Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Bakugou Katsuki was on the verge of punching someone until they wouldn't be able to see the sunrise.

The bass shook the ceiling like an impatient heartbeat. It thrummed through the plaster, crawled down the walls, and spilled into the stillness of Katsuki Bakugou’s apartment like smoke through a crack. The noise wasn’t music anymore, it was just chaos wearing a rhythm. He sat at his table, elbows buried in half-finished notes, the glow of his laptop washing his face in pale blue. His pen tapped against the edge of the table, sharp and arrhythmic, trying (and failing) to drown out the pulsing beat above.

“Those fucking idiots,” he muttered, dragging a hand through his hair.

It was the fifth time that week. Maybe the sixth. He’d stopped counting after Tuesday when the floorboards above him began their nightly symphony of footsteps, laughter, and the occasional crash that sounded like a chair dying an undignified death. Tonight though, the noise had evolved into a full-blown party. The music was so loud he could feel it in his chest, like the world was reminding him how fragile walls really were.

“I swear to fucking g— I am going to strangle each and everyone of them.”

He’d been invited, of course. Some guy from his physics lab had tossed the invite his way earlier that day, flashing an easy grin and a promise of “good music, good drinks, good company.” Katsuki had laughed in his face. Parties weren’t his thing. Too many people pretending to like each other. Too many bodies pressed too close, too many strangers shouting nonsense over deafening sound. He hated the mess of it all. The sweat, the strobe lights, the fake laughter that filled the air like static.

The irony wasn’t lost on him. Katsuki Bakugou, the guy whose voice could shake a hallway, simply couldn’t stand noise. 

He’d yelled through his entire childhood, roared through training, cursed through exams. And yet, a party’s cheer grated on him like nails on glass. He’d gone to one once, by Kirishima’s stupidly convincing optimism. It had been his first and, without question, his last. He remembered the flashing lights, the sticky floors, the heat of too many bodies moving too close. He’d lasted twenty minutes before storming out, swearing off parties for the rest of his life.

Shitty hair and his shitty parties.

Now, as the ceiling thudded again, followed by a distant and muffled laugh. He clenched his jaw so hard it ached. He could practically picture the idiots above him— plastic cups raised, someone spilling beer onto the floor (which, by extension, was his ceiling), music blasting loud enough to summon the dead. He imagined knocking on their door. No. Pounding on it, telling them to shut the hell up before he lost his mind. But he didn’t move. He stayed in his chair, breathing through the frustration, telling himself it wasn’t worth it.

I’m going to kill them. Every. Single. One. Of them.

And yet, when a particularly loud crash sounded overhead, followed by a laugh that was too bright and too close, Katsuki’s patience snapped like a thread. He slammed his notebook shut, the sound sharp in the room’s half-light. His chair scraped back against the floor, echoing through the noise.

That's it. That's fucking it.

He pushed himself up like a coiled spring, chair legs screeching across the floorboards. Every movement is loud enough to compete with the bass. The anger in his throat was a hot thing, sharp and urgent. And it wanted immediate justice, wanted to haul every idiot out by their collars and make them taste his temper. He pictured the climb— two flights of stairs, a hallway that smelled faintly of old laundry and whatever takeout someone had abandoned, the door. Maybe flung wide with drunken bravado. And then the faces, flushed and stupid in the strobe light. His boots would hit the steps like a warning. He would not be polite. He would not be subtle. To be fair, he was neither polite nor subtle. 

And he swore by the time he reached the third floor, whoever was responsible would remember his name. And his face will be the last thing they'll ever see.

He moved heel-first toward the door, ready to stomp, when the world hiccuped. 

The fuck?

A dull and solitary yet very loud thud, like something heavy landing on the roof just outside his window. It was close enough that it sounded personal, as if whatever struck the metal had been aiming for his ear. For a second his rage hung in the air, mid-swing, and something colder slid into its place. 

What the fuck?

Katsuki froze. The hall outside still vibrated with the party’s bass. But the immediate, distinct sound of that roof-thud rewired his focus. He turned toward the window as if a command had been given. The blinds were half-closed, slats slicing the light into thin bars that trembled with the aftershocks of the music. Up close, the glass was a mirror stained with dust and a faint ring where someone had once set a mug, but beyond it was the narrow patch of roof that jutted out from the building. An awkward step between stories, where pigeons slept and cigarette butts collected.

Another movement. Some small scuffle, the scrape of cloth against the roof made his jaw tighten. 

He eased the blind with the tip of a finger, peeking through the gap like a predator checking his perimeter. There, on the ledge, a shadow shifted. A hunched figure caught in the halo of a streetlight, hair catching light in little green flashes that he couldn’t quite place at first. The posture was wrong for a party-goer. Too tense, shoulders hunched as if bracing for a fall, hands pressed against the parabola of the roof as if testing its give.

For the first time since the music started, irritation sharpened into something else entirely. A wary tug of concern that he would have laughed at if anybody asked. Intruders on the roof were one thing. People about to topple from great heights were another. 

He should have gone up full force, to make his presence known and scare off whatever idiot was cavorting outside. Instead, he found himself pulling the window up a fraction, the cool night air slicing into the warm, beer-scented apartment. The wind brought a breath of laughter from above and the ghost of someone’s exclamation. Then a soft, startled sound from the roof, a little like a yelp.

“Ow.” A voice called, thin against the bass, and it cracked on the last syllable.

It wasn’t loud, not the kind of shout meant to be heard over music. It was small and raw enough that Katsuki’s teeth clenched for a reason that had nothing to do with noise. The figure scrambled, one knee slipping. A brief and sharp handbrake of motion. And for a pulse, he saw the angle of a face turned away, with hair the exact wrong kind of unruly to be fashionable.

His anger, suddenly useless and inconvenient, folded inward. He’d stood up, ready to give whoever was living above him an earful. Instead, he found himself jerking the window wider, climbing the sill with a single and efficient motion. The hallway outside smelled of old plaster and the faint musk of other people’s lives; his steps were measured, not the stomp he’d rehearsed. Whatever idiot was out there might be dangerous to themselves, and Katsuki Bakugou could not, in good conscience, let someone fall off his building because they couldn’t keep their balance.

He slid the window the rest of the way and leaned out, the night wrapping around his shoulders like a cape. The rooftop lay a hands-width below his window— a sloped, gravel-strewn ledge that separated him from whoever was up there. The figure was crouched, breathing too fast, fingers splayed on the rough concrete. When they looked up, the light caught the edge of their hair again. Green. Unmistakably green. 

And for a fraction of a second, their eyes met. Not with the friendly recognition of an acquaintance, but with the naked, surprised stare of two strangers meeting in the middle of a city night. Katsuki’s mouth opened, something half-warning and half-question on his tongue, and the bass rolled on like a distant storm.

Katsuki blinked once. Twice. Then again, just to make sure he wasn’t hallucinating.

The guy on the ledge, half-slumped against the cold concrete, hair sticking out in every direction like static had declared war on it was definitely real. Definitely alive. And definitely drunk.

“The fuck.” Katsuki muttered under his breath.

The green-haired idiot lifted his head at the sound, eyes glassy and unfocused, cheeks pink under the dim streetlight glow. “Oh, hi. Quite a lovely evening out here.”

Katsuki stared at him, speechless for a beat. His first instinct was to yell. His second was to check if the guy had actually broken his neck. The result was an awkward, frozen scowl that tried to do both. “Yo, are you fucking good?”

“I'm cool. You good?” The words were sluggish as it slipped from the man's tongue, and Katsuki doesn't even need to ask to know if the man is drunk or not. 

Because he fucking is. Who the fuck casually falls from the third floor down to second floor and still has the balls to say “Quite a lovely evening out here.” 

This fucking green-haired psycho.

“Are you fucking serious right now?” he snapped, stepping closer to the window. “You fell? From where, exactly? Heaven?”

Izuku blinked at him owlishly. “Third floor balcony,” he mumbled, rubbing the back of his head. “I was just getting some air and then, uh…” He gestured vaguely toward the sky. “The railing was… kinda not where I thought it was.”

Katsuki pinched the bridge of his nose, exhaling sharply. “Unbelievable. Fucking unbelievable.”

How the hell do you even fall off a balcony? No, ‘cause how? 

Katsuki wanted to know the answer. But the gods know how much restraint Katsuki has been putting on himself and kept his mouth shut instead. Which was, ironically, very uncharacteristically of him. He never shuts his mouth, he never swallows the words and insults that threaten to slip on the very edge of his tongue. But it was a Friday evening. No, scratch that— it was already Saturday. 12:02 AM. And Bakugou remembered he had classes to attend during Saturdays.

It's 12:02 in the goddamn morning. Give me a fucking break.

Katsuki leaned half-out the window, the cool night air biting against his skin. And for a moment, all he could do was stare at the drunk idiot sitting on his roof like it was a perfectly normal thing to do on a Friday night. The guy was a mess— knees drawn up, eyes glassy with alcohol, and something vaguely dreamy. He blinked up at Katsuki through the dim light with a lazy grin tugging at the corners of his mouth, as if he couldn’t quite tell whether this was reality or some fever dream.

Then the idiot spoke.

“Why are you frowning so deeply?” the green-haired boy asked, tilting his head with an expression so innocent it almost looked sincere. “You’ll get wrinkles.”

Katsuki just stared at him, utterly dumbfounded. Of all the things this moron could say while perched on his roof, potentially concussed, that’s what he went with? He dragged a hand down his face, exhaling through his nose. 

“Because you’re in my fucking roof?” 

“Oh. Right. That makes sense. I guess that’s fair. Sorry about that.” The boy blinked, then giggled. Actually giggled, as though he’d just been told a clever joke. He leaned back slightly, looking up at the stars, or maybe just the blur of them, before his gaze dropped back to Katsuki. 

“Hey, what’s your name? I’m Izuku by the way.”

Is this fucker actually serious?

Katsuki scowled. “That is none of your fucking business.”

The other boy pouted, brows knitting together in an almost comical expression of offense. “Aw, come on. I should at least know whose roof I fell into, right? It’s, like, basic manners.”

“Manners?” Katsuki barked a short, disbelieving laugh. “You fell on my roof, you sick psycho. I should be calling the cops, not having a goddamn chat.”

But the green-haired stranger only smiled, unbothered by the hostility radiating off him. “Still,” he said, voice lilting, “I’d feel bad not knowing the name of my, um… roof owner.”

Roof owne— what the fuck?

Katsuki stared at him for a moment longer, torn between throttling him and shutting the window altogether. He opened his mouth to tell him to piss off. But somehow, the words that came out weren’t that.

“Bakugou,” he said curtly, as if spitting the name out might make it disappear faster. “Bakugou Katsuki.”

The boy blinked, processing that, before a small, crooked smile crept onto his face. “Katsuki, huh?” he echoed softly, testing the name on his tongue like it was something sweet. Then, almost playfully, “How about I call you Kacchan instead?”

For a second, the world went completely still. Even the music upstairs seemed to fade into a distant hum. Katsuki’s brain short-circuited. 

Kacchan. 

He didn’t even know this guy. Hadn’t known him for more than five minutes and he was already slapping him with a nickname so casually it made Katsuki’s jaw twitch.

His hands tightened on the window frame. “You call me that again and I swear to god, I’ll push you off this roof myself.”

Deku— because by now, Katsuki was sure that was his nickname as someone had yelled “Deku, stop climbing that!” from the party earlier— only grinned wider, his eyes bright despite the haze. 

“Kacchan it is,” he said cheerfully, completely ignoring the threat.

Katsuki’s eye twitched. He could feel the vein in his temple pulsing. In his head, he counted to three. Then to ten. Then, very quietly, swore under his breath that he was about three seconds away from committing a felony.

The boy just sat there, legs dangling over the edge of his roof, humming to himself like a drunk cat with no concept of danger.

And all Katsuki could think, as he leaned half out the window, torn between dragging him in or letting gravity do the work, was why the hell me?

The guy was lucky to be breathing. Lucky the roof had caught him before gravity finished the job. He looked like one stiff breeze could send him rolling off the edge again.

“Don’t move,” Katsuki barked, already hauling the window up higher. “You’re gonna kill yourself if you keep wobbling around like that.”

Izuku blinked again, startled by the volume. “No no no, I’m fine! I think? Just, uh— maybe a little dizzy.”

“A little?” Katsuki snorted. “You dropped three meters onto a goddamn roof, you little shit.”

He leaned out, gripping the window frame for balance. The night air was sharp, biting through his T-shirt, but his irritation burned hotter. “How much did you drink?”

Izuku tilted his head, thinking hard. “Um… maybe eight cups?”

Katsuki raised an eyebrow. “Cups of what?”

“...I don’t remember.”

“Of course you don’t.”

Of course he doesn't. Dumb fucking ass with his dumb green hair and dumb green eyes. Why's everything about him green? Might as well his skin would turn green.

A beat of silence passed, filled only by the muffled thump of music from above. Katsuki’s hand twitched as he watched Izuku sway slightly on the ledge. The idiot was going to slide off at this rate.

“Alright, screw this,” Katsuki muttered. “You’re coming inside before you crack your skull open.”

“Wait, what?” Izuku blinked in confusion as Katsuki crouched by the window, holding out a hand.

“Don’t make me repeat myself,” he growled. “Grab my fucking hand.”

Izuku hesitated, glancing between Katsuki’s outstretched arm and the narrow window frame. “That… doesn’t look very safe.”

“Neither does sitting out on the edge of the fucking roof.” Katsuki retorted. “Now move your ass!”

Izuku flinched at the volume, then, almost timidly, reached out. His palm was warm and a little clammy when Katsuki’s fingers closed around it. With one rough tug, Katsuki hauled him through the window in one motion, grumbling curses under his breath.

Izuku stumbled inside, nearly tripping over the frame before catching himself on the wall. He smelled faintly of alcohol and something sweet. Maybe cheap beer mixed with soda.

“Thanks,” he said, trying to straighten up. His face was still flushed, his hair a disheveled halo of green.

Katsuki crossed his arms, glaring. “You’re lucky I didn’t just leave you out there.”

“I didn’t mean to fall—”

“Yeah, yeah, save it.” He pointed a finger at him. “Next time you wanna get ‘some air,’ try not to fall through my ceiling, you little shit.”

Izuku winced, rubbing the back of his neck. “I really am sorry. I didn’t mean to cause trouble.”

Katsuki grunted, turning away. “Too late for that.” He walked toward the kitchen, muttering. “I was this close to going up there to yell at you all anyway.”

Izuku blinked. “Yell at… me?”

Katsuki shot him a look over his shoulder. “You’re the one throwing that goddamn party, right?”

Izuku’s eyes widened. “What? No! I—I’m just… kind of… at the wrong place at the wrong time?” He gave a nervous laugh. “I think it’s my roommate’s thing.”

Katsuki stopped, his irritation faltering just slightly.

“Your roommate?”

Izuku nodded, sheepish. “Yeah. He, uh, invites people over a lot. I usually just hide in my room, but tonight I thought maybe I should try to… socialize? Didn’t go so well, I guess.”

Katsuki stared at him for a long moment, the edges of his glare softening in spite of himself.

“You’re a disaster,” he muttered finally.

Izuku smiled weakly. “A harmless one?”

Katsuki rolled his eyes, dropping onto his couch with a sigh. “You’re paying me back if my roof’s dented.”

Izuku laughed quietly, rubbing his arm. “Deal.”

Outside, the party’s music pulsed on, oblivious. Inside, the apartment settled into a strange, uneasy calm. The drunk stranger now standing in the middle of the room, the man who had just saved him scowling from the couch.

Katsuki still wasn’t sure if he was furious or just weirdly concerned.

Izuku shifted his weight from one foot to the other, sheepishly rubbing the back of his neck as the silence stretched. The air between them was thick with the faint hum of the music above and the low buzz of the fluorescent light in Katsuki’s kitchen. He looked awkward standing there, hands twitching as if he wasn’t sure what to do with them. His eyes darted toward the still-open window, toward freedom. The faint night breeze crawled in through the crack and tugged at his messy hair, making him look even more pitiful.

“I should probably…” he began, voice uncertain, the edge of sobriety starting to peek through the fog. “Go back up. Before they start wondering where I disappeared to.”

Katsuki didn’t bother looking at him. He leaned back on the couch, arms crossed, one leg draped over the other. “Do whatever the hell you want,” he said flatly. “You’re not my problem.”

Izuku gave a nervous laugh, trying to fill the space with something that wasn’t Katsuki’s scowl. “Right, yeah. I mean, thanks for… you know. Not letting me die.”

“Didn’t do it for you,” Katsuki muttered, glaring at a spot on the floor. “I just don’t wanna deal with the cops showing up at my door ‘cause some idiot splattered himself on my roof.”

That earned him a soft chuckle, one so quiet it almost didn’t belong in the same room. Izuku nodded slowly, his lips curving into that same ridiculous half-smile that Katsuki was starting to find annoyingly familiar. “Still… thanks, Kacchan.”

Katsuki’s eye twitched. “I told you not to call me that.”

“I know,” Izuku said lightly, and for some godforsaken reason, he grinned wider.

Katsuki groaned, dragging a hand down his face. “You’re fucking hopeless.”

“I get that a lot,” Izuku said cheerfully, already moving toward the door. He wobbled a little on his feet but steadied himself against the wall, flashing Katsuki a two-fingered salute that looked more like a limp wave. “I’ll, uh, try not to fall again. Promise.”

“Yeah, you do that.” Katsuki slouched deeper into the couch. “Now piss off so I can actually get some sleep.”

Izuku hesitated by the door for a moment, looking as though he wanted to say something else. But then he thought better of it, smiled one last time, and let himself out. The sound of the door clicking shut echoed in the small space, final and soft, leaving behind the faint scent of alcohol and cheap cologne.

For a moment, Katsuki didn’t move. The room felt different. Quieter, but not peaceful. Just still, like the air itself was waiting for him to do something. He exhaled slowly, raking a hand through his hair, and looked around at the mess of papers still scattered across his table. His notebook sat there, half-open, pen rolled to the edge, the blue light from his laptop blinking like an impatient pulse. He should’ve gone back to it. Should’ve sat down, picked up the pen, and finished the damn work before he forgot where he left off.

But instead, his gaze drifted upward.

The ceiling shuddered faintly as the party continued, bass pounding through plaster and into his bones. The laughter was still there too— distant, muffled, but alive. He could hear the scrape of furniture, the clinking of bottles, the rise and fall of voices that didn’t belong to him. Somewhere in that blur of sound was that same idiot, probably back with his friends, probably smiling that crooked smile like he hadn’t just almost died.

Katsuki exhaled again, low and tired. His anger had dulled into something quieter. Less fire but more friction. He wanted to sleep, but the noise wouldn’t let him. His brain kept replaying the stupid scene on the roof. The way the idiot had grinned, the way his voice had cracked when he said Kacchan, the way his hand had felt warm and human in Katsuki’s own.

He clicked his tongue, leaning back against the couch cushions. “What a pain in the ass,” he muttered to no one.

The ceiling pulsed again, vibrating faintly with the rhythm of whatever shitty song was playing upstairs. Katsuki’s jaw tightened, his eyes narrowing at the plaster like it had personally offended him.

He knew damn well he wasn’t getting any sleep tonight.

Not with that noise.

Not with that idiot.

Not with the sound of his own thoughts growing louder than the bass.

Chapter Text

The universe must have a sick sense of humor.

Because there’s no other explanation for why Katsuki keeps running into the same damn nerd everywhere he goes. First at the convenience store. Then at the train station. Once in front of their apartment building when the elevator broke down and they both had to take the stairs.

Thirteen steps of Izuku’s awkward rambling and Katsuki’s teeth grinding. And now, apparently, at his favorite café. His sanctuary. The one place in this city that doesn’t reek of noise or people or expectations.

Fuck my life.

He’s halfway through his coffee, the bitter taste grounding him, when he hears it— the unmistakable lilt of a familiar voice. It’s bright, nervous, too eager. Katsuki freezes, hoping it’s just his mind playing tricks on him. But then comes the laughter. That ridiculous, breathy chuckle that sounds like he’s apologizing for existing.

Katsuki slams his cup down hard enough that the saucer rattles. Heads turn, but he doesn’t care. “You’ve got to be fucking kidding me.”

And there he is. Izuku, standing a few feet away with that sheepish smile that looks far too soft for this cruel world. His hands clutch a notebook to his chest, curls messier than usual, freckles blooming under the café’s soft lighting. He was with a few friends— a girl with a seemingly round face, a man with four eyes (glasses), and a guy with a half-and-half weird ass hair color.

Who the fuck colors their hair white on the other side and red on the other? Diabolical.

“Oh,” Izuku says, voice too small for the noise around them. Then he brightens, because of course he does. “Kacchan! Small world, huh?”

Katsuki groans, dragging a hand down his face. “What the hell are you doing here, nerd?”

Izuku fumbles for an answer, as if he wasn’t just caught trespassing on sacred ground. “I come here to study sometimes. The lighting’s good and the coffee’s not too expensive and—”

“Of course you do.” Katsuki leans back, scowling at the ceiling like maybe divine intervention will smite the other boy where he stands. No such luck.

And somehow, through some cosmic betrayal of fate, Izuku takes his muttering as an invitation. He excuses himself from his friends to which they simply nodded and went back to their own conversation before sliding into the seat across from Katsuki, setting his notebooks and pens down like they belong there. Like this is normal.

Piss off, goddammit.

Katsuki stares, utterly incredulous. “You serious right now?”

Izuku blinks up at him. “Um. Yeah? Unless— unless you mind? I can sit somewhere else if you want.”

He should say yes. He should tell him to get lost, to go study with the other caffeine-addled college idiots at the far end of the café. But the words stick. Maybe it’s the way Izuku looks so damn earnest, or the faint trace of coffee steam curling through his messy hair. Or maybe it’s because Katsuki knows that no matter what he says, the universe will just find another way to throw them together again.

So he grunts, “You’re going to pester me even if I said no. Do whatever you want,” and goes back to his coffee.

Izuku beams. “Thanks, Kacchan!”

And then god help him, he starts talking. About his classes, about some internship he’s hoping to get, about how this café’s playlist always plays that one indie band he likes. His words tumble out too fast, tripping over each other until they fill every quiet space around them. Katsuki doesn’t respond, but he doesn’t tell him to shut up either.

He should. He really should.

But the truth is, as much as the sound grates on him, the silence that follows when Izuku pauses to sip his drink feels worse.

So Katsuki lets him talk.

Fuck me in the ass.

And when he catches himself watching the way Izuku gestures with his hands, or the curve of his smile as he rambles about something stupid, he blames the caffeine. The lack of sleep. The sheer, mind-numbing absurdity of the universe.

Because it’s easier than admitting that maybe, just maybe— he doesn’t actually mind seeing him everywhere.

#

“If he’s not falling through my roof, he’s making it shake.”

That’s the thought that drags a low groan out of Katsuki as he sits at his desk, the low hum of his laptop fan swallowed by the steady thump-thump-thump of footsteps from above. Muffled singing filters through the ceiling, something soft and upbeat. Entirely too happy for a Monday night.

For three months, he’s lived in this building. Three quiet, uneventful months. No drama, no noise, no neighbors worth remembering. He liked it that way. Katsuki never cared who lived upstairs or across the hall. He never cared about anyone, really. His world was work, the gym, and the comforting silence in between.

But now?

Now the floorboards creak overhead, and all he can see and hear is a man with green hair, green eyes, and too many damn freckles. Those goddamn freckles.

And it’s infuriating.

He slams his laptop shut so hard it rattles the desk. The singing doesn’t stop. If anything, it gets louder. A bright, off-key hum that somehow carries through the vents. Katsuki’s jaw ticks.

That’s it.

He stomps toward the door, each step heavy and deliberate, anger simmering low in his gut. He climbs the stairs two at a time, muttering curses under his breath. About neighbors, about shitty apartment soundproofing, about the universe and its twisted sense of humor.

I’m gonna fucking choke you.

When he reaches the door upstairs, he doesn’t knock. He bangs. Once. Twice. Then again, harder. The singing cuts off mid-note, followed by the scuffle of feet. A moment later, the door opens, and there he is.

The green-headed menace himself. The little shit that plagued the whole of Katsuki’s safe space.

Izuku’s wearing an apron dusted with flour, cheeks faintly pink, a wooden spoon still in his hand. The smell of something sweet drifts out— vanilla, sugar, milk.

“Oh.” Izuku blinks, startled for all of two seconds before that damn smile blooms across his face. “Kacchan? Hi!”

Katsuki glares, bristling. “Shut the fuck up.”

Izuku blinks. “Huh?”

“I can hear you,” Katsuki snaps, gesturing vaguely at the ceiling. “The singing, the stomping. Whatever the hell you’re doing up here. It’s loud as shit.”

“Oh.” Izuku’s smile wavers, but only for a heartbeat before it comes back. Softer and a little sheepish. “Sorry about that. I was, uh—” he lifts the spoon like it’s proof of innocence, “—making muffins.”

Katsuki stares at him, unamused. “You’re what?”

“Muffins!” Izuku says, far too cheerfully for someone getting yelled at. “I found this new recipe online and I think I added too much sugar, but they smell good, right?”

He leans a bit out the door, grin widening as if he’s about to offer one. Katsuki steps back like it’s a threat.

“I don’t give a shit about your muffins,” Katsuki growls. “Just stop making so much noise.”

“Right, sorry. I’ll keep it down,” Izuku says, nodding eagerly. “The mixer’s kind of old, you see, and I might’ve dropped a pan earlier—”

“I don’t care.”

“—but it’s okay now! They’re almost done. You want to try one?”

I’m going to shoot myself.

“For fuck’s sake,” Katsuki mutters, dragging a hand down his face. He turns, half tempted to shove his fist through the drywall just to drown out Izuku’s voice.

“Sorry again, Kacchan.” Izuku calls after him as he trudges back down the stairs. “I’ll be quieter!”

Katsuki doesn’t answer. He slams his own door shut and leans against it, eyes squeezed shut.

The apartment falls silent again, save for the faint hum of his fridge. He should feel relieved. He should feel satisfied that the noise is gone.

But all he can smell now is sugar. All he can see is the ghost of flour on Izuku’s cheek. All he can hear is the echo of that stupidly warm voice saying muffins, like it’s the most important word in the world.

And god help him, Katsuki can’t stop thinking about it.

He tells himself it’s irritation. Just irritation.

#

It’s finally quiet. Blessedly, beautifully quiet.

The kind of silence that Katsuki has to earn. The kind that only comes after chaos, after noise, after someone like Izuku Midoriya. 

The faint hum of the fridge and the scratch of his pen against paper are the only sounds left, and for once, he can breathe. His apartment smells faintly like burnt coffee and ink, and the air is thick with the kind of exhaustion that clings to third-year college students like a curse.

He leans back in his chair, rubbing at the ache between his brows. Chemical engineering wasn’t supposed to be this hard. Or maybe it was, and he was just arrogant enough to think he’d bulldoze his way through it like everything else in life. But formulas don’t give a damn about confidence, and equations don’t bend to ego. They demand precision, attention, and focus. And lately, Katsuki’s focus has been shot to hell. Not that he’d ever admit it out loud.

He stares at his notes, dense with half-solved problems and underlined reminders. His mind itches to drift. Back to the muffled laughter upstairs, the smell of muffins, the stupid green-haired idiot who somehow keeps showing up where he least expects him. Katsuki scowls, forcing his attention back to his work. He’s not about to get derailed by some nosy, freckled neighbor with a sunshine complex.

He taps his pen against the desk, muttering formulas under his breath. Catalysts, reaction rates, thermodynamics— his comfort zone. Numbers make sense. Reactions follow laws. The world, in theory, should behave if you just understand it enough. People, though? They’re chaos in motion. And Katsuki’s had enough chaos to last a lifetime.

He glances at the clock. Midnight. He’s been sitting here for hours, lost in calculations and numbers. He swore the only thing he had consumed for the entirety of the day was caffeine. This is what his life has become. Late nights, quiet rooms, and the constant grind of ambition gnawing at his insides. He used to be more social once, back when he was a freshman. Back when everything still felt wide open and nothing seemed too far out of reach. He had friends. Still does, technically. They’re loud, infuriating, and relentless. The kind who think showing up uninvited is a form of affection.

They barge into his apartment sometimes, dragging takeout and cheap beer, arguing about sports or music or which professor they hate most this semester. Every single time, Katsuki threatens to throw them out a window. Every single time, they laugh like it’s a joke. He yells, they ignore him, and somehow they all end up slouched across his couch anyway, talking until the city outside goes quiet.

He lets them. Always does.

Because for all his snarling and complaining, he’s a soft bastard underneath. Not that he’d ever say it.

He sighs, dragging a hand through his hair, ink smudged on his fingers. The apartment feels too still now, the silence almost mocking. His notes blur a little under the desk lamp’s yellow light. He clenches his jaw, shaking the thought away. He’s got no time for distractions. No time for people who bake muffins at midnight or smile like they’ve never been hurt.

But as he flips the page and forces himself back into the rhythm of his work, the memory lingers anyway.

Fuck my life.

How many times had he told himself this for the past few hours? He couldn't count, or maybe he stopped counting. Fuck my life.

Katsuki realizes, not for the first time, that the silence he worked so hard to keep might be starting to feel too damn loud.

Fuck my life.

#

The calm doesn’t last.

Katsuki’s halfway through his problem set, the third one tonight, when the universe decides to spit in his face again. His pencil’s scratching across the page, his concentration finally razor-sharp, every muscle taut with focus. It’s quiet except for the steady rhythm of his own breathing, the faint hum of the desk lamp, and the distant city noise outside his window. For the first time in hours, everything feels aligned. He’s in control.

And then the doorbell rings.

Followed by a voice that makes his stomach twist and his pulse spike all at once.

“Kacchan! It’s me!”

Fuck me.

Katsuki’s head snaps up, his pencil nearly snapping in half between his fingers. The sound cuts through his thoughts like a blade, too bright, too familiar.

Too Izuku.

He stares at the door for a long, murderous second, jaw tightening. He considers ignoring it, pretending he’s not home, but the idiot upstairs clearly hasn’t learned how to take a hint. There’s another knock. Another cheerful, “Kacchan?”

Katsuki exhales sharply through his nose, muttering a curse that could probably peel paint. He shoves his chair back with enough force to make it screech against the floor, the sudden noise echoing through the small apartment. His patience, already thin, frays to nothing. A moment of peace. Is that so fucking hard to ask for? Just one night without the universe throwing him in Katsuki’s face?

Apparently, it is.

Fuck this life.

He storms out of his room, heavy-footed and scowling, the kind of scowl that would make anyone else run for cover. But not Izuku, of course. That idiot could walk into a fire and call it “a warm breeze.”

By the time Katsuki reaches the door, his temper’s simmering high enough to choke him. He yanks it open so hard it rattles against the hinge.

“The fuck you want?” he snaps, words rough and sharp, anger curling off his tongue like smoke.

Izuku stands there in the hallway, all awkward sunshine and clumsy warmth, wearing that same goddamn smile that Katsuki swears is slowly driving him insane. His hair’s a mess again. Curls sticking in every direction, and his cheeks are faintly flushed. Maybe from the climb down the stairs. His hands are occupied with a small plastic container, edges fogged slightly from the warmth of what’s inside.

“Um,” Izuku starts, his voice a little breathless, a little too soft. “I made muffins.” He lifts the container like an offering, eyes darting up to meet Katsuki’s. Green and bright and impossibly sincere. “I wanted to say sorry for the noise.”

Katsuki just stares at him. For a heartbeat too long.

Then his mouth twitches, not in amusement, but in disbelief. “You’re kidding me.”

“No, really!” Izuku insists, stepping forward slightly, the scent of sugar and vanilla spilling into the air between them. “They’re fresh! I just thought since you, um, helped me that one time, and then I kind of annoyed you with the baking noise, and—”

Katsuki cuts him off with a glare sharp enough to carve stone. “You think a box of sugar’s gonna make me forget you’re loud as hell?”

Izuku’s mouth opens, then closes again. “Well, no,” he admits, laughing nervously, “but maybe it’ll make you hate me a little less?”

Katsuki exhales through his nose, the faintest tremor in his restraint. His hand twitches at his side. The urge to slam the door versus the urge to grab the damn container just to stop Izuku from talking. His brain screams to pick the first option, but his body, traitorous as ever, doesn’t move.

This obnoxious little shit.

He glares down at the cupcakes like they’re a personal insult. “I don’t want your pity desserts.”

“They’re not pity desserts!” Izuku says quickly, still smiling that earnest, blinding smile. “They’re apology desserts.”

Katsuki stares at him. Then at the box. Then back at him.

There’s a long, awful silence. The kind that stretches thin, tight, almost fragile. It gnaws Katsuki’s insides. Izuku’s fingers fidget at the edge of the container, and for a split second, Katsuki swears he sees something flicker across his expression. One that is definitely not embarrassment, not fear, but something quieter. Ambition, maybe. Something that feels dangerously human.

Fuck it.

And for reasons Katsuki refuses to analyze, he sighs. Deep, rough, resigned. “Fine,” he mutters, snatching the container out of Izuku’s hands. “Now get lost before I change my mind.”

Izuku beams. Beams. Like he’s just been given a gift instead of barely tolerated. “You’ll like them, I promise!”

“Don’t push it.”

He shuts the door before Izuku can say another word, the lock clicking back into place.

For a long moment, he stands there, back pressed against the wood, staring down at the container in his hands. The scent of vanilla lingers, faint but stubborn. The muffins are small, unevenly frosted. Homemade in every sense of the word. He sets them down on the counter, glaring at them like they’ve personally offended him.

He should throw them out. That’s what a sane man would do.

But later, when the apartment’s quiet again and his notes blur under his eyes, Katsuki finds himself in the kitchen, peeling back the lid.

Just one, he tells himself.

For research purposes.

And when he takes a bite, the sweetness hits his tongue, warm and clumsy and annoyingly too sweet. He swears under his breath. He can already taste the trouble coming.

It tastes like shit.

But Katsuki finishes it all anyway.

#

It doesn’t stop.

Days bleed into each other, and Katsuki starts to feel like he’s being haunted. No matter where he goes, Izuku’s there— in the lobby, the convenience store, the damned café. Always at the edges of his vision, like a persistent itch he can’t quite reach. It’s not that Izuku tries to follow him. Or at least, Katsuki doesn’t think he does. But the universe seems hellbent on making their paths cross.

Izuku is everywhere.

What kind of sick joke is this?

He starts changing his routine— leaving earlier, taking different routes, switching cafés. It doesn’t matter. Somehow, Izuku always appears, arms full of something, mouth already forming that too-familiar smile that scrapes against Katsuki’s nerves like sandpaper.

And then, one morning, it happens again.

Katsuki’s on his way out, keys in hand, half-awake and already annoyed at the world, when he hears the sound. A startled gasp, a clatter of plastic, the sharp thud of something hitting the stairs. He rounds the corner and finds Izuku there, halfway down the stairwell, groceries spilling everywhere. A carton of milk rolls to his feet.

“Shit,” Izuku breathes, scrambling after it, off-balance and juggling too many things at once.

So the brat says curse words too?

Katsuki doesn’t think, he just moves. His hand shoots out, catching Izuku by the wrist before he tumbles forward. The impact jerks them both a step down, close enough for Katsuki to smell coffee on Izuku’s breath and something faintly sweet. Maybe detergent, maybe the stupidly gentle way he exists in the world.

Izuku blinks up at him, wide-eyed, breathless. “Oh, Kacchan!”

Katsuki curses under his breath, steadying him before shoving his hand away like the touch burned. “Watch where you’re going, dumbass,” he grumbles. His voice comes out rougher than he intends. “You gonna break your neck carrying all that crap.”

Izuku just laughs. That same unguarded, bright sound that doesn’t belong in this dull stairwell. “You’re right, I wasn’t paying attention. Thanks, Kacchan.”

Katsuki mutters something unintelligible and storms off before Izuku can say anything else. His pulse won’t settle. He tells himself it’s just the adrenaline, the shock of having someone nearly faceplant in front of him before breakfast.

But later, when he’s sitting at his desk, pretending to read, or when he’s at the gym, fists slamming against the bag in steady rhythm. It keeps creeping back. That smile. The way Izuku had looked at him. That annoying, bright, unguarded, sound like Katsuki hadn’t barked at him but done something worth being grateful for.

It shouldn’t stick in his head like that.

He hates cheerful people. They’re noisy and exhausting and too damn hopeful. Katsuki hates noise. They look at the world like it owes them kindness, and Katsuki knows better than to believe in that kind of crap.

He’s not looking for him. He’s not.

He just keeps finding him anyway.

Chapter Text

The hallway is too damn quiet.

Katsuki likes it that way. Usually. He likes the way silence settles against the walls after a long day, how it presses into the space between his ribs and lets him breathe. But tonight, it feels off. Too hollow. Too expectant. Like the air itself is waiting for something.

He leans back against the wall, towel slung over his shoulder, damp hair clinging to his forehead. The faint hum of the vending machine just right across his apartment is the only sound in this building. He tells himself that’s fine, that’s peace. What he doesn’t tell himself is that his ears keep straining for the echo of footsteps down the hall.

Midoriya’s footsteps.

How did Katsuki know? Well, that's none of your goddamn business.

The idiot has this distinct way of walking. Half-shuffle, half-bounce, like he’s always in a rush to get somewhere but doesn’t quite know where that is. Katsuki noticed it once, then twice, and now it’s a sound that grates at him whenever it doesn’t come.

He scowls at the thought, mutters something under his breath about nerds and bad timing, and pushes off the wall.

He isn’t waiting for him. He’s just… well, curious. That’s all. Maybe the guy finally ran out of reasons to bother him. Maybe he found some other unlucky bastard to talk the skin off of.

Thank fucking god.

Katsuki drops a coin in the vending machine, stares at the row of neatly arranged cans before clicking a beverage of choice. He grabs one, cracks it open. The hiss fills the silence for a moment. Then fades, leaving the stillness heavier than before.

He almost doesn’t notice when it happens, the faint squeak of sneakers against tile. 

Then that familiar voice, bright and too cheerful for the hour, rings down the hallway. “Evening, Kacchan!”

Katsuki freezes mid-sip.

God. Damn. It.

He lowers the can, jaw tightening. “Don’t call me that.”

“You keep saying that,” Izuku replies, completely undeterred, “but it feels weird not to. I mean, we’ve seen each other so much lately, right?”

Yeah, because you're fucking everywhere, you shit of a plague. 

Katsuki turns, glaring at the doorway like he can burn the smile off the guy’s face with sheer willpower. “You keep talking like that and I’ll make sure we don’t see each other again.”

Izuku just laughs, nervous but genuine, rubbing the back of his neck. “Right, right. Sorry, I just borrowed your screwdriver last time, remember? I brought it back.”

He holds it out like a peace offering. The same damn screwdriver Katsuki had already forgotten about.

For a second, Katsuki considers slamming the door in his face. But he doesn’t. He just stands there, staring at the idiot’s open, hopeful expression. The one that shouldn’t piss him off as much as it does.

He takes the screwdriver, grunting. “You could’ve just left it in my mailbox.”

“I thought I should return it in person,” Izuku says softly. “It’s only polite.”

There’s something in his tone. Something that is small and unassuming that tugged at the corner of Katsuki’s thoughts before he can shove it away.  

He doesn’t reply. He just turns back into his apartment, muttering, “Whatever. Piss off.”

But Izuku doesn’t leave immediately. Katsuki can feel him still standing there, lingering in the doorway like he wants to say something else. The silence between them stretches and for some reason, Katsuki doesn’t close the door.

Finally, Izuku says, “You fixed your light, huh? The one in the kitchen?”

Katsuki frowns. “What?”

“I noticed it wasn’t flickering anymore.”

Katsuki shouldn’t care that the nerd noticed something so small. He shouldn’t even remember that it was flickering last week. But he does, and the fact that Izuku paid attention to it, to him, catches somewhere in his chest like a loose thread.

What a fucking creep. 

He clears his throat with a gruff. “Yeah. Fixed it myself. Not that it’s your business.”

Izuku smiles too easily. “That’s awesome, Kacchan.”

And just like that, he’s gone again. His footsteps fading down the hall, the sound that Katsuki swears he won’t listen for next time.

Except he does.

When the quiet returns, it doesn’t feel like peace anymore. It feels like something is missing. And that, Katsuki decides, is infuriating. He slams the can down a little too hard on the counter and mutters, “Stupid nerd.”

But the word doesn’t have the same bite it used to.

#

The next morning, the world feels annoyingly bright. The kind of morning where everything, from the chatter of students to the squeak of sneakers on polished floors, feels too loud. And Katsuki hates it.

He walked through the campus courtyard, hands shoved in his pockets, the weight of his backpack slung carelessly over one shoulder. Beside him, Kirishima’s talking about some gym routine, Mina’s laughing at Denki’s dumb joke, and Katsuki’s tuning most of it out.

He’s been here three years. Three damn years walking these same paths, cutting through the same courtyards, breathing the same stale coffee-and-grass smell that every college seems to share. Nothing ever changes, and that’s how he likes it. Predictable and familiar.

Until now.

Because out of the corner of his eye, something green catches his attention.

Not just any green. That particular shade, the one he’s been unwillingly cataloguing over the past few weeks. That messy, bright, and ridiculously green.

His steps falter.

At first, he thinks he’s imagining it because there’s no fucking way. This campus has over ten thousand students. It could be anyone. It should be anyone. But then the person turns their head, and Katsuki catches a glimpse of freckled cheeks, of wide eyes scanning a notebook as they walk, of lips moving like they’re mumbling to themselves.

His stomach drops.

No. Fucking. Way.

“Oi, Bakugou, you good?” Kirishima’s voice cuts through the noise, but Katsuki barely hears him.

Because there’s Midoriya— green-haired, sunshine-smiling, talk-too-much Midoriya, walking across the quad, completely oblivious to Katsuki’s existence. A backpack twice his size, a pen tucked behind his ear, and that same infuriating bounce in his step.

Katsuki’s brain short-circuits.

What the fuck.

In three years on this campus, he’s never once seen him. Not in the cafeteria, not in the library, not even in the background of a lecture hall. But now… now he’s everywhere. And Katsuki absolutely hates it. 

“What the hell,” Katsuki mutters under his breath.

Mina follows his gaze and lets out a small gasp. “Oh, you mean him? He’s kinda cute. Do you know him?”

Katsuki’s scowl deepens. “No.” Too fast and too defensive. Kirishima raises a brow, and Denki snickers.

“Sure, dude,” Denki drawls. “You’re staring like you do.”

Katsuki raises a middle finger, quickening his pace. “Shut up before I blow you into pieces.”

He shouldn’t care. He shouldn’t even notice. But as they pass, Katsuki catches the faint sound of Izuku laughing at something one of his classmates says, and that sound— soft and genuine, completely unguarded, lodges itself in his chest like a splinter.

He hates it.

He hates that he recognized him so quickly. He hates that it bothers him. And he especially hates that for a single, fleeting second, he almost thought about calling out to him.

Instead, Katsuki shoves his hands deeper into his pockets and mutters, “Why the hell is that little shit everywhere?”

But no one answers, because it isn’t really a question.

It’s a warning.

Because for all his scowling and denial, Katsuki knows one thing for certain— he’s not escaping Izuku Midoriya anytime soon

#

Katsuki tries to shake it off. He really does. After all, it’s a big damn campus and people cross paths all the time. It’s just a coincidence. That’s what he tells himself, over and over, between lectures and lab reports, while the professor drones on about equations that should be taking up more space in his head than they are.

But the thought clings.

It lingers at the back of his mind like the static hum before a storm, small and persistent and most definitely impossible to ignore. Even when he’s not looking, he catches flashes of green in the corner of his eye. A blur across the quad. A silhouette in a classroom window. Once, a laugh floats through the crowd, and he finds himself turning before he can stop. And when he realizes it’s not him, that it’s just some other guy with too much sunlight in his voice, he clicks his tongue, annoyed at nothing and everything.

Fuck me.

He doesn’t notice the way his friends glance at him sometimes, how his gaze keeps darting somewhere else. Kirishima’s mid-sentence when he nudges him in the ribs, grinning.

“Oi, Bakugou,” he says, “you spacing out? You’ve been weird lately.”

“I’m fine,” Katsuki mutters, snapping his notebook shut a little too hard. “Why wouldn't I be?”

Mina hums, teasing. “Is it because of that green-haired cutie we saw the other day? You looked like you saw a ghost.”

“Yeah,” Denki chimes in, smirking. “You sure you don’t know him? You stared so hard, I thought you were about to—”

“Shut the fuck up,” Katsuki cuts in, sharper than he means to.

The air shifts and Kirishima raises a brow, hands up in surrender. “Hey, man, we’re just joking.”

“Then joke quieter,” Katsuki snaps, shoving his hands into his pockets. “Piss off.”

They exchange looks but drop it, eventually. Still, Katsuki can feel the weight of their curiosity following him down the hall, burning against the back of his neck. He scowls, half at them, half at himself. What the hell is wrong with him?

It’s nothing. Just a guy. A loud, nosy, smiling-like-he’s-got-the-sun-trapped-behind-his-teeth kind of guy. Katsuki doesn’t care.

Except, apparently he does.

Because that afternoon, when he stops by the vending machine near the gym, the universe decides to make a joke out of him.

There he is. The familiar mop of green hair, slightly damp from what looks like a quick shower, hunched over the machine like it personally offended him. Izuku’s frowning, muttering to himself, pressing buttons with increasing desperation.

“C’mon, just work, please. Oh no—”

The machine whirs uselessly. Izuku slaps the side of it and lets out a quiet, defeated sound that shouldn’t be funny but is.

Katsuki freezes mid-step.

He should walk away, he wants to walk away. But before he can pivot, Izuku turns and those wide green eyes blink up at him in unmistakable surprise.

“Oh, Kacchan!” His face lights up instantly, bright and easy as always. “You go here too?”

For a second, Katsuki’s brain just… blanks.

Of course he does. What kind of stupid question is that? But hearing it, seeing that spark of recognition, that unfiltered delight at bumping into him, makes something twist behind his ribs.

Izuku grins, like this is some kind of fate. “I can’t believe it! We’ve been at the same university all this time? That’s crazy!”

Katsuki stares at him. “Yeah,” he mutters. “Wild.”

Izuku keeps talking, words tumbling out too fast for Katsuki to catch them all. About how he’s in a different department, how the campus is big enough to lose people in, how he once got stuck in the architect building’s elevator for half an hour with a stray cat. Katsuki half-listens, half-studies him. The way his hands move when he talks, the way his voice rises when he’s excited, the way he smiles like every word has light in it.

It’s annoying. It’s so annoying. Can he just piss the fuck off?

And yet, when the vending machine finally spits out the drink, Izuku’s grin turns sheepish, and Katsuki finds himself looking away. Not out of disinterest, but because it’s suddenly too much. Too bright and too close.

“Well,” Izuku says, clutching the bottle like it’s a trophy. “Guess I’ll see you around, Kacchan. I still have classes.”

He waves before Katsuki can respond. Just like that, he’s gone again. Vanishing into the steady flow of students, a streak of green swallowed by the crowd.

Katsuki doesn’t move. Not for a long time.

He stands there, his jaw tight. The sound of Izuku’s voice still echoing faintly in his head, too loud against the quiet hum of the vending machine.

#

The cafeteria was its usual midday chaos. Voices bouncing off tiled walls, the scent of oil and coffee heavy in the air, chairs scraping against linoleum in an endless, grating rhythm. Katsuki sat wedged between Kirishima and Denki at their usual table by the window, the sunlight spilling across the tabletop in warm, restless streaks. Lunch hour always felt like a blur. loud, messy, and too many people in one place. But today, it grated on him worse than usual. Maybe it was the sleepless night. Maybe it was the heat. 

Or maybe it was the way Denki was eating like he’d never seen a fork before.

Denki had a burger in one hand, a pile of fries in the other, and a look of deep concentration that suggested he was fighting a losing battle with both. A smear of ketchup clung to the corner of his mouth. Katsuki tried to ignore it. He really did. But the sound of slurping soda through a straw finally made something in him snap.

“For fuck’s sake,” he muttered, snatching a chip from his tray and flicking it across the table. It hit Denki square in the forehead. “Eat properly, idiot.”

Denki blinked, startled, then laughed. “What the hell, dude?” He wiped the chip grease from his face, grinning. “You in a mood or something? You've been pissy these days.”

Kirishima chuckled beside them, elbow resting on the back of Katsuki’s chair. “He’s been like that all morning. You should’ve seen him during the quiz, looking ready to blow up the test paper.”

“It was hard!” Mina groaned, dragging her tray closer. She plopped down across from them, pink hair catching the light, a handful of grapes clutched like ammunition. “I swear, if I have to memorize one more chemical process, I’m gonna pour acid into my brain.” 

Katsuki scowled, stabbing at his food. “You all act like it’s new that you suck at studying.”

“Ouch,” Denki said, laughing. “He’s got claws out today.”

Mina leaned forward, eyes gleaming with mischief. “Okay, what’s with you, Bakugou? You’re extra pissy. Quiz can’t be that bad.”

“Nothing’s with me,” he grumbled. “Your faces just piss me off.”

Kirishima barked a laugh, and Denki nearly choked on his fries. “Our faces? Dude, come on.”

“Yeah, right,” Mina said, rolling her eyes. “You’re in a mood. Don’t think I don’t see it.”

“I’m fucking fine.”

“Sure you are.” Mina’s smirk turned sharp. Without warning, she flicked one of her grapes across the table. It bounced off Katsuki’s shoulder and rolled into his lap. “Maybe you’re cranky because it’s been a while since you got laid.”

The words landed like a spark in a powder room.

Kirishima snorted into his drink, Denki wheezed with laughter, and Katsuki froze, eyes narrowing dangerously. “What the fuck?”

“I’m just saying! You’re tense, dude. Maybe you need to, y’know, release some pressure.” Mina only grinned wider, unbothered by the death glare pointed her way. She waggled her eyebrows, and Denki lost it completely, laughing so hard his tray rattled.

“Holy shit, Mina.” Kirishima started, trying to catch his breath. “You’re gonna get yourself killed.”

Katsuki threw his fork down, the metal clattering against the plate. “You’re all idiots.” He leaned back in his chair, jaw tight, heat rising up his neck. It wasn’t the comment that pissed him off. It was the laughter that followed, loud and easy and too damn carefree. Like they were all in on a joke he couldn’t laugh at.

He grabbed his drink, taking a long, steady sip just to avoid saying something worse. The ice hit his teeth, the cold burned down his throat. Across the table, Mina looked smug, Denki was wiping tears from his eyes, and Kirishima still had that infuriating grin that said 'you’re one of us, whether you like it or not.'

For a moment, Katsuki almost smiled. Almost.

Then, from somewhere near the cafeteria line, a voice. Too bright, unmistakable, and too familiar rose above the noise.

“The exam was pretty hard.”

Katsuki stiffened. The cup in his hand froze halfway to his mouth. He didn’t have to look to know who it was. The pitch, that very and annoyingly familiar tone he could pick out of a crowd now without even trying.

Mina noticed his pause. “What’s up?”

“Nothing.” His reply came too fast. He dropped his gaze to his tray, pretending to be interested in the soggy fries.

But his eyes flickered up anyway, just once, and caught the unmistakable flash of green hair in the distance.

Without realizing it, Katsuki’s gaze lingered. It wasn’t intentional, at least that’s what he told himself later. But somehow his eyes had tracked the idiot across the room, following the soft bounce of green curls as Izuku moved along the lunch line. He was talking to someone, laughing at something stupid. It was the guy he saw the other day, one with the weird hair color combination.

Katsuki still thinks it's weird. White on the other side, and red on the other. Half-and-half. 

He didn’t hear the hum of the cafeteria anymore. The chatter faded into a dull, distant blur as Izuku handed his tray to the cashier, smiling that same infuriating, open smile that drives Katsuki crazy. Izuku took his food, thanked the lady at the counter, and disappeared into the crowd of students near the back exit. Katsuki’s eyes followed him until the last flicker of green vanished behind a column.

And only then did the noise around him crash back in— the laughter, clinking trays, the rustle of plastic wrappers, along with the sudden, sharp awareness that he wasn’t alone.

Three pairs of eyes were on him.

Kirishima. Mina. Denki.

All of them frozen mid-motion, like they’d just witnessed something monumental. Denki still had a fry halfway to his mouth. Mina’s eyebrows were climbing toward her hairline. Kirishima looked like he was seconds away from saying something very stupid.

Katsuki blinked, his expression snapping back into its usual scowl. “What?”

The three exchanged a look. Then another. And then, in perfect unison, they turned their heads toward where Izuku had been standing, then back at Katsuki.

Denki’s mouth dropped open first. “Wait. No way.”

“Oh my god,” Mina breathed, her grin widening with dangerous delight.

Kirishima leaned forward, elbows on the table, voice low with mock-serious awe. “Bro, was that the green-haired guy you’ve been seeing everywhere?”

Katsuki’s brows drew together, sharp as a blade. “What the hell are you talking about?”

Mina’s grin was all teeth now. “You were staring, dude. Like, eyes locked, no blinking. I thought you were about to laser-beam him or something.”

“I wasn’t staring,” he snapped. “I was just looking at the line. You're fucking delusional. Get a life. Fuck off.”

“Sure you were,” Denki said, already grinning like an idiot. “Looking at the line, not the guy in it. Totally believable.”

Kirishima chuckled, shaking his head. “Man, you didn’t even blink until he was gone. If you had a tail, it’d be wagging.”

Katsuki’s ears went hot. “You wanna keep your damn teeth, shitty hair?”

“Ooh, defensive,” Mina sing-songed, leaning closer. “You totally like him.”

The words hit harder than they should’ve. Katsuki’s pulse stuttered, a jolt of heat shooting up his neck. “What? Fuck off.”

Mina threw her hands up in mock surrender. “I’m just saying! You’ve been weird lately, and now you’re ogling some cute green-haired guy like he owes you money.”

Denki was wheezing now, barely keeping his laughter down. “This is amazing. Bakugou’s got a crush.”

“Say that again and I’ll drown you in the fryer,” Katsuki growled, snatching a napkin just to have something to crush in his fist.

Kirishima’s grin softened, amused but curious. “You know him, don’t you?”

That stopped him cold. Katsuki’s hand froze mid-motion, knuckles pale against the napkin. He met Kirishima’s gaze for half a second before looking away, jaw tight. “No,” he muttered. Too fast again. Too defensive.

Mina caught the crack instantly. “You so do.”

“I said I don’t.”

“Then why’re you red?” Denki piped in.

Katsuki glared daggers at him. “Because I’m trying not to shove this goddamn tray down your fucking ass.”

The table erupted in laughter, echoing off the walls while Katsuki sat there, seething. Every muscle in his jaw was ticking. He wanted to tell them to shut up, to throw something, to walk out and pretend this conversation never happened. But he didn’t move.

Because somewhere under all the noise, the teasing, the chaos, the heat in his face, his mind had already drifted back to the sight of Izuku smiling by the counter. That ridiculous green hair catching the light. That same easy voice saying “sorry” to someone who bumped into him.

Katsuki told himself it was nothing. Just a coincidence. 

But when Mina finally leaned back, smirking and smug, and said, “You’ve got it bad, huh?”

He didn’t answer, simply threw another chip at the latter that flicked on to her forehead.

Later, when he finally leaves, his headphones hang loose around his neck, music paused. The walk home feels longer than usual. His thoughts refuse to shut up. He tells himself it’s nothing. That it’s just a coincidence. That the idiot’s face is only stuck in his head because of sheer repetition, like a bad commercial jingle.

He tells himself he doesn’t care.

But that night, when he hears footsteps in the ceiling again. The same familiar rhythm, uneven but light. He doesn’t curse.

He listens.

Chapter Text

The rain had been falling since noon. Not the gentle kind that people romanticize, but the relentless kind that eats at the hours, grinding them down until the world feels heavy and waterlogged. It drummed against the lab windows like impatient fingers, a dull percussion that gnawed at Katsuki’s focus. The glass fogged, his notes blurred, and the stench of ethanol and solder hung thick in the air.

He should’ve gone home hours ago. But the mixture on the burner had gone off-color halfway through, and pride wouldn’t let him leave it. Now the air was sour with burnt residue and his temper simmered beneath the surface, the kind of low boil that could curdle silence. He stood at the sink, rinsing glassware, his jaw tight and shoulders aching from hours of tension.

When he finally killed the lights and stepped outside, the sky was already drowning. Rain came down in hard, vertical lines, slicing through the glow of the campus lamps until everything looked smudged. The kind of night that made even the loudest city sound like static. He shoved his hands into his hoodie pockets, head down, the hood plastered to his hair. He didn’t mind getting wet. It suited his mood.

The path home cut past the architecture building— a stretch of concrete framed by glass walls and too much open space. Katsuki usually ignored it. But tonight, light spilled from the studio windows, soft and golden against the storm, and something made him look.

Someone was still inside.

He slowed without meaning to, boots splashing against puddles, and through the glass he caught a flicker of movement— shoulders hunched over a desk, pencil moving in restless arcs. The silhouette was familiar. Too familiar. Even through the distortion of rain, he could make out the unruly curls of green hair, the slight bounce in every fidget.

Of course it was him. Who else stayed this late? Who else filled the silence like it was oxygen?

Katsuki should’ve kept walking. He told himself to. But his feet stayed planted beneath the awning, the rain hammering inches from his toes as he watched. Izuku’s head tilted, the pencil paused, then started again. He was talking to himself, faintly, the shape of his mouth forming quiet words Katsuki couldn’t hear. Probably mumbling about measurements or proportions or whatever kept his brain spinning at all hours.

Fuck it.

And then the lights went out.

And fuck me.

A sharp flicker, a mechanical sigh, and the room fell into darkness. For a second, Katsuki thought he imagined it. But then came a muffled clatter, the distinct scrape of a chair, and a startled voice from inside.

“Oh, crap—”

Katsuki exhaled through his nose. “For fuck’s sake.”

Before his brain could veto it, he was pushing through the door, the handle slick under his palm. The building’s air was warmer, still heavy with paper and graphite and the faint bite of wet concrete. Somewhere down the corridor, a flashlight beam wobbled.

“Oi,” he called out, his voice echoing against the walls. “You still in here, dumbass?”

There was a yelp, a shuffle, and then, “Kacchan? You startled me! What are you doing here?”

He found him at the far end of the studio, half-buried under scattered sheets of tracing paper, a flashlight clenched between his teeth like a miner lost underground. His curls were damp around the edges, and a small smear of graphite streaked his cheek.

Katsuki stared. “You planning to die here or what?”

Izuku spat the flashlight into his hand, fumbling with the switch until it settled on the desk. “The power went out right in the middle of a sketch. I thought maybe if I just waited—”

“You thought wrong,” Katsuki muttered, stepping closer. The light trembled between them, turning the air gold and dim. “The storm probably knocked something out. Building’s ancient.”

Izuku crouched, gathering papers before the draft from the open door could carry them away. Katsuki sighed and bent to help, sliding a few damp sheets back into the pile. Their fingers brushed once. Not long. Not intentional. But enough to make the air between them feel smaller.

“Thanks,” Izuku said quietly, his voice less bright now, softened by exhaustion. “You didn’t have to come in.”

“I didn’t,” Katsuki said flatly. “You just looked like you’d trip over your own shadow.”

That earned him a small laugh. Not the loud, nervous one Katsuki had come to expect. This one was quieter. Warmer. It hit his chest differently, like something faintly human pressing against all his rough edges.

The rain outside filled the silence. It pounded against the glass, steady and hypnotic. Izuku sat back on his heels, sketchbook balanced on his knee, pencil moving again as if nothing had happened. Katsuki leaned against the table beside him, arms crossed, watching the faint graphite lines appear— arches, supports, the fragile skeleton of some half-finished design.

“Can’t sit still for five minutes, can you?” Katsuki muttered.

Izuku smiled without looking up. “If I stop, I’ll start overthinking. The drawing keeps my brain quiet.”

Katsuki huffed, glancing toward the window where the storm painted the night in motion. “You talk about quiet like you actually know what it means.”

“I do,” Izuku said, still sketching. “Sometimes it’s just louder than noise.”

The pencil stopped. His hand hovered over the page, and for a heartbeat, neither of them moved. The room felt suspended— just rain, faint breathing, and the low hum of emergency power bleeding through the walls. Katsuki’s pulse thudded in his throat, steady but restless. He hated how aware he was of it.

He pushed off the table, needing the distance. “You should pack up. It’s late.”

“I know,” Izuku said softly. “I just need to finish this line.”

Katsuki watched him drag the pencil across the page, the line clean and sure despite the flickering light. When Izuku finally set it down, he exhaled like he’d been holding his breath the whole time.

What am I even doing here?

“Done,” he whispered.

Katsuki rolled his eyes but didn’t move toward the door. He didn’t know why. The rain still came down in waves, hard enough to drown the world beyond the glass. Izuku’s flashlight cast a pale circle over the table, and within it, the two of them existed in some accidental stillness neither had planned for.

Izuku’s voice broke it first. “Rain makes everything sound closer, doesn’t it?”

Katsuki looked at him, at the curls clinging to his forehead, the faint shimmer of water along his sleeve. “You talk too much,” he said.

Izuku’s mouth curved, a quiet smile tugging at the corner. “You keep listening.”

Katsuki didn’t respond. He couldn’t. He just turned toward the door, muttering something under his breath about idiots and lightning rods, but his steps were slower than before. The storm swallowed the rest of his words as the door shut behind him.

Outside, the rain hit him like static. The air smelled like ozone and wet earth. He tilted his head up once, just long enough to feel it against his skin, then shoved his hands back in his pockets and started walking.

Somewhere behind him, a light flickered back on.

And Katsuki, for reasons he couldn’t explain, didn’t feel as restless anymore.

The rain hadn’t eased. If anything, it had grown meaner. It slammed sideways against the glass, churning puddles into restless mirrors. The hallway lights were still out, the only glow coming from Izuku’s flashlight trembling in his hand as they stepped toward the exit. Katsuki tugged his hood over his head and glanced through the door’s narrow window. Sheets of water blurred the world into a dull smear of gray.

He muttered a curse. “You got an umbrella, nerd?”

Izuku blinked, fumbling with his bag. “Yeah, I think so. Wait.” He dug through the endless abyss of his backpack, pulling out notebooks, a half-eaten granola bar, a small ruler, another granola bar— what the hell— and finally, a folded umbrella, slightly bent at one rib. 

“Ta-da!” he said, smiling like it was something to be proud of.

Katsuki stared at it, unimpressed. “That thing’s about to snap in half if a breeze looks at it funny.”

“It’s been through worse,” Izuku said defensively.

“Sure,” Katsuki muttered. “Like your sense of direction.”

Izuku just laughed, that small, open sound that had no business existing at this hour. He leaned against the doorframe, watching the rain. “Guess we’ll have to wait a bit before heading out. It’s really coming down.”

“Great,” Katsuki grumbled. “Exactly how I wanted to spend my night. Stuck with you.”

Izuku’s grin widened. “Aw, you say that like it’s a bad thing.”

Katsuki shot him a glare sharp enough to cut concrete. “It is.”

But he didn’t move away.

The minutes stretched. The storm outside pulsed like a living thing, thunder rumbling somewhere far off, soft and distant. Izuku crouched near the door, tapping his fingers against his knee, too restless to sit still. He hummed something under his breath— an uneven, tuneless sound that somehow threaded through the rain.

Then, inevitably, he started talking.

“You know,” he said, “this storm kind of reminds me of this one time in high school when the roof of our art room leaked, and I tried to fix it with duct tape. Terrible idea. I nearly fell off the ladder, but at least the tape held. For a day.”

Katsuki sighed. “You really think I care about your tragic duct-tape adventures?”

Izuku laughed. “Probably not. But you’re listening anyway.”

He kept going. “Rain’s weird, isn’t it? It’s so loud and yet kind of peaceful. It makes people slower. Like it forces you to just stop for a while.” He turned his flashlight on the puddle forming outside. “Look at that. It’s reflecting the lights like melted glass.”

Katsuki raised a brow. “You always narrate the weather, or is that a special service?”

Izuku smiled, undeterred. “Only when it’s worth noticing.”

“Then shut up. It’s just water.”

“Water’s important too, Kacchan. Without it, your fancy chemistry lab wouldn’t even work.”

“Yeah, thanks, Professor Obvious.”

Izuku chuckled again. He didn’t even sound embarrassed, which annoyed Katsuki more than anything. The guy just kept talking. About his architecture classes, the way his professor gestured like a conductor during critiques, how he’d been sketching the same building design for weeks trying to get the angles right. Katsuki didn’t mean to respond, but the words slipped out anyway.

“Maybe if you stopped talking for five seconds, you’d actually finish something.”

Izuku snorted. “Maybe if you stopped scowling for five seconds, you’d stop aging prematurely.”

Katsuki turned his head slowly, expression flat. “You wanna die?”

That only made Izuku laugh harder. It echoed faintly through the empty corridor, cutting through the dull roar of the rain. Katsuki’s frown deepened, but there was no heat behind it. The sound filled the space in a way the storm couldn’t.

“Why the hell are you always like this?” Katsuki asked, half under his breath.

“Like what?”

“Annoying. Loud. Too… much.”

Izuku’s smile softened. “Because it keeps me from thinking too hard.”

Katsuki’s jaw tensed. He didn’t have a response for that. He just looked back out at the rain, at the way it began to slow, each drop falling heavier but less frantic. The storm was winding down, breathing out its last few sighs.

Izuku nudged him with his elbow, small and tentative. “Looks like it’s easing up.”

“Finally,” Katsuki muttered.

He reached for the door, but Izuku stopped him, holding up the umbrella like it was some sacred relic. “It’s not completely done yet. We’ll share.”

Katsuki’s brows knit together. “The hell we will. That thing barely covers one person.”

“Then stand closer,” Izuku said simply, already stepping outside.

Katsuki stared after him, incredulous. “You’ve got a death wish.”

But he followed.

The moment the rain hit, it felt colder than it looked. Izuku tilted the umbrella just enough to cover them both, shoulders brushing in the narrow space. The air smelled of wet concrete and ozone. Their steps splashed quietly against the pavement as they walked beneath the trembling canopy.

Katsuki grumbled, “You’re holding it wrong.”

Izuku blinked up at him. “What?”

“You’re tilting it too far left. I’m getting soaked, you idiot.”

“Oh, sorry!” He adjusted it, which only made him bump closer. Their arms brushed. “Better?”

“Barely.”

Izuku’s laugh cracked through the rain again. “You’re impossible.”

“And you’re a pain in my ass.”

“Guess we’re even, then.”

The walk stretched on like that— bickering, half in jest, half in habit. Katsuki told himself he was counting the seconds until he could be dry again, until this whole night could be erased by sleep and caffeine. But when Izuku talked about the smell of petrichor or how the streetlights looked like halos in puddles, Katsuki didn’t interrupt. Not right away.

He found himself listening, actually listening, to the rhythm of Izuku’s voice against the rain. The cadence was uneven, words tripping over themselves, but there was something steady underneath, something warm that filled the space the storm had hollowed out. Katsuki’s annoyance dulled into a strange, quiet focus.

By the time they reached their building where their stairs split, the rain had thinned into a drizzle. Izuku shook the umbrella out and gave him a sheepish smile. “Well… guess this is where we part ways.”

Katsuki shoved his hands into his pockets. “You’re lucky that your umbrella didn’t explode.”

Izuku grinned. “See? It’s tougher than it looks.”

Katsuki rolled his eyes, stepping back toward his building. “Whatever. I don't care. Piss off.”

Izuku hesitated for half a second, then waved. “Night, Kacchan.”

“Don’t call me that,” Katsuki muttered, but Izuku was already walking away, his steps light against the wet floors.

Katsuki lingered under the awning, watching until the green hair disappeared as he climbed the stairs. The rain had nearly stopped, but the air still hummed with leftover static, as if the storm hadn’t completely left. He exhaled, slow and uneven, and ran a hand through his damp hair.

“Annoying little shit,” he murmured.

But for some reason, his chest felt less heavy when he said it.

#

The heat came like punishment.

By Sunday, the city was suffocating. As if it wasn't downpouring a few days ago. Nature can be a little shit if it wants to. The air pressed down heavy and slow, clinging to skin and breath like wet cloth. Even the walls felt warm to the touch. Katsuki sat sprawled on his couch in nothing but an old tank top and loose shorts, the AC whirring quietly from the corner like it had given up trying. 

He had planned to do absolutely nothing today. No labs, no reports, no people. Just noise from the television playing low and the dull hum of the AC pushing around stale air. He had half a bottle of cold water beside him and the kind of exhaustion that didn’t come from work but from existing. For once, the world was quiet.

Until the doorbell rang.

Fuck my life. Fuck this shit. Fuck me in the ass. Fuck you. Fuck everyone. Fuck everything.

Katsuki’s head snapped toward the door, a slow frown forming. A short pause, then another ring— more insistent this time.

“Who the hell—” He pushed himself up, rubbing the back of his neck as he stalked across the room. The air felt heavier near the door, the sunlight cutting through the hallway like a blade. He yanked it open without ceremony.

And of course, it had to be him.

Izuku stood there, grinning like the heat didn’t exist, curls damp with sweat and shirt clinging slightly to his shoulders. He was holding another container.

“Hi, Kacchan!” he said, his voice too bright for a day this unbearable. “I made something. Leche flan. It’s one of the easiest desserts, so I thought I’d bring you some.”

Katsuki stared at him. The words didn’t register right away because the visual itself was offensive enough. Green hair, flushed cheeks, and a container of sugar in his hands like this was a goddamn charity drop-off. He didn’t move. Just leaned against the doorframe, one brow raised, waiting for the punchline.

Izuku shifted, smile faltering just slightly under the weight of Katsuki’s silence. “You, uh… don’t like sweets?”

Katsuki’s brain screamed no. He wanted to tell Izuku that he is shit at cooking, let alone baking. But his mouth stayed shut, surprisingly. The rational part of him wanted to slam the door, crawl back onto the couch, and forget that Midoriya Izuku existed. But his hands, traitorous and impulsive, were already moving. He took the container from him before his mouth could catch up.

God. Damn. It.

Izuku’s smile returned instantly, small and earnest and infuriating. “I hope it’s okay. I was testing the recipe for fun. It’s really simple, but my mom always said the trick is getting the syrup just right.”

Katsuki didn’t hear half of it. His mind was already ten steps ahead, reminding him of the first time— the muffins, the same bright grin, the same stupid gesture of peace. And then it hit him like a slap.

He still hadn’t returned that first container.

He groaned internally, rubbing at the bridge of his nose. “You’re fucking kidding me.”

Izuku blinked. “What?”

Katsuki glared at the air beside his head, as if the wall had personally offended him. “Wait here.”

He turned on his heel, muttering curses under his breath as he crossed the room. Somewhere in the kitchen, buried behind takeout boxes and half-finished notes, was the goddamn muffin container. He found it sitting upside-down near the sink, the lid slightly warped from heat. He snatched it up, swearing at himself the entire time.

When he came back, Izuku was still standing in the doorway, smiling politely like this was the most normal thing in the world.

“Here,” Katsuki said gruffly, shoving the container into his chest. “Take it.”

Izuku blinked, startled, before laughing softly. “Oh, wow, you actually kept it!”

“Yeah, well, I don’t collect trash.”

“Then you’re returning it to its rightful owner,” Izuku said, grin widening.

Katsuki rolled his eyes. “You done?”

“Well,” Izuku said carefully, peeking past him into the apartment, “I should probably rinse this new one out when you’re done, right? So I can take it back next time?”

Katsuki’s jaw flexed. “There’s not gonna be a next time.”

Izuku tilted his head, pretending to think. “Right. Of course not.”

There was that tone again, the one that sounded like he didn’t believe a single word Katsuki said. It made something hot crawl up Katsuki’s throat. He opened his mouth to throw him out properly, but the words tangled somewhere between his teeth.

Instead, what came out was, “You wanna come in? It’s fucking hot out there.”

What the fuck, Katsuki Bakugou?

What the fuck.

No, seriously. What the fuck. 

What the fuck is wrong with you, you little dipshit.

Katsuki fucking Bakugou, what the fuck.

The second the words left him, regret hit like a freight train. He wanted to drag them back, shove them into the back of his throat and lock them up. But Izuku’s face had already lit up, that stupid, warm expression blooming again as he stepped forward.

“Thanks! You’re a lifesaver. I was melting.”

Katsuki stepped aside, glaring at nothing in particular as Izuku entered, still holding the damn flan like it was sacred. The air shifted instantly, less empty and still. Izuku had that effect. Always bringing noise with him, even when he wasn’t talking yet.

Katsuki followed him in, shutting the door behind them with a quiet click. He swore under his breath.

You and your bitch of a mouth, Katsuki Bakugou. What have you done, you dipshit son of a bitch.

“What?” Izuku asked, glancing over his shoulder.

“Nothing,” Katsuki muttered. “Just thinking about all the wrong choices I’ve made today.”

Izuku laughed, setting the container on the counter. “Then this must be one of the better ones.”

Katsuki didn’t answer. He just stared at the flan, golden under the plastic lid, beads of syrup clinging to the edge like melted glass. The room felt smaller suddenly, the AC’s hum the only sound between them.

“Do you need a spoon?” Izuku asked gently.

“No,” Katsuki said too fast.

“Yes, you do,” Izuku replied, already pulling one from the drawer like he’d been here before.

Katsuki pinched the bridge of his nose. “You really don’t know when to quit, do you?”

Izuku grinned. “Nope.”

He handed him the spoon anyway, eyes bright in the dim heat. Katsuki took it, muttering something inaudible, but his hand didn’t hesitate this time. He popped the lid open, the faint caramel scent spilling into the air. Sweet. Rich. Too much.

He hated it.

And yet, he took a bite.

The sugar hit his tongue, creamy and heavy, and he swore softly through his teeth. It wasn’t bad. Which was, somehow, even more irritating. He glared at the dessert like it had personally betrayed him.

Izuku leaned forward, watching him expectantly. “Well?”

Katsuki took another bite just to spite him. “It’s shit.”

Izuku smiled wider. “Oh really, now?”

Katsuki shot him a look sharp enough to kill a conversation. “You want me to say it’s amazing? What do you want, a fucking medal?”

“No,” Izuku said lightly. “Just the truth.”

Katsuki stared at him for a long second, the spoon heavy in his hand, the air between them thick with heat and the faint hum of something unspoken. Then he set it down with a quiet clink.

“It’s good,” he said finally. “Now shut up.”

Izuku’s grin softened into something quieter, smaller. “Okay.”

For a few minutes, the only sound was the fan and the soft scrape of metal against plastic as Katsuki finished another bite. Izuku leaned against the counter, watching the sunlight stretch across the floor. The air was thick and slow, but it didn’t feel empty anymore.

Katsuki hated that he noticed.

When Izuku finally stood to leave, he gathered the empty containers, both of them, and smiled one last time. “Thanks for letting me in, Kacchan.”

Katsuki grunted. “Didn’t have much of a choice.”

“Still,” Izuku said, voice low and warm, “thanks.”

And then he was gone, the door clicking shut behind him, leaving the faint scent of caramel and heat in his wake.

Katsuki stood there a moment longer, staring at the counter, at the small smear of syrup he hadn’t wiped off. His reflection warped faintly in the glossy plastic lid.

He sighed, dragging a hand down his face.

Chapter Text

It started with the shoelaces.

Katsuki didn’t know how someone could forget to tie them every single morning. It was basic, automatic, human reflex— like breathing, blinking, or swearing when you burn your hand on hot metal. But somehow, Midoriya Izuku had managed to live twenty years on this earth without mastering the art of looking down before walking. Katsuki first noticed it on a Tuesday, the kind of day that already pressed against his nerves with too much sunlight and too many voices. 

They’d been walking out of the campus café, Izuku rambling about some project presentation, his hands waving in the air like punctuation marks. Then, mid-sentence, his foot caught the trailing lace, and he stumbled forward, books scattering like startled birds. Katsuki caught his arm on instinct. Reflex, not intention, and Izuku blinked up at him, startled and breathless. Like he couldn’t believe gravity still worked.

“Are you fucking serious?” Katsuki hissed, yanking him upright. “Tie your damn shoes before you kill yourself.”

Izuku only laughed, rubbing the back of his neck, a little sheepish. “Right, sorry. Guess I got distracted.”

“Yeah, by your own stupidity.”

Katsuki let go before he could process the fact that his pulse had jumped. He didn’t like that it did.

But the universe, it seemed, wasn’t done testing his patience.

A few days later, it happened again. This time on an entirely new level of idiocy. They were at the pedestrian lane, the light green, the world loud with traffic and heat. Izuku was talking beside him, words spilling out about architectural design, something about cantilevers and foundation spacing, and Katsuki wasn’t even really listening until it happened. Izuku stepped forward too soon, the kind of misstep that turned air into glass.

The bus didn’t come close enough to hit him, but it came close enough to feel it— the sharp gust, the metallic screech, the sound that ripped Katsuki’s throat open before he could think. He yanked Izuku back hard enough to make him stumble, hard enough for his own heart to punch against his ribs.

“What the fuck is wrong with you?!” Katsuki’s voice was too loud, too raw. “You trying to die in front of me or what?”

Izuku blinked, still dazed, curls sticking to his forehead. “Oh, I didn't notice.”

“Didn’t notice a bus the size of a goddamn building?” Katsuki snapped. “You need a fucking leash, not an umbrella.”

People were staring, but he didn’t care. His pulse was still racing, his hand still fisted in Izuku’s sleeve. He released it slowly, like his body didn’t quite trust the idea of letting go. Izuku muttered another apology, voice small, but it only made the sound in Katsuki’s chest worse.

That should have been the end of it. 

It wasn’t.

Two days later, they were heading toward the convenience store. The air smelled like asphalt and fried oil, the sky bleeding orange with the sunset. Izuku was beside him, hands in his pockets, mouth running as always— talking about exams, professors, the way the vending machine downstairs kept eating his coins. Katsuki half-listened, half-didn’t. Until Izuku turned toward him mid-sentence, still talking, not watching where he was going.

“—and then I realized the assignment wasn’t due till next—”

He didn’t finish. His forehead met the streetlight pole with a thud so clean it echoed.

Katsuki stopped walking. Slowly turned. Izuku stood frozen, one hand pressed to his forehead, expression crumpled in pain.

“...Ow.”

Katsuki stared at him for a long, silent moment. Then he exhaled through his teeth. “You’re unbelievable.”

“I wasn’t paying attention,” Izuku mumbled, eyes watering slightly.

“Obviously.”

“I think I might bruise.”

“Good,” Katsuki said. “Maybe it’ll knock some sense into you.”

Izuku just smiled weakly, still rubbing his forehead. “You’re not gonna ask if I’m okay?”

“Do I look like a nurse?” Katsuki muttered, pushing past him toward the store. But his eyes flicked back once, catching the faint red mark already forming on Izuku’s skin. He didn’t say anything, but the image burned into his mind longer than it should have.

And then there was the wet floor incident.

It had rained the night before— the kind of heavy downpour that left the tiles slick and shining. The building management had been kind enough to put up a Wet Floor sign right in the middle of the hallway, bright yellow, impossible to miss. Izuku, of course, walked around it. Somehow, impossibly, he still managed to step on the single patch of water on the opposite side and go down in a graceless sprawl of limbs and startled sound.

Katsuki was two steps behind him. He watched it happen in slow motion— the slip, the arm flail, the noise. Before he groaned so hard it hurt.

“Midoriya fucking Izuku.” he said flatly.

Izuku groaned from the floor, blinking up at him, hair a mess. “It wasn't my fault I—”

“Slipped? No shit.” Katsuki offered a hand without thinking. Izuku took it, his grip warm, slightly trembling, and for a second too long, Katsuki didn’t pull away. Then he did— too fast, too sharp. “You’re a goddamn hazard.”

Izuku laughed weakly, brushing himself off. “Guess I have bad luck.”

“No,” Katsuki said, jaw tight. “You have no awareness. There’s a difference.”

Izuku smiled at that, something small and crooked. “You worry too much.”

“Don’t flatter yourself,” Katsuki snapped, turning away. But his pulse betrayed him again, tripping over itself like Izuku’s shoelaces.

By that point, Katsuki had decided that if the world was a stage, Izuku was its designated catastrophe. A walking mess of limbs and noise and unfiltered motion, always one second from disaster. It should have annoyed him. It did annoy him. But it also did something else. Something harder to name, something that made his chest feel too tight whenever Izuku stumbled too close to harm.

He told himself it was irritation. Pure, rational irritation. Nothing more.

Still, that night, when Katsuki sat on his couch with the fan humming and the city lights seeping through the window, he caught himself thinking about it— the look on Izuku’s face when the bus had passed, the sound of his laugh after hitting the pole, the ridiculous way he smiled through every bruise.

Katsuki rubbed a hand over his face and muttered to the empty room, “You’re gonna be the death of me.”

The silence didn’t disagree.

#

It kept raining that week. The kind of relentless downpour that drowned out reason, turning the city into a blur of umbrellas and reflections. Somehow, despite every intention not to, Katsuki found himself walking beside Izuku again. He didn’t know how it happened. Maybe coincidence, maybe cosmic punishment. But wherever he went, the damn nerd always managed to appear, waving, smiling, talking. Two peas in a pod, except one was screaming to get out of the shell.

They moved through the street in an easy, mismatched rhythm. Izuku’s pace was uneven, distracted by everything— the color of the sky, the faint steam curling out of sewer grates, the sound of rain hitting plastic roofs. Katsuki walked beside him in silence, hands in his pockets, hood pulled low. He told himself he didn’t mind the company, only the noise. But the truth was more complicated than that, and he didn’t feel like naming it.

When the rain thickened into a downpour, they ducked into the convenience store at the corner. The bell above the door gave its tired jingle, and warm air swallowed them whole. They grabbed whatever looked edible— two cup noodles, a few rice balls, canned coffee. The hum of refrigerators filled the quiet. Outside, the world was gray and wet, the windows fogged from the heat inside.

They sat by the small counter near the glass, steam rising from their cups. Izuku stirred his noodles too long, talking between bites, his words spilling like the rain outside. Katsuki half-listened, the sound of his voice merging with the patter against the glass. It wasn’t that he liked listening, it was that it filled the space so nothing else had to.

He answered once or twice. Short, automatic replies that Izuku somehow turned into full conversations. The rhythm between them had become familiar— Izuku talked, Katsuki grunted, and somehow, that counted as dialogue.

Then, without thinking, Katsuki spoke.

“Why do they call you that?”

Izuku blinked, chopsticks hovering midair. “Huh?”

“That nickname,” Katsuki said, eyes on his noodles. “Deku. People call you that sometimes. Why?”

There was a pause. The kind that stretched thin before words found their place again. Izuku leaned back slightly, his smile dimming but not fading entirely. “Oh. That.” 

He laughed softly, almost shyly. “It’s… kind of a long story. I was bullied a lot when I was a kid. The kanji in my name ‘Izuku’, it can also be read as ‘Deku.’ It’s supposed to mean ‘useless,’ like a block of wood that can’t do anything.”

Katsuki looked up at that. The word sat strangely between them, too heavy for the air. Izuku didn’t flinch, though. He kept his voice steady, even gentle.

“I used to hate it,” he continued. “Every time someone said it, it felt like they were right. Like I really was useless. But… I guess at some point I just decided to take it back. To make it mine instead of theirs. Now it means something else to me. It reminds me that I’m still here. Still trying.”

The rain softened against the glass, turning the outside world into ripples of light. Katsuki didn’t say anything at first. He wasn’t built for this kind of talk. His throat tightened like the words were fighting to stay where they were. Sentiment wasn’t his language, irritation was. He could deal with that.

He set his chopsticks down and muttered, “Well, aren’t you one.”

Izuku turned toward him, puzzled. “What do you mean?”

Katsuki met his eyes, deadpan. “A deku. You trip over everything, walk into poles, slip on air. If I wasn’t around, you’d be roadkill by now.”

Izuku blinked, then laughed. It wasn’t mocking. It was soft and real, the kind that warmed the edges of silence. “You might be right,” he said, smiling faintly. “But I’ll take it as a compliment.”

“It wasn’t one.”

“I know.”

The rain outside deepened again, washing the street in silver. Katsuki looked away first, pretending to focus on his cup, but the faint sound of Izuku’s laugh lingered longer than the rain did. There was something infuriatingly bright about it. A sound that refused to fade, even in the thick of gray weather.

For a moment, they sat in quiet that didn’t feel heavy. Steam curled between them like breath. Katsuki didn’t say another word, but when Izuku leaned his cheek against his palm and watched the storm outside, there was something in his posture. A strange kind of ease that made Katsuki’s chest ache in a way he couldn’t name.

He took another bite of noodles and muttered under his breath, “You really are a damn deku.”

Izuku smiled without looking away from the window. “And you’re still listening.”

Katsuki didn’t answer. He didn’t have to.

Outside, the rain kept falling.

#

The weather finally decided to behave. For once, the sky wasn’t choking on gray or burning through with the sun. It was balanced, stretched in a clear calm that rarely lasted past noon. The air moved gently across the university field, carrying that faint scent of trimmed grass and something sweet from the trees at the edge. The kind of afternoon that would’ve been tolerable, maybe even decent, if Katsuki wasn’t surrounded by noise.

His friends had commandeered one of the shaded benches like it belonged to them. Denki was sprawled on the grass with his guitar, strumming out the same half-tuned chords over and over, singing between them like he was auditioning for someone who’d already walked away. Mina sat cross-legged beside him, her voice sharp and carefree as she joined in, no concept of volume or self-restraint. Kirishima leaned back on his hands, nodding along to the rhythm with that easy grin that made people like him instantly. Katsuki sat slightly apart, close enough to pretend he was part of it, far enough to breathe.

It wasn’t that he hated his friends. They were good people, loud as hell but loyal in the right ways. He just didn’t always know what to do with all that noise. With the easy laughter, the thoughtless joy. So he did what he always did. Stayed quiet. Watched.

The field stretched wide before them, alive in color. The grass was impossibly green. The trees swayed lazily, their leaves green. For a second, Katsuki allowed himself to just look. It was almost peaceful, the rare kind of peace that didn’t need to be earned.

And then he saw it.

Or rather, him.

At first it was just movement. A flash of something too familiar at the corner of his vision. Then, as his eyes adjusted, it was unmistakable— green, again. Green hair, green eyes, that same stupid posture that screamed unguarded energy even from a distance. Katsuki blinked, squinting toward the far end of the field.

Midoriya.

What the hell was he doing here?

He stood near one of the old benches by the track, notebook in hand, scribbling or sketching something, oblivious to the world. The wind caught in his hair, turning it messier than usual, strands catching sunlight. Katsuki’s jaw tightened.

He looked away. Tried to. But his gaze betrayed him, dragging back like it had nowhere else to go. The field was big enough to hold half the student body, and yet somehow it wasn’t big enough to keep that idiot out of sight.

Kirishima’s voice pulled him back. “You good, bro?”

Katsuki grunted. “Yeah.”

“You look like you’re thinking too hard.”

“Then stop looking.”

Kirishima laughed, unfazed, and went back to nodding along to Denki’s off-key strumming. Katsuki leaned forward, elbows on his knees, but his eyes flicked back again despite himself. Midoriya was still there, hunched over his sketchpad, one hand moving fast. He looked focused, the world folding neatly around whatever he was drawing. Katsuki hated that kind of focus. That total absorption as if nothing else mattered. Like the rest of the world could burn and he wouldn’t notice.

He told himself it was irritating. That was easier than the other thing crawling beneath his ribs.

He’d seen Midoriya in that same state before— in his class, in their building, even at the damn convenience store when he was talking about nothing. There was a way he moved when he was lost in his head, a rhythm to it that was almost magnetic. Katsuki didn’t like it. Didn’t like that it pulled his attention without asking.

Mina’s voice sliced through the hum of the afternoon. “Hey, isn’t that the architecture kid you’ve been hanging around with lately?”

Katsuki’s head snapped toward her before he could think. “What?”

She followed his line of sight, squinting. “Yeah, the green one. What’s his name again? Midori-something?”

Denki perked up immediately. “Oh, that guy! The one who always waves when he sees you?”

Kirishima grinned. “Didn’t you say he brought you food once? Damn, Bakugou, didn’t know you were sharing snacks.”

Katsuki’s glare could’ve flattened a mountain. “Shut up before I feed you to that guitar.”

Mina raised her hands in mock surrender. “Yeah, you don't share food with us. What, got a knack for cute guys with freckles and gree—”

“Mina.”

“Okay, okay! Not another word.”

But the damage was done. Katsuki’s ears felt hot, and he hated that. He hated all of it— the way they said his name, the way his eyes kept wandering, the way the green in the distance stood out against the rest of the field like it was made to be noticed.

He looked again despite himself. Midoriya had straightened up, stretching his arms, scanning the field absently. Their eyes met. Only for a second. Brief and simple, but Katsuki felt it. Oh fuck, he really did. A small shift in air, a spark that shouldn’t mean anything. Midoriya smiled, that stupid, bright, unguarded smile, and waved.

Katsuki’s stomach did a thing he refused to name.

He didn’t wave back.

Instead, he turned away, muttering under his breath, “Why the fuck is he everywhere.”

Kirishima chuckled beside him. “You say that like it’s a bad thing.”

“It is.”

“Then maybe you should stop looking for him.”

Katsuki glared. “I’m not looking for him.”

Kirishima hummed like he didn’t believe a word. Denki strummed louder, Mina started singing again, and the noise filled the air. Katsuki sat there, silent, jaw tight, staring at nothing in particular. But the green still lingered in the corner of his vision. In the trees, in the grass, in the afterimage burned behind his eyes.

He told himself he was imagining it. That it was just color, just coincidence, just Midoriya being Midoriya. Clumsy, loud, and impossible to ignore.

But for the rest of the afternoon, no matter how many times he blinked, the world stayed green.

And it was driving him insane.

#

That night, Katsuki dreamed in color.

Green— too much of it. A field, a voice calling his name, laughter that felt close enough to touch. It wasn’t sharp or loud like it was in real life; it was soft, threaded through the wind. Izuku was somewhere in the middle of it all, talking, smiling, tripping over nothing. Katsuki reached out before he realized he was moving, and everything dissolved into light.

Katsuki's eyes snapped open, his body arching off the bed as he woke with a jolt. He woke up fast. The room was pale with early morning, the AC humming low above him. For a second he couldn’t breathe right. The dream clung to him like static. He sat up, rubbing a hand over his face, his pulse racing for reasons he didn’t want to name. The remnants of his dream clung to him like a damp shroud, Izuku's smiling face etched into his mind. He groaned, scrubbing at his face with his palms, trying to scrub away the lingering images. 

But his body had other plans.

He was hard. Painfully hard. Katsuki's eyes widened as he stared down at the tent in his sheets, his face heating with a mix of embarrassment and frustration. "What. The. Fuck.”

He threw off the covers, his erection straining against his boxers as if trying to escape. Katsuki glared at it, as if daring it to get any worse. He stumbled out of bed, his movements stiff and awkward as he tried to adjust himself discreetly.

The cool morning air hit his skin, doing little to alleviate the situation. He swung his legs off the bed and stood too quickly, trying to shake the heat out of his skin, the image out of his head. He could still see it—the color, the smile, the sound of rain. It felt too real, too close. He pressed the heel of his hand against his forehead, groaning. The apartment was quiet. The air was already warm. He stumbled toward the bathroom, turned on the sink, and dunked his head under the stream until the shock of cold water chased every thought out of his skull. When he finally straightened, hair dripping, breath uneven, he stared at his reflection.

The shock of cold water hit him like a slap, his body jerking back reflexively. But it worked. His erection began to subside, and Katsuki breathed a sigh of relief. He rested his forehead against the tile wall, letting the water pound against his tense muscles. “Fuck you, Deku.”

“Fuck you and your stupid green hair and your creepy green eyes.” He hissed at himself, as if the words could scrub the dream away.

His face looked almost normal again— just tired, damp, irritated. That was good. That was familiar.

“Fuck you, Bakugou,” he told the mirror, low and certain. “You’re losing your damn mind.”

Outside, the first sunlight touched the windows, bright and unbothered. The day started anyway, and Katsuki pretended he hadn’t just dreamed in green.

Chapter Text

Katsuki was spiraling. Not the kind that showed. Not the loud, dramatic kind that cracked through walls. But the kind that lived quiet and internal, like a fever no one could see. The world hadn’t changed, not really. Classes went on, the sky shifted between sun and storm, and Izuku still existed in the same space he always had. But everything felt different now, like someone had shifted the ground beneath his feet half an inch to the left and expected him not to notice.

He hadn’t slept properly since that night. The dream lingered, unwanted and sharp-edged, haunting the corners of his mind every time his thoughts slowed down. Every time he blinked, there it was— that green, that voice, the way it had felt too vivid, too real. He’d wake with his pulse in his throat and his palms damp and a tent on his pants, and every morning he’d swear to himself that today, he wouldn’t think about it. Today, he’d forget.

He didn’t.

So he did what he was best at. Control through avoidance. Katsuki started leaving his apartment early, before anyone could catch him on the stairs. He switched cafés, changed routes, found new corners of campus to occupy. He even started eating lunch in the mechanical lab, between the smell of oil and solder, where Izuku was least likely to appear. If he heard that familiar laugh in the hallway, he turned the other way. If he saw a head of green hair across the street, he ducked behind a crowd.

His friends noticed, of course. They noticed everything, even when they pretended not to.

“Dude,” Denki said one afternoon, sprawled across the bench outside their lecture hall, “you’ve been weird lately. Weirder than usual.”

Kirishima nodded, grinning. “You okay, bro? You’ve got that look. Like you’re about to blow something up or confess your sins.”

Mina leaned in, resting her chin on her palm. “Maybe it’s just that time of the month.”

Katsuki threw her a glare that could’ve set the air on fire. “The fuck does that even mean.”

She smirked. “You get cranky, you avoid everyone, you sigh like a heartbroken poet. It’s period behavior.”

Denki snorted, and Kirishima tried not to laugh. “Don’t worry, man,” he said between chuckles. “We’ve all been there. Emotional constipation’s a killer.”

Katsuki stood up without a word, grabbing his bag and walking off before any of them could say more. He didn’t trust himself to answer without throwing something. He didn’t even make it three steps before he heard Mina’s voice call after him, teasing and bright, “Drink some water, moody boy!”

He didn’t turn around. He didn’t need to. He could hear the laughter behind him, light and harmless. Normally, he would’ve snapped back, thrown an insult sharp enough to draw blood, but today the noise just bounced off him, dull and far away. His chest felt too tight, and he didn’t know if it was anger or something worse.

It had been days since he’d seen Izuku properly. Days since that stupid rain, since the noodles, since that smile that wouldn’t leave him alone. He told himself it was fine— good, even. He needed distance. Space. Air.

But his body disagreed. The stillness was crawling under his skin, and it was driving him mad.

He’d stopped going to the gym too. At first, it was an excuse. Too tired, too busy, too done with everything. But now, even the thought of it annoyed him. The idea of routine, of lifting and sweating and pretending everything was fine, felt pointless. He told himself he didn’t care if his body softened, if his muscles loosened. He told himself he didn’t give a shit about being healthy or strong or balanced.

He was lying through his teeth, and he knew it.

By the fifth day, the walls of his apartment felt smaller, the air heavier. His reflection in the mirror looked wrong— restless eyes, hair sticking up in every direction, tension written in the set of his shoulders. He scowled at himself, grabbing his water bottle from the counter.

“Fuck being healthy,” he muttered. “Fuck being toned.”

But he still picked up his gym bag.

He still shoved his headphones in his ears and forced himself out the door, because sitting still any longer felt worse than exhaustion.

The air outside was humid, the kind that clung to his skin even in shade. The sun had already started its descent, spilling gold across the buildings. Katsuki walked fast, keeping his head down, his expression fixed somewhere between boredom and fury. The city buzzed faintly around him with footsteps, laughter, the faint hum of traffic. Every sound grated. Every familiar face was another reminder of the one he didn’t want to see.

He didn’t even realize how tightly he was gripping the strap of his bag until his fingers ached. He exhaled sharply, loosening his hand. 

“Get it together,” he muttered under his breath.

By the time he reached the gym, his chest had settled into that dull, expectant rhythm that came before a storm. All tension, no relief. He hated how aware he was of everything lately. Of his pulse, his breathing, the sound of his own heartbeat when the world went quiet.

He scanned his card at the entrance, the machine beeping lazily in approval. The familiar scent of sweat and detergent hit him as he stepped inside. Rows of equipment gleamed under white light. It should’ve felt like routine. But somehow, even here, the ghost of that green still followed him.

He cursed under his breath, slinging his bag into the locker. The air-conditioning hummed overhead, cool and artificial. For a brief second, Katsuki stood there, staring at his reflection in the small mirror inside the locker door— jaw tight, eyes narrowed, the same expression he always wore when he didn’t want to think.

He told himself it was just another day. Just another workout. Just another attempt to sweat everything out of his system until nothing remained but silence.

But fate, being the bitch it is, has its own silly way of being a little shit.

Katsuki had barely stepped past the threshold of the gym when he saw him. It was supposed to be routine, another mindless set of reps, a way to burn through the static buzzing under his skin. But apparently, the universe decided to make it personal today.

There he was.

Fuck me in the ass.

Across the room, under the sharp white glare of fluorescent lights and the faint thud of bass-heavy music— Midoriya Izuku. The same messy curls, the same bright grin that Katsuki swore was haunting him at this point, the same stupid energy wrapped up in a body he definitely hadn’t seen before.

Katsuki froze.

Izuku was at one of the cable machines, sweat tracing the line of his neck, sleeves of his shirt rolled up past his elbows. And when he moved, when he pulled, the fabric stretched tight across his shoulders, muscles shifting under his skin in a way that didn’t make sense. It was subtle, quiet strength, the kind you didn’t expect until it was right in front of you. Not the soft, clumsy mess Katsuki had always pictured, but something sharper, built through stubbornness and effort.

Katsuki’s mouth went dry. He blinked once, twice, telling himself to look away. He didn’t. His brain scrambled for insults, distractions, anything. All he managed to think was that Izuku had no business looking like that.

He hadn’t noticed it before. Probably because Izuku lived in hoodies and sweaters big enough to fit two people. It hid everything. The lines of his arms, the cut of his back, the quiet tension in how he moved. Katsuki’s stomach twisted.

“Of course,” he muttered to himself, voice low, half a growl. “Of course you’re here.”

He turned his head, pretending to check his phone, pretending he hadn’t been staring. He could already feel the heat creeping up the back of his neck. The last thing he needed was for Izuku to notice—

Too late.

Izuku’s head lifted mid-set, eyes scanning the room until they landed on him. And then, as if the universe wanted to make Katsuki suffer just a little more, that blinding grin spread across his face.

“Kacchan!”

Katsuki’s soul left his body.

Someone shoot me.

Izuku waved enthusiastically, wiping sweat from his forehead with a towel before jogging over, his hair bouncing with every step. Katsuki stood still, every muscle in his body screaming for flight. There were a thousand ways he could’ve handled this— walking out, pretending not to hear, moving onto another country, changing his name, feigning death. But none of them happened. He just stared as Izuku came closer, too close, until he was right there in front of him, beaming like sunlight personified.

“Fancy seeing you here!” Izuku said, voice bright, breathless, genuine.

Katsuki wanted to punch a wall. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”

Izuku blinked. “Huh?”

“Why the hell are you here?” Katsuki demanded. “Do you just— what, follow me around now? You got a tracker on me or something?”

Izuku laughed, a little out of breath. “No! I’ve been coming here for months. I didn’t know you go here too.” 

Of course he had. Of course he had been coming here, existing, taking up space like he owned it. Because apparently, there wasn’t a single corner of this city that Katsuki could exist in without the universe throwing Izuku right in his face.

Katsuki groaned, dragging a hand down his face. “Unbelievable.”

Izuku tilted his head, still smiling. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

“Worse,” Katsuki muttered. “I saw you.”

Izuku laughed again. That sound Katsuki had been trying to scrub out of his brain for days and it hit him right in the chest. Not in a good way. Not in a bad way. Just in the way that made it impossible to breathe properly.

“You’re still grumpy as ever, huh?” Izuku teased lightly, grabbing his towel and slinging it over his shoulder.

Katsuki scowled, trying not to stare again but failing miserably. His eyes flicked over Izuku before he could stop them— the curve of his forearm, the faint sheen of sweat, the way his shirt clung just enough to reveal everything Katsuki had never noticed before. He looked away fast, the tips of his ears burning.

“Put a damn shirt on,” he snapped.

Izuku blinked down at himself. “I’m literally wearing one.”

“Then wear another one.”

Izuku laughed softly, shaking his head. “You really haven’t changed.”

Katsuki clicked his tongue and turned toward the lockers. “Don’t talk to me.”

“Too late!” Izuku called cheerfully, following him anyway.

Katsuki’s jaw clenched. He could feel Izuku’s presence trailing behind him. Every step echoed. Every laugh grated. And yet, when he finally reached the weight rack and started setting up his bar, he realized the air didn’t feel as heavy as it had before.

Maybe that was the worst part.

Because even as Katsuki cursed fate, the gym, and his own stupid brain, he knew deep down that he didn’t really hate it. Not entirely.

Still, he’d rather eat glass than admit that out loud.

He rolled his shoulders, gripping the bar tight, forcing his focus somewhere, anywhere else. But when he glanced up and saw Izuku across the room again, smiling at something someone said, the corners of Katsuki’s mouth twitched in betrayal.

“Goddammit,” he muttered under his breath, turning away. “Why are you everywhere?”

The air didn’t answer. But if it did, it probably would’ve laughed.

#

The universe was fucking him up, though. Katsuki could feel it in the way the air shifted the moment he stepped inside the gym, as though fate itself was waiting for him to walk through the door just to throw another cruel joke his way. Because there, standing across the mirrored room under the sterile white glare of ceiling lights, was the last person he wanted to see.

Midoriya Izuku.

Of course it was him. It was always him.

At first Katsuki didn’t believe it. He convinced himself that maybe he was hallucinating from lack of sleep, or karma, or both. But no. There he was, towel slung over one shoulder, hair damp and messy, eyes bright even through the haze of sweat. And worse, so much worse, was what Katsuki saw when Izuku moved.

He was built. Not in an obvious, showy way like the guys who grunted too loud in front of mirrors, but in a quiet, steady way that spoke of consistency, discipline, a kind of control that didn’t demand attention. His shirt clung in places Katsuki didn’t think it would, stretching across his back, his arms, the faint curve of his chest. Every motion was fluid and unbothered, and for a moment, just one split second, Katsuki forgot how to breathe properly.

He didn’t even know when he started staring. Only that when he caught himself doing it, irritation came roaring in like a defense mechanism. He ripped his gaze away, jaw tight, muttering something under his breath about how the world was clearly conspiring against him. He dropped his bag near a bench, grabbed a barbell, and tried to pretend that everything was normal, that he wasn’t hyper-aware of the distance, too small, between them.

He set up his weights, lay back on the bench, and tried to think about anything else. But of course, because fate had never once granted him peace, a shadow moved over him mid-rep.

“You’re lifting alone?” came that too-familiar voice, slightly breathless, soft around the edges.

Katsuki’s fingers tightened on the bar. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”

Izuku leaned slightly forward, a curious tilt to his head. “It’s dangerous, you know. Shouldn’t you have a spotter?”

“I don’t need one,” Katsuki muttered, his tone sharper than he intended.

“Still,” Izuku continued, undeterred as always. “I’ll stand by, just in case. I promise I won’t talk.”

That was a lie. Katsuki knew it the way he knew how to breathe. But before he could protest, Izuku had already stepped closer, positioning himself behind the bench like it was the most natural thing in the world. Katsuki groaned quietly, running a hand down his face. “Do whatever you want. Just stay out of the way.”

He lay back down, gripping the cold steel. The music from the gym speakers faded into background noise, replaced by the heavy pulse of his own heartbeat. He inhaled, exhaled, lifted. The bar rose smoothly the first few times, muscles warming under the repetition, rhythm steady. But his focus wavered— not because of the weight, but because of the soft, barely-there sound of Izuku breathing above him.

There was a steadiness to it, unhurried and alive. Katsuki hated that he noticed. Hated that his attention betrayed him every few seconds, flickering to the small details that shouldn’t have mattered. The shadow moved across his chest as Izuku shifted, the faint scuff of sneakers against the mat, the warmth that lingered even from a distance.

“You’re good,” Izuku said quietly between reps, his tone almost careful. “Your form looks a lot better than the people I've seen in this gym.”

Katsuki’s arms faltered for half a second. “You’ve been watching me?”

Izuku’s eyes widened. “No! I mean— just noticed.”

Katsuki exhaled through his nose, lowering the bar with precision. “You really don’t know how to shut up, do you?”

Izuku smiled, that gentle, unbothered curve that Katsuki had come to despise and, God help him, expect. “Sorry. Force of habit.”

He went for another set. The burn in his arms grew, breath quickening, the bar feeling heavier with each rep. His focus fractured again, not because of strain but because of him. The rhythm faltered and the bar dipped. In that split second, Izuku’s hands moved, steady and sure, catching the weight before it could tilt.

Their eyes met.

Time did a strange thing then. It slowed. The noise around them dimmed, the rest of the gym fading into nothing but that space between their locked gazes. Katsuki’s chest rose and fell too fast, his pulse thudding against his ribs. Izuku didn’t say anything, didn’t move his hands right away. His grip was firm, grounding. For a moment, neither of them spoke.

“I said don’t touch it,” Katsuki muttered finally, voice low, almost hoarse.

“You were about to drop it,” Izuku answered quietly.

“I had it.”

A pause. Then, with that infuriating small smile, “Sure you did.”

Katsuki pushed himself up, rubbing his palms on his towel. He didn’t trust his voice anymore. His throat felt dry, too tight. The air between them was wrong, too close, too electric. He needed distance.

“Are you done staring?” he snapped, the words rougher than he meant.

Izuku blinked, startled. “I wasn’t—”

“Good. Then stop.” Katsuki grabbed his water bottle, turned on his heel, and walked off toward the next section. He didn’t look back, but he could feel those eyes on him, following.

He threw himself into the next workout, movements sharper than necessary, every rep a silent curse. It didn’t matter how much noise he made, how heavy the weights were. The image wouldn’t leave his head. The faint heat where Izuku’s hands had steadied the bar. The echo of his voice. The goddamn grin that wouldn’t stop replaying in his mind like static.

By the time Katsuki reached the treadmill, his pulse was still uneven. It wasn’t from exertion. It wasn’t from anger. It was from something else entirely. Something that felt like being caught mid-step between irritation and realization, between wanting to look away and being unable to.

He started running, faster, as if he could leave it all behind. But even as the air whipped against his face and the hum of machinery filled his ears, he could still see it— green eyes, steady hands, the memory of closeness he never asked for.

“Goddammit,” he muttered under his breath, tightening his jaw. “Why the hell are you everywhere?”

#

The walk back to his apartment felt longer than usual. The city was loud in the kind of way that made Katsuki want to disappear into the noise. The rush of cars, the thrum of electricity, the chatter of people who had the luxury of not thinking too much. The sky was bruised purple, the edges of daylight sinking into a kind of dull gold that clung to the tops of buildings. He moved through it quietly, bag slung over one shoulder, the taste of iron and exhaustion still heavy in his mouth.

The gym’s scent lingered on him— detergent, metal, something faintly citrus. It felt like residue, as though the air there had stuck to his skin and refused to let go. His muscles ached in that satisfying, familiar way, but his chest was anything but calm. No matter how hard he’d pushed himself, no matter how fast he’d run, there was still too much left over. Too much noise, too much energy, too much something that refused to burn out.

He thought of Izuku more times than he wanted to. Not intentionally. The thoughts just came, uninvited and merciless. The way he’d smiled like it was the easiest thing in the world. The way his hand had steadied the bar without hesitation. The way the light had caught on his skin, sweat turning him almost gold under the white lamps. Katsuki scowled, as if irritation could erase memory. He wanted to call it annoyance, but even he knew it wasn’t that simple anymore. There was something else tangled in it— something that kept curling inward, quiet and persistent, like a thorn buried too deep to pull out.

When he reached the building, the stairs felt steeper than usual. He climbed them anyway, jaw tight, the echo of his footsteps loud in the narrow space. His key scraped against the lock. The apartment greeted him with its usual silence, the kind that felt both familiar and suffocating.

He dropped his bag by the door, kicked off his shoes, and went straight to the kitchen sink. The faucet groaned before giving way to cold water. Katsuki splashed it onto his face, then leaned on the counter, watching the droplets trace paths down the metal. He told himself he’d done what he needed to do. He'd worked out, tried to forget, tried to sweat everything out of his system. But the ache in his chest wasn’t physical, and water couldn’t wash it off.

He turned his head slightly, eyes landing on his phone left on the counter. The screen lit up with a soft buzz— a notification. He shouldn’t have checked. He knew that. But his hand moved before his thoughts caught up.

It was a message.

Midoriya: Hey, saw you at the gym earlier. It’s been a while, huh? You looked like you were really focused today. Hope I didn’t distract you too much, haha.

Katsuki stared at the screen, expression unreadable. The words weren’t heavy. Just light, harmless, and friendly. But somehow they carried more weight than they should have. The simplicity of it made something in his chest twist, sharp and inexplicable. He could almost hear the voice behind the text, soft and warm, smiling even through the words.

He typed nothing. Deleted the half-reply he didn’t mean to write. Locked the phone.

The apartment hummed around him, quiet but alive. The faint buzz of the fridge, the muted traffic outside, the far-off sound of rain threatening again. Katsuki exhaled slowly, dragging a hand down his face. He told himself he was fine. He told himself he was over it, that tomorrow he’d wake up and it would all be gone. Just another irritation. Just another thing he could burn through.

But when he sat down on the edge of his bed, the room dim except for the light spilling from his phone, he couldn’t stop replaying the afternoon— the sound of Izuku’s laugh, the warmth of his breath, the steadiness of his hands. Every detail replayed without permission, too vivid to ignore.

He lay back, one arm thrown over his eyes, jaw set in quiet defiance against thoughts he couldn’t control.

“Get out of my head,” he muttered, voice low. “Just… get out.”

He headed straight for the shower, cranking the water to near-scalding temperatures as if he could somehow burn away the persistent images that had been plaguing him since the gym. But even under the punishing spray, he couldn't escape them. Every time he closed his eyes, he saw Izuku mid-pull-up, muscles flexing beneath that ridiculous tank top that clung to every curve and plane of his torso like a second skin. 

The way those freckles scattered across his shoulders, disappearing beneath the collar. The sheen of sweat that had made his skin gleam under the fluorescent lights. The controlled power in every movement, the quiet determination in those absurdly green eyes when he'd surpassed his previous record. 

Katsuki had noticed. Of course he'd fucking noticed. He noticed everything about Izuku Midoriya, had been noticing for weeks now, cataloging details he had no right to memorize.

The shower did nothing to help.

If anything, it made things worse, the heat and steam only serving to relax his muscles in ways that made his body hum with awareness he didn't want to acknowledge. He dried off roughly, almost aggressively, and pulled on a pair of loose sweatpants and nothing else, too warm and too agitated to bother with a shirt. The apartment's heating was always cranked too high anyway-Kirishima ran cold, complained constantly about the winter chill that Katsuki barely registered.

He tried to study. Sat at his desk with his thermodynamics textbook open, staring at equations that normally made perfect sense but now seemed like incomprehensible symbols swimming across the page. His mind refused to cooperate, kept circling back to the gym, to Izuku's laugh when Katsuki had made some cutting remark about his form, to the way he'd stretched afterward, arms overhead, shirt riding up just enough to reveal a strip of taut abdomen and the suggestion of defined obliques. 

Katsuki had looked away immediately, had made some excuse about needing water, but the image had seared itself into his consciousness with disturbing permanence.

"Fuck," he muttered, slamming the textbook shut and scrubbing both hands through his still-damp hair. 

This was getting ridiculous. He'd shared gym spaces with plenty of guys before, had been in locker rooms and training facilities since high school. He'd never had this problem, never found himself distracted by another man's physique like some hormone-addled teenager. But Izuku was different somehow, had been different from the moment they'd met in that cursed coffee shop.

There was something about him that got under Katsuki's skin, needled at his composure, made him aware of things he'd never had to consider before.

He abandoned his desk in favor of the couch, throwing himself down and grabbing the remote, flipping through channels without really seeing any of them. Some cooking show. A nature documentary. A rerun of a sitcom from the nineties. Nothing held his attention, nothing could compete with the persistent replay loop his brain seemed determined to run. 

Izuku doing deadlifts, the bar loaded heavy enough that Katsuki had briefly worried about his form-unnecessarily, as it turned out, because apparently the architecture major knew exactly what he was doing. Izuku at the water fountain, throat working as he drank, a single drop escaping to trace down his neck. Izuku catching Katsuki staring and offering that damned smile, soft and knowing and entirely too affecting.

The tightness in his pants had returned, impossible to ignore now in the privacy of his own apartment, without the distraction of weights and sets and the presence of other people to keep him in check. Katsuki shifted on the couch, trying to will it away through sheer stubbornness, but his body had other ideas. The sweatpants did nothing to hide his growing problem, the fabric tenting obviously, and he cursed under his breath-a creative string of profanity that would have made his mother smack him upside the head.

This was absurd. He was a twenty-one year old man with a perfect GPA and a near-photographic memory for chemical formulas, not some inexperienced kid who couldn't control his own physical responses. He should be able to think his way out of this, apply logic and reason and discipline. 

Except none of those things were working, hadn't been working for weeks now if he was honest with himself. Every study session with Izuku left him wound tight and frustrated. Every casual touch-a hand on his shoulder, fingers brushing when they exchanged papers-sent electricity skittering across his skin. Every time those green eyes met his, he felt something shift in his chest, something dangerous and destabilizing.

Katsuki squeezed his eyes shut, jaw clenched hard enough to ache, and tried once more to redirect his thoughts. He had an exam coming up. A lab report due. A presentation for his senior project that he needed to start preparing. Concrete things, academic things, safe things that had nothing to do with the way Izuku's voice dropped half an octave when he was concentrating, or how he worried his lower lip between his teeth when he was puzzling through a difficult problem, or the lean strength evident in every line of his body.

But the images kept coming, relentless and vivid. Izuku's back muscles shifting beneath skin. The flex of his biceps. The way his shorts had ridden up slightly on one thigh, revealing more toned muscle. Katsuki's breath had hitched when he'd noticed, quickly disguised as irritation at having to wait for a bench, but he'd noticed. God, he'd noticed.

Fuck it.

Katsuki Bakugou sprawled on his narrow bed, his hand already a blur of motion over the straining tent in his sweatpants. The room was dimly lit, the only sound the harsh pants of his breathing and the rhythmic creaking of the mattress springs. His mind was awhirl, consumed by a single, all encompassing thought.

Izuku Midoriya.

He couldn't fathom why the lanky architect student had wormed his way under Bakugou's skin like this, but here he was, powerless to resist the temptation. Izuku's toned frame, all long limbs and sharp angles, flashed through Bakugou's mind. That unruly mop of green hair, those earnest emerald eyes, that tentative smile that made Bakugou's heart clench in a way he couldn't quite understand.

Bakugou's hand tightened around his aching cock as he recalled the last time he'd seen Izuku, hunched over a drafting table in the university's architecture studio. The way Izuku's tongue poked out slightly as he concentrated, the way his fingers deftly wielded his tools, the precise lines of his drawings... it all set Bakugou's teeth on edge, his body thrumming with a need he couldn't name.

“Yes, right there…”

He let out a low, guttural groan as he imagined his hands on Izuku. Those long, clever fingers exploring his body with the same diligence and care Izuku lavished on his designs. Bakugou arched into his own touch, his hips jerking forward as he lost himself in the fantasy.

“Fuck…”

In his mind's eye, he saw Izuku's face, flushed and intense, those eyes dark with an unfamiliar emotion as he looked down at Izuku’s body. His own hair falling forward, tickling Izuku’s skin, and felt the heat of Izuku's breath on his neck, his chest, his stomach... lower.

“Shit, shit, shit— fuck— gonna—”

Bakugou's breath hitched, his heart pounding in his ears as he felt his release building, hot and fast. He was so close, his body coiled tight, his muscles straining... and then he was coming undone, his vision whiting out as wave after wave of ecstasy crashed over him.

#

The night had stretched too long. The air inside his apartment was thick, unmoving, carrying the faint hum of the city through the open window. Katsuki sat on the edge of his bed, shoulders tense, head bowed, hands pressed against his face as though he could hide from himself. The room smelled faintly of metal and detergent, of everything and nothing at once.

What have I done?

He didn’t know what had come over him. Maybe it was exhaustion, maybe the memory of green that refused to fade, maybe a hundred small mistakes that had led to this one quiet moment of weakness. Whatever it was, it left a sour taste behind— the kind that settled deep in the gut and refused to wash away.

He dragged both hands through his hair and let out a low sound, something between a curse and a breath. His pulse hadn’t calmed; the echo of it pulsed behind his ribs like a reminder he didn’t want. The silence was unbearable. Every second stretched too far, as though the world itself had stopped to watch him unravel.

“Idiot,” he muttered under his breath, the word rough, directed inward. “You absolute fucking idiot."

How the fuck am I supposed to face him?

He stood abruptly, the floorboards creaking beneath his feet. The light from the window cut across his reflection in the dark glass. A face he barely recognized. His eyes looked tired, haunted by something he couldn’t name. He turned away before he could look any longer.

The sink tap hissed when he twisted it open. Cold water poured out, sharp and merciless. He cupped it in his hands and threw it over his face until the chill numbed his skin. Drops slid down his neck, soaking the collar of his shirt. He didn’t care. He wanted it to freeze whatever heat was still clawing inside him.

For a long time he just stood there, palms braced on the edge of the counter, breathing through clenched teeth. His reflection dripped water onto the porcelain. There was no anger left— only the heavy thud of shame, the ache of wanting to forget.

He whispered again, softer this time, “What the hell’s wrong with you?”

The question hung in the air, unanswered.

The city outside went on living, lights flickering, cars passing, someone laughing in the distance. Inside, Katsuki stayed still until the water ran cold, until his thoughts dulled into a kind of numb silence. Then he shut off the tap, reached for a towel, and pressed it against his face, hiding everything.

When he finally moved back toward his bed, the night had settled into an uneasy calm. He didn’t expect sleep to come, but he lay down anyway, staring at the ceiling until the gray of dawn started to gather behind the curtains.

And somewhere in the thick quiet, he promised himself that tomorrow, he’d forget. Tomorrow, he’d be fine. Tomorrow, he’d stop thinking about green.

But he already knew it was a lie.