you do is talk about how things are so wonderful. You love your teaching job, and it’s all fine because you used to be Quirkless, and you’re so grateful for all you have.”
He looked up to meet Izuku’s eyes, wiping away the tears in his own with the back of his hand. Izuku looked distraught, brow furrowed and eyes slightly widened as he stared back, waiting for Katsuki to go on.
“Maybe I’m not grateful,” Katsuki spat out the bitter words. “Maybe I would’ve liked to make it out with a bit less scarring and a fully functioning heart. Maybe it’s all fucked—maybe—maybe—” He sputtered, gesturing vaguely as his agitation wormed under his skin and he struggled for words. “Maybe what happened to us is fucked up, and I don’t understand how the hell you’re just okay with it!”
“Okay… okay with it?” Izuku repeated as if almost offended by the words. He sounded indignant when he added, “What’re you talking about?! You think I’m okay with what happened to you?!”
“No, you idiot!” Katsuki half-shouted as his temper peaked once again. “I think you’re okay with what happened to you!”
“To me?” asked Izuku, again echoing Katsuki’s words and looking taken aback. “Like… giving up One For All?”
“Yes!”
“You’re… angry about it?”
“Obviously! Don’t you think it’s fucked up?!”
Izuku had tensed up and was now looking at him carefully. There was a note of something like hurt or disbelief in his tone as he replied, “I’m—I’m not sure what you want me to say to that, Kacchan.”
Katsuki looked away as pain shot through his chest that was quickly approaching a level he wouldn’t be able to ignore. Alongside it, the rejection burned as bad as it did back then. His eyes watered, and the mortification was too overwhelming.
Katsuki bit out in a voice hoarse with anguish, “Fuck—anything! Anything, Izuku!”
He turned back to look into those wide, appalled eyes and was so overwhelmed by the depth of sadness and grief rising up in his throat that all he could do was beg, “Maybe that you gave a single fuck about—about us! About All Might’s legacy! About being a hero!”
Tears welled abruptly in Izuku’s eyes. His reply was affronted and pained. “You know I did!”
“I don’t know anything!” Katsuki yelled loud enough that his voice broke, and his throat protested by making him cough slightly for a moment. It forced him to quiet down, but he still spat out the words, “I don’t know a single goddamn thing except that you’re apparently just fine with how everything went down and how everything is now! How could you ever have cared about any of it if you’re so okay with leaving it behind?! I don’t understand!”
Izuku looked so incredibly hurt that it just made Katsuki even more mad because what right did he have to feel hurt about this?! He seemed to be searching Katsuki’s face for some kind of answer, caught between pained, horrified, and baffled.
“How could you just leave it all behind?” Katsuki begged in his wrecked voice, eyes searching Izuku’s desperately for the answer he needed.
How could you just leave me behind?
Because no matter how anyone visualized it, the truth of the matter was that they weren’t on the same path anymore. They weren’t headed in the same direction. They’d been separated, and while Katsuki had spent years trying to fix it, Izuku apparently hadn’t looked back once.
The pain in Katsuki’s chest felt like it would kill him within minutes, but he couldn’t go until he had this closure at the very least. The pressure felt like his heart could literally burst out of his chest, and he still searched Izuku’s eyes hoping to find something there before it did.
“What do you want from me, Kacchan?” asked Izuku, sounding completely uncertain and hurt. “I—I don’t—what’re you looking for here? Do you want an apology?”
Katsuki felt the rage in his chest spike so dangerously that he nearly winced. It was so goddamn hard to breathe. Was this a nightmare? Why the fuck was Izuku giving him nothing?! Why was Izuku acting so hurt, as if Katsuki had done something wrong?
An apology?!
He nearly scoffed. Izuku’s level of detachment and complete confusion over all this was almost comical.
“Yeah, actually!” Katsuki was fuming mad, madder than he’d ever been in his entire goddamn life. He sneered the words out, dripping with fury and derision, though his tone increasingly devolved back into something sadder and more imploring. “I’d fucking love an apology! Because for a while there, I thought you and I wanted the same thing! I thought we were going to compete to be the next All Might! I thought you were going to be there, and you weren’t!”
His voice broke, and he seethed, crying furious tears. He felt like he wasn’t getting nearly enough of an outlet, despite how much he was saying. He felt like he was letting all of it spill out… but it was just an open wound pouring blood. Izuku was watching him bleed out without any intent to try and stop it, so Katsuki just felt woozy and sick. His sides and back were screaming in pain, as if the roots and stems and flowers were reaching towards all his agony and feeding off it, burrowing deeper and deeper with each passing second.
Slowly but surely poisoning him and tearing him apart.
Izuku looked gutted, tears tracing down his own cheeks. He looked so upset that Katsuki’s chest screamed in pain and the pressure inside him had to be crushing him. Because why the fuck did Izuku look so upset?! Had it really not occurred to him that Katsuki would care at all about them?! Did he really think Katsuki was like him—able to so easily swap out his lifelong dream for something else?
Izuku’s eyelids fluttered for a second as his mouth slowly parted. Quietly, he said, “I’m sorry.”
Katsuki stared at him, stomach rolling nauseatingly. A part of him felt offended because he hadn’t expected Izuku to actually have the audacity to apologize.
What the hell did Izuku think he was apologizing for? That he was able to move on and grow up? That he was content as a teacher? That Katsuki gave a shit about all these things that didn’t matter to him?
“Fuck you,” Katsuki bit out, staring daggers at him through the blur of his tears.
Izuku was staring right at his face, though his eyes had taken on a bit of a strange look. They looked almost slightly unfocused as they watered and streamed tears.
“I… I thought you understood.” Izuku’s quiet tone of voice also sounded off somehow. “I thought…” He shook his head, bringing a trembling hand up to rest on his forehead. “Tell me how to make it up to you, Kacchan. Please. I didn’t… I didn’t realize… I didn’t realize you were so angry about this. You… I understand. I d-do. Just…” Izuku’s voice had become strained with raw hurt, and he almost looked a little green in the face. “I’m sorry.”
Katsuki scoffed. He was beyond baffled. Beyond insulted. In this moment, he definitely felt like a child, caught up on something Izuku had moved on from so long ago that it hadn’t even occurred to him that Katsuki could still be on it.
“Make it up to me?!” Katsuki repeated in complete, disgusted disbelief.
Izuku winced, moving his head jerkily as he looked down and away from Katsuki.
“You don’t have to make shit up to me!” Katsuki cried. “Just explain yourself! Because you’re wrong—I don’t understand shit! I don’t understand you at all!”
Izuku started nodding jerkily before Katsuki was even done speaking. He was trembling, and he looked increasingly unwell. “O-okay, yeah. Okay.” He continued nodding with that weird, vacant look still in his eyes as he looked back up at Katsuki. “I thought you—well, never mind. Okay.”
Katsuki watched, frustrated, annoyed, livid, as Izuku drew in an audible breath and exhaled it out. He looked like he might faint, and it just made Katsuki madder because if either of them had an excuse to pass out right now it sure as hell wasn’t Izuku.
“After Shigaraki absorbed All For One, he was far too powerful,” Izuku began, speaking lowly but clearly. “So we had to attack from within. Transferring One For All over was a way to chip away at him so we could get a direct hit on his soul.”
Katsuki’s brain did a record scratch as he was abruptly thrown completely off track. He stared at Izuku in complete bewilderment as he fought to understand what the hell was happening.
“I wish there’d been any other way, Kacchan.” Izuku was earnest, meeting Katsuki’s gaze with desperate, pained grief. “I do! I’m so sorry! I—I swear I tried everything. I just… I wasn’t strong enough.”
Katsuki’s overwhelming emotions and damn brain fog made it hard to think sometimes, and right now felt like one of those frustrating times. Why the hell was Izuku telling him this right now? He already knew this shit.
“What’re you talking about right now?”
Izuku cried harder, voice growing more desperate and unstable. “I’m so sorry I didn’t find another way. I—I didn’t realize you were so angry with me about this. I—I—”
“Izuku, what the hell are you talking about?”
“Huh?” Izuku sniffled, wiping his eyes messily on his sleeves.
There was a deep feeling of unease and horror creeping up within Katsuki as a part of him started to put the pieces together. “Why are you talking about One For All right now?”
Izuku blinked vacantly at him. “You—you wanted me to apologize… and explain.”
Katsuki only gaped at him.
“And—and I do apologize!” Izuku added quickly. “I am sorry! I would’ve said it earlier if I realized you were so angry with me!”
Katsuki put a hand up to his forehead. His mind spun. His emotions ran wild. His breath wheezed painfully in and out of his diseased lungs. He’d lost track of this conversation completely at some point and he didn’t even know when it’d happened.
“Why… why do you think I’m angry with you?” he asked.
Izuku frowned slightly, staring in equal confusion now.
“Answer me!” Katsuki ordered.
Izuku looked wary as he replied, “Well… that I gave away One For All.”
Katsuki’s ears practically rang as his heart slammed away in his chest. The world fell out from beneath his feet.
He’d never said that.
Had he?
When did they get here?
How did they get here?
Katsuki was mad that Izuku had to give up One For All, not mad at Izuku for giving up One For All. How the hell had that gotten lost in translation? He tried to think back at what they’d said, but his thoughts rushed about too quickly.
Meanwhile, Izuku rambled on, “I get it, I do. I’m so sorry. I know it was All Might’s Quirk and you liked fighting with me—I’m really so sorry, Kacchan! I genuinely had no idea you were upset by this. I mean, I remember you were upset when you first found out, but I didn’t realize you still were!”
He ducked his head, crying and choking back sobs.
For a long, long moment, Katsuki could only stare at the top of Izuku’s head. He felt incredibly off-kilter all over again. Maybe if his head wasn’t so fucking cloudy and slow these days, he’d understand what was going on. As it was, he had no clue how the hell they’d gotten here.
“Izuku…”
Izuku tensed, raising his gaze to stare at Katsuki with wide, vulnerable eyes that pulled harshly at Katsuki’s scarred heartstrings.
“I’m not upset with you because you had to give up One For All,” said Katsuki.
The words rung bizarrely in his own ears as he said them. There was a weird dissonance that came from saying a truth aloud that seemed so obvious to him while actively being forced to realize that it might not be so obvious to Izuku. They sounded strange because he didn’t feel like it was something that needed to be said, but they scraped painfully at the pit within his chest as he realized they most certainly did.
It was so far from reality… but somehow Izuku had believed it.
Izuku looked puzzled. “What?”
“I’m upset…” said Katsuki, “because you had to give it up. I’m upset for you.”
Izuku only looked more confused. “Then why… why did you want me to apologize?”
“Because you left heroics and barely use the armor that we all spent years saving up for!” Katsuki said, equally incredulous but increasingly angry again. “With hardly any explanation, you just acted like it didn’t matter to you!”
Izuku’s mouth fell open. “The armor? I… but I told you I was really grateful for it.”
“But you didn’t use it hardly ever!” Katsuki argued.
“I did when I wasn’t teaching!”
“You turned down the offer to work at my agency like it meant nothing to you!”
Katsuki’s voice went embarrassingly shrill under the strain of his indignation and offense. The words rung out into the air heavy with obvious hurt and pain, and he really was growing too exhausted from his disease because he didn’t even give a shit. He didn’t feel a second defensive flare following his statement. He’d finally brought up the thing that’d started this whole mess, but he didn’t feel something so simple as relief. Instead, he felt like he was close to bleeding out entirely, so maybe he just lacked the energy to take back his words or cover up his hurt.
Izuku’s eyes widened. He looked so shocked that Katsuki might as well have slapped him across the face unprompted.
Now that they were closer to the same page and Izuku was still acting like he was being irrational, Katsuki was driven on by months of fury and a desire to be seen and understood in the slightest. He didn’t even care anymore that he sounded childish and offended. He was so far beyond it.
“I’m upset because I thought we were going to compete to be the Number One Hero!” he cried. “I thought you wanted that too, for all that time, and I didn’t know when that changed! Then you turned me down like it was nothing! Like it didn’t matter to you at all!”
“What… what are you talking about?” Izuku’s voice was somewhat breathless.
“Of course you don’t even fucking remember!” Katsuki hunched over slightly as the pain in his chest dug in too intensely. “Goddammit.”
Would his humiliation never end?
“I just remember when we talked about it for a second a couple months ago,” Izuku replied, a bit nervously. “I think… was it the night of Todoroki’s celebration for becoming Number Two? Is that what you’re talking about?”
Katsuki’s face was in flames, and he was openly crying now because he was in so much pain. There was a feeling of doom growing deep within him that was so terrifying he was sure that it would paralyze him or throw him into a panic within minutes. Rejection burned in his chest, and he could practically feel the roots digging deeper.
The flowers were flourishing. The petals closer to ripping off with each breath he took in.
What had he expected? The entire problem was that Izuku didn’t care about being a hero anymore, so of course he barely even remembered.
“Kacchan, I didn’t realize you were upset about that,” said Izuku, voice tremoring slightly. “I didn’t know it meant so much to you.”
“Shut up.” Katsuki wished it didn’t come out as a sob, but he was so mortified he felt just about ready to die on the spot.
“I… Kacchan, please, I really had no idea.” Izuku’s voice was more desperate and insistent.
“You’re making it worse,” Katsuki wheezed out. “Shut… up.”
He knew Izuku was apathetic to it. He did. Why was he shocked? What had he been expecting? Of course Izuku didn’t give a fuck. Of course he barely even remembered the moment that’d abruptly pivoted Katsuki in this deadly direction.
“I’m so sorry.” Izuku’s voice was barely above a whisper. It sounded watery and thick with emotion.
“I don’t want your pity,” Katsuki rasped out, face in his hands. “Just… forget it.”
It hurt. It hurt. It all hurt so bad, and he couldn’t handle it. He was so tired.
He choked on the flowers and cried and hunched over.
He was dying. He was certain of it. This was it, he was too weak.
He’d sliced open his chest for Izuku to see the hurt… and what had he expected? What explanation would’ve offered him any comfort? He knew Izuku had brushed it off, so why did he even bother showing how much it’d hurt his feelings?
It’s not like Izuku’s reply would feel like anything other than pity. He’d known that.
Desperately, Katsuki clenched his jaw and tried to stop the impending breakdown. He tried to ignore how his heart beat too hard in his chest. He tried to ignore his burning cheeks and his overflowing emotions. He dug his fingernails into his palms hard as he wiped shakily at his eyes with his knuckles. It did so little to help ground him, with the physical agony that was overwhelming him already.
The silence ticked past, and the energy was unbearable. Katsuki couldn’t stand it—couldn’t stand feeling pitied—so he roughly wiped at his eyes once more. He decided at the very least to try and explain himself a bit more before they dropped this topic forever. Before he decided what the hell he should do next… if anything.
“You’ve never been any good at taking yourself into account,” Katsuki began as the emotion drained right out of his voice.
His exhaustion and numbness slowly took over in the wake of the reminder of Izuku’s rejection and the unequal nature of their relationship. The physical pain in his body was also draining him, zapping his strength and motivation to continue talking or sitting here like this.
“You always say you’re fine whenever anyone asks,” he went on. “You’ve always done that. I always thought that was messed up because that meant that you would say that you were fine even when you clearly weren’t fine. You would double down on it and I…”
Katsuki sniffled, staring down at his hands in his lap.
“You’re the same as you’ve always been,” he continued in a quiet, lifeless voice. “Unbreakable. Unchangeable. Doing fine. I think a part of me thought maybe you were just saying you were fine even when you weren’t. I figured a part of you has to feel it, right? Some part of you might hurt because of it all, even if you won’t acknowledge it or talk about it.”
Katsuki closed his right hand into a shaking fist.
“Some part of you has to hurt in the way that I do, right?” He spoke in a voice barely louder than a whisper. “That’s what I’ve wondered about all this time.”
The silence was tense and he practically felt the weight of Izuku’s gaze on him, but he didn’t look up.
After a moment, Katsuki added emptily, “I guess I was wrong. You’ve moved on. You’ve accepted it and found some kind of peace that I just don’t know how to find. I think that’s why none of this has made any sense to me. All the shitty things we went through… I delt with it by focusing on heroics. That’s why… that’s why it hasn’t made any sense to me that you would be completely fine with leaving heroics behind altogether. I’m just not like you, Izuku.”
His shoulders slumped further, and he decided that he would just ask Izuku to take them home. He was too tired for this. What was the point in saying anything more? Izuku had some strength that Katsuki was incapable of.
The defeat consumed him slowly but surely, like a fog rolling in.
“I didn’t want to give up One For All.”
Katsuki’s heart felt like it practically stopped in his chest for a moment as Izuku’s low, solemn voice reached his ears. He sniffled, wiping messily at his eyes again and glancing up as he fought an immediate feeling of incredulity.
Was this a dream?
Katsuki’s gaze zoned in fixedly on Izuku. He was both shocked beyond belief that Izuku had admitted such a thing and thoroughly skeptical that this was even happening.
Izuku was looking back at him with slightly furrowed brows and a faraway look in his eye. That look where it was clear that he was remembering. That he wasn’t all there, despite how he was meeting Katsuki’s gaze.
“It was given to me by All Might,” Izuku went on, a quiet and faraway sound to his voice. “It was how I was able to be a hero like I’d always dreamed of. I was able to go to UA and train to be a hero and make so many amazing friends. You and I were able to repair our friendship for the first time since we were kids. I’d trained hard for it. So… of course, when the Second User first told me what I would have to do, I didn’t want to.”
Katsuki gaped up at him, his heart thundering in his chest. His foggy reality warped and cracked around him all over again as Izuku’s words actively rewrote his perception and memories.
Izuku was still far in the past, not looking at him so much as looking through him.
“I couldn’t win any other way, though, Kacchan,” Izuku continued, voice a bit hollow. “It was the only way. All For One and Shigaraki were too powerful. I wasn’t strong enough.”
Katsuki’s heart squeezed painfully hard as the words triggered his own memory from many years ago.
Gotta win… right, Izuku?
It was the only way…
A memory of accepting that he would never catch up to Izuku. Of choosing duty over life. Of knowing that he would do what had to be done, regardless of the personal consequences. Of knowing he wasn’t strong enough, but that he would give up everything to try to win all the same.
Had Izuku had a similar thought process back then?
“One For All’s purpose was to stand in the way of All For One,” Izuku went on. “It existed to counter it. It only made sense that they would go out together, in that way. So… I transferred it over.”
He said it emptily, and the look in his eyes was blank.
Katsuki could barely breathe through how intensely this knowledge was carving open his chest, but he could only sit there and listen.
“But I…” Izuku hesitated for a moment, brow furrowing slightly. “I realized pretty quickly afterwards that I’d made a mistake.”
Katsuki’s eyes widened in horror, and Izuku seemed to zone in for a moment and actually meet his gaze. He winced slightly.
“Not… not a mistake in transferring One For All,” Izuku hurried to say, though his voice still lacked much emotion. “That’s what the Quirk was meant for. It made sense. I made a mistake… because I…”
Izuku’s head ducked, his messy, tangled hair falling to cover his expression. His hands came up to press his palms over his eyes, rubbing at them somewhat aggressively.
“I guess I hadn’t really considered before that point that I could lose One For All,” he admitted stiffly. “I’d assumed that if Shigaraki stole it from me, that he’d kill me right away. I’d never considered that I would… have to give it away.”
Katsuki stared at him. His chest screamed in pain, but his mind had gone completely blank as he listened to Izuku’s words with a numb sort of horror.
“It was All Might’s Quirk for decades of his life,” said Izuku. “So I guess I’d just assumed that—even if it wasn’t mine—that I would…” His teeth were gritted as he hesitated for a moment. “I guess I just hadn’t considered the possibility of… what ended up happening.”
Izuku was tense all over, and the emotion was seeping rapidly into his tone. Pain, regret, frustration.
“I should’ve known,” he said, as if berating himself. “I should’ve considered it, but I hadn’t. Really, it made sense. One For All only existed to counter All For One. It makes sense.”
He said the words as if reciting them. As if trying to convince himself of them.
It made Katsuki feel like he was going to vomit.
“Of course… of course I was angry about it back then,” Izuku admitted quietly. He added, defeated, “But… there wasn’t anything to be done. What was I supposed to do? There wasn’t… anything to be done.”
Katsuki distantly felt the tears trailing down his own cheeks as he stared. He felt sick and exhausted, and the grief in his chest for once was not his own. It still stabbed through the center of his being just as sharply.
“Things were complicated afterwards,” Izuku went on after a moment, still speaking somewhat lowly and looking downward. “Everything was happening so fast. Everyone was clearly in pain from everything that’d happened. Uraraka was dealing with a lot, Todoroki was dealing with a lot… and you… you’d gone through so much, Kacchan. But everyone was working hard to move forward… and I would too.”
Katsuki desperately choked down a sob. He didn’t want to interrupt—he would rather die than interrupt these admissions—so he balled his hands into fists and stayed silent. He pretended like the intensity of the whirlwind of emotions he was experiencing didn’t feel like it was going to make him pass out or vomit at any moment. The flowers were protesting in his lungs, and he breathed shallowly to try and keep them at bay, even as his head spun.
“All Might told me I could be a hero, back all those years ago, when he gave me One For All,” Izuku continued lowly. “And I’d done it… I’d become one of the greatest heroes along with you all. So… it was time to move forward. To use what I’d learned to help future heroes. That’s what I decided back then.
“And… when All Might gave me the armored suit, I was really shocked. I hadn’t been expecting it at all, and it felt like far too expensive of a thing to entrust to me. I was also… well, All Might said some of the same things to me that he’d said back when he gave me One For All. And everyone was super excited and acting like I was going to be back in heroics like old times.”
Izuku grimaced, hesitating for a moment before he breathed out a long shaky breath and went on.
“I can’t really explain it,” he admitted, a pained and conflicted tone to his voice. “It just… didn’t feel the same. When I was with all of you… it was a lot of fun, of course. I was glad to be able to help gather data for the armor. But… well, there was a gross feeling in my stomach sometimes when I put the armor on. I didn’t…”
The sharp agony of grief was cutting through Katsuki as he listened. The words were a confirmation of something he’d suspected but had seen little evidence for up until now. It was an explanation that finally made sense, but that didn’t mean it didn’t hurt like hell.
It wasn’t so simple as Izuku just not wanting to use the armor…
Izuku was grieving. He was trying to move on from something he hadn’t wanted to give up in the first place. He was trying to move on from something that he didn’t even seem to think he had the right to grieve.
The armor had done nothing but throw a massive, multimillion-dollar wrench in that plan.
“I was happy to have saved everyone and made All Might proud,” said Izuku, sounding suddenly earnest. Almost forcefully so, as to preemptively fend off accusations of not being happy or grateful enough. “I was happy to be acknowledged by him. It was everything I’d always wanted and more. More than anything I ever could’ve hoped for if I’d never had One For All in the first place.”
He inhaled deeply, looking upwards and off to the side as he seemed to be forcing himself to breathe evenly.
Katsuki stared at the tears trailing down Izuku’s cheeks and the suppressed anguish twisting his expression. Never in his life had Katsuki ever wanted to be able to save someone more than he did now. To fix things. To take away all this that weighed Izuku down so intensely.
“And… I knew that I was the ninth user,” said Izuku emptily. “I was only a vessel for the First User’s power… and not a particularly good one at that. I broke my bones a lot… caused a lot of damage… killed someone… So, I was just a part in One For All’s story, and I was honored to be a part of it, truly.”
Katsuki’s heart dropped into his stomach. Killed someone? Who? Shigaraki?
“But Kacchan…” Izuku’s voice broke, and he winced and shook his head jerkily. “S-sorry I…”
He hesitated again.
Katsuki felt torn between guilt at dragging this topic up and a horrible, selfish sense of something like relief. It was obviously difficult for Izuku to think about… but Katsuki hadn’t had any idea about any of this. Of course, Katsuki didn’t want Izuku to hurt but… but Katsuki also understood hurt. It made sense.
It explained everything.
Still, the most overwhelming feeling was an echo of Izuku’s grief as he realized just how much Izuku had carried in complete silence this entire time.
“I can’t talk about it, sorry,” Izuku said eventually, tense and strained. “I… I…”
His hand gripped at the fabric over his chest, then he stilled.
“No, I will,” he said a moment later, voice hardened with resolve. He muttered forcefully under his breath, “I will talk about it because Kacchan asked me to.”
Katsuki felt a tear trail down his cheek as his weak, dying heart squeezed painfully tight. Some deep sense of fondness and gratitude was aching so deeply in his chest. Izuku not only didn’t want to be talking about this, but likely often didn’t think about it much either.
Yet he was doing so now… because Katsuki had told him that he’d been hoping he wasn’t alone in his pain.
Katsuki bit into the inside of his lip in an effort to not move and keep quiet. Even as the pull in the center of his chest grew overwhelming. Even as everything he felt for Izuku seemed much too large to be contained within his body anymore. Even as he again grew dangerously lightheaded from it all.
Izuku was still looking downwards, and he went on, “I made a mistake. By… by not considering that I would lose One For All and still live… and by assuming that I would have a career in the way that All Might did… I… I… dammit.”
He ran a hand through his hair in distress, then closed it into a fist and gripped tight at his own hair.
“I guess I just got too used to having One For All. I got… too attached, I guess.” He spoke in a hoarse whisper. “I know it wasn’t mine. I know it never was. I know I was Quirkless before and so really, everything should just be evened out now. I know that… I do. I swear I do.”
Izuku insisted ardently despite how Katsuki had said nothing in protest.
“But… it feels like something’s missing,” said Izuku shakily, his hands dropping into his lap where he stared at them. “I’m all here, but… it still feels like something’s missing.” His fingers flexed and relaxed ever so slightly. “I’m all here. Everything’s in place, the way it should be.”
There was that tone of voice again, slightly vacant like he was reciting things to himself. He stared for another moment, then balled his hands into fists. His shoulders slumped.
“I really am grateful for all I have,” Izuku continued in a pained, insistent voice. “I’m grateful for my time as a hero with One For All and that I get to be around so many heroes and teach future heroes. I’m grateful for the armor—so grateful. More than I can say. I’m so happy that I can gather data and hang out with the pros for a bit sometimes…”
Izuku was trembling. He put his face in his hands, and his next confession was again a whisper that was barely audible, “But things aren’t the same as they used to be. I’m sorry, Kacchan. I’m so sorry.”
Katsuki’s eyes widened.
“It still feels like something’s missing, even though I’m all here.” Izuku’s voice warped under the strain of his anguish. “I shouldn’t feel like this, but I do. I can’t change it, and I can’t get One For All back, so I just…”
He scrubbed at his hair again with agitated distress then sobbed.
“I’m so sorry, Kacchan. I didn’t realize what I’d said back then upset you. It wasn’t because of you—it had nothing to do with you or—or because I didn’t like working with you. Please believe me.”
He choked on his cries for a second before he went on.
“I just… I spent all these years focusing on my teaching and reminding myself that it was all in the past. Reminding myself that I was Quirkless in the first place and that One For All isn’t mine and… all of that. I’d gotten pretty good at accepting it. But when… when…”
He gripped at his hair, choking on his sobs again for a moment.
Katsuki’s chest had hollowed out as he listened, a pit that hurt so deeply he had no idea what the hell to do with it. His suspicions had been correct, and this was the missing piece.
He understood.
Izuku had only ever smiled and shown a positive face to anyone else but inside he’d struggled a lot to move forwards.
Katsuki heard the raw grief in Izuku’s voice—even as he was so obviously trying to suppress it. It tore him open more than anything had in so, so long because he realized that Izuku had been mourning something this entire time. He suddenly felt like the dumbest, most self-centered person alive as so many things clicked into place so easily.
Izuku had associated One For All with their shared dream of becoming heroes. With All Might’s legacy. Of course he did.
While Katsuki thought of Deku as the other part to his dream, Izuku thought of One For All as his connection to their dream. It wasn’t that Katsuki had held on—trusting the dream to drag him through all the dust and the shit and the gritty parts of life—even as it burned his hands, while Izuku let go.
From Izuku’s perspective, any connection had been cut clean the moment the embers went out. All that he’d been left with was how he was going to grieve it all… and he’d chosen to do it by smiling through it. Katsuki felt like Izuku had severed their connection that day all those months ago… but for Izuku the connection had been severed unwillingly way back in high school.
Izuku hadn’t known about the armor. He hadn’t known there was another way. From his perspective, for eight years he was simply fully cut off from his dream of becoming a hero. Never to return. No hope of returning. Forced to give up the one thing that’d been the reason he could be there in the first place. He’d been given a chance to stand in the ring and had that chance forcefully rescinded despite all his sacrifice and effort.
Backwards and their planned path forwards… was blocked off completely for Izuku. It had disappeared from view. All of a sudden, going forward in a new direction was the only option and he was forced to turn away from what he’d lost.
Izuku had been mourning their dream. He’d been mourning One For All—a Quirk he’d tried so hard to make his own. He’d been in agony, and hiding all of it. Katsuki could feel his agony now. He could see it in the look in Izuku’s eyes. He could feel it like a physical weight putting pressure on his own chest.
Katsuki’s chest caved in further when he remembered how Izuku had turned him down all those months ago. He’d had the vacant look in his eyes then too. He’d smiled passively, saying the words as if reciting them, injecting a cheerful tone. It had seemed so off to Katsuki back then because it was. His wording had been strange, and Katsuki wondered now with some degree of horror if they’d also been words that Izuku had recited to himself.
How many times had Izuku repeated these words to himself, telling himself that’s how he should feel?
Izuku had been lying. He’d been lying to himself and denying himself any sense of humanity. He’d been clutching his invisible wounds, trying to hide the pain. He’d been invalidating and ignoring his own grief for years, and it’d all but imploded when he’d been forced to go backwards. He’d been handed a way back to heroics after eight years. All the years of smiling and trying to pretend he hadn’t minded giving up One For All had clashed with the new opportunity.
“The armor made me very happy, but my feelings haven’t changed. I think I’d enjoy being a teacher even if I still had One For All.”
Had that been Izuku’s way of justifying to himself why he didn’t want to use the armor? Was that how he’d talked himself into how him continuing to turn away from heroics made sense, even now that he had a way back to it?
Katsuki was horrified… because the lying had worked. Everyone had believed him.
Izuku was only human… of course he’d be hurt. He’d always wanted to be a hero more than anything else. He’d gone to such extreme lengths to get it. Would it not make sense that he would need to grieve the loss of the Quirk he’d done his best to become worthy of?
But Izuku was also Izuku, so of course he would smile and pretend that it didn’t hurt. Of course he would say “I’m fine” and keep going. Of course he would. He’d always been this way. He’d probably be this way until the day he died.
Why would he suddenly change? Why wouldn’t he be in secret agony, putting up a front for the world to see?
Katsuki had held a quiet fear long ago that this aspect of Izuku would collapse under its own weight someday. After all, how long can a person survive when the very core of their being involves not taking themselves into account at all?
In recent months, Katsuki had doubted his own assessment of things. He’d assumed that nothing was great enough to break Izuku. That it wasn’t even possible. Izuku’s strength greatly outweighed anything threatening to collapse his spirit.
But in this moment… Katsuki realized that Izuku wasn’t likely to come crashing down all at once but rather start to tremble as he got closer to that threshold. He’d grow unsteady and start to crack. The edges would fray.
Izuku was strong, but he was still human. Just because he hadn’t reached that limit yet didn’t mean he couldn’t. It didn’t mean that he wasn’t close… that he hadn’t been close for years, in the way that Katsuki was.
Izuku was human, so he would need to find his own way to keep moving.
Katsuki realized, as he processed everything that’d been said, that maybe any direction was fine for Izuku… as long as it wasn’t backwards.
Except that, unlike with all their classmates, backwards for Izuku seemingly included being a hero. Backwards held a past he’d rather forget. Backwards held pain and regret and a grief he wasn’t allowed to feel. Backwards held a whole section of dreams and paths that he used to have access to and no longer did.
Izuku had struggled so intensely to move forward, that any step backward felt dangerous, impossible. Any step backwards was a reminder of all that pain and regret and a grief he wasn’t allowed to feel. Any step backwards was a reminder of dreams that had been taken from him. Any step backwards was a reminder of a life he’d spent years desperately convincing himself he was fine without.
Katsuki’s head spun. He’d failed Izuku. All this time, he’d failed him. He was supposed to know Izuku better than anyone else. He’d seen Izuku’s humanity slipping through the cracks before, and yet he’d said nothing when Izuku was magically fine again. He hadn’t made him talk at any point, despite how after the war he’d definitely known that Izuku was a little off. He’d gotten caught up in his own shit…
Everyone had gotten caught up in their own shit, and no one had checked in on Izuku. Not enough. Not in the way he’d needed.
Katsuki had failed him, because he believed him like everyone else did. He let Izuku say he was fine and let him go. He’d clung to the idea of making things the way they used to be, not realizing that Izuku wouldn’t have seen that as an option… for obvious reasons. Not realizing that Izuku would need to know there was another option.
Katsuki knew Izuku better than anyone else. The guilt was suddenly unbearable. Izuku was insanely good at avoiding talking about his feelings… and Katsuki realized that he was the one who should’ve made him.
Katsuki wallowed in pain and uncertainty as he thought back to the years after the war. He thought of how everyone avoided talking about it. He thought of how he himself focused on recovery more than anything. He hadn’t had the mental or physical energy back then to make Izuku face his feelings. He couldn’t even face them himself. They’d all been drowning in regret or dealing with physical pain. They’d all been a little mentally off. And… they’d just focused on shoving onward through it all.
It felt like they were doomed from the start. It felt like they’d been broken and scattered and left to pick themselves up however they could. It had worked out for almost everyone… but not Katsuki, because he’d tied his fate to Izuku. Not Katsuki, because unlike the rest of them who shoved forward, he couldn’t follow. Forward offered something of a terrifying abyss, so overwhelmingly terrifying that going backwards had seemed the only option.
Katsuki had failed Izuku, because the rejection had hurt so bad that he failed to comprehend that it was uncharacteristic of Izuku… for a reason. He’d denied Izuku his humanity along with everyone else. He was supposed to know better. He, better than anyone, was supposed to know better. He’d been blinded by his own poor mental state, just like he had been back in high school.
Had he really sat there and convinced himself he didn’t know Izuku at all, rather than using his damn brain?
What else did Izuku carry with him?
What else did he still carry, despite trying to rid himself of it so intensely?
Katsuki tentatively reached a hand out to Izuku’s shoulder. Izuku looked up when he did, and Katsuki pulled at his shoulder while moving himself forward to the best of his ability.
“It’s okay,” he said softly and hoarsely, as his heart squeezed painfully hard in his chest. “I understand.”
Izuku looked mildly confused as he moved forward with Katsuki’s grip, and Katsuki caught the widening of his eyes even as he jerked him forward and wrapped an arm across his upper back.
Katsuki pulled him into a hug. It was something they’d never done before in their lives, but he found that he no longer gave a shit about that. Even as he so boldly crossed one of the lines firmly drawn between them, he couldn’t bring himself to care as much as he probably should. He wrapped his arms around Izuku, pulling them chest to chest.
They were both shaking slightly and trying to stifle their sobs. Katsuki found that the pull in his heart was unbearable in its intensity. The longing he felt to be closer was impossible to resist, and he wrapped his arms across Izuku’s upper back, ducking his head and pressing them together with all the strength left in his decaying body. All he could do was press closer and wish that it didn’t feel like he needed to become one with Izuku in order to feel steady again.
For a long moment, Izuku was completely frozen, then he suddenly shifted, his arms wrapping around Katsuki’s back and pulling their torsos even tighter against each other.
Katsuki grimaced, ducking his face further, as emotion inexplicably surged up his throat and burned tears in his eyes. Something like longing, like fondness, gratefulness, relief, pain, bitterness, regret, grief…
Something like love was consuming Katsuki with its intensity as Izuku held him.
Katsuki let out a quiet, suppressed sob as Izuku’s proximity thoroughly overwhelmed him. Even in this strange new and intimate context, Izuku was incredibly familiar. Familiar and unbearably addicting, in a way. Because Izuku’s warmth and secure hold was so good that Katsuki felt something within him collapse a bit. There was a desire to relax completely, to lean on him, to trust him in this time of feeling completely unsteady.
Katsuki struggled to breathe even as he felt Izuku’s chest expanding against his own. He wasn’t sure if he could feel Izuku’s heartbeat or if it was merely his own attempting to beat out of his chest. All he knew was that he felt like this place was the best place in the world for him. This place was with someone who would do anything to keep him from falling apart. This was a person that somehow looked at him and effortlessly recognized him, even when he didn’t recognize himself.
Katsuki clenched his jaw, trying to swallow the emotions rising in his throat. He felt a desire to break down completely, and he couldn’t do that just yet because there was more to be said.
“I’m sorry,” Izuku whispered right next to Katsuki’s ear, voice thick from crying. “I wasn’t thinking. I… I don’t know what I thought, but I didn’t realize. I’m so sorry for not noticing how important working together was for you. I’m sorry if it seemed like I didn’t care about… about that.”
“I know,” Katsuki muttered back. He squeezed his eyes shut, holding Izuku with all the shaky, unreliable strength he held in his frail body. His trembling fingers gripped tighter at Izuku’s shirt.
“There’s nothing I loved more than being a hero with you, Kacchan,” said Izuku fervently as he hugged Katsuki back firmly. “I’m sorry I made it seem like that wasn’t the case.”
The past tense in his statement made the grief twist a stab of pain deeper inside Katsuki, but it was the truth of how Izuku saw it. A time that was gone. That had to be gone, if Izuku was going to be okay with what’d happened to him.
Any direction was fine for Izuku, as long as it wasn’t backwards.
Izuku needed to go forward. Being a hero was in the past, for him. Not because he couldn’t be a hero anymore, but because this was how Izuku had moved on. This was how he’d dealt with what he’d endured and lost, by leaving the past in the past and moving forward.
Katsuki just didn’t want to be left in the past, too. He would go where Izuku was. Even if it was forward, into the terrifying unknown.
“I’m sorry I made you talk about it,” Katsuki said hoarsely, “but thank you. Thank you for telling me.”
“I should’ve told you years ago. I didn’t realize it would help. I didn’t think about… I didn’t realize you would take it that way when I said no to working with you again.”
“We never learn, do we?” asked Katsuki, emotion pushing up his throat again and making his voice thick. “How many times are we going to completely misunderstand each other?”
He felt Izuku shift and duck his head.
“Ha…” Izuku let out a quiet, weak laugh. “I don’t know.”
They pulled apart, and Izuku scooted back slightly. Katsuki’s hand actually twitched as he suppressed the effort to reach out for him again. Even just for his hand.
Instead, Katsuki forced his hands to ball into fists and steeled his dying heart one last time. He couldn’t just reach for Izuku’s hand before saying something. His only solace was that Izuku didn’t go far. Katsuki could exert the effort to move his leg to bump his knee into Izuku’s… and luckily Izuku didn’t move his leg away.
“When we were kids, you were always behind me,” Katsuki began quietly. “For years and years… then in high school, you surpassed me and—”
“No, Kacchan, you—”
“No, shut up. You did.”
“I don’t—”
“Oi, I said shut up,” Katsuki offered him a half assed glare that probably looked more like a pout. “My turn to talk again.”
“R-right, sorry,” Izuku said bashfully, scratching awkwardly at the back of his neck.
“As I was saying,” Katsuki quirked his eyebrow at Izuku, who cringed slightly, “back in high school, I thought we were gonna keep being rivals. Competing until one of us reached Number One. That’s why I spent so much time trying to get you that flashy armored suit. I thought, ‘if he’s got that then things can be like that again.’”
“I didn’t realize that you were so—”
“Shuddup, shuddup,” Katsuki cut him off again, cheeks heating. “I know, okay? I know. Lemme talk. For fuck’s sake.”
“Okay, right. Go on.”
“I didn’t think about how it would be for you,” Katsuki admitted lowly as the shame weighed suddenly heavy on his shoulders. “I didn’t… I don’t know where we go from here, honestly.”
The admission surprised even him as it made its way out.
“What do you mean?” asked Izuku, a bit hesitantly as if he wasn’t sure he was permitted to speak yet.
Katsuki only sighed, then said, “I understand now that being a hero is behind you, and you’ve moved forward. The only problem is…” He looked away, off towards the trees and the cherry blossoms. They felt oddly like a slap in the face. He stared at them rather than at Izuku as he admitted, “Things haven’t felt the same since after they stitched my heart back together.”
He felt Izuku tense where their legs were still pressed together, but he didn’t turn to look at him.
“Things felt darker, I guess,” Katsuki admitted lowly. It felt like both a massive understatement and way too vulnerable an admission. “And I thought I could fix it a bit if I could just help you get back in heroics… but it hadn’t really occurred to me that you wouldn’t want to come back. It hadn’t—”
He clenched his jaw, as his throat caught for a moment and the pressure built in his chest. He stared at the cherry blossoms floating on the breeze, felt them rustling in his own chest, and forced the words out. “It hadn’t occurred to me that you wouldn’t need me in the same way I needed you.”
The pause was so thick with unspoken tension that Katsuki couldn’t even breathe. His neck and face heated, and he couldn’t resist glancing over to see Izuku’s reaction.
Izuku was unsurprisingly staring at him, completely astounded. When they made eye contact, he jolted out of his apparent stupor, then stammered out, “Er, what? I don’t—I don’t really understand what you’re saying.”
Katsuki stared at him, forcing his face to remain impassive.
He’s a damn nerd. He reminded himself rather than giving into immediate despair. Gotta be direct.
Painfully direct, apparently.
Katsuki grinded his teeth together as agitation and nervousness squirmed unbearably in his gut. He forced a painful breath in and out. He ducked his head, turning to look back over at the trees. His nightmare from before this in which he’d not been able to speak before he died came to the forefront of his mind, and he parted his lips and forced himself to go on.
“I’m unsteady, Izuku,” he spoke quietly, hardly above a whisper but as clearly as he could manage. “I wish I wasn’t. I wish I felt okay on my own, but I don’t. You can’t be a hero anymore, and I… I understand why. I think it’s complicated for me now, too.”
He looked up at Izuku, heart in his throat, chest compressing with agony. His heart thundered at the complete, shocked attention that Izuku was directing his way. He couldn’t go forwards, and Izuku couldn’t go backwards. Where was the middle ground, for two broken men such as them?
Could there be a middle ground, or did Izuku see Katsuki as going backwards, too?
God, he hoped not.
“Even if not as heroes,” Katsuki said evenly, staring intently into Izuku’s eyes, “can we stick together, after all this?”
Izuku’s first reaction was to look completely surprised, eyes blown wide and mouth dropped partially open. Then, his expression flickered with confusion. “What do you mean, ‘after’? Are you getting surgery?”
Katsuki sighed, clenching his jaw as he searched for the right words. He knew it made sense that Izuku would latch onto that part of what he’d said. But was it too much to wish that Izuku would just answer the question? Or at least acknowledge it?
“Kacchan, what do you mean?” Izuku sat forward impatiently when Katsuki didn’t immediately reply. “Do you think they’ll love you back, or are you getting surgery?”
Katsuki hung his head, suddenly feeling like it was too heavy to hold up. He forced wheezing breaths in and out of his lungs.
Thump. Thump. Thump. Thump. Thump. Thump. Thump. Thump. Thump.
His heart picked up in his chest as he remembered there was more to be said, because as direct as he felt he was being he could tell by Izuku’s reaction that he’d not made any goddamn connections. Even though he knew what he would have to say—what he wanted to say before he died—he still felt uncertain. Even knowing now why Izuku had rejected his offer all those months ago, the feeling it’d invoked back then was still deeply engrained in his memory. There was still an insecurity, an uncertainty, that wondered if maybe everyone had it all wrong, and Izuku didn’t—couldn’t—love him like that.
It was entirely possible that after he confessed right now that Izuku wouldn’t reciprocate.
Surgery…
For the first time since this whole thing began, Katsuki turned the idea of surgery over in his mind with genuine consideration. Not because any of his personal desires about it had changed, but because things with Izuku had now changed.
There was something about seeing the way in which Izuku grieved One For All and the future he’d been trying to leave behind that dug pain deep into Katsuki’s chest.
Katsuki knew for certain now that Izuku would not be okay if he died, like he’d told himself so many times in recent months.
Izuku would say he was fine no matter what, but he was still human. He was clearly still struggling, despite how intensely he’d been trying to hide it all these years. He was still feeling the grief no matter how much he was trying to lock it up and pretend it wasn’t there.
Katsuki knew, as he looked at Izuku, that he couldn’t make Izuku try and grieve him too. No matter how Izuku felt about him, they’d known each other their entire lives. He knew Izuku loved him, even if he didn’t know in just what way. He couldn’t add this strain on top of everything else.
The thought of ripping out the flowers caused Katsuki such an immensely miserable mix of feelings. Despite how the last few days had invoked a proper fear of what would happen to him if he didn’t, the old reasons he’d been so firmly set on the groveyard weren’t entirely gone.
The fact remained that he loved Izuku. He was proud of who he’d tried to be for Izuku. He treasured so many of their memories, and he needed the bad memories to remember why he had to be better. More than any of that, he felt that the entirety of who he was and his life was tied up in Izuku. He would effectively be destroying most of his personhood—including everything he cared about—if he surgically removed the Hanahaki flowers. And that was a best-case scenario.
Still… as Katsuki sat there and thought over everything with this new context, he felt a rising anguish that came along with the realization that his own death could cause Izuku irrevocable harm. When Izuku was already grieving and struggling and trying his best to remain positive in a world that’d done him such a disservice, how could Katsuki knowingly add to that?
Katsuki felt an aching sense of something like defeat. Something like bitter acceptance. Something so complex he struggled to understand it. He felt it intensely in the center of his being as he realized that he loved Izuku enough to do this, in the case that he wasn’t loved back.
It was the nature of his one-sided love, after all. He grew it, all on his own without assistance or reciprocation. He would care for it for years and cherish it more than life itself whether or not it was wanted by anyone else. He would die for it.
It was a bitter sort of amusement that Katsuki felt, when he realized he would also kill it in Izuku’s name. The pride of his life and the evidence of his progress and personhood… he would destroy it because the only thing he cared for more than who they were together… was Izuku himself.
It was more than loving Izuku enough to live for him or to die for him. He loved Izuku enough to tear out his identity, if it meant that Izuku might break a little less from the outcome.
Would his pride be with him until the end? Katsuki had felt his pride coming and going in recent times. He didn’t know the answer, but he knew that he would set it aside now and condemn himself to whatever life was like after surgery.
Katsuki felt the hollowness in his chest ache numbly, and he turned to meet Izuku’s expectant gaze. There was something painful and almost daunting about realizing that he loved Izuku enough to condemn himself to a life as a hollowed-out shell. It was a fate that had repulsed him for months, and that made him feel sick even now.
But he did. The more he sat there, the more he realized that he most definitely did love Izuku enough.
Grieve now or later…
If his love wasn’t reciprocated, then Katsuki’s misery and end was inescapable in any scenario. Except now, things were different. Now, Izuku’s own struggles demanded a last selfless act, and Katsuki knew that he would rise to the occasion at any cost.
Katsuki looked into Izuku’s wide, worried green eyes and wondered just how much Izuku was holding within. Just how much had he still not said? Just how much had he downplayed things even now? Even in his own mind?
As he stared, tears burning and welling in his eyes, Katsuki really didn’t think he could even survive surgery. In that moment, looking at Izuku, it felt like his entire being belonged to him.
Katsuki grimaced from the pressure in his chest. Even as he did, he thought that he would be fine giving Izuku whatever was left of him. If only to save his grief for another day, when things felt better. When hopefully they’d lived a bit more.
He wished the decision brought relief. He wished he didn’t feel the weight settling down on his shoulders even heavier.
Izuku was it. He was the most beautiful parts of Katsuki. He was the best moments of his life and everything he cherished most. He was intimately intertwined with every aspect of his being.
Katsuki breathed in and out, feeling the flowers rustling in his lungs. The ones he loved and feared. The ones that would’ve bloomed so beautifully after his death, left behind to represent the best parts of himself.
It was fine, he realized, because Izuku himself would still be there. His heart ached.
Katsuki felt the decision settling into his bones. He would make Izuku aware of the existence of his love. He would show Izuku what he saw as the most beautiful parts of himself and the things he was most proud of. It would then be up to Izuku whether or not the flowers would dissolve the love back into his body, or if they were to be ripped out of him.
“Since I developed Hanahaki disease, I’ve been telling myself that all the best parts of myself would be ripped away if I lost my memory,” Katsuki began solemnly. “And I still feel like that’s true.”
He felt Izuku’s eyes on the side of his face.
“The person I’m in love with…” Katsuki said slowly, feeling the words sitting heavily in his mouth. “They were involved in practically all the most important moments of my life. My memories… my highest highs and lowest lows… everything that makes my life worth living… everything that I feel that I tried so hard to become… has to do with them in one way or another.”
The air simmered with a strange energy. Maybe it was just that Katsuki felt hyperaware of everything. Of both of them and how close they were. Of his words and how obvious he felt that he was being. His heart had not yet slowed, and his fatigue consumed every part of his body. Even with all that, he was relieved that he wasn’t choking on his words.
“When I would sit and think about it, I realized it only made sense,” Katsuki went on softly, staring up at the budding cherry blossoms, blowing in the wind. He inhaled and felt the movement of the cherry blossoms within his lungs. “If any part of me was going to be taken and used to grow flowers… it only makes sense that Hanahaki disease would use the most beautiful part of me.”
Slowly, Katsuki turned to meet Izuku’s gaze.
Izuku was looking back at him intently, even as tears welled in his eyes and trailed down his cheeks. His face was blotchy and eyes red from how much he’d already cried. His lips were currently pulled downward in a deep frown, and his dark brows were furrowed. His eyes were as sunken in shadow as they’d been for so long now. There was a bit of an abnormal pallor to his face, but his complexion made his freckles and his scars stand out so prominently. His hair was an overgrown dark green mess, parted chaotically around the scar that started on the right side of his forehead and disappeared into his hair. His clothes were a rumpled mess to match his disheveled hair.
Thump. Thump. Thump. Thump. Thump. Thump. Thump. Thump. Thump. Thump. Thump. Thump.
He was beautiful.
It made perfect sense, really. A beautiful love to match a beautiful person. Beautiful flowers that sprouted from that love.
“Hmm…” Katsuki continued to stare at him even as Izuku broke their gaze to wipe at his tearful eyes. “A part of me liked the idea that something so beautiful could be left behind to represent me. We’re all going to die. We can only hope to leave behind something worthy of remembering. We can only hope that we will be thought of fondly by those we leave behind.”
He watched as Izuku’s shoulders tensed and hurried to go on before he could be interrupted.
“So, a part of me was grateful,” Katsuki continued, “that even if I died, the part of me that I cherish most and am most proud of would live on in one way or another. That’s how I’ve thought of it for a while now. Life’s been… life’s been hard for years now, and I felt like this was an outcome that at least left something good behind of myself. Every part of myself that I would want anyone to remember anyways would be used to grow those cherry blossoms.”
“Kacchan—” Izuku started to protest, sounding heartbroken.
“Izuku, just let me finish, dammit.” Katsuki heard the exhaustion in his own voice, and it effectively shut Izuku up immediately. “Look, there’s a lot of reasons things have happened the way they have, okay? There’s a lot of reasons I didn’t want to get surgery—why I still don’t like the idea. I’m proud of how I love this person, okay? I’m more proud of it than anything else in my entire life. It’s not even close.”
Izuku was staring at him in complete astonishment, but Katsuki just went on without pause.
“I’m going to tell you everything, got it?” Katsuki gritted out, though he felt tense from stress rather than anger. It still came out sounding angry, because of course it did. “And no matter what happens, I’ll live, okay? If things don’t work out today, I’ll get surgery.”
His entire being practically buzzed with how obvious he felt he was being, but he knew based off Izuku’s elation and lack of other reaction that he still hadn’t realized what was happening.
“You… you will?!” Izuku’s face scrunched up as tears welled in his eyes again. “You’ll get surgery?!”
“On one condition,” said Katsuki firmly, as his heart thundered in his throat.
“Anything.” Izuku nodded frantically, eyes wide with some agitated mix of fear and relief and anxiety.
“You sit here and listen to everything I have to say,” Katsuki ordered. His wheezing breaths felt like they were coming in and out faster as he approached this terrifying ledge. “And no matter what happens afterward, you remember what I said.”
Izuku’s brow furrowed slightly in clear confusion. “Yeah, o-okay.”
“No matter how you feel about it, this is the part of my life that I’m the most proud of, got it?” said Katsuki vehemently, chest rising and falling quickly. “And—and even if you don’t like hearing it, know it meant a lot to me, okay?”
Izuku’s bafflement grew even as his eyes hardened slightly. He’d tensed up again. “Right. I understand.”
“If I get surgery, I won’t be able to remember any of it.” Katsuki had to jerk his head and look away as emotion welled up abruptly. He was forced to take a moment to breathe and try and calm himself. Still looking away, he added, “So I want someone to… to know…”
His shoulders hunched slightly as unexpected grief welled up inside his chest.
If this part of himself that he cherished most was going to be gone forever, he at least wanted Izuku to see it. Even without reciprocation, his love for Izuku had grown into something that drove him for years and years of his life.
Bakugou Katsuki would be remembered most for the fight he nearly died in when he was seventeen. He would be remembered as a volatile kid who’d swore that he would become the best at any cost. He would be remembered for his power, his heroics, his attitude.
But maybe Kacchan could be remembered as more than that. More than destruction and ruin. More than anger and shouting and a bad attitude. More than a faded hero that never reached any higher than the heights he’d reached before the age of eighteen.
Maybe Izuku could remember Kacchan and all his failed efforts to try and be better. How Kacchan had tried so hard to be worthy of him.
If nothing else, Katsuki wanted Izuku to know that somewhere inside him, there was something gentle and good after all. While everyone else would remember explosive, callous Bakugou Katsuki, he wanted Izuku to remember Kacchan, with all his imperfections that he tried to overcome and the beautiful part of him that he cherished the most.
If nothing else, Katsuki wanted Izuku to see that the way he loved him was beautiful.
“Promise me you’ll remember,” Katsuki rasped out, still bent over and clutching a hand over his failing heart. “Please.”
“Of course,” Izuku said hurriedly. “I promise, Kacchan. Of course I do.”
Katsuki nodded, breathing in and out and trying to steel himself. He searched for the words to start as his heart hammered so intensely that he felt like it was actually shaking his chest with each thump. The silence stretched as he tried to gather his thoughts and feelings and words for potentially the last time… as himself.
His thoughts were interrupted by Izuku.
“I’m… a bit surprised, though.” Izuku spoke quietly, but there was a strange undertone to his voice that Katsuki struggled to place. “I don’t mean this in a bad way, but I just… I never thought you were the romantic type, I guess.”
Katsuki was so surprised by the comment and baffled by Izuku’s demeanor and tone that he just tilted his head to look up at him. He was caught between being offended—because the entire point was that he was trying to talk about how there was a part of himself that he’d kept mostly hidden all this time—and being confused. He stared, but Izuku didn’t even pause as he went on.
“You never seemed all that interested in girls, even after everything happened and a lot of girls started to show interest in you,” Izuku spoke matter-of-factly, but there was still something strange about his tone of voice. “I don’t remember you ever talking about anyone or looking at anyone or… really ever being interested in anyone at all.”
It’s not a girl. The words were on the tip of Katsuki’s loose, exhausted tongue. If Izuku had stopped talking there then they might have escaped, but the damn nerd continued rambling on.
“I always just figured you didn’t really care all that much about romance. You only ever seemed to care about being a hero and I don’t remember you ever even mentioning finding someone attractive! This whole time I—I’ve been so confused because I’ve known you your entire life, Kacchan! We’ve known each other for our entire lives, and I didn’t think you were the romantic type but then you developed Hanahaki disease for someone! And—and now you say all these—these really intense things and I just don’t get it! You want me to remember all this, but I didn’t even know about any of it before this! Of course I’ll do what you ask—of course I will, but I still don’t understand how—I don’t—”
Katsuki found himself utterly perplexed by the strange expression twisted across Izuku’s face. Izuku was looking off to the side, something between a pained grimace and a full-on glare overtaking his features the more he spoke. His tone grew more agitated as he ranted, and it was clear that he’d been sitting on these thoughts for a while.
“Yeah, maybe I’m not the romantic type,” Katsuki cut in when Izuku paused for a breath.
Izuku’s eyes snapped to meet his, and despite the strange expression on his face and energy that he was radiating, Katsuki could read his curiosity in how intently he was directing his gaze.
Katsuki answered honestly, staring back into Izuku’s intense gaze. His heart raced and he felt vaguely faint, but some degree of resolution had settled into his bones. Or maybe he was finally too tired or too scared to hold his tongue. Maybe he just really did want Izuku to know this part of himself, no matter what happened.
“I can only ever remember being interested in one person,” Katsuki said, watching in real time as Izuku’s eyes widened with the shock growing on his face. “I didn’t think I was the romantic type either… and that’s sort of how I ended up dying from this shitty disease in the first place.”
“H-huh?”
“Romantic…” Katsuki grimaced a bit, because it almost felt too simple and too cutesy a word for something so endlessly complex and woven in with years of agony and hardship. “It almost feels like the wrong word. It was more—” He thought back through the various ways he thought of it in recent months before he decided. “—me being a goddamn arrogant bastard.”
When he paused for too long, thinking it over, Izuku said quietly, “I don’t get it.”
Katsuki looked over at him, staring deeply into his eyes even as his mind drifted in the fog, sifting in and out of old memories and thoughts and feelings. He looked at Izuku and felt so very strange as he spoke so openly and honestly about his feelings for Izuku to Izuku’s face.
“I fucked up by falling in love with someone who I thought I’d never lose,” he said solemnly. “I thought they were my other half in less of a romantic sense and more of a—” He hesitated as he again searched for the right way to say it. “—I don’t know. It just felt like that’s the way it was. It felt like they were as much of a part of me as anything else. When I think of my life, I hardly know where they stop and I begin. So much of my life has to do with them because they were just there for so long.”
He spoke earnestly, and he stared at Izuku’s gaping expression and waited for any ounce of recognition. But while he could tell when the gears started to turn behind Izuku’s eyes, his expression largely remained unchanging.
“Don’t think it makes me a romantic,” said Katsuki in a quiet, tired voice. “I think it just makes me an idiot. A delusional idiot.”
Izuku looked like he wanted to protest, the furrow deepening in his brow. Though in the end when his lips parted, what he said was, “What do you mean ‘there for so long’?”
Katsuki quirked his eyebrow even as his heart thundered so hard he definitely felt faint and nausea was violently turning his stomach. When he replied, he wished his voice didn’t come out as breathless and raspy as it did.
“I mean like… since we were kids.”
Izuku looked almost horrified by his response, and Katsuki watched as the gears spun faster. The damn nerd broke from his gaze, glancing to the side and grabbing at his chin. He started to mutter, thumbing absently at his bottom lip, “…mean by since we were kids… before UA… but all the girls avoided him… called everyone extras… so maybe at UA… we were pretty young when we—”
“Hey, Izuku?” Katsuki’s voice wavered. He wished it wouldn’t, but at least the words weren’t stuck.
“Mm?” Izuku acknowledged the question, though he didn’t stop staring into space and messing with his bottom lip.
Thump. Thump. Thump. Thump. Thump. Thump. Thump. Thump. Thump. Thump. Thump. Thump. Thump. Thump. Thump. Thump. Thump. Thump. Thump. Thump. Thump.
The jackhammering of Katsuki’s heart nearly made him lightheaded.
“Whatever happens…” said Katsuki breathlessly, “it’s not your fault, okay?”
That caught Izuku’s attention, and his green eyes flitted over to meet Katsuki’s as alarm started to appear on his face.
“What do you mean?”
Katsuki swallowed, and his throat hurt. His chest hurt so bad. His back, his shoulders, every goddamn inch of him at this point hurt in some way.
“Whether things work out,” he rasped, “or… or I get surgery, it’s not your fault. Just… promise me you’ll stick around. Please.”
“Of course I will,” Izuku agreed in a tone that was almost distracted before going on in a more pointed tone, “but I don’t understand, Kacchan. What’s not my fault?”
Katsuki’s heart was in his throat. He could feel the wideness of his own eyes. He was sure the fear was showing if only because Izuku was reflexively mirroring it more and more by the second. He fought to find the words, to find something to say, dammit.
Katsuki genuinely startled when Izuku’s phone rang. He flinched and his heart jolted so hard it was nearly painful.
“S-sorry, sorry.” Izuku scrambled for his pocket, pulling it out and going to shut it off. But he froze when he saw the caller.
“Who is it?” asked Katsuki. Dread crept up on him very suddenly, if only because there was an entire list of people he didn’t want interrupting their conversation right about now. An entire list of people who he knew were well beyond their limits for how much bullshit they would take from Katsuki and his avoidance.
“Uh…” Izuku stared down at his phone. “Uraraka.”
Katsuki stared at him, trying to read the expression on his face. “Thought… thought you guys broke up.”
“We did…” Izuku frowned, glancing down at the phone and then back up at Katsuki. Then his eyes widened, and he abruptly got to his feet. He stared at Katsuki and the blood drained from his face so quickly that Katsuki was only left staring in complete shock.
“Wait—what’re you—” Katsuki asked, desperation seeping into his voice.
“I’ll be just a sec!” Izuku cut him off somewhat shrilly, striding a distance away—out of earshot—before Katsuki could even react.
“Fuck.” Katsuki gritted his teeth and put a hand over his eyes. “Fucking hell.”
It wasn’t that he thought Uraraka wanted to get back together with Izuku or anything. He knew that wasn’t the case. But Izuku interrupting their massively important conversation to take a random call from her? That stung more than he felt equipped to handle. Especially when he’d been so close. Yet again, he’d been so goddamn close to saying something, and each time he came close and failed it felt like it took years off his life.
Shit, it hurts so much. Katsuki thought bitterly.
One of his hands rubbed over his ribcage, where the goddamn disease was digging through his flesh underneath. He shivered as a chill shot down his spine. The memory of his dream and the ghost of the feelings within it still hung around in the forefront of his mind. He felt increasingly ill, and suddenly he felt like he might actually vomit.
“Fuck,” he groaned lowly again, putting a hand to his mouth.
Maybe it was the rollercoaster of emotions from the whole goddamn day, but Katsuki suddenly had to hunch over and focus on his breathing. His head felt a bit light, now that he was paying attention to it. His heart had been hammering in his chest really goddamn hard for a long time now.
Fear started to climb up his throat and the memory of his dream—of the roots and stems worming underneath his skin and the flowers sprouting from his wounds—was swimming before his eyes again. He tilted his head to look for Izuku, ready to demand he get his ass over here. He didn’t give a flying fuck if Izuku would rather be on a phone call with someone else right now, he had his dying fucking words to say.
But when his eyes found Izuku, his weak, frantic heart dropped into his nauseous stomach. Izuku’s expression was openly horrified as he stared off into the distance, unseeing.
Katsuki nearly dry heaved. What the hell was Uraraka saying to him?
His hands shook as they curled into fists.
Fuck… was she telling him?! What the fuck?!
As he watched, Izuku pulled his phone from his ear, and hung up abruptly. Then he swiveled his head jerkily to look at Katsuki, startling when they made eye contact. He’d gone somehow more scarily pale and almost looked like he was going to pass out. With wide eyes and a horrified expression, he made his way back over.
Katsuki could only watch him, panting, trembling with pain and anxiety, feeling small and pathetic and like he was going to collapse at any moment. Dread was paralyzing him, and that paralysis was only making his panic and fear spiral further.
Izuku stopped before him, and when his expression melted into one that was openly devastated, a pit opened in Katsuki’s gut. He stared up in terror as Izuku stared back with much the same expression. For a long moment, they both just looked at each other, and the air was thick with anticipation.
“Izuku, what—” Katsuki finally managed to gasp a few raspy words out.
“I’m really sorry,” Izuku blurted out, and almost immediately his face twisted up like he was going to cry, and his head dropped as he abruptly looked down.
Katsuki’s mouth snapped shut as all the words waiting to tumble out froze in place.
…sorry?
His whole body went numb at once. His ears practically rang, his vertigo only worsening, and the pit in his stomach was a black hole that only carved away more and more at his insides. His chest hurt so intensely, as if sharp knives were digging through all his ribs, deep into his insides. His throat was starting to burn with the urge to cough, as deep in his chest the flowers were settling into his lower airway. They clogged his lungs… would they soon grow up his throat?
The muscles of his torso spasmed from the pain and the desire to cough sat so low in his gut that it was mixing horribly with his nausea.
As Izuku burst into tears and slapped his palms over his eyes, Katsuki nearly swayed off balance from how rapidly his symptoms were worsening.
Izuku breathed loud, long breaths as if he was trying to calm himself. His hands flexed on his face and he dug the heels of his palms hard into his eyes.
“I didn’t know,” he said. His voice was wrecked, shaky with misery and regret and agony, all of which Katsuki didn’t yet have the damn context for.
Katsuki said nothing, staring in numb horror up at him.
Was… was this a nightmare?
As his vision swam a bit at the edges and he struggled to breathe, Katsuki wasn’t sure if he knew. This felt like a nightmare he’d had before, somehow. This felt like his worst goddamn nightmare.
Didn’t know… Katsuki’s hazy mind echoed as he listened to Izuku’s sobs. Didn’t know what?
He felt like if he tried to speak that he would cough or vomit or pass out or all of the above. His head was swimming. Each breath in and out was a pain that brought little air with it.
“I’m sorry, I’m so sorry.” Izuku shook his head rapidly, ducking his head down as he lost control and sobbed again for a moment. He wiped at his eyes and face messily. It seemed an ultimately fruitless task, as he continued to stream tears without pause.
Sorry… for what? Katsuki thought but didn’t say. His jaw wouldn’t move to open. The words refused to budge, as if not asking would prevent anything from happening at all. As if it would save him from the inevitable.
Finally, Izuku opened his mouth to ramble on in a tone so rushed that it was almost hard to understand him.
“I–I know I’m so oblivious when it comes to these things! Anything romantic, really! I just… I don’t know, I think it’s because no one ever really liked me growing up, romantically or otherwise so I really just don’t know what it looks like a lot of the time! Unless it’s super obvious, I—I don’t always notice! I know it should’ve been! I know—I know now that everyone else noticed, but—but no one told me anything!”
For a moment, Katsuki was sure that his heart actually stopped. He couldn’t so much as blink. His foggy, depressed mind struggled to keep up with what the hell was going on. He couldn’t breathe.
Izuku… knew.
Oh god, oh god, oh god.
Uraraka had told him.
What the hell? Why?!
Katsuki’s stomach churned violently and his chest spasmed again as he suppressed the urge to cough. He moved a shaky hand to his mouth as if that would keep anything in. His wide eyes couldn’t leave Izuku, even as horrified tears started to blur his vision. His throat burned unbearably as he tried not to cough. He felt like if he started to cough that he wouldn’t be able to stop.
Was… this Izuku rejecting him? Was he being rejected right now? Izuku was turning him down?
Before Katsuki had even said anything?
Is this a nightmare? He thought distantly. When he became aware of just how uncomfortably hard his heart was beating in his chest, he wondered, Am I dying?
“And… and, well, with you, I know we’ve known each other for so long, but I've never actually seen you in a romantic context!” Izuku was scrambling to speak, trying to control his sobs, his tears running out of his eyes. His words still tumbled out of his mouth hastily. “So honestly, I didn’t know what it looked like. I didn’t… well, I just didn’t really notice anything until recently, I’m so, so s-sorry!”
Katsuki tried to force an inhale but stopped it short when his stomach lurched again. A tear dropped off the eyelashes of his right eye, trailing ignored down his cheek as he still felt mostly incapable of movement.
Uraraka must’ve found out about how he’d been hospitalized and decided that enough was enough… but he couldn’t comprehend it. This moment that he’d been spending so many months avoiding or working up to or thinking about… and it was suddenly here. The worst of his fears was being shoved right in his face. Right as he’d been about to do it on his own terms, too.
Izuku had dissolved into sobs, gasping and choking for air, head bowed. Still, his rambling never ceased, “I never meant to hurt you or—or to cause all this! I swear I didn't notice how you felt, Kacchan! I never would’ve gotten together with Uraraka if I knew that would be the start of all this!”
Katsuki could barely hear Izuku over the wheezing of his own labored breathing and the pounding of his own heart in his ears. He could barely hear him over the sound of his own thoughts and numb realizations.
Izuku knew.
He knew Katsuki was in love with him and he was apologizing.
He wasn’t confessing.
He was apologizing.
Katsuki’s mind buzzed with white noise. He felt like he might pass out. His chest spasmed again, and it hurt so bad he swayed where he sat, slumping a bit as he wrapped his arms around himself protectively. His fingers dug shakily into his own shirt.
With a horror that was somehow both numb and all-consuming, he watched as Izuku fell to his knees and put his forehead to the grass. A full dogeza-style apology.
“I’ll do anything to make it up to you!” Izuku was pleading. “Please, please… tell me how to make it up to you! I know you said it wasn’t my fault, Kacchan, but—but—please let me try and make it up to you!”
Katsuki felt like bile was rising in his throat. His ears were definitely ringing now, and the edges of his vision were undoubtedly going a bit fuzzy. It was probably lack of oxygen, seeing as he couldn’t really breathe.
Distantly, he felt a horrified kind of acceptance—that was draining the last bits of his strength—settle somewhere within him.
Ah… right. This was exactly what he’d expected. Here was Izuku, willing to do anything to save him. Anything but love him, because it wasn’t like you could make yourself love someone.
Katsuki had known, hadn’t he? He’d known this was how Izuku would react, which is why he’d wanted to avoid this situation so intensely. He’d known that Izuku didn’t and couldn’t love him, so why was he so horrified to have it confirmed?
Why did it still feel like it was killing him?
“I swear, I had no idea how you felt!” said Izuku, practically sobbing out his words. “I—I didn’t—I don’t know what to do now. I’m sorry I started all this, Kacchan. I’m s-so sorry.”
Katsuki’s vision was blurring over, darkening at the edges, though he didn’t know why. Had he forgotten to breathe? Was it the shock? Was his heart giving out? But more than that, he really, really needed to both cough and vomit, now. He couldn’t breathe and his stomach was seconds from sending up its limited contents. Izuku’s voice had largely faded into the background.
“I had no idea you were in love with her,” Izuku sobbed out from his place on the floor. “Please believe me, Kacchan. I never would’ve—”
Katsuki leaned over and coughed hard.
“Kacchan!”
As Katsuki expected, a chain of events followed. He was coughing, then vomiting into the grass so violently that his ears rung and he swayed. He would’ve fallen face-first onto the grass if Izuku didn’t grab him by the shoulders.
Katsuki barely gasped in a shallow breath—that did very little at all—before he was coughing so hard it wracked his entire weakened body. He gasped, but he couldn’t breathe so he coughed and coughed. Flowers and stems tore up his throat and lungs. His mouth was filled with blood and mucus and bile and petals.
Then he was vomiting again, and his body went completely limp as he lost all strength to hold himself up.
He heard Izuku’s voice so distantly and comprehended none of what he was saying. He could feel that he was being moved if only because the change in position was making his nausea unbearable. He made a loud noise somewhere between a groan and a strained cry, before coughing again. He coughed and vomited and he was sobbing even though he didn’t have the breath to do so. His head swam.
He coughed and tried to breathe, but he couldn’t clear his airway. He didn’t have the strength, and he felt weak. He felt half conscious, grappling weakly at something—his own throat, Izuku, the ground.
He felt so sick that he just wanted to die.
─────
Katsuki must’ve blacked out, because when he came to, he was on his back and there was an oxygen mask over his nose and mouth.
As he woke up a bit more, he felt that Izuku was wiping off his face. He knew it was Izuku without seeing him, by the feel of his hands.
By now, he even recognized the way in which Izuku touched him… the precise manner in how he always did it. No one else ever touched him so softly, as if he were something to be taken care of. Izuku touched him so gently that it made Katsuki ache very deep within his being for a reason he couldn’t fully pinpoint. He wasn’t even so gentle with himself.
Katsuki peeled open his eyes ever so slightly. Through the blurry haze of his vision, he could make out the green of Izuku’s hair… or maybe his eyes. It all blurred together. He could be dreaming or imagining it, honestly.
After a moment, he felt the familiar, aching comfort of Izuku combing his hands through his hair. He gently was moving his hair out of his face and pushing it back… which he only normally did when he was asleep.
Did Izuku think he was asleep? His eyes weren’t closed all the way. He was looking at him.
Katsuki distantly realized that Izuku was speaking to him. He couldn’t hear the words past the ringing in his ears, but he heard the low tone of Izuku’s voice. The exact pitch of it was familiar. Katsuki felt like he could feel the vibration of it in his decaying bones more than actually hear it.
After five minutes or a thousand years, Katsuki gained the strength to open his eyes a bit more. Though his vision remained a bit hazy, for a moment he was able to make an attempt at eye contact with Izuku.
Izuku’s eyes widened, and his hand was abruptly pulled out of Katsuki’s hair.
“S-sorry,” Izuku stammered, his voice hoarse and almost shrill. “My, uh, my mom always did that when I didn’t feel well! It felt nice, so I just—I was just—”
Katsuki stared at him, half-lidded in his exhaustion. He was too tired to move or speak. Instead, he stared uncomprehendingly up at Izuku’s blotchy red face. He didn’t really process what Izuku had said, only that he’d stopped touching him.
As his head spun faster, and his consciousness started to fade quickly once again, he looked up at Izuku. His only thought was a distant, confused one as his foggy mind latched onto one of the last things Izuku had said to him before he’d started to cough.
“I had no idea you were in love with her.”
As blackness crept in, with the green of Izuku’s eyes at the center of his vision, Katsuki stared up at him and thought:
…her?
Notes:
the changing of the seasons...
the cherry blossoms flourish,
then the petals fall,
and fleeting life comes to an endKatsuki: How many times are we going to completely misunderstand each other?
Izuku: idk
Me: ...at least once moreFor those of you who don't follow me on twitter, I'll be posting a shorter separate fic to go alongside this one that'll be entirely Izuku's POV. Throughout writing this, I've often switched over to write scenes in Izuku's POV just for my own benefit and understanding, but I decided to consolidate it and edit it into it's own fic. Both because I find it very interesting how different their perspectives are and also because so many of you seem to want a peek into Izuku's brain during all this.
Thanks yet again to everyone who has left kudos and/or commented on this fic (or taken the time to message me directly). I've been struggling a lot in recent times, so it was hard to have the time and mental energy to write/edit this fic. I'm something of an avoider (as Izuku is haha) and being reminded of the harder parts of life is something my brain tends to shy away from. While this fic is hardly about my life, there's definitely plenty that's inspired by my life experience and that of those around me. So I'll just say this: if I hadn't started posting this fic prematurely, it never would've gotten done at all. As much as I was motivated by chapter 431 to write this fic, that wouldn't have been enough to overcome the mental challenge of writing this in order to finish it completely on my own. So I mean it very literally that this fic would not have been completed without the support and feedback of everyone who's told me how much they love it. I'm proud of this fic and I'm very happy that I've shared it and will be completing it, but I also know myself. I never would've finished it if the only motivation was just me wanting to tell the story. I'm way too much of an avoider for that. So basically... the options were the many months I just took to finalize this or to never post it at all. In conclusion :) the wait was unfortunately unavoidable, as this fic would not have survived until the end if it was given only my cowardly will to sustain it.
That all being said, I'd love to hear your thoughts and feedback if you feel so inclined. I do read all the comments and they do make my avoidant ass suck it up and write this depressing shit, so know I would've long ago lost the strength to finish this without you all. Thanks again for being here and for reading if you made it through this excessively long chapter ! I will do my best to finish this fic up as quickly as I am capable of (sorry for the cliffhanger too hehe). Ch 8 and 9 are shorter so hopefully they'll take way less time to finalize and post.
Also, sorry for any mistakes or inconsistencies in this chapter. 75k words is a lot of words on top of all the words previously written in this fic. Not to mention I've written a lot of versions of this fic so it's hard to keep track of it all in my head. Hopefully, you all got the gist of what I was trying to say at the very least !
My socials, sneak peeks/early content, and other stuff are all here. Check out my other fics if you want more bkdk fics to read :)
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