Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The U.A. classroom was silent, except for the sound of pens scratching paper and the firm but gentle voice of Izuku Midoriya explaining an exercise on defensive strategies in urban environments. The afternoon light filtering through the large windows illuminated the dust particles dancing in the air, creating an almost palpable atmosphere of concentration. The routine of being a teacher had been the same for 5 years, with lesson plans, assessments, and pedagogical meetings, yet he still felt that tightening in his chest, a sharp and familiar pang, every time he stumbled upon something that reminded him of him.

A quick movement from a blonde student in the corner of his vision. The sound of a distant explosion during training on the field. The mere mention of the hero name "Dynamight" in a newspaper article. Small triggers that would disarm, for a second, his facade of impeccable professionalism.

But no one saw it.

No one saw it because Izuku was good at hiding it. He had learned the art of concealment not by choice, but out of necessity. A quick smile, an adjustment of his glasses, a deeper dive into the explanation of the topic were his shields. He channeled the energy he once spent on tears or exaggerated smiles into his teaching, into the meticulous care for each student. It was exhausting, but it worked.

"Therefore, the priority in a structural collapse scenario with trapped civilians is not to neutralize the threat immediately, but to create a stable evacuation corridor," he explained, quickly drawing a diagram on the board. His green eyes, still so intense, scanned the room, making sure everyone was following. "The hero needs to be the anchor point, literally and figuratively. Alright, class, that's it for today," he concluded, smiling with genuine satisfaction at seeing the attentive faces. "Practice what we learned and get your analytical report to me by Friday, no excuses, deal?"

The bell rang, and the room filled with the usual buzz of closing backpacks and emerging conversations. Izuku began gathering the notebooks scattered on his desk, organizing the sheets with an almost ritualistic care. The post-class quiet was a relief and, at the same time, dangerous territory where his thoughts could run wild. He allowed himself, for a few moments, to feel the bone-deep weariness.

That's when a familiar silhouette appeared in the doorway, leaning against the frame with the casual ease of someone who belonged there.

"Izuku..." Ochaco Uraraka's voice echoed softly, carrying an affection that spanned years of friendship. She smiled that knowing smile, a smile that said "I know, I'm here," without needing to voice it.

"Ochaco!" Izuku responded, his professional smile transforming into something more real, more relaxed. "Is everything okay?"

"It is. But that's not the point," she entered the room, her light steps making almost no sound. "Tonight, the usual bar. The one near the station. You, me, Todoroki, Iida, and Tsu. It's already set. No escaping with excuses about having reports to grade or extra training, okay?"

Izuku adjusted the stack of papers, trying to look natural, averting his gaze for a split second. The idea of the bar was both tempting and terrifying. Their company was his safe harbor, but also a place where his defenses, fortified by the solitude of his apartment, tended to crack.

"I... it's just that I have a lot of-"

"Midoriya." She used his last name, in a slightly stern tone that didn't match her face. It was a rare and effective weapon. "You've missed the last three meet-ups. Iida's brow is permanently furrowed with worry. Todoroki keeps looking at you out of the corner of his eye during missions like you're about to implode any minute. Go."

He took a deep breath, a sigh that carried the weight of weeks of insomnia and a void that no heroic victory seemed to fill. The tiredness wasn't just physical.

"You're right. I won't run. I think..." another pause, his fingers gripping the edge of the desk, "I think I really need to. Thanks, Ochaco."

Uraraka approached and gave two firm pats on his shoulder, a gesture that was both a greeting and an anchor.

"Deal, then. Eight o'clock."

She knew. They all knew about the void he carried, the absence that was like a phantom limb, sick and persistent. But no one mentioned it because they had all learned, the hard way, that Izuku would explode emotionally just like he did physically when using One For All: with an overwhelming, catastrophic, and self-destructive intensity. It was better to carefully skirt the abyss than to cause a collapse.

The Blazing Frost Bar - 8:47 PM

The establishment was cozy, with dark wood and amber light. The table in the corner, reserved for them almost by acquired right, was large and surrounded by upholstered benches. Christmas lights, relics of past holidays, still hung in the corners, twinkling softly. The air was filled with the sweet smell of cinnamon from a hot punch and the bitterness of craft beer.

Izuku felt lighter. The first round of drinks helped, but it was their presence that truly worked the miracle. For a few hours, he wasn't Professor Midoriya or Hero Deku. He was just Izuku, part of a quintet that had survived hell and emerged on the other side united.

"...and then the intern, the kid with the Quirk to create giant soap bubbles, literally trapped the villains in a bubble and started floating with them towards the stratosphere!" Iida was saying, gesturing with the precision of a conductor. "I had to intercept with a Turbo Boost and negotiate the descent! Diplomacy was not on the agenda today!"

The table erupted in laughter. Tsu, beside Ochaco, let out her characteristic "ribbit," muffled by her glass. Shoto Todoroki allowed a small smile at the corner of his lips while gently swirling his sake cup.

"You're doing amazingly well, Midoriya," said Iida, turning to Izuku, his tone serious and protective. "Your performance in the B-rank missions is admirable, and your mental health seems... stable. It's admirable how you balance everything."

"I agree, ribbit," Tsu added, her head slightly tilted, her large analytical eyes fixed on him. "You seem more centered. You just need to stop being as tense as a rock on our shoulders during combined rescue ops. Relax a little, Izuku. Trust us."

Everyone laughed, and the laughter was like a collective hug. Izuku felt a knot of gratitude in his throat. And in an attempt to drown that knot before it turned into something more embarrassing, he drank.

He drank more than he should have. A shot of vodka here, a strong beer there. Alcohol was a dangerous social lubricant; it loosened the tight bonds of the constant vigilance he kept over himself.

More than he intended. The third beer disappeared quickly, and the world began to take on a softer, less threatening outline.

More than his emotional state, always on the edge of a cliff, allowed. The barrier between internal thought and external speech began to crumble, brick by brick.

"Sooo..." Izuku's voice came out a bit slurred, his cheeks flushed from the alcohol and the warmth of the place. He raised his half-empty glass vaguely, as if making a toast to a ghost. "I just wanna know how he's doing, you know? Like... really. If he's eating right. If the new agency is too demanding. If... if he still uses that post-training lotion that smells like ash and... and pine."

The silence that followed was brief but sharp. Ochaco exchanged a quick glance with Tsu. Iida adjusted his glasses, a nervous tic. Todoroki slowly raised his gaze from the surface of his sake. His face, usually a mask of calm, showed the slightest sign of alert, a nearly imperceptible tightening of his jaw.

"Izuku," he said quietly, his voice so soft it was almost lost in the bar's chatter, but carrying a weight of steel. "He made his choice. The move to the United States wasn't just strategic. Maybe... maybe it's time for you to make yours and move on."

Izuku smiled. It was a sad, crooked smile that didn't reach his eyes. His eyes, green and vulnerable, said the opposite. They said I'll never get over it, I'll never understand, I'll never stop feeling like half of me left on a bullet train to the west.

And then he stood up, feeling the world tilt slightly. He held onto the table.

"Be right back... going to the restroom. Excuse me."

Iida gave a short laugh, trying to lighten the tension.

"It's fine, Midoriya. Just don't let him stay in there reflecting on life too long, or we'll have to rescue him from an existential crisis in the men's room."

The cold of the restroom sink tiles was a pleasant shock against his palms. Izuku leaned over the counter, staring at his own reflection in the foggy mirror. His face was red, his dark green hair messier than usual, his eyes glassy. His heart, however, was even hotter, beating with a painful, romantic insistence, as if trying to escape his chest and run the 400 kilometers that separated him from Katsuki Bakugo.

The loneliness, amplified by the alcohol, was an insidious monster. He took his phone from his pocket. The screen lit up, blind and accusatory. His fingers, driven by a stupid and irresistible force, opened the messaging app. He scrolled, scrolled, scrolled until he found the contact.

"Katsuki."

The last message, sent eight months ago, was from him. Dry, objective, a "Watch the left flank" during an agency-forced joint mission. The previous message, from nine months ago, was from Izuku. A long, desperate, and never-answered "Can we talk, please?"

Above it, the ominous symbol of an unanswered call. And above that, the normal, almost daily conversation from before The Big Fight. The chasm between those old messages and the recent ones hurt physically.

He hesitated. His thumb hovered over the text field. The sober, tiny, and drowned-out part of his brain screamed to put the device away. But the booze, the longing, and a hint of childish provocation - "he'll have to answer me now!" - won.

And then, with autocorrect betraying him in every way possible, turning his emotional confusion into a monumental spelling error, Izuku typed. His fingers slipped, the letters scrambled, he erased and retyped, stubborn.

The message ended up like this:

"MARRY Christmas, Kacchan "

He looked at the first word, his brain slowly processing the error. "Merry" was "Happy." "Marry" was "Marry." A chill ran down his spine, mixed with an absurd wave of heat from embarrassment. But it was too late. The impulse spoke louder. He continued, dumping into the text everything he had kept under lock and key:

"... I miss you... much more than I should... please come home soon..."

And he pressed send.

The whoosh confirmation sound seemed the loudest in the world. He stared at the screen, the seconds dragging like centuries. One. Two. Three. Four. No "seen." No "typing...". Just the digital void, swallowing his drunken, poorly written confession.

"There..." he murmured to his reflection, a low, hoarse, nervous laugh escaping his lips. "Now I've screwed up. The mother of all screw-ups."

He washed his face with cold water, trying in vain to dissipate the alcoholic fog and the growing panic. "Maybe he won't see it. Maybe he's really blocked me for good now. Maybe... maybe he'll find it funny." But Izuku knew Katsuki. Funny was not a likely reaction. Disgust? Anger? Contempt? All more viable options.

The Next Day - Izuku's Apartment - 10:02 AM

The pain arrived before consciousness. A rhythmic anvil pounding against his temples. His mouth tasted like dirty cotton and metal. His tongue felt like a strange, furry animal sleeping in his mouth. He tried to swallow and felt a dry agony.

Smells invaded his nostrils before he opened his eyes. Coffee. Strong and bitter. And another smell... a smell of worry, of silent tension. It was a smell he knew well, from the training grounds, from before decisive battles.

Izuku slowly opened his eyes, his eyelids heavy like iron doors. The light filtered through his apartment curtains cut his brain in half. He blinked, struggling to focus.

And he saw.

Sitting in his living room, arranged like an impromptu tribunal, were all his friends. Ochaco, at the end of the sofa, hands clasped and face serious. Tsuyu beside her, posture erect, her large eyes fixed on him with an expression of deep pity. Tenya Iida, on the only chair in the room, with the perfect posture of a general about to deliver terrible news. And Shoto Todoroki, leaning against the wall near the window, arms crossed, his heterochromatic gaze inscrutable but laden with unusual gravity.

None of them spoke. The only sounds were the nauseating buzz in his own ears and the distant ticking of a clock.

"Good morning...?" Izuku's voice came out slurred, raspy, a dying man's whisper. He propped himself up on his elbows, his head throbbing. "What... what's with those faces? What happened? Villain alert? Mission?"

No one answered. Ochaco bit her lower lip. Tsuyu let out a soft, worried "ribbit."

The silence became oppressive, growing like a bubble of anxiety. Until Iida, with a surgical precision that seemed exaggerated even for him, leaned forward. In his hand, held as if it were forensic evidence, was Izuku's phone.

"Midoriya," he said, each syllable carefully articulated, his face a mask of disciplined concern. "We... took the liberty of checking if you had deactivated your alarm after last night. We found this. You... you sent this."

He extended the device like someone handing over a grenade without its pin.

An icy cold, totally divorced from his headache, took hold of Izuku. He took the phone with trembling fingers. The screen was open to the messaging app. At the top, the name "Katsuki." And below, his message. Intact. Horrible. Immutable.

"MARRY Christmas, Kacchan I miss you... much more than I should... please come home soon..."

The world collapsed. Not dramatically, but with a muffled, internal crash, as if all his vital gears had stopped at once.

"NO-" the word came out as a groan. Then, gaining strength, fueled by pure terror. "NO NO NO NO NO NO! WHY DID I SEND THAT?! WHY? GOD, WHY, HEAVENS, NO!"

He thrashed, the blankets flying, and fell from the sofa to the floor, still clutching the phone as if he could suck the words back through the screen.

"Izuku, calm down! CALM DOWN!" Ochaco knelt beside him, trying to hold his shoulders, which were shaking uncontrollably. Her eyes were full of desperation. "You were really drunk! You didn't know what you were doing!"

"THAT MAKES IT WORSE, URARAKA!" he screamed, his voice breaking, his green eyes huge and drenched in panic. "If I were sober it would be pathetic! Drunk is a disaster! It's humiliating! It's... it's..."

He couldn't even articulate. The word "MARRY" pulsed on the screen, a beacon of absolute shame.

Tsuyu knelt on the other side, trying to help with her practical logic:
"Maybe he hasn't even seen it,ribbit... Are you still blocked? Is there a 'delivered' or 'seen' status?"

Todoroki, on the other hand, always the beacon of harsh reality, even when painful, spoke from his post by the wall:
"The last time you saw each other,at that Agency meeting, you had a huge fight. You said things. He said worse things. And you mentioned he blocked you afterward. If he hasn't unblocked you..." he made a significant pause. "The message might not even have arrived. And if it did arrive and he hasn't responded by now, at ten in the morning on a workday, he probably ignored it. Or deleted it."

Todoroki's logic should have been a relief. But for Izuku, in that state, it was just another stab. The idea of his message, his emotional cry for help, being simply ignored by Katsuki was, somehow, worse than an angry response.

"WORSE! It's worse either way!" Izuku sobbed, burying his face in the carpet. "I SENT A MARRIAGE PROPOSAL AND A MISS-YOU NOTE TO A MAN WHO HATES ME! DRUNK! AND I WROTE 'MARRY'! MARRY??? WHAT AN IDIOT! HOW RIDICULOUS! WHAT... AAAAAAGH!"

His scream was muffled by the fabric. Iida approached, his stiffness melting in the face of his friend's genuine suffering.

"Izuku, please, breathe," said Iida, using his first name, his voice uncharacteristically soft. "You're human. You make mistakes. Drunken mistakes are... common. If he sees it, with any common sense, he'll understand the context. He won't take it seriously."

"The problem isn't him taking it seriously, Iida!" Izuku lifted his face, marked by the carpet's pattern and tears of frustration. "The problem is that I sent it! That I broke the only agreement we had, which was not to talk! That I exposed everything again and made a fool of myself! I promised myself I wouldn't do that anymore! I swore!"

The room fell silent again. This time, it was a silence of painful complicity. They understood. Each of them had seen Izuku's slow erosion over the past two years, ever since Bakugo accepted the transfer to lead the new branch in Osaka. They saw the distant stares, the overwork, the reluctance to talk about it. And they saw, the night before, the exact moment the dam began to break.

Ochaco, still kneeling, began to gently rub circles on Izuku's back.

"What's done is done," she whispered. "Now we wait. Or we don't. We move on. Together. As always."

But the words, as comforting as they were, couldn't erase the phone screen, which now lay on the carpet like a radioactive artifact. Izuku rolled onto his side, staring at the ceiling, an arm over his eyes. The headache was now an afterthought, overshadowed by the emotional agony.

Chapter Text

The clean, impersonal announcement in Japanese echoed through the vast lobby of Japan's international airport, and Katsuki Bakugou felt his head throb in sync with every syllable. The fourteen-hour flight had been too long, even in the comfortable first class reserved exclusively for top-ranking heroes.

The seat reclined almost completely, the service was impeccable, and even the silence in the cabin was respectable, but none of that prevented the weariness weighing on his shoulders. The terminal air, when he finally disembarked, felt like a shock: too cold from the air conditioning, mixed with the greasy smell of nearby snack bars and an avalanche of different perfumes attacking his heightened senses.

He rubbed his eyes with his fingers, applying firm pressure against the fatigue that insisted on turning his peripheral vision into static. He took a deep breath, but the air brought no relief, only more of the same. Then, with a brusque movement, he pulled up the sleeve of his black athletic jacket to look at the sturdy, explosion-proof wristwatch. His expression, naturally inclined towards irritation, hardened into something close to murderous.

"Dammit, Kirishima..." he growled through his teeth, his voice low, laden with that venomous familiarity that existed only between them. His phone was pressed against his ear, the call still connected. "Five minutes late has turned into twenty-six. Twenty-six, you idiot. Can you count or did traffic fry your brain?"

On the other end of the line, a reply far too cheerful for someone who was almost half an hour late.

"Duuude, relax!" Kirishima's voice came through loud, muffled by some street noise. "Things went wrong here, there was a crazy traffic jam near the bridge, and-"

"I don't care. I said I didn't need you to come," Katsuki interrupted, curtly. "But now I'm standing here like an idiot in zone 3B, after a fourteen-hour flight. If you show up smiling, I'll blow your face off."

The hero known as Dynamight stood planted near the designated pickup exit, a monument to ill will. The hood of his jacket was thrown up in a futile attempt to contain the messy, spiky blond of his hair, still disheveled after hours compressed against the airplane seat.

A worn military backpack hung from one shoulder, while three sturdy black suitcases piled up beside him, two of them reserved solely for his hero costume and support gear. It was too much stuff. Too much weight. A constant reminder that he had overpacked, and irritation pulsed each time he had to dodge someone in the narrow corridor.

"Yeah, you said you didn't need me," Kirishima retorted, trying to keep his tone light. "But I said I was coming to get you anyway. It's your triumphant return!"

Katsuki let out a short, humorless laugh.
"Triumphant,huh?" he murmured, running a hand over his tired face. "I'm feeling like a real king here, waiting like a fool in the middle of this airport hell."

He took a deep breath, the terminal's recycled air burning his lungs. Too cold from the air conditioning, mixed with the greasy smell of the snack bars and an irritating blend of strong perfumes that attacked his heightened senses. People passed in waves: executives with deep dark circles, families with children crying from exhaustion, couples laughing, oblivious to the chaos around them.

"Look, I'm ten minutes away," Kirishima insisted. "I swear. For real this time."

"You said that fifteen minutes ago," Katsuki shot back. He crossed his arms tightly against his chest, muscles tensed.

"I told you I didn't need you to come, dammit. But no... 'The Spirit of Friendship' had to insist. 'No way, man, I'll be there!'"

"Hey, I missed you," his friend's voice came quieter now. "Everyone did."

Katsuki clenched his jaw.
He didn't want to be so irritated.He knew that. Somewhere tiny, buried under pride and years of emotional self-control, he understood the delay likely involved traffic, maybe even some heroic incident along the way. Something noble. Something typical of Kirishima.

But post-flight fatigue was eating away at his patience like acid. And it wasn't just physical tiredness.

It was a weariness of soul.

Months away from a place that, against all his logic, still smelled like home.

Musutafu. The city's specific chaos. The taste of cheap ramen near the old agency. The silence of his own empty apartment.

And other silences.

Deeper ones. More dangerous ones.

"Just get here," he murmured finally, his voice lower. "Before I change my mind and get back on the plane."

On the other end, Kirishima laughed.
"Hang in there,Bakubro. I'm coming."
The call dropped.

Katsuki lowered his phone slowly, his tired red eyes scanning the corridor, now bustling again. Every flight announcement, every loud laugh, every suitcase dragged across the shiny floor hit like a hammer against his temples.

He hated airports.

He hated transitions.

And he hated the fact that, even so... his heart was racing from being back.

He ended the call with an irritated tap on the screen, shoving his phone into his jacket pocket as if that could also silence the turmoil in his chest.

He took a deep breath, trying to pull himself together, but the constant airport noise seemed to conspire against any attempt at peace. Voices overlapped, luggage thumped on the floor, announcements echoed metallically-a familiar, suffocating chaos.

Then, after 20 minutes, a voice cut through all that background noise like an axe-an unmistakable voice, rough and charged with absurd solar energy tore through the environment.

"KATSUUUUKI!!"

The shout came from afar, echoing through the hall. It was followed by a glimpse of a red-headed figure, a head of spiky hair, moving fast through the crowd, dodging people with surprising agility for someone so solid. Kirishima's scarlet eyes shone like beacons.

"Hey, dammit, Kirishima, don't you dare make a scene," Katsuki began to warn, his posture growing even stiffer, bracing for impact.

Too late.

Eijiro Kirishima, his closest friend and possibly the most stubborn being on the planet when it came to physical affection, didn't slow down. He arrived like a friendly freight train, completely ignoring Katsuki's personal space, and pulled him into a crushing hug. His arms, muscular and hard as stone thanks to his Quirk, wrapped around Katsuki's torso with a force that made the blonde's ribs protest and nearly knocked the air from his lungs in an audible "oof."

Katsuki stood frozen for a second, his arms pinned at his sides, his face buried in Kirishima's familiar, broad shoulder. An old reflex, pure and instinctive, demanded he release a small warning explosion in his palm, which he had already begun to warm up. But he didn't.

Because, despite the embarrassment, the invasion, the smell of cheap hair gel and honest sweat from Kirishima... there was an underlying feeling. The feeling of a safe harbor. Something he hadn't found in months.

"Man, you're back! Finally!" Kirishima practically roared with happiness, still crushing Katsuki against him, his loud, open laugh reverberating in Bakugou's chest. "Missed you like crazy, dude! Everyone's been totally different without you around to yell at us!"

Katsuki, after a long, dramatic pause, sighed. A deep sigh that carried all the irritation of the last thirty minutes, of the last months. His arms, initially rigid as rods at his sides, moved. One, then the other, rose to give two quick, awkward, and somewhat embarrassed pats on Kirishima's broad back.

"...Yeah. Okay," he grumbled, his voice muffled by his friend's jacket. His face was warm, and he thanked the heavens for the hood hiding part of his expression. "Missed you too. A little. Just a little, you shitty-haired bastard. Now let go, you're gonna suffocate me."

Kirishima laughed even harder, a genuine guffaw that made a few nearby people look over and smile, touched by the scene. He finally pulled back but kept his hands on Katsuki's shoulders, examining him from head to toe with a critical and affectionate look.

"You look exactly the same. Like you're ready to blow up the first thing that moves wrong."

"I'm more patient, actually," Bakugou replied dryly, adjusting his jacket which had been misaligned by the hug. He avoided direct eye contact, focusing on straightening the backpack on his shoulder. "Can you believe it? Five months in the US and I didn't blow up a single diplomat. Almost."

"No fucking way," Kirishima retorted, his smile impossibly wide. "Patience is your new secret power? Been doing breathing exercises with Yaoyorozu over there?"

"Shut up." But there was no real ferocity in the retort. There was a tiredness that made the rough edges of his personality a bit softer. "And I see you're still an optimistic idiot."

"That's what keeps me manly!" Kirishima thumped his own chest with a dull sound, then, with the utmost naturalness, leaned over and grabbed the handle of Katsuki's wheeled suitcase. "Gimme that, c'mon. I'll carry it."

"I carry my own stuff, Spiky Hair," Katsuki complained automatically, making a vague move to reclaim the suitcase.

"Ah, cut it out! You just got off an intercontinental flight, your jet lag must be messed up. Let me take it. It's the law of the more rested man." Kirishima was already pulling the suitcase, his command over it absolute.

Katsuki hesitated for a fraction of a second. The proud part of him roared. The exhausted part, the one that felt every muscle and bone, whispered in gratitude. He huffed, a concession.

"Fine. But don't think this is gonna happen again."

"Of course not, boss," Kirishima agreed, in a tone that clearly indicated it would happen whenever possible.

Together, the two began walking towards the exits leading to the parking lot. The change was immediate. The terminal's artificial air conditioning gave way to the cutting, dry cold of a Japanese December evening. The wind hit Katsuki's face, bringing with it a distinct, unmistakable smell: a bit of pollution, a bit of salt (they were near the coast), and something indefinable that was simply Japan. It was a smell that didn't exist in any of the places he'd been. The air entered his lungs and, for the first time since he'd landed, felt real.

It was good to be back.

The admission popped into his mind before he could censor it. A simple, bare fact.

Even if it hurt a little to admit, even if it came with a tangled ball of complications and memories he'd rather keep locked away.

Kirishima led him to a sturdy, high-end jeep, modern and impeccably maintained-the kind of expensive vehicle that didn't draw attention at first glance but revealed investment and care in every detail.

He unlocked the trunk with a click of the key and, with a single fluid motion, lifted one of Katsuki's heavy suitcases, stowing it in the spacious interior, followed by the military backpack.

"So," Kirishima began, getting into the driver's side and starting the car. The engine rumbled to life, and welcome heat began to flow from the vents. He tuned the radio to a soft rock station, volume low, and flashed Katsuki one of those smiles that seemed to know no cynicism. "Let's go. Spill everything. How was it over there in the States? Give me the epic news. Get famous? Climb high on their charts? Cause some Bakugou-style chaos? Probably blew up half a building just to say 'hi'."

Katsuki settled into the passenger seat, his body sinking into the comfortable upholstery. He looked out the window as Kirishima maneuvered out of the parking spot. The sky above the lot was a deep gray, tinged with faint orange on the horizon where the sun had already set. The city lights were beginning to turn on, dotting the approaching darkness. His own red eyes, reflected in the glass, seemed darker, more contained.

"Nothing much," he said finally, his voice lower and flatter than usual. It wasn't the explosive tone of someone being modest out of arrogance; it was the speech of someone genuinely drained. "Did my job. Fulfilled their damn schedule. Trained with some heroes over there... some are strong, others just know how to pose for the camera. I'm on forced leave now. A month." He paused, his fingers tapping an irregular rhythm on his knee. "Came back to spend it here. Rest... and maybe work a bit after. See what the main agency has going on. If there's anything left."

"'Maybe,' huh?" Kirishima nudged, shooting him a sidelong glance while waiting to merge onto the main road. His smile was knowing. "Just like you always say before diving headfirst and doing a bunch of epic stuff. 'I'll just check.' Then the next day you're leading tactical training and overhauling security protocols."

"I don't 'overhaul protocols,' I fix the crap you guys let slip," Katsuki retorted, but without fire. It was a dialogue of familiar choreography, comfortable in its predictable rhythm. "Now shut up and drive before I blow us out of here myself."

Kirishima laughed, that easy, resilient laugh, and accelerated smoothly, blending into the flow of nighttime traffic leaving the airport.

The urban landscape of Japan, so familiar yet strangely new, paraded past Katsuki's window. The brightly lit convenience stores, the tall apartment buildings, the power lines crisscrossing the sky like a chaotic musical score. Everything seemed to have stayed exactly the same, and yet, he felt as if he were seeing it through a slight layer of haze, as if he were a spectator of a memory, not an active participant. Maybe it was the jet lag. Maybe not.

Kirishima, as perceptive as always beneath the layer of raw enthusiasm, allowed a comfortable silence for a few miles. Only the rumble of the engine and the soft rock from the radio filled the space. He knew forcing Bakugou was useless. Things would come in his own time, or they wouldn't.

When they stopped at a long traffic light, he looked at his friend. Katsuki was motionless, staring fixedly at the neon lights of a roadside restaurant, but his gaze was distant, far beyond that street.

"So, man..." Kirishima began, his voice a bit softer, losing a bit of the cheerleader tone. "You happy to be back? Really?"

The question hung in the warmed air of the car. It wasn't a taunt. It was an offer. A door left ajar.

Katsuki didn't answer immediately. His jaw tensed slightly, a thin white line appearing around his tight lips. He looked away from the window and stared straight ahead, at the red traffic lights, at the dark road stretching towards the heart of the city that was once his entire world.

He took a deep breath. The air inside the car was now warm and smelled of cheap upholstery cleaner and of Kirishima. It was a smell of home, of unconditional friendship.

And then he said. Without beating around the bush, without the usual sarcasm, with a strange, sincere calmness that only appeared in rare moments when all his defenses were simply too tired to stand:

"...Yeah."

One word. Clear, direct, incontestable.

But the expression on his face, intermittently illuminated by the passing streetlights, said something else. There was a shadow behind his red eyes, a deep stillness that wasn't peace, but rather the weariness of an internal war fought in silence, a few miles away.

Kirishima noticed. He saw the shadow, the complexity behind the simple word. And he didn't comment. He didn't poke, didn't joke, didn't try to pry anything else out.

Because he knew, with the solid certainty of years of friendship forged in battle, that there was only one person in this vast, noisy world capable of leaving Katsuki Bakugou with that specific kind of silence behind his eyes. A silence that was both a wound and a call.

And that person wasn't him.

Kirishima simply nodded, an almost imperceptible movement, and turned his eyes back to the road, giving his friend the space of his silence and the solidarity of his presence, as they drove towards the ghosts and possibilities awaiting Katsuki Bakugou at home.

Katsuki's apartment exuded the carefully organized emptiness of someone who spends long periods away. Everything was in place, but a fine dust danced in the rays of light coming through the windows, and the air had that stagnant smell of a closed-up space. Kirishima entered first, whistling softly.

"Man, you left this cleaner than I expected. Looks like a home decor magazine cover... kinda sterile, but a cover."

"It's because there's no one here to make a mess, you asshole," Katsuki growled, dragging his main suitcase down the narrow hallway. "Now get out of the way and help me with this crap before I decide it's easier to blow it all up and buy new stuff."

Kirishima laughed, grabbing the other bag. "Relax, boss. Take it easy. Your 'way too expensive and techy hero gear' is safe with me."

"Safe my ass, you stone-handed idiot! If you so much as tear a single thread of that heat-resistant fabric, I'll use you as a nail file!" Katsuki yelled, but his tone was more performative than truly furious. It was a ritual. Kirishima knew, and he knew Kirishima knew.

They were in the middle of unpacking the larger suitcase with Katsuki supervising with a hawk's eye, Kirishima trying not to fold anything the "wrong" way, when the doorbell rang.

Katsuki froze, a black t-shirt still in his hand.
"Who the hell is that at this hour?"

Kirishima gave a mysterious smile.
"Ah,yeah... might be the delivery guys for... stuff. I'll get it!"

Before Katsuki could protest, Kirishima vanished down the hallway.

"SURPRIIIIISE!" the sharp, strident voices of Denki Kaminari and Mina Ashido exploded together through the living room.

Denki was wearing his most electric smile ever; Mina, right beside him, threw her arms open in a theatrical gesture, her horns almost seeming to vibrate with excitement.

"Missed us, Bakuboooom?" Mina sang, already invading his personal space with a wide, bright smile.

Behind them came Kyoka Jiro, shaking her head with an affectionate half-smile of disapproval, followed by Hanta Sero, whose elongated face stretched into a wide, unabashed grin.

"Look who finally decided to honor the homeland with his explosive presence," said Sero, arms already open for a hug he knew he wouldn't receive.

Katsuki stood still, the t-shirt still dangling from his hand. His eyes moved from one face to the next: Dunce Face, the loud Alien, the punk artist, Tape Guy.

The Baku-squad. Reunited. In his living room. Without warning.

"What the..." he began, his voice coming out hoarser than intended. He cleared his throat, trying to reclaim his fury. "What are you all doing in my damn house? Who called you?"

"The Spirit of Friendship, dude!" Denki announced, throwing himself onto Katsuki's black leather couch as if he owned it.

"And me," Mina added, plopping down on the arm of the couch with total familiarity. "Because someone had to make sure you didn't pretend you don't miss us."

"And also Kirishima," Denki added. "But mostly the Spirit."

"I'm gonna kill you, Eijiro," Katsuki said, without turning to look at the redhead, who was returning from the kitchen with an ear-to-ear grin.

"You missed us, admit it," Jiro teased, shoving her hands into her jacket pockets. Her dark eyes examined him attentively. "You look older. Did the US wrinkle you, Bakugou?"

"Wrinkle me?" he snorted, finally tossing the t-shirt onto a chair. "They tried. Didn't manage. Just tired me out a bit." He shot a quick glance at the group spread across the room-especially at Mina, who already looked too comfortable. "But not enough to put up with this privacy invasion."

But even as he complained, something inside him-something stubborn and hidden-warmed up. The living room, once silent and impersonal, was now full of life, of chaotic energy he knew intimately. The apartment seemed... less empty.

"We got pizza," Sero announced, pulling out his phone. "Extra bacon, extra spicy pepperoni, and a margherita for the weaklings. That right, oh Explosive Boss?"

"The extra spicy one's mine, no one touches it," Katsuki replied automatically, feeling the corners of his mouth tug against his will. "And bring beer. The cold kind. Not that piss-water Dunce Face likes."

The night followed in a familiar whirlwind. The pizza arrived, boxes were opened on the coffee table, beers were opened with the grenade-shaped bottle opener that Denki found "the most Bakugou thing ever." The apartment filled with the smell of melted cheese, tomato sauce, and the sound of overlapping voices.

They crowded onto the couch and floor cushions, and the questions started.

"So tell us, Bakugou!" Denki said with his mouth full. "Are the American heroines like... woah? Do they wear those rock band-style costumes?"

"Your mind is a pathetic place, Kaminari," Jiro elbowed him, before turning to Katsuki. "But seriously. How was the training there? Heard their system is pretty different."

"And that they're obsessed with marketing," Mina added, sitting cross-legged on the floor, spinning her bottle between her fingers. "Like, 'save the city, but pose for the camera first.' True or exaggerated?"

Katsuki, reclining in his favorite armchair-the only one no one else dared sit in-took a long sip of beer before answering.

And, to everyone's surprise, he answered. Not with monosyllables, but with precise descriptions, sharp critiques of tactics he considered inferior, and a summarized yet vivid account of a few fights.

"...so the guy thinks just because he can become giant, he's unbeatable. A charged blast right at his Achilles tendon, and the idiot came apart like a house of cards. Basic."

"Brutal," Sero laughed, shaking his head. "But did you learn anything? Something we don't know?"

"Like... something we can use here?" Mina finished, leaning forward, genuinely interested. "Or was it just punches, explosions, and inflated ego?"

Katsuki paused, his red eyes fixed on the beer bottle label.
"I learned they yell a lot.'Oh my God!' for everything. It's annoying." He took another sip. "But... the way some of them integrate tech support into the costumes... not totally stupid. Could steal an idea or two."

"Look at that," Mina smiled, raising an eyebrow. "Bakugou admitting someone outside Japan isn't completely useless. This is historic."

"Mark the date," Denki said, dramatic. "This moment deserves to be remembered."

It was a good night. A normal night. Denki's laughter, Jiro's sharp comments, Mina's lively teasing, Sero's funny stories about agency mix-ups, Kirishima's solid, constant presence.

Katsuki found himself relaxing, his shoulders losing some of the tension he'd carried since the plane. For hours, he didn't think about rankings, transfers, painful absences.
It was just him and his idiot friends.
Like old times.

And at no point did he check his phone. The device had been left in the backpack, uncharged, a forgotten artifact from the outside world.

Until the beer ran out.

"It's dry in here," Katsuki complained, shaking the empty bottle. "The kitchen stock is mine. Don't touch my stuff."

He got up, feeling a pleasant lightness from the drink, and headed to the small, immaculate kitchen. He opened the refrigerator, lit by a cold light, and grabbed a few more bottles. That's when his backpack, leaning against the counter, caught his attention. With a grunt, he pulled out the charger, plugged his phone into a nearby outlet, and pressed the power button.

While the black screen gave way to the manufacturer's logo, he opened another beer with his teeth, an old habit. The phone vibrated, and a series of endless notifications began to appear: emails from the American agency, messages from professional contacts, app updates... the digital noise of his life.

He was scrolling disinterestedly, planning to mute it all, when his eyes landed on a specific name in the messaging app's notification list.

Midoriya, Izuku.

Katsuki's heart gave a lurch, a strong, erratic ba-dump that echoed in his ears. His blood seemed to simultaneously heat up and cool down. The beer bottle stopped halfway to his lips.

With fingers that suddenly felt clumsy, he tapped the notification. The app opened, directly to the conversation. The last visible message was his own, curt and professional, from months ago. And below it, a new message. Received the previous night. Hours ago.

The world around him-the voices in the living room, the hum of the fridge, the very air-faded into meaningless background noise. Everything narrowed down to the bright screen in his hands.

He read.

"MARRY Christmas, Kacchan ❤💥 I miss you... way more than I should... come home soon..."

Katsuki stopped breathing.

His eyes scanned the message again. And again. "MARRY." The heart. The explosion. The declaration of missing. The plea. "Come home."

A storm of conflicting emotions exploded inside him, as violent as any of his explosions. It wasn't anger-he didn't have that right. The memory of their ugly fight came back whole, mercilessly: his harsh words, thrown like knives with no take-backs, the look in Izuku's eyes slowly dimming, his own cowardly decision to run away instead of fixing things.

What was there was confusion.

"MARRY"?
Autocorrect?
Drunk fingers?

Or a thought that slipped out unfiltered?

But beneath the confusion, sprouting like a stubborn weed through cracked concrete, was something else. An unexpected warmth. An overwhelming relief. A happiness so intense and sudden it hurt in his chest.

He misses me.

The realization hit him full force, knocking the air from his lungs.
He misses me way more than he should.

Even after everything.
Even after what I did.
And,perhaps the most frightening thing of all...
He still thought of him ashome.

The weight of guilt mixed with that almost indecent relief, creating a bittersweet sensation Katsuki didn't know how to name. He didn't deserve that feeling-but it was there, pulsing, alive, impossible to ignore.

And that, more than any anger, was what completely disoriented him.

The image of Izuku, drunk and emotional, typing this message with clumsy fingers, invaded his mind with devastating clarity. He could almost see it: the flushed face, the teary green eyes, the sad smile. And the sober Izuku in the morning, in total panic. The scene was so vivid it hurt.

"Kacchan". The childhood nickname Izuku had stopped using in public years ago, but which sometimes slipped out in moments of extreme vulnerability. That single word was a punch to the gut, loaded with an intimacy that years of distance hadn't managed to erase.

"Bakugou! Did you go to get beer or to fuse the Earth's core?" Denki's voice came from the living room.

The sound snapped him out of his trance. Katsuki blinked, returning to reality. His hands were trembling. His face was hot-way too hot. He glanced quickly at his reflection in the kitchen window's dark glass: eyes wide, pupils dilated, cheeks red. He looked scared. He looked... happy. A disconcerting combination.

He grabbed the forgotten beers from the counter and, moving like an automaton, returned to the living room.

Silence fell over the group almost immediately. His expression was so abnormal that even Denki shut up.

"Dude... you okay?" Kirishima asked, sitting on the edge of the couch. "You look like you saw a ghost. Or made one."

Katsuki didn't answer. He placed the bottles on the table with a dull thud and then, with an almost reverent movement, placed his phone next to them, the screen still lit and face up.

Jiro and Mina were the first to lean in to see. Their eyes scanned the message quickly, and their eyebrows practically disappeared into their bangs.

"Wow," Mina breathed.

"What is it? What's happening?" Denki twisted to see. Sero looked over Jiro's shoulder.

Kirishima, who already had a suspicion, stood motionless, watching Katsuki's face.

Denki read the message aloud, slowly, confused:

"'Marry Christmas, Kacchan heart explosion... I miss you... way more than I should... come home soon...'" He paused, processing. "MARRY? Like... marry? Bakugou, what..."

And then it clicked. The air left the room.

"Is that... from Midoriya?" Sero asked, incredulous.

Katsuki finally found his voice, but it came out hoarse, unrecognizable.

"Yeah."

"Holy shit," Jiro muttered, leaning back on the couch, arms crossed. "He was drunk. Had to be. No one in their right mind sends that after..." she stopped, conscious of the unspoken line.

After the fight. The fight no one in the room had witnessed, but whose shards they had all felt. The fight that changed everything. That made Katsuki accept the transfer with fierce, self-punishing determination. That left Izuku quieter, more closed off, more like a statue of sad smiles.

"But he sent it," Katsuki said, more to himself than to them. He was still looking at the phone, as if the message might disappear at any moment.
"He...misses me."

There was a tremor on the last word. A vulnerability so rare it made everyone present feel simultaneously privileged and uncomfortable.

"And the 'Marry'?" Denki asked, still stuck on the most absurd detail.

"It's autocorrect, you idiot," Mina flicked his forehead. "Obviously. The point isn't the 'Marry,' it's the rest."

"The point," Kirishima interjected, his voice calm and solid, "is that he broke the silence. After eight months, Deku sent a message. An emotional message."

Katsuki finally lifted his eyes from the phone and looked at his friends. The storm still raged in his red eyes, but now there was something else: an incipient determination, a confusion that demanded action.

"What are you gonna do?" Sero asked, straight to the point.

Katsuki didn't know. One part of him wanted to reply right then, with righteous fury: "You think you can send that after what you said?" Another, larger, and more frightening part wanted to simply type: "I am home."

But he knew none of it was simple. The fight wasn't about something small. It was about broken promises, unspoken expectations, an unconfessed love that became a monster between them. It was about Izuku wanting to protect him to the point of suffocation, and about Katsuki wanting to prove himself to the point of self-destruction.

There were words like "suffocating" and "stubborn" and "you don't trust me" and "you won't let yourself be cared for." Wounds that needed more than a drunk text to heal.

And yet... it was a message. It was a thread, tenuous and tangled, reconnecting two worlds that had been orbiting separately in agonizing silence.

"I don't know," he finally answered. His voice came out dry, scraped raw by disuse and contained emotion, but it wasn't harsh. There wasn't that usual sharp edge. It was just... flat. Lost. The admission itself was a greater shock to the group than the drunk text. Katsuki Bakugou didn't admit to not knowing. He improvised, invented, blasted a path, but he never didn't know.

Denki rolled onto his side, propping himself up on his elbow. He placed his own phone on the coffee table, the screen still open on the screenshot he'd taken (for "documentary purposes," he claimed).

"Let's break it down, then. 'Marry Christmas' with an A. Not an E. A as in... marriage. Dude... do you think Midoriya, in his boozy genius, confused you with Santa Claus or the registry office? Because those are two very different figures, okay? One gives presents, the other ties you into a lifelong contract."

Katsuki didn't react to the provocation. He just kept staring into space.

"He was drunk, Denki. Even a brain full of super-powered green synapses melts with enough vodka," Jiro retorted, rolling her eyes, but her voice was soft. She pulled out one of her jacks and began twisting it around her finger, a thoughtful gesture. "And it's not about the typo. It's about what came after. 'I miss you... way more than I should... come home soon...' That right there is pure longing dripping off the screen. You can see it, smell it, taste it. Can't pretend otherwise."

Katsuki took a deep breath, a rough sound that seemed to tear through the quiet air. The irritation that always drove him, that was his fuel and his armor, began to boil again. But it wasn't directed at them. It was directed at the world, at fate, at himself. It was a tired anger, frustrated with the persistent ache and with the treacherous relief-sweet and sharp as a knife-that Izuku's message had brought. The very existence of that message was a paradox his brain, trained for combat logic, couldn't process.

"This doesn't change anything," he said, his voice a bit stronger, but laden with a bitterness that made them all go quiet. He ran a hand over his face, rubbing the stubble on his chin. The action was weary, defeated. "It doesn't erase what came before. We... we had an ugly fight. It wasn't a hero disagreement, not some stupid argument about tactics. It was..." He closed his eyes for a second, as if seeing the scene projected on his eyelids. "It was ugly. I was exhausted, he was worried down to the last strand of hair, and we started firing words like grenades. And I..." his voice wavered, broke for an imperceptible fraction "...I said horrible things to him. Things he didn't deserve to hear in my worst nightmares. He... he looked destroyed. Stopped talking. Just looked at me with those huge green eyes, and it was like I'd turned the light off inside him. I saw it on his face. Saw the thing breaking. And I didn't stop. I kept going, because if I stopped, I'd have to face what I was doing."

A heavy silence, dense as lead, fell over the room. Denki lay still on the rug, his smile completely gone. Jiro stopped fiddling with her jack, fingers frozen in mid-air.

Sero sat absolutely still in the armchair. Kyoka watched Katsuki, her face a mix of pity and painful understanding. Kirishima just closed his eyes for a moment, as if feeling his friend's pain physically.

Sero was the first to recover, clearing his throat softly. He leaned forward on the sofa's armrests, his serious gaze fixed on Katsuki.

"Do you think... do you think because of that, he doesn't want to see you? That the message was just a drunk slip and that deep down he hates you?"

Katsuki finally looked up, but not at Sero. He stared at the beer can in his hand as if the aluminum contained all the answers to humanity's mistakes.

"I think that..." He swallowed dryly, his voice reduced to a raspy whisper. "I think I don't deserve for him to want me. I broke the whole thing in half. I gave him the perfect excuse to cut me out of his life. The transfer to Osaka... it wasn't just strategic. It was an escape. My escape. And I left him there, holding the pieces."

The admission echoed in the room, so raw and vulnerable it almost seemed like a physical object. Katsuki Bakugou didn't talk about feelings. Not like this. Not exposing his emotional guts. This was uncharted territory, and everyone present knew they were witnessing something rare and fragile.

Mina furrowed her brow, her pink lips forming a thin line of disapproval-not at him, but at his conclusion.

"Hey. Cut that out. None of this 'I don't deserve' talk." She leaned forward, her voice losing its usual melody and gaining a steel firmness. "Did you mess up? You did. Big, stinky, explosive mess. But you know that now. You carry it. You regret it. And that, Bakugou, matters a fucking lot. Most people who mess up don't even admit it to themselves. You not only admitted it, you're here almost coming apart with guilt. That's a start. It's not a period."

Jiro agreed with a slow nod, her dark eyes fixed on him with surprising empathy.

"She's right. Hurting someone you love is never pretty. It's ugly, it's dirty, it hurts everyone." She paused, choosing her words carefully. "But running away after the dust settles... letting the wound fester in silence... that's worse. It's cowardly. And you might be many things, Bakugou, but a coward isn't one of them."

Katsuki looked up at her, a spark of his usual defensiveness lighting in his gaze.

"I didn't run out of cowardice. I ran to... to give space. For him to breathe away from me."

"And did it work?" Sero asked, bluntly. "Did he breathe? Or did he just hold his breath waiting for you to come back?"

The question hit Katsuki like a physical blow. The image of Izuku holding his breath, waiting... was unbearable. He didn't have the answer.

Eight months of total silence suggested no, that Izuku had moved on, buried the whole thing. But the message... the message screamed the opposite.

Kirishima, who had been silent as a rock observing the emotional tide, took a deep breath. The sound, deliberate and loud, drew everyone's attention. He moved slowly, rising from the sofa and approaching Katsuki. It wasn't a confrontational move, but one of solidity. He crouched on the floor right in front of his friend, coming to eye level with his knees. His posture was open, firm, anchored.

"Katsuki," he said, using his first name with a serenity that contrasted with the turmoil in the air.

The blonde slowly raised his eyes, his blurry gaze meeting Kirishima's resolute scarlet. There was such profound exhaustion in his eyes that Kirishima almost flinched. Almost.

"Look at me," Kirishima ordered, his voice low but impossible to ignore. When Katsuki met his gaze, he continued. "You're hearing us, but are you really listening, or are you just letting the noise fill the room?"

Katsuki didn't answer, but his jaw tensed.

Kirishima then raised his hand and placed it on Katsuki's shoulder. Not a friendly pat. It was a firm, solid grip that conveyed weight and presence. It wasn't meant to comfort in the soft sense of the word; it was to anchor him, to pull him back to reality, to remind him he was made of flesh and bone and not guilt fog.

"Listen to what I'm going to tell you, because it's the only thing that matters now." Kirishima maintained eye contact, his expression serious, without a trace of his usual smile. "The one who messed up... has to make the first move."

The phrase, simple and direct, hung in the air. It seemed to echo off the empty walls. The one who messed up has to make the first move.

Katsuki held his breath. His fingers tightened around the beer can, crumpling the aluminum with a soft crunch.

Mina, sensing the seed had been planted, watered it with her pragmatic tenderness.

"He's Deku, Katsuki. His heart is the size of a stadium and it's made of forgiveness and stubborn hope. He'll listen. For sure. But he'll only hear," she emphasized the word, "if you show, with everything you are, that you're truly sorry. It's not about saying 'my bad.' It's about showing you understood what you did. That you saw the light go out in his eyes and you'd do anything to relight it."

Denki, feeling the heavy mood needed a bit of air, raised his hand as if in a condo meeting.

"And please... for the love of all that's holy and explosive... no yelling this time, okay? We know it's your default communication setting, but maybe, just maybe, it's not the best approach for an 'I'm sorry I was a complete asshole and ran away to another continent'."

Katsuki didn't even look at him. With a quick, fluid movement that demonstrated his Class A hero reflexes, he grabbed a small cushion next to him and threw it directly into Denki's face with enough force and precision to make him fall back with an "oof!"

"I don't yell anymore, idiot," Katsuki growled, but there was a tiny fragment of something that could almost be humor at the edge of his voice. It was minuscule, but it was there. A breath of normalcy.

"There you go!" Sero nudged, pointing at him with his chin, a smile reappearing on his face. "See? He grew! He's a different person. Bakugou 2.0: now with 20% less verbal explosions and 100% more painful self-criticism."

Kirishima didn't get distracted. His grip on Katsuki's shoulder didn't loosen. He was digging for the central truth, the bedrock upon which any attempt at reconciliation would have to be built.

"Bakugou," he said, switching back to the last name, bringing seriousness back. "Answer one thing for me, and answer honestly, for yourself if not for us. Do you still care for him?"

The question wasn't "do you love him?" It was more fundamental, more primal. "Care for." A verb that encompassed all the complexity between them: the rivalry, the camaraderie, the anger, the admiration, the attraction, the pain, the love. Everything.

Katsuki went still. The room stopped. Even Denki's breathing on the floor seemed to go silent. The seconds dragged on, each weighing a ton. They could see the war waged behind Katsuki's red eyes.

Pride fighting truth, pain fighting hope, fear fighting the deep, constant desire that never, at any moment in all those years and all that distance, had truly extinguished.

Finally, after an eternity, Katsuki's lips parted. The voice that came out was so low it was almost a breath, a secret whispered only to the air between him and Kirishima. But in the silent room, they all heard.

"I've always loved him."

Four words. A monumental confession. The admission that all the fury, all the distance, all the ugly fight, hadn't eradicated the fundamental feeling. It was still there, like a deep root under cracked concrete.

The others exchanged glances-some discreet and understanding, like Jiro and Sero's; others absolutely not discreet, like Denki's, who put his hands to his chest with a "my heart!" expression, and Mina's, whose smile returned in full force, lighting up her face like a sun.

Kirishima finally released Katsuki's shoulder. A slight smile touched his lips-a smile of approval, of camaraderie, of "finally, you admitted it."

"Then," he said, standing up, his voice regaining some of its usual strength but still laden with solemn seriousness. "There's nothing left to think about. No more analysis to do. You go after him. You look for him. Today, tomorrow, as soon as you can face it. Before he thinks you saw the message, laughed, and gave up for good. Before his drunk shame turns into certainty that you don't want anything. You go."

Mina jumped to her feet, her contagious energy filling the space again.

"YES! Thank you, Mr. Injured and Stubborn Ego, for finally making a decision that doesn't involve blowing something up or fleeing to another country! Let's celebrate!" She grabbed a beer from the table and raised it.

Jiro smiled from the corner, a genuine and somewhat relieved smile.

"Izuku deserves a decent apology. An honest one. The kind that comes from here," she pointed to her own chest.

"And you," Kirishima added, looking firmly at Katsuki, "you deserve to stop suffering and punishing yourself. You deserve a chance to fix things. You deserve... to be happy, damn it. That's what we want for you."

Katsuki looked at each of them: at Kirishima, the pillar; at Mina, the catalyst; at Jiro, the realist with a soft heart; at Sero, the quiet support; at Denki, the necessary comic relief. They were there. They always had been.

Even when he was unbearable. Especially when he was unbearable. They saw through him, saw the mess, and yet they were there, not to fix him, but to point him towards the toolbox.

A slow but solid determination began to replace the fog of confusion in his eyes. It wasn't the blind fury of before. It was something colder, deeper. A resolution.

He placed the crushed beer can on the table with a decisive click. He reached out, grabbed another still-sealed bottle from the case on the floor, opened it with a quick thumb flick (ignoring the opener), and took a long swallow. The cold liquid went down his throat, washing away some of the bitter taste of words and memories.

Then, he murmured, softly, more to himself than to them, but they all heard:

"I'll do it right this time."

It wasn't a bombastic promise. It wasn't a dramatic oath. It was a simple purpose. A declaration of intent. And coming from him, it was more powerful than any shout.

The room seemed to collectively breathe. The tension, which had been so dense it was almost tangible, dissolved into something lighter, more hopeful. As if a huge weight had been shared and, now that it was carried by many, had become lighter. They knew the path ahead would be hard, full of emotional pitfalls and unspoken words. But the next step, the first real step since the fight, was finally being taken.

Katsuki sat up a little straighter on the couch. His shoulders, which had been hunched under the weight of guilt, seemed a little less heavy. He picked up his phone from the cushion beside him, the same one that had displayed the message like a sacred and terrifying artifact. This time, he didn't look at it with panic or confusion. He held it against his chest, over his sternum, right where his heart beat with a now more decided rhythm.

He took a deep breath, filling his lungs with the air of his own apartment, the air that now seemed shared and less lonely.

And then, unwittingly, against all his conscious will, the corners of his mouth turned up. It was a very small smile, almost imperceptible, quick as a blink and as shy as the first flower after winter. But it was real. Not one of triumph or sarcasm. It was a pure, raw, and vulnerable smile of relief. Relief at having spoken the truth. Relief at having a direction. Relief at knowing that, somewhere in this same city, Izuku Midoriya had missed him "way more than he should."

For the first time in eight long, silent, painful months, Katsuki Bakugou felt something he thought he'd lost forever in relation to Izuku: hope.

Chapter Text

The weekend had passed for Izuku Midoriya with the agonizing slowness of a drip in a silent cave. Each hour, a distinct weight; each minute, an echo of his own shame. After the initial tsunami — the nauseating realization upon waking, the flash memory of the phone slipping between unsteady fingers, the 'sent' tone seen with his heart in his throat — came the physical hangover, a dull, insistent pounding at his temples that seemed to mock his superhuman strength. Worse were the well-meaning clashes: Uraraka, with her round eyes full of concern that hurt more than any reproach; Iida, with his precise gestures and structured lectures about "professional conduct" and "emotional consequences"; and Todoroki… Todoroki, whose silent, devastatingly eloquent look conveyed, with a single slightly arched eyebrow and a slight narrowing of heterochromatic eyes, a complete treatise on bad decisions made inebriated and the pathetic fragility of the human heart.

So, he buried himself. Not in blankets or excuses, but in a cycle of mental self-flagellation as methodical as his strictest training sessions. Two whole days. Forty-eight hours that dragged like a tide of tar, an inescapable loop where his mind, treacherous and meticulous as always, reviewed every micro-detail of that message sent at 9:50 PM on Friday. Every pixel of the screen, every possible interpretation, every shadow of meaning behind the poorly typed words.

He saw it projected on his bedroom ceiling at dawn, interwoven with the fine cracks in the plaster. He saw it in the distorted reflections of the green tea cup cooling on the table, in the bubbles rising and bursting silently. He saw it in the hypnotic void of the computer screen as he tried, in vain, to focus on academic performance reports that seemed written in an alien language. "MARRY Christmas, Kacchan ♥️💥 I miss you... way more than I should... come home soon..." The capitalized "MARRY" was a ridiculous beacon, shouting his mistake to the digital universe with cruel insolence. He could almost hear the sarcastic, metallic voice of autocorrect whispering in his inner ear: "Did you mean 'Merry,' you emotional idiot? Or actually 'marry'? Make up your mind." And the little red heart. Why red? Was it the color of his eyes? Of his explosive signature? A pathetic, drunken attempt to seem cute and casual, to soften the blow? It was an emoji of cowardice, Izuku thought, masking a nuclear declaration — a plea, a confession, a desperation — behind an innocuous digital symbol. As if the message were just a relaxed holiday greeting between old classmates, and not an emotional cry for help disguised as a typo.

It was a complete disaster. A monument to his lack of control, to the longing he stubbornly refused to tame, to the love that insisted on not conforming to the void that had been, he thought, a mutual, painful but necessary decision. With each mental review, a new layer of horror revealed itself. He had broken the unspoken pact. Eight months of rigid silence, of carefully maintained distance, of trying not to ask about him, not to look up his records in the hero databases, not to stare at the door during meetings as if, by some miracle, he might walk in—all destroyed by a drunken impulse and a treacherous autocorrect. It was a road accident that collapsed the entire highway.

On Monday morning, a low, gray sky over Musutafu, promising a cold rain that never materialized, matched his internal state perfectly. He had put on his U.A. teaching blazer—dark blue, impeccable, tailored to lend authority to his body, which still retained its youthful leanness—like a medieval warrior donning his armor before a battle already lost. Each button done up was an act of will. Each adjustment of the tie, an affirmation: I am Professor Midoriya. I am in control. His goal was clear, tactical: to bury himself in work. To become completely the persona of Professor Midoriya, the dedicated assistant, the hero on teaching leave, the man who analyzed force diagrams and evacuation strategies, the person who had no time, space, or emotional permission to revisit embarrassing messages sent to ex-best friends/ex-rivals/ex-something-much-more-complicated who now, surely, hated him with renewed coldness.

Class 1-A, however, was particularly effervescent that morning, oblivious to the silent earthquake inside their teaching assistant. A new combat exercise in a controlled environment, involving rescue in a collapsed structure, was scheduled for the afternoon, and the pre-challenge energy made the air vibrate with a cheerful tension. Izuku moved between the rows of desks like a ship cutting through restless waves, distributing tactical worksheets, correcting postures with light touches on shoulders he barely felt, answering questions with a smile that felt as fragile and cracked as blown glass.

"Midoriya-sensei, what if the villain has a sound manipulation Quirk? Does the standard force barrier defense work?" asked Hana, a student with pink hair and sharp eyes, her fingers tracing imaginary lines in the air.

Izuku blinked, forcing focus. "Good thinking, Hana-chan. In that case, you'd adjust the shield to a specific disruptive frequency, remember? Like we worked on in the simulation last month with Jiro-sensei." His voice was firm, didactic, the exact tone he had trained. Meanwhile, his inner mind whispered an agonizing mantra on loop: Did he see it? Did he not see it? Did he laugh? Did he get angry? Did he delete it right away? Did he show everyone? Kirishima, for sure. Did he tell Ochaco? Iida? Are they all laughing at me, pitying me? Was he disgusted? Did he feel pity, the worst thing? Did he… feel anything other than contempt?

"Sensei! Here on the diagram, evacuation point C doesn't seem safe if we consider a vertical collapse of the east wing," pointed out Daiki, a muscular student with an intense expression, his index finger tapping the diagram projected on the digital board.

Izuku turned his eyes to the diagram, seeking anchor in logic, physics, in something that made sense. "You're right, Daiki. Good eye. Let's recalculate using the load distribution formula we saw last week, considering the structure material…" His fingers drew in the air, explaining, gesturing, but behind the green eyes that seemed focused, his thoughts spun in free fall, a runaway helicopter: If he saw it, why didn't he respond? A simple 'go fuck yourself' would be better than this. More honest. More… him. The silence is worse. The absolute silence, of eight months, and now this new one? The silence means I ruined everything for good. That not even his anger, which was something, is left for me. I've become a ghost to him. An annoying, embarrassing memory that doesn't even deserve an explosion, an insult. Just… indifference. Nothing.

The class ended with the metallic, decisive sound of the bell echoing through the tall room, releasing the students in an organized wave of goodbyes, laughter, and promises of afternoon training. Izuku remained standing in front of the board for a few seconds longer, watching as chairs were pushed back with rough noises and the hallways beyond the open door filled again with the vibrant buzz of teenage life. Only then, when the last student disappeared, did he notice the dull pain in his right hand. He looked down. He was holding the blue highlighter pen too tightly, his knuckles white, circulation cut off. A thin plastic splinter had cracked the body of the object, a snaking line like blue lightning. He took a deep breath, letting the air out slowly and controlled, as he did in the seconds before leaping into an important mission, when panic was a luxury a hero—that he—could not afford. He opened his fingers carefully. The pen fell onto the table with a soft tap. He stored his materials in the tablet, aligned the loose papers with excessive, almost ritualistic care, and adjusted his glasses on his face, pushing the frame against the bridge of his nose. Everything meticulously normal. Everything under control. If he repeated the right movements, the gestures proper to the persona, perhaps the wrong feeling, the monster of shame and longing, would dissolve by osmosis.

"Midoriya," the sharp, firm, and unmistakable voice of Principal Nezu sounded from the small communicator attached to the lapel of his blazer. "Could you come to the principal's office, please? All Might will also be here."

Izuku's stomach sank slightly, not from fear of the meeting or his superiors, but from the extra effort it would take to seem present, to perform normality under Nezu's perceptive gaze and the caring, but equally attentive, look of All Might. The meeting was long, technical, procedural. They discussed third-year academic performance, integration between Heroics and Support courses, future interdisciplinary simulations involving even the Business course. All Might, in his special reinforced chair, praised his teaching with a proud smile that, on another day, would have warmed Izuku inside. Nezu, with his paws resting on the table, made sharp, intelligent observations as always, jumping from topic to topic with dizzying mental agility. Izuku replied on autopilot, with "yes, Principal," "I agree, All Might," jotting points on his tablet with handwriting even he couldn't read later. He was polite, attentive enough not to arouse suspicion. But his mind was a forced continuous-play cinema, showing only one film on loop: the face of Katsuki Bakugou, in close-up, under the cold light of a cell phone screen, reading that stupid message. The expression his mind, in its cruelty, attributed to him was always one of absolute disdain, thin lips twisted in a grimace of disgust or, worse, utter boredom. It was this image that kept him awake in the dead hours of the night and now blurred his mentors' words, turning them into a distant background noise.

When he was finally dismissed with a final nod from Nezu, the analog clock on the office wall showed nearly noon. The administrative building was quiet at that limbo hour; most students were already heading to the noisy cafeteria or the vast outdoor training grounds, where the echoes of Quirks in practice were likely beginning to sound. Izuku left the principal's office with a heavy head, a thick fog of mental fatigue hanging over his senses like a damp veil. The silence of the administrative hallways was strange, almost oppressive after the constant buzz of the classroom wing. The echo of his own footsteps, serious and measured, seemed too loud, a lonely and exposed sound marking the passage of empty time, not filled by anything but his inner turmoil. He thought of nothing specific and, at the same time, of everything. The accumulated tiredness in the joints of his bones. The persistent tightness in his chest that wasn't physical, didn't respond to massage and stretching, but took up space as if it were a solid object, a knot of impossible-to-untangle feelings. In the constant, months-old feeling of always being a step behind his own life, watching himself act, smile, teach, from a distant place, as if his true self were paralyzed at some point in the past, stuck in the exact moment when the door to Katsuki's apartment had closed with a final click and everything began to crumble.

He turned the corner leading back to the teachers' lounge, eyes down, focused on the geometric, worn pattern of the linoleum floor. His mind wandered through hypothetical scenarios, an old habit that was now a form of torture: If I had gone with him to Osaka when he indirectly, angrily suggested it. If I had stayed quiet during that argument. If I had spoken less, listened more, understood the fear behind his fury. If I had been stronger emotionally, less needy, less… Izuku. If I didn't love him in a way that hurt so much, perhaps I could be just his friend, his rival, anything that didn't demand so much, that didn't scare him so much.

And he bumped into someone.

The impact was gentle, more a collision of shoulders and arms than anything violent, but enough to interrupt his blind path and make him stop, his balance slightly shaken. The smell was the first true alarm — not a perfume or cologne, but a visceral, unique, and unmistakable combination that hit his limbic system like an electric shock: the faintly sweet, metallic odor of nitroglycerin his skin produced, mixed with the clean sweat of a body in constant training, the neutral, woody fragrance of an expensive bar soap (he was always picky about that), and something more indescribable, deeply ingrained, that was simply Katsuki. A smell his body memory, wiser and more primitive than his conscious brain, recognized and reacted to before any thought could form.

"Sorr—" The word died before taking shape, strangled in the sudden, painful tightness of his throat. The air seemed to leave him.

When he raised his face, slowly, as if fearing what he would see, the world lost its axis. The solid floor beneath his feet seemed to tilt, becoming unstable. Time didn't freeze in a dramatic frame—it dissolved, losing all meaning, leaving only a dizzying vacuum of pure shock, so intense it was physical.

Katsuki Bakugou was there.

Standing. Real. Not an image from memory or a ghost of his guilt. Of flesh, bone, and a dark hero uniform. Occupying the hallway not as a visitor or an intrusion, but with a presence so natural and dominant that it seemed he had always belonged in that space, that the months of absence had been just a brief detour, a navigational error now corrected. Izuku's heart took off with a violence that hurt, a dull, rapid, erratic thud against his ribs, so strong he almost brought his hand to his chest. It seemed to try to escape the bony cage, flee the confrontation.

For a second that stretched into eternity, he simply didn't react. Didn't blink. The air, trapped in his lungs, burned. His green eyes, wide and frightened like a deer's in headlights, scanned the face before him in a slow, disbelieving movement, as if they needed to confirm, millimeter by millimeter, something impossible, a stubborn mirage. It was him. Every detail, a stab of familiarity. The severe, clean line of his jaw, more defined, more adult. The familiar curve of his lips, usually twisted in an aggressive smile or a line of disdain, now were tight in a tense, neutral line. The small, immaculate beard stubble highlighted the shape of his chin. The light, almost golden eyelashes, a surreal contrast with the deep, crimson intensity of his irises. When… when did he come back? The question echoed in his mind like a shout muffled under tons of water. No one had said anything. No rumors in the hallways, no whispers among the teachers, no news on U.A.'s internal channels. The hero Dynamight, on extended leave and international assignment, wasn't listed on any recent return reports. It was as if he had simply… materialized there, in that empty hallway, a supernatural apparition destined to witness his complete and absolute emotional collapse.

And he was different. Not radically, not a transformation, but in subtle and profound details that Izuku's eye, trained to observe the enemy and, secretly, for years and years of obsessive observation, to catalog every nuance, every shadow, every change in that person, captured instantly. He seemed taller, perhaps, or maybe it was the posture—more erect, more contained, carrying a different weight on his shoulders, a solidity that wasn't just physical but seemed to emanate from within. The weight of experiences, of victories and defeats, of nights and cities that Izuku hadn't shared. Broader, too, the muscles of his torso and arms denser, more defined under the dark, technological fabric of his hero uniform, an updated model he didn't know, discreet in its black with accents of muted orange. The face was more mature, harder—bones more prominent, shadows more defined under his eyes (did he also sleep poorly?)—and yet, absurdly, painfully familiar. The blond hair was still spiked in random directions, untamable as ever, but he noticed a few longer strands near the nape, escaping the collar, a new detail his mind registered avidly. The crimson eyes… the same. The same color of embers, of heavy wine, of a dangerous sunset. Intense. And they were fixed on him with a force that felt physical, a laser piercing and pinning him in place.

Too beautiful.

The thought came without permission, automatic, a conditioned reflex from a lifetime. And it was almost offensive in its simplicity, an insult to his very attempt at self-control, at pretending indifference. Beautiful in a way that physically hurt, that opened a hungry, desperate void at the center of his being, a black hole that consumed all rationality. Beautiful in a way that reminded Izuku, with overwhelming and cruel clarity, of everything he had lost, of everything that perhaps had never truly been his to lose, but which he desired with every particle of his being. The pain that followed the thought was sharp and deep, a sharp stab that started at his sternum and radiated to his arms, leaving his fingers tingling, weak.

Katsuki wasn't moving either. He seemed equally struck, as if he had turned the corner on a specific mission—to find Nezu, perhaps—and had instead found an unexpected chasm opening under his feet. There was surprise in his red eyes, yes, a quick widening, but it was more than that. It was a contained startle, a brief flicker of something raw, unprotected, and genuinely shocked before the gates of his usual coldness, his mask of impassivity, snapped shut again with an almost audible click. As if he, too, hadn't prepared for this. To find Izuku there, at that moment, so close they could feel each other's warmth. So real, with his green eyes slightly swollen from sleepless nights, his perfectly arranged teaching blazer but worn on a body that seemed a thread stretched too thin, tense, about to snap. Katsuki was seeing him, truly seeing him, and what he saw seemed to have left him, for a fraction of a second, without his defenses.

The hallway seemed suspended in time, the silence amplified by the vacuum of shock until it became a high-pitched buzz in Izuku's ears. He could hear his own breathing, panting and too fast, a shameful sound. He could feel the heat radiating from Katsuki's compact, powerful body, a few centimeters away, a field of energy pulling every cell of his being. He could count, hypnotized, every dust particle dancing in a pale, wintry ray of sunlight cutting through the hallway's gloom from a high window, illuminating the space between them like a stage.

Izuku was the first to remember how to move. The instinct to flee, always latent in him in emotionally untenable situations, that made him stutter, avert his gaze, seek an exit, kicked in with full force. He took a half-step to the side, an awkward, truncated movement, trying to go around this human obstacle that was also an emotional gravitational field, something pulling every fiber of his being closer, toward the abyss. The clean, shiny linoleum floor seemed to stick to his soles, resisting.

"I…" his voice came out low, unsteady, a whisper stolen by lack of air. It sounded like the voice of a scared boy, not that of a top 10 hero, not that of a respected teacher. It was the voice of Deku, small and insecure. "Sorry."

He tried to pass. The intention was clear, desperate: to move forward, pretend this was nothing, that it was just a colleague, an ex-classmate, crossing his path in some random hallway, that the world hadn't ended and restarted in a completely dysfunctional way in the space of three seconds.

Katsuki's fingers closed around his wrist.

It wasn't brusque. It wasn't aggressive or possessive. It wasn't the grab of someone who wants to hold, hurt, or dominate. It was firm—a resolute, undeniable pressure that interrupted his flight movement with authority—but it was, strangely, too careful to be merely instinctive. The fingers, warm and slightly rough at the tips (from thousands of small, controlled explosions, from constant friction with training gear), circled the delicate bone of Izuku's wrist, and the sensation was like a thermal shock straight to his nervous system. An electric current of pure recognition, of tactile memory, ran up his entire arm and lodged directly in his core, in that tight knot under his sternum, making his stomach leap violently.

Izuku stopped immediately. All impulse to flee evaporated, replaced by a sweet and terrible paralysis. His muscles betrayed his brain, freezing under that touch. He lowered his gaze, staring at the hand holding him as if it were an alien artifact, something impossible to exist in that reality. Katsuki's skin was paler than his, more translucent, blue veins visible under the surface at the wrist, knuckles prominent, joints marked. It was a strong hand, capable of immense destruction and surgical precision, and here it was, enveloping his wrist with a restraint that bordered on reverence, a touch that said "stop" without saying "I'm holding you." Then, slowly, as if pulled by an invisible thread, he raised his gaze again to the red eyes before him.

They were too close. Izuku could see the tiny golden and amber particles in Katsuki's crimson irises, like tiny embers. He could see the small worry lines (or was it extreme concentration?) between his dark eyebrows, a fine furrow that wasn't there before. He could see the almost imperceptible tremor in the lower lip, a hint of vulnerability that split him in half. He could feel the warmth of his breath, a short, controlled, warm puff against his own skin.

Katsuki's eyes didn't waver. Didn't blink. They seemed fixed, hypnotized too. There was something there, seething under the smooth surface of his expression—a turbulent conflict, a stifled urgency, a genuine fear that Izuku had never associated with that person, Katsuki Bakugou, who faced titans without hesitation. Everything compressed into a silence that weighed tons, that sank into the hallway floor. His expression was a visible civil war, fought in micro-expressions: the usual ferocity, the habitual defensive posture, fighting something more vulnerable, softer; the arrogance and certainty giving way, at the corners of his eyes, to a deep, almost painful uncertainty.

"Wait," he said.

Just that. One word. Two hoarse syllables, charged with an electric tension that made the still air between them vibrate. It wasn't an order, though the tone had the firmness of one. It wasn't a request, though there was a nuance of appeal in the roughness. It was a suspension. A desperate, unspoken plea for time, which insisted on flowing relentlessly, to stop for just one more moment. For that instant of physical connection, fragile and unexpected, not to break.

The word hung between them like an explosion that never happened, a promise of something that could be said, that needed to be said, but was trapped behind a thick barrier of pride, hurt, guilt, and fear—a barrier that not even Katsuki Bakugou, with all his explosive strength, seemed to know how to cross at that moment.

A thousand thoughts, images, sensations crossed Izuku's mind at once, a catastrophic collision of past, present, and hypothetical futures that left him dizzy. The memory of Katsuki's small, warm hands holding his as children, pulling him up after a fall in the park, their faces dirty with dirt and smiles. The vivid memory of the taste of blood and anger after one of their countless fights at school, fists clenched, eyes full with tears of frustration. The comforting feel of his shoulders leaning against his during silent night vigils, watching the city from the agency roof, mutual warmth shared without a word. The sound of his voice, broken and furious, in that final fight, in his apartment: "You don't trust me! You think I'm weak, that I'll break! Your worry is just pity, Deku, pity in disguise! I don't need your veiled condemnation!" And then, the void. The physical distance that became emotional. The drunk, idiotic, desperate message. The abysmal silence that followed, worse than any shout. What wasn't said in that fight. What still hurt, an open, throbbing wound he carried like a brand. What he didn't know if he had the right to feel, now, with that warm, familiar hand closed around his wrist, after invading the fragile silence with his digital weakness.

Fear returned, a sudden cold that arose at the center of the touch's warmth. The visceral fear of being rejected again, of seeing cold anger or contempt return to those red eyes. The fear that this closeness, this touch, was merely a prelude to another catastrophe, another round of cutting words that would separate them forever. The self-preservation instinct, which for months had merged with the need for punishment, to distance himself to avoid hurting or being hurt, spoke louder, with a shrill voice.

"I… have to go," he murmured, and his voice sounded small, distant, as if belonging to someone else, a spectator of his own drama.

He began to pull away, slowly drawing his arm back, a movement that required Herculean strength against the deep, stubborn part of him that wanted to sink into that touch, to turn his hand and intertwine his fingers with those, to close the distance and rest his forehead on that shoulder, to whisper, "Did you read it? Do you miss me too? Forgive me? I still love you, that's what I meant to say, that's what I always meant to say."

Katsuki held on for one second longer. The fingers, already firm, tightened almost imperceptibly, a brief, powerful spasm of physical resistance. It was as if his body, independent of rational mind or conscious will, had decided on its own: Don't let go. Not yet. Not now.

Then, as if realizing what he was doing, as if the sudden physical contact were a wire conducting an emotional voltage too high, too dangerous to maintain, he let go.

The space between them existed again—too abruptly, a cold, empty vacuum that instantly replaced the dense, living warmth of the touch. The skin on Izuku's wrist, where Katsuki's fingers had been, burned as if branded by an iron, a phantom sensation that penetrated deeply. He felt the absence of contact as a real physical loss, a disorienting, unpleasant lightness, as if a necessary weight had been removed.

Izuku took a deep breath, a trembling, panting sound that echoed in the silent hallway. His heart was beating too loudly in his chest, a frantic, uncontrolled drum announcing his weakness, his desperation, to the world—or at least to the only person whose opinion had always mattered too much. He could no longer look at Katsuki's face. The embarrassment, the shame, the fear were too great. He looked away, at the wall painted a neutral beige, at a faded poster about saving energy, at anything that wasn't that impenetrable expression that had now completely closed again, hiding the brief, intense conflict he had had the privilege (or the torture) of glimpsing for a fleeting instant.

"Welcome back," he said, and the words came out low, serious, almost formal, the coldest, most distant greeting he could conceive. They sounded like an epitaph carved on a headstone, not a warm welcome to someone returning home.

And then, he moved. Walked too fast, almost tripping over his own step, his balance compromised by the inner turmoil, without looking back, feeling the skin on his wrist still burning, the ghost of Katsuki's touch imprinted on his flesh like a brand that would never heal. Each step he took was a conscious effort, as if moving away from the center of gravity of his universe, fighting against a powerful and painful attraction. His ears rang, a sound of seashells mixed with the accelerated beat of his own heart. The hallway ahead of him, leading to the exit, to freedom, to safe solitude, seemed to lengthen, become endless, a tunnel he would never manage to cross.

Katsuki remained standing in the hallway, a statue sculpted from conflict and hesitation. The silence that followed Izuku's swift departure was deeper, denser, and more charged than before, saturated with the ghostly echo of what almost happened, of the unspoken words, of the bridge almost built and immediately withdrawn. He looked at his own right hand, the one that had held, even if for seconds, Izuku's wrist, and closed it slowly, his fingers contracting into a firm fist, as if trying to retain the fleeting sensation of the other's warm skin, the thin bone under his fingers, the fast, alive pulse he had felt beating against his own skin. His own wrist still tingled, a ghostly echo of the contact, a stubborn tactile memory. He could have spoken. Could have called out. Could have said "Deku, wait," or "We need to talk," or "I read your message," or "I miss you too, you idiot." He could have said any of the thousand things seething in his throat, a formless mass of apologies, explanations, confessions, and curses, all suffocated by wounded pride, heavy guilt, by the paralyzing fear of ruining everything again, of seeing those green eyes close to him definitively.

He didn't say anything.

His voice, always so powerful, so full of conviction and fury, failed miserably. The weight of months of calculated silence, of the ugly fight that still reverberated in his bones, of the cutting words he had thrown and that now haunted him, was a wall too high, too thick, to try to scale in an unprepared, casual encounter in a hallway. The fierce determination he had felt in his apartment just days before, fueled by his friends' solid support and brutal frankness, seemed to drain away before the living, breathing, and painfully beautiful reality of Izuku Midoriya—so fragile, so scared, so beautiful and, at that moment, completely unreachable, protected by a wall of shame and fear that Katsuki himself had helped build.

When he finally moved, it was with a heavy slowness, as if walking against a strong current. He did not follow Izuku. Turned his back to the direction the other had taken, shoulders tense under the uniform, a stiffness that wasn't just physical, and continued on his original path, towards Principal Nezu's office, each step echoing in the empty hallway like an admission of defeat, a momentary surrender to fear. His head was a whirlwind of white noise and sharp images. The image of Izuku's green eyes, so frightened and so green, so familiar and so distant, stuck to his retina, a negative he saw every time he blinked. His smell, soft and clean, of neutral soap and cotton, was still in his nose, overlaying the metallic smell of the hallway. The sensation of the wrist, quick and fragile like a trapped bird's, still burned in his palm, a tactile memory that was both a comfort and an accusation.

Izuku, already at the end of the hallway, about to turn the corner that would take him away, to the bathrooms, to the stairs, to any safe place where he could collapse in private, bury his head in his hands and perhaps, finally, cry, couldn't resist.

The impulse was stronger than fear, stronger than shame, stronger even than the instinct for self-preservation. It was a visceral tug, a last thread of stubborn hope. He stopped. And looked back.

His heart, already in tatters, beating irregularly and painfully, gave a final lurch, an agonizing contraction.

He saw only the familiar, broad back of Katsuki, the precise cut of the dark hero uniform, the disobedient, spiky blond hair, receding with a rigid, inflexible determination—and then, nothing. The point where he turned the opposite corner, disappearing from view. The empty hallway. The space they had shared, which had witnessed the touch, the suspended word, was now unoccupied, banal, just a hallway again.

The void that settled in his chest then was more than loneliness, more than sadness. It was the crushing, physical weight of something that almost happened. Of words that were almost spoken, of a conversation that almost began, of a touch that almost became an embrace, a caress, forgiveness. It was the specter of a bridge that was almost extended over the abyss of eight months of silence and hurt, a fragile one-second bridge, and that, at the last possible instant, was withdrawn, undone, as if it had never been a real possibility.

He almost managed to swallow the huge, painful knot in his throat. He almost managed to take one more deep breath, straighten his shoulders, and move on, to his next class, his next duty, his next breath. But his feet seemed rooted to the cold floor. His hands, hanging at his sides, trembled slightly, a fine, uncontrollable tremor. And his eyes, against all his will, all his training, all his pride, began to burn with the familiar, humiliating pressure of tears that stubbornly refused to fall. They just burned, blurring his vision, turning the empty hallway into a blur of colors. Because in the end, after everything, after the stupid message, the accidental encounter, the touch that stopped his world… he was still alone in the hallway. And Katsuki had walked away. With his back to him. Again.

And nothing had changed.
And everything hurt more than before.

Katsuki walked to the principal's office with firm, measured steps, though his entire body was slightly lagging behind his mind's command, operating in a disconcerting delay. The image of Izuku—the wide green eyes like saucers, the warm, alive wrist under his fingers, the short, overly polite and ice-cold word, "welcome back"—kept resurfacing with every blink, like an involuntary reflex, a visual virus. An echo that refused to fade, distorting his perception of the hallway ahead. He clenched his jaw until it hurt, masseter muscles jumping, and exhaled deeply through his nose, a hot, audible breath. And then, he did what he had always known how to do best than almost anything: he shoved the whirlwind of feelings—the guilt, the longing, the regret, the frustration with himself—into an internal steel compartment, sealing the door shut by force, with the brutal determination of someone handling dangerous materials.

Later, he thought, the thought a flash of steel in his mind. Later I'll deal with that. Now, there's a summons. A mission. Focus.

The second period was dragging towards its final stretch, and U.A. as a whole carried that quiet, peculiar tiredness of November—the hallways seemed fuller of unsaid things than of students, the teenagers counting down the days to the winter break with palpable anxiety, the teachers holding the structure together with invisible threads of routine and duty. He stopped before the principal's imposing, light wood door, raised his hand—the same one that had held Izuku—and knocked twice, firm, dry, without hesitation.

"Come in!" came Nezu's unmistakable voice, cheerful and curiously musical as always.

Katsuki opened the door and crossed the threshold without ceremony, his body automatically assuming the posture of a professional hero, a notable ex-student. The environment was all too familiar, almost a character in its own right in his history: the desk excessively organized for any human mind, the shelves crammed with old books and strange artifacts collected on travels, the soft, comforting smell of herbal tea mixed with a slight odor of paper and laundry soap.

And then, the figure seated before the desk, who turned—

"Young Bakugou!" All Might rose so quickly and with such energy that the upholstered chair almost toppled backward. The smile that opened on his gaunt, sculpted face was large, sincere, almost youthful in its enthusiasm. It wasn't the wide, public smile of the Symbol of Peace, the mask of unshakable confidence. It was a purer, truer smile: the smile of Toshinori Yagi, of a man genuinely, deeply happy to see a boy he had helped shape, whom he saw not just as a potential successor, but as a son of the heart.

"Old man…" Katsuki murmured, a verbal reflex from years past, and before he could correct himself to a more formal "All Might," the ex-hero was already before him, moving with an agility his frail body shouldn't permit.

The hug came without warning, without room for protocol. It was strong, wide, the kind that swallows the whole person, enveloping and warm. Katsuki stiffened for half a second—the automatic reflex of someone unaccustomed to spontaneous, affectionate physical contact—his body going rigid. And then, as if releasing a weight he carried unknowingly, he sighed, an exhalation that came from his feet, and raised his arms to return the gesture, though in a less expansive manner, his arms patting lightly, supportively, on the bony but still broad back of his mentor.

"Yeah…" he grumbled, his voice slightly muffled by the fabric of All Might's suit. "Good to see you too."

All Might laughed, that full, deep laugh that always seemed to light up any room, fill it with a sense of security. "You've come back different," he commented, stepping back just enough to observe him better, his bright blue eyes scanning Katsuki's face and posture. "More centered. More… solid. Less like a volcano about to erupt at any moment, and more like… a mountain. Steady."

"Hah." Katsuki averted his gaze for an instant, an old habit when dealing with direct praise, especially from that source. "Don't exaggerate, old man. Just less willing to waste time on idiocy."

"We did want to know, indeed, about your experience in the United States." All Might's tone was genuinely curious, interested, without a drop of bureaucratic formality. "The intensive training, the fieldwork with their agencies, the different hero culture… I've heard, through unofficial channels of course, that you made quite an impression. In both good and bad ways."

Katsuki let out a short sound, something between a dry laugh and a snort of disdain, but his eyes were alive, focused on the subject. "They've got good resources. Cutting-edge tech, funding to envy. Some interesting tactical ideas… others not so much, pure show for the media." He shrugged, a fluid motion. "But you can learn, yeah. To adapt. To see things from another angle."

"And discipline? Emotional control?" All Might asked, his eyes glinting slightly with a mix of hope and curiosity. "Did you learn to tame the fury, or did it merely learn new tricks?"

The corner of Katsuki's mouth lifted, a quick, almost imperceptible smile, but real. "I did learn," he replied, without irony, with a seriousness that would surprise many. "Or at least… I'm learning. That an explosion isn't always the answer. That sometimes staying quiet and observing causes more damage. And that…" he made a minimal pause, his eyes fixing on a distant point on the wall for a split second, "...that hurting people with words leaves worse scars than physical ones." "...that there are other ways to be strong."

All Might seemed genuinely pleased and moved by that. Nezu, who was observing the scene from across the desk with quiet interest, his paws resting on the polished surface, emitted a small sound of approval, like a soft purr.

"I'm very glad you were able to arrive early, Bakugou," said the principal, in his usual tone of contained animation. "I imagine your schedule, after such an intense period abroad, must be… quite full, with reintegration at your main agency, reports, briefings."

Katsuki straightened even more, shoulders back, still carrying the unshakable firmness of always, but something was different in his tone, a lightness, almost an informality he rarely allowed in professional contexts. He hadn't planned to be there, much less take on the rigid responsibilities of always so soon.

"Hah, actually, no," he said, with an almost crooked smile, an expression that was half challenge, half confession. "The agency let me go for a while. Forced leave, they call it. Two months. No missions, no pending reports, no one breathing down my neck. Decided to come back to Japan and… stay a bit. A month, maybe. Just."

The casual, almost nonchalant tone of the response seemed to disconcert Nezu for a second—his whiskers vibrated slightly, his black, bright eyes blinked rapidly—but he soon recovered, his expression transforming into even greater, almost palpable enthusiasm.

"Perfect!" he exclaimed, his small paws tapping lightly on the desk. "Absolutely perfect! The synchronicity is truly remarkable!"

Katsuki frowned slightly, a crease of suspicion appearing between his eyes. "Perfect how?" he asked, his voice taking on a cautious tone.

"We are approaching the end of the second academic period," Nezu explained, gesturing with a paw. "The final stretch before the winter recess. It's a critical time. The students are tired, anxious about final exams, and simultaneously euphoric about the approaching holidays. Discipline tends to slacken, focus, to scatter. And it is exactly at this moment, Bakugou, that the voice and presence of someone like you—a rising hero, with international experience, who doesn't beat around the bush—can have a profound impact. More profound than any lecture of ours."

All Might crossed his thin arms over his chest, agreeing with a slow nod, his gaze serious. "We thought of something light, but meaningful. Short talks. Direct conversations, in small groups. Occasional training sessions, focused on specific situations you faced out there. Nothing fixed in the curriculum, nothing too bureaucratic. Something organic."

"Active heroes, flesh and blood, talking to future heroes," Nezu completed, his eyes shining like two onyx beads. "Without politically correct filters, without rehearsed speeches. The naked, raw reality of what this life is. The victories, the failures, the tough choices. That's what they need to hear now."

The image of Izuku, so vividly close minutes ago, returned without permission, invading the meeting's space. Professor Midoriya. Calm. Composed. Dedicated. The green eyes always too attentive, analyzing, caring. Teaching. Making a difference in a way Katsuki had never considered, but which now, suddenly, seemed monumental. And he was here, in the same school. And Katsuki had time. Time he hadn't had in eight months. Time that was, now, an empty, open space before him.

A spark ignited in Katsuki's mind, quick and clear as lightning. It's an opportunity. A perfect excuse. A valid, professional reason to be here. To get closer. To be in the same space as him, without seeming… desperate. Without having to face the ghost of that message head-on. The idea brought with it an immediate, almost tangible relief. It was a lifeline in a sea of emotional uncertainty.

He swallowed dryly, forcing his voice to come out firm, neutral. "If it's to give some cutesy motivational speech, forget it," he said, dryly, the habitual challenging tone returning, but now with a calculated nuance. "But if it's to tell the naked and raw truth… how it is, dirty, hard, and often shitty… and how you have to be more stubborn than shit to survive and win anyway… I'll do it."

Nezu smiled, a wide smile that showed many small, sharp teeth, an expression of pure satisfaction.

"That was exactly—absolutely, perfectly—what we expected from you, Bakugou. Brutal honesty is an underestimated pedagogical resource."

All Might stood up again, a bit more carefully, and placed his large, bony, but still surprisingly warm and strong hand on Katsuki's shoulder. The touch was firm, paternal.

"It's good to have you back, Bakugou. Here…" his voice lowered, becoming more personal, "...and home. Truly."

Katsuki held the smiling, marked face of the ex-hero's gaze for a moment, feeling the weight of that hand, the meaning behind the words. "Home." The word echoed inside him, finding the echo of another voice, digital and drunk: "come home soon…" He nodded once, a short, decided movement.

"...Thanks."

When he left the principal's office, closing the solid wood door behind him with a soft click, the hallways of U.A. seemed different. Not physically, but in their atmospheric charge. The silence was no longer oppressive or empty. It was expectant. The end of the period was approaching, yes. The recess too. But between now and then, there was space. Time. And, for the first time since he had crossed that same hallway earlier and bumped into Izuku Midoriya, the feeling left by the encounter—the pain, the shame, the phantom warmth on his wrist—wasn't just something to be suffocated or endured.

It was something unfinished.
A chapter interrupted mid-sentence.
A fight that never had a clear winner or loser,only two exhausted and wounded combatants.
Something that,he knew with a certainty that came from his gut, wasn't going to disappear on its own, wouldn't resolve with more silence or distance.

Sooner or later—and his presence here, at the school, with a purpose now, made "sooner" seem much more likely—that tension, that unspoken thing, that almost, would demand a resolution.

And resolutions, in the life of Katsuki Bakugou, were rarely silent. They came with the roar of a controlled explosion, meant to clear the path, for better or for worse.

He took a deep breath, the air of U.A. entering his lungs. It smelled of chalk dust, of cleaning, of youthful sweat and of the future.

And of him.

Chapter Text

The touch on his wrist was a phantom of fire.

Izuku walked through the halls of U.A. towards the main cafeteria, but his senses were anchored in the past, fifteen minutes prior. The encounter in the hallway. The unexpected silhouette of Katsuki blocking his path. The indecipherable expression – not anger, not contempt, something much more dangerous: a raw hesitation.

And the hand.

The hand that closed around his wrist with a firmness that wasn't violent, but was inescapable. A physical assertion, a point of contact that cut through his blazer sleeve and seared into his skin like a thermal brand.

"Wait."

The single, rough word still echoed in his ears, competing with the distant buzz of students heading to lunch. He hadn't waited. He'd fled. Like a cornered animal, his self-preservation instinct – or was it self-punishment? – had spoken louder.

Now, every step towards the cafeteria was an effort. His right wrist pulsed with the memory of the touch, an extra, throbbing, sick heart.

The U.A. cafeteria was a monument to organized chaos. The smell of homestyle food – curry, rice, grilled fish – mingled with the sound of hundreds of voices, laughter, and the clatter of trays. The midday light, filtered through the large bay windows, illuminated the steam rising from the serving counter pots.

It was a scene of vibrant normality that made Izuku feel like an intruder, a translucent ghost of nerves.
He was in line,the empty tray trembling slightly in his hands, not really seeing the options, when his phone vibrated in his blazer pocket. The startle was physical. With his left hand – the right still felt untouchable, sanctified by the forbidden contact – he pulled out the device.

Ochaco: Izuku! I'm here at U.A. with Shoto, sorting out some bureaucratic agency stuff in the admin sector. Are you there? Let's have lunch together in the cafeteria? We need to tell you something. It's important.

It's important. The two words flashed on the screen like a red alert. Izuku's stomach, already churning, knotted completely. It wasn't hard to guess the subject.

Katsuki. It had to be. They'd found out he was back. The old Class 1-A intelligence network was fast and efficient, especially when driven by concern. Now, they would come to confront him with the news, with serious looks and questions he had no way to answer.

The idea of saying no, of making an excuse and fleeing to the solitude of his apartment – or worse, to the deafening silence of the teachers' lounge – was tempting. But stronger than fear was exhaustion.

The exhaustion of carrying the weight of that morning, of the touch, of the retroactive shame of the drunk message, all alone. The loneliness, at that moment, seemed more frightening than the loving interrogation of his best friends.

His cold fingers replied.

Izuku: I'm in the cafeteria. In line. Can I grab a table in the corner near the bay windows?

Ochaco: Perfect! We're on our way! Hold the table!

He served himself on autopilot: a portion of mild curry, rice, a small salad. The food, normally comforting, seemed innocuous, tasteless. He found a table for four in the quietest corner of the cafeteria, away from the central bustle, with a view of the outdoor training gardens. He sat with his back to the crowd, placing the tray in front of him but not unwrapping the utensils. He just sat there, hands resting on the table, staring at the curry that already seemed to be forming a skin.

It didn't take long. He saw them enter the vast hall: Ochaco, in her beige coat and a determined air, her brown eyes sweeping the room until they found him; and Shoto, beside her, impeccable and impassive as always, his presence causing the usual discreet buzz among students who recognized the heroes.

They approached. Ochaco sat across from him, Shoto beside her. Neither had brought food.

"You haven't eaten anything," Shoto observed, his heterochromatic gaze landing on the untouched tray.

"Wasn't hungry yet," Izuku murmured, looking away.

Ochaco studied his face, her soft expression hardening into professional worry.
"You look pale,Izuku. Like you've seen a ghost."

Just the ghost of my own disaster, he thought, but didn't say. A faint, failed smile tried to form on his lips.
"It was a tough class.What was so important?"

Shoto and Ochaco exchanged one of those quick, loaded glances that spoke more than a paragraph. It was Ochaco who started, leaning forward, her voice low but clear in the small table space.

"Izuku… this is serious. We found out something. Katsuki…" she paused, as if measuring the impact of the words. "Katsuki is back in Japan. Last Friday."

The silence Izuku maintained wasn't the silence of shock. It was the silence of what one already knows, the confirmation of a fact his entire body had already registered traumatically. He didn't move a muscle, just kept looking at the pieces of carrot in his curry.

Shoto, noticing the lack of reaction, furrowed his brow slightly.
"It seems no one at his agency was officially notified.It was a discreet return. Kirishima picked him up from the airport and told us. The reason is… unclear."

Ochaco continued, her fingers playing with a soy sauce packet on the table.
"It's too big a coincidence,Izuku. He comes back out of nowhere, right after that… that message you sent. We don't know if there's a connection, but… it's strange. Feels like fate, you know? Or else…" she hesitated.

"Or else he came back because of unfinished business," Shoto completed, his voice logical and cutting as an ice blade. "Something the message, drunk or not, just resurrected."

It was then that Izuku looked up. First at Ochaco, then at Shoto. His expression wasn't one of surprise, or fear. It was a profound exhaustion, a surrender to an inevitable fact. The mask of the teacher, the hero, had disintegrated there, at the cafeteria table, under the weight of this revelation that for him was no longer news.

"I know," he said, his voice coming out low, but stable in a strange way.

Ochaco stopped fiddling with the packet.
"You…know? How?"

Shoto leaned forward, his eyes now fixed and analytical on Izuku.
"You'd already heard?Someone mentioned it?"

Izuku took a deep breath. The cafeteria air, warm and laden with smells, seemed heavy. He looked at his right wrist, still resting on the table. The invisible mark seemed to throb.

"I didn't hear about it," he replied, his eyes still fixed on his own wrist, as if the answer were written there. "I saw. I ran into him."

The effect of his words was instant and profound. Ochaco's eyes widened, her hand going instinctively to her mouth to stifle a small gasp of shock. Shoto, whose expression rarely changed, went completely still, only his pupils seeming to contract slightly, focused intensely on Izuku.

"You… ran into him?" Ochaco repeated, her voice a breath of disbelief. "Where? When?"

"Here," Izuku murmured, finally raising his gaze to meet theirs. The confession, now verbalized, brought a strange sense of relief. It was a shared burden. "A little over half an hour ago. In the hallway of the admin building, near Nezu's office."

"At U.A.?" Shoto asked, and for the first time, there was a spark of genuine surprise in his tone. "What was he doing here?"

"I don't know," Izuku shrugged, a gesture of defeat. "He was… standing. I turned the corner and bumped into him. Almost literally."

He described, with an economy of words that was painful, the scene. The unexpected sight, the shock that paralyzed the world, the unbearable proximity. His smell, familiar and devastating. And then, the touch.

"He… held me," Izuku said, his voice faltering slightly on the last word. His right hand moved, his fingers touching his own wrist, exactly where Katsuki's fingers had encircled him. "On the wrist. It wasn't aggressive. It was… firm. Like he wanted me to stop. And he only said one word: 'Wait'."

The silence around the table was now different. It was no longer the silence of expecting news, but the thick, heavy silence of the fallout from a nuclear fact. Ochaco looked at Izuku's hands, her face a mix of compassion and alarm. Shoto processed the information with computer speed, his conclusions reflected in the slight tightening of his jaw.

"He held you," Shoto reiterated, as if testing the logic of the fact. "And then?"

"And then I ran," the admission came with a mix of bitterness and shame. "I said 'welcome back' and… walked away. He didn't follow me. Didn't say anything else."

"My God, Izuku…" Ochaco whispered, her hand extending over the table but stopping before touching his, as if fearing she might break him. "That's… that's intense. He shows up here, at your workplace, on the same day we find out he's back… and after your message…"

"It seems more like intentionality than coincidence," Shoto concluded, his fingers tapping lightly on the table surface. "He didn't come to U.A. by chance. He came with a purpose. To see Nezu? Maybe. But the timing… and the fact that you crossed paths exactly in the hallway…"

"Do you think he came looking for you?" Ochaco asked, her eyes wide.

Izuku closed his eyes for a second. The image of Katsuki's red eyes, so close, so indecipherable, burned on his eyelids. "Wait." The word was a hook in his chest.

"I don't know," he answered, the true answer to everything at that moment. "I don't know what he wants. I don't know why he came back. I don't know why he held me. I only know that… he's here. And that now I can no longer pretend he doesn't exist."

He opened his eyes and looked at his friends. The mask had fallen completely. In his green eyes, now naked and vulnerable, was the pure reflection of panic, confusion, and a hope so fragile it hurt.

"So…" Shoto spoke, his voice regaining its practical softness. "What are you going to do now?"

It was the million-yen question. The question Izuku had been avoiding since his wrist was released. He looked at the tray of cold food, at his friends' hands, at the colorful, noisy movement of the cafeteria that seemed to be happening on another planet.

For a long moment, he said nothing. He just breathed, feeling the weight of the options – all terrible – piling onto his shoulders. Face it. Flee. Wait. Act.

Finally, when he spoke, his voice was a thread of sound, but laden with a deep resignation and a dark determination he didn't even know he possessed.

"For now…" he whispered, his eyes lost in the void over Shoto's shoulder, as if watching his own future unfold like a silent, catastrophic film. "For now, I won't do anything. Just… wait. And try not to fall apart before he decides what the next move is."

It was a survival strategy. The only one his shattered mind could conceive. Wait for the next explosion, whether of words, action, or – the most terrifying thought – of an even deeper silence.

Lunch continued, but no one touched the food. The table in the corner of the U.A. cafeteria had become the epicenter of a private earthquake, and its three occupants waited, in tense silence, for the next, inevitable tremors.

The rest of the day unfolded for Izuku Midoriya like a silent film projected on a blurry screen. He was present, but he didn't inhabit his body. He moved through obligations with the precision of an automaton whose main software was busy processing a single, catastrophic command on a loop.

He's here.

The words hammered in his skull, synchronized with the phantom throbbing in his wrist. Here. In Musutafu. At U.A. In the same hallway as me. His hand. His voice. "Wait."

The afternoon class, a practical first-aid session for second-year students, was a trial by fire. While demonstrating immobilization techniques on a mannequin, his fingers, which should have been firm and confident, trembled slightly. The feel of the plastic dummy's wrist under his fingers was, for an instant, replaced by the vivid, warm, living memory of Katsuki's touch. He pulled his hand back as if burned, making a student raise an eyebrow.

"Everything okay, Midoriya-sensei?" the boy asked.

"Yes, yes," Izuku forced a smile, his facial muscles tight as cords. "Just a spasm. Continue."

His brain, however, didn't continue. It fragmented into a thousand pieces of disconnected thoughts, each a shard of a mirror reflecting a different facet of the disaster.

Musutafu was no longer his city. It was a redefined map, where every landmark now carried the potential threat of an encounter. The cheap ramen shop near the station where they went after exhausting training sessions. The park where, as kids, Katsuki exploded rocks in the creek and he watched, awestruck. The manga shop specializing in heroes. The municipal gym. All these places were now dangerous territory, undeclared war zones. He could be at any of them. Right now. At this moment. Buying coffee. Walking down the street. Breathing the same air. The city shrank, becoming a claustrophobic trap.

Friday. Katsuki had returned on Friday. While Izuku was drowning in post-message shame, surrounded by friends in his apartment, Katsuki was landing on Japanese soil. While Izuku tried, and failed, to forget the monumental error typed into his phone, Katsuki was somewhere in this same city, unloading suitcases, smelling the air that was theirs. And then, today. The hallway encounter wasn't an accident. It was a forced convergence of timelines that had diverged eight months ago. He came back. And he came to the school. He knew I'd be here. Was it on purpose? Did he look for me? Or was it just… fate being cruel?

Katsuki's hand. Izuku had known those hands forever. He'd seen them clenching into angry fists, holding training gear, launching explosions that lit up the night sky. But never, in his entire life, had one of those hands touched him in that way. It wasn't a punch, a shove, a pat on the back. It was a restraint. A physical plea. He didn't pull me. He didn't push me. He just… held on. As if I were a bird he didn't want to fly away, but also didn't want to hurt. The warmth of that hand was a paradox. It burned like a branding iron, but the gesture itself was… cautious. It was this contradiction that drove him mad. What did it mean? Was it a prelude to a conversation? To another fight? To an apology? Or was it just a reflex, a thoughtless act that meant as little to Katsuki as a sigh?

And then, like poison that always finds the bloodstream, his thoughts plunged into the abyss of that night. It wasn't a disagreement. It was a verbal bloodbath.

They were in Izuku's apartment, exhausted after a tense joint mission. Izuku's worry, always an underground river, had overflowed. He'd suggested, with the delicacy of an elephant in a china shop – because when it came to Katsuki, his language always got tangled – that maybe he could slow down, accept a more strategic position for a while.

Katsuki's face transformed into a mask of ice, cracked underneath.

"Slow down?" his voice came out low, dangerously soft. "Are you fucking serious, Deku?"

"It's just… you're getting hurt a lot, Kacchan. And you don't stop. I see it. Everyone sees it."

"Everyone sees it, huh?" Katsuki took a step forward. The air between them turned electric. "And what the fuck does everyone think? That the great Dynamight is weak? That he can't handle it? Is that it?"

"No! Of course not!" Izuku tried, desperate. "It's just worry! I'm worried about you!"

"Your worry," Katsuki spat the word like acid, "smells like pity, Deku. You think I can't handle it. You think I'm the poor guy who needs to be protected by the great hero Deku. That's what you've always thought, isn't it? Since we were little shits. That you had to stay behind, watching me, ready to fix me when I broke."

Each word was a stab. Izuku felt his eyes burn.

"I never thought that! I just… I admire you, Kacchan! I've always admired you! I want you to be okay!"

"ADMIRATION?" the explosion came in his voice, a roar that made the glasses in the sink tremble. "Is that what you call this fucking, kicked-puppy look you give me? This sick need to carry everyone's burden, including mine? You don't trust me, Izuku. You never did. You think if you're not there, holding my hand, I'm gonna blow up along with the damn city. Your worry isn't for me. It's for you. Out of fear of having to see me fall and not be able to do a damn thing."

Izuku felt the floor disappear under his feet. It was the most unfair, most painful accusation he could imagine.

"That's not true," his voice came out broken, small.

"It's the fucking purest truth there is between us!" Katsuki advanced, not to hit, but to invade his space, to force the truth down his throat. "You hide behind that nice-guy smile and that giant heart, but deep down, you think you're better than everyone. That you have to save everyone. Even from themselves. And I… I don't need your salvation, Deku. I don't want your veiled condemnation disguised as care. I don't want you suffocating me all the time with your pity."

The final word echoed in the room like a gunshot. Suffocating. Izuku saw the anger in Katsuki, but he also saw something more: a deep suffering, a fury against himself, against the world, against the sick dynamic that bound them. And in that moment, Izuku exploded too. The pain was too great.

"Fine!" he shouted, the tears finally breaking the dams, streaming hot and bitter down his face. "If you think I'm just a burden, that my worry is disgusting, that I'm a suffocating asshole, then FINE, KATSUKI! Go away! Go to your perfect world where no one cares enough to try and hold you back when you're running straight for the cliff! GO!"

The silence that followed was worse than the shouting. Katsuki's ragged breathing. Izuku's silent, convulsive crying. The light in Katsuki's face went out. Fury gave way to something empty, devastated. He looked at Izuku as if seeing a stranger. As if the last bridge between them had been dynamited.

"Fine," he said, his voice now flat, dead. "That's it, then."

He turned and left. The door closed with a soft, definitive click. And Izuku's world collapsed in that silence.

Now, eight months later, the echo of those words was still in his ears. Suffocating. Pity. Veiled condemnation. Katsuki had seen the deepest part of his heart – that place where love mixed with fear, admiration with anxiety, care with control – and had rejected it as something poisonous, something disgusting. Izuku felt exposed, his emotional guts turned out and judged indecent. How could he face Katsuki after that? How could he bear the weight of that judgment, now that he was here, in the flesh, with a hand that knew where and how to touch to immobilize him?

The decision crystallized inside him, cold and hard as a stone at the bottom of a frozen lake: Avoid. It was the only possible strategy. A total tactical retreat. He had no weapons for that battle. His words had always been inadequate, his emotions always too big, too loud, too… suffocating. He would cause more damage. Hurt himself more. The wound was open, yes, but at least it wasn't being poked. Katsuki's presence was a constant poke, a threat that the scar would be torn off and the blood would flow again.

He would avoid places Katsuki might frequent. Arrive earlier and leave later from U.A. Use secondary hallways. Keep his head down. Be a ghost in his own life. Was it cowardly? Perhaps. But it was survival. It was the only way he knew to protect the little that was left of himself after Katsuki had hollowed him out with those words.

The day finally ended. The last student left, the last report filled out with trembling handwriting. The afternoon light was already golden and slanted, painting the empty U.A. hallways in melancholy tones. Izuku gathered his things in the teachers' lounge, his movements slow and heavy. The exhaustion wasn't just physical; it was a weariness of the soul, a tiredness from carrying the weight of a city that was now a minefield.

He headed to the staff parking lot, a broad asphalt space in the shade of some tall trees. His car, a modern, discreet gray-dark electric sedan, was there. It was a symbol of his current life: efficient, quiet, functional. It didn't have the ostentation of some heroes, nor the ruggedness of a combat vehicle. It was a teacher's car, a man who valued comfort and practicality. The money from his hero patents and his teacher's salary allowed for much more, but he saw no point. The car was a capsule, a neutral space between work and the empty apartment.

He was almost at the vehicle, key already coming out of his pocket, when an unmistakable voice, weaker than before but still carrying a gentle authority, called him.

"Young Midoriya!"

Izuku stopped. His heart, which had been at a slow, depressed rhythm, gave a different jump – not of panic, but of an immediate, warm affection. He turned.

All Might, or rather, Toshinori Yagi in his skeletal form, was standing under the shadow of a leafless cherry tree. He wore a light beige suit, a bit loose on his frail body, and a light coat. The setting sun caught his blond hair, creating a pale halo. His smile, though no longer the wide, invincible one of yesteryear, was genuine, full of a paternal tenderness that always made Izuku feel safe.

"All Might!" the reply came with a reflex of joy that briefly lit up his tired face. He approached. "You're still here? Need anything?"

All Might studied him. His blue eyes, sunken in their sockets but still incredibly perceptive, scanned Izuku's face, the slightly slumped shoulders, the posture that spoke of an invisible weight. That gaze was like an X-ray scanner for Izuku's soul; it always had been.

"I could ask you the same, my boy," said All Might, his voice a bit hoarse but soft. "You look… burdened. Everything alright?"

The question was an open gate. Izuku felt the truth, a formless mass of confusion, pain, and fear, rising in his throat. He almost spoke. Almost said: He's back, All Might. He touched me. I'm scared. I'm sorry. I'm lost. But the words jammed. The shame of his own weakness, the complexity of what he felt for Katsuki – something he had never managed to properly explain even to himself, much less to his mentor –, the fear of disappointing him with his emotional lack of control… it all formed a plug.

He forced a smile, the same one he used in class when he needed to seem okay. It was a sad, transparent smile.

"Everything's fine, All Might. Just end-of-term tiredness, you know? Lots of reports, lots of lesson prep…" the excuse sounded hollow even to his own ears.

All Might didn't seem convinced. He put his hands in his coat pockets, a contemplative gesture.

"Hmm. Reports are terrible, indeed. Worse than many villains," he joked, trying for a light tone. But then, his gaze turned serious. "I… just had a meeting with Principal Nezu. And with young Bakugou."

The name, spoken by that voice, had a different weight. It wasn't the shock of the hallway encounter, but a solemn, official confirmation. Izuku wasn't surprised. He just felt a cold spreading through his chest.

"Ah," was all he could say.

"Yes," All Might continued, watching him intently. "He's back. Apparently for a while. And he agreed to collaborate on some projects here at U.A., talks, occasional training…" He made a significant pause. "I imagined that might be… complicated for you. Given the circumstances."

Izuku sighed. The sound came out deep, carrying all the tiredness of the day, of the months, perhaps of the years. He looked at his feet, at the cracked asphalt of the parking lot.

"I already knew," he admitted, his voice low. "I… ran into him today. In the morning."

All Might didn't seem surprised, only concerned. "I imagined something like that might happen. And how was it?"

How was it? How do you describe an earthquake in three words? Izuku shook his head, a gesture of helplessness.

"It was… quick. Unexpected." He didn't mention the touch. That detail was his, a wound too private to expose.

All Might took a step closer. The tree's shadow enveloped them now.

"And how are you feeling about all this, Izuku?" the question was asked with such deep sweetness it almost broke Izuku's defenses. All Might rarely used his first name in moments like this. It was a sign that this was serious, personal.

Izuku swallowed dryly. The knot in his throat hurt. He wanted to speak. Wanted to unburden himself and tell everything. But the words from the fight came back, like whips: suffocating, pity, veiled condemnation. If even Katsuki, who supposedly knew him so well, saw his feelings as something negative, repulsive… what would All Might think? Would he see the same sick need, the same confused, heavy love?

"I'm…" he began, his voice trembling. He lied. "I'm okay, All Might. Really. I just need… to go home. Rest. My head's full. Tomorrow… tomorrow we can talk better, if you want. Today I just need a bit of silence."

It was an escape. Crude, transparent. He saw on All Might's face that the man knew. Knew he was fleeing, that he was hurt, that he was lying. But All Might, in his infinite wisdom and unconditional love, didn't push. He respected the boundary Izuku, trembling, had raised.

For a long moment, All Might just stood still, his blue eyes fixed on Izuku's green, frightened ones. There was a pain there, the pain of a father seeing his son suffer and not being able to help him directly. Then, he took a small step forward, and before Izuku could react, he enveloped him in a hug.

It wasn't the bone-crushing hug of the Symbol of Peace, the kind that broke ribs in displays of strength. It was the fragile, yet infinitely solid, hug of Toshinori Yagi. Bony, careful, but full of an overwhelming presence. The large hands rested on his back, one on his shoulder, the other between his shoulder blades. His smell – a mix of mild lotion, herbal tea, and something indefinably familiar, like old paper and kindness – enveloped Izuku.

And something inside him broke. Not dramatically, not in tears or sobs. It was a silent, internal collapse. The tension that kept his muscles rigid as steel, the armor he tried to erect against the world and himself, dissolved a little under that hug. It was an unquestionable safe harbor. A place where, at least for that instant, he didn't need to be strong, didn't need to be a hero, didn't need to be a teacher, didn't need to understand anything. He could just… be. And be broken.

He didn't cry. But his eyes closed, and his body, almost against his will, sank slightly into the hug, his head resting briefly on All Might's narrow shoulder. It was an instant. Two, maybe three seconds. But it was the most truthful and peaceful moment he'd had since the doorbell had rung on that Friday night, an eternity ago.

All Might pulled away first, keeping his hands on Izuku's shoulders, his eyes shining with intense emotion.

"Listen to me, young Midoriya," he said, each word measured and clear. "I know you have a whole world inside that head of yours. A world of responsibilities, of analyses, of thoughts that spin faster than your own heart. And I know that sometimes, it seems like talking about what's in there will only make the world come crashing down." He squeezed Izuku's shoulders gently. "But you know, don't you? You know you can count on me. For whatever you want. For whatever you need. No matter how confused, how ugly, how difficult it seems. A shoulder, an ear, advice… or just a quiet place not to think about anything. I'm here. I always have been. And I always will be."

Izuku felt his eyes burn again, but this time, it wasn't from panic or shame. It was from gratitude. A gratitude so vast it hurt.

"Only…" All Might continued, a sad smile touching his thin lips, "I'm no longer the man who can solve everything with a punch. Some battles… the most important ones… are fought here." He tapped his own chest lightly, over his heart. "And for those, I can only help if you let me in. If you talk. Because no matter how hard I try, no matter how much I want to guess… I can't read minds. Not even yours, as well as I know it."

He released Izuku's shoulders and took a step back, giving him space.

"And if you don't want to talk today… that's fine. Tomorrow. Next week. It doesn't matter. But remember: you don't have to carry this alone. You never had to." He made a final pause, his gaze steady and loving. "And if you need me… you know where to find me. Always."

Izuku couldn't speak. The knot in his throat was too big, too good and painful at the same time. He just nodded, several times, a quick, sincere movement.

"Thank you, All Might," he managed to whisper, his voice choked.
"You're welcome,my boy. Now go. Rest. A good hot bath and a night's sleep. The world can wait until tomorrow." All Might gave a final nod, a gesture of farewell that was also a blessing.

Izuku nodded back, turned, and with slightly less heavy steps, walked to his car. The key unlocked the doors with a soft click. He got in, tossed his bag on the passenger seat, and closed the door. The quiet, cushioned interior of the vehicle enveloped him like a second skin. He pressed the ignition button. The electric motor whispered to life, almost inaudible.

He pulled out of the parking lot, the image of All Might under the cherry tree still fixed in his mind, the warmth of the hug still a comforting ghost on his back. The hug hadn't solved anything, but it had given him a breather. A small truce in the civil war inside him.

As he drove the familiar streets of Musutafu towards his apartment, dusk deepened, turning the sky into shades of lavender and orange, his thoughts returned. But now, mixed with gratitude, there was a new layer of bitterness.

Fate is a sadist, he thought, watching the city lights begin to turn on. It gives you the hug of a father at the exact moment the source of your greatest pain returns to haunt you. It's as if the universe needed to balance the scale: a little relief so you can withstand the next blow.

He drove on autopilot, his eyes fixed on the road, but his mind elsewhere. He replayed the hallway encounter. Katsuki's expression. The hand. The word. "Wait." For what? So he could say it all again? So they could replay the apartment scene, but this time in a public hallway, with students as an audience? No. He wouldn't wait. His strategy was clear. Avoid. Be a shadow. Let Katsuki do whatever he had come to do at U.A. and then leave. He hoped he would return to the United States and his life could return to its usual state of manageable pain, routine longing.

A traffic light ahead turned red. Izuku slowed and stopped, the silent car barely making a sound. He was on a wide avenue, with commercial buildings on one side and a small park on the other. Night was falling quickly. He sighed, rubbing his eyes with his thumb and forefinger. His head throbbed with mental fatigue.

He needed air. The climate inside the car, once cushioned and safe, suddenly felt oppressive. He pressed the button on the console, and the driver's side window slid down with a soft hum. The night air, cold and a bit damp, invaded the interior, bringing with it the distant sounds of the city: traffic noise, a distant siren, someone's laughter on the sidewalk.

He tilted his head back against the headrest, closing his eyes for a second, taking a deep breath. When he opened them again, his unfocused gaze wandered to the side, to the lane next to his, where vehicles were also stopped at the light.

And then, his heart stopped.

Parked beside his car, in the lane designated for motorcycles and cyclists, was a motorcycle. It was a large, aggressive machine, predominantly black with accents of muted orange. A modern, powerful model. And sitting on it, with a relaxed but alert posture, wearing a black leather jacket and a dark full-face helmet with a mirrored visor that reflected the traffic light and car headlights, was a silhouette.

An unmistakably familiar silhouette. The broad shoulders, the slouched yet powerful posture, the way the head was slightly tilted, as if observing something ahead. The hair… even under the helmet, there seemed to be a rebelliousness in the lines, a suggestion of spikes.

It was Katsuki.

The certainty was a lightning bolt that went through Izuku from head to toe, an electric shock of pure panic. The air left his lungs. His hands gripped the steering wheel hard, his knuckles turning white. His eyes, wide, glued themselves to the motionless figure on the bike. He's here. Did he follow me? Was he waiting for me? Is it an accident? No, it can't be. Fate isn't that cruel. He… he…

His brain tried to process, but stalled. He saw the motorcyclist's hand, encased in a black glove, resting lightly on the throttle. The same hand that had held him. The bike rumbled softly, a guttural sound that seemed threatening.

The world around him disappeared. The traffic noise became a buzz. The lights turned into blurred smears. Only the black and orange bike and the silhouette sitting on it existed, so close, separated only by a few meters of asphalt and a thin layer of air and car window.

What do I do? Look away? Pretend I didn't see? Accelerate when the light turns green? The panic was irrational, primal. He was in a metal armor, safe. But he felt completely exposed, as if the mirrored visor could see through the car's tinted windows, through his skin, straight into the chaos inside his chest.

The light for the cross-traffic turned yellow, then red. Theirs would turn green any second. The bike seemed to tense, the rider leaning forward slightly.

Izuku froze. He couldn't move. Couldn't breathe.

Then, the light turned green.

With a fluid, quick motion, the motorcyclist accelerated. The bike surged forward with a louder, powerful roar, taking off into the flow of cars that also began to move. In seconds, it was ahead, its red tail light becoming just another point of light among dozens, then disappearing around a curve to the right.

Izuku sat still. The car behind him honked, a short, impatient beep. The sound snapped him out of his trance. He hit the accelerator with a jerk, the car lurching forward. His heart was beating with immense, painful force against his ribs. His hands on the wheel were visibly shaking.

He had seen. Katsuki was there. Had been right beside him, at the same light. And now… now he was gone.

His breathing returned, ragged and irregular. He drove a few more blocks until the need to calm down, to process, became urgent. He saw a spot on a quieter side street and pulled over, nearly hitting the curb. Turned off the engine.

The darkness of the parked car enveloped him. He leaned his head against the steering wheel, eyes closed, trying to control his breathing.

It was him. Had to be. The bike, the colors, the posture… it was him.

But then… why didn't he look? Why didn't he do anything? Just sat there, still, and then left. Was it a coincidence? An absurd happenstance? Or… or hadn't he seen Izuku? The car window was tinted. Izuku was in the gloom. Maybe Katsuki hadn't noticed him.

The possibility brought a painful relief. If Katsuki had seen and ignored him, it would be worse. But if he hadn't seen… then it was just the universe playing with his already frayed nerves.

But the certainty began to fade. The mind, under extreme stress, is a factory of illusions. He began to review the image. The helmet was full-face, the visor mirrored. You couldn't see the face. The posture… yes, it was familiar, but how many people in Musutafu didn't have a confident posture on a powerful bike? The black and orange colors… they were Katsuki's colors, yes, but they were also common colors. The bike… he didn't know Katsuki had a bike. He'd never mentioned it. Maybe he rented it. Maybe it was new.

The more he thought, the more the sharp, terrifying image unraveled, losing its contours, becoming a possibility, then a dubious probability, and finally, an illusion fabricated by his own fear and expectation.

It wasn't him, the final thought arose, not as relief, but as a new form of agony. It was my head. I'm so obsessed, so terrified of the idea of him, that I'm seeing him everywhere. I'm going crazy.

The reality was almost worse than if it had been Katsuki. It meant he was no longer in control even of his own perception. That the trauma of Katsuki's return, of the touch, of the past fight, was creating ghosts. That his mind, his sharpest tool, was turning against him.

He lifted his head from the steering wheel and looked at his pale, haggard reflection in the rearview mirror. The green eyes, which All Might had looked at with such concern, were red-rimmed, with deep dark circles. He looked like a stranger to himself.

With a sigh that came from his feet, he restarted the car. He couldn't stay parked there. Had to go home. To the silent apartment. To the solitude that, suddenly, seemed less frightening than the prospect of encountering – or thinking he encountered – Katsuki Bakugou on every corner, on every motorcycle, in every shadow.

He put the car in motion again, this time driving with cautious slowness, as if the asphalt itself might open under his wheels. The nighttime city passed by him, a spectacle of lights and life from which he felt completely excluded. Fate was more than a sadist. It was a perverse painter, using Izuku's deepest fears as paint to blur the lines between real and imaginary, leaving him lost in a maze where every shadow whispered the name he most feared and most desired to hear.

And deep down, beneath the relief that it hadn't been Katsuki on the bike, a small, tiny, treacherous part of him felt… disappointment.

The apartment greeted him with its usual silence, but today it seemed different. It was no longer a silence of rest, of refuge. It was the silence of a crime scene. The still air held the echo of raised voices, of the slammed door, of the final goodbye. Every object seemed a witness: the sofa where they sat during the fight, the kitchen where Katsuki grabbed a cold water minutes before the end began, the door through which he left without looking back.

Izuku left his keys in the entryway bowl, hung up his blazer, his movements slow and heavy. All Might's hug seemed a distant dream, a mirage of warmth dissipated by the cold reality of these four walls. The motorcycle illusion still haunted him, a fog of shame and poisoned relief. It wasn't him. You're seeing things. You're getting sick.

He followed the automatic ritual: bath. The hot water cascaded over his tense shoulders but couldn't penetrate the cold that had settled in his bones. As the steam fogged up the shower, his thoughts, as always, revolved around a single axis.

Why don't you stop? he asked himself, scrubbing shampoo with more force than necessary. Why does he occupy every centimeter of your brain? He called you suffocating, pitiful, said your care was disgusting. He saw inside you and recoiled in disgust. You should hate him. You should want to forget him. So why, every time you close your eyes, do you see his hand on your wrist? Why does his "wait" echo louder than all the insults?

There was no logical answer. Just the raw, painful fact: Katsuki Bakugou was a mental geography Izuku couldn't extricate himself from. He was the mountain Izuku had always wanted to climb, the volcano that both attracted and incinerated him, the river whose current always dragged him back, no matter how hard he swam against it.

Dressed in an old hoodie and sweatpants, he stood before the empty refrigerator. The idea of cooking, choosing ingredients, following a recipe, seemed a Herculean task, an impossible mission for someone whose internal gears were so misaligned. The laziness wasn't physical; it was a fatigue of the soul. The loneliness of the apartment, loaded with bad memories, had also become oppressive. He needed external noise, banal life, something to anchor him outside his own head.

He decided. Quickly threw on jeans and a jacket, grabbed his wallet and keys. He'd go down to the 24-hour convenience store two blocks away. There, at the small counter, they served decent udon, comforting in its simplicity. It would be enough.

The weekday night was calm. The residential neighborhood of Musutafu was quiet, with only a few pedestrians on their way home. The air was fresh, clean after a humid day. The convenience store shone like a sparkling, artificial beacon on the block, its fluorescent light bathing the sidewalk in a harsh white.

Inside, the world was predictable and safe. The hum of the freezers, the smell of fresh coffee and packaged food, the clerk yawning behind the counter. Izuku went straight to the hot food counter, ordered a bowl of udon with shrimp tempura, grabbed a bottle of green tea, and paid. He chose one of the three high stools facing the glass window, from where he could watch the quiet street. It was a perfect hideout: anonymous, impersonal, temporary.

He unwrapped the chopsticks, broke them apart, and dipped them into the hot, steaming broth. The first sip of soup, salty and comforting, was a small triumph. For a minute, he managed to focus only on the taste, on the warmth spreading through his empty chest. The simplicity of the action – eating noodles in a convenience store – was an antidote to the overwhelming complexity of his thoughts.

It was in this fragile state of artificial peace that the doorbell chimed, announcing another customer's entry.

Izuku didn't pay attention. He continued blowing on his udon, eyes fixed on the occasional cars passing on the street.

Until his senses, always tuned to a specific frequency even against his will, picked up on something. The firm way the door closed. The rhythm of footsteps on the linoleum floor – not hurried, but decisive. A presence that filled the space differently, carrying its own gravitational field.

His muscles locked up before his brain even processed. Slowly, very slowly, he turned his head to the right, towards the aisles of shelves.

And the world shrank again.

Katsuki Bakugou was there, less than five meters away, examining the shelves of energy drinks. He wore a dark gray hoodie, sweatpants, and sneakers. His blond hair, free of its usual gel, fell in a more disheveled, almost soft, way over his forehead. He looked… ordinary. Not the hero Dynamight, not the imposing figure from the U.A. hallway, but a tired man after a day, looking for a drink. The normality of the scene was what made it surreal.

Izuku stopped breathing. The chopstick hovered in the air, a noodle strand dripping back into the bowl. No. Not here. Not now. This is my place. The only place left. It was an irrational, possessive thought. But that's how he felt.

As if feeling the weight of the gaze, Katsuki looked up. His eyes, sharp and red even in the store's harsh light, swept the area and landed directly on Izuku.

There was a microsecond of pure shock registered on Katsuki's face. His pupils dilated slightly. The hand holding a can of iced coffee went still. It was an instant of raw vulnerability, so brief Izuku might have imagined it. Then, the usual mask – of disinterest, of controlled coolness – settled. But not completely. There was a flicker there, a recognition that went beyond the accidental.

They stared at each other across the narrow space of the store. The hum of the freezers seemed to increase in volume. Time didn't stop; it became viscous, heavy. Izuku saw Katsuki's eyes scan his face, his bowl of udon, his hands still frozen around the chopsticks. He felt analyzed, dissected, and a wave of heat rose from his neck to his ears. The shame of being caught in such a banal, lonely act was intense.

It was Katsuki who broke the eye contact first. He looked at the can in his hand, then back at Izuku. His jaw tensed, a white line appearing around his mouth. Izuku could see the internal war happening there, in the small muscles of his face: the desire to turn and leave, the obligation of something unspoken, courage being gathered, grain by grain.

Then, Katsuki moved. Not towards the exit, but towards the hot food counter. He ordered something quickly from the attendant – an onigiri –, paid, and, with the can of coffee in one hand and the onigiri in the other, stopped again. This time, he was facing Izuku, separated only by the empty counter between the stools.

His red eyes met Izuku's green ones. Katsuki's voice, when it came, wasn't a roar, nor a whisper. It was simple, direct, rough from a bit of disuse.

"Can I?"

The question was about the stool beside him. But it carried the weight of the world. Can I invade your space? Can I break the eight-month silence? Can I sit here and pretend we're just two acquaintances who bumped into each other in a convenience store?

Izuku, with his brain offline, couldn't formulate words. His body reacted on its own. He nodded his head up and down, a single short, tense movement. Yes.

Katsuki nodded back, an equally minimal gesture, and walked around the counter. He sat on the stool next to Izuku, leaving a space of about half a meter between them – a careful, respectful distance, but one that in that small space felt like either an abyss or a suffocating intimacy, Izuku couldn't tell.

He opened the can of coffee with a soft tsk, took a sip. Placed the onigiri on a napkin, but didn't touch it. The silence that settled was different from all the others. It was a shared silence, loaded with history, with unspoken words and a bowl of udon cooling rapidly.

Katsuki was the first to speak again, his eyes fixed on the window, watching their distorted reflection in the two panes of glass.

"So…" he began, his voice still rough, trying to sound casual and failing miserably. "How've you been?"

Izuku almost laughed. A bitter, hysterical laugh, stuck in his throat. Seriously, you're asking me that? he thought, looking at Katsuki's profile. After everything? After hollowing me out and leaving? After coming back out of nowhere and running into me in hallways and convenience stores? How do you think I've been?

But fury was a luxury he had no energy for. Only infinite tiredness. He looked at his bowl.

"I'm fine," he lied, the word coming out flat and lifeless. Fine as a man about to come apart could be.

Katsuki seemed to swallow dryly. He knew it was a lie. They both knew.

More silence. Izuku stirred his udon, with no intention of eating. The awkwardness was a living thing between them. He felt the need to say something, anything, to fill the void before it swallowed them.

"And… the United States?" the question came out before he could stop it. It was safe, impersonal territory. A topic that wasn't them.

Katsuki seemed almost relieved at the change of subject. He spun the coffee can between his fingers.

"It was… interesting. Lots of work. Strong people, but full of themselves. Lots of marketing, lots of show for the camera." He shrugged, a familiar motion. "Learned some things. Saw others that weren't worth the effort. A bunch of idiots thinking they were better than everyone."

He paused, his eyes narrowing slightly, about to complete —

"—But they weren't better than —"

"—You," Izuku completed, without looking at him.

The phrase hung in the air. Izuku was horrified with himself. He'd done it. Let it slip. It was an unpermitted intimacy, a return to an old, dangerous pattern.

Katsuki stopped spinning the can. He slowly turned his head and stared at Izuku. His red eyes were wide, surprised, and something more… a flash of something warm, of recognition. And then, something unexpected happened.

Katsuki laughed.

It wasn't the loud, challenging laugh of before. It was a short, rough, genuine laugh that seemed to surprise him as much as it did Izuku. A sound that came from a real place, not from performance.

"Yeah," he said, the ghost of a smile still touching his lips, a rare and disarming phenomenon. "Exactly that."

For a second, the ice cracked. For a second, they weren't ex-somethings in a convenience store. They were Kacchan and Deku, and Deku always knew what Kacchan was going to say. It was a moment of connection so natural and deep it hurt.

Katsuki's smile disappeared as quickly as it appeared, replaced by a deeper seriousness. He looked at the untouched onigiri. The atmosphere changed. The safe topic had run its course. The elephant in the convenience store – enormous, loud, destroying shelves – could no longer be ignored.

Izuku saw the tension return to Katsuki's shoulders. Saw his fingers tighten on the coffee can. Saw him take a deep breath, as if preparing for a leap. He was trying to gather courage. To speak. To broach the subject of the message, the fight, everything.

And Izuku… Izuku didn't want to. The fear returned, overwhelming. He couldn't bear to hear what Katsuki had to say. Not now. Not here, under the cold lights, with the smell of udon and coffee between them. It would be too real. Too ugly. It might destroy the fragile, sweet moment that had just happened, the moment when he completed his sentence and Katsuki laughed.

So, in an act of cowardice or self-preservation – he couldn't tell the difference – it was Izuku who spoke first, cutting the tension before it could materialize into words.

"Why did you come back?"

The question came out more direct than he intended, blunt, loaded with all the confusion he felt.

Katsuki stopped. The breath he'd been holding to speak came out in a silent sigh. He turned completely on the stool to face Izuku, his red eyes probing the green ones, as if searching for the real question behind the words. Why did you come back… to Japan? To U.A.? Close to me?

The silence that followed was dense, heavy. Katsuki didn't look away. He seemed to be wrestling with himself, weighing every word, every syllable, on an invisible scale. The fluorescent light highlighted the shadows under his eyes, the tiredness he also carried.

Izuku held his breath. Part of him, the wounded and insecure part, hoped to hear something like "Because of you" or "To talk to you." Another part, realistic and frightened, expected something like "Nothing to do with you" or "Professional matters."

Katsuki finally broke eye contact. He looked ahead, through the window, at the dark night outside. His jaw moved, he swallowed dryly.

"Needed to sort out some unfinished business," he said, his voice low, but clear.

The phrase landed like a stone on the Formica counter between them. Unfinished business. It was a vague, impersonal word that could mean everything and nothing. It could include Izuku. It might not.

Izuku felt an immediate, sharp relief, instantly followed by a disappointment so deep it made him sick. The relief came because Katsuki hadn't said something worse, hadn't opened the door to total conflict. The disappointment came because… he hadn't said anything better. He hadn't said "for you." The tiny, ridiculous hope he hadn't even admitted to himself, that Katsuki's return had a direct and meaningful connection to him, withered and died right there.

"Oh," was all Izuku could manage to say, his voice a breath.

Katsuki looked at him again, quickly, as if seeking a reaction. He saw Izuku's face closing off, his eyes shifting to the bowl of cold udon. He opened his mouth as if to add something, explain, but seemed to think better of it. Instead, he finished the coffee in one gulp, crushed the can with a brusque motion, and picked up the onigiri.

"Yeah," he said, getting up from the stool. His presence, now standing, seemed even larger, more dominant in the small store. He looked uncomfortable, anxious to leave that charged space. "I… gotta go."

Izuku just nodded, not looking up.

Katsuki hesitated for a fraction of a second, his eyes fixed on the nape of Izuku's neck, the curve of his shoulders under the jacket. It seemed like he wanted to say something more, maybe a "see you" or a "take care." But the words didn't come. Instead, he just turned and started walking towards the door.

The sound of his footsteps on the linoleum echoed in Izuku's empty heart. Unfinished business. The word spun in his mind, meaningless, without comfort.

He was about to leave. The door would close, and Izuku would be alone there again, with his cold udon and his bitter disappointment.

Then, he stopped.

Katsuki stopped at the door, his hand already on the handle. He didn't turn around, but his voice, lower now, laden with something Izuku couldn't decipher – frustration? Determination? – echoed in the quiet store:

"Goodnight, Deku."

And before Izuku could process, much less respond, the door opened, the bell chimed, and he was gone.

Izuku sat still, looking at the empty space where Katsuki had been. The air seemed different, as if it had been sucked out and then replaced. "Goodnight, Deku." Not "Izuku." It was "Deku." The childhood nickname, once an insult, then a codename, and now… what was it? A habit? A leftover taunt? A term of endearment in disguise?

And "unfinished business." What the hell was "unfinished business"?

The clerk coughed discreetly, reminding Izuku he wasn't alone in the world. He looked at his bowl of udon, now a cold, unappetizing mass. His appetite had vanished completely.

He got up, left the bowl and the tea bottle on the return counter, and left the store, the bell chiming behind him like a funeral bell.

On the way home, the night air felt colder. The brief interaction burned in his mind, every detail being analyzed. Katsuki's laugh. The moment of connection. The question. The vague answer. The goodbye.

Needed to sort out some unfinished business.

The phrase was a labyrinth. Izuku could spend the whole night trying to find the exit, the hidden meaning. But the simplest truth, and perhaps the most painful, was that Katsuki hadn't given him a real answer. He had kept a wall up. He had come back, yes. He was here, yes. But the why… remained closed territory.

And somehow, that was worse than if he had said "I didn't come back because of you." At least that would have been a clear rejection. This was a limbo. A torturous possibility left hanging in the air.

When he entered his apartment again, the silence greeted him with an oppressive hug. He felt more alone than before he left. Because now, besides the memory of the fight and the ghost of the touch on his wrist, he had a new memory to torment him: the sound of Katsuki's rough laugh, the surprised glint in his red eyes, and the bitter taste of an answer that was no answer at all.

Katsuki Bakugou had come back to sort out "unfinished business." And Izuku Midoriya, whether he liked it or not, seemed to have just become the most complicated and urgent piece of it.

The following two weeks slid over Musutafu with the deceptive smoothness of a well-sharpened blade. For Izuku Midoriya, they were fourteen days of meticulously constructed normality, a sandcastle built on the edge of a sea he refused to look at.

The evasion strategy worked, perhaps because the universe, for once, decided to cooperate. There were no accidental encounters in hallways, no ghostly touches on wrists, no black and orange motorcycles at traffic lights that weren't his. The only physical reminder of the reunion was the ever-fainter echo of that single rough laugh, muffled by routine.

Routine became his ally, his armor. Waking up, dressing in his teacher's blazer, strong coffee in the U.A. mug that had a crack in the saucer. Walking to school under the gray November sky. Classes. Explanations about force vectors and hero ethics. Smiles for students. Lunches in the cafeteria, usually with Iida, who debated pedagogical efficiency, or with Ochaco and Shoto, whose worried looks he had learned to deflect with small talk about the weather or freshman performance.

"You've been missing from missions, Izuku," Ochaco commented one such afternoon, poking her curry with a fork. "All Might's agency asked if you're on medical leave."

"I'm not," he replied, smiling the calm smile he'd practiced in the mirror. "Just focusing on teaching. The end of the term is intense, and the students need it. And I… need some quieter time."

Shoto, across the table, watched him silently, his heterochromatic gaze hovering between caution and understanding. "Quiet time is good. Until it stops being quiet and becomes just… emptiness. You have to be careful of the line, Midoriya."

"I am," Izuku assured, and in that moment, he even believed it. "I just need to get my mind in order. Then I'll be back."

It was the truth, but not all of it. He wasn't just "getting his mind in order." He was conducting a radical mental triage, putting everything related to Katsuki Bakugou in a safe, spinning the dial, and burying the key. The drunk message? A lapse. The hallway encounter? An accident. The convenience store scene?… That one was harder to catalog. Sometimes, in the quiet of the night, the sound of that laugh returned, and with it a pang of something warm and dangerous. He quickly drowned it in lesson plans or the tired repetitions of some TV show.

Hero work, the other half of his soul, was deliberately put on pause. He accepted only short, solitary night patrols, routes he knew were other heroes' territory, areas where the probability of crossing paths with a certain explosive hero was nil. It wasn't fear of combat. It was fear of context. A forced joint mission by the agency was a risk his fragile balance couldn't take. "Needed to sort out some unfinished business," the phrase echoed like a warning. Izuku didn't want to be "unfinished business" resolved in the heat of battle, with shouts and explosions as the backdrop.

News of Katsuki, however, came like smoke on the wind. It was impossible to live in the hero world and not hear about Dynamight. He was active. Very active. Agency reports mentioned his decisive handling of medium-scale incidents in adjacent districts. A brief mention in an online article about the "efficient reintegration of heroes after international missions." Nothing about lectures at U.A. yet. Just rumors in the hallways among the more connected teachers: "Heard Bakugou agreed to do some practical workshops, but Nezu and All Might are structuring the logistics so as not to disrupt the end of term." Izuku silently thanked educational bureaucracy.

All Might was a constant beacon. Not intrusive, but present. An invitation for tea after class, a quick hug in the hallway that no longer caught Izuku off guard but still gave him the same solid warmth. The man seemed to understand that Izuku needed that silent safe harbor, and offered it without demanding explanations. One such afternoon, in the empty conference room, drinking hibiscus tea, All Might looked at him and said, without preamble:

"The stillness you seek, young Midoriya… sometimes it's necessary to hear ourselves. But be careful not to confuse healthy silence with the silence of escape. One is a refuge. The other, a prison."

Izuku smiled, genuinely. "I know the difference, All Might. I'm still in the refuge. I promise."

And he believed it. In the passing days, the acute panic of the first encounter gave way to an accepted weariness. The shame of the drunk message was being buried under a pile of reports to grade. The longing, that hungry monster, was being tamed by the exhaustion of routine. He went home after work, made simple meals, read a little, watched something bland on TV, slept. It was a flat life, without peaks of joy, but also without abysses of pain. It was sustainable. It was… quiet.

On a Friday night, two weeks after the cold udon, he was in his apartment. Fine rain traced lines on the living room window, mirroring the scene of that distant night when the doorbell rang and it all began. But today, the doorbell remained silent. The only light came from the laptop screen, open on a semester-end evaluation form. A cup of green tea cooled beside it. The silence was complete, but no longer oppressive. It was a silence he had chosen, that he controlled.

For an instant, he looked at his own hand, resting beside the keyboard. His right wrist seemed ordinary, innocuous. The phantom mark of the touch had finally dissipated. The geography of the disaster was being buried under the dust of the everyday.

He sighed, a sound of tiredness, but not of despair. The two weeks had passed. No sign of Katsuki nearby. Only distant news of a hero doing his job. The sandcastle was still standing. The sea remained calm, withdrawn.

Izuku Midoriya was, if not happy, in an acceptable state of peace. An armed, guarded peace, but peace, in the end. It was the most he could aspire to. And on that rainy, silent night, with bureaucratic work before him and the memory of a paternal hug still warming his core, it seemed enough.

He didn't know, of course, that calm is often the perfect prelude to the storm. That Katsuki Bakugou's "unfinished business" was a precision clock whose hands were approaching, without a sound, the moment of the alarm. And that the next chapter of his life wouldn't be written in the slow ink of routine, but in the explosive, passionate stroke of a pursuit that had finally decided to step out of the shadows and run, chest open, after what it had always desired.

But that… that was a problem for the next day. For the next week. For the next chapter. That night, there was only the rain, the cold tea, the fragile peace, and the belief that, perhaps, he could learn to live this way.

Chapter Text

The convenience store bell tinkled behind Katsuki like a metallic echo of his own flight, a sound that seemed to repeat endlessly in the vacuum of his mind. The night air, which before was just cool and mundane, now felt like a deliberate ice blade against his overheated skin, punishing him for his cowardice. Each step toward the motorcycle parked in the shadow was mechanical, driven by an internal engine of pure panic and a self-directed frustration so intense he could almost taste it on his tongue, mixed with the residue of the iced coffee he hadn't been able to savor.

Idiot. Idiot. IDIOT.

The word hammered in his skull in rhythm with his steps, a cruel, syncopated percussion. He wasn't sure which of the two the insult was aimed at. Himself, for fleeing once again, even when his whole body, every instinctive fiber, screamed to stay? Izuku, for asking the question no one else would have the courage to ask, the question that pierced the fragile varnish of his new controlled persona? Or at the "unfinished business," an answer so cowardly, so vague and profoundly inadequate that it now burned his tongue just to remember, as if he'd ingested acid?

He reached the bike, a black and orange machine that seemed like a sculptural extension of his own contained aggression. But there, at that moment, it was just a cold, silent object, a mute sentinel of his failure. His hands, usually so firm, so sure, so capable of controlling explosions that could level buildings, trembled slightly as he pulled the keys from his jacket pocket. The tremor was minuscule, imperceptible to anyone but him, but to Katsuki it was a sign of weakness as glaring as a scream. The image was seared behind his eyes, a persistent negative: Izuku, under the harsh, white light of the fluorescents that washed away any color, on a ridiculous plastic stool, hunched over a bowl of udon that was probably already cold, congealed in its own grease. That simple, old hoodie, the dark green hair more disheveled than usual, as if he'd run his hands through it countless times in stress. And the shoulders. The shoulders carrying a weight that Katsuki knew so well — a weight that he himself, with his own hands and words, had helped place there, brick by brick of hurt.

He jammed the key into the ignition, the cold metal a shock against his damp palm, but didn't turn it. He rested his hands on the handlebars, feeling the rough texture of the rubber, and let his forehead drop to touch his interlaced hands. The helmet, hanging on the handlebar, swayed slightly. He closed his eyes, seeking darkness, but found only the high-definition projection of his own disaster.

And what he saw wasn't the scene he'd just left — the awkward departure, the "goodnight, Deku" tossed like a desperate throw — but a variation of it, a deviation from reality so vivid and detailed it pierced him with the force of a chest explosion, without fire, just pure impact. In this fantasized scene, he didn't get up. Didn't speak of "unfinished business." They remained seated, side by side, the half-meter distance between the stools evaporating like smoke under the heat of the moment. The bored clerk vanished, the store emptied, the outside world dissolved. And under the counter, in that private, secret space, his hand — the same one that weeks before had held his wrist in the U.A. hallway with a mix of authority and desperation — slid cautiously across the cold. The fingers, which knew only the language of controlled violence, of lethal precision, found Izuku's. Those long fingers, marked by a constellation of old and new scars, always moving, always analyzing, always anxious. And then, in an act of courage that real life, the thorny, trap-filled reality, denied him so cruelly, he interlaced them.

The image was so vivid he could almost feel it. Izuku's softer skin against the calloused roughness of his. The accelerated pulse, the fast, vital heartbeat thumping against his palm like the flapping of a trapped bird. The quietness that would settle between them wouldn't be of awkwardness or fear, but of a deep understanding, so deep it would dispense with words. Then, perhaps, Izuku would raise that green gaze, not full of the fear and exhausted weariness he'd seen, but with a flash of that old, pure, disarming admiration, mixed with something new, warmer, more intimate, something that belonged only to them, born in the cracks of all their fights and having survived.

They could be like this.

The phrase, not a thought but a visceral realization, was a direct, unannounced punch to the solar plexus. It stole his breath right there, in the dark street, leaning against the cold bike. It was obvious. It was devastating. It was the irrefutable proof of how he had ruined everything.

If I hadn't been the biggest asshole in the universe.

The fight. Always, inevitably, his thoughts were dragged to that vortex, the epicenter of the entire disaster, the emotional singularity where their universe collapsed. He couldn't think of it without a wave of self-hatred so intense, so absolute, it was a physical experience. A lead weight in his stomach, a tightness in his chest, a buzz of shame in his ears. The words he'd said that night weren't just angry, weren't just the heat of the moment. They were poisonous. Forged in the darkest forge of his fear, sharpened with the precision of someone who knows the target better than themselves, and designed to cause maximum damage in the place he knew Izuku was most vulnerable: in his infinite kindness, his excessive care, his heart that he offered, naked and open, as an act of faith.

"Suffocating." The word that turned Izuku's attention, his anchor in so many storms, into something oppressive, a shackle.
"Pity."The word that reduced the most stubborn love he'd ever known into something small, condescending, disgusting.
"Veiled condemnation."The most unfair accusation, the one that painted Izuku's concern as a silent judgment, a secret belief in his weakness.

At the time, blinded by rage and panic, he'd believed that. Or at least, forced himself to believe. He believed Izuku's constant concern was a shadow disguised as contempt, a sophisticated way of keeping him small, of reminding him he would always need someone. It was a narrative his pride, bleeding and wounded, eagerly accepted.

But the months of forced solitude, the deafening void of physical and emotional distance, had acted as a cruel, slow solvent. They dissolved the thick ink of anger, the easy justification, and revealed the naked, ugly, unavoidable truth underneath: he was afraid. A primal fear, rooted in years of building himself as an impenetrable fortress. Fear of the overwhelming intensity of what he felt for Izuku. Fear that if he allowed himself to be cared for, if he allowed himself to need, if he allowed himself to be vulnerable, he'd be admitting a weakness that his carefully constructed identity based on invincibility and absolute self-sufficiency couldn't accommodate without cracking to the core. So, he attacked. He turned the purest, most stubborn, most real love he'd ever known — because yes, even in the middle of confusion and rivalry, deep in his soul he'd always known, with an atavistic certainty, that it was love — into a weapon. And aimed it directly at the exposed heart of the only boy who had ever loved him unconditionally.

And it worked. Brilliantly. Izuku withdrew. The light in his eyes, that stubborn, resilient light that shone even in the worst moments, the worst defeats, that illuminated dark hallways and gave strangers hope, went out. Not all at once, but in a slow, painful fading that Katsuki witnessed in real time, paralyzed by his own monstrous pride. And Katsuki, the supreme coward, used that withdrawal, that devastation he himself caused, as the perfect excuse to do what he'd always done best when scared: flee. The transfer to Osaka, then the assignment in the United States, weren't brilliant career opportunities, coveted promotions. They were self-imposed exiles. Golden prisons where he could be the hero, the best, the invincible, far from the living, broken mirror that was Izuku Midoriya.

He raised his head, his red eyes burning in the darkness with a fury turned entirely inward. An unbearable thought, a torturous counterfactual, arose: If I had stayed quiet. If I had just… crossed the room that night and grabbed him, instead of opening my mouth. If I had shown with a gesture, with a touch, what I couldn't say with words… If I had kissed him instead of spitting venom…

The pain of the lost possibility was a twisted knife. It was then that another flashback, older and infinitely more painful precisely for being so full of genuine hope, of a future that seemed tangible, invaded his mind without permission, dragging him into a past that now seemed to belong to another life.

Flashback – Three Weeks Before The Big Fight

The air inside the jewelry store "Aeterna" was quiet, laden with a discreet scent of polished wood and velvet. Soft, focused lights illuminated the display cases, making gold, platinum, and diamonds glitter like captive stars. Katsuki felt like a dinosaur in a fine china shop. Every movement of his seemed too big, too brusque, threatening to upset the precious balance of the place.

Beside him, Eijiro Kirishima looked like a fish out of water multiplied by ten. The hero with the Hardening Quirk scratched the back of his neck, his expression a comic mix of bewilderment and discomfort, as if he were about to be accused of a crime.

"Dude, seriously," Kirishima whispered, lowering his head as if they were on an infiltration mission, "I don't know if I'm the right person to help you with this. My expertise is in things that break, preferably with heroic impact. Not in… things that shine, are small, and cost more than my apartment."

"Shut up and help me look," Katsuki growled in response, but his voice lacked the usual gruff ferocity. It sounded more like a disguised request. He was nervous. His hands, shoved deep into his leather jacket pockets, were damp with cold sweat. His eyes, usually so focused and analytical on a battlefield, scanned the rows of rings under the lights like a lost radar, not searching for a specific design, but feeling the symbolic, almost physical weight of each piece. It was uncharted territory, more intimidating than any villain.

"It's… for him, right?" Kirishima asked, his voice still a whisper, but laden with sudden, profound understanding. His scarlet eyes widened a bit.

Katsuki didn't answer. He didn't need to. His silence, the way his shoulders got a little tenser, was confirmation enough. He nodded, an almost imperceptible movement, his eyes fixed on a pair of simple white gold wedding bands in a side display case.

"Holy shit, Bakubro," Kirishima breathed, a slow, amazed, and slightly dazed smile beginning to spread across his face. "You're… you're really going all in. Like, all in all in."

"It's not 'going all in,'" Katsuki automatically retorted, defensive, but without the usual heat. It was a reflex. "It's just… a statement. I want him to know. To understand. Once and for all. No room for doubt or for my own shitty communication."

He stopped in front of the display case. There they were. Among rings with vulgar diamonds and overly intricate designs, there was a pair of bands that seemed tailor-made for their complicated simplicity. Matte white gold, with a slight polish on the edges that created a subtle contrast. Clean lines, no adornments, no stones. Solid. Durable. Beautiful in their austerity. A matte finish that faintly resembled post-explosion smoke, a discreet shine that promised to withstand time and wear. They were… perfect.

"These," he said, his voice coming out softer, lower than he ever intended inside that quiet store.

The jeweler, an elderly man with thin-rimmed glasses and a professional but non-intrusive smile, approached. With careful gestures, he retrieved the black velvet box containing the two bands. Katsuki took one of them, the smaller of the pair. It was surprisingly light in his hand, but carried a symbolic weight that anchored him to the ground. He held it between his thumb and forefinger, turning it under the light. He imagined it on Izuku's finger. How it would look against his skin, paler than his. How the matte metal would contrast with the creases and scars marking his knuckles. What it would mean. Not an end, but a beginning. A commitment to try. A physical, tangible promise to not run away anymore. To stay. To try to do it right, even when it was hard, even when anger and fear tried to speak louder.

"You're gonna ask him to marry you?" Kirishima gasped, his eyes practically popping out of their sockets, his voice a bit louder than acceptable in that environment.

"No, you idiot," Katsuki grumbled, but there was no real heat in the reprimand. There was an undertone of… sweet nervousness. "Not yet. It's… a first step. A symbol. Something concrete. To say 'I'm in this. For real. To the end. And you… are you with me?' Something we can wear, or carry, until… until we're ready for more."

In that moment, in the quiet, softly lit jewelry store, he had felt a fierce courage sprouting from a place he didn't even know existed. A steel determination to break the destructive pattern that had always defined their most important interactions. To be better. To be worthy of that disarming green smile and that huge, resilient, stubborn heart. He paid a considerable deposit without blinking, arranged to pick up the bands — already engraved inside with simple "K" and "I" initials — the following week. He left the store with his heart beating hard and fast, not with the rhythm of fear or anger, but with the electric cadence of pure anticipation. For the first time in his life, he allowed himself to see a clear future, not as a vague aspiration to be the number one hero, but as a vivid, detailed panorama: him, Izuku, and a pair of simple rings, perhaps hanging from discreet chains under their hero uniforms, until the day came when they were ready, truly ready, to slide them onto each other's fingers, under the gaze of friends and the sun.

That courage, that crystalline hope, lasted exactly nineteen days. Nineteen days of secret planning, mental rehearsals, observing Izuku with a new, purposeful gaze. Until the night of the fight. Until fatigue, stress, and his own inner monster aligned perfectly. Until he opened his mouth and, in a fit of self-destructive panic, spat poison directly into the heart of the very dream he was about to try to realize. The bands were never picked up. The deposit was lost in some distant bureaucracy. The future collapsed into rubble of sharp words and closed doors.

End of Flashback

A low, rough groan, more like the sound of a wounded animal, escaped Katsuki's lips there in the dark street, still leaning against the cold bike. The pain of the memory wasn't just emotional; it was a physical sensation, sharp, as if someone had reached into his chest and squeezed his heart tightly. He had been so close. One decision, one gesture away, from a radically different life. From waking up next to Izuku, with morning light filtering through curtains that weren't just his. From arguing about which cereal brand was less sugary, about who forgot to buy milk. From coming home after a long, exhausting mission and being greeted not by the silence of an empty apartment, but by that smile that had the power to light up even the darkest corner of his soul. From having the right, earned and given, to hold his hand in public without needing an excuse, to whisper stupid, private things in his ear, to protect him not as a rival or a colleague, but as someone who was his, and to whom he belonged in return.

And he had thrown it all away. With both hands. With a conscious effort of sabotage. Out of sick pride. Out of cowardly fear. For being an explosive, emotionally illiterate idiot who confused vulnerability with weakness, and love with a threat to his self-sufficient identity.

The anger that arose then had no external target. It was an internal fire, fueled by liters of gasoline from self-loathing. With a brusque, almost violent motion, he turned the key in the ignition. The bike's engine roared to life, a powerful, gut-deep roar that echoed in the quiet street and suited perfectly the silent turmoil roaring inside him. He shoved the helmet on forcefully, the dark visor instantly creating an isolated, monochromatic, claustrophobic world, and took off, plunging into the night like a missile fleeing from itself.

The ride to his apartment was a blur of streetlights, traffic lights, and shadows. He didn't see the streets, didn't register the routes. He only saw, projected on the dark visor like a sad film, Izuku's face in the convenience store. The initial expression of mute shock upon seeing him. The gaze that turned analytical, cautious. The subtle, but sharp as a paper cut, disappointment after the answer about "unfinished business." That final "Oh," small, disappointed, defeated. The word echoed in his mind, a funeral bell.

His apartment, when he finally arrived, was the living antithesis of Izuku's. Where Izuku's was cozy, a bit messy, full of books, hero memorabilia and a latent warmth of life, his was functional. Clean. Almost sterile. Everything had a place, and everything was in its place. It smelled of neutral cleaner and stale air. It was the space of someone who didn't spend much time at home, and when he did, didn't bother to leave marks. The door closed behind him with a soft, definitive click, isolating him from the world. The silence that enveloped him then was different from the loaded silence of the convenience store. This was an empty, amplified silence, laden only with the echo of his own demons, which now seemed to speak all at once, in accusatory unison.

He tossed the keys and helmet onto a wooden chair by the entrance, the objects hitting with a dry noise that seemed obscenely loud. He walked to the kitchen, his footsteps echoing on the light wood floor. Opened the refrigerator, the cold blue light exploding in the room's gloom, only to stare at the almost empty shelves: a water bottle, some condiments, an apple beginning to shrivel. He slammed it shut. He wasn't hungry. He had a void in the center of his chest, a dark, hungry gap that no food in the world could fill. It was a void shaped like Izuku.

The agitation inside him was unsustainable. A nervous, frustrated energy that needed an outlet, an escape that wasn't blowing up his own walls. He needed to talk. Desperately needed someone who understood him, who saw the smoking mess he was and didn't flee in horror, who would pull him back to reality, however painful it was. There was only one person in the universe who met those criteria.

He pulled his phone from his pocket, his hands a bit steadier now, but not entirely stable. Scrolled through his contacts with his thumb, ignoring agency names, hero colleagues, professional contacts, until he found what he was looking for. Touched the call. It was answered almost on the second ring, as if the other end had been waiting.

"Bakubro? Everything okay?" Eijiro Kirishima's voice came through, cheerful as always, but with the muffled sound of a TV or game in the background, the normal soundtrack of a night off.

"I saw him," Katsuki said, without preamble, without greeting. The words came out in a gush, rough from the contained emotion and the motorcycle ride. It was a nuclear fact that needed to be declared immediately.

There was a perceptible pause on the other end. The background noise lowered drastically, almost disappearing. "Deku?" Kirishima asked, his voice instantly becoming serious, focused. "Where? How?"

"Convenience store. The 24-hour one near his apartment," Katsuki reported, the words coming out in short bursts, as if they were painful shards to expel. "He was alone. Eating udon. Looked like… a damn tired ghost."

"And…?" Kirishima pressed, his voice a conductive wire, pulling the story out of him. "What happened? Did you talk to him?"

"I sat down next to him," Katsuki admitted, starting to pace back and forth in the empty room, the phone pressed to his ear. The movement helped contain the energy threatening to make him shake. "We talked. A little. He asked about the US. I… almost managed to talk for real. It was weird. Even… we even laughed together, for a second." The memory of that brief laugh, the momentary, familiar connection, hurt now in a bittersweet way. It was proof that something still existed, but also a reminder of how easy it was when they allowed it.

"That's great, man!" Kirishima sounded genuinely hopeful, an optimism that seemed almost offensive in that context. "It's a start! A civilized contact! That's more than you had a week ago!"

"It's not great!" the explosion came in Katsuki's voice, laden with all the frustration fermenting inside him. He stopped in the middle of the room, looking at his own shadow projected on the wall by the streetlight. "Because then he asked. He looked at me and asked why I came back. And I… I fucked it up. I froze. My mouth went dry. And I said it was to 'sort out some unfinished business.' Unfinished business, Ei! What the hell kind of absurd bullshit is that? Sounded like I had to renew my car license or pick up a package from the post office!"

On the other end of the line, Kirishima let out a long, deep, expressive sigh. It was a sound that carried years of friendship, of witnessing idiocies, of patience being constantly tested. "Bakugou…" he began, in a tone that was both resigned and disappointed.

"I KNOW!" Katsuki interrupted, the anger now turned entirely on himself, his voice a muffled roar in the empty apartment. He ran a hand over his face, rubbing his skin as if he could erase Izuku's expression from there. "I know I was an idiot. I know I was a colossal piece of shit, of a rare and special category. I had the chance in my hand, the fucking golden chance to start fixing things, to say something worthwhile, that meant something, and what do I blurt out? 'UNFINISHED BUSINESS'! He must have thought I'm here for a press conference or to sign a sponsorship contract! That I'm so shallow, so… so empty that the only reason I'm back is bureaucratic!"

The self-flagellation was an overflowing river. He needed it, but also needed someone to contain it.

"Then why didn't you say it?" Kirishima asked, straight to the point, without beating around the bush. It wasn't a judgment in a high tone; it was a demand for logic, for an explanation that made sense in the chaos. "If you know all this, if you're punishing yourself so much, why did you freeze at the crucial moment?"

Katsuki stopped in the middle of the room, looking at his own hands, open before him as if he could see the answer written in the lines of his palm. The hands that could generate explosions capable of knocking down buildings, that knew the exact pressure to immobilize without hurting, that, in a parallel universe, would be interlaced with others, softer ones. The hands that wanted to touch, calm, reclaim, but that in practice only seemed to know how to destroy.

"Because I looked at him," Katsuki's voice broke, losing all its defensive roughness, becoming a rough, vulnerable whisper, almost childlike in its raw honesty. "And I saw the tiredness. The hurt. My hurt, planted and cultivated for months. And I… I got scared. A fear of ice in my veins. Scared that if I threw the truth out there, on that Formica counter lit by office lights, with the smell of cheap udon in the air… if I said 'I came back because of you, I need to apologize to you, I need to try again,' everything would collapse for good. That he would get up, those green eyes would go completely empty, and he'd leave and never look at me again. 'Unfinished business' was… safe. It was a cowardly lie, but it was a lie that bought time. That kept the door ajar, even if just by a centimeter."

On the other end, the silence was heavy. Kirishima was processing. When he spoke again, his voice was softer, but still firm, like steel forged in low heat. "Time for what, man?" the question was a precision knife. "For you to keep stalling? You've already spent months stalling! Fleeing! He sent a message, Bakugou! A drunk, wrong message, but one that basically called you home! The guy is clearly messed up over you too, even after everything! The ball isn't just in your court, it's rolled to your feet and stopped a long time ago, and you keep trying to kick it out, into the stands, anywhere but the goal!"

"I KNOW THAT!" Katsuki shouted, the sound echoing off the bare apartment walls, a cry of pure frustration and pain. He ran a hand through his hair, pulling it slightly, feeling the physical pain as minimal relief. "I know… I know it all. I am the problem. I always have been. The breaking point. The ticking time bomb." The admission came out in a tone of deep defeat, a surrender that was strange and terrible in his mouth, in the mouth of someone who never admitted defeat in anything.

Kirishima was silent for a long moment, letting that heavy truth, that brutal self-criticism, hang in the digital air between them. There was no way to contradict it. It was a fact. When he finally spoke, his voice had lost any trace of judgment. There was only solid pragmatism and unshakable loyalty.

"Listen. Regretting yourself to death, martyring yourself to dust, won't bring him back. Crying over spilled milk won't clean the floor. Were you an asshole? Yes. One of the biggest, most creative, and most destructive ones I've ever had the displeasure of knowing." Despite the harsh words, the tone was almost affectionate, from someone speaking a hard truth out of love. "But you're also the only guy I know who, when he finally decides to fix something — a technique, a piece of equipment, a battle plan — you don't stop. You don't give up. You don't accept 'good enough.' You get obsessed until it's perfect, or until you blow everything up in the trying. Apply that same stubborn, relentless, focused energy here. To this mess you made."

Katsuki took a deep breath, his friend's advice penetrating the thick fog of self-flagellation like a ray of sun through a storm. It was a perspective. An angle of attack. "How?" the question came out more like a tired sigh. "He's avoiding me. I feel it in the air. He's hiding behind teacher smiles and empty hallways."

"Of course he is!" Kirishima almost laughed, a dry, humorless sound. "You hurt him deeply, Bakugou! And then you came back with a 'hey, long time no see, came to sort out some unfinished business, all good?'! What reaction did you expect? Flowers and hugs? He's protecting himself! But you have an advantage now, one you yourself, involuntarily, created."

"What?" Katsuki asked, his brain, so good at combat strategy, trying to engage in this new battlefield.

"The so-called 'unfinished business,'" Kirishima said, and Katsuki could almost see the shrewd smile, the "gotcha" expression on his friend's face, even through the phone. "The talks at U.A. Remember? You start in two weeks, right? That's the deal. You'll be there. In his territory. Not as a visitor, not as an intruder. As a collaborator. Every day, or nearly. You'll have to look at his face, see him teach, see how he's naturally good and patient with others… You'll have to feel, in your face, every single day, how much you're missing from his life, and him from yours. It'll be torture. It'll be agonizing. But it'll also be your chance."

The prospect, described like that, was a nauseating mix of torture and opportunity. Katsuki felt a cold chill run down his spine at the same time that a heat of determination began to burn in his chest.

"It's your chance, Bakugou," Kirishima continued, his voice taking on a tone of fierce encouragement, the one he used before a tough fight. "Not to be the hero Dynamight. To be a man. A man who messed up badly and is willing to crawl over broken glass to fix it. You don't need to make a love speech in the middle of the schoolyard (please don't do that). But you need to stop running. You need to be present. Physically, emotionally available. And when the right chance appears — and it will, because Deku is stubborn as hell, but he's not made of iron, hurt hurts — you grab it. Not with explosions. With words. And this time, you speak the truth. All of it. Even the part that hurts like hell to admit. Especially the part that hurts."

Katsuki fell silent, processing. Kirishima's motivation was like a cold water bath followed by a therapeutic shock session: shocking, painful, but invigorating. The shame and regret, those familiar monsters, were still there, growling in their corners. But now they had a counterpoint: a clear direction. A mission. Tactical objectives. It was a language his brain understood.

"And if…" he began, his voice low, the deepest, most secret doubt forcing its way out, "…if I mess up again? If I open my mouth and only shit comes out, like always?"

The pause on the other end was charged. The answer, when it came, had not a drop of pity. It was the naked, raw, necessary truth.

"Then you'll have to live with it. You'll have to live knowing, for the rest of your life, that you had the love of the guy you've always loved — the only one who really mattered — in the palm of your hand, in a second chance you didn't even deserve, and let it slip through your fingers because you were a coward. Twice." Kirishima let the words fall, heavy as tombstones. "But you won't mess up. Not this time. Because this time, you're not fighting against him. You're not trying to prove you're better, or stronger, or that you don't need him. This time, you're fighting against your own shit. Against your pride, your fear, your inability to be vulnerable. And in that, in that specific battle of brutal self-improvement, man… you're the best there is. When you put your mind to something, you conquer it. Put your mind on conquering your own ass and being worthy of him."

The last sentence, said with Kirishima's typical crudeness, wrested a sound from Katsuki that might have been a muffled laugh, a sigh, or a groan. Probably all three. It was the reality check he needed.

Katsuki closed his eyes, far from the empty apartment, far from the phone. The image that arose wasn't of the rings in the jewelry store, but of Izuku, years ago, on the battlefield against All For One, covered in blood and dust, but with green eyes incandescent with absolute determination. The determination to save, to protect, to never give up. That was the person he loved. Someone who fought for things that were worth it, no matter the cost.

He couldn't get back the exact moment from the jewelry store, the naive hope of that day. But maybe… maybe he could forge something new. Something stronger, because born from the ashes of error. Something marked not by the clean perfection of a planned first step, but by the honest, sweaty, painful mess of a restart after a disastrous fall. A restart worth the effort.

"Two weeks," he murmured, more to himself than to Kirishima, testing the weight of the deadline on his tongue.

"Two weeks," Kirishima confirmed, his voice now decided. "Use them. Not to plan a movie speech, full of pretty phrases that don't sound like you. Use them to prepare to be honest. Brutally honest, but with yourself first. And remember: he loves you too. It might be buried under a pile of hurt, fear, and distrust, but he loves you. That's your anchor. Your only real advantage. Don't let go."

The call ended shortly after, with a simple "okay, thanks, Ei" from Katsuki and a "we're in this together, man" from the other side. The silence that followed in the apartment was of a different kind. Still heavy, but no longer oppressive. It was the silence after a storm has passed, revealing a ravaged landscape, but now illuminated by a clear moon showing the way forward.

Katsuki stood in the middle of the room, the phone still warm in his hand. The inner turmoil, that whirlwind of panic and frustration, hadn't disappeared, but had metamorphosed. It was no longer a directionless chaos, a destructive energy looking for a target. It was the nervous, concentrated, sharp energy of a soldier before a decisive battle. The anticipation of confrontation, the fear of failure, but also the ironclad determination to win, because this time victory meant everything.

He walked to the living room window, slightly parting the blinds with his fingers. Outside, Musutafu stretched out like a carpet of shimmering lights, a living, pulsating organism. Somewhere in that tangle of streets, buildings, and lives, Izuku was. In his cozy, lonely apartment. Perhaps already asleep. Perhaps awake, like him, turning over the same trivial conversation in his mind, chewing on the same disappointed "oh," trying to decipher the useless enigma of "unfinished business."

Katsuki looked at his own hand, open against the cold windowpane. The hand that had exploded so many things. The hand that held, and let go. The hand that, in an alternate reality, would slide a matte white gold ring onto another finger.

"Needed to sort out some unfinished business."

The phrase now sounded like the most pathetic of euphemisms. A failed code for a much larger truth.

The biggest piece of unfinished business is me, the final thought crystallized, not with the weight of paralyzing regret, but with the solidity of newly forged determination. The reconstruction project. The most important work. And I will resolve myself. I will fix what I broke, piece by piece, even if it takes a lifetime. I will show him, with actions, with presence, with patience (God, patience), that the love I have for him isn't just explosion and anger and blind impulse. That it's also permanence. It's coming back, always. It's apologizing until my voice is hoarse and still continuing. It's waiting. It's staying. Until he believes. Until he feels safe enough to believe.

It was an oath he made to himself, there, in the illuminated solitude of his functional apartment. An oath that no longer depended on rings in display cases, perfect plans, or fantasy scenarios. It depended only on him. On his courage, finally found not in the absence of fear, but in facing it. On not running away. On planting his feet on the ground of Gym Beta, the teachers' lounge, Izuku's life, and staying.

The two weeks that followed wouldn't be a purgatory of passive waiting. They would be a forge. A period of intense preparation, where every day would be a battle against his own destructive instincts, a lesson in self-control, a step toward the person he needed to be to be worthy of a second chance he didn't even have yet.

The deceptive calm was over. For Katsuki Bakugou, the storm — the careful, calculated, and passionate storm of winning back Izuku Midoriya — was officially declared. And he, with his heart beating a war rhythm in his chest and his eyes fixed on the city lights that held his treasure, did not intend to come out of it without winning. Or, at the very least, without fighting with everything he had, to his last breath.

Chapter Text

– WHAT?!

The word echoed through the principal’s office with enough force to make not just a pen holder, but an organized stack of reports on the solid cedar desktop tremble in unison, as if a small, localized earthquake had chosen that exact spot to manifest.

Izuku was on his feet, both flat, trembling hands braced on the polished surface, his body leaning forward at an angle that would defy the laws of physics if not sustained by pure shock. His green eyes, normally so expressive and focused, were wide as two full moons, pupils dilated, his mind spinning in circles so fast and desperate they generated a perceptible heat at his temples. He must have misheard. It was the only logical explanation. Post-finals stress, the sleepless nights replaying the convenience store conversation, the latent anxiety—it was all conspiring to play a cosmic-scale auditory trick on him. The universe couldn’t be that cruel.

Nezu, on the other side of the monumental desk that made him seem even smaller, blinked. Once. Twice. A slow, deliberate rhythm, like Morse code for pure serenity. His little paws were elegantly crossed on the desk's surface, and a cup of fine porcelain tea, from which a wisp of perfumed steam rose, rested beside him. The scene was one of almost insulting tranquility.

– I see the news has made an impact – the principal commented, in that calm, polite, and curiously satisfied tone of someone who had just dropped an emotional thermonuclear bomb in another person’s lap and was now fascinatedly watching the shockwave propagate.

– Impact is when a meteor hits the Earth, Principal Nezu! – Izuku corrected, his voice still an octave above normal, slightly shrill. He swallowed dryly, his throat parched like sand, trying to recover the composure of a teacher, a hero, a functional adult. He sat back down in the chair with a thud that made the wood groan, as if his legs had simply given up. – You can’t… I mean, there isn’t… there is absolutely no one else? In all of Japan? On the whole planet? The Hero Commission has a database! All Might knows people everywhere! Hawks must know someone charming and experienced who isn’t a… a walking catastrophe in terms of teaching!

– There are many qualified people, Midoriya – Nezu nodded, his small, permanent smile never faltering. – Many, indeed. But only one who possesses the exact, almost alchemical, combination of recent, high-stakes international combat experience, unquestionable and instant credibility with the students—who, let me tell you, practically worship him—and a… how shall I say… uniquely abrasive perspective on what it means to strive for the top. Something our students, coddled by self-help speeches and politically correct techniques, desperately need to hear.

– His uniquely abrasive perspective consists of shouting ‘DIE!’ while blowing things up and calling people ‘extras’ and ‘trash’! – the observation escaped Izuku’s lips before his professionalism, already worn thin by the shock, could intercept it. It sounded childish. It sounded true.

Nezu laughed, a high, genuine sound that seemed to echo off the tall bookshelves.

– Exactly! It is a decidedly unorthodox pedagogical methodology, I grant you. But potentially very effective for piercing certain teenage shells of arrogance and breaking lazy resistance. And, considering that young Bakugou agreed to participate only under the express condition of being able to be, and I quote verbatim, ‘brutally honest, without shitty filters or motivational comic book speeches,’ I firmly believe we will have… fascinating results. Priceless empirical data.

A cold, viscous sweat trickled down Izuku’s spine from his neck to his tailbone, as if an insect made of ice had decided to take a stroll. Brutally honest. The words, laden with that rough, familiar voice, surfaced not as a memory but as a physical attack. He could hear them again, in that now-cursed apartment, each syllable a shard of glass: suffocating, pity, veiled condemnation. He squeezed his eyes shut for a second, as if he could crush the memories between his eyelids.

– Principal… – he began, trying for a rational, planning tone. – I understand, intellectually, the symbolic and even practical value Bakugou can bring. I really do. But… the logistics. My workload is already maxed out, the semester reports are piling up like an avalanche, the first-year evaluations…

– Ah, don’t worry about such mundane details! – Nezu interrupted, animated, making a broad gesture with one paw that nearly knocked over the teacup. – We’ve already spoken extensively with All Might and completely reorganized your weekly schedule. You will be graciously relieved of two of your advanced tactics classes for the third years; Professor Aizawa will be delighted to absorb them, he loves a logistical challenge. Instead, you will act as the official mediator and head pedagogical coordinator for Dynamight’s sessions here at U.A.!

The room didn’t just spin slightly; it performed a full, clumsy pirouette. Izuku gripped the arms of the chair so hard his knuckles went white against the dark wood. Mediator. Head pedagogical coordinator. With Bakugou. The words crashed around in his brain like rogue billiard balls.

– M-mediator? – he stammered, his voice a breath. – Coordinator… pedagogical? With… with Bakugou? Principal, with all due respect, the last time I tried to ‘coordinate’ something with him, it was a decade ago and it was about which route to take during a patrol, and he blew up a traffic light to prove his way was faster!

– Yes! – Nezu seemed radiant, his small black eyes gleaming with pure intellectual delight. – It is precisely that intrinsic dynamic, that… creative friction, that we seek to channel! Someone must, of course, ensure the transmitted content—no matter how explosive, idiomatic, and potentially traumatizing—is minimally aligned with our curricular objectives and our fundamental ethical values. And who better to exercise this delicate role of filter and bridge than his former classmate, who knows him so intimately well, and our most promising assistant teacher, who embodies like no one else the true spirit of U.A.? It’s a perfect partnership! Pure synergy! The kind of collaboration that generates academic papers!

Synergy. The word, said with such enthusiasm, rang in Izuku’s ears like a grotesque euphemism for ‘scheduled emotional minefield with a teenage audience.’ He could see his evasion strategy—those two weeks of precarious peace, meticulously built on hallway detours, alternate schedules, and a mental map of exclusion zones—collapse in real-time, turning into a pile of smoldering, useless rubble. They wouldn’t just be on the same campus. They’d be on the same project. Working together. Discussing… God, discussing lesson plans with Katsuki. Looking at the same whiteboard. Breathing the same stale gym air. The idea was so surreal it bordered on comical, if it weren’t so viscerally terrifying.

– And… – he swallowed again, his mouth dry. – When exactly is this… synergy… scheduled to begin? – The question was a thin thread of hope, a silent prayer for the answer to be ‘in six months,’ time enough for him to get a work visa for Alaska, or maybe volunteer for a long-term space observation mission.

– Today! – Nezu announced, with the euphoria of someone revealing a wonderful surprise gift. – The first experimental session is scheduled for this afternoon, with Class 3-A. An informal introduction, an ‘icebreaker,’ to assess the dynamic. Young Bakugou should be arriving any moment now to align the final logistical details and… ah, perfect! In fact…

The discreet but insistent bell of the principal’s office rang, a metallic, formal sound that cut the air like a guillotine.

– Come in! – Nezu called, his voice still cheerful.

The heavy wooden door opened. And Izuku’s world, already considerably tilted on its axis, decided, with definitive ill will, to capsize completely and catch fire.

Katsuki Bakugou entered the room.

But it wasn’t the entrance Izuku, in his worst preparatory nightmares, had imagined. There was none of the arrogant, expansive posture of the hero Dynamight on an official visit, nor the contained, electric aggression of the hallway encounter weeks before, nor even the cautious tension of the convenience store. He entered with a… disconcerting normality. Defiantly ordinary.

He wore dark jeans that looked new, a pair of practical but not ostentatious leather boots, and a black leather jacket open over a simple black cotton t-shirt, no logos. The look was casual, almost mundane, but on his body—wider, more solid than Izuku remembered, muscles outlined under the simple fabric—it seemed like a statement of contained strength. His blond hair, that eternal defiance of gravity and styling products, was less spiky, more… tamed. Still rebellious, but with a few strands falling over his forehead, softening the severe line of his brow. He carried a thin genuine leather briefcase under his arm, an accessory so absurdly professional in his hands it looked like a prop.

His red eyes—the color of embers under ash, of red wine under low light—scanned the room with scanner-like efficiency. They landed on Nezu, recognized the setting, and then, inevitably, like a compass needle finding magnetic north, found Izuku’s.

For a fraction of a second, a microsecond that Izuku, a lifelong scholar of Katsuki Bakugou’s body language (it had once been a survival discipline), captured with photographic clarity—something crossed Katsuki’s face. It wasn’t anger. It wasn’t disdain. It was a quick widening of his pupils, a slight tightening of the muscles around his mouth, a blink that was a fraction too fast. Genuine surprise. And, buried beneath it, a flash of… nervousness? It was so quick, so contrary to the man’s essence, that Izuku doubted his own senses. Then, as if a steel curtain had fallen, his expression smoothed into something neutral, controlled, professional. Almost polished. It was terrifying.

– Principal – Katsuki greeted, with a short, precise nod. His voice wasn’t a growl; it was firm, clear, a little rough from morning disuse, but perfectly audible and civilized.

– Bakugou, excellent punctuality! – Nezu gestured with both paws, like a happy conductor. – As you can see, Professor Midoriya is already fully briefed on our little—but vibrant!—collaboration. He will be your direct point of contact here at U.A., your pedagogical mediator, and, I hope, your partner in this educational endeavor.

Katsuki’s gaze shifted from Nezu and fixed back on Izuku. This time, the look wasn’t a fleeting X-ray; it was a prolonged inspection. It swept over his face, his teacher’s blazer, the hands clenched on the desk with imprisoning force. Izuku felt like a rare and particularly fragile specimen under a microscope of unprecedented power. He was frozen in his chair, his fingers interlocked so tightly his joints protested in silent pain. The air seemed to grow denser, hotter.

Then, Katsuki Bakugou did something Izuku was not prepared to witness, not in his most feverish hallucinations or most surreal nightmares.

The corners of his mouth—that mouth which usually twisted into an aggressive smirk or compressed into a line of contempt—curved slightly upward. It wasn’t a wide smile, not the mocking grin Izuku knew so intimately, the one he had dreamed of and feared in equal measure. It was a small, contained, almost… courteous smile. A minimal movement of facial muscles that transformed his severe expression into something different, more open, more… approachable. It was like watching a wolf bow.

– Midoriya – he said, and his voice wasn’t a roar, nor a loaded whisper. It was simply… a voice. A little rough at the edges, but clear. – Good morning.

Good morning.

Two words. The most banal, commonplace words in the language. An empty social nicety, exchanged between millions of people every day. In Katsuki Bakugou’s mouth, directed at him, in that room, after months of silence, an ugly fight, and a drunken text, they sounded like the most refined and disturbing form of psychological torture. Izuku was speechless. His tongue seemed glued to the roof of his mouth. His brain, so quick to analyze combat scenarios, completely locked up. He had expected a "Deku" laden with history and resentment, a challenging glare promising conflict, a heavy, eloquent silence. Not "Good morning, Midoriya." It was as if a lion, instead of roaring and attacking, approached, sat on its hind legs, and with a delicate wave of its paw, offered him a cup of tea. It was terrifying. It was wrong.

– Bakugou, please, have a seat. Let's discuss the ideal flow for today's session.

Katsuki nodded, a single, efficient movement. And then, instead of pulling out the chair across the table, the one that would have put the comforting (or inquisitive) figure of Nezu between them, he pulled out the chair next to Izuku. The wood scraped softly on the floor. He sat down.

Izuku could feel it. Not a touch, but the invasion of his personal space by a massive, vibrant, warm physical presence. The radiant heat from Katsuki's body, even half a meter away, was like an open furnace beside him. His faint scent invaded Izuku’s nostrils—not the metallic odor of nitroglycerin in use, but the clean, woody fragrance of an expensive bar soap, mixed with the leather of his jacket and something indescribably fundamental, a scent of skin, of clean sweat, of Katsuki that was so familiar it hurt. His brain, already on the fritz, began emitting a sharp, continuous, catastrophic-level internal alarm, a siren screaming: DANGER! ANOMALY DETECTED! EVASION PROTOCOL COMPROMISED!

This can't be happening. This is a fever dream. I must have passed out in the cafeteria yesterday and am now in a coma, and this is a twisted elaboration of my subconscious. Soon, All Might will come in dressed as the Easter Bunny, tap-dancing and handing out chocolate eggs with Endeavor's face on them.

Nezu began to speak, his voice a continuous, animated stream about learning objectives, interactive group dynamics (here, Katsuki emitted a low sound that could have been a snort of skepticism), physical and psychological safety limits (here, Nezu shot a significant, almost paternal look at Katsuki, who in response merely raised an eyebrow so eloquently it might as well have said “obviously, you super-intelligent rat, I’m not a completely irresponsible animal”).

Izuku tried to focus. He really did. He made a herculean effort to anchor his mind on Nezu’s words, on the practical details. But his consciousness was a mission control room after an explosion. Screens flashed error messages, alarms blared, smoke rose from the consoles.

He's sitting next to me. NEXT. TO. ME. If I stretch my arm, if I make a slight movement to the right, my elbow touches his. The heat… my God, his heat is real. Why does he smell… good? Shouldn't he smell like gunpowder, sour sweat, and pure arrogance? Is this some kind of chemical weapon? A paralyzing gas disguised as aromatherapy?

‘Good morning, Midoriya.’ MIDORIYA. Since when? Since when does he call me Midoriya? The last time he used my last name was… was during the fight. “Your concern is disgusting, Midoriya.” Now it’s “Good morning, Midoriya.” The universe has slipped out of orbit. I’ll wake up and find out Mineta is the new director of hero ethics.

Pedagogical mediator. I'm going to have to tell him things like, ‘Bakugou, perhaps we could approach the topic of emotional resilience without using the word ‘weakness’ followed by a practical demonstration of how to blast someone's insecurity into atoms.’ I'm going to have to give feedback. To Katsuki Bakugou. He'll look at me that way, the way that melts steel, and then he'll explode. It'll be recorded as a tragicomic workplace accident. ‘Assistant teacher vaporized during discussion of teaching methodologies.’ I'll get a touching plaque in the courtyard.

Katsuki, meanwhile, beside him, seemed absorbed in the discussion with Nezu. He had taken out a modern notepad and a pen from the briefcase and, with surprisingly legible, angular handwriting, was taking quick notes. He asked pointed, direct questions. "What's the structural load capacity of Gym Beta's floor?" "Is the exhaust system capable of handling dense smoke and suspended particles?" "Have the students and their guardians signed the expanded liability waiver, covering auditory, psychological trauma, and possible temporary hearing loss?"

It was… professional. Competent. Focused. Izuku felt a wave of absurd, potent indignation so strong it almost made him rise from his chair. Where's the guy who smashed digital whiteboards for losing in simulation exercises? Where's the guy who called my concern ‘disgusting’ and ‘suffocating’? Where's the Kacchan I… the Kacchan I know? Who is this impostor with a furrowed, concentrating brow and a leather briefcase, and what has he done with the explosive man who inhabited that body?

– Midoriya – Nezu's voice hooked him out of the whirlpool. – You will be in charge of introducing Bakugou to the class and moderating the Q&A session at the end. I believe your presence will have a… stabilizing effect. Calming, even.

Izuku nearly choked on his own breath, which suddenly seemed to have solidified in his lungs. Calming? Stabilizing? His presence near Katsuki Bakugou had the calming and stabilizing effect of a lit lighter inside a gas storage tank. It was a perfect recipe for catastrophe.

– Of course, principal – he forced the words out, shaping his facial muscles into a smile that felt as stiff and fake as a plaster mask. – ‘Calming’ is… one of my secondary specialties.

Beside him, he swore he heard a low, almost imperceptible sound—a quick, muffled nasal exhale that could have been the start of a suppressed laugh. When he glanced sideways, however, fleetingly, Katsuki's face was serious, his eyes fixed on Nezu, the pen paused over the notepad. But the corners of his lips… seemed a little less tense.

– Excellent! – Nezu clapped his little paws on the desktop, producing a light drumming sound. – Then it's all settled. The inaugural session is scheduled for 2 PM in Gym Beta. Midoriya, perhaps you could do us the favor of showing Bakugou the facilities beforehand, so he can familiarize himself with the space. And, of course, take the opportunity to exchange some impressions, align expectations… a preliminary pedagogical chat.

Show him the facilities. Be alone with him. In the empty gym. ‘Exchange impressions.’ ‘Pedagogical chat.’

Each phrase was a death sentence. Izuku felt genuine panic, the kind of icy, clear panic that preceded S-rank missions, the ones where the probability of catastrophic failure was explicitly calculated. This was an S-rank emotional mission. Code Red. Critical approach system. ABORT. ABORT NOW.

– It's… actually, I have an urgent department meeting now, principal – he tried, rising abruptly, the chair creaking. – About the final evaluation criteria, and…

– Oh, don't worry about that! – Nezu interrupted, with the joy of someone defusing a bomb with nail clippers. – I’ve already taken the liberty of rescheduling it for tomorrow afternoon. I knew you’d be immersed in preparations for this new and exciting project!

Cheated. Bamboozled. Hoodwinked by an eighty-centimeter-tall mammal with a stratospheric IQ and an apparently insatiable taste for human drama. Izuku was in a trap. A plush and tea trap, but a trap.

Katsuki also stood, snapping his notepad shut with a dry click and putting it back in the briefcase.

– Fine by me – he said, his voice neutral. And then, he turned and looked directly at Izuku. His red eyes weren't furious, cold, or disdainful. They were… expectant. It was a neutral look, but intense, charged with a total attention that was almost physical. Shall we? they seemed to say, without a word.

Izuku swallowed dryly. His mouth was drier than the Sahara. He nodded, a robotic, wind-up-toy movement, and headed for the door like a condemned man walking, with surprisingly steady steps (hero training was useful for disguising absolute panic), toward his own firing squad.

– See you later, principal – Katsuki said to Nezu, with another of those absurdly civilized head nods, and followed Izuku, his footsteps echoing on the wooden floor with a solidity that made Izuku's heart race.

The principal's office door closed behind them with a soft, final click. The silence of the wide, cold-lit, and empty administrative hallway at this time of morning enveloped them like thick liquid. It was the same hallway. The stage of the first disaster, the touch on the wrist, the "wait" that still echoed in his bones. Izuku stopped, his feet sticking to the polished floor as if rooted. He couldn't turn around. He couldn't look at that presence now standing little more than a pace behind him, filling the corridor space with an aura of contained energy he could feel on the back of his neck.

– So… – Katsuki's voice came from close by, but not intrusively. He maintained a careful, respectful distance. Just enough for two people in a hallway. – Gym Beta is… which way?

Izuku took a deep breath. The air was cold, sterile. Professional facade. You're Professor Midoriya. This is work. A project. A collaboration. Like any other. (Lie. Colossal lie.)

– It's in the east block – he said, his voice coming out a bit higher, faster than he intended. He started walking, quickly, almost a march, without looking back. His dress shoes made a decisive sound on the floor. – Go through the back wing, past the state-of-the-art Support Lab. Hard to miss. It's the gym with the… characteristic burn marks on the ceiling, near the entrance.

He felt, more than heard, Katsuki start walking behind him. His steps were firm, solid, but not hurried. They maintained a steady rhythm, a distant drumbeat echoing in the empty hallway, matching the accelerated rhythm of Izuku's heart.

The silence that settled between them wasn't just an absence of sound. It was a living entity, thick, charged with everything left unsaid: eight months of absence, the fight, the drunken text, the convenience store encounter, the "pending matters" reply, the surreal "good morning." Izuku felt the back of his neck burning, his skin tingling. It was the sensation of being watched by an apex predator, a predator that, inexplicably, had decided to follow etiquette protocols. Why isn't he talking? Why isn't he being… him? Why this polite quiet? It's worse. It's much worse.

– The burn marks – Katsuki's voice sounded, breaking the silence so unexpectedly that Izuku gave a small internal jump. His voice was thoughtful, almost nostalgic. – That was from that confined area evasion exercise in our second year, right? When Four-Eyes tried a flanking maneuver through the vent and I needed to create a high-density smoke screen to reset the field.

The question was so technical, so specific, so… normal, and coming from him, that Izuku almost tripped over his own foot. He turned slightly without stopping and shot a quick, fleeting glance backward. Katsuki was looking at him, not at the hallway ahead. A genuinely curious expression, almost of historical review, was on his face.

– It was – Izuku confirmed, the memory invading him against his will. It was a safe, professional memory. – You overheated the automatic sprinkler system. Melted the main sensor and six meters of reinforced PVC pipe. Power Loader grumbled and repaired it for a whole week. Said the smell of burnt plastic never completely went away.

– Hah – Katsuki emitted a short, dry sound that could have been a muffled laugh or just a forceful exhalation. – Old Horn-Head. He never forgave me for that. Or for the nickname.

It was a conversation. A banal, mundane conversation about a past school incident. Not about torn-apart feelings. Not about razor-sharp words. Not about lonely nights or desperate digital messages. It was insane. It was as if they were two former classmates reminiscing about old times, not two people whose relationship was a post-apocalyptic landscape.

– He still refers to you as 'the sprinkler incident' in every facilities safety committee meeting – Izuku commented, the words coming out before his brain could censor them. It was a fact. Neutral. Impersonal. Safe.

The corners of Katsuki's mouth curved again, a bit more this time, an almost imperceptible movement that did something strange to Izuku's stomach.

– Seems fair – he replied, his voice a tone softer.

They turned the corner of the hallway, entering a busier wing leading to the labs. First and second-year students, with folders and tablets, came and went, the buzz of young voices filling the air. Katsuki's presence, even in simple civilian clothes, began to act like a magnet. The commotion was instant and poorly disguised. Whispers cut through the air like knives. "Look! It's Dynamight!" "What's he doing here?" "He's with Midoriya-sensei!" "Are they going to fight?" "No, idiot, they're walking together!" Discreet looks (and some not discreet at all) glued themselves to them, full of curiosity, admiration, and a dash of excited fear.

Katsuki completely ignored them. He seemed not to even notice. His focus—and this was the most disturbing part—seemed to be entirely on… walking beside Izuku. Keeping pace. Existing in that shared hallway space, as if it were the most natural thing in the world. Izuku, on the other hand, felt like he was leading a parade of horrors, each look a needle-prick to his already fragile composure.

– You… – he began, his voice a little lower, almost a hoarse whisper, unable to contain himself. – You're handling the… attention well.

Katsuki gave a slight shrug, his hands shoved in his jeans pockets. The movement was casual, natural.

– It's part of the job. Inevitable. It's worse here, actually. In the field, they're too busy trying not to die or kill me to stare. Here… – his gaze passed over a group of first-year girls who blushed and quickly turned away – …here they just have free time and curiosity.

It was a lucid, almost philosophical observation, coming from him. Izuku was at a loss for words. The conversation died again, but the silence was now a little less charged with pure terror and a little more with… shared bewilderment. They arrived at the large double metal doors leading to the gym complex. The sign "Gym Beta" was above, with a small yellow plaque reading "Sprinkler System – Under Permanent Review."

Izuku pushed one of the doors, which opened with a heavy groan. The interior space revealed itself: vast, wide, with reinforced concrete walls scarred by a cacophony of training marks—scratches, stains, reinforced areas. The floor was treated wood, with demarcation lines for various sports. The lighting was high, fluorescent. And indeed, up high near one corner, an irregular black stain with melted edges decorated the ceiling around a set of sprinklers that looked newer than the rest.

Izuku entered, stopping at the center of the court, his echo mixing with the sound of the door closing behind Katsuki. The final metallic clang isolated them from the outside world. The vast emptiness of the gym swallowed them, amplifying every small sound—Izuku's slightly panting breath, the creak of Katsuki's soles on the wooden floor.

– This is it – Izuku said, his voice sounding abnormally loud in the silence. He waved a hand in a vague gesture. – The sound system is new, digital. The hologram projector too, though I doubt you'll need it. We can set up a simple stage at the back, or… you can stand in the center, if you prefer. It's more open.

Katsuki didn't answer immediately. He began walking slowly along the perimeter of the gym, his steps methodical, his red eyes analyzing every detail like a general inspecting a battlefield before conflict. He stopped under the black stain on the ceiling, looked up, and stood there for a few seconds, observing. Then, he lowered his gaze and fixed it on Izuku, who was still standing in the center.

– The center is better – he said finally, his voice echoing slightly in the empty space. – Less formal. More direct. – He paused, and the pause seemed to stretch, filling with something heavier than air. – Where will you be?

The question was simple, practical. But the way it was asked, the fixed stare that accompanied it, gave it a different weight. Izuku felt a familiar, unpleasant knot form in the pit of his stomach.

– I… – he swallowed. – I'll be on the sidelines. To moderate. Note important points, observe the class's reaction. Behind the projector, maybe. To have a wide view.

Katsuki didn't move. The professional, analytical gaze he'd maintained since the principal's office faded for a second, replaced by something more complex, deeper. It was an expression Izuku couldn't decipher—a mix of fierce determination, the kind he knew so well, and a kind of… vulnerable apprehension? As if the answer mattered more than it should.

– Behind the projector – Katsuki repeated, his voice a little lower, softer, almost intimate in the vast silence. It sounded like a gentle challenge. – You're going to hide behind the projector, Midoriya?

The use of the surname, in that tone, in that context, sounded odd. Almost like a gentle provocation, a verbal tug on the ear. Izuku felt a spark of his own repressed anxiety sharpen into something a bit more defensive. Professor Midoriya was being questioned in his own area of expertise.

– It's not hiding – he retorted, a tone of professional authority entering his voice, covering the nervousness. – It's a strategic position. Allows me to observe the class dynamic as a whole, identify who's engaged, who's lost, without influencing or intimidating with my proximity.

Katsuki held the gaze. Didn't back down.

– You observe better when you're involved. In the thick of it. It's always been that way. Since the hero analysis days.

It was a statement about their past, about the essence of who Izuku was, disguised as a professional comment. It was true. And the fact that Katsuki knew it, remembered it, used it now… made the floor under Izuku's feet feel a little less solid.

– The circumstances are different – he said, his voice growing colder, more distant. A defense.

– They are – Katsuki agreed, immediately, without hesitation. And then, to Izuku's total and absolute astonishment, he took a step forward. Not a threatening, aggressive step. A simple step, which reduced the distance between them in the vast empty gym from maybe twenty to ten meters. Still a safe distance, but now a conversation distance, not of two professionals in a large space. – And that's why I'm here. – His voice lost a bit of the professional softness, gaining a raw roughness, a frankness that was like a blade without a sheath. – To try and do it differently.

The air between them seemed to stop. Crystallize. The words were vague, but the meaning behind them was a mountain, an entire continent of subtext. Do it differently. Izuku could hear the ghostly echo of other words, said in that same rough tone, but with venom: suffocating. Pity. Veiled condemnation. The contrast was so violent it hurt.

His heart started beating faster, a dull, rapid drum against his ribs, but it was no longer the panicked, icy fear from Nezu's office. It was a complex, turbulent mix: simmering anger, deep confusion, a painful and treacherous curiosity. What game is this? What persona is this? What does he want?

– 'Do it differently' – Izuku repeated, and for the first time since Katsuki entered the principal's office, a thread of sarcasm, thin and sharp as a razor's edge, tinged his voice. He crossed his arms over his chest, a physical barrier. – Does that include saying 'good morning' and making small talk about faulty sprinkler systems? Is that the new tactic, Bakugou? Attack by excessive courtesy?

He saw Katsuki's eyes narrow, a quick flash, a flicker of the old fury, the explosive impatience, appearing for a split second before being contained, swallowed, forced down with visible effort in the muscles of his jaw. It was like watching an active volcano trying, with superhuman determination, to do a yoga session.

– It includes starting somewhere other than blowing the door down – Katsuki replied, his voice a bit rougher, tension leaking at the edges. – It includes… recognizing the environment. And the people in it. Trying.

– How noble – Izuku's sarcasm grew, fueled by weeks of repressed anxiety, the absurdity of the situation, and an old hurt finding a caustic voice. – The great Dynamight, learning etiquette. Must be an intensive course for that, huh? 'How Not to Be a Complete Asshole 101.' You're doing well, congratulations. The grade on the 'good morning' was particularly high. Very convincing.

Katsuki went still. The expression on his face was now completely indecipherable, a mask of stone. He didn't seem angry, though anger was there, simmering beneath the surface, a heat Izuku could almost feel from a distance. He seemed… assessing. Intensely. As if Izuku were a complex tactical puzzle, an enemy with new patterns, and he was finally seeing all the scattered pieces, even if he didn't yet know how to fit them into a coherent picture.

– You're angry – he said, a simple, flat statement, as if diagnosing a symptom.

The statement, its simplicity, its lack of defense or counterattack, disarmed Izuku for a second.

– I'm not… – he began, then stopped. Denial would sound false. – It's not just anger. It's… bewilderment. Deep, abyssal, disorienting bewilderment. Like the laws of physics have inverted.

– Okay, bewilderment – Katsuki agreed, as if it were an acceptable clinical term, a data point to be noted. He took another small step forward. Now they were separated by maybe seven, eight meters. A normal conversation distance that, in the empty gym, felt too intimate. Izuku could see the details with excruciating clarity: the tiny flecks of gold and amber mixed with the intense red of his irises; the slight furrow between his dark brows; the way his firm lips compressed slightly. – And the bewilderment says I should have come in here, thrown the briefcase on the floor, and started yelling that you'd have to put up with me, whether you liked it or not, because I'm back and that's final? That that would be more honest?

– It would be more you! – the explosion came from Izuku, his voice rising, echoing off the bare gym walls like a shout. He hadn't planned to say it. But the frustration, the confusion, the anger at the situation and the unbelievable persona in front of him, burst out. – It would be more honest! This… this polite man with the briefcase and 'good morning' and questions about ventilation systems… who is he? What do you want, Bakugou? What the hell are you trying to do?

The use of the surname, by him, said with that intensity, seemed to hit Katsuki physically. He took half a step back, as if shoved in the chest. His lips pressed into a thin, white line, his fists clenched at his sides, veins standing out under his skin. The professional mask, that civilized, controlled facade, cracked. And behind the cracks, Izuku saw the torrent of emotion he knew so well, the soundtrack of his youth: fierce frustration, overwhelming intensity, a determination so deep it bordered on desperation.

– I want to do the damn lectures – Katsuki said, each word spat out like a sharp pebble, hard to expel. – And I want to do them right. My way, but right. And part of doing them right is… is not starting a war on the first day. Is trying to… – he seemed to struggle with the next word, choke on it – …cooperate. At least on this.

Izuku laughed. A short, dry, humorless laugh that echoed oddly in the gym and surprised even himself. It sounded bitter. It sounded tired.

– Cooperate. Right. So that's the famous 'pending matter'? Cooperating on a lecture? That's what brought you back? Because if that's all it is, Bakugou, then fine. We 'cooperate.' I stay behind the projector, nice and far away, you talk about controlled explosions and the importance of being the best. The students will love it. They'll take selfies. At the end, we give a professional, cold handshake, and each goes his separate way. Matter resolved. Clean. Easy.

The words were a blade. He threw them, watching them hit. Katsuki went completely silent. His body was taut like a bow about to be fired. The internal struggle was visible, almost palpable in the air. He was trying, with a Herculean force Izuku could see in the muscles of his neck, in the tendons of his hands, to maintain control. Contain the explosion. Not repeat the same mistakes. And a perverse part of Izuku, the hurt, sarcastic, angry part emerging from the ashes of his passivity, wanted to poke. Wanted to see the facade fall for good. Wanted the real Katsuki, the explosive one, the honestly brutal one, even if it was to destroy him again, because at least it would be real.

What happened next, however, wasn't an explosion. It was something worse.

Katsuki closed the remaining distance between them in three quick, fluid, silent steps. It wasn't an aggressive charge. It was a decided, definitive movement that brought his overwhelming presence right into Izuku's personal space, stopping less than a meter away. He didn't touch Izuku. He didn't raise a hand. But he stopped right in front of him, his body erect, his head slightly tilted down to stare at Izuku, who, without realizing it, had taken a step back. His heat was now a wall, his scent—soap, leather, clean sweat, Katsuki—enveloped Izuku like a veil. His red eyes burned, not with blind rage, but with a raw, dense emotion so concentrated it seemed it could ignite the air.

– No – the word came out low, hoarse, laden with an emotional weight that made the air leave Izuku's lungs in a gasping sigh. – It's not easy. And it's not just about the lecture.

He paused infinitesimally, his eyes roaming Izuku's face—the widened green eyes, the slightly parted mouth, the tension in every line—with an intensity that was almost tactile. His gaze stopped on Izuku's lips for a split second that seemed to stretch into an eternity. It was a quick, involuntary look, loaded with something so primal and hot that Izuku felt an electric shock run down his spine. It wasn't a look of anger. It was a look of… hunger. Of deep, almost animal recognition. A memory of the body.

Then, the red eyes rose again, meeting the green ones, pinning them.

– And you know – Katsuki finished, his voice a rough whisper that seemed to vibrate in the tiny space between them.

They stood, immobile, in the center of the empty, silent gym. The tension was now of a completely new kind. It was no longer the icy awkwardness of Nezu's office, nor the electric discomfort of the hallway. It was something ancient and familiar, a current that had always existed between them, a gravitational pull that drew them toward each other for both conflict and connection.

But now, that current was charged with a new and dangerously high voltage: the volts of recent hurt, of unspoken regret, of repressed longing, and this… this conscious effort, this clumsy attempt by Katsuki to be different. And, underlying everything, that spark of sexual tension, quick and devastating as lightning, which the look at his lips had revealed. It was an explosive combination. Literally.

Izuku looked into those red eyes, so close, and saw the raw truth Katsuki was trying, desperately, desperately, to communicate. The politeness, the briefcase, the 'good morning,' the sprinkler talk—it was an attempt. A pathetic, clumsy, but genuine attempt. To start from a different place. To not repeat the same mistakes. To not be the explosive asshole who pushed everyone away. And that attempt, that vulnerability behind the strength, was infinitely more frightening than if he had simply arrived blowing the door down and imposing his presence. Because this… this demanded a response. Demanded that Izuku move, too. That he decide whether to accept the game, refuse it, or blow it all up again.

The sound of a cellphone vibrating—not Izuku's melodic ringtone, but a harsh, insistent buzz—shattered the spell with the violence of a hammer on glass. It was Katsuki's. He blinked, as if yanked from a deep trance, and took a step back, breaking the electrifying proximity. The expression of intense concentration dissolved into confusion, then recognition. He pulled the device from his jacket pocket, looked at the lit screen, and frowned, a deep groove appearing between his eyebrows.

– It's the agency – he murmured, his voice still hoarse, laden with the emotion of the now-interrupted moment. He seemed to hesitate, his gaze landing on Izuku for a fraction of a second longer, as if seeking something—understanding? a truce?—before focusing on the phone.

Izuku merely nodded, unable to articulate any sound. His heart was beating so hard he feared Katsuki could hear it.

Katsuki answered, turning slightly, but not enough that Izuku couldn't hear his half of the conversation.

– Bakugou. Speak. – A pause. His shoulders tensed even more. – Yeah, got it. Where exactly? …Right. On my way. – The voice was clear, professional, the hero Dynamight taking over. He hung up and shoved the phone back into his pocket with a brusque movement. When he turned back to Izuku, the professional mask was back, but cracked at the edges, pieces of the raw emotion from moments before still visible in his eyes. – I have to go.

– Of course – Izuku said automatically, the hero, the colleague response. Hero first. Always. Duty calls. It was a comforting mantra amidst the chaos.

Katsuki seemed to want to say something more. His mouth opened, closed. He swallowed dryly, his chin jutting forward in a familiar gesture of determination. He bent down and picked up the leather briefcase he had, at some point, dropped on the floor.

– The session… – he began, his voice firm. – At 4 PM. I'll be back.

– I'll be here – Izuku replied, his voice sounding strangely calm, flat, even to his own ears. – Behind the projector.

A flash of something—frustration? Disappointment? Resignation?—crossed Katsuki's face, quick as a cat's tail. His eyes closed for an instant, then he nodded, once, forcefully, as if driving home a final period.

– Until then, Midoriya.

And he turned, his footsteps echoing on the gym's wooden floor with a solidity that seemed to mark the rhythm of Izuku's heart. The metal door opened with a groan, he walked out, and the door closed behind him with a dull, final thud, leaving Izuku alone in the vast, silent, and now terribly empty space.

Izuku stood in the same spot, on the exact point where Katsuki's proximity had created a reality distortion field. For a long minute, he didn't move. The air around him still felt charged, ionized by the tension that had been there. Then, his legs, which had borne the weight of an All For One, simply gave way. He slid down, sitting on the cold, hard gym floor, his back finding the cold base of a massive concrete block used for strength training. The solid, impersonal contact was a relief.

His heart still beat erratically, a frantic, chaotic drum in his chest. His hands, when he raised them before his face, trembled slightly. The sarcasm, the coldness, the defensive posture—it had all been a shield. A fragile, improvised shield that was now cracking and crumbling, revealing the absolute confusion, the maelstrom of conflicting emotions beneath.

Katsuki Bakugou was trying. The realization was inescapable, as much as he could admit it. Trying to be different. Trying to cooperate. Trying… to control himself. Trying not to be the destructive force he'd always been, especially with him. And he, Izuku, had seen the struggle. The Herculean, almost physical struggle on Katsuki's face, in the muscles of his neck, in the clenched fists. The struggle to contain the explosion, to find words that weren't weapons, to not run away, to stay and face the discomfort he himself had created. And that struggle… was new. It was real. It was frighteningly genuine.

"It's not easy. And it's not just about the lecture. And you know."

Yes. He knew. With a painful clarity that made him want to bury his head in the concrete block. And that meant the next weeks, these lectures, the planning meetings, all of it, wouldn't just be an arduous pedagogical exercise or a professional formality. It would be a meticulously mined emotional battlefield. Every exchanged word, every exchanged glance, every civilized "good morning," every moment of forced proximity, would be a move in a complex and dangerous game. A game whose rules he didn't fully understand, whose ultimate goal was nebulous, and where the prize—or the loss—was something much bigger than the success of a lecture.

Izuku buried his face in his hands, elbows on his knees. The skin of his face was hot, his eyes burned. The avoidance protocol, that sandcastle he'd built so carefully over the past weeks, hadn't just failed; it had crumbled under the weight of a simple "good morning" and a look loaded with meaning. He was no longer avoiding. He was, officially and irrevocably, at the epicenter of the storm. With a ringside seat to the eye of the hurricane, which was, after all, Katsuki Bakugou himself—a hurricane that now seemed determined to be… different. And that was, somehow, more terrifying than the familiar fury.

And the worst of it—the most idiotic, most treacherous, and most deeply human part of him—a small spark of curiosity, stubborn and inappropriate, was beginning to burn under the ashes of fear and hurt. A curiosity to see what would happen next. To find out how far this new persona would go. To test its limits. To see if, behind the "good morning" and the leather briefcase, the explosive boy he'd always known still existed—and, perhaps, to discover what else might exist there.

He sighed, a long, weary sound lost in the vastness of the empty gym. At 4 PM, the storm would return. And he, Pedagogical Mediator Midoriya, would be there. Behind the projector. Or maybe, just maybe, a little closer to the center. Just to observe better, of course.

---

The afternoon sun in Musutafu was a pale disk behind a thin layer of high clouds, casting a diffuse, heatless light that turned everything into shades of gray and faded blue. Katsuki Bakugou exited U.A.'s main gates with firm steps, but his mind was far away, still caught in the morning meeting with Nezu and All Might, the words "pending matters," and the distant echo of a hoarse laugh in a convenience store.

But there was a crucial detail, a fact hammering in his chest with the regularity of a metronome: his first lecture wasn't in two weeks. It was today. At 4:30 PM. In Gym Beta. In less than two hours, he would stand before a class of third-year students, under the watchful eye of Nezu and, possibly, under the weight of the gaze that mattered most and that he feared most. The patrol was just an intermission, a forced breath before the real dive.

The mission was simple. Too simple for his taste, almost insulting. A routine combined patrol in one of the city's safest commercial districts, more for "heroic presence" and public relations than any real threat.

The Endeavor Agency, in a rare move of inter-agency cooperation with his former agency (now under his nominal command upon his return), had assigned a second hero to accompany him. Apparently, Bakugou's "reintegration" required supervision, even in insignificant tasks.

The idea of having a babysitter irked him, but the fury was a tired reflex, overshadowed by the subterranean anxiety fermenting in his gut. 4:30 PM. Gym Beta. He was far too busy digesting his own personal battle plan—and the imminent schedule—to explode over bureaucracy.

The meeting point was a public square with a turned-off fountain and empty benches. The cold late autumn wind whipped up dry leaves in small, melancholy whirlwinds. Katsuki arrived first, as always. He crossed his arms over his chest, the black hero overcoat (a lighter model for urban patrol) open to reveal the tech suit underneath. He watched people pass: mothers with strollers, elderly folks, hurried office workers. Normality was a boring spectacle. His attention was turned inward, reviewing the key points from the talk with Kirishima. Presence. Patience. Don't run. Be worthy. And the mental script for the lecture. No speech. Naked truth. Real situations. Control. Don't yell at the students… no matter how idiotic they are.

It was then that a familiar sensation of simultaneous cold and heat, a unique and unmistakable energy signature, hovered in the air to his left. It wasn't aggressive, but it was imposing, changing the environmental pressure.

Katsuki didn't need to turn his head completely. A sidelong glance was enough.

Shoto Todoroki was approaching, his tall, slender silhouette cutting through the diffuse light. He wore his white and gray hero uniform, impeccable, his light cape swaying slightly with his calm steps. His face, a perfect sculpture of harmonious features, was a mask of professional serenity, but his eyes—one stormy gray, one ice-blue—were already fixed on Katsuki, analytical as scanners.

A low, almost involuntary grunt escaped Katsuki's throat. Of course. It had to be him. This was no coincidence. The Endeavor Agency, run by Todoroki's father, would know perfectly well about the complexities. It was a deliberate choice. A test within the test.

Of all the "Deku Squad," Todoroki had always been the most… challenging for Katsuki. Not in a physical sense (though their duels were legendary), but in an existential one. Iida was protocol and loud worry. Uraraka had empathy and direct emotional intuition. Tsuyu was practical logic and sharp observation. But Todoroki… Todoroki was a strange mirror. Calm where Katsuki was explosive, introspective where Katsuki externalized everything, carrying his own familial scars in a way Katsuki, secretly, understood more than he cared to admit. And above all, Todoroki was the closest connection, the most solid and silently loyal friendship Izuku had outside the original core. If anyone in the world had a clear, cold, precise read on the damage Katsuki had caused, and the silent pain Izuku carried, it was Shoto Todoroki. Having him as a patrol partner today, of all days, wasn't a coincidence. It was a walking reminder.

— Bakugou — Todoroki's voice was flat, neutral, as always. He stopped at a professional distance, neither too close nor too far.

— Todoroki — Katsuki replied with a short nod. The minimal protocol was fulfilled.

There was a pause. Not an awkward silence, but a space full of mutual assessment. The heterochromatic eyes swept over Katsuki from head to toe, not as a challenge, but as a diagnosis. Are you whole? Are you stable? Are you a threat?

— Good to see you — Todoroki said finally. The words sounded genuine, but laden with unspoken caveats. Good to see you back. Good to see you whole. We'll see for how long.

— Hmph. I'm back — Katsuki shrugged, looking away to the dry fountain. Small talk was a minefield. He felt the impulse to say "I have a lecture today," as if needing to justify himself, and forcefully repressed it.

— How was the experience in the United States? — Todoroki asked, starting to walk toward the designated patrol route, assuming Katsuki would follow. It was a safe, professional question. Very safe.

Katsuki fell into step beside him, his steps harsher and more decisive, contrasting with Todoroki's quiet fluidity.

— It was fine. Learned some things. Others just confirmed that most heroes over there are more marketing than substance. — It was the standard summary he gave everyone. His mind, however, betrayed him: Learned that no matter how many buildings you save, an empty apartment on the other side of the world still smells like loneliness.

— I saw some reports. Your resolution stats were impressive. Especially considering the adjustment period — Todoroki commented, his tone still neutral, but the praise was objective, fact-based. That's how he operated. Data. Analysis.

— Did my job — Katsuki replied curtly. He wasn't in the mood to talk about professional achievements. Not with him. Not now. The ghost of cold udon hung between them, invisible but palpable. And the bigger ghost, of Gym Beta at 4:30, flashed like a neon sign in his brain.

They patrolled in silence for a block, the joint presence of the two top-ranked heroes causing the desired effect: looks of recognition, some nods, an air of security. It was all too easy, too monotonous. Katsuki felt the energy contained in his own muscles, itching for a target, for an action that wasn't this peace choreography. His energy was being channeled toward a different stage, a challenge that didn't involve villains, but audiences and personal ghosts.

It was Todoroki, as predicted by the invisible dynamic between them, who broached the unspoken subject. He wasn't one for beating around the bush. And time was running out.

— Your return was sudden — he observed, his eyes fixed ahead, watching the street. — The international assignment was for another six months, at least. The change wasn't in the agency bulletins. And yet, here you are.

There it was. The opening. The slight pressure under the smooth surface. Katsuki felt a muscle in his jaw twitch. The invisible clock in his mind ticked down to less than an hour and a half.

— Decided it was time — he said, his voice a bit rougher. Time to stop running, he thought, but the words didn't come out. Time to face the gym. Time to face him.

— Time for what, exactly? — Todoroki asked, turning his head just enough to look at Katsuki. The question wasn't aggressive. It was… surgical. An ice scalpel looking for the point of inflammation.

Katsuki stopped walking, turning to face Todoroki head-on. The air between them seemed to cool a few more degrees. — What are you getting at, Half-and-Half?

Todoroki stopped too, facing him with his infuriating calm.

— I'm not 'getting at' anything. I'm asking. It's a reasonable question, considering the circumstances. Your departure wasn't… conventional. Your return isn't being conventional either. And now you're at U.A. again.

The direct mention of U.A., without him having brought it up, was like a small shock. Of course. Todoroki knew. The whole "Deku Squad" would know. Izuku would know.

— The 'circumstances' aren't any of your business — Katsuki growled, his fists clenching slightly at his sides. An automatic, weak defense.

— They become my business when they affect Midoriya — Todoroki replied, his voice gaining an icy firmness. The professional mask cracked a millimeter, revealing the fierce protectiveness beneath. — And they do. Profoundly. You know that. And your presence at the school today isn't going to help.

Direct attack. Katsuki took a deep breath, the cold air burning his lungs. Anger bubbled up, the usual defensiveness, but he swallowed it. Remembered Kirishima's words. Fight your own shit. This, this confrontation, was part of the battle. A battle starting now, on the street, even before the gym.

— I know — the admission came out hoarse, forced, but it came out. It was a fact. He couldn't deny it. — And that's why I came back. And that's why I'm going to be there.

— To do what? — the question came again, persistent, tireless. — Give a lecture? Do you think that changes anything? That a display of professional heroism erases eight months of silence and a fight that almost destroyed him?

Katsuki felt the temptation to explode, to say "none of your fucking business!" and walk away. But he wouldn't walk away. Not this time. He planted his feet on the asphalt, feeling the solidity of the concrete. It was the same ground that would lead to the gym.

— To settle some pending matters — he said, and the word sounded as hollow, as ridiculous as it had in the convenience store, even to his own ears. He saw an almost imperceptible arch of Todoroki's left eyebrow. A skeptic. — And… to start. Today.

— Today — Todoroki repeated, the word dropping like a stone. The change in atmosphere was instant and sharp. Todoroki's analytical calm shifted into total alert. His body didn't move, but his eyes narrowed, the temperature around them fluctuating slightly—a perceptible breath of heat from the left side, a more penetrating cold from the right. — So it's true. The first session is this afternoon.

— Yes — Katsuki confirmed, keeping his tone as professional as possible, though his heart beat a little faster. — Nezu and All Might thought my 'international experience' could be useful. Practical workshop. Gym Beta. In a little under an hour and a half. — Why was he giving so many details? Was it a justification for himself or for Todoroki?

The silence that followed was thick, heavy. Katsuki could almost hear Todoroki's thoughts spinning, connecting dots: the sudden return, the presence at the school, the forced proximity with Izuku today itself. It was a logical, almost tactical move, but accelerated. And for Todoroki, who protected Izuku with the cold, determined focus of a glaciologist monitoring a dangerous fissure, it was a maneuver requiring immediate and total risk analysis.

— Why? — Todoroki pressed, and this time his voice had a sharp edge, a blade of ice under the smooth surface. — Why would you accept this? You're not exactly… inclined toward pedagogy. And you know he'll be around. He might even be watching. Do you want that? To force him to watch you perform for a room full of students, as if nothing happened?

Katsuki felt a twisted, bitter smile form on his lips. The picture Todoroki painted was horrible. Izuku, hidden in the back of the gym, or worse, forced to attend as part of the faculty, having to witness Katsuki talk about control and strategy while his own world silently crumbled. — Needed to learn some things about patience out there. Maybe I have a few lessons to pass on. That's all. — It sounded empty. Insufficient.

— It's not 'just that' — Todoroki cut, his calm finally cracking to reveal the disapproval behind. He took a step forward, reducing the distance between them. The height difference was minimal, but Todoroki's presence was overwhelming in its stillness. — Do you have any idea what your presence there today will do to him, Bakugou? Do you have the slightest clue? He's already hiding. Already avoiding hallways you might use. Ochaco said he barely touched his lunch after he found out you were at the school this morning. And now you're going to stand in the gym, at the center of attention, forcing him to deal with you again, in public. It's cruel.

The question and accusations hit Katsuki like a series of gut punches. He knew. Oh, how he knew. He'd spent all morning imagining exactly that, replaying the panic in Izuku's eyes in the hallway. But hearing the details, the concreteness of the suffering ("barely touched his lunch"), from Todoroki, was different. It was real. It was measurable. And the deadline wasn't in two weeks. It was now.

— I'm not going to bother him — Katsuki said, his voice lower, trying to sound convincing, but sounding only desperate.

— You're bothering him just by existing in the same zip code as him now! — Todoroki shot back, and now the chill gave way to a contained heat, a genuine spark of fire in his left iris. — Do you think he's not counting the minutes? That he's not replaying every word of that idiotic text, every second of the encounter this morning, trying to guess what you'll do? He's trying to move on, Bakugou. To build a life that doesn't include waiting for you or protecting himself from you. And you… you just come back and plant yourself in the center of his world again, on the same day, as if you have the right. And worse: with an audience.

Each word was a stab of truth. Katsuki felt the anger, defensive and hot, rise in his chest. But along with it came the pain of that same truth, aggravated by the urgency of the timetable. He swallowed the bitter taste. 4:30 PM. Gym Beta.

— I'm not 'planting myself' out of malice — he argued, the force leaving his voice. It sounded almost like a rough whisper, confided to the cold wind. — I… need to be there. Need to start. Delaying isn't going to make this hurt less. It'll just give his fear… and mine… more time to grow.

— Need? — Todoroki repeated, and for the first time, a flash of genuine bewilderment, near disbelief, crossed his face. — Need why? To ease your own conscience on an accelerated timetable? To make sure he's still suffering over you today? What's the objective today, Bakugou? Because from my point of view, it looks like you're putting your own desire to 'resolve' things above his well-being. Again.

The question echoed in the cold air of the square, mixing with the distant clang of a streetcar. It was the same question Izuku had asked, and which Katsuki hadn't been able to answer. But now, facing Todoroki, facing the most logical and least sentimental protector of the man he loved, with time draining away like sand, an answer began to form, coming from a place deeper and less rehearsed than his mental scripts. An answer to "why today."

— The objective — Katsuki began, forcing the words out, each one an effort, a step toward the gym — is to show that I'm not running away this time. That I can be in the same space as him, do my job, be professional, and not fall apart. That I can be a presence that doesn't explode. Maybe… maybe if he sees me there, doing something constructive, not demanding anything from him, not invading his space… maybe it's a less scary start than another encounter in a dark hallway. I don't know! — his voice broke, a thread of frustration. — I just know that waiting two weeks would drive me insane. And it would leave him in suspense, imagining the worst. At least this way… it's quick. It's clean. It's a public thing, with rules. I can deal with rules.

— Show what? — Todoroki pressed, tireless, his eyes now like drills piercing Katsuki's defenses, seeking the core of truth. — That you can follow a script? That you can behave for an hour?

— That I've changed! — the explosion came, finally, but it wasn't directed at Todoroki. It was an explosion of internal frustration, of desperation, of fear of the clock. The volume made some people farther away look over, startled. Katsuki lowered his voice immediately, an intense, loaded hiss. — That I'm not that idiot who says shitty things and then runs to another continent anymore! That I understand what I did. That I see the pain I caused him, every day, every hour, and that it consumes me too. And that I'm willing to… to stay. Even if 'staying' means being fifty meters from him, with a hundred teenagers between us, sweating cold and trying not to look where he might be. To endure the possibility of his gaze, his fear, his indifference, whatever. Today. Now. Because starting later is cowardice. And I've already been cowardly enough.

He stopped, panting, the air leaving his lungs in white, agitated clouds in the cold. He'd said too much. Far more than he'd intended. But it was all there, raw and ugly and true, and tied to the present time, to the imminent commitment.

Todoroki said nothing for a time that felt like an eternity but was probably only ten seconds. Ten seconds in which the cold wind whistled, a dry leaf spun past between them, and Katsuki's invisible clock advanced inexorably. He just looked at Katsuki, his expression inscrutable again, but his eyes analyzing, processing the new variable: the urgency.

— You'll hurt him again — Todoroki declared, not as a threat, but as a clinical prediction, adjusted for the new scenario. — It's what you do. It's the pattern. You get close, the intensity explodes—whether it's anger or a confession like this—and he gets hurt. And now you want to bring that pattern into the gym, into the place where he teaches, where he should feel in control. Today.

— I won't — Katsuki insisted, but it sounded weak, even to his own ears. How could he be sure? The sweat on his palms, unrelated to heat, was the answer.

— How can you be so sure? — Todoroki asked, and this time, there was a nuance of genuine curiosity in the question, mixed with the skepticism and a trace of something that could be… a recalculated assessment. — What's different this time, today, Bakugou? Because from the outside, it looks like the same story, just accelerated. You disappear, you come back, you demand space in his life at record speed.

Katsuki closed his eyes for a second. The image of the rings in the jewelry store, the idiotic hope of that day, flashed through his mind. That was different. Because that time, he'd been trying to build something on a rotten foundation of non-communication, with a romantic future in mind. Now… now he was starting with the most basic, painful, and urgent foundation: remorse, responsibility, and immediate physical presence. Not to build a castle, but to prove the ground wouldn't crumble just because he stepped on it.

— This time — he said, opening his eyes and staring directly at Todoroki, his red eyes burning with a dark determination fueled by the deadline — I'm not demanding a damn thing from him. I'm demanding it from myself. I'm putting myself there, in the path of my own shit, and saying 'here I am. Deal with it. Be professional. Don't explode. Don't run.' And if he's there… — Katsuki swallowed dryly — …he'll see that. He'll see I can be in the same environment without causing a disaster. It's little. It's a crumb. But it's what I have today. And I'm not postponing. I'm not waiting two weeks to have a bigger anxiety attack. I go there now, I do what I promised to do, and I leave. Without seeking him out. Without staring at him. Just… existing in the same space, without being a threat. It's a start.

The confession, so raw and devoid of Katsuki's usual bravado, seemed to hang between them, frozen in the cold afternoon air. It wasn't a speech of love. It was a war plan against himself, a siege of patience and presence, with a scheduled start time.

Todoroki watched him for a long moment. The tension in the air began to change, not dissipating, but transforming. The absolute alert in Todoroki's eyes gave way to a cautious, recalculated assessment. He didn't agree. He didn't approve. But maybe… maybe he was seeing something beyond the destructive pattern. Maybe he was seeing the Herculean effort, the desperate attempt to control the pattern, to tame it within the bounds of a gym and an hour.

— He's more fragile than he seems — Todoroki said finally, his voice lower, almost to himself, as if pondering the risks of a dangerous experiment. — The armor of teacher, of hero… it cracks easily when it comes to you. We see it. Ochaco, Iida, Tsuyu… we see the tiredness, the effort to seem normal. He still carries what you said. Every word. And today… today might be too much.

Katsuki felt a knot of pain and guilt tighten in his throat so strong it nearly choked him. He nodded, a short, pained movement. — I know. And if he doesn't come… if he manages to avoid it… maybe that's better. But if he does… — He couldn't finish the thought.

— If you really… are offering yourself this way, as you say — Todoroki continued, choosing his words with lethal precision, adapting to the new context — then you have to be prepared for the worst. For him to walk out in the middle of your lecture. For him to have a panic attack in some corner. For him to look at you with a hatred so pure and silent it freezes your blood. Today. Not in months. Today.

The prospect was an abyss opening right there on the sidewalk before him. Katsuki had already lived in a worse abyss: the void of absence. But this abyss was here, now, full of the possibility of witnessing, in real-time, the damage he caused. At least in this one, he would be present. He would see. He would feel. And he would have to endure.

— I can endure — the reply came out simple, solid as a rock, but laden with the weight of all possible consequences.

Todoroki sighed, an almost inaudible sound, a rare sign of resignation. He turned and started walking again, resuming the patrol, as if the rest of the route were just a formality. Katsuki followed, his heart beating an accelerated, irregular rhythm against his ribs. Less than an hour.

— The lecture — Todoroki said after a few steps, his voice returning to a professional tone, but now with a different weight, the weight of a dark, tacit pact. — You'll focus on the students. On the material. You won't look for him with your eyes. If he's there, you won't stare at him. You'll do your job and you'll leave. It's an exercise in control. For you. It's a test. For him.

— I know — Katsuki murmured. It was exactly the plan. The only possible plan.

— If you fail — Todoroki stopped again and turned, and this time, there was a spark of something dangerously close to Endeavor's fire in his eyes, a promise of real consequences, not emotional, but very concrete — if you shift focus to him, if you try to communicate with him during the session, if you do anything that puts him in the spotlight or embarrasses him, even unintentionally… you won't need to worry about his forgiveness. You'll have to worry about explaining to the Hero Commission why you caused an incident at an educational institution. And you'll have to worry about me. Directly.

It wasn't an empty threat. It was a contingency plan. The clearest and most direct red line Katsuki had ever seen drawn. And, somehow, he respected it. Because it came from a place of extreme, logical protectiveness, from a love for Izuku that was different from his own, but which, at that moment, manifested as a necessary emergency brake.

— Fair — Katsuki nodded, accepting the terms. It was the risk. It was the consequence. It was the price of his haste, of his decision to start today.

They finished the patrol in deep silence, but the silence was different now. It was no longer just full of unresolved tension. There was a tacit agreement, a dark and temporal understanding. Todoroki wasn't an ally. He was an auditor and a bodyguard, activated on maximum alert mode as of 4:15 PM. And Katsuki, instead of seeing him only as an obstacle, began to see him as an integral part of the battlefield he himself had chosen. A severe test. If he couldn't navigate Todoroki's icy, protective, vigilant disapproval, how could he hope to survive his own internal storm and Izuku's possible presence?

When the patrol ended, the sun was low, casting long shadows. They were back at the fountain square.

— So it's today — Todoroki said, not as a reminder, but as a final confirmation. A point of no return.

— It's today — Katsuki confirmed, looking at the watch on his wrist. Less than forty minutes. His stomach churned.

Todoroki looked at him one more time, his face lit by the amber, horizontal light of the fading day. — He still loves you, you know? — the statement came out low, almost a painful secret confessed to the twilight. — It's the most idiotic part of all this. And the most tragic. It's what makes today so dangerous. For both of you. Don't make me witness him unlearning that today itself.

Before Katsuki could process it, find a response to that devastating admission that both relieved and terrified him, Todoroki gave a head nod in farewell—not a greeting, but a temporary demobilization—and turned. His cape swished behind him as he walked away, not toward the agency, but toward the gates of U.A., disappearing among the lengthening shadows of the buildings. Going to his post. To observe. To intervene, if necessary.

Katsuki stood alone in the empty square, Todoroki's words echoing in his mind louder than any explosion. "He still loves you." "Today." "Dangerous." They were torture and a gift. They were the fuel and the brake of his determination. The encounter hadn't been friendly. It had been a war briefing, a definition of rules of engagement for a battle that would begin in minutes.

He looked toward U.A., its imposing buildings silhouetted against the darkening sky. Inside, somewhere, Izuku Midoriya was. Perhaps preparing to go to Gym Beta. Perhaps deciding to run from him. Perhaps paralyzed, like him, counting the minutes.

The imagined two weeks vanished. There was no more long countdown. There was only now. The first day wasn't in a distant future. It was today. And when he walked into the gym, it wouldn't just be as the hero Dynamight giving a lecture. It would be as a man walking into an arena where he would be simultaneously gladiator and living proof of his own crime, under the gaze of a jury composed of a protective friend and the fragile, hurt love of his life.

The cold of the falling night seemed to intensify, clearing his mind into a state of hyper-focused alertness. Inside him, the forge stopped hammering. The steel was tempered. The weapon, whatever it was, was forged. Now it was time to use it, with surgical precision, or fail spectacularly.

With one last deep sigh that calmed nothing, Katsuki Bakugou turned and began walking back toward U.A., his footsteps echoing on the quiet asphalt, each one a step toward Gym Beta, toward his immediate future, and toward the most important gaze he both feared and longed to find—or not find—in the rows of the audience.

Chapter Text

The air in the U.A. parking lot still smelled of hot asphalt and the faint metallic trace of Katsuki's own fatigue. The afternoon sun, already slanted, cast long, dramatic shadows that slashed across the concrete, transforming the mundane space into a chiaroscuro chessboard that seemed straight out of a noir film. He got off his motorcycle with a fluid motion that was almost a choreography of years of practice—knee bent at the exact moment, his body weight shifting smoothly to the soles of his tactical boots, one hand still resting on the handlebar for a fraction of a second longer, as if reluctant to abandon the only anchor that was entirely his. The engine rumbled a low, visceral protest before falling silent at the turn of the key. The quiet that followed was abrupt, leaving only the distant hum of highway traffic and the thrum of blood in his own ears. The black leather jacket, worn over his combat suit—a habit he kept from his school days, a layer of normality over the arsenal that was his uniform—was open, revealing the dark, light-absorbing tech fabric underneath.

The conversation with Todoroki still echoed in his ears, louder and more persistent than any city noise. It had settled in some deep recess of his auditory cortex, repeating on a loop, each time with a different nuance. He still loves you. The statement, so simple in its structure, was a burden of agonizing complexity. It wasn't forgiveness, wasn't absolution, wasn't even a promise. It was a fact. A fact that brought with it a storm of unanswered questions and a single, tenuous, dangerously thin thread of hope. A thread he feared to pull, for it might unravel the entire tangle of guilt, remorse, and self-conscious fear he carried like a second skin. Today. The word functioned as a deadline, a cliff with a set time. And he, Katsuki Bakugou, who always faced everything head-on, was about to dive headfirst, without a net, without a plan B, armed only with a brutal faith in his own ability to survive the impact.

His first lecture at U.A. started in twenty minutes.

He didn't head to the teachers' lounge, that sanctuary of bitter coffee and meticulous lesson plans that had never been his territory. He didn't seek out Principal Nezu for a last-minute briefing full of smiling, inscrutable teaching tips. Instead, his steps—firm, decisive—took him straight to the heart of the training wing: Gym Beta. His tactical shoes echoed in the empty hallways with a solemn cadence, a metallic click-clack that sounded like the drumroll before a decisive battle. But this, he knew, was a battle of a different kind. A battle fought in the minefields of his own psyche. Against every primal instinct that whispered, screamed, demanded he be louder, rougher, more explosive, more himself in the rawest, most self-destructive way possible. Against the palpable ghost of the teenager he had been the last time he was there as a student—a walking powerhouse of arrogance, whose fire burned everything, including the bridges that could have sustained him.

The gym's massive door was slightly ajar, a dark slit inviting him in. A familiar smell assaulted his nostrils as he approached: residual ozone from electric Quirks, plaster dust from marked walls, the faint sweet scent of burnt wood that never completely left the place, and beneath it all, the clean, impersonal smell of disinfectant. He pushed the door open, and the metallic groan of the hinges echoed through the vast emptiness like the sigh of a slumbering giant.

The space was exactly as he remembered: a modern cavern of concrete and steel, so wide a voice could get lost before reaching the vaulted ceiling. The late afternoon light entered at oblique angles through the high windows, forming columns of dancing dust that illuminated the scars on the floor—burn marks, impact craters, deep gouges from blades, the archaeological record of decades of heroes in the making. In the center, a small improvised stage and a solitary microphone seemed insignificant, an island of civilization in a sea of potential chaos. In the back, rows of blue plastic chairs began to fill. The first students arrived, in groups or alone, their voices—an animated but restrained murmur, tempered by the respect the place inspired—slowly filling the space.

Katsuki ignored the stage for a moment. His eyes, trained to sweep environments in microseconds for threats and tactical points, performed an automatic, complete scan. First, second, and third-year students, distinguishable by small details in their uniforms and their aura of confidence (or lack thereof). Some assistant teachers and support staff, positioned strategically. The audiovisual equipment, cables snaking across the floor. Everything under control, everything as expected.

And then, as if pulled by a magnet of undeniable gravitational force, his gaze was thrown to a specific corner, at the back and to the left of the stage, where the light from the windows didn't fully reach.

Behind a functional desk loaded with a projector, some laptops, and speakers, half-hidden in the shadow cast by a support column, was Izuku Midoriya.

Katsuki's heart gave a violent lurch against the walls of his chest, a dull impact he feared was audible. Izuku wasn't looking at him. He was absorbed in a tablet screen, the bluish light illuminating his face in a mask of professional concentration. He wore the formal U.A. teacher's blazer, but the emerald-green tie—a color Katsuki recognized with a pang in his stomach—was slightly loose, the top button of his collar undone. Small signs of controlled disarray, of a weariness that allowed itself one breath of informality. He looked… more mature, of course. His soft features had sharpened into firmer angles, but there was a shadow under his eyes that spoke of sleepless nights. It was an image of competence and, simultaneously, of an impenetrable barrier. A fortress of professionalism built on foundations Katsuki had once known so well.

The agreement with Todoroki hammered in his mind, a sentence in steel letters: You won't look for him with your eyes. If he's there, you won't stare. You do your job. You plant the seed. And you leave.

Katsuki averted his gaze with a sharp, almost painful movement, as if tearing off a piece of Velcro stuck to his skin. He focused again on the black, melted stain on the ceiling near the sprinklers—his permanent legacy in Gym Beta. The sprinkler incident. A tiny, bitter, nostalgic smile touched his lips for a nanosecond. A memory of juvenile, stupid, and gloriously simple destruction. From a time when his fire was just that: blind, consuming fire. Not a surgical precision tool he was learning, with blood, sweat, and contained tears, to master and direct.

He moved away from the door, positioning himself at an observation point near a side wall, where he could see the audience without being the immediate center of all attention. The plan was simple. Brutally honest. No motivational stage speech. No shallow pep talk about "you can be heroes if you believe." They were already at U.A. They had already voluntarily chosen hell. He would talk about the real hell. About the quicksand that was the profession, about the fire that burned inside, and about the cold, difficult art of shaping that fire into something that built instead of just destroyed.

4:28 PM. The gym was almost full, the air now dense with the heat of hundreds of bodies and the static electricity of expectation. Katsuki felt the weight of eyes on him—hundreds of pairs of eyes assessing, admiring, questioning, fearing. The feeling was familiar, a constant companion in his public life as Dynamight, but the context transformed it into something strange. He wasn't the number five hero at a post-mission press conference, nor the relentless fighter on a battlefield against an S-class villain. He was a guest lecturer. An educator. The weight was different: less about immediate results, more about lasting impact. Less about winning, more about making them understand.

He looked at the clock projected on the wall. Two minutes. His hands, tucked in his jacket pockets, were damp with sweat. He removed them, discreetly, wiping them on the sides of his suit pants. No spark escaped. No crackle betrayed his anxiety. Just the silent, human moisture of nerves.

Show you won't run away this time. That you can be in the same space as him, do your job, honor the invitation, and not crumble. Nor explode.

The words he'd said to Todoroki resonated like a mantra. Now was the time to prove it. To himself. To the school. To the man in the shadows.

4:30 on the dot. Without ceremony, without a formal introduction from anyone, he stepped onto the small stage. The metal steps creaked under his weight. He didn't go straight to the microphone. Stopped a few steps from it, letting the silence settle, deepen, become almost physical. The murmur died at once, as if someone had cut the sound. Only the distant hum of an airplane, the noise of a chair being dragged, and the held breath of a hundred future heroes filled the void.

He didn't smile. Didn't wave. His red eyes, like embers under his blond bangs, swept the audience slowly, calculatingly, making brief but intense eye contact with various random faces. He saw blind admiration in some, calculated challenge in others, pure and simple fear in a few. Good. Everything was fuel. Everything was information.

Finally, he leaned slightly toward the microphone. His voice, when it emerged, wasn't the explosive roar of Dynamight in the heat of battle. It was clear, rough at the edges like coarse sandpaper, carrying a natural authority that didn't need volume to impose itself. It was the voice of someone who gave orders amid chaos and expected to be obeyed.

"Good afternoon."

The greeting fell like a stone on a perfectly smooth pond, disturbing the surface with concentric waves of absolute attention.

"My name is Bakugou Katsuki. Hero Code: Dynamight. Current Rank: five." He made a calculated pause, letting the numbers and the name weigh. It wasn't an introduction; it was an established fact. "You're here because someone, somewhere on the faculty, thought I have something to say worth hearing. It's up to you to decide if that person was right."

He saw eyebrows raise, quick exchanges of glances. Good. Breaking expectations from the first minute.

"So I won't waste your time with fairy tales. I won't paint a pretty picture of flowing capes and guaranteed happy endings. You won't leave here feeling inspired and warm inside." He paused again, his gaze sweeping the rows like a beacon. "You'll leave here, at best, with one more question in your head—an uncomfortable one. At worst, you'll understand, once and for all, why some of you, no matter how talented, shouldn't be here. Why this path chews up and spits out those unprepared for what it truly demands."

The atmosphere in the gym grew heavier, denser. He could feel the tension rising, a rope stretching. Something within him, ancient and familiar, a beast dormant in his chest, stirred, feeling that tension and wanting to feed it, explode it into something more spectacular, more his. He took a deep breath, feeling the air burn slightly in his lungs, and crushed the impulse. Control.

"Being a hero," he continued, his voice firm and clear, "isn't about saving people."

The statement provoked a collective whisper, a palpable shock. Someone coughed nervously.

"Saving people is the consequence. The visible result. The work, the real and dirty work that no one sees in the headlines, is about control." He raised his right hand, palm up, empty. He didn't ignite an explosion, didn't put on a pyrotechnic show. He just showed his hand, the slightly rough, calloused palms, the tool of his power. "Control of your strength. Of your fear. Of your anger. Of your ego. Of your desire to be the hero of the hour. Control of the narrative, of collateral damage, of your own image. Control is the most valuable currency in this profession, and it's paid for with constant effort and brutal self-criticism."

His eyes, for an involuntary and traitorous instant, jumped to the dark corner. Izuku was still there. Now he wasn't looking at the tablet. He was looking at him. Directly. Not with an easy-to-read expression, but with a neutral, professional, analytical look. As if evaluating a performance, cataloging strengths and weaknesses. Katsuki felt a shiver run down his spine, a mix of cold and heat. Focus. On the audience. On the material. On the agreement.

"I know anger," he said, and there was a new layer in his voice, a spark of personal confession. "It's not my enemy. It's my fuel. Without it, I'm just a guy with gunpowder in his hands and an inferiority complex." The raw honesty surprised even himself, and he saw several students lean forward, hooked. "But anger without direction is just noise. It's a scream into the void. And a hero who makes noise attracts unwanted attention, disrupts operations, scares the civilians they're supposed to protect. A hero who makes controlled, calculated, deliberate damage ends the fight. Ends the threat. That's what matters."

He began to walk along the edge of the stage, a slow, deliberate, almost predatory movement. His footsteps were the only sound besides his voice.
"You train techniques here until you puke.You learn ethics, study cases of old heroes, run simulations. All important. All necessary. But no one, no one, talks about the cost with the frankness they should. About the fatigue that settles in your bones and doesn't go away with a night's sleep or an energy drink. About the decision you make in a microsecond, with incomplete information and adrenaline pumping, that haunts you for years, every night, when you close your eyes. About the physical weight of knowing that your mistake, a single lapse in control, a one-degree slip in your attack angle, could be the last thing someone sees, feels, or hears."

He stopped abruptly. His eyes fixed on a specific student in the front row, a big guy with broad shoulders and an expression of almost arrogant confidence. "You. Your face is familiar. What's your Quirk?"

The boy seemed surprised to be chosen, swallowed hard, and straightened his posture. "Exponential muscle fortification, sir! I can increase my muscle mass and density up to five times!"

"Strong, then," Katsuki stated, without emotion.

"Yes, sir! Pure power rating: A!"

"Impressive," Katsuki said, and the tone wasn't admiration; it was provocation. "And what if you're on an urban mission, a villain with a high-spectrum paralytic gas emission Quirk takes hostages in a daycare. The gas is colorless, odorless, and acts in three seconds. Does your strength solve it? Does your 'A-rated' power save the children?"

The boy fell silent. The confidence on his face dissolved, replaced by rapid blinking and slight pallor. He looked down at his own hands, large and powerful, as if seeing them for the first time and realizing their uselessness in a specific scenario.

"Exactly," Katsuki continued, his voice a bit softer now, but no less cutting. "Your power, as impressive as it is, is a tool. A powerful tool, but still, just a tool. And if the only tool you have, that you cultivate, that you love to use, is a hammer, then every problem starts to look like a nail. Until the problem reveals itself to be a thin crystal vase, full of rare flowers and precious memories. Then, my friend, you are completely fucked. And worse, you fucked up everything around you."

Nervous, almost relieved laughter rippled through the audience. The tension broke for a second, but the lesson had been planted. Katsuki allowed the silence to return, more thoughtful now.

"Control," he resumed, stopping at the center of the stage, "isn't synonymous with holding back. Holding back is static. It's damming. And what's dammed one day overflows, usually in the worst possible way. Control is directing. It's channeling. It's knowing in which microsecond I need to press the trigger of my explosions to alter my vector in the air, dodge a projectile, and position myself for a counterattack. It's calculating the exact shockwave necessary to destabilize the base of a giant robot without disintegrating the support structure of the overpass it's on. It's using 2% of your maximum strength when 100% would be infinitely more satisfying, visceral, fun—but would cost a structural wall, the public's trust, and possibly your partner's hero license."

He was in his element now. Pure tactics. Physics applied to combat. The mathematical language of contained violence. His voice took on a different cadence, more fluid, almost passionate, without needing to raise its volume. It was the voice of an expert talking about his craft. He saw the students' eyes shining—some with the gleam of sudden understanding, others with the haze of confusion, but all hooked, utterly captivated by the mastery with which he described the indescribable.

"I'll give a real example. Not from a textbook. The Yokohama Port Incident, six months ago." He didn't mention he had been at the center of that storm. That it had been one of the missions that cost him a regenerated tendon in his shoulder and a star-shaped scar under his right rib that still ached when it rained. "Villain with a Quirk for catalytic rust manipulation. Could oxidize steel structures in real-time, just with eye contact and concentration. A storage building, full of containers, began to collapse like a wet sandcastle. Brute force? The obvious solution was to take down the compromised section before it fell uncontrollably. Result: total loss of the warehouse, risk of cascading damage."

He paused, letting the catastrophic scenario form in their minds.
"Control?"he continued, and a faint gleam appeared in his red eyes.

"Identification of the epicentral point of oxidation propagation, via thermal scanner and vibration pattern analysis. Isolation of the point with a sequence of high-precision dry heat explosions—not to destroy, but to raise the local temperature to a level that would instantly evaporate the air's moisture, the catalyst of the villain's Quirk. Calculated temperature: 457 degrees Celsius. Exposure time: 1.7 seconds. Safe distance for civilians: recalculated three times during execution. Result: damage contained to 15% of the structure, villain neutralized by fatigue-induced collapse from loss of catalyst, zero fatalities, zero serious injuries. That is control. That is physics, chemistry, tactics, and cold-bloodedness working together. That is being a hero. It's not about the strongest hit. It's about the right hit."

The pause that followed was one of deep absorption. He could see the processors in the school's brightest minds working at full throttle, trying to digest the numbers, the complexity, the necessary coldness.

"But the hardest control," he said, and his voice lost some of its precise, technical tone, gaining a visceral roughness, more personal, as if he were scraping the words from an internal wound, "isn't about your Quirk. It's not about equations or timing. It's about here." He tapped his knuckles against his own chest, over his sternum, with a muffled sound. "It's about holding your tongue when a panicked civilian is screaming in your ear, disrupting your concentration, putting everyone in danger. It's about not taking out the frustration and residual adrenaline on your teammate when the strategy goes wrong due to an unpredictable factor. It's about swallowing your pride and accepting command from someone who, at that moment, understands the situation better than you. It's about accepting, with the most painful lucidity possible, that sometimes, the only possible victory is to walk away alive and lose the villain, instead of dying like a stubborn, dumb martyr, leaving a bigger problem and a void behind."

His gaze, once again, escaped the rigid control he had imposed on himself. It was pulled, irresistibly, to the dark corner. Izuku was still looking. But the expression had changed. The analytical neutrality was giving way to something more… complex. There was a slight tension in his jaw, a deeper shadow in his eyes. He didn't look away. It was a silent confrontation across dozens of meters of gym and years of unresolved history. Katsuki felt a knot form in his throat. Don't stare. Don't seek. Don't yield.

He tore his gaze away with an almost audible physical effort, forcing it back to the audience with such intensity that some students in the front row instinctively recoiled.

"You will fail," he declared, his voice regaining the firmness of steel, but with a deeper resonance, loaded with the truth he carried in his own scars. "It's a statistical guarantee. It's a human certainty. You will lose control. With your power—and someone will get hurt. With your tongue—and someone will walk away. With your fear—and someone will pay the price. The question, the only question that matters after the dust settles, isn't if you will fail. It's when. And it's: what do you do afterwards? Do you stoop down, pick up the pieces, analyze the damage, and learn? Do you correct yourself, train the weak point, seek help if necessary? Or do you lift your head, close your ears, repeat the mistake louder, stronger, more violently, thinking that volume and brute force will, by some miracle, fix what's broken?"

The question hung in the gym's air, heavy as lead. No one dared to breathe loudly. No one moved a chair. It was as if everyone were holding their collective breath, confronted with a mirror that didn't show their heroic faces, but their potential catastrophic weaknesses.

"This lecture," he concluded, lowering the microphone and taking a step back, his imposing, solitary silhouette outlined against the dusty columns of light from the windows, transforming him into an almost mythological figure, "wasn't given to offer comfortable answers. It was given to plant questions that hurt, that itch, that won't let you sleep. Because when you're in the field, on the street, in the sky, in the middle of real hell, life won't give you a multiple-choice quiz. There won't be an All Might smiling and saying 'Plus Ultra!' It will throw you into absolute darkness, without a map and without a compass, and scream in your ear: 'figure it out.' And 'figuring it out'…" he closed his fists in front of him, not with violence, but with a contained tension that was more terrifying than any explosion, "...starts with the control you practice here. Now. Every day. Over every explosion, every jump, every word. But mainly," and his voice dropped to an almost-whisper that, nonetheless, echoed in every corner of the silence, "over yourself."

He didn't say "thank you for your attention." He didn't ask "are there any questions?" He didn't give a final nod of camaraderie. He simply gave a single, short nod of his head—a period etched in fire—turned on his heel, and stepped off the stage.

The silence persisted for two, three, four whole seconds. It was a thick, charged silence, like the air before a storm. Then, like a wave breaking against a seawall, the applause began. They weren't hysterical fan convention applause. They weren't rhythmic, trained claps. They were heavy, sincere, almost reverent. The claps sounded like hammer blows, mixed with the sound of feet shuffling and a growing murmur of low, rapid, impressed voices.

Katsuki didn't smile. He made no gesture of acknowledgment. He just nodded once more, briefly, as he walked with long, decisive strides toward the gym's side exit—the door leading to the teachers' locker rooms and, crucially, not passing by the projector desk in the dark corner. His spine was straight as a steel rod, his shoulders squared, his footsteps echoing with unshakable firmness. But inside, under the armor of his suit and the carapace of his posture, every muscle was tensed to the point of failure, every nerve vibrating like an overtightened violin string.

He had done it. Focused on the students. On the material. On the hard, necessary message. He had been brutally honest, not only with them, but, somehow, with himself. He had avoided looking at Izuku… for the most part. The two exceptions, those traitorous shifts of gaze, hurt like admissions of weakness, like cracks in a dam he had sworn to keep intact.

As he passed through the side door, his hero-trained ear, sharpened by training and tension, caught fragments of conversations forming like foam in the wake of his exit:

"—never heard anyone talk like that, not even Endeavor in his lecture…"
"—seems like he knows exactly where it hurts,as if he's asked himself all those questions…"
"—Dynamight…is completely different from what I imagined. Scary, but… reliable?"
"—he didn't come to motivate us.He came to warn us.—"
"—'A hero who makes noise attracts attention.'I'm writing that on my locker."

The heavy metal door closed behind him with a dull, final thud, cutting off the sound of applause and murmurs like a guillotine strike. The sudden silence of the cold, fluorescent-lit corridor was a physical relief, a bucket of cold water poured over his overheated nerves. He didn't head straight to the locker rooms. He stopped, his back against the cold concrete wall, and finally let out the breath he'd been holding in his lungs in a long, trembling, uncontrollable sigh.

His body sagged slightly. He leaned against a row of metal lockers, hands on his knees, head bowed. The cold sweat he hadn't allowed to show during the thirty-five-minute lecture now streamed in rivulets down his temples and the nape of his neck, dampening his suit collar. His heart pounded with immense, irregular force against his ribs, a frantic drum in the vacuum of silence. The fatigue was deep, visceral. It wasn't the physical fatigue of a fight—it was the exhaustion of total containment. Of every word weighed on the silver scale of raw honesty. Of every controlled gaze to avoid seeking the green in the dark. Of every impulse to explode into empty rhetoric or run away repressed with titanic strength. It was more exhausting than a twelve-hour patrol, more draining than many life-or-death battles.

He raised his head slowly, looking at his own blurred, distorted reflection in the polished metal of a locker. The red eyes staring back were a bit darker, surrounded by signs of tension and the shadow of persistent insomnia. But he was whole. The stage hadn't consumed him. The past hadn't swallowed him. He hadn't exploded in arrogant self-defense. He hadn't fled in cowardice. He had planted the seed, as planned with Todoroki. A small, hard seed made of naked truth and vulnerability disguised as hardness. Planted in the fertile soil of the next generation of heroes.

Now it was time to wait. To see if something would sprout from it. If those words would find ground in some minds, transform into more cautious actions, heavier training, more contained egos within that gym.

And, in some deep, dark, well-guarded corner of his mind—a corner he dared not examine too closely, for fear of what he might find—he hoped. Hoped, with a thread of anxiety twisting in his stomach, to see if something, anything, a fragment of that truth, an echo of that internal struggle he had so blatantly displayed, had managed to cross the distance of the gym, the shadow of the corner, and the fortress of professionalism, to reach the man behind the projector. To reach Izuku.

He straightened up, rubbed his face with his hands, feeling the moisture of sweat. Deep breath. In. Out. The corridor air was cold and impersonal. He was done. The first part was complete.

Without looking back, he started walking toward the locker rooms, his steps slower now, but still determined. The war for his redemption, he knew, was made of daily battles. This one, the Battle of Gym Beta, was over. And he, against all odds, including his own, had emerged intact.

For now.

Tuesday at U.A. began with a tense quietude, a calm that Izuku Midoriya recognized as the harbinger of a storm. He was in the teachers' wing, a refuge of silence and efficiency designed to isolate strategic thinking from adolescent bustle. His desk, impeccably organized, was a bastion against the emotional chaos threatening to settle in. Every object had its place: the tablets aligned parallel to the edge, the digital pens in their case, a small succulent plant (a gift from Ochaco) as the only touch of organic life in a sea of technology and paper. The formal email from the coordination office, containing the detailed schedule of Katsuki Bakugou's sessions, had been deleted unopened. It was a mental hygiene measure, a minimal act of control in a scenario he felt slipping through his fingers. If he didn't know the exact times, he wouldn't have to calibrate his own movements to avoid them, wouldn't be paralyzed calculating alternate routes every hour of the day. Ignorance, in this case, was a trench.

The problem, he quickly discovered, was that chaos didn't need a schedule to manifest; it manifested through the enthusiasm of others, a virus of contagious admiration spreading through the academy's hallways with the speed of a welcome rumor. It was a social phenomenon that he, as a hero scholar, should be able to predict and analyze, but which, as a collateral victim, hit him with the force of a tide.

The buzz started at lunchtime, in the cafeteria. Izuku was sitting at an isolated table near a column, reviewing a complex lesson plan on rescue logistics in low-visibility environments, like dense fog or toxic smoke. The ambient sound, normally filtered by his tunnel concentration, began to infiltrate the first barrier of his focus. They were always the same fragments of conversations, excited whispers overlapping, muffled laughter carrying a single name like a banner: Dynamight.

"Dynamight almost blew Kaminari-senpai's head off!" The voice, sharp and full of admiration bordering on veneration, came from a nearby table of second-year students. The tone was of someone recounting a legend, not a training event that had occurred a few hours earlier. "He said Kaminari was hesitating too much between two targets, that hesitation is a luxury that costs lives. And then, out of nowhere, he let out a warning explosion that passed within centimeters of his ear. Didn't hit him, of course, but the sound… dude, the sound was deafening. The shockwave made Kaminari's hair stand on end! It was to force an instinctive reaction. Dynamight yelled that the body has to react before the mind starts to doubt. He called hesitation 'the first step to defeat' and 'the perfume of a coward.'"

Izuku didn't look up from the tablet. The digital pen in his hand continued to trace precise lines on the evacuation flow diagram. Expected behavior, he thought, his mind splitting like a computer processor. Controlled explosions as a corrective tool are an integral part of his teaching. He's always used fear as a catalyst for action, discomfort as fuel for evolution. It's a high-risk, high-return training methodology, applicable in specific elite combat contexts. Not relevant to my current function, which is coordination and logistics.

But the tip of the digital pen trembled slightly, creating a small stray mark on the screen. He knew, with a clarity that cut like a blade, that Katsuki wasn't just teaching tactics. He was performing. He was rewriting his narrative within the environment he had publicly rejected, doing it with the brutality and surgical efficiency only he possessed. The millimeter precision of the explosion, the exact calibration of sound to be maximum but not injurious, the perfect timing to shock without incapacitating—it was the signature of a tactical genius who understood the psychology of fear as well as the physics of explosives. Izuku, the analyst, the Quirk scholar, recognized and mentally recorded the brutal effectiveness of the technique. Cataloged it: Use of conditioned aversive stimulus to accelerate reaction times.

Izuku, the man, felt his stomach churn with the nauseating familiarity of that controlled terror. A visceral memory invaded his mind without permission: him, at fifteen, in rescue training, frozen for an instant before a collapse simulation. The sound of an explosion behind him, not close enough to hurt, but close enough to make his heart jump into his throat. Katsuki's voice, still juvenile but already loaded with absolute scorn: "Get out of the way, you useless Deku! Or do you think the building's gonna wait for you to make a spreadsheet before it collapses?" He remembered countless times being the target of those "warning explosions," and how each one, painful and humiliating, forced him to evolve, to anticipate, to move before thinking. The method, in its cruelty, worked. And that was what troubled him most deeply. The undeniable effectiveness of Katsuki was proof that coldness, tactical aggression, and emotional tactlessness could be powerful pedagogical tools, perhaps even more impactful in the short term than the meticulous patience, structured empathy, and positive reinforcement Izuku strived to cultivate in his own classes.

He was being, in a way, surpassed in his own field of expertise—hero training—not for lack of skill or knowledge, but for an apparent lack of necessary cruelty. U.A., the system, the world, needed both types, he knew that. His approach saved lives sustainably, built foundations. Katsuki's won decisive battles, broke paradigms. But the attention, the vibrant energy in the hallways, was all directed toward the fire. Toward the spectacle of naked, burning truth.

His internal analysis, always meticulous to the point of exhaustion, could not ignore the cold validity of Katsuki's approach. He himself had extensively documented in his Quirk analysis notebooks—the old ones from his student days, and the new, digital ones as a teacher—the crucial need for training that simulated chaos, overwhelming psychological pressure, and the moral ambiguity of real combat. The fundamental difference, he reasoned as his fingers continued to draw escape routes on the tablet, was that Izuku tried to mitigate trauma, build resilience through structured support, controlled repetition, and safe deconstruction of failure. Katsuki, on the other hand, seemed to seek immediate breaking, the violent deconstruction of ego and confidence to force a stronger, harder, and infinitely faster reconstruction. It was the method of shock therapy applied to the battlefield, and the results, according to the enthusiastic reports from the students, seemed immediate and impactful.

The students' response rate, the glaring improvement in their decision-making under extreme stress, all pointed to the brutal and unquestionable effectiveness of the hero Dynamight as a field instructor. Izuku tried to rationalize, to wrap the discomfort in layers of logic: It's a necessary evil. He's filling a dangerous gap that U.A.'s softer, more reflective approach may have unintentionally created. He is the scalpel that cuts complacency, the acid that dissolves illusion. The students who survive his training will emerge better prepared for the grim reality of hero work.

But rationalization was a thin, porous bandage over an old, open wound. What struck him to the core was not the effectiveness itself, but the glacial indifference with which Katsuki wielded his power, the frightening ease with which he transformed others' pain into objective lessons, without a hint of visible hesitation or remorse. He wondered, in a thought he tried to abort but which had already taken on a life of its own, if Katsuki's ultimate goal was merely to train more efficient heroes, or if it was, in some perverse and intricate way, a form of public self-punishment. To prove to himself and to everyone that he could be useful, essential, admirable, even at the geographical epicenter of his greatest failure and his deepest vulnerabilities. The psychological complexity behind Katsuki's impenetrable façade of arrogance was a labyrinth Izuku knew like the back of his hand—or thought he knew—and the superficial chatter of the students was just the distorted, simplified echo of an abyssal depth he no longer had the right, or the courage, to probe.

"He said things no other hero has the courage to say." Another student, this time with a deeper voice, laden with a tone of reverence bordering on religious, contributed to the unwanted symphony. "Like, he said, in so many words, that if you're not willing to kill the villain, you're not truly willing to save the victim. He was brutally honest. He said the line between hero and villain is a matter of focus and target, not innate morality. That abstract morality is for the weak, for those who can afford to philosophize while people die. And he said the only thing that matters in the field is victory. That the rest is just fancy excuses for losers. He called excessive compassion in a crisis moment 'the deadly luxury of second-rate heroes.'"

Izuku clenched his jaw so hard he felt a twinge of pain in his temple. Brutally honest. The phrase was a painful and precise echo of thousands of past interactions, of a life philosophy he tried to understand and, at the same time, reject in his own practice. Katsuki's worldview had always been Darwinian, relentless, based on survival of the fittest and victory as the sole parameter of value. But hearing it distilled, packaged, and absorbed with enthusiasm by young, impressionable, still-forming minds caused a physical chill that ran up his spine. He forced his mind to cling tooth and nail to the concrete task: weight distribution and balance point in an asymmetric structural collapse scenario. Focus. The work is the anchor. The work is real, measurable, safe. The rest is background noise, social data to be analyzed later, at a safe time. His morality, his philosophy, is no longer my concern. My responsibility is the students' physical safety and the didactic effectiveness of the curriculum. Period.

He tried to convince himself, with an almost desperate stubbornness, that the students' attraction to Katsuki was purely academic, an intellectual fascination with raw efficiency and unflinching frankness. But his own intellect, trained to see patterns and deep motivations, rejected that simplification. He knew it was more than that. It was the primary and powerful attraction to domesticated danger, to the figure who openly defied political correctness and standardized heroic discourse, who promised tangible results without the need for self-deception or emotional comfort. Katsuki was the living, breathing antithesis of what U.A., in its institutional mission, tried to teach about teamwork and compassion, and that was exactly why his presence was so electrifying and popular. Youth, with its impetuosity and search for identity, would always lean toward fire, toward unfiltered and painful truth, toward the seductive promise of absolute and self-sufficient power. Katsuki offered that in its purest form. Izuku offered caution, meticulous analysis, the longer, safer, and ethically meticulous path. And, at that moment, under the harsh light of the cafeteria, Katsuki's path seemed infinitely more attractive, more real. U.A. was being transformed, subtly but irreversibly, by his mere presence, and Izuku felt not like an agent of that transformation, but like a silent and anachronistic observer, cataloging a metamorphosis of which he was no longer a part.

On Wednesday, the noise intensified, migrating from common spaces to intellectual refuges. Izuku was in the campus's main library, a vast, silent place with high shelves and oak tables where he hoped to find a sanctuary of linear thought. But even there, in respectful whispers and the discreet clatter of terminals, the specter of Katsuki reached him.

"Did you see the video of yesterday's session in Dojo 3? The one with the third-year girl, the one with the water manipulation Quirk? It was… intense." The voice was of a third-year student Izuku vaguely recognized from the strategic debate team, known for her iron seriousness and analytical focus. The fact she was so visibly engaged, with a gleam in her eyes that wasn't just intellectual, was a powerful sign of the hypnotic effectiveness of Katsuki. "He made her try to put out a gel fire (which he created himself with a chemical mix) with her own Quirk. When she couldn't control the jet and the fire spread, he just stopped and said: 'If you can't control the only thing that can put you out, how the hell are you going to control what sets you on fire?' It was like he saw straight into her soul. He dismantled her entire defensive strategy in seconds. Said she was using her Quirk as a psychological security blanket, not as a tool or a weapon. That she needed to first learn to fight without it, to understand its true value. And the way he made her cry from pure frustration… and then, without a drop of pity, forced her to get up, wipe her face, and try again, but in a totally different way? It was such a strong reality shock you could feel it from the stands. He made her understand, in practice, that the only person who can really save her in the field is herself. He didn't comfort her, didn't give a motivational speech. He challenged her. And she, after crying from anger for a few minutes, went back to training with a coldness and determination in her eyes I'd never seen before. It was like she killed a weaker version of herself right there."

"He's so… intense," her friend finished, whispering. "And the best part is he doesn't try to be nice, or accessible, or any of that. He's just… him. He's real."

The word real hit him like a low blow, with unexpected force that stole his breath for a second. Katsuki had always been real. Painfully, destructively, gloriously real. It was the one thing he, in all his history, had never managed to be: false. His masks were always transparent, his anger always genuine, his scorn always authentic. And it was that wild authenticity, unpolished by diplomacy or fear of rejection, that made him such a magnetically effective teacher and, simultaneously, such a dangerous human being for Izuku's fragile and laboriously constructed inner peace. Katsuki was a polished granite mirror, rough and merciless, reflecting not a pleasant image, but structural flaws, hidden weaknesses, cracks in character. And the students, perhaps tired of vanity mirrors, of reflections softened by positive pedagogy, were diving headfirst into his demanding, distorted reflection.

Izuku wondered, while closing an advanced rescue tactics book with a bit more force than necessary, if Katsuki was fully aware of the hypnotic power of his own image, if he was intentionally manipulating this persona of "naked truth" to maximize his impact, or if it was simply the inevitable, organic result of his unaltered nature. His conclusion, arrived at after a few seconds of cold internal analysis, was that it was probably both. Katsuki was too smart, too much of a strategist, not to perceive with surgical clarity the effect his words and actions caused. But he was also too proud, too pathologically true to himself, to spend energy pretending to be something he wasn. The only thing that truly seemed to bother Katsuki, deep down, was a lack of control over results. And he was controlling the results there, shaping minds in his image and likeness, with frightening precision.

What bothered Izuku, at the core of everything, was the total absence of an emotional safety net in Katsuki's methodology. He was teaching on the edge of a precipice, pushing the students to the brink so they would learn not to fall. And Izuku, by design of his function and by nature of his character, was the safety net. He was the one on standby to pick up the pieces, to offer the context that the brutality omitted, to fix what efficiency broke. It was a vital role, but invisible. And, at that moment, invisible seemed synonymous with irrelevant.

He closed the training materials cabinet with a dry, decisive click. It's just work, he repeated to himself, like a secular mantra. He is a high-risk, high-return valuable asset for U.A. My function, as coordinator, is to ensure his integration is smooth, that safety protocols are respected, and that efficacy reports are delivered and analyzed. Nothing more. I am a crisis administrator, not a participant. He had become, over the course of that week, a master of calculated detours, meticulously planned alternate schedules, in keeping his head down and his eyes fixed on a point three meters ahead. Thirty-seven steps, he remembered. It was the physical distance he had maintained in the hallway encounter. It became the symbolic measure of the distance he needed to maintain in all aspects.

On Thursday, the acclaim reached its institutional peak. During a weekly coordination meeting in the conference room, Professor Aizawa, wrapped in his sleeping bag like a cocoon of weariness, commented in his usual monotone, cutting tone that seemed to dissolve any emotion around him: "Dynamight's practical sessions are a quantifiable success in terms of attendance and engagement. The second and third-year students, in particular, are showing a significant increase in motivation for extracurricular training. Participation rates in high-risk simulation exercises have risen by approximately fifteen percent since last week. He has an undeniable, almost disturbing talent for productive intimidation and breaking complacent mental paradigms."

All eyes at the table, momentarily, landed on Izuku. It was subtle, but he felt the weight of the gazes. As the coordinator of that specific program, it was his function to comment. Izuku, sitting with an erect posture, fingers interlaced on the table, nodded once, a controlled movement. "Yes. Preliminary data corroborate that observation. The methodology applied by Dynamight, although unconventional and at the extreme limit of accepted safety protocols, seems to resonate effectively with the students' demand for pragmatism and for simulations that mirror the psychological pressure of the real field. The feedback reports, although emotionally charged, indicate a high perceived added value."

His voice was flat, professional, laden with the administrative jargon he had learned to master. No one at the table—not even Aizawa, with his penetrating gaze—seemed to notice the herculean effort he made to keep his breathing absolutely regular, not to let the sharp pang of a complex, toxic feeling—a mix of ancient pride and new jealousy—strike him in the chest. Pride for Katsuki's unequivocal success, for the recognition of his raw talent. Jealousy for the apparent ease with which he dominated the environment, captured attention, and dictated the new emotional tone of the school, even while keeping his physical distance from everyone. The week dragged on, each day marked by the silent thunder of Katsuki's success and Izuku's constant, almost obsessive, vigilance. He felt like a high-sensitivity seismograph, recording every tremor, every reverberation of Katsuki's presence in U.A.'s ecosystem, but completely unable, by his own decision and by design of his function, to intervene or shape those tremors. The only thing that kept him anchored, that prevented him from being shaken to the core, was the cold, bureaucratic certainty that, in the end, the system, with its impersonal coldness, its rules, and its power hierarchies, would protect him. He was the coordinator, the guardian of the rules and the architect of the processes. Katsuki was the guest talent, the contracted force of nature. This hierarchy, although fragile as glass when placed before their personal history, was his shield, his administrative armor. And he wore it every day, like a uniform.

Friday arrived laden with an almost physical inevitability, like the barometric pressure preceding a typhoon. Izuku was in Training Block Gamma, a labyrinthine, shadowy area of raw concrete structures, exposed steel beams, and narrow walkways, designed to simulate decaying, complex urban environments. He was there for a solitary, meticulous task: collecting raw telemetry data from sensors embedded in the walls and floor, data generated by a third-year endurance training session the previous morning. It was work that demanded absolute concentration, monk-like patience, and a certain taste for isolation. The monotony of the process—connecting the reader, downloading data packets, checking integrity, noting anomalies—was a welcome mental shield.

He was carrying a stack of three robust analysis tablets and a portable sensor reader, each with considerable weight that served to anchor him to physical reality, to the concrete task. The stack was a tactile reminder of his responsibilities.

The corridor he was in was narrow, a slit between two large concrete modules simulating collapsed buildings. The lighting was weak, from spaced emergency lights, casting elongated pools of shadow. The air smelled of plaster dust and residual ozone from Quirks. He turned a blind corner, a point where security cameras had a dead angle, and stopped.

Time didn't just stop; it dissolved, evaporated.

An exact meter and a half away, standing like a statue in the middle of the corridor, was Katsuki Bakugou.

He had obviously come from the adjacent practical training area, his silhouette outlined against the brighter light from the end of the corridor. His Dynamight hero suit was partially deactivated; the gauntlets and calf thrusters were stored, but the black long-sleeved thermal shirt clung to his torso, damp with sweat, outlining every muscle defined by recent physical tension. The characteristic smell of sweet, metallic nitroglycerin, mixed with the acrid odor of intense physical effort, hung in the air around him like a perceptible aura. His blond hair, more spiked and wild than usual, was plastered to his forehead and temples in wet strands. He was breathing a bit fast, not panting, but controlled, his shoulders still arched forward in residual tension, his fists half-clenched. He looked like a top-tier predator who had just concluded a successful hunt and was now calmly assessing his next territory. His eyes, the color of crimson, fixed on Izuku the instant he appeared.

There were no students running, no teachers chatting, no characteristic U.A. hum. There was only that silent corridor, the meter-and-a-half distance that seemed an impassable chasm, and the crushing weight of eight months of silence and years of unresolved history.

Izuku felt his heart give a violent leap against his ribs, a primitive physiological reaction to perceived danger. But his body, trained for crisis, conditioned by a decade of leaping into danger, reacted first with iron control. He didn't let the tablets waver. He didn't blink. He didn't retreat. His eyes, which had met Katsuki's for a fraction of a second that felt like an eternity, immediately lowered and fixed on the screen of the top tablet, which showed a sensor reading graph. The mask of Professor Midoriya, cold, professional, and impenetrable, descended over his features like a veil of steel.

Katsuki was the first to break the oppressive silence. It was a rough, dry sound, without intonation, but loaded with an overwhelming physical presence.

"Midoriya."

He nodded his head, a minimal, almost imperceptible movement that to Izuku, in his hypervigilance, was as clear as a shout. An acknowledgment. A greeting. Not "Deku." Not "Professor." Not "Izuku." Just "Midoriya." Formal. Distant. Professional. Exactly what Izuku wanted. So why did that simple word sound like a blow?

Izuku took a calculated second to process the word and formulate a response. He didn't look up. His voice, when it came out, was flat, monotone, devoid of any inflection of detectable emotion, a report-writing voice.

"Bakugou. Principal Nezu requested the detailed efficacy report of your first immersion session by this Friday, 6 PM. Send the final version to my institutional email. The template is in the coordination shared drive."

He didn't ask a question. He gave no room for conversation. The sentence was a bureaucratic order, a dry reminder of deadlines, a wall built with bricks of paperwork and protocols. Without waiting for a response, without even checking if Katsuki had processed the information, Izuku took a decisive step to the side, skirting Katsuki's immobile body with a margin of centimeters that felt like kilometers, and continued walking toward the end of the corridor, his footsteps echoing on the concrete.

The sound of his own steps, firm and regular, was the only sound in the universe at that moment. He could feel Katsuki's gaze glued to his back, a physical, hot weight that seemed to press against his shoulder blades and trap the air in his lungs. The sensation was of being in the crosshairs of a loaded weapon, knowing the trigger wouldn't be pulled, but the tension was the same.

Thirty-seven steps.

He started counting, mentally, with obsessive precision. Each step was a small, crucial victory. An act of pure will against the gravitational pull of the past. The number became a mantra, an anchor in the present reality, a protection spell. Thirty-seven steps to get out of the danger zone, to reestablish the distance of psychological and physical safety. He couldn't afford to stumble, hesitate, slow down. To show any crack, however small, in the armor of professionalism. That encounter, unplanned, in an isolated space, was a test. The first real test. And he had to pass with flying colors. The precision of his count was tangible proof of his self-control. He was measuring and reaffirming the distance, not just physical, but emotional, historical, that he had managed to impose with so much effort.

I counted. Thirty-seven. Exact.

He turned the next corner, leaving the direct line of sight. Only then did the tension held in his shoulders, in his neck, manifest as excruciating pain, a knot of contracted muscles. He could feel cold sweat running down the nape of his neck, under his teacher uniform collar. His heart beat hard, but in a controlled manner, like the engine of a well-tuned machine. Adrenaline ran in his veins, not as the hot fuel of fear, but as an efficient, cooling fluid, sharpening his senses and his coldness. He wondered, in a fit of analytical paranoia, if Katsuki had noticed the almost imperceptible tremor in his voice, if he had perceived the brief freezing of his eyes, if he had seen through the façade for that thousandth of a second. The doubt was a corrosive poison, but he swallowed it, forcing it down along with the wave of nausea that accompanied it. He forced himself to think of the next step in the process: transferring the data to the main server, cross-checking with the training logs, writing the structural integrity report for Gamma. The mind was a fortress, and he would not allow it to be invaded by emotional ghosts.

I didn't look back once.

Looking back would be an act of capitulation. It would admit, even if only to himself in the solitude of the corridor, that there was something to be seen, something worth observing, something that held and pulled him back. It would break the façade of absolute indifference. It would give Katsuki, even if he never knew, the psychological power of knowing his presence still had the power to affect Izuku. And that, above all, Izuku could not allow. Ever. He forced himself to focus on the rough texture of the concrete ahead, on the old burn marks on the walls, on the smell of dust and dampness gradually replacing Katsuki's scent.

I didn't tremble. I didn't waver. I executed the protocol.

He stopped a few meters ahead, leaning against the cold corridor wall for an instant, and closed his eyes, taking one deep breath. His scent was still there, a ghost in the air, but dissipating, being carried away by the ventilation system. I squeezed the tablets against my chest, feeling their solidity.

I survived. Control maintained. Distance maintained.

He adjusted his glasses with a firm movement, pushed himself off the wall, and continued on his way to the server room. The day's mission was accomplished. The unplanned, potentially destabilizing encounter had been controlled, contained, and concluded within acceptable parameters. The distance of a meter and a half, and the thirty-seven steps that followed, had been maintained. It was a small but vital tactical victory. He clung to it like a man clinging to a life raft.

The week ended not with a bang, but with the deep silence of a vacuum. Katsuki Bakugou's efficacy report, concise, direct, and full of raw data without emotional interpretations, arrived in Izuku's institutional email inbox at 11:58 PM on Friday. Punctual to the minute. Professional to the core. Izuku, who was awake reviewing lesson plans for the following week, saw the notification flash. He opened the file, read every line with the attention of an editor fact-checking, and, without adding a single comment, forwarded it to Principal Nezu with a simple line in the email body: "Efficacy report for the first immersion session received and reviewed. No anomalies or protocol deviations detected. Forwarded for your evaluation. – Prof. Midoriya." The sterile coldness of the communication was a balm to his agitated spirit. It was physical, digital proof that professional distance was not only possible but operational. They could coexist within the same system as two separate gears, without friction.

But the coldness of the email couldn't fill the void opening inside him after work hours. At midnight sharp, he was in U.A.'s main gym, a vast, cavernous space of state-of-the-art equipment that, at that hour, was deserted and silent, illuminated only by emergency lights and some treadmills and bikes with blue screens blinking. The only sound was the rhythmic impact of his steps on the treadmill and the occasional metallic clank of weights. He was running, not at a cardio pace, but at a speed that pushed his muscles to the anaerobic limit, trying to exhaust the body in the vain hope that physical exhaustion would take the mental agitation with it.

His mind, however, trained to operate on multiple fronts even under stress, refused to shut down. The emptiness of the gym became an echo chamber for his thoughts. He caught himself, for a second that stretched like a rubber band, imagining, involuntarily planning.

The advanced evasion exercise he had outlined for the following week, intended for third-year students specializing in rescue in hostile environments, was technically complex and beautiful in its logical symmetry. It involved dodging simulated energy projectiles (low-intensity light balls) in a zero-gravity chamber, where students used hand thrusters to move. The focus was on predictive trajectory analysis, conservation of motion, and anticipation based on firing patterns.

Katsuki would have conducted the same exercise in a radically, viscerally different way.

The image formed in Izuku's mind, sharp and intrusive. Katsuki wouldn't use harmless light projectiles. He'd use something that made noise, generated heat, caused real physical fright—maybe compressed air balls that popped near the body. He would have eliminated zero gravity—"too easy"—and put the students in a random gravity environment, disorienting. He would have yelled, not instructed, launching precise insults hitting each one's weak point. He would have used proximity explosions, not to hurt, but to create air turbulence, forcing a pure instinctive reflex reaction, not a calculated one. He would have made the students feel the visceral danger of being hit, the panic of total disorientation. Izuku's goal was to teach avoiding danger with elegance. Katsuki's goal, he knew, would be to teach surviving danger when evasion failed. And, to be brutally honest with himself, facing the naked logic of the hero world, Katsuki's method was often more effective for forging frontline heroes who survived beyond the first encounter. Real life, the battlefield, the real-time crisis—they didn't wait for a full trajectory analysis. They demanded instinct forged in fire.

The difference between them, Izuku realized with a bitterness he savored like a horrible medicine, was the fundamental difference between the science and the art of war. Izuku was the science: methodical, analytical, data-based, seeking the ideal, replicable solution within controlled parameters. Katsuki was the art: intuitive, brutal, experience-based, seeking the most efficient solution in the moment, even if ugly, even if it broke rules. And art, he had to admit looking at their history, at Katsuki's own development, was often faster, more adaptable, and, in his hands, frighteningly efficient.

He forced himself to visualize his own exercise scenario, but Katsuki's voice—rough, imperative, laden with a disdain that was almost a perverse kind of care—echoed in his mind, overlaying his own calm command voice. "What are you doing, Deku? Planning a birthday party? They're aiming at you! Move! Hesitation is a luxury that costs lives! You think the villain's gonna wait for you to finish your vector calculation?" The memory was so vivid, so sensory, that he could feel the ghostly heat of a simulated explosion on his nape, the fictional smell of burnt hair. He wasn't on the treadmill just to exercise his body. He was trying, desperately, to exercise his own method, prove to himself that his approach—the calm, analytical, safe approach—was not only valid but superior on some level. But Katsuki's ghostly presence, his shadow looming over U.A., constantly forced him to doubt. What was more important in the end: methodological safety protecting students short-term, or brutal effectiveness preparing them for the worst and perhaps saving them long-term? He had made his choice long ago, guided by his own heart and his scars. But Katsuki was there, living, breathing, thundering proof that the other option not only existed but worked and was desired.

Izuku abruptly stopped the treadmill, his feet slipping on the still-moving belt, forcing him to grab the side rails. The sound of the electric motor decelerating with a groan was abnormally loud in the cavernous silence. He stepped off, sweat streaming down his face and torso, breathing heavily. Physical exhaustion arrived, but the mental one persisted, stubborn.

He's not here. This is my space. My time. My mind.

He grabbed the towel hanging on the railing and wiped his face with silent fury, rubbing his skin until it was red. He was turning to go to the weight rack when the sound of the gym's main door opening with a low creak cut through the silence.

An instinctive, completely involuntary shiver ran down his spine. He knew that sound. He knew the rhythm of the footsteps now echoing on the rubber floor—firm, heavy, with a cadence that spoke of absolute confidence and a body built for pure power.

Izuku froze. The towel stopped halfway to his face. Slowly, very slowly, he lowered his arm and looked to the side.

Katsuki Bakugou was at the entrance.

He wore only a pair of black training pants and a worn, tight gray tank top. The weak emergency light sculpted his torso in an almost cruel way. The muscles of his shoulders and arms, dense and defined after years of controlled explosions and absolute strength training, stretched the thin fabric. The tank top was slightly damp with old sweat, clinging to his broad chest and segmented abdomen. His blond hair, messy and free of gel, fell over his forehead in a way that should have looked casual, but on that body, seemed like a statement. He carried a water bottle and a towel thrown over one shoulder.

He stopped as soon as he saw Izuku. His red eyes, reflective like a cat's in the gloom, fixed on him. For a fraction of a second, there was no expression. Just recognition.

"Midoriya." Katsuki's voice sounded rough, not from tiredness, but from the night's disuse. It was a sound that crossed the vast empty space and hit Izuku directly in the solar plexus.

Izuku felt his mouth go instantly dry. The mask of icy professionalism he had used in the Gamma corridor cracked there, in the solitude of the gym, exposing pure shock underneath. He swallowed dryly, forcing the words out.

"Bakugou." The name came out as a hoarse whisper. He straightened up, trying to seem bigger, more solid, but felt absurdly exposed in his sweaty, faded hoodie.

The corners of Katsuki's mouth curved, forming one of those small, crooked smiles that didn't reach his eyes but carried a spark of something—provocation? Satisfaction? The smile he had used in Nezu's office.

"What a… pleasant coincidence," he said, starting to walk toward Izuku, his steps echoing in the quiet. He didn't head for any equipment. He came straight to the space where Izuku stood, next to the switched-off treadmill. He stopped at a distance that was, at the same time, respectful and unbearably intimate. Izuku could feel the heat radiating from his body, the clean, masculine smell of bar soap mixed with a residual trace of nitroglycerin and fresh sweat. It was a smell that invaded his senses, triggering a cascade of sensory memories: his smell on the apartment couch after a long patrol; his smell on the sheets in the morning; his smell, warm and close, on nights Izuku tried to bury in the deepest depths of his mind.

Izuku swallowed dryly. Another involuntary, hot flash cut through his mind: the memory of those same muscles under his fingers, tense and then relaxed, the sensation of Katsuki's warm, slightly rough skin against his chest, the unique smell of sweat and sweet nitrate that was only his, permeating the sheets in the gloom of a bedroom that no longer existed. Desire, sharp and forbidden, throbbed in his lower abdomen like a burn.

"Pleasant isn't the word I'd use," Izuku replied, keeping his voice as neutral as possible. "Of all the gyms in the city, you show up at U.A.'s. Isn't it pretty far from your apartment?" Izuku averted his gaze first, an act of cowardice that instantly shamed him. But looking at Katsuki in that moment was like staring at the sun: blinding and painful. He focused on a distant point on the weight rack.

Katsuki shrugged, a movement that made the muscles of his shoulders and arms contract under the tank top. Izuku couldn't avoid it. His eyes, for a fleeting, traitorous instant, landed on the exposed biceps, the prominent vein running down the forearm, the hard, defined contour of his pectoral under the gray fabric. An intrusive image, sharp and hot as lightning, exploded behind his eyelids: those same arms, not in a gym, but wrapped around him, pulling him against a bare, warm torso. The memory of the weight, the texture of skin, the sound of Katsuki's ragged breath in his ear. It was a flashback to a night long ago, in their apartment, when things were complicated but still possible. A night when the distance between them was measured in centimeters, not steps or months.

He tore his gaze away, too fast, feeling his face on fire. When he looked up again, Katsuki was looking directly at him. And the small, crooked smile had now transformed into something a little more… knowing. The red eyes gleamed with a silent, perverse competence. He had seen. He had noticed the averted gaze, the blush, the microsecond of vulnerability.

"I'm here 'cause the equipment's better," Katsuki said, his voice a tone lower, almost intimate, as if they were sharing a secret. "And 'cause the AC works. The one near my place sucks." He paused, tossing the towel over his shoulder in a careless manner. "But you're right. It's a long walk. Maybe I should rethink my route."

He didn't move. He remained there, blocking Izuku's path to the weights, his presence filling the space with an almost physical density. The air between them seemed charged with static electricity. Izuku could hear his own heart beating in his ears. The temptation to look again at those arms, at that mouth now slightly open in a near-smile, was overwhelming. It was a trap. A deliberate, delicious, and extremely dangerous trap.

"I… was going to finish my workout," Izuku murmured, his voice faltering slightly. He vaguely pointed toward the weight rack, trying to divert.

Katsuki followed his gaze, then looked back at him. His smile didn't diminish. It intensified. It was a slow, confident smile from someone who knows they're in control of the game.

"Right. Won't get in your way," he said, but the tone suggested otherwise. He took a step to the side, finally opening the path. But as he passed Izuku, his solid, warm arm lightly brushed against Izuku's. It was minimal contact, accidental? Doubtful. But it was enough to send another electric shock through Izuku's body, making him tremble completely.

Katsuki paused for an instant after the contact, turning his head back. His red eyes glittered in the gloom.

"Goodnight, Midoriya. Don't overdo it on the weights." The farewell sounded like a soft order, laden with an intimacy they no longer had the right to share.

And then he was gone, heading to a set of parallel bars on the other side of the gym, his powerful silhouette outlined against the blue lights of the machines.

Izuku stood paralyzed for a long minute, the spot where Katsuki's arm had brushed against his burning like a branding iron. His breath was trapped in his chest. His thoughts were a whirlwind of panic, desire, and anger—anger at himself for being caught, for faltering, for looking.

But the truth, a deep and painful truth he rarely admitted even to himself in the silence of the night, was that, in a distorted and symbiotic way, he needed it. He needed that constant friction, that competitive spark, that fierce rivalry that served as an anvil upon which he forged his own ideas.

He needed that aggressive, unthinking, and powerful counterpoint to refine his own approach, to test his limits, to have something to surpass. Without Katsuki as a point of reference—first as an obstacle, then as a rival, then as… something more complex—his own strategic thought process sometimes seemed… incomplete. Like an equation without a critical variable.

It lacked that element of unpredictable and controlled chaos that only Katsuki could personify and introduce into any scenario. His presence, even at a distance, even as a ghost, was contaminating his process, forcing him to think in terms of what would Katsuki do here?, how would Katsuki interpret this failure?, how would I fare if he were on the other side?.

And that was dangerous. It was a psychological dependence he had sworn to cut when that apartment door closed eight months ago. He was fighting a ghost that carried with it the weight of all his history, and, in the quiet of the empty gym, the ghost seemed to be winning, because the ghost was, in part, a creation of his own mind, fueled by admiration, hatred, love, and unresolved grief.

The problem was that now the ghost wasn't just a memory. It was flesh, bone, and sweat, breathing the same heavy air a few meters away. His scent was still there, a chemical signature that messed with all of Izuku's reasoning circuits. Every noise from the other side of the gym—the clink of a weight plate, the dull thud of a weight, the muffled sound of contained effort—was new sensory data, a brutal reminder that physical distance was an illusion. Katsuki was training. Now. In the same space. After that provocation, that calculated brush, he simply… continued his routine. As if nothing had happened. As if Izuku were just a piece of furniture in the setting.

That normality was the most efficient blow. He saw me tremble, and left. He moved on. He always moves on.

To silence the ghost that now had a breathing rhythm and the sound of metal, Izuku headed to the free weight rack, to the area of the heaviest loads. The acute, localized physical pain was a welcome relief, a primitive way to silence the incessant noise in his head. He chose a bar already loaded with plates he knew was at the limit of what he could safely lift. I need something heavier than him. Something I can carry alone. He squatted, wrapped his hands with magnesium powder, positioned his feet. He took a deep breath, trying not to inhale the air that still carried traces of that presence. And he lifted.

The muscles in his back, legs, and arms screamed in immediate protest. The pain was clear, clean, measurable. A problem with a simple solution: lower the bar. It was a mathematics of flesh and bone. With each repetition of the deadlift, he whispered a silent mantra, synchronized with the effort: I am Professor Midoriya. (Lift.) I am the Coordinator. (Lower.) I am the Hero Deku. (Lift.) I am enough. (Lower.)

But with each repetition, with each moment of maximum tension where his vision darkened at the edges and the world reduced to iron and muscle burn, an intrusive image overlaid the darkness: Katsuki, not sweaty from the gym, but sweaty from battle, his uniform torn, blood on his chin, his eyes incandescent with fierce triumph after a difficult victory. The image of Katsuki's success, of raw and unchallenged power, overlaid his own image of solitary, controlled effort. He wins with fire. I win by persisting. He breaks. I resist. Which is stronger? The question was a poison.

He was there, at U.A., in Japan, in the same physical space, and the colossal distance Izuku had laboriously built over eight months of exile, reinvention, silent grief, was being undone, emotional brick by emotional brick, in just one week. The professional coldness was a plastic-resistant armor that was cracking under the nuclear heat of simple geographical proximity and a knowing smile.

He wondered, in a moment of weakness between one repetition and the next, panting, if he too was using the strenuous physical training, the channeled anger, the brutal didactics, as a shield. As a way to protect himself from the emotional storm that returning to U.A. must trigger in him as well.

Does he feel this too? Does he also count the steps? The idea that Katsuki was also suffering, also struggling to maintain his own distance and his own façade, was a dangerously empathetic thought, a critical crack in the armor of indifference Izuku was wearing. It was a breach through which compassion could leak, and compassion was the first step back to the place he was most afraid of being: vulnerable, exposed, needy.

He ignored it with the willpower of someone rejecting a sweet poison. He forced himself into another repetition, the bar groaning, his muscles trembling, the weight crushing any remaining vestige of empathy or connection. No. He chose this. I chose my peace. They are separate paths.

He could not afford to feel.

Feeling was weakness. Feeling was vulnerability. Feeling was opening the door to the pain he knew was waiting on the other side, a pain that tasted of sweet gunpowder and smelled of sweaty skin. And weakness, Katsuki had taught him since childhood, was the first and most fundamental step to defeat. He needed to be strong. Cold. Professional. Impenetrable.

He needed to be the exact opposite of everything Katsuki had once accused him of being: emotional, dependent, pitiful. He needed to be the hero who didn't need to be saved, who didn't offer unsolicited salvation, who didn't carry the weight of anyone but his own. I am no longer the Deku who runs after you, Kacchan. I am the one who stays.

With a final muffled grunt, he replaced the bar on the rack with a metallic clang that echoed through the empty gym. The sound was absorbed by the silence almost instantly. On the other side of the space, there was no reaction, just the continuity of the other's workout. The message was clear: two parallel universes, operating under the same emergency lights, without collision.

He left the gym without looking back, his body aching in every fiber, his mind exhausted but still restless, like an overheated computer trying to process a virus. He left the physical emptiness behind, but carried with him a greater void, now filled not only by absence, but by the active presence of a shadow that refused to be ignored.

The week had been, by all professional and bureaucratic metrics, a resounding success. And, by all personal and emotional measures, a silent and profound failure. He had survived the encounter, the provocation, his own memory. But at a cost he was not yet fully able to calculate.

The price of maintaining distance wasn't just loneliness; it was the civil war within himself, the titanic effort to deny a fundamental part of his own history and chemistry. Professor Midoriya was intact. The hero Deku was operational. But Izuku… Izuku felt farther from himself than ever.

Saturday brought Izuku a different kind of exhaustion, not the physical, purifying kind from extreme training, but the mental, heavy, sticky kind, the cumulative cost of having maintained the mask of indifference, normality, absolute control for five consecutive days under emotional crossfire.

When the dinner invitation from Ochaco Uraraka and Shoto Todoroki appeared on his phone, he accepted without the usual analytical hesitation. He desperately needed the anchor their presence represented, a tangible, warm reminder that his life, his identity, wasn't circumscribed only by the haunted hallways of U.A. and the silent apartment. He needed a reminder that he still had friends, allies, safe harbors.

The chosen place was Guedes Yahua, a 1950s-style American diner with quirky Japanese touches, famous for its absurdly large burgers, generous portions of fries, and milkshakes so sweet and thick they could hold a spoon upright. It was a deliberately loud, chaotic, neon-bathed refuge, the perfect antithesis of U.A.'s sober formality and the oppressive, echoing silence of his own apartment.

The greasy, inviting smell of grilled meat, hot oil, and caramelized sugar was a violent and welcome contrast to the persistent smell of ozone, sweat, and anxiety that seemed to permeate his work clothes and recent memory.

They were there, in the middle of the noisy crowd of youths, families, and tourists, anonymous in their corner, safe in their bubble of familiarity. They sat in a bright red vinyl booth, a bit worn at the edges, located in a darker corner under the flickering, irregular light of a blue and pink neon sign advertising "Space Ice Cream." The light blinked, casting colored, moving shadows on their faces.

They had ordered with the efficiency of those who know the menu and their own state of mind. For Izuku, an "All-Might Burger" (ironic, he thought, but didn't comment) with double cheese and extra bacon, accompanied by a large fries and a diet soda. He barely touched the food when it arrived, pushing the fries around on his plate with a finger. For Ochaco, a plate of fried gyozas, an order of onion rings, and a bottle of Ramune, which she sipped with evident pleasure. Shoto, predictable and sober in his tastes, ordered only a cold soba with separate tsuyu sauce and a tall glass of ice water, which he drank in small, regular sips.

Ochaco was the first to break the ice that, despite the warm atmosphere, had formed around them. But she did it with the tactile caution of someone stepping onto an emotional minefield, knowing the dangerous terrain.

"So, Izuku," she began, biting a piece of gyoza and chewing slowly, her eyes fixed on him like a radar. "First week back in full swing was… intense, huh? You can feel a different energy at school."

Izuku shrugged, a movement that tried to seem nonchalant but came out tense. He picked up a solitary fry and examined it against the blinking neon light, as if studying its cellular structure.

"It's the end of the semester. It's always chaotic. The students are full of adrenaline. Standard stuff."

"I'm not talking about the semester, Izuku," Ochaco said, her voice dropping a tone, losing the forced lightness and gaining a direct softness that was, in many ways, more dangerous and penetrating than any confrontation. "I'm talking about Dynamight. About Katsuki."

The name, spoken low but clear, hung over the table like a storm cloud, heavy and inevitable. Izuku felt instant tension build in his shoulders, in his jaw muscles. He couldn't run. Not there, not with them. They were his trench, but also his most honest mirrors.

"Ah. Him." Izuku wiped his fingers on the paper napkin with excessive care, meticulous, folding it with precision after wiping off imaginary grease. "He's integrating into U.A.'s operational flow within expected parameters. The preliminary reports reaching Nezu are positive. The average active engagement of students in optional high-risk sessions has increased significantly. It's objective data."

"Izuku." Ochaco placed her chopsticks on her plate with a soft click. "Stop talking like an annual report. I'm not talking about reports. I'm talking about you. You saw him. You heard him in the hallways. The students are obsessed. They're loving his brutal honesty, his lack of filter. What did you think? How did it feel?"

Izuku finally lifted his eyes from the plate of fries and looked at her, and then at Shoto, who was observing him with his usual silent intensity, his heterochromatic eyes capturing and reflecting the blinking neon light in a disturbing way. He knew they wouldn't let him escape with professional evasions or administrative jargon. They had been his friends for years. They had fought by his side, cried with him, celebrated with him. They knew the whole story—the childhood, the rivalry, the war, the complex reconciliation, the relationship that formed and, finally, the abrupt eight-month silence. They knew the scars, even if not all of them.

He took a deep breath, a long, controlled sigh that seemed to come from the depths of his lungs, and exhaled slowly, as if preparing for a deep dive. The raw honesty Katsuki preached and personified was, ironically, the only currency he could use with them at that moment. The only one that would have value.

"He's being himself," Izuku began, his voice low but firm, losing some of the robotic professor cadence. "To the maximum. No concessions, no adaptations for the environment, no attempt to make himself likable. And that's the product the students are buying. They're saturated with heroes who talk about hope with standardized smiles, who frame the world in black and white, who offer speeches about kindness and teamwork that sound empty when confronted with the complex, dirty reality of the streets. Katsuki offers none of that. He says life is a constant, solitary struggle, that you have to be the best not for glory, but for survival, that you have to win, always, no matter the personal or ethical cost. And he says it with the unquestionable authority of someone who has been at the absolute top, fallen from it violently, and crawled back to the top with his own bleeding hands. He talks about the abyss because he's lived inside it. And that authenticity… is a powerful drug for young minds."

He paused, the forgotten fry between his fingers. The taste of frustration and reluctant admiration was stronger than the salt.

"But…" Ochaco gently encouraged him, her eyes full of painful understanding.

"But he's being reckless," Izuku concluded, the word coming out with a clear pang of bitterness and something deeper: fear. He didn't use "imprudent" or "aggressive" or "dangerous." He chose "reckless." A word that implied lack of judgment, of care, of consideration for subtler consequences. "He's playing with fire inside the students' heads. He's using his own pain, his anger, his traumatic experience, to forge a unique and dangerous narrative: that the only path to true strength is his. A path of solitude, of distrust, of extreme self-sufficiency. He's not just teaching combat tactics or Quirk control. He's teaching philosophy. The philosophy of surviving at any cost, of seeing the world as an arena where only one wins, and where compassion is a tactical vulnerability. And that… that is extremely dangerous. Because for some, it will work, it will forge incredible heroes. For others, it will break them, or worse, create powerful cynics who won't see value in saving those who can't save themselves."

Shoto, who had remained silent like a mountain observing the valley, finally spoke. His voice, a deep, calm bass, cut through the diner's ambient noise with impressive clarity.

"So, you're saying that, in your professional assessment, he's being a bad teacher? That his methods are harmful?"

Izuku shook his head forcefully, a gesture of almost childish frustration.

"No! That's the problem, Shoto. He's a brilliant teacher. A practical tactical genius. A hero of frightening efficiency. The students are learning more in a week with him than in a whole semester with some other instructors. His methods work for the immediate goal of increasing combat competence. But he's being reckless with his own life. With his own balance. He's exposing himself emotionally in a way that isn't sustainable. He's here, at U.A., in the place he swore up and down he'd never set foot in again, the place he knows is a minefield of memories… for him and for me. He's acting as if he's defying fate, defying me, defying himself to feel nothing. He's reckless because he's not considering the emotional consequences of being here, of re-approaching this world. He's focused only on the mission, the report, the measurable success. And that deliberate blindness to the emotional subtext… that's what scares me. Because when he breaks—and everyone who denies their emotions like that ends up breaking—the explosion won't be just physical."

Ochaco placed her small, warm hand over his, which was cold and motionless on the table. The touch was light but firm, a safety cable.

"Izuku, you saw him. You had that… encounter in the hallway on Wednesday. A moment mentioned in the teachers' group chat. He stopped you. He called you. He said 'Midoriya.' Do you think… do you think he came back because of your message? That single message you sent eight months ago? Do you think he wants… to talk? Try something?"

Izuku subtly but unequivocally pulled his hand back. Not abruptly, but with a firmness that made it clear the contact, at that moment, was unbearable. He didn't want warmth, didn't want the compassion that melted armor. He wanted coldness, analytical distance. He looked at the untouched burger, the bacon grease starting to congeal.

"I don't know what he wants," he said, his voice going flat again. "And honestly, I don't care to guess anymore. He's here for work. A high-level service contract. I'm here as a full-time employee, coordinator of the program. It's the new normal. They're functions. Roles. Nothing more."

Shoto, with his relentless logic that dismantled fallacies like peeling a fruit, asked the question Izuku most feared, because it was the question his own treacherous mind asked in moments of silence.

"And you? Did you try anything? After the hallway. Did you try to talk to him in another context? Did you try… to break the ice? Send an email that wasn't about work? Anything?"

Izuku raised his eyes, and what Ochaco and Shoto saw in them was a calculated coldness, a frozen lake under a layer of ice so thick even light seemed unable to penetrate. It was the full mask of Professor Midoriya, the persona of the post-war hero Deku, the carapace of the man who had learned that the only way to survive loss was to bury it alive within himself.

"No," he replied, and the word came out sharp as an ice shard. "I didn't try anything. And I won't. He made it absolutely clear, eight months ago, what he wanted. Or rather, what he didn't want. Made it clear that what we had—whatever that was—was suffocating to him. That it was pity in disguise. That it was a veiled condemnation that he always needed to be saved. He chose distance. Chose silence. Chose to cut the tie. And I, Shoto, I learned to respect his choice. It took time, hurt more than any wound I've ever had, but I learned. I won't be the desperate emotional idiot he accused me of being. I won't be the dead weight that needs to carry others. I won't be the pathetic Deku he always scorned, running after him begging for crumbs of attention."

He picked up the cold burger and took a big, determined bite, forcing himself to chew, to swallow the cold, greasy mass. The taste was of ash and cardboard.

"He's here for work. I'm the coordinator of his work. And that's it. End of the line. If he wants to talk about the past, about feelings, about anything that isn't the efficacy rate of an exercise, he knows where to find me. My institutional email is in the signature of all communiqués. My office door is open during business hours. But I won't go after him. I won't beg. I won't be reckless."

Ochaco and Shoto exchanged a look. It wasn't a look of judgment, but of sad, resigned acceptance. The silence that followed was no longer one of expectation or hope, but of recognition of an insurmountable border that had been erected. They understood. Izuku wasn't just keeping a professional distance from Katsuki; he had built a tall, thick wall around his own heart. A wall made of rigid professionalism, forced indifference, wounded pride turned into principle. And, for now, it was the only thing keeping him upright, preventing him from collapsing into a puddle of old pain and new hope.

"Okay, Izuku," Ochaco said finally, with a sigh carrying the weight of her concern. "We understand. Just… take care of yourself, okay? Don't get lost inside this coordinator character."

Shoto just nodded, his heterochromatic eyes still fixed on his friend. He didn't need many words. He, perhaps more than anyone, understood the mechanics of contained pain, of creating personas to survive crushing expectations. He understood coldness as a shield.

The conversation, with some effort, changed channels. They talked about Ochaco's lesson plans for the Rescue Fundamentals class, about Shoto's new hero ranking and his recent cases, about promising students Izuku had observed. But the ghost of Katsuki Bakugou remained seated in the booth's fourth chair, an invisible, silent, omnipresent guest, looming over Izuku's untouched burger and every silence between words. The neon light continued to blink, casting its erratic red and blue shadows over Izuku's face, transforming his features into a mask of painted marble, cold, smooth, and unshakable to unsuspecting eyes.

He had survived the week. Survived the buzz, the encounter, the void. But the cost was becoming visible, even to his closest friends. The cost of his own humanity, of his ability to connect genuinely without the filter of analyst or coordinator. He was becoming, day by day, the perfect professional, cold and efficient, that the U.A. system and his own defenses demanded. But the man behind the mask, the boy who dreamed of saving everyone with a smile, the young man who had learned to love in a complicated and total way, was slowly, silently disintegrating under the weight of that armor.

Ochaco, noticing the spiral of dark thought in his eyes, tried one last attempt to bring some light.

"You know, Izuku, looking on the bright side… Katsuki is doing an incredible job in one aspect. He's inspiring the students in a way none of us, with our more… measured approaches, have managed. He's being the hero they need to see now, in this post-war generation that's more cynical, harder. Even if he's not the hero we—" She stopped, the word "want" or "hope" getting stuck in her throat, unspoken, but hanging in the air like a bitter scent.

Izuku nodded, forcing the corners of his mouth to curve into something that remotely resembled a smile, but didn't come close to his eyes, which remained flat and distant.

"Yeah. He's the best. Always has been, in terms of pure willpower and brute effectiveness. And that's exactly why he's here. To be the best. To show them the pinnacle of what's possible with pure focus and talent. And I… I'm here to make sure he can be the best without putting anyone at unnecessary risk, including himself. That's my function now."

He picked up the glass of ice water, the clink of the cubes a sharp, clear sound. He drank in one long gulp. The water was cold, almost freezing, but not enough to extinguish the ember of restlessness and internal conflict burning in his chest. He knew, with depressing clarity, that the following week would be an exact replica of this one: the same choreographed dance of detours and alternate schedules, the same mask of professional indifference glued to his face with the force of habit and fear, the same exhausting effort to maintain that symbolic distance of thirty-seven steps in all aspects of his interaction with the world that now included Katsuki Bakugou.

He was trapped in a cycle of his own creation, a cage of protocols and defenses, and the only way out would be to break the fundamental rule he had imposed on himself: not to feel, not to approach, not to be vulnerable. But he wouldn't do it. He couldn't. The risk was too great. The fall would be too far.

He was the professional.
He was the coordinator.
He was the hero Deku.
And he was not reckless.

He looked at Shoto and Ochaco, his friends, his refuge that night. They were living, warm, breathing proof that human warmth still existed, that connection was possible. But for now, in that particular cold war he was waging, he needed the cold. He needed the armor. He needed the distance. The Guedes Yahua diner, with its deafening noise, flickering neon lights, and smell of greasy food, was a fleeting, almost painful reminder of a simpler, warmer life he felt he had left behind somewhere between the last battle of the war and the unanswered message.

He stood up, the vinyl of the booth creaking.

"I need to go. I have the week's evaluation reports to finalize and send to Nezu before Sunday. And to plan adjustments for next week's schedule based on telemetry data."

Ochaco stood up too and hugged him quickly, an affectionate gesture he accepted with a rigid body, returning it with a single, light pat on her back, a distant echo of the reciprocity that had once been natural. Shoto remained seated but nodded his head in a gesture of farewell and silent solidarity.

"If you need anything, Izuku. Anything. We're here," Ochaco said, her eyes serious.

"I know," Izuku replied, his voice flat and final like a closing door. "I know."

He left the booth and got lost in the diner crowd, pushing the glass door out into Tokyo's cold, damp night. He left behind the stifling heat, the flickering neon lights, and the heavy ghost of Katsuki Bakugou that, for an hour, had seemed shared among the three, but which he now carried alone again.

The week had officially ended. But the internal war of Izuku Midoriya, a silent war fought in the corridors of his own mind and in the space between his heart and his memories, was only beginning its most difficult phase. He was, minute by minute, becoming the impeccable, cold, distant professional the system and his own wounds demanded. But the man behind the mask, the one who loved with an intensity that scared even himself, was slowly, silently disintegrating under the weight of that constant performance.

He walked down the street, the city lights reflecting in puddles from recent rain. His mind, inevitably, began to calculate, to plan the following week, to anticipate moves, to create escape routes. He was, he realized, treating himself like a battlefield. And a good strategist knows every inch of their own territory.

He stopped in front of an illuminated shop window, his own reflection overlaid on the mannequins. The face looking back was Professor Midoriya's. No trace of Deku. No trace of Izuku.

He took a deep breath, the cold air burning his lungs.

And he would do whatever it took to get there.
He was the hero Deku.

And heroes, he had learned the hard way, did not fail.

They just changed tactics.

"Plus Ultra, right, Izuku?"

Chapter Text

December arrived at U.A. like a silent thief—not with a spectacular invasion, but with small thefts of light and warmth, replacing the golden autumn afternoons with a persistent gray and a cold that seeped into the bones even inside the heated buildings. For Izuku Midoriya, the last month of the year brought with it a clear sense that something was about to end—the semester, yes, but also something harder to name, something that lived in the spaces between his ribs and whispered that the temporary truce he had negotiated with himself was about to expire.

The end-of-semester routine was a balm. Regular classes had already ceased, replaced by final reviews, term papers, and that peculiar frenzy of students trying to salvage grades or secure extra credits. As head of the Heroics department, Izuku was immersed in curriculum planning for the next year, faculty evaluation meetings, and the ever-present mountain of administrative paperwork. It was work that occupied his hands and, for the most part, his mind—the kind of task that demanded enough attention to prevent thoughts from wandering into dangerous territory, but not so much that it depleted his already battered emotional reserves.

He had established a careful balance in the weeks following the confrontation in the training room. A balance built on professional distance, interactions limited to the strictly necessary, and a categorical refusal to inhabit the same spaces as Katsuki Bakugou for longer than was inevitable. It worked. Or at least, it worked well enough for Izuku to get through the days without feeling the ground give way beneath his feet at every turn.

It worked because I created a map, he thought, as he organized reports at his desk on a particularly gray Monday morning. A mental map of where he would be and when. If he was in the cafeteria at twelve-fifteen, I'd eat at twelve forty-five. If he used training room Beta on Wednesday afternoons, I'd schedule meetings in the east wing. It was a game of evasion, an emotional chess match where every move was calculated to avoid the checkmate of contact. And for a while, it kept him sane. It kept his heart calm, his hands steady. It kept the memory of Katsuki's face that night—the anger, the pain, the confusion—locked in a soundproof compartment inside his chest.

Until it stopped working.

The first change was so subtle that Izuku almost attributed it to a misperception. It was a Tuesday, eight days after the calendar officially declared the start of December. He was in the main cafeteria during lunch, sitting at his usual table—one of the smallest, near the window overlooking the winter gardens, away from the central bustle. He ate alone, as he always did now, reading reports on his tablet while mechanically chewing a tasteless salad.

His thoughts, as often happened in these forced pauses, wandered to territories he preferred to avoid. The third-year performance report is below expectations. Low-visibility rescue training needs to be restructured. The budget for support gear... But behind the professional concerns, a lower, more persistent voice whispered: He hasn't tried to talk to you in twenty-three days. No messages. No showing up at your office. You should be relieved. So why do you feel... abandoned?

That's when he looked up to rest his eyes and saw him.

Katsuki wasn't alone. He was with Kirishima and Sero, sitting three tables away, in a position that placed his profile directly in Izuku's line of sight. It wasn't an invasion—the distance was more than respectful. But it was a presence. A presence Izuku hadn't expected, because in recent weeks, Katsuki seemed to have developed an almost supernatural radar for avoiding the same spaces Izuku occupied at the same times.

Izuku froze, his fork hovering in the air. His heart, traitorous, gave a dull thump against his ribs. He's here. The observation was purely factual, but carried the weight of a small internal earthquake. He's here, and he's not avoiding. He's here, and I didn't know he would be. My map is wrong. My map has a hole in it.

Katsuki wasn't looking at him. He was engaged in conversation with his friends, gesturing with his free hand while eating with the other. He laughed at something Sero said—a low sound, muffled by the distance, but unmistakably genuine. It was a relaxed, easygoing Katsuki, the kind Izuku only used to see in rare moments of complete privacy, far from the world's eyes.

I remember that laugh, Izuku thought, and the memory came like a punch to the gut. I remember waking up to that laugh coming from the kitchen on a Sunday morning, when he was talking to his mom on the phone. I remember laying my head on his lap on the couch and feeling the vibrations of that laugh through his body. It was a sound I thought was mine, somehow. A sound that belonged to our domestic life, to our walls, to our air. Now, that laugh belonged to a table three meters away, to a conversation he was no part of, to a moment that wasn't his.

He quickly looked away, as if he had witnessed something not meant for him. He returned his attention to the tablet, but the words on the screen were now just black shapes dancing on a white background, meaningless. Every fiber of his body was aware of that presence three tables away. Aware of the casual movement of his arm as he picked up a glass. Of the tilt of his head as he listened to Kirishima. Of the way the midday light coming through the window lit up his blond hair, creating an almost golden halo.

Why now? The question arose in his mind, sharp and uncomfortable. Why here? Why break the pattern? You had your territory, I had mine. We had an unspoken agreement: you stay on your side of the line, I stay on mine. What game is this, Kacchan? What's the next move?

The analytical part of his brain—the part that always cataloged patterns, predicted villain moves, strategized—tried to process the information. Possibility A: coincidence. Possibility B: a test. Possibility C: a change in strategy. But his heart, that stubborn, emotional organ that never learned to obey logic, just beat faster, insisting: He's here. He's here. He's here.

He finished his meal in five minutes, less than half his usual time. He stood up, picked up his tray, and left without looking back, but felt the burn of Kirishima's gaze on his back—a look that wasn't hostile, but... observant. Complicit. They know, Izuku thought as he washed his hands in the bathroom, the cold water doing little to calm the heat in his face. His friends know he's breaking the pattern. Maybe they're even encouraging it. Was this part of some plan? An unauthorized intervention by the Baku-squad?

Izuku dried his hands more forcefully than necessary, watching his own face in the mirror above the sink. Deep dark circles. A tension in his jaw that had become permanent. His mouth a thin, humorless line. He barely recognized that man. Where was the smile that used to come so easily? Where was the light that used to shine in his eyes even on the hardest days?

You lost him, whispered the voice in the mirror. You lost yourself along with him.

He closed his eyes, took a deep breath. No. I didn't lose myself. I'm... redefining. Rebuilding. That's what adults do when things fall apart. They build something new from the wreckage.

But even as he recited the mantra in his mind, a part of him doubted. Because the wreckage still looked like the house that was once a home. And Katsuki's absence still echoed in every corner of his new, lonely world.

In the following days, the pattern repeated—but with variations that were almost more disturbing than the repetition itself.

On Wednesday, upon entering the teachers' lounge to fetch some documents, Izuku found Katsuki already inside, standing near the coffee station, talking in a low voice with Professor Kayama, Midnight. This time, their eyes met—briefly, for less than a second—before Izuku could look away. Katsuki didn't wave. He didn't smile. He just held eye contact for that fragment of time, like a silent acknowledgment of mutual existence, and then turned his attention back to Midnight as if nothing had happened.

An acknowledgment, Izuku thought, as he picked up the documents with fingers that threatened to tremble. Just that. "I saw you. You saw me. We exist in the same space." It was so little. It should be nothing. But it was everything, because in the months since the separation, Katsuki had treated him like a ghost—someone who could be seen, but not acknowledged, not touched, not admitted.

What do you want me to do with that? His mind questioned, as he walked back to his office, a caged bird's heart beating against the bars of his ribs. Do you want me to wave back? To smile? To pretend we're fine, that we're colleagues, that what happened between us can be reduced to a casual nod in a teachers' lounge?

He reached his office, closed the door behind him, and leaned his back against it, breathing deeply. The document in his hands was slightly crumpled. I'm overreacting. I'm reading meanings where there are none. Maybe he's just... tired of avoiding. Tired of the game. Maybe that's all it is.

But deep down, he knew that Katsuki Bakugou never tired of anything that truly mattered. If he was changing his behavior, it was for a reason. And Izuku was afraid to discover what it was.

He sat at his desk, hands flat on the wooden surface, trying to calm his breathing. The office was too quiet. Before, he had appreciated the silence—it was a rare break from the constant noise of his life as a hero and educator. Now, the silence felt charged, heavy, full of echoes of unspoken conversations.

I remember when he used to come to this office, he thought, his eyes wandering to the corner where Katsuki used to lean, arms crossed, complaining about some bureaucratic protocol. He hated paperwork. Said it was "a waste of explosion." But he came anyway. Stood here. Sometimes just to be near. Sometimes with a flimsy excuse about needing to sign something. I knew. I always knew. He just wanted to stay.

Izuku closed his eyes, allowing himself, for a brief and dangerous moment, to relive one of those memories. A late autumn afternoon, the setting sun painting the office orange and gold. Katsuki was leaning against the bookshelf, flipping through a report with an expression of boredom. Izuku worked at his desk, but was aware of every movement, every breath, every subtle shift in the other man's posture.

"This reporting system is shit," Katsuki had said suddenly, tossing the document onto the desk. "Who the hell invented this format?"

Izuku had smiled without looking up from his work. "The Hero Commission's standardization committee. And you know complaining won't change it."

"Might change if I blew up the committee."

"Violence isn't the answer to bureaucratic problems, Kacchan."

"It's the answer to a lot of problems."

Izuku finally looked up, meeting Katsuki's eyes. There was a glint in them—not of genuine anger, but of provocation. Of amusement. They held eye contact for a moment that stretched, became something more. The air in the office changed, growing warmer, heavier. The setting sun lit up Katsuki's profile, making his hair look like threads of fire.

"You're distracting me," Izuku had murmured, his voice lower than intended.

"It's my job," Katsuki had replied, pushing off from the shelf and approaching the desk. "Someone has to remind you there's life outside these stacks of paper."

Now, alone in the same office under the gray December light, Izuku opened his eyes and let out a short, bitter laugh. Life outside the stacks of paper. What is my life now, Kacchan? Wake up, work, eat alone, sleep. Repeat. Is that what you wanted to remind me? That life without you is... this?

He shook his head, pushing the thoughts away. No. I won't let nostalgia poison me. The past is past. The man who was in that office that autumn day is not the same man who faced me in the training room. He's not the same man who broke my heart.

But then... who is the man in the teachers' lounge today? Who is the man who acknowledged me without demanding anything?

The question hung in the office air, unanswered.

On Thursday, it was in the main hallway of the administrative building. Izuku was coming from a meeting with Aizawa when he saw Katsuki coming down the stairs at the opposite end. Normally, in such situations, one of them—usually Katsuki—would adjust their route, taking a detour or simply speeding up to avoid a close crossing. This time, he didn't.

Katsuki continued down the stairs at the same pace. Izuku, stuck in the momentum of maintaining his own trajectory to not show flight, kept walking. I won't be the first to swerve, he thought, with a stubbornness he himself recognized as childish. I won't. If he wants this game, let's play.

Their footsteps echoed in the empty hallway—the sound of their shoes against the marble floor was a quick, almost martial rhythm. Izuku's heart beat in time with his steps. He's coming towards me. He's not swerving. He's not slowing down. What does that mean? What does he want?

They drew closer. Three meters. Two meters. One and a half.

Izuku kept his eyes fixed ahead, but his peripheral vision caught every detail: the way Katsuki's jacket moved with his steps, the firmness of his jaw, the neutral expression—not hostile, not friendly. Just... present.

Neither stopped. Neither spoke. Katsuki glanced briefly at him—not at his eyes, but in his general direction—and gave an almost imperceptible nod. A professional acknowledgment. The kind of greeting colleagues would exchange passing in a hallway.

Izuku, by pure conditioned reflex, nodded back.

And then they passed each other, continuing their opposite paths.

It was an interaction of less than three seconds. It shouldn't mean anything. But when Izuku reached his office door, he realized he had been holding his breath. He let it out in a shaky sigh and leaned against the doorframe, his legs suddenly weak.

He greeted me.

The simplicity of the act was what made it so disconcerting. Because Katsuki Bakugou was not a man of half-measures. He either ignored you completely, or he occupied all your visual and auditory space. This middle ground—this civilized, respectful, undemanding acknowledgment—was new. It was strange.

He sat in his chair, hands flat on the desk, and tried to analyze the interaction as he would a villain's behavior pattern. Objective: minimal, non-threatening contact. Method: consistent presence, neutral greeting. Effect: normalization of coexistence. And then, the conclusion that made him flinch: He's desensitizing me. Getting me used to his presence. Turning something extraordinary—the two of us in the same space—into something common. Routine.

And, against all logic and all his desire to remain indifferent, it was effective.

Because now, every time Izuku entered a common space at U.A., a part of his mind—a part he despised for its stubbornness—began to look. To check. To wonder: Is he here?

The answer, with increasing frequency, was yes.

And worse: an even more secret, repressed part of Izuku began to feel something that resembled... anticipation.

Anticipation was the most treacherous of all feelings. Because pain he knew. Anger he understood. But this small pang of hope—this flutter in his stomach when he entered a room, this quickening of his heart when he saw a familiar silhouette in the distance—that was new. That was dangerous.

This is how he gets me, Izuku thought, opening his laptop with more force than necessary. He doesn't come with explosions or demands. He comes with... normalcy. With consistency. With the most insidious presence of all: the presence that demands nothing, but simply is.

He looked at the computer screen, but didn't see the unread emails, pending reports, scheduled meetings. He only saw Katsuki's profile in the hallway, the almost imperceptible tilt of his head, the brief meeting of eyes that wasn't a confrontation, but an acknowledgment.

And deep in his broken heart, something tiny and stubborn whispered: Maybe... just maybe...

But he stifled the thought before it could fully form. No. Not yet. It's still too early for hope. Still too dangerous.

The coffee appeared on the Friday of the first week of December.

Izuku arrived at his office at seven-fifteen in the morning, as he did every morning since becoming department head. The room was cold, the winter light still weak outside the windows. On his desk, perfectly centered on his mousepad, was a paper cup from a coffee shop two blocks from campus.

He stopped in the doorway, his bag still over his shoulder, keys still in his hand. His eyes scanned the scene: the cup, steam gently wafting from the hole in the lid, the total absence of anyone else in the room. For an absurd moment, he thought he might have entered the wrong room.

But no. It was his space. His desk. His mousepad with the faded U.A. logo.

Just a coffee, he thought, as he slowly approached. Someone must have left it here by mistake. Maybe the cleaning staff. Maybe another teacher. But even as he formulated these innocent explanations, his heart already knew the truth. Already recognized the signature of the gesture.

He approached slowly, as if the cup might be a trap. He set his bag down, his keys on the desk. Reached out, hesitated, and then picked up the cup. It was warm—not scalding, but at the perfect temperature for drinking immediately. There was no note. No message. No explanation.

A ghost brought me coffee, he thought, and almost laughed at the insanity of the idea. A ghost who knows my office passcode. A ghost who arrives before seven-fifteen.

He sniffed it. Latte. Caramel. A touch of sugar, in the exact amount—not the quantity he used now as an overworked adult who needed pure caffeine, but the one he actually liked. The one he drank on weekends, when he allowed himself small luxuries. The one Katsuki always made for him, complaining about the "excessive sweetness" but memorizing the perfect ratio.

His stomach clenched. His hands, wrapped around the paper cup, began to tremble slightly. No, he thought, an instinctive, fierce denial. It can't be. It can't be him. Because if it is, then this isn't just coffee. It's a message. It's an "I remember." It's an "I still know you." And I can't handle that right now. I can't.

But it was.

He slowly sat in his chair, still holding the cup. The steam rose in gentle spirals, carrying the sweet, familiar scent. His mind flashed back to another morning, another table, another coffee.

It was a Saturday, maybe a year ago. They were in the apartment they shared. Izuku had woken up late, after a particularly difficult mission the night before. His ribs still ached from where a villain had hit them, and there was a dull throb behind his eyes that promised to become a headache.

He shuffled out of the bedroom and found Katsuki in the kitchen, standing before the coffee maker. The morning sun streamed in through the window, lighting him up in a way that made him look almost unreal. Izuku paused in the doorway, just watching for a moment—the concentration on Katsuki's face as he measured the beans, the precision of his movements, the way his fingers held the mug with a gentleness that contrasted with the brutal strength they possessed.

"Don't just stand there," Katsuki had said without turning around. "Your coffee's almost ready."

"How did you know I was here?" Izuku had asked, smiling.

"I always know when you're near."

It was true. Katsuki had a radar for him—an almost supernatural sensitivity to his presence. It was something Izuku had always found incredibly romantic, even if Katsuki never described it as such.

Now, alone in his office with the cup of warm coffee in his hands, Izuku wondered: Do you still feel it when I'm near, Kacchan? When we passed in the hallway yesterday, did your heart race like mine? When you saw me in the teachers' lounge, did you have to fight the urge to say something, to come closer, to touch?

He took a sip. The first taste was a shock of recognition so deep his eyes teared up—not from sadness, but from pure sensory impact. It was exactly as he remembered. Exactly.

How did he know?

The question echoed in his mind as he finished the coffee, sip by sip, each one a small surrender. Katsuki hadn't been in his life for eight months. Tastes change. Preferences evolve. How could he know Izuku would still like the same thing?

The answer, when it came, was more devastating than the doubt: He didn't know. He was betting.

And that bet wasn't about coffee. It was about Izuku's constancy. About his loyalty not just to a flavor, but to a memory. To a feeling. It was Katsuki saying, without words: I remember you. And I'm betting you're still the same person I remember.

Izuku finished the coffee and placed the empty cup on the desk, looking at it as if he could extract more answers from the empty cardboard. What do I do with this? Throw it away? Leave it on the desk like a trophy? Drink it and pretend I don't know where it came from?

In the end, he threw the cup in the trash. But not before running his finger over the lid, feeling the residual warmth, imagining the hand that had carried it there.

It's just coffee, he told himself as he opened his computer. Just coffee. It's not an apology. It's not a declaration. It's just... coffee.

But he knew he was lying.

The following Tuesday, the coffee was there again. On Thursday, too. Always the same cup, from the same coffee shop, always in the same position on the mousepad. Always no note. Always no presence.

Izuku began drinking each one with a mixture of guilt and gratitude that infuriated him. Because it was good. Because it was comforting. Because, amid the administrative chaos of the end of the semester, that small consistency—that sweet, warm predictability—was an unexpected safe harbor.

And the fact that it came from Katsuki made everything infinitely more complicated.

He began to notice things. Small details. The coffee always arrived between seven and seven-ten—never later. It meant Katsuki was leaving the coffee shop at six forty-five at the latest. It meant he was waking before dawn, crossing the still-dark campus, just to leave a cup of coffee on a desk.

Why? Izuku asked himself, every Tuesday and Thursday, as he held the warm cup between his hands. What kind of penance is this? What kind of ritual? Do you think coffee will fix eight months of silence? Do you think small, consistent gestures will erase what you said? What you didn't say?

But even as he questioned, a part of him—the part that still remembered the taste of the hot chocolate Katsuki made on winter Sundays—melted. Because it was a gesture of care. A gesture of "I thought of you." And it had been so long since anyone had thought of him that way—not as the hero Deku, not as Head Midoriya, but as Izuku. As the person who liked overly sweet coffee and woke up with messy hair and needed something warm to start the day.

I shouldn't accept this, he thought, as the taste of caramel spread on his tongue. I shouldn't. I'm giving him an opening. I'm saying "you can continue."

But he kept drinking.

On the Friday of the second week, Izuku decided to go to the coffee shop. Not the one on campus, but the specific one the coffee came from—a small independent store called "Brew & Co.," known for its specialty beans and prohibitive prices. He needed a snack, he told himself. Or maybe just to verify something.

I need to see, he thought, as he walked under the gray December sky. I need to see if he's really there. I need to be sure I'm not imagining all this. I need... to confront the reality of the gesture.

The place was cozy, with low lighting, rustic wooden tables, and the rich aroma of freshly ground coffee filling the air. It was the kind of place Katsuki would frequent—discreet, quality, without unnecessary frills.

He always had good taste in coffee, Izuku remembered, with a pang of nostalgia that irritated him with himself. I remember him complaining about U.A.'s coffee, saying it was "dirty water that tastes like bitterness." I remember him bringing back special beans from missions, grinding them at home, preparing them with that intense focus he devoted to everything. I'd laugh, say he was exaggerating. But I always drank it. Always liked it.

The barista, a young woman with short blue hair and a septum piercing, smiled when she saw him.

"The usual, Professor Midoriya?"

He stopped, his hand still on the door handle. The confusion must have shown on his face, because the barista quickly clarified:

"The latte, caramel, extra sugar. To go."

"How... how do you know what I drink?" The question came out before he could stop it.

She tilted her head, a slight smile on her lips. "Mr. Bakugou said. He comes here on Tuesdays and Thursdays, always at six forty-five in the morning. Asks for it to be delivered to your office. Said it was your favorite."

Izuku felt the floor shift slightly under his feet. Always at six forty-five. On Tuesdays and Thursdays. The precision was so characteristic it hurt. Katsuki was a man of routines, of rituals, of precision. If he decided to do something, he did it with the same intensity and regularity with which he trained, fought, breathed.

"For... how long?" His voice sounded strangely distant.

The barista thought for a moment, fingers tapping lightly on the counter. "About two weeks, I think. Yes, since the last week of November. He's very punctual. Comes in, orders, pays in cash, and leaves. Doesn't talk much, but left a generous tip the first day."

Two weeks.

Two weeks of planning.

Of repetition.

Of conscious choice.

Two weeks, Izuku thought, and the arithmetic of the gesture began to form in his mind. Four coffees a week. Eight coffees total. Each costing what, five hundred yen? Plus the tip. Plus the time. Waking before dawn, walking here, getting the coffee, taking it to my office... all so I'd have something warm to drink when I arrived.

It was an absurd gesture. Excessive. Utterly Katsuki.

"Did he... say anything else?" Izuku asked, before he could stop himself.

The barista seemed to think. "Not much. The first time, he said: 'It's for Head Midoriya. Leave it on his desk, please.' I asked if he wanted to leave a note, and he said..." She hesitated, as if trying to remember the exact words. "He said: 'No. Just the coffee. He'll know.'"

He'll know.

Izuku thanked her with a mechanical nod and left the coffee shop without buying anything. The cold December air hit his face, but couldn't dispel the warmth rising in his neck, the flush of shame—or perhaps of something more dangerous.

He walked back to campus with his hands shoved in his coat pockets, his thoughts in a violent spiral.

He'll know. The phrase echoed in his mind. He bet that I would know. Bet that I'd recognize the coffee. Bet that I'd understand the gesture. Bet on me.

Why? The question hammered in his skull with the regularity of a metronome. Why is he doing this? Why now? Why this way?

The possibilities lined up in his mind, each more painful than the last:

1. Guilt. Katsuki felt guilty for the damage he'd caused, and this was his way of paying an emotional debt. A silent penance executed with the precision of a ritual. Coffee as ransom.
2. Manipulation. It was a calculated move to soften him, to make him lower his guard. An attempt to breach his boundaries not by force, but by gentle persistence. Coffee as a Trojan horse.
3. Genuine remorse. Katsuki had truly changed, and this was his awkward way of showing it—of showing he was willing to do the slow, tedious work of rebuilding something, even without guarantees. Coffee as language when words failed.

The third option was the most dangerous. Because if it were true, then Izuku no longer had the excuse of "he'll never change." He could no longer cling to the comfortable narrative of "Katsuki is incapable of emotional growth."

What if he is capable? the little voice inside him whispered, the voice he had kept silenced for months. What if he's trying, really trying? What if the man who exploded doors when angry is now learning to open them carefully?

He shook his head, as if he could physically disperse the thoughts. No. It's too early for that. Too dangerous. He hurt me. He broke my heart. Coffee doesn't fix that. Presence doesn't fix that. Nothing fixes that.

But when he arrived at his office and saw the cup of coffee on his desk—punctual as always, warm as always—something inside him cracked. A small fissure in the armor of indifference he had so carefully built.

He sat in his chair, picked up the cup, and drank. The flavor was the same. The comfort, too.

And, for the first time, he allowed himself to feel not just the confusion and anger, but also a tiny, almost imperceptible tip of something that resembled... hope.

Maybe, he thought, as the warmth of the coffee spread in his chest. Just maybe.

While Izuku battled his inner demons in the silence of his office, across town in a cozy bar in Musutafu's district, Katsuki Bakugou faced his own ghosts—and the none-too-subtle assistance of his friends.

The Baku-Squad occupied a table in the corner, away from the speakers and the nighttime crowd. Eijiro Kirishima, Mina Ashido, Denki Kaminari, Hanta Sero, and Kyoka Jiro formed a semicircle around Katsuki, who was leaning against the wall, a half-empty beer bottle in front of him.

"So tell me," Mina began, leaning over the table with her most mischievous smile. "How goes the grand 'Don't Be an Invasive Jerk' operation? Are you following poor Izuku around like a lost puppy, or are you keeping a respectable premium stalker distance?"

Katsuki rolled his eyes, but there was no genuine fury in the gesture—just a deep exhaustion that seemed ingrained in his bones. She doesn't understand, he thought, taking a sip of his beer. None of them really understand. How could they? I don't even fully understand. I just know I have to do this. I just know that if I stop, if I give up, then I've truly lost everything.

"I'm not following anyone, Ashido," he said, his voice more tired than irritated. "I'm working. U.A. is my workplace now."

"Ah, yes, of course," Kaminari agreed with an exaggerated nod. "And the little coffee you bring to his office every Tuesday and Thursday is part of the... work contract, right? Corporate benefit: gourmet coffee for stressed department heads."

Katsuki's eyes narrowed dangerously. He thinks it's a joke, he thought, and a wave of frustration rose in his chest. They all think it's a joke, or a whim, or a strategy. No one understands it's the only thing keeping me sane. The only thing that lets me wake up in the morning knowing he's on the same planet, breathing the same air, but isn't with me.

"Knock it off, Denki," Kirishima interjected, his voice firm but not harsh. He turned to Katsuki, his expression serious. "But seriously, man. How is it going? Does he react at all?"

Katsuki took a long sip of his beer before answering, buying time. When he finally spoke, his voice was lower, more restrained than usual. "He drinks the coffee." A pause. "I see the empty cup in the trash afterwards. I go back there, sometimes, after he leaves. Open the door—he never locks it, still trusts too much—and I see the cup in the trash. Sometimes, he leaves it on the desk. Sometimes, in the trash. But it's always empty. Always drank."

"And that's... good?" Sero asked, frowning. "I mean, he doesn't throw it out without drinking it, so..."

"It's the bare minimum," Jiro finished, crossing her arms. Her expression was impassive, but her eyes were perceptive. "He drinks it because it's good coffee and he probably needs the caffeine. It doesn't mean he's accepting your... peace offerings."

I know, Katsuki thought, before even saying the words out loud. I know it's the bare minimum. I know it might not mean anything. But it's... something. Before, it was total emptiness. Before, it was months without any sign, any contact, anything. Now it's coffee. Now he knows I'm thinking of him. Now he knows I remember. It's a start. It's a crack in the wall. It's something.

"I know," he murmured, his fingers tracing the condensation on the bottle. "I know it's the bare minimum. But it's... something. Before, it was nothing. Now it's coffee. It's a start."

Mina studied him for a long moment, her face losing its playful expression. "You're tired, Katsuki."

It wasn't a question.

He didn't deny it. Tired? he thought. I'm exhausted. I'm drained. Waking up every day at five-thirty, running to the coffee shop, getting the coffee, taking it to his office, then spending the whole day trying not to look for him, not to follow him, not to talk to him... it's like holding back an explosion with bare hands. All the time. Every. Single. Second. "It's... hard. Staying quiet. Not talking. Not approaching. Just... existing nearby. It's like holding an internal explosion back all the time."

The table fell silent for a moment. Even Kaminari looked sheepish.

"Why do you do it, then?" Sero finally asked. "If it's so hard. If he doesn't even seem to notice, or if he does and ignores it..."

Katsuki closed his eyes for a second. Why? Because I love him. Because I ruined everything. Because I had the purest, most constant love anyone could have, and I treated it like it was guaranteed. Like it was air. Like it was something that would always be there, no matter how much I exploded, no matter how much I hurt. And now... now I know better. Now I know love has limits. Now I know even the strongest heart can break.

"Because it's what he asked for," Katsuki replied, his voice hoarse but clear. "In that room. He said I don't talk, I just explode and expect things to fix themselves. He asked for space. Asked for... silence." He opened his eyes, looking at each of them. "So that's what I'm giving. Space. Silence. Coffee with no note. Presence with no demands."

Kirishima put a heavy hand on his shoulder. "That's... incredible, man. Seriously. The old Bakugou would never have had the patience for this."

"The old Bakugou wouldn't have lost him in the first place," Katsuki retorted, and there was a deep bitterness in his words that made everyone at the table flinch. The old Bakugou was an idiot. An arrogant idiot who thought he could have everything without working for it. Who thought Deku's love was... guaranteed. Like gravity. Like air. Always there, no matter what I did. And I... I tested it. Tested it until it broke. Tested it until he left.

He took another sip, feeling the bitterness of the beer match the bitterness in his mouth. "I don't have that guarantee anymore. If I want... if I want any chance of having him back in my life, I have to earn it. And earning isn't about big dramatic gestures. It's about... this. About coffee on Tuesdays and Thursdays. About not invading his space. About staying quiet when everything in me wants to scream."

The air at the table changed. The lightness from before—even the friendly teasing—evaporated, replaced by something heavier, more real.

"He'll notice," Kirishima said, his voice laden with unshakable conviction. "It might take time, but he will. Because you're being real, Katsuki. It's not a performance."

Katsuki shook his head, a slow movement of doubt. What if he doesn't notice? he thought, and the fear that had lived in his chest since that night in the training room tightened its grip. What if the coffee is just coffee, and the presence is just... an annoyance? What if he looks at me and only sees the man who hurt him, not the man trying to change? What if it's too late?

"Then you will have tried," Jiro said simply. "And that's already more than most would do."

He didn't answer. Just took another sip of beer, his eyes lost on some distant point beyond the bar walls, as if seeing something—or someone—only he could see.

Mina watched him for a moment longer, then said, her voice softer than usual: "You really love him a lot, huh?"

Katsuki didn't hesitate. I love him. I have since I was four and he was the only person not afraid to come near me even when I exploded everything. I have since he followed me around with those big, admiring eyes. I have since we grew up and that admiration turned into something deeper, more real. I have since we shared an apartment, a life, a future. I love him even now, when he doesn't love me back. Maybe especially now. "Since I was four and he was the only person not afraid to come near me even when I exploded everything." A pause. A rare, raw admission. "And I was an idiot for thinking that love was unbreakable. For thinking I could... test its limits, and he'd always be there."

"Love has limits," Jiro murmured, but not as a rebuke. As a fact.

"I know," Katsuki whispered, and for the first time, his voice cracked slightly. He cleared his throat, straightening up. Now I know. Now I know what it costs to lose. Now I know what it is to wake up alone. Now I know the silence of an apartment that used to have life in it. "Now I know."

The rest of the night passed with lighter conversation, jokes, stories of recent missions. Katsuki participated, laughed when appropriate, even teased Kaminari back at one point. But to anyone who knew him well—and everyone at the table knew him intimately—it was clear a part of him was elsewhere. In an office at U.A., perhaps. Or in a memory of a time when sharing coffee wasn't a ritual loaded with unspoken meaning, but a simple act of domestic routine.

I remember making coffee for him every morning, Katsuki thought, as he listened to Kaminari tell a story about a mission gone comically wrong. I remember how he'd wake up with his eyes half-closed, his hair a mess, and come to the kitchen, leaning against me as I prepared it. I remember complaining he was a nuisance, but always making sure the coffee was at the right temperature. I remember how he'd smile after the first sip, as if it were the best thing in the world. I remember thinking: "I did that. I made him happy, even if just for a moment."

Now, he made coffee for an empty desk. For a man who might hate him. For a heart that might be closed forever.

But he kept doing it. Because it was all he had. Because it was the only thread still connecting him to Izuku. Because if he stopped, if he gave up, then it would truly be the end.

When they left the bar later, the cold December night tightening around them, Kirishima hung back with Katsuki as the others walked ahead.

"You're doing good," he said, his voice low but firm. "Really."

Katsuki didn't look at him. Just watched his own breath forming vapor clouds in the icy air. Doing good? he thought. I'm surviving. I'm breathing. I'm doing what I need to do. Is that "doing good"? "It hurts, Ei. It fucking hurts to stay quiet. To see him and not be able to... not be able to talk. Not be able to touch. Just exist in the same orbit, but not be able to get close."

"I know," Kirishima said, and there was a deep understanding in his words. "But that's what he needs right now. Space to breathe. To remember who you are without... without the noise of the explosions."

"And if he remembers and decides he doesn't want me anymore?"

Kirishima put a hand on his shoulder, a supportive pressure. "Then you move on, knowing you did everything you could. But don't think about that yet. One day at a time, remember? Coffee on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Presence without invasion. It's a good start."

Katsuki nodded, a small, tired movement. One day at a time. Coffee on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Don't explode. Don't demand. Just... be. Just show that I'm here. That I haven't given up. That I won't give up. "Coffee on Tuesdays and Thursdays," he repeated, like a mantra.

And as they parted and he began walking alone toward his temporary apartment, the words echoed in his mind along with the image of Izuku drinking the coffee he'd left, perhaps not knowing—or knowing perfectly well—who it was from.

It's little. It's almost nothing.

But it's a start.

And as he walked under the winter stars, Katsuki allowed himself, for the first time in months, to imagine a future where coffee wasn't left on an empty desk, but delivered into hands that would accept it. Where presence wasn't tolerated, but desired. Where the silence between them wasn't a chasm, but a bridge.

But then he pushed the thought away. One day at a time. Coffee on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Don't expect anything. Just do.

It was all he could do. It was all he had.

At the apartment, Izuku couldn't sleep.

It was Sunday night, the weekend dragging into Monday, and his mind refused to shut down. The images replayed in an incessant loop: Katsuki in the cafeteria, laughing with friends. Katsuki in the hallway, nodding his head. The cup of coffee on his desk, every Tuesday and Thursday, as punctual as sunrise.

What does he want? The question spun in his mind, a hamster wheel stuck in an infinite cycle. What does he hope to achieve with this? What's the end goal? Reconciliation? Forgiveness? Absolution? Or just... easing his own guilt?

He tried to apply logic to the problem, as he would with any tactical challenge. He cataloged possibilities, weighed evidence, tried to predict the next move.

Evidence 1: Katsuki is present, but not invasive. He doesn't force conversations. Doesn't block my path. Doesn't demand anything.

Evidence 2: He has established a ritual (coffee on Tuesdays and Thursdays). Ritual implies repetition. Repetition implies commitment.

Evidence 3: He doesn't seek direct interaction, just... proximity. Visual acknowledgment. Shared existence.

Possible conclusion: This isn't about immediate reconciliation. It's about establishing a pattern. About becoming a predictable, non-threatening, consistent presence. It's about getting me used to him again. It's about emotional desensitization.

The consistency was key. Izuku realized this with a clarity that disturbed him. Because the Katsuki he knew—the one from before—wasn't consistent. He was unpredictable. Explosive. He was either fully present, occupying all space, or completely absent, leaving a painful void.

I remember the first few weeks after we moved in together, he thought, turning on his side in bed, the covers tangling around his legs. He was always there. Always touching, always talking, always present. It was overwhelming sometimes. I loved it, but it was overwhelming. And then... then he started pulling away. Work. Missions. Late at the office. I'd stay up waiting. Sometimes he'd come home. Sometimes not. The consistency disappeared. The predictability disappeared. I never knew if I'd get the present version or the absent version.

This new Katsuki... this one was different. This one appeared in the same places, at the same times. This one left coffee on the same days. This one maintained a respectful, but constant, distance.

He's showing me he's changed, Izuku thought, sitting up in bed, hugging his knees. Not with words—because we have words in abundance, and they've never fixed anything. With actions. With repetition. With the hardest thing for him: patience.

And that's what made it all so dangerous.

Because if it were just guilt, Katsuki would have given up by now. Guilt tires. It demands quick relief. It leads to big dramatic gestures followed by withdrawal.

Like that time, after our first big fight, Izuku remembered. He showed up with flowers. Flowers! Katsuki! I laughed, even while crying. He hated it, of course. Exploded half the vase. But he was trying. Only... it was the wrong gesture. It was what he thought he should do, not what I needed. And afterwards, when the flowers died, he went back to normal. The guilt was relieved. The debt, paid.

But this... this was hard work. Silent work. Daily work.

And if it were manipulation, it was manipulation too sophisticated for the Katsuki Izuku knew. Katsuki manipulated with brute force, with intimidation, with emotional explosions. Not with this observer's patience, this almost zen-like restraint.

Unless he's learned, Izuku thought, and a chill ran down his spine. Unless someone taught him. Unless this is a strategy he learned somewhere. "This is how you get your ex back." The idea was repugnant. But it was possible.

What remained, then, was the possibility Izuku most feared: that it was genuine.

That Katsuki Bakugou, the most stubborn, prideful man he knew, was actually trying to change. Was willing to do the slow, painful, unglamorous work of rebuilding something he himself destroyed.

And if it is true, the little voice inside him whispered, what will you do? What do you want to do?

Izuku had no answer. Or rather, he had several answers, all conflicting:

1. The wounded man's answer: Maintain distance. Keep drinking the coffee, but never acknowledge where it came from. Never give an opening. Wait for Katsuki to tire and go away. Protect the heart at all costs.
2. The analyst's answer: Observe. Gather more data. Wait to see if the pattern holds, or if it's just a temporary phase. Analyze every move, every gesture. Make a decision only when he has enough information.
3. The answer of the man who still loved Katsuki Bakugou: Give a signal. Any signal. A nod that lasts a second longer. A "thank you" left on a note. Something that says "I see you. Keep going. I'm here too."

He buried his face in his knees, a groan of frustration muffled by the pajama fabric. Why does this have to be so hard? Why does love—or what's left of it—have to be an equation with no clear solution, a battle with no defined front lines? Why can't I just... stop feeling?

But he knew the answer. He knew the love he felt for Katsuki wasn't something that could be turned off. It was part of his chemistry, part of his emotional DNA. It was intertwined with his oldest memories, his deepest dreams, his very identity. Loving Katsuki wasn't something Izuku did—it was something he was.

And yet, he hurt me, he thought, and tears began to press behind his eyes. And yet, he broke my heart. And yet, he left me alone. Can I love someone who did that to me? Can I ever trust again someone who broke my trust so completely?

Christmas was two weeks away. The end of the semester, one. Soon, U.A. would be almost empty, students leaving for the holidays, most teachers off on their own festive plans.

What will happen then? Izuku wondered, getting out of bed and walking to the window. Will Katsuki leave? Stay? Continue the coffee ritual on a ghost campus?

Outside, the first snow of the year began to fall—light, sparse flakes dancing in the night air, illuminated by the campus lamps. The world was growing quiet, covered in white, as if the snow was muffling all sounds, all colors, all sharp edges.

I remember our first Christmas together, Izuku thought, pressing his forehead against the cold glass of the window. We were in the apartment we shared, the artificial Christmas tree set up in the corner, lights blinking softly. It was cold outside, but inside was warm, cozy. Katsuki was in the kitchen, making hot chocolate—complaining it was too sweet, but adding exactly the amount of marshmallows I liked.

He closed his eyes, letting the memory come.

I was on the couch, wrapped in a blanket, watching a bad Christmas movie on TV. Katsuki brought the two mugs, sat down beside me, and without a word, pulled me close, wrapping his arm around me. I snuggled against his side, feeling the warmth of his body, the familiar scent of his pine soap.

We didn't say "I love you." We didn't need to. It was in everything—in the hot chocolate made just right, in the arm around my shoulders, in the comfortable silence that only existed between us.

When did we lose that? The question arose in his mind, laden with a nostalgia so sharp it physically hurt. When did the silence between us stop being comfortable and become... this? When did touch stop being comfort and become absence?

The tears came then—silent, hot, streaming down his face and soaking into his pajama top. He hadn't cried since that night with Ochako, months ago. He had convinced himself he was empty, dry, incapable of producing more tears.

But apparently, there was still water in the well. Still pain.

And worse: still love.

He knew it now, with a clarity that was both liberating and terrifying. He could pretend for others. He could pretend for himself, for a while. But here, alone in the dark, with the memory of hot chocolate and an arm around his shoulders burning in his mind, there was no denying it.

He still loved Katsuki Bakugou.

Still wanted him back.

And that's what makes everything so scary, he thought, wiping the tears with the back of his hand. Because wanting means vulnerability. Means opening oneself to the possibility of being hurt again. Means giving someone—the same person—the power to destroy you once more.

But it also means the possibility of... having back the hot chocolate made just right. The arm around my shoulders. The silence that was comfort, not absence.

The coffee on Tuesdays and Thursdays.

Izuku took a deep breath, trying to calm the racing pace of his heart. The tears had stopped, leaving his face wet and cold.

Tomorrow will be Monday. Tuesday will come after, and with it, another coffee on my desk.

He closed his eyes, imagining Katsuki at the coffee shop at six forty-five in the morning, ordering the latte with caramel, extra sugar. Paying in cash. Leaving without speaking much.

Imagined him walking across the still-dark campus, entering the administrative building, climbing the stairs to his office. Placing the cup on his desk, exactly in the center of the mousepad. Looking perhaps for a moment—at the chair where he would sit, at the papers on his desk, at the world he inhabited—and then leaving, closing the door softly behind him.

A silent ritual. An offering without demand.

Coffee on Tuesdays and Thursdays, Izuku thought, and for the first time, the words didn't come loaded only with confusion and fear.

They came with a tiny, almost imperceptible fragment of something that resembled hope.

I don't know what I'll do. I don't know if I'll give a signal, if I'll stay on guard, if I'll run.

But I know one thing: on Tuesday, when I arrive at my office and see the cup on my desk, I won't feel only confusion.

I'll be grateful.

And maybe—just maybe—that's a start.

He went back to bed, pulling the covers up to his chin. Outside, the snow continued to fall, covering the world in a white, silent blanket, erasing outlines, softening edges, preparing everything for a new day.

Inside, Izuku Midoriya's heart, broken and mended so many times, beat in an irregular rhythm—between old fear and a new, fragile hope.

Christmas was coming.

And with it, the promise—or the threat—of a new beginning.

The coffee was there, as always.

Izuku stopped in the doorway of his office, his eyes fixed on the paper cup perfectly centered on his mousepad. Steam rose in lazy spirals, drawing ephemeral shapes in the cold morning air.

For a moment, he just watched. Watched the simplicity of the gesture. The precision of the placement. The consistency of the ritual.

Then he entered, closed the door behind him, and approached the desk. This time, there was no hesitation. He picked up the cup, sat down, and took the first sip.

The flavor exploded on his tongue—sweet, creamy, comforting. Exactly as he remembered. Exactly as it always was.

And as he drank, he allowed himself, for the first time, to feel genuine gratitude. Gratitude for the warm coffee on a cold morning. Gratitude for the consistency. Gratitude for the memory.

Gratitude for the man who woke before dawn to bring it.

When he finished, he didn't immediately toss the cup in the trash. Instead, he left it on his desk, next to the keyboard. A small signal. An acknowledgment.

He didn't write a note. Didn't leave a message. But when Katsuki came back later—as Izuku knew he would—he would see the empty cup, still on the desk, not in the trash.

And he would understand.

Or maybe not. Maybe it was just an empty cup. Maybe it meant nothing.

But for Izuku, it meant everything.

It meant that the mental map he had created—the map that dictated where he should be and when, to avoid Katsuki at all costs—was being rewritten. Not by Katsuki, but by himself.

Because if Katsuki was learning to exist in his space without demanding anything, then maybe Izuku could learn to exist in the same space without running away.

Coffee on Tuesdays and Thursdays, he thought, opening his laptop.

Presence without demand.

Silence without absence.

It was a start.

It was the only start they had.

And, for the first time in a long time, it felt like enough.

Chapter Text

"The first morning of vacation arrived at U.A. with a silence that felt almost physical.

Katsuki woke up at five thirty, as always, and for a moment he lay in the large bed of his apartment, staring at the dark ceiling while listening to… nothing. Just the icy silence of December and the heavy sound of his own breathing.

It was Saturday.

Classes had ended on Friday afternoon. The students had already left the campus, returning to their homes, families, year-end trips. U.A. was entering that strange state of pause – empty hallways, dormant buildings, life suspended.

And, more importantly:
The Brew& Co. didn't open on Saturdays.

No coffee to leave.

No office to discreetly reach by six forty-five.

No excuse to cross the campus before dawn.

The absence of the ritual hurt more than Katsuki had expected.

In the last few days, as the holidays approached, a dull anxiety had been building in his chest. Tuesday and Thursday coffee had become a reference point, an anchor. Something small, concrete, that he could do without invading, without demanding. A silent gesture that said, without words: I'm still here.

Now, with the start of the holidays, that anchor had simply vanished.
He got up,his feet meeting the cold floor of the high-end apartment he had never really called home. Shower. Clothes. Mechanical movement. Everything automatic.

The apartment was spacious, modern, expensive. Large windows, minimalist furniture, a privileged view of the still-sleeping city. A place any magazine would call a dream.

But there was nothing there that was truly his.

No photos. No mementos. No signs of shared life. Just his hero jacket hanging behind the door and a half-forgotten suitcase in the corner of the bedroom.
Functional.Impersonal. Empty.

That's how the last eight months had been.

Empty spaces. Empty silences. A life that felt more like waiting than existing.
The memory came without asking for permission.

The "here" was their old apartment, their home.

The photos on the walls, graduation, the agency's inauguration, family birthdays. The plants Izuku insisted on caring for and that Katsuki pretended to hate (but never let die). The books scattered over every possible surface. The constant smell of coffee, the lotion Izuku used, the cake his mom sent on holidays.

Life.

There had been life there.

Here, only absence.

Katsuki took a deep breath, forcefully pushing the thought away. Staying still wasn't an option. Stopping meant thinking. Thinking meant sinking.

He grabbed his thickest coat and left.
The icy December air hit him full force when he left the building.Without thinking too much, he started to run.

The surroundings of U.A. were strangely quiet on that Saturday morning. The snow from the previous week still covered the lawns, dirty at the edges of the paths, untouched in the open spaces. The sky was a metallic gray, heavy, promising more cold.

Katsuki ran with no defined destination, skirting the academy's walls, passing along the outer paths he knew by heart. The sound of his own footsteps crushing the snow was too loud in the morning silence.

Without the coffee ritual, his mind was left free, and that was dangerous.

What if I hadn't said those things?

What if I had stayed?

What if, when he told me to leave, I had refused to go?

Useless questions. Katsuki knew that. The past was an immutable country, its borders fixed by acts and words that couldn't be undone. He'd learned that lesson brutally and definitively over the last eight months. You couldn't go back in time. You could only try to build something new on the wreckage.

But, God, how he wanted to go back. How he'd give anything to be in that room again, that night, and do things differently. To listen instead of explode. To speak instead of attack. To stay instead of leave.

He slowed down as he passed the administrative building, his gaze automatically rising to the windows of Izuku's office.
Dark.
Of course they were.Izuku would be at home. Or with his mother. With people. With warmth. With something that resembled a real Christmas.

Katsuki had no plans for Christmas.
His mother had called.Insisted. Sent too many messages.

"Come home."
"Don't be alone."

He hadn't replied.

Going home would mean facing tables that were too full, chairs that were too empty, traditions that would scream the name of the one who wasn't there.

It would be worse than being alone in the neutral silence of his own apartment.
Better the void than the constant reminder of what had been lost.

He stopped near the U.A. gates, panting, the vapor of his breath rising in the cold air. On the other side of the walls, Musutafu was beginning to wake up. Cars. Lights. People going about their lives.

And him there.

An international-level hero, standing before an empty campus, orbiting the absence of someone who might never want to see him again.

The irony was bitter.

Katsuki Bakugou, who always charged ahead without hesitation, was now measuring steps, schedules, silences. Leaving coffee and waiting. Waiting without knowing if there would be a response.

"You're humiliating yourself," his mind whispered, in the rough voice that sounded like his own but older, more tired. "The great Bakugou Katsuki, begging for crumbs."

He clenched his teeth.
It wasn't humiliation.
It was responsibility.

He had broken something precious. And fixing broken things required patience, consistency, and time. It required swallowing his pride and doing what was right, not what was easy.

The coffee had just been the beginning.

Now, with the holidays, he needed to find another way.
Another plan.

And this time, he didn't intend to give up."

The last teachers' meeting before the holidays was the following Monday. Katsuki arrived early, as he always did for any professional commitment, and positioned himself near the window, away from the main table. He watched the other teachers arrive – Aizawa with his sleeping bag as if expecting to fall asleep at any moment, Present Mic with his usual enthusiasm slightly dampened by end-of-semester fatigue, Midnight with a tired but genuine smile.

He was looking for a specific silhouette. And when the door opened and Izuku entered, followed by Iida gesturing animatedly about something related to next semester's schedule, Katsuki's heart gave a dull thud against his ribs.

He looks tired, was the first thought, quick and involuntary. Thinner. The bags under his eyes are deeper. He's not sleeping.

The second thought was more complex, a mix of guilt and a pang of something primitive and possessive: I should be there. I should be the reason he sleeps well, not the reason he doesn't sleep.

Izuku didn't look at him. He sat down next to Aizawa, opened a folder, and began reviewing some papers. But Katsuki noticed the slight tension in his shoulders, the way his fingers gripped the pen a little tighter than necessary. He knew Katsuki was in the room. Felt his presence.

Good, Katsuki thought, with bitter satisfaction. Let him feel it. Let him know I'm here. That I'm not going to disappear just because classes are over.

The meeting was long and full of bureaucratic details – performance reviews, curriculum planning for the next year, budgets, reports. Katsuki participated when necessary, his contributions short and to the point as always. His lectures on offensive tactics and crisis management had been, as the principal repeated several times – exceptionally well received –. The students admired him, feared him, and learned from him – the perfect triad, in Katsuki's opinion.

But his focus was divided. While Principal Nezu spoke about goals for the next semester, Katsuki's eyes wandered to the other side of the room, to the back of Izuku's neck, to the familiar curve of his neck, to the disobedient green curls that insisted on escaping from what was supposed to be a professional hairstyle.

I remember burying my face there, he thought, the memory hitting him with an almost physical intensity. After a particularly difficult mission. He smelled of sweat, dust, exhaustion. But also of himself. And I just breathed, feeling his heartbeat against my skin, and for a moment, everything was right in the world.

Now, he was five meters away, and he might as well have been on the other side of a chasm.

At the end of the meeting, as everyone stood up, gathered their belongings, and began to leave, Katsuki saw his chance. Izuku lingered, talking to Aizawa about something, his profile lit by the gray light coming through the window.

Katsuki approached. Not directly – that would be invasive. But on a path that would naturally cross Izuku's as he left.

He timed it. Waited. When Izuku finally turned and started walking towards the door, Katsuki was there, half a step away.

Their eyes met. For a second, just one, the world shrank to that point: Izuku's green eyes, wide, tired, full of a complex history of pain and resilience. Katsuki saw his own reflection in them – small, distant, like a castaway in a green sea.

He didn't smile. He didn't frown. He just nodded his head, an almost imperceptible movement, and said, in a voice softer than he intended:

"Merry Christmas, Deku."

Not Izuku. Not Midoriya. It was Deku, the name that had been an insult, then a nickname, then a term of endearment, then… what was it now? A memory? A hope? An admission that, no matter what, he still saw Izuku as he always had – as his Deku.

He saw the impact of the words in Izuku's eyes. A tremor. A quick flash of something – surprise? Anger? Nostalgia? – that was quickly smothered. Izuku opened his mouth, closed it, and then nodded his head in return, an equally minimal gesture.

"To you too, Katsuki," he murmured, and his voice was low, hoarse, laden with unnamed emotions.

And then they passed each other, continuing on their opposite paths.

It was an interaction of less than five seconds. Two phrases. Two names that carried the weight of a whole life.

But for Katsuki, it was a victory.

Because he hadn't run away. He hadn't avoided it. He had gone to him, offered an acknowledgement, a wish of goodwill. And Izuku had responded. Not with anger. Not with indifference. With a nod and his first name, which, however neutral, was still a recognition.

He left the administrative building with his heart pounding, but not from anxiety. From something that felt like… renewed determination.

The game wasn't over because classes had ended. It had just changed fields.

And Katsuki Bakugou had never been good at giving up.

The following days were an exercise in patience and tactical creativity. Without the structure of classes, without fixed schedules, Katsuki could no longer rely on predictable patterns to find Izuku. He had to be more strategic. More… present.

He started showing up.

Not in an obvious or invasive way. But if he knew – through casual conversations with other teachers, through U.A.'s public schedule, through the simple knowledge born from years of friendship and relationship – that Izuku would be in a certain place, Katsuki made sure to be there too.

On Tuesday, he learned that Izuku would be in the campus library, reviewing some rare volumes on the history of Quirks for an article he was writing. Katsuki had no reason at all to be in the library. His research was almost all practical, not theoretical. But he went.

He arrived an hour after Izuku, chose a table in the same hall but not the same row. Pulled out a random book on 19th-century battle strategies and pretended to read. In reality, he spent two hours watching Izuku.

He watched the way he leaned over the books, his reading glasses pushed to the tip of his nose (something Katsuki had always found annoyingly cute). The way he chewed the end of his pen when he was concentrating. The way his fingers traced the lines of text, as if he could absorb knowledge through touch.

It was painful. It was like watching a precious painting through bulletproof glass – you could see the beauty, but you couldn't touch it, couldn't be part of it.

Izuku knew he was there. Katsuki saw the exact moment he realized – a slight pause in turning a page, a quick glance over his glasses, then a meticulous return to the book. But he didn't leave. He didn't run away. Just… continued. Accepted the presence.

Another small step forward.

On Wednesday, Katsuki went to training room Beta, knowing Izuku often passed by there even outside of class hours. Not to really train – not anymore – but to keep his body occupied while his mind tried to keep up.

He didn't enter the same room. That would be a clear invasion. Instead, he used the adjacent space, separated by a glass wall overlooking the complex's internal corridor.

On the other side, Izuku was alone.
He was wearing only his U.A.school suit, the jacket open, the tie loose around his neck.

He wasn't training heavily. He was doing slow stretches, some basic exercises, more out of habit than necessity.

At times, he stopped to organize equipment, align weights, adjust details that didn't really need adjusting.
It was a strangely intimate sight.

How many times had Katsuki seen him like this?

Not the hero, not the model student, but Izuku in the space between one thing and another. Existing in the silence. Organizing the world around him because the one inside seemed out of control.

This time, though, they were two solitaries.
Separated by a glass wall…and by eight months of unresolved things.

At one point, Izuku stopped. He ran a hand over his face, took a deep breath, as if more tired than he should be. Then, he raised his gaze.

His eyes met Katsuki's through the glass.

No nod.

No surprise.

Just a sustained look.

Maybe three seconds.

Three seconds long enough for Katsuki's chest to tighten. Long enough for him to have the distinct feeling of being truly seen – not as a hero, not as a problem, but as a presence.

Then Izuku looked away, adjusted his tie automatically, and went back to putting away the equipment, as if nothing had happened.

But it had.

It was only three seconds.

Three seconds in which Katsuki felt, for the first time since he had returned, that he wasn't being avoided.

What do you see, Izuku? he thought, watching him finish tidying the space.

The man who hurt you?

The hero who faced All for one?

The fool trying to redeem himself too late?

Or just someone you haven't yet decided if you can erase from your life?

Katsuki had no answer.

But the simple fact that Izuku hadn't turned away, hadn't pretended he didn't exist, already meant something.
It was little.

But it was ground gained.

On Thursday, Katsuki made a bolder decision. He went to the classroom building where Izuku taught his Fundamentals of Heroism classes. Classes were over, the hallways were deserted, the rooms empty and silent.

He stopped at the door of classroom 1-A. The place was iconic – where it all began, where their class of heroes was forged. Where his rivalry with Izuku had turned into something more complex, deeper.

The door was ajar. He pushed it open and entered.

The room was as always – the desks arranged in rows, the blackboard clean, the late afternoon light coming in through the high windows, illuminating dust particles dancing in the air.

It was easy to imagine the students there, the ghosts of their own adolescences: Iida gesticulating, Uraraka laughing, Todoroki with his impassive expression, himself with his feet on the desk, Izuku sitting a few desks away, scribbling furiously.

He walked to the chair that had been Izuku's. Not the actual desk – those had been swapped many times over the years – but the approximate spot. Sat down. The seat was cold, impersonal. But for a moment, he closed his eyes and tried to imagine what Izuku saw from here. The teacher at the front. The classmates around. And him, Katsuki, always on the periphery, always a point of reference.

I was his magnetic north, he thought, with sudden clarity. Even when I rejected him, even when we fought, even when I tried to push him away, he always had me as a reference. His compass always pointed to me. And mine… mine always pointed to him too, even when I was too proud to admit it.

The sound of footsteps in the hallway made him open his eyes. It was a familiar rhythm – neither fast nor slow, but determined, with a slight drag of the left foot that Izuku had had since he was injured in the final battle.

Katsuki didn't stand up. Didn't run away. Just sat there, waiting.

The door opened fully, and Izuku appeared in the doorway, a stack of papers in his arms. He stopped, froze, his eyes widening as he saw Katsuki sitting in his old chair.

For a long moment, neither of them spoke. The air in the room felt charged, heavy with memories and unspoken words.

Izuku was the first to break the silence.

"What are you doing here?"

The question came too neutral to be casual. There was no anger in his voice, no surprise. Just weariness. A controlled tone, carefully polished, like someone who had already spent too much energy on that subject in the past.

Katsuki held his gaze, deliberately keeping his posture calm.
"Remembering."

Izuku raised an eyebrow, a small, almost automatic gesture.
"Remembering what,exactly?"

"How it was." Katsuki made a brief gesture with his hand, encompassing the empty room. "Before everything turned into… this."

Izuku let out a short exhale through his nose, devoid of any humor. His fingers tightened on the papers he held, the knuckles turning slightly white.

"Things didn't 'turn into this'. They arrived exactly where they were always going to go."

The sentence wasn't aggressive. It was factual. And that hit Katsuki harder than any shout.

"I know." Katsuki replied, after a second too long of silence. His voice came out lower. "I know I was the one who pushed everything to that point. I'm trying… not to repeat the same mistakes."

Izuku finally lifted his gaze fully.

And that's when Katsuki saw it.

Not raw hurt. Not open anger.

Exhaustion.

The kind of weariness that comes from someone who has already cried, already shouted, already waited and now just manages what's left.

"Trying doesn't erase what's already been done." Izuku said. "Nor does it fix it."

Katsuki felt the weight of those words settling in his chest.

"No." he agreed. "But it can stop me from breaking more things."

Izuku looked away, as if that answer didn't merit a reply. He shifted the papers under his arm and turned partially, already ending the conversation before even verbalizing it.

"It's too late to go back to how it was."

Katsuki got up from the chair, the movement slow, calculated. He didn't take a step toward him. Didn't try to invade that space that clearly no longer belonged to him.

"I don't want to go back to how it was." he replied. "I want to build something that doesn't crumble at the first mistake."

Izuku let out a short, dry laugh.

"You were always too optimistic when it comes to this."

"And you were always too stubborn."

The silence that followed was heavy.
Izuku closed his eyes for a second– just one – as if deciding if that conversation was worth the drain. When he opened them again, his expression was controlled once more.

"I have to go." he said. "I need to pack my things. Tomorrow I'm going to my mom's house."

Katsuki nodded.
"Say hi to Inko."He paused briefly. "And to All Might."

Izuku hesitated for a moment, his back already turned.
"I will."

He left the room without looking back.
The footsteps echoed in the empty hallway,each one sounding like a clear reminder: he was still there… but far away.

Katsuki remained standing, staring at the space where Izuku had been seconds before.
Nothing is too late,he had said.
Now,for the first time, he truly feared he might be wrong.

Friday was the last day before the actual Christmas break. Katsuki learned, through campus gossip, that Izuku would leave on Saturday morning to spend Christmas week with his mother and All Might at their house on the outskirts of Musutafu.

He had no plans to intrude. He wasn't going to show up at the train station. He wasn't going to attempt a 'casual encounter'. Izuku deserved that time with family, away from the complication that was Katsuki.

But he couldn't let Izuku leave without… something. A sign. A memento. Something that said: I'm still here. I still care. Christmas doesn't change that.

So, on Friday afternoon, after making sure Izuku was in a meeting with Nezu, Katsuki went to his office.

The door, as always, was unlocked. (Izuku really needed to be more careful about security, Katsuki thought with a mix of irritation and affection.) He entered, closing the door behind him.

The office was impeccably organized, as was typical of Izuku. Stacks of paper perfectly aligned, books organized by subject, the chair pushed under the desk.

There was a single personal touch: a small framed photo on top of a shelf. Katsuki approached to see. It was an old photo, of him and Izuku as children, maybe six or seven years old, smiling with missing teeth, arms around each other's shoulders. It had been taken by Inko on one of the many days Katsuki practically lived at the Midoriya house.

He felt a lump in his throat. Why would Izuku keep that photo? Why have it in his office, where he could see it every day, even after everything?

Because he remembers too, a part of him whispered, with a stubborn spark of hope. Because the past still matters to him too.

He didn't touch the photo. Instead, he went to the desk. In the center, where the mouse pad would normally be, there was now an empty space. Izuku had probably already packed his belongings for the holidays.

Katsuki took something out of his pocket. It wasn't coffee – not this time. It was a small package, simple, in brown paper tied with string. Inside, there was nothing of material value – just a few small things, insignificant to anyone else, but that he knew Izuku would understand.

A chewed wooden pencil tip, the kind Izuku always gnawed on during classes. Katsuki had kept it, years ago, after Izuku dropped it. Why? He didn't even know. Just that at the time, it seemed important.

A button from a U.A. uniform jacket – the first button Izuku had lost during an intense training session in their first year. Katsuki had found it later, kept it, and never returned it.

A small, smooth green pebble, the color of Izuku's eyes, that Katsuki had picked up on the beach during a mission in Okinawa. He remembered thinking, at the time, This matches him.

Nothing of value. Just fragments of a shared history. Things that said: I remember you. I remember us. I didn't throw everything away.

He placed the package in the exact center of the desk, where the coffee would normally be. Next to it, he placed a single card, without an envelope, with just two words written in his rough, angular handwriting:

To remember.

He didn't sign it. He didn't need to.

He took one last look around the office, his eyes landing again on the photo of the smiling children. Two boys who had no idea what the future held for them, how much they would hurt each other, how much they would love each other.

"Merry Christmas, Deku," he whispered to the empty room.

And then he left, closing the door softly behind him, leaving his gift – his silent confession, his offering of memory – on Izuku's desk.

Saturday dawned cold and clear, a rare winter sun day that made the snow glisten like scattered diamonds. Katsuki woke up early, as always, and did something he hadn't done in months: made coffee for himself in his own kitchen.

As the coffee maker bubbled, he stood at the window, looking out at the sleeping city. Somewhere, Izuku would be getting ready, grabbing his suitcase, heading to the station. In a few hours, he'd be in Inko's cozy house, surrounded by family love, the Christmas spirit, the normality Katsuki so envied and from which he had excluded himself.

He felt a pang of self-pity, but quickly rejected it. This solitude was of his own making. He had chosen to leave. He had chosen to stay away. He had chosen this self-imposed exile.

The coffee finished. He poured a mug, black and strong, no sugar – the complete opposite of what Izuku drank. Sat at the small kitchen table and drank it, staring at the empty wall in front of him.

What would Izuku do when he found the package? Open it? Throw it away without looking? Keep it, undecided? And the things inside – would he recognize them? Remember the pencil, the button, the pebble?

He'll remember, Katsuki thought, with a conviction that came from the deepest part of his being. Izuku never forgets anything. Especially not the things that matter.

The question was: did those things still matter to him? Or were they just relics of a dead time, fossils of an extinct feeling?

Silence settled in the apartment, heavier than before.

Katsuki finished the coffee in one gulp, ignoring the bitter aftertaste left in the bottom of the mug. Got up, took it to the sink and washed it with mechanical, almost automatic movements. Rinsed it, shook off the excess water and placed it in the dish rack – upside down.

He stopped.

He stared at the mug for a few seconds longer than necessary.
Izuku always did that.

Said it was so dust wouldn't gather inside. Katsuki had never argued. He had just adopted the habit, without realizing when it had stopped being Izuku's and become theirs.

Now, it was just another surviving habit in an empty apartment.

Katsuki ran a hand over his face, took a deep breath, and stepped away from the sink.

Christmas was coming.

And for the first time in a long time, he had no idea if he could make it through the whole thing without crumbling.

Even in my solitary habits, you are here, Katsuki thought, with a mixture of exasperation and love. You've marked me, Izuku Midoriya. In ways I don't even fully understand myself.

The day passed slowly. He trained – an exhausting session in the training room that left his muscles burning and his mind empty of everything except physical effort. Took a long shower. Ate a simple meal.

In the afternoon, he decided to go out. Walk through the city, mingle with the last-minute Christmas shopping crowd, feel the frenetic holiday energy without being part of it.

Musutafu was decorated with lights, garlands, and Christmas trees in every square. Stores played Christmas carols, people carried colorful packages, children laughed pointing at decorations. It was a spectacle of collective joy, and Katsuki felt like a spectator watching a film in a language he didn't understand.

He passed by the Brew & Co. The café was closed, a sign on the door wishing customers a "Merry Christmas and a Prosperous New Year". He stopped for a moment, looking through the glass into the dark interior. He remembered the blue-haired attendant, her understanding smile when he ordered milk and caramel coffee.

"It's for Coordinator Midoriya," he said the first time. "Leave it on his desk, please."

She asked if he wanted to leave a note. "No," he replied. "Just the coffee. He'll know."

And Izuku had known. Drank it. Accepted the gesture, even without accepting the man behind it.

Maybe it had always been like this between them – gestures instead of words, actions instead of explanations. Maybe it was the only language they truly shared, deep down.

He kept walking, aimlessly, just moving. He passed the building of his old hero agency, now run by a younger team. He passed the park where he and Izuku used to run on Sunday mornings. He passed the restaurant where they celebrated their first successful mission as an official duo.

Every place a memory. Every memory a knife.

When the sun began to set, painting Musutafu's sky in deep shades of orange and purple, Katsuki slowed his run. His still-warm body contrasted with the cold December air, the vapor of his breath rising in short clouds in front of him.

He only realized where he was when he slowed his pace to almost a stop.

The U.A. gates were just ahead.
Katsuki frowned slightly,confused for a second. It wasn't the way back to his apartment building. If he went two more blocks, he'd go straight to the luxury building where he lived – the apartment too big, too quiet, that waited for him every night.

But his feet had gone somewhere else.
As if they knew before he did.

The campus appeared wrapped in soft, almost discreet lighting. At the main gate, a huge wreath announced the approaching Christmas, small lights blinking slowly in the twilight. It was a simple detail, but it clashed with the emptiness around it.

Katsuki passed through the gate without much thought. The gesture was automatic, almost a reflex. The sound of his sneakers on the stone path echoed too loudly in that silence.
U.A.was practically deserted.
Classes had ended on Friday.

Most students had already left, the dormitories were largely empty, and the few remaining teachers had retired early. The campus, which normally vibrated with voices, Quirk explosions, and hurried footsteps, now seemed suspended in time.

He kept walking, still in running mode, but his mind beginning to drift. He passed the training field, the main building, the path he had taken so many times without thinking.

Until he realized where he was going.
The administrative block.

Katsuki slowed his pace again, his heart beating a little heavier in his chest – not from physical effort, but from the belated recognition of his own impulse.
Izuku's office was there.

The window was dark, as it obviously would be. Izuku had already left.

Probably at his mother's house, wrapped in human warmth, homemade food, and that gentle normality Katsuki had always felt was too distant for him to offer.

He stopped under the window, his hands on his hips for a few seconds before shoving them into his coat pockets. The sweat was beginning to cool on his skin, making the cold more evident.

Above him, the sky was slowly darkening. The first stars appeared shyly, small and too distant to really matter.

Katsuki didn't expect anything to happen.
He didn't expect the light to come on.
He didn't expect Izuku to appear.
He didn't expect an idiotic movie miracle.

Still, he stayed.

Maybe because, no matter how much he told himself he was moving forward, some part of him still gravitated towards the same places. Towards the same absences.

It was irritating.
It was pathetic.
It was honest.

After a few seconds – or minutes, he wouldn't be able to tell – Katsuki took a deep breath, looked away from the dark window, and took a step back.

He didn't live there.
Izuku wasn't there.
And standing still wouldn't change that.

"Merry Christmas, Deku," he murmured again, the words disappearing into the cold air like vapor.

And then, something caught his attention. In the office window, reflected against the dark glass, he saw a small light blinking. A faint, intermittent green light.

He stood still, confused. The office was empty. There shouldn't be any lights.

Unless…

His breath caught. Unless Izuku hadn't left yet. Unless he was still there.

Or unless he had come back.

Without thinking, Katsuki ran into the building, took the stairs two at a time, and ran down the hallway to Izuku's office door. Stopped, panting, his hand hovering over the doorknob.

What did he expect to find? Izuku sitting at the desk, the package open before him, waiting for Katsuki? It was a fantasy. An illusion of a lonely, hopeful heart.

He took a deep breath, trying to calm down. It was probably just an electronic device left on. A charger with an indicator light. Something mundane.

But even so… he had to know.

He turned the knob and pushed the door.

The office was in semi-darkness, lit only by the faint city light coming through the window. And on the desk, exactly where Katsuki had left it, was the small brown paper package.

But open.

The string was undone, the paper carefully unfolded. And the things inside – the pencil piece, the button, the green pebble – were aligned in a perfect row on the desk, like artifacts in a museum.

And next to them, there was something new. Something that hadn't been there before.

A single ceramic mug, simple, unadorned. And inside it, a dark liquid that still gave off a slight steam.

Katsuki approached slowly, his heart pounding in his temples. He smelled it. Coffee. Black. Strong. Exactly how he drank it.

And next to the mug, a small piece of paper, folded in half. With slightly trembling hands, Katsuki picked it up and opened it.

The handwriting was familiar – messy but legible, with rounded letters he would recognize anywhere.

"I remember."

And below, almost like an afterthought hesitation:

"Merry Christmas, Katsuki Bakugou."

Katsuki stood still, the paper in his hand, staring at the words as if they might disappear at any moment. The air left his lungs in a shaky sigh, and he felt something warm and heavy rising in his throat – an emotion so strong it almost knocked him over.

He remembered. Not just the things – the pencil, the button, the pebble – but the meaning behind them. The story they told. The boy he was, the man he became, the love that had always been there, even when it was difficult, even when it was painful.

And he had responded. Not with spoken words, not with a dramatic encounter. With coffee. With a mug left on a dark desk. With a silent confession that echoed his own.

I remember.

Katsuki sat down in Izuku's chair, picked up the mug and drank. The coffee was strong, bitter, perfect. Exactly how he liked it.

He looked at the small relics lined up on the desk, then at the paper with Izuku's handwriting, then at the dark window reflecting his own face – a face that, for the first time in eight months, was not just laden with pain and regret, but with something that looked like… hope.

Izuku remembered.

And if he remembered, then maybe, just maybe, he could also forgive.

The holiday week stretched ahead, long and empty. The future was uncertain, full of obstacles and old pains that still needed to be healed.

But in that moment, alone in Izuku's dark office, with the taste of bitter coffee on his tongue and the words "I remember" burning in his mind, Katsuki Bakugou allowed himself to believe.

Believe that the threads that bound them, though stretched almost to breaking, were not cut.

Believe that the map he was drawing – coffee on Tuesdays and Thursdays, presence without demand, patience instead of explosion – was leading somewhere.

It was a fragile thread of hope. A thread that could snap with a wrong move, a wrong word, one more explosion of his temper.

But it was a start.

It was all he needed.

He finished the coffee, washed the mug carefully and left it upside down on the plastic draining board of the office's small sink. Collected the small relics – the pencil, the button, the pebble – and put them back in the brown paper, folding it carefully. Took Izuku's note and put it in his breast pocket, over his heart.

He took one last look around the office, his eyes landing on the photo of the smiling children.

"We're going to be okay, Deku," he murmured to the silent room. "I'm going to make it right this time."

And then he left, closing the door softly behind him, leaving the office dark and empty, but now charged with the unspoken promise of a new beginning.

Outside, the December night was cold and clear, the stars shining like frozen diamonds in the velvet of the sky. The campus was silent, at peace, waiting for the new year.

Katsuki walked back to his apartment, his steps lighter than they had been in months. The weight on his shoulders was still there – the regret, the guilt, the fear – but now there was something else. Something that felt like… possibility.

Izuku remembered.

And for Katsuki Bakugou, who had spent eight months in a self-imposed exile, surrounded by the silence of his regret, that was more than enough.

It was a star in the dark.

It was a beginning.

And, for the first time since he returned from the United States, Katsuki felt that perhaps, just perhaps, Christmas could bring a gift after all.

Not a wrapped present, not a sudden miracle.

But the chance to continue.

And for a man who had almost lost everything, it was the only gift that really mattered.

Katsuki's apartment smelled of recent cleaning and emptiness. He locked the door behind him, leaned against it for a moment, and closed his eyes, letting the image of Izuku's office – the open package, the coffee mug, the note – burn into his retinas. I remember. Two words that weighed more than any explosion he had ever conjured.

When he opened his eyes, the reality of his solitary space enveloped him again. The gray sofa, the turned-off television, the tiny, impeccably clean kitchen. A transient apartment. A place to wait, not to live.

He was taking off his coat when a familiar knock on the door made him stop. It wasn't the soft knock of a neighbor or the hesitant knock of a delivery person. It was a solid, rhythmic knock that echoed with a confidence only one person had.

Kirishima.

Katsuki sighed, a mixture of irritation and relief. Irritation because he wasn't in the mood for company. Relief because, deep down, the prospect of spending the night alone with his thoughts and the newly discovered spark of hope was frightening. It trembled inside him, fragile as crystal, and he feared a moment of solitude would crush it.

He opened the door.

Eijiro Kirishima was outside, with a shopping bag in one hand and a bottle of something in the other. He wore a faded red hoodie and a smile that was both sympathetic and challenging.

"Don't tell me you're going to mope alone on a Friday night," Kirishima said, walking past him uninvited, as he always did.

"I was going to 'mope,' as you say, in peace," Katsuki grumbled, closing the door. But there was no real heat in the complaint.

Kirishima was already in the kitchen, putting the bag on the counter. "Brought food. That loaded ramen you like from Ichiraku. And drinks." He held up the bottle. A decent Japanese whiskey, not the cheap mix Kaminari always brought.

Katsuki approached, crossing his arms. "Why?"

Kirishima stopped taking the containers out of the bag and looked at him. His red eyes, usually full of unshakable enthusiasm, were serious.

"Because you're my best friend, and you're going through a shitty time. And because I know if I leave you, you'll spend Christmas alone with a bottle of water and a combat ration, pretending you're training."

"Not pretending. I am training."

"Yeah. And avoiding living." Kirishima opened the ramen container, and the rich aroma of pork broth and miso filled the small kitchen. It was a smell that would normally make Katsuki's mouth water. Today, he just watched. "So? How are things? Operation 'Coffee and Patience'? With the holidays, you're without your main prop, huh?"

Katsuki took two lowball glasses from the cupboard and placed them on the table with a sharp click. "It's not a 'prop'."

"Sorry. Ritual. Strategy. Whatever." Kirishima served the ramen into two bowls. "So? What are you going to do now that you don't have Tuesdays and Thursdays? Can't just stand still, man. Stillness is death, you always said."

Katsuki sat at the table, picking up the chopsticks. The warmth of the bowl was comforting in his hands.

"I know what I said." He took a bite, buying time. How to explain what had happened in the office? The words "I remember" seemed too sacred, too fragile to share. "He… he got the things."

Kirishima froze, a piece of pork halfway to his mouth. "Things? What things?"

"Things I left. In his office. Before he went to his mom's."

"What kind of things?"

"Nothing important. Just… memories." Katsuki avoided his gaze, focusing on his ramen. "Stuff from when we were younger."

A long silence. Then Kirishima carefully set his chopsticks down. "Dude… that's… either really good or really creepy. How did he react?"

Katsuki thought of the black coffee, the clean mug, the note. The bitter taste was still on his tongue. "He… left a response."

"What?"

"Doesn't matter." The reply was quicker and harsher than he intended. He wasn't ready to open that up yet. It was still his. "He responded. That's what matters."

Kirishima studied him for a moment, then nodded, respecting the boundary.

"Okay. Okay, that's something. It's a sign. But what now? The holidays are almost three weeks. You have a month and a half in the country before the… the US thing." He said the last words carefully, as if treading on a minefield.

There was also the matter of the United States.

The invitation wasn't small, nor symbolic. Katsuki had been formally approached to become an active hero on American soil, integrated into one of the major international agencies in New York. A high-level contract. Global recognition. Status. Operational power on a worldwide scale.

It wasn't an internship.
It wasn't a diplomatic visit.
It was a change of axis.

If he accepted, he'd be spending years outside Japan, operating under another flag, another system, another logic. His name would cease to be just a pillar of the new Japanese generation and become an international asset.
A meteoric rise.

Nezu had been clear from the start: U.A. was never a professional obligation for Katsuki. He wasn't a teacher. He never had been. He was an active hero, with his own agency, his own name established in Japan and abroad. The lectures, the occasional training, the presence on campus – all that was invitation, collaboration, not a contract.

If he wanted to keep showing up, the doors would be open.

If he wanted to disappear for a while, no one would stop him.

The decision had always been solely his.
But the question that gnawed at him had nothing to do with career.

It wasn't about status.
It wasn't about recognition.
It wasn't about power or legacy.
It was about belonging.

Was U.A. still a place where he existed – or was it just a space that constantly reminded him of who he had lost?

Because, eight months ago, when Izuku said "go away", Katsuki hadn't lost a job.

He had lost an axis.

And now, with an international invitation on the table and Japan still there, intact, the doubt wasn't about where to go.

It was about where he had already been expelled from without realizing it.

It was about belonging.

Was this still his place?

Or had he lost it eight months ago, the moment Izuku said "go away" and he, too hurt and too proud, actually went?

Accepting the United States meant much more than professional growth. It meant distance. A whole ocean between him and everything he had broken – and perhaps, irremediably, lost.

A clean exit.
A plausible justification.
A fresh start without ghosts…or the best-packaged cowardice ever offered to him.

Katsuki knew that if he accepted, he wouldn't just be changing countries.
He'd be giving up.

"Haven't decided yet," Katsuki murmured, stabbing a piece of boiled egg. "There's time."

"There's time, but not infinite," Kirishima pointed out, his voice soft but firm. "And you can't make that decision based only on… on hope, Katsuki. It has to be based on what's real. On what he's showing, not on what you're hoping for."

Katsuki felt a flash of anger – the old, familiar, defensive kind.

"I know the damn difference, Ei. I'm not a sentimental idiot."

"I'm not saying you are," Kirishima raised his hands in peace. "Just being your friend and telling the truth to your face, like I always do. You're rebuilding yourself because of him. And that's amazing, man, really. The Bakugou from a year ago would never do that. But you have to rebuild yourself for you too. Because if you do everything thinking only of him, and in the end… if in the end it doesn't work out…" He didn't finish the sentence. He didn't need to.

If it doesn't work out, you'll fall apart again. And this time, maybe you won't be able to get up.

Katsuki knew he was right. Every coffee left, every discreet appearance, every silent gesture – all were arrows shot towards Izuku. But what about the bow? And the archer? What would be left of him if the arrow missed the target?

"I don't know how to do it any other way," he admitted, the anger giving way to a deep exhaustion. "I hurt him. I broke something. So I fix it. It's simple."

"Nothing between you two was ever simple, Katsuki." Kirishima picked up the whiskey bottle and filled the two glasses. "And fixing isn't just about gestures. It's about real change. And you're changing, I see it. But the question is: is it change for good, or is it just… a Christmas performance?"

Katsuki picked up his glass, swirling the amber liquid. The question was fair. He'd asked himself the same thing countless times in the silence of his apartment. Was his current patience – a new trait, or just a temporary disguise? His restraint – growth, or just another form of control?

"I don't know," he finally said, the honesty coming out as a sigh. "I just know I need to try. I need to know I did everything I could. And if it's just a performance… well, at least it'll have been a long and painful one. That has to be worth something."

Kirishima smiled, a sad and understanding smile.
"Always dramatic,huh? No middle ground." He clinked his glass against Katsuki's. "To trying, then. And to my stubborn-as-hell friend."

They drank. The whiskey burned smoothly in Katsuki's throat, a warmth that spread through his cold chest.

"And Christmas?" Kirishima asked after a moment. "What are you going to do? Mina and I are going to my parents' house. There's room in the car. There'll be too much food, my mom piling your plate, my dad wanting to watch all your battle clips on YouTube again… complete chaos. Come."

The image was tempting. Warm. Loud. Full of life. Everything his apartment wasn't. Everything Inko's house probably was for Izuku.

But he shook his head.
"No."

"Katsuki…"

"No, Ei." He looked at his friend. "Thanks. Seriously. But… I need to stay here. I need to… process. And if…"

"If he shows up?" Kirishima finished, his voice soft.

Katsuki didn't confirm, nor deny. Just shrugged. The possibility, however remote, was there. Planted by the note, by the coffee mug left in the darkness. I remember. And if remembering was the first step to… something more? What if Izuku decided to come back before New Year's, to look for him, to talk?

He knew it was fantasy. Izuku would probably spend the whole week with his family, immersed in domestic coziness, far from the emotional mess that was Katsuki. But still… hope, once ignited, was a stubborn flame.

"Alright," Kirishima said, getting up and taking the bowls to the sink. "I won't force you. But the offer stands until Christmas morning, okay? If you change your mind, call me." He dried his hands and looked at Katsuki, his expression serious. "And if you stay here… take it easy, man. Drink your whiskey, watch a bad action movie, don't stew. You took a step. He responded. That's good. Now breathe."

Katsuki nodded, a short movement.
"I'm breathing."

Kirishima gave his shoulder a firm pat.
"That's it.Now I'm gonna bounce, leave you with your deep thoughts and your expensive whiskey. Call me if you need anything. And merry Christmas, man."

"Merry Christmas, Ei."

Kirishima left, closing the door with a soft click. Silence descended on the apartment again, but now it was a different silence. Less empty. More charged.

Katsuki finished his whiskey, took the bottle and his glass to the living room and let himself fall onto the sofa. The gray fabric was rough under his fingers. He leaned back, stretching his arms over the backrest, and let his head fall back, his eyes fixed on the smooth white ceiling.

The whiskey warmed his veins, loosening the rigid edges of his thoughts. The conversation with Kirishima echoed in his mind. Christmas performance. Real change. You have to rebuild yourself for you too.

He wanted to believe it was real change. That the man who left coffee in silence was a better man than the one who exploded and fled. But deep down, in the darkest and most honest place within himself, he was afraid. Afraid that under enough pressure, the new patience would crack and the old Katsuki – impulsive, arrogant, destructive – would emerge again.

Now, at 11:47 PM on Christmas Eve, with a half-empty bottle of whiskey on the rustic table beside him and an empty glass in his hands, Katsuki watched the snow fall outside. The neighborhood was quiet, most people already home with their families, their traditions, their loves.

As if the alcohol and solitude had made a silent pact against him, the memory came.

Not the fight.

That one was too easy. Too clear. An open wound he already knew by heart – the raised tone, the burning throat, the sound of his own name spat out like an accusation. The moment everything crumbled had contours too defined to be relived now.

That didn't require effort. It had never gone away. He could close his eyes and see Izuku's face that night not the anger, which was common, but the exhaustion. The resignation. That deep weariness that said "I've given up trying". That was a knife he twisted in his own guts every night.

What emerged was what came before.
What pushed everything,slowly and inevitably, toward the abyss.

It wasn't a complete memory. Katsuki didn't see faces clearly, couldn't piece together a logical sequence. It was like trying to grasp smoke with his hands. Everything came in fragments, disconnected sensations his body recognized before his mind could organize them.

The smell of burnt oil mixed with cold asphalt.

An artificial light too harsh for the time of night.

The nagging feeling of something out of place, a subtle alert lodged in the back of his neck before there was even a clear reason.

And, above all, the anger.

Not the explosion. Not yet.
It was the other kind.The one that settles slowly. Heavy. Silent. The one that doesn't shout – it watches. The one that doesn't attack – it waits.

Katsuki tightened his fingers around the glass, feeling it protest under the unconscious force. The low crack was almost satisfying. His body remembered. It always remembered. Remembered the tension in his shoulders, so intense it ached by the end of the day.

Remembered the locked jaw, to the point of waking up with a headache. Remembered the creeping discomfort that had a name, that spread like rust started as a chill down his spine when he received a certain notification on his phone, grew into a knot in his stomach when he heard a specific tone of voice, exploded into insomnia in the early hours when his brain, traitorous, began connecting dots that perhaps didn't even exist.

He remembered feeling… measured.

As if someone had placed an invisible ruler beside him.

As if, suddenly, it wasn't enough to be who he was.

And that was the most perverse part of all, the ruler wasn't from Izuku. It never had been. Izuku was the only person in his whole life who had never tried to measure him.

Who never placed expectations beyond "be yourself". Who looked at Katsuki Bakugou in all his intensity, explosiveness, and stubbornness and saw… home. Saw a haven. Saw the place where he snuggled at night and woke up in the morning.

The ruler was from somewhere else.

The name came, cutting through the air of his mind like a shard of glass.

Shindo.

Chapter Text

Mom's house smelled the same as always.

It was a mix of hot tea, gentle cleaning product, and something sweet that Izuku had never quite been able to identify—maybe cake, maybe memory. The kind of smell that didn’t need to be recognized to be comforting. It was the smell of coming home after far too long away, of stepping back in time to a place where the world was smaller, simpler, and the only monsters that mattered were the ones in the horror movies he'd sneak-watch after midnight.

Izuku arrived late in the afternoon on the twenty-fourth, when the sky was already beginning to darken too early and the cold seemed to seep through his clothes, finding gaps between the fabric fibers to settle in his bones. He left his suitcase in the corner of the old room—the same room he'd grown up in, now too tidy, almost impersonal, as if Inko had tried to freeze time inside it, preserving it like a museum of a childhood that had already become history.

She hugged him too tight. As always.

Izuku hugged back, burying his face in her shoulder for a second longer than he would anywhere else. There, on that threshold between the outside world and the domestic space, he didn’t need to keep up appearances. He didn’t need to be a symbol. He didn’t need to be an example.

There, he could just… exist.

The weight of the last few weeks—of final meetings, endless paperwork, the constant emotional vigilance needed to navigate the halls of U.A. without falling apart—began to slip from his shoulders like heavy water. For a moment, he just breathed, taking in the familiar scent of her shampoo, the soft fabric of her dress, the unquestionable solidity of her embrace.

"You look tired," Inko said, her hands still on his arms, her gaze too attentive for someone who already knew every micro-expression on her son’s face.

Izuku smiled. A small, genuine smile that reached his eyes before his lips.
"A little."It meant "exhausted down to the last shred of patience." It was a coded language built over years of mutual worry, of sleepless nights after difficult missions, of tears dried in secret.

Toshinori appeared soon after, too tall for the doorway, wearing a ridiculously festive sweater—bright red with prancing reindeer—that Inko had clearly chosen. His smile was open, warm, the same one Izuku had known for years—but now there was something different in it. Something domestic. Peaceful. Permanent.

"Young Midoriya!" he said, opening his arms. "Welcome back."

Izuku felt the tightness in his chest ease a little. Toshinori's hug was bony, awkward, but sincere. There was a safety there, an anchor that didn’t exist anywhere else.
"Thank you,Yagi-san. The sweater is… Christmassy."

"Your mother insisted," Toshinori replied, with a playful glint in his eyes. "She said I needed to 'get into the spirit of things.'"

Inko made a sound of loving disapproval. "I didn't say it exactly like that."
"Yes,you did. Word for word."

They exchanged a look—quick, private, charged with an intimacy that still made Izuku feel a little out of place, as if he were witnessing something not entirely his. Not in a bad way. Just… strange. Like seeing your parents flirt.

The house was full of Christmas details: lights blinking in the window, a tree decorated with ornaments too old to match—some made by a young Izuku, painted with peeling paint, others bought in last-minute sales, all carrying silent stories. Photos scattered around the room: a young Izuku holding a too-big present, teenage Izuku in his first U.A. uniform, Izuku and All Might side by side after a graduation. It was cozy. Loud in a quiet way. Alive.

And yet…

It was the first Christmas without Katsuki.

The realization didn't come as a shock. It came as a constant, subtle, almost polite absence—occupying small spaces. The chair that would be empty at the table. The snarky comment that wouldn't be made about Toshinori's sweater. The explosive laugh that wouldn't echo through the house after a bad joke. The casual touch on the shoulder while passing, the cup of sweet coffee left on the kitchen counter, the physical presence that occupied so much space that its absence became a presence itself.

Izuku helped in the kitchen, talked, answered questions about U.A., the students, future projects. He spoke naturally. Laughed when he needed to. Functioned perfectly.

But inside, there was a different kind of tiredness.

Not the tiredness of the body—though he was physically exhausted too. It was the tiredness of holding on. Of maintaining a mask of normalcy. Of navigating each day calculating distances, avoiding glances, drinking coffee that ached from familiarity, keeping notes in his pocket as if they were sacred relics. It was the tiredness of carrying a heart that still beat in rhythm with one that perhaps no longer wanted to sync.

When night fell completely and Inko sent him to rest—"You need to sleep, Izuku, you have bags under your eyes that could reach your knees"—he went up to the old room with light steps. He sat on the bed, looking around.

The walls still had the faded All Might posters. The shelf still held his hero analysis notebooks, organized chronologically. The window still had the same view of the building next door. Nothing there screamed Katsuki. And yet, he was everywhere.

In the habit of taking off his shoes before entering—a habit Katsuki always mocked, calling it "excessive clean-freak behavior." In the automatic way of folding his coat—something Katsuki never did, always tossing his onto any available surface. In the impulse to check his phone—which he repressed before it became pain, before the hope for a message, any message, consumed him for another night.

He lay down, staring at the familiar ceiling, the cracks in the paint that had formed imaginary constellations in his childhood.

For the first time in months, there was no patrol. No meeting. No urgent decisions. No one watching, evaluating, expecting something from him.

Just silence. And Christmas approaching.

Izuku took a deep breath, feeling the air enter and leave his lungs, a basic survival movement that lately seemed to require conscious effort.

Tomorrow would be about family. About laughter. About traditions kept. About emotional survival disguised as celebration.

But that night—Christmas Eve—was his alone.

And the absence.

---

The morning of the twenty-fifth arrived soft and quiet. Izuku woke before the others, an old habit that persisted even when there was no reason to get up early. He went down the stairs silently, his bare feet on the cold floor, and found the house still asleep.

In the kitchen, he made coffee. For himself, strong and bitter. For his mother, with a little milk. For Toshinori, following the precise instructions Inko had given him—"half a spoon of sugar, Izuku, no more than that, sugar isn't good for him."

While the coffee maker bubbled, he stood at the window, watching the empty street. Snow had fallen overnight, a thin, pristine blanket covering cars, sidewalks, rooftops. The world seemed to have stopped, suspended in a moment of forced peace.

First Christmas without him, he thought, and this time the phrase came with its full weight of truth.

It wasn't just about Katsuki not being there physically. It was about all the versions of Christmas they had built together—the first timid ones, as friends who barely admitted to being more than that; the later, bolder ones, exchanging gifts with ridiculous names on the cards ("For the Deku who's still a nerd" / "For the Kacchan who's still too explosive"); the last ones, domestic, cozy, in their own apartment, with their own tree, their own traditions.

This Christmas was a step backward. A return to a time before them. And that hurt in a different way—not like a stab, but like constant pressure, a weight that built up in his chest with each uninvited memory.

The sound of footsteps on the stairs pulled him from his thoughts. Inko appeared, wrapped in a fluffy robe, her hair messy.
"Good morning,son. Merry Christmas."
"Merry Christmas,Mom."

She approached, kissed his forehead—a gesture that always made him feel like a child again—and took the mug he offered.
"Did you sleep well?"
"Well enough."

She studied his face, her sharp eyes scanning every detail.
"You're thinking too much.I can tell."

Izuku smiled, a smile that didn't reach his eyes.
"It's hard not to."
"I know."She placed a hand on his arm. "But today is Christmas. Try to… breathe. Just that."

Breathe.

It seemed so simple.
Why was it so hard?

Toshinori joined them shortly after, and breakfast was a quiet meal, full of comfortable silences and light conversation about trivial things—the weather, the street decorations, plans for lunch.

As the hours passed, a different energy began to fill the house. Inko went into "hostess mode," organizing, preparing, checking lists. Toshinori helped her, following instructions with a dedication that was both funny and touching. Izuku offered to help but was gently shooed away—"Rest, Izuku, you work all year."

He sat on the living room sofa, picked up a random book—an anthology of Christmas stories—and tried to read. The words danced on the page without meaning. His mind was elsewhere. On the empty campus. In a dark office. In a mug of black coffee left on a table.

At four in the afternoon, the doorbell rang.

Inko didn't even need to announce it.
"They're here!"she declared excitedly, wiping her hands on a towel before running to the door.

Izuku blinked, confused, for half a second.

The door opened, and there were Mitsuki and Masaru Bakugou, bundled up against the cold, bags in hand, their energy filling the space before they even stepped inside.
"MERRY CHRISTMAS,YOU CRAZY FAMILY!" Mitsuki declared, kicking off her shoes clumsily and entering as if she lived there.

Izuku laughed before he even realized it. A genuine laugh that bubbled up from a deep, forgotten place inside him.

Of course. Of course they would be there.

They had always spent Christmas together—the Midoriya and Bakugou families, united not just by the mothers' friendship, but by years of shared history, of children growing up together, of struggles and victories witnessed together.

It was just that… it had been too long since the last time. Since before the breakup. Since before the silence.

"Izuku!" Mitsuki approached and pulled him into a quick, strong hug, the kind that crushed ribs without asking permission. "Look at you. Skinnier. Are you eating right or have you become one of those adults who forgets to eat?"

"I eat, Aunt Mitsuki," he replied automatically, the smile still on his lips. "I promise."
"Promising doesn't fill your plate."She let him go but kept her hands on his shoulders, examining him like a doctor with a dubious patient. "And these bags under your eyes? Sleeping how much? Three hours a night?"

"Mitsuki, leave the boy alone," Masaru intervened calmly, carrying a covered tray as if it were something sacred. "It's good to see you, Izuku."
"You too,Masaru-san."

It was strange and comforting at the same time. Izuku had grown up in that house as much as in his own. Their presence wasn't an intrusion—it was continuity. It was history. It was belonging.

Still, something tightened in his chest.

Because this was the first time.
The first Christmas without Katsuki.

He didn't say it out loud. He didn't need to. The absence was a physical space, an empty chair no one pointed at, but that everyone felt. A place at the table that would stay unoccupied. A gift that wouldn't be exchanged. A story that wouldn't be told.

Mitsuki seemed determined to fill all possible silences with noise. She dominated the room with her presence, helping Inko in the kitchen while complaining about her methods ("Inko, you chop the vegetables too small, they'll disappear in the sauce!"), teasing Toshinori ("All Might in the kitchen, never thought I'd see the day!"), telling exaggerated stories about customers at her clothing store.

Masaru watched everything with a calm smile, intervening only when necessary, smoothing the waters with a soft comment here, a change of subject there.

Izuku moved among them, helping, talking, smiling. He functioned. He discovered it was possible to get through a Christmas like this—with a firm mask, ready answers, carefully regulated emotions.

Until it wasn't.

Dinner was served at eight, as always. The table was full—turkey, rice, vegetables, salads, sauces, everything prepared with the characteristic excess of those who believe love is measured in quantity of food. They sat down. Inko said a small prayer—not religious, just thanking for family, health, everyone's presence.

The word "everyone" echoed in the air a second longer than it should have.

Conversation flowed, light, carefree. Mitsuki talked about her business, Masaru about his design work, Toshinori about his lectures at U.A. (carefully edited not to mention sensitive topics). Izuku shared light stories about his students—the funny ones, the inspiring ones, the ones that didn't hurt.

And then, as if it were the most natural thing in the world, Mitsuki said:
"So you're telling me you're having Katsuki give lectures there now?"She served herself more mashed potatoes. "Never thought I'd see the day. That boy, teaching. The world really has ended."

Izuku felt his body react before his mind did.

Nothing visible. No flinch. Just an almost imperceptible adjustment in his shoulders, a slightly deeper breath, his fingers tightening lightly on the fork.
"Yes,"he replied, with practiced calm, his voice not trembling, not faltering. "He… he's been collaborating a lot. The students respond well."

"Of course they do," Mitsuki huffed, as if the idea were obvious. "He's always had that strange effect. Scares and inspires at the same time. I remember when you were kids and he'd 'train' the other neighborhood boys"—she made air quotes—"which was basically him blowing things up and yelling at them. And they loved it."

Masaru smiled nostalgically. "They admired him. They still do."
"He's doing well,"Inko added, genuine. "I'm glad to hear that. It's good to know you two are still… working together."

Izuku nodded politely, keeping his tone neutral.

Working together.

It was true. But it wasn't the whole truth. It was such a narrow, specific truth that it almost became a lie by omission. Yes, they worked together. In meetings. In hallways. On a campus large enough to house two ex-lovers without them needing to touch, speak, or acknowledge each other as anything more than colleagues.

Toshinori, across the table, said nothing. He just observed. The way Izuku held his utensils with a bit more force. The way he smiled without showing his teeth. The way he answered without elaborating, as if every word about Katsuki were a hot coal that needed to be handled with extreme care.

He noticed. Of course he noticed.

The conversation moved on, drifting to other topics. Mitsuki talked about a trip she was planning, Masaru mentioned a new project, Inko told a funny story about a customer at the grocery store. Izuku participated, laughed at the right moments, asked appropriate questions.

On the outside, he was perfect.

On the inside, he was unraveling.

Every mention of Katsuki, however casual, was a blow. Every "he" said by Mitsuki, every "our son" mentioned by Masaru, every shared memory that included not just the child Izuku, but also the child Katsuki—was a knife twisted in a wound that had never properly closed.

He managed to finish the meal. Managed to help clear the table. Managed to participate in the gift exchange—he received a sweater from Inko ("To keep you warm in winter"), a book on the history of Quirks from Toshinori ("I thought you'd like it"), a ridiculous tie from Mitsuki ("For when you need to impress someone important, which I know you hate these things"), a set of quality pens from Masaru ("For your notes").

He distributed his own gifts—perfumes, books, a piece of art for the house—with genuine smiles and thanks.

But beneath the surface, the current was strong, pulling him under.

At midnight, as tradition dictated, they got up almost simultaneously. Hugs were exchanged, warm, sincere wishes of Merry Christmas echoed through the room. Izuku hugged Mitsuki (strong, perfumed, familiar), Masaru (gentle, solid, safe), his mother (small, warm, home), Toshinori (tall, bony, anchor).

For a moment, with everyone there, the world seemed… less broken. As if the pieces could, with time and patience, fit together again into a different, but still beautiful, pattern.

But as the night wore on and fatigue began to set in, the goodbyes started. Masaru stood up first, stretching his back.
"We better go.We have the visit to my parents early tomorrow."

Mitsuki made a sound of protest but also got up. "Alright, alright. But I need more coffee first. Inko, this coffee of yours is addictive, you know?"

She followed Inko to the kitchen, leaving Izuku and Toshinori in the living room with Masaru.
"How are things,Izuku?" Masaru asked, his voice lower, more personal. "Really."

Izuku felt the mask crack a little at the edges. "They're… I'm managing."

Masaru studied his face, his eyes kind but perceptive. "Katsuki is managing too. In a different way, of course. But he is."

The statement was simple, without judgment, without pressure. Just a fact.
"I know,"Izuku murmured. "I see."

And it was true. He saw. In the coffees left on his desk. In the constant but non-invasive presence. In the nod in the hallway. In the "Merry Christmas, Deku" said with a voice that carried the weight of eight months of silence.

"He's stubborn," Masaru continued, a sad smile on his lips. "But when he decides something is worth it… he doesn't give up."

Izuku didn't know what to reply. What to say? "I haven't given up either"? But was that true? He hadn't given up on Katsuki, but had he given up on them? Had he given up on the idea that they could be what they were before?

Mitsuki returned from the kitchen, drying her hands on a towel. "Done. Let's go." She approached Izuku, placed her hands on his face—a surprisingly maternal gesture coming from her. "You take care of yourself, hear me? And visit more. Your mother talks about you all the time."

"I will," he promised, and this time the promise was genuine.
"And tell Katsuki to call his mother once in a while.That boy forgets I exist when he's focused on something."

Izuku nodded, not having the courage to say he didn't talk to Katsuki enough to pass on messages. That their interactions were limited to coffees and nods and loaded silences.

They left, taking with them the noise, the energy, the life they had brought. The door closed with a final click, and the house suddenly became quieter. Emptier.

Inko yawned, covering her mouth with her hand. "I think I'll rest a bit. It's been a long day."
"Go rest,Mom," Izuku said. "We'll take care of things here."

She smiled, tired but happy, and went upstairs, disappearing to the upper floor.

In the living room, only Izuku and Toshinori remained amid the remnants of the celebration—empty glasses, plates with crumbs, crumpled wrapping paper on the floor.

Toshinori began to gather things, moving with deliberate slowness.
"Izuku,"he called gently. "Help me here?"

Izuku nodded, relieved to have something concrete to do, something that would occupy his hands and keep his thoughts from spiraling into dangerous places.
"Of course."

---

The kitchen was too warm for winter.

Not from the stove—already off—but from the sum of recent bodies, voices, and emotions that hadn't yet left with the guests. The smell of food lingered: rice, spices, something too sweet that Inko had insisted on making. It was the kind of smell that would normally mean comfort, home, and safety.

For Izuku, in that moment, it just meant delay. A residue of what had passed, a physical reminder of a celebration he had moved through like a ghost, present in body, absent in soul.

He stood still for a second longer than necessary, looking at the full sink. Dishes stacked precariously, glasses with fingerprints, mixed utensils. Nothing was out of place enough to justify the strange pressure settling in his chest, squeezing his ribs like a vise.

"I'll handle this," Toshinori said, pulling out a dish towel and folding it with exaggerated care. "You've done plenty today, young Midoriya."

Izuku shook his head automatically. "No, it's fine. I'll help."

The reply came on autopilot. Like almost everything in him lately. Wake up, get dressed, go to U.A., work, avoid, calculate, survive. Now, wash dishes. It was just another task on the endless list of things he did without really being present.

They started working in silence. Toshinori washed. Izuku dried. The sound of running water filled the empty spaces of conversation, a constant, almost meditative noise that kept thoughts from getting too loud. For a few minutes, it worked. Izuku focused on the simple motion of drying one plate, then another. He felt the warmth of the ceramic against his hands, the rough cloth under his fingers. Concrete things. Present. Safe.

The texture of the plate under his fingers. The shine of the clean dishware. The steam rising from the hot water. Minimal details that anchored him in the moment, that kept his mind from sliding back to dark offices, to sweet coffee, to nods that hurt more than shouts.

Until Toshinori broke the silence.

"Your mother was happy today," he commented casually, not looking directly at him, focusing on scrubbing a stubborn baking dish. "It had been a while since I saw her so light."

Izuku nodded, the motion automatic. "She likes it when the house is full."
"And you?"Toshinori asked, still focused on the dishes, his voice neutral, without pressure. "Did you like it?"

Izuku hesitated for half a second. The question was simple. The answer should be simple. "Yes, I did." That's what anyone would say. That's what he should say.

But the words that came out were different.
"It was…good," he replied. It wasn't a lie. But it wasn't the whole truth either. It was a truncated, amputated truth that didn't include the constant ache in his chest, the absence that had hung over the table like an uninvited guest, the mask he'd worn all day that was now starting to crack at the edges.

Toshinori noticed. He always noticed. He had a radar for other people's pain, developed over decades of carrying the world's weight on increasingly fragile shoulders. He turned off the faucet for a moment, rested his hands on the edge of the sink, and took a deep breath, like someone carefully choosing their next step in an emotional minefield.

"You tensed up when Mitsuki mentioned Katsuki."

It wasn't an accusation. Not a question. It was a calm observation, stated with the naturalness of someone observing the weather before a storm, recognizing the signs without judging them.

Izuku felt his shoulders stiffen before he could even react. A physical, primitive response from a body that still remembered how to protect itself from emotional blows.

"I didn't…" he started, but the sentence died halfway. There was no point in denying it. Toshinori wasn't an adversary. He was an ally. Perhaps the only ally he had in all of this, someone who understood the weight of carrying legacies, of living under expectations, of loving someone complex and difficult. "It was just surprise," he finished weakly.

Toshinori turned the water back on, but his tone changed slightly. Softer. More attentive. Less casual, more intentional. "You're working together now. It's natural his name comes up."

Izuku swallowed dryly, feeling the lump in his throat that insisted on forming whenever the subject was Katsuki. "I know."

The problem wasn't hearing the name. It wasn't the word "Katsuki" itself. It was everything that came with it. The shared past. Others' expectations—the comfortable, mistaken assumption that professional proximity meant emotional closeness, reconciliation, forgiveness. As if the simple fact of sharing the same space, exchanging nods in hallways, him drinking coffees left on his desk, erased eight months of silence, accumulated pain, words that couldn't be taken back, an absence that had become a ghostly presence in his life.

He dried another plate more than necessary, wiping it with excessive force, as if he could erase something besides water, as if friction could also clean away memories, doubts, unanswered questions.

Toshinori watched the gesture. Waited. Unlike Inko, who would have pressed, or Mitsuki, who would have spoken without thinking, Toshinori knew the value of silence. He knew some truths only emerge when given enough space to breathe.

When he spoke again, his voice was almost too gentle, the kind of gentleness that comes not from weakness, but from enough strength to be soft.

"Young Midoriya…" He paused briefly, choosing his words with the care of someone assembling a fragile puzzle. "You know you can trust me."

Izuku let out a short, nervous laugh that sounded false even to his own ears.
"I know.It's just… it's still strange to think about it, you know? You talking like this. Like… officially."

"Married to your mother?" Toshinori smiled slightly, a smile that lit up his thin face, making him seem years younger for an instant. "Believe me, for me too."

Izuku laughed for real this time, a brief, genuine sound that eased the tension in his shoulders for one precious second.
"Don't even get me started.Sometimes I look and think: how did this happen?"

"Life likes surprises," Toshinori replied, resuming the dishwashing. "Not all of them are bad. Some are… unexpectedly right."

Silence settled between them again. Heavier now. Less comfortable. Laden not with hostility, but with something worse—with unspoken truth, contained emotions, a conversation both knew needed to happen but neither knew how to truly begin.

Izuku finished drying the last plate, placed it in the drainer, and stood still, holding the damp cloth in his hands. He squeezed the fabric, wringing it slowly, as if he could extract something besides water from it—answers, perhaps. Or courage.

He took a deep breath.
Once.Twice.
The air entered his lungs,left. A basic movement. Why was it so hard?

"Toshinori…" he called, his voice softer than intended, almost a whisper in the silent kitchen.
"Yes?"

He took his time to answer. The words had been there for weeks, months, stuck in his throat, waiting for a safe space to land, someone who could hear them without judgment, without a rush to fix something that perhaps couldn't be fixed. The empty kitchen, lit only by the warm light above the sink, the distant sound of a dripping faucet, the residual smell of food and family—it seemed like the right place. The right moment.

"I don't understand," he finally said, the words coming out like a sigh, an admission of defeat. "To this day."

Toshinori didn't move. Didn't rush. Didn't try to fill the silence with reassuring words or easy advice. Just waited, his thin body leaning over the sink, his large hands still in the water.
"Don't understand what?"he asked when it became clear Izuku needed the encouragement.

Izuku closed his eyes for a moment, as if organizing his thoughts required blotting out the world around him, as if the truth could only be found in the darkness behind his eyelids.

"We were fine," he began, the words coming slowly, hesitant at first, gaining strength as they flowed. "Really fine. It wasn't pretense. It wasn't… effort. It wasn't us trying to be something we weren't. It was easy. Natural. We'd wake up, make coffee, go to work, come back, have dinner, watch something, go to sleep. And it was… good. It was happy. Truly."

He opened his eyes, staring not at Toshinori, but at the distorted reflection of his own face in the metallic sink surface—a tired face with deep bags under his eyes, a tension in his jaw that had become permanent.

"And then… out of nowhere, everything changed."

Toshinori set the cloth down on the counter, crossed his arms—a gesture that, on his thin frame, seemed almost defensive—and turned to face him. His eyes, blue and deep, fixed on Izuku with an intensity that was both intimidating and comforting.

"Changed how?"

Izuku let out the air slowly, feeling the weight of the words before even saying them.

"Katsuki started getting… different. More irritable. More closed off. He'd explode over small things—a glass left on the table, a light left on, a casual comment. He was distant, even when he was there. As if he were somewhere else. As if I… as if we were no longer enough."

His fingers tightened around the damp cloth, his knuckles turning white from the pressure.
"I tried to understand.I asked. 'Is everything okay?' 'What happened?' 'Can I help?' I gave him space when he seemed to need it. I gave him attention when he seemed to want it. I did everything I knew how to do, everything I'd learned in years of knowing him." His voice wavered for the first time, a small, almost imperceptible break that revealed the pain beneath the controlled surface. "Nothing worked. He just… pulled away more."

Toshinori frowned slightly, his blond eyebrows meeting.
"Did something specific happen?A difficult mission? A conversation that went wrong?"

Izuku shook his head, a slow, heavy movement.
"Not between us."He paused, taking another deep breath, as if gathering courage for the next part. "He went out with Kirishima one afternoon. A Saturday, I think. He came back… happy. Strangely happy. Excited. Said he needed to talk to his dad about some important things. That he'd go the next day."

A bitter, twisted smile tugged at his lips. "I offered to help. Said he could talk to me, that I was there. He laughed. A laugh… I don't know. Nervous? Anxious? Said it wasn't something for now. That it was 'future stuff.'"

The silence that followed was heavy, palpable, filling the kitchen like thick fog.
"And when he came back?"Toshinori asked carefully, his voice low, almost whispered.

Izuku took another deep breath, as if the words required extra oxygen to be spoken.
"When he came back from his dad's house…he wasn't the same anymore. There was something in his eyes. A… tension. An anger that wasn't directed at anything specific, it just… existed. And after that, it started getting worse. Then came that patrol, that mission with the new heroes. He let out that huge, unnecessary explosion that hurt him and almost hit one of the rookies. I was worried. Scared. And when I went to talk to him after…"

The sentence broke in half, the words escaping, refusing to come out. The memory of that conversation—if it could even be called a conversation—still hurt. The shouting. The accusations. The words said with the intent to hurt, to mark, to leave scars.

"Then everything fell apart for good," he finished, his voice almost disappearing, reduced to a thread of sound.

He raised his gaze, finally looking directly at Toshinori, allowing the strongest man he'd ever known to see the vulnerability in his eyes, the confusion, the pain that had no name or definite shape.

"I don't know what happened in that interval. I don't know what he talked about with his dad. I don't know what Kirishima said to him that afternoon. I don't know what changed him overnight." His voice strengthened now, laden not with anger, but with deep, agonizing frustration. "And that's what hurts the most. Because there was no warning. No explanation. No choice. Just… change. And then, loss."

Toshinori held his gaze for long seconds, absorbing each word, each nuance, each unspoken emotion that hovered between the sentences. His face, normally expressive, was serious, contemplative. When he finally spoke, his voice carried a serene firmness, the calm of someone who has seen many battles—on the field and off—and learned that some wounds don't heal in a hurry.

"Sometimes, young Midoriya," he began, choosing each word with meticulous care, "the most decisive battles don't happen on the battlefield. They're not against villains with grand names or dangerous Quirks."

He paused, his blue eyes fixed on Izuku with an almost physical intensity.

"They happen inside us. In the darkest corners of our minds. In the fears we don't admit to having. In the doubts we cultivate in secret. And we are not always—almost never, in fact—invited to watch when someone we love starts losing them."

Izuku swallowed dryly, feeling Toshinori's words penetrate somewhere deep inside him, a place that still stubbornly, childishly believed that if he had done something different, said something right, noticed something in time, everything would have been different.

"That doesn't mean you failed," Toshinori continued, as if reading his thoughts. His voice was gentle, but relentless in its truth. "It just means there were things happening outside your reach. Things Katsuki himself perhaps didn't fully understand at the time."

He placed a large, warm hand on Izuku's shoulder—a paternal, supportive gesture that conveyed safety without smothering.

"You can't carry the guilt for battles that weren't yours to fight."

Izuku nodded slowly, Toshinori's words not fixing anything, not explaining the inexplicable, not bringing Katsuki back or erasing the months of pain. But… they eased. They eased a little of the crushing weight of guilt he carried—the guilt for not seeing, for not understanding, for not fixing.

"Thank you," he murmured, his voice hoarse with contained emotion.

Toshinori smiled lightly, a smile that reached his eyes, lighting up his thin face with a tenderness he rarely showed in public. "Always."

They stood there for a few more seconds, in silence, the kitchen finally quiet, only the distant sound of a car passing outside breaking the stillness. The dishes were washed. The cloth was hung. The night was late.

Outside, Christmas continued—lights blinking, families gathered, the promise of a new beginning hanging in the chilly December air.

Inside, in that kitchen lit by warm light, Izuku tried, for the first time in weeks, to breathe without blaming himself for not having all the answers. Without torturing himself with "what ifs." Without carrying alone the weight of a story that had two sides, two versions, two pains.

It was little. It was almost nothing.

But it was a start.

And sometimes, Izuku thought as he went up the stairs to his old room, a start was all you needed. A place to breathe. A shoulder to rest on. A partial, incomplete, but honest truth.

---

In bed, the conversation with Toshinori still echoed in his mind, each word landing differently.

That doesn't mean you failed.

But he felt he had failed. In some obscure, hard-to-define way, he knew he had failed. Not for not trying—God knows he had tried. Tried to ask, tried to understand, tried to give space, tried to get closer. Tried every possible combination of care and distance he knew.

But something had escaped. Something crucial. Something that had transformed Katsuki, that afternoon after going out with Kirishima, from a happy, excited man into… into what he became in the following days. Tense. Irritable. Distant.

Izuku turned onto his side, facing the wall where a giant All Might poster once hung. Now it was empty, repainted a neutral white, as if his mother had tried to erase the traces of the boy he had been to make room for the man he had become. But some marks remained—a small nail hole that had held a shelf, a dark stain where adhesive tape had stubbornly left residue.

Just like in his heart. Marks. Residue. Stories that couldn't be completely erased, no matter how many layers of paint you applied over them.

What happened that afternoon?

The question spun in his mind, an incessant carousel of possibilities, none of them satisfying.

Kirishima. Eijiro Kirishima, Katsuki's best friend since U.A., the most loyal and straightforward man Izuku knew. What could he have said to change Katsuki so much? Kirishima had always been a supporter of them as a couple. Always supported them, always laughed at their fights, was always there to help fix things when they blew up (figuratively and, occasionally, literally).

Could Kirishima have said something? A hard truth Katsuki wasn't ready to hear? A concern about their relationship? But that didn't make sense. If Kirishima had concerns, he would have spoken to both of them. Or at least to Izuku too. That's how he operated—loyal, but fair.

No. Kirishima wasn't the problem.

Then, the visit to his father.

Izuku frowned in the dark, trying to remember everything Katsuki had said about that day. Little. Very little. "I need to talk to the old man about some things." "Future stuff." "It's not something for now."

Future.

The word resonated in his mind like a bell tolling in an empty cathedral.

Katsuki was thinking about the future. And happy about it. Excited. And then he talked to his father. And then… he wasn't happy anymore. Wasn't excited anymore. He was… the opposite.

What could Katsuki's father have said?

Izuku had known Masaru Bakugou as long as he'd known Katsuki. He knew the gentle, calm, patient man who always seemed to navigate the emotional storms of his wife and son with an almost supernatural serenity. Masaru wasn't the type of man to discourage his son. He never had been. He had always supported Katsuki, even when he disagreed with his methods, even when he worried about his temper.

Izuku sighed deeply, closing his eyes for a moment.

Thinking about this wouldn't change anything.

It wouldn't bring answers.

Wouldn't erase spoken words.

Wouldn't return what was broken that night.

Dismantling the past into hypotheses—what if, maybe, perhaps—only kept him stuck in a place where Katsuki no longer was.

He opened his eyes in the dark room.

Maybe there was, indeed, something he never knew. Maybe Katsuki had heard things he didn't know how to process. Maybe the future had weighed too heavily on shoulders that always pretended to bear everything alone. Maybe.

But understanding the why didn't justify the how.

It didn't make the coldness acceptable. It didn't erase the projected anger. It didn't undo the contempt disguised as pride. It didn't turn pain into retroactive care.

Izuku didn't need to hate Katsuki to recognize that.

And he didn't need to love him less to admit that he had been hurt.

He turned onto his other side, pulling the blanket up to his chest. The silence of the house was deep, respectful—different from the heavy silence he had learned to fear. This one demanded nothing from him. Didn't demand strength. Didn't ask for explanations.

The truth was simple, even if painful: something happened to Katsuki in that interval. Something Izuku didn't control. Something that didn't belong to him.

And insisting on carrying that part of the story was to continue paying for a decision that wasn't his.

He took a deep breath, feeling the air enter slowly, leave more calmly.

Thinking about it wouldn't change what happened.
But accepting it—accepting that not everything needed to be understood to be left behind—might be the first step to stop bleeding in silence.

Outside, the snow kept falling, covering the world with a new, clean layer, indifferent to what had been before.
Izuku closed his eyes.

Christmas still existed.

And, for the first time since the breakup, he allowed that idea not to hurt so much.

---

Katsuki's apartment was chaos.

Shindo.

The name came before anything else.
Before the headache.

Before the bitter taste of old whiskey stuck to his tongue.

Before even opening his eyes.

Katsuki was sprawled on the living room floor, his arms out as if he'd simply… given up holding them close to his body. The carpet was too expensive for this kind of scene, but he didn't care. He never cared.

The empty bottle near his right hand rolled a few centimeters when he breathed too deeply—or when he tried.
The ceiling was clean.White. Perfect.
Irritatingly perfect.

"Son of a bitch…" he murmured, his voice hoarse, breaking in the middle of the phrase.

Shindo.

Always the same name, spinning in his head like shrapnel. It didn't come with complete images. Not with clear dialogue. It was worse than that. It came with sensations. Pressure in his chest. A tightness behind his eyes. That specific nausea that had nothing to do with the alcohol.

Shame.
Anger.
And something he refused to name.

He squeezed his eyes shut tightly, as if that could push the thought back to where it came from. It didn't work.

It never worked.

The silence of the apartment weighed heavily. No television on. No complaints from the kitchen. No voice asking if he had eaten, if he was okay, if the explosion had hurt.

Izuku would be with family now.

The realization came without ceremony, punching through him like a low blow. Christmas. Full house. Contained laughter. The smell of Inko's food permeating everything. Toshinori talking too much. Mitsuki talking too loud. An entire environment Katsuki had never quite known how to occupy properly—but which, still, had been his for a time.

He let out a dry, humorless laugh.
"Of course he is…"he murmured to the ceiling. "Of course he's happy."

Another bottle lay near the sofa, half-full. Katsuki stretched out his arm, his fingers closing around the glass with too much force, as if he could crush it. He brought it to his mouth, drinking straight from the neck. The alcohol burned. Didn't erase anything.

It never did.

Shindo.

The name always returned when he let his guard down. When his body got tired of fighting. When the loneliness grew too loud to ignore.

It was impressive how a single word could make everything come undone.

He turned his head to the side, staring at the dark window. No lights blinking. No sign of Christmas there. Just his own distorted reflection in the glass—red eyes, hard expression, someone who looked older than he was.

"Wasn't supposed to be like this…" he whispered, more to himself than to anything else.

But it already was.

Thinking about it changed nothing. Picking it apart, reconstructing, trying to understand every step, every choice—none of that brought Izuku back to this apartment. Nothing erased what had been said. Nothing made the name stop echoing.

"That son of a bitch ruined everything."

Katsuki closed his eyes again, his forearm covering his face, as if he could hide from his own thoughts.
Outside,the world celebrated.

Inside, only silence remained—and a name he couldn't bury.

Chapter Text

The light that entered the apartment at 7:03 a.m. on December 26th was not friendly. It was a gray, flat light that seemed not to illuminate but to reveal—every trace of the previous night, every stain on the floor, every empty bottle that bore witness to what Katsuki Bakugou would rather forget.

He woke up in the leather chair, his body at an angle that promised hours of pain. His neck was stiff, a sharp pain in his right shoulder, and his head... his head was an experience of its own. It wasn't just a common headache, but something deeper, as if someone had filled his skull with dirty cotton and rusty nails, and then placed that skull in a press that tightened at irregular, yet relentless, intervals.

His mouth was dry, with a taste that was part cheap whiskey, part metal, part something indefinable that only existed in the limbo between drunkenness and hangover. He swallowed, and his throat protested, rough and painful.

For a long moment, Katsuki just sat there, eyes half-open, observing the apartment. The whiskey bottle lay on its side on the rustic coffee table, empty. The glass he had been holding when he fell asleep was on the floor, miraculously intact. There were two more bottles—beer this time—scattered on the floor, along with the packaging of a frozen meal he must have eaten at some point during the night, but couldn't remember.

The mess would normally have irritated him. Katsuki was, by nature and by training, organized. His things had a place, his space was maintained with near-military precision. Chaos was, to him, a failure of control—and Katsuki Bakugou did not tolerate failures.

But this morning, he merely observed the disorder. There was no anger. No frustration. Just a kind of distant recognition, as if he were seeing not his own mess, but that of a stranger. Someone who had passed through, done what they needed to do, and left, leaving behind the remnants of something he didn't fully understand.

That, perhaps, was the most concerning thing. The lack of reaction. The lack of the immediate impulse to clean, to tidy, to restore order. It was as if something inside him had switched off—not just the ability to care about the mess, but the ability to care about anything beyond the minimum effort required to keep breathing.

He stood up, and the movement was slow, heavy. His body didn't respond with its usual agility. Every muscle seemed to protest, every joint silently creaked. Katsuki walked to the kitchen—a compact, efficient area with stainless steel appliances that had never been used for more than the basics—and filled a glass with tap water.

He drank it in one long, almost desperate gulp. The water was cold, and for a moment it relieved the dryness in his throat, but it couldn't wash away the taste that seemed ingrained in his taste buds. He looked at the glass, then at his own hand holding it. His fingers were steady, without a tremor. Good. At least that still worked.

The automatic routine began then. Shower. Water as hot as he could stand, then as cold as he dared, trying to wake his body, expel the fog. He scrubbed his scalp hard, washed his face repeatedly, as if he could clean not just the sweat and alcohol, but also the memories that had come back the previous night.

But memories weren't things that could be washed away. They were embedded, not just in his mind, but in his body. In the way his shoulders tensed when he thought of certain words. In the way his jaw tightened when he remembered certain looks. In the chill that ran down his spine when the name "Shindo" popped into his thoughts, even involuntarily.

After the shower, he dressed in workout clothes—black pants, gray t-shirt, shoes more for functionality than style. He looked at himself in the mirror above the sink. The man looking back was not completely a stranger, but also not completely familiar. Darker circles than usual. A paleness that the December chill didn't fully explain. An expression in his eyes that was... flat. Without the usual spark of defiance, of intensity, of fire.

*You look tired*, he thought, and the observation was purely factual, without judgment. *Tired of everything.*

He left the bathroom, passed through the living room without looking at the mess, and went down to the building's gym. It was one of the perks of the high-end condominium where he was temporarily living—a well-equipped gym, almost always empty, especially on a December 26th, when most people were still at home, sleeping, recovering from parties, enjoying time with family.

The word "family" echoed in his mind with a painful resonance. Family. He had one. A good one, in fact. His parents were well, his mother still called him periodically—though less since the breakup, as if she knew there was an emotional chasm she couldn't cross over the phone. But family, in the sense of a shared home, of a life built together... that he had destroyed.

The gym was empty, as expected. Fluorescent lights shining over chrome steel equipment, the characteristic smell of rubber, sweat, and disinfectant. Katsuki started with basic stretches, but his body seemed to resist. His muscles were tense in a different way than the usual post-workout fatigue. It was emotional tension manifested physically, and it wouldn't yield easily.

He moved on to weights. Normally, this was easy. The feeling of metal in his hands, the resistance, the controlled effort—it was a language he understood perfectly. Today, however, things were off.

When he attempted his first bench press, his hands sweated strangely. Not the normal sweat of exertion, but something colder, more nervous. He adjusted the weight, started the movement, and something in his body simply... didn't cooperate. The burst of strength that normally came naturally, almost without thinking, didn't happen. Instead, there was a hesitation, a moment of doubt—and then the weight became unbalanced, falling to one side before he could rerack it.

Katsuki lay on the bench for a moment, looking at the ceiling, breathing. His heart was beating fast, but not from exertion—from surprise. From confusion. Since when could he not do a basic bench press? Since when did his body, the thing he trusted most, the tool he had sculpted and trained and perfected over years, betray him like this?

He tried again. This time, it was worse. Mid-movement, a fine tremor started in his arms. It wasn't muscular weakness—he knew how to recognize that. It was something different. Something nervous. Something that came from a place deeper than muscles.

He gave up on the bench press, tried squats. The result was similar. Every movement seemed uncoordinated, every effort miscalculated. It was as if he had forgotten how his own body worked. As if the connection between mind and muscles had been severed, or at least seriously damaged.

He stopped in the middle of the gym, hands on his hips, breathing deeply. Sweat ran down his temples, but it wasn't the satisfying sweat of a good workout. It was the cold sweat of frustration, of confusion, of... impotence.

*If not even this works... what still works?*

The question came to his mind without ceremony. It was a dangerous question, because it opened doors to other, even more dangerous questions. If his body, which had always been his anchor, his most basic certainty, was failing... what was left? His mind? His mind that, the night before, had plunged into painful memories and emerged from them even more wounded? His emotions? His emotions that seemed to have turned into something unstable, unpredictable, like badly stored nitroglycerin?

He grabbed a towel, wiped his face, and left the gym without finishing the workout. The silence of the building hallway seemed amplified after the failed effort. His steps echoed on the marble floor, a lonely and empty sound.

Back in the apartment, the mess was still there, waiting. Katsuki looked at it for a moment, then simply walked over it, going to the kitchen. He opened the fridge, got water, drank. He looked at the basic ingredients he had—eggs, bread, a few things that could become a meal. The idea of cooking seemed monumental. Too much effort for something that, in the end, he probably wouldn't even taste.

Instead, he grabbed a cereal bar and ate it standing by the window. Outside, the day was gray like most December days in Musutafu. The snow from the previous night still covered the rooftops, but on the streets it had already turned into gray, dirty slush. Cars passed occasionally, people walked with bags, life went on.

Katsuki watched all this with a sense of detachment. As if he were watching a movie about a world he was no longer a part of. The normality of things—people coming and going, living their lives, following their routines—seemed strange, almost offensive. How could they just go on as if nothing had happened? How could they live their normal lives while his world was in pieces?

But that wasn't a fair question, and he knew it. The world didn't stop because Katsuki Bakugou was suffering. The world didn't even know he was suffering. And, in truth, he preferred it that way. He preferred the solitude of private suffering to the embarrassment of public pity.

He spent the rest of the 26th in a state of suspension. He didn't drink any more—the idea of alcohol, after the hangover, was repulsive. He ate when the hunger became unbearable, but without pleasure. He slept a little in the afternoon, a restless sleep full of fragments of dreams that dissipated as soon as he woke, leaving only a feeling of anxiety.

At night, he turned on the TV but didn't pay attention. Colorful images played on the screen—Christmas specials, movies, weather reports. He saw the shapes moving, heard the sounds, but nothing penetrated. It was just background noise for his interior silence.

At some point, he picked up his phone. Looked at the screen. No message from Izuku, of course. But also none from Kirishima, or anyone in the group. Normally, that wouldn't bother him. Katsuki had never been the type who needed constant contact. But today, the silence of the phone seemed to echo the larger silence in his life.

He almost called. Almost sent a message. But what would he say? "I'm not doing well"? "I need someone"? Those weren't phrases that came easily out of his mouth, not even in thought.

Instead, he put the phone aside and sat in the dark, watching the city lights through the window. Christmas had passed. December 26th was ending. And he was exactly where he started—alone, in an apartment that wasn't a home, with memories that were bad companions, and a future that seemed as empty as the present.

December 27th dawned with a subtle change in the weather. The sky was still gray, but the gray was lighter, higher. The snow that still remained on the rooftops shone with its own light, almost silver. And at 8:17 a.m., the apartment doorbell rang.

Katsuki was in the kitchen, trying—and failing—to feel interested in the coffee he was making. The sound of the doorbell made him pause. He wasn't expecting anyone. He had no deliveries. The building's cleaning crew only came on Wednesdays.

He walked to the door, looked through the peephole. And saw Kirishima.

Not just Kirishima, but Kirishima carrying two supermarket bags, one in each hand. His red hair was messy, as always, and he had that determined, open expression so characteristic of him.

For a moment, Katsuki considered not answering. Just staying quiet, waiting for Kirishima to think he wasn't home and leave. The idea of social interaction, of having to talk, of having to be a person, seemed overwhelming.

But then he remembered the coffees on Tuesdays and Thursdays. He remembered the ritual he himself had established—the ritual of presence, of consistency, of showing up even when it was hard. And if Kirishima was here, on this morning of December 27th, it was because he was also following some kind of ritual. A ritual of friendship. Of care.

Katsuki opened the door.

Kirishima studied him for half a second—a quick but perceptive look that didn't miss the dark circles, the paleness, the slightly slumped posture. But he didn't comment. Just smiled, a smile that wasn't of pity, but of recognition.

"Hey, man. Came to see how you're doing," he said, lifting the bags. "Brought some things. Mind if I come in?"

Katsuki nodded, stepping aside from the door. Kirishima entered, passed by him, and went straight to the kitchen, as if he knew the place.

Kirishima started taking things out of the bags. They weren't extravagant things. Bread. Eggs. Milk. Real coffee, not the instant kind Katsuki had. Fruit. Some basic canned goods. A box of pasta. Things that could sustain someone for a few days without requiring much effort.

"You didn't have to," Katsuki said, watching.

"I know," Kirishima replied simply, without stopping what he was doing. "But I wanted to. Christmas is over. And I had a feeling you weren't exactly feasting in here."

He finished unloading the bags, then looked around as if searching for something. His eyes briefly landed on the adjacent living room, where the remains of the mess from the 26th were still visible—the bottles, the food packaging. He didn't comment. Just turned his attention back to the kitchen.

"Look, I was thinking... you have any plans for today?"

Katsuki stared at him.

"Plans?"

"Yeah. Like, doing something. Going out. Seeing people. Anything."

"No."

"Good," Kirishima said, as if that was the answer he expected. "So I was thinking of calling the gang. Mina, Denki, Jirou, Sero. We hang out here. Make some food. Play something. Just... hang."

Katsuki felt an immediate impulse to refuse. To say no, to send Kirishima away, to maintain the isolation that had become his natural state. But something stopped him. Maybe it was the fatigue. Maybe it was the memory of the previous night, of the loneliness, of how the memories had come when there was no one to distract him. Maybe it was simply the fact that saying "yes" required less energy than insisting on saying "no."

He shrugged, a gesture that was neither acceptance nor refusal, but something in between.

Kirishima interpreted it as permission.

"Cool. I'll let them know. I think Mina's free. Denki too, he didn't go to his parents' this year. Jirou and Sero probably are too."

He took out his phone and started typing. Katsuki watched, feeling strangely displaced in his own apartment. As if he were the visitor, and Kirishima the host.

"They'll be here in about an hour, more or less," Kirishima said, putting his phone away. "Until then, how about we make some decent coffee? And maybe some toast. Did you eat today?"

"I ate."

"Good, but you'll eat again. Because I brought this jam Denki's mom makes, and it's the best thing you'll taste this year."

There was something unshakeable about Kirishima, something that didn't allow resistance. Not in an aggressive or controlling way, but in a way so solid, so firm, that going around it would be harder than simply giving in. Katsuki surrendered, sitting on one of the kitchen stools while Kirishima started rummaging through things, finding where everything was, taking temporary possession of the space.

As the coffee was made and the smell began to fill the kitchen—a richer, deeper smell than instant coffee—Katsuki watched his friend. Kirishima was focused on the task, his movements efficient but relaxed. He didn't ask questions. Didn't pressure. He was just present, occupying the space, filling the silence with the normality of his actions.

And suddenly, Katsuki understood. Kirishima wasn't here to fix him. He wasn't here to ask difficult questions or force deep conversations. He was here just to... be. To make sure Katsuki didn't spend another day completely alone. To bring a bit of normal life into a space that had become too quiet.

It was, in a way, an echo of what Katsuki himself was trying to do with Izuku. Presence without demand. Care without requirement. To show up, even when there was no guarantee the presence would be welcome.

The coffee was ready. Kirishima poured two mugs, placed one in front of Katsuki, and sat on the stool beside him.

"Cheers," he said, raising his mug.

Katsuki raised his in response. Drank. The coffee was good. Much better than anything he would have made himself.

They sat in silence for a few minutes, just drinking. The sound of distant traffic came through the window. The clock on the wall marked time with soft ticks.

"Thanks," Katsuki finally said, the word coming out rougher than intended.

Kirishima looked at him, and his smile this time was softer, more understanding.

"Don't thank me, man. It's what friends do."

The Baku-squad arrived in stages, as if they had agreed not to overwhelm the space all at once.

First was Mina, at 9:23 a.m. She arrived with more bags—this time with snacks, sweets, things that weren't exactly nutritious but promised comfort. She was wearing a shocking pink hoodie with bunny ears on the hood, and her pink hair was tied in a messy ponytail. She entered like a whirlwind of energy, but a contained energy, as if she knew it wasn't the time for full exuberance.

"Katsuki!" she exclaimed, giving him a quick hug before he could retreat. "So good to see you! Your apartment is always so... you. All neat, all clean. It's almost scary to make a mess."

"Then don't make a mess," he replied, but without the usual sharpness.

Mina laughed, as if he had said something funny, and went straight to the kitchen, where Kirishima was already preparing something that smelled like bacon.

Denki and Sero arrived together twenty minutes later. Denki had a sleepy expression but smiled when he saw Katsuki.

"Hey, Bakubro. Merry belated Christmas. Or happy day-after-Christmas. Which is correct?"

"Doesn't matter," Katsuki replied, but with a nod that was almost cordial.

Sero was quieter than usual, observing the apartment with his calm eyes, as if assessing the situation. He gave Katsuki a nod, a simple gesture that said "I'm here, I don't need anything else."

Last to arrive was Jirou. She brought her own contribution—a bottle of something non-alcoholic (she glanced at the empty bottles in the living room and seemed to make a mental note), and her calming, observant presence. She wasn't the hugging or exclaiming type. She just gave Katsuki's arm a pat and said, "Hey. You okay?"

And so, in less than an hour, the apartment that had been empty and silent was now full of life. Not loud or chaotic life—there was a contained quality to everyone's presence, as if they were aware they were in a space that wasn't fully open, in a situation that required sensitivity. But still, life. Low conversations. The sound of pots in the kitchen. The smell of food being prepared. The simple fact that there were other people breathing in the same space.

Katsuki watched it all from his corner in the living room, where he sat in an armchair, half-participating, half-just observing. It was strange having all these people in his space. But it was also... not exactly good, but less bad than being alone.

The food was ready—a late breakfast that was more of an early lunch: bacon, eggs, toast, fruit. They gathered around the dining table (which Katsuki had never actually used), and for a while, the sound of cutlery and chewing replaced conversation.

It was Mina who broke the more substantive silence, after most had finished eating.

"So," she began, playing with her coffee mug. "How are you, Katsuki? For real."

The question was direct, but not aggressive. There was genuine concern in her pink eyes, and a lack of judgment that made the question easier to face.

Katsuki stared at his own mug for a moment. How was he? The answer wasn't simple. He was tired. He was in pain. He was confused. He was regretful. He was angry—at himself, mostly. He was scared. But how to put all that into words?

"I'm..." he started, but the word didn't come. "It's complicated."

"We know," Kirishima said, his voice calm. "We know it's been hard."

"It's more than hard," Katsuki said, and the anger he felt at himself overflowed a bit into his tone. "It's shit. Everything is shit."

No one disagreed. No one tried to say "it'll be okay" or "this will pass." They just listened, giving him the space to speak, or not speak.

"I've been making coffee," Katsuki continued, as if the words were being pulled out of him against his will. "On Tuesdays and Thursdays. I leave it on his table. Coffee with milk, caramel, extra sugar. What he always liked."

"We know," Denki said softly. "You mentioned it at the bar, remember? But it's not going well?"

Katsuki remembered. The conversation at the bar, a few weeks ago. He had mentioned the coffee. Had said it was a start.

"I don't know, it's confusing, like, it's not just the coffee," he continued, eyes fixed on the table as if he couldn't face his friends' faces. "It's... everything. It's trying to stay close without invading. It's trying to show that I've changed, that I can be different, without saying the words. Because words... I've said a lot of words. And most of them were shit."

"What happened, Katsuki?" Mina asked, her voice softer than usual. "Between you and Midoriya. We know you had a fight, that it was bad. But... what really happened?"

It was the question Katsuki feared. The question he himself avoided answering, even in his own thoughts. Because answering meant facing not only what he did, but what he allowed to happen. It meant facing his own vulnerability, his own insecurities, his own failures.

He took a deep breath, the sound audible in the room's silence. He looked out the window at the gray sky, as if the answers were there.

"I always liked Izuku. Always. Since we were kids." The confession fell into the room like something almost sacred, too heavy to be ignored. "It's just that, for me, liking someone like that... was always weakness."

He swallowed hard before continuing, as if his own body resisted.

"Wanting attention. Wanting to be seen. Wanting to be chosen." Katsuki gave a light laugh, but the sound came out crooked, broken. "I learned early that that was for losers. For people who let their guard down. For people who hand over their weak spot on a silver platter."

The silence that followed wasn't uncomfortable.

It was oppressive.

Ashido frowned, eyes fixed on him, her expression loaded with something between indignation and pain. She opened her mouth once, as if to say something—and closed it. This wasn't about her. Not now.

Jirou crossed her arms, her headphones hanging around her neck, her gaze too attentive, too analytical. She didn't look away from him. Not because she was judging—but because she knew that if she looked away, he might shut down completely.

Katsuki ran a hand over his face, his fingers scratching his own skin, a nervous, almost brute gesture he didn't even try to hide.

"So I turned it into something else." He took a deep breath. "Rivalry. Competition. Pride."

He shrugged, but the movement was empty, mechanical.

"If I turned it into anger, I wouldn't have to deal with the rest." His jaw locked. "Wouldn't have to admit that I wanted him close. That I needed him looking at me. It worked for a while."

A short laugh escaped.

Completely humorless.

"Until it stopped working."

His gaze fell to the floor for an instant, as if everything he never knew how to say aloud was there. As if facing the others was too difficult at that moment.

"When we grew up... when we became real heroes..." Katsuki took another deep breath, slower—"I thought that part was behind me."

He clenched his fists.

"We were good. For real." His voice came out lower. "Not fighting over ego. Not constantly trying to prove ourselves. Not trying to beat each other. We just... existed."

The word seemed to weigh more than all the others.

His voice faltered for a second. Brief. Almost imperceptible.

But everyone heard.

Ashido felt her chest tighten. Jirou looked away for an instant—not out of lack of interest, but because it hurt too much to face directly.

"I thought I had finally learned how to love the right way." Katsuki continued, forcing air into his lungs. "Without hurting. Without running away. Without turning feeling into war."

He licked his lips, nervous.

"And then everything just had to fall apart..." —his voice lowered— "for me to realize I still carry that shit with me."

He raised his gaze, finally facing the group.

There was no defiance there. No arrogance.

Just exhaustion.

"This feeling that, if I want too much... I lose." He swallowed hard. "That if I admit how much this matters, someone will use it against me. Or just leave."

The silence grew even heavier.

"Because Izuku was always that for me." The words came out almost a whisper. "Something I wanted too much to believe could be mine without paying a price."

No one responded immediately.

Not because there was nothing to say.

But because everyone there understood, at the same time, that this wasn't just a confession of love.

It was the admission of an old, poorly healed fear, the fear of losing exactly that which had always given meaning to his strength...

Katsuki ran his tongue over his teeth, tasting the bitterness that didn't come just from alcohol.

"Years after we graduated..." he began, and the word came out heavy. "At a class reunion. Unplanned. It just... happened that everyone stayed. Stupid talk, loud laughter, people leaving bit by bit."

He pressed his fingers against his knee, as if that helped keep the ground in place.

"For some reason, we were the last ones left."

The silence in the room seemed to press on his ears.

"It was late. Too late for good decisions." A short, humorless laugh escaped him. "And we were already tired. Not from the party. From the day. From the noise. From everyone."

He didn't look at anyone while he spoke.

"The group was already gone. Only the two of us left. There was drinking involved."

His jaw clenched.

"And then, in the middle of all that tension... we kissed. And then came that silence. The kind that weighs. That stretches." He took a deep breath. "It wasn't romantic. It wasn't beautiful. There was no thought of 'this means something.'"

He shrugged, tense.

"It was just... too much accumulated tension for too long. A gaze that lingered longer than it should. A misjudged step." His voice grew quieter. "A mistake neither of us had the courage to interrupt."

Katsuki closed his eyes for a second.

"Our first kiss."

Silence.

"It wasn't special. It was sloppy. Kind of off. Alcohol, confusion, lack of sense." He opened his eyes again, staring at the floor. "And yet... afterwards, nothing seemed exactly back in place."

The word hung in the air, too heavy for something so simple.

"It was wrong. It was impulsive. It was... inevitable." He opened his eyes again, staring at the floor. "And the second it happened, I knew it couldn't be undone."

He let out a short, bitter laugh.

"So we did what I do best: ignored it."

"Two weeks," he continued. "Two whole weeks pretending nothing had changed. That I didn't remember how he trembled. That he didn't remember how I held the back of his neck as if it were the only real thing in the world."

The silence was absolute now.

"Until I asked him to watch a movie at a drive-in." Katsuki shrugged, the gesture hard. "Not because I had a plan. But because I couldn't stand staying quiet any longer."

He let out a breath through his nose. And remembered.

— Flashback —

Katsuki still remembered the sound of the engine turning off.

The car was silent for a second longer than normal, as if even the machine knew nothing there was simple.

In front of them, the huge drive-in screen was already on, blurry images playing without Katsuki being able to pay attention to a single scene.

He hadn't come for the movie.

He had come because he couldn't pretend that kiss didn't exist anymore.

"...So," Izuku began, adjusting himself on the seat, too nervous to hide it. "You... wanted to talk to me?"

Katsuki gripped the steering wheel tightly. He felt his heart beating too loudly, too fast. Ridiculous. He had faced villains, wars, death—but this... this was something else.

"I asked you here because I needed to understand," he replied, dry, direct. "I'm not good with this shit of assumptions."

Izuku blinked, attentive.

"About... the bar?"

Heavy silence fell between them.

Katsuki took a deep breath, looking ahead at the screen glowing in the dark.

"About the kiss."

Izuku went still.

"Kacchan..." his voice came out careful. "We were drunk. Confused. If you want, we can pretend it didn't happen. I won't—"

"No." Katsuki turned his face too quickly. "Don't say that."

Izuku stopped.

"I don't want to pretend," Katsuki continued, his jaw locked. "I didn't come here for that."

His heart was beating so hard he thought Izuku could hear it.

"I've been thinking about it every day since then," he confessed, his voice lower. "Thinking if you regretted it. Thinking if it was just me who felt anything."

Izuku swallowed hard.

"I didn't regret it," Izuku replied, too quickly. "But I didn't want to pressure you. You seemed... distant after."

Katsuki let out a short, humorless laugh.

"Distant is my normal when I don't know what to do."

He took a deep breath, gathering courage as if about to jump off a building.

"I was afraid you'd think it was just an impulse." His voice faltered a little. "But it wasn't."

Izuku turned his body towards him.

"Kacchan—"

"I wanted it to happen again."

The words fell into the air like something dangerous. Definitive.

Izuku's eyes widened slightly, genuinely surprised.

"...Again?"

Katsuki finally looked at him.

"With you sober. With me sober." He swallowed hard. "I wanted to know if... if it was real. For you too."

The silence that followed wasn't empty. It was loaded.

Izuku brought a hand to his chest, taking a deep breath.

"Do you have any idea what you're saying?" he asked, almost in a whisper.

"I do." Katsuki replied without hesitation. "And I'm saying it anyway."

Izuku laughed nervously, running a hand through his hair.

"I thought you were going to ask me to forget."

"I almost did," Katsuki admitted. "But I'm tired of running."

The green eyes softened.

"I thought about that kiss too," Izuku confessed. "More than I should have."

Katsuki's chest tightened.

"So..." Izuku hesitated. "What do you want now?"

Katsuki leaned in a little, slowly. Didn't invade. Didn't advance.

"I want to try." His voice came out firm. "No stupid promises. No pretending it's not weird. Just... try."

Izuku was silent for a moment that felt eternal.

Then he smiled. Small. Real.

"You're terrible at romance, you know?"

"Shut up."

Izuku laughed for real this time.

"But... I'd like that." He leaned in slightly. "To try."

The kiss didn't come immediately.

It came after a second of hesitation. After a sustained gaze. After the conscious choice not to pull back.

And when it happened, it wasn't urgent. It was careful. It was different.

And Katsuki knew, in that instant, that nothing from then on would be simple—but also that pretending would never be an option again.

— End of Flashback —

"And then, a year together. Trying to understand what we were. Trying not to ruin everything with my own hands." He ran a hand through his hair. "He spent more time here than anything else, and it was good. It was Two years."

He didn't say the number aloud this time. He didn't need to.

"Two years thinking I had finally learned how to do something right."

Katsuki fell silent for a few seconds. When he spoke again, his voice was lower. More raw.

"Until the day everything fell apart..." Katsuki began, his voice low, heavy.

He was sitting on the sofa, elbows on his knees, hands clasped. He wasn't looking at anyone.

"I had gone to a jewelry store with Kirishima." A humorless laugh escaped. "To look at rings. Because I did intend, yes, to take a bigger step with him."

The silence in the room grew denser.

Denki's eyes widened slightly, but he didn't interrupt.

"That same day, I went to see my father." Katsuki continued. "I needed his opinion. His support. It was... too big a step for me to take alone."

He took a deep breath, as if reliving the scene.

"He approved wholeheartedly. Said it was the happiest moment of his life... right after my birth." His voice faltered for a second, almost imperceptible. "Said you could see how much I loved Izuku. That it made sense. And I was genuinely happy."

Mina brought a hand to her chest, moved. Sero frowned, attentive. Kaminari swallowed hard.

"It was already late when I left there." Katsuki went on. "But I didn't want to leave Izuku alone at the apartment. So I hit the road back that same day."

He ran a hand over his face.

"On the way, I got hungry. Stopped at a roadside diner, left my bike outside... went in."

His jaw tightened.

"And there he was."

A heavy silence fell over the group.

"Recognizable as hell." Katsuki spat the words. "He recognized me immediately. Came over to chat. Asked about Izuku. Asked a bunch of things."

"Who...?" Kaminari started, but stopped when he saw Katsuki's expression.

"Shindo." He said, dryly.

Mina's face immediately closed off.

"Oh, no..."

"I held back." Katsuki continued. "Because he was Izuku's friend. Because I couldn't do anything. Stayed there, answered the minimum, paid my bill and left."

He took another deep breath.

"I was leaving." Katsuki murmured. "Then he called me. And spoke as if he were placing me in a position... that I never managed to escape from after."

— Flashback —

Katsuki was already on his bike when he heard the voice behind him.

"Bakugou."

He sighed, annoyed, not turning around immediately. The night was too cold, the parking lot almost empty, the bar still buzzing behind him with laughter he had no mind to hear.

"What now, Shindo?"

When he turned, he noticed the look. It wasn't open provocation. It was something worse. Too calm. Assessing.

"Just one more thing," Shindo said, taking a few steps forward, invading his space without asking permission. "Do you really think... someone like you can make Izuku happy?"

The world stopped.

Not dramatically. Not with a bang.

It stopped like when the air leaves your lungs and you don't realize it at first.

Katsuki felt the question hit right where he had no armor.

"What the hell are you—"

"I'm serious," Shindo interrupted, his voice low, almost gentle. That sly air Katsuki had always hated. "Not as a rival. As someone who sees things from the outside."

Katsuki clenched his jaw.

"You don't know what you're talking about."

Shindo tilted his head, like someone observing an obvious mistake.

"I know more than you think." A crooked smile appeared. "Look at you. Look at him. Do you really think this lasts?"

Katsuki felt his chest tighten. Irritation rose—but underneath it was something else. Something uglier. Older.

"Izuku needs someone stable," Shindo continued, each word placed with surgical care. "Someone who doesn't turn everything into conflict. Who doesn't make him feel responsible for keeping you whole."

Katsuki took a step forward.

"Shut up."

"You know I'm right," Shindo said, without raising his voice. "You're too explosive. Too broken. An emotional mess he'll try to fix until he loses himself in the process."

That went deep.

Because it wasn't new.

It was just said aloud.

"It's only a matter of time before someone else appears. Could be someone from the past," Shindo went on. "Or someone new. Someone easier. Calmer. More... safe."

The name wasn't said.

But Izuku was in every syllable.

"But it won't be you," Shindo concluded, firmly. "It never was. You can see it in the way he looks at you. It's not peaceful love. It's worry. And worry gets tiring."

Katsuki felt something crack inside.

He didn't shout.

He didn't explode.

He stood still, hands clenched, the bike's engine still off, as if any movement could confirm it all.

"You don't love him the right way," Shindo said finally, taking a step back. "And even if you do... you're not enough for him."

Silence.

The kind of silence that doesn't fade.

When Katsuki finally got on the bike and started the engine, the sound was too loud in the empty parking lot. But it didn't drown out the words.

They went with him.

They lodged in his chest.

— End of Flashback —

Mina shook her head, indignant.

"Son of a bitch."

The silence now was almost suffocating.

"After that..." Katsuki squeezed his eyes shut, as if feeling physical pain. "I started seeing things where they weren't. Started getting suspicious. Getting irritated. Much more than usual."

He raised his gaze for the first time, his eyes red.

"And when I exploded at him..." —his voice broke completely— "it wasn't just because of the argument that day. It was because that voice wouldn't shut up in my head anymore."

Katsuki fell silent after that.

It wasn't a comfortable silence. It was heavy. Dense. The kind that spreads through the room and no one knows where to put their hands or their gaze. The glass in his fingers trembled slightly—not from the alcohol, but from the absurd effort of staying there, conscious, speaking.

He ran a hand over his face, dragging his fingers over his eyes as if he could erase what he saw inside.

"And then it began...." he started, but his voice failed.

"First, it was a casual comment during a post-mission interview. Katsuki was being interviewed—something he hated, but that was part of the job—and the reporter, a young man with a very white smile, asked about his 'unconventional approach.' Katsuki answered with his usual disdain, something about results mattering more than methodology. Later, when they got home, Izuku was watching the replay on the kitchen laptop.

'You were great,' Izuku said, smiling that way that made his eyes almost disappear. 'But be careful with your tone when talking to the media, they can twist things.'

'Let them twist it if they want,' Katsuki grumbled, taking off his jacket.

'I know, but...' Izuku hesitated, his smile diminishing a bit. 'Sometimes it's good to show a more... accessible side. For the public.'

*Accessible.*

The word hung in the air between them. Harmless. Well-intentioned. And yet, Katsuki felt something contract inside him. As if 'accessible' were a euphemism for 'weaker.' For 'less you.'

He didn't say anything at the time. Just nodded and went to shower. But the word stayed. The invisible measuring stick had been raised for the first time.

It wasn't a direct attack. Katsuki would have handled that better. Would have responded, retaliated, crushed it. But it wasn't like that. It was something more insidious. A phrase that seemed too casual to confront. A tone that sounded almost harmless. A doubt launched into the air with surgical precision—too small to explode over, too big to ignore.

And he had heard it.

Worse: he had let it stay.

The second time was during an agency social event. Everyone was there—Kirishima, Kaminari, Ashido, Jirou, Sero, Todoroki, even some from their third-year class who were now colleagues. The atmosphere was light, relaxed. Music, food, laughter. Katsuki was in a corner, talking with Todoroki about a new type of ice he was developing for rescue situations, when he saw Izuku across the room.

Izuku was laughing, surrounded by a group of younger heroes—faces Katsuki vaguely recognized, newly graduated heroes who looked at Izuku with that mix of admiration and veneration that always irritated him, not out of jealousy, but because it seemed to put Izuku on an unattainable pedestal. And then he saw him.

Shindo.

Shindo was next to Izuku, leaning in close, saying something that made Izuku give a muffled little laugh. Shindo smiled—a wide, relaxed smile that reached his eyes—and placed a hand on Izuku's shoulder for a moment, a casual gesture of camaraderie.

Katsuki felt something cold run down his spine.

It wasn't jealousy. Or at least, not just jealousy. It was something deeper, more visceral. It was the recognition of a pattern. Shindo wasn't just being friendly. He was positioning himself. He was establishing closeness. He was, in a subtle but calculated way, marking territory.

And the worst part? Izuku didn't seem to notice. Or if he did, he didn't see a problem. Why would he? It was a colleague being friendly. A normal gesture between coworkers.

But Katsuki knew men like Shindo. He knew the body language, the tone of voice, the way they infiltrated the spaces between people, filling gaps they didn't even know existed. Shindo was the type of man who knew how to be... accessible. How to be easy to like. How to make his suggestions sound like genuine concern, his criticisms like friendly advice, his presence like something natural, inevitable.

That night, in the car on the way home, Katsuki stayed silent. Izuku talked animatedly about the conversations he'd had, about some of the young heroes' plans, about how good it was to see everyone together.

'Shindo said he's opening a new agency in the east district,' Izuku commented, looking out the window. 'He wants to focus on urban rescue. I thought it was interesting.'

Katsuki tightened his hands on the wheel. 'Shindo talks a lot.'

Izuku looked at him, a little surprised. 'What do you mean?'

'He likes to hear himself talk. To talk about his plans. To seem important.'

The silence that followed was short, but dense. Izuku studied his profile for a moment. 'You don't like him, Kacchan?'

'He's... performative.'

'Performative?'

'He makes gestures. Speaks prettily. Smiles at the right time. He's calculated.'

Izuku frowned. 'I think you're being a little harsh on him. He's a good hero. Competent. And he's nice to everyone.'

'Exactly,' Katsuki muttered. 'He's nice to everyone. No one is nice to everyone without a reason.'

'Maybe his reason is just being a decent person,' Izuku suggested, his voice a bit firmer now. Defensive.

Katsuki felt the anger begin to boil—that silent, observant anger. 'You're too naive, Deku. Always have been. See the best in everyone, even when it's not there.'

'And you see the worst, even when it's not there!' Izuku retorted, and now there was a spark of irritation in his voice. 'Not everyone has ulterior motives, Kacchan! Not everyone is playing a game!'

'Everyone is playing a game,' Katsuki said, his voice low and hard. 'It's just that some people are better at hiding the rules.'

They didn't argue more that night. But something shifted. A crack appeared. And Katsuki knew, deep down, that it wasn't about Shindo. Shindo was just a symptom. It was about something much deeper, much older.

In the days that followed, everything in him went off-kilter. Katsuki remembered the constant restlessness, as if his skin were too tight for his own body. He began to notice things. Small things. The way Izuku sometimes seemed more animated after talking to certain people. The slightly different body language when he was in groups that included Shindo. The tone of voice more... moderated. More polished.

As if he were adapting.

As if he were becoming more... accessible.

And each adaptation, each polishing, each softening was a small stab at Katsuki. Because he didn't want a polished Izuku. He didn't want an accessible Izuku. He wanted Izuku in all his clumsy intensity, in all his overflowing passion, in all his stubborn stubbornness. He wanted the Izuku who talked a mile a minute when excited, who gestured so much he almost knocked things over, who laughed with his whole body, who cried easily, who loved with a depth that was sometimes almost frightening.

But what he saw, more and more, was an Izuku who was learning to contain himself. To moderate himself. To become... the kind of hero that pleased everyone. The kind of person who doesn't offend, doesn't confront, doesn't destabilize.

And Katsuki wondered, in the darkest hours of the night when insomnia kept him awake: *Is this my fault? Did I do this? Did I make him this way? Because loving someone like me—someone explosive, intense, difficult—requires adaptation. Requires cushioning. Requires learning to navigate turbulent waters without making waves.*

Or maybe... maybe it was Shindo. Maybe it was the others. Maybe it was the world, which had always wanted Izuku Midoriya to be softer, more malleable, more... manageable.

Nothing seemed enough. No victory was clean. No mission ended with that feeling of duty accomplished. Because what he really wanted to conquer—the security that Izuku was still his, that their love was still strong enough to withstand the constant erosion of the world—that wasn't something that could be guaranteed with brute force.

So he overdid it. Pushed his individuality beyond the limit. Miscalculated. Forced bigger, more violent, more reckless explosions. As if trying to crush something invisible by force.

During a rescue mission in a partially collapsed building, he used far more power than necessary to clear the rubble. The result was that part of the still-stable structure suffered secondary damage, delaying the rescue by fifteen critical minutes. No one died, but they could have. Aizawa called him into his office afterwards and, without raising his voice, said the words that hurt more than any shout: "You're becoming dangerous, Bakugou. Not to the villains. To the people you're supposed to be protecting."

*Prove.*

He needed to prove something.

But what?

That he was strong? That he was indispensable? That he couldn't be replaced? That he was... enough?

Enough for what? For whom?

The answer came on a rainy autumn afternoon. They were home—or what was still home at the time. Izuku was cooking, something rare, because Katsuki usually dominated the kitchen. But that night, Izuku insisted. "Let me do it. You look tired."

*Tired.* The word was a euphemism for something they both knew but didn't name.

Katsuki was sitting at the kitchen table, watching Izuku stir a pan of fried rice. The radio was on low, playing soft music. It was a normal domestic scene. Peaceful. It should have been comforting.

But Katsuki couldn't feel comfortable. Because he saw the way Izuku moved—efficient, contained, economical in his gestures. This wasn't the clumsy Izuku who spilled spices and left the stove on. This was a competent Izuku. Adult. Controlled.

"Shindo invited me to give a talk at his new agency," Izuku said suddenly, without turning around. "About high-precision rescue techniques. He said my analytical approach would be valuable for his team."

Katsuki felt the knot in his stomach tighten. "Are you going?"

"I'm thinking about it. It would be good. It's an opportunity to share knowledge, and..." Izuku hesitated, lowering the heat. "And I think it could be good for me too. Get out of the U.A. bubble a bit, you know?"

*Get out of the bubble.*

As if their life together was a bubble.

As if he, Katsuki, was part of a bubble that needed to be popped.

"U.A. isn't a bubble," Katsuki said, his voice rougher than intended. "It's your job. It's important."

"I know," Izuku replied quickly, finally turning around. His face was open, sincere. "I didn't mean it's not important. Just... sometimes it's good to have different perspectives. Shindo has an interesting view on..."

"Shindo again," Katsuki interrupted, standing up from the chair. The sound scraped on the floor. "Why is he always in the conversation?"

Izuku blinked, surprised. "He's not always in the conversation. He's a colleague. A friend."

"He's not your friend."

"How do you know?" Izuku's question wasn't challenging. It was genuinely curious. As if he really didn't understand.

*Because friends don't look at you the way he does*, Katsuki thought, but couldn't say the words. *Because friends don't infiltrate, don't make calculated compliments, don't create subtle emotional dependency. Because friends aren't... disguised rivals.*

"I just know," Katsuki said, turning and going to the fridge, opening it without really seeing what was inside. "He's... he wants something."

"Everyone wants something, Kacchan," Izuku replied, his voice softer now. Almost sad. "That doesn't make him a bad person."

*It does if what he wants is you*, Katsuki thought, but again, the words got stuck in his throat. Because saying them aloud would be admitting something he didn't want to admit—that he felt threatened. That he, Katsuki Bakugou, the hero who faced S-class villains without hesitation, was insecure in the face of a man who smiled a lot and spoke prettily.

"Forget it," he murmured, closing the fridge. "Do what you want."

The silence that followed was loaded. Izuku stood still in the middle of the kitchen, the wooden spoon still in his hand, looking at him with an expression Katsuki couldn't decipher. Was it worry? Frustration? Tiredness? Resignation?

"Kacchan," Izuku began, his voice almost a whisper. "What's happening to you? Lately you've been... different. More tense. More explosive, even when there's no reason."

"I'm always explosive," Katsuki retorted, defensive.

"Not like this. Not... turned inward. As if you're fighting with something no one else can see."

The precision of the comment hit Katsuki like a punch. Because that was exactly it. He was fighting ghosts. Invisible rules. Measures no one had set except himself. The agonizing feeling that, no matter how hard he tried, he would never be... the kind of person the world wanted Izuku to be with.

The kind of accessible person.

The kind of easy person.

The kind of person like Shindo.

Izuku noticed. Of course he noticed. He always did.

His concern was constant, almost palpable—a soft weight in the air, a presence too attentive to ignore. He began adjusting his own behavior in response. Became more careful with his words. More hesitant to touch Katsuki, as if fearing physical contact might detonate something. Quicker to retreat when he saw the tension in Katsuki's shoulders.

At other times, that attention would have been comforting. It would have been an anchor. They would have talked. Izuku would have insisted, with his characteristic stubbornness, until Katsuki opened up. And Katsuki, reluctantly, would have given in, letting the words come out in confused pieces, and Izuku would have listened, would have understood, would have helped put the puzzle together.

But not this time.

In that state, Katsuki twisted everything. The care became vigilance. The question became accusation. The worried gaze became confirmation of something he already feared, even without admitting it.

*He sees it too.*

*He doubts too.*

One night, Katsuki came home late after a particularly brutal mission. He had blood on his gloves that wasn't his, and a fine tremor in his hands he couldn't control—not from fear, but from contained anger. The mission had been a mess. A rescue operation that turned into a confrontation, and he had made questionable decisions. No one died, but it was close.

Izuku was awake, sitting on the sofa with an open book on his lap, but he wasn't reading. He was waiting.

"Are you okay?" Izuku asked as soon as Katsuki entered.

The question was simple. Gentle. The kind a partner asks. But in that moment, in that state, Katsuki heard something different. He heard "did you manage not to mess everything up?". He heard "did you finally act responsibly?". He heard doubt.

"I'm perfect," Katsuki replied, his voice cutting. "Why wouldn't I be?"

Izuku closed the book slowly. "The mission was hard. I heard on the radio."

"All missions are hard. It's the job."

"I know, but..." Izuku stood up, approaching. "You seem..."

"Seem what?" Katsuki interrupted, turning to face him. "Say it. Seem what, Deku? Uncontrollable? Dangerous? Impulsive?"

Izuku stopped, his eyes widening a bit. "I didn't say that."

"But you're thinking it. Everyone's thinking it. Aizawa. The Commission. Shindo." The name came out like poison. "Especially Shindo. He must love it. More proof that I'm not stable. That I'm not... suitable."

"Kacchan, no one is saying that!" Izuku protested, his voice rising a pitch. "Shindo never said anything about you! Why are you putting words in his mouth? In everyone's mouth?"

"Because I see the looks! I hear the comments! 'Bakugou is talented, but...' 'Bakugou is efficient, but...' Always a 'but'! And you..." Katsuki stopped, anger choking the words. "You're starting to believe them. Starting to see me through their eyes."

Izuku stood frozen for a moment, his face a mask of shock and pain. "That... that's not true. I never..."

"No? Then why are you always watching me? Why do you get tense when I talk to certain people? Why do you adjust what you say in my presence, as if walking on eggshells?" The words were coming out now, a turbulent flow he could no longer contain. "You're learning from him, aren't you? Learning to be more... diplomatic. Softer. More like they want you to be. And in the process, you're learning to see me as a problem that needs managing."

Tears welled in Izuku's eyes, but he didn't cry. Just shook his head slowly, as if he couldn't believe what he was hearing. "Do you really believe that? Do you really think that I... that I'm on their side against you?"

"I don't know what to believe anymore!" Katsuki exploded, and this time it was a real explosion, small sparks flying from his palms, burning the air.

The silence that followed was absolute. Izuku looked at the small burn marks in the air, then at Katsuki's face. His own expression changed, from pain to something more complex—a mix of sadness, understanding, and finally, a decision.

He took a deep breath, turned, and went to the bedroom, closing the door gently behind him.

Katsuki stood in the living room, the anger draining away as quickly as it came, leaving behind an icy void and a shame so deep he felt nauseous.

He stopped, struggling with the words, with the memories."

"And I... let those seeds take root. Instead of ignoring them, instead of confronting them, I internalized them. Started to believe. Started to see myself through his eyes. Started measuring myself against a ruler he held, a ruler that said I wasn't... suitable. I wasn't accessible. I wasn't easy. I wasn't the kind of person someone like Izuku should have by his side."

The anger in his voice was palpable now, but it wasn't his usual explosive anger. It was a colder, bitterer anger. An anger at himself.

"And I projected all of that onto Izuku. Every doubt I had about myself, every insecurity, I turned into doubt about him. Started thinking he was also seeing me through that ruler. That he also thought I wasn't enough. That he was becoming more polished, more moderated, because he was starting to believe the same things Shindo said."

"And then came the fight." Katsuki ran a hand over his face, his fingers trembling slightly.

"It wasn't all at once. It escalated. Every word of his hit me as if confirming everything I had already been hearing in my own head."

Kirishima frowned, attentive. Mina was too quiet—which, coming from her, said a lot.

"When he said he was worried... when he suggested I slow down..." —Katsuki let out a short, bitter laugh— "I didn't hear care. I heard pity."

The silence in the room grew denser.

"And that..." he swallowed hard—"that disgusted me. Because, in my head, the worry became judgment. Became 'you can't handle it.' Became 'you're broken.'"

He clenched his fists, the memory burning.

"I looked at him... and saw everything Shindo had told me taking shape."

Mina inhaled deeply, as if she wanted to interrupt, but didn't.

"That's when I started talking." Katsuki raised his gaze, hard. "And when I started... I didn't stop."

His voice changed a bit, tenser, rawer—and for a second, it seemed they weren't in the apartment anymore, but back in that day.

— Flashback —

"Slow down?" his voice came out low, dangerously soft. "Are you serious, Deku?"

"It's just that... you're getting hurt a lot, Kacchan. And you don't stop. I see it. Everyone sees it."

"Everyone sees it, huh?" Katsuki took a step forward. The air between them became electric. "And what does everyone think, huh? That the great Dynamight is weak? That he can't take the strain? Is that it?"

"No! Of course not!" Izuku tried, desperate. "It's just concern! I'm worried about you! I admire you, Kacchan! I've always admired you! I want you to be well!"

"ADMIRATION?!" the explosion came in his voice, a roar that made the glasses in the sink tremble. "Is that what you call that fucking sad puppy dog look you give me? That sick need to carry everyone's burden, including mine?"

Katsuki laughed through his nose, short, humorless.

"If I were really all that you say..." —his voice came out low, dangerous— "I wouldn't feel so suffocated every time you look at me like I'm a monster."

Izuku blinked, confused. The pain came before the understanding.

Izuku felt his eyes sting.

"You don't trust me, Izuku. You never did." Katsuki advanced, not to hit, but to invade his space. "You think that if you're not there, holding my hand, I'll explode and take the whole damn city with me. Your concern isn't for me. It's for you. Out of fear of having to see me fall and not be able to do a damn thing."

"That's not true..." the words came out broken, small.

"It's the fucking purest truth between us!" Katsuki spat. "You hide behind that nice-guy smile and that giant heart, but deep down, you think you're better than everyone. That you have to save everyone. Even from themselves."

He took a deep breath, his chest rising and falling rapidly.

"And I... I don't need your salvation, Deku. I don't want your veiled condemnation disguised as care."

Izuku was already crying silently.

"That care of yours suffocates," Katsuki continued, merciless. "That concern of yours traps me. Makes me feel small. Wrong. As if I'm always one step away from disappointing you."

The silence between them became unbearable.

"And the worst part..." —his voice faltered for a second, almost imperceptible— "is that you do it smiling. As if it were beautiful. As if it were love."

A dry laugh.

"Love shouldn't feel like a leash, Deku."

"You look at me like I'm a bomb," Katsuki continued, jaw rigid. "Like I'm going to explode everything around me. And that... that's disgusting, Izuku."

"Katsuki..." Izuku's voice failed.

"This isn't love," he spat. "It's dependency. It's that look of pity mixed with devotion. As if I were something broken that only works if you're there, holding me, saving me."

Tears began to form in the green eyes.

"You think I don't notice?" Katsuki took another step forward. "That way of talking to me. Of touching me. As if I were a bomb about to explode. As if I were too fragile to exist alone."

"I never thought that!" Izuku retorted, voice trembling.

"I look at you..." Katsuki looked away—"...and all I feel is guilt. Guilt for not being enough. Guilt for not being able to breathe near this way you love me."

He looked at him again, definitive.

"So don't tell me this is just concern."

"Don't tell me this is beautiful."

His voice dropped to a cruel whisper.

"Because that pity of yours... that need to save me all the time...

"disgusts me."

The word hung in the air.

Izuku didn't respond immediately.

The green eyes widened for a second—not in anger, not in defense—but in pure shock, as if something had been ripped out of him without warning. The light that always lived there, that excess of light Katsuki had known since childhood, faded slowly. Not all at once. It was worse. It was like watching a flame die from lack of air.

"Fine!" he yelled, the tears finally breaking through, hot and bitter. "If you think I'm just a burden, that my concern is disgusting, that I'm a suffocating asshole, then fine, Katsuki! Go away! Go to your perfect world where no one cares enough to try and hold you back when you're running straight for the cliff! Go!"

The fury on Katsuki's face faded. What remained was emptiness.

"Fine," he said, his voice now flat, dead."

The silence returned in Katsuki's apartment—heavy, uncomfortable.

"...You said that to him?" Sero asked, incredulous, his voice low.

"Dude..." the voice came out low. "That... That part you never told us."

Katsuki let out a short, humorless laugh, his eyes burning.

"How could I have told you?" he retorted, jaw locked. "Look at the things I said to the person I love. Look at the kind of shit that came out of my mouth."

He ran a hand hard over his face, as if wanting to rip that memory from his own skin.

"I was angry. Bitter. Full of stuck-up stuff." His voice trembled but didn't weaken. "That son of a bitch Shindo put those ideas in my head. Said all that... and I let it stay. I let it take root."

Denki frowned, tense.

"So... you're blaming him?"

Katsuki's eyes flashed dangerously as he turned.

"No." The reply came dry. "Of course not."

He clenched his fists, nails digging into his own palms.

"I'm blaming myself." A bitter laugh escaped. "Because no one forced me to believe. No one shoved those words into my head by force. I listened because, deep down, I was already afraid. I just gave ear to the first idiot who put that fear into words."

Jirou swallowed hard.

"Katsuki..."

"I betrayed Izuku in that moment," he cut in, his voice loaded with hatred, but directed at himself. "Not with another person. With my fucking insecurity. I preferred to believe he would leave me... than to believe someone could love me that way without leaving."

The atmosphere seemed too heavy to breathe.

"I threw it all at him," Katsuki continued, eyes downcast. "My paranoia. My fear of not being enough. My anger at myself. And I made it seem like the problem was his love... when the problem was always me."

Kirishima pressed his lips together, visibly affected.

"Dude... that's heavy as fuck."

"It is," Katsuki agreed, without lifting his head. "And that's why it hurts. Because now I know exactly where I went wrong. I know exactly what I destroyed." He took a deep breath, his chest rising with difficulty. "And there's no pretending it wasn't my fault."

He raised his gaze again, hard, tired, but strangely honest.

"That bastard only talked." A pause. "I was the one who chose to listen."

Mina ran a hand slowly over her face, her eyes shining.

"Katsuki... that hurts like hell."

"I know." The reply came immediately, without defense. "I know."

He took a deep breath.

"That wasn't about Izuku." His voice faltered just a little. "It was about me. About the fear of not being enough. About the fear of waking up one day and realizing he'd be better off with someone easier. Calmer. Safer."

"Like Shindo," Jirou completed, dryly.

Katsuki nodded.

"I accused him of seeing me as a pitiful thing... when the one who didn't trust was me." A humorless laugh. "I didn't trust that someone could love me without getting tired. Without giving up."

No one tried to soften it. No one tried to justify.

"I didn't attack Izuku that night," he said, voice low. "I attacked myself. I attacked what we had. I attacked the future I wanted... because I no longer believed I deserved it."

Mina was the first to speak, crossing her arms.

"You messed up badly." She didn't sugarcoat it. "Very badly."

Katsuki nodded again.

The tears didn't come. Katsuki Bakugou didn't cry easily, not even in his darkest moments. But there was something in his eyes—a wetness, a shine—that said more than any cry could.

For a long moment, no one spoke. The weight of the confession hung in the air, dense, real. But it wasn't an oppressive weight. It was a shared weight, as if by telling his story, Katsuki had distributed a bit of the load among everyone present.

It was Kirishima who broke the silence, placing a heavy, supportive hand on Katsuki's shoulder.

"Thanks for telling us, man," he said, his voice firm. "For real."

"It doesn't change anything," Katsuki replied, but without the bitterness that might have been there. "It doesn't bring him back."

"No," Mina agreed, her voice more serious than usual. "But maybe... maybe it helps to understand. You. And us."

"Shindo..." Denki started, but hesitated. "Did he really do that on purpose? Like, tried to sabotage you?"

Katsuki thought for a moment.

"I don't know. Maybe. Maybe not. Maybe he doesn't even know what he did. But that... that doesn't really matter. What matters is that I allowed it. I let his words, his suggestions, get in. I let my own insecurities be fed. I let something external become internal. And then I threw it all at Izuku."

He looked at his friends, one by one.

"The blame is mine. Entirely. I could have talked to him. Could have said what I was feeling. Could have been honest about my insecurities. But instead, I kept it all in. Let it boil. And then exploded. And when you explode at the people you love... they pull away. And they have every right to."

Silence spread through the apartment again. It wasn't heavy like before, nor comfortable. It was a silence of things settling slowly, like dust after an explosion.

"And now?" Sero asked, scratching the back of his neck. "What are you going to do now?"

Katsuki was silent for a few seconds. He stared at the floor, elbows on his knees, hands clasped too tightly.

"I don't know," he admitted, his voice lower than anyone there was used to hearing. "There's no class. No work at U.A. No excuse to show up 'by chance.'" A humorless laugh escaped. "There's no fucking plan at all."

He took a deep breath.

"But I know what I'm *not* going to do." He raised his gaze, serious. "I'm not going to give up. I'm not going to pretend it didn't happen. I'm not going to sweep this under the rug and move on as if he hadn't been... everything. No matter how much of a monster he thinks I am."

"Katsuki..." Kirishima began, but Mina cut in.

She crossed her arms, leaning her body forward, her gaze firm—not harsh, but honest.

"Listen here, you explosive idiot." Her voice had that strange tone between scolding and affection. "You messed up. Badly. Very badly. And no one here is going to pat your head pretending it was just a 'misunderstanding.' What you did, what you said, even though you had your insecurities, doesn't justify it, and it was wrong as hell and you know it."

Katsuki didn't react. Just nodded, as if that were obvious.

"But," Mina continued, "you're also not the monster your head is trying to convince you that you are. You believed the wrong thing, let insecurity become poison, and hurt someone you love. That's a failure. It's not a lack of character."

She sighed, uncrossing her arms.

"And, honestly? You're trying to make up for it in the most pathetic way possible." A half-smile appeared.

A few low laughs surfaced. Katsuki rolled his eyes.

"Shut up, cotton candy hair."

"I'm serious," she retorted, not losing her smile. "Trying doesn't erase the mistake. But trying already puts you in a different place than someone who just runs away."

Jirou tilted her head.

"It's not going to be easy," she said. "Midoriya isn't going to trust quickly. Maybe he doesn't even want to listen now."

"I know," Katsuki replied. "I don't expect forgiveness. Or to get back together." He swallowed hard. "Just... the chance to prove that I can be better than I was that day."

Mina rested her elbow on her knee, chin in hand.

"Love is also risk, Bakugou." She shrugged. "If you really love him, you'll have to accept the possibility of getting hurt." She smiled sideways. "If Kirishima had pulled a stunt like that with me, I'd make him crawl emotionally for months, if not years."

"HEY!" Kirishima protested, turning red.

The mood lightened a bit. Katsuki let out a grumble.

"I don't crawl."

"Yes, you do," Mina replied bluntly. "Just with explosive dignity."

The mood was still lighter from Mina's comment, but it didn't last long.

She slowly lost her smile.

"And just to make one thing very clear," she added, now serious for real, "we're not here to absolve you. Or to pretend that 'everyone makes mistakes' and go on as if nothing happened. What you did was wrong. Period. It hurt someone who trusted you in an absurd way."

Katsuki nodded again, gaze fixed on the floor.

"The difference," Mina continued, "is that you're facing it head-on. You're acknowledging you messed up. And that doesn't erase anything... but it's the bare minimum for any chance of moving forward without repeating the mistake."

Jirou took a deep breath before speaking. When she spoke, it was direct, as always.

"What stands out most to me," she said, "is that you mixed two dangerous things: fear and projection." She tilted her head. "You didn't argue with Izuku. You argued with a version of him that only existed in your head. A version built from what someone else said... and from what you were already afraid to hear."

"I know," Katsuki murmured.

"And that's the most serious part," Jirou continued, without cruelty, but without softening. "Because you took away his right to explain himself. To choose. You decided for him. Decided he saw you as weak. Decided he would leave you. And you attacked before it could happen."

The silence weighed heavily.

"That's not protection," she concluded. "It's self-sabotage. And it took Izuku down with you."

Kaminari rubbed the back of his neck, uncomfortable.

"Dude..." he said, "I've said a lot of shit out of insecurity, but... that was advanced level."

"Not helping, Denki," Sero grumbled, but then sighed and looked at Katsuki. "Still..." he hesitated, "you understand that if Deku had told us this back then... none of us would be on your side, right?"

Katsuki raised his gaze for the first time, serious.

"I know."

"Like, for real," Sero reinforced. "If we knew about those lines? Those accusations?" He shook his head. "Todoroki would have lost his mind. Uraraka would have buried you alive. And I..." —he gave a half-crooked smile— "I probably would have sent you to the hospital before hearing your side."

"With good reason," Katsuki replied, without irony.

Kirishima clenched his fists on his knees.

"What breaks me the most," he said, his voice heavy, "is that you hit exactly where he's most vulnerable. Izuku's fear has always been of not being enough. Of not being good enough. And you..." —he swallowed hard— "used that against him without realizing."

Katsuki closed his eyes for a second.

"I know." When he opened them, there was something heavy there. "There's not a day I don't think about that."

Mina leaned back on the sofa, crossing her legs.

"Then listen well," she said. "If you really want to try... it won't be with grand gestures. It won't be with performative guilt. Or with you painting yourself as a tragic villain."

"It'll be with consistency," Jirou completed. "With real patience. With respect for his boundaries. Even when it hurts."

"Especially when it hurts," Sero added.

Kirishima gave a half-sad smile.

"And with humility, man." He looked at him firmly. "Because this time... you're not the strong part of the story. You're the one who needs to learn to wait."

Silence returned. But it was no longer heavy—it was dense, solid. Full of spoken truths.

Katsuki took a deep breath.

"I'm not going to run away," he said, low, firm. "Nor justify. Nor force anything." He raised his gaze, determined. "If there's any chance... I'll earn it. The right way. Or accept it, if there isn't."

Mina smiled from the corner of her mouth.

"Yeah." She stood up. "Welcome to the hardest part of loving someone, Bakugou."

"Which is?" he grumbled.

"The part where you don't explode," she replied. "You grow."

And this time, no one laughed. Because everyone knew: that wasn't a joke. It was a warning.

The silence that came back after wasn't empty. It was a silence of decision.

He still didn't know how.

He still didn't know when.

But he knew one thing with painful clarity:

He wasn't going to give up on Izuku. Even if he had to learn how to love him the right way for the first time.

The rest of the day passed in a lighter atmosphere. The confession, instead of creating a chasm, had built a bridge. The friends didn't treat Katsuki with kid gloves after that—on the contrary, they seemed more relaxed, more natural. They played cards. Watched a bad movie on TV. Talked about trivial things—work, news, plans for New Year's.

And Katsuki, sitting among them, participating here and there, felt something he hadn't felt in a long time: a sense of belonging. Of not being completely alone. That, even if the biggest void in his life remained, there were other spaces that were still filled.

As night began to fall, and one by one they prepared to leave, each made a farewell gesture that was more meaningful than usual. A firmer handshake. A longer hug. A look that said "I'm here, if you need."

Kirishima was the last to leave. At the door, he turned to Katsuki.

"You did right, in telling us," he said. "And you're doing right, with the coffee, with the patience. It might not seem like it, but you are."

"Thanks, Ei," Katsuki replied, and the words weren't just a formality.

"And about Shindo..." Kirishima hesitated. "Do you want us to do something? Say something?"

Katsuki thought for a moment, then shook his head.

"No. That's between me and Izuku. And, deep down, it's more between me and myself. Shindo... he was just a mirror. A mirror that showed things I didn't want to see. The fault isn't the mirror's, it's the one who looks."

Kirishima nodded, understanding.

"Okay. So... we'll talk tomorrow?"

"We'll talk."

And so, Katsuki was alone again. But the apartment no longer seemed so empty. There were remnants of his friends' presence—a forgotten cup, the smell of food that still lingered, a different energy in the air.

He cleaned up a bit, not with his usual obsession, but with a meditative care. Put things away. Washed the dishes. And then, sat down again in the chair facing the window, watching the city lights beginning to turn on in the early night darkness.

The memories were still there. The pain was still there. The regret was still there. But there was something else, too. Something that resembled... acceptance. Not acceptance of the loss, but acceptance of responsibility. Acceptance that he, Katsuki Bakugou, had made serious mistakes. Mistakes that had consequences. And that now he had to live with those consequences, and try, as much as possible, to repair what could be repaired.

December 27th ended. The year was almost over. And in the silence of the apartment, under the city lights, a man who always knew how to explode was learning, slowly and painfully, how to remain intact.

Chapter Text

Izuku Midoriya's apartment at 10:47 AM on December 27th wasn't just quiet; it was a space that had learned to echo.

Every small sound — the ticking of the wall clock in the living room, the almost inaudible hum of the refrigerator, the occasional creak of the wooden floor under his own feet — seemed amplified by the absence of everything else. It was the silence of an interrupted life, of a broken routine, of a future that had abruptly veered off its charted course.

Izuku stood in the middle of the living room, motionless, his hands sunk into the pockets of his bathrobe. The green tea in the cup on the coffee table no longer steamed. It had gone cold while he watched, without really seeing, the movement of the neighborhood outside. Dirty, gray snow stubbornly survived on the sidewalks and window ledges of the neighboring buildings, a pale, melancholy reminder of the Christmas Day blizzard.

The holidays. The word sounded strange in his mind. Holidays. A period that should mean rest, renewal, and a deep sigh after an intense semester as head of the Heroics department at U.A. He had managed — a feat, considering his tendency to dive into work — to clear his desk, delegate pending tasks, leave everything in order for a real break. It was his first significant vacation in years not interrupted by hero crises or injury recovery.

And yet, what he felt wasn't relief. It was a kind of floating emptiness, a feeling of being adrift in his own time. As if an essential part of his internal machinery had been removed, and now he no longer knew how to mark the hours, the days.

He finally moved, picking up the cold cup and taking it to the kitchen sink. The brownish-green liquid went down the drain as he watched, his reflection in the polished steel distorted and ghostly. You're wasting it, a familiar, critical voice whispered in the back of his mind. The voice of his mother, or perhaps his own, always concerned with the slightest waste, with efficiency, with doing the right thing.

But what was the right thing now? To wait? To move on? To forget? To forgive?

There were no manuals for this. Not even All Might, in all his wisdom, could have given him advice on how to navigate the wreckage of a love he hadn't yet learned to bury.

The tidying up began, as it always did when restlessness overtook him. It was a ritual of control, a way to impose order on internal chaos. First, the book left open on the sofa — a dense treatise on ethics in large-scale rescue operations. He closed it carefully, his fingers running over the spine before returning it to its exact place on the shelf, aligned with the others. Then, the coat. It was a navy blue wool coat, simple and practical. He picked it up, feeling the soft fabric, and then stopped.

Smell.

An almost imperceptible, but unmistakable trace. A smell that didn't belong to him, nor to this apartment. It was the smell of the laundry detergent Katsuki always used — something fragrance-free, functional, but with a unique signature, clean and slightly metallic. And beneath it, the ghost of something else: the scent of Katsuki himself, of his skin, of clean sweat after a workout, something warm and alive that Izuku knew as well as his own breath.

He must have brushed against someone on the street. Or perhaps the coat, in the back of the closet, still held memories of a time when their wardrobes mixed, when their clothes shared the same space, the same air, the same life.

The pain was sudden and sharp, a tightening in his sternum that made his breath catch for a second. It wasn't the piercing pain of the first days, which left him on his knees. It was a subtler, more insidious pain — the pain of nostalgia, of involuntary memory that invades the senses when least expected.

Izuku brought the coat to his face for a moment, closing his eyes. The image arose, complete and vivid: Katsuki in the morning, wearing a worn-out t-shirt and sweatpants, preparing coffee with fierce concentration. The morning sun streamed through the kitchen window of their old apartment, lighting up the blond strands of his hair. The comfortable silence between them, filled only by the sound of boiling water and the creak of the chair when Izuku sat down at the table.

"You don't have to do this every day," Izuku said once, watching the meticulous ritual.

Katsuki didn't even look up, his fingers adjusting the kettle's temperature. "Yes, I do."

"Why?"

"Because you drink that instant crap when I'm not here. Tastes like chalk dust."

Izuku had laughed. "It's practical."

"Practical is for the lazy. This" — he indicated the coffee equipment with a jerk of his chin — "is respect. For the coffee. For the day. For the person who's going to drink it."

"Respect, huh?" Izuku teased, a smile on his lips.

Katsuki finally looked at him, his crimson eyes serious. "Yeah. Respect."

The memory dissipated, leaving Izuku standing in the hallway of his new apartment, an old coat clutched to his chest. The respect. Where had that respect gone? Where had the man who considered brewing coffee an act of reverence gone?

He shook his head, as if he could shake off the thoughts, and took the coat to the bedroom, hanging it on the hanger with exaggerated determination. The smell would linger for a while, but it would eventually fade. Everything faded, eventually.

Walking back through the living room, his eyes were drawn, as they always were, to the closed door of the guest room. Six months. Six months living here, and that room remained a limbo, a storage space for boxes of books, sports gear, and other things. Things he didn't have the heart to throw away, but also didn't have the courage to integrate into his new life.

Inside one of those boxes, he knew, was the album.

It wasn't a store-bought photo album. It was something Katsuki had made — one of those surprise projects he occasionally undertook, always with concentrated intensity and absolute secrecy. A genuine leather cover, thick cotton paper pages. Inside, photos from years. From their U.A. days — awkward group party photos, training shots, stolen moments in the hallways. And later, photos of their years together. Few, because neither of them was one for posing. But there was one of them on a mountain, after a grueling mission, both exhausted but smiling, the sunset behind them painting the sky orange and purple. There was another at a street fair, Izuku with cotton candy stuck in his hair, Katsuki with an expression of disdain that couldn't hide the glint in his eyes.

Izuku didn't open that album. It was a line he didn't cross. Some memories were like exposed nerves — touching them was to invite paralyzing pain.

He forced himself to turn his back on the door and returned to the kitchen. He made more tea, this time strong black tea, the kind Katsuki hated, calling it "sewer water with leaf flavor." The act of choosing something the other despised was a small assertion of independence, a punch in the air against a ghost.

Sitting at the kitchen table, the warm cup between his hands, he watched the city. From here, on the twelfth floor, people on the streets were like ants, their individual problems invisible, their personal dramas dissolved in the collective movement. How many of them were going through something similar? How many carried within them the weight of a love that hadn't died, but languished in a strange territory between life and death?

His phone vibrated. A message from his mother. He replied with the usual phrases, the automatic assurances. I'm fine. Enjoying the break. Yes, I ate. No, I'm not working.

Lies. All lies. But necessary lies. Because the truth — "I'm paralyzed, Mom. I'm stuck in a loop of memories and doubts. The person I thought I knew best in the world became a stranger who hurt me deeply, and now that same stranger is trying, in a quiet and disconcerting way, to become known again" — was too complicated, too heavy to place on her shoulders.

He finished the tea and went to take a shower. The scalding water burned his skin, but he endured it, like penance. He washed his hair vigorously, scrubbed his skin until it was red, trying to cleanse not only the dirt, but the confusion, the weariness, the ghostly smell that insisted on lingering in his nostrils.

As he dressed — jeans, a t-shirt, a thick sweater his mother had knitted for him — his mind, inevitably, turned to Katsuki. To the coffee ritual.

It was the Thursday before Christmas when he noticed the first one. A simple black thermos mug, on top of a pile of reports. No note. No explanation. Just latte, caramel, extra sugar. Exactly how he liked it. He stood there, staring at it for a full minute, his heart pounding against his ribs. He thought it was a mistake. A bad joke. A random act of kindness from a cleaning staff member who, by some miracle, knew his taste.

But then, the following Tuesday, there it was again. In the same spot. The same mug. The same coffee. Katsuki was at U.A. that day, giving a workshop. Izuku had seen him from a distance, on the Beta training field, but they didn't exchange words, not even a nod.

That's when he understood. The understanding brought with it a flood of conflicting emotions so violent he had to sit down.

Anger. How dare he? After everything, after the cutting words, the closed door, the devastation that followed... how dare he show up with coffee?

Confusion. What did it mean? An apology? A trap? An attempt to buy his forgiveness with cheap gestures?

And, deeper, more dangerous... hope. A tiny, fragile spark that stubbornly refused to go out. The hope that maybe... maybe that was a beginning. A restart.

In the weeks that followed, the ritual established itself. Tuesdays and Thursdays. Without fail. Katsuki never stayed to see him pick up the coffee. Never commented. It was as if it were a gift from an anonymous benefactor, except Izuku knew perfectly well whose hand left it there.

And he drank it. Always. Sometimes with anger, swallowing the sweet liquid as if it were poison. Sometimes with a nostalgia so deep his eyes would fill with water. Sometimes simply accepting it, because it was good coffee, and his days were long, and weariness was a constant.

But what did it mean? That was the question that tormented him. A repentant Katsuki? Possible. A manipulative Katsuki? Also possible — he was stubborn and strategic enough to attempt a slow, silent reconquest. A Katsuki just trying to ease his own guilt? The most likely, and the most painful, because it turned the gesture into something selfish, not something about Izuku.

The doorbell pulled him from his reverie. He frowned. It wasn't delivery time. He walked to the intercom and saw two faces that, suddenly, made the apartment seem less vast, less empty.

"Open up, Izuku, we know you're there!" Ochaco Uraraka's voice echoed through the intercom, a cheerful tone that brooked no refusal.

"We brought necessities," added Shoto Todoroki, his voice as flat as ever, but with a nuance Izuku recognized as dry humor.

An involuntary smile touched Izuku's lips. Their invasion was predictable, almost a holiday ritual. He opened the door.

"I... wasn't expecting visitors," Izuku said, but already stepping aside to let them in.

"Exactly why we're here," Ochaco replied, entering and taking off her shoes with the familiarity of someone who had been there countless times. "We knew if we warned you, you'd make up an excuse. Work. Paperwork. Curriculum planning." She made a dramatic pause. "During the holidays."

Izuku couldn't help but smile. She was right, of course. He probably would have made up an excuse, not because he didn't want to see them, but because the idea of socializing, of having to perform normalcy, seemed exhausting.

"Christmas is officially over, you know," he commented as Todoroki placed bags in the kitchen.

"Christmas is a state of mind," Ochaco countered, already rummaging through the cabinets for glasses. "And besides, it's vacation. Vacations deserve celebrating too."

"And you look like you could use one," Todoroki observed, his analytical gaze sweeping over Izuku's face in a way that felt almost physical.

"I'm fine," he said, automatically.

"No one said you weren't," Todoroki replied, starting to unpack the bags. "But 'fine' is a broad spectrum."

Ochaco laughed. "Sounds like you read that in a self-help book."

"I did," Todoroki admitted, without shame. "It was about emotional management for professional heroes. There was a whole chapter on the importance of social support during transitional periods."

Izuku watched the two of them for a moment, feeling something in his chest that resembled gratitude. They were here. Not because he asked, not because there was an emergency, but just because they were worried. Because they cared.

"Thank you," he said, the word coming out softer than intended.

Ochaco stopped what she was doing and looked at him, her smile becoming softer, more genuine. "No need to thank us, Izuku. It's what friends do."

Izuku felt slightly...

"You look like a ghost haunting a very expensive museum!" she declared, looking around. "Everything so clean. So tidy. So... sad."

"It's not sad," Izuku protested, weakly. "It's... organized."

"It's sterile," Todoroki opined. "Smells like disinfectant and loneliness."

"Shoto!" Ochaco gave his arm a light slap, but laughed.

"It's a factual observation. I brought varieties of tea, premium soups, and craft beer that supposedly has notes of 'damp forest and existential despair.' The seller guaranteed it."

Izuku laughed, a genuine sound that echoed strangely off the empty walls. "Thanks. I think."

In the following minutes, the two of them took over the space with the familiarity of people who knew it well. Ochaco opened cabinets, found bowls and cups, started preparing snacks with an efficiency that reminded him of her maneuvers in the field. Todoroki, with his peculiar method, subtly rearranged the room — adjusted the sofa's angle, opened the curtains a bit to let in more light, connected his phone to a small speaker and started a playlist of soft, instrumental jazz.

"This is an intervention, isn't it?" Izuku asked, leaning against the kitchen doorframe, watching them.

"Intervention is a strong word," Ochaco said, pouring nuts onto a baking sheet. "I prefer 'unscheduled emotional maintenance visit.'"

"She read that in an article on team management," Todoroki explained, examining the label on a beer bottle. "I found it applicable."

"You didn't have to," Izuku began.

"Yes, we did," Ochaco interrupted, turning to face him, hands on her hips. "Because you, Izuku Midoriya, have the bad habit of burying yourself in work or isolation when you're hurt. And we, as your officially designated friends, have a duty to dig you up periodically."

Her sincerity was disarming. Izuku lowered his head, a small smile on his lips. "I'm not that transparent."

"You're an open book written in bold letters and illustrated with detailed facial expressions," Todoroki commented, opening the bottle with a satisfying pop. "Always have been."

There was no arguing. And deep down, he didn't want to. Their presence was already dissolving the crust of ice that had formed around him in recent days. The doorbell rang again.

This time, it was Tsuyu Asui and Tenya Iida. Tsuyu, with her usual calm face, carried a thermal bag. "I brought okonomiyaki from that place you like, Izuku-chan." Iida, straight as a rod, adjusted his glasses.

"Ochaco informed us of the immediate need for social presence! Considering the holiday period and your known tendency for labor hyperfocus, we agreed intervention was necessary!"

"See? Even Iida agrees it's an intervention," Ochaco smiled, victorious.

The apartment, which minutes before had been an echo chamber for his doubts, transformed into a living space. The smell of heated food, toasted nuts, opened beer, replaced the smell of cleaning and emptiness. Laughter, low conversation, the sound of glasses clinking. It was a simple but powerful antidote to melancholy.

They settled in the living room. Ochaco and Tsuyu on the sofa, Iida in a straight-backed armchair, Todoroki sitting on the floor with his back against the wall, like a large, impassive cat. Izuku took the recliner, feeling, for the first time in days, like part of something bigger than his own pain.

Conversation flowed. Tsuyu told them about a rescue operation in a polluted river, her vivid, precise details painting a picture of challenge and triumph. Iida discussed the intricate logistical challenges of taking over the family agency, his sweeping gestures almost knocking over Todoroki's bottle. Ochaco spoke with bright eyes about her plans for her own agency, focused on low-gravity technology for rescues in collapsed structures.

"And you, Todoroki?" Izuku asked. "How are things at your father's agency?"

Todoroki slowly spun his bottle, watching the bubbles rise.

"It's like learning to fly a plane mid-flight, while the original pilot gives you contradictory instructions and occasionally tries to retake the controls." He took a sip. "But it's progressing. My sister is a blessing. She handles the public part that I... avoid."

"Fuyumi is an angel," Ochaco agreed. "But you're doing an amazing job, Shoto. Everyone says so."

"'Everyone' says a lot of things," Todoroki replied, but one corner of his mouth twitched, almost a smile.

"The transition is being carefully planned," Iida commented, his tone professional. "It's important for the stability of the hero scene that large agencies like the Todoroki family's undergo leadership transitions in an orderly manner."

It was easy, like that. Easier than Izuku remembered. The alcohol — he was on his second bottle, he realized — helped, smoothing the sharp edges of his awareness, quieting the always-analytical internal voice. It was a gradual relaxation, a permission to simply be with his friends, without the need to perform, to lead, to be the heroic "Deku" or the responsible "Midoriya-sensei."

And then, like a rising tide, came the question. Not abrupt, but natural, like the next topic in a conversation that couldn't avoid its course.

Tsuyu looked at Izuku. "And at U.A.? How was the first semester as head of the department?"

Izuku thought for a moment. "Challenging. But good. Seeing the students grow, develop their skills... it's still rewarding. Even with all the paperwork."

"You were always good at teaching," Ochaco observed. "I remember how you used to help everyone study back in school."

"You still help," Todoroki added. "You reviewed that tactical analysis report for me last month."

Izuku smiled, a bit embarrassed. "It was nothing."

"It was significant," Todoroki insisted, with his usual seriousness.

The conversation continued, moving on to lighter subjects — plans for New Year's, movie and book recommendations, funny stories of missions that went wrong in absurd ways. Time seemed to flow differently when they were together — faster, but also denser, each moment laden with the comfortable familiarity of friendships that had survived adolescence, hero training, the pressures of adult life.

At some point — Izuku couldn't say exactly when — he had a drink in his hand. Not strong alcohol, but a craft beer Todoroki had brought, with a complex flavor that mixed citrusy hops with earthy notes. He wasn't a big drinker, normally preferring to keep his mind clear, in total control. But today... today it seemed safe to relax a little. To be with people who knew his weaknesses and still chose to be there.

The effect was gradual. First, a feeling of warmth in his chest. Then, a relaxation in his shoulders, a softening of the thoughts that normally spun in worrying loops. The edges of the world seemed a little less defined, a little gentler.

And along with this relaxation came a certain... emotional honesty. The defenses Izuku normally kept up — not out of distrust, but out of self-preservation — began to lower, allowing feelings he normally kept contained to begin to emerge.

It was in this state — sober enough to be coherent, but relaxed enough to be sincere — that the conversation took an inevitable turn.

"So," Ochaco said, after a lull in the conversation. "At least now you won't have to deal with... that next semester."

She didn't name it. She didn't have to. The "that" hung in the air, laden with unspoken meanings.

Izuku took a sip of his beer before answering. "No. It was just for that semester."

"Bakugou isn't continuing as an instructor?" Iida asked, his tone neutral, professional.

"Not as a regular instructor," Izuku explained. "He may come back for specific workshops, if needed. But not as part of the permanent faculty."

Tsuyu watched Izuku for a moment, her large eyes thoughtful. "That must be a relief for you, huh?"

The question was innocent, well-intentioned. But it touched something deep.

Izuku thought for a moment, honestly. Was it a relief? In part, yes. Seeing Katsuki daily, maintaining that careful dance of distance and proximity, had been exhausting. But also... there was something strange about the idea of not seeing him anymore. Of the Tuesday/Thursday coffee ritual ending, not due to a resolution, but simply because the context enabling it would disappear.

"It's... complicated," he finally admitted.

"Complicated how?" Todoroki asked, his eyes — one gray, one blue — fixed on Izuku with a calming intensity.

Izuku looked at his hands, at the old scars that crossed his fingers, physical reminders of past battles. None of them hurt as much as the invisible scar on his chest.

"Because..." he began, stopped, took a deep breath. The apartment seemed to hold its breath with him. "Because part of me still expects to see him."

The confession, once started, couldn't be contained. The words began to come out, not in a chaotic torrent, but in a slow, steady flow, like water finding its way through cracks in rock.

He told them about the coffee. About the black mug that appeared like clockwork on Tuesdays and Thursdays. About the impeccably correct taste, a detail that hurt more than a mistake. About Katsuki's ghostly presence in the U.A. hallways, always keeping his distance, always respecting the space, but always... there.

"I don't know what it means," Izuku said, his voice a bit hoarse. "And that's the hardest part. Not knowing. If it's guilt. If it's a ploy. If it's... if it's real."

"What do you think it is?" Ochaco asked softly, her brown eyes full of a compassion that wasn't pity, but understanding.

Izuku closed his eyes for a moment. In the dark, he saw not the final explosion, not the ugly words, but small moments. Katsuki fixing a picture frame Izuku accidentally broke, grumbling about clumsiness, but his hands were gentle, precise. Katsuki pulling the blankets over him when he fell asleep on the sofa, too late. Katsuki listening, really listening, to his craziest plans for improving U.A.'s curriculum, and then, days later, leaving a relevant article on his desk, no comment.

"I think..." his voice came out like a thread of breath. "I think maybe it's real. But that doesn't help. Because if it's real, then he really has changed. And if he's changed... what do I do with that? With what I still feel?"

The silence that followed wasn't uncomfortable, but thoughtful. Everyone in the room knew the story — at least the public version of it. They knew Izuku and Katsuki had ended a years-long relationship dramatically. They knew Izuku had moved, that they were separated. But the details... the intimate details, the emotional layers, those things Izuku had kept to himself.

Until now.

Todoroki, who had been quiet for a few minutes, looking into his own drink as if studying its molecular composition, raised his eyes and fixed them on Izuku.

"Izuku," he said, his voice calm, non-judgmental. "What really happened that day?"

The question hung in the air, simple, direct, impossible to ignore.

Ochaco opened her mouth as if to protest — perhaps thinking the question too invasive, perhaps wanting to protect Izuku from having to revisit the pain. But before she could speak, Izuku answered.

"I've always liked Kacchan."

The phrase came out softly, almost like a confession. Not the confession of a secret — everyone there knew of his feelings for Katsuki — but the confession of something more fundamental: the constancy of that love, its timeless nature.

"Since we were kids," he continued, his eyes lost on some distant point, as if seeing not the room, but memories from another time. "At first, I didn't understand what it was. I thought it was admiration. Envy, maybe. That complicated thing kids feel for other kids who seem bigger, stronger, more... alive."

He took another sip, feeling the alcohol soften the words, making them easier to say.

"Over time, I started to understand it was more than that. But I also started to understand... other things about myself." He hesitated, but only for a second. "It took me a while to realize I liked boys. And girls. That the spectrum of what I could feel was broader than I had imagined."

Ochaco smiled gently. "I remember when you told me. You were so nervous."

"I was," Izuku admitted, returning the smile. "But you were... amazing. All of you were."

"It was obvious," Todoroki commented, as if stating a scientific fact. "The way you looked at him was always different."

Izuku felt a warmth in his face that wasn't just from the alcohol. "Was it? That obvious?"

"To those who knew how to look," Todoroki confirmed.

"But with Kacchan..." Izuku continued, returning to the central point. "It was different from anything else. More intense. More... loaded. Because of the history, the rivalry, everything we went through together. It wasn't something simple. It never was."

He paused, taking a deep breath. The memories were coming now, not as a painful flood, but as a gentle, inevitable tide.

"After we graduated from U.A..." he began, his voice a little lower. "Things got complicated. Not immediately, but... we drifted apart. Each following our own path, focusing on establishing ourselves as heroes. Kacchan went into that high-risk combat specialization. I stayed more in strategic rescue and containment. Our paths crossed less."

He looked at his hands, at the bottle he was holding.

"In that period... I got involved with someone else." The admission came out easier than he expected. "Shindo."

No one in the room seemed shocked. Perhaps they already suspected. Perhaps they simply accepted it as a natural part of life — people get involved, relationships start and end, especially when young and trying to figure out who you are.

"It wasn't anything serious," Izuku explained, not as an excuse, but as context. "Or rather, it was serious at the time, but not... deep. Not in the way that..." He didn't finish the sentence, but everyone understood.

"And Bakugou?" Tsuyu asked, her voice soft.

"We barely spoke in that period," Izuku replied. "Not out of anger or resentment. Just... lives moving in different directions. It happens. But we still talked, you know, as 'friends'."

Izuku took a deep breath before continuing.
It was strange to talk about it out loud. Strange because, for him, it hadn't been a big isolated event — it had been a slow return. Silent. Necessary.

"After that… we started talking again," he said, finally. "Not all at once. Not like before. It was little by little."

He interlaced his fingers, thoughtful.

"Short messages. A comment here, another there. A conversation that started about something stupid and ended up lasting hours." A nearly shy smile appeared. "And before I knew it, he was back in my routine. As if he had never really left."

His chest tightened slightly.

"We started seeing each other more. No weight. No demands. Just… company." His voice softened. "It was easy to be with him. To laugh with him. To be silent with him. I think that's when I realized how much I had missed that… him."

Izuku averted his gaze for a moment.
"I was happy," he admitted quietly. "Happy in a simple way. As if something that was always out of place had, finally, clicked back into its groove."

He shrugged, trying to seem casual.

"There was no label. No promise. It was just a very close friendship. Good. Safe." A pause. "At least… that's how I understood it."

Silence settled for a second, heavy with unspoken meaning.

"And then…"

Izuku's eyes lost focus on the wall, as if seeing through the present.

"There was one night..." he began, his eyes glazed over, but seeing something else. "A class reunion. After we graduated, everyone went their own way and we decided to meet up again. Everyone was there. Laughing loudly, telling exaggerated stories, drinking too much. The energy was... one of relief. That we had survived. That we were still together."

A genuine, light smile touched his lips for the first time that night.

"It was chaos. Mina tried to teach Todoroki how to dance. Kaminari tried to prove he could levitate by concentrating hard enough and almost fell. Iida tried to organize a schedule for the games."

Low laughter echoed from the group. It was a good memory. Warm.

"And then, slowly, everyone started to leave. One by one. Tired, happy, half-drunk." Izuku's smile faded. "Until only... the two of us were left."

The air in the room seemed to grow colder. He didn't need to say the name. Everyone knew.

"The place was a disaster. Empty bottles, peanuts on the floor, low music playing something melancholic on the radio. And a silence... a different silence. It wasn't the silence from before, when we were just rivalry and unresolved tension. It was a silence that had weight. That had history. That had... everything we hadn't said."

Izuku swallowed dryly.
"We were exhausted. Not from the party. From the weariness of years trying to navigate... whatever it was we had. And then... then he turned. And I turned. And we just... stared at each other."

He closed his eyes, as if he could see the scene on his eyelids.

"It wasn't pretty. It wasn't planned. There were no flowers or declarations. It was just... the tension of years exploding at a blind spot. A step forward. Another. And then... he kissed me."

The confession came out in a breath. Ochaco held her breath. Todoroki kept his expression neutral, but his eyes were fixed on Izuku.

"Or I kissed him." Izuku laughed, a broken sound. "I don't even know anymore. It was confusing. Awkward. Tasted like cheap beer and fries. It wasn't special. It was... an accident. A mistake."

He opened his eyes, and they were shining with unshed tears.
"But, my God... it was the most important mistake of my life."

The silence that followed was charged with raw empathy.

"Because after that… nothing was the same." Izuku took a deep breath, as if he could still feel the weight of those days on his chest. "For two weeks, we pretended. Sent messages about work. Avoided being alone. Neutral conversations, too safe. As if, if we didn't name it, maybe it would stop existing."

He passed a hand over his face, tired.
"But every time our eyes met… there it was." A brief silence. "The ghost of that kiss, standing between us. And I… I was terrified. Afraid he regretted it. Afraid it was just the alcohol. Afraid I had ruined the only good thing we had managed to build: the friendship. The partnership."
A low laugh escaped him, devoid of humor.

"Two weeks of pure panic." He shook his head. "I couldn't formulate a message without sounding like a short-circuiting robot. Overthought every word, every period."
Izuku took another deep breath.

"And he… he acted as if nothing had happened." His voice came out lower. "Too normal. But I saw it. Saw the tension in his shoulders, the way he avoided my gaze for a second longer than usual. As if we were walking around something too fragile to touch."

The silence that remained afterwards wasn't empty.
It was full of everything they didn't have the courage to say.

"And for a moment I really thought he had regretted it or something…"

"But he didn't regret it," Ochaco murmured, almost to herself, remembering old conversations, stolen glances she had witnessed.

"No." Izuku's voice became firmer, laden with an old, painful tenderness. "Two weeks later, he sent me a message. Blunt. 'There's a drive-in on the old road. Bad horror movie. 8 PM.' Was it an invitation? A trap? I didn't know."

He smiled, a small, private smile, as if reliving that nervousness.

"I went. Of course I went. He was already there, in his car, with the engine off, staring at the screen as if deciphering a battle code. I got in, and the air was so charged I almost ran out."

"What did he say?" Tsuyu asked, her curiosity genuine.

"Nothing. For a while. Then I said something stupid about the weather. And he just... sighed. And talked about the kiss."

Izuku felt heat rise in his face, even now.

"I tried to find a way out. Said we could forget it, that it was a slip-up. But he... he cut me off. Said 'no'. In that gruff, direct voice that left no room for argument. And then he said..." Izuku's voice faltered. He took a deep breath. "He said he had thought about it every day."

He paused, his heart tightening in his chest, reliving that crucial moment.

"And he kept going, looking at the windshield, not at me... 'But it could happen again.'"

The words hung in the air, sweet and agonizing.

"I almost couldn't believe it. Because Katsuki... he doesn't talk like that. He doesn't open up. He explodes, he fights, he provokes. But there... he was exposing himself. And it was the bravest thing I've ever seen him do."

"And it happened," Izuku finished, a small, sad smile touching his lips. "And after that… it was as if a door that was always locked finally opened. A whole year discovering what it was like to date your childhood best friend and rival. Another two years building a life. Planning a future."

The tears finally escaped, silent, streaming down his face.

"We tried," he continued, his voice choked. "It was strange. It was hard. We didn't know how to be. I was too clingy. He was too closed off. We fought over stupid things and made up in ways I don't need to mention."

Everyone laughed at their friend trying not to give details while Todoroki was still trying to understand. He took a deep breath, as if it still hurt too much.

"But it was… ours. It was real." A short, broken laugh. "I thought we knew. I thought it was forever."

He wiped his face with his sleeve, unceremoniously.

"And, without realizing it, I started staying at his apartment more than mine." A small, almost embarrassed smile appeared. "First because it was easier after missions. Then because… I liked being there."

He took a deep breath, as if revisiting every detail.

"I left a toothbrush. Then, some clothes. Then, half the drawer." A low laugh escaped. "He never complained. Never told me to take anything away. On the contrary. He always said it didn't make sense for me to go home so late."
Izuku's eyes softened.

"I loved every little proof that he was letting me stay. Loved waking up in his apartment and seeing him in the kitchen, hair all messy, face scowling, complaining about the coffee he was making, but drinking it anyway. Loved the quiet dinners, the movies watched almost in silence…" — his voice lowered — "...and the way he would pull me closer in the middle of the night, even asleep, as if afraid I'd leave."

His voice was full of love now, a love so vast and pure it was almost physical in the room. A love everyone could feel, and which made the loss even more incomprehensible.

"It was two years..." he whispered. "Two years where I really thought... believed... that we had finally learned. That we had found a way that worked. That love, however complicated, was bigger than our demons."

The silence that followed was heavy, but not oppressive. It was the silence of respect for a love story, for its beauty and its tragedy.

"And then... he started to change," Izuku said, his voice firmer now. "Not suddenly. Not overnight. It was slow. Gradual. Like the change of seasons — you only notice when you're already in the middle of it."

He shook his head, as if still trying to understand.

"He became more tense. More... explosive, but in a different way. Before, his explosions were... external. Directed at the world. Now, they seemed directed inward. As if he were fighting something no one else could see."

Izuku looked at his hands, remembering.

"He started getting hurt more on missions. Taking unnecessary risks. Pushing his limits beyond what was reasonable. And when I tried to talk about it..." He closed his eyes for a second. "When I tried to talk, he would shut down. Or worse: explode. Say I didn't trust him. That I was trying to control him. That I saw weakness where there wasn't any."

"And he started to pull away," Todoroki, ever wise, said.

Izuku nodded slowly. "Slowly. Almost imperceptibly at first. He grew quieter. More contained, but in a wrong way. As if the containment were pressure, not a choice. And then came the recklessness. Missions where he pushed beyond limits, took risks he didn't need to take. I tried to talk, and he... he became defensive. Furious."

The pain from those memories was different from the pain of the separation. It was the pain of misunderstanding, of disconnect, of seeing someone you love pull away and not knowing how to bring them back.

"I tried everything," Izuku continued, his voice now laden with deep emotional fatigue. "I tried approaching it in different ways. I tried giving space. I tried getting closer. I tried asking what was wrong. I tried asking nothing. But nothing worked. And every attempt, every concern, seemed to only make things worse."

He looked at his friends, his eyes glistening with the moisture of tears he wouldn't shed.

"On the day of the fight..." he began, but stopped, taking a deep breath. "On the day of the fight, I was tired. Tired of trying. Tired of not knowing what to do. Tired of seeing the person I loved destroying themselves and not being able to help."

"The final fight..." Ochaco began, hesitant.

"He came home after a mission that had gone wrong. No one died, but it was close. And he was... he was in a state. Furious. Hurt. And I asked if he was okay. Just that. 'Are you okay?'"

"It wasn't a fight," Izuku corrected, his voice firmer. "It was a collapse. His. Mine. Of everything we had built. He came home destroyed, literally and figuratively, from a mission. And I was tired. Tired of seeing the person I love get hurt and push me away when I tried to help. Tired of walking on eggshells. Tired of not understanding."

He took a long drink of beer, seeking courage in the bitterness.

"And then……."

— Flashback —

"Izuku never forgot the exact moment he realized he had crossed a line.

Not because Katsuki raised his voice — he always did. But because, for the first time, that look wasn't just loaded with anger. It was loaded with disgust.

And it was a disgust that seemed to seep into Izuku's skin, like a thin acid, burning through every layer of affection he believed he had built. The floor beneath his feet lost its solidity, turning into shifting terrain of insecurity.

It hadn't been a fight from the start. It escalated. Word by word, brick by brick of a wall Izuku didn't even notice he was building. Everything he said, trying to explain, trying to protect, seemed to hit Katsuki and come back worse, distorted, turned into something he never meant to say.

When he said he was worried… when he suggested Katsuki slow down a bit… Izuku genuinely believed, with the blind faith of a devoted heart, that he was caring for him. It was his way of loving: to watch, to cushion the fall, to reach out.

But Katsuki didn't hear care.

Izuku saw it in the instant his laugh came out short, bitter, like a knife being sharpened. It was the sound of everything Izuku felt being translated into a foreign and cruel language.

"'Slow down?'" Katsuki asked, his voice dangerously low, a whisper that cut more than a scream. "Are you fucking serious, Deku?"

Izuku felt his stomach sink, an icy vacuum opening in his gut. Fear, that old companion, tightened his throat.

"It's just… you're getting hurt a lot, Kacchan. And you don't stop. I see it. Everyone sees it."

He spoke with love. With that desperate urgency of someone who can't bear the idea of losing the sun, even if it burns. It was a love that hurt him first.

But Katsuki took a step forward. And the air between them changed, became electric and poisonous.

"'Everyone sees it,' huh?" he snarled, shoulders tense. "And what does everyone think, dammit? That I'm weak? That I can't handle it?"

"No!" Izuku's reply came too fast, a desperate reflex. His heart hammered against his ribs, a drum of panic. "It's not that! It's worry! I worry about you! I admire you! I've always admired you! I just want you to be okay!"

He vomited the words, as if throwing more love, more truth, more pieces of himself into the fire could put it out. It was what he always did: love more, carry more, bleed more.

It didn't work.

"'ADMIRE?'" Katsuki exploded, and the word was a blow to Izuku's solar plexus.

The impact was physical. Izuku recoiled an inch, invisibly.

"Is that what you call that kicked-puppy look? That sick need of yours to carry everyone's burden, including mine?"

The floor really seemed to give way. Izuku's world, built on the idea that his love, however clumsy, was good, cracked in half. He had never thought of his love like that. As something sick. Ugly. A burden.

"'If I were all that you say I am…'" Katsuki continued, his voice dropping to something cutting and intimate, more frightening than the fury — "'I wouldn't feel so suffocated every time you look at me like I'm a monster.'"

That was it. That's when Izuku's eyes began to burn. A sharp, hot pain behind the sockets. He blinked, quickly, confused, trying to follow that grotesque version of himself that Katsuki was mirroring — a ghost of pity and condescension he didn't recognize, but which, by the hatred in the other's gaze, seemed the only truth.

"'You don't trust me,'" Katsuki said, taking another step, invading every inch of space and sanity. "'Never trusted me.'"

Tears welled up, not of sadness, but of an epistemological despair. If the foundation is wrong, what's left? If your love is read as distrust, what are you?

"'You think if you're not there holding my hand, I'm gonna blow up along with the whole damn city. Your worry isn't for me. It's for you. For the fear of seeing me fall and not being able to do a damn thing.'"

"'That's not true…'" Izuku's voice came out small. Weak. The voice of a boy who couldn't make himself heard, not even to himself.

"'It's the goddamn purest truth between us!'"

Each word was a nail. Izuku saw himself nailed to the wall by Katsuki's perception, unable to struggle because a terrible, tiny worm of doubt gnawed at his certainties: What if…? What if some part of this is real?

"'You hide behind that nice-guy smile, that giant heart,'" Katsuki spat, and the contempt was an icy bath — "'but deep down you think you're better than everyone. That you have to save everyone. Even from themselves.'"

Tears rolled, silent and hot. Izuku never wanted to save Katsuki. He just wanted to stay. Walk beside him. He just wanted that incandescent boy, his sun since forever, to live. How could such a pure desire have become a prison in the other's hands?

"'I don't need your saving,'" Katsuki's voice was a cold blade now. "'I don't want your condemnation disguised as care.'"

Izuku's chest ached as if something inside him had ruptured. A ligament of the heart.

"'Your care suffocates.'" The word was heavy, final. "'It traps me. Makes me feel small. Wrong. Like I'm always about to disappoint you.'"

The silence that followed was the heaviest of Izuku's life. It was the sound of the vacuum, of the broken thing that makes no noise when it shatters.

"'And the worst…'" Katsuki hesitated. The hesitation, in that moment, was the cruelest thing. It was an instant of humanity that only made the blow more precise. "'is that you do it smiling. As if it were beautiful. As if it were love.'"

Love.

Izuku felt the world collapse. All color vanished. Love was the only thing he was certain he knew how to give. It was his strength, his weakness, his reason. And now it was being called a leash.

"'Love shouldn't feel like a leash, Deku.'"

The word echoed. Leash, leash, leash. Each echo was a little stab in his core.

"'You look at me like I'm a bomb,'" Katsuki continued, and the exhaustion in his voice was more devastating than the anger. "'Like I'm gonna blow up everything around me. And that… that's disgusting.'"

"'Katsuki…'" the name came out a breath, a final plea from a castaway.

"'That's not love. It's dependence.'" Katsuki looked away, and that turning away was a sentence. "'It's that way you touch me, talk to me, like I'm too fragile to exist on my own.'"

"'I never thought that!'" Izuku shouted, desperation stretching his voice until it cracked.

"'You think I don't notice?'" Katsuki closed the final distance. His breath was hot, his words, icy. "'That way of talking. Of looking. Like I only function if you're there, holding me back.'"

Izuku was trembling. A fine, uncontrollable tremor that came from his bones. It was the primordial fear: to be completely misunderstood by the person whose understanding matters most.

"'I look at you…'" Katsuki said, his voice so low Izuku almost didn't hear it, and so had to listen with his soul — "'and all I feel is guilt. Guilt for not being enough. Guilt for not being able to breathe around the way you love me.'"

When Katsuki looked at him again, Izuku knew. There was no more anger. It was a resolution. Something was broken. A vital connecting thread had snapped, and the rupture echoed in Izuku's body like an internal death.

"'So don't tell me this is just care.
Don't tell me this is beautiful.'"

The final whisper was the drop that overflowed the cup of a heart already flooded.

"'Because your pity… your need to save me…'" the pause was deadly — "'disgusts me.'"

That's when Izuku broke. The emotional spine that held his entire "self" together cracked. Love turned to shame. Care turned to repulsion. And if he was all of that, if his essence was disgusting, then let it all be lost.

"'Fine!'" he screamed, the tears finally overflowing in a river of despair and self-hatred. The pain was so great it turned to fury. "'If I'm a burden, if my worry is disgusting, if I'm suffocating, then fine! Go away! Go to your perfect world where no one cares enough to try and hold you back when you're running straight off a cliff! Go!'"

The silence that came after was worse than any scream. It was the sound of an abyss opening.

The fury on Katsuki's face faded, emptied. What remained was a smooth, impenetrable void. It was the absence of everything, even hatred. And to Izuku, that void was the worst thing he had ever seen.

"'Fine,'" Katsuki said. A single word. Flat. Dead. Accepted.

And Izuku knew, in that precise second, with a clarity that cut his soul in half, that he had just lost, with his own clumsy hands and overflowing heart, the only thing he had tried to protect his entire life. He didn't lose Katsuki to danger, or to a villain. He lost him to his own love. A love that, in the mirror of the other, looked too much like hate."

— Flashback —

"And he left," Izuku whispered, his eyes fixed on the floor. "He simply turned and walked away. And didn't come back."

The crying didn't come. The pain was beyond tears now. It was a dry, heavy thing, like a stone at the bottom of a well.

The silence that followed wasn't comfortable.
It was a shock.

Ochaco was the first to move.

"He…" her voice failed, and she brought a hand to her mouth, her eyes shining with contained rage. "He said that to you?"

Izuku didn't answer. He didn't need to.

That was answer enough.

"That's horrible," Ochaco said, standing up at once. "That's cruel, Izuku. Nobody talks to someone they love like that."

"I agree," Iida spoke next, his posture rigid, his glasses reflecting the light of the room. He was visibly tense. "Regardless of the emotional context, those words cross any acceptable boundary of communication. That wasn't venting. It was an attack."

Tsuyu crossed her legs on the sofa, her gaze too serious for someone who normally seemed so calm.

"He aimed exactly where he knew it would hurt, kero," she said, without mincing words. "Love, care… those are the most important things to you. He used them against you."

Ochaco turned her face away, fists clenched.

"I know he was hurting," she continued, her voice choked with indignation — "but that doesn't give him the right to make you feel disgusting for loving. Izuku, you didn't do anything wrong."

"Nothing," Iida reinforced, firmly. "Absolutely nothing."

Izuku felt his chest tighten.

They spoke with such certainty…
and yet, something inside him remained cracked.

That's when he noticed.

Todoroki hadn't said anything.

He was sitting farther away, his gaze fixed on an indefinite point on the floor. Quiet. Thoughtful. As he always was when something didn't quite fit.

"Todoroki?" Ochaco called, finding the silence strange. "Aren't you going to say anything?"

He blinked slowly, as if returning to the room.

"I am angry," he said, simply. "At what he said. At how he said it."

"And I'm not defending Bakugou," he said, too calm. His low voice cut through the whole room. "Before anyone thinks that."

Tsuyu tilted her head slightly, attentive.

"But…" Todoroki continued — "I also think it's dangerous to pretend this came out of nowhere."

Iida frowned.

"What do you mean by that?"

"You, Izuku, said he exploded. That he said all of this at once. Without warning. Bakugou has always been terrible at asking for help," Todoroki said seriously. "And even worse at admitting when something hurts."

Todoroki took a deep breath.

Ochaco frowned.

"Okay, but that doesn't justify—"

"I didn't say it justifies," Todoroki interrupted, without raising his voice. "I said it explains."

Ochaco hesitated.

"That doesn't erase what he said."

"It doesn't erase it," Todoroki agreed. "But it raises a question."

"You know I don't like him. Never have." One corner of his mouth twitched, almost ironic. "But I also know how to recognize patterns."

His gaze returned to Izuku.

"He always showed you off. In public. Without hiding. Even when it cost him reputation, judgment, comments." Todoroki spoke slowly, choosing words like someone walking on glass. "That never seemed like someone who feels ashamed or disgusted by the person at their side."

"Izuku… do you know why he exploded like that?"

Izuku's heart lurched.

"I…" his voice failed. He tried again. "I thought I knew."

Tsuyu frowned slightly.

"You thought, kero?"

"I thought it was just about me," Izuku confessed quietly. "About me caring too much. About me suffocating him."

Todoroki inclined his head a little.

"What if it wasn't just that?"

The air in the room changed.

"What if he was hearing that from somewhere else?" Todoroki continued. "Or believing something about himself that you never knew?"

Iida opened his mouth, but didn't reply immediately.

Ochaco bit her lower lip, thoughtful now, no longer furious.

"You're saying…" she began — "that maybe there's something Izuku doesn't know?"

"I'm saying," Todoroki replied — "that explosions like that usually aren't born in the moment. They just happen then."

The silence returned.

But it was no longer a silence of blind defense.

It was an uncomfortable silence. Full of doubt.

Izuku felt his stomach sink.

Because, deep down, that question echoed too strongly:

What if he never understood the whole fight?

Izuku closed his eyes. The image of Katsuki, not angry, but with that deadly void after his final shout, burned behind his eyelids. That void wasn't just spent anger. It was despair. It was the confirmation of a terrible fear.

"But," Izuku's voice came out hoarse, laden with a pain that was beginning to transform into something more complex and terrible — "even if that were the case… even if someone had said something, if he heard some comment…"

He opened his eyes, and there was a glint of green fire in them, not of heroic flames, but of a personal pain that refused to be anesthetized by simple explanation.

"I think that's worse."

The room fell silent, everyone looking at him.

"It's worse," Izuku repeated, his hand trembling slightly in his lap. "Because if that's it… if he was carrying something, believing something horrible about himself, and instead of coming to me… instead of talking… he let it fester until it exploded on top of me… If he turned my love into proof of a lie he believed…" Izuku's voice broke, not from crying, but from a sad, deep fury. "If he believed, for even a second, that I see him as fragile, as a disappointment… and his response was to destroy me… then the problem is much bigger than a fight."

He looked at Todoroki, his eyes pleading and accusing at the same time.

"Then he doesn't trust me in a way that even the old hatred didn't touch. And if he doesn't trust me with that… to be the safe harbor even when the world is talking shit… then what's left, Todoroki? What's left of us?"

The question hung in the air, heavy and unanswered.

Todoroki kept his gaze serene, but a shadow of sadness passed over his features. He understood. Understood the dimension of that betrayal.

"I'm not saying you should let it go," Todoroki finally said, his voice soft but firm. "What he did was wrong. It was cruel. And you have every right to feel that something broke. I'm just trying to… map the crater. To understand the force of the explosion. Because an explosion of that size leaves a trail. And the trail might lead us to what really detonated it."

Izuku swallowed dryly. The anger was still there, a hot, sore lump in his chest. The humiliation, the feeling of disgust, still soaked his skin. But now, mixed with all that, there was a new flavor: the bitter taste of worry. A worry that hurt because it seemed to confirm everything Katsuki had accused him of.

But it was different.

It wasn't a worry that wanted to carry, or fix. It was a worry that just… saw. And what it saw was the terrifying possibility that Katsuki had lost himself in a maze of his own insecurities, and in the process, tried to destroy the only person with a thread to guide him back.

"I'm not letting it go," Izuku whispered, more to himself than to the others. "I can't. For the words. For the way he said them. For the disgust."

He lifted his gaze, and his expression was one of devastated determination.

"But… if there was an external trigger… if someone put that idea in his head…" his fists clenched. "That's a different matter. And that… that I really don't let slide."

Izuku lowered his gaze.

That possibility — of someone having planted poison beforehand — brought no relief. It only brought more weight. Because, deep down, it didn't matter which version was true. In all of them, he was still at the center of the collapse.

"I spent months…" his voice came out low, almost ashamed. "Months thinking I had broken everything."

Tsuyu tilted her head slightly, attentive.

"Thinking that, if I were less intense… less worried… less me… maybe none of that would have happened," he continued, his fingers tightening on the fabric of his pants. "I thought it was my fault. That I wasn't good enough for him."
The words burned as they came out, as if they'd been stuck for too long.

"I thought loving like that was… wrong. That I was demanding too much. That I was asking for something he couldn't give." Izuku swallowed dryly. "So I accepted it. Accepted that I had caused the destruction."

He took a deep breath, his shoulders tense.

"Even now, a part of me still thinks that."

The silence that formed wasn't one of disagreement. It was one of impact.

It was only then that Iida spoke, his voice unexpectedly soft, breaking his usual rigid posture.

"You weren't the cause of the destruction, Izuku. You were the witness. And then, the victim."

"But I shot back too," Izuku argued, raising his eyes. "I also said things to hurt. I also lost my composure."

"You're human," Tsuyu said, simply. "Not a saint. You were hurt and you reacted. That doesn't equalize things."

"The hardest part," he confessed, much later, when the first beer bottle had given way to the tea Todoroki had prepared — "isn't the anger. I managed to process the anger. It's not even the sadness, though it's constant. It's the… lack of understanding. The vacuum. For years, I knew this person. Knew his moods, his silences, the meaning of every small gesture. And then, out of nowhere, I didn't know him anymore. And I don't know why. He never gave me a real explanation. Just… imploded and left me among the wreckage."

Ochaco moved to sit on the arm of his chair, placing a warm hand on his shoulder.

"Sometimes people don't have an explanation to give, Izuku. Sometimes they're so lost inside themselves that the only thing they can do is blow up the world around them."

"But I deserved an explanation," Izuku's voice came out with sudden force, charged with a long-contained pain. "After everything, after the years, after the love… I deserved more than to be treated like an enemy in a trench. I deserved… a conversation. An 'I'm lost.' A 'help me.' Anything."

It was the core of his pain. The betrayal wasn't just of love, but of partnership, of trust, of the shared history that should have meant something, anything, at the time of disaster.

"You deserved it," Todoroki agreed, his voice clear in the silence. "And the fact that you didn't get it says more about his state at the time than about your worth."

The simplicity of the statement was like a balm. Izuku sat with it for a moment, letting it sink in.

"And now?" Tsuyu asked, her head tilted. "With him near… what do you want, Izuku-chan?"

The million-dollar question. Izuku looked into his cup of tea, as if the leaves could give an answer.

"I don't know," he admitted, and it was the most honest truth of the night. "Part of me wants to run in the opposite direction and never look back. Build a new life, without this shadow. Another part… another part still lights up when I saw the mug on my desk. Still wondered 'what if?'. Still remembers the man who made coffee with respect, not the man who left with contempt."

He raised his eyes, looking at his friends.

"I think… I think I need to find out. Not what he wants. But what I want. And if what I want includes the possibility of him… well, then I need to find out if the person leaving coffee on my desk is real, or just another ghost."

The decision wasn't made. But for the first time, it was formulated. It wasn't about forgiveness or reconciliation. It was about understanding. About him regaining control of his own narrative.

Izuku ran a hand over his face, laughing low at first without humor — that crooked laugh of someone who realizes they've talked too much, felt too much.

His head was spinning a little, a delayed effect of the alcohol mixed with raw emotion, but, strangely, he felt lighter than he had in months.

"Thank you," Ochaco was the first to say, with a small, sincere smile. "For trusting us."

He blinked, surprised.

"It's not easy to open up like that," Tsuyu completed, her voice calm, steady as always. "Even when we're… a little drunk."

The corner of Izuku's mouth curved slightly, embarrassed.

"I talked too much, didn't I?"

"You talked enough," Iida replied, adjusting his glasses, but with a tone far from his usual rigidity. "And that requires courage. More than many imagine."

Todoroki simply nodded, simply, as if that said it all.

The tension began to dissolve gradually. Not all at once — not magically — but in small cracks. A silly comment about the time. A complaint about the uncomfortable sofa. A random memory from their U.A. days that drew an unexpected laugh.

Izuku found himself smiling for real when Tsuyu told, without any ceremony, an embarrassing story from their past. Ochaco laughed too loud. Iida tried to maintain composure and failed. Even Todoroki made a dry, out-of-place comment that made everyone stop for a second… and then laugh even more.

The conversation grew lighter, less sharp. Something fragile still hung in the air — no one pretended everything was okay — but now it didn't suffocate. It was like an exposed wound that, for the first time, was being cared for, not hidden.

Izuku leaned his head back against the sofa, listening to the mingled voices, feeling the warmth of that collective presence. He was still broken. Still confused. Still loving someone who hurt.

But he was no longer alone.
And, for that night, that was enough.

The night ended with tight hugs, promises not to let him isolate himself, plans to meet up on New Year's Eve. When the door closed behind the last of them, silence returned to the apartment.

But it was a different silence. No longer empty, but contemplative. The words that had been spoken, the confessions made, remained in the air, but now seemed to settle, to find their places, instead of hovering as a threat.

Izuku cleaned up slowly, washing each glass and putting away each plate. The action was ritualistic, calming. When he finished, he didn't go to the chair by the window. Instead, he walked to the hallway and stopped in front of the guest room door.

For a long moment, he just stood there, breathing. Then, with a determination that arose from some deep, quiet place within him, he turned the knob and entered.

The room was dark, smelling of dust and stored things. He turned on the light. Boxes of books, training equipment, various items. In the corner, a brown cardboard box, no different from the others, except for the black duct tape sealing it.

He knelt beside it. His hands trembled slightly as he took a pair of scissors from a nearby table and cut the tape. The flap opened.

On top of everything, wrapped in soft cloth, was the album.

He picked it up, feeling the weight of the leather, the smell of aged paper. He sat on the floor, leaning against the wall, and placed the album on his lap. For another long moment, he just ran his hand over the cover, feeling its texture.

Then, he opened it.

The first photo was old, blurry. Them at U.A., maybe in their first year. An awkward group after training, all sweaty and smiling. Katsuki was on the edge, with an expression of disdain, but his eyes were turned to where Izuku was, in the center, laughing at something Denki had said.

He turned the pages. Graduation photos. Mission photos. Casual dinner photos. And then, the photos of them. Few, but precious. A blurry selfie at an amusement park, both with expressions of pure panic after a roller coaster. A photo of them sleeping on the sofa, one on top of the other, taken by Ochaco during a visit. The mountain photo. The street fair photo.

Each image was a stab and a balm. The pain of loss, but also proof that it had existed. It was real. The love, the happiness, the partnership — they weren't an illusion.

He stopped on the last page. There was no photo there. Just a pale envelope, with nothing written on it. With visibly trembling fingers, he opened it.

Inside, there was a single sheet of paper, folded. The handwriting was unmistakable — strong, angular, almost aggressive, but with a certain elegance in the pen pressure.

It wasn't a love letter. Nor a farewell note. It was something simpler, more mundane, and therefore, more devastating.

Saturday Shopping List:
- Rye bread (the one from the corner bakery, NOT the supermarket one)
- Cheese (the kind you like, not mine)
- Fuji apples (if they don't have them, don't buy another kind, wait)
- Laundry detergent (NO fragrance, you always get it wrong)
- Change the living room lamp shade bulb (BUY a warm bulb, the cold one makes the room look like a lab)
- Remind Izuku his mom calls at 3. He always forgets.

So, what happened? What changed between this shopping list and the day he left? What was the earthquake that shook the foundations of all this?

The tears came, finally. Silent, warm, streaming down his face and dripping onto the paper, slightly blurring the ink where "Izuku" was written. He didn't stifle them. Let them flow, for everything that was lost, for all the unanswered questions, for the love that still stubbornly persisted, stubborn as grass growing in concrete cracks.

After the tears stopped, he sat on the cold floor for a while, the album open on his lap, the note in his hand. The pain was still there, but now it seemed clean, like a washed wound. The fog of confusion hadn't disappeared, but it had a shape now. There was a story. A story that ended in tragedy, but that had begun and had its middle in genuine love.

He carefully put the note back in the envelope, the envelope back in the album, and closed the lid. He stood up, a little sore, and put the album back in the box. He didn't seal it again. Just left the flap closed.

He left the room, turned off the light, and closed the door. Not with the feeling of burying something, but of archiving it. Of giving it a place.

Back in the living room, he went to the window. The city was covered in lights, a carpet of diamonds on dark velvet. The air was cold and clear against the glass.

December 27th was ending. The year was almost over. And in his silent apartment, a man who had always known how to save others was learning, slowly and painfully, how to save himself.

Chapter Text

The silence of the holidays was different from any silence Izuku had ever known.

It wasn't the silence of well-earned rest, nor that of post-mission exhaustion, nor even that of chosen solitude. It was a silence that weighed, that took up space, that insinuated itself into every corner of the apartment like an unwanted guest who didn't know when to leave. Izuku woke up at 6:47 AM, even though he had nowhere to run, even with U.A. closed until January, even knowing his only calendar commitment was a physiotherapy appointment on Thursday.

His body still didn't know how to live without a routine.

He lay there for exactly twelve minutes, listening to the distant sounds of the city waking up - cars, delivery trucks, the first subway passing by. Normality. Life moving on. And him there, stuck between what ended and what insisted on not ending completely. The bed was too big, cold on one side, as if expecting a body that would never lie there again. He stretched out his hand, touched the empty space, and withdrew it quickly, as if burned.

When he finally got up, his feet met the cold apartment floor with a familiarity that hurt. Everything here was his, chosen by him, organized by him. And yet, everything carried the ghost of another possibility. The kitchen where he never cooked for two. The living room where he never watched a movie with someone leaning against him. The bedroom where...

Izuku shook his head, pushing the thought away before it could fully form. Cold shower. Simple clothes. Coffee too strong, as always. The cup had a small crack in the handle, which he always turned to the side opposite his lips. A silly habit, but one that anchored him in routine. Today, without meaning to, he drank from the cracked side and felt the hot liquid drip a little onto his finger. A small chaos in a morning that was too controlled.

Time seemed to have stretched in a strange way. The days were long and empty, filled only by solitary training and the futile attempt to read books he couldn't finish. The last conversation with the Deku-Squad-with everyone knowing now, with everyone looking at him with that mix of pity and worry-had left an exposed wound. Izuku felt as if he had removed his own skin and shown the raw flesh to the world. And now he didn't know how to cover himself again.

The night before, he had dreamt of hands. Hands that held his, firm, with fingers interlocked so tightly it hurt. Upon waking, the memory of the touch was so vivid that it took him minutes to convince himself they were just phantom fingers, impressions of a body no longer within his reach.

The gym he chose was a twenty-minute walk from his apartment. Small, cheap, without glamour. Nothing like Wild Gym, with its state-of-the-art equipment, its elite atmosphere, and without...

Katsuki.

Izuku stopped in the middle of the sidewalk, closing his eyes for a second. That was the problem-everything led back to him. Everything was a mental shortcut straight to memories that hurt more than they should. Wild Gym didn't make sense anymore, he repeated to himself as he resumed walking. Not because Katsuki went there. Not because he himself had started going there "without realizing why" weeks ago. But because... it simply didn't.

It was easier to believe that.

The walk to the gym passed by a park where children played, under the watchful eyes of parents chatting on benches. Izuku looked for a moment, feeling a sharp pang of something he couldn't name-it wasn't envy, it wasn't nostalgia. It was the sensation of being outside the frame, of being a permanent observer of other people's lives. He moved on, the hood of his sweatshirt raised against the December wind.

Inside the gym, the air smelled of sweat and disinfectant. There were only two other patrons-an elderly man on the treadmill and a muscular man lifting weights with a focused expression. Izuku waved to the owner, a bald man named Sadao who always greeted him by name, and went straight to the punching bag in the corner.

"Hard training today, Midoriya?" asked Sadao, wiping a dumbbell with a cloth.

"The usual," Izuku replied, attempting a smile that didn't reach his eyes.

The gloves fit perfectly on his hands. The habit was comforting. He started slowly, warming up, feeling his muscles respond. First light jabs, then crosses, hooks. The impact against the bag echoed in the almost empty space, a rhythmic and predictable sound.

His body knew what to do. It was his mind that insisted on wandering.

I said too much, he thought, while a cross hit the center of the bag. I let them see everything.

Another strike, stronger.

And now everyone knows I'm... that. Someone who loves someone who doesn't want him.

Jab, jab, cross.

Someone who waited too long.

His breathing began to grow ragged. Sweat ran down his temple, dripping onto the concrete floor. Memories surfaced between blows, like flashes from a movie he no longer wanted to watch: Katsuki in the U.A. hallway, his back to him. Katsuki at the lake, his face lit by the moon, saying words that cut deeper than any physical blow. Katsuki the next day, avoiding him as if he were a contagious disease.

Maybe I loved wrong, he let the thought form, and the pain was so physical he almost lost his balance. Maybe all this time, I was just... clingy. Needy. The problem.

He stopped, panting, resting his forehead against the punching bag. The rough fabric smelled of old leather and dust. His heart was beating too fast for a workout, too fast for someone trying to move on.

He laughed, low, a dry, humorless sound.

"Lie," he murmured against the bag. "It's all a lie."

But which part? The part where he was moving on? Or the part where it had ever made sense?

Sadao glanced at him with an expression Izuku couldn't decipher-concern? Recognition? The old man must have seen so many lost souls pass through that gym, sweating out their pain on punching bags and treadmills. Maybe Izuku was just another one.

When he left an hour later, the weak December morning sun hit his face. The cold air contrasted with the heat of his body, raising goosebumps on his still-damp skin. Izuku adjusted the backpack on his shoulder, already thinking about the walk back home, the lonely lunch, the entire afternoon ahead with nothing to fill it.

That's when he heard the voice.

"Midoriya?"

He turned, surprised. Shindo was leaning against a lamppost on the corner, in jeans and a casual leather jacket, hands in his pockets, an easy smile on his lips. He seemed to have just appeared out of nowhere, but there was a naturalness in the way he stood there, as if waiting exactly for that encounter.

"Ah... hi," Izuku replied, a little awkwardly. His mind took a second to reconnect-Shindo. Shindo Yo. Hero from the east agency. The person he had... gone out with. A few times. A lifetime ago, it seemed now. Back then, everything was simpler. Or maybe Izuku just knew less about his own heart.

"Long time, huh?" Shindo commented, approaching. The smile wasn't invasive, just open. Inviting. "Saw you leaving the gym and thought... wow, what a coincidence. Why not say hi?"

Izuku nodded, still processing. He wasn't uncomfortable. Shindo had never made him feel uncomfortable. That was the point-he was easy. Uncomplicated. He didn't come loaded with history, with unspoken looks, with silences that weighed tons. With Shindo, there were no layers to decipher, no codes to break. He was a clear and calm surface.

"How have you been?" Shindo asked, and there was a genuineness in the question that made Izuku hesitate before replying with the automatic "I'm fine."

"Getting by," he finally said, with a half-smile that didn't reach his eyes. "And you?"

"Surviving the holidays," Shindo laughed, a pleasant and light sound. "The agency gave everyone time off, but you know how it is... we get kind of lost without the routine of missions."

"Yeah," Izuku agreed, feeling a strange relief hearing someone express exactly what he felt.

There was a brief silence between them, but not the kind that tightens. It was the silence of two acquaintances reconnecting, testing the ground, seeing how much the bridge could still hold. Shindo seemed a little different-more rested, perhaps, or just more self-aware. His light eyes scanned Izuku's face with gentle curiosity.

"You changed your haircut," Izuku observed without thinking.

Shindo touched his hair, surprised.

"Ah, yeah. About two weeks ago. Didn't think you'd notice."

Izuku blushed slightly. He had noticed. And now it seemed strange that he had noticed.

"Listen," Shindo began, tilting his head in a casual gesture, "I was thinking of going out later tonight. Nothing major. There's a bar over on Seagull Street, Seu Zé. It's chill, the beer is good. If you want... I don't know. Unwind a bit. Distract yourself."

Izuku froze.

The word "bar" echoed in his head more than it should have. Not because of the place itself, but because of what it meant. Accepting would mean crossing a line. It would mean admitting, to himself and the world, that he was willing to try. To move on. To not stay stuck in the same place, bleeding over the same wounds.

He thought of Todoroki. Of the calm, almost robotic voice saying those words at the lake, on that night that seemed to have happened in another lifetime: "Maybe moving on isn't forgetting. Maybe it's trying."

He thought of Katsuki.

Always Katsuki.

And he hated-with a force that surprised him-the fact that even now, even after everything, his first reaction to the thought of taking a step forward was feeling like he was betraying something. Someone. Someone who was no longer his, who perhaps never had been.

"I..." his voice failed.

Shindo didn't pressure him. Didn't come closer. Just waited, his face open, without heavy expectations. That's what made it all easier-and at the same time, harder to refuse.

Izuku took a deep breath. The December air entered his lungs cold, clearing some of the fog in his thoughts.

"Okay," he said, before he could think better of it. Before the guilt arrived first. "I'll go."

Shindo's smile widened, genuine.

"Cool. I'll send you the address and time." A pause. "And, Midoriya? No pressure. It's just... a beer."

Izuku nodded, unable to respond. Shindo gave a nod, turned, and started walking in the opposite direction, hands back in his pockets, as casual as he had appeared.

Izuku stood on the sidewalk for a full minute, watching Shindo's figure disappear around the corner. His heart was beating a little too fast. His hands were cold inside his sweatshirt pockets. He looked at his boxing gloves still slung over his shoulder, suddenly remembering how Katsuki had once mocked them-"pink gloves, Deku? Seriously?"-and how, the next day, he had shown up with a new pair, black, professional-looking, left at the door of his dorm room without even a note.

He started walking home, but his steps were slower now, as if carrying the weight of the decision he had just made. The city around him seemed different-no longer an empty backdrop where his pain was the only character, but a stage where other things could happen. Where he could, perhaps, be someone else. Or at least try.

The way back took him down a commercial street where shops already displayed Christmas decorations. Blinking lights, wreaths, a mechanical Santa Claus waving with jerky movements. Izuku stopped in front of a store window displaying scarves and gloves. He remembered a previous December, when he and Katsuki, still classmates, had been assigned to patrol the mall during the holidays. Katsuki complained the whole time but bought hot chocolate for both of them and insisted on paying. "It's not a date, you idiot," he had said, red to the ears, when Izuku thanked him. "It's just because you'd take forever choosing the change."

Back then, Izuku laughed, thinking it was just typical Kacchan. Now, years later, he wondered how many of those moments had been uncrossed bridges, misunderstood invitations. How many times he could have said something, done something, and changed the course of everything.

When he reached the building, climbing the stairs, opening the apartment door, a strange feeling accompanied him. It wasn't happiness. It wasn't anticipation. It was... active resignation. The conscious choice to try not to sink.

In the kitchen, while reheating his morning coffee, Izuku leaned his hands on the counter and closed his eyes.

"Maybe..." he whispered to the apartment's silence, "...maybe it's time to try living without looking back."

The phrase sounded false in the empty air. A lie he wanted to believe.

But lies were sometimes the only way to take the first step when the truth was too heavy to carry.

He opened his eyes and looked out the window. The sky was gray, typical for December, promising a damp cold for the rest of the day. Somewhere in this city, Katsuki was living his day. Moving on or stuck in time, Izuku didn't know. And perhaps-the thought came with a sharp pain-perhaps it was no longer his business.

His phone vibrated in his pocket. Izuku took it out slowly.

Shindo: Seu Zé, 45 Seagull Street. 9 PM. I'll see you there.

He read the message three times. Then, with slightly trembling fingers, typed his reply:

Izuku: Deal.

As he put the phone away, a strange sensation settled in his chest. It wasn't relief. It wasn't happiness. It was... a void. The emptiness that precedes a fall, when you've already jumped but haven't hit the ground yet.

Izuku looked at his own reflection in the dark window. His eyes were tired. His posture, slumped. But there was something new there-a weak, trembling, but real determination. The determination of someone who decides to stop bleeding in the same place, even without knowing where to go.

The day's chapter wasn't over yet, but he already felt the weight of what would come that night. And, for the first time in weeks, it wasn't just the weight of memory.

It was the weight of possibility.

And possibilities, he was learning, hurt in a completely different way.

The decision was made, but its weight only grew inside Izuku's chest. He paced the apartment for twenty minutes, his hands sweating, his stomach churning. The silence, which before was just emptiness, now seemed full of echoes-echoes of laughter that weren't his, of conversations that hadn't happened yet, of steps that could either walk away or come too close.

He needed to move, to do something, anything that wasn't thinking. He washed the cracked cup with excessive care. Organized the books on the shelf by color, then by size, then by author. Checked his phone seven times in ten minutes, as if expecting a message that would cancel everything-from Shindo, or maybe from... no, he wouldn't think about that.

By 2 PM, the restlessness became unbearable. He put on a coat and went out for a walk without a destination, just to move his body, to feel the real world under his feet. The streets were bustling with year-end shopping, people carrying bags, chatting animatedly. Izuku watched them like an ethnographer studying an alien species-how was it possible for them to be so light, so carefree?

He passed U.A., the gates closed, the campus silent. So many memories buried there in every stone, every tree. The training field where they competed. The cafeteria where they shared snacks. The dormitory where, on a stormy night, Katsuki had shown up in his room without explanation, sitting on the floor and staying silent for a full hour before saying "the sound of the rain sucks" and leaving. Back then, Izuku was confused. Now, years later, he understood that maybe it was the only way Katsuki knew how to ask for company.

The pain in his chest tightened. Izuku averted his eyes and quickened his pace.

On the way back home, he stopped at a small convenience store. While choosing an onigiri, he heard a familiar voice coming from the drink aisle.

"...not my responsibility, I already said."

Izuku froze. He knew that rough, impatient tone.

He looked over the shelf and saw Katsuki with his back to him, talking on the phone. He wore a black coat that Izuku recognized-it was the same one he wore the previous year when they got caught in the rain during a mission and had to take shelter under an awning. Izuku remembered how the fabric smelled of rain and something else, something that was just Katsuki.

"I don't care what they need," Katsuki continued, his voice tense. "I'm off duty. Let them handle it themselves."

He seemed tired. There was a slump in his shoulders that wasn't usually there. Izuku stood paralyzed, hidden behind the snack shelf, his heart beating so hard he was sure Katsuki would hear it. It was ridiculous, he was a professional hero, one of the most powerful in the country, and there he was, hiding in a convenience store like a scared teenager.

Katsuki ended the call with an irritated grunt and turned. His red eyes scanned the store absently, passing over the shelf where Izuku was... and stopping.

For a second that stretched into eternity, they stared at each other.

Katsuki's face showed no surprise. No anger. It showed... nothing. A smooth, impenetrable wall. He just held the gaze for a moment, then nodded in an almost imperceptible greeting and headed to the checkout.

Izuku stood there, rooted, until he heard the jingle of the doorbell announcing Katsuki's departure. Then he let out the breath he didn't know he was holding. His hands were trembling. The onigiri in his hands was crushed from how tightly he'd been gripping it.

He paid for the snack and left, looking both ways, but Katsuki had already disappeared into the crowd. The normality of the encounter-casual, mundane-was what hurt the most. This was what was left of them: two strangers greeting each other in convenience stores.

He walked home with slow steps, the taste of the encounter bitter in his mouth. Entering the apartment, he threw the uneaten onigiri in the trash and rested his forehead against the closed door, taking a deep breath.

That's when he realized: he needed an anchor. He needed reality.

His trembling hands grabbed his phone. He scrolled through his contacts, stopped at her name. Without hesitation-if he hesitated, he wouldn't call-he tapped the screen.

The phone rang three times before it was answered.

"Deku?" Uraraka's voice came with mild surprise. "Everything okay? You rarely call."

"Everything... yeah," he replied, swallowing dryly. "Or, actually, no. Are you... busy?"

A second of silence on the other end of the line.

"I'm just finishing a series I've seen three times. Why? You sound... strange."

"Can you come over?" The question came out more direct than he intended. "I need to talk. Before I give up on everything."

Uraraka didn't ask anything else.

"I'm coming. Forty minutes, max."

The relief that flooded Izuku was almost physical. He hung up, took a deep breath, and started tidying the apartment out of pure anxiety-fluffing cushions that were already fluffy, wiping a table that was already clean, rearranging books that didn't need rearranging.

Time passed slowly. Every minute seemed to stretch, full of questions he didn't know how to answer. What was he doing? Why had he accepted? Was it right? Was it fair? To him? To Shindo? To...

He stopped thinking. Kept tidying.

When the doorbell rang exactly thirty-eight minutes later, Izuku almost jumped. He opened the door, and there was Uraraka, in a faded pink sweatshirt, sweatpants, and a beanie that hid half her hair. Her brown eyes immediately scanned him, looking for signs of physical or emotional emergency.

"So?" She entered without ceremony, taking off her shoes. "What's the crisis level? One to ten, with one being 'need ice cream' and ten being 'let's bury a body'?"

"Six," he replied, closing the door. "Or seven. Maybe eight."

Uraraka tossed her bag on the sofa and sat down, crossing her legs as if she owned the place-which, in many ways, she did.

"Talk. I'm all ears."

Izuku sat in the opposite armchair, rubbing his hands together.

"Shindo asked me out tonight," he said quickly, before his courage fled.

Uraraka was silent for three seconds. Her face didn't change, but something in her eyes intensified.

"And you're going?" she asked neutrally.

"I already said yes."

"Ah."

Just "ah." Nothing more. Izuku waited, but she just looked at him, as if waiting for the rest.

"And... that's it," he finished, feeling silly. "I thought you'd... I don't know. Ask questions. Give your opinion."

"Do you want my opinion?" she tilted her head. "Because I can give it. But maybe you don't want to hear it."

"I called you," he reminded her, a little irritated. "Of course I want it."

Uraraka smiled, a small smile that reached her eyes.

"Alright then. First: you're shaking like a leaf. Second: you called me, which means you're already panicking. Third: you're looking for my validation or my 'don't go, it's a trap'?"

Izuku opened his mouth to deny it but closed it. She was right, as always.

"Both," he admitted quietly.

"Well, at least you're honest," she sighed, leaning back on the sofa. "So tell me: how was the invitation? Was he clear about what he wanted?"

"He said it was just to hang out, have a beer, nothing major," Izuku repeated, trying to believe his own words. "As friends."

Uraraka let out a little laugh.

"Deku, my angel, my light, my favorite hero," she said with an exaggerated sweetness that hid irony, "when a man who is clearly into you asks you out 'as friends' on a December night, he doesn't want friendship. He wants to test the waters."

"He's not 'into' me," Izuku protested, but his voice faltered.

"Oh, of course not," she raised her eyebrows. "That's why he looks at you like you're the last mochi in the world. That's why he disappears for weeks and then suddenly reappears exactly when you're most vulnerable. Pure coincidence."

Izuku fell silent. The room suddenly seemed smaller.

"I need to try," he said, more to himself. "I can't stay stuck forever."

"No one's saying you have to," Uraraka replied, her tone softening. "But you have to do it for the right reasons. Not because you're afraid of being alone. Not because you want to prove something to someone who won't even know about it."

"How do you know it's for the wrong reasons?" The question came out more defensive than he would have liked.

"Because if it were for the right ones, you wouldn't be here, shaking, calling me in a panic," she pointed at him. "You'd be getting ready calmly, maybe even excited. Instead, you look like you're heading to the gallows."

The metaphor was too accurate. Izuku sat on the edge of the armchair, shoulders slumped.

"What if I go and it's... good?" he asked in a small voice. "What if I like it? What if it's easy?"

Uraraka looked at him for a long moment. When she spoke again, the playfulness had given way to something softer, almost maternal.

"Then it'll be good. It'll be easy. And you'll discover you can like someone who isn't him." She paused. "But, Deku... you're 26. It's about time you stopped going out with people just because they're 'easy.' Sometimes, what's worth it is hard. Complicated. Full of back and forth."

"Like you and Iida?" he ventured, trying to lighten the mood.

She laughed, genuinely this time.

"Yeah, we fight, make up, talk until late. We don't avoid each other for months and then explode in public." Her gaze turned serious again. "What you and Bakugou do... it's not healthy. But it's not simply 'wrong' either. It's just... too intense to be easy."

Izuku looked at his own hands. The scars, the knuckles, the marks of a life of fighting. Why did emotional fights have to leave such different marks-invisible, but deeper?

"Do you think I should cancel?" he finally asked.

Uraraka got up and went to him, sitting on the arm of his chair. Her presence was warm, familiar, safe.

"No," she said, surprising him. "I think you should go. But go knowing why you're going. Go because you want to try, not because you're running away. Go open to the possibility, but without forcing anything." She placed a hand on his shoulder. "And if at any point you feel it's wrong, forced, that it's doing more harm than good... you get up and leave. No guilt."

Izuku took a deep breath. The weight in his chest hadn't disappeared, but it had reorganized. It was less chaotic, more manageable.

"You're the best friend anyone could have," he said, his voice a little choked up.

"I know," she replied with a mischievous smile. "And precisely for that reason, if you go and something happens, I want details. All of them. Even the embarrassing ones."

Izuku pushed her lightly, laughing for the first time that night.

"Nothing's going to happen."

"Says the man who's been shaking since I got here," she stood up, heading to the kitchen. "Do you have anything to eat here? I'm hungry. And you should eat too before drinking."

While Uraraka rummaged through the fridge with the familiarity of someone who lived there, Izuku sat watching. The normality of that scene-a friend making a snack in his kitchen, complaining about the lack of decent food-was a stark contrast to the turmoil inside him.

"I saw Kacchan today," he said, unplanned.

Uraraka stopped, half her body in the fridge. She turned slowly.

"Where?"

"At the convenience store. He was on the phone. We... we just looked at each other."

She closed the fridge, abandoning the search for food.

"And?"

"And nothing. He nodded and left."

"And how did you feel?"

Izuku thought for a moment, searching for the right words.

"Like I saw a ghost. A ghost that doesn't scare me anymore, but... that still takes up space."

Uraraka returned to the sofa, sitting facing him.

"Do you still love him?"

The question was direct, without preamble, and hit Izuku like a punch to the gut. He opened his mouth to deny it, to say he was getting over it, that he was moving on... but the truth escaped first.

"Yes."

The word came out low, almost a whisper, but loaded with so much weight it seemed to echo in the empty room.

"And do you think you'll ever stop loving him?" she asked gently.

"I don't know," Izuku admitted, his eyes welling up. "Sometimes I think not. Sometimes I think this love is... permanent. Like a scar that never fully goes away."

Uraraka reached out and held his hand.

"Then maybe the question isn't whether you love him or not. Maybe it's: can you live with this love without it destroying you? Can you love someone from a distance, without hope, and still build a life?"

"I don't know if I can," Izuku whispered.

"That's why you're meeting Shindo tonight," she concluded. "Not to replace. Not to forget. But to remember that you can still connect with other people. That you can still laugh, talk, feel something... even if it's different."

She was right. As always. Izuku wiped his eyes with the back of his hand.

"Thank you."

"You're welcome. Now, let's make some sandwiches before you faint from hunger."

They ate in silence for a while, the sound of chewing filling the space between unspoken words. When she finished, Uraraka looked at the clock.

"Almost eight. Are you going to get ready?"

Izuku nodded, standing up.

"I'll take a shower first."

"Good," she settled on the sofa, grabbing the TV remote. "I'll stay here. I'll stop you from escaping through the fire escape."

He laughed, really laughed this time, and went to the bathroom. The hot water helped ease the tension in his muscles, but not in his mind. As he dried off, he looked at himself in the mirror. The face staring back was still tired, still bore the marks of sleepless nights, but there was something different. A determination, weak, but present.

Chapter Text

The light in Izuku's bathroom was almost surgical, white and too cold for that time of night, reflecting back at him a version of himself he barely recognized anymore. He looked at himself in the mirror and tried to see something beyond his own exhaustion—maybe courage, maybe just a shadow of who he had been before everything fell apart. He couldn't. He only saw deep dark circles, pale and trembling skin of someone who had spent too many days trapped inside himself, feeding on memories that hurt more and more with time. The face staring back was that of a stranger—a man in his early twenties with old eyes, carrying a weight that didn't belong to him. The unshaven beard, wet hair dripping water onto the cold floor, breath coming in gasps as if he had just run a marathon. The truth was, he was running—from himself, from the past, from the ghost that insisted on inhabiting every corner of that empty apartment.

"You're nervous," Uraraka called out without even knocking, pushing the bathroom door open with the invasive naturalness of someone who had invaded that apartment and his life so long ago that boundaries no longer existed. "You look like an ostrich about to puke. And you're pale as a ghost on top of it."

"Maybe I will puke," Izuku retorted, drying his face with a worn-out cotton towel. Water was still dripping from his hair, and he realized he'd been in the shower so long the skin on his fingers was wrinkled and white.

Uraraka crossed her arms, leaning against the doorframe with the ease of someone who had invaded that bathroom hundreds of times. Theirs was that kind of friendship that didn't need fences or ceremonies—she had a key to his apartment, knew where he kept his headache medicine, had held his head while he vomited alcohol and regret the day after the Christmas party. Uraraka was as much a part of that apartment as the mold stains on the ceiling he pretended not to see and the persistent smell of coffee that permeated every corner.

"So tell me again," she said, in a tone that wasn't exactly a question, but a demand disguised as kindness. "You're going out with Shindo. For real. It's not a prank, it's not an illusion, it's not a Black Mirror episode. You're actually going out with Shindo."

"Not like that, Ochako," Izuku corrected automatically, but the correction itself sounded false in his ears. "Just... going out. As friends. Two friends getting a beer. Like normal people do. That's all."

"Friends?" she arched an eyebrow with surgical precision, but her tone was light, without judgment, just a hard acknowledgment. "Izuku, he asked you out when you were leaving the gym. If that's not a request for something more than friends, I don't know what is."

Izuku felt his face heat up, the blush rising from his neck to his ears. He had called her in a moment of panic, voice trembling, asking for help choosing an outfit, asking her to come quickly because he didn't trust his own ability to decide between black or blue jeans. Not because it was a romantic date. But because he needed someone to pull him back to reality before he decided not to go, before guilt and fear paralyzed him completely.

"I don't know if this is right," he admitted, looking at himself in the mirror again, but now seeing through the reflection, as if he could see the layers of himself trying to hide. "You know? Like, I feel..."

"Betrayed?" she completed gently, but the word cut like a razor.

"Wrong," he corrected immediately, and the word "wrong" echoed in the small bathroom like a sentence. "I feel wrong. As if I'm betraying a promise I never made, breaking a rule that never existed, stepping on sacred ground that was never mine to begin with."

Uraraka sighed, that long, heavy sigh she reserved for when Izuku was being especially dramatic and especially truthful at the same time. She fully entered the bathroom and sat on the edge of the tub, making the old ceramic creak under her weight. Her curly hair was tied in a messy bun with strands escaping everywhere, and she had a small scar on her chin that Izuku knew she got on a mission in their second year, but she always claimed was from chasing Pokémon as a kid.

"You're not betraying anyone," she said, clearly, emphatically, speaking slowly as if to let each word penetrate his thick skull. "You're not dating. He is not here. You two haven't had anything for months. Nothing for months, Deku. Zero. Nothing. What are you betraying? A fantasy? A dead hope? An emotional corpse you're carrying?"

The phrase hurt more than it should have. Izuku felt his chest tighten, as if someone had grabbed his heart and squeezed with deliberate force.

"I told you guys too much," he murmured, almost to himself, guilt dripping from every word. "I should have kept it to myself. Should have swallowed it. Should have been stronger and quieter, like I always was."

"You wouldn't have survived alone," she retorted, and there was a rare hardness in her voice, the hardness of someone who had seen friends break over less. "I've known you for fifteen years, Deku. You bottle up too much. You carry too much. And it explodes eventually. It exploded. And me, Tsuyu, Iida, even the slow one Todoroki—we're here to help you carry the pieces. But you need to let us see that you're broken first."

He knew she was right. Still, the feeling of exposure was like walking naked on a crowded street. Everyone could see the wounds now. Everyone knew he was so desperate as to love someone who didn't want him back the same way, so desperate as to throw himself into a situation he barely understood just to try to prove he could still feel something besides pain.

"Shindo is nice," Izuku said, changing the subject because the pressure of the truth was crushing. "He's... easy. Doesn't complicate things. Doesn't play games. Doesn't leave me confused. It's just... easy."

"Shindo wants you," Uraraka was direct, straightforward, speaking with the clarity of someone who had seen this movie before. "That's no secret to anyone, Deku. Not to you. Not to him. Not to the walls. Shindo looks at you like you're the last beer in the desert."

"He doesn't know anything about me," Izuku protested, but the defense itself sounded weak.

"He knows enough to keep looking at you like you're the last umbrella on the beach. I have eyes. And I have a radar for effeminate gay men. I know the difference between unrequited lust and real interest. Shindo has real interest. And you, Deku, you're using that."

The word "using" was like a punch, and Izuku flinched as if he had been hit.

"I don't want to use him," he said, and the honesty of the sentence broke him a little. "I don't want to be that person. That person who uses other people as emotional Band-Aids. I don't want to hurt anyone just because I'm hurt."

"You won't be using him," she said, and her tone changed, becoming softer, more maternal. "You'll go out. Drink. Talk. Maybe forget for two hours that there's an idiot eating you alive from the inside." She made a dramatic pause, looking deep into his eyes. "And if anything more happens... it happens. You're not anyone's property. Not even your own when you're in this state of living grief."

She had a brutal way of putting things in perspective, of tearing away the veil of self-pity and showing the raw reality. Izuku turned to her, leaning on the sink, feeling the cold of the porcelain through his shirt.

"Do you think I should?" he asked, and the question carried the weight of the world.

"I think you should do what makes you breathe without feeling like you're choking," she replied, simple, clear, using her words as relief. "If going out with Shindo makes you breathe? Go. If it drowns you? Stay. But decide. Don't stay in this hellish middle ground you've been living in for months. This emotional limbo is killing you."

Izuku nodded slowly, his head heavy. He picked up the toothbrush and started brushing, more out of a need to do something with his hands, to channel the nervous energy, than out of any real need for hygiene. Uraraka watched, patient, with the serenity of someone who had seen this movie before and knew the ending would take a while to arrive.

"Will you be okay?" she asked when he spat out the white foam and rinsed his mouth with ice-cold water that made him shiver.

"I don't know," he replied, and the honesty was disarming.

"Great answer," she said, and for the first time, there was a genuine smile on her lips. "Now come on, let me help you choose an outfit that says 'I'm trying to be a normal person' and not 'I'm trying to prove I've moved on from someone.' Because that second option reeks of desperation from miles away."

She pulled him into the bedroom with a strength that didn't seem possible from her tiny body. Izuku's room was a mix of a gym and organized chaos—books stacked in strategic places, folded but misaligned clothes, the ever-present smell of mold and coffee he could never eliminate, and in the corner, a hero backpack with a faded All Might symbol. Uraraka flopped onto the bed, crossing her legs as if it were a throne of a queen from a kingdom that only existed in her head.

"Black hoodie," she ordered with the authority of someone who had given a thousand emergency fashion tips. "Dark jeans, the ones that fit you well and aren't tight on the thighs. Clean sneakers, but not ostentatiously clean. Nothing that looks like you tried too hard. You don't want to impress. You want to... exist. You want to be seen as someone whole, not as someone broken trying to glue themselves back together with superglue."

He followed orders, dressing slowly, each movement calculated. Each piece of clothing was armor that didn't fit right, that had been made for someone else, in another life. When he finished, he looked at himself in the closet mirror. He looked like a stranger who had invaded Izuku Midoriya's body and didn't quite know how to operate the arms and legs.

"Is it okay?" he asked, insecure, his voice trembling.

Uraraka looked, evaluated him from head to toe, and nodded.

"It's great," she confirmed. "You look like you're going to have a beer with a friend and not to the front lines of an emotional war. Exactly what we want. You look human, Deku. Not like a walking monument to pain."

She got up and hugged him. Tight. Long. As if trying to transfer some of her serenity into his chest through physical contact. The hug was warm, real, anchored.

"If you need to, call me," she whispered in his ear. "Whether it's two in the morning or five. I'll answer. And if Shindo does anything that makes you uncomfortable, you leave. No mercy, no guilt."

"I know," he repeated like a mantra.

"And Deku?" she held his face between her hands, brown eyes fixed on his. "You're not wrong. You're just alive. And sometimes that hurts a lot. But pain is a sign of life. Remember that."

She stepped back, pulling on her jacket. At the door, she turned once more, and her look was a mix of concern and something that looked like pride.

"Whatever happens tonight," she said, "remember you're Izuku Midoriya. And Izuku Midoriya survives everything. Even himself."

She left. Izuku was alone in the apartment, listening to the silence reclaim its reign. He looked at the clock. 9:47 PM. He still had time. Maybe too much time. He grabbed his car keys, feeling the cold weight of the metal in his palm. The black BMW was the only luxury he allowed himself—a gift from the agency after a particularly dangerous mission where he almost lost an arm but saved fifteen kids. The car was black, discreet, but with an engine that roared like a promise of speed and escape. Izuku never knew exactly why he'd chosen it. Maybe because he was like that too: apparently normal, but with something roaring underneath, always ready to explode.

He went down to the garage, waving to the distracted doorman who was watching a video on his phone with the volume too loud, and started the engine. His phone vibrated. A message from Shindo.

"Waiting for you out front."

Izuku typed "on my way" and tossed the phone onto the passenger seat. The city at night was something else—slower, more intimate, more dangerous. The headlights illuminated streets he knew by heart, but which seemed different. Everything seemed different when you were trying to be someone else, when you were trying to escape yourself.

He parked two blocks from the bar, on purpose. He didn't want Shindo to see the car immediately. A silly point of pride, but it was all he had. He walked the two blocks feeling the biting December cold cut through the hoodie. The bar was simple—yellow lights, low music from some college country song he didn't know, a sign blinking "Seu Zé" in pink and blue neon. Shindo was there, exactly as promised, leaning against the wall, hands in his pockets, smiling as if that night were the most normal thing in the world.

"Hey," Shindo greeted, smiling, and the hug he gave was tight, too long to be strictly friendly. Izuku allowed it, feeling the warmth of the other body like a shock against the cold night. "Was afraid you'd bail. You look like someone who bails easily lately."

"Almost did," Izuku admitted as they separated, and the honesty slipped out without permission. "Three times. At my door, in the garage, on the corner."

"But you didn't." Shindo looked at him seriously, and there was an intensity in his gaze that Izuku hadn't noticed before. "That's what matters. Action beats intention, Midoriya. You came."

They entered. The bar was bigger inside than it looked—dark wooden tables, a solid wood bench, waiters running with trays of steaming snacks. The smell of fried food, beer, and hand-rolled cigarettes was comforting, mundane. Normal. Shindo chose a table in a corner, more intimate, away from the noise of the other customers. Izuku realized it was strategic—it had a view of the door, but was also secluded enough for private conversation.

"What are you drinking?" Shindo asked, already calling the waiter with a practical gesture.

"Anything," Izuku replied, because it didn't matter. The alcohol wasn't going to erase what needed to be erased.

Shindo ordered two craft beers—something about "double IPA hops" that Izuku didn't pay attention to. When the beers arrived, he took a big sip, feeling the bitterness flood his mouth. It was good. It made him feel present, somehow, anchored in the moment.

"So," Shindo began, resting his elbows on the table and leaning forward with the genuine interest that was part of his charm. "How's it been getting back into the hero routine after everything?"

"Normal," Izuku said, but Shindo expected more. He always expected more. "It's been... quiet. The vacation helps. Gives time to think."

"You've always been the type to keep your mind occupied, huh?" Shindo smiled, but it wasn't mockery. It was a gentle, calculated observation. "First U.A., then the agency. Never stopping. If there's no problem, you create one just to have something to solve."

"Stopping is complicated," Izuku admitted, holding the glass with both hands, feeling the cold of the glass contrast with the heat of his trembling fingers. "When you stop, there's space. And space makes you think. And thinking..."

"And thinking consumes you," Shindo completed, and it was a statement, not a question. He knew. He had done his research, perhaps. Or just noticed.

Izuku nodded. Drank more. The beer was starting to take effect—not drunk, but softened. The edges of his anxiety were less sharp, less cutting.

"And you?" he asked, turning the tables, desperate not to be the only one exposed. "Is your agency booming? New missions?"

"Always," Shindo shrugged, modest, but there was a gleam in his eyes. "But it's been... repetitive. Small missions, minor crimes. Nothing that really challenges. Nothing that makes it worth getting up in the morning."

"Are you looking for a challenge or a distraction?"

"Both," Shindo laughed, sincere, and the sound was pleasant. "I guess we always are, right? The line is thin."

They talked.

At first, about safe things—agencies they knew, rising heroes, names that appeared in reports and news. They commented on poorly planned contracts, on how certain agencies still insisted on old tactics, and on others that were starting to experiment with more flexible, more human strategies. Shindo spoke with contained enthusiasm, like someone who really cared about the subject, not to impress, but because he liked thinking about it.

He gestured as he spoke, drawing invisible maps in the air, simulating movements with his fingers, leaning his body forward when he wanted to emphasize a point. Sometimes he tapped the table lightly, sometimes rested his elbow, sometimes leaned just enough to make sure Izuku was following each thought.

And Izuku followed.

He replied, added, made technical observations almost out of reflex—habits that had never abandoned him. He talked about structural flaws in recent operations, about how certain heroes underestimated the psychological impact of a poorly conducted evacuation, about small details almost no one paid attention to, but that could save lives.

Shindo listened.

For real.

He didn't interrupt to put himself above. He didn't steer the subject to himself. When he disagreed, he asked questions. When he agreed, he explained why. Sometimes he just nodded, eyes attentive, as if absorbing each word before responding.

"What you just said," he commented at one point, pointing lightly at Izuku, "is exactly the kind of thing that goes unnoticed. But it changes everything."

Izuku blinked, surprised.

It wasn't a thrown compliment. It wasn't flattery.

It was technical recognition. And that hit a place that was far too sensitive.

The bar was full, but the sound seemed muffled around them. Laughter at other tables, glasses clinking, low music playing in the background—it all existed, but nothing invaded that small space forming between them.

Izuku relaxed his shoulders without noticing.

He laughed at times, a low laugh, almost incredulous, when Shindo made a particularly sharp observation about a famous hero they both knew.

He drank slowly, more attentive to the conversation than to the glass. For the first time in a long time, he didn't feel the need to measure every word, to anticipate reactions, to soften thoughts so as not to hurt anyone.

He spoke—and he was heard.

Not as a burden. Not as someone "too worried." But as an equal.

At some point, Izuku realized something that unsettled him: the constant knot in his chest had loosened a little. It hadn't disappeared. But it was... less tight.

As if, for a few minutes, he had permission to exist without carrying anyone.

Shindo asked another question, this time more open, more personal, but still safe enough not to invade.

Izuku answered.

And, as he spoke, he had the strange feeling that this moment—simple, even banal—was something he had forgotten could exist: a conversation that didn't hurt, that didn't require sacrifice, that wasn't accompanied by guilt.

He didn't notice when he started smiling for real.

And maybe that was exactly what made everything so dangerous.

"You should come work with us," Shindo said suddenly, serious, and the proposal hung in the air like an unasked-for promise. "Your agency underutilizes you. You're too good for small missions. You need something that makes you feel alive."

"I like my agency," Izuku replied automatically, the immediate defense of someone who doesn't want to admit the other person might be right.

"Do you like it, or are you just used to it?" Shindo pressed gently, and his gaze was too perceptive. "Because those are different things, Midoriya. One is a choice. The other is fear of change."

Izuku opened his mouth to answer but wasn't sure what to say. He did like the agency. It was safe. Known. Familiar. But Shindo was right—there was a difference between liking and habit, between passion and comfortable routine.

"I'll stay where I am," he said finally, as if needing to convince himself more than Shindo. "For now. I'm also teaching at U.A. I have roots. Responsibilities."

"Roots can also trap you," Shindo observed, without judgment, just stating a fact. "Sometimes you need to pull them up to grow. Sometimes the plant dies if it stays in a pot that's too small."

The conversation flowed. Natural. Easy. Izuku felt his constantly aching shoulder relaxing, the tension dissolving somewhere between the second and third beer. Shindo told funny mission stories, rookie mistakes, monumental errors that turned into lessons. Izuku laughed. For real. The sound of his own laughter was strange, almost forgotten. It was like hearing a language he no longer spoke.

And then, in the middle of a laugh, he felt it.

It wasn't a look.

It was a sensation.

As if something had shifted in the world's axis. As if the room's temperature had dropped a few degrees at once, making the hair on Izuku's arms stand up under his shirt. The bar's buzz continued—laughter, music, glasses clinking—but everything seemed muffled, distant, as if he were submerged in thick water.

The air became heavy. Dense. Hard to breathe.

Izuku turned his head before even understanding why. An old reflex, etched into his body before his consciousness. And then he saw.

Katsuki was there.

At the back of the bar, at a darker table, partially swallowed by the shadows. A half-drunk beer bottle sat abandoned in front of him, condensation slowly sliding down the glass. He had been there for some time—you could tell by the way he occupied the space, like someone who had settled into his own pain and decided not to move.

The hunched posture didn't suit him. It never had.

His broad shoulders, which had always held up the world with arrogance and fire, now seemed folded inward, as if caving under a weight too invisible to be shared. The open jacket, the body leaning forward, elbows on the table—not in a relaxed position, but in an almost unconscious effort to hold himself together.

The eyes... the eyes hurt the most.

They weren't on Izuku. Not exactly on Shindo either. They were stuck on some intermediate point, an empty place between the present and a thought that refused to leave. Glassy. Tired. Without the usual cutting gleam. Without explicit anger. Without challenge.

It was worse.

He looked like someone who had already screamed everything he could, broken everything there was to break—and now only silence remained.

Katsuki looked destroyed.

Not in the obvious sense of blood or injuries. But in that kind of silent, internal destruction that doesn't ask for help because it's already given up on the idea of being saved. Like someone who had nothing left to lose... and was still losing.

Izuku's chest tightened in a cruel way.

He froze.

The glass hung suspended halfway to his mouth, fingers locked around the glass. His breath caught in his throat, short, shallow, as if the air had suddenly become insufficient. For a second—just one—all that existed was that image. That version of Katsuki he should never have seen.

And, along with it, came the guilt.

Thick. Automatic. Almost suffocating.

But the moment didn't last.

Because Shindo touched his arm.

The touch was gentle, almost too careful for that noisy environment—but firm enough to violently pull him back to the present. The fingers closed around his forearm, a simple gesture that broke the trance like a dry snap.

"Izuku?" Shindo's voice came low, close, laden with genuine concern. "You okay?"

Izuku blinked quickly, as if waking from a bad dream. The world slowly returned: the sound, the light, the weight of his body on the stool. But the feeling didn't leave.

It stayed there.

The uncomfortable certainty that, from that instant on, nothing that night would be simple. Or light. Or safe.

Because Katsuki was there.

And, even without looking directly at him, Izuku knew—with a bitterness too clear to ignore—that his presence changed everything.

"I'm fine," Izuku lied, the word coming out automatically, looking back at him, but now with a layer of cold sweat on his neck. "Just distracted. Really distracted."

"Don't get distracted," Shindo smiled, and the smile was too perfect, too calm. "Stay here. With me. In the present moment."

And Shindo leaned in. Closer. His shoulder touched Izuku's, and the proximity was too intimate for friends who had just met. His voice lowered, becoming a whisper that Izuku felt more than heard.

"He's watching," Shindo whispered, warm against Izuku's ear. "He's over in the corner, drinking alone. Looks like an abandoned dog."

Izuku felt a pang in his chest. But it wasn't pity. It was anger. Why was Katsuki there? Why did he always appear just when Izuku was trying to move on? Why did he have to be a shadow in every moment that could have been light?

"It doesn't matter," Izuku murmured, drinking more beer to drown the rising emotion.

"It does matter," Shindo insisted, the whisper now a private conversation only they shared. "He's watching you. Monitoring you. Is that healthy? Do you think it's normal for an ex to follow you around?"

"He's not my ex," Izuku retorted, the reply coming quickly, defensive.

"What is he, then?" Shindo asked, and the question was a trap. "Because if he's not an ex, not a friend, not anything... then what is he doing here, Midoriya? What does he want?"

Izuku didn't know how to answer. Shindo touched his arm again, a touch meant to be comforting but now seemed calculated.

"I don't want him to hurt you anymore," Shindo said, and his voice was full of a concern that seemed too genuine. "I see how you get when he's around. You disappear. You vanish. And I don't want you to vanish. I like you here. Present. With me."

Izuku felt his body react, but it wasn't desire. It was... comfort. Warmth. Proximity that didn't hurt, that didn't demand, that didn't exact a price.

He didn't see. He didn't notice. But Katsuki saw everything.

Katsuki saw every inch Shindo closed between them. Every laugh that echoed louder, more genuine, more cruel in its false innocence. Every touch that seemed casual but wasn't. Every look Shindo shot to the corner where Katsuki sat, every smile Shindo gave—small, at the corner of his mouth, almost imperceptible, but calculated.

Katsuki drank. More. Faster. The anger wasn't hot, it wasn't the fire he knew. It was icy. Extremely icy. It grew in his stomach, spreading through his veins, paralyzing and accelerating at the same time, creating a red mist at the corners of his vision.

He shouldn't be there. He shouldn't have come. But he was, and now he couldn't leave.

Katsuki Bakugo watched Izuku Midoriya laugh with Shindo Yo, and every laugh was a stab. Every gesture, every touch, every approach Shindo made was a nightmare on loop. And he was tied to his chair, unable to look anywhere else, consuming every detail as if it were the last. Because maybe it was. Because maybe this was the last image he would have of Izuku happy, and it wouldn't be with him.

The icy anger grew. And Katsuki knew, with absolute certainty, that he was one step away from exploding in a way he wouldn't be able to control.

And Shindo Yo, he knew it. He smiled at Katsuki from the corner of his eye, every gesture calculated to provoke, every touch on Izuku an act of silent warfare.

The entire bar was a minefield. Katsuki was about to step on the mine.

Shindo's third beer arrived along with a plate of fries he pushed to the center of the table, inviting Izuku to eat. Izuku took a fry, felt the salt on his tongue, the hot grease. It was good. It was earthy. It was real. Something to hold onto, something to fill his hands while his head spun.

"You're thinking too much," Shindo commented suddenly, spinning his glass between his fingers, too casual to not be intentional.

Izuku let out a short, humorless laugh. "That's not new."

"No," Shindo agreed, tilting his head. "But today it's different. It's like you're here... and at the same time you're not."

Izuku took a moment to answer. The bar noise filled the silence between them, the low music, someone's laughter at the next table. He took a deep breath, feeling the light alcohol warm his chest.

"I just..." he started, and stopped. He frowned, as if searching for words was exhausting. "I just wanted to stop thinking for a bit. That's all."

Shindo watched him with quiet attention, not pressing.

"Stop thinking about what?"

Izuku shrugged, but the gesture came out heavy. "Everything. About what already happened. What I did. What I could have done differently." He rubbed his face, tired. "I don't want to solve anything tonight. I don't want to understand anything. I just... want to forget. Even if it's just for a few hours."

There was a pause.

Shindo smiled slightly. Not a malicious smile, not a pitying one—a conspiratorial smile.

"I get that," he said. "Sometimes we don't need answers. We need silence in our heads."

Izuku looked at him, surprised. "You don't think that's wrong?"

"I think it's human." Shindo raised his glass, toasting in the air. "No one can carry the past all the time. There are days when surviving is enough."

Izuku felt something loosen inside his chest. An old knot, perhaps. He took another sip, letting the good feeling spread.

"It's strange," he admitted. "But I'm... okay here. Right now."

"I know," Shindo replied simply. "You can see it."

His gaze wasn't invasive. It was present. As if he were there just to accompany, not to pull or push.

"And it's okay if that's all it is tonight," he continued. "You don't have to forget forever. Just rest from the pain a little."

Izuku breathed deeply, for the first time that night without feeling the weight crushing his lungs.

"Thank you," he said quietly. "For not trying to fix everything."

Shindo smiled again, this time more openly. "That's not what I want." He touched Izuku's glass with his own in a soft toast. "I just want to help you get through this night."

Izuku returned the gesture, feeling the warmth of the moment, the conversation flowing easily, laughter coming more freely than it had in weeks.

And, for a few hours, forgetting seemed possible.

"And on New Year's?" Shindo asked, as if it were nothing, leaning his elbow on the table. "Know what you're doing?"

Izuku made a thoughtful sound, swirling the ice in his glass.

"Not yet." He shrugged. "Mina always does something. A party, usually. House full, loud music, too many people... her kind of organized chaos."

"Makes sense," Shindo laughed. "Fits her."

"Yeah," Izuku agreed, a small smile appearing. "But I don't know if I'll go. Sometimes I think about going to my mom's. Sometimes I think about doing nothing. Sleep before midnight and pretend the year turned over by itself."

"A solid plan," Shindo commented. "Underrated, even."

There was a brief, comfortable silence between them.

"Funny you mention that," Shindo resumed casually. "She invited me too."

Izuku looked up, surprised.

"Seriously?"

"Yeah." Shindo made a vague gesture with his hand. "Me, Camie... and some people I know from before. School days crowd. Nothing set in stone yet."

Izuku nodded, absorbing the information without hurry. "Mina never misses a chance to bring different worlds into the same room."

"Not one bit." Shindo smiled. "But I haven't decided if I'm going either."

"Why not?"

Shindo tilted his head, watching Izuku for a second longer than necessary. "Because it depends."

"Depends on what?"

"On you."

The reply came simply, without exaggerated weight, as if it were obvious.

"If you go... I'll go too."

Izuku blinked, caught off guard for a moment. The comment didn't sound like pressure, nor explicit flirting. It sounded like a choice. And that left him... thoughtful.

He averted his eyes, lifting the glass to his lips to buy time. "I... we'll see," he replied finally, in a tone too light to betray the internal turmoil. "There's still a few days left."

"There are," Shindo agreed, relaxed. "Enough time to change your mind at least ten times."

Izuku laughed, sincere this time. "At least."

And, as the laughter dissipated, the idea remained there. Suspended. No decision made—but impossible to ignore.

And then he made the move. The move that changed everything. Shindo leaned forward, his left hand touching Izuku's arm, not as a casual touch, but as a claim. His eyes, however, weren't on Izuku. They were fixed beyond his shoulder, fixed on the dark corner where Katsuki sat.

And Shindo smiled. A small smile, at the corner of his mouth, that lasted exactly two seconds. But it was enough.

It was a smile for Katsuki. A smile that said: See. He's here with me. Not with you. See how he lets me get close. See how he laughs at my jokes. See how he doesn't look back.

Katsuki saw. And Katsuki understood. And Katsuki lost the control he had been holding by threads that were far too thin.

His third beer was empty. The fourth was already on the table, without him ordering. The waiter had noticed the mood, the state, and decided more alcohol was the answer. Maybe it was. Maybe not. Katsuki grabbed the glass, spilling a little in the process, and drank half in one go.

His thoughts were a whirlwind.

Why is he smiling like that? Why is he so close? Why does he touch him like that, as if it's natural, as if he's his? Why does Izuku let him? Why doesn't he pull back? Why doesn't he see? Does he see? Does he know? Does he want this?

And the most painful question of all, the one hammering without stopping:

Why isn't it me?

Katsuki knew the answer. He knew why it wasn't him. Because he had been a coward. Because he had destroyed the only good thing he had ever touched with his trembling, pride-dirty hands. Because he had chosen fear over love, silence over truth, loneliness over vulnerability.

But knowing didn't ease the pain. Knowing only made the pain smarter. More cruel.

And then Shindo made the final move. The move that broke the chains holding Katsuki back. Shindo leaned in so much that his face was centimeters from Izuku's, whispered something in his ear, something that made Izuku laugh, a low, surprised laugh, and at the same time, Shindo placed his hand on Izuku's chair, behind his back, creating a physical barrier that was also a territorial claim.

And he looked directly at Katsuki. Eye to eye. Pure challenge.

This was no longer a game. This was war.

Katsuki stood up. The chair screeched as it was violently pushed back, but the sound was muffled by the bar's music. He didn't shout. He didn't say anything. He just crossed the bar in three long, determined strides, each step an echo of contained anger finally finding an outlet.

The people around noticed the mood changing—there were no shouts yet, but there was a density in the air that announced imminent violence. Izuku turned his head, finally, and saw Katsuki coming. His eyes widened. Surprise. Confusion. Fear. A mix of emotions Katsuki had never seen on him, at least not directed at him.

"Katsuki, what are you—"

Katsuki didn't answer. He had no words. Words were useless now. He grabbed Shindo by the collar of his shirt, lifted him from the chair with a force that surprised even himself, and punched.

The impact was dry. Clean. Terrible. The sound of flesh colliding with flesh, of a jaw dislocating, of blood spraying. Shindo fell backward, taking the table with him. Glasses broke. Beer spilled. Shouts echoed—finally, the whole bar reacted. Izuku jumped from his seat, instinctive, hands raised in a defensive stance, but Katsuki was already standing still, breathing heavily, hand trembling, gaze fixed on Shindo on the floor.

"WHY DO YOU ALWAYS HAVE TO RUIN EVERYTHING!" Izuku screamed, his voice breaking in the middle, not with pure anger, but with something older, deeper, a reopened wound. "WHAT'S YOUR PROBLEM? WHY CAN'T YOU LET ME BE HAPPY? WHY DO YOU ALWAYS HAVE TO BE THE HURRICANE IN MY LIFE?"

Katsuki looked at him. For the first time that night, his eyes truly met Izuku's. And what Izuku saw there paralyzed him. It wasn't hatred. It wasn't anger. It was pain. Pure, raw pain, unfiltered, unmasked. Katsuki was as broken as he was. Maybe more. Maybe he had been destroyed longer ago, but no one had noticed because the facade was so good.

"Happy?" Katsuki spat the word like poison. "This is you happy? This is you living? This is just you trying to prove you don't need me!"

"You have no right to say that!" Izuku screamed back, his hands trembling. "You have no right to appear in my life when you want, disappear when you want, think you can control who I see, who I go out with! You lost me! You lost me and now you can't stand seeing me trying to move on!"

"Move on?" Katsuki laughed, a dry, empty sound with no humor. "This isn't moving on, this is throwing yourself into the arms of the first idiot who gives you attention!"

"At least he gives me attention! At least he doesn't disappear for months and then show up like nothing happened! At least he doesn't make me feel like I'm a mistake!"

The words were said. The silence that followed was louder than any scream. Katsuki took a step back, as if physically struck. His eyes blinked rapidly, and for the first time, something beyond anger appeared in them—something that looked like regret, something that looked like terror.

"I never..." he began, but his voice failed.

"You never what, Bakugo?" Izuku asked, and now there were tears in his eyes, but he wouldn't let them fall. "You never hurt me? You never wanted to make me feel like I was a nuisance? You never acted like I was the worst thing that ever happened to you?"

Shindo groaned on the floor, trying to get up, blood streaming down his face. But neither Izuku nor Katsuki seemed to notice him now. They were in a world apart, a universe of two where everything hurt and nothing made sense.

"I..." Katsuki tried again, but the words wouldn't come. They were stuck somewhere between his throat and his chest, drowned in pride and fear and years of silence.

"Just get out of here," Izuku said quietly, and his voice was tired now, exhausted. "Please. Just leave. Let me take care of the man you just beat up. Let me clean up your mess one more time. That's what you do, isn't it? Create chaos and let others clean it up."

Katsuki opened his mouth to respond, but said nothing. He just shook his head once. Turned. And walked away. He threw some bills on the counter as he passed, more than enough to cover everything. He didn't look back. He couldn't. If he looked, he'd break completely. If he looked, he wouldn't be able to leave.

Izuku stood still, his heart beating so fast it hurt in his chest, a hammer against his bones. Around him, the bar resumed its routine, but everything seemed distorted, as if he were seeing through water. Shindo moaned on the floor, holding his broken nose. Blood flowed between his fingers, bright red against his pale skin, creating puddles on the wooden floor.

"Izuku..." Shindo called, his voice muffled, choked with blood and pain.

Izuku knelt beside him, instinctive, the hero always active, always wanting to help. He needed to do something. A waiter arrived with clean rags, towels, ice. Izuku pressed on Shindo's nose, trying to stem the blood that wouldn't stop.

"I'm taking you to the hospital," Izuku said, authoritative, using the voice he used on missions when decisions needed to be quick.

"No," Shindo refused, his head slightly tilted back, and there was something in his eyes, a lucidity that didn't match the pain. "No need. I just... just need to take care of this. Can you take me to your place? Stay with me until I recover?"

Izuku stopped. The question was simple. The answer was an abyss. Taking Shindo home, after what had just happened, after the scene Katsuki made, after the scene Katsuki SAW, was a message. It was a choice. It was a period that he might not be ready to put.

"Shindo, you need medical attention," Izuku insisted, trying to be reasonable. "Your nose might be broken. You could have a concussion."

"I'm a hero, Midoriya," Shindo replied, and despite the pain, there was a stubbornness in his voice. "I've had worse. I just need ice and rest. And... and I don't want to go to the hospital alone. I don't want to explain to some random doctor that the great Dynamight broke my nose in a fit of jealousy."

The mention of jealousy made Izuku shudder. He looked at the door through which Katsuki had left. The dark street. The cold night. No one else there to explain anything to him, no one to say "wait, it's not what it seems." Just silence. Just the choice.

"Please," Shindo whispered, vulnerable, and his voice was small, brittle. "I... I don't want to be alone. I don't want you to leave me alone."

It was the guilt. It was the empathy. It was the fact that Shindo was there because of him, now hurt, humiliated, with a broken nose and wounded dignity. Izuku couldn't just leave him. He couldn't be another monster in the collection of monsters he was already carrying. He couldn't be the person who destroys and abandons.

"Let's go," he said finally, his voice coming from somewhere distant, helping Shindo up carefully.

Outside the bar, the night was colder, biting. Izuku led Shindo to the BMW, helped him into the passenger seat with the gentleness of someone handling something breakable. The blood was already starting to stain the black leather upholstery, small drops spreading like silent accusations. Izuku didn't care. Starting the engine, driving, focusing on the road—that was easy. Action. Movement. Escape.

The drive to his apartment was silent, except for Shindo's occasional groans. Izuku tried to keep conversation to a minimum, concentrating on the red lights, on the pedestrians crossing the streets like ghosts in the night fog.

"You shouldn't have done that," Shindo said suddenly, when they were only a few blocks away.

"Done what?" Izuku asked, distracted.

"Defended me," Shindo clarified, his voice still muffled by the swelling. "You could have let him hit me more. You could have let him get his satisfaction. But you put yourself between us. You defended me."

"I didn't defend you," Izuku corrected bitterly. "I just tried to stop the situation from getting worse. And I failed miserably."

"To him, you defended me," Shindo insisted. "To him, you chose my side. And that... that means something, Midoriya. Even if you don't want it to."

Izuku didn't answer. He parked in front of the building, turned off the engine, and sat for a moment, looking at the lights of his empty apartment on the third floor. His hands still trembled slightly on the steering wheel.

"Come on," he finally said, getting out of the car and coming around to help Shindo.

The walk to the apartment was slow, painful. Shindo leaned on Izuku, his warm, real weight against Izuku's body. When they finally reached the door, Izuku hesitated for a second before inserting the key. He was about to cross a threshold, and he knew it.

Across the street, Camie watched. She had followed Katsuki to the bar earlier, at Kirishima's request, worried about his state, and ended up witnessing the entire scene from outside, through the window. Now, she saw Izuku helping Shindo into the building. She saw the lights in Izuku's third-floor apartment turn on.

She took out her phone, adjusted the zoom, and took three photos—Izuku, helping Shindo, his nose bleeding, entering the building together. The third photo clearly showed the blood on the car seat, dark red stains against the black leather.

Her hands trembled as she typed a message to Kirishima, the adrenaline still coursing through her veins.

Camie: You won't believe what I just saw. And I don't know what to do with it.

The reply came in seconds.

Kirishima: What? Are you okay? Where are you?

Camie: I'm in front of Midoriya's building. Bakugo was at Seu Zé's bar. He saw Midoriya with Shindo. It went to shit. He broke Shindo's nose. Now Midoriya brought Shindo to his place.

Kirishima: HOLY SHIT. Seriously? And Bakugo? Where is he?

Camie: I don't know. He left the bar before I did. He was really upset. Really, really upset. I've never seen him like that, Ei. Not even on the worst missions.

Kirishima: Shit. Shit, shit, shit. He called me earlier, seemed destroyed. I should have gone after him. Where do you think he went?

Camie: Probably to his place. But I don't know if it's a good idea to go there now. He's... dangerous. He's in that state we know is better to let cool down.

Kirishima: But he can't be alone like that. Not after what happened. Did you see his face when he left?

Camie: I did. He looked dead inside. But, Ei... there's something else.

Kirishima: What?

Camie: Shindo. He was provoking Bakugou. I saw it through the window. He was doing it on purpose, getting close to Midoriya, touching him, all while looking at Bakugo. It was like... it was like a calculated provocation.

Kirishima: Are you saying Shindo wanted this to happen?

Camie: I don't know. I just know what I saw. And what I saw was a very dirty game. And now Midoriya is up there with him, taking care of him. And Bakugo is alone somewhere, thinking he's lost for good.

Kirishima: Goddammit. This is way worse than I thought. Listen, can you stay there a little longer? Just to make sure nothing else happens?

Camie: I can. But, Ei... what do we do? Do we tell Midoriya? Do we go after Bakugo? What do we do?

Kirishima: I don't know. Let me think. Just... stay there. If anything happens, anything at all, call me.

Camie put her phone away and leaned back in the car seat, eyes fixed on the lit window of Izuku's apartment. She could see shadows moving inside, figures shifting from one room to another. She couldn't see details, but she imagined the scene: Izuku taking care of Shindo, cleaning his blood, being kind, being the hero he always was.

And somewhere in the city, Katsuki was alone, drinking cheap whiskey and drowning in a sea of regret.

The countdown had begun. And Camie had the terrible feeling that no one would come out of this silent war that had just escalated into something much worse unscathed.

Inside the apartment, Izuku finished cleaning Shindo's face. The bleeding had stopped, but the swelling was getting worse. The nose was clearly broken, but Shindo still refused to go to the hospital.

"You need to rest," Izuku said, standing up. "You can stay on the sofa. I'll get a blanket and a pillow."

"You don't have to do all this," Shindo protested weakly.

"I do," Izuku replied, and the truth of the statement echoed in the silent room. "I need to do something right today."

He went to the bedroom, got an extra blanket and pillow. When he returned, Shindo was trying to get up.

"What are you doing?" Izuku asked, alarmed.

"I need to use the bathroom," Shindo explained, holding onto the wall for balance.

Izuku helped him to the bathroom, waiting outside. He heard the water running, the flush, more water. When Shindo came out, he looked even paler, more fragile.

"Come on," Izuku said gently, guiding him back to the sofa.

He watched as Shindo lay down, covering him with the blanket. The silence between them was thick, laden with everything that wasn't being said.

"Midoriya," Shindo called when Izuku was turning to go to his room.

"Yes?"

"Thank you. For everything. For not leaving me alone."

Izuku nodded, wordless. He entered his room and closed the door softly. Leaned against it, sliding to the floor, and finally allowed the tears to come.

Outside, the city celebrated the arrival of something new. Inside Izuku Midoriya's apartment, three men were broken in different ways—one physically, one emotionally, and one, somewhere in the city, in both ways.

And the night was still far from over.

★

The water of the lake was too still for a December night.

Katsuki felt the cold dampness of the grass seeping through his jeans, but didn't move. The two bottles of Japanese whiskey rested to his right—the first already empty, tossed aside with contempt; the second half-full, its amber contents glowing faintly under the light of the stars that insisted on appearing between the low clouds. This lake had a name, he knew. Lake Lina. Something like that. Izuku would know. Izuku always knew these useless, poetic details.

He closed his eyes and immediately saw: Izuku sitting exactly where he was now, two summers ago, legs crossed and a smile so open it hurt to remember. "Look, Kacchan, I think I saw a carp over there!" And Katsuki, standing behind him, grumbling that carp were common fish and that Izuku should stop getting excited about everything. But he had stayed. Had stayed there for another hour, listening to Izuku talk about the lake's formation, about aquatic plants, about anything that crossed his hyperactive mind.

Now, only the echo of that voice and the emptiness it left remained.

Katsuki rubbed his face hard with his sleeve, as if he could scrub the fragility out of himself. The gesture was useless—his eyes still burned, his vision blurry. He let out a sound between a sigh and a growl, annoyed with himself, and fixed his gaze on the dark waters as if wishing they would swallow everything: the memory, the pain, the cheap whiskey that wasn't taking effect fast enough.

He didn't notice the footsteps approaching until they were only ten meters away.

Shoto Todoroki was on night patrol in that area by pure chance—or perhaps driven by that strange intuition that sometimes guided him at decisive moments. His hero uniform was impeccable, the colors contrasting with the park's gloom. The radio on his shoulder remained silent; the night was abnormally calm, as if the city were holding its breath.

That's when he spotted the solitary silhouette at the edge of the lake.

A figure too large to be a casual lover, too hunched to be just a night contemplator. Broad shoulders tense under a plain black jacket. And the bottles—two glass bottles reflecting the moonlight almost accusatorily.

Todoroki slowed his pace, his steps deliberately becoming lighter on the wet grass.

He recognized the structure of those shoulders before even seeing the face. He recognized the defiant posture even in defeat. And, for a genuine moment, considered walking on. Katsuki Bakugou wasn't known for accepting witnesses in his vulnerable moments—especially not witnesses like him, with whom the relationship always oscillated between respectful rivalry and forced tolerance.

But then he saw the tremor.

Small, almost imperceptible. A shudder in the right shoulder followed by a muffled sound that crossed the silent distance—a choked sob, strangled before being fully born.

Katsuki was crying.

Todoroki stopped. Watched for three seconds that felt eternal. His left hand, normally so cold, felt a strange tingling.

"Bakugou," he called, without intonation, without judgment, just stating a fact.

Katsuki raised his head in a sudden, almost violent motion. His red, swollen eyes met Todoroki's heterochromatic ones, and for a moment the familiar fire of fury, of automatic defense, flashed there.

"What the hell are you doing here, half-and-half?" His voice came out hoarse, worn by the hours and the alcohol, but still carrying its characteristic roughness.

"Patrol," Todoroki replied, simple as a fact, as if commenting on the humidity.

The silence that followed was heavy, laden with everything that wasn't said. Katsuki averted his gaze first, as if ashamed of being caught in the act. His hand—trembling, Todoroki noticed—grabbed the fuller bottle and he brought it to his mouth, taking a long swig that made his throat visibly contract.

"Crying?" Todoroki asked, direct as always, without the roundabout ways other people would use.

Katsuki let out a short, harsh laugh, a humorless sound that echoed strangely in the lake's silence.

"No," he replied, rubbing his eyes forcefully with the back of his hand. "Got... sniff ...a downpour in my eyes. Can't you see?"

Todoroki slowly looked up at the starry sky, without a cloud in sight. Then he looked at the lake, its surface flat as glass.

"Impressive," he commented with his usual seriousness. "It only rained in your eyes. Didn't even wet the ground around you."

Katsuki emitted a low growl, almost animalistic, but offered no counter-argument. Instead, he stared at the lake again, his sharp profile standing out against the dark backdrop of the water.

Todoroki then approached, slow and calculated. Not as someone invading sacred territory, but as someone approaching a wounded beast—aware that every move could be interpreted as a threat. When he got to about a meter away, he stopped, assessing.

Then, to the silent surprise of both, he sat on the damp grass, maintaining a respectful space between them.

Katsuki immediately stiffened. His whole body seemed to lock up at once—shoulders rising, hands clenching into fists so tight his knuckles turned white. He remained like that, like a statue about to crack, the two whiskey bottles witnessing his vulnerable side.

"Always arrogant," Todoroki observed, almost thoughtful. "Even at rock bottom. Consistent, at least."

"Just say what you want," Katsuki grumbled, the words coming through clenched teeth. "Before I tell you to fuck off and your patrol ends early."

Todoroki wasn't offended. Bakugou's anger was like weather—predictable in its unpredictability, and he had learned long ago not to take it personally.

"Rough night?" he asked, looking at the dark waters.

Katsuki breathed deeply. The movement was visible—his chest expanded under his jacket, then slowly fell, as if the air were too heavy to process.

"You have no idea," he replied, and for the first time that night, there was no bravado in his voice. Just pure exhaustion.

The silence returned, thicker now. Somewhere distant, a night bird called, its solitary cry echoing over the water. Todoroki waited, patient as always, knowing the pressure of silence sometimes extracted more truth than direct questions.

"Izuku?" he ventured after a minute, saying the name with the careful neutrality of someone who knows they're stepping on a minefield.

The effect was instantaneous.

Katsuki didn't answer. Didn't curse. Didn't shout. Didn't deny.

But his entire body seemed to shrink slightly, as if the syllables of that name were physical blows. His jaw clenched so tight Todoroki could see the muscle jumping in the side of his face, a nervous tic of contained pain.

It was answer enough.

Todoroki nodded slowly, not as a gesture of full understanding, but as acknowledgment that he had touched the heart of the matter.

"Want to talk about what happened?" he asked, keeping his voice neutral, without the insistence that would make Bakugou shut down further.

Nothing. Just the sound of Katsuki's slightly more ragged breathing.

Then Todoroki did something that would surprise most who knew him: he gave up on pulling. Instead, he completely changed tactics.

"I know you don't like me," he began, with the same calm with which he would comment on the weather. "And I... can't really say we get along either. We never really have."

Katsuki let out a nasal sound, something between a laugh and a snort of disdain.

"Finally something smart coming out of your mouth."

"But," Todoroki continued, ignoring the comment, "we fought together. Survived things most people wouldn't survive alone. Went through U.A., the war, the post-war missions." He paused, his gaze distant. "There must be some word for that. Something between colleagues and... something more."

He frowned slightly, a rare gesture of uncertainty.

"In the movies and anime Uraraka and Midoriya always talk about, they call it... I don't know. Trusted rivals. Forced companions. Something like enemies to lovers." He made a slight hand movement, as if physically trying to grasp the correct concept.

Katsuki slowly turned his head, staring at Todoroki with one eyebrow raised and an expression of genuine perplexity mixed with suspicion.

"What the hell is this now?" he grumbled, eyes narrowing. "Are you saying you're in love with me, half-and-half? Is that it?"

Todoroki blinked, processing the question with his characteristic slowness when it came to social nuances.

"No," he replied after a second, too serious to be joking. "Definitely not. It's not that."

Katsuki then let out a dry, short laugh. A broken sound, almost human, that came out like a hoarse sigh.

"Good," he murmured, turning back to the lake. "I already have enough emotional problems."

"I'm just saying," Todoroki continued, unfazed, "that, like it or not, we share too much to pretend you need to be alone when everything blows up." He paused, choosing his words with the care of someone handling dangerous material. "I saw you in the war. You saw me. We know things about each other that... other people don't know."

He fell silent for a moment, watching his own distorted reflection in the water.

"I'm not good at this," he admitted then, with an honesty that sounded strange coming from him. "I'm not like Kirishima. I don't know how to comfort properly. I don't know the right words."

Katsuki gripped the bottle tighter, his fingers whitening against the dark glass.

"Noticed," he replied, but the tone wasn't mocking. It was almost... resigned.

"But," Todoroki completed, finally turning to face Katsuki in profile, "if you want to talk... I can listen. That's all." He made a vague gesture with his right hand. "Without trying to fix it. Without giving advice. Without saying it'll all be okay when I don't know if it will."

He turned his face away again, not out of disinterest, but to give Katsuki the privacy of an unobserved gaze.

"Sometimes," he said, his voice almost a whisper against the night wind, "just existing together already helps. That's what Midoriya used to say, at least."

The name again. This time, Katsuki didn't visibly flinch, but Todoroki saw his jaw clench once more.

The wind passed, stronger now, making the lake's surface ripple slightly. The dark waters stirred, breaking the reflections of the stars into a thousand shimmering fragments.

Katsuki remained motionless for so long that Todoroki began to think he would simply ignore the offer, that he would get up and leave, or that he would explode in fury to mask the pain.

Then, in a thread of a voice so low it was almost lost in the sound of water gently lapping at the shore:

"I ruined everything."

Three words. Laden with a weight that seemed physical.

Todoroki didn't react immediately. He didn't turn. He didn't offer physical comfort or empty words. He just sat there, present, listening.

And after a moment, when it became clear Katsuki wouldn't continue voluntarily, he asked gently:

"How?"

Katsuki took a deep breath, a trembling, wet sound.

"Went to the bar," he began, the words coming out in broken fragments. "He was there. With Shindo."

The name "Shindo" came out like a curse.

"And?" Todoroki gently encouraged.

"And they were..." Katsuki closed his eyes, as if trying to block the image. "Laughing. So close they were almost touching. And Shindo... Shindo was doing it on purpose. Looking at me while whispering in his ear. While touching him."

His hand clenched again.

"I couldn't take it."

Todoroki remained silent, giving space for the story to unfold.

"Broke the bastard's nose," Katsuki admitted, and for the first time, there was no pride in the confession. Just shame. "In front of everyone. In front of him."

Him. Always "him", never "Izuku". As if saying the name would grant too much, would give too much of himself.

"And Midoriya?" Todoroki asked.

Katsuki laughed, an empty, bitter sound.

"Called me a hurricane. Said I always ruin everything. That he's trying to be happy and I won't let him." He shook his head slowly. "And he's right. I am that. I'm the storm that destroys everything it touches."

The wind seemed to agree, blowing stronger and making the surrounding trees whisper ancient secrets.

"And then?" Todoroki asked, keeping his voice calm and neutral.

Katsuki took a while to answer. The silence weighed between them before he spoke, his voice rough, broken.

"He left with Shindo," he said. "Took him out of the bar."

A pause. Katsuki swallowed dryly.

"Must have gone to the hospital." The tone came out hard, automatic, as if repeating it were a way to convince himself. "The nose was broken. Blood everywhere. Deku wouldn't just leave him like that."

He picked up the bottle and took a long, bitter swig, as if the alcohol could erase the image replaying in his head.

"Must be there now," he added, quieter. "Waiting for an exam. Sitting in that uncomfortable chair. Doing what he always does... taking care."

Todoroki processed the information in silence.

He knew Midoriya well enough to know he would never abandon someone who was hurt—be they friend, rival, or complete stranger.

And he knew Bakugou well enough to understand why that image—Izuku in a hospital, worried about another person—sounded like an irreversible defeat.

Neither of them considered another possibility.

The hospital made sense.

The hospital was logical.

The hospital was what Izuku Midoriya would do.

"You love him," Todoroki said, not as a question, but as a statement.

Katsuki didn't answer for a long moment. When he finally spoke, his voice was so low Todoroki had to lean slightly to hear.

"Since forever." A pause. "And I never said it. Never could. And now..."

The sentence remained incomplete, but the meaning hung in the air between them: "And now it's too late."

Todoroki looked at the stars reflected in the lake, thoughtful.

"I almost lost Momo once," he said suddenly, surprising even himself with the revelation.

Katsuki turned his head, intrigued despite himself.

"It was after graduation," Todoroki continued, his voice taking on a distant tone, as if reliving the memory. "I was so focused on becoming the hero my father never was that... I forgot to be the person she needed." He paused. "She almost left. For France. To live there."

Katsuki watched him now, completely still.

"What did you do?" he asked, and there was genuine curiosity in the question.

"I went to her," Todoroki replied simply. "And said I loved her. That I was bad with words, worse with feelings, but that if she left, a part of me would go with her and never come back." He paused, remembering. "It was the hardest thing I've ever done. Harder than any battle."

"And she stayed," Katsuki concluded, not as a question.

"She stayed," Todoroki confirmed. "But she almost didn't. Because I almost let the moment pass. I almost thought I had time. I almost believed some things didn't need to be said."

The silence that followed was different from the previous ones—laden not just with pain, but with reflection.

"You're saying there's still time," Katsuki summarized, his tone cautious.

"I don't know," Todoroki replied honestly. "I just know that Midoriya... he loves you too. Always has. Everyone sees it."

Katsuki let out a sound between a laugh and a sigh.

"Not now. Not after what I did."

"People who truly love each other can survive worse things," Todoroki observed. "We know that. We've seen that."

He stood up then, slowly, brushing the wet grass from his pants.

Todoroki remained standing for a moment, looking at the lake, as if the water could organize thoughts he himself didn't know how to align.

"I know what you said to him."

The phrase fell without a raised voice, without explicit accusation. Yet, it pierced Katsuki like shrapnel.

He didn't react. Didn't turn his head. Didn't answer.

"I don't trust you," Todoroki continued with the same controlled calm. "Never fully trusted you. And after that... even less."

The wind passed through the trees. Katsuki gripped the bottle hard, but didn't drink.

"I know the words," Todoroki said. "I know their weight. I know the damage they do."

A short pause.

"But I also know you don't just explode like this out of nowhere."

Katsuki breathed in deeply through his nose. His chest rose, rigid. Fell slowly.

"Something happened," Todoroki went on, now quieter. "I don't know what. I don't know when. And I know you won't tell me."

He turned his head a little, just enough to make it clear Katsuki wasn't invisible.

"But I'm not stupid," he added. "You don't become this kind of weapon without being wounded first."

The silence thickened.

"What you did was wrong," Todoroki continued, firm, without softening. "The words were wrong. The moment was wrong. He didn't deserve to hear that from you."

Another pause. Longer.

"But I can recognize when someone is reacting... and not attacking for pleasure."

The lake rippled lightly, breaking the moon's reflections.

"I don't know what brought you to this point," Todoroki said, almost in a whisper. "I just know there's something there. Something you don't talk about. Something you've swallowed for too long."

He didn't ask for explanations. Didn't demand the truth.

"And that doesn't erase what you did," he concluded. "It just explains why it hurt so much."

Todoroki fell silent after that. Not waiting for an answer. Not offering absolution.

Just leaving Katsuki alone with that which no one else had named.

"I need to continue patrol," he said, looking at Katsuki. "But think about what I said. About time. About second chances."

Katsuki looked at him, and for the first time that night, Todoroki saw something beyond desperation or anger in his eyes. He saw reflection. He saw consideration.

"Why did you do this?" Katsuki asked suddenly. "Why did you care?"

Todoroki considered the question for a moment.

"Because Midoriya is my friend," he finally replied. "And he's suffering. And you're suffering. And sometimes..." He paused. "Sometimes the only thing you can do for someone you love is help another person not make the same mistakes you almost made."

He took a step back, ready to leave.

"And, Bakugou?" he added, stopping for a second.

Katsuki looked up, eyes still red, but dry now.

"Stop drinking that," Todoroki said, indicating the bottles with a nod of his head. "It won't solve anything. It'll just make you say or do something you'll regret even more."

And then, without waiting for an answer, Shoto Todoroki turned and began walking back along the dark path, his uniform gradually blending with the shadows until he disappeared from sight completely.

Katsuki was alone again by the lake. But this time, the solitude had a different taste—less absolute, less condemning.

He looked at the two bottles beside him. For a long moment, he considered picking up the half-full one and finishing what he'd started. Instead, with a brusque movement, he grabbed both and threw them into the lake.

The bottles fell into the water with two successive "plops", sinking quickly into the dark waters. The ripples they created spread, breaking the moon's reflection into a thousand pieces before the surface calmed again.

Katsuki stood up, his legs shaky from the time spent sitting and the alcohol. He stood still for a moment, watching the spot where the bottles had disappeared.

Then, he turned and began walking back towards the city, each step firmer than the last.

The night was still far from over, but for the first time in weeks, Katsuki Bakugou didn't feel completely lost.

And somewhere, in a lit apartment on the third floor, Izuku Midoriya looked out the window, unaware of the conversation that had just happened by the lake, but feeling, in an inexplicable way, that something had changed in the night's balance.

The lake remained quiet, guarding the secrets entrusted to it—the sunken bottles, the whispered words, and the fragile hope that, against all odds, was beginning to be born again in the depths of the darkest night.

Chapter Text

Three days.

Izuku discovered that three days could last longer than a punch. The silence that followed the commotion at the bar had its own density, an atmospheric quality that altered the taste of the air, the weight of the unspoken words, the trajectory of thoughts before they reached the tongue.

Shindo had taken the punch. Izuku had witnessed, paralyzed, the moment Katsuki's fist crossed the space between them with violent precision, connecting with Shindo's nose. The sound had been dry, bony, final. A crack that seemed to have split something beyond nasal cartilage—it seemed to have split time itself, creating a before and an after so distinct that Izuku felt he was now living in a parallel reality, a distorted version of his own life where the rules had changed without warning.

And then the silence.

Three days of silence that wasn't an absence of sound, but the presence of something untouched. As if everyone had agreed, without exchanging a single word, to treat the episode like a natural disaster—a quick earthquake, a bolt of lightning in a blue sky—about which there was nothing to discuss, only to move on. But move on to where? Izuku felt like a boat adrift on a still sea, without wind, without current, just floating on stagnant waters as time passed with agonizing slowness.

Izuku spent the 28th floating in a state of strange numbness. He woke up early, before dawn, with muscles tense as if he had been fighting in his sleep. The dreams—disconnected fragments of light and shadow, of clenched fists and red eyes glowing in the dark—had left a residual feeling of imminent danger, as if his body knew something his conscious mind refused to process.

And yet, strangely broken.

The mirror returned no accusations, nor consolation. It merely showed what he had been trying to ignore for days: the accumulated weight, the silent exhaustion, and that uncomfortable feeling of surviving on autopilot.

Izuku held his own gaze for a few more seconds—long enough to realize that looking away would be easier. And, as always, that's exactly what he did.

Katsuki never missed the target, he thought while brushing his teeth, the automatic and repetitive motion offering mechanical comfort. Even in fury, even blind with rage—or whatever else he was feeling at that moment—his body knew the limits. It knew where to hit.

But why?

It was the question that echoed in the empty spaces of his mind since he left the bar. The "why" had become a living animal inside his skull, gnawing at the walls of his thoughts, turning every memory into a question, every past gesture into an enigma to be deciphered.

The phone remained silent that morning. Izuku checked it with a frequency bordering on obsessive, not because he expected a specific message—what message could there be?—but because he needed an external sign that the world beyond that incident still existed, still operated under the same laws as before.

The notifications that appeared were mundane, almost normal: updates from hero work groups, an automatic reminder from the physical therapist about stretches for the right shoulder (the shoulder that still hurt sometimes after particularly brutal battles), a promotion from the cafe he frequented near the agency. Nothing about Katsuki. Nothing from Katsuki.

Uraraka had sent a message the night before, short and careful: "Everything okay over there?" He had replied with equal brevity: "Everything fine. You?" The conversation died there, both avoiding the chasm that had opened under their feet. It was typical of her—concerned, but respectful, giving space while leaving a door open in case he needed it. Izuku felt a wave of gratitude for her, followed immediately by guilt for not being able to accept what she offered, for not being able to put the internal whirlwind into words.

Iida, normally so prone to speeches about ethical conduct and professional responsibility, didn't mention the subject. His silence was more eloquent than any sermon. It was the silence of someone who had seen something they shouldn't have, something that defied their ordered categories of right and wrong. Todoroki, whose frankness usually was a beacon in the midst of social ambiguity, had maintained a silence so complete it was, in itself, a statement. When Izuku ran into him by chance on the street near his building, Todoroki just stared at him for a second too long, his heterochromatic eyes scanning his face as if seeking answers, before nodding and walking on without a word.

The incident at the bar became a corpse buried in hallowed ground. Everyone knew where it was. Everyone could smell the turned earth. But no one dared to dig.

Izuku tried to work that day. He sat in front of the computer with patrol reports open, trying to focus on the words dancing before his eyes. But his mind insisted on returning to the exact moment: the expression on Katsuki's face before the punch. It wasn't simple anger. There was something there Izuku had never seen before—not in the most violent childhood fights, not in the most brutal battles as heroes. It was a kind of raw panic, a despair so deep it could only express itself as violence. A cornered animal attacking not out of aggression, but out of terror.

Around three in the afternoon, the restlessness became physical. A tingling under the skin, an urgent need for movement, as if his body was trying to escape his own mind. Izuku went to the agency's private gym, an empty and echoing space at that time of day. He got dressed, tied his shoelaces with excessive force—the knots small and perfect, an attempt to impose order on something, anything—and started running on the treadmill.

He ran until his lungs burned, until his legs trembled, until sweat streamed in salty rivers down his forehead and spine. He lifted weights until his muscles screamed in protest, until his own fibers rebelled against the punishment. He punched sandbags until his knuckles were red, cracked, sensitive—a physical pain that was a welcome relief compared to the internal, nebulous, formless pain. He tried to exhaust his body in the hope that physical fatigue would silence his mind. But between sets, between ragged breaths that fogged the mirror in front of him, the flashes returned.

What remained wasn't the shout.

It was the sound.

The punch—dry, definitive. A short crack in the air, like a violent period at the end of a conversation that never had a chance to exist. Izuku remembered thinking, for an absurd second, that the bar seemed too small to contain it.

Afterwards, the look.

Katsuki didn't look at Shindo on the floor. He didn't check the damage. He didn't assess the consequences. He looked straight at him. At Izuku. A look too heavy to be just anger. There was accusation there—and something worse. A silent, desperate plea that Katsuki would never admit to making. As if Izuku was, at the same time, the reason and the only way out.

That had hurt more than the punch.

The silence that came afterwards spread fast, thick, suffocating. A glass fell somewhere in the bar, clinking on the floor. A small sound. Ridiculously loud at that moment. Izuku remembered blinking, as if he had only just returned to his own body.

Shindo groaning. Blood. Trembling hands.

And yet, all he could see was Katsuki standing there, motionless, as if he had just exploded something inside himself and didn't know what to do with the shards.

The guilt came afterwards. It always did.

Because deep down, Izuku knew. He knew he wasn't there by chance. That punch hadn't been only about Shindo. That, in some twisted and cruel way, Katsuki had hit the wrong place trying to reach the right one.

And that was what hurt the most.

Because, even now—trying to move on, trying to breathe without that constant weight—Izuku still carried the uncomfortable feeling that all of that was also his fault. Not for being with Shindo. But for not being where Katsuki thought he should be.

For not being enough.

For being too much.

For being... himself.

In the empty locker room, under the almost scalding shower water, Izuku asked himself for the hundredth time: "Why did he do that?"

Shindo had been talking about partnership, about synergy in combat, about how interesting it was to observe how two people could complement each other so perfectly. Touching his arm casually. Smiling in a way that could be interpreted as... what? More than professional camaraderie? There had been a growing intimacy in Shindo's interactions, a gradual reduction of personal space that Izuku had attributed to the natural familiarity between colleagues who work together, who save each other's lives.

The idea seemed absurd for a moment, and then it made a perverse and terrible sense.

Katsuki was never jealous. Possessive, yes—with his position, his status, his rivalry. But this was different. It was visceral. It was personal in a way that completely transcended the professional sphere. It was as if Shindo had crossed a line that even Izuku didn't know existed, an invisible boundary around his relationship with Katsuki that was as old as they were, as fundamental as the bones beneath the skin.

The phone vibrated on the bench when Izuku got out of the shower. A message from Shindo.

"How are you?"

Simple. Direct. It was a carefully constructed message to seem casual while carrying layers of unspoken meaning.

Izuku stood still, a towel wrapped around his waist, drops of water falling from his hair onto the cold locker room floor. The sound of the drops on the tiled floor echoed in the empty space, a slow and steady rhythm. He stared at the words on the screen, trying to decipher the tone behind them. Was there genuine concern there? Or was it just a way to start a conversation, to stay present in his thoughts, to remind him that he had been hurt—and by whom?

"I'm fine." He replied after a moment, maintaining neutrality. It was true: physically, he was intact. But the answer sounded like a betrayal, as if he were minimizing what had happened, as if he were choosing a side by not fully acknowledging the other's injury. "And how is your jaw?" He finally asked.

The reply came too fast, as if Shindo had been waiting on the other side.

"It's better, thanks, but has he always been like this?"

Izuku froze, the cold light of the cell phone illuminating his face in the locker room gloom. How to answer that question? How to condense fifteen years of complex, violent, intense, and deeply entangled history into a text message? How to explain that Katsuki Bakugou was a force of nature, an active volcano, a complete weather system with its own storms and rare moments of calm? How to explain that "like this" meant so many different things that the question itself was impossible to answer?

Yes, Katsuki had always been explosive. Always intense. A volcano in a constant state of eruption. But not like this. Never like this. The violence between them—and yes, there was violence, he couldn't deny that—had always followed unwritten rules. It had a purpose. It was a twisted dialogue, but a dialogue nonetheless. It was the language they had learned to speak when words failed, when emotions were too big to fit into syllables.

The punch at the bar was different. It had been something deeper, more desperate. As if Shindo had pressed a button that not even Katsuki himself knew existed, a button that said "loss" in bold, bright letters. Or perhaps he did know it existed, and that's why the panic, the terror of seeing it being pressed by someone else.

"It's complicated." That was the only answer he could formulate. An admission of weakness, a boundary erected. The territory between him and Katsuki was not to be mapped by third parties. It was sacred and dangerous land, full of traps and buried mines, where only they two knew how to walk without exploding.

Shindo's reply arrived almost immediately: "I imagine. If you need to talk, I'm here."

Izuku didn't reply. He left the message there, unread in the sense of a reply. He felt a pang of guilt—Shindo was being kind, apparently. Offering an ear.

On the 30th, the mundane and relentless reality of New Year's began to impose itself, contrasting grotesquely with the internal turmoil. The silver and gold decorations appeared on the city streets, flashing banners and balloons suspended over the avenues. People in shops were buying sparkling wine, grapes, new clothes for the turn of the year. There was a collective sense of closure, of turning a page, which to Izuku sounded like a bad joke.

How to turn the page if the book was still open, bleeding in the folds? How to celebrate a new beginning when the past was unresolved, when the present was a minefield, when the future seemed like a frightening extension of now?

It was that morning that the official invitation from Mina arrived—a humorous email with animated illustrations of fireworks and details about the party at the beach house.

"Just the close group," she promised in the text. "Nothing big. Let's celebrate the end of this interesting year and hope for a less explosive one, literally! (Sorry, couldn't resist.)"

The joke made Izuku clench his jaw. It was a clear sign: they knew. Everyone knew. And they were trying, with Mina's characteristic optimism, to normalize the abnormal, turning a violent incident into an inside joke, into something that could be overcome with humor and camaraderie. But some things shouldn't be normalized. Some lines, once crossed, can't be erased with an uncomfortable laugh.

"The close group" included everyone from the old U.A. class. It included Katsuki. It included Shindo, now somewhat attached to the group by proximity to Izuku and by the incident that everyone pretended not to remember, but that hung in the air like an awkward ghost.

The indecision tore at him all day. Going would be facing the lion in its den. It would be seeing the face of that night again. It would be putting himself on the battlefield once more, without armor and with fresh wounds. Not going would be admitting defeat. It would be letting a punch—no matter how significant—dictate the terms of his life, his friendships. It would be yielding to discomfort, to fear.

And deep down, a tiny, stubborn part rebelled: he wanted to see Katsuki. He wanted to understand. He wanted, even if just for a second, to capture that look again and try to decipher it. He wanted to confront the truth, no matter how painful. Because the uncertainty, the not knowing, was worse than any ugly truth. Uncertainty allowed his mind to create all kinds of monsters, all kinds of terrible interpretations. At least a truth, even if cutting, would have limits.

Mina's call came in the late afternoon of the 30th, when the gray sky was already beginning to darken for what promised to be a cold New Year's Eve night.

"Hi, Deku!" Her voice was cheerful, but there was a tension behind the cheer, a string stretched too tight. Izuku could hear the effort, the will to make everything seem normal, to keep the ship afloat with pure optimism.

"Hi, Mina. Everything okay?"

"Everything! Just confirming the invitation for tomorrow. You'll be able to come, right?" she asked, and the hope in her voice was almost palpable, as if his presence were fundamental to the fragile balance of the night. As if he were a pillar that, if removed, would make the whole structure collapse.

Izuku looked out the apartment window. The sky was a heavy gray, the kind that promised snow. The first city lights were beginning to come on, small points of warmth against the cold twilight.

"I'm thinking, Mina..."

A brief silence on the other end of the line. He could hear her take a deep breath, as if preparing for something.

"So..." she began, her voice lower, cautious, like someone walking on broken glass. "Please. You'll be missed."

"I know. It's just... the situation is kind of..."

"Look..." she interrupted him, hesitated, and he could almost see her biting her lip, her yellow eyes serious and concerned. "If it's because of... what happened. If you don't want to, because of him, I can talk to the others. I can ask him not to come. I'd figure it out."

The offer hung in the air between them, heavy, tempting, and deeply wrong. The easy way out. The perfect excuse. She was handing him a first-class ticket out of the tension. He could say yes, he could avoid the confrontation, the heavy gaze, the memory of the punch that seemed to have created a new gravitational field between them. He could spend New Year's Eve at home, alone, with silence and the TV as company, watching fireworks from the window, oblivious to the silent war that would take place in that beach house.

But something rebelled inside him. Something stubborn and proud and perhaps deeply stupid, that same part that always got up to face Bakugou, no matter how many times it was knocked down. The same part that made him keep fighting, keep trying, keep believing there was something beyond anger and rivalry, something worth saving, even when everything indicated otherwise.

"No. You don't need to." The answer came out quickly, almost curtly, before he could think better of it. "We're past that age, Mina. I'm 26, we're professional heroes. We've faced worse villains than... than a weird atmosphere at a party. There's no reason to avoid people like teenagers afraid of a fight."

He almost believed his own words. They sounded good. They sounded mature. They sounded like something Deku, the number one hero (on the rise, always on the rise), would say. The hero who faced cosmic dangers couldn't be defeated by the discomfort of a social gathering. The hero who saved crowds couldn't run from a difficult conversation, a loaded gaze, a truth that needed to be faced.

Mina was silent for a moment too long. When she spoke, her voice was soft, understanding in a way that hurt more than judgment.

"Okay..." she finally said, but the doubt was still there, lingering in the syllables. "I know you're strong, Deku. But strength is also knowing when a place can hurt you..." She paused, and he could hear her take another deep breath. "But if you change your mind anytime, just call me, okay? Even at the last minute. Doesn't matter."

"I'm coming," he interrupted, firmer now, trying to convince himself as much as her. "Even if just for a while. To show my face, wish a happy new year."

"Right." There was a light, resigned sigh. "I'll expect you then. And, Deku?"

"Hm?"

"Thank you."

"For what?"

"For trying. For not letting this... you know... ruin our friendship. See you tomorrow."

When he hung up, Izuku stood still for long minutes, looking at his own ghostly reflection in the dark window. The expression he saw wasn't one of heroic conviction, but of deep resignation. The acceptance of an inevitable confrontation, as if he were marching towards a battlefield knowing he might come out wounded, but not knowing which side would strike the hardest. He wasn't going to a party. He was going to a front line.

And as on any front line, there was the possibility of casualties. The question was who—or what—would be sacrificed in the process.

The morning of the 31st was an exercise in self-control. Izuku tried to distract himself with agency reports, with breathing exercises he'd learned in stress control training, with anything that wasn't the image of Katsuki in the bar doorway, his fist clenched, his eyes sparking with something more than anger. He ate lunch without tasting it, the food seeming like flavorless paste in his mouth. Time dragged, heavy and slow, each minute a drop of water eroding his determination gently.

At five in the afternoon, he was still sitting on the sofa, looking at the blank wall as if he could read in the nuances of the paint some kind of instruction, some survival manual for the approaching night. The phone vibrated on the coffee table, making him jump. It was Shindo.

"Are you going to Ashido's party today?"

Izuku stared at the message. Shindo seemed to have developed a sudden and intense interest in his social plans since the incident, as if he now considered Izuku part of his domain.

"I am." The reply was short, unenthusiastic.

"That's good. We'll see each other there then. We need to celebrate the new year properly, after the week we've had, right?"

The message was ambiguous. "The week we've had" could refer to work, to the vacation break... or to the incident at the bar. He didn't reply. Left it on "seen." Any reply would be engagement, and he wasn't sure he wanted to engage with Shindo at that moment. Or perhaps ever.

The evening arrived, with a damp, penetrating cold that promised snow. Izuku took forever to get ready, trying on and discarding clothes as if the right choice of shirt could work as armor, as a flag of truce, as an invisible shield against whatever was coming.

Nothing seemed right. Everything was too casual, too formal, too flashy, too somber. He ended up opting for simple, for what would give him the least visibility: dark, slightly worn jeans, a plain white cotton t-shirt, a gray wool coat that was warm without looking like he'd tried too hard. He wanted to go unnoticed. He knew, deep down, it was impossible. He was Deku, the rising hero. And more importantly, he was half of an incomplete equation, the other half being a human storm named Katsuki Bakugou.

He looked at himself in the hallway mirror. The face staring back was pale, slight dark circles under his green eyes, which seemed larger, more alert, like those of an animal scenting danger.

He took a deep breath. "Just a party," he murmured to the reflection. The reflection didn't believe it. The eyes in the mirror said something else: "This is a mission. This is a battle. Prepare yourself."

The taxi dropped him off in front of the beach house just after ten. The property was larger and more impressive than he had imagined—a modern structure of glass and dark wood, with expansive floor-to-ceiling windows facing the black sea. Even from afar, from the end of the access road, he could see the warm, golden lights shining in the winter, hear the muffled chords of upbeat pop music, feel the vibrant energy of a party already in full swing, a living organism of laughter and conversation that seemed to pulse with its own life.

He paid the driver and stood at the entrance of the walkway, taking a deep breath. The night air was icy and salty, laden with the smell of the sea and the pine trees around. He filled his lungs, trying to calm the heart beating too fast against his ribs. Nostalgia came, sharp and sudden: memories of beach training during U.A. days, of summer nights with friends, of a time when the greatest tension between him and Kacchan was who could lift more weight or win a mock battle. So simple. So distant.

He straightened his shoulders, feeling the weight of the coat, the phone in his pocket, of everything that wasn't physical. "Go on, Deku," he whispered to himself, with the voice he used to encourage civilians in disaster situations. Then, with steps that didn't match the internal turmoil, he crossed the front garden illuminated by embedded lights and climbed the wooden steps leading to the main door.

The heat and sound hit him like a physical wave when he entered. The house was full, but not cramped. The warm air, laden with the smell of food, drink, perfume, and waxed wood, immediately enveloped him. He recognized faces in the crowd—many from the old Class 1-A, of course. Kirishima with his red hair like a beacon, Kaminari gesturing animatedly while telling a story, Jirou talking with Momo near the snack table. He also saw faces from other classes, some heroes from partner agencies he had worked with on joint operations. The decoration was minimal, elegant: some white and gold LED lights wrapped around the beams, silver and gold balloons tied here and there, a long, plentiful table with snacks, bottles of sparkling wine, gleaming glasses. A modern fireplace crackled on one of the walls, casting dancing shadows.

And then, almost like a sharpened survival instinct, his brain began to map the space. And he noticed.

The space of the large main room had organized itself, almost unconsciously but perfectly clearly, into a silent geopolitical pattern. There was an invisible line, a social trench drawn on the light carpet.

On one side, near the lit fireplace and the main food table, was what his brain instantly labeled as "the Deku side." Not because it was his territory, but because that's where his closest allies, those who orbited his more peaceful energy (or at least tried to), had gathered. Uraraka was there, gesturing animatedly while telling a story to Tsuyu, her cheeks rosy from the heat of the fire or a sip or two of sparkling wine. Iida was beside her, talking fast and using his hands in precise, angular gestures, as if conducting an invisible orchestra. Tsuyu observed everything with her calm, attentive gaze, a juice glass in hand, a soft "kero" escaping now and then. Todoroki was a bit apart, leaning against the glass wall, talking quietly with Momo, who seemed to be explaining something about the canapés on the table.

And Shindo.

Shindo was there. Not on the periphery, not as an outsider guest.

He was in the center of that group, anchored near the drinks counter, not as an intruder, but as someone who had infiltrated with a disturbing, almost predatory naturalness. He wore a beige wool sweater that matched his eyes, dark jeans. He held a glass of iced drink casually, his easy, relaxed smile fixed on his face like a well-fitted mask.

When his eyes landed on Izuku at the entrance, his face lit up with a recognition that was overly intimate for the context, a glint of possession that made Izuku's stomach churn. He raised his glass slightly in a silent greeting.

On the other side of the large room, near the sliding glass doors leading to the wide balcony and the dark beach, was "the Baku side." It was a more compact, closed grouping. Kirishima was the visible epicenter, tall and unmistakable, laughing loudly at something Kaminari was saying, an arm around Sero's shoulders. Mina, in a silver dress that reflected the lights, bounced between groups as always, but her point of origin, her safe harbor, was clearly there. Jirou had joined them after talking with Momo, and Tokoyami observed the scene from a corner, Dark Shadow hovering over his shoulder, smaller and more subdued in the lit environment. It was a formation Izuku recognized from hundreds of missions and social encounters over the years—the hard core around Katsuki, a fortress of unbreakable loyalty.

And Katsuki.

Katsuki was leaning against the frame of the glass door, half turned towards the darkness outside, half towards the party. As always, he wore black—a black long-sleeved shirt under a black leather jacket that Izuku recognized from years ago. He held a glass with sparkling water (Izuku knew it would be that) with firm fingers, his knuckles white from gripping it. He wasn't laughing. He wasn't talking. He didn't pretend to have fun. He just observed, with a concentrated intensity that seemed to cut through the music, the noise, the futile festivity. His face was a sculpture in granite—clenched jaw, lips in a thin line, narrowed eyes. He was a point of negative gravity in the environment, attracting worried glances from his friends and creating a zone of tension around him, an invisible force field that kept everyone at a distance, even those who tried to approach.

He saw Izuku enter.

Izuku felt the gaze like a physical touch, a hot pin in the nape of his neck. He turned his head and his eyes met Katsuki's across the crowded room. Red ember meeting green forest. It was for a second, two at most. Katsuki's face didn't change. Not a muscle moved. But something glimmered in those eyes—a quick flash of something that could be recognition, anger, pain, all mixed—before they looked away, abruptly, as if the sight of Izuku was too bright, too painful to face. Katsuki turned his head completely towards the external darkness, his sharp profile against the glass, a sharp line separating the interior light from the exterior darkness.

Izuku felt a knot form in his stomach, so tight it almost took his breath away. That averted gaze hurt more than a direct confrontation. It was a rejection. It was a wall being built, brick by brick, before his eyes. It was the three-day silence manifested in a physical gesture, in a refusal to engage, to acknowledge, to even look.

"Deku!"

The cheerful and relieved voice of Uraraka cut the spell. She spotted him and was waving, her genuine, open smile like a beacon in the sea of unspoken tension.

He forced himself to smile back, an automatic movement of facial muscles, and began to move towards her, aware of each step on the soft carpet, of every gaze that landed on him and then looked away too quickly. The path across the room, between laughing and chatting groups, seemed longer than the actual distance, a crossing under scrutiny. He felt the weight of dozens of gazes, of unexpressed curiosities, of questions hanging in the air like smoke. Everyone knew. Everyone had heard. Everyone was waiting to see what would happen now.

"You're late!" Uraraka hugged him quickly, a warm, firm hug, and he felt her comforting solidity, the anchor of a true friendship amidst the tempestuous sea of unresolved tensions. "We were starting to think you'd bailed."

"Traffic," he lied, the easiest excuse, the most acceptable one. The truth—that he had sat on the sofa for almost an hour, staring at the wall, trying to gather the courage to leave—was too fragile, too vulnerable to share, even with her.

"Are you alright?" Iida asked, approaching with quick, precise steps, and the question had layers and more layers beyond normal courtesy. His glasses reflected the firelight, hiding his eyes, but not the concern in the line of his mouth, the tension in his shoulders. Iida was a man of order, of rules, of clear structures. The incident at the bar had violated all those structures, creating a situation that couldn't be resolved with a conduct manual or a speech about ethics.

"Everything's great," Izuku replied automatically, his voice sounding false in his own ears. He took a glass of sparkling wine from a passing tray, more to have something to occupy his hands than from a desire to drink. The bubbly, golden liquid seemed fake, a mockery of celebration in a setting that was anything but celebratory.

Shindo approached then, sliding through the group with that laid-back manner that never seemed forced, but that now, to Izuku, sounded like the calculated movement of a predator crossing known territory.

"Midoriya. Good to see you." His voice was soft, friendly, and his smile reached his eyes in a way that seemed genuine. But something about how he positioned himself—slightly between Izuku and the rest of the group, creating a small circle of intimacy—made Izuku's back tense. It was a territorial gesture, a silent assertion of possession, of the right to be there, beside him, at the center of his group.

"Shindo." Izuku nodded, almost physically feeling the eyes of everyone in the group on them. Barely disguised curiosity. Expectation. They were a side show, a curious attraction after the main incident. The group that had witnessed the punch now witnessed the aftermath, trying to decipher alliances, loyalties, wounds. Shindo, with his intact face (unless you looked very closely, there was no sign of the punch, just a slight discoloration under makeup, perhaps), was a living reminder of what had happened. And his presence beside Izuku was an even more potent reminder.

"Did you manage to rest these days?" Shindo asked, taking a sip of his drink. The question was innocent on the surface, but loaded with meaning underneath, a code everyone there seemed to decipher. It was the vacation, yes, but it was also the three days of silence after the bar, the three days when the world seemed to have stopped while everyone processed what had happened.

"A bit," Izuku replied, avoiding direct eye contact, focusing on a point over Shindo's shoulder. "Took the chance to catch up on reading. And you?"

"Ah, you know how it is. Ends up getting boring. No missions, no intense training... the mind starts to wander." His smile was slight, and his eyes landed for a fraction of a second on the other side of the room, where Katsuki had been, before returning to Izuku. "But it's good to be here, with friends. Renew bonds, as they say."

The conversation flowed then—superficial, safe, the kind of dialogue you have at New Year's parties. They talked about the record cold hitting the city, about loose plans for the next year (more training, new techniques, hoping for less bureaucratic paperwork), about news from the hero world. Izuku participated mechanically, laughed at the right moments, a short, dry sound that didn't echo in his eyes, asked questions about others' work. But his attention was radically divided, a significant part of him always conscious, hyperconscious, of the presence on the other side of the room. It was like having an internal radar tuned only to the frequency of Katsuki Bakugou.

Katsuki hadn't moved from his post at the door. He was still leaning against the frame, now with his face almost completely turned towards the darkness outside, as if the party were an uninteresting landscape, a diorama of frivolity unworthy of his attention. Kirishima was beside him now, talking quietly, a large, comforting hand on his shoulder, like someone trying to anchor a ship in a silent storm. Katsuki didn't reply, just stared blankly, but his posture was even stiffer, his shoulders raised as if holding a huge weight, as if every muscle was tensed to the limit, keeping something contained, something that wanted to escape.

"... so I said to him, 'but of course he didn't listen, he was more worried about posing for the cameras'"—Shindo was in the middle of a funny story about a vain hero he had worked with, and his arm, while gesturing, casually touched Izuku's arm.

It was a light touch, brief, almost accidental. But intentional. Izuku felt all the muscles in his arm and shoulder tense, an involuntary reflex. Not from discomfort with the touch itself—Shindo was a colleague, a friend, touches happened in social settings—but because of what that touch meant in that specific context, because of what might be observing it and what interpretation he would give.

As if reacting to a signal, from the other side of the room, Katsuki turned his head slightly. His eyes, like red beacons, met Izuku's through the crowd for a fraction of a second. Then, they lowered. Landed exactly on the point where Shindo's arm was still in momentary contact with Izuku's. Something hardened in his face, an almost imperceptible tightening at the corners of his mouth, a slight narrowing of the eyes. It was quick, almost subliminal. But Izuku saw. Saw the storm forming in those eyes before Katsuki turned completely, sharply, with his back to the room, facing the total darkness of the balcony.

Izuku felt a sharp pang in his chest, something that wasn't anger, wasn't fear. It was deeper, more primal. It was the nauseating feeling of being measured, judged, and failing a test whose rules he never knew, whose statement was never presented to him. It was the pain of being misunderstood by the only person whose understanding, paradoxically, had always mattered too much. It was the pain of seeing those red eyes, which he knew so well, filling with something that seemed like hatred, but was perhaps something even more devastating: disappointment.

"... so the guy ended up saving the cat and forgetting the hostage on the roof," Shindo finished the story, laughing at his own joke. The others around laughed too, a pleasant, relaxed sound that contrasted violently with the chill Izuku felt spreading through his veins. It was as if he were in two places at once: physically there, in that circle of laughing friends, but mentally on the other side of the room, paralyzed under the gaze that had already turned away, but whose weight still crushed him.

The party continued, ignorant of the cold war at its heart. The music got a bit louder, a danceable pop beat filling the space and making some people start to sway slightly in place. More people arrived, greeting friends, laughing loudly, bringing with them the external energy of the cold and the anticipation of the New Year. Time passed in a strange, distorted rhythm—too fast when he looked at the huge digital clock over the fireplace, too slow when he felt the weight of Katsuki's gaze on his back, even when he wasn't looking.

Shindo remained close. Too close. For Izuku, it just seemed like company—someone easy to talk to, present, perhaps too attentive, but nothing that raised alarms. For Uraraka, however, the proximity had a different weight. It was calculated. Measured. The exact distance to seem too casual to be questioned and too intimate to be ignored. She watched as he laughed at Izuku's weaker jokes, touched his arm to emphasize a point, leaned in when the noise increased, creating small, artificial bubbles of intimacy in the middle of the crowd.

And always, always, there was that detail that Izuku didn't see. The way Shindo's eyes would dart away for a specific second, seeking the other side of the room. It wasn't a distraction. It was a check. A silent, almost imperceptible habit of someone who needed to make sure they were being seen. That each touch, each smile, each tilt of the head was being properly registered—not by the audience, but by a single person.

Uraraka began to notice the pattern with an uncomfortable clarity. Nothing there was too spontaneous. Nothing was exaggerated enough to reveal the intention. It was all... clean. Rehearsed. Shindo wasn't just interacting with Izuku—he was performing around him. Each gesture seemed handpicked, not for Izuku, but for whoever was watching from outside. He made Izuku the center of a scene that wasn't about him, using his genuine attention as a piece in a silent game of exclusion and provocation.

The realization brought a tightness to Uraraka's stomach. It wasn't anger yet. It was something colder. More observant. Shindo didn't need to raise his voice or clench his fist to be dangerous. His territory was another—social, emotional, invisible. He pushed boundaries while smiling, manipulated spaces with his body, and seemed to enjoy it. There was a contained gleam in his eyes whenever he got Izuku to lean in to listen, whenever he elicited from him a short, too-sincere laugh that failed to perceive the board on which he was being placed.

Izuku didn't see it. And perhaps that was exactly the point.

"Need another drink?" Shindo asked, already taking the almost empty glass of sparkling wine from Izuku's hand before he could answer.

"I can get it..."

"Let me," Shindo smiled, that easy smile that didn't reach his eyes, which remained calculating, analytical. "Be right back. Same?"

Izuku nodded, wordlessly. Shindo headed to the drinks counter, which by a coincidence that was no coincidence at all, was in a neutral zone, but closer to the "Baku side" of the room. His path took him to pass within a few meters of where Kirishima was now talking with Kaminari, and Izuku saw how Kirishima followed Shindo with his gaze, his normally open and friendly features hardened into an expression of caution, like a guard dog evaluating an intruder in its territory.

Izuku stood still, feeling exposed and vulnerable without the glass in his hands. His palms were sweaty, fingers tingling. Uraraka appeared beside him, rubbing her arms as if she felt cold, despite the room's heat.

"Everything okay?" she murmured, her gaze serious and penetrating, without the usual glint of optimism. "You seem... tense."

"I don't know," he admitted quietly, the first honest admission he'd made since arriving. He looked at her, seeing the genuine concern in her brown eyes. "All of this is so... weird."

"Shindo is... intense today," she said, choosing the word carefully, as if walking on a verbal minefield. Her eyes followed Shindo to the counter, watching the tense interaction with Kirishima that was about to happen.

"Intense" was a gentle way of putting it.

"He's just being friendly, probably the drinks!" Izuku said, but the words sounded hollow and false even to him, as if he himself didn't believe them. It was what he was expected to say. It was the easiest, least conflictual narrative. But the truth was more complex, uglier.

Uraraka didn't reply immediately. She just held his arm for a moment, a brief but firm gesture of silent solidarity, of alignment. "I'm on your side," that touch said. "Whichever side you choose." The problem was that Izuku didn't know which side was his. He didn't know if there were sides to choose, or if this division was just another creation of the chaos that seemed to follow him since childhood. Perhaps he was the battlefield, not the combatant. Perhaps his mere existence between the two was the problem.

At the drinks counter, Shindo was filling two glasses of sparkling wine when Kirishima approached, clearly on his way to get more drinks for his group.

"Hey, Shindo," Kirishima greeted, cordial but without a drop of the genuine warmth he normally radiated. His smile was a tense line, more a social formality than an expression of pleasure.

"Kirishima. Everything good?" Shindo returned the easy smile, the perfect mask of camaraderie, but his eyes remained slightly distant, evaluating, like a player studying his opponent before making a move. "Party's lively, huh?"

"In a way. Mina set everything up nice," Kirishima agreed, grabbing some beer bottles from the counter. His movements were deliberate, a bit stiffer than normal, as if each gesture had to be controlled to avoid something worse.

"Very nice," Shindo agreed, lightly swirling the contents of one of the glasses, watching the bubbles rise in golden spirals. "It's good to get everyone together like this. Renew bonds, as I was telling Midoriya. Sometimes we get so focused on work we forget the people who matter."

A brief, heavy silence hung between them, laden with what wasn't said. Kirishima looked at the two glasses in Shindo's hands, his face serious, eyebrows slightly furrowed, as if trying to decipher an enigma. Two glasses. One for Shindo, one for Izuku. A gesture of intimacy, of care, of possession.

"Having fun?" the question sounded more like an interrogation than social curiosity. Kirishima's voice had an edge of steel under the forced cordiality.

"For sure," Shindo replied, and his gaze drifted away for a moment, intentionally slow, to Izuku, who was still near the fireplace talking with Uraraka. "It's always good to spend time with people you care about, you know? People who truly matter."

Kirishima followed his gaze, and something in his normally open face closed, hardened like steel. His eyebrows contracted slightly, and Izuku, even at a distance, could see the muscles in his jaw tensing, the firm line of his lips. Kirishima was loyal to the end, especially to Katsuki. And Shindo was treading on dangerous territory, challenging not just Katsuki, but the entire network of loyalties surrounding him.

"It is," he said, and his voice lost the last remnant of cordiality, becoming flat and dangerous, like the smooth surface of a lake before a storm. "Just be careful, man. Sometimes people can get the wrong idea. Interpret signals... incorrectly. Especially when there's history involved."

Shindo raised an eyebrow, an expression of exaggerated innocence, almost theatrical. The corners of his mouth curved slightly, as if he was enjoying the situation, the confrontation, the tension he himself created.

"How so? I'm not following you."

"You know how it is," Kirishima shrugged, but his eyes, red like Katsuki's but a darker, more serious shade, didn't waver. They were eyes that had seen battles, dangers, deaths. Eyes that knew how to recognize a threat when they saw one, even when it came disguised as an easy smile. "Complicated dynamics. Old history. A lot of buried stuff that might not like being dug up." He paused, gripping the bottles tighter, his fingers white against the brown glass. "Better not poke a hornet's nest, you know? Could get hurt. And hurt others in the process."

"Oh, don't worry," Shindo picked up the glasses, his smile remaining intact, but his eyes getting colder, more calculating, as if he had decided that superficial courtesy was no longer necessary. "I have pretty thick skin. And I know exactly what I'm doing. I always do."

He returned to Izuku's side, leaving Kirishima watching his back with an expression of deep concern and a contained anger that made his jaw muscles visibly contract. For a moment, Kirishima seemed to hesitate, as if considering following Shindo, intervening more directly. But then his eyes turned to Katsuki, still standing on the balcony, an isolated, tense silhouette, and something in his face resigned. He knew some battles couldn't be fought by proxy. Some wars were too personal.

Kirishima approached him, forgetting the drinks for a moment, placing them on a nearby table.

"Bakubro..." he began, voice low, cautious, like someone approaching a wounded and dangerous animal.

"No," Katsuki cut him off, without turning, the word coming out like a dry, final snap, like a door slamming shut. "No."

"You don't even know what I was going to say."

"I do," Katsuki finally turned, but not completely, just enough for Kirishima to see his sharp profile, the tense line of his jaw, the eyes glowing with a feverish intensity even in the half-light. "And the answer is no. I don't want to talk. I don't want advice. I don't want any damn thing."

Kirishima sighed, a deep, tired sound, rubbing the back of his neck with a big hand, a gesture of familiar frustration. He had known Katsuki for years. He knew when the wall was insurmountable, when the fortress was sealed. But as a friend, as someone who cared, he had to try. It was his nature.

"He's just provoking. It's a dirty game, you know that. Don't fall for it, man. It's exactly what he wants."

Katsuki finally turned completely. His face was illuminated by the warm light coming from the house, half in shadow, half in clarity, looking like a tragic mask carved in marble. There was something wild there, a beast barely contained by sheer willpower, by years of learning control, discipline. But the chains were strained to the limit, creaking with the effort. His eyes, even in the half-light, glowed with a feverish intensity, the color of embers about to reignite, of volcanoes about to erupt.

"I'm not falling for any damn thing," his voice was low, hoarse, as if he had swallowed glass, as if each word cut his throat from the inside. "I'm just here. Doing what everyone wants me to do since the shit happened. Staying in my corner. Not causing more problems. Not being the explosive monster that ruins everyone's party. Happy? Everything is as you all want."

"You don't need to stay in your corner," Kirishima insisted, but his voice lost conviction in the face of the raw pain in his friend's gaze, the anger that wasn't directed at him, but at something internal, something Kirishima could only witness, not cure. He reached out a hand, but stopped before touching Katsuki, knowing the contact could be interpreted as yet another restraint, another chain. "You can come to the middle, talk with us, have a beer, laugh at Kaminari's antics... be yourself, damn it."

"And do what, Ei?" Katsuki stared at him, and the expression on his face—a mix of fury, humiliation, and something resembling despair—made Kirishima take a step back, not out of fear, but out of acute compassion, from the pain of seeing someone he admired so much destroying himself from within. "Pretend everything's fine? Pretend I don't see what's happening right in front of me? Pretend I'm not seeing that piece of shit doing his little show, touching him, whispering, marking territory like a dog pissing on a pole?"

The image was vivid, brutal. Kirishima blinked, feeling a chill run down his spine. He hadn't seen it that way—or perhaps he had, but didn't want to admit it. Shindo was marking territory. And Izuku was the territory.

"Nothing is happening, Bakugou," Kirishima insisted, but the words sounded weak, hollow, because they both knew it was a lie. They knew something was happening, something subtle and poisonous operating between the lines of smiles and touches. Something that wasn't about friendship, but about power, about possession, about a cruel game where people were pawns. "Shindo is just... friendly. Deku's an adult, he..."

"Yeah, right," Katsuki cut him off, turning back to the darkness, his shoulders rigid like stone, as if holding the weight of the world, the weight of his own nature, his own past, all the mistakes he'd made and that now seemed to come back to haunt him in new and cruel ways. "And everyone here knows it. Everyone's watching. It's a shitty spectacle, and I'm the clown watching from the audience, buying a ticket. That's what you all wanted, isn't it? For me to stay here, quiet, taking punches without hitting back. See how mature he is? See how he moved on? See how I'm the only problem here?"

His voice cracked on the last word, a rough, ugly sound he immediately stifled, clenching his jaw so hard Kirishima almost heard his teeth grinding. The hand holding the water glass trembled slightly, the liquid forming tiny ripples on the surface, small earthquakes in a glass.

Inside the house, the party reached a new peak of alien energy. Someone put on livelier music, with a pulsating beat that seemed to vibrate in the very floor, and a small group near the fireplace started dancing, clumsy and joyful movements, loud, carefree laughter. Mina pulled Sero into the middle, laughing loudly, spinning with arms open as if she wanted to hug the whole world. The sound drowned out the more serious conversations, creating false bubbles of privacy and normality amidst the emotional minefield the room had become. It was as if two realities coexisted in the same house: one of carefree celebration, another of silent tension and contained pain.

Shindo handed the glass to Izuku, their fingers briefly meeting on the cold crystal, an intentional touch that lasted a second longer than necessary. The glass was icy, but Shindo's touch was warm, a contrast that made Izuku shudder.

"Thank you," Izuku said, avoiding eye contact, looking at the foam rising at the rim of the glass as if it were the most interesting thing in the world. The bubbles rose in golden spirals, popped at the surface, disappeared. Ephemeral. Like peace. Like normality. Like the illusion that everything could be fixed with a party, with a turn of the year.

"Don't mention it." Shindo paused, looking around as if appreciating the scene, like a director evaluating his own show, satisfied with its progress. "Look, there's a side balcony outside, overlooking a winter garden. It's quieter, you can see the stars without all this noise. The noise here is getting unbearable. Want to take a walk? Escape a bit?"

The proposal was reasonable, almost tempting. The noise really was loud, oppressive, a wall of sound that seemed to press on his ears, hammer at his skull. But Izuku sensed the danger in it, sharp as a blade. The invitation to isolate, to create a separate moment, a frame that could be misinterpreted—or perfectly interpreted, depending on who was watching and what Shindo's real intentions were. It would be an assertion of intimacy, of exclusivity. It would be feeding the fire already burning beneath the surface.

He instinctively looked, like a beacon, to where Katsuki had been. The glass door was now empty. The dark silhouette had disappeared. Only the darkness outside, and the reflection of the party lights in the glass, distorted, like an inverted alternate world. A different kind of cold than winter's passed through him, a feeling of emptiness, of loss. Katsuki had left. Or worse: had given up.

"Ah, maybe later," Izuku declined, trying to sound casual, offhand, as if the refusal meant nothing. "Don't want to miss the midnight celebration. Mina nailed the decoration, right? Want to see the fireworks from inside."

Shindo smiled, a small, intimate smile, as if he had expected exactly that answer, as if it were part of his script, as if every move Izuku made was predictable, calculable. It was the smile of someone several steps ahead, who had already anticipated all possibilities, all reactions. It was the smile of a player who knew the game better than the other players.

"Fair. Enjoy, then. We still have the whole night."

He didn't move away. They remained there, side by side, not talking, just watching the party as if it were a diorama, a scene from a play in which they were both actors and audience. Shindo began pointing people out discreetly, making light comments, funny and self-deprecating stories about encounters on missions, about silly mistakes, about moments of camaraderie. It was easy. It was uncomplicated on the surface. It was exactly the kind of unpretentious interaction Izuku would normally appreciate with a colleague, a friend.

But nothing about this night was normal. Each of Shindo's words seemed to have a subtext, each laugh sounded like a sheathed dagger. And Katsuki's absence, now complete, weighed heavier than his presence. It was an active void, a gap that sucked attention, that pulled Izuku's eyes to the empty door repeatedly, as if expecting the dark silhouette to reappear, the red eyes to fix on him once more, even if with anger, even if with hatred—anything was better than this nothing, than this disappearance.

Another hour passed. The huge digital clock over the fireplace (placed there by Mina specifically for the countdown, she'd announced earlier) was dangerously approaching 11:30 PM. The energy in the house changed, became more charged, more anticipatory, more expectant. People began to gather more in the center of the room, looking at their wristwatches, talking about resolutions in slightly louder voices, about the ending year and what would begin. There was a good tension in the air, the universal tension of the turn of the year, the collective promise of a fresh start, a turned page, of possibilities.

Izuku found himself looking for Katsuki again, his eyes instinctively scanning the room, the corners, the doors, the groups. He didn't see him anywhere. Kirishima was talking with Kaminari and Jirou, but his shoulders were rigid, not relaxed, and his eyes periodically scanned the room, searching for someone—searching for Katsuki, Izuku realized. Mina also seemed tense now, her bright smile no longer reaching her eyes as it normally did, her jokes sounding a bit forced, as if she too felt the weight of the absence, the rope stretched too tight that could snap at any moment. Everyone felt it. Everyone was waiting for something—an explosion, a reconciliation, a disaster, a miracle. Something to break the unbearable tension.

Shindo was in the middle of a story about a complicated rescue in a burning building—a story involving tough decisions, teamwork, a happy ending—when Kirishima passed by them, heading towards the bathrooms in the side corridor. Shindo deliberately paused the story, watching him go with a thoughtful, analytical look, like a chess player observing an opponent's move, recalculating his strategy.

"Seems your friend Kirishima is a bit tense today," he commented, casual tone, offhand, as if talking about the weather, as if it were any observation. "Or is it just me?"

"Kirishima?" Izuku asked, though he knew very well who Shindo was talking about. The game was this: making Izuku say the name, making him acknowledge the elephant in the room, making him verbalize the tension everyone felt but no one named. Making him participate in the game, even if reluctantly. "He seems normal. Why?"

"Ah, I don't know. Maybe it's the other one, then," Shindo took a sip of his drink, his eyes landing on Izuku over the rim of the glass, studying his reaction. "The other friend. The explosive one. The one with a serious problem with personal space and anger management."

The audacity, the dismissive lightness with which Shindo referred to Katsuki, as if he were a clinical case, a character flaw, a disorder to be diagnosed and treated, made something in Izuku contract violently. A wave of protective, fierce, irrational anger rose in his throat, hot and bitter. No one talked that way about Katsuki. No one who hadn't been through what he had, who hadn't seen the struggles, the falls, the redemptions, who didn't understand the monstrous and human complexity of that person. Katsuki wasn't a "problem." He was a person. A complicated, violent, difficult person, yes. But also courageous, loyal (in his own twisted way), determined, incredibly strong. He was someone who fought his own demons every day, who tried to be better, even when he failed.

"He's fine," Izuku said, his voice coming out firmer and colder than he expected, with a cutting edge not usually there. "And his name is Bakugou. Katsuki Bakugou."

Shindo blinked, surprised not by the correction, but by the tone. The tone of boundary. The tone of "stop." The tone that said "this territory is mine, and you are not permitted to tread here." It was a tone Izuku rarely used, especially with friends, with colleagues. It was the tone of a hero, of a leader, of someone who sets limits and expects them to be respected.

"Of course. Bakugou," he corrected, without remorse, without hesitation, as if merely repeating a fact, as if the name itself didn't matter, only the category he placed the person in. "I hope so. Because he's been watching you the whole night. When he was here, at least. Must be tiring, you know? Being the center of so much unsolicited attention. So much... obsession."

Izuku slowly turned to face him completely, leaving his glass aside on a nearby side table, his hands empty, his fingers tingling with the need to move, to do something, to stop those words. The music, the noise, seemed to lower in volume around them, as if a thick glass had descended between them and the rest of the party. Everything became muffled, distant. Only Shindo's voice, soft and venomous, and the fast beating of his own heart, a war drum in his ears.

"What exactly do you mean by that, Shindo?"

"Nothing much. Just an observation," Shindo raised his hands in a gesture of innocence, but his eyes shone with a dangerous light, interested, fascinated. Like a scientist observing a particularly volatile chemical reaction, mentally noting every detail, every color change, every spark. "It's just that... it's a pity, you know? To see someone so bright, so strong, so stuck in the past. So obsessed with something—or someone—he can't have. Must be a terrible prison for him. And a burden for you, carrying the weight of that."

The words were poisonous in their apparent sweetness, in their false concern. Each syllable was designed to penetrate, to sow doubt, to paint Katsuki as disturbed, obsessive, a problem, and himself as the sensible, compassionate observer, the only person sufficiently detached to see the truth. Izuku felt a wave of anger so pure and hot his hands tingled, his fingers involuntarily contracting. It wasn't anger for himself, but for Katsuki. For this violation, this crude and unfair analysis by someone who had no right, who didn't know the history, the pain, the struggle, the redemption. Who reduced fifteen years of complexity to a cheap diagnosis of "obsession." Who transformed something deep, complicated, real, into a pathology, a flaw.

"You don't know what you're talking about," Izuku said, his voice low but cutting like an ice blade, each word carefully chipped to hurt, to establish an insurmountable barrier. "You don't know him."

Shindo tilted his head, a false concession, a theatrical movement of someone accepting a reprimand. His smile didn't disappear, just transformed into something closer to an expression of pity, of condescending compassion, as if Izuku were a child who didn't understand the seriousness of the situation, who was defending himself from someone who only wanted to help.

"Perhaps not," he agreed, but the gleam in his eyes, the subtle satisfaction in the lines around his mouth, contradicted the words. "Or perhaps I see things more clearly precisely because I'm not emotionally involved. Sometimes, the outsider is the one who best sees the game. Sees the moves, the strategies, the weaknesses."

At that exact moment, as if summoned by the escalating conflict, by the cutting tone of Izuku's voice, Katsuki reappeared at the entrance of the bathroom corridor. His face was a perfect pale mask of neutrality, but his eyes were red and slightly glazed—from contained anger, emotional exhaustion, or something else? He was coming towards the main room, his natural path taking him to pass within a few meters of where Izuku and Shindo stood, the silent epicenter of the tension.

His eyes, automatically, as if pulled by a magnet, met Izuku's. And then, like a radar detecting a threat, landed on Shindo. He stopped for a moment, almost imperceptibly, just a minimal pause in his step, as if measuring the distance between them, the intimate space Shindo occupied beside Izuku, the confrontational posture still hanging in the air between the two, the charged energy that seemed to distort the space around them.

Then, without changing expression, without a single muscle moving beyond the strictly necessary, Katsuki veered slightly and headed to the drinks counter, which was less than three meters away. His movements were deliberately slow, controlled, as if each muscle were operated by a separate command, as if he were moving under thick water. He wasn't looking at them, didn't give the impression of paying attention, but every fiber of his body was tense, alert, like a feline about to pounce, like a spring compressed to its maximum. The atmosphere around him seemed to vibrate, the air density changing, like before a storm, like before lightning strikes.

Shindo smiled—a small, intimate smile, meant only for Izuku, a smile of forged complicity, of a shared secret. But it was executed at the exact moment, at the exact angle, so that Katsuki, from his post at the counter, would see it perfectly. It was a master move, a perfect provocation, silent and devastating. A smile that said: "See. He's with me. Smiling at me. In my world."

"He'll never leave you alone, will he?" Shindo murmured, leaning slightly towards Izuku, decreasing the distance between them, his voice an almost intimate whisper carrying the sweet-sour smell of alcohol, of his mint mouthwash. "He'll never accept that you can have your own life, your own... interests. That you've moved on. That the world doesn't revolve around what he feels or doesn't feel."

Katsuki grabbed a bottle of sparkling mineral water, twisted the cap off with a brusque, almost violent movement. The sound of the gas escaping was a sharp hiss in the bubble of tension surrounding them, a noise that seemed to cut the air, like a muffled scream, like a contained explosion.

And then, the truth, raw and unfiltered, escaped from Izuku before his brain could stop it, before censorship and fear and the need for harmony could intervene. Maybe it was the accumulated anger, maybe the need to defend, maybe the simple weariness of social lies, of performance, of the act that this whole night had been. Maybe it was the alcohol, finally loosening the reins of his self-control. Or maybe it was just the unbearable weight of carrying an unspoken truth for so long, of pretending everything was fine when nothing was.

"I haven't moved on," the words came out low, flat, laden with infinite weight, an admission he had never made to himself, much less to another person. It was a confession, a surrender, a truth that hurt to admit, but that also brought a perverse relief, like pulling a rotten tooth.

Shindo blinked, genuinely surprised for the first time that night. His smile faltered, his calculating eyes narrowed for a fraction of a second, as if he were calculating, re-evaluating, reclassifying. Perhaps he hadn't expected that answer. Perhaps he expected denial, defense, an explanation. But not this raw admission, this unexpected vulnerability.

"What?"

"I said I haven't moved on," Izuku repeated, even lower, but with crystalline clarity, as if each word were a piece of glass he was spitting, cutting his own mouth in the process. "And what I do or don't do, what I feel or don't feel, is none of your business, Shindo. It's not a game. It's not a strategy. It's not a move on a board. They're people. They're lives. They're stories you don't know."

He saw Shindo's eyes darken, the mask of camaraderie cracking to reveal something harder, more possessive, more real underneath. A spark of something that looked like anger, or maybe just frustration at having his game interrupted, his narrative contested. He didn't like being contradicted. Didn't like going off-script.

But Izuku was already stepping away, turning his back on him, feeling an urgent, physical need for space, for air, to escape that claustrophobic theater, those poisonous words, that false smile. His glass of sparkling wine was forgotten on the side table, the liquid now flat, without bubbles, dead. His hands trembled slightly, a fine tremor coming from somewhere deep inside him, from the core where anger and pain and truth mixed into a toxic brew that now overflowed, burning everything inside.

The noise of the party, the laughter, the music, everything seemed to suddenly increase in volume, become oppressive, a deafening cacophony hammering his ears. The lights shone too brightly, blinding, painful, like knives of light cutting his eyes. The conglomerated smell of food, drink, perfume, and sweat became nauseating, heavy, like a thick coating on his skin, suffocating.

Without thinking, without planning, his feet carried him to the large sliding glass door leading to the main balcony—not the smaller one where Katsuki had been leaning before, but a larger, wider door that opened onto a broad balcony with outdoor sofas covered with thick blankets, gas fire pits in stone bowls crackling with blue and orange flames, and an unobstructed view of the black sea and the starry sky above. The cold sea air, laden with salt and the damp promise of snow, hit his face like a beneficial punch, immediately clearing some of the hot, heavy fog taking his mind, dissipating the oppressive smell from inside.

Outside, a few people smoked, laughed in small, intimate groups, talked in low voices lost in the vast open environment, swallowed by the constant sound of the sea. The beach below was a strip of deep darkness, only the white foam of the breaking waves visible, ghostly lines against the dark sand. The sound of the sea was constant, deep, an eternal whisper that seemed to speak of older, wiser, simpler things than any human drama, than any punch thrown in a bar, than any power game at a New Year's party. It was a sound that reminded of scale, perspective—the glorious insignificance of all his problems before the immensity of time, space, the universe.

Izuku leaned on the wooden railing, his fingers gripping the rough, icy material until it hurt. He took a deep breath, the cold air burning his lungs, trying to calm the heart beating erratically in his chest, trying to expel Shindo's words, the image of Katsuki at the counter, the feeling of being squeezed between two forces he didn't fully understand.

The words he had said to Shindo echoed in his mind, beating against the walls of his skull like trapped birds.

I haven't moved on.

It was the purest, most naked truth he had admitted to himself in a long time. And by saying it out loud, even to someone like Shindo, to someone who didn't deserve to hear it, something inside him detached, a weight he carried without realizing. The weight of expectation—his own and others'—the pressure to "get over it," to "move on" as if his history with Katsuki was a closed chapter, an overcome obstacle, a life phase left behind.

It wasn't. It never would be. Kacchan was the line that divided his life into before and after, was the shadow and the light, was the broken mirror reflecting all his parts, beautiful and ugly. He was his rival, his antagonist, his ally, his anchor, his shipwreck. He was the boy who bullied him on the playground and the hero who fought by his side against cosmic enemies. He was the person who had hurt him the most and, in some strange and twisted way, the person who understood him the most. Moving on would mean amputating a part of his own soul, his own history, his own identity. And he couldn't. He didn't want to.

The problem, the agonizing knot at the center of everything, was that he didn't know what to do with this truth. He didn't know what it meant, besides pain and confusion and a void that seemed to grow each day. He didn't know how to reconcile it with the punch that had never hit him, but had hit someone in his name. He didn't know how to reconcile it with the look of hatred and despair Katsuki had directed at him, with the deafening silence of the three days, with the absence that was now a ghostly presence at the party.

He looked back, through the glass fogged by the temperature contrast, into the warmth and light of the party. He saw Shindo still standing where he had left him, talking now with Momo, who seemed to listen with a polished expression of interest, but her gaze, even at a distance, periodically scanned the room. Looking for him?

He saw Kirishima and Mina exchanging a worried look near the fireplace, a quick, loaded look that spoke of private conversations, of strategies discussed in whispers, of failed attempts to keep the peace. He saw the clock over the fireplace reading 11:45 PM. Fifteen minutes to midnight. Fifteen minutes to the New Year, to the symbolic fresh start no one there seemed capable of achieving.

And he didn't see Katsuki anywhere.

The cold began to penetrate his wool coat, seep through the seams, make his fingers go numb on the icy wood. He should go back inside. Join the countdown. Smile, toast, pretend everything was fine, that they were all friends celebrating another turn together, that the past was buried and the future bright. But his feet were rooted to the cold wood of the balcony, his body refusing to move back into that false warmth, that oppressive noise, that game of appearances destroying something real, something deep, even if painful. The attraction to chaos, to the unspoken truth, to the confrontation he knew was inevitable—and that perhaps was already happening inside him—was greater than the desire for the comfort of social lies, for the safety of performance.

The cold of the night bit Izuku's skin as soon as he descended the balcony steps and his feet touched the damp sand. The wind coming from the sea was more aggressive down there, laden with salt, moisture, something raw that seemed to clear some of the fog of alcohol and emotional exhaustion. He took a deep breath—or tried to. The air seemed heavier on the beach, saturated with the smell of seaweed and the night cold, but also cleaner, truer.

He walked unhurriedly on the cold sand, his feet sinking slightly with each step, leaving marks that would soon be erased by the next wave, as if he had never been there, as if his problems had never existed. The sound of the waves was loud, constant, like a heart refusing to slow down, a primordial rhythm that seemed to speak of older, simpler things than any human drama. It was a sound that reminded that the world went on, with or without them, with or without their personal wars, their unrequited loves, their punches thrown in bars.

"Idiot..." he murmured, his voice hoarse, almost swallowed by the roar of the sea. The word was for himself, for Katsuki, for the whole situation, for the life that seemed to get more complicated, rather than simpler, with age.

He kicked the sand hard, sending an arc of damp grains forward, a childish gesture of frustration. He almost lost his balance, staggering slightly before regaining his posture. The movement was uncoordinated, revealing the alcohol still circulating in his blood, clouding his thoughts, weakening his inhibitions. He wasn't drunk, not completely. But he was intoxicated—by alcohol, by emotion, by the night, by the truth he had finally admitted.

"Explosive idiot..." he laughed to himself, a short, twisted laugh that held no joy, only bitterness and a deep weariness. "Always been like that. Always has to explode. Always has to break everything."

The image of Katsuki leaning against the door frame, red eyes fixed on him before looking sharply away, jaw tense as if holding an internal explosion, crossed his mind like a shard of glass. It was an image that had haunted him for days, appeared in his dreams, interposed between him and any peaceful thought. Izuku ran a hand through his hair, messing it up even more, feeling the damp strands from the night moisture stick to his fingers.

"Get out of my life if you're going to do that," he said louder now, as if Katsuki could hear him even at a distance, even inside the house full of light and party, or perhaps somewhere else, in the darkness, watching. "Get out for good. Or stay. But decide, dammit. Decide and leave me alone."

The word "peace" sounded false in his own mouth. He didn't want peace. He wanted truth. He wanted resolution. He wanted something—anything—to happen to break the agonizing stalemate they were in. Peace was just the silence between explosions, and he was tired of explosions, but also tired of the silence.

He didn't even notice the presence behind him until he heard the voice, low but clear, cutting through the sound of the waves like a knife through fabric.

"Deku."

The name fell too heavily in the night air, a stone thrown into a frozen lake, breaking the smooth surface, creating ripples that spread, that reached him, that hit him.

Izuku stopped. His entire body stiffened, every muscle tensing as if preparing for a blow, for a fight, for something. He knew that voice like he knew the sound of his own breathing. He knew it in all its tones—of anger, disdain, challenge, rare approval. He knew it even in dreams, nightmares, the oldest and most recent memories.

"No," he replied immediately, without turning, the word coming out like a snap, an automatic rejection, an instinct of self-preservation. "No, no, no. Not you. Go away."

Katsuki was a few meters away, standing on the firm sand near the line where the dampness began, his leather jacket open letting the night cold in, but he didn't seem to feel it. His eyes were too alert, too vigilant, scanning Izuku as if looking for signs of injury, danger, something. The light from the fireworks still occasionally exploding in the sky (rehearsals, perhaps, or earlier private parties) painted his features in fleeting colors—red, green, gold—before disappearing into darkness again, leaving him once more as a dark silhouette, a shadow in the night.

"You're drunk," he said, his voice tense, contained, as if each word had to be measured before being released, as if he were holding something much larger, much more dangerous. "You can't stay out here alone. Go back inside. It's dangerous."

Izuku turned at once, the movement too brusque for his compromised balance. He staggered a bit, feeling the sand shift under his feet, the world spin slightly before stabilizing. The sight of Katsuki, standing there, serious, tense, worried (was it worry? it seemed so), made something tighten in his chest, a sharp, familiar pain.

"Ah..." he let out a short, bitter laugh that sounded false even to his own ears. "Now you care? How funny. Now, after everything, you care if I'm drunk on the beach."

He took a step back, then another, deliberately moving away from the house, the warm light leaking from the windows, the distant music still pulsing like an artificial heart. He moved towards the opposite side of the property, where the sand began to give way to a darker, more irregular area, where low bushes and rocks began to emerge in the gloom, creating deep, treacherous shadows.

"Deku, stop," Katsuki advanced a bit, his feet sinking into the sand with determination, each step firm, controlled, unlike Izuku's faltering steps. "You don't know where you're going. It's dark there, the terrain's uneven. You'll..."

"I do know," Izuku retorted, pointing vaguely into the darkness ahead, the gesture uncoordinated and exaggerated, like a bad actor in a play. "Away from you. That's the only place that matters. Away from you."

The path didn't exactly lead into the woods yet, but coastal vegetation was beginning to appear, denser shadows accumulating between the twisted trunks of trees leaning away from the sea wind, as if trying to escape the salt, the cold, the constant abrasion. Izuku staggered as he stepped on a less stable part of the terrain, where sand gave way to slippery stones covered in black, slimy algae. One leg gave way slightly, and he threw out his arms to balance, muscles tense, heart racing.

"Deku!" Katsuki raised his voice, his heart racing in his chest, an ancient, deep protective instinct surfacing before he could control it, before anger, pride, pain could intervene. It was a reflex conditioned by years—first of disdain, then of rivalry, then of forced partnership, then of something more complex he didn't name. But always, always, there was this reaction when Izuku was in danger. "Stop now. You'll fall, you'll get hurt. Dammit, you're a hero, not a drunk idiot."

"Stop following me!" Izuku shouted, turning sharply, his green eyes gleaming with anger and alcohol and pain, reflecting the faint light from the sky, like gemstones in embers. "Stop acting like an obsessed psychopath! Stop looking at me, following me, me... watching me like I'm yours!"

The words cut deep, more than Izuku could know. Katsuki felt them like physical blows, each finding a vulnerable point he had been trying to protect for years—the fear of being exactly that, a monster, an obsessive, someone who didn't know how to love without destroying, without possessing, without hurting. Someone who, deep down, didn't deserve to be near anyone, much less Izuku.

Katsuki clenched his fists, his knuckles going white even in the half-light, like bones under skin. Anger surged, quick and hot, an automatic reaction to being called what he most feared being—a monster, an obsessive, something unworthy of being near. It was a defensive anger, the anger of someone accused of something they know, deep down, might be true, and fights that truth with all their might.

"Why won't you listen to me?!" he exploded, his voice echoing in the night, louder than the sound of the waves for a moment, cutting the air like lightning.

Izuku froze.

Katsuki's explosion—so familiar, so expected—seemed to hit him like a bucket of ice water. It wasn't the volume, it wasn't the anger. It was the hopelessness in it, the frustration, the feeling of being trapped in a cycle he couldn't break. He turned slowly, so slowly, as if moving through thick liquid, through time that seemed to have slowed.

The look he gave Katsuki wasn't one of sadness, not of fear. It was of pure, raw anger, an anger that had been fermenting for months, for years, mixed with something broken, something that no longer knew how to fix itself. It was the anger of someone hurt repeatedly by the same person, who tried and tried and always seemed to fail, who was tired of trying to understand, to forgive, to wait.

"Listen to you?" he repeated, his voice low now, venomous, each word carefully chosen to cause maximum damage, to return the pain he felt, multiplied. "The last time I listened to you... you remember what you said?"

Katsuki swallowed dryly. Yes, he remembered. He remembered every word, every inflection, every expression on his own face that night eight months ago, after a particularly brutal mission, when the tension between them had reached a breaking point and things were said that couldn't be unsaid. He remembered as if it were yesterday. He remembered the look in Izuku's eyes—not of anger, but of something worse: resigned acceptance, as if he finally believed the words that had always been said about him, about being too much, about being a burden.

"You said I suffocated you," Izuku continued, taking a step closer, defiant, invading Katsuki's personal space in a way he normally never dared, breaking all the unwritten barriers existing between them. "That my concern disgusted you. That I was too much. Always too much. That my... my presence made you weak."

He laughed, but there was no humor there, only pain transformed into something acidic and cutting, into poison he spat back, trying, somehow, to balance the scales, make Katsuki feel a fraction of what he felt.

"You really think I'll listen to you now? After all that? After you telling me I was a burden? After you almost hitting me at the bar? After you disappearing for three days? You think I'll just... obey?"

Katsuki stood still. He didn't defend himself. Didn't retort. There was no way to. Izuku's words had hit exactly where it hurt, in truths he himself believed, in fears that consumed him from within. He had said those things. Had felt those things, in that moment of anger and frustration and something deeper he didn't understand. And now the consequences were there, in front of him, in the green eyes gleaming with pain and anger, in the pale face illuminated by the distant light of the house.

Izuku turned again, starting to walk once more, his steps more irregular now, more determined, as if fleeing something—from Katsuki, from the words, from himself. The darkness ahead seemed inviting, an embrace promising anonymity, oblivion, peace. Promising an end to the pain, even if temporary.

But he stopped after a few meters.

He took a deep breath, the cold air burning his lungs, clearing some of the fog, bringing a moment of painful clarity.

He turned again.

And came back.

Stopped right in front of Katsuki, too close, their bodies almost touching, the heat of one meeting the cold of the other. Izuku's green eyes gleamed with alcohol and repressed emotion, with truths that only came out when defenses were low, when walls were cracked.

"I just wanted to understand," he said, his voice faltering in the middle, breaking, revealing the vulnerability beneath the anger, the hurt child beneath the adult hero. "Just that. I just wanted an answer. A truth. Anything."

He passed a hand over his face, rubbing his eyes as if he could erase the fatigue, the confusion, the pain. But when he lowered his hand, his eyes were even brighter, moist, as if about to cry, but not allowing the tears to fall.

"Why did you act like that? Why?" the question came out louder, more desperate, carrying all the weight of the months of silence, of distance, of misunderstandings, of the years of complicated history binding them in ways neither fully understood. "Was it really because of me? Because of me, Katsuki? Do I really... do I really destroy you that much?"

Silence.

Only the sound of the waves, constant, indifferent, breaking on the sand, receding, returning. An eternal cycle. Like their cycle: explosion, silence, tension, explosion.

Katsuki opened his mouth. Closed it. His chest rose and fell too fast, his ragged breath visible in the cold air in small white clouds that dissolved quickly, ephemeral. His eyes, normally so full of certainty, of challenge, of unshakable conviction, were now full of conflict, of an internal war visible even in the half-light, in the tensed muscles of his face, in the firm line of his lips that trembled slightly.

He could tell.

He wanted to tell.

He wanted to say everything—the fear, the guilt, the confusion, the horrible and wonderful truth that Izuku was both his anchor and his shipwreck. That his presence was simultaneously the thing that strengthened him the most and weakened him the most. That he didn't know how to exist without this rivalry, without this tension, without this deep, twisted connection that bound them. That the punch wasn't from anger at Shindo, but from fear—fear of losing, fear of being replaced, fear of discovering that Izuku could move on without him, that he could find in someone else what they had (or what he thought they had, or what he wished they had).

But not like this. Not now. Not when Izuku was drunk, vulnerable, when words could be misinterpreted, or worse, used as weapons later, when clarity returned and shame arrived. Katsuki had his pride, yes, but he also had a code, however twisted. And that code said some truths shouldn't be spoken in moments of weakness.

"No..." the voice came out hoarse, broken, as if he had swallowed glass, as if each syllable tore his throat from the inside. "I can't. Not now. You're drunk. It's not... not the right time."

Izuku blinked a few times, as if trying to focus his vision, understand the words, decipher the meaning behind them.

Then he laughed.

A mocking, wounded, almost cruel laugh that made Katsuki recoil mentally, as if hit physically. It was a laugh that didn't suit Izuku, that was strange on his lips, that seemed to come from another person, a more cynical, bitter version of him.

"You never can, can you?" Izuku said, the smile still on his lips, but his eyes now dull, dead, as if something inside him had been extinguished by that refusal. "That's the problem. You never want to talk. Never wanted to speak the truth. Never want... to be honest. It's always hide, always run, always explode. Never talk."

He shook his head, a slow, tired movement, as if resigned to a painful truth, as if finally accepting something he had been avoiding.

"Never."

The "never" hung suspended between them, an insurmountable barrier, too heavy to fall into the sand, too dense to be carried away by the salty wind cutting across the beach. The word echoed in Izuku's ears, not as a sound, but as a physical sensation—a weight on his chest, a knot in his throat. He breathed deeply, as if the air wasn't reaching his lungs properly, as if the atmosphere around him had become more rarefied, harder to breathe. The alcohol made everything slower and more intense at the same time—thoughts scrambled like cards thrown to the wind, emotions laid bare, without defenses, without the walls he normally built to protect himself. Everything was raw, everything hurt more, everything seemed more real and more illusory at once.

He turned his face first, as if needing to escape the weight of that gaze, the almost unbearable intensity emanating from Katsuki. But he didn't go far. He couldn't. Something pulled him back, an ancient, stubborn force he knew all too well—the same force that made him follow Katsuki even when rejected, the same force that kept him tied to this destructive and vital dance for over a decade. It was a gravitational magnet, a connection beyond reason, beyond pride, beyond pain. It was something inscribed in his bones, in his DNA, as fundamental as his heartbeat.

When he raised his eyes again, Katsuki was still there.

Looking.

There was no anger in that gaze. No fury, no explosion, none of the elements Izuku had associated with Katsuki all his life. There was something much worse—something naked. Raw. Disarmed. A feeling too big to fit within Katsuki's pride, too deep for the courage he hadn't yet found within himself. It was a gaze that didn't try to hide anything, that didn't try to intimidate, that didn't try to prove something. It was simply... open. And because it was open, it was devastating.

Izuku felt the physical impact of it, as if punched in the stomach, but a punch that didn't hurt, only took the air away. His chest tightened, his heart missing a beat, beating irregularly, out of rhythm, as if trying to escape its own ribcage. It was unfair. It was cowardly. Katsuki wasn't saying anything, wasn't using words, wasn't explaining, wasn't defending himself. But his silence screamed all that he refused to verbalize. It was as if each second of that gaze said, in an ancient, primordial language only they understood: stay, don't go, don't end like this, please don't end like this. It was a silent plea, an unspoken entreaty, a contained desperation more eloquent than any speech.

Izuku looked away again, uncomfortable, too vulnerable, feeling naked before that exposure, as if his own feelings—confused, contradictory, painful—were being reflected back at him in Katsuki's red eyes. He didn't want to see that. Didn't want to know Katsuki could feel something so deep, so desperate. Because if he felt it, then it was real. And if it was real, then their pain was real, the connection was real, the possibility of something more was real. And that was frightening. It was more frightening than any villain, because it was a battle he didn't know how to fight, a territory he didn't know how to map.

He knew what that gaze did to him. He always had. Since U.A. days, since those looks laden with rivalry and disdain that, even then, carried a spark of something more, of a deep recognition, of an obsession beyond simple competitiveness. Katsuki always looked at him as if he were an enigma to be deciphered, a challenge to be overcome, a mirror reflecting both the best and worst of him. And now... now the gaze was different. It was less about challenge and more about surrender. Less about possession and more about offering. Less about anger and more about a shared, silent, deep pain.

And yet, when he looked back at Katsuki, when his green eyes finally met the red ones again in the half-light, he didn't truly ask him to stop. Because a part of him—the most honest, most wounded, most truthful part, which he normally kept locked away, hidden behind the hero's smile, the unshakable determination, the will to save everyone—wanted to be seen like that. Wanted to be desired in that quiet, desperate way. Wanted someone to look at him and see not the symbol, not the hero, not the rising number one, but just Izuku. The frightened boy. The confused adult. The person carrying the weight of an unresolved love, an unfinished story, a heart that still beat strongly for the one who had hurt him the most.

The wind passed between them, cold, cutting, carrying the distant sound of music and laughter from the house, of the celebration that seemed to belong to another planet, another dimension. The sea was still there, constant, indifferent, a mute witness to another almost, to another moment when something could have happened, but didn't. The waves broke with a sighing sound, of resignation, as if they knew this story, had seen it before, countless times, with other people, in other eras. Humanity, after all, was predictable in its pain, its unfulfilled desires, its complicated loves.

They were too close.

Close enough for Izuku to notice how tired Katsuki looked—not physically, but existentially. Tired of the internal fight, tired of carrying the weight of his own pride, his own temper, his own inability to say what truly mattered. Close enough to notice how fragile that control—so famous, so worked on over the years—was, built by force, held together with duct tape and sheer determination. It was like a statue of the thinnest glass, beautiful and dangerous, that could shatter with a touch, a wrong word, a look too intense.

Close enough for any wrong move to break everything—the precarious balance between them, the loaded silence, the undeclared truce. A step forward could mean an embrace or a fight. A step back could mean surrender or respect. A word could be a beginning or an end.

For an instant—just one, fleeting as the flash of a firework in the night sky—the world seemed to shrink until only they remained, trapped in that suspended space between the past and something that didn't yet exist. Everything around disappeared: the lit house, the party, the friends, the sea, the sky. Only two men remained on a dark beach, separated by centimeters and by years of unresolved history, of unspoken feelings, of an attraction that was both magnetic and painful.

Izuku swallowed dryly, feeling his throat tighten, his eyes burning not with tears, but with contained emotion. He wanted to say something. Wanted to ask, demand, plead. He wanted Katsuki to finally break the silence, to say the words that needed to be said, to put an end to the agony of uncertainty. But the words wouldn't come out. They remained stuck, piled in his throat, forming a block that neither anger, nor pain, nor alcohol could dislodge.

Katsuki didn't move.

Didn't advance. Didn't retreat. Didn't look away.

Just remained there, like a statue carved from tension and repressed desire, his red eyes fixed on Izuku with an intensity that seemed to burn, to consume the air around them. He didn't blink. Didn't take a deep breath. Didn't give any sign of weakness, except for the almost imperceptible tremor in his hands, the quick pulse visible in his neck, the moisture in his eyes that didn't quite form tears, but glistened with a wet, vulnerable light.

And that was what hurt the most.

The immobility. The silent acceptance. The surrender without a fight.

Katsuki Bakugou, who had always fought against everything and everyone, who had always exploded in the face of obstacles, who had always transformed his anger into action, now stood still. Accepting Izuku's gaze. Accepting the pain. Accepting the possibility of loss. Not as a defeated man, but as someone who finally understood the price of his own actions, his own silence, his own fear.

And in that immobility, in that loaded stillness, there was more truth than in any explosion, more courage than in any battle, more passion than in any speech. It was the silent passion of someone who doesn't know how to love in any way other than through possession and destruction, but who is desperately trying to learn. The passion of someone willing to stand still and be seen, vulnerable and exposed, even if it hurts, even if it means admitting weakness.

Izuku felt his own heart break and rebuild in the same instant. Break from the pain of seeing Katsuki like that, so far from the arrogant volcano he had known, so close to the fragile, human core that had always been there, hidden under layers of explosions and arrogance. And rebuild because, for the first time, he saw something real there. Something that wasn't performance, wasn't rivalry, wasn't unhealthy obsession. It was simply... feeling. Raw, unpolished, not understood, but real.

The wind brought the sound of the countdown, clearer now, as if the house doors had been opened, releasing the celebration to the outside world.

"THREE!"

"TWO!"

"ONE!"

"HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!"

The fireworks exploded with full force, filling the sky with light and color, illuminating the beach in bright, fleeting bursts. For a second, Izuku saw Katsuki's face fully illuminated—the red eyes fixed on him, mouth slightly open as if about to say something, features marked by an expression he had never seen before: a mix of desire, fear, hope, and resignation. It was the face of someone on the edge, about to jump off a cliff without knowing if they will fly or fall.

And then the light was gone, leaving only the ghostly afterimage on his retinas, and the darkness returned, deeper, more intimate.

In the dark, Izuku heard his own ragged breathing. Heard Katsuki's, equally irregular. Heard the sound of the sea, the waves, the distant fireworks.

And then, something changed.

Katsuki moved. It wasn't a step forward or back. It was something smaller, almost imperceptible. A slight tilt of his head, a closing of his eyes for a fraction of a second, as if gathering courage, as if accepting something.

When he opened his eyes again, even in the half-light, Izuku could see that something had been decided. Something had settled within him. It wasn't peace, wasn't resolution. It was acceptance. Acceptance that some things can't be said with words. Acceptance that some truths can only be transmitted through silence, through presence, through the simple decision not to leave.

Katsuki didn't say "happy new year." Didn't say "I'm sorry." Didn't say "I love you" or any variation of that.

He just remained.

And in that remaining, in that silent decision to stay there, not to flee, not to explode, to just be present in that shared space of pain and possibility, Izuku read everything he needed to read.

And it hurt.

And it healed a little.

And it confused everything again.

But mainly, it made him decide to stay too. At least a little longer. At least until the next firework flash in the sky, until the next wave broke on the sand, until the next moment the world would demand they move, choose, live.

"Katsuki," he said, not looking at him, eyes fixed on the sky now catching fire in silent and noisy explosions at once, a cacophony of light and sound that seemed a too-obvious metaphor for what he felt inside. "Leave me alone. Please. Just... leave me alone."

He moved away again, this time without hurry, almost resigned, walking across the sand towards the other side of the beach, away from the house, away from the light, away from everything. His body crooked, steps unsteady, but determined. His silhouette grew smaller with each step, gradually swallowed by the darkness reigning in the more distant part of the beach, until it became just an indistinct blot against the dark sand, a shadow merging with other shadows.

Katsuki stayed where he was.

The fireworks continued to explode above him, illuminating his tense, lonely face in bursts of color. Gold, silver, red, green—colors of celebration, of joy, of new beginnings. Each explosion painted his features for an instant, revealing the red eyes fixed on the point where Izuku had disappeared, the mouth in a firm, painful line, the hand still clenched in a fist, but now without force, just empty.

He didn't move.

Didn't follow Izuku. Because he had asked to be left alone. And Katsuki, no matter how much he wanted to, no matter how much every fiber of his being screamed to go after him, to explain, to try to fix what was broken, knew he had to respect that. Knew he had caused enough damage. Knew that perhaps peace—true peace—for Izuku was his absence.

He didn't go back to the party. Couldn't bear the light, the noise, the happy people celebrating a new beginning when he felt something important had ended. Couldn't pretend everything was fine, that it was just another turn of the year, that things would magically resolve with the change of date.

He did nothing.

Stayed there, planted in the damp sand, his hands now relaxed at his sides, fists open, fingers tingling from cold and something deeper—a dull pain, an emptiness, a sense of loss that was so familiar and so new at the same time. The open jacket let the cold in, but he didn't feel it. Only felt the internal cold, the ice that seemed to spread through his veins, freezing him from within.

Around him, celebration shouts, laughter, distant clinking of glasses, hugs—the world moving on, celebrating the passage of time, the promise of a fresh start, the hope that the new year would be better, happier, lighter.

He didn't join them.

Stayed there, alone, watching the sky catch fire in fleeting glory, ephemeral beauty, while everything he needed to say, everything he wanted to explain, everything he felt but couldn't name, remained stuck in his throat, a knot of unspoken truths, unconfessed fears, of a pain he didn't know how to express without destroying the little he still had.

And the new year began like that.

With two men on opposite sides of a dark beach.

One walking away, trying to find peace in distance, in solitude, in escape.

Another standing still, watching, trapped in his own hell of silence and regret.

And the sound of the sea, constant, eternal, covering everything—the fireworks, the laughter, the unspoken words, the pain, the lost hope. The sea that would continue there, breaking on the sand, receding, returning, regardless of what happened to them, their broken hearts, their unfinished stories.

The new year began.

But for them, it seemed something had ended.

Chapter Text

pov Izuku 🥦

 

Time is a curious thing. It can be measured in seconds, in heartbeats, in moon cycles. But for me, in those exact two weeks since New Year's, it was measured in absences. In gaps. In silences that echoed louder than any explosion.

It had been two weeks since the fireworks had painted the sky with ephemeral colors, and since I had drawn my own line in the sand on the beach. Two weeks since the words "leave me alone" or something similar, I could hardly even remember the exact words anymore, just the feeling of suffocation that accompanied them had left my mouth and frozen the air between me and Katsuki. Two weeks since I had turned my back on that loaded silence and gone inside, leaving him behind along with the last shards of light in the night sky.

One week since I had put the uniform back on. The heavy, familiar fabric, the smell of industrial detergent and a faint remnant of ozone from my own energy discharges. Answering calls with a voice that sounded normal to my own ears. Filling out reports with meticulous handwriting, detailing facts and omitting hearts. Following orders, because it was easier than giving orders to myself. The U.A. holidays still had a breath of life left, a last gasp before the semester started again, but the hero holidays that forced and golden break had ended. They had ended as they always ended in our world: suddenly, without ceremony, without warning. A villain doesn't wait for your emotional equilibrium. A disaster doesn't care about your desire for five more minutes of peace. The world, relentless and spinning, waits for no one to pull themselves together.

I marked time that way in weeks since an event, in days since a return because it was easier, safer. It was unquestionable mathematics, clean, free of subjectivity. Two plus one always equals three. Fourteen minus seven always equals seven. The beauty of numbers lay in their coldness, their impenetrable logic. Numbers didn't have red eyes that could burn with anger or, worse, with silent pain.

Numbers didn't have clenched fists that trembled not with an eagerness to fight, but with the strength of holding something fragile. Numbers didn't stand still on the sandy beach under a rain of fireworks, carrying on their shoulders a silence so dense it weighed more than all the shouts we'd ever exchanged. Numbers were my safe harbor. I counted them, organized them, used them as a compass in an inner sea that had lost its north.

Two weeks since the turn.
Seven days since the return.
Zero calls.
Zero messages.
Zero apparent disturbances.

Katsuki Bakugou had respected what I asked for with almost military precision. Not a slip, not an "I just wanted to see how you were doing," not an ambiguous text in the middle of the night. Nothing. Absolute silence.

That, in theory, in basic logic, should have been a colossal relief. I had drawn a boundary. I asked for space. I got space. I asked for silence. I got silence. It was a wish granted, a need satisfied, a problem solved. I should feel… at peace. I should feel that, finally, I had managed to control a variable in the chaotic and stormy weather system that had always surrounded the name Kacchan. A variable that, for years, seemed governed by forces as unpredictable and powerful as my own.

But peace, that serene entity, did not come.

In its place, a vacuum settled.

It was different from the vacuum that followed the bar incident in that one had been sharp, hot, full of the echo of poisonous words and the dry sound of an impact against flesh. That vacuum throbbed. This new vacuum was cold. It was an empty, wide, and silent space, where before there had been a constant static.

A static made of unresolved tension, of looks exchanged across corridors, of the ever-present possibility of an explosion verbal or physical. It was an irritating interference, yes, but it was a presence. It was something. And I discovered, with a feeling of acidic guilt that burned my throat and settled in my chest, that the static was infinitely less lonely than the perfect silence that now replaced it.

The professional routine returned with an almost offensive force to its impeccable normality. Low-risk missions, meticulously organized patrols, shifts with well-defined schedules. I functioned. My body, trained to the absolute limit, knew what to do even when my mind seemed to operate in the background, like a program running on a machine while the user is distracted. Part of me, a fundamental, attentive part, was always on high alert, passively scanning the environment for a familiar, rough noise, for an explosion of nitroglycerin particles in the air, for a presence that imposed its own gravitational field. But nothing came. There were no explosions. There was no voice. Just the white noise of the city and the muffled sound of my own thoughts.

The exhaustion that accompanied me was not physical that one I knew well, it was an old friend, a constant and almost comforting presence since the first torturous days of One For All. This new fatigue was something else. A mental tiredness that accumulated at the loose ends of my thoughts, in the questions I deliberately left hanging, unanswered, in the internal air of my mind. It was the fatigue of watching for a tsunami that, apparently, had decided to recede. It was the wear and tear of expecting a confrontation that did not materialize, leaving me tense, prepared for a blow that never came. The body can rest. Nerves, once stretched to the limit, have a harder time relaxing.

Shindo, in turn, also seemed to have understood the message with admirable clarity. He maintained an impeccable professional distance. Our interactions were limited to the strictly necessary in team meetings or brief exchanges in the agency hallways. "Good morning, Deku." "East zone report is in the shared folder." "We need your signature here." His sentences were short, functional, with no opening for secondary interests or for that warmth he radiated so easily. He still smiled when our gazes accidentally crossed a reflex, perhaps but it was a different smile. Contained. Polished. Respectful. A smile that said "I understand the boundaries" and nothing more.

I was grateful for that deep down, more than I would like to admit. It was one less problem to manage, an emotional variable stabilized. However, a part of me, small and insistent, felt… dirty. As if the simple relief I felt at seeing his withdrawal was already, in itself, a kind of betrayal. Betrayal of what? I couldn't quite define it. Perhaps of the raw intensity of what happened at the bar. As if, by pushing Shindo and his direct advance away, I was erasing the most tangible physical proof that something real, something violent and passionate, had happened. As if I were consenting, by omission, to the collective silence that quickly buried that punch, treating it as just another explosive episode of Dynamight's notorious temper, and not what it really was: a breaking point.

"Good to have you back, Deku," commented a veteran hero from a partner agency on my second day back, lightly patting my shoulder with a calloused hand. His tone was casual, but his eyes, experienced, seemed to scan my face for a second longer than necessary.

"Start of the year, right? No time to waste," replied another, younger, passing by me with a stack of reports that smelled of toner and spilled coffee. "The city doesn't sleep."

I smiled. In the right way. At the right time. The muscles of my face, trained in years of public interaction, obeyed the social command without fail. "You too," I said, my voice sounding normal, healthy. "Let's give it our all this year."

And everything went on. Everything was normal. Excessively normal. Everything was too normal. And that normality, as the days went by, began to feel like a kind of toxic gas, odorless and colorless, that I was constantly inhaling without noticing the slow, gradual poisoning. I woke up at the same time, under the same ceiling that seemed taller and emptier. Worked with mechanical efficiency. Ate functional, tasteless meals. Slept shallow, non-restorative sleep. Repeated. The world spun on its usual axis, relentless, and I was stuck on it, spinning along, but with the distinct and anguishing sensation that something fundamental, a central cog, had come out of place. And the most disturbing thing: no one else seemed to notice. The universe followed its course, indifferent to my internal misalignment.

The mission with Tsuyu and Sero was, in every aspect, so simple it bordered on banal. An urban damage control operation. A minor partial collapse in a commercial building under renovation, possibly due to structural miscalculations or excess material. No one was seriously injured, just some scares and the need to evacuate two ground-floor shops and an office on the first floor. Work supporting the firefighters, containing the area, comforting the displaced civilians. Nothing that required the limit of our powers, nothing that involved life-or-death choices, nothing that even significantly sped up our heartbeats.

We functioned like a clock. Tsuyu, with her pragmatic efficiency that cut straight to the heart of any problem, used her tongue and agility to check hard-to-reach corners, ensuring no one was left behind. Sero, with his dry and easy-going humor, used his tapes to temporarily reinforce a compromised beam and, between tasks, eased the tension of the construction workers with shy jokes. I coordinated with the fire captain, relayed information via radio, and helped carry some equipment boxes. It was comfortable. Predictable. Almost automatic. It was the kind of mission that makes you think "this is why I became a hero," but in a quiet, not epic, way. To help, protect, be present.

Perhaps it was precisely because of that operational peace, that absence of real danger, that the subsequent shock was so violent. Because I was unprepared. Because my emotional shield, the one I kept rigidly raised in the presence or expectation of Katsuki was down, relaxed. My brain, deceived by the normality of the day, had lowered its guard. The danger, if there was still a danger named Katsuki, was presumably dormant, busy in some other distant point of the city, involved in his own crises, far from my field of vision and, consequently, from my emotional battlefield.

It was after. It's always after, isn't it? When the action ends and the dust literal, this time begins to settle. When the firefighters take full control of the scene and our role becomes secondary. That's when people, having gotten over the initial scare, started to approach. To thank, to ask, to take pictures. There are always pictures. Children, especially. Always them. With their huge, bright eyes, wearing hero t-shirts that are too big on them, carrying little autograph books or improvised pieces of paper. They are the purest part of the job, the unwritten reminder of "for whom" we do what we do.

I was talking to one of the engineers responsible for the construction, jotting down a final detail about the stability of the side facade to include in my final report. The pen scratched the paper, the technical words came out of my mouth, everything on autopilot. That's when I felt, not heard, but felt a subtle change in the buzz around me. It wasn't the tone of panic or urgency. It was something different. A concentration of attention, but not tense. A softer, almost maternal energy, but no less intense for it. A murmur of low voices, a cluster of people forming not towards me, but at a point about twenty meters away, near the parked ambulance that hadn't been needed.

And then I looked up.

And I saw.

Katsuki was not in combat. He was not at the center of a chaos that demanded his controlled ferocity. He wasn't shouting orders with that steel-cutting voice, nor using explosions to move debris or create defensive barriers. He wasn't imposing his presence in the way I, and the world, knew so well with the posture of a battlefield general, every muscle tensed for action, fiery eyes sweeping the scene for the next threat to be annihilated.

He was kneeling.

In the middle of the sidewalk covered in white dust and plaster fragments, he had folded his powerful body, leveling his height with that of a small girl. She couldn't have been more than six years old. She wore a light pink coat, now stained with gray, and held with both hands a toy firefighter hat, bright red plastic. And he was talking to her.

He talked to her as if there were no news cameras in the background (there were). As if there were no firefighters and other heroes circulating (there were). As if that piece of sidewalk were the only place in the universe at that moment. It didn't seem forced. It didn't seem like a pose calculated for the press who, in fact, were more interested in the damaged building and the working firefighters. There wasn't that usual tension in his shoulders, that hard line of irritation or impatience around his mouth that I associated with any prolonged public interaction that didn't involve combat.

He was… smiling.

Not that crooked, predatory, toothy grin that was his default expression before an intense workout or in the aftermath of a hard victory. Not that explosive, short, and mocking laugh he let out when someone said something he considered stupid. It was something completely different. Something more contained. Softer. More… real.

The corners of his eyes, normally narrowed into a penetrating gaze, were slightly crinkled, creating small lines that weren't of anger, but of… kindness? His mouth, normally a firm, decided line of determination or disdain, was curved upward in a simple, genuine arc. He was holding a pencil (where did he get a pencil?) and signing something in the drawing notebook the girl was holding out to him, listening to what she was saying with his head slightly tilted, in a gesture of total attention. His lips moved in response, forming words that the ambient noise prevented me from hearing. At one point, as she pointed to something on her toy hat, his hand that hand that could reduce concrete to dust with a snap of his fingers moved. He touched the girl's shoulder, a quick, almost clumsy gesture, as if he wasn't completely accustomed to that gentleness, but the intention was undeniably kind. It was a comforting touch, an "it's okay." The girl smiled even more, a smile with missing teeth. Then, when she turned to run back to her parents, who were watching closely with expressions of astonishment and gratitude, I clearly read Katsuki's lips forming two silent syllables: "Tha-nk you."

For a dizzying moment, I thought I was hallucinating. That it was a trick of the late afternoon light, gilding everything with an unreal glow. That it was the accumulated fatigue of the week, the repressed tension, playing with my perception. Perhaps my brain, starved for some kind of resolution, for a signal, for a piece of the puzzle that made sense, was projecting onto that banal scene the image it secretly wished to see. But then, as if to confirm the reality of what my eyes had witnessed, I began to hear the whispers around me. They weren't directed at me. They were private conversations, loose observations on the wind, but they hit my ears with the clarity of a shout.

"He's different, isn't he?" whispered a middle-aged woman to her companion, holding a grocery bag she had rescued from the evacuated store. "Dynamight."

"They say he's been calmer since the start of the year," the man replied, nodding with a thoughtful air. "Less… well, explosive. In temper, I mean."

From another direction, a young mother holding a baby wrapped in a blanket commented to a friend: "My older son, who's seven, loves him now. Won't stop talking. Says Dynamight is the coolest hero because he 'blows up the bad guys but is gentle with the kids.'" She laughed, a light sound. "He even asked for a backpack with his logo."

The words didn't hit me like arrows. They were more like small stones thrown into a lake with a smooth, deep surface. They didn't hurt immediately, but they created ripples, resonated. Echoed within the vast vacuum that Katsuki's self-imposed silence had carved into me. Each comment was proof. Eyewitness testimony. External confirmation that the change was not an invention of my tired mind.

The conversations continued, overlapping each other, like a white noise made of human voices and others' opinions. And then, between one comment and another, something more concrete emerged.

Something too official to ignore.

"Did you see the ranking update this morning?" asked a younger guy, checking something on his phone as he spoke to his friend. "Dynamight rose again. He's in fourth now."

"Fourth?" the other's eyes widened. "Wow. That didn't take long. He was in twelfth."

My body reacted before my mind. A slight stiffening in the shoulders. A discreet knot in my stomach.

"What about Deku?" someone from the same group asked.

"Third. Still steady up there."

My name wasn't spoken, but I knew they were talking about me. It was always like that. Cold numbers, positions organized as if they could sum up everything we were, everything it cost to get there.

"But look," the guy with the phone continued, sliding the screen with his thumb , "people are talking about him a lot. It's not just raw power. They say his conduct assessment improved a lot. Public service, cooperation on scene, that kind of thing."

"You can tell," someone behind me replied. "Before he scared people. Now… I don't know. He seems more like a hero, you know?"

More like a hero.

The word hit me with unexpected weight.

I looked back at Katsuki Dynamight still surrounded, still crouched, now listening intently to a firefighter who was saying something quickly before heading back to work. Katsuki nodded once, serious, respectful. No verbal explosions. No disdain.

He wasn't trying to climb the ranking.
He was climbing because he was different.

"Funny," an older woman commented, crossing her arms as she watched the scene. "Never thought I'd say this, but… I feel calmer when I see him around now."

Calmer.

That word didn't fit the image I'd carried for years either. And maybe that was precisely why everything inside me was starting to come undone.

Fourth place.
Third.

The distance between them had never seemed so small. Not in numbers. But in something else. Something more dangerous. Something not measured in rankings.
Change.

I didn't approach. I remained where I was, rooted, a statue of a hero covered in fine dust. My green uniform seemed dull against the gray backdrop. I wasn't seen or, if I was, my presence was ignored, overshadowed by the unusual scene unfolding there. Katsuki, at no point, looked in my direction. Not a casual glance, not a sudden movement of recognition. Nothing. He finished interacting with the child, stood up with a fluid movement, talked for another thirty seconds with a firefighter who seemed to ask a question, and then walked away. His walk was still that long, determined stride, but it lacked the almost furious urgency that normally propelled him forward. He didn't leave like a hurricane. He left like… a person. Someone who finished a task and moves on to the next.

And that, in some way that logic couldn't explain, hurt more deeply than if he had stared at me through the crowd with pure anger in his eyes. More than if he had ignored my presence with that haughty disdain I knew so well. What I witnessed was a professional, polished, complete indifference. As if I were just another colleague hero on the scene, a data point in his visual field, no more important than a lamppost or a parked car. As if the invisible line that had always connected us that line loaded with shared history, rivalry, hatred, something more complex we never named had been cut with surgical scissors. As if he had simply… disconnected.

I watched from afar, with that strange and increasingly painful sensation of watching a show I was no longer part of. Of being a spectator, an intruder, witnessing the transformation of someone who, for all my conscious life, I believed I knew in his most brutal, most truthful layers, made of gunpowder and pride.

A question then arose, without warning, sprouting from the fertile ground of my astonishment and lodging in a sore spot in my chest, right between the sternum and throat, where the air seemed to get stuck:

Did he always know how to be like this?

The question was dangerous. Because if the answer was yes… if this capacity for gentleness, for genuine patience with a small, fragile stranger, had always been there, hidden under layers of fury and arrogance… then what did that say about everything? About all the times he grumbled while giving an autograph, was rude to overly persistent fans, growled at reporters, treated any public interaction that wasn't combat as an irritating obligation to be fulfilled in the shortest time possible? Had it all been an act? A carefully cultivated persona, the "Great Explosive and Grumpy Hero," part of Dynamight's branding?

Or was this gentleness something new? A recently acquired skill, like a new move in his combat arsenal, trained and perfected in secret? A "Special Move: Basic Kindness," maximum difficulty level for someone like him.

And if it was new… why? Why now? Why, precisely at the moment I had drawn a line on the ground (or on the beach) and asked, begged for space, did he choose to develop and display this new facet? Why, when I stepped away, did he decide to become this softer, more accessible, more… human version?

The conclusion, cold and clear, formed like an ice crystal in my stomach: he was changing. And the change wasn't happening for me, nor because of me, nor where I could touch it or question it. It was happening out there, in the world, in broad daylight, before the eyes of strangers and children, while I stood outside the windowpane, watching. A windowpane I myself had put there, brick by brick, with my request for silence.

The sensation that followed was not anger. It wasn't something so hot and defined. It wasn't jealousy, in the conventional sense either. It was something deeper and more specific: an acute loneliness. The distinct sensation of having been left behind at a dark, empty train station, watching through dirty windows as an illuminated carriage departed, carrying a version of Bakugou I might never get the chance to know. A version the rest of the world was beginning to see, while I, who had known him for a lifetime, was reduced to a distant observer.

On the way back to the agency, inside the official car, the silence was a living being. Sero, sitting next to me in the back seat, tried to break it.

"Hey, have you guys seen that new strategy game that came out? The space one? They say the learning curve is like climbing Mount Fuji with your hands tied." His words, normally a comic relief, sounded distant, as if reaching me through a long tunnel. Tsuyu, in the passenger seat, just let out a thoughtful "ribbit" and continued looking out the window, her profile still and reflective.

I knew, with the certainty that only years of close coexistence provide, that they had seen. That the scene of Dynamight kneeling in the dust had impacted each of them, each in their own way. Sero, with his easy-going way, probably thought it was cool, a positive sign, since he's part of that group too.

Tsuyu, with her sharp perception devoid of social filters, would have registered the fact, analyzed it, filed it away. But no one commented. The Bar Incident thus, with capital letters in our minds had created a silent exclusion zone around the name Bakugou whenever I was present. They were my friends. They saw my tension, the haze of distraction that enveloped me. And, out of care, respect, or not knowing what to say, they treaded with a caution that hurt more than a direct question.

It was when we were saying goodbye in the somber underground parking lot of the agency, the echo of our footsteps mixing with the noise of industrial fans, that Uraraka appeared. She was coming from the pedestrian entrance, still wearing her hero suit, with soot streaks like war paint on one cheek and her forearms. Her hair was a bit disheveled, but her smile, upon seeing us, was instant and bright, like a lighthouse turning on in the gloom.

"Hey, guys!" she called, waving a hand that held her gear backpack. "Everything okay out there? Mission go smoothly?"

Greetings were exchanged, a chorus of "all good," "smooth," "you?". Superficial questions about the different natures of our missions that day. The air was one of tired camaraderie, the kind you share after a workday. And then, with a naturalness that, to me, sounded deliberately studied, she turned her gaze directly to me. Her brown eyes, normally so full of warmth and optimism, were serious. Examining.

"We're going out a bit tonight," she said, her voice casual, but her eyes fixed. "Iida, Todoroki, me. It'll be something simple, dinner. Nothing fancy. Wanna come?"

An invitation thrown into the air, with no apparent pressure. Like someone saying "we'll be there, drop by if you want." But I knew Uraraka Ochako. Knew the firmness beneath her sweetness, the stubbornness beneath her smile. Her eyes at that moment weren't saying drop by if you want.

They were saying: You've only been leaving home for work and coming back. You barely talk in the group. You eat alone. We're watching you, and we're worried. They were saying, more clearly than any words: You're not okay, Izuku. Even if you're faking it masterfully.

My first visceral reaction was to refuse. The idea of socializing, of maintaining light conversation for hours, of laughing at the right time, of faking a normality I didn't feel, seemed a Herculean task, exhausting beyond measure. The mental tiredness weighed on me like a lead coat.

But the alternative returning to my empty apartment, where the silence had become tangible, where the echoes of the New Year's conversation still seemed to linger like smoke, where the memory of the cold balcony and Katsuki's expression was more vivid and painful than any recent battle scene that alternative seemed infinitely worse. The routine was already too normal. Too silent. The vacuum was beginning to make a background noise, a high-frequency buzz that threatened to take my sanity. Maybe, just maybe, a little friendly noise, genuine human warmth, would be the temporary antidote I needed. Even if it was just to remind myself how it felt to feel something other than cold or confusion.

"Sure," I said, the word leaving my mouth before my more cautious brain could analyze the decision. "Where?"

The relief that lit up Uraraka's face was instant and almost painful to see. It was a glimpse of just how worried she, they, really were.

"That izakaya near Musutafu station, no, wait, 'Crane's Luck'! That's it. Eight o'clock."

I nodded in agreement. She smiled, more genuinely now, and the relief turned into contained joy. "See you there!" she said, with a quick wave, before turning and walking towards the locker rooms, her backpack swinging in her characteristic step.

When I turned back, Tsuyu was looking at me. She was still standing near the car door, her expression as flat and inscrutable as always, but her large amphibian eyes seemed to understand too much. They saw through the facade with disconcerting clarity.

"It's good to go out with friends, ribbit," she said simply, her voice a hoarse whisper in the echoing parking lot.

"It is," I replied, the word coming out with no conviction at all, just a noise of social agreement.

Sero then put a firm hand on my shoulder, a gesture of camaraderie.

"And hey, if you need an excuse to leave early, anything, just send me a message. I'll call you right away with a 'horrible excuse' or something." He made a comical grimace.

I laughed. The sound came out short, dry, more a forced exhalation than a real laugh. "Thanks, Sero. I'll remember."

"We're in this together, partner," he said, removing his hand with a final squeeze.

And so, not out of genuine desire, but out of pure social inertia and a certain cowardice in facing my own loneliness, I found myself walking towards the izakaya "Crane's Luck" promptly at eight in the evening. I wore simple civilian clothes dark jeans, an olive green cotton t-shirt, a black windbreaker and felt like an actor stepping onto the stage for a role I hadn't rehearsed, hadn't read the script for, didn't even know the name of the play.

They were already there. The setting was exactly what you'd expect from a popular izakaya early on a weekday evening: warm, low lights, humid air laden with the aromas of grilling yakitori, frying tempura, boiling miso soup broth. The buzz of conversations formed a sonic patchwork quilt. Uraraka, Iida, and Todoroki occupied a long booth in a corner table, away from the main flow. Seeing them there, such a familiar trio, talking in low voices Iida gesturing with surgical precision while explaining some point, Todoroki listening with his characteristic absolute attention, leaning forward, Uraraka with her elbows on the table, laughing at something Iida said was like a warm, familiar gust of air hitting a lung I didn't even know had been holding its breath for so long. It was a glimpse of normality that, for once, didn't seem false to me, just… distant. Like looking at a portrait of a life I once lived.

"Deku!" Uraraka called, raising an arm when she spotted me at the entrance.

I approached, feeling the muscles of my face move automatically to form a smile. "Hey, guys. Sorry I'm late."

"You are not late, Midoriya!" Iida immediately declared, adjusting his glasses with a quick gesture. "It is exactly eight o'clock! Punctuality is a virtue everyone should cultivate!"

"Sit," Todoroki said simply, sliding over on the bench to make space.

The conversation then flowed in comfortable small blocks, as it always did with this specific group. It was the rhythm of people who share a history made of near-deaths and absolute triumphs. Short, but genuine, laughs. Comments about work the bureaucratic, the funny, the frustrating. News from the hero world. Discussions about the food on the menu. Nothing forced. Nothing that required Herculean effort to follow. It was the kind of tacit comfort that only exists between those who have survived too many things together, who have a bond forged in furnaces so hot that strange silences can't break it. They didn't need to entertain me. Just my physical presence there seemed to be enough for them, and, for a while, I allowed it to be enough for me too.

I let myself sink into that bath of normality. I let the warmth of the place, the comforting smell of food, the warm and familiar ease of my friends, carry away some of the emotional dust that had stuck to me during the day. I laughed when appropriate and some laughs even sounded real to my own ears. I asked questions about their days. Ate the chicken and green onion yakitori I'd ordered, savoring the salty, smoky taste. I functioned. It was an intermission, a truce.

But, like a magnet whose attraction is a law of physics and not a choice, the conversation eventually, inevitably, turned towards the day's work. And, like water finding the path of least resistance down a slope, his name came up. Naturally. Inevitably.

"Today's mission was smooth," I commented, in response to a direct question from Uraraka about how the return to the field had been. "Just minor structural damage. No one got seriously hurt. It was more logistics and comfort work."

"It was near the central commercial district, right?" she asked, taking a sip of her barley tea, her eyes fixed on me over the rim of the glass.

"Yeah. On Sakura Avenue, near that department store."

She fell quiet for a moment, her fingers tracing circles in the condensation on the side of her glass. The air around the table seemed to change density. It didn't freeze, but it became… attentive. Iida stopped the motion of cutting his tempura with chopsticks. Todoroki, who had been contemplating his plate with his usual soft concentration expression, slowly raised his eyes, as if triggered by a sensor.

"I heard," Uraraka continued, her voice carefully neutral, "that Dynamight was also in the area. Quick response to a vehicle incident, a small engine fire, something like that."

"He was," I confirmed, keeping my own voice as flat as possible. A statement of fact. "On another team. Covering a different perimeter."

Uraraka stared at me, her soft brown eyes, now devoid of their usual lightness, were penetrating.

"Did you… see each other?"

The question was simple. The answer could be too.

"Only from a distance," I said. It was the truth. But it was a skeletal truth, stripped of the flesh and blood of what had really happened what I had seen, what I had felt.

She hesitated. I could see the conflict in her eyes: the worry of a friend versus respect for my space. The worry won, but in a contained way.

"He was…" she began, choosing each word as if stepping on a minefield, "different. Today. When I passed by the area at the end of my patrol. I saw him from afar. With some kids. He seemed… calm."

No one said anything. The buzz of the izakaya the cooks' shouts, the clinking of glasses, the laughter from other groups continued, an absurd and almost cruel contrast to the heavy, charged silence that settled in our table bubble.

It was Tsuyu, who had been incredibly quiet until then, focused on her plate of edamame, who broke the silence. Her voice, when it came, was flat, factual, like a field report.

"He treated the children well, ribbit," she stated, peeling a pod with her agile fingers. "Helped calm one who was sniveling near the ambulance. The girl had lost a toy, a stuffed dog. He picked it up from the ground, dust and all, and gave it back to her. It wasn't part of the mission protocols. He could have delegated it to a paramedic or simply left after the initial containment."

The facts, raw and undeniable, fell onto the table like stones thrown into a quiet pond. There was no opinion there. Just observation. Tsuyu Asui was not given to exaggerations or romantic interpretations.

Iida crossed his arms, his face taking on the stern, pondering expression he reserved for complex ethical issues.

"A single kind act, however praiseworthy, does not wholly redefine a person's character. Genuine and lasting behavioral change requires consistency over time and across a variety of contexts and pressures." He paused, adjusting his glasses with a characteristic movement, the light reflecting off the lenses. "However…" the word came out loaded, "I acknowledge that demonstrating compassion and active patience in post-traumatic stress situations, especially when there is no immediate social or professional expectation for such behavior… is, indeed, praiseworthy. It suggests a possible evolution in value prioritization."

It was the most conditional approval Tensei Iida would give without an in-depth analysis and a follow-up chart. But it was, undeniably, a positive recognition.

All eyes at the table then turned almost in unison to Todoroki Shoto. He had always been the most reserved member and, when it came to Katsuki Bakugou, the most frankly distrustful of the group. Their interactions had been, from the beginning, marked by a silent rivalry, a mutual distrust that never exploded into direct confrontation but always hovered beneath the surface like a tectonic plate about to move. They respected each other as heroes. Todoroki respected Katsuki's raw power and brutal determination, Katsuki respected (reluctantly) Todoroki's power and tactical coolness. But friends? Not even close. Todoroki's history with explosive people, literal and figurative, was long and painful.

Todoroki stayed quiet for a time that seemed to stretch far beyond the real seconds. His heterochromatic eyes, one gray like the ice of a frozen lake, the other gray like the ashes of an extinguished fire, were fixed on the steam gently rising from his bowl of miso soup, as if he read the answers in the swirls of hot air. His face, beautiful and impassive like a Noh mask, betrayed no emotion. But I knew him well. Knew the micro-signs. The almost imperceptible slight tightening at the corner of his mouth. The nearly inaudible narrowing of his eyes, focusing on something internal, not external. He was pondering. Deeply.

When he finally spoke, his voice was low, clear, and cut through the humid air of the izakaya with the precision and coolness of a well-sharpened ice blade.

"I don't like him."

The phrase landed in the center of the table, clean, direct, unadorned or apologetic. It wasn't said with anger, nor with bitterness. It was simply a statement of fact. An honest acknowledgment of a deep-seated and well-founded feeling. No one at the table contested. No one could. It was Todoroki's truth, and he was not a man to lie about his feelings, especially to this group.

He paused. His long, pale fingers wrapped around the hot ceramic bowl, seeking its warmth. The pause stretched, carrying the weight of what had been said and what was yet to come. Then he continued, his voice even lower, almost a whisper meant only for our ears in that noisy corner.

"But what he did today…" he said, the words measured, "didn't seem like an act."

I stopped breathing. The air got stuck in my lungs, forming a knot. Todoroki's words weren't just an observation. They were a validation. Because Shoto Todoroki, of all human beings on the face of the Earth, was the least likely to give easy credit, to be fooled by a performance. He wasn't cynical by nature, but he was deeply, viscerally realistic, shaped by an entire childhood lived under the weight of lies, of elaborate performances, of a carefully constructed public persona to hide a private hell. He knew the smell of falseness. Knew the bitter taste of pretense. If he said it didn't seem like an act, it was because he, better than anyone, knew how to recognize one when he saw it.

He slowly raised his eyes from the bowl and fixed them on me. It wasn't a judgmental look. It wasn't pity. It was… understanding. A heavy, painful understanding that came from a place of intimate knowledge about masks and what it costs to remove them.

"He wasn't trying to impress anyone," Todoroki continued, his voice so low I had to lean forward to hear it over the ambient noise. "He wasn't looking around to see if cameras were filming, or if a superior was watching. He wasn't doing it to gain popularity points. He just… did it. And when it was done, he left. Without fanfare."

He didn't say anything more. He didn't need to. The implication of his words hung in the air between us, as tangible as the steam from the food: He wasn't doing this for you, Izuku. He was doing it despite you being there, watching. Or perhaps, in a twisted and indirect way that not even he fully understands, because of something you said or did, but not in the way you fear, not as a game, not as manipulation.

I couldn't maintain eye contact. My eyes fled to the rest of my yakitori, now cold and unappetizing. But I felt the colossal weight of what wasn't said. They noticed. Everyone was noticing the change. It wasn't my paranoia, it wasn't a projected desire, it wasn't a convenient illusion born from my confusion and my need for a clean resolution.

Katsuki Bakugou was changing.

And he was changing even when I had asked, demanded, distance.
He was changing without an audience of one me to witness or validate.

He was changing with no guarantee that I, or anyone who really knew him, would notice or give any value to it.

The conversation, as tends to happen in social situations after a moment of emotional density, changed topics almost palpably. Someone I think was Iida commented on the snow forecast for the weekend. Uraraka talked about a new workout app she was using. The mood around the table returned to being light, superficial, the comforting flow of the trivial. But something inside me had been irrevocably displaced. A fundamental piece of my emotional puzzle, the piece with the immutable image of "Katsuki" painted on it had been moved, and it wouldn't return to its original place, no matter how much force I applied. And when the bill came, when we got up with the noise of chairs and said goodbye outside, on the cold January sidewalk where our breath formed small white clouds, the feeling of displacement accompanied me like a second skin.

"Take care, Midoriya!" said Iida, with his formal, characteristic wave.

"See you later, ribbit," murmured Tsuyu, her large scarf wrapping around her face.

Uraraka approached and gave me a quick but firm hug. Her soft scent, a mix of floral shampoo and the metallic dust that always stuck to our costumes enveloped me for a comforting second.

"If you need anything," she whispered, her voice low and serious near my ear, "anything at all, really. We're here."

Todoroki, finally, just nodded at me, his heterochromatic eyes meeting mine for a fraction of a second. In them was still that silent understanding, that perception that made me want, simultaneously, to run away and cling to it like a life raft.

I responded to them all. Smiled. Said "good night" and "thanks for the company." And then, suddenly, I was alone on the sidewalk, the cold of the winter night seeming to intensify, becoming sharper, more personal, now that it was no longer shared by the warm presence of my friends.

The walk back to my apartment was a blur of streetlights, elongated shadows, and the muffled sound of my own footsteps on the concrete. My feet knew the way; my brain was irredeemably on another planet, replaying on a loop the scene on the dusty sidewalk: the gentle curve of Katsuki's shoulders as he knelt, the serious, focused expression on his face as he listened to the child, the clumsy, gentle gesture of his hand. Todoroki's words echoed like a mantra: It didn't seem like an act. The image didn't fit. It was like trying to force a puzzle piece from a serene landscape into a puzzle I always knew to be a furious storm. The edges didn't match. The picture was dissonant. And that created a dissonance within me that was almost physical.

At home, the silence I found seemed to have grown, metabolized my brief absence and expanded to occupy every cubic centimeter of space with an even more oppressive presence. I went through the motions. Automatic, ritualistic movements: taking off my shoes and aligning them perfectly in the entryway. Hanging the jacket on the exact hook. Washing my hands with unscented soap. The kitchen, lit by the cold, clear light from the ceiling, was immaculate, empty, a stage set for an unlived life. I wasn't hungry, but routine, my new, rigid religion, demanded action. Action kept thought at bay. I made something simple, basic, requiring no creativity: white rice, scrambled eggs with a little salt. While the rice cooker heated up and started releasing its steam, and the butter melted in the frying pan, I stood in the middle of the kitchen, staring at the white wall in front of me, but seeing only that impossible, soft smile.

For a few falsely peaceful minutes, as the simple smell of food began to fill the apartment, I allowed myself an illusion. I convinced myself, with tremendous effort, that maybe it was all okay. That this new normality functional, professional, silent was not only possible, but perhaps even desirable. That I could live like this indefinitely: wake up, work efficiently, socialize sparsely and in a controlled manner, sleep. With Katsuki Bakugou existing on a parallel planet, orbiting at a safe distance, where he was kind to children and I was just a colleague among many, a footnote in his story. Maybe that's how, I thought with a cynicism foreign to me, adults dealt with unresolved stories. Maybe they didn't resolve them. Maybe they just buried them alive in a corner of the mind's basement, put a heavy rug over them and moved on, pretending, day after day, that the floor didn't tremble slightly under their feet every time they stepped over that spot.

The rice began to boil more vigorously, the sound of bubbles breaking the surface pulling me back to the physical present. I moved, turning the heat down to low. The mundane act turning the stove knob anchored me for a second. I approached, watching the steam bubbles rise through the layer of white rice, a hypnotic, primitive movement.

That's when the doorbell rang.

The sound was an electric shock, a fork dragged on a porcelain plate in the middle of a soft symphony. It was sharp, intrusive, fundamentally wrong. No one came here without warning. Uraraka would call, her animated voice filling the line before any visit. Iida would send a meticulously drafted text, stating estimated time of arrival and purpose. Even Todoroki, in his absolute economy of gestures, would send a one-word text: "Coming." or "Here." At this hour, on a regular Wednesday night, the doorbell was not part of the script. It was not part of the normality I was trying, tooth and nail, to cultivate and believe in.

My heart gave a violent leap inside the bony cage of my chest, a wild animal startled by a hunter's shot. I stood motionless, the wooden spoon forgotten in my hand, waiting. Hoping it was a mistake. A drunk neighbor. A mistaken package delivery, this late.

It rang again.

Two short, decided rings, but not impatient. They weren't furious, demanding rings. They were… assertive. Present.

Slowly, as if moving underwater, I left the spoon on the granite counter, wiped my hands on the blue dish towel, each movement deliberate, slow, as if every second gained could postpone a reality that I, deep down, already knew was materializing on the other side of the door. I walked to the entrance, my heart now beating in a rapid and deeply familiar rhythm, a rhythm I recognized from the moments before combat, from the adrenaline before the leap, and, secretly, from certain exchanged looks across a room full of people.

Through the peephole, the view was distorted, rounded by the glass, but unmistakable in its essence.

Spiky blond hair, like a crown of frozen flames. Broad, defined shoulders under a sturdy-looking black bomber jacket. His posture was erect, like a soldier's, but without the ready-for-attack aggression. He was standing, not fidgeting.

Katsuki.

I didn't open the door. Not immediately. I stood there, on the inside, breathing deeply and silently, trying to regain control over the chaos erupting inside me a chaos made of fear (not fear of him, but fear of this, this conversation, this moment), of an acute expectation that hurt, and a sliver of hope so fragile and dangerous I almost wished to crush it before it could hurt me. It was as if all the emotions I had carefully separated, analyzed, and placed in labeled drawers over the last few days had exploded at once, forming an undifferentiated, overwhelming whirlwind.

He didn't ring again. Didn't knock on the door. Just waited. And that patience, that restraint, was in itself the most disturbing thing of all. The Katsuki I knew didn't wait. He invaded.

Finally, with cold fingers and a minimal tremor I hoped he wouldn't see, I turned the metal doorknob and pulled the door open.

He was there. Exactly as the peephole had shown, but now in high definition, in full three dimensions, with the poorly lit hallway of the building, its beige, worn wallpaper as a backdrop. He didn't invade the space. Didn't take a step forward. Remained firmly on the outside of the threshold, a contained figure, conscious of boundaries. His face was illuminated by the warm, yellowish light leaking from my apartment, highlighting the usual pallor of his skin, the firm, stubborn line of his jaw, the curve of his lips, which weren't tensed in a snarl. He wore dark casual clothes, a jacket, a plain black cotton t-shirt, and cargo pants. His eyes, an intense red like live embers, weren't flaming with anger. They were… serious. Deep. Loaded with a tension that wasn't belligerent, but something much more complex: determination, perhaps. Anxiety. The will to see something through.

"What are you doing here?" I asked. My voice came out harsher than I intended, laden with a defensiveness that was a pure reflex.

He took a deep breath, a perceptible movement in the rise of his broad shoulders. His eyes didn't stray from mine, not for a millisecond.

"I needed to talk to you," he said. His voice was low, a bit hoarse, as if it had gone unused for a while, but it was clear. It didn't carry the sharp edges of disdain or irritation as usual. "It'll only take a minute."

I didn't step back from the door to give him passage. Didn't invite him in. The space of my apartment behind me, with its smells of rice and eggs, with its domestic lighting, seemed like sacred territory, a sanctuary he had lost the right to tread when I turned my back on the balcony. But leaving him there, standing in the cold, impersonal hallway, also felt wrong. It felt deliberately cruel in a way I didn't want to be, not with him, not in this new, unknown incarnation standing before me.

"Talk," I said, keeping my tone as neutral as possible, a wall of professionalism.

He didn't seem offended by the coldness. Didn't roll his eyes, didn't make that irritated "tch" sound. Just tilted his head slightly in a nod, as if accepting those rules.

"I came to apologize," he began, the words measured, calculated, as if he had rehearsed each syllable on the way here, or maybe over the last fourteen days. "For Shindo. For what I said. For what I did that night. Everything."

He paused, his red eyes seeming to scan my face for a reaction, or perhaps searching for the next right words in the charged air between us.

"I was drunk. But that's not an excuse. It's just a fact. A shitty fact. And I had no right. No right at all to say the shit I said. To imply… what I implied." He swallowed dryly, the movement in his throat visible. "I was angry. At myself. At the whole situation. At the way he touched you, the way you…" He cut off the sentence, closing his eyes for a fraction of a second, as if reining himself in. "But the anger was mine. It was my problem. It wasn't your responsibility. And I threw it at you. And at Shindo. I was an asshole. A dangerous asshole."

Each word was like a solid, heavy brick, carefully placed, forming a wall of personal responsibility I had never, in all the years I knew him, seen him build. There were no detours. No elaborate justifications ("he provoked me," "the situation was tense"). No diversions to attack Shindo again. There was just the fact, raw, ugly, and fully owned.

"I know a 'sorry' doesn't erase anything that happened," he continued, his voice still contained, but gaining a raw intensity, a force from the depths. "I know it doesn't fix what I did. It doesn't undo the bruise, it doesn't take the words out of the air. But I needed to say it. It needed… to get out of my throat. Because it's been there since that night, stuck, poisoning me."

He then did something that caught me completely, absolutely off guard.

His eyes lowered not in submission, not in shame but in focus. A tense, controlled focus, as if he needed to anchor his own body to something concrete to not step back.

In his left hand, by his side, he was holding two bags.

They weren't ordinary.

The paper was thick, with an impeccable finish, bearing the discreet but unmistakable logo of one of the most expensive bakeries in Musutafu.

The kind of place where even the silence seems expensive. The handles were firm, intact, as if he had taken care not to crumple anything on the way.

He raised the first bag between us.

The gesture wasn't exactly an offering.
It was a presentation.

Here it is, naked, straightforward, without emotional ornamentation.

"This is…" he began, and swallowed dryly before forcing the name out, "for Shindo."

The syllables came out tense, but without the visceral venom from before. It was just a name now. A name too difficult to pronounce in that context, too heavy to be tossed into the air carelessly.

"It's not a gift." The phrase came out dry, objective, without any softening. "I'm not trying to buy anything. Not forgiveness, not goodwill, none of that."

He raised the brown paper bag a bit more, thick, with an impeccable finish. The discreet logo of the bakery on Central Street, one of the most expensive in Musutafu was stamped on the side like a detail he pretended not to notice, but that mattered. It mattered a lot.

"It's… I don't know. Material responsibility." he continued, his voice lower, more controlled. "For the bruise. For the days he must have been uncomfortable, in pain. For the clothes I ruined, if I ruined them."

He extended the bag towards me but not completely.

He didn't invade my space.
Didn't take that last step.

Kept the bag at a calculated distance, requiring me to move if I wanted to take it. A simple, almost imperceptible gesture, but loaded with intention. It wasn't an imposition. It wasn't a challenge.

He took a deep breath before continuing.

"It's restitution. For the punch. For the bruise. For the embarrassment. For what I caused. If he doesn't accept it, that's fine. But I had to do this."

The weight of that speech wasn't in the value of the bag, though it was high but in the fact that Katsuki Bakugou wasn't running away from the consequences. He wasn't blaming the alcohol. He wasn't downplaying it. He was naming the damage.

Then, without looking at me, he raised the second bag.

This one was different. Smaller. More rigid. Completely closed, with no indication of what was inside. The paper was even thicker, almost like a case, with a dark ribbon tightly tied at the top. No visible logo.

No immediate explanation.
He hesitated.
It was subtle, but I saw it.

A microsecond of pause as if that were the really difficult part.
"This one…" Katsuki began, then stopped. Gripped the handle tighter. "This one is for you."

He didn't explain the contents.
Didn't say why.
Didn't try to justify.

His eyes came back up, finally meeting mine.

Firm. Seriously. Without challenge.

But loaded with something dangerously close to expectation.

I stood there, paralyzed, holding the edge of the open door, the warmth of the apartment fighting a losing battle against the cold draft from the hallway. My brain, so quick at analyzing combat scenarios, completely jammed trying to process the scene. Katsuki Bakugou. At my apartment door. Not to fight, not to demand, not to provoke. To apologize. Specifically for hurting another man out of jealousy (was that it? it had to be). Bringing an item of "material responsibility." Speaking with a clarity, a lack of ego, and a vulnerability that were… unprecedented. Revolutionary. Impossible.

The change was real.

It wasn't just a public performance for impressionable children and grateful civilians. It wasn't a public relations trick. It was this. This person standing in front of me, vulnerable in a new and frightening way, assuming blame without hiding behind anger, offering concrete restitution for a specific error. This was the deepest, most intimate, most devastating change. Because it was private. Because it was difficult. Because there was no audience to applaud, only me, the harshest judge he could have.

And it was standing at my door, under the weak hallway light, waiting for a response I didn't have in my repertoire. Not for this.

I looked at his face. At the red eyes that didn't waver, loaded with a determination that seemed to come at a cost. At the line of his mouth, firm, but not hard a line that could, perhaps, curve back into that soft smile I had seen hours earlier? At the brown paper bag, an object so mundane, so ridiculous in its context, and at the same time completely serious in its intention.

The silence stretched. The hallway was quiet, just the distant hum of an exhaust fan on some other floor. The world outside, with its cars and lights and other lives, continued. But there, on that threshold, in the space of one square meter between my door and the hallway, time seemed to have stopped, condensed in that moment of delivery and wait.

He didn't press. Didn't get impatient. Didn't say "well?" or "are you gonna take it or not?". Just waited, bearing the weight of his words and the physical weight of the bag in his hands, his broad shoulders making a minimal, almost imperceptible curve under a burden that wasn't physical, but moral.

The change was real, tangible, and breathing the same air as me, half a step away.

And I, Izuku Midoriya, who always found words for villains, for terrified victims, for doubtful colleagues, for friends in crisis, couldn't find a single syllable to give him. Because any word that left my mouth at that instant would be a beginning. It would be an acknowledgment of this new reality, of this new person before me. It would be an opening in the barrier I myself had built. And I had a deep, visceral fear of what could grow in that opening. Fear of getting hurt again. Fear of believing and discovering it was just another layer of an elaborate act. Fear of not being able to handle a Kacchan who apologized and brought brown paper bags.

But the silence, I knew, was also a response. And by the way his shoulders, finally, curved a little more, by a fraction of a centimeter that spoke of contained disappointment, he was reading my silent response, clear and plain.

The change was real.

But it wasn't out there.

It was in me.

In my hand resting on the door, in the fingers that didn't move either to open it wider or to close it. In the silence that stretched between us, too heavy to be just a pause. Katsuki waited on the other side, didn't advance, didn't insist, didn't force. For the first time, it wasn't him who was pressing.

It was me.

Leaving that door ajar didn't mean letting him in. It meant admitting that, perhaps, a part of me still wanted to hear.

Closing it, on the other hand, would be easy. Safe. Coherent with everything I had felt until now.

The problem was that neither of the two options seemed truly painless.

“In the end, the only question left was if I still had the courage to let him in.”

Chapter Text

Pov: Katsuki

“The door was open just enough not to be an invitation.”

I had stood there before. My body recognized the territory even before my mind did—the rough cold of the floor under my feet, the exact distance from the wall to the threshold, the silence of the hallway that wasn't peace, it was a vacuum. A heavy silence, dense enough to muffle the sound of my own breathing and leave only the internal noise, that aggressive, constant buzz that was the voice in my head. The voice that, these last two weeks, had traded shouts for a persistent, poisonous whisper: You ruined everything. Again. And he kicked you out.

The last time, the door was closed. A solid obstacle of painted wood, separating two worlds. I didn't remember the visual, but the sensation: the tightness in my chest, the closed throat, the anger—always the anger, first against Deku, then, in a more insidious and venomous way, against myself. I remembered his voice echoing from the other side. Not a raised voice, not a sob. It was something worse: a flat exhaustion, a quiet, open wound. "If you think my concern is disgusting… then get out."

And I went. Or my body went. The muscles obeyed the most primitive command: flee the discomfort, the danger of exposed feeling. I walked away like a soldier in forced retreat, but each step away from that door felt like tearing off a piece of my own chest and leaving it there, bleeding in the hallway.

But my feet stopped soon after. My mind, that traitor, didn't follow.

I stood there, anchored in the hallway, for five minutes that stretched into centuries. I counted, mentally, the steps I didn't have the courage to take back. One, two, three… would they be enough to cover the distance? Four, five, six… and what if the door remained locked? Seven, eight… and what if it were open, and the emptiness of the room was a mute judgment?

My hand, the one that always crackled with easy sparks, lay paralyzed by my side. I clenched my fingers. Felt my damp palms. Knock, ordered a thought. Knock and say anything. Shout back, if it's easier. My hand didn't move. Apologize. The words formed in my mind, raw and clumsy, but they choked in my trachea, blocked by a pride that now felt not like armor, but like a glass cell, letting me see everything I wanted to touch but couldn't.

I thought about coming back as if nothing had happened. Pushing the door and grunting something. Pretending that the exhaustion in his voice hadn't pierced my sternum and lodged in the center of my bones, a cold weight I had carried since then. It was the easiest way out. It was the most cowardly way out. And that night, on the beach, I had chosen cowardice. I chose to turn my back on the rift I myself had opened and let the ocean of our bad history fill it with salt and distance.

In the end, after an eternity of silence and the private war waged between my racing heart and my petrified will, I turned my back. The movements were mechanical. Each vertebra seemed to creak as it settled into the position of flight. The hallway then seemed to stretch out before me, infinite. I didn't leave. My body withdrew. There is an abysmal difference between the two. I withdrew defeated, taking with me only the bitter taste of one more broken thing.

But this time was different.

This time, after fourteen days of a silence that rang louder in my ears than any explosion, after dragging myself to therapy and facing the monster in the mirror until it began to look like a fragile and frightened man, after buying those damn bags and spending a whole hour in front of his door, rehearsing speeches that always ended in curses against myself… this time, I was going to knock.

Slightly ajar. A gap of a few inches that sucked the silence from the hallway and returned a promise—or a threat—of a space I didn't have permission to enter, but that now no longer had a physical barrier stopping me. The gloom inside was deeper than in the hallway. And that crack was an abyss calling me, not with words, but with the unbearable weight of everything that hadn't been said last time, and that now breathed, quietly, waiting for me.

I was here. Again. But I wasn't the same man who left the beach. This one had slept little, eaten poorly, and spent so many hours dissecting his own rottenness in a lavender-scented office that he no longer even knew where the guilt ended and the desire to be better began. This man was clean, sober, and carrying the weight of two bags that seemed to weigh more than a collapsed building.

I took a deep breath. The air in the hallway was old, stagnant. I raised my hand—the right one, the one not holding the bags—and clenched my fist. Not to knock. To give myself courage. The knuckles of my fingers turned white with pressure. Then, with a movement I felt from my shoulder to my fingertips, I knocked. Two dry, clear taps on the wood.

The sound echoed, obscenely loud in the silence. Inside me, something writhed. It was done. There was no turning back. I had invaded his silence. I had touched the door.

And then, I waited. Every second was an agony of possibilities. Was he not home? Was he home and didn't want to answer? Was he looking through the peephole, deciding if I was worth the trouble? My skin tingled, a feeling of total exposure. I was an aberration there, a point of conflict in a quiet hallway. I almost wished the door wouldn't open. Almost.

But it opened.

Not much. Just enough for me to see a slice of him. His pale face under the warm light inside, the dark green messy curls, his eyes… God, his eyes. Green as always, but dull. Like frozen lakes, without reflection. They scanned me, quickly, and I saw the almost imperceptible tightening of the muscles around his mouth. Tense. Tired. Deeply tired.

— What are you doing here? — His voice. It was the same. But the tone… flat. Devoid of that irritated warmth or the contained anxiety I usually provoked. It was the voice of a professional dealing with an intruder. The razor edge of that tone cut deeper than any scream.

My instinct, the old and stupid one, screamed inside me. Retaliate! Spit back! Say you can be wherever you want! But I swallowed that instinct. I swallowed the pride, the fear, the taste of gunpowder that always came before the explosion. I had come with a purpose. A fragile purpose, but it was all I had.

I took another deep breath, feeling the air tremble as it entered.
— I needed to talk to you. — My own voice sounded strange to me—low, hoarse, but restrained. An out-of-tune instrument trying to play a delicate note. — It'll just take a minute.

He didn't move. Didn't open the door wider, didn't give way. Just stood there, a silent guardian of his territory. The message was clear: Speak from there.

Fine. I deserved it. Deserved the cold hallway, the distance, the neutral gaze. It was part of the reparations. Part of carrying the weight.

— Speak. — His word, a cold permission. My stomach tightened, but I continued. It was now or never.

— I came to apologize. — The words came out, and it was like spitting shards of glass. It hurts, bleeds, but it has to come out. — For Shindo. For what I said. For what I did that night. Everything.

I paused. His eyes didn't waver. They were inscrutable. I needed to do better. I needed to be specific. Therapy hammered that: to generalize is to escape. To own it is to name it.

— I was drunk. But that's no excuse. It's just a fact. A shitty fact. And I had no right. No right at all to say the shit I said. To imply… what I implied.

I saw a quick flash in his eyes, a glimmer of something—pain? Anger?—before the ice reformed. It was enough for me to know he remembered. Remembered every poisonous word, every low insinuation. Shame burned my face, but I didn't look away. I had to face the fire I myself had lit.

I swallowed dryly. My throat was so tight it hurt.
— I was angry. At myself. At the whole situation. At the way he touched you, the way you…

Stop. The voice of reason, or maybe of therapy, echoed inside me. This isn't about him. It's about you. I cut the sentence in half, closing my eyes for a second, seeking the center of calm the therapist tried to teach me. It was crap, it never worked right, but at least it stopped me from saying more nonsense.

— But the anger was mine. It was my problem. It wasn't your responsibility. And I threw it at you. And at Shindo. I was an asshole. A dangerous asshole.

There it was. The raw admission. Unadorned. It was the purest truth I possessed at that moment. I was an asshole. An asshole who used the power he had to hurt, to control, to crush anything that made me feel small or vulnerable. And seeing Izuku… with someone else… made me feel all that and worse.

— I know a 'sorry' doesn't erase anything that happened. — My voice gained strength, a strength that came from the bottom of the pit where I had hidden for years. — I know it doesn't fix what I did. It doesn't undo the bruise, it doesn't take the words out of the air. But I needed to say it. It needs… to get out of my throat. Because it's been stuck there since that night, poisoning me.

And then, my gaze dropped to my hands. To the bags. The next step. The most concrete, and somehow, the most frightening. Because words are wind. Actions are real.

I raised the first bag, Shindo's. The elegant brown paper rustled under my overly firm grip.
— This is… for Shindo.

Spitting the name still hurt, but it was a different pain. It wasn't the blind jealousy, the possessive hatred anymore. It was the discomfort of someone who knows they hurt a man who didn't deserve it, just because he was in the wrong place, at the wrong time, looking at the wrong person. My wrong person.

— It's not a gift. — I explained, quickly, before he could misinterpret. The last thing I wanted was for him to think I was trying to buy forgiveness. I didn't deserve forgiveness. I deserved, at most, the chance to try to balance the scales a millimeter. — I'm not trying to buy anything. Not forgiveness, not goodwill, none of that.

I extended the bag a little further. The gesture was awkward. I wasn't made for this, for offerings, for gestures of peace. My body was programmed for attacks, for defenses, for explosions. This was foreign territory, and I was a clumsy tourist.

— It's… I don't know. Material responsibility. — The explanation sounded ridiculous even to my own ears. — For the bruise. For the days he must have been uncomfortable, in pain. For the clothes I ruined, if I ruined them.

I held the bag in the air, between us. A space he would have to cross if he wanted to take it. A test, maybe. A respect for his boundaries. I wouldn't force anything. Never again.

— It's reparations. For the punch. For the bruise. For the embarrassment. For what I caused. If he doesn't accept it, that's fine. But I had to do this.

I lowered my arm, just a little, but keeping the offer visible. Then, with a movement that required more courage than facing any villain, I raised the second bag. The smaller one. The heavier one, not in grams, but in meaning.
— And this…

The word stuck. My throat closed. This was the really hard part. The first bag was about logic, about rudimentary justice. This… this was about something nameless. Something that hurt in a completely different way.

— …is for you.

I didn't explain. I couldn't. What was inside wasn't anything special, just some things I'd seen and thought he'd like, or that might be useful, or simply that made me think of him. It was silly. It was pathetic. It was the only way my affection-untrained brain could conceive to say I see you, I care, even if you never want to see me again. Explaining would ruin it all. Ruin the fragile honesty of the gesture.

So, I just held the bag, and raised my eyes to meet his.

He was frozen. His hand still held the edge of the door, his fingers white with pressure. His face was a mask, but his eyes… his eyes were beginning to thaw. There was a storm in them now. Confusion, disbelief, an old pain being poked, and something more, something tiny and fragile like the first sprout after winter: a flash of pure, raw surprise.

He didn't speak. Didn't move. The silence stretched, and with each passing second, the idiotic hope I had brought with me, hidden deep in my chest, began to wilt and die. He didn't want it. I had destroyed any bridge that might have existed. My words, however sincere, were too few and too late. The bag in my hand began to weigh like lead, a monument to my stupidity in thinking a material gesture could touch a wound that was pure emotion, pure history.

I was about to lower my arm, to mutter an "it's okay, forget it," to turn and leave with my tail between my legs, once again defeated by my own inability to be a decent human being, when he moved.

It was almost imperceptible. A small shift in body weight. A tiny relaxation of his fingers on the door. And then, his lips parted.

Then, he opened the door.

Not completely. Just enough for me to pass, but not enough to be welcoming.

— Come in.

The word came out flat, without intonation. A permission, not an invitation.

For a fraction of a second, I was paralyzed. My brain, so fast in combat scenarios, choked trying to process. Was it a test? A trap? A momentary truce before the final execution?

My body moved before my mind found an answer. I took a step forward, crossing the threshold, feeling the weight of the passage as if crossing a physical barrier. The smell of the apartment hit me: simple food, rice, a slight odor of burnt grease masked by the scent of detergent. It was intimate. It was his.

The door closed behind me with a dry, final click. The sound echoed in my chest, mixing with the fast beat of my heart.

Izuku didn't turn around immediately. He stood still for a moment, his back to me, his hand still on the doorknob. His shoulders, under the simple cotton t-shirt, were tense, the line of his spine rigid. When he let go of the doorknob, it was with a slow, almost laborious movement, as if giving up that physical barrier was a huge risk.

He turned around.

And faced me.

Not with anger. Not with fear. With something much worse: with an emotional fatigue so deep it erased any spark I used to see in him. His eyes were two still, green lakes, with no current.

— You'll have to give it to him personally. — His voice was still flat, but there was an edge to it now. A demand. Not a suggestion. — Shindo's. I'll accept what you brought for me. But Shindo's… you deliver. Personally.

My stomach knotted. The bag in my left hand seemed to gain sudden weight, as if the responsibility inside it had materialized into lead. He was right. Of course he was right. It was cowardice on my part to try to use Izuku as a middleman, as if delivering the reparations to Shindo was just another task to be checked off a list, and not a direct confrontation with the man I assaulted. It was part of the punishment. Part of the growth.

— I can give you the address, — he continued, his voice still neutral, but with an unyielding firmness underneath. — If you don't have it.

It wasn't an offer of help. It was a test. An ultimatum. If you want to do this right, do it all the way.

I opened my mouth to protest, to say I'd figure it out, but the words died. Because, deep down, I knew he was right. I'd known since the moment I bought that expensive, superficial package, trying to buy a redemption that was priceless. I just hadn't had the courage to face the logical consequence: looking Shindo in the eye and seeing the damage I caused.

He walked past me. Not quickly, not aggressively, but with a precision that avoided any contact, even accidental. His arm brushed lightly against my jacket and I almost flinched back, so intense was the electric charge that ran down my spine. He took the smaller bag—his—from my hands with an almost ceremonial care and placed it on the coffee table, as if it were evidence to be analyzed later.

When he walked back past, going to get something—the address, I presumed—his words came in a hoarse whisper, so low I almost lost them in the silence of the apartment:

— A real apology isn't something you do by proxy.

An infinitesimal pause. His eyes met mine for a split second.

— Not that you have much practice with that.

The phrase fell into the space between us like a thin blade. It cut cleanly, effortlessly. And the pain was instant, sharp, precisely because it was true. There was no poison in his voice, just the weariness of someone stating an obvious and sad fact.

I didn't explode.

The instinct came, yes. A familiar heat rose in my chest, my tongue itching to let out an angry defense, a counterattack. But I swallowed it. Swallowed it along with the wounded pride and the shame burning my throat.

— Okay, — I said, the word coming out rougher than I'd have liked. It sounded like a growl of surrender. — I… I'll deliver.

He nodded, a short head movement, nothing more. But instead of turning to go get the address, he stopped. Stood there, about two meters away, and studied me. It was a look I didn't know. Not the admiring look from when we were kids. Not the cautious, fearful look from the following years. Not the fierce determination of a rival's look. It was a look of clinical observation. As if I were a strange phenomenon, a new species of insect under a microscope, and he was trying to catalog, understand.

— You've changed. — The statement, instead of warming me, froze my blood. Because the tone wasn't of approval. It was of belated realization. Bitter. Like someone saying ah, so it was possible. Too bad it wasn't before.

— I've seen, — he continued, his eyes fixing on some point over my shoulder, as if seeing the scene unfold there, in the dust of Sakura Avenue. — With the kids. Today. With civilians. Even with people you'd normally ignore or tell to f… get lost.

He swallowed dryly, and for the first time a tiny, almost imperceptible tremor ran through his right hand. He closed it, hiding it behind his back. A nervous tic. A sign that his calm was a façade as fragile as mine.

— Not when I asked, — he murmured, his voice getting lower, more personal, rasping against the walls of my heart like sandpaper. — Not when everyone around you begged you to lower your guard, for you to just… slow down.

His dark green eyes rose and pinned me again. There was a pain in them now, an old, poorly healed wound that comment had poked.
— Now.

The single word fell like a stone into a bottomless well inside me.

Too late.

That's what he was saying. That I had changed too late to avoid the damage. Too late for the times he needed an ally and found an executioner. Too late for the years of persecution and disdain. Too late for the beach, for the bar, for all the little deaths we inflicted on each other.

A sharp, crushing pain tightened my chest, so strong I lost my breath for a second. It wasn't anger. It was something much worse: it was the overwhelming weight of regret understood in its totality. It was seeing, through his eyes, the trail of emotional destruction I had left behind. It was knowing that my growth, however genuine, didn't erase the past. It only illuminated, with cruel clarity, everything that had been lost.

— I… — my voice failed, choked in my throat. Damn it. I took a deep breath, forcing air into my lungs, feeling my face burn. Therapy said not to justify myself, but I needed him to know. I needed him to see that I was trying, that it wasn't a trick. — I'm trying, — the phrase came out in a burst, before I could stop it. — For real. I… I started therapy.

The silence that followed was different. Less charged with tension, more full of surprise. Izuku blinked, his flat expression finally fragmenting for an instant. The mask of exhaustion fell, revealing the boy underneath, the one who always analyzed everything with absurd intensity.

— Therapy? — he repeated, and this time there was a genuine tone of disbelief, not mockery. As if I had said I had started flying without my quirk.

Shame scalded my ears. I looked away, fixing my gaze on the bookshelf behind him, seeing nothing but a blur of colors. Talking about this was like opening my skull and showing the gray matter, all bruised and confused.

— Aizawa… wanted me to do it, — I murmured, the words coming out against my will, but once started, the flow didn't stop. It was like a broken dam, and the dirty, pent-up water of years needed to get out. — A while ago. He always… suggested. I was the one too stupid, too proud to go. Thought it was weakness. That I could fix everything by myself, with the force of hatred or ignorance.

I ran a hand over the back of my neck, a nervous gesture I hated in myself. It showed vulnerability. But I was already naked there, so what difference did it make?

— After New Year's… after that night… I looked him up. Told him… I needed help. For real. He referred me to someone. I… still go. Every week.

I confessed to the floor, to the bookshelf, to anywhere but his face. The vulnerability of those words was swampy ground, and I was sinking. I expected him to find me pathetic. Expected a disdainful smile. Anything was better than this pondering silence.

The touch on my arm made me flinch.

It was light, quick, but the sensation was like a direct shock to my nervous system. My eyes shot up. Izuku had approached without me noticing. His hand—the one that held One For All, that had broken mountains and faced gods—was now resting on my forearm, with an almost ghostly pressure. A touch. After so long. After so much hatred and distance.

— Katsuki. — My name in his mouth, in that tone. Not 'Kacchan'. It was Katsuki. Serious. Soft. An adult's name, for an adult's pain. That single word, said in that way, made something inside me come undone. A barrier I didn't even know was still standing crumbled silently.

— You don't need to be ashamed of that.

His eyes were fixed on mine, and for the first time since I entered that apartment, I saw something beyond fatigue or pain. I saw… understanding. A heavy understanding, coming from someone who also carried deep scars and knew the cost of trying to hide them. He, who always carried the world on his shoulders and smiled so as not to worry others, understood the courage it took to ask for help.

— It's not weakness, — he continued, his voice a bit firmer, as if affirming it for himself too. — It's the strongest thing you could do. It's… responsibility. Taking on your own shit and trying to fix it.

That… that dismantled me. More than any physical blow, more than any public humiliation. Because there was no judgment. There was recognition. There was an echo of respect. And that was a kind of forgiveness I didn't know how to process, that I didn't have the emotional vocabulary to name. It was as if he were seeing me—the real me, the one beneath the fury and pride—and wasn't running away. He was just… seeing.

The room fell silent again, but the air had changed. The sharp, cutting tension had given way to a different density. It was intimate, uncomfortable, but alive. Breathable. We were two islands of exposed wounds, separated by an ocean of bad history, but for the first time, we were trying to feel the terrain of a new continent, a territory called "after."

It was then that the smell hit me.

Amid that emotional whirlwind, my sharpest sense—the one trained to detect the chemical components of danger, to smell smoke before it becomes fire—caught something wrong in the air. Beyond the smell of home cooking I had sensed upon entering, beyond the clean scent of detergent, there was a sharp, metallic odor of overheating. The smell of melting plastic, of charred food.

— Izuku… — I said, frowning and sniffing the air, the hero in me taking the lead, momentarily pushing aside the confused man. — What's that smell?

He stopped, his expression momentarily distant, still caught in the intensity of our moment. Then his eyes widened. He took a deep breath and the blood drained from his face, leaving him even paler.

— Shit. — He turned so fast it was a green blur, darting towards the kitchen. The movement was pure combat instinct, the same speed he used to save people. — Damn it, no, no, NO—!

The genuine panic in his voice launched me forward before I could think. I ran after him, my training taking total control where my emotional mind was in tatters. The hero reacted to the crisis. The man could cry later.

The kitchen was a chaos of gray and white smoke. An orange flame danced cheerfully on top of a forgotten pot on the stove, engulfing what used to be rice and was now a black, steaming mass. The apartment's fire alarm started screaming, a sharp, insistent sound that pierced my eardrums and seemed to tear the delicate veil of our conversation.

And then the automatic sprinkler system kicked in.

With a sudden hiss, ice-cold water began to spray from the ceiling, a torrential, indiscriminate rain that instantly drenched everything—and everyone—in the room. The shock of the cold was visceral, a physical blow that made me grunt.

— I forgot the stove was on! — Izuku shouted, coughing, his arms protecting his face as he tried to approach the stove, as if he could put out the fire with his hands.

— Get back! — I shouted back, the command coming out in the old, authoritative tone. I shoved him back with a shoulder, putting my body between him and the fire. My eyes scanned the kitchen, finding what I needed amid the curtain of water: a bright red fire extinguisher, mounted on the wall near the door.

In two long strides, I tore it from the bracket. Pulled the pin with my teeth, aimed at the base of the flames, and squeezed the trigger. A thick, white jet of chemical foam shot out with force, covering the pot, the burner, part of the marble countertop. The fire hissed, protested for a second with a muffled roar, and died, leaving behind an acidic smell and a cloud of smoke that the sprinklers quickly began to dissipate.

The water kept falling. Cold, incessant, turning the luxury kitchen into a damp, dripping cave. The alarm stopped, and in its place was the symphonic sound of disaster: water hitting the floor, dripping from surfaces, from the ceiling, from us.

When the alarm noise finally ceased, what remained was the sound of water and our panting breaths.

I lowered the extinguisher, feeling the weight of the device and the much greater weight of the moment. I looked around. The pristine white marble was stained with soot and foam. The upper cabinets were dripping. The floor was flooded. And in the center of this domestic disaster, there we were.

Izuku leaning against the counter, soaked from head to toe. His black t-shirt was plastered to his torso, outlining every defined muscle of his elite hero physique. His hair, normally a dark green chaos, was heavy and wet, dripping water onto his pale face. He was breathing hard, not from physical exertion, but from the surprise and the sudden chaos that had invaded the delicate truce between us.

I must have been an equally pathetic sight. My black bomber jacket was soaked, weighing a ton on my shoulders. Water ran down my face, my neck, penetrating every layer of clothing, cold and intrusive.

For an absurd second, the situation was so ridiculous, so disproportionate to the emotional drama of minutes before, that a laugh threatened to escape my throat. It was the perfect cosmic irony: after a loaded conversation, after confessing therapy, after a touch that shifted something in the axis of the world… the universe gifted us with a little domestic apocalypse. A reminder that, no matter how deep our pains, life was still a series of burnt pots and damn sprinklers.

I swallowed the laugh, turning it into a strange, half-choked noise.
— You… really were never very good in the kitchen, were you? — The sentence came out before I could stop it, in a tone bordering on amused disbelief, but still caught in the residue of the previous tension. It wasn't a light tease. It was a loaded comment, a thread that could pull on a painful memory or a moment of levity, depending on how he reacted. It was a risk. But the absurdity of the situation made me take that risk.

Izuku raised his eyes to me. For a moment, he just stared at me, with water running down his forehead and nose, his face still marked by the earlier fright and exhaustion. I saw a flash of something—irritation? Defense?—pass through his eyes. But then, something dissolved. The stiffness in his shoulders gave a millimeter. His lips quivered. A sound escaped—a short, muffled snort, that sounded more like a sigh of surrender than a laugh. And then, with an expression of pure resigned weariness, he let out a laugh.

It wasn't a big or expansive laugh. It was a rough laugh, full of smoke and exhaustion, but it was genuine. The corners of his eyes crinkled, and for the first time since I entered that apartment, I saw a crack in the armor, a spark of the Izuku who laughed at silly things even in the middle of disaster. But it was a spark filtered through the haze of everything that had happened between us. It wasn't the free boy from before. It was a weary echo of him. An echo that, nonetheless, made my heart do a strange flip in my chest.

That laugh hit me like a punch to the solar plexus.

It was a physical thing, a wave of heat that spread from my stomach to my chest, tightening my throat. I knew that sound. Knew it too well. It was the sound of our childhood, before everything went wrong. It was the sound I had tried to silence for years, with bullying and disdain, because it reminded me of a purity I was afraid I had lost. And hearing it there, in that context, after everything… was a mix of agonizing relief and an acute pain of longing. A relief that hurt, because it reminded me how much I had lost, how much I had broken between us.

He tried to speak, but another laugh interrupted him, and he ended up coughing, mixing laughter and smoke.
— Stop, — he managed to say, still laughing weakly, wiping his face with his wet sleeve in a gesture that seemed more habitual than casual. — You talk as if you're a great chef.

The casual tone sounded strange, almost a private joke, but also a conscious reminder of the roles we now occupied. A subtle limit being reaffirmed even in the midst of chaos.

— I'm not, — I said, and to my own astonishment, a small, involuntary smile touched my lips, but quickly disappeared, swallowed by the water dripping from my chin. — But at least I don't set luxury apartments on fire.

He laughed again, the sound a bit looser now, but still contained, and shuddered when a new wave of cold water from the sprinklers hit him. The shock of the cold seemed to bring him back to reality. The momentary lightness didn't erase the weariness in his eyes.
— Looks like… the system hasn't shut off yet, — he observed, looking up, his voice taking on a more practical, less relaxed tone.

— There's a valve. I'll turn it off. — I found the main water valve hidden in an elegant compartment under the sink. I turned it off. The unwanted rain ceased, leaving behind a dripping silence and the distant sound of water draining. The interruption of the noise made the ensuing silence heavier, more conscious.

I approached the stove, now cold and covered in white foam. I touched it carefully. The surface was hot, but not dangerously so. The burner knob was half melted, the black mark of the flame permanently stamped on the metal.
— Yeah, — I said with a sigh. — It's ruined. For good.

Behind me, I heard Izuku emit a low groan of frustration. It wasn't a dramatic sound, but that guttural sound of someone already at their limit receiving one more inconvenience.
— No… no, no, no. I just bought this damn thing. The other one broke too, last month. I left an empty pot on the fire after a 36-hour shift. — He ran his wet hand over his face, rubbing his eyes, and the gesture was so familiar, so Izuku, that a pang of something hot and painful shot through me. — It's impressive. I deal with disasters on an urban scale, but I can't cook rice without it becoming an emergency. Shigaraki would have laughed in my face during the war.

The genuine self-deprecation in his voice was… strangely endearing. It wasn't mawkish. It was a fact, presented with the same resigned tone he'd use to report a heroic incident. But there was a hint of bitterness there, as if this were just more proof of his failure at something "normal," something ordinary people do without thinking. I understood that feeling. The feeling of being a god on the battlefield and a complete idiot in everyday life.

I felt the urge to laugh again, but this time I held back. Instead, the sound that came out was a muffled noise, a puff of air through my nose.

— What are you laughing at? — he asked, and I could hear not a full smile in his voice, but a less tense tone, a weary curiosity. He wasn't teasing. He was genuinely asking, perhaps trying to gauge my tone, see if there was still mockery in it.

— Nothing, — I said, still with my back to him, feigning excessive interest in the destroyed stove. My face was serious again. — Just confirming you really were never very good in the kitchen. I remember that time, in first year, when you tried to make okonomiyaki for the dorm and almost called the school firefighters.

The memory became clear: Izuku covered in flour, batter stuck to the ceiling, the smell of burning filling the hallway. Everyone laughing, even me, though my laugh back then was more of mockery than fun. The memory now had a bitter taste. I had been part of that cruel laughter, that public humiliation. It wasn't just a funny memory; it was a memory tainted by my cruelty.

— Oh, for God's sake, — he grumbled, and I heard a slight tremor in his voice, but not of laughter now. It was of embarrassment mixed with something darker. — You're never going to let me forget that, are you?

The question was rhetorical, but there was an edge to it. A reminder that my observations in the past were rarely innocent. I turned to face him, to read his face.

— Probably not, — I admitted, my voice growing heavier. The weight of the past descended upon us, once again.

He stared at me, his green eyes scanning my face, looking for sincerity or another layer of irony. Water still dripped from a strand of hair on his forehead. He looked young and old at the same time. A hero who saved cities, and a boy who couldn't cook simple rice.

— Not to tease you, — I said, lower, trying to let the honesty shine through my words, through my expression that always looked angry even when it wasn't. The silence stretched, and I felt that old pressure in my chest, that idiotic urge to fill the void with anything, to say something, anything, to keep him there, in that precarious moment where we were just two wet idiots in a destroyed kitchen.

It was a mistake. A stupid impulse guided by a nostalgia that hurt.

— There was also… — I started, looking away for a second, as if speaking casually made it less real, less dangerous. — There was that time at my apartment.

He raised his head slowly. Water ran down the line of his neck, disappearing under the collar of his plastered t-shirt.

— What? — he asked, but the voice was already different. More attentive. More… cautious.

— The katsudon one — I said, and the name of the dish came out as a sigh. — You insisted you could cook it yourself. Said you'd watched some videos, that it was just following the recipe.

The memory came whole, uninvited. Invaded me with brutal clarity, bringing not just the images, but the smells, the sounds, the sensation.

Izuku in a wrong, oversized apron, borrowed from me and looking ridiculous on him. The pot sizzling too loudly on my apartment stove, the oil too hot, splattering. Him serious, concentrated, biting his lip as he stirred the meat as if it were a life-or-death mission, his tongue sticking out a little at the corner of his mouth, a tic he had when focused. And then… the smoke. The blaring alarm. The chaos.

My kitchen almost going to hell because of a badly fried katsudon.

— You almost set my apartment on fire — I continued, with a half-breath that could have been laughter, if it didn't have so much trapped in it—the memory of a happiness that no longer existed. — The smoke detector went crazy. The neighbors knocked. I had to open the window in the middle of winter.

His eyes didn't leave mine this time. They were locked, as if I had pulled a thread connecting directly to a place we both had agreed not to touch. A place full of "what ifs" and "once upon a times."

— Katsuki… — he began, but stopped. His voice was weak.

Because the memory wasn't just funny. It never had been.

In the memory, I was behind him. I had come running from the living room upon hearing the alarm. And instead of just yelling, I had positioned myself behind him, my chest almost touching his back, my arms reaching over his shoulders to hold his wrists, pulling his hands away from the dangerous pot. Stop, you idiot! Do you want to burn yourself? I had cursed, shouted, but with hands too firm, holding him with a strength that wasn't just to prevent a culinary disaster. I remembered the heat of his body against mine, his short, panting breath, the way he had turned his face to me afterwards, scared and laughing at the same time, his green eyes huge and damp from the smoke, his mouth open in a "I'm sorry, Kacchan!" that sounded sweeter than it should have.

Boyfriends?. Dating?. Idiots. Unawarely happy, in a mundane moment that, at the time, seemed insignificant and that, now, seemed like a lost treasure, a relic of a time when touching him wasn't a minefield.

— You got pissed, — he said now, almost in a whisper, as if reliving the scene along with me. — But then… you laughed.

I swallowed dryly. My throat was so tight it hurt.

— I laughed, — I confirmed, the word coming out hoarse. — Because you had the guiltiest face in the world. Looked like you'd blown up the whole building.

He let out a breath through his nose. It wasn't laughter. It was almost. A sound of recognition, of shared memory that brought an acute pain in its wake.

The problem was what came after that almost.

His gaze was locked on mine for too long. There was no accusation there. No affection. Just awareness. The crushing awareness of what that memory meant, of the chasm between that moment and this one here, now, with the cold water separating us and years of hurt in between. The shared memory of something that no longer existed. Of an intimacy that had been burned, along with the katsudon.

— We shouldn't… — he murmured, and let the sentence die, suspended in the damp, cold air of the kitchen.

I knew exactly what he didn't finish saying.

We shouldn't remember.
We shouldn't go back there.
We shouldn't pretend it still meant the same thing.

— I know, — I replied, too firmly, trying to sink the emotion threatening to overflow. — It was just… an observation.

The mood in the kitchen changed. It didn't explode. It didn't shatter.

It just got dense. Heavy. Like smoke you know will sting your eyes if you stay too long. The levity of the domestic fire had dissipated, leaving behind the real weight of our history. There was a hole in the air between us, a hole shaped exactly like everything we had been and were no longer.

— Well, — I said, trying to change the subject and lighten the mood, pointing with my chin to the dead appliance, avoiding the intensity of his gaze. Action. Action was always easier. — If you want, I can carry this downstairs later. Or call someone to pick it up. I don't know.

He looked at me as if I had said the most absurd thing in the universe. His eyes narrowed a little, not with anger, but with genuine bewilderment, as if I were a puzzle he couldn't solve. It was a look that said who are you?

— Katsuki, — he said, and his tone was one of pure bewilderment, but without the earlier amusement. It was almost a diagnosis. — You know I'm a hero too, right? Like, a professional one. High ranking and everything.

I frowned, feeling a wave of heat rise up my neck, a mix of shame and frustration. Of course I knew. I saw him every day, on the news, in reports, in the way the world spoke of him. But in my head, in that stupid instant, he was still the clumsy Deku who might need help carrying a stove. It was my idiotic prejudice, my old habit of seeing him as lesser, weaker, needing protection. Even after everything, even after he had surpassed me in so many ways, that old programming was still there, ingrained.

— I know, but—

— I can carry a little stove like this by myself, relax, — he finished, and his lips curved into something that wasn't quite an ironic smile, but a weary expression of someone stating the obvious. It was a reminder of our current parity, a subtle correction to my offer that, in subtext, could be read as condescension. He wasn't accepting the role of a poor thing. He was telling me, gently, that I could stop trying to fix things that weren't broken, or that I had no right to fix.

— I didn't mean you can't handle it, — the sentence came out rushed, my words stumbling in an embarrassing way. — I mean, that's not it, I just… — I paused, searching for the truth in the confusion. — It's that I caused this mess. Distracted you. It's… my fault. I should help clean up.

The honesty of that last part came out unfiltered. It hung in the damp air between us, another clumsy confession. I feel guilty. For everything. For this mess, for the others, for the bigger ones.

He was silent for a moment, studying me. Then, a puff of air escaped his lips, not a laugh, but something close to a sigh of exhausted comprehension. As if he were tired of fighting my intentions, even when they were misdirected.

— It's okay, — he finally said, his voice softening a degree. He pushed off the counter, a movement that made the wet t-shirt cling even more to his torso, outlining the contours of his abdomen. I forced my eyes to remain on his face. — It's just a stove. It doesn't need to be… this. — He didn't specify what "this" was, but I understood: another symbolic burden, another gesture loaded with heavy meaning, another chapter in our long saga of guilt and reparation. — I'll get the address for you.

He walked past me, and this time his arm brushed against mine more firmly, a casual contact that, in our soaked state, felt too intimate. His wet t-shirt against my wet jacket. The heat of his body, even through the wet layers, was a vivid and sudden sensation, an electric shock that ran up my arm and lodged at the base of my spine. I almost recoiled, but held firm, my muscles freezing in place.

He bent down near the coffee table to grab a notepad and pen from a low drawer.

And I… I just looked.

It was a moment of pure weakness. A moment when the hero gave way to the man, and the man gave way to the hungry animal that still lived in my blood. His jeans, also soaked, clung to his strong thighs, outlining every muscle of his thigh and calf with obscene precision. The curve of his back, the way his spine flexed as he bent over, the t-shirt pulled up revealing a strip of toned, tanned skin at his waist, a strip of skin I knew, had mapped with my lips on forgotten nights… It was an image of physical strength and domestic vulnerability combined in a way that hit my nervous system like a direct, inappropriate shock.

A heat that had nothing to do with shame or anger exploded inside me, low and intense, concentrating in my stomach and descending, insistent, primitive. My thoughts, already a whirlwind, took a sharp, treacherous turn into dangerously carnal territory. Skin. Touch. The taste of chlorine and sweat from our wet skin. The sound of that muffled laugh against my neck. His weight over me…

NO. NO. NO.

I averted my eyes abruptly, as if burned. My face was on fire, and this time it wasn't just emotional shame. It was pure physical embarrassment, a stupid, ill-timed biological reaction. What the hell was that? It wasn't the time. It wasn't the place. He was vulnerable, exhausted, and I was there to apologize, to try to be better, to respect the space and the wounds I caused, not to… to this. It was a treacherous impulse, a ghost of ancient desire that seemed to mock all my good intentions. It was as if my body was sabotaging me, reminding me that my changes were fragile and that old parts of me—greedy, possessive, intense parts that wanted to claim and devour—were still there, just dormant, waiting for a signal. And the sight of him, wet and disarmed, was a fireworks signal.

But the damage was done. The image was burned onto my retina. And with it came an overwhelming wave of desire mingled with a guilt so deep it almost made me double over. Because desiring that now, after so much damage, after so much pain I caused, seemed the greatest violation of all. It was wanting to consume the person I had hurt. It was pure selfishness, disguised as attraction. I hated myself in that moment. Hated my body, my instincts, my inability to just be decent.

I took a deep breath, trying to compose myself, trying to drown those thoughts in a sea of self-reproach. Focus on the mission. You came here to redeem yourself, not to get a stupid erection. Get a grip, Bakugou.

When I looked up again, he was already standing, his back to me, writing something on the notepad. He hadn't seen. I hope not. The last thing he needed was my predatory gaze on top of everything else.

I took advantage of the distraction to do something. Anything. Couldn't just stand there, with my mind and body in conflict, on fire for contradictory reasons. Action. Action always helped.

So, while he scribbled the address, I moved.

I grabbed a clean dish towel—soaked, but clean—hanging on a hook. Started wiping down the counter, pushing the water and foam toward the sink drain with firm, repetitive movements, focusing on the physical task, the act of cleaning, and tidying, of fixing the small chaos I, in some way, had helped create. I pushed one of the chairs from the coffee table—which had been dragged into the middle of the kitchen in the chaos—back into place with a scrape. Picked up the empty extinguisher, feeling the cold, reassuring weight of the metal, and leaned it against the wall, out of the way, carefully.

Nothing major. Nothing that fixed the bigger disaster. Just small, practical, silent gestures. Gestures that said "I'm here, I saw the mess, I help clean up" without me needing to say a word. It was the most I could offer at that moment—action instead of speech, practical care instead of empty promises. It was an attempt to channel the turbulent and dangerous energy within me into something useful, innocuous. Maybe it was also a form of silent atonement, cleaning up a bit of the literal mess that, in a way, I had helped create by bringing the tension that distracted him from the stove. It was my clumsy way of saying I care, even if it's just about your marble countertop.

When I finished, the kitchen was still a disaster, but a slightly more organized one. And I was a little less lost in my own dangerous thoughts, a little more anchored in the immediate physical reality of water and foam.

He turned around, a piece of paper torn from the notepad in his hand. His face was neutral again, the mask of weary control reassumed. The moments of laughter, of memory, of intensity, had receded, tucked back behind a professional wall.

— Here, — he said, extending it to me. — Shindo's address. The building has an intercom. The apartment is 1204.

I took the paper. Our fingers didn't touch. He had made sure of that, holding the tip of the paper between his fingers so I'd take it from the other end. A meticulous, almost surgical care that spoke volumes about the distance he still kept, about the boundaries that were so important to him. I was no longer someone who could touch casually. I was a controlled variable, a risk to be managed.

— I'll go, — I said, my voice sounding strangely formal to my own ears, as if speaking to a superior. I folded the paper with precision and put it in the secure inner pocket of my jacket, an almost ritualistic action. — Deliver. Today, if he's there.

He nodded, a short, efficient movement.
— Good.

An awkward silence descended upon us, denser now. The fleeting moment of levity had passed, the absurd interlude of the fire was over, and the reality of our circumstances hung again in the damp, cold air of the kitchen. The water still dripped, marking the passing time. Everything that had been said and unsaid weighed again on our shoulders, and the fact that I was still there, soaked, began to feel like an imposition. An intruder who had completed his mission and now needed to be dismissed.

— So… — I started, not knowing how to finish. The word hung, a loose thread leading nowhere.

— So, — he echoed, his voice softer now, but still final. It was the voice of someone ending a meeting. He looked at Shindo's bag, which I still held in my left hand. Then looked at his bag, intact and isolated on the coffee table, like an unopened peace offering, a question mark between us. — Thank you. For the extinguisher. And for… trying to tidy up.

The pause before "trying to tidy up" was tiny, but meaningful. He thanked me for the action, not for the meaning behind it. He thanked the hero who put out the fire, not the man who tried to clean up the emotional mess with a dish towel. It was fair. It was more than I deserved.

— It was nothing, — I murmured, and the phrase sounded as empty as it was. It was nothing? Of course not. It was everything. It was the first time in years I managed to be near him without something exploding into pieces. It was the first time my apologies didn't sound like a challenge. It was the first time I saw a crack, small and fragile, in the wall between us. But saying that would be too much. It would be pushing. So, I just said "it was nothing," and let the lie hang in the air.

He didn't reply. Just stood there, wet and quiet, his arms loose at his sides, and I knew, with a clear and painful certainty, that it was my cue to leave. The time of my access to his private space, granted reluctantly and interrupted by chaos, had expired. The limit had been reached. I had the address, I had the conditions. The truce had rules, and one of them was that I leave now.

I turned and walked back to the living room, toward the door. My steps echoed on the wet wooden floor, leaving dark, transient footprints that would soon dry, as if I had never been there. The sensation was strange—I wasn't being kicked out in anger. I was leaving because the conversation—for now—was over. There was a tacit agreement, established boundaries, a fragile truce negotiated through conditions and confessions. There was a path forward, and it started with me walking out that door and doing my part. It was an end, but also a kind of beginning. A strange, obstacle-filled beginning, but a beginning.

At the door, I stopped and turned for the last time. He had followed me, stopping a few meters away, his arms crossed again, but in a less defensive way this time. Just… observing. Like a captain on the bow of a ship, seeing a visitor depart after a difficult negotiation, evaluating whether the treaty would be honored.

— See you later, — I said, the phrase coming out softer than I intended, almost a whisper in the damp space. It was a wish, not an affirmation. A thread of hope thrown to the wind.

He nodded once more, a single chin movement.
— Later.

There was no "see you" or "we'll see each other around." Just a "later," which could mean until never again or until the next time fate or courage puts us in the same space. It was a non-promise, an open possibility, a verb in the infinitive that depended entirely on our future actions. On my future.

I nodded, a brief gesture, and then left.

But my body turned. The movement was abrupt, as if an invisible chain, anchored in my sternum, had been pulled hard from behind. The hand, resting on the cold metal doorknob, didn't turn it. Just clenched. The knuckles turned white. The door remained ajar, a dark crack breathing the cold air of the hallway, but I was no longer facing my escape. My whole body realigned, a soldier who abandoned retreat to face, head-on, the enemy fortress—or perhaps, the only territory that still mattered.

My eyes, red like embers under the ash of a controlled bonfire, didn't blink. They rose from the void of the hallway, crossed the damp room, the distance of a few meters that seemed like an abyss, and found, with an almost physical impact, Izuku's green eyes. There were no more frozen lakes. They were murky water, stirred by the storm my visit had brought back.

— Izuku. — The name came out. It wasn't an exclamation. It wasn't a call. It was a declaration of war and an offer of peace, all in one syllable torn from my throat. It sounded strange in my own mouth—so formal, so full of weight. Not 'Deku'. Not 'hey'. It was 'Izuku'. An acknowledgment of equality, of the person behind the symbol, of the man behind the wound.

Izuku didn't move. But something in him contracted. A shudder that started in his shoulders and disappeared under his wet shirt. His lips, slightly parted, emitted no sound. He was paralyzed, caught in the gravitational field of that gaze and that name said in that way.

— I'm still going to redeem myself. For the things I said. That day. All of them. — My voice didn't rise. It stayed low, hoarse, but each word was forged in steel, clear and inescapable in the dripping silence of the apartment. It wasn't an apology. It was a statement. A notice of intentions. I was looking to the future, at a debt I still hadn't settled.

A deep, painful sigh tore through my chest. It seemed to cost more than any explosion.
— I just… I'm preparing myself. So it's not done in any old way. — I squeezed my eyes shut for a fraction of a second, as if focusing on something internal, a pain or a determination. — Because you don't deserve less than that. And I know… I know that you know it too.

It was a low blow of brutal honesty. I was granting Izuku the knowledge of his own worth. I was admitting that Izuku always knew he deserved more, even when he accepted less—especially from me. It was a recognition that hurt more than an insult.

Pause. The air between us became charged, dense, as if the moisture from our wet clothes had evaporated and become static electricity. The warm light of the apartment seemed to highlight us in a living tableau, two heroes in a precarious truce, separated by a plain of water and unspoken words.

— I'm not ready to have that conversation. — Admission. Naked, raw vulnerability. Katsuki Bakugou declaring that something was too big, too difficult, even for his fierce will. — And you're not either. — Affirmation. No accusation. It was a reading of the weariness in Izuku's eyes, of the barely hidden pain, of the exhaustion that went beyond the physical. It was me saying: I see you. And I see that this still hurts you too much for us to talk about now. It was, in a twisted way, an act of care.

Then, I straightened my shoulders. The posture wasn't of challenge, but of solemnity. Like a warrior about to swear an oath upon his sword.
— But I promise you… — My voice trembled, almost imperceptibly. Not from fear. From colossal effort. — …I will redeem myself. I will apologize. The right way. To you.

Each word was a nail hammered into the coffin of my old pride. The right way. Not a grunt in the hallway. Not an ambiguous text. Not a material offering. Something worthy. Something that would cost. Something that acknowledged the depth of the cut.

It was an oath cast into the space separating us. I didn't ask for confirmation. I didn't expect an 'okay' or an 'I accept'. It was a unilateral commitment, a promise made for Izuku's own ears, but that I would have to fulfill, day after day, in therapy, in actions, in silence.

And then, I saw it. The paralysis in Izuku broke into a myriad of micro-expressions. His green eyes widened, not in fear, but with deep impact. His lips trembled, seeking a shape for something that didn't exist. The hand that was loose at his side contracted, his fingers closing into an empty fist. There was a spark of ancient anger, yes, a glint of why now? But beneath it, erupting like a flower through cracked concrete, there was something more dangerous: absolute confusion, mirrored vulnerability, and a tiny, gasping flash of a hope he had clearly tried to bury alive. It was that hope, fragile and frightened, that cut deeper into me than any hatred.

It was too much. Seeing that now was like looking at the sun after years in darkness—it blinded and burned. I couldn't stay. The promise had been made. The terrain, demarcated. Anything more now would be an invasion, pressure on that fragile sprout.

Without another word, without trying to read his face further—because if I did, I might never leave—I gave one last nod. It was a dry gesture, but loaded: I said it. I will do it. This is not the end.

And then, the hand on the doorknob finally turned. The powerful body, still dripping, crossed the threshold. The heavy, solid wooden door swung for a moment and then clicked shut.

CLICK.

The sound was dry, solitary, absolute. It echoed in the empty hallway and in the silent apartment. On the outside, I stopped, my eyes closed for a second, the sound of my own promise roaring in my ears louder than the silence.

I stood in the empty, silent hallway for a long moment, Shindo's bag weighing in my hand like a concrete burden, the smell of smoke, fire extinguisher foam, and ice-cold water still impregnated in my clothes and skin. But more than any physical sensation, it was the residual taste of that interaction that remained—a complex, bittersweet taste that settled on my tongue and sank into my chest.

The bitter taste of guilt and hard truths spoken. The sweet, agonizing taste of that rough, weary laugh, a glimpse of the boy I knew, still there, under the layers of pain. And the metallic, forbidden taste of the desire that had arisen, a disturbing reminder that my changes were a work in progress, and that parts of me I was trying to tame could still roar inopportunely, threatening to destroy any progress with a simple glance.

I had entered. He had let me in. Not into his life, not into his trust, not yet. But into his physical space. Into his private, everyday disaster. And I had left carrying not only the responsibility for my own actions—the bag and the address were symbols of that—but also the crushing weight of a fragile and dangerously alive hope. The hope that "later" meant something. The hope that my attempt, however clumsy and belated, might eventually create a new space between us, a space not filled with hatred or fear, but by something I still didn't dare name, something that felt as much like peace as it did a kind of accepted pain.

The change was real.
The regret was real.
The intention was real.
And the desire… the desire was also real, complicated, confusing, and painfully inconvenient, a dormant ember that mere proximity to him seemed capable of reigniting with frightening force.

I took a deep breath, the cold air of the hallway contrasting with the internal heat of my shame, my confusion, and a strange, tender, and frightening optimism. I adjusted my grip on the bag's handle, feeling the address paper pressing against my chest through the jacket fabric, like a reminder of the next battle. Shindo. I had to face Shindo. Do it right. It was the next step. The next test.

And then I started walking toward the elevator, each step echoing in the hallway's silence and hammering the question that now spun in my skull with the force of a contained explosion, a question for which I still had no answer, but that I knew would guide each of my actions from then on, each therapy session, each interaction at work, each moment I saw myself in the mirror:

And now?

The question I had avoided asking myself exploded in the vacuum of my mind, unceremoniously. It was a question of strategy, of logistics, of next move. And I didn't have an answer.

I had a bag.

Shindo's bag. Heavier than before, or was it just my hand? The luxurious brown paper, now slightly crumpled, seemed to burn my palm. Inside, the expensive package of wagashi I had chosen with a mix of anger and obligation. Material reparations. Payment for damages. A pathetic attempt to put a price on something that had none.

And I had an address.

A piece of paper, folded and stored in my jacket's inner pocket, stuck to my chest like a wax seal.

Apartment 1204.

I was going to have to go there.

The thought didn't come as a decision—it came as a sentence. Inevitable. A narrow corridor forming inside my head, with no escape route. I was going to have to go up that building, ring that bell, look him in the face.

Shindo.

The name grated against my teeth. The guy with the easy smile. The too-soft voice. The fingers that had touched Izuku with an intimacy that still made my stomach churn when I remembered. It wasn't possession. It wasn't childish jealousy. It was worse. It was knowing I had lost the right to complain—and yet feeling everything break inside.

Because it wasn't the touch. It was never just that.

It was his tongue.

It was hearing, from the mouth of a too-comfortable stranger, that I would never make Izuku happy. That I was unstable. Dangerous. A recurring mistake. That maybe the best thing for him was someone… normal. Someone who didn't carry destruction in their bones.

I remembered the exact moment something inside me snapped.

I was never going to accept that.

Never.

But acceptance wasn't the point now.

I was there—going to that apartment—not because I agreed, not because I regretted punching his face, but because I had crossed the line. Because Izuku had looked at me afterwards as if I were a memory that hurt too much to touch.

And I couldn't stand that look anymore.

The paper in my pocket felt hotter with every step. A physical reminder of the price. Of what I needed to do.

Swallow my pride. Swallow the anger. Swallow even the disgust.

Not for him.

For Izuku.

Because if apologizing was the path to even having a chance of hearing my name in his mouth again—not as an accusation, not as the past—then I would do it.

Even if I hated every second.

Even if I knew that didn't make me better.

Just… necessary.

And that, in itself, was humiliating enough.
The nausea rose, acidic and hot, from my throat. I swallowed hard, tasting vomit and shame.

That was it. That was exactly what Deku had said, with that weary voice that cut deeper than any scream. A real apology isn't something you do by proxy.

And he was right. Damn, how he was right.

I was trying to outsource the hardest part. Give the present, make the delivery, complete the task. Because it was concrete. It was an action I could check off a list. Done. But facing Shindo? Facing the direct consequences of my shit, in the eyes of the one I hurt? That required a courage I wasn't sure I possessed.

But I was going to have to find it. Because he had set that condition. And I had accepted.

"Okay. I… I'll deliver."

My own words, rough and surrendered, came back to haunt me. They sounded weak. They sounded like surrender. And maybe they were. But in that room, soaked and trembling, with the smell of smoke and raw truth in the air, it had been the only thing I could say.

My jacket was still soaked. The cold water had penetrated all the layers, reaching my skin. I was shaking. Not from the cold, though the cold hallway contributed. It was the shock. Post-adrenaline shock, post-confrontation, post… everything.

My mind tried to process, catalog, but it was a hurricane of disconnected images and sensations.

The crack of the slightly open door, sucking my courage.
His expression. Weary. Dull. Inscrutable.
The ice-cold water falling from the ceiling, an absurd reality shower.
The sensation of his body brushing against mine, the heat through the wet fabric.
His smell, of sweat, of cheap soap, of burnt rice smoke.
That laugh.

For a second, I stopped. Squeezed my eyes shut, trying to crush the memory that arose, vivid and treacherous.

His wet face, his green eyes momentarily lit not by admiration or fear, but by a weariness that gave way to that brief, rough levity. The sound of his laugh, mixed with a cough, echoing in the flooded kitchen. And the wave of heat that hit me, so intense, so inappropriate, so… mine. A brutal and instant desire, an animal impulse to close the distance, to feel that body against mine without the barrier of wet clothes, to taste the flavor of that laugh on his mouth.

NOT AGAIN.

I forced the thought away, an internal explosion of repulsion against myself. It wasn't the time. It wasn't the place. And my body, my shitty instinct, chose that moment to remember… what we had been. What I had destroyed.

Was that what I was? Someone who, even in the middle of an apology, a moment of shared vulnerability, could be consumed by something so basic, so selfish? It was as if two parts of me were in constant war: the one desperately trying to be better, to fix; and the one that was pure will, possession, directionless fire.

Therapy had helped me name this. See the patterns. Anger as a shield. Desire as a form of control, of possession. But naming wasn't the same as taming. Seeing the beast in the cage didn't mean it didn't beat against the bars, especially when he was around, smelling and looking and being… him.

The elevator arrived with a soft ding. The doors opened, revealing the mirrored steel cube, empty. I stepped in, and my reflection stared back at me.

I looked like trash.

My blonde hair, normally spiked with expensive gel, was plastered to my forehead and the sides of my face, wet and heavy. My black jacket was stained with water and a bit of soot. My eyes… my eyes were red, but not from my power. They were sunken. Completely lost. I looked like a ghost of myself, a soldier returning from a battle where I hadn't won or lost, just survived.

I pressed the button for the ground floor. The doors closed, and the descent began, that pull in my stomach that always reminded me of falling.

You've changed.

His voice, flat, stating a fact. Not a compliment. A belated observation. Bitter.

Not when I asked. Not when everyone around you begged you to lower your guard… Now.

Now.

The word was a verdict. I had changed too late for what mattered. Too late to avoid the damage I did to him. The change the rest of the world saw—patience with kids, cooperation on missions—was real, but it was a shadow of what he needed back then. I had become a better hero for strangers while continuing to be a monster to the person who… to the person.

The tightness in my chest was so strong I almost doubled over, placing my hands on my knees. Shindo's bag hit my leg. I took a deep breath, the cold, metallic air of the elevator filling my lungs. Not now. Don't fall apart here. Hold on.

But it was hard. Because for the first time, I had seen in his eyes something beyond fatigue or pain. I had seen… understanding. When I told him about therapy. When I exposed that piece of shame. He didn't mock. He didn't gloat. He touched my arm. Called my name. Katsuki.

It's not weakness. It's the strongest thing you could do.

That had dismantled me. Because it came from him. Because he knew, more than anyone, what it cost to admit any kind of weakness. And he was telling me it wasn't.

And then… that look. That clinical, studying look when he saw me trying to tidy the kitchen. As if I were a strange experiment. And then, when he bent over… damn.

The heat returned, an ember of mingled shame and desire. I had looked. And I had liked. I had remembered. I had desired. In the middle of that emotional chaos, the most primitive part of me had awoken and barked, hungry.

I was a disaster. A walking conflict.

The elevator stopped. The doors opened to the quiet, well-decorated lobby of the building. There was a smell of cleanliness, of expensive flowers in a vase at the deserted reception desk. A normal, clean, quiet world. I felt like an intruder, a soaked and dirty animal that had invaded a place not its own.

I walked to the glass door, which opened automatically with a whisper. The cold night of Musutafu hit me like a slap in the face. Good. Needed it.

I had to go to Shindo's. But first… first I needed to go home. I needed dry clothes. I needed a plan. I needed to breathe.

The drive to my apartment wasn't long.
The Porsche's engine purred low under my feet, too smooth for the whirlwind I carried in my chest.

I knew that route by heart—automatic turns, no conscious attention, as if my body knew the way even when my head was elsewhere.

I lived nearby. A building reserved for high-ranking heroes. More modern. More expensive. More impersonal.

Concrete, glass, and excessive security.
No smell of home cooking escaping through hallways. No voices through thin walls. No real marks of life. Just polished efficiency and calculated silence, the kind that asks nothing and welcomes no one.

I turned off the car in the underground garage and the silence fell heavy, absolute. The kind of silence that amplifies thoughts I'd rather ignore.

Here, everything worked. Everything was clean. Everything was controlled.

And yet, nothing seemed… lived-in.

Upon entering, the vacuum was almost physical. It was clean, organized, everything in its place. It looked like no one's house. The smell was of cleaning products and air conditioning. No trace of disaster, of life, of chaos.

I took off my soaked jacket and let it drop to the entryway floor, an act of negligence I would normally never allow. The boots came next, leaving a trail of water. I walked to the bathroom, turned the shower to the hottest I could stand, and stepped in, still clothed.

The scalding water hit my skin, mixing with the residual cold from the wet clothes. I stood there, letting it burn, cleanse, erase for a moment the sensation of having been seen so completely. The heavy clothes clung to my body, and I ripped them off, one piece at a time, throwing them into a heap in the corner of the shower.

Only then did I let myself crumble.

I leaned my forehead against the cold tile wall, my hands beside my head, and simply… breathed. The steam rose, fogging the glass, hiding my reflection. The sound of the water was a constant roar, muffling the outside world, muffling the thoughts. For a few minutes, I was nothing. Just a body under hot water, a point of heat and exhaustion in the middle of the vacuum of my apartment.

But my mind, that treacherous bitch, wouldn't shut off.

It replayed every moment.

The courage (or lack thereof) that made me stand at his door.
His expression when he opened the door—not surprise, not anger. Just resigned weariness, as if he already expected me to show up and ruin his night.
The outstretched bag, my pathetic peace offering.
His condition. Clear, direct, non-negotiable. You'll have to give it to him personally.

He wasn't doing it to be cruel. He was forcing me to be… integral. To face the full consequences. He was giving me a chance—a twisted, difficult, painful chance—to do the right thing, the right way. And at the same time, he was protecting himself. He wasn't going to be the middleman, the messenger between me and my mistake. It was brilliant. It was fair. It hurt like hell.

I knew, logically, that he was right. I'd known since the moment I bought that stupid present. But hearing it from his mouth, seeing the quiet firmness in his eyes… that made the reality weigh twice as much.

And then, the confession about therapy.

Why had I said that? Why had I opened my mouth and let that vulnerability escape? To gain sympathy? To seem less of an asshole? Maybe. A little. But also because… because he needed to know. He needed to know I wasn't just performing a superficial change. That I was trying, for real, deep down, to fix the root of the problem. That I was looking at my own shit, even if it was scary, even if it was shameful.

And his reaction… no one had ever told me that going to therapy was the strongest thing. Aizawa had said it was "necessary." My parents had looked at me with concern and some relief when I mentioned it. My colleagues, if they knew, would probably be shocked or make jokes. But Deku… he understood. Instantly. Because he also carried wounds. Because he also knew the cost of trying to carry everything alone.

That touch on my arm. Light, quick, but more electric than any of my explosions. Katsuki.

I turned, letting the hot water hit my back, my tense neck. His name whispered in that rough, serious voice kept spinning in my head. Not "Kacchan." It was "Katsuki." Adult. Serious. Direct. An acknowledgment of the person I was now, or trying to be, separate from the arrogant child he knew.

And then… then came the disaster. The smell of burning. The panic in his voice. The dash to the kitchen. The ice-cold water falling. The extinguisher. The chaos.

For an instant, everything had been simple. It was a physical problem. A fire to put out, a mess to contain. In those seconds, there was no heavy history, no guilt, no confusing desire. There was only action. And I am good at action.

But then, his laugh.

That rough laugh, full of smoke and exhaustion, but genuine. A small shard of the Izuku I knew—not the hero, not the victim, but the boy who laughed at silly things even in the middle of disaster. And the wave of feeling that invaded me… it wasn't just attraction. It was longing. An acute and painful longing that squeezed my heart so hard I thought I might fall.

I missed him. The way we were when everything wasn't broken. The ease. The trust. The touch that wasn't loaded with bad history. I missed making him laugh and not having to wonder if it was from nerves, tension, or for real.

And in the middle of all that confusion, my body decided to betray me for the third time that same day, with an inconvenient and brutal desire. When he bent over, the wet clothes clinging to his skin, outlining every curve, every muscle… it was a low blow. A physical, carnal reminder of what I'd had and lost. Of what I still wanted, with an intensity that scared me.

I stepped out of the shower, my body red from the hot water, my mind exhausted. I wrapped a towel around my waist and stood in front of the fogged-up mirror. Wiped the steam away with my hand, and my reflection appeared, sharper now.

I still looked like trash, but clean trash.

My eyes were less lost, but still burdened. The dark circles under them were deep. I was wearing myself thin. The attempt to be better, to fix, to bear the weight of regret… was consuming me from the inside.

And now?

The question returned, insistent.

Now, I was going to Shindo's apartment.
I was going to press the intercom. Go up to 1204. Press the doorbell and face the man I had attacked.

The man I already knew.

And that I had never liked.

Shindo always had that too-easy smile, that way of talking as if he were just joking—but he wasn't. He never was. He knew exactly where to poke. He knew what to say. He knew how to make what was, in fact, cruel, seem casual.
He had said those horrible things to me. Things that stuck. That clung. Things I let in.

And let that reach Izuku.
The worst wasn't that he touched Izuku with an intimacy I had no right to demand. The worst was what he said. What he implied. The way he managed to make me doubt. Myself. Izuku. What we had.

I didn't like him before.
After that, it went from dislike to something deeper. Uglier.

Still, I was there.
What was I going to say?

"Hi. It's Bakugou. The one who punched you at the bar. Brought some sweets."?

Ridiculous.

I needed an approach. A plan. Something that didn't put me on my knees, but acknowledged the shit I did. Something direct. Objective. Like a mission.

Mission: Delivery of Reparations.
Objective: Deliver the package. Take responsibility for the attack. Apologize.
Risks: Rejection. Verbal confrontation. Open hostility.
Conditions: Maintain composure. Do not react with anger. Accept any consequence.

It wasn't about him.
It never was.

It was about fixing the damage. About proving—to myself, if to no one else—that I was willing to swallow my pride.

Because, if there was any chance of having Izuku back…

I would go through this.

Even if I hated every second.

Right. It was a plan. A shitty plan, but it was a plan.

Dressed in dry clothes—black jeans, gray t-shirt, a leather jacket—I felt a bit more armed. The clothes were armor. The leather jacket, especially, was heavy, familiar. Made me feel more… me. The explosive, defensive me. But I couldn't be that me today. Today I had to be what Deku saw in the living room: vulnerable, owning up, trying.

I picked up Shindo's bag, still in the entryway, the paper now wrinkled and water-stained. I needed a new one. Couldn't arrive with that. It was disrespectful.

I left the apartment again, the night seeming even colder now that I was dry.

The underground parking garage welcomed me with the same sterile silence as the building. Too much white light. Too much concrete. I got in the car, the Porsche's engine responding immediately, low, precise. Control. At least that still worked.

I drove to the bakery.

The same one as before. Expensive. Too bright for that hour. Clean windows, impeccable counters, smell of sugar and butter that didn't match what I was about to do. I parked, got out, went in without thinking much.

Bought another bag. Simple. Asked them to put everything in it.

Outside, leaning against the car, I opened the original wagashi package. The luxurious wrapping was stained, crumpled, carrying an intention that now seemed wrong. Pretentious. As if I were trying to buy forgiveness.

I transferred the sweets to the simple bag and threw the rest in the trash.

This was better.
Less staging.
More direct.
As it had to be.

I got back in the car, closed the door with controlled firmness, and started the engine again.

Address: Apartment 1204.
Now there was no turning back. It was drive there, go up, ring the bell…

And face the man I had never liked.

And the shit he said.

And the part of me that had believed it.

I pulled the paper from my pocket. The address was written in Deku's careful, slightly messy handwriting. I could see the pressure of the pen on the paper, the curves of the "S" in Shindo. It was his handwriting. I knew it. I put the paper back, against my chest.

Shindo's building wasn't as luxurious as Deku's, but it was nice. A modern compact apartment building, probably full of young professionals. The kind of place mid-ranking heroes lived.

I got out of the car and stood outside for a minute, watching the lights on in the windows. In which one was he? Watching TV? Training? Thinking about Izuku?

The last thought made my stomach clench. I had no right to jealousy. I had lost that right. But the feeling was there, throbbing, green and poisonous. He touched him. He smiled at him. He tried something. And I broke his face for it.

And, deep down, a small, rotten part of me didn't regret the punch. Regretted the way, the place, the public humiliation. Regretted hurting Izuku in the process. But the act itself… that animal impulse to mark territory, to fend off a threat… that, I understood. And I hated myself for understanding.

I took a deep breath, the icy air burning my lungs. Mission. Objective. Composure.

Enter the building. The lobby was small, clean. I found the intercom, a wall of buttons with names. Yōsetsu. Apartment 1204.

My finger hovered over the button. My palm began to sweat slightly, an alert signal from my own body. Damn it. Here we go.

I pressed.

The intercom sound echoed in the silence of the lobby. A few seconds passed. I was already preparing to press again, maybe he wasn't home, maybe I could escape this, when his voice came from the speaker, a bit muffled, but unmistakably casual.

— Yes? Who is it?

I swallowed dryly.

— Bakugou.

The silence on the other end was so charged I could almost feel the shock through the wire. It lasted two, three seconds that felt like an hour.

— … Bakugou. — His voice lost its casualness. Became flat. Cautious. — What do you want?

— I need to talk to you. Just a minute. — I used the same tone I had used with Deku. Direct. No frills.

Another pause. I could almost hear his thoughts spinning. Distrust. Contained anger. Curiosity, perhaps.

— Okay. Come up. — The buzz of the electronic lock sounded, and the inner hall door unlocked with a click.

My heart pounded hard against my ribs as I entered the elevator. The trip to the 12th floor was an agony of mirrors and fluorescent light. I saw myself again in the reflection: rigid posture, clenched jaw, holding the plastic bag like a grenade. Composure. Don't react.

The hallway on the 12th floor was narrow, with beige carpet and brown doors. 1204 was at the end. I walked to it, each step echoing. Stopped in front of the door. Took another deep breath. And knocked. Two firm taps.

The door opened almost immediately, as if he had been waiting on the other side.

Shindo Yōsetsu stood before me.

He was wearing sweatpants and a loose t-shirt, looking relaxed, at home. His face… the bruise was almost completely gone. Just a slight yellowish discoloration under his left eye, almost imperceptible. But my eyes went straight there. The mark of my anger. The physical proof of my lack of control.

His own eyes—clear, assessing—scrutinized me. He didn't look scared. He looked… alert. Curious. A bit wary. His posture was relaxed, but I could see the tension in his shoulders, the way he leaned slightly against the door, ready to close it if necessary.

— Bakugou, — he said, the name coming out neutral.

— Shindo, — I replied, in the same tone.

A heavy silence descended between us. The sound of a TV leaked from inside the apartment, some sports program.

— So? — he asked, crossing his arms. A defensive, but not aggressive, movement.

I raised the plastic bag. — For you.

He looked at the bag, then at my face, his expression inscrutable. — What is it?

— Something for the punch. For the inconvenience. — The words came out robotic, rehearsed. — It's not a gift. It's… material reparations.

He didn't take the bag. Just looked at it, as if it were a trap. — Material reparations, — he repeated, a touch of irony in his voice. — Interesting.

— Look, — I said, frustration starting to gnaw at my patience, but I kept it under control. — I didn't come to make a speech. I came because it was the right thing to do. I attacked you. I was wrong. Drunk and wrong. This here — I shook the bag slightly — doesn't erase it, I know. But it's what I can do for now.

Finally, he reached out and took the bag. It was quick, his fingers avoiding touching mine. He opened the top and looked inside, seeing the sealed package of wagashi.

— From the bakery on Central Street, — he commented, without enthusiasm. — Expensive.

— It's not about the price, — I said, too quickly. — It's about… the gesture.

He looked at me again, and this time I could read something in his eyes: a cold, almost clinical assessment. — The gesture, — he echoed. — Right. And Midoriya? Did he ask you to make this 'gesture'?

The mention of his name, in Shindo's mouth, made my blood boil for a second. I took a deep breath. Don't react. — No. It was his condition. For me… for me to apologize to him. I had to come here. Deliver it personally.

The interest in Shindo's eyes increased. — His condition? So you apologized to Midoriya too?

— Yes. — The word came out short. I wasn't going to give details. Not to him.

— And did he accept?

— That's none of your business. — The answer came out before I could think, with a bit of my usual sharpness.

Shindo smiled, a small, humorless smile. — Alright, alright. Just asking. — He looked at the bag again, then back at me. — Thanks, then. For the expensive sweets. For the… gesture.

He didn't say "I forgive you." Didn't say "it's okay." Just thanked me, politely and distantly. And that was more than I deserved.

— Is that it? — he asked, starting to retreat to close the door.

— Yeah. — I turned halfway, ready to leave. The mission was accomplished. I had done the hard part.

— Bakugou.

I stopped, without turning completely.

— He's important to a lot of people, you know? — Shindo's voice was low, but clear. — It's not just you.

I froze. The implication was clear. Be careful. You're not the only one in his life. You've already caused enough damage.

I turned, slowly, to face him. He was standing in the doorway, the bag in his hand, his face serious.

— I know, — I said, my voice coming out softer than I expected. — That's why I'm here.

He studied my face for a long moment, as if searching for falsehood. I didn't look away. Let him see what he wanted—the weariness, the regret, the determination. There was no anger there. Not at that moment.

Finally, he nodded, an almost imperceptible movement. — Okay. Good night, Bakugou.

— Good night.

The door closed, gently, but with finality.

I stood in the hallway for a moment, breathing. The tightness in my chest had lessened a bit. I had done it. I had faced it. And I hadn't exploded. Hadn't fought. Had endured the veiled provocation, the assessment, the discomfort.

It was a step. A small, insignificant step in the grand scheme, but it was a step in the right direction.

The drive home felt lighter, but my mind wouldn't stop. Shindo's words echoed. He's important to a lot of people.
As if I didn't know.

Izuku Midoriya was always important.
First, in a twisted way, too ugly to be called by the right name. Important as a target. As a mirror of what I hated to see. As someone who existed too tall, too bright, just by staying on his feet when I wanted him to break. Later, important as an obstacle.

As the constant stone in my path, the one I kicked hoping it would disappear, but that always stayed there, firm, forcing me to change my step.
Later, important as a rival.

The only one. The one I never truly surpassed, no matter how much I shouted, won, or exploded the world around me. Because he didn't compete with me the way I competed with him. He just… existed. And that always hurt the most.

The problem is, even back then, even when I pretended it was just anger, I already knew. I just didn't have the courage to say it. Not to him. Not to myself.

Pure cowardice.

When we grew up, when we became adults, when we could no longer hide behind nicknames, childish fights, or poorly formulated excuses… I finally said it. In my twisted way, my bad way, but I said it. And he stayed. We stayed.

It wasn't an impulse. It wasn't neediness. It was years. Three together. Two sharing the same space, the same routine, the same comfortable silence of the early hours. He knew me. I knew him. Not officially, not with rings or pretty promises, but in a much more dangerous way: for real.

And I ruined it all.

Not because I didn't feel. Not because I didn't want to. But because his importance was too great. Because loving Izuku meant accepting there was someone in the world I could lose in an irreparable way. It meant lowering my guard where I had always survived armed. It meant admitting fear.

So I did what I always did when I was afraid: I attacked.

Said things that couldn't be unsaid. Hit where I knew it hurt. Used insecurities he trusted me with as ammunition. Not because I believed them, but because they were sharp enough to push him away quickly. To end it before he could end me.

And now… now he was important to me in a way that had no escape.

It wasn't rivalry. It wasn't possession. It wasn't just guilt.

It was a need. Almost physical. To be close. To protect. To fix what I myself destroyed.

And, at the same time, it was the constant fear of hurting him again.

It was the desire burning low in my stomach and the shame freezing my spine.

It was knowing I wanted everything back—and that perhaps I had no right to ask for anything.

I arrived home, the empty, silent apartment welcoming me as always. But this time, the silence wasn't just empty. It was… thoughtful.

I took off my jacket, let it fall on the sofa. Went to the kitchen, got a glass of water, and looked out the window at the lit-up city. Somewhere out there, Izuku was in his apartment, with the smell of smoke and water, trying to salvage what was left of dinner.

Alone.

His loneliness in that room, even before I arrived, had been palpable. The exhaustion in his bones. He carried so much. He always did. And I had added weight to the load, instead of helping him carry it.

Therapy made me realize this. How my actions, my anger, my need to dominate, had been a way to put myself at the center of his universe, even if in a negative way. How I was afraid of being nothing if I wasn't the focus, even if it was of hatred.

But now… now I wanted to be something different. I don't know what. A support? An ally? A… friend? The word seemed strange, inadequate for the complexity of what I felt. But it was a start.

I had changed. He saw it. He acknowledged it. But he also made it clear that the change came too late for some things. Too late to avoid the pain I caused.

The question was: was it too late for everything?

Later, he had said. Not a "see you later." A "later." Open. Not a promise, but a possibility.

I needed to believe in the possibility. Because the alternative—a future where I was just a distant colleague, a ghost from the past he tolerated out of professionalism—was unbearable.

My hands tingled, tiny, uncontrollable sparks crackling at my fingertips. It was the stress, the pent-up energy. I needed to let it out. Needed physical action.

I put on a sweatshirt and went to the building's gym, a high-tech training room reserved for the heroes who lived there. It was empty, as usual at that hour.

I didn't put on music. Just the sound of my own sighing, my steps on the mat, the impact of my fists against the heavy sandbag.

Each punch was a memory.
The punch to Shindo.
The blind, cold anger in the bar.
The expression of shock and pain on Izuku's face.
His voice, weary, on the beach.
The slightly open door, the gloom of the apartment.
His touch on my arm.

I attacked the bag until my knuckles hurt, until my arms burned, until sweat ran into my eyes and I no longer knew if it was sweat or something else. Until the anger against myself, the frustration, the confusion, were temporarily spent in physical energy, transformed into heat and movement.

Finally, exhausted, panting, I slid down the bag, resting my forehead against the rough, sweaty material. My heart beat like a war drum inside my chest.

Now, I waited. I had done my part. Delivered the bag. Apologized.

But waiting was the hardest thing I'd ever had to do. Because waiting meant not having control. It meant he could decide that "later" meant "never again." And I would have to accept.

I went back to the apartment, took another shower, this time quick and cold. My body was numb, my mind a bit quieter, exhausted from the workout.

I lay in bed, looking at the dark ceiling. The silence was absolute.

And then, like a virus, the hottest, most forbidden memories began to infiltrate.

Not from today. From before.

From my kitchen. Him in that ridiculous apron, biting his lip as he tried to fry the katsudon. The absurd concentration on his face, as if it were an S-level mission. The smell of the oil starting to burn. The panic in his eyes when the smoke rose. And me, behind him, holding his wrists, pulling him away from the stove. His body against mine, warm, solid. His panting breath against my neck. And then… then, when the dust settled and the alarm stopped, he had turned his face to me, his face smeared with flour and guilt, and started to laugh. A light, genuine, relieved laugh. And I had joined in. And then, without thinking, I had pulled him closer and kissed the flour off his cheek, and then his mouth, which was still curved in a smile…

I squeezed my eyes shut tightly. The pain in my chest was sharp, a stab of pure longing.

That was what I had destroyed. That ease. That lightness. That trust.

I wanted it back. God, how I wanted it back. Not just the touch, the kiss. The laughter. The feeling that we were on the same team, on the same side, without war, without heavy history.

But I didn't deserve it. Not yet. Perhaps never.

The change was real. The regret was real. The intention was real.

And the desire… the desire was also real. Complicated. Confusing. Painfully inconvenient. An ember that never went out, only slept, and the slightest proximity to him was like throwing gasoline on it.

I didn't know how to put all these pieces together. How to be the person he needed me to be—respectful, controlled, supportive—when inside me still lived the beast that wanted to explode things and possess him.

Therapy helped. Gave me tools. Made me see the patterns. But it didn't erase the feelings. It only made me face them, name them, and try, every day, to choose not to be ruled by them.

One day at a time, the therapist always said. Don't try to fix years of damage in a week.

Today was a day. A huge day. I had faced Shindo. I had faced Izuku. I had exposed myself in ways I never imagined possible.

And I was alive. Still here. Breathing.

Exhaustion finally won, pulling me into a heavy, dreamless sleep. But even in the darkness of unconsciousness, a sensation remained: the weight of the paper with the address, still in my jacket pocket, and the echo of that single word, a vague and frightening promise of a future I didn't control, but that, for the first time, I really wanted to try to deserve.

★

Pov: Izuku

The click of the door closing echoed in the silent apartment, long after his footsteps disappeared down the hallway.

I remained where I was, standing in the middle of the living room, listening to the constant drip of water from the kitchen onto the marble floor. The sound was monotonous, hypnotic, a metronome for the whirlwind inside me. The smell of burnt and fire extinguisher foam filled the air, mixing with the residual aroma of the destroyed rice and the icy dampness that penetrated my bones, but it was a secondary smell. The primary smell, the one that still seemed to cling to the air, was his.

A clean, acidic, slightly sweet smell of contained nitroglycerin, mixed with the expensive laundry detergent he used and the cold sweat of tension. It was a smell I'd known since childhood, always associated with adrenaline, competition, and, often, pain. Now, it was impregnated in my space, in my living room, on my wet skin. It was the smell of the man I loved. The man I almost destroyed with my own hands, in that night of blind rage. The man who, for eight long months, was just a painful memory and a void in my chest.

My hands began to tremble.

It wasn't a sudden tremor. It was a deep vibration, coming from somewhere inside my sternum, an epicenter of repressed emotion finally finding a physical outlet. The vibration spread slowly up my arms, through the tense muscles of my shoulders, down my forearms, until my hands shook uncontrollably before me. I looked at them, these hands that faced villains, that saved cities, that now trembled like leaves in the wind after a simple, civil conversation. They were the same hands he held for years. The same ones he pushed away, violently, in that final argument. The same ones that were now empty.

The strength that had kept me upright, that moderated my voice into a flat, controlled tone, that imposed boundaries with an apparent calm that was the hardest thing I'd ever done, evaporated suddenly. It was as if the ropes holding me taut had been cut all at once. My knees weakened, a frailty I hadn't felt since the worst days of One For All training. I backed up to the edge of the sofa and collapsed onto it, the wet fabric of my clothes making a muffled, pathetic sound.

He had been here. In my home. Talking. Apologizing. Confessing.

Therapy.

The word still reverberated in my ears, a surprising echo. Katsuki Bakugou, in therapy. Taking on his own mess. Trying. For real. The image was almost inconceivable. The boy—the man—who built a fortress around his own psyche, who equated vulnerability with mortal weakness, was sitting in an office, week after week, dismantling those walls brick by brick. It was a demonstration of courage that I, of all people, could appreciate in its full meaning. I knew the cost. I knew the terror. I knew how much he needed to break apart inside to reach that point. After eight months of silence, of absence, he didn't come back with just a "my bad." He came back with a change that hurt because it was so real. He came back acknowledging not just what he did to Shindo, but what he did to me. What he did to us.

And he had changed. I had seen it, not just today, but in flashes over the past weeks. The scene with the child, the clumsy patience, the kindness that didn't know how to express itself in words but in hard, protective actions… and now this.

The raw vulnerability of that confession, the genuine embarrassment that reddened his ears, the clamorous absence of the explosive, angry defenses that were his second skin. He was trying to be a better person. Not for the world. For himself. And, perhaps, for me. The hope in that last part was a tenuous and dangerous thread, but it was there, pulsing in the damp air between us.

He had looked at me with eyes that weren't of anger or disdain, but of deep regret and a fragile, cautious hope. A hope that depended on me. That I controlled. The responsibility of that was a different weight, but as crushing as any he had ever imposed on me. Because I carried guilt too. Guilt for letting things get to that point, for not being able to reach him when he was losing himself, for swallowing so much pain until I exploded in a way that only hurt us both. Eight months hadn't erased that guilt. Only made it sharper.

And what had I done?

I was cold. Calculated. Imposed conditions like a judge sentencing a defendant. Made a cutting comment that aimed for the truth, yes, but also aimed to keep him at a distance, remind him (and myself) of the history.

"Not that you have much practice with that."

The phrase came out easy, because it was true. But it hurt me to say it. Hurt to see the way he swallowed it, how he accepted the cut without retaliating. The old Katsuki would have exploded. This one… this one just absorbed. Because he knows. He knows he has no practice in asking for forgiveness. Because he never had to. Because I always accepted crumbs, always settled for less than I deserved, always justified his explosions and his disdain with "that's just how he is." Until the day his way broke something inside me I'm not sure can be fixed.

I kept the physical distance with military precision. Pretended a neutrality that was just a thin shell over a volcano of conflicting feelings. Love, anger, longing, fear, a deep desire to run and bury my face in his neck to smell that familiar smell and, at the same time, an equally deep terror that, if I touched him, everything would crumble again.

Because it was safer.

Because letting him in emotionally, even an inch, seemed more dangerous than facing any remnant of All For One. Because the heart he had broken, trampled, and belittled so many times—and that I allowed to be broken, by making myself small for so long—was still wrapped in tight bandages, and the idea of removing them for him—for Katsuki—to see the damage up close, to touch the still-painful scars… was terrifying. It was handing the vault key to the thief who already broke in, hoping he had learned to be a goldsmith. After eight months, distrust was a survival instinct.

But then, in the middle of the absurd, almost comical chaos of the kitchen fire, something had broken. Not the tension exactly, but the formality of it. The laugh that escaped was involuntary, a pure reflex in the face of absurdity. And for a fleeting instant, the haze of the past and the emotional weight seemed to lift. I saw only the Katsuki of the present. Not the ghost Kacchan from the schoolyard. Not Dynamight, the rival hero. Not the ex who hurt me deeply. Just a soaked and visibly frustrated man, laughing with resigned disbelief at a broken stove and a flooded kitchen. It was a moment of silly, shared, disarmed normality. An echo of what we had, of those years when everyday life was ours, and not a battlefield.

And for an instant… it had been easy. Almost familiar. Like the rare breaks between fights at U.A., when exhaustion equalized us and the masks slipped. Like the mornings we woke up entwined, before the world and our own demons caught up to us.

Until I bent down to get the notepad.

And felt his gaze.

It wasn't a conscious realization. It was a silent invasion on my skin, a primitive alert that lit up every exposed nerve. I didn't see it, but I felt it—the weight of his attention shifting, the quality of the silence between us gaining a different density, thicker, hotter. My shoulders tensed before I could stop them, an involuntary reaction to the danger—or the promise—that gaze carried.

It wasn't the analytical look from before, the one that measured distance, risk, consequence. It wasn't the regret-laden look he had been sustaining since he entered my apartment, the one that begged forgiveness with every blink. It was different. Hotter. More fixed. More… intense.

And my body recognized it before my mind did.

A shiver ran down my spine, electric, immediate, like an ancient reflex I thought I had forgotten. Like an atrophied muscle suddenly called to work again. My breath caught in the middle of my chest. Katsuki wasn't seeing me as the childhood friend broken by the past, nor as the professional colleague he had hurt in unforgivable ways.

He was seeing me as a man.

And I felt that with a disturbing, physical, almost obscene clarity. Under the wet clothes, clinging to my skin like a colder, more uncomfortable second skin, every inch of my body seemed exposed, traced, mapped by that gaze. My back, the curve of my spine as I bent over, the tension in my thigh muscles under the soaked jeans, the line of my waist where the t-shirt rode up, revealing a strip of skin that the cold apartment air made prickle. There was no hurry in it. No guilt there. It was physical recognition. Carnal. A memory that didn't need words to exist, that was encoded in muscle, skin, smell, touch.

It was the same look he had when he pulled me close in the middle of the night, in the dark of our room, his fingers firm on my back while his mouth found mine with a hunger that always took my breath away.

It was the same look he used when his hands touched me as if I were, at the same time, conquered territory and something too precious to be broken—possession and reverence mixed in a single gesture, a contradiction only Katsuki Bakugou was capable of carrying without falling apart.
It was the look that precedes touch, that promised heat, that said I want without needing a single syllable.

It was always like that with him.

And that scared me more than anything else that night. More than his fury, more than the distance of the last eight months, more than the deep weariness I carried in my bones.

Because desire… desire was forbidden territory now.

Anger I knew. Anger was predictable.

It was a fire that burned fast and left ashes, and I had learned to walk on ashes since I was a child, since the first "Kacchan" that came out as a sigh and was met with a shove.

Rivalry, pain, the silent obsession that always existed between us—all that was part of our private language, a dictionary of aggressions and loyalties forged in iron and fire on the battlefield.
Even hatred I knew how to face. Hatred was clear. It was a line on the ground. I survived it.

But desire, after everything… that was a minefield. There was no map. No strategy. No way to cross without someone getting hurt again—and this time, the damage would be different. It would be deeper. Because it wouldn't be about wounded pride or unresolved rivalry. It would be about broken trust. About handing my body to someone who had already used words to shred my soul.

To desire that body—that mouth that had said "I love you" and "your concern disgusts me" in the same week, that physical presence that had been mine for so long, my safe harbor and my personal storm—while the horrible words he said to me in our last fight still echoed in my head, fresh and cutting as if said yesterday… was a betrayal against myself.

It was my body, stupid and needy, clamoring for a familiar comfort, for a touch that knew every curve, for a heat that knew exactly how to envelop me—while my mind screamed in maximum alert.

Remember what he said.

Remember how it hurt.

Remember crying on the bathroom floor, hands over your ears, trying to muffle the echo of his words.

Remember spending months faking normalcy while inside you were just a collection of shards glued together with fragile hope.

Because it hadn't been small.

In that final night, in our living room—the room we shared for two years, where we dined, laughed, fought, made love on the sofa—he had touched wounds I never let anyone touch. Not by chance. Not in a moment of blind rage. With surgical and cruel precision, he had used my deepest insecurities as weapons. My need to save, my fear of not being strong enough, my excessive, desperate love—all of that, he turned into ammunition. He said things that dismantled me inside, that tore apart the image I had of us, that made me question every moment of happiness we had. Things that don't erase just because time passes. They stay. They lodge. They become part of your emotional DNA.

And yet… my body remembered.

Remembered his touch. His taste. The sound of his breathing against my neck when we slept entwined.

Remembered the feeling of security that came with his weight on me, even knowing he could be the storm itself.

Remembered what it was like to be desired by him—with an intensity that consumed, that left no room for doubt, that was almost overwhelming in its physical sincerity.

Stupid. Needy. Too faithful to the memory of something that was real—but that was also fragile. So fragile it came undone in a single outburst of rage.

And then, in the middle of this whirlwind of memory, desire, and guilt, the memory of what Katsuki said before leaving came back with overwhelming force, clearing the haze for an instant.

— I'm still going to redeem myself. For the things I said. That day. All of them. — I will apologize. The right way. To you.

That day.

The things I said.

He wasn't just talking about Shindo.

He wasn't just talking about the bar scene, the drunkenness, the possessive jealousy. He was talking about that night. The words that separated us. The razor blades he threw that were still stuck in me, rusting inside.

And he hadn't said "forgive me." He hadn't said "let's talk." He hadn't tried to touch me, or force a moment, or extract a promise.

He had said: You deserve an apology done the right way. And I will do it. When you're ready.

The phrase hadn't been said as an empty promise, a performative gesture to ease his own conscience. It had been said with an almost funereal solemnity, like someone accepting a heavy but necessary sentence. Like someone recognizing that the way back—if there was a way back—would be long, painful, and entirely dependent on my will. He wasn't giving me back control. He was handing it over. The time, the terms, the final decision.

And that… that messed me up more than any attempt at closeness, any dramatic gesture, any explosion of anger would have messed me up.

Because, for the first time since it all ended, Katsuki wasn't demanding forgiveness.

He wasn't asking—or worse, demanding—that I be ready.

He wasn't trying to accelerate a time that was no longer his, force a healing that hadn't even begun to scar.

He knew I wasn't ready. He had seen the exhaustion in my eyes, the tension in my body, the way I kept meticulous physical distance. And, even so, he decided to wait.

Part of me wanted to hate that.

Wanted to hate the sudden humility, the unprecedented patience, the quietness where before there was only loud fury. Wanted to be able to point a finger and scream: Where was that before? Why only now, after breaking everything, do you learn to respect my time? It was a just anger, bitter, burning in my throat like bile.

Another part… couldn't.

Because that part—the weaker part, the part that still kept the key to the apartment we shared, the part that wondered "what if" in the quietest moments of the night—that part saw the change. And the change was real. It was palpable. And it was late, yes. Painfully late. But it was real.

The Katsuki I knew always forced everything. Emotions, decisions, feelings, space. He advanced like an explosion, without measuring the debris, without considering the consequences. If he wanted, he took. If he was angry, he exploded. If he was sorry… well, he rarely was. And when he was, it was with the fury of a cornered animal, not with the resigned quietness of a man facing his own demons.

This Katsuki now… was holding back.
Was punishing himself in silence, carrying the weight of what he did without trying to transfer it to me.

Was changing—in therapy, in actions, in the way he looked at the world—without fanfare, without seeking recognition.

And, most importantly: was not pressuring me.

And that hurt in a different way. It wasn't the acute pain of betrayal, nor the dull pain of longing. It was a more complex, more insidious pain. It was the pain of seeing that the person you loved—that you love, in the stubborn and inconvenient present tense of the verb—was capable of transforming, but only after having destroyed you in the process. It was the pain of knowing his growth came too late to save what we had, but perhaps… perhaps not too late to build something new. Something fragile. Something different.

Something frightening.

When I straightened up again, I felt the weight of that pain in my chest, as if someone had placed an icy stone inside my sternum. The desire was still there—uncomfortable, alive, pulsing under my skin like a second heart, insistent and improper. But now it was mixed with something much more dangerous than physical attraction, much more treacherous than the memory of touch.

Hope.

A tiny hope, fragile as the first morning ice, but undeniably real. A hope that wasn't about going back to what we were—I was no longer foolish enough to believe in that. It was a hope about the possibility of a future where pain wasn't the only link between us. Where his regret and my healing could, one day, meet somewhere in the middle, and from there give birth to… what? Friendship? Peace? Something that still had no name, but that was no longer the constant war of the past.

And that… that was the thing I could least allow myself to feel.

Because hope was the chink in the armor.

It was the weak point.

It was the invitation to get hurt again.

I took a deep breath, the air of the apartment still heavy with his smell, with the smell of us both wet and broken and trying, each in our own way, to survive the disaster we had created together. My hands, which had trembled before, were now steady, but cold. My heart still beat fast, but no longer in panic. In conflict.

I had opened the door. Just a crack. Just enough to let in not just him, but all the brutal complexity of our past and the uncertain promise of a future. Now, with the sound of the closing door still echoing in the apartment's silence, with the kitchen drip marking the passing time, I had to learn to live with this icy and dangerous draft.

And I had to learn to do it without freezing—and without burning.

My hands clenched into tight fists on my lap, my nails pressing into my palms with enough force to leave deep, red crescent marks. The trembling subsided a bit, replaced by a static internal tension, a buzz of alert in every nerve. I needed to take deep breaths, several times, the air still smelling of smoke, to calm my racing heart.

I had let him in. Physically and metaphorically. I had accepted his apology, albeit conditionally and coldly. I had heard his most intimate confession and responded with a touch and a word of understanding that came from me almost against my will. "You don't need to be ashamed of that." I said. And he didn't. I knew that. But it was more than that. It was me extending a bridge, a thread of empathy over the chasm he dug. I was acknowledging that his path back was as hard as my path of healing.

And I had given him a task—facing Shindo, facing another consequence of his actions—that was both a just punishment and a chance for genuine redemption. A test, but a test with purpose. "A real apology isn't something you do by proxy." I said that to protect him from a false redemption. To protect us. Because if he wanted back into my life, even if just as a shadow on the periphery, he would have to do it right. All the way. There was no more room for shortcuts, for the arrogance that thought a material gesture would erase words that cut like razor blades.

Now the ball was in his court again. He had to execute. Had to do the work.

And with me.

Because leaving the door ajar was one thing. The question was: would I have the courage, the insanity, or the simple will to open it completely when—if—he knocked again? And if he knocked not with an apology or a bakery bag, but with a direct question? With a look that wasn't of regret, but of something more? How would I react? With the same wall of controlled weariness? With anger, finally releasing all the fury that still simmered beneath? Or with something completely different, something I didn't even allow myself to consider?

The constant dripping from the kitchen seemed to mark the rhythm of my thoughts, slow, heavy, and circular. The exhaustion, postponed by the adrenaline of the emotional confrontation and the physical chaos of the fire, descended on me like a blanket of wet lead. The fatigue was total—mental, emotional, physical. The wet clothes were now just cold and uncomfortable, pulling on my skin and stealing body heat.

With a Herculean effort, I got up from the sofa. The floor was cold under my bare feet. I walked to the living room window, avoiding puddles, and pulled back the light curtain.

Outside, the city of Musutafu shone under the winter night, an infinite tapestry of white, yellow, and red dots, indifferent to the small, intense human drama unfolding in an apartment on the 15th floor. Somewhere in that network of lights and shadows, Katsuki was walking—or flying, or simply standing somewhere thinking—carrying an expensive, useless bakery bag and a piece of paper with an address that would lead to another difficult confession, to another face he had hurt. He was out there, in the world we shared, carrying the weight of the change he chose to embrace. Carrying the weight of the promise he made to me.

I had opened the door.. Enough to let in not just him, but a draft of icy possibility, of risk, of an uncertain future that could be better or infinitely worse than the past. I had let in the memory of his touch on my arm, the understanding in his eyes when he spoke of therapy, that flash of shared laughter in the midst of chaos. And I had let in the promise. The promise of an apology yet to come, an emotional debt he swore to pay.

Now, alone in the dripping silence of my messy apartment, I had to figure out how to live with this draft. How not to close it for good out of fear. How not to open it all the way out of a naive hope I could no longer afford. How to find a middle ground, a threshold where we could meet without destroying each other again. Where I could, perhaps, one day, be ready to hear the words of redemption he promised. Where he could, in fact, deliver the apology I deserved—not because he wanted me back, but because I deserved it.

And, more immediately, I had to figure out how to dry this damn floor before the parquet downstairs started leaking.

Chapter Text

The March air in Musutafu had a peculiar duality: it still carried the last gasp of winter in the early morning hours, but promised the gentleness of spring by afternoon. For Izuku Midoriya, this seasonal transition always sounded like a tired metaphor. Everything was a transition. Everything was waiting. Everything was the promise of something that might never come.

Nothing was definitive, except the marks.

The small white spots on his knuckles, a legacy from the time his body couldn't withstand the power it carried. The fine and deeper scars that crossed his arms and torso, mapping each encounter with mortality. The almost imperceptible line beneath his left eye, from a shard that not even Recovery Girl's healing had been able to erase completely. They were physical marks, visible, that he could touch. They were real.

But the other marks, those that didn't bleed but ached with a dull constancy, were harder to locate. The memory of the smell of ozone and burning that always preceded an explosion. The sound of a rough, disdainful voice calling him "Deku." The cold feeling in his stomach upon seeing himself alone in a hallway, with everyone else moving away, because being near him meant being in the path of Kacchan's fury.

These marks were ghosts. But ghosts with weight.

His footsteps echoed on the wet asphalt of the park near the agency, a constant, therapeutic rhythm he knew by heart. Each beat of his sneaker on the ground formed a silent mantra: "don't think, just run. Don't feel, just breathe."

The morning run was no longer about pushing physical limits—his limits had been redefined in cosmic battles years ago, tested against forces that challenged the very nature of reality. Against Shigaraki, who wanted to unravel the world. Against All For One, who wanted to possess it. They had tested not just his strength, but his very idea of a hero, of right and wrong, of sacrifice. He had won. Survived. But physical limits were a settled matter. What remained were the limits of the mind, of the heart, of emotional resilience to a world that never stopped demanding more.

Running was about ritual. About finding an empty space within the whirlwind of responsibilities that was being Japan's number one hero. About reminding himself that, beneath the title of "Deku," symbol of hope, there still existed a man named Izuku who needed to breathe, who needed to feel the cold air burning his lungs, the healthy muscular pain of exertion, the loneliness that only existed when no one was watching.

Today, however, the ritual seemed to fail. His thoughts, instead of dissipating with the effort, clustered together like heavy clouds.

Two months.

The count appeared in his mind uninvited, a mental calendar he couldn't deactivate. Two months since that night in his apartment, with the smell of burning and fire-fighting foam permeating the air, the icy water from the sprinklers running down his hair, and the unexpected confession that had opened a crack in the wall of ice between him and Katsuki.

Two months of a strange truce—not negotiated, just observed. Started the day Katsuki showed up to apologize, breaking an eight-month silence with difficult, imperfect, but finally honest words. Since then, nothing had been declared. No promises. No label.

Just constant attention.

As if, after a private war that had spanned childhood and adolescence—starting in the schoolyard, with the first shove, fueled by words too sharp for children—both had learned, too late, that some battles don't end with victory, but with weariness. And that, after everything, what remained was no longer confrontation, but caution.

Izuku noticed. Each restrained gesture. Each genuine effort to change. Katsuki no longer advanced, didn't explode, didn't hurt on impulse. And that, perhaps, was the hardest thing to face: the silent realization that he was trying—for real.

Trying. It was a small word for a process that seemed monumental. Katsuki Bakugou, whose ego was made of steel and gunpowder, was trying to be different. He was going to therapy—Izuku knew because Katsuki had told him, in one of those rare direct conversations they'd had after the apartment incident, with visible shame but without looking away. "I'm... doing therapy." And Izuku had just nodded, feeling a knot of contradictory emotions in his throat.

Seeing the changes was...

disorienting.

The Katsuki who now coordinated patrols with silent efficiency, who accepted criticism from Iida without growling, who sometimes, in the Association hallways, just nodded at Izuku—a neutral, professional gesture—instead of ignoring him or shooting him a loaded look. He was a stranger. A familiar stranger.

And this strangeness created a fissure in Izuku's armor of resignation. Because if Katsuki could change... what else could change? Could the wounds really heal? Could the past be rewritten, not in its facts, but in its weight? It was a dangerous hope. The most dangerous of all.

His smartwatch vibrated softly on his wrist, interrupting the rhythm. A notification from the Hero Network. The official quarterly ranking.

Izuku slowed to a stop, leaning against a cold concrete bench. His breath formed small, ephemeral clouds in the cold air, ghosts of his effort that dissolved quickly. He touched the screen, his fingers somewhat numb from the cold.

PROFESSIONAL HEROES - NATIONAL RANKING (JAPAN) - Q1 QUARTER

1. DEKU

2. DYNAMIGHT

3. SHOTO

4. MIRKO

5. URAVITY

6. LEMILLION

7. RED RIOT

8. LADY MOUNT

9. CHARGEBOLT

10. EARPHONE JACK

His green eyes, darker and surrounded by the fine marks of fatigue and experience—subtle lines that told stories of sleepless nights, impossible decisions, losses that still hurt on quiet days—scanned the list without blinking.

The rise of his friends warmed him inside in a quiet, proud way. Seeing Ochaco in fifth, her work with complex rescues being recognized. Todoroki solidifying his podium position. Mirko, a force of nature, staying at the top despite injuries. And Kirishima, Kaminari, Jiro… all there. All surviving. All thriving.

But it was the second line that made his heart do a strange, complicated flip in his chest, as if he'd stumbled on an invisible step.

His finger scrolled down.

WORLD RANKING - TOP 10

1. ASTRAEA (EUROPE)

2. DEKU (JAPAN)

3. DYNAMIGHT (JAPAN)

4. LEMURE (USA)

5. SHOTO (JAPAN)

Number one in Japan. Number two in the world. A few points away from surpassing Astraea, the heroine who had held the global lead for six consecutive years. An established name, respected internationally, associated with stability in a world still rebuilding after the war.

Astraea had been publicly recognized by All Might himself as an extraordinary heroine—someone whose strength, discipline, and vision placed her above any easy comparison. In his words, she represented "what the world needed at that moment." Not a direct successor, but an ally to the ideal he had championed for decades.

Still, there was a difference that had never been questioned.

Izuku Midoriya wasn't just recognized by All Might.

He had been "the chosen one."

The bearer of One For All carried within him not just approval, but the living continuation of the symbol. Where Astraea sustained the world, Izuku pushed it forward. Where she maintained balance, he represented transformation.

Therefore, his ascent in the global ranking wasn't seen as a threat to Astraea's legacy, but as something inevitable. A natural movement of history. The true successor finally reaching the space that had always belonged to him.

He should feel something. Euphoria. Triumph. The realization of a childhood dream that once seemed as impossible as flying without wings. The boy who cried watching All Might videos, who trained until his bones cracked, who faced the world's deepest darkness… he was one step away from the absolute top.

Instead, what descended upon his shoulders was a deep and familiar weariness, as if the weight of those numbers was made of solid lead, poured into his bones. Each position in the ranking meant more expectations, more stares, more lives depending on his decisions. The crown, even if not yet global, was already too heavy. And there was another, invisible crown that weighed even more: that of having surpassed Katsuki Bakugou. Again.

Izuku closed his eyes for a second, letting the morning cold wash his face, as if it could erase the sequence of images that insisted on forming behind his eyelids. Katsuki, at five, shouting he'd be number one. Katsuki, at fifteen, eyes blazing with determination after losing to him for the first time. Katsuki, at nineteen, drinking in silence at a bar after another ranking that placed him just behind.

The rivalry that had defined them for so long. That shaped them. That almost destroyed them.

But it hadn't just been that.

At some point—after the war, after graduation, after they had survived themselves—that private war had lost its rhythm. The blades remained lowered, never fully sheathed, but were no longer always drawn. They had drawn close without naming what they were. Friends, perhaps. Something close to that. Too close to still be just rivals, too distant to be anything else safely.

A silent coexistence, made of unspoken understandings, constant presence, a tension that no longer came from confrontation, but from what neither of them had dared to put into words.

And yet, everything they had been—rivalry, guilt, desire, pride—remained there, coexisting. As if they had never declared peace. Just a fragile ceasefire, sustained by the weariness of fighting… and the fear of what would happen if they finally stopped.

When he opened his eyes, his face was neutral, resigned. The mask of professionalism, carefully polished over the years, had settled. He put his phone in the inner pocket of his training jacket, feeling the device like a dead weight against his chest.

There was no one there to share the moment. No hug, no celebratory shout, no shared proud look. And, in a painfully honest way that he only admitted in the darkest corners of his thoughts, that was a relief. Loneliness, sometimes, was the only space where he could simply "be," without performing for anyone—not even for himself. Without having to smile when he wanted to cry. Without having to thank when he wanted to scream. Without having to carry the hopes of others when he could barely carry his own.

He took a deep breath once more, the March air entering his lungs like a cold blade, and resumed his run. His footsteps echoed again, but the mantra had changed: "it's not about him. It's about work. It's about saving people. It's about moving forward."

But somewhere, deep within him, a stubborn little voice whispered: "he saw it too. He also knows. What is he thinking now?"

At the All Might Agency, where Deku worked, it wasn't just an office; it was a symbol. A modern building of glass and steel in the heart of Musutafu, designed with clean lines and an aesthetic blending cutting-edge technology with welcoming touches—green plants in strategic corners, lighting mimicking natural light, common spaces encouraging collaboration. More a command center than a traditional office, it reflected its founder's philosophy: strength through community, hope through collective action.

On the main floor, the buzz was different that morning. There was an electric energy in the air, a vibration of contained excitement. Everyone had seen the ranking. Everyone knew.

Tsuyu Asui—Froppy to the public, always Tsuyu to friends—watched the giant screen displaying the ranking with her characteristic inscrutable expression. Her large eyes blinked slowly, processing the information, but the slight curve of her lips—almost imperceptible to those who didn't know her well—denoted satisfaction.

"Izuku made it to first, kero," she said, her finger pointing to the top of the list. "And you in sixth, Lemillion. We're all moving up. It's a good quarter."

Beside her, Mirio Togata—Lemillion—smiled, his face still marked by a brightness not even the darkest trials had been able to completely erase. His smile was like a beacon, even now, after everything.

"Teamwork makes the difference! And Deku deserves every point. He's been carrying a lot on his back, but never complains. That's what makes a true hero!"

The comment drew attention. Several other junior heroes on the floor—some who had graduated after them, other veterans who transferred to Deku's agency—approached, their eyes shining with admiration.

"Deku really is incredible," whispered a younger heroine, her eyes fixed on the name at the top of the list. "He always seems to know what to do."

"That's why he's number one," another added, with a tone of genuine respect.

Ochaco Uraraka approached then, her face a mix of conflicting emotions. The pride she felt for Izuku was palpable, almost physical, but there was a shadow of worry in her brown eyes. She let out a sigh that was half pride, half unease.

"He didn't even mention it when he arrived this morning," she said, her voice low enough for only the nearby group to hear. "I think I saw him running in the park before dawn. Again. He seemed… distant."

Tenya Iida adjusted his glasses with a precise and familiar gesture, his arms beginning to gesticulate even before speaking.

"Midoriya has always been like that! He internalizes success as responsibility, not personal achievement. It's an admirable quality, the mark of a true leader! Although I fear," his voice dropped a tone, becoming more serious, "that the pressure is becoming… excessive. He's slept here at the agency three times this past week. The rest of the bed in his office is permanently made. And the coffee consumption reports indicate he's drinking triple what he did last quarter!"

Shoto Todoroki, who was standing near the window observing the city with his heterochromatic eyes, didn't turn immediately. His voice came calmly, but loaded with a perception that always surprised everyone.

"He's been quieter lately. Since January. Less… anxious. But not in a good way."

Tsuyu turned to him, tilting her head.

"How so, kero?"

Shoto finally turned from the window. His face was impassive as always, but his eyes—one gray, one blue—studied the group with intensity.

"Before, he was always thinking ahead. Planning. Worried. Now… it's as if he's given up worrying about certain things. As if he's accepted something. And I'm not sure it's something good."

The observation hung in the air, heavy and uncomfortable. It was true. Since the incident at his apartment, since Katsuki's visit, something in Izuku has changed. It wasn't peace—that word was too distant from what any of them felt in their own hearts, let alone Izuku's. It was something closer to resignation, or perhaps an internal truce. He still smiled, still led meetings with impressive clarity, was still the unshakeable pillar for everyone around him, the anchor amid chaos. But the spark of constant anxiety, that almost painful urgency that had always defined him—the boy who murmured strategies, who analyzed every move, who worried about everything and everyone—had dimmed to a softer, steadier glow. Like a light bulb that had lost its maximum brightness but remained on, functional, sufficient.

Before they could discuss further, the door to the main office opened.

Izuku entered.

Not with fanfare, not with a triumphant entrance. He simply entered, already in professional uniform—a more refined, darker version of his hero suit, adapted for administrative and command work. Black tactical pants, a fitted long-sleeved gray shirt over his more muscular torso, a discreet bulletproof vest under his open blazer. His green hair was more controlled than in his teens, but still rebellious in some strands. His green eyes, however, were what drew the most attention—darker than they used to be, surrounded by subtle shadows that spoke of poorly slept nights.

His eyes landed on the ranking on the giant screen, but didn't linger. It was a quick recognition, almost clinical, like a doctor glancing at a vital chart before focusing on the patient. Then he turned to the conference table where a stack of reports already awaited him.

"Good morning," he said, his voice calm, a bit hoarse from the morning cold and the hours of silence he seemed to carry with him.

The reaction was immediate.

"Deku!" Several voices rose at once.

"Congratulations!"

"Number one!"

"Fantastic!"

Younger heroes approached, some shyly, others with open enthusiasm. One of them, a guy with a shadow manipulation quirk who had graduated just the previous year, extended his hand with genuine admiration.

"Deku-san, it's an honor to work with you! Your work this quarter has been inspiring!"

Izuku shook his hand, a professional smile touching his lips.

"Thank you. But the credit goes to the whole team. Your reports on activity in the outlying districts were crucial for our strategy."

The young hero's face lit up, and Izuku felt a pang of something—not pride, but responsibility. These people looked up to him. Believed in him. Depended on him.

It was then that Ochaco made her way through the small crowd, her wide, genuine smile trying to pierce the fog of seriousness that seemed to envelop Izuku.

"Good morning, Deku! Number one! Number two in the world! We need to celebrate! We can't let this go unnoticed!"

Izuku returned the smile, but it was a contained gesture, almost reflexive, like a muscle trained to respond to specific social stimuli. The smile didn't quite reach his eyes.

"Thank you, Uraraka. I appreciate it. But it's just a ranking. The work remains the same. We have the analysis of the residual faction of the Vacuum Serpents this afternoon, and the joint training with the Fukuoka agency tomorrow morning." He paused, as if remembering something. "And I still have to go to U.A. Aizawa-sensei asked me to check on the first-year exams."

"I vehemently disagree!" Iida interjected, his arms beginning to gesticulate with mechanical precision, cutting the air. "It is a significant milestone! It represents the public's trust and the effectiveness of our collective work! We must acknowledge it properly, as it serves as motivation for the entire team and future generations of heroes! Celebration is not frivolity—it is an important ritual of recognition and team cohesion!"

Tsuyu tilted her head, her finger on her chin.

"He has a point, Izuku. kero. You've worked very hard. You deserve a moment to celebrate with friends. The work will always be here tomorrow. And it's important for us too—to remember why we do this."

Shoto stepped closer, his footsteps quiet. His gaze swept over Izuku's face, analytical and insightful as always. He wasn't smiling, but there was a softness in his expression that was rare.

"There's a new bar on Kiyashi Street. They say the atmosphere is good, not too loud. We could go tonight. All of us."

Mirio agreed with an enthusiastic nod.

"It's a great idea! We're all working hard, and a break would do us good! Besides," his smile became a bit more serious, "you need to learn to accept congratulations, Midoriya. It's part of the job too."

The group's pressure was gentle but firm. Izuku felt the wall of his internal resistance crack under the weight of their affection for him. They were happy for him. They wanted to share it. They wanted a moment of lightness amid the constant weight of heroism, reconstruction work, the war memories they all still carried. Denying them would be selfish, would pull them into his own fog of weariness, and would fail to reciprocate the unwavering support they had always given him, even in his darkest moments.

He looked at each face—Ochaco with her eyes bright with genuine enthusiasm and not-fully-hidden concern; Iida with his worried seriousness and his loyal heart always exposed; Tsuyu with her calming tranquility that had always soothed him; Shoto with his practical offer and almost supernatural perception; Mirio with his encouraging smile that still held traces of the radiant boy he was before tragedy.

They were his family. More than friends—chosen family. They had walked through hells together. They had seen each other at their worst and best. They had cried together, fought together, almost died together. The least he could do was give them this night, this moment of celebration.

"Alright," he agreed, a thread of surrender in his voice he hoped sounded like quiet acceptance, not the exhaustion it really was. "Tonight. The bar on Kiyashi Street. But just for a few hours, right? We have training at six in the morning, and I don't want anyone late or hungover."

Ochaco's smile illuminated the room like a small sun, momentarily pushing back the shadows that seemed to gather in the corners.

"Perfect! I'll let everyone know! Momo, Tokoyami, Koda, they'll all want to come! Ah!" She pointed a finger at him, playful but serious. "And don't think about sneaking out early, Deku! It's your party! You're staying until at least midnight! Promise!"

Izuku raised his hands in surrender, a more genuine smile touching his lips this time, inspired by her enthusiasm.

"I promise. At midnight sharp. Not a minute more."

Laughter echoed through the floor, and the atmosphere lightened. Other heroes came over to congratulate him personally, and Izuku spent the next twenty minutes shaking hands, accepting pats on the back, and hearing words of admiration. He was used to it—it was part of the job—but today it felt more intense. Each "congratulations" seemed to carry extra weight, an expectation.

"The next step is number one worldwide, huh, Deku?" said a veteran hero who worked with intelligence analysis. "Astraea is tough, but you have what it takes."

"Your work with the refugees in the southern district was remarkable," added a heroine from the rescue department. "Approval ratings skyrocketed because of that."

"We're proud of you, kid," said an older man who had been a sidekick to All Might in his last years before retirement. His eyes were misty. "He would be proud too."

That last comment made something tighten in Izuku. He just nodded, his smile getting a bit tenser.

Finally, the crowd began to disperse, returning to their posts. Ochaco was already typing furiously on her phone, no doubt organizing the surprise party in a group chat. Iida started preparing an agenda for the night ("To ensure efficiency in socializing and optimize bonding time!"), taking notes on a clipboard. Tsuyu and Shoto returned to patrol reports, but Shoto gave Izuku one last thoughtful look before turning away.

And then, Izuku was alone in front of the giant screen, now silent, just the ranking still glowing softly.

His eyes, involuntarily, were pulled back to the name.

1. DYNAMIGHT

Two months. Two positions in the ranking. A silence that was more eloquent than any exchanged words. Katsuki was there, right below him. As always. But this time, the closeness didn't feel like a challenge, an affront, a reminder of an unresolved rivalry. It felt… natural. As if the positions had finally settled into an order that made sense to the world, if not to the two men who occupied them.

Izuku wondered, not for the first time that day, what Katsuki might be feeling seeing his name in second place. Again. The Katsuki of before—the Katsuki of their U.A. years, the Katsuki of the first years as a pro hero—would have exploded. Literally. He would have trained to collapse, would have sought Izuku for a direct confrontation, would have turned frustration into a toxic fuel that burned everyone around him, but mainly himself.

But the Katsuki of now… who was he? The man who had shown up at his apartment on that cold January night, drenched and smelling of smoke, his red eyes fixed on him not with anger, but with a regret so deep it seemed to have dug a hole in his soul. The man who had said, his voice rough with contained emotion: "I will redeem myself. For the things I said. That day. All of them."

The man who was going to therapy—something the old Katsuki would have considered the deepest weakness. The man who had personally delivered a gift to Shindo because Izuku asked, facing discomfort and the possibility of rejection. The man who was, genuinely and visibly, trying.

The image of that night in his apartment returned with sharp, painful clarity: Katsuki standing in his flooded living room, water dripping from his hair, his shoulders tense under his wet t-shirt. The smell of burning and firefighting foam. The way his eyes didn't waver when he made that promise. The naked vulnerability in that confession.

Izuku took a deep breath, feeling a familiar pang of pain in his sternum, an old ache that had never completely healed, just learned to live with it, as if it were a part of his body. "That day."

The words Katsuki said—sharp, cutting words meant to hurt—that had broken something fundamental inside Izuku. The accusations of being condescending, of his concern being "gross." The final rejection of everything they had been, or everything Izuku hoped they could be.

And the promise of an apology that still hadn't come. Not in the way that mattered. Katsuki had apologized for the gift, for the situation with Shindo, for being "an idiot" in general. But for that specific "day," for those specific words that still echoed in Izuku's nightmares… nothing. Nothing but the vague promise to "redeem myself."

Perhaps the apology would never come in the way Izuku secretly, deeply, still wanted. Perhaps some things were too big for words. Perhaps regret had to be shown, not said. And Katsuki was showing it, day after day, with his actions, with his change.

But was that enough? Izuku didn't know. All he knew was that he was tired. Tired of carrying the hurt. Tired of waiting for something that might never come. Tired of hope itself, a stubborn and painful thing.

He shook his head, as if he could physically shake off the thoughts. It wasn't productive. It wasn't healthy. He had a full day of work ahead—meetings, analysis, planning, the class at U.A.—lives to protect, a team to lead, a city that depended on him. And at night, he would have to perform happiness for his friends, put on the mask of the hero who celebrates, the leader who shares success.

With one last look at the ranking—his eyes landing once more on the name DYNAMIGHT, so close to his, separated by only a thin line of pixels—he turned and walked toward his private office.

The door closed softly behind him with a gentle click, isolating him from the bustle of the main floor, the expectations, the congratulations. The silence of his office enveloped him like a heavy blanket.

The room was spacious, but almost Spartan. A large dark wood desk, multiple computer screens, shelves full of bound reports and some books on strategy and hero history. In the corner, discreetly, was the rest bed Iida had mentioned—perfectly made, sheets taut, blanket folded with military precision. A small compact kitchenette with a coffee machine that looked recently used (multiple times, according to Iida). And on the wall behind his desk, two photos: one of his U.A. class at graduation, all smiling, with fresh scars but hope in their eyes; and another, older one, of him with All Might, in the early days of his training.

Izuku dropped into his chair, the leather creaking softly. He looked at the photos, his eyes landing first on the class—on Ochaco, Iida, Tsuyu, Shoto… and in the corner, with a scowling expression but eyes less sharp than they used to be, Katsuki. Then he looked at the photo with All Might. His mentor's wide smile, his own expression of youthful determination.

"Number one, All Might," he whispered to the photo, his voice almost inaudible in the room's silence. "Almost there."

But the words brought no joy. Just the familiar weight.

His phone vibrated on the desk. He looked. A message from the U.A. alumni group, already full of congratulations. Several of his former classmates who were now heroes at other agencies, or who had taken different paths. All congratulating him.

He replied with a simple "Thank you, everyone!", adding a smiley emoji that felt false on his fingers.

Another notification vibrated on the dark wood desk. This time, it wasn't a text message, but a video call.

The name that appeared on the screen made Izuku hesitate for a full second before answering, his fingers hovering over the screen as if touching something fragile.

Toshinori Yagi.

He took a deep breath, arranging his expression, and accepted the call.

The image adjusted, flickered for a moment due to the international connection, and then he saw them.

All Might—not the gigantic symbol that dominated screens and squares, not the legend that still loomed over hero culture—but the man, Toshinori Yagi, smiling with that quiet, genuine way that only existed away from cameras, in private spaces. His face, still marked by the extreme thinness that was the legacy of his battles, was lit by an expression of pure pride. And, squeezed beside him, leaning in to fit in the frame, was Inko Midoriya. Her eyes were already shining, misty, her hands clasped as if holding herself back from crying right then and there, in front of the camera.

"Izuku!" she exclaimed immediately, her voice a bit distorted by the tablet's microphone before adjusting. "My baby boy! Did you see? Did you see the ranking? Oh, of course you did, how could you not, it's everywhere! Number one! Number one in Japan!"

They were clearly outside Japan. In the background, through an open glass door, a stone balcony lit by the golden light of the European late afternoon was visible. Old, elegant architecture with wrought iron details. The distant sound of a living city—a foreign language, laughter, the clinking of glasses—filtered through the microphone. Europe. Traveling. Celebrating another year of marriage—a quiet, discreet marriage that had surprised many but made perfect sense to those who knew them. And yet, stopping everything in the middle of the celebration to call him.

"Congratulations, young man," said Toshinori, his voice rougher than in his prime, but loaded with an affection that didn't need volume to be felt. "First place in Japan. Second in the world. An extraordinary feat, but not unexpected for those who know you."

Izuku felt something tighten in his chest, a mix of love, gratitude, and a vulnerability so deep it almost made him look away. The accumulated fatigue of the past weeks, the silent tension he'd carried since the apartment night, the weight of the ranking—everything threatened to overflow at once, in front of those two people who knew him better than anyone in the world.

"I…" his voice failed. He swallowed dryly, forcing a smile that trembled at the edges. "Thank you. Thank you so much, really. I'm… I'm really happy to see you. Truly."

Inko brought a hand to her chest, her eyes scanning her son's face on the small screen, as if trying to read beyond the pixels.

"Are you okay, Izuku?" she asked, with that eternal, instinctive maternal worry that never changed, no matter how many years passed or how many villains he defeated. "Are you eating right? Sleeping? You're not overworking again, are you?"

"I'm fine, Mom," he replied, and the smile that emerged then was small, but real, reaching his eyes for the first time since seeing the ranking. "I promise. And you? Is the trip good?"

"Wonderful!" Inko said, her face lighting up. "Toshinori brought me to a small town in southern France. It's all so… tranquil. Different. The people are kind, the food… oh, you'd love it! We're celebrating our wedding anniversary, but we couldn't not call today. Not with this news!"

She spoke quickly, excited, overflowing with a happiness that warmed Izuku even across the distance. Seeing her like this—relaxed, happy, beside a man who loved her and treated her with a gentleness Izuku had always admired—was a constant relief. After everything she'd been through, worrying about him, she deserved this. Deserved this peace.

"We are very proud, Izuku," Toshinori added, his gaze soft but penetrating. "Not just for the ranking, but for the hero you've become. The strength you show isn't just in your fists, but in your heart. That's what makes the difference."

Inko nodded vigorously, discreetly wiping the corner of her eyes with her fingertips.

"He's right. You've always been special, my son. Since you were little. And now everyone can see."

There was a moment of charged silence, where only their gazes communicated through the screen. Then, Inko seemed to recompose herself, patting Toshinori's arm.

"I'll let you two talk a bit," she said, already starting to move away from the frame. "I need to see something about dinner… but, Izuku," she stopped, looking directly at the camera, her expression serious and loving, "remember: we're always here. Always. And we are so, so proud."

"Thank you, Mom," he whispered, emotion tightening his throat.

She blew a kiss to the camera and disappeared from the frame, leaving only Toshinori. The man's smile remained, but something in his blue eyes—paler now, but no less intense—became more attentive, more focused. More serious. Not in a heavy or worrying way, but in the way of someone genuinely interested in what lies beneath the surface.

The atmosphere of the call changed subtly. The distant hum of the European city continued, but now it was just background for the silence of expectations between the two.

"So," Toshinori began, his voice a tone lower, more intimate, "tell me. How are you feeling about all this, Izuku?"

The question was asked without haste, giving him all the time in the world to answer. Or not to answer.

Izuku took his time. His eyes drifted from the screen for a moment, scanning the silent office—the stacked reports, the perfectly made bed in the corner, the photo of him with All Might on the wall. The invisible weight that seemed to have settled on his shoulders without permission, growing with each congratulation, each expectant look.

When he finally spoke, his voice came out softer than he intended, almost a confessional whisper.

"It's… strange."

He paused, searching for the right words.

"I always wanted this. For as long as I can remember. I fought for it, trained for it, almost died for it. But now that it's happening…" He took a deep breath, his green eyes meeting Toshinori's blue ones on the screen. "It feels more like a burden than an achievement. Every point in the ranking, each rising position… it's like more responsibility being placed on my back. And the people… they're looking at me differently. With more expectation. Counting on me for decisions that… sometimes I'm not sure I can make properly."

He swallowed dryly, feeling the vulnerability of the confession, but unable to stop it now that it had started.

"I'm afraid of failing. Afraid of messing up right now, when everyone is watching. When so much depends…" His voice faltered for a second, and he lowered his head, ashamed. "Especially now with everything that's still… messy inside me. Things that have nothing to do with being a hero, but get in the way anyway."

The silence that followed wasn't uncomfortable. It was an understanding, patient silence. Toshinori didn't interrupt, didn't minimize, didn't try to immediately fix. He just listened, his face a mask of pure attention.

When Izuku finally raised his eyes again, Toshinori was smiling—a small, sad smile, but full of deep understanding.

"Izuku," he said, and his voice had a softness that was almost physical, like a sheet being laid over tired shoulders, "feeling this weight… it's not weakness. It's the price of consciousness. And of responsibility. You've always been like that. From the start. You feel the weight of others because you care. And that is one of the things that makes you such an extraordinary hero."

He leaned a little closer to the camera, as if approaching for a more confidential conversation.

"And you need to remember: you never carried anything alone. Even when you thought you were. Even in your worst moments, your greatest doubts… there were people by your side. And there still are."

Toshinori paused, his eyes becoming even more serious, but no less kind.

"And about what is… messy inside you," he carefully chose to repeat Izuku's words, without pressing for details, "know that this is also part of it. Heroes aren't made of pure steel. They're made of flesh, bone… and heart. And hearts sometimes get messy. The important thing is not to pretend everything is in order when it's not."

He took a deep breath, and his next sentence came with a solemnity that was rare, even for him.

"Therefore, listen to me well, my boy: when you want to talk about anything—anything at all—don't hesitate. Never. Call me. Summon me. Wherever I am, whatever I'm doing… I'll stop. And I'll come to you. Always."

The words echoed in the office's silence, loaded with the weight of an absolute promise. Izuku felt his eyes burn violently, the pressure behind them becoming almost unbearable. He blinked rapidly, several times, fighting the tears that insisted on forming.

"Thank you," he murmured, his voice thick with contained emotion. "I… I needed to hear that. More than I knew."

Toshinori smiled again, and this time the smile was lighter, as if he had relieved a bit of the weight he'd seen on Izuku's shoulders.

"You are already the hero the world needs, Izuku. The ranking is just a number. A reflection, not a definition. Don't let it make you forget who you are. And who you are…" His eyes shone with a pride that was almost painful to see. "Who you are is already more than enough."

There were a few more minutes of lighter conversation—Toshinori asking about the agency, the friends, the lecture at U.A. Izuku would give later. They laughed at a story about Iida trying to organize the "social efficiency" of the night at the bar. They talked about the trip, the food Inko was loving, a museum Toshinori wanted to visit.

When the call finally ended, with promises to talk again soon and a final "I love you, my son" from Inko in the background, Izuku sat in his chair for several minutes, looking at the darkened screen of his phone.

The office was as silent as before. The reports were still there. The weight was still there. But something had changed. It was as if the weight had been redistributed, shared, even if momentarily. As if someone had placed a firm, warm hand on his shoulder and said, "You're not alone in this."

He took a deep breath, the air filling his lungs in a way that seemed easier than before. His eyes landed on the photo on the wall—him and All Might, mentor and student, past and future. And now, the future was here, and the past was still with him, calling from another continent to remind him of who he was.

He picked up the phone again, hesitated for a second, then typed a quick message to the group of his closest friends.

"Thank you all, really. For the support. For the patience. For being here. Let's celebrate tonight—for real."

He then set the phone aside, this time with a different feeling. There was still work to do. Still reports to read, threats to analyze, a lecture to give. Still the shadow of Katsuki in his thoughts, the silence of two months, the confusion of unnamed feelings.

But for now, for this moment, he allowed himself to feel the warmth of that call. The unconditional love of his mother. The pride and firm guidance of Toshinori. The promise that, no matter how high he climbed or how heavy the burden became, there were people who would love and support him, not for the hero he was, but for the man he was.

It was a necessary reminder. A safe harbor amid the turbulent sea of his responsibilities and doubts.

With one last sigh that already seemed less burdened, Izuku pulled the first report from the stack—the Vacuum Serpents analysis—and began to read, his eyes now more focused, his mind a bit clearer.

The work continued. Life continued. But now, at least for a while, he remembered he didn't have to carry everything alone.

And thinking, always thinking, of the name just below his on the ranking. Of the man trying to redeem himself. Of the two-month silence that was more confusing than any confrontation.

The afternoon would pass. He would go to U.A., give his lecture, return to the agency. And at night, he'd be at Kiyashi Bar, surrounded by people who loved him, trying to feel the happiness everyone expected him to feel.

Meanwhile, the shadow of Katsuki Bakugou—and of everything that was unsaid, unresolved, not perfectly healed between them—would remain, a silent presence in his thoughts, as real as the weight of the crown he now carried alone.

But while Izuku closed himself in his office, eight blocks away, Katsuki Bakugou was finishing his own morning workout. The private gym at Dynamight Agency was Spartan: state-of-the-art equipment, no superfluous decoration, everything designed for maximum efficiency. Sweat ran down his bare torso, outlining muscles that had become denser, more functional over the years, less about spectacle and more about pure power.

He had just finished his hundredth push-up when his phone, left on a nearby bench, vibrated insistently. Katsuki completed the repetition with a final grunt, stood up, and grabbed the device with a still-damp hand.

The ranking.

His scarlet eyes, which had lost some of the blind flame of youth but gained a more focused, more dangerous intensity in their calmness, scanned the list. Two. Third in the world.

He didn't feel the explosion of anger he would have felt before. Instead, a cold analysis took over his mind. Public approval numbers: 94.7% for Deku, 92.3% for him. Rescue rates: Deku slightly ahead in large-scale operations, he maintaining an advantage in high-precision rescues. Collateral numbers: almost identical, but he with a slight advantage in reduced material damage.

Katsuki was no longer the boy who saw the ranking as a personal competition. Therapy, the weekly sessions he kept religiously—a secret guarded only by Aizawa, All Might, and, ironically, Izuku—had taught him to dismantle those reactions, to examine them like a scientist examining a dangerous sample. What he felt now wasn't anger at being second. It was respect for the numbers, for the consistency of Izuku's work. And a professional, not personal, frustration at not having closed the gap.

The gym door opened and Eijiro Kirishima entered, already in uniform, his sharp-toothed smile wide and genuine.

"Saw it, man? Second place! Third in the world! That's manly stuff!"

Katsuki lowered the phone, grabbing a towel to wipe his face.

"It's just numbers, Ei."

"Ah, come on! Don't be like that!" Kirishima gave him a friendly slap on the back, which Katsuki endured without complaint—a gesture that years ago would have been met with a growl. "You deserve to celebrate! We deserve to! You saw Denki in ninth? He's freaking out in the group!"

"He always freaks out," Katsuki grumbled, but there was a touch of affection in his voice. He really had changed. Therapy hadn't made him soft—he was still intense, direct, sometimes brutally honest. But the gratuitous cruelty, the need to hurt to assert himself, that had dissipated like smoke in the wind. "Fine. What do you want?"

"Celebration! Tonight! Denki's already looking for a place."

Katsuki took a deep breath. He really didn't want to. He'd rather spend the night reviewing reports, planning improvements, maybe even watching a movie in his silent apartment. But Kirishima was there, his eyes full of expectation, and Katsuki knew this man was one of the reasons he was still standing, still trying to be better. Kirishima's loyalty was an anchor that kept him tethered to humanity when everything in him wanted to explode and isolate.

He gave a half-smile, as if remembering something important.

"Ah, and… we decided to celebrate everyone together." He scratched the back of his neck, casual. "The Deku Squad too. Some close friends of ours, besides the U.A. class. If that bothers you—"

Katsuki cut him off before he finished, simple, direct.

"Doesn't bother me."

Kirishima raised an eyebrow, surprised for half a second, then smiled for real.

"Alright then." He clapped his hands once. "It'll be chill."

Katsuki nodded, his gaze already distant again, but without tension.

"Just that."

As Kirishima left excited, Katsuki was left alone in the gym, the towel hanging around his neck. He looked at his hands—the palms that used to be constant sources of small, nervous explosions, now quiet. Therapy had helped him control not only his anger, but his own quirk. Learning to breathe when he felt the heat rise, to name the emotion before reacting, to ask himself: "Will this help or make it worse?"

Two months since that night. Since he delivered the gift to Shindo. The conversation had been… weird. Shindo received him with evident caution, accepted the gift with a brief nod, and after an awkward silence, said:

"You know he's important to a lot of people, don't you? Not just to you."

The phrase hit home. A familiar pressure formed in Katsuki's chest, hot, aggressive, asking to explode. His teeth clenched for a second too long. But he said nothing. Didn't retort. Didn't raise his voice. Just nodded once, stiffly, and turned to leave.

There was no relief. No reconciliation.

He left there with the certainty that Shindo remained someone he didn't respect—and didn't need to respect. Still, there was a dry, contained calm accompanying his steps. Not because of Shindo. Never for him. But because he had done exactly what Izuku asked. For the first time, he hadn't reacted on impulse. He just did the right thing.

And Izuku… was Izuku at peace? Katsuki didn't know. They crossed paths professionally, exchanged nods, were civil. It was more than Katsuki deserved, he knew that. But a part of him—a part he was learning not to hate, but to understand—wanted more. Wanted to know if Izuku slept well. If he still had nightmares about the war. If the pain in his right arm that Katsuki noticed in a briefing two weeks ago had improved.

But he didn't ask. Because apologizing was one thing. Invading Izuku's emotional space was another. And Katsuki was learning about boundaries. About respecting the unspoken.

He put on his shirt, his movements deliberate. The man in the mirror was strange to him sometimes. Twenty-six years old. Scars crossing his torso—some from heroic battles, others from training accidents, one particularly ugly over his ribs from an encounter with a villain who used vibration blades. His eyes were still intense, but the constant fury had been replaced by a deep concentration. His hair was still spiky, but now with a more disciplined cut. He was a stranger. A stranger learning to live with himself.

Katsuki picked up his phone again, his eyes fixed on the name at the top of the ranking.

1. DEKU

He didn't feel that sickly heat of envy. He felt… longing. Of course he did. A longing so deep and complicated it hurt in places he didn't even know existed. Longing not for what they had—because what they had was poisoned—but for what they could have had. For what they still could have, if he were capable of finding the right words, doing the right things, being the right person.

But he wasn't. Not yet. Maybe never would be. But he was trying. And for now, trying was all he could offer.

But fate, or perhaps the operational logic of the Hero Association, made Deku and Dynamight's patrol routes overlap in the central commercial district during rush hour. Coordination between agencies was common, but usually planned in advance. Today had been a coincidence—a minor incident with a low-level villain who fled into Dynamight's patrol zone, leading Izuku to cross the boundaries of his sector.

Izuku landed softly on the roof of an office building, his eyes scanning the streets below with radar-like precision. One For All pulsed under his skin, a familiar, comforting buzz. He felt, more than saw, Katsuki's arrival—a change in air pressure, a slight smell of nitroglycerin even before the propulsion blast.

Katsuki landed a few meters away, the impact cushioned by a carefully controlled explosion that didn't crack the concrete. He straightened, his eyes meeting Izuku's.

For a moment, there was only the sound of wind cutting between buildings, the distant noise of traffic below, the beating of their own hearts. Two months of silence between them, and now they were there, alone, on top of the world.

"Iz— Midoriya," Katsuki corrected himself, his voice neutral. "The incident?"

"Under control," Izuku replied, equally professional. "Villain, level C, shadow manipulation quirk. Contained by hero police three blocks north. I'm just checking for accomplices."

Katsuki nodded, a short movement.

"My sector is clear. I'll cover the southwest quadrant as a precaution."

"Understood."

A silence fell, but it was different from the charged silence of the past. There was no electric tension in the air, just the silence of two professionals who knew how to work together without needing to speak. Izuku observed Katsuki—the relaxed but ready posture; the absence of those nervous sparks in his palms that always betrayed his inner agitation; the way his eyes scanned the horizon, methodical, thorough.

He really had changed. The therapy, the effort—it was all visible to those who knew how to read the signs. And Izuku had always been the best reader of Katsuki Bakugou in the world.

"Congratulations on the ranking," Katsuki said, his voice firm, but contained. He said it while looking at the horizon, unable to make eye contact.

Izuku turned again, surprise visible for a fraction of a second before being covered by a carefully neutral expression. His heart gave a sudden jump against his ribs—an ancient reflex, of alert. Why did he come over here? The compliment sounded genuine, which was even more disconcerting. It was easier when it was just anger. That this required a reading that Izuku wasn't sure he knew how to make.

"Thank you," he replied, with a slight nod of his head, keeping his tone professional, flat. Neutral ground. "You too. Deserved."

It was the truth, simple and hard. Katsuki had burned his way to second place with undeniable ferocity.

Katsuki nodded, a brief tilt of the head. The silence that followed wasn't heavy, but conscious—an empty space where before there was only noise. It was a relief and an agony at the same time. What do we do now? Izuku thought, his fingers tingling for no reason. Talk about the weather? The mission? He looked at the horizon, his shoulders a little less tense than usual, but still a line of force about to be fired.

"I'll cover the north sector," Izuku announced after a moment, indicating with his chin the opposite direction. It was a polite end to the conversation, a return to protocol, a safe harbor. Safer this way. Conversation over. Each to their own side of the sky, as always.

He was already turning, his left foot lifting for the initial Full Cowl impulse, when the word left Katsuki, almost involuntarily, cutting the air like a dry, quick snap:

"Together."

Izuku stopped. His foot touched back down on the ground softly. He turned slowly, his green eyes wide with deep skepticism.

"What?"

Katsuki didn't look at him, keeping his face seriously forward, as if evaluating the route with extreme criticism. The line of his jaw was tense. "Damn, why did I say that?" he thought, but his expression was stone.

"The sector's huge as hell," he justified, his voice rough, pragmatic. "Two is more efficient." He made an almost imperceptible pause, a microsecond of vulnerability that only someone who had studied him all his life, like Izuku, could catch. "If you don't object."

The offer was practical, devoid of apparent emotion. No "let's," no "how about." Just a logistical fact, an operational suggestion. But the simple fact that it had been made… Izuku's world tilted slightly on its axis. Is he… asking? No, suggesting. But still. It's an opening. Minuscule. Cautious. The most cautious I've ever seen.

Izuku watched his profile for a second, his eyes narrowing slightly, not in distrust, but in deep assessment. Analyzing the angle of his shoulders, the lack of his habitual tremor of irritation. He's serious. This isn't a trap. It's… a tactical truce? Finally, an almost inaudible sigh escaped his lips, and his shoulders dropped a centimeter, releasing a tension he didn't even know he still carried there.

"Alright," he said, simply. The word came out softer than he intended. "Let's go."

Katsuki didn't smile. Just nodded again, a quick, downward motion. "Don't fall behind," he murmured, the usual challenging tone now attenuated, almost turned into a routine warning, a ritual that sounded almost… familiar.

"I won't," Izuku replied, a thread of familiar determination tinging his voice, and it was impossible to suppress the slight quirk of his lips. Not a smile, but the shadow of one.

Katsuki launched himself first, with a controlled pop from his palms, not a boom. An efficient impulse, speaking of absolute mastery. Izuku followed a moment later, the emerald green of his Full Cowl streaking the air beside the amber and crimson explosions. They didn't fly in perfect unison—there was a space between them, respectful, necessary. A gap of years of bad history that couldn't simply be ignored. But they flew in the same direction, at the same rhythm, sharing the same sky, the same air, the same silence laden with something that still had no name.

Neither of them spoke. Communication was limited to short gestures, quick glances at points of interest, the silent language of those who know each other's work intimately, even if reluctant to admit it. It was strange. It was quiet. It was… sufficient. It's just a patrol, Izuku reminded himself, as they dodged a building façade together. It doesn't mean anything. But his chest, that traitor, felt a different warmth. Not the explosion of One For All. It was something milder, more persistent.

As they landed on the first roof for a quick check, side by side with a synchrony that hurt because it was so natural, Katsuki glanced briefly at Izuku, who was already scanning the area with his eyes, focused, reliable. It wasn't forgiveness. Not yet. Maybe never. The chasm between them was too deep to be filled with a single silent patrol.

But it was partnership. A beginning. And for now, in that shared silence under the city sky, with the sound of Katsuki's explosions echoing like a rhythmic counterpoint to the hum of his own energy, that felt solid—something palpable in the air between them. Something that, finally, instead of cutting, seemed to hold.

And for Izuku, who had always run after that flash ahead, being beside, even with a vacuum of meters between them, was already a silent revolution.

The patrol ended without major incidents. A routine cat rescue from a tree too high for regular firefighters (which earned Izuku a scowling look from Katsuki, who clearly thought it beneath his pay grade, but which he executed with irritating efficiency, grabbing the scared little animal with a softness that brutally contrasted with his high-class hero uniform), a false fire alarm in an abandoned warehouse—the kind of mission that didn't make headlines but kept the city's fabric intact, stitch by stitch. They worked well together—a statement that left a strange taste in Izuku's mouth as he mentally formulated it. Efficient. Silent. Almost intuitive. He anticipated the direction of a Katsuki jump by the rough sound of the explosion preparing in his palms; Katsuki, in turn, covered a flank without Izuku needing to point it out, as if he simply knew that was where attention should be divided. No unnecessary conversation. No friction. None of the challenging or contemptuous looks that, for so long, were the fundamental grammar of their communication. It was a strange vacuum, filled only by work well done. And that, somehow, was more disturbing than any confrontation.

When the imposing, modern silhouette of Deku Agency appeared ahead, a tower of glass and steel reflecting the last orange rays of the sun, Katsuki slowed his pace in the air, hovering for a moment with a balance that spoke of years of absolute mastery over his own mobility. The cutting wind of late afternoon ruffled his hair, and for a second, in that warm light, he didn't look like the explosive Ground Zero, but just a tired man after a long shift.

"Good work," he said, the words pulled out like granite chips, direct, without ceremony, without looking directly at Izuku. A comment thrown into the air between them, with no specific recipient. "See you around."

Izuku felt the knot in his throat. Good work. Two words. Neutral. Professional. From the Katsuki of before, he'd expect a "Didn't get in the way too much today, huh, Deku?" or a simple grunt of farewell. This was… civilized. And this man's civility was an unknown land full of pitfalls. He nodded, a short, contained movement.

"See you."

And that was it. No handshake, no smile, no "see you tomorrow." Just silence filling the space where words could have been, but weren't.

Katsuki veered off first, his body already leaning with clear intent, a controlled jet from his palms propelling him east, towards Dynamight Agency, newer, more aggressive in its design, located in the revitalized industrial district. Izuku continued straight for a few seconds, his body still immersed in the flow of Full Cowl, the green buzz of energy a constant companion under his skin. Mid-air, now separated by dozens, then hundreds of meters of twilight sky, there was that suspended moment—too brief to be cataloged as significant, but too long to be just another fraction of a second in a hero's busy life. Two points moving apart, carrying with them a universe of unresolved history.

Katsuki, halfway to his destination, still gave a quick, almost imperceptible look back. His gaze captured the distant figure of Izuku, a green blur shrinking against the horizon, focused on his own path, already preparing to land on his agency's balcony. A quick, clear thought, stripped of its usual coating of anger, crossed his mind: One more step. One of millions he'd still have to take to fix what he'd broken. But, still, a step taken. Concrete. He had approached, spoken, worked alongside. And the sky hadn't fallen. Neither of them had been hurt—at least, not physically.

A small smile, so tiny it barely altered the line of his lips, touched his face. No one would see. The wind would carry it away. But it was there. The day, monotonous and heavy until that casual encounter, had acquired a different shine. It wasn't strident joy. It was something deeper, quieter: the sensation of a burden being, not even taken off his shoulders, but slightly redistributed. Made a bit more bearable. Just having Izuku nearby, in that shared silence, without hostility… that was enough. It was already a small, private miracle.

Izuku, on the other hand, felt the weight descend on his shoulders like a mantle of lead as soon as the distance between them became insurmountable to the naked eye. What should have been relief—the end of a potentially disastrous interaction—turned into a gnawing restlessness.

What was that?

Why did I accept?

Why was it so… easy?

The questions hammered, paced by the beating of his own heart, still a bit accelerated by the controlled effort of the patrol. Accepting his company had been an almost reflexive act, driven by painful curiosity and a stubborn hope he thought he had buried long ago. But the ease with which they fell into each other's rhythm…. That was scary. It was as if, beneath all the turbulence, all the history of pain and second intentions, there was a solid foundation, a common language written in years of obsessive observation, that only needed a truce to manifest. And that meant that all the chaos between them was perhaps, in part, a choice. A series of bad choices, but choices. The idea was dizzying.

These interrogations accompanied him as he landed gracefully on the private landing balcony of his agency's upper floor. The glass slid open silently, and he entered the climate-controlled environment, greeted by the formal greetings of his night support staff. "Good evening, Deku-san." "Reports are on your desk, sir." "Any occurrences to register?" He responded to everything on autopilot, with the precision and courtesy they expected from the number one hero. Signed digital reports, gave an okay for the next day's planning, thanked everyone for their work. His gestures were precise, his posture, impeccable. But his mind was miles away, ruminating on the sound of Katsuki's voice saying "Together," his concentrated expression as they swept a rooftop, the carefully maintained space between their bodies in the air.

When he finally left the agency, using a discreet exit, the sky had already darkened, painted a deep blue sprinkled with the first, brightest stars. The city lit its own lights, an artificial universe twinkling below. He got into his BMW i8, a car that was more a concession to image and the need for quick, discreet transport than a whim. The interior was a cocoon of cold leather, premium silence, and soft ambient lights. The electric motor didn't even whisper as he started it. The drive to his high-end apartment, located in an exclusive tower overlooking the bay, was done almost entirely on autopilot, his fingers tapping lightly on the steering wheel. The modern buildings, clean streets, immaculate underground garage, the panoramic elevator that rose too fast—everything was efficient, impersonal, a perfect shell. Sometimes, he missed the cozy chaos of the old U.A. dorm, the noisy hallways, the feeling of community. Here, it was just him and the echo of his own footsteps.

Inside the apartment, the feeling of emptiness amplified. It was a spacious place, decorated with an expensive, minimalist style someone on his staff had chosen. There were books, of course, and some hero memorabilia, but nothing that felt truly his. He left the keys on the kitchen's quartz countertop, the metallic sound absurdly loud in the silence. He took a deep breath, trying to expel the restlessness along with the air. His gaze fell on the agenda open on a screen on the wall.

Tomorrow will be long. Morning meetings at the agency: planning coverage for a municipal event, analysis of a possible new recruit, endless paperwork. In the afternoon, the commitment that always mixed a knot of anxiety with a thread of genuine warmth: U.A. He taught three times a week. Being called "Midoriya-sensei" still sounded strange to his ears, even after 8 years in that profession, as if they were referring to someone else. Someone older, wiser, more ready. He never felt fully ready. But seeing the shine in the students' eyes, the raw determination he knew so well… that fed something in him. It was a duty, but also a privilege. And a constant reminder of how his own journey had begun.

He organized some papers he needed to take, separated the tablet with lesson plans for the next module, changed from his hero uniform into a simple hoodie and sweatpants. Tried to sit on the wide sofa, put a documentary on quirk engineering on the giant flat-screen TV, but rest didn't come. Images of the patrol insisted on playing in an incessant loop behind his eyes. Katsuki's serious profile against the sky. The space between them. The silence.

It was then that his phone, vibrating on the coffee table, pulled him from the spiral. The name that appeared on the screen made a genuine, albeit tired, smile touch his lips.

He answered. "Izuku here."

"Izuku," Ochaco Uraraka's voice came from the other side, firm, animated, and loaded with a determination that admitted no refusal. "From your location on the hero app, I see you're already home. Great. If you don't start getting ready to go out this very instant, I'm coming to get you. Personally. And I'm not joking, hero number one. I have a night flight permit, remember?"

He let out a short, hoarse laugh, a mix of resignation and affection. It was impossible to resist that force of nature that was Ochaco when she decided something.

"You really don't know how to give up, do you? Has anyone ever told you that stubbornness is an unregistered quirk?"

"I do know how to give up," she retorted, and he could almost see her mischievous look on the other end of the line. "Just not today. Today is celebration day. Official ranking, remember? You reached the top. The top, Izuku. Not just another step. That deserves more than a selfie alone with your smart fridge. So come on. Shower, clothes, shoes. Now."

He rubbed his free hand over his face, feeling the fatigue in his bones, but also a beginning of acquiescence. She was right, in part. Isolating himself wasn't the answer.

"Okay, okay. I'm going. But you don't need to come get me, I…"

"Ten minutes," she interrupted, gentle but inflexible. "If your tracker doesn't start moving towards a commercial establishment that sells food that isn't nutrition bars in ten minutes, I'm showing up. And I'm bringing Iida and Todoroki. And Tsuyu. You don't want an Iida speech on the importance of post-professional-achievement socializing, do you?"

The threat was real and terrifying.

"That's low, Uraraka."

"It's effective. Nine minutes and fifty seconds. Tick-tock." And the call dropped.

Izuku stood still for a few seconds, looking at the phone's dark screen, then at his own blurred reflection in the panoramic window, where the city twinkled like a field of fallen stars. The image it returned was of a young man, but with shadows under his green eyes, his posture slightly bowed by a weight no muscle could support. The weight of the symbol. The weight of the past. The weight of a "good work" said by a voice that had the power to turn his world upside down.

He sighed, long and deep. Ochaco was right. Staying there ruminating wouldn't lead anywhere. It was just the eye of the hurricane, a deceptive moment of calm before the next storm—of work, of expectations, of memories—formed. And he, more than anyone, knew it was in moments of calm that defenses were prepared.

He moved. Quick, hot shower, washing off the day's sweat but not the fog of his thoughts. Chose simple clothes: dark jeans, a dark green cotton t-shirt, a casual blazer. Nothing that drew attention. Nothing that felt like armor, though everything he wore, in a way, was. Put on sneakers. It was just dinner with friends. Just that. An intermission.

When he took the elevator down to the lobby, there was no surprise. Parked somewhat cheekily in the pickup area was Ochaco's compact, functional car. And she, leaning against the hood, arms crossed, wearing a simple dress and a smile of satisfaction from someone who'd won an important battle.

"See?" she said as he approached. "That wasn't so hard. No broken bones, no cities destroyed."

Izuku shook his head, a real smile, broader, finally reaching his eyes.

"You are completely impossible, you know that?"

"I know." She opened the passenger door for him with an exaggerated bow. "That's why you still put up with me. Get in, your excellency."

He got into the car, which smelled of cleanliness and a light fruity perfume she always wore. The interior was cozy, lived-in, full of little details—a charm hanging from the rearview mirror, a folded jacket on the back seat, a half-full water bottle in the cup holder. So different from the sterile cocoon of his BMW.

She got in the driver's side and started the car.

"Todoroki and Iida are already there. Tsuyu said she'll meet us later, after sorting some things at her agency. Momo confirmed too. It'll be good. Low profile, a quiet bar Shoto recommended. No reporters, no crazy fans. Just us." She paused, then added gently, "Ah… and, Izuku…"

He turned his face to her, attentive.

"Yeah?"

Ochaco took a deep breath before continuing, choosing her words carefully.

"The Bakusquad guys were going out too. To celebrate Bakugou's ranking. So… well… we talked and thought it'd be better to have everyone together. Celebrate everything at once, you know?"

She shot a quick look at him, assessing.

"I hope that's not a problem for you."

The silence stretched for a few seconds. Izuku looked forward again, feeling the gentle weight of the question. It wasn't a demand. It was care.

He inhaled slowly. And when he spoke, his voice came out calm.

"It's not a problem."

Ochaco visibly relaxed, a true smile returning to her face.

"Sure?"

Izuku nodded, the corner of his lips curving slightly.

"Sure. Tonight is for celebrating. Everyone has a reason to be happy."

She laughed softly.

As they drove through the city's illuminated streets, the night traffic flowing around them, Izuku sank deeper into the seat, watching the lights pass by the windows in colored streaks. The restlessness, that coldness in his chest generated by the interaction with Katsuki, didn't disappear. But it settled, mixed with other sensations. Gratitude for Ochaco's insistence. Anticipation of seeing friends. The simple tiredness of a long day.

And a strange, floating sensation began to take over. Not exactly joy. Not exactly fear. It was something in suspension, as if he were in the air between one jump and the next, in that moment of apex where everything is quiet and possible. The storm would come. The pressure of number one, the U.A. classes, the next big threat that would surely arise… all that was there, waiting.

But for now, in that cozy car, with a friend by his side talking about a joke Iida had made earlier, on the way to a bar where other people who loved him awaited, he could simply… breathe. It was just a breath. A single, precious interval. And sometimes, in the middle of the hurricane, it was all you needed to remember why you were fighting so hard to stay standing.

Kiyashi Bar was a breath.

A bubble of amber light suspended in time. It exuded elegance without being oppressive, class without being distant. The lighting, low and warm, emerged from bronze fixtures on exposed brick walls, drawing dancing shadows on the customers' faces. The polished wood bar reflected bottles lined up like soldiers in formation, labels from distant places. A long, sinuous mural dominated the far wall, depicting heroes from the Showa and Heisei eras in iconic poses. All Might, of course, at the center, his smile painted with a touch of melancholy only the oldest would perceive. It was a place for those who knew the weight of the mantle, a place to celebrate without the hungry gaze of the spotlight.

That night, a huge table near the large window overlooking the busy Kiyashi Street belonged, by right earned with sweat, scars, and unquestionable acts of heroism, to Class 1-A of U.A. There were no "squad" divisions, no demarcated territory. Just a constellation of familiar faces, a planet of shared memories orbiting a common gravity.

Izuku Midoriya entered accompanied by Ochaco Uraraka, the night air still fresh on their shoulders. The heavy wooden door closed behind them with a soft click, muffling the city's murmur. For an instant, he stood on the threshold, absorbing the scene.

The warmth was almost palpable. A patchwork of conversations, laughter, and clinking glasses. He saw Momo Yaoyorozu talking with Fumikage Tokoyami, her natural elegance contrasting with his shadowy aura. Hanta Sero and Minoru Mineta (surprisingly sober and well-behaved) were discussing something near the mural, pointing. Mezo Shoji listened with his multiple arms crossed, while Kyoka Jiro, with an ironic smile on her lips, fingered a jack near a glass of sparkling water. Shoto Todoroki was sitting, his face impassive, but his heterochromatic eyes, one gray, one blue-turquoise, scanned the environment with a quiet curiosity. Tenya Iida gesticulated, explaining something with fervor to a Rikido Sato who seemed genuinely interested.

And, of course, the epicenter of the ruckus: Eijiro Kirishima, Denki Kaminari, and Mina Ashido, a trio of pure energy. Kirishima laughed from his chest, a laugh that was an invitation to joy.

Then, the inevitable happened. Kirishima turned his head and his sharp red eyes met Izuku's.

The expression on the hero Red Riot's face lit up like a beacon.

"MIDORIYAAAA!" the roar came from his chest, cutting through the chatter and making a few heads turn, not in disturbance, but in amused recognition.

Izuku barely had time to sketch a smile before a blur of spiky red hair launched itself at him. The impact was solid, warm, and loaded with a strength that could crush concrete, but was contained with a touching gentleness. Kirishima's arms enveloped him in a crushing bear hug, too typical, too honest.

"Dude!" Kirishima said, his voice vibrant against Izuku's ear. "Number one in Japan! SECOND in the world! That's INSANE, man! INSANE! I always knew, always bet on you!"

Izuku laughed, half out of breath, half dazed by the raw affection.

"K-Kirishima-kun, you're going to break me…"

"Ah, come on, you can take way more!" Kirishima released him, but kept his hands on his shoulders, his eyes shining with genuine pride. It was a pride without a shadow of envy, pure and crystalline like the hero's own personality.

Jiro, who was watching with an elbow on the table and a half-smile on her lips, didn't miss the chance.

"Kiri, you say 'I always knew' to literally everyone who moves up a step in the ranking. Even to Kaminari when he moved from 45th to 44th."

"AND I WAS RIGHT ABOUT THAT TOO!" Kirishima protested, turning to her, but not letting go of Izuku. "But with Midoriya, it was obvious! It was a matter of time!"

Denki was already beside them, jumping with excitement.

"Speaking of ranking, dude, look!" He pointed to his own chest, as if a number were embroidered there. "NINTH! Me, Denki Kaminari, hero Pikachu, am in Japan's top 10! My mom cried! My grandma fainted! My dad tried to give me a serious speech and ended up crying too!"

Mina approached, her pink hair swaying.

"Cried from pride or from shock, Denks?"

Kaminari stared at her, making an exaggerated expression of deep reflection.

"You know what, Ashido? A little of both, I think. But mostly pride! At least I managed to do one thing right in life!"

The phrase, said with disarming sincerity, drew genuine laughter from the group gathering around. Even Todoroki let out a light puff that could be considered a laugh. It was the kind of humor that only worked because it came from Denki, pure and without malice.

Iida took advantage of a pause in the laughter to approach, straightening his glasses with a precise movement.

"Midoriya! Your ascent to the top of the national ranking, and your prestigious position on the global stage, represent not only a personal triumph but a historic milestone for the Hero Association and for hero philosophy as a whole!" His voice was firm, loaded with contained emotion. "And I must add—I truly must—that seeing so many of our classmates from Class 1-A achieving such respectable placements simultaneously is… is extremely satisfying for the spirit!"

Sero put a hand on Iida's shoulder, smiling.

"Translating: he's super happy and really proud of all of us."

"That is exactly what I said!" Iida confirmed, not noticing the simplification.

Tsuyu, who had approached silently, made her characteristic soft "kero."

"Everyone worked hard, very hard. It's good to see that effort reflected in the numbers, kero. Makes it seem like it was all worth it."

Momo nodded, her ponytail swinging gracefully.

"It's a celebration of collective achievements. None of us got here alone. Our victories, as well as our challenges, have always been shared."

Izuku felt a hot, tight knot form in his throat. His gaze swept the circle of faces—some smiling, others serious, all familiar, all marked by battles they'd fought together. These people were more than colleagues or friends. They were pieces of his own history, witnesses to every fall and every rise. They were his safe harbor in an ocean of expectations.

He lowered his head for a moment, trying to control the wave of emotion. When he raised his eyes again, they were shining.

"I…" his voice faltered a bit. He cleared his throat. "Thank you. Truly. For everything. For being here. For… for having been there, from the beginning."

The silence that followed was short, loaded with deep understanding. They didn't need more words.

It was then that Izuku felt it.

A familiar presence, a specific gravity that always attracted his attention, even against his will. A magnetic field of contained tension and brute force.

Without needing to look directly, he knew.

Katsuki Bakugou was there.

His gaze, almost of its own volition, was pulled to the far end of the table, near the window. There, leaning back in his chair with a relaxation that never seemed natural to him, was Katsuki. He wore a simple black shirt and dark jeans, his hands—so dangerous, so precise—wrapped around a glass of amber beer. He wasn't isolated, but didn't blend into the central chatter either. He was talking to Jiro and Shoji, who were closer, his face serious but not closed off. His shoulders, normally loaded as if about to launch an attack, were relaxed. His expression was… tranquil. Accepting the environment without needing to dominate or reject it.

Izuku felt a chill run down his spine, followed immediately by a wave of heat in his face. It was strange. Seeing Katsuki like this, at peace, integrated without effort, was like observing a lion asleep in the sun: beautiful, powerful, and profoundly disconcerting. The absence of the habitual cloud of irritation, the defensive and aggressive posture, revealed lines in his face Izuku wasn't used to seeing relaxed. It revealed the man behind the fury.

And then, as if feeling the weight of the gaze upon him, Katsuki turned his head.

His scarlet eyes, sharp and intelligent, met Izuku's across the crowded table.

It wasn't a prolonged look. It wasn't loaded with anger, challenge, or any easily decipherable emotion. It was just recognition. A brief instant of pure connection, stripped of the noise of their conflictual past. "I am here," those eyes seemed to say. "And you are too."

Izuku was the first to look away. Not out of fear, or rejection, but out of deep, ingrained self-preservation. Maintaining that eye contact for another second would be like opening a floodgate he wasn't sure he could close again. He lowered his eyes to his own hands, took a deep breath, and recomposed himself, forcing a bigger smile when Ochaco pulled his arm.

"Let's sit, Izuku! Stop standing there like a lamppost!"

He let himself be guided. He ended up sitting between Ochaco and Iida, at a spot that gave him a wide view of the table. Unconsciously, or perhaps very consciously, his chair was positioned so that Katsuki, at the opposite end, was in his peripheral vision. Close enough to feel his presence, far enough to create an illusion of safety.

The night flowed. Glasses were refilled, snacks—crispy karaage, salted edamame, light tempura—were shared. Conversations intertwined, a mosaic of experiences.

"Remember that rescue training with All Might?" Sero asked, laughing. "When Kaminari tried to use his Indiscriminate Shock to revive the dummy and ended up frying the arena's entire sound system?"

"In my defense," Kaminari raised his hands, "the dummy looked really dead. Needs drastic measures!"

"Drastic was you panting and with the derp face for an hour after, kero," Tsuyu recalled, without malice.

"It was a heroic sacrifice!" Denki insisted, making everyone laugh again.

Mina started telling about a recent mission where she had to neutralize a villain with an acid slime quirk.

"…and then, in the heat of the moment, I slipped on my own Acid! Landed face-first in a pile of the guy's slime! It was not cool at all, but at least I dissolved the whole thing with my sweat. Came out looking like a melted balloon, but the mission was a success!"

Kirishima, beside her, laughed so hard he had to lean on the table.

"I saw the pictures later! You looked like Swamp Thing after a bad day!"

"Hey!" Mina nudged him with her elbow, but also laughing.

Shoto, in his peculiar style, made a dry comment while watching an ice cube slowly melt in his water glass.

"Entropy is particularly cruel to fluid-based forms. But your efficiency in neutralizing the threat was impressive, Ashido."

Mina blinked, processing. "…Thanks, I guess?"

Iida, of course, brought up a more serious topic.

"The Association's new directive on the use of proportional force in densely populated urban areas is, in my opinion, a significant advance, but lacks clarity in paragraph 4, section B, where…"

"Iida, Iida," Ochaco gently interrupted, putting a hand on his. "Today is a day to celebrate, remember? Save the bureaucracy for Monday."

Iida blushed slightly.

"Ah! Of course! My apologies! Allow me then to propose a toast!" He raised his glass of soda. "To camaraderie! Which, like a good engine, requires constant maintenance and quality fuel, like this gathering!"

"Cheers!" echoed the chorus, with more laughter.

Izuku laughed along. For real. Several times. Felt the muscles of his face, tensed for days—for months, perhaps—relax. Let himself be drawn into Tokoyami's story about how Dark Shadow had developed an inexplicable aversion to cats after a traumatic encounter with a bakeneko during a night patrol. Followed the animated discussion between Momo and Jiro about the best rock band of the last ten years. Felt the warmth of Ochaco's shoulder against his when she leaned over to grab an edamame.

It was easy. It was light. It was a moment stolen from time, where the weight of the "Deku" symbol, of the number one hero, seemed a little less crushing.

But, amid all that warmth and joy, there was a cold awareness. Like a constant bassline under a cheerful song, Katsuki's presence was undeniable. Izuku didn't look directly at him, but his peripheral perception was heightened. He saw the movement of his arm bringing the glass to his lips. Heard his voice, lower and rougher than the others, interjecting a dry comment here and there, usually to Kirishima or Jiro. He rarely laughed, but sometimes a short sound, almost a grunt of approval, escaped him.

And sometimes, Izuku felt his gaze. Like a physical touch, a gentle weight on the side of his face. When that happened, he instinctively turned, and their eyes met. Always for a fraction of a second. Always neutral, impenetrable. And then Izuku would look away, his heart beating a little faster, pretending doubled interest in whatever Iida or Ochaco were saying.

It was a silent game. A mutual, but cautious, recognition. A dance of approach and withdrawal that didn't dare name its own steps.

Across the table, Katsuki watched.

Watched with the silent intensity of a predator, but without hunting intent. His thoughts were a contained whirlwind behind a facade of disinterest.

He's smiling. For real.

Seeing Izuku Midoriya laugh, relaxed, surrounded by people who loved him, was a spectacle Katsuki had never allowed himself to appreciate before. It had always been a source of irritation, of anger—that weak nerd, surrounded by friends, always smiling as if the world weren't a shitty place. Now, however, the anger had dissipated, leaving behind a complex residue hard to decipher.

It was a strange feeling. Like observing a familiar landscape after an earthquake: the outlines were the same, but everything was displaced, realigned in a way that was both disturbing and… right.

He saw how Ochaco touched Izuku, casual, protective. Saw how Iida gesticulated towards him with paternal pride. Saw how Kirishima threw an arm around his shoulders with every joke. And before, jealousy would have been a ball of fire in his chest. Now, it was just a dull squeeze, a realization: He has this. And I never gave him this.

Therapy had done this to him. Excavating the rotten roots of his anger, his insecurity, his pathological fear of being surpassed, had been a painful and humiliating process. But it was also liberating. He had begun to understand that the hatred he felt for Izuku had always been, largely, a hatred of himself, for his own weaknesses, for not being as good as that fragile boy who refused to give up.

And now, there he was. The fragile boy was a man. The number one hero. And, somehow, he could still smile like that—a smile that was half sad, half hopeful, totally Deku.

Katsuki took a long sip of his beer, the bitter, fresh taste giving him something to hold onto. His eyes traced Izuku's face: the disobedient green curls, the freckles still dotting his nose and cheeks, the green eyes that at the moment were crinkled from laughing at something Dunce Face had said. The scars on his right hand, white and raised. Marks of battles. Marks of survival. Marks that, in part, he had helped create.

A deep, uncomfortable feeling settled in his chest. It wasn't regret—the word was too simple, too weak for what he felt. It was a heavy acknowledgment, an acceptance of the pain caused. And beneath that, something even stranger: a desire to… belong. To be part of that circle of warmth radiating from Izuku. Not at the center, he didn't deserve the center. But maybe on the periphery. As he was now. Being tolerated. Being included.

It was then that Kirishima, in one of his peaks of enthusiasm, decided the night needed more physical brotherhood.

"ENOUGH CHIT-CHAT!" he announced, standing up with his glass. "TIME FOR A GROUP HUG FOR OUR NUMBER ONE!"

"What? No, Kirishima, wait—!" Izuku tried to protest, raising his hands defensively, but it was too late.

Kirishima jumped on him, enveloping him in another bear hug. But this time, he pulled him to the center of the table. In seconds, a chain reaction happened. Mina joined, hugging both. Denki followed suit, yelling something about "group energy." Sero, with a wide smile, piled on. Iida, after a moment of bureaucratic hesitation, decided that physical expression of support was acceptable under the circumstances and placed his arms over everyone's shoulders. Tsuyu smiled and gave a quick hug from behind. Momo laughed and did the same.

Izuku disappeared into a mass of bodies, laughter, and crushing affection. His face was buried in Kirishima's shoulder, and he was laughing—a breathless laugh, genuinely happy and a bit desperate.

Katsuki watched from his chair. Didn't move to join. His fingers tightened around his glass. A part of him, the old, resentful part, felt a chill of exclusion. The new part, the part that was learning, felt a strange warmth. He was seeing Izuku being loved. And, in some twisted way, that was… good.

His eyes met Izuku's for a brief instant, in the middle of the confusion of arms and bodies. Izuku's green eyes were misty from laughing so hard, but clear. And in them, Katsuki didn't see triumph, or pity, or invitation. He saw only… acceptance. As if Izuku were saying: "It's okay. You don't have to come. I know you're here."

And then the human pile unraveled, everyone falling back, panting and laughing. Izuku emerged with his hair even more disheveled and his face flushed, adjusting his shirt.

"You guys are insane," he said, breathless, still smiling.

"It's our charm!" Mina replied, throwing her arms up.

The conversation resumed, a bit more animated, a bit more intimate. The bar seemed to have grown warmer, fuller of their essence. Izuku returned to his spot, but the energy in the air had changed. The barriers were even lower.

It was in this atmosphere, with the night well advanced and a sense of contentment hanging over the table, that Katsuki acted.

No plan. No deep thought. Just an impulse, coming from a place he was still learning to name.

He picked up his half-full glass of beer. His fingers, careful, held the chilled glass. And then, slowly, deliberately, he raised the glass. Not a wide, showy gesture. Just a slight lift, enough to cross the line of sight. His scarlet eyes fixed directly on Izuku.

Izuku, who was listening to Ochaco talk about a new project at her agency, felt the movement. Felt the weight of the gaze, more intense this time. He turned his head.

And saw.

Katsuki had his glass raised, his eyes firm on his. There was no smile on his face. Only absolute seriousness, crystalline intent. It was a silent toast. A recognition that went beyond the professional "good work." It was a "for you." An "I see you." Perhaps even a "sorry," said in the only way Katsuki Bakugou would know how to say at this stage: in absolute silence.

The noise around seemed to fade for a second. For Izuku, there were only those scarlet eyes and that raised glass. His heart stopped, then raced. A storm of emotions—surprise, fear, a pang of old hurt, a thread of warm hope—swept through his chest.

He didn't smile. Didn't nod. But, moved by a deep reflex, by a part of him that still responded to Katsuki before his brain even processed, he did the same.

Raised his own, almost empty glass. An equally contained, equally serious movement. His green eyes didn't waver. They held Katsuki's gaze, accepting it, returning it. "For you too," his gesture seemed to say. "I see you too."

It was an infinitesimal moment. Two seconds, maybe three. But in that space of time, a fragile, invisible bridge was extended over the chasm of years of pain and misunderstanding. It wasn't reconciliation. It was an armistice. A tacit agreement that, that night, in that place, they could simply be. Two heroes. Two former classmates. Two men who shared a complicated past and an uncertain present.

Katsuki lowered his glass first, bringing it to his lips for a final sip. Izuku did the same, feeling the warm, flat beer on his tongue. The contact broke. Katsuki turned to say something to Jiro, and Izuku returned his attention to Ochaco, who was looking at him with a curious, gentle expression, as if she had noticed the silent exchange but decided not to comment.

The rest of the night passed in a soft blur. The stories continued, laughter echoed, glasses were emptied. The tension that existed—that thin line of static electricity between Izuku and Katsuki—didn't disappear, but transformed. Became something more bearable, almost familiar. A continuous bassline, instead of a sharp noise.

When they started to disperse, with promises to meet again soon and concerns about who was driving, Izuku found himself outside the bar, the cool night air caressing his warmed face. Ochaco was beside him, talking about getting a taxi.

The night air of Kiyashi was fresh and salty, carrying the distant smell of the sea and the vestige of the fading day. The street, once pulsing, now breathed more slowly. Streetlights drew yellow puddles on the damp asphalt, and the neon signs of establishments glittered like fallen stars.

The Class 1-A group dispersed in waves, each farewell loaded with that relaxed familiarity only years of intense coexistence can forge.

"Be careful on the way, Iida!" Ochaco called, waving as the bespectacled hero meticulously organized the friends going the same route in his spacious and extremely safe car.

"You can count on it, Uraraka! Obedience to traffic laws is the foundation of a safe society!" Iida retorted, already opening the driver's door. "Midoriya, are you sure you don't want a ride?"

"I'm fine, Iida. I'll call a taxi, it's all good," Izuku replied, smiling. His voice sounded calm, but inside him, a subtle agitation began to form. He saw Ochaco exchange one last look with him—a look mixing worry and silent understanding—before getting into Iida's car. The vehicle pulled away, its headlights disappearing around the corner.

Mineta, already half-asleep, was carried off by Shoji, who promised to drop him home. Momo and Jiro left together, engrossed in a low conversation. Tokoyami disappeared into the shadows with natural elegance, and Todoroki left on foot, saying he needed fresh air. Kirishima, with an arm around the shoulders of a very cheerful Denki and a Mina who laughed at everything, announced he would ensure the two got home without incident.

"C'mon, Bakubro!" Kirishima called, turning to Katsuki, who was standing a bit apart, hands in his jeans pockets, watching the dispersal. "I'll give you a lift!"

Katsuki shook his head, a short, decisive movement.

"I'm good. I'll go my own way."

"Sure?" Kirishima asked, his red eyes narrowing slightly, not in distrust, but in genuine care he always had for Katsuki.

"Positive. Take care of Pikachu over there," Katsuki replied, with a chin jerk towards Kaminari, who was unsuccessfully trying to balance on one foot.

"Alright then! See you next time, Bakugou! Good night, Midoriya!" Kirishima said, starting to guide his two noisy friends in the opposite direction. His loud, animated voice faded into the distance, along with Mina's laughter and Denki's protests.

And then, suddenly, it was just them.

Again. Like three years ago.

Izuku stood on the sidewalk, a few meters from the bar entrance. The silence, which had been a comfortable backdrop to the noise of friends, now expanded, becoming palpable. He pulled his phone from his pocket, his fingers moving on autopilot to open the taxi app. The screen glowed, illuminating his face with a cold, bluish light. He avoided looking to the side, but every fiber of his being was hyper-aware of the silent, immobile presence a few steps to his left.

He's still here. Why is he still here?

The question echoed in his mind, accompanied by a heartbeat that seemed to increase with each second. The tranquility of the night, the warm, light alcohol in his veins (he wasn't drunk, just… relaxed, senses dulled in a soft haze), the post-adrenaline exhaustion of the celebration—all combined to create a vulnerability he normally locked away under seven keys.

He heard footsteps approaching. They were firm, heavy, unmistakable steps. They stopped a short distance away.

Izuku kept his eyes glued to the phone screen. 'Waiting for driver… Estimated time: 12 minutes.' Twelve minutes. An eternity.

"Having trouble?"

Katsuki's voice reached him, not as a growl, not as a challenge. It was simply a question. Flat. Calm. A calm so new, so strange, it was almost more disturbing than his usual fury. Izuku forced himself to look up, turning his head slowly.

Katsuki was there, illuminated by the soft light from the bar's façade. His face was at rest, the habitual tension lines smoothed. His scarlet eyes, which normally burned with intensity, seemed to reflect the gloom, darker, deeper. He didn't seem angry, impatient, or irritated. He seemed just… present. Observing.

"No," Izuku replied, the word coming out a bit rougher than intended. He cleared his throat. "Just waiting for a taxi."

"Taxi?" Katsuki repeated, as if the word were a strange concept. He looked at the almost deserted street, then back at Izuku. One of his eyebrows rose a millimeter, an almost imperceptible trace of his old skepticism, but without the ferocity. "At this hour? In this area? It'll take ages."

"It's only twelve minutes," Izuku retorted, holding up the phone as proof, feeling a bit foolish.

Katsuki made a low sound, almost a hmf, that could be interpreted as doubt or disdain, but was too light for either. He seemed to consider something for a moment, his eyes scanning Izuku from head to toe in a scrutiny that wasn't invasive, just evaluative.

"My car's in the parking lot over there," he finally said, nodding towards the covered garage next to the bar. His voice was casual, as if commenting on the weather. "I'm heading home. If you want, I'll give you a lift. It's on the way."

The offer was made without ceremony, without pressure. It wasn't a warm invitation. It was a logical, practical solution, presented as a fact. 'It's raining, I have an umbrella.' That's how it sounded. But the simple fact that it came from Katsuki Bakugou made it seem the most monumental thing in the world.

Izuku stared at him, his thoughts spinning. The rational part of him whispered it was a bad idea. That spending more time alone with Katsuki, in the closed intimacy of a car, with his feelings already exposed by the night and the alcohol, was asking to get hurt. The deeper part, the one that still held the memory of the boy who ran after Kacchan, who yearned for his approval, broken as it was, leapt.

"You don't have to," Izuku said, almost immediately, shaking his head with a small, polite smile. "Really. I can call a taxi."

Katsuki looked at him for an instant. There was no irritation on his face, nor that old impatience that used to precede a verbal explosion. What was there now was something more contained. Calculated. A brief silence, as if he were choosing his words carefully.

"It'll take a while," he replied, simply. "At this time of night, the app is crap."

He shrugged, a gesture almost indifferent, as if talking about the weather. He kept his posture relaxed, not stepping closer, not invading Izuku's space. "It's on the way," he added, naturally. "Doesn't change anything for me."

Izuku opened his mouth to insist, but Katsuki continued, his voice low, firm, without harshness.

"Doesn't have to mean anything more than that." His eyes met Izuku's for a brief second, direct, honest. "Just a ride. Professionally speaking."

There was a well-drawn line there. A clear boundary. Katsuki wasn't taking a step beyond what was necessary—and Izuku noticed that. Noticed the care behind the distance. The conscious choice not to pressure, not to confuse, not to demand.

Still, something tightened in his chest.

Because, even without dramatization, even without big words, Katsuki was saying: I won't leave you here alone.

Izuku let out a light sigh, almost imperceptible, and nodded.

The simplicity of it, the lack of aggressive coating, was what broke Izuku's remaining defenses. A puff of laughter escaped his lips, a light, disbelieving sound.

"Alright," he said, lowering the phone and canceling the ride. "I accept. Thank you."

Katsuki merely nodded, a short movement, and started walking towards the parking lot. Izuku followed, his steps echoing on the quiet sidewalk beside Katsuki's firm, decided steps. The distance between them was respectful, but the air seemed charged with a different electricity now. Less tense, more… expectant.

The parking lot was well-lit and empty. And there, in a privileged spot, was Katsuki's car: a Porsche in a metallic slate gray. It was an aggressive, elegant, powerful car, a perfect extension of its owner—brute speed and power contained in precise, lethal lines. Izuku had been inside it before, a year ago, in other contexts. The memory of intimate moments stolen in those same leather seats, with the characteristic smell of high-quality car cleaner and the subtle, woody perfume that was purely Katsuki, surfaced with a force that left him dizzy. He shook his head, trying to push away the thoughts.

It's just a ride. A ride from a coworker. From a former classmate. From… from someone who's trying. Just that.

Katsuki approached the car and, with a light touch on the door handle, unlocked it. The sound of the unlock, a soft, expensive click, seemed absurdly loud in the parking lot's silence. To Izuku's surprise, Katsuki didn't get in immediately. Instead, he turned and, with an almost clumsy movement, pulled open the passenger door, holding it open.

Izuku stood still, looking at the open door, then at Katsuki's impassive face. The gesture was so strangely chivalrous, so out of character for the Katsuki he knew, that for a second he wondered if he was dreaming.

"Get in," Katsuki said, his voice a bit rougher, as if he himself were uncomfortable with the gesture. "It's cold."

Izuku swallowed dryly and got into the car. The interior was immaculate, smelled of new, clean leather with a light touch of that woody scent that was so him. The seat enveloped him perfectly, comfortable in a way that was almost indecent. Katsuki closed the door for him, the sound muffled, further isolating the outside world, then walked around the car to get in on the driver's side.

When Katsuki got in and closed the door, the silence became absolute. It was the kind of premium silence only very expensive cars could provide, a vacuum that amplified every small noise: Izuku's breathing, a bit faster than normal, the slight creak of leather as Katsuki adjusted in his seat, the click of the seatbelt being fastened.

Katsuki started the car. The engine rumbled, a deep, contained sound that vibrated through the chassis and straight into Izuku's spine. The dashboard lit up with a soft blue light, and the multimedia screen came to life. Katsuki adjusted some controls, his movements economical and precise. And then, he put the car in gear and began to slowly exit the parking lot.

The silence persisted as they entered the city's night streets. It wasn't a heavy or awkward silence. It was… contemplative. Both seemed to absorb it, using the act of driving, of looking at the road, as an excuse not to have to face the whirlwind of unspoken things hanging in the air between them. Izuku looked out the window, seeing the dark buildings and occasional lights pass by like blurs. He felt strangely safe, encapsulated in that space with Katsuki. It was comfortable. Too comfortable. And that, in itself, was alarming.

It was then that Katsuki, without a word, touched the screen of the sound system. Music started playing, low, filling the silence without breaking it. It was a smooth, sensual beat, and then a familiar voice began to sing.

"If you know about me and choose to stay..."

It was "Love Me Harder," by Ariana Grande.

Izuku froze for a second. A slow, totally involuntary smile began to form on his lips. He turned to look at Katsuki, who kept his eyes fixed on the road, his serious profile illuminated by the dashboard lights.

Katsuki Bakugou. The explosive, fierce, relentless hero number two. Listening to Ariana Grande. In his million-yen Porsche.

It was a ridiculous, intimate secret Izuku had carried since U.A. days, when, by chance, he caught Katsuki with headphones in the dorm and recognized the melody. Katsuki had almost blown up the entire corridor that day, threatening him with death if he told anyone. And Izuku never told. Because, deep down, that little piece of unexpected humanity in the boy who seemed made of granite and rage had always been something he guarded with secret fondness and a bit of fear.

Now, here it was, years later, the public confirmation (or at least, public to an audience of one) of that secret. Katsuki didn't turn off the music. Didn't make a comment. Just let it play.

But a puff of genuine amusement escaped Izuku's nose.

Immediately, the scarlet eyes turned to him, just for a second, before returning to the road.

"What are you laughing at?" Katsuki's question wasn't aggressive. It seemed genuinely curious, with a touch of caution.

"Nothing," Izuku said, trying to contain the smile, looking back out the window. "It's just… nothing."

There was a silence, filled only by Ariana's soft voice and the low rumble of the engine.

"It's the song, right?" Katsuki's voice was low, almost a murmur. He didn't seem embarrassed, just stating a fact. "Don't tell anyone, got it?"

Izuku looked at him again. Katsuki was still looking ahead, but the line of his jaw was a bit tighter.

"I never told," Izuku replied, his voice soft. "I'm not going to now."

Katsuki made a low sound, a mix of a grunt and a sigh. Something between irritation with himself and resignation. With a brusque movement, as if swatting away an irritating fly, he turned the radio dial to change the station.

The silence was replaced by quick static, and then another song started playing.

A slow, heavy beat, a deep bass that seemed to vibrate in their bones. And an ethereal, whispery voice, loaded with intimate melancholy.

"I love you… and I don’t want to…"

Billie Eilish. I Love You.

The air inside the car stopped.

It wasn't a physical change. There was no explosion, no sudden braking. But the atmosphere transformed instantly, becoming dense, heavy, charged with something that wasn't anger or amusement, but an acute, uncomfortable recognition.

The word hung between them, unspoken but echoing in the slow beat and the singer's vulnerable voice. Love. I love you. The most complicated, most dangerous, most avoided phrase in the entire universe that existed between Izuku Midoriya and Katsuki Bakugou.

By pure reflex, a mirrored reaction of decades of observing each other, they both turned their heads at the same time.

Their eyes met in the dark of the car, illuminated only by the dash and street lights.

Izuku's, green and wide, full of translucent shock.

Katsuki's, scarlet and sharp, caught in an expression of pure "oh shit, not this one."

It was a second. A whole second, too long, where everything unsaid, everything buried under years of pain, half-apologies, silent truces, and joint work, seemed to bubble to the surface. The music was the perfect sound backdrop for that absurd tension.

Katsuki was the first to look away, as if burned.

He reached out and turned the radio dial with a force that made an audible click.

Static. And then, a new song.

This time, it was an old guitar, a piano, a deep male voice full of vibrato, straight from another era.

"I want you, I need you, I love you…"

Elvis Presley. I Want You, I Need You, I Love You.

This time, the silence that followed wasn't heavy. It was… hilarious.

It was so ridiculous, so exaggerated, so completely beyond any expectation, it bordered on surreal. The universe, or some vintage radio station's algorithm, seemed to have decided this was the night for a themed festival of embarrassing love declarations, and Katsuki Bakugou was the involuntary host.

Izuku couldn't look out the window anymore. His eyes were fixed on the radio, as if it were a malevolent entity that needed watching. His brain tried, and failed, to process the sequence: Ariana, Billie, Elvis. It was an absurd progression. It was as if the car itself were trying to force a conversation neither of them would have now.

He risked a glance at Katsuki.

The number two hero's face was… red. Not the red of explosive anger that Izuku knew so well. It was a deep blush, reddish, starting at his neck and rising, tinting his ears and cheekbones a scarlet hue visible even in the gloom. It was the color of pure, absolute, and inescapable embarrassment.

Katsuki was staring fixedly at the road, but his eyes weren't seeing anything. The line of his jaw was so tense Izuku could almost hear his teeth grinding.

"It's not—" Katsuki began to speak, his voice a bit strangled, but he cut off his own sentence, as if realizing any explanation would only make things worse.

Click.

Again. Faster, more desperate.

Static. A pause. And then…

"Please forgive me… I know not what I do…"

Bryan Adams. Please Forgive Me.

That was the last straw.

Izuku's eyes widened. He couldn't take it anymore. His self-control, already fragile, cracked. A strange sound, a mix of muffled laughter and a choke, escaped his throat. He brought a hand to his mouth, trying to stifle it.

Katsuki didn't even need to look. He knew. His face, if possible, turned even redder. He clenched his jaw with a force that made the muscle jump.

"Fuck me," he growled, the phrase coming out with an intensity that was half fury, half plea to the cosmos.

His hand flew to the radio dial again, but now with the determination of a man trying to defuse a bomb.

Click.

"Love me like you do… lo-lo-love me like you do…"

Ellie Goulding. Love Me Like You Do.

Total freeze.

This time, not even the radio seemed to believe it, repeating the word "love" like a scratched record. It was the pinnacle of absurdity. The moment the situation stopped being awkward and became purely comedic.

Izuku froze, his body tense, desperately trying not to fall apart. He turned his head slowly, as if in slow motion, to look at Katsuki.

Katsuki, for his part, seemed to have gone into shock. He was staring at the radio not with anger, but with an expression of profound incredulity, as if the device had personally betrayed all the trust he had placed in it over the years. "How could you?" his gaze seemed to say.

The music continued, the pulsing electronic beat filling the car with a completely misplaced sensuality. "Touch me like you do…"

Click.

Another station. Pure desperation.

"I love your freckles… I love the way they look on you…"

Lawrence. Freckles.

FRECKLES. Freckles.

The word echoed in the car like a gunshot.

Katsuki Bakugou exploded.

Not with his hands. But with his index finger.

CLICK!

The sound of the radio button being turned off with brute force echoed in the sudden silence like a bang. It was a final, definitive gesture, the summary execution of the unfaithful sound system.

And then… silence.

Not the quality premium silence from before. It was an absolute, heavy silence, laden with the echo of six consecutive love songs and the nuclear blush on the driver's face.

The car continued to glide smoothly down the avenue, perfectly controlled, an absurd contrast to the internal chaos that had just unfolded inside it.

Izuku sat, unmoving. His mind was a whirlwind. The rational part of him tried to process the situation: it was an astronomical coincidence, statistical bad luck, a cosmic conspiracy to humiliate Katsuki Bakugou. The emotional part of him was in tatters, divided between the uncontrollable urge to laugh until he cried and a deep pang of something softer, more vulnerable—the image of Katsuki, the fiercest man he knew, having a secret playlist full of love songs, and being caught red-handed in the most pathetic way possible.

He looked at Katsuki's profile. The blush was still there, but now mixed with an expression of concentrated fury aimed at the steering wheel, as if he were considering ripping it out and throwing it out the window.

After a few seconds that felt like hours, Izuku felt he needed to say something. Anything. The silence was unsustainable. His mind, always agile in heroic crisis situations, completely stalled for surreal social situations like this one. What do you say in this case? "Great music selection"? "Elvis is a classic"?

The silence lasted a few seconds longer than necessary.

Katsuki was the first to break it.

"They're idiots," he said, his eyes still on the road.

Izuku turned his face, confused.

"Who?"

"Everyone back at the bar." Katsuki continued, no tension in his voice. "Loud. Dramatic. Make toasts for everything. Talk too loud."

There was a brief pause.

"But…" he added, almost reluctant, "they're funny idiots."

Izuku couldn't hold back the smile.

"They really are," he agreed. "They always have been."

He leaned back a little more in the seat, his body finally relaxing.

"We've always been… close. Even when everything was a mess." Izuku looked out the window for a moment. "Now it just seems more… conscious."

Katsuki let out a brief sound through his nose, something between a contained laugh and a sigh.

"Yeah," he said. "Less chaos. More intention."

The mood in the car changed almost imperceptibly. The awkwardness gave way to something lighter, more solid. There was no tension, no expectations. Just two men sharing a recent memory that, surprisingly, didn't hurt.

Izuku closed his eyes for a second, feeling the car moving smoothly down the street.

"It was a good night," he said.

Katsuki nodded.

"It was."

And, for the first time since they got into that car, the silence that followed was comfortable.

The atmosphere inside the car changed again. The friendly, almost casual tone from the bar returned, but now tinged by the intimacy of the enclosed space, the shared music, the recognized secret.

Izuku sank deeper into the seat, feeling the muscles in his shoulders relax further. He was getting comfortable. Too comfortable. He realized this with a mix of panic and resignation. It was dangerous. It was like getting too close to a flame after being frozen for months. The warmth was tempting, but the memory of the burn was still there, alive and throbbing.

Had he forgiven Katsuki? The words, the formal apologies, had been exchanged months ago, in a truncated, painful way. But real forgiveness, the kind that erases the pain and allows moving forward without looking back… that was still unknown territory. Maybe he had forgiven the worst. But he hadn't forgiven himself for still feeling so much, for still caring so much. And being there, in that car, in that calm, brought it all back—the good, the bad, the painfully complicated.

The trip seemed too short. Soon, the luxurious bay skyscrapers appeared ahead, and Katsuki guided the Porsche smoothly into the entrance of the high-end condominium where Izuku lived. The imposing gate, the glass and steel façade, the impeccably trimmed gardens—all spoke of a success that still sometimes seemed surreal to Izuku.

Katsuki stopped the car under the covered entrance, but didn't turn off the engine. Music still played softly, now a smooth instrumental track.

Izuku unbuckled his seatbelt, the click sounding final in the silent space.

"Thanks for the ride, Bakugou," he said, formality returning to his voice almost like a shield.

Katsuki turned his head to look at him. The soft light from the building's lobby illuminated half his face, leaving the other half in shadow. His eyes looked incredibly dark.

"Don't mention it," he replied, his voice a bit hoarse. "Good night."

The interaction was over. It was the moment to get out, thank him again, and go on with his life.

But Izuku sat still, his hand on the door handle. The air between them seemed charged with a different tension now. It wasn't sexual, exactly. It was more primal, more raw. It was the tension of two powerful magnets being forced to stay apart, physical attraction being just one component of something much more complex and deep—years of observation, rivalry, intimate knowledge of each other's body and mind. It was the tension of everything not said, not done, not perfectly healed.

Their eyes met and held. The outside world—the building, the street, the music—blurred. There was only the narrow space between the two seats, the charged air, and Katsuki's intense, impenetrable gaze. Izuku felt words forming in his throat, a whirlwind of questions, accusations, confessions. Why did you change? What does this mean? What do I still feel for you? What do you feel for me?

He opened his mouth. A puff of air came out, but no sound.

The courage, or the madness, needed to give voice to any of those things failed. The moment passed. The wall of caution, of fear of regressing to pain, fell over him again.

He averted his gaze, his face warm.

"Good night," he murmured, almost inaudible.

And then he opened the door and got out. The cold night air hit him like a bucket of water, a brutal contrast to the heated, charged environment of the car. He didn't look back. Walked towards the automatic glass doors of the lobby, feeling each step as if moving away from an abyss that promised as much danger as deep peace.

Inside the car, Katsuki didn't move. He watched until the glass doors closed behind Izuku, swallowing him in the sterile glow of the foyer. Only then did he let out a long, slow sigh that seemed to come from his bones. His fingers, which had been gripping the steering wheel with a force that left white marks on his knuckles, relaxed.

He looked at the imposing building for a moment more, his face a mask of contained emotions. Then, with a precise movement, he put the car in gear and the Porsche slid away from the curb, diving back into the night, carrying with it the echo of a silence that spoke louder than any words.

The calm persisted. But it was a fragile calm, a smooth surface beneath which deeper, more dangerous currents were already beginning to stir. The eye of the hurricane doesn't last forever. And both knew, on some level, that the approaching storm would be the most devastating of all.

The apartment was an expensive silence.

Izuku closed the door behind him, the click of the electronic lock sounding like a period at the end of the night. The air conditioner whispered, maintaining a perfect, sterile temperature. He leaned his back against the cold door, eyes closed, still feeling the residual buzz of the music in his body, the weight of Katsuki's gaze in the dark of the car, the warmth of the embarrassed blush on his face.

What a night.

His mind, now free from the need to perform, to converse, to smile, began to dissect each moment with surgical, familiar precision. The friends' laughter. Kirishima's crushing hug. Tsuyu's serenity. Iida's obstinate loyalty. Todoroki's attentive gaze. Ochaco's contagious joy. They were his harbor. His anchor. Seeing them all there, united, happy, some even together… Iida and Ochaco, walking with a timid sweetness that warmed his heart; Todoroki and Momo, a quiet, complementary force; Kirishima and Mina, pure energy in sync; Kaminari and Jiro, an unlikely duo that made perfect sense.

They had found a form of happiness, simple or complicated, but theirs. And he was genuinely happy for each one. But, alone in that wide, empty space, happiness for others was like a warm light from another window: comforting to see, but not warming his own bones.

And then, of course, there was Katsuki.

Katsuki in the corner of the table, integrated, calm. Katsuki raising his glass in a silent toast that spoke more than any speech. Katsuki offering a ride with a practicality that didn't hide the gesture behind it: I won't leave you alone. Katsuki, owner of a secret and terribly embarrassing playlist, being exposed by the universe in a cosmic sequence of humiliation that should have been cruel, but only made Izuku laugh inside. Because it was human. Because it was real.

Katsuki trying.

And that was the part that hurt the most, and at the same time, the one that softened something petrified inside him.

Izuku pushed himself away from the door and walked to the panoramic window. The city spread out below, a carpet of lights that seemed cold from that height. He mentally saw the route the Porsche would have taken, towards the industrial district, to Katsuki's apartment, which he imagined as impersonal as his own, but with his unmistakable mark: obsessive cleanliness, state-of-the-art training equipment, maybe a plant or two Kirishima forced him to have.

Eight months of ice. Ice he himself helped create, protecting himself, building walls after that ugly fight, those words that cut deeper than any blade. Eight months where the only communication was professional, bureaucratic, dead.

And then, since Katsuki came back, three months of… attention. Of constant, silent presence. Of visible changes. Of therapy. Of an imperfect, but honest apology. Of an "I will redeem myself" that seemed to be being fulfilled, brick by brick, with the fierce stubbornness that was the only way Katsuki knew how to do things.

Izuku's heart did a strange, tight flip. It was a treacherous organ. He wanted to believe. Wanted to open the door he had locked with seven keys. Wanted to let that man in again, not into his apartment, but into his emotional space. Wanted to see how far Katsuki's road to redemption could go. Because, deep down, in a place not even pain or pride had managed to completely erase, there was still that boy who ran after Kacchan's brilliance, who believed in him even when no one else did.

But the mind, the mind was wise and scarred. The mind remembered the burn. The feeling of having opened up completely and being left bleeding. The loneliness that came after. The mind whispered: careful. Slowly. You don't have to go through that again.

It was an exhausting conflict. A tug-of-war between stubborn hope and the instinct for self-preservation.

He turned from the window, the weight of the number one hero title feeling like a lead coat on his shoulders. In the quiet, an idea began to form, clear and simple.

If even the worst villains get a chance at redemption in my philosophy… if I believe no one is beyond forgiveness if they show real remorse…

Why doesn't he deserve it?

The question wasn't about deserving, he realized. It was about courage. His courage. He had been brave enough to face All For One, to inherit One For All, to carry the world. Would he be brave enough to lower his guard for the only person who always knew how to hurt him most deeply?

The answer, at that moment, didn't come in words, but in a silent decision made in the center of that empty apartment.

He wouldn't surrender completely. Wouldn't open all the doors at once. The wound was old and deep, and the scars needed time.

But he would… allow. Would stop pushing so hard. Would observe, yes, but without the complete armor of distrust. Would accept the gestures, the rides, the silent toasts. Would see where that road led.

Because the ice, after eight months, was finally cracking. And on the other side of the fissure, he no longer saw only Katsuki's fury or pride. He saw a man trying. And trying, for someone like Katsuki Bakugou, was perhaps the greatest act of courage of all.

With a sigh that seemed to carry the weariness of years, Izuku walked towards the bathroom. A hot shower. Wash off the night, the beer, the tension, the residual scent of leather and static energy that seemed to have stuck to him.

As the water ran, he grabbed his phone. A message from Ochaco: "Got home safe! Iida is a super careful driver, haha. Did you get home? Everything ok?"

He smiled, a small, true smile. "Got home yes, all good. Thanks again for tonight. Sleep well, you two." It was good to see friends happy. It was a reminder that life, despite everything, moved forward, and good things could bloom even among the rubble.

The shower was quick, efficient. The hot water helped relax his muscles, but not the mental confusion. He put on a hoodie and fleece pants, feeling the warmth of the soft fabric. His phone vibrated again, now in the class group, with memes and blurry photos from the night. He saw one where he was half-crushed in the group hug, with an expression of happy desperation. Another, from afar, showed Katsuki in profile, looking at the table with that serious but relaxed expression. He saved both, without thinking much.

Before throwing himself onto the big, cold bed, he stopped again at the window. The city didn't sleep, but his piece of it was silent.

The decision was made. It wasn't surrender, nor a declaration of peace. It was an internal ceasefire. A truce with his own need to protect himself at all costs.

Katsuki was trying to redeem himself. And Izuku… Izuku would wait. Would observe. Would let that man, little by little, very little by little, approach again.

Because in the end, despite all the fear, all the past pain, one simple, stubborn truth remained, buried under layers of responsibility and scars: he still wanted to see what that story could become.

Chapter Text

The May air in Musutafu carried the warm promise of the approaching summer, but inside room 3-A of the U.A., a different tension took over the space. It was the kind of heavy silence that precedes a storm—or, for that matter, a flood of gossip.

Izuku Midoriya had his back to the class, writing on the board with precise movements that spoke of years of practice. His handwriting, once sloppy and anxious, had become clean, functional, professional. The topic of the day: Containment Strategies in High Population Density Environments.

"And that's why prior communication with the local authorities is essential," he explained, his voice calm and measured, the teacher's tone he had cultivated over the past few years. "The incident in Shinjuku's business district last year showed that even a coordinated team can—

He paused mid-sentence. It was not a sound that interrupted him, but an absence—the sudden cessation of the slight scraping of pens on paper, of concentrated breathing. In its place, a low, charged murmur, the kind of whisper that spreads like fire in dry straw.

Izuku knew that sound. He knew it very well. It was the sound of the rumor finding fertile ground.

He turned slowly, his green eyes—darker now, more marked by the shadows of sleepless nights and difficult decisions—scurrying the rows of desks. Twenty-two third-year students, all with their eyes fixed not on him, not on the blackboard, but on screens hidden under their desks, on cell phones theoretically stored according to U.A. rules.

"Sento," Izuku called, his voice still calm, but with a steel edge that didn't exist before the years of command.

The student in question—a young man with a shadow manipulation quirk—visibly shuddered.

"Is anything more interesting than mass evacuation protocols capturing your attention?"

"N-no, Midoriya-sensei!" It's just... A news that appeared...

"A news," Izuku repeated, crossing his arms.

The gesture was casual, but his posture had changed imperceptibly—the shoulders a little wider, the spine more erect, the posture of the number one hero, not the teacher.

"Consider that you have a test about containment arrays on Friday, I doubt any news is more important right now."

It was then that Kouta Izumi raised his hand. The boy—now nineteen, a third-grader, his face still marked by a seriousness beyond his years—had a strange expression on his face. It wasn't curiosity, nor the excited glow of someone who finds a juicy gossip. It was something closer to worry.

"Midoriya-sensei," Kouta said, his voice firm. "You need to see that.

Izuku studied his face for a second. Kouta was not given to exaggeration. If he was interrupting class, it was serious.

"See what exactly, Izumi?"

Kouta did not respond with words. Instead, he got up, took out his cell phone, and walked to the front of the room. His footsteps echoed in the sudden silence that took over the room. All eyes were fixed on him, anticipation hanging in the air like a thick mist.

When he reached the teacher's desk, Kouta turned the screen of his phone to Izuku.

And the world collapsed in slow motion.

Not the physical world—there were no earthquakes, there were no villains, there was no impending crisis. But the carefully constructed world that Izuku kept around himself, that barrier of professionalism and distance that he had erected after that fight, after the eight months of silence, after the painful and cautious rapprochement — that one did crack.

On the screen, a website called Hero Heartbeat printed headlines in large pink letters:

DEKU AND DYNAMIGHT: THE REUNION THE WORLD HAS BEEN WAITING FOR! EXCLUSIVE PHOTOS SHOW JAPAN'S NO. 1 AND 2 HEROES CLOSER THAN EVER AGAIN!

Izuku felt the blood drain from his face. His hands, which never trembled in battle—which faced All For One, Shigaraki, forces that defied reality itself—trembled slightly now.

"What's that?" He asked, but the voice came out more like a hoarse whisper.

Kouta slid his finger across the screen. Another site, Pro Hero Romance Daily:

SOURCES CONFIRM: DYNAMIGHT SPOTTED LEAVING DEKU'S BUILDING AT DAWN! HAVE THEY REKINDLED THE FLAME?

Another slip.

OFFICIAL SHIPP: BAKUDEKU IS BACK, AND THIS TIME IT'S HERE TO STAY!

Other.

A photo. Clear. Indisputable.

It was him getting out of Katsuki's Porsche that night a month ago after the ranking celebration. The lighting at the entrance of his building was perfect, almost theatrical. He had his back turned, but his profile was recognizable. And inside the car, visible through the windshield, was Katsuki — looking at him with an expression that, in the photo, seemed intense. Deep. Intimate.

Izuku swallowed. At the time, at that moment, he had interpreted that look as... caution? Attention? The silent care of someone who was trying not to cross boundaries? Now, frozen in pixels and scattered all over the internet, it looked like something completely different.

"There's more," Kouta said, his voice dead.

Another slip.

Photos of them patrolling together — security camera captures or maybe fan drones. In one, they stood side by side at the top of a building, their profiles silhouetted against the sunset. In another, Katsuki pointed to something on the horizon, Izuku leaning in to see, his shoulders almost touching.

And the worst: a photo clearly taken from afar, with zoom, of the silent toast at the Kiyashi bar. Their gazes locked on each other across the table, glasses slightly raised. In the caption: The look that says it all: Dynamight and Deku in an intimate moment between friends.

Intimate.

The word echoed in Izuku's mind with a bitter irony that burned like acid.

"Where..." he tried again, clearing his throat. "Where did you get this?"

"It's everywhere, sensei," Sento said, finally finding his voice. — Trending on all networks. HeroTwitter, Chatoro, even on the official forums of the Association. Hashtags #BakudekuReunion and #DynamightDeku are exploding.

A student near the window, Aiko, with a telescopic sight quirk, raised her hand shyly.

"Midoriya-sensei... Is it true? You two are... together again?

The question hung in the air, heavy, loaded with years of public history. Because everyone knew. Everyone remembered. During those brief, turbulent months before the fight, before the cutting words, before the eight-month estrangement.

And everyone saw when it was over. Everyone saw the ice that formed between them. Everyone saw the press conferences where they barely looked at each other, the separate patrols, the public silence that spoke louder than any statement.

Now, the world was watching... again.

Izuku has never moved so fast in a classroom. He straightened his back, his face closing in on the perfect professional mask—the one he wore for difficult press conferences, for unpopular decisions, for moments when he needed to separate the public hero from the man behind the symbol.

"This is not a subject for the classroom," he said, his voice firm, unquestionable. "And regardless of what you're reading online, remember that gossip about the personal lives of professional heroes rarely reflects reality. Now, if we can go back to containment protocols—

"But sensei!" Another student, Takeo, interrupted. His eyes sparkled with the inconsequential curiosity of youth. "Everybody's talking!" Even the Hero News Network is doing a special story! "The Possible Reconciliation of the Most Iconic Couple of the Post-All Might Era: What Does It Mean for the Heroic World?"

Izuku felt a chill run down his spine. HNN doing a special article. That meant it wasn't just gossip sites — it was mainstream media stepping into the narrative.

He took a deep breath. Once, twice. The mantra that All Might had taught her years ago echoed in her mind, but this time the words seemed hollow, insufficient. A hero smiles to calm others...

He forced a smile. Small. Professional. So fake that it hurt the muscles of my face.

"Takeo," he said, his voice deliberately light. "If I worried about all the stories and gossip about my personal life, I would never be able to do my job. And as heroes—professionals or in training—you'll learn that the focus should be on work, not on the rumor.

He clapped his hands once, the high-pitched sound cutting through the charged air.

—Page 147 of the manual. Case Analysis: Arakawa Bridge Incident. In groups of three.

By a miracle, it worked. The tone of command, the abrupt change of subject—the class, still whispering but now less fervent, began to organize. Izuku sat behind his desk, his hands meeting under the wood, his fingers intertwining with a force that left the knuckles white.

Kouta was still standing there, looking at him with that strange expression—not of curiosity, but of genuine concern.

"Is everything okay, sensei?" He asked softly.

Izuku looked at him, and for a second — just one — the mask cracked. He saw in Kouta's face the echo of the boy who once spat on his hand, who called him an idiot for wanting to be a hero, who witnessed the worst of his fight against Muscular. That boy, now grown up, was worried about him.

"It will be Kouta," he replied, his voice softer than he intended. "Thanks for showing me. Now you're going to join your group.

Kouta hesitated, but nodded and returned to his seat.

The class continued, but the energy in the room had changed irrevocably. Izuku could feel the gazes piercing his ribs as he wrote on the board. Whispers cut off as he turned around. Restrained smiles, meaningful looks exchanged between the students.

When the bell finally rang, announcing the end of the period, it was like a physical relief. The students began to put away their materials, but several of them hesitated, looking at him as if they were waiting for a statement, a confirmation, anything.

"Remember: Fukushima Plant case study for tomorrow," Izuku announced, avoiding direct eye contact. "And please, try to focus on more academic subjects in the next few hours."

He practically felt the question hanging in the air, heavy, unspoken. Until Aiko, the telescopic vision student, finally had the courage.

"Sensei, it's just that... Dynamight sometimes appears here, right? We know he gives lectures here for us sometimes, but last week he was waiting outside the room after class.

She blushed slightly, but kept going.

"I'm sorry, it's just that... People are saying that he comes here to... to try to get back with you.

The blood rose back to Izuku's face with full force. Try to reconnect. That was a kind way to put it. A public way. The truth was more complicated, more painful, more private.

The truth was that Katsuki came to U.A. because he was trying.

Trying to show, with actions and constancy, that he had changed. He was there officially for the lectures again — twice a week, speaking to different classes about heroism, responsibility, failures, and choices. Nothing improvised. Nothing impulsive. All calculated to be useful.

But it was also a way to stay close.

Not to force reconnection. Not to reopen something romantic — not yet, maybe never. Katsuki knew he didn't have that right. What he was trying to rebuild was something more basic, more fragile: trust. Respect. The possibility of existing in the same space without hurting.

So he kept a silent presence. Constant attention. He did not invade, he did not insist, he did not bring up a subject beyond what was necessary. He observed limits. He kept schedules. He was leaving.

After having destroyed everything with words chosen to hurt, being there — correctly, professionally, restrained — was the least he could do.
And yet, he knew: maybe it wasn't enough.

"Bakugou is a very busy pro hero," Izuku replied, his voice a little higher than he intended. "He comes to U.A. to give lectures and consultancies.... That's not what they're suggesting.

But even as he said the words, memories flooded his mind: Katsuki standing in the back of the room last week, his arms crossed, watching him explain water rescue techniques. At the time, Izuku had thought it was weird — why did Katsuki, hero number two, waste time watching a basic class? But he had attributed to... professional interest? Now, under the raw light of public accusation, every gesture, every visit, every look gained new layers of meaning.

"The bell has already been struck," he said, firmer this time. "Go away." Now.

The gang, finally realizing that they were not going to get anything more from him, began to leave. The whispers continued in the hallway, but now distant, muffled by the door that closed behind them.

Izuku was left alone in the room.

He took a deep breath. Once, twice, three times. The air came out trembling. His hands went to the cell phone in his pocket. He hesitated. He turned on the screen.

Twenty-seven notifications from HeroTwitter.

Nineteen of Chatoro.

Five messages from groups of heroes.

One from Toshinori: Izuku, my boy, some headlines have reached us... Are you okay there?

He closed his eyes. His eyelids burned.

"Shit."

Not five minutes passed when the door to the room opened again. Izuku didn't need to look to know who it was—the light, almost floating footsteps were unmistakable.

Ochaco Uraraka entered, closing the door behind him with a soft click. She was wearing a U.A. training uniform—she taught zero-gravity rescue techniques classes for sophomores on Wednesdays—but her expression was not that of a co-worker. It was that of a friend of a decade, someone who had witnessed it all.

"Izuku," she said, her voice soft but heavy. "Did you see?"

He let out a bitter laugh, humorless.

"I think half the world saw it, Ochaco.

She walked over to his desk, dropping her training backpack on the floor with a gentle thud.

"It's everywhere. The class group is in a zone. Denki sent about thirty prints. Mina is organizing a 'reconciliation' party that no one has confirmed. Iida is writing a treatise on journalistic ethics and privacy. Todoroki asked if we need to update the wedding gift list.

Izuku buried his face in his hands. The fingers pressed against his eyes, creating colorful spots in the darkness.

"Oh, my God.

"And the worst thing," Ochaco continued, her voice lowering to a more serious tone, "is that some of the pictures are really... convincing. The one with the toast at the bar? It looks like a movie scene. The car's? It sounds like those reconciliation dramas that my grandmother watches.

She paused.

"Who took these pictures?"

"Fans," Izuku murmured through his fingers. "Paparazzi." Someone with a good zoom and a lot of free time.

He raised his head, his eyes meeting hers.

"What are people saying?"

Ochaco pulled up a chair and sat down in front of him. His face took on a complicated expression — a mixture of concern, empathy and a touch of dark humor.

"Well... Most are celebrating. Like, really celebrating. There is already fanart popping up — a very detailed description of the two of you with your back turned, looking at the city from the top of a building, epic movie poster style. There are people asking for a public statement. Another faction is complaining that heroes shouldn't have such exposed personal lives. There was even an article in Hero Weekly analyzing the 'emotional dynamics' of your alleged relationship, with quotes from a psychologist specializing in post-war trauma.

She paused, studying his face.

"And Katsuki?" Did he see it?

Izuku swallowed hard.

"I don't know. He did not send a message.

He looked at his phone again. No Katsuki. No notification, no message. The silence was more eloquent than any reaction.

"He must be... dealing with it his way.

"Or blowing up the Best Jeanist’s agency itself," Ochaco suggested, a small, sad smile touching his lips. "Imagine him seeing these headlines. Dynamight, Japan's most serious, most controlled hero, covers pink gossip sites.

The image should be funny. And it was, in part. But it was also scary. Because if there was one thing Izuku knew about Katsuki — even now, after all — it was that he hated the loss of control. He hated imposed narratives. He hated having his life exposed and interpreted by strangers.

And that — this public narrative derailing, this story being written by fans and the media — was the antithesis of control.

"What are you going to do?" Ochaco asked, his voice soft but direct.

Izuku looked at her. The years had softened his features, but not the determination in his brown eyes. She was his oldest friend, the person who had been by his side since day one at U.A., who had seen all the falls and victories, who knew the real mess that was his heart when it came to Katsuki Bakugou.

More important, she knew what had happened. She had heard the details of the fight—not all of it, but enough. He knew the words that cut deeper than any blade. I knew about the eight months of ice that followed. He knew about the cautious rapprochement, the small gestures, the attempt.

"I don't know," he admitted, honesty coming out like a heavy sigh. "Denying it publicly seems... give too much weight to something it doesn't deserve. Confirming is impossible, because it is not true. Ignoring is the most professional, but...

He made a vague gesture with his hand.

"My students have already seen it. My colleagues have already seen it. It's everywhere.

"And you?" Ochaco pressed gently, but mercilessly.

It wasn't cruel—it was real.

"How do you feel about... All this? About people thinking you're back together?

The question hung in the air between them, laden with years of unspoken history, of pain not completely healed, of hopes carefully buried.

Izuku looked down at his hands on the table. The white scars on the knuckles, the fingers that had once broken repeatedly under a power he now masterfully controlled. The physical marks were easy to see. The emotions...

"I feel like..." he began, the words coming out slowly, as if each one needed to be weighed before being released. "It's strange. Seeing people interpreting moments that I lived, attributing meanings that I didn't give... but at the same time...

He paused, his throat tightening.

"But at the same time?" Ochaco encouraged, his voice almost a whisper.

"But at the same time, they're not entirely wrong," he confessed, the admission coming out as if it were a transgression. "The toast at the bar... It happened. The ride... It happened. He comes here, and I let him, and I don't know why, but I let him. And the way he's doing... trying. Changing. Going to therapy. Being different. This is real.

Ochaco was silent for a long moment, his eyes studying his face.

"So, the rumor bothers you because... Do touch on something that is true, but you are not yet ready to be true?

"Touch something that doesn't have a name yet," Izuku corrected, looking up at her. "And that I still don't know if I want to name. Or if I can. After all...

He didn't have to finish. Ochaco understood. She always understood.

"You still haven't forgiven him," she said. It wasn't a question.

Izuku shook his head, a slow, heavy movement.

"Not in the way that matters. He apologized for the gift, for being an idiot. But for 'that day'... by the specific words he said...

He swallowed, the memory still fresh enough to hurt.

"He said he's going to redeem himself. That will show, not just say. And I... I'm letting it. I'm watching it.

"But you're not really letting him in," Ochaco added, his voice soft. "Not in your heart." Not yet.

"Because I don't want to be hurt again," Izuku whispered, the admission coming out more vulnerable than he intended. "I want to see. I want to be in the front row of his changes. I want to believe that it is real. But if I let him in for real... if I open that door again...

"You risk having everything broken again," Ochaco completed for him.

Izuku just nodded, his eyes fixed on his hands on the table.

Silence settled between them, comfortable in its gravity. Outside the room, the sound of U.A. continued—students heading to their next class, laughter echoing down the hallway, life moving on.

"Then you two are not together," Ochaco said finally, more to herself than to him. "But the world thinks they are. And you... You're allowing him to get closer. You're seeing the changes. You're waiting.

"I'm waiting," Izuku confirmed, his voice firmer now. "Not for a perfect apology. Not by a grandiose statement. I'm waiting to see if the actions match the words. If the change is real. And if it is... if it is...

"If it is, maybe one day you can forgive," Ochaco added.

"Maybe one day I can trust again," Izuku corrected softly. "Forgiveness... I already have forgiveness, in part. I can't hate him. I never succeeded. But trust... let him in for real... This is different.

Ochaco nodded, a deep understanding in his eyes.

"And he knows that?"

"Yes. I think so. That's why he doesn't press. That's why everything is so... slow. And careful. He's respecting my boundaries. It is showing, not demanding.

"He's trying," Ochaco said, and there was a hint of genuine admiration in his voice. "Coming from him... That's a lot.

"yes," Izuku agreed.

The discussion didn’t end abruptly — it simply softened.
Voices lowered, shoulders relaxed. What had started as something technical slowly lost its edges, turning into side comments, small nods of agreement, the kind of shared understanding that didn’t need to be spoken out loud. The tension in the room eased without anyone pointing it out, like a collective breath finally released.
And that was when the mood shifted
And then, unexpectedly, a laugh escaped his lips—a laugh laden with absurdity and irony.

"God, Ochaco. Fanarts? Hashtags? Articles with psychologists?

She started laughing too, the faint sound filling the empty room, breaking some of the tension.

"I saw one that draws you in a heroic bridal uniform. It was... well detailed. Even the scars on his hands.

"Stop," Izuku moaned, covering his face again, but this time with genuine laughter mixed with embarrassment. "Please stop.

They laughed together for a minute, the tension dissipating a bit in the absurdity of the situation. When the laughter subsided, Ochaco became serious again.

"Seriously, Izuku. What will you do?

He took a deep breath, the air coming out in a long sigh.

"I'm going to do what I always do. My work. Teach my classes. Do my patrols. And... Do not feed the rumor.

He looked at his phone, still silent, still without messages from Katsuki.

"I'll leave it alone." If he wants to talk about it, he does. If not... life goes on.

Ochaco studied his face for a moment, then nodded.

"That's right. And if you need anything... You know.

"I know.

He smiled at her, a small but genuine smile.

"Thank you, Ochaco."

"Stop it."

She stood up, grabbing her backpack.

"Now, about this Hero Weekly article... Do you want me to buy a copy? To... historical documentation?

"GET OUT OF MY OFFICE, URARAKA!"

She left laughing, the door closing behind her, leaving him alone again.

The silence of the room was different now—less oppressive, more contemplative. Izuku picked up his phone, the notifications were still flashing incessantly.

He didn't open it. He did not read the messages. He didn't check the hashtags. Instead, he put the phone on silent mode and kept it in his pocket.

He got up, began to put his materials in his backpack. Its movements were mechanical and familiar. The painting needed to be erased. kouta's chair needed to be arranged. The light had to be turned off.

Everyday gestures. Normal. In the midst of the hurricane of gossip, there was a certain peace in normality.

When he left the room, the hallway was empty. His footsteps echoed off the walls. On the way out, he passed by the teachers' room. The door was ajar, and he heard familiar voices.

"I'm not saying it's true, I'm saying the circumstantial evidence is convincing!" Present Mic's voice was as lively as ever.

"Circumstantial evidence is not evidence," Aizawa retorted, his voice slurred, tired, as if he had had had this conversation a thousand times. "And even if they were, the personal lives of the former students are none of our business.

"But Shota!" The narrative potential! The two greatest heroes of our generation, a story of redemption, of reconciliation—

"Of hard work and unresolved trauma," Aizawa cut off, his voice sharper now. "And if you continue to spread gossip about my former students, I'll assign you to supervise the practical exams of the first years." Everyone. Alone.

A dead silence.

"You're a sadist, you know?"

— Frequently observed.

Izuku smiled to himself and moved on. Aizawa was Aizawa, regardless of the years. Some things—the fierce protection, the lack of patience for drama—never changed.

Outside the main gates of U.A., the world seemed to breathe differently. The air, which inside the campus was charged with the adolescent energy of hundreds of future heroes, here expanded, becoming more open, less controlled. The May afternoon sun shone warm and golden, reflecting off the tall windows of the campus buildings and the metal structures of the outdoor parking lots—that spring-specific light that promised unhurried summer, that illuminated everything with a generosity that seemed to forget, for a moment, the shadows.

Izuku took a deep breath as he crossed the great wrought-iron gates, feeling the weight of the academic environment—and that particularly charged class—finally begin to melt off his shoulders. It did not disappear completely, it never disappeared completely, but it transformed, becoming less acute, more diffuse, like an old pain that it had learned to live with itself.

He paused for a moment, allowing himself to feel the warmth of the sun on his face, the light wind that stirred the green hair that stubbornly did not tame itself completely, even after all these years. Then, with an almost ritualistic movement, he took his sunglasses out of the inner pocket of his blazer—Ray-Ban, classic model, black frame, lenses with maximum protection. It was not an accessory of vanity. It was a survival tool. As necessary as the bulletproof uniform, as the emergency communicator, as the constant training.

In public, Izuku Midoriya was no more.

There was Deku, the number one hero.
There was Midoriya-sensei, the teacher.
There was the symbol.

The glasses helped create a barrier, however fragile, between these public personas and the man who was still frightened by unexpected loud noises, who still had nightmares about the smell of ozone and burning, who still kept in a protected corner of his heart the memory of the boy who cried watching videos of All Might.

He put them on, and the world immediately took on softer, less aggressive tones. The colors did not disappear, they only deepened, as if seen through dark water.

Parking lot three was a little further away from the center of campus, reserved for senior professors, visiting high-ranking heroes, and officials. It was a wide space, paved with dark, well-maintained asphalt, flanked by rows of cherry trees that had already lost their flowers but retained vibrant green foliage. Walking there—about a five, six-minute walk from the main buildings—was something Izuku normally enjoyed. These minutes of silence, of open air, of apparent normality, worked as a necessary transition between the roles he played. A pause to breathe between being Midoriya-sensei and being again... himself. Whatever that meant today.

But that day, even this little routine of transition seemed to have been contaminated by the strange energy that had taken over everything since she had seen those headlines.

Even with the sunglasses — specially designed to make it difficult to recognize in photos — Izuku noticed the looks.

Some were quick, barely noticeable: people passing by—other professors, U.A. staff, visitors—making a double take, the recognition coming a second too late to be completely disguised. He saw the exact moment when eyes were fixed on him, the quick processing, the hesitation between greeting or not, between interrupting or moving on. Most chose to follow, but the extra, loaded look remained.

Others were less subtle.

A group of three teenagers—first- or second-graders, by their uniforms—stopped abruptly at the sight of him, quickly forming a tight circle of heads joined together. The whispers came as interfered radio waves, but he could pick up fragments: "... it's himself..." "... Did you see the photos?" "... Dynamight and him..." A cell phone was lifted, not directly, but at an angle that could be casual if it wasn't so deliberate. Izuku kept his face turned forward, his step steady, pretending not to notice. The photo would be taken anyway. It would be part of the infinite digital archive of the internet. Along with the others.

Farther on, an older woman—perhaps a teacher's wife, or a visitor—slowed her pace as he approached. His eyes scanned his face, then lowered to the bag he carried, from where the screen of a cell phone shone softly. She looked at the phone, then at it again, and then a small, almost complicit smile touched her lips. It wasn't a fan's smile. It was different. More... approver. As if he were saying, "I'm rooting for you."

Izuku held his head high, his stride steady, his posture that was a carefully trained blend of confidence and approachability. The shoulders slightly back, but not stiff. The straight column, but not military. Looking ahead, but not avoiding eye contact if it were unavoidable.

It was not the first time he had been recognized in public.

It probably wouldn't be the last.

But it was usually for work. For the missions. For the victories. For the title of number one hero. By the headlines about dramatic rescues, about battles won, about speeches about hope and reconstruction.

It was rare — increasingly rare, in fact — that the recognition was for... For his personal life. For your relationships. For something that was not the symbol, but the man behind it.

And that was different. It was more invasive. More intimate. It touched parts of himself that he kept locked away not out of vanity, but out of self-preservation.

As he moved away from the main buildings of the U.A., the movement around him gradually decreased. The constant noise of youthful voices, carefree laughter, hurried steps in corridors, the clinking of cupboards being opened and closed—all that vital cacophony that was the essence of a school—gave way to a more spaced, more contemplative silence. It was a silence broken only by the distant sound of traffic on the main avenue, the occasional song of a bird, the rustling of leaves on the trees in the gentle spring wind.

Izuku consciously slowed down the pace of his walk.

Perhaps by irony of fate — the universe suggesting that he needed this extra time.

Maybe because, deep down, he really needed it.

Because the walk to the parking lot, those few minutes of relative solitude, have always been a dangerous space for your mind. That's when the walls he kept up during work, during classes, during public interactions, began to crack, allowing thoughts and memories he normally kept under strict control to emerge to the surface.

And today, more than ever, those thoughts came with sharp, painful clarity.

Memories.

Always memories.

The fight.

Not a common argument, not a passing disagreement. The fight. That specific night, with the smell of rain in the air and the feeling of something about to break irreparably. He could still feel the cold of the ground beneath his bare feet, he could still see the expression on Katsuki's face—not of pure anger, but of something more complex, more dangerous. Anger mixed with fear. Fear mixed with something that seemed like despair.

The words.

Not words thrown at random in a moment of fury. Chosen words. Selected with surgical precision, each one sharp as a blade, each one aimed at hitting a specific point, a known vulnerability. Words about his concern being "disgusting." Izuku be a charge. Something to be endured, not wanted.

The worst words were not the ones shouted. They were whispered. The words were said with an icy calm that hurt more than any scream.

And then the door closing.

Literally and metaphorically.

Katsuki leaving.

Izuku staying.

The sound of the door closing not with a bang, but with a soft, final click. Like the sound of a sentence being uttered. Like the last point in a paragraph that they both knew would not continue—at least not on that page, not in that story, not in that way.

Eight months of silence.

No link.
No message.
No attempt.

With one exception—a gap in the ice wall that Izuku rarely allowed himself to examine up close, because when he did, the cold emanating from it was of a different kind: it wasn't the cold of absence, but the cold of doubt. The cold of the unanswered question that, over time, had become heavier than any silence.

Izuku rarely thought about that specific day—not because he had forgotten, but because remembering it required facing something that still hurt too much, with a dull, lingering pain that seemed to have lodged itself in the spaces between his ribs, becoming part of the architecture of his body. November. Before Christmas. Before any attempt at normality or reconciliation. Before he even admitted to himself how much Katsuki's absence still affected him, even after everything, even after the cutting words and the closed door.

The memory always came fragmented, like something he purposely preferred to keep out of focus—an image blurred around the edges, a muffled sound, a fuzzy sensation that insisted on lingering on the periphery of his consciousness. The diffuse feeling of having crossed a limit that I didn't even know existed until I crossed it. The delayed shock, which arrived not as a single impact but as a series of small subsequent tremors, each more subtle than the last, but all carrying the same metallic taste of error. The silent shame that set in afterwards—not the noisy shame of public embarrassment, but the intimate, private shame of vulnerability exposed in a moment of weakness.

The message.

He remembered sending it. He remembered the exact weight of the words in his language before translating them into text. He remembered the bluish light of the cell phone screen illuminating his hands in the dark, the white scars on his knuckles looking more pronounced in that ghostly lighting.

He remembered, mostly, the immediate feeling of regret—not for feeling it, not for the truth of the words, but for having let them slip away. For having allowed the carefully maintained barrier to crack on that particular night, under the combined weight of the loneliness of Christmas approaching and the silence that had lasted for too many months. For having turned into text something that should have remained unspoken, unwritten, unrecorded anywhere but in the deepest and most private recesses of his own heart.

Marry Christmas, Kacchan.
I miss you more than I should...
Come back home.

Three lines. Three sentences that contained a universe of unspoken meaning. Marry Christmas — the empty desire for normalcy, for celebration, for something resembling peace. I miss him more than I should—the painful admission that even after everything, even after the words meant to hurt, the emptiness Katsuki had left behind was bigger than the anger, bigger than the pride, bigger than any attempt to move on. Come home — the most vulnerable request of all, because what was the house? The apartment? Japan? Or simply... Be close? Wherever that went?

He never received a answer.

Never.

Not even one "received". Not a "seen". Not a confusing question mark. Nothing. Just the digital void where an answer should be—a void that has become, over time, more eloquent than any word that could have been written there.

And since then, Katsuki has never mentioned that message. Not once. Not even when he returned to Japan, wet and smelling of smoke, with his eyes red from something that was not anger. Nor in the cautious months that followed, with their visible attempts at change, with their therapy, with their respect for limits. Not even now, when they were navigating this strange space between forgiveness and trust.

Silence about silence. The absence commenting on another absence.

It was there, in this double void, that doubt began to grow—first as a tiny seed, then as an insidious plant that took root in the darkest corners of his mind. A doubt that offered a way out, an explanation, a shelter from a more difficult truth.

Maybe he didn't see it.

Perhaps the message was never delivered.

Perhaps Izuku was blocked at that time, and the message had disappeared into the digital ether without ever reaching its destination.

Maybe the number was wrong—even though he knew it by heart, he had typed it so many times in so many different contexts.

Maybe Katsuki had lost his phone.

Perhaps there was an error in the system.

Maybe, maybe, maybe...

This possibility—fragile, uncertain, built on fragile "what if" hypotheses—has become a psychological shelter. A place where Izuku could retreat to when the alternate reality became too big to carry.

Why believe that Katsuki had read those words... who had seen the raw admission of longing, the implicit request to return... and chose not to answer... this required an emotional strength that Izuku simply didn't have at that moment. It required facing the possibility that his greatest fear—that his emotions would not only be unanswered but actively ignored, dismissed, deemed unworthy even of a negative response—was reality.

It was easier to accept the neutral hypothesis. It was more bearable to think that the silence had not been an active decision, a conscious rejection, but rather a technical accident, a logistical misunderstanding, a miscommunication without attributable fault.

It was a narrative that allowed Izuku to preserve a remnant of dignity. That allowed him to look at Katsuki now, during these months of cautious trying, and see not only the man who was trying to redeem himself, but also the man who might not have seen his most vulnerable message. That he might not know how close Izuku had been to breaking down completely during those eight months. That it might not carry the weight of having ignored a direct request for return.

Even now, with everything that had happened since then, with the slow rapprochement, with the visible changes, with the whole world speculating about them... Izuku still clung to that possibility. He still kept her close, like a talisman against a more painful truth.

Even though he knew, on some rational level, that Katsuki was never the kind of person who ignored important things. Even though he saw, over the years, the meticulous way Katsuki handled communication — responding to messages quickly, even if coldly; keeping up to date; being almost obsessive about not leaving things undone.

Even though I knew that certain silences were not empty — they were too heavy. That the absence of an answer was, in itself, an answer. That sometimes what was not said spoke louder than any word.

Izuku chose not to fully believe what his own instincts told him.

Perhaps Todoroki was right, in the one time he mentioned, in passing, that sometimes messages were lost. Which systems failed. That digital was less reliable than it seemed.

Perhaps that Christmas message—with its three lines laden with a whole year of silent pain—had never reached its destination. Had he gotten lost somewhere between his phone and Katsuki's, disappearing into the vast space between them, as literally as metaphorically.

And if it hadn't arrived...

So the silence of eight months was just silence.
So the lack of trying was just a lack of trying.
So the pain was just pain, not increased by the weight of silent rejection.

So everything could still be different — not in the sense of rewriting the past, but in the sense of how it was interpreted. In the meaning that was attributed to it.

It was in this — in this fragile possibility, in this stubborn hope against logic itself, in this refusal to accept the most painful interpretation — that Izuku chose to believe.

Not because it was necessarily true.
But because sometimes the only way to move forward was to choose the version of the story that didn't completely break the heart that still needed to keep beating.

He took a deep breath, the May air entering his lungs, but the memory of the cold of those months was still there, like a shadow under his skin.

And then.... The vivid, almost physical memory.

The apartment still smelled of smoke—sweet, acidic, lingering—mixed with the metallic aroma of the icy water that had fallen from the sprinklers. The silence that followed the thunderous noise of alarms and the fire system was so dense that it seemed to have a physical texture, a damp mist that weighed down the lungs and drowned out any sound other than the constant dripping of water through the soaked furniture.

Izuku was standing in the middle of the room, his shoes making a dirty, soggy sound against the dark wooden floor that was now stained and swollen. His clothes—a simple sweatshirt and training pants—were completely soaked, glued to his skin under the wet weight of the icy water. The normally unruly green hair now fell heavy over his forehead, dripping water down his face, mingling—he suspected but wasn't sure—with tears he preferred not to examine closely.

But it wasn't the physical discomfort that kept him immobile. It wasn't the cold that made his fingers tremble slightly. It wasn't even the surreal mess around him—the displaced furniture, the soggy books, the gift Katsuki had now brought a damp, unrecognizable mass wrapped in wet paper.

It was the weight of what had just happened.
That was what had just been said.

Katsuki was standing by the door, equally soaked — normally so flawless, so aggressively clean—now a dark, heavy second skin against his body. Water dripped from her blond hair, which looked darker when wet, drawing fine lines on her pale face. He didn't look at the mess. He did not look at the ruined present. His eyes—and this was the part Izuku was still trying to process—were fixed on him. But not with the usual intensity, not with the aggressive focus that Izuku had associated with Katsuki for so many years.

They were fixed, yes, but there was something... misaligned. Something that was not completely sustainable. Something broken and recognizing its own fracture.

For a long moment, neither of them moved. The only sound was water dripping — from the ceiling, from the furniture, from their bodies — in a ragged, hypnotic rhythm.

Then, Katsuki took a deep breath. A hoarse, broken sound that seemed to come out of the depths of his lungs. He started moving.

Not quickly. Not with the usual aggressiveness. Slowly. Measuredly. As if each step required a conscious decision, a careful calculation of weight and balance, not only physical, but emotional.

He walked to the door.

Izuku watched him. He said nothing. It didn't move. His mind—normally so fast, so analytical, so full of words—was strangely empty. Or perhaps so full that it had become a static white. The anger was still there, yes—a warm, familiar ember in his chest. The pain too — throbbing, persistent, linked to the memories of that fight, of the cutting words, of the eight months of silence.

But there was something else too. Something small. Something that shouldn't be there, but that insisted on existing. A spark of stubborn hope that, despite everything, refused to die completely.

Katsuki arrived at the door. His hand—his right hand, the same one that had so often generated explosions that could level buildings—stood up and touched the handle. The movement was strangely delicate. Cautious.

He turned slightly, his profile illuminated by the dim light coming from the outside hallway. His eyes met Izuku's for one last moment.

In that gaze, there was everything and nothing. There was the weight of years of shared history—rivalry, friendship, love, hate, all mixed into one inextricable mess. There was recognition of the damage caused. There was the vulnerability of someone who knew they had broken something precious and wasn't sure if it could be fixed.

But there was no request for forgiveness. There was no explanation. There was no justification.

There was only... presence. And the pain that accompanied this presence.

The door began to open. The air from the hallway—colder, drier, impersonal—entered the apartment, creating a slight current that made Izuku shiver, though he wasn't sure if it was from the cold or something deeper.

Katsuki took a step outside. Then another.

Izuku stood where he was, the invisible roots pinning his feet to the soggy ground. Part of him wanted to say something. Part of him wanted to scream. Part of him wanted to run and close the door before it was too late.

But most of it—the tired part, the bruised part, the part that still bore the scars of the words spoken in that fight—remained silent. Immovable.

The door began to close.

Slowly.

Almost hesitantly.

It was almost a relief, that slow and final movement. A clean end. No promises that could be broken. No hopes that could be crushed. No risk of being hurt again. Just the closing of a chapter. The door closing, literally and metaphorically, on everything that had happened between them.

Almost.

"Izuku.

 

His voice was low. Hoarse. Forced out at the last possible second, as if she had fought her way out and only managed to get on the limit.

The door stopped. It did not close completely. It was opened by a crack, a narrow space through which she could still see Katsuki standing in the hallway, his face half in shadow.

Katsuki didn't turn around completely. He didn't have to. His voice, when it came again, had a quality unlike anything Izuku had ever heard from him before. He was not arrogant. It wasn't challenging. It wasn't even the controlled, professional voice he used in interviews.

It was... raw. Imperfect. Loaded with a contained emotion that made the words come out a little crooked, as if he had practiced a lot, but when it came to saying it, they still didn't come out perfectly.

"I'm going to redeem myself.

A pause. Short. Heavy. Loaded with everything that wasn't being said.

"For the things I said that day. All of them.

The simplicity of the words was what hurt the most. There were no ornaments. There were no elaborate explanations. There were no attempts to justify or rationalize. Just the naked statement. The raw commitment. The promise made not with grandiloquence, but with an honesty that was almost brutal in its simplicity.

I'm going to redeem myself.
For the things I said.
That day.
All of them.

Izuku didn't answer.

Not because he had nothing to say—he did, he had so much that he could fill the flooded apartment, that it could overflow through the windows, that it could drown both of them in unspoken words.

But because, at that moment, any answer seemed wrong. Premature. Dangerous. Any word that came out of his mouth could break the fragile balance of that moment, could turn that raw promise into something smaller, into something negotiated, into something that lost the weight of its simplicity.

And perhaps his silence—his unanswer, his remaining still and silent—was the most honest thing he could offer at that moment. The silent admission that he didn't know what to say. That he didn't know if he believed. That he did not know if it was possible to redeem himself after what was said.

But also, perhaps, the silent admission that he was listening. That he had heard.

The door closed completely then.

With a smooth click.

Definitive.

Izuku stood in the middle of the flooded apartment, the water still dripping around him, the smell of smoke and cold water still strong in the air, the clothes still clinging to his cold body.

And just then, when the solitude of the space around him closed completely around him, did he realize that he was shaking.

Not just the cold.

Everything.

And since then... Everything had been like this.

Slow.
Careful.
Deliberate.

Small gestures, almost imperceptible to anyone who wasn't paying attention. Constant attention, but not intrusive. Visible changes, but not performative.

Katsuki going to therapy — and telling him, with visible embarrassment, but not looking away.

Katsuki controlling the nervous outbursts, the sparks in the clapping that once betrayed every inner agitation.

Katsuki respecting boundaries, asking before assuming, waiting before pressing.

Katsuki trying.

And Izuku... observing.

Waiting.

Allowing.

Not friends — not yet. The trust for friendship was something that required a level of vulnerability that he wasn't ready to offer again.

Not boyfriends — much less. The terrain of the novel was mined by memories of sharp words and closed doors.

There was nothing that had a name, a category, a clear definition.

Just... Right. That strange, nebulous, undefined space between forgiveness and trust. Between old pain and cautious hope. Between a destroyed past and a future yet to be written.

Two men trying to navigate through an unknown territory, without a map, without a compass, with only the fragile light of the attempt as a guide.

And now the whole world looking at this nebulous, undefined, complicated space, and seeing... A love story rekindled.

The irony was so dense, so perfect in its vagueness, that it almost made Izuku smile true. Almost. Because the smile was accompanied by a tightness in the chest, that familiar cold that was the price of self-awareness.

He was close now. Parking lot three loomed ahead, along a final curve in the stone path that wound through the manicured gardens of the U.A. It was a sprawling, military-efficient space that characterized many things in the school of heroes. Rows of vehicles—some discreet, others boasting power and status—lined up under the protective shade of large plane trees.

His car was there, as always, in its designated space in the far corner, near the most discreet exit. A BMW X7, deep black, aggressive lines softened by the elegance of the design. It was an expensive vehicle—a very expensive one—a symbol of success that sometimes still seems surreal to the boy who had grown up in a modest apartment with his mother. But it was also practical: space for equipment, maximum security, the ability to move quickly around the city if necessary. And, not least, he was discreet in his category. It drew no more attention than the inevitable.

Izuku slowed his pace as he approached.

Perhaps by irony of fate, which seemed to insist on giving him extra time to think.

Maybe because, deep down, he really needed that extra second, that extra breath, before entering the bubble of leather and steel that would take him back to another world—the world of the number one hero, of endless meetings, of decisions that weighed like lead.

He stopped a few meters from the car, the keys already in hand — a simple button, without physical keys. The vehicle recognized his approach, and the interior lights lit softly, a silent greeting.

It was then that he realized that he was no longer alone.

Not in a threatening way. There was no tension in the air, no instinct of danger that activated One For All under his skin. Just... presence.

— Midoriya-sensei?

The voice came from his left, with a youthful hesitation, but without fear. It was the voice of someone who had decided to speak before courage disappeared.

Izuku turned slowly, his body relaxed but alert, years of training impossible to completely shut down.

Two boys were standing a few steps away, near an older red pickup truck that probably belonged to one of the PE teachers. They must have been about sixteen years old—the age when anything seems possible and at the same time frightening. They wore ordinary school uniforms, not from the U.A., but from some local high school. The backpacks on their backs felt heavy with books, and there was a nervous energy around them, a mixture of admiration and anxiety that was common in young people in front of public figures.

"Sorry to bother," said the one who was further ahead, a boy with messy brown hair and dark eyes that shone with an intensity that Izuku recognized very well. It was the glow of genuine admiration, not the empty curiosity of gossipers. "We just... I wanted to say something quick. I promise it won't be long.

Izuku studied them for a second. No threat. Just teenagers being teenagers. He nodded, a short but not hostile movement.

"Alright," he said, his voice calm, Midoriya-sensei's voice, but a little softer. "What's wrong?"

The two boys exchanged a quick glance with each other, a silent communication that seemed to decide who would have the courage to speak first. The second boy — blonder, with freckles on his nose — gave his friend a little push.

"We've seen the news," the first boy said, swallowing. "About you and Dynamight."

Izuku felt his chest tighten by reflex, a familiar squeeze, but he kept his expression neutral, his posture open. It was not the first time they had touched on the subject today. It probably wouldn't be the last.

"You saw," he repeated, not as a question, but as an acknowledgment.

"And..." The boy continued, his voice gaining a little more firmness, as if the opening words had broken the barrier of nervousness, "we just wanted to say that... The whole world is on your side. Really.

The second boy nodded vigorously, his blue eyes fixed on Izuku's face with disarming sincerity.

"Like, really," he added, his fingers tightening the straps of his backpack. "If someone tries to make fun of it, talk shit, make things up... We solve it ourselves. You don't even need to get close.

Izuku blinked, genuinely surprised.

Not for the offer itself—in his years as a hero, he had heard many declarations of support, many pledges of loyalty. But by the tone. By the intensity. By the way these two teenagers, who should hardly have known the complexity of what was happening, spoke with such absolute conviction, so... protective.

"No... You don't have to do that," he started automatically, the instinct of teacher and hero speaking louder. The instinct to protect, to prevent others from getting involved in problems that were not theirs. "I thank you, but..."

"We know," the blond boy interrupted, not rudely, but in an anxious hurry. "You're strong as hell. The strongest. Number one. And so does Dynamight. You two... You don't need anyone to defend yourself.

He paused, as if searching for the right words.

"But..." he continued, his voice a little lower, but no less intense, "sometimes it's nice to know that there are people cheering, right? That there are people who... that sees. And that supports. Not because they need to, but because they want to.

There was a silence then.

Not the heavy silence of the early classroom. Not the silence loaded with unmet expectations.

A different silence. Smoother. More... hot.

Izuku looked at the two boys—their young, serious faces, full of that stubborn idealism that he himself had carried for so long, and that he sometimes felt he had lost under the weight of responsibilities. He saw the honesty in them. The lack of calculation. Pure support, untainted by ulterior motives or the emotional complexity that involved it all.

And something inside him—something that had been cold since he'd seen those headlines, since he'd faced prying eyes, since he'd remembered everything that was still unresolved—woke up.

It wasn't a flame. It wasn't dramatic.

It was just... heat.

A gentle warmth that started in the center of his chest and spread slowly, like the first sip of hot tea on a cold day. It wasn't pride—he knew the difference all too well. It was not vanity—that he knew too. It wasn't even relief, exactly.

It was welcoming.

The simple, powerful, moving feeling of not being alone. That regardless of what happened between him and Katsuki, regardless of the painful past, the uncertain future, the emotional mess that was his present... There were people who just... supported. That they cheered. Who wished for happiness, in the midst of everything.

It was a small thing. Insignificant, perhaps, in the grand scheme of things. Two teenagers speaking words of support in a parking lot.

But in that moment, after the day he had, after the weeks, the months, the years of carrying weights alone... That meant something.

It meant a lot.

Izuku took a deep breath, and when he spoke, his voice was a little lower than he intended. More human. Less of the number one hero, more of the man who was under the title.

"Thank you," he said, and the words came out simple but loaded with a genuine gratitude that he didn't try to hide. "Really. Thank you for saying that.

The two boys smiled—broad, carefree smiles that transformed their serious faces into something much younger, much lighter. They seem almost surprised by the reaction, as if they expected a formal nod, a professional thanks, no... Right.

"Good luck, Midoriya-sensei," the brown-haired boy said, his voice now filled with renewed confidence.

"Plus ultra," added the blond, with an even wider smile.

And then, almost as quickly as they appeared, they turned and began walking toward the parking lot exit, their steps quick, their heads together again, laughing softly at each other—the light, carefree sound of teenagers who had just done something they thought was too important for their age.

Izuku stood still for a few seconds longer, watching them walk away.

The whole world watching.
But also... supporting.

The irony was still there. The complexity was still there. The pain of the past, the caution of the present, the uncertainty of the future—all of it was still there, intact, weighing on his shoulders as it always had.

But there was something new, too. Something small, yes. Something perhaps naïve, coming from two teenagers who couldn't fully understand the complicated web of history, trauma and attempt that involved him and Katsuki.

But it was real.
And it was hot.
And for a moment, it made the weight feel a little more bearable.

He finally turned to the car, pressing the button on the controller. The doors unlocked with a smooth click. He opened the driver's door, entered the quiet, climate-controlled interior, and closed it behind him with a muffled sound that instantly isolated the outside world.

He took off his sunglasses, placing them carefully in the central compartment. He took a deep breath, his hands resting on the leather steering wheel, his eyes closed.

The silence inside the car was different from the silence in the parking lot. It was more... contained. More personal.

His phone, now out of his pocket and placed in the holder, began to vibrate again. Notifications. Messages. The digital world insisting, always insisting.

He didn't look.

Instead, he stood there, in the relative darkness of the vehicle's interior, breathing.

Allowing the warmth of that small moment—the unexpected support, the youthful sincerity, the reminder that it wasn't all complicated, that sometimes things could be simple, just people cheering for other people—settle into his chest.

Because maybe... just maybe... That was the lesson he needed to learn today.

That allowing someone to try to redeem themselves was an act of courage.

Watching the changes, waiting, allowing time to do the work... That was also courage.

And that, in the midst of everything, there was still room for small gestures of kindness. For unexpected support. To the simple, powerful truth that he was not alone.

He opened his eyes, started the engine—a soft, powerful roar that was barely audible inside the cockpit—and put the car into gear.

The way back to his apartment, to the silence that awaited him, to the decisions he needed to make, to the conversations he would eventually have to have... all of this was still ahead.

But for now, at this moment, with the warmth of that little interaction still fresh in his chest, Izuku allowed himself to believe—very briefly, very cautiously—that maybe, just maybe, things could work out.

Not perfectly.
Not easily.
But somehow it was worth trying.

And for now, that was enough.

The trip continued and he finally arrived at his apartment, put his backpack on the floor, took off his shoes. He went to the kitchen, filled a glass with water, drank. The cold liquid burned his throat in an almost pleasant way.

The phone finally came out of his pocket. Placed on the quartz counter, the screen down.

He didn't want to see it. I didn't want to know. I didn't want to get into that whirlwind of gossip and speculation.

But...

But part of him wanted it. Part of him—that stubborn, hopeful part that still remembered the boy who ran after Kacchan, who still kept the good memories in the midst of the bad—wanted to know what the world was saying. I wanted to know if people really supported me. I wanted to know if...

If one day, when and if something really happened between them, the world would be ready to see.

He turned the phone over.

The screen was full. Notifications about notifications. Mentions. Tags. Messages.

He ignored the majority. But one caught his eye — a mention of a profile he recognized. It was from an LGBTQ+ organization supporting young heroes. The message was simple:

"To all the young heroes who are watching the story of Deku and Dynamight unfold: remember that reconciliation is possible. What change is possible. That second chances — when deserved — are possible. Love, in all its forms, is a heroic act."

Izuku stood still, staring at the screen. Love, in all its forms, is a heroic act.

But the change... This was real. The attempt... This was real. The possibility of a second chance... That was open.

And maybe, just maybe, that would be enough for now.

The phone vibrated again. This time, it was a notification from a messaging app. Not from the class group. Not Ochaco. Not Toshinori.

It was an alert that Katsuki Bakugou was online.

Izuku looked at his index finger. The three dots that showed someone was typing appeared. They disappeared. They appeared again.

And then... nothing.

Katsuki went online for another thirty seconds. The three dots flashed a few more times. And then he went offline.

No message was sent.

Izuku stood still, staring at the screen, a strange mixture of relief and... disappointment? No, not disappointment. Something more complicated.

Katsuki had seen it. I had considered sending a message. I had decided not to send it.

Why?

Why was he respecting the limits? Why didn't you want to press? Because you knew that Izuku needed space to process this on his own?

Or simply because he didn't know what to say?

Izuku didn't know. And maybe he didn't need to know.

He put the phone in airplane mode and left it on the counter. He went to the window, looking at the city that was beginning to light up with the lights of the early evening.

Somewhere out there, Katsuki was probably at his agency, or in his apartment, or maybe still in training. Somewhere out there, the rumor mill continued to spread, taking on a life of its own, fueled by public and private hopes.

And here, in this quiet room, Izuku decided not to care. Not completely.

Because in the midst of that storm of gossip and speculation, there was a grain of truth—a small, fragile truth, not yet named, but real.

He was letting Katsuki try. He was watching. He was allowing the changes to happen. He was slowly, cautiously, allowing the possibility of something new—not a return to what it was before, but something different, perhaps better—to exist.

And the world could think whatever it wanted. I could create fanart, hashtags, elaborate theories. He could make polls and speculations.

Meanwhile, in real life, the truth—slow, complicated, unromanticized, painfully real—continued to unfold.

And that truth was more important than any headline.

The phone, even in airplane mode, seemed to pulsate with energy contained over the counter. Izuku stared at him for a long moment, then turned around and walked over to the bedroom. Change clothes. Take a shower. Prepare dinner.

Everyday gestures. Normal.

Because in the end, despite everything—despite the title of number one hero, despite the headlines, despite the gossip, despite the painful past and the uncertain future—he was still just a man. A man trying to do his job. A man trying to heal old wounds. A man watching, waiting, allowing.

And maybe, just maybe, a man beginning — very slowly, very carefully — to believe that second chances were possible.

What change was possible.

That sometimes, the most heroic act was not to save the world, but to allow someone to try to redeem themselves.

And he was allowing it.

For now, it was enough.

He was in the front row. Watching. Waiting.

And the world could think whatever it wanted.

★

The May afternoon light poured in through the tall windows of Best Jeanist's office at perfect angles, illuminating every speck of dust that danced in the air. The space was so meticulously organized that it almost looked like an art installation: every pen lined up, every document stacked with millimeter precision, every book on the shelf positioned exactly three inches from the edge of the shelf. To most people, that environment would have seemed sterile, oppressive. For Katsuki Bakugou, it was one of the few things that still made sense in his increasingly complicated world.

He was sitting in one of the black leather chairs—the only one in the room that wasn't perfectly aligned with the table, because he had pulled it out half an hour earlier, when he had arrived for the post-mission meeting. Now, with the work already discussed, the reports signed, the strategies revised, he should be on his way to his own agency, or to training, or anywhere other than there, motionless, with his hands clasped on his knees and his eyes fixed on the void of the opposite wall.

But Best Jeanist had not yet dismissed him. And Katsuki knew from experience that when Jeanist kept someone after formal hours, it wasn't for lack of topic.

The silence in the room was not uncomfortable—another fact that Katsuki himself would have considered impossible a few years ago. It was just... expectant. Loaded with the same careful attention that Jeanist devoted to everything.

The man in question was standing by the window, his profile elegant silhouetted against the afternoon light. Even at rest, his posture was impeccable—his shoulders straight, his spine aligned, his hands—always gloved, always precise—crossed behind his back. He didn't seem impatient. Just... waiting.

When he finally spoke, his voice was as calm and measured as ever, but there was a different quality to it today. A soft, almost paternal weight that Katsuki recognized from the few times Jeanist had decided to go beyond her professional mentor and touch on subjects that others avoided.

"Bakugou."

Katsuki looked up, a short, barely perceptible movement.

"Yes.

"There was... developments — Jeanist did not turn around immediately. He kept looking out the window, as if the words needed more breathing room before they could be directed. — Public developments. About you. About Midoriya.

Something inside Katsuki tightened. It wasn't the familiar grip of anger, nor that sudden heat that preceded an explosion. It was something colder, deeper—a tension that began at the sternum and radiated through the ribs like ice.

"What kind of developments?" He asked, keeping his voice neutral.

It was an achievement, this neutrality. Months of therapy, breathing exercises, learning to name the emotion before reacting to it. It was not yet natural. It still required conscious effort. But it was possible now.

Jeanist finally turned around. His eyes, always so analytical, so hard to read, studied Katsuki's face for a moment before he walked to the table. His footsteps were silent on the thick carpet.

"It's best to show it," he said simply.

He took the tablet that was on the table — the same one they had used to review the maps of the mission in Yokohama — and touched the screen a few times with precise fingers. Then he spun the device and slid it across the polished surface until it came to rest in front of Katsuki.

"Before you react," Jeanist added, her voice soft but firm, "remember that this has been in circulation for several hours. The moment of containment has passed. Now it's about management.

Katsuki looked at the tablet.

And the world—that carefully controlled, meticulously managed world he had built over the past few months—collapsed into silence.

The screen showed a website called Hero Heartbeat. The colors were vibrant — pink, purple, gold. The big letters screamed:

DEKU AND DYNAMIGHT: THE REUNION THE WORLD HAS BEEN WAITING FOR! EXCLUSIVE PHOTOS SHOW JAPAN'S NO. 1 AND 2 HEROES CLOSER THAN EVER AGAIN!

He felt the air come out of his lungs all at once, as if he had been punched in the diaphragm. His hands, which were on his knees, clenched into fists, his knuckles turning white under the pressure.

Without saying a word, he slid his finger across the screen.

Another site. Pro Hero Romance Daily.

SOURCES CONFIRM: DYNAMIGHT SPOTTED LEAVING DEKU'S BUILDING AT DAWN! HAVE THEY REKINDLED THE FLAME?

Other.

OFFICIAL SHIPP: BAKUDEKU IS BACK, AND THIS TIME IT'S HERE TO STAY!

And then, the photos.

The first was the Kiyashi bar. That moment—the silent toast, the stares locked across the table. In Katsuki's memory, that moment had been about... What? Recognition? Respect? A silent truce between two people who were learning not to hurt each other anymore?

In the photo, frozen in pixels, it looked like something completely different. It felt intimate. Romantic. The kind of moment couples share in movies, not two exes trying to navigate the minefield of a shattered past.

The second photo was of the car. He stood in front of Izuku's building, the engine still running, he still looking at where Izuku had entered. The lighting at the entrance was perfect, almost theatrical. And his face — his face in the picture had an expression that he himself didn't recognize. It seemed... smooth. Attentive. Almost tender.

When in fact, at that moment, he was thinking, "Fuck, I didn't say anything stupid. I didn't press it. I only offered the ride. I did it right. This time I did it right."

The third, the fourth, the fifth — photos of them patrolling together, on rooftops, landing side by side, coordinating movements with the synchrony that only years of intimate knowledge — and therapy — could provide.

Every photo was a real moment. Each moment had a logical, professional, innocent explanation.

But together, under the distorted lens of the public narrative, they told a completely different story.

A story of reconciliation. Of reunion. Of love rekindled.

Katsuki felt a warmth start at the base of his neck and rise, reaching his ears, his cheeks. It wasn't the heat of anger—though there was some of that too, a familiar spark that tried to ignite in his chest. It was heat of... Embarrassment? Shame? Or something more complicated — the heat of being seen, really seen, and having what was seen interpreted in such a public, so brazen way?

"What the fuck?" The question came out low, restrained.

His voice did not tremble. That was an achievement too.

"I didn't know that.

"I realized that," Jeanist replied, still standing across the table, watching him with that clinical, relentless attention. "Otherwise, I believe we would have already received reports of... explosive incidents in several newsrooms.

Katsuki let out a breath through his nose—a short, humorless sound. Not even a laugh. Just air being expelled under pressure.

His eyes returned to the tablet. For the car photo. To his own face, frozen in a moment of attention that now seemed something much more intimate than it was.

"When did it start?" He asked, still looking at the screen.

"Around noon." Someone posted a photo of the bar. In one hour, the others appeared. In two, it was trending on all platforms. Now—" Jeanist paused. "It's now in all heroic portals. The Hero News Network did a special. There are polls. Hashtags. Fanarts.

The last word echoed in Katsuki's mind with absurd weight. Fanarts. Drawings. His and Izuku's. Made by fans. By strangers.

"Shit," he muttered, more to himself than to Jeanist.

His instinct—the old instinct, the one that still whispered in his ears in times of stress—was to pick up the phone. Call Izuku. Or rather, send a message. Something short, direct. "Did you see that shit?" "Okay?" "Do you need me to do something?"

His hand went to his pocket almost in the reflection. The cell phone was there, a familiar weight against his thigh. He took it off, the screen lighting up with his touch. The messaging app opened almost by itself — Izuku was at the top of the conversation list, as always. Always as always.

His fingers hovered over the keyboard.

What to say?
How to get started?
"Hi." Very casual.
"Did you see the headlines?" Very obvious.
"Are you bothered?" Very much... invasive.

He started typing. It stopped. It blacked out. It started again.

"Bakugou."

Jeanist's voice cut through the air, not harshly, but with a firmness that made Katsuki look up.

"Don't send it," Jeanist said. "Not yet.

Katsuki clenched his jaw. The muscle popped out at his temple.

"He must have seen it by now.

"That's why," Jeanist stepped forward, resting her gloved fingertips on the polished surface of the table. "Midoriya is being watched right now by students, colleagues, the press and members of the Association. He is Japan's number one hero. Any communication from you now, no matter how well-intentioned, can be interpreted as pressure. As an attempt to influence the narrative. How... confirmation.

The word "confirmation" hovered among them, heavy, heavy.

Katsuki closed his eyes for a second. He breathed. Once, twice. The exercises her therapist had taught her—inhale for four seconds, hold for seven, exhale for eight—worked, but only enough to keep her palms from starting to sparkle.

He opened his eyes.

"I just wanted to know if he's okay," she said, and her voice came out softer than she intended. More vulnerable.

Jeanist did not immediately respond. She watched him for long seconds, his eyes—always so hard to read—seeming to weigh every micro expression on his face, every tension on his shoulders, every nuance in his voice.

"Katsuki," he said at last, and the use of his first name was no accident.

It was a deliberate transition—from mentor to... something closer. Something that, in another context, could be called paternal, if Jeanist wasn't so meticulous about avoiding sentimental labels.

"Let me be direct.

Katsuki looked up, keeping it fixed on Jeanist's eyes. It was not a challenge. It was attention. Respect.

"You still love him.

It wasn't a question.
It was not an accusation.
It was just a statement. Clara. Simple. Indisputable.

The silence that followed was so dense that it seemed to have a weight of its own. Katsuki could feel it pressing against his shoulders, against his chest, against the back of his throat.

For a moment, just one, he considered denying. He considered exploding. He considered doing what old Katsuki Bakugou would have done—shouting, cursing, destroying something, anything to avoid having to face that truth spoken out loud.

But old Katsuki Bakugou was no longer in control. The old Katsuki Bakugou had been disassembled, piece by piece, in weekly therapy sessions. Old Katsuki Bakugou had learned—the hard way—that truth, even when painful, was always better than lies. Especially when the lie was for oneself.

He didn't look away.

"Yes," he said.

The word came out simple. Clara. No ornaments. No excuses.

It was the first time he had said it out loud to anyone other than his therapist, or to the bakusquad. The first time he admitted, outside the safe and confidential space of the office, that what he felt for Izuku Midoriya was not just guilt, or regret, or the obsessive need to redeem himself.

It was love.

It always had been.

Jeanist nodded slowly, as if the answer wasn't a surprise, but rather a confirmation of something he'd known for a long time.

"That goes without saying," he said, his voice still calm, still measured. "It's in your eyes." In the way you talk about it — or don't say it at all. In the way you've adjusted your behavior over the past few months. And... in the photos too, even if distorted by the public lens.

Katsuki swallowed. His throat was tight.

"But loving doesn't solve shit," he said, and his voice was rougher now, charged with a bitterness that was old acquaintance. "Not after what I did.

Jeanist tilted her head slightly, a thoughtful gesture.

"It doesn't work," he agreed. "But explain." Explain why you're trying. Why you're going to therapy. Because you're learning to breathe before you react. Because you're respecting boundaries that you would have ignored before. Love, by itself, is not redemption. But it can be the motivation for her.

Katsuki took a deep breath, running his hand through his hair in a gesture of frustration that was almost familiar, but now without the violence of before.

"I'm doing everything right now," he said, and there was a tone of despair contained in his words. "For the first fucking time in my life, I'm doing things slowly. I'm thinking before I speak. I'm asking before taking over. I'm... trying.

The word "trying" came out almost like a whisper. It was a small word for a process that felt monumental. Try to be better. Try to redeem yourself. Trying to deserve a second chance that he knew he didn't deserve, but that he desired with an intensity that sometimes scared him.

"And that scares you," Jeanist said, not as a question, but as an observation.

Katsuki laughed—a short, humorless sound.

"Fucking bad," he admitted. "Because if I make a mistake now... If I do shit now, after all... There is no turning back. I know that.

Jeanist crossed his arms, a gesture that in anyone else would have seemed defensive, but in him it seemed only contemplative.

"Katsuki," he began, and there was a subtle change in his tone, "softer, but no less serious. "There is something we need to discuss. Something you haven't told him yet.

Katsuki's jaw locked. His whole body tensed at once, as if he had been immersed in icy water.

He knew what Jeanist was talking about.

I knew that conversation. She had had variations of it with her therapist. With All Might, once, in a difficult and painful conversation months ago. Even with himself, on sleepless nights, staring at the ceiling of his silent apartment.

The truth.

The complete truth.

Not just about the fight. Not just about the horrible words he had said. Not only about the eight months of leave.

But about the reason. The real reason. The thing he still didn't have the courage to say to Izuku, because he knew — he knew with a certainty that it hurt his bones — that if he said, if he confessed that last piece of the puzzle, any chance, no matter how small, of reconciliation, of forgiveness, of anything that looked like peace between them, would disappear forever.

"If I tell him," He said, and his voice was so low now that it almost disappeared into the silence of the room, "I'll lose him for good."

Jeanist did not move.

"Or maybe not."

Katsuki raised his head sharply, his scarlet eyes meeting Jeanist's with an intensity that was almost physical.

"You don't know that," he said, and there was a challenge in his voice, but not aggressive. Desperate. "You can't know.

"No," Jeanist agreed, unfazed. "But you don't know you'll lose him either." What you do know—what you know for sure—is that hiding the truth always comes at a price. And the longer you wait, the higher that price becomes.

Silence again.

Katsuki clenched his hand into a fist on the table. The knuckles turned white. He could feel the heat beginning to build up in his palms, an ancient reflex, a warning that his body was preparing for a reaction that his mind no longer allowed.

He breathed. He forced his hands open. It forced the heat to recede.

"I don't want to fuck it up," he said, and the honesty in the words was raw, unpolished, almost painful to hear. "Not now. He... He's starting to trust. Again. I see. In his eyes. In the way he lets me get closer. In the way he accepts the ride. Who responds to messages. That no longer avoids me. If I play this now... If I put this shit on the table now, I destroy everything.

He paused, swallowing.

"And I don't know if I'll survive that again," he added, so low that it was barely audible.

Jeanist watched him for long seconds. His face, always so controlled, so impenetrable, seemed to soften for an instant—just an instant—into something that could be understanding. Or maybe pity. But not the condescending pity that Katsuki hated. A deeper, more respectful penalty.

"Then pick the right moment," Jeanist said finally, her voice soft but firm. "But don't confuse 'care' with 'eternal postponement'. Don't confuse 'respecting his time' with 'protecting yourself'. The truth, Katsuki... Truth has its own time. And she rarely cares about our preparation.

He took a step back, a deliberate move that signaled the end of that part of the conversation.

"Don't text today," he continued. "Let him process this alone." If he wants to talk, he will. And when you decide to tell the truth... Do this by looking into his eyes. No excuses. No justification. Only the truth.

Jeanist turned to leave, but stopped at the door. He didn't turn back when he spoke, but his voice carried clearly through the silent space.

"Katsuki."

"Hm?"

"Redemption is not about being forgiven. It's about being willing to lose something important—perhaps the most important thing—if it means being honest. It's about putting the other person's good above your own fear. It's about understanding that some things are bigger than us.

A pause.

"And love, when it is real, always chooses the truth. Even when the truth hurts.

The door closed softly behind him, leaving Katsuki alone in the impeccably organized office.

The silence that followed was different from the previous silence. Heavier. More personal.

Katsuki sat for a long moment, his hands now spread on his knees, his eyes fixed on the tablet that still showed the pink headline about him and Izuku.

He breathed.

He breathed again.

Then, slowly, he picked up the cell phone that was still on the table. The screen had gone dark. He lit it again.

The conversation with Izuku was still open. The last message was from two days ago, about the schedule of joint patrols. Before that, about a report. Before that, a brief question about whether Izuku's arm was better after a strain.

Professional conversations. Short. Useful.

Nothing that the headlines were hinting at.

And yet...

He looked at the photo on the tablet. To his own face, looking at where Izuku had entered the building. The expression on his face...

Jeanist was right.

It was all there. In your eyes. At the tilt of his head. In the softness of his features that only existed when he thought no one was looking.

He still loved him.

Yet.

Always.

The question was: what to do with this love? How to carry it without letting it destroy everything again? How to use it not as an excuse, but as motivation to be better? How to balance the desire to be close with the need to respect the space? How to navigate the minefield of the past without detonating the few bridges that remained?

And the truth... the truth he had not yet told...

His fingers hovered over the phone's keyboard once again.

He started typing.

"Don't care about this shit. It's just gossip."

It blacked out.

Very abrupt.

"If you need me to do something, say it."

It blacked out.

He seemed condescending.

"Okay?"

It blacked out.

Very simple. Very much... insufficient.

He closed his eyes, rubbing them with his thumb and forefinger. The fatigue that was always there, deep down, in the bones, in the muscles, in the mind, seemed heavier now.

The phone vibrated in his hand.

He opened his eyes quickly.

It wasn't Izuku.

It was Kirishima.

Hey: DUDE DID YOU SEE THE INTERNET TODAY?????

Katsuki let out a sigh. I should have imagined. Kirishima always stayed on top of these things. And if Kirishima knew, the whole group knew. And if the whole group knew...

He didn't even finish the thought.

The office door opened again, no knocking, no ceremony.

"What's up, man?"

Kirishima was standing in the doorway, an easy smile on his face, but his sharp red eyes studied Katsuki's face with an attention that bespoke the lightheartedness of the tone. He had a backpack slung over his shoulder, the agency's uniform slightly untidy—a deliberate contrast to the obsessive perfection of his surroundings.

Katsuki did not move.

"No.

Kirishima arched an eyebrow.

"Not what?"

"I didn't see it.

"Aham," Kirishima entered, closing the door behind her. "Of course not. Half of Japan is freaking out, making fanarts, creating hashtags, and you, the protagonist of the story, didn't see anything.

Katsuki cast a corner glance at him.

"I don't care about that shit.

Kirishima laughed—a genuine, easy sound that seemed absurdly out of place in this serious, organized room.

"Of course you don't care. Dynamight, Japan's most serious, most focused, most professional hero, doesn't care about gossip. So far, great.

He approached, letting the backpack fall to the ground with a gentle thud.

"But care about him, right?"

The question was asked with a lightness that did not deceive anyone. Kirishima could be laid-back, he could be the heart of the group, he could be an incurable optimist. But he was also one of the few who truly understood Katsuki. One of the few who had seen the transformation up close. One of the few who knew the price Katsuki was paying to try to be better.

Katsuki did not immediately respond. Instead, he rose from his chair, his movements deliberate, controlled. He grabbed the agency's jacket that was on the backrest, putting it on with precise gestures.

"I worry about him," he said finally, his voice neutral, with no apparent emotion. "The rest fuck you."

Kirishima watched him as he got ready, his smile fading a bit but not completely disappearing. There was an understanding in his eyes—a quiet realization that this wasn't just a statement of concern. It was a declaration of priority. Focus.

"So..." Kirishima began, choosing his words with a care that was rare in him. "Good luck, brother.

Katsuki nodded once, a short, dry movement.

"I will."

He started walking towards the door, passing Kirishima. At the threshold, he stopped for a moment, without turning around.

"If he texts... Let me know.

Kirishima smiled, now for real.

"Okay Okay.

Katsuki left, closing the door softly behind him.

The hallway outside Jeanist's office was as quiet as the one inside, but with a different silence—emptier, less loaded. The afternoon light poured in through the windows at the end of the hallway, drawing golden rectangles on the dark floor.

Katsuki walked to the windows, pausing to look at the city below. From above, Musutafu seemed organized, controlled. The buildings lined up, the streets traced with precision, the movement of traffic following predictable patterns.

Misleading.

Because underneath that uncluttered surface, there was always chaos. Always unpredictability. Always stories unfolding, lives intersecting, rumors spreading like wildfire.

And now, he and Izuku were at the center of one of those rumors.

Not a rumor about work. Not a rumor about heroism. Not a rumor about skills or achievements.

A rumor about feelings. About the past. About possibility.

A rumor that, in a way, was not entirely wrong.

Because he still loved Izuku.

And Izuku... Izuku was allowing him to get closer. Slowly. Cautiously. No complete forgiveness yet, no full trust yet, but allowing.

It was more than Katsuki deserved. He knew that. But it was what he had. It was what he was building, brick by brick, gesture by gesture, message by message.

And now all this shit.

He took his cell phone out of his pocket again. The screen was full of notifications — from HeroTwitter, from Chatoro, from news apps. Mentions. Tags. Alerts.

He didn't open any.

Instead, he opened the conversation with Izuku once more.

The three dots that indicated someone was typing didn't appear. Izuku was offline. Or maybe you were online, but not typing. Or maybe she was staring at the screen, just like him, trying to decide what to say.

Or maybe I wasn't thinking about him at all.

This possibility hurt in a familiar and old way.

Katsuki closed his eyes, leaning his forehead against the cold glass of the window.

Memories. Always memories.

The fight. The words he had spoken—chosen not to express anger but to hurt. To cut. To ensure that Izuku never approached again. To protect... What? His pride? His insecurity? The part of him that was so afraid of being loved that it would rather destroy love before it could be destroyed?

And then the eight months of silence. Eight months in which he realized, slowly, painfully, that destroying something didn't protect him from pain—it only guaranteed that the pain would be eternal, because it was now accompanied by regret.

And then November. He coming back.

And January. Wet. Smelling of smoke. With the words he had practiced so much in therapy coming out crooked, imperfect, but true.

"I'm going to redeem myself. For the things I said. That day. All of them."

And since then... trying. Always trying.

And Izuku... allowing. Always allowing.

Not friends. Not boyfriends. There was nothing that had a name.

Just two men trying to navigate the complicated space between pain and hope, between past and future, between destruction and reconstruction.

And the world looking at this space and seeing a love story.

The irony was so dense that you could almost touch it.

The cell phone vibrated again in his hand.

This time, it was a notification from a different messaging app. An alert that Izuku Midoriya was online.

Katsuki looked at his index finger. The three points appeared. They disappeared. They appeared again.

And then... nothing.

Izuku went online for another thirty seconds. The three dots flashed a few more times. And then he went offline.

No message was sent.

Katsuki stood still, staring at the screen, an eerie mixture of relief and... something that was not disappointment, but came close to her. No disappointment that Izuku didn't text. Disappointment for... for something harder to name.

Because part of him wanted Izuku to text. I wanted Izuku to say something—anything. That he confirmed that he was well. Who laughs at the situation. That he would be angry with her. Anything that showed that he was still there, on the other side, still involved, still... caring.

But another part of him—the part that was slowly learning to be better—understood that Izuku's silence was, in itself, a message. It was: "I need space". It was: "Let me sue". It was: "Don't press".

And Katsuki was learning to respect that silence.

I was learning that sometimes the most loving act was not to say something, but to say nothing.

I was learning that redemption was not about grand gestures, but about small contentions.

He put his phone on silent mode and put it in his pocket.

He looked at the city once more, at the afternoon light that was now beginning to take on orange tones, at the shadows that stretched between the buildings.

Somewhere out there, Izuku was probably at his agency, or in his apartment, or maybe even at U.A., finishing his classes. Somewhere out there, the rumor continued to spread, taking on a life of its own, fueled by the hopes of fans, the hunger of the media, the human need for stories with a happy ending.

And here, in this silent hallway, Katsuki decided not to feed the rumor. He decided not to send the message. He decided not to press.

He decided to wait.

Because that was the new thing he was learning: to wait. Breathing. Trusting that, if something was going to happen, it would happen at the right time — not in his time, not in the time of the rumor, but in Izuku's time.

And if nothing happened... well, that too he would have to learn to accept.

He moved away from the window, starting to walk towards the exit. His footsteps echoed in the empty hallway.

The cell phone in his pocket seemed to weigh more than it should, full of unread notifications, unsent messages, unspoken truths.

But for now, he would leave it alone.

Because for the first time in his life, Katsuki Bakugou was learning that some battles are not won with explosions, but with patience. That some wars are not won with confrontation, but with waiting. That some truths... Some truths need their own time to be said.

And until then, he would keep trying.

It would keep getting better.

He would continue to love, in silence, at a distance, with the care of someone who knows that what he has is fragile and precious.

And maybe, just maybe, one day that would be enough.

★

The wind cut through his face like thin blades, but Katsuki didn't even feel it. His muscles worked in perfect synchrony, each explosion on the soles of his feet a calculated impulse, each movement an equation solved in fractions of a second. He wasn't flying to get away. It was flying to contain.

The world below was a blur of lights and shapes, but his brain mapped every overhang, every roof edge, every empty space between buildings with almost painful precision. Aerial parkour. That was it. Rhythm. Focus. Control. If the body were too busy to obey, the mind would have no room to wander. I wouldn't have room to think about the stark pink headline. In Izuku's stuck gaze in the bar photo. In the deafening silence that had settled between them since the world decided to rewrite its history.

He deliberately avoided the ground.

The ground was where people walked. Where they talked. Where they looked at him with that expression—half curiosity, half hope, half something he wasn't allowed to name. The ground was dangerous. In the air, he was just Dynamight, hero number two, a channeled force of nature, a physics problem in motion. On the ground, he became Katsuki Bakugou, the man who had destroyed the most important thing he ever had and who now didn't know if he deserved to pick up the pieces.

More importantly, he avoided, with a care that bordered on the ritualistic, any route that crossed Izuku's patrol sectors. It wasn't afraid to meet him. It was respect for a space he knew Izuku was still trying to define. An invisible border that Katsuki was learning not to cross uninvited. Therapy had taught this: limits were not barriers to be broken down. They were lines to be seen, recognized, honored.

The communicator on his wrist vibrated. Once, twice, three times. Messages. He didn't need to look to know who it was. The vibration pattern was familiar—the organized chaos of Bakusquad trying, in his own clumsy way, to figure out if he was okay without having to ask directly.

He landed on top of a commercial building, his feet meeting the concrete with a cushioned impact. He took a deep breath, the afternoon air was still warm in his lungs. Her palms tingled slightly, a remnant of unused adrenaline. He pulled out his device, looked at the screen.

Kaminari: DUDE THE PHOTOS HAHAHAH you are famous
Mina: Kat suuuu, needing something? Gossip firsthand? rs
Sero: how are you?

Katsuki clenched his jaw. His fingers moved over the screen, fast and impersonal.

It's okay.
Solved.
I'll talk later.

Lies. Half-truths. Shield words. They would know. Kirishima, especially, would know how to read between the lines, to feel the tension even through digital text. But they would respect it. It was the unspoken agreement between them: ask, but not pressure. Offer, but don't force. They had seen the transformation too closely not to understand the fragile balance it maintained.

He put the communicator away, looked at the horizon. The sun began its descent, hitting Musutafu's buildings with shades of orange and pink. It was beautiful. It was peaceful. And he felt a knot form in his stomach, because the beauty of that moment only served to highlight the ugly mess inside him.

Jeanist was right, of course. He always was. "You still love him."

The statement echoed in his mind, not as a revelation, but as a solemn confirmation of something he had carried for so long that it had already fused to his bones. He loved Izuku Midoriya. It was not a discovery. It was a state of being. A fact as fundamental as the gravity he defied with each jump. He loved him during the years of toxic rivalry. He loved him during the brief, glorious months when they were more than friends. He loved him during the ugly fight, when the words that came out of her mouth were chosen not to express anger, but to ensure that Izuku never came close again — because Katsuki, at that moment, was more afraid of being loved than being alone.

And he loved him now, during those months of silent and painful attempt. He loved him as he observed the changes in himself—the therapy, the breathing exercises, the constant effort to think before he spoke, to ask before he assumed, to wait before he demanded. She loved him as she felt the old pain of guilt, a pain that had become a familiar companion, and a shadow that walked beside her.

But love, as Jeanist so wisely pointed out, didn't solve shit. He did not erase the words spoken. It didn't fix the broken trust. It didn't give him the right to re-enter Izuku's life. Love was just the fuel. The motivation. The reason he was willing to disassemble and reassemble, piece by painful piece, in the hope — fragile, stubborn, almost reckless — that one day he could become someone worthy of being by Izuku's side again. Not as a rival. Not as a co-worker. But how... something. Anything Izuku consented to give.

He threw himself from the building again, the air roaring in his ears. The free fall was a kind of meditation. There was no room for complex thoughts, only for instinct and reaction. But even so, Izuku was there. Always there. In the way Katsuki instinctively adjusted his trajectory to an angle that Izuku would use. In muscle memory from fights trained together. In the phantom sensation of a shoulder touching yours, confident, solid.

The return to the agency was like entering a decompression chamber. The energy there was different — still professional, but charged with the laid-back familiarity of the Bakusquad. They were scattered around the common room, each engaged in their after-hours tasks, but the stillness that settled in as he entered was palpable. No joke. No idiotic comments on the headlines. Just a silent acknowledgment that the terrain was swampy.

Kirishima approached, her footsteps heavy on the polished concrete floor. His sharp red eyes studied Katsuki's face for a second before he spoke, his voice lower than usual, without any of the usual bravado.

"Okay?"

Two words. Simple. Direct. Open enough to allow any response, but loaded with a genuine concern that Katsuki could never completely dismiss.

"I am," Katsuki replied.

And strangely, at that point, it wasn't a complete lie. He was. He was standing. He was breathing. I was dealing with it. This counted as "being well" in the new parameters of his life.

Kirishima just nodded, a slow and understanding movement. Nothing more needed to be said. It was one of those rare moments of perfect communication between them—an acceptance of pain without the need to dissect it.

Katsuki spent the next hour resolving pending issues. He signed mission reports in aggressively precise handwriting. Reviewed training schedules. He returned equipment. Each task was a brick in a wall between him and the thoughts that insisted on coming back. Keep your hands busy. Keep your mind focused on the next step, the next document, the next trivial decision.

When he finally grabbed the keys to the Porsche from the hook in his living room, fatigue began to seep into his bones. It wasn't the physical fatigue of training—he was used to it, he even wanted it. It was a deeper, more mental fatigue, the kind that came from sustaining an emotional weight for hours on end without respite.

The agency's underground parking lot was cold, quiet, and dimly lit. The sound of his footsteps echoed off the concrete walls. His car was parked in his usual space—away from the others, near the exit. A Porsche 911 Turbo S, varnished black, aggressive lines that reflected his taste for power and precision. A symbol of success. Of conquest. Of everything he had built and that, at times, seemed so hollow.

The soft click of the doors unlocking seemed absurdly loud in the silence. He entered, sinking into the leather bench that wrapped around his body like a shell. He closed the door. The sound of the outside world was abruptly muffled, replaced by a quiet, climate-controlled vacuum.

He started the engine. The low, powerful roar of the engine was a comforting, familiar noise. He placed his hands on the steering wheel, his fingers automatically adjusting to the leather grooves.

And then, as if a dam had broken, Izuku came back.

Not in flashes or isolated memories. Like a flood. Like a physical presence that filled the car's enclosed space.

The photo of the bar. The silent toast. The looks that, at that moment, had been about truce, about cautious respect, but that in the photo seemed... anything but. They seemed intimate. Loaded. As if they were sharing a secret that only the two of them understood.

The photo of the car. He stood in front of Izuku's building, the engine still running. His own face in the reflection of the windshield—the expression he didn't know he had. Smooth. Helpful. Needy. When in fact, at that moment, his only thought had been, "Don't mess it up. Just let it go. Don't press."

And the others. Patrolling together. The synchrony that still existed, even after everything. The way their bodies still moved like parts of a single organism, anticipating each other's movements with a precision that went beyond training. A connection that neither eight months of silence, nor cutting words, seemed able to completely eradicate.

The dashboard of the car lit up softly, amber and white lights creating a ghostly glow in the dark interior. That's when his cell phone, placed on the stand, vibrated with a different insistence. It was not a message. It was a call. Video.

The name flashed on the screen: Mitsuki Bakugou.

Katsuki closed his eyes for a second, a deep, tired sigh escaping his lips.

"Fuck."

He knew this would happen. It was inevitable. Mitsuki Bakugou had the most accurate gossip radar in all of Japan, especially when it involved her only son and the boy she had practically adopted as a second. He pressed the button to answer.

The screen exploded in color and movement. Mitsuki was in the foreground, his expressive face filling most of the frame. Behind her, a little blurred, was Masaru, his expression calm and patient, his eyes already conveying a silent apology for the chaos that was about to be unleashed.

"YOU IDIOT!"

Mitsuki's voice burst out of the car's speaker, so loud that Katsuki instinctively turned down the volume.

"WHY DIDN'T YOU TELL US?"

Katsuki rubbed the bridge of his nose with his thumb and forefinger.

"Mom...

- NOT 'MOM' THE FUCK! She continued, gesturing violently to the camera, as if she could reach him through the screen. "I FOUND OUT FROM THE OTHERS!" BY INKO! SHE CALLED ME ALL HAPPY, SHOWING ME THE PHOTOS, ASKING IF IT WAS TRUE! "OH, BECAUSE KATSUKI CAME BACK WITH IZUKU", "OH, BECAUSE NOW EVERYTHING IS FINE"! DO YOU KNOW WHAT THAT IS? DO I HAVE TO FIND OUT FROM HIS MOTHER? I FEEL LIKE AN IDIOT!

Masaru appeared more in the frame, placing a gentle hand on her shoulder.

"Mitsuki, calm down." Let the boy talk.

"CALM DOWN, MASARU!" OUR SON CAME BACK WITH HIS BOYFRIEND AND WE DIDN'T KNOW ANYTHING!

Katsuki felt a familiar warmth of irritation begin to rise on the back of his neck, but he took a deep breath. Inhale for four. Hold for seven. Exhale for eight. The therapist's technique. He was no longer in control of his emotions; He was in control of his reaction to them.

"That's not what you're thinking," he said, his voice deliberately flat, controlled. "And I don't have the head to explain today.

There was a pause. Mitsuki seemed to actually see him for the first time, his eyes scanning his face through the screen. Dark circles. The pallor. The tension in the corners of his mouth that he couldn't completely disguise.

Masaru leaned forward, his wise and calm face filling more space.

"Katsuki..." his voice was soft, non-judgmental. "Is that true?"

The question was simple. Direct. And charged with a hope so clear in his father's eyes that Katsuki felt something inside him twitch. Masaru had always liked Izuku. She had always treated him with a kindness that contrasted violently with the way Katsuki had treated him for years. He saw in Izuku something that Katsuki took a lifetime to see: pure goodness. Genuine resilience. A heart that, miraculously, still had room for forgiveness.

Katsuki couldn't lie to that look. But he also couldn't tell the truth. The truth was too complicated, too ugly, full of edges that could hurt even through a screen.

He looked into his father's eyes, and then into his mother's, who were now a little less furious and a little more worried.

"Can we talk to you tomorrow?" The question came out softer than he intended. Almost a request. "Please.

The silence that followed was short but dense. Mitsuki has studied him, and he sees the exact moment when her mother has gotten over the gossip. She saw the fatigue. He saw the weight. She saw the boy she raised, now a man carrying things she didn't fully understand, but respected enough not to invade.

The fury faded from his shoulders, replaced by a more practical concern.

"You look terrible," she said, her voice finally lowering to a normal pitch. More human. More maternal. "It looks like you haven't slept in a week. What are you doing with yourself?

Katsuki did not respond. There was no answer that was not another half-truth.

Mitsuki sighed, a heavy and resigned sound.

"Okay." Sleep. Tomorrow you call. Or show up here for dinner. But you're going to talk, Katsuki. Don't make me figure things out by Inko again.

He nodded, a short movement.

"Good evening."

"Have a hot tea before bed," Masaru added, his smile gentle and a little sad. "And try to rest, son."

The screen went dark.

Katsuki sat in the car, the engine still running, the soft rumble filling the silence that now seemed even deeper. The conversation had lasted less than five minutes, but he felt as if he had just fought an S-class villain.

He put the car in gear and left the parking lot. The streets of Musutafu at night were familiar. He could have walked through them with his eyes closed. Every turn, every traffic light, every convenience store that stayed open late was a reference point in a mental map he had traced over years of patrol and life. He drove on automatic, his thoughts far away, revolving around the same fixed point: Izuku.

And the truth.

The truth that Jeanist had mentioned. The truth that he had been carrying a stone in his stomach for months. The truth about that night. About the fight. About the words he had spoken—not just the ugly, shouted words, but the truth behind them. The real reason. The ugly and cowardly thing that led him to try to push Izuku away in the most painful way possible.

He had practiced the confession in his head hundreds of times. In therapy sessions, while staring at the ceiling at night, during solitary patrols. He imagined different scenarios, different words, different reactions. And in all of them, the result was the same: Izuku would forgive him.

That was the cruelest part. The part that made everything more difficult.

Because Izuku Midoriya, despite everything, had a good heart. A heart that had found room for Katsuki even when he was just a cruel bully. A heart that had forgiven him for things far worse than words spoken in a moment of anger and fear. Katsuki knew, with a certainty that hurt, that if he told the truth—the whole ugly, cowardly truth—Izuku would forgive him. Probably with tears in his eyes. Probably with a sad smile. Probably saying something like, "I get it, Kacchan. Thank you for telling me."

And that was the real torture.

Because Katsuki didn't deserve this forgiveness. Not yet. Maybe never. Izuku's forgiveness was a vast and generous thing, an ocean that could drown anyone's guilt. And Katsuki feared that if he received this forgiveness so easily, before he truly deserved it, he would never learn his lesson. It would never become better. He would never truly redeem himself.

A small part of him, the old and cowardly part that still whispered in his ears in moments of weakness, told him never to tell. Burying the truth. Letting Izuku believe the simplest narrative — that Katsuki was just an angry idiot, not a scared coward. This part argued that the truth would only cause more pain. That it was better to leave some stones unturned. That he could build something new on top of silence.

But the part of him that was trying to change—the part that went to therapy, that practiced breathing, that respected boundaries—that part knew that Jeanist was right. The truth had its own weight. Your own time. And hiding it was no protection; it was another form of cowardice. He was changing. It had to change completely. And real change meant facing the ugly things, not pushing them under the rug.

"Love, when it is real, always chooses the truth. Even when the truth hurts."

Jeanist's words echoed in her mind, clear and unrelenting.

He arrived at his building, a tall, modern building in Musutafu's business district. He parked in the basement, took the elevator to the highest floor. The apartment was spacious, minimalist, expensive and, most nights, too empty. A symbol of success that sometimes felt more like a cell.

He dropped the keys in the ceramic pot at the entrance, a habit his mother had insisted he create. The metallic sound echoed in the silence. He took off his jacket from the agency, hung it up. The civilian clothes he wore in the morning seemed uncomfortable now, as if his skin was eager to get rid of anything that reminded him of the day that had passed.

The bath was a ritual. Water as hot as he could handle, steam filling the frosted glass shower. He stood under the jet, letting the water hit his shoulders, at the back of his neck, trying to dissolve the tension that had settled between his shoulder blades. It didn't work. The tension was not physical. It was deeper. Lodged somewhere between the chest and throat, a knot of guilt, desire, and fear that no hot water could undo.

He went out, wiped himself with rough movements. He wore an old black T-shirt and a pair of sweatpants. The bare feet on the dark wood floor looked strangely vulnerable.

He walked around the apartment aimlessly. The immaculate kitchen, never used for anything other than making coffee. The living room with expensive couches that were never occupied. The panoramic view of the city through the floor-to-ceiling windows — Musutafu at night, a carpet of twinkling lights, beautiful and distant.

He stopped in front of the windows, his arms crossed. His own reflection, ghostly and translucent, overlapped the city. Deep dark circles. Mouth tense. Eyes that looked older than his early twenties.

To tell or not to tell.

The question swirled in his mind like a top, an endless spiral of pros and cons, fears and hopes.

If he did, he risked losing everything. Izuku could forgive, yes. But he could also walk away, finally realizing that the person he trusted—whom he still trusted, against all logic—was even more flawed, more cowardly, than he had imagined. The truth could be the last straw, the final severing of an already fragile connection.

If he didn't, he would be building anything that could arise between them on a lie by omission. I would be betraying the trust that Izuku was, drop by drop, putting back in him. He would be, deep down, the same Katsuki Bakugou as before—the one who put his own comfort, his own protection, above honesty. Above respect for the person he loved.

It was a trap. A labyrinth with no way out. Each path led to a different form of loss.

But maybe... Perhaps there was a third option. Not to tell now. Wait. Keep trying. Keep improving. To become someone so different, so trustworthy, that when the truth was finally revealed, it wouldn't be the focus. She was just another piece of a larger puzzle, of a man who had made monstrous mistakes but had done a monstrous job of correcting them.

But was that fair to Izuku? Keep it in the dark? Let him build feelings—whatever it was—on an incomplete foundation?

Katsuki felt a throbbing headache start behind his eyes. He rubbed his temples, his fingers pressing against the tough flesh. I was tired. So, so tired. Tired of fighting himself. Tired of carrying the weight. Tired of wanting something so simple — to be close to Izuku — and turning it into the most complicated thing in the universe.

He turned from the windows, looking at the empty apartment. For the life he built, full of achievements and empty of warmth. Izuku always brought the heat. Even when it was anger, it was a flame. Even when it was rivalry, it was a spark. And then, during those few months... It had been a different heat. Smooth. Constant. Like the sun on a spring morning. A heat that warmed parts of Katsuki that he didn't even know were frozen.

And he destroyed it. With your own hands. With words chosen to deal maximum damage.

Now, he was trying. Droplet by droplet, gesture by gesture, breathe for breathe. He was trying to become someone who didn't destroy the good things. Someone who deserved to stay close to the heat without putting it out.

But the road was so long. And he was so tired.

He was about to head to the kitchen, perhaps to make that tea his father had suggested, when the sound hit him.

The doorbell.

A single touch, crisp and unmistakable, cutting through the silence of the apartment like a knife.

Katsuki froze.

His whole body stopped. Breath caught in his lungs. The muscles locked. His senses, always sharpened, sharpened to the extreme. He heard... nothing. No noise from the hallway. No second touch. Only the dense silence of the high-end apartment and the faint hum of electricity in the air.

His brain, still clouded by fatigue and the spiral of thoughts about Izuku, about the truth, about headlines and therapy, jumped sharply into alertness. Who?

It was not the time for visits. It was not the time for deliveries. The address of this apartment was a better kept secret than many Hero Association files. Only a handful of people knew: his parents, the nearest Bakusquad, Best Jeanist, a few high-level bureaucrats for security reasons. And Izuku.

Izuku.

The thought flickered in his mind like a beacon on a stormy night, but he pushed it away immediately. No. It couldn't be. Why would Izuku come here? Now? After a full day of silence, after the headlines, after everything... Izuku wouldn't do that. He respected too many limits. He was too careful. I came to Katsuki's apartment, unannounced, at night... That would be an invasion. And Izuku didn't invade.

So who?

The muscles in your back tense, a rigid line of professional distrust replacing fatigue. Reporter? Obsessed fan who discovered the address? Someone with bad intentions? His mind quickly roamed through the possibilities, calculating threats, escape routes, weapons available in the environment. The agency's jacket, with its equipment, was hanging at the entrance. Just a stone's throw away.

He didn't move.

He remained in the center of the room, listening. Nothing. Just the pressing silence outside the door. The touch had been assertive, not hesitant. Someone who knew what he was doing. Someone who wasn't afraid to ring Dynamight's doorbell at nine in the evening.

His thoughts, which seconds ago revolved around unspoken truth and undeserved forgiveness, have now reorganized themselves into familiar patterns of tactical analysis. The layout of the hallway. The distance to the elevators and the emergency stairs. The blind spots. The thick steel door with armored core that now looked much less imposing.

And, in the end, an underground current of something else. A stupid, stubborn hope, which he refused to name, but which warmed the sudden ice in his veins. What if...?

But no. He wouldn't allow it. It was dangerous. It was pathetic. He was no longer the boy who waited for Izuku. He was a professional hero. A target. A person with secrets to protect.

Katsuki took a deep breath, the air filling his lungs in a controlled fashion. Inhale. Hold. Exhale. The exercise was for anger, for anxiety, but it was also for that — to center, to focus on the present, on the tangible, on the possible threat on the other side of the wood.

He took a step toward the door. Silent, even barefoot. Another step. His body was now alert, prepared for anything. For a camera flash. To a fake reporter's smile. For an attack.

He stopped in front of the door. The right hand rose, not to the doorknob immediately, but hovering near the discreet control panel next to the jamb. With a tap, he could dim the peephole, activate the intercom, or even the security protocol that would lock everything and alert the agency.

But he didn't play.

He looked at the door, as if he could see through it. The presence of the other side was... felt. Not an active threat, not a vibe of danger. But a presence. Solid. Stop. Waiting.

Who expects like this?, he thought. A reporter would be nervous. A fan, euphoric. An enemy, containing his intention. This calm... It was strange. Familiar.

His heart, which had slowed to a combat rhythm, gave a hard, unbalanced blow to his ribs.

No.

He couldn't begin to think about it. It was a trap. For himself.

With a jerky movement, almost annoyed at himself for hesitating, he reached out and pressed the button to illuminate the digital peephole's screen. The thumbnail image emerged, grainy for a second before focusing.

And the world stopped.

Not literally. But inside Katsuki, everything—the tactical reasoning, the distrust, the weariness, the spiral of thoughts about truth and redemption—collapsed into a single spot of silent, white fire.

Green. Very green. Dark, unruly hair, faintly reflecting the dim light of the hallway. A hoodie, gray, common. Jeans. A face he knew better than his own—the broad green eyes, fixed on the camera as if they knew they were being watched, surrounded by dark eyelashes that always made him angry for no reason. The mouth is a thin, serious line. Not smiling. Not puckering. Just... there.

Izuku.

The name exploded inside his skull, not as a thought, but as a total sensory experience. A shock that ran through his spine, made his palms tingle, dried his mouth.

All his previous reasoning—about respect, boundaries, invasion—evaporated, burned by the sudden, overwhelming heat of simple reality: Izuku was here. On the other side of the door. Now.

For an eternal instant, Katsuki just stared, his hand still pressing the button, his breath completely forgotten. He saw the expression on Izuku's face on the small screen. It wasn't anger. It was not joy. It was something... determined. Resolute. Like the expression Izuku used before jumping into an impossible battle. The expression of someone who had made a decision and was not going to go back.

And then, without his brain consciously commanding, his hand moved. Away from the control panel. Even the doorknob. The electronic latch came loose with a soft, loud click in the silence.

Katsuki pulled the door open.

And there he was.

Not on the thumbnail screen. Life-size. In the flesh. Filling the door frame space with his presence that always seemed bigger than his physique. The familiar smell of laundry detergent and something indefinably green and clean hit Katsuki, blending into the sterile air of his apartment.

The green eyes met hers, directly, without hesitation. The light from the hallway illuminated part of his face, leaving the other half in shadow. He looked... tired too. Seriously. But his stance was firm.

Time, which had slowed down, stopped completely.

Katsuki heard his own voice come out, hoarse, broken, charged with an incredulity so deep it could not be faked:

"Izuku?"

 

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"You thought it ends here??? Nope would never do that, go down!"

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The name came out like a hoarse breath, as if it had been torn from him against his will. It was not a greeting. It was a recognition. A confirmation of such an unexpected fact that his brain was still trying to process, the neurons firing in chaotic patterns trying to reconcile infinitesimal probability with the absolute reality before his eyes.

They stood still, one on each side of the door frame, and time seemed to stretch like a rubber band about to break. Every millisecond carried the weight of years, silences, unspoken words and avoided looks. The door frame wasn't just wood and metal; It was a border between two worlds that collide violently in that silent corridor.

In the heart of Katsuki, a silent earthquake set in. He's here. At nine in the evening. At my doorstep. The mental repetition was not for lack of understanding, but for pure astonishment. His mind, which had only been immersed in cyclical thoughts about truth and redemption—a labyrinth of guilt and hope from which he could find no way out—was now emptied of everything except the image before him. All the psychological baggage, the breathing exercises, the therapy sessions, the internal monologues about worthiness and fear, all evaporated before the physical presence of Izuku Midoriya at his entrance. Izuku. Hooded. The ordinary gray sweatshirt, that soft, worn fabric that Izuku always preferred, but in Izuku, nothing was ordinary. The way the fabric fell over his shoulders, the way the hood molded loosely around his head, creating shadows that hid what Katsuki most wanted to see. The sunglasses that hid his eyes—those green eyes that Katsuki knew in all their shades: from the excited glow to the focus of battle, from rare tenderness to deep pain. Now hidden behind dark lenses. As if Izuku also needed a barrier against the world. Against him. The idea that he, Katsuki, was something Izuku needed to physically protect himself from was a silent, deep stab.

Katsuki felt something deep contract inside his chest, a physical sensation of tightness that started at his sternum and radiated, like ice roots, down his ribs. A mixture of acute hope—that idiotic, stubborn thing that always sprang up in the wilderness of his caution—and visceral fear. Because Izuku there, unexpectedly, was not a good omen. Not after the day they had had, a day tinged by the digital scandal, by the gaze of their students, by the incessant notifications. Not after the deliberate silence they both maintained, a silence that now seemed like an ocean between them, impassable. Izuku's presence, instead of narrowing this ocean, seemed to only highlight its vastness.

Izuku's heart, in turn, hammered against his ribs with an almost painful force, a tribal rhythm of anxiety and determination. I opened the door. He is there. Seeing Katsuki in his entrance, his hair still slightly damp from the shower, wearing only a simple black T-shirt and sweatpants—so vulnerable, so human, so far from Dynamight's public persona—was a punch in the gut. The air escaped from his lungs. It was the Katsuki that few saw. The Katsuki without the leather and metal armor, without the explosion-generating gloves, without the mask of impenetrable arrogance. This was the core, the man under the hero, and to see him like this, with his features relaxed by the domestic environment, his bare feet on the cold floor, was dangerously intimate. It was a vision that belonged to a past that pained to remember, to moments stolen between missions, to whispers in the dark. That was why he could not enter. Never. Crossing that threshold would mean contaminating the neutrality he desperately needed to maintain. It would mean remembering too much.

Izuku looked away first. Not out of cowardice—he had faced villains who made cities tremble—but out of sheer need for emotional survival. He looked to the right at the empty, well-lit hallway, the fluorescent lights reflecting off the polished floor like an artificial river. Then to the left, to the metal elevator door, its digital display showing static numbers. Anything to not get stuck in that red gaze that seemed to see him too much, always too much, that read the insecurities in his bones before he even named them. His hands, tucked into the pockets of his sweatshirt, were sweaty, his fingers twitching around the fabric. He had mentally rehearsed this conversation on the way, repeating phrases like a mantra, building a wall of logic and firmness. But now, with Katsuki in front of him, all that preparation has collapsed. All the words seemed fragile and inadequate, plastic toys in the face of the storm of history and unresolved emotion that hung in the air between them.

"We... Can we talk? Izuku's voice came out, and he barely recognized it. Firm on the outside, a tone of Deku, the hero, but with an almost imperceptible tremor underneath, a thread of raw emotion that he had not been able to completely suppress. It was the voice of Izuku Midoriya, the man, not the symbol. And that scared him.

Katsuki nodded. The movement was short, almost a spasm, as if his body reacted before his mind gave permission. His brain was screaming in unison, a primal chorus: Invite him in. Get him out of the hallway. Bring him closer. He has him in his space, safe, yours. It was a visceral, territorial desire, mixed with an overwhelming need to protect, to surround Izuku with the walls he had built himself. But something about Izuku's posture—the shoulders tensed under his sweatshirt, the stiff way he supported himself, the way his eyes, even hidden, avoided looking directly into the apartment, as if the prospect itself was a threat—made the offer die on his lips before it even fully formed. Instinct gave way to observation, and observation revealed a limit being clearly drawn.

"Come in," he began, out of old habit, out of deep and foolish desire.

"No.

The interruption was quick, almost abrupt, a stroke of a scalpel. Izuku took a deep breath, a sound audible in the silence of the hallway, as if gathering courage for what was next, and Katsuki watched his chest rise and fall under the gray fabric, a movement that was both familiar and painfully distant. The sound of the wind outside, whispering from the high floors of the building, seemed to fill the sudden silence, a reminder of the vast, impersonal world beyond that cramped hallway.

"Come on... up there. At the top. Please.

The top.

The realization hit Katsuki like a cold shock, an icy reality wash. He understood immediately, with a clarity that hurt more than any misunderstanding. Izuku didn't want to cross that threshold. He didn't want the smells of Katsuki—of expensive soap, of strong coffee, of the clean, metallic aroma that always enveloped his space. He didn't want his minimalist furniture, his conquests framed, his personal life invading the already charged, electrically charged space between them. He wanted neutrality. Open air. A place without memories embedded in the walls. A place where both could flee if necessary, where the exit was not a closed door, but an open sky. A place that did not belong to either. It was a request for a meeting in no man's land.

It was respect. It was extreme caution. It was a boundary being drawn with lines so clear and precise that Katsuki could almost see them chalked on the floor of the hallway, a boundary he wasn't allowed to cross.

The acceptance that followed was bitter, a taste of metal and defeat on the back of his tongue, but he swallowed it along with wounded pride, with childlike anger that wanted to scream "Why not here?". He was no longer the one who burned bridges; I was learning, painfully, to recognize where they could not even be built, to respect the unstable terrain.

"Okay," the word came out flat, contained, emptied of emotion so as not to overflow. " Keep going up. I'll catch up.

He didn't say "why?". He did not question. He did not challenge. He just accepted. And he saw, in the almost imperceptible relaxation of Izuku's shoulders, a small sink of tension, that this had been the right answer. It was what Izuku expected, what he needed—acquiescence, not conflict. Izuku nodded, still not meeting his eyes—a movement that was almost silent gratitude—and turned toward the heavy metal door of the emergency stairs, his reflection passing on the polished surface before the door closed behind him with a dull, final thud.

Katsuki stood still, the door to his apartment still open, the void of the encounter now filled by an internal whirlwind that churned like a storm in a teacup. The doorbell. The image in the peephole, pixelated but unmistakable. The door opening. The cold air of the hallway. "Let's go upstairs." Each moment fit together like pieces of a puzzle that formed a clear, crisp, and frightening picture: Izuku was here for something serious. It was not a casual visit. It was not an impulsive reconciliation. It was a mission. And he was keeping physical, emotional, strategic distance. It was Deku drawing up a battle plan, and Katsuki was, at least for now, the terrain to avoid.

With a sudden movement, almost of anger directed at himself by his own stupid hope, he went back inside and closed the door. The click of the lock sounded like a verdict. The apartment, which moments before had seemed like a quiet refuge, a cocoon against the world, now seemed oppressive, its lines clean and its open space echoing with the absence that had just materialized and then departed. His eyes landed on the induction stove. A single small, forgotten blue flame danced under an empty steel kettle. He didn't even remember calling her. His brain, in some moment of anxious reverie before the doorbell, must have acted by reflex, seeking the routine comfort of a household chore. Tea. What the old man had said. With a harsh, almost violent gesture, he turned the knob, cutting the flame. The blue light disappeared, and the silence that followed was absolute, heavy, as if the apartment was holding its breath.

He ran a hand over his face, his fingers finding the fatigue carved into the bones under his eyes, the steely tension in the jaw he kept clenched.
"Don't mess this up," he thought, a desperate mantra. He repeated to himself like a centuries-old prayer. "Breathe. Control it. It's not about you. It's about what he needs. It's about what he needs."

But it was impossible to separate. Everything about Izuku was, in some way intricate and fundamental, about him as well. It always had been. From the first day of school, when that puny boy stared at him with eyes of blind determination, their stories had intertwined, their fates twisted together like two vines on a trellis, impossible to separate without harming them both. Izuku's pain was his pain. Izuku's confusion was his failure. Izuku's need for distance was the cruelest proof of his own monumental mistake.

He went upstairs. It didn't run. It didn't fly. Each step of rough concrete was a moment to prepare, a rosary of anticipation and fear. The echo of his own footsteps on the empty, cold, dimly lit stairs was the only sound, other than the ebb and flow of his own breath, that he tried to keep slow and controlled. Inhale for four. Hold for seven. Exhale for eight. The therapist's technique. But his heart, stubborn and wild, would not calm down. It beat against his ribs like a trapped bird, a war drum announcing the approach of a battle for which he did not feel armed.

At the top, when Izuku pushed the heavy access door to the penthouse, the wind hit him squarely, a wall of cold, pure air that stole his breath for an instant.

It was a cold, clean wind from the east, carrying the distant smell of the salty sea and the city falling asleep—a mixture of concrete, car exhaust, and the promise of night dew. He paused for a second, letting his strength envelop him, like a rough, impersonal embrace that, paradoxically, calmed his nerves to the surface. Here, there were no walls to contain his thoughts, there was no ceiling to press his responsibilities down. There were no hidden expectations in familiar objects or framed photographs. Only the night sky, a black velvet dotted with faint stars that tried in vain to shine through Musutafu's light pollution, and the infinite, almost terrifying vastness of the city he swore to protect.

He pulled the hood back. The fabric scraped into her hair, a rough, real sound. The immediate relief of having his peripheral vision free, of not being caged by his own sweatshirt, of having the fresh air on the back of his neck, was physical, a deep sigh that came out of his lungs without his permission. Then, with precise movements, he took off his sunglasses, folding the temples with a soft click and tucking them into his front pocket, where they rested like a discarded bale. The world gained color and depth again, even in the dim light. The lights were no longer blurred spots, but defined points; the shadows had texture.

He walked to the low ledge—a wall of reinforced concrete, cold and rough to the touch, that encircled the entire roof like the rail of a gigantic ship. He rested his forearms on the surface, feeling the roughness of the concrete against his skin, letting his weight lean forward, as if he could dive into that sea of lights. The view was stunning and, in a strange and profound way, humbling.

From above, the city didn't look chaotic or scary. It looked like a pulsating, complex and beautiful organism, veins of orange and white lights tracing arteries of avenues and streets, the buildings like solid and illuminated cells, each one housing thousands of stories, lives, dreams and fears. He knew every street, every dark alley that needed more patrol, every roof that served as a vantage point or escape point. This was the city he had sworn to protect with his body, his soul, his life. The city that, sometimes, on the shoulders of the number one hero, weighed more than any villain, any physical battle. It was a weight of expectation, of hope, of a legacy so great that it threatened to crush him.

His gaze wandered, almost involuntarily, betrayed by a habit of years, towards the east. There, standing out in the skyline like a needle of glass and steel pointed at the sky, was the Sky Gardens residential tower. The tallest building in Musutafu. His apartment was in the penthouse, occupying the two upper floors. From the highest floor.

And here he was. In the second tallest building.

A crooked, humorless smile, an almost jerky movement of his lips, touched his lips. Katsuki, always a little below, he thought, not with disdain or superiority, but with a resigned irony that tasted like ashes. It was a metaphor so perfect, so cruelly accurate, that it almost hurt. Even when Katsuki climbed, conquered, surpassed, burned his way to the top with sheer willpower and raw talent, there was always a height he didn't reach, a rung that remained untouched. The height that Izuku, by chance, by fate, by inheritance, occupied. The number one hero. The symbol. The person who, even now, even after everything—the cutting words, the months of silence, the pain that still throbbed like a phantom limb—Katsuki still looked and saw as a beacon, a goal, an impossible star to reach.

It wasn't about ranking. It had never been, deep down. It was about something much deeper and older, buried in the fertile land of their shared childhood. It was about the monumental shadow that All Might had left, a shadow that Izuku now carried not as a burden, but as a cloak. And Katsuki, always to the side, always a step back, always a little to the left, illuminated by that same golden reflection, but never by the original source of the light. He shone with reflected light, and the part of him that was still that competitive, hungry child hated that truth.

The wind ruffled his green hair, blowing it over his forehead, and he closed his eyes for a moment, allowing the darkness within to meet the darkness outside. Inside him, chaos remained, an uncontrollable whirlwind. The garish headlines. The photos — so intimate, so false in their narrative, but so real in their existence. The expression on Katsuki's face inside the car, captured forever in that soft, attentive gaze he had never directed at her before. The old, familiar pain of the fight, a scar that never completely closed. The current, maddening confusion of Katsuki's sudden change—so genuine, so visible, so late. The monumental, bony fatigue of carrying the title of "symbol" every day, of waking up and being Deku before being Izuku. Everything was spinning, a storm without a center, and he was in the eye, a point of false calm surrounded by destructive winds.

He came here with a clear goal, cold as concrete under his arms. It had to be clear. It had to be firm. A battle plan, like any other. He could not let himself be softened by the sight of Katsuki without his defenses at the door, or by the genuine, human fatigue he had seen in his red eyes. He couldn't give in to the dangerous meltdown that began in his heart every time he saw a glimmer of the man Katsuki could be—the man he once loved. He had to protect himself. Because that was the hardest lesson that the last few years had taught him: no one else would do that. Not even — especially not — Katsuki Bakugou.

The access door creaked as it opened again, a tired metal sound against the frame.

Izuku didn't have to turn around to know. He felt it. It was a vibration in the air, a subtle change in atmospheric pressure around it, as if a dense, powerful neutron star had entered its orbit. Katsuki's presence was like that — physical, undeniable, taking up space not only in the environment, but in Izuku's own perception. It altered the gravitational field of the moment.

He heard the footsteps approach. Firm. Controlled. Every step on the concrete of the roof was deliberate. Stopping at a safe, respectful distance. Not too close to invade, not too far away to seem indifferent. Three, maybe four meters. Katsuki always knew how to measure distances in battle with millimeter precision; Apparently, I was learning to measure them in conversations as well. It was a new type of strategy, and Izuku, despite himself, noticed and filed this information.

Izuku turned slowly, as if moving through heavy water, his body reluctant to face what came next.

And then, for an instant that stretched into eternity, everything stopped. The wind, the distant sound of traffic, the very beating of his heart—it all ceased.

Katsuki was all in black. A black hoodie, baggy, that swallowed his powerful form, black trackpants, dark sneakers. It merged with the darkness behind him, a silhouette cut against the clearer night sky. But his face, illuminated by the ghostly silver light of the moon that finally broke through the shallow clouds, and by the diffuse, warm and cold glow at the same time, of thousands of city lights below, seemed almost otherworldly. It was not a hero's vision. It was a vision of myth.

The moonlight caressed the line of her tense jaw, highlighting the bony strength beneath her skin. It lit up the curve of her lips, pursed in an expression that was not anger but deep concentration, perhaps contained pain. It bathed the bridge straight and proud of his nose. But it was his eyes that held Izuku. Scarlet red eyes that now, in the half-light, seemed darker, deeper, like embers under ashes. Fixed on Izuku with an intensity that was almost palpable, a focus so absolute that it seemed to consume the world around it. The entire city, in all its vastness and grandeur, its towers and its lights, was but a blurred, insignificant backdrop to that lonely, powerful figure standing at the top of his domain.

Katsuki, for his part, felt the air come out of his lungs in a hoarse, involuntary puff. The world narrowed to the point where Izuku was.

The soft moonlight bathed Izuku's face like a pale blessing, highlighting the familiar contours he had known since childhood—the curve of his cheekbones, the jaw line, the shape of his lips—but which now seemed carved out of fine marble, more mature, more scarred by experience and pain, but still incredibly, indecently... beautiful. The night wind played with her green hair, disorderly and unruly as ever, and her eyes, finally visible, without barriers, reflected the lights of the city like a field of green stars trapped in a sky of flesh and blood. But there was no joy in that glow. There was a deep seriousness, a determination that went beyond the usual heroic courage, beyond the will to save. It was a personal determination. Painful. The determination of someone who is about to cut something precious to save himself.

He had been hooded and hidden before, Katsuki thought, a remark he cut like a blade. Now... Now he shows himself. No physical barriers. It's real. It's serious. And he is staring at me with the eyes of someone who has made an irrevocable decision.

Katsuki's heart took a violent, unhinged turn in his chest, a sensation of free fall. A wave of something so deep, so overwhelming, bordering on sharp pain, rose up her throat, squeezing her. It was love—a vast, complicated feeling, intertwined with admiration, with respect, with an old envy that turned into possessive pride. It was monumental grief, overwhelming guilt for everything he had broken between them, for having been the architect of this pain on Izuku's face. And it was, above all, such a strong, primal desire, to just cross that carefully measured distance, touch Izuku's face between his hands, feel the warmth of his skin under his thumbs, make sure he was real, that he was okay, that he was still there, that Katsuki had to physically lock his muscles, the tendons in his legs tensing, the fists closing at the sides of the body, so as not to move. The impulse was almost irresistible. It was the old instinct of possession, of reconnection, filtered through the new knowledge that such a movement would be a violation.

The silence between them was a living being, breathing with them. Charged with the unspoken electricity of years of shared history—rivalry, friendship, love, hate, all an inextricable mess. Loaded with the months of cold and silent separation, where the sound of absence was louder than any explosion. Loaded with recent weeks of cautious attempts, small gestures and minor hopes, all now suspended in the icy air from the top of the building.

It was Katsuki who broke the silence, because someone had to do it, and Izuku seemed determined to wait, his patience was a form of power. Maybe he hoped that Katsuki would fail, that he would explode, that he would confirm all the suspicions. Katsuki would not allow that. Not this time.

"What did you want to talk about, Midoriya?" His voice came out rougher than he intended, rough with the tension of containing everything he wanted to say. The use of the surname was a conscious defense, a desperate attempt to create a professional, impersonal space, in the midst of that inner turmoil that threatened to engulf them. An attempt that sounded false and weak even in his own ears.

Izuku didn't respond immediately. His green eyes, now free and clear, ran over Katsuki's face like scanners, studying, analyzing, as if reading every microexpression, every shadow under his eyes—the dark circles under his eyes that spoke of sleepless nights—every tension in the muscles of his shoulders, every nuance in the curve of his lips. It was the look of the hero Deku, the one who assessed threats and strategized in fractions of a second. But it was also, unmistakably, the gaze of Izuku Midoriya, the one who knew Katsuki better than anyone on the planet—who knew the meaning of a frown, a certain twinkle in his eye, the way his jaw tensed when he was holding something important. This double gaze was more disarming than any attack.

"You saw... the headlines, right? Izuku's question was low, almost whispered against the wind that now seemed to carry his words directly to Katsuki, a private communication thread in the vast open.

Katsuki nodded, a short movement, a nod that was more of a confirmation than a gesture. The word got stuck in his throat for a second before he let it out. It was a simple fact, but loaded with all the embarrassment, the invasion, the public distortion that both had suffered.

"Yes.

He paused. The next part was important. Perhaps the most important part since he had returned. It had to come out right. It had to convey the right thing. It couldn't be about his discomfort, his wounded pride. It had to be about Izuku.

"I didn't text you because..." he searched for the words in the vacuum of his mind, rejecting the first ones that came to mind, which were honest but dangerous: "because I didn't know what to say", "because I was afraid of getting worse", "because I wanted you to come to me". Instead, he forced himself to resort to what he had learned, to the new script he was trying to follow. "I thought it best to respect your space. Before you think it was a neglect. It wasn't.

Within Izuku, something profound fell apart and reformed at the same time, a molecular restructuring of his understanding. The pain of admiration mixed with the pain of loss.

He has changed.

The phrase echoed in his mind, not as a thought, but as an empirical revelation, clear and undeniable as a physical fact. The Katsuki of yesteryear—the Katsuki of fighting, years of bullying, ruthless rivalry—would never have considered anything like "space." The concept would be foreign to him, a weakness. The Katsuki of before would have exploded in anger at the invasion, would have invaded Izuku's life to complain or deny, would have demanded an immediate response, would have turned the situation into a conflict to be won. Or, at worst, he would have ignored it completely, feigning absolute disdain, pretending he didn't care, that those headlines were insignificant dust. This Katsuki... he thought. He considered. He weighed the options. He chose the action that put Izuku's emotional comfort, "space", above his own urgent need to resolve, to control the narrative, to know where he was. It was a monumental reversal of the dynamics that had always governed their interactions.

It was a change that Izuku had wished for, prayed for, suffered to see for years. He had cried for her on lonely nights, he had argued for her in tense conversations, he had repeatedly bruised himself by hitting the wall of arrogance and fear that was Katsuki. And to see it now, so visibly, so concretely materialized in Katsuki's carefully chosen words and deliberate pause... It was like receiving a direct and perfect blow to the solar plexus. It hurt in a strange, deep way that went beyond the physical. Because that change, so genuine, came too late to avoid the destruction that had already happened. She arrived wrapped in the ghost of pain that precipitated her. And even worse, it softened something inside Izuku that he was desperately trying to keep frozen and safe, a fortress of ice around his vulnerable heart. A dangerous melting began at its center, a wave of heat that threatened to reach the eyes, make them teary, betray it.

He couldn't show it. Not yet. Vulnerability was a luxury he couldn't afford. Not with the world watching. Not with your heart still in pieces.

"You don't have to worry about that," Izuku said, forcing his voice into a professional neutrality, the tone he used in briefings with the Association. "I've already filed a lawsuit to take everything down. Everything. There are no more notes circulating on the main sites. No photos on heroism or gossip portals. He hesitated, his eyes blinking to the horizon for a split second before returning to Katsuki, deciding on strategic transparency. "Trusted people took care of it. A team of lawyers specializing in defamation and privacy. IT experts for deep web removal. The Association is cooperating under a confidentiality agreement.

Katsuki frowned, an automatic reflex of worry and a hint of wounded pride, a remnant of the old me that wanted to be included, that wanted to be the protector. His hands in his pockets closed.

"You could have told me. I could help. Financially, logistically..." Being by his side in this, he didn't say, but the words hovered unspoken, almost audible in the cold air. Let you know that you are not alone.

"No," Izuku's answer was immediate, firm, a concrete wall erected with a single syllable. "That was better. Cleaner. Faster. Without... extra involvement.

"Extra involvement." The words hung in the icy air between them like a silent indictment, a diagnosis of the illness that afflicted anything in between. Katsuki felt them as a small cut, precise and clean, but which hurt with a disproportionate intensity. Izuku wasn't just dealing with the problem; He was methodically dismantling the few thin, public threads that connected them. Erasing the digital traces. Cleaning up the media mess. And he was doing it alone, deliberately, excluding Katsuki from the process. It was a declaration of independence, of self-sufficiency. And, most painfully, it was a silent rejection of the partnership that had once defined them publicly.

The silence that followed was different from the previous one. It was not a silence of expectation, but a heavy silence, full of what was not being said, but was clearly understood: I take care of my things. I don't need you for that. I don't want your help. Maybe I don't want you involved in my life, not even in crises.

It was Izuku who took another deep breath, a deliberate, amplified sound in the open space, as if preparing for a jump off a cliff. The sound seemed loud, a prelude to what was to come.

"Katsuki..." he began, and the use of the first name, after the distant "Midoriya," was like a shock. "I know you've been lecturing at U.A. for third years." He kept his gaze fixed somewhere on Katsuki's shoulder, in the void beyond him, unable to stare his eyes directly at what would come next, as if the sight of them might dissuade him. "And for some of my classes too.

Katsuki's heart, which was already beating fast and uneven against his ribs, seemed to come to a complete stop, a second of silent vacuum, and then accelerate violently, firing like an overheated engine. A cold premonition, a sense of impending disaster, rushed down his spine like icy water, settling at the base of his spine.

"I wanted to ask you something," Izuku continued, his voice low but clear, each word carefully articulated, as if reading an official statement.

"What?" Katsuki's question came out more like a hoarse sigh, a breath of stolen air, than a word itself. The defense within him was already rising, an ancient instinct to prepare for an attack.

Izuku finally looked up and fixed them on him, and what Katsuki sees in that green gaze cut off any breath he had left. There was no anger. There were no tears. There was a painful determination, a resolve made of cold steel and sacrifice, the same expression Izuku wore when preparing for a battle where he knew he would get hurt. It was the expression of someone about to amputate a limb to save the body.

"Let’s... Keep a little distance.

Katsuki's world didn't just tilt; He collapsed. The axis of reality spun violently, dislodging him from the center of his own universe.

It was as if the solid concrete floor of the roof had disappeared beneath his feet, leaving him free-falling into a vacuum. The words, individually, were not unexpected — the request to come to the top, the categorical refusal to enter, Izuku's defensive posture, all pointed to a distance. But hearing them, seeing Izuku's lips forming those specific syllables with terrible calm, was a direct and brutal physical impact. A punch to the exact center of his chest that robbed him of his breath, that made his lungs twitch in protest. The pain was acute, surprising in its intensity.

"What do you mean?" Katsuki's voice escaped before he could soften it, filter it through the control techniques he practiced so much. It came out raw, loaded with an open shock, an exposed wound that that simple sentence had caused. It sounded young. It sounded hurt.

"When you're in the U.A., don't show up in my office or my class. Dont start a conversation. Do not force proximity.
Izuku's words came out measured, rhythmic, as if he had rehearsed them in front of a mirror, each one chosen with the care of a surgeon to cause minimal collateral damage while still performing the deep and necessary cut. "Let's keep... professional. Only for now.

Only for now.

The phrase, supposedly a nod of hope, sounded like the cruelest and most empty sound Katsuki had ever heard in his life. It was a promise without substance, a postponement without a set date, a "never" dressed in the clothes of a "maybe". It was the language of politically correct excuses, of "it's better this way". His heart, that stubborn, resilient organ that had survived internal explosions, falls from great heights, mortality-defying battles, seemed to contract into a dense, hot ball of sharp pain. It was a different pain from anger, deeper, quieter, more dangerous.

"But we didn't do anything wrong," the defense automatically left her lips, a weak and pathetic retort of her former self, desperate and logical at the same time. "We're not even ... " He swallowed the word "together," forcing it back down his throat, where it burned like poison. Because they weren't. And that was exactly the crux of the problem, the gap where all the pain and confusion piled up. "We can patrol together, talk, I can... I can help you, Izuku. With the pressure, with the load. You don't have to carry everything yourself. You don't need to isolate yourself.

It was an appeal. A request for clemency, for a truce. Give it a chance, any chance, to prove that it could be the support, not the added weight. That he could learn to be the base, not the cargo that caused the ship to sink. His voice, in the end, almost broke, and he hated the weakness it revealed.

Izuku's expression, instead of softening, became even more serious, more closed, like a vault door turning to lock.

"I'll ask you not to share patrols either," he declared, and each word was a slow, heavy hammer in the coffin of silent, fragile hopes that Katsuki harbored without even admitting it to himself. Each syllable was a nail.

"Katsuki..." Izuku's voice lost some of its professional firmness, replaced by a visceral, almost tired frustration, the fatigue of carrying a very heavy burden for too long. "I have too much in my head.

He raised his hands in a gesture of surrender, of utter exhaustion, palms upwards as if to show that they were empty, that he had nothing left to give.

"Japan, rankings, Association politics, media pressure, expectation of being All Might's successor..." he listed, each item a tangible weight on his shoulders. "Hero number one here, number two in the world, one breath behind the global number one. All this on top of me, every day. Every decision I make is analysed, unravelled, criticised or praised mercilessly. Every word I say in public becomes a headline, becomes a meme, becomes a weapon. Every look—his voice broke slightly, perceptibly, in the last word, a clear and painful reference to the day's headlines, to the photo of the toast, to the stare that the world interpreted as love—is interpreted, distorted, sold as history. I don't have a head, I don't have the mental space to deal with... That now. With... us. With whatever that is or can be. It's a lot. It's simply... Very much.

Katsuki felt the old anger, that unjust, protective anger that had always been his primary fuel, begin to simmer in his veins, a familiar warmth amid the cold of rejection. But it wasn't directed at Izuku. It could never be, not anymore. It was directed at the unforgiving world that weighed on Izuku's shoulders, at the absurd fate he had made of the kindest person he knew, the symbol of a nation, at his own grotesque powerlessness of not being able to simply take half that weight and carry it for him.

"You don't have to deal with it alone," he repeated, but this time his voice was softer, reduced to almost a whisper charged with an emotional intensity he could no longer hide, which overflowed the edges of his control. "Let me try to help you." With whatever. Even if it's just... to be there. In silence. Without demanding anything. Without being an additional problem. I can do that now. I learned. I'm learning.

It was the most vulnerable, rawest thing he had said since his return. A public acknowledgment of his own past flaws—his inability to be supportive, his tendency to be a storm—and a solemn promise of a new way of existing alongside Izuku. An offer of presence without demand, of support without conditions. It was all he had to give.

Izuku stared at him, and for the first time since they climbed to the rooftop, Katsuki sees something in that green gaze besides iron determination and monumental fatigue. He saw fear. A deep, gleaming, raw fear, like a cornered animal watching the door of its cage open into uncharted territory. It was the fear of getting hurt again. The fear of believing. The fear that change was another illusion, another more sophisticated trap.

"That's exactly what scares me," Izuku said, his voice so low that it was almost completely blown away by the wind that now howled between them, a cold and lonely wail.

Katsuki's heart stopped again, a total freeze. The admission was more devastating than any scream.

"You appear," Izuku began, and now the words came out faster, pressed, as if an emotional dam had finally broken, releasing a river of pain and pent-up confusion. "You're intense, you're everything—fire, conviction, absolute presence—and then... you disappear. Eight months, Katsuki. Eight months of total silence, of vacuum, after saying... of those things.”
He didn't specify. He didn't need to. The words of the fight were burned in the memory of both verbal scars that had never been completely closed. "And then you come back. Out of the blue. Wet from the rain, smelling of smoke and something else... defeated. Talking about redemption in a voice that wasn't his own. And you... change. Out of the blue. It changes for me and for the world. In a way I've asked you for years. That I begged that I waited, that I needed to see. And you never succeeded. He never wanted to. Until, apparently, you wanted to.

Izuku's voice was trembling now, charged with a pent-up emotion that overflowed, each word a tremor of frustration, hurt, and deep confusion.

"And now you change," Izuku continued, his eyes shining with an unshed moisture, a glow of contained pain. "So fast." So... completely. You go to therapy and tell me, as if it were a normal achievement. You take a deep breath before you speak, even when it's clear that you want to yell. You ask before you take over. You wait. You respect boundaries that you yourself would have demolished before. And this..." he closed his eyes for a second, a gesture of pure agony, as if the pain were physical, a twinge in his chest. This is making me confused as hell. It completely unbalances me.

The wind howled between them, a lonely, cold sound that seemed to echo the loneliness in his words.

"Because I look at you now," Izuku continued, opening his eyes, and they were incredibly green, luminous with unallowed emotion, fixed on Katsuki with an almost painful intensity, "and I see the man I always believed, deep down, in the most secret depths of my heart, that you could be. The strong man, but not cruel; determined, but not blind; passionate, but not destructive. The man I fell in love with, against all logic and all history. And at the same time, in the same face, in the same eyes, I see the man who used handpicked words, like razor-sharp knives, to push me away, to hurt me enough that I would never come near again. And I don't know which one to believe. I don't know which one is real. The beautiful and painful change that lies before me? Or the ugly, cowardly destruction that came before it? What's the truth, Katsuki?

Katsuki couldn't breathe. The air seemed to have solidified in his lungs. Izuku's every word was a high-powered X-ray, exposing every broken bone of his character, every fracture of his past, every moral flaw he desperately tried to repair. It was true. Everything. True and brutal. And the pain of seeing it reflected in Izuku's eyes, of hearing it articulated so clearly and so much hurt, was almost unbearable. It was the pain of being truly seen, and judged, by the person whose opinion was the only one that really mattered.

"I know something happened," Izuku said, his voice regaining some of its firmness, but now charged with a terrible, unshakable certainty. "Before you leave." I know. The day you went out with Kirishima, you left so... light. Almost happy. Excited about something. And he came back different. As if he had seen a ghost. Stressed. Distant. With his eyes... empty. And then acted weird for weeks until... the fight. The words. You walking away and closing the door. It wasn't just the fight. Something happened. Something you never told me.

He stepped forward, not to get closer, but to emphasize his point, his presence becoming overwhelming in the stillness of the cover, his determination a force field.

"I'm no longer the kid who believes everything you say, Katsuki," the statement was simple, but loaded with the weight of years of disillusionment. "Not even the boy who thinks he can fix everything by himself, who can carry the secrets and pains of others without breaking. I grew up. I got hurt in the process. His voice cracked for a second, a small shudder he quickly controlled, swallowing. "And I'm not going to be in the dark anymore. I'm not going to be the blind man in the situation, trying to guess what's going on in your head, trying to find an explanation that doesn't hurt, that preserves the image I want to have of you. I'm tired. Tired of the darkness. Tired of constant doubt. Tired of building castles of hope in quicksand.

He stared at Katsuki, and his gaze was a final challenge, an ultimatum issued not as a threat but as a condition for one's own emotional survival.

"As long as you don't tell me the truth," Izuku said, every word clear, sharp, and cold as blades of glass in the moonlight, "the whole truth, naked and raw, about what happened that day, about what you really felt, about why you did what you did..." I can't..." he swallowed again, visibly struggling to maintain the composition, not to let the emotion break his voice completely. continue like this. I can't let you be close. I cannot accept your help, no matter how well-intentioned. I can't trust that this wonderful, painful change is real, that it will last, if it's built on a lie by omission, on top of a secret that you think needs to protect me. The protection I need is the truth. Only the truth.

The silence that followed was absolute, dense, consuming. Even the wind, an instant before howling, seemed to stop blowing, as if the universe itself was holding its breath. It all boiled down to the two men on a rooftop, under an indifferent sky, one heartbroken and wary facing the other through a widening chasm of unspoken words, feared truths, and a pain as old as their knowledge of each other.

Katsuki was paralyzed. The truth—that ugly, cowardly, pathetic thing he buried deep within himself—burned on his tongue, rose up his throat like acid, demanding to be set free. Jeanist was right. Best Jeanist, her therapist, her own twin instinct of guilt and desire—they were all right. The time had come, punctual and relentless. The account for his past, for his cowardice, was being presented not by a judge or a villain, but by the only person whose verdict mattered. And Izuku, with devastating clarity, painful maturity, was demanding full payment. Not in installments of beautiful gestures. In currency of brutal honesty.

He opened his mouth. The cold night air scraped against his dry, rough throat. A wordless sound came out, a hoarse noise of someone about to speak but not knowing where to start.

Izuku turned back toward the city, his shoulders rising and falling in a deep, controlled breath, a movement visibly meant to compose himself. The conversation, at least his part, the dumping of his ultimatum, was over. The request was made. The boundary is drawn with indelible ink in the air between them. There was nothing more to say on his part. The ball was now, irrevocably, in Katsuki's court.

"That's it," Izuku said into the void, into the twinkling lights, his voice now dead, flat, exhausted, as if he had spent all his emotional energy on that statement. "For now.

The last two words were not a consolation, nor a promise of the future. They were a conditional sentence. A sentence whose execution was suspended, hanging by a fragile thread. Contingent on the truth.

Katsuki remained where he was, anchored to the concrete floor by the crushing weight of Izuku's words and the even bigger, heavier, dirtier burden of truth that he now had to carry from the subterranean of his soul to the surface of his tongue. His chest ached as if something vital inside him had ruptured, a clean but fatal rupture. The sleeping city below seemed surreal, a distant dream disconnected from the storm of raw reality that roared within.

He looked down at Izuku's back, at the tense, familiar line of his shoulders under his gray sweatshirt, at the curve of his neck where the green hair met his skin, at the slightly tilted head that looked up at a horizon that Katsuki couldn't share, that he might never be able to share again.

As long as you don't tell me the truth...

The challenge, the ultimatum, echoed in his mind not as words but as an alarm bell, a bell ringing for a final duel. It was a precipice. An abyss opened before his feet.

On one side of the abyss, the relative, cowardly security of the secrecy kept. The petty protection of oneself, of the fear of being truly seen, of being judged and considered hopelessly weak. The chance, perhaps, to keep Izuku at that controlled, painful but familiar distance, and who knows, over time, with continuous gestures, to allow him to approach again without ever knowing how low, how pathetic, how scared Katsuki had been at the crucial moment. It was the path of preserving one's own ego, of maintaining an image, even if broken, of strength.

On the other side of the abyss, the dizzying and terrifying free fall of total honesty. The complete and unfiltered exposure of his cowardice, of his pathetic and deep fear, of the moment when he, Katsuki Bakugou, the supposedly fearless, chose to destroy the purest love he had ever known simply because he was more afraid of being loved by someone like Izuku than of being alone forever. The risk of seeing, in the green eyes that he loved more than life itself, not the forgiveness he so feared and secretly hoped for, but a final and utter disappointment, an understanding that Katsuki's core was hopelessly flawed. The end of any possibility, of any hope, of any future that included the two in the same emotional space.

Katsuki closed his eyes. The cold evening wind now didn't just cut through; burned his exposed skin, a feeling of high alertness. The darkness behind his eyelids was not peace, but a stage where the two possible futures were played out in a loop, each more horrific than the other.

He was in the front row. As always. Since I was a child, watching Izuku. Watching. Waiting. Cheering against, then cheering for, then loving, then destroying. Always in the front row of the show that was his own life intertwined with that of Izuku Midoriya.

And now, the scariest spectacle of all was his own reflection, staring at him from the bottom of the abyss, demanding a choice.

The truth or the distance.
Brutal honesty or loss.
The chance of real redemption or the perpetuation of comfortable lying.

There was no longer any way to postpone. There was no more parkour flight that could distract him, no more report that could fill the void, no more breathing exercise that could calm this storm. The time to wait, to observe, to try to change without facing the heart of the problem, was over.

The silence stretched, long and agonizing, filled only by the cold whistling of the wind that now seemed to mock them. Katsuki remained paralyzed, his tongue heavy, in fact a knot of snakes writhing in his throat. He opened his mouth. Nothing came out. Just a breath of hoarse air, a noise that was lost in the void.

He saw Izuku's shoulders, still facing him, rise and fall in a deep, controlled breath, the last attempt at restraint. And then, Izuku let out a laugh.

It was not a laugh of joy, nor of relief. It was a hoarse, harsh sound, charged with a bitterness so deep that it seemed to crack the night air itself. A dry, humorless laugh that came out like a crooked sigh.

"Of course," Izuku's voice came low, almost to himself, but Katsuki heard every syllable like a stroke. "Of course you won't talk.

The words were not a question. They were a final finding. The acceptance of a truth that, apparently, Izuku already expected. The surrender to a reality where Katsuki, once again, chose silence over vulnerability, secrecy over trust.

Katsuki felt his heart stop, not from shock, but from a terrible recognition. He had failed. At the decisive moment, in the face of the most important ultimatum of his life, he had failed. Fear had spoken louder. The instinct of self-preservation, of hiding from the ugliness within oneself, had won out. And Izuku, who had always believed in him against all odds, finally seemed to have given up waiting.

Without turning around, without looking back, Izuku began to walk towards the access door. His steps were firm, but not fast. There was a weight in them, a farewell ceremony. Each step echoed in Katsuki's heart like the sound of a door closing.

"Izuku," the word escaped him, a hoarse whisper, a final pathetic plea.

Izuku didn't stop. He did not hesitate. He pushed the heavy door open and disappeared down the stairs, the sound of metal creaking and then closing with a final clunk, a full stop to the conversation.

Katsuki stood alone on top of the world, anchored to the ground by the weight of his own cowardice. The wind was now cold, biting, but he didn't even feel it. The stunning view of the city turned into a blur of meaningless lights. Everything was reduced to the echo of that bitter laughter and the final sound of the door.

He doesn't know how long he was standing there. Time has lost its meaning. He walked to the railing, his fingers finding the rough, cold concrete. He leaned against himself, his eyes automatically scanning the streets below, a reflection of years of patrolling.

And then he saw it. In the flow of cars, a specific, familiar vehicle left the building's underground garage. Izuku's black BMW X7. It merged with the traffic, its headlights cutting through the darkness, and then rounded a corner, disappearing from view.

He left.

Izuku left.

The loneliness that befell Katsuki was of a different kind. It was not the loneliness of the eight months of silence, which was an active absence, an open wound. This was a cold, definitive loneliness. It was the loneliness of knowing that he, with his own inaction, had confirmed Izuku's worst fears. He had validated the need for that distance.

He looked up at the night sky. The moon, now completely visible, bathed everything in a ghostly silver light. The few stars that could shine through light pollution appeared cold and distant. It was a beautiful night, ironically. Clear, clean, immense. The vastness of the cosmos, normally a source of perspective, now only highlighted the smallness of its own drama, and the enormity of its error.

And then, in that absolute silence, under the indifferent immensity of the night sky, the decision crystallized within him. Not like a flash, but like a heavy, unavoidable truth settling in your bones.

He couldn't go on like this. The omission was destroying any chance that remained, little by little, venomously. The truth was a bombshell, yes. But the secret was a poisonous gas, slow and silent, which was already asphyxiating everything. He had to tell. Not because Izuku had demanded it, although that was reason enough. But because, for the first time, he could see clearly: the only way to be truly different, to truly redeem himself, was to face the ugliest thing inside himself and offer it to Izuku. To put in his hands the power to decide his destiny. It was the greatest act of trust—and desperation—he could commit.

With slow, almost robotic movements, he took the phone out of his pocket. The screen lit up his pale face. His fingers, surprisingly steady, found contact.

The call rang twice before being answered.

"Hey, man. How are you? Kirishima's voice came, alert. It was late. He knew that a call at that time was not normal.

"Eijiro," Katsuki's voice came out hoarse but clear. "Izuku was here.

There was a brief pause on the other end of the line, charged with understanding. Kirishima knew the code. He knew the weight of that information.

"And...?"

"He asked for distance. In the U.A., on patrols. Everything. Katsuki took a deep breath, the cold air burning his lungs. "He said that as long as I didn't tell the truth... the whole truth... He cannot rely on change.

The silence on the other side was attentive, supportive. Kirishima did not interrupt.

"I... I stood still, Eijiro. He waited. And I didn't say anything. He laughed and walked away. "The admission came out as a confession, painful and necessary.

"Oh, man..." Kirishima's voice was soft, nonjudgmental. "But you're calling now." That's something.

"I'll tell you," Katsuki said, the words coming out with a strange sense of relief, as if a weight began to move, even if it was to crush him. "I decided. I'll tell him everything.

On the other side, Kirishima let out a long sigh, which seemed to carry months of worry.

"yes... That's what I expected you to say, you know? His voice was serious now, of a friend, of a brother. "I've thought you should do this for a long time." Before that... Well, before it gets even more complicated.

Katsuki understood what he didn't say. Before Shindo, that cancer, that manipulator who had planted the seed of panic in his mind on that fateful night, could come back from his self-imposed exile. Before he could use that secret as a weapon, to try to destabilize Katsuki again, to try to paint him as the villain of the story, as he had almost managed before. The truth was a better shield in Izuku's hands than a weapon in the hands of someone like Shindo.

"He's gone off the radar, but..." Kirishima continued, cautiously. "It's better to come out of your mouth to Midoriya, not from anyone's mouth, especially not from his."

"I know," Katsuki murmured, looking up at the city lights. "I just... I need to prepare. Mentally. Knowing how to put into words that... All the shit.

"You don't have to have the perfect words, Bakugou," Kirishima said, her voice firm. "You just need to have the truth. Raw and simple. He deserves it. And you... You need to do this to really move forward, man. Not in this way by halves.

Katsuki nodded, even though he knew Kirishima couldn't see him. It was true. The therapy, the breaths, the respect for boundaries — all of that was the surface. The foundation was still rotten, built on the lie of their cowardice. Until he excavated and replaced that foundation, anything he built on it would eventually collapse.

"In three days," Katsuki said, speaking more to himself than to Kirishima. "In my next lecture at U.A. And I'll tell you. Everything.

"I'm here, brother," Kirishima said, her loyalty unwavering as a rock in the maelstrom. "For anything you need." Before, during or after.

"Thank you," the word came out low but genuine.

They hung up.

Katsuki put the phone down, holding it tightly against his palm. The decision was made. The path was traced. There was an icy terror spreading through his veins, but also, underneath him, a faint, hot thread of something that could be... peace. The peace of those who have finally stopped fleeing.

He looked once more up at the sky, at the moon that had witnessed his failure and his decision. Three days. He had three days to prepare for the most difficult conversation of his life. Three days until he faces Izuku and dumps the rotten contents of his past at his feet.

But for the first time since the fight, since the unanswered Christmas message, since the months of silence and the weeks of cautious trying, Katsuki felt he was, finally, headed in the right direction. Even if it was straight off the eye of the hurricane.

Chapter Text

Three days.

For most people, seventy-two hours was an unremarkable interval. Enough time for two days of work, a few meals, a little leisure and insufficient sleep. A block of time that dissolved into the routine without leaving deep marks.

For Bakugou Katsuki, the past three days had been a monumental containment exercise. A state of suffocating suspension, as if he were trapped in a watertight compartment as the external pressure increased by the hour, by the minute, threatening to implode his ribs and crush his internal organs. Time, usually an ally in discipline, an enemy in impatience, is transformed into a thick and heavy substance, through which he moved with conscious effort. Each moment was a stepping stone toward the precipice he had chosen to face, and the weight of his decision grew exponentially, anchoring itself in his stomach, in his throat, at the base of his skull.

On Monday morning, he drove his Porsche down the avenues of Musutafu still washed by the light dawn rain. The sky was a blanket under gray clouds and cotton, the sunlight trying unsuccessfully to break through the damp barrier. The world outside seemed washed, a little quieter, as if the city was also holding its breath. Inside the car, however, the silence was of a different kind. It was not peace. It was the charged silence of the battlefield before the first shot, of the hospital corridor before the diagnosis, of the space between the question and the answer that would change everything.

His fingers, wrapped in fine leather gloves, gripped the steering wheel with a firmness that was almost a conditioned reflex. Every turn, every traffic light, every lane change was executed with the mechanical precision of someone who had the movements recorded in muscle memory. He hadn't had to think to drive to U.A. He'd done the route so many times in recent months—twice a week, punctual as a Swiss watch—that he could have done it with his eyes closed. But today, the familiarity of the path did not bring comfort. It was just another ritual on the day that he knew would end with something being torn apart. Maybe your last chance. Perhaps the very idea of redemption.

He wasn't wearing Dynamight's uniform. The reinforced leather jacket, the explosion-generating gloves, the mask—all of these had been in the bulletproof closet of his agency. Today, he wore civilian clothes: a simple but expensive black sweatshirt over a dark cotton T-shirt, black trackpants and dark sneakers of clean design. Only Bakugou Katsuki. Just one man. A guest. A speaker. A person trying, with every fiber of his being, not to collapse before fulfilling his obligation and, after it, to voluntarily surrender himself to judgment.

The last three days had been a study in self-control and mental torment.

Friday night, after the penthouse door closed behind Izuku and his car disappeared into the night traffic, Katsuki remained on top of the building until the bone-piercing cold became a dull, constant pain, a physical reminder that he was still alive, still able to feel something. He had gone downstairs to his apartment, which had suddenly seemed not only empty but hostile. Every clean line, every polished surface, every expensive and soulless object screamed its isolation. He had called Kirishima. The conversation had been short, direct, necessary. A plan was drawn up, not with the grandiosity of a battle strategy, but with the funeral solemnity of a prisoner marking the date of his execution. Three days. Time to prepare. Time not to prepare at all.

Saturday had dawned with an emotional hangover so deep it hurt physically. He had trained. Not the usual training, focused on improvement, on peak maintenance. This was a workout of pure exhaustion. Hours in his agency's private gym, lifting weights until his muscles screamed, running on the treadmill until his lungs burned, performing combat sequences until his mind emptied of everything but the next move. It was an escape. An escape that failed. Because even at the height of physical exertion, with sweat running down his face in salty streams, the echo of Izuku's dry and bitter laughter reverberated in his ears. "Of course you won't talk." The acceptance in that voice was what hurt the most. It wasn't anger. It was no surprise. It was a resigned confirmation of a truth that Izuku had already been waiting for. The ultimate surrender to the idea that Katsuki Bakugou was, at his core, a coward.

On Sunday, he tried to prepare. He sat at the black quartz dining table in his apartment, with a blank notebook and pen in hand, as if he were going to write down points of a mission. "The truth," he had written at the top of the page. And then he stared at those two words until the letters began to dance and lose their meaning. How to put into ordered sentences the chaos of emotions, the visceral panic, the pathetic cowardice that had led him to say those things to Izuku? How to explain what Shindo had said, not as an excuse, but as a context? How to convey the primal terror of realizing that the most important person in your life saw you as something... sacred? How is a responsibility greater than any villain, any mission, any title? And the worst: the overwhelming fear that if he accepted that love, if he allowed himself to be loved by someone like Izuku, he would inevitably fail. It would hurt. It would destroy. Because destroying was what he did best. That was what he was, deep down. A carefully channeled force of destruction, but destruction nonetheless.

He had burned the page in the middle of the kitchen sink, watching the flames consume his failed attempts at articulation. There were no right words. There was only the truth, ugly and raw. And he would have to deliver it like that.

Sunday night had been the worst. The silence of the apartment had turned into an oppressive presence. Every amplified sound—the hum of the refrigerator, the clinking of the heating system, the distant noise of the elevator—was a reminder of his self-imposed loneliness. He had lain down on the wide, empty bed, staring at the ceiling, and he had missed it. Not the romanticized, sweet and melancholic nostalgia. It was a sharp, physical pain, like the lack of a phantom limb. I miss the weight of Izuku next to him in bed. From the sound of his quiet breathing during sleep. From the smell of her shampoo, something green and clean that always impregnated the pillows. The way he mumbled nonsense when he woke up, his voice hoarse with sleep. I miss the feeling of being... At home. And the overwhelming realization that he, with his own hands, with words chosen to do maximum damage, had burned this house and watched the flames consume everything.

Now, Monday morning, driving to U.A., that pain was still there, a constant companion. But there was something else too. A cold, quiet determination that had solidified during those seventy-two hours of torment. He was no longer conflicted. The decision was made. The fear was still there—an ancient, familiar monster rumbling in his chest—but he wouldn't let it paralyze him again. Not today. Because the alternative, the continuation of silence, of omission, was worse. It was the slow death of any possibility of anything real between them. It was confirmation that Izuku was right to walk away. It was the final proof that Katsuki had not changed enough.

He parked the Porsche in parking lot three, in the space reserved for high-ranking guests. The engine fell silent with one last soft rumble. For a moment, he just sat there, his hands still on the wheel, his eyes fixed on the main U.A. building ahead. The school looked different in the gray morning light. Less a symbol of hope and more a fortress of expectations. The place where it all began. The place where he had been, for years, a tyrant. The place where Izuku had begun his impossible journey. The place where somehow, despite everything, they had found a way to each other, only to lose it again.

He took a deep breath. The breathing exercise—inhale for four, hold for seven, exhale for eight—worked only to calm the shallowest tremor in his hands. The deepest nervousness, the one that lived in his gut, remained. But it was controllable. He had to be.

As he got out of the car, the humid morning air hit his face, a cold and invigorating shock. No students were around; Classes would start soon, and most would already be inside the buildings. He walked toward the main gymnasium, his steps steady on the stone path. No murmur followed him. No lingering look. Nezu's directive had been clear and effective: After the headline incident, Katsuki's presence on campus would be treated with the utmost discretion. The students were instructed to respect the privacy of the heroes. There was a perverse relief in this. He wouldn't have to face curiosity or expectation today. Only himself. And, in the end, Izuku.

Aizawa was waiting for him near the side entrance of the gymnasium, leaning against the wall with his characteristic sloppy posture, his tall, thin figure wrapped in his black jumpsuit and capture scarf. His eyes, normally charged with deep existential fatigue, fixed on Katsuki as he approached. It was not a judgmental look. It was an evaluation era. Aizawa had always been like this — seeing more than most, commenting less than everyone.

"You arrived early," Aizawa remarked, his voice hoarse and flat as fine sandpaper.

"Habit," Katsuki replied, stopping a few steps away. His own voice sounded more restrained than usual, less slurred.

Aizawa studied his face for a second that stretched beyond comfortable. Katsuki didn't look away. He was too tired for games, too resolved for defensive postures.

"Is everything okay?" Aizawa's question was direct, bluntly. It was not a casual questioning between colleagues. It was a probe by a former teacher who still carried the instinct to check on his students, even years after they had graduated.

Katsuki felt the automatic response, the defensive "fucking sure," form on his tongue. He swallowed it. Lying to Aizawa was useless. The man had a foolproof detector.

"Okay," he said, and the word sounded heavier than he intended, loaded with everything it didn't contain. Tá meant "I'm standing". Tá meant "I'm not going to explode right now". Tá meant "I decided to do something that will probably end the little I have left, but it's the only thing I can do".

Aizawa didn't seem convinced, but he didn't press either. Instead, he tilted his head slightly, an almost imperceptible gesture.

"And the therapy?" He asked, as if he were questioning about resistance training or a new technique.

The question, a few years ago, would have provoked an outburst of defensive anger. Now, Katsuki felt only a familiar weariness and a deaf respect for the fact that Aizawa asked not to poke, but because he genuinely cared, in his restrained, unsentimental way.

"It's helping," he replied, and it was the purest truth he told that morning. The therapy hurt. It was humiliating. It was exhausting. But it was helping. It was giving him tools to not be a monster controlled by explosions and fear. I was giving him the language to name the demons that haunted him. And, more importantly, it was showing him that change was possible, even for someone as stubborn and damaged as he was.

A corner of Aizawa's mouth moved, something between a smile and a spasm of recognition.

"You can see," he muttered, his voice still low, but with a different nuance. "I hope it continues. Real change isn't quick..." he paused, his dark eyes fixed on Katsuki's with an intensity that seemed to see through his skull, straight into the neurotic mess within. "..., but it's real when it happens.

Katsuki kept his gaze. Not as a challenge, but as a recognition. An acceptance.

"It's not fleeting," he said, and the words were an oath to himself as much as an answer to Aizawa. The change was not a temporary performance to win back Izuku. It was a painful process of rebuilding himself, brick by brick, and he was committed to it regardless of the outcome with Izuku. This was, perhaps, the only true proof that the change was real.

Aizawa watched him for a longer moment, then nodded once, a short, dry movement.

"I'm relieved to hear that," he said, and the simplicity of the sentence carried the weight of years of unexpressed concern. Then, he pushed himself off the wall. "The gym is ready for you." Class 3-B. They are waiting. He started to walk away, but stopped after a few steps, without turning around completely. "Bakugou."

"Hm?"

"Regardless of what happens next... It's good to see you taking care of yourself. The rest... The rest we will deal with later.

And then he disappeared into a side hallway, leaving Katsuki alone at the entrance to the gym.

Aizawa's simple statement echoed in his mind. The rest we deal with later. It was a nod of support, silent and not sentimental, but genuine. Aizawa knew. Of course he knew. The man understood everything. And his tacit approval, his weird way of saying "I'm proud of you," made something inside Katsuki tighten. Because he didn't deserve this pride. Not yet. Perhaps the real test of his progress, of his redemption, was not the lecture he would give in a few minutes, but the confession that would follow. And if he failed at that... everything else would be just noise.

He pushed open the heavy wooden door of the gymnasium and entered.

The space was vast and familiar. Daylight filtering through the tall windows created streaks of light on the polished wooden floor. About thirty students from class 3-B were seated in chairs arranged in a semicircle in the center of the space. They stopped talking as he entered, a respectful silence falling over the group. His eyes—some curious, some admired, some wary—were fixed on him. No cell phone was erected. No excited whisper. Nezu's directive was taken seriously.

Katsuki walked to the front of the semicircle, stopping in front of a small podium that had been placed there. He didn't climb on it. He stood at the same level as the students. The posture was deliberate. He wasn't there to preach from a pedestal. He was there to talk. Or try.

"Good morning," his voice echoed in the gym, clear, firm, without the usual aggressiveness. He paused, his eyes sweeping over the young faces in front of him. He saw in them echoes of his younger self: ambition, insecurity, a burning desire to prove his worth. He also saw something he didn't have at that age: an early weariness, an awareness of the weight that came with the title of hero in a post-war world that was still being rebuilt. "Today I'm going to talk about responsibility. About what it means to carry a power that can hurt. What does it mean... fail. And about what to do next.

He saw some eyebrows raise. Failure was not a common topic in hero lectures. The speeches usually revolved around victories, overcoming, the "Plus Ultra" spirit. But Katsuki was tired of the immaculate heroic narrative. It was a lie. And lies, he was learning, had a very high price.

The lecture took place with a fluidity that surprised even himself. The words came, not as a rehearsed speech, but as truths that he was discovering as he said them. He spoke of anger—not as an enemy to be eradicated, but as a warning sign, an emotion that, if ignored or suppressed, exploded in destructive ways. He talked about fear—the fear of not being enough, the fear of hurting the people you're supposed to protect, the fear of becoming the very monster you've sworn to fight. He talked about therapy, about the courage that was greater to admit that one needed help than to pretend to be invincible. He talked about guilt, and about how to carry it without letting it paralyze him.

The students listened, attentively. Some took notes. Others just watched, absorbing. There were questions. Good questions. Tough questions. "How do you deal with the urge to give up?" "What do you do when your anger gets in the way of the rescue?" "How do you forgive yourself for a mistake that hurt someone?"

Katsuki replied with an honesty that cost him. Not with details, but with principles. "You breathe," he said. "You stop. You name the emotion. You recognize it. And then you choose your action, you don't react on impulse." "You take responsibility. You apologize, if that's the case. And you work, every day, to be better. Sorry... True forgiveness takes time. And sometimes you have to learn to live without it."

As he spoke, part of his mind was elsewhere. Behind the scenes of each word, he was mentally rehearsing the other conversation, the one that would take place soon. Every principle he preached—honesty, vulnerability, responsibility—was a mirror that reflected his own monumental failure. He was telling these teenagers to do what he himself had avoided doing for months, for years. The irony was so dense that it almost suffocated him.

When the lecture ended, with one last piece of advice on the importance of building a support network — "No one, absolutely no one, can carry this burden completely alone" — the students applauded. It was not a thunderous applause of adulation, but a respectful, thoughtful applause. Some approached to thank him, shake his hand, ask one last question. Katsuki attended to everyone with a patience that still surprised him. He wasn't in a hurry. Or rather, he was in an agonizing hurry, but he knew that rushing it would be a mistake. He had to fulfill his role until the end. Be professional. Be worthy. To be, for a few more moments, the hero that these students expected him to be.

Finally, the last student left, leaving the gymnasium in a sudden, wide silence. The morning light, now brighter, poured through the windows, illuminating dust particles that danced in the air. Katsuki began to collect his few belongings—a bottle of water, his scattered notes. His movements were deliberate, slow. He was giving himself time. Time for his heart to stop hammering against his ribs. Time for the resolution he had built in the last three days to solidify into something unbreakable.

He knew he wasn't alone. I knew from the moment the gym door opened, quietly, a few minutes before the end of the questions. He didn't have to look to know who he was. He had felt it. A change in the atmosphere, an alteration in the gravitational field of the room. Izuku's presence was like that—immediate, unmistakable, occupying not only physical but emotional space.

Now, as he put his bottle in his backpack, he felt the gaze. A gentle but steady weight on your back. He turned around.

Izuku Midoriya was standing about twenty meters away, near a pile of gym mats. He wore a well-fitting suit: impeccably cut gray dress pants, a white long-sleeved shirt with slightly rolled cuffs, and a black blazer resting on one arm, as if it had been taken off just for comfort. His green hair was, as always, unruly, and his green eyes—visible, without sunglasses, without barriers—were fixed on him. Not angry. Not out of curiosity. With a professional neutrality that was, somehow, harder to stand up to than any hostility.

Izuku gave a brief nod. A greeting. Nothing more.

Katsuki responded in kind. A short, dry movement. I am here. See you. I respect your space.

That's what they agreed. Distance. Professionalism. Izuku had drawn a clear line in the cover, and Katsuki, learning the new language of respect, was determined not to cross it. Not without permission. Not without the truth being told first.

He saw Izuku start moving, going to the opposite side of the gym, starting to arrange some chairs that were out of place, checking the equipment. Keeping your distance. Honoring your own request. Izuku's every move, efficient and silent, was a physical reminder of the barrier that existed between them. A barrier that Katsuki had helped build with bricks of sharp words and cement of silence.
The pain was sharp, a twinge of regret so deep it almost made him bow. But he did not give in. Instead, he took a deep breath and began to walk away as well. He walked to the back of the gymnasium, where the chairs were still stacked unevenly, pretending to line them up with excessive care. It was a theater. They both knew.
Two men—two of the world's mightiest heroes—occupied opposite ends of a space that was slowly returning to normal, dancing a strange and painful choreography of avoided proximity.
Katsuki bent down to pick up a few chairs, stacking them with restrained force. His hands, however, were cold. The pulse quickened. The moment was approaching. The silence between them, filled only by the distant sounds of the school—a bell ringing in the distance, muffled voices echoing through the hallways—was more eloquent than any words.
Izuku was near the table, turning off the projector, winding the cables with an attention that bordered on exaggeration. Katsuki could feel the tension in the air, the unspoken anticipation. Izuku was waiting. Waiting to see if Katsuki would respect the boundary. Waiting, perhaps without much hope, to see if he would say anything.
For a few minutes, they coexisted in that space as two planets in carefully calculated orbits. No sudden gesture. Not a word. Just the hollow sound of equipment being repositioned, chairs dragged with excessive care, the metallic click of weights being stacked on the correct stands.

Katsuki stayed focused on tasks that were too small to justify the concentration they required. He folded cloths that were already folded.

He checked lists that did not need to be checked. He adjusted objects by inches, as if physical precision could compensate for the chaos that pulsated under his skin.

He felt Izuku there all the time — he didn't need to look. His presence was a constant pressure, a silent gravitational field that made each movement more conscious.

Katsuki avoided crossing the central space of the gym, he changed routes instinctively, respecting the distance requested as if respecting an invisible line drawn on the ground.

Still, time did not stop.
The lecture had been long.

The gym is too big to be organized quickly. The work required patience, and patience required breath—something Katsuki felt was slowly slipping away. The silence between them was beginning to weigh more heavily than any discussion had ever weighed. It was too quiet for that time. It was not the silence of peace, but that of the vacuum, the one that sucks the sound and leaves only the background hum of one's own thoughts, amplified until they become unbearable. Every drop of sweat that dripped down Katsuki's temple sounded like a hammer in the drum of his skull. The air, soaked in the smell of old rubber, plaster dust, and a metallic residual of sweat, felt thick, hard to pull into the lungs.

He was now sorting boxes in the side warehouse—a useless task, assigned to himself because inactivity was the enemy. He moved everything too hastily, too hard, as if he could transfer the inner turbulence to the inanimate objects.

He pushed a pile of mats with his foot, the impact echoing like muffled thunder on the empty walls. Idiot. Idiot. Idiot. The thought was a punishing mantra, synchronized with the beating of his heart. That was how it worked when the head was full of poisonous static: body in frantic motion, mind in deliberate short-circuiting, trying to overload the system until everything shut down and only the blank, or null, blessed emptiness remained.

It was a minimal oversight. A wrong angle. His attention, locked not on the rusty metal bookcase, but on Izuku's face from eight months ago—the expression of suppressed pain, the green eyes that seemed to ask for an explanation that he, Katsuki, had been unable to give—caused his body to twist awkwardly.

The exposed metal, a badly sanded splinter as sharp as a sawtooth, scraped first the sleeve of his training uniform, and then, with blind, brutal pressure, tore his biceps from side to side.

It was not a clean cut. It was a deep scratch, a violent furrow that cut open the flesh with an obscene rawness.

"Damn it!"

The word slipped through his clenched teeth, dry and short, more a sign of frustration than pain. The pain, in fact, came an instant later—an instant line of fire that burned from the point of impact to his shoulder, throbbing and hot. The blood did not hesitate. It came fast, in a surprisingly generous stream, running hot and dark down the arm, bypassing the tense muscles, and began to drip onto the concrete floor in heavy, regular drops. Plink. Plink. Plink.

Katsuki looked at the wound with a kind of clinical rage. Pressure. It was the basic protocol. He pressed the spot with the palm of his left hand, feeling the moist, pulsating heat against his skin. Irritation with himself welled up, acidic, in the back of his throat. A silly wound. Amateur. The kind of thing that happened when you were distracted, limp, weak. He was about to ignore it, as he always did—tie up a rag and keep going—when the atmosphere of the place changed.

It wasn't a sound. It was a change in air pressure, a presence he recognized on a cellular level, even after all those months of ice.

"Bakugou?"

Izuku's voice didn't come loudly. It came from the hallway, carrying the humidity of the locker rooms and a strange neutrality that hurt more than a scream. It was a voice Katsuki hadn't heard addressed to him in eight months, except in brief, short, dead professional exchanges.

He turned his face slowly, as if moving through a heavy liquid. Her jaw was so tense it hurt. Izuku was standing on the edge of the warehouse, illuminated by the oblique lanes of the late afternoon that cut through the dust in the air. He was not in uniform. Her eyes caught Katsuki — those green eyes that once reflected admiration, determination, fury, and, at worst/best, a love so open it was almost frightening. Now, they were fixated on the injured arm, scanning the wound with the analytical speed of a top-tier hero. The worry there was automatic, professional—the one that always gave him away, that always said to the world: I care, even when I shouldn't.

"You cut yourself." Izuku said. It wasn't a question. It was a flat finding, a damage report. But between the lines, for those who knew every nuance of that voice, there was a thread of tension.

Katsuki forced his shoulders back in a defensive posture. Pride, an old and faithful companion, rose like a serpent.

"It's nothing. The answer came out harsh, cutting, the conditioned reflex of a lifetime. Don't show weakness. Never show it.

Izuku didn't argue. He did not retaliate. He only let out a faint sigh, almost inaudible, which seemed to carry the weight of all the unheld discussions. He turned and, with firm steps, went to the wall where the green first-aid box was attached. He removed it with a fluid movement.

The approach was careful, almost clinical. Izuku knelt on the concrete floor next to Katsuki, opening the box. The smell of antiseptic and sterile gauze invaded the space between them. He picked up a packet of gauze, a vial of saline, and his fingers—those strong fingers, scarred old and new—moved with a precision that was both familiar and strangely distant.

No unnecessary touching. No soft words. No explicit intimacy.

Even so, the air between them weighed down, becoming dense and electric. Katsuki could feel the heat of Izuku's body just a few inches away. He could see the small details that his memory kept with avarice: the texture of the skin on the back of his neck, slightly rough because of the haircut; the shadow of the eyelashes projected on the top of the cheekbones by the low light; the slight tremor in his fingers as they approached the wound—a tremor that might have been fatigue, or something else.

Izuku held Katsuki's arm firmly to stabilize him. The touch was professional, impersonal, but Katsuki's skin seemed to catch fire at the point of contact. It was a clean, sharp burn. He held his breath, the muscles in his arm contracting involuntarily.

"Be quiet." Izuku muttered, not looking up. It was not a harsh order. It was an instruction.

With the other hand, he began to clean the blood around the cut, using the gauze-soaked in saline. The feeling was cold, but Katsuki barely felt it. His attention was all fixed on the hand that held his wrist, on the fingers that applied gentle but relentless pressure on Izuku's concentrated profile so close to his. The world was reduced to that point of contact, to the smell of neutral soap and cheap shampoo that came from Izuku, to the sound of his controlled breathing.

Katsuki kept his gaze fixed on a crack in the wall ahead, forcing himself not to look down at the face he had so much avoided and secretly sought for the past few months. His body was rigid, each muscle too aware of the proximity, the absurd vulnerability of that position. He, Katsuki Bakugou, being treated as a patient. By Izuku Midoriya. The irony was a bitter taste on the tongue.

"You should be more careful. Izuku muttered, breaking the silence as he inspected the depth of the cut. His voice was low, almost to himself, but it carried a spark of something—exasperation? Residual concern? Katsuki couldn't decipher it.

"It was an accident. He replied, unhurriedly, his voice too controlled for someone who was bleeding. "I didn't see it right.

There was a short, uncomfortable pause.

He looked away for a second before adding, lower:
"It happens.

There was no irony there. Nor do I dare. Just an honest attempt to end the matter without creating friction — like someone who has learned, perhaps too late, that not all pain has to turn into confrontation.

The silence that followed was different from all the others they had shared in the last eight months. It was not the hostile silence laden with unspoken accusations. It was not the professional and empty silence of work meetings. It was a silence... loaded with history. Of memories of other cuts, other injuries, treated with much less coldness and much more trembling in the hands. A silence that seemed to ask: How did we get here?

Katsuki couldn't stand it. She risked looking at him.

Izuku was serious, his brows slightly furrowed in concentration. But there was something in his shoulders—a tension that rounded them forward, a weariness that seemed ingrained in his bones. And there was distance. A distance that was not physical, but emotional, a glass wall erected between them that made every gesture, every touch, an empty pantomime of what once was.

Katsuki's heart gave a hard, unhinged blow against his ribs. A stupid, dangerous impulse was born deep in his chest. A brutal desire to break that glass. To say stop, stop it, really look at me, yell at me, hate me, anything but this coldness. His free hand, hanging at his sides, clenched into a fist so strong that his nails dug into his palm.

"You don't have to do that." The sentence came out of his mouth before he could stop it, in a lower tone, harsher than he intended.

Izuku paused for a split second, his fingers hovering over the bandage he was preparing. Then, without looking up, he replied:

"It's part of the job. His voice was flat, smooth, impenetrable.

Lie, something roared inside Katsuki. A blatant lie. The two knew that it was not just that. They knew that Izuku would never be able to see someone bleeding — least of all him — and simply turn his back. It was against his nature. It was the crux of why he was who he was. And this finding, instead of bringing comfort, was a low blow. Because it meant that even now, even after everything, Izuku was still stuck with his own code. I was still helping. And Katsuki hated himself for finding unhealthy comfort in it.

When Izuku finished applying the bandage, he immediately walked away, as if he had touched something too hot. He closed the first aid box with a dry and decisive snap. The sound echoed in the silence of the warehouse as a full stop.

"That's it." He said, standing up. His eyes quickly passed through the bandage, avoiding Katsuki's gaze. "It'll be fine." Keep it clean.

He turned, his shoulders a stiff line against the dim light, and began to walk toward the exit. Each step was a nail in the coffin of that moment, of that fragile and strange proximity.

A wave of panic, sharp and irrational, rose through Katsuki's throat. It was now or never. The door was closing, literally and figuratively. If he let her hit, she would lock it up forever. Eight months of agony, of doubts that consumed him inside, of rotten words rotting on his tongue—all of it would rot with him. He couldn't stand it. The sight of Izuku's back, walking away once again, was the last straw.

"Izuku.

The name came out stronger than he intended, cutting through the air like a shrapnel.

Izuku stopped at the door. He didn't turn around. His silhouette stood still, waiting.

Katsuki swallowed. The throat was closed, the tongue heavy.

"What?" Izuku's answer came, short, without heat.

Katsuki took a deep breath. Once. Two. The air seemed sharp, full of splinters. He felt the cold sweat on his back. This was worse than facing an S-class villain. It was stripping himself from the inside, exposing the soft and ugly guts he spent his life hiding behind explosions and arrogance.

"Wait." The word came out, a request. Not an order. A request. It sounded strange in his own voice, vulnerable and raw.

The word hung in the air between them, trembling like a spider's web in the wind.

Izuku hesitated. Katsuki could see the tension in his shoulders, the infighting visible in the line of his jaw. He was clearly torn between the desire—or the duty—to leave and... something else. Something old. Something that might still hurt.

Then, very slowly, Izuku turned around. Not completely. Just enough for his profile to be visible in the dim light. His face was a mask of exhausted patience, but his eyes... His eyes were fixed somewhere on the ground between them.

"If it's a work thing," Izuku's voice came out controlled, each syllable carefully polished, "speak now." I have things to do.

Katsuki felt the blow. Things to do. He was a 'thing to do' now. A nuisance in the schedule. But he did not back down.

"It's not," he replied, straight away, looking at the back of Izuku's neck, at the still damp strands of hair that wrapped around there.

Her green eyes narrowed, still not finding them. A spark of something—irritation? Tiredness? — passed by them.

"Then no." Izuku said, and started to turn around again.

The panic intensified, turning into a freezing chill in Katsuki's veins.

"Please. His voice came out lower, harsher than he had ever allowed it to be. It broke in half, betraying the agony that consumed him inside. "Just... it will not yet.

It was the admission of dependency. The cry for help masked as a request. And from the way Izuku's body stood absolutely still, he understood.

Izuku closed his eyes for a long, painful instant. A deep sigh, which seemed to come from his feet, escaped his lips. When he opened his eyes, there was a dead resignation in them. The resignation of a man who has fought too hard and now just wants the battle to end, no matter the outcome.

"Only professional matters. He said finally, his voice a thread of sound. "Nothing more than that. It's the only way to... to have this conversation. We have already talked about this Bakugou.

Katsuki nodded, quickly, a sudden movement.

"I know. He replied, his voice still hoarse. "But I need to explain something to you. And—" he swallowed, his throat sore. "If it's not today, if I don't speak now... I won't be able to do it later. I'm going to choke on this.

He was begging as much as Izuku. Begging himself to have the courage, just once, to be frank.

Izuku watched his face for a few seconds that stretched into eternity. His eyes scanned Katsuki's features, looking for lies, traps, manipulation. All he found, apparently, was raw hopelessness. Then he took a deep breath, a tired sound.

"Five minutes. He said, the final words like a blade. "That's all. Not a second longer.

It was a minimal concession, but it was a crack. Katsuki clung to it like a man clinging to a rock in the middle of a shipwreck.

Without exchanging any more words, they walked together—but not side by side—to the center of the vast main training room. The cold light from the fluorescent lamps reflected off the polished wooden floor, creating a ghostly glow. The space, once filled with screams, explosions, and the sound of moving bodies, seemed too big, too empty for two men carrying the immense weight of everything unsaid. His footsteps echoed, lonely and loud, marking the physical and emotional distance that separated them.

Katsuki stopped in the center circle of the mat, a symbolic place of confrontations, tests of strength, truths spoken under the stress of combat. It was a fitting stage for the execution to come. Izuku stopped about ten feet away, his arms folded tightly over his chest, his posture a closed fortress.

The silence of the training room after hours was so absolute that it seemed to have a texture of its own. He pressed on his eardrums, a physical presence that Katsuki could feel like a weight on his chest, heavier than any combat armor. The hum of fluorescent lights, which was always in the background of the U.A., now sounded like a high-pitched, insistent whistle, entering his skull and amplifying every out-of-step beat of his own heart. The sound was dull, irregular, a hammering against his ribs that spoke of an anxiety he no longer tried to contain. It was a war beat. It was the sound of the end.

His eyes, which couldn't fix on anything, scanned the details of the room as if they were anchors, things to hold on to as the inner storm roared. The damping panels on the walls, marked by years of energy impacts. The lines painted on the floor, faded by use. The row of support equipment aligned with military precision. Everything was familiar, part of the landscape of his life since he was fifteen. Everything seemed strange, distant, as seen through thick glass.

He was standing in the center of the empty space, his legs slightly apart, as if waiting for an impact. His arms were stiff at his sides, his fists clenched so tightly that his nails, cut close, dug deep and painful grooves in the palms of his hands. Pain was a focal point, something real and tangible in the midst of the abstract whirlwind of terror and guilt that consumed him from within. The tongue inside his mouth felt like a piece of dead, dry, useless lead. How could he start? How could he transform the tangled and poisonous skein of his darkest thoughts, his most visible fears, into something that made the least sense to someone who did not inhabit the chaos inside his own head?

He took a deep breath. The air came in cold, burning my throat. He let go. It didn't help.

"Do you remember...

The voice that came out of him didn't sound like his own. It was tense, rough, coming out with a visible effort, as if every word had to be physically torn from some deep, embarrassed place within him. It wasn't the voice of Dynamight, the hero of explosive grandeur. It wasn't the voice of Katsuki Bakugou, the strong-willed student. It was the voice of a frightened man trying to confess to a crime.

He couldn't look at Izuku directly. His gaze was fixed on an empty spot on the wall, just above Izuku's right shoulder. To look at those green eyes now, after all, after having been banished from them for so long, seemed like an invasion, a desecration.

— … the day I went to my parents' house after hanging out with Kirishima?

He saw, on the periphery of his vision, the micro movement. The slight contraction of Izuku's forehead muscles, forming a small groove between his eyebrows. Confusion. Her lips, which were in a firm, neutral line, tightened a little more, but they didn't open. No sound came out. Just that wait. That infinite and deadly patience that was Izuku Midoriya's specialty. The patience that had always baffled Katsuki, which he had always interpreted as condescension, but which he now realized was something much stronger and more terrifying: a quiet resilience.

Katsuki didn't wait for a response. I knew it wouldn't come. And if it did, it would only be an echo of what he already knew. The question was a hook, a way to pull the loose thread of what needed to be unwound.

"Two weeks before the fight. He continued, forcing the words out, one by one, as if he were spitting out pieces of glass. "I went to solve some of my own things.

He paused infinitesimally. "My things". What an empty sentence. What a cowardly way to describe the storm of doubts and fears that consumed him at that time.

"Things that... that were in my head. He corrected, a little more honest, but still far from the naked truth. "Talk to my father.

The name "father" came out with an unusual, almost reverent softness. Masaru Bakugou. The quiet man, with calloused hands and a calm smile, who never raised his voice to his explosive son, but whose mere presence had always been a paradoxical safe haven. A port that Katsuki rarely admitted to needing. Talking about him at that moment, in front of Izuku, was like revealing another layer of vulnerability. To show that even the ruthless Katsuki Bakugou had a place where he sometimes sought guidance.

"I was—" he interrupted himself, a gesture of frustration. He put his hand to the back of his head, his fingers digging into the short blond strands, a nervous habit he hated. It was a sign of weakness, and he was surrounded by weaknesses today. "Thinking about things.

Another useless phrase. He almost gritted his teeth.

"Things about the future. He tried again, more specifically, forcing his gaze to stay at that spot on the wall. "About... about what we were doing. You and me.

The words "you and me" hung in the air, fragile, loaded with a weight that the space between them could no longer support. He saw, without actually seeing, Izuku's body becoming even more still, if that was even possible.

"Things I didn't know how to say out loud. Katsuki admitted, and that was perhaps the first completely naked truth he offered. The incapacity. The lack of vocabulary for what he felt. Emotional illiteracy has always been his greatest defense and his greatest prison. "I thought he... that he could help me put it in order.

"Put it in order". As if his feelings for Izuku were a messy puzzle, and not a constant earthquake that reshaped his inner world every day.

He paused longer, feeling the memory of that day return with painful clarity. The smell of the garden of his parents' house. The sound of his father's calm voice. The cup of hot tea between his hands, which he held tightly, as if he could extract some wisdom from contact with the porcelain.

"After the conversation, I came back the same day. He continued, the narrative becoming a slow and inevitable flow, like a river of mud being poured out. "But not directly.

He finally looked away from the dot on the wall, letting it wander on the floor, on his own feet. He was wearing regular training shoes. Izuku too. It was a banal, ridiculous detail, in the midst of the abyss that opened up between them.

"I stopped at a small diner, the one near the old road, you know? He asked, in an almost conversational tone, as if looking for a thread of normality. "The one that makes that horrible coffee, but the meat sandwich is acceptable."

He didn't expect an answer, and he didn't get one. But the description was important. It was to fix the scene. To make it real. To show that this was not an abstraction, a monster created by his mind. It happened. In a specific place, with specific smells, with an acceptable meat sandwich.

"I was on a motorcycle. He added, an irrelevant fact that somehow mattered. The motorcycle was his, his extension, his symbol of freedom and control. He was alone that day. Isolated. Vulnerable. "I was hungry. I needed to eat something, put something solid in my stomach before going back to the apartment...

It froze. The next word was on the tip of his tongue, ready to be said. Two years ago, she would have left naturally. Now, it was an admission loaded with so much pain, so much longing, so much regret, that it almost suffocated him.

— … for you.

He let her go. A breath. Almost inaudible. "For you". It was suspended in the air between them, small and monumental. A confession from home. Of destination. Of belonging. And it hurt more than any insult he had ever shouted.

Katsuki took another deep breath, feeling the air enter his lungs like blades of ice. Her jaw was so tense it hurt, a throbbing pain that radiated to her temples. The muscles of his arms were like ropes of steel, his fists clenched with a force that threatened to break his own bones. The pressure in his palms was a bright white dot, a beacon in the haze of panic.

"That's where I found Shindo.

The name. **Shindo**.

He didn't say it. He spat him out.

The word came from his lips like a physical object, ugly, stained, poisonous. A rusty piece of metal thrown into the clean, harsh space of the training room. She did not fall silent; she pierced him. It was more than a name. It was a key. The key to a safe that held all the rot that led to the disaster.

Katsuki felt, more than he saw, the change in Izuku. It was not a big movement. It was an almost imperceptible contraction of the body, a hardening of the muscles under the training clothes. It was a slight tremor in the chin, instantly controlled. It was the narrowing of the green eyes, which suddenly seemed to focus with a laser intensity, losing some of that icy distance for something more... attentive. More dangerous. But the most significant thing was the silence. He didn't say the name back. He didn't ask any questions. He only absorbed the impact, and his own silence became deeper, heavier, more demanding.

That was worse than any interrogation. Izuku wasn't extracting information. He was allowing Katsuki to disassemble himself, ugly piece by piece, in front of him.

Katsuki stood still for a moment after dropping his name, as if he himself was surprised by the sound. The hum of the lights seemed to turn into a roar in his ears. He could feel the cold sweat running down his back, under his shirt.

"I don't..." he tried to start, stopped. He rubbed his face with his hand, feeling the rough texture of a day's work, the fatigue in his bones. The action was a delay, a desperate attempt to find the right words in a dictionary that didn't have them. "I didn't go there expecting to see anyone. It was an accident. Fucking bad luck.

The anger in the last sentence was genuine, but not directed at Izuku. It was a rage against the universe, against the cruel chance that put that specific man in that specific place, at that specific moment of his frailty.

"I just wanted to eat in peace and go home. To..." he cut the sentence again, choking on the same two words. "For you". Repeating them would be like rubbing salt into the open wound of both. It would be unnecessary cruelty. Then he left the sentence suspended, incomplete, its meaning clear as crystal in charged air.

He took a deep breath, trying to organize the fragments of memory into a coherent narrative.

"He recognized me right away. Katsuki continued, his voice turning a metallic tone, a sound of old, impotent anger being stirred. Anger against Shindo, yes, but mostly anger against himself for being caught, for being vulnerable at that moment. "There was no chance. He came straight to my desk, pulled up his chair and sat down as if—" He paused, looking for the right analogy, and found one that was perfect in its ugliness: "As if he had that right."

He could see the scene with nauseating clarity now that he had brought it to light. The cheap diner, with its sticky plastic tables and the smell of reheated oil hanging in the air. The noise of the frying pan in the kitchen, a monotonous and aggressive sound. And Shindo, with his easy smile, his eyes that never seemed to really laugh, approaching with a confidence that bordered on arrogance.

"Like we're old friends, or worse..." Katsuki's voice dropped, becoming a restrained growl, "as if we had some kind of intimacy because of you."

"The cause of you." He didn't say "for your sake." It was an important distinction, almost imperceptible. It wasn't Izuku's fault. It never was. It was the shadow that Izuku's presence cast, the attraction he exerted, even unintentionally, and how other people clung to these reflections, trying to catch some of the heat he radiated.

Katsuki's jaw twitched forcefully, the masseter muscle bouncing under his skin. He could almost taste the metallic taste of anger in his mouth, reliving that moment.

The small talk began. Katsuki narrated, his voice flat, as if reading a crime report. "About time." About the latest joint operation. And then... Then he changed. Gently. Like a snake changing position.

The analogy with the snake came out without thinking. It was necessary. Shindo had a venomous subtlety, a way of slipping into dangerous subjects without appearing aggressive.

"He started asking about you." Katsuki said, and for the first time, his gaze shifted from the ground and briefly landed in Izuku's eyes. It was like looking at the sun after a long time in the dark – blinding and painful. He quickly dodged. "Of how you were." Of your work. From your classes here at U.A.

He paused, feeling the nausea rise in his stomach.

"Asking too much." He emphasized, his voice getting rougher. "With an interest that wasn't... professional. It was personal. It was... possessive.

The last word came out like a punch in the air. "Possessive". It was the right word. Shindo spoke of Izuku not with professional admiration or respect, but with the familiarity of someone who thinks he has a claim. As if Izuku was a territory he once explored and that he still considered, in part, his own.

Katsuki saw, again on the periphery, the slightest of reactions in Izuku. A slower, more deliberate blink of an eye. Nothing more. But it was enough to know that the word had hit its mark, that it had resonated with some memory or intuition of Izuku's own.

"I was annoyed. Katsuki admitted, looking at his own hands again, as if the palm lines might contain a script for this confession. "It wasn't jealousy, not in the shallow way, the way people think.

He frowned, a deep wrinkle of frustration appearing between his eyes. Language was failing him miserably. How to explain the ugly complexity of what he felt? It was not the simple jealousy of a romantic rival. It was something deeper, more visceral, sicker.

"I mean... maybe it was. He corrected, forcing himself to be more honest, even if honesty was ugly. "But it wasn't just that. It was audacity. The presumption.

He raised his head a little, his scarlet eyes glowing with the memory of the offense.

"He was talking about you two..." Katsuki continued, his voice full of disdain, "of a past that I know existed, but that he treated as if... as if I had been part of something important. As if he had left a mark.

He paused, swallowing the anger that was still simmering.

"As if he had some kind of... space there. The word 'space' came out with contempt. Space in Izuku's life. Space in his story. Space that Katsuki, at his worst, began to believe that he himself did not deserve to occupy.

Katsuki took a deep breath, feeling his chest expand and contract with difficulty. The air felt thick.

"And I made it clear that I didn't. He said, his voice turning firm, an echo of the certainty he tried to project that day. "That that space didn't exist. That he was a closed chapter. A book he should have stopped reading a long time ago.

Izuku's silence was a living entity now. He was not hostile. It was not accusatory. It was just... immense. Absorbent. Like the darkness of space, consuming every word, every intonation, every unspoken tremor. It was a silence that weighed heavily, that demanded more. That demanded everything.

"I left. Katsuki said, his voice lowering again, becoming almost monotonous, as if he were recounting the final events of an accident. "Or I tried." I paid the bill, I withdrew it. I pretended that the conversation hadn't reached me. I pretended that all that presumption was just annoying, no... non-threatening.

He could see himself, in memory, placing the note on the table, avoiding Shindo's gaze, turning around with a coldness he didn't feel.

He sat there, with that smile. Katsuki remembered, and a chill ran down his spine. Shindo's smile was not one of defeat. It was patience. From someone who thinks he has time by his side. "When I was already outside, in the parking lot, putting on my helmet... He went after me. He called me again.

Katsuki swallowed. The saliva seemed to have turned into glue in his throat. This was the part. The moment when the poison was actually injected. The moment he reviewed a thousand times in his mind, in nightmares, in moments of weakness.

"Just one more thing, Bakugou," he said.

Izuku, for the first time since the beginning of the confession, moved. It wasn't a big move. It was not a step forward or backward. It was only a slight, almost imperceptible, tilt of the head. His eyes, which were half lost in a distant point, fixed directly on Katsuki's. And it was like being pierced by two needles of green ice. It was a look that did not ask, did not beg, did not condemn. I just saw. It penetrated. It demanded the final truth.

Katsuki felt something icy form deep in his stomach, a wave of nausea so strong that he had to close his eyes for a second. When he opened them, he was looking at the U.A. symbol painted on the floor in the center of the combat circle. The symbol that represented all that they had fought to become. And everything he had risked losing.

He forced the words out. They came out crooked, broken, as if they were fighting to escape.

"He asked if I really thought so..." his voice cracked, choking in a knot of raw emotion. He cleared his throat, a hoarse, ugly sound. — … if I really thought that someone like me could make you happy.

The sentence came out. Complete. Ugly. Pie. Poisonous.

It didn't just hang in the air. She settled in. Like an oil slick in clean water, it spread, poisoning the space between them. It was a question that was not a question. It was a disguised statement. A doubt planted with the precision of a surgeon in a vital point: the heart of Katsuki's insecurity.

Izuku's reaction was... nothing. No shock. No gasping gasps. Not a word of protest. Just an intensification of that piercing gaze, and a slight, very slight, tightening of the lips, as if he were tasting that ugly sentence and agreed with his bitterness.

Katsuki couldn't look at that reaction. I couldn't. His own gaze was glued to the ground, on the symbol of U.A., but he did not see the symbol. He saw Shindo's smiling face, hearing the echo of that question in his own ears, feeling again the icy shock that wasn't anger, but something much worse.

"I froze. He confessed, and his voice was now a hoarse, drawling whisper, as if he were speaking from inside a grave. "Because it wasn't anger I felt first. It wasn't the impulse to blow his face right there, though that came later, in hot, blind waves.

He breathed, a trembling sound.

"It was... It was cold. He described, and he could feel that cold again, coming down from the nape of his neck, vertebra by vertebra, to the base of his spine, freezing him inside. "A cold that paralyzed me. Because it wasn't just any provocation, one of those I knew how to deal with, that I could return with interest. It was as if someone... someone had put into words, with the precision of a surgeon, something that I have never... that I never let become a complete thought inside my head.

He shook his head slowly, a denial of the memory, of the truth of that weakness.

"A fear. He whispered. "A fear that I didn't even know had a name. That I buried under anger, under work, under... under anything that distracted me. The fear that I wouldn't be... sufficient.

The word "enough" came out like a groan. It was the key word. The seed of all rottenness. The fundamental doubt that eroded his confidence, his security, his right to be by Izuku's side.

"And he didn't stop there. Katsuki continued, his voice taking on a tone of bitter incredulity, as if he himself still didn't believe in the casual cruelty of that interaction. "He said it was only a matter of time.

Katsuki's voice almost disappeared at the end of the sentence. He forced her out.

"That you would find someone better." He repeated Shindo's words, and each one was a small, precise cut. "Someone else... easier. Someone less problematic. Someone who wasn't... that it wasn't me.

He laughed. A dry, broken sound that echoed in the empty room and died quickly, swallowed by silence. There was no humor there. Just despair.

"And the worst..." Katsuki shook his head again, his eyes closed, shame burning his face, warming the tips of his ears. "The worst of all is that... When I heard that, sitting on that motorcycle, with my helmet in my hand, feeling that chill in my bones... I didn't think 'that's a lie, he doesn't know what he's talking about'.

He opened his eyes, but still didn't look at Izuku. He looked at his own hands, which now trembled visibly. He clenched them tighter, trying to stop the shaking, but to no avail.

"I didn't think, 'Izuku loves me, that's nonsense.' I didn't think 'we have something real, it's wrong'. His voice was almost gone now, a thread of sound charged with horror. "I thought...

He closed his eyes again, the shame being so overwhelming that it was almost physical.

— 'What if it's true?'

The admission came out. A low moan, a sound of pure pain. It was the confession of his most fundamental sin, his deepest weakness: the belief, even if momentary, in the doubt planted by a stranger, rather than faith in what he and Izuku had built.

"'What if he's right?'" the words began to gush out now, a stream of poison he'd kept for so long, brewing in his inner darkness. "'What if I'm not enough? And if all we have is just... habit? Comfort? What if one day he wakes up and realizes that he can have more? Who deserves more? Someone who doesn't need to be fixed. Someone who doesn't explode. Someone who doesn't hurt him just by existing the way he does?'

The words were ugly. Selfish. Centered on him, on his own insecurities. But they were true. It was the ugly truth of what inhabited the dark corners of his mind.

"It's not about you, Izuku. He said, his voice trembling but with a plea for understanding. "It never was. It's about me. It's about that little voice in the back of my head that never shuts up, that always reminds me of everything wrong I've done, everything bad that I am. Since we were children. 'Kacchan is brave. Kacchan is cruel. Kacchan hurts people.' And Shindo..." his voice hardened again, "he gave a megaphone to that voice. He took the whisper and turned it into a scream inside my head.

Katsuki was breathing hard now, his chest rising and falling rapidly. It was as if he were running a marathon, but the race was internal, against his own demons.

"I kept that in my head. He continued, his voice returning to a monotonous, damage-report tone. "Not one day. Not two. It was weeks.

He emphasized the word, letting it echo. Weeks of silent torture. Weeks of slow poisoning.

"Everything you said, everything you did..." he paused, swallowing the lump in his throat. "I started to hear it wrong. To be misinterpreted. If you were kind, if you wondered if I had eaten, if I had slept... I thought: 'Is it a shame? Does he think I can't take care of myself?' If you covered my rear in a mission, with that precision that only you have... I thought: 'Is it because he doesn't trust that I can do it alone? Does he think I'm going to fail?' If you suggested we go out, see a movie, just stay at home... I thought: 'Is it an obligation? Does he do it because he thinks he has to, not because he wants to?'

He let out a breath, a sound of total exhaustion.

"Every smile of yours, every touch, every 'how are you?' at the end of the day..." his voice broke. "I turned it into evidence. In proof. Proof that you were getting tired. That you were just waiting for the right moment to... to leave. To find someone better. Someone who wasn't a burden. Someone who wasn't a project. Someone who wasn't **me**.

Katsuki took a deep breath, his shoulders rising and falling with the effort. He felt empty. Drained. As if it had turned its own interior inside out and exposed all the rotten entrails for inspection.

"And I don't..." his voice rose suddenly, charged with a self-contempt so intense it was almost a scream. "I don't have the right to feel that way, I know!"

He slammed his clenched fist against his own thigh once, hard. It wasn't to hurt Izuku, it was to hurt himself, to punish weakness.

"Because you never gave me a reason." Never. You've always been... you. Constant. Firm. Loyal in a way that I can't even understand. The words were now mixed with a tremor of genuine emotion, not only of guilt, but of a painful reverence for the man in front of her. "But my head doesn't work like that!" She takes something good, pure, and finds the angle rotten! She takes love and asks 'what's the price?'. 'What does he want from me?'. 'When will he realize that it's not worth it?'. That's what I know how to do! It's how I was made! It's my standard!

The last sentence was a brutal acknowledgment, a diagnosis of a character flaw that he carried like a curse.

He finally, finally, looked up and fixed it directly into Izuku's eyes. And what he saw there was not anger. It wasn't disgusting. It was pain. A deep, ancient, recognizable pain. The pain he himself caused. The pain of knowing that the man you love has been torturing himself in silence, believing lies about himself and you, and turning that torture into violence.

That pain in Izuku's eyes was the hardest thing Katsuki had ever had to face. Worse than any battle. Worse than any injury.

"So I was stressed. Annoyed. Defensive. He continued, his voice lowering again, returning to the tone of narration, as if he were talking about someone else. "A powder keg waiting for a spark. And instead of talking, instead of being man enough to come to you and say 'hey, I've got some horrible little voices in my head, I'm scared, I need help', I did what I always do when I'm afraid and I don't know how to deal with it: I closed myself off. I walked away. I created walls. I pretended that I didn't need anything, anyone. Especially from you.

He paused, his breathing panting.

"And when the pressure got too great, when the voices and the doubts and the fear became unbearable..." Katsuki looked directly at Izuku, his scarlet eyes begging for understanding, even if not forgiveness, I exploded. And I directed all that to you. Because you were the closest. Because you were the most important. Because hurting you was the most efficient way to hurt myself, to prove to that little voice that yes, I was as bad as she said.

The tears did not come. Katsuki Bakugou did not cry. But his voice was choked, hoarse with suppressed emotion.

"I hurt you with words that I didn't even believe, but that hurt because they were the only ones I could find to express the panic. To turn abstract fear into something concrete, into something I could fight against. But I fought against the wrong thing. I fought you.

Katsuki was silent for a long moment. The air in the room seemed to have been sucked out. All that remained was the truth, ugly and raw, hovering between them.

He looked up once more, keeping him pinned on Izuku's with an iron determination. It was the least he owed him. It was the last thing he could offer: the courage not to look away from the devastation he caused.

"I hurt you." He repeated, the simple words, devastating in their final simplicity. "Because it was easier than admitting I was terrified." Terrified of losing you. Terrified that I was never worthy of you in the first place. He paused, swallowing. "It's even easier than admitting I needed you." That I still need. That without you... I go back to being just that walking bomb, without direction, without purpose, just anger and fear.

The silence that followed the end of Katsuki's speech was not an empty silence. It was a heavy silence, saturated with the weight of everything that was said. It was the silence after an explosion, when the dust was still settling and the extent of the damage was becoming visible.

Izuku didn't respond immediately.

He didn't look away. He didn't take a step back, retreating from the ugly truth. He didn't step forward, offering a hug or a premature forgiveness.

He just stood there, standing in the circle of light, a monument of pain and patience. Absorbing every word, every nuance, every tremor in Katsuki's voice. His face was a landscape of restrained emotions. The fatigue in the corners of his eyes was deeper now. Sadness, a permanent shadow under his skin. But there was something else there too, something that Katsuki could barely identify through his own whirlwind. It was... Attention. A deep, almost analytical attention. As if Izuku was processing not only the words, but the entire architecture of the collapse, mapping every dark room of Katsuki's mind that was revealed.

Katsuki took one last deep breath. His body was light, strangely empty, as if he had undergone surgery without anesthesia and had removed a tumor that had been poisoning him for years. The pain was still there, throbbing and sharp, but now it was a clean pain. Exposed to air. A pain that could, perhaps, with time, heal.

"That's it. He said, his voice hoarse from the effort, from the remnants of emotion. It sounded final. Like the closing of a book. "It doesn't make complete sense. I know. It's confusing. It's ugly. It's fucking selfish. I also don't quite understand all the pieces, how they fit together. Therapy helps, but... The mess is still mine.

He gave a slight, tired shrug. A gesture of resignation.

"But..." he looked directly at Izuku, offering the only thing he had left: the complete nakedness of his failure, "it's the most honest truth I have right now." The only one that matters.

The silence continued.

And Katsuki, for the first time in his entire stormy and explosive life, did not try to fill the void. He did not try to justify, explain, rationalize. He did not try to force a reaction, a response, a verdict. He had no more weapons. He had no more defenses. He was no longer proud to hide.

He just stayed there. Standing in the empty training room. Offering himself, totally exposed, vulnerable to the marrow. A man confessing his worst fear, his greatest weakness, his ugliest sin, to the only person in the world whose opinion really mattered. And he waited.

The future of all that they were, all that they could be, now hangs on the most fragile thread in the universe: the silence of Izuku Midoriya.

The silence was not peaceful. It could never be. Not in that U.A. lecture room that smelled of dust, old sweat and memories impregnated on the walls. It was a heavy silence, a living and dangerous animal that settled between the two men, sucking the oxygen and replacing it with something heavier, more cruel. The air seemed to crystallize, each molecule strained to the breaking point, vibrating with the unspoken frequency of eight months of absences, averted glances, and words choking in the throat. It was the kind of silence that precedes natural catastrophes — the oppressive lull before the earthquake, the receding tide before the tsunami. Katsuki could hear his own blood running through his veins, a dull, racing sound that beat in unison with the distant ticking of a clock in the hallway, every second a hammer striking the coffin of what they had.

Izuku stood still. It was not the immobility of one who is at peace, but that of a pillar of salt at the exact moment before destruction. His shoulders, so broad now, a powerful frame that carried the weight of saving the world, did not show the usual strength. They were rigid, betrayed. Every muscle, every tendon, was filled with the memory of a specific suffering: the strain of holding the phone at night, waiting for a call that never came; the stiffness in the back when sitting at the dinner table alone, facing the cold dish; the weight on his shoulders as he entered the agency and felt Katsuki's gaze avert from his own as if it were a thorn. His face, that map that Katsuki knew better than he knew himself—the scar on his right eyebrow from a blow he had dodged himself, the gentle curve of his lips that turned into the most radiant smile in the world, the discreet freckles that only appeared in the summer—was now carved into something harder than granite. It was the face of a monument to pain. Only the eyes, those immense green eyes that once reflected forests, skies and an admiration so pure it hurt, were alive. And what burned in them was not fire. It was the final ember of a fire that consumed everything, leaving behind only ashes and an exhaustion so deep that it seemed to have age, weight and smell.

When he finally spoke, the sound didn't seem to come from his mouth. It came from the center of the earth, a seismic tremor that forced its way upward, scratching every inch of its being in the process. It was intimate violence.

"So..." the word came out in a hoarse breath, so low that Katsuki had to read his lips to understand, before the sound actually reached his ears. It was the voice of a man with a throat full of broken glass. Each syllable, "then," was pulled out at a visible cost, as if he were tearing off a piece of his own vital tissue. "All of this... Was it because of Shindo?

The name was not pronounced. He was spat on. It was a desecration. In the air between them, the word "Shindo" left an acid trail, a metallic smell of betrayal. It was not a question seeking confirmation. It was the key turning in the lock of a safe that Katsuki never knew existed, a safe locked under lock and key inside Izuku's chest, and what escaped now wasn't a secret, it was a nerve gas of pure fermented anguish. Katsuki felt the name as a physical blow to the solar plexus, an instantaneous, paralyzing guilt.

Katsuki felt his world come crashing down in slow motion. His primal instinct, that fused core of pride and anger that had always defined him, rose like a wounded animal inside his chest. He felt the familiar warmth of nitro sweat welling up in his palms, an almost audible hiss, an itch ready to explode, to destroy, to turn this unbearable pain into something simple as combat. His jaws clenched so tightly that his teeth gritted, a dry, lonely sound in the silence. Scream, whispered a voice inside him, the voice of a lifetime. Explode. Assign blame. Tease him. Have him yell back, so at least they're still talking.

But then, his eyes—the sharp, red eyes that had always taken the world as a challenge—met Izuku's. And what he saw there extinguished instinct like a bucket of ice water. There was no flame to fight. There was no determination to overcome. There was only... a tired emptiness. It was the look of a soldier who survived the battle only to find that his home no longer existed. It was gray. Ash from things burned to the roots, to the memory of what was green. And in a moment of clarity so overwhelming that it hurt more than any explosion, Katsuki Bakugou did something he had never done in his entire stormy life: he braved the storm of his own making... and chose to keep quiet. Guilt descended upon him like a leaden cloak, heavy, viscous, covering his mouth, trapping his blasts inside his own body. Regret was a metallic, nauseating taste in the back of the tongue.

He opened his mouth. The lips, once so adept at twisting into an arrogant smile or a fierce scream, parted. The air came in. His vocal cords tensed. But the words, those treacherous bridge-builders and world-destroyers, died right there, choked by the smoke of their own stupidity. What could be said? "Excuse" was a grain of sand in front of a desert of pain. "I messed up" was the most obvious and useless observation in the universe. "I love you" would now sound like the greatest of mockery. He was mute, imprisoned, stuck on the hook of that look that did not accuse, did not scream... I just saw. And he saw everything. He saw the boy he was, the hero he was, and the monumental idiot he had proven himself to be.

 

Izuku looked up. It was not a quick move. It was a glacial, agonizing elevation, as if his eyelashes weighed tons, laden with all the tears he hadn't cried. When the green pupils, flooded with suffering so deep it seemed brown, finally settled on the red pupils, it was a shock. Katsuki literally felt a shock in his chest. And then, he witnessed the most devastating event of his life: the last shred of hope in Izuku's eyes – that stubborn, irrational, beautiful, stupid thing that had always shone even in the worst of times, the hope that was the essence of "Deku" – shattered. It wasn't with a bang. It was with a small tremor, a final glow that went out, leaving behind a frosted and opaque glass. It turned to dust. And the dust was carried away by the icy wind that was now blowing between them.

"All of that..." Izuku repeated, and the voice now had volume, but it was a wrong volume, fractured. It didn't come from strength, it came from a structural crack widening in his soul. It was the sound of a levee, after months of relentless pressure, finally giving way with a crooked iron groan. "Was it because of him, Katsuki?"

The name. Your name. "Katsuki". For years, that combination of syllables in Izuku's mouth had been a private universe. Whispered in the darkness of the rooms, shouted in alert on the battlefields, spoken with a soft reverence that no one else could imitate. Now, it came out like a poison. Each syllable, "Kat-su-ki," was a shot of acid that burned Izuku's tongue, poisoned the air they shared, eroded the last vestiges of what they felt. It was the final straw. The epitaph.

And then, inside Izuku, the barriers didn't just break through. They were swept away by a tsunami.

The Nights. They were not just memories; They were physical sensations that invaded him there, in that room. He felt again the biting cold of the metal of his balcony railing sticking to his sweaty palms. He saw the shape of his own reflection in the dark glass, a man with the shoulders of a hero and the eyes of a lost boy. I heard the silence. It was not the absence of sound; He was an active presence. A parasite that whispered in his ear, in an infinite loop: "Where is he? Why don't you turn it on? What did you do? What's wrong with you?" Every cold dinner, eaten in front of the TV with the sound muted, was a knot in his stomach. Each message sent and left in the "seen", is a small mourning. Each time he heard footsteps in the hallway of the building, his heart would leap, primitive, animal, only to contract in sharp pain as the footsteps passed straight through. Hope was torture. The absence, a dull knife closing his bones.

The Missions. He saw himself as a spectator of his own body, moving with the perfect efficiency of a top hero. The "Deku Smile", the one that calmed civilians and angered villains, was now glued to his face like a latex mask. His mind, the tactical mind that could process a hundred variables in a second, was divided: 50% focused on the enemy, 50% captivate in a maze of memories. As he dodged a blow, he revived the touch of Katsuki's hand on the back of his head. As he arrested a criminal, he analyzed the exact tone of the last trivial conversation they had, looking for the clue, the wrong word, the exact moment when the track changed direction. He had faced titans that could level cities, but no monster was more terrifying than Katsuki's ghost of silence. That silence was a villain he couldn't defeat, because he didn't know where he was, or how to attack him.

The Months. The interrogation was a rodent animal that lived in its guts. "Am I not good enough?" (The question of the slight boy who never left.) "Am I not strong enough?" (The doubt of the hero who always compared himself.) "I'm not... interesting enough?" (The fear of the man who saw Katsuki's raging complexity and wondered if it would ever be tiring.) And the most poisonous doubt, the one that appeared in the darkest dawns: "Did he meet anyone? Anyone simpler? Someone who doesn't carry the weight of All Might, of One for All, of such a complicated story? Someone who doesn't need to decipher codes of explosion and silence? Someone who... Isn't it me?"

From this mud of pain, loneliness and self-flagellation, a new emotion was born. It wasn't the instant, hot anger he sometimes felt. It was something slower, heavier, more dangerous. A glacial fury. Crystallized by 240 days of emotional abandonment. It formed into its core, a black, icy gem, and then began to spread, replacing the trembling of nerves with steel wires, the weakness of tears with deadly determination. It reached his fingers, which clenched into fists so tense that their nails dug into his palms, almost draw blood. He reached his column, straightening it in a battle posture. It reached his voice.

"I know, Izuku, I know I made a mistake, but," Katsuki's attempt was a rag of sound, his voice hoarse and unrecognizable even to himself. It was the sound of pride being torn apart, but it came too late. It was a Styrofoam lifeline thrown into the eye of a Category 5 hurricane.

"NO.

The word was not spoken. It was detonated. It exploded in the space between them with the force of a concussion grenade, no fire, just pure shockwave of denial. Izuku didn't take a step forward; He advanced, and the movement was so charged with violent intent that the very air seemed to move away. Her body was no longer that of a betrayed lover crying in a room. It was that of Deku, Hero Number One, about to face the most lethal threat of his life: the truth. And the truth was Katsuki.

"You're telling me," Izuku's every word was now a bullet forged in the molten iron of his agony, cut with surgical precision to deal maximum damage, "that all of this... the absolute hell that I lived, breathing, eating, surviving each day... Was it because you listened to someone else?

He paused microscopicly, his gaze piercing Katsuki like a laser.

"And you preferred to believe her words..." the word "hers" came out with a contempt so deep it was almost physical, "instead of coming to me, looking into my eyes, and talking to me?" With me, Katsuki! The man you claimed to love! The partner who supposedly had his blind side!

The question did not seek an answer. It was a surgical exhibition. It was him opening Katsuki's chest and pointing, with a trembling finger of fury, to the manufacturing defect, the original sin: the complete and total inability to exchange combustion for conversation.

"Is this serious, Katsuki?" The first real scream came out then. It was not loud in the sense of decibels, but in its density of despair. It was a hoarse, torn scream that seemed to tear off the lining of his windpipe. "IS IT SERIOUS THAT YOU SENTENCED ME TO EIGHT MONTHS OF TORTURE BECAUSE OF A COMMENT MADE BY A THIRD PARTY?" ANSWER!

Katsuki's eyes, those embers always so arrogant, were now completely extinguished, flooded. The water that filled them was not from anger, it was from the belated, agonizing understanding of the size of the hole he dug. He looked at Izuku and no longer saw his rival, his equal, his counterpart. I saw damage. He saw a man whom he, with his own hands and his pathological arrogance, had reduced to a state of pure emotional exhaustion. The tears stubbornly did not fall, trapped by the last remnant of a dying pride, but they glowed, reflecting Izuku's pain like distorted mirrors. At that instant, Katsuki Bakugou, the explosive genius, looked like just a frightened boy who finally realized that his most precious toy was not only broken, but he himself had thrown it to the ground and trampled on.

"I've spent days," Izuku struck his own sternum with the base of his fist. It was not theatrical. It was an instinctive movement, an attempt to locate the physical pain, to make it real, measurable, because the emotional pain was too much to bear. "Days, weeks, months... thinking that the mistake was mine! That I had spoiled the most precious thing in my life!

His voice rose in spasms, choking on sobs that he struggled to contain, turning them into grunts of rage.

"Thinking you didn't want to tell me what was wrong because..." because what we had was not worthy of your effort! That our relationship was an embarrassing secret, or worse... that it was something so fragile, so insignificant, that it didn't even deserve a farewell conversation!

He gestured violently between the two, his arm cutting through the air like a blade.

"I thought, with every fiber of my being, that you had met someone else!" Someone brighter, easier, less... Damaged! I thought, night after night, staring at the ceiling until the sun came up, that the problem was Izuku Midoriya! That I would never, ever be enough for Katsuki Bakugou! Never hero enough, never strong enough, never... Easy enough that you don't have to blow up!

The final cry, "EASY", did not only echo on the walls. It echoed in Katsuki's bones. It was the rawest confession, the total denudation of the insecurity that Izuku had always carried and that Katsuki, with his actions, had fed to the point of the monster.

"And NOW," Izuku's voice distorted into a mixture of laughter and crying, a hysteria of furious incredulity, "you come to tell me, with that face of a beaten dog, that all that hell, all that silent agony, was because Shindo whispered a doubt in your ear and you, like the proud idiot you always were, Swallowed the lie whole without even giving me the right to defend myself? ANSWER, KATSUKI! FOR ONCE IN YOUR LIFE, USE WORDS

"I thought that —

"NO. It doesn't come with 'I found it.'"

"Deku, listen to me, please..." Katsuki's voice was a thread of sound, harsh and broken. It was strange in their own ears, the voice of a supplicant, of a man drowning and knowing that there is no salvation. "I know it was a colossal mistake, a shitty mistake, the biggest of my life, but I'm here now, I... I'm trying to fix it, trying...

"STOP. to

It was a command. A decree. The fury in Izuku seemed to evaporate instantly, leaving behind a vacuum of absolute zero temperature. He was no longer screaming. He was sentencing.

"Stop calling me that." "The voice was flat, smooth, deadly. "'Deku.' You have lost the right. Eight months ago, when you chose a stranger's word over mine, you signed the death certificate of that name. You killed the 'Deku' that was yours. You let him die of hunger, of inattention, of silence. 'Deku' died believing he was the problem.

Katsuki felt as if all the organs inside his torso had been ripped out at once. The nickname... that childish insult that became the most important name in the world, the name he shouted in panic, whispered with possessiveness, pronounced with a respect that he did not accord to anyone else... was being revoked. It was the final defection.

"And now," Izuku took a deep breath, a tremor coursing through his body like a small earthquake, but his voice remained eerily steady, what was worse, "any glimmer of hope, any crumb of 'maybe' I was still in, like an incurable idiot, feeding in the dark... it's over. Zero. You killed her. Not with an explosion, not with a scream. With this pathetic confession. You killed with the truth.

The words, in that low, definitive tone, were more destructive than any Howitzer offensive he had ever launched. It was the pain of a closed trial, with no right to appeal.

"Do you know what the funniest part is?" The most ironic of all? Izuku continued, and a ghostly smile touched his lips, a heatless reflection. "We didn't have even half the problems that other couples have.

He took a step to the side, breaking the front alignment, a subtle movement of someone who is already starting to detach.

"It's not the world against us. It's not the Commission of Heroes chasing us. It's not prejudice, it's not fear, it's not our families rejecting us. Our mothers adore each other, for God's sake. "The black humor in the voice was vinegary. "We never had to fight for the right to exist as a couple, Katsuki. We have always existed. Forever. It was organic. It was obvious. It was... easy to exist.

He stopped, swallowed.

"We had so many real things to face together. The future. The fear of getting hurt on a mission. The expectations of the world. Our own demons... All For One, the pressure of ranking, the shadow of All Might... Fucking adulthood with bills to pay and decisions about the future. The voice failed for a nanosecond, but he forced her to continue, rougher now. "But no. Our only big problem, the monster under the bed, has always been you. Your monumental inability to stop exploding and start talking. It's pathetic.

"This..." Izuku kept shaking his head with tragic slowness, as if he was seeing Katsuki, really seeing it for the first time, and the sight was heartbreaking. "That's your problem, Katsuki. Its original failure. You don't dialogue. You detonate. We don't talk. You never talked. You scream. You explode. You scream. You attack. And then, when the dust of your own anger settles and you see the crater you made, you stand in the middle, confused, waiting for things to magically rebuild themselves, because after all, you 'have already said what you had to say', haven't you? You 'vented'.

A dry laugh, a sound of paper being crumpled, came out of his throat.

"I spent years adapting to it. Years of learning the language of their screams, the grammar of their outbursts. I thought you were romantic, part of who you were. I thought being 'Deku' meant being resilient enough to weather his storms and still stand, smiling, on the other side. But there comes a time, Katsuki... There comes a time when we get tired of being resilient. He gets tired of being strong. It gets tired of being the wall that always absorbs the impact. The wall cracks. The wall collapses.

He brought his hands to his face, his fingers – the same fingers that broke so many bones of villains, that held so many hands of victims – pressed his eyelids hard. It was a gesture of defeat. When he lowered them, his face was wet, but his eyes... His eyes were dry now. The tears that fell were a residue, the final overflow.

"And you come here, now, after eight months, and throw this 'truth' on my lap..." Izuku's voice reduced to a hoarse and devastating whisper. "It only proves the one thing I've always feared, but never wanted to believe. That you never... never trusted me. In me, Katsuki. On your partner. In the man who loved you with a constancy that should be frightening. You trusted the poisonous insinuation of a competitive colleague more than you did a decade of my loyalty, my love, my blind devotion to you. What were we, then? A convenient habit? A rivalry that has gone too far? What was all this, if it wasn't grounded in the most basic trust?

The tears were now silent, flowing in rivers down his chin, dripping down the chest of his uniform. He cried soundlessly, his body trembling with the force of a cry that has already passed the point of despair and reached that of pure exhaustion.

"Why..." he whispered, and the voice that came out was small, fragile, the voice of the four-year-old boy on the playground. "Why does loving you have to be a battle?" Why does it have to be so hard? Why do you turn your heart into a minefield? Why can't you just... Be vulnerable with me? Why does it have to be a blast? Why does it have to be a silence that cuts more than any blade? Why do you have to be the most frighteningly difficult person to love on this planet?

"Izuk..." Katsuki tried to speak, but was cut off.

"Do you know which part hurt the most, Katsuki?" If there can be a less bad one!

Izuku's voice didn't budge. Trepidation? Yes. But it was a solid trepidation, like the shaking of a building about to collapse, not of fear, but of accumulated tension. The air in the hallway seemed to have thickened, sucking in the sound, leaving each word suspended, heavy.

Katsuki did not respond. The confusion, clear on his face, was a blade against his own throat. His chest contracted in an irregular rhythm, a mute alarm.

"On the day of the fight..." he began, and the pause that followed was no hesitation. It was the final tip of the board. The look into the void before the jump. " I left the door unlocked.

The silence that fell was not instantaneous. It formed, like a gas, occupying the space between them, swelling, pressing on the eardrums. The corridor, previously just a stage, has been transformed into a vacuum chamber. The distant tinkling of a telephone in some office died.

"What?" Katsuki's word came out flat, devoid of inflection. More of an auditory reflex than a question. His brain hadn't processed it. Just recorded the sound and triggered a standard response.

"I left the door unlocked. Izuku's repetition came sharper, each syllable hammered, not out of anger, but out of brutal clarity. "Because I swore, with all the sick I still had left, that you would come back.

Katsuki didn't blink. His lungs stopped.

"I calculated. Izuku's voice became low, almost intimate, which made it ten times more cutting. "You'd leave." He would walk around the city. A pole, a garbage can, whatever, would blow up. The steam would come out. The pressure would go down. And you would come back. Slamming my foot on the door, screaming my name, demanding something, anything. As it always was.

Izuku nodded, slowly. A single sob broke through his chest, a hoarse, involuntary noise, and he swallowed it with a violence that made his jaw twitch.

"So I unlocked it. I lay on the bed. And I waited.

The image formed in Katsuki's mind with the sharpness of a nightmare. Izuku, alone in the darkness of the apartment that was once theirs. His eyes open, fixed on the ceiling. Every noise in the building—the elevator, a footstep upstairs, the roar of the plumbing—being dissected, waiting to turn into the sound of a key, a fist against the wood. Of him.

"Two weeks, Katsuki. Izuku's voice broke, but it didn't lose its thread. It became rough, frayed at the edge. "Fourteen nights." I was going to lie down, and my hand went to the doorknob. Just to check. Just to be sure. And I left it like that. Open. Like an invitation. Like a trap for myself.

"I... I waited two weeks.
With the door unlocked.
Do you have any idea what this is?

The tears that now streamed down Izuku's face were not silent. They were accompanied by a visible tremor in his shoulders, a physical struggle to keep the words in line as emotion tried to dismantle them.

"I heard the elevator stop. His voice became a hoarse, slurred whisper. "My heart stopped together. I would get up, foot by foot, and stand behind the door. Waiting. Taking a deep breath, trying to hear your breath on the other side. And it was... the neighbor. It was silence. It was the wind in the hallway.

Katsuki could feel the cold of this corridor now. He could feel the vacuum that Izuku described. It was a cold that went beyond the skin, which settled in the bones.

"And you never came." "The final statement was not a shout. It was a realization, low and devastating, like the sound of a heavy door closing at the bottom of a well. "Not even on the first night. Not even on Monday. Not even when I was so tired of waiting that I hated myself for still waiting.

Katsuki tried to swallow. His throat was sealed. The muscles in his neck locked. His world, which was already in tatters, was now reduced to this corridor, to this voice, to this truth that he never knew.

"Do you want to know how I found out that you were really gone?" Izuku asked, and now there was a dangerous glint in his eyes, a mixture of pain and ancient, fossilized anger. "You didn't tell me. It wasn't a message in the middle of the night. It wasn't an apology note smashed at the door.

He rubbed his eyes with his knuckles, a brusque, almost self-flagellating gesture.

"It was a reporter. With a white-toothed smile and a microphone. She surrounded me at the exit of the U.A. and asked, in that sweet tone of someone offering a poison, "Midoriya-san, how are you dealing with Bakugou-san's departure for America?" Katsuki felt his insides tighten. The taste of the metal filled his mouth.

"I didn't know what she was talking about. Izuku's voice turned flat, dead. I stood there, with a frozen smile on my face, trying to process the words. 'Departure'. 'America'. And she just stared, waiting for my reaction, her eyes shining with hunger for a headline.

He closed his eyes for a second, as if he saw the scene again.

"I had to call Kirishima. Izuku's voice faltered, just by a syllable, before reaffirming itself. "And I asked, like a complete idiot, 'Hey, has Kacchan traveled?' And on the other end of the line... that silence. That damned, heavy silence. And then he said, in a voice I've never heard from him before, full of pity: 'Izuku... didn't you know?"

Every word was a nail. Katsuki could feel them being nailed, one by one, not into his flesh, but into something deeper. In everything he thought he knew about that separation.

Izuku took a deep breath, the air hissing between his teeth.

"I left the fucking door open, Katsuki. He repeated, but now it was a litany, a fundamental and terrible truth. "I left a loophole. A space. One chance. For you to come in, for you to scream, for you to explode, for you to do anything. But you chose... silence. You chose to disappear.

He looked directly at Katsuki, and what was in his eyes was no longer just pain. It was her residue. The ash.

"Then explain to me," Izuku's whisper cut through the air like a thin blade. "How the hell do you expect someone to survive an explosion that never makes a sound?" How do you survive the shard of what never happened?

The silence that followed was not empty. It was saturated. With the image of a door ajar in silent darkness. With the echo of footsteps that never approached. With the colossal weight of an absence that has become, itself, a presence.

Katsuki couldn't move. I couldn't breathe. The truth, finally complete, did not hit him like a punch.

It just settled in.

It was heavier than any explosion.

It was silent.

Katsuki, seeing that collapse, seeing the absolute fragility behind the fury, was seized by an animal, primordial impulse. One step forward. The hand rising, trembling, the fingers reaching for a face they knew so well. A gesture of consolation, of connection, a last and desperate thread to pull him back from the edge of the abyss.

Izuku retreated.

It wasn't a leap. It was a fluid, almost elegant move away. His entire body moved away, as if Katsuki's personal force field emitted a deadly radiation. The movement was small, but its eloquence was cataclysmic. It was the final construction of the wall. The trench dug. The declared border. Don't touch me. Never again.

Katsuki felt his hand fall to the side of his body like a dead weight.

Izuku's body turn wasn't dramatic. It was a surrender.

The shoulders rotated first, slowly, as if moving against a physical resistance, dragging the rest of the torso. The backs that presented themselves to Katsuki were not just backs—they were a wall, a final border, the reverse side of a person. The muscles under the thin shirt were tense, shaped not by anger but by a fatigue so deep that it had become anatomy. He brought his hand to his face, his long fingers covering his eyes for a moment, as if erasing an unbearable image. The sound that came out of it was not a sob, but something more primitive: a hoarse, strangled sigh, the sound of something breaking inside without making a sound outside. The breath that followed was measured, deliberate—once, twice, three times—the ritual of a man trying to reassemble his shards before the wind carried them away.

Katsuki remained.

Paralysis was not the right word. It was something more active than that. It was a total suspension. Each muscle locked in a minimal contraction, keeping it upright by sheer biological inertia. His eyes, wide, did not blink. The retina burned, dry, fixed on Izuku's back. The air in his lungs wasn't air—it was a solid, heavy block that he didn't know how to expel. Izuku's words didn't echo. They settled in. "Door unlocked." "Two weeks." "He left." Each one, a seed of lead planted in your stomach, germinating immediately into pure, toxic shame. He felt their metallic taste on his tongue, their weight on his bones.

Then, Izuku turned around again.

The transformation was subtle, but total. His face was still wet, his features still marked by tears, but the emotional landscape had changed. The sharp pain had given way to erosion. Her eyes, red and swollen, begged no more. They watched. It was the look of someone who had exhausted himself to his own tears, who now only remained on the dry shore of his own suffering, examining the wreckage. There was a terrible clarity there, a lucidity that comes only after all illusions have ignited.

— … you know," Izuku's voice came from a low, intimate place, so flawed that it almost fell apart in the first few syllables. It was the sound of vocal cords tired of screaming in the silence. "The silence was what hurt the most.

The phrase was not a coup. It was a revelation. A truth so simple and devastating that Katsuki felt his stomach detach, a sensation of free fall inside his own body. All his anger, his outbursts, his verbal stumbles—he had always imagined that the damage was in the noise he made. He had never, ever considered the damage of his quietness.

Izuku moved one foot forward. A single step, hesitant, as if the ground could give way. It stopped. His fingers, next to his thighs, closed slowly. They were not fists of anger. They were holding fists of restraint, of holding something that threatened to overflow — perhaps the rest of himself.

"You know what it's like to wake up every day thinking that... Will he come back today? The question was not rhetorical. It was a macabre invitation to a ritual that Katsuki had never known. Izuku's eyes fixed on somewhere in the hallway, far away, as if they saw the ghosts of these mornings. "Today he's going to knock on the door. Today he will explain. Today he will say anything.

Katsuki tried to swallow. His throat was a closed tube, a contracted muscle that refused passage. The image imposed itself on him, involuntary, cruel in its details: Izuku, alone in that apartment that smelled of both, waking up with his heart racing at every street noise, wearing hope as if wearing a damp and cold garment.

From Izuku then came a strange sound. A laugh. Short, dry, without vibration, a vocal spasm that was not related to joy. It was the echo of an inside joke, bitter and incurable.

" I would have understood."

The air in the hallway seemed to solidify. The temperature dropped a few degrees. Katsuki felt a biting chill on the back of his neck.

His gaze, until then lost, suddenly focused on Izuku. He blinked, slowly, as if emerging from a dream. The muscles around his mouth contracted in an involuntary spasm.

— … What? The word escaped. It was nothing more than a hoarse breath, a crack of sound through a heavy door. It seemed absurdly small for the abyss that was opening.

Izuku took another deep breath. The movement of his shoulders was visible, a loaded rise and fall. When he spoke, every word seemed to have been polished by pain, handpicked from an arsenal of difficult truths.

"I would have understood, Katsuki.

The silence that fell was not an absence. It was a physical presence. Thick, oppressive, filling the space between them with an almost auditory weight. It was the sound of a world collapsing in slow motion.

"If you had come back that night," Izuku's voice continued weaving the tapestry of an alternate past, a universe that died in the womb, "or the next day..." or a week later. If you had walked through that door...

Katsuki could see the door. The doorknob. The light coming in through the crack.

— … and said he was confused. That I was afraid. Izuku's voice gained a trembling urgency, as if he himself was seeing this ghost, this Katsuki that could have been, and the pain of his non-existence was fresh. "That someone had gotten into your head." That you believed in things you shouldn't.

Finally, Izuku looked up and locked it on Katsuki. There was a brutal exposure in that look. A complete emotional nakedness.

"If you had said it was because of Shindo.

The name, said like this, without rancor, just as a fact, a piece of the puzzle, was a more precise blow than any insult. Katsuki felt a tremor run through his legs, a sudden weakness in his knees. It was shame, pure and simple, running down like a heavy liquid through his body.

"If you had said you were insecure," Izuku insisted, and now his voice really split in half, cracking under the weight of emotion, exposing the raw core of the feeling, "which thought it was losing me... who thought it was not enough...

The tears, which until then had been contained, broke the dams. They ran down Izuku's face silently, abundantly, a river of pain that finally found its course.

"I would have understood."

Those final three words were not a sigh. They were a verdict.

Katsuki's world didn't come crashing down. It collapsed inwards. Like a building whose foundation is sucked in, it imploded in silence. A wave of heat rose from his stomach to his face, followed by an icy cold. His hand rose on its own, his trembling fingers meeting his own face, as if trying to contain what overflowed through his eyes. Useless. The tears came—warm, salty, humiliating in their abundance. They were not accompanied by sound. Her body shook with the force of a silent cry, an internal tremor that seemed to threaten to dismantle her joints. He cried as he hadn't cried since he was too young to understand that crying was a sign of weakness: completely, wildly, without the armor of anger to give shape to his pain.

"I didn't need you to be perfect," Izuku's voice came to him, low now, almost tired, as if the storm had passed and only the devastated landscape remained." I just needed you to stay."

Katsuki tried to force the words out. His mouth opened. His diaphragm contracted. Nothing. Just rustling air, a drowning sound. His tongue was dead weight. His throat, a closed cell. Everything inside him was a whirlwind of guilt—not the nagging guilt of a mistake, but the crushing guilt of having failed as a human being, of having abandoned the safe haven in the midst of the storm he himself had created. And the realization, belated and agonizing, pierced his skull like a nail: the mortal sin had not been the explosion of the quarrel. The mortal sin had been the silence that followed. The vacuum he created and in which Izuku was trapped, waiting for an echo that never came.

Izuku wiped his face with the back of his hand, a final gesture, almost out of boredom, as if he was tired even of his own sadness.

"But you're gone," he concluded, and the sentence sounded definitive, the last shovel of dirt on a grave. "And left me waiting for someone I loved..." while the whole world already knew that he had chosen to flee.

Katsuki stood there in front of him. Broken. Exposed. Looking at the man she still loved with an intensity that now seemed to her an unbearable burden. The clarity that came then was not a revelation, it was a sentence. He understood, with absolute coolness, that no future outburst of anger, no elaborate apology, no promise made under the stars, could ever erase the physical, tangible reality of those two weeks. Two holes in the calendar. Fourteen nights from a half-open door to an empty hallway. The wait. Silence.

And that silence — his silence — had not been an accident, an oversight. It was a choice. The loudest, the most resounding, the most cowardly of all his outbursts.

"I just wanted to understand," Izuku said, wiping his face with his forearm with abrupt violence, as if erasing a stain. A coldness descended on his features, an armor of ice being worn cell by cell. "We're not kids anymore, Katsuki. We are no longer those idiot teenagers who confuse aggression with passion. We are twenty-six years old. We are heroes. Leaders. Adults with lives that weigh on our backs. With responsibilities that kill. With scars that are not just marks on the skin, they are cracks in the soul. And I can't... I can no longer bear the scar of your silence. It's very heavy.

He laughed, a hollow and echoless sound.

"We can't live on this emotional roller coaster anymore. In this infinite melodrama of explosion, distance, hesitant approach and fragile new beginning. It's tiring to the marrow of the bones. Is... emptyer. And I'm empty, Katsuki. You sucked it all up. All the light, all the resilience, all the belief that we could be different. I'm empty.

Izuku took a deep breath, a breath that started at his feet and went up, filling his lungs as if it were his last. As he exhaled, something calmed down inside him. The storm passed. Only the devastated landscape remained, clear in a raw light. The pain was still there, carved into every line of his face, but now it was an accepted, cataloged, archived pain. A decision had been made at the core of her being, and she was cold steel.

"So okay." That's it. His voice was clear, clean, final as the closing of a coffin. "If you want to stay here in the U.A., giving your expensive lectures on teamwork and overcoming – the irony is delicious, isn't it?" – stay. If you want to chase the title of number one hero, give your best, climb the rankings... Be my guest. The way is clear. Go. Do what you want with your glorious life. I'm no longer an obstacle in your way. I'm not a fan anymore. I'm no longer a rival. I'm not just another one... partner.

The word "partner" came out like a ghost, the echo of something that has already died.

"I'm nothing else in your story. And you're nothing else in mine.

He looked up one last time. And Katsuki, who expected to see hatred, or perhaps a last glimmer of that stubborn love, saw something infinitely worse: nothing. A terrible peace, the peace of a desert, of a sky after the atomic bomb. The peace of the total absence of feeling.

"But if you're going to be close to me..." anywhere, on any mission, in any corner of this world where our routes can still, by chance, cross..." the pause was long, long enough for a lifetime of memories to pass before Katsuki's eyes. "Pretend I don't exist." Look right through me. Pass me by as if I were a piece of furniture, a pole, a ghost. Because that's what I'll be to you.

The silence that settled there was no longer any tension. Tension requires connection, wires stretched between two points. There were no more points. There was only a vacuum. An absolute vacuum that sucked all sound, all hope, all the future. It was the silence of outer space between two stars that were once one.

"Because I..." Izuku's voice failed one last time, a small choke, but he pulled himself together, straightening his shoulders with a dignity that broke what was left of Katsuki's heart into fragments so small they could never be glued back together. "Because I can't take it anymore." Not a second. Not a thought. Anything that has your signature. Enough.

And then, Katsuki understood. Understanding came not like a bolt of lightning, but like a slow freeze, from the fingertips to the heart.

That hadn't been an explosion. Their explosions were spectacular events. Full of fire, light, noise, destruction and, in the end, a strange purification. They were a language. A dysfunctional, violent language, but a language. They always spoke through fire and smoke.

Right... That had been a nuclear shutdown.

It was the sound of the central reactor deactivated forever. From the lights going out, one by one, to total darkness. It was the life support system being cut off. It was the heart, after pumping for so long just to sustain the orbit of another body, simply stopping. Silently. Without fanfare. The page was not turned violently; was left behind, in a book that will never be opened again.

Izuku turned around. The movement was simple and clean. There was no hesitation, no trembling. It was the movement of someone who is already miles away, even if his body is still in the same place. His footsteps in the concrete corridor did not echo. They were absorbed, swallowed up by the great silence he now carried with him, a silence that was his only companion.

Katsuki was left alone. The training room, once a stage for shared victories and challenges, was now just an empty, lighted cave. Izuku's words were etched into his skull, his sternum, every nerve: "Pretend I don't exist."

The order was a physical impossibility. How do you pretend that air doesn't exist when you're drowning? How do you pretend that gravity doesn't exist when you're falling? How do you pretend the sun doesn't exist when you're freezing to death in the dark? Izuku Midoriya wasn't a person in his life; It was her atmosphere. It was the force that pulled him up, the challenge that kept him sharp, the harbor that, even in his arrogance, he always knew was there. And now he had to pretend that this port, this sun, this strength... it didn't exist.

He didn't cry. Not immediately. The tears would have been a relief, a catharsis that his dying pride still barred. It didn't explode. The explosion would have been an affirmation, a cry of existence that his body could no longer produce. He didn't break anything. The destruction would have been an event, a noisy end point, and everything was now an absolute, suffocating silence.

He just stayed there. Inert. For maybe thirty seconds that lasted an eternity. Under the softly buzzing fluorescent lights, the loudest sound in the universe right now. And in the depths of his being, in the place where his fiercest certainty dwelt, a new knowledge settled, cold and unrelenting: the only person on this planet who had the infinite patience, the supernatural resilience, the unconditional and stubborn love to never, ever give up on Katsuki Bakugou... I had finally given up.

And there was absolutely nothing left to explode.

Only silence.
Only the rubble.

It was then that the vacuum inside his chest began to move.

It wasn't an emotion. It was a physical, pure and cruel reaction. A tiny, almost imperceptible tremor began at his fingertips. Then a sudden chill swept down his spine, as if someone had poured ice water on his vertebrae. He tried to take a deep breath, to compose himself, to be Katsuki Bakugou again, but the air wouldn't come in.

A squeeze.

A fierce, concrete grip closed around her sternum, like a giant iron hand entwining her ribs. He gasped, a short, high-pitched sound that didn't come out of his throat, but from the collapse of his lungs. The hand on his chest tightened. It cannot be. This is not happening. It's just a reaction. It will pass.

But it did not pass. The tightness increased, turning into a sharp, stabbing pain that radiated to his left arm. His heart, once a reliable and powerful furnace, now pounded against his ribs like a terrified bird trapped in a box, frantic, out of step, wrong. The hum of the lights turned into a roar inside his ears. The wooden floor of the training room seemed to slope slightly.

"Uh..." the sound escaped his lips, a grunt of animal panic.

He put his hand to his chest, his fingers searching for the source of the pressure, finding only the damp fabric of his uniform and the uncontrolled beating of his heart. Her breathing became panting, shallow, a series of short pantings that brought no oxygen at all. The world began to lose color around the edges, the focus sliding. He was hyper-aware of everything—every speck of dust in the air, every strand of the climbing rope hanging on the wall—and at the same time completely disoriented, as if he were detached from his own body.

Pretend that it doesn't exist. How? How?

The question echoed in his mind, but not as a thought. Like a hammer. Bam. How? Bam. How? Each beat corresponded to an even more violent acceleration of his heart. He saw Izuku's face, that look of terrible peace, and the image was an acid that burned his neurons.

Then came the flood.

Not of tears first, but of total understanding, in successive and overwhelming waves:

I lost. I lost him. I lost Izuku. I lost Deku. I lost the man who loved me. I lost the only port. I lost the future. I lost the light. I lost my breath. I lost. I lost. I LOST.

Each "lost" was the iron hand tightening one more degree. His knees, solid as towers, began to tremble. Weakness rose up his thighs, a feeling of ice melting his muscles. He tried to hold on, straighten his legs, but they were like piles of sand.

And then, the first tear escaped.

It was not a cry. It was an escape. A hot, treacherous drop that pierced the barrier of his eye and ran swiftly down his face, leaving a trail of fire. Followed by another. And another. He tried to hold back, to close his eyes tightly, but it was too late. The despair that he had always kept trapped, transformed into anger, now found the only possible way out.

A sob shook his body, a convulsive tremor that came from his feet and exploded in his shoulders. The sound that came out was horrible: a hoarse, broken moan, full of agony and fear. The hand on his chest clung to his uniform, his fingers contorted, trying to tear the fabric to reach his heart and calm it, or perhaps tear it off so it would stop hurting.

The panting turned into a wheezing. He was drowning on dry land. Each attempt to draw air was like breathing through a thin, clogged straw. The tightness in his chest was now a giant anchor, pulling him down to the ground that seemed to give way under his feet.

He didn't fall. It collapsed.

His knees, no longer able to support him, bent all at once and slammed into the wooden floor with a dry, painful thud that echoed through the empty room. The impact reverberated through his bones, but the physical pain was a tiny relief compared to the pain that tore through his chest from the inside. He didn't try to get up. The weight was too great.

Kneeling, bent forward, one hand still crushed against his sternum, the other resting on the ground to prevent his torso from collapsing completely, Katsuki Bakugou surrendered to the storm.

The crying that came then was not silent. It was a deluge. They were deep, guttural sobs, which seemed to tear out his organs with each contraction. Hot, copious tears gushed from her closed eyes, dripping onto the floor between her knees, forming small dark spots on the light wood. He cried like he had never cried in his life – not as a child and felt weak, not after the most brutal battles. He cried with the utter shame of a man who destroyed his own safe haven. I cried with the despair of those who saw the future crumble in real time. He cried with absolute dread of the emptiness that opened up in front of him.

"Izu... ku..." the name came out between sobs, broken, dragged, almost inaudible. An appeal to emptiness. There was no answer. Only the echo of their own moans and the incessant hum of the lights.

He trembled uncontrollably, as if he were in a cold place. The goosebumps ran through his skin, and the cold sweat glued the uniform to his body. The anchor in his chest tugged and pulled, trying to swallow him whole. He felt nausea, dizziness, a primal fear that this attack would never end, that he would die there, kneeling in that room where he had so often been a god, overcome by a pain that he had no enemy to face, only himself to blame.

And in the midst of the hurricane of panic and agony, a single image stared in, clear and cruel: Izuku's blank and peaceful gaze as he turned around. The final acceptance. The resignation. That look was worse than any scream of anger, worse than any punch. It was living proof that he had succeeded. He had managed to extinguish the last and most stubborn flame in the universe.

And this knowledge was the final straw. A howl of pure anguish tore through his throat, mixed with the crying, a sound of mortally wounded animal. He bent even more, his forehead almost touching the ground, his fists now pounding lightly against the floor, not forcefully, but with a desperate weakness.

I lost. I lost. I lost.

The word hammered into his skull to the rhythm of sobs. There was absolutely nothing left to explode. Just this silent implosion, public only to the four walls and the ghost of what they were. Just the rubble of his pride, his love, his future, scattered around a man on his knees, crying as if the world had ended.

Because, for him, it was over. And he had been the sole architect of the apocalypse.

The sound of their own sobs, echoing in the empty room, was the only thing that broke the deafening silence. Katsuki was on his knees, his body still shaken by occasional spasms, his breathing still a little wheezing, but the peak of the crisis had passed, leaving behind a bony fatigue and an emotional pain so deep it felt like a terminal illness. Shame began to seep in, slow and poisonous, alongside the agony. He was there, the great Dynamight, hero number two, reduced to a trembling heap on the wooden floor of his old school.

He couldn't stay there. He could not be found like this by any student or night clerk. The instinct to escape, mixed with an animal desire not to be alone with that emptiness, spoke louder. With heavy movements, as if his body weighed tons, he crawled upwards, leaning against the icy wall. His legs threatened to give way with every step, but a residual force, the last remnant of his torn pride, kept him on his feet.

His hand, trembling and sweaty, reached into his pocket and fished out his cell phone. The screen, illuminated, ached in his swollen and sensitive eyes. The contact list looked like a sea of insignificant names. Until he saw: BRICK HEAD.

His fingers faltered over the link icon. To call Kirishima was to admit total defeat, it was to expose the deepest wound he had. But who but Eijiro would understand? Who, if not that insistent optimist loyal to the marrow, would be able to look at that ruin and not judge, or worse, have pity?

He did.

The phone rang on the other end. Once, twice. Katsuki almost hung up, pride giving one last, fierce bellow. In the third junk, the rough, familiar and relaxed voice answered.

"Hey, Bakubro!" Firmness? Are you still in the U.A.? I thought your talk was over ago—

Kirishima's voice cut off mid-sentence.

Because on the other end of the line, there were no words. Only sound. A low, hoarse, desperate noise. Katsuki's breathing, still caught in muffled sobs, panting and ragged, like that of a man who had just escaped drowning. And, underneath it, the humid and unmistakable sound of someone struggling not to cry, and losing badly.

"Bakugou?" Kirishima's voice lost all its relaxation in a millisecond. It was flat, tense, alert. "Bakugou, talk to me." What was it? Where are you?

Katsuki tried. He opened his mouth. The throat, sore and closed, emitted only a guttural noise, a broken moan. He tried to force his words. "Come and get me." Nothing. Just another trembling and deep sigh, followed by a slight gasp.

"Bakugou, breathe." Where are you? In the U.A.? Kirishima was already on the move. Katsuki could hear the sound of keys, the sound of a door being opened and closed with force. "Are you in the Gamma training room?" The one we used the most? Stay there. It doesn't come out. It does nothing. I'm going now. Breathe, man.

The order, given not with harshness but with a firm urgency, was the first real lifeline. Katsuki couldn't answer, but tilted his head, as if Kirishima could see him. A new burst of tears, now quieter, of exhaustion, ran down her face. He slid down the wall until he sat on the floor, his back against the cold concrete, his phone still pressed to his ear, like a common thread into a world that still made some sense.

"I'm in the car. Two minutes, at most. Stay with me on the phone, you hear? Kirishima's voice was a constant hum, a beacon in the fog. He did not demand an answer. He spoke to himself, keeping the line alive, filling the terrifying silence with his sonorous presence. "The traffic is fine. I'm going to enter through the east gate. The night watchman knows me. It's okay, Bakugou. Just stay there. It's okay not to be well.

The "two minutes" were an eternity of noises: the engine starting, the gear shift, the sound of the wind against the glass. Katsuki closed his eyes, focusing on that voice, trying to synchronize his panting with the calm instructions Kirishima gave, nonstop, like a skydiver guiding another in free fall.

Then, he heard the car pull up outside, the roar of the engine fading. Quick, heavy footsteps echoed in the empty hallway, each one closer, until the door to the training room slammed open.

Kirishima stopped at the threshold, her wide silhouette blocking the light from the hallway. He didn't say a word. His face, normally open and unconcerned, was serious, his dark eyes scanning the scene with the precision of a veteran hero: the room empty, the lights cold, and, in the corner, huddled against the wall, Katsuki Bakugou.

Katsuki was unrecognizable. His face was devastated: swollen, red, marked by salty trails of tears that still glistened. Her eyes, usually sharp and defiant, were red, opaque, filled with a helplessness that Kirishima had never seen there, not even in the worst moments after the war. The uniform was crumpled, the hand that held the cell phone still trembled slightly. He looked smaller. Fragile. As if all the explosive armor that composed it had been dismantled, piece by piece, leaving only the vulnerable and cracked core.

"Whore who gave birth, Bakugou..." the curse came out in a whisper, charged with pure concern.

Kirishima did not run. He didn't make a fuss. She walked up to him with firm but careful steps, as if approaching a wounded and dangerous animal. She knelt in front of him, keeping a respectful distance, but within reach.

"Can you breathe properly?" He asked, his voice soft, completely different from his usual tone.

Katsuki finally managed to move his head in a short, brusque wave. His blurred eyes fixed on Kirishima, but seemed to see through him, focused on some distant and horrible point within his own mind.

"Let's get out of here," Kirishima said, not as a question but as a soft statement. "Can you get up?"

Another nod, more hesitant. Katsuki tried to push himself off the wall, but his arms failed, trembling with post-crisis weakness. Kirishima did not hesitate. He reached out, not to pull him, but to offer support. "Go slowly. He uses me as support.

Katsuki looked at the outstretched hand, the hand of his best friend, the hand that had always been there for a greeting punch, to pull him from rubble, to hold the line when all seemed lost. Now, it was the only thing standing between him and the total abyss. He grabbed her, his own hand still shaky and sweaty. Kirishima's grip was firm, warm, and unbreakable. Durable.

With an effort that seemed Herculean, Katsuki sprang to his feet, staggering slightly. Kirishima immediately put a firm arm around his shoulders, supporting him without making a fuss, taking on some of his weight. It wasn't carrying him. It was to support him. It was to say, without words: I hold you. You won't fall.

They walked silently to the car, Kirishima's footsteps steady, Katsuki's shuffling. Kirishima opened the passenger door, helped Katsuki in, and adjusted her seat belt with care that was almost maternal. Katsuki let himself be guided, his body heavy and his mind a whirlwind of white noise and searing pain.

Kirishima got into the car, started the engine, and set the air conditioning to a mild temperature. The silence inside the vehicle was thick, heavy. He didn't ask where to go. I didn't even need to. There was only one place to take Katsuki to in that state.

The trip was made in complete silence. Kirishima kept her eyes on the road, but her attention was all on the man next to her. Katsuki stared at the glass, but he didn't see the city go by. He saw Izuku's face. I saw the blank stare. I saw the abyss. His hands, resting on his lap, squeezed and loosened in a nervous rhythm. Breathing, now more controlled, was still shallow. He was there, but he wasn't.

Kirishima did not drive to Katsuki's apartment. That place, now, would be a torture chamber of memories. Instead, he took the road that led to the fringes of the city, to a place he knew well. A place where Katsuki, on very rare occasions of true inner turmoil, went to think, or not to think about anything.

He stopped the car in a dirt parking area, on the edge of a large, dark lake, reflecting the distant city lights on the other side. It was a secluded, silent place, only the occasional sound of an insect or the leap of a fish into the water.

He turned off the engine. The silence was amplified.

For long minutes, neither of them spoke. Kirishima just waited, patient as a rock. He knew that forcing would not help. That Katsuki needed to find the words in the midst of the chaos, if they existed at all.

It was Katsuki who broke the silence, his voice coming out like a harsh, shattered, unrecognizable whisper.

"He... He told me to pretend he doesn't exist.

Kirishima did not overreact. He just turned his head slowly, looking at his friend's devastated profile.

"Who, Bakugou?" He asked, already knowing the answer, but needing to hear the name to understand the dimension.

Katsuki swallowed, the pain in his throat was real. "Izuku.

And then, as if the mere mention of the name had reopened a floodgate, Katsuki's eyes filled with water again. This time, the tears did not come in an uncontrolled deluge, but in a constant, silent stream of pure pain. He did nothing to contain them. He just let them flow.

Kirishima took a deep breath. The worst of his fears was confirmed. The core of the problem had always been that, from the beginning. He waited, giving space.

"I... I blew it, Hey. "The nickname, rarely used, came out loaded with a brutal vulnerability. "I lost him. For good. This time... it's forever.

"What happened?" Kirishima asked, her voice still calm but firm. He needed to hear it from Katsuki's mouth. Not the facts — he already knew them — but their weight.

He needed to understand the hole so that he could, perhaps, help climb out of it.
And then, in truncated sentences, interspersed with trembling sighs and long pauses, Katsuki spoke of what really mattered.

He spoke of the moment when he finally told Izuku everything. The way the words, which he had rehearsed for months, sounded too small when spoken out loud. He spoke of Izuku's expression when he heard the truth—first absolute silence, heavy as concrete, then disbelief. The break.

He spoke of how Izuku laughed, a short, humorless laugh, before anger took over. Not an explosion like Katsuki's, but something worse: cold, controlled, devastating. From his voice trembling not with fear, but with exhaustion. From the question that came like a punch:

"So it was all because of shindo? All on his account?"

Katsuki told of the screams — more from Izuku than from him. From the raw pain of hearing that care, love, concern were never the mistake. The mistake was silence. The lack of confidence.
He told of the word that hurt more than any insult: suffocating.

And then, the final sentence. The way Izuku didn't raise his voice when he said. As if he was already too tired to even hate.

"Pretend I don't exist."

Katsuki stopped there. Not because there was nothing more to say, but because the rest still hurt too much to take shape.

He told everything. Every word was like tearing a piece of flesh from his own chest, but he kept going, merciless with himself, because he deserved the pain, deserved the judgment he would see in Kirishima's eyes.

When he finished, the silence inside the car was oppressive. Katsuki expected the reprimand, the scolding, the "I told you so". Kirishima was an optimist, but he was also outspoken. He spoke the truth to his face, always.

Kirishima was quiet for a long time, staring at the dark waters of the lake. When he spoke, his voice was not judgmental. It was heavy. Sad.

"Fuck, Bakugou..." he started shaking his head slowly. "You really... You made a big mistake. Of the monumental ones.

Katsuki closed his eyes, his heart tightening even more. There it came.

"But..." Kirishima kept turning on the bench to face Katsuki directly. "I'm not here to kick you while you're on the ground." As bad as you were, as stupid and proud as you were... I see what this is doing to you. And I've never seen you like this. Not even after Kamino. Not even after the war. This here... This is killing you inside.

Katsuki opened his eyes, looking at his friend through a veil of tears. The lack of direct judgment was somehow worse. More terrifying. It meant that the situation was so serious that not even a scolding was appropriate.

"O Midoriya..." Kirishima chose the words carefully, speaking the full name, respectfully. "He has a giant heart. The biggest I know. But even a giant heart has limits. And it seems that you, with your silences and your mistrust, managed to find his limit. What he said... "pretend I don't exist"... Bakugou, that's not anger. This is mourning. It's someone burying something that they believe is dead.

Kirishima's every word was a nail in the coffin. Katsuki sat deeper into the bench, a tremor coursing through his body.

"And you think that... Is there a way back? The question came out in a thread of voice, the last glimmer of an unhealthy and probably stupid hope.

Kirishima did not immediately respond. He was honest, always.

"I don't know, man. Honestly, I don't know," he said, looking into his friend's red and devastated eyes. "This time it looks different. It seems... final. He's not fighting. He gave up fighting. And when Midoriya gives up..." he didn't have to finish. They both knew that when Izuku Midoriya, the most stubborn and persistent person on the planet, gave up on something, it was because it was truly beyond repair.

A new burst of tears, silent and desperate, took hold of Katsuki. He covered his face with his hands, his shoulders shaking.

"I don't know... what to do. I don't know how... to live with it—the confession had gone through his fingers, a muffled, broken sound. It was the greatest admission of defeat of his life.

Kirishima placed a large, heavy hand on his shoulder, a firm contact, anchoring.

"You'll learn." One day at a time. One minute at a time, if you need to," he said, his voice turning a tone of rocky determination. "And you're not going to do it alone." Did you understand? You may be a colossal idiot, you may have done the biggest mistake of your life... But you're my best friend. I won't let you sink into this alone.

He paused, squeezing Katsuki's shoulder.

"But listen to what I'm going to say, and listen well, because it's the truth you need to hear now: there is no shortcut. There is no explosion that can fix this. You broke his trust. You hurt the guy who loved you the most in this world. And broken trust... It takes time to rebuild. A lot of time. And maybe, just maybe, it will never be rebuilt in the same way. You have to be prepared for this possibility.

Katsuki lowered his hands, his face a mask of pain and growing acceptance. He waved slowly. It was the truth. The hard, cruel, unavoidable truth.

"What do I do now?" He whispered, looking again like the lost teenager Kirishima had known years ago.

"Now," Kirishima said, giving the ignition, "I'll take you home. My house. You are not alone today. You take a shower, try to eat something, even if you don't feel like it. And you try to sleep. Tomorrow... Tomorrow we'll see. One step at a time, Bakubro. One step at a time.

He put the car in gear and started driving back into town. The silence inside the car was now different. Less loaded with absolute despair, heavier with the acceptance of a new and painful reality. Katsuki looked out the window, his tears still flowing silently, but the initial panic had given way to a dull and constant pain, to an emptiness that promised to be his new companion.

Kirishima kept one hand on the steering wheel and, with the other, briefly touched Katsuki's arm, a quick gesture of solidarity.

He didn't have the answers. I couldn't fix the damage. But he could stay by his side. He could be the rock as his best friend, the strongest man he knew, learned to navigate the ocean of his own failure, carrying the crushing weight of having lost, perhaps forever, the love of his life through sheer inability to say what he felt.

★

The sound of his own footsteps in the empty corridor of the U.A. was the only noise in Izuku's universe. A metallic and solitary echo that marked the distance between what was and what would be. He walked with a rigid, almost robotic posture, his muscles obeying a basic command: get out of there. There was no direction, only movement. The back door of the main building opened for him, and the cold night enveloped his body like a cloak, but he didn't feel the cold. I felt a thermal void, an internal vacuum that neither heat nor ice could penetrate.

His car was parked in a little-used observation deck, on a higher part of the school grounds, a place where students sometimes went to escape the pressure, to look at the city and dream. Izuku walked up to him, the movements precise, mechanical. He opened the door, sat in the driver's seat, closed the door. The silence inside the car was denser than the one outside. He didn't start the engine. He didn't turn on the lights. He just sat there, his hands resting on the wheel at ten and ten, his eyes fixed on the dark dashboard, illuminated only by the pale glow of the moon coming in through the windshield.

Forty minutes.

He stood motionless for forty minutes.

He didn't cry. The tears that had flowed at the height of fury and despair had dried up, leaving behind a desolate aridity, like a riverbed after a prolonged drought. His face was impassive, his green eyes, normally so expressive, looked like puddles of still water under a cloudy sky. Nothing. No coherent thought was formed. Just fragments, shards of pain, of anger, of an exhaustion so deep that it was as if every cell in his body had been emptied of vital energy.

The images passed by, disconnected. Katsuki's expression when the words "pretend I don't exist" hit him. The shock. The pain. The mute despair. Part of Izuku, a small, injured part that was still bleeding, wanted to turn around, run back, fix it. But a larger part, a new and cold part that had formed in those last minutes, simply... He didn't care. Or rather, he cared so much that the pain had reached a plateau, a state of emotional anesthesia.

He had said it all. Thrown out of himself all the demons, all the doubts, all the months of silent anguish. And now there was only silence again, but a different silence. It was not the anxious silence of waiting, of questioning. It was the post-battle silence. The silence of the devastated countryside, where there are no more enemies to fight, only the devastated landscape to contemplate.

It was unsustainable. To stay there, in that car, in that emptiness. He needed... something. Someone. Someone who understood without him having to explain everything again. Someone who saw the ruin and did not ask "why?" but simply said "I am here".

With movements that sounded like a sleepwalker, he took the cell phone from his pocket. The screen lit up his pale face in the dark. His surprisingly steady fingers scanned the contact list until he found the name. Ochaco Uraraka.

He did.

The phone rang twice before the excited, slightly tired voice, as if she were finishing something, answered.

"Izu!" Hi! How are you? What a surprise! Her voice was a normal ray of sunshine in her world that had just collapsed. The normality of it hurt in a strange way.

Izuku opened his mouth. Nothing came out. The voice stuck in his throat, blocked by the emotion that stubbornly manifested itself not as crying, but as a physical blockage. He swallowed, forcing his words.

"O-Ocha..." the voice came out rough, broken, a hoarse whisper that sounded unrecognizable even to himself. He cleared his throat, trying to regain his polite and soft tone, but failed miserably. "Okay... Are you at home?

The silence on the other end of the line has changed quality. The excitement disappeared, replaced by keen attention. Uraraka knew that voice. I knew all of Izuku Midoriya's voices. Deku's determined voice, the analyst's anxious voice, his friend's gentle voice. This... This was the voice of the shattering.

"Izuku?" Her voice became soft, immediately worried. "What's wrong?" Are you okay? Where are you?

He closed his eyes, squeezing them tightly. The simplicity of her concern was the first breach in the ice barrier. A painful heat rose behind his eyes. He took a deep breath, a deep, trembling sigh she must have heard over the phone.

"I just..." the voice cracked. He tried again, focusing on each word as if it were a rung of a steep ladder. "I just need to talk." I can... Can I go there?

"Of course!" Of course you can! The answer was immediate, without hesitation. "Come." I'm waiting for you. Do you want me to pick you up? Are you in the U.A.? Are you driving?

"No. I'm going. I'm fine to drive," he said, more to convince himself than her. The voice was still tense, but a little more controlled. "I'll be in... twenty minutes.

"All right. Drive carefully, you hear? I'm here," her voice was a safe haven, an anchor cast in the raging sea of her soul.

He hung up and finally started the car. The engine rumbled to life, a strangely real and mundane sound. The trip to the residential neighborhood where Uraraka lived — a small, cozy house, not an apartment — passed in a blur. His body drove on autopilot, his mind a noisy void. He didn't think. I just felt the weight. An immense, solid weight resting on his shoulders and chest.

When he entered the quiet condominium and stopped in front of her house, the balcony light was already on. And she was there. Standing in the doorway, leaning against the frame, arms crossed, wearing a comfortable sweatshirt. His face, round and sweet, was serious, his dark brown eyes scanning the car as soon as he parked.

Izuku turned off the engine. The courage that had brought him there seemed to evaporate. He sat there, looking at his hands on the wheel. I can't do that to her. I can't dump all this. But he was already there. And she was already looking.

Finally, he opened the door and left. The night air felt colder now. He closed the car door and turned to face his friend.

The moment their eyes met was the breaking point.

Uraraka saw it. He saw the paleness of his face. He saw the red and swollen eyes, although dry now. He saw the tension in every line of his body, the fragility disguised under his upright posture. He saw the pain, naked and raw, that he could no longer hide.

And Izuku saw the concern in her, the readiness, the total absence of judgment.

That's what broke.

A tremor began in his chin. Her eyes, dry for forty minutes, filled with tears in a second. A single one, hot and treacherous, escaped and rolled down his face, followed by another. He didn't make a sound. He just stood still, like a lost child, the tears flowing silently.

"Izuku!" Uraraka's voice whispered with alarm.

She ran out of the door, down the two steps of the porch, and closed the distance between them in seconds. She stopped in front of him, her hands raised, but without touching him immediately, as if afraid of breaking him.

"What's wrong?" What happened? Talk to me," she begged, her eyes scanning her face, looking for physical wounds, because that pain felt so deep it must be physical.

He opened his mouth, but only a muffled sob came out, a sound of trapped anguish. The tears fell faster, now silent, but copious. He shook his head, unable to form words.

"Alright, alright," she said quickly, her voice steady now, taking control of the situation as she did on the battlefield. "Let's go in." Let's go. Come.

She put a firm, gentle arm around his shoulders, guiding him into the house. Izuku let himself go, his body heavy, his steps shuffling. The warmth and familiar smell of her home — the mix of vanilla candy, cleaner, and something indefinably cozy — hit him like a blow. It was a smell of security. Of friendship. Of a simpler time.

She led him directly into the living room, to the large, soft sofa. He fell into it, as if his bones had dissolved. Uraraka knelt in front of him, on the fluffy carpet, placing herself at his eye level.

"Breathe, Izuku. Just breathe," she instructed, her voice calm as a lake on a windless day. "I'm going to get some water. Don't disappear, okay?

He nodded, a tiny movement, as he covered his face with his hands. The sobs finally came. They were not screams, they were not loud laments. They were deep, guttural cries, of a pain so old and accumulated that it seemed to have no end. They shook his whole body, each tremor a discharge of eight-month tension.

Uraraka quickly returned with a glass of cold water and a box of tissues. He placed the glass on the coffee table and sat next to him on the couch, not too close, but close enough. She hasn't hugged him yet. I knew that sometimes, with that intensity, the touch could be a lot. She just stood there, solid, silent presence, handing him handkerchiefs when the ones he had got soaked.

Several minutes passed before the crying began to subside to an intermittent sobbing, and then to silences punctuated by trembling sighs. He wiped his face, embarrassed, avoiding her gaze.

"I'm sorry..." he whispered, his voice destroyed by tears.

"There's not a thing in this world for you to apologize to me, Izuku Midoriya," she said, firm and soft. "Now, when you feel ready... tell me. What did Bakugou do this time?

The name, in her mouth, with that mixture of familiarity and contained frustration, made a new shiver of pain run through Izuku. He drank a sip of water, his hands shaking slightly as he held the glass.

And then, in a hoarse and broken voice, he told it. Everything. From the beginning of silence, the inexplicable distancing, its own spiral of insecurity. The lecture. The confrontation. And then, the core of the bombshell: Katsuki's confession. Shindo's comment. The stupid doubt. The idiotic decision to walk away to "sue" instead of talking.

"He told me, Ocha," Izuku's voice was a thread of agony, his eyes fixed on the glass of water as if it contained all the answers. "He said that all this, everything I have experienced... it was because he heard Shindo say some nonsense about me having "hidden interests" in our professional partnership... And he believed. He believed more in a five-minute comment from a colleague than in... in everything we have experienced.

Uraraka was silent. Her face, normally so open, became serious, her lips pressed into a thin line. Her eyes shone with a cold, protective fury, but she restrained her, focusing on the shattered friend in front of her.

"Izuku..." she began, her voice heavy. "That's... This is much worse than I imagined. I knew it had been something big, by the way you were... But this...

"It's worse," he added, looking up at her, his green eyes flooded with a pain she'd never seen there, not even after the darkest battles. "Because it wasn't a moment of anger. It wasn't a hot discussion. It was a choice. He chose, for months, to believe the worst possible interpretation of me, instead of coming to me and asking. He chose silence. He chose to punish me for a crime that he himself invented in his head. And now... Now that I've said everything I felt... I just feel empty. As if he had cut off a gangrenous limb. It hurts, but... the source of the poison is gone.

Uraraka shook his head slowly, speechless for a moment. She understood the magnitude. He understood that this was not an ordinary fight. It was the implosion of a foundation that had been cracked for a long time.

"You did the right thing, to say everything," she said finally, her voice firm. "You've kept this for too long." And what did you say to him... in the end?

Izuku closed his eyes, as if reliving the moment.

"I told him that if he was going to be near me... to pretend that I don't exist.

A long silence settled. Uraraka took a deep breath.

"Damn, Izuku," she whispered. "You really... He reached his limit.

"I've reached his limit, Ocha," he corrected, his voice a mixture of bitterness and infinite sadness. "The limit of his patience with me, of trust... if it really existed. I only accepted what he already demonstrated eight months ago.

She did not disagree. He knew that consoling with false hopes would be worse. Instead, he acted.

"Look," she said, standing up. "For today, the heavy talk is over. You're exhausted. You've got your head racing. You're going to go upstairs, you're going to take a hot shower. There's your clothes here in the guest's closet, you know. You're going to take a shower, you're going to try not to think about anything under the water, and then you go downstairs. I'm going to make that hot chocolate you like, in that special way, and I heated up some leftover cookies from the weekend. You're going to sit down, you're going to eat junk food, and you're going to watch something completely stupid that doesn't require a neuron. Agreed?

Izuku looked at her, and for the first time since he had left the U.A., a glimmer of something that wasn't pain appeared in his eyes: gratitude. A gratitude so deep that it almost made him cry again.

"Ocha, you don't have to...

"I do," she interrupted, with a small, tired smile. "That's what friends are for, right?" Now, it will. Bath. I don't want to see you again for half an hour.

He obeyed. He went upstairs to the guest room, grabbed the comfortable clothes he had left there on a past visit—an old sweatshirt and fleece pants—and entered the bathroom.

The hot water in the shower was a blessing and torture. She washed away the cold sweat, the muscle tension, but also broke down the last barriers. Leaning against the tiled wall, letting the water fall on the back of his neck and shoulders, Izuku finally cried again. No noise, just tears mixing with running water.

And with tears, came the flashbacks. Involuntary, sweet and agonizing memories.

Memories he tried to lock away in a deep vault, because opening them now, after hearing the ugly origin of everything, was like rubbing salt into exposed raw flesh. They were good memories. And that was the worst. They did not bring comfort. They only highlight the loss, the waste, the betrayal of those moments of purity.

The first memory that struck him, with a clarity that took his breath away, was of the hiking trip. They had been together for about six months, officially. The media had not yet captured the exact moment when the fine line between "close rivalry" and "relationship" had been crossed, but the rumor was already whispering. They needed air. Of space. Of something that was only theirs, away from the spotlight, from well-intentioned colleagues, from the expectations of the world.

Katsuki was the one who suggested it. "There is a trail in the North, near the mountains. The cabin is old, my grandparents' own. Nobody goes there." The phrase was said with his usual unceremoniousness, but Izuku turns his face slightly flushed, his eyes averting. An invitation. An offer of intimacy.

The cabin was small, hardwood dark from time, smelling of pine, damp earth, and old souvenirs. He had no luxury at all. A living room with a worn sofa, a tiny kitchen, a bedroom with a firm double mattress on a wooden platform, and a stone fireplace that was the soul of the place.

The first day was about discovering space. They unpacked their backpacks, laughed at how Katsuki had packed three times more food than necessary ("Just a precaution, you hungry nerd!"), and explored the surroundings. The trail was steep, challenging, and for the first time in a long time, they weren't competing. Katsuki, who knew the way, was one step ahead, but his hands—always so dangerous, so precise—were constantly reaching back to pull him over a more difficult stretch to help him over a slippery rock. The touch was firm, sure, and Izuku felt a different heat rise up his arm each time.

In the evening, they lit the fireplace. The dancing light of the flames painted shadows on their faces. They ate hot canned soup, the silence between them was comfortable, filled only by the crackling of the wood and the howling wind outside. Katsuki was leaning back on the couch, Izuku sitting on the floor, leaning against his legs. Katsuki's hand, almost out of habit, began to stroke his hair, undoing imaginary knots with a gentleness that still left Izuku stunned.

It was there, in that primordial stillness, far from everything and everyone, that the desire, until then contained by novelty and the fear of ruining everything, became something palpable in the air. It was not said with words. It was a look that went on for too long. The hand in his hair stopped, went down to his neck, his thumb tracing the line of his jaw. Izuku turned his head, looked up, and saw in Katsuki's scarlet eyes a familiar intensity, but now directed at him in a completely new way. It wasn't the look of a rival analyzing an opponent. It was the look of a man seeing something he wanted.

The first time was right there, in front of the fireplace, on the rough carpet. It was slow, clumsy in its reverence, full of pauses to check if everything was okay, if it wasn't too fast. The clothes were stripped off layer by layer, not with the fury that Izuku secretly imagined, but with a patience that left him trembling. Katsuki's hands mapped out his body as if they were memorizing sacred territory, and every touch, every kiss, every raspy whisper ("Okay?" "Is it here?") It was a prayer and a desecration at the same time. When they finally came together, with a muffled moan of Katsuki buried in his neck, Izuku looked at the wooden beams of the ceiling, the shadows of the campfire dancing wildly, and thought, 'That's it. It's here. It's up to him.' It was more than physical pleasure. It was a surrender, an arrival at a place he didn't even know he was looking for.

The next few days in the cabin were a delight of discovery. It seemed that once that final barrier was broken, a dormant hunger had been awakened in both of them. They had sex in practically every room, as if they were claiming every inch of that space as a witness to what they were together.

In the small kitchen, in the morning, with Izuku sitting on the counter, still sleepy, and Katsuki, between his legs, doing things with his mouth that left Izuku holding the edges of the sink with white force, his moans echoing against the simple tiles.

On the narrow sofa in the living room, in the afternoon, with the sunlight filtering through the linen curtains, bodies intertwined in a lazy and deep rhythm, mouths meeting in wet and lazy kisses between sighs.

Against the tiny bathroom door, after a shared hot shower that left steam sticking to the walls, the pressure was urgent, almost desperate, the soap-slippery hands clutching, the teeth marks left on shoulders, a quiet, sweet possessiveness.

And in the bedroom, in the squeaky bed, was where things deepened. It was there that, after the frenzy, came the stillness. Katsuki, who was never one to talk much, spoke with his body. It wrapped around him, arms and legs forming a protective, possessive cage around Izuku, his face buried in the crook of his neck, taking a deep breath. Or, lying on his back, with Izuku lying on his chest, he traced random patterns on Izuku's back with his fingertips, a silent, tactile version of the affection he never knew how to express otherwise. At these times, Izuku felt such an absolute peace, so deep, that his chest hurt because it was so good. It was the feeling of finally being home, within the arms of the storm that he had always followed.

Now, under Ochaco's shower, the memory of that peace was a dagger. He remembered the smell of Katsuki on those sheets—sweat, pine, something metallic and unique that was purely his. He remembered the sound of his breathing getting slow and deep in his sleep, a soft roar that was the most comforting sound in the world. She remembered waking up before dawn and just staring at his profile illuminated by the gray light that came in through the window, his face relaxed in a repose he rarely allowed the world to see, and feeling a love so overwhelming it seemed as if his heart was going to explode.

All of this. All that raw, sweet, clumsy, perfect intimacy. All that trust he put in, all the body and soul he gave in that cabin and in all the moments that followed... and all the while, in the weeks leading up to the end, Katsuki's mind was being poisoned. As Izuku opened up more and more, surrendered deeper and deeper, Katsuki was closing in, listening to the whispers of a stranger and letting them build a wall between what they had and what he believed they deserved.

The anger that arose then was not hot. It was cold. An ice that spread from his stomach to his limbs, making his hands tremble under the hot water. He had given himself to Katsuki completely. Being born naked, vulnerable, confident. And Katsuki... Katsuki kept that precious gift with one hand while with the other he fed the doubts that would eventually crush him.

He turned off the shower with a jerky movement. The sudden silence came as a shock. He wrapped himself in a soft towel, but the internal cold persisted. She sat on the edge of the tub, her head in her hands, her hair dripping on the tile.

The second memory came, not as a refuge, but as another blow. They were already a public couple, then. The gossip had leaked out, the headlines had burst — much like today's, but with a tone of discovery, not reunion. The pressure was constant, but inside their apartment, they tried to build normality.

Any Wednesday night. Nothing special. Katsuki had had a rough day—a lengthy bureaucratic investigation that left his head pounding. Izuku had come home early from the agency and prepared dinner, something simple he knew Katsuki liked.

The night was quiet. They ate in silence, but not a tense silence. A silence of two exhausted people who didn't need to fill the space with noise. Afterward, Katsuki washed the dishes—his awkward way of saying thank you—while Izuku settled on the couch with a report.

That's when Katsuki finished. He dried his hands, looked at Izuku curled up on the couch, and something on his face changed. The irritation of the day seemed to drain. He didn't say a word. He just walked to the couch, took the tablet from Izuku's hands and put it aside. Then he carefully lay down, placing his head in Izuku's lap.

Izuku stood still for a second, surprised. Katsuki rarely initiated such vulnerable physical contact. He was more of a pulling type, putting a possessive hand on the back of his neck, kissing hard. Right... That was a delivery.

Then, Izuku smiled, a small, private smile that no one else in the world would see. His hands, almost by instinct, went to Katsuki's hair. He began to stroke them, his fingers gently massaging the scalp, tracing the familiar path of the spiky ends. Katsuki let out a long sigh, a deep sound that seemed to come from his bones, and his whole body relaxed against Izuku, heavy and confident.

They stayed like that for maybe an hour. Not to mention. The television was off. The only sound was Katsuki's breathing getting slower and deeper, and the faint noise of Izuku's fingers in his hair. Izuku looked down at Katsuki's face with his eyes closed, the tension lines smoothed, his mouth slightly ajar. It was an image of total peace, of absolute trust. Katsuki Bakugou, the strongest and most stubborn man he knew, falling asleep on his lap like a child, because he trusted Izuku to guard him.

At that moment, looking at him, Izuku felt a wave of love so intense, so protective, that his eyes blurred. He leaned forward and pressed his lips lightly against Katsuki's forehead, in a kiss so soft it was barely a touch. A stamp. A silent promise. "I keep you," the kiss said. "You're safe with me."

Katsuki didn't wake up. He just made a low sound, almost a purr, and nestled deeper.

Now, sitting in Ochaco's bathroom, the memory of that kiss on the forehead burned like acid. Because he had kept it. He would protect him from villains, from the world, from himself if necessary. But how do you protect someone from the monsters inside their own head? How do you guard someone who is building a prison with the words of a stranger and locking you out?

The icy anger mixed with a sharp, excruciating pain. The betrayal was not only in the harsh words of the fight. Betrayal was in each of those moments of stolen sweetness. Each time Katsuki surrendered to Izuku's touch, to his care, while secretly questioning his sincerity. It was a violation of something pure. A contamination of the sacred.

They were memories of a time when difficult communication was still an exciting challenge, not an insurmountable wall. From a time when love seemed like a heroic achievement, not a sentence of exhaustion.

He came out of the shower exhausted, but a little more present in his own body. He went downstairs and found Uraraka in the kitchen, two large glasses of steaming hot chocolate on the countertop, a plate of dumplings in the center of the kitchen table. She was leaning against the countertop, looking at him.

"Sit down," she ordered gently, indicating the chair.

He sat down. The hot chocolate was perfect, not too sweet, not too bitter. The first sip was a physical comfort that spread through his icy chest.

"Thank you, Ocha," he said, his voice still hoarse but more stable. "By... for everything.

"Stop it," she said, picking up her own glass. "Now, the plan is as follows: we take this to the living room, put on a silly movie – I'm thinking of that ridiculous romantic comedy about the chef and the critic, the one we always laugh at – and we just... there is. Not to mention him. Not to mention anything heavy. Just relax. Can it be?

Izuku looked at her, at her friend who had always been her silent rock, her confidante, her shieldmaiden since her student days. She had never doubted him. I would never choose to believe in others. It was there. He had always been.

"Yes," he said, and a small, tiny, sad but genuine smile touched his lips.

And that's what they did. In the cozy room, enveloped in the warmth of chocolate and predictable film, Izuku allowed himself, for the first time in months, to simply not think. He allowed himself to be led by the silly plot, by Uraraka's naps on the sofa next to him, by the cozy weight of a blanket. The pain was still there, a sleeping monster deep in his chest. The final words still echoed in his mind: "Pretend I don't exist."
But for that night, in that sanctuary of friendship, he didn't have to pretend that Katsuki didn't exist. He could just... rest. And maybe, just maybe, begin to imagine what a world would be like in which he, Izuku Midoriya, existed on his own, without being the resilient half of an explosive and dysfunctional team. The road ahead was a haze of pain and uncertainty, but that night, he wasn't alone in it. And that, for now, was enough for the next breath.