this is a work of fiction. any mention of real places is utilized for fictional and plot-wise purposes and not meant to provide an accurate picture of reality.
tw: nonexplicit non-con (not between bkdk), some gore
Chapter 3: free of desire, never angry, always smiling quietly
Against his better judgment, Katsuki comes to the stream again. The pace he takes is neither rushed nor deliberately slow, ash grass curling and sizzling under his measured steps.
He feels light, but that isn't because of knowing where his feet are taking him, no. The light steps he takes are from the lacking weight of his katana-a symbolic thing he wears from days on end, a welded reminder of Mitsuki and Masaru's legacy.
(That, he leaves behind with a curt note at his quarters that's sure to be stormed by Old Chiyo when Shitty Hair and the others find themselves one less person for Ochako's meeting)
Unlike years ago when he had to follow the subtle claw marks he leaves on fire tree after tree, Katsuki knows he can get there with his eyes closed. It's a curious process–how his body and mind, two warring things, click in place when it comes to this.
Every step he takes is smooth in its pace into the forest's foliage as he turns here and there through the winding trees, and jumps over roots and small bubbling lava streams. It's his mind that guides his body into being this specter-bound being that follows the tug to where its ghostly chains call for him.
Katsuki's body shifts and turns at the right time, the right moment, and for the right reason with not a single movement wasted.
(Of course there isn't because this forest is more of home to him than the streets of the land he was born in)
But he doesn't rush.
Katsuki, with all his hulking might who doesn't bend for anything, blends amidst the burning trees. The swishing hems and sleeves of his haori and hakama avoid the snagging stygian branches and coal roots, the fire-protected fabric curling into him with precise movements.
Katsuki looks like he's dancing.
(And it's a partner he walks towards. It's a man who can match his steps, complement grace with might, and make the dullest of sounds erupt into music)
The final break of trees is before him when, for the first time since he set out, his steps falter.
The symphony of wind and crackling nature that started upon Katsuki's start on the path, creaks to a screeching stop. Wind beats against stygian branches and the burning, crackling leaves rustle in a confused murmur.
Questions on why their conductor stopped and prevented their climax falls, unanswered, at Katsuki's clawed feet.
His body that's been feeling light now feels too fucking heavy to so much as twitch or take a step.
Even breathing's not as easy anymore when air smoothly goes in, slides down his throat, and curls into his chest before going out. Now, it writhes, twists, and clumps into clunky igneous rocks that pile on and on.
The play of light and shadow from the forests' burning leaves that speedily flickers to and fro now moves slow. He sees how nipping lick of flames curl and move in an incomprehensible dance.
For a while, Katsuki stays 'there.'
'There' is not quite in the fire tree forest anymore, with him only a step away from getting through the treeline, but not quite past it either.
He's in limbo.
(Katsuki tells himself it's not because he wants to but because he couldn't do anything about the force that grounds him to volcanic soil and won't let go.
He says it over and over as if saying it any more would make a lie into a truth)
Sometimes, the performers for the orchestra Katsuki put to a stop, clamor up to reach the climax of their symphony.
Gusts of wind batters against trees and it makes stygian branches droop low enough to let the licking flames of burning leaves brush against him. They're harmless, with the fire giving nothing more than brief flashes of heat he forgets is even there.
But it's the stubbornness–the incessant poke and prodding of branches against his side and of burning leaves on the slip of skin that shows on his nape. It's those that make his body jerk, move, and threaten to take that goddamned step.
It's small movements until they make him too tense, too wrung, and snappy that he slips. For a moment it seems like he's about to brush against the cluster of burning, popping branches that look to reach for him–
Then Katsuki hears the rushing stream and he stops.
He gnashes his teeth together, molars against fangs, but other than that, no sound comes from him. He swallows down the growls rumbling and building up in his chest, and shoves the curses down too, making them coil into ticking time bombs in his chest.
(He isn't the fucking type to keep anything in. He bursts, explodes, and barrels through the things unsaid and the actions others feared to do.
So what the hell is he doing right now?)
Katsuki knows why he doesn't want to take that goddamn step. He knows–of course he fucking does–on why, despite the frustration making his blood boil, he doesn't make a goddamn sound in this place of limbo.
He knows why the sound of rushing water and glimpses of green makes his body jerk back and away, a stark difference to the eagerness it once had in the past.
Katsuki knows why.
(Isn't it fucking hilarious that out of everyone who's tried to strike fear into his heart, the only one who succeeds doesn't mean it?)
Because his memories of a loving voice calling his name–Kacchan–, of seeing iridescent green eyes shine in wonder, and of a laughter so true, full, and fucking pure is tainted by blood and injury. The instinct seared into his bones to seek out the goddamned nerd is held back and being raged against by this ugly thing called fear.
Because what if?
What if, he goes past the treeline, breaks out of limbo, and sees Izuku bloodied, battered, and broken again?
What if, instead of being rattled by ragged breathing, that chest that carries a heart too goddamned big and caring is still and cold?
(The worst, Katsuki doesn't want to think but still does, is what if what's left of his happy memories drowns under scars, blood, and filth?
What if, then, he comes to hate Izu–)
A gust of wind rushes past twisting coal roots, bubbling lava, and wild ash grass. It barrels through branch after branch, violent popping following its wake, and it goes on and on until it reaches something that doesn't belong in limbo.
When Katsuki's body sags with exhaustion from the drawn-out struggle for one goddamn second, it's the gust of wind that absolves him of choice. It pushes with violent, impatient fervor at his back and Katsuki's world shifts, he stumbles, and there's only one way to go but–
Forward.
"…Kacchan?"
Katsuki must look like a mess now.
The time he wasted in that cursed limbo of frustration, fear, and what-ifs must've been longer than he thought because the late day's already waning off into sunset.
The wind that makes him barrel through the treeline ruffles his hair, wayward branches with still-burning leaves sticking out of them.
He knows he's a goddamn mess but there's always been something wrong with the shitty nerd's eyes.
An open tetsuyōsō lay in Izuku's lap, a scarred hand frozen halfway in turning a page. Sitting in seiza, straw straps of the waraji sandals winding around his white tabisplit-toe sock-covered feet peek out. The idiot's leaning against Pochi and the fire tree's figure casts playful shadows on the sharp lines of adulthood and light on freckles.
The open shock on Izuku's face lasts only for a second.
And after?
Izuku smiles and looks at Katsuki like he's the most beautiful thing there is. The nerd smiles and Katsuki knows–just fucking does–that it isn't out of amusement at his disheveled appearance.
(The idiot may smile too goddamn much but he never wastes them when he does)
"Hi," says Izuku, stupidly giving an awkward wave of his hand in greeting. "It's been a while."
It's been 14 days 10 hours 23 minutes 5 seconds, and Katsuki's striding down the slope to reach the foot of the ashen bank, his tongue ready for a smart-ass remark.
Something like no shit Deku, I thought nerds were good at counting? He already feels his tongue twist to form the words, and his mouth twitch into what he thinks is his usual smirk.
He reaches the foot of the ashen bank, lays on his back, the world tilts, and he speaks.
(Something must've happened on his way down that slope. He must've triggered a trap or stepped on some poisonous shit because why else would his eyes burn as he says–)
"Yeah," Katsuki chokes out. "Yeah, it's been a fucking while, shitty nerd."
His eyes are on the sky so he doesn't see, but it't not like he needs to.
Katsuki hears it–
Izuku's sharp intake of a breath (the nerd's probably surprised), a gurgling sound of words trapped in that scarred throat, and the shaky exhale that the nerd only makes when he's trying to stop himself from crying.
(What a crybaby)
"I missed you," says Izuku. His breaths are coming out fast, but he forces the words out anyway.
"I missed you, Kacchan. I missed you–ngh," He sniffles and whines, tripping and stuttering over his words. "I-I-I m-missed K-Kacchan s-so much. I-I-!"
It's not like this is the first time they didn't meet for a while. It isn't the first time, either, that they'd leave on bad terms–always Katsuki the one walking away.
(It's not like 'leaving' isn't already there seared into who he and Izuku were to each other.
It isn't. It fucking isn't so why were they fucking crying?)
When did he stop looking at Tōhoku's sky and throw an arm over his eyes? When is it that his hitching breaths, sobs and whimpers joins Izuku's, his tears falling freely?
Katsuki can't remember. He can't make the effort to remember or stop because his fingers are clutching at his chest, trying to wrench out that goddamn pain.
This is why Katsuki fucking hates crying.
He hates how every breath he takes doesn't come through, blocked by an insistent lump in his throat. The air that doesn't get to come out writhes and wraps around his heart, squeezing out every sob, cry, and whimper.
(He's putting all of that to blame–the shortness of breath; the lack of air going to his brain; the kind of burn his scales can't save him from, for him to say–)
"I missed you too."
"How long?"
"Two years."
Izuku sighed. "Kacchan."
Katsuki didn't want to fucking say anything, but before he could snap his fangs around them, the words had already slipped out.
"Minimum. It's two fucking years minimum, and the old farts told me it's expected if it ends up going into four. Or five. Or six. Or a fucking decade," He growled out, fangs and teeth snapping at thin air.
(Maybe they're imagining ripping out those shitty elders' throats, feeling their scales break and getting drunk on the euphoric crunch of bone, tear of flesh, and spilling spurt of burning blood)
It wouldn't be the first time the tempting image crossed his mind.
He couldn't count the times his fangs tingled and ached when, day after day, they'd tell him of the dos and donts and how something like this had always been his goddamn duty.
(It was only in dreams that the ache stopped. When glowing slitted scarlet eyes would look down on the mangled bodies that twitched as lifeblood spurted from their torn throats.
Mornings after those dreams were the times he woke with a smile)
Izuku sighed again, his feet making small splashes in the stream.
It was an uncanningly hot day, with the red moon's usual cool winds turned heavy and humid. The nerd's samue pants were rolled up to his thighs–just above his knees–with the frayed white hems closed tight against bulging muscle with an in-sewn blue drawstring. Even those loose white sleeves of his jacket were rolled up as much as they could, tightly closed at the crook of his elbows with red drawstrings.
(Katsuki's eyes didn't linger on the collection of scars that turned into white-gold lines under the fire forest's burning light. He didn't follow one scar to another–from shackle remnants on ankles to small tears along Izuku's calves, and from the manacle scars on wrists to the overly healed muscle and skin along strong arms.
Katsuki didn't fucking know if he should be proud or ashamed to know of almost every injury that dealt each scar)
Izuku made splashes again, his feet bare of tabi and worn-down waraji flicking cool water to where Katsuki sat at the ashen bank's edge.
Despite not bothered by whether the air turned heavier, more humid, and more prickling, he had shed his own robes, clawed feet dipped in the impossibly cool waters. He had mimicked the nerd, arms holding him up and leaving him defenseless to Izuku's attack.
"Fucking–" Katsuki swore, glaring at the nerd who laughed, his shoulders shaking.
Izuku continued making splashes, uncaring of how it made his own clothes wet. He was leaning back on his arms, head tilted coyly to the side, and dark green curls framing his teasing smile–almost a smirk.
"Keep frowning like that and you'll get enemies instead of allies, Kacchan."
"Then at least I'll get home sooner, nerd," Katsuki clicked his tongue, clawed feet sending steaming splashes of his own. "Maybe if I frown enough, they'll shit themselves enough to make a goddamn pledge as soon as I set foot in their shitty lands."
"That's not something an official envoy should be saying Kacchan," said Izuku exasperatedly. There was a frown on his face, his brows furrowed, and he looked to be preparing for a lecture.
A lecture Katsuki didn't fucking need.
Seeing Katsuki's face, Izuku stopped, pressed his lips together, and sighed. When he spoke again, it was with the voice that Katsuki hated–
The soft, understanding one that sympathized and belittled him at the same time.
(He fucking hated it because he always, always listened to it)
"It's only going to be two years, Kacchan."
"Can you fucking say that you know that, shitty nerd?"
Izuku smiled, his green eyes shifting a shade darker. "It's important work, Kacchan. And I know you hate the word, and I'm sorry, but I'm going to use it anyway–it's your duty, Kacchan. As Auntie Mitsuki and Uncle Masaru's son, and…"
As the North East Region's next leader whose every word and act would soon affect all those born of fire in his land.
(It was weird how Izuku didn't answer his question, rhetorical as it was. He didn't think–of course he didn't–to entertain that slithering shadow of doubt creeping in a subdued corner of his mind.
Katsuki should've. He fucking should've)
He clicked his tongue and looked away.
Katsuki knew he was acting like a goddamn child and that his resistance to the whole endeavor was only bringing worry rather than hope as it should. His tantrums that led him to retreat to the forest again only made everyone's expectant gazes shift into one of shame, regret, and spite.
He fucking knew that.
"Kacchan."
He spent a few more moments looking at the distorted image of his face on the stream's surface–one in the rippling age between youth and adulthood–before looking up.
Slitted scarlet eyes looked at expectant pine green eyes and he knew–of course he did–that it wasn't just a goddamn tantrum on being sent to do something he didn't want to do.
Because he did want to do it. The regional tours and war campaigns he'd gone on in the past years were in preparation for this. Every lesson on culture, economics, politics, and diplomacy had been for this.
(But he didn't want to fucking leave. Katsuki didn't want to spend two years, four, five, six, or a whole decade away from this carved place of peace.
He knew he'd break if, when he came back, Izuku wouldn't be looking at him with those eyes brimming with unbridled warmth and instead ask, Who are y–)
"I won't forget you, Kacchan," said Izuku, his voice tearing through Katsuki's thoughts. "We can spend ten, twenty, thirty… hundreds and thousands of years apart and I'll never forget you, Kacchan."
Katsuki knew that was bullshit. He knew that Izuku was just saying those words to soften the blow for when the nerd would be back to convincing him to go.
(But it had never been a crime to simply believe, even if it was a farfetched lie)
So Katsuki let the words kindle his flame heart and spread heat–from the tingling tips of his fingers to his blushing face. He let himself laugh out of joy, the sound booming from a full chest.
Katsuki laughed and let Izuku's words that spoke of a promise wash away his worry and tug his mouth into a wide smile.
He let his eyes shine as he said, "You better keep that promise, Deku."
(For the moment, he let himself be drunk on the thought that just as much as Katsuki wouldn't–couldn't–forget Izuku, so too would the the nerd be bound to the memories of them.
It was a nice thought)
Izuku blinked once, twice, before joining in this symphony of laughter Katsuki started. His cheeks flushed, and it was a nice color on him–
Red.
Not the type of deep crimson that made Katsuki's heart stop and crack when it'd gush out unendingly, no.
It was the red flush of life that was a nice color on Izuku, and Katsuki would suck up to hundreds of stuck-ups in Hokkaidō, Kansai, Shikoku, and the rest of the goddamned continent if that was what'd it take to make this shitty nerd happy.
And it was with those thoughts, and the drunk, charged air in their space of green and ash, that made him slip.
Katsuki's feet suddenly splashed Izuku. "Hey nerd."
"Ah– Kacchan! What was that fo–"
(There was a force that moved his mouth for him. An unknown thing that led his tongue to the dancing steps of stringing words he once thought too heavy, too forbidden, and too burdensome to form.
But something clicked and it turned out to be the easiest thing to say)
"I love you," said Katsuki, laughing.
It was so fucking easy, and why the hell hadn't he said it before?
"I love you," He said again. The words he'd thought would weigh him down made him feel like he grew a pair of wings instead.
"I love you. I love you. I fucking love you, you stupid piece of shit."
Katsuki said it again and again, laughing and loving in the midst of Izuku's expressions. He kept saying it through Izuku's confused stutters and disbelieving stare. He said it again when Izuku panicked so much the idiot fell in the stream, drenching himself from head to toe.
When Izuku started crying, Katsuki said it louder with an even wider smile on his face.
"I–I–hngh," Izuku sobbed, hands failingly rubbing at tears that poured and swirled with the rushing water. "Kacchan, I–ngh, I–"
"I love you, Deku," said Katsuki, and softly added, "What'd you want to say to that?"
Izuku cried, the rushing water around him drenching him more and more as his body uncontrollably shook. He took hitching breaths, sniffles, and failed to swallow down the sobs that wracked his body.
Even then, he managed to. Just as something made the words so fucking easy for Katsuki, the nerd said it as easily as breathing.
"I love you too, Kacchan," said Izuku, laughter mixing with garbled mixes of sobs and whimpers. "I love Kacchan so, so, so much, it hurts."
"Yeah?"
(If he knew smiling out of love had been this painful, Katsuki would've lived with the pain sooner)
"So," Izuku sniffled, pine green eyes glaring at Katsuki's smitten ones. "So you better come back, okay? You come back to me, Kacchan. No matter how much you feel you don't deserve to anymore, you come back."
It was a dangerous feeling– love.
It blinded him to everything else but the crying man drenched from head to toe in the stream. The feeling made him leave rationality on the ashen bank as he waded into the cool water in nothing but his nagajuban and suteteko, crouching down to Izuku's level.
Love was dangerous.
Because it made him make promises too easily, too heavily, too gravely.
"Alright," said Katsuki, hand resting on the pantomimic wall that seemed to shiver under his hold. "For you, if not for anything else, I'll come back, shitty nerd."
He only took two years.
The red moon's long set and the scorching wind of Tōhoku's night greeted him as he trudged along the path through the snuffed embers of the forest.
Katsuki stumbled along the cooled over lava streams, his clawed feet snagging on coal branches and nothing in particular. A trail of ruby apples followed him with his every stumble that made him bump harshly against ripe fire trees, jostling their stygian branches and the fruit borne on them.
The only light that guided his way was the night sun high in the sky above, its celestial rays burning bright as if regretting it couldn't catch Katsuki every time he ended on his knees after a harsh fall. It dominated the night as the only star in the sky, but Katsuki didn't looked up, his gaze only on the path before him.
It took several stumbles, a couple crashes, and a single moment of stupor when he endlessly stared into the darkness around him before he broke through the treeline.
After two years, everything was still the same.
The ashen bank still had that slope Katsuki half-stumbled, half-slid down on, his clawed feet stopping him from diving into the ever-flowing water stream. There was still that lone fire tree on the green bank–what was its name?–, and the great cypress trees were still spread out, maintaining their stronghold.
Everything was the same and Katsuki should be happy it was because Izuku was still there in his white samue with sewn accents of reds and blues.
He only took two years being the North East Region's envoy instead of the four, five, six, or decade he feared to consider. He'd only been apart from his home–his Izuku–for two years and he should be smiling like he was when he left.
Yet.
All he could feel was shit.
Sinking to his knees, Katsuki hunched over and hid his face in his hands. His fingers dug into the hollow of his cheeks and pressed into the sockets of his guilt-ridden eyes. Those callus-covered palms blocked out everything he didn't deserve to see–the night sun's pitying rays, Tōhoku's mourning skies, and… Izuku.
Then the scraping started.
At first it was just blunt nails scratching on skin, leaving barely stinging streaks down his face and on fluttering lids over scarlet eyes. In a few seconds the pain would be gone, and in another couple, the lines of inflamed red.
So Katsuki let out a bit more claw. He dug his fingers a little deeper until he could feel and hear his skin shriek as sharp nails pulled and dragged it from flesh, and later, bone.
He scratched, scraped, and didn't fucking let a single patch of skin go unmarked. Bit by bit, his claws grew longer, sharper and more unforgiving.
(Just like how Katsuki wanted–no, needed it to be)
Every scratch left trails of burning fire on his cheeks and only then could Katsuki finally breathe. He opened his mouth but the only thing he could say–the only sound he could make were pitiful whimpers of "ah, ah, ah, ah."
Slitted eyes that once burned scarlet were wide open and unseeing, the two years away having turned them into a dull rust.
It was only when there was the first crack on golden scales, break of skin, and tear through warm flesh that Katsuki stopped.
Not because he wanted to, no.
"Kacchan," said Izuku, his soft voice loud in this silent night. "Don't hurt yourself any more than you already are–than you've already been."
(There were times Katsuki wondered what would've happened if Izuku didn't stop him. If, after two years, the man didn't care enough if Katsuki gouged out his eyes, pulled out his tongue, and scraped off the skin from his body in front of him.
He didn't know if he should be grateful or resentful that Izuku did)
When Katsuki got back after two years, there'd been this thing waiting for him in the back of his mind. It was in a corner he knew existed, but never wanted to look at.
Maybe because he had better things to look at and think about. Or perhaps because he knew, that through these two years, it was in that corner where an ugly thing had been growing.
Katsuki dropped his hands from his face and looked up.
(It was a festering thing called suspicion. A parasite of doubt that only showed itself when he met Izuku's eyes after those two goddamn years)
"You know," Katsuki choked out, his face full of marks, paling. "You fucking know."
His breath came out fast, and a clawed hand was already clutching at his chest, tearing through fabric.
"No… you–" He laughed brokenly, still looking at Izuku's pitying gaze. "You knew. You knew just like how you fucking knew it'd only be two years. Just like how you knew I wouldn't want to come back."
A manic expression overtook Katsuki's face, but it didn't match how his voice turned small when he whispered, "How the fuck did you know? What… what do you know, Deku?"
Izuku let out a shuddering breath as if he'd been holding it in for two years–no, more.
(For a moment, with deep shadows playing around them, Katsuki thought he saw the green-haired man's face look older than it was. He thought, as the lucent stone in Izuku's lap bled purple wine light and the night sun shed its rays, that he saw a man who had lived too many lives.
Katsuki blinked and it was just the man he loved(?) again)
"Everything," Izuku smiled, the corners of his lips too brokenly tugged in directions it wasn't meant to go. "Everything and more."
He'd already been by the edge of the green bank when Katsuki came through the quiet fire tree forest after two years. When Katsuki started treating his own skin as filth to be scraped off, he'd already taken the step into the stream, water filling his tabi and dragged away his waraji to the far west.
Now, with dull scarlet eyes looking at hooded green ones, Izuku started moving, the cracking whip of waves against his pants making Katsuki flinch.
"I know how, after you arrived in the North Sea Road, you realized making alliances is the same as making a deal; and that every deal has a price."
The flowing stream crashed against Izuku's legs and he stumbled for a moment before continuing, his quiet voice booming on Tōhoku's harvest night.
"I know how you realized that money, riches, weapons, technology… are not the only price they ask for, Kacchan," whispered Izuku. "Especially not when your pride is something worth so much more."
Katsuki's heart twisted in his chest, and he curled into himself again, eyes squinting shut.
(In the darkness, those green eyes were still staring at him)
"Stop," Katsuki growled, the word coming out garbled and wrought into a mess of shame, guilt, and–
Fear.
"I know how it was Fuyumi first."
Closing his eyes only made him remember, and no matter how hard Katsuki struggled, he couldn't open them any more. They were seared shut, and once again, he was trapped.
Again, Katsuki was trapped, tied up, and forced to see from behind his eyes as his body responded to something he didn't want.
"Then Natsuo."
He remembered the screaming that never got out of his throat, the wretched sound echoing in the blank chambers of his mind. White had blanketed his mind and left him reeling from the panted compliments tongued down his throat and built up into bile he wretched after.
"And I know you thought it'd only be like that in Hokkaido. That–" Izuku's voice shook. "–you swore it'll never happen again because how could you let them touch you when I haven't?"
"Stop," Katsuki choked out, broken gasps spilling out on ashen grass. "Fucking stop, Deku."
Izuku didn't and Katsuki was dragged under suffocating nightmares again.
(They didn't deserve to be called memories because memories were the moments he lived for, not the scars he wanted to die from)
"I know about Neito," Izuku kept moving, the splashes of his feet coming off as explosion in Katsuki's ears.
He remembered the despair and screams that'd been lost into the confines of that lab when the fire he'd been with since birth was briefly taken away.
That was when, he thought, his vibrant scarlet eyes started to dull.
"Then Yō."
Katsuki started scratching again, claws digging and scraping against the stubborn, bristling scales on his arms and neck. Again, he let out pitiful sounds of "ah, ah, ah, flames sputtering out in weak sparks from his palms against scales.
He wanted to burn it– Everything.
Yō's brown eyes that watched with glee in the corner. The hands and mouths that each made their pass over him again and again as he was made into a twisted offering in Shikoku's pilgrimage.
"I know about…" Izuku faltered, and he didn't speak again. The unspoken word–name–was about to be lost to Tōhoku's scorching winds and the stream's merciless flow but Katsuki's mind didn't let it go.
It latched on and reminded him of the name that he couldn't fucking hate.
(Not when it was Camie who made his dream of touching, holding, and loving Izuku come true)
Katsuki still remembered the trilling giggle that shifted into the nerd's wholehearted laugh that he tasted and got drunk over, seeking it again and again. His hands remembered the feel of long fawn hair turning into the green everything he lost himself over and clung onto.
Maybe it was this shroud of shame and guilt hanging heavy on his shoulders that didn't make him angry. It must've been the sickening realization the morning after, when night-long memories of holding Izuku cleared to show that wicked fae's body with his marks.
Maybe it was the fact that Katsuki had whispered words of love and promises of devotion to someone he knew wasn't Izuku that snuffed out the sparking flames of anger and betrayal, ebbing away to reveal him as a hollow shell covered with filthy guilt.
(If he was a lesser person he could've screamed, "If you fucking knew then why did you let me go anyway?" If his love for the idiot with ever-seeing green eyes was any less, he would've never come back to this space they called theirs.
Yet Katsuki was here)
He lifted his head, opened his eyes, and asked only one thing.
The question fell from Katsuki's bleeding lips, the skin long torn by fangs, and it almost fell apart before the wind carried it over waving ash grass, volcanic ground.
The string of words weaved themselves back together as the wind ushered them over the rushing stream and into Izuku's pierced ears, golden chains turning platinum under purple wine light and the night sun's fiery gaze.
Gently, Katsuki's question washed over Izuku's drenched form in the middle of the stream and gently, too, he smiled.
"Would you like to hear a story, Kacchan?"
When people talked of the continent's Central Part, they talked of a fairytale.
They said that every drop and body of water running through Chūbu would become a river of stars under nightfall, and veins of molten gold at sunrise. It was said that a drop gave the drinker inspiration; a handful, wisdom; a cup, enlightenment; a submersion, immortality.
From the northern borders to the south, they talked of Chūbu's vast lush plains of simple leaves that an outsider would see as weeds and a local, their euphoria.
It was those leaves, they said, that made the region a land of peace. Where it took just a bite, a boiled drink, and a drop of its dew onto their eyes to calm the angry, right the wronged, and resolve conflicts.
When people talked of Chūbu, they talked of rice not meant to be eaten but drunk; of great cypress trees that blanketed the land from harsh seasons; and of the culture that grew unhindered from the usual pains of existence.
That was what they, who had never stepped past the rigid barrier of the region, talked of Chūbu.
They did not know what it was before.
Back when the gods abandoned the lands and left their skies as curses to the regions, it was Chūbu that remained unowned and unscathed. In the end, as time passed, it was nothing more than a passing ground from the northern regions to the southern; unremarkable.
Until the long gone destiny weavers came running from Chūgoku, with demons snapping at their heels.
Those who talked of Chūbu as a paradise didn't know of its origins as a sanctuary and later, a prison. They didn't know that hidden behind its impenetrable barrier lived the cause of the war that transcended over generations and bathed the regions in blood and piling grave mounds of bones.
They didn't know of the child who was reared to carry the will of eight seers, his life added as the ninth to be exhausted.
(No one outside of this barrier he was made to sustain would know or ever know.
Except one. Just one)
"I think things wouldn't be so bad if seeing the future is all I can do," said Izuku wistfully. "I think there wouldn't even be a war if that's all I could do, Kacchan."
Katsuki didn't make a sound. He didn't speak, his breaths barely heard through their silent rattle in his chest and out as plumes of smoke through his nose and parted lips.
They ended up sitting with their backs leaning against the wall he now knew as a barrier. The stream's water came up to their waists, occasionally lapping against the collar of Katsuki's nagagi and Izuku's jacket.
Instead of annoying, the rocking motions were… soothing.
(It was cleansing too. The waters remained indiscriminating in its ravaging path, bringing away with it–if not all, then some of the filth that had built up for two years.
Slowly… little by little)
A thump on the other side of the barrier dragged him back from the calming waters and to the torrent Izuku had finally let go of.
For how many years, Katsuki didn't know.
"–aybe then I wouldn't be making you angry every time I show up hurt after granting my people the futures they wish for, Kacchan. Maybe then my body wouldn't be covered in scars, and maybe," Izuku choked and Katsuki's hands twitched where they hung over his bended knee. "Maybe we could've met and held each other's hand."
The water's surface held no other reflection than his own, disheveled one, but Katsuki wasn't so out of it that he wouldn't know what the nerd looked like.
Those green eyes would be glazed over with building, or maybe already running streams of tears. Deep lashes would flutter and a lone tear would slip down freckled cheeks, making a track that another would overtake; and then another, and another, and another.
Even now, with their backs against each other, Katsuki fucking knew that the goddamned idiot had on a trembling smile as he said,
"Maybe then you wouldn't've wanted to scrape away every inch of your skin that they touched."
(To have known the truth or continued with the lie, Katsuki wondered which was worse. He wondered because he knew neither was any better)
He pressed back against the barrier, his head making a soft thump as he let it fall against that inch-thick of what he'd thought was nothingness. That impenetrable wall that spanned its borders along Tōhoku, Kantō, and Kansai seemed to ripple as it breathed with him.
"Why can't you?" asked Katsuki.
Izuku trailed off and moments passed before there was an answering thump at his back.
"Why can't I what, Kacchan?"
Katsuki reared his head back and let it fall against the wall again.
"Bring this goddamn wall down, shitty nerd. Why–" He reared up, fell, and again the resounding thump was louder. "–the fuck can't you do anything I know you want to, Deku? Why not stop the war you're always crying over when I mention it? Why not leave those goddamned, selfish cowards who keep using you, and chaining you like a dog on a leash, and just fucking leave?"
Katsuki didn't beg.
He didn't say and cry like a pathetic piece of shit for Izuku to stay, stay, stay with me please. There was no grand speech of holding out his hand, donning a cocky grin, and asking the love of his life to run away with me, shitty nerd, and I'll show you the goddamn world.
There was nothing.
(Only pleas weaved into questions that would try to chip down this goddamn wall that shivered and trembled under Katsuki's touch, but never broke)
His voice cracked and he swallowed the growls that threatened to spill.
In the end, this was where they'd end up, the both of them facing the truth that words of love hid–
That no matter how close they'd get, the steps they'd take, the screams they'd make, there would always fucking be an inch worth of distance between them.
(No matter if Katsuki screamed "I love you" or begged the infuriating idiot, nothing would matter as long as this goddamned wall was up.
Because–)
"–this is the first future they wished for and one the first, the rest, and now I fulfill to this minute, to this second, Kacchan. This–" Izuku gritted out. "–future of them and us being safe from everything else stands for my duty, and you may hate it, Kacchan, but that is the only thing I live for. Only that."
Izuku laughed, the sound hollow and manic. "To bring it down… break it? To leave them… these people you tell me are only using me? That is far from anything I have ever wanted to do, Kacchan."
It was one thing, Katsuki thought, to assume something, and another thing entirely to have it confirmed.
The cruel answer Izuku gave him sharpened and refined into a spear that broke through his back, its shining tip jutting out of his chest.
(He never wanted to know what it felt like to be told that he had never been a choice)
"If you asked me," said Katsuki softly. "If you asked me to choose between you and everyone–everything else, Deku… I would burn everything else to fucking nothing."
The night sun had dragged the dark blanket of the sky with it to the west, bringing with it its scorching winds. To the far east rose the red moon celestial, its vibrant hue already stirring the rest of the day awake.
From one moment to the next, it bathed everything in red.
It was in the lapse of that moment when Izuku spoke, softly and as brokenly as Katsuki felt after.
"Then I guess I'm happy I made the choice for you, Kacchan."
Katsuki left and didn't come back the next night. Not the week after, the month after, or the years after.
He didn't know if Izuku waited for him, but he thought about it.
It was a thought he entertained when his parents' bloodied kuzane-gusoku were the only things that came back from their war campaign against the demons that made sudden surges of destruction.
It was something he thought about when he started making his way around the continent again, rewriting two years' worth of nightmares into conquest with him as the victor.
The thought of Izuku waiting for him was something he shared to the idiots who let him learn how to open his heart again.
Katsuki had no plans of coming back to that stream until he did and it was the sight of Izuku bleeding that greeted Katsuki once he got past the last line of fire trees.
The moment after Katsuki's sure he's wiped the last of his shitty snot comes an awkward silence.
(It doesn't help that he's the last out of the two of them to stop crying)
He's still lying back on the ashen bank, an arm over his eyes. The crust of drying tears at the corner of his eyes and tracks on his cheeks pull at his skin, and while it'll take nothing to pull his arm away to rub at them, he won't.
Not when the price was the nerd seeing his pathetically swollen eyes and nose that might still be dripping with snot.
There's nothing but darkness that meets him even if he does open his eyes. Sunset red threatens to seep through and bring color to his vision, so he presses his arm harder over his eyes, scrunching them shut.
(In this waiting game, the nerd may have picked up being stubborn as fuck from Katsuki, but the green-haired idiot's always been impatient)
Izuku lasts, in that awkward silence, for twenty seconds.
"Why are you here, Kacchan?"
"Because I want to, nerd," says Katsuki and they're both ignoring how their voices are hoarse and scraping along their throats as they speak.
Izuku doesn't point out Katsuki's distorted voice and he doesn't bring up the nerd's equally nasal and clogged-up one.
Katsuki brings his arm away, cranes his head, and looks at Izuku's blurry figure with bleary eyes. "Why are you?"
It's a reasonable question. Before Izuku's reveal, it slowly became normal for Katsuki to spend hours looking and looking for a person who won't show up.
(And when he does show–when there's a shadow that rustles past great cypress trees and smears blood on dark red brown trunks, Katsuki regrets waiting)
Izuku gives him an amused, twisted smile.
"It's today, Kacchan. It's today so…" He reaches up and his fingers trace the ragged collar scars lining and choking his neck. The string of golden chains piercing his ear brush against his scarred hand and, as if burned, it jolts away and back to the still-open book on his lap.
Izuku swallows and his smile strains. "…so I got to slip away. Ah, well, they probably let me, considering today."
"They? It? Today?" Katsuki snaps.
He's never been the type to condone riddles and roundabout manipulations of the tongue–that isn't his way. So of course he's getting just one tick away from throwing a goddamn rock at the idiot's head and scream at Izuku to spit it the hell out–
"The festival, Kacchan," says Izuku, still with that twisted smile. "The festival's today, Kacchan."
(Something snaps. The vibrant tension of annoyance dulls and fades into the background)
There're too many thoughts and feelings that rush and drown that now insignificant annoyance. It's too many and too fucking much, and he knows Izuku sees because the idiot laughs.
Katsuki's moved, his arms propping him up in a flurry of movement from the realization and here Izuku is, laughing. His shoulders shake, and green eyes shine with mirth as he looks fondly at Katsuki.
"Heh."
"The fuck are you laughing for, shithead? You think that it's something worth laughing over, ha? They're–"
"I didn't think you'd forget, Kacchan," Izuku's voice is brimming with amusement, and his eyes take on a softness again at the next.
"How can I fucking forget that ironic, twisted, and sick as fuck shitshow, Deku?" Katsuki rakes a hand through his hair, frustration making him tug painfully. "Fuck, how the hell did I forget…!"
"It's fine, Kacchan."
"It's never been fucking fine, Deku," He sighs and runs a hand down his face, brows furrowed. "It's fucking sick how they're holding a goddamn festival celebrating you to make themselves feel better."
Izuku doesn't say anything in response and leaves Katsuki to himself. Through the blood-boiled rants, and snapping threats against those selfish pieces of shit, he just stays there on the green bank, listening.
(As if, even before Katsuki could do anything, everything's already been decided and there's not even a sliver of a chance for his words to get through)
"When I say it's fine, Kacchan," Izuku starts. "I mean it's fine that you forgot. I know it can't be helped since there's a lot going on in your end, right?"
Katsuki freezes, green eyes pinning him with that knowing gaze (again).
Izuku lifts the tetsuyōsō from his lap, its kon dark blue covering catching Katsuki's eye. It's not the drying tear stains or the ashen thread going through the pages of the spineless book, but the title that he sees.
Lingering Traces of the Gods: The Continent's Various Mythologies and its Socio-Economic, Cultural, and Political Ramifications
Katsuki swallows and asks, "What's with the shitty book?"
Izuku laughs again. "Tenya-kun's going to be sad if he heard you call his book 'shitty,' Kacchan."
"Ha?"
"This," Izuku waves the book again and Katsuki catches a glimpse of Four Eyes' handwriting at the margins. "It's Tenya-kun's, right? Really, I was surprised he's the type to write on books–"
"I only told you about him–about all the other shitheads, once," says Katsuki, his shoulders dropping. "I only told you about Four Eyes once and I never even mentioned his shitty name."
He scoffs at Izuku's wide eyes and gaping mouth, a thick plume of smoke coming through his nose.
(At least this way the nerd doesn't see the pain that flashes through his face from the reminder of what Izuku is. This way, he has time to take that shuddering breath and swallow down the bitter taste of disappointment.
From the start, he's been dancing to Izuku's tune, after all)
"You already fucking knew, didn't you?" Katsuki sighs when Izuku remains silent. "You knew what I've been fucking up to since I stopped coming back. You know what I'm planning to do about the goddamned war, Deku."
The nerd sets the tetsuyōsō back on his lap, scarred figners fiddling with the corner of the kon-dyed cover.
"Yes," says Izuku. "I knew. I know."
There's no admonishment in Izuku's tone. He isn't making a snide remark about Katsuki being foolish, arrogant, and blind with lust for destruction that he's willingly marching himself and the rest of the continent to their deaths.
Mixed with shame and guilt is something worse–
Pity.
It's an ugly thing that distorts Izuku's voice into this disembodied omniscient being that's unfeeling, uncaring, and everything the nerd Katsuki knows isn't. It paints those kaleidoscopic green eyes in soot tints that clouds their purity.
(Katsuki fucking hates it.
A voice urges him to gouge out those eyes and sink his fangs in that scarred throat. Another tells him to tear his ears out and gouge out slitted scarlet instead of pine green so he won't see or hear anymore)
So he does.
Katsuki rips his gaze away from Izuku's, lets himself fall back on the ashen grass, and it's the sky he's looking at again.
"No wonder Four Eyes has been extra cranky these past weeks."
(He doesn't need to ask how the tetsuyōsō managed to land in Izuku's hands since asking will just make him remember their first meeting's bloody scene from two weeks ago.
It must've been then that the cursed thing slipped into the bundle of medical supplies)
Izuku, apparently, thinks the same, and takes the out Katsuki offers.
He gives a strained smile. "You always think he's cranky, Kacchan."
"That's why I said extra cranky, nerd."
"Yeah, you did," Izuku chuckles. "But still, the fact you noticed goes to show how you've been worried about it–about your friend."
"Not my friend."
Izuku chuckles again. "Mhm, whatever you want to call them, Kacchan."
Another silence's descended on them again and the sight of time moving against them in the form of wisps of black smoke in Tōhoku's red sky makes Katsuki throw his pride away.
(Maybe there was a reason why he kept looking at the goddamned sky, after all)
"So what'd you think?" asks Katsuki, and he gets up just in time to see Izuku literally jolt, the idiot's scarred hands fumbling to prevent the tetsuyōsō turning into a ruined, soggy mess in the stream.
"I– o-of? Think of what…?"
"Life," says Katsuki in a deadpan manner. "The fucking book, obviously, idiot. If I remember correctly, that shit's on–"
"–the mythological origins of the continent's split skies! I mean I know it isn't just about that, and the author only devoted a barely substantial part to it, but it's the most fascinating part! Because, really, when you think about all those ramifications they listed–ah, I'm not sure how to refer to them–, then the regions' split skies is really at the center of it all–"
The warring emotions of guilt, shame, and awkwardness on Izuku's face melts away and Katsuki sees the child who hung on his every word again.
Pine green eyes clear up and shine, and Izuku's face lights up under Pochi's caressing burning leaves. His hands are all over the place–sometimes waving, leafing through the washi pages and pointing out a passage, and sometimes end up pulling at his lower lip as he mutters a thousand words per second.
Through it all, Katsuki's smiling.
He doesn't know he's smiling, not until he feels the strain of the curl of his mouth and the crinkle at the corner of his eyes. The persistent furrow of his brows are smoothened over, and, just as Izuku turns back into this stupid nerd excitedly rambling about a new thing, Katsuki turns back into a kid who doesn't have a war weighing down his shoulders.
Right now, as Katsuki leans back on his arms and feels the cool wind ruffle through gold-platinum locks and his robes, he lives. At this moment, he doesn't see a stupid man who's shackled by that honorable thing called duty, but the scarless hungry child who became his first everything.
Izuku; his first friend, rival, confidant, treasure, and…
Katsuki looks across the river stream, sees green paradise, and remembers the joy and ease there was when he says–
("I love you, Deku," said Katsuki, and softly added, "What'd you want to say to that?"
"I love you too, Kacchan," Izuku's laughter mixed with garbled mixes of sobs and whimpers. "I love Kacchan so, so, so much, it hurts")
Katsuki lies when he says he doesn't know why he let himself meet Izuku after two weeks of forced abstinence. It's the same lie he uses when, after almost a decade of staying away, he breaks and has their first meeting bathed in Izuku's blood and pain-filled cries.
("You're bleeding, you asshole," Katsuki's voice still cracks, and it makes little sense why amidst the rush of everything else he wants to say–to scream, that's all that slips past the lump in his throat.
Again. You're bleeding again. Injured again. Again and again, you're smiling with blood)
It's half a lie when he uses the reason of 'simply wanting to' when the nerd asked him why he's here and why he came.
The truth burns a hole in his chest, in the pocket of his nagagi.
Katsuki's trying hard to listen–really, he is because every syllable that falls from Izuku's lips are what urges him to come back.
It's his idiotic voice rambling incessantly that drowns out the voice that promises Katsuki his spot in the deepest level of hell once he's dragged thousands of lives in the biggest war operation of their time.
He's trying but his fucking heartbeat's thundering too much in his ears. The broken thing sputters and its flames twist and rage against his chest, trying to reach that string of golden scales hidden beneath fabric after fabric.
It reminds him, when Izuku's eyes light up as he goes off on another tangent about Hokkaidō's indiscriminate snow cloud-filled sky that lets neither sun, moon, nor stars peak through, about what he's been meaning to do.
(It's a plan that's almost a decade late. Something he was preparing the night after the words "I love you" unfurled so fucking easily from his heart)
Katsuki watches splatters of freckles on Izuku's cheeks bloom under Tōhoku's sky and their fire tree's play of light and shadow. He sees those green eyes shift from one shade to another with every blink, dark green curls softly framing Izuku's face.
(He knows he can spend how many sunsets and sunrises counting those star splatters on skin and list each slipping shade of green, and still never get it down.
And he knows Izuku's there to let out that wholehearted sound–laugh–at Katsuki's fool-hearted attempts)
Katsuki wants to.
He fucking wants to, dammit.
He wants to spend every goddamn scorching sunrise and cool sunset with the shitty nerd. He never wants to go back through that place of limbo within fire trees and just fucking stay with the idiot.
I don't care if there'll always be this goddamn inch between us. I don't give a shit if I'll never be able to hold your hand, cup your face close to mine, or get to show you how much I am yours if you'll let me.
(Katsuki's always just wanted one thing. For all the wishes he knows Izuku wants to offer to him, he's just wanted one fucking thing:
To be able to stay with the love of his life until the end of their days and after)
Maybe there's something in the air. Maybe it's the wind that nudged him past limbo earlier. Or perhaps it's this illusion of him and Izuku being kids again that makes him move.
Katsuki's heart stills. He lets out a shaky breath and his hand moves towards the golden scales torn from the spot over his heart. Unlike the rest of his body that'll grow the scales back, it's the one over his flame heart that never would.
Once torn, that's it.
(And he wouldn't have it any other way)
His fingers curl around the string of golden heart scales that he's fashioned for a wrist bearing too many scars.
Then Izuku's voice rips through the dreamlike haze and Katsuki stops.
"–I haven't been there but Kansai's sky is already my favorite," Izuku hums. "I read it's an eternal sunset there, right, Kacchan?"
Katsuki doesn't get to answer.
"I always liked sunsets," Izuku continues and dread washes over Katsuki.
(It's just another rant. Just another one of those muttering sprees that'll go off another tangent again.
It's just another fucking rant)
Please.
"Don't get me wrong, sunrises and mid-day skies are pretty too."
Please.
"Especially with the fluffy clouds swimming in a sea of blue in the sky that greets me when I wake up. Or the bright rays that turn my path through the cypress forest golden when I'm coming to meet you, Kacchan."
Please.
"But…" Izuku pauses. And smiles. "Sunset is when we met, Kacchan."
Stop.
"Sunset is when you shared your sky with me, Kacchan. It's when you shared your apples with me, and when we planted Pochi here," Izuku chuckles and caresses the stygian trunk he's leaning against.
He looks back at Katsuki and his smile falters for a second.
(Katsuki wants to think it's because the goddamn idiot's regretting each and every word he's saying right now.
And not because there are burning tears spilling from Katsuki's eyes)
Izuku picks up his smile again. It's a bit more pained, and his voice strains but it doesn't stop him.
Nothing can. Katsuki should've known nothing ever could.
Not even me.
"Sunset is when you gave me friendship," says Izuku. "It's when you shared your time and your world wholeheartedly even when I've only offered you glimpses of mine. Sunset is when you made me strong with the books, lessons, and snacks you'd bring. It's when you made me live and gave me your…"
He trails off and Katsuki, through the lump in his throat, the wash of dread threatening to drown him, and the weight of golden scales clasped in his hand, screams.
"Deku–!"
(The nudging wind has fallen silent and they are far from being mere children again)
"And sunset–" says Izuku with that damned, haunting smile tainted with tears. "Sunset is… it's when I would've liked to say yes, Kacchan."
Something's cracking. Something's crumbling.
"Sunset is when I would've liked to–ngh," Izuku's lip trembles and Katsuki's vision swims so much he can't see green anymore.
(Maybe that's a blessing)
"It's when I would've like to say yes, hold you, and stay, Kacchan."
The wisps of black clouds in the red-smeared Tōhoku sky pool down into the west, bundling as blankets for the setting red moon. The cool day wind's turning hotter as it prepares to welcome the night sun blinking awake in the east.
Sunset's almost over.
But not yet.
(Something important's breaking. Something precious is crumbling)
"It's…" says Katsuki in a small voice. "It's fucking sunset now, Deku."
(His palms burn and he holds on tighter, just a bit longer)
Izuku doesn't say anything, and as night and twilight flies by, he doesn't say anything else.
For the first time, it's Izuku who leaves first.
Katsuki watches him disappear into the stronghold of great cypress trees.
After a moment, he pulls his hand out from his nagagi, and sees the crumbled remains of golden scales torn from his heart.
For a long time, Katsuki simply sits on the ashen bank and waits.
AN:
i'm not planning to write these out so i'll just note it down:
(1) why didn't dk stop bk from going?
since they met, dk already had a glimpse of the big role that bk plays in ending the war. and he knows bk can't do it alone; hence, the envoy work
(2) who were they?
fuyumi & natsuo are still shōto's siblings (iceblood), high-ranking in Hokkaido. neito's a scientist in Kantō (human). yō's a priest in Shikoku (centaur) and that place has a revered pilgrimage to 88 temples. and camie's a fae who took an interest when bk arrived in kansai.
(3) why am I focusing on dk's clothes?
cuz this is bk's pov and that whipped boi only sees dk
(4) demons, destiny weavers, and seer relationship?
demons and destiny weavers lived together in chūgoku. then they managed to 'create' a seer and war broke out. destiny weavers made a contract of duty via their first wish with the seer to be isolated in chūbu so they can 'protect' the seer.
(5) how is the seer line continued?
the same as OFA. it's a generational brainwashing
/ and we're done with the flashbacks : chapters to follow are in the present