Chapter Text
“I don’t believe you…”
He rolled his eyes, “Then believe what you want, old hag.”
Usually he would have argued some more, probably yelled too, he simply didn’t have the energy lately.
“Honey, mayb-”
“No,” she waved her hand around, dismissing her husband, “let me get this straight. I’m supposed to believe that sweet, little-”
“Tt- not so little anymore,” he mumbled under his breath.
“Izuku… told you to fuck off? That does not seem like him.”
He groaned, “Why would I lie about that?”
He had completely forgotten that a few weeks back he had agreed to let his parents visit him for once (they were always complaining about how he never hosted them over) and the headache from the previous night’s hangover certainly didn’t help their current conversation.
“Well…” she bit her lip.
He had nothing to gain from lying to his parents about Izuku’s rejection.
“Whatever, it doesn’t even matter,” his voice deflated and he slumped into his wooden chair, wishing he could go back to lounging on the much more comfortable couch.
(The first expensive item he had bought for himself after moving out and after having paid the first few installments for Izuku’s suit, it was still his favourite purchase aside from his porsche and it was the one piece of furniture that he always brought with him whenever he changed apartments.)
As if sensing his thoughts, his mother snapped her fingers in front of his face, forcing his gaze back on her, “You need to go take a shower. Now.” She furrowed her brows, “You reek.”
He let out a dry laugh, “Way to cheer me up.”
“I can’t cheer you up if I don’t force you to take care of yourself first. Go take a shower and your father and I will clean around a bit.”
He rolled his eyes again, “You don’t have to do that. I can clean just fine on my own, you know that.”
After all, he was just as much of a clean freak as she was, it was one of their many shared traits.
She gave him a pointed look, arms crossed, “Really?” Then she threw a quick nod at a pile of empty bottles and cans near her, some of them used to have beer inside, others held a few heavier drinks… not a single one of them had an ounce of alcohol left inside.
Okay so maybe he had let his apartment (and himself) go a little…
“I would have cleaned eventually even if you didn’t show up, I just decided to wait a while so I could clean everything all at once.”
She uncrossed her arms, “You wait any longer and you’ll have to move out, I’m starting to think you’re trying to raise a mold garden. And this is only the kitchen. I don’t even want to imagine what’s going on in the living room or bathroom. Hell, even the fucking entryway was all cluttered, dusty and gross.”
He groaned yet again and threw his head back, dangling it over the top of the chair, “I’m really not in the mood, you old hag. So either scram or leave me alone. This is my place, not yours.”
She got up, went around the table and pulled him by the ear, forcing him to straighten up again, “Go. Shower.”
“Fine,” he grumbled, sluggishly getting up, “fucking hell…”
Objectively, he knew a shower would make him feel better but he felt like his entire body weighed triple the amount it normally did and simply standing up was a harder task than usual (luckily Eijirou had forced him to finally use up some of his sick days, “I mean… heartbreak kinda counts as an illness if you really think about it?”).
Still, he decided to listen to his mother, so she would at least briefly shut up, and he headed to the bathroom but right before he closed the door, he yelled out, making sure they heard him, “I’m going to take a bath instead! I’ll soak for a while! Don’t bother me!”
Newfound laziness and all, he still scrubbed and rinsed himself in the shower before getting in the bath, he was really particular about his routines and though he had broken plenty of them recently, that one was unshakable to him, few things grossed him out more than bathing in his own dirty water.
Usually he would have also placed some of Mina’s scented candles, that she had given him for his birthday a while back, before getting in the water (his friends had tried to really instill in him the idea of self-care) but that felt like too big of a chore with his current lack of energy.
So he merely soaked in the water.
No candles, no music, no nothing.
Just him and his thoughts…
… his incredibly shitty thoughts about how he shouldn’t have been surprised by Izuku’s rejection and how he should have guessed Izuku didn’t like him, or rather, not in the way Katsuki wanted Izuku to like him.
The Uraraka thing, on the other hand, made no sense to him.
Yeah, he knew they used to be best friends at UA and that they had had crushes on each other at separate times during their first year, he wasn’t stupid, but… Katsuki swore he couldn’t see any romantic mushiness between the two of them now that they were all adults.
Maybe it was the jealousy talking but in his (admittedly inexperienced) opinion… they didn’t seem in love or even remotely into each other.
Izuku blushed a lot around her, that part was true, but he was also the type of person to get pretty awkward around old acquaintances he hadn’t seen in a while. He was also always blushing at compliments, regardless of who gave them out to him.
As for Uraraka, for a moment it had actually looked like she was into Izuku… but the few times he saw them together afterwards?
They looked… comfortable with each other (a little too comfortable for his taste), no one could deny that, but underneath their coziness with each other there was this weird layer of… indifference? Casualness, perhaps?
Something wasn’t clickling to Katsuki and although a lot of it could probably be attributed to jealousy, he knew he wasn’t imagining at least some of it because Mina had sent the pair a lot of confusing looks during their past few group hangouts.
Unfortunately, she refused to talk to him about it, saying she needed to figure out some stuff and have a few girl talks here and there before she could reveal her thoughts to Katsuki.
Girls were always so fucking weird and confusing to him, but then again, maybe that was just because he didn’t even remotely like them; a news that came as a surprise to almost no one, apparently he was one of those clear cases of what his friends liked to refer to as the closet was glass.
Well… there was one person who seemed shocked.
“Aah? Wait, you’re uh, gay? Like… gay gay?”
“Is there any other type?”
“No, I just meant that, you know, sometimes that’s used as an umbrella term as well, kinda like queer, but anyway-uh, that’s great! Sorry, I’m- I’m rambling again but thank you so much for letting me know, Kacchan! I’m sorry I was a little caught off guard, I wasn’t expecting that, that’s all, but that was very brave of you! I’m glad you felt comfortable enough to tell me! I’m really proud of you!”
“Why?”
“Huh? Why… am I proud of you? Well… because that must’ve been pretty scary for you to admit, I don’t know, I gue-”
“I mean why were you caught off guard?”
“Oh, um- I- okay, so-”
“I won’t get offended, just spit it out.”
“Alright, um- I kinda… assumed you were straight? Which I know is wrong and all that stuff but… well… in middle school…”
“Oh… right.”
“That was forever ago so I shouldn’t have let it cloud my judgement! But back then it would’ve been a fair assumption and then I never dismantled it even though, now that I think about it, I guess you never were one to chase after girls or be interested in dating, which should’ve given me a clue.”
Their middle school years never did stop haunting Katsuki.
It was ironic, really.
Izuku was the one who had been tormented left and right by… just about everyone, with even the teachers throwing the odd comment here and there and absolutely doing jack shit to prevent the bullying, but he barely brought up those years and hardships he had gone through and he genuinely seemed over most of it.
(Probably a bit too busy digesting the war and its aftermath to focus on past bullying too.)
Meanwhile Katsuki, who had breezed through middle school (and overall life) like he owned the place, could barely go a week without thinking about that bleak time in his life…
Could barely go a week without thinking about how awful he had been to the person that now mattered the most to him in the entire freaking world.
If he ever encountered someone with a time-travel quirk, he had to ask them to take him back to those years just so he could strangle his younger self and hug little Izuku.
He shook his head and tried to clear his thoughts to no avail so he gave up and got out of the water.
He wasn’t sure how much time had passed but he was certainly cleaner and his muscles didn’t feel as sore as before but he still didn’t feel like bothering with most things so, after quickly draining the bath and drying himself with a towel, he grabbed some boxers from one of the sink’s drawers and then put on a soft bathrobe (that had also been given to him by Mina), calling it a day.
He didn’t have to go anywhere anyway so why waste time finding a clean set of pajamas? Most were probably dirty or thrown on the floor somewhere. Again, he hadn’t exactly bothered with that sort of stuff as of lately.
Though he did at least put this last set in the laundry hamper, that was something.
Slowly, he made his way out of the bathroom and followed his parents’ voices that were now coming from the living room.
“You feeling better, kiddo?”
He shrugged at his dad.
“Katsuki, it’s barely past noon… why did you put on a robe? Go get dressed.”
He scoffed and plopped down on the bean bag Denki had given him a few years ago that was surprisingly still intact (whenever he had any friends over, they would fight over the stupid thing instead of appreciating his expensive and comfortable as hell couch but he did have to admit the damn bean bag was pretty soft).
“Katsuki…” his mom sighed.
“What.”
“Get up, come on. Go put on something and maybe we can go on a walk around your neighbourhood? It seems like a nice area.”
It was. After paying for Izuku’s suit he figured he could now splurge his money all he wanted so he had changed apartment buildings a few times, seeing what he liked and what he didn’t, and all of them had been the fancy type that are usually filled to the brim with lawyers and doctors and the occasional hero and so on.
“Yeah,” his dad fished out his phone from his pocket, “I was looking for things to do around here and I found some cool restaurants you might like? There’s this one that serves a lot of spicy food, it seem-”
“Yeah, two blocks over, near the shoe store?”
His dad smiled, “Yeah! You’ve been there before? Did you like it? If so, we can all go together.”
“We always eat spicy food anyway.”
“Yeah but it builds character, right?” he chuckled. “Besides, I think it’s a bit too late to drop the habit now. What do you say? You get dressed real quick, we take a nice cozy stroll on the way there and then we all eat together.”
“That’s a great idea! Right, Kats?”
He was too tired to cringe at his mom using his friends’ nickname for him.
“So, what’s the verdict? Good? Bad? We can try somewhere else?” The man tilted his phone towards the blondes, “But their food seems pretty good to me!”
“Yeah…” he frowned and smooshed half of his face into the bean bag, leaving one side uncovered so his parents could still hear him.
“I went there with ‘Zuku once… he got a regular katsudon and then he tried a bite of my extra spicy curry and he tried so hard to act cool but he got all red and kept stuffing his face with breadsticks to soothe the sting and he still looked so cute even though he was all red and weird and UGH!”
He fully turned down, squeezing his entire face onto the bean bag, and let out a strangled sound halfway between a groan and a scream.
“...Okay… so… not there. Uh-” the older man cleared his throat, “alright, maybe… hold on.”
He slightly lifted one side of his face, curiously looking at his dad, the man’s gaze was still glued on his phone and Katsuki rolled his eyes, “Just forget it. You go. I’ll stay here. Enjoy.”
He dropped his face onto the soft pillowy chair again.
“No, no, it’s fine. We can do something else, uh… maybe we can go to the mall? You can wear a hoodie and a beanie with a pair of sunglasses, you know, incognito mode and we can just browse around for a bit? They’ve got plenty of food stores inside, we could even try a little bit of everything? Does that sound better?”
Still pressed against the squishy texture, he mumbled, “I’m not hungry.”
“Well you have to eat so you might as well pick what you want yourself because I’m forcing you to eat regardless.”
He knew his mom meant well but he didn’t have neither an appetite nor energy to leave his apartment.
“No.”
“Yes.”
“No.”
“Katsuki, yes.”
He groaned for probably the millionth time and rolled back up again, his words clearer now, “I’m sick,” he covered the upper half of his face with both hands, “leave me alone.”
“You’re not sick, you’re clearly hungover.”
“Yeah, like I said, I’m sick.”
“Kiddo, I don’t think that counts as sickness…”
“Ei says heartbreak counts, he even forced me to take a few sick days, and now I’m also hungover, hence double sick.” He lifted one of his hands to shoo at his parents, “So leave.”
“What’s the plan here? You’re gonna… what? Keep drinking and crying for a few days, then sober up for work and go on about your life like nothing happened but also, apparently, avoiding places that remind you of Izuku? Because okay, maybe I get the restaurant. You went on a date and it di-”
“A date? I wish it had been a fucking date,” he scoffed.
“You went together,” she corrected herself, “and maybe it wasn’t a date but I’m guessing it felt like one and then you got rejected and now you don’t wanna go there anymore. Okay, I get that. But are you gonna start avoiding every single place that reminds you of Izuku? Do you think that’s realistic? Or manageable?”
“Your mom’s right… what about work?”
“Eh- doubt that’s gonna be a problem, seeing he refuses to be at my agency with me.”
“Fucking fine,” she turned to her husband, “honey, go fix him something quick and I’ll force it down his fucking throat if I have to. I doubt he has any groceries right now so you might have to head to that mall you just mentioned, it’s not far is it? We can call a taxi.”
“No, it’s fine, I’ll walk, it’s close enough. I’ll also grab a few more cleaning supplies. Shouldn’t take me too long.”
“Thanks, sweetheart.” She turned back to her son as the man left the room. “Now you are gonna tell me what the hell it is that Izuku said exactly.”
“No.”
“Katsuki, I know you're in pain. I do. And as your mother, that puts me in great pain too, to see how badly you’re doing, so I wanna help you but honey… I can’t help you if you don’t let me help you… I thought you had learned that lesson by now…”
“I-” he bit his lower lip, “I didn’t want to worry you. Or dad. If I remembered that you were coming, I would’ve tried to-”
“No, no, that’s not it. We’re your parents, we don’t need you to hide this shit from us to make us feel better. We need you to open up so we can know how to help you properly.”
Neither of them spoke for a couple of minutes, they were never great at the whole… feelings thing, that’s where Katsuki’s dad usually came in but his mom seemed set on him eating and she was terrible at cooking so…
“Maybe I can ask Inko to-”
“No. Absolutely not. Do not even mention… any of this to her.”
“Tt- I wasn’t gonna tell her you suddenly turned into some pathetic loser because of her son. I was just gonna… ask.”
“Ask what?”
“What’s up with Izuku? If she knows if anything happened… I don’t even know.”
“Don’t. Just-” he sighed, “don’t…”
“Okay… ” she whispered. “I’m gonna leave you alone for a bit, only a bit, alright? While your dad’s getting the stuff and cooking, I’ll keep cleaning around here as much as I can and you… well, do whatever you want I suppose but as soon as your dad’s finished, you’re sitting at the kitchen table and eating. You hear me?”
“Yeah, yeah.”
“Good.”
What did Katsuki end up doing to pass the time?
Nothing.
Absolutely nothing…
… he simply stared at the ceiling and played back the conversation with Izuku in his car over and over again.
Hanta liked to joke that Katsuki was a masochist because of his love for spicy food and his overall strict regimen, working schedule and peculiar routines… Katsuki had never agreed, claiming those were merely the habits of someone who took care of themselves, but… maybe he was starting to see his point.
There was no benefit to replaying that specific scene in his head every waking moment.
And yet…
He couldn’t help it.
Partially, it really did make sense to him. He had spent years bullying and tormenting Izuku and the rejection was his cosmic punishment and he had to accept that.
But he hated not seeing the full picture, whether it be about a case or his personal life, and there was just something not adding up.
Somewhere along the way he had dropped a few of the puzzle pieces and he couldn’t trace them back no matter how hard he tried. It was driving him nuts.
He barely registered the new sounds coming from the kitchen, marking his dad’s arrival from the mall.
He wasn’t sure how much time had passed but he eventually reached for his phone and came up empty-handed, remembering he was wearing a bathrobe and had probably left his phone somewhere between the living room and the kitchen.
Not having anything better to do, he painstakingly got up and went looking for it but he gave up pretty easily and decided to just ask his mom to call his phone for him, hoping it wasn’t on silent mode.
“No need, I already saw it. It was on a dirty pile of clothes on the floor, I put it in your room, left it to charge since it was low on battery. You had a few missed calls fro-”
“You snooped at my-”
“No, I did not snoop. I don’t even know your passcode, not that I care to know it. I literally just went to pick it up and the touch lit up the screen and I saw a few missed call notifications from,” she made air quotes, “Shitty Hair. Which, if I remember correctly, that’s your friend Kirishima. You should call him back.”
He grunted.
“And thank him for me, he seems to have taken care of you these past few days and hell knows he did the impossible by convincing you to finally take a few days off from work.”
“Yeah, yeah,” he started taking a few steps towards his bedroom when he suddenly froze on the spot. “Wait.”
“Huh?” she turned to him. “What is it?”
He tried to hide his now crimson face from her curious eyes, “You uh-” he cleared his throat, “so you… saw my room?”
“Oh,” she sent him an unamused glance. “Yeah,” she snorted. “It was bound to happen sooner or later, you know?”
He did not reply.
“Look, if this makes you feel any better, I had already seen how pathetic you were- are,” she corrected herself, “about Izuku, years ago. Alright? Remember your first sleepover with him after reconciling? The one at our house? During the weekend? In your second semester of your second year at UA?”
Hard to forget.
Teenage Katsuki had had a lot of feelings regarding their first sleepover after so long, wanting it to be perfect as to somehow make up for the lack of sleepovers after he had cut off his friendship with Izuku.
“Yeah, well,” even without a reply she probably guessed he could remember it, “your father woke up during the night to get a glass of water and he decided to check on the two of you and then he called me so I could also see it.”
She chuckled, “You had basically forgone your mattress and were quite literally sleeping on top of Izuku, you had a koala death grip on him, I’m surprised he could still breathe with all of your weight on top of him.”
“I-”
“And then there was that other time that you were cooking for him at home and he said something that I don’t even remember, I think it was just the fact that he had laughed and he wasn’t doing it often back then, but you were so surprised you dropped the tomato sauce bottle, which then knocked off the whole pan and we had to clean that whole area.”
“That wasn-”
“Or when you spent like a month in your third year playing that stupid new All Might online game from the States, you know the one they did in partnership with the Japanese Hero Commission to start boosting hero games and merch again?”
It had taken a while for things to go back to normal but All Might had tried to speed up the process by talking to some old acquaintances abroad, especially from the United States, into investing on infrastructure but also any and all things hero related in Japan.
(They also sort of owed it to Japan anyway, considering All For One would’ve destroyed the whole world eventually, Japan was only the first stop.)
“And they were giving out special edition merch to the top 100 players of each country and you made it your mission to rank because Izuku was still feeling off so he wasn’t playing all that much but you wanted to win the prize for him? Even though I’m preeetty sure you could’ve also asked All Might to put one aside for him?”
“I wanted to play anyway, that’s not even…” he trailed off, not knowing how to continue.
“Sure thing,” she teased. “What else? Uh- ah, yes! I also remember when you asked your father to explain to you how to burn a cd because you wanted to record and save any and all tv segments on Izuku.”
“He told you?”
She tilted her head in recollection, “Oh and that one time that you-”
“I got it! You can stop listing examples.” He bit his lower lip and tried to ignore the uncomfortable warmth on his cheeks.
“Right, my point is… there’s hardly anything else you could do at this point that-”
“I got it,” he grumbled, “I already embarrassed myself enough to last me a lifetime, yeah, whatever. Just… don’t ever bring it up. To anyone.”
She mimicked a zipper closing over her lips but, ironically, immediately spoke up again, “Has he never seen it? Or does he think you were… what, being a good friend? Supporting him? Eh, that kid is pretty dense sometimes.”
He couldn’t argue with that.
“Nah, he’s never stepped foot in there.”
“How? I thought you still hung out together?”
“Of course we do!”
He knew the whole situation was pathetic but it wasn’t that bad, even though they were busy and Izuku didn’t feel anything for him, the two of them still made time to hang out one on one. They were still friends.
“I just never let him see my room, I mean, I’ve never seen his either,” he shrugged. “We’re both adults with our own places, we don’t need to cram into our rooms when we’re visiting each other. It’s not like you’ll be in the living room bugging us about not playing video games for too long.”
“Maybe he’s never shown you his room because he also has a creepy shrine,” she smirked.
“Tt- he’s always had hero shrines in his room, that would hardly be surprising.”
He didn’t even try to defend himself against the accusation of his own room decor being creepy.
“Yeah but I meant that maybe it’s of you. He’s never shied away from showing you his hero merch when you were younger. Kinda weird he’d suddenly stop showing it now.”
He rolled his eyes, “Yeah, I’m sure he’s got all my posters on his walls and a whole shelf of my action figures. That would make sense considering he told me to fuck off.”
“Again with that? I highly doubt he told you to literally fuck off.”
“Okay so maybe he didn’t use those exact words, whatever. That was the result anyway.”
“See! So he didn’t say that! Katsuki… what did he tell you, exactly?”
He hid his face in both of his hands, groaned, dropped them again and then took a steadying breath, “I’m not doing this right now.”
“Kat-”
“You wanted me to call back Ei, right?” He started walking towards his room again. “Great, I’ll go do that.”
He heard a few annoyed rumbles coming from behind him but he ignored them.
Entering his bedroom instantly gave him second-hand embarrassment.
His mom was supposed to be one person, aside from Izuku, that should have never seen the current state of his room. It was embarrassing enough with his friends but he could deal with it… but his mother?
In his defence, it had all started out as a joke.
His friends, after he had admitted to liking loving Izuku (which they were smart enough to know already), had decided to start buying him random Deku merch. Most of it fanmade, some of it official.
He had already purchased a few things for himself, over the years, but nothing too weird or out there and given that Izuku, back then, was only a wartime hero and not an actual pro, the merch was limited anyway.
So, Katsuki’s collection was made up of: an action figure, a few posters, some stickers, a pair of fluffy slippers, a couple of pens, a beanie, a hat, two keychains, a few pins and some journals from a collaboration he did with Campos that had been All Might’s idea.
(Most of those items had been All Might’s idea but a few came directly from the Japanese Hero Commission and though Katsuki didn’t like the thought of them using or profiting off of Izuku, he was glad there was merch being made of him and that it seemed to keep everyone’s memory of Deku a bit fresh).
His friends’ gifts, on the other hand, were a bit… different from the rest of his Deku merch.
A few of them were still fairly normal.
The fanart was really cool (some of it though… well, a fan had snapped a few photos of Izuku at a beach once and the Deku fanartist stans had had a wild month which Katsuki’s friends had taken advantage of… not that he complained) and he loved all the mini plushies (which he refused to admit but given the amount he had been given, he was sure his friends had noticed, same way they had noticed his feelings towards Izuku).
…But the body pillow? And the huge stuffed toy that took up a whole corner of Katsuki’s room? And the Deku mask-sculpture he had inside of a case, treated with more care than any other piece of merch he had ever owned? And the pajamas and boxer briefs and… yeah.
There was plenty of weird stuff for sure.
At least no one pointed out that for all of his complaining, he never actually refused any of the Deku gifts and he never threw them out later on or gave them away at any point.
He wasn’t even sure what was more humiliating: the body pillow Mina had given him (that was usually stationed on his bed)… the boxer briefs Shouto had given him (with a disturbingly normal smile) or the fact that all of the Deku fanart and posters took up a full wall of his room, not leaving an inch of white paint.
He wasn’t a religious person but he almost started praying his mother hadn’t taken any pictures, he could never be too sure with her, she did love blackmail and making photo albums full of embarrassing moments from Katsuki’s life.
Shaking his head, as if to shake away his thoughts, he grabbed his phone from the bedside table and sat on a corner of his unmade bed (she had apparently respected his privacy enough to not touch anything other than the charger).
He wasn’t actually in the mood to talk and he didn’t want to bother Eijirou more than he already had but there was a voice in the back of his head that was reminding him that his friends wanted to be bothered by him and if they didn’t have the time at the moment, they’d reach out to him as soon as they could.
It only took two rings for the other man to pick up.
“Hey! Bakubro! Sorry for spamming you, I don’t know if you saw my texts, but you haven’t been replying in a while and I got worried. Everything okay?”
“I forgot my parents were coming over today, that’s why I wasn’t on my phone. Thanks for checking in.”
“Shit… uh- I wanna ask if it’s all chill with them but… well…”
Full of sarcasm, he responded, “Yeah, they sure seemed ecstatic about the mess all over my place and my brand new drinking problem.”
“Right…”
“Uh- also,” he cleared his throat, “my mom saw my room.”
“Shit.”
“Yeah,” he snorted. “Anyway… she helped me clean or, well, I guess she did it for me, with my dad, but now he’s cooking ‘cause they also seem to think I’ll die from starvation.”
“It wouldn’t hurt you to ingest something other than alcohol, especially something solid.”
“Don’t start, I already have the both of them lecturing me.”
“Right, right…”
“Uh- the old hag also said to thank you and stuff… so… there you go.”
He heard some faint laughter from the other side of the phone.
“Oh, yeah? What for?”
“You know…”
“Making sure you don’t choke on your own vomit?”
“Something like that… I suppose.”
“No problemo, amigo. I’d be pretty sad if you died and then I’d have to find a replacement and that would be a whole thing sooo, you know.”
“Yeah, real heroic of you.”
“That’s why I’m number 12!”
He could basically hear Eijirou’s cheeky grin.
“Yeah, yeah. So, um, I should go now. I just wanted to let you know I’m not dead-”
“Thanks,” he snorted.
“And you’re probably busy at work s-”
“Oh, don’t worry about that! I took an early lunch break, I’ve still got some time.”
“No, it’s fine. You should enjoy your lunch.”
“You sure you don’t wanna talk some more? I really don’t mind. If you need to vent again or something.”
“I’m good, I promise.” He quickly corrected his statement, “I mean, I’m not good, obviously, but I’m, you know…”
“Yeah, no, I get it.”
“Thanks again for… everything.”
“Of course and uh- say hi to your parents for me! It’s been a while since I’ve seen them.”
“Sure. I’ll text you later, ‘kay?”
“Alright, see ya later, bro.”
“See ya,” he hung up, exhaled and dropped his back on the bed, staring above.
(At least he didn’t have any Deku posters on his ceiling… Mina had said she would whack him if he tried to put any there.)
He brought his phone up again and unlocked it, deciding to read Eijirou’s texts and any other unread texts he had from his friends, he’d save any job related ones for when he went back to work.
His thumb stopped and lingered over Izuku’s chat.
There were seven new texts.
heeey, Kachaaan😊☺️😙!!!
you havent been online lately, i didnt wanna bother u in case youre out on some long mission or have a cold🥶 or fever🤒 or smth but it’s been a while and u still havent texted or called so idk ig i got worried
i dont mean to be annoying so dw about replying in detail or anything but do let me know if youre doing okay :(
or if u need anything at all!
yk im always here for u🫂!!!
“You know I’m always here for you… right…”
oh ok i asked kiri and he said you came down with a bad case of flu🤧 noooooo :( wishing u a speedy recovery🥹! ill leave u alone now but if u want i could drop in real quick and bring u some soup? or make u some tea or smth? it’s no problem! but kiri and the others probably already took care of that stuff im guessing, still…
take care Kacchan🥺!!! i miss u! lets hang out again once youre feeling better🥰!
He squeezed his eyes shut for a moment, “Moron…”
Good thing Eijirou had thought to lie to Izuku about Katsuki being sick.
He didn’t like the idea of lying to Izuku but he felt better about it if he wasn’t the one to have started the lie and there was also no way he was going to share the truth with him.
It wasn’t even a matter of embarrassment for once, Izuku simply deserved better than to feel guilty for not reciprocating Katsuki’s feelings and he knew his friend too well to pretend he didn’t know what was going to happen if he confessed.
Trying to figure out what to text back was almost giving him a worse headache than the previous conversation with his parents.
He tried a few different things, typing and deleting and then typing again (luckily Izuku wasn’t online to see the typing dots appear and disappear, probably talking Aizawa’s ears off during their lunch break).
Finally, he settled on:
Hey, sorry i forgot to tell you. Thanks for checking in tho, im doing better, all in all. Still not feeling great but… i should get back to work soon enough? Hopefully. Might still take a few days. No need to pop your head in here, i wouldnt want you to catch something and then have to hear aizawa bitch and moan about having to cover for you. Besides, how will your poor pitiful students survive without their favourite (bit of a pushover) teacher? You gotta think these things through, nerd🤓😝!
Quickly, he replied to a few more texts from his other friends and then placed his phone back on the bedside table and decided to check if his dad was finished cooking. He still wasn’t hungry but he knew he had to accept his fate and the sooner he ate, the sooner his parents could leave.
“Yo, old man, what’s taking you so long? I thought you two wanted me to get some fuel in.”
He laughed, “Five more minutes and we’re good. How about you set the table?”
“Sure,” he shrugged and got to work.
“Can you go tell your mother it’s ready? I think she was in the laundry room.”
“Yeah.”
While heading there, he noticed that most of his apartment was now clean and looked entirely different than it did just a few hours before.
“Dad says the food’s ready,” he leaned on the doorway and observed his mother on the other side of the room.
“Be there in a second, I’ll just-” she clicked a few more buttons on the laundry machine, “here we go, now I’ll just wash my hands real quick but go set the table.”
He turned around, “Already did. Hurry up, you were the one who wanted me to eat.”
Soon after, they were all sitting around his kitchen table, enjoying a nice warm meal.
Though, after a few bites, Katsuki already felt too full so he started taking smaller scoops and playing a bit with his food in between each bite, rearranging it on his plate so maybe his parents wouldn’t notice how much food was left.
Needless to say, those tricks didn’t work at all.
“At least eat half of it.”
“What are you talking about?” He feigned ignorance. “I’m eating.”
His mom sighed, “You’re being impossible today. I hope you know that.”
“Tt- I thought I was always like that.”
“Yeah, well, today’s worse.”
“Good to know.”
“Sweetheart, I don’t think it’s a good idea to force him to eat some more. It’s good he has something in his stomach now but with all that he’s been drinking… and then him also not being in the uh- most favourable of moods-”
He chuckled at that.
“Maybe we should be careful. Forcing him to eat too much right now might not sit well with his stomach. I also probably should’ve just made some broth, easier to digest, but I figured the heart would appreciate some comfort food at the moment. It’s best he eats a little bit here and there, when he feels like it, rather than trying to force him to finish the whole thing right now.”
“Agreed,” he dropped his chopsticks and sat back.
“Fine, fine. I suppose that’s better than before. I mean,” she looked him up and down, “he’s clean now, has stopped drinking, this place doesn’t smell anymore and he’s eaten at least a bit… yeah, I guess it’ll have to do for now.”
He rolled his eyes, “Perfect. You can leave now. Your help has been noted and appreciated.”
“Has it?” she deadpanned.
He hummed.
“Maybe we can all watch a hero movie together! Your mother and I still haven’t gotten around to watching one of those new All Might ones with the um-” he snapped his fingers a few times, “the, you know, uh-”
“I really don’t.”
“Come on, that thing…”
He raised a questioning eyebrow.
“Oh, wait. Honey, do you mean the ones with those weird new special effects?”
“Those! Yeah, we saw, I believe the first two? From that saga. So I think we’re missing the final one?”
“Yeah…” he slouched on his chair, his weight feeling like it had tripled again, “I saw them all with Izuku,” he sighed.
“Oh for fuck’s sake, Katsuki,” she complained.
“Mitsuki!” He turned to him, “Sorry, kiddo. I should’ve known not to bring up All Might either. I just thought, well, you always rewatched an All Might movie or two when you were sick when you were a kid. I figured maybe it would help but… when you were a kid Izu- ah, you didn’t know All Might personally so that obviously changes things.”
“You don’t have to skirt around his name.”
“Doesn’t he, though? ‘Cause it seems that the second anything even remotely reminds you of a certain green-haired boy, your spine turns to fucking jelly.”
“Mitsuki…”
“I tried being nice! I tried coddling him! A bit… but come on, Masaru. You want him to go about life like this?” She gestured to Katsuki. “If this whole thing or conversation, or whatever the fuck, had happened literally yesterday, I would’ve understood. Truly. But he can’t go a whole month like this.”
“Yeah but you’re not giving him any time to process this. No one’s saying he doesn’t have to start taking care of himself again but he’s allowed to be sad.”
“I didn’t say he’s not allowed to be sad,” she raised her voice. “All I’m saying is that he also needs to make a fucking effort not just with taking care of himself and this place but also emotionally. He can’t spend the rest of his life moping because one boy rejected him. You give him too much leeway now and he’ll jus-”
“What.”
They both turned to him, looking slightly surprised at his interjection.
He gripped his bathrobe above his knees, with both hands and tried to calm down.
His mother had done a lot for him in just a few hours and he didn’t want to be ungrateful… but she always pushed the wrong buttons.
“What did you just say? One boy?”
“Yes, Katsuki. One boy.”
“Okay, maybe we all just take a deep breath an-”
“Are you forgetting who that one boy happens to be? You said that as if he were some fucking rando or some guy I met on the street or on a fucking app.”
“Okay, yeah, it’s Izuku. And I get that that makes it an even bigger deal. But that’s still just one guy, Katsuki. Whether it’s your childhood friend or some rando, it’s still just one guy. You’ve never tried dating anyone, never talked about any other crushes or any-”
“A fucking crush?” he yelled out. “That’s what you fucking got out of this? You think I’m fucking twelve years old?”
“That’s not my point, what I’m trying to say is that you’re stubborn and always get stuck on one thing and get offended the second anyone tries to give you any alternatives or asks if you have a plan B. You wanted to become a hero so you never considered any non hero paths. You wanted to go to UA so you only applied for one school even though everyone warned you against it.”
“And I got in! And I become a fucking hero! Didn’t I?”
“Yes and this time it didn’t work!” she yelled back.
Abruptly, he got up, knocking down his chair in the process and slamming his hands on the table, slightly spilling a few things, “You think I don’t fucking know that?”
He hated that his voice cracked and his vision started getting blurry from unshed tears.
“Yeah, this time it didn’t fucking work… no fucking shit! But it’s a bit too fucking late for alternative plans now, isn’t it?”
“Sweetie…” she whispered. “Look, I- I didn’t mean to-”
“No, you never fucking mean to but you always know how to say the wrong thing, huh? You can never just take the hint and step back for once?” he asked, bitterly.
“You’re right, I can’t. And I’m sorry. I wish I were better at this type of shit. I’m not. But honey, what do you want me to say? That it’s okay for you to throw the rest of your life away because you got rejected by one b-”
“Again with those fucking words!”
“Mitsuki, maybe you can put the food and dishes away while Katsuki and I talk in his room? How about that?”
“No, no,” he waved frantically, “let her stay here. Maybe I can fucking clear this up for her.”
“Kiddo…”
Looking down, he grabbed the section of his bathrobe that was covering his chest, more specifically the area where he had the huge leftover scar from the final battle with Shigaraki, and he tightened his fist as hard as he could as if that could will away all the pain and heaviness. Claw them right out of his fragile heart.
“It’s-” he swallowed the lump in his throat as a few tears eventually broke through, miserably running down his cheeks, “it’s not just some fucking guy.”
“I know, I know, it’s Iz-”
“Mitsuki, please, just let h-”
“I love him!”
He took a deep breath, through the tightness around his throat, “I love him. Only him. Will always be just him. No one else. Ever. So I don’t fucking care if it’s fucking pathetic or weird that I’ve never liked anyone else or that I’ve never gone on a single fucking date or that I’ve never been in a relationship. I-”
He tried to force his voice to stop shaking, “Let me make this fucking clear for once and for all.”
Finally meeting his mother’s eyes again, “There is no version of me that does not love Izuku Midoriya. There has never been a version of Katsuki Bakugou that did not love Izuku Midoriya. And there will never, ever, be a Katsuki Bakugou that does not love Izuku Midoriya. Ever.”
Both of his parents sat in stunned silence as he slowly regained a bit of his composure. Letting all of that out had surprisingly cleared out his airways and he was breathing a bit easier, standing a bit straighter.
“The whole concept of me, of your son, Katsuki Bakugou, cannot even exist without Izuku Midoriya. We were so young when we met…”
A bittersweet smile crept up his face, “I obviously can’t even remember it and it’s annoying ‘cause that was the catalyst for my whole life as it is now but it’s also kinda… perfect. That way. Isn’t it?”
The pain in his heart didn’t entirely fade away, he knew that would never happen, but his grip on his bathrobe loosened up as some of that pain transformed into…
“He’s always been so interwoven in my life that I can’t even fucking remember a time he wasn’t in it,” he chuckled, still slightly crying but also feeling somewhat better.
“Because I may be a stubborn motherfucker but so is he, so even when I pushed him away, I was never actually alone ‘cause he refused to leave my side. And I’m glad for it. He made his way into the back of my head like no one else has ever managed to. Like no one else will ever manage to. And now he’s moved up right to the front and center of it. I guess it really is fucking stupid and embarrassing but…”
“...Isn’t it also kind of fucking perfect how I’ve never known or lived a version of my life that didn’t have Izuku Midoriya in it? I don’t know,” he shrugged and picked up the chair so he could sit down again, “maybe I’m not even making any sense but- I- it’s just him for me. No one else will do.”
He had spoken the last dozen words so softly that he feared his parents hadn’t heard them so he raised his voice to make sure they got the next part, “That’s what I need you to understand. You can reprimand me all you want and it’s not gonna change a thing. I’m not gonna go out and try to date or any other bullshit like that.”
The thought was quite frankly laughable.
“This is the situation. It’s just him for me but I’m not the one for him. I’d say I’ll get over it but… well, I’d be full of shit if I said that. I will, however, learn to deal with it. In due time. That’s all I can promise you.”
They ended up watching a comedy.