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He didn't want to go in the first place. What use was a reunion after '10 long years of suffering in loneliness, oh, Murder God, please—' when he saw the fuckers literally every other week.
Every day if it was near the end of the month; a.k.a "villains stealing salary time"
"But dude," Eijirō whined, "A quarter of us are scattered over the wide, cruel world—"
"It's just a couple prefectures, Shitty Ei."
"—another quarter stuck in covert missions, masked in the dark—!"
"...it was one mission and Earbuds already said it was just a gig for Tōru."
Katsuki ends up going.
Unwillingly. Under the lure of free beer that he usually wouldn't've fallen for if it wasn't for the full, shitty week of deskwork that had him nodding to two Hantas.
Past Katsuki—damn him—didn't even question why they were going to a high-end izakaya.
Everyone shows up.
"Wow," He says unsubtly. "Who got Elsa to get down from his shitty ice castle?"
Shōto takes a sip of his sake and hums.
"Wow," The fucker repeats. "Who got the Grinch to get out of his woe-is-me cave?"
Because Katsuki has shitty friends, he doesn't get to throw the empty sashimi platter. Looking at it now, maybe it was everyone's special Bakugō sense that had everyone call for the staff to clear the table.
Of everything. That he, ha, of course, wouldn't've thrown at anyone.
Now, his legs were bound to the private room's tatami by stupidly sturdy tape and the lip of an empty beer bottle's pointing straight at him.
Mina looks like she's gonna offer her life savings to Buddha. The rest of the idiots are forming their cliques, giggling and Deku—
...like he said. Everyone came to the reunion.
Even the good-for-nothing piece of crap who's sheepishly still nursing his second beer a couple seats from him.
If the room wasn't so brightly lit, Katsuki would've sworn the nerd was watering a nearby plant with every refill.
Deku looks up and Katsuki looks back at the offending bottle pointed at him. And here he thought he and it had a bond with how much he's been drinking.
Apparently, nothing's fair when it comes to scheming ex-classmates and soon-to-be-dead-tomorrow-at-work colleagues.
The idiots were still talking (great there was a huddle now) so he sighs. Loudly.
"Get the fuck on with it or I'm blasting a hole through the table, dipshits," Katsuki pauses, then adds, "And a hole through the wallet of whoever rented this room out."
"Fine!" Tōru says and oh, when'd she get loaded? "I dare you to do a Lady and the Tramp with Shōto-kun and his soba! There!"
Well.
There's a flash of green that shifts and Katsuki keeps his head up, a sharp grin on his face.
After Momo accompanies Shōto outside for some 'fresh air,' the dares keep going on. Katsuki doesn't even call it a game anymore because the stupid bottle keeps mysteriously pointing at him.
"Hey, hey," Rikidō holds his hands up. "If you want, you can spin it, man."
And Katsuki does. Again. And Again.
And again and again does he choose dare, waiting for the annoying fucks (when'd they all gather to one side?) to think of something sadistic, then it'd start all over again.
He really can't wait for this to be over—
"I dare you to tell us how you felt when Todoroki and Midoriya started dating in 2nd year."
—but this isn't his night.
The room falls into a hush at Kyōka's question and it's only Mezō and Eijirō's efforts that stop the table from being toppled over. Maybe this is why Hanta used that extra sturdy tape of his.
Because of course someone was going to pull something like this.
Everyone's attention was on him and he didn't like being compared to birds, but he'd be a fucking preening peacock right about now.
Feathers splayed, on display, beautiful, and aching to be plucked right off.
Katsuki wonders how many would be left if the questions kept going.
Deku's still a few seats away but he sees (of course he does, he always—) the tension rolling off like the crackling static of the nerd's quirk. Idiot. Still can't control those damned emotions, huh?
"It was shit," Katsuki says.
He looks at all and none of them as someone posing as him speaks. He sits there as an 11 years younger Katsuki speaks and fulfills the dare.
"It was like a hole was blasted through my goddamned chest all over again. It was fucking shit and I dealt with it. The end. Next."
Kyōka clicks her tongue, reaches for the bottle, and spins.
It lands on Katsuki again.
The bottle lip's warm now. Maybe it's getting hotter from the constant touches of hands or spins and friction or the contact—the bumping against his chest where something hot's burning.
Mina's shaking hand clenches and she straightens. She looks at Katsuki but beneath that, he could see it—
Right. She knows.
"I dare you to—" She says, pauses and clears her throat. "I dare you to tell us why, despite feeling like that, you didn't do anything?"
And Katsuki?
Katsuki smiles and finally turns to look at Deku. The nerd's looking back, eyes shining like they always fucking do. His lip's trembling and Katsuki says,
"Who says I didn't? Who says I didn't do anything when one chance—any sliver of a chance came that I could do something?"
Shōto and Momo still hasn't come back and maybe that's a blessing for the night because the looks, jaw drops, and choking on edamame was hilarious. And the Ice Queen holed up in Hokkaidō didn't deserve seeing such hilarity.
Katsuki just smiled with teeth and spun the bottle.
It... doesn't land on him. There seemed like a moment where it would but the bottle slips on the table and it shifts past and to—
Katsuki snorts. And before any of the other idiots could recover—
"Well, nerd?" He says. "Truth or dare?"
Of course Deku chooses truth. Because idiocy doesn't get cured in just 5 or 10 or a 100 years.
Either way, dare or truth, Katsuki already knew what the fucks wanted to know.
He looks at Deku. They both know and the beer bottle clinks on the table with small five-point cracks.
"WHAT DID KATSUKI MEAN, MIDORIYA, MAN?!"
This time it's Katsuki who keeps the table from being toppled over by his shitty friends. The bottle rolls and under the light of the izakaya he can see something distorted—a twisted mix of years long gone.
He catches it when it falls.
"Um," Deku says. "Kacchan and I, um, dated after Shōto and I split after graduation. I... I thought some of you knew so I, uh, um..."
The nerd trails off and Katsuki scoffs. Some, huh? Talk about understatement of the decade.
He feels the burn of Deku's eyes, probably pleading like a loser, but too bad 'cuz Katsuki's busy with the beer bottle. He twirls and fiddles with it, nails scraping at the label.
He wasn't the one who chose truth. Then again, this game had never been about choices.
"Woah," Mineta, the fucking idiot, says. "For how long?"
"Um," The nerd's voice trembles. "For—for five years."
Katsuki slams the bottle on the table. Everyone turns away from those eyes—from that shaking form of a man trying to curl up in the corner as much as he can.
"You chose truth, nerd," He says calmly. "And I don't think—I know those last two years didn't count, asshole."
He expected sputtering. Clenched fists and jaw. A fire burning and a body itching to fight.
Katsuki gets a Deku who smiles just like then, fucking then—
"Yeah," Deku says, still fucking smiling. "Sorry, Kacchan. Three years, then."
That was... better. Because it really was /just/ three fucking years and the two that followed still pulled at him. It still brought the burn in his chest (it isn't the alcohol) to pulse and ache.
As if the Katsuki who spent two years alone in their shared apartment, always waiting for calls, messages— fucking anything at dead hours hadn't turned into ashes already.
As if the I love yous sent across the ocean, fell and drowned, were still there.
There's already a new bottle on the table. Katsuki throws the old one at Eijirō but Mashirao catches it.
Damn.
He doesn't see the fast hand that reaches, clasps, and spins the bottle. He does feel the splash of beer.
Katsuki doesn't even get to choose "Truth or Dare"
"I dare you," Ochako says softly. "To tell Deku-kun how you feel about him right now, Bakugō-kun."
When he looks at her there's desperation in her eyes and oh—well, he guesses that's the 'some' Deku was talking about.
Katsuki looks and looks and looks.
He looks at her and the litany of sorry, I'm sorry, Kacchan and I promise and next time, okay? and—
I'm coming home soon, Kacchan.
—bursts.
"Fine," Katsuki grits out, "Fine, fine, fucking fine."
"Katsuki, man, wait, you don't—"
The table rattles and the bottle breaks in half. There's beer on his hand but his friends aren't looking at that. They aren't looking at the marks of fingers scorched onto the table.
They're just looking at whatever's on his goddamn face.
"I don't need to do shit, you assholes," Katsuki growls. "I don't need you fuckers to keep daring me to 'keep it fun' so I'll just go ahead and say the truth then, why fucking don't I, ha?"
He doesn't look at Deku. He can't.
"Why don't I just say that seeing Izuku right now hurts so much that I want to smash bottle after bottle in his face and patch it up later? Why don't I just admit that being his partner is a dream I never thought I had?"
And when the crack in Katsuki's voice comes—when the burn doesn't and won't ever stop—he turns and looks at Deku.
"Why don't I just say that I’ve hated and loved and hated and I don’t really care about the difference anymore when it comes to him? Well? How's that for a dare?"
Katsuki does a tactical retreat. Hanta's tape is a fucking joke and he doesn't want to get roped into paying his part in the bill.
The beer sucked anyway and he only finished the sashimi platter out of principle.
Deku catches up.
Well, it's less catching up and more of a wisp of black snaking around his ankle, tripping him, and he's floating and suddenly they're on a rooftop.
"You know your multiple quirks really suck."
Deku smiles. Katsuki shrugs off the black tendrils and turns to the cityscape.
Tokyo at night was something. There's the smell of piss and vomit from every street and alley. A few blocks away, he swears he sees a pile of passed out office workers by another izakaya.
He should probably do something about that.
"Kacchan," Deku says. "Kacchan, please."
Katsuki doesn't do anything about the office workers. He doesn't do anything. He just... looks at the city.
Maybe, somewhere, someone's already living in their old apartment.
"Kacchan," Deku says and there's a goddamn sob. "Kacchan, please, just look at me. Please, just..."
He doesn't look. He keeps staring at the city lightning up the night even as Deku comes near.
Even when Deku's clinging to him, face buried in his neck and trembling, Katsuki doesn't look.
He doesn't think he can and so he does what he can and—
"I love you," Katsuki says to the dark, the light, and the stars. "I fucking love you, Izuku, but it hurts every time I admit it. They're the only words I have for you but it fucking hurts every goddamn time, so no, I can't look at you."
He shifts. Wipes away the rain.
The night air is cold and so he holds and holds.
Katsuki's eyes are closed as he kisses away Deku's tears and listens to truths that no bottle can spin out anymore.