Chapter Text
~
“I mean, the Twilight Zone would be the last place anyone would expect to find Reefpods, but the fossil analysis definitely shows a relationship! The most accepted theory is that Twilights were an evolved lineage from the Nomads, but now I have substantial proof that they were Reefpod hybrids. Before I was just making educated guesses, since Twilights shared the Reefpod’s treasure hoarding habits, along with centralized pod locations compared to Nomad migration patterns and—Ah, but I’ve already told you about that. The point is, now I have concrete data!”
Izuku beams, and his voice lowers into a mumble as he continues, “And it’s not that unbelievable when you factor in the pollution and overfishing issues affecting the coral reefs at that time. Nomads could migrate to more plentiful waters, but Reefpods had to deal with complete habitat destruction. That kind of survival stress would lead to significant adaptions, and for a species used to living with shelter, the kelp forests would be the next best thing.”
He startles at a chirping beep, and turns to see the server bot waving cheerfully with a pot of coffee. It’s already filling up Katsuki’s mug as it waits for him.
“Ah, I’m okay,” he dismisses, covering the half-full mug with his hand. The little bot nods at him before rolling away.
His eyes wander back to his seatmate across the table. It’s hard to gauge Katsuki’s expression with the black glasses being a permanent fixture covering his eyes, but he’s not sure it would matter anyway. Katsuki always fluctuates between a stone-faced neutral or an extreme fury that consumes his entire posture, and there’s not much wiggle room between the two.
Hesitating, Izuku calls, “Katsuki?” His hands get restless in the silence, so he hastily takes a sip of his drink.
“You suck at this,” he finally answers.
“Drinking coffee?”
“I meant talking, but that too,” Katsuki says, eyeing him warily as he chokes on said coffee.
To be fair, at that exact moment, Katsuki hooked his foot around Izuku’s ankle under the table. Izuku’s eyes widen and he chokes harder, hacking as Katsuki’s sock-clad toes inch up his calf in a manner that could be teasing, soothing, or threatening. When did he take off his shoe?!
“You’re the one who asked,” he croaks, before clearing his throat. “If it really bores you, we can talk about something else.”
Almost petulantly, Katsuki says, “Nothing to talk about. You’re too boring.”
Izuku sighs at him, and takes another sip of his coffee as they dissolve into silence.
This is their fifth… Not-date?
All of them have been half-pleasant, half-disastrous, and completely out of nowhere. Katsuki texted him a time and address, and told him to be there or else Katsuki would gut him. Whether it was survival instinct, curiosity or anything else, Izuku found himself at the front of a humble pier cafe, and they’ve been meeting here ever since.
Conversing with Katsuki is… interesting. For a while, he could never tell what his seat mate was thinking. He’ll ask for Izuku’s favourite colour, then say red is a dumb colour. Confusing, since Katsuki’s favourite colour is orange, which is half-red. Katsuki hadn’t dignified that with a response. However, he did deem it necessary to remind Izuku that he’s bad at wearing clothes, and walking, and he breathes too loud and his voice is grating…
Despite these complaints, Katsuki is always the one proposing these meetings, faithfully arriving ten minutes early each time. Izuku knows because he then spends the next ten minutes complaining about how Izuku left him waiting, even though they agreed on 12:30.
He says Izuku’s research is stupid, but when Izuku trails off, lost in thought, Katsuki will yell at him and remind him exactly where he stopped. His hair is also stupid by Katsuki’s definition, but it doesn’t stop Katsuki from absently tugging his curls sometimes when he teases him. It used to baffle him, but he’s always been good at analysing things, his over-active mind dissecting even the slightest detail, and soon he figures out a very reliable trick for decoding the enigma of Katsuki Bakugou.
Everything he says, Izuku flips around. And somehow the opposite of his words is far more fitting for his actions.
So, here they are, playing footsie, Katsuki’s toes stroking up and down the bare skin above his sock all while Katsuki lists off every flaw conceivable. It might’ve even been hurtful, if all his insults weren’t completely irrelevant and confusing.
“—And you f*cking suck at the guitar.”
“I don’t play the guitar,” he says baffled.
The disgruntled look on Katsuki’s face deepens. “Exactly.”
Suppressing a smile, Izuku looks down at his hands wrapped around his white ceramic mug. Katsuki is a steady shape in his peripheral, slouched in the booth and head tilted back against the cushions. His arm rests across the table, palm empty. Izuku considers reaching for it, but decides he’ll try next time.
Katsuki’s foot taps against his shoe. He looks up but his companion gives no indication of the movement other than the telling, repeated nudges to his foot. The jabs become more insistent the longer he waits, as if baiting him.
Brows furrowing, Izuku lifts his leg to hit him back. His leg passes through air, and he frowns as he tries to jab Katsuki’s dodging ankle as it quickly ducks around him. Above the table, Katsuki takes a long sip of his drink and lets out a pleased hum, his pale and angular features the perfect depiction of innocence.
His seat-mate is annoyingly good at bullying him, and unfairly gorgeous.
Finally, he catches Katsuki’s foot between his own, triumphantly squeezing it to trap him. As Katsuki surrenders his leg into his hold with no other response than a satisfied silence, Izuku realises he walked straight into the convoluted, non-verbal flirting rituals of his companion. Is footsie supposed to be this… Aggravating?!
“Have you figured out a new topic yet?” Katsuki asks. His foot settles more comfortably between Izuku’s, and he adjusts accordingly with an internal pout.
At the question, Izuku raises an eyebrow. “Have you?”
Katsuki tilts his head back for a moment before saying, “You still haven’t told me what the other ancestor is.”
That’s still talking about mermaids, Izuku thinks with exasperation, but instead he says, “I still don’t know. It’s too soon to make a guess. We only have eight fossils to go off, and all of them are missing parts.”
“Isn’t this thing due in a year?”
“Yes,” Izuku confirms, slumping into the table and half-tearing his hair out. “I’m going to die.”
Across from him, Katsuki lips quirk up teasingly, and maybe he won’t die, because that smile could cure cancer. Well, if it hadn’t been cured already. “Come on, it’s not rocket science. You say Reefpods is one. The other has to Nomads or Freshwaters. You have a one in two chance of getting it right. Even a monkey could do it.”
“I don’t know,” he mumbles, hands spastically gesturing in the air. “I mean, obviously it’s not Freshwaters, but Nomads don’t exactly fit either. The big hurdle right now is all these deep-dweller traces! The Reefpod-Nomad cross was compatible, but It’s like breeding a wolf with a coyote. It creates a new hybrid, but it isn’t all that different. There’s no way that cross could’ve made the Twlights. And I still don’t think evolution caused the new traits.”
His hands gesture in frazzled movements as he adds, “I really think there’s another mermaid species we haven’t discovered. We know from the genetics analysis that they were hybrids, but there’s so much in DNA that doesn’t fit. If Reefpods gave the niche adaptions for the shallows, then I think this second ancestor was from the extreme opposite of the spectrum. A sophisticated deep-dweller mermaid, one that hasn’t been discovered yet.”
“… Guess we’ll never know,” Katsuki says, and Izuku’s surprised he sounds a little wistful.
“We might,” Izuku says eagerly. “The 3000’s extinction was widespread, but I think deep-sea creatures could have escaped the pollution levels. Jellyfish and squid survived by migrating to lower depths, and our scans show they’re still down there, hiding below the oil line. All the other mermaids died out, but for all we know, that mysterious ancestor could still be around today...”
Katsuki assesses him, then says, “You’ll just have to find it.”
Izuku can’t help but chuckle at the words. “I’ll focus on every other aspect of my crumbling thesis for now, thanks.”
“Don’t think you can do it?” He asks daringly, as if he wasn’t asking Izuku to discover an entirely new species, no biggie. “I’ll give you some incentive.”
“What?” Izuku asks curiously.
Katsuki’s grin widens into a shark’s. Izuku gulps at the danger in that look, sitting up straighter as Katsuki leans over the table like a predator.
“If you find this new mermaid species...” He hums and rests his head against one hand, grin mischievous as his fingers rap on the table. “You can kiss me.”
Spluttering, Izuku asks, “What?!”
“Don’t want to?” He asks, smile wicked as his lips caress the end of his sleeve, softly catching it between his teeth. Izuku doesn’t know how anyone could make such an action look suggestive, but suddenly he’s adjusting his posture with a cough, looking away with flaming cheeks.
“Fine,” he agrees.
Katsuki hums. “What’s that?”
“I will,” he promises with more strength. “And you’ll be the first to know. Ah, maybe the second, I have to tell Dr. Toshinori, it’s kind of my entire job. And the rest of the crew would be there, so, the sixth? But, oh—“
“Just f*cking tell me when you can, loser.” Izuku can see him smile hidden behind his coffee cup.
“Okay,” he whispers. He’s glad his companion can’t see his lovestruck grin in return.
“… Are you sure it’s not Nomads?”
“Katsuki, I’m going to shoot myself if it’s Nomads. Then my corpse is going to spend another three years re-writing my thesis.”
“Just checking,” Katsuki says with a not-at-all innocent smile.
Tangled under Katsuki’s hold, his foot begins to get pins-and needles, but he doesn’t mind. Katsuki sips his bottomless coffee. They talk about the new All Might movie, and he makes fun of Izuku for watching it even though he’s the one who brought it up.
A light drizzle begins outside, a little too blue to be natural, but filtering an entire sky of rain water can’t be easy. He rambles about acid rain and the chemical properties of sulphur dioxide while Katsuki leans against the cool glass of their window seat, looking like an angel under the gloomy shadows of cotton-ball clouds. The server-bot refills Katsuki’s mug once more before he finally announces that the coffee ‘sucks ass’, and that he’s bored and wants to leave.
Outside, before they part ways at the crossing between the train station and the university, Katsuki leans down and presses a tender, lingering kiss to his cheek, and whispers, with all the romance Katsuki Bakugou will likely ever manage, “You’re a dumb bitch.”
Then he walks away. Izuku wants to punch him, but not half as much as he’d like to kiss him.
~
In another four days, there’s yet another text. He arrives a prudent five minutes early, courtesy of him racing out of the lab as if it were on fire, half-falling over himself to throw on his coat and scarf as Ochako gave him a thumbs up. He arrives to the sight of Katsuki standing in front of the shop, frowning deeply as he jostles at the automatic door which refuses to open.
“I guess they’re closed,” Izuku observes dumbly, reading the large, red sign announcing, We are closed!
Scoffing, Katsuki says, “No sh*t.”
“We could, uh… Walk the harbour front?” He proposes, then immediately grimaces.
“That nasty thing?” Katsuki asks, his nose wrinkling.
“Or—! We could take the Bullet, and, visit Tokyo? And watch a movie?” Izuku corrects hastily, but it’s less of a correction and more another reason for Katsuki to laugh at him, which he does.
Through his chuckles, Katsuki asks, “You want to go all the way to Tokyo just to watch a movie?”
“It’s only fifteen minutes on the train,” he murmurs with a pout.
Sighing, Katsuki turns down the path and calls over his shoulder, “It’s a good thing you’re cute.”
“We’re actually going?!” Izuku shrieks, brain halting at the… compliment?! Did Katsuki really call him cute?!
“To the boardwalk, dumbass. Save Tokyo for another day,” he says. Izuku stumbles to catch up with him, settling at Katsuki’s side to match his leisure pace.
The boardwalk is as bad as he expects.
They’re barely down the main path when the stench hits Izuku in the face. It’s acrid and metallic, the smell of ten thousand years of pollution and degraded plastic. Beside him, Katsuki’s face twists into a grimace, and he winces in both sympathy and sheer embarrassment. Why did he bring Katsuki to the liquid equivalent of a garbage dump? Even real garbage facilities were nicer than this!
“I can’t believe you looked at this piece of sh*t as a kid and decided to major in marine biology.”
Pouting, Izuku nudges him and explains, “Ocean VR was my childhood. My poor mom didn’t know how to explain mermaids were extinct without crushing my dreams. It was like telling me Santa Claus wasn’t real.”
“sh*tty nerd. Did you cry?” He asks with a grin.
“Just a bit,” he mumbles. For three days straight actually, but Izuku won’t mention that, nor will he go into detail about how incredibly traumatising it was to see the ocean for the first time after five-year-old him demanded to go for his birthday present.
Grunting in response, Katsuki shrugs and pulls up the collar of his jacket. His nose is turning red from the cold, and he ducks his chin into his collar like a turtle to keep his face warm. Izuku tries not to stare too hard, instead forcing himself to look out at the horizon.
Musutafu’s shoreline is protected by twenty meter-tall boundaries, made of resilient glass to resist the acidity of the ocean’s waters, and tall enough to fight back the risk of a caustic tsunami. Even so, most people aren’t eager to live beside a hazardous waste dump.
If it wasn’t for overpopulation, he’s sure Musutafu would be a ghost town. The ocean piers that once brought it prosperity and population growth degraded without use, and with both the tourism and fishing markets dried up, the town rarely attracted residents unless they were drawn to the Marine Institute. The majority of the population is university students and industrial workers.
At least the walls are transparent, so some light and scenery can be preserved for their citizens. Behind the two-meter thick glass, he can see the inky tar of waves slap against the boundary in slow, lethargic pulls.
And yet…. Beneath the deep layer of oil and chemicals, the sludge gave way to murky water flooded with life, although sparse. Even after ten thousands years of abuse, the cycle endured, and the ocean remained a faithful host to the oddities swimming in its depths.
“You know… We think that before the Industrial era, the ocean housed over 500 000 different species of plants and animals.”
Katsuki snorts at him. “f*ck off, there’s no way that many fish could live there. They’d run out of food.”
“No, really!” He insists. “With so much sun exposure and sediments, it had more circulating nutrients than all of our land mass combined. Ten thousand years ago, it was a virtually unlimited source of food. Entire civilizations were created around water for its resources. Historical manuscripts say that you could dip a bucket into the water, and pull out twenty fish without trying!”
“Okay,” Katsuki concedes with a hum, and Izuku pouts at the plain disbelief in his grin. “That doesn’t sound like a total f*cking lie.”
“It’s true,” Izuku whines, and Katsuki laughs at him.
“Yeah. Just like all your magical little creatures. f*ckin’ flying fish and whooles with arteries you can swim through.”
“It’s a whale,” Izuku snaps with red cheeks. He didn’t think Katsuki would bother to remember his whale trivia. “And we have a blue whale skeleton at the university. You see it as soon as you walk into the marine complex. It’s massive!”
“You f*cking liar, you said that thing was plastic.”
“Well—! It is! But we can’t have real bones hanging from the ceiling. They’re way too valuable for that!”
“I’ll believe it when I see it,” Katsuki promises dryly. “And I can’t see sh*t, so suck my dick.”
“I hate you,” Izuku mumbles. Katsuki cackles and shoves against him as they walk, and he tries to ignore how it leaves a scorching line across the right sight of his body. With the cold winds blowing past them, he barely resists pulling Katsuki back to his side. Because he’s cold. Not… for any other reason, of course.
“It f*cking stinks.”
Nodding, Izuku says, “Yeah.”
“Ocean resorts are so much better. f*ck, I think my nose is melting off.”
“Now you’re being a drama queen,” Izuku says, finally mustering up the nerve to inconspicuously lean into Katsuki with his shoulder. “And those don’t count. They’re not real oceans.”
“Yeah. They really don’t capture the charm of this sludge f*ck,” Katsuki remarks, face turned to cringe at the fenced-off water.
Near them is the evident sound of thick water sloshing like brown syrup. Izuku will admit, the noise can be quite off-putting to someone who isn’t used to it.
Katsuki grins at him. “At least there’s an easy way to commit suicide. So, what percentage of the ocean is dissolved bone?”
Izuku slaps his arm. “That’s a myth. It’s not acidic enough to dissolve a human being. Or… bone, at least.”
“Uh huh. How many species live here again?”
“Not anymore. But… There’s so many sanitation plants popping up. It’ll take a few years, but now we have the technology to make the ocean habitable again!” He barely resists the urge to jump up and down. “And since we have so many fossil samples, we could even rebuild the coral reefs. Every single fish could be re-created with a 3D printer and returned to its ecosystem. We wouldn’t need extinction parks anymore. We could see real wildlife.”
“Haven’t been to one of those parks in a while,” Katsuki muses. “Might be cool to go again, if someone told me what the f*ck I was looking at.”
That’s how Sunday morning, they end up taking the train bright and early, all to line up with tired parents and over-excited kids for the National Marine Extinction Reserve. He bought the tickets and surprised Katsuki, hoping his companion would see it as a token of how closely Izuku pays attention to what he says.
Instead, Katsuki made a jab at how Izuku probably wanted to perv on him in a wetsuit. As the thin spandex of the suit clings to every curve of Katsuki’s body, showing his muscles bulge from lifting the heavy animal into his lap, he realises Katsuki’s hunch was just a tiny bit correct.
“You said they had three rows of teeth,” Katsuki remarks, scratching along the great white’s snout as it purrs in his arms. Its mouth gapes open lazily in contentment, exposing its empty gum lines.
“We can’t have a real shark in a petting zoo,” he retorts. Across his legs, the tiger shark splashes demandingly, and he resumes rubbing its fins. “All of these animals are GMOs. Their DNA is full of modifications to curb aggression and improve their appeal. They’re more similar to puppies than their original species.”
“It doesn’t have a dick,” Katsuki announces, with the same grandeur and intelligence any scientist would use upon such a breakthrough. His hand lifts the shark’s tail and twists it slightly to expose its bare belly, his other hand searching along the smooth skin. “How the hell does this thing sh*t?”
“It doesn’t,” he hisses, quickly slapping Katsuki’s hands down as he catches the scandalized glances of parents in the corner of his eye. “They’re basically mannequins. And don’t go around molesting sharks!”
“You checked too,” Katsuki says smugly. “You were mumbling about it earlier.”
“Dr. Toshinori designed these things. I’m allowed to study his work. You’re just some creepy guy!”
“f*ck off, you don’t know what I do for a living.”
“That’s because you won’t tell me,” he points out.
Katsuki predictably does not use this opening to finally reveal his career, and instead opts for saying, “Earn it, bitch.”
Izuku sticks his tongue out at him. Katsuki doesn’t acknowledge it. Izuku has wondered how precise his echo-device is. He has no problem walking around, identifying doors and such, but it’s hard to know if he sees the smaller things or simply ignores Izuku when he’s behaving like a petty toddler.
“Want to go see the jellyfish?” He proposes. They recently renovated the exhibit, and Izuku’s eager to see it. The water has been replaced with more oxygen-rich perfluorocarbon, so visitors can swim through the jellyfish without need for a scuba mask. Katsuki’s echo-device is just as effective submerged in liquid, so he’ll be able to enjoy it too.
“f*ck that. I want to go ride a Nessie.”
Izuku smiles against the shark’s fin. “Now who’s the nerdy one?”
“Shut the hell up, no one says no to riding on a f*cking dinosaur.”
“Yeah, if they’re four.”
“Go die.”
While riding the plesiosaur, he nearly does die, because Katsuki somehow manages to unbuckle his safety gear and pushes him off the saddle. Izuku coughs up tasteless, distilled water for only a second before a diver-bot scoops him out of the water, expanding into a large, comfortable raft for him to sit in. He rubs the water out of his eyes and splutters.
In the distance, he watches as Katsuki cackles and rides away, their chubby plesiosaur cheerfully dipping through the rolling waves towards a bright artificial horizon.
Katsuki’s laughter is barely audible above the concerned yelling of other dinosaur riders, and the struggling, panicked calls of their Nessie’s worker as they futilely order it to turn around and come back for him. Somehow, Katsuki has over-ridden these commands, and the many plesiosaurs in their proximity happily follow his loud hollers to go faster than safely-possible for a fun family ride.
His not-boyfriend apparently has a knack for synthetic-animal whispering, and is leading an ocean uprising in the middle of a marine park. Izuku thinks he’s in love.
Katsuki apologises afterwards with a grin as he shivers under his beach towel. He buys Izuku a fudgesicle as compensation, and Izuku drops it immediately because Katsuki kisses his cheek. They’re too tired to enter the tanks again, so they spend the rest of the day walking through glass tunnels and watching the ocean swim around them. Katsuki insists they have to swim with the jellyfish before they go, and he pretends he’s actually interested in reading about medusozoa and not that he’s doing it because Izuku wanted to.
They sit at the bottom of the tank, and Izuku watches with wonderment as one million jellyfish dance in a glowing harmony. Katsuki looks upwards as well, a look of equal amazement on his face.
He’s taken off his glasses for the plunge. His eyes don’t have pupils. They’re a solid, gentle white like ocean pearls, and they gaze up at the massive jellyfish drifting by as if they were the most beautiful starry sky. He sees a cacophony of sonic ripples that Izuku will never comprehend, but he can dream about it.
The neon shades of moon jellies reflect off Katsuki’s skin, and his hair floats around him like a wreath of pale sea grass. Izuku is struck with the beauty before him, bewitched by the childish wonder in those empty eyes. Never before has the ocean been so beautiful, wrapped around Katsuki in an embrace of orange, pink, purple, but mostly blue.
Briefly, he is overcome with a flooding warmth of nostalgia, and wonders why this seems so familiar.
Before they split off at the train station, Katsuki kisses him. He wonders why that feels familiar too.
~
“It’s hot as balls.”
“We’re almost there,” he calls, speeding up to get over the hill. The white sand burns the bottom of his feet, and slips under his weight like loose silk as he fights against it. Katsuki trudges behind him, lugging their bags and looking more sour than a soaked cat.
Izuku grins when he reaches the peak of the slope, revealing the busy and sprawling activities planned for the day. Blue banners sway brightly in the wind, and a crowd of what looks like hundreds bustles along their allowed stretched of the beach. The rest is still blocked off with yellow hazard signs that Izuku can see even from a hundred feet away.
Katsuki catches up to him, slowing to somewhere in the corner of his eye. His entire face is wrinkled into a cringe, and Izuku can’t tell if it’s because of the sun’s heat or the evident energy in the dense crowd.
With the ocean dyed a murky black from pollutants, the climate of marine towns is extremely finicky. Sunny days are swiftly absorbed by the dark waters, and without the smooth convection currents to circulate heat, the coast’s temperature rises dramatically in a single week of clear skies even in winter.
There’s linear traffic up and down from the shore, people carrying overflowing buckets and teaming up to drag heavier objects out of the sludge. He turns back to Katsuki, and in the distance, he can see the other side of those large walls, separating them from the known world.
“Tadaa!” He beams, spreading his arms out towards the beach.
“No,” Katsuki denies, staring towards the blinding colours and stereo music as if the scene were a death sentence. “I’m not joining your creepy fish cult. Get me the f*ck out of here.”
“You don’t have to join! This is a public event ORCA organised to clean the beach.”
“You brought me to clean a beach,” Katsuki repeats flatly. “As a f*cking date.”
“You said I could pick,” Izuku says brightly. Then he gasps and reaches into his backpack, pulling out another bright blue shirt that matches his own. “And I brought you a shirt!” He announces proudly, holding it out so Katsuki can read the thick acrostic font, Ocean Restoration and Cleaning Alliance.
Then he remembers Katsuki won’t be able to read it. Whoops. It might be smarter not to mention the design, actually, or Katsuki won’t wear it at all.
Even without seeing it, Katsuki stares in distaste as if it’s a dead carcass. The look isn’t nearly as intimidating when there’s a large dollop of sunscreen on his nose, along with a thick white line smeared across each cheek. Izuku’s glad he forced Katsuki to do it. His shoulders are already turning pink where exposed under his tank-top.
He wonders if Katsuki will let him help apply the next sunscreen layer. Before he can ask, Katsuki snatches it out of his hands and shoves it into the pocket of his shorts, marching ahead of him with a growl. The shirt’s fabric half-dangles out like a blue flag, and Izuku supposes that’s enough team spirit for today.
“Don’t we have the sanitation plants for this sh*t?” Katsuki asks while Izuku sets up their umbrella. Katsuki sits in the sand next to him and tugs on his thick rubber boots. He thought it was a joke when Izuku said to bring them, but at least he’d actually done it.
“They don’t reach this far inland,” he explains. “Most of this stuff is barely submerged. They won’t get picked up by the pumps, so once a section of the beach is filtered enough, they can get ORCA in to do the rest.”
Katsuki grunts in response. He takes the thick gloves from Izuku’s hands and yanks them on as if they had personally offended him. Despite this demeanour, he’s still wearing the ORCA sticker that Izuku pressed onto his neck after they signed in at the booth. In retaliation, there’s now a sticker stuck to the back of his shorts, directly over his right butt cheek, and he doesn’t want to recount how it got there or he might faint.
“This’ll be fun,” Izuku promises as he drags them to the water, feet incrementally sinking into the sodden-sand. It’s getting more lively as they move further in, until they’re almost swarmed with people moving in every direction, dragging objects every which way.
Katsuki suddenly grabs his arm, holding him back. “I only know silhouettes,” he says when Izuku looks back for an explanation. “And my echo can’t handle too many movements. This cluster-f*ck is really— All these people are…”
“Katsuki?” Izuku asks worriedly.
His grip tightens. “Hold onto me.”
Izuku’s stomach drops. It’s the first time Katsuki’s ever mentioned his blindness as a hindrance. “Katsuki, are you okay? I didn’t even think about it, I’m so sorry! Do you want to—!”
“I didn’t say I was f*cking debilitated, just to hold onto me,” he growls, forcing Izuku’s mouth to snap shut and his eyebrows to crease in concern.
Of course. Sonar uses the bounce-back of sound waves to interpret the objects in the surroundings. The selective frequency is far higher than normal noise, so the loud music and talking around them isn’t the problem. But with so many people moving amongst themselves at such a rapid rate, that chip drilled into Katsuki’s temporal lobe must be…!
He frowns as Katsuki’s grip curls tighter, his body edging closer to Izuku. The scowl he’d misplaced for sullen now looks more overwhelmed.
Katsuki’s echo-device, although sophisticated, must be going haywire with so much chaos around them.
He almost kicks himself from being so thoughtless, half-considering calling it a day and packing up their stuff, but he knows Katsuki wouldn’t appreciate the sentiment even if well-intentioned. But if they were to separate, Katsuki wouldn’t be able to identify him in the crowds. Maybe they should think of something so Katsuki doesn’t get lost, like one of those kid leashes, or friendship handcuffs! Just so Izuku can hold onto him and have the peace of mind—
“Shut up,” he growls, and Izuku snaps his mouth shut. Oops. “I’m not going to get lost!”
“But someone might try to steal you away from me,” Izuku says with a smile. “I’m here with a gem, after all.”
“That’s the stupidest line I’ve ever heard,” Katsuki deadpans. “And I think I should be the one worrying. Someone might mistake you for a piece of trash and dump you.”
“It’s happened before, actually. When I was a kid, I was playing hide-and-seek and my mom forgot about me and left for work, and the garbage man found me in one of the bins and thought I was a pet cat or something. And then I was locked out of my house and I started crying but I guess he was busy so the guy kind of… left me there—“
“Stop.” Katsuki says, staring at him. “That is… so f*cking sad.”
“We can still leave, if you want,” he blurts out. “Not because you’re blind! Just, I know you didn’t want to be here to begin with.”
“If that was an option, why are we standing in sh*t right now?” He asks.
“I thought it would be nice,” he says sheepishly, squirming as Katsuki gives him the look. The You’re an idiot look. “I wanted you here.”
“Fine,” Katsuki relents to his surprise, albeit with a rough sigh. “Just tell me what to pick up.”
As it turns out, cleaning a sludge pool is not as romantic as Izuku though it would be. Most of their conversations start with Katsuki asking why something is sticky, squishy, or squirming in various degrees of horror.
He did not like Izuku’s explanation for the squirming one, but plastic-eating worms, how is that not interesting?! They were one of the only surface creatures to survive in the ocean because they adapted to eating polyethylene and excrete a unique alcohol in place of traditional faeces, and since alcohol is less dense than oil and water, it’s likely the entire top layer of the ocean is their defecation—
“Don’t tell me this while I’m holding them!” Katsuki screeches.
“Don’t let go yet,” Izuku reminds him, carefully untangling the net from the rest of the pile. Katsuki stands beside him, supporting the rest of the mass and looking like he’s being held at gunpoint as the worms slide over his gloved-fingers. One of the larger worms slips off and falls into the water with a distinct plop, and Katsuki lets out a weak sound that might have been a whimper.
“I hate you,” Katsuki whispers. “This is the sh*ttiest, most disgusting date I’ve ever been on. What the f*ck.”
“Have you never seen a worm before?” Izuku asks, barely restraining his laughter as he tugs harder on the tangled ropes.
Katsuki gives a sharp shake of his head, and Izuku’s mouth parts into an oh when he finally remembers that no, most people didn’t know what a worm was. With the synthetic landscapes and animals of today, worms weren’t a vital decomposer anymore, and the soil they lived in was now buried under thickly-paved foundations. Not only worms, but all wildlife was obsolete, only seen if considered popular enough to be in an extinction park.
It became hard for humanity to care about saving the environment when all of it could be regrown in a test tube. Eventually, that’s exactly what they did, save for cutting out the parts they didn’t like.
Only three groups knew about how the earth used to be: biologists, naturalists, and environmental activists, and belatedly, he remembers that Katsuki is none of them. He’s seen pegasus and dragons with Izuku at the fantasy exhibit, and ridden on a plesiosaur, but he is terrified of a worm.
And here he is, with fifty of them crawling over his hands, all because Izuku asked him to come.
“You’re pretty amazing, Katsuki,” he mumbles, a giddy smile splitting his cheeks.
“Don’t look down on me,” Katsuki grits out, still looking fixedly towards the worms as if one of them might whip out a nuke if left unattended. “I’m not f*cking scared!”
“A lot of people find them gross. It’s normal,” Izuku placates, and when Katsuki gives a full-body bristle, he quickly pivots, “I was a really nerdy kid, but it still took a while to get desensitised to stuff during my first internship. I worked with more realistic animals. Since we were trying to replicate a complete ecosystem, there was a lot of poop, and bugs, and funky smells—“
“Just hurry up,” he says dryly.
He hastily yanks out the net. “I got it. You can let go now.”
“Thank f*ck,” Katsuki breathes, slowly dropping it to the water. Izuku kindly does not mention anything as he plucks off the worms stuck to Katsuki’s gloves under the guise of adjusting them.
Sometime into their companionable silence, both focused on their laborious but repetitive task of scrapping, there’s a sharp exclamation near them. It makes Izuku’s head lift, but when he doesn’t recognize the voice he returns to his trash gathering, at least until he hears it more persistently.
“Blasty! Blasty, hey!”
Izuku pauses as the calls persist, and beside him, Katsuki goes stone-still. He meets Izuku’s questioning gaze for one second before suddenly grabbing his hand and dragging him to the shore.
“Katsuki?” He asks, stumbling to keep up with him as they half-sprint over the mucky sand. His bucket slams against his knee with every step but he has no time to adjust, not with Katsuki pulling him along as if there were a shark in the water.
“Stop running! Blasty!”
“What?!” Katsuki snaps, whirling around to snarl at him.
“Sorry,” Izuku apologises even though Katsuki clearly isn’t meaning to address him. It's a survival instinct.
“Psst, blasty!”
Izuku turns around and blinks at the sight of another volunteer. Pink hair, grinning widely as if she’d won the lottery. Beside him, Katsuki looks like he’s about to self-combust.
“Hi,” she says, still grinning.
“f*ck off,” Katsuki replies. He yanks on Izuku’s wrist again, making him yelp as he stumbles with Katsuki’s impatient pulling.
Like magic, a mess of pink hair whirls into his vision, blocking their path. Katsuki almost barrels over the poor lady until Izuku pulls him back. Izuku’s eyes flit between them as she stares them down, Katsuki glowering right back. The scene is very reminiscent of an African nature documentary, with a fearless hyena running circles around a wild lion. Her bright smile makes her look far more youthful than Izuku suspects she is, if it’s true she knows Katsuki.
“Don’t be mean, Katsuki,” Izuku whispers into his ear, but it’s said teasingly, hoping it will pacify him. It doesn’t seem to work, and when he grits his teeth audibly, Izuku hastily turns to her and says, “Hi! I’m Izuku. It’s nice to meet you. Are you a friend of Katsuki?”
Instead of answering his question, her grin only widens. “Ah. You’re Izuku.”
“Uh, yeah,” he answers unsurely. He looks to Katsuki for guidance in the silence afterward, but his companion is too busy glaring her into death to meet his eyes.
“Go away,” Katsuki repeats.
“But we were supposed to hang out! Everyone’s here.”
“I said I didn’t want to.”
“You said you weren’t coming.”
“Because I hate you. You’re annoying and useless.”
Izuku looks back and forth between them as if following a game of ping pong. When she catches his stare, she winks at him with sparkling eyes, but he can’t decode what she means by it.
“Says the guy who begged me to do his makeup this morning—“
“Shut the hell up!” He screeches. Izuku has to lean away with a subtle wince.
When he finally processes the words, he sneaks a glance at Katsuki with widened eyes, taking in the subtle contouring of his features. It must be a fancy product, otherwise it would have melted off two hours ago. He’s not completely oblivious, obviously he could tell when Katsuki wore makeup, but Katsuki is always beautiful. He never gave it much thought when Katsuki sometimes showed up with a gentle shimmer on his cheekbones and a sharper jawline.
“—You should have posted it! Katsuki Bakugou helps clean beach. We would have had way more people.”
“I’ll f*cking kill myself if someone snatched a photo. Can’t believe I spent today scooping sh*t and worms.”
“You touched the worms, oh my god,” she wheezes. “But you’re such a diva!”
“Stop talking,” Katsuki grits out. Oblivious to the imminent death in her future, she slings an arm around Katsuki’s shoulders and beams at Izuku. She’s familiar, somehow.
“You’re Mina Ashido,” Izuku realises with a gasp, finally placing that pastel pink hair. “You’re one of ORCA’s biggest helpers! Your vlogs inspire so many people to help out!”
“You know me?” She asks ecstatically.
“You know her?” Katsuki asks with horror.
“She made an ocean-inspired cosmetics line,” Izuku tells him. “All the profits went to supporting ORCA projects. She’s a huge makeup guru, so her influence really counts for getting younger people involved.”
Katsuki grunts sullenly, but doesn’t say anything else. Mina looks so comfortable slung over Katsuki, and even if grudgingly, Katsuki isn’t stopping her. Belatedly, he realises that in all the time they’ve known each other, not once has Katsuki mentioned his other friends.
“So, how do you know each other?” He asks curiously.
“I’m his favourite makeup artist,” she says, sending a sly look Katsuki’s way. “He refuses to have anyone else at his photoshoots.”
“Photoshoots?” He asks, looking at Katsuki.
“...I’m a model,” he admits, looking like he bit a lemon. “Clothing and sh*t, whatever.”
Izuku’s jaw drops. “Ah?”
“It’s good money,” Katsuki mumbles, almost bashfully. “And it’s all about who you know. My parents are a big name in the fashion industry. No one else would’ve taken a blind model without that connection.”
“Don’t be modest, cutie,” Mina asks with a wide grin, and Katsuki practically snarls in her grip. “He’s way more than some model. He’s a huge inspiration for a lot of people! A social media influencer that defies the conventional beauty standards of today!” She squeezes Katsuki like a cat and taps his black glasses. “All because of those pearly whites of his.”
“We’re leaving now,” Katsuki interjects before he can respond. Katsuki struggles out of Mina’s arms and grabs his wrist. By his firm grip, they’re not getting held back for long.
“Have fun on your date,” She wishes as they turn around, making him stumble. “I’ll tell everyone I saw you!”
“Don’t you dare,” he snaps back, before they lose her among the crowd.
“So...” Izuku starts, squeezing through the crowd to keep up with Katsuki. “I know what you do now. That’s cool. You being a model.”
“It’s not,” Katsuki dismisses, still looking forward. “They photoshop the crap out of those pictures.”
For an unknown reason, Katsuki sounds angrier at the words he’s saying than at being found out. The tense line of his shoulders warns Izuku from contradicting him, though he’s still impressed no matter what Katsuki says. A model. Somehow, Izuku managed to score a model.
“Why didn’t you tell me that you’re a model?” Izuku asks, unable to stay quiet any longer.
“Because you’re—! You’re such a smart-ass!” Katsuki yells, whirling around with furious red cheeks. “You’re always spouting all this science bullsh*t like it’s nothing,” then he snarls and mocks in a high-pitched voice, “Look at me, I’m getting my PhD, I’m so f*cking smart.”
Izuku’s never said that, nor does he sound like that. It’s the worst impression he’s ever heard, and now is a very bad time to laugh about it.
Katsuki’s gloved hands clench so hard his fists begin to shake, his gaze straightening to meet Izuku’s dead-on. “I’ll kill you if you think I’m some dumb, ditzy bitch.”
“Wha—?! Of course I don’t think that!” Izuku stutters quickly. “Science isn’t better than any other passion! I mean, I’m smart with nerdy stuff, but I’ll be an idiot if we talk about fashion. You’ll know way more than me.”
“...You don’t think it’s stupid?” He asks, not meeting Izuku’s gaze.
“Never,” Izuku promises earnestly. “I mean, I wasn’t kidding when I said I know nothing about that stuff, but it’s yours. I’d love if you shared that part of your life with me. I want to know everything about you, Katsuki.”
A bit too much, Izuku thinks with a wince. Jeez, he sounds like a total creep. Even so, he doesn’t consider back-tracking on the words. Izuku’s serious about Katsuki, and he deserves to know how amazing he is.
“Good,” Katsuki whispers softly. Before Izuku can respond, he leans in and pecks his cheek. Then recoils with a look of disgust, incredulously asking, “Why is your cheek wet?”
“Oh,” Izuku says, dumbly reaching up to wipe at his face with the gloved-hand that was submerged in contaminated water not five minutes ago. Well, that explains how his cheek got wet.
“Did I just kiss a worm?” Katsuki asks with a look of horror.
“Worms aren’t the only thing that’s wet, you know,” he says fondly. “It was ocean gunk.”
Katsuki latches onto his forearm tightly, and Izuku can’t tell if he’s about to faint or if he’s considering snapping Izuku’s wrist. Either way, he apologetically pats Katsuki’s hand with his own. “Get me to a shower, right now,” Katsuki says.
“They wouldn’t let volunteers clean all this unless it was safe,” Izuku reminds. “It’s not toxic. But, uh… Yeah, let’s get you a towel. And maybe don’t rub your eyes, or touch your face in general until we get to a sink.”
Twenty minutes later, they emerge from the first public bathroom they found. Katsuki’s face is flushed a deep red, and Izuku’s not sure if it’s from sunburn or because he spent ten minutes aggressively washing his face in the restaurant’s sink while Izuku held back his hair. It could also be because they spent the remaining ten minutes necking against the door, until a server-bot reported them to the manager.
“I had a lot of fun today,” Izuku says as they walk to the station. The sun is beginning to set, the warm skies distorted by thick tempered glass, rendering only a confused symphony of orange streaks. “Thanks for coming.”
Katsuki nods, but stays quiet.
Katsuki’s lips are curled into a grimace, and their conversation falls into a stilted silence. Worry bubbles up in its place, and suddenly Izuku is rambling, “I’ll take you somewhere nicer next time. No worms, or anything gross, I promise. It was really, really stupid of me to bring you here, I’m so sorry—“
“It’s not that, idiot,” Katsuki bites out, before sighing and turning his face away. “Nothing to do with you. Just… f*ck, it’s quiet now,” He hisses. He rubs at his forehead as if nursing a headache, his fingers catching over his echo-chip.
Suddenly, Izuku regrets bringing him here for a whole other reason. “I… I really am sorry...” He mumbles, hesitantly watching for Katsuki’s reaction. “I didn’t think about how your echo-device would handle something like this.”
“I said it’s okay,” Katsuki says with clear frustration.
Izuku can’t help but flinch in response. At the movement, Katsuki seems to pause his train of thought, grabbing his hand and frowning down at their fingers. Apologetically, he strokes the back of Izuku’s hand with his thumb.
“I like that you didn’t think about it,” he murmurs. “You brought me here because you wanted me here. That’s all that matters. Maybe I can’t handle crowds well, and maybe that’s because I’m f*cking blind, but don’t you dare leave me out of the next one.”
“It’s still happening tomorrow,” Izuku tells him. “The beach is barely half done.”
“We’re not going.”
“Okay,” he agrees, smiling down at their hands.
“Sorry I was an ass,” Katsuki mutters, looking towards those far-away glass boundaries. His skin is a soft peach in the sunset. “Today was absolute sh*t. But… it’s the same for me too.”
When Izuku clearly doesn’t understand what he’s referencing, he grits his teeth and elaborates, “When you said… You wanted to see every part of me. It’s the same for me. About you.” Then, as if mustering up the last dredges of his frustration, he half-heartedly snaps, “Even if the ocean is disgusting and f*ck knows why you like it.”
“Thanks,” Izuku says softly.
Katsuki nods, disgruntled but looking satisfied, but this precious moment, he doesn’t want it to be over yet, so he presses his closer to Katsuki as they look towards those glass walls.
“The ocean made me fall in love,” he says. “From the moment I saw what it used to be, I knew I would spend the rest of my life living in the past, chasing that world. It’s my dream to see it in reality. I know the ocean won’t be restored within our lifetime, but just seeing it happen...” He squeezes Katsuki’s hand. “Thanks for coming. Really.”
They stay until the sun finishes setting. They find a bench, and Izuku watches it with Katsuki snoozing on his shoulder. Even when the skies fade into a soft black and he begins to shiver, Katsuki is a firm weight against him, warm and wrapped around Izuku as if slotting into his side like a puzzle piece. They don’t separate by a single inch as they walk towards Katsuki’s station.
“Bye,” he whispers against Katsuki’s lips. He pecks him once, then twice, and over and over until Katsuki shoves him away.
Katsuki gives him an unimpressed stare. “Don’t be so pleased. This date still f*cking sucked,” he states.
The long kiss he gives Izuku before leaving says otherwise.
~
“Why did your friend call you blasty?” He finally asks over their coffee the next day.
“Oh, that?” Katsuki asks. Izuku freezes at the dangerous smile that quirks on his lips.
Katsuki leans back in his chair and raises out one hand. Then there’s sparks and Izuku flinches back with wide eyes as he stares at those fireworks flying from Katsuki’s palm like magic.
“You’re augmented,” he breathes.
“Yeah. My parents are well-off, so they dosed up my egg pod with whatever money could buy. Fast healing, higher IQ, and f*cking explosives.”
“That’s amazing,” Izuku remarks, leaning forward to get a closer look. Katsuki’s parents must be loaded. Augmentation was becoming increasingly popular, but only the very wealthy could afford such selective genes. The average augmentations were health-based: cancer inhibitors, viral resistance and so on. “How does it work?”
“Chemical secretion from my sweat glands. A nitroglycerin-based compound that can explode at will.“ He lowers his hand and makes to drink more coffee, but pauses when he catches Izuku’s rapt expression. He clearly hadn’t planned on such a captive audience. “Nerd, if you’re looking for some deep analysis, you went to the wrong person.”
“Sorry,” Izuku says, still staring at his hands. “It’s just… Really amazing.”
“Hmm. Well, didn’t mean sh*t since they couldn’t buy me a working pair of eyes,” Katsuki grunts, but the words aren’t bitter, instead spoken casually as if Katsuki has long come to accept them.
“… Is… Is there anything you can do?” Izuku asks. “A surgery, or another cybernetic implant—“
“Tried it all,” Katsuki dismisses. “I lived in a med-pod for my entire childhood. You should’ve seen all those ritzy-ditzy assholes. Every specialist always promised they’d have revolutionary technology to fix me up. The surgeon-bots were self-combusting every time I went in.”
Katsuki’s hand reaches up to take off his glasses, and his fingers hover just above his unseeing pupils. “These aren’t my real eyes,” he admits. “Not my original ones at least. They got chucked in the garbage, and I tried an operation to induce the growth of a new pair. DIdn’t work, obviously. I basically have two tumours lodged in my skull.”
“Oh,” Izuku manages to say. There’s not much else. Nerve damage has always been tricky. It’s one of the only remaining afflictions without a do-all, end-all cure. Nerve cells could be regrown in a petri-dish, and bots could implant them with extreme precision, but implanting a set of artificial eyes into someone’s skull?
It’s like putting together all the pieces in a jig-saw puzzle only to have the picture be incomprehensible. The complexity of a human’s neural pathways was yet to be mastered.
Even Katsuki’s echo-device is state of the art for today’s cybernetic technology. It’s a graceful work-around, to push aside conventional vision and drill straight for the temporal lobe, as if adding a new organ over replacing an old one. Although echo-location has its weaknesses, Katsuki is undeniably self-sufficient. Very few devices were able to seamlessly connect to a human’s neural pathways, and he’s certain it cost a fortune.
“I like your eyes,” he finally says.
Daringly, he reaches over to cup Katsuki’s cheek, his thumb stroking below his eyelid. Katsuki hums and leans into his hand, and it leaves a searing mark that lingers on his palm long after he lets go, resting his arm on the table with Katsuki’s hand tucked in his own.
Izuku hesitates, before confessing, “I’m augmented too.”
Katsuki raises his eyebrows, looking vaguely impressed. “sh*t, really?”
“My dad went under the table to get me a prototype quirk,” Izuku says carefully, unsure how much he wants to divulge of his very complicated family history. “He didn’t stick around long enough to see it manifest. My mom didn’t even know until it mutated when I was twelve.”
“That kills people.”
“Yeah,” Izuku agrees with a wince. “They used a gene suppressor at first, but I tried quirk therapy once I was older. I thought I might be able to control it but my body couldn’t handle the strain. My muscles were torn apart every time I exerted myself, and eventually I had surgery to fix it. Now I only have these,” then he stops gesturing and remembers to clarify, “My scars, I mean.”
Katsuki looks more interested than he’s ever seen. “You have scars?” He asks, leaning forward.
“Yeah,” he confirms, self-consciously pulling his sleeves lower, even if Katsuki won’t see what he’s hiding. “They’re kind of ugly.”
“… Can I...” Katsuki trails off. Izuku watches him swallow and look away.
“You want to touch them?” Izuku asks apprehensively. “I wasn’t kidding when I said they were ugly. They don’t feel that nice either.”
Katsuki holds out his hands in response, and he relents with a gulp, laying his arm across the table. Katsuki’s fingers begin to trail up his wrist, dipping under his sleeve and slowly pulling it upwards as his fingers explore Izuku’s marred skin. His scars are nothing like the peculiar beauty of Katsuki’s white eyes. They’re unpleasant ridges of flesh, lacerations that render his arm textured and chipped like old driftwood.
“I felt them sometimes,” Katsuki murmurs. “Felt weird. Didn’t know what they were.”
Hastily, Izuku shrinks back. “Sorry—“
Katsuki hands latch around his forearm. “Didn’t mean they were bad, just different.”
His ministrations only stop when the sleeve gets bunched up at Izuku’s elbow. “How far do they go?” He asks, fingers teasing under the fabric. Izuku never realised how sensitive his skin was, or maybe it’s the way Katsuki’s fingers caress feather-light along his veins, his short nails scraping when his fingers angle just so over the ridges of Izuku’s scars.
Clearing his throat, Izuku tells him, “They’re everywhere.”
“Everywhere,” Katsuki repeats thoughtfully. His white eyes are more piercing than any gaze. “Show me.”
“Huh?” Izuku asks faintly. Slightly over-loaded, he almost interprets the words as a request to strip naked then and there in the cafe. With Katsuki eyeing him down like that, he doesn’t think he’d have the willpower to say no.
“Take me home,” Katsuki demands breathily. “And show me.”
Izuku swallows thickly. It’s a Thursday, barely 1pm. He’s only on break for another ten minutes, then he’s supposed to be back in the lab. But Katsuki’s hands are warm, and his eyes are beautiful. Izuku’s scars tingle pleasantly under those touches, and he can’t bring himself to care.
“Okay,” he whispers, nodding as he hastily packs up his things.
Katsuki smirks, sly and heated as Izuku leads him out of the cafe. They call a shuttle-bug that zips down the road to Izuku’s apartment, and he barely remembers tapping his wrist to the pay pad before they’re stumbling out the car door, lips locked in plain daylight as Izuku pulls him into the elevator.
As promised, Katsuki runs his fingers over every inch of his scarred flesh, then again with his lips, pressing hot kisses against his thighs before swallowing him down. Izuku wipes away the tears from Katsuki’s pale eyes as he thrusts down his throat with a dizzy head, then pins Katsuki to the sheets and returns the favour.
He’s two hours late for work when they emerge from his steaming bathroom, padding out with towels slung over their shoulders only to collapse on his couch. They dry each other’s hair between long kisses. He has three missed calls from Ochako, and Katsuki fingers skim over the raised silicone bumps of his phone screen, the braille keyboard Izuku installed just for him, and texts back Busy, before throwing his phone off somewhere and straddling him for round two.
They order cheap take-out to eat in bed, naked and tangled around each other in the sheets. He keeps getting salt on Katsuki’s bare chest every time he bites a fry, and Katsuki does not agree that licking it off is a valid solution. He tries anyway, and Katsuki spills soda in his hair so they have to wash the sheets and take a second shower.
“I love you,” Izuku whispers to him as he sleeps.
“You too,” he responds, evidently not sleeping.
He floats into the lab the next day on a dopey, love-sick cloud, and he’s so visibly happy that Dr. Toshinori doesn’t even scold him for missing work yesterday. The grief Ochako gives him over his many love-bites is cancelled out by the hilarious, wide eyed double-take Dr. Toshinori sends him before fleeing out of the room for coffee.
~
“We found something,” Izuku announces as soon as he sits down.
His hands drum on the table as Katsuki raises an eyebrow. “Yes?” He asks slowly with a knowing smile, deliberately stretching the word as if he knew Izuku would explode if he couldn’t share the something soon.
“We discovered the remnants of a meteor crash sight, down in the Xavier trench. And the rock is edible, like salt,” he says quickly. “And it seems some creatures burrowed an expansive cave system into it. It’s right in the middle of volcanic vents, and when we sent the drone in, it was fossil heaven. Bones everywhere. It was like a dragon’s treasure trove, and,” he leans in to excitedly whisper, “Some of them are mermaid skeletons. Of an unknown species!”
“Don’t spill your coffee,” Katsuki reprimands, and he smiles sheepishly and slides the mug to the middle of the table. Katsuki ordered for him. It’s his usual, and he can’t manage to sip his drink until he stops grinning about how Katsuki memorised his coffee order.
“That’s all we know right now. It was one of our sea-rovers that discovered it, so Musutafu gets to choose the field researchers, and—! And—!” He kicks Katsuki to let out some energy, and Katsuki lets it happen with an incredulous look. “They picked me! Well, Dr. Toshinori is going, and he requested me, and they picked me! I’m going on the expedition! And Ochako is too! I’m going!”
“Good,” Katsuki states, grabbing his jittery hand and folding their fingers together. “You’ve earned it.”
“This is everything I’ve been waiting for,” Izuku says elatedly. “Very few people are allowed in the ocean, especially now that we have bots combing the sand for us. It’s a huge honour. And this is one in a million! It’s been so long since ocean life existed. Everything’s buried under fifty tons of sand. So to find a bounty of intact skeletons just laying around—! This is crazy, and it suggests that—”
Then he pauses and leans in, whispering, “Ah, this is all supposed to be confidential, by the way. Very sensitive information.”
“Then why are you telling me—?”
“It suggests that there’s still a large predator down there!” Izuku blurts out. “We thought only microscopic organisms could survive today’s condition. With the oil layer blocking the sun, ocean plants can’t photosynthesise, but this shows that underwater volcanoes are their own kind ecosystem! Geo-thermal plants thrive there, and they could be the base for a new food chain, with a volcanic deep-dweller at the top, and—! I think we found it, Katsuki,” he breathes. “I think this is the missing piece.”
“Stop kicking me.”
“I can’t help it,” Izuku says with a slightly maniacal laugh. “Isn’t this so cool?!”
“…Yeah,” he relents, squeezing Izuku’s hand. “It’s pretty cool. Come ‘ere.”
Izuku blinks, before shuffling his stuff over so he can switch to sit in Katsuki’s side of the booth. He eagerly curls in, even if confused, and stutters when Katsuki wraps an arm around his shoulder and presses a doting, chaste peck to his lips.
“There’s your reward, as promised,” he says.
Izuku pouts when Katsuki tries to kiss him again, remembering that incentive he’d been given so long ago.
“What’s wrong?” Katsuki asks in his morose silence. “Don’t want my tongue down your throat?”
“But you kiss me all the time,” Izuku points out with red cheeks.
“You’re so f*cking spoiled,” he grunts. “Fine. What’s a better reward?”
A lightbulb goes off in his head, and Katsuki must detect it because he recoils with a grim look. “Remember my Mochi?” Izuku asks, leadingly.
“I’m not going near those things,” Katsuki spits out.
“I need someone to take care of them while I’m gone,” Izuku whines, kicking Katsuki’s foot again. Katsuki actually hisses in pain this time, and in hindsight, he’s spent the last five minutes beating Katsuki’s calf to a pulp and should probably stop. “Please? Ochako usually does it if I’m away, but she’s coming too. And you fed them that one time—“
“They nearly bit off my arm.”
“I told you to wash your hands.”
“I did.”
“Pizza sauce lingers,” Izuku says for the fifth time. “I’ll show you again before I go.”
“Can’t you just toss some food in?”
“I’m leaving for two months.”
Izuku’s light mood dissipates at the reminder. He sees Katsuki’s lips press thin, curling downward, before the look is gone. Katsuki bares his teeth before slumping down the leather seat with a huff. “Fine,” he growls. “But I’ll kill you if your stupid cancer fish eat my hands.”
“They don’t have cancer. I told you that’s how they’re supposed to look,” Izuku scolds fondly. “They’re Mochi.”
“It’s a stupid name.”
“It’s my species. I can name it whatever I want.” It’s not childish, because Izuku spent two months on the Mochi and aced his genetics project, so if anything, it’s well-deserved. “And it’s a cute name. They’re cute.”
Katsuki gives the same repulsed shudder that he did when Izuku introduced him to the Mochi. The piranha-hybrids had flocked to the front of the tank, eerily watching them as a frozen swarm while Izuku identified each Mochi by their tag number. Mochi-1 is a bit wonky, but Izuku has a soft spot for his first baby, even if the fins are a little misplaced.
He bites back a laugh, remembering the way they followed Katsuki as he moved around the tank, swaying to keep him in their vision. Katsuki hadn’t been amused, not even when Izuku pulled out the pellets and managed to have Mochi-6 jump through some of the taller hoops.
“Oi, Deku.”
“Yeah?”
Katsuki kicks him hard.
He wheezes and hunches over his coffee and Katsuki sends him a lethal grin. “Text me or I’ll kill you.”
In the days leading up to his departure, entering his apartment feels like walking into a honeymoon. He gave Katsuki his spare key for the oncoming fish-sitting, and comes home every evening to the tempting aroma of a home-cooked meal. Katsuki has fished out the apron Izuku’s mom gifted him, the one he never used, and it looks better on Katsuki anyway. Katsuki’s fingers no longer need to search along the drawers to find the utensils he needs, and Izuku’s pantry begins to accumulate an organised arrangement of spices.
Two weeks pass in a blink, and Katsuki is a comforting presence through it all. Every night, Katsuki will huddle in his blankets and yell at him to sleep while he scrolls through his phone. And every morning, bright and early at four AM, Katsuki’s alarm goes off, and Izuku will groan and hide under his pillow as Katsuki gets ready to catch the first train to the Bakugou’s studio.
He cleans up his apartment, packs his things, and Katsuki hides so many of his socks that he almost has a melt down in the laundromat. They were hidden under the couch cushion, neatly folded into mismatched pairs. Izuku’s too endeared by the effort to be angry. They listen to Katsuki’s audiobook while he re-organises them into their correct couplets.
Izuku’s going to miss him.
Katsuki has promised he won’t miss Izuku. He also promised they’d never have sex in the kitchen, but after cooking a feast for their last lunch together, he spends the remaining hour sitting on the countertop with Izuku’s head between his legs, then bent over said countertop, then against the wall… And then Izuku has ten minutes to gather his things and sprint for his shuttle-bug. Katsuki kisses him before passing over his luggage and closing the door behind him.
The bug is accelerating to an alarming speed when his eyes widen. “Wait! I forgot to say—!” He whirls around in his seat. “Stop, stop, please—! I forgot to—! Katsuki!”
Katsuki is visible in the distance, watching him leave at the step to his apartment building. He hastily lowers the window and jerks forward as the bug pulls over and stops with sharp, aggravated beeps and flashing hazard lights.
He sticks his head out and screams, “I love you!” He doesn’t think it’s loud enough.
Katsuki was already sprinting towards him with a concerned look. Ah. Perhaps he shouldn’t have triggered an emergency stop and worried the poor shuttle-bug nor his poor boyfriend.
“I forgot to tell you,” He explains as loudly as he can. “I love you!”
Katsuki slides to a stop, grinding his heels into the pavement. Even from across the street, he can see the dark, unimpressed gaze fixed on him.
“You’re a f*cking bastard!” Katsuki yells, before spinning around and stomping back to Izuku’s apartment. His ears are bright red.
Izuku grins before the shuttle-bug’s beeping starts to hurt his ears, ducking back inside to wave away the automated inquiries. He leans back against the head-rest as the car resumes its journey, but it’s barely two seconds before his phone is buzzing in his pocket and beckoning his attention.
Love you too, the message reads.
Izuku leans against his window with a giddy smile. The shuttle-bug accelerates until the sprawling city is a blur of cold neon lights. Other cars race past him like electrified quicksilver, reflecting white, blue and pearlescent black. It reminds him of fish scales. He falls asleep watching those abstract colours, and it feels like slipping underwater.
~
“The plants didn’t grow there, they were moved there. We got an analysis on the soil in the fossil samples. and they were originally grown in a more igneous-based ground. Somehow, they were brought to the sand dunes and cultivated. It changes everything! All the kelp forests in that area might have spread from a single man-made site. The Twilights basically created their own ecosystem!”
“I don’t think they were that smart,” Katsuki contradicts, sounding wholly unimpressed, despite the fact that Izuku just revealed Twilights developed their own horticulture. That’s more than intelligence. That’s founding a civilization!
“Then what do you think happened?” Izuku asks goadingly. He shuffles on his bed and adjusts his grip on the phone, smiling against the screen.
“I don’t know, probably got stuck in their sh*t or something.”
“Ew, Katsuki,” he whines as the blond chuckles. “Don’t talk about my mermaids like that.”
“Hm,” Katsuki responds. It sounds like he’s concentrating on something else, and Izuku grins when he hears the light trickling noises of circulating water, accompanied by the telling buzz of a filter.
“How’s my Mochi?” He asks.
“Ugly and stupid, as always,” Katsuki says. “You better pay me back for this.”
“They’re not stupid,” Izuku reprimands with a pout. “And you’re doing a favour for me.
“Maybe I’ll keep your sh*tty apartment key as payment. I’ll have a free vacation home.”
“…I wouldn’t mind that,” Izuku whispers, half-hoping Katsuki won’t hear the words.
There’s a calculated pause which tells him he isn’t that lucky. His heart pounds in his ears until Katsuki finally responds, “Good. You’re not getting it back.”
“Okay,” Izuku surrenders, beaming into the receiver. He listens to the soothing rush of water and occasional, rabid splashing as Katsuki plays with the Mochi. Despite his vocal distaste for them, he always gives them some attention after feeding them. He knows Mochi-8 is Katsuki’s favourite, because it’s the one he’s affectionately nicknamed Bitch.
“When are you arriving?” Katsuki asks. He hears the click of the tank’s lid, and the water becomes a muffled sound. Then rustling, and he knows Katsuki’s settled on his couch.
“We passed 10 000 feet a while ago,” Izuku says. “And it’s barely halfway. We won’t reach Ground Zero until tomorrow, and we’ll be combing the seabed along the way.”
“I guess you have some free time then,” Katsuki purrs, and Izuku stutters and glances to the other side of his occupied room.
“I’m sharing this cabin with Iida,” he whispers warningly.
“Figure something out,” Katsuki warns. “Because it’s going to be a long two months and I’m not blue-balling it.”
Katsuki entirely fulfils that promise. Between hectic unpacking, scattered meetings and reading reports, Katsuki teases him every chance he gets, purring sinful things in his ear whenever they talk and sending post work-out photos which border on soft p*rn. Izuku’s embarrassed responses only encourage Katsuki further, and eventually it becomes addictive, just like every other part of Katsuki. They sneak around their busy days, sending each other dirty whispers and syncing up their shower time.
Blue balls indeed, Izuku thinks grimly as his glazed eyes stare at his screen. it’s been a particularly long day with no interesting finds, and the endless manuscript in front of him is drying up his eyes as if he’d rubbed sand in them. Even worse, he’s horny, and his first instinct is to grab his phone. He blames Katsuki entirely for what he’s become.
Send nudes, Izuku texts him.
f*ck off, he gets in return, along with a rather artistic attachment of Katsuki tangled in Izuku’s sheets, his shirtless chest glowing in early morning light. He slept over last night. Katsuki is plain black briefs, and one hand is teasing the waistband, sliding it over his hip bone. Dating a model has some very nice perks.
He's also extremely fussy whenever they take photos together, always scolding Izuku's camera angle and pose even though he can't see the final product, and somehow managing to wrangle the auto-aim feature on Izuku’s phone better than him. Izuku thinks it's adorable. He's probably moved over Izuku's desk lamp and re-arranged all of Izuku's pillows to fulfil his request.
He sneaks a glance at the other occupants of the lab before typing, Take those off.
His phone beeps almost immediately. I’m not some playbot sex doll, Katsuki says, and Izuku bites back a smile, imagining the furious, flustered look he gets whenever he pretends he’s not equally as horny.
I want to see you, he says.
Just search up my photos then, nerd.
Izuku tilts his head at the idea. That hadn’t occurred to him. He sends Katsuki his thanks, ignoring the indignant buzzing of his phone as he pockets it away and opens a new tab on his laptop. Katsuki Bakugou, he types, and a spread of crisp images load and cover his screen.
His breath catches as he enlarges the first photo, and fully understands why it’s the most viewed. Katsuki stares back from under the dramatic grey shadows, his white eyes bare and almost glowing, unabashed and bewitching, exposed for all the world to see.
It’s an ad for condoms, Izuku realises dazedly, and Katsuki is tangled in satin sheets with a silver foil caught between his teeth, his soft lips pursed around it, in a wicked, sensual smile.
Not some Playbot sex doll. And yet here he is, staring at the provocative shadows of Katsuki’s bare chest. He’s wearing a long golden chain, and it dips between his pecs and trails down, lower…
Izuku swallows thickly. Suddenly, he feels very gay.
He’s scrolling through a very tasteful summer collection of Bakugou swimwear when his phone begins to vibrate, lighting up with Katsuki’s contact photo. He sneaks a glance around the lab before swiftly holding it to his ear and fumbling to answer it. “Katsuki?” He asks.
“You asshole,” Katsuki growls through the speaker, and he shivers at the raspy, desperate tone that he hasn’t heard since he left. “Don’t you dare jerk it to my photos when I’m right here—” His voice cuts off into a long moan that makes Izuku’s head spin. “Thinking of you.”
Swallowing, he lowers his voice and dares to ask, “What are you doing?”
“Got myself a present for while you’re gone,” Katsuki whispers in his ear, and in the background he can hear the telling obscene noises of—“f*ck, f*ck, right there baby. Ahn, f*ck yes—!“
“Oh god,” Izuku whimpers. Baby. He clutches the phone tighter as he inconspicuously hunches over his desk. He’s already ridiculously hard and aching, but he doesn’t dare adjust himself and risk attracting attention. He only sits, and listens to the siren’s call of Katsuki moaning his name, long and drawn out and sounding completely debauched.
“Oh~! ‘Zuku harder, it feels so good, hahn!” Katsuki babbles to him. Katsuki’s close, he can tell. He wonders what he’s using. Maybe a thick dild* he’s thrusting into himself, f*cking his hole until it’s puffy and ruined. Or a little vibrator to grind against his prostate while he fists his co*ck. Izuku wants to see. f*ck.
“Don’t come yet,” Izuku warns him firmly, and Katsuki lets out needy whimpers as those wet noises stutter. “Just a bit longer. Tell me what you have.”
“A dild*,” he says through heavy breaths. “Black, with ribs. Ahn, f*ck it’s so big, Izuku. I’m so loose now, f*ck, f*ck,” he moans, and Izuku imagines him humping back on the toy with desperate thrusts so it rubs right against his sweet spot, rolling his hips greedily. “f*ck, tell me what you want, Izuku. Tell me what you’d do to me.”
“I’d bend you over and make you beg for it,” Izuku murmurs. “Tease my co*ck against your sloppy hole until you cry. You’re lucky I’m not there, Katsuki, I’d wait until you were screaming for it. Until you’re rutting back on me like a dirty slu*t.”
“Oh f*ck,” Katsuki chokes out. “Please Izuku, please—!“
“Then I’d f*ck you,” Izuku promises breathily. “Grab your hips and force you on my co*ck like a toy. I’d f*ck you into the mattress and let you hump into the sheets. My needy little whor*.” He rests a hand on his groin as Katsuki wails. “Go faster,” he demands. Those squelching thrusts become rapid and Katsuki is crying, f*ck he can hear it, imagines those pretty eyes leaking tears as Katsuki pleasures himself.
“I can’t,” Katsuki whimpers, “I wanna come, please, I need to come so bad, Izuku, Izuku—!”
“I know,” he coos. “You’re so hot, so good to me. Go ahead and come, sweetheart.”
“Izuku,” he whines, sounding wrecked. The noises become quick and sloppy. “f*ck, Izuku, Izuku! Oh god, I’m coming—! Ahn! Hah, f*ck, f*ck, f*ck—!”
“Midoriya?” Footsteps approach.
“Yes?” Izuku squeaks, hanging up the phone and almost dropping it in the process. Katsuki is not going to be happy, but he’d rather grovel for forgiveness than ji*zz in his pants in front of his mentor. He shuffles lower in his chair and hopes his neck isn’t too flushed as Dr. Toshinori gives him a confused look.
Izuku nods, and says, “Yeah, of course,” several times before Dr. Toshinori is done talking and he has no idea what was asked of him. He slumps over his desk and sighs, pulling out his phone and preparing to do a lot of apologising.
Instead of an angry text, Katsuki has only sent, You missed out.
Then he receives a photo of Katsuki tangled in his favourite superhero sheets, naked, flushed and licking the head of a large dild* that glistens with lube. He hastily shuts off his screen, eyes darting around like a panicked deer as he flees for the closest bathroom on shaky legs.
Yup. This is going to be a long two months.
~
“You’re on trash duty,” is how he’s greeted by Dr. Toshinori in the morning. He much preferred Katsuki’s good morning selfie, but the good in his life has to be balanced somehow. He only sighs and makes his way to the sorting station, preparing himself for the blisters he’ll have in two hours as he grabs the levers and activates the machinery.
The sea rovers gather any unregistered materials off the ocean floor and drop them in the chute for sorting. Ninety-nine percent of it is junk, usually old plastic and litter that has been discontinued for hundreds of years. It does nothing more than confuse the rovers, but someone still has to sort through it and see if anything interesting has been caught.
In this volcanic region, most of the objects Izuku picks through are scorched and denatured, and all of it goes into the recycling chute to be processed after they return home. The odd shells or plants he finds are shot back into the water. Although deep-sea natives, they’re too common to warrant an analysis, and it’s not what they’re here for anyway.
The next clump of mystery slides forward on the belt for examination, and Izuku picks it apart and sifts through it like a magpie. The claw-arm whirs and hisses as it sorts the pile, until Izuku hits something with a dull thunk.
He pauses, wrangling the levers to orient around the shape until it’s unearthed.
“Huh,” he murmurs. His mouth parts as he stares down at the trinket he’s discovered.
In the sharp lighting of the lab, the object should be perfectly visible. It takes a while for Izuku to realise that it is, but it’s… pitch black, so black that it feels like a hole in his vision, no different from looking out into that dark, endless abyss. That shape eats up all the light around it like a blackhole, not reflecting the slightest hint of texture.
He carefully prods it with the claw, and it taps lightly against that void with a neat clink. Solid. Sturdy.
It reminds him of Vantablack, but why would a clump of such precious carbon nanotubes be found at the bottom of the sea? Even with his brain skeptical, he’s already decided. There’s something special about this strange rock. A discovery, just like he’s been waiting for. A huge revelation under his fingertips. He can feel it.
He’s finally here. The last rock unturned lays beneath his palm. The final pieces of the puzzle, hidden for a million years under its cloaking blanket of dust and bone, and yet…
It feels wrong, as if he’s stolen something that doesn’t belong to him. His grip around the controls loosen as he pensively frowns. There’s no explanation for the sudden… wrongness in his gut. He wants to learn, and he came here to explore, but rather than exhilaration, he feels a crushing weight of responsibility, as if holding a baby bird in his hand and suddenly comprehending the trust in such a notion, to hold a fragile life in his palm.
He’s been given a glimpse, he realises, and nothing more.
“Izuku? Did you find anything?”
“No,” he says, hastily pulling the lever and squeezing the clamp. “Just another rock.”
That strange stone is released back into the unknown, where it belongs.
They discover new fossils. Wonderful, miraculous echoes of the past that he and the rest of the team pour over, tossing theories to each other over mugs of coffee. The new mermaid species was indeed a deep-dweller, and the DNA from their samples is already being processed into the imprinter, slowly being interpreted by their most advanced computers.
They have a legal claim on their discovered mermaid fossils, ensuring no unauthorized persons can use their findings, thus protecting their data and research. However, it also introduces a severe limitation: they can’t use an organic printer to re-create a living mermaid. Izuku’s not sure he’d want to anyway. Mermaids were some of the most anthropomorphic fossils existing, and resurrecting one would have controversial ethics.
As a work-around, they use sophisticated technology to translate the DNA into a digital replica of the organism. A new mermaid AI is generated by the end of the day. The entire team crowds into the lab to watch its form manifest into a vivid hologram, and Izuku’s breath catches.
It’s nothing like they’ve seen before.
Ghostly white skin and wispy grey hair, with a pale red tail of weathered cartilage. Like a shark’s, that tail beats to an inaudible, lethargic tempo. The mermaid stares stonily into nothing with unseeing white eyes. Izuku stares at those cloudy pupils, holding his breath as he’s struck with a tumbling, disorienting feeling of something. Those eyes. They’re—! They’re just like—!
“Izuku, we did!” Ochako shrieks into his ear, crashing into him and knocking the air out of his lungs. The disconcerting feeling vanishes like mist as he’s crowded by the infectious joy of the rest of the team, all of them laughing and congratulating each other as they shoot rapid-fire ideas around the room.
They spend hours testing every calculated behaviour of the mermaid bot, running test after test to confirm its accuracy and identify bugs. Those white eyes continue to captivate him, but they no longer hold the same thrall with distractions coming from every direction. After two days of working with the AI in the corner of his vision, he barely feels a twinge of that odd feeling when he walks past.
They have a whiteboard for naming the new mermaid, and hom*osalachus igni is currently in the lead, even though it’s just word vomit for man shark fire. No one speaks Latin so they don’t know how to properly structure it. Izuku was firmly against the name, until Ochako erased it and replaced it with Salacious hom*o on fire. The votes flipped within an hour, and Izuku is going to cry if she actually wins and he has to tell Dr. Toshinori what everyone agreed on.
The days lose their meaning without the sun, and Izuku’s sleep schedule becomes wired to artificial lights and the automated voice of the PA system. Izuku stays up late now that Katsuki isn’t there to stop him, and he lays in bed, illuminated by his laptop as he types with Katsuki’s video call in the background.
Katsuki tries to compete with his night-owl tendencies, but he always falls asleep first, and Izuku will spend long, precious moments staring as Katsuki snores and drools into his pillow. Izuku leaves the call on and falls asleep with the phone resting beside him, because Izuku never hangs up first, and in the morning, his Xell-800 will be at a terrifying 94% and there will be new photos of Mochi, accompanied by Katsuki’s texts complaining about how ugly they are.
No one encounters a stone like Izuku had. It lurks in his thoughts constantly, plaguing him with worries of I should have told Dr. Toshinori and What if it was important?
But he already knew it was important, and he knows he made the right decision. Somehow, his heart is satisfied despite his brain’s desire to solve the mystery, knowing that mysterious rock was very precious to an undiscovered enigma, and it has been rightfully returned to its keeper.
Something is down here. An elusive shadow that has evaded their scans and rovers, something intelligent, something that doesn’t want to be found.
That’s okay. They came here for the past, not the present.
Katsuki is waiting at the terminal when he arrives home. As soon as he’s in arm’s range, Katsuki grabs his waist and pulls him into a bruising kiss, and that strange stone slips from his mind like a dream.
~
A week after his return, he finally has the time to take Katsuki on a proper date, and it’s going to be the best one yet.
“Back to that sh*tty beach?” Katsuki asks with a grimace when he proposes it.
Biting back a smile, he nods. “Don’t worry, we’re not picking up trash this time.”
They walk to the checkpoint, and as soon as they make it out the other side, he sees Katsuki’s brows furrow at the absence of the thick gasoline scent in the air from before. For the first time in his life, Katsuki is smelling real seawater.
“It’s done!” Izuku exclaims, dragging him along. “This entire stretch has been cleaned. They’ve already installed filters along the outskirts to keep the water safe.”
They climb the hill. On the other side, where there used to be black tar and mountains of piled-up litter, instead they are welcomed by the crisp sound of tumbling, clean waves. The sand is pure white like dried snow, soft like baby powder under their feet.
“What do you see?” Izuku asks him.
“It’s smoother,” Katsuki says softly, and Izuku realises that behind his glasses, his eyes are closed as he feels the wind cut past them in a frigid breeze of summer air. “It… It goes on and on. There’s no end to it, it’s...” He grabs Izuku’s hand. “I like it.”
“I like it too,” Izuku whispers. They walk to the shoreline, and their toes sink into the wet sand and clear waters as the waves lap at their feet. The sun pierces through the waters, and the shallows are illuminated into a rich sea-green that Izuku’s only seen digitally.
After years and years of dreaming of this, he’s finally here. The day when he would look out at an ocean that’s blue instead of black, and the waves would sound like frothing water instead of an oil spill. He can feel that illusive ocean breeze soar past him, salty and cold like the draft from a thousand seagulls flying by.
It’s the second-most beautiful thing he’s ever seen.
Katsuki leans against him, blond hair tickling his cheek as he wraps arms around Izuku. Those pale eyes gaze out at the water. “Is it everything you thought it would be?”
“Everything and more,” he say softly. Because you’re here, he doesn’t add on.
“Guess you knew what you were talking about,” Katsuki muses against his cheek. “When you said the ocean made you fall in love.”
Izuku freezes. Katsuki’s grip around his waist is firm. “Does that mean you liked holding the worms?” Izuku asks, dearly hoping he won’t burst into emotional tears.
“I’ll kill you if you make me do that again.”
“Was it really that—?“
“Kiss me.”
Izuku kisses him.
They kiss until Izuku is breathless, and he swears, somewhere along those crashing waves, he swears he hears music intertwine with the swirling waters. A tune that’s haunting and foreign but barely there, subtle like sea foam lost among the shores.
It fills his head with the swoosh of rainbow scales and settles like a puzzle piece in his mind, neatly completing the picture that love, love, he loves Katsuki so much—
The night dissolves around them like soft cotton-balls. Izuku falls asleep to the steady rise and fall of Katsuki’s breathing, tucked into his side, and the waves’ song beats in tune to the strong pulses he feels from within Katsuki’s chest. He counts each beat until the stars are brighter than the moon, and his eyelids drift shut as he and Katsuki curl around each other on their picnic blanket.
He dreams of a warm tail of pale red, warm hands curling around him like the sun’s embrace, those milky eyes like ocean pearls, and knows all of them are Katsuki.
~
“Kacchan,” he says when he wakes up, drowsily reaching over to find Katsuki is already awake, resting on his side and watching him intently. Izuku latches onto his arm and repeats, “Kacchan.”
Katsuki smiles. It starts slowly, then blooms all at once into a wide, breathless smile. In the morning light, his eyes resemble cut crystals. They’re prismatic, and reflect flickers of light into their depths as if they were kissed with magic, blessed with the ability to see something beyond Izuku’s abilities, but when Katsuki looks at him like that, he knows exactly what it is.
He reaches up a hand and rests it firmly against Izuku’s heartbeat. “I’ve been waiting for you to figure it out,” he whispers. “Hi again.”
“Hi again,” he greets, laughing giddily as he clings to Katsuki’s wrist. “We used to be fish,” he says hysterically.
“One of my favourites,” Katsuki muses, and Izuku blinks at the words, stopping to stare at him. With an enigmatic smile, Katsuki says, “There’s a lot to look forward to.”
Izuku can’t pry anything else out of him no matter how hard he tries. He surrenders with a pout, but internally grins at Katsuki’s words.
A lot to look forward to. Izuku refuses to settle for anything less, so he grabs Katsuki’s hand and takes off into a sprint towards the water. Katsuki stumbles and yells after him in elated shouts, and then they’re diving into the waves, tumbling over each other as the current pulls them eagerly into its dance.
When he breaks the surface with a gasp, Katsuki is still beside him, hand locked to his own as he coughs and splutters. He turns to meet Izuku’s watery eyes, blinking from the salt water, and grins before pouncing on him, pushing him into a wrestle. Their laughter echoes off into the horizon as they crash into each other with the tide, and the ocean sings around them, breathing out a pleased sigh as if remembering them, welcoming them home. Not once does Katsuki let go of his hand.
Their ten-thousand years of love continue to grow.
~
