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ᴛʜᴇ ᴄᴀʟᴍ ʙᴇꜰᴏʀᴇ ᴛʜᴇ ꜱᴛᴏʀᴍ ` - ᴠᴀʟᴇɴᴛɪɴᴇᴄʟᴏᴜᴅ & ᴍɪɴᴄᴄɪɴᴏ

Shoto didn't think it was a good idea for either of them. He remembered kissing Midoriya first. He remembered being the one who kept kissing him. He ... owed him one hell of an apology.

He nodded at the order, and pulled himself out of bed, for the first time in a long time feeling awful about his lack of clothing. He picked up his phone on the way to the bathroom and sent two texts. The first to Midoriya, it just said 'I'm sorry'. He deserved more, but he wasn't sure when he would get the chance. He sent the second to Mina: 'find me a therapist'. She sent back her usual array of emojis, then a simple 'u ok?'. He said 'no' and sat his phone aside to brush his teeth, not following Katsuki into the shower like he normally would. He'd wait his turn.
 
Katsuki had been expecting to shower with Shoto but when he didn't follow, he didn't push, and went on to wash on his own. By the afternoon of that day, he'd already packed his things, and Kirishima arrived with his duffel bag of stuff like he'd already gotten the text.

Like a good friend, Kirishima wasn't nosy about the details, and went on as he normally did, expressing glee that he and Shoto would be rooming for an entire week. "Oh man, I'm looking forward to learning how to make tea and stuff! That was your thing in high school, right?" the redhead was already full of energy. "You mind if I take the top bunk, Roki?"

Izuku got one hell of a surprise when he found Katsuki in his dorm, and the two seemed to have come to an agreement over the week, as they tolerated each other in the same space, and Katsuki seemed unbothered by him.

Maybe he was just sadistic enough that he enjoyed crushing Izuku with his own guilt.
 
Shoto shook his head at the question, characteristically quiet. He'd watched Katsuki pack for as long as he could stand it before he put everything they'd soiled to wash and folded the futons into their correct position, letting them act like couches instead of the king sized bed he and Katsuki used them as. Then he cleaned off the bunks.

He felt worse than he had when he'd broken them up. Then, he'd just been cold, but so wrapped up in his own lies he hadn't lingered. Now, he felt empty.

He didn't visit his mother that week, he felt too much like his father to see her. He avoided Midoriya too, sticking close to Mina only because she demanded his attention and wouldn't let him go far.

He met with the therapist she found him on Wednesday. Opening up fell like cracking his ribs open one by one. He cried about it later sitting against his brothers tombstone in the cemetery close to home. The only person he could really stand to be with was the one who had maybe hated him more than he hated himself.
 
Katsuki got back into his routine of just working and training hard. He excelled in class like he usually did, and kept his mind off Shoto as much as he could. By the end of the week, he didn't come back. Maybe he just needed more time alone, or maybe his thoughts had changed. He didn't really know, but he texted Kirishima to stay at their dorm longer, that he just needed to think.

He was like this for half a week more, then Kirishima moved out, and Katsuki back in. He hadn't texted, called, or even seen Shoto in that long and... he missed him. Funny how after all that shit, he just missed Shoto like he was ready to get hurt again.

Katsuki brought some takeout for dinner after a long day, and looked around for Shoto when he got home.
 
He was really thinking maybe Katsuki wouldn't come back when Kirishima was still there at the end of the week. He didn't ask about it, didn't push or call or text. Just sat and let the red head talk his ear off. Shoto rarely talked back, but it didn't seem to bother him.

It was Wednesday again when he came home just a few minutes after Katsuki. He was exhausted, his emotions rung dry. Working on his mental health was harder than working on his physical, and he was eating half a jug of ice cream straight out of the carton when he recognized blonde hair instead of the spikes he had gotten used to.

He blinked, eyes rimmned and dark, and said, "Oh. Hi"
 
Katsuki lifted his brows when he caught sight of Shoto scarfing down ice cream, looking like he hadn't eaten or slept in days. Weeks, even. "You look like shit," he said. Probably not a tactful thing to say after spending a week and a half apart but Katsuki had never spared words.

He set down the takeout on the table, taking out a thing of soba for Shoto from their favorite spot.

"Why weren't you taking care of yourself?" he muttered. Katsuki had gone through some shit too but at least he'd kept up with his workouts, stayed hydrated, and looked normal, like he hadn't gone through some weird pause in their relationship.
 
Shoto's stomach growled the second he recognized the take out bins, and he crossed the room to put his ice cream down.

"I've been taking care of myself," he argued. "It's Wednesday. Those are my designated 'feel like shit days'."

He made grabby hands from the soba and when Katsuki didn't keep it from him, he threw off the top and took a smell. His stomach growled again.

"You look good, though," he mentioned.
 
"Yeah, I know," Katsuki snorted. He opened the fridge to see how well the two had been upkeeping the kitchen and scowled when he saw that there was nothing in there, just a bunch of Kirishima's leftover protein shakes.

"So," he said, moving over to Shoto to press a kiss to the side of his head. "You missed me or what."
 
Shoto rolled his eyes, but the moment Katsuki pressed a kiss to him, he threw himself into him, wrapping his arms around his boyfriends waist and pressing his face into his neck.

"I lied, I've been living off take out and shit sleep." It was his own damn fault, so he didn't want to complain about it, but his new rules included telling the truth and not keeping things back. He clung a little tighter and muttered, "Of course I missed you."
 
"I can tell," he sighed. It didn't take a genius to figure out why Kirishima had been pretty eager to move out. It seemed Shoto had been quite a lot to handle even for Kirishima.

He looked down at Shoto, taking in the features of his face, contemplating something with a steady gaze. Had his feelings for him changed at all? Did he love him the same? He loved him. That much was certain, and that was good enough for Katsuki to wind his arms around Shoto's shoulders, holding him still in an embrace.

"I'm done thinking," he muttered. "Makes my head fucking hurt."
 
Shoto relaxed once Katsuki's arms went around him. He knew he'd been worse for wear, he just hadn't quite realized how bad until Katsuki straight up called him out on it.

He added Kirishima to the ever growing list of people he owed apologies to.

"What did ... you figure out?" He asks, not knowing how else to phrase asking Katsuki what he'd thought about while he'd taken his time. He'd said he wasn't giving up on them, and he'd come back, so he didn't think Katsuki leaving was a thing that was going to happen. But he'd been away from him for a week and a half, and he didn't know anything.
 
Katsuki tilted his head slightly, brushing away the strands of his boyfriend's hair over his brow. After a week and a half of being tough, snapping at anyone who so looked his way, Shoto was the first person he'd been gentle to.

"That I love you," he said as if it was an absolute truth. And it was. He'd weighed everything over their time apart and had come to the conclusion that there wasn't a single problem that was worth risking Shoto. He loved him too much.

He sighed and pressed a kiss to Shoto's forehead. "Can't stop that."
 
Shoto refused to cry, so he stayed silent for a long moment, basking in the feeling of Katsuki's arms around him.

"Um," he said softly, awkwardly. "I ... I'm seeing a shrink. We're working on why ... why I feel the need to destroy things that are good to me." He took a deep, shaky breath. "It sucks and I hate it, but I'm never going to do this to you again."

He didn't know if he would survive losing Katsuki again.
 
Katsuki cupped Shoto's face in both hands and pressed a line of gentle kisses from his forehead down the bridge of his nose, then finally on his lips. He didn't know what the proper answer for that was, if there was even a right reaction in response to his boyfriend seeing a shrink.

Maybe Shoto just needed it. There was only so much love could fix. "Okay," he said, but that one word expressed understanding, even a sense of determination that they could see it through together.

"It's not all your fault," he said. "So stop blaming yourself. This is just another damn obstacle that we need to get over. Forget being pro heroes if we can't even deal with this."
 
Shoto felt relief like he'd never felt before when Katsuki peppered kisses down his face. He took a moment to just enjoy the gentle affection before he pulled back. The way his boyfriend said okay felt good. Grounding.

The rest of what he said didn't. "Not all my fault," he responds dumbly. "You didn't do anything. Of course this is all my fault. But I'm dealing with it."
 
Katsuki rolled his eyes at that. "It was that damn nerd's fault, too. He knew I was dating you, he knew you were drunk, he should have fucking stopped," he said. He wasn't saying that it wasn't Shoto's fault but it wasn't just Shoto's burden to carry. "I should have," he paused. "I should have stopped you then, too. Should have clipped Deku across the face when it happened."

They could linger on "should have"s and "what if"s forever but the fact was that it had happened and there was no turning back. They could only move forward. "Don't fucking do it again," he said. "You're mine."
 
Shoto froze for a moment. He hadn't even considered the idea that Midoriya should have stopped him. He supposed, in the long run, maybe all three of them had been at fault. It didn't make anything better, but Katsuki was right - all of the blame wasn't his.

"Promise," he said, and felt something shift into place when Katsuki said he was his. He nuzzles into him one more time before sitting down to dig into his soba. He hadn't had any since they'd been separated, and it looked amazing now.

"How was ... how was your week?"
 
The tension bled out of his shoulders when he realized that the worst was over. Now they could just pick up the pieces and take it easy, rediscover what it meant to just be so engrossed in each other again. He'd missed that, but he didn't really know how to explain that yet.

He grabbed the jug of water from the fridge and chugged it all too quick, having been used to drinking so much water on a daily basis for his quirk. "I got a job," he said as he set the water down, just enough left to pour into a glass for Shoto.

He didn't know if this was the best time to spring this on Shoto yet but then he decided he didn't really care.

"Endeavor hired me."

Why wouldn't Bakugo join the number one hero's agency when the offer was given to him? Why not intern for Endeavor, prove to Shoto's old man that he had what it took to meet his expectations, not just as a pro hero? There were many reasons why he'd joined, but he played it off cool. "It pays well."
 
Shoto was filling his glass when Katsuki dropped that bomb and it froze in his hand before it shattered. He blinked at the mess for a moment, surprised he wasn't bleeding, then muttered a curse word as he got up to find something to sweep the frozen shards into.

His heart was pounding so loud he could hear the blood rushing passed his ears. He'd been avoiding his father since the start of the semester, dogging calls and even skirting around him in person the one time he'd shown up on campus. Denki had done him a solid that day, throwing question after question at his father like a fanboy until the man had finally gotten annoyed enough to leave.

He hadn't told him about Katsuki, and hadn't answered any of his demands about why Shoto had switched courses, and hadn't even thought about this being a possibility.

He hadn't known Katsuki was looking for work, but he had to admit it made sense. Endeavor was a shit father and husband, but he was good at his job, and his agency was at the top.

He doesn't speak until he's thrown the mess away and gotten another jug of water from the fridge. "Yeah, it would pay well, they make good money."
 
He expected Shoto to react as much, given the estranged relationship with his father, so Katsuki wasn't too blindsided by the way he was reacting. It hadn't really crossed his mind to ask for permission or anything. That wasn't Katsuki's style. Shoto knew he'd wanted this. Knew he was aiming for the top, and it just so happened that Endeavor was at the top.

"If you don't want me to tell him about us, then I won't," he said, grabbing a piece of glass that Shoto had missed on the table and chucking it in the trash. "But you can't avoid him forever." Especially now, when Bakugo worked for his dad and would sooner or later have a way to him.

He shrugged, taking a seat to eat his share of the takeout. "But that's your problem."
 
"Yeah," Shoto agreed. He knew that he couldn't avoid him forever, if he could he would have done it years ago.

He drinks a glass of water and fills another one before he returns to the table. He didn't say anything else on the subject, just dug into his soba. What was he supposed to say anyway. Not to take the job? That would be ridiculous. Katsuki would learn a lot, and it would do him good to learn it from the number one spot. Get the knowledge before it was his turn.
 
Even if silence settled between them, Katsuki was pretty content. It had been a week and a half since he'd just sat down and shared a meal with Shoto, so while a little awkward, it brought on a sense of comfort and familiarity he'd been missing.

"So we're going to be apart a little more," he said. "Not too long, just Mondays, Wednesdays, Fridays." Endeavor's program took classes into consideration so it wasn't as intensive as it could be.

"Need to go grocery shopping," Katsuki said more to himself, staring at the fridge and being bothered once more by how empty it was.
 
"Okay," Shoto said. He was busy on Wednesdays anyway, and he could switch around the days he visited his mom so he'd be busy while Katsuki was at work anyway. That'd only leave one day where he didn't really have anything to do. He'd probably bother Mina. Funny, how much he used to like being alone compared to now.

They'd still get the weekends together, and even though they'd probably spend them doing homework, it was better than missing Katsuki for the whole day.

"I can do it," he offered, which seemed doubtful considering he hadn't for the whole week and a half. "Since you'll have work."
 
"Like hell you will," he said. "You haven't been doing it the whole week-and-a-half, and it's full of damn protein shakes." Kirishima would likely be back for those later. He probably hadn't even thought of them in his hurry to leave.

It was pretty late when they finished eating, and after Katsuki freshened up and brushed his teeth, he rolled out the futons, and turned on the television to watch the news, mostly to have some white noise in the background as he did his homework.
 
Falling into routine was pretty simple, but he ended up watching the news more than doing his own homework. There wasn't much going on in the world, except a few other Nomu attacks that were swiftly dealt with. He frowned when his father flashed across the screen to say a quick few words about it, followed by an All Might interview.

"Hey," he said. "Would it bother you if I talked to Midoriya? I think I ... stole some of his firsts. I've been feeling kind of shitty about it."
 
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