Author's Note: I don't own Boku no Hero Academia.


Chapter 18

That Old Café Where We Used to Hang Out

"Why aren't you saying anything," It's more of a statement than a question, Deku looked at him with guilt-ridden eyes that shine under the deem streetlight.

Shouto continues to walk, interlacing their fingers with each other.

They have this everyday routine where Shouto waits for Deku to close the café so they could walk home together. Just like any other night, sky was already dark when they finally leave the cafe, the only thing guiding their way is the flickering lamp posts around each block. There is barely any sound around then aside from the soft beeping of the cars from the distant main street, the soft whistle of the wind, as well as their soles hitting the cold autumn asphalt.

But tonight isn't like any other night, Deku has done something horrible.

"I don't want to force you to speak," Todoroki says. "I want you to tell me on when you're ready."

Both of them abruptly stop walking. Deku stares at his boyfriend, completely in awe at how different he is from Deku's previous experience. He expected to be shouted at, to be hurt, instead he's being subjected to the kindness of Todoroki's love. Soon, big fat tears start to trickle down Deku's face. Shouto panics as he leans down to his level, wiping his freckled cheeks dry.

His voice, his words, his actions, Todoroki and his everything is full of kindness. Deku has never seen someone so pure and he's not willing to let go of him any time soon.

"I don't deserve you,"

Shouto blinks twice, realizing the reason Izuku's tears. He cups his face, a sweet, gentle smile on his lips. Shouto kisses him on the forehead before wrapping his arms around Izuku's neck, forcing Izuku's face to be buried on his chest.

"That's what I think every time I see you," He says. "Negative times negative is positive. I guess we're even."

Deku chuckles against Todoroki's chest, he allows himself to be enamoured completely filled by Shouto's warmth. "I never really understood people who say you have a personality of a cardboard."

"That's an insult to cardboards."


They finally arrived at Deku's apartment and now they're eating in the dining room. Never did Shouto think that a day will come wherein he will be so familiar with a place so much that he knows where every little object is located. The odd thing is, he can't even do that to his own room!

After they finished eating, Izuku breaks the silence.

"I'm sorry, Shouto."

Shouto looks up, loading all the dishes inside the dishwasher. "What for?"

"About my past," He says slowly. "how it's finally catching up on me."

"You already told me a gist of what your past it so don't worry that I'll take all my love from you just because of what did happen and what will happen." Todoroki reassures without missing a beat. "I'm ready for what's going to happen, knowing your relationship with this Bakugo person—you mentioned before, in case you've forgotten."

"I just," Izuku looks away with forlorn eyes. "never thought he's gonna enter my life so soon. I'm not ready to face him yet even though I told you I'm planning to meet him back then. I'm still not emotionally capable to talk about what happened between us."

"Would you want me to go with you when you talk to him?" Shouto suggests.

Izuku glowers. "I can fight my own battles, Shouto. You don't have the right to join in."

Shouto lowers his head. "I apologize,"

Realizing his outbursts, moves closer to his lover. He nudges Shouto's shoulder with his forehead for both of their hands are wet. "Sorry for shouting,"

Shouto shakes his head, indicating that everything is fine. Heterochromatic eyes look at his dark green pair with an unreadable emotion. "As soon as I saw Bakugo entering the café like he owned the place, even without me knowing who he was, I wanted to punch him on the face."

Izuku chuckles. "You're not the first to say that."

"I'm still worried about you, Izuku." He says, taking the paper towels near the sink as he wipes both of their hands. "I don't want to see you like this. To say I was seething when I saw Bakugo drag you away is the greatest understatement of the year. I wanted to follow you but Uraraka told me that I should let you solve your past. When I saw you return from the alleyway with your tear stained face, I didn't know what to do. It made me feel completely helpess. I felt like a fuckiing useless person."

"You aren't," Izuku assures. "Seeing you inside the café calmed me down. You're presence was enough for me not to have a mental break down right then and there."

Shouto peers at him, like a curious child, throwing the paper towels away. "Really?"

Izuku holds his dry hands, giving it a tight press.

"I love you, and thank you."


As weird as it may sound, Midoriya still has Bakugo's contact number on his phone. After all, they need to talk to each other one day. He just didn't expect it would be all too soon.

"Kacchan, it's me, Deku. Where do you want to meet?" He texted.

Almost immediately, Deku receives a reply.

"Hey, I didn't expect you to contact me this soon." Neither does he. "How about at that café where we used to hang out?"

Café where they used hang out, Deku felt a dull ache in his chest upon reading this text. Yes, that one specific place where they used to hang out. He knows what Kacchan is talking about, it's the uni café where so many things happened between them. He inevitably has flashbacks of the time they spent there— the laughing, the fighting, the breaking up, the reconciling, and so on.

"I'm free later, how about you?"

This time, Kacchan takes a few minutes to answer.

"Yeah, me too. You ready at 3?"

"Sure. See you." Deku winces upon realizing what he just said. He doesn't want Kacchan to get the wrong ideas.

But apparently, he is just overthing because all Kacchan texted is a simple see you as well.


Izuku hesitantly enters the café. He knows it's rather idiotic of him to be skittish about returning to his old hangout place (but maybe it's not the place per se but the person he spent his time with here). The smell of shitty low class brewed coffee wavers in the air, it's such a horrible comparison so Café Perry's that it's makes him want to vomit. As usual, the place was brimming with stressed students, probably cramming their paperworks and vigorously reviewing for their exams for tomorrow. Deku walks in and sees that the barrister isn't the one he's acquainted with. He feels a sudden bout of sadness, but it couldn't be helped. After all, he was the one who hasn't been here in a while.

Automatically, Deku finds himself walking to their table. Kaccchan and Deku's table. He isn't really sure if that's where he'll find Kacchan but he's instincts tell him that's where he is.

Surprisingly, Kacchan isn't there. Instead, Izuku sees a spikey hair of bright red instead of blond.

"Kirishima...?" He calls out, eyebrows furrowing.

Kirishima turns around, scarlet eyes widened in familiarity. He abruptly stands up, sending the chair toppling over. The café suddenly turns silent.

"Kirishima?" Deku says, his voice uncertain. "Where's Kacchan?"

Kirishima walks towards him. Deku expects him to give a big meaty bear hug and greets with a manly "bro". Instead, Kirishima's eyes are fiery and nerves were popping out of his well-pronounced arms.

Deku then feels a big blow on his face. He crashes to the ground with a loud thud. The people around them are murmuring, some of them are taking their phones out to take pictures, videos, Facebook or Instagram Live, or whatever the fuck youngsters do these days.

"What the fuck?" Deku finds himself saying, spitting the blood out of his mouth.


Todoroki is standing outside of the café, wearing a beanie over his head and thick black shades. Even if he's wearing a disguise, people are still flocking around him. They might be thinking he's some famous celebrity, technically he is but not in that concept.

Deku told him not to go with him, yet there is this unsettling feeling in his chest that something horribly wrong will occur. Call it his gut instincts or whatever it is, all he knows is that he's never wrong with things like these.

Just as he was spacing out, he hears a loud sound like a stool falling over, followed by a rather loud commotion. Todoroki immediately runs inside without any thought, only to see a red haired man glaring menacingly at Izuku, who was down on the floor, as well as a big thick crowd that is almost blocking his view.

"I told him you bailed out," The red-haired man says, furiously.

"What?" Izuku sounds like he's still processing what exactly is going on. "What are you doing Kirishima? Why did you do—"

This Kirishima person pulls him up by the collar, Todoroki tries to intervene but the forming crowd is completely blocking his way.

"You have no right, Midoriya!" He shouts, his fists are shaking like he was doing his best not to beat Izuku to a bloody pulp. "After all these time, after disappearing from Bakugo's life, you're suddenly just gonna come back? And what, so you could abuse him once again?"

Heterochromatic eyes widen. Midoriya already mentioned about his abusive relationship with Bakugo to him before, but it only occured to Todoroki the severity of Midoriya's actions to illicit such an antagonizing response from a guy that Todoroki assumes is Bakugo's friend. Words were cheap right? But seeing what was happening in front of him, it makes him wonder. Who was Midoriya before they met each other?

Just as Todoroki manages to move deeper into the crowd and closer to Izuku, a shadow runs past him and a familiar explosive hair of blond is found pushing Kirishima away from Izuku. Seeing this as his chance, Todoroki grabs Midoriya by his arm and escapes into the crowd. He gives one quick glance to Bakugo, the blond man nods at him before he proceeds to have a shouting match.

The last thing Todoroki hears is this: "Go die, shitty hair!"

Once they're out of the café, Deku harshly pulls his arm off from his grip.

"How could you, Shouto!" He shouts, yet his voice is shaking as if she's completely unnerved. "I told you I can do this by myself."

"Your bruised face and bleeding lip says otherwise, Deku."

Deku gasps, covering his face with his hand embarassedly. Shouto sighs, taking Deku's hand away as he examines the severity of the damage.

"We'll do first-aid once we get home."

But Izuku doesn't seem to be listening.

"What was that? Did Kirishima tricked Kacchan into not meeting me because he was trying to prevent us from having a closure? Or he just doesn't want us to meet each other because he knows how sour our relationship has become? How did Kacchan find out Kirishima was lying? Why did he save me—"

"Deku," Shouto tries to snap him out of his mumblings. "Let's go home."

Hesitantly, Izuku nods.

Deep inside, Shouto was equally confused.

What the fuck just happened?