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Assistant: Title: From The Sidelines
        Author: suffocatingspring suffocatingspring 
        Chapter: 13/14 
        Summary: When long-time enemies, Bakugo Katsuki--the all-star athlete and rascal of Ise--and Izuku Midoriya, the town sweetheart, are paired together for a long-term project, the quiet beachside town of Ise suddenly gets a bit louder.In which, Katsuki is an @ssh@l@ pole vaulter, Izuku is going to fail psychology, and both are about to have the most intense spring semester yet.
        Contents: Chapter 13: The National Tournament
    

    


      
        
          43k words. Please read the ending note when you're finished !  READ THE ENDING NOTE. I REPEAT. WHEN YOU FINISH, READ THE ENDING NOTE. We've reached the end. Thank you so much for coming along on this journey, I couldn't be more grateful if I tried. God, I love you guys to death. Sorry for this horrible ending. I tried to be as true as possible to what I had in mind, but I'm human after all, so I'm really sorry ahhh!Spotify playlist : https://open.spotify.com/playlist/0snFtSvokWIcPVSb62VXIyA quick I love you to FTS, the BKDK that exists within FTS, the community created from FTS, and all the support that you all have given this story <3
            
            (See the end of the chapter for  more notes.)
            
      
  

  
  
    
      
  A bead of water falls down the side of the gl@ss. It falls and joins the little pool of iced liquid that formed a circle at the bottom, staining the table. 
  
    Oh
  
  , Izuku realized. 

  He had forgotten a coaster. Usually, his mother had a pet peeve about leaving water stains on the tables, so, from when he was little until now, Izuku’s always gotten a little scolding every time he forgot to use a coaster for cold gl@sses of water. He’s surprised that his mother, who was talking to him right now, hadn’t gotten onto him for it yet.

  Or maybe she did. Izuku wouldn’t know, for all the words sounded like buzzing and white noise to his ears, as his mind drifted off somewhere else. It’s curious how the world can feel numb when the most exhilarating aspect of your life just...stops. And suddenly, even the water droplets on the side of a gl@ss feels more interesting than the Katsuki-less reality that he’s forced himself into. The ticking of the grandfather clock set up against olive green walls was all but a faint noise mixed with the zoned out murmuring of whatever it was that his mother was saying. Being underwater was a similar sensation, everything muffled and muddled. 

  On his lips, Izuku still feels the remnants of the kiss from yesterday evening. The ghosts of cherry gatorade and Katsuki’s natural scent still lingered in his mouth, or maybe, his stupidly wishful heart tricked himself into believing so. If he lets himself think about it, then he can still remember the slight pressure of Katsuki’s lips on his, pulling him into a deep but very brief kiss, and the fingertips that tilted his chin up. Was he really that touch starved that even that faint touch was enough to set him back three steps? 

  However, if he 
  
    does, 
  
  in fact, let himself think on it, then he will spiral into madness. What had that meant? If anything at all? Why did he do that? Why did Katsuki have to go and do that? Did he not care about Izuku’s wish to get over the blonde? Had he forgotten? Or did Katsuki kiss him knowing full well the situation. If so, does that...does that mean… And that’s as far as Izuku would let himself hopelessly dream, before reeling him back in. 

  He doesn’t want to think about Katsuki anymore, but it’s easier said than done. He wants to be thinking of other things right then. Badminton, for example. Block matches will be starting soon. Or college. Filling out more paperwork, and buying things for Waseda. Or quite literally anything else. 

  Because if he begins to think about Katsuki, then he will also think about where Katsuki is right now, and where Izuku 
  
    isn’t
  
  . And the moment Izuku allows himself to think about National Qualifiers, he knows that he will lose his willpower. He had excuses, he told himself. Even if he had been dreaming of this for literally forever: seeing Katsuki at Nationals. Even before they became partners, Izuku’s always wanted to see him there. In the past, the greenette hadn’t been able to attend Youth Nationals either because it had been so far away. It was only in his freshman year that his mother was willing and available to drive all that way for him to watch. And so, it would’ve been like any other year if Izuku didn’t come. 

  But he knew deep down that it wasn’t. It wasn't the same. Because every other year, Katsuki wasn’t so adamant that Izuku come make his appearance as he was now. Because every other year, Katsuki didn’t pole vault onto his roof--just because the tree branch leading to his window had been cut off--just to kiss him right before a tournament. Because every other year, they weren’t best friends.

  But what could he do. What could Izuku f@ck@ng do. He’s always been mesmerized by Katsuki’s vaulting, and so he knows that if he stood there today, on that stadium in Nagoya, and sees Katsuki fly again, then he would fall in love all over again. He knows it’ll be over for him, because from the very beginning, watching the blonde jump was the very thing that stole his breath away in the first place. And then to see it now at Nationals where Katsuki, in all his glory, was at his peak performance? There’s no chance he’ll be able to make it through alive. 

  Besides, it wasn’t as if he could drive. His mother had to renew her business licenses on the other side of town later today, and she needed the car. It wasn’t as if he could just take it if he wanted to. Sure, the woman had plenty of other friends whose cars she could borrow but he wasn’t going to acknowledge that option existed. Either way, there would be a high chance that he’d die in a car accident if he tries to drive 4 hours straight without someone in the passenger seat correcting him, considering that he’s never really been allowed the freedom to drive before recently. Not only that, but there were errands that his mother wanted him to do. Go grocery shopping. Pick up something from Kei's house. Bring some boxes from her home inventory up to the shop. 

  It wasn’t as if him being there was going to make a big difference to Katsuki. Katsuki had so many people there already supporting him. All of the Ise High’s pole vault team attended to support, but also, every year at the big tournaments, people from Ise High or just Ise in general occupied an entire section of the stadium just to support their main star. And so the blonde will already have plenty of support. Family, friends, strangers. Izuku would have gotten drowned out by the crowd anyways because of his height. It didn’t matter, he told himself, even though every fiber of his body was itching to be there. Every single nerve in his skin was-

  “Izuku?” A voice dragged him back into the moment, “Izuku, are you listening to me?”

  It was like his brain was getting pulled back into his body, for his vision focused more. And it was like a pin dropped, and he was thrown back into the present again. The water bead on the glass was now part of the bigger picture, and Izuku realized that he had been blanking out into space this entire time while his mother was talking. They were sitting on the couch in the living room, and the movie Pretty In Pink was replaying on the TV in the background. The weather was fine in Ise today. Not cloudy. Not particularly bright and beautiful either, or maybe it was because he didn’t find many things beautiful these days. The first thing he had done in the morning upon seeing the slightly out-of-the-ordinary sky was check the weather in Nagoya. Was it better than here? Thank god, he remembered thinking. Full sunny skies, 81 degrees. Katsuki will be fine.

  The kettle had been boiling for a minute now, but he hadn’t even noticed until now. Inko was looking at him with wide, waiting eyes, as she sits there for an answer after telling him a story about who knows what. 

  “Oh, I’m sorry,” Izuku shakes his head, rubbing his temple with the back of his hand, “I completely zoned out. I’m really sorry.”

  Inko gave him a small comforting smile, before reaching over to squeeze his knee, “It’s alright. It wasn’t anything important. Let me go get the water off the stove. Do you want any tea? I bought a new one the other day, and it sounds interesting! Cherry black tea.”

  Izuku looked at her, muttering to himself, “...Cherry?” 

  Was he that obsessed? To the point where even the mention of cherries hurts him?

  “Yes, doesn’t it sound wonderful?” Inko got up from her seat, “Do you want a cup?”

  Izuku slowly shook his head, sinking into the back of the couch, “I’m alright. Thank you.”

  Inko leaves for a moment, to head into the kitchen, pouring herself a cup of tea, before setting it back down on the coffee table in front of him and letting the bag steep in the hot water. 

  “I took a whiff of it while pouring, and my my, is it fragrant,” Inko laughed.

  Izuku nods slowly, “Ah, is it?” Even though his eyes were once again about to stare off. 

  “It is,” She nods profusely, “It’s very unique. You can smell it from here. Have you ever smelled anything like it before, ‘Zuku?”

  The boy in question didn’t really want to reply, so he just mindlessly lets out a small, “I don’t know, Mom. I don’t know.”

  At this, Inko frowned, before speaking, “‘Zuku. Could you please not act like this? You’re bringing down the house, baby. My ‘Zuku is always smiling, and I just can’t bear seeing you so out of char-”

  The woman stopped when Izuku looked up into her eyes all of a sudden. 

  Izuku knows that there are a lot of times like this where his mother slips into an old habit or says some things that trigger a part of him that still is affected by the past, and he doesn’t expect any less. His mother has been like this for decades, and to expect her to completely drop her habits within a couple of months is unrealistic. That being said, it still hurts a bit when Izuku is hit again with statements like this. Because just as Inko was still learning to be less emotionally restrictive, Izuku was still trying to unlearn his immediate reaction of agreeing with her. 

  Even now, as Inko told him with her usual sweet tone that he was not being himself, and that he should be smiling, Izuku’s gut instinct was to nod along and put on a fake smile. But he refrained himself from doing so, and instead, just looked up at her. 

  Upon pausing, it was as if Inko Midoriya realized what she had said, and Izuku could see her physically shrink into herself. 

  And then after a moment, the woman gave him an apologetic smile, “I’m sorry. That was...insensitive of me, wasn’t it.”

  Izuku just pursed his lips and told her genuinely, “It’s okay.” And doesn’t confirm or deny her insensitivity. She knows it was. He doesn’t need to tell her. 

  Sighing, Inko waits for the tea to cool down a little bit, which takes a couple of minutes, before the woman brings the cup up to her lips and takes a small sip. They both sit in silence for a bit. 

  “When is it his turn on the track?” Inko ask him, no need to specify who 
  
    he
  
   is. It was obvious who was on Izuku’s mind. 

  Taking a small breath, Izuku tells her, “4 o’clock.”

  "Everyone here will be watching it on TV," Inko laughs, knowing how heavy the atmosphere is, "He'll be the talk of the town for months."

  Izuku smiled down at his lap, "He always is, isn't he."

  "That's our Katsuki, isn't it," Inko speaks, not feeling any real anger against the blonde boy who she knew had his reasons, "Always the talk of town."

  Izuku doesn't say anything. 

  Inko hummed, and then checks the time, “If you go now, then you can get to Nagoya with one hour to spare before it’s his turn to go up.”

  Izuku doesn’t like when opportunity that he shouldn’t take is dangled in front of his face like this, tempting him, so he shakes his head, “You have to pick up the license later.”

  “I can always have our neighbor take me. Jun is free today,” Inko countered.

  Izuku laughs lightly, “You’ve been spending a lot of time with Jun recently, Mom. Are you sure all of those trips over to his house lately were to borrow a drill or the paprika?”

  Inko flushed red at this, and playfully tapped Izuku on the arm, “‘Zuku! Me and Jun are just friends. He’s...he is-”

  “A really nice man in his mid-40s who’s single and living alone, and likes to garden?” Izuku wagged his eyebrows. It was a recent development. 

  Once in a while, his mother would go over to their neighbor’s house, and just sit and talk for a little while. And when she’d come home, there’d be this soft youthful glow to her face that Izuku hadn’t seen in a while. With him, Inko always had a mature, loving look, but the one that she’d sport when coming back from Jun’s house was like a schoolgirl harboring a crush for the first time. Although Izuku knew that his mother was still, somewhat, in love with Hisashi, he still wanted so badly for her to get her 
  
    own
  
   happy ending. And whether that happy ending is just the two of them--Izuku and Inko--living and being happy with one other, or if it someday along the road involves another person, Izuku didn’t mind. 

  “Izuku, you’re distracting from the point,” His mother pointed out, partially because she wanted to get back on topic and partially because she was getting flustered. 

  Izuku dropped his playful grin, and then looked down at his lap, “Mom, even then, you wouldn’t let me drive 4 hours by myself in the first place.”

  Inko Midoriya frowned, “Izuku, you’re just making excuses. Why would I have said all of this if I wasn’t going to let you go?”

  The doe-eyed boy acknowledged this already, and was hoping she wouldn’t actually say it out loud, but she had, and now, Izuku was forced to admit, “Mom, if I go, then I’ll never get over him,” He swallowed heavily, “If I go, and I see him jump with all the passion that made me enamored with him in the first place, then I’ll just fall in love all over again.”

  Inko looked at him now with a sympathetic expression, but Izuku didn’t catch her eye.

  Instead, the boy shrugged his shoulders with a small smile, “Besides, I don’t have tickets even if I wanted to.”

  From a few feet away from him, Inko sighed and scooted forward, scooping Izuku’s hands up in her own, and rubbing her thumb over the back of his hand, making the boy look up at her. 

  “Okay,” She tells him with a nod, “Are you sure?”

  Izuku nodded, “I’m sure, Mom. But I can’t sit around or I’ll keep thinking about it, so can I go run your errands for you?” 

  Seeing it’s a good idea, Inko nodded and resituated herself so that she can think more comfortable, “Hm, I need to pick up Mrs. Raki’s cake pans that she borrowed last week, so can you do that for me?”

  The green eyed boy shook his head yes. 

  “After that, I have some small boxes that need to be dropped off at the post office, and they’re already addressed and labelled so you don’t need to worry about that. And then one more then, could you go to the corner grocery and get me eggs, potatoes, cream, and garlic? I’ll write it down so you don’t forget,” His mother listed off, and Izuku took mental note. 

  “Yeah, I’m on it,” Izuku made himself get up off of the couch and stretch his arms for a moment. He was allowed to take the car to run the errands, since nothing was particularly far away and it was about time he had a little more practice driving by himself. 

  The first two tasks took a total of an hour, and the only reason it took that long was because Mrs. Raki talked his ear off for thirty minutes upon arrival. Don’t get him wrong. Izuku enjoyed talking to people, and in fact, doing so would probably distract him. The problem was that Mrs. Raki was avidly religious, and upon seeing the young man, went on a tirade warning him about staying away from the devil. There were a lot of these types of people in Ise. The religious fanatics, whether it's christianity or buddhism or what not. Which was fine. People should be free to worship who they want, but Izuku must admit, Mrs. Raki sometimes scared him.

  “These days, you teens have lost the way of God,” Mrs. Raki held his hand with concern in your eyes, “Drinking. Doing drugs. Skipping Sunday service. And having premarital intercourse. Izuku, tell me dear, have you had premarital s@x?” 

  Izuku blinked several times, sputtering at the overly personal question. He knew that if he told the truth and said yes, Mrs. Raki would likely go into another crying tirade and begin prayers for him, and convince him to go to confessions to ask for forgiveness. 

  And so, saving his skin, Izuku shook his head, “No.”

  A look of relief washed over the woman’s face, “Oh thank God, Izuku. I always knew you were a good boy. Inko raised you well,” She pinched his cheeks. 

  After the fiasco of that whole interaction, Izuku drove to the grocery store, feeling a tad bit guilty that he lied but also relieved that the conversation was over. There was no way in hell that Izuku was going to admit that he had ravenous, delicious s@x with Bakugo Katsuki. Keyword: had. Izuku felt bad for Mrs. Raki’s children. If he thought his situation with Inko was bad, then her children had it much worse. His mind amuses this thought all the way up until he pulls into the corner grocery, a red-brick building with flowers lining the entryway, and electronic sliding doors leading into the largest grocery store in Ise, which wasn’t even that large to begin with. 

  As Izuku scanned the isles, looking down occasionally at the list of food he was supposed to get, Izuku tries not to think about the countless times he and Katsuki messed around in this grocery store trying to get food in order to make some concoction in their kitchen. Or 9PM trips here to grab ramen and snacks for late night movie marathons. He shakes his head to push the thought away, before grabbing the cream and setting it on top of the eggs that he gathered up in his arms. 

  “Garlic...garlic, garlic,” Izuku’s eyes scanned the produce section, muttering to himself the ingredient that he needed. 

  He was so deep into his search, that when Izuku hears his name being called out, the boy jumped a little in place and nearly dropped all of his ingredients. 

  “Young Midoriya?” The familiar voice of Mr. Toshinori shocked him, and Izuku turned to see the teacher pushing a cart full of groceries approaching him. It was strange to see the teacher out of class and dressed in a t-shirt and jeans, rather than the white button up and slacks combo that all male teachers at Ise High had to sport. Izuku hadn’t really seen anyone since summer break started, so Mr. Toshinori would mark the first. 

  “A-Ah, Mr. Toshinori,” Izuku laughed, “You scared me.”

  “Oh my apologies,” He waved his arms, “I didn’t mean to scare you,” He laughed. 

  “It’s no worries,” Izuku smiled, “How’s your summer been?”

  “It hasn’t really been much of a summer yet,” Mr. Toshinori replied, “I’m already planning the syllabus for my next course.”

  “That’s pretty early,” Izuku notices.

  “It is,” The teacher nods, “But when duty calls."

  "You work too hard," Izuku has to admit with a grateful smile. 

  "They used to call me All Might back in the day you know, after that one super hero," Mr. Toshinori laughs, "Because I always took on all the jobs in the faculty board that no one wanted, and then everyone in the office started to say 'It's fine now! Why? Because he is here' everytime I walked into work."

  Izuku smiles but doubts him, "Are you sure it isn't because you used to have an uncanny resemblance to All Might?"

  "Ah, that might have been the case as well," Mr. Toshinori shyly admits.

  "Oh, it definitely was," Izuku laughs. He's reminded all over again of how much he truly enjoys having him as a teacher, and was sure going to miss him when he goes off to Waseda.

  "And how about you? How was your summer been?” Mr. Toshinori follows up with him.

  Izuku smiled while looking down, “It only started a couple of days ago, but I guess it’s been okay.”

  It really hasn’t, but whose fault was that. 

  “Are you holding up okay?” Mr. Toshinori asks.

  “Hm?” Izuku looked up at him, eyes wide in confusion, “What do you mean?”

  “With the whole…” The teacher waved an arm around, trying to get around saying it straight up, before clearing his throat, “With what you talked about in the final paper.”

  Oh. That. Izuku suddenly felt small, as he remembered that his teacher knew of mostly everything that happened between him and Katsuki. Not all of it, for Izuku respected the athlete’s privacy enough to leave out personal details concerning Katsuki. But still, he had forgotten entirely that the secret of his affection wasn’t his own anymore. 

  “Oh that?” Izuku pursed his lips and shook his head, “I’ll be okay. Thank you for asking.”

  “Beautiful paper, I must say,” Mr. Toshinori nods profusely, “I’m very proud of you. I’m assuming you’ve checked your grades and comments for it?”

  Izuku shook his head no, “Um, actually, not yet,” He looked apologetic, “I’ve been caught up on some things. I’ll check them out later though!”

  “No, no, do it when you have time!” The teacher shook his head, “Anyways, I was very proud of how much effort everyone put into that paper. Everyone took it very seriously.”

  “I’m glad! We did spend a lot of time on it, after all,” Izuku reaffirms, shrugging the groceries better in his arms so that they don’t fall off. 

  Mr. Toshinori nods at this, before looking off to the side, and for a moment he was quiet, before revealing, “Although. I must say that Bakugo cursed a lot in his paper, which I would normally count off points for but…”

  Izuku bit the inside of his cheek. Katsuki cursed in his final paper that was a good hefty chunk of their grade? Was he crazy? Izuku was curious, for sure. 

  “But?” Izuku asked.

  Mr. Toshinori laughed, “But I didn’t, because despite the language, it was such a well written paper that I chose to overlook it.”

  Izuku’s brows raised, “Was it?”

  The teacher nodded, “Very much so. The formatting and subject material was very interesting, and if you ever get the opportunity, I’d say you should ask young Bakugo if you take a read.”

  “A-ah, I’m not sure about that,” Izuku shook his head, finding that a bit too personal. 

  Mr. Toshinori ignored him unintentionally, “If I were to make a critique though, his paper was wonderful, but I couldn’t quite decipher the first line.”

  Izuku opened his mouth to speak, but the teacher continued. 

  “I didn’t really see what it had to do with anything, but it was curious nevertheless,” Mr. Toshinori looked up in thought, “I suppose it wouldn’t hurt if I told you just the first line. See if it interests you any.”

  Izuku c@cked his head to the side, “The first line of his...paper?"

  “Yes,” The blonde teacher affirmed, “Ah, what did it say?” He thinks. And thinks. 

  Izuku stands there, holding his eggs and cream, waiting. But ultimately, his former psychology teacher pulls out his phone and rummages around for a bit.

  “Here...let me…” The man pulls up the PDF file while squinting at the screen, “...pull it up, really quick.”

  The doe-eyed boy spots the garlic, an aisle over in the produce section, and keeps a mental note of it in his mind so that he can go grab it after this conversation. After a moment, Mr. Toshinori seems to have finally gotten it pulled up. 

  “Here. Just the first sentence,” Mr. Toshinori turned his phone screen to Izuku, who turns his head back and looks at the screen. He holds his groceries tighter, and takes a step forward to read. 

  
    People say beauty is inside. Beauty is grace. Beauty is kindness. I say all of that is b@llsh@t. Beauty ain’t nothing but a pair of green eyes and a stupid grin sitting out the sunroof going down a dirt road.
  
 
  What? 

  Izuku took a moment to read it all over again, before blanking and asking himself 
  
    what
  
  ? Beauty ain’t nothing but a pair of green eyes. Whose? His? But Katsuki’s always called them-

  
    What
  
  ? It wasn’t as if many people had green eyes, but Izuku was finding it hard to comprehend how this could possibly be about him. Beauty ain’t nothing but a pair of green eyes. He repeats it internally, hoping that it might make sense. Katsuki couldn’t possibly be talking about him, not after all that he’s said before about his eyes. 

  But this paper. The paper was supposed to be about 
  
    them
  
  . And the next part. A stupid grin sitting out the sunroof going down a dirt road. Izuku didn’t even need to think too hard to remember. He still remembers every part of that memory as if it was yesterday. Them, on their way to Dolly in order to catch that drive-in movie. Katsuki stopping in the middle of the road to give him that dramatic speech. Izuku finding the nerve to climb up onto the sunroof while the blonde drives down that dirt road, arms spread wide and laughing like a maniac. How could he forget. One of the first moments that he lost himself to the pleasures of freedom.

  Katsuki was talking about him. Katsuki was talking about 
  
    him
  
  , but why? Izuku was so confused, and all of these thoughts swarmed his head like gnats. To have heard all of this time that his green eyes were creepy or undesirable, just to now read that to Katsuki, he was beautiful, was confusing. He couldn’t wrap his head around it, even though all of the signs pointed to the fact that it was true. He repeated the line over and over again in his head, until its essence was embedded into his brain. Beauty ain’t nothing but a pair of green eyes. Green eyes. 
  
    His
  
   green eyes. 

  Izuku felt his chest constrict, and his hands begin to shake. He was 
  
    so, so
  
   confused, because why would Katsuki say that? What is the point? Why did Katsuki mention that in his final analysis paper? That his eyes were beautiful. That he thought Izuku was beautiful? Why now? Just as Izuku was intending to get over him. It was one of the very few things that Izuku so desperately wanted to hear from the blonde, and there it was, written on paper. Yet it didn't feel real. It couldn't be real. Not after all this time. 

  Mr. Toshinori then put away his phone, and went back to conversing normally, not noticing the way Izuku stood frozen with groceries bundled up in his arms and a look of shocked confusion etched on his face. Everything felt a little muddled in his head, as he attempts to straighten up every thought that was slipping through his head. Katsuki, Katsuki, Katsuki. Why did he say that? Why must he say that and get Izuku’s hopes up over and over again? 

  Mr. Toshinori spoke, but Izuku was only half paying attention. It was as if all sound was muffled against his own loud thinking. 

  “Anyways,” Mr. Toshinori derailed the conversation, “Speaking of young Bakugo, I truly was looking forward to attending his tournament today, but alas, my old mentor from out of town is coming by to visit. Back in the old days, we used to call him Gran Torino. Say, you might have even heard of him! In the 60s, he was a pretty well known track star. Super fast to this day, I’d say.”

  Izuku’s eyes were glazed over, as his thoughts wandered off elsewhere. Still not able to fully take in the fact that Katsuki finds his eyes beautiful. Or was it even a fact. Could it have been real? What he had read? All of this time. His chest restricts and it feels like his lungs are about to explode, and the only air that could satisfy him was the one that Katsuki breathed. 

  “Back to the point,” Mr. Toshinori reigned himself in, “Bakugo didn’t seem too bothered when I told him I couldn’t make it, so I asked him if he was nervous about the whole tournament when he came to turn in the paper,” Mr. Toshinori recalled, “The boy then told me he’ll be fine as long as his good luck charm is there. I sure hope he didn’t forget it at home today,” The man laughs. 

  But Izuku didn't find it funny at all. Not in the slightest. 

  As long as his good luck charm was there. Izuku remembers the conversation well. It was brief, barely lasted a minute, but he remembered it nevertheless.

  
    “Just be there and cheer me on,” 
  
  Katsuki had told him, 
  
    “And drag all of your goons too. I want a huge crowd, a giant banner saying I’m the f@ck@ng best, and a whole band.”
  

  Izuku remembered shaking his head and laughing
  
    , “Okay, now you’re being greedy.”
  

  Katsuki’s left side of his lip quirked up
  
    , “Just the first thing is fine too.”
  

  Izuku had then rested his cheek on his hand as he looked over to Katsuki
  
    , “Why does it sound like I’m a good luck charm?”
  

  And Izuku felt the urge to laugh  now as he remembered Katsuki’s response,
  
    “It’s your sh@tty aura. It scares all the competition away.”
  

  
    F@ck. 
  

  He was the good luck charm. Even if he didn't consider himself very lucky, Katsuki at least considered him it. Before the sweatband. Before anything else. It was him, even if it was just his presence as a friend, an enemy, or however, it had always been him watching Katsuki as he won his tournaments throughout the years. 
  Panicking, Izuku knew that it was too late to stop himself, for his body was already thinking ten steps ahead of his brain. Mr. Toshinori might have said something, but Izuku didn’t hear it. He could only hear the blood rushing through his brain, and the tingling nervousness in his hands. As long as his good luck charm is there, he'll be okay. Katsuki never believed in something like luck, always wanting to claim victory for himself without attributing it to something like fate. There was only ever one thing that Katsuki ever closely remoted admitted to being his good luck charm, and that was him. 

  Izuku drops the eggs and cream. The carton of cream rolls off to the side, and the eggs crack inside of the cardboard casing upon impact. A splatter of yolk seeps through the edges, and Izuku backs away. If this was him normally, he’d apologize a million times and clean it all up. And even now, he recognizes that it’s what he 
  
    should
  
   do, but he can’t. 

  Instead, Izuku turns away, hands empty of any grocery and any sense of self-preservation, and he runs. Izuku runs out of the corner grocery, leaving behind a confused and shocked Mr. Toshinori, leaving behind the tasks he was supposed to do today, and he hops inside of the car, turning the engine on before he has the opportunity to change his mind. 

  Izuku looks at the clock inside of the vehicle. It was 1PM. It took 4 hours to drive to Nagoya. Katsuki’s event begins at 4PM. Unless he broke a couple of traffic laws and went at 100+ MPH, he wasn’t going to make it on time. His chest was heaving as tears of frustration threatened to spill from his eyes, but Izuku knew he had to try. Putting the vehicle in reverse, Izuku takes the car out of the parking lot and onto the main road, placing the name of stadium into his GPS. He was moving so fast that he barely had time to think about what he was doing. 

  He was going to see Katsuki jump. And when he does, he knows he’ll fall in love all over again. He knows that it’ll be so much harder to get over the blonde. But he owes Katsuki this. He had promised. Just like Katsuki said. He had promised, so he must keep it. Stupid, how stupid could he be, to think that he could avoid this. When it means so much to Katsuki? When it means so much to him? How much of a fool he was to think he could escape the promise. What kind of friend was he. 

  Izuku doesn’t realize that he has small streams of tears running down his cheek until he feels the droplets getting cold on his chin, and so he brings a hand up to wipe them away so that his vision doesn’t get blurry while he drives. Izuku takes a deep breath, following the directions towards the highway where he can then drive a straight shot to the big city. 

  Running a hand through his messy hair, Izuku sighs deeply and then turns on the radio, switching it over to the 80s pop channel. He doesn’t have a plan. He doesn’t have tickets. He has no way of getting into the stadium. And yet, he’ll figure it out when he gets there. 
  
    Spontaneous
  
  , right? Katsuki was the person who taught him the value of spontaneity, so Izuku considers this while following the blonde’s example. 

  The Winner Takes It All, by ABBA begins to play on the radio after the small ad break ends, and Izuku smiles through his light tears. ABBA was one of the greatest artists of the 80s, and was the name behind Dancing Queen and Mamma Mia; however, Izuku’s favorite song by them will forever be The Winner Takes It All.

  And so, as the music plays, Izuku whips through the streets of Ise until he can see the city limits. There was no going back, Izuku understood, before he left Ise. The entire ride, he was sitting rigidly, straight into his seat, feeling like time was passing too slow. The bright afternoon sun was threatening to make his head hurt, and the monotonous road ahead of him looked like it goes on for forever. And he’s afraid that he’ll never make it. That it’ll be too late by the time he comes. Izuku does not necessarily have a sense of self-importance. That being said, if there is 
  
    any
  
   chance, 
  
    any 
  
  chance at all, that his absence could be the reason why Katsuki doesn’t do his best, then Izuku would never forgive himself. 

  And so, Midoriya Izuku steps on the gas, not seeing any cops around, and drives even faster than he was before. He was going to make it there, even if it is by the skin of his teeth. Izuku’s eyes looked at the clock about every four minutes on that drive there, as if time would go faster if he convinced himself it did. 4 o’clock approaches faster and faster, and Izuku feels more anxious the further along time passes. 

  Stupid. Stupid. Stupid. Only idiots speed down the highway at 100 MPH when the speed limit was 70MPH, regardless of whether there were other cars on the road or not. If a deer crossed the road, he’d be done for. Everytime he’d see a car, he’d slam on the break and slow down just enough to look normal, before speeding up again right after it passes. Izuku knew what Katsuki would have said right now if he were in the passenger seat. The blonde would be berating him, and pretending to have a heart attack over Izuku’s driving, and the thought of that makes Izuku laugh sadly. Of course, he forgets that if Katsuki were here, it doesn’t solve the issue they have of Izuku being madly in love with the other unrequitedly.

  
    
  
  Or was it even that? From an outsider’s perspective, Izuku wonders what the situation looks like, he truly does. Because he cannot personally disconnect himself from his biased perception of their relationship, and what it looks like to 
  
    him
  
  . To Izuku, here was a boy who has time and time again treated him like the greatest friend and greatest lover, just to tell him every time that he will never do so. And who was Izuku to tell him that he’s wrong? Here was a boy who has time and time again insulted the appearance of his eyes, directing Izuku not to look at him numerous times, just to come out in a paper that Izuku’s eyes were the very definition of beauty to him. How could anyone blame him for being confused, for wanting answers, but being afraid of what those very answers entailed. 

  But, regardless of Izuku’s confusion on their friendship and relationship, one thing was clear on Katsuki’s end, and it was that Izuku made a promise to show up to National Qualifiers. Izuku promised this, and despite that, when he woke up this morning, he still made excuses not to go because of his own feelings. He hadn’t considered that Katsuki, who has told him before that he considers Izuku one of his closest friends, might need him there. Not that Izuku felt that much self-importance, but if what Mr. Toshinori said was true, then Izuku should be there, up in those stands, cheering him on just one more time. After that, he can do whatever. 

  But for now, there was somewhere he needed to be, and Izuku currently has thirty minutes until Katsuki’s event starts. 

  The problem was, it was an hour until he would get to Nagoya. 

  It feels like a scene from a movie. It truly does. It felt as if someone copied the script from a cheesy hallmark movie, and pasted it into Izuku’s fate, because for what other reason would the greenette find himself slamming on the gas to get to Katsuki’s tournament? He doesn’t even know what he’ll do when he gets there. Katsuki was likely going to win, as he usually does, and then the blonde will get crowded by the masses of people there to congratulate him. And Izuku was then just going to drive back home. 

  Even then, he should at least be there. If for nothing else, but to keep one final promise. 

  Izuku goes through a whole playlist of songs that jolted memories into his heart, and he’s tempted to turn the radio off or at least switch to a different channel, but his hands were instead glued to the steering wheel, clutching it so tight that it felt like it could break off with just a bit more force. If a cop were to pull him over, it wouldn’t be Mr. Hadashi, the local sheriff in Ise, who probably would just let him get away with a small berating and a high five. It would be someone who would easily ticket him heavily and get him into massive trouble. But with the spirit of Bakugo Katsuki in his mind, Izuku pushes away the need to care a
  ll the way up until he gets within the city limits of Nagoya.

  He can see the skyline in the distance. At this point, if he does speed, then he wouldn’t just risk harming himself, but other people, considering that he was approaching a more densely populated area. 

  The last time he was here, he at least had his mother. Inko, to be fair, didn’t go out very much, and only occasionally went to bigger cities for special clients or what not, but even then, she knew more than him about the city. But now, approaching the city, Izuku felt a slight bit of panic. He wasn’t used to this. He rarely travelled with anyone, much less by himself. Midoriya Izuku was a small boy from Ise, a coastal city stuck in the olden days, and he had small town ways and a small town charm. Suddenly being in a city as big as Nagoya trying to navigate the hecticness was overwhelming, and for a moment there, Izuku felt himself redact into his seat, and begin to revert back to the old Izuku. 

  The Izuku from months ago, before Katsuki came in and shoved independence down his throat, before Izuku learned what it meant to explore and be free and to live truly for himself. Izuku felt himself shrivelling up into the boy who was scared of doing anything without someone to hold his hand, to give him permission, to take the safe route that he knew well rather than take a chance with the riskier more spontaneous decision. 

  As he enters within the city, and sees buildings as tall as mountains, and more people than the entire county that Ise was in times four, Izuku looks around and feels a small sense of anxiety seep into his chest, and his breathing becomes a little bit more labored. His hands are gripping the wheel even tighter, and Izuku jumps in his seat when the car behind him honks at him to move forward. 

  “Sorry!” Izuku panics and squeaks out, before pressing the gas a little too hard and lurching the car forward, almost hitting the back of the vehicle in front of him. 

  Seeing the disaster of how this is going, Izuku bites the inside of his cheek tightly and takes a deep breath. He takes a deep, deep breath, and thinks to himself. Yes, growth is not instant. Growth is not a straight forward path. Yes, he is allowed to take five steps forward, and three steps back, and what matters most is that he was able to take five steps forwards in the first place. Yes, usually, all of that is true. 

  However, not now. He cannot allow himself to go backwards right now. Not when it matters the most. Not when he came all of this way, broke all of his rules, and got this far. Because this is 
  
    exactly
  
   what Katsuki had tried to teach him all of this time. That he 
  
    can
  
   do things by himself. That he 
  
    will
  
   be okay. That he 
  
    is
  
   in control of whether or not he gets to where he wants to be. 

  Without Inko, yes. But also, without Katsuki. And now was the best time to prove to himself that he can hold his own. 

  Relaxing himself a little, Izuku scooted forward in the line. There was traffic all over the city center of Nagoya. 

  Looking down at his phone, the red lines marking heavy traffic was coming from all directions that surrounded the stadium. Izuku’s guess was that people are leaving once their event is over, and others were coming right before their team started. Considering that National Qualifiers was a long, long event, it made sense that some teams didn’t want to stay the entire time leading up to their event or following the end of their event. Not to mention, people who lived in the area and were coming out of work at rush hour were trying to get home as well, which made the streets all the more busy.

  Midoriya Izuku looked down at the clock, and felt his heart clench over the fact that it was 4:00PM. It was 4:00PM, which meant that Ise High’s representatives will be up right about now. He looked forward. He can’t even see the stadium from here, because it was about 10 more blocks forward, and then 9 blocks to the left, before taking a right. He was 
  
    far
  
  . And at the rate that traffic is going, it would be another hour before he would get close to the stadium. On a free day with no traffic, the distance would take less than 5 minutes to drive to. This was ridiculous, and Izuku could see officers directing traffic up ahead, and closing certain lanes that people were trying to crowd into.  Izuku out of panic accidentally slammed his horns, which caused the car in front of him to slam it back. 

  Feeling that rise of panic in his chest again, Izuku looks around frantically at the unmoving traffic and then at the unwavering red lines in his phone GPS. There was no way in hell. No way that he was going to make it. Izuku rolls the windows down, and sticks his head out of the window. Although it was a distance away, he could hear it. He could hear the faint sound of screaming amidst all of the city noises, and unrecognizable speaking on what was likely huge megaphones that blasted commentary over the tournament. And even more faintly, he could hear some music playing from speakers, but he couldn’t make out what song it was. It was so far. Too far, and Izuku looked around once more, as if anything in his car would make the traffic move faster. From outside of his car window, he hears the announcement go on again, saying words he couldn’t pinpoint. It could have been Katsuki’s name. It might not have been. All he knew was that he was too far, and he had not sped like a maniac from Ise to Nagoya just to miss this. And he did not promise Katsuki that he would come, just to not show up. 

  “F@ck this sh@t,” Izuku uncharacteristially lets out, out of determination and anxiety, before turning the car, cutting it completely out of the road and into the adjacent parking lot of the building parallel to the street. 

  The car behind him immediately took advantage of the extra room and moved forward the very moment Izuku cut out of the lane and into the parking lot, and he whipped the car right into an empty parking space, not caring to see if it had a metered ticket in front of it or not, and grabs only his phone and the car keys, before Izuku locks the car behind him and begins to 
  
    run
  
  . 

  Running wasn’t his sport. Izuku wasn’t a cardio person. He was a weights person, and at the gym, he lifted and squatted heavy weights, which is what blessed him with the thick legs he has today. But running? Cardio? That was not his activity of choice, not like Katsuki. Even in badminton, the only running required was in a 13m by 6m court. 

  That being said, Izuku ran like his life depended on it. 10 blocks forward. He counted each one. Jumping over mediums, potted plants, pedestrian crosses, weaving through people, he was barely careful as to what was in his way. He ran with every ounce of energy in his body. His lungs wanted a break, but he refused to give it one. The only pause Izuku had was to look down at his phone ever so briefly in order to see when to turn, only to run again. 

  Izuku knew he looked like an idiot. The sound of flip flops clapping against the city concrete and asphalt was loud and obnoxious, and his loose t-shirt wasn’t meant for compact running. The amount of times he had to exasperatedly call out ‘excuse me’ or ‘sorry!” as he passed groups of people or ran around barking dogs was adding up, but he could see it. 

  He could see it, and Izuku wanted to cry upon seeing the huge stadium. For four years, Katsuki’s dreams were to attend the real 
  
    adult
  
   National tournament at this very stadium, and to think that Izuku thought about missing it. What was wrong with him? Izuku let out a verbal cry upon seeing the stadium, and running towards it. He was 
  
    so
  
   close. 

  So close that he could smell the concessions from inside. He was so close that he could hear the announcer commentate, but his ears were so full of his own loud heartbeat that he didn’t pay attention. As he ran across the pedestrian walk and onto the huge outdoor front area where people usually waited to get checked in, or scanned, or have their tickets looked at, he weaved through people just standing around. 

  Up ahead, only a couple of people were checking in at this time, having a worker scan their tickets before going through the security metal detector. Izuku as he approached the line, felt that sense of impatient panic rise again, for he didn’t know what to do now. He didn’t have tickets. He didn’t have any tickets whatsoever, and if he even 
  
    thinks 
  
  about running past the ticket lady, then there was no way he was going to get past the security guards with 
  
    guns
  
   in their holsters standing in front of the metal detectors. He has to find a way in. He has to find a way i-

  “Excuse me sir?” A voice cut out his thoughts, and Izuku looked over to the woman wearing a staff shirt that had her scanner out to take his tickets, “May I see your ticket please?”

  Izuku just stared at her, mouth dry from running all of his way, chest still heaving, and in need of water, as his crackly throat asks, “...Tickets?”

  She gave him a deadpan look and sighed, before repeating herself, “Your ticket, sir? I can’t let you in without scanning your ticket.”

  “Oh…” Izuku looked down, his lungs still trying to get air in so his breathing was labored, but he was saddened and at a loss of what to do now. He should get out of line. There was someone behind him, and Izuku felt like he was about to cry, when like it was fate, a familiar voice called out his name. 

  “Midoriya?” Kaito Sen calls from inside of the stadium gates.

  Izuku’s head perked up, and made eye contact with the brunette. He hadn’t talked to the other since the whole fiasco between them, and it looks like Kaito Sen was surprised to see Izuku 
  
    outside
  
   of the gate, rather than within it. The brunette was wearing an Ise High varsity jacket and had his hair styled up really nice, and upon seeing Izuku, the athlete walked up towards the gate on the other side. 

  Izuku’s eyes were watery, and he opened his lips to speak, but didn’t know what to say. 

  “Midoriya?” Kaito called out again once he got closer. 

  The woman in charge of ticketing looks back and forth between Izuku and Kaito before craning her neck in and asking the brunette, “You know him, sir?” 

  Kaito, upon seeing Izuku’s glassy eyes and lost expression, wasn’t stupid and could take a hint on what’s going on, and in turn, the boy cleared his throat and nodded to the ticketer, “Yeah. This is one of my buds. He came in with our crew from Ise High, remember? I asked him to go get my camera for me from my car.” And then looked towards Izuku, “Did you find it?”

  Izuku, looking down at his hands, knowing he was supposed to lie. Reeling himself in from his panic, Izuku then shakily replied, “No…”

  “So you already scanned in,” The woman asked to confirm. 

  Izuku looked up at her, and Kaito stepped in to answer for him, “He already did. The line’s getting long, can you just let him through, ma’am?”

  With a huff and a wave of her arm, the ticketing woman waved Izuku through to the security checkpoint, muttering, “Should’ve just said that coming in.”

  Izuku moves forward, and puts his keys and phone in the little basket before stepping through the detectors. The boy lets out a deep breath upon coming in, and looked up at Kaito Sen, who stands there giving Izuku a conflicted gaze. 

  “Thank you,” Izuku tells him genuinely, pursing his lips together afterwards. 

  Taking a breath, Kaito looked up towards the metal backs of the stadium seats and admitted, “You always looked prettier inside of the track stadium where I could see you, than outside of it.”

  Izuku’s cheeks heated up, and he looked down at his feet again, and was about to open his mouth to say something when the brunette beat him to it. 

  “Just consider this me trying to make up for being a bit of a d@ck,” Kaito said.

  Izuku shook his head, “No, Kaito, it’s okay. You don’t have to do th-”

  “Not just to you,” Kaito interrupts him, which makes Izuku look up with wide eyes, “To Cap.”

  Izuku was speechless. The last thing he expected was for this man, who he has never heard say a kind word to Katsuki in his life, feel apologetic. 

  “I’m one of the reasons why Cap thinks he can’t love you,” Kaito kicks at the concrete underneath his feet, “Hopefully, me helping you get in here might give him an opportunity to prove to you that he can.”

  Izuku sputters, and looks away for a second, not understanding where the sudden change of heart came from, “I-I don’t understand why you’re suddenly-”

  “Why I’m suddenly all for the little thing you and Cap got going on?” Kaito laughs to himself, “Hell if I know. Maybe I realized I’m miserable so I’ve been making others miserable. I don’t even know.”

  It seems, just from Kaito’s words, that there was some internal strife that the brunette has been struggling with as of recent, and the boy was trying to deal with it in some way, shape, or form. Although Kaito didn’t explicitly express it, Izuku could still tell. There was something that’s been on the boy’s mind. 

  “Anyways,” Kaito Sen stretched his arms and then looked towards the stairs that led outside to the stadium seats, “You better get up there. He’s on his last attempt.” 

  Hearing this, Izuku’s eyes widened as his panicked voice asks, “His...last attempt?”

  At pole vault tournaments, each vaulter has three attempts to clear a bar. Three. Don’t clear it within three attempts, and you’re out. Your highest bar will be recorded. Katsuki, in all of his tournament history, has only had to use one attempt to clear any bar. And so, to hear that the blonde, was currently up, and used a second attempt and failed, pushed all of the adrenaline back into Izuku once more. He stares at Kaito, waiting for an explanation. 

  “Yup,” Kaito looked down at his watch, “Toro Ito already jumped. The dude who cleared 18’2? He cleared it again in one attempt, and maxed out there. Couldn’t get 18’3. Cap cleared 18’2 on his third attempt, so they’re tied. Right now, Cap is attempting 18’3. And so-”

  “And so in order to have the best chance of winning, Kacchan has to clear 18’3,” Izuku rushed his words, understanding what this meant. 

  “Exactly. Because if he doesn’t make 18’3, then both Toro Ito and Bakugo’s highest jumps would be 18’2. And the person who took the least amount of attempts to get that height is the winner. And Toro Ito cleared 18’2 on his first attempt, while Baku-” Kaito was explaining.

  But Izuku was already gone, calling back, “I know the rules, Kaito. Where is our section!”

  Kaito shut himself up and yelled back, “Section 2C!” 

  Of course Izuku knew the rules. He knew them by heart since he was 11 years old and saw Katsuki jump for the first time. Which made the stakes feel all the more scary. 3 attempts. At each height. And if Katsuki didn’t clear 18’3, then that means he tied with Toro Ito at 18’2. And if that was the case, then it was all over. Toro Ito took 1 attempt. Katsuki made 18’2 on his third one. Toro Ito would be the crowned winner. 

  And from the looks of it now, with Katsuki being on his third attempt for the 18’3 bar, Toro Ito probably thought he was going to win. Izuku felt a churning feeling in his gut at how this tournament was turning out. 

  He knew that he personally did not care if Katsuki jumped 18’5 or if he jumped 13’2. But he knew that it mattered a lot to the blonde, who saw vault as a big important part of his life. Who has never lost before, and refused to ever lose. Izuku ran his way up the stairs, seeing the light of the outside world fill his eyes as he rose above the stairs, and sees the stadium in all of its glory. 

  The track field was huge, but the pole vault arena was situated on the left side of the red track. Tents were once again, lined up alongside the track on the outskirts and people were hustling in and out everywhere. A camera crew was set up in multiple places.

  Large speakers was situated on the far right side of the stadium, and was currently not playing anything. While an athlete jumps, no music plays. The speakers are only there for intermissions, breaks, and any moments in between jumps, for better focus. There was a hefty crowd. Izuku estimates a little over 4000. People everywhere, representing different colors and different teams. 

  This was an entirely different crowd than the ones at regular tournaments. Alongside high schoolers who were talented enough to qualify for Nationals, there were actual adults participating in the sport too. There was chattering everywhere, and Izuku looked around until he saw section 2C, which was right up in front not too far from where the vaulters jumped. It was at the lowest level, which means the closest to the track field, but still about 15 or so feet off of the ground from the field so that crazy fans can’t just jump the railing and attack their favorite athletes. 

  Izuku descended the metals stairs then, weaving past the people in the walkway, until he could spot some familiar heads of people from Ise. Some, but not all, of his friends were there. Most of the pole vault team showed up, donning their varsity jackets. Down at the Ise High tent, Izuku figures that only the coach and Katsuki’s parents were allowed in there. Everyone else was up here in the stands. 

  But any thoughts or details of anything else slipped his mind the moment Izuku spotted Katsuki. 

  Katsuki, who was down there at the staring point on the track field, staring at the bar set up to 18’3. Izuku knows that he saw the blonde just yesterday at his window, but seeing Katsuki never ceases to awe him. Especially when the athlete was on a track field, doing the sport that he loved. Today, Katsuki sported his tournament attire: a white and blue skin tight under armour tank top, and a pair of tight athletic pants for minimal air resistance. Vault shoes were donned on his feet, and-

  
    Oh
  
  , Izuku felt his heart melt all over again and along with it, bittersweet pain, when he sees the sweatband inverted out of habit on his wrists. 

   Izuku hears his name called out a couple of times by his friends as he walks down.

  “Midoriya!” Mina waved from her seat, “Where were you? You’re usually the first person at these tournaments.” She laughs. 

  Getting taken out of his thoughts, Izuku gave her a shy look, “I got stuck in traffic,” He whitelied. 

  “It’s no problem,” Denki urged him over to an empty spot, but Izuku stays put standing, “You’re here at the juicy part.”

  “Will the great Bakugo Katsuki make it,” A random kid from Ise High asks dramatically.

  From the side, an adult voice intruded the conversation, “Of course he will! He’s our boy!” 

  Denki turned towards the adult voice, “Mr. Hidashi!? You’re here? Aren’t you on duty today?” 

  The cop rubs the back of his neck and looks away, “Eh, I got Mrs. Koka to fill in for me today. I took a vacation day.”

  Izuku smiled a little bit at the interaction, seeing how it looked like everyone from Ise was excited and came all the way here to watch. He should have been with them in the beginning. 

  “Deku-kun?” Ochaco stood up from where she was sitting with some of her friends and walked towards him, “You’re here? I thought you said you weren’t going to be-” She got cut off. Izuku was still standing in the walkway, not yet finding a seat in the section.

  The announcer’s voice filled the stadium once more, “This year, we have a lot of talented high schoolers entering Nationals. In fact, this year will be number #1 on the Ise High pole vault team, Bakugo Katsuki’s, debut into the adult sector of Nationals. Already, he’s doing a tremendous job, beating out all the adults within his competition bracket already. Tell me, Eichi, you’ve been doing this for over two decades now. Have you ever seen youth as talented as the ones coming in this year?”

  The second announcer, named Eichi who Izuku’s known to be one of the rather famous track and field sports commentators, speaks up with a gruff laugh, “No, Misuo, I must say I have not. The vault community have been keeping an eye on those two boys--Bakugo and Toro--for years now, and now is the day we get to see them shine. And as expected, they are doing 
  
    phenomenal
  
   for their debut stage.”

  Misuo, the first announcer comes in again, this time clearing his throat, “With Bakugo Katsuki’s third attempt at 18’3 coming up right now, this final jump will be the decider between first and second place in his division today. If he misses, then Toro Ito takes the win with his single attempt clear at 18’2.”

  “Yes, the stakes are high, and even the crowd is tense!” Eichi speaks into the microphone, “With that, Bakugo Katsuki. Ise High. Participant #59. Be in your position.”

  Everyone sits down, but Izuku couldn’t bring his legs to move, and so he stands there staring down at the arena. Two huge screens were projecting Katsuki so that the audience further back could see. The greenette watches as Katsuki stables his feet and takes two steps forward, where the 40 meter mark was, and stands in position. Izuku’s heart raced and he was afraid it might jump out of his chest as he watched the blonde prepare himself for the last and final attempt. 

  “Your third attempt will begin in exactly 
  
    two 
  
  minutes. Starting, now,” The formal announcement came on, and from a large screen, the two minute timer was counting down. Each second that passed, Izuku felt more and more nervous. If Katsuki didn’t jump before the two minutes is up, then that was an automatic failed attempt. And so, knowing the patterns of Katsuki’s jumps, Izuku knew that the blonde usually started his run with about 1 minute and 15 seconds left on the clock. And so, as the timer counted down. 

  1 minute 32 seconds. 1 minutes 28 seconds. 1 minute 23 seconds. 1 minutes 15 seconds. 

  Katsuki should be prepping himself to run right about now. 

  1 minute 14 seconds. Now! Izuku thought, holding his chest. Now! 1 minute 13 seconds. Izuku’s eyes moved between the real Katsuki, both screens, back and forth as he waited in anticipation. Katsuki is supposed to run about now. 

  But as Izuku watched on, and more seconds passed, Katsuki didn’t move an inch. He didn’t budge in the slightest. The blonde was staring parallel to the ground, as if he was about to begin running, but his legs were moving. Izuku’s chest constricts as he looks around in panic. The whole crowd was silent, as they wait for the deciding moment. The clock ticks down to 1 minute and 4 seconds and Izuku knew there was something wrong. He’s watched this boy for long enough to know that Katsuki would not change such a fundamental part of his vault routine days before a huge tournament. And yet, the athlete wasn’t moving. 

  In fact, the only thing that was moving was...Izuku noticed then...his fingers. 

  Katsuki’s fingers were shaking. 
  
    Oh god
  
  , Izuku thought to himself. The boy was nervous. 

  And now that he noticed Katsuki’s fingers, Izuku looked around for tell tale signs. The slightly forlorn look in his eyes as if Katsuki’s mind was running around with a million thoughts, the slight shaking in his fingers, and the rigidness in his leg positioning. Izuku looks at the screen, and he could see a bead of sweat drop from Katsuki’s neck down to his shoulders, and the blonde swallows heavily, looking up at the clock. 

  And before Izuku could stop himself from acting out and looking like a fool, the green eyed boy runs down to the railing of the stadium, so that his body was pressed up against the railing and he was practically leaning over the edge towards the track field. And on his right, he grabs the megaphone out of the hands of one of the parents in Ise. Inko was friends with the mom who had the megaphone, but Izuku didn’t know her personally. It didn’t matter, 

  Izuku with a pleading look, takes the megaphone out of her shocked hands, and directs the sound towards Katsuki. 

  And like a complete fool in love that would do anything to see the man he loved succeed, Izuku begins to whistle. 

  As loudly as he can, in the silence of the arena that was waiting for the prized athlete to jump, Izuku disrupts the silence of the stadium by whistling the tune of a certain song as loud as he can. 

  Nothing's Gonna Change My Love For You by George Benson. 

  Izuku doesn’t know if it will help. Hell, it may not. But it was worth a try. He remembers it helping once to distract Katsuki from feeling nervous. 

  They had been sitting on the landing pit of the practice field, after Katsuki finally admitted to him that he felt nervous. Nervous about beating Toro Ito. Nervous about Nationals. And it was an important moment, before their blow up, before everything, because it was one of the very first times that Katsuki had ever let his guard down around Izuku. The very first time that the blonde allowed himself to admit that he was nervous, even before their blow up in the parking lot that rainy day. 

  Izuku remembered him telling the blonde,
  
     “Hm, when you’re nervous, I read that you should do an activity that makes your brain focus on something entirely different. Although it’s just rec badminton, I sometimes get nervous too, and I like to whistle a song. It makes me focus on what note comes next, and calms my nerves down a little so I’m not as tense.”
  

  He remembers Katsuki snorting, before asking, “What song.”

  Izuku had told him the song. The very song that he was whistling his heart and lungs out right now in a stadium that was now looking at him as if he was crazy. The megaphone amplified the whistle that it carried throughout the air, and Katsuki would have to be deaf to not hear him. Nothing’s Gonna Change My Love For You. 

  
    “By George Benson?” 
  
  Katsuki laughed at him that day, 
  
    “My god, you’re so f@ck@ng cheesy.”
  

  He teased him, and yet, that day, Katsuki still whistled along. And it made him laugh for a moment whistling alongside Izuku, distracting him from the nervousness he felt about vaulting. It worked then, even if just for a moment. 

  If there was any chance that it would work now, Izuku was going to take it. Even if he looks like an idiot. Even if everyone in the stadium was now turning their heads to the source of the whistling of the familiar tone. People from Ise, who grew up on 80s music, knew the song instantly. Others, from different parts of the country, once they recognized it, felt like they were rediscovering the song for the first time all over again. But it didn’t matter what any of them thought. 

  If it got to one person, then that’s all that Izuku could ask for. 

  From the track field, the tune carried through from the stadium section 2C, and a certain blonde athlete that should be beginning his run 
  
    very
  
   soon, catches wind of it, and his head turns immediately to the stands. Izuku sees red eyes searching around, as Katsuki steps out of his position, and 
  
    no no no that’s not what you’re supposed to do. 
  
  Katsuki steps out of his position and his head scans the crowd for the source of the whistle, face suddenly morphing into that of recognition, hope, and simultaneous fear, when Bakugo Katsuki finally spots Izuku in the crowd, leaning right up against the railing, finishing up his whistle and setting down the megaphone. Freckles, plenty of them, with beautiful doe eyes, and an adorable loose tshirt slightly drenched in sweat. Katsuki’s attention was completely stolen. 

  Red eyes meet green, and Izuku stares back in the eyes of the love of his life, and mouths to Katsuki, “
  
    Your turn.”
  

  But instead of finishing the melody, instead of getting into position, instead of doing anything that he was supposed to do, the blonde raises his arms in a “T” formation, signalling a time-out. There was less than 15 seconds on the clock. That wasn’t enough time to jump anyways, but even then, Katsuki called a time out.

  Murmurs erupted across the stadium, and suddenly, everything was in shambles. 

  Bakugo Katsuki has never called a time-out before in all his years of doing the sport. According to the National Pole Vault Associations, these time outs 
  
    were
  
   technically and rarely allowed per person and lasted about 5 minutes each, but the rule was so deep in the book that no one ever uses them. Questions of whether or not that was allowed floated through the air. Coaches began to talk amongst themselves. 

  And Izuku sees Coach Shugo emerge from the tent, mouth full of words ready to fire off at Katsuki, but the blonde didn’t seem to care. Everyone was absolutely confused, Izuku included. Katsuki has 
  
    never
  
   called for a time out before, much less at a moment so pivotal. 

  “Participant #59 has requested a time out. Requested granted. A 5 minute break will begin now, and upon conclusion, the two minute timer will begin again,” An announcement was made, which causes even more murmurs and talk to be spread across the crowd.  

  But even before the announcement, Bakugo Katsuki already began moving. Upon the announcement of the 5-minute break, the people in charge of the music began to play the intermission music. Inspired by the random whistler in the crowd just a few moments ago, from the large speakers, Nothing’s Gonna Change My Love For You by George Benson began playing, and Izuku feels his heart melt even further. And then beat faster as it looks like Katsuki was headed towards him. 

  From behind him, Coach Shugo and three other people from the staff was running up behind the blonde, but Katsuki already began running across the track and towards Section 2C by the time they started to rush towards him. Izuku’s eyes widened, as he sees Katsuki jump up vertically to grab onto a bar. The stands were about 15 feet off of the ground, but the athlete grabs onto one of the metal bars hanging off, and does a chin up to pull himself upwards. What the 
  
    f@ck
  
  . 

  “Bakugo!” Coach Shugo yells from behind him, “Get back down here!”

  “Participant #59?” One of the staff members called out, looking up at the boy who was scaling the sides, “I’m going to have to ask you to climb back down from there!”

  Katsuki completely ignored the pleas. And he definitely ignored the sudden outbursts of conversation amidst the entire stadium at this particularly odd stunt. The music was loud, but the murmurs and conversations about what the f@ck was going on was even louder. Everything felt overwhelming, and Izuku felt it too. 

  Jaw dropped, the greenette stepped forward and held onto the railing to stabilize himself once Katsuki swings himself over the railing just 9 feet away from him, and began to brisk walk towards him. Everything was happening at once, and the doe eyed boy didn’t know what the f@ck@ng do, or decipher what the f@ck was going on. To be honest, Katsuki didn’t either. 

  From below, another staff member began to speak into the walkie talkie, probably calling people up the stands to drag Bakugo Katsuki back down the stadium or at least outside to explain what the hell he was doing. Coach Shugo was still yelling up at him, and was walking back underneath the stadium, so that he could come up to the other side and probably drag the athlete back down. And everything felt loud, and overwhelming. 

  “K-Kacchan?” Izuku’s eyes widened as the blonde stepped forward with a pained and panicked expression on his face, “Ka-”

  “Why weren’t you here!” Katsuki borderline calls out to him in panic as the blonde closes their distance, pulling Izuku into his arms, and cradling the greenette by the head, as his other arm wrap around Izuku’s shoulders as if he was afraid of letting the other go. Izuku could hear the clear panic in his voice as he asked more painfully, “Why weren’t you f@ck@ng here?”

  At this, Izuku breaks down and he feels the tears right before he tastes it in his lips, and the greenette buries his face in Katsuki’s chest but was scared to hold him back, “K-Kacchan, what are you doing up here?” He asked, crying. 

  “Answer my question,” Katsuki demanded with hurt and anger in his tone, “Where were you?”

  How could Izuku tell him that he was so close to not coming at all? How could Izuku tell him that he was home not too long ago, and had to rush here like his life depended on it. 

  Crying, Izuku let out a pained, “I’m sorr-”

  “You promised,” Katsuki’s voice broke, and Izuku’s eyes widened at the sound, pulling away momentarily but the athlete didn’t let him and held him tightly, but it was clear by the next words that Katsuki was about to cry as well, “You f@ck@ng promised me, Deku.”

  Hearing Katsuki nearly cry, because of him, hurt more than his own tears, and Izuku wanted to make it stop now. 

  "I know," Izuku admits with a cracked voice, "I know."

  "If you knew then why didn't you come," Katsuki asked out of irrationality and hurt, which was clear in his tone. And Izuku feels terrible for having made Katsuki waits. How could he have thought for a second that it wouldn't be that big of a deal, he asked himself. Was he a fool?

  Pulling back, Katsuki held Izuku’s head with his hands, thumbing the freckled, tear-stained cheeks as if he was doing so for the first time, and looked all over the greenette’s face as if he wasn’t really there, before repeating, with teams br@mm@ng in those ruby red eyes, “You said you’d be here.”

  Izuku gave him a wobbly smile through his tears, and brought his own hands up to cup over Katsuki’s, reassuring the taller with his own touch hopefully comforting the other, and nod his head in more reassurance, “I’m here now, Kacchan. I’m here.” His own voice broke. 

  From the crowd of people from Ise and Ise High to the side of them sitting in the stands of section 2C, everyone’s face was stunned and in shock. Everywhere else, the murmurs were still loud as ever, as people try to figure out what in the 
  
    world
  
   was happening in section 2C that caused this sudden time out. 

  "For how long," Katsuki swallowed, words barely calm. Izuku looks up at the other, lips wobbling as they part and he's speechless.

  "Ka-" Izuku began, but the athlete interrupts him by asking the question again. 

  “How long will you be here?” Katsuki searched his eyes for an answer. His voice was desperate in asking this. 

  Izuku never craved the taste of cherry and burnt sugar more than he did now, and being near Katsuki right then feels like an undeserved rain after a long drought. And he knew that it wouldn’t be good for him to stay for more than the tournament. Izuku was here to support Katsuki for the tournament, but any more than that and he couldn’t. He shouldn’t. 

  “I…” Izuku began, intending to truthfully answer, he could feel a little bit of snot threatening to run down his nose, “I don’t kn-”

  “You’re going to leave afterwards, aren’t you?” Katsuki assumed in a fearful voice, eyes widening, “You’ll leave.”

  Izuku couldn’t say anything, which only confirmed Katsuki’s suspicions even more. And the blonde drops his hands from Izuku’s face, before looking around frantically. From the stands, all of his friends were staring at what was happening in shock. Everyone except for Kaito Sen, who was instead, looking down at his hands. And Kimi, who rested her cheek on one hand, and stared at the scene romantically. No one in the stands had expected for anything like this to happen, and to see what was unfolding before them left the crowd speechless. 

  “No, no, no,” Katsuki shook his head, “Don’t go. You can’t go.”

  Katsuki looked back to the track field, then to the stands, and then back at Izuku, stepping back just one step, as Izuku watches him with his own chest slightly shaking and tears brimming again in his eyes. 

  “Kacchan?” Izuku asked, voice cracking and raising its pitch a little. 

  From the other entrance to the stands, at the top, Izuku could see Coach Shugo and some staff members coming down and heading towards Izuku. And it looks like Katsuki sees them too, because the athlete then grabs Izuku’s wrist and began to walk the opposite direction towards another exit from the stands. 

  “We’re leaving,” Katsuki says while looking over his shoulders at Coach Shugo and then down at Izuku, who followed him for a couple steps. 

  But Izuku pulled back, staying in place, and in absolute shock, turned Katsuki back around to look at him, “L-leaving? Kacchan, what do you mean? We’re not leaving! Your tournamen-”

  “Izu-” Katsuki softens his gaze just a bit, before saying.

  But out of panic and confusion, Izuku shakes his head, “N-No, you can’t leave. You’ve worked so hard for this, Kacchan. You’ve worked so, so hard and so long for this moment, how can you just think about leaving?”

  “Listen, I don-” Katsuki tries to begin again, his eyes constantly darting from Izuku to his coach and the staff that are surely going to drag him out of the stands. 

  “You can’t. Not for me,” Izuku shakes his head while wiping away some tears, before telling Katuki once more, “Do you not get it, Kacchan? You’ll lose the tournament! You’ll lose. You n-never lose, because you hate los-”

  “I’ll lose it then, godd@mnit,” Katsuki then declared loudly, interrupting Izuku’s ramblings and putting his word down. 

  The green eyed boy stares up with a wide shocked expression, and Katsuki’s chest was heaving from the sudden outburst, but there was nothing but stability within those fiery red eyes. Izuku is quiet. And not just Izuku. But everyone in section 2C who could hear what was going on was quiet. To see Bakugo Katsuki, the notoriously apathetic, playful of Ise High, the god who was untouchable and invincible. To see this man weak for Midoriya Izuku, to see this man be willing to 
  
    lose
  
   for Midoriya Izuku, was leaving every single one of them speechless. 

  “I’ll lose the d@mn thing,” Katsuki choked on his word, before clearing his throat and speaking firmly, “I’ve got a million trophies. I’ve gotten all the d@mn recognition and awards I’d want. I’ve won a million times. And you’re d@mn right. I hate losing. But losing this ain't jack sh@t compared to losing you
  .”

  Izuku’s lungs feel collapsed, for it doesn’t seem like he can breathe as Katsuki continues to speak. 

  “Say the word, and I’ll leave right now and not look back once. Say the word, and I’ll lose a million times just to have you stay an extra 
  
    minute
  
  ,” Katsuki reached out, but redacts his hand just as he was about to. There was determination in his gaze, but also, a pain that Izuku could see, "Say the word, and I'll f@ck@ng do it."

  In barely a whisper that Katsuki could only hear, Izuku asks with a slow shake of his head, “Kacchan, how could I ever ask that of you?”

  “I don’t car-” Katsuki began, determination in his voice. 

  “Knowing how much you love pole vault, knowing how much this tournament matters to you, how could you ever think I’d be able to do that to you? Take you away from all of this?” Izuku gives him a smile through his tears, and shakes his head. He could never even dream of it. He didn’t want Katsuki to purposely lose, not if he had no reason to. 

  “Says a lot about my feelings, don’t it Deku,” Katsuki swallowed, as he stares Izuku down. 

  But the boy in question looks up at Katsuki with wide eyes, pausing for a second, barely comprehending what was said, before asking, “Huh?”

  “Deku, listen, we got a lot to talk about,” Katsuki steps forward to cup both of his hands, asking desperately, “Say the word, and we’re out of here. I need to talk to you. If not now, then you’ll leave. You’ll f@ck@ng leave after the tournament. It has to be now. I don’t-F@ck, I don't even know what to f@ck@ng say, but we owe each other a conversation.”

  Izuku couldn’t even bring it in himself to disagree. All of this time, and did they ever truly have a conversation about their feelings? Or has it always been him ranting one sidedly about his feelings while Katsuki sits there quietly, and never had any follow up to say. Even now, Katsuki admits to him he doesn’t know what to say, yet it looked like the blonde was more willing to talk than other times. But will he? Or will this just be another instance where Katsuki tells him to wait, and not say a single word while Izuku suffers. 

  A hand goes over Katsuki’s shoulders, but the blonde shoves it away and tells Coach Shugo, “Get your hands off me.”

  “Bakugo,” The coach barks half in panic and half in anger, eyes glancing to the time-out clock that read 1 minute left, “You 
  
    need
  
   to get back on the d@mn track. Now!”

  Katsuki ignores him, but two staff members try to intervene, “Bakugo Katsuki? Participant #59. We’re going to have to remove you from the stadiums for the disturb-”

  Katsuki ignores him, shoving them off once more, and tries further to convince Izuku, “There’s always next year. I’ll lose this sh@tty thing today if it means that there’s 
  
    any
  
   chance I can convince you to be there by my side next year when I come back to win it."

  "No," Izuku shakes his head, "You're not go-"

  "I'm serious," Katsuki tells him desparately, "I’ll f@ck@ng disqual-”

  “Kacchan,” Izuku wipes away a tear, and steps forward, smiling gently with cloudy eyes as he brings a hand up to gentle hold Katsuki’s face, “Fly." He says, "Go down there, and fly for me.” 

  Katsuki’s eyes widened a bit, before he shakes his head, just as two arms of staff members wrap around his, “No. You’ll leave afterw-”

  "I won't," Izuku tells him then. 

  “No, I’ll f@cki-” And then, when it hits him what Izuku said, the blonde’s face morph into one of surprise, “What?”
Izuku stares at him, watching different emotions he can't point out play out in those red eyes he loves so much.“I’ll be right here,” Izuku tells him, softly but sure of his decision, “I’m not going anywhere afterwards.”
  As the people, including Coach Shugo, tries to pull him back as if he was some feral animal, Katsuki brushes forward to hear Izuku say it again. 

  "Don't lie to me, Izuku," Katsuki uses his name for emphasis, voice shaking. 

  Izuku knew that it must have pained Katsuki to even 
  
    think
  
   about losing the tournament. Because as much as Katsuki valued their friendship or relationship, Izuku knew that pole vault has been there for the blonde a lot longer. Pole vault was the boy’s passion, his art. And Katsuki has built up every day to this moment for years, and to think that he was willing to give all that up for Izuku was heartfelt, but Izuku knew that it must also have been hard to even consider. The very least Izuku could do was listen to what Katsuki had to say if he was willing to give up his dream for Izuku. 

  Izuku needed to learn from his mother and father, who made each other choose. 

  Izuku would never forgive himself if he ever made Katsuki choose between one dream and another. Never. Izuku would never forgive himself if he was the reason that Katsuki gave up something he’s been working towards for forever, even if the blonde convinced himself that it was okay. 

  “I’ll be right here,” Izuku nods as he repeats, swallowing his spit and smiling through his bittersweet smile, “If you go down there and jump--win or lose--I’ll be right here,” Izuku promises, “You don’t have to forfeit just to get me to stay.”

  Katsuki stares at him as if he couldn’t believe it, “Are you serious.”

  "Kacchan," Izuku tells him, "I'm never going to make you choose between two things you care about." 

  The blonde gets pulled back, but he still steps forward, swallowing, staring at Izuku with wide eyes, asking once more, "You're for real."

  Izuku nods furiously, stepping forward to squeeze Katsuki’s hands once, right before they’re taken up again by the staff.

  “Bakugo, you have less than a minute left to get down there,” Coach Shugo yells at him, “It’s either you go down there, or I’m dragging your as-”

  “Promise me,” Katsuki breaks one arm out to hold his pinky finger out, like they were children again. 

  Izuku hurries and reaches out to hook his pinky finger around, as he says softly, “I promise. Now go do your best, Kacchan.”

  Katsuki was getting pulled back, and berated some more, but the look in the blonde’s face was both shock, doubt, and sudden inspiration. 

  “You’re f@ck@ng serious? You’ll stay after,” Katsuki asks one more time as if to get rid of his doubt. 

  “I’m serious,” Izuku laughs at him through his cracked voice, although he wanted to cry.

  “Wait for me then,” Katsuki tells him as he steps back with the staff members, “Right here. Wait for me. If I’m going to jump, I’m going to win the g@dd@mn trophy. Wait for me, okay?”

  Izuku nods, with an encouraging smile, and lets him go. And Katsuki takes one last look at him, before the blonde shrugs off the people trying to grab at him one last time, giving them a glare. 

  “Get the f@ck off of me. I’m coming,” Katsuki tells them, before walking alongside Coach Shugo who was still yelling at him for the stunt he just pulled. 

  Izuku was left there, hands shaking slightly, staring at Katsuki’s back as he makes sure to keep his word this time. And when it feels like he can reign himself in again, Izuku looks to his right where all of section 2C was sitting. If people weren’t whispering, then they were staring either at him, Katsuki, or at nothing in contemplation. In consideration. Because most people weren’t exactly sure of what they just witnessed. To the students of Ise High, it was a moment of reflection, about Bakugo Katsuki, about themselves, and about words and beliefs that had been solidified about the athlete all of these years. To the adults that came from Ise, it was a rare moment where the delinquent rascal of Ise looked a little more human, when before, even they were guilty of only viewing Bakugo Katsuki as a trophy winner for Ise. 

  Izuku has nothing to say to them, and so he does just that. Says nothing. 

  Instead, the greenette turns to the track field once more, as Katsuki’s figure walks back to the starting position, as the two minute timer to begin his final attempt starts again. Except this time, there was less anxious hesitance in his walk or his nature. Izuku takes a look at the blonde’s hands, to find at his fingers had stopped shaking. And instead of a forlorn look in those red eyes, Katsuki sports a gaze of determination as he looked at the 18’3 bar. 

  Katsuki leans down and gets into the correct positioning as the clock starts to count down. The music had been turned off, and once more, the crowd waits in anticipation. 

  1 minute 55 seconds. Bakugo Katsuki removed the sweatband off of his wrist, and flattens it out in his hands, taking a good look at it. The camera zooms in to read the text, with the ugly written ‘Izuku believes in me’ scribbled in a kid’s handwriting, and Izuku watches as Katsuki rolled his eyes and grins. And then, Katsuki pulls some of his hair back, and slips the sweatband over his head, and under his hair like how it should be worn, not inverted and right there on his forehead displaying for the entire stadium to see exactly what it says. Izuku melts even further and falls further in love than he could have ever imagined. 

  1 minute and 39 seconds. Bakugo takes a deep breath, and begins to finish the tune. He finishes the tune of Nothing’s Gonna Change My Love For You that Izuku left off for his turn, and right as he finishes the tune, the timer hits 1 minute 15 seconds. 

  Katsuki begins to sprint. He begins at the 40 meter mark, and Izuku could see his lips were mouthing numbers. Sprint for 10 seconds. Run for 6. 

  
    1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 
  

  Each second felt like an eternity has passed, and the entire crowd seemed to hold its breath in silence as they await the jump. After all, this was, in fact, the deciding jump. If Bakugo Katsuki clears this bar, he wins. If he fails to do so, then the tie breaker will automatically go to Toro Ito. From the tent that Toro Ito was currently sitting in with his coach, the competitor watches closely with his breath held as well. 

  6, 7, 8, 9, 10.

  Katsuki breaks into a run. His arms clutching the pole with a perfect grip, one that he has practiced for a million times. That he’s sweated for a million liters. That he’s poured his soul into. This run, this grip, this placement, this dream was something that he’s worked so f@ck@ng hard for. And he has a moment as he’s running, where he thanks Izuku for staying, for letting him run this round, because as he approaches the final stretch, Katsuki is reminded all over again how much this sport means to him. Izuku didn’t make him choose. And so, after this all ends, Katsuki won’t make Izuku choose either. Izuku won’t have to choose between loving him or self-preservation. Because Katsuki was going to show this boy the world, and give this boy all the love he had to give, so that Izuku could continue to love Katsuki without fearing what it might do to himself. 

  1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6. 

  Katsuki hits the pole into the vault box like he’s done a million times, and it bends. The pole does a 
  
    deep, deep
  
   bend, and Katsuki can feel the dexterity of the pole underneath his fingers. He hates how cheesy it sounds, but Katsuki feels the pole as if it was his own body. When the pole bends, there is a pivotal moment, where the fiberglass hits its full potential energy, and he just 
  
    feels
  
   it. There’s a science to it, sure. But Katsuki just 
  
    feels 
  
  it. And when that feeling comes underneath his fingertips, Katsuki knows to lift up off the ground. 

  And so, the pole bends, and Katsuki gets a jolt in his hand at that maximum point, and his legs push off. And in a split second, he is launched up. In all, the whole jumping sequence takes less than 3 seconds, but when he’s up there, soaring, waiting to see if he makes it above a bar or not, it feels like a millenia. And so Katsuki flies. He feels the sun in his eyes when he approaches the maximum trajectory, it’s glaring, so he just closes them. He bends his back once he feels he has reached the max height of his parabolic trajectory, and stretches his legs out in front of him to minimize chances of contact with the bar. 

  He feels the slightest brush of something underneath his calf, before he begins to fall. The slightest brush of the bar, and he knew he touched it. The question was, did he touch it with enough force that it will fall. 

  When Katsuki lands on the mat on his back, he opens his eyes again, and bounces up once before landing on his knees. And so there, as the crowd is yelling in anticipation for the final result, everything seems to be moving in slow motion. On his knees, Katsuki then looks up to the bar set at 18’3 feet. And he waits. 

  The bar wobbles, like it was threatening to fall, and Katsuki holds his breath as much as the next person. And in his peripheral, he sees Coach Shugo on one knee, arms pointed up towards the bar, as if begging and praying to the gods that it won’t fall. The commentators were going off on the mic, but Katsuki didn’t pay attention to a word they were saying. He just stares. And stares at the bar. 

  And after a solid 5 seconds, it stills. 

  He cleared it. 

  At once, everything came rushing back in. All the sensation. All of the screaming, from all corners of the stadium, but loudest from Section 2C. Coach Shugo yelling and shouting in his ear from joy. The commentators announcing the clearance and his victory. The huge screens zooming in on him, and then on Toro Ito, who is now by default, the 2nd place winner. Music began to play. Let’s Groove by Earth, Wind, and Fire. Katsuki didn’t like this song, but he was feeling victorious, so he didn’t even care that much for it. 

  Grinning from ear to ear, Katsuki turns his head towards section 2C, where Izuku was standing against the railing, crying but also laughing from joy as he waved to Katsuki. The blonde waved back, and then let out a shout of victory. He had been working on this like crazy, and he knew this was one of his biggest goals from the moment he discovered what pole vault even was. And now that he was here, it felt almost surreal. Like it wasn’t actually happening. And yet, this victory, as good as it was and as amazing as it felt, lost its appeal on him after about five minutes. And suddenly, he wanted to be somewhere else. 

  He had been shuffled around the track field to different coaches and cameras, and people who were interested in talking to him for a good five minutes, but he was over it. The awards ceremony began in thirty minutes, but he was over that too. Coach Shugo will get it for him. 

  And with that in mind, Katsuki breaks away from the man, who once again, frustratingly calls out after him, and begins to run the 
  
    normal
  
   way up the stadium, rather than scaling the sides like a freak even though it was only 15 feet, and over to Section 2C, where as promised, Izuku was waiting for him. Immediately, he was bombarded by his friends and classmates trying to congratulate him and he gives them a nod and a thanks, but his goal was clear. 

  Katsuki makes his way over to where the green haired boy was standing. 

  “Kacchan, you did it!” Izuku exclaimed, still crying happy tears as the green eyed boy stared up at the athlete with overwhelming happiness and pride. 

  Katsuki stops right in front of the shorter, and lifts one side of his lips into a smile, “Hell yeah, I did. "

  Izuku says this genuinely, and truly from the bottom of his heart, "I'm so proud of you. You've worked so, so hard for this."

  Katsuki ignores all of that. In fact, he ignores any praise he gets, in his true assholish nature, and instead, focuses on something else, "You promised to stay.”

  Izuku looked down at his feet, swallowed, and then up at Katsuki, “And here I am.”

  “And here you are,” Katsuki felt residual confidence from the victory, and so he was going to carry this out for as long as he possibly could before he strips himself emotionally bare for Izuku, “Let’s go.”

  “Go?” Izuku’s eyes widened as he looked around, “But the awards ceremony. You have to get your trophy.”

  But Katsuki was already leading him out of the section, and out of the stadium seats, nodding to those on either side of the walkway who were congratulating him, “F@ck the trophy. If tonight goes as well as I hope it does, then that’ll be worth more than any d@mn trophy.”

  “What’d you say?” Izuku asks over the crowd bombarding the both of them. 

  Katsuki just turns around briefly, right as they exited the outdoor stadium space and back inside the indoor stairs, “I said f@ck the trophy. Let’s go.”

  Izuku fast walks behind Katsuki, as the blonde rushes forward. They get to the bottom of the indoor stairs, where a ton of people were walking around in the lobby area. For those who weren’t staying for the awards ceremony, they were rushing to get out and onto the road before the leaving traffic gets too heavy. Katsuki gets stopped several times, but he only nods before brushing them off, holding onto Izuku’s wrist gently enough to pull along the entire time. Moving through the crowd, Izuku watches as Katsuki soars above the crowd in height. He couldn’t lose the other if he tried. Katsuki makes a quick stop into the locker rooms and dissapears into there for a quick three minutes, and when he comes out, he's changed into a letterman jacket thrown over a white tshirt and a pair of ripped jeans. 

  And then they move through the crowd again, weaving in and out of people trying to get the f@ck out of there. Izuku feels his excitement from the whole tournament die a little as he realized that they were now going towards having a conversation he was terrified of. To be fair, he was so, so proud of Katsuki. But this fear was insistent. 

  Suddenly, in the middle of the crowded lobby, Katsuki stopped and stepped closer to him, looking down at the boy. 

  “How did you get here?” Katsuki then asked him, having to talk a little louder of the loud echo present in the building. 

  Izuku chewed on the inside of his cheek and looked towards the gate, “I drove.” Embarrassed to admit that he was driving like a maniac all the way from Ise to Nagoya. 

  At this, Katsuki’s brow raised, “You drove? Auntie let you?”

  “Well,” Izuku wasn’t exactly sure what to say, because on one hand, she technically gave him permission, and on the other hand, he didn’t exactly tell her he changed his mind last minute, “Technically.”

  “Mind if we take your car? My parents need to drive mine home since I took them here,” Katsuki requested. 

  Izuku nodded, and walked ahead, leading the way as he exits the building. Katsuki walks closely behind him, keeping a hand gently at the small of his back in order to not fall too far behind, and Izuku’s cheek heats up. Katsuki has touched him in far more intimate ways before, but even a small touch like this never seems to get old. 

  “Um,” Izuku coughs and tells the other, “I parked a bit far.”

  “You got stuck in Lot C, huh,” Katsuki tried to make conversation. 

  It felt weird, trying to talk to each other again when there was a lot of 
  
    heavy
  
   subtext in between them that was still unresolved. How were they supposed to have any semblance of a normal conversation when so much needed to be addressed before they could so much as breathe normally in each other’s direction again. There was a slight tenseness in the air between them, filled with residual sadness, longing, and unsaid words. Katsuki should be celebrating his win right now. He should be celebrating for hours to come. But instead, there was nothing that the blonde seemed to want to do but this. And so, the excitement of winning quickly died down, and they were reminded that things weren't normal between the two of them. 

  “Not exactly,” Izuku bit his lip, walking forward onto the pedestrian walk and across the busy street. 

  “Where the f@ck did you park then,” Katsuki now asks out of curiosity, matching pace with the shorter male as they weave through the sidewalks. 

  Izuku gives him a shy look, admitting embarrassed, “Take a left, 9 blocks to the right, and then 10 blocks forward.”

  “Jesus Christ, what the f@ck Deku,” Katsuki raised a brow as they fast walked, and then looked forward with a down expression, “Don’t tell me that’s why you were late. Trying to find a parking spot?”

  Izuku took a breath and sighed to himself, not finding it in him to make lighthearted conversation like this, “I was late because I left at 1.”

  The blonde continues to walk for a little bit, before suddenly realizing what that entailed, in which he then stopped to look at Izuku, “1?”

  Izuku nodded, feeling guilty internally. 

  “How the hell did you cut out an hour of drive time?” Katsuki asked him, brow raised. 

  Izuku scratched the back of his neck and admitted, “Speeding.”

  At this, Katsuki puts his hands in his pockets and lets out a breathy laugh, “You’re kidding me.”

  And Izuku doesn’t say anything in response to that. Katsuki doesn’t push any details either, finding it a bit exhausting to continue trying to talk normally when nothing about them right now is normal. And so, the two walk the long distance from the stadium to the car. The traffic was still undesirable, but not as bad as it was when Izuku was initially coming into the city. Especially now that they were more than 15 blocks away, things seemed to get less jam packed. That being said, it will likely start up again within an hour once the bulk of people attending the tournament begins to shuffle out and head back home. It wasn’t a bad idea to get a head start. Walking next to Katsuki, Izuku felt nervous. He didn’t know exactly what they were to do now, or what this conversation they were supposed to have entailed, and so, he was currently preparing himself for another fit of crying. He knew that crying was not a weakness, but that doesn’t negate the fact that it’s draining to the soul. He doesn’t know how much more his eyes could take. 

  “Car keys?” Katsuki asked, once they approached the familiar vehicle that the blonde often sees in Izuku’s driveway. 

  Izuku looked over to the taller man and asked in confusion, “Car...keys?”

  Katsuki held out his hand and looked over at Izuku, expression more serious now as it seems the athlete has given up on faking normalcy, “I’m driving. You take a break.”

  Izuku looked down, “Shouldn’t you be the one taking a break? You just won a whole tournament, Kacchan.”

  The blonde in question shrugs and keeps his hand open for the car keys, “I’m fine. I want to drive.” 

  Pausing, not understanding why Katsuki insisted so much, Izuku just decided to go with it, and fishes out the car keys, placing them in Katsuki’s hands. The boy then walked forward and unlocked the car before slipping into the driver’s seat. Izuku followed suit to the passenger side, and settled in. 

  The entire time Katsuki was navigating the car out of the city streets and back onto the less dense highway towards Ise, no words were exchanged between the two. The radio was turned off, and the only sounds were of rocks kicking underneath the tire, the mechanical whirring of the exhaust, and the occasional shuffling of some boxes in the back of the car. Katsuki drove with one elbow resting against the window sill, fingers thumbing his own bottom lip, and his right arm placed casually on top of the steering wheel. Meanwhile, Izuku sat in the passenger side, head leaned up against the window, and eyes staring straight forward, watching as the sun gets more and more golden. By the time they get back to Ise, it should be night. Maybe then, under the cloak of darkness, he’ll feel brave enough to say something. In the meantime, Izuku wasn’t exactly sure how this four hour drive back to their small town was going to go. Was it going to be this quiet the entire time, while both of them collect their thoughts?

  Izuku gets the answer to his question soon enough once Katsuki breaks the silence. 

  “If we have this conversation now, I’m afraid I won’t be able to drive at the same time,” Katsuki tells him in all seriousness. 

  And this makes Izuku realize that whatever it was that the boy had to say, must take a fair amount of consideration to speak about if they couldn’t even drive and have the conversation at the same time. This fact made him even more nervous.

  Izuku nods in understanding, softly replying, “That’s fine.”

  “So can we talk about something else in the meantime?” Katsuki asked, eyes glued onto the road, not glancing over to the greenette for even a moment. 

  Izuku laughs airily at this, and once more looks out the window at the endless farmland being basked by the sweet golden glow as they drove far out from the bustling city, “Something else?”

  Katsuki lets out a low hum in affirmation.

  Izuku brings his knees up forward to his chest and asked quietly, “And what are we supposed to talk about?”

  The athlete leaned his head back against the headrest and shrugged his large shoulders slowly, “Sh@t, anything’s fine.”

  A beat of silence passed between them, before Katsuki spoke up once more. 

  “Let’s just pretend for a while that I still made you happy,” Katsuki asked of him, still not averting his gaze from the road, “That it’s just one of those days I pick you up to go do some dumb sh@t together. Just for a little while longer.”

  Izuku looked over to the blonde, who had since taken off the sweatband and had thrown on his Ise High letterman jacket that framed his broad shoulders well. 

  Katsuki more seriously followed up, “And we can deal with all the f@ck@d up bits later.” 

  It’s quiet for a bit, and Izuku counts every little rock that the car’s tire’s pick up. The road was long and straight, and would go on for a very long time. So, so long that the thought of that entire ride being made in silence was uncomfortable. 

  With his knees still pulled up to his chest, Izuku knew it wasn’t a good idea, but he lets himself slip into nostalgia anyways, sighing, “I found out that my dad has a new wife and two kids.”

  Katsuki shifts a little bit at the sudden initiation of conversation, but the blonde was quick to pick it up, “Did he?”

  “Yeah,” Izuku frowns a little bit, “According to Mom, he’s a really caring and doting dad to them, too. And I can’t tell if it makes me sad or relieved.”

  “Should make you mad,” Katsuki offered his input, “Piece of sh@t leaves without keeping in touch for over 15 years, and suddenly, he shows up and claims he’s been a good dad? I call b@llsh@t.”

  “You call everything b@llsh@t, Kacchan,” Izuku shakes his head.

  “Because everything 
  
    is
  
   b@llsh@t,” Katsuki argues, “So what. You and Auntie good now?”

  At this, Izuku smiles genuinely, “We’re going to be.”

  “Great. Is she ever going to apologize to me for whacking me with my own d@mn shovel?” Katsuki demands. 

  At this, Izuku even finds himself laughing a bit, “Are you ever going to apologize for digging up her lawn?”

  In response to this, Katsuki was quick on his feet, shrugging, “Got nothin’ to apologize for.”

  Izuku flushed a slight red from this. It was stupid how easily a simple statement from Katsuki was able to make him heat up or shy. 

  And so, to reply, Izuku just derailed from the conversation, “I don’t know what you’d think would happen,” He mutters quietly, “My mom’s obsessed with her yardwork.”

  “She’ll get over it,” Katsuki sneered, “I knocked over Auntie’s dad’s cremation urn when I was 4, remember? And she got over that. I think...”

  “That was you!?” Izuku sat up in his seat instantly, staring at Katsuki with bug eyes, jaw dropping at the casual statement. 

  Someone had knocked over his grandfather’s cremation urn a long time ago, and the culprit has never been found all of these years. Thank goodness, only a little bit spilled out, but it was a moment of terror for both him and his mother nevertheless. He thought that they’ll never solve the mystery, only for now, many years later, to figure out who had done it. 

  Katsuki then looked a little embarrassed, “Ah f@ck, have I never confessed to that? I swear to God I have.”

  “You’re going to hell then! Because you’ve never said 
  
    anything
  
   about it!” Izuku waved an arm around.

  “I was gonna go to hell anyways, sh@tnerd,” Katsuki bantered, “I thought I told her okay?”

  And for a second there, it felt like everything was okay again, even if it was temporary. 

  “You sure didn’t,” Izuku keeps him in check, shaking his had, “Those were my grandpa’s ashes, 
  
    Kacchan
  
  .”

  “I was 4!” Katsuki defends himself, “I didn’t know the words ‘I’m sorry’ until, like, 5 f@ck@ng months ago!”

  “Hah hah, that’s funny Kacchan,” Izuku says even though it was, albeit just a 
  
    little
  
   funny, “No wonder she’s been doting on you like her own son all of these years! Poor lady doesn’t even know what you’ve done all those years ago.”

  “Good! And I’d like to keep it that way, so if you say sh@t to her, you’re 
  
    dead
  
  ,” Katsuki turns to him and points a finger in Izuku’s face, “If Auntie stops inviting me over for her spicy curry nights, I’m gonna f@ck@ng know you snitched.”

  And for some reason, a deep sadness instilled in Izuku as he realized that there might not be anymore nights where Katsuki’s invited over for dinner, unless his mother does so in her own time. And the thought hurts him deeply, as he’s reminded of those sometimes awkward, sometimes heartfelt nights before all of the fights between his mom or between the two of them occurred when they’d all come together for a nice, hot meal. 

  “I’m 
  
    so
  
   scared,” Izuku waves his fingers around sarcastically, “What are you gonna do. Huh?” Izuku tries to act tough. 

  “Don’t forget, you b@st@rd,” Katsuki sneers at him, and it looks unfairly attractive, “I still have that picture of you drooling in your sleep like a d@mn dog.”

  Izuku gasped, “You wouldn’t.”

  “I would,” Katsuki negated, “Consider this blackmail.”

  “You’re the worst,” Izuku groaned with a hint of a smile on his lips. 

  “Yeah, yeah,” Katsuki snickered, “And yet, you still love me.”

  Silence. In the natural rambunctiousness of their conversation flow, Katsuki had completely forgotten that no matter how much he wanted to pretend, the fact of the matter was that they were still in a f@ck@d up situation that has yet to be resolved. And that he had just made light of a very serious issue. 
  
    And yet, you still love me.
  
   That had been what Izuku’s been considering was a problem all this time, and he, like a complete idiot, made the absolute worst joke possible. 

  Seeing Izuku’s shocked expression and silence, Katsuki immediately takes back all of his words, and curses to himself. 

  “F@ck, Deku,” Katsuki looked over to the greenette while he drives, “I didn’t mean it like tha-”

  “I know you didn’t,” Izuku just shook his head with a forgiving smile. He knew that Katsuki wouldn’t say something like that, but he had to admit, the line definitely shocked him at first, “Don’t worry about it.”

  “Sh@t,” Katsuki cursed under his breath, “This is going fantastic, ain’t it.”

  Silence. 

  Looking down at his lap, Izuku just shuts up for a moment, before saying, “I’m...a little tired.”

  Katsuki looks back over the steering wheel and takes a deep breath, knowing he f@ck@d up, before asking, “Yeah?”

  Izuku slowly nods his head, “I get a little motion sickness riding for long hours.”

  Katsuki knew what Izuku expected him to say next, but he’d be lying if he said he didn’t want Izuku to stay awake a little longer and be with him, but instead, the blonde sighs, “Take a nap then. I’ll wake you up when we’re close to home.”

  Settling in deeper into his seat, and closing his eyes, Izuku mutters out a soft, “Okay,” Before trying to get a little rest. Even before he closed his eyes, he knew it was futile to try. How could he fall asleep, when the love of his life was sitting in the driver’s seat with an intent of having a serious conversation with him later when they get closer to home? How could he fall asleep, when all he sees when he closes his eyes are the painful flashback memories of the two of them that gets triggers every single time he sees the handsome blonde. How could he fall asleep, when Katsuki’s victory still had his heart in jitters even now, at least an hour after they’ve hit the road. 

  It turns out, when your head is reeling from a bit of motion sickness, and you want so badly to temporarily forget the internal struggle you’re dealing with, sleeping under those circ@mstances aren’t 
  
    impossible
  
  . For Izuku, after another thirty minutes of sitting there with his eyes closed, drifts into a very light, permeable sleep. In which the slightest bump in the road would cause him to jolt back awake, just to drift back out a couple minutes later. And this would happen again and again until each time he gets jolted away, the sky looks to get a little darker. The passage of time was unknown to him, but that was okay, because the minutes would likely feel too slow if he were to keep himself awake in this silent car with Katsuki. 
 
  When Izuku wakes up a final time, it wasn’t because anything jolted him awake. No bump in the road. No sudden loud external sound. In fact, it was because of the opposite. Somewhere in his dream, he realized that it was too smooth. Too peaceful. The constant rhythmic feel of a car driving down a road was gone, and instead, he was still. 

  And so, upon opening his eyes, Izuku blinks a couple of times to finally comprehend that they were stopped. And the car was pulled over to the side and turned off. To keep air flowing through the vehicle, the doors were left open, and so now, the consistent sound of crickets filled his ears, and leaves rustling gently in the wind. 

  It was now night time, and there was a slight cloud coverage tonight. Illuminated by the moonlight, it looked like the clouds were moving fast across the sky, reading to get out of this small town. Izuku sat up in his seat and realized then that Katsuki was sitting outside on the hood of the car, with one leg hiked up where his right elbow rested, and the other on the ground for stabilization. 

  As of the current moment, the blonde was looking out towards the view, fidgeting with the decorative titanium ring around his index finger as he seems to wait for Izuku to wake up. 

  After a couple of moments, Katsuki stands up, and began to walk closer to the edge of the cliff before stopping a couple of meters before, just to get a better look at the landscape. 

  The boy in question takes a look around at where they were, and finds the location familiar. They’ve been here before. Not for too long, but they’ve definitely been here before. 

  It was the Cliff of Wishes. He remembers the first time they came here. Izuku had made a wish, throwing a rock down the cliff. While Katsuki made none at all. 

  Tonight, it looked even more brilliant. A lot of people came here for the view, and it was understandable. From this vantage point, they were able to see practically all of Ise and some change. The curved mountain road that led off to a wide open area where cars could park their cars and hang out around the edges of the cliff was a popular spot. There weren’t many twinkling lights in Ise, considering that there were not any skyscrapers or plentiful light sources, other than that of street lamps, but he could see a few. Neighborhood houses with their window lights still turned on, street lamps casting that familiar orange glow, and the occasional headlights of a car passing through the streets. 

  He could see the plentiful trees that surrounded Ise, and further inland, if he squints, he can see where the farmland began on either side of the highway leading out of Ise. What was stunning was the shoreline of the ocean. Even from this distance away, he could make out the small white foams that would come every time a good wave crashes into the shore. And it was neverending. The ocean stretched on and on forever, a magnificent beast of nature. 

  Stepping quietly out of the car, Izuku steps forward slowly towards Katsuki and stands about a feet away to the right of the blonde, overlooking the sight as well. And for a little while longer, they share a moment of silence. Izuku didn’t know if this conversation was going to run smoothly, or through choppy waters, or if it was going to be productive at all, but if he can enjoy this bittersweet peace for a little while longer, then he will. 

  Being high up like this, the breeze was a bit heavier than it was on the ground, but amidst the humid summer heat, it felt quite wonderful. If he could keep this peace just a bit longer. 

  “Tell me again,” Katsuki’s deep voice cut through the silence. The timbre of it sent a slight shiver down Izuku’s spine, and while his eyes were glued to the view, his attention immediately focused on the athlete. 

  Izuku wasn’t quite sure what exactly the other was referring to, and didn’t know where to begin with his guesses. Tell him what again? They’ve probably exchanged billions of words over the last couple of months, beautiful words and ugly words alike. How was he to figure out which ones Katsuki wanted to hear again?

  And so, with his eyes still trained ahead, Izuku asked gently, “Tell you what again?”

  After a moment of hesitation, and a sharp intake of breath as could be heard, Katsuki requests from the green-eyed boy, “Tell me again that you love me.”

  Izuku’s eyes widened at this, and he finally takes a look over at Katsuki, who stood there still looking out, seeming like he was trying to figure out what to say as he went along. And Izuku is just a little shocked by the request. 

  Because it was one thing to ask Izuku to stay and have them interact with an actual conversation with one another. It was another thing to take him out all of this way just to make Izuku tell the taller boy once more that he was hopelessly in love with him. What was the point? Izuku just couldn’t wrap his head around what there was to gain from this. 

  With a confused and small voice, the boy looked up at Katsuki, asking with reminded pain in his large eyes, “...Why?”

  Katsuki looks down at the ground then, and began to kick the dusty dirt into the ground like he was hammering it in, “I just want to hear it again, without all the pain in your voice this time.”

  Izuku shook his head and stepped away, feeling slightly distressed and unfair from the sudden request, “Kacchan, you c-can’t just ask me that.”

  The blonde looks over to the side, watching Izuku back away a bit, and steps forward once more towards Izuku, “Please, I need to hear it aga-”

  “Kacchan, this is 
  
    not
  
   the way to start this conversation,” Izuku shook his head, closing his eyes, voice in a whisper as he tries to control the damage before it’s further done. 

  Katsuki reaches out for Izuku’s hands and cups them, “Why not?” And the greenette pries himself away. 

  “Why 
  
    not
  
  ?” Izuku asks with wide eyes, voice breathy, “You, knowing how I feel, knowing I’m trying to move on, how can you ask me to tell you that again.”

  “F@ck. That’s not h
  ow I meant it,” Katsuki said, now realizing how wrong it sounded now from Izuku’s perspective, and trying to repair his little mistake. For hours, he’s been trying to formulate how to go about this conversation, but it was as hard as ever. There was no easy way to go about this, and no matter what he tries to say or do, it feels like he was bound to f@ck up. Like how he just did now. 

  Cushioning some more, Katsuki told Izuku in a slight panic, “That’s 
  
    not
  
   how I meant it. I just-I just f@ck@ng suck at words,”  

  Izuku understands that, and would have no problem giving Katsuki patience with his words, if it didn’t 
  
    hurt 
  
  so d@mn much, and Izuku waits there for a moment to see if Katsuki would clarify himself. 

  “I shouldn’t have asked you that,” Katsuki managed, feeling like he was going to lose Izuku all over again. And yet, it felt so hard for him to go about this, because he didn’t know what to f@ck@ng say. It was like he’s gotten this far, only to blank and get stuck upon looking into those green eyes, and suddenly, he was f@ck@ng up left and right.

  It feels so heavy between them, like a weight of uncomfortability chaining them down. Every word was a potential cut deeper into an open wound, and both of their stomachs twist in a bit of anxiety over the course of this conversation. Izuku, because he doesn’t know where this conversation was going. Instead of being the one to talk and ramble like he usually did in their heated conversations, this time, he was letting Katsuki speak. And Katsuki, because funnily enough, he didn’t know where this conversation was going either. 

  It was frustrating. Like they were going around in circles. Repeating the same d@mn mistakes over and over again, and trying to fix them, but ending up in a bigger mess than they were in before. The amount of times Katsuki had told himself ‘we could have not dragged this d@mn thing out longer if you just said 
  
    one
  
   thing, or did 
  
    something
  
   different’ followed him to sleep some nights. And he had vowed to himself that he won’t make decisions anymore that would allow him to think that way every again. 

  But as he stood up here on this cliff tonight with Izuku, he realizes just how much easier said than done it is. It was easy to say 
  
    Just say it. Tell him you love him. Tell him all of that, 
  
  when he was sitting in his bed alone at night, wishing the greenette was there wrapped up in his embrace. But when he’s right here, right now, and the pivotal moment has come, all of the doubts he had about himself started to come back. Because unlike other times, what he does now will have its final consequence. And looking in Izuku’s eyes right then, he had no doubt that he loved the other, but he was bombarded once more with the fear of not being able to love Izuku well, the fear of intimacy and saying the words that he’s been habituated never to trust himself with for decades. No matter how much preparation he could have had, it almost felt inevitable that it would boil down to this point, where he’s once again thrown into the cycle of self-doubt and habituation. What is more frustrating than this. 

  He knew that when he watched movies, it always made him angry that when the main pairing makes some dumb decisions or drags out their drama so long, when it could have been solved with 
  
    one
  
   little change. His legs would shake in impatience, and he’d leave the theater berating how stupid the film was. And yet, he never really understood how hard it can be to have these conversations, where it’s him that’s speaking on 
  
    his 
  
  feelings, until now. 

  He tries again, just saying anything to maybe buffer out his previous mistake. 

  “Deku, I don’t-” He says something that he thinks might lead them back on track, “I don’t want you to leave.”

  It’s the same words he’s repeated over and over again. At the Hideaway. At the tournament. Maybe it’ll have a different impact this time. 

  Izuku holds himself in his arms, looking back out onto the view but ultimately not being able to focus on it. He replies in a quiet voice, “You’ve told me.”

  “And I mean it,” Katsuki stepped forward, “I need you.” 

  But it doesn’t have the impact that he wanted it to have. It sounds almost bland, like Katsuki was just trying to throw out all the words he hears in romance movies that don’t really have connections to 
  
    them
  
   in order to maybe make Izuku realize. It was his cop-out plan. 

  The 
  
    I need you
  
   only seems like a further affirmation of a friendship that is tied too deep, and Izuku shakes his head. 

  “Kacchan, d-did you bring me up here just to say that?” Izuku c@cked his head, eyes appearing a little pained as he pursed his lips to keep himself in check. 

  Katsuki brought a hand up to run through his hair frustratingly, “No!” He felt heat rise, “We’re here to 
  
    talk
  
  , about us.”

  “Okay,” Izuku nods his head, “What, then?”

  “What do you mean 
  
    what,
  
   then?” Katsuki gives him a look, “I’m trying to convince you not to give up on us, and that’s all you have to say?”

  “Kacchan,” Izuku shakes his head, “You’re saying the same thing you’ve always been saying. That you don’t want me to leave. And I’ve told you a 
  
    million
  
   times that I,” Izuku emphasizes his next words, “
  
    can’t
  
   do that! Because how can you tell me that, knowing how I feel about you? How can you tell me that, knowing that to this 
  
    day
  
  , I wake up and my aching for you makes me fall in love a little more instead of the contrary?”

  Katsuki looked at him wide-eyed, knowing he needed to say something. 

  “And now,” Izuku felt himself wanting to cry again, but he keeps a dry face, albeit with a hint of frustration, “You stand here, and tell me again that you want me to stay? What- do you want me to forget, somehow? Pretend that I don’t feel the way I do, so that we can get our friendship ba-”

  “That’s not what I want, d@mnit!” Katsuki interrupted and did a small pace in place just to get his legs moving, “Can’t you see what I’m trying to say?” 

  Katsuki asks this knowing full well he had been cryptic and not upfront with his emotions this entire time, that he’s using cop-out techniques to maybe get the point across just enough that Izuku might pick up the hint. If he says those things enough times, maybe Izuku might understand that he wanted to the greenette to stay because he wanted a relationship. Except, this was all to avoid saying a certain three words that would change everything. And yet, it didn’t feel right, right then. If he were to say it now, first of all, he didn’t know if he could. Second of all, Izuku would be more confused than anything. 

  Because he had 
  
    never
  
   made anything clear. Even now, he was evading any form of letting his raw emotion seep through, and instead, throwing out lines that seem simple and true enough to say that it might do something. And to suddenly throw out those heavy words now, would throw Izuku off. Might even make him think that Katsuki was just saying it to appease him. 

  Izuku gave him a frustrated laugh, “No, Kacchan. I don’t. Because we’re going around in circles again.”

  “I know, I know,” Katsuki picked up quickly, and put his hands over his face as he rocked backwards, feeling a slight sheen of sweat collect on his skin, “I’m not- Sh@t. I’m not asking you to stay because I don’t care about your feelings, Izuku.”

  The boy in question nods at this. He knew that Katsuki cared about his feelings, for the blonde proved time and time again that he was a wonderful, attentive friend. But that didn’t make him less confused. He’s made it clear before, and yet, the blonde seems to keep asking for the same thing, not exactly saying anything new. And at this point, they’ve had a conversation like this two or three times now, and he just feels 
  
    drained
  
  . He doesn’t want to do this anymore, and the moment it looked like he made an ultimatum or resolution within himself to get over Katsuki, the athlete refuses to accept it. Whether it is with the whole pole vault up to his window stunt, or taking up here right now, it feels like he’s trying to escape this cycle of sadness, but Katsuki kept pulling his leg back. 

  And Izuku 
  
    knew
  
  . He knew that the blonde had more trouble collecting his words than others did, and that, he should be patient for. But after the third or fourth time of caving in when Katsuki tells him to “Wait” only for the blonde to not say anything that changes a d@mn thing, was it so wrong of him to feel exhausted? 

  “I’m...aware,” Izuku swallows and says very plainly. He kept his words to a minimum so that he can control his face. 

  Katsuki takes notice of this and takes a deep breath, ignoring it before trying again, “I care 
  
    a lot
  
   about your feelings. And I just want us to work this out and be normal again. I want you to stay with me. Don’t you get what I’m trying to get at?” F@ck, nothing he was saying had the impact he wanted it to. He was trying to be civil, romantic, all of the f@ck@ng sh@t that he hears people say in movies, all without saying commiting to it. 

  Izuku shakes his head again, “I don’t, Kacchan,” He says, tiredly, “I don’t.” 

  Katsuki will be the first person to advocate raging, letting your anger shine, and accepting your negative emotions, but Katsuki also knew that with love confessions, people didn’t usually do that. In all the love confessions he’s seen, aside from Izuku’s, it’s been sweet, and romantic, kind, and soft. He thought that maybe bringing the boy up here to this cliff might make him more brave and make the scene a bit more romantic, but it looked like everything he’s saying and everything he’s doing was having no impact. 

  His borrowed words, mimicked after those swashbuckling romantic leads that always sweep their lover off their feet with the ‘
  
    I need you
  
  ’s and ‘
  
    Stay with me
  
  ’
  
    ” 
  
  felt lazy and pieced together with no context. His restricted emotions didn’t feel like 
  
    him
  
  , but love confessions aren’t supposed to be angry and full of rage, so what choice did he have. And even now, it felt like Izuku was responding in the most curt way possible. 

  At the blankness of Izuku’s response, Katsuki throws Izuku a frustrated look and wipes at his mouth even though nothing is there, “Why are you being so f@ck@ng curt with me, d@mnit?” Katsuki had tried to keep a calm demeanor this entire time. He still was, but it was slipping. 

  Izuku’s eyes widened, and then he looked down again, “Kac-”

  “Everything I’ve said so far, you’ve given me half-assed curt answers,” Katsuki said in frustration, “I know I’m not f@ck@ng great at this, but 
  
    d@mnit
  
  , try to work with me here!”

  Izuku gave him an accusatory look and turned halfway, “You don’t get to say that when you’ve given me half-assed responses, and then expect me to know what to do with them!"

  "It's all that I can say right now!" Katsuki says, knowing that it wasn't true, but it was all he's willing to say, out of his own fear of vulnerbility still embedded in him. 

  "Then what do you expect me to do?" Izuku asks, begging for a reasonable answer. 

  "I-" Katsuki tries to think. Why couldn't Izuku just read his d@mn mind, godd@mnit, "I f@cki-"

  "Kacchan, tell me if it makes sense. You take me here, and you tell me that you need me, that you want me to stay, and that you don’t want to hurt my feelings, and with just those three pieces of information, I’m supposed to deduct something from that? How can I?" Izuku asks. 

  “God! I know! I f@ck@ng know it's stupid,” Katsuki was frustrated too, at himself and at Izuku. Why can’t the f@ck@ng boy get it without him having to say all of the 
  
    real
  
   words? Katsuki wasn’t prepared for how hard that actually was, and now that he was here, he wanted to avoid it, “But can’t you f@ck@ng see I’m trying?” 

  “And can’t you see that I’m exhausted!” Izuku replied passionately, as the emotions on his face begin to spill out of his eyes through the first droplet of the night. And godd@mnit, Izuku had been trying so hard not to do it tonight during this conversation, and his voice lowers in volume as he brokenly asks, “Do you know...how exhausted I am?”

  Katsuki doesn’t say anything, and just lets the three seconds of silence wash over them, as the wind blows some dust up onto their ankles. 

  “People...expect me to do all the kind things, all the things that nice boys do,” Izuku looks down, with watery eyes as he speaks, “But at what point am I allowed to be a little selfish? Am I…” His voice cracks, “supposed to be patient forever? Even if I understand completely that this is difficult for you, does that mean I am now obligated to sit here, and let myself get cut a little deeper everytime you fumble on what you want to say? H-How is that fair?” 

  Katsuki swallowed heavily, understanding where Izuku was coming from, but still desperate not to let him go regardless, but apparently, not desparate enough to lay it all on the line.

  “I’ve gone through this pain a million times already Kacchan. If not in these repeated conversations with you, then in every waking moment I have and then later again in my dreams. I’ve relived this pain a 
  
    million 
  
  times.” Izuku then looks up at him with watery eyes. 

  Katsuki, desperate for Izuku to not go away, asks him one more time, “Then relive it a million and one times. Just give me one more time, Izuku.”

  “Kacchan,” Izuku closed his eyes to stop the tears from falling. Katsuki comes in, desparate. 

  “Godd@mnit! When couples fight, they’re patient with each other,” Katsuki began to compare frustratingly, “They wait for one another, and they’re willing to go through a little bit more pain just so that they’ll be okay, d@mnit. Why can’t you!”

  Izuku couldn’t believe what Katsuki was asking of him at the moment.

  “Because we’re not a couple!” Izuku looked at him with incredulous eyes, now crying, “We’re not a couple, Kacchan! You know why couples do that? Why they can wait forever? Why they’re willing to take this kind of pain? Because they know how each other feel. They can wait for an eternity and take all the pain in the world, because both people know that at the end of the day, their goal is fueled by mutual love for one another.”

  Izuku wipes the humidity and wetness away from his cheeks, “It’s easy to sit in pain when you know that the other person loves you! It’s easy to wait a million years when you know that the person you’re waiting for is going to come back to you. Kacchan, don’t you understand? I don’t have that…” His voice tapered out at the end. 

  “I don’t have that assurance,” Izuku shakes his head, ripping away at his heart, “I don’t know how you 
  
    feel
  
  , Kacchan. And you do anything else but tell me! You can tell me that you don't want me to leave and all of these sweet words that make me want to cave in, but you've never once told me how you feel for a fact. And that’s why I can’t just stand here and take it all and know that it will be all okay in the end. Because I 
  
    don’t
  
  . I 
  
    don’t
  
   know if it will be okay in the end. And that scares me, Kacchan.” His voice goes soft, and he refuses to look at the other. 

  Katsuki knows that it’s now or never. God, it’s now or never. And yet, it still doesn’t feel right. Izuku’s going to leave. He’s going to leave again, and this time, the blonde had a feeling, he wasn’t coming back. This was his very last chance, and he needed to say something that’s worth more than some worthless lines that he modelled after movies and everyone else’s relationships but their own. He’s so frustrated with himself. God, he never hated himself more than he did right then. Why can’t he 
  
    say
  
   anything, f@ck. It just didn't feel right. None of this conversation felt right. 

  “Katsuki, why are we here,” Izuku whispered, opening his eyes up to Katsuki one more, and swimming inside those beautiful green eyes was a sense of finality. Conclusion. And that threw Katsuki into panic mode once again. The softness of Izuku’s tone, the airiness with how he carried himself, it felt so final. More than other times. And Katsuki feels the panic rising again. 

  “No, no, don’t say that,” Katsuki shook his head, and scooped Izuku’s smaller hands up in his own, rubbing his palm and trying to make Izuku stay for the fiftieth time, “We’re here because we care about each other. Because we don’t want this to end like this. We don’t want it to end like this, right? Don’t say that, Deku. Don’t ask that.”

  But Izuku already had his eyes closed in pain, and gently shakes Katsuki off, prying his hands away, before turning back towards the car, “We need to head home, Kacchan,” He says quietly in a broken voice, “It’s been a long day. You’ve worked very hard for this tournament, and now, you need some rest.”

  But Katsuki doesn’t move from his spot. Even when Izuku begins to walk towards the car, the blonde doesn’t move from his spot. 

  Instead, Katsuki stands there, simmering in the disaster of it all. His formulated plans of taking Izuku somewhere pretty, and sweeping the nerd up off his feet with some smooth lines were destroyed by the reality that life never was that easy. And that even though he can recognize now that he was in love with Midoriya Izuku, it didn’t make confessing or expressing that emotion any easier, especially when he is still struggling to come to terms with being able to love someone 
  
    well
  
  . 

  And so, he had tried to compensate for this difficulty, by just spitting out words, any words, that seem like they’d work. That might mean something. But everything that came out sounded emotionless, impactless. 

  He’s tried to be civil about this, keep himself under control. Because love was supposed to be a beautiful emotion, wasn’t it? It was supposed to be happy, and joyous, and wonderful. And it was Izuku all this time who had taught him to embrace those positive emotions, which is what he was trying to do now. 

  Because love was a positive emotion, yes? And yet, it wasn’t working. It didn’t feel right. It didn’t feel like 
  
    him
  
  , which probably contributed to why it feels so hard to say it. Katsuki was an angry person, he was a rageful one, and a intensely fierce individual. And although he knew that was generally okay and should be accepted, he thought that for this...for 
  
    love
  
  , he should switch to his more tame, civil side. 

  But now he saw how that turned out. And so, as Izuku continues to walk towards the car, Katsuki feels the frustration and the anger that is so inherent to him build up again. He feels it in his fingertips first, the tingling and restlessness to punch something, throw something, to act out. It travels up his arms, through his legs, and settles itself deep into his chest. His anger and rage at himself, at the situation at hand. And it connects all together at his head, where it’s the most concentrated. 

  In Izuku’s case, the greenette at this point knows it was okay to be angry and frustrated once in while but to still be true to yourself. And for Izuku, ‘true to yourself’ means to be kind, and sweet, because he truly was so naturally, and to be a generally positive person. Life was about balance after all. 

  In Katsuki’s case, the blonde can say he was the opposite. That he 
  
    can
  
   be kind, and sweet, but it’s important to still be true to 
  
    hisself
  
  . And in Katsuki’s case, “true to yourself” is this. It’s this anger and frustration within him, the harshness, and brash behavior. The one that didn’t care what he was going to say, the one that flung his emotions everywhere and acted out. Once again, life was about balance. 

  And for a moment there, as he’s feeling himself drop the whole idea that love was sweet, pure, and beautiful, and settles into his skin of frustration, exasperation, and intensity, Katsuki wonders if there’s any chance at all that 
  
    love
  
   could also be like this. If it could be angry, as much as it was sweet. If it could be aggressive, as much as it can be gentle. If it can be as ugly and messy, as it can be beautiful. And he wonders if love has a place amongst aggression and ferocity, not just with tenderness and purity that he sees in movies. 

  Because right now? Katsuki doesn’t know of any other d@mn way he could have express it. 

  Izuku can barely feels his legs as he walks back to the car. It was like jelly, as it usually did every time he has an intense conversation with Katsuki. The blonde will forever have the ability to make him feel all the emotions in the world, no matter how much he tries to safeguard against it. Izuku remembers the sweet days of driving around in the athlete’s car, finding some new adventure to behold, drinking a capri sun they bought for a barely any money at all at the corner grocery, or maybe even eating a gas station sandwich covered in seran wrap while sitting in the trunk overlooking some pretty sight. And all of those memories make walking away hurt more. 

  At this point, he’s walked away many times. And you’d think it gets easier after each time, but in fact, it’s the contrary. Because after each time, Izuku begins to wonder if this will ever end. If he’ll ever get to escape this cycle, or if he’ll just find another way to end up in one of these heartbreaking conversations with Katsuki. 

  Izuku gets closer to the car, and he could see that Katsuki left the keys on the hood from where he was sitting earlier. Reaching over to grab them, Izuku tries to force himself to calm down and do anything but go running back into those arms. And he shuffles towards the driver’s side, intending to sit there until Katsuki comes back to the car, and he can drive them home. 

  But as he was doing so, Izuku hears rustling behind him. Rustling that wasn’t exactly getting closer, and so it wasn’t as if Katsuki was coming closer to him. It looked like the blonde was doing something behind him, for the rustling continues for a little while longer. It was the sound of clanging is what it was, and then it stopped. 

  And Izuku paid it no further attention, just continued to head over to the driver’s side door, which was left open, and with a heavy heart, trudged forward. Until he heard something over the crickets chirping and the gentle wind blowing. 

  It was quiet, so much so that Izuku would definitely have missed it if he had kicked at the dirt while walking any louder, but still, he heard it nevertheless. 

  From a barely stable, but quiet voice, Izuku listens as Katsuki says. 

  “I wish…” A moment of hesitation, before the voice picks up again, “that mint chocolate chip ice cream gets banned from ice cream shops around the country.” 

  And then the sound of a rock hitting and bouncing off several times from the cliff commenced. 

  
    Huh
  
  ? Izuku was so disoriented from the drastic and confusing change of topic that he completely stopped in his tracks. Mint chocolate chip ice cream? That was...random. 

  This was the cliff of wishes after all, but this sudden change of topic was jarring. So much that Izuku found himself turning around to see what in the world Katsuki was doing. His eyes confused and a little curious. The blonde was standing there where he left him, wearing the varsity jacket and a pair of ripped jeans. Izuku could only see the back of Katsuki’s head, and in arm arm, the boy had a rock in his hand. And in the other hand, he had a couple more gathered there. The previous rock hit the bottom, and the echoing stops. 

  “I wish…” Katsuki hesitates again, before stepping back once again getting in position, “that Careless Whisper could be taken off of all music platforms and all radio channels.” 

  And then he throws the rock. It clangs into the sides of the cliff upon impact, and bounces off several more times, echoing as it goes down. Izuku swallows. 
  
    Careless...Whisper?
  
   He knew that the blonde was referring to the song of course, but this randomness was still bewildering to him, and he doesn’t even know how to react. And so, Izuku just stands there watching. 

  Katsuki takes another rock from his left hand, and then bounces it upwards on his right hand as he thinks. 

  “I wish that,” Katsuki steps back once more, and gets himself ready, “I’d f@ck@ng remember to get my car tire pressure fixed before I get that annoying notification on the dashboard that keeps blinking red.”

   And then, he throws the rock again. And waits for it to get to the bottom. Katsuki then looks up to the sky, as if asking if the gods granting these wishes were listening. And then, he turned his head back for just a moment to look at Izuku, and in that moment, the greenette could see the clear frustration in those red eyes. 

  Katsuki turns back around, and grabs the last rock in his left hand, “I wish Coach Shugo would get a d@mn girlfriend so he finds something better to do than blow up my phone b@tch@ng to me about sh@t.” He throws the rock. This one was bigger, and makes a loud sound as it travels down the cliff. 

  Katsuki jumps in place, getting his adrenaline pumping, and cracked his neck from side to side. Izuku just watched in confusion and his grip on the car keys got tighter. 

  The athlete then bent down and picked up a rock, before swinging his arm back. 

   “I wish that Richard Marx didn’t have to play everytime something sh@tty was going to happen.” He chuckles deeply at this one, even though there was barely any humor laced in his tone, and he throws the rock. Izuku blinked at those words. Richard Marx. That was an iconic one, and shows up in their playlists more often than not. And the songs are usually ruined for him afterwards, Katsuki was right about that, Izuku realizes. That said, he was still confused. What was Katsuki doing?

  “I wish,” Katsuki begins, this time with another chuckle, and steps back again, “That my grandpa was around more often growing up. To tell me more about how to sweep people off their feet and what songs to play at the perfect moments.” 
  
    To tell me I can love
  
  , “Maybe I'd be a different person if he was.” 

  Izuku’s green eyes widened as he listens, and watches Katsuki throw the rock with a little more ferocity this time. There was a bit more anger and intensity in that throw, and it hits the cliff edges loudly. Katsuki’s grandfather. He wasn’t like any of Kacchan’s other family members, Izuku knew that. His grandfather was an old soul, a romantic one. And saw things in Katsuki that many others never saw or could never see until much later. Izuku knew that much. But to hear Katsuki now express with a sense of frustration in his voice about how he might have been a different person if it were true, Izuku feels like this was one of the rather first times he got to delve deep into Katsuki’s head. And see what his wishes were, and his internal desires. 

  “I wish I was driving on some lonely road with you right now, karaoking to a cheesy Madonna song, not knowing where we’ll end up in an hour and not giving a f@ck either,” Katsuki laughs, but the way he bends down, picks up the next rock, and throws it showed anything but humor. It was aggressive. Katsuki threw it with such force, that his body slightly swung to the left after he let it go. 

  Izuku’s lips parted as he listened along. And god, how he wished that too. F@ck, he wished that they could without all of this pain between them preventing him from doing so. And fu-

  “I wish I was a better person,” Katsuki laughs again, and picks up another rock, chucking it even harder than he did before, and when he let go, Izuku could see that the blonde’s hands were shaking. And there was a hint of anger in his voice, raw unfiltered anger. Izuku was speechless. Better person? 

  Katsuki ran both of his hands through his hair, and keeps his arms on the back of his head there for a moment, taking a deep breath, but not one that seemed aimed to calm himself down. Instead, the breath looked like it was aim to fuel himself further. 

  The blonde bends down to pick up a couple more rocks in his left hand, and just one in his right throwing arm, “I wish that the green of the trees didn’t always remind me of your eyes, and that the pink of the sunsets here didn’t always remind me of your lips, and the blue of the d@mn ocean didn’t always remind me of that stupid shirt you always like to wear. Because I know that I'll never be able to look at that sh@t the same if you walk away from here tonight, which you very well could.” 

  Katsuki spoke with such vigor that it glued Izuku to his spot. 

  “Kacc-” Izuku began, voice soft. 

  But Katsuki stopped him before he could, tone laced with frustration and fervor, “No. You’ve poured yourself out to me a million times, and I’ve never been able to say sh@t in return.” Katsuki takes another rock into his hand, and stared forward at the view, “It’s my d@mn turn. All I ask if that you listen.”

  And then he preps his arm for another throw, as his teeth almost seeth the words, “I wish..." He says, "I didn’t push everyone away for f@ck@ng decades to the point where I convinced myself that I’ll never be able to pull someone close.” 

  There was so much hatred, frustration, and anger in those words, that it caused a shiver down Izuku’s spine as he listens to Katsuki let out his internal strife. And for this odd little twilight zone they had going on, Izuku feels as if their thoughts and feelings, their perspectives, were being more transparent with each other. Like for one of the very first times, Izuku didn’t have to wonder what Katsuki Bakugo was thinking. Like he didn’t have to want to switch perspectives in order to understand, like he was coming into Katsuki’s thoughts. 

  “I wish," He begins again, "that I was selfless enough to bring an extra drink to practice , so that you don’t have to keep spending a dollar every thursday to get me one, but I don’t because of the very reason that I 
  
    know
  
   you’re gonna get me one,” Katsuki once more laughs at this, but the way he fiercely chucks the wishing rock down the cliff showed just how much everything effected him. 

  And Izuku found himself staggering two steps forward, towards Katsuki. His fingertips dying to reach out to the blonde. 

  “I wish that I wasn't like this,” Katsuki’s voice raised, and he got even rougher with his throws, settling into his anger. 

  The blonde knew his fingertips were shaking, but he didn’t care. He was coming into a strange understanding. Love was not just all the fluff, the sweeping of the feet, the pretty moments. Love can be angry, fierce, full of frustration, and it can get real ugly. And seeing as he was about to lose Izuku, Katsuki was willing to let it get as ugly as it can get. 

  Izuku swallowed heavily, hearing the conflict that brewed inside of Katsuki’s head. 
  
    I wish that I wasn’t like this
  
  . Izuku didn’t know what to even say to that. Like what? He could hear such clear pain and desperation, more so than he had before, in Katsuki’s voice. And Izuku knew that the Katsuki from 5 minutes ago was not the Katsuki he was talking to now. This one was unhinged, ready to give it all up, and lay it all on the line. 

  And although Izuku knew just how difficult it must have been for the other to do, he couldn’t help but think that they 
  
    both
  
   needed this. 

  Katsuki’s voice broke out of anger and frustration at his next words, “I wish I didn’t make you cry.” He throws the rock. It breaks into two upon impact, because then, Izuku heard two different bounces as the pieces go down. 

  The blonde gets even more intense and overwhelming, “I wish it was f@ck@ng easier for me to tell you sh@t, so that you don’t go home after we hang out wondering if I’m thinking about you still,” Katsuki follows up with a broken, “Because I do, Izuku. You’re all I f@ck@ng think about.” He still doesn’t look at Izuku, who takes another staggered few steps towards the blonde. 

  “I wish the world didn’t f@ck me up,” Katsuki angrily throws another rock, “Because I know this ain’t all my fault, even if a lot of it is,” His tone breaks again, but there was still a lot of roughness to it, “If it didn’t...then maybe,” Katsuki takes a labored breath, “Maybe we wouldn’t be in this mess.”

  Katsuki moves spots, because all the rocks in his surroundings before were gone, and he picks up another one, “I f@ck@ng wish,” Katsuki’s angered breathing turns into one that sounded like he was about to break down again, but if that happens then so be it, “I f@ck@ng wish,” He repeats with a broken but strong voice, “that every time we speak nowadays, I don’t have to wonder if it’ll be the last time.” He clutches his chest through the white shirt he was wearing underneath the varsity jacket, as if it would make the pain go away. And Katsuki feels the first tear leave his eyes, but his resolution was still firm, and it didn’t matter if he had a breakdown right then, he was going to f@ck@ng get through his conversation. 

  Izuku was already crying by now, shoulders shaking, as he listens to the emotions laced in every single syllable of Katsuki’s words. He held himself, but it didn’t stop the shaking of his body as silent tears stream down his face. It feels as if the distance, the ever constant distance, between them was getting smaller and smaller. As if the curtains are getting thinner. As if the glass was being taken down. And Izuku didn’t expect for it to feel this painful and cathartic at the same time. 

  Izuku takes a couple more steps towards Katsuki, and at this point, the blonde hears it behind him. And finally, Katsuki turns only slightly to look at him. And Izuku could see then the amount of emotion swimming through the athlete’s expression, and he could see tears that he’s never ever seen before silently falling, but Katsuki doesn’t let it stay long, wiping it away instantly with his free hand. 

  Izuku walks forward a little more, until he was only about three feet away, both of them in a moment of crisis. But now that Izuku was here, Katsuki could say this to his face. He swallows. 

  “I wish,” Katsuki throws his head back up to the sky and takes another labored breath, before looking back down at Izuku’s eyes, “that I could have told you how much I love your 
  
    beautiful
  
  , creepy ass eyes before you began to convince yourself that I never could.” Katsuki lets out a pained chuckle at this, as he refuses to look away from those watery forest green globes that he could stare into forever. 

  Izuku cries harder at this, because it didn’t feel real. When he read it in Katsuki’s final paper, it didn’t make any sense. It made no sense at all. But with Katsuki’s words now, with his outburst, the picture was coming together. And when Katsuki tells him now that his eyes were beautiful, it’s a cathartic moment. Cathartic because to finally hear these things spoken to him after nights and nights of dreaming about it made him feel like a long lost fantasy that he’s given up on was coming true. And he doesn’t know how he could fall in love with Katsuki more. 

  From the left hand, which still held three rocks, Katsuki didn’t throw it this time. Instead, as if his body was calming down from the rage, Katsuki simply opens two of his fingers, and lets one slip off the edge, and fall down. Two left. 

  Katsuki steps forward, and brings a hand up to wipe away at a tear resting on Izuku’s freckled cheeks, and tells Izuku with a soft voice, “I wished that in that lighthouse, I could have told you that making love to you was easier than breathing to me.”

  The tenderness with which Katsuki said that completely broke Izuku’s ability to function, and the greenette can barely comprehend it all. 
  
    Easier than breathing
  
  . The Lighthouse. Izuku remembers the pain he felt that night, hearing that he wasn’t loved by the other, that them making love wasn’t real. All of this was swarming in his head for the longest tim-

  Katsuki lets go of his cheek, and turns back forward towards the cliff. He lets one rock go. And he has one left. Katsuki gets a hold of himself, and he takes a while. Izuku just stands there, watching as Katsuki brings himself together and stands up straight, letting out a deep breath. The wind picks up a little, and Katsuki closes his eyes for a second. Under the moonlight, his blonde hair looks beautiful and little stray pieces blow in the breeze. The crickets sing for them, and the occasional hoot of an owl sounded off from the treeline. Underneath their feet, there were no rocks to be found, all thrown by Katsuki at the bottom of the cliff as he listed off his wishes one by one. And now. Katsuki opens his eyes, feeling it in his gut that this should be his final wish, and looks forward. 

  Katsuki brings this final rock up to his lips, and kisses it as it if was more special than the rest. And then, he steps back, bringing his arm back ready to throw. 

  “And as selfish as it is,” Katsuki prefaces, pulling his arm back further as he stares forward, “I wish…”

  Izuku holds his breath. 

  “I wish,” Katsuki thinks on it, “that you won’t ever fall out of love,” And then oddly enough, Bakugo Katsuki chuckles just twice before speaking with determination.

   “Because I know I won’t.” He finishes. 
 
  And then, he throws the rock. His final wish, down the cliff. It falls, bounces three or four times, and then silent. 

  And it was a silence that was 
  
    so 
  
  much so that you could hear a pin drop. Katsuki stares forward, and Izuku’s eyes were on him, wide and frozen. 

  
    I wish that you won’t ever fall out of love, because I know I won’t. I wish that you won’t ever fall out of love, because I know I won’t. I wish that you won’t ever fall out of love, because I know I won’t. I wish that you won’t ever fall out of love, because I know I won’t. I wish that you won’t ever fall out of love, because I know I won’t. I wish that you won’t ever fall out of love, because I know I won’t. I wish that you won’t ever fall out of love, because I know I won’t. 
  

  It felt like the only thing Izuku was able to do was repeat those words like a neverending mantra. All he could hear was those words. All he could 
  
    feel
  
   was those words. All he could see were those words. It didn’t even make sense, but ever single fiber of his soul had been aching for some rendition of those words for the longest time, that right now, every single inch of his being clung onto those words. I wish that you won’t ever fall out of love, because I know I won’t. I won’t. 
  
    I won’t. I won’t. 
  
  F@ck. F@ck. Izuku knew what this meant. He did. He could connect the dots, he could. But he couldn’t believe it is what’s happening. He can’t. He can’t. After all of this time, after convincing himself that it’ll never happen, to hear this now. It didn’t feel real. 

  “Tell me now,” Katsuki then says, finally turning towards Izuku and stepping forward, “Do you see what I’m trying to get at?” 

  It was the same words from less than 30 minutes ago. And yet, the meaning came out completely different. However long ago when they first got up here on the cliff and Katsuki had asked that, there was no 
  
    way
  
   Izuku would have figured out what he was trying to get at. It was a mess of confusion, and hurt, and whatever else. 

  But now, after this entire sequence of events, it was still a mess. But rather than a mess of confusion, it instead feels like they were standing on the rubble of the aftermath, understanding the pieces and what role it plays, now trying to figure out how to build up again from the ashes of their beautiful destruction. 

  Izuku couldn’t even say anything, all he could do was begin to cry again. Because it didn’t feel real. It didn’t feel 
  
    real
  
  .

  “What?” Izuku’s voice came out in a whisper, and it feels like he was dreaming. If this was truly a dream, then the universe was playing some kind of sick joke on him, "No..."

  "Why not?" Katsuki asks, keeping himself calm after letting himself go moments earlier. 

  Izuku shook his head, "This isn't...this isn't-" 

  "Real?" Katsuki finishes, laughing airly into the night atmosphere, "I couldn't believe it either. To ever think that I was able to love someone. Took me a while to realize too, you know."

  Izuku was speechless, and his legs were tempted to buckle. 

  "But it's real," Katsuki says breathlessly, "I promise you it is."

  The boy in question still couldn't believe it. His head was swarming with doubt. Maybe he interpreted it wrong. Maybe Katsuki meant something else, even though the blonde made it clear. At this point, Izuku was so habituated into thinking he'll never be mutually loved by the blonde that this felt like a break in the simulation, like it wasn't actually happening to him. And he's internally a mess. 

  "Kacchan," Izuku says, eyes still wide in shock, and all he could say once more was "What?"

  “I said,” Katsuki speaks carefully, and raises one hand up to once more rest on Izuku’s cheek, “That I 
  
    wish
  
   you won’t ever fall out of love with me, because I know I won’t.”

  Izuku shakes his head, “I don’t unders-”

  “Yes you do,” Katsuki reassures him, understanding how this could feel unreal right now, because it barely felt real to him. It had been so difficult before to say it, but after letting out 
  
    everything
  
   else, it was only then that it felt right to tell Izuku, and the feeling was indescribable.

  "N-No," Izuku refutes, "No I don'-"

  "Yes you do," Katsuki says again gently, “Don’t think about other ways that I could have meant it. Just take it as it is, Izuku. I’ve been cryptic for the longest time, but believe me now when I say I couldn’t have been more clear.”

  Izuku’s eyes search around Katsuki’s entire face, but the blonde kept his eyes straight into Izuku’s green ones, swiping a thumb gently across those soft cheeks, and repeats with firmness, as a feeling of relief settles into his chest, “So let me repeat myself one more time, nerd. I wish that you won’t ever fall out of love with me, because I won’t,” He takes a pause, “As in. I won’t fall out of love with you. Because Midoriya Izuku, to hell with it, I’m in love with everything that you are and everything that you’ll ever be.”

  Izuku’s jaw was dropped to hear it framed like that, and he's silent for the longest time, just staring up at Katsuki. 

  And when he speaks, his voice barely comes out with sound, "You...love me?"

  Katsuki stares back into the eyes of the boy he adored to no end, "More than anything."

  Izuku then looks down, eyes far away, as he repeats it, this time to himself with a shocked voice, "You...love me."

  Katsuki takes a step forward and leans his head to make Izuku look at him, but the boy looked anywhere else, so Katsuki tells him again, "I do, Izuku."

  Suddenly, as it all sinks in somewhat, everything is overwhelming and he couldn’t help but cry even more. 
  Kacchan loved him. Kacchan 
  
    loves
  
   him. And the fact hasn’t settled in completely, and how can it? Like a rain shower coming in to relieve a drought, like food given to an empty stomach, like the stars showing again after a year of clouds, Izuku gets bombarded with emotions he couldn’t handle so well right now. The shock mixed with happiness and disbelief was too much that his chest and mind threatened to explode. It didn’t matter if he didn’t know what to do now. It didn’t matter that they have 
  
    no
  
   clue how to navigate from this point forward or pick up the pieces. Katsuki loves him. And lord knows by now that he loved the blonde. To finally, after so long of convincing himself it would never happen, know that the feeling was mutual was indescribable. 

  And all Izuku could say in response was, “Don’t look at me, Kacchan.” Through his tears.

  Katsuki laughs lightly, and plays with a lock of Izuku’s hair, looking softly at the shorter boy, “Why not, nerd.”

  “I look ugly when I cry,” Izuku shakes his head, closing his eyes. 

  “No, nope,” Katsuki puts both hands on Izuku’s cheeks and lean their foreheads together, “Don’t look away from me. I don’t want those eyes to ever look away from me again.”

  Izuku shakes his head, but doesn’t move away from Katsuki, “This isn’t real. This isn’t real.” He whispers to himself. 

  “It’s real,” Katsuki whispers back, wanting to be closer to Izuku, “And I’m so f@ck@ng sorry I couldn’t have said it earlier, 
  
    f@ck
  
  . And I’m so f@ck@ng sorry that it took this d@mn long for me to get my sh@t together. But I promise you, nerd, this is real.”

  Izuku peeks his eyes open, and stares up at the taller male, a little bit of snot running down his nose and tears making his eyes bloodshot, “When? How? I d-don’t -” He could barely speak, “Why?”

  Katsuki continues to wipe away at Izuku’s tears, “When? Once I f@ck@ng got over the illusion that I couldn’t love anyone. Once you began to leave and I hated every second without you,” He chuckles with a reminiscent pain in his voice.

  “How? Why?” Katsuki smiles and closes his eyes as well, both with their foreheads still resting together, “Izuku, no matter how high I fly, I’ll never be as close to heaven as I am when I’m with you. That’s f@ck@ng why.”

  Katsuki loved him for all of the reasons that exist in the universe, and to come to an understanding of this is a special moment for the both of them. Because Izuku made music more beautiful, for every lyrics reminded him of the greenette. Because Izuku took the person he was, and unlike other people, who had given up on him, Izuku cultivated his kindness, his gentleness, while not minding the natural brashness of Katsuki’s personality. Because Izuku loved him when he thought he was unlovable. Because Izuku’s eyes were as beautiful as any gem and any diamond, and his lips were sweeter than any dessert and any sugar. Because when he goes to sleep, Katsuki still smells the salt water and lily off of Izuku’s hair, and still hears the pretty sound of that laugh he craves so much. Because Izuku was sweet, kind, and strong in ways that Katsuki wasn’t, yet is still full of energy, life, and fierceness when it comes down to it. 

  Izuku looked up at the blonde now, love swimming in his eyes, and it’s like he can’t breathe. 

  “I hear a lot from people that…” Izuku says through his hiccups, “falling in love was the best decision they’ve ever made. But..” The greenette looked down, “But it never felt like I 
  
    had
  
   a decision to make. You came in with your smile, and your adventures, your ridiculous life lessons, and I had no choice but to fall in love with you,” Izuku reaches a hand up to hold onto Katsuki’s wrist, as the blonde stroked his cheek, “You know what the funny thing is though?”

  Katsuki doesn’t say anything. 

  “Even if I had a choice,” Izuku cries, “I think I still would have chosen to love you. Even when I accepted that I needed to get over you, even when all of this went down the drain and it hurt like hell, I never regretted loving you one bit. Because even if you never loved me back, loving you has made me a better person. And loving you has made living more beautiful, knowing that there are people like you in the world.” 

  Katsuki feels his heart beat faster at the words, and all he wants to do is kiss the boy. 

  “T-The point of me telling you this,” Izuku sniffles, “is so that you know how much this means to me. So you can't lie to me about this, Kacchan. You can't. I won't be able to handle it if you're lying.” The greenette says before crying some more. 

  Katsuki pulls him into a hug then and rocks Izuku, telling the other, “Come on, don’t say that, nerd,” He whispers, “I'm not lying, d@mnit. And don’t say it like I’m doing you a favor by loving you. You’ve f@ck@ng changed my life, give yourself some credit,” And he buries his face into Izuku’s soft hair, grateful to be smelling lilies again, “And I know you’ll probably want to argue otherwise, but…”

  Katsuki thinks about it, and continues, speaking genuinely, “I don’t think anyone else but you could have shown me what it meant to love.” 

  Izuku breaks down even more, barely being able to handle the first wave of unbelievable words, only to get hit with more and more. 

  “F@ck, don’t cry,” Katsuki says as he holds Izuku tighter.

  Izuku shakes his head, and holds onto the taller boy, “K-Kacchan, how can I not right now?”

  Katsuki backs away for a moment and wipes at the smaller’s face, “How do I make you laugh again. I’m sick of making you cry.”

  Izuku looked up at the other, “I-It’s okay now though. Because I-I’m not crying out of s-sadness.”

  “Doesn’t matter,” Katsuki mutters, “I want to hear you laugh because of me again.”

  Izuku takes his hand and holds it up to his cheek, a gaze of adoration and disbelief at his reality in his eyes, and he whispers, “Kacchan, it’s okay.”

  But the blonde was already in the process of thinking. He wanted to make the boy laugh, to start this new leaf off with joy and happiness. Something that he’s been absolutely sh@t at. If he could at least end this night making Izuku laugh, then he could go to sleep easy. Throughout their entire friendship, Katsuki’s hounded on Izuku for being cheesy. For always saying sappy sh@t that could be considered borderline embarrassing. But maybe while he’s on this train of emotions, he could give up a little bit of his pride and be the cheesy one for once. 

  Katsuki begins to speak, and at first, Izuku didn’t get it. There was something weird all right, but the odd speech pattern Katsuki was giving off could very well just be part of his imagination. 

  “You know, nerd,” Katsuki kicks away his pride, “When I first realized that Somebody’s Watching Me,” Katsuki calls back a reference to one of the very first songs they listened to together that night they went to the firefly lake, “I thought you were a Maniac.” Again, another reference, this time, to the Michael Sambello track they listened to while they were driving on the way to Dolly for the theatre. 

  Izuku just listened, hearing Katsuki emphasize certain words, but not really picking anything up yet. His shoulders still shook as he buried his face in Katsuki’s chest. 

  “And then the d@mn project started, and 
  
    f@ck
  
  , I’ve never been more grateful for that sh@tty old teacher in my life,” Katsuki says, head holding up towards the sky as he cringes at his next words, all to maybe make Izuku laugh, “Because Time After Time, the more I was with you, the more you Take My Breath Away.” 

  And that’s when Izuku knew something was up. The grammar was butchered. The more you 
  
    Take
  
   my breath away, rather than 
  
    Took
  
   my breath away, almost like Katsuki was saying the name of the song by Berlin that was played the night Katsuki brought the dance to him. Was he…? Izuku’s thought drifted off, and he was still sniffling. 

  “And no matter how many times I thought to myself I’m Not In Love,” Katsuki calls out the song he played to himself on the ride home before his conversation with his mother, “And no matter how many Little Lies I told myself about how I felt, Heaven Only Knows the d@mn truth.” He was never going to live this down. 

  At this point, the sentences were so odd, that Izuku was picking up on what Katsuki was doing, and the greenette slowly pulled away, looking up at the athlete with a tear stained face, lips parted. 

  “Kacchan, are you…?” Izuku asked in a curious tone. 

  But with a red face, Katsuki just gives him a small grin and tucks a lock of hair behind Izuku’s ear, “Because 
  
    f@ck
  
  , for the first time, I understand what the songs I listen to mean. For the first time, I Want To Know What Love Is,” Katsuki turns back to the song they listened to in the ice cream parlour, “And I Want To Dance With Somebody. I want to whisk you away Into The Night and all of that stupid cheesy sh@t they do in movies.”

  Izuku looks at Katsuki as if he was both an idiot and the most precious person alive and begins to laugh through his tears, “I can’t believe you call 
  
    me
  
   cheesy.” He laughs.

  And Katsuki grins at this, but keeps on going, seeing how it made Izuku smile, even at his own expense, “I don’t want to play these Wicked Games anymore. I don’t want to say Goodbye, I don’t want to f@ck@ng walk around these subjects like we’re Fragile. Because Nothing’s Gonna Change My Love For You,” Katsuki finds himself laughing as Izuku laughs and shakes his head. 

  “Kacchan, oh my god,” Izuku wipes at his eyes, “Stop!” He jokingly says. 

  But Katsuki pulls him closer, and forces Izuku to look at him, teasing the smaller into staring up at his grinning face. He didn’t plan on stopping just yet, “No matter how long it takes, I’ll be Right Here Waiting.” It was fitting that Katsuki ends with a Richard Marx song. 

  And Izuku is giggling now, with Katsuki watching that beautiful smile like it’s the first time he’s seeing it. He could listen to this forever. 

  To save Katsuki from further getting red in the face, Izuku looks up at the blonde adoringly and says with a laugh, “Okay, that’s enough.”

  “Okay good, because I was running out of ideas,” Katsuki feigns relief, to which Izuku laughs again, and the blonde tells him, “Now that’s more like it…” 

  Izuku smiles, as Katsuki rubs his face. He missed having those hands caressing him like this. Nothing felt more right. And nothing that there was love laced in those fingers, in those words, in his red eyes, made it all the more special, that Izuku still couldn’t fully believe it. And it’s quiet again for a moment, while Izuku stops his crying. But there was still the occasional hiccup, but Katsuki found that a bit cute anyways. The crickets chirped, the clouds moved, and the car was probably full of bugs, but it didn’t matter. 

  “You know,” Izuku then whispered, “People say that beauty is inside. Beauty is grace. Beauty is kindness,” He repeats familiar words and he smiles up at Katsuki. It feels like a weight was lifted off of them, even if they still had a lot of things to work on, “I say all of that is b@llsh@t.” 

  He laughs once he sees Katsuki recognize the words, but he continues anyways, deciding to be cheesy himself, “Beauty ain’t nothing but a pair of red eyes and a stupid smirk pushing me into lakes at night.” He repeats the same pattern of words from Katsuki’s final paper. 

  Katsuki recognizes the line, and for a second, just looks a little embarrassed before flicking Izuku on the forehead like he usually did, “Who the f@ck let you read that?”

  Izuku hiccups a little, “Mr. Toshinori. He only let me read that first line though.”

  “Good,” Katsuki says, “The rest was cheesy as f@ck. I’m never gonna let you touch that sh@t.”

  Izuku laughs softly, “As cheesy as the speech you just gave me?” 

  “Nah,” Katsuki closed his eyes and shuddered, “Nothing’s ever gonna be as stupid as that. I’ve peaked.”

  Izuku hums, and just looks up at the taller boy. Katsuki enjoys the way the moonlight casts itself onto Izuku’s face. He could see every freckle, every glimmer in his eyes, every lash. And he could honestly look at this face forever, and leave the rest of the world behind. 

  Finally, the doe eyed boy asks, words quiet as he wonders, “What now?”

  Katsuki takes a moment to think. What now? The uncomfortable tension between them had felt so heavy, that now, without it, things feel almost disorienting. And he wasn’t sure what to think of it either. Just an hour ago, Katsuki for sure thought he was going to lose Izuku. To have him here, in his arms, with hopes and promises that everything will be alright, was more than he could ask for. 

  It wasn’t like everything that was wrong with them could be fixed with a simple 
  
    I love you
  
   confession, and be done with it. In an idealistic world, that would be true. They still had things to sort out. They weren’t perfect. They weren’t before, and they aren’t now. But those steps can come later. 

  “Now?” Katsuki says, “I’m gonna figure out how to not be a sh@t boyfriend, which is pretty bare minimum, but cut me some slack, this sh@t is new to me. And we’re gonna pick up the pieces, and work with what we’ve got, yeah?”

  Izuku finds this a good deal, even though he begs to differ on one thing, “That sounds good to me,” Izuku whispers, and adds, “But Kacchan, you were being a perfect man to me before already. The only thing that I hated was the ambiguity. But that’s not a problem anymore, right?” Izuku searches Katsuki’s eyes for confirmation that yes, he hadn’t been dreaming and that this 
  
    was 
  
  real, “So don’t worry about all that, okay?”

  And that, Katsuki chooses to trust. The thought of being not just someone’s, but 
  
    Izuku’s
  
   boyfriend made him internally giddy, and 
  
    damn
  
  , did he feel like a little kid. Because Izuku was 
  
    his
  
   lover, and vice versa. And to be able to call the smaller that without feeling weighed down by the tension between them brought him more internal happiness than he cared to admit. It was almost goofy, how giddy he was inside. They had a long history, for sure. A messy one. But the beautiful thing about history is that it continues to write. And as long as he had Izuku by his side, he’s going to do his damn best to make sure their story ends well. Old and gray, with a couple of grandkids and a house out in Ise after they both retire. All of that cheesy sh@t, he wants it with Izuku. 

  “You haven’t eaten dinner yet, have you,” Katsuki asks, drying Izuku’s face one more time. 

  Izuku, feeling himself getting reigned back in, slowly shakes his head, “No, but you haven’t either, right?”

  “I haven’t,” Katsuki replies, and looks over at the car, “It’s getting late, you want to head back and grab something to eat?”

  Izuku purses his lips, and admits to himself, “I...don’t want to head back.”

  The athlete hums and thinks, placing a small kiss on Izuku’s forehead, making the greenette blush even though they’ve shared far more intimate touches before. 

  “I want to…” Izuku swallows, “...catch up on what we missed.” He also just did not want to leave Katsuki’s side, afraid that the moment he did, all of this might disappear and he’ll be left with himself again. 

  Katsuki rubs a hand on his upper back and suggests, “Should we book a room, then?”

  Izuku c@cks his head, “A room?”

  The blonde then pats Izuku’s shoulder and moves his head in the direction of the car, “Come on, let’s head out.”

  Without really questioning, Izuku sniffles one last time and collects himself, following Katsuki over to the car, and handed the taller the keys once they both got settled in. Opening his phone, Izuku wasn’t too surprised to see about a million messages. Many from his friends who wanted to know what the 
  
    f@ck
  
   was going on at the National Tournament today, others sending him videos of the clip of Katsuki climbing the arena caught on television, and his mom texting him a million times asking him if he was okay. This time, it was warranted considering the car was gone, and he was blowing up on the social medias of Ise parents. Inko must have seen by now where he was at, which was likely the reason why the cops weren’t called to track him down. 

  Putting the car in drive, Katsuki takes them out of the mountains, and further out of Ise. 

  The drive there was quiet, but not in a tense way. In contrast, the quiet was necessary, for both of the boys to let everything that happened sink in, and take it piece by piece. After a long and winding conversation such as the one they just had, it was important to just sit in silence for a little while afterwards and bask in the aftermath. The only sound was the radio playing quietly. Currently, the nice melody of If You Don't Know Me By Now by Simply Red played as they sit there quietly.

  “Where are we going?” Izuku asked after they’ve been driving for a while. They were just about the only car out on the road, the stark contrast between the headlights and the dark surroundings was almost creepy. 

  To this question, the athlete only shrugs, “Not sure. I’m just gonna stop at the next place to rest I see. Didn’t want to stay too close to Ise. A lot of people like to gossip.”

  Understanding, Izuku just sits back and lets him drive. The car just stays on the lonely road for a while, until it was clear that they were out of Ise. Instead, it looked like they were headed to a much more rural area, with forests and farmland on either side of them. At least in Ise, there were tiny shops and what not here and there, but out here, it was all trees, wheat, grass, and whatever else they were farming. Once in a while, there’d be a gas station, but for the most part, familiar emptiness surrounded them as the car drives along. They picked up some food from a slightly sketchy drive through as they kept going down the road, and it was enough to satisfy them until tomorrow. 

  Ultimately, sitting on the right side of the road, tucked down a small dirt path and surrounded by a couple acres of forestry, a sign hung overhead from a wooden post with an arrow leading in, reading Fin’s Bed & Breakfast. 

  Katsuki pulled into the little road, and followed the dirt path a couple hundred meters until up ahead, they could see a quaint two story bed and breakfast. The house still kept the old retro style, even though they were outside of Ise by now. A wrap around wooden porch decorated the place, and kerosene lamps hung over the arched doorway. There was a stone path leading up to the house, and there was a very quaint feeling associated with the entire place. 

  Parking his car next to someone else’s in what looked like a communal parking lot, the two of them exited and followed each other to the door. A boy that looked to be just one or two years younger than them welcomed the two of them inside, saying that his grandparents owned the inn since 1952, and giving a whole spiel as he shows them inside the house. It was charming, with a heavily decorated interior and a slightly rustic vibe, with the wooden cabinets, carpeted floors, and warm lighting throughout the entire bed and breakfast. There were dark red couches, and chess sets on the coffee table. 

  “Breakfast is served from 7 in the morning to 10 in the morning, but you’re welcome to use our kitchen whenever,” The host says, “How long will you be staying?”

  Katsuki looks at Izuku, then answers, “Two nights or so.”

  “That’s great! Do you have any preference for rooms? We have the Magnolia Room, which is on the furthest left suit-” He begins.

  But Katsuki only had one criteria, “I want the room furthest away from anyone else’s.”

  Izuku raises a brow. 

  “Oh,” The boy flushes, and takes the time now to look at Katsuki for the monstrous hunk of a man he was, and flushes some more when he turns over to Izuku, “In that case, let me show you to the Orchid Room.”

  And so, they follow the boy as he moved through the house. The old wood floors creaked beneath their feet, and they looked at all the old portraits and photos framed up against the panelled walls of the hallway they were walking down. Give or take, this place, although beautiful and quaint, also looked like it could be haunted. At the turn of the hallway, the boy leads them up the stairs, and on the far right corner, opens the door to their room. 

  “Do you need anything else at the moment, sir?” He asked kindly. 

  Izuku turns to the boy and shakes his head, “Everything’s great right now, thank you!”

  And they were left alone once more in this large room, that was, like the boy said, pretty separated from everyone else’s. 

  It was a nice and large room, with an arched glass window that had black out curtains on either side. 

  Immediately, the most notable feature of the room was the old upright piano that was lined up right next to the window. It was old, with keys that were probably out of tune, and a bit of chipping on the white keys. Above it were some sheet music from a book of Chopin pieces, and a vase with an orchid sat on top. 

  The view from the window was the back of the bed and breakfast, which consisted of a large plot of land, with a forest line that stretched on for a while. In the corner, there was a small pond that reflected the light of the moon, and when Izuku squinted further, he sees a small doe drinking from it. From the second floor, he can see above the treeline a little bit, but not far enough. However, it looked like the forest line went on for a while, before it seems to stop. He couldn’t be too sure, and would have to ask the owners of the bed and breakfast in the morning. 

  As for the room, a four poster bed with a mahogany frame was put up against a wall that had a painted mural on it of an orchid. In fact, there was a theme of orchids all over the room, with a fake orchid planted on top of the dresser, and orchid scented hand soap in the bathroom. The whole flower theme, and wallpaper was very, how to put it, retro. Other than the bed, piano, and dresser, the room had a lot of open space aside from a fireplace built into the wall. In this weather, there was no need to put it on, but it was a nice addition to the room. 

  “Two nights?” Izuku looked back towards Katsuki, who was setting down his gym bag on the floor, and closing the door behind them. 

  Katsuki hummed, raising his head then to look at Izuku dead in the eye with a small gleam in that ruby red, “One for just resting with you and catching up, and another for making love to you in the way you deserve.”

  Izuku’s reds turned beat red instantly as his mouth gaped open at Katsuki’s response. 

  At this reaction, the blonde was quick to preface, “If you’re up for it, of course. I’m not gonna do sh@t you don’t want to.”

  “No! I was just a little…” Izuku flushed, “Surprised, that’s all. I assumed that’s why you want the far room then?”

  Katsuki laughs, “Maybe.” Katsuki swears his head isn't in the gutter already. 

  And then, the vaulter crosses the room and takes off his letterman, putting it on the edge of the bed before heading towards Izuku, taking the boy’s face into his hands. 

  “But tonight’s been a whole f@ck@ng lot,” Katsuki gets close and whispers to him, “And I don’t want to move too quick, so I just want to hold you tonight, yeah? And talk until my throat gets sore or until you fall asleep. And kiss you till my lips get chapped.” 

  Izuku leans up and flutters his eyes a couple times, whispering back as Katsuki steps a bit closer, flushing their bodies together, “I’m okay with that.”

  Katsuki takes a good look at those pretty eyes, muttering a deep “
  
    Good
  
  ,” Before he leans down to kiss Izuku. And they’ve probably done this a million times before, but none of it’s ever felt like this. Because this was a kiss full of love, and Izuku knew it. The slow pace at which Katsuki went at it, the soft caressing touches on his face, and the tenderness of it all. And Izuku knows that he will remember this feeling for an eternity. Lost in the sensation, Izuku takes in the sweet cherry flavor of Katsuki’s lips and the smell of the blonde’s skin. Oh, how he missed this. To think he almost never had this again. 

  Katsuki eventually pulls away, and Izuku keeps his eyes close for an extra few seconds to savor the feeling, before he opens them. 

  “I’m gonna take a shower, and get all this gross ass grime off of me, and then you got me all night, yeah?” Katsuki says, stepping backwards, and peeling off his shirt from the bottom, revealing his chiselled body that cut down to a sharp v-line, and Izuku wonders if he’ll ever really get over that. 

  And the boy nods, “I’ll join you in a moment.”

  And so later into the night, after their bodies were freshly showered and the smell of orchid soap kissed their skin, the two lay in bed and savor every second like it was the last time they’ll get to do this, even though they knew it was only the beginning. 

  Whether this beginning had an end, who knew. Izuku understand full and well that reality wasn’t like in the movies, where the couple finally gets together and they live happily ever after. Katsuki knew this too. Inside, both of them understood that this--what they have--could easily become volatile. That some day along the road, it might be rocky. Even now, there were still ways for them to go, with themselves and with each other. But even if one day, they’re destined for different paths, Katsuki knows that he’ll never love like this again. And so, he’s going to take every second as it comes, and waste nothing. 

  Even tonight, neither wanted to go to sleep, afraid that this might not be real when they woke up in the morning. 

  It may be dramatic to say, yet Izuku feels as if they’ve gone through war together. And he thinks back to their conversation about which god they’d be. Him being aphrodite, the goddess of love, and Katsuki being ares, the god of war. It was funny how that played out. Because what better way to describe all of the sh@t they’ve put themselves through other than a war for love. 

  And it really did feel like it. And so now, as they lay together, Katsuki makes sure to interlace their fingers, and lay so that they were facing one another, so that he could look at Izuku while he speaks and vice versa. Quiet whispers were exchanged throughout the night, a little laugh here and there, and maybe at some point, a couple of tears as it hits them all over again just how much of a mess had to happen for the two of them to get to this point. Promises of forever were exchanged knowing that fate could write anything for their future. Sorries and thank yous that were never said loudly enough. 

  At some point, Izuku asked Katsuki in a whisper underneath the covers where they just lay cuddling and talking, "Are we going to be okay?"

  To this, Katsuki had no doubt, as he placed a kiss on Izuku's lips, telling the other, "We're going to be okay. 

  It doesn’t feel real. To have spent weeks building this immense tension, then have it fall into a horrid breaking point, just for tonight to end up how it did and for them to lay here by each other now. It didn’t feel real, but hell, if they didn’t f@ck@ng work for this moment. And so, even as the hours passed by and the clock above their heads tick into the morning, it was only when the black sky began to turn a slightly lighter blue that Katsuki, exhaustion from everything catching up to him, drifts asleep. 

  Right before Izuku joins him in their dreams, he closes the black out curtains before slipping back in. 
 
  Katsuki wakes up with a pain jolting up the left side of his body. 

  “F@ck!” The blonde yells out, and his eyes shot open as he turns over on his back, and sit up. 

  Izuku had dragged the sheets out so that Katsuki would fall on the floor and wake up, and it definitely worked because the boy in question was fuming at the sudden wake up. The curtains were now spread wide open and Katsuki could see in the back that the sun was a golden orange, looking to be about 6 o’clock or so. Give or take an hour and it will probably begin to set. He must have been f@ck@ng exhausted, from the tournament yesterday and the whole fiasco of last night, that he had slept like a baby all the way up to this point. 

  “What the 
  
    f@ck
  
  ,” Katsuki groaned, throwing a pillow that had fallen off the bed at Izuku. 

  The boy in question laughed and caught it, and Katsuki was about to rage when he looks up and sees the boy with the brightest smile on his face, so wide that it reaches his eyes and crinkles at the edges. At the sight of that, and the freckled cheeks bunching up, Katsuki loses his breath and he forgets any annoyance he might have had prior. 

  “Sorry, Kacchan!” Izuku explained, “I tried to wake you up three times already, but you were dead asleep.”

  Katsuki ran a hand through his wild hair and laid back on the floor, grabbing another pillow that fell and pressed his face back into the pillow, about to fall back to sleep on the floor. 

  “No, no,” Izuku whined, and bent down, grabbing Katsuki’s hand and began to drag the blonde up off the ground, “You can’t go back to sleep. You have to get up!”

  Katsuki groans into the pillow, not budging, and instead, in one move, drags Izuku down to the floor with him and gathers the boy up in his arms, “Why,” He grumbled. 

  “Because! We have to get our day started,” Izuku frowned, and used his strength to pry Katsuki’s arms off of him, before pulling the blonde up again, “Get up, get up!”

  After a couple more minutes of Izuku hounding the other, Katsuki then sits up and yells out a, “Fine, fine!”

  Izuku laughs, not having felt this lighthearted in a bit, and gets up on his feet, “Great, go get ready. Shoo, shoo.”

  Katsuki gets up off the ground and stretches, “What do you got planned, nerd.”

  Izuku looks out the window towards the golden sun, and turned back to Katsuki, “You’ll see. Hurry up!” And then he points at the sun, “You. I’m gonna need you to slow down,” Izuku demands, “Don’t set yet.”

  Katsuki’s brows raise at the familiarity of the words. He’s said them before, he was sure. At the hideaway. Aside from a couple of curse words, Izuku was almost mimicking him. And then, the greenette disappears out into the hallway, and Katsuki could hear footsteps stomping down the stairs. Katsuki goes into the bathroom and does all that he needed to do, and it takes a total of 15 minutes before he is dressed and downstairs where Izuku was talking to the boy from earlier. 

  “-nt-shaped boulder on the left, and you’ll see it immediately,” The boy was telling Izuku, who looked excited about something. 

  Nodding profusely, Izuku grinned, “Thank you.”

  The greenette was wearing flip flops and on his back, Izuku was carrying a large, black, rectangle like box. And honestly, looked a bit heavy. But Izuku looked like he was handling it, and Katsuki knew the boy lifted heavy weights, so he’ll offer to help if the nerd got tired. 

  Katsuki walked forward, which caught Izuku’s attention, and the green eyed boy smiles gently, walking over to Katsuki. 

  “What’s with the box?” Katsuki asks him, gesturing towards the bulky thing. 

  “Oh this?” Izuku looked behind him, “Nothing. You’ll see.”

  “Oi, you scheming something?” Katsuki flicked him on the forehead gently. 

  Izuku shook his head, “No, but let’s head out.”

  And that was all the boy really had to say before dragging Katsuki out through the back sliding door of the bed and breakfast, and heading out into the woods that was situated in the back. The woods here were different than the ones back in Ise. The ground seemed to consist of a lot less dirt, and more rocks. Here and there, they’d see boulders of limestone too peeking out, and random rock formations as Izuku moves through. Using his phone as a compass, Izuku heads Northeast, and Katsuki would definitely say he was curious. A bit of sand was dusted on the forest floor too, even though they were far from the ocean. 

  He thought something about the geography of this place was a little different, but he didn’t think much about it. It was more flat out here, less mountainous for sure, but there was still a lot of trees with branches high up rather than lower down on the trunk. They kept on walking for a while, and up ahead, birds shook the tree leaves and the sun was turning into a deeper orange. 

  Although they were making lighthearted conversation as they walked, Katsuki could tell that Izuku was excited about something or getting to the location, for the nerd kept on craning his neck as if hoping to see something. It began to happen so often that ultimately, Katsuki had to straight up ask. 

  “Alright, Deku, tell me now. Where are you taking us,” Katsuki is eager to know.

  As if waiting for him to finally ask, Izuku turns around and with a pretty smile, tells him simply. 

  “Showing you where the earth and the sky meet.”

  Katsuki raised a brow, and had to ask, “And what the f@ck does that mean.” 

  Izuku laughed, fueled by lots of energy, and drags Katsuki along, smelling it in the air already, “Come on, we’re close.”

  And so, Izuku begins to run towards the smell. And Katsuki picks it up too, and he sniffs the air. Is that...
  
    salt
  
  ? They were no where near the ocean. The f@ck? And the further they ran, the more different the landscape became. There were still trees, but less and less of them. Instead, the amount of rocks and boulders they needed to cross through or walk around became more frequent. Up until it looked like very short canyon crevices that they were running through, made of white limestone. A tree popped up here and there, but for the most part, ahead of them, a walled off boulder blocked their view, surrounded by both sides by a canyon-like path, with the only path forward around the right side of the boulder. 

  Now that he was looking at it, Katsuki finds that the large limestone rock, with some trees growing out of it, 
  
    kind
  
   of looked like an-

  “The elephant shaped boulder,” Izuku looked up at it and whispered, walking forward again before pausing, and turning to Katsuki. 

  “Do you have your pill speaker on you?” Izuku asked, looking up at the taller, a little out of breath from speed walking here. 

  Katsuki fishes it out of deep pockets, “Of course.”

  Izuku then grinned, “Can you play music?”

  Rolling his eyes, the blonde turns it on, and opens up his phone, shuffling the songs. 

  Nicely enough, one of Izuku’s recent favorite songs begin to play. And he’s perfectly content with this selection, especially with everything that’s been happening. 

  Through The Fire by Chaka Khan. Released in 1984, it was a rather hopeful and passionate love song, filled with nice beats and a chorus to 
  
    die 
  
  for. Izuku could sing this whole thing by heart, other than the falsettos at the end. It has a very classic 80s beginning, and once it starts, Izuku begins to sing along as he drags Katsuki around the bend of the boulder and almost immediately, the both of their feet are submerged into water. 

  
    I look in your eyes and I can see
  

  
    We've loved so dangerously
  

  Katsuki doesn’t think he’s on Earth. There was no way.

  
    You're not trusting your heart to anyone
  

  
    You tell me you're gonna play it smart
  
 
  They’re definitely not on Earth. Up ahead of them, for what looks like at least two or three miles, brilliant salt flats stretched on and on, and with the windless day they were having, the three inches of water sitting on the white salt flat’s surface was completely still, and reflected the sky 
  
    perfectly
  
  . The stream tributaries that leaks in caused the salt flats to constantly be flooded with about 1 to 4 inches of water on a normal day like today. And looking down at his feet now, he was glad he wore sandals for his feet were soaked in the water. No wonder it had smelled like salt. 

  The top of the salt flat, because of the stillness of it all, acted like a mirror to the sky. And so now, as the gorgeous sun glows in the deep shade of orange and pink, that very same image was reflected perfectly onto the surface. And so, as he slowly stepped forward into the water, little ripples formed, disrupting the image of the water, but he couldn’t believe that a place like this existed.

  
    We're through before we start
  

  
    But I believe that we've only just begun
  

  And he thinks back to what Izuku had said. A place where the earth and the sky met. In a way, this was more than just somewhere to be on a nice little evening. It was a beginning point for the new relationship they were navigating. From the start, they were both in their own separate realms. Izuku on the ground, and Katsuki in the sky. Their feelings, their thoughts, their lives closed off from one another. Just as much as Katsuki wanted to dive into Izuku’s mind and read what he was thinking, Izuku thought the same towards Katsuki. Always separated by 
  
    something
  
  .

  Izuku sings from his left, staring out at everything, “When it's this good, there's no saying no. I want you so, I'm ready to go.”

  Katsuki continues to stare. 

  But here, marked a place of new beginnings. Where they could start again. In the place where the earth met the sky. 

  He looks over to Izuku, who then  kept on walking forward, as if he could barely comprehend what he was seeing himself. 

  Katsuki took off his shoes, and ventured forward. It was like a different dimension, and he could feel the salt grains shifting around beneath his feet. And he watches Izuku, who stands about 20 or so meters ahead of him, still, watching the clouds of the sky move above him at the same time it moves below his feet. The boy had set the black box down in the water, and just stood there watching. Izuku then looked back at him, with an expression filled with nothing but love.

  Then, Katsuki finds his feet moving, splashing through the water, as he walks fast towards Izuku. The music following him in his pockets. And the splashes he makes in the ground hits the back of his calves and he knew his clothes were going to get all wet, but he didn’t care. 

  Once he nears Izuku, Katsuki picks up the smaller and like he had done once before, spins the boy around once before pulling Izuku down to kiss those tender lips. And Izuku kisses back deeply, pouring all the love he had into this emotionally driven kiss. He held onto Katsuki’s shoulders tightly, and the beauty of this moment made him want to cry. How could this get any more perfect. 

  When Izuku pulls away and gets settled back down on the ground, he sings the chorus, “Through the fire. To the limit, to the wall. For a chance to be with you, I'd gladly risk it all.” 

  And with the fiery sunset reflected in all directions around them, how could that not be more true. And they just stare at each other for a moment, looking at how far they’ve come, before Izuku reaches up and places a hand on Katsuki’s face. 

  
    “I love you,
  
  ” Izuku says gently. Without the pain. Without the sadness. And it’s words that were so simply, yet so powerful. 

  Because Katsuki brings a hand up to cup over Izuku’s, and leans down to kiss the green haired boy’s forehead, whispering his own, “
  
    I love you
  
  .” He says with all intent. And Izuku promises he won’t cry again. Everything was too beautiful to be blurred out by tears. 

  There was no breeze, but the weather didn’t even feel that hot. Nothing was out of place in this moment. And so they just admire everything for a couple moments more. 

  And then, as the song plays, Izuku steps back and crouches down to the black box. 

  “So you gonna tell me what that is now?” Katsuki asks. 

  Izuku’s cheeks then heat up, as he unlocks the clasp, “I didn’t really think this through,” He mutters to himself, “The ground is wet. How am I going to...Dang it. Why didn’t I think about bringing something to set all of this on. I mean, we could always just leave the box open and e-”

  “Nerd,” Katsuki interrupts him. 

  And Izuku was taken out of his thoughts, before he looks up at the blonde and then looked a little apologetic and shy, a small flush running up his cheeks, before he smiles, “I’m not a great cook or anything, but…”

  Izuku continues to open the box, “I’m finishing the little picnic that we never got to have.” His voice gets smaller at the end, at the reminder of that night in the Hideaway. 

  And Katsuki is a bit shocked, but he feels his heart warm seeing the boy fumble to get the box open, and seeing all of the poorly made sandwiches and what not inside of the sturdy thing. 

  “Izuku,” Katsuki speaks with tenderness in his tone. But he honestly, had nothing to say afterwards, and so he just watched. 

  “Ah,” Izuku shyly said, “The box is pretty big, we can just leave it open and eat from there. Hm, there’s some sandwhiches. I can do those pretty well. And the grandma who owns the bed and breakfast helped me with the potato dauphinoise. And I know I can’t make cherry pies like your mom can, but I know it’s your favorite so I tried my best,” Izuku looked more red as he spoke. 

  And all Katsuki wanted to do was sweep this boy up and kiss him crazy. 

  Izuku plops down on the ground, soaking his entire bottom and legs, and Katsuki does the same. And like a bunch of idiots, the two of them began to eat a much needed dinner. And if Katsuki was being completely honest, it wasn’t half bad. He wasn’t sure if he was being biased because everything was so perfectly, or if it actually did taste great, but the cherry pie was even up to his standard. And the two of them stay there for a long time. 

  Even after they finish eating, the two stay at the salt flats for another two or three hours. Whether it was running around, tackling each other into the water, or seeing how many ripples they can make into the ground, they play as the sun goes further and further down. Izuku’s favorite part was when it got purple, and that brilliant color washed over the entire terrain, and he spins around in the water, unable to believe this place existed. At some point, the two of them lay on the ground and make little snow angels out of the salt. The grandson of the establishment was the one who told him about the existence of this place, and Izuku thought what better place to begin their journey together. 

  And once it got completely dark, Izuku prayed for a clear night, and damn did they get one. So the two boys laid side by side, soaking the entire back half of their body, staring up at the starry skys. And when that was tiring, they stood up and stared at the ground, where there was 
  
    also
  
   starry skies. Katsuki reached down to grab at the water, pretending he was grabbing a star. And it was just a happy, sweet moment, that both knew was going to stay in their minds for a long, long time. 

  They only travelled back towards the bed and breakfast once they saw that their feet was getting extremely pruny, and their throats extremely dry from being in salt and smelling salt for the entire evening. 

  Through the dark forest, Katsuki runs ahead. 

  “You’ll never beat me in a race, short-legs,” Katsuki laughs maniacally as he weaves in and out through the trees and rocks. 

  Izuku runs after him, “This isn’t fair!”

  “Sure it is,” Katsuki yells back behind him, “I’m carrying the picnic basket to slow me down, and you’re still falling behind.”

  Izuku throws a small pebble at the other, “You’ve been on the track since you were 11! I don’t do cardio 
  
    ever
  
  .”

  “Great,” Katsuki says with a knowing smirk, “We’re about to do a 
  
    ton
  
   of cardio.”

  Izuku almost chokes at the suggestive comment, and trips, falling forward, before he got himself up again, “Kacchan!”

  Katsuki barked out a laugh, “I’m f@ck@ng joking.”

  Izuku muttered, thinking he was being rather quiet, “You better not be.”

  “What’d ya say?” Katsuki slows down, turning to ask.

  And Izuku catches up, leaning down to put both hands on his knees, breathing heavy, “Huh? I didn’t say anything.”

  “Really?” Katsuki lifts a corner of his mouth with a knowing look, “You aren’t quiet you know.”

  Izuku flushed deeply, “W-Why’d you ask then if you heard?”

  “Cuz I wanted to,” Katsuki nonchalantly shrugged, and grinned mischievously, pulling Izuku’s chin up to look at him and Katsuki let the picnic basket slip, hitting the forest floor, and backed Izuku up against the bark of a tree, “We could do it here, you know.”

  “H-here?” Izuku looked around. They were in the 
  
    woods
  
  , “We’re in the woods.”

  “Nerd,” Katsuki said with full honesty, bringing his face closer until their lips were hovering above each other’s, “I’d f@ck you in front of your mother. You think I won’t do it here?”

  The boy in question was at a lost of words, sputtering, “My m-mo-” 

  “Nah, come on. The house is right there,” Katsuki laughs, and pulls Izuku, along, picking up the basket as he jogs. 

  From behind him, Izuku let out a whine, “Kacchan!”
 
  The moment they reached the stairs, Izuku climbed Katsuki like a damn tree. 6 feet 4 of muscle and the most perfect body that Izuku’s ever seen, ready to eat him up. Katsuki lips were on him in an instant, taking in the taste that he’s missed so badly. If Izuku wanted to, Katsuki would wait a year before touching him again. Katsuki would wait as long as the other needed. But hell, if the boy was down to get intimate again, then Katsuki wasn’t going to say no. Izuku tangled his fingers in Katsuki’s hair as the latter keeps his large hands on those thick thighs, holding the smaller up on his waist as they stumble into the room. It’s only been moments, but Izuku’s lips were already bruised with the intensity that Katsuki was going at it. 

  It feels different knowing that Katsuki loved him. This all feels different. He feels more secure in everything, where he doesn’t need to wonder if the blonde has anyone else after he leaves. Or if he’ll leave at all. He holds onto the blonde’s shoulders tightly, as their bodies get flushed together. 

  And right before they made it to the bed, Izuku couldn’t help but ask, “Make love to me, Katsuki.”

  And this time, the other man doesn’t resist. Not in the slightest. If Izuku was asking him to make love, then he’ll gladly do so with all intent to make the other feel as good as possible. 

  “Gladly,” Katsuki says, before he deeply kisses Izuku one last time and sets the other down on the mattress. Izuku, with a flushed face and flushed lips, looked absolutely beautiful. 

  And Katsuki stands back, taking his shirt off from the bottom, and tossing it to the side, and just stares for a moment. Izuku still had all of his clothes on, and was looking at the taller man shyly, but damn, if the nerd wasn’t the prettiest thing he’s ever seen. And this time, he makes it known. 

  “
  
    F@ck,
  
   you’re beautiful,” Katsuki tells him, hands playing with Izuku’s knees, slotthing his palm inbetween those gorgeous legs, and teasing the inside of Izuku’s thighs. 

  Blushing deeper from the words, Izuku stammered a bit as he replies awkwardly, “Y-you too.”

  Katsuki chuckles in his deep timbre at this, finding that Izuku’s little stammer turns him on even more, and leans forward, hands on Izuku’s waistband, and tugs his pants off in one solid motion, “You’re so f@ck@ng cute. Keep talking.”

  “H-huh?” Izuku asks, moving his hands to cup over his hardening d@ck, feeling a little bit shy even though they’ve done this many times, but Katsuki isn’t having it. Removing his hands, the blonde kisses him slowly, and relaxes his body as those rough fingers caress his thighs and travels down his legs. 

  “Deku,” Katsuki says as he gets down on his knees off the edge of the bed, and brings his lips to Izuku’s ankle, “Tell me what you want.”

  He kisses the boy’s ankles, and slides up a couple inches, sharp eyes looking up at Izuku’s hooded ones the entire time, trailing gentle kisses up his s@xy legs. 

  “W-What I want?” Izuku feels himself losing his breath. He watches Katsuki’s shoulder blades move and the muscle move along with it as the man travels further up his legs, getting closer to his inner thigh, where Izuku was particularly sensitive. 

  The blonde hums into his skin, sending vibrating through his inner thigh and Izuku whimpers a bit. Katsuki only answers with a whisper in between kisses, “Tell me what you want.”

  Izuku didn’t know what to say, too focused on Katsuki’s movements, and he tells the other, “I w-want you inside me.”

  Katsuki chuckles at this and nips at his inner thigh, now so close to Izuku’s c@ck, and the blonde couldn’t help but kiss the sides of it, making Izuku let out a little cry of pleasure at the teasing stimulation, “I’ll get there, baby. You sure there’s nothin you want before that?” And Katsuki moves his left hand so that his finger tease a little bit at Izuku’s entrance, and he quirked his head up with a bit of an evil grin, “Nothing at all?”

  Izuku’s breathing was labored at the touches, and he swallowed, nodding his head as he pleads then, “Taste me, Kacchan.” He can barely use his words right. 

  And Katsuki’s lips move to where the tip of Izuku’s hardened and pretty c@ck was, but just as he did, Izuku corrects the other, “Not 
  
    there
  
  .”

  And Katsuki raised a brow, “Oh?”

  Before smirking, and leaning back, pulling Izuku by the thighs closer to him, before flipping the boy over onto his back, and pulling his hips up so that Izuku was laying shoulders down, plump, beautiful ass faced up. 

  And kissing his way down Izuku’s back, Katsuki makes sure the other knows just how sexy he was, and Izuku feels it too as the blonde worships his body. 

  “You know how hard you make me, Deku?” Katsuki says as he kisses his way down the freckled, smooth expanse of the smaller’s back, gliding his hands over Izuku’s waist, “Nothin’ makes me feel anything anymore after I got a taste of you,” And when he got down to that pretty, perfect shaped ass, Katsuki gives it a little bite, leaving a mark on the supple and soft flesh. Izuku lets out a little cry underneath him. 

  “So f@ck@ng pretty,” Katsuki leaves another bite, as he growls, “All mine.”

  Izuku nods with his head in the pillows, breathless, “All yours.”

  Katsuki spreads Izuku’s soft and pillowy cheeks apart so he could see that delicious pink hole, so perfect for him. And to tease the other a bit, Katsuki gives it a little kiss, and the sound coming from Izuku makes him grin. 

  “What a shame,” Katsuki spits right onto the puckered hole, “No one else is ever gonna know how delicious you taste. It’s too bad, ain’t it.” He chuckles, before rimming the f@ck out of Izuku. His tongue begins to f@ck into Izuku’s ass slowy and excruciatingly, already making the boy a moaning mess above him, and that sound spurs him on further. God, Izuku tasted so delicious, he was hooked on how sexy the greenette was. 

  Izuku shakes his head with a cry from above, “No one.”

  “If someone so much as touches you, I’ll kill them,” Katsuki takes a small break to half whisper and Izuku couldn’t help but be a little turned on by the thought of that. The blonde doesn’t feel half as bad about saying that sh@t now that Izuku was his boyfriend. 

  Izuku speaks into the sheets, but Katsuki still heard him mutter, “And vice versa.”
  
    
  
  Pulling his tongue out, Katsuki chuckles and stands back up, “Oh yeah? You will, huh.”

  And moving his index finger to the dripping hole, he teased the entrance, admitting breathily, “Not gonna lie, Deku. I kind of like the thought of that.”

  And that was before, he plunges his index finger in, making Izuku mewl a little into the sheets and grab at the blankets. He hadn’t put anything in himself in a hot minute, so Katsuki stretching him out now felt ultra sensitive. Despite the atmosphere of it all, Katsuki’s movements were careful, making sure that Izuku was okay, that he was gentle enough that the boy wouldn’t hurt any, and prioritizing Izuku’s pleasure. Spit was not nearly enough lube to make this experience not hurt, especially knowing how well endowed he was, so Katsuki reaches over and rummages around the drawers if there were any condom and lube set out, and thankfully, in the second drawer, he finds both. Leaving the condom, Katsuki grabs the lube and tears it open with his teeth, pouring a generous amount on his fingers before going back to work, stretching Izuku out nice and well. 

  “W-wait,” Izuku called out. 

  Katsuki stops and looks up, “What is it, baby.” And Izuku almost coos at how Katsuki calls him baby, because he knew that he 
  
    meant
  
   it. 

  “D-Don’t you want me to do anything for you?” Izuku asked, eyes watery from pleasure. 

  Katsuki leans forward to kiss the other deeply and strokes his face once, speaking near his mouth, “No, tonight’s gonna be about you.”

  “But-” Izuku begins. 

  “No buts,” Katsuki denies him, and he pushes in a third finger. Izuku bites his lip, feeling so much pleasure that he doesn’t feel the need to touch his d@ck. With Katsuki, he’s never had to. The blonde has always been able to make him c@m untouched. He pushes his hips back so that he was f@ck@ng back on Katsuki’s fingers, and he hears the blonde praise him. 

  “So good,” Katsuki tells him, pleased, and loved seeing Izuku’s ass shake on just his fingers. He twists them in the tight hole to add a little more friction, and Izuku’s knees wobble at this, but Katsuki with one arm, keeps him up and stable. The sound of lube squelching as Katsuki hammers away in Izuku’s hole filled the room alongside Izuku’s moans, and Katsuki considers grabbing his phone and making a 
  
    movie
  
   that he can watch to f@ck into his fist with whenever Izuku wasn’t there. But too caught up in the moment, the thought slips his mind when Izuku tells him. 

  “Kacchan,” He says breathlessly, “F@ck me now before I c@m.”

  “Already?” Katsuki teases him, knowing full well that he was just as desparate as Izuku to get inside of the other, “F@ck, I want to be inside of you too, but have a little patience.”

  “No,” Izuku shook his head, crying, begging Katsuki, “Now. I need you now.”

  Katsuki tugs his pants down, already too tight against his body, and frees his leaking c@ck from his boxers. The thick member was pulsing, desperately wanting to f@ck into the beautiful ass displayed in front of him. His veins were more prominent than ever, c@ck searching for something to suck it in. He was leaking prec@m at the top, and he smeared it on some freckles that dotted Izuku’s ass. The moonlight from outside made a little sheen there, and he thinks he likes that very much so. 

  Positioning his swollen, mushroom tip at Izuku’s pulsing and wet entrance, Katsuki wonders how he was going to keep himself from coming quick. Pushing in slowly, Katsuki bends over to whisper reassuring and comforting words in Izuku’s ear, all while his fingers play around with Izuku’s perky nipples, enjoying how it feels in his rough fingers. Izuku breathes heavily, and keeps his eyes close the entire time Katsuki pushes in, listening to the whispers of 
  
    good boy
  
   and other praises in his ear. 

  “You’re taking me in so well,” Katsuki kisses his neck, and moves his body up, “You should see yourself right now. So f@ck@ng sexy.”

  “Kacchan,” Izuku breathes out heavily, “Please.”

  The blonde in question bottoms out inside of Izuku, and throws his head back, closing his eyes for a second to fully enjoy this sensation of having Izuku’s walls wrap around him. So warm, wet, and tight. 
  
    F@ck
  
  . He could drown in this. 

  Katsuki starts out slow, making sure to make good on his promise to make love to the boy. And he was gentle at first, ensuring that Izuku wouldn’t feel pain from the stretch of his fat c@ck nestled in such a tight hole. And 
  
    damn
  
  , did Izuku stretch well. Katsuki wanted to coo at how pretty it looked when Izuku’s hole was trying so hard to accommodate for how long and thick his c@ck was. 

  But the slowness only lasted so long, before Izuku begged him to go faster. And like the merciful god he was, Katsuki couldn’t help but obliged. And so, he began to f@ck his length into Izuku with free reign. Katsuki made sure to stretch and f@ck him good, so that Izuku will still remember the shape of his c@ck inside of his body even after he pulls out. The sound of his b@lls slapping against Izuku’s skin as he bottoms out with every thrust fill the room, and he makes Izuku scream in pleasure. He couldn’t stop his own groans if he wanted to. 

  Pulling out, Katsuki moves Izuku further into the bed and flips him over so that they could go into missionary. This way, Katsuki could see that pretty face that he loved so much. Izuku spreads his legs for him, and Katsuki pushes his cock back in, and Izuku sucks him in so well. And there, Katsuki moves back inside, f@ck@ng the other hard and fast, burying his lips into the crook of Izuku’s neck, placing kisses near his ear and on his shoulders. It feels a bit like heaven, that if Katsuki died, he probably wouldn’t be able to tell the difference. The heat and passion is there, and they go at it like g@dd@mn animals. 

  Izuku pants, and grabs onto the blonde’s shoulder blades as Katsuki fills him up so well. 

  “I’m so f@ck@ng in love with you,” Katsuki whispers into his neck as he nears his climax, and he holds onto Izuku’s leg, hiking it up so he could push in deeper, “There’s no one else for me on this damned earth 
  
    but 
  
  you.”

  Izuku cries from both pleasure and immense happiness as he nears his own @rg@sm, “Katsuki, I-”

  Katsuki continues to abuse his prostate, which cuts off his words, but the blonde already knew. 

  “F@ck, f@ck, f@ck,” Izuku cries as he gets closer. 

  Katsuki chuckles as he rams even harder, “Don’t dirty your mouth so much. Maybe I should clean it out. Tell me Deku,” Katsuki asks him, nipping at his ear, “Want something to wash it out with?”

  Izuku shakes his head, eyes closed with tears coming out the side, and 
  
    yes, yes, 
  
  he wants that, “Yes, yes,” He responds enthusiastically. He wants it. He wants Katsuki’s c@m in his mouth. He loves it. 

  But Katsuki lets him c@m first, spraying ribbons of cum over both of their stomachs and some of the bed sheets, probably making it a b@tch to clean up later. But f@ck it, who cares. Izuku’s body shakes below him as he rides out the @rg@sm, and when Katsuki gets right about there, he pulls out. And sits back, watching as Izuku clamor up, cum still stained on his body, and get in front of Katsuki, pretty hands grabbing the base of his cock while Katsuki guides his head towards the tip. And from the slight contact of Izuku’s wet tongue, Katsuki releases his load into his mouth. 

  And Izuku takes it all. The hot liquid slips down his throat, and there’s so f@ck@ng much of it that it dribbles off the side of his mouth, but he loves it. And it’s such a pretty little sight too, Katsuki thinks. Izuku swallows all that he can, and licks his lips afterwards, staring up at Katsuki with a dazed look. 

  And the blonde leans in to kiss him, with one hand on the back of his neck and the other cradling Izuku’s waist. The green-eyed boy melts into the hold, and he sighs into the kiss, feeling blissed out from it all. 

  After Katsuki cleans him up and they get rid of the sheets, Izuku shyly goes downstairs to ask for new ones, and they replace it on the mattress. Izuku dives in first into the mattress, and rolls around in it before Katsuki joins him. The curtains were open, and the moonlight filtered into the room. Katsuki laid shirtless with his boxers on, and laid on his arm, while Izuku traced circles into the other’s skin with his head on Katsuki’s firm chest. And there they laid and just talked for a while longer. 

  Izuku didn’t know when his eyes got heavy, but he remembered the last thing he heard being the sound of the crickets chirping outside and Katsuki telling him more about what happened at the tournament before Izuku arrived before his mind drifted off to sleep. 

  When Katsuki realizes that his lover had fallen asleep, he takes a moment to absorb the picture. Here he was, laying back shirtless after amazing sex, with the person he loves who had then fallen asleep on his chest. And he wonders if life could get any sweeter. And it feels even more sweet when contrasted to the bitterness between them just days prior. Izuku pouts when he slept, bottom lip slightly jutted out and blowing out air while he’s at it. And his long lashes rested gently against his skin. Katsuki could cradle the boy in his body like this forever. 

  When he didn’t see Izuku up in the stands the day of the tournament, the first thing Katsuki did was go to the ticketing lady and ask to check the roster and see if a Midoriya Izuku was there at the tournament. And when she had said no, Katsuki went through several stages of emotion within an hour. The first was undeserved anger. He knew that Izuku was not obligated to be there by any means, but his first irrational response was to be angry and hurt that the boy didn’t show up after all, even if he knew he was not entitled to Izuku’s presence. The second was sadness. Because of course Izuku didn’t f@ck@ng come. It was a four hour drive to see a guy who has done nothing but convince the other that he didn’t love him. And the thought that the rest of his tournaments and life would be like this: Izuku-less, brought him more pain than he’d ever care to admit. The third was a sudden fit of nervousness, because he was already nervous about the tournament regardless to begin with. And now to add onto it, the person who’s always been there to watch him, cheer him on, and convince him that he was someone worth watching even if he didn’t win, wasn’t there. And Katsuki suddenly didn’t know how well he would do. 

  And so, when Midoriya Izuku, like a damn fool, showed up against the railing, whistling the George Benson song into the megaphone, Katsuki moved before he could even begin to think. There was no length he wouldn’t go to at this point for the other, and he was going to spend every day proving it to Izuku. 

  Katsuki found it difficult to sleep tonight, still shocked by the happiness he felt that he had done it. The feat that he never in a million years thought he’d be able to accomplish. He was able to sweep someone off of their feet. Even if it took a sh@t ton of tries, he had f@ck@ng done it. And now, he was blessed with the opportunity to wake up to this beautiful face, knowing that Izuku loved him and did cheesy sh@t like plan a picnic out in a salt flat for him, and whatnot. The adrenaline of it all hadn’t worn off, and even after two or three hours of Izuku haven fallen asleep, he still finds himself wide awake. 

  Glancing at the piano that sat up near the window, Katsuki wonders if he remembered anything. He took drum lessons when he was young, and could retain that pretty well. But after he quit the drums, the piano and guitar enticed him. After all, piano and guitar were major instruments used in a lot of his favorite 80s tracks. And so he spent a couple of months trying out the guitar, did a half decent job, and then got bored. And moved onto the piano. That, he did for about a year, and enjoyed it well enough, but ultimately, pole vault became his entire life by the time he started to wane out of piano. 

  Careful not to wake the other, Katsuki slides a pillow under Izuku’s head, and gently pries himself out of bed. Stretching his back upon standing up, the adonis-like man walks over to the piano. The floorboards creaked beneath his feet, considering this was a rather old bed and breakfast, and he made his way across the bedroom and over to the piano, whose keys were half hit by the moonlight and half-covered by darkness. A petal of the orchid had fallen onto the keys, and Katsuki brushed it off. 

  He pulls out the seat and stares up at the sheet music book set up on the piano. He looked over to Izuku who was sleeping, and plays a note with not a lot of pressure. The boy didn’t budge. He plays it again with a bit more pressure. Still no budge. And so, Katsuki assumes it was safe to say the boy was rather deep in sleep. 

  The piano was slightly out of tune, but he didn’t care to go tune it. Looking up at the sheet music, Katsuki could read some of it, but he knew he wouldn’t be able to do it well enough to read while playing. If he thinks hard enough, his muscle memory could pull out a couple of songs he knew how to play when he was little. 

  And so he tests it with a couple of notes, to get his fingers used to it again. And Katsuki, in the moonlight, plays for a while. Not super well, but not super terribly either. It was mostly him messing around, trying to find ways to pass the time until he got tired, but it was enjoyable enough. The blonde hadn’t checked his phone in about a day, knowing that it has been bombarded. Not only is the hottest topic in the town right now, but the entire pole vault community. If it wasn’t about him winning the tournament being a fresh into Nationals, then it was about him acting like a crazed maniac for Midoriya Izuku in front of over 4000 people. He knew that the moment he turned on his phone, he wasn’t going to see the end of it. Katsuki was not too excited about all of that. The only people he bothered contacting were his parents, just so they knew his whereabouts, and Coach Shugo just 
  
    one
  
   time to ensure that his star athlete and prize winner didn’t f@ck@ng die. 

  Katsuki was interrupted from his thoughts by the sounds of rustling, and he turns to his left to see Izuku up on the bed with the blankets wrapped around his head and body. F@ck@ng adorable, Katsuki thought to himself, before he felt a little guilty. 

  “Did I wake you up?” Katsuki asked. 

  Izuku shuffled a little bit before trying to excuse it, “The piano jolted me a little, but it’s no problem! I had a good nap.”

  Katsuki turns back and pushes his seat out to get up, “You should go back to slee-”

  “No!” Izuku says very suddenly, causing Katsuki to pause, and the boy asks shyly, “I want you to keep playing.”

  Looking at Izuku for a moment, Katsuki finally gave in and sat back down, pulling the seat back in and shrugged, “I ain’t very good.”

  “Kacchan? Not very good at something? No way,” Izuku waved off jokingly.

  Katsuki rolled his eyes, “You only think that because you’re obsessed with me, nerd. Don’t think I’ve forgotten your shrine.”

  “I’m not obsessed with you,” Izuku throws a pillow at the blonde and fakes anger. 

  Katsuki just chuckles, “I didn’t say I minded.”

  “I’m 
  
    still
  
   not ob-” Izuku goes to defend himself.

  “I know, I know,” Katsuki says before cracking his knuckles, “I’ll just play what I can remember.” 

  And so Katsuki plays the piano for him. Again, not great, and not terribly. Nevertheless, it makes Izuku happy. And he could watch and listen to this forever. Even when Katsuki messes up a note, it’s more endearing than anything, until Katsuki curses out the piano at least. And for a while, they just do that. Sit and play piano in the moonlight. If there was a sound problem, then at least they were in the room furthest from everyone else, although it didn’t look like many other people were staying at the bed and breakfast. 

  After about thirty minutes of this, Katsuki ran out of songs to play, and just sits there, tilting his head up to the sky and observing the popcorn ceiling while wondering if he’ll ever feel tired enough to fall asleep tonight. Or if his happiness over being with Izuku finally was enough to keep him awake forever. 

  And in that silence, Izuku speaks up, “This reminds me of a song.”

  Katsuki turns his head, and looked over to the boy bundled in sheets adorably, and asks, “Ya know how to play it?”

  Izuku shakes his head, “Absolutely not, but it’s pretty. I think you’d like it.”

  The blonde hums in response, before asking, “What is it.”

  Reaching over the nightstand to grab his phone, Izuku pulls up his playlist and scrolls until he finds the song. 

  “Piano In The Dark by Brenda Russell,” Izuku says and he begins to play it. The romantic melody begins to fill the air. 

  “Fitting,” Katsuki comments, “That one came out with her album in ‘88, right?” 

  Izuku nodded, “Yeah, it was called Get Here. It’s one of my mom’s favorites actually.”

  Katsuki snorts, “Mine f@ck@ng hates 80’s music.”

  “No way,” Izuku laughs, “Living in Ise, she still hates it?”

  “Living in Ise is 
  
    why
  
   the hag hates it,” Katsuki snorts and then stops to listen to the song. 

  “It has a very romantic intro, doesn’t it?” Izuku asks, “I want to play it on the piano.”

  Brenda Russell’s voice begins to sing, and she’s got quite the beautiful voice. Katsuki admits that. And Izuku was right. He did like the song so far. 

  And so as it plays, Katsuki waves the other over, “Come try it then, nerd.”

  Izuku bundles further into the blanket, “I don’t know how.”

  “And?” Katsuki raised a brow, “I’ll show you the basic melody. You can generally feel around and get it right.”

  
    I turn around in the still of the room
  

  
    Knowing this is when I'm gonna make my move
  

  
    Can't wait any longer
  

  
    And I'm feeling stronger, but oh
  

  Izuku laughs and shakes his head again, but Katsuki continues to urge him as the song continues to play. And it’s a happy moment right then. Who knew what time it was, and who cares. All Katsuki wanted was for Izuku to come over here with him and they can listen to the song and play sh@tty piano together until he knocks out. 

  “Fine, I’m coming,” Izuku finally gives in with a dumb smile. 

  
    Just as I walk to the door
  

  
    I can feel your emotion
  

  
    It's pulling me back
  

  
    Back to love you
  

  It’s just a pretty song is what it is, and the melody just feels a bit romantic. Izuku loves it a lot because his mom used to play it a lot. 

  He gathers his blanket, and drags it across the floor as he climbs out of bed and headed towards Katsuki, who sat there on the piano waiting for him. He brought his phone along, with the music trailing him. 

  “The f@ck does this song even mean,” Katsuki asked once Izuku sat done, still huddled the white blanket that trailed across the floor and almost glowed in the bright moonlight. 

  Izuku hums, “It’s about a woman who is slowly falling out of love with the person she’s with,” Izuku says, “And she sometimes finds herself wishing she was somewhere else, but when he plays the piano for her,” Izuku thinks, “She remembers all over again why she loved him.”

  
    I know, caught up in the middle
  

  
    I cry just a little
  

  
    When I think of letting go
  

  Katsuki considers this and kisses Izuku’s exposed shoulders, “That’s damn depressing.”

  Izuku laughs a little and nods, “A little.”

  And then Izuku stretches, all while asking Katsuki a question shrouded in nonchalance, but the both of them knew there was a slight insecurity inside of both of them about the subject at hand, “You think that’ll be me and you one day?”

  
    Oh no, gave up on the riddle
  

  
    I cry just a little
  

  
    When he plays piano in the dark
  

  Izuku thinks about it. And laughs. How could a love top this? How could he ever fall in love harder than this? Sure, he was only 18. Fresh out of high school. And yet, he couldn’t be more sure that Katsuki was where his home was. It was all on Katsuki.

  The blonde paces a kiss on his forehead then, and responds quite simply, “Ya forget the sh@t I told you yesterday already? I already told you. I’m not falling out of love with you, nerd.” And Katsuki didn’t know how he was so sure of this, he just was. 

  And the topic drops off after that in exchange for Izuku messing around with the piano keys at the same time the song is playing on his phone, making a confused mess of notes and melodies. And yet despite all that, it was fun and beautiful in a way: the mess they were making. The sheets were dragged across the ground. The pillows were thrown across the floor. And there under the moonlight, the two of them just played piano. 

  “Not that one, you idiot,” Katsuki scolded him at some point.

  “You literally pressed that note five seconds ago!” Izuku complained at the unfairness of it all.

  Katsuki thinks about it, “Oh did I.”

  “Yes!” Izuku harks, “Kacchan, you’re ridiculous.”

  “Maybe,” Katsuki sneers and then looks at Izuku adoringly, “But you still love me.”

  This time, when Katsuki says it, it doesn’t hurt. And Izuku has the confidence to say, “I do.” Only to follow up with a, “But not when you’re being like this.”

  “Oh fuck off,” Katsuki feigns offense. 

  “No, you fuck off,” Izuku fights back playfully, before they go back to trying to figure the song out. It probably replayed about three times, as they listened to it again and again trying to figure out the notes together. 

  And after a while of trying, Izuku rests his head on Katsuki’s shoulders, feeling a bit tired as the hours catch up on him. He had taken a nap before, but a couple hours of sleep wasn’t really enough to sustain him. And finally, Katsuki was beginning to feel a bit of that tiredness as well, for the blonde found himself pretty quiet, a sign that he was feeling a little exhausted. And so, Izuku’s hands slip from the piano keys down to his lap as his head just rests there on his lover’s shoulder. 

  Just before he plans to move, Katsuki has one last thought in his head, and he asks Izuku, “You know the first line to my paper.”

  Izuku hums, eyes closed, blanket wrapped around him, “Hm.”

  Katsuki then asks, “What was yours.”

  “Mine?” Izuku asks, simmering through his thoughts to remember what it was before his head pinpoints it.

  The blonde waits for an answer, only curious because he didn’t really have a clue about how Izuku’s paper could have went, considering he struggled with his own, and was grateful he even got an A on it, considering the language he used here and there in the paper. 

  Izuku lets the words marinate on his tongue for a second, never having said it out loud before. 

  “Remember when I told you what my favorite quote was?” Izuku asks him. 

  Katsuki thinks, and he does remember, so he asks, “Was it just that?”

  Izuku shakes his head, still resting on Katsuki’s shoulders, “Not exactly.”

  So the blonde had to ask, “So what was it.”

  Izuku pauses for a bit, before he opens his eyes just slightly to look at the pretty orchid petal that just fell on top of the piano. It was a nice little addition, and Izuku couldn’t help but remember that orchids were a symbol of love and beauty. In the dark, they sit in a bit more silence. And for a moment, Katsuki thought that the smaller might have fallen asleep. But then, after a couple more beats of quietness where the sound of crickets chirping fill the night air, he hears Izuku speak in a soft voice and he listens intently. 
 
  “If love is friendship set on fire,” Izuku begins, taking a pause, “Then let me burn to ashes.”

  
  
  
  

  
  
  
  
  
  
  

  A green eyed beauty stands at the crossroads of a barber shop and a cigarette store on a summer evening around 6:00 PM, when the sun was climbing it’s way across the sky towards the horizon. It was a humid day, as it has been for the past week or so, with temperatures so high that most people in the small town of Ise kept themselves cooped up inside waiting for the midday heat to pass before venturing out during the evening or night. Fans kept themselves on throughout the day and night, and it often got so quiet in the afternoon, that laying on the couch, a person might even hear the TV playing classic 80s reruns coming from their neighbor’s window. There weren’t that many clouds out this day, and the boy with the green eyes and green hair wondered where they went. Maybe they took a break, went back to where they came from. 

  He would too if he had to stay up there for so long and so close to the sun. The boy then leans against the traffic light that’s been out of order for about a decade now, and waits. 

  A car passes. And after it does, jogging along the corner comes a boy with blonde hair and fierce red eyes, wearing a simply tank with a pair of athletic shorts, just having come out of summer practice. This boy stood tall, had to have been over 6 feet 4 inches or around that height, with a big athletic build. And upon seeing the beauty waiting at the crosswalk, breaks off into a run and goes over to spin the other around, as if he hasn’t seen the boy in years even when it’s been a day at most. 

  Any stranger would walk by and oggle for a little bit at the beauty of young love. Anyone could see it in their eyes. Somewhere within those smiles and looks of adoration, any given person could guess that there was a story behind those two. The taller boy leans down to kiss the pretty one with the green hair, who leans into it like it’s the most natural thing in the world. 

  From a small pill speaker that stayed in the pocket of the blonde one, a song begins to play. 

  Dreams, by Fleetwood Mac. Like the title, it was a dreamy song. It reminded the two of them of childhood nostalgia, playing by the creeks, and sweet memories of growing up in Ise. To be fair, they were still growing up, not even in college yet technically, with lots to grow and lots to learn. But it was still sweet to think about as they listened to the song. 

  And so, with the song in the background, the two boys do the thing they always do. Something stupid that would make the adults in Ise mad, more likely than not. On the outskirts of the small 80s themed town, they run after one another through tall grass, past some abandoned buildings and crumbling establishments, a little past the woods where the tall one’s grandparents used to play in as a boy before he grew up and moved out onto the farm. And a little past the woods was an abandoned bridge, full of rust and graffiti on the sides. 

  It wasn’t a driving bridge or a pedestrian bridge though. It was a railroad bridge, designed for trains to go over. And so, the bridge only had the support structure and beams, and a broken railroad track running in the middle of it. One step and someone would fall in between the tracks and into the river. 

  The bridge’s structure was all out of wack, having been abandoned alongside the railroad for decades now,  and the gentle river that flowed beneath it was clear and reflected the sun’s rays prettily. It wasn’t deep enough to jump into from the height of the bridge, but it was enough to admire. And so the boys sat on the edge of the bridge, legs dangling off of the edge of the beams that they had riskily climbed onto. The blonde boy sipped from a bottle of white gatorade, oddly flavored cherry for some reason, while the greenette drinks from a bottle of pop. It fizzles down his throat in a satisfying manner, and they talk and joke around for a while. 

  And once they finish their drinks, the two continued onto the railroad track, walking alongside it and moving apart the tall grass. Bugs were everywhere, especially mosquitos in this pesky summer weather, but the two paid it no mind. And when they found abandoned boxcars with graffiti and what not all over the sides, the first thing the idiot bastards thought to do was explore the damn thing, no mind if a squatter was in one of them. Hopping from boxcar to boxcar, freight to freight, the two played a small game of tag where the rule was to stay on the boxcar and not get down onto the railroad track. 

  And once that got a bit tiring, the green haired beauty plops down on top of a boxcar, and leans back on his strong arms, watching the sun go down over Ise. Moments later, the blonde joins in, sitting right behind the other, so that now, the greenette can lean back into the taller’s chest as they watch together. 

  It’s been about a month since the night on the cliff of wishes, and the adjustments were still coming, but this was the happiest they’ve ever been. And each of them knew it. A lot of conversations had to be made, uncomfortable ones sure. But that was fine. Looks were constantly thrown at them when they walked around. Some of guilt, at the accusations made about one or the other in the past. Some of awe. Some of jealousy. It wasn’t hard to say they were the talk of town. The couple that bloomed out of some project that an old psychology decided to give out. It was a bit of phenomenon. It was a pairing that the small old city was coming to accept as a beautiful one. Especially when the two were seen everywhere. At diners, parks, beaches, here and there. Their old friends, and even people they used to consider enemies or rivals, hung out with them, and saw a clear change in their demeanors. Felt happier. Lighter. Even if there were still problems to work on, it all just felt 
  
    happier
  
  . 

  The future was unknown, and that was okay. For now, they focused on the present. 

  Finally, after a humid day with raging temperatures, the two begin to feel a bit of breeze once the sun begins to set a little more. It was a classic Ise sunset, with its stunning orange and pink shades, ribboning across the sky is pretty patterns aimed to mesmerize any beholder. And the two sit there, enjoying it. 

  The green eyed boy closes his eyes, allowing his senses to overtake him. The smell of cherries, burnt sugar, and lilies melded together. A rough hand on his waist, and his head leaning up against a firm chest. The faint breeze brushing against his cheek and moving pieces of his curly hair to the left. He takes it all in. The blonde does the same, listening the the music playing from the pill speaker. Other than that, it’s quiet for a long time as they take in the atmosphere.
 
  When Bakugo Katsuki, the rascal of this quiet beachtown, finally speaks up, it’s a quiet question to his lover, filled with awe and all intent to live in this memory forever.

  “How did we get to end up here,” He speaks, asking as if he was the happiest man in the world. 

  And Midoriya Izuku, the green-eyed sweetheart of Ise, turns to his lover, and stares into those ruby red eyes for a moment, before smiling softly, replying, “I got tired of watching from the sidelines.”
      
  
  

    
      
        
        
          I don't even know what to say, I'm just incredibly in shock that this is all over. And I'm not going to lie, it hurts a lot. That being said, there's still one more thing I will post very soon, and it's an extended Author's Note. In the next chapter, titled The Author's Note, you will find the following:I.  Author’s Note. Because I can't say thank you in this tiny little box. I'm going to need a whole letter to express how grateful I am. II.  Katsuki & Izuku’s analysis papersIII. The outline to FTS. This might be interesting to you guys! It's very long though. IV. A memorialization of all FTS fanworks and fanartsV. A homage to FTStown memory highlights, so that future readers can kind of see the beautiful community that was created.VI. Talks of a potential hard copy. Not many details yet. Just a consideration for those who expressed they wanted one.VII. The sequel outline. I don't plan on writing a sequel. But for a moment there, I thought about it. And even made a very detailed outline. So I wanted to share it with you guys in case you wanted to see what a sequel would look like. VIII. A link to my FTS Prompt Week submissions. Thank you to Ophelia for coming up with the idea and bringing it to life. Now with that, I want to say now that I thank each and every one of you so, so much for everything. This journey has been literally unbelievable, and I can't believe that we're finally here at the end. And this chapter was kinda shit, but it truly was the original ending I had in mind for FTS. So I wanted to stay true to that. Thank you for everything. I can't even say I deserve it, you guys are the absolute best. And we've created a little family in FTS Town, and I never want to let it go. I love you all. And I love you, Bakugo Katsuki and Midoriya Izuku of Ise High. I will miss you more than anything. I hope you grow together and love each other more and more every day, even if we aren't here to watch it. Twt: suffocatingspr1Join us at FTS Town!'
User: Summarize the chapter based on the content provided, ensuring to follow the set format and emphasize key aspects within the specified length.
User: Summarize the chapter based on the content provided, ensuring to follow the set format and emphasize key aspects within the specified length.
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