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Katsuki doesn’t know why he came.
This mini mansion, a Todoroki family relic, is all gaudy marble flooring and old school puke pink kitchen. Tucked far back on a densely green chunk of land, it just skirts the ocean and its lacy froths of waves. The place smells like old potpourri and stale motels. Funerals.
Todoroki says he’s got a gay uncle on his mom’s side who used to live here decades ago, but ditched it for Hawaii. Katsuki hates any asshole who decides to move to Hawaii, so he dislikes the house even more than before. Just on principle of the thing.
Every time he steps outside, the wet fist of July clutches him in a sweat-soaked grip. Fucking monsoon season and they’re all playing house right off the roaring beach, just waiting for the end to sweep up half a dozen Pro Heroes in one wave.
He took the weekend off for this? What the hell drove him to make such a shitty decision?
“Stop scowling at the sea, Kacchan.” Deku’s voice is familiar as ever. Doesn’t seem to deepen with age; melodic and clear, lilting with amusement. Makes Katsuki itch between his sweaty, dripping shoulder blades. “You could at least try to enjoy yourself.”
“Didn’t agree to enjoy myself while I’m here.” Katsuki dips his toes into the sand. Watches them bury down into the cool, unsteady earth. Briefly imagines how soothing it would be to lay down and let the beach shift over his body.
“Okaaay.” The single word shivers with a poorly masked laugh. Deku’s bare shoulder touches Katsuki, and the air is so thick that their skin briefly sticks like glue. “I appreciate you coming along, despite your many misgivings. It’s good to see you.”
“Y’already said that a million times.”
Deku has said it exactly seven times since Katsuki arrived late last night. He’s counting, just to be spiteful when Deku leaves again.
If it’s so good to see him, why leave in the first place? Why keep leaving? For all Deku is lauded as a symbol of hope, of stability, he has never been one to sit still. Deku doesn’t put down roots in places, but in people.
They were tangled up in each other once. Years ago. Roots can wither too if you starve them enough. A bone deep drought.
“Surprised you even remembered us,” Katsuki says, because he has never been above guilt.
He watches Deku pick at the ragged hem of his jean cut offs. Stubby nails painted sunflower by Mina just last night as they’d all crammed together on the sagging, beige sectional couch, the television bleeding blue across Deku’s profile and sweet, small ears. He loves me, he loves me not, petal-type fingertips.
“You’re the one who stopped texting back,” Deku says with such ease and freedom that Katsuki is surprised the wind and waves don’t simply float him away. He’s entirely without anchor or remorse. Not the boy who had habitually weighed himself down with regret and hefty expectation, sinking himself and apologizing the whole way down.
“Yeah, well.” Katsuki watches the churning weather writhe dark and riotous across the midday sky, the sun blotted out. A chill rakes across his arms despite the gelatinous heat. “The fuck’s the point of that? We’re busy on opposite ends of the world. You’re the one who chose that, not me.”
Deku doesn’t reply, but Katsuki damn well recognizes the stiffening of his frame; the way Deku seems to silently expand in place, filled with all that fire and hot air. Good. He can stew over that one. Katsuki stopped chasing Deku years ago and he’s not going to act like Deku hadn’t played his part in the separation of both body and soul.
Distance isn’t just the empty space between two people.
Disappointment churns in Katsuki’s stomach when Deku pushes from the sand and simply walks away. Doesn’t even start shit. Fuck.
Shortly after, they gather at the pool, a bright blue mirror that reflects the blackening sky, and everyone pretends it’s not going to rain as Kirishima and Deku man the large, ostentatious grill, and everyone plays volleyball in the pool with a low net slung across the center width.
Mina’s bubblegum thighs are plump and warm around Katsuki’s shoulders as she sits upon them with a perilous wobble and a litany of tequila laughter. On the other side of the pool, Todoroki has Ochako on his own shoulders. Shinsou had sulked until Denki took pity and climbed on, and on Katsuki’s side are Momo and Jirou who remain the most stable out of anyone here. On every level, probably.
Katsuki’s managed to build up a hard buzz in his veins, knocking back whatever drinks have been offered by generous hands and pitying looks. Everyone knows and nobody speaks on it because they’re either too smart to butt in or too scared to be the one to spark the fire and watch the entire weekend burn.
The only person who hasn’t sent Katsuki a sad smile of sympathy or otherwise is Midoriya fucking Izuku, and Katsuki needs to get drunker than he already is to be okay with that.
Shinsou rockets the volleyball to the center of Katsuki’s face and he goes down, Mina’s laughter muffled in the roaring rush around his ears as she joins him in the water with a thunderous splash. They both emerge, sputtering, Katsuki wiping the chemical burn from his eyes while Mina clings to him like a life raft, which is ridiculous because the weight of them both keeps dragging him under every time she gets a slippery hold around his shoulders.
Mina’s laughter and their shared struggle bursts a laugh out of Katsuki before he can cap it, and that’s how they end up lost to giggles in the pool, clinging to each other, going under, resurfacing, and popping back up as they search the shallow end.
“Hey.” Mina giggles in Katsuki’s ear as they finally reach the far stairs of the pool. Katsuki’s just sitting there now, dazed and half-drunk, Mina in his lap as the warm pool laps around their waists. Mina’s lips are close to Katsuki’s ear and she’s dripping all over his face. “Hey. Don’t look now, but Deku looks kinda pissed.”
Of course Mina would be the first to say it out loud.
“What the fuck for,” Katsuki replies darkly. He doesn’t look because it doesn’t matter. Yesterday was the first day they’d laid eyes on each other in the flesh in years. Deku doesn’t have anyone to be mad at but himself.
“Don’t be so spicy about it,” Mina says, but she doesn’t leave, only drops her chin to Katsuki’s shoulder so she can watch his back and whisper directly in his ear like the best teammate and friend he could ever ask for. “You know why.”
Not really. He really doesn’t.
Katsuki’s silence must say something because Mina sighs and squeezes him in a hug that he doesn’t reciprocate or repel.
“We could make out or something,” Mina says. “Eiji wouldn’t care. He’d probably be jealous of me.”
“I’m not straight enough for that.”
“A mouth is a mouth if you close your eyes tight enough.”
Katsuki laughs in earnest at that one. Mina gets off his lap and offers her small hand, which Katsuki takes as he stands. Their bodies rain chlorine trails across the concrete as they circle the pool and duck into the house to dry and dress before lunch is ready.
And maybe Katsuki throws a look over his shoulder as he goes, and if Deku is looking back, that’s between Katsuki and his anchored heart.
When the rain finally comes, it’s warm and heavy like a waterfall. Everyone finds shelter beneath the porch awning, passing barbecued meat and veggie skewers between sticky, sweet and sour fingers. The beer cans sweat in their palms and the drinks never stop coming as they tumble over each other’s tongues to tell stories of old days that were never simple or easy, but always felt fresher when hope seemed to still spring eternal.
Deku’s seat is directly across the wide circle of them, and for now it’s not difficult to look at him. Through the hazy barrier of alcohol and die hard friends, Katsuki can admire the man Deku has become on his twenty-third birthday.
The sleek undercut and the riot of curls stacked on top. The squared-off strength of his jaw paired with his lush, active mouth, ever eager to smile. His big hands and forearms sturdy with corded muscle. His stocky figure held with confidence and the avid way his eyes sparkle as he listens and nods.
He probably has someone now.
The realization sinks Katsuki like a stone. Guts him like a fish and flops his heart out on the deck.
Of course he has someone now. To imagine otherwise would be complete fucking idiocy. London is probably teeming with tall, smarmy assholes ready to scoop Deku up and lavish him with prettily accented words and fancy dates and love notes and whatever the fuck Deku had wanted from Katsuki all that time ago which he hadn’t known how to give.
Katsuki excuses himself with a mumble about the bathroom and abandons lunch. No one notices and that’s good. He didn’t actually come to bring anyone down.
Why the hell did he come?
On the way back from the bathroom break he didn’t need, Katsuki sidetracks into the bedroom he shares with Shinsou. Everyone is sharing because even in this tacky mansion, there’s not enough bedrooms for everyone. At least this room has two twin beds and Katsuki doesn’t have to deal with Shinsou’s spider limbs all around him.
Dazed with drink and throbbing throughout his chest, Katsuki collapses face down on the bed. The fists of rain thundering on the window knock him unconscious.
He abruptly wakes when someone Shinsou-shaped bumps into the nightstand beside the free bed. Groans and rolls onto his back to stare at the rippled watermarks of rain reflected from the window to the ceiling. The room is bathed in aquarium field trip blue, like they’re the ones behind the glass and everyone else as their faces pressed in to awe at the mess of a man Katsuki has become.
“Time’s it,” Katsuki croaks, not bothering to search his pockets for a phone.
“Shit, did I wake you?” Shinsou actually sounds contrite, which is fucked up and worrying. If Shinsou is pitying Katsuki then he really better get his act straight. “It’s like, fuck, like almost five in the morning?”
Katsuki sits up sharply, incredulous as he watches Shinsou strip to underwear and slip beneath the sheets.
“What?” Katsuki knuckles the grit from his eyes and licks his dry lips. “What the fuck. You all only going to bed now?”
“You know how it is.” Shinsou sighs as his head hits the pillow. He slips on a ludicrous silk sleeping mask embroidered with ‘sleeping beauty’ in cursive. “Got caught up and talking and whatever. Celebrating. The sky started to lighten so we figured we might as well get some sleep.”
Katsuki doesn’t even know what to say. He has slept at least twelve hours, if not longer, and his head and heart still feel like carnage at the bottom of the sea.
“You know,” Shinsou says as Katsuki changes into red swim trunks and a white tank top, “I think you should talk to Deku. And by talk, I mean sit down and listen without opening your mouth until he’s finished.”
“Your wisdom is noted and ignored,” Katsuki replies as he slips out of the room and shuts the door behind him. The upper floor is dead silent and for a moment Katsuki simply stands there with his back against the wall, reeling with the disaster he has become simply by existing in the same space as Deku.
“You’re a fucking adult,” Katsuki whispers to himself. Rolls his shoulders and cracks his neck one way and the other. “Pull yourself together.”
With that, he heads downstairs with the intent of cleaning up the house a little as a silent apology for being entirely absent for the second day of their three day holiday.
Right, because they’re all here to celebrate Deku’s birthday. His visit home after more than three years. Everyone is here for Deku, same as Katsuki. Like he had said on the beach, this doesn't mean he has to fully enjoy it, but the adult in Katsuki is reminding him that he is at least better than this level of behavior.
Dreamy, ethereal music interrupts Katsuki’s musings as he descends the stairs and pads across the cool tile corridor toward the kitchen. He stops dead in the entryway, stunned at the sight.
Deku, alone, slowly spinning in the marine morning light of the pink kitchen. Sunflower fingers wrapped around the neck of a bottle of wine, the same deep green sea glass as his eyes. A melancholy summer anthem washing through the room, and Deku like the tide, swaying in and out with his hips, his eyes closed and face unbothered as he bumps into the island and rocks back into free space.
There’s not a word for the way a heart hurts over what could have been and never was. And if there is, it’s not good enough.
Deku opens his eyes, unfocused at first, then sharp and steady as he meets Katsuki’s gaze from across the room. Katsuki’s chest sinks into itself, tight and unforgiving.
“Hey,” Deku says quietly. His voice is hoarse, probably from talking the night away.
“Hi.” Katsuki doesn’t have an excuse for the thickness in his own throat. “Sorry to interrupt.”
Deku’s soft, flushed lips curve as he shrugs. He’s dressed almost identically to Katsuki, his shirt exposing tanned shoulders, all fawn-freckled warmth. Katsuki watches the subtle flex of musculature in Deku’s arms as he places the wine bottle on the counter and presses both palms to the marble top, leaning in a little as he seems to study Katsuki with a careful kind of calm amusement.
“What?” Katsuki folds his arms across his chest on automatic, then drops them when he realizes how much it looks like he’s angling for a fight. For lack of anything better to do with his hands, he pockets them and remains in the entryway, watchful and maybe a little worried. “What’s wrong?”
Deku blinks and his expression shifts, darkens.
“Don’t know if you’ve ever asked me that,” he replies.
Katsuki opens his mouth to argue and finds he can’t remember the last time he did ask how Deku was. If he was okay, what was bothering him–anything. Shit.
“Yeah,” Katsuki says for lack of anything better. “I mean, I guess I’m asking now. If you’re alright or whatever.”
Deku visibly swallows. Licks his lips and glances away, then back. He’s always had a buzzing, busy quality about his energy. It’s much weirder when he’s still and silent like he has been. The nerves are more familiar.
“Is this us having a conversation?” he asks softly.
Katsuki doesn’t want to answer. He doesn’t want to talk about this or them or what they’ve become and how it’s his fault and Deku’s fault and a messy mix of both.
He wants to touch. He wants to feel Deku beneath his palms; revel in the expanse of Deku’s ribs as they embrace, breathing in tandem. Wants to inhale Deku’s familiar skin and sweat scent, kiss the corner of his mouth and swallow his gasp.
“Yeah,” he says instead.
Deku’s lips press tightly together before he sputters a laugh and shakes his head.
“And look at you excelling at it.”
Katsuki tries and fails to bite back a smile as he looks away, unable to meet the warmth in Deku’s gaze just yet.
“Alright, asshole, so you start. I’m listening. I’ll listen.”
Deku’s teeth flash, pale blue in the kitchen lit only by storm light.
“You could at least be with me in the same room when this happens.”
“I’m literally standing in the room.”
That gets a laugh out of Deku for some reason. He bursts into movement and hops up on a counter, the back of his head knocking against the cabinetry. He offers a beckoning hand, scarred up and ugly beautiful in its damage.
“Barely. Come here, Kacchan.”
Katsuki works his jaw and swallows, even as his body aches to obey.
“I’m not a dog. You can’t just call on me.”
“If that worked I’d have tried it a long time ago.”
A pang rings through Katsuki’s ribs, a warning bell. He steps into the room anyway. Carefully rounds the island and sits on it, facing Deku. The space between them isn’t vast, but it is. The distance between two people and all that.
“You never did though,” Katsuki says, staring at Deku’s knees. They’re tan but for the flecks of old and new scarring, white knicks and cracks on perfect skin.
“Did what?”
“Call on me?” Katsuki looks up, meets Deku’s steady stare. “You didn’t ask me to come.”
Deku licks his lips, his gaze dropping. His bare heels kick back against the lower cabinets. Bang bang bang.
“Our lives wouldn’t have allowed for it at the time. Seemed pointless to say it out loud like an idiot.”
“Since when are you afraid of sounding like an idiot.”
“A lot more than you’d imagine.”
“Me too.”
Deku looks up sharply and Katsuki holds his breath, waiting on him. Listening.
“Afraid of sounding like an idiot?” Deku asks quietly. Katsuki shrugs.
“I guess.”
Deku nods a little.
“I get that.”
“Did you. . .” Katsuki doesn’t know how to do this. Has always been shit at this. Would apparently rather stop speaking to Deku altogether than find the words to fill a text or an email or a phone call. He’s a man of action and reaction, show and tell, hands-on demonstrations of what’s going on inside. But maybe Deku isn’t. Not as much as Katsuki is, anyway. Maybe Katsuki needs to make some concessions so they’re not so fucking miserable around each other next time Deku comes home. “If there’s anything you gotta say to me or whatever. I won’t get, like, mad about it.”
Deku’s eyebrows shoot up, his smile instant and amused as he cocks his head.
“Who coached you on this? Shinsou?”
“Shut the fuck up is who. Just say what you wanna.”
“Maybe you should say what you want,” Deku shoots back, his good humor quickly cutting short. “Maybe I’ve just been waiting for you to answer years of unreplied messages. Maybe I’ve just been waiting for you, period.”
“Deku,” Katsuki breathes out, shaken.
“What.”
“I’m sorry.” It doesn’t hurt as much as to say as Katsuki had imagined, but it isn’t easy either. Isn’t easy not to say, I’m sorry but also, or, I’m sorry but don’t forget how you left, or a million other shitty, childish rebuttals.
Because at the end of the day, Deku had kept reaching out and Katsuki had not.
“Sorry for what,” Deku asks, and Katsuki has the feeling this is a loaded question. Like Deku is placing the hot coals and asking Katsuki to walk over them. He’s so much more fire than Katsuki thinks anyone else ever realizes.
“For disappearing.” In every way possible.
Deku’s mouth forms a soft pout, his dark, serious eyebrows bowing as he silently studies Katsuki’s burning face.
“I’m the one who disappeared,” he finally says.
“No.” Katsuki suddenly can’t sit still any longer. The rain is drowning the house outside, a sea barely restrained at the door, and the air is so wet that Katsuki briefly imagines his lungs are flooding and this is the last moment they’ll have together before the room fills to the ceiling.
“No,” he says again, standing and severing the space between them, moving between Deku’s knees, hands on Deku’s thick thighs to make room for Katsuki’s intrusion. Deku’s eyes are wide when they meet Katsuki’s, the green soaking up all the blue in the room, oceans between them. “No, you didn’t fucking disappear. You left, but you didn’t leave me. It wasn’t like that. I just took it like that. Took it like that ‘cause I–I dunno. It was almost easier than making it work from that far away. I don’t–I’m still figuring this shit out myself.”
“Hey,” Deku soothes, his voice a balm, his big hands cupping Katsuki’s face as he dips his face to meet Katsuki’s close up, their foreheads touching. “Hey, it’s okay. It’s okay, handsome, I know, I know.”
“You don’t.” Katsuki inhales wetly, releasing a shuddering breath as Deku’s coddles him like they’re sixteen again and saving each other from monsters that are anything but physical. “How can you know–”
“Because I know you, Bakugou Katsuki.” Deku turns his head, his mouth at Katsuki’s ear, voice fervent, his cheek fevered when it presses to Katsuki’s. “I know you and I forgive you. I was always waiting to forgive you. You just had to come to me first. Not physically, but in the way that really matters.”
“Fuck,” is all Katsuki can manage before he’s lost in Deku’s embrace. Face to Deku’s chest, heartbeat cradling him, thighs around Katsuki’s waist. No sense of time filters through the protection of Deku’s body, but eventually he feels Deku sigh into Katsuki’s hair. Kisses the top of his head.
“I need sleep,” Deku murmurs. “Come to bed with me? I know you can’t be tired, but–”
“Yeah, okay.” Katsuki may not sleep, but he’s not going to turn down the opportunity to hold Deku again. His hands slide from Deku’s bare thighs up to his waist, squeezing lightly. “Bed.”
Deku slips from the counter and suddenly they’re body to body, and it’s electric. Sticky with emotion, panting from the exertion of simply standing in each other’s presence. Deku’s cheeks are dark and his eyes bright, shiny and intent on Katsuki’s face. A beat, then two, pulses between them, adrenaline high and running hot.
“Will you look at that,” Deku rasps. “I’m suddenly not very tired at all.”
“Wait.” Katsuki licks his lips and Deku leans in, up to his toes, his bodyweight easing into Katsuki's, their noses brushing as Katsuki barely manages to speak. “D’you–you, uh, got someone? Back there. Because I don’t wanna–”
“You’re my someone, you ridiculous man,” Deku whispers harshly before he takes Katsuki’s mouth with his own, wet and wanting, willing to lay waste to Katsuki with a simple harried kiss.
A rush of relief surges through him, and in its wake a roar of devotion, desire, Deku.
With a ragged groan, Katsuki palms up Deku’s waist, over his chest, and along the side of his throat until he’s gripping Deku’s jaw. Slicks his thumb across Deku’s lower lip, intruding on the kiss as he draws Deku’s mouth open, pad of his thumb digging into the ridge of Deku’s teeth, and licks into his heat, inhaling the gasp waiting for him.
Deku’s tight little body goes pliant for him almost instantly; giving in and giving, giving, giving as Katsuki is wont to conquer, take, and keep. Words fall to the wayside when they’re like this together–always have. They’ve always been better when their bodies talk.
Eventually they tear apart with equal whines of loss, but Deku only wipes at his swollen mouth with the back of his hand and grips Katsuki by the wrist before leading him through the kitchen and up the stairs.
They fall into each other atop sheets that smell like sun and sand and Deku’s shampoo. Neither of them brought anything to take this too far—apparently neither of them expected things to end and begin the way they have. But they touch and lavish and work each other’s mouths open, breathe hot and humid against each other’s skin, rake fingernails over tender spots and slick tongues into dark, secret heat until they’re both sticky and spent.
“Have something for you,” Deku mumbles into the pillow, his face still half-buried. A stark white sheet is rumpled over his thighs, his ass exposed and red with Katsuki’s nail marks.
“Think you already gave me something,” Katsuki says, running a reverent hand down the curve of Deku’s spine and giving his ass a playful squeeze.
“You’re hilarious. Check your table, the envelope there.”
Sure enough, Katsuki frowns at a long white letter envelope simply printed with his name. How long has Deku had this? When had he intended on giving it to him? What is it?
“You’re allowed to open it,” Deku says, voice thick and drowsy, his one exposed eye unopened. “S’for you, obviously. Some journal entries I wanted to give to you from my birthdays. Not sure why I wanted you to read them now. To make you feel guilty or feel better. Maybe both. Guess I’m just as shitty as you sometimes.”
“Human,” Katsuki says, resting a palm on the sweaty center of Deku’s back. “Just human. You don’t gotta be nice all the fuckin’ time. ‘Specially not to me.”
Deku huffs a laugh and inhales deeply as if he’s going to reply. But the breath holds, hovers, and releases so slowly that Katsuki realizes he’s just dropped off to sleep.
Sitting back against the headboard, his hip and length of leg pressed securely against Deku’s body for comfort, Katsuki opens the envelope. Three sheets are folded together, none of them at a glance filled with very much writing, but all of them in Deku’s familiar tiny, squared-off sharp script.
Kacchan!
I turned twenty without you. It’s a weird feeling. If you count our childhood, and I do, you’ve spent more birthdays with me than apart. Just middle school getting in the way!
You sent me a birthday text, which I know even now pains you. To be nice like that or whatever. To recognize me.
Don’t worry, I think it’s funny! I think it might be a compliment. You’ve always been scared of things that matter most to you.
I think you love me and that’s why you can’t say it. Not even on my birthday. Not even after I said it at the airport.
I think that’s very adult of me, right? Very ‘twenty’ of me, right?
Where do you think we’ll be another twenty years from now?
I hope it’s with you.
Love,
Deku
K,
Twenty-one doesn’t feel any different. I thought I’d wake up wiser. Smarter. Stronger.
I know we haven’t talked in a while. Sometimes I just want to send you this entire journal, but I don’t think it would be fair. There’s too much baggage in here that doesn’t belong to you and there’s too many truths to outright trust you with.
That feels shitty to say. To write. To think.
That I can’t trust you with some things.
But I don’t think I can trust you with my heart. Not right now. Not while it’s still learning itself, I guess. And while you’re still learning you.
I think it has taken all this time apart to realize that we’ve never known how to exist individually without each other, and now is the best time as any to do it. And I feel like I can’t tell you that out loud because it’ll scare you in the same way love scares you. With its truth and importance.
I keep up with everything you’re doing over there. I hope you keep up with me, even if you won’t talk to me.
I hope we still have a twenty years from now.
For what it’s worth, I do love you.
Hey,
I feel like I haven’t written here in forever.
I turned twenty-two last month. I don’t know why I expected you to text or call. I really am the symbol of hope, huh? Like in the pathetic way.
I don’t even know if your number is still your number. I hope you got the voicemail I sent on your birthday. I hope you had fun and didn’t take on a shift. My friends here wouldn’t let me work on the day, which was really sweet of them.
I know I’m going to miss them when I return to Japan, but I also know I’m never going to miss them like I miss you.
Do you miss me? Ever? At all?
Do you remember how we fucked? How we loved? How you wouldn’t say it out loud even when I left?
I wasn’t testing you. I know you think this is a test. It’s not. I didn’t leave you with the thought that we’d end. Maybe I didn’t think about that part at all. Symbol of hope and all.
Stupid. I’m so stupid.
Are you all grown up now? Am I?
Can a person still be in love with a person they never speak to?
Let me know.
Katsuki reads the letters several times over, then again and again. By the time the house begins to stir and corridor doors open and close, the sounds of sleepy murmurs muffled outside the room, Katsuki has them memorized. How can he not?
There’s so much here. So little said, but in true Deku fashion, so much intended. So much heart, while Katsuki was across the world, keeping his own guarded tight.
With the letters clutched to his chest, Katsuki flops back to the bed and shuts his eyes, breathing low and slow. Tries to match his exhale with Deku’s.
Then he gets up, gets dressed, and leaves the bedroom, firmly shutting the door behind.
Ochako steps from the bathroom in an oversized tee and panties, a toiletry bag cradled under her arm as she offers Katsuki a sleepy, absent smile and slips back into her room. From downstairs, idle conversation and gentle laughter drifts up.
For a brief, aching moment, Katsuki’s transported back to school, the dorms, the camaraderie and closeness. Not that he isn’t close with these people now, but it's different to inhabit the same space as each other. Nice, actually. Makes Katsuki feel lighter as he heads toward his friends.
The nutty scent of hot, pure sticky rice wafts through the floor, luring Katsuki toward the dining room and the view of wide open patio doors, the covered porch, the mellowed patter of rainfall. Most of the crew is outside, ravenously digging into rice, tamagoyaki, grilled salmon, and a huge communal bowl of tropical fruit salad.
Before anyone sees him, Katsuki veers off to the connected kitchen where Todoroki is alone, standing at the stove and folding more fluffy rolls of bright orange egg. He looks pristine in white linen shorts and matching shirt unbuttoned nearly to the bottom. Effortless motherfucker.
“‘Sup.” Katsuki pulls up next to him and picks up a fresh, steaming tamagoyaki with his hands, the heat it of it barely registering through his fingers as he takes a huge, heavenly bite. “S’good.”
“Thank you.” Todoroki gives Katsuki a quick once over, then back to his pan. “You made up with Midoriya?”
“Says who.”
“Says you wearing his shirt instead of your own.”
Katsuki looks down and realizes he’s been caught out. Not that there’s necessarily anything to catch or be embarrassed about. Todoroki has lived through the best and worst of The Blunder Duo.
“I’m happy for you two,” Todoroki says.
“Yeah, well, who knows how long it’ll stay like this.” Katsuki can’t help but voice his doubt. Not because he doesn’t believe he won’t put in the effort to stay in contact this time around, but because he has been conditioned by life to anticipate the worst case scenario. Todoroki is also used to this.
“I can’t imagine it’ll be harder now than it’s been before.”
Katsuki frowns at Todoroki’s placid profile and tries to process the comment.
“Right,” he says slowly, even though he doesn’t follow.
“Kacchan?” comes Deku’s voice from behind, heavy with sleep.
Katsuki turns, but isn’t prepared for the direct impact of Deku standing there in an old pair of green UA shorts that cling too short to those powerful thighs and a large shirt that skims the shorts enough to make it look like he’s almost wearing nothing for bottoms at all.
“Hey,” Katsuki chokes out. “You should have slept longer.”
“I could hear people on the porch from my room,” Deku says as he wanders over and looks around with bleary eyes, probably in search of coffee. “And you weren’t there, so.”
“Oh.” Katsuki averts his gaze from Deku’s thighs and offers Deku a tight, small smile. He doesn't know how to act. It’s been so long since the last time they did this and he’s unsure what to express when in front of other people. “I’m right here.”
There’s a beat of silence before Deku huffs a laugh and then he’s in Katsuki’s space, arms linking loosely around Katsuki’s waist as Deku sighs happily and pillows his cheek on Katsuki’s chest, between his pecs.
“You really are ridiculous,” Deku murmurs, sounding altogether too fucking pleased about it.
“Oh my god!” Mina exclaims from across the room. Deku doesn’t step away from Katsuki and only squeezes tighter as they shift to look. She looks fresh from a swim in two scraps of acid green that barely constitute a bathing suit. Gaping, she covers her mouth with a loud bark of a laugh. “Oh my god, are we reunited? Are we finally?”
“Who the fuck’s we?” Katsuki snaps, feeling surly and possessive over the moment they were having.
“Bring it in, baby!” And there’s zero time to react before Mina is clinging to them in a wet hug.
“What are we yelling about?” Kirishima asks as he wanders in. His eyes bug out. “Are we hugging? Are we celebrating something?”
“We are back in business, baby!” Mina repeats even as Katsuki tries to weasel out of her grip with no help from Deku, who giggles and clings to his waist.
“There is no we!”
“You’re back together!” Kirishima hollers as he bolts across the room with arms outstretched. “I’m so happy!”
“You’re un-fucking-believable,” Katsuki mutters as he finally goes limp and allows him and Deku to be bear hugged from both sides. When Todoroki silently pulls up behind Katsuki and wraps him up from behind, Katsuki only heaves a sigh and lets it be.
“What’s going on down here?” Shinsou arrives in the kitchen from the stairs, looking worse for wear and drowsy in cat-printed pajama bottoms. “Is someone pregnant? Deku, what did I tell you about getting knocked up by that guy. He’s going to be the most overbearing father ever.”
“Once Deku told us he was home to stay I knew it would all work out,” Kirishima says dreamily, as if Shinsou hasn’t spoken.
Katsuki stills and feels Deku go stiff against his body. Neither of them speak but both of them take a step out of each other’s space, Katsuki’s expression shuttered and Deku’s sullen as he looks to the floor, then to their friends, and finally back to Katsuki.
“Hey, so,” Shinsou chimes in. “Let’s all head back outside. I think the love birds need some time.”
Never has Katsuki been so thankful for Shinsou’s ability to read a room.
Wordlessly, they stare at each other while Shinsou and Todoroki herd the misfits outside. Excited chatter rises and falls outside, punctuated with squeals and little cheers that Katsuki can’t get behind while he takes in the guilt written on Deku’s face.
“What the fuck, Deku,” is all he has in him to say.
“I was going to tell you!” Deku blurts out, his chest staining red up his neck and to his cheeks. “I—I was, obviously! Obviously. I just—first I was mad at you and then I was confused and hopeful, and then you disappeared all day and you missed my announcement altogether and I thought—I thought, well, fuck you or whatever—“
“Oh my god.”
“And then you were just there!” Deku gestures wildly with his hands, between the kitchen and Katsuki and then in the air before the energy seems to gust from his body and he drops his arms to his sides and looks up at Katsuki with plaintive eyes. “And you were so present. More than you’ve ever been. And I kind of just forgot to mention it until like, uh, now.”
When Katsuki doesn’t speak, Deku chews at his bottom lip and takes a step closer.
“I’m sorry?” Deku quietly offers. “I meant to tell you, but I didn’t know how you’d take it. If you’d even be happy about it. And then when I was sure you’d be happy about it, we were kind of naked and—“
“You’re really staying?” Katsuki demands, his hands on Deku’s face, squeezing his cheeks a little too much, making his mouth pout like a fish.
“Planned on it,” Deku manages with comically pursed lips and large eyes.
Katsuki beams. Doesn’t care who sees as he sweeps Deku into a suffocating hug. Deku remains briefly rigid, but exhales and deflates into the embrace, snuffling into Katsuki’s throat with a happy hum.
“I love you,” Katsuki says against Deku’s shoulder. Breathes him in, all that seaside rain and sunflower scent. Just like apologizing, it feels easier to say out loud than he expected.
“Holy shit, really?” Deku whispers, his voice hoarse and raw with emotion as he curls deeper into the safe cove of Katsuki’s arms.
“Yeah. Twenty years from now and then some.”
Deku peers up to meet Katsuki’s stupid fucking grin and matches it even brighter, a ray of sun on the stormiest day.
“And then some.”
Later, there is a cake with twenty-three candles. There’s desperately snatched kisses in the hidden hollows of the house between rounds of drinks. The sea kicks up massive waves and froths white at the mouth, clawing up the beach and toward the house, but no one cares. They drag the sectional couch outside the double doors, safe beneath the awning, and pile up in a smash of bodies, ruining the tacky beige leather forever as they talk through the day and into the night.
The rain never stops, but that also doesn’t stop everyone from climbing from the second story window and onto the porch awning to jump right off, swallowed by the sapphire pool, reveling in the height of summer.
Some nights live eternal. Katsuki’s glad he came.