Work Text:
It starts out on the first weekend of summer, with thick humid air and trees that spin songs like a whole orchestra.
It starts on the edge of a forest, on a beach.
It starts around a fire, with the sounds of hoots and hollers, strumming of a guitar in inexperienced hands, and with beer cans openings meshing with the crackle of the fire.
Well, it started a few hours ago, at least. Jirou’s got a beat up acoustic out, banging out cords from on top of the fallen tree she’s sitting on. Kaminari and Uraraka are singing along with slightly slurred voices.
Katsuki scoffs. He scoffs and, like the hypocrite very much is, wedges himself in closer to Eijirou, perched beside him on another log.
“Enjoying the music?” God, his smile is like the sun and there’s an unspoken laugh in his voice. Katsuki grunts in response, and tugs Eijirou’s blanket around his shoulders. It’s cold after all - that’s his excuse. Hey, the sun went down a few minutes ago and there’s a real strong breeze coming off the ocean. Eijirou has no business looking smug.
The pair turn their attention to the crowd in front of them. It’s the summer of their third year, class now 3-a, and Katsuki thinks back to who he was in his first year. He thinks about his untameable pride and his words that bit like venom. He thinks about Eijirou’s kindness that was a constant, like a hand to hold. He thinks about the hesitance that had once made homes in the eyes of his classmates.
Now, he looks up to De- Izuku. Izuku. He looks up to Izuku sitting across the fire, holding hands with Todoroki and laughing to an unheard joke. They catch eyes for a second, and Izuku smiles back, waving with his free hand. Katsuki finds himself reminiscing a faithful day nearly a year ago.
Him and Izuku had shared an internship spring of their second year at Yuuei, and Katsuki remembers the villain they were up against the day in his mind vaguely. Something about a strength enhancing quirk, because whatever lead up to Katsuki and Izuku nearly passed out against the side of a building as police tidied up the remainder of the job had packed quite the punch. Everything hurt as they lied next to a pile of rubble and struggled to catch their breaths and Izuku says something along the lines of
wow, I can’t believe we did that.
There’s a beat of silence and Katsuki looks over at Izuku’s grimy face and whatever he finds must really hit him because he looks away quickly. Katsuki purses his lips.
“Izuku?” There a small startle next to Katsuki before he gets a response. Probably from the lack of childhood nickname.
“Yeah?” There’s some humour in his voice. It disappears with the next thing he hears.
“I’m sorry. Fuck. About fucking everything.” Katsuki leans his head against a supporting beam and breathes. Izuku is silent. “I’m sorry I was such a dick to you when we were kids. And shit, every time after that, too.” He almost scoffs at himself.
“I’m sorry it took so long for me to fucking get over myself.”
With that, Izuku smiles. Just a ghost of one, really, but he manages to make eye contact. It could just be dust from the settling debris, but Katsuki swear he catches a shimmer in his classmate’s eye.
“Thank you,” he tries out “Katsuki.” Because they’re not kids anymore, and with blood smeared on their skin and deep purple bruises forming, Izuku knows that nothing can erase the years of similar pain he was dealt. But Izuku likes to think he is an optimist, and Katsuki is trying - he has been for a while now.
So they reach a mutual understanding, and later on, when they’re in the same room in the hospital, they share a laugh at old times, because well, they weren’t all bad.
Katsuki is brought back to the present as Eijirou shifts beside him. He manages a nod to Izuku across the fire, and glances over to where half of his graduating class are holding an impromptu dance battle, Iida glances over, gesture of invitation. Katsuki shrugs him off, biting back a quirk of his lips, barely identifiable as a smile.
He takes a sip from the beer bottle in his hand, and pulls a bit more of the blanket from Eijirou.
Jirou switches to a calmer tune, and Katsuki’s danced-out classmates return in clumps around the fire, puffing and laughing. Eijirou shifts, taking the blanket off the pair’s shoulders as he stands. Katsuki shivers despite the humidity and is about to inquire as to what his boyfriend is fucking thinking, passing their blanket over top of a nearly-passed out Ashido and Hagekure, before he turns around and offers Katsuki a hand.
“Want to dance?” There’s that same radiance to him. Katsuki recollects - briefly - a time when he would lock himself away and bare his teeth at anyone who tried to break down his walls. He isolated himself and felt barely anything more than anger and shame. But they changed him. His classmates, his friends, did. Eijirou did. So, instead of slapping his hand away with a sneer, and thinking of nonexistent shame, Katsuki takes it with a borderline-wobbly smile.
“Sure.”
Katsuki leaves his beer in his seat, and is confronted with the realization that he... isn’t the best dancer. Neither is Eijirou. But, Katsuki knows no one will laugh; well, maybe Sero and Kaminari would. But it looks like they’re doing body shots and are quite occupied. Katsuki puts his hands on Eijirou’s hips and they sway a bit.
It’s nice.
“How are you being so quiet tonight?” Eijirou’s tone is like a light joke that leads to a chuckle, and Katsuki places his head on his partner’s shoulder.
“I guess my shitty brain’s thinking a bit too much.” Katsuki feels Eijirou’s chuckle turn into a soft frown, rather than hearing it.
“We can talk about it if you want?” Katsuki declines, at least for now. They move to the guitar’s beat together for a serene few moments before a
slightly
tipsy Yaoyorozu swoops in and presses a kiss to the back of Jirou’s neck and any semblance of rhythm is thrown off with a squawk.
Katsuki and Eijirou sit down shortly after.
Katsuki looks around at his classmates. At his
friends.
And he feels happy. He feels happy, and he lets himself feel it. He looks up at the sky, taking in the patterns of the stars in the sky; he feels the winds on his skin and he hears the crash and susurrus of waves in the distances. He feels the sand between his toes on his bare feet and he feels Eijirou’s breathing beside him.
He’s done thinking.
Katsuki takes a sip from the bottle in his hands.
“Eijirou?” The redhead turns to face Katsuki, an eyebrow haphazardly quirked, eyes wide. “Hmm?”
Katsuki looks him in the eye.
He says “I love you” over the the rim of his beer bottle.
He manages to hold Eijirou’s gaze long enough to see his features soften before Katsuki ducks his head.
Eijirou doesn’t laugh. No, he scoots closer to Katsuki, he takes his hand with a gentle squeeze, and he says it back.
Katsuki looks up. And when they kiss, they both smile into it.
The fire crackles around them, and Kaminari is saying something along the lines of
“get some, Kacchan!”
as Sero laughs. It’s the summer of their third year, and class 3-a’s time together is drawing to a close.
Despite the rising humidity in the air, Katsuki pulls Eijirou closer.