———————❖———————
The gym was always quiet after hours. Katsuki was no stranger to staying late to push himself, whilst everyone else was back at the dorms taking shit easy. This time it was different, or rather it had been different for a couple of weeks. Ever since his closest friend had decided to join him.
He could still hear the hum of the lights when he wasn’t moving, the air smelled like the same old rubber mats mixed with sweat—only now instead of just his own laboured breathing filling the space Kirishima’s was there right along with it.
Katsuki was towelling off, still catching his breath from sparring when he noticed Kirishima hadn’t moved from where he’s sitting on the floor. The red-head’s just staring at the ground with a serious look on his face and it’s weird. Usually Kirishima was wearing that stupid grin of his, or at least a smile.
Katsuki frowned.
“Oi. You good?”
Kirishima lifts his head, his eyes soft in a way Katsuki doesn’t really know how to read.
“Yeah. I just… I need to tell you something.”
Katsuki freezes mid-movement. Those words never really led to anything great. At least not in his experience.
“What now?” He mutters, trying to sound annoyed but his voice comes out rougher than he wants.
Kirishima pushes himself to his feet. He looks genuinely nervous, which in turn makes Katsuki’s stomach twist. Kirishima never looked like that, not with him.
Kirishima takes a step closer to him, not too close but close enough that Katsuki’s sure he can feel the other man's post work out body heat radiating from him.
“I like you.” Kirishima says quietly. Bluntly. “Not like… Not just as a friend.”
The words hit Katsuki like a punch he doesn’t see coming. Which is rare these days because he’s fucking awesome.
Katsuki’s breath stutters in his chest. His fingers tighten around the towel he’s still holding as his heart’s slamming so hard against the cage of his ribs it almost hurts.
“What—” His voice cracks. He swallows. “What the hell are you talking about?”
Kirishima doesn’t flinch, he doesn’t laugh it off, and he doesn’t apologise either. He just stands there steady and open.
“I mean it,” he says. “I’ve felt this way for a while. So I just… I didn’t wanna hide it from you any more. I can’t.”
Katsuki’s brain feels like it's full of static. Heat. Panic. He takes a step backwards without really meaning to, his body moving as if on autopilot.
“You’re fucking with me,” he snaps. “This is— you can’t— why me?”
Kirishima’s expression softened more, if that was even possible.
“Because you matter to me. More than anyone else.”
Katsuki feels his throat close. He looks away, jaw clenched so tight it aches, fists clenched around his towel even tighter. His hands are shaking, barely, but enough that he aggressively hangs the towel over his shoulder and shoves them deep into the pockets of his sweats to hide the tremor.
He can’t breathe right, or think right. He can’t feel this much all at once.
Kirishima takes a small step towards him, not pushing into his personal space but just there.
“Katsuki.” He says the name gently. “You don’t need to say anything back. I just wanted... I needed you to know.”
Katsuki’s eyes snap up to the other man, wide and raw. Feeling like Kirishima just peeled his emotional armour off with his bare hands. Hell, Katsuki didn’t even know it could be torn away, thought he’d built it all up just right. Perfectly. Like everything he did.
“I didn’t know.” he mutters, voice low and unsteady. Too fucking vulnerable. “I didn’t— I’m not good at this shit.”
Kirishima’s smile is soft, warm and sad at the same time. “I know. That’s why I’m just telling you. Not asking for anything, I promise.”
Katsuki’s breath shudders out of him as he looks at Kirishima. Almost like he’s seeing the other man for the first time. Really seeing him. And suddenly it terrifies him.
“I need time.” he finally responds, barely above a whisper.
Kirishima just nods.
“Take all the time you need.”
Katsuki turns away too quickly, pretending it’s just to grab his bag, but his ears are red. He can feel them burning. He can’t look at Kirishima any more. Not right now.
Another beat passes in the silence that feels way too awkward to Kiatsuki, and then he’s shouldering his bag and leaving the gym. A muttered farewell thrown in Kirishima’s general direction as Katsuki speed walks away.
He doesn’t remember the walk back to his dorm.
It seems like one minute Katsuki’s in the gym with Kirishima and his confession ringing in his ears, and the next he’s standing in his room. Door shut, lights off, and his chest is feeling like someone has wrapped him in bandages that are way, way too tight.
He drops his bag somewhere near the wall, it hits the floor with a dull thud but Katsuki barely registers the sound. Doesn’t feel the towel sliding off his shoulder where it’d been perched since before. He doesn’t even bother turning on the light.
The dark feels safer, or maybe just less like he’s being seen He doesn’t want to be, not right now. Not when he’s confused and blindsided by whatever the fuck Kirishima thought he was doing by confessing like that. As if casually telling your guy best friend you fancy him is utterly mundane. Normal.
He isn’t as explosive as he’d been in the past. Time and experience mellowing him out as much as Katsuki thought he’d ever get. But that doesn’t mean he doesn’t want to blow something up.
He feels betrayed, yet he doesn’t even know why.
He presses the heel of his too sweaty palm to his forehead.
“Shit.”
It comes out in a low and almost breathless growl.
Katsuki sinks to the edge of his bed, knees feeling like jelly even as he rests his elbows on them. As he tangles his fingers through his hair Katsuki realises his heart hasn’t slowed down at all since the gym. It’s still hammering, wild and uneven like it’s trying to punch its way out.
Kirishima likes him.
Not as a friend, not a rival, not even as just the guy he trains with.
He likes him.
Katsuki squeezes his eyes shut and the room tilts as he flops sideways onto his mattress.
He didn’t see it. Not once in all the years they’ve known each other did Katsuki even feel a hint that Kirishima felt anything like that for him. Not that he really knows what that looks like. He knows it’s nothing like the way Mineta and sometimes Kaminari look at the girls, at least.
And what about how Katsuki feels about Kirishima? He has no fucking clue.
Kirishima is loyal, solid, stupidly encouraging and supportive. He’s friendly and strong and pretty much everyone who spends any amount of time with the guy likes him as a friend. He’s the one person who never looked at Katsuki like he was a bomb waiting to go off.
And now…
Now everything feels different. Wrong.
He can still hear Kirishima’s voice ringing in his ears.
“I like you.”
Katsuki’s stomach flips. Suddenly he’s standing again, pacing the length of his room like he’s trapped in a cage. He hates this. The shaking in his hands, the trembling way his stomach keeps twisting, the loss of control. Hates that one sentence from one person can unravel him like this.
Why him?
Why would anyone— let alone Kirishima—
Katsuki stops pacing and presses both hands against the wall, forehead resting between them, as if the support can hold him together.
He’s not disgusted, Katsuki knows that much. But that’s about it. Knows that the feeling clawing in his chest isn’t revulsion. At the same time, it feels like something worse. Revulsion he knows. He’s well acquainted with that feeling, it’s familiar.
This? What the fuck even was this feeling?
It made his throat tight, his palms sweaty, and his thoughts scatter like sparks. It made him feel dumb.
He’s scared.
There. He admits it. At least in his own head. He’s terrified.
Terrified because Kirishima matters. Because losing him would break something in Katsuki he doesn’t know how to fix if it falls apart. Because he doesn’t know how to handle being wanted like that, by someone who actually sees him.
Katsuki slides down the wall until he’s sitting on the floor with his knees pulled up, arms draped over them as his head falls forward.
He feels eighteen and ancient both at the same time.
Delayed graduation. Delayed everything, really. The world has thrown so much at them all before they even had a chance to grow into themselves. Experiment, develop like normal fucking teenagers should.
So now he’s sitting in the dark in his room like some fucking emo because, what? Because he doesn’t know how feelings are supposed to work? At least ones that aren’t pride, contempt, anger, frustration… Self-loathing.
Fuck.
He thought he’d gotten good at handling pressure. Turns out emotional pressure like this is a whole different battlefield, and he’s a complete novice.
What the hell is he supposed to do now?
He can’t pretend it didn’t happen. He can’t look Kirishima in the eye without hearing those words. But he can’t lose him, can’t say anything back. He can’t, can’t, can’t—
Katsuki digs his nails into his palms until it hurts. The pain grounds him but just barely, as he whispers into the dark to no-one but himself.
“Why’d you have to tell me, dumbass.”
It’s not said in anger, or blame.
It’s fear wrapped in confusion wrapped in something warm he doesn’t know to— refuses to name.
Katsuki stays on the floor for a long time just breathing through the internal panic. Waiting for his heartbeat to settle the fuck down. It never really does.
Eventually, when his adrenaline wanes one thought rises above all others. Impossible to ignore.
I don’t want him to regret telling me.
Katsuki grits his teeth as he stands to get ready for bed. Dinner be fucked, he isn’t hungry anyway.
He’s spiraling, yeah. But somewhere in the mess, something small and fragile is starting to take shape. That newness terrifies him most of all.
———————❖———————
Katsuki wakes up feeling like he didn’t get any sleep at all.
His alarm goes off at 06:00 but he’s already laying awake staring at the ceiling. His eyes feel gritty, throat dry as his stomach twists into something ugly and tight. He spent half the night on his floor, and the other half lying rigid in his bed. Only able to replay Kirishima’s voice over and over until the words may well have carved themselves permanently into his skull.
“I like you.”
He groans into his pillow then mutters at the memory as if it’ll help.
“Shut up.”
It does not, in fact, shut up.
Katsuki drags himself out of bed and down to the showers. He washes as quickly as possible before throwing on his uniform, moving almost mechanically.
The second he steps out into the main hallway again, now more alert after his brisk shower, reality slaps him in the face as he sees Kirishima across the main lounge room.
He has to spend the day around the other man. In class. In the dorms. In the hallways. Everywhere.
Katsuki stops walking and licks his lips which suddenly feel way too dry.
“Nope.” He mutters. “Not dealing with this.”
He turns on his heel to take the back staircase to his room again. He’d wait there until he was sure everyone would be on their way to class so he could arrive with just enough time to avoid having to be social. If class was starting then Kirishima couldn’t try to talk to him, right?
Katsuki felt a wave of guilt wash over him at the thought, but his feet didn’t stop moving until—
“Katsuki?”
He freezes on the spot. Of course the universe hates him. Of course.
Katsuki turns and Kirishima’s standing there with his dumb smile. Now that he’s closer, Katsuki can see his hair’s still damp from his morning shower. He has his uniform jacket slung over one shoulder, looking completely normal. As if he hadn’t dropped a confession shaped grenade into Katsuki’s life the evening before.
Katsuki’s throat closes and he considers running up the stairs, jumping out a window and faking his own death.
Instead he just grunts.
“What.”
Smooth. Very smooth.
Kirishima’s expression flickers, but it’s only for a split second before he’s grinning like the idiot he is. He doesn’t move closer, he just stands there giving Katsuki his personal space. As always. Katsuki doesn’t know if he appreciates that fact, or if it annoys him after the previous night.
“Morning!” Kirishima says, his voice gentle. “Did you… Uh… sleep okay?”
Katsuki’s jaw clenches so hard it hurts.
Why would he ask that? Why would he sound so damn cheerful and kind? Looking at him as if he cares, like he didn’t tear open something Katsuki didn’t know he even had until last night?
Katsuki looks away and stares at a crack in the wall like it’s suddenly fascinating.
“Fine.” He lies. “I’m fine.”
Kirishima just nods slowly. “Okay. I just— I didn’t want things to be weird.”
Too fucking late for that. Katsuki thinks.
His chest tightens. God he hates this, the awkwardness, the way the skin on his face feels too hot. Hates that he can’t look Kirishima in the eye without remembering the way he said ‘you matter to me’ like it was the simplest thing in the word to admit.
He forces the words out, “It’s not weird.”
It is absolutely weird.
Kirishima smiles again. It’s small and relieved and painfully sincere.
“Good, I didn’t want to make you uncomfortable.”
Katsuki’s breath catches painfully.
He should say something. Anything. Something that doesn’t sound like he’s being strangled by his own confused emotions. But all that comes out is a rough, “I said I needed time.”
“I know.” Kirishima says softly. “I’m not rushing you, I promise.”
Somehow his patience feels worse than pressure. Katsuki can handle yelling and fighting and explosions. He can’t handle gentleness and understanding, it makes his chest ache. Kirishima’s gentleness was completely different to Deku’s. The nerd was just annoying—though they got along fine now.
He swallows hard.
“Just— don’t look at me like that.” He mutters gruffly.
Kirishima blinks owlishly. “Like what?”
“Like…” Katsuki cuts himself off, ears burning uncomfortably. “Just don’t!”
Kirishima’s expression softens then. In a way that makes Katsuki want to punch a wall and crawl under a blanket at the same time.
“Okay.” Kirishima’s reply is quiet. “I’ll try.”
The silence stretches between them, then. Not hostile or cold but with a weird sense of fragility that Katsuki isn’t used to between them.
Katsuki stares at the floor and shifts his weight. “I’m going to class.”
“Yeah.” Kirishima says. “I’ll walk with you if that’s okay?”
Katsuki hesitates. His brain screaming absolutely fucking not this is killing me. He could say no, run and avoid this for days. But the thought of Kirishima walking alone after everything makes something twist painfully in his chest again. Great, he’s fucking broken now or something.
“...Whatever.” He mutters.
So they walk side by side. Not talking or touching but not far apart either.
———————❖———————
By the time afternoon training comes around Katsuki is running on fumes.
He’s spent the whole day pretending he’s fine. Which for him means scowling harder, snapping more, and refusing to make eye contact with anyone for longer than half a second. It worked for the first few hours of course, everyone assuming he’s just being himself.
But by lunch even Kaminari is giving him weird looks.
By the time they’re all filing into the gym for combat drills Katsuki’s nerves feel like exposed wires. It doesn’t help that it’s where it happened.
He spots Kirishima across the room and it’s instant. His chest tightens, his pulse spikes and his palms go sweaty inside his gloves. Kirishima is laughing at something Sero said, but the moment he notices Katsuki his smile softens. It makes Katsuki’s stomach somersault.
Katsuki looks away so fast he nearly gives himself whiplash. He heads straight to the far corner of the gym, pretending he needs to adjust his gauntlets. He doesn’t of course, they’re perfectly fine just like him. Everything is fine.
He’s absolutely not fine. Fuck.
A hand lands on his shoulder and Katsuki does not jump out of his skin. At all. Nor does he flinch so hard he almost blasts whoever dared on instinct.
“Woah—sorry!” Kirishima pulls his hand back immediately. “Didn’t mean to startle you.”
Katsuki’s heart’s pounding so hard that kirishima can probably hear it.
“You didn’t.” He grouses without looking up. “What do you want.”
Kirishima seems to hesitate.
“You’ve been off today.”
No shit. “I’m always off.”
“Not like this.”
Katsuki’s jaw tightens and he keeps fiddling with his gauntlet even though it doesn’t need it. There’s no way kirishima is actually that dumb. He for sure knows what’s up.
“I said I’m fine.”
“You’re not.”
Katsuki’s breath catches, he wants to scream. He finally looks up to see Kirishima watching him with that same steady, unbearably kind expression from this morning. He snaps.
“Stop looking at me like that! Do you really not know what’s up!?”
The gym goes quiet for a moment, not silent but aware and Katsuki wants to leave immediately.
Kirishima’s eyes widen as hurt flickers across his face before he manages to mask it. “I’m just worried.”
“Well don’t be.”
“I can’t help it.”
Katsuki’s stomach twists again, more unpleasant this time. He feels like shit. He knows he’s being a dick again, but he can’t help it. He hates this, hates how exposed he feels and how Kirishima keeps being gentle when Katsuki is one breath away from detonating.
He turns away, voice low and shaking with frustration he can’t contain.
“You shouldn’t have told me.”
The second the words leave his mouth he regrets them because Kirishima goes still and Katsuki can’t get the hurt look out of his mind.
“Oh.” He says quietly. “Okay.”
Katsuki whips around, panic flaring. “That’s not— I didn’t mean—”
“It’s fine.” Kirishima says, but his voice is too even and controlled for it to be. “I get it.”
“You don’t,” Katsuki snaps. “You don’t get anything.”
Kirishima’s expression cracks, just a little more. Enough for the hurt to be really visible now.
“Then explain it to me,” he says softly. “Because I’m trying Katsuki, I really am.”
Katsuki opens his mouth but nothing comes out.
He can’t explain the panic, the fear, the way his chest feels too small for everything inside it. He can’t explain how he wants to run away but also stay and scream and hide all at once. Nor the way Kirishima’s confession didn’t disgust him, that it scares him because somehow it matters. A lot. He can’t say any of that, so he says nothing.
Kirishima nods slowly, like he expected that non-answer.
“Okay.” he murmurs. “I’ll give you space.”
Then Kirishima steps away. Just one step but it feels like a chasm opening between them and Katsuki’s throat closes. He can feel his hands shaking and his vision blurring at the edges with something dangerously close to panic.
He doesn’t really want space, or distance. He doesn’t want Kirishima to walk away thinking he regrets the truth either. But Katsuki can’t seem to make his mouth work.
Finally Katsuki manages to make his voice work, though it's barely audible. “Don’t go far…”
Kirishima stops. He doesn’t turn around or push or say anything for a long moment. But Katsuki can see his shoulders loosen and his head dip in the smallest nod.
“I won’t.” he says quietly. Then he’s moving away again, across the gym back to Kaminari and Sero and Ashido as if nothing was different.
Katsuki somehow makes it through the rest of training by sheer force of will. Which for him means blowing things up harder than necessary and barking at anyone who gets within a three-meter radius. Aizawa gives him one warning look—just one—and Katsuki grits his teeth and reins it in. Barely.
By the time he storms into the locker room he’s vibrating with leftover adrenaline and something uglier underneath. Katsuki slams his locker open, tosses his gauntlets inside and tries to breathe.
He’s halfway through ripping off his shirt when he hears footsteps behind him. Soft ones. Annoyingly soft in-fact. He tugs his shirt back down.
Katsuki doesn’t turn around.
“If you’re here to lecture me, Deku, save it.”
There’s a pause for long enough that Katsuki knows exactly what kind of expression the nerd is wearing. Concern. That stupid, earnest furrow between his brows.
“Kacchan,” Izuku says gently, “you’re not acting like yourself.”
Katsuki snorts. “The hell does that mean.”
“It means,” Izuku continues, stepping closer, “you’re avoiding Kirishima. You’re snapping at everyone. You’re… tense.”
Katsuki slams his locker shut so hard the metal rattles. “I’m always like this.”
“No you’re not. Not any more.”
Katsuki’s jaw flexes. He hates how everyone keeps saying shit like that, like they can see through him. As if he’s so goddamn transparent.
Izuku takes a breath, steadying himself. “Did something happen between you two?”
Katsuki’s heart lurches as his shoulders go rigid.
Izuku notices. Of fucking course he does.
“Kacchan,” he says softly, “you don’t have to tell me everything. But I can tell you’re hurting. And Kirishima looked… he looked sad today.”
Katsuki feels nauseous, remembering the way Kirishima’s expression had dropped in the gym earlier, all because of him. Katsuki turns away and grabs his bag just to have something to do with his hands.
“Mind your own damn business."
“I can’t,” Izuku says, voice firmer now. Resolute. “You’re my friend.”
Katsuki freezes. Friend. He still isn’t used to hearing that from Izuku without it sounding like a damn question. But it was true, he supposed. He’d grown out of his immature and petty rivalry mindset.
Izuku steps closer then, though not too close. “Kacchan, why are you pushing him away?”
Katsuki stutters on a breath. “I’m not—”
“You are,” izuku says, not unkindly. “And I don’t think you really want to, but it’s what you’re doing.”
Katsuki grips the strap of his bag until his knuckles go white.
Izuku hesitates, then adds quietly, “Kirishima really cares about you.”
Katskui flinches like he’s been punched by those words.
Izuku sees it. His eyes widen. “Oh.”
Katsuki growls, “Don’t.” He huffs, “oh nothing.”
“I’m not judging!” Izuku says quickly. “I just—I didn’t know you felt—”
“I don’t feel anything,” Katsuki snaps too fast, too sharp. “I don’t…”
Izuku’s expression softens with painful clarity. “Kacchan, you’re scared.”
Katsuki hates that word. Hates how true it feels even more. But most of all he hates that Izuku can see it when Katsuki can barely admit it to himself.
He turns away with a voice that’s low and raw. “He told me something… big. And I don’t know what the hell I’m supposed to do with it.”
Izuku’s voice gentles even more, if that’s possible. “Did he hurt you?”
Katsuki shakes his head immediately. “No. As if he ever would. That’s the problem.”
Izuku blinks. “You’re scared because he didn’t hurt you?”
Katsuki’s voice cracks but he hopes Izuku doesn't hear it. “I’m scared because I think he really could.”
Silence.
Izuku steps closer, slow and careful like approaching a wounded animal.
“Kacchan,” he says softly, “you don’t have to figure it out today. But don’t shut him out. He doesn’t deserve that, and you don’t deserve to go through this alone.”
Katsuki thinks he can feel his eyes burning and he hates it, how exposed he feels. Hates how Izuku is somehow now the only person who can say something like this without him exploding. Maybe Kirishima, too… Maybe.
He mutters, barely audible, “I told him not to go far.”
Izuku smiles, big and warm. “Then don’t go far either.”
Katsuki doesn’t answer.
———————❖———————