Archive of Our Own

It’s not that he let himself go, necessarily, during his absence from heroics, but he certainly wasn’t in “pro hero shape.” He grew leaner throughout high school and especially afterwards, which Kacchan had noted over the years with various descriptors like “scrawny nerd” and “weak nerd,” only decreasing in creativity from there. 

Rectifying his fitness is a process, which he’s happy to do while he’s waiting for his hero registration paperwork to go through. Kacchan had been quite put out by the expected wait time, but Izuku sees it as an opportunity. “You’ll help me get strong again, right Kacchan?” he had asked at the start, smiling up at Kacchan from his desk.

Kacchan had frozen before mumbling some inarticulate nonsense about “damn” and “shit” and “yeah, of course, stupid fucking nerd.” 

And Kacchan has been incredibly helpful! He and All Might wrote up a workout regimen for him, which Aizawa took a red pen through, and it’s been going swimmingly. Izuku already had a solid muscle base before, but now that he’s working out with the explicit intention of bulking, he’s amazed to find it easier that it ever was in middle school or high school. 

Well. He does have one major advantage that he never had back then. He’s been on testosterone replacement therapy for the past six years and counting. 

Still! He knew testosterone was somewhat helpful for muscle development, but he cannot believe how much faster he’s progressing than during his training in Yuuei. And it’s on a whole other planet than his first experiences in Aldera. He’s sure part of it has to do with the newfound care he’s been approaching his body with in recent years—he has no interest in working past his limits (usually), like he used to very frequently as a teen—but there is no doubt that testosterone is playing a major role in his present success.

It’s hard not to be giddy. He feels similar to how he did when he first started transitioning, when every change felt fresh and startlingly right. It’s the same dance he’d had with every development in his life; he has this need to test the boundaries of it, though he’s learned to temper that with a learned humility by virtue of being in his mid-twenties and, well, a war survivor. Those facts put a bit of a damper on his desire to start out with fifty reps on the pull-up bar. Just a damper, though. He very much would like to do that soon.

He lets himself down from the bar, flashing Kacchan a wide smile. “Thirty! Thirty, Kacchan! When I started, I couldn’t do ten! Isn’t that crazy?”

“Yeah,” Kacchan says, standing to the side with his hands shoved in the pockets of his gym shorts. He doesn’t shift a single centimeter. 

“And I can do fifteen with the reverse hold! I couldn’t do five of that!”

“Yeah.”

He swings his arms, flexing his hands. “Honestly, the grip is the worst part, right now. My hands are still…ah. I don’t think that’s going to change. But still! —Oh, and I started on this new protein powder that Iida-kun recommended.” He squats to grab his towel off the floor. Kacchan shifts, shoving his hands deeper into his pockets. He pops back up, wiping his face. “You’ll have to let me know your opinion on it. I know you think a lot of them are bogus.”

“…Got too many additives,” Kacchan says. “Most of ‘em.”

“Mmhm! Thanks for catching the sugar content in the one I started with, Kacchan. I don’t want to get my sugar from protein powder, haha.” He dabs at his neck. “I’m gonna go shower. You coming?”

Kacchan just looks at him.

Izuku frowns. “Kacchan?”

“You can go ahead.”

He slings his towel over his shoulder. “Okay,” he says slowly. “Thanks for spotting me, today, Kacchan. I really appreciate your support.”

“‘Course,” Kacchan says. “Move out, nerd.”

He shakes his head, smiling. “A nerd for now, Kacchan. At this rate, I’m gonna be on the other end of that pecking order pretty soon!”

Kacchan stiffens.

“Kacchan?”

His eyes don’t leave the floor, shoulders tight. “I’ll catch up. Buzz off.”

He turns, smile falling off his face. 

Maybe Kacchan’s having a bad day. It happens. 

Still, he has to wonder what could have caused it. Kacchan had a normal breakfast, this morning, with his normal morning missive of “shower, you fuckin’ stink” when Izuku had greeted him. He’d taken his normal amount of time getting changed, packed his back with the usual materials, and grabbed the bento Izuku made for him with a weird little side-eye, as per usual. 

Well. Nothing to be done for it. He heads to the locker room, fishing his four-in-one body wash and his shower towel out of his bag.

Kacchan is standing in the entryway to the locker room when he exits the showers, clad only in his running shorts and sandals. 

“Oh, I’m sorry, Kacchan!” He startles, dropping his towel around his shoulders, feeling a blush crawl from his cheeks down his throat. It’s okay to be shirtless, he reminds himself. Totally fine! Even years out from his top surgery, he still has that occasional blip of nerves. To be fair, he’s never been one for onsens and Kacchan and he have rarely had to interact in such close quarters, given his assigned sex, even in high school, so sharing a locker room (as pro heroes) is very new for the both of them and…

“It’s fine,” Kacchan says shortly. His eyes dart to Izuku’s chest, then his stomach, then the floor. Then back to his face. His jaw winds tighter and tighter during this inspection. 

They stand in silence for several seconds. 

This is not normal, Izuku notes internally, starting to frown. Even by Kacchan and me standards, this is really not normal at all.

“Put a fucking shirt on,” Kacchan snaps, face red, voice loud.

Izuku jolts. “Sorry! I’ll… Yeah, sorry, Kacchan.”

“…don’t wanna see that shit,” he hears Kacchan mutter as he stuffs his head into his locker. 

Izuku swallows thickly, stomach chilling. He takes a few deep breaths, each exhale clanging in the small metal space, before he pulls his head out and shoves himself into his shirt with a smile. 

It’s really curious. He can’t find any inciting incident besides what he is now referring to as “The Pec Incident.” Izuku isn’t sure what to make of what’s happening now. Or not happening. Because Kacchan is avoiding him ever since he saw him shirtless in the locker room, two weeks ago. 

After that weird outburst during The Pec Incident, Kacchan has found every excuse not to work out with him. In fact, they’ve barely talked at all. He wakes up an hour earlier and leaves just when Izuku is getting out of bed for school, now. He still answers his texts, still eats his bentos, but he’s become like a ghost. Izuku’s very tempted to leave a note in one of his lunches for Kacchan asking what the deal is. So far, he’s managed to refrain, placing only his typical Have a good day at work Kacchan!!! ^w^ - your #1 fan notes inside. 

It’s just…Kacchan had been staring pretty intently at his chest. His, er. His nipples, specifically. Which is fine! It’s totally fine to do that. Izuku sure does have nipples. And a chest. It’s a nice chest; he doesn’t feel bad saying that. He had a very good surgeon, after all. Kacchan even met her in the post-op appointment, when she mistakenly thought they were married! Haha, good times. 

This is all getting confused in Izuku’s head. The point is: Kacchan looked at him really intensely and then acted like whatever he saw was distasteful. And that’s… Yeah. He isn’t sure what other kind of conclusion to draw from that interaction. 

This isn’t to say that Kacchan is transphobic! He really doesn’t think that is the cause. Hopes it isn’t. Really hopes it isn’t. 

Even if Kacchan isn’t transphobic, there was definitely something weird about The Pec Incident that smacked of discomfort on Kacchan’s part. But why? This isn’t computing for Izuku. It doesn’t appear to line up with the rest of his Kacchan data at all. 

Kacchan had handled him coming out really well, at the start. As far as Izuku can tell anyways; Kacchan and he have never really talked about the whole ‘trans’ thing. Not explicitly, at least. Names changes, terms changes, and they kept moving on. Neither of them ever sat down on either side of a table and had a discussion about it. 

(What would that even look like, anyways? Ah, so awkward!)

He’d come out in droplets throughout high school, donning the male uniform by the time he graduated. Nobody at Yuuei was ever mean about it, not outright. There was nothing explicit to be nasty about, though, and he’d had his fill of sneers and disgusted side-eyes in middle school to keep his social anxiety satiated for many years to come. 

Kacchan had defended him every halting step of the way, once they left Aldera behind. Izuku knows part of later events were an atonement on Kacchan’s part, though truthfully he was never interested in any of that. He figures he’d made himself very clear about his opinions on any of sort of Kacchan self-effacement, since if Kacchan still engages in it, he keeps it far away from Izuku. 

But his point is, Kacchan has been his number one champion in that department. He was the first person he ever officially came out to, though it had long been an open secret. Kacchan was the first person to know his name. 

(I’m sorry, Izuku. For everything.)

They’ve both been very vulnerable throughout this process. He figured that this sort of openness allowed for honesty regarding their feelings, even the ugly ones. Apparently not, though. Apparently there are things he hadn’t known before The Pec Incident. Apparently Kacchan can’t stand to be in a locker room with him. Apparently Kacchan thinks his developing pecs are shit that nobody wants to see.

He isn’t sure how to process this information. Really isn’t sure what to do with it. 

“He thinks you’re attractive,” Todoroki says blandly, taking a sip from his iced coffee.

Izuku shakes his head, continuing to pensively look out the coffeeshop window. “That can’t possibly be true. Kacchan has never looked at me like that before.”

“He has, though?”

He shakes his head again, more emphatically. “No, I definitely would have noticed something like that.”

“Todoroki-kun and I have been telling you for the past decade.” Uraraka leans forward on an elbow. “I’m pretty sure everybody knows except you, at this point.”

Izuku frowns. “You didn’t see the look on his face. He was…” Disgusted. “Really upset.”

Uraraka’s eyes soften, a frown pulling at her lips. “Deku-kun…”

“He was probably just turned on,” Todoroki says.

Izuku sighs. He takes a despondent sip from his kale smoothie. 

“You look great, by the way,” Uraraka says, tone light. “Really.”

“Thanks,” he mumbles around his straw.

Todoroki nods. “Bakugou’s always been into bara.”

Uraraka covers her face.

“I’m not a bara,” Izuku says. “I’m not big enough. I’m like a…hm.”

“A nerd,” Uraraka completes, a teasing smile sliding across her lips.

He pouts. “Uraraka-san.”

Todoroki stares at the ceiling thoughtfully. “Maybe Bakugou is into buff nerds?”

“Sorry I’m late,” Iida says, voice loud as ever. He slides into the chair next to Izuku, setting down his milk coffee. “Are we talking about Bakugou-kun’s romantic tastes?”

“Sexual, I think,” Todoroki replies. “I already solved the romance theory during second year.”

Uraraka flings out a hand over his side of the table. “Deku-kun is worried because Bakugou-kun was apparently being weird to him in the locker room. We’re pretty sure Bakugou-kun was just flustered because he’s had a thing for Deku-kun for…ever? Forever.”

“He has not,” Izuku says, frowning. He looks at Iida. “Can you tell them to knock it off? I would know if Kacchan had feelings for me of any kind.”

Iida opens his mouth. Then he closes it. 

“Maybe not,” Todoroki says. “Iida is a buff nerd and I don’t think I’ve ever seen Bakugou have a sexual response to him.”

Uraraka sighs heavily. 

Todoroki nods again. “Bara,” he decides. “Midoriya, you’ve got stomach hair now. I bet it’s that.”

Izuku dumbly places a hand over his clothed abdomen. 

Iida takes a small sip from his coffee, lips thin. 

“I can’t believe I’m agreeing with a Todoroki-kun theory, but we’re both on Team ‘Bakugou-kun has the hots for Deku-kun,’” Uraraka says. 

“That’s definitely not what happened,” Izuku insists. “You weren’t there. He thinks I’m gross. It’s the only reasonable explanation.”

“I…also wasn’t there,” Iida says haltingly. “However, I wouldn’t discount Bakugou-kun having a…shocked reaction to seeing you, Midoriya-kun. You’ve never really taken your shirt off in front of people before. And you have made significant progress with your bulking regime, so it may be a combination of those two factors.”

That’s true. “I’m becoming a lot more comfortable with that stuff,” he says. “Or trying to be. Um. Kacchan said ‘don’t want to see that shit’ or something similar, when he saw me. Was kind of a blow, haha.”

Iida frowns. “That is upsetting to hear.”

“Yes!” Thank goodness, somebody on his side. “And I don’t think Kacchan is, like, transphobic transphobic, if that makes any sense, but he was looking at me like…with that look. I’ve seen it before. Just never on Kacchan’s face.”

“Define ‘look,’” Uraraka says.

Izuku shrugs, waggling a hand. “It’s just a— A look. I’m not great with expressions. Um, it’s…” He mimics the expression. Uraraka grimaces at the sight. Todoroki cocks his head. “Like that.”

“Your face looked very scary when you did that,” Todoroki says.

“Th-the other thing is, Iida-kun, is that Kacchan was working out with me at the gym and now he’s basically disappeared!”

“Disappeared?” Iida frowns. “Don’t you two live together?”

“Yes! And he’s never around anymore! We had a schedule before.” He pulls out his notepad, flipping it open. “I’ve taken detailed notes on the changes. See, Kacchan would wake up at 6:05am on the dot every morning before The Pec Incident. Now he’s waking up closer to 4:56am! And Kacchan is not a morning person, so this surely involves a significant effort on his part. He’s still answering my texts like normal and he’s eating the bentos I make him, but we never see each other face-to-face anymore.”

Uraraka sighs heavily. 

“That is strange,” Iida remarks.

“I know! I don’t know what to do about it.”

“Have you tried talking to him?”

Izuku blinks. He ducks his head, flipping furiously through his notepad. “That’s not a solution that I considered,” he murmurs. “I really should have, though… Let me write that down.” He pulls out a small pencil from his other pocket, writing down talk to Kacchan on his list of proposed solutions, right under hire a sky writer to ask Kacchan why he thinks I’m ugly.

“In the meantime,” Iida says, “we can help you work out, Midoriya-kun. I really can’t say what’s going on with Bakugou-kun—”

“He has a big, fat crush on Deku-kun,” Uraraka says flatly.

“—but we are also your friends and we’re happy to help you where we have time.”

Izuku brightens, setting his notepad down. “Thank you, Iida-kun! I really appreciate it.”

Todoroki takes a long sip from his iced coffee. “Midoriya, can you help me move a couch into my new apartment?”

“Sure!” he replies.

“I really think the most effective place to work out is at the gym,” Uraraka says.

Todoroki sets down his coffee. “I wasn’t asking about working out. I was just asking if Midoriya would help me move my couch this Friday.”

Iida sighs, pinching the bridge of his nose. 

Izuku smiles, dipping to drink from his kale smoothie. Things might be rough with Kacchan right now, but it is good knowing his friends have his back. 

The lights click, bathing the kitchenette in a harsh glow. 

“Kacchan,” he greets, hands folded in front of him on the bar.

Kacchan jolts, taking a step back. “Fuck! How long were you skulking there in the dark?”

“About forty minutes,” he replies. “Kacchan, we need to talk.”

Kacchan blinks owlishly, squinting at him. His pupils are dilated. Probably from the change in light. “Wha?”

“We need to discuss The Pec Incident.”

“The what?”

He shakes his head. Please, Kacchan! Yes, it’s early, but try to keep up. “You’ve been avoiding me for the past two weeks, Kacchan. We need to talk about it.”

Kacchan’s eyes widen. He promptly turns and walks away.

Izuku scrambles off of his stool. “Kacchan, wait! We need to talk!”

“There’s nothing to talk about!” Kacchan snaps, rankled. 

“But you’re avoiding me and I just want to know what I did wrong!”

He stops, facing his bedroom door. His head is lowered, shoulders tense. “…You didn’t do anything wrong.”

“Oh. Okay. Um.” He swallows, fiddling with his fingers. “Then can you stop avoiding me, please? I miss you.”

Kacchan’s back expands as he takes a deep breath. “Yeah,” he says softly. “Yeah, Izuku. Sorry.”

“It’s okay.” He isn’t sure if it’s actually okay. He’s just glad to have Kacchan back. “Do you want breakfast, Kacchan?”

“Sure.”

“Alright! I’m gonna go heat up some miso soup and—”

“Sounds good. I’m gonna shower.”

Izuku blinks. “You never shower in the morning.”

“Gonna today. Buzz off.”

“…Okay.” Maybe he’s not as out of the woods as he thought. “Um. Do you want to work out with me, later today?”

“Can’t. Busy.” Kacchan’s door clicks shut. 

Izuku frowns. The mystery, he thinks as he heads back to their kitchenette, is only growing more convoluted.

“It went okay,” he says, doing bicep curls beside Iida, “but Kacchan’s still acting weird.”

“How so?”

“Well, his schedule is mostly back to normal, but he’s still not showing up at the gym anymore. He told me he’s ‘really busy’ but when I asked what he was busy with over breakfast, he wouldn’t tell me.”

“The direct approach is always best, Midoriya-kun!” Iida insists. 

“Sure, but what do I do if he’s not answering my very direct questions?”

Iida hesitates. 

Izuku swaps to military presses, waiting for his response.

“I’m…not sure, in that case,” Iida admits. “I have always read that a direct approach is the most effective strategy for solving miscommunication in the workplace. I have to assume it extends to personal relationships as well.”

“Maybe I’m just not going about being direct the right way,” Izuku muses. 

“It’s possible.”

He nods. “I probably waited too long. It was two weeks after Kacchan was weird that I brought it up, after all. Next time something weird happens, I’ll be sure to address it immediately. That’ll help, I’m sure.”

Iida offers an encouraging smile. “I think that’s an excellent plan, Midoriya-kun.”

“Thanks, Iida-kun. I really appreciate your advice. Oh! Do you think you can spot me at the benchpress?”

“I think he wants to sleep with you,” Todoroki says, lying on his new couch. 

“Todoroki-kun, I really don’t think you understand my relationship with Kacchan at all.” Izuku grunts, gritting his teeth. 

“Do you really need to be on the couch?” Uraraka asks, strained. 

He lifts his head. “What’s the problem?”

“You’re making it heavier.”

“Am I? I thought you were using your quirk.”

Izuku stumbles up another step when Uraraka shifts the couch. “I had a hard day at work!” she snaps. “I can’t be overextending my quirk if I want to make sure I can keep down my dinner, tonight!”

“Oh.” Todoroki sits up.

“Don’t shift your weight!” Izuku yelps, readjusting. 

Uraraka groans.

Todoroki lies back down. 

“We are such good friends,” she says.

“It’s not a big deal,” Izuku reassures Todoroki, following her up another step.

“Don’t enable him!”

“Midoriya is the one with the heavier end,” Todoroki notes, tapping his chin. “If anyone should complain, it should be him.”

“Uraraka-san has worked all day,” Izuku replies. “She’s definitely more exhausted than me.”

“Don’t defend both of us!” she says. “Ugh, Deku-kun, you’re too nice. It drives me crazy.”

He flushes. “L-let’s just get this into his apartment, please. How many more steps? I can’t see.”

“Fifteen.”

He nods, taking a deep breath. 

“Anyways, I’m positive that Bakugou wants to sleep with you,” Todoroki says. “All the signs point to it.”

The breath hisses out. “There are no signs.”

“Okay, now I’m swapping sides,” Uraraka says. “There are so many signs, Deku-kun.”

“There aren’t,” he insists, huffing as they go up two more steps. “Could we move more quickly, please? Sorry.”

“He is constantly staring at you.” Uraraka grunts as they shift up a few more steps. 

“He is not.”

“He is,” Todoroki says.

“Kacchan looks at me more than other people,” Izuku acknowledges, his patience wearing a bit thinner the longer they slowly shuffle up this stairwell. “Yes. Sure. But I estimate that he looks at me, on average, about twenty percent longer than he does when he looks at other people he’s close to. That’s potentially significant, but unsurprising, considering we’re childhood friends. If you have different figures, I’d love to hear them, but you should back them up with sufficient data.”

“How are you breathing?” Uraraka asks weakly.

“I’ve theorized that he has a quirk,” Todoroki says, “which allows him to talk so fast.”

“Don’t mention quirks like that,” she hisses. 

“Why?”

“It’s fine,” Izuku says, something very tired in his chest rolling onto its side. 

Uraraka sighs. “Anyways, Bakugou-kun stares at you. He’s always looking at you like he’s interested,” she says, “like he always has, even when you two were punching each other every other interaction.”

“Maybe he’s just so used to it that it seems normal?” Todoroki ponders.

“You guys are making stuff up,” Izuku replies. “And if you keep talking about this, I’m gonna drop my end of the couch.”

Uraraka quickly scrambles up another three steps, lips a thin line.

“What are you doing?”

Kacchan startles, knocking his head against the lip of the washing machine with a sick thunk. 

Izuku darts to his side. “Oh my gosh, Kacchan, are you okay?”

“Fine,” Kacchan chokes out.

“Bend down, lemme see your head.” He stands on his tip-toes, fishing through Kacchan’s hair for the forming bump. His thumb squishes against his skull, pulling out a hiss. “Oof. Kacchan, we should ice this.”

Kacchan grunts. 

Izuku steps away. “I’ll grab an ice pack from the freezer, just hold tigh…”

A pair of his boxer briefs is clenched tightly in one of Kacchan’s hands. His favorite red pair, which he totally didn’t wear twice this week before finally tossing them in his laundry basket, this morning. 

“Kacchan?” he asks, voice distant to his own ears.

Kacchan gives him a scowl before his eyes widen. He opens both hands, the crumpled underwear falling back into the washer.

Neither of them says anything.

“I’m…going to go grab that ice pack,” Izuku says blankly. He turns and heads out. 

There’s another, fainter thunk behind him. He doesn’t address it.

He flexes in the bathroom mirror, smiling at the bulge of his biceps. And his pecs! Lats are developing nicely, too. It’s all looking really good. Sorry to sound vain, but he’s just so excited! He looks like— Well, not like All Might, but like something he always imagined in his head but never thought was achievable in the real world.

He looks like…well, a man! 

Sure, he’s not hot, but that’s okay. Izuku never expected to magically become attractive. What he’s excited about goes beyond just looks—it’s about embodiment. About liking what he sees, personally. 

The swell of his forearms is an incredibly nice bonus, though. 

When the door opens, he yelps, arms flinging up to cover his chest. Kacchan stands at the threshold, staring dumbly at him. “K-Kacchan!” he squeaks and there goes any illusion of gender confidence. “Sorry, I thought I locked the door.”

Kacchan doesn’t move. 

“I was…um. J-just admiring my progress! Your workout regime and diet are really good. So thank you.” Shit, that’s embarrassing to admit, isn’t it? “Sorry, I probably wasn’t supposed to say that. Can you forget that? The first part, I mean, not the second. I am grateful.”

Kacchan turns on his heel, spine stiff, and exits. 

“You need a new suit.”

Izuku spits half of his tea back into his cup. 

Aizawa leans against the table, looking down at him. “Shoulders.”

“Wh-huh?”

“I said you need a new suit. The shoulders are tight. Doubt you’re getting much range of motion.”

Izuku flushes. “Does it look that bad?”

He cocks his head. “Looks pretty silly,” he settles on. “I know how much you make, Midoriya-kun. You can afford new clothes.”

“Ah. Yeah, I‘ll get right on that. I honestly didn’t notice.” Shoot. He probably looks like a total idiot. How long has he been doing that for?

Aizawa grunts, taking a swig from his mug of coffee. “You’re not doing anything stupid, trying to get back into shape, are you?”

He offers a crooked smile. “Trying not to.” 

Aizawa scrutinizes him for a moment. Then, “Trying isn’t good enough. Follow the regime.”

He nods, ducking his head. 

“You’re not taking supplements, are you?”

His head flies back up. “Huh? No. Besides my normal multivitamin, I mean.” He pauses. “—Well, I do take testosterone daily. But that’s not related to, um. Ah.”

Aizawa blinks. He clears his throat, taking a long drink. “Right,” he says. “That makes sense, then.”

“It’s not steroids, Aizawa-sensei! Um. Technically. Anabolic steroids have a different proportion of—”

“I believe you.” He sets his coffee down. “Get a new suit and stop staying so late.”

Izuku blushes, rubbing the back of his head. “You know I’m just gonna take my grading home, then, right?”

“Better home than here,” he says flatly. “Go see that disaster of a roommate of yours.”

“Kacchan’s not a disaster,” he retorts immediately.

Aizawa snorts, patting his shoulder as he steps past him. “It always shocks me how blind you are.”

He twists in his chair. “I can see fine?” 

“Get out of the break room, Midoriya-kun,” Aizawa replies, which fails to clarify anything.

“I need new clothes,” he laments to Kacchan, over dinner.

Kacchan stops shoveling curry into his mouth. “Why?”

“Ah. Aizawa-sensei said that my suit’s too tight now. In the shoulders and stuff. Which, um. I guess I should have noticed. I probably need a whole new wardrobe, though, if that’s the case. Since the suit was tailored…”

Kacchan stiffens. He stares at his bowl.

“Kacchan…?” Izuku asks.

“We can get you a new suit,” he says. “‘S no problem.”

“Oh, I know! I just mean, maybe I should be looking at new casual wear, too. My t-shirts definitely have been feeling tighter lately. I don’t want to look stupid.”

Kacchan doesn’t blink.

“It’s embarrassing that I didn’t notice,” Izuku says. “I guess I’ll always think of myself as that scrawny nerd I used to be, from before high school, haha… But I weighed myself this evening and it turns out I’ve gained another five kilograms! I hadn’t even noticed. It’s crazy to think about, but I really am bulking up, aren’t I?”

Kacchan stands, his chair screeching.

Izuku looks up at him, eyes wide. 

Kacchan opens his mouth. He closes it.

“Kacchan…?”

“Bathroom,” he says shortly. 

Izuku listens to the door slam. He shoves his bowl away, waiting for Kacchan to come back. Or yell that he’d fallen in the toilet. Or anything. 

One minute becomes five becomes ten becomes twenty. 

Kacchan doesn’t come back. 

“I really don’t know what I did.” He despondently fits the bar back on the benchpress. 

Tokoyami steps away. “Perhaps this is not the best place to be having this sort of discussion, Midoriya-kun.”

“I have to get in all my reps, though!”

A small sigh escapes his beak. “Then you may want a better partner. I am not the best choice for spotter with your present weight sets.”

Izuku sits up. “Sorry,” he says sheepishly, wiping his hands on his running shorts. “I could lift a lot more in high school, so I figured it wasn’t that heavy.”

“With or without One For All?”

“...With,” he admits.

Tokoyami just shakes his head. 

Dark Shadow peeks its head over his shoulder. “Can we go back to discussing boy problems? That was definitely the better conversation.”

Tokoyami side-eyes it. 

“Right,” Izuku says. “It’s just that— Well, there’s no need to rehash everything I’ve already told you. But it’s so concerning! Kacchan was so encouraging about me getting back into pro hero shape and now he’s…I dunno.”

“And you believe the onus was him viewing you in a disrobed state,” Tokoyami says.

“Yeah. I mean, I think so. It was right after that where his behavior changed.”

“Did it?” Dark Shadow asks, doubtful.

Izuku blinks. “What do you mean?”

“Well, Blasty’s always been weird about you, is what I mean.”

“I don’t understand,” he says slowly. “Could you define the terms you’re using? Like ‘weird’?”

Tokoyami grimaces, ruffling the feathers along his cheeks. “I regret to concur with Dark Shadow, but it has a point. Bakugou-kun has always held…certain eccentricities regarding you, Midoriya-kun.”

“Like the photo of you that he has in his locker!” Dark Shadow says.

Izuku cocks his head, frowning. “How’s it weird to have a photo of me in his locker? We’re childhood friends.”

“He doodled hearts around it.”

He rises from the bench, squatting to re-tie his shoes. “I bet somebody like Kaminari-kun did that as a prank. I’ve never known Kacchan to draw hearts before.”

“There’s no getting through to him, is there, Fumi?” Dark Shadow says lowly.

“Your efforts would be better expended elsewhere,” Tokoyami replies.

“Well, let’s track his behavior on a Bakugou Weird-o-Meter,” Dark Shadow says to Izuku. “Try to recall every time he’s—”

“I’ve written them all down in my notepad,” he replies, pulling it out of his back pocket. “You’re right, though; going over them again could prove helpful! Should I start from the beginning or from the most recent instance of strange Kacchan behavior? How about the beginning? So, when I was shirtless in the locker room was…”

Tokoyami and Dark Shadow exchange a look. 

Kacchan raps his knuckles on the window of his classroom, causing him to nearly fall out of his chair. “Took you long enough to open up,” Kacchan grouses, slipping inside once Izuku pushes the glass up.

“Sorry, I wasn’t expecting you.”

“Here.”

He catches the wrapped bento, holding it to his chest. “Kacchan?”

“Figured I’d return the favor.”

“Oh!” His face feels hot, fingers squeezing the container. “That’s very kind, Kacchan. Did you want to eat lunch together?”

“Sure.” Kacchan slides onto the only clean spot on his desk, unwrapping his bento. Izuku sits gingerly at his chair, watching Kacchan delicately pick out the handwritten note and folding it, placing it in his breast pocket. 

Aw, that’s sweet. Kacchan is so cute.

Izuku looks down, unwrapping his own bento. “Oh,” he says. “This matches my macros perfectly, Kacchan, thank you.”

“We literally planned your diet out together. Of course I know your meal plan, ner…dipshit.”

“Yeah. Do you think that has to do with how much more easily I’m gaining muscle, now?”

Kacchan rolls his eyes. “It definitely helps.”

“Ah. Yeah, for sure. I guess the whole testosterone thing is the main culprit, though.” He takes a bite of his kale. “Crazy how many small things that changes, huh? Even stuff like fat distribution’s changed. I even smell different!”

Kacchan’s knuckles tighten over his bento. 

Izuku smiles down at his food. “I’m really happy that I went ahead with transitioning. I can’t believe how much better I feel. So…thank you, Kacchan. Um, for being good about it.” He thinks. He hopes. 

“‘Course,” Kacchan says. He sounds sincere. Or he’s successfully matching the wavelengths that Izuku had noted indicate sincerity for Kacchan. 

Thinking about the issue critically for too long only introduces heartache. (I’m sorry, Izuku. For—) It’s better if he believes Kacchan. He’s believed Kacchan on bigger things, certainly.

“Oh, Kacchan! What is this thing?” He picks up a crunchy, hole-filled thing in his chopsticks, holding it up.

Kacchan gives him a weird look. “Lotus root? What the hell?”

“Is that what it is?”

“How the hell do you not know what lotus root is?”

He cocks his head. “Is that something I should know?”

“It’s fucking… Everybody knows that. You’ve eaten it plenty of times. What are you, stupid?”

He lets out a laugh, falling back against his chair. “I guess,” he says, smiling cheekily. “Maybe all the protein and testosterone’s going to my head.”

It happens again. Kacchan closing off, he means. That thing. His eyes are wide. Then he looks away, suddenly cold and disinterested. 

So jokes make him uncomfortable, too. 

Izuku restrains a sigh, tucking into his meal. “Thank you for the food, Kacchan,” he says, subdued.

Kacchan doesn’t reply. He just looks out the window, face red.

“And I’ve been making note of every instance where it’s happened, but there just seem to be new scenarios cropping up!” He readjusts his posture, squatting to grab the bar. 

Jirou pops her bubblegum, watching him deadlift. “Shit, Green, that’s some crazy weight you’re throwing around.”

He drops it, the ground rumbling under his heels. His muscles tingle, right arm twinging in warning. No pain, though. “I’m shocked by how easier it is,” he gasps, wiping his forehead. “It’s— So much easier than in high school! Not insanely, but still. I— I feel better, too.”

“You definitely look different than you did in the dorms,” she says. “You’re turning into a real beefcake, now.”

He looks away, bashful. “I don’t know about that…”

“Just make sure you’re doing your stretches.”

“Ah… I’m trying.”

She arches a brow.

“I’ll do better,” he promises. “I guess I could spend my Kacchan rumination time stretching instead of just staring at my ceiling.”

“Right. You might want to sort out your feelings for him while you’re at it.”

“Feelings?” he echoes. 

“Yeah. Your feelings. For Bakugou-kun.”

His face feels even hotter. “F-for Kacchan? Well…”

Jirou blows another bubble. “Come on. Don’t tell me you haven’t thought about it during your ‘ruminations.’”

“I dunno,” he mumbles, tapping his fingers together. “Kacchan is so out of my league.”

“That’s not what I asked.”

“W-well, I’ve never really thought about it that hard.”

“If Bakugou-kun started dating somebody—”

He grimaces.

She gives him a pointed look.

“Kacchan would never.” Right? Never. Right?

“Midoriya-kun, you’re looking pretty scary right now.”

“Kacchan wouldn’t date somebody,” he says. More for his own benefit than to express the truth. “He’s so focused on his career and…and I’d know about it, if he dated! I know everything about Kacchan.”

“Do you?” Jirou asks, skeptical. 

That rankles him, he’ll admit. “Yes! I do.”

“And you’ve never once thought about your feelings for him.”

“Why would I?”

She shakes her head.

“I mean. Kacchan is attractive,” he says, blushing. “He’s the absolute coolest person ever. A-and on top of that, he has a gorgeous figure and a very nice butt. Everybody knows that, though.”

“Everybody,” she echoes.

“If you’re asking if I’d like to, um, be with Kacchan, of course I would. I’d like to spend every day of my life with Kacchan and share every kind of experience. That’s not surprising though, is it?” He drums his fingers on his thighs, brushing against the hem of his shorts. “But Kacchan is way out of my league, like I said. It’d be a very silly thing to spend all my time wishing for him in that way; I’m more than content with what we already have. Every day with Kacchan is a gift, no matter how it’s spent.” Even if some of them, in recent memory, have been spent with Kacchan walking away from him and hiding in his room. 

Jirou winds her ear jack around her finger, sighing. “Green, I know this is falling on deaf ears, but he’s not out of your league. You’re attractive. Especially to people with a certain taste.”

He blinks. “Certain taste?”

“Ask him about his feelings,” she says. “You might be surprised by how he responds.”

“Ah… Sure, I guess. It’s a harmless thing to ask, after all.” He shrugs, spreading his legs as he gets back into position to deadlift. “Anyways, I’m gonna do another rep, okay?”

“Kacchan, how do you feel about me?”

Kacchan chokes on his toothbrush. 

“It’s a harmless question!” Izuku says. “Jirou-san and I were talking and she said to ask.”

Kacchan spits a wad of foam into the sink. “The hell? Tell her to mind her fuckin’ business.”

“Ah. I can do that! I’ll say it more nicely, probably, though.”

“That’s such a stupid question, anyways,” Kacchan says. 

“True,” he agrees. “I’ve never thought about it either because it’s pointless.”

Kacchan grunts, rinsing his toothbrush. 

“Then she said I was attractive, which was also really ridiculous.” He smiles, shaking his head. “Jirou-san was full of all sorts of silly ideas, I—”

Kacchan tenses, fingers clenching the edge of the counter. 

“Kacchan?” he asks tentatively. “Is something wrong?”

“She said you’re hot?”

“Attractive,” he corrects. “Um. Yeah.” He taps his mouth. “Though now that I think about it, she said to people of a ‘certain taste,’ so maybe she was actually saying I was ugly?”

“You’re not ugly,” Kacchan says shortly.

“Oh. That’s nice of you to say, Kacchan. Anyways, if you were dating somebody, you’d tell me, right?”

Kacchan furrows his brow. “I think it’d be impossible for you not to know.”

“Ah. That’s what I thought, too! That’s good. I’m glad Kacchan’s…” Do not say ‘not dating anyone.’ Do not say ‘living a single lifestyle.’ Do not say ‘is mine, all for me.’ “…so communicative with me.”

Kacchan just rolls his eyes, which is such a Kacchan move. A true classic. “Uh huh. Now scram, ner…loser. I gotta shower.”

“But I gotta pee!”

“Fuck off.”

“Why? I can pee while you’re in the shower. Don’t be ridiculous, Kacchan. It only takes me around seven seconds to urinate on avera—”

Kacchan shoves him out of the doorway. Hard.

“And then I asked Kacchan how he felt about me and he just said it was a stupid question! Which, yeah, it sort of was, but still.”

Tokoyami stares at him. He hasn’t touched his iced latte once in the fifteen minutes that they have sat here. Dark Shadow idly fiddles with the straw.

“Hey. I’ll take him paying for our meal.”

“You can’t even eat,” Tokoyami mutters. 

“I just don’t get it,” Izuku mumbles, hanging his head. 

“You can’t be direct like that,” Dark Shadow says.

He looks up, hair flopping against his face. “Huh? But everyone has told me to be.”

“With Bakugou? The guy is emotional constipation the whole way down. No way.”

“I…hesitate to agree with Dark Shadow,” Tokoyami says, “but its observation is coherent. You may need to have Bakugou-kun breach the subject with you, rather than confronting him.”

Izuku frowns. “But he hasn’t said anything.”

“Maybe it’s something embarrassing,” Dark Shadow says, lifting a claw. “You mention his face getting red a lot in your notes.”

“Embarrassing?”

Tokoyami shakes his head. “There is no sense in speculating such things.”

“That’s literally why we’re here!”

Izuku taps his pencil against his lips. “I guess it could be embarrassing… Kacchan seemed embarrassed when I caught him handling my dirty underwear, after all.”

“He what?”

“That was just a small incident, though, and there are so many explanations for how that happened. Anyways, I’m much more concerned about him not being okay with me even joking about, you know, about anything related to my transition.”

“Back up, back up,” Dark Shadow says, alarmed. “Your dirty underwear?”

“Yeah, like I said, he doing laundry, I think? He bumped his head on the washer when I startled him.”

Tokoyami makes a very strange face. Izuku is bad at reading faces outside of his Kacchan Expression Catalog, so he doesn’t bother trying to interpret it. Dark Shadow’s mouth is hanging open. Wait— Is that a mouth? Does Dark Shadow have a mouth, technically speaking?

“We didn’t talk about it,” Izuku says, waving his hand. “It was just a minor thing, but I did note it in my Kacchan blush occurrences, since it was a blush. Though it’s very likely it was an effect from having his face stuffed in the washer.”

“He…had his head,” Tokoyami says slowly, “in the washer. With your underwear in his hands.”

He shrugs. “Yeah. Can we get back to the topic, please? If I’m not being direct with Kacchan, what else can I do? I’m not great at most manipulation tactics and waiting for Kacchan to say anything seems like it won’t net any real results, considering he was avoiding me before I confronted him.”

Tokoyami and Dark Shadow exchange a look. “Dude…” Dark Shadow says. 

“I think bringing up, perhaps, the emotional impact of this situation may be an avenue of communication,” Tokoyami says stiffly. “Or perhaps being more open in general about your state.”

“Oh! Hm… That’s a manipulation tactic, right?” He taps his pencil against his mouth faster. “Weaponized vulnerability… Could work… But I don’t think I’m very good at it. Not that I have a ton of experience, but still.”

“Just be yourself,” Dark Shadow says tiredly. “This shitshow will sort itself out eventually.”

His desk lamp buzzes over his head like a hateful little sun, beaming migraines directly into his skull. The apartment is quiet, at least. Sometimes he has to ask Kacchan to mute the television when he’s working, but Kacchan’s been in the bathroom since Izuku shuffled out in his lounge clothes to start grading, tonight. Kacchan had grumbled when Izuku had asked to have his tiny work desk crammed into the corner of their shared living room, but had relented quickly when Izuku had admitted that he liked the company. Kacchan is secretly quite nice about stuff like that.

“I’m so exhausted, I’m barely literate,” he groans, rubbing his face.

“Huh?” Kacchan dries his hair roughly with a towel, dressed in his pajamas. They’re that soft set that Izuku’s mother bought him for Christmas, two years ago. Light gray. Understated and very cute. 

Izuku gestures at the stack of, admittedly, terrible essays he’s been grading for the past three hours. “I’m illiterate! I don’t think I know any kanji anymore, Kacchan.” At least, not some of the very…interesting kanji some of his students have elected to use with their unique varieties of penmanship.

“The hell do you mean?”

He means he’s tired. He takes a miserable sip from his protein shake. “Working out is way better than this. Maybe I’m more suited for a job where I just smash stuff and don’t have to think anymore.”

Kacchan’s towel drops.

Izuku lifts his head. 

Kacchan is nowhere to be seen, his bedroom door clicking shut.

One of the many advantages of working out is how it wipes most unproductive thoughts from his head. Actually, it wipes most thoughts from his head in general. He was well aware of this appeal long before this new fitness stint, of course; once All Might introduced him to the glories of exercise, he became an obsessive disciple. Unhealthily so, in many respects. 

Before, it had been a way to punish his body. To reach the point where it broke, even, and he floated in a space beyond his body’s capacity to hurt him. 

Now, though, it’s thrilling in a different way. His body is capable of some amazing things! Like…lifting heavy stuff. He is very capable of lifting heavy stuff, Todoroki’s new couch is only one object in a very long and ever-expanding list. 

His wrapped fist thumps against the sandbag. 

“You hit somebody like that in a real altercation and you might kill them,” Aizawa says flatly, barely looking up from his romance novella. 

“I’m not hitting somebody, though!” Izuku replies. “I’m hitting a sandbag.” He punches again with a left hook, lips pulling back. “This is actually really fun!”

“You better not let your students catch you saying that about landing punches.”

He laughs, shaking his head. He wipes his face with the bottom of his t-shirt, nose wrinkling as he lets it drop back own. “U-um, actually, Aizawa-sensei…I did have a question about, er, stuff of a more personal nature.”

His book snaps closed. “Finally, the reason why you invited me to babysit you in the school gym. What the hell has Bakugou-kun done now?”

“How do you know it has to do with Kacchan?”

Aizawa gives him a withering stare.

“Okay,” he says sheepishly, “it’s kind of about Kacchan, yeah.”

He gives a gesture to continue.

“Just— He’s avoiding me, I think. Or— Well, ever since The Pec Incident, he has.”

“The Pec Incident.”

“Yeah! That’s what I’m calling the, um, the moment where I noticed his behavior. Because we’d been pretty normal until that moment. —I was in the locker room without a shirt and Kacchan started acting really weird and told me nobody wanted to see my ugly, hideous pecs. Or something. That’s how I recall it anyways.” He lets out a nervous laugh, fingers flexing at his sides. The joints crack. “After that, we didn’t see each other until I confronted him. And now we’re back on our normal schedule, but he won’t work out with me anymore and he gives these kind of weird looks? Toward my body or… I think it’s about my body? I’m used to Kacchan calling me stupid, he already does that a lot… It’s just weird. L-like last night all I said was that I was tired of grading papers and he just…disappeared. It’s so weird. But um. Yeah. The Pec Incident.”

Aizawa sits, absorbing Izuku’s mess of a rehash. He nods to himself in consideration after a moment. “You’re both ridiculous.”

“How?” Izuku asks, desperate for an answer. “Am I wrong? Does it have nothing to do with The Pec Incident? Did I do something to upset Kacchan?”

“No, I think you’ve drawn a very clear connection.”

“I have? Okay, then I’m on to something… It just seems so random. What could my pecs possibly have to do with Kacchan suddenly acting weird around me?”

“I’m sure seeing you shirtless allowed him to take note of certain developments,” Aizawa says dryly.

Izuku turns, frowning. “What do you mean?”

Aizawa just gestures at him.

His brow furrows. Developments. “What developments?”

Aizawa gives his chest a meaningful look.

Izuku takes a sharp step back, cheeks flaring with heat. His chest is developing? L-like… Like developing developing? Hadn’t he already gone through that? Could that even happen again? “R-really?” he manages, strangled. “You think…?”

“It couldn’t be more obvious if you slapped an eye tracker on him. You two make me sick, honestly. Will you stop being idiots and settle this nonsense between you privately?”

Izuku dumbly holds his chest, fingers curling into the tissue through the thin fabric of his shirt. There’s a lot of give. Squishy. Kind of like… Um…

Well, the shape isn’t… Not the same. Admittedly, he hasn’t had the opportunity to hold many boobs, much to his private (very private) despair. “Oh no,” he whispers.

“Oh no?” Aizawa echoes.

“N-nothing, I just…” He bends, wriggling into his hoodie as quickly as he can. It’s baggy, but not baggy enough. Nothing feels baggy enough. He needs to cover himself in a sack at all times. “Um. Forgot I had the stove on! Or something. I gotta go. Thank you, Aizawa-sensei! This has been very enlightening, so thanks for your honest assessment of the situation. I can’t believe I didn’t notice…”

“I think you’re being stupid again,” Aizawa calls after him as he makes his way out of the gym.

“Maybe!” he calls back. “Sorry!” Then he’s out the door.

He squeezes his pec, eying the mirror. It’s sore and soft under his fingers.

I’m sure seeing you shirtless allowed him to take note of certain developments.

What did Aizawa mean by that? Well— Besides the fear that’s clanging around the hollow of Izuku’s skull, bouncing off of every interior wall. 

“Oi, ner— Izuku. Get out. Feels like you’re in the bathroom all the damn time now.”

He turns. “O-oh! Kacchan. Ah… S-sorry, I was just…thinking…I guess.”

Kacchan gives his left ear an irritable look. 

“I’m sorry,” Izuku babbles. “I know you don’t want to see me shirtless—you made that clear, u-um, before, haha—but I just am worried that I might be growing boobs again? They’re so big and they jiggle when I walk and I’m sore, but I can’t tell if that’s because of working out or if I’m somehow growing, u-um… Like, re-growing—?”

Kacchan stares dumbly at his chest. “Huh?”

Izuku sighs, lifting his right pec and letting it drop. “Are these breasts?” 

Kacchan blinks, jerking his head up. “Huh?”

“Aizawa says I’ve had certain…developments. In the chest area. And I think he might have been nicely trying to tell me I’m growing, u-um…r-re-growing…”

Kacchan’s eyes dart between his face and his chest. 

“I think I need to see a doctor,” Izuku manages, throat tight. “I don’t want to get the same surgery again, but if I have to, I will. It’s just such a bummer because I wanted to get stronger, but if this is a side effect then I don’t think—”

“You’re not growing boobs, you muscle-bound idiot!”

Silence follows the tinny echo of Kacchan’s voice. 

Izuku sniffles, rubbing his pecs.

Kacchan squeezes his eyes shut, face very red. “You are— I swear, you’re getting stupider.” His voice cracks. “Those aren’t tits, you fucking moron, they’re muscle and fat. Fat and muscle jiggle. Fat goes over the muscle. When you tense your muscles, the fat stays soft. If growing tits were that easy, don’t you think everybody would be walking around with a rack who wanted one?”

“Oh,” Izuku says. 

Kacchan turns, eyes still closed. He blindly slams his hand into the doorframe before he stumbles out into the hallway.

Izuku listens to his bedroom door click shut. A sound that is growing ever more familiar.

“I messed up,” he says, staring at the ceiling. The couch is very plush and will certainly fuck up his back.

“And how does that make you feel?”

“Like a… I dunno. I’m not good at explaining that sort of stuff. Emotions, you know? It’s all just… I know it’s better if I have a handle on myself. I get…um. I get a bit weird? When I don’t control myself?”

“I thought that was more of an anger thing.”

“Yeah. Um. Yeah, it is.”

Silence. Then, “So you’re mad at Bakugou?”

Izuku sighs, sitting up. “No, Todoroki-kun. I— W-well, kind of? He’s been weird and I don’t get it and that makes me…makes me wanna…” He shakes his head. Wills the feeling to be smaller, swallows it down.

Todoroki hums, sticking two mugs in the microwave to heat up water. “Do you want sencha?”

“What about those milk tea packets?”

“I thought those weren’t part of your diet.”

Izuku scrubs his fingers through his hair. “Yeah, but I think I can have a cheat day, considering.”

“Okay.” Todoroki pulls out two packets, rocking back and forth idly on his heels. “I’m pretty sure Bakugou wants to have sex with you, Midoriya.”

He lets out a deep sigh, squeezing his hands together between his spread knees. “Todoroki-kun. I’m serious. He really doesn’t. He looks at me like I’m some kind of— Of monster or something. Like he’s scared? Kind of?”

“Ah.” Todoroki nods, pulling their mugs out of the microwave. “He’s scared of how much he’s in love with you.”

“That’s really—”

“If he asked you tomorrow to be with him, would you?”

Izuku’s brow furrows. “What kind of question is that?”

He shrugs. “Just curious.”

“I mean. That would never happen. I don’t think of Kacchan like that because it’s pointless.”

Todoroki hands him his mug. 

“Yes,” Izuku says, lowering his eyes. He cups both hands around the drink. 

Todoroki sits beside him, the couch sinking further. “I think you should tell him.”

“Tell him that?”

“Yeah. It might fix this issue.”

Izuku shakes his head, giving a sad smile. “No. I really do appreciate what Kacchan and I currently have. I don’t want to throw that away.”

“Sure,” Todoroki says. “It just sounds like you’re already losing things, if you’re this miserable with the current situation.”

He closes his eyes, taking a short breath. 

“Was that too blunt?”

“No,” he replies. “No, I— You have a point. I’m…scared, I guess, that Kacchan doesn’t like me anymore.”

“I don’t think that’s true,” Todoroki says, “but I can see where you would think that, since you don’t believe our theories.”

A hollow laugh escapes his chest. “Yeah,” he says thickly. He lifts the mug to his lips. After months of a steadfast diet, the tea is too sweet. He gags slightly before taking another sip, letting it soak past his tongue. His eyes slip closed, feeling the warmth in his throat. Then he drinks it all down at once. 

“The only reason I’m comfortable spotting you,” Uraraka says, “is because I can activate my quirk so fast. And because Iida is here.”

Iida nods. The two of them standing above Izuku is reminiscent of going under for surgery. He hums, reaching up to grab the bar. 

“Oh,” Uraraka says, alarmed. “Oh wow—”

“Hm?”

Iida makes a chopping motion at her, grimacing.

“J-just surprised,” she says. “You’ve got, um. Yeah. You’ve really developed your muscles. Congrats.”

Izuku’s eyes sweep between them. He can feel air against his belly from where his shirt rode up when he lifted his arms. Oh well. He readjusts his grip on the the bar and lifts it, bring it down. 

Uraraka’s fingers are lightly holding the bar, thumbs hovering. He’s grateful for the safety measure because it is—admittedly—heavy. The strain through his biceps feels good, but his grip strength is still pretty terrible. It might always be terrible, unfortunately. 

Iida’s glasses gleam in the gym lights. Very surgical, he thinks again, before his thoughts decide they’re better off focusing on keeping his fingers curled correctly.

That’s the best part of working out, the way that it empties his brain of everything except the animal strain of his own body. Breath and pressure and the burn of muscle.

When the bar slides back into place, he lets out another exhale and fights down the impulse to immediately grab it again. 

“Uh uh, mister,” Uraraka says flatly. “You’re taking a break before we do that again.”

Izuku slips out from under the bar, sitting up. He dabs at his forehead with his shirt before letting it drop. “Okay. Thanks so much for spotting me, guys.” As he looks up, he stops.

Sidling along the opposite wall is…Kacchan?

“Kacchan! Kacchan, hey!” It’s been so long since he’s seen Kacchan at the gym, wow! 

Kacchan’s steps stutter. Kirishima, walking beside him, pauses. “Oh, hey, Midoriya!”

“I thought you didn’t have time to work out at this hour anymore,” he says, smiling. “Wow, I wish you’d told me! Great to see you.” He does wish Kacchan had told him, but maybe it was just some last minute thing.

“Totally! Why don’t you guys work out with us?” Kirishima suggests.

Iida makes a soft sound. Then a loud, “Yes! I think that would be enjoyable and productive.”

Uraraka mumbles something Izuku can’t catch as he stands from the bench, tugging down his bunched up shorts. 

Kacchan’s face spasms. Maybe he’s allergic to something in the gym? If that’s the case, why didn’t he just tell Izuku? He would have understood.

“Cool,” Kirishima says. “We’re warmed up and gonna start on chest and back. That sound good?”

“Sounds great,” Uraraka replies. She’s looking at Kacchan with unnerving intensity.

Izuku leans down to re-tie his shoelaces before joining them on the other side of the room. As he sits down at the lats machine, Kirishima whistles. “Wow, Midoriya,” he says. “I haven’t seen you in a few weeks. You’re looking great!”

“Ah, thanks,” he replies, face flushing. “U-um, I’ve been putting in the work, so it’s rewarding to see it pay off. And it’s so much easier than it was in high school! I’m seeing much better gains much more quickly.”

Kirishima lifts an arm, flexing. “I’m sure you taking that man potion is helping!”

“Oh, totally! It’s so much easier to gain muscle like this, you have no idea!” He smiles widely as he does a rep on the lats machine. 

Kacchan stares like he’s watching a murder unfold. 

Izuku’s smile wanes. 

“He’s right, Deku-kun,” Uraraka says, clapping her hands. “You really are looking amazing these days! Like a buff teddy bear.”

He laughs shyly, lifting his shirt to wipe his face. “I-I don’t know about that… But thank you, Uraraka-san.”

Kacchan looks sick. 

“Wow!” Kirishima says. “Check out that stomach. I know you’re not the biggest guy, but you are getting bulky. Crazy impressive.”

Izuku drops his shirt, face hot. “Oh! Um, yeah. Thanks.” He has gotten so much bigger, it’s true! “I have to wonder if being shorter helps with packing on some of the weight. But I also owe so much to the routine Kacchan, All Might, and Aizawa-sensei put together for me! I feel fantastic and I’m so happy with my progress.” He pulls up his sweaty shirt again. “I’ve got pec pecs now!” He lifts the slack muscle, letting it fall. Pecs, not boobs. Kacchan reassured him. “See? I never got to enjoy them before because I had to deal with, um, you know, but now I can see them! I was a little nervous at first, but Kacchan told me they’re definitely pecs. It’s so exciting and…”

Kacchan is paler than plaster.

Izuku slumps, curling inward. He covers his chest, biting his lip. “S-sorry.”

“Why are you apologizing, bro?” Kirishima asks. “That’s sick as hell! Happy for you. You’re putting in a ton of work and it’s really paying off.” He nudges Kacchan. “Midoriya looks great, right?”

Kacchan looks genuinely sick.

Anger blossoms in his chest, hot and coiled and electric, licking at the underside of his ribs. He swallows it back down, but it’s thick. It’s climbing up his throat. It’s hanging off the tip of his tongue. 

“Can you perhaps spot me, Kirishima-kun?” Iida asks.

“And me,” Uraraka says quickly. “Let’s all spot each other.”

“Uh, sure,” Kirishima says. He glances between Izuku and Kacchan. “Yeah. The three of us. We’ll be right back.”

They quickly shuffle off, leaving them alone. Izuku swallows thickly, fingers curling at his sides. 

“I gotta go change,” Kacchan mumbles.

Izuku opens his mouth, but before he can say anything, he’s already walking away.

The feeling swells, pressing against his teeth. As Kacchan slips into the locker room, he slams the door open behind him, hitting the wall with a sharp bang.

Kacchan jumps, twisting around. That’s all the time he has before Izuku has him against the wall. “The fu—?” 

“Everybody’s been giving me good advice for how to talk to you, but none of it works!” he snarls, thumping Kacchan’s arms. “No matter how closely I study you, it’s like I can never wrap my head around you! It makes me feel so stupid.”

Kacchan squirms, face red. 

“What’s wrong with me, Kacchan?” Their heavy breaths mingle. “What’s wrong with me, what makes me so disgusting to you? What is preventing us being closer?”

“The hell are you talking about?”

“You’re avoiding me! Don’t play dumb.” His eyes sting with frustrated tears. “Is it because you saw me shirtless? Why was that so upsetting to you? I didn’t think you were transphobic, but with everything else I just… I don’t know what to think, I—”

“No,” Kacchan bites out. “You’ve got it so fucking wrong, you—”

“Then explain it to me, Kacchan!” 

“I want you to destroy my ass!”

They both freeze at the outburst. 

“Fuck,” Kacchan whispers.

“Fuck?” Izuku squeaks. Like fuck? Kacchan wants him to…?

“Fuck!” Kacchan howls.

Izuku’s hands fly up. “Okay! Whatever Kacchan wants!”

Kacchan blinks, staring at him like he grew another head. 

Izuku flushes, humiliation threatening to swallow him. “Kacchan doesn’t want me to fuck him?”

“Wait, you would?”

They stare at one another.

“I’d do anything for Kacchan,” Izuku replies dumbly. 

“Like you’d…you’d want to…?”

“Yes?” He blinks. “Of course.”

“Of course?” Kacchan echoes shrilly.

Izuku grimaces, stepping back. “Yeah? I’ve always wanted to pound Kacchan’s cute butt.”

Kacchan stares at him, baffled.

“Is that a…problem? I’m sorry, Kacchan. I thought, since you asked me to fuck you, that this was okay to talk about.” He pinches his lower lip. “I often make assumptions about conversational conventions that don’t seem to align with what other people are expecting, though, no matter how intuitive they seem to me. I’ve tried to track different conversational patterns, over the years, to devise a best-case response to most topics, but it rarely nets me much social credit, it seems. Something’s probably flawed in my method, but what? I really—”

“Izuku.”

He looks up. “Hm?”

“I…” Kacchan wets his lips, taking a deep breath. “I…spent eight years chasing a dream.”

“My suit,” he acknowledges. “Thank you, Kacchan. It means so much to me.”

“I wouldn’t do that for anybody.”

Izuku looks at him.

Kacchan swallows. He closes his eyes before opening them again. “I wouldn’t do that for anybody but you.”

“Oh,” he says softly. He’s read enough cheesy romances to read between the lines, there. His conversation charts have come in handy, today. Excellent.

—Wait. Kacchan said that. To him. Kacchan just said… Kacchan…?

“Seriously?” he squeaks. “I— I might be reading this wrong, but the way you said that and how you looked at me, it makes me think you might have feelings for me Kacchan, or have had feelings for me for a while or…”

“Yes,” Kacchan says. He reaches up to squeeze Izuku’s biceps. “Yeah, Izuku.”

“Wow,” he breathes. “That’s so cool.”

“Cool? That’s the word you came up with?”

He lets Kacchan go, taking a step back. “W-well, it is! It’s so cool. Does that mean we’re, um, more than roommates now? Are we like special roommates now?”

Kacchan takes a short breath, pinching the bridge of his nose. “We’re dating,” he says, “if you want.”

“Yes!” His voice is loud in the empty room. He covers his mouth, cringing. “So does that mean we’re gonna kiss and have sex and even, u-um, hold hands?”

Kacchan gives him a dark look. “With the way you’ve been taunting me these past few months, you better rail me against the wall, soon as we’re back in our apartment.”

Izuku yelps, offering a salute. “Yessir!”

The commute back to their apartment is incredibly awkward. First, everyone they’d worked out with had mysteriously disappeared from the gym when they left the locker room. That had been a weird start. He texts Uraraka about it, but the response he receives is just a thumbs up and he isn’t sure what to make of that.

The train isn’t very full at this hour, so they get to sit next to each other. Kacchan won’t look at him. He tries to occupy himself by fiddling with his fingers, loosening the joints. Today is a good day, luckily.

“The hell are you doing?” Kacchan mutters when they’re two stops away.

“Making sure I’m ready to finger you,” he replies. “Is that okay?”

Kacchan doesn’t say anything. He just lowers his head to his chest, ears red.

Again— Izuku is not the best at reading body language, even when he’s recorded its various tells. All he knows is that Kacchan looks very, very cute right now.

They get two steps past the genkan before they’re on each other. Kacchan’s mouth is soft under his, slick and panting. He quickly gives up on attempting a proper kiss, instead lowering his head to suck the thin skin of his throat into his mouth, tugging at it with his teeth.

“F-fuck, Izuku,” Kacchan groans, palms sliding over his shoulders. “Shit, why weren’t we doing this years ago?”

He pulls back. “I thought you didn’t feel that way, so I never considered it.”

Kacchan ducks his head, pressing his face against the crease between Izuku’s arm and his chest. His nose nestles right against his pit. 

Izuku stares. Uhhhhh Kacchan? he doesn’t ask. It takes everything in him not to make a single sound. 

“Fuck,” Kacchan whispers, muffled by his shirt. “How could I not, Izuku?”

“Kacchan,” he exhales, strangled.

Kacchan pulls back, resting his cheek against Izuku’s chest. “You turned into a huge fuckboy, you know that?”

“Hah?”

“Dumbass…”

Izuku blinks at him, unsure how to respond.

Kacchan reaches up, idly squeezing his pec. “Fuck, your chest is huge now.”

“Huh?” he manages.

“Your pecs. They’re thick as hell.”

“Are they?” He admits, even after Kacchan’s reassurance, when he feels them bounce under his shirt, a nervousness still leaps in his throat, part of his brain lighting up with dysphoric terror. He’s considered cutting back. “Y-you weren’t lying before, right? They don’t look like, um, like boo— Um… Do they?”

“You are so fucking stupid,” Kacchan says. He squeezes harder on Izuku’s pec, forcing a wince. “Have you ever seen tits, moron? These ain’t it.”

“I— I guess not. I dunno.”

Kacchan lets out a low moan, nuzzling the divot between his pecs.

Izuku looks at him, dumbfound. “Kacchan is…really into my muscles,” he notes. “Or maybe just my chest. Does Kacchan love boobs?”

“You don’t have boobs, dumbass!”

“W-well, Kacchan is just really—”

He wrenches his face out of Izuku’s chest. “No. I’m gay, you fucking moron. And I don’t have a thing for you being trans, either,” he says. “I just— Want to get that shit out of the way right now.”

Izuku cocks his head. “That’s a thing?”

Kacchan gives him a flat stare.

“I— I don’t know a lot about that kind of stuff, Kacchan, sorry. I’ve always spent most of my online activity on—”

“The same hero analytics forums you’ve been going to since you were eight years old. I fucking know. Ugh.”

“Still, I just— I don’t know what made Kacchan interested in me, I guess.”

“I’ve always been interested,” Kacchan says flatly.

Izuku frowns. “You started avoiding me and stuff, though. That’s recent behavior, which suggests a change in Kacchan’s feelings in some capacity—”

“Because I was getting turned on! ’S embarrassing.”

“Turned on? But I wasn’t doing anything, um, sexy?” Is he even capable of being sexy? Is that within his capabilities?

He knuckles his forehead. “Look. Have you ever heard of a. There’s this…thing. For being into nerds who become buff, stupid guys.”

Izuku digests this, brow furrowing. “Nerds who become…what? Like, um. Like someone who starts out as—”

“As a nerd,” Kacchan says. “A scrawny, weak little nerd. But then he works out and gets buff and stupid. A jock. A nerd who turns into a jock.”

Izuku stares at him. “That sounds…complicated.”

“Complicated? The hell is complicated about it?”

“Well, just that it. Um. Like, it sounds like it requires a story of some sort, haha…” He lifts a finger on each hand. “Like a nerd, and then he has to become a buff guy. Sorry— A buff, stupid guy. So smart and scrawny to stupid and buff? How does that happen?”

“He works out,” Kacchan snaps.

“How’s that make him stupider? If he was already smart, he’d stay smart…”

Kacchan groans.

“I guess I’m pretty simple by comparison,” he continues, tapping his chin. “I just see a pussy or ass and I’m turned on. Don’t need any story… Ah, Kacchan’s so sophisticated in his sexual tastes!”

Kacchan covers his face.

Izuku nods to himself. “Kacchan’s a true intellectual. He needs something complex and deep. I just jerk off to magazine spreads.”

“Izuku.”

“Hm?”

Kacchan’s lips tackle him, warm and wet. He gives a startled squeak, grabbing Kacchan’s shoulders and holding him back to prevent them both from toppling over. “You’re so—” Kacchan gasps, kissing him again. “So— Fucking stupid.”

“You like that, though,” he points out.

“Fuck,” Kacchan groans. “Fuck me, I do. Shit.”

“Can I fuck you today, then, Kacchan? I thought that was where this was going.”

“Yeah. Yeah, yeah, Izuku, you can fuck me. Want you to fuck me.”

His heart is large in his chest, shuddering with each pump of desperate blood. “O-okay. Um. Cool.”

“But first,” Kacchan says, pulling back slightly, “we gotta go over some limits.”

“Limits,” he echoes.

“Things you don’t want. Things you do. That kinda shit.”

“Oh. Um.” He hums. “Well, most of it’s about dysphoria.”

“Sure,” Kacchan says.

“Like, um… Hm. I don’t bottom.”

“Not a problem.”

“Really? Because I mean, like, no touching me there at all. With your hands. Which are things that touch, so I don’t know why I specified that, haha… I just mean, um, not right now, anyways. But I’ll never bottom. I don’t do that.”

“’S fine. Seriously.”

“I just…want to make sure you’re okay with that,” he says, voice softer. “If we’re together. Probably won’t be much variety.”

“I don’t want variety,” Kacchan says. “I want you.”

Izuku looks up, startled. The lines of Kacchan’s face are sincere.

“Besides. You know I don’t—”

“Do anything you don’t want to do,” he finishes. “I know, Kacchan. It’s almost like I’ve heard that same phrase in a thousand different dimensions.”

“Then there’s no problem.” He rubs a warm palm up Izuku’s right pec.

Izuku takes a short breath. “W-well… There is one other thing. I, ah. One other thing I can’t do.”

“Sure,” Kacchan says, thoroughly distracted by the slide of Izuku’s shirt under his fingers as they dig into the meat of his pec.

“…I can’t touch your penis.”

It’s quiet. Kacchan’s face doesn’t move, though his eyes widen just the slightest amount. Only someone as studied in the Kacchan expression catalog like Izuku would notice such a subtle turn of expression.

“Shit,” Kacchan says softly.

“I’m— Sorry, Kacchan, it’s not like I want to be selfish, it’s not a, um, a mean thing, that’s not—”

“No, that’s…” Kacchan licks his lips. “That’s perfect.”

Izuku blinks.

“Just use me,” he says. “Fuck my ass and leave me out to dry.”

“Leave you…? Kacchan, I’m, um. That’s not what I meant. It’s a gender dysphoria thing; I have trouble with, um, interfacing with natal—”

“No, I know, but that’s what I want.”

He swallows thickly, throat very, very dry. “U-um. Okay. Whatever Kacchan wants.”

“Uh huh,” Kacchan says, voice lower. “That’s right, Izuku. Whatever I want, you’re gonna give me, yeah?”

“W-well, with the exception of the limits stuff, yeah.”

He rolls his eyes. “Obviously.”

“Okay. Just, um. Yeah.” He wipes his sweaty palms on his gym shorts.

Kacchan turns, dropping his shorts.

Izuku yelps, covering his eyes.

“Fuck, you’re such a dweeb. I’m still wearing underwear.”

He peeks through his fingers. Kacchan is, indeed, still wearing underwea— A jockstrap? “Kacchan!”

“You’re so stupid! I’m clothed!”

“That barely counts from the back!” he cries. “It’s— It’s worse than being naked because you’re basically framing your butt. Like a ribbon-wrapped present of Kacchan’s ass.”

Kacchan reaches back and snaps one of the straps.

Izuku’s eyes narrow. Fine. Two can play at that game, if that’s what Kacchan really wants. Ah, he’s such a brat! It’s cute and annoying in equal measure.

Kacchan yelps when he grabs him, heaving him in his arms. “Izuku!”

“If you’re gonna be like that, fine. Let’s move it to the bedroom first.” The words sounded smoother in his head. The actual execution is punctuated by grunts as he slings Kacchan’s legs over his shoulders and settles him lower again.

Kacchan stares down at him with a dumb look, bruised lips parted. “Fuck, you’re so strong,” he rasps, fingers curling into Izuku’s sweat-dried hair.

“Aw, does Kacchan like that I’m a big strong man now?” he asks sweetly, lifting him higher as he shuffles blindly toward his bedroom.

“Were always a man,” Kacchan mumbles, face hot.

“You know what I mean.” He presses a kiss against his navel through his shirt, settling his face on Kacchan’s thigh slung over his shoulder. “Kacchan likes big buff boys, though, huh?” When Kacchan squirms in his grip, he tightens his arms. “That’s part of your fancy fetish thing, right?”

“It’s just th-that you were just a scrawny nerd before,” Kacchan hisses, face even redder. “A-and now you’re… Fuck, Izuku. Put me down!”

“Kacchan wants me to fuck him?”

“You— You stupid, muscly dumbass. Yes! Let me go!”

His head bonks against the top frame of Izuku’s bedroom door with a hollow thunk.

“Oh no, Kacchan! I’m so sorry!” He lowers him, but Kacchan’s legs are still over his shoulders, so he’s stuck cradling him in the world’s most awkward hold.

Kacchan groans, rubbing his head. “Fucking— Let me down, it’s fine.”

He ends up dumping Kacchan on his bed with a grunt. “I’ll go get an ice pack—”

A foot jabs at his side. “Oi! I’m fine. Get over here and fuck me! I ain’t waiting any longer than I already have, you ridiculous mop head.”

Izuku whirls back around. “Okay!” he says quickly, voice way too loud. “How do you want me, Kacchan?”

Kacchan leans back on his elbows, t-shirt riding up to reveal the shaved expanse between his Adonis belt. Izuku swallows back a flood of drool. “Only thing I don’t want is you pissing on me. I don’t give a shit about anything else.”

Piss? That’s a thing? No— Focus. He’s about to fuck Kacchan. This is a real situation, the real deal currently splayed out on his bed in a jockstrap and a thin gray t-shirt, staring at him with his perfect, glistening carmine orbs. —Okay, that’s a bit much. Sounds like something straight out of the stories he reads on HeroFic.org. He can’t help it, though; he’s such a romantic and what is more romantic than the descriptions of eyes that he sees on HeroFic.org? Nothing. That’s what.

Speaking of orbs, um…

Kacchan is very, er, small. Not that Izuku is the expert on that, of course! He’s just, ah. Not really filling out the pouch of his jockstrap. At all.

“What’s the hold up?” Kacchan snaps.

Izuku shakes his head, hair flopping against his face. “U-um. Nothing!” He sits down heavily on his usual side of his bed, causing Kacchan to grunt as he bounces. “M-maybe you could get on my lap? Like— I mean like, perpendicular. So I can, y’know, finger you. And stuff.”

“Perpendicular,” Kacchan mutters, but he lays himself over Izuku’s lap just as described, propping himself up on his palms. “This what you’re thinking about?”

“Yeah.” He nods, trailing his hand down the smooth expanse of Kacchan’s back. He stares, mesmerized, as his fingers sink into the meat of his ass. Ah, it’s so cute in his jock. Only the lightest dusting of hair. So, so cute. He slips his middle finger between his cheeks, shivering at the heat.

“You gonna take off your clothes?”

Izuku blinks, coming back to himself a little. “Why would I do that?”

Kacchan rolls his eyes. “So we can fuck.”

“Oh. Um… Like I said, I don’t really do…”

“What about your shirt? Been strutting around with that shit on display for weeks. That a problem?”

He pulls his hand away, frowning at Kacchan. “I can take my shirt off,” he replies. “Sure.”

Kacchan rolls onto his side, giving him space to pull the sweat-dried gym shirt off. “About fucking time,” he thinks he hears Kacchan say, but it’s muffled as his head pops out the other end of his shirt.

“Okay,” he says, hair doubtlessly a wreck as he balls up his shirt and tosses it over the side of his bed. “This is fine, right?”

“Yeah, it’s fine,” Kacchan says, eyes locked under his chin. “Know you said nothing under the belt, but what about this? Can I touch you here?”

“Sure? Kacchan can touch my chest and stomach, if he wants, but—”

Kacchan launches himself at him, forcing Izuku against the headboard with a grunt. By the time he gets his bearings back, Kacchan is already lapping at his left nipple with a punched out, needy sound. He watches, simultaneously baffled and a bit turned on. He has no sensation in his nipples, so all he really has is the view.

And what a view it is.

“Fuck, your pecs are huge,” Kacchan mumbles, swapping sides. His tongue slides along Izuku’s skin, raising goosebumps. “You’re so fucking big now, fuck.” 

He isn’t really. Not like how Kacchan’s making it sound, anyways. He’s still the same height as when he graduated high school, after all. But he can’t deny, it’s nice to hear Kacchan compliment his muscles.

It’s also, admittedly, a bit funny to think of Kacchan having a fetish like this.

“Kacchan’s so cute,” he murmurs, sliding his hand down his back again, the skin along the divot of his spine tacky with sweat.

“Izuku, if those fingers aren’t going in my ass, I am going to lose it.”

His thumb rubs against the soft rim of his asshole, skin silky and slightly puffy under his touch. He bites his lip, pressing a little more firmly, but daring to go no further.

“Izuku.”

“I don’t want to hurt you.”

“You got lube, don’t you?” he snaps, carding his fingers through Izuku’s stomach hair in a way that is positively distracting.

Sheepishly, he opens the drawer in the table by his bed, pulling out a tube. “I’ve never fingered a butthole before, Kacchan.” Or any hole, now that he thinks about it. Unless a toy counts. Does a toy count?

“Don’t care. Fingers in me, now.” Kacchan turns his attention to the other nipple, laving at it with an almost comical level of desperation.

Okay. It is a bit comical. They’re just nipples, Kacchan.

He allows a fond sigh to escape as he rubs lube between his fingers, feeling it warm up as he slicks his hand. “Kacchan, it’s kinda hard to use both hands when you’re on me like this.”

“Fuck off.” A warm hand reaches up to cup the neglected pec, thumb swiping through the cooling spit.

“So how did you figure out you had a thing like this?” Izuku asks, nudging Kacchan’s thighs further apart and slipping his fingers into the crease of his ass. “It’s just so complicated.”

“You,” Kacchan replies, burying his face in the divot between his pecs.

Izuku flushes. “Me? How would that…? What?”

Kacchan pulls back, even redder. “Look. I said I wasn’t into you for trans shit. I stand by that. I was always kinda into nerds because you were…you know. A scrawny nerd loser. And then, after Yuuei, when you started, y’know, and you got stronger and your voice dropped and…” His eyes dart to the side. “Was just…hot. Really hot. Seeing you get bigger and more confident and shit. Made me realize some stuff.”

“Oh.” He tries to consider that period of his life through Kacchan’s eyes, but finds himself failing. “That was a very awkward period.” He got acne again for a bit. Grew a terrible appetite. Starting sleeping past his alarm. Got the sudden and inexplicable urge to start climbing trees around his college campus. “Ah. And I got so stinky and my sex drive was insane.”

“Fuck, I know,” Kacchan says. “And you had 24-hour access to your college gym.”

“Oh, I did! Yeah, that’s true. I tried going for a bit. Unfortunately, my classes took up so much time that I couldn’t be serious about it.” He smiles, idly stroking Kacchan’s asshole. “But I’m serious now! Thank you for all your help.”

Kacchan lays his cheek on his chest, looking up at him. It’s a bit of an awkward angle to meet his eyes, so Izuku contents himself with looking at Kacchan’s gorgeous shoulders. “Yeah,” Kacchan says, voice rumbly and low. “Fuck, you started jerking off in the shower every day. I was obsessed. Still am.”

Izuku stiffens. “You noticed that?” he whispers.

“You’re loud as shit! I wasn’t being a freak about it.”

“No I’m not!” He slips his fingers out. “I am not!”

“Can hear you fucking whatever toy you’re railing from across the apartment! It’s the loudest fucking shit. Are you kidding me?”

His face is so red, he feels like passing out. “Really? You can hear that?”

“Yes!”

“Oh my gosh, Kacchan, I am so sorry.” He waves his hands. “I will never fuck the Dicksucker 5000 when you are home ever again. I promise!”

Kacchan pulls back, scowling. “It was a free show, asshole! I’ve been telling you that I’m into it! Fuck, you’re dumb as bricks.”

He swallows thickly. “Yeah?”

“Yeah.” Kacchan settles on his stomach over his lap with a scowl. “Now fuck me or I’m going to blow up all your weird as shit onaholes.”

His fingers crawl back between Kacchan’s asscheeks, stroking along the soft skin. “Okay,” he replies. “Um. I’m gonna start with one, alright, Kacchan?” He considers the texture of his skin. “Though it feels like you might be experienced back here? ’S puffy. Did you recently—”

“Fucking hell, Izuku, just—”

Izuku slips his finger in, biting his lip at the tightness swallowing around him. Kacchan lifts his head and it ripples, sucking him further in. “Ohhh my gosh, Kacchan,” he breathes. “Wow.”

Kacchan reaches out and grabs his other arm, fingers curling into his forearm.

He feels around for the squishy give of what’s probably his prostate. Kacchan jolts when he crooks his finger, hissing. “There?” Izuku asks, stroking lightly.

“D-don’t just touch it, asshole, ’s sensitive. Fuck.”

He slides his finger back. “Mm. Okay.” He’s definitely be pressing into it later.

“Fuck,” Kacchan hisses. “Your fingers are so thick.”

“Is this okay?” he asks, anxious.

“Yes! Shit, open me up, Izuku. Want you to fuck the shit out of me.”

“Like literally or…?” He isn’t sure about that one, but for Kacchan, he’s willing to try.

“No! I’m not— Fuck off. No. You’re stupid.”

“Oh. That’s good, right? Since you want me to be dumb.”

Kacchan presses his hot cheek against against his arm. “Shut the fuck up.”

His hips don’t lie, though, grinding against Izuku’s thigh. There’s not much, but the small pocket of hardness is undeniable. Izuku lifts him off of his free arm, nudging Kacchan back a little.

“The hell are you doing?” Kacchan groans.

“I don’t want your cock touching me,” he reminds him, a second finger nudging at the furl of his asshole.

“Sh-shit, sorry.”

“’S okay,” he says, voice absent as he presses both fingers in. “Kacchan just has to trust me. I’ll make him cum using nothing but his cute little ass.”

“Fuck, Izuku…”

He reaches down with his other hand to tease a nipple through Kacchan’s thin t-shirt, rolling the bud back and forth between his thumb and his knuckle. Kacchan’s ass contracts around his hand in response, walls pressing in. “Oh my gosh, you feel so tight,” he groans, burying both fingers as deep as they’ll go. “Do you think you could take three? Could you take three for me, Kacchan?”

“Anything,” Kacchan replies, hissing as his crooked knuckles slide past his prostrate. “Yeah. Yeah, three, Izuku. Fuck, I’ll take four. You’re huge, holy shit. So fuckin’ big.”

Izuku can’t help but preen at that a bit, sliding his hand back to press a third against the softening rim of Kacchan’s ass. It sucks them all in gladly, hot and clamping around him like he’s a welcome intrusion. “H-haaa, I love feeling how soft and tight a-and…and warm you are,” he murmurs, fucking forward in small thrusts. “Kacchan’s…Kacchan’s cute little ass is hungry, huh?”

“Hungry? The fuck are you talking about?”

“Dunno. Was that bad?”

“Was weird. My ass ain’t hungry, dipshit.”

“W-well, you’re the one with the complicated sex thing!” he snaps. “Sorry that I’m not good at dirty talk. Kacchan’s hungry little butt is swallowing my fingers. That’s just what it seems like to me!”

“Stop! Stop talking! Shut up!”

Izuku pouts, pressing his fingertips hard against the bulb of Kacchan’s prostate. He jerks under him, trembling.

“You— Fucking— Asshole! Knock it off!”

He pets it, rubbing harder until Kacchan starts twitching, muscles tense. “Okay, Kacchan,” he replies, sliding his fingers back out.

“You’re a sexual sadist, Izuku. The hell?”

“It feels good, right?” He idly thumbs Kacchan’s nipple. “I’ve always heard that getting your prostate touched feels really good.”

“’S too much,” Kacchan replies. “It’s sensitive, dickhead.”

That’s not a denial. He files it away. Intel. “Just ramming it is bad,” he agrees. “That’s fine, though. I’ll get super good at fucking Kacchan and he’ll cum from his ass really quick, just after I put it in.” Well— A bit unrealistic. But the thought is exciting to him.

“Sure. You’ll be an ass fucker extraordinaire in no time. Are you going to do something now or am I gonna fall asleep, waiting for you to—”

He plunges four fingers in, the meat of his palm kissing his rim. His lashes flutter at the sensation; it’s paradoxically looser in some ways, like Kacchan’s ass has given up and is just gladly accepting him inside now. Like he’s bullied it into submission. “Fuck, you’re so warm,” he breathes, spreading his fingers slightly. The pressure makes it difficult, but he’s been working out his grip strength for months, now.

“Shit,” Kacchan hisses.

“I— I know I’m not good at dirty talk, but does Kacchan want me to talk about his fancy fetish thing instead of his hungry butt? Is that better? I, um. H-ha, I’m over twenty kilos heavier than I was before I started HRT and working out. Is that…anything? Now that I’m saying it, it doesn’t sound very sexy, just sounds like a fact, but maybe it’s sexy to you, I dunno, but yeah, I’m a lot bigger now—”

“Izuku,” Kacchan groans, “if you gotta talk, just talk about fucking me.”

“O-oh! Okay. Um.” He bites his lip, pressing his fingers in deep to the palm, rubbing his thumb along the hot strain of Kacchan’s asshole. “Y-you’re so soft in here, Kacchan.”

“Yeah? You like that?”

“Mm. Yeah, I really like it…” He shifts, twisting his hand to feel the way Kacchan gives to him. Hot and soft. The inside of Kacchan… Wow…

“Touch yourself,” Kacchan pants. “W-want you to get off too. Please, Izuku, fuck, please, please…”

Wow, Kacchan begging does things to him. That’s a new realization, something definitely worthy of his Kacchan notebooks.

He lets go of Kacchan’s nipple, fumbling to palm himself through his gym shorts. A low groan escapes his throat as he presses his cheek against the top of Kacchan’s head, watching his fingers thrust in and out with Kacchan’s loosened ass. “You gonna cum, Kacchan? Gonna cum with your ass for me?”

“Sh-shit…”

“Fuck, I’m so hard, Kacchan. Ha… K-kinda hurts. Mm. You were tight around my fingers at first, but now you’re so loose. F-feels good. So soft and warm inside. It’s way better than an onahole. W-which isn’t surprising! Kacchan is the best, after all; it only makes sense that his ass would be the best, too.”

Kacchan presses his face against Izuku’s flexing forearm, tongue laving against the scarred skin.

His breath stutters, grinding hard against the heel of his palm. “H-haaa, Kacchan. Pl-please cum with your ass, Kacchan. Please, please…”

“I wanna suck your dick so bad,” Kacchan says, voice low and throaty and faraway. “Wanna get fucked by you every day, Izuku.”

Izuku whimpers, fucking his fingers harder into him. “D-do you think I could fit my fist in you, Kacchan?”

“What the— No? What the fuck?”

He bites his lip, thumb stroking harder along the softened rim.

“Izuku, no,” Kacchan gasps, fucking himself back against him. “N-not tonight, later, some other time, shhhit.”

“Okay,” he breathes. “Okay, okay, I know Kacchan could take me, Kacchan’s the best, of course he can, but okay, not tonight, okay. I’m thinking about it, though. A-about Kacchan so loose and soft around my hand, he can’t even clench his asshole anymore. J-just loose and open for me to slip inside whenever I wanna. Mm.”

“Fuck, okay, you’re not as vanilla as I thought.” Kacchan arches his back, pressing into Izuku’s thrusting fingers.

Izuku grinds into Kacchan and his own hand in tandem, gnawing on his lower lip. “Kacchan’s so cute. Kacchan’s so cute, haaa, love him. Love Kacchan so much. A-and Kacchan loves me! Kacchan and I are gonna be heroes now, Kacchan and I are gonna work out together again and…and get stronger and maybe fuck in the showers, mm, Kacchan, I wanna fuck you in the shower, wanna stick my cock in you and cum deep in your cute ass and have it dribble out… Ah…”

Kacchan laps at the thick muscle of his arm, panting harshly.

“J-just think,” he continues, sliding hard past Kacchan’s prostrate with every thrust, “before your workout plan, I was scrawny. All my free time was spent playing MMORPGs after I finished grading and lesson planning. A-and fucking my onahole, thinking of your cute, tight ass. But now I’m filling all that time with working out and counting my macros! …And, um, still fucking my onahole. It’s really amazing what a body can do, huh? I can’t wait to fuck Kacchan after a workout, all s-sweaty in the showers. It’s nice to think about, like, um, l-like every day. J-just working out and fucking Kacchan. Sounds like heaven.”

Kacchan twitches in his hold, jerking back and forth against his fingers as a short, high-pitched sound bursts from his wet mouth. “Fu-uck, fuck, Izuku, shhhit!”

He blinks. “Wait, did that actually turn you on?”

Kacchan slumps, breathing hard. “Came,” he replies, voice gravelly.

Izuku sits up. “Oh! Okay, um. I should probably take my fingers out, huh? Could you push and I’ll… Thanks.” He waggles his hand in the open air of his bedroom. Should have brought a towel. Oops.

“You didn’t cum, did you?”

Izuku stiffens, pulling back. “I, ah, I’ll just finish myself off later.”

Kacchan frowns, eying him.

“’S what I prefer, Kacchan.” He idly wipes his hand on the back of Kacchan’s shirt. His voice softens. “I have a hard time orgasming, usually. So please don’t take it personally.”

“Nn. Explains why you fuck your onahole like it owes you money,” Kacchan replies, voice fuzzy.

Izuku blushes. “Kacchan.”

Kacchan grunts, dropping his head.

“…Are you falling asleep?”

“I just nutted, dumbass. Yeah.”

He shakes his head. “Oh, so Kacchan is one of those? I’m the opposite; ejaculating makes me feel very energized and ready to start my day! Wow, that’s so interesting. Is that why Kacchan showers at night?”

A hand slaps limply at his face. “Later. We’ll fill your freaky book about me some other time, nerd.”

He smiles, curling his arms around Kacchan’s shoulders and chest. “Thought I was a jock now, Kacchan?”

Kacchan groans miserably.

Izuku hums, nuzzling his nose against Kacchan’s sweat-damp hair. “It’s okay. I can be your nerdy jock.”

“Izuku, I am gonna blast you to pieces.”

“After your nap, Kacchan,” he replies, gently shifting Kacchan off his lap. He feels so right in his arms, though, that he can’t will himself to pull away. “I’m gonna go jerk off in the shower now, okay?”

Kacchan glances up at him. “Yeah?”

“Mmhm. I can do lots of loud porno moans so you can listen through the door, if you want, haha—” He stops, taking in Kacchan’s flushed face. That’s not anger or amusement at his fantastic joke. That’s… “Wait. Is that another thing for you?”

Kacchan pushes his face away with a grimace. “Like I’m telling you.”

“That’s fine,” Izuku says, smiling softly. Kacchan is glowering, but he isn’t pulling away. So warm in his arms, content and fucked out and his. “I guess we have plenty of time to map out all of each other’s eccentricities now, huh?”