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The sun set almost an hour ago.
It’s darker in the forest than it is in the city, without street lamps and with tree canopies blocking out the moon. More bugs and animals come out when the sun sets too, probably aware that people stop coming around here and hole up in their houses for the night. Wind whistles, sounding somewhat like a ghost.
It’s way past Katsuki’s curfew.
“Kacchan, maybe we should go home,” Deku says, his voice squeakier than normal.
Katsuki just huffs and keeps climbing. Deku’s always saying stuff like that. ‘Kacchan, that sounds dangerous,’ and, ‘Kacchan, we weren’t supposed to go there,’ and, ‘Kacchan, my mom said not to do that.’
Kacchan, Kacchan, Kacchan.
“You can go home,” Katsuki says, trying not to sound winded even though his legs are sore and his breathing is uneven from all the steps he’s climbed so far. “But I’m gonna keep going.”
Deku makes a whining noise that says, I want to go home, and also, I’m not going home without you.
Orange leaves crunch under Katsuki’s feet on the next step. The wind whistles louder, so sharp it feels like a breath blown into his ear. There’s creaking and branches snapping from deep in the woods surrounding them, and Katsuki can’t help it when his eyes snap to the noises as he climbs. The moon is big and bright whenever Katsuki catches it breaking through the trees.
“I’m scared,” Deku whispers, voice shaking.
Katsuki's… a little scared too. Just a little.
Not that he’d say that. “Then go home,” Katsuki huffs, voice clipped.
“I don’t want to go home alone.”
“What are you, ten?”
“I’m eleven.”
“Yeah, so stop acting like a dang baby.”
The steps feel big. Maybe they are, or maybe his legs are just short. They're uneven, mossy and sometimes crumble and crack whenever Katsuki puts his weight on them. Deku keeps going, “Oh!” and “Woah!” from behind Katsuki every time a step does the same to him.
The climb isn’t made any easier with the pillowcase of candy Katsuki’s been lugging the whole way up, too.
The only reason he’s even out this late alone is because it’s Halloween. And on Halloween, all the kids in the neighborhood that know each other get together in one big buddy group and go around from house to house, sent off with the one rule: “Come back when the streetlights turn on.”
Their parents trust them to listen and behave.
Clearly, Mitsuki and Masaru need to take a better look at who their kid is.
Katsuki didn’t listen. The streetlights turned on and he grinned, then told his friends, “There’s a haunted shrine up in the mountain,” and they all set off towards the forest they’ve been playing in since they were preschoolers.
And for some reason, Deku tagged along with him. Katsuki disn’t ask him to. Katsuki didn’t even want to go trick-or-treating with him in the first place, but Katsuki’s mom yanked on his ear and whispered firmly, “Be nice,” so Katsuki didn’t have much of a choice there.
And the shrine thing? Deku overheard Katsuki say his rule-breaking plans and decided to follow the group to the forest gates of his own accord, like he always does.
But as soon as the gates came up, Katsuki’s friends hesitated. The scaredy-cats. One said his mom would yell at him if he came home late. The other said his bag of candy was too heavy to take up there. The last one said he didn’t want to get his costume dirty.
Fine. They don’t have to come. Katsuki will just go up by himself.
He called them losers and stomped into the forest, dragging his pillow case filled with candy behind him.
He heard Deku mumble some sort of moral dilemma—”It’s really late, I think we should tell our parents where we are!”—back at the forest gates first then his shoes crunching on dead leaves behind Katsuki second. He didn't question it. Deku always followed him, no matter where he went.
Annoyingly, in the back of his mind, Katsuki expected Deku to walk into this dumb idea with him more than he expected his friends to.
So, here they are. It took them almost a whole hour to even find these stairs, a staircase they’ve never seen before despite coming to this forest every day and knowing it inside and out. They stopped at the bottom of the steps and just stared, and that’s when Deku started moaning about being scared. Too bad. Katsuki, excitedly, ran up the first fifty or so steps yelling about curses and haunted ghosts. Then his lungs started aching from how sharply he was breathing and he slowed down, grimacing when the staircase looked like it would never end.
Deku managed to keep up with him the whole time. Always a step behind. Complaining the whole way. Katsuki’s told him to shut it a million times, but like usual, Deku never listens.
Deku trips again, his shoes scuffing against one of the cracked stones. The sound echoes up the mountain steps and fades into the night like it’s been swallowed. He whimpers softly but keeps moving. Katsuki doesn’t turn around to check if he’s okay. He doesn’t need to. Deku always gets back up, even when Katsuki pushes him down again and again.
The staircase finally flattens out into a small clearing after a half hour of more agonizing steps. The air is different here, thicker and heavier. The wind stops, but the trees keep whipping back and forth like they know something the boys don’t. The shrine stands at the far end of the clearing carved out from the trees, half-buried in leaves and vines. Its red paint has chipped away until only a tint of it remains, and the paper charms hanging from the eaves flap gently even though there’s no breeze.
Katsuki stops at the top of the stairs, chest rising and falling. He doesn’t say anything for a while. Deku catches up, panting, clutching his candy bucket like a shield. Katsuki kicks at some of the leaves and dirt covering the wood landing, revealing a large painted, or maybe engraved, he can’t tell since it’s so old, 9 in the wood.
“… Oh,” Deku says quietly, like he’s afraid to disturb something. “It’s real.”
“Told you,” Katsuki answers, voice heaving but proud. He drops his candy pillow case to the ground with a soft thud and takes a few steps forward, right over the 9. The old wood landing creaks under his sneakers.
“Don’t go closer,” Deku blurts out.
Katsuki turns back, scowling. “Why not?”
“Because it’s haunted,” Deku whispers, eyes shifting around nervously.
“That’s the point, stupid.”
“I know, but…” Deku waves a hand around like he’s trying to communicate in sign. His eyes catch on something. “Huh. A crane.”
Katsuki follows his gaze. In front of the shrine, there’s a podium. On top of it, raised high, is an offering bowl. And hanging off the edge of that, perched right in front of the doors, a small stone crane statue. Its face is cracked down the middle, splitting its beak in two. What’s left of its eyes glimmer faintly in the moonlight. For a second, Katsuki thinks it looks wet like it’s crying.
He blinks. It’s not crying.
“Just a stupid bird,” he mutters under his breath, and stomps closer.
The offering bowl is filled with rainwater and dead leaves. Katsuki leans forward to see inside it. A faded red rope. He peels it out of the water with a grimace and turns it over. The rope’s old, dirt-caked, and heavier than he expects.
“You’re not supposed to take things from a shrine,” Deku says quickly.
Katsuki puts it back, rolling his eyes. “I’m not taking it. I’m just looking.”
The shrine doors are open, one half hanging onto old, rusty hinges. Some of the windows are broken, their paper paneling ripped down the middle until pieces are left hanging off the frames. Wood rots and crumbles even undisturbed, like the whole shrine is a second away from toppling over like a house of cards. Katsuki watches a red leaf fall from a tree and float inside through the open door.
Katsuki creeps up to the door and almost peeks inside. Almost. Instead, his hands shake around the broken door, and he huffs and turns towards Deku, ignoring how his pulse is racing like ants under his skin. “Are you coming?”
Deku shakes his head immediately. “I want to go home.”
Katsuki scowls. “Then go home.”
“Are you going home?”
“No, I'm going inside.”
Deku’s face twists into something close to exasperation, but there’s a glint to his eyes that screams, I expected that.
Slowly, Deku tip toes up. He fully steps over the 9, then passes the offering bowl filled with rope and crane statue without even brushing them like the things are going to come to life and jump at him. Or curse him. Katsuki scoffs. Superstitious nerd.
Eventually Deku is at his side, so close that his white bedsheet turned ghost costume brushes up against Katsuki’s hand.
Katsuki sucks in a deep breath then, finally, peeks inside.
It’s dark.
“It’s dark,” he says, stepping back half a step.
“Then let’s go home,” Deku urges, jerking his hand towards Katsuki like he wants to grab him and start dragging him out. He doesn’t. “There’s no point if we can’t see.”
Katsuki steels his racing heart and steps back up to the door. “No,” he says, looking inside again. He steps one foot into the doorway. He’s not scared, really, he’s not, but—
“Come on, Deku.”
And maybe Deku goes inside with him without complaining because this is the first time in a long time that Katsuki has asked him to go anywhere with him. Maybe not. Who knows.
Inside is dark. Dusty. Katsuki can feel the dust as soon as he breathes in, coating his nose and tongue in a grimy taste. If he could see it, he’s sure his steps would be puffing up clouds of dirt.
He coughs once, waving a hand in front of his face. The air smells like old wood and rain, like something that’s been left outside for too long. There’s a faint scent of smoke, too. Burned-out incense, maybe. Or maybe just fire. Katsuki wouldn’t be surprised if this place housed some squatters once upon a time.
The floor creaks loudly like it’s screaming. Deku makes a small noise behind him, the kind that sounds like a gasp he’s trying hard to keep inside. The ghost-bedsheet costume swishes as he moves closer.
“Don’t step there,” Katsuki mutters, pointing at a warped plank. “It’ll break.”
“Okay,” Deku whispers, inching even closer to Katsuki’s side, his voice trembling.
The moonlight from the broken windows cuts faint shapes into the room. There are a few toppled belongings on the floor. An old cup, a broken lantern, some bones that Katsuki hopes belong to an animal. He takes a few careful steps deeper, his heart pounding in his throat.
The walls are covered in old charms and paper talismans, some hanging by a single thread, others lying crumpled in the dust. The writing on them is faded and unreadable. It’s old-school, the kind of thing he only ever sees on New Years when his mom drags him to a Shinto shrine for blessings.
But, well. These ones don’t look like they were used to bless anyone.
Deku bends down to look closer, almost brushing his fingers over one. “Kacchan…” he mumbles hesitantly. “These are—do you think these were for protection?”
“I don’t know.”
“And, um… if they’re all broken…”
Katsuki doesn’t answer. He doesnt want to think about it.
Something shifts in the back of the shrine.
A soft, slow dragging noise echoes, rumbling though the shrine.
Katsuki freezes. Deku does too.
“What—” Deku starts.
“Shut up,” Katsuki hisses, clamping a hand over his mouth, barely above a whisper.
The noise echoes again. A dull scrape, like wood on wood. Then a thud. Katsuki’s breath sticks in his throat. His mind scrambles for explanations—a tree branch, a rat, the wind—but none of them fit the sound. It’s too crisp and too heavy.
The sound stops.
For a second, there’s nothing but the pants of their own breathing. Katsuki glances back at Deku, who’s gripping his candy bucket handle so tightly the plastic creaks. Despite himself, he inches closer, pulling his hand off Deku’s mouth.
Then something cold brushes the back of Katsuki’s neck.
He yelps and spins around, heart slamming into his ribs. He glances around, then spins back. Nothing. Just Deku, eyes wide and wet, shaking like a leaf.
“Kacchan?” Deku squeaks.
Katsuki opens his mouth to say he’s fine, or to yell, maybe, but a soft thud interrupts him.
They both turn.
At the far end of the shrine, where the altar sits half-collapsed, a single candle flickers to life, pale and flickering.
None of them have matches, or lighters, or even know how to use either. They don’t even have flashlights—they only have the moon, and their heft candy hauls.
“Kacchan,” Deku whispers, voice cracking. “Let's go.”
Katsuki takes a step toward the candle instead. His legs feel like they’re moving without him. His hands tremble. His quirk, still hard to control and volatile, itches at his palms.
And then, as his shoe hits the next creaking board, something moves in the darkness beyond the altar.
Something slowly standing up.
A silhouette, long-limbed and crooked, unfurling like it’s a rope unraveling.
Katsuki reacts on instinct, somehow, despite not having any survival insticts at eleven except for run, scream, or find an adult.
“Give it something,” he hisses towards Deku, who’s still holding his candy bucket and frozen in place, eyes wide, mouth open in shock. Katsuki rushes over and shakes the bucket, candy clattering inside loudly. “Offer it something! This is a shrine, right?”
Deku stares at him, trembling so hard his ghost costume rustles. “What do I—”
“Just—something!” Katsuki snaps, his voice higher than he means it to be. The air feels thick, pressing against his ears. The shadows at the back of the shrine seem to breathe in sync with them.
Katsuki moves first, shoving Deku towards the doors. They back out slowly, eyes watching the candle quivering in front of them. Deku trips on a jutted floor board and yelps, and Katsuki snatches him by the wrist, almost tumbling down himself.
The cold air and night sky feels welcoming compared to the inside of the shrine.
They scramble for the offering bowl with that crane statue and red rope floating inside. Deku fumbles with the bucket, hands shaking, and Katsuki impatietntly digs his hand inside instead, grabbing a handful of candy. He practically throws whatever candy and chocolates he grabbed into the bowl, the water and dirt inside it sloshing, and Deku yells out shakily, “I—It’s sweet! Please don’t hurt us!”
It’s silent long enough for Katsuki to let out a breath.
Then, a noise.
The sound that follows from deep inside the shrine isn’t quite a breeze, but not a voice either. It’s a low, drawn-out hum, like air moving through hollow wood. The candle flickers brighter, just enough to show two faint glimmers in the dark from deep inside the shrine, like eyes catching light.
Katsuki’s hand shoots out and grabs Deku’s wrist, again. “Run,” he breathes.
Deku drops his candy bucket, they both spin on their heels, and then they’re off. Candy long forgotten.
As they run, panting, tripping down steps, sweat dripping down their noses and tears falling down Deku’s cheeks, Katsuki can’t stop feeling like something’s tugging on him.
Like something was wrapped around him, somewhere deep inside, and is slowly being pulled taut.
That feeling snaps as soon as they pass the forests gate’s, then never returns as they run right home and into their parents worried arms.
***
Katsuki, nine years later and now twenty, has long forgotten about the shrine.
“Happy Halloween!”
His old U.A. classmates, now coworkers, erupt in a chorus of cheers, leaping from their seats with wild grins while raising their assorted drinks high in celebration. Katsuki stays seated on the couch, only grumbling a small, “This is stupid,” as Kirishima clinks their glasses together.
“You’re just a grump,” Mina says, leaning against the side of the couch next to where Sero’s sitting. She’s dressed up in an alien costume, except half the costume is just herself and apparently it’s supposed to be a ‘sexy alien.’ Whatever the hell that means. “Still mad that Midoriya decided to ditch, huh?”
Katsuki glowers, bringing his glass to his lips. “I’m not mad about that shit.”
“You’re so mad,” Sero teases next to him.
Jirou walks up, grinning. “You’ve been glaring all night.”
Todoroki walks in then from his kitchen, carrying some more bottles of various liquor. “What’s Bakugou mad about now?”
“He’s seething with rage ‘cuz Midoriya isn’t here,” Kaminari calls out, cackling, from all the way across the room.
Katsuki glares his way, snapping, “Didn’t know seething was in your vocabulary. Congrats on finally making it past middle school.”
A few people around him start laughing—mainly jirou, she’s already cry-laughing and pointing at Kaminari, who’s grumbling next to the snack table—and he just slumps back into his seat, sipping his drink.
Kirishima nudges him, then says, low like it’s just for him to hear, “Hey, there’s still a chance he’ll show. But you know work has been keeping him busy lately.”
Katsuki’s eye twitches, then, sarcastically, he grumbles, “Right, real demanding job. Standing around yelling at brats all day. I bet he’s just drowning in homework assignments right now.”
That comment must’ve opened Pandora’s damn box, because suddenly Iida’s yelling about how teaching is a respectable career, Uraraka’s sternly saying, “Deku’s been working really hard, Bakugou,” and there’s a few more wary comments of, “Don’t ever say that around Aizawa. Especially you.”
“Okay, fine, Jesus! Izuku’s working hard,” Katsuki snaps loudly, throwing an arm up. It smacks loudly against his thigh on the way down. “Lay the fuck off me.”
Conversation flows with or without him, which is just fine in his books. He stays where he’s made home in the middle of Todoroki’s couch, and just sips and listens, frowning. Uraraka and Asui want to go somewhere hot for vacation when winter comes around. Kaminari’s probably drunk already, because he’s offering to do quirk tricks as if they all haven’t seen everything he has to offer a million times. Iida and Yayorozu are talking about stocks, or… whatever the hell posh nerds talk about.
The night wears on. Mina’s teaching Hagakure how to dance, which doesn’t seem to be going great since all Mina can see is a floating dress and heels. Sero and Todoroki are playing poker and, for some godawful reason, Kaminari is the dealer. Shinsou and Monoma and some random extras that Katsuki can’t bother to name have shown up and are raiding the snack table.
Katsuki stays where he’s sitting. He’s on his third glass. Not drunk, barely tipsy. He can pace himself. Probably. Hopefully. Kirishima looks like the kinda guy who could hold his alcohol but evidently can’t, since he and that one steel guy who looks just like him are now shirtless and wrestling in the middle of the living room carpet. Uraraka is off to the side, yelling and cheering them on like a referee, her cheeks extra pink.
Then Katsuki looks up towards the hallway, where the front door is, when someone calls out, “Hey! Midoriya’s here!”
Katsuki springs up off the couch, only stumbles once, and starts stomping his way towards the door, glass in hand—actually, maybe this is his fourth. He can’t quite remember when the third one ended and this one started. Something about his memory is a bit hazy.
He’s not up because he’s happy. He sure as hell ain’t smiling and singing, “Welcome to the party, Izuku!” like some of these extras are. He’s on a warpath to shove that nerd into the ground and demand to know what the hell kind of curriculum he’s teaching to not be able to be on time for a Friday evening party.
He rounds the corner towards the door, accidentally hits the wall with his shoulder, ignoring the echoing “Ohhh!” and “Bakugou’s mad!” following him from Todoroki’s living room. Izuku’s just kicking his shoes off when Katsuki stops in the entrway. He’s still in that stupid fucking suit he wears at U.A. with the tie he never learned to actually tie loose around his neck.
“Hi, Kacchan!” Izuku says, turning towards him, smiling that stupid nerd smile. “Sorry I was late, I had a lot of grading to do—”
Katsuki stops listening. His eyes catch onto a bloom of red around one of Izuku’s pinkies. He narrows his eyes against the fuzz in the corners of his vision.
That red starts to thin, starts to tangle, and then ooze. He blinks, and suddenly the red is a string and it’s tied in a little bow around one of Izuku’s pinkie fingers, the tail end growing and wriggling out into open air like a worm.
“The fuck is that?” Katsuki spits, and yeah, he sounds a bit drunk. Only a bit.
Izuku hums in confusion, then follows his gaze. Or ties to, because he clearly can’t see the fucking string when he glances at the ground and then spins to check behind him. He turns back to Katsuki with an eyebrow raised. “Hm? Kacchan, you look red. Are you drunk already?”
The string is long enough now that Katsuki could probably measure it with a ruler. He slowly sets his drink down onto a window ledge, watching as it wriggles and squirms. It’s moving closer to him. He raises a palm. “Don’t move.”
“What?” Izuku says, blinking. Katsuki’s palm sparks and heats, and then Izuku’s rushing out under his breath, taking a step closer with his hands raised, “Kacchan, don’t use your quirk inside Todoroki’s house!”
The string is an inch from Katsuki’s palm. It’s kinda gross. It’s like a parasite looking for a host, jerking back and forth, inching closer to Katsuki’s hand like it’s attracted to the heat. Katsuki hisses, “Shaddup,” and fires off a small pop, light flashing.
Instantly, footsteps come closer. Someone yells, “Oh, shit, was that Bakugou?” and Todoroki calls out, “If you break anything, you’re paying for it.”
The thin pume of smoke from his tiny blast clears with the help of Katsuki waving his hand around.
The string is still there.
It doesn’t even look charred.
Katsuki opens and closes his mouth, blinks, and takes a step back when it comes even closer. “What the fuck is that?”
“Kacchan, calm down,” Izuku says, stepping close enough to put his hands on Katsuki’s shoulders. Katsuki tries to jerk back, because Izuku moving closer moved the string closer too, and barely listens when Izuku starts walking them towards the living room and asking aloud to everyone, “Who let Kacchan drink shochu? You know he starts seeing things when he drinks that.”
Katsuki jerks his hand away from Izuku when the string grazes his finger. He doesn’t feel it, which is even more freaky than the thing existing in general, and stumbles to try and get away which just makes them both almost fall over.
“Sit down, Kacchan,” Izuku says, and Katsuki mildly remembers that this tone is how he talks to his students.
Katsuki does not sit down, even when the backs of his legs are pressed against the edge of the couch. “Izuku, there’s a fuckin’ thing on your hand.”
“No there isn’t,” Izuku says, pushing Katsuki to sit.
Katsuki moves his hand away from the string again, almost yelling, “Yes there is and it’s tryin’ to fuckin’ get at me! Hold still so I can blow it up—”
“No, Kacchan, don’t use your quirk,” Izuku urges, finally getting Katsuki to sit down. He presses his hands against Katsuki’s shoulders and almost looks a little bit dissappointed, for whatever reason, when Katsuki snaps his hand above his head and away from that fuckass string. “… I’ll go get you some water.”
Izuku turns and starts heading for the kitchen, and the string follows him. Reluctantly. It’s pulled tight towards Katsuki, stretched behind Izuku’s back, only the end of it twitching like its straining to reach Katsuki.
Katsuki balks.
“It’s targettin’ me! What the fuck!” He shouts, pointing to it and glancing around the room to see if anyone else is seeing this shit. All he gets is blank faces clearly trying to hold back their laughter and Mina’s pink sparkly phone case held up in front of her face. There’s a click like a camera shudder going off.
Things only escalate from there.
The string seems to have a hard time elongating towards Katsuki the farther Izuku moves away. Which, good, because Katsuki’s starting to feel like an alley cat backed into a corner by a group of overly-excited-to-see-a-cat kids.
But then Izuku comes back, glass of water in hand. The extra growth the string got while Izuku was away gives it leverage, and it springs. Katsuki jolts, stumbling up until he’s sitting over the top of the couch, shouting, “Oh, what’he hell?!”
Some people mumble. Some cackle. Izuku pauses and looks even more concerned than he did before, which is just great. The string begs for Izuku to move a step closer, squirming, it an inch from the couch.
“Stop walkin’,” Katsuki hisses, already planning on how he can clamber over the back of the couch, hide behind it, then fire off enough quick sucession explosions that the string dies and nobody else here dies with it.
Izuku just sighs and walks closer. The string jumps and so does Katsuki, over the back of the couch, barely landing without tripping, his palm raised and glowing with an explosion. Izuku calls out, “Kacchan!” and a few people gasp like this is some sort of action flick movie right at the climax.
But when Izuku called that out, he started jogging over. Katsuki didn’t notice that fast enough, not while he was trying to blink everything back into focus. The string yanks itself forward, lodging itself around Katsuki’s hand—and Katsuki doesn’t feel it, he only sees it, what the fuck—and in half a panic, blows up, making everyone yelp and duck and his own ears ring.
By the time the smoke is cleared, Katsuki’s on the ground behind the couch, on his ass, Izuku’s standing in front of him with an open mouth and singed bangs, and that string is happily tied in a bow around Katsuki’s pinkie. Unscathed. Untouched. Fucking smug.
Katsuki rages.
He scrapes at his pinkie, hands sparking, yelling, “What the actual fuck kind of fucking quirk did you pick up?! Izuku, go see Recovery Girl and get this shit off of me! Fuckin’ ugly ass red string, I’ll fuckin’ kill you—”
He barely hears Kirishima walk up and mumble to Izuku, “Honestly, man, it might be more ethical to just let him get blackout at this point.”
Izuku sighs like a teacher who just watched some of his best behaving students break a rule for the first time. “… Get me some shochu. Straight.”
Katsuki doesn’t remember the rest of the night.
***
Katsuki wakes up in his own bed, somehow.
He confirms how that happened when he rolls over, groans when his head pounds, and opens his phone. He’s met with a picture of him passed out and held up on the crowded evening train by his group of friends—Kirishima and Sero both have one of his arms over their shoulders, Kaminari is peeking out from behind Katsuki with that stupid grin he has when he uses his quirk too much, with Jirou practically holding up his entire weight, and the side of Mina’s, who is clearly the camerawoman, elated face in at the edge of the photo.
“Great,” Katsuki grumbles, slamming his phone face down onto his nightstand. “Who the hell gave me shochu?”
He groans again and drags a hand down his face, rubbing at his forehead when it throbs against the light filtering in from his open curtains. He drags his hand away. He was going to flop his arm back down on his mattress and sleep away his hangover, thank fuck I’m off work, but pauses.
And stares at his hand.
Specifically, at his pinkie where a thin red string is tied in a neat little bow, the tail end long and winding around his room, then out the door.
“What the fuck?” He says, voice rough, and blinks.
It’s still there.
He blinks again, then rubs his eyes.
… Still there.
“Did someone quirk me?” He says to no one but himself, sitting up.
He goes to touch it, which is probably not the smartest thing to do, and balks. It’s real, he can see it, but it’s almost like it’s not. The tail end of the string that he presses a finger into doesn’t fully bend, but it does lean away like something in the air put pressure on it. Katsuki can’t feel it. He tries to wrap his whole palm around it and does, but it’s not actually there, and when he releases it the string spasms like air pressure was just released all around it.
Katsuki sits there, staring at it like maybe if he glares hard enough it’ll go away. It doesn’t.
He tries blowing it up. Just one quick pop of his palm against it. Nothing happens. He tries again for good measure, and the string remains untouched, vibrating against the air slightly.
He curses under his breath, throws his blanket off, and swings his legs out of bed. The floor’s cold. The string doesn’t move when he does. It’s stretched taut, like it’s leading him somewhere.
“Alright,” he mutters, cracking his neck. “Fine. Let’s see what the hell this goes.”
Because obviously, Katsuki has to go towards the source of the mysterious red string that might be dangerous. Because he’s Katsuki Bakugou.
He follows it to his bedroom door, half-expecting it to vanish as soon as he opens it. It doesn’t. It winds down the hall, bright against the pale morning light. He grabs his hoodie off his desk chair, pulls it on, and trudges after it barefoot, phone in hand just in case this turns into a situation he needs to report to his agency.
It leads him through the hallway, past the living room and kitchen with absolutely no sign of it ending, and straight to his front door.
“Seriously?” He grumbles, slipping his shoes on.
He unlocks his door and follows it. Somehow this thing manages to go down through the floor in front of his door, like it wants him on the ground floor instead of the seventh floor where his apartment is. He steps into the elevator, arms crossed, hangover banging against his skull, and foot tapping impatiently on the ground.
It leads him all the way to the doors of his apartment. He follows, opens the door, then peeks outside, and—yeah, there it goes. The thread disappears down the street. Not metaphorically disappears. It phases through solid matter like it’s not quite in this world, the faint shimmer of it slipping through fences, lamp posts, parked cars, and the like.
Katsuki runs a hand through his hair, eyes narrowing. He looks like an idiot, standing there in sweats and a hoodie, hungover, following a string no one else can probably even see.
He should go back inside. He should eat, drink some water, take something for the headache, call Todoroki and yell at him for whatever the hell last night was. And he should definitely call his agency to report this and have a doctor check him out.
But instead, he finds himself stepping onto the sidewalk.
Because fuck it, he’s known for bad decisions already. If there happens to be a villain on the other end, so be it. Katsuki’s always ready for a fight, hangover be damned.
He follows the string. It weaves down the block, across an intersection, over a pedestrian bridge, and just keeps going. The walk is long. So long that Katsuki spends half the time wishing he just knew where the hell he was going so he could call a cab, the other half wishing he put on his damn sneakers instead of slides.
He doesn’t even realize where it’s leading him until he turns a corner and pauses.
U.A.
He stares at U.A.’s gates and huffs, before trudging forward. Well, if this doesn’t lead him towards a villain, he guesses this makes sense. A school full of superpowered kids. He was here last week as a guest speaker for Izuku’s class, so maybe one of the thousands of kids in this school accidentally tagged him with their quirk—
He finally slows down after stomping his way across the entire U.A. campus, only to realize the string is pulling him straight toward the staff dorms.
… Or maybe it wasn’t a student. Katsuki’s eye twitches. “This is fuckin’ ridiculous.”
He keeps walking anyway, because apparently he’s on a mission.
The string winds right through the front entrance like it owns the place. He mutters something about breaking and entering charges and how this is definitely Izuku’s fault somehow before keying in the security code he still remembers from last week’s visit. It beeps green, and the doors slide open.
The string stretches down the hall, glowing faintly in the sterile overhead light. Katsuki follows it past the lounge, past the vending machines, past a stack of Hero Weekly magazines with his own grinning face on the covers.
He doesn’t even need to look to know where it’s leading him now. His gut already knows. His gut’s been screaming it since the second he saw the gates.
He stops in front of a familiar door, breath coming out through his nose in a long, tight exhale.
The red string is pulled taut between his pinkie and through the door like a vein.
“Knew it,” he mutters.
He hesitates for about two seconds, then knocks. Hard. Once, then twice.
There’s a muffled noise inside. Something clatters. Then, after a second, the door opens.
Standing there, blinking blearily, hair sticking out in every direction, wearing a ratty All Might T-shirt and plaid pajama pants, is Izuku.
Katsuki glances at the string, at the tail end that’s jumbled between them like it’s knotted, then up to Izuku’s hand resting on the doorknob and the tiny little bow where the string has tied itself around Izuku’s pinkie.
Izuku stiffles a yawn as he says, “Kacchan?”
“You see this?” Katsuki demands, thrusting his hand out so his pinkie’s right in Izuku’s face.
Izuku squints. “See… what?”
“The string!” Katsuki snaps. “The fucking string!”
Izuku looks from Katsuki’s hand to his face, concern creeping in. He exhales, then says slowly, “… Did you drink again?”
Katsuki glares at him, offended. “No, I didn’t drink again. There’s a string! Look!”
Izuku rubs the sleep from his eyes with the back of his hand. “Kacchan,” he starts carefully, like he’s talking to a cornered animal. “There’s nothing there.”
Katsuki huffs through his nose, jaw clenching. “Oh, you’re full of shit. It’s right there!” He jabs at the space between them. “It’s tied around your finger, Izuku!”
Izuku’s half-asleep gaze trails off towards his hand resting on the doorknob. His eyes narrow. Then he raises his other hand and looks that one over too. “There’s nothing on my hands.”
Katsuki balks. He’s not crazy, it’s real—he checks again even though he literally followed the damn thing all the way here. It’s there, red and tangled and tied around them. His fingers flex in irritation. “I’m not bullshitting. This thing led me all the way here—”
Izuku cuts him off, frowning faintly. “Did you pick a fight with a quirk user while drunk last night?”
“Excuse me? No I didn’t—” Katsuki stops himself, because he can’t remember if he did that or not, then pinches the bridge of his nose. “Forget it. You got coffee and Advil?”
“Uh. Yeah.”
“Good. I’m coming in until I figure this out.”
Izuku steps aside automatically and Katsuki marches in. The string sways lazily between them as Katsuki flops onto Izuku’s couch, elbows on his knees, head in his hands.
What the actual fuck is going on?
Izuku hesitates for a moment before closing the door softly. “So…” he starts, moving toward the kitchen. “What exactly are you dealing with? A quirk? A curse? A hallucination?”
Katsuki glares at him through his fingers. “If this was a hallucination, I’d have better taste than you as the subject.”
Izuku shakes his head, pouring coffee from a pot that must’ve just been made. He doesn’t make any comment towards Katsuki’s sass. “Describe it to me. Maybe I know what it is?”
Katsuki narrows his eyes at him.
Unfortunately, if anyone knows about weird-quirks-that-Katsuki-might-run-into-at-least-once-in-his-life, it’s going to be this fucker.
“Red, tied around our pinkies,” he mutters like the words are physically painful to say. “We’re… tied together? Fuck if I know. I followed this crap all the way here. Apparently you can’t see it, I can’t touch it, and I—”
“Can’t blow it up, right?” Izuku cuts in, humming under his breath. Katsuki holds back from blowing him up. “Yeah, you tried that last night.”
“Last night?” Katsuki repeats, sitting up taller. “You’re telling me this has been around since last night and nobody thought to do anything about it?”
Izuku looks away sheepishly, an Advil bottle clattering as he pops the cap open. “… We thought you drank shochu and were imagining things again.”
Katsuki glowers. “Obviously I did somewhere because I passed out—this is besides the fucking point. Do you know what the hell this is or not?”
Izuku doesn’t say anything at first. He walks over from his tiny kitchenette and sets a mug down in front of Katsuki, passes off two pills of Advil that Katsuki swallows immediately, then settles on the couch next to him. He hums. It shakes a tiny bit.
“No,” he says, which sounds like a fucking lie to Katsuki’s ears. Katsuki stares at him, hard. “But I can ask around. This is U.A., so I’m sure there’s a book or, like, database around here somewhere. Aizawa might know.”
Katsuki opens his mouth to protest, because he doesn’t want books or databases, he wants answers—but Izuku cuts him off, firm.
“And you should go to your agency and get checked out,” he says, eyes narrowing like a parent who’s dissappointed in the line of actions their kid has taken so far. “Have you? You don’t know if this is dangerous—”
“I’m going!” Katsuki snaps, cutting him off. He stands, his full cup of coffee ignored. At least he took his painkillers. “Fuck. Fine. You nerd out over this, I’ll go get checked out. If nobody has answers by tonight I’m going to—”
Izuku pats his arm, his smile infuriatingly fond. “You’ll blow something up. That’s great. Do you want a ride to your agency?”
Katsuki glares at him so hard Izuku has to smile wider to fend off all of his negative energy. He crosses his arms, then purses his lips.
“… Fine.”
Only because he’s in slides.
***
By the time midnight rolls around, Katsuki is laying in bed, glaring at the celing, with no fucking answers.
The string is still there, tied prettily and happily around his pinkie. The tail weaves around his room until it slips under his door. Katsuki knows where it’s leading now, at least.
He still has no clue what it even is, though.
His agency checked him over. They couldn’t find any traces of a quirk on him. Couldn’t see it, touch it, honestly, they looked at him like he was crazy when he stomped out. Let them. Katsuki’s too busy with his magic, unexplainable string to care.
Izuku hasn’t been much help either. He’s sent Katsuki a few messages that Katsuki has read and not responded to because if he’s not getting answers, he’s probably just going to end up cursing Izuku out in a rage if he lets his fingers hit the keys.
Katsuki swipes open his phone and glares at the messages. Again. For the third time this past hour.
[Izuku, 9:32 a.m.]: Hey! Aizawa said U.A. does have a database. I’ll go check it now.
[Izuku, 12:02 p.m.]: I haven’t found anything yet… Aizawa says he doesn’t want to help me look.
[Izuku, 4:54 p.m.]: No luck here. Did your agency say anything? You actually went, right? Don’t be stubborn.
[Izuku, 11:12 p.m.]: I’m turning in for the night. Didn’t find anything. Don’t blow up your hand or something.
Katsuki exhales through his nose, jaw tight. “Must’ve not looked hard enough,” he hisses, thumb hovering over the keyboard.
He doesn’t reply. He calls it self control. Instead, he angrily slaps his phone face-down onto his nightstand. He throws his arm over his eyes, trying to shut the string out. The string’s still glowing in that soft, smug way Katsuki thinks he’s half-imagining, like it’s laughing at him.
“Stupid fucking magical bullshit,” he grumbles.
Yelling and cursing at it doesn’t help, but does make him feel incrementally better. He’s already tried blowing it up more times than he can count, one of which was at full-blast in his agency training room. Howitzer Impact didn’t help. Nothing helps. He turns onto his side. Then onto his back again. Then onto his stomach. Nothing feels right. His skin’s hot, but not in a fever way, more like there’s a simmer under it, low and tense. It feels like pressure coiled under his ribs. Like anticipation. Like—
“What the fuck,” he grits out.
He flips his pillow over to the cold, unslept-on side and buries his face into it.
But the feeling doesn’t stop.
The feeling—he still can’t pinpoint what it is, but it’s wrong in a multitude of ways and it’s freaking him out just a bit—bubbles again. Hot. Almost dizzying.
It takes Katsuki three very long and agonizing seconds to understand what the hell’s happening.
This feeling isn’t his.
He’s smart. And he knows what his own arousal feels like, okay? He’s twenty years old and a fully capable adult who’s lived in his body long enough to understand the mechanics of being horny.
And he’s pretty goddamn sure he didn’t suddenly get horny when he was just glaring at the ceiling in a rage a second ago.
This seeps in from the thread.
It creeps up his spine like a whisper, curls tight in his stomach, sparks along his nerves like lightning. It’s not sudden. It’s slow, crawling into him like it’s trying to belong there even when Katsuki can feel it doesn’t, like a pulse in his brain screaming, this isn’t right.
He groans into his pillow and flips onto his back again, kicking one leg out of the blanket. His hips twitch on their own and his hand jerks up to his hip instinctively before he forces it to stop.
“Oh my God,” he mutters, voice tight. “I’m gonna kill him.”
Again, Katsuki’s smart. The only person this stupid red thread is connected to is Izuku. And if these aren’t Katsuki’s feelings, and they’re connected, that means something is happening to their string to convey Izuku’s feelings into Katsuki’s body.
And Izuku’s horny, apparently.
“Fucking nerd,” he hisses, eyes wide, yanking his blanket off his body like somehow the heat prickling under his skin is from actual warmth and not from the fact he can feel his cock twitching to life because of some freaky Izuku-connection-boner. “Getting off at midnight like some sort of—fuck.”
It intensifies.
Katsuki’s eyes fly open, breath hitching as something distinctly not his hand glides down the length of his cock. His cock. Except it’s not his hand. He’s not touching himself. His hands fly up, because he’s not doing that, gripping the pillow under his head.
But he feels it.
He feels the exact moment a palm wraps around the base, jerky and tentative. he feels a slight squeeze. He feels warmth, a rhythm starting. The stuttered glide upward. The friction of a dry palm against skin, tugging down.
Katsuki chokes on his next breath. His hips buck once against the air. His cock, that’s apparently being jerked off, starts to fill out against his boxers and sweats.
“What the fuck—” His jaw locks on the next stroke because he feels it, and he knows that goddamn palm, and he doesn’t know if he should be happy that he was right or mortified that he can feel Izuku’s sort-of-ghost-hand around his cock.
He’s not even—he’s not touching himself. His fingers grip the pillow tighter.
His thighs tense. His breath goes shallow. His body responds.
Another stroke, slower this time, dragging and teasing.
Katsuki bites his lip hard, glaring down at himself like it’ll make the phantom sensation stop. But his cock is rock hard now, the arousal sliding into him from the string around his pinkie is hot, and there’s not a single finger on him.
“Fuck you,” he growls at his crotch, ignoring how he can see his cock jump when the not-his warmth in his gut swoops. “Fucking fuck you, Izuku.”
He can feel when Izuku slicks his hand down with spit, wet against his own palm, then against his cock. The next stroke is wet and tight, and that’s good, and Katsuki bites his lip to stiffle a gasp.
He doesn’t know what to do. On one hand, this is Izuku’s hand. Or, ghost-hand. He can feel the callouses and scars that he’s felt against his arm or palm on occasion, but never around his cock. And that’s weird. Invasive. And he’s pretty sure Izuku has no clue he’s doing this.
But on the other hand, he literally has no way to stop this unless he can, maybe, call Izuku, text him—distract him—fuck.
A thumb circles the head of his cock (no, Izuku’s cock) but Katsuki gasps, back arching. The pleasure is so heavy it nearly drowns him, thick and overwhelming. His cock is leaking into his boxers, the wet spot cooling and then heating again with every invisible stroke. His abs flex, his hips twitch, his lungs suck in air like it’s the only thing he can control.
“Oh, fuck,” he moans, swallowing it in a gasp halfway through the words. The feeling’s hitting harder now. Faster. Izuku’s chasing it. Katsuki can feel the way he speeds up, desperate now, hand moving rougher, wetter, pulling. Fucking tugging.
The fabric of his pillow case squeaks as he clutches tighter, holding on like he’s under attack.
It feels good. It feels so fucking good and he’s not the one doing it, and he’s not in control, and it’s not his arousal, but it’s in him, running down his spine, choking him.
He almost reaches for his phone to somehow get Izuku aware, but what the hell is he supposed to say?
Hey, stop jacking off because I can feel it through the magic string. Thanks.
Fuck no.
Katsuki bites back a groan, but he can’t stop the twitch in his thighs, or the way his hips thrust upward against nothing. His cock is dripping, untouched, but leaking like he’s been jerking off for twenty minutes straight.
He knows that edge. That tight coil. That burn in the gut that says he’s seconds away—
“Oh, shit,” Katsuki gasps, too late.
Izuku’s going to cum. Katsuki can’t even tell if that edge is his own or not, but his body is making it his own. A shudder ripples though him, his gut tightens, and he’s gasping something that could be a moan or a curse, and then he’s coming.
Hard. Without a single real touch. Boxers soaked, back arched, breath caught in a choke. He can feel Izuku keep stroking through it and he tries to twist his hips away, because Izuku might not have a sensitive-after-orgasm cock but he does, and then remembers Izuku’s hand isn’t actually there.
“Fuckin’—” he chokes, then gasps a sigh when Izuku’s hand finally falls away from his cock, or, well, Izuku’s own.
Katsuki slumps back onto the mattress, fingers loosening around his pillow, chest heaving, sweat cooling against his skin. The room’s quiet except for the sound of his own breathing, sharp, uneven, and disbelieving.
Katsuki stares at the string around his pinkie.
Then at the ceiling.
Then at the ceiling harder.
“What the fuck was that,” he growls, voice rough, throat dry.
His body still feels too hot, satisfied in ways he doesn’t want to think about. His muscles are heavy, his stomach tight, and the aftershocks of pleasure that weren’t even his keep twitching through him like echoes. He runs both hands down his face, groaning loud enough to shake his own chest.
He wipes the back of his wrist across his mouth and glares down at his ruined boxers. They’re damp and uncomfortable and—
“Nope. No. Not thinking about that.”
Katsuki… doesn’t really know what to do next.
He’s going to tell Izuku, because technically sharing sensations all of a sudden means this is escalating and all his hero training has told him that’s bad. But then he’s gonna have to kill him, because having to tell him that is going to be the most humiliating thing Katsuki will ever do.
But he doesn’t know how to start a conversation like that, and he’s not sure right now is the best time to do it when Izuku is clearly post-orgasm.
He groans, rubbing his eyes.
The only reason he even sleeps that night is because Izuku’s tiredness echoes into him.
***
Katsuki doesn’t knock on Izuku’s door.
After last night, he doesn’t think the horny bastard deserves a knock. He kicks the door and ignores how the hinges screech and the frame wobbles. The lock gives in with a sick crack, then the door swings inward.
Izuku, sitting on his couch eating breakfast, jumps and looks up from his phone, almost choking on the cereal in his mouth as he yelps, “Kacchan?!”
Katsuki’s eyes zero in on Izuku’s hand, the one holding his phone. His right hand. The one he’d have used. The one that wrecked his entire night. The one that had the audacity to drag him into a full-body shared orgasm while Izuku probably laid there blissfully unaware in his bed, imagining boobs or hero glory or whatever perverted bullshit Izuku jerks off to.
He almost grabs the string floating between them to wring himself with it when he realizes that he’s staring.
Izuku looks up at Katsuki like he’s face-to-face with a wild animal. “Uh—good morning?” He tries, voice pitched up three octaves.
“Morning my ass,” Katsuki growls. He steps into the room, the door still swinging and crooked on its half-broken hinges behind him. “You—” he points, sharp, accusatory, “—owe me a fucking apology.”
Izuku blinks. “A… what?”
Well, if there’s any way that Katsuki’s going to break this news to Izuku, it’s going to be dramatic and loud to drown out his own embarassment. A Katsuki Bakugou classic.
“You heard me,” Katsuki snaps loudly. “An apology. A real one. From the bottom of your freaky, nerdy little heart.”
Izuku stares at him, spoon frozen halfway to his mouth. “... For what?”
Katsuki narrows his eyes, disbelief hitting him so hard he almost laughs. “For what?!” His voice spikes, and Izuku flinches. “For jerking off last night!”
Izuku sets his phone down slowly, blinking up at him. “Kacchan, what—what are you talking about?”
“I’m talking about how I could feel your little midnight field trip with your right hand on my dick!” Katsuki yells, gesturing violently towards Izuku and then down at his own crotch. “Yeah, I got a fucking phatom-wank because of you!”
Izuku opens and closes his mouth. He’s silent for a second, then sputters loudly, “What—wait—what?!”
“Don’t play dumb with me, Izuku!” Katsuki’s pacing now, running a hand through his hair like it’s the only thing keeping him from combusting. “The string, dumbass! The string!”
Izuku looks like he’s trying to digest the most mortifying information he’s ever had to hear in real-time. “Wait—hold on, back up! You—what?! The string? Why are you—oh my God, Kacchan, are you saying you—?!”
“Yes!” Katsuki throws his hands up. “You decided to jerk it and the stupid thread between us decided to share the full sensory experience! Congratulations, you turned my night into a goddamn porno!”
Izuku’s entire face goes bright red. “I—I—oh my God. I didn’t know that would happen!”
“Well, it did!” Katusuki snaps, glaring at Izuku. His eyes slip to his right hand and Izuku catches that, and then hides his hands behind his back like somehow that makes anything better. “And we need to figure this shit out because I can feel your panic right now—”
“What?!”
“And fucking eat if you’re hungry!”
Yeah.
Katsuki woke up this morning with the horrifying realization that this sensation-sharing bullshit isn’t just for their dicks. It’s everything.
He could feel Izuku’s grogginess when he woke up, felt him running his hands through his hair in Katsuki’s hair, felt the splash of water all over himself while he was fully clothed and in bed when Izuku decided to shower, which was fucking trippy. He felt when Izuku started eating his crappy cereal, tasted the bland sugar, and felt the bubble of laughter in his chest when Izuku must’ve seen something funny, or whatever. He thought he had to take a piss when actually, Izuku did. Don’t even ask him about what it felt like during that.
Katsuki feels like he’s wearing an Izuku skin-suit right now, one that Izuku’s somehow controlling.
Izuku looks like he’s about to throw up.
“You can feel everything?” He croaks, voice paper-thin.
Katsuki glares at him. “Everything.”
There’s a few seconds of long, tense silence between them.
Izuku rubs his forehead, which Katsuki feels against his own forehead. Then Izuku whispers shakily, “This is—this isn’t like the folktale.”
Katsuki blinks at him. “The what?”
Izuku sucks in a sharp breath of air like he really doesn’t want to say it, but he’s back into a corner and has no choice.
“The red string of fate,” Izuku says slowly, avoiding eye contact. “It’s just a… story. You’ve probably heard of it, right?”
Katsuki glances down at the string. “This is a quirk, Izuku. Not some bullshit fairytail.”
“But you described the exact fairytail!” Izuku says, gripping his hair. Katsuki ignores how his own hair tugs at his skull through phantom sensations. “The red string, tied around the pinkies, connecting two people—that’s exactly it.”
Katsuki scrunches his nose. “And you just said this isn’t like the folktale. Make up your mind.”
“No, this whole sharing sensations thing isn’t. At least, not like this,” Izuku rushes out, standing now. He paces back and forth. “There are some versions where the people who are connected share emotions, or something, but not full-body sensations.”
“So then it’s not the fairytale.”
“But it’s not a quirk either! I looked everywhere, Kacchan. Even Aizawa looked. We found nothing.”
Katsuki stares at him. Long and hard, like if he just waits a few more seconds, Izuku will take it all back and say “Haha, just kidding,” and Katsuki can go back to pretending this entire situation isn’t the most invasive, embarrassing, night-ruining bullshit he’s ever experienced.
But Izuku doesn’t take it back.
He just stands there, still pacing, tugging at his own hair while Katsuki tries not to flinch every time he feels it.
“You’re telling me,” Katsuki says slowly, voice low and dangerously calm, “that this thing”—he lifts his hand and wiggles his pinkie, the red string lazily swaying with the motion—“is not a quirk. This very quirk-like bullshit, isn’t quirk-bullshit.”
Izuku swallows. “There’s no record of anything like it. I even looked through other databases, did specific searches on bonding quirks, support item malfunctions, everything—there’s just… nothing. Nothing that fits this.”
Katsuki’s eye twitches. “And you thought not telling me that earlier was a good idea because?”
“I didn’t know it’d get worse!” Izuku yells, throwing his hands up, exasperated. “Before today you only said it was a string! That you could see it, and couldn’t touch it! You didn’t say anything about, like—sensations! Or orgasms!”
Katsuki shudders like the word itself physically gagged him. “Don’t say that word again.”
Izuku ignores him. “So I thought it was harmless. I thought it was just a string. But now—now it’s like—we’re—”
“Sharing experiences?” Katsuki offers, miserably, because that’s exactly what it is.
Izuku winces. “Yeah.”
Katsuki rubs his temples. “Okay. So it’s not a quirk. And you’re telling me it isn’t the folktale, but it looks like the folktale, and it acts like some bastardization of it.”
Izuku nods slowly.
Katsuki’s silent for a beat. Then, “What did you do?”
Izuku blinks. “Huh?”
“You did something,” Katsuki growls, pointing a finger at him. “Don’t lie. This kind of shit doesn’t just happen to us. I’ve gone my whole life without some weird string stapling me to another person and now suddenly I’ve got a red leash on my pinkie and a front-row seat to your fucking jerk-off sessions? You did something. What was it.”
Izuku looks cornered. “I—I don’t know! I swear!”
Katsuki narrows his eyes. “You do know. You’re the only person who’d be stupid enough to activate this crap on accident. Did you pick something up? Open a suspicious box? Touch a weird scroll in an ancient closet? Visit some haunted shrine?”
Izuku opens and closes his mouth, his eyebrows drawn down like he’s slightly offended at being accused. “Kacchan, come on. I spend every day, all day here at U.A.! When would I have found some cursed item to link us together?! The last time I even went to a shrine was when I was a kid—”
Izuku’s voice dies in a pathetic, gaspy whimper.
Katsuki huffs. “That,” he says coldly. “Was the sound of a memory coming back to you.”
Izuku’s mouth hangs open like a broken vent. “Oh my God.”
“What. Did. You. Remember.”
Izuku pales so fast Katsuki wonders if he’s about to pass out. The string is making him feel lightheaded, so maybe.
“I—okay—remember when we were kids,” Izuku stammers. “Halloween. We were like, ten, maybe eleven. You heard about some haunted shrine and wanted to go check it out and I went with you because we were stupid.”
Katsuki breathes out carefully. “I don’t remember shit.”
Izuku shoots him a weak, half-panicked glare. “We found it, and it wasn’t me that did anything! You touched the thing in the offering bowl, and convinced me to go inside, and then—you left candy there, or something, because we got scared of some spirit—”
“I wasn’t scared,” Katsuki snaps on instinct.
Izuku stops pacing and shoots him a look. “You asked me to go inside with you. You were scared—anyway,” he starts pacing again. “You don’t remember anything at all? I remember, uh, oh, the crane! There was a crane statue, and a nine on the floor, and, um, the candle inside lit without us doing anything!”
Katsuki blinks slowly. He remembers bits and flashes—the moon peeking through the trees, the long staircase, the creaky floor boards. He remembers the crane. He remembers the offering bowl. He remembers sticking his hand into the dirty water inside it and dragging out a red rope just to look at it.
“Fuck,” he breathes, crossing his arms tight.
Izuku looks like he’s aged ten years just from his own memory. “Kacchan,” he says slowly, “I think we—”
“Got cursed,” Katsuki finishes flatly. “Yeah. No shit.”
Izuku groans and drags his hands down his face. “But it was years ago. Like, nine years ago. Why would it activate now?”
Katsuki glares at the string. “Because the universe is an asshole, that’s why.”
Izuku’s messing up his hair again, muttering. “No, no. That’s not how curses usually work. There’s always some kind of trigger. If it didn’t start until now, that means something woke it up.” He turns to Katsuki. “Have you been back to that area recently? Seen the shrine again? Touched anything?”
Katsuki narrows his eyes. Part of him wants to ask if curses are even real and why the hell Izuku knows how they work. The other part of him says, nerd’s gonna nerd.
The nine that was etched into the landing of the shrine’s stairs pokes at the back of Katsuki’s mind. “No,” he says, pursing his lips. “But there was a nine. And it’s been nine years since we’ve been there.”
Izuku pauses. Then gasps. “You first saw the string on Halloween. At Todoroki’s party.”
Katsuki nods. “Exactly nine fucking years from then.”
Izuku sits down. Hard. Like his knees just gave out.
“We’ve been cursed this whole time,” he says again, quieter, more horrified. Izuku’s staring down at his pinkie like he can actually see the string, even though they both know he can’t. “The nine wasn’t just a marking. It was a timer.”
“Yeah,” Katsuki grits out. “And now I get to know what your cereal tastes like. And what your hand feels like on my dick, apparently.”
“Kacchan—!”
“Don’t ‘Kacchan’ me! We are cursed, Izuku!”
“I know!” Izuku shrieks, burying his head in his hands. “Oh my God, oh my God. What if it gets worse? What if this was just, like, phase one? What if we start seeing through each other’s eyes? Or hearing each other’s thoughts?”
Katsuki blinks. “You read too many—”
“Or dream sharing,” Izuku continues, growing steadily more horrified, face pale. “What if we start talking to each other in our dreams? What if—”
“Izuku, shut up!” Katsuki barks, Izuku’s panic seeping under his skin through the string hard enough to give him goosebumps.
“What if you walk into my dream and I’m, like, naked or something—”
“I’m going to blow us both up.”
Izuku moans and flops backward onto the couch, arms over his face. “What the hell do we do?”
Katsuki stares at him. Stares at the ceiling. Then at his hand.
Then at the damn string.
It’s still there. Sparkling under Izuku’s ceiling lights and looped tightly around his pinkie like a cute little noose. And despite everything in him screaming that this is the worst idea he’s ever had, he already knows what they have to do.
He groans, loud and long and from the pit of his soul. “We go back.”
Izuku peeks between his fingers. “Back?”
“To the shrine,” Katsuki mutters, scrubbing a hand down his face. “We go back and fix this shit. Burn whatever we need to burn. Break whatever we need to break. Piss off whatever ghost is watching us jack off. I don’t care. We’re going.”
Izuku sits up a little too quickly. “You think we can reverse it?”
“I think we don’t have a choice,” Katsuki snaps. “Unless you want me to feel your every bowel movement for the rest of my life.”
Izuku pales. “No. Oh God, no.”
“Then get your shoes, nerd.”
“I—hold on! Let me get my coat, and—wait, should we bring salt? What if the ghost, or spirit, or thing gets mad again?!”
Katsuki ignores him and storms out, the door still hanging off the frame from his earlier entrance.
The string stretches behind him like a leash.
***
Katsuki glowers up the stairs of the shrine.
“That was… a lot easier to find than I thought it would be,” Izuku mumbles next to him, his hands stuffed into his jacket pockets. He’s nervously picking at his cuticles. Katsuki can feel it.
Katsuki stomps ahead, the first step cracking under his boot. “Stop freaking out before I throw up.”
Izuku scurries to follow, a step behind.
It really wasn’t hard to find.
Honestly, it felt like they were being led here.
Katsuki hasn’t set foot inside this damn forest since he was fourteen. Sure, he remembers the map of the area like it’s been burned into his memory, and he could probably navigate this place with his eyes closed, but he had no clue where to find this shrine. Because this shrine never existed—except for that one night he apparently got cursed.
Other than that unlucky night, this forest is supposed to be shrine-free.
So the fact that the grass was cut shorter and the trees were spread to create a perfect pathway from the forest gates to the shrine’s stairs is… a little suspicious, to say the least.
Izuku’s foot almost slips on the next stone step and he yelps, his own panic flooding Katsuki’s veins hard enough to make his palms sweat. Katsuki cuts a side-eye at him.
“You’re acting like a baby,” Katsuki snaps, moving faster. “You trained under All Might and fought in two wars before you graduated high school. Stop freaking out..”
“Well, I’m sorry for being cautious,” Izuku says back, quiet like he’s scared if he’s too loud he’s going to wake something up. “The last time we came here, this place wasn’t exactly safe.”
Katsuki scoffs. “We were kids imagining something scary.”
Izuku glares weakly. “A candle lit itself.”
“Doesn’t mean shit.” Katsuki debates propelling himself the rest of the way up with a blast from his palms. He’d have to grab Izuku to do that. He glances over his shoulder.
“Um, yes it does! And what if that—thing is still here?!” Izuku whispers sharply, then glances around the forest like there’s eyes in the trees. “You know. The thing that I know is real but you're trying to convince me was a hallucination.”
Katsuki rolls his eyes.
“Izuku, I am a literal pro hero. I’ll blow it up.”
“Yeah, but that doesn’t mean anything when you’ve never had to fight a cursed spirit before!”
“You sure what we saw wasn’t just some squatter trying to scare away two annoying kids?”
“That was not a person.”
“We live in a superpowered society.”
“… Yeah. True.”
They lapse into silence after that. Izuku steps his way up carefully, and Katsuki stomps forward with the rage of someone who hates being inconvenienced by the supernatural. He decides, in the end, not to shoot his way up.
The shrine comes into view above the top step.
It’s exactly the same as before.
Worse, actually, because it shouldn’t be the same. Nine years have passed. Wood rots. Paint fades. Old, unmaintained buildings eventually collapse. But the warped red columns still stand tall and untouched. The roof tiles still glint under the light like they’ve been polished. Even the paper talismans are still half-torn and water-damaged exactly like last time, fluttering in the breeze despite no wind at all.
Just like last time.
Katsuki slows his march. His boots crunch loudly on the broken stone.
Izuku stops behind him. “… It’s the same,” he whispers.
Katsuki’s already stepping forward.
“Wait—” Izuku yelps, rushing after him.
Katsuki does not wait.
The wood landing creaks under his boots. He glances down at the 9 as he and Izuku step across it, Izuku tip-toeing like he’s trying to avoid touching the engraved number.
The offering bowl with the perched crane statue comes into view. Katsuki’s steps stutter. Not because he’s scared. This all feels like a crappy prank. This feels like some sort of comedic Halloween movie where all of the actors underreact to a murder and then try to play shitty detective.
He pauses because there’s candy in the offering bowl. Nine-year-old candy. He can instantly tell because one of the chocolates—a round chocolate egg with a neon wrapper—was discontinued almost five years ago. All of it is clean like it was just dropped into the dirty water a second ago. No rot or mould. No bugs. Nothing.
The red rope kid-Katsuki fiddled with weaves around each little bit of candy, still as dirty as the last time Katsuki saw it.
“Huh,” he breathes, then walks closer.
They step up to the bowl and peek inside.
Izuku’s voice shakes. “That’s—it’s the candy. The candy we offered. And the rope. And the crane, oh my God.”
Katsuki narrows his eyes at it. Then, he snaps, “I’m taking it back.”
“What?! No, no, you can’t take—” Izuku grabs Katsuki’s wrist when he reaches for the bowl, grip firm. “Kacchan! Leave the offerings alone!”
“This bullshit shrine doesn’t deserve my goddamn candy!” Katsuki hisses, trying to yank his arm back from Izuku. “I gave it some of the good shit too—there’s a full chocolate bar in there! I’m taking this crap back!”
“Kacchan, no!” Izuku urges like he’s trying to command a roudy dog, wrenching Katsuki’s arm away from the bowl and behind his back. “That’ll probably just curse us twice over—!”
Something flickers from inside the shrine, far beyond the broken, open doors.
A candle light.
Both of them pause, still locked in half an arm wrestling match, and stare.
Katsuki can feel the immediate dread settle in his ribs from Izuku and the string, then hears Izuku’s shaky whisper of, “Oh, God.”
Katsuki just grins. “Same old tricks.”
Then he uses the vice grip Izuku has on his forearm to drag him into the shrine with him.
“We should go back,” Izuku mumbles the entire way towards the doors, but doesn’t let go of Katsuki’s arm. “We should go home. Sleep. Eat. Pretend we never came here, and then—”
“We’re inside,” Katsuki announces, dragging them through the threshold and stoping just beyond.
Time hasn’t touched this place.
The same belongings are clattered on the floor. An old cup, a broken lantern, and bones Katsuki can confidently say are from a rat. Same broken bullshit protection talismans scattered around. Same flickering candle sitting in the middle of an altar on the far side of the shrine where the corners are still dark and the shadows loom.
It’s even just as dusty. Katsuki waves a cloud of dust away from his face as he takes a creaking step forward.
Katsuki can’t make out what Izuku’s mumbling just behind him, but it better not be prayers.
“We never got to the altar,” Katsuki says, his grin firm across his cheeks. Adrenaline pumps through his body and he knows it’s not just his own, Izuku’s mixes with his, throwing him into a whole new whirlwind of ready for battle. “Our little spirit scared us off.”
“Maybe—maybe for good reason,” Izuku stutters, his shoulder pressing into Katsuki’s back like he’s using him as a human shield.
Katsuki scoffs. “Or maybe it’s just hiding how to break this goddamn curse.”
The candle flickers again.
Katsuki narrows his eyes at it.
Izuku inhales sharply behind him.
Katsuki glances at Izuku, mumbling sharply under his breath, “I swear to God, if you start crying I’ll kill you, because I’m pretty sure I’ll start crying against my will—”
Izuku gasps, a bit offended despite everything. “I am not crying!”
Katsuki narrows his eyes at him. “Yeah? Then why can I feel tears in my eyes?”
“I—” Izuku manages, before the candle flickers again, brighter with a loud hiss.
Katsuki scoffs and mumbles, “Impatient fuckin’ spirit,” before stalking forward.
Dust kicks up with every step, the floor groaning like it hasn’t been touched in decades. Izuku makes a broken noise behind him, following every step, practically stepping on Katsuki’s heels as they walk. “Kacchan, I really don’t think—”
“We came here for answers,” Katsuki cuts him off sharply. “So let’s fucking ask.”
He doesn’t wait, and doesn’t give Izuku time to stop him again.
He steps up to the altar.
And the second his boot crosses the threshold of the inner ring, marked by a half-circle of half-burned talismans, everything shifts.
Not physically. Not really. But the feeling of it warps. Katsuki stumbles back like gravity just tilted thirty degrees to the left. His vision bends at the corners. The candle flare stretches long and high, suddenly a pillar of fire.
Izuku gasps like all he can manage to squeak against his panic is a small, “Oh.”
Then—
Izuku rushes forwards, wide-eyed, stumbles once when the shrine tilts again, and throws a punch right for the candle.
Thunk.
The candle dies, darkness swallows the whole shrine so deeply the moon peeking inside from the doors and windows hardly helps, and all they’re left with is heavy, eerie silence.
Katsuki’s breath roars in his ears.
“Izuku, seriously?” He barks into the dark, righting his footing and standing taller. “Did you just punch out the only source of goddamn light in this place?”
“I—I reacted on instinct!” Comes the high, trembled response, somewhere in front of him. “Oh God, I think I peed a little—”
“No you didn’t!” Katsuki snaps back, because yeah, he would’ve felt that, then turns towards the sound of Izuku’s voice—only to jolt when something grabs his hand.
Not Izuku.
The fingers are cold.
And sharp.
And too many.
“Kacchan, something just grabbed me—!” Izuku yells, suddenly closer, panicked, and accidentally smacks into Katsuki with a shriek.
The hand vanishes.
Katsuki’s head whips around, his palm jerking to his hip to wipe away the creeping, slimy feeling from his palm. The shrine is still dark. There’s no movement except for the sound of Izuku’s sneakers scuffing closer. He growls, then yells out, “What the fuck is this?! A test of courage?!”
There’s no response. At least, nothing from something other than Izuku.
“Okay,” Izuku says breathlessly, holding onto Katsuki’s shoulders like a lifeline. “Let’s leave. Please. I think I just lost half my life in five seconds.”
Katsuki stares at the altar. His hand jerks. The string around his finger is pulling, taut and straight, like someone’s grabbed it around the middle and started tugging it backwards.
He follows it with his eyes.
He turns, tracking it across the ground, right to the shrine doors.
He freezes.
“Izuku,” he says carefully, just above a whisper. “Don’t turn around unless you want to give both of us heart attacks.”
Izuku turns to look, because of course he doesn’t listen—
And shudders, full body, and clamps a hand over his mouth.
“… Fuck,” He whispers, strained and tight, fighting back whatever scream wants to break through. Katsuki feels the big thump and jump of Izuku’s heart against his own ribs.
The same crane statue, bigger now, not perched on the offering bowl but blocking the door. It creaks as it shifts, robotically, like it didn’t expect to have to move—didn’t expect Katsuki and Izuku to get this far.
It's still stone.
Crouched.
Long-limbed.
It opens its mouth.
No teeth. No tongue.
Just red string, pouring out like smoke.
Katsuki doesn’t scream. He blasts.
A point-blank explosion flares from his hand, launching both himself and Izuku backwards until they stumble and fall onto their asses, Izuku yelping when Katsuki elbows him in the ribs and practically lands overtop of him. Dust rains down. Wood floors scream. Izuku coughs hard beside him, eyes wide and panicked.
And when the smoke clears, the figure is gone.
“Okay,” Katsuki breathes, dropping his hand. He blows dust off his nose as he stands. “This is a fucking test. This place is trying to scare us out again. Izuku, get up and start looking for any weird boxes or papers that might explain how to break this curse.”
Katsuki goes to step around, awkwardly feeling around in the dark. Izuku doesn’t respond. Katsuki pauses, glancing down in the direction he thinks Izuku is, squinting against no light.
“Izuku, you dead yet or what?” He mutters, inching closer, kicking out with his boot to see if he can feel him.
His boot kicks something warm and Izuku makes a wheezing noise. Katsuki clicks his tongue. “Alive.”
There’s some shuffling in front of Katsuki. Then a click, and Katsuki’s suddenly blinded by the sharp flash of a phone’s flashlight being shined directly into his eyes.
“Sorry!” Izuku rushes out, jerking the phone towards the ground.
Katsuki groans and rubs his eyes. “Fuck!”
“Sorry, sorry,” Izuku mumbles again. Katsuki finally blinks the black spots out of his vision and finds Izuku holding up a paper towards his face. “I—I think I found something. I landed on it.”
“Finally,” Katsuki groans, crouching next to where Izuku’s sitting criss-cross on the ground.
Izuku holds the paper out, dusts it off, then shines his phone onto it.
The paper is thick and definitely old. Its yellowed at the corners and creased like it’s been folded and unfolded dozens of times. There’s a faint smear of dirt across one corner, like it’d been clutched tight in someone’s hand.
The writing is strange. Slanted, thin brush strokes written in looping kanji that almost shimmers under the phone light.
Katsuki doesn’t read it aloud.
Because he can’t.
“… The fuck language is this?” He mutters, squinting at it. “Is that even Japanese?”
Izuku leans in closer, his hand trembling around his phone. “Yeah, it’s written in kanji, but the syntax is weird. And—and some of these words don’t even make sense. They’re like, names or titles or something.”
Katsuki’s eye twitches. “So you’re saying this is useless to us.”
Izuku’s voice drops to a whisper. “I think it’s instructions?” He lays the paper flat on the ground, trailing the title with his finger. “This is… soul, hm… fate? String of fate?”
Katsuki groans. “So this bullshit is your stupid fairytale.”
“No, no,” Izuku says, tapping his finger impatielty against the paper. He glances around for a quick second like something is going to jump out at them, which, fair, then looks back down. “Love? Affection? Attention? I can’t read that.”
Katsuki stands with a huff. “If you can’t read it then start looking for something you can read.”
Izuku doesn’t. He stays sitting on the ground, tracing letters and mumbling random words under his breath. Katsuki looks around in place, now able to see thanks to Izuku’s flashlight.
“Okay, okay,” Izuku eventually mumbles under his breath, voice shaky but focused. “This symbol repeats a few times. I think it’s probably the word for union. Or, um… connection. Or maybe…”
He trails off.
Katsuki sighs. “Spit it out, nerd.”
Izuku’s throat bobs. “Or maybe affection?”
Katsuki scowls. “What does that have to do with anything?”
Izuku doesn’t answer right away. He keeps reading, tracing the next few lines, mumbling the whole way. Katsuki watches his eyes widen and cheeks speckle red as he gets further down the page.
Katsuki steps closer. “What the hell are you reading?”
Izuku’s mouth opens, then closes, then opens again. “Um.”
“What?”
Izuku jerks the paper against his chest like he’s guarding it. “Don’t freak out.”
“Why would I freak—”
“Because you’re going to freak out!” Izuku blurts, his voice cracking. “And I don’t blame you, I’m freaking out too, but it’s fine! It’s—um—it’s a little unorthodox, but it’s… technically doable! Probably? I don’t know—”
“Izuku,” Katsuki grits out, voice low and dangerous. “Say. It.”
Izuku squeezes his eyes shut, then blurts it all in one breath, “It says the curse can only be broken when the bound souls achieve mutual physical unification born of devotion!”
Katsuki stares at him.
Izuku wheezes. “Which, uh, loosely translated to modern language, means—uh—”
“Means what,” Katsuki bites.
Izuku looks like he wants the floor to open up and swallow him whole. “Sex, Kacchan! It means sex!”
The silence that follows is deafening.
Katsuki just blinks. Once. Twice. Slowly. Then, flatly, “You’re shitting me.”
“I wish I was,” Izuku mumbles, holding the paper up for Katsuki to see with shaky fingers. “It’s written right there. Look, here—‘mutual physical affection’—and here—‘devotion’—I’m not making this up, Kacchan, I swear!”
“It had to be phrased like that—ugh. Nevermind.” Katsuki pinches the bridge of his nose, muttering something that sounds like a prayer but is mostly profanity. “Read it again, because if that’s the only solution, I’ll die cursed before—”
He stops.
Izuku’s staring at the paper again, voice small. “It also says the longer the… ritual remains incomplete after awakening, the stronger the curse gets.”
Katsuki pauses. “Stronger how?”
Izuku swallows. “Emotionally, physically, and sensually.”
Katsuki’s glare could cut glass. “Define that.”
Izuku doesn’t meet his eyes. “It mentioned, um. ‘Overwhelm of the senses resulting in carnage’, which, honestly, I don’t think means anything good. That probably—probably means death.”
The silence between them stretches. Katsuki feels the weight of Izuku’s panic, his embarrassment, and his worry, all of it bleeding across the string still connected to both of them, threading through his chest until his own breath starts to stutter in sync.
Izuku looks up at him, wide-eyed and flushed. “Kacchan—”
“No,” Katsuki snaps, stepping back. “So, what? We just bang the curse out of us in this dingy goddamn shrine that tried to kill us a minute ago? Complete the ritual by getting our dicks wet so I don’t die later on? What perverted fucking spirit runs this place?!”
Izuku winces like Katsuki’s voice physically slaps him. He looks down at the paper again, lips pressed tight together like he’s trying not to cry or laugh or maybe just scream into the void.
“I—I don’t think we have to do it here,” Izuku says quickly, like that’ll fix the situation. “It’s not location-bound, I think. Just… time-sensitive. The curse awakened, so now the clock’s ticking, but it doesn’t have to be here.”
“Oh, well thank fuck for that,” Katsuki snaps, throwing his hands in the air. “I was real worried I’d have to get railed next to a haunted fucking bird statue.”
Izuku chokes on his own breath, immediately red. “I didn’t say—I mean—!”
“You said we had to have sex to fix this!”
“I was just translating what was written here!”
“Then translate a better solution!”
“I don’t think there is one!” Izuku yells back, his voice high and panicked. “If there was, it’d be written here, and this is the only page I’ve found!”
Katsuki turns away from him, running both hands through his hair. “There is no way. No fucking way. This is a joke. This is some spirit’s nasty-ass fantasy—”
“Uh, if this were a joke I don’t think you would have felt my—my, uh—”
“Shut up, Izuku!”
Izuku makes a sound halfway between a squeak and a sigh, and slumps forward, dragging a hand down his face. “Look. It says ‘mutual.’ Okay? That’s the key word. If one of us doesn’t want it, it doesn’t work. So. No one’s forcing you to do anything.”
Katsuki glares at him, his jawed clenched. “You think I don’t want to break this curse?”
Izuku’s eyes narrow. “You think I do, with requirements like that?”
They stare at each other, breathing hard.
The red string glows faintly between them.
Katsuki looks down at it, then back up. “So what now?”
Izuku chews his lip, then sighs. “We look around. Maybe there’s more papers. Or maybe we just delay. Buy ourselves time. I mean, it just activated, right? Maybe we have a few days.”
Katsuki scoffs. “I’ve been scanning this place the whole time you’ve been translating. There’s nothing else here.”
Izuku blinks at him, then jerks a thumb to the side, pointing to just a foot away. “Then what’s that?”
Katsuki’s eye twitches as soon as his gaze lands on the box Izuku was pointing too, a box that was not there before. Katsuki stomps over, grumbling curses under his breath. He bends down, grabs the little box, then swipes dust off the top. Izuku sneaks up to his side a second later, paper clutched between his hands.
Katsuki unlocks the latch with a click. The box creaks open.
They stare.
Izuku makes a dying, wheezing noise.
Katsuki, flatly, spits, “Is that a bottle of fucking lube?”
Izuku strains out a small, “Yes. Yes it is.”
They both continue to stare.
Izuku quietly whispers, “The shrine, or spirit, or whoever… didn’t include condoms.”
Katsuki shuts the box and drops it to the ground.
It clatters.
He walks away.
Then promptly kicks the nearest wall.
“Fucking sick and perverted bird statue motherfucker, I swear—!” Katsuki snarls, punctuating every word with another kick to the wall until something cracks.
“Okay! Okay!” Izuku yelps, rushing over to grab his arm before he brings the whole shrine down around them. “Just calm down, Kacchan!”
“Do not tell me to calm down,” Katsuki growls, teeth bared, yanking his arm out of Izuku’s hands. “The creepy string curse just handed us lube! Do you know how fucking insane that is?!”
Izuku’s hands flap around helplessly. “I mean, it’s… thoughtful? Maybe?”
“Oh my God,” Katsuki hisses, stepping away and dragging both hands down his face. “You do realize what that means, right?! It—whatever the fuck it is—wants us to fuck! It’s listening like a voyeuristic pervert and wants us to—”
Izuku holds up his hands in surrender. “I’m just saying—”
Katsuki snaps a finger up towards him, pointing with wild eyes. “What, you gonna play along? You gonna seduce me, nerd? Light a candle and whisper sweet nothings while we complete the ritual in this haunted clown-house?”
Izuku turns bright red. “I wasn’t—well, not here, obviously not here—!”
Katsuki takes a heavy step closer. “You wanna take me out to dinner first, that it? Get a hotel room? Ask if I’m into bondage while you—”
“I get it, Kacchan!” Izuku yells, face now the color of a stop sign. “You’re mad! I get it! I didn’t ask to be cursed into some sex ritual either, okay?!”
Katsuki breathes out hard through his nose. His hands ball into fists. Izuku’s panic and frustration seep under his skin, which just makes his own emotions flare more. Dangerously so.
“You know what?!” He snaps back loudly. “Yeah. Fucking fine! Let’s do it. Let’s fuck in this goddamn shithole, break this goddamn curse, and then bleach our fucking brains—”
Izuku narrows his eyes, then snaps, “Or we can think of an actual plan! You know, like the adults we are! Like the pro heroes we were trained to be!”
Katsuki stomps over towards the box with a dry laugh. “Yeah, why don’t you show that paper to Aizawa and see if he sees anything else on there besides ‘fuck like rabbits’?!” He snaps the box open, grabbing the lube before throwing the box aside. “Hey, maybe All Might’ll find something else! Who knows?!”
Izuku balks at the bottle in Katsuki’s hand. “Put that down!”
“No!” Katsuki snaps, shuffling out of his jacket. It hits the floor with a dull thump. “Pretty sure we’re gonna need this, Izuku!”
Izuku stares at him like he’s lost his mind. “You’re not seriously—”
“Don’t tell me I won’t fucking do it!” Katsuki barks, snapping the cap open. The quiet pop echoes. “You said mutual, right? Then fine! I’m in. Are you in?”
Izuku’s mouth opens but nothing comes out. His throat moves around a swallow, eyes darting from the bottle to Katsuki’s flushed-furious face.
Izuku looks around. “Here?” He asks, incredulous.
Katsuki glares. “Here.”
“Right now?”
“Right now.”
“Us?”
“Yes. Us.”
“You want to… have sex?”
“Yes, Izuku! Jesus Christ,” Katsuki groans, kicking his boots off, the bottle of lube squeezed so tightly between his fist a little drop of liquid beads at the top. “I want to have sex with you right here, right now so we can break this fucking curse. Is that clear enough for you?”
Izuku makes a strangled noise somewhere between a cough and a wheeze. “Clear—very clear.”
Katsuki stares at him. He stares at how he’s bundled up in his coat and jeans, at his stupid red sneakers and wide eyes. He glances around the shrine. No evil monsters or jumpscares. A lot of dust. Way too much dust.
“Then if you’re in, undress,” Katsuki spits, kicking at the ground near him with his socked foot, hoping to shoo some of the dust away. “Or don’t. Just get your dick out and get it hard. Imagine tits or something if you need to.”
“What?” Izuku stammers, stepping a hesitant step closer. “Wait, wait—how are we even doing this?”
Katsuki glares like that should be obvious. “Don’t be stupid. You get hard, I’ll stretch my ass out. You stick it in. Close your eyes if you wanna. We finish and then move on with our lives.”
Izuku blinks. “You’re gonna—” be the bottom goes unsaid.
“Not like I want to,” Katsuki scoffs, working open his belt. “But I know what I’m doing and I’m pretty sure your virgin ass doesn’t.”
Izuku opens and closes his mouth, face flaming. “I’m not a virgin,” he rushes out, then shakes his head, pressing his fingers to his forehead like he has a headache. “You know what you’re—okay, this is a lot of information I never thought I’d know trying to digest all at once. Hold on.”
Katsuki flicks open his jeans button then unzips. The zzzpt is awkwardly loud inside the quiet shrine. “You’ve got five minutes to digest before I’m done.”
“Five minutes implies experience—oh my God,” Izuku mutters, looking away.
Katsuki rolls his eyes. “You’re killing the mood.”
“There never was a mood!”
“You’re not even giving the mood a goddamn chance.”
“Kacchan—!” Izuku starts, but snaps his mouth shut so fast his teeth click together when Katsuki’s jeans hit the floor with a thud.
Izuku back is fully turned towards Katsuki now. Katsuki sighs, exasperated, and lets his jeans pool completely around his ankles before stepping out of them. He doesn’t bother taking off his boxers just yet, but he does squeeze some lube into his hand. The slick sound echoes like a gunshot in the dusty stillness.
Izuku flinches. “I can hear that.”
“Cover your ears, then.”
“You’re not helping.”
Katsuki growls. “I’m not here to help you feel less awkward about fucking me, Izuku. If you don’t wanna do this then back out now before I have my fucking fingers inside of me.”
Izuku stutters out some useless noises, and without turning around, waves his hands around like he’s saying wait.
“Just—wait, Kacchan!” He says, aloud and not with gestures this time. “This is moving too fast. I don’t think putting my thing inside and—and moving it around for a minute is going to count! The paper said mutual devotion. It mentioned affection like, three times!”
Katsuki raises an eyebrow, then, out of everything that was said, pulls out, “You’re gonna finish in a minute?”
Izuku makes a garbled, half-embarassed and half-frustrated noise. “Not the point, Kacchan!” He stomps over to the paper and snatches it up off the ground, then waves it around. “Devotion isn’t—isn’t—”
“A quickie in a dusty shrine.”
“Exactly!”
Katsuki crosses his arms, half undressed in a dusty shrine with lube drying on his fingers. He feels ridiculous. “Then what the hell do you suggest we do, Izuku?”
“We—” he pauses, voice tight like he’s worried his words are going to cause an explosion. Eventually, he squeaks, “… We have sex. Actually. Not just this.”
Katsuki narrows his eyes at Izuku’s back. “This is sex.”
“No, this is reluctantly sharing an orgasm!” Izuku snaps, a bit more firm than he probably expects, if the way his shoulders twitch is anything to go by. “People who care about each other don’t sit back-to-back, prep for a few minutes, and then stick it in!”
Katsuki stares. Then, flatly, “We can always relight the candle you punched.”
Izuku groans. “Kacchan, you are being so—” he mutters ‘irritating’ under his breath like he doesn’t want Katsuki to hear it but the frustration in his chest is too heavy not to say it. “Just—let me do it. The touching. The fingering thing. And maybe foreplay, I don’t know!”
Katsuki’s hands squeeze his arms tighter, and he hates how his voice snaps out with an edge of awkwardness when he says, “What, want me to jerk you off too?”
“Yes!” Izuku blurts, his voice jumping an octave as he finally turns around, flustered to the point of combustion. His eyes snap to Katsuki’s bare legs before jerking back up to his face. “That’s—part of the point I’m trying to make!”
Katsuki blinks at him, dumbfounded. “You want to finger me.”
“I didn’t say that!”
“You literally just did.”
Izuku’s face goes a shade of red that could be classified as a health hazard. “Ugh—can you just lay down already?!”
Katsuki looks at the ground. There’s a few awkward seconds of silence before Izuku shucks off his jacket and Katsuki finds his and his lost pants. They pile their discarded clothes on the ground, making a make-shift dust cover, then Katsuki sits with a huff. Izuku hesitates, then crouches next to him. He sets that stupid paper and his phone down next to them gently, the flashlight facing up.
“So…” Izuku says, his voice so awkward it makes Katsuki want to die. “Where do we… start?”
“Fucking hell.” Katsuki shifts, lying back against the pile of their clothes with an exaggerated sigh like this whole situation is somehow Izuku’s fault and not, you know, the fault of some ancient curse he accidentally activated when he was eleven. The dim flashlight casts an eerie halo behind his head like some kind of pissed-off shrine deity.
Izuku’s hovering awkwardly next him, hands clenched on his knees and face pinched like he’s trying to remember how arousal, sex, and orgasms work all at once.
“Don’t look at me like that,” Katsuki mutters, frowning up at him. “You’re the one who made this weird by bringing in feelings and shit.”
“I didn’t say feelings!” Izuku protests, panicked. “Just mutual! The curse specifically said mutual!”
“You literally said devotion—”
“The paper said devotion!”
Katsuki groans and throws one arm over his eyes. “Fine. Then hurry the hell up and show me your devotion, or whatever. This floor’s hard as shit.”
Izuku makes a strangled noise in the back of his throat. Then he takes a breath. Then he reaches out slowly, like Katsuki is a live wire that might fry him if he moves wrong.
His hand lands on Katsuki’s thigh.
Katsuki tenses immediately. “That’s not my ass.”
“Good observation, thank you,” Izuku says, his voice high and tight and a bit sassy. “I’m warming up to it. I can’t just jump in.”
Katsuki peeks at him from under his arm. “Why not? You’re gonna be there eventually.”
“I told you already,” Izuku snaps, face burning, but his fingers inch higher. “We’re having actual, affectionate sex—you know what? I’m shutting up.”
Katsuki opens his mouth to snap something like, “Fucking finally,” but doesn’t get the chance to say the words. Izuku’s hand squeezes his thigh like the action’s a nervous habit, then he’s leaning forward.
Katsuki’s eyes are wide open when Izuku’s lips brush his own.
And just as quickly, Izuku’s jerking away.
There’s a stuttered second where they process that their lips just touched. Katsuki wouldn’t call it a kiss, not exactly. Izuku probably does, if the red blooming across his cheeks and down his neck is any indication.
But then Izuku’s doing it again, with no mumbled worries or questions shared between the first and second press of lips.
Izuku slides forward slowly, his lips meeting Katsuki’s softly, pressing like he’s trying not to break something. His hand stays on Katsuki’s thigh, steady but trembling slightly, and his lips part just enough that Katsuki can feel a shiver of breath between them.
This is stupid. This is so fucking stupid. This is so awkwardly-gentle it feels like kissing a playground crush by the swing set.
But Katsuki’s heart punches against his ribs like it’s trying to escape.
He makes a low sound in his throat and Izuku pulls back an inch, like he’s unsure if he’s gone too far.
“I—” Izuku starts, his voice wrecked with nerves. “I thought maybe… starting with a kiss would help. With the mutual thing.”
Katsuki stares up at him. His brain feels like it’s been unplugged from his body.
“Okay,” he mutters. “Sure. That’s—fine.”
“You sound like it’s not fine.”
“I’m lying down half-naked in a haunted shrine because of some ancient perverted curse,” Katsuki snaps, colour creeping up his own neck now. “I wouldn’t say I’m fine right now.”
Izuku snorts, shaky and nervous. His lips curve into something of a smile though, and that’s a win for Katsuki.
“Kacchan.”
“What?”
“I’m really nervous.”
“Yeah,” Katsuki mutters, glancing down between them. “Me too, dumbass.”
Izuku swallows. His throat works around it. Then he shifts a little closer. His fingers slide higher up on Katsuki’s thigh, until they pause when he touches the fabric of Katsuki’s boxers. “Okay. Okay. I’ll go slow. I’ll be gentle. You—uh, stop being a dick.”
Katsuki huffs a quiet laugh. “No promises.”
Izuku smiles, glances down again, then leans closer. “Tell me if anything’s too much,” he says quietly, his breath fanning across Katsuki’s lips like a whisper.
Katsuki narrows his eyes. “Just get on with it already.”
Izuku’s lips twitch like he might say something smug, but he doesn’t.
Instead, Izuku kisses him again.
It’s different this time. Deeper, slower, like Izuku’s finally settled into the idea of it. His hand curls tighter around Katsuki’s thigh, and Katsuki feels the tremble against his thigh and in his own fingertips thanks to the string’s sensation sharing.
Their mouths move together awkwardly at first, teeth brushing, breath hitching. Katsuki grunts against him, fingers twitching like they want to do something. Maybe grab Izuku’s hoodie, maybe pull him down, maybe yank his hair just to hear what kind of noise he’d make. He settles for curling his fingers into the jacket beneath him instead.
Izuku licks into the kiss with a breathy little sigh like he’s surprised Katsuki hasn’t shoved him off yet. His hand lifts from Katsuki’s thigh, skimming up, hovering uncertainly, until he plants it beside Katsuki’s head and leans in more fully, mouths pressing together like they mean it now.
Katsuki’s lips part, and Izuku takes the invitation like he’s starving.
The kiss turns open-mouthed and warm, messy at the edges, spit sliding their lips together. Izuku makes a soft, shaky noise when Katsuki finally kisses him back properly—tilting his head, catching Izuku’s bottom lip between his teeth before licking it smooth again. Izuku matches him, leaning closer, pressing harder.
Katsuki’s heart thunders in his ears. The fucking curse is probably cheering.
Izuku pulls back with a gasp, almost reluctantly, like the only reason he even moved away was to breathe and he’s annoyed that he had to. “More of this, or—?”
Katsuki blinks. “Thought you said you weren’t a virgin?” He reaches up, grabs Izuku’s stupid hoodie, and tugs him down so their chests are flush together. “You’re acting like one.”
Izuku leans in with a shaky, breathy laugh, lips brushing the corner of Katsuki’s mouth. “Don’t be mean,” he whispers. “I’m gonna kiss you again, okay?”
One of Katsuki’s hands slides into Izuku’s hair. “Good.”
Izuku kisses him. His hands wander more this time. They start at Katsuki’s jaw, soft brushes of knuckles and fingertips like he’s not sure how much he’s allowed to touch. He trails up slowly, hesitating near Katsuki’s ear, then down again to his jaw like he’s learning the topography of him by touch alone.
Katsuki breathes out into Izuku’s mouth. The shrine’s too quiet. Every breath, every swallow, every heartbeat between them sounds loud in the dark.
Izuku’s hands skim over his chest, overtop of Katsuki’s t-shirt that he never took off. They slide down to his waist, careful fingers wrapping around the thinnest part. Izuku’s hands stay there loosely, then get firm. Fingers dig into his waist, Izuku’s thumbs pressing into his stomach, and Katsuki feels the shudder wreck through Izuku’s body in both his lips and the string tied around their pinkies.
There’s that feeling again. The one he felt last night when he was caught off guard by Izuku’s phatom-jerking off. That slow, warm pool in his gut that isn’t his own, the arousal that’s Izuku’s, shared into Katsuki’s body through the string only he can feel.
Katsuki huffs against Izuku’s lips, then feels around next to his head for the bottle of lube he threw down. He pulls his mouth away from Izuku’s, letting the back of his head touch the clothe-covered ground. “You ready to move the fuck on yet, or what?”
Izuku flinches like he’s been caught doing something illegal.
“I—uh—” He pulls back, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. “Okay, yes. Uh. Maybe.”
Katsuki quirks an eyebrow, lifting the lube up between them like he’s daring Izuku to take it. “Maybe?”
Izuku stares at the bottle with nervous eyes for a second, before he grabs it. The cap pops slowly. The sound is loud in the still air. Katsuki’s pulse stutters with it.
Izuku looks down at Katsuki, holding the lube between loose fingers like he’s not ready to really hold on. “Do you… what position do you want to do this in?”
Katsuki’s teeth grind together. There’s no position that’s going to make this less intimate than it already is, and not wanting intimacy would just be going against the whole point of this.
He stays laying on his back. Izuku doesn’t have any knee between his legs, isn’t really over top of him at all—he’s at Katsuki’s side, hovering. “This is fine,” Katsuki says, because this is as fine as it’s going to get.
Izuku nods. “Okay,” he says, glancing at the lube and then at Katsuki. Slowly, his fingertips slide an inch under the waistband of Katsuki’s boxers. “Can I—?”
Katsuki stares up at him, eyes steady even though his whole body is buzzing, the string around his pinkie practically pricking him with Izuku’s warmth. “Yeah.”
Izuku exhales, shaky and hot against Katsuki’s cheek. Then he slides his fingers fully under the waistband of Katsuki’s boxers and starts to tug them down.
Katsuki lifts his hips just enough to help. He watches Izuku the whole time, eyes narrowed, sharp with tension that has nothing to do with anger and everything to do with the heat pooling behind his ribs.
Once Katsuki’s boxers are yanked off his ankles, Izuku glances away fast, face red, shoulders hitching like he wants to melt into the floor. “Fuck, okay,” he mumbles. “Okay. Um—don’t laugh if I drop the lube.”
“Look at me, then look around,” Katsuki deadpans. “I’m not laughing.”
Izuku lets out a snort. He squeezes a dollop of lube into his palm with a loud squelch, and both of them flinch. Then Izuku swears under his breath, rubs it between his fingers, and shifts closer.
He eyes where Katsuki’s knees are pressed together and mumbles shakily, “Um, could you—uh, open your legs?”
Katsuki glares at him, heat prickling at his cheeks. “Don’t make me sound like a whore.”
Izuku’s lube-free hand settles on Katsuki’s knee, gently tugging outward. “I didn’t say that! I’m just saying, for me to get there, you kind of have to, well, spread them.”
Katsuki gapes. “That sounds worse!”
Izuku nudges a little harder. “There’s no innocent way to say that, Kacchan!”
Katsuki makes a noise somewhere between a growl and a strangled laugh. “You could’ve just said move!”
“I’m trying to be clear!” Izuku hisses, voice cracking halfway. He’s still as reda as ever. “Do you want me to just move you instead?!”
Katsuki glares daggers at him. “Try it and see what happens!”
They lock eyes for a second too long. The tension is so tight it’s practically a third person in the room.
Then Izuku, with the face of someone desperately trying to act normal while doing something profoundly not normal, shifts closer and hooks both hands around Katsuki’s knees. He yanks them open, and Katsuki tries to swallow his half-yelp-half-growl noise down, barely suceeding.
And like Izuku expect Katsuki to snap them closed as soon as he lets go, he plants his knees between Katsuki’s thighs, effectively shoving them open wider.
Katsuki glares, ignoring the heat everywhere—in his cheeks, under Izuku’s hands, low in his gut and travelling fast towards his cock. He also pointedly ignores Izuku’s warmth spreading deeper, sharper, through their threaded connection.
Izuku’s jaw twitches, but his eyes flick down between them. He’s focused now, if you could call that look on his face focus. It’s more like horrified determination. The kind that says, I don’t know what I’m doing but I’m going to do it right anyway.
He takes a shaky breath and glides the palms of his hands up Katsuki’s thighs. They pause on his hips. Katsuki hesitates, then drangs his knees up, bending them with his feet planted against the floor. Izuku lets out a shaky exhale, then his wet hand jerks lower.
He skips Katsuki’s semi entirely. He presses his fingers against the fat of an asscheek, just enough for Katsuki to feel the first cold touch of lube against his skin. Katsuki sucks in a breath through his nose, glaring at the ceiling.
“Good?” Izuku asks, barely above a whisper.
Katsuki glares at him. “If you ask me that every five seconds, I won’t be.”
Izuku’s mouth snaps shut. “Right. Okay. No more talking.”
“Promise?” Katsuki mutters.
Izuku pretends not to hear him.
Izuku moves again, slower this time. Katsuki’s breath stumbles, a tiny shiver running down his legs. He hates that Izuku feels it, that Izuku’s hand shakes when he does. Izuku dips his fingers as low as he needs to, presses against Katsuki’s rim, then slides one finger inside like he’s not sure if now is the right time but he’s already decided he’s doing it.
Katsuki tries not to bite his cheek or do something worse, like flutter his eyelashes, when he feels it.
“Holy shit,” Izuku murmurs, staring at his own hand between Katsuki’s thighs. “That’s—oh.”
Katsuki’s glare could kill a man if he weren’t trying so hard to not oh as well. “Don’t oh me.”
Izuku bites his lip and pushes his finger in farther, slowly. Katsuki feels it, feels every slide, every shove, every—
Wait.
Huh.
Oh, fuck no.
They share sensations. They share feelings like Katsuki’s covered in a blanket of Izuku’s actions. Physical sensations, not just internal.
Katsuki curls both of his hands into fists and very violently tries to ignore how one of his fingers feels hot and slick and—yeah, no, that’s weird. That’s too weird. That’s the ghost of Izuku’s finger in Katsuki’s ass, spreading over Katsuki’s finger.
“Out,” Katsuki chokes suddenly, pushing on Izuku’s arm between his legs. “Get out of me.”
Izuku looks up, concern drawing his eyebrows down. His hand stutters to a stop before he yanks his one finger out. It only got halfway. “What’s wrong?”
“That was so fucking weird,” Katsuki says, flexing his fingers. He reaches for the bottle of lube again. “No, screw this. I’m doing it myself.”
“What?” Izuku says, frowning. His hands settle on Katsuki’s hips like he doesn’t want to fully pull away yet. “I know I don’t really know what I’m doing, but you don’t have to be mean about it—”
“No, Izuku. I can feel everything you fucking feel, remember?” Katsuki snaps, dripping lube over his own fingers. “Including that.”
Izuku blinks. Then opens his mouth like he wants to say, “Oh, right,” but the words don’t come out.
Katsuki slides his slick fingers towards his ass. He hesitates. Then, Izuku blurts, “Uh, then, won’t you feel my—dick, on yours, when I—” He stops himself.
Katsuki pauses. Thinks about it. Yanks his hand away from his ass like he burned himself. Then, he snaps, firm and hard and dreading whatever hell-scene just escaped Izuku’s lips, “We're switching.”
Izuku opens and closes his mouth. “Wait, wait—!”
“Take one for the team, Izuku!” Katsuki snaps, sitting up, his wet hand diving for Izuku’s belt. Izuku flounders and yelps, his hands grabbing Katsuki’s wrists. “You don’t get phantom-touches!”
“Wait!” Izuku yelps again, wrenching Katsuki’s hands back. There’s a power tussle, Katsuki shoving against Izuku’s push and vice versa. “It can’t be that bad, right? Just—calm down!”
Katsuki yelps, sort of yells, when Izuku shoves forward, throwing his body weight against Katsuki’s arms. His back slams against the ground, the jacket underneath him doing nearly nothing to cushion his fall. Izuku’s dragged forward until Katsuki’s wrists are slammed around his head, Izuku’s entire weight holding them down.
Izuku blinks, surprised. He breathes out slowly. The string around Katsuki’s pinkie sends a wave of sharp pleasure through Katsuki, and Katsuki balks.
“What the fuck,” Katsuki hisses, writhing against Izuku’s grip. “Get off of—”
“Just wait!” Izuku snaps, and Katsuki feels that shared arousal flare hotter. He’s still hovering over Katsuki, his knees between Katsuki’s thighs, their hips almost brushing, and his palms are pressed hard against Katsuki’s wrists. Katsuki pushes against them. “You—I just—stop fighting against me!”
Katsuki glares up at him, face flushed a furious red that has nothing to do with anger. “What the fuck, Izuku?! Is this—” he presses back against Izuku’s hands wrapped like a vice around his wrists, and the string stutters. “Oh my God. You’re getting off on this.”
Izuku opens and closes his mouth like he doesn’t know how to deny or confirm that. He’s silent for a few seconds, before his hands tighten, then he snaps loudly, half-mortified, “Isn’t that the point?! I’m supposed to get off on this! I’m supposed to—” he drags Katsuki’s hands higher, above his head, ignoring Katsuki’s sqwaking. “—enjoy this!”
One of Izuku’s hands closes firmly around both of Katsuki’s wrists. Katsuki blinks up at him. Then, loudly, “What kind of half-assed bondage bullshit—”
“Shut up!” Izuku snaps, but his face is bright red and his hands are shaking like leaves against a breeze. His free hand practically slaps against Katsuki’s thigh, then his fingers dig in. “Just shut up and stop causing so many scenes before we run out of lube and I can’t fuck you!”
Izuku yanks the bottle of lube towards him, snaps the cap up with his thumb, then squeezes until the lube is dripping over the edge of the bottle and over his fingers. Slicking them up. Again.
Katsuki shoves his arms against Izuku’s hand. Izuku doesn’t budge. He just shudders, and Katsuki knows what that implies and he has no clue if that’s just hot or hot and horrifying.
Izuku’s hand slides between Katsuki’s thighs. It dips under, his cold fingers press against Katsuki’s rim, and then he’s sinking that same one finger that was kicked out a second ago inside—all the way this time, in one fluid motion, with a loud shlick.
Katsuki gasps.
The sound rips out of him before he can choke it back down. His spine arches off the jacket, muscles locking tight, breath caught in his throat.
Izuku stills instantly, panting, his hand frozen mid-motion like he’s afraid to move again. “Sorry—shit, sorry, I didn’t mean to—”
Katsuki cuts him off. “I told you I can fucking feel that!”
Izuku watches him for a second. His eyes linger on his face like he’s looking for something, and when he moves on, they snap to Katsuki’s hands above his head, where they’ve curled into fists again.
“Ignore it,” Izuku says quietly, slowly pulling that finger out.
Katsuki can’t ignore it. He feels it when Izuku drags out, then presses in again, slower than the first thrust. “Kind of hard to ignore the feeling of my own ass around my own finger—that isn’t even inside me!”
Izuku pumps his finger again, harsher, lets out a shaky breath, then stumbles out, “You feel good.”
Katsuki pauses everything. “What.”
“You feel really good,” Izuku presses on, sliding a second finger in with the first. Katsuki tenses. “You can feel it, yeah? You’re so hot and tight inside.”
Katsuki stares at him like Izuku’s body just got hijacked by a PornHub star. “Izuku, what the fuck—”
“I just want to fuck into you right now, but,” he presses his fingers deeper, curling. Izuku’s voice drops lower, quieter, with the kind of rasp Katsuki absolutely does not want to find attractive. “I know I need to get you ready first.”
Katsuki wants to throw something at him. Preferably something large, blunt, and very, very dangerous.
But all he has are his own fists, and Izuku’s got those pinned above his head like he’s earned the right to hold him down, like Katsuki isn’t one hard twist away from ending this entire cursed scenario by sheer force of will.
Except—
Izuku crooks his fingers at the same moment the thought hits, and Katsuki feels it. He feels the press, the stretch, the slick heat inside and mirrored on the pads of his own fucking fingers like he’s fingering himself from the outside in.
He gasps again, curses again, this one barely audible through his clenched teeth. His wrists jerk under Izuku’s hand. His knees twitch higher.
“Stop saying shit like that,” Katsuki snarls, a bit breathless. “You sound like a—bad porn audio—”
“I mean it,” Izuku says, like that’s any better. His fingers thrust again, deep and firm, curling inward like he’s testing how far Katsuki will let him go. Katsuki’s body rocks with it, thighs twitching around Izuku’s hips. “You’re squeezing around me.”
Katsuki knows. He can feel it from two very different angles. He groans, “I fucking know that,” and it sounds a little less biting and a little more like fuck me.
Izuku doesn’t answer. He’s laser-focused, brows furrowed, his lips parted slightly. His fingers move slower now, steadier, like he’s mapping something out inside Katsuki. Like he’s trying to solve a puzzle he only just realized was three-dimensional.
His fingers press in a bit deeper, curl, nudge something that Katsuki can feel against the pads of his own fingers—and then his hips jerk up, sinking Izuku’s fingers deeper, a gasped and loud, “Fuck!” tearing from his throat.
“There?” Izuku asks, breath hitching.
Katsuki gasps, dragging in air like he forgot how to breathe for a split second. “Fuck—” His voice breaks off, choked and strangled, because Izuku curls his fingers again, just a little, like he’s confirming a theory. Katsuki flinches, then groans. “Fuck, shit, stop—do that again.”
Izuku’s eyes flick up to his when Katsuki responds. His fingers press against that spot again, harsh, holding there, watching Katsuki yelp and jerk, and then the hand around Katsuki’s wrists squeezes once before it loosens. “Keep your hands there.”
Katsuki doesn’t give a single fuck where his hands are.
Izuku’s fine motor control has always been good. Just look at how he used to throw One For All around with just his fingers. So it’s no surprise that Katsuki’s laying there, twitching, as Izuku rubs small, careful circles against that bundle of nerves deep inside.
What does catch Katsuki’s attention is the clink of a belt undoing echoing around the shrine. Katsuki looks down, spots Izuku unzipping his jeans, and watches as he yanks them and his boxers down just below his balls.
Izuku’s hard. Well, obviously, so is Katsuki—but Izuku somehow looks worse. He’s red and leaking precum already, and nothing has even touched him yet. Katsuki blinks, shuddering around Izuku’s fingers.
Izuku looks back up at his face. “You could feel this last night, right?” He asks, then wraps his free hand around the base of his own cock. Katsuki feels the pressure around his cock instantly.
“Oh,” Katsuki gasps, blinking blearily up at the ceiling. Then he squeezes his eyes shut and bites his lip when Izuku drags his fingers out of Katsuki and thrusts in, and drags his hand up the length of his cock at the same time.
Katsuki feels both. He feels Izuku’s fingers inside of him, pressing against his prostate. He feels Izuku’s phantom-touch along his own dick. He feels both at once.
His whole body just jerks, like the tension in his spine snapped and his brain hasn’t gotten the memo yet. He tries to breathe through it, but it’s useless. His chest stutters and every nerve ending is screaming.
“Stop—” Katsuki gasps, but it comes out more like a moan. “I—fuck, Izuku—!”
Izuku doesn’t stop.
He doesn’t even slow down.
Because apparently, Izuku Midoriya is cruel when he’s horny.
His fingers press in deeper, curl perfectly, and grind against Katsuki’s prostate. Katsuki’s cock twitches violently when Izuku jerks his hand again at the same time, sliding over himself with a groan, and Katsuki feels it—he feels it like it’s his hand and his cock and his body crumbling beneath it all.
“Don’t—don’t fucking touch yourself while—you’re—” he tries to snap, tries to glare, but it comes out slurred and shaky, his voice warping as Izuku thrusts his fingers again and strokes his own cock together.
“I’m not touching myself,” Izuku says, breathless, choked on his own bitten-back moan. “I’m touching you.”
Izuku jerks all two of his fingers out, presses three against Katsuki’s rim like some sort of warning, and then slams in.
Katsuki moans.
It’s not loud, not really, not with the way it catches on the edge of a groan and gets buried under the weight of his own ragged breathing. But it still punches out of his chest like a gunshot, raspy and stuttering and completely involuntary.
The burn’s immediate. It sears through him. It’s good in a way it could only be because it’s from another person, from Izuku. Izuku, who knows nothing about what the hell he’s doing and yet somehow manages to drive every single thick knuckle in without a hitch like Katsuki’s body was made to take it.
His back arches clean off the ground. His wrists, long since freed, flail like they’ve got nothing to anchor to. His legs tremble where they’re braced open around Izuku’s hips, and there’s a garbled sound stuck in his throat that’s halfway between fuck and oh, fuck, fuck, fuck!
Izuku stills, panting, eyes wide. “Are you okay?” and then, because apparently he doesn’t really care, squeezes his cock and jerks up and down faster, timing it with the hand burried deep inside Katsuki, thrusting in and out.
Katsuki can’t answer.
He wants to. There’s some sharp, half-jarbled sentence stuck behind his teeth, something foul and frantic and begging for mercy, but nothing comes out. Nothing can come out, because Izuku’s fucking everywhere.
Everywhere.
Inside him, against him, through him.
The fingers inside him thrust again, curling so perfectly he swears he sees white behind his eyelids. At the same time, the phantom sensation of Izuku’s slick hand drags up his cock and Katsuki actually whines.
His spine bows off the floor, muscles locking up, teeth grinding together so hard his jaw aches. His vision goes watery at the edges like he’s sweating from his eyeballs, and he chokes on a moan that breaks halfway out of his throat and splinters into a full-body shudder.
His hips twist up without meaning to, and it just keeps happening, again and again, like Izuku’s fingers are some cursed mechanism that’s latched onto the center of him and now won’t let go.
“Izuku—!” Katsuki snarls, more bark than bite, but his voice cracks halfway through his word. He clamps his eyes shut and slams his fists against the ground on either side of him. “Stop—fuck, stop, I’m gonna—”
Izuku doesn’t stop.
Of course he fucking doesn’t.
Izuku just watches, slack-jawed and panting, his cheeks flushed to the roots of his hair. His hand is still slicked and pumping, the same rhythm as his other fingers, like he’s chasing down some fucking synchronized orgasmic symphony, and Katsuki’s the one getting played like an instrument.
He feels everything. Every roll of Izuku’s knuckles inside him, every pump of Izuku’s fist around his cock, and somehow the phantom pressure has him choking on his own breath, spasming with every wet slap of skin-on-skin that echoes between the shrine’s stone walls.
“I’m—” Katsuki gasps again, strangled. “Shit, Izuku, I’m—fuck, I’m—!”
He doesn’t finish the sentence.
Because his body does it for him.
It crashes through him all at once. His vision whites out, his hips jerk up and then stutter like they don’t know where to go from there. Then, just as violently, the stutter breaks, every muscle unraveling at once into a mess of aftershocks.
He comes. Hard. Probably the hardest he’s ever came in his life.
Without a single touch to his real, physical dick.
His thighs jerk around Izuku’s hips, convulsing. His fingers scrabble at the ground, finding nothing. The sound that punches out of him is hoarse and raw and loud—filthy like someone dying, but beautifully. Cum splatters up his stomach and his eyes roll, for the first time tonight not because he’s being snarky.
… And Izuku’s hand is still working over his own cock, and Katsuki can feel it, but he’s still coming he’s still sensitive so he goes to shout, “Stop fucking jerking off!” except, all that comes out is a cracked, “F—uck,” and suddenly—
Every sensation stops. Izuku’s hand yanks out of Katsuki’s ass, his hand flies away from his cock. There’s a second of pause where there a pop and a slick sound, a pause not even close to being long enough for Katsuki to catch his bareings, and then those hands are under Katsuki’s knees and hauling them forward until they touch Katsuki’s shoulders.
Katsuki gasps, still blinking away stars, cock still twitching, and then Izuku’s gritting out, “Hold on, Kacchan,” like he’s about to launch him into the damn stratosphere.
He doesn’t do that.
He just nudges the head of his cock against Katsuki’s rim.
Katsuki holds the fuck on.
He grabs Izuku’s shoulders, nails biting at his skin over his hoodie, and doesn’t even get a chance to say, “Hey, I’m sensitive enough to have a full bondy convulsion if we do anything right now,” before Izuku’s plunging in.
Katsuki screams.
There’s no air left in his lungs to fuel it, but he still screams, raw and startled and fucked. Because it’s too much. Too much too soon, too deep, too everything—and Katsuki’s already spent, already twitching, already ruined from the inside out, and now Izuku’s splitting him wider like that orgasm a second ago meant nothing.
Like Katsuki didn’t just come so hard his brain shut off and still hasn’t turned back on.
His whole body seizes. His hips buck up, his legs tremble where they’re braced up on Izuku’s shoulders, and his nails dig so deep into Izuku’s shoulders he’s going to leave fucking scars.
Izuku’s cock slides in, thick and hot, and Katsuki can feel it on both ends. He can feel it on his own spent cock like someone’s jerking a fleshlight over it in time with Izuku’s thrusts, can feel what Izuku’s feeling like he’s fucking his own ass—and he’d be horrified of that idea if he weren’t so gone. The phantom pressure blooms alongside the real stretch, wrapped up in his lingering orgasm tremors, and it’s so much he can’t even breathe.
He chokes, mouth open and panting like a fish out of water, and shoves at Izuku’s shoulder. “Fuck—fuck, too much—!”
“I know,” Izuku grits, jaw clenched like he’s the one suffering. “I know, I know, but—fuck—you feel so good, Kacchan, I—shit—”
And then he’s moving.
He doesn’t wait for Katsuki to adjust after what just happened to his cock. He draws back slowly, like he’s trying to be considerate, but the drag is still too much, and then he thrusts back in, not slow at all.
Katsuki sees stars.
He sobs, tears springing to the corners of his eyes, jaw dropped and head tossed back, as Izuku starts a rhythm that bucks his entire body up with every snap of his hips.
And every time Izuku slams forward, Katsuki feels it twice—cock and prostate, warmth and fullness, from inside and outside, and his brain is caught in a feedback loop from hell.
“Wait—” Katsuki cries, high and broken. His cheeks feel wet, but he barely pays attention to that over everything else. “I can’t—fuck, I can’t—”
“Yes, you can,” Izuku groans, his voice cracking as his fingers scrabble under Katsuki’s thighs for grip. “I’m right here. I’ve got you, Kacchan, I’ve got you—just a little more.”
He fucks in deep, grinds, rocks his hips against Katsuki’s ass like he’s trying to melt them together at the seams.
“Izuku!” Katsuki wails. His voice climbs in pitch like maybe if he’s loud enough, the overwhelimg shock of pleasure in his body will quiet down. “Just—please, I can’t—not—gonna break, I—”
Izuku cuts him off with a sharp thrust. “You’re not gonna break,” he pants. “You’re doing so good, you—you’re taking it so good. Perfect, Kacchan.”
Katsuki responds with a wet sob.
Izuku fucks forward again, and again, and the head of his cock catches Katsuki’s prostate with the precision of a goddamn bullseye, and Katsuki shrieks. His legs try to slam shut, try to curl in to protect himself, but Izuku’s holding him too tight, bent, keeping him stuck on his cock.
And then he changes angles. He hooks Katsuki’s knees tighter over his shoulders and leans in, bending him nearly in half, pinning him to the cloth-covered floor with his weight and momentum and need as he fucks into him, brutal and deep.
The angle punches sobs from Katsuki’s chest like a broken squeeze toy.
Every drag of Izuku’s cock hits dead center on his prostate. Every thrust flays his nerves wide open. Katsuki’s cock doesn’t even need to be touched now, not when it feels like he’s fucking someone, not when Izuku’s fucking sharing like his mom taught him to do when they were small.
Katsuki’s close. Again. Somehow.
His cock is hard again, twitching, dribbling precum like he didn’t just come a minutes ago. He feels it building again, feels the burn start in his gut and twist lower, coiling behind his balls like a warning sign he can’t do anything to stop.
“Izuku—Izuku, slow down, fuck, stop—please!” He sobs, and does aboslutely nothing to stop anything that’s going on, even though his quirk is alive and sparking against his palms.
Izuku just moans, “Fuck, Kacchan,” and Katsuki mildly thinks he could get used to that.
Katsuki’s body jerks, snaps, and Izuku doesn’t stop. He holds him down, forces him open, rocks into him with frantic, harsh thrusts that knock the breath from Katsuki’s lungs every time their hips meet.
It’s insane.
It’s cruel.
It’s the hottest fucking thing that’s ever happened to him.
“Izuku—” Katsuki chokes, high and shivery. “Please, please, I’m gonna—fuck, I need to—!”
“Do it,” Izuku chokes, and he slams in so deep that Katsuki swears his lungs collapse. “Come for me again. Come on my cock, Kacchan.”
Katsuki’s body doesn’t even give him a chance to think about it.
He comes.
Again.
His cock spurts messily between them, untouched. His thighs lock up around Izuku’s ribs, his arms slam around Izuku’s shoulders in some desperate attempt to anchor himself, and his mouth opens around a scream that never fully makes it out. Just a shattered, wheezing sound that echoes like something broke.
Because something did.
It’s too much. He doesn’t even remember where the first orgasm ended and this one began—just that right now he’s hotter, that he can feel it drag across his prostate and cock, echoing in his ears like a guitar string that’s been plucked again and again until the sound is nothing but a high-pitched shriek.
His brain is fried. His throat is raw. His cock jerks uselessly, cum over over his own T-shirt, painting over the drying streaks from before.
And Izuku is still fucking him.
Still driving into him like a man on a mission, rutting hard and fast, moaning brokenly, his rhythm stuttering only as Katsuki spasms around him, overstimulated and dripping.
Katsuki’s cheeks are slick with tears he can’t blink away. “Izuku, cum.” He gasps, croaks, tries to demand but that tone left his vocal chords the minute sensations doubled. “Please cum.”
Izuku shudders. His whole body goes tight. “Shit—shit, Kacchan—!”
He pulls out halfway, just enough for Katsuki to feel the drag, and then slams back in one last time, deep enough to knock the breath from both their lungs. Izuku groans, high and desperate, and then—
He comes.
With a strangled gasp and a full-body tremor, he spills inside Katsuki, cock twitching where it’s shoved inside him, filling him. Katsuki feels it. He feels the heat of it inside and on his own cock at the same time, a wave of phantom pleasure that sends another ripple through his spent body.
Katsuki honestly doesn’t know if he’s orgasming anymore. It feels like he is. It feels like he isn’t. It feels like he’s a bundle of nerves only Izuku knows how to pinch and pull properly.
Izuku slumps forward, keeping Katsuki awkwardly bent in half beneath him, their bodies hot and shivering, stuck together with sweat and cum that’s drying fast and sticky.
They stay like that for a minute, maybe two, just breathing.
Katsuki trembles in Izuku’s arms like he was left outside in a blizzard for hours on end.
Izuku pants into the side of Katsuki’s neck, mumbling something like, “Sorry, sorry, you were so—couldn’t stop—fuck, Kacchan,” over and over, like his brain short-circuited halfway through the act and is only now catching up to what the hell just happened.
Katsuki doesn’t answer.
Can’t.
He’s not sure his voice works anymore. Or his lungs. Or his fucking brain.
Katsuki lifts his hand. It takes a second for his brain to actually compute that to his arm, but eventually it lifts. His hand shakes as he stares at it. At his pinkie.
The string is still there.
He almost yells. He almost cries again. He almost blows something up.
Instead, he narrows his eyes at it. He studies it. It looks thinner, duller, like its ready to snap but the final thread hasn’t thinned out enough yet.
Katsuki croaks, “The string’s still there.”
Izuku isn’t really listening. He’s still panting into Katsuki’s neck, his sweaty forehead clinging to Katsuki’s skin, hands still holding Katsuki’s thighs in a grip that’s not innocent and never will be.
Hasn’t pulled out, either. Bastard.
Katsuki drops his arm onto Izuku’s head hoping that it’s heavy enough to wake him the fuck up.
Izuku makes a small, wounded sound under the weight of Katsuki’s arm, like a tired dog getting nudged off a warm pillow. He doesn’t move. Doesn’t lift his head, doesn’t shift his grip, doesn’t even twitch where he’s still buried to the hilt in Katsuki’s wrecked, oversensitive body.
Katsuki glares up at the ceiling. “String’s still there,” he rasps again, louder this time. It scrapes its way out of his throat like gravel, but Izuku finally seems to register it.
Except he doesn’t say anything about it at all.
“I like you,” he breathes, right next to Katsuki’s ear.
It takes Katsuki a long few seconds to digest that.
Really, fuck Izuku for dropping that crap on him now, when he’s half out of his mind and still speared on his cock.
Katsuki doesn’t move.
He doesn’t blink, doesn’t breathe, doesn’t think, because what the actual fuck—
“Izuku,” he rasps, his voice still raw from screaming. “Are you seriously confessing your feelings while your dick is still inside me?”
Izuku makes a choked sound against his ear. “I—yeah?” He croaks. “Kinda seems like the right time?”
Katsuki glares at the ceiling, body still limp, his arms too shaky to shove Izuku off him. “You’re the worst.”
Izuku sighs fondly. “You’re the one who let me fuck you so hard you forgot your own name.”
“I remember my name,” Katsuki snaps weakly. “I just—can’t feel my fucking knees right now.”
Izuku laughs, high and a little hysterical. It shakes his whole body where it’s draped over Katsuki’s, jostling his cock inside Katsuki.
Katsuki jerks. “Don’t you dare move.”
“I’m not!” Izuku squeaks. “Not on purpose!”
Katsuki growls. Then drops his head back against the floor, eyes fluttering shut. “Fucking idiot.”
“Yeah,” Izuku breathes quietly.
A beat of silence.
Then, even quieter, “But I really do like you. I think I’ve liked you for a long time.”
The air between them shifts.
It’s not just hot, post-sex haze anymore. It’s not soaked in lust, or adrenaline, or phantom-thread tension.
It’s soft.
Katsuki hates it.
“Y’know Todoroki’s party?” Izuku whispers, rubbing his sweaty cheek against Katsuki’s. There’s a small second of silence where Izuku finally unlatches his hands from under Katsuki’s knees and slowly lowers his legs, mumbling an apology when Katsuki hisses. “I was really busy that day.”
“I remember,” Katsuki grits out as he’s being moved by Izuku’s careful hands to lay flat, every nerve in his body broken and itching.
“I wasn’t gonna go,” Izuku says, the end of his word hissing as he pulls out. Katsuki gasps. “But Uraraka sent me a text saying you were mad I didn’t show up, even sent me a picture of you sulking alone on the couch, and I thought—”
“This better not be corny.”
“If you’d let me finish,” Izuku says, slumping back into Katsuki’s shoulder, practically smothering him with his weight. “Anyway. I thought, ‘It’s kind of nice that Kacchan misses me.’”
Katsuki grimaces. “That was corny as hell.”
Izuku swats at his thigh. “It’s the truth, asshole.”
Katsuki sighs up at the ceiling. “So? What does this have to do with anything?”
Izuku exhales, the sound warm and shaky against Katsuki’s neck. His breath tickles, and for some reason, it makes Katsuki’s stomach twist tighter than any orgasm he had tonight did.
“You were the reason I went to that party, Kacchan. I mean, it’s not like I didn’t miss the others, but…” He shifts slightly, just enough to brace himself on one elbow and look Katsuki in the eyes. “You’re the one I always miss.”
Katsuki blinks at him. “What the fuck.”
“I know,” Izuku says, his eyes soft and honest. “I know, okay? I sound like a sap, and you’re probably about to punch me in the mouth, but I—” He falters. Swallows. “I think I’ve been in love with you for forever.”
Katsuki stares at him.
And then Izuku adds solemnly, “I went to see you, but then I just had to get you blackout drunk five minutes in because you were freaking out over the string.”
Katsuki covers his face with one shaky hand. “Jesus Christ.”
“I know right,” Izuku mumbles, voice a bit awkward, still plastered over Katsuki’s body. “Well—that’s it.”
“That’s it.”
“Mhm.”
“You like me.”
“Yeah.”
“You’re in love with me.”
“… Yes.”
“I just let someone in love with me fuck me. Gross.”
Izuku makes a jumbled sound somewhere between a laugh and a sigh. “You say that, but you didn’t seem that grossed out ten minutes ago.”
“That’s because ten minutes ago you were fucking me like you were mad at me,” Katsuki mutters through his fingers. “Didn’t feel like love.”
“I wasn’t mad!” Izuku cries, aghast, then adds sheepishly, “I was just… very motivated.”
Katsuki sighs, long and put-upon, dragging his hand down his face until it flops limply across Izuku’s back. His whole body still feels like jelly, used up, short-circuited, stretched out like someone rung him dry and forgot to iron him back out.
And Izuku’s still there, warm and heavy in a way that shouldn’t feel as good as it does. It’s all so stupid. Katsuki can’t feel his legs, his ass hurts, his pride is somewhere in the fucking dirt, but Izuku’s weight is still pressed against him, their bodies a mess of sweat and come and sore muscles, and—
Yeah.
Yeah, alright.
Izuku was right. Now does feel like the right time.
“I like you too,” Katsuki mutters.
And Katsuki, against all odds, doesn’t instantly die of shame. Mostly because he can still feel the ache of two orgasms in his thighs, and Izuku’s cum drying inside him, and Izuku’s breath against his cheek. He’s a bit past being shameful now.
Izuku freezes. Completely. His breath catches, eyes widening so fast Katsuki almost regrets saying it out loud.
“Wait—what?” Izuku whispers.
Katsuki groans. “Don’t make me repeat it.”
“You like me?”
“Jesus Christ, yes, you hearing impaired moron.”
Izuku laughs, bright and startled, and leans down until their foreheads press together. “Say it again,” he breathes, a grin tugging at his lips.
“No.”
“Kacchan—”
“I said no.”
“Rude.”
Katsuki exhales slowly. “Why the hell did you think I was even sulking at that party?” Then, he quickly tacks on, “Not that I was.”
Izuku hums. “I don’t know. Is it your turn to be corny now?”
“Yes, so shut the hell up,” Katsuki snaps. He exhales. “You always ditch everything because of your stupid goddamn work. I’m an on-call hero and I get more damn days off than you supposedly do. It pisses me off.”
Izuku’s smile is so sweet it’s sickening. “… Because you miss me?”
“Yes,” Katsuki hisses, and choses not to elaborate furthur. Whatever. The rest of their sappy-mushy-gushy-bullshit can come later. Currently, they’re sticky and still inside a dusty shrine. “Get up. I want out of this hellhole.”
Izuku blinks like he just realized where they are. He pulls back, crawling up onto his knees.
He holds out a hand for Katsuki to grab, which, good, because Katsuki still can’t fucking feel anything, but when Katsuki reaches out to grab Izuku he notices something.
Something missing.
“The string’s gone,” he says, staring at his pinkie.
Katsuki turns his hand over, blinking hard through dim light. There’s no red thread now. Only his own scarred knuckle and the roughness of his palm. It’s gone.
“I didn’t even feel it break,” he mutters.
Izuku hums. “You said you liked me.”
Katsuki looks up, scowling. “What’s that got to do with—”
But then it clicks. Affection. Devotion. “Oh.”
Izuku smiles. It’s small, lopsided, and a little dazed. “Yeah,” he says softly. “That’s all it needed, I think.”
Katsuki pauses. He opens his mouth to scream—because what the hell did they fuck for? What the fuck?!—but his voice cracks on the first word and he groans, giving up entirely.
“You’re so fucking lucky I’m too shot to blast you to hell,” he hisses, slapping his palm into Izuku’s. “Later, though? You’re dead.”
Izuku just laughs, soft and warm, and Katsuki files murder Izuku away in his brain behind take him on a date and fuck him in a real bed.
They hobble out of the shrine, bitching and moaning about their legs and backs, clothes ruffled and pants half-undone in laziness. They practically slide their way down all the steps, and by the time they manage to crawl to a cab and collapse in the entryway of Katsuki’s apartment, they’re passed out.
And Katsuki’s probably gonna get a stomach ache from that cum in his guts in the morning.
***
A few weeks later, Katsuki finds himself face-to-face with the paper that made him and Izuku fuck on the floor of a haunted shrine.
“Oh, perfect,” Katsuki says, leaning his hip against his kitchen counter. He cracks his knuckles and glares at Izuku in front of him, who’s holding the paper between two hands like a shield. “I almost forgot to kill you for translating that to ‘we gotta fuck’ and not ‘we gotta get emotional.’ Where the hell did you even get that? I don’t remember you grabbing it.”
Izuku peeks up sheepishly above the top of the paper. “I folded it up and put it in my pocket. And you weren’t… the most aware that night.”
Katsuki glares harder. “And who’s goddamn fault was that?”
“Mine,” Izuku says, and he sounds a bit too happy to own up to it. “But that’s not important. What’s important is that I finally translated it!”
Katsuki narrows his eyes. “A bit late for that, dont’cha think?”
Izuku blinks at him, slightly offended. “It’s not my fault I couldn’t accurately translate an ancient Japanese text in a high-stress situation after almost losing my life to a series of horrifying spiritual encounters.”
Katsuki crosses his arms. Sighs heavily. Glances at the pot of chilli on the stove and then back at Izuku. “Alright, alright. Just show me before you distract me and I burn dinner. Again.”
Izuku beams at him from behind the cursed relic that ruined their dignity and their lower backs. He slaps the paper onto the counter, scurries off into the living room and returns with a slightly water damaged notebook between his hands. His smile is big and proud as he hands the book over to Katsuki.
Katsuki takes the open notebook with the eyes of someone who’s about to judgingly disect the ever-loving fuck out of some ancient text.
Izuku’s handwriting scrawls across the page, neat and in black pen.
String Of Fate
To begin the curse, you must bring your chosen one towards the flame and give the shrine an offering.
The curse will lay dormant for nine years. If on the night of activation both parties share mutual affection, the curse will activate. If not, the curse will never activate.
Once live, a string will tie both parties together. The one who initiates the curse process will carry the burden of the consequences.
If after nine days of sharing the thread the curse has not been lifted, the one bearing the consequences will become overwhelmed with their partners sensations, resulting in death.
To lift the curse, the two souls must share their affection through physical sensations and spoken devotion.
If this page is taken from the shrine, nobody else will be able to be cursed.
(Footnotes: the requirements to lift the curse are pretty vague… Lucky us?)
Katsuki stares at it in disgust. “This looks like bullshit.”
Izuku huffs. “Kacchan, we literally lived it.”
Katsuki rolls his eyes and throws the notebook at Izuku, before turning around to face the bubbling pot of chilli on the stove. Izuku umphs as the notebook hits his chest, cradles it like Katsuki threw a brick, then dramatically flops onto one of the kitchen chairs like he’s been mortally wounded.
“You could at least pretend to respect my hard work,” he whines, flipping the notebook open again and frowning down at his own handwriting like maybe it betrayed him too. “And did you read that if you take the paper out of the shrine the curse disappears? Technically I saved whoever might’ve gotten themselves cursed next.”
“I could,” Katsuki says, flicking the burner lower and stirring the chili with sharp, angry swirls. “But then I’d be encouraging you to translate ‘share their affection through physical sensations and spoken devotion’ as ‘dick me down on sacred ground’ again.”
Izuku snorts. “In my defense, it worked.”
“We took the hard route, dumbass! Literally!” Katsuki snaps over his shoulder. “The requirements aren’t vague—if we’d just said we liked each other out loud then kissed like normal people, we could’ve avoided dirty shrine sex, three orgasms, and, in my fucking case, a bruised tailbone.”
“You say that like the orgasms weren’t great,” Izuku mutters under his breath.
Katsuki whirls on him, spoon in hand. “What was that?”
“Nothing,” Izuku says quickly, very interested in pretending to reread the notebook all of a sudden. “Just thinking about how, uh, linguistically ambiguous curse-breaking rituals often are.”
Katsuki narrows his eyes. “You’re unbelievable.”
Izuku glances up at him, cheek resting on his knuckles, grinning way too softly for someone who could’ve almost killed them both with translation negligence. “And now we’re in love. Our fairytale has a happy ending. It’s kind of poetic.”
Well…
Katsuki can’t argue with that.
But, he can say, “Get your sappy ass out of my goddamn kitchen,” and then he can kiss Izuku on the lips because he loves him, and bite him on the cheeks because he love-hates him too.
Happily Ever After.