Izuku was jolted awake by a sharp pounding on his door. He looked around and found Katsuki still asleep beside him, his head buried under a pillow. Broad expanses of skin wrapped around his muscle in ripples. Their legs were still intertwined at the ankles.

"Boss!" Ai's frantic voice called. Izuku's leg was asleep but he managed to sidle out from beside Katsuki, careful to not disturb the covers or him. He was a heavy sleeper, Izuku realised. And it was still early…they had been up for a while last night' evident from the love bites along Katsuki's throat and Izuku's stomach, chest, and two on his inner thighs.

He pulled on boxers and a t-shirt from the scattered clothing on the floor, then peeked through a crack in the door to confirm it was Ai before he stepped out, shutting the door behind him.

"What's happened?" Izuku whispered, though it wasn't necessary on this side of the door, he didn't want to wake Katsuki. "Is everything okay?"

"Boss," Ai's eyes were zipping over his face, Izuku could see a sheen on her forehead like she had run here. "I'm sorry to-" She swallowed, "But you need to see this."

She pulled him by his elbow and walked around the corner of the corridor so they could see into Bookmarked. She gestured but Izuku couldn't see anything. It was dark, and the sun was glaring through the expanse of display windows on the street side by bouncing off the windows of the buildings opposite. It was quiet, he thought. Still, like trees before a storm, that eerie silence that screamed run .

"What?" Izuku raised his eyebrows. "The shop looks fine." He moved to step into the space, to get a better view. And everything happened all at once.

"No-!" Ai grasped at his t-shirt but it slipped from her fingertips, and suddenly, the world was white. And noisy. Voices were echoing through the glass of the storefront and flashes from cameras lit every corner. Izuku couldn't blink the sparks away, white dots floated across his vision blinding him.

Ai pulled him back with a yank and she looked absolutely petrified. "I'm sorry! I tried to warn you-"

"What are they doing here?" Izuku couldn't see her face and he rubbed his eyes, his mind still groggy with sleep and head filled with noise.

"I don't know!" Ai whispered, even though no one could hear them. "Only Iida, Daisuke, and I knew or suspected Dynamight came over last night, I don't know how anyone would have leaked-"

A look of dawning realisation came over her face, she twisted her hands nervously. "Unless I said it too loudly at the bar and someone overheard me." She closed her eyes tightly so her lids were wrinkled like prunes, " God , I was with Iida! Of course paparazzi might have been trailing him!"

"You didn't give much away!" Izuku wanted to comfort her, she did nothing wrong. This was ugly and a big misunderstanding. Media was always a part of the Pro Hero life, let alone when a scandal like Katsuki's with Camie happens, it was easy money. Easy to sell stories. "You didn't do this. They're vultures, Ai."

"I-" She wrung her hands so thoroughly, Izuku could see her fingertips go white. He could see her mind working by the way her eyes were moving back and forth, like she was seeing a plan in her head. "I'll try to get rid of them."

"No. What?" Izuku wasn't fast enough to stop her, she slipped from his reach and into the blinding lights. And then it was chaos. Again.

Izuku took one step to follow her, at the same time a hand grabbed his forearm and Katsuki stumbled out behind him into the store. Izuku hadn't heard him call his name. His ears were still ringing from shock, or the shouts, or the blood rushing through him spiked high with adrenaline. He blinked up at Katsuki as cameras flashed capturing their stunned faces. Katsuki's naked and scarred torso was on full display with Izuku's too short pajama bottoms hanging low on his hips. Katsuki's red eyes had widened slightly in shock before he looked at Ai holding up a sign, then to Izuku and to his hand that was their point of contact. Their hair both looked properly tousled, their clothes weren't their own by their fits.

The cameras were catching it all. Katsuki's eyes narrowed in quiet fury, while his expression remained outwardly…impassive. Izuku could recognise it now. He strode from the store back into the apartment, Izuku followed, his heart pounding out of sync interrupting normal blood flow. He was lightheaded.

"Kacchan!" Izuku stumbled up the stairs.

"I didn't think you were like the others." Katsuki said quietly as he yanked off Izuku's pajama pants and tossed through heaps of sheets for his own clothes. Izuku could smell the nitroglycerin like chemical in the air. He was enraged.

"I'm not!" Izuku explained frantically. Except his words weren't working. His mind wasn't allowing a sentence. He felt like a doll with a pull line, one phrase was all he was capable of.

"You're like Camie. You're like Ochako. You're like all of them." Katsuki spat, finally tugging on his pants. He strode up to Izuku and Izuku froze, not in fear of him, or horror because his mouth refused to work, but because he was hurt. He was being accused of the worst thing.

"I didn't." Izuku's voice was choked, he could see Katsuki's face already swimming with his quickly filling eyes. He blinked the tears away.

"How much did they pay you, huh?" Katsuki's mouth was a vicious twist. "How much did I whore myself out for?"

Izuku stepped back, a fist clenching around his heart and suffocating his brain. No, this wasn't how it was supposed to go. He sobbed. "Well Izuku, what was I worth? What was the cost of one fuck?"

He glared down. Izuku shook his head and gulped.

"Give me my t-shirt." Katsuki held his hand out. "I don't want you to have anything of mine."

Izuku pulled it off his body with shaking hands. He hadn't realised it was Katsuki's, he was so discombobulated by Ai's wake up. He stood exposed to the cold bedroom air now, under Katsuki's seething glare. Katsuki yanked the shirt over his head and strode to the one window that opened in the attic bedroom. He looked over his shoulder as a breeze wafted in, the smell of the explosive chemical high, intoxicating, full. "Don't call me, Deku."

"Did he leav-" Ai stopped as she took in Izuku. She looked around quickly and found a robe Izuku never wore, but had kept to feel fancy, and slipped him into it. "What happened?"

"He thi- hic- " Izuku's shoulders shook He felt slapped, or punched, his brain was jelly and thoughts weren't thoughts, just pictures in his mind replaying rapidly everything that had just happened. And last night, how perfect it was, except, now it wasn't. "He thinks I did this."

"No." Ai looked horrified. "I'll tell him! It was my fault or, something, anything ."

Izuku gave her a watery smile and shook his head. "I think it's over." His voice was a wet whisper. Ai offering to talk to Katsuki when she was afraid of him before, for him , he didn't deserve her friendship.

Bookmarked remained closed for a week.

Ai and Daisuke, with occasional visits from Iida, were not nearly cheering him up as they hoped. But he appreciated their company, because it occupied his time. Time he couldn't use to run the bookstore when it was being swarmed by scavengers.

The photos were telling. Izuku ripped up the first paper, angry with himself, sad about hurting Katsuki. He could see that pain in black and white, and sometimes in colour, printed in perfect definition of Katsuki's disgust and hurt. His dark eyes and careful expression. Izuku felt sick. It was so opposite to their first photograph to splash front pages everywhere. A good humoured kiss with surface level genuine affection.

Not this startled, pained, confused Katsuki, and terrified Izuku. Red marks visible on them both from their night together. The scandal of the possibility that Katsuki had been cheating on Camie with Izuku the entire time. The double scandal of Katsuki being in not one, but two sexual scandals within a week.

Izuku felt stupid.

You're like all of them. He had practically spat the words. He hadn't seen that hate from Katsuki since they were fourteen. But this was different even from that. It roiled off of him like an alarm screaming 'stay away' while simultaneously building walls so high and so fast, Izuku just knew they were done. Just like that.

It was over, just like that.