Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

It was late when Katsuki woke to the sound of breaking.

There's a moment where he thinks it’s him, thinks that his body is reacting to things that are imprinted upon it like just another scar. His mind saying that it sensed danger, even in his subconscious. 

The December wind howled at his windows, a feral thing clawing at the glass, and he was upright before concise thought could catch up, three years at U.A. leaving his body wired for threat. Time and time again, he had been broken apart just to be shoved back together again, told that his reactions had no basis, that his hostility had no source, as though he hadn’t been through the worst of it right alongside his classmates and hadn’t earned the anxiety that rippled through his nervous system. Instead, half the time he was treated as a rabid beast, poked and prodded. It was funny, in a way, how easily humanity could be stripped from the body when no one believed it was there to begin with. Beasts couldn’t mourn, couldn’t grieve, could not understand sorrow. Which meant there was nothing wrong with hurting them, right?

 Frigid air tingled across his skin, the room still but for the snow-storm outside. He waited, muscles drawn tight as he listened. Nothing. No footsteps, no whisper, only the restless chorus of winter. He almost let himself believe it was a dream, it was easier that way, easier to blame the fucked up miasma of his mind. A branch cracking, wind howling. Anything but-

Another distant crash, and a muffled yell.

The sound whispered through the empty dormitory like a warning bell and he hated himself for the cold spike of fear that echoed through his veins. Crawling through his nerves like ants and up his neck like fire, phantom hands already set to confine him, restrain him, to take him away. 

The dorm was known for being raucous, with the chaos of his classmates lining the halls. But the building had gone silent days ago, everyone had left for their holidays. Everyone but him. Katsuki didn’t mind, his parents had finally saved enough for a long dreamt of vacation to Brasil, to which they had invited their son, but being trapped in a hotel room with them for two weeks hadn’t appealed to him. And while he had also been invited to individually attend his grandfather's grandiose celebration in the country-side, he was not prepared to deal with his extended family alone. Because going alone would feel stranger still than the typical discomfort of dealing with them and their overbearing concern for his welfare when his parents could help his side. In arguments it was so easy to lose control. For the molten feeling of rage to pool in the back of his head, to drip down his spine, thundering at his eyes, his temples, his jaw, until all he felt able to do was hurt — whether he wanted to or not.

But that silence he had been enjoying was broken. He slid from his bed with a cat-like grace that so many people forgot that he had, and silently exited his room. Crouching low as he slinked down the dark hall until he found his way to the stairs, taking them two at a time as he urged his brain to silence the hypotheticals that raced through. If he let himself think that the league had returned for him, or if some other bastard thought kidnapping him was a good idea, he would lose his sensibilities. It was still so easy to lose himself in those memories, in the feeling of sludge coating his throat, of hands dragging him back, of restraints, and dark rooms, and feeling so unbearably weak in the face of danger and hating himself for it.

The chorus of every terrifying experience he had endured sounded in the depths of his mind as he desperately tried to shove it down. But there was no escaping the symphony when the concert hall was the hollow cathedral of your skull.

Muscles wound tight as wire, he pressed a hand to the door and eased it open. He would not allow himself to be helpless again. 

He would not fucking lose.

Light from the streetlamps cut through the dark in silver blades that cut across the common room. It glinted off shards scattered across the floor like stars, a phone, broken into pieces at the force it had hit the ground at.

Someone was slumped on the couch. A shape carved out of the shadows. The coffee table lay overturned before them, books and glass and splinters fanned out in the quiet wreckage.

Not the League, then. Too clumsy and too loud. Katsuki’s first instinct, to destroy whatever idiot had woken him, stumbled in the face of such pathetic chaos. If this was a villain, they were the worst kind, one without a plan or any common sense. He took a step closer, tension unspooling despite himself as he saw the hair, red and white, lit soft by the glow from the windows. 

Todoroki looked so uncharacteristically small.

Three years had changed him, as they had affected all of them. Taller now. Sharper. He carried himself as though he was more sure, more settled in his own skin. His hair, once a thoughtless mop, was swept back in deliberate waves, the scar no longer something he hid, but wore. Something he could reclaim. Katsuki still couldn’t stand the bastard, but he’d learned to respect him. To see him crack and break over and over but never lose sight of his ideals. Todoroki’s hide had been tanned and stretched over too many miles, just like his own. There was comradery in that.

What he couldn’t respect was the idiot crashing around at the goddamn witching hour.

Silence was forgotten as he stormed forward, anger flooding through his veins as easily as his blood. Explosions popped in the hollows of his palms and Todoroki whipped around, frost blooming across his hand, eyes wide.

“What the fuck do you think you’re doing, half-and-half?” Katsuki’s voice broke the silence like a sleep rasped spark. He loomed over the couch, savouring  for one brief, bitter second the fact that he was taller than the dual-toned idiot slumped before him.

“I—” Todoroki’s hand dropped, frost fading from his fingers. Blinking rabidly, an animal caught in the barrel’s glare, a secret dragged into the open after too long in the dark.

“Why the hell are you even here?” Katsuki pressed, familiar heat rising in his voice. “Don’t you have some party or family bullshit to attend? Or do you just break things for fun now?” 

It wasn’t his business why Todoroki was smashing shit in the middle of the night, but it became his problem the moment it woke him up. It had been weeks since he’d managed a decent night’s sleep, and the universe clearly wasn’t planning to let him keep it.

“I assumed everyone else had already left,” Todoroki said, his voice smooth again, reigned back into an infuriating false calm. A skill of a child that would have always had to be composed, articulate, and never allowed to falter. He ran a hand through his hair half-heartedly and finally looked at the mess around him. The broken phone, the overturned table, as though they were more inconvenience than evidence of a dam about to break. “Sorry for waking you. I’ll clean it up.”

Katsuki should have left it at that. Should’ve turned on his heel and gone back upstairs. But something caught him, the way the light hit Todoroki’s face, maybe, or the way fatigue was settling into his own bones now that the adrenaline had dulled. Todoroki looked wrecked. Not in the bloody, battle-worn way Katsuki was used to seeing, but in a quieter, more human one. Bloodshot eyes, shadows carved deep beneath them. His posture, usually soldier-straight, had crumpled into something small and slouched and wrong.

It was all so fucking wrong. Todoroki wasn’t supposed to look breakable. He was supposed to be the rival that never faltered, the one always at Katsuki’s shoulder, always matching him stride for stride. They both had people they had set themselves to overcome, and they marched forward without slowing. 

In spite of himself, Katsuki scowled and shoved down the unease clawing at his chest. “Back to my first fucking question,” he growled, arms crossing. “What the hell are you doing here? I thought for once I’d get some damn peace and quiet from you losers.”

Todoroki moved, crouching to gather the broken remnants of his phone. Glass caught the light as he swept it into his palm, the shards biting into skin. Katsuki’s jaw twitched, he wanted to call him an idiot, to bark something about the stupidity of the action, but what was the point? He recognized the impulse too well. That quiet need to feel control by flirting with the edge of pain. To add an element of danger to something as simple as breathing.

“I was supposed to go to my father’s house yesterday,” Todoroki said, voice low, the words clipped like each one scraped itself up his throat on the way out. Katsuki felt something tighten and click behind his teeth. “I didn’t want to, so I tried to get out of it. Told him I had a boyfriend,” a dry laugh, as though the lie was as ridiculous as it was hilarious. “ I told him that I was spending the holidays with him instead. I think I just wanted to piss him off.”

Katsuki blinked. The shadow of a smile tugged at Todoroki’s lips as his fist closed. Blood welled between his fingers, dark and slow. A drop hit the floor. Then another.

It struck Katsuki that Todoroki Shouto would bleed for anything, if it meant he didn’t have to admit it mattered. That was the difference between them, maybe. Katsuki set himself on fire to prove he could burn brighter; Todoroki bled to prove he didn’t care if he broke.

“He didn’t take it well,” Todoroki went on, self-deprecating laughter curling around him like smoke. Katsuki didn’t think he was imagining the room dropping in temperature. “Said I’m going. That if I don’t show up tomorrow, he’ll send someone to fetch me. And that I’d better bring this ‘boyfriend’-” his mouth twisted on the word,“a person who doesn’t exist, so he can see who I’m choosing over the family.”

That was enough to make Katsuki snap out of it..

He moved around the couch before he really registered moving, catching Todoroki’s wrist in one rough hand. “You’re gonna be yanking glass out for days, dumbass.” He pried the fingers apart, glass raining down to the floor in glittering drops of red and silver.

And then, before logic could intervene, before the part of him that knew better could stop him, Katsuki opened his mouth and said the stupidest words he’d ever said. 

“I’ll go.”

Todoroki’s face broke, first into shock, then into a bewildered, fragile thing — and Katsuki felt heat crawl up his neck, grateful for the dark. It hid the way his hands trembled, the way something unnerved and unfamiliar had settled in his chest. He felt aggressively and excessively uncomfortable, but there was a truce there. An absurd, quiet, and careful empathy that made him feel exposed as bone through skin. 

“Don’t look at me like that, icy-hot,” he snapped too loud. “You’ll fucking owe me. I just don’t want to deal with you moping for the rest of the year.”

Liar.

Todoroki’s cheeks hinted at color, a bloom against his pale skin. His mouth opened, closed, as if searching for words that refused to come. In that moment he looked uncharacteristically human and ridiculous, Katsuki felt like this was the right decision. If Todoroki couldn’t protect himself from his asshole of a father, Katsuki would. That was the point of being a hero was it not? 

“We’re taking my car, and we’re leaving at eight.” Katsuki growled. “Your ass better be awake, and that hand better be bandaged, ain’t no way I’m letting you get blood all over my fucking car.”

Todoroki only nodded, a small, almost imperceptible dip of the head, and Katsuki turned on his heel before he could think better of it. His hands were shoved deep into the pockets of his sweatpants, fists clenched tight enough to ache. He doubted he’d sleep again that night, his pulse was too loud, his thoughts too sharp where they pounded in his skull.

By the time he reached his room, the adrenaline had curdled and soured  into agitation. He slammed the door and started yanking clothes from drawers. A duffel bag hit the bed with a dull thud.

Already, doubt itched at him. Why the hell had he agreed to this? He wasn’t the type. Never had been. He’d never been in a relationship, didn’t know how to pretend to be in one either. He could mimic what he’d seen from their classmates; the stolen glances, the nauseating sweetness,  the thought alone made him want to puke. The closest he’d ever come to anything romantic had been a drunken, clumsy encounter with some business-course guy at Mina’s birthday party last year, and that barely counted, and an ill-advised make-out with Ejirou when they were trying to figure out which way they swung.

But this was Todoroki.

The golden boy. The quiet prodigy with the face of a prince and the emotional range of a locked door. The one that everyone fawned over, a week didn’t go by without someone at their school pulling the boy aside to confess their one-sided feeling. Katsuki had spent years pushing against him, chasing him, fighting against him, but rarely beside him. They were made of different elements, and there was not a world where they didn’t clash at every turn. A hound and a fox, no matter how you played it, one would always end up bleeding.

He stuffed another shirt into the bag, jaw tight. The zipper caught on the fabric, and he yanked it free with a curse, battling the idiotic urge to blow it up. Zipper’s couldn’t catch if they ceased to exist.

But he thought back to what he had overheard during their first year, a story that was never meant for him. A nightmare costumed as a childhood home.Katsuki remembered standing on the other side of that conversation, furious without knowing who exactly the anger was for. He had read all the headlines, the hero rankings, the praise heaped on a man who built his legacy on the backs of his children.

Katsuki could see Endeavor standing at the top of every list, smiling for cameras while his son carried the weight of his fists. It made his stomach twist. Because what kind of man saw himself in his child and decided the only way to fix his reflection was to break the glass? 

Torn from the mother. Pushed into the pen. Fed, fattened, taught to walk the path that ended in slaughter. That was the life of cattle, of meat, and it seemed that Todoroki had lived it in the marrow of his bones.

Katsuki’s hands tightened around the strap of his bag. Maybe he didn’t like Todoroki. He doubted they’d ever get along. But he couldn’t stomach the idea of that smug bastard looking at his son and thinking he still had the right to hurt him.

If nothing else, Katsuki thought grimly, this trip would give him the chance to make sure Endeavor remembered that fire can burn both ways, and his would blow a hole in that pathetic excuse of a human being.

The only Christmas gift the man deserved.

Chapter Text

Bakugou Katsuki fucking hated winter.

It was cruel and grey and slow, a season that smothered everything alive. Life trudged forward as though wading through mud, drawn out until all that was left was a husk of the world. It was dramatic, sure, but the sentiment stood and he’d defend it to his dying breath. 

The wind bit at his hands, burrowed deep into his bones, made his explosions weaker, his already frayed patience thinner. Reminded him of how quickly he could become weak. Stalking toward the parking lot with his bag digging into his shoulder, his boots crunching through the fresh snow, wrapped in so many layers he could barely move, Katsuki found himself regretting every choice that had led him to be outside of the dorms. Namely, two words. I’ll go. Anger flared its familiar heat, but his body still trembled, the wind still clawed at him.

Todoroki was already there, standing against the white sprawl of the lot with his suitcase standing sentinel at his side, he was ominously still. For half a second, just a flicker of a moment, Katsuki faltered. The bastard didn’t even look cold. It made sense, obviously he knew about Todoroki’s temperature regulation, but the unfairness of it all deepened his scowl. Katsuki faced his ice side, white hair pushed back from his face, grey eye tilted toward the drifting flakes. Pale skin utterly untouched by the weather. There were dark circles beneath his eyes, but somehow that only made him look softer around the edges.

It made something twist in Katsuki’s gut, something he wasted no time in shoving aside.

Though disdain felt right. Subtlety was never his forte, if someone wasn’t aware that the blonde disliked him it just meant he hadn’t had the opportunity to confront them yet. It was clear as the sun rising on a cloudless day.

Because, of course, he was leaning on Katsuki’s fucking car.

The Charger wasn’t much when he’d gotten it — an old black Hellcat, a rusted gift from his grandfather who hadn’t driven in years. Katsuki had rebuilt the stubborn thing from the inside out, pouring every spare yen and every hour he wasn’t training into fixing her up. New engine, rewired stereo, countless custom mods that were definitely not legal and made no sense to anyone but him. It was loud, temperamental, and completely his. Anyone else who even attempted to get behind the wheel found themselves lost in seconds at the puzzle he had made of the dashboard. Ejirou had tried to drive Katsuki back to the dorms once, after he had been injured during a mission and had spent a brief stint in the hospital, and while they had managed to get back, it took twice as long and his friend had vowed to never get behind the wheel ever again.

And now that pristine bastard was leaning against it like he was posing for a magazine cover.

When Katsuki looked back at his classmate, Todoroki was watching him. Their eyes met, and the cold flared hot beneath Katsuki’s skin. He blamed the temperature, the wind. Anything but the fact that Todoroki looked like he’d stepped out of some fucking fairy tale, a prince in a black trench coat, white cashmere sweater, black scarf draped loose and thoughtlessly around his neck like the cold didn’t dare touch him.

Katsuki glanced down at himself; orange hoodie, grey flannel, leather jacket. Layers on layers until he looked less like a hero and more like the michelin man. Headphones covered his ears and a grey scarf was wound high enough to hide half his face, leaving only crimson eyes and spiky hair. He could barely talk through the damn thing, which was maybe for the best. Bare hands had been nestled deep in his pockets since stepping foot outside, he’d lost his gloves somewhere and had failed to find them when packing, and knew that it wouldn’t take long before his knuckles were cracked and raw..

Ignoring Todoroki, he shoved his key in the lock, wrestling for a moment to get his ice-covered door open. When it finally acquiesced he tossed his duffel into the back seat, and slid in. The moment the door shut, he turned the engine on,  cranking the heat to full blast and glanced out the passenger side window. Todoroki still hadn’t moved, just stood there with his suitcase, hesitant, like he wasn’t sure he was allowed to get in.

Katsuki scowled, leaned across the seat, and rolled down the window. Cold air slapped him in the face.

“Stop acting like a skittish fucking cat and get in,” he barked. “Throw your shit in the backseat.”

Because if Todoroki thought Katsuki was a goddamn valet and was about to open the door for him, he was sorely mistaken. 

When Todoroki slid into the passenger seat, the door shut with a muffled thud, sealing the two of them inside a bubble of creaking leather and frost-bitten glass. Katsuki reached for the glove compartment, pulled out a thick black binder, and tossed it into Todoroki’s lap without a word.

“Pick something.”

The binder was a chaos of genres, burned discs scrawled over in thick black marker. Pixies, Avenged Sevenfold, Matt Maeson, As I lay Dying, Willi Carlisle. A dozen names that meant something to Katsuki and probably nothing to anyone else.

Katsuki had wired the CD player into the Charger himself, nights spent hunched over with a soldering iron and YouTube tutorials, hands raw and burned from trial and error. The thing had no business working, but it did. Barely. And that was enough.

He expected Todoroki to gravitate toward the quiet albums, the indie stuff he listened to when the dorms went dark and he couldn’t force himself to sleep. But Todoroki only flipped through the pages with deliberate slowness, his expression unreadable, gloved fingers turning each plastic sleeve like the motion itself required expert levels of precision.

Katsuki ignored the man. Rather, he steeled himself before leaving the car once more to scrape the frost off of the windows, attacking the ice with more aggression than was strictly necessary. When he finally went to return to the driver's seat, Todoroki was pressing play. 

Static, a hum, a low, crawling melody.

Welcome to Horrorwood.

Katsuki’s head snapped around so fast it hurt. For a second, the only sound in the car was the growl of the bass, crawling like smoke through the speakers.

Of all the choices–

Todoroki’s lips twitched into something that was almost a smile and leaned back in his seat as if this were the most natural thing in the world. Dual-toned eyes flashed to Katsuki and the blonde felt as though his entire life story was written across his forehead. Like Todoroki could peel back every layer and examine it to his heart's content. Every time he found himself alone with the man (as rare as it was), he felt so strangely exposed, it was unnerving not only for the complete lack of evidence he had of the air-headed hero understanding anything about him, but because of his certainty that there was still truth to it.

“My brother likes this band,” Todoroki said quietly. “He showed me this album when it came out.”

The scream hit. A violent cut of sound that rattled the dash.

Katsuki barked a laugh, sharp and disbelieving as his image of Todoroki shifted like sand through an hourglass. “Well, aren’t you full of fucking surprises, Halfie.”

The heater hissed. The snow outside thickened to a blur.

Inside the car, it was just them, the roar of music between them, the ghost of steam on the glass from their breathing, and the fragile rhythm of two people pretending they weren’t shivering for entirely different reasons.

The Charger’s engine settled into a low growl as they pulled out of the lot.

The tires hissed against slush, headlights carving twin paths through the pale wash of falling snow. Katsuki’s hands were tight on the wheel, not because the road demanded intensity —he was an excellent fucking driver— but because something about the quiet between them did. Tension had already coiled through him in the few minutes it took for them to leave campus.

The music filled the space between them. Welcome to Horrorwood bled into Rainy Day, a brutal rhythm that made the world outside feel even quieter by contrast.

Todoroki didn’t speak for a long time. He just stared out the passenger window, the faint reflection of red taillights dancing across his face as Katsuki drove, turning the pale of his skin into a ghostly watercolor of light and shadow. His scarf had come loose, and Katsuki fought the inexplicable urge to fix it.

“Heater’s still kind of busted,” Katsuki muttered, eyes fixed ahead.

“I don’t mind the cold,” Todoroki said, barely above the hum of the music.

“Yeah, I fuckin’ know,” Katsuki snapped, waiting a beat before lowering his voice. “Still. It’s winter. Don’t be an idiot.”

That earned him a faint, genuine huff of amusement.

“Are you always this considerate when you’re angry?”

Katsuki scoffed. “Don’t start with that psychoanalyzing bullshit.”

The silence returned, but considerably thinner, like a wire ready to snap. Todoroki’s eyes flicked toward him once, then back to the window. Katsuki caught it in his periphery. The look wasn’t annoyance, and it wasn’t gratitude either. It was something Katsuki didn’t know how to name. To be fair, while he had always excelled at reading people, those skills didn’t typically carry over to the more delicate emotional shifts in conversations, much less the unknowable mess that lurked in the head of the bastard next to him.

He turned the volume up. The guitar screamed. The snow came down harder. They still had a couple of hours to go.

Through the blur of motion, the road ahead looked endless, a smear of white and asphalt, framed by skeletal trees looming over them and Katsuki drove like it was the only thing keeping his thoughts from unraveling, which was more true than he would admit. Being in close quarters alone with Todoroki was rare, and it was always strange.

When the album ended, Todoroki slid out the disc and replaced it with another. The next track opened on a low, thrumming bassline that slipped into the silence between them. Katsuki’s jaw tightened as The Cue by Sarah and the Sundays filled the car — soft, and melancholic. Of all the CDs he’d burned, of all the songs, the bastard had found that one. 

I guess I didn’t notice the shift,

I wouldn’t have been so nice.

Last saw you at Barton, everything felt so nice.

As much as I hate your guts, I think of you all the time.

You got under my skin, I let you, how asinine.

It felt like being seen through a crack he hadn’t meant to leave open. His music was private — not because it was embarrassing, but because it said things he refused to.

He refused to acknowledge the fact that sometimes he wanted the personal connections that his classmates had.

He refused to acknowledge how angry it made him to be shoved into the box he had been in for years.

He refused to acknowledge that even he knew that sometimes he thought a little too much about the man beside him.

When will I learn, it’s always the same?

It’s not fun anymore, I don’t like this kind of pain.

And I think I deserved a kinder goodbye,

Guess I'm unworthy, at least in your eyes.

I wish I never took the bait, wish I never got high.

Should've washed you away while I still had time.

I mean, look at me now, I wish I could cry.

Get it all out, go on and find the next guy,

I should've washed you away,

I should've washed you away.

He didn’t switch it.

Todoroki tilted his head slightly, watching the road blur past in muted gray streaks. “You like this one?”

Katsuki didn’t look at him. “Didn’t say that.”

But he didn’t skip it, either. Minutes dragged on.

How many times will I, I miss the cue?

And I’ll take it too far ‘till there's nothing else to do.

I could’ve left, kept on going, could’ve saved myself some time.

You could’ve told me, said it straight, I mean shit? you could’ve lied.

I wouldn’t care, I’m better off, at least then I could’ve known.

Instead of picking at the carnage like a vulture in the snow.

And I’m embarrassed, mortified that I’m even saying that.

Cause I was being nice, and now it’s too late to be mad.

“So what’s the plan here?” Katsuki asked, wanting, needing, to fill the car with any other sound.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean,” he said, words coming out sharper than he intended, “I’m supposed to act like your-” he paused, throat tightening around the word, “-your boyfriend? How long have we been dating? What are the rules? What was our first date, who asked who out, did you think about any of this shit, half-and-half?”

Todoroki turned his head, and though his face was calm, there was something dangerously close to nervousness in his eyes. “I didn’t expect you of all people to volunteer.”

Katsuki scoffed, dragging a hand down his face. “Yeah, well, neither did I.”

Snow fell harder now, thick flakes catching the headlights like ash. The road curved ahead, and the world outside blurred into streaks of white and shadow.

Todoroki leaned back, eyes half-lidded, his voice quieter when he said, “We can make it simple, we met at school obviously, and that makes the rest easy enough to figure out.”

“That’s your plan? Some cliche schoolboy romance?” Katsuki’s tone was acidic, but he couldn’t deny something about the whole situation was amusing..

“It’s not that unbelievable,” Todoroki said. “People like stories like that.”

“Yeah, well, your old man doesn’t strike me as the type to give a shit about stories.”

Todoroki didn’t argue. Instead, he said, “If he asks, we’ve been together a few months. You got tired of pretending not to care.”

Katsuki turned sharply toward him. “What the hell’s that supposed to mean?”

Shut up. Shut up. Shut up.

Todoroki’s mouth twitched, his hand coming up to hide a bemused smile. “It sounds believable.”

“Sounds like bullshit.”

“Believable bullshit,” Todoroki corrected with a laugh.

Katsuki grumbled something unintelligible as his ears began to heat up, but didn’t push it. 

He drummed his fingers against the steering wheel. “And what about rules?”

“Rules?”

“Yeah,” Katsuki said, eyes on the road. “No touching. No weird looks. No calling me by some stupid petname. You keep your half of the act clean, I’ll keep mine.”

“This? Coming from the man that hardly ever refers to me by my actual name?” Todoroki arched a perfect brow.

Katsuki heard his jaw crack as he pointed a finger towards his ‘boyfriend’ “That’s fucking different, those aren’t goddamn petnames.”

“Whatever you say. But maybe tone it back, and let's do first names. It’ll be less confusing for you and it sells it. Also, we’re going to have to touch.”

Katsuki moved to yell but Todoroki put up a hand and like Katsuki was fucking dog,  and for some reason he found himself keeping his mouth shut. 

“I’m not asking you to be attached at my hip, but couples touch. We’ll have to if we want it to look real.”

Katsuki nearly missed the turn and felt his wheels struggle against a patch of ice. “The hell I do!”

Todoroki- Shouto seemed unnervingly unbothered , and infuriatingly steady. “You don’t have to like it. You just have to make it convincing.”

Katsuki gripped the wheel tighter. “You’re enjoying this, aren’t you?”

“I’m trying to survive the weekend,” Todoroki said, an edge in his voice that cut through the levity they had been balancing on. His expression was a half decent mimicry of total indifference, but his eyes are too wide, the whites gleaming, his breathing too shallow. Then, softer, “You don’t have to help me.”

That should’ve made it easier, he could tell Shouto to go to hell, to turn the car around and dump him back at the dorms and let his old man pick him up. But Katsuki didn’t. He just exhaled through his teeth and muttered, “Too late for that.”

Todoroki adjusted the volume, the music dipping just low enough that their voices felt intimate against it. Katsuki could feel the drum line in his ribs.

“So,” Todoroki started, tone measured, “you asked me out.”

Katsuki barked a dry laugh. “Yeah, sure. Sounds like something I’d do. What’d I say? ‘Hey, half ’n half, wanna go make everyone else feel inadequate?’”

Todoroki didn’t even blink. “You could have. I said yes.”

Katsuki’s smirk faltered. “You’re really committed to this bit, huh?”

“I’m trying to make it believable.”

“Tch. Whatever. Guess I asked you out after training. You looked less miserable that day. Maybe I thought you’d finally stopped brooding long enough to say yes to something that wasn’t pity.” 

Shouto glared at him, and Katsuki pretended he didn’t enjoy the fight in the man's eyes.

They decided that Katsuki would have been the one to make the first moves—mostly to spare him the embarrassment of pretending otherwise—and that their first date had been a concert. It was ridiculous, the whole thing, but as they pieced together the lie, Katsuki felt the tension in his shoulders begin to ease. The irritation that had bristled on his tongue softened. There was something strangely tolerable, almost easy, about talking with Shouto once the conversation drifted from logistics to music, to what had happened since they’d started at U.A.

They argued over training tactics, dissected battle strategies, and fell into quiet stretches where only the hum of the road and the soft rhythm of the playlist filled the air. Katsuki wasn’t sure when it happened, but somewhere between the second and third CD, the silence stopped feeling awkward. It was almost… comfortable.

And though Katsuki would  never say it out loud, especially not to him, it was kind of nice. No shouting, no noise—just the low murmur of conversation and a half-frozen bastard who didn’t feel the need to fill every pause.

But the drive was always going to have to end, the songs would silence, the conversation would stop. In the last half hour before their arrival, Shouto had gone almost entirely mute. Occasionally humming in response to Katsuki, but he seemed entirely focused on the next patch of road, and the one after that. His hands were bunched against the thights of his pants, wrinkling the fabric by the time they made it to the driveway of his family's home. Shouto’s face betrayed nothing, it housed an icy hollowness that was jarring. For all the world, the passenger beside him was an empty body that may as well have been part of the car. A strange furnishing whose purpose was a mystery and so best left ignored. 

It was good, then, that Katsuki wasn’t fond of following instructions. 

“The fuck is wrong with you?” he flung the question out, and watched as it fell to Shouto’s feet as though he had been trying to play catch with a man with no arms. A vein throbbed in Katsuki’s temple as he attempted to keep his irritation restrained. “You ‘gonna be fucking mute all week?” He turned to face Shouto, the sudden movement making the boy's eyes snap to him. The movement was more instinct than proof that there was an occupant within the doll. But, finally, Shouto blinked, breathing shakily as he uncurled his fingers and smoothed the fabric of his pants. 

“I got lost in my head,” he said in explanation, his voice strangely gravelly—as though he was pulling it up and it was fighting every step of the way, “It won’t happen again.”

Katsuki wasn’t an idiot. Anyone with half a brain knew that. Shouto knew that.

So it was downright insulting that he’d think Katsuki would buy his bullshit for even a second.

He tried, mostly unsuccessfully, to think of something to say.

I’m sorry your dad is the fucking worst. Yeah, no. Like hell he was about to apologize for things Halfie had lived through. That wasn’t his place, and he had zero interest in wading into the Todoroki swamp of emotional baggage unless absolutely necessary.

What exactly happened here? Not a chance.

Should we leave? Shouto ran from things just as easily as Katsuki did. Non-starter.

Instead what came out was,

“You know,” Katsuki grumbled as he parked the car, “this is your chance to prove you’re better than him.”

What the fuck am I saying?

He focused on tugging his layers into place, anything to avoid looking at the guy he was accidentally giving life advice to. Even then, he caught Shouto watching him intently in his periphery.

“You’re going to be better than him,” Katsuki muttered. “Otherwise I wouldn’t be wasting my time on you.” Finally he met Shouto’s eyes, glare chilling the air between them. “Don’t let him hold you back. He hasn’t earned the right.”

Shouto’s brow furrowed. Katsuki was dimly aware the guy had no idea he’d overheard that conversation with Deku years ago. But Shouto didn’t look away. And Katsuki’s crimson eyes held.

Until, finally, Shouto exhaled and dropped his gaze.

“You’re right.” He pinched the bridge of his nose, weary. “You’re right. There’s no point in delaying.”

They grabbed their belongings and crossed the wide stone walkway toward the genkan. Shouto reached for the door, but flinched away when it was yanked open before he touched it.

A woman stood framed in the entryway. Sister, Katsuki guessed. And suddenly he wished they’d gone over the guest list before getting out of the damn car.

“Shouto, thank God you’re here!” Her smile was bright but brittle, exhaustion clinging to the lines around her eyes. Then she saw Katsuki and tensed. Smile still on, but stretched thin.

“It’s you…”

Katsuki didn’t bother pretending. She clearly recognized him.

“It’s so nice to finally meet you! Um–Shouto.” Her fingers fidgeted with the buttons of her blouse. “Dad said he wanted to talk to you.”

Katsuki’s anger spiked, sharp enough to taste it in the back of his throat. But sliding up behind it, was spite. He set a hand against the small of Shouto’s back. Felt the slight stutter in Shouto’s breath when he did. Ignored it.

Then Katsuki smiled, intentionally impolite in its sharpness. “If it’s all the same, Sho here promised me the tour. And introductions. Family tradition or whatever.”

For once, Shouto caught on instantly, thank fuck.

“Yes. Sorry, Fuyumi. I’ll talk to Dad after Katsuki’s settled.” A polite bow of his head. “I’m sure Father will understand.”

Fuyumi blanched but stepped aside with a nod.

And just like that, they walked into the belly of the beast.