Katsuki broke their eye contact and looked back to the crowd in one sweeping motion. He waved as Izuku saw it all happening in slow motion.
Katsuki smiled at him . He wasn't being thrown out on his ass as he stood there, frozen. The crowd's cheering died down into a murmur as everyone chatted excitedly around him. He hesitated for a moment before he sank back into his chair and let everyone filter out past him.
He wasn't sure what he was doing, but his body seemed to know. Katsuki had disappeared backstage again, stopping as someone ran to him, hands outstretched. He didn't find Izuku again like Izuku willed him to, though, with him sitting he thought it was foolish to expect to be found.
Did Katsuki want him here? He needed to know now, and this was his chance. Could they be something?
Izuku's thoughts echoed the way he knew he muttered when going over numbers, analyses, breaking down heroes' power moves whenever they were filmed. A steady stream of thoughts that swirled incoherently together with frequent explosions of Kacchan .
He could feel his heartbeat throughout his entire body. He was hardly aware of the people brushing past him, the smells of everyone's sweaty excitement and perfumes, colognes and straight up BO. When his row was empty, he hesitated before getting into the aisle.
He pulled his shades back over his eyes, hoped no one could recognise him, ducked his head, and pretended he didn't feel every single pair of eyes watching him go the wrong way. He didn't join them, he was strange, he had the audacity. Izuku swallowed the nerves, clenched his fists, and strode forward while being careful not to bump was expecting someone to yank his hat off and expose his green curls.
He got to the stage and loitered nervously, a few stragglers watched him curiously, enviously. Then Izuku heard him. His raspy voice, the harsh pronunciations of his words as he was congratulated backstage. He didn't hear what he was saying though, not the actual words.
The last of the people had left. Izuku sidled closer, less self conscious but also, did Katsuki know he was here? He missed the first half of whatever the other person was asking. His heartbeat ceased, and Izuku suddenly felt like a hollow shell grasping for echoes of sound.
"-happened out there?"
Katsuki gave a kind of chuckle. "I thought I saw someone."
"Huh? Who?" Izuku thought it sounded like Burnin'. Her tone slowed into a playground taunt. "Was it him ?"
Katsuki said nothing, Izuku didn't hear him breathe. There was a rustle of fabric, a zipper, the clunk of his gauntlets. "He was just a friend."
Was.
"Just a friend, you say?" Burnin's voice teased still. Izuku imagined that she was quirking an eyebrow, popping her hand on her hip like all her hero posters displayed her. "If I remember correctly, those photos of you in All Might pajama pants three inches too short, and love bites all over your torso, had not in fact been photoshopped."
"Well, it's been almost a year and it meant nothing. And it's over now, so would you just drop it?" A zipper echoed out with finality, and Izuku thought it was maybe a duffle bag that carried his hero suit and gear. He was standing there analysing this like he did everything else and he was so disconnected from it, the pain in his chest didn't register.
He was so stupid. The eye contact was nothing. Katsuki had only thought he saw him. Only he was stupid enough to think that Katsuki actually wanted to see him. They were friends, past tense. Wasn't even anything worth talking about now. Something that belonged in the past and him standing just off the stage, listening with every fibre of his being to a conversation he was certain he wasn't meant to hear was suddenly like a slap.
He thought he would cry. Honestly, he often did cry, and literally at everything. He needed to leave.
Suddenly he was on the floor.
"Izuku?" Katsuki blinked down at him, his shades askew and hat beside him, green curls on full display. He called him Izuku, and not Deku as he did the last time he saw him. That painful reminder of exactly what Katsuki thought of him. He swallowed the miniscule bubble of hope. He wasn't going to do this to himself. He got to his feet, ignoring Katsuki's hand that was out in mid offer to help him up. It dropped back to his side when Izuku stood.
"Hey." Izuku's voice was smaller than he meant it to be. "I'll leave. I just uh," Izuku looked around for an escape, a way out of this all at once too small room with too hot air that was like cotton to inhale. "I- congratulations, Kacchan."
Izuku turned to leave, his eyes never meeting Katsuki's. Their eye contact from on stage when Katsuki didn't believe it was him was enough. He would have to pretend he wasn't in love with him. This was platonic. Katsuki's fingers closed around his wrist; not aggressively, it didn't hurt him. But he did pull at him and Izuku paused. His face was hot, his skin was melting, he wanted to disappear from embarrassment.
"Izuku." Katsuki said his name so softly, Izuku's feet glued themselves to the floor. He had intended to slip his wrist from his fingertips and walk out. "How much of that did you hear?" Somehow, Katsuki managed to sound hurt, sorry; it almost got Izuku to look up at him. But he couldn't look at him, because all he wanted to do was kiss him. And his palm was soft as ever against the sensitive skin of his thrumming pulse that Katsuki was surely feeling, that Izuku had to blink the image of Katsuki's open mouth and bare chest under him, his red eyes devouring Izuku like a starved man out of his mind.
"Izuku." Katsuki's voice was begging him. Katsuki Bakugou, begging. "Look at me."
And Izuku did. He saw Katsuki looking down at him, his pupils blown wide, eyes soft, no sign of a frown on his head, but worry instead. His mouth was turned down slightly in the corners; and he was dressed in civilian clothes. It was one second before Izuku's vision was flooded and Katsuki's face was a kaleidoscope of red, ash blond, tanned skin.
He pulled his wrist from him then. He blinked and swiped at his cheeks angrily. He did this to himself. He hurt himself. He forgot the hat, he clenched his shades in his fist, the frame bending with the force of it. Katsuki didn't come after him.
Izuku avoided Ai that evening, but when she came to say goodbye, he was able to smile at her while she looked at him with careful worry; afraid to ask, unsure what the answer would be and if she even wanted to know.
Talking it out would probably be for the best, Izuku thought. But for right now, he wanted to pretend that the day had ended with Katsuki yelling thanks into the crowd. That the day had ended with Izuku simply leaving with the legions of fans, unnoticed, insignificant.
Izuku spent the night buried in a murder mystery book because everything was better than romance now. Why does everyone else get a happy ending, and the literal nerd in a bookstore doesn't get his childhood best friend, sex god, and top hero?
He fell asleep dreaming about Ai, Daisuke, Iida, and him all formed into a mystery solving group like that American cartoon with the talking dog, and they were going around unmasking heroes and discovering they were well known villains.
He was startled out of sleep and felt the warmth of the morning sun blanketing his face. He had slept through his alarm. It was after seven am. There was a knock on the door that sounded suspiciously like the sound the club made upon contact with his head in his dream he was having two seconds ago. He sat up, blood flowing back to his extremities in painful precision.
Who the fuck was here at seven on a Sunday morning? Did Ai forget something? To be fair, he would usually be up by now.
He tucked his morning erection into the waistband of his pants and willed it to go away, but it didn't. He sighed as the knocking became a bit impatient, more consecutive, but light banging.
"Be there in a sec-" Ai's seen him in worse, he couldn't find his t-shirt, but there was a light silk robe Ai bought him as a jest that was so sheer, it hid nothing; he rubbed his eyes as he walked down the staircase and through the bookstore. He could see her silhouette through the lowered blinds of the front door, only there so people would see the closed sign. He was still rubbing the sleep out of his eyes, the brightness prickling angrily at his retinas when he opened the doors.
And it wasn't Ai.
Katsuki Bakugou stood with his hands in his pockets, pants low on his hips, a turtleneck athleisure shirt closing around his long neck. No mask, no shades, ash blond hair catching light and looking white in the morning sun.
"Kacchan." Izuku felt dazed. Was he still dreaming?
"I got your messages, Izuku." Katsuki shifted on his feet, looking mildly uncomfortable. But, Izuku might be crazy; he thought he also saw hope .
