Katsuki had pretty much avoided all social interaction since Iida's birthday party. He just didn't want to be around his friends and all their healthy, successful relationships. He'd always been the extra in the group, the one who never split a check at dinner, or always had an instant partner for game nights. That never bothered him before, either. He was content with his lone wolf existence. Being alone never felt lonely. And then Izuku happened, and now he was painfully aware of what he was missing.
His friends were good about it. He got the sense that they didn't know what to do with him, so they let him grieve. That is, they let him grieve until they found out he wasn't coming to the UA Christmas party—and that was apparently the last straw. Kirishima put his foot down, and refused to let him wallow any longer.
So, there he was, standing outside in the fucking cold at Kaminari and Jiro's house, barbecuing against his will. He couldn't fathom why they had a barbecue—neither of them could cook for shit—let alone why they would invite everyone over for a barbecue in January. It was the epitome of poor planning, even with the heat lamps in the backyard.
Still, everyone seemed to be enjoying themselves and expertly ignoring Katsuki's sour mood. Iida was there for once, so he didn't even have Sero to be alone with. They sat, talking closely, their heads nearly pressed together, smiling stupidly at each other. At least they weren't as bad as Kirishima and Ashido, off somewhere in the dark, probably horizontal on a lawn chair. They moved in together last month, and they'd been unabashedly throwing themselves at each other since. He was happy for them, but he had to remind himself of that over and over again every time he was stuck in the rose-colored bubble of their honeymoon phase. Katsuki huffed a frustrated sigh and flipped a burger, willing himself to stop being such a petty, grumpy bastard.
Jiro sidled up to him, a bag of buns and a serving tray in her hands.
"You okay?"
"Peachy. I love doing outdoor activities in freezing weather," he snarked. Jiro smacked him with the bag of buns, but her expression was soft.
"I'm sorry. I don't think everyone realizes how hard it is for you to be the odd one out."
The words odd one out felt like a punch to the kidney. Katsuki shook his head and flipped another party on the grill.
"It's fine. It's not their fault."
It wasn't their fault that Katsuki chose to put all his effort into something Izuku didn't want. It wasn't their fault that Katsuki couldn't stand to talk about his feelings with his friends, so he chose to sulk in a corner.
"It's not, but it's not your fault either. Obviously, none of us know the whole story, but we know you well enough to know that you never half-ass anything. If it wasn't working, it wasn't for lack of trying. You've gotta let it go," she said softly while arranging the buns to sit open-faced on the serving platter. They were quiet after that, silently putting the burger patties on the tray. Jiro hadn't said anything Katsuki hadn't already thought of himself. It was no earth-shattering revelation, but it felt good to hear it from someone else. Katsuki felt like he'd just discovered the power of fucking friendship. Jiro picked up the platter to take to the table, and before she was out of earshot, Katsuki murmured, "Thanks."
She stopped, looked back at him knowingly, and said, "For what?"
Katsuki smirked at her, grateful she wasn't going to give him a hard time.
Dinner was full of raucous nonsense, as it often was where his friends were concerned. Everyone was more than a little drunk and giggly, and Katsuki decided he was going to stop moping. It had been almost a year since he and Izuku ended things, and he refused to waste anymore time being angry. He'd wallowed enough, he'd grieved his loss and licked his wounds, and it was time to stop dwelling on it. It was time to stop waiting for Izuku because that was what he was doing whether he wanted to admit it to himself or not. He was waiting for Izuku to come to his senses and declare himself to him, and that was never going to happen.
Katsuki threw an extra bun at Kirishima's head. They were drunkenly making out at the dinner table and the food he'd so generously prepared was getting cold fast.
"You know, you've got to separate your face from Ashido's if you're going to eat, dumbass. Food's getting cold," he said. Everyone laughed, and Jiro shot him a small, warm smile. Kirishima and Ashido came up for air, but they were still looking only at each other, breathless and flushed and absolutely sloshed. All at once, they both spoke.
"Kiri, let's get married."
"Let's open an agency together."
There was a weighty pause, not just between them, but a pause in all conversation around them. They both stared dumbly at each other before they both choked out at the same time.
"Yes."
After that, the night only got more raucous, and more drunk.
APRILHe stopped by Kirishima and Ashido's agency after work so he could jog to the gym with Kirishima. They'd made a habit of it after Katsuki decided to get his head out of his ass and stop sulking. Kirishima provided a great distraction, he was there for Katsuki in a way he'd never never needed before, and though Katsuki refused to move to their agency (the thought of having those two idiots as bosses flummoxed him too much to even consider it), he did a fair amount of work helping them get their agency off the ground.
There was a small piece of Katsuki that he would never show to anyone, that was jealous of their newfound love and success. They decided to put the agency before the wedding, setting the date for September, and Katsuki immediately left them room anytime someone broached the subject. He could handle helping with the agency budget and suggesting new hires and what schools to offer internship programs to, but he couldn't sit around and talk about guest lists and flower arrangements and how disgustingly in love they were. It hurt too much, and it set him off on a downward spiral of thinking of Izuku, thinking of the future he'd vaguely imagined building around him once.
He nodded to the receptionist by the front door. He was there often enough that the receptionist immediately used one of her many arms to call Kirishima and let him know he'd arrived.
"Ground Zero, got a minute?"
"Who's asking?" Katsuki asked, wary of strangers. Katsuki turned to look at a tall, broad sidekick he only sort of recognized. He seemed to be just finishing up his patrol, still decked out in his support gear.
"Tidal. Mizuno Ian, when I'm off the clock."
"I've heard of you. You were pretty badass during that forest fire."
Tidal smiled widely at the mild praise. Katsuki knew that Tidal was relatively new to the rankings. He would never tell him, but Katsuki recommended that Kirishima hire him. He was one of their first sidekicks, and was a clear stand out in their rescue division. He was American, a transplant from a successful hero family in New York. He knew he came from a long line of powerful water Quirks—though his was nothing too special. He could only manipulate standing water, which explained the large water tanks on his back, and the small hoses wound around his costume.
"Thanks. Do you think I could join you and the boss at the gym?" Tidal's smile was warm, but a bit nervous.
"I guess. It's not like it's exclusive," Katsuki said, brushing him off. Kirishima made his way out to the waiting area, and high-fived Tidal as he was walking to the locker rooms to change.
"Hey, Bakubro, I see you've met my top sidekick."
"He's coming to the gym with us," Katsuki said nonchalantly, thumbing through work emails on his phone.
"Great," Kirishima said. Katsuki noticed something out of place in his smile but he ignored it. Kirishima—most likely at Ashido's behest—had been trying to set him up a lot in the last few months. He was used to it by now, even though nothing ever came of it.
JUNEHe was starting to be okay. Part of him liked that, but most of Katsuki feared the day he stopped thinking about Izuku. It was like he still wanted to stubbornly hold onto him, to wait for something that was never coming. That was kind of shitty of him considering he was dating. It was new and weird and they both agreed that they should take things slowly, but he'd gotten used to putting himself out there.
Apparently he'd lost his scary don't approach me edge, because Mizuno boldly asked him on a date. After the third time he tagged along with them to the gym, Mizuno made it clear he was interested in spending more time together. Katsuki appreciated the honesty, the directness that was missing between him and Izuku, and it didn't hurt that he'd had a chance to ogle Mizuno while he worked out. His fixation with Mizuno's pale, freckled skin had him thinking he definitely had a type.
He'd learned a lot about him in their two months of casual dating. He knew Mizuno was Japanese, but he learned that his mother was an Irish immigrant. He had an older brother with a Quirk vastly more impressive than his own, and he took over his family's rescue agency as soon as he graduated from school. Mizuno, like Katsuki, was too ambitious to work under his brother, so he used some family connections to try his hand at climbing the ranks in Japan. He wanted to make a name for himself, separate from the Mizuno agency, so there he was.
It was nice. The irony wasn't lost on him that he found himself to be compatible with someone with a water Quirk, but fire and water aside, they were really similar. They'd often argue about nothing just because they were both so hardheaded. Casual date conversation often turned into fierce, intellectual debates on everything from good books to video games to the hero rankings—even when they agreed, one of them would deliberately throw a wrench in their own reasoning just to have something yell about.
Katsuki never felt like the world would end if he got angry or upset with Mizuno. A lot of the time his anger fell away in the face of Mizuno's because if he got really mad, he'd start speaking flustered, hurried English. It was a funny half-in, half-out thing that always made Katsuki laugh and that always made Mizuno blush even redder. Sometimes, if they were alone, Katsuki would hold his puffed out, crimson cheeks and kiss his nose.
Katsuki liked Mizuno—more than he thought he would in the wake of his heartbreak—but he found himself thinking there was something missing. He never had that feeling in those quiet, close moments, like he knew he was living a perfect moment as it was happening. Like his heart was taking a snapshot to memorialize it forever. He didn't know what to make of that. He wanted to blame it on the fact that his one method of comparison was an unorthodox whirlwind that never made much sense. It was all passion and no reason. Emotion over thought.
He hoped, in time, that he and Mizuno could settle into their own passionate storm, falling into step beside each other and patiently waiting for those perfect moments to surface, so he could methodically replace all the little snapshots of Izuku—so he could lessen the hurt that still resurfaced all too eagerly when he thought of him.
AUGUSTIzuku was staring at his Ground Zero bento in the teachers lounge, wishing he'd had the time to wash his usual bento that morning because now he was thinking of Kacchan. Thinking of Kacchan made his stomach hurt, like he had a particularly nasty ulcer and the only cure was calling him (which he wouldn't do).
He was so distracted, he didn't notice Shinso's tall frame taking up most of the doorway as he leaned against it until he cleared his throat. What was it with Shinso and lurking in doorways, and why wasn't Izuku used to it yet? Izuku jumped, dropping his chopsticks with a small clatter.
"You good?" Shinso asked, voice thick with something akin to amusement. Izuku was not good.
"I'm good!"
"Want to talk about it?"
"About what?"
"Why you're staring at that bento like it punched you in the face and stole your wallet," he said, pushing off the door frame to take a seat next to Izuku. He stole Izuku's upended chopsticks to pick around in his lunch.
"Oh," he said, because what else could he say?
"You could call him, you know," Shinso said, lightly. He had a way of jumping seamlessly from sarcasm to sincerity that still threw Izuku sometimes.
"He wouldn't answer." Izuku called him a lot after the first month of their stalemate—he refused to call it a fight—and Kacchan never answered or returned a call, save for that one time. And that one time was enough to make him stop for good. He made Kacchan cry. He felt sick and guilty just thinking about it.
"Maybe, if you didn't call him at two in the morning he'd answer."
"If he wanted to talk to me, he could've called me in the morning."
"If you wanted to actually talk to him, you wouldn't call that late," Shinso said, popping a piece of chicken in his mouth. Izuku huffed and pried the chopsticks from Shinso's hand.
"What's that supposed to mean?"
"It means booty calls don't count." Shinso's lilac eyes narrowed, like he was daring Izuku to try to argue with him. Izuku looked away, guilty as charged, and Shinso started picking at his food again, this time with his fingers.
"You should call him. In the daylight hours," Shinso said when Izuku let the silence draw out.
"He doesn't want to see me," Izuku said, hearing the tiny beginnings of a wobble in his voice and hating himself for it.
"I saw you talking at Iida's birthday party. I saw the way he looked at you. He definitely wants to see you."
"That was a long time ago… Wait, how'd he look at me? I thought he just looked like he wanted to get away from me."
"He looked like you punched him in the face and stole his wallet. And like he would ask you to do it again if he didn't get out of there."
"What does that even mean? And how do you know so much about me and Kacchan?"
"You got wasted on appletinis and told me all about it before puking on my couch."
"I don't remember that," Izuku said, flames of shame engulfing his face.
"I know," he said dryly.
"Appletinis? Really?"
"You said they were green and sweet, just like you."
"And you didn't cut me off?" Izuku asked, mortified.
"Midoriya. Stop messing around and tell him how you feel. You've already wasted enough time."
"I still don't know if I can handle a relationship. Oh, god, I haven't had sex in over a year. What if I forgot how to do it?"
"Sex should be the last thing on your mind. Has anyone ever told you that you use sex as a weapon?"
"What?"
"You use it to power trip people. You're always in control because you replace actual intimacy with physical intimacy—like a cheat." Shinso popped a piece of broccoli in his mouth and licked his fingers.
"You sound like my therapist."
"I may as well be after everything you've told me," he said, his face shifting to concern again.
"The appletinis betrayed me, I can't believe it."
"Believe it. There's a green stain on my carpet because of you."
"What if I see him, and I get scared, and I can't say or do what I need to?"
"Then it wasn't meant to happen in the first place, and you'll have wasted a lot of time pining for him."
"Pining, huh? Who says I'm pining?" Izuku's challenging question fell flat. Shinso narrowed his eyes at him.
"Stop fucking around. You've been making all these changes in your life for so long. I know you want someone to share it with. A very specific someone. I can only be your emotional fluffer for so long."
"My what?"
"There's no way you don't know what a fluffer is."
"I do, but we're friends! You don't fluff anything."
"Not physically. Even though you've definitely made a pass at me."
"I have not!" Izuku couldn't tell if Shinso was being serious, or just teasing him to try to keep the conversation light.
"Appletinis, bitch."
"Never again." He sighed dramatically.
"That's what you said the last time." Shinso laughed at his expense, poking around for another piece of chicken, and Izuku finally snapped the lid shut to prevent his lunch from further desecration.
He walked away from the conversation with a lot on his mind. The only time he ever discussed Kacchan was during his therapy sessions—and, apparently, when he was drunk, which he was happy to say was much fewer and far between in recent months. Alcohol was another kind of crutch, and Izuku refused to lean on it too fully.
He made a conscious effort not to think about Kacchan because it still hurt. The hurt was so fresh and unwavering, it may as well have happened a month ago. He was coping, leaning into his friends and family and his art, but he couldn't deny the aching loneliness that hit him, always at night. Uraraka was dying to set him up with someone, but he always politely refused.
If he was being honest, he didn't want to move on from Kacchan. All the progress he made was building toward something, and Izuku couldn't deny that he wanted it to build a bridge that led straight to Kacchan. He wanted him and no one else, but he was afraid of fucking it all up again.
SEPTEMBERKatsuki stood on the raised platform in his itchy tux next to an already teary-eyed Kirishima. Part of his best man duties was to hold all of Kirishima's spent tissues, no matter how disgusting and snotty they got.
"Get a fucking grip. You haven't even seen her yet," Katsuki said, pocketing yet another damp tissue.
"I know, man, but it's just the atmosphere."
Katsuki looked around at the bare trees, the twinkling lights and paper lanterns strewn about. The atmosphere was, admittedly, very romantic. There was a sense of finality in the air, a certainty that this was meant to happen for them. The guest-list was small, a smattering of UA alums and old teachers, their immediate family, and some of the pro heroes from their agency all sat in ornate fold out chairs on the lawn, waiting for Ashido to appear.
"Ashido will kill you if you look like shit for the pictures," he said, opting for practicality over emotional sympathizing. Sero and Kaminari stood beside him, a few steps away from the main platform, standing with the most quiet patience he'd ever seen in them. They'd already processed down the aisle with Hagakure and Jiro in tow, respectively. Katsuki walked with Ashido's older sister, a near-carbon copy of the bride.
When Ashido appeared at the end of the aisle, in a stunning dress that perfectly toed the line between a Western wedding gown and traditional Japanese ceremonial garb, there was a weight in the room that compelled everyone to be silent and still.
Katsuki found himself making eye contact with Mizuno. He reddened when their eyes met, both caught staring at each other. In Mizuno's eyes, Katsuki saw a softness that he wasn't entirely ready to name, so he refocused on Ashido. She was just walking the small step up the raised platform and handing her bouquet to her sister. Kirishima was making a valiant effort at controlling himself, but he could see that Ashido was just as teary. They looked at each other like they were the only people in the world, like the light beaming from their faces was so blinding they could only see each other. It made Katsuki ache, but not in a way that was painful or unpleasant. It was like he was sharing in their perfect moment. He was so happy for them, and to be part of their weird love story.
Still, when the ceremony ended, he felt heavy and tired from the outpouring of emotion. He walked back down the aisle feeling like he needed a stiff drink, and a long nap.
Weddings were weird. Katsuki hadn't attended many in his life. He'd been invited to plenty, but he'd always RSVP'd "with regrets," sent a gift, and went on working. Kaminari and Jiro never had a ceremony. They just got married on a whim one day, about three years ago, after Kaminari almost died on the job. They were so low key about their union that everyone still called her Jiro. He would've attended their wedding if they asked him to. He would've gone to any of his friends' weddings—he probably wouldn't have had a choice because he would've been in them.
There was something simultaneously gravely serious and incredibly silly about attending a wedding. Everyone was light and easygoing, drinking with reckless abandon and dancing like no one was watching, but the event itself was one of the more serious events a person ever attended, save for a funeral.
That seriousness followed Katsuki around all night. He had a lot of dumb shit to do as the best man—more than he'd ever expected to have to do, actually—that he didn't spend a ton of time with Mizuno. But their eyes would catch now and again, the same way they did when he was standing at the altar, and something about it felt very, very serious.
He was depositing Kirishima's crusty used tissues in the garbage when Mizuno finally caught up to him.
"Hey," he said, placing a casual hand on the small of Katsuki's back.
"Having a good time?"
Mizuno nodded, smiling. Katsuki let himself be guided away from the trash can and closer to the small, covered dancefloor.
"Wanna dance?"
"Not particularly," Katsuki admitted. He'd never danced to anything other than angry rock and rap, and only in the safety of his apartment.
"Not even for me?"
"Well, when you put it like that…." Katsuki trailed off, rolling his eyes and taking his hand. They stayed near the edge of the dance floor, away from the tangled knot of dancers in the center of the room. Neither of them knew what they were doing, but it was nice to just hold each other and sway to the music.
"I really like you," Mizuno said, dropping his head just so to whisper in Katsuki's ear.
"I like you, too." Katsuki smiled. "I thought that was a given, though."
"I know. I think weddings just turn me into a sap."
"Gross. Don't start crying on me now. I've already got Kirishima's tears and snot all over me."
Mizuno laughed quietly. Katsuki could feel it bubbling from his chest. He tipped Katsuki's chin up with a light finger.
"I've got nothing to cry about," he murmured, his lips already so close to Katsuki's that it hardly took any effort to close the space between them.
And like an idiot, Katsuki's mind strayed to Izuku, thinking how nice it could've been to share a kiss at his best friends' wedding if he wasn't so afraid of the world knowing about them. He metaphorically waved the thought away like annoying fly buzzing around his face. When the song ended, Mizuno pecked him on the cheek and went to get them some drinks. He didn't feel like standing around in the middle of everything, so he shoved his hands in his pockets and walked to the edge of the tent. He found himself next to Aizawa during a rare moment of looking put-together, hair combed off his face and everything. He'd noticed earlier, while he was looking out at the guests from the altar, that he'd come alone. It hit him then, that if he were still with Izuku, Katsuki probably would've been alone tonight as well. The realization burned in his gut.
"No Joke tonight?" Katsuki smirked.
Aizawa rolled his eyes at his antics. "Of course, he told you about that."
Katsuki had no doubt that he was talking about Izuku, and Katsuki wondered if they were still arguing with each other. He had no way of knowing anything about Izuku's life—and it wasn't because Katsuki wasn't looking for a way. He'd spent a great many moments of weakness trolling Izuku's Winstagram page, but all his posts were vague and impersonal. There was nothing to glean from them.
"How is he?" Katsuki asked, and immediately regretted it when Mizuno came back with their drinks. He placed it in his hand, and Aizawa's eyes flicked from Katsuki's eyes, to the drink, to Mizuno himself.
"Probably best not to discuss him," Aizawa said, before sauntering away. "Have a good night, Bakugo."
Just because Aizawa was right, didn't mean Katsuki wasn't wishing he'd given him something a bit more substantial. He felt like a complete and total ass when Mizuno asked what they were talking about, and felt even worse when he effortlessly said, "No one."