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By the time Katsuki realised he loved him, Izuku had already woven his way into every version of Katsuki's future. Green eyes and an adornment of soft freckles haunted his soul through every step of his life. Whether it was at four years old and Izuku was diagnosed quirkless, or at fourteen watching the boy run head first into danger to save his bully. They haunted him throughout high school too; from their fight at ground beta, to Katsuki's last words, or even the tears in the hospital after the war had ended. The thought of Izuku had consumed every aspect of Katsuki's life by the time he was twenty six, spending years and way too much money on a suit for his so called 'rival' to prove just that.
Perhaps this is what growing up meant; realising the person you'd spent years trying to outrun was the person you'd been running toward. And Katsuki has finally stopped running.
It nearly hits three am, and he realises that sleep isn't going to come any time soon. There was no particular reason for it, which somehow made it worse. The room was quiet, the city outside their window reduced to the distant hum of traffic and the occasional flicker of headlights, and there was nothing left that needed doing. He had finished his work hours ago, showered, eaten, answered the messages he'd been ignoring all evening and finally climbed into bed with every intention of getting a few hours of rest before morning came.
However, whenever he looked to the left, he could see Izuku sleeping next to him.
That had been the problem.
Katsuki had always been able to sleep around explosions, alarms, construction work and the sound of his neighbours arguing through paper-thin walls, but apparently the soft, even rhythm of Izuku's breathing was enough to keep him awake for hours.
Izuku was sleeping on his side, facing him, his hair an absolute mess against the pillow and his glasses abandoned somewhere on the bedside table. There was a faint crease between his eyebrows, the kind that appeared whenever he had spent too long thinking about something before finally giving in to exhaustion, and Katsuki had to resist the familiar urge to reach over and smooth it away.
His eyes travelled over Izuku's face without much thought, following the familiar lines that had changed with age while somehow remaining exactly the same. The freckles were still there, scattered softly over his cheeks and the bridge of his nose, though Katsuki was almost certain there were more of them now than there had been when they were younger. There were still nights when Katsuki looked at him and wondered how a person could remain so recognisable after so many years. He had known that face for his entire lifetime, and somehow the memory of it had survived every version of Izuku he had ever known.
He wondered when it had started, his mind buzzing with one question in particular; 'When did I fall in love with him?'
Katsuki stared at the ceiling for a while, as though the answer might be written there and his mind goes back to when they were four.
The thought came with an image so vivid that for a moment he could almsost smell the dirt of the old playground, could almost hear the shrill sound of children's laughter and the distance calls of their parents. Izuku had been smaller then, all round cheeks and unruly green hair, with scrapped knees and a tendency to appear at Katsuki's side no matter how many times Katsuki told him to go away.
He followed katsuki everywhere, and the blond used to think that was because Izuku was just annoying. He had never stopped to consider why he had always known where Izuku was.
Even back then, Katsuki had been able to pick him out of a crowd without truly looking for him. He knew exactly what footsteps to listen out for, or the particular laugh whenever Izuku was with other children. He knew that if he was to climb the tallest tower of the playground that Izuku would be standing at the bottom with admiration in his wide green eyes and a cheesy grin.
Then, Izuku had been diagnosed quirkless.
Katsuki closed his eyes, almost painfully. He remembers the day with uncomfortable clarity, though the details had been blurred around the edges with time. He remembers trying to understand the whispers passed between his parents and Inko. He remembers looking at Izuku and feeling something twist inside his chest when he realised that something had changed that meant things were no longer going to be the same.
He spent the majority of his childhood telling himself he was angry because Izuku was weak. He was angry because Izuku was stupid.
He had told himself a thousand things over the years, each explaination uglier than the last, because admitting that he had been scared was harder than pushing it down with anger.
The truth was that Katsuki was scared that Izuku would disappear—disappear from the life they promised each other back when they were four.
They were suppsoed to grow up together, become heroes together. Katsuki had never consciously decided that, but somewhere in the uncomplicated certainty of childhood, Izuku had simply existed in every future Katsuki could see.
Then, suddenly, there would be a future without him.
Katsuki opened his eyes again. Beside him, Izuku shifted in his sleep, his hand moving across the mattered until his fingers caught loosely in the fabric of Katsuki's shirt.
The movement was so unconscious, so second nature that Katsuki's chest ached slightly at the knowledge that even in sleep, Izuku still reached for him.
He looked down at the hand curled against his chest and thought about all the years he'd spent insisting that Izuku was the one who wouldn't leave him alone. Yet, it was funny how little he'd ever wanted him to.
By fourteen, Katsuki had become very good at mistaking fear for anger. He had been angry when Izuku refused to stop dreaming about becoming a hero. He had been angry when Izuku looked at him with those same wide eyes despite everything Katsuki said. He had been angry when Izuku ran towards danger instead of keeping away, angry when he threw himself between Katsuki and the Sludge Villain, angry when he kept getting back up no matter how many times Katsuki tokd him he couldn't.
However, deep down, he had been terrified more than anything. Izuku had changed. The boy Katsuki had always known was suddenly becoming someone who could look at impossible things and decide they were worth attempting anyway.
Things only got worse at ground beta.
Katsuki remembers the fight more often than he would ever admit, though not always for the reasons he had once believed.
For years, he had thought he was angry because Izuku had the nerve to finally fight back.
Now, with the benefit of age and a degree of self awareness he is still not willing to admit, Katsuki knew that wasn't entirely true.
He had been angry because Izuku was becoming someone Katsuki could no longer reach. He had spent his whole life believing that the space between them was something he could measure. Katsuki was ahead, Izuku was behind, and if Izuku ever got too close then Katsuki simply had to work harder.
It had always been that simple—until Izuku gained One For All and now it wasn't. Now, Izuku stood in front of him and Katsuki realised that the person he was trying to outrun was no longer behind him, but was beside him.
Maybe that was what scared him the most. Katsuki knew how to fight away villains, or heroes too big for their boots. What Katsuki had never known what to do with, was an equal.
But Izuku had never really been his equal in the ways Katsuki once thought mattered. He was the person stood at the bottom of every playground tower, looking up at him like he was worth something admiring. He was the person who had followed him even after being told not too, even when everyone else had ran away. He was the person who had stood beside him at UA, in battlefields, in hospitals, and in every ugly, difficult year that came after that.
Katsuki had spent years believing that love was supposed to feel like something sudden, something obvious. It was supposed to be a moment where everything changed and the world rearranged itself around one person. Yet, when thinking about it now, they're hadn't been a moment. There had only been Izuku; Izuku with those eyes and freckles that never once left his side through every development in life.
Maybe that was what growing up meant. It wasn't becoming someone different. It was finally understanding the person you'd been all along.
Katsuki look down at the hand resting against his chest and carefully, as to not wake him up, turned his own hand beneath it and laced their fingers together.
He spent his entire life running from the thought of losing Izuku. He never realised that, somewhere along the way, Izuku had become the place he was running toward.