24 – The Day of the Wedding (2)

Katsuki Bakugou's wedding day was, coincidentally, one of the last few days of his youth. Naturally he would not know this until he was much older, for the borders of childhood and adulthood are always ill-defined, and only seen clearly with a margin of many years of hindsight. Even before those elucidating years had passed, however, on that very day as he walked down the aisle, he noticed something within him change. In that moment he understood the calmness of the sacrificial ox as it was led to the slaughter.

He savoured the crowd's eyes on him, the amaranthine light of the stars as his crown, and the grandiose flutter of his cloak in the windless air.

A part of him might die, he thought distantly, when he reached the altar. They could wrap the thigh bones of his soul in his spirit's fat and burn them, return them to the gods in the sky, and wring the

seeds from the remaining pith of his pneuma. It was too late to care. He was to be reborn.

And reborn a king.

He kept his eyes steady on the carpeted path ahead, despite the tugging of the heavenly bodies above his head and the woven wolves at his feet, and walked with as much composure as he could naturally muster. Quietude came to him so unnaturally that he had almost forgotten how it felt. He found it a little strange that Kirishima's hanging off his arm did not make him twitch as it used to, and that his heart kept its stillness at his proximity. He could manage this much, at least. He was growing.

He ignored an unsubtle wave from Ashido in the crowd (almost everything she did, he reflected later, was unsubtle) and pulled his arm from Kirishima's as he closed the distance to the stone altar. He came to stand on the cold step, across from the freakish frog-mouthed priestess and Uraraka in her veil, and coolly straightened himself out. He was not nervous, but he still somehow hoped that she was smiling under her shield of lace.

The priestess' expression didn't move to acknowledge his arrival, but she spoke almost immediately.

"Let us commence." She croaked.

And so they commenced. He droned out his lines, as he had learned them, one after the other. Uraraka stared facelessly back, replying in a monotone, occasionally nodding when the priestess said a word or two. His thick-woven coat was stuffy by only about the twelfth line in, and by the fifteenth he could feel the muscles in his neck ache from holding him straight for so long. By the twenty-first line he was so bored that he could feel himself beginning to vegetate.

Why in Father Night's name were Lasandunian wedding vows so long? After his spell of calmness had worn off, he had expected some surge of adrenaline to come and set his heart racing, but by contrast he was still waiting to feel anything more significant than the sinking of his heels into the bottom of his fur-lined boots. It might have been more bearable if he could look at anything other than the white veil of the girl he was to marry – see the hundred prismatic hues of the stars above, or his friends' faces in the crowd, or even Deku scowling behind his back – but instead he was forced to stare straight-faced and forwards, no more edified as to her emotion than he would be were he staring at a plain plaster wall.

"And so," said the priestess, her stern expression incongruous on her gentle frog's mouth, "as the summer's suns dispels the morning's mist, so shall the groom remove the bride's veil."

He didn't know whether he thought the instruction had come too early or too late. A pang of nerves hit him. He hoped that the audience had not noticed how his hands shook as he reached out to pull the lace from his eyes, or how he was mollified by the smile on her face when it emerged. The light from the stars danced in her wide brown eyes, enlivening them even as her words (vows again) were dull and uninflected. It contented him for the next while to watch the colours patter across the ice of her sclera, or a milky nebula spill across her glossy lips, or a distant sun glow on one of her crown's bells.

"As the juniper entwines about the wind," he watched her lips gather and part, imagining her tongue tapping the top of her hard palate with each consonant "and the earth embraces a flower's roots afore its petal, so I shall hold thee."

He remembered his replying words, and that they were thankfully to be some of his last. Beside him the priestess poured dark wine into a golden chalice.

"As the frost clasps the stone, and as the moonbeams kiss the dusk, so shall I hold thee."

He took the cup steady in his hands and held it before him, waiting until the waves on the surface of the wine had settled before moving them again. Uraraka looked up at him, and though her eyes were just as wide and clear as they had been a moment before, they did not carry a smile. She bit her lip and then released it, and he realised that she was steeling herself.

He had tried to hold the cup as gently as he could. Truly, he had. He had put its golden rim to the corners of her lips with such a care that it amazed him, and tipped it as delicately as he had he the strength to do. How could it have gone wrong?

Perhaps the edge of the aureate goblet had been sharper than they had thought; perhaps in his focus he had missed the flesh of her top lip, perhaps he had pushed too hard without knowing. All of these useless thoughts flashed through his head as Uraraka's brow tightened, and his hand pulled tight away, and a warm trickle of red spilled from the side of her mouth.

They both froze. The droplet of blood fattened on the ledge of her lip without running any further, almost taunting them.

Bakugou had fucked up. If any of the people who populated the front row of his peripheral vision had realised his mistake, he had fucked up far, far more. Drawing the bride's blood on her wedding day could be cause for divorce. There was already no doubt in his mind that Yaoyorozu had noticed, and wanted his head on a platter by the end of the day, but by the uncertain silence he guessed that Deku, Iida and the others had not. They probably believed that it was simply spilt wine, a bit of harmless teenaged ineptitude, and though that was humiliating in its own way, it was not an illusion he wanted to break.

The princess raised a swaying hand up, and he darted to catch it before she could wipe away the crimson droplet. He couldn't let her - once it was upon her fingers its opacity would expose its sanguine origins, and her dutiful knights would raise the alarm.

So her hand was clutched in his, up by the rock-hewn altar, and her look to him turned confused, and a low murmur began to rise from the audience. What could he do? What could he do? He hastily put the chalice back before the priestess (it clattered horribly on the stone), and raised his eyebrows in what he hoped was a plea. Would she understand? She mimicked his face, and at the signal he moved.

Katsuki Bakugou leaned forwards and kissed her.

Only on the side of her mouth. Only so that his lips grazed the far end of her risorius, only a light touch to get the job done. He only did it so that his own head blocked the audience's view as his tongue connected with the droplet of blood, wiped it inelegantly from her cold skin. It was only a few seconds – and perhaps it was not even that, perhaps it was just a fraction of a heartbeat. As soon as his wet tongue tasted the iron and salt she stiffened, and he felt his heart sink as though it was made of lead, and then he pulled away and she calmed and there was silence. They smiled politely at each other.

"Behold," he said as coolly as he could "thou art consecrated unto me, with this wine, according to the laws of the Earth and Sky."

The priestess frowned a little, but nonetheless picked up the grains to hand to Uraraka and cleared the altar of the wine. The ceremony continued. He ate the seeds from her hand, more words were said (many more words than he had predicted, for they came from the mouths of the choir and the priestess), and then they were done.

They were done. Married. Was that really all that it took?

They turned to face the audience, and his sunken heart beat fast when he caught the faintest glimpse of a smile on her corner-cut lips. She called out and he watched silently.

"People of Lasandu," he didn't know why he was mesmerised by the sight of her "I am now your queen. I hope that I may serve you well, and that our Land shall come to prosper."

They clapped. He saw Kirishima and Ashido, boisterous as usual, raise their fists and cheer, whilst Iida and Deku gave their lopsided knight's applause, and he swore that Yaoyorozu, whilst making all the correct motions, contributed no noise at all. She was staring daggers at him. Though he ignored her, his stomach remained strangely heavy.

Something within him didn't sit right. He thought it was probably worry. He wasn't used to feeling worry. He wasn't usually used to feeling worry, at least. The princess (no, he told himself now, the queen) was oddly capable of stirring it up in him.

He stole a glance at her again. She was serene as a July saint, but somehow that didn't help at all. If she could only spare a look at him, a whisper, maybe, a pinching at the corners of her eyes, he would know that she held no contempt for him, and his heart would rise again.

Why did he care so much?

He pushed the thought down, suppressing it with a sharp tightening of his diaphragm. It felt a little dangerous, as though if he pressed any further he would find something he would not like. He had plenty of things to dislike already, anyway. Things like still-whiny Deku, bawling his eyes out at the sight of his best friend married, and his inevitable confrontation with that tall, pony-tailed girl.

But Deku had begun to muffle his blubbering in his sleeve, and the crowd had died down, and as the silence washed around him again his thoughts came surging again.

Weren't they meant to kiss now?

A nervous cold rose up his neck, and he wished to have his lion's mane back to hide it. They had agreed upon a kiss earlier, but he had had to coax it out of her, and, technically, they had already fulfilled their bargain, so what need was there now anyway?

Questions came rushing. Did she even want to kiss him? Had he been the proposal's sole true advocate, had she agreed only to silence his requests? But her look to him now was gentle; what did that mean? Was it a false face? The silence grew.

Should he lean in now, initiate? No- he could think of nothing worse than being left cold at the altar, no, it was far safer to leave things be-

Cold fingers wrapped around his hand. He turned to see Uraraka, softly smiling, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear. She rocked forwards in her clogs, leaned up… and kissed him.

It was only a few seconds – perhaps it was not even that, perhaps it was just a fraction of a heartbeat. It was only the simple touch of one mouth against another, an innocent instance, quickly broken, but it left his skin urticated and feverish. His heart raced.

After she had pulled away, she gave him a quick smile and relinquished his hand (he wondered whether he had ever taken hers back, or just hung within it limply. He had been so caught up by her lips that he didn't recall) before marching off to sort out the palanquin for the parade. Bakugou watched her go in a daze.

What was that? He had always imagined kissing as something that was done to girls, rather than by them, but Uraraka's calm demeanour had made the whole thing seem so natural that he had never paused to question it. She made it seem so correct, so easily tied off that he was utterly in awe of her. He wondered at the back of his mind how she could be so cool about it, and then why she had smiled if it was only a business interaction between them.

His first kiss. It was not how he had expected it.

A not-unpleasant fog had settled over his eyes, and he could still hear his heart echoing in his ribs. His rose-and-pansy friends grinned cheekily at him from their seats, but he ignored them. For the moment he felt contented.

He was a king.

The look of anger, or maybe hurt, or maybe betrayal, upon Deku's face was not too bad either.

XXX

The stars grew shy, dimming and then disappearing altogether as people left the hall. Bakugou kept his eyes on them as he walked out. The light changed colours, fading colder and colder, and when he finally left there was almost darkness.

He thought it was a shame. He wanted to see the circular microcosmos full and whole again, a miniature mirror of the desert sky over Illium at night. Then the night was so packed full of silver sparks that he imagined it as a woven basket holding the suns like close-nestling figs, and the stars as chinks of light through the pannier's ilala palm ribs. He imagined a few fruits slipping out, falling into his waiting hands. He imagined holding the morning light as his.

He supposed that he missed it.

In Lasandu the night was too cold and cloud-thick to stargaze, and the few pinpricks of light that could be seen were too sharp to be pleasant on the eyes. If only this hall could light up for him like black over the sand dunes had, if only he could conjure an eventide spectacle at his will.

A voice at the back of his mind whispered.

He could. He could if he loved and was loved just the same.

Was that what he wanted? It was too dangerous, too vulnerable a thought to entertain now.

He shook his head, pulled up the collar of his ceremonial coat about his neck, and walked to the courtyard where the palanquin waited for him. The corridors were far from empty as he made his way, but hardly anyone called out to him as he went. He carved silently through them. He was their king now, clad in glorious red and gold, and yet nobody would acknowledge it. It frustrated him a little; as monarch he thought he ought to command at least a little respect.

But it was true that nobody knew him here, and that few of those who did had any warmth in their hearts for him. Though his attitude was standoffish by choice, it did nothing for his popularity. If he wanted to be recognised, he would have to prove himself a worthy leader, worthy of respect.

Perhaps respect, like true love, had to be forged with his own hands.

Another dangerous thought. Now was not the time.

He walked on. He nodded to Sero and Denki, trailing with Jirou's band of musicians, and marched off around a sharp corner to the tall doors that led to the back of the courtyard. After hiking his heavy sleeves over his elbows, he pushed them open.

"There you are!"

No sooner had he closed the way behind him than the queen had pattered up to him. Her breath clouded wetly against her lips, and her hair seemed fluffier in the breezy air.

"I've been waiting for you. You need to sit up on the litter with me, we're almost ready to go."

She grabbed him by his hand and led him away. He let himself be pulled – a now familiar sensation – too distracted by the heat rising from their points of contact to protest. She had cold, hard hands, but they seemed to fit perfectly in his.

"Up, up now!"

Oh yes, that was why his hand was in hers. He had to let go once he had made his way. As he waited for her to climb on too there was a moment in which he sat alone on the gently floating frame, with the steep of the snow and the city below him, and in which he thought of nothing at all. All of his worries, about power, love, the stars at his home, fate and the improbability of his current situation left him, and all that he felt was the freeze of the mountain air.

Fuck, it was cold up here.

A rustling and faint chiming to his right. The princess. Fuck, wait, the queen. They were moving. Since when were they moving?

It got noisier as they left the castle gates. The palanquin tipped forwards as its bearers (who were these people?) placed their feet carefully on the precipitous cobblestone. Their paces slowed to a crawl. Firecracker smoke and the sweet smell of candied fruit rose in the air, and lively chatter wound its way around the peppery fumes.

Uraraka waved a wide-sleeved hand at the crowd, smiling gracefully. Small children cheered.

"I thought Lasandunians didn't care about royal affairs." He whispered roughly to her out of the corners of his mouth.

"They don't." She whispered back. He marvelled at her control of the quiet syllables, how she never seemed to stop smiling at her subjects as she said it. "They care that it's an excuse to drink and eat fruit."

He huffed and sat back. She continued to smile and wave.

The air warmed slightly as they marched on. Though the cloud had settled in the valley below, and the two bright suns shone tauntingly far off in the springtime sky, the atmosphere was thick and heavy. The mist of his breaths hung about his neck for a while before dissipating, and a layer of blue condensation glimmered on Uraraka's crown. He caught himself thinking for the briefest of moments that his wife was quite pretty in that light, but soon smothered it with another observation.

Ochaco Uraraka was his wife.

It was still a strange thought. He considered pushing it back, as he had done with so many others that day, but after a few moments of reflection he found that it was not so treacherous, and he let it run on. It was through his actions that this turn of events had come about, after all. There was no harm in taking stock of his situation.

First the hunt, then the training, the escape, falling in love; his path had meandered wildly but it had been his choice, perhaps the first choice he had made that was completely his own, to come to Lasandu. He had wanted to be a hero. He had wanted to kill her.

Why hadn't he?

He had had the chance, that first night, with the knife in his hands, against her neck. He hadn't known about the curse then, the famine, her hurt. He had had the chance.

Why hadn't he slit her throat?

XXX

Past midnight. The moon hidden by the night's fog, light barely humming above the quiet stone. Katsuki Bakugou peeled off his mask, muffling the click of its beak with the goatskin as he slipped out of his layers.

He stood, tensing, in the dark. Everything around him was a shade of grey, and it was colder than anything he had ever known. A shiver ran through his spine as he reached slowly for his knife, using both hands and twitching constantly for silence. His hands were stiff about the hilt and his heartbeat, which had crept up on him, shook through his fingers.

He stepped carefully out onto the carpet, each footstep measured and soundless. It took him five paces to creep to the curtains about her bed and once he faced them he stood completely still, listening to his heart pound and feeling his harsh breaths press against his front. Adrenaline coursed through him. His blood strained in his veins.

Slowly, ever so painfully slowly, he pulled back a curtain and knelt on the bed. The fabric fell back behind him, enveloping him in darkness. It was pitch black as his knees sank into the quilting, and he heard the quiet rush of the princess' breathing. She was still asleep. Thank the gods, she was still asleep.

He was motionless as he let his eyes adjust, even though each heartbeat rocked him and echoed in his ears. He could not afford a single misstep here, for it would surely be his last.

The wait was excruciating. Each second was marked by the heaviness of the blade in his hands, and even when it was over he continued to second-guess himself. Were these faint grey outlines really the limit of his vision in the gloom? Was that curled beam of charcoal really his target, a cruel princess beyond redemption?

He shifted his grip on the knife and bit his lip, watching her.

He wouldn't stab her in the heart. He didn't think he could bear to hear the crunch of her septum and the tear of lungs and the screaming before a cut-in-half sob. He didn't think he could stand the gushing blood and the pommel of his hand dipped in gore. It was too much force, too much violence on such a small girl. She didn't deserve such a fate.

(But she did, didn't she? Wasn't that why he was here?)

No, it wasn't that. Surely it wasn't that. Surely Katsuki Bakugou would not be overcome by sentimentality at such a crucial time. Men and heroes did not hesitate for their enemies' suffering. No, it must be something else- what else was there? What reason could there be? His mind raced until he was satisfied with his logic: that it was because she slept on her side.

(But he could turn her over, wake her up. No matter if she screamed, there was no one there to hear it but him...)

He was still frozen on his knees, still watching her sleep. She sighed and shifted, and he tensed. Through the dark he made out the shaky lines of her eyebrows pinching, and a silver globule of saltwater growing under her lashes. He waited, transfixed, but the tear never fell.

He knew that he could not bear to hear her scream.

His fingers were turning numb. What was he to do? Silently or not, he needed her dead.

He should warm up first. With limbs so stiff from chill, he would not be able to make the slash fast enough. There was no harm in sitting under the covers for a bit as he positioned his blade. Perhaps if he was next to her, he would understand where to make the cut better.

He lay down beside her. There was quiet but for their breaths and the rustle of the duvet. His hands were still cold, and the tear still balanced on her waterline. Time stood still.

His heart calmed. It was alright, he thought, it was alright if he killed her like this. She would die in her sleep, never know of it. He would not hear her scream. He would be a hero.

(But it was dishonourable to kill someone in their sleep, to deny them their final sight. And he didn't know anything about this girl, really, and her treasury was empty, and she knew Deku, and surely villains did not cry at night. Something was wrong.)

He held the blade to her throat and was hit with nausea. The saline taste of disgust filled his mouth, wretched, and he had to bite his lip to contain his dread.

Something was wrong. His heartbeat roared back in his chest and his hair stood on end. He had to do this. Something was wrong. He had to-

The girl's eyes were open.

His breath hitched and his heart stammered and skipped. He didn't move- couldn't move. He was as paralyzed as he had been on his first hunt, numbed as he thought of the inevitable blood, the screaming-

She reached her hand out, above the covers, and held his face by his jaw. A desperate whine built in his throat, straining to break out between his aching lips.

Why? Why was she so tender, half-asleep, so gentle? Why could she not be cruel, or harsh, or force his hand with panic? Something was wrong. Another swell of nausea swept over him.

"Shhhhh."

Her voice came as a whisper, a placation. As if he was not the one with the knife in his hands, as if he was the one who was hurting.

Please, he thought, and the garbled sob rose in his mind, please don't. Please don't make this hard for me. Please don't look at me so warmly, please don't smile when I hold your life in my hands. Please, I wanted to be a hero-

Her fingers ran through his hair and traced his cheekbones.

Please, don't make me a murderer.

Her palm alighted softly on his cheek.

"It's alright." She said, and then her hand went slack.

He yanked his arm away and staggered back, his breaths sawing out of him in sharp pants. His knife scattered out of his grip, thrown onto the bed, and his cloak twisted about his limbs, tangling. Fat beads of sweat ran down his neck. His throat constricted and his lungs spasmed. The nausea blistered in his larynx as he scrambled to his feet, his mind a sheet of white lead.

He lurched down the stairs, barely conscious of it, found some servant's sink and fell to his knees, spewed up his stomach, then curled, light-headed on the floor. His thoughts wove about each other in frenetic patterns as he waited for the stars to clear.

Was it only cowardice? Was it only fear that stopped his hand? It could not be, not when he had faced wolves and cracked ice and frostbite to make his way. What, then? What held him back? Pity? He didn't think he was capable of pity. Weakness disgusted him. His own weakness disgusted him now.

But was it weakness? He knew himself. If he had seized up so, it was because he knew, deep inside, that it was the heroic thing to do.

He knew, on an instinct, on the memory of her face, that Ochaco Uraraka was not a monster.

He needed to know what she was.

XXX

The crowd were singing. He couldn't make out the words, pulled and pushed at as they were by children's mouths, but beneath the cacophony a fairly nice tune carried through.

"Is everything alright?" his wife said out of the corners of her mouth. She still had that graceful smile, lovely but false, upon her lips.

He grunted in reply. She had pulled him from his thoughts, and naturally his eyes turned to her. He let his eyes roam over the shine of her short hair, her brown eyes, her round cheeks. Monoma's bruise peeked, ugly green, on the edge of her jawbone. His lip curled involuntarily at the thought of the dead boy.

XXX

He had spent the second day away from her, safe within the castle walls. He was not so prideful as to think that the spirits would never get him, and the time alone afforded him the privacy to investigate.

He stretched his weary, cramping limbs and set about exploring the castle, opening every door as he came to it and peering into the dusty depths of the undisturbed rooms. He found no hidden treasure, no ancient wills or secret doors; the closest he came to mystery was the enormous library with its creaking shelves and powdered tomes in a language he did not know, and on his way he slipped several times on the wearing runner carpets.

Eventually he grew bored of the lofty halls (the cold and the hunger made him feverish for something more), and decided to try his luck on the outside of the castle. After heaving open the celestially-studded doors, he discovered that his luck was quite abominable. Nothing in the plant beds was yet ripe enough to be eaten, and the door had locked itself behind him, leaving him at the mercy of the elements. In the late afternoon he was forced to take on his disguise again and crouch behind a bramble bush for warmth. It was a miserable few hours, and his anticipation for the princess' return heightened with every chatter of his frozen teeth.

He did not feel relief when he saw her again.

He had expected to, not for her, particularly, but for the food she carried, or her fingers for a key to open the door. He did not trust her enough to attach any emotion to her actions. But the sight of her, blood-soaked and beaten, scarlet with a new bruise, set fire to his stomach and filled him with a storm that pulled him in by his head.

Who was she?

"Poor thing, aren't you cold?"

Her voice was calm and gentle. How could she pretend that nothing was wrong, that the blood on her shoes did not shine like crimson velvet? She crouched to touch him and he recoiled.

(What else could he have done?)

But at this Uraraka split in two, became a girl he had never seen before. She shook with rage, crushed ice in her hands and shrieked between breaths that sounded like sobs. Tears formed but again they did not fall, sat on her lids as if they were afraid to grow any further. She cried that the bruise on her cheek was from a suitor, that they were rotten, that he was rotten and a monster and that she would kill him for the same.

And then she fell to her back, glossy-eyed, and then she stammered out an apology.

Who was she?

That night she spoke exactly four lines of poetry, so heavy as to not bear repeating, and fell to bed without any further explanation. He wondered whether to count it as a confession or not, and as the night crept on he wondered too whether to finish last night's work. Had she not killed a boy? Did she not wish death upon eleven others?

But he knew as he stood over her, knife in hand, moonlight on his back, that it was a weak justification. He did not believe that humans were irredeemable (with a past like his, how could he?), that they deserved to die before saying their piece. Thieves and forgers were innocent until proven guilty, and sinners could become saints as long as they changed their paths with enough conviction. Uraraka seemed saint and sinner at once, victim and villain and resentful of both. He could neither canonise not condemn her, not until he knew…

Knew what?

Just that brief moment of hesitation, that slight pressure on the covers was all it took to unpick his stealth and slyness.

She awoke. There was a tense and terrible moment in which he knew that she was awake, but that she had not yet moved, and then in an instant she flew at him. She fought like a madwoman, flinging wild punches, full of power, with total disregard for where they fell. It was almost unfair. Bakugou, with his knight's training, with his hunter's reflexes, caught her very first blow and soon had her pinned on her back.

It did not last. A kick out of nowhere was all it took to send him flying to the ceiling; the bang of his head against the stone hurt almost as much as his bruised pride.

He scowled at her to hide his panic, and proceeded to feign total ignorance at the situation. To his amazement, it worked.

They argued. She took his knife. They sat opposite each other and argued some more. This was the first time they had really talked, he realised, the first time that they were face to face long enough to know more than a name. She was now truly, inescapably human in his eyes.

But there was still something not quite right. He was stunned by the speed with which calmness came upon her again, how she managed to laugh just as she said that her soul would surely go to hell.

He needed to know why.

XXX

Uraraka was holding his hand.

What the fuck?

Since when had Uraraka been holding his hand? Had the crowd noticed?

He looked about, peering silently through a chink in the curtain of his thoughts, and wondered how much longer he could be left to lose himself.

The queen did not look at him.

XXX

On the second night she slapped him. Then they argued, then she took his knife, then they sat away from each other and argued some more.

He was angry then. Sleep-deprived, lost in the snow, forced to watch as she fell into some other boy's arms. The latter incensed him more than he thought it ought to. It was a matter of course that he would detest a character as slimy as Shindo, but he was equally vexed with her. He had expected better from her, he supposed.

Her defence was an attack. They argued some more.

But his anger fell away when she let slip that she had written pink letters. A fresh clue to his past, to the making of him, revealed itself and he desperately wanted to know more. Their mutual connection to Deku was revealed. She looked at him with disappointment. He knew that she knew. It hurt.

But still he managed to pry the story out of her. A careful mix of feigned disinterest, atypical kindness, and metaphors that he shamelessly stole from Mina… and a promise to tell his story too. A story that he had never told anyone, that he had thought long dead in his chest. He had thought the words were too choking to ever escape him, but as she began to talk the idea soon fell away.

Her love was just like any other. Sappy, stupid, fairly forgettable. But peppered within it were kernels of something that kept him on edge. The truth of the rumours: the death, the loneliness, why Deku had been sent away. There was yet something missing. With the arrival of a knight, most tales would end, tied off happily with a bow and a wedding, but hers dragged on, painful. He knew that Deku had liked the girl who wrote the letters, and now that she had liked him too. Why, when he said so, did she smile so sadly?

Deku had seen her at her worst. He knew what she had done.

When? What? More tantalising questions opened themselves up just as she closed her lips tight and retreated into defensive facetiousness.

His own turn to speak crept up on him. He didn't expect to find it so easy. He told her things that he had never told a soul alive, and she listened attentively, her big brown eyes glistening in interest without judgement. He told her of the sea, of Elder Priam, of Kirishima's strength and how he had sewn himself into his heart. How it was impossible for them to love each other.

They were the same, in a way. Both scarred hot off the brand of their first loves, both afraid to love again. He had denied the fear at first but she saw through him (since when was he the kind of man that could be seen through?) and told him that it was wrong.

Her high-handedness enraged him yet she did not even stir. She accepted his anger as though she deserved it.

He needed to know why.

XXX

"We're nearly there now." Said Uraraka.

There was a hint of panic in her voice. He thought of telling her that it would be alright, that she had practiced enough and besides the people were not so invested in their matrimony as to notice any mistakes, but did not. He didn't know how to speak in that royal way of hers, moving her lips slowly, thinly, barely showing that she spoke at all as whispered words rolled out.

Instead, he squeezed her hand.

XXX

On the third night she told him.

She told him of killing Omochi, of the blood on the fur, of the disconnect between her mind and her limbs, and he bit his lip and forgot to breathe because he knew it. He knew the pain of the first kill, the hollow that was left in you as your own heart beat and another's was stopped by your hands. He knew her suffering because it was his own. Something strange, unknown, thickened and settled in his heart.

She told him of the weaver boy. She gasped and choked and curled up in on herself, and the tears danced on her waterline but again they did not fall. Against his better judgement, against logic and everything he knew, he longed to reach out and touch her.

He did not have the words and he did not know which ones were needed. He wanted to thank her and console her and tell her that she was brave, that she was not a monster, but he did not. She had lunged at him when he had tried to come near, and he would not try again only because she was too fragile to resist now. He was not like Monoma, or Shindo. He did not want her only to soothe his guilty conscious.

(What did he want from her?)

She looked at him with tears in her eyes and told him that she did not regret it. She, who shook before him; he, who had come at first to destroy her, who knew the nausea of guilt, how it ate away inside you – he could not stand it. He snapped.

He told her what he could see plainly, and whilst she protested he came towards her, pushed by an alien sensation in his heart that squeezed at his throat and blurred his eyes. To see her like this, an ugly reflection of himself, a shattered wreck that he had picked apart, tore ruthlessly at his conscience. He could not help the hand that reached out to her; it was an instinct, the only crude placation that he had ever known. She shrank away and his heart seemed to beat on the wrong side of his body. This was not what he wanted.

(What did he want?)

Her eyes were ocean currents, pulling him in. He vacillated helplessly as her desperation grew again, and she cried out that he had torn her apart.

His heart screamed at him. Wretchedness locked his jaw and pulled at his ribs.

He had not meant to.

(He had, he had. He had meant to slit her throat and close her lifeless head in a walnut wood box. The memory laved over him, salty on his tongue.)

He did not mean to, now.

He spanned the void between them and placed his palm gently on her hair. His voice was so soft that he almost didn't recognise it, so gentle that she did not trust it.

She wanted to cry; cry in his arms.

He wanted to let her. Again that emotion that he did not know swept over him, and he wanted to hold her gently, wanted to wrap her as lovers clasped letters and the light enfolded the suns. He wanted to pull her close to him as daisies were twined in children's hands and the tide pulled at the shore.

She climbed into the shroud of his arms, and he held her tight. It was warm, and slightly soft. As her tears began to fall and she shivered and sobbed, he curled his head to rest on hers and whispered slow encouragements. He had never, in all his years of life, held someone so close as he held her. He held her so he could feel her heartbeat and the wave of sleep wash through her bones. He held her as though it was all he could do.

It was, in a way. Watching her slumber, he felt the dread of the coming morning dissolve and a new determination rise within him. That warm, recondite emotion tickled in his skin and left his hairs standing on end.

What was it?

XXX

Bakugou stirred from his thoughts to watch Uraraka relinquish the lip (ever-so-slightly corner-cut) that she had been biting. The stiffness that had characterised her smile now spread through her brows and cheeks and neck, and she became as cold as a statue. Only the quick, sharp twitch of the cords in her neck as she swallowed revealed her true nervousness.

That new emotion bubbled up inside of him again. Electricity twisted and coiled through his veins and the muscles at his nape tightened. What was it? He wanted to reach out and touch her.

What was it?

He wanted to see her smile again.

What was it? What was it?

Oh.

But he had known it all along, hadn't he? He had known it and been too much a coward to face the truth.

He wanted to protect her.

And wasn't that what heroes did?

They curled onto the black stone of the square. A crowd of youths, all clad in coats and furs, waited with rosy faces for the cavalcade to halt, and cheered when it eventually did.

Uraraka raised a wide-sleeved hand. There was silence but for a single crying child somewhere far away.

"Citizens of Lasandu," she said, unnervingly calm "I come before you today as you queen. I am wedded to Katsuki Bakugou, who comes before you today as King. As your regents we will endeavour, as I have wished for so long, to restore the glory of our once-proud nation. The Earth Mother has arisen for spring, bringing new opportunity for all, and I pray that we are given blessing to grow as the gentian and mountain rose are given blessings to bloom in the cold.

"With this prayer in mind, I now call for the ceremony of the bells."

His heart was beating so loudly that he was sure it could be heard echoing outside his chest. Adrenaline surged, exhilarating, paralysing, through his spine, and his tongue was dry as sand.

The blue knight came forward, presenting in his chain-mailed hands a flat blue pillow, upon which sat two red-ribboned bells. The Queen leaned forward, the very picture of grace and refinement as she used one hand to delicately hold back a wide sleeve and the other to pick a bell by its ribbon. The veil, tucked behind her head, swayed gently in the wind. A halo of lace floated about her and he sat utterly entranced at the sight of it.

She turned to face him with that little smile again. It was still as calm as ever, but he hoped – he imagined – that the pinch of her eyes' inner corners made it genuine, that she was happy as she raised her arms and placed them behind his neck. The cool, rustling motion as her hair brushed his shoulder sent frissons of something like pleasure through his clavicle, followed by a shock of panic as he remembered the crowd's eyes upon him.

His face, as ever, was set firm and scowling. He knew from muscle memory that he hadn't let it slip, but at the back of his mind the fear still nagged at him, rejoined by the strange, mortifying wish that he had. He wanted – no, a part of him wanted, a stupid, illogical, new-born and callow part of him wanted – to smile at her. It wanted to subtly twist the corners of his lips as her fingers untangled from behind him and she pulled away, to ensure that she had understood his silent encouragement and hold her gaze for only a little longer. It wanted-

To no avail.

His gaze was steady and secure. She leaned away from him, bell tied, and there was a moment of silence. He dared not to look away, but he felt from its gentle weight that the ribbon had been tied loosely, and that the bell swung low at his chest, silenced by the heavy knots around it.

He should have expected it. She had told him herself that this was the way that things were to be. An echo of her words reverberated back to him, glassy and high:

"You would not want to claim me as your own."

But he did. The thought, then just a tiny lump at the back of his throat, now burgeoned into twine about his lungs.

He wanted to claim her.

He wanted her to claim him.

Wasn't that the point of all this? Wasn't their kiss an acquiescence, a promise to conspire together even knowing the other's shame? Who did they have now to confide in save each other, who did they have to hold?

It was only as his fingers closed about the ribbon that he remembered to breathe again, and a rush of blood came running to his head. The weight of it in his palms made him dizzy. The world spun around her earth-brown eyes.

She smiled politely, waiting, as he held it in front of her, and again in a split second his gaze flashed to the line of red at the edge of her lips. He breathed deep to settle himself and leaned to wrap his arms behind her neck. Her head was bowed, exposing the white of her nape and the fan of her eyelashes from above as he began to move. It felt almost like a privilege to see her from that strange angle, to have her throat in his hands.

He pulled the ribbon, tight. He tied the bow as swiftly as his numbed fingers would allow and recoiled as though from a flame. It was not through fear that he retreated so hastily, no; he fell away in anticipation, to see the results of his work.

He was quite pleased with the final effect: a little frown, her lips slightly parted in confusion, a splash of pink across her round cheeks. Most importantly, her eyes were fixed on him, searching. He narrowed his eyes in response.

It was on purpose. He hoped that his eyes would convey what hands could only hint at. It was on purpose. He was marrying her on purpose, and he wanted those who saw her to know. They were together not only because of chance.

She lowered her eyes and turned back to the crowd. Another speech, another song. The procession crawled slowly back up the mountain again.

XXX

At the feast Bakugou sat in the King's seat, and Uraraka sat in the Queen's. It was quite strange for him to see the great banquet hall from the far end of the table, and to look down at all those eating.

It made sense, he supposed. Though he had not been crowned as they were in Abrassa, he was still a king, after all.

He was a king. He smirked. The thought was growing on him.

At his side, his wife made weak chatter with Ashido and Yaoyorozu. She hadn't eaten a thing since the beginning of the meal. He did not really expect her to. A melancholic air hung about her pale skin, almost made tangible by her feeble laughter at Ashido's foolery, thick and impenetrable.

He didn't think that he could be the one to question it. He knew why, anyway, or he could at least guess. If he pointed it out now she would resent the recognition of her weakness.

(He wanted to protect her, but she did not seem to want protection.)

So he sat there, eating quietly, waiting for the whole thing to finally end. When he was done eating (quite a long time after he had started, for he did his best to stretch the time), he remained still and watched the people at the table chatter and laugh. He was sat next to Sir Iida, who was sat next to Sir Midoriya, who was talking to Todoroki, and all of them were doing a fine job of ignoring his presence.

He told himself that he didn't mind. It was better than fighting them over this morning's mistake, and Kirishima, sat further away next to the baker boy, had a manic twinkle in his eyes that he did not wish to entertain.

Evening rose around them. A hundred flickering candles were lit, and sweetbreads were torn and passed around in the soft mandarin-tinted light.

Uraraka seemed calmer in the orange dark. He wondered at first whether it was simply the warm glow of the fire playing tricks on his eyes, filling in her pallor and painting her hair with streaks of red, but soon realised that it was something more. She ran her fingers casually through her hair as she talked, and her laughs now had that ringing tone that he seldom heard from her. Her eyes slipped to the candles every so often, resting there until the conversation pulled her back in again.

Night fanned its robes and fell upon them like water slowly drip drip dripping from a leaf. Shadows crawled from the between the stones and the gentle buzz of the darkness droned on warm skin.

Uraraka talked across Bakugou, to Iida and Midoriya, and he listened carefully. Every so often he interjected snidely but, to his surprise, none of them rebuked him for it. They talked mostly around him, about people he did not know and moments that he had not been around to witness, but seemed still acutely aware of his presence. He didn't mind. Uraraka was at the happiest he had seen her all day, and he was content enough to lean on his fist and observe her out of the corners of his eyes. He liked to watch for her gesticulations, those emphatic hand gestures of hers whenever she told a story, and compared each one as they came to those he had seen in the past. He told himself that if he had been reduced to this, it was only because he was terribly bored.

The conversation streamed on. She told another story, and he could not help but smirk at her earnest impressions of each character. Just then, there was the clatter of cutlery from one of the silently listening boys. He looked away to see who it was, and found Midoriya staring at him.

Gods, what a terrible look. Not the look of pity that he was used to, no, something harder, more bitter, something like the stone hidden inside a soft fruit. Though the contours of Midoriya's eyes were as soft as ever, he bore a subtle frown, of confusion rather than anger, and his mouth was just barely agape. His eyes flicked to Uraraka and then back to Bakugou.

Bakugou scowled at him in response. He did not know what was brewing inside Midoriya's ever-restless mind, but he knew that he was certain not to like it. At this, Midoriya turned back to Iida, and they ignored each other for the rest of the night.

Another speech, another song. At last, the celebrations were over.

He pushed himself from his seat at the first available opportunity, not caring to see the guests off and instead skulking away on his own. He used sparks of magic to illuminate his way through the night-blackened corridors, twisting blindly through junction and over stairway until he was satisfied that he could no longer hear the murmur of people and the tapping of feet. He stopped, still sending tiny flashes of red from his palm, and squinted at his surroundings.

Golden hinges coruscated in the pomegranate light. Wood lacquered as blue as the deepest sea gleamed mutedly. The Hall of Stars.

He looked about himself once and then, as though drawn by a silent song, ventured in.

It had been pitch-dark in the unlighted castle halls, but the Hall of Stars was darker still. The tenebrosity was so thick as to push back on his every step, welling around his ankles like a returning tide. The black poured over him, into him; the kind of black only found at the edges of the universe and in the depths of the blind earth. Everything and nothing. He waded through the obscurity until his legs suddenly gave out from beneath him, and he sat in the dark on the edge of the runner carpet, staring into the gloom.

His eyes never adjusted to the black. Magic, perhaps. After a time he wondered just what it was that he was actually doing there, but in his weariness the worry wore fast away. It was peaceful here. No crowd to watch him, no worries of memorised lines and sharp cups.

The sharp cup – what a shame. And what a shame he hadn't been able to see the stars above him like the sky over the desert dunes.

Oh, that dangerous thought again. If it kept coming back then it must be worth something. In the silence he could not even hear his breath or his heartbeat. The calm of the sea washed over him.

He wanted to see the stars.

He wanted to be respected.

He wanted to protect Uraraka.

He wanted to be loved.

Suddenly there came a brilliant flash of light, and tangerine orange invaded his every sense.

"There you are," came Uraraka's voice from the end of the aisle. Above them a pool of copper-burnished stars shimmered like suns underwater. "We've been looking for you." But she was alone.

He stood slowly, shielding his eyes from the light but still daring to peek through the gaps in his fingers at the sunset above. The Queen, too, looked upwards.

"What now?" he croaked.

"Well, now," she put her hands on her hips and sighed "we'd better clear up."

A/N: phew- many things!
The first kiss, Bakugou's memories of the festival nights, and, of course, the *oh*. This chapter was an absolute monster to write, but I hope that it was worth the wait! This is the start of the "to lovers" arc, don't you think? Well, tell me what you think anyway! I loved hearing your theories on the last chapter!

^^This may be an impossibly difficult question, but does anyone want to guess why the stars for Bakugou and Uraraka are amber/orange? I promise there's a reason, and it is hinted at in early chapters. I'll be mighty impressed if anyone gets it :D

Little notes-
1) Iida and Midoriya have lopsided applause because of their knight's training. They walk just a little lopsided too! This is because they must be constantly vigilant and ready to pull out their swords at a moment's notice: their sword arms (dominant-handed arms) hang lower in anticipation so that weapons can be unsheathed quicker. Just a fun detail, I suppose.
2) One of the major themes of this chapter was what Bakugou wants/desires. Even Bakugou himself seems to struggle with his intentions and motivations sometimes, and it was fun writing the process of untangling it all. What he wants for his life, for himself, is inextricably linked to what he wants from Uraraka.
3) I like to tailor my metaphors/imagery to whoever's point of view the story is seen through. Bakugou has more of sea/ocean and sun imagery because of his upbringing, whilst Uraraka has a wide range to reflect her well-varied royal education. Honestly, it's pretty subtle and not the strongest, but I have fun with it.