Katsuki spends his evenings tallying sunsets and his nights counting stars.
He's no good at astronomy, but he can sort of point out Orion's belt, or follow Polaris to the handle of the Big Dipper and the back of Ursa Major. There's something serene and surreal about the stars, about how they're really just unfathomably large exploding balls of gas millions and millions of miles away, always out of grasp.
Sometimes he feels like he can reach out, close his hand around them, and watch them light up like explosives in his palms. Katsuki doesn't believe in an afterlife, but sometimes he thinks he'd like to be a star when he's through with mortality.
It's a big dream for small town boys with lead bones and burning hearts, but Katsuki never listened to others, and there was no point in starting now.
He's tired of the uniform existence of this border town, of routines he can't break, and of mountain ranges that feel suffocatingly small no matter how many times he climbs them.
Katsuki thinks himself a phoenix, a free spirit, a lone soul aching to escape monotony. His mother likens him to a chained dog, viciously snapping at any who dare come too near, ignorantly craving for an outside world that he doesn't know enough about to survive in.
Katsuki adamantly disagrees.
The first time he sees Whole Latte Love Cafe, he's a high school senior fighting tooth and nail to get into a city college — anywhere, so long as it's away from here. The door jingles, drawing his attention, and a round-faced girl rushes out, calling goodbye to someone inside before vanishing into the crowd.
Katsuki's attention rests on the swirling neon sign that stretches across the upper building. If he's being honest, the name pisses him off; what kind of losers would use a pun for the name of their cafe?
He barely pauses to think much of the cafe itself: a tiny, nondescript thing, tucked between a bustling office building and a clothing outlet where teenage girls flock like lambs, giggling about rumors behind their scarves.
The thoughts pass by the time Katsuki arrives home, but they resurface again later that night, when he's in the middle of a paper and halfway through a sentence. Whole Latte Love, his mind unhelpfully supplies, and Katsuki's pen snaps in his hand.
He comes to realize that his daily route takes him past the cafe twice. He walks the same path like clockwork, and he's surprised he never noticed it before. The more he passes the more he pauses, steals glances out of the corner of his eyes, and stares at the bright open sign as he hesitates in his steps.
On a late Monday morning nearly two weeks later, Katsuki comes to a grinding halt in the middle of the sidewalk, pivots sharply on his heel, and marches into the building.
The warm air that caresses his face is a stark and shocking contrast to the nipping autumn breeze outside. Katsuki inwardly startles as the atmosphere — soft and warm and unfamiliar to a boy used to brutish things — nearly takes his feet clean out from under him.
"Hey!" The boy at the counter with too loud a voice, too brightly red-colored hair, and too sharp teeth enthusiastically greets him. "Welcome to Whole Latte Love! I'm Kirishima; what can I get you?"
Katsuki's gaze finds the menu, the options written in swirling handwriting — one of the other baristas, he suspects. There are drink names he doesn't recognize and emotions labeled with times and days of the week.
He opts not to question it. Kirishima is smiling at him expectantly, waiting on his order. Katsuki isn't about intricate orders though; he loosens his scarf and orders a medium black coffee with two shots of espresso.
"Take a seat anywhere," Kirishima says, whirling around to make the drink, "I'll bring it to you!"
Katsuki turns away to find a seat.
The cafe is bigger on the inside, but humbled by walls swirling with photos, painted intricate patterns, and stereotypical coffee signs. Cushioned booths line the windows. Couches and bean bags are tucked in a corner, just out of view of the door, occupied by a cluster of college students who are either napping or studying. The students look exhausted, but they're laughing as one doodles on his friend's sleeping face.
There's an older woman smiling nostalgically as she sits at the counter stool. Kirishima speaks to her as he's making Katsuki's coffee. The whole cafe carries the distinctive, sharp smell of coffee beans, but it mingles into the background among the upbeat music and occasional soft laughter.
Katsuki chooses a corner booth next to the window, drops his bag into the seat beside him, and settles in.
People are going about their lives beyond the glass window. This town is different for Katsuki; it's large enough to have no shortage of residents, a decently large school, and even a college — but everyone follows the same daily routines, content with spending their lives in tedium.
But suddenly Bakugou Katsuki steps out of his habits and into this surreal place, where he doesn't recognize a single person. Somehow, despite time and life and the world moving on around them, everybody in the cafe is smiling.
The soft thump of a drink against the table jerks him back to reality. Kirishima beams, and Katsuki briefly pauses to wonder what species this guy was for him to have teeth like that.
"My mom's a mermaid," Kirishima informs him cheerfully, "in case you're wondering."
Katsuki glowers at him. "What the hell are you talking about?"
"You were staring," Kirishima replies with an ease that tells Katsuki that he's had this conversation multiple times before, "and most new people are curious. I know half-breeds aren't super common around here."
Katsuki scrutinizes him now, eyes narrowed. "Do you act like this with all of your customers?"
"'Course! Most are regulars though. Anyways," he flips his wrist to reveal a tattoo of numbers that look like a clock — the digits switch before Katsuki's eyes and he quickly concludes that it's a charmed tattoo for telling the time, "my shift is about over. Enjoy your coffee!"
Katsuki doesn't watch him go, but he sees that round-faced, brown-haired girl come in. He hears Kirishima leave with an upbeat goodbye! and the soft chiming of the door's bell. Katsuki leaves without so much as a word or a glance back when he finishes his drink, followed by the girl's cheerful "Have a nice day!"
The cold gust of wind that greets him outside saps the cafe's warmth straight from his bones.
There's something about Whole Latte Love — with the name that pisses him off and the too-cheerful baristas and something warm, warm, warm and unfamiliar to the boy who dreams of holding stars in his palms — that draws him back, and he yearns.
Katsuki doesn't allow himself to crave the idea of simple pleasures, the thought of touching another person. He doesn't allow himself to want after material objects and things meaningless in the long run of life. He wants only for what he needs, striving only for his freedom. Despite this, something about the cafe makes him reconsider.
He visits again on a cold Saturday evening, ordering a pastry and a black coffee. Kirishima beams and the round-faced girl from before tips her head curiously at him, but she promptly turns back to her own task at hand.
Monday morning, he sits in the same booth, already beginning to find a sort of routine of coming here — and yet, nothing was ever the same. Kirishima still smiles until his shift is over, and is replaced by the round-faced girl whose name Katsuki still doesn't know.
It's always the same customers, but somehow the cafe changes every day. Sometimes Kirishima still comes to talk to him. Sometimes the round-faced girl addresses the college students, laughing along with them. Oftentimes, the lady at the counter stool is recounting a tale from her childhood, sometimes staring out the window as though her mind still lives in the past. Sometimes the sun reflects differently off of Katsuki's drink, or he orders a different pastry, or three espresso shots instead of two. Sometimes, he sits and contemplates.
He catches himself thinking about going more frequently, and then, because he's stubborn, ends up following through.
It's Tuesday morning when he steps back into the cozy other-world of the cafe, hearing the familiar, soft jingling of the bell overhead. This time, he doesn't see distinctive red hair or a sharp-toothed smile. A different voice greets him, one only vaguely familiar. The round-faced girl smiles warmly from the counter and Katsuki almost considers leaving; he's all for change, but he doesn't want to run the risk of a botched coffee order.
The couches are empty and the music is still playing overhead, upbeat and cheerful, filling in for the lack of life. He eyes the girl with her bob cut of brown hair and bright, wide eyes, who is hardly taller than his shoulders. In the end, he decides he'll just have to hope she makes his order right.
"Oh," she blurts, "you're that guy who always gets black coffee and sits by the window during Kirishima's shifts, right?"
Katsuki glowers, immediately taking back any benefit of the doubt he had given her.
"What's it to 'ya?" He replies sharply.
Her service smile twitches.
"I was just wondering." She informs him, voice level. "What can I get you?"
Katsuki almost wants her to crack. "Black coffee," he says, "two shots of espresso."
Still smiling, she turns away to make the drink. Katsuki eyes the back of her head for a moment, noticing a heart tattoo behind her right ear shimmering from one color to the next. Just as Katsuki decides against questioning it, the bell chimes violently as two teens rush into the cafe; one with obnoxiously pink skin, the other with a black lightning bolt streaking straight through the side of his blond hair.
Both look panicked and out of breath as if they'd run a marathon, and Katsuki moves out of the way just in time to avoid being barreled through. The round-faced girl, seeming accustomed to this, warmly welcomes them.
"Ashido, Kaminari," she greets the pink-skinned woman and the blond man, and when the bell chimes again and an entirely average boy enters much more lethargically, she adds, "and Sero! What brings you all here?"
"I need a frappuccino with two shots of courage," Kaminari groans, draping himself over the counter.
"Same," Ashido whines. "Honestly, just give me anything sweet, large, and with like three shots of motivation and one of energy. I have six assignments due tonight and I haven't started on any of them."
"Sero?" The round-faced girl asks. "What about you?"
The last boy just shrugs dismissively. "I'm here for moral support."
"Alright," she laughs, "let me finish this order and I'll get yours done."
"You're a lifesaver," Kaminari and Ashido breathe in unison.
Katsuki has already meandered back his usual booth, glare fixed on the obnoxiously loud group. By then he's figured out who is who, but he still hasn't caught the barista's name. He recognizes some words from the menu — the lists of emotions marked with times and dates. Now that he thinks about it, they correspond to the round-faced barista's shifts.
He watches the round-faced girl cross the cafe with his coffee. The other three stare owlishly after her, as if it hadn't occurred to them that they weren't the only customers present. The round-faced girl sets the drink down.
"Enjoy your drink," she tells him with that easy smile before turning and marching back to serve the other two.
Katsuki ends up staying later than usual at the cafe that day, only managing to burst into his class right as the bell rings, red-faced with windblown hair and something new and heated burning in his eyes.
Katsuki goes mountain climbing the following day. Every Wednesday like clockwork, he attends his classes, gets home, and promptly changes out of his suffocating uniform into his climbing clothes. He bikes to the mountains that surround the town, and he climbs.
When he was younger, Katsuki pretended that he could scale the mountains and crawl right back down on the other side. He had planned to carry his bike with him and ride far, far away from this town and the shackles he's known all his life. He'd climb over the mountaintops, away from his mother, away from his classmates, away from the people in this town with their identical smiles and small town mentalities.
Katsuki used to think he could touch the sky if he could reach the peak. Now, reaching the top is easy. Up here, he's breathless, low on air, standing in the surreal space between life and death, earth and sky, freedom and bondage. Up here, he could just step up to the edge of the ledge, wonder if he'd sprout some wings — maybe he'll get lucky and learn his mother is secretly a valkyrie. Up here, the air is cold and brittle and he can't feel his fingers, but even through the cold lash of autumn wind, he can raise his voice, scream to the heavens, howl and curse and let out the damn bird that's always beating on his ribs, and the wind sweeps it away each and every time. Up here, he's the closest he can get to what he hungers for, the primal urges that drive him to kick and claw his way to the very top of the mountain and the chain of success.
But he's still here, and lately climbing doesn't feel like it's enough.
No matter how many bruises and blisters he gets, no matter how many sharp exhales through his teeth, no matter how many Wednesdays he takes to the rocks to go up and up and away, it's never far enough.
His heart is somewhere, somewhere out there, but his body is a weight, the epitome of the gravity that exists in all things in the universe, and it chains him to the ground. No matter how thin the air gets, no matter how faded the light becomes or how high he climbs, he feels like Sisyphus, eternally stuck rolling a rock up, up, up, only for it to come back down, down, down.
He goes home and washes the dirt from his face, stares at his rough hands while the shower drums steadily around him, and never feels satisfied.
He goes back to the cafe again on Thursday morning. Sure enough the round-faced barista is there, looking as though she's expecting him. She beams and greets him as brightly as always, turning to make his usual drink as Katsuki takes his seat in the booth.
There's a boy with red-and-white split hair here today, typing away on a laptop in the corner and paying no attention to his surroundings. Occasionally, he glances down at his phone with a little smile.
Katsuki opts not to question how this place stays open with the few customers it has.
Somehow the cafe becomes an immovable part of his life. He falls into sort of habitual days, Monday mornings, Tuesday mornings, Thursday mornings, Saturday evenings, sometimes Friday evenings, sometimes Sunday evenings. The revolving door of colorful people come and go, and Katsuki watches, listens, learns. The employee schedules are consistent — Katsuki always knows who is going to be there when he arrives, and generally it's the round-faced barista.
Silently, he dubs her Round Face.
There comes a point where she starts trying to talk to him. Katsuki usually ignores her; he comes here to refresh himself and his burning desire to achieve his goals and get out, not to have a conversation. He comes here for the thrill that climbing the mountains used to give him, the weightless feeling that makes him think that maybe he has wings after all.
"Good morning!" She greets cheerfully, persistent as always, when he enters on Tuesday.
Katsuki caves. "Yeah, good morning or whatever, Round Face."
She gapes at him.
Katsuki hadn't meant to say that out loud but it's too late to take it back, so he rolls with it. "Well, it's not like you ever told me your name."
"I—" She starts, and then falters abruptly, eyebrows pinching together. "Oh. I guess I didn't."
Katsuki is almost amused. He watches the way she touches the tattoo behind her ear in thought, and he wonders if it's changing colors again.
"Well," she continues, "it's Uraraka Ochako. In my defense, you haven't told any of us your name."
"Bakugou," he replies with an upward tilt of his chin, "Bakugou Katsuki."
"Ka—" She frowns thoughtfully, as if the name is familiar to her, but then shakes her head. "Your usual, then?"
Katsuki is suspicious now. He'd never heard of her, but judging by the reaction she'd failed to hide, she'd certainly heard of him. They might go to the same school, since he doesn't know all the students in his grade, but he doubts it.
He doesn't push it, but he's not going to let it go so soon. Uraraka Ochako. He's going to keep her name in mind.
"Yeah," he replies, "my usual."
It's just the two of them in the cafe right now, which is common for Tuesday mornings. Uraraka leans over the counter, clearly bored after bringing him his drink. She's running her fingers along the top of some labeled bottle..
"What the hell is that?" Katsuki asks. The soft clinking of the bottle against the counter is starting to annoy him.
Uraraka lifts her gaze. "This? They're uh, emotions. Sort of. Liquid emotions?"
"And you make them," Katsuki concludes, then adds when Uraraka opens her mouth to undoubtedly question him, "given the way they correspond with your shifts."
"You—" Uraraka tips her head, "you have our shifts memorized?"
"Regardless, why would you make emotion potions or whatever they are?"
Uraraka straightens, visibly brightening. "I'm an empath, so I can make emotions for people. The add-ins are a pretty big selling point for the cafe now. Maybe it's finals week and they need a dose of calm or motivation, y'know? Maybe they have a speech and they need a shot of bravery. I don't know what people's lives are like, but I want to help where I can. Plus," she continues, sheepishly averting her gaze, "I'm poor, and most of the money from the proceeds go to my family."
He eyes the bottle. "You just give shots of it? What happens if someone wants a whole bottle?"
"I can't sell entire bottles," she replies, tucking it back on the shelf behind her, "you'd probably go psycho if you drank this whole thing."
He thinks about it for a while later, about that little bottle of happiness she'd held in her hand. He doesn't consider Uraraka Ochako a friend, but she's not an indecent human being. He still wants to get out, but this place is okay.
He keeps going to the cafe.
Fridays and Saturdays are the busiest the cafe gets, Katsuki learns, but busy is normally anywhere from six to eight people. Most of them are high school students.
He recognizes Ashido one Saturday evening — Katsuki has since learned that she, a girl named Jirou, and a boy named Tokoyami, are also baristas here — the dark roots of her curly hair starting to show, but her skin is as pink as ever. He recognizes Kaminari, gesturing wildly to another boy with thick silver eyelashes. Kirishima leans over the counter to listen to them. Sero is there too, dozing against the wall in a beanbag. There's a girl with long, bowtied hair sitting up in one of the stools, frog-like and distracted by the boy with glasses who appears to be lecturing Uraraka, arm slicing repeatedly through the air.
The energy is high despite the late hour; everyone is joking around. Suddenly a song comes on over the speakers, and Kirishima and Uraraka go still.
Kaminari's silvery companion grins a sharp-toothed smile not unlike Kirishima's, leaning over Kaminari to punch Kirishima's shoulder. It jars the redhead out of his stupor, for he whirls around and tows Uraraka out from behind the counter, toward the middle of the cafe. Katsuki straightens up and lowers his drink to watch discreetly.
They're dancing. Kirishima twirls Uraraka across the linoleum and she laughs, shoulders shaking and cheeks reddened by her wide smile. The others are cheering or clapping along — the frog girl smiles a faint smile, watching with her head tipped, and in the stool next to her, the boy with the glasses takes a drink of tea in an attempt to hide his smile. The silver-haired boy doesn't seem content sitting back — he snatches a very surprised Kaminari and hauls him out to join them. Ashido laughs until Kirishima pulls her in, too, releasing Uraraka.
Uraraka leans back against the counter, smiling breathlessly, the fluorescents casting soft shadows around her. The light from the sunset bathes the room in oranges and yellows as the others laugh and twirl well through end of the song. At some point, they stop following the tune. Katsuki realizes every last person here is completely content with the way their lives are. They are free.
Katsuki's chest twists.
He stubbornly returns his attention to his essay until Kirishima's hand drops on his shoulder in a farewell as most the cafe inhabitants start filing out.
Uraraka is quiet now, a soft kind of happy, and Katsuki wordlessly watches her wipe down the counters. She looks up, but he doesn't look away.
"You know," says Uraraka, "we close in two minutes."
"Do you want me to leave?" Katsuki retorts.
"I can take care of mys—"
"That's not what I asked."
Uraraka's cheeks puff outwards and she goes back to cleaning.
Katsuki throws away the empty cup and pastry bag, stepping out for a breath of the night air. He feels Uraraka's gaze follow him, but he only shoves his hands into the pockets of his outer coat, waiting just outside the door with his face nestled into his scarf. Katsuki doesn't get cold easily. He has a naturally warm body, which came with perks and downsides, but it's the last month of fall and winter comes on the breeze with every passing sunset, every rotation of Earth's axis.
The bell chimes softly as Uraraka steps out, locking the door behind her.
She looks surprised by the cold, clad only in a sweater and a scarf. Uraraka rubs her arms, tucking away her keys with a fumbling hand.
"I didn't realize how cold it'd gotten," she laughs, breath forming white clouds in the air. "Which way are you going, Bakugou?"
"Dumbass," he snaps, grumbling as he sheds his coat and tosses it at her. She catches it with a yelp. "You should know it gets cold at this time of year. We live in the mountains."
"Wow," she huffs, "what a gentleman."
Despite her sarcastic words, Uraraka wastes no time yanking the oversized coat on, half-buried among the orange and black fabric.
She murmurs something resembling a thanks — Katsuki is tempted to have her repeat it, but he won't push his luck. Uraraka almost embodies what he's looking for — something free and open, something that rides on the wings of the birds but swallows worlds like a black hole, all consuming in its grace.
They aren't quite friends, Katsuki keeps telling himself, but maybe they could be.
"I'm going this way," Katsuki finally informs her, once she seems to have settled into his coat. He jabs a finger to the right, back his usual way home, and then zips up the gray hoodie he'd had on beneath the coat. Uraraka frowns, glancing the other direction.
"I'm actually going that way," she starts, but Katsuki cuts her off, pulling the fur lined hood of his coat over her head.
"Okay," says Katsuki, "then let's go."
"It's out of your—"
"I don't care. I'm not letting you keep my coat. Besides," he starts off in the direction she'd indicated, "maybe I'm not ready to go home."
Uraraka lifts the hood so she can see properly, smoothing her hair beneath it and falling into step with him. He doesn't slow his pace, despite having no idea where he's going. Despite this, Uraraka keeps up well enough, her hands tucked into the pockets of the coat and her shoulder brushing Katsuki's arm.
The roads are silent; there's not a single soul in existence besides the two of them. The streetlights begin to flicker on, illuminating the quiet pathway and the clouds of white their breath form in the chilled air.
Uraraka takes a breath, gaze fixed on the sky. "Hey, Bakugou? Do you ever count the stars?"
Katsuki thinks all the time, but murmurs, "Why the hell would I do that? There's too many to count."
Uraraka laughs. "You're a bad liar, Bakugou Katsuki. You're the type of boy who would spend every night trying to count them, just because you want to know how many you have to try and catch."
Katsuki is not an open book. He has never considered himself such and has always been careful not to be. Katsuki is always careful not to form attachments, not to let anyone give him a reason to stay behind or give anyone a reason to want him to.
And yet, this girl blows into his life with her black hole eyes and bob cut hair and sunshine smiles, regardless of his attitude or the fact that he still calls her Round Face. He opens his mouth to say something, anything to prove her wrong, but she's quick to interrupt him.
"Everyone tries to count the stars," she states matter-of-factly, "at least once."
Katsuki almost wants to laugh. Whether it's out of amusement or bitterness, he doesn't know. "So what if I do? Maybe the stars are my only solace in this godforsaken town. Maybe I like the fact that they're big balls of exploding gas out in space. Or maybe I'd rather be in space than here. How would you know?"
Uraraka smiles. "Well, then you do. Or don't, whatever. If you want to leave, there's nothing wrong with that. Your goals and aspirations are yours, and you should pursue them. For all we know, your place is out there in the world somewhere. But people like me — people like me, like Kirishima, like Ashido and Jirou and Kaminari and Tetsutetsu … All of our places are here. There was a time we all wanted to leave, I think. I know I wanted to. But my place is here. My place is at Whole Latte Love, serving coffee and helping my parents."
Ah, Katsuki thinks. He can't remember the last time someone told him that he should go if he wants. And god, does he want to.
Katsuki buries his mouth in his scarf. There's a stinging behind his eyes and turmoil in his ribs.
"It's comforting, though," she continues, "to know that no matter how far anyone may go, or even if you may never truly know someone: we're all connected by the material we stand on, the iron in our blood, the carbon and hydrogen and oxygen in our bodies, the calcium in our bones. We're all connected by stardust, each and every last one of us. We're all made of the same thing as the stars, and I think that makes us as mortal and natural as the universe itself."
"One hundred billion," he says, because her words strike something in him, and he isn't yet sure what it is.
"What?" She asks, peering out at him from beneath his hoodie.
"There's over one hundred billion stars in our galaxy alone," he replies, halting in his steps and fixing her with a steady stare. "There's parts of our universe we've never seen — never will see in our lifetimes, maybe in anybody's lifetimes, but they're out there and always out of reach. All I've ever wanted to do since I was a child was reach out and grab one of those damn stars. So yeah, I do count the stars. I count the stars, the sunsets, and the days until I can fly out of here."
Uraraka smiles, takes his arm, and carries on down the sidewalk. "Yeah," she murmurs, "I figured."
Uraraka's house is near the center of town, unlike Katsuki's, which is closer to the outskirts. She leads him to a small apartment building and stops in front of one of the doors, turning to face him.
"Well, this is mine. Here's your coat—"
"Hold onto it," Katsuki blurts before he can think about it.
Uraraka opens her mouth to protest, but Katsuki puts up a hand to interrupt her.
"Bring it back to me Wednesday."
"Wednesday?" She echoes, frowning. "You don't come to the cafe on Wednesdays."
"Oh," he quirks an eyebrow, "you have my routine memorized."
He takes pleasure in the way she goes red.
"I'm not talking about the cafe, idiot," he continues, "I go climbing every Wednesday, on the mountain trails. I'm inviting you to come; which, by the way, I don't do very often. Just give it back to me then. You at least know where the entrance to the hike trail is, right?"
Katsuki doesn't wait for her response. He sprints home, spirited by the change of routine, the change of scenery, the feeling of the night air raking wiry fingers through his wild hair, the way the streetlights cast soft, yellow glows and dancing shadows across the sidewalk.
Katsuki spends his evenings tallying sunsets and his nights counting stars. He isn't sure when he started counting how many times Uraraka Ochako smiles at him.
That night, as he runs home, cold air seeping into his lungs, sweat rolling down his throat, and a feral grin on his lips, he counts twenty.
It's twenty-one on Monday when she blows into the cafe for her shift with a red nose, red cheeks, and dark, dark starlight eyes. It's twenty-four by Tuesday, going up each time he lifts his eyes and meets her gaze.
Katsuki finds himself at the base of the mountains on Wednesday, gaze fixed on the shrouded peaks. She's late, he thinks, and for a moment he entertains the fact that she might not come at all. Steady, light, and familiar footsteps cut through his train of thought, and Katsuki turns.
He counts twenty-five as she grins at him from beneath the coat he'd loaned her.
"Sorry I took so long," she tells him, "are we going?"
Katsuki tears his gaze away. "Yeah."
Katsuki doesn't make a habit of underestimating or overestimating others, and he's suddenly grateful for that habit when Uraraka keeps up with him with ease. She doesn't break pace, doesn't start breathing heavier until the air thins, and even then she finds a rhythm. Katsuki thinks himself a phoenix, all raging fire and simmering ashes, but Uraraka is a bird; a robin, a swan, an angel. Up here, where the air is thin and the world below hardly seems to exist, she is weightless, light, ethereal, and Katsuki is struck with the abrupt realization that he's been sucked into her gravitational orbit for a while.
Uraraka beats him to the mountain's plateau. When he pulls himself up over the side, she's standing still, staring out into the shrouded area, into the sky, into the fields and beyond. She gazes out over the town, where the houses are only pinpricks against the landscape. Katsuki understands. Up here, it feels like the world is insignificant — a small, glittering feature against the backdrop of the universe.
Katsuki tips his head back and howls to the air. The wind takes it and runs, swirling over the mountain range and into the world where Katsuki so desperately wants to be. When he stops to take a breath, wiping sweat from his forehead with the back of his hand, Uraraka is staring at him. Her eyes are wide, face flushed and shoulders moving with exhilarated breaths. She's looking at him like he's something new, something significant, something bright and blinding and unlike anything she'd ever seen.
But maybe he is. Katsuki doesn't know; he just grins that feral grin, and when her lips tug up in response, he counts twenty-six.
Maybe, he considers, she's a valkyrie, and he's the soldier she's chosen to let live.
"You can see Whole Latte Love from here," she tells him as they prepare for the climb back down, "it's so tiny."
Yeah, he thinks, it all is.
Instead he reaches out, as if to grab her hand or her arm or her shoulder, and says, "I feel like—"
Uraraka meets his gaze, her eyes glittering like starlight in the setting sun, and Katsuki's words die in his throat. He turns away.
Katsuki is always hyper-aware of time. He tracks his life by hours, by sunsets, by stars, and now by Uraraka Ochako's smiles. He tracks his life by moments until he can finally take a one-way trip out of here, but lately he's reconsidering the one-way part. He's going to leave; that part is undeniable. But now people like Kirishima, like Ashido and Sero and Kaminari and Uraraka have wormed their way into his life, and Katsuki hardly remembers what it was like before. They've all found their places, somehow, in this town. They've all found a place where they're happy to live out their lives, but Katsuki can't say the same.
He can't stay. But that doesn't mean he can't come back when he's satisfied with his own life.
On Monday, the lights of the cafe flicker a few times in rapid succession, right as Katsuki is preparing to leave.
Uraraka frowns, hands pausing on the display case of pastries. She sighs, wiping her hands on her apron and straightening.
"The hell was that?" Katsuki questions.
"Just some dumb kids sapping electricity from the powerlines again." She starts, then continues when she meets his piercing gaze. "They do it all the time."
People think Katsuki reckless. He isn't, normally. He's got a reputation to uphold, and even if he doesn't conventionally follow rules, he doesn't make a habit of disobedience or skipping class.
Still, when he finds the kids in a nearby alley and launches himself at the nearest one, adrenaline pumping, fists swinging, body surging full of energy with each hit he takes — he concludes that sometimes, in the face of something bigger, rules are meant to be broken.
This power of yours, his mother's voice echoes, is a blessing and a curse.
He thinks of people like Kirishima, who puts charms on their phones so they are returned when misplaced and time tattoos on their wrists, and people like Jirou, with earrings that translate languages and tongue piercings that allow her to speak them back. He thinks of Ashido with her city skin coloring fashion trends, and of the bird tattoo behind Tokoyami's ear that starts chirping when he gets particularly antsy. He thinks of himself, of rough hands and lead bones and big dreams. He thinks of himself, of his ability, of a blessing and curse passed down from his mother.
He thinks of the heart tattoo behind Uraraka's ear that changes color with her emotions. He thinks, ah, as one of the kids catches him particularly hard in the jaw. He wouldn't do this for just anybody. It's a fleeting thought in the midst of a fistfight, passed among racing adrenaline and a pumping heart. But it's there nonetheless: a brief moment where he realizes that yeah, he's started feeling something for Uraraka.
It's gone as soon as it comes, but when Katsuki enters Whole Latte Love on Tuesday, bruised and aching, her smile makes it worth the world.
He expects the thought to come back, but not with the force it does. It returns with a fury, like waves cascading over his head. Sitting in his window booth aching and injured, Katsuki watches Uraraka over the edge of his coffee, the way the autumn lights cast warm yellow and white shades across her soft features, and becomes abruptly floored by the very thing he'd realized the day prior, but never given voice to.
He is decidedly, irrevocably in love with Uraraka Ochako.
Katsuki isn't new to love, but he's new to this brand of it — something that makes her suddenly become the most beautiful thing in the world, perfect in all of her imperfection and so inexplicably soft. He's new to this brand of love that makes Uraraka feel like a comfort, that makes her feel like home.
I feel like—
Back on the mountains, he'd started a thought. He hadn't known what he wanted to say then, but now the words came to fruition.
I feel like, he'd said, a part of my soul has loved you since the very beginning of everything. Maybe … we were made from the same star.
For a moment, he's happy. But things seldom go so perfectly for boys like Katsuki.
On Saturday evening, Katsuki isn't paying any attention when Midoriya Izuku wanders in. Katsuki hears the chime, but he's occupied with completing an essay for his finals. It isn't until he hears the distinctively light, jittery voice that he lifts his gaze slowly, dreading what he might see.
Uraraka is beaming, but it isn't directed at Katsuki. Midoriya is at the counter, talking energetically with Uraraka and Kirishima. Katsuki thought he'd gotten over himself by now, but the abrupt realization that Uraraka seems awfully familiar with the bane of Katsuki's existence makes his blood boil.
Katsuki's anger is like fire. It's the epitome of destruction, raging and consuming anything and everything in its path. Red filters the edges of his vision, crawling, swarming.
"Deku," he snarls, and Midoriya's words seem to die in his throat as his shoulders stiffen.
Midoriya turns, but Katsuki is already out of his seat. The entirety of the cafe has frozen, save for Katsuki, the very picture of fury, of a storm zeroing in on his target. When Katsuki clenches his fist the boy with the dual-colored hair moves first, putting himself between Midoriya and Katsuki. It startles Midoriya out of his trance.
"Kacchan," Midoriya starts, "I didn't, um, realize you came here."
"Move," he snarls at the boy standing between them, who meets his gaze coolly.
"No."
"Todoroki," Midoriya starts, only to flinch back when Katsuki snarls at him again.
It's funny, Katsuki thinks, because his reason for hating Midoriya had long since been forgotten. The feelings of animosity linger despite this, and Katsuki can't quite bring himself to throw them away. So no, he can't say he has a reason for shoving Todoroki and wrenching Midoriya up by the collar, but Katsuki has come to find that a lot of times, there really isn't a method to his madness.
Everyone else unfreezes simultaneously and suddenly, they're all shouting.
Katsuki is hyper-aware of his hands and of the words everybody is saying. He watches through his peripherals as Uraraka launches herself over the counter, and as she braces her hands against his chest and shoves. He drops Midoriya as everything comes crashing back down.
Katsuki's rage is like fire, but there's a brand of sadness like ice that roots itself in his chest and makes a home.
"What is your problem?" Uraraka demands, eyes dark, too dark, expression too hard, too cold.
"He's my problem," Katsuki hisses. His rage is gone, but he can't stop himself now.
Todoroki pulls Midoriya up, but Midoriya keeps looking back with something like pity in his eyes and Katsuki hates it. He growls, moving towards them, but Uraraka takes his arm in a vice grip. Katsuki is forced to watch Midoriya leave. Something simmers at the base of Katsuki's throat, the edges of his eyes, swelling like a symphony.
When Uraraka lets go, Katsuki feels the cold where her touch had been. She marches around the counter to retrieve a drink — his drink — and shoves it into his hands.
"Listen," she snaps, "I don't know what your problem with Izuku is, but keep it out of here."
Izuku. The name sticks like a threat, jealousy swelling in his chest. He doesn't pause in tipping his head back and downing half the scalding coffee, ignoring the way it burns down his throat.
Calmness washes over him, but it feels off somehow. There's an odd taste to his tongue, to his drink, and he pauses.
He catches sight of Uraraka's hands, barely hiding a bottle beneath the counter, and her expression: observant, expectant. His chest wrenches.
Perhaps, he realizes, he doesn't have as much of a reason to come back as he thought. He looks around, at the way they're all watching him like he's dirt, like he's something that doesn't belong. Katsuki's never made a habit of listening to people's opinions about him, but this time he's inclined to agree.
Katsuki's rage is red hot, blue hot, white hot. Katsuki's anger is like ice, like sadness.
"How dare you," he snarls, voice soft, cold, fixing Uraraka with a piercing glare and leaving the rest unsaid. After all I shared with you.
He walks out.
(~~)
Katsuki takes a different route to class.
Avoiding the cafe is easy, but the abrupt change leaves a yearning hole in his chest. The stars seem dimmer when he watches them, and the mountains seems empty. No matter how loudly he screams, the sky is silent and his pain remains.
And god, he thinks, what a mistake it was to fall for a girl who had the stars living in her eyes.
He evades Uraraka just fine, but he's not so lucky with the others.
It's Tokoyami he encounters first, crouching outside of a flower shop and talking to a bird. It flies away when it sees Katsuki, and he thinks about Uraraka on the mountains, arms spread against the wind. Then it's Ashido, and she laughs joyfully when she sees him. Her face is splattered with paint and she's racing alongside artwork of a bold, yellow lion as it sprints across the brick it's painted on. Her smile is bright, broad, warm, but it's not the one he wants to see.
There's a familiar twist in his chest.
He expects to see Kirishima sooner or later, and sure enough, he catches sight of red hair in the nearby park.
"Hey, Bakugou!" Kirishima greets, waving him over.
He's watching a group of children as they make friendship bracelets, charming them with simple spells. Katsuki sits beside him, slouching back. Kirishima leans forward, propping his elbows up on his knees.
"You're gonna leave when you graduate, aren't you?" He asks, but his gaze doesn't shift to Bakugou.
"Of course," Katsuki replies, "that's always been the plan."
"Will you come back?"
"I—"
With a start, Katsuki realizes that he doesn't know.
"You know," Kirishima continues, "we are your friends, Bakugou. That day — when you left, Uraraka cried. I don't think she wanted anyone else to see, but I did." He gives Katsuki a half smile, rubbing the back of his neck. "I didn't think I'd ever see you again either — but like, you're my bro, y'know? I had to hold out some sort of hope. You … You're predictable, Bakugou. I figured I'd run into you eventually. You're always chasing the sunset."
"What's that supposed to—"
"It means you know where you're going. We all do, I think. We've got our gazes set on some prize in the distant future and it's all we ever think about. But maybe you should stop and give your surroundings another look. Just while you're still here, y'know? One of these days you'll be out there and life'll just pass you by."
Kirishima gives him the chance to speak, but Katsuki stays silent.
So," Kirishima stands, watching as the kids run off to play, "just give it some thought. This might be it. You gotta embrace little things when you can."
He doesn't watch Kirishima leave, but he hears the cheerful humming as it fades.
Midoriya finds Katsuki, despite Katsuki's efforts to avoid him.
"Kacchan!" He shouts from down the sidewalk, and Katsuki's gaze locks onto him.
Midoriya stands his ground, fists clenched and jaw set. "You're acting like a child!" He announces.
Katsuki is not in the mood to deal with this. He sneers, marching towards Midoriya and expecting him to move, to flee, to cower, but he doesn't budge. He holds Katsuki's gaze.
"The fu—?"
"I said you're acting like a child!" Midoriya repeats. "Whatever your problem is with me, don't take it out on our friends! Everyone cares about you, no matter what you think."
"I'm not—"
"Just listen to me for once!"
Midoriya raises his voice and Katsuki's jaws snap shut. His gaze remains fixed on Midoriya, who stares him down unflinchingly. Katsuki doesn't remember why he hated Midoriya Izuku, but he does know that something about him in this moment reminds Katsuki of himself.
For once, he listens.
"Look at the stars," Midoriya starts, "just look at them. They're the same stars as they were last week, last year, and last century. Maybe a couple have died, but the majority are still there. The same stars as when we were kids, wishing we knew what was out there, and the same stars as when we weren't even thought of. In a hundred years, people might not even know who people like me or Ochako or Shouto or Iida or Ashido or you are. But Kacchan, everyone will know these same stars."
Katsuki opens his mouth to speak, but Midoriya isn't done.
"What I'm saying is that what matters is the here and now. Your future matters, but you can't just pretend the present doesn't exist. You can't ignore what's right in front of you anymore. I don't care what you think about me — maybe it's best we go our separate ways — but that doesn't mean we can't be civil with each other or our mutual friends. Yes, friends. They care about you, and I know you care about them. You don't always have to follow the sun, Kacchan. Sometimes it's okay to slow down and look around."
Then, Midoriya smiles, tentatively reaching out a hand.
"Truce?" He asks.
Katsuki thinks about the stars, about the way that they're really just exploding balls of gas far above them. Katsuki thinks about his life, existing in the blink of an eye in the course of the universe. Katsuki thinks about his feelings towards Midoriya, the animosity he carries. He thinks why?
Katsuki takes Midoriya's hand.
Thursday morning, he finds himself back in front of Whole Latte Love.
"God," he snorts, pushing open the door, "that name is still awful."
Uraraka lifts her head, lips parted to greet him, but she falters when he meets her eyes.
"Bakugou," she breathes, lip trembling.
Katsuki doesn't even get a word out.
"I'm so sorry! I shouldn't have put the calm in your coffee! I wasn't thinking about it and—"
Katsuki approaches the counter as she goes on, letting her talk until she runs out of words and is left staring up at him, looking guilty and nervous.
"Listen," Katsuki sighs, "I've had some sense talked into me by a couple of people this week. I know when I'm in the wrong — I'm sorry, too. I shouldn't have started things with Deku here, but I did have to right to get mad about the coffee — which I will forgive you for, but only on one condition."
"Yes!" Uraraka says, perhaps too eagerly.
"Make me another," he says, "but with a shot of courage."
Uraraka looks vaguely confused, but she complies.
The cafe is as empty as always on Thursday mornings, and Katsuki is beyond grateful for that. Uraraka slides the coffee to him and Katsuki downs most of it. He feels the emotion settle into his chest like a balloon, lightening every part of him, watches the way Uraraka's heart tattoo changes to a soft pink, the way she clutches the bottle of courage in her hand, watches the way the autumn sunlight casts soft hues of yellows and orange across her face and her wide, starlight eyes. Katsuki watches the way Uraraka watches him, lips parted and gaze unwavering, Katsuki watches Uraraka from over the edge of his coffee, like he did on the day he'd realized —
Katsuki lowers his coffee, leans over the counter, and presses his lips to hers.
Bakugou Katsuki spends his evenings tallying sunsets and his nights counting stars.
Now he counts how many times Ochako smiles at him, and how many times she giggles late in the night when they run through the town together, two parts of a star who found each other again.