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Katsuki loved having his own back yard.
Sure, he had the whole wide world to explore — there was the park with the playground, and the forest with the river running through it, and the busy streets with all the shops where he could get Hero Chips… but his back yard was his.
Everyone else was always messing up the rest of the world. Like, in winter, when there was a fresh snowfall covering the ground! No matter how fast he was able to get Mom out the door, someone else had always walked through it in the park before he got there. Not in his back yard, though! Even when it took Mom foreeeever to find his snow pants so that he could go outside, his back yard was always a pristine canvas, waiting for him to leap out onto it and make his mark.
In the spring and summer, he never needed to surrender his perch in the upper branches of his favorite tree to go home, because he was already home! If he needed a snack, he just went inside, got a snack, and then could go right back up to sit, camouflaged in the leaves, keeping an eye on the whole neighborhood from his vantage point.
And in the autumn, he had an entire yard full of orange and red and brown leaves all to himself. Sure, there were plenty of leaves all over the place in the parks and on the streets; but they were scattered all over, everyone else always making a mess of them. But here in his yard, Dad was raking up all the leaves into one big pile, and Katsuki didn’t have to share it with anyone!
Well, except Izuku.
Auntie Inko had come by earlier and dropped him off; but it was fine. Izuku never complained about playing the games that Katsuki wanted to play, and always listened when Katsuki told him what to do.
“RRRAAAAHHHHHH!”
And he was fun, too.
A flurry of leaves puffed up from the giant pile, where Katsuki was currently half buried, as Izuku charged full speed, leaping as hard as his skinny legs would let him, landing right next to Katsuki.
“Hah, that was almost as cool as my jump!” Katsuki cheered.
“Really? You think so, Kacchan?” Izuku said, his face lighting up with a bright smile. “Hang on, I wanna go again, I can do better!”
“Wait your turn, it’s my go!” Katsuki huffed as he crawled out of the pile and ran to the edge of the yard, brushing the leaves off his shirt as he went. Despite the chill in the air, he was plenty warm, so he’d taken his jacket off a little while ago. “Heads up, here I come!”
Legs pumping, Katsuki ran, grinning at the wind in his face as he came up to the edge of the pile. Izuku was watching him, eyes wide, leaves stuck in his wild green curls, and Katsuki grinned even wider.
pop pop pop!
Firecrackers in his palms lit up at his sides, the tiny explosions totally making him jump way higher and farther than before. He laughed long and loud as he soared through the air, landing in the pile next to Izuku.
“Didja see that!?” he crowed.
“That was amazing, Kacchan!” Izuku cheered. “My turn, I’m gonna show you how good I can really jump!”
“Hang on, hang on,” Katsuki said, frowning at how flat and spread out the pile had gotten. “Let’s fix this first.” He went over to grab the rake where Dad had left it, and by the time he was back by the pile, Izuku was already on his knees, pushing the edges of the pile back in towards the middle with wide-spread arms.
“You’re such a nerd,” Katsuki sighed, starting to rake the leaves, lifting them up to pile them as high as he could reach.
“I think that looks good enough, right?” Izuku said, stepping back to admire their handiwork. Katsuki nodded, putting the rake away while Izuku ran over to the fence. “Watch me, Kacchan!” he shouted, waiting till Katsuki turned to face him, hands on his hips. Once he was sure Katsuki was watching, Izuku took off running.
His jump wasn’t half bad. Still not as good as Katsuki’s, but better than the last one.
Time passed in a blur of crunching leaves and fits of giggles until both of them flopped back, side by side in the remnants of their afternoon of fun.
“You’re the coolest, Kacchan,” Izuku said, reaching out to grab Katsuki’s hand. “We should do this forever!”
“Don’t be stupid, the leaves will be all gone in a few weeks,” Katsuki said. Maybe it was a little disappointing, though, that he and Izuku couldn’t keep jumping into the pile every day.
“I know that,” Izuku said, rolling his eyes. “I meant when there are piles of leaves!”
“Oh, well, obviously!” Katsuki huffed. “Come on,” he said, sitting up, “let’s jump together this time!”
Izuku flashed him an excited grin. Letting go of each other’s hands, they crawled out of the bedraggled pile and raced each other to the fence. “We gotta jump at the same time, though, Kacchan! So we land together!”
Katsuki grinned. “And we gotta land in the superhero pose!”
The pair took off running towards the deflated wreckage of their pile, and together, they jumped.
*
The grounds of UA were beautiful in the autumn. Katsuki was loitering by the main entrance, waiting for Izuku to leave work for the day. He knew Izuku was supposed to have the afternoon off, but the damn nerd was probably going to sit around doing paperwork for hours if someone didn’t step in and stop him.
Izuku always kept himself too busy… but saving Izuku from his workaholic tendencies wasn’t the whole reason Katsuki had decided to come by today.
“Kacchan?”
Katsuki looked up and smiled as Izuku hurried towards him. His green curls were all mussed up, like he’d been running his fingers through it.
“Students running circles around you again?” Katsuki teased. “You can’t keep taking their shit.”
“You sound like Aizawa-Sensei,” Izuku sighed, giving Katsuki a sheepish grin. “What are you doing here?”
“It’s a nice day,” Katsuki said with a shrug. “Walk with me?”
Izuku blinked at him in confusion for a moment before his face lit up with a much brighter smile. “Of course!” Stepping away from the wall, Katsuki led the way out onto the campus grounds. “Where are we going?”
“For a walk.” Sliding his hands into his pockets, Katsuki found himself wandering over towards the treeline as Izuku fell into step beside him, chattering a little bit about his day. Katsuki hummed in acknowledgement where appropriate; but there was only one thing Katsuki wanted to talk about, and somehow, even after months of thinking about it, he still hadn’t quite figured out the words.
It was fine, though. Izuku picked up on Katsuki’s taciturn mood, and after a few minutes, they fell into companionable silence.
As they neared the trees, Katsuki spotted a handful of neat piles of leaves, raked together by the grounds crew and awaiting cleanup.
He wasn’t sure what possessed him to do it. It had been years since the thought had even crossed his mind.
“Hey, Izuku,” he said. “Watch this.” Without even a glance over his shoulder, he took off running, knowing that Izuku’s eyes would be on him the whole way as he timed his stride and jumped. The leaves crunched beneath him, fluttering out and away. All these years later, there was still something so satisfying about that. He smiled broadly as he turned to face Izuku, who had already jogged up to stand at the edge of the pile. The look on his face was a strange mix of surprise and bewilderment. It was kinda funny.
“Kacchan!” The fact that Izuku sounded so scandalized made it that much funnier. “What are you doing?” The nerd couldn’t hide the amusement in his voice, though, or the way the corner of his mouth ticked up.
“What’s it look like?” Katsuki said, tossing a handful of leaves at Izuku’s face, causing him to drop his stuff on the ground. The startled squawk of indignation that slipped out of Izuku as he batted ineffectually at the foliage was music to Katsuki’s ears. For a long moment after the leaves settled on the ground and in Izuku’s hair, Izuku stood still, staring in stunned silence at Katsuki.
The moment shattered when Izuku let out a jubilant shout and jumped into the pile, shoving a handful of leaves at Katsuki, who of course retaliated in kind. Both of them laughed long and loud. There was nobody around to hear them; and even if there was, so what? This place was theirs, and nobody could take it from them.
With a final shower of leaves, the pair of them collapsed back into the pile, faces flushed with laughter as they gradually caught their breath.
“You’re an idiot, ya know that?” Katsuki asked fondly.
“So I’ve been told,” Izuku said with a chuckle. “Any particular reason you’re reminding me?”
Katsuki let his eyes slip closed, hoping that if he wasn’t staring directly at Izuku’s soft smile, he might be better able to keep his thundering heart under control. He couldn’t remember the last time that he’d been this nervous. Maybe he never had been.
“There’s something I’ve been wanting you to know for a while. I’ve tried saying it about a million different ways; but you’ve never caught on to what I meant, or you thought that I didn’t actually mean it. Which was pretty stupid, because when have you ever known me to say something I didn’t mean?” He blew out a slow breath. “But, it’s been a decade since all that, and there’s still one thing I haven’t actually said… and you’re exactly the kind of idiot who needs it spelled out plainly.”
“Kacchan—?” Izuku sounded worried.
“Calm down, nerd; just lemmie finish, ok? It’s nothing bad… I don’t think it should be, anyway.”
“Ok,” Izuku said softly.
Getting himself back on track, Katsuki swallowed his nerves. “I’ve been trying for a long time to feel like I’ve earned the right to say this to you; and the thing is, I don’t know if I’ll ever feel that. I don’t know if I’ll ever feel like I’ve done enough to…” He trailed off, then took a breath before continuing.
“I think you and I are both still fucked up from everything that happened. But… I don’t think I can keep putting this off until we’re less fucked up, cuz frankly I dunno if or when that’ll happen. So, I figured it was stupid to wait for it to feel like the right moment. That’s not how life works. We gotta make our own moment. This one is as good as any.”
He drew another shaky breath, risking a glance over at Izuku. Wide, green eyes stared back at him, and there was no escape; he couldn’t look away.
“I love you, Izuku. I’m in love with you. It’s fine if you don’t feel the same. It doesn’t have to change anything between us. But I needed to say that, and you deserve to know.”
Izuku blinked, sucking in a sharp breath, but otherwise didn’t move.
“Ok, that’s what I wanted to say,” Katsuki mumbled, feeling heat creep up his neck. Izuku still didn’t move. “Look, whatever you feel or don’t is fine. You don’t gotta make it weird.”
Izuku blinked.
Katsuki sat up. “Shit, did I break you or something? Come on, Izuku—”
In a flurry of leaves, Izuku surged up, grabbing onto Katsuki and knocking him back to the ground, tangling their legs together and threading his fingers into Katsuki’s hair as he pressed a desperate kiss to his lips.
It was warm.
Katsuki wasn’t sure what he’d expected a kiss to feel like; but it was warm with Izuku’s skin, with the breaths that puffed out over his cheek. It was sharp, too, with the click of teeth against each other as they both fumbled to figure out the way they needed to slot together to make it work. It was dark with the taste of break-room coffee that lingered in Izuku’s mouth.
And it was sweet. Gods, it was the sweetest thing that Katsuki had ever tasted.
Sweet like victory.
Not the kind where he’d defeated someone. The kind where he’d won something.
When they finally broke apart, Izuku pulled back just far enough for his eyes to roam across Katsuki’s face. His mouth opened, then closed, then opened again.
“You’re gonna get a leaf in your mouth like that,” Katsuki teased.
“You’re right,” Izuku finally said, voice tight, clearly not talking about getting a leaf in his mouth. “I am messed up. After everything. It’s been getting better, but… it’s been hard… and…” He buried his face in the crook of Katsuki’s neck, the rest of his words muffled against Katsuki’s skin.
“You’re so brave, Kacchan. So much braver than me. Part of me is screaming to run away right now… But if you can be brave enough to say those things to me… Then I need to be able to tell you… I feel like I don’t deserve this, but— I want—” there was a wet sniffle by Katsuki’s ear. “Can we try and figure it out together?”
A slow, warm smile spread across Katsuki’s face as his hand came up to cradle the back of Izuku’s head. “I thought you’d never ask, ya damn nerd.”