And So It Begins

When Todoroki is gone, Shinsou removes his arm from Izuku's shoulder and stands at a more reasonable distance. He's still leaning a bit into Izuku's space, and Katsuki grits his teeth.

"You're pretty popular," Shinsou comments with a grin.

Izuku lets out an embarrassed laugh. "I guess so."

"That guy I fought during the tournament is the one who's your childhood friend, right?"

"Yeah."

The conversation goes oddly silent, and Katsuki peeks around the corner. He sees Izuku walking towards him with a sort of glassy look in his eye. He stops about halfway there. The sparks of his quirk activate around one of his hands.

"Okay, okay, I get it." Shinsou sounds exasperated. "Don't break your finger again." This motherfucker, what does he mean by again?

"You know, you can just ask me to do things normally?" Izuku asks, glancing back at Shinsou.

"Where's the fun in that? He's over there, by the way."

Izuku glances in Katsuki's direction, and Katsuki knows he's been found out, and, honestly, what the fuck is he doing. It's not like him to try to sneak around and listen to other people's conversations–not on purpose anyway.

"I'll see you tomorrow, then, Shinsou," Izuku says.

"Only if you don't get kicked out of 1-C." 

Katsuki steps out of the corridor he was using to conceal himself. Act normal, dammit, he tells himself. Shinsou looks up at the movement.

"See you around, Izuku," he says with a kind of devious smile on his face.

Izuku lights up like a stoplight. "Shinsou!" he reprimands loudly.

"It's funny how you get flustered when it's anyone but him."

"That's–"

But before Izuku has time to respond properly, Shinsou gives him a push in Katsuki's direction. Izuku stumbles forward, but manages to come to a halt without crashing into Katsuki. His cheeks are still pink.

"Let's go home," he says, quickly, and without quite making eye contact.

Katsuki tries not to think about everything that happened in the past fifteen minutes or so. If he just ignores or forcibly stuffs all these feelings away, he will be fine. Maybe. He tries to focus on walking instead of Izuku who's at his side or Shinsou or Todoroki, both of whom he wants to properly punch in the face at least once. 

Izuku clears his throat, and Katsuki glances at him. It looks like he has something that he wants to say or ask, but isn't sure how to do it. 

"Out with it," Katsuki says.

"I–uh–" Izuku meets his eyes, but looks away again quickly. "I was just thinking about your matchup with Shinsou. Once he activates his quirk it's virtually unbreakable, unless–" he trails off, and Katsuki feels his gut twist.

The words that Shinsou spoke to him once their fight was over echo in his head: "You must really love him, if his voice overpowered my quirk." If Izuku knows how Shinsou's quirk works, then–shit.

"Hah? Who the hell do you think I am?" Katsuki asks, trying to mask everything else he's feeling with confidence. "Every quirk in existence has at least one or two weaknesses–" He stops talking when he realizes that Izuku is muttering something and not actually listening to him at all (and thank fuck for that.)

"…can be broken if someone you love calls out to you–though he didn't specify–ah–" He looks up, and Katsuki doesn't manage to look away in time. "I mean…so many people were yelling, it would be difficult to pick out any one person's voice from the crowd, so I don't think it applies–there are other ways to break his influence. When he did it to me, there wasn't anyone to call out to me–I'm just curious about the limitations of Shinsou's quirk–sorry."

Izuku falls silent after that, and Katsuki couldn't be more glad to let the topic go. Katsuki tries to steady the rhythm of his heartbeat. He's both physically and mentally exhausted from the day. Before they make it home, Izuku's tentatively-healed leg starts hurting more, so Katsuki carries him the rest of the way, and Izuku's complaints of Kacchan, you're not supposed to be stressing your arm are properly ignored.

When they arrive at the Midoriyas' front door, they're met with a very worried and appreciative Inko. She fusses over him almost as much as she fusses over Izuku, and he's not allowed to decline the invitation to dinner. Katsuki resigns himself to his fate and follows Izuku to his room to spend the time before it's ready. With the amount of energy he has left, it takes two seconds of sitting on the floor with his back rested against Izuku's bed to fall asleep. He wakes to the sound of a phone ringing and Izuku scrambling to get it.

"A-All Might?" Izuku answers the call. 

The call is brief. Katsuki has a guess as to what it's for, but he rests his chin on his hand and waits for Izuku to tell him. He doesn't have to wait long. Izuku sets down his cell phone after a very enthusiastic "thank you" and turns to him. What he's not prepared for is the way that Izuku flings himself into his arms.

"Kacchan, I finally made it to 1-A," he murmurs, voice muffled by Katsuki's shoulder.

Katsuki sits as still as a stone, and tries to memorize the weight of Izuku's body against his own.