Chapter Text
Izuku’s entire world stops when Kacchan gets a girlfriend.
She’s beautiful, of course she is. Because Kacchan is beautiful and deserves no less than perfection. Izuku’s chest is tight when he meets her, he shakes her hand - scar-free, not a flaw to be seen, skin even and soft and tan. She’s a model, of course. She has curls, long, dark ones, and dark, thick lashes and perfect teeth for a winning smile that brightens a room. She and Kacchan are beautiful together, and it doesn’t hurt at all that she is everything Izuku could never be.
And she’s a sweetheart. She has the kindest eyes you’ve ever seen. Izuku can’t even hate her.
They’re out for lunch, and Hana - her name, which means flower, of course her name is just as perfect and pretty as she is - she gets along with everybody so well; Mina loves her, she hits it off with Ochako and Momo, chats up Eijirou and Denki like they’ve known each other for decades. Izuku is silent. His stomach is churning as he sips his water and doesn’t touch his food. His appetite is down the drain. It’s dramatic, but everything looks grayer and he feels dizzy, his heart throbbing in his chest painfully, his entire body numb as he tries to feel normal, tries to act normal and not like he’s going to be sick or cry or hit something, or.
A strong hand touches his leg, featherlight, it rests on his thigh for the briefest of moments to get Izuku’s attention. “You okay?” Katsuki asks in a voice so smooth and so soft that Izuku forgets where he is for a moment.
Izuku smiles, and the action is exhausting. “I’m great,” he says, but he can barely hear his own voice over his heartbeat in his ears, thrashing like an alarm. “I just. I just need to use the restroom, I-I’ll be back.”
He feels Kacchan’s eyes after him as he gets up and leaves the table, and once his back is to him his throat closes up and he can’t hold in his tears any longer.
For years, it was just the two of them. Katsuki and Izuku, Deku and Kacchan, chasing after one another, competing, challenging one another and building each other up. From the very beginning it was them. Izuku supposes he’d thrown it all away when he didn’t join his agency, too caught up in his own life, adjusting to being back at U.A. as a teacher, and being quirkless again. He supposed he’d been too caught up in mourning the loss of One For All and the vestiges, too busy grieving his dream to try and start a new one. To be at Kacchan’s side was all he’d wanted as a child, and in school. But he was an adult now. After the war it felt too far-fetched to compete with Kacchan any longer. Children’s dreams die out, as did his ember and that was that.
He thought teaching could become his new dream; teaching young heroes sounded fulfilling enough. Marrying Ochako sounded fulfilling enough.
Maybe he was wrong.
Now somebody else gets to live his dream of being with Kacchan for the rest of their life. Izuku shouldn’t care. He’s grown up now, he shouldn’t care about that anymore. He would be stupid to think Katsuki would never get a girlfriend of his own. He doesn’t know why it bothers him anyways. He’s getting married in October. He and Ochako, they’re gonna start a family and he’s going to finally have a purpose, a normal, realistic one other than chasing his Kacchan in the hero ranks for the rest of his life.
It’s foolish, but a little part of him thought that maybe Katsuki stayed single all this time because he was waiting, waiting for Izuku to be ready to live out their shared dream.
God, he is so stupid. Did he really expect Katsuki to just wait around for him forever? Even though Izuku knew he’d stay comfortably forever in his new life, too afraid to try again, to risk everything again.
If he’d just accepted his offer. Joined his agency, agreed to continue to climb the ranks and save people with a smile, with Kacchan on his heels. Maybe then it would be the two of them now, exactly how he’d always dreamt it’d be. If Izuku had been ready. If he’d been brave. If he hadn’t been a coward and chosen to play it safe.
He stares long and hard at himself in the mirror and he sees a sad, regretful man who has lost everything and he sees a jealous, selfish piece of shit and he sees a high school boy who is in love with his childhood best friend.
He grips the sink. The shitty, tiny diner bathroom is just as suffocating as being at the table. He cries into the sink, chest heaving and tight like he’s forgotten to breathe or he’s trying but his body is failing him just like it always does. He’s making choked, pathetic noises as he also fails to quiet his sobs and he wants to go home, or back in time, or maybe just nowhere.
He doesn’t understand why it hurts. This is what he wanted. This is what he wanted.
He manages to stop the tears, although his heart is ruthless, and he returns to lunch hoping his face isn’t splotchy or eyes swollen. And he hopes his shaky hands aren’t noticeable.
He feels Katsuki’s eyes on him, but ignores him. It’s for the best if he just ignores him for a while. Maybe for good. Maybe Katsuki being in his life is keeping old feelings bubbling at the surface. It can’t be healthy, clinging to childish feelings he should have grown out of years ago. Maybe if he gets rid of the source, the feelings will stop.
-
“Izuku, what are these…?” Ochako steps into his office to ask one night. She’s in her pajamas, holding stacks of scraps of old paper in her hands, torn-out lined notebook paper with every inch covered in scratchy lead writing, smeared and wrinkled.
Izuku’s heart drops as he turns in his office chair, glasses sitting low on his nose, hair disheveled and shirt unbuttoned. “Where’d you find those?” He rasps.
“The basement. I was looking for - Nevermind, when did you write these?” Ochako looks up at him, her eyes shiny in the dim light of the desklamp. Her shadow covers him. Izuku feels small. His heart begins thrashing against his ribcage, clawing its way up his throat.
He swallows dry and hurries to his feet, gets close to her, tries to take the pages away, but she steps back.
“Ochako, those are from high school,” he says, trying not to sound panicked. “They’re silly, a-and embarrassing, please don’t -“
“You were in love with Katsuki?” She asks, tearful and voice tiny.
Izuku goes silent. His breath is cut short.
“…Ochako-“
She looks at him, big brown eyes full of sadness. “Are you still in love with Katsuki?”
Izuku shakes his head. “No,” he murmurs. “No, no, of course not.”
“Please don’t lie to me,” she whispers, and her voice shakes, head falling down.
“Ochako, I- Those letters, they’re old. I don’t know why I kept them, okay, I’ll throw them away. No one was supposed to see those, n-not even Kacchan.”
“I’m not angry, Izuku. I just want you to tell me. I want you to feel like you can talk to me.”
He sucks in a breath. “I- I don’t know, okay? I don’t know. It’s complicated.”
She nods. “I know. I know it’s complicated. Why - Why didn’t you tell me? I could’ve - I-“
“B-Because it’s not important,” Izuku says, trying to smile, but it’s wobbly and his wet eyes betray him. “It was a stupid crush. That’s all.”
Ochako’s lip is wobbling too, and she bites down on it, a tear rolling down her lip as she shuffles the pages. “Dear Kacchan,” she starts to read. “Every day I regret-“
“No, no, no,” Izuku mumbles, trying again to grab the page from her hand.
“-kissing you, because now that I know what it feels like to kiss you, I know I’ll never stop wanting to feel it again.”
“Ochako,” Izuku begs, “this is humiliating, please stop-“
“I got a taste of my dream with One For All, and I’ll spend the rest of my life missing it. Now, I’ve gotten a taste of my dream with you, and I’ll spend the rest of my life missing that too,” she reads, and her voice breaks into a sob. “Izuku, why didn’t you tell me?” She shuffles the pages again, finding a new letter. “I find myself lying awake most nights thinking of you-“
Izuku is crying now. His hands shake, his breath is short, and he’s sweating. He swallows, feeling like he might be sick, and exhales shakily as he blinks at his girlfriend through his tears.
“Please, Ochako, stop,” he chokes out, shoving her hands with the page down. “That was after the war. I was, I was emotional, I wasn’t in a good place. Please, that was- that was so long ago. Please don’t cry.” He holds her face in his shaking, battle-scarred hands. “I love you, Ochako. I love you.”
“I would have understood!” She cries, frustrated. “I think about Himiko every day. I wonder what- what could have been. I wonder if, if I’d met her when we were children, maybe she would be alive. And- and I’d be with her-”
Tears spill freely from both their eyes. Izuku tries to get Ochako to look at him, but she drops the pages, all of them now tear-stained as they gently fall to the office floor and she buries her face in her palms. Her shoulders shake as she sobs harder.
“I would have understood, Izuku,” she says again, weakly.
“I’m sorry,” he says, pulling her closer into a hug, tucking her head under his chin and swaying their bodies back and forth comfortingly. “I’m really sorry.”
He cries quietly into her hair. “I thought that it would go away over time. That- that wasn’t fair to you. It wasn’t fair of me to do that to you. I was- I was immature.”
“Every single day I’ve felt like I was lying to you. Like we were built on a lie,” Ochako says.
“W-What do you mean? C’mon,” Izuku says softly, tucking her hair behind her ear, still attempting to soothe her shaking form.
She steps back again, looking at him with puffy, wet eyes. “Himiko,” she says. “Because of Himiko. It’s like, I want to spend my life with you, but my heart belongs with her.” Averting her eyes, she adds, barely audible, “And I’ll never get it back.”
Izuku looks at her sadly, eyes full of understanding. A few more tears spill over upon realizing she’d been in all this pain under the surface, and Izuku had been too in his own head to even notice.
“You, though,” she says. “You could have had him. He’s not in a grave, like Himiko. He’s a phone call away. He- he invited you to his agency, for god’s sake. You could have been with him, Izuku. Why?”
Izuku sobs. “No,” he says, “no, no…” He wipes at his tears with his arms pathetically, but they just keep overflowing. “Don’t, don’t say that.” His voice breaks.
He feels like he’s sinking into the floor beneath him, like his very world is shattering before his eyes and there’s nothing he can do to salvage the pieces. Years down the drain- years of building this life he has, of creating this new life of his, his new dream. Something that he can want instead of Katsuki - this house, Ochako, his career. Marriage, children. Everything he’s been working toward so that he can feel normal is crumbling at his feet, and now he feels sixteen and empty again, longing for a boy so out of his reach that it tears him apart from the inside. A boy whose touch he’s desperately tried to forget with Ochako, like maybe her love could override Izuku’s love for Kacchan.
But of course, that stupid love is all he’s left with now, as he stands in his office surrounded by his old love letters.
Izuku is pathetic.
Ochako embraces him, the weight of her against him hardly easing the numbing emptiness, but he still appreciates the gesture. Her fingers comb through the curls at the back of his neck, and Izuku tries to take deep breaths, inhaling the scent of her coconut shampoo like a lifeline.
It feels like they stand there forever while Izuku tries to calm down, Ochako holding him tightly while he breaks down, years worth of walls built up crumbling in her arms. Once he’s quiet, she speaks.
“When I first told you the way I felt about Himiko, you told me that we were both weird,” the brunette says softly into his shoulder. She lets out a short, soft laugh. “I guess it’s still true.”
“All this time,” Izuku says brokenly, about to apologize yet again.
“It’s okay,” Ochako whispers, shushing him reassuringly as she rubs his back. “Life goes on.”
“I really do love you,” Izuku says.
“But your heart belongs to Katsuki. Just as mine lies with Himiko,” Ochako says calmly. “Right?”
He nods, unable to bring himself to say the words aloud as he scrubs his eyes with his sleeve futilely.
“But… it’s just a stupid childhood dream. I let it go a long time ago. Those letters, they were… I wrote them to get him out of my system.”
“Izuku-“
“No, I really did. I’m letting go, okay?” Izuku says with a sniffle, holding his future wife’s hands in his own. “It’s you, ‘Chako,” he promises. “I only want to be with you.”
If he cuts off the source, he won’t feel like this anymore.