Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The midday sun beat down on them as they stood on a rooftop, surveying the streets below. The city buzzed with life, distant sirens wailing in the background, cars honking impatiently. Izuku squinted against the light, his gaze flickering toward Katsuki, who stood at the edge with his arms crossed.

"Okay, Kacchan, what’s the plan?" Izuku asked, grinning. "And if you say ‘win,’ I swear—"

Katsuki scoffed. "You’re finally learning, nerd. And shut up. You already know the plan—hit ‘em fast, hit ‘em hard, and don’t get in my way."

Shoto, standing beside them with his usual calm expression, arched a brow. "Ah, yes. The Bakugo Method. Very nuanced."

Katsuki shot him a glare. "It works, doesn’t it?"

Izuku chuckled. "Yeah, but maybe this time, we try coordinating a little better? You always rush in first, but if we work together—"

"Don’t start with that teamwork speech, nerd." Katsuki jabbed a finger in his direction. "I got the highest combat scores for a reason."

"Oh? And yet, who had to save who in our last mission?" Izuku teased, folding his arms.

Katsuki’s jaw clenched, his eye twitching. "That doesn’t count. The ground gave out under me."

Shoto glanced over at him, unimpressed. "And the ground ‘gave out’ because you blew up the bridge you were standing on."

"Semantics," Katsuki muttered.

Izuku laughed, but before he could say more, a distant explosion shattered the lighthearted moment. Thick smoke billowed into the air two blocks away, the unmistakable crackle of fire following seconds later. Then, a scream.

Shoto’s expression hardened. "Villain activity. Two blocks west."

Katsuki’s lips curled into a smirk as he rolled his shoulders, fire igniting in his palms. "Tch. Finally."

Izuku felt the familiar hum of One For All surge beneath his skin, his muscles tensing with anticipation. "Let’s move."

They leapt from the rooftop in unison, bounding across the city with practiced ease. As they neared the scene, the source of the chaos became clear. A gaunt, wiry figure stood in the middle of the street, their tattered cloak whipping in the wind. Shadows curled unnaturally around their body, moving like living creatures.

Civilians ran in all directions, trying to escape.

"You need to stand down!" Izuku called, his voice firm despite the chill creeping down his spine. "No one else has to get hurt!"

The villain tilted their head, their grin stretching unnaturally wide. "Ahhh… fresh power."

Katsuki growled. "Creepy bastard." Without hesitation, he lunged forward, a blast of fire propelling him straight toward the villain.

But something was wrong.

Izuku felt it the moment Katsuki did. A weightlessness that was too heavy, a sensation like his body was being unraveled from the inside out. His feet refused to move, his arms hung like lead. Katsuki’s explosion flickered and died mid-air, his momentum halting abruptly as his body stiffened.

"K-Kacchan…!" Izuku gasped, trying to push through whatever was gripping him. But it was useless. The shadows thickened, twisting tighter around them, suffocating.

Katsuki’s teeth clenched as he tried to fight it, but his body was no longer obeying him. The last thing Izuku saw was the villain’s satisfied smile before darkness swallowed everything whole.

Shoto acted fast. Fire roared from his left side, searing through the creeping darkness, while ice shot forward from his right, slamming into the villain with precision. The air crackled with energy as the shadows recoiled, shriveling under the extreme temperatures.

The villain barely had time to react before a massive sheet of ice encased them, freezing them solid in seconds.

Shoto didn’t waste a moment. He sprinted toward Izuku and Katsuki, who had collapsed together on the pavement, completely motionless.

"Midoriya. Bakugo," he called, shaking Izuku’s shoulder first. No response.

Katsuki’s breathing was shallow, his fingers twitching slightly, but his eyes remained shut.

Shoto exhaled sharply, pressing his fingers to his temple as he pulled out his phone. He had to stay calm. They needed immediate medical attention.

His father answered on the first ring.

"Shoto?" Endeavor’s voice was gruff, business-like.

"I need a transport to U.A. now. Midoriya and Bakugo were hit with a Quirk. They’re unresponsive."

There was a pause. Then, Endeavor’s tone shifted. "Understood. I’ll send a team."

Shoto ended the call and immediately dialed another number. This time, the answer was even faster.

"Todoroki." Aizawa’s voice was calm, but there was a sharp edge to it. "Report."

"Midoriya and Bakugo are down. The villain is contained, but I don’t know the nature of their Quirk. I’m bringing them to Recovery Girl."

Another pause, then a slow exhale. "Good call. I’ll be there when you arrive."

Shoto pocketed his phone and turned back to his teammates. They looked impossibly small like this—Katsuki’s face was scrunched in unconscious frustration, and Izuku’s brows were furrowed, like he was trying to fight even in his sleep.

"You two are idiots," Shoto muttered, but there was no real heat behind it.

He hoisted them up, one over each shoulder, ignoring the weight as he carried them toward the arriving transport. They had work to do, but first, they had to survive this.

Shoto turned, his breath coming sharp and heavy, as he stalked toward the villain now frozen in a thick sheet of ice. His hands were already clenched into fists, ice spreading in jagged cracks beneath his feet as fire licked dangerously up his left arm. The city noise faded into a dull roar in his ears. All he could hear was the ragged, shallow breathing of his two best friends lying motionless behind him.

He stopped just inches from the villain, his gaze burning.

"What the hell did you do to them?" His voice was low, a barely contained growl that promised violence.

The villain blinked at him through the frost, their mouth twitching upward into an eerie grin. "Relax, kid," they rasped, voice distorted through the ice. "Nothing serious."

Shoto’s fire flared higher. "You put them on the ground. They're unconscious. Tell me why I shouldn't incinerate you right now."

The villain chuckled, their teeth chattering slightly from the cold. "Oh, you’ll love this one. It’s a classic, really. A little Freaky Friday moment, if you will."

Shoto’s fingers twitched. His body went completely still.

His mind reeled. A body swap.

He turned, glancing back at Katsuki and Izuku, still lifeless on the pavement. His pulse pounded against his skull.

"You're lying," he said, but even as he spoke, dread curled in his stomach.

"Am I?" The villain’s grin widened. "Won’t be long now… They should be waking up any minute."

Shoto’s teeth clenched. "How long?"

The villain smirked, humming lightly as if considering whether to answer. Shoto grabbed them by the collar, yanking them forward with enough force that the ice around them cracked. His fire surged, melting the frost just enough for him to get real close.

"I asked you a question." His voice was a razor’s edge, fury tightly restrained. "For. How. Long?"

The villain let out a wheezing chuckle, their breath fogging in the cold air. "Two weeks," they finally admitted. "Then it all goes back to normal, just like magic."

Shoto’s eyes flickered with something dark. "Two weeks?"

The villain nodded, seemingly unbothered by the fact that their entire existence was hanging by a thread in Shoto's hands.

Shoto inhaled deeply, his grip tightening. His knuckles burned with heat.

Then, with a sharp exhale, he dropped them unceremoniously back against the ice, stepping back as his fire flickered out.

"Two weeks," he repeated, his mind already racing through every possible scenario. He glanced back at Katsuki and Izuku, knowing—knowing—the second they woke up, all hell was going to break loose.

This was going to be an absolute disaster.

Shoto stared at the villain for a long moment, letting the words sink in. Two weeks. Two whole weeks of whatever the hell this was before everything supposedly went back to normal.

Slowly, an unusual expression crossed his face—something rare, something almost unsettling given his usual stoicism. The corners of his lips twitched upward, just slightly. A smirk.

The villain squinted at him. "Uh… what’s with that face?"

Shoto exhaled, rolling his shoulders as he let his hands drop to his sides. "Oh, nothing," he said smoothly, voice devoid of any real emotion, yet carrying something deeply ominous. "Just realizing that, for the next two weeks, Midoriya and Bakugo are going to be each other."

The villain blinked.

Then, something changed in Shoto’s posture—a slow, easy shift that was almost relaxed. Almost.

"You," he continued, tilting his head ever so slightly, "have no idea what you’ve just done."

The villain, for the first time, actually looked nervous. "I—what? What do you—?"

Shoto let out a low hum, his gaze flickering toward the unconscious forms of his two best friends. The two most explosive, emotional, dramatic people he knew. Katsuki Bakugo? Trapped in Izuku Midoriya’s body? Izuku Midoriya? Trapped in Katsuki Bakugo’s body?

Oh, this was going to be legendary.

The sheer chaos that was about to unfold would be unlike anything he had ever witnessed. There would be screaming. Possibly violence. Definitely therapy. But most importantly—

It was going to be hilarious.

Shoto pressed his lips together, exhaling through his nose as he fought the very inappropriate urge to laugh. He would never say it out loud—never admit it—but for once, just this once, he was thrilled to be in the middle of this disaster.

His father’s transport was arriving. Aizawa would be at U.A. waiting.

He turned back to the villain, his icy smirk still in place. "I should freeze you solid for this," he mused, watching the way they flinched slightly. Then, after a beat, he added with a faint sigh, "But… I suppose I should thank you."

The villain’s jaw dropped. "Thank me?! For what—"

Shoto just shook his head. "You wouldn’t understand."

Because in about five minutes, Bakugo Katsuki was going to wake up in Izuku Midoriya’s body.

And Shoto needed to be there to see it.

IZUKU

Wrong, Wrong, Wrong

I wake up wrong.

It’s not the groggy, still-half-asleep kind of wrong. Not even the I-got-hit-in-the-head-too-hard-again kind of wrong. It’s worse. It’s deep, unsettling, like my body isn’t mine anymore. Like I’ve been poured into something that wasn’t built for me.

My head is too heavy, my limbs feel too long, my muscles are too tight in places they shouldn’t be. My hands—bigger than they should be—twitch against the sheets, and an unnatural hum buzzes under my skin. It’s hot, a slow, burning energy curling through my bones, gathering in my palms like a warning.

I don’t have a Quirk like this.

I don’t—

A voice shatters the silence.

“What the actual fuck?!”

The panic in that voice—my voice—makes my stomach lurch.

My own voice.

I bolt upright—**too fast, too strong, too much—**and suddenly I’m lurching forward instead, nearly throwing myself off the bed. My body moves wrong, my balance is off, and when I scramble for stability, my hands grip the blanket too hard, the fabric nearly tearing apart in my grip.

I freeze.

I know this strength.

I know this heat under my skin, the way my body feels wired for power, the way my breath feels too deep in too big lungs.

I know this.

And then—

I see myself.

Standing at the foot of the bed.

Looking at me.

No—no, no, no—

This isn’t me.

Except it is.

Because my actual body—my own face, my own hair, my own freckles—is staring at me with wild, furious green eyes.

Green.

Not red.

The world tilts. My chest clenches tight, the sickening, surreal realization finally crashing down.

Kacchan.

Kacchan is—

Kacchan is in my body.

Which means—

I am in his.

My breath stutters.

His heart is pounding. No—thrashing. No—actively trying to explode out of his chest like a malfunctioning grenade.

His hands are sweaty. His whole body feels too hot. His muscles are coiled so tight he might spontaneously combust. His lungs refuse to work properly. His blood is rushing too fast. His adrenaline levels are so catastrophically high that he might pass out just from existing.

And the worst part?

This is just how Kacchan’s body works.

Katsuki’s explosions aren’t the only thing volatile about him—his entire fucking cardiovascular system is a goddamn battlefield. His quirk is always humming under his skin, simmering just below combustion. His heart beats too fast, too loud, too intense—like a war drum, like a threat, like something built for combat, not rest. Izuku has been living in this body for four hours, and he is already on the verge of a full-blown panic attack.

Holy shit. How is Kacchan alive?

Kacchan’s—**my—**face twists into pure, unfiltered horror as his shoulders stiffen, his hands—my hands—curl into fists, his entire body vibrating with restrained rage.

For a second, neither of us move.

Neither of us breathe.

We just stare at each other, trapped in this moment of suffocating, incomprehensible disaster.

And then, all at once—

Kacchan lunges forward and roars, his voice—my voice, my mouth, my breath—splitting the air.

“WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK IS THIS?!”

The panic, the absolute rage in his voice sends a violent jolt through my body—his body—my body—fuck.

My breath catches. My hands tremble. My entire being is screaming wrong, wrong, WRONG.

So, naturally—

I scream back.

Because what the hell else am I supposed to do?

WHAT THE FUCK?!

Chapter Text

KATSUKI

I am not okay.

I am so far from okay that I don’t even have words for it.

Because I am not me.

I can see myself. My body—my actual body—is standing across the room, moving without me, talking without me, freaking out without me. And I—

I am stuck in Deku.

This is the worst moment of my entire life.

Nothing about this feels real, but it is. I can feel it in every inch of this body that is not mine. It moves wrong, breathes wrong, sits wrong. It’s like stepping into a too-tight uniform, like wearing boots that don’t fit, like waking up in someone else’s bed and realizing too late that the mattress isn’t shaped for you.

My muscles don’t sit right. My balance is off. The way this body breathes is unnatural. I feel light in a way that makes my stomach turn, like I don’t take up enough space, like there’s something missing in how my muscles hold tension.

My heart is too fast.

It beats in short, stuttering thumps, like it’s never fully at rest. It hammers against my ribs—his ribs—too quick, too erratic, like this body is in a constant state of panic. I clench my fists—my fingers are too long—and immediately feel the strain in my arms because Deku’s body is always tense. His shoulders are tight, like they’ve never once relaxed in his life, like he’s spent every waking moment bracing for impact.

And then there’s the electricity.

It hums beneath my skin—his skin—a steady, waiting current that I don’t know how to control. It’s not like my explosions, wild and sparking and eager to be let loose. This is coiled energy, waiting, pulsing, ready to move without my permission. I barely twitch my fingers, and green lightning crackles along my skin, reacting before I can even think about what I’m doing.

Then I hear it. My voice.

It’s breathless, panicked, too high-pitched—not because it actually is, but because Deku is panicking, and my voice wobbles with every inhale.

Deku—wearing my body—grips the edges of the nightstand like it’s the only thing keeping him upright. My muscles—his muscles, whatever the hell—tense like they’re gearing up for a fight, but it’s off. His stance is too wide, his weight is all wrong, his whole body vibrates like a bomb with a bad fuse.

He looks up at me. Red eyes meet green.

And that’s wrong, too.

My own face is staring at me, wide-eyed and horrified. My own jaw is clenched. My own brows are furrowed in panic. My own hands are shaking. It’s me. But it’s not.

Deku swallows hard, his throat bobbing.

"K-Kacchan?"

It sounds wrong. Too weak. Too unsteady. Too Deku.

Something in me snaps.

"What the actual fuck is this?!"

The words explode out of me, but it’s not my voice. It’s his. It’s softer, breathier, strained with panic. The moment I hear it, my whole body—his body—shakes with rage. I shouldn’t sound like that. I shouldn’t look like that. I shouldn’t be this.

I lurch forward, but my own body betrays me. I move too fast, too light, and suddenly I’m stumbling because this body isn’t mine, and it reacts before I expect it to. My foot catches on the edge of the blanket, and my knees buckle before I can catch myself.

And Deku—wearing my body—flinches like he’s the one falling.

That’s when it hits me.

This body is reacting before I do.

This isn’t just some out-of-body experience. I am in his body. I have his quirk, his instincts, his weak-ass noodle arms—how does he even stand up straight in this body without tipping over?

I catch myself before I completely hit the ground, but the landing is wrong, and my arms flare with pain because I tried to brace for impact like I would in my own body, but Deku’s limbs don’t work like mine.

And Deku—standing there in my skin—moves at the same time, instinctively, without thinking, just like I did.

Except he moves like me.

Fast. Precise. Controlled.

Like his body—my body—was made for combat.

That terrifies me.

I push myself upright, breathing hard, my fingers—his fingers—digging into my arms as I force myself to stand, to think, to not completely lose my mind.

Deku is staring at me—his body, my body, both of us still reeling.

I can see it in his eyes. He’s realizing it too.

We are stuck.

And neither of us have any idea how to fix it.

“I cannot deal with this. I literally cannot—”

“Oh, you think you’re the one suffering?!” Katsuki—in Deku’s body—whipped around so fast that his balance nearly gave out, his longer limbs moving too much at once. “I’M THE ONE STUCK LIKE THIS.”

Izuku—in Katsuki’s body—stumbled back, his own face twisted in frustration, his voice coming out sharp, angry, and so wrong. “You think I like this?! Do you have any idea how uncomfortable this is?! I can’t even walk properly! My body keeps wanting to—explode—every time I move too fast! And I just—I feel so—angry?!”

“Oh, boo-fucking-hoo, nerd. Try being crammed into this weak-ass twig! My arms feel like they’re about to snap in half just from moving! And my stupid—fucking—knees keep bending when I don’t want them to—what is wrong with you?! How do you live like this?!”

“I don’t know, Kacchan, maybe I just learned how to function without throwing a tantrum every five seconds!”

“DON’T CALL ME THAT WHILE YOU’RE USING MY FACE.”

The argument carried them through the dorm hallway, their combined voices getting louder and louder, until suddenly—

They were not alone.

The second they stumbled into the common room, still mid-shouting match, the sheer weight of everyone’s eyes hit them like a freight train.

Silence.

It was like walking straight into a trap.

Katsuki—or rather, Izuku-in-Katsuki—stopped dead, his hands twitching at his sides, still unused to the sheer power humming beneath his skin. Izuku—or rather, Katsuki-in-Izuku—also froze, because while the rage was his own, his body language was not, and it must’ve looked insane to everyone watching.

Which was, apparently, everyone.

Aizawa was sitting on the couch, arms crossed, looking far too unsurprised by this disaster. Shoto was perched next to him, cool as ever, sipping tea like he hadn’t just dragged their unconscious, swapped asses back to U.A. without telling them what had happened. Kirishima was staring, mouth slightly open in shock, while Mina, Sero, and Kaminari were already grinning like absolute menaces.

Then—

“Oh my god,” Kaminari wheezed, nearly doubling over. “This is the funniest shit I’ve ever seen.”

Mina slapped his arm. “Shhh, don’t ruin it! Let them fight!”

Katsuki’s eye twitched—or rather, Izuku’s eye twitched, because it was Izuku’s face that was now contorted in sheer, barely restrained fury.

“WHY THE FUCK IS EVERYONE JUST SITTING HERE?” Katsuki barked—with Izuku’s voice—his hands clenching so hard that green sparks crackled at his fingertips. He yelped at the sensation, slapping his hands against his chest like he’d just been shocked. “WHAT THE HELL—WHY IS IT DOING THAT? HOW DO I MAKE IT STOP?!”

Izuku—still wearing Katsuki’s face—pinched the bridge of his nose, inhaling slowly, the movement eerily controlled. “It’s One For All, Kacchan. You know, my Quirk?” His voice, Katsuki’s voice, came out with an exasperated edge. “Just breathe. Don’t tense up. If you panic, it’ll react to it.”

“DON’T TELL ME TO BREATHE IN YOUR GODDAMN VOICE.”

Kaminari lost it.

“Oh my god,” he gasped, clinging to Sero for support. “He sounds so serious! I can’t—I can’t—”

“Stop laughing, I’m actually going to kill someone,” Katsuki seethed—except it was Izuku, who didn’t sound intimidating at all.

Aizawa, looking wholly unimpressed, finally sighed, rubbing his temples. “Alright, idiots, shut up.”

The sheer authority in his voice somehow managed to overpower the absolute mess unfolding before him, and the two boys—**still vibrating with chaotic energy—**snapped their mouths shut, turning to face their teacher like two kids caught misbehaving.

Aizawa regarded them with half-lidded, deeply exhausted eyes.

“You’re body-swapped,” he stated flatly.

Katsuki opened his mouth. Closed it. Then opened it again. “Yeah, no shit.”

Aizawa’s expression didn’t change. “It’s temporary.”

The air stilled.

Izuku, whose shoulders had still been tensed with anxiety, snapped his head up. “Wait—temporary? How long?”

Aizawa stretched his arms over his head, leaning back against the couch like this was just another Tuesday. “Two weeks.”

Silence.

Izuku turned, very slowly, to Katsuki. Katsuki turned, very dangerously, to Izuku.

“Two weeks?” Katsuki repeated.

Izuku inhaled sharply. “Okay. That’s not—”

“TWO FUCKING WEEKS?!”

Katsuki’s explosion of rage made every single person in the room jump—but it wasn’t an explosion. It was lightning.

Bright green lightning flared around his arms, crackling so suddenly that his whole body jerked forward, sending actual electricity sparking along the floor. The couch nearest to him made a weird popping noise.

Kaminari yelped, jumping onto the coffee table. “Oh, hell no—Deku’s body has lightning?! I did not sign up for this!”

“Relax, Dunce Face,” Katsuki snapped—and then yelped again when more sparks went flying. He shook his arms frantically, panic overtaking him. “MAKE IT STOP. FUCKING MAKE IT STOP—”

Izuku—who had moved on from panicking and straight into existential despair—dragged his hands down his face. “You can’t just shake it off, Kacchan, that’s not how—”

He stopped.

And then it hit him.

Oh, god.

Katsuki was in his body.

Which meant—

Izuku was in Katsuki’s body.

And Katsuki had zero experience controlling One For All.

And Izuku had zero experience controlling his explosions.

The world paused.

Everyone in the room collectively realized what this meant at the exact same time.

And then Aizawa, who had been taking this seriously for all of two minutes, closed his eyes, sighed deeply, and then did the one thing neither of them expected.

He smirked.

“Well,” he drawled, voice far too smug, “this is gonna be fun.”

Kaminari immediately burst out laughing again. “No, no, he’s right—this is gonna be the best two weeks of my entire life.”




KATSUKI

I watch as my own damn body turns toward Kaminari way too sharply.

Then I—**trapped in Deku’s scrawny-ass body—**opened my mouth, and what came out was less of a yell and more of a full-bodied, rage-fueled explosion of sound that felt wrong in my throat, too high, too breathy, too goddamn Deku.

"I SWEAR TO GOD, I WILL FUCKING KILL EVERY LAST ONE OF YOU RIGHT FUCKING NOW—YOU USELESS, BOTTOM-FEEDING, NOBODY EXTRAS!"

My—**Deku’s—**chest heaves, my lungs burn, and I can feel the way this body isn’t used to screaming like this, like it’s trying to stop me, like it physically rejects the sheer amount of fury I’m throwing into the air.

But I don’t care.

Because I am losing my goddamn mind.

Dead. Silence.

I feel the soul leave Kaminari’s body.

Mina gasps like she just witnessed a murder.

Kirishima looks seconds away from fainting.

Sero actually takes a fucking step back.

And Todoroki—who has faced down villains, his own father, and literal hellfire without so much as blinking—flinches.

He looks at me—**at Deku, at my stolen face—**like I just punched him straight in the gut. His expression barely changes, but his eyes flicker, and for a moment, I swear I see something close to actual pain.

Then, in a quiet, almost dazed voice, he mutters, “…Even knowing that’s you, Bakugo… that still kinda hurts.”

And it hits me too late.

I just fucking called them extras.

With Deku’s voice.

IZUKU

Oh my god.

I just watched **Kacchan—**in my body—emotionally eviscerate Todoroki.

It wasn’t even a full-blown screaming match. It wasn’t a fight. It wasn’t anything like what usually happens when Kacchan loses his temper.

It was worse.

Because Kacchan, in my body, in my voice, had looked them all dead in the eyes and torn them apart with surgical precision.

And Todoroki—Todoroki, who has been through so much, who never flinches—just stood there, looking at Kacchan, at my face like I had personally stabbed him in the chest and twisted the knife.

I turned to Kacchan, except he wasn’t Kacchan, he was me.

And somehow, he looked worse.

He was pacing. His fingers were twitching, flexing open and closed like he wanted to punch something but didn’t have the right hands to do it. His entire body was too wound up, too tense, and—oh my god, he was chewing on his thumbnail.

My stomach dropped.

It looked bad.

It looked like I was having a full-on breakdown in front of everyone.

Like I had just viciously ripped Todoroki apart and was now falling apart over it.

Like I was unraveling at the seams in real-time.

Oh my god.

OH MY GOD.

THIS IS A NIGHTMARE.

Chapter Text

KATSUKI

There’s something wrong.

Not just the obvious, fucked-up body swap nightmare we’re dealing with, but something else. Something I don’t have a name for, something that’s been gnawing at me ever since I stopped actively losing my shit about being crammed into Deku’s useless, twitchy body.

It’s like—

Like there’s a second heartbeat in my chest that doesn’t belong to me.

It’s not a real one—not an actual physical, thump-thump heartbeat—but it’s there, like an echo. Something deep, something that isn’t mine but is so fucking familiar that it almost feels like it should be.

I try to ignore it.

But Kaminari opens his big dumb mouth.

"Wait… can you two feel each other’s emotions right now?"

Everything stops.

And now that I’m actually paying attention—

Oh, fuck.

It’s real.

The second I focus, I feel it. All of it.

It’s not just surface-level irritation or panic or whatever the hell I thought it was. It’s deep. Core-level. Foundation of a person, woven into the way they exist deep.

And—

I—

I feel Deku.

Not just the frantic, nervous energy of his stupid, oversensitive body, not just the way his breath hitches when he overthinks or the way his hands twitch like he wants to take notes on a situation that doesn’t even make sense—I feel him.

I feel the way he is.

The way he’s always been. The way his mind is always moving, the way his heart is always so fucking open, so willing, so ready to break itself apart just to make sure no one else has to suffer.

I feel the exhaustion of it, the sheer, endless weight he carries like it’s normal.

And god—how the fuck has he lived like this for so long?

There’s so much guilt. So much self-doubt. So much responsibility that was never fucking his to take.

It’s in his bones. Woven into the way he exists.

And the worst part?

He thinks it’s right.

He thinks he deserves it.

I feel it—the absolute certainty. The belief, so etched into him, that he is only worth as much as he can give.

I feel it. I know it.

And it fucking guts me.

I don’t even realize I’ve stopped breathing until the sharp, clawing panic in my chest kicks in, full force—because if I can feel this, if I can pick apart the core fucking mechanics of Deku’s entire being just by existing in his goddamn body—

Then so can he.

I snap my head up so fast that my vision blurs, and then I see him.

Me.

Deku, standing in my body, eyes wide, too wide, his lips slightly parted like he’s just put something together that he was never supposed to know.

And then I know.

I don’t just know—I feel it, crawling up my spine, slamming into me like a fucking truck.

He feels me.

He knows.

Oh, fuck.

Oh, fuck, oh fuck, oh fuck, oh fuck—

I can’t move. I can’t breathe. I cannot be here in this moment for even a single second longer.

Because if I can feel his core-deep instincts—if I can peel apart the way his mind works just by being in his skin—

Then he can feel mine.

Which means—

Which means he knows.

He knows.

That I have been in love with him since the first goddamn month of our first year at U.A.

And now I can’t fucking hide it.

IZUKU

It happens so fast.

One second, we’re still in the tail end of an argument. The next—everything shifts.

Kaminari says something stupid—"Wait… can you two feel each other’s emotions right now?"—and I don’t think much of it.

Until I stop.

Until I actually pay attention.

Until I realize that I have not felt like myself since waking up like this.

And then—

I feel Kacchan.

Not just the anger or the frustration or the outrage of being crammed into my body—not just the surface-level things that make up who he is. I feel everything.

The way his mind moves—sharp, calculated, fast.

The way his instincts are always set to attack, even when there’s no threat, because his body has never let him rest.

The way he watches everything, every detail, every single person in the room, because he is always preparing for something.

The way he expects to be alone.

The way he expects people to leave.

The way he has already built an exit strategy for when I finally give up on him.

My stomach turns over.

Because that’s not even the worst of it.

No, the worst part—the part that nearly **knocks the air out of my lungs, even in his body, even while I’m standing in his strength—**is something I should have never, ever been able to feel.

Kacchan has been in love with me.

Since first year.

I feel it. I know it.

The realization. The denial. The anger at himself. The constant, brutal suppression of it, the way he has buried it alive inside himself over and over again, pretending it wasn’t there, crushing it beneath his own hands so it would never show.

It’s not just a passing thought. It’s in him.

In the way he tried to kill it, but it wouldn’t die.

In the way he forced it deeper every time he caught himself looking at me too long.

In the way he never let himself have it.

And I know.

I know, and he knows that I know, because he just looked at me, and I felt his entire soul seize in absolute fucking horror.

His breathing is sharp, his shoulders locked up, his fingers twitching the way mine do when I feel exposed.

He knows I feel it.

And now he’s fucking terrified.

Because he can’t hide it anymore.

KATSUKI

I have never wanted to implode more in my entire goddamn life.

I have been through a lot of humiliating, rage-inducing, fist-clenching, table-flipping bullshit in my life, but this?

This is a brand-new level of hell.

Because this morning—before everything went to shit, before I realized my entire goddamn existence had been hijacked, before I had to wake up in fucking Deku’s body and deal with his Quirk and his voice and his pathetic weak arms—

I felt it.

Before I even understood what was happening, before my brain had fully booted up into fight mode, before the panic, before the yelling—I fucking felt it.

That awful, horrible, sharp, crushing ache in my chest.

That stupid, unbearable, suffocating warmth.

The one I never let myself think about.

The one I have spent years burying so deep inside me that even I could pretend it wasn’t real.

The one I have been running from since the first fucking month of first year.

It was there the moment I woke up, the second my consciousness snapped into place inside his body. A warmth that wasn’t mine, a pressure in my chest like something trying to crawl up my throat and force itself into the open.

And the worst part?

I recognized it instantly.

Because it’s always been there.

That twisting, aching, impossible thing.

The feeling that should have never fucking existed in the first place.

The thing that I have been swallowing down for years, smashing to pieces, reducing to dust every time it tries to surface.

It’s been there, buried under every explosion, every insult, every shove, every look-away-before-he-catches-me-staring moment that I have forced myself to ignore.

It’s been there, burning at the back of my throat every time I convinced myself that hating him was easier than wanting him.

It’s been there, this entire time.

I’ve just been too much of a fucking coward to let myself feel it.

And now?

Now Midoriya fucking knows.

He knows.

And he knows that I know.

And now I know that he knows that I know.

AND I AM GOING TO FUCKING DIE.

Because there is no taking this back.

There is no stuffing this into a box and pretending it didn’t just happen.

There is no fixing this.

IZUKU

Kacchan is about to explode.

I can see it in the way my shoulders are locked, the way my jaw is clenched so tight that it looks like he’s about to snap a tooth in half. His hands—**my hands—**are curled into fists so tight that I can see the tension all the way up his forearms, every muscle wound like a tripwire ready to go off.

Which is a problem.

Because if Kacchan explodes right now, he will be exploding in my body.

And I would very much prefer if my body stayed in one piece.

So I do the only logical thing.

I grab his shoulders—my shoulders—and shake him. Hard.

"DO NOT LOSE YOUR SHIT RIGHT NOW."

His entire body stiffens.

His eye twitches—my eye twitches.

And then he hisses back through gritted teeth, "DON’T TOUCH ME."

Which would be totally fair if:

1. He wasn’t currently in my body.

2. I wasn’t currently touching my own shoulders.

3. My own face wasn’t glaring at me with unfiltered murderous rage, like I just personally insulted All Might to his face.

This is the worst day of my life.

Kacchan shoves me off, staggering back a step—except his whole body jerks wrong, like his muscles tried to move one way but his instincts told him something different. His breath comes too fast, too deep, like he’s still adjusting to how my lungs work differently than his.

I don’t think he realizes it, but his shoulders roll in a little like mine do when I brace for impact, and his hands twitch at his sides like he wants to start muttering but refuses to let himself.

And I—

I feel off too.

Not just because this body isn’t mine, not just because everything is wrong—but because there’s something sitting at the edge of my mind, pressing against me like a second heartbeat that I can’t quite place.

Kacchan’s heart pounds in his chest—my chest—like it’s holding back something bigger than anger.

Like this isn’t just rage.

KATSUKI

I should have known this was coming.

Because nothing in my life has ever been fucking simple, and of course, of course, I couldn’t just be body-swapped with Deku without some stupid, invasive, soul-ripping consequence.

Because now?

Now, he knows.

And I know that he knows.

And he knows that I know that he knows.

And I cannot deal with this.

I can still feel the weight of it sinking into my bones, the cold, sick realization pressing down on me like a fucking vice. I am exposed, peeled open in a way I have never been in my entire goddamn life. Every buried, crushed, smothered, annihilated feeling I have spent years forcing into submission has been dragged into the light in an instant.

Because it’s not just that I know I’ve been in love with this idiot for years.

It’s that he knows it now, too.

He felt it.

He felt all of it.

The years of denial, the anger, the panic, the weight of wanting something I was never supposed to have. He felt the moment I realized it, the exact second I tried to kill it inside me. He felt every single time I swallowed it down, ignored it, let it rot in the back of my throat because it was easier to fight him than to admit what it meant.

And the worst part?

He didn’t hate it.

I know Deku. I know how his stupid, self-sacrificing, too-big heart works. I felt him process it. I felt him try to understand it instead of rejecting it outright. And that’s so much fucking worse than him running, worse than him laughing, worse than him being disgusted.

Because if he was disgusted, I could burn this whole thing down and walk away.

If he laughed, I could fight him until we drowned it in something else.

But this?

This means he’s thinking about it.

And I can’t—I can’t fucking do this. I cannot be here, in this moment, in this room, in this goddamn borrowed body, feeling him feel me. I can’t handle this being real.

So I do the only thing I can do.

I run.

I shove his hands off me—too hard, too sharp, too desperate—and take a step back, but it’s not enough. I need to get out. I need to get as far away from him as I can before this turns into something I can’t take back.

Before he says something that I can’t pretend didn’t happen.

I feel his panic spike as I move, like he knows exactly what I’m about to do.

But I don’t let him stop me.

I bolt.

IZUKU

Oh, we are not doing this.

We are not doing this, Kacchan.

Not when I felt it. Not when I woke up in his body this morning, opened my eyes, and immediately felt like I had been hit by a truck full of repressed emotions. Not when I spent the last ten minutes untangling the mess of everything he’s spent years trying to crush down.

Because I did feel it.

I felt all of it.

The anger. The panic. The crushing, overwhelming weight of something that was never supposed to exist in the first place. The way it wrapped around his ribs like barbed wire, the way it was buried so deep inside him that he convinced himself it wasn’t there.

Except it was.

It is.

And now I know.

And he knows that I know.

His entire body—**my body—**tenses like I just hit him with a stun grenade. His breathing goes sharp, his jaw locks so tight I can hear his teeth grind, and his fingers twitch like they’re fighting the urge to combust on the spot.

And then—

He shoves past me and fucking runs.

KATSUKI

NOPE.

I AM NOT DOING THIS.

I AM NOT HAVING THIS CONVERSATION.

I AM NOT STANDING IN A FUCKING HALLWAY IN MIDORIYA’S DUMB BODY DISCUSSING MY FUCKING FEELINGS.

I refuse.

I reject this entire fucking reality.

I do the only thing I can do.

I shove him out of the way—**not hard enough to hurt, but just enough to make him stumble—**and I bolt.

"HEY—!" he yells, but I do not look back.

I speed-walk out of the dorm like I am being hunted for sport.

Which, honestly? I might be.

IZUKU

He ran.

HE RAN.

KATSUKI “I DON’T RUN FROM SHIT” BAKUGO JUST FUCKING RAN.

Oh my god.

Oh my god.

I AM RIGHT.

I AM SO RIGHT.

Which means—

I AM NEVER LETTING THIS GO.

KATSUKI

I don’t stop running.

Not when I shove past Deku, not when I tear through the dorm, not when I nearly bulldoze Kaminari into a wall on my way through the common area.

I don’t stop when I push open the doors, when the cold evening air slams against my face, when my legs—**Deku’s fucking legs—**carry me down the path toward the training fields with a speed that feels wrong in a body that isn’t mine.

I don’t stop because I can’t.

Because the second I stop—

I will have to deal with this.

I will have to accept that everything I have forced down for years, everything I have shoved into the deepest, darkest fucking corners of my mind, everything I have crushed and ignored and annihilated in an attempt to pretend it didn’t exist—

It’s real.

It’s been real.

And now?

Now he fucking knows.

So I keep running.

I run until my lungs—**Deku’s lungs—**burn, until my heartbeat—**his heartbeat—**pounds in my ears, until my thoughts are too tangled to make sense of, too loud to even process.

And then, finally, I slow.

I stop at the edge of the training field, hunched over, breathing hard.

Not because I’m tired—Deku’s body has a ridiculous level of stamina—but because I need to breathe. I need to focus. I need to forget.

I need to forget that I was just seconds away from being completely exposed.

I need to erase the feeling of his realization hitting me like a bomb, the moment he figured it out.

I need to shove this back down, deep, where it belongs, where it’s been locked away for years.

I need—

A shadow looms over me.

I freeze.

Something inside my chest seizes so violently that my breath catches.

Slowly, like I already know what I’m about to see, I turn.

And there he is.

Deku. looking down at me with my own vermillion eyes so sharp.

Standing there.

Smirking.

Oh my god.

He followed me.

Oh my god.

He looks so fucking smug.

OH MY GOD.

IZUKU

I don’t say anything immediately.

Because I don’t need to.

I’ve already won.

Kacchan is standing there, tense, too tense, his whole body coiled like a live wire, his shoulders tight, his fists clenched like they want to explode but can’t. There’s a paleness to his expression that isn’t fear, not exactly, but something dangerously close. Something raw. Something exposed.

And I—

I am thriving.

Because I was right.

And he knows it.

I can feel it.

I can feel it in the way his stomach twists, in the way his breath is just a little too shallow, in the way his mind is racing, scrambling for damage control, for a way out.

I feel the panic.

The horrified, gut-wrenching realization that he has lost all plausible deniability.

So I tilt my head, let my lips curl into a grin, and say, "You ran."

His eye twitches.

I savor the reaction, the way his whole body goes rigid like I just set off a proximity mine.

"You," I continue, tone sweet, deliberately soft, "ran away from me."

The words land like a direct hit. His whole stance locks up, every muscle in his—my—body reacting too sharply, too immediately.

I take a slow, deliberate step forward, dramatic and measured, letting every second of this moment sink in.

"You never run, Kacchan."

His breath stalls.

He stops breathing.

I can feel it—the absolute, paralyzing grip of realization sinking its claws into him.

And then, because I am cruel, because I know exactly how far I can push this, because I can feel his heart hammering against my ribs like he’s trying to outrun his own truth—

I lower my voice, lean in just enough, and whisper,

"What were you so afraid of?"

And that’s it.

That’s the final blow.

KATSUKI

I have to kill him.

I HAVE TO KILL HIM.

BECAUSE—

• HE KNOWS.

• HE KNOWS.

• HE KNOWS.

• AND I KNOW THAT HE KNOWS.

And now I am stuck in his fucking body, unable to do a single thing about it.

I inhale sharply, force every muscle in my stolen, useless, nerd-ass body to relax, and then—

I scowl, roll my shoulders, and sneer, "Tch. You’re imagining shit, dumbass."

And then I shove past him and walk away.

Because I cannot let him win.

Not now.

Not ever.

Not when I know that the second I let my guard down—

This is all going to come crashing down.

KATSUKI

I am in hell.

A never-ending, soul-crushing, inescapable hell.

Not just because I woke up in Deku’s body.
Not just because he now knows I’ve been hopelessly, disgustingly in love with him for years.
Not just because he is now torturing me with this knowledge.

But because I am being forced to go to class like this.

Like nothing is wrong.

Like I am not currently living in my worst fucking nightmare.

IZUKU

This is amazing.

I mean, it’s horrifying. Deeply, deeply horrifying.

But also—it’s amazing.

Because Kacchan—big, terrifying, unshakable Kacchan, the guy who has never hesitated in a fight, never backed down from a challenge, never let himself break in front of anyone—

Is absolutely, completely, spectacularly falling apart.

And he is so bad at pretending otherwise.

I don’t know if it’s just because I’m in his body—if I can feel it clearer now, if the way his emotions are flooding into me like a second pulse is making it easier to see—or if he’s just never been good at hiding things from me to begin with.

But right now?

Right now, he is unraveling at the seams.

He sits stiffly in my chair—his chair now, technically—his arms crossed so tightly that I can see the strain in his forearms, the tension winding up his shoulders like a live wire. His jaw is locked, his expression neutral in the way that only means he’s barely holding it together.

His eye twitches.

His fingers flex against his arms, curling and uncurling like he wants to grab something, like he’s trying to stop himself from reacting, from moving, from exploding.

I can feel the conflict in him—the sheer, overwhelming, suffocating weight of it. The panic crawling up his spine, the desperate flood of thoughts slamming into each other in his head, all of them screaming at him to fix this, escape this, deny this.

But there’s nothing he can do.

And I—

I cannot stop watching him suffer.

It’s awful. It’s cruel. It’s mean.

And I have never felt so victorious in my entire life.

KATSUKI

I do not make eye contact with him.

I refuse to make eye contact with him.

Because if I do, he will smirk.
And if he smirks, I will lose my goddamn mind.

Aizawa drags himself into class, looking as exhausted as usual, glances at us once, and sighs.

"Try not to blow anything up today," he mutters, before dropping into his chair and ignoring us completely.

Kaminari snickers. "That’s literally impossible. Midoriya is gonna blow something up, and Bakugo—"

Chapter Text

KATSUKI

This day has been the worst day of my entire fucking life.

Not only am I stuck in Deku’s stupid body, but I can’t use my Quirk, I can’t eat my own food, and I’ve been forced to endure an entire day of our friends watching me fall apart.

And now?

Now, I have to survive dinner.

Which means sitting across from Deku while he smirks at me in my own fucking face.

Which means putting food in my mouth that tastes completely, utterly wrong.

Which means avoiding eye contact with Todoroki, who is still visibly struggling with his emotions.

Which means not murdering Mina and Kaminari when they inevitably start asking more questions.

I am not going to survive this.



IZUKU

This is the best day of my life.

Not only do I get to watch Kacchan suffer, but I also get to enjoy watching him squirm as everyone around us tries to make sense of this disaster.

And he is suffering.

Horribly.

It’s glorious.

I sit down at the dinner table, stretching my arms—Kacchan’s arms, which feels so weird but also incredibly powerful, oh my god—and let out a long, dramatic sigh, just to watch him suffer more.

“Wow,” I say, leaning back with his confidence, flashing a grin with his sharp, cocky smirk. “Today was exhausting.”

Kacchan’s eye twitches. In my face. It’s surreal, watching my own expression shift with barely-contained rage, like I just told myself that All Might is overrated.

Across the table, Mina leans forward, smirking. “Oh? Was it hard adjusting?”

I sigh, real heavy, all exaggerated misery, shaking my head like I just went through the worst struggle of my life.

“Yeah,” I say, letting the weight of it sit in the air before I smirk. “It’s just—being Kacchan is so hard, you know?”

Mina snorts.

Kaminari chokes on his drink.

Sero wheezes into his sleeve.

Todoroki tilts his head, staring at me like I just said something profound.

And Kacchan—oh, Kacchan—

He growls.

Except he growls in my voice.

And it is so fucking unimpressive.

I am going to live off of this moment for the rest of my life.

KATSUKI

I am going to kill him.

I don’t know how yet, but I am going to figure out how to use this nerd-ass Quirk and end him.

Because this—this right here? This is hell.

Sitting at this table. In his body. With his voice. Surrounded by these shitheads, all of whom are barely containing their laughter every time I so much as breathe wrong.

Deku is thriving.

Which is unacceptable.

But before I can even start plotting his demise, Mina turns to me, grinning like she’s been waiting for this moment her entire life.

“What about you, Bakugo? What’s it like being Midoriya?”

I freeze.

I can feel the way everyone immediately leans in.

I can feel the weight of every single expectant stare boring into me like knives.

And worst of all—worst of all—

Deku perks up immediately, beaming at me with his own stupid face, except I’m the one wearing it, which makes it infinitely worse.

“Yeah, Kacchan,” he says, all fake innocence, too much sugar, voice dripping with malicious glee. “What’s it like?”

This bastard.

I narrow my eyes. Cross my arms. Force a scowl onto his face.

I grit my teeth and mutter, “It’s fucking stupid.”

Mina gasps. “Language!”

Kaminari immediately falls out of his chair.

Sero is crying.

Shitty Hair has his fist in his mouth like he’s physically restraining himself from howling.

Todoroki—**fucking Todoroki—**tilts his head and says, "You’re not usually this self-deprecating."

And I—

I want to crawl into the floor and die.

IZUKU

Oh, this is fun.

This is so much fun.

Kacchan is miserable, and I am thriving.

I lean forward, all bright eyes and fake encouragement, grinning way too wide just to piss him off more. “Come on, Kacchan, tell them how much you love being me.”

His head slowly turns toward me, like something out of a horror movie.

And I—**oh, this is surreal—**get the nastiest glare I have ever seen on my own face.

Which should be impossible, but somehow, he pulls it off.

“Oh yeah,” he grits out, voice flat, eyes dead, the sheer loathing radiating off of him so intense I think he might actually set me on fire through sheer willpower.

“It’s amazing. My bones feel like glass, I can’t use my own Quirk without shattering myself, and apparently, my taste buds are defective.”

Kaminari wheezes from across the table. Mina slaps a hand over her mouth. Shoto, always the picture of restraint, lifts his glass to his lips and takes the most casual sip I’ve ever seen while watching a disaster unfold.

I blink. “Defective?”

Kacchan—**in my body—**scowls, grabs his water, and takes a huge sip like the dramatic asshole he is.

And then he immediately chokes.

Like, full-body convulses, eyes-widening, air-leaves-the-room chokes.

The reaction is so violent I can feel it in my own chest—his disgust, his horror, his absolute visceral betrayal.

He slams the glass down on the table, coughing violently, face twisting like he just drank literal poison.

“WHAT THE FUCK IS THIS?!” he demands, looking personally offended.

I tilt my head, confused. “Uh… water?”

“NO, IT FUCKING ISN’T!” Kacchan gestures aggressively at the glass like it’s wronged him in some way. “IT TASTES LIKE—LIKE—FUCKING NOTHING. WHAT THE HELL?!”

Mina is cackling. Sero is holding onto Kaminari, who is actively crying.

Todoroki, bless his heart, blinks. “That is how water normally tastes.”

“NO, IT ISN’T!” Kacchan slams his hands—MY hands—onto the table, looking fully unhinged. “WATER HAS TASTE. IT’S CRISP. IT HAS A—A FUCKING BITE TO IT.”

“A bite?” I repeat, barely containing my laughter.

Mina leans in, eyes shining with pure chaos. “Wait, wait, so you’re saying Midoriya’s taste buds are broken?”

Kacchan doesn’t even hesitate. “YES.”

I gasp, clutching my chest dramatically. “Are you saying my entire childhood was a lie?”

“I’M SAYING YOU’VE BEEN EATING SHIT FOOD YOUR WHOLE LIFE BECAUSE YOU CAN’T EVEN TASTE IT.”

Mina collapses onto the table. Kaminari falls out of his chair.

Shoto, somehow unfazed, takes another sip of his water and nods. “I always suspected Midoriya had dietary issues.”

And I—

I am going to cherish this moment forever.

Dinner is over.

Kacchan has suffered immeasurably.

I am thriving.

And then we go back to our dorm.

And then—

It hits us.

Oh.

Oh no.

Where the hell are we supposed to sleep?

Because under normal circumstances, this wouldn’t be weird.

Normally, we just exist in this shared space, get ready for bed, maybe throw an insult or two, and then pass out in our separate beds like civilized, totally normal, definitely not body-swapped people.

But now?

Now, we are not in our own bodies.

Now, everything feels impossibly, unbearably, excruciatingly intimate.

I freeze in the doorway.

Kacchan freezes beside me.

We both stare at our beds.

Neither of us moves.

For a long, horrible moment, we just stand there, the weight of our current reality pressing down on us like a brick to the skull.

And then—

“No,” Kacchan says, stepping back like the air itself is cursed. “Nope. Fuck this. I’m sleeping on the floor.”

I whip my head around to look at him—which is a mistake, because it means I have to watch my own face scowl like it just got personally attacked.

“What? No! You can’t sleep on the floor, Kacchan!” I argue, instinct kicking in before logic.

“Like hell I can’t!” he snaps, waving a hand—my hand—wildly at the beds like they’re offensive. “I am not sleeping in your bed. That’s—weird.”

“Oh, and me sleeping in your bed isn’t?!” I shoot back.

Kacchan hesitates. I see it—the half-second of conflicted horror flashing through his eyes before he grits his teeth, digs his heels into his own denial, and doubles down.

“You can sleep in your own damn bed! You’re me, aren’t you?!”

I blink. Process. Then scoff.

“That’s not how this works! I am literally looking at my own body right now!” I throw my arms up, then pause, because—oh wow, I forget how strong Kacchan is. That felt way too powerful.

Kacchan glares, arms crossing, posture so aggressively defensive it would be funny if it wasn’t our actual reality right now. “I don’t give a shit. I’m not sleeping in your bed.”

“Oh my god.” I pinch the bridge of my nose—his nose—and take a deep breath. I can feel his natural frustration response curling in my gut, making me more annoyed than I normally would be. “Kacchan. It’s literally just a bed.”

“No, it’s not,” he growls. “It’s your bed. It smells like you.”

Silence.

I stare.

Kacchan stares back.

The moment stretches between us, awful and heavy, filled with implications neither of us is prepared to unpack.

“What the fuck?” I say, because I need to say something.

Kacchan immediately short-circuits.

“NOT LIKE THAT!” he yells, flailing his arms—my arms—so aggressively that he nearly punches the light switch off the wall. “I MEAN—IT JUST—BEDS SMELL LIKE PEOPLE, NERD, IT’S A NORMAL THING—”

I fold my arms. Raise an eyebrow. My eyebrow. On his face. “Do you sniff my bed when I’m not here, Kacchan?”

His entire body—my entire body—locks up.

“I AM GOING TO FUCKING KILL YOU.”

Kacchan lunges.

I dodge.

And that’s how we spend the next five minutes chasing each other around our dorm like absolute lunatics, knocking over furniture, dodging kicks, and full-body tackling each other while trying to ignore the horrible, bone-deep realization that we can literally feel every single ounce of each other’s growing embarrassment.

This is, without a doubt, the worst night of our lives.

We last a full five minutes before we both run out of energy.

Kacchan—in my body, with my stamina, which means he should have lasted way longer—collapses first, panting hard, glaring absolute murder at me from where he’s sprawled face-first on the floor.

I—in his body, with his sheer physical strength, which I have definitely not figured out how to regulate—end up leaning against the bed frame, breathing heavier than I should be, trying to ignore the fact that my arms—**his arms—**feel like they could break through the furniture if I’m not careful.

We sit in fuming silence for a long moment, the tension so thick I could cut it with a knife.

Eventually, Kacchan grumbles something incomprehensible into the floor.

I squint at him. “What?”

A deep, murderous sigh into the carpet. Then, without looking up—

“Fine.”

I blink. “Fine, what?”

“Fine, I’ll sleep in the stupid fucking bed.”

Oh.

Oh, I win.

I win.

I am unstoppable.

I grin, push myself up—wobble slightly because Kacchan’s body is way more powerful than I am used to—and place a hand on my hip. His hip. Whatever.

“Well,” I say, gleeful, “that wasn’t so hard, was it?”

Kacchan slowly, dangerously, peels himself off the floor, my face contorted in pure, barely contained rage, and points a shaking finger at me.

“I am going to fucking destroy you.”

I pat him on the shoulder. “Okay, Kacchan.”

He lunges at me again.

And then, after yet another round of screaming, wrestling, and one unfortunate moment where we tripped and crashed into the wall so hard we almost knocked a lamp over, we finally, finally collapse into our beds.

Me, in Kacchan’s bed.

Kacchan, in mine.

Both of us still bristling with unspoken horror at how utterly wrong everything feels.

The room falls into tense silence as we both stare at the ceiling, too stiff, too uncomfortable, too hyper-aware of the fact that we are in each other’s space, in each other’s bodies, and somehow, against all logic, we can still feel each other’s emotions like they are our own.

KATSUKI

This is a disaster.

An unforgivable, universe-ending, soul-crushing disaster.

Because it’s one thing to suffer through the day.

It’s one thing to sit through class, trying not to physically combust every time someone looks at me like I’m about to start rambling about hero statistics. It’s one thing to endure lunch, gripping a fork like a goddamn weapon while the entire class takes turns interrogating me about my experience as Deku. It’s one thing to be humiliated in training, stumbling over his stupid One For All instincts because my body keeps trying to explode when it should be dodging.

But this?

This is different.

Because now we have to do the normal shit.

The shit that neither of us ever think about.

The shit that we do separately, alone, without an audience, without an entire class watching our every move like we’re some fucked-up reality TV show.

Like—

Changing.

Like—

Showering.

Like—

Sleeping.

Oh my god.

Oh my god.

I feel the realization sink in, deep, like a lead weight dropping into my stomach.

Deku must feel it too because he suddenly tenses beside me, his shoulders—**my shoulders—**drawing up like he just realized something life-altering and horrifying.

We turn to look at each other at the exact same time.

Our own faces stare back at us.

And then, in perfect unison, we both whisper, "Oh my god."

IZUKU

Kacchan is panicking.

I can see it in my own face.

I take a deep breath. Someone has to be the rational one here.

"Okay," I say. "Let’s just act normal."

Kacchan slowly turns to look at me.

Then he gives me the deadliest glare of my life.

“ACT. NORMAL?” he hisses.

“Yeah,” I say. “We’re used to this. We’ve lived in the same space for years now, Kacchan. It’s not that different.”

He laughs.

It is the most horrifying sound I have ever heard come out of my mouth.

And then he says, "WE SWAPPED BODIES, YOU FUCKING MORON."

KATSUKI

"ACT NORMAL, HE SAYS."

"IT’S NOT THAT DIFFERENT, HE SAYS."

DOES HE NOT REALIZE WHAT IS HAPPENING?!

I drag **my hands—his hands—**down my face and groan, already at my breaking point. My entire existence is a waking nightmare, and Deku is standing there like an idiot acting like everything is fine.

It is not fine.

It is the opposite of fine.

I can feel it boiling under my skin—his skin—the horrifying, creeping realization that today wasn’t even the worst part. That class, training, and public humiliation were nothing compared to what comes next.

Because now—

Now, we have to deal with the normal shit.

The shit we do alone, without an audience, without even thinking about it.

The shit that involves being in our own bodies in ways we have never had to consider before.

I open my mouth—close it—open it again—I cannot believe I have to be the one to say this.

"You don’t get it," I mutter, trying to ignore the sheer weight of horror pressing down on my soul.

Deku raises an eyebrow—**my eyebrow, which is incredibly unsettling—**and shrugs. "What’s there to get?"

I stare at him.

I stare at him harder.

I stare at him with the full force of my incoming mental breakdown.

And then, because apparently, I am the only one using my goddamn brain, I grit my teeth and say, "You’re in my fucking body, nerd."

And I watch realization hit him like a truck.

I feel it happen.

The way his entire soul lurches.

The way his breath catches.

The way the sheer, unfiltered horror radiates off of him like a dying star.

Because he gets it.

He gets it all at once.

He gets that we have to shower.

He gets that we have to change clothes.

He gets that we are going to have to exist in each other’s skin in ways we were never meant to.

And then, slowly, painfully, he whispers—

"Oh my god."

I throw my hands in the air. "THANK YOU!"

IZUKU

Oh.

Oh no.

He’s right.

I am in his body.

He is in mine.

And that means—

Oh no.

We can’t ignore it.

We can’t pretend it doesn’t matter.

Because it’s not just about sleeping in each other’s beds or getting through the day without causing a catastrophic incident.

It’s about everything.

It’s about showering.

It’s about changing clothes.

It’s about being in a body that isn’t ours but still has to be taken care of.

It’s about standing here, staring at Kacchan, realizing that at some point, I am going to have to deal with all of this in ways I have never had to think about before.

My stomach drops.

My face heats up.

Oh no.

I can feel it happening.

The creeping, horrible spread of embarrassment curling from my neck, up my ears, all the way to the tips of my cheeks.

Kacchan notices immediately.

Of course he does.

He watches, his own face—my face—twisting with slow, dawning amusement.

His smirk grows.

"Yeah," he says, voice dripping with smug satisfaction. "Now you get it."

I turn a shade of red so violent I didn’t even know my own face was capable of turning this color.

Kacchan’s smirk only widens.

I am never going to live this down.

KATSUKI

I finally won.

For the first time today, he is suffering more than me.

And it is glorious.

Deku stares at me, eyes too wide, face so red it looks physically painful, mouth opening and closing like he wants to say something but has fully short-circuited.

Then—

The stammering starts.

The full-body, hands-waving, pure panicked flailing.

He stumbles over his own words, shakes his head like he can physically dispel the thought, and then, in a move so predictably Deku, he does the most dramatic thing possible.

He launches himself toward the bathroom.

"I’M SHOWERING FIRST!" he yells, full panic mode, slamming the door so hard it rattles the walls.

And I—

I burst out laughing.

Because oh, this dumbass.

That just means he has to figure out how to shower in my body first.

My body.

With my Quirk.

With my stupidly strong muscle memory.

With reflexes he has zero experience controlling.

Oh, this is going to be so fucking funny.

IZUKU

I am in the shower.

In Kacchan’s body.

And I am not okay.

I am so far from okay that I don’t even think okay exists anymore.

Because no matter how hard I try not to think about it, no matter how many mental gymnastics I attempt, no matter how much I try to force my brain to focus on literally anything else, I cannot escape the horrifying, unbearable, earth-shattering truth.

I am currently naked.

In Kacchan’s body.

And **worse—**so much worse—

I cannot stop looking.

I tell myself not to.

I tell myself to close my eyes.

I tell myself to focus on the water, on the steam, on the goddamn bottle of shampoo in the corner that looks exactly like mine but somehow feels different because Kacchan probably squeezes it with the force of a small explosion.

But I cannot stop looking.

Because—

Oh.

Oh my god.

Kacchan is fucking ripped.

Not just fit, not just athletic—no, no, that would be manageable.

This is unfair.

This is Greek statue, should-not-be-human levels of built.

This is every single muscle defined to a degree that I am unprepared to process.

This is broad shoulders, strong arms, abs that I didn’t even know were possible, and thighs that could probably crush a car.

This is the kind of physique that should not be scientifically achievable by someone who eats as much spicy garbage as Kacchan does.

And I—

I cannot think.

I cannot function.

I cannot do anything except stand here, under the spray of the water, staring down at Kacchan’s ridiculous, infuriating, completely unnecessary level of physical perfection, and wonder if this is what dying feels like.

Because this is so much worse than I expected.

And then, as if my entire situation wasn’t already catastrophic enough, I make the grave mistake of feeling.

And I don’t mean feeling with my hands—(oh my god, no, absolutely not,)—I mean the other feeling.

The one that isn’t mine.

The one belonging to the actual owner of this body.

Because, oh.

Oh, no.

Kacchan’s body remembers things.

His muscles hold instincts, hold memory, hold a lifetime of training, fighting, reacting.

And now?

Now I can feel all of it.

The way his hands clench before an attack, the way his shoulders brace for impact, the way his pulse spikes in anticipation before a hit even lands.

It’s second nature.

It’s part of him.

And I am drowning in it.

I slap a hand over my face—his face—and groan into my palm.

This is a nightmare.

This is an actual nightmare.

And the worst part is that this is only the first shower.

I still have two weeks of this.

I am never going to survive.

KATSUKI

The water’s running.

I know he’s in there.

And I know exactly what he’s realizing right now.

And it is fucking killing me.

I am flat on my back, sprawled out on his bed, staring at the ceiling like it personally wronged me, trying—desperately, violently—to think about literally anything else.

But I can’t.

Because I can feel him.

And he—**that nerd, that absolute menace, that walking disaster of a human being—**is currently in my body.

Looking at everything.

And he can’t stop.

I KNOW he can’t stop.

I feel it, the mortified spiral of panic swallowing him whole, the sheer unrelenting weight of realization crashing into him over and over again.

And it is slowly driving me insane.

I grit my teeth, trying to block it out, trying to pretend that I don’t know exactly what’s happening in that bathroom right now.

Because I do.

Because Deku, who has spent his entire life looking up to me, analyzing me, idolizing me, obsessing over every single one of my goddamn movements, every single flex of muscle, every single thing I’ve ever done—

He’s seeing it all.

Up close.

With no filter.

My jaw locks. My hands curl into the sheets, gripping them like they’re the only thing keeping me tethered to reality.

Because I know what happens when Deku fixates on something.

I know how his brain works, how he takes apart every little thing, files it away, memorizes it, picks it apart like it’s a goddamn puzzle.

And now?

Now that he’s literally in my body, now that he’s realizing exactly what my training has done to me, exactly how much work I’ve put in, exactly how much I have pushed myself to become stronger—

He’s analyzing it.

He’s cataloging every detail.

I know it.

I feel it.

And I can’t fucking handle it.

I throw an arm over my face, growling under my breath, trying to shove down the burning, unbearable mortification clawing up my spine.

And then—

Through the door—through the muffled hum of the shower, through the walls separating me from my own personal hell—

I hear it.

A sharp, tiny, breathless noise.

A gasp.

My entire body locks up.

OH MY FUCKING GOD.

HE MADE A NOISE.

I spring upright so fast my vision swims, my heart hammering a thousand miles per hour, my entire soul trying to eject itself out of my body.

I have two options right now.

One: I ignore it. I pretend it didn’t happen, I bury this moment deep, I set it on fire, and I pretend that I am not currently living in the worst timeline imaginable.

Two: I set the entire dorm on fire and walk into the ocean.

I squeeze my eyes shut, gripping my skull like I can physically force the thought out of my head.

"No. Nope. Absolutely not. I refuse. I refuse to fucking process this."

The shower is still running.

I know he’s still in there.

I know he’s still looking.

And I know that by the time he comes out of that bathroom, I will never be the same person again.

IZUKU

I squeeze my eyes shut.

I finish washing up as fast as possible.

And then I grab a towel, wrap it around my waist, and step out of the bathroom.

Kacchan is lying on my bed, staring at the ceiling like he’s having a spiritual crisis.

He looks at me.

I freeze.

Oh.

Oh no.

Because I just realized.

I am standing in front of Kacchan.

In his body.

Fresh out of the shower.

Wet.

And Kacchan—**in my body—**is looking at me with genuine terror.

KATSUKI

I have to get out of here.

I have to get out of here, and I have to get out of here NOW.

Because that was a mistake.

Looking at him—

Fuck.

**Looking at me—**was a mistake.

I was not emotionally, physically, or spiritually prepared for this.

I don’t even know why I did it. Why I let my eyes drift up, why I let my brain register the way Deku—in my goddamn body—was walking out of the bathroom, hair soaking wet, steam still clinging to his too-warm skin, my skin, droplets running down his neck, my neck, his shoulders—FUCK.

I shove my hands into my hair—**his hair—**and nearly scream when my fingers sink into it like it’s fucking cotton candy.

This is a nightmare.

And **worse—so much worse—**now it’s my turn.

I have to go take a shower.

In HIS body.

I am going to die.

I grab the first set of clothes I see, shove past him so violently that I nearly knock him over—**which is horrifying, because this body isn’t even that strong—**slam the bathroom door behind me, and brace my hands against the sink, trying to breathe.

Trying to regain control.

But then—

I look up.

And I see it.

I see myself.

Except I don’t.

I see Deku.

Wide eyes. Freckles. Messy, damp curls. Small frame, lean and wiry in a way that feels weak but isn’t. A body that has been built for endurance, for speed, for recovery.

I see his collarbone, sharp and visible in a way mine never is.

I see his hands, smaller than mine, but rough in a different way, calloused from writing, from holding a pen, from years of gripping notebooks so tightly that the edges dug into his palms.

I see his scars.

And I freeze.

Because holy shit.

They’re everywhere.

I knew, obviously. Everyone knew. You don’t get to be Deku without getting banged up along the way. But knowing and seeing are two completely different things.

They lace up his arms, fade in and out along his shoulders, disappear beneath his shirt in places I don’t even want to think about.

And it’s—

It’s too much.

It’s too fucking much.

I swallow hard, my throat tight, my pulse loud, my stomach twisting into something that feels too much like guilt.

Because I felt it earlier, when he was moving around, when he was sitting across from me at dinner, when he was talking like nothing was different. I felt the way his body carries pain like it’s normal. Like it’s just something to live with.

And now I’m standing here in it.

And I don’t know how the fuck he does this every day.

I don’t know how he carries this body like it’s fine, like it’s not a battlefield, like it’s not proof of every single thing he’s put himself through.

I rip my eyes away from the mirror before I can keep going, before I start spiraling into something I don’t want to name.

I turn on the water, grip the sink so hard my knuckles ache, and think,

Oh, fuck.

I know that he knows.

There’s no more hiding it. No more pretending. No more shoving it so far down that even I could convince myself it wasn’t there.

Deku felt it.

The way I felt him.

The way I felt his memories, his instincts, his fears, his unbearable need to carry everything alone, like it was the only way to make it hurt less.

I felt it. All of it.

And he—

He felt me.

I know he did. I can still feel the weight of his realization, the way it crashed into him like a wave, slow and creeping at first—then all at once.

He knows.

He knows.

I grip the edge of the sink, hard enough that my knuckles ache.

The worst part is—he’s not saying anything.

Because Deku, for all his overthinking, for all his stupid muttering and theorizing and constant need to solve every problem in the world, hasn’t said a single fucking word about it.

And it’s killing me.

Because that means he’s thinking about it.

Because that means it’s not just in my head anymore.

And even worse than that—

I am in his body.

I am in the body of the boy I have only ever let myself dream about in my darkest, most repressed, most pathetic fucking moments.

And I have nowhere to run.

I force myself to look up.

To really look.

And I see him—see myself.

It’s fucking surreal.

I know this face. I know every inch of it—have watched it for years, studied it in ways that I have always refused to acknowledge.

But it’s different now.

It’s mine to wear.

It’s mine to touch.

I can touch him—touch myself—and it wouldn’t even be wrong.

My throat closes up.

I shouldn’t be thinking like this.

I shouldn’t be looking.

But I am.

Because it’s too much.

Because I have spent my whole life looking and not looking at the same time.

I have spent years pretending that I don’t notice how his shirt rides up when he stretches, how his fingers twitch when he’s thinking, how his mouth moves when he’s focused, how his stupid freckles dust across his nose like the universe is trying to kill me on purpose.

I have spent years not looking because I knew—**I always knew—**that if I did, if I ever let myself really see him, I would never be able to stop.

And now, I can’t not see him.

I can’t not feel him.

I drag my hand down my face—his face.

I swallow.

I let my eyes fall lower, past his collarbone, past the sharp angles of his shoulders, down—

Scars.

I freeze.

They’re everywhere.

Deep, jagged, long-healed things. Marks that shouldn’t be there. Marks that weren’t there when we were kids. Marks that tell a story I already know but have never had to see like this.

And I—

I feel sick.

I hate this.

I hate that I didn’t stop this from happening.

I hate that I am standing here in the body of the person I have spent my entire life running from and running toward all at the same time, and I am seeing, firsthand, every single piece of proof that I wasn’t there when he needed me most.

I look away.

I step back.

I shut my eyes.

But it doesn’t go away.

He knows.

And now—so does the rest of me.

IZUKU

I try not to think about it.

I really, really try not to think about it.

I try not to think about what Kacchan is seeing right now.

I try not to think about what Kacchan is feeling right now.

I try not to think about what Kacchan is thinking about my body right now.

And I definitely, absolutely, one-hundred-percent try not to think about the fact that I am lying in my bed, still damp from my own shower, while Kacchan is currently naked in the bathroom, trying to figure out how to deal with me.

Oh my god.

I hate this.

I love this.

I hate that I love this.

I bury my face into my pillow, let out a muffled scream, and then immediately flip onto my back, because this body is not mine, and it feels weird to do that in Kacchan’s body.

This is the worst night of my life.

Because I felt him.

I felt every single thing he felt the moment he looked in that mirror.

The shock. The realization. The slow, crawling horror.

The way his brain completely short-circuited.

The way he tried—oh, he tried so hard—to make himself look away.

But he didn’t.

Because he couldn’t.

Because I know him.

Because I felt him, in that moment, realize what he’s been ignoring for years.

And—oh, god.

I felt how he sees me.

I felt it, like it was my own thought, my own emotion, my own breath catching in my chest.

I felt the way he stared, the way he tried to push the thought away, the way it just kept coming back.

I felt the ache.

I felt the longing.

I felt the disbelief, the awe, the sharp, unexpected punch to his gut when he realized just how many scars I have.

I felt the guilt.

And that—that is what’s killing me the most.

Because I never wanted him to feel that.

Because he shouldn’t.

Because none of it is his fault.

But he blames himself anyway.

Because of course he does.

Because he’s Kacchan.

Because he’s always carried more weight than he was supposed to.

And now I know.

Now I understand.

And he knows that I know.

And neither of us is saying a word about it.

I roll over, stare at the ceiling, and groan so loudly I hear Kaminari laugh in the next room over.

This is an absolute disaster.

And we haven’t even made it to day two.

KATSUKI

I take the fastest fucking shower of my life.

It’s all muscle memory. Turn on the water, step in, wash, get the fuck out.

I do not look down.

I do not think.

I do not acknowledge anything.

I am in Deku’s body, and I am in the worst crisis of my entire existence.

Because the truth is—

I tried.

I tried so goddamn hard to not look.

I put every ounce of willpower I possess into not looking.

And yet—

I looked.

Because how the fuck could I not?

I am literally incapable of not looking.

It was just a glance, at first. A quick, fleeting, accidental moment where my brain caught up too late to what I was doing, too late to shut it down, too late to pretend I hadn’t already seen.

But then I looked again.

And then I couldn’t stop.

I told myself it was just washing. Just routine.

But my hands—**his hands—**moved like they weren’t mine, like they were following some pre-programmed instinct.

And then—

Then I traced them over the scars.

Not all of them. Just the worst ones.

Just the ones that shouldn’t be there.

The deep, jagged ones along his arms.

The ones that spoke of pain too sharp, too sudden, too violent to be healed without leaving a mark.

The ones that made my stomach twist and my breath catch in ways I don’t want to name.

The ones that made something inside me ache.

And yearn.

And I hated it.

Because it’s complicated and messy and impossible, and now it’s real.

Now I know.

Now I can’t pretend anymore.

I shuddered.

Because it felt too much like a confession.

And then, before I could do something even more pathetic, I shut off the water, stepped out, and yanked on the first set of clothes I could find—Deku’s stupid, soft, too-worn pajamas that feel weirdly personal, weirdly intimate, weirdly wrong in ways I don’t want to examine.

I need to leave this bathroom immediately.

So I do.

I step out, back into the dorm.

Deku is sitting on my bed, staring at the wall, looking like he is struggling with his entire existence.

Which is fair.

Because I know what he felt when I was in there.

I know he knows.

I know he knows that I know.

And now?

Now, we have a problem.

I am never going to recover from this.

The day was bad enough.
The shower took three of my lives.

But now? Now, I have to sleep in Deku’s fucking body.

And I already know it’s going to be a nightmare.

We finish getting ready for bed in complete silence.

Deku still looks smug about dinner. He shouldn’t be.

Because I know what’s coming.

He’s about to get the worst sleep of his life.

I lie down in Deku’s bed.

The sheets smell wrong.

The pillow is too soft.

Everything is too quiet.

I shift onto my side, try to get comfortable, try to ignore how foreign everything feels—

And it’s unbearable.

This isn’t my body.

This isn’t my bed.

This isn’t my fucking life.

I feel like I’m going to lose my goddamn mind.

IZUKU

I try everything.

I shift onto my side.

I try lying on my back.

I adjust my pillow.

I flip the blanket over, then push it down, then pull it back up again like that’s somehow going to fix this absolute nightmare.

Nothing works.

Because this isn’t my body.

I don’t know how to sleep in it.

I don’t know how to exist in it.

I feel too hot and too cold at the same time.

My skin feels wrong, too sensitive in places it shouldn’t be, too heavy in others.

There’s muscle memory in this body that I don’t understand, instincts firing off that I have no way of controlling.

I can feel his body in ways I was never meant to.

The way his muscles twitch, even in rest—always ready to move, always on edge, like he’s waiting for a fight even in sleep.

The way his lungs pull in air deeper than mine ever have, more forceful, more controlled—like even breathing is a learned discipline.

The way his heart beats, steady and strong, but somehow also restless.

And it’s too much.

It’s too much to process, too much to think about, too much to lie here and feel.

So, I do the worst possible thing.

I try to roll over.

And—

I overshoot.

I don’t just roll over.

I launch myself.

Too fast. Too strong. Too much.

For one terrifying second, I am weightless, momentum pulling me straight off the mattress like I’m about to be yeeted into another dimension.

I freeze, my fingers clawing at the edge of the bed, barely keeping me from crashing to the floor.

And then—slowly, cautiously, horrified beyond belief—

I turn my head.

And across the room—in my bed—

Kacchan is staring at me.

Like he just witnessed a fucking crime.

Like I just violated the Geneva Convention right in front of him.

Like he will never recover from this moment for as long as he lives.

I do not move.

He does not move.

There is only silence.

A long, horrible, crushing, suffocating silence.

Then, finally, in the slowest, most deliberate movement I have ever seen from him, Kacchan lifts his head, narrows his eyes, and rasps,

“What. The actual. Fuck.”

I want to die.

KATSUKI

"Are you fucking serious?" I hiss.

Deku blinks. "What?"

"Did you just—" I throw a hand toward him. "Did you almost roll yourself off the fucking bed?"

He glares. "It’s your stupid body!"

"MY BODY WORKS FINE," I snap. "YOU JUST DON’T KNOW HOW TO USE IT!"

He groans and flops back onto the mattress. "This is impossible."

I smirk. "Oh? What happened to ‘let’s just act normal, Kacchan’?"

He throws a pillow at me.

I catch it, laughing.

And then we go back to suffering.

IZUKU

I know Kacchan isn’t sleeping either.

I can hear him shifting.

I can hear the bedsprings creak every time he moves—every restless, irritated shift of weight, every sharp inhale, every frustrated exhale.

I can hear him muttering curses under his breath, quiet but vicious, just barely audible over the soft hum of the night.

And I know—**I just know—**that he is going through the exact same thing.

That he hates this just as much as I do.

That he feels just as trapped in my body as I feel in his.

That he probably feels just as off-balance, just as exposed, just as utterly unmoored.

Because it’s not just the body.

It’s everything.

It’s the way our muscles don’t respond the way they should.

It’s the way our skin doesn’t feel like home.

It’s the way our hearts beat at rhythms that aren’t our own.

And worse—so much worse—

It’s the way we can feel each other’s emotions like they belong to us.

Like there’s no separation between where I end and where Kacchan begins.

Like I can feel his irritation curling in my gut, his frustration twisting in my chest, his exhaustion pressing against my skull.

Like I can feel the way he hates this.

The way he hates feeling this powerless, this vulnerable, this exposed.

And I wonder—

Does he feel my exhaustion, too?

Does he feel how drained I am?

Does he feel how I want to sleep but can’t, because this body isn’t mine and I don’t know how to make it rest?

I stare at the ceiling, desperate for my brain to just shut off, to let me breathe, to let me forget for a few hours.

But I can’t.

And neither can he.

Time stretches long and unbearable, the silence between us heavy and unrelenting.

And then—

After what feels like hours, I hear him growl.

"This is fucking bullshit."

I let out a tired sigh, rolling onto my side—carefully, this time.

"Yeah," I mutter. "It really is."

And then—

After another long, agonizing moment of silence—

We both finally, finally fall asleep.

Chapter Text

KATSUKI

I wake up wrong.

Not in the "I’m still in Deku’s body, this is a nightmare, kill me now" kind of way.

I mean physically wrong.

Like my head is too heavy, my limbs are sluggish, my chest feels weighed down, and my brain is wrapped in fucking cotton.

Like my body is still asleep, refusing to wake up with me, dragging me down with the weight of exhaustion that isn’t mine.

And for the first time since this bullshit started, it really, really sinks in.

This isn’t my body.

Because I don’t wake up like this.

I wake up at the same time every day.

I wake up with the sun, like clockwork, before my alarm, before the world is even fully awake.

I wake up charged, ready, restless, already moving before my eyes are even open.

But right now?

Right now, I feel like I could stay in bed for another four hours.

I blink up at the ceiling.

Oh.

Oh, fuck.

This is Midoriya’s body.

This is Midoriya’s shitty sleep schedule.

Midoriya, who stays up too late overthinking every goddamn thing.

Midoriya, who barely wakes up on time.

Midoriya, who is a complete and utter disaster of a human being until he gets a cup of coffee in his system.

Midoriya, whose body fights waking up like it’s a personal attack.

I groan, dragging a hand down my face, my very unfamiliar, very exhausted face.

This is going to suck.

I crack an eye open.

Immediately regret it.

Everything is too bright. Too sharp. Too overwhelming in a way I can’t even explain, like my body isn’t ready to process the world yet.

This is the worst I’ve ever felt waking up.

And then—

Across the room—

I hear movement.

I already know what’s coming.

My stomach drops.

I brace myself.

Because I know this body.

I know what my body does in the mornings.

And that means—

Deku, in my body, is about to wake up.

And he is about to learn something new.

And I do not want to be here when it happens.

IZUKU

I wake up too fast.

Like I’ve been yanked into consciousness, ripped out of sleep before my body was ready.

Like something forced me awake before my brain could catch up.

My breath catches in my throat.

I inhale—sharp, uneven, too deep—and it’s jarring.

My lungs feel different.

The way my ribs expand feels different.

The weight of my chest, the heaviness of my limbs, the solid, unfamiliar warmth running through my veins— all of it feels different.

And for a moment, I can’t remember why.

For a moment, I am just a mess of sensations, raw and unfiltered, settling into a body that doesn’t feel like mine.

I feel warm.

I feel tense.

I feel like something is happening before my brain has time to process it.

And then—

I shift my legs.

And I freeze.

Oh.

Oh no.

My entire body locks up.

Because this—this is new.

This is not something I have ever had to deal with.

This is wrong.

Not wrong in the scientific sense. Not wrong in a way that means something is broken or unnatural or impossible.

Wrong because this is not my body.

Wrong because this is not normal for me.

But it is for Kacchan.

Oh my god.

I can feel the blood draining from my face, and yet—horribly, unfortunately—not from anywhere else.

My stomach twists into knots.

My brain is screaming at me to fix this, to make it go away, to stop acknowledging it, but my body—Kacchan’s body—does not care about my existential crisis.

And then—

Across the room—

I hear him groan.

I hear the deepest, most suffering sigh I have ever heard in my life.

And I do not need to look to know that Kacchan—in my body—is wide awake and experiencing this moment in real-time with me.

I swallow hard, staring at the ceiling, praying to whatever cosmic force did this to us that I can simply cease to exist.

Kacchan shifts, and I feel the sharp, pointed burst of secondhand mortification slam into me like a truck.

And then—his voice, rough, slow, resigned to his fate.

"Yeah. Welcome to my life, nerd."

I want to die.

My head whips toward him so fast I almost give myself whiplash.

"Welcome to your—your life?!" I hiss, voice cracking horribly, embarrassingly in the deep register of his own voice. "Are you—are you telling me this is normal for you? Like—like all the time?! Every morning?!"

Kacchan groans so loudly he buries half his face in my pillow.

"No fucking shit, dumbass, that’s what I just said."

I sit up, agitated beyond belief. "Is this why you wake up so early?! Because your own goddamn body betrays you the second the sun rises?! Oh my god, no wonder you’re so fucking angry all the time!"

Kacchan makes a horrible noise.

A noise that says he deeply regrets every choice that led him to this moment.

A noise that makes me feel it—his secondhand humiliation, his absolute mortification at being forced to have this conversation at all.

He lifts his head just enough to glare at me—**with my own face, which makes the whole thing infinitely worse—**and mutters, "Are you seriously telling me you've never fucking jerked off before?"

I choke.

I physically choke.

"WHAT THE FUCK, KACCHAN?!"

He rolls onto his back, rubs at his eyes—**my eyes, oh my god, this is the worst morning of my life—**and sighs, deeply, like he is suffering.

"Jesus Christ, nerd, I knew you were fucking weird, but I didn’t know you were that weird."

"EXCUSE ME?!"

I am offended.

I am so offended.

"OF COURSE I BEAT OFF, JESUS, KACCHAN!"

Kacchan freezes.

I freeze.

The room is too quiet.

The realization of what I just yelled at full volume first thing in the morning sinks in so violently I feel like I am physically dying.

I want to launch myself into the fucking sun.

Kacchan groans, aggressively rubbing at his face. "Well, that’s none of my fucking business, is it?! So why are we even having this conversation?!"

"I DON’T KNOW, YOU STARTED IT!"

"YOU ASKED!"

"I DIDN’T ASK FOR THIS LEVEL OF DETAIL, KACCHAN!"

Kacchan looks like he wants to disappear into the mattress. He grumbles under his breath, rolling over again like if he just keeps moving, the conversation will cease to exist.

"I don’t have a fucking preprogrammed, scheduled built-in feature like that, you fucking weirdo!" I throw my arms up, immediately regret it because his body is too fucking strong, and end up nearly punching the lamp off the nightstand.

Kacchan lets out the most exhausted sigh I have ever heard in my life.

KATSUKI

The second the words leave his mouth—loud, unfiltered, absolute nightmare fuel—Izuku realizes what he just said.

And I get to watch it happen.

In real time.

I watch his face—my face—turn a shade of red that should not be physically possible.

I feel the pure, undiluted horror crash into him like a truck.

I feel the way his entire soul tries to eject itself from his body.

And I am thriving.

Because for once—for once—I am not the one suffering the most.

He doesn’t move.

He just sits there, frozen, his hands clenched into the blankets, his mouth slightly open like his brain has short-circuited.

And then, finally, after a long, excruciating pause—

He slams his hands over his face.

"OH MY GOD."

I grin.

"Yeah," I say, voice smug. "That just happened, nerd."

He makes a horrific noise.

A muffled, strangled, full-body groan of despair.

And then—

He moves.

Too fast.

Way too fucking fast.

I barely have time to react before he FLIES across the room, grabs the first towel he can get his hands on, and practically throws himself into the bathroom like he’s running from a crime scene.

The door slams shut behind him.

And then—

I hear it.

The sharp turn of the faucet.

The sound of water blasting at full fucking force.

Like he just set it to the coldest possible temperature and stepped directly under it without hesitation.

I blink.

I sit up.

I stare at the closed door.

And then, very, very softly,

I whisper, "Oh my god."

This is the greatest morning of my life.

IZUKU

I wash my face.

I immediately regret it.

Kacchan’s skin is weird.

Not bad. Just… different.

Different in a way that is so Kacchan it physically startles me.

Everything about him is too warm, too sharp, too reactive.

His skin holds heat differently, like it’s always braced for something, like his body is constantly running on an engine that never fully cools down.

The water feels too cold against his skin.

Or maybe it’s just me.

Maybe it’s just this body.

Maybe it’s just the way he exists in the world—like everything is turned up a notch, like his nerves are closer to the surface, like his body was built for reaction first, control second.

I exhale, trying to shake the thought.

Trying not to overthink something that shouldn’t feel this personal.

I grab a towel, dry my face without looking up, without making eye contact with my own stolen reflection.

Then I grab a toothbrush.

I brush my teeth.

I keep my focus locked on the sink, on the movement of my hands—Kacchan’s hands—on the routine of it, on the familiarity of the action despite the strangeness of the body I am doing it in.

And then—

I hear another brush of movement.

And I feel him.

Kacchan steps up beside me.

He grabs his own toothbrush.

He starts brushing his teeth.

And when I make the horrible, disastrous mistake of glancing sideways, I nearly choke on my toothpaste.

Because he’s right there.

Standing next to me.

Brushing his teeth in my body.

Wearing my pajamas.

Looking deeply, utterly uncomfortable.

It’s so weird.

It’s so weird watching myself do something so basic.

Because it’s me, but it’s not.

The way he moves. The way he glares at his reflection like the mirror just personally insulted him.

The way his shoulders are tense, too rigid, like he’s fighting the very act of standing there.

I have never seen myself like this.

I have never seen how I hold my body when I’m not thinking about it.

How my eyebrows furrow just slightly when I concentrate.

How my arms shift in small, restless movements, like I’m always on the edge of doing something.

How my body is smaller than I realized.

How I don’t look weak, exactly, but I look—different.

I look like me.

And I don’t know how to feel about it.

Kacchan notices me staring.

He pauses mid-brush, narrows my own eyes at me through the mirror.

I panic.

Spit out my toothpaste.

Rinse my mouth.

Turn on my heel and leave the bathroom immediately.

Because if I think about this any harder, I am going to combust.

KATSUKI

I make my usual breakfast.

Eggs. Protein. Something balanced.

Something my body knows.

Something I know.

Because my mornings are structured. Because I wake up, I train, I eat, and then I move. Because everything about my routine is built for efficiency, for fuel, for function.

And this—this is normal.

This is something I can control.

So I take a bite.

And I immediately want to throw the whole plate in the trash.

I freeze mid-chew.

Something is wrong.

Something is deeply, fundamentally wrong.

And then, as my brain catches up to my mouth, I realize—

Deku’s taste buds are bullshit.

Everything is dull.

Everything is less.

Less sharp, less strong, less salty, less flavorful.

I chew, slowly, miserably, suffering through the blandest eggs I have ever made in my entire goddamn life.

And I feel it.

That first spark of betrayal.

That awful creeping horror as I realize that Deku has been living like this.

On purpose.

I scowl at my plate, forcing myself to swallow.

This is a disaster.

Not just because breakfast is ruined.

Not just because Deku’s body is physically incapable of processing flavors correctly.

But because I can feel his reaction to my disgust.

I can feel the little stab of guilt that isn’t mine.

The awkward hesitation. The embarrassed curiosity.

Like he’s realizing something new about himself—about me—and doesn’t know what to do with it.

I exhale, long and slow, shoving the plate away from me like it personally offended me.

"Your taste buds suck, nerd."

Across the table, Deku blinks up at me, confused, toast halfway to his mouth.

He chews, swallows, and frowns. "What?"

I gesture vaguely at my plate, still glaring at it. "Everything tastes like nothing."

Deku furrows his brows, looking genuinely offended like I just insulted his entire bloodline.

"What are you talking about?" he mutters, taking another bite of his stupid plain toast.

I stare at him.

I feel my own frustration rise—and then I feel his confusion, curling around it like an echo.

"How the fuck do you live like this?" I snap, pushing my eggs aside. "No wonder you eat so much sweet shit all the time. Your body can’t even register real flavor!"

Deku’s eyes widen.

And then—slowly, horrifically, inevitably—

A grin starts to spread across his face.

I feel it before I see it.

That awful, sharp-edged amusement curling in his chest, bleeding into mine.

"Wait," he says, putting his toast down. "Are you saying my body has weak taste buds?"

I narrow my eyes. "That’s exactly what I’m saying."

I take a sip of water.

And that’s when it happens.

That’s when I break.

That’s when I lose the last shred of sanity I had left.

Because—this water is tasteless.

Not normal tasteless. Not the way water is supposed to be.

Nothing.

It tastes like absolute fucking nothing.

Like air. Like drinking the concept of existence.

I freeze, glass still in my hand, staring down at it like I just discovered a crime scene in my own goddamn kitchen.

Deku watches me, halfway through another bite of his toast, eyes widening in alarm.

I slowly—mechanically—lower the glass back to the table.

And then I whisper, horrified, "Your water doesn’t taste like anything."

Deku blinks.

"…What?"

I look at him—really look at him.

At the guy who has spent his whole life with weak-ass breakable bones, a body that needs six gallons of coffee to function, who doesn’t wake up properly in the morning, who can’t even register real spice—

And now—now I find out he has been living with tasteless water?!

Deku looks at me like he can physically feel my brain short-circuiting.

And he should.

Because it is.

It absolutely is.

I am having a crisis.

And then—because I am already at my fucking limit—

I turn to the others.

Because they’re all here, watching me unravel.

Kirishima, leaning back in his chair, raising an eyebrow.

Mina, mid-bite of her cereal, already grinning like she knows I’m about to embarrass myself.

Sero, not even pretending to hide his amusement.

And Kaminari—

Fucking Kaminari.

Who blinks at me and goes, "Uh, bro? Water doesn’t have a flavor."

I snap my head toward him so fast he physically leans back in his chair.

"YES THE FUCK IT DOES."

Kaminari raises his hands in surrender. "Okay, okay, my bad—"

"No, shut up, I’m serious." I slam the glass down like it’s evidence in a courtroom. "Water has a flavor. It has different flavors. It’s got minerals, it’s got a taste, and it is NOT supposed to be like—this."

I gesture aggressively at the glass.

"Like what?" Kaminari asks, squinting.

"LIKE NOTHING."

Kirishima, trying very hard not to laugh, clears his throat. "So, uh. What does it normally taste like?"

I open my mouth—

Pause—

Realize I have absolutely no way to explain this.

I shut my mouth.

Deku—who, up until now, has been watching this in pure, wide-eyed horror—

Smiles.

And that’s it.

That’s the final straw.

I shove back my chair, stand up so fast I nearly knock over the table, and storm off.

"I CAN’T FUCKING DO THIS," I yell, grabbing my plate as I go and dumping the entire thing in the trash.

Deku laughs so hard he chokes on his own toast.

Mina wipes a fake tear from her eye. "This is the greatest thing I’ve ever seen."

Sero nods solemnly. "This is better than TV."

Kirishima grins. "Should we get him flavored water?"

"I WILL KILL ALL OF YOU."

Deku’s laughter only gets louder.

IZUKU

I make my usual coffee.

Black. Bitter. Strong enough to wake the dead.

It’s a habit. A necessary evil.

Because my mornings are slow. My brain takes too long to catch up, my body fights waking up like it’s a personal attack, and I need something to force myself into existence.

So I do what I always do.

I take a sip.

And then—

Oh.

Oh, my god.

I freeze.

My entire body freezes.

Because this—this isn’t my usual coffee.

This is—

This is insane.

This is the best fucking coffee I have ever had in my life.

It’s rich. Strong. Bold without being bitter.

The flavor is full. Heavy. It actually has layers to it, depth, something I didn’t even realize coffee could have.

It’s smooth in a way I have never experienced before.

And for the first time in my entire life, I don’t have to force myself to drink it.

It’s just good.

I take another sip, slower this time, letting it sit on my tongue, and—holy shit.

I didn’t even know I was missing this.

I didn’t even know coffee was supposed to taste like this.

I set the cup down carefully, staring at it like it just changed my entire worldview.

I take a bite of my eggs.

And then—

Oh.

Oh, this is good too.

Like, actually good.

The texture is perfect. The seasoning is sharp, balanced, layers of flavor I’ve never even noticed before.

Everything is brighter, sharper, more intense.

And I realize—

Kacchan wasn’t kidding.

His taste buds are insane.

Like, supercharged in comparison to mine.

I have been living my entire life in sensory poverty.

My own body has been depriving me of joy.

I take another bite, slower, more focused this time.

The salt—I can actually taste the salt. The pepper—it actually does something.

I never noticed it before.

I never noticed how weak my own taste was, how much flavor I was missing.

And suddenly—I feel a little frustrated.

Because—yeah.

Yeah, my body does suck sometimes.

It’s too slow to wake up, too fragile, too prone to breaking itself, and now I find out it can’t even taste food correctly?

That’s just insult to injury.

I sigh, setting my fork down, staring at my plate with mixed emotions.

And across the table—Kacchan notices.

I can feel it.

I don’t even have to look at him to know that he’s already locked onto me, already picking apart every shift in my emotions.

And before he can say anything—

Before he can call me out, dig into whatever the hell I’m feeling right now—

Mina leans forward, grinning.

Her eyes are already on us.

Like she knows.

Like she’s been waiting for this exact moment.

"So," she says, drawling out the word. "How’s breakfast, boys?"

Kacchan’s whole body tenses.

I feel his alarm spike, his instinct to shut this conversation down immediately.

And I—

I am too far gone to care.

I take another slow, indulgent sip of coffee, let out a long, satisfied sigh, and say,

"This is the best morning of my entire life."

Kacchan slaps his forehead.

Mina’s grin goes feral.

This day is going to be hell.

TRAINING: EVERYTHING IS HELL

IZUKU

I try to use Kacchan’s Quirk.

I do everything right.

I brace my stance. I focus on my hands. I channel my energy into my palms, just like he does.

And then—

BOOM.

I am launched into the air like a fucking rocket.

I spin out of control, arms flailing, legs kicking, screaming in the voice of a person who has just made a terrible mistake.

And then I slam into the ground.

Hard.

Everything is pain.

I groan, face down in the dirt, my body twitching from the residual force of an explosion I clearly did not know how to handle.

And then—before I can even think about recovering—

I hear it.

The unmistakable, gut-wrenching sound of Kacchan laughing his ass off.

I force my head up, dirt in my mouth, rage in my soul, and see him—**in my body—**bent over, hands on his knees, actually struggling to breathe through his laughter.

I am going to die.

No—I am going to kill him.

I push myself up, grit my teeth, and snap, “What’s so funny, Kacchan?!”

He wipes at his eyes, still shaking with laughter, and manages to wheeze out, “You—” He gasps, “You just—fucking—BLASTED YOURSELF INTO ORBIT, NERD.”

I scowl. “It’s harder than it looks!”

He snorts. "Not for me."

I am going to commit a crime.

But before I can figure out exactly how to commit murder using his own Quirk against him, I hear him take a breath.

And then I hear him say—

"Alright, fine. My turn."

I freeze.

Oh.

Oh, no.

KATSUKI

I try to use One For All.

I regret it immediately.

Because the second I even attempt to activate it—

My body locks up.

I feel the pressure before I even move.

The build-up of energy, heavy and impossible, pressing down on me like a thousand fucking tons of weight.

This isn’t like my explosions.

This isn’t wild energy that erupts on command, fast and volatile and familiar.

This is something else entirely.

This is power that needs permission.

This is a force that wants something from me—

And before I can process what that something is—

I hear voices.

In my head.

I freeze.

I do not like this.

I do not like this at all.

"Oh."

The voices shift. Murmurs. A presence that was definitely not invited into my brain.

“This is unexpected.”

“Another successor?”

“No… something is wrong.”

Oh.

Oh, no.

Oh, no.

I feel my entire soul leave my body.

And then—because this day cannot possibly get worse—

Deku claps his hands together and grins. "So? How’d it go?"

I turn to look at him.

Dead in the eyes.

And I say, voice hollow with pure, unfiltered trauma,

"Your Quirk is haunted."

Deku blinks.

The entire training field goes silent.

And then—

Mina, watching from the sidelines, cackles.

"WHAT." she shrieks. "OH MY GOD, EXPLAIN."

I do not explain.

I refuse to explain.

Because I am going to fucking die.

KATSUKI

I am not okay.

I am so far from okay that I might as well be in another dimension.

Because I just tried to use One For All.

And instead of power, instead of energy, instead of literally anything useful—

I got a goddamn séance.

I got ghosts.

A whole-ass council of dead people, just hanging out in Deku’s head, like that’s a totally normal thing.

I whip around, point a shaking finger at him, and snarl,

"YOU DID NOT TELL ME YOUR FUCKING QUIRK WAS HAUNTED, IZUKU."

Deku, who was grinning at my failure just seconds ago, blinks. "Huh?"

"YOUR. QUIRK. HAS. GHOSTS." I shout, voice borderline hysterical. "I HEARD THEM. THEY TALKED TO ME. TO ME."

Deku’s expression shifts.

Not confused—not even surprised.

Just… thoughtful.

Like he’s turning over a new puzzle piece in his head.

Which is not the reaction I need right now.

I step forward, still reeling, still furious, still trying to mentally process the sheer bullshit I have just experienced.

"How the fuck," I demand, "did you not mention this?!"

Deku tilts his head.

And then, completely deadpan, says, "I just didn’t expect you to reach the vestiges."

I choke.

"THE WHAT?!"

Deku winces. "Right, yeah, I guess that’s not the best way to explain it—"

"OH, IT FUCKING ISN’T?!"

Mina howls with laughter. "HE HAS A WHOLE DAMN COUNCIL IN HIS HEAD AND JUST—FORGOT TO MENTION IT?!"

Kaminari, still wheezing, holds up a hand. "Wait—wait, go back—what do you mean ‘reach the vestiges’?"

Deku shrugs. "The past users of One For All exist inside the Quirk as an imprint of their consciousness," he says like that’s a completely normal sentence. "They manifest as the ‘vestiges’—kind of like a memory, but still self-aware. They only really interact with me when my connection to the Quirk deepens."

I stare at him.

Everyone stares at him.

Mina looks like she’s about to fall over. "You have a whole damn ghost chatroom in your brain?"

Deku waves a hand. "I mean, they don’t talk all the time—"

I throw my arms up. "THAT IS NOT THE POINT, YOU FREAK. THEY SPOKE TO ME. AND THEY WERE SURPRISED ABOUT IT."

Deku’s eyes flicker. Just for a second. Just enough that I feel the shift in his emotions, the sharp edge of his curiosity mixing with something I can’t quite pin down.

But then—**of course—**he ruins it.

He smiles.

And that’s when I know.

That’s when I know I have made a terrible mistake.

"Wait," he says, grinning now, oh my god. "Are you telling me the past users looked at you and went, ‘who the hell is this guy?’"

I feel rage.

I feel betrayal.

And I feel everyone around us fucking losing it.

Mina falls to the ground, cackling.

Kaminari actually wipes a tear from his eye.

"OH MY GOD, THEY DID."

I point aggressively at Deku.

"YOUR DEAD PEOPLE ARE RUDE."

Deku just laughs harder.

"Maybe," he teases, "you just weren’t important enough to get recognized."

I see red.

I lunge for him.

Deku yelps and bolts, laughing as he takes off across the training field.

And behind us, our classmates completely lose their minds.

IZUKU

I am not okay.

I am so far from okay that I don’t even know what okay is anymore.

Because Kacchan—in my body—is currently trying to get a handle on my Quirk.

And he is failing spectacularly.

Because Blackwhip?

Blackwhip has other fucking plans.

It happens fast.

One second, I’m watching Kacchan with my own smug grin, reveling in the absolute disaster unfolding before me. The next—

Something is wrapping around my wrist.

I freeze.

I don’t even have time to react before another tendril shoots out, wrapping around my waist.

And then—

Then it pulls.

Oh my god.

I yelp as my entire body lurches forward, dragged by my own damn Quirk like I’m nothing more than a prize to be won.

"KACCHAN!"

Kacchan, who had been actively struggling against the tendrils now wrapping around both my arms and my torso, snarls through gritted teeth.

"I DIDN’T DO THIS ON PURPOSE, YOU SHITHEAD!"

I flail, trying to free myself, but Blackwhip just tightens its grip, the crackling, ink-black energy coiling like it doesn’t care that I am not the enemy.

And the worst part?

Every time Kacchan gets it under control—he fucking loses it again.

I can see it.

I can feel it.

His body tenses, muscles flexing, my own face twisting with intense focus, his hands twitching as he forces Blackwhip to retract—only for it to surge forward again the moment he loses concentration.

And the second that happens—

I get yanked closer.

I choke on a breath as Blackwhip tugs me forward again, dragging me toward Kacchan like I’m some kind of trophy.

Mina wheezes.

Kaminari is on the ground, actually kicking his feet.

"Oh my god," he gasps, barely able to breathe. "Is it—is it flirting with him?!"

Kacchan snaps his head toward him, eyes wide with horror—before immediately losing control again.

Blackwhip lurches.

I get yanked even closer.

Too close.

Way too fucking close.

I slap my hands against Kacchan’s stupidly broad chest—**which is mine, technically, but god, feeling it from this perspective is so much worse—**and gasp as the tendrils tighten again.

I am pressed flush against him.

I AM PRESSED FLUSH AGAINST HIM.

My breath stutters.

Kacchan stiffens.

The world stops.

And then—

I make the horrible mistake of looking up.

My own goddamn face stares back at me.

And I—**in his body, in his height, in his goddamn personal space—**feel a rush of something so hot, so overwhelming, so utterly flustering that my stomach flips inside out.

OH NO.

I feel the tension snap inside Kacchan’s head at the exact same time he does.

Because he feels it too.

Oh, he feels it.

I can feel his heartbeat slam against my ribs—too fast, too loud, too much.

I can feel his full-body panic, the way his mind is screaming at him to fix this, fix this now, get out, abort, emergency, RED ALERT.

His hands snap up to my shoulders—**his shoulders—**as if he’s about to shove me away.

But Blackwhip—**the absolute bastard—**takes that as an opportunity to wind around my waist even tighter.

Kacchan gasps.

Oh.

Oh my god.

I just heard my own voice gasp.

And it wasn’t me.

That’s it.

That’s the final straw.

My entire brain short-circuits.

FULL ERROR 404, SYSTEM FAILURE, DO NOT REBOOT.

And the worst part?

I KNOW HE FEELS IT TOO.

Because his hands twitch against my shoulders.

Because his breath catches.

Because the sheer, suffocating wave of mutual horror and flustered panic crashes over both of us like a goddamn tsunami.

And then—finally—

Kacchan loses his goddamn mind.

"FUCKING STOP, YOU STUPID QUIRK!"

Blackwhip immediately releases me, snapping back like a guilty dog that just got caught chewing up the couch.

And I?

I stumble backward so fast I actually trip over my own feet.

And Kacchan?

He shoves away from me like I’m fucking radioactive, whirls around, and paces so aggressively that he nearly combusts.

His hands slam into his hair.

"NOPE. NOPE. FUCKING NOPE," he mutters, voice shaking. "NOT DEALING WITH THIS. ABSOLUTELY NOT. WE ARE NEVER TALKING ABOUT THIS."

I am still reeling, still recovering, still deeply, deeply not okay.

But the second I hear that?

Oh.

Oh, it’s over for him.

I straighten up.

I tilt my head.

And then—slowly, dangerously—

I smirk.

"Kacchan," I purr. "Are you flustered?"

Kacchan—**in my body—**snaps his head toward me so fast that I think he gives himself whiplash.

His entire expression is pure, undiluted rage.

"SHUT THE FUCK UP, NERD."

And that?

That’s when I know I’ve won.

Because the second he says it—I can feel the sheer, unrelenting mortification radiating off him like a dying star.

I let my smirk widen.

I cross my arms.

And then, slow and deliberate, I arch a brow.

"Blackwhip likes you," I say.

Kacchan sputters.

Mina absolutely loses her mind.

"OH MY GOD, IT DOES," she howls.

Kaminari is on the floor, banging his fist against the dirt.

"THE QUIRK WANTS HIM," Sero wheezes. "THIS IS THE BEST DAY OF MY LIFE."

Todoroki, watching all of this unfold with the same blank stare he always has, takes a slow sip of his water and nods.

"That makes sense," he says.

I choke.

Kacchan snaps.

"SHUT THE FUCK UP, ALL OF YOU!"

But it’s too late.

Because the damage?

The damage is already done.

Chapter Text

KATSUKI

The dorm is too quiet.

And I fucking hate it.

Because Deku’s usually here.

Even when he’s not talking, even when he’s buried in his notes, muttering under his breath, pacing back and forth in his stupid, frantic way, he’s still here.

And now—he’s not.

Now, he’s gone.

Mina and Kaminari dragged him off somewhere, and I should be grateful for the peace and quiet, but instead, I’m just sitting on the edge of my bed, scowling at nothing, feeling weird as shit.

Because I saw him leave.

I saw my own body leave, wearing his hoodie.

That stupid, oversized, frayed-at-the-sleeves green hoodie that he’s always worn, the one that swallows him whole, that bunches at his wrists, that makes him look so fucking soft.

Only—it didn’t swallow me.

It fit too well.

It clung in ways it never did on him.

And I should not feel any type of way about that.

But I do.

And it’s making me feel even fucking weirder.

I exhale, shoving my hands through my hair, tugging at the curls—

And I freeze.

Because they bounce back into place.

I stare at my own reflection in the stand-up mirror hanging on the closet door.

At Izuku’s body.

At the green curls I’ve never run my hands through before.

And then—before I can stop myself—

I do it again.

Softer, this time.

Fingers curling through his hair, watching the strands spring back into place, feeling the texture—softer than I thought, finer, unruly in a way I never noticed before.

A shudder rolls down my spine.

And then—

Because I am an absolute fucking idiot—

I start talking.

To myself.

Like I’m talking to him.

Like I’m looking at him.

Like I’m saying all the things I’ve never been able to say.

"Kacchan," I murmur, watching my own lips move in the reflection.

It’s Izuku’s voice.

But it’s my name.

Soft. Quiet. Like a secret.

Like the way he used to say it when we were kids.

I swallow, stomach twisting, emotions scraping too raw against my ribs.

And then—I say something worse.

"You’re so amazing, Kacchan."

My breath catches.

It’s been so long since I’ve heard him say that.

Since he’s looked at me like I was something good.

Since he’s called me amazing.

And then—because I am spiraling, because I am so fucking far gone—

I make it worse.

I take a deep breath.

And I whisper, "I forgive you."

My hands clench into fists.

Because that’s not real.

That’s not something I deserve.

That’s something I want, something I hope for, something I ache for, but it’s not real.

Because I was awful to him.

Because I don’t get to just be forgiven.

And yet—the words still come.

"You’re a good person, Kacchan."

I close my eyes.

I feel my throat go tight.

Because that one?

That one is just a lie.

I don’t believe that.

I don’t think I ever will.

And then—

I ruin myself.

I open my eyes.

I stare at Izuku’s reflection.

And in his voice, I whisper,

"I love you, Katsuki."

My entire body locks up.

Because Izuku never says my first name.

Because I don’t even remember the last time I heard him say it.

And I don’t know why I wrapped I love you around it—

But it almost makes me fucking cry.

I bite the inside of my cheek so hard I taste blood.

And then I slam my hands down on the dresser and drop my head forward, breathing hard, shaking, fucking wrecked.

God.

I am so, so fucked.

I need to get it together.

I need to get my shit in order.

Because this? This is pathetic.

I am alone in my dorm, in Izuku’s fucking body, standing in front of a mirror, whispering to myself like some tragic dumbass in a goddamn romance drama.

This is not normal.

I exhale, hard, and drag my hands down my face.

I feel too hot. My skin feels too tight. My body—Izuku’s body—won’t fucking settle.

And I know what this is.

I know what this means.

I know exactly where this road leads, and I am not going there.

Not tonight.

Not ever.

I need to clear my head.

I need to snap out of it.

So I do the only thing I can think of.

I decide to take a shower.

Because maybe hot water, cold water, any water will shock my brain out of this mess and make me feel like a human being again.

I grab a towel, stomp into the bathroom, and turn the water on way too hot.

And then—because I am an absolute fool—

I step under the spray.

And immediately realize my mistake.

Oh.

Oh, fuck.

This was a bad idea.

A really, really bad idea.

Because now—

Now, I am wet.

Now, I am in Izuku’s body. Naked. Wet. Skin flushed from the heat, muscles aching in ways I have never felt before.

Now, I am standing under steaming water with nerves that aren’t mine, skin that doesn’t feel like mine, heat sinking into muscle that has never been mine.

And worst of all?

Worst of all?

I can feel everything.

Too much.

The heat sinking into my shoulders, my arms, my thighs.

The way my fingers press into skin that doesn’t belong to me.

The way Izuku’s body reacts to sensation differently than mine does—not worse, not better, just different.

And I—

I suck in a sharp breath and slam my hands against the shower wall.

I brace myself.

I squeeze my eyes shut.

Because I am not thinking about this.

I am not letting my brain go there.

I am not acknowledging the fact that I have been in love with this dumbass for years, that I have been avoiding this, that I have never once let myself think about this moment in any real way.

I am not thinking about the fact that Izuku—

Fuck.

FUCK.

I tilt my head back, let the water pound against my face, and groan.

This is so much worse than I thought.

This is so, so much worse than I thought.

Because Izuku was wrong.

He said his body had no rhythm to this.

He said he didn’t have a set schedule.

But my brain—my instincts—know what my own body feels like.

And this?

This is different.

Izuku’s body feels different.

And the last fucking shower I took—

Oh, no.

Oh, no, no, no.

I press my forehead against the tile and curse so loudly the sound bounces off the walls.

This is a disaster.

I thought taking a shower would help.

It did not fucking help.

The second the hot water hits this body, something shifts.
Something deep. Something primal.
Something I should not be feeling.

The heat pours over me, rolling down skin that is not mine, sinking into muscles I have never lived inside.
And yet—this body reacts like it knows something I don’t.
Like it’s been waiting for this.
Like I’ve tapped into something I was never meant to feel.

I press my palm against the slick tile, head bowed, chest rising and falling too fast.

Because this is not my body.
This is not my skin.
This is Izuku.
And I am touching him.

No.

I am him.

The realization hits me so hard my breath stutters.

I drag a hand through his—my—hair, feeling the strands slip between my fingers.
They’re softer than mine. Finer. They curl so easily, coiling back into place the second I move my hand away.

My throat goes dry.

I trace a hesitant finger down his—my—spine.

And—oh.

Oh, fuck.

I shudder.

Because it’s not my back.
Because it’s not my body.
But it feels so fucking good.

The way the water slides over skin. The way this body reacts—not the way mine would, not the way I expect.

It’s more sensitive.
It’s new.
It’s fucking intoxicating.

And suddenly, I can’t stop thinking about—
I can’t stop thinking about what it would feel like if it really was him.

If it really was his hands.
If it really was his breath catching.
If it really was his body reacting—

To me.

I suck in a sharp breath, muscles tensing, grip tightening against the tile.

This isn’t—this isn’t supposed to be happening.
This is wrong.
This is so fucking wrong.

And yet—

I let my head fall forward.
I let my eyes flutter shut.
I let my hands roam.
And I don’t think about what it means.

I just feel.

I don’t know when I start breathing heavier.
I don’t know when I start shaking.

All I know is that the steam is thick around me, curling over my skin—his skin—that the water is scalding hot, that my fingers press into flesh that doesn’t belong to me, and that I can’t stop.

I don’t want to stop.

Because this body reacts in ways I never expected.
Because it’s more sensitive, more alive, more tuned into sensation than mine ever was.
Because it feels good. Too good.

I slide my hand lower, across his—my—stomach, feeling the firm muscle there, the subtle tremor under my touch.

And I know—fuck, I know—it’s not supposed to feel this way.
It’s not supposed to be this deep, this real, this consuming.

But I’m too far gone to care.

The hot water runs down his neck, his back, the curve of his shoulder blades. I follow the path with my fingers, tracing the way the warmth spreads, the way this body shudders under its own touch.

I suck in a breath. Tremble.

This is—fuck, this is something else.
This is new.
This is the best fucking shower I’ve ever taken in my life.

And that’s when I know.
That’s when I know I’m fucked.

Because it’s not just about the pleasure, the sensation, the feeling of being so completely, devastatingly lost in it.

It’s about who this body belongs to.
It’s about Izuku.
It’s about the fact that I can feel him, even now, even through this, even from across the city.

That even though he’s too far away for us to feel each other clearly, the connection is still there, still humming under my skin, like a phantom touch, like a whisper I can almost hear.

That he is everywhere.
That he has always been everywhere.

And I love him.
I fucking love him.

Not just as a feeling, not just as a fact, but as something so deeply ingrained in me that I don’t think I can ever pretend otherwise again.

Not after this.
Not after knowing what it’s like to live inside his skin, to feel his body react, to experience the way he exists in the world—so open, so vulnerable, so overwhelming in ways I never let myself acknowledge before.

I love him.
And I don’t think I can hide it when we get our bodies back.
I don’t think I’ll be able to look at him the same way.
I don’t think I can pretend anymore.

The water keeps running.
I brace myself against the shower wall, panting, pulse pounding, body trembling from something bigger than just touch.

And then I press my forehead against the tile and curse.

Because this?
This is a disaster.

I step out of the shower.

And suddenly, I feel sick.

Like I just did something irreversibly wrong.

Like I just crossed a line I can never uncross.
I just got off in Deku’s body.

I just experienced everything he feels.

I know what his pleasure feels like.

I know what he sounds like.

I know what his body reacts to.

I know what his cock feels like in my han—

I freeze.

My eyes snap open.

Oh.

Oh no.

Oh no no no no no no.

I slam my head against the wall.

FUCK.

The heat still lingers on my skin—his skin. The steam curls around me like a fucking crime scene, wrapping around my shoulders, sticking to my back.

I reach for a towel. My hands shake.

I dry off.

I get dressed.

I move on autopilot, because the second I start thinking—really thinking—I know I won’t be able to handle it.

I take slow, deliberate steps back to his bed.

To his space.

I sit down.

Then I lie back.

Then I stare at the ceiling, heart pounding, shame curdling in my gut like acid.

Because this changed something.

Something deep. Something fundamental.

Something I can’t ever take back.

And worse—so much fucking worse—

I took advantage of him.

I did.

I fucking did.

The realization slams into me so hard I almost sit up.

Because this wasn’t my body to touch.

It wasn’t mine to explore, to feel, to fucking lose myself in.

It was his.

His, and I treated it like it was mine.

Like I had a right to it.

Like I had permission.

And I didn’t.

I feel something close to nausea rising in my throat.

I clench my fists against the sheets, breathing through my nose, trying not to spiral, but fuck—

Fuck.

Because it’s Izuku.

Because it’s always been Izuku.

Because I love him. I love him so much it physically fucking hurts.

And that just makes it worse.

Because this isn’t how you love someone.

This isn’t what love is supposed to be.

Love isn’t this selfish.

Love isn’t taking something that isn’t yours just because you’re weak, just because you couldn’t fucking help yourself, just because it felt good.

I bite the inside of my cheek so hard I taste blood.

Because I can feel him.

Even now.

Even across the city.

Even miles away, I can still feel him, and I know—**I just know—**if he were close enough right now, he’d be able to feel this, too.

The guilt.

The self-hatred.

The way I feel like I just proved every awful thing I’ve ever thought about myself.

I want to scream.

I want to rewind time.

I want to go back to this morning, to before everything changed, to before I lost control, to before I knew what it felt like to exist in his body like that.

But I can’t.

I can’t, and now, tomorrow is coming.

Tomorrow, I’m going to see him again.

Tomorrow, he’s going to look at me with those stupid, green, oblivious eyes.

Tomorrow, he’s going to smile at me, talk to me, treat me the same—

And I don’t know if I’ll be able to hide it.

I don’t know if I deserve to.

I squeeze my eyes shut, exhale slow, dig my nails into my palms.

And then, quietly, brokenly, I whisper to the ceiling:

“I’m the worst.”

I go to the kitchen.

I need to do something.

Something that isn’t thinking.

Something that isn’t sitting in my emotions like a loser.

So I start cooking.

Katsudon.

Because it’s his favorite and I tell myself its only because if he likes it then surely I’ll enjoy it in his body.

Because if I have to suffer through eating with these shitty taste buds, I might as well make something I know will be good.

That’s all it is.

That’s all it is.

It’s not because I want to be nice.
It’s not because I feel bad.
It’s not because I need to make up for what I just did.

It’s not.

I hear the door open.

I look up.

And I immediately freeze.

Because Izuku—wearing my fucking body—is standing there in his own clothes.

But it’s not oversized anymore.

His stupid green hoodie—the one he always drowns in—is actually snug on me.

It fits just right.

But it’s my pants, because I’m taller, and they’re the only thing that don’t make him look ridiculous in my body.

And for some reason—for some stupid, irrational, completely fucking insane reason—

It looks right.

Like it fits.

Like he belongs in my body just as much as I do.

I look down at myself.

At his body, dressed in my orange-and-black tee, my name written across the front in big, bold letters.

And I wonder if he feels the same way.

I go to the kitchen.

I need to do something.

Something that isn’t thinking.

Something that isn’t sitting in my emotions like a fucking loser, drowning in the weight of what I just did.

Something that isn’t playing back every second of it in my head, over and over, the way his body felt, the way it reacted, the way I let myself sink too deep into something I had no fucking right to touch.

I need a distraction.

So I start cooking.

Katsudon.

Because it’s his favorite.

Because if he loves it, then maybe—maybe—I’ll be able to enjoy it in his body, even with his weak-ass, underdeveloped taste buds.

That’s all it is.

That’s all it is.

It’s not because I feel sick with guilt.

It’s not because I need to do something, anything, to drown out the way I feel like the worst person alive.

It’s not because I need to make up for what I just did.

It’s not.

I move with practiced precision.

Muscle memory takes over.

I prepare the rice first, rinse it, measure the water just right, because I know how he likes it.

I slice the onions. Crack the eggs. Coat the pork.

I heat the oil, let the familiar scent rise, watch the pieces sizzle and brown.

And for a moment—**just a moment—**I feel steady again.

Because cooking has always been simple.

It has rules.

It has structure.

It has a clear goal, a result, something to work toward that isn’t messy or complicated or full of fucking impossible emotions.

But even as I focus—even as I chop, and stir, and fry, and move through the motions of something I’ve done a hundred times before—

I know.

I know this is different.

Because I can feel it.

I can feel why I’m doing this.

I can feel the way my hands shake just slightly when I crack the eggs.

I can feel the tightness in my chest that has nothing to do with the heat of the kitchen.

And I can’t stop hearing it.

“I love you, Katsuki.”

My own voice.
His voice.

Words I should have never let myself say.

Even in the safety of an empty room, even just to my own reflection, even knowing he’d never hear them—

I said them.

And now they’re in me.

Now they’re real.

Now, I can’t take them back.

I clench my jaw, stir too aggressively, watch the sauce bubble in the pan.

I tell myself it’s just a meal.

I tell myself it’s just because I have to eat, and this is something I know won’t suck.

I tell myself it’s not because I need to do something good.

That it’s not because I need to prove—to myself, to whatever god might be watching, to the universe itself—that I can still be better.

That I’m not the worst fucking person in the world.

I plate the food.

I sit down.

I pick up the chopsticks.

And when I take the first bite, I almost fucking cry.

Because even with his body, even with his taste buds, even with everything wrong about this day—

It still tastes like home.

And that’s how I know.

That’s how I know I’m too far gone.

That’s how I know I can’t pretend anymore.

I swallow, push the plate away, and bury my face in my hands.

Because this isn’t just a meal.

Because I am not okay.

Because I love him.

And when we get our bodies back—

I don’t think I’ll be able to hide it anymore.

I go back to our dorm.

I don’t even pay attention to where I flop down.

It’s his bed, but I don’t care.

Because the second my head hits the pillow, I’m out.

I barely hear Izuku come in.

I barely register him moving across the room.

I barely process the fact that I’m still in his body, sleeping in his bed, surrounded by his smell, his warmth, his life.

Because by the time he turns off the light—

I’m already gone.

Chapter Text

SOMETIME AFTER MIDNIGHT

KATSUKI

I wake up to movement.

To thrashing.

To sounds that don’t belong in this room.

For a moment, I don’t know where I am.

Who I am.

What’s happening.

Because waking up in a body that isn’t mine is still something I haven’t fucking adjusted to.

Because nothing feels right.

Because my limbs are too light, too unfamiliar, too slow to react.

Because my own breath doesn’t sound the way it should.

Because my pulse stammers against ribs that don’t belong to me.

And then—

Then, I see him.

Across the room.

In my bed.

In my body.

And he’s not still.

He’s moving. Thrashing.

Fingers clenching, then uncurling. Legs kicking, arms twitching, breath ragged and sharp.

The blankets are a mess around him.

He’s caught in something.

Something deep. Something violent.

A nightmare.

And suddenly, I am very, very awake.

I shove the blankets off and swing my legs over the side of the bed.

I feel cold air hit this skin—his skin—but I barely register it.

Because all I can see is my body—the body I’ve known my whole life—twisting like it’s trying to escape something.

And the worst part?

I can feel it.

The second I get close enough, it slams into me.

A wave of something dark, suffocating, crushing.

Something deep-rooted, tangled, twisted around the bones of him, of me, of us.

I can’t tell if it’s him feeling this, or if it’s me feeling this through him.

All I know is that it’s too much.

And I don’t think.

I don’t hesitate.

I move.

I cross the room.

I kneel beside the bed.

And then, without stopping to consider what the fuck I’m doing—

I reach out.

I touch him.

Just a hand.

Just a single press of my palm against my own fucking shoulder.

And instantly—everything stops.

Not completely.

Not all at once.

But the second I make contact, I feel the shift.

The way his breathing hitches.

The way his body locks up.

The way the tension ripples—pauses—like something trying to break free but getting caught at the last second.

I swallow.

"Deku," I say, my voice a little softer than I mean for it to be.

It doesn’t sound like me.

It sounds like him.

Because I am him.

I watch as his fingers tighten in the sheets, grip going white-knuckled, breath still heavy.

I don’t know what he’s seeing.

I don’t know what the fuck is going on in his head.

All I know is what I feel.

Fear.

Not the kind of fear I know.

Not the immediate, adrenaline-pumping, fight-or-flight kind.

This is something else.

Something slow.

Something deep.

Something that’s been sitting inside him for a long time, festering.

And I don’t fucking know how to fix it.

I press my hand down a little harder.

Not rough. Not enough to wake him violently.

Just enough to say I’m here.

I squeeze.

And this time, he reacts.

His breath catches.

His face tenses.

And then—his eyes snap open.

Wide. Unfocused. Searching.

His chest rises and falls too fast.

And for one horrible second, he doesn’t know where he is.

For one horrible second, he doesn’t even see me.

And then—

His gaze locks onto mine.

And something in him breaks.

I don’t hear it.

But I feel it.

Something sharp, jagged, splintering deep inside him, unraveling, collapsing in on itself.

And without thinking—without letting myself stop to consider what it means—

I don’t pull away.

I don’t let go.

I just hold on.

“Oi.” My voice comes out rough, quiet.

No response.

He’s shaking.

His breath is coming too fast, too shallow, too fucked up.

I clench my fists.

"Izuku."

He jolts so hard it makes my own skin crawl.

Gasps.

For a second, he’s not here.

His gaze is wild, frantic, lost.

Like he’s still in it.

Like he doesn’t know where he is.

And then, when his eyes finally focus—

He sees me.

He sees himself.

And his whole body locks up.

IZUKU

This is wrong.

Everything is wrong.

Because I woke up from a nightmare.

But it wasn’t like usual.

Usually, I wake up, still rattled but able to push it down.
Usually, I wake up, sit in the dark, slow my breathing, remind myself I’m fine.
Usually, I wake up in my own body.

But now?

I am not in my own body.

I am in Kacchan’s.

And Kacchan’s body reacts.

It doesn’t just wake up.

It fights.

I can feel my heart slamming in my chest.
I can feel the adrenaline still burning under my skin.
I can feel the sheer, unbearable wrongness of this moment.

And the worst part?

I can’t shake it off.

I can’t calm down.

I can’t stop shaking.

And Kacchan—the real Kacchan—is staring at me with wide worried green eyes.

KATSUKI

I don’t know what to do.

Because this isn’t Deku waking up from a nightmare and shaking it off.

This isn’t Deku forcing a smile and pretending he’s fine.

This is Deku in my body, spiraling, completely fucking unraveling.

And he can’t stop.

I grit my teeth, and move before I can think better of it.

He flinches when the bed dips.

When I crawl in beside him.

When I pull the blanket over both of us and grab his wrist.

Warm. Fast pulse. Too fast.

I squeeze, firm, grounding.

"Oi," I mutter. "Breathe."

IZUKU

I can’t.

I can’t breathe.

I can’t feel my body.

Everything is off.

The weight of my limbs, the tension in my shoulders, the way my instincts feel amped up instead of sluggish.

I can’t control it.

But then—a hand.

Not mine.

Not really.

Kacchan’s.

Warm, anchoring, solid.

His grip is tight around my wrist, thumb brushing over my skin.

And for the first time since waking up, I can focus on something other than the panic.

I exhale.

KATSUKI

The shaking doesn’t stop immediately.

His breath is still uneven, sharp exhales that catch just slightly at the end, like he's afraid to let go completely.

His fingers twitch against the sheets, curling and uncurling as if testing whether the fear is still there, whether it's safe to breathe again.

But it’s better.

Not fixed. Not gone.

But better.

I feel it in the way his body slowly unwinds.

In the way the tension that had him rigid and trembling just moments ago starts to dissolve, piece by piece, with every slow breath he takes.

I don’t say anything.

I don’t need to.

Because my fingers—**his fingers, fuck—**are still wrapped around his wrist, still gently pressing circles against his skin.

I don’t even remember when I started doing it.

But now?

Now, I can’t stop.

Because even before he stirs, even before his breathing steadies, even before the panic completely fades—

I feel it.

The shift.

The silent exhale of relief.

The way his body finally lets go.

And I know.

I know this happens all the time.

I know that he wakes up like this, trapped, gasping, drowning in something too deep for him to claw his way out of alone.

I know that he has been fighting through it alone for years.

And I never fucking noticed.

The realization makes my stomach twist.

Because how the fuck did I not know?

How did I spend years at his side—years sharing space with him, knowing him better than anyone else—and never pick up on this?

How did I miss it?

How many times has he had to go through this with no one there to pull him back?

How many times has he had to pick up the pieces of himself alone?

The thought makes something ugly and furious bloom inside my chest.

Because this stupid, bullshit body swap is the only reason I found out.

Because now, I feel it.

Now, it’s impossible to ignore.

And that pisses me off more than I can even put into fucking words.

I tighten my grip on his wrist, thumb tracing slow, careful circles against the skin there.

It’s automatic. Instinctual.

Like I need to remind myself that he’s here.

That he’s okay.

That I didn’t wake up too late to be here for him.

Even before he speaks—before he so much as shifts under my touch—

I feel it.

The way his heartbeat slows.

The way his body sinks just a little deeper into the bed, like he’s settling, like he’s letting himself relax completely.

The way he lets himself be held.

And fuck—he’s grateful.

I feel it like a warmth curling inside my chest.

Like a tether between us pulling tight, wrapping around my ribs and squeezing in a way that should be suffocating but isn’t.

I feel it in the quiet weight of his emotions settling against my own, in the steady hum of something safe and steady and solid.

I feel it, and I don’t know how to deal with it.

Because this is so much bigger than anything I know how to handle.

Because he has never let himself lean on me like this before.

Because I never knew he wanted to.

And what fucking destroys me—what completely wrecks me—

Is that he feels like home.

Like being here—like being this close to me—

Feels like home.

And I don’t know how to tell him that I do, too.

That even though this situation is fucked in every conceivable way—

Even though I am not in my own body, even though this is not normal, even though I should be panicking and pissed and breaking apart over what I just learned—

I feel it.

I feel him.

And for the first time in my entire life, I don’t feel alone.

I swallow past the ache in my throat, past the unbearable, overwhelming need to say something I don’t know how to put into words.

Instead, I do the only thing I can.

I stay.

I don’t pull away.

I don’t move.

I just hold on.

IZUKU

I don’t know how long we stay like this.

Long enough for the worst of it to pass.

Long enough for my body to stop fighting, for my breath to even out, for the fear to drain from my limbs, slow and steady, like water leaking through a crack in a dam.

Long enough for Kacchan’s presence to finally override the nightmare.

The warmth of him—of me, of my own goddamn body curled around me in ways I have never experienced before.

It’s disorienting.

But grounding.

Familiar in a way that it shouldn’t be.

I breathe in deep—a shaky, uneven inhale that still feels too tight in my chest.

Then, on the exhale, I mutter, “…Sorry.”

Kacchan tenses beside me.

It’s subtle. Barely there. But I feel it.

The way his body—**my body—**goes rigid for just a second, the way his grip on my wrist tightens, then loosens, like he’s forcing himself to relax.

“Don’t apologize, dumbass.”

His voice is quiet. Firm, but not sharp. A soft reprimand, edged with something unreadable.

I huff a laugh. Weak. Breathless. Not really amused.

"I have to," I say, voice smaller than I’d like.

Because that was—

Horrible.

Embarrassing.

So much worse than usual.

I shift, rolling onto my back, staring up at the ceiling.

My heart still hasn’t fully settled.

I can still feel the echoes of it—the nightmare, the weight of it pressing down on my ribs, curling like smoke in the back of my skull.

And suddenly, for the first time in a long time—

I just say it.

"They never stopped."

Kacchan doesn’t move.

I can feel his focus shift, like he’s suddenly paying even more attention than before.

He doesn’t press.

Doesn’t say anything.

So I keep going.

"The nightmares," I clarify. "They just got... quieter. Most of the time."

Something changes in the air between us.

A shift.

Something heavy.

Something fragile.

His fingers flex around my wrist, thumb still tracing small, slow circles over the skin there.

Not pulling away.

Not stopping.

"How often?" he mutters.

I hesitate.

Because I know what’s coming.

Because I know how he gets when he’s worried, how he twists things into his own personal failures.

But this is Kacchan.

And if I lie—he’ll know.

So I sigh, shifting under the blanket.

"Once or twice a week."

I keep my voice light, like it’s not a big deal, like I don’t know exactly how he’s going to react.

"Usually, they don’t wake me up like this."

A beat of silence.

Then—

Kacchan exhales sharply.

Like he’s trying to hold something back.

I don’t look at him.

I don’t need to.

Because I can feel it.

The sudden, sharp spike of guilt.

The tangled, messy, unbearable mix of anger, frustration, helplessness.

Like this is his fault.

Like he should have known.

Like he should have done something about it a long time ago.

And that—

That pisses me off.

I turn my head.

"Kacchan."

He doesn’t answer.

His jaw is clenched, shoulders tight, eyes locked on the ceiling like he’s barely keeping himself together.

I nudge him. Just a little. A small bump of my arm against his.

"Kacchan," I say again, softer this time.

That gets him.

He blinks, then turns—meets my gaze.

I hold it. Firm. Steady. Real.

And then I say, “It’s not your fault.”

He flinches. Like I just punched him in the ribs.

And when he finally speaks, his voice is low. Rough. Unsteady.

"The hell it isn’t."

I shake my head, shifting onto my side now, facing him completely.

"It’s not."

His fingers tighten around my wrist again, like he’s trying to ground himself.

And for a second—

For a second, it feels like he’s going to argue.

Like he’s going to fight me on this, going to spit something venomous back, going to twist this into another thing to blame himself for.

But then—

Then, he just exhales.

And lets it go.

Lets the tension drain from his shoulders. Lets his grip soften, but not leave.

And when I feel his emotions start to settle, I let mine do the same.

Because maybe, just maybe—

For tonight, this is enough.

My body finally settles.

The tension leaves my muscles.

My heart slows.

I shift under the blanket, let my eyes flutter shut, and let out a breath.

"...Thanks, Kacchan."

His grip lingers.

Then, slowly, carefully, he lets go.

"Yeah," he mutters.

We don’t move.

We don’t talk.

We just lie there.

In the dark.

In the wrong bodies.

But for once, it doesn’t feel unbearable.

And before I drift off, I think—

Maybe I won’t have another nightmare tonight.

Chapter Text

MORNING AFTER THE NIGHTMARE – EVERYTHING IS WEIRD

KATSUKI

I wake up warm.

Too warm.

Not the kind of warmth that comes from blankets or body heat settling overnight.

Not the comfortable, natural kind.

This is too much.

Too close.

Like something is pressed against me.

Like something solid, breathing, radiating heat.

Like something that is not supposed to be here.

My eyes snap open.

And immediately, I regret everything.

Because Izuku—

Izuku is there.

And not just there.

There.

Curled against me, tucked into my side like he belongs there, like he’s been sleeping next to me forever.

And for a second—just a second—

I don’t move.

I don’t breathe.

Because I can feel him.

More than just the weight of him against me, more than just the way his forehead is nearly pressed into my shoulder, more than just the way his fingers are curled slightly into my—his—shirt.

I can feel him.

His emotions, slow and quiet and undisturbed.

A low, steady hum beneath my ribs, curling through my chest, settling into my skin like something old, something deep, something that shouldn’t feel as natural as it does.

And that—that’s the worst fucking part.

Because it does feel natural.

It feels right.

Like my body already knows how to accommodate him, like some instinct buried deep in my bones already figured out how to move around him, how to adjust, how to settle into something that shouldn’t even be possible.

Like I was always meant to hold him like this.

And that’s when the panic sets in.

Because I don’t know how this happened.

I don’t know when he moved, when I moved, when we ended up here like this.

I don’t know if it was me, if it was him, if it was something we both did without thinking.

And fuck—

I don’t know if I want to pull away.

I should.

I should.

I should shove him off, wake him up, put as much distance between us as humanly possible.

I should fix this before he opens his eyes, before he sees where he is, before he realizes what the fuck just happened.

But I can’t.

I can’t.

Because he’s so still.

Because his breathing is slow, even, completely relaxed.

Because this is the first time I’ve ever seen him like this—truly, completely at peace.

Because he’s not scared right now.

Because he feels safe.

And I know.

I know it’s not just physical.

I know it’s not just because of the warmth or the weight or the way we fit together like something inevitable.

I know it’s because of me.

Because he can feel me, just like I can feel him.

Because he knows I’m here.

And somehow—somehow, despite everything—

That’s enough for him to let go.

To sleep.

To rest.

To trust.

And that realization fucking ruins me.

I swallow hard, something thick and unbearable forming in my throat.

I keep my breathing steady, careful, controlled.

I don’t move.

I don’t wake him.

I don’t pull away.

I just lie there.

Letting it sink in.

Letting myself feel it.

Letting myself be the thing that keeps him safe.

And for the first time in my entire life—

I don’t fight it.

I just hold on.

IZUKU

I wake up comfortable.

Too comfortable.

For a moment, I let myself sink into it.

The warmth pressed against me, the slow, even rise and fall of breath that isn’t mine, the steady weight of a hand—his hand, my wrist, but his fingers curled there like he never let go.

Like he had been holding on all night.

Like he still is.

It should feel wrong.

It should be unbearably, impossibly awkward.

But it isn’t.

Because something about it makes sense.

Something about it settles deep in my bones like it’s been there all along, waiting for me to notice.

I can feel him.

Not just the weight of his body beside me, not just the slow, deep pull of his breath, not just the warmth of his skin where it brushes against mine.

I can feel him.

His emotions.

Soft. Steady. Light.

And for Kacchan—for Kacchan, who has always carried the world on his back, who has always clenched his jaw too tight, who has always moved like he’s bracing for a fight—

That shouldn’t be possible.

But it is.

And that’s when I notice it.

The tiny, nearly imperceptible smile on his face.

My face.

Not his usual scowl. Not a sharp-edged grin.

Something softer.

Something unguarded.

Something real.

And I know—I just know—

He’s awake.

His eyes are closed, but I can feel the sharpness of his emotions now.

Not panic. Not embarrassment. Not tension.

Something lighter.

Something brighter.

Something content.

He knew the moment I woke up.

And yet—

He’s still basking in it.

Still letting himself feel it.

Still holding on.

And then—finally—

He opens his eyes.

And I freeze.

Because for the first time in my life—

I see my own face look at me like that.

My own eyes—that deep jade-and-emerald mix I have never quite figured out how to describe—

Sparkling.

Not with determination. Not with focus.

Not with that sharp, calculating intensity that I know I wear so often.

Something else.

Something closer to happiness.

Something closer to love.

And it is breathtaking.

My breath catches in my throat.

He blinks, his gaze flickering between my eyes, like he’s trying to memorize this moment.

Like he knows we won’t get to keep it.

And for some reason—

That realization hurts.

KATSUKI

I do not move.

I do not breathe.

Because if I move, I might make this worse.

If I breathe, I might actually fucking panic.

Because Deku is awake.

And he knows.

I can feel it the second his breathing changes.

The second his body—**my body, fuck, my body—**goes completely still, like he’s just realized exactly where he is, exactly what’s happening, exactly how close we are.

Like he’s just woken up inside a moment neither of us were prepared for.

Like he’s trying to figure out what the fuck to do with it.

Join the club, nerd.

But the worst part—the absolute worst fucking part—

Is that he doesn’t move away.

He doesn’t bolt, doesn’t freak out, doesn’t throw himself to the other side of the bed like I would’ve expected.

Instead—instead, he just stays.

Still pressed against me.

Still close.

Still breathing steady, even though I know he’s wide awake.

And fuck.

Fuck.

I don’t know what to do with that.

Because this? This isn’t normal.

This isn’t how things between us go.

Deku is awkward.

Deku is nervous.

Deku is the kind of person who fumbles over himself when he so much as brushes against someone accidentally.

But right now—right now, he’s not.

Right now, he is calm.

Right now, he is steady.

Right now, he is so fucking warm against me that it feels like he’s sinking into my bones.

And the worst fucking part?

I can feel him.

I can feel exactly what he’s feeling.

The quiet, deep-set calm.

The way he hasn’t fully processed what’s happening yet but somehow, some way, isn’t panicking about it.

The way he is just here.

With me.

Like it’s natural.

Like it’s fine.

Like it’s always been this way.

And I don’t know what to do with that.

I don’t know how to process that.

I don’t know how to fucking survive that.

Because this should be awkward.

This should be weird.

But it isn’t.

It’s easy.

It’s safe.

It’s everything I have never let myself want.

And then—

Then, he shifts just slightly.

Turns his head.

Looks at me.

And for the first time in my entire life—

I see my own face looking at me like that.

Soft.

Gentle.

Like I’m something worth holding on to.

And it fucking destroys me.

I swallow hard.

I force myself to breathe.

I keep my expression blank.

Because I know.

I know the second I react—the second I give myself away—

I will never be able to take it back.

So instead—instead, I hold it together.

I force myself to meet his gaze.

I force myself not to drown in it.

I force myself to pretend that this isn’t killing me.

And I say—

“…What?”

My voice is rough, hoarse, tight in a way that betrays me.

Deku just blinks at me.

Still quiet. Still calm. Still looking at me like that.

And then—

Then, the corner of his mouth twitches.

Not a smirk. Not a knowing smile.

Something softer.

Something fond.

Something that makes my stomach flip inside out.

And then—

Then, that motherfucker has the audacity to whisper—

“You look happy, Kacchan.”

And I immediately short-circuit.

IZUKU

Kacchan moves.

Fast.

Like he’s been electrocuted.

Like the bed is on fire.

Like I am on fire.

One second, he’s still beside me, still warm, still impossibly close, still looking at me with something I can’t fucking name—

And the next—

He’s gone.

Launched himself away like he just realized exactly what was happening, exactly how close we were, exactly what he let slip before he could shove it back behind all his defenses.

He doesn’t just move.

He bolts.

He’s off the bed in an instant, feet hitting the floor with a little too much force—like he’s trying to make sure he’s still standing, still grounded, still capable of running.

I barely have time to process it before he’s at the door, back rigid, shoulders drawn tight, his hand coming up to grip his face like he’s trying to rub the last five minutes out of his brain.

And then—

He leaves.

No words.

No reaction.

No acknowledgment that we just woke up wrapped around each other like something inevitable.

He just grabs his towel and walks straight to the bathroom like nothing happened.

Like he wasn’t just lying next to me.

Like he wasn’t just holding onto me like he meant it.

Like I didn’t just see my own face—his face, my body, my fucking eyes—looking at me like that.

I stare at the ceiling.

My chest feels weird.

My breath is still uneven.

And my wrist—the one he had been holding onto all night—

Feels cold.

I clench my fingers, pressing my palm against my chest, trying to ground myself.

Because what the fuck was that?

What the fuck was that?

The weight of it lingers in the air, curling around my ribs, sinking into my skin like something I can’t shake.

I close my eyes, exhale slow, and try to force my brain to make sense of it.

Because I know Kacchan.

I know how he moves, how he fights, how he runs.

And that?

That wasn’t just a reaction.

That was panic.

That was him realizing something he wasn’t ready to admit.

That was him feeling something so overwhelming he didn’t know what to do with it.

And if I wasn’t already awake before—

I sure as hell am now.

KATSUKI

I take another long, hot shower.

I do not think.

I do not repeat last night.

(Shut the fuck up. Don’t even bring it up. Don’t even think about it.)

I stand under the scalding water like it can burn the feeling off my skin. Like it can boil the memory out of my fucking bones.

Like it can fix me.

It doesn’t.

Of course it fucking doesn’t.

Because the problem isn’t the body I’m in.

The problem is the body I want.

I drag a hand through my—**his—**hair, gripping tight, breathing through my teeth, trying to keep my thoughts from spiraling into places I cannot fucking afford to go right now.

Because last night was a mistake.

Because I let myself relax.

Because I let myself feel.

Because for the first time in my life—for the first time since I was a fucking kid—

I woke up next to him and I didn’t hate it.

I liked it.

I liked it so fucking much that it almost broke me.

I shut the water off, towel off too fast, pull on my clothes like armor, like layers will help put distance between me and whatever the fuck is happening in my head.

I take a breath.

I step out.

And I see him.

Deku.

Already dressed.

Standing there in my body—his body, my body, fuck, I don’t even know anymore—

And wearing that stupid, oversized green hoodie again.

And that’s what does it.

Not the way he looks too comfortable.

Not the way he’s too at ease in a body that isn’t his.

Not even the way I can still feel the lingering hum of his emotions from this morning, slow and steady and content, like last night meant something to him, like it didn’t fucking destroy him the way it’s destroying me.

No.

It’s the hoodie.

That dumb, oversized, too-green hoodie.

Because it doesn’t fit me.

Not the way it fits him.

Not in the way that it hangs loose on his frame but still somehow makes him look like home.

Because it looks like me.

Because it looks like mine.

Because if I wasn’t in my own body right now, seeing myself wearing it—

I would think it belonged to me.

I would think it was something Deku stole from me.

Something he borrowed and never gave back.

Something that was always meant to be mine.

And fuck.

Fuck.

It pisses me off.

Because I am not normal right now.

Because I am not fine.

Because I am fucking unraveling.

And he is just existing.

Like this isn’t fucking killing me.

IZUKU

Kacchan is acting weird.

Weirder than usual.

And that’s saying something, because Kacchan is always a little bit weird.

But this—this is different.

This isn’t just him being grumpy, or irritable, or impatient, or whatever other thing he defaults to when he doesn’t want to deal with people.

This is something else.

Something quieter.

Something sharper.

And I feel it.

I feel it every time he flinches when I move too close.

I feel it every time he refuses to meet my eyes.

I feel it wrapped around him like barbed wire, like he’s holding something in so tight it’s about to rip him apart.

And I don’t know what it is.

But I know it’s big.

Because Kacchan doesn’t do subtle.

If something’s bothering him, everyone knows about it.

If something’s wrong, he’s the first to break it apart with his bare fucking hands.

But right now?

Right now, he’s holding back.

Right now, he’s keeping something so tightly locked away that even I can’t get to it.

And that’s—that’s not normal.

Because I know Kacchan.

I know how he thinks, how he moves, how he reacts.

And this?

This is not a reaction.

This is fear.

And fuck.

I don’t know what he’s scared of.

But I know one thing for certain.

If Kacchan is hiding something—

If Kacchan is afraid of something—

If Kacchan is holding something inside himself so tightly that he won’t even look at me—

Then it’s only a matter of time before it breaks.

And when it does?

I am going to figure it out.

Because Kacchan is a lot of things.

But he is not alone in this.

Not anymore.

TRAINING – THEY ARE NOT OKAY

IZUKU

I brace myself.

I adjust my stance.

I grit my teeth, plant my feet, and try again.

I focus on my palms—his palms—on the way the sweat gathers just beneath the surface, the way it feels like static crackling under my skin, waiting to ignite.

I try to channel it, to control it, to direct it the way Kacchan does so effortlessly.

And then I fire.

And—

I fuck it up.

Again.

The explosion misfires.

The force knocks me off balance, launching me sideways instead of forward, sending me skidding across the floor like an idiot.

I barely catch myself before I crash again, palms smacking against the ground, my arms screaming with the impact.

My hands—**Kacchan’s hands—**sting.

I suck in a sharp breath, shaking them out, willing the pain to pass.

And that’s when I feel it.

That’s when I notice.

Because this isn’t just the sting of impact.

This isn’t just the burn of overuse, of miscalculating a blast, of not knowing how to properly measure the force.

This is something else.

This is lingering.

This is deep-set.

This is—this is just how it feels.

Every time.

I look down at my—**his—**hands.

At the softened calluses, the nearly invisible layer of new skin that must have burned away and healed over so many times that it never fully gets the chance to settle.

At the tiny, barely-there marks of past burns, evidence of every time Kacchan has pushed himself beyond his limits, every time he’s ignored the pain, every time he’s kept going because stopping isn’t an option.

And I—I never knew.

I never realized that his Quirk hurts him.

I never noticed that his hands must always sting, that every time he fights, every time he moves, every time he uses the very thing that makes him strong—

It hurts.

And he never says anything.

He never flinches.

He never complains.

I close my hands into fists, trying to ignore the way the skin feels too tender, too raw, too much like something that has been worn down over and over and over again.

And across the room—

Kacchan is watching me.

Silent.

Still.

His arms are crossed, his shoulders rigid, tense, unreadable.

And I know.

I know that he knows what I just realized.

I know that he’s waiting for me to say something.

But I don’t.

I don’t, because what am I supposed to say?

That I had no idea?

That it never even occurred to me?

That I feel fucking stupid for never noticing before now?

That I don’t understand how he’s lived with this for his entire life and never once acted like it was a problem?

I unclench my hands, exhale slowly.

I try again.

I try to focus.

I try to push past it the way he does.

I try to ignore the sting, the burn, the sharp reminder that this body is not my own, that this Quirk is not mine, that this pain is something I have never had to carry before.

And I fail.

Again.

The explosion is too weak this time, barely a flicker of heat, a sad, pitiful spark that dies the second it appears.

I curse under my breath, dragging my hand down my face—**his face—**frustration curling tight in my chest.

And across the room, Kacchan lets out a sharp, heavy exhale.

Not mocking.

Not irritated.

Something closer to resignation.

Something closer to understanding.

And suddenly, I know.

I know he’s not mad at me.

I know he’s not even mad that I keep messing up.

He’s mad that this isn’t something I should have to deal with.

That this is his burden, his fight, his pain, his body.

That I shouldn’t have to feel this at all.

And I don’t know what to do with that.

KATSUKI

I try to use One For All again.

It doesn’t work.

And I should have expected that.

I should have known by now that this power, this energy, this impossible weight I’ve been trying to hold inside this body like a live wire, would resist me.

But today—today, it’s worse.

Today, it’s not just a fight to control.

Today, it’s a war.

Because there’s too much.

Too much in my head.

Too much in my body.

Too much in my fucking heart, and I don’t know what to do with it.

Because this Quirk?

It isn’t just a power.

It’s a bond.

It’s a connection, a line that tethers every past user to the next, a current of something so much bigger than me running through my veins, a weight that I was never supposed to carry.

And right now—right now, that connection is burning.

Because I am already overwhelmed.

Because I am already drowning in things I shouldn’t be feeling.

Because I am already fighting against something I don’t know how to stop.

And this body?

This body was never mine.

This body belongs to him.

This body was built for him, made for him, shaped around something that only he was ever supposed to wield.

This body responds to him.

And right now, it is responding to me.

To my emotions.

To every single thing I am trying to fucking suppress.

To every feeling I have tried for years to pretend I didn’t have.

And One For All—this power that was never mine, this legacy that was never meant for me—

Knows it.

I feel the shift before I hear them.

The air around me tenses, thickens, curls in on itself like it’s waiting to strike.

Like it’s waiting for me to acknowledge the truth I am so desperately trying to run from.

And then—then, I hear them.

The past users.

The fucking council of ghosts living in Deku’s goddamn head.

One of them laughs.

Another sighs, like this is inevitable, like this is something they have seen coming from the beginning.

And then, a voice.

Low, knowing, amused.

"You’re struggling with this for a very different reason today."

I freeze.

No.

No, no, fuck no.

I am not doing this right now.

I am not discussing this with a bunch of fucking dead guys.

I grit my teeth, dig my heels into the ground, and try—**again—**to force the power under control.

But it doesn’t listen.

It resists.

It pushes back.

And suddenly, the air cracks.

And then—

Blackwhip appears.

It surges out of me, unrestrained, undirected, completely untamed.

A sharp, lashing force of raw, uncontrolled emotion.

Because that’s what this power is.

That’s what it’s always been.

Not just strength.

Not just speed.

Not just power.

But feeling.

And right now, I am feeling everything too fucking much.

My heart slams against my ribs.

I dig my nails into my palm—his palm, Deku’s fucking palm, too soft, too scarred, too familiar in ways I shouldn’t be thinking about.

I suck in a sharp breath, try to swallow it down, try to choke it back, try to force it into submission.

And then—

From across the room—

I feel him.

I feel Deku.

His heartbeat—fast.

His chest—tight.

His breath—sharp.

His emotions—spiking, frantic, pulling me back, tethering me like a gravity I have never been able to escape.

And then—

"Kacchan."

His voice is quiet.

Grounding.

And just like that—

Blackwhip snaps back.

The energy recoils, curling inward, slamming down as fast as it rose.

And I am left standing there, fists clenched, lungs burning, mind fucking racing.

I look up.

I meet his eyes—my eyes, his body, fuck, I don’t even know anymore.

And I see it.

I see the realization settling in.

I see the understanding hitting him all at once.

Because Deku?

Deku is a lot of things.

But he’s not stupid.

He knows.

He knows.

And fuck—

I am going to lose my fucking mind.

Chapter Text

LUNCH – EVERYTHING FEELS WRONG

IZUKU

Kacchan is not talking.

Not in the usual way.

Not in the sharp-edged, biting silence he uses when he’s pissed off.

Not in the calculating, waiting-for-someone-to-push-his-buttons kind of way.

No—this is different.

This is wrong.

This is too quiet.

And I can feel it.

Because it’s not just silence.

It’s weight.

It’s pressure.

It’s something inside him sinking deeper and deeper and deeper, like an anchor wrapped around his ribs, dragging him down into something I don’t understand.

And the worst part—the absolute worst fucking part—

Is that he is sitting in my body.

He is wearing my face.

And my face—my body, my skin, my heartbeat, my pulse, my fucking self—

Looks wrong on him.

Too tense.

Too tight.

Too uncomfortable, like he’s barely holding himself together, like his own goddamn existence is suffocating him.

And it makes my chest ache in a way I don’t know how to name.

Because I feel it.

Because I am it.

Because his misery, his exhaustion, his frustration, his fucking sadness—

It’s inside me, curling into the spaces where his emotions shouldn’t be able to reach, sinking into my own bones like I’ve been carrying it all along.

And I don’t understand it.

I don’t understand what’s wrong.

I don’t understand why this body— my body— feels so much worse for him.

I don’t understand why it feels like he’s struggling against something bigger than this body swap.

But I know one thing.

I can’t ask him.

Not here.

Not now.

Not when he is sitting there, in my skin, in my place, barely keeping himself upright.

I set my chopsticks down.

I hesitate.

Then, carefully—softly—

"Kacchan."

He doesn’t look up.

Doesn’t react.

Doesn’t even acknowledge that he heard me.

I try again. "Are you okay?"

And for a second—just a **second—**I think he’s not going to answer.

I think he’s just going to sit there, pretending he didn’t hear me, pretending that nothing is wrong.

And then, after a long, agonizing moment—

He mutters, "We’re switching back soon, right?"

And something in my chest tightens.

Because that’s not what I asked.

Because that wasn’t an answer.

Because the way he says it—low, hollow, distant—

Feels wrong.

I swallow. “…Yeah.”

"Probably."

He nods once.

A single, small movement.

Then, quietly—almost too quietly, like he doesn’t even mean to say it out loud—

"Good."

And—fuck.

That shouldn’t bother me.

That shouldn’t feel like something is slipping through my fingers.

That shouldn’t make my breath catch, my pulse jump, my heart press tight against my ribs.

But it does.

Because he doesn’t sound relieved.

He doesn’t sound like this is just another thing to get through.

He sounds resigned.

Like he’s already mourning something.

Like he’s already decided something.

Like he’s already choosing to let something go.

And it’s my body.

He’s sitting in my body, wearing my face, breathing with my lungs, holding himself together with my fucking bones.

And he still looks like he’s falling apart.

And I don’t know what it is.

I don’t know why it feels like he’s slipping away even though he’s still sitting right in front of me.

I don’t know why I feel like if I let this moment pass, if I don’t do something now, I might not get another chance.

But I know one thing for certain.

Kacchan is not okay.

And I am going to figure out why.

KATSUKI

I ignore him.

I ignore him like my life fucking depends on it.

Because if I don’t—

If I don’t, I’ll break.

If I don’t, I’ll say something I can’t take back.

If I don’t, he might see it—

The truth.

The absolute fucking mess I’ve become because of him.

So I ignore him.

I wake up before he does.

I leave before he can look at me, before he can open my—his—eyes and see me unraveling right in front of him.

I sit as far away from him as possible at meals.

I train with literally anyone else.

I do everything in my fucking power to put as much space between us as I can.

And it sucks.

Because I feel him.

Because he’s in my body.

Because every time I pull away, I feel the way it hits him.

The confusion.

The worry.

The slow, creeping ache of rejection, like something I don’t think he even fully understands but still feels like a phantom pain under his skin.

And that—that fucking kills me.

Because I know what it is.

I know that feeling.

I know it because I have lived in it.

Because I have been drowning in it for so fucking long, I don’t even know how to breathe without it anymore.

But him?

Deku?

He’s felt it too.

Because of me.

Because of every cruel thing I ever said, because of every time I tore him down, because of every time I pushed him away, because of every goddamn moment where I made him believe I hated him.

And he doesn’t even realize it.

He doesn’t even realize that this feeling—

This tightening in his chest.

This sharp, unbearable loneliness.

This thing that is clawing through his ribs, making him feel like he’s being left behind—

Is exactly how I made him feel for years.

And fuck.

I deserve it.

I deserve every second of this, every ounce of guilt and misery sinking into my bones, every restless fucking night where I can’t even force myself to sleep in his bed because it would be too much.

Because I’m acting like a fucking idiot.

Because this whole thing is stupid.

Because I am not some pathetic, love-struck extra in a shitty romance anime,

I am KATSUKI FUCKING BAKUGO.

And I am NOT going to let this ruin me.

I am not going to let my own weakness turn me into the kind of person who can’t handle his own fucking feelings.

I am not going to let my own goddamn emotions—

The ones I have shoved down, buried, refused to name because naming them would make them real, because naming them would make this impossible—

Destroy me.

And yet—

I still can’t sleep in our dorm.

I still can’t lie in that bed, in his body, in my body, in whatever the fuck body is supposed to be mine anymore.

Because I can’t risk him waking up again.

I can’t risk hearing myself breathe too close to me.

I can’t risk looking over and seeing my own fucking face wearing his exhaustion, his softness, his pain.

I can’t risk what it means.

So I sleep on the couch in the common room instead.

And I pretend like it’s fine.

Like I don’t feel him reaching for me in his sleep, like I don’t feel his confusion curling into my ribs, like I don’t feel the hollow, aching sense of absence between us every single second of the day.

Like I don’t fucking care.

And maybe—if I lie to myself hard enough, if I push it all deep enough, if I keep pretending like none of this is real—

Maybe I can survive this.

Maybe I can make it through.

Maybe I can make it hurt a little less.

IZUKU

I don’t understand.

I don’t understand what changed.

I don’t understand why Kacchan is ignoring me.

I don’t understand what I did wrong.

Because just two days ago, he was there.

Two days ago, he held me.

Two days ago, he stayed.

Two days ago, he wrapped around me, pressed his warmth into my skin, traced slow, absentminded circles over my wrist like he didn’t even realize he was doing it.

Two days ago, he was different.

And now?

Now, he won’t even look at me.

Now, he avoids me like I’m something to be endured, something to be tolerated until this whole thing is over.

Now, he sits as far away from me as possible at meals.

Now, he sparks irritation every time our eyes meet, every time I try to speak to him, every time I reach out.

Now, he leaves before I wake up.

Now, he is gone before I can even open my eyes, before I can even feel that he was ever there.

And it’s not like before.

It’s not like the years we spent apart, where he hated me, where he pushed me away because he didn’t want me.

Because this time, I feel it.

This time, his avoidance physically hurts.

This time, his rejection doesn’t just exist in the air around us—

It’s in my chest.

It’s in my ribs.

It’s inside me, curling deep in my stomach, latching onto something raw and vulnerable and fucking aching.

And it’s all-consuming.

I try to rationalize it.

I try to convince myself that it’s nothing.

That he’s just frustrated.

That he’s just waiting for the body swap to be over.

That he’s just irritated because he’s in my body, because he can’t use my Quirk, because everything about this situation is bullshit.

But deep down, I know better.

Because I can feel it.

Because I can feel him.

And this—this isn’t frustration.

This isn’t just irritation.

This is him pulling away.

This is him actively making the choice to push distance between us.

This is him deciding something—choosing something—choosing to let go.

And suddenly, it’s hard to breathe.

Suddenly, my hands won’t stop shaking.

Suddenly, I am spiraling so fast I can’t catch my own thoughts.

Because this is it.

This is him changing his mind.

This is him realizing that he was wrong about me.

This is him waking up and deciding I wasn’t worth the effort.

This is him pushing me away again—

Just like before.

Just like always.

Just like when he hated me.

I feel my chest lock up.

My pulse pounds.

My thoughts trip over themselves, slam into each other, spiral so fast I can’t hold onto anything.

Oh god.

No.

No, no, no, no, no—

No, please.

I can’t do this again.

I can’t lose him again.

I can’t wake up in the morning and feel like I don’t exist to him again.

I can’t survive this again.

I won’t.

Oh, god. Oh, fuck. No. No, no, no—

I squeeze my eyes shut, try to slow my breathing, try to anchor myself, try to stop this before it gets worse.

I fail.

I panic all fucking night.

I stare at the ceiling until my vision blurs, until my body trembles, until the air feels too thick to swallow.

I don’t sleep.

I can’t sleep.

Because he’s not here.

Because he left.

Because he’s running from me again.

And I don’t know if he’s ever going to stop.

DAY 2 OF AVOIDANCE – IZUKU STARTS TO BREAK

KATSUKI

I wake up on the couch.

My back hurts.

My arms ache.

Everything fucking sucks.

But none of it—

None of it hurts as much as the look on his face when he sees me.

My face.

My own goddamn face, staring at me like I’ve just shattered something fragile and irreplaceable, like I’ve broken something sacred.

Like he doesn’t understand why I left.

Like he doesn’t understand what he did wrong.

Like I’ve hurt him.

And fuck.

I feel it.

I feel it so deeply, so overwhelmingly, so painfully, it feels like I’m the one it’s happening to.

Because in some fucked up way, I am.

Because he’s wearing me.

Because he’s drenched in my skin, wrapped in my bones, and every ounce of agony rolling off him is hitting me like a fucking bullet to the chest.

And he—he looks wrecked.

Completely, utterly wrecked.

Like he didn’t sleep.

Like he hasn’t slept in years.

Like he—

Like he cried all night.

Like he cried and didn’t stop and still hasn’t stopped, because I can feel it in the way his breath catches, in the way his shoulders curl inward, in the way my own fucking body is holding itself together like it’s trying to disappear.

And I know.

I know what I did.

I know I did this.

I know I put this look on my own face.

And it—it fucking kills me.

It makes my lungs feel like they’re filled with cement, makes my stomach twist so hard I think I might actually be sick.

And the worst part?

I still don’t stop.

I still don’t fix it.

I still don’t look him in the eyes, don’t say a single fucking word, don’t try to reach out, don’t do anything.

Because if I do—

If I let myself say something, if I let myself try, if I let myself feel—

I will break.

So I do what I do best.

I ignore it.

IZUKU

I barely eat.

I barely sleep.

I barely function.

Because I was just starting to realize it.

Just starting to understand.

Just starting to think—maybe, maybe, maybe—

And then he left.

He pulled away.

He vanished from my space, from my reach, from the tiny, fragile thing that had started to form between us.

And now, I don’t know what to do with that.

I don’t know how to breathe around it.

I don’t know how to hold myself together when the weight of his absence is crushing me from the inside out.

Because it’s not just about this stupid body swap.

It’s not just about the Quirk.

It’s not just about getting back to normal.

It’s more.

It’s so much more.

And the thought of losing it—

The thought of losing him before I even figure out what it means, before I even let myself hold it, before I even have the chance to fucking name it—

Is killing me.

Because I was just starting to feel safe.

Just starting to believe that he was staying.

Just starting to let myself hope.

And now—

Now, all I can feel is the way he’s pulling away.

The way he’s retreating, recoiling, running, shutting himself down so hard I can feel the walls slamming back into place like they were never gone.

And it’s like I’m a kid again.

It’s like I’m watching him slip further and further away, watching him push me aside, watching him make the choice to turn his back on me.

And I don’t understand.

I don’t know what I did wrong.

I don’t know why he’s acting like this, why he’s retreating into himself, why the warmth that was just there two days ago is suddenly cold and unreachable.

And I hate it.

I hate this silence.

I hate this uncertainty.

I hate how much I want to reach for him, even though I know he won’t reach back.

And the worst part?

I can feel it.

I can feel his fear.

I can feel his self-loathing.

I can feel his regret, sharp and tangled and eating him alive.

And it doesn’t make sense.

Because I don’t know what he regrets.

I don’t know what he’s afraid of.

I don’t know why he’s mourning something that hasn’t even been lost yet.

IZUKU’S SECOND NIGHTMARE IN KATSUKI’S BODY

I am small.

Too small.

The world around me is too big, too sharp, too cruel—towering over me, swallowing me whole, pressing me down into something tiny, something helpless, something breakable.

I am five years old again.

Five years old, standing in the middle of an endless dark, feet planted in nothing, air thick and suffocating, something heavy pressing against my ribs like it’s trying to crush me from the inside out.

I try to move.

I can’t.

I try to breathe.

It sticks in my throat.

The air is static, charged with something vicious, something waiting, something lurking in the shadows just beyond my vision.

And then—

I hear him.

My father.

His voice is a whip crack through the dark, sharp and cutting and furious.

"You are weak."

The words slam into me, dig into my skin like claws, like they want to rip me apart, tear me down, unmake me piece by piece.

"You are nothing."

I squeeze my eyes shut. No, no, no.

Not here. Not again.

"You should have never been born."

I flinch.

I want to run.

I want to wake up.

I try to move, but my legs won’t work.

I try to scream, but my throat won’t let me.

I try, I try, I try—

And then, suddenly—

The dark shifts.

The air changes.

And when I open my eyes, it’s not my father anymore.

It’s Kacchan.

But not—not really.

Because this Kacchan is wrong.

Because this Kacchan is taller, bigger, older—looming over me with eyes that burn, with hands curled into fists, with a mouth twisted into something cruel and sharp and familiar.

And I know that look.

I have always known that look.

Because it has always meant pain.

"You disgust me."

My chest locks up.

My stomach drops.

His voice is hard and venomous and dripping with something I don’t want to name.

"You are pathetic, useless, a waste of fucking space."

I shake my head, stumble back, try to get away.

But there’s nowhere to go.

"You don’t belong here, Deku."

My breath catches—

And then he hits me.

Hard.

Hard enough that my vision whites out, hard enough that the pain explodes through me like fire, hard enough that I feel the impact in my bones.

I stagger, choke, try to breathe through it.

And then he hits me again.

And again.

And again.

And again, again, again—

Until I am on my knees, until my body is shaking, until my breath is ragged and wet and torn straight from my throat.

I reach for him.

I beg.

But he is unmoving.

Unyielding.

Unforgiving.

And the look in his eyes—god, the look in his eyes—

It is the same look he gave me the first time he ever told me to die.

And I can’t—

I can’t do this.

I scream.

I scream, and scream, and scream, and scream—

Until I wake up gasping, choking, clawing at the sheets, shoving myself upright in bed, lungs burning, heart racing, body trembling like it doesn’t know how to stop.

And then I realize—

I am not in my own bed.

I am in his.

Because I am not in my own body.

Because I am still trapped in his.

And the moment that truth crashes down on me, I feel it—

The weight of my own fear, my own terror, my own goddamn devastation—

Echoed.

Reflected.

Because even though I am here—in hi body, in his skin, waking up from my own nightmare, feeling every ounce of my own fucking panic—

Kacchan feels it too.

And he is coming.

KATSUKI

I wake up to screaming.

Raw. Terrified.

Not just any screaming.

Mine.

And it takes me less than a second to move.

Because I feel it.

Because I feel his panic like it’s my own, feel his fear like it’s crushing my ribs, feel his terror like it’s clawing up my throat, wrapping around my lungs, choking the breath straight out of me.

Because whatever he’s seeing, whatever nightmare has its claws in him—

It’s not letting go.

And it’s killing him.

I don’t even think.

I don’t hesitate.

I just move.

I tear myself from the couch in the common room, my heart pounding, hammering, screaming at me to go, go, go.

I slam our dorm door open so hard it bounces against the wall.

And I don’t care.

I don’t care that we’re in the wrong bodies.

I don’t care what this means.

I don’t care about anything except getting to him.

Because he’s breaking.

Because he’s shaking, gripping his head, sobbing so hard it sounds like it’s tearing him apart from the inside out.

Because he’s muttering, over and over and over—

"No, Kacchan, no—please don’t, please stop, don’t hurt me, please—"

And I—

I break.

I break into a million fucking pieces.

I don’t know how I get to him.

I don’t know how I end up next to the bed, don’t know how my hands find his wrists, don’t know how I manage to make him look at me through the absolute fucking terror ripping through his body.

I just know I have to.

I just know I need him to see me.

To really see me.

To know that it’s me.

So I grip his wrists, hold on tight, ground him, make him feel it.

And I whisper, wrecked and desperate and raw—

“Izu.”

His body jerks.

His breath catches.

His fingers tremble against mine.

I tighten my grip, pull him closer, lower my voice into something steady, solid, safe.

“It’s me.”

And this time, when his eyes snap up to mine—

He sees me.

And something in him—

Finally, finally fucking breaks.

IZUKU

I can’t stop shaking.

I can’t breathe right.

I can’t get the image out of my head.

Kacchan—but not him.

Not the Kacchan I know.

Not the Kacchan who held me through my nightmares, who pulled me out of the dark, who let me sleep beside him like it was the most natural thing in the world.

This Kacchan was cruel.

This Kacchan hated me.

This Kacchan wanted to hurt me.

And he did.

Over and over and over.

And no matter how many times I blink, no matter how hard I try to shake it off, no matter how many times I tell myself it wasn’t real—

I can still feel it.

I can still hear the venom in his voice, feel the impact of his fists, taste the blood in my mouth.

I want to wake up.

I want to snap out of it.

I want to feel something real.

And then—

Hands.

Warm. Steady. Grounding.

Fingers curled tight around my wrists, holding on, keeping me anchored.

A voice—sharp, desperate, real.

“Deku.”

My breath catches.

I know that voice.

I know it like I know my own heartbeat.

And when I finally—**finally—**manage to force my eyes open—

He’s there.

Right there.

Kacchan—in my body, in my skin, in my own damn face—

But looking at me like I am something fragile.

Like I might disappear if he lets go.

Like he would burn the whole fucking world down to stop me from breaking.

“It’s me,” he says, voice rough, raw, like it’s been torn from somewhere deep.

And I—

I break.

The sob rips itself out of my throat before I can stop it, shaking, uncontrollable, tearing me apart from the inside out.

His grip tightens.

His arms pull me in.

And suddenly—

It doesn’t matter whose body we’re in.

It doesn’t matter that I feel like I’m drowning.

It doesn’t matter that I don’t know how to deal with what this means, what we are, what we’ve become.

It doesn’t matter what’s wrong, what’s broken, what’s confusing.

It just matters that he’s here.

It just matters that he’s holding me.

That he’s warm.

That he’s real.

I bury my face against his shoulder, my breath hitching, my fingers curling into the fabric of my own damn hoodie.

And for the first time in days—

For the first time since this body swap, since this mess started, since I’ve felt like I was losing him all over again—

I don’t feel alone.

KATSUKI

I hold him because I have to.

I hold him because I feel every single fucking thing ripping through him like it’s my own.

Because in this stupid, fucked-up body swap, there’s no hiding.

No barriers.

No pretending.

No space between what’s his and what’s mine.

His grief is my grief.

His fear is my fear.

His pain is my fucking pain.

And right now?

He’s drowning in it.

I feel it like a vice in my chest, like something is tearing through him, through me, through both of us at once.

And I—

I can’t fucking stand it.

His breath is uneven against my collarbone, his hands fisted so tight in my—his—hoodie that his knuckles have gone white.

He’s still shaking.

Still coming down from it.

Still too deep inside the nightmare to pull himself out alone.

I tighten my grip, press my face against his—**my—**hair, hold onto him like I can keep him tethered to this moment, to me, to something real.

Something safe.

And I should leave it at that.

I should just let it go, let him breathe, let him settle.

But I can’t.

Because I still hear it.

The way he was pleading.

The way he was sobbing.

The way he was begging me—

Me.

Not to hurt him.

And I—

I need to fucking know.

So I push through the tightness in my throat, keep my voice low, steady, careful.

"Izu."

He tenses.

I feel it before I see it, the way his pulse stutters, the way his entire body locks up, like he knows what I’m going to ask before I say it.

I press on.

"What the hell were you dreaming about?"

He doesn’t answer.

Doesn’t even look at me.

But he can’t hide it.

Not like this.

Not when we’re still too fucking close, still tangled together, still caught in this Quirk’s bullshit emotional bond.

Because I can feel it.

The hesitation.

The way his mind flinches away from the truth.

The way his breath stutters, like the words are right there, waiting to be spoken, but he doesn’t know how.

Then—

He exhales.

And then—

He tells me.

“My dad used to hit me.”

I go completely still.

I almost don’t process it.

Because he says it so flatly.

So quietly.

So calmly.

Like it’s just a fact.

Like it’s just something that happened.

Like it’s not the worst fucking thing I’ve ever heard in my life.

Like it’s not making me feel like I’m about to tear something apart with my bare hands.

I don’t move.

I don’t breathe.

I just—

Listen.

Feel.

Let the words sink in.

“It got worse when they figured out I was Quirkless.” His voice wavers, just barely. “And then, not long after that… he left.”

Something inside me snaps.

A deep, ugly, burning thing that wants to hunt that bastard down and make him fucking pay.

But I can’t.

I can’t do anything except hold him.

I can’t do anything except try to keep my hands from shaking.

I can’t do anything except feel it—

The ache.

The weight.

The wound.

Deep, buried, scarred over but never really healed.

And somehow, somehow, I never knew.

I swallow down the fucking rage clawing its way up my throat.

Push it down.

Because this isn’t about me.

Because this isn’t about what I want to do, about how much I want to kill the fucking man who ever laid a hand on him.

Because this is about Izuku.

So I exhale slow, press my forehead against his temple, hold him tighter.

"Izu."

His breath catches.

I can feel his heart stutter.

I whisper it again.

"Fuck. I'm sorry."

And I mean it.

I mean it with everything I have.

I mean it in a way that feels too small, too inadequate, too fucking worthless in the face of what he’s telling me.

But he nods.

Presses his forehead against my chest.

And for a second, I think—

Maybe that’s it.

Maybe that’s all there is.

Maybe we can leave it there.

But then—

Something doesn’t sit right.

Something doesn’t make sense.

Because that explains part of it.

That explains why he was scared.

Why he was panicking, why he was breaking apart, why he was drowning in it.

But that doesn’t explain why it was me.

That doesn’t explain why he was sobbing my name.

That doesn’t explain why he was begging me not to hurt him.

I feel my own pulse spike.

And I ask.

“That still doesn’t explain why you were begging for me to stop.”

He flinches.

Hard.

Like I just punched him in the gut.

Like he knew I was going to ask, but still wasn’t ready.

Like he never wanted to say it out loud.

And then, before I can even get another word in—

He buries his face against my chest.

Like he’s trying to disappear.

Like he can’t let me see his face when he tells me.

Like he thinks this is going to fucking break me.

And then—

Soft. Small. Wrecked.

"Halfway through the nightmare… it wasn’t my dad anymore."

My chest goes tight.

I stop breathing.

I already know.

I already fucking know.

"It… it was you."

And I—

I fall apart.

I break in ways I didn’t even know were possible.

Because it wasn’t just a nightmare.

Because it was a memory twisted into something worse, something cruel, something unbearable.

Because his brain chose me.

Because I gave him every fucking reason to think I was capable of it.

Because there was a time when I was.

And now, he’s curled up in my—his—arms, sobbing into my chest, trembling, saying over and over—

"It hurt so much, Kacchan."

And I don’t know how to fix it.

I don’t know if I can.

But I tighten my grip, hold him so close I can barely tell where he ends and I begin.

And I swear to fucking God—

I will never let him feel like that again.

Chapter Text

MORNING AFTER THE NIGHTMARE – SOMETHING HAS SHIFTED

IZUKU

When I wake up, I know something is different.

Not in the way it has been for the past few days.

Not in the I’m still in Kacchan’s body, this is my new reality, and I have to deal with it kind of way.

No—this is different.

Because he’s still here.

Because his hand is still wrapped around my waist, even in sleep.

Because he hasn’t moved, hasn’t pulled away, hasn’t created the space between us that I was so sure he was going to.

And the worst part?

The part that throws me completely off balance, makes my heart hammer, makes my chest ache with something I don’t know how to name?

It doesn’t feel weird.

It doesn’t feel wrong.

It doesn’t feel like something I should immediately pull away from.

It feels… natural.

And that scares the hell out of me.

I should move.

I should do something.

I should shift, roll away, put distance between us before he wakes up and realizes just how close we are.

Before he realizes I let him stay.

Before he realizes that I don’t want him to go.

But I don’t.

I can’t.

Because even though I should—even though my brain is screaming at me that this is too much, too close, too intense—

I don’t want to.

I want to stay right here.

I want to keep feeling this.

I want to stay in this moment where Kacchan is still, where he isn’t running, where he isn’t pushing me away.

Where he isn’t trying to put a wall between us, even after everything.

His breath is warm against my neck, slow, steady, the kind of deep, even breathing that tells me he’s still asleep.

But his grip—God, his grip.

Even in sleep, it’s firm.

Even in sleep, it’s secure.

Even in sleep, he’s holding on like something in him refuses to let go.

And I feel it.

I feel it.

Not just the weight of his arm, not just the warmth of his hand resting against my stomach—

But him.

His emotions.

The faint, unconscious pull of relief mixed with something deeper, something more fragile, something I don’t think he even realizes he’s letting himself feel.

And it—it shakes me.

Because if I can feel him, then he can feel me.

If I can feel this, then he can feel how much I don’t want him to pull away.

And I—

Oh, God.

I don’t know what to do with that.

I shift just slightly, just enough to turn my head, to get a better look at him.

And my breath catches.

Because I’m looking at my own face.

But not the way I’ve ever seen it before.

Not in the mirror.

Not in reflections.

Not in old photos or recordings or anything that exists outside of this moment.

I’m looking at Kacchan wearing my face, and it’s—

It’s soft.

The harshness, the tension, the ever-present scowl that always sharpens his features—it’s gone.

He looks calm.

He looks peaceful.

He looks like something deep inside him has finally let go.

Like this is the safest he’s felt in a long time.

And that realization—that undeniable, unshakable truth—

It destroys me.

Because he’s in my body, and I’m the one who gets to see this.

Because this isn’t something I ever would’ve seen otherwise.

Because Kacchan doesn’t let himself be soft, doesn’t let himself relax, doesn’t let himself just be.

Not around me.

Not around anyone.

But right now?

He is.

And suddenly, I don’t care what any of this means.

I don’t care how much of a disaster this is going to be when he wakes up.

I don’t care that I should move, that I should roll away, that I should put space between us before this goes somewhere I don’t know how to handle.

I just care that he’s here.

That he’s still here.

That he didn’t run.

That for the first time in a long, long time—

He looks like he’s at peace.

And I—

I just want to let him stay that way.

KATSUKI

I wake up to being watched.

It’s not the sharp, invasive kind of stare that puts me on edge, not the type that makes my skin crawl with the instinct to snap, What the fuck are you looking at?

It’s soft.

Heavy, but not suffocating.

Like he’s memorizing something.

Like he’s been waiting for me to wake up.

And then—

I blink the sleep from my eyes, and my own face is staring back at me.

Eyes red-rimmed and hooded, expression unreadable.

But it’s not me.

It’s him.

It’s Izuku.

And fuck—he looks different.

He looks… soft.

Not in the way he does when he smiles, not in the way he does when he’s caught up in his own excitement, rambling about Quirks like he’s the only person in the world who could ever care this much.

This is something else.

Something quieter.

Something real.

And my chest—fuck.

My chest hurts.

Because I know what I must look like to him right now.

Not my usual self.

Not the version of me that’s all sharp edges and fire.

Not the one who scowls too much, who keeps people at arm’s length, who makes damn sure no one ever sees the cracks.

No—right now, he’s looking at me in his own body.

And I—

I must look soft.

I must look like I don’t hate this.

I must look like I don’t want to move, like I don’t want to let go, like I haven’t been dreading this moment since the second I woke up and realized what I was doing.

And worst of all—he knows.

He can feel it.

Because of course he fucking can.

Because we’re still too close.

Because I haven’t pulled away.

Because I don’t want to.

I swallow, feel the weight of his stare pressing down on me, like he’s trying to read me, like he’s trying to figure out what I’m thinking.

Like he already knows, but he needs me to say it.

Like he needs me to admit it.

And I—

I can’t.

I won’t.

I grit my teeth, try to ignore the fact that my own body is looking at me like this, like something fragile, like something careful.

Like he doesn’t want to break this moment.

Like he wants it just as badly as I do.

And fuck—I can’t handle that.

I can’t handle the way he sees me.

The way he feels me.

The way he’s just letting me feel him.

I force my fingers to loosen, force myself to move, to shift, to roll away from him before I make a fucking mistake.

KATSUKI

I don’t leave.

I should.

I should pull away, put distance between us, put up the walls I’ve spent years building.

I should do what I always do—pretend like none of this is happening, pretend like I don’t fucking feel everything he feels, pretend like I don’t want to stay.

But I can’t.

I don’t want to.

Not after last night.

Not after waking up this warm, this weightless, this—fuck, this fucking whole.

I force myself to sit up, but I don’t move away.

And neither does he.

He’s still watching me.

Still blinking slow, drowsy, like he hasn’t fully woken up yet, like he hasn’t fully realized what this moment means.

Or maybe—

Maybe he has.

Maybe that’s why he’s still here.

Maybe that’s why he hasn’t moved either.

A beat of silence.

Soft. Heavy. Suffocating in a way I don’t mind.

And then—

“Good morning.”

His voice is quiet, hesitant.

And hearing it in my own fucking body makes something deep inside me seize.

I don’t know why.

I don’t know what the fuck about it makes my chest feel tight, makes my throat feel thick, makes my hands clench in the fabric of the sheets.

But it does.

And the only thing I can do is breathe through it, swallow hard, and mutter, “Yeah. Morning.”

Another beat of silence.

And then—soft, slow movement.

Neither of us rushes.

Neither of us shoves the other away, scrambles to create space, laughs it off or tries to make it less than what it is.

We just… unravel.

A slow, careful detangling.

Like neither of us actually wants to.

Like neither of us wants to be the first to let go.

And I feel it—

The moment his fingers finally slip away from where they were fisted in my—his—shirt.

The moment my hand finally eases off the warmth of his waist.

The moment we finally put an inch, two inches, a fucking eternity between us.

And it’s—

It’s awful.

It’s wrong.

It’s cold.

And I know he feels it too.

Because the second I pull away, I feel his loss like it’s my own.

A sharp pang of something I can’t name.

A breath that stutters before it steadies.

A beat of silence that lasts too long, like he’s waiting for me to change my mind.

And I almost do.

Fuck.

I almost do.

But instead, I shove my hands into my lap, glance at him out of the corner of my eye, and say, “We should get ready.”

He nods, slow, careful.

And then—we move.

I stand, stretch, roll my shoulders.

I feel him watch me.

I feel him watching himself in a way he never has before.

I feel him wondering what I see when I look at him.

And then I turn, catch his eyes, catch the soft flicker of something in them before he blinks it away.

And I feel it again.

That tiny, almost imperceptible pull.

The one that says this is different now.

The one that says we can’t ignore it.

The one that says we aren’t the same as we were before.

And I don’t know what the fuck to do with that.

So instead—I do nothing.

Instead—I grab my towel, head for the bathroom, force myself to focus on anything else.

But even as I walk away, even as I put a door between us, even as I let the water run hot enough to burn—

I still feel him.

And I know he still feels me too.

BREAKFAST – THEY ARE TOO CLOSE, AND EVERYONE NOTICES

MINA

Mina watches them like she’s collecting evidence for the trial of the fucking century.

Because something is off.

Not bad. Not tense. Not weird in a way that makes her want to intervene.

Just… different.

Too natural.

Too seamless.

Like somewhere in the past few days, without warning, without explanation, they just stopped fighting this.

Because they aren’t avoiding each other anymore.

They aren’t stiff, awkward, hyper-aware of the body-swapped nightmare they’re currently living in.

If anything—they’re too comfortable.

Like way too comfortable.

Like—do they even know they’re sitting that close?

Mina narrows her eyes.

Izuku is still wearing Bakugo’s hoodie despite being in Bakugo’s body, which was already suspicious behavior to begin with, but now he’s just sitting there, casually leaning into his own shoulder, which is actually Bakugo, like it’s the most natural thing in the world.

And Bakugo—who Mina has never in her life seen just let things happen—doesn’t move.

No scowl. No muttering. No shoving.

Just a long, slow blink and the type of exhale that looks like surrender.

Weird.

So weird.

She tilts her head, watches as Izuku reaches for his drink, pauses like he just remembered something, and instead of picking it up, pushes it toward Bakugo.

And before she can even process what the fuck just happened, Bakugo takes it without hesitation and drinks.

Without hesitation.

WITHOUT. HESITATION.

Mina snaps her gaze to Kaminari so fast she nearly gives herself whiplash.

"It’s happening," she whispers, urgent.

Kaminari, who has been watching just as intensely, nods, stone-faced.

"They’re not even pretending anymore."

And then, as if to prove his point, Bakugo—**IN MIDORIYA’S BODY—**grabs a napkin from the middle of the table, doesn’t even look, and hands it to Midoriya like it was prearranged.

Like this is just a thing they do now.

Like they didn’t just have a whole conversation using nothing but body language and micro-expressions.

And what the actual fuck.

Mina grips Kaminari’s sleeve.

Kaminari grips her back.

And across the table, Sero slowly leans over, voice hushed, tone grave.

"Guys," he says. "I think they’re communicating telepathically."

Mina sucks in a breath.

Kaminari nods, dead serious.

"That," he whispers, "or they’ve just been like this all along and we’re only now realizing how far gone they are."

Mina presses a hand over her heart.

"Beautiful," she whispers. "So tragic."

They watch as Midoriya shifts just the tiniest bit closer.

As Bakugo tilts his head, like he already knew he would.

As they fall into a rhythm that is way too natural for two people who have spent literal years pretending they were barely even friends.

And Mina grins.

Because this is it.

This is the moment.

The moment they realize that it’s not just the body swap making them act like this.

That it’s not just the bond forcing them together.

That this?

This is just them.

And it always has been.

KATSUKI

I don’t notice how close we are.

Not at first.

Not until I reach for something, and our hands brush.

Not until I shift, just slightly, and our legs bump under the table.

Not until I glance up, and he’s already looking at me.

And fuck—

Something tightens.

Deep in my stomach, deep in my chest, deep in some place I have no control over.

It feels like a freefall, sudden and inevitable, like I stepped off a ledge without realizing there was no ground beneath me.

Like I’ve been falling for a long time and only just noticed.

Izuku doesn’t look away.

Not at first.

Not when I tense.

Not when I feel the pull between us, the quiet, wordless connection that’s been amplifying every single second we’ve spent in each other’s bodies.

Not even when he feels it too.

Because he does.

Of course he does.

I can feel him feeling it.

The slow curl of anticipation in his chest, mirroring mine.

The rapid thud of his heart against my ribs, syncing up with mine.

The same goddamn weight in his throat that I’m trying to swallow down.

Fuck.

I jerk my gaze away too fast.

Snatch my hand back.

Shift just slightly—just enough to make it look like I wasn’t leaning in.

Like I wasn’t instinctively, unconsciously gravitating toward him.

Like I wasn’t seconds away from something irreversible.

And across the table—Mina smirks.

Smirks like she’s just caught me in the act.

Like she’s putting the last pieces of something together.

Like she’s been waiting for this.

I glare at her.

It doesn’t work.

She wiggles her eyebrows.

I want to die.

And I know—**I just know—**that Izuku sees it too.

That he feels my frustration spike.

That he feels the embarrassment creep up my spine, settling into my jaw, into my fingertips, into the fucking way my pulse refuses to settle.

That he knows exactly what I just felt looking at him.

And I can’t handle that.

I can’t handle the way Izu shifts beside me like he doesn’t hate this.

Like he isn’t scrambling to fix it.

Like he kind of—

Like he kind of wants it.

I exhale hard, force myself to focus on my plate, ignore the way I can feel every breath he takes like it’s my own.

Like we are still tangled up in a nightmare, too close, too aware, too much.

And I try—**God, I try—**to pretend like I didn’t just catch myself falling all over again.

CLASS – EVERYONE CAN SEE IT BUT THEM

IZUKU

Kacchan is sitting closer than usual.

I don’t know when that started happening.

I don’t know why it doesn’t feel weird anymore.

But it doesn’t.

It just is.

Like breathing.

Like waking up and knowing he’ll be there.

Like muscle memory I didn’t know I had.

I take notes. His notes. With his hands, his sharp, calloused fingers wrapped around my pen.

I barely register the difference anymore.

And neither does he.

Because when I glance up, his chin is nearly on my shoulder.

Because when I shift, he doesn’t move away.

Because when my elbow bumps his arm, he leans into it instead of pulling back.

And I know.

I know.

He doesn’t even realize he’s doing it.

Doesn’t realize how natural this has become.

Doesn’t realize that if someone walked in right now, they wouldn’t even think twice about it—

Because of course we sit like this.

Of course we move like this.

Of course we exist like this.

I exhale, shift slightly, keep writing.

He doesn’t move away.

I pause to think, tapping my pen against the desk.

Kacchan snatches it out of my fingers without looking, starts twirling it between his fingers.

I blink at him.

He doesn’t even realize.

Doesn’t realize he took it.

Doesn’t realize he’s been stealing my pens all day.

Doesn’t realize we’ve been doing this—this easy, seamless exchange of space, of habits, of things that don’t belong to us—for longer than we probably should have.

I nudge him when I see him start zoning out.

He blinks, clears his throat, glares at me like it’s my fault.

I grin.

He rolls his eyes.

And nothing feels different.

But everything has changed.

And neither of us says a word.

TRAINING – TOUCH IS GETTING DANGEROUSLY NORMAL

KATSUKI

We spar.

And it’s fine.

Too fine.

Too smooth, too natural, too fucking easy.

Like we’ve always done this.

Like we’ve been in each other’s skin for longer than a week.

Like we’ve always known how to move like this—how to shift, how to adjust, how to strike without hesitation, without doubt, without the awkward disconnect that should exist between us.

But there isn’t one.

Not anymore.

The first few days had been a struggle.

He couldn’t use my Quirk properly.

I couldn’t use his.

Every sparring session had been a mess of miscalculated strength and misplaced instincts.

But now?

Now, it’s different.

Now, Deku isn’t second-guessing the way he moves in my body.

Now, I don’t hesitate before calling on One For All.

Now, we know exactly how to shift our weight, exactly how to compensate, exactly how to navigate these bodies like they belong to us.

Like we belong to each other.

At one point, he grabs my wrist to stop a punch—and I don’t even think about it.

At one point, I catch him when he stumbles—and he doesn’t pull away.

At one point, our fingers brush—and neither of us reacts.

It’s normal.

It’s natural.

And I don’t realize how bad it’s getting until it’s too late.

Until I throw a punch and he dodges without looking.

Until he moves to counter and I’m already blocking.

Until we hit the ground at the same time, panting, shaking, staring at each other with something too deep, too raw, too real.

Until I feel it—

The exact moment he realizes it too.

That we are in sync in ways that shouldn’t be possible.

That we have been falling into each other like this for a long time.

That the body swap didn’t change this.

It only made it impossible to ignore.

He swallows, lips parted, breath still coming too fast.

His fingers twitch.

And I feel it.

The weight of it.

The quiet, earth-shattering knowing.

The way he doesn’t look away.

The way I don’t either.

The way we are just here, breathing in the same space, completely and utterly fucked.

And then—

A whistle cuts through the air.

"Damn, that was hot," Kaminari mutters.

Mina smacks him.

I blink.

Deku launches himself off the ground so fast he nearly trips over his own feet.

I inhale sharp, roll my shoulders, force my expression back into something less pathetic.

And then I stand.

Like I wasn’t just seconds away from losing my fucking mind.

Like we both weren’t.

COMMON ROOM – TOO MANY INSTINCTS, TOO LITTLE AWARENESS

IZUKU

We are on the couch.

I don’t remember how we got here.

One second, we were sparring.

The next, we were too close on the ground, breathing too hard, staring too long.

And now—now we’re here.

I’m not sure which part is more dangerous.

Because somehow, we are sitting so goddamn close, our arms pressing together, the heat of his body bleeding into mine—my own fucking body—and I should move.

I should move.

But I don’t.

Kacchan doesn’t either.

His breath is slow, controlled, steady in a way that is so inherently him, I almost forget this isn’t his body.

Almost.

Until I glance up.

Until I feel it—

The weight of too many eyes.

Mina is the most obvious. Grinning like a cat that’s just caught a canary, leaning forward, elbows on her knees, watching us like she’s expecting a confession before the end of the night.

I knew she’d be watching.

What I wasn’t expecting—

Was everyone else.

Denki is slack-jawed, slowly blinking like his brain is buffering. He looks like he just watched a soap opera plot twist in real time.

Shoto, sitting across from us, is completely still, expression blank but eyes sharp. He’s watching too closely. Analyzing. Piecing things together.

Kirishima is staring too. Not smug, not teasing—just… knowing. Quiet and devastatingly perceptive.

And then there’s Shinso.

Shinso, who barely even knows us.

Shinso, who looks like he’s been forced into watching a slow-burn romance he never signed up for.

Shinso, who makes direct eye contact with me, looks at Kacchan, looks back at me, and squints.

Like he’s reading something off of us.

Like he can hear something neither of us are saying.

And suddenly—

Kacchan tenses.

He hasn’t looked up.

Hasn’t seen what I’m seeing.

But he feels it.

I feel him feeling it.

The shift in my chest. The crawling awareness down my spine.

The realization that we are being watched like we just confirmed every single goddamn suspicion they’ve ever had.

My pulse jumps.

His does too.

I don’t need to turn to know he’s scowling now.

I can feel the irritation flicker through the bond, sharp and indignant.

But it’s not just irritation.

It’s something else.

Something tight.

Something dangerous.

Something that feels too much like panic.

I inhale.

Kacchan’s fingers twitch.

And even though we aren’t speaking—

Even though we aren’t communicating—

Even though we shouldn’t be able to hear each other—

The second our eyes meet, I swear I hear him say it.

They know.

And I can’t tell if it’s a warning or a realization.

COMMON ROOM – TOO MANY INSTINCTS, TOO LITTLE AWARENESS

KATSUKI

They know.

I don’t say it. I don’t have to.

Because the second Deku’s eyes meet mine, I feel him feel it too.

The realization. The weight of it. The slow-building, suffocating certainty pressing down on both of us at the same time.

We’ve been caught.

Not in a way that can be explained away with an awkward excuse or an annoyed glare.

Not in a way that can be undone with distance or forced indifference.

Not in a way that can be ignored.

Because these idiots—**these absolute fucking morons we call our friends—**are watching us like they’re witnessing something monumental.

And worse?

They’re not wrong.

Mina is practically vibrating in her seat, eyes too sharp, too knowing, too fucking delighted.

Dunce Face looks dazed, blinking slow like his brain is still buffering, like he just realized we’re not background characters in whatever anime he thinks we live in.

Shitty Hair’s stare is too quiet, too careful. He isn’t teasing. He’s just looking. Like he already figured something out weeks ago and is just waiting for us to catch up.

Shoto… fucking Todoroki has the nerve to tilt his head slightly, eyes narrowing like he’s analyzing a piece of abstract art. Like we’re an equation he’s solving in real time.

And Shinso—Shinso, who barely even hangs out with us—

Shinso looks bored.

Bored and entirely unimpressed.

Like we are the slowest, dumbest, most oblivious people in existence.

Like we’ve been walking around in circles for years, and he’s been forced to sit through the entire thing like an unwilling audience member.

Like he knows exactly what’s happening and is just waiting for us to stop being cowards about it.

I feel my own pulse spike.

I feel Deku’s do the same.

I should move.

I should shove him off the couch, make a scene, say something sharp and cruel and obnoxiously loud so everyone stops looking at us like this.

I should remind them who the fuck I am.

But I don’t move.

Because Deku hasn’t moved either.

Because his arm is still pressed against mine.

Because I can feel his heartbeat, and it’s as wrecked as mine.

And it’s not panic.

Not exactly.

It’s something else.

Something tight.

Something warm.

Something that makes my chest feel like it’s caving in, like the pressure of being seen, of being perceived like this, is hitting me in a place I’m not ready for.

I inhale, sharp.

Deku does the same.

And not for the first time since this whole fucking nightmare started—

We are absolutely, completely fucked.

NIGHT – TOO COMFORTABLE IN EACH OTHER’S SPACE

IZUKU

I throw myself onto my bed—except it’s not just mine, it’s his too.

It should feel wrong. Should feel unnatural. Should feel like an invasion.

But it doesn’t.

Because this is just what we do now.

Because this is what we’ve become.

Kacchan moves at the same time, a quiet exhale as he sinks down beside me—in my body, in my bed, like it’s always been this way.

He doesn’t hesitate. Doesn’t fidget. Doesn’t make some sharp, scathing remark about how fucking weird this is.

Because it isn’t.

Not anymore.

Not when we’ve been living like this—**entangled, overlapping, blurring the lines between where he ends and I begin—**for far too long.

I should sleep. He should sleep.

But neither of us moves.

Neither of us even tries.

Because this is normal now.

Because this is just how things are.

And that realization—**that terrifying, thrilling, unbearable realization—**is what keeps my eyes open long after the lights are off.

It’s what keeps me listening to the slow, steady rhythm of his breathing beside me.

It’s what keeps me aware—**hyper-aware—**of every single thing about him.

The way his fingers flex, restless, as if he wants to reach for something but doesn’t know what.

The way his breath catches, just slightly, every time I shift beside him, like he’s waiting for me to move away but knows I won’t.

The way the heat of his body—**my body, but him inside of it—**radiates through the sheets, curling into my skin like something deep and inescapable.

I swallow.

He doesn’t move.

And I know.

I know he’s still awake too.

I know he can feel it.

The weight of this. The heaviness of it.

The unbearable rightness.

And I don’t know what to do with that.

Because this shouldn’t be normal.

It shouldn’t feel so easy.

But it does.

It does, and that’s the problem.

Because what happens when we switch back?

What happens when there’s no excuse left to be like this?

What happens when we have to stop?

I turn my head, just slightly.

I don’t say anything.

I don’t have to.

Because Kacchan is already looking at me.

And for the first time, I don’t think he knows how to look away.

KATSUKI

I should go to my own bed.

I should roll onto my side, shove myself away from the heat of him, force some kind of distance between us before this gets any worse.

Before I start wanting things I shouldn’t.

Before I start hoping for things I can’t have.

But I don’t move.

I don’t even try.

Because he’s still awake.

Because I can feel it—can feel the way his mind is spinning too fast, restless and overworked, his thoughts tangling into knots he’ll never untie.

Because I know, even without looking, that he’s staring at the ceiling, just like I am, breathing too slow and too careful, like he’s trying to will himself to sleep but can’t.

Because if I leave now, if I put space between us, if I break this moment, I will never—never—get it back.

And I don’t know why that matters so fucking much.

I don’t know why the thought of going back to the way things were before this—before the body swap, before the bond, before the way we fit together so naturally it’s like we were made to be—feels like a goddamn knife to the gut.

I don’t know why it’s so easy to just be here with him like this.

But it is.

And that should scare me.

That should have me on my feet, bolting, barricading my walls back up, snapping at him for letting things get this fucking tangled.

But instead—

I stay.

Instead, I let the silence stretch, let the warmth between us settle, let the weight of everything we’re not saying hang heavy in the space we refuse to put between us.

I turn my head, just slightly.

He’s already looking at me.

And for a second, for a moment so fleeting I barely have time to register it, I think maybe—maybe—he’s just as scared of this as I am.

Scared of how easy it is.

Scared of how natural.

Scared of the way our bodies have learned to move around each other, have learned to anticipate, have learned to fit.

Scared of what happens when we switch back.

Because we won’t be able to blame it on the bond anymore.

We won’t be able to say it’s because we can feel each other’s emotions.

We won’t be able to pretend that this—this, whatever the fuck this is—isn’t real.

I swallow hard, force myself to close my eyes, to breathe, to not think about any of this.

And before I even realize it—

Before I have time to process what this means—

Before either of us can ruin it by saying something that will shatter the fragile, terrifying, intoxicating balance we’ve found ourselves in—

We fall asleep.

Too close.

Too warm.

Too much.

And we don’t even notice.

Chapter Text

MORNING – THE AIR IS THICK

KATSUKI

I wake up warm.

Too warm.

Again.

But it’s different this time.

The kind of warmth that seeps into my bones, that sinks beneath my skin, that makes me want to stay.

The kind that feels deliberate.

I shift, and something moves against me.

Something solid. Something real. Something meant to be here.

And my brain, still thick with sleep, still drenched in the weight of something deep and unshakable, takes a few long, sluggish moments to catch up.

Then—

Oh.

Oh, fuck.

Izuku is pressed against my side.

Izuku—**in my body, with my face, with my messy hair, with my goddamn everything—**is curled into me like he belongs there.

And my first instinct, my very first fucking instinct, is not to move away.

It’s to pull him closer.

And that’s how I know I’m fucked.

Because I do. I pull him in.

Traitorously. Unforgivably.

Like I have every goddamn right to.

Like I’m allowed to.

Like I don’t already know this is something I won’t ever be able to undo.

His breath ghosts against my collarbone. Slow, steady.

His fingers—**my fingers, but his inside of them—**are curled loose around my wrist, barely clinging on.

Like he doesn’t even realize he’s holding me.

Like it’s instinct.

Like it’s natural.

And for a moment—one long, agonizing, unbearable moment—I let myself believe it.

Let myself sink into it.

Let myself pretend.

Because this is everything.

Because this is too much.

Because this is the happiest I have ever been—

And it isn’t even coming from me.

Not all of it.

Not most of it.

Because I can feel it.

I can feel it, woven into the fabric of this impossible, unfair, devastating moment.

The quiet, content hum of Izuku’s happiness.

His unconscious, unaware, undeniable relief.

The warmth in his chest, the safety, the peace, the certainty.

And it wrecks me.

Because it’s not just mine.

Because it should be.

Because I wish it was.

And then, before I can lose my mind completely, before I can go spiraling down into whatever the fuck this means, before I can do something so unbelievably stupid I’ll never come back from it—

He stirs.

A slow inhale.

A twitch of his fingers.

A barely-there shift as his body starts waking up.

And suddenly—

The moment is over.

IZUKU

I wake up warm.

Too warm.

The kind of warmth that doesn’t belong to me.

The kind that isn’t mine to have.

I blink, still hazy, still heavy, still caught between the world of dreams and reality, and shift—

And that’s when I feel it.

The solid weight of something strong, steady, close.

The familiar heat of a body that is not mine.

The steady rise and fall of a chest beneath my cheek, a heartbeat thrumming through warm skin, a presence that settles in my bones like something undeniable, unstoppable, unbearable.

And then—

Oh.

Oh, shit.

I know.

I know before my brain fully catches up, before my heart starts hammering in my ribs, before I can even begin to process the absolute fucking gravity of this situation.

Because this warmth is not mine.

Because this body is not mine.

Because I am in my own bed.

Because Kacchan’s holding me.

In his arms.

And he is awake.

I can tell.

I can feel it.

The sharp tension in his body, the rigid stillness, the kind of frozen panic that only exists when you’re hyper-aware of something you shouldn’t be.

I don’t even have to look.

I can already see it, already feel it through the bond, already sense the warzone in his head.

I lift my gaze, slow, cautious, and there he is.

Kacchan—**in my body, with my face, with my fucking everything—**staring at the ceiling, expression pulled tight, jaw clenched so hard it looks painful.

I open my mouth, not even sure what I’m going to say.

And then—

He moves.

Too fast.

Like I burned him.

Like the bed is on fire.

Like I am on fire.

He practically launches himself out of bed, the heat of him ripped away so suddenly it almost hurts, and I barely manage to push myself up before he’s grabbing his towel and bolting for the door.

Not looking at me.

Not acknowledging anything.

Not even pretending to play it cool.

Just leaving.

Like a fucking coward.

And I sit there.

In our bed.

Still wrapped up in his warmth, in the weight of something I don’t know how to name.

And I don’t move.

Because I don’t know what the hell I’m supposed to do now.

BREAKFAST – NO ONE IS TEASING THEM ANYMORE

MINA

Mina has always been perceptive.

She’s always known how to read people, always been the type to pick up on things others don’t notice, always had a sixth sense for the underlying currents of unspoken shit brewing beneath the surface.

And when it comes to these two idiots?

She’s known for years.

From the first time she saw Bakugo completely lose his mind over something dumb Midoriya said.

From the first time she heard Midoriya yell "Kacchan!" like it was a lifeline, like it was something sacred, like it meant everything.

From the way they looked at each other, even when they were fighting, even when they were breaking, even when they were pretending they weren’t pulled into each other’s orbit like gravity itself was conspiring to keep them close.

She’s always known.

But she also thought they were both too goddamn stubborn to ever get there.

So seeing it happen this fast?

Watching it unravel, combust, explode in real time?

It's fucking jarring.

And—more than that—it’s concerning.

Because whatever is happening between them? It’s not stable.

It’s not safe.

It’s a live wire, sparking in the middle of the room, waiting to set something on fire.

One second, they’re **fine—**moving around each other so naturally it’s like they don’t even have to think about it, passing things without asking, catching each other’s movements in perfect synchronicity, responding to every shift and glance with unthinking familiarity.

And the next?

They both look wrecked.

Simultaneously.

Like something invisible snapped between them.

Like something hurt.

Like they both felt it at the exact same time.

And Mina?

Mina doesn’t like it.

She’s spent so much time teasing them, pushing buttons, trying to make them see what’s right in front of their dumbass faces.

But now that it’s happening?

Now that it’s real?

Now that they’re looking at each other like the world might actually fucking end if one of them lets go?

No one is teasing them anymore.

Because this is different.

This isn’t just two idiots finally realizing they’re in love.

This is too much.

Too fast.

And they are not handling it well.

She catches Kaminari’s eye across the table.

He looks scared.

Mina nods slowly.

Same, dude.

KATSUKI

Something feels different.

Not just in the way things have been feeling different since the swap. Not just in the way he knows too much now, feels too much, understands too much.

This is new.

And it’s fucking unnerving.

Because the others?

They’re watching.

And not the usual watching. Not the annoying teasing, not the shit-eating grins, not the half-whispered bets or Kaminari elbowing Mina under the table.

No.

This is different.

This is silence.

This is a collective, tense, waiting stillness.

And that’s so much worse.

Katsuki grips his chopsticks too hard, jaw locking, eyes darting over the table.

Mina is the most obvious, staring at them like she’s been given the biggest mystery of her life and needs to crack it wide open before it consumes her.

But she’s not the only one.

Kirishima is watching like he’s concerned, like he wants to say something but knows he shouldn’t.

Shinsou looks like he’s piecing something together, like he’s moments away from figuring out something he was never supposed to know.

Todoroki is unreadable—but Katsuki knows he’s watching. He can feel it.

And Kaminari?

Kaminari looks fucking scared.

Which is concerning.

Because why the fuck does he look scared?

Katsuki exhales through his nose, trying not to react, trying not to make this worse.

He keeps his gaze locked on his food, ignoring the way his hands feel unsteady, ignoring the gnawing weight in his chest that doesn’t belong to him, ignoring the tension curling thick in the air between him and Deku.

Because Deku feels it, too.

He doesn’t need to look. Doesn’t need to ask.

He knows.

Because ever since this fucking quirk swap, ever since they’ve been locked into each other’s emotions like an unbreakable tether, Katsuki has known exactly what Deku is feeling before he even says a word.

And right now?

Deku is not okay.

He’s confused.

He’s overwhelmed.

And he’s trying so fucking hard not to react.

Katsuki swallows, throat tight, forcing himself to focus.

Something happened. Something changed.

He doesn’t know what, doesn’t know when the shift happened, doesn’t know when the fuck it became so obvious that something between them is different.

But it is.

And everyone knows it.

The chopsticks in his hands feel awkward, unnatural, too light. Because they’re not his hands.

Because this isn’t his body.

Because he is still in Izuku, still dealing with all the fucking rawness of being inside him, still feeling emotions that aren’t his own, still fighting the weight of a love he hasn’t been able to admit.

And the worst part?

He knows Deku can feel it, too.

And if he hasn’t put it together yet—he will soon.

Katsuki swears under his breath and sets his chopsticks down, staring blankly at his plate, trying not to react, trying to pretend he can breathe through this.

But he can’t.

Because whatever the fuck this is?

They have officially crossed a line.

TRAINING – IT’S A CONFESSION IN MOTION

IZUKU

We fight.

And it’s too much.

Too fast.
Too heated.
Too charged.

But we can’t stop.

Our movements are seamless, like we’ve done this a million times before—because we have.

Because this is the one thing that has always made sense.
Because this is the one place we have never questioned each other.
Because this is how we talk.

We move, and we react.
We strike, and we counter.
We test, and we push.

And it’s flawless.

I throw a punch—he dodges, barely.
He sweeps my legs—I leap over it without thinking.
I go for a grapple—he shifts his weight and reverses it before I can blink.

It’s flawless.

Too flawless.

Because we should still be struggling.
We should still be second-guessing.
We should still be fighting against the instincts of being in the wrong bodies.

But we’re not.

Because we’ve stopped caring about the switch.

Because our bodies may be swapped, but the bond between us is still the same.

Because we’ve been moving in sync since we were kids.

And that realization is terrifying.

I don’t know when this started feeling like this.
Like a conversation.
Like a confession.

Like we’re saying things with our bodies that we can’t say out loud.

Because every move, every reaction, every impact—it all means something.

The way I anticipate him before he even moves.
The way he counters me like he knows me better than I know myself.
The way we reach for each other, grab, hold, push, pull—all of it means something.

The fight escalates.

We stop holding back.

And suddenly—it’s not a fight anymore.

It’s a battle of will.

It’s a struggle against something bigger than us.

It’s a fucking confession wrapped in combat.

Kacchan’s hands collide with mine.
I push back.
He doesn’t let go.

And for one long, stretched-out second, we just stand there—locked, breathless, staring, shaking with the force of everything that has built between us.

Something in the air cracks.

I feel it.
I know he feels it.

It’s too much.

I don’t know what I see in his eyes—because they’re mine.

But I know what I feel.

And I don’t know what to do with it.

A whistle blows.

We snap apart.

Kacchan takes a step back, breathing hard, fingers twitching like he wants to grab me again.

I stare at him, chest heaving, feeling like I’ve just admitted something I wasn’t ready to say.

And I think—so has he.

Neither of us speaks.

Neither of us moves.

Because we both know.

But neither of us knows what the hell to do about it.

KATSUKI

This is not a fight.

This is something else.

Something bigger.
Something unspoken.
Something we don’t have the words for.

This is a conversation in movement, a confession in impact, a breaking point with no fucking resolution.

I can’t stop.
I won’t stop.

Because he won’t stop either.

He is in my body, wearing my skin, moving with my strength, using my power.
And it’s wrong.
And it’s right.
And I don’t know how to deal with it.

His hands connect with mine, grappling, shoving, clutching too tightly.
I push back, my body—his body—reacting on instinct.
I hear the sharp inhale before he moves—I already know what he’s going to do before he does it.

Because this is what we do.

We have always been like this.

Two halves of a whole that never quite fit, circling each other in every possible way, shoving, pushing, pulling, always reaching for something.

And right now—right now—it is unbearable.

Because he is in my body.

Because I am in his.

Because I can feel everything he’s feeling, and he can feel everything I’m feeling, and it is too fucking much.

I can’t breathe.
I can’t fucking think.

I don’t know who is fighting harder—me or him.
I don’t know who is holding back more—me or him.

And I don’t know what it means that I want to grab him and never let go.

His weight shifts, his foot plants, I already know the move he’s about to make before he even makes it.
He goes for the takedown—
I counter.
I knock his arm away.
He twists—
I catch him—
Our hands crash together—

And we don’t move.

For a moment, just one moment, we are locked—frozen, panting, straining, trembling with something neither of us can name.

His fingers twitch against mine.
I tighten my grip.

And then I realize—
We are not fighting anymore.

This isn’t combat.
This isn’t training.
This is a confession with no words.

This is something that should not be happening.

I want him.

I want him too much.
I want him so much it is wrecking me from the inside out.

The whistle blows.

I move like I’ve been burned, tearing myself away, breaking apart before I do something I can’t take back.

I land smoothly, step away—too quickly, too stiffly, too obviously.

Because if I don’t—
If I hesitate for even one more second—

I might do something fucking insane.

Like kiss him.

I force myself to breathe.

He’s staring at me.

With my face.
With his emotions in my face.
With his heart pounding in my chest, because I can still feel it, I can still feel him.

I look away.
Because I can’t handle it.
Because I already know.

He felt it too.

EVENING – THE NIGHT IT GETS WORSE

IZUKU

It’s freezing.

Not just uncomfortable. Not just a passing chill. Bone-deep, marrow-deep, all-consuming.

It sits heavy in my lungs, coils around my ribs, settles under my skin in a way that feels suffocating. And no matter how much I try to shake it, I can’t.

I don’t understand.

Kacchan’s body runs hot—it always has. He’s a walking furnace, always burning, always radiating heat like he can’t help it. He never seems to feel the cold the way I do.

But right now? Right now, I am him.
And I feel like I’m dying.

I can’t get warm.

Because his body doesn’t just run hot—it needs to be hot.

It needs heat to function, needs his Quirk to regulate everything, needs sweat to release the energy he’s constantly storing under his skin.

But it’s cold.
Too cold.

And Kacchan’s body doesn’t know what to do with that.

His Quirk won’t activate. The heat is trapped inside me, simmering under the surface, unable to escape. Every muscle is tight, every nerve is screaming, and I can’t breathe through it.

I need to get warm.

I don’t even think—I just move.

I stagger into the bathroom, wrench the shower handle to the hottest setting, and step in before the water has time to adjust.

It burns.

It stings across my skin, heat licking over my arms, my chest, my back—but I don’t care.

Because for the first time in hours, my body stops fighting itself.

The tension eases, just a little. My muscles unlock, just a little. The unbearable tightness in my chest lessens, just enough for me to exhale.

Steam rises in thick, curling clouds, filling the small space, pressing against my skin like a weighted blanket. I brace my hands against the tile, head bowed, dragging in deep, gasping breaths.

I don’t know how Kacchan deals with this.

I don’t know how he lives like this.

Because this isn’t just a minor inconvenience—this is agony.

This is being trapped in your own body.

This is having too much energy and nowhere to put it.

This is suffocating under something you can’t control.

And suddenly, I understand him more than I ever have before.

I understand why he never stops moving.

I understand why he gets so frustrated when he can’t use his Quirk.

I understand why he always **pushes himself harder, faster, stronger—**because if he doesn’t, if he stops, if he slows down for even a second—this is what happens.

His body betrays him.

The thought makes my stomach twist, makes something deep and aching settle in my chest.

Because I’ve spent so long looking at Kacchan like he’s indestructible. Like he’s untouchable.

But he’s not.

Not even close.

And that realization is almost as unbearable as the cold.

I close my eyes, press my forehead against the tile, and let the scalding heat burn the thought away.

KATSUKI

I wait.

Ten minutes.
Fifteen.

The water is still running.

I stare at the bathroom door, tapping my fingers against my arm, jaw tight, trying not to think about what I’m feeling right now.

Because I can feel it. I can feel him.

The sharp-edged discomfort sinking into his skin.
The way his muscles are locking up.
The aching, unbearable cold.

And I don’t know why it’s so fucking intense, but it is.

It’s all-consuming.

And it makes my skin crawl.

I grit my teeth and wait.

And wait.

And wait.

And the water is still running.

And he’s still in there.

And he’s not getting any fucking better.

My patience snaps like a live wire.

I grab my toothbrush, storm across the room, and shove the bathroom door open without a second thought.

And immediately, I know something is wrong.

Steam hits me like a wall, thick and suffocating, rolling through the air in waves so dense it burns my throat.

The shower is cranked as hot as it can go, boiling in the small, enclosed space.

And then—I see him.

He’s standing under the water, arms braced against the tile, shoulders hunched like he’s trying to keep himself together.

His skin is flushed red from the heat, damp strands of hair sticking to his forehead.

And he hasn’t even noticed I’m here.

The second my eyes land on him, the second I really fucking feel what’s happening—

Something in my chest twists so violently I can barely breathe.

Because this isn’t him taking a normal shower.
This isn’t him wasting hot water because he’s a dumbass.

This is him trying to fix something.

Trying to survive something.

Trying to get warm in a body that wasn’t built to handle the cold.

And the worst part?

I know exactly what this feels like.

I know what it’s like to lose control.
I know what it’s like to have your own body work against you.
To have all the energy in your chest **churn, coil, burn under your skin—**with no fucking way to release it.

He’s shaking.

He’s suffering.

In my fucking body.

And I’m standing here, watching it happen.

Something burns in my throat.

I take a step forward, clear my throat, try to shove down the way my stomach twists at the sight of him like this.

“Oi, Deku,” I say, voice rougher than I mean it to be.

He jerks his head up. Wide, startled eyes meet mine.

My eyes.

The sight fucks me up more than it should.

For a second, he doesn’t react. Doesn’t move.

Then, his whole body tenses.

“Kacchan?” His voice is hoarse, like he’s been shivering for hours.

I scowl, trying to ignore the way my chest tightens at how fucking wrecked he sounds.

“What the fuck are you doing?” I snap. “Trying to boil yourself alive?”

His mouth opens—closes.

And that’s when I see it.

The exhaustion in his eyes.
The way his fingers twitch against the tile.
The way he looks so fucking small in my body like this, drenched, shaking, barely holding himself together.

And suddenly, I don’t feel so angry anymore.

I feel sick.

He exhales, shaky, and shrugs.

“I—” His voice falters. He swallows hard, then mutters, “I couldn’t get warm.”

Something deep and ugly twists inside me.

Because I know exactly what that means.

I know exactly how much worse it is in this shitty cold, how his body must feel completely fucking wrong.

And I let him deal with this alone.

I let him suffer through it.

And I didn’t even fucking notice.

I don’t say anything for a second.

I can’t.

Because if I do, I might break something.

Instead, I sigh through my nose, rub a hand through my—his—hair, then step forward.

“Move over, dumbass.”

His head snaps up so fast I think he might get whiplash.

“W-what?”

I glare at him, already annoyed with myself for what I’m about to do.

“You’re clearly fucking dying, and I don’t have time to deal with your dramatic bullshit,” I mutter, stepping into the shower, still fully clothed.

His breath catches.

His eyes go wide.

Like he can’t believe I’m here.

And then, slowly, cautiously—

He shifts.

And I step closer.

Neither of us say anything.

Neither of us move away.

Deku is still staring at me, eyes wide, lips parted, shoulders tense like I just did something unbelievably fucking insane.

(Which—fair.)

(But also—shut the fuck up, nerd.)

For a second, neither of us move.

The water keeps pounding down, steam curling around us, the heat pressing into every inch of space between us—

And then—

“What the fuck are you doing?” Deku blurts out, voice high, borderline panicked.

I freeze.

Oh.

Oh, fuck.

I just—

I just got into the fucking shower with him.

Fully dressed.

Like a fucking psychopath.

“Uh,” I say intelligently.

Deku physically reels. “Kacchan—WHAT. ARE. YOU. DOING?”

“I—”

Oh, holy fucking shit.

I don’t have an answer.

Because there is no fucking answer.

Because my dumbass lizard brain saw Izuku suffering, felt him suffering, and decided that the only logical solution was to get in the fucking shower with him.

And now, we’re just standing here.

Together.

In the same shower.

With me fully clothed.

WHAT THE FUCK.

“Uh,” I try again, because apparently, my brain has completely fucking shut down.

Deku gawks at me. “Kacchan, are you—did you just—what the hell is happening right now?”

I glare, because I don’t know how else to handle this.

“What the fuck does it look like, nerd?” I snap, as if I know. As if I have a goddamn clue what my own body is doing right now.

Deku flails. Actually fucking flails.

“IT LOOKS LIKE YOU JUST CRAWLED INTO THE SHOWER FULLY DRESSED LIKE A CRAZY PERSON!”

“MAYBE I DID, WHAT ABOUT IT?!”

“WHAT DO YOU MEAN ‘WHAT ABOUT IT’—”

We both cut off, breathing hard.

And then—

A beat of silence.

And then.

Deku visibly short-circuits. His expression shifts, something unreadable flickering across his face, and then—he looks down.

At my—**his—**clothes.

At the soaked shirt clinging to my skin.

At the way the fabric sticks to every single goddamn muscle in this stupid fucking body.

At the fact that I am still in his personal space, still standing directly under the spray, still dripping water onto the shower floor like an absolute fucking disaster of a person.

His entire face goes red.

And suddenly, I want to die.

I slam my hands over my face, groaning into my palms.

“FUCK.”

Deku chokes. “Yeah! Yeah, exactly! WHAT THE FUCK, KACCHAN?!”

“I DON’T KNOW.”

“GET OUT!”

“I’M THINKING ABOUT IT.”

“WHAT DO YOU MEAN YOU’RE THINKING ABOUT IT—”

More silence.

More wet, humiliating, steaming silence.

And then, finally—mercifully—

I fucking bolt.

Not out of the bathroom—because that would be admitting defeat, and I am not doing that, fuck you.

But far enough to plant myself in front of the sink, grip the edge of the counter like it personally wronged me, and take several deep, heaving breaths like I’m trying not to pass out.

The shower is still running behind me.
Deku is still in it.
And I am still soaking wet, fully clothed, and actively fighting the urge to launch myself into the goddamn void.

Get it together.

I rip open the cabinet, grab my toothbrush, and start brushing my goddamn teeth like I’m on a mission.

Half a second later, there’s a wet, scandalized noise from behind me.

“Waaah-chan, what are you still doing in here?”

I snort, ignoring the fucking whining.

"Brushing my damn teeth," I say flatly, not looking up, not looking back. "You take too damn long."

Deku sputters. "I—WHAT DOES THAT EVEN MEAN?!"

I rinse my mouth, set my toothbrush down, and finally—**finally—**turn my head just enough to smirk at him over my shoulder.

"Besides," I say, voice perfectly casual, perfectly normal, as if I did not just have the most humiliating fucking experience of my life two minutes ago.

"It’s not like I haven’t seen it."

Pause.

Deku’s face explodes into color.

"EXCUSE ME?!"

I shrug, playing it cool, like I don’t know exactly what I’m doing.

"It’s my dick, after all."

Deku physically fucking reels.

His entire soul leaves his body.

The shampoo bottle slips from his hands.

"KA—"

And before he can even finish screaming my name, I am already gone.

Already sweeping out of the bathroom, shutting the door behind me with a perfectly casual, perfectly calculated amount of force—

Leaving Izuku Midoriya to fucking suffer.

Like he fucking deserves.

IZUKU

I freeze.

I malfunction.

I stare through the steam-blurred glass of the shower door, my brain grinding to a screeching, catastrophic halt.

Because fuck.

Because of course.

Of course he’s seen everything.

Just like I’ve seen everything.

Just like I have been trapped in his body for days, feeling every little twitch of his muscles, the way his skin stretches over scars I never knew about, the way he breathes, the way his goddamn heartbeat sounds different than mine.

Fuuuuck.

I slap a hand over my face, inhaling deeply, willing my skin to stop burning. The warmth of the shower isn't even needed anymore—Kacchan's words alone have successfully ignited every nerve in my body.

My stomach flips. Not with embarrassment—**not just with embarrassment—**but with something deeper, something thicker, something I refuse to name.

I smack the water off with way too much force, grab a towel, and scramble out of the shower before I can let my brain keep spiraling.

The bathroom is still humid, fogged up in a way that makes everything feel unreal, but I can see it perfectly clear.

The sink.
My toothbrush.
And the exact spot Kacchan was standing in when he—

I groan aggressively, physically shaking off the memory, and step toward the counter.

It takes me two tries to grab my toothbrush because my hands are shaking.

Not from cold.
Not anymore.
I should still be shivering, considering how awful Kacchan's body is at handling the cold, how it locks up when he can't sweat, how it actively betrays him the second the temperature drops—

But I'm not.

I'm not fucking cold anymore.

And that’s just rude, honestly.

Because I would really like to stay properly, scandalously horrified about this.

I would really, really like to suffer in peace.

But no. Of course not.

Instead, I’m wrapped in something warm, something steady, something grounding that lingers beneath my skin even as I drag a towel through my hair, even as I meet my own glassy reflection in the mirror, even as I brush my teeth in absolute fucking horror.

Because Kacchan's presence—his words, his heat, the unbearable weight of knowing he was just here, his emotions still tangled up with mine—is more effective than the damn shower was.

It’s in my bones.

And no amount of toothpaste is going to wash that away.

Something that isn’t the way my heartbeat stutters when I remember how close he was.

I lift my head, let my gaze flicker up—

And I freeze.

Because that’s not my face.

That’s not my reflection.

It’s his.

Kacchan.

My stomach tightens.

Kacchan staring back at me, damp and disheveled, strands of messy blond sticking up at odd angles, red eyes wide and raw and intense.

Except—they’re not red.

They’re green.

My green. My eyes, on his face.

And they look—

They look like they’re searching.

I swallow, watching the way his throat moves when I do. Watching the way his chest rises and falls too fast. Watching the way his fingers, Kacchan’s fingers, clutch the sink too tightly, knuckles pale from tension.

It’s me.

It’s him.

It’s us.

I don’t know how long I stand there, staring into his—not mine, **his—**eyes, trying to find something, trying to understand something I do not have the words for.

The bond between us thrums, low and steady, curling around my ribs, threading through my chest, pulling.

It’s getting stronger.

Stronger every hour.

Stronger every time we slip up and let this feel normal.

I lick my lips, inhale shakily—

And before I can stop myself, before I even know I’m going to say it, the words spill out.

“I’m proud of you.”

It’s barely a whisper.

Barely a breath.

But I hear it.

I hear it, and for a second, I almost believe it came from him.

And then—

The bond shifts.

Tightens.

And I feel it.

Something sharp. Something deep.

Something from the other side of the door.

Kacchan.

Hearing everything.

My breath catches, my eyes widen, and for a single, terrifying moment—

I feel his heart stop.

KATSUKI

The words he whispered, that I absolutly should not have been able to hear… hit me like a fucking explosion.

"I'm proud of you."

My voice.
My fucking voice.

Spoken by him.

Spoken like I was the one saying it.

And I know.

I know what that means.

I know because I did the same fucking thing.

Because I once stood in front of a mirror, staring at eyes that weren’t mine, seeing a face that was too soft, too open, too damn vulnerable—and I said the things I knew I would never hear from him.

I did it when he wasn’t there to see it.
When I was alone.
When it was safe.

And I know—I fucking know—that’s exactly why he did it, too.

Because he doesn’t believe he can exist in a world where I would ever say that to him.

The realization is so sharp, so immediate, it rips through my ribs like shrapnel.

He doesn’t believe it.

He doesn’t believe that I could be proud of him.

That I am proud of him.

That I’ve spent my whole damn life watching him, chasing him, wanting to be good enough for him.

That I’ve seen every impossible thing he’s done—every fight, every sacrifice, every moment of standing back up when no one else would.

And somehow, he still doesn’t think he deserves to hear those words from me.

The fucking pain of it.

It’s like something inside me twists, hard and brutal, pulling at something fragile I didn’t even know was there.

Because how?

How does he not see it?

How does he not know that he’s been my rival, my competition, my fucking goal for as long as I can remember?

How does he not understand that I was the one looking up to him?

That he was the one I measured myself against?

That every time I fought, every time I pushed myself further, every time I won—

It was always because I was chasing after him.

My hands curl into fists. My breath comes sharp.

I don’t know what to do with this.

I don’t know how to fix this.

Because if he really believes that—
If he really thinks I would never say it—
If he really, truly doesn’t know—

Then I’ve already failed him in ways I can’t even fucking comprehend.

I press my palms into the bathroom counter, steadying myself, grounding myself, forcing myself not to break down right here.

Because he’s right there.
Just a few feet away.
Drying off. Pulling on clothes. Acting like nothing just happened.

Like he didn’t just take something sharp and drive it through my chest.

Like he didn’t just prove, without a shadow of a doubt, that somewhere along the way—

I let him believe I hated him.

And now, I don’t know how to fix it.

I swallow, try to shove it down, try to pretend like I can just keep moving forward without this wrecking me.

But it’s too late.

Because it already has.

So I do the only thing I can.

I take a deep breath, straighten up, and open the fucking door.

I rip the door open like it personally offended me.

Izuku jumps, startled, my own red eyes widening in shock as he spins toward me, hands still ruffling his damp hair.

Good. He should be shocked. Because I am not letting this slide.

I step forward, jaw tight, hands still clenched, my heart hammering in my ears.

"The fuck you mean I’m not proud of you?"

His breath catches.

He blinks at me, my own fucking face looking at me like I just threw him into deep space without a parachute.

I take another step closer, closing the gap between us before I can second-guess it.

"Are you fucking serious, Deku?" My voice is sharp, biting, but my chest feels like it’s splitting open, like something inside me is spilling out, something I should have said a long fucking time ago.

Izuku swallows, lips parting like he wants to say something, but I don’t give him the chance.

"Do you have any idea how fucking proud I am of you?" The words come too fast, too raw, the weight of them pressing against my ribs, demanding to be spoken. "How long I’ve fucking seen you? How you—" I cut off, grit my teeth, inhale sharply. "You’re the goddamn goal, Deku. You always have been. Since the sludge villain. Since the first day at U.A. Since before that."

I don’t look away.
I don’t let him escape from this.
I need him to hear this.

"You don’t think I’m proud of you?" My voice is quieter now, but sharper, deadlier. "I’ve been chasing you my whole fucking life."

His breath shudders.

He looks like he’s barely holding himself together.

And I can feel it.

Through the bond, through whatever the fuck this quirk did to us—
I can feel it.

The relief.
The sheer, overwhelming, soul-crushing relief.

It slams into me like a tidal wave, drowning me in something so fucking intense that it steals the air from my lungs.

And—fuck.

Fuck.

It hurts.

Because how long has he been waiting for this?

How long has he been carrying this weight?

How long has he been aching for me to say this—to see him, to acknowledge everything he’s been, everything he’s done?

And how the fuck did I not notice?

His fingers curl into fists at his sides. His throat works like he’s trying to swallow down something too big to fit.

And then, softly, too softly, in my own voice—

"When this is over… will you still—"

He stops.

He doesn’t finish the sentence.

Because he doesn’t know how.

But I know what he’s asking.

Will this still be real?
Will we still be like this?
Will you still—

I grab his wrist.

Tightly. Firmly.

So he feels it.

So there’s no room for doubt.

And I nod.

Once.

Tensely.

And before either of us can do something fucking stupid, I turn, dragging him toward the bed.

I don’t say anything.
He doesn’t, either.

Because there’s nothing left to say.

We both know.

Even if we can’t say the words yet.

Even if we’re still too fucking terrified to admit what this actually means.

We know.

And when we fall into bed, too close, too warm, too much—

NIGHT – THE BODY REMEMBERs

IZUKU

I don’t think.

I should, but I don’t.

Because the second the warmth settles beside me, the moment I feel the heat radiating off of Kacchan’s body—my body—I stop caring about anything else.

It’s instinctive, primal, a pull too strong to ignore.

I turn toward him, chasing it like gravity, like I’m something weightless and he’s the only thing keeping me grounded.

My fingers curl into the fabric of my—his—shirt before I can stop them. My forehead presses into the solid warmth of his shoulder. My legs tangle with his under the blanket, moving without thought, like this is normal, natural, inevitable.

And he—

He lets me.

That’s the worst part.

Kacchan tenses for half a second, a sharp inhale cutting through the dark. But then—he relaxes.

Doesn’t shove me away. Doesn’t tell me I’m being weird. Doesn’t snap at me to give him space.

He just… lets me stay.

His body is warm.

Too warm. Familiar and solid and comforting in a way that shouldn’t be possible.

And I can feel it—the way his heartbeat stutters, the way his chest rises a little too fast, the way his fingers twitch like he wants to touch me but doesn’t know if he should.

I press in closer, stealing more warmth.

Because I can.

Because I want to.

Because he wants me to.

I feel it.

It’s not something I can ignore anymore, not when it’s this strong, not when it’s wrapped around me like a second skin.

His emotions are too loud, too clear.

The warmth of reluctant acceptance. The pulse of something deep, something aching, something unspoken but overwhelming.

And underneath it all, woven between the layers of frustration and fondness and something dangerously close to longing—

Relief.

Kacchan exhales against my hair, his breath warm, uneven.

I let my eyes drift shut.

And for the first time in what feels like forever—

I don’t feel cold.

KATSUKI

We are too close.

Too fucking close.

I should care.

I should be freaking the fuck out, should be shoving him away, should be putting a goddamn ocean between us.

But I don’t.

Because he’s here. Pressed against me, warm and steady, breathing in sync with my own lungs.

And I can feel him.

Not just his weight against me, not just the way he tucks his hands close between us, curling into the warmth of my—his—body like it belongs to him.

I feel him.

His exhaustion. His quiet relief. The way his pulse slows as the tension melts from his frame.

It’s terrifying.

Because he shouldn’t be this comfortable with me.

He shouldn’t trust me like this, shouldn’t relax against me like I won’t ruin this the second I remember how fucking selfish I am.

But he does.

And I don’t know how to deal with that.

My heartbeat is too loud, too fast.

I know he can feel it.

I know, because his fingers twitch, pressing against the fabric of my—his—shirt. Because his breath catches for a fraction of a second. Because he’s too fucking aware of me, and it’s too much, too heavy, too overwhelming.

I should move.

I should pull away.

But before I can, he hums.

Soft. Barely a sound. Just a small, content noise in the back of his throat as he shifts closer.

As if he belongs here.

Something in me unravels.

Something I don’t know how to fix.

Before I can think, my arms tighten around his waist. Instinct, habit, some fucking gravitational pull that won’t let me go.

I pull him closer, deeper, more.

I breathe him in.

I let myself drown.

Chapter Text

MORNING – THEY HAVE GIVEN UP ON SEPARATE BEDS

KATSUKI

I wake up warm.

Again.

I should be used to it by now. The weight of him, the steady rise and fall of his chest, the way his fingers twitch faintly in his sleep.

But this morning feels different.

Because we are tangled.

Not just close.

Not just touching.

Tangled.

His legs are hooked around mine, anchoring me in place. One of his arms is draped over my ribs, fingers curled against the fabric of my—his—shirt like he held on through the night and never thought to let go.

And me?

I’m just as bad. One arm wrapped tight around his waist, pulling him in, pressing him flush against me. My other hand lost somewhere in his curls, fingers lightly tangled in strands I don’t even remember touching.

His breath is warm against my collarbone.

I don’t move.

Neither does he.

Because this is a thing now.

Because this is not an accident anymore.

Because this isn’t something we fight anymore.

Because this is just how we sleep.

And we both know it.

I stare at the ceiling, heartbeat steady but too loud, too aware, too much.

I wonder if he can feel it.

I wonder if he’s already awake.

And then—he shifts.

A small adjustment. A breath, a murmur, the slight press of his fingers curling tighter, grounding himself in something he isn’t even awake enough to recognize yet.

But I recognize it.

And suddenly, my chest aches.

Suddenly, the thought I’ve been forcing back for days—weeks, months, years—is right there in my head.

Undeniable.

Unstoppable.

I love him.

And worse—I can feel it.

Not just in myself.

In him.

There’s no mistaking it.

There’s no pretending I don’t feel the quiet, sleepy contentment radiating from him, the slow warmth curling deep in his chest.

He loves me.

He loves me.

It should scare me.

It should send me flying out of this bed, should have me running out the fucking door, should have me locking it all back up behind iron walls before it’s too late.

But I don’t move.

Because it’s already too late.

Because we both know it.

Because even if neither of us says it out loud—

We’re already saying it in everything else.

IZUKU

I should say something.

I should crack a joke, laugh it off, tease him about how this keeps happening—how every night, without fail, we end up like this.

Tangled. Pressed too close. Closer than friends should be. Closer than anyone should be.

But I don’t.

Because it wouldn’t be true.

Because this isn’t an accident.

Because I don’t want to sleep alone anymore.

And neither does he.

I know it in the way he hasn’t pulled away.

Hasn’t tensed.

Hasn’t run.

I know it in the way his fingers are still in my hair, the way his arm is still draped across my waist, the way his body is still pressed against mine as if this is exactly where he’s meant to be.

I know it in the way his heartbeat thrums steady beneath my palm, slow and certain, as if the only thing keeping it in rhythm is the fact that we are still touching.

And I know he feels it, too.

Because his body is mine right now.

Because his emotions pulse against my own.

Because he is still awake. I know he is.

And still—neither of us moves.

Neither of us dares to move.

Because this moment is balancing on the edge of something irreversible.

Something we can’t take back.

Something we can’t walk away from once we admit it’s real.

And yet—

I want to.

I want to say it.

I want to lean in.

I want to close the distance.

But I don’t.

Because I am terrified.

Because he is Kacchan.

Because I don’t know how to live in a world where this isn’t one-sided.

And yet, it isn’t.

I know that now.

I know it because I feel it.

The way his chest aches in a way that matches my own.

The way his breath stutters when I shift just slightly closer.

The way his fingers tighten—**barely, but enough—**like he’s holding himself back from holding on tighter.

He loves me.

I know it as clearly as I know that I love him, as clearly as I know that there is no going back from this, no untangling what we’ve let happen between us.

So I don’t speak.

I don’t joke.

I don’t tease.

Instead, I just breathe him in.

And I don’t move.

And neither does he.

And that’s the scariest part.

CLASS – THEY ARE BURNING ALIVE

MINA

This isn’t just drama anymore.

This isn’t Deku and Kacchan back at it again with their bullshit.

This is something else.

Something bigger.

Something beyond anyone’s comprehension, and definitely beyond their own.

It’s soulmate, star-crossed, some-kind-of-destiny-ass bullshit.

And the whole class is watching it happen in stunned, reverent, speculative awe.

It starts subtly.

A moment here. A slip-up there.

A hand ghosting over a waist.

A brief press of fingers—casual, unthinking, completely unconscious.

A bump of shoulders that should feel normal, except that neither of them moves away.

Their bodies—**in each other’s bodies—**gravitating like they don’t even realize it.

And then there are the looks.

The fucking looks.

The way they find each other effortlessly across the room, no matter how far apart they sit.

The way their gazes linger just a second too long.

The way their body language is so in sync, so attuned to each other, that it feels like they’re communicating in a language no one else speaks.

The way Bakugo (in Midoriya’s body, but still Bakugo) visibly melts when Midoriya touches him—like it’s the most natural thing in the world.

The way Midoriya (in Bakugo’s body, but still Midoriya) keeps tilting toward him, drawn in by some invisible force, some inescapable gravity.

And then—the smiles.

Not their usual smiles.

Not cocky or excited or smug or grinning with adrenaline after a fight.

Not competitive.

Not challenging.

But something softer.

Something more.

Something that shouldn’t exist between them, and yet—it does.

And everyone sees it.

Everyone notices.

Even Shoto, who has spent the last several days staring at them with the quiet intensity of a man trying to solve a conspiracy theory.

Even Kirishima, who has stopped trying to broach the subject, too lost in the realization that whatever is happening between them is way bigger than friendship.

Even Kaminari, who keeps looking between them like he’s watching a movie in real-time, like he’s bracing for the moment they finally snap and do something insane.

They all see it.

And no one dares to say a word.

Because this isn’t a game anymore.

This isn’t something they can tease or joke about or nudge along for fun.

This is something real.

Something fragile and dangerous.

Something on fire.

And if they touch it—

If they so much as breathe on it—

They will burn, too.

So all they can do is watch.

Watch as Bakugo and Midoriya burn alive, wrapped up in something neither of them has the courage to name.

And hope—pray—that they make it out of this whole.

SPARRING – THEY GET BANNED BY AZIAWA FOR BEING TOO INTENSE

IZUKU

THE SPAR THAT CHANGES EVERYTHING

I don’t know when sparring started feeling like this.

Like a confession.

Like a need.

Like we’re saying things we don’t have the words for.

But today?

Today is worse.

Today, it’s too much.

Too fast.
Too close.
Too charged.

Like something is building, winding tighter, about to break.

Like we’ve spent the past however many days drowning in each other’s gravity, orbiting around something neither of us is willing to name.

Like we’ve crossed some invisible threshold we can’t go back from.

And our bodies know it.

Our bodies recognize it.

Because I lunge, and he meets me halfway.

Because he moves, and I am already reacting.

Because we fight like we are meant to be fighting.

Like we are two halves of the same battle.

Like we are something inevitable.

The world narrows.

There is only him.

Only Kacchan.

Only the way his body moves, the way I move to match, the way we understand each other without needing words.

And then—

Then it happens again.

A split-second decision.
A miscalculation.
A shift in weight that neither of us corrects in time.

And then—impact.

We hit the ground together.

Hard.

My breath leaves me in a sharp, stunned exhale, and for a second—**just a second—**I don’t register anything else.

Not the pain.
Not the dust still settling around us.
Not the sound of our classmates sucking in a collective breath.

Not even the way my body feels like it belongs here.

Like it belongs exactly right here.

And then I feel it.

Him.

His body—**my body—**against mine.
His chest rising and falling too fast.
His hands gripping at my wrists.
His weight settling over me, pinning me down.

And when I blink up at him—when I see my own face above me, eyes blown wide, mouth slightly parted—

I forget how to breathe.

Because this—
Because we—

This is too much.

Too much heat.
Too much pressure.
Too much feeling.

I can feel his heart hammering—I can feel it through his chest, through the bond, through everything.

I can feel his panic, his want, his fight to shove it down.

And I know—
I know he can feel mine, too.

And then—

A slow, agonizing silence.

One second.
Two.
Three.

Then—a sigh.

And not from either of us.

Aizawa.

Who is standing there, watching us with the blank, exhausted stare of a man who regrets every life choice that brought him to this moment.

He pinches the bridge of his nose.

And Aizawa looks like he wants to quit his job.

Kacchan fucking launches himself off me.

And I just lie there, staring up at the sky, feeling like I just survived the single most life-altering moment of my entire existence.

And all around us—

Our classmates are watching.

Some in horror.
Some in silent, stunned reverence.
Some looking like they’re about to start placing bets.

But none of them say a word.

Because they know.

They know this is no longer just a spar.

This is a love story.

This is a tragedy in progress.

This is Deku and Kacchan, burning alive.

And there is nothing they can do to stop it.

KATSUKI

Aizawa sighs.
And that alone is enough to make my blood turn cold.

Because Aizawa doesn’t sigh unless he’s at the absolute end of his fucking patience.

And right now, I can feel the weight of his exhaustion like a noose around my throat.

I can feel the class holding its breath.

I can feel Deku, still on the ground beside me, radiating emotions that I cannot fucking handle right now.

And then—

Then Aizawa speaks.

Flat. Dry. Unimpressed.

"You two are banned from sparring until you switch back."

The world fucking explodes.

"CALLED IT!" Kaminari yells so loud that my soul leaves my body.

Mina is fucking wheezing, clutching her stomach like she’s about to pass out from laughter.

Sero has his goddamn head in his hands.

Kirishima looks far too entertained.

Hagakure is vibrating.

And Shoto—

Shoto fucking blinks at us, tilts his head slightly, and asks—completely, entirely serious—

"Was that… a mating ritual?"

I almost drop fucking dead on the spot.

Deku makes a noise.

It’s a fucking horrible noise.

Like a strangled gasp, a choked scream, a dying animal who just realized they’ve been hit by a truck.

I whip around to look at him, because there’s no fucking way—

And then I see my own face, bright fucking red, eyes blown wide, lips parted in sheer, raw, full-body horror.

And I—
I—
I can’t even process the level of humiliation I am feeling.

Because I can feel his too.

Double.

I can feel the mortification curling through him like a vice, wrapping around my fucking ribs and crushing every last ounce of dignity I have left.

I can feel the desperate, animalistic urge to self-destruct, to run, to make a dramatic escape and pretend none of this ever happened.

And for one brief, fleeting moment—

We both seriously consider it.

But then—Mina fucking recovers.

And suddenly, the nightmare gets worse.

Because she grins, wide and knowing, eyes sparkling with pure, unfiltered chaos.

"Oh," she purrs, leaning forward like a goddamn predator. "Oh, that was definitely a mating ritual."

I am going to fucking combust.

Deku whimpers.

WHIMPERS.

And I just—

I have to go.

I have to get out of here.

I have to fucking leave the country.

I grab Deku’s wrist—**his wrist, my wrist, doesn’t fucking matter—**and start dragging him away.

He doesn’t fight it.

I don’t look back.

Because I refuse to give these bastards any more material to work with.

But as I storm toward the dorms, hauling my own body behind me, I can still hear their voices echoing behind us.

"One step closer to marriage," Mina coos.

"Who’s the top?" Kaminari asks.

Aizawa sighs again.

I hate my fucking life.

NIGHT – KATSUKI CHANGES IN FRONT OF IZUKU WITHOUT THINKING

KATSUKI

I strip without thinking.

It’s muscle memory. Routine. Clothes off, shower on, move on. Simple. Automatic. A thing I’ve done a thousand times without hesitation.

But this time—

This time, something shifts.

Because the second my shirt is over my head, the second my hands go to the button of my pants, I feel it.

That feeling.

That weight.

That heavy, static charge of something unspoken, something so palpable it nearly crackles in the air between us.

I glance up—

And Deku is staring.

I freeze. Just for a second. Just long enough to see it—the way his throat bobs as he swallows, the way his hands twitch where they rest on his thighs, the way his entire fucking body locks up like he’s just realized something earth-shattering.

I raise an eyebrow. "What?"

His mouth opens.

Closes.

Opens again.

Nothing comes out.

And then, too fast, too obvious, too goddamn guilty—

His eyes dart away.

I smirk.

Because he just realized it.

Finally.

I told him before.

"It’s my dick, after all."

But that was different. That was a joke. That was me being a smug asshole, trying to play off the absolute insanity of this whole situation.

Now?

Now, it’s hitting him.

That I’ve seen everything.

That he’s seen everything.

That there is no distance left between us.

That the boundary lines, the ones we’ve always pretended existed, the ones we’ve danced around, ignored, fought against—

They’re gone.

And neither of us acknowledges it.

Not out loud.

Not yet.

But I can feel it.

And so can he.

IZUKU

I sit on my bed.

I don’t look at him.

I don’t need to.

Because I already know.

Because I can already feel it.

The weight of it, thick in the air between us. The way it presses down on my ribs, makes my fingers twitch against my thighs, makes my lungs feel too full and too empty all at once.

It’s there.

And it’s undeniable.

I exhale slowly, steadying myself before I move.

I lift my arms.

A silent invitation.

I don’t say a word.

I don’t need to.

Because he understands.

Because this is a thing now.

Because this is what we do.

And he doesn’t hesitate.

Not anymore.

Not after everything.

Not after waking up together, tangled and warm and not pulling away.

Not after every lingering glance, every brush of fingers, every silent moment stretched too thin with something we can’t name.

Not after watching each other fall apart, holding each other together, existing so close it’s impossible to tell where he ends and I begin.

Because the line between us has blurred past recognition.

Because there is no line anymore.

Because there is no hesitation left in him when he crosses the room, when he settles in next to me, when he lets himself melt into my space, into my gravity, like he’s always belonged there.

Like he’s always been there.

He exhales sharply through his nose, a quiet, barely-there sound that I feel more than I hear, the weight of it settling deep in my chest.

I close my eyes.

And breathe him in.

KATSUKI

I don’t think.

I don’t hesitate.

I just go to him.

Because he’s asking for me.

Because I want to be there.

Because I’m done pretending I don’t.

Because the second his arms lift—silent, expectant, a wordless request wrapped in something so much heavier than anything we’ve ever dared to name—there is no other choice.

There is only this.

Only closing the space between us, climbing onto the bed, sinking into the warmth of his body like I belong there.

Like I always have.

I feel his breath stutter when I settle beside him.

I feel the weight of his arms when they wrap around me—tight, steady, grounding.

And then I let myself hold him back.

Let my fingers dig into the fabric of my—his—shirt.

Let my forehead drop against his collarbone, let my breath even out against his throat, let the quiet, unbearable tension that’s been stretching between us all day ease into something softer.

Something that feels like relief.

Like home.

Neither of us say anything.

But we don’t need to.

Because the silence isn’t empty.

It’s full.

Thick with the weight of everything we aren’t saying.

The things we don’t know how to say.

The things we’ve been trying so hard to ignore.

But now?

Now, there’s nothing left to ignore.

Because I can feel it.

The way his chest rises, steady and slow, in time with mine.

The way his fingers curl into my back like he’s afraid I’ll disappear.

The way his emotions spill into me through the bond—warm and sharp and aching and something else, something dangerous, something that makes my stomach twist into knots.

And I know he can feel mine too.

Knows, because his fingers tighten.

Knows, because I feel the shift in his breath, the way his body curls in just that little bit closer.

Knows, because he is clinging to me just as much as I am clinging to him.

And fuck.

It feels safe.

Like we were always meant to end up here.

Like there was never a universe where we didn’t.

IZUKU

I fall asleep easily.

Too easily.

Like my body already knows how to do this.

Like I have been falling asleep like this my entire life.

Like it’s second nature.

Because it is now.

Because this is just a thing we do.

A quiet, unspoken ritual.

A pulling together instead of pulling apart.

A wordless understanding that neither of us want to be alone.

That I don’t want to be alone.

That I want him here.

That he wants to be here too.

I breathe in deeply, let my body sink into the warmth of his arms, let my fingers rest against the solid weight of his back.

Feel his heartbeat against my chest, steady and slow, grounding.

Feel the way his breath skates along my skin, warm, rhythmic, something I can match my own breathing to.

Feel the way he doesn’t move away, doesn’t shift, doesn’t even tense—

Just holds me.

Like it’s the most natural thing in the world.

Like this is where he’s meant to be.

Like this is where we were always going to end up.

And maybe—maybe we were.

Maybe this was always supposed to happen.

Maybe this isn’t something I should be questioning.

So I don’t.

Instead, I just let go.

Let myself fall.

Let myself sleep.

Because for the first time in a long time—

I feel safe.

KATSUKI

For the first time in days, I actually sleep.

Not lightly.

Not fitfully.

Not half-aware, not with tension coiled tight in my body, not with my mind still racing and my heart still on edge.

Just sleep.

Deep and quiet and unburdened.

Because he is here.

Because he is warm.

Because I can feel everything he’s feeling.

And it’s so much.

It’s too much.

It’s soft, aching relief wrapped in something too big to be contained.

Something so devastatingly tender, so full, so much bigger than either of us have admitted.

Something I don’t know how to deal with.

Because this—this is what I want.

And I don’t want it to stop.

But it will.

Soon.

And I don’t know how to fucking deal with that.

Chapter Text

MORNING – THEY DON’T EVEN PRETEND ANYMORE

KATSUKI

I wake up wrapped around him.

This isn’t an accident anymore.

This isn’t something we joke about.

This isn’t something we ignore.

This is a thing.

And neither of us fight it.

His fingers curl into the fabric of my shirt.
My arm tightens around his waist.
Our legs are tangled so thoroughly I don’t even know whose is whose anymore.

And I do not move.

Because this is where I want to be.

And he’s not moving either.

IZUKU

I wake up happy.

I wake up warm.

I wake up and I know, instantly, that he’s still here.

That I’m still wrapped up in him.

That this is just what we do now.

My heart aches.

Because we only have six days left like this.

Because I don’t want it to end.

And for the first time, I’m scared.

Because what happens when we’re back in our own bodies?

What happens when we don’t have an excuse to be like this anymore?

I don’t know.

And I don’t want to think about it.

So instead, I just breathe him in.

And I don’t move.

BREAKFAST – EVERYONE IS DEAD SILENT

MINA

At this point, everyone has accepted their fate.

There is no teasing anymore.

There is no need.

Because it is happening.

Because they are falling, and it is unfolding right in front of them in real time.

Because at this point?

No one wants to interrupt it.

They are simply witnessing something inevitable.

Something so painfully obvious, so intensely overwhelming, so undeniable, that even Bakugo and Midoriya themselves can’t fight it anymore.

Mina leans over to Kaminari, voice barely above a whisper.

"They’re not gonna make it six more days."

Kaminari nods slowly.

"Nope."

CLASS – SOMETHING CHANGES IN THE WAY THEY LOOK AT EACH OTHER

IZUKU

I glance at him.

He’s already looking at me.

And something shifts.

Something that we don’t say out loud.

Something that we don’t even fully understand yet.

Something that is undeniable.

Because this is not just friendship anymore.

And we both know it.

KATSUKI

We are in trouble.

Because this is not normal anymore.

Because I know the way he looks at me.

Because I know what it means.

And it’s the same way I look at him.

And I don’t know what happens next.

But I know one thing for sure—

We are not making it six more days.

TRAINING – THEY ARE BARRED FROM SPARRING, SO THEY TRAIN SIDE-BY-SIDE INSTEAD

IZUKU

We can’t spar.

So we train together instead.

And somehow, that’s worse.

Because we are shoulder to shoulder.
Because we are moving in sync.
Because our bodies already know each other too well.

And neither of us acknowledge how easy it is to match the other’s pace.

And neither of us acknowledge how natural it feels.

But we both feel it.

And it is killing me.

KATSUKI

He moves.

I move.

We do not speak.

We do not talk about how comfortable we’ve gotten in each other’s space.

We do not talk about how our hands brush when we reach for the same thing.

We do not talk about the way we slow down at the same time, like we’re wired to move together.

And we do not talk about the fact that neither of us wants to stop.

IZUKU

I sit on my bed.

The same way I did last night.

I don’t look at him, but I don’t have to.

I know he’s already watching me.

I feel it.

The weight of his gaze, the way he hesitates for just a second before his body starts moving—before he always moves toward me.

So I just do it.

I hold my arms out.

An invitation.

A welcome.

A home.

For the second night in a row.

For the second night in a row, I ask him to stay.

I don’t speak.

I don’t have to.

Because he understands.

Because this is natural now.

Because this is who we are.

And he doesn’t hesitate.

He never hesitates anymore.

Not when it’s about this.

Not when it’s about me.

He climbs in, pressing against me like it’s the most natural thing in the world, and maybe—maybe it is.

Maybe it’s always been like this.

Maybe we just forgot for a while.

Maybe we’re just remembering now.

I exhale, close my eyes as I settle into the warmth, and before I can stop myself, before I can even think about the weight of the words, I murmur, “This reminds me of when we were kids.”

His breath catches for just a moment.

And then—softly, quietly—“Yeah. Me too.”

I smile against his shoulder.

“Do you have a favorite memory?” I ask.

He doesn’t answer right away.

I feel him thinking.

Not struggling, just sorting through everything.

Through all of the pieces of us.

Through all the parts of us that still matter.

And then—he shifts.

His fingers curl loosely at the hem of my hoodie, like grounding himself before speaking.

“Remember that time we ran away?”

I do.

I really do.

The memory slams into me before I can stop it.

We were six.

And we had decided, without much thought, that we needed to leave home forever.

That we were going to be heroes, and heroes don’t need parents.

So we packed a backpack with snacks, took my mom’s spare phone, and left.

We made it exactly two miles before realizing it was dark, and we didn’t actually know where to go.

We panicked.

We clung to each other.

And Kacchan—Kacchan, who never panicked, Kacchan, who was never scared—took my hand and told me we’d be fine.

Told me he’d protect me.

I swallow thickly.

I don’t know what part of that memory he likes most.

That we had each other?

That we stuck together?

That when it was over, neither of us got in trouble, because our parents could tell how badly we’d already learned our lesson?

But I know it means something to him.

That it’s something important.

And so, quietly, softly, I whisper, “I remember.”

Kacchan exhales.

It’s warm against my skin.

Like relief.

Like he needed me to remember it too.

And then he says, “What about you?”

I don’t have to think about it.

Not even for a second.

Because I know.

Because it’s the only memory it could be.

“My sixth birthday,” I say, voice too soft, too tender.

He freezes.

I feel it everywhere.

In his body, in mine.

His fingers twitch against the fabric of my hoodie.

He knows exactly what I’m talking about.

I don’t even have to explain.

He knows.

Because it was the last birthday we spent together before things got bad.

Because it was the last time I saw his face soft.

Because he had shown up at my house before anyone else, with a tiny, handmade card and a toy All Might keychain he had insisted I needed.

Because when I had looked at him, with too much joy in my eyes, and told him he was my best friend, he had just grinned back and said,

“Obviously, dummy.”

I feel him swallow.

Feel the tension in his shoulders.

Feel his heart stutter in his chest.

And then—he relaxes.

He sinks into me.

He sighs, presses his forehead against mine, and just stays.

Neither of us say anything after that.

Neither of us need to.

Because the words are already there, unspoken between us.

Because we are remembering together.

Because we are holding onto something we almost lost.

Because this is not an accident.

Because this is not a mistake.

Because this is us.

And we both know it now.

KATSUKI

I don’t think about it.

Not really.

Not when I move toward him, not when I climb into his bed like it’s my own, not when I settle in close and let myself exist in the space where our bodies fit together without hesitation.

It’s not even a decision anymore.

It just is.

This is just where I’m supposed to be.

I know it now.

I think maybe I always have.

His arms slip around me like they belong there, pulling me in, holding me in place.

It doesn’t scare me anymore.

Nothing about this does.

Not the warmth.

Not the silence.

Not the fact that my heart doesn’t know how to beat properly when I’m around him.

Because this is us.

Because we stopped fighting it somewhere along the way.

Because this is safe.

I let my breath even out, my body sinking into something too natural, too easy, too inevitable, and then—

His voice, quiet in the stillness:

“This reminds me of when we were kids.”

I pause.

It’s just a second, just a moment of hesitation, but I know he feels it.

Just like I feel him.

Just like I always feel him.

“Yeah,” I say, just as quietly. “Me too.”

He presses his face into the curve of my shoulder.

Soft. Warm. Grounded.

I feel my stomach twist.

Not in a bad way.

Not in a way that makes me want to run.

Just in a way that makes me feel too much.

And then—

“Do you have a favorite memory?”

I think.

Not because I don’t know.

Not because I have to search for an answer.

But because I have to be sure.

Because this is him.

Because this is us.

And because there is only one answer it could be.

“Remember that time we ran away?”

I feel him tense for a second.

And then—

The weight of recognition.

He remembers.

I know he does.

And fuck, it shouldn’t mean as much as it does, but it does.

Because that was the first time I ever got scared.

Not of a villain, not of failure, not of losing a fight—

But of losing him.

We had been six.

Stupid, reckless, filled with big dreams and no common sense.

We had packed a bag full of snacks and juice boxes, stolen my mom’s old cell phone, and just fucking left.

Because we wanted to be heroes.

Because heroes didn’t need parents.

Because we were going to be the strongest.

And we made it two miles before the sun went down.

Before we realized we had nowhere to go.

Before I saw real, actual fear in Izuku’s eyes for the first time in my life.

Before I realized that I had no idea how to protect him.

Before I realized that I needed to.

So I had taken his hand.

I had held on tight.

And I had told him it would be okay.

That we’d be fine.

That I’d protect him.

And I remember, so fucking vividly, the way his fingers had squeezed back.

Like he believed me.

Like I was someone worth believing in.

I feel him shift, curling closer into my space, like he’s remembering it too.

Like he’s still holding onto it.

And then, softly, almost reverently—

“I remember.”

My chest tightens.

I don’t know why this is hitting me so hard.

I don’t know why this moment—this **fucking memory—**matters so much.

But it does.

Because it was the last time I had ever said those words to him.

The last time I had ever told him I’d protect him.

And I had failed.

I had failed him over and over and over again.

But he still remembers.

Like it still means something.

Like I still mean something.

I take a breath, try to shake the feeling off, try to move past the tightness in my throat, and ask, “What about you?”

And he doesn’t even have to think about it.

Not even for a second.

Because he knows.

Because it’s the only memory it could be.

“My sixth birthday,” he whispers.

I freeze.

He knows.

He knows that I know.

And I feel it.

The memory slamming into me like a fucking freight train.

He had been six.

I had been seven.

And it had been the happiest I had ever seen him.

Because I had shown up to his house before anyone else.

Because I had insisted on being there first.

Because I had been so fucking excited to give him his present.

A tiny, stupid, handmade card and an All Might keychain.

Because he needed it.

Because I needed him to have it.

Because he had looked at me like I had given him the entire fucking world.

And he had smiled so big, so bright, so devastatingly Izuku.

And he had called me his best friend.

And I had just grinned and said, “Obviously, dummy.”

I exhale, shaky, unsteady.

I don’t know how I forgot that moment.

I don’t know how I let it go.

But he still has it.

He still keeps it.

And now it’s back in my hands, and I don’t know what the fuck to do with it.

So I just hold on.

I press my forehead to his, close my eyes, and just fucking hold on.

Neither of us speak after that.

Neither of us need to.

Because this is a thing now.

Because we are remembering together.

Because we are keeping this.

Because this is us.

And I don’t want to lose it again.

Chapter Text

MORNING – THEY WAKE UP TOO CLOSE AGAIN (AND IT IS RUINING THEM)

KATSUKI

I wake up warm.

Too warm.

Like heat sinking deep into my skin, curling at the base of my spine, radiating outward in waves.

Like I’m being held in place, pressed into something solid, something soft, something that shouldn’t feel as fucking good as it does.

I don’t move.

I don’t dare to move.

Because if I do, I might make it worse.

I might remind myself of what’s real.

I might remind myself that this—this unbearable warmth, this quiet, steady rhythm of breath against my jaw, this impossible way we fit together—is not going to last.

And I don’t want that.

I don’t want to think about what happens when we switch back.

I don’t want to think about what happens when we go back to normal.

I don’t want to lose this.

I let my eyes stay shut, let my body relax against his. I can feel him, his heartbeat thrumming in sync with mine, his fingers curled loosely into my—his—shirt, clinging even in sleep.

His leg is hooked around mine, a weight I could push away.

But I don’t.

Because the thought of losing even an inch of contact physically hurts.

And fuck.

I can feel it.

I can feel him.

Not just his body, not just the heat of him pressed against me, but him.

His emotions.

His thoughts.

They hum faintly at the back of my mind, like the distant crackle of a radio station not quite in tune. Like whispers I can’t fully grasp but know are there, flickering at the edge of my consciousness.

Stay.

The word isn’t spoken. It isn’t heard. But it’s there.

A plea.

A prayer.

A quiet, desperate hope.

And it nearly fucking kills me.

I should move.

I should pull away.

But I don’t.

Instead, I let my fingers twitch, barely moving, just enough to tighten my grip around his waist, just enough to hold him closer.

And even in his sleep, he reacts.

A sharp inhale.

A slight shift, a deeper press into my chest, like he knows, like he can feel me too.

The whisper between us grows stronger.

A soft, tentative Kacchan…

A pulse of warmth.

A weightless, impossible, devastating affection that is not mine.

But I feel it like it is.

And for one long, slow second, I let myself believe it.

I let myself sink into it.

I let myself pretend that this is something we can have.

That I won’t wake up one day with an empty bed.

That this isn’t temporary.

That I won’t lose him.

And then—Izuku stirs.

His breath hitches. His fingers flex against my chest. His mind brushes against mine, raw and unguarded in sleep, completely open to me.

His eyes flutter.

And I know.

I know the second he wakes up.

Because the warmth between us shifts.

Because his thoughts sharpen, realization hitting him like a live wire.

Because for a single, earth-shattering second, I feel it.

The same unbearable, impossible, overwhelming fucking love that’s been clawing its way out of me for years.

And it is not just mine.

It is his.

It has always been his.

His lashes flutter against my collarbone. He swallows, breath shaky, and I do not fucking move.

Because I know—if I move, I will not be able to stop myself.

And then, in a voice so soft it barely exists between us, he whispers, “Kacchan…”

And my fucking world ends.

KATSUKI

I wake up warm.

Too warm.

Like heat sinking deep into my skin, curling at the base of my spine, radiating outward in waves.

Like I’m being held in place, pressed into something solid, something soft, something that shouldn’t feel as fucking good as it does.

I don’t move.

I don’t dare to move.

Because if I do, I might make it worse.

I might remind myself of what’s real.

I might remind myself that this—this unbearable warmth, this quiet, steady rhythm of breath against my jaw, this impossible way we fit together—is not going to last.

And I don’t want that.

I don’t want to think about what happens when we switch back.

I don’t want to think about what happens when we go back to normal.

I don’t want to lose this.

I let my eyes stay shut, let my body relax against his. I can feel him, his heartbeat thrumming in sync with mine, his fingers curled loosely into my—his—shirt, clinging even in sleep.

His leg is hooked around mine, a weight I could push away.

But I don’t.

Because the thought of losing even an inch of contact physically hurts.

And fuck.

I can feel it.

I can feel him.

Not just his body, not just the heat of him pressed against me, but him.

His emotions.

His thoughts.

They hum faintly at the back of my mind, like the distant crackle of a radio station not quite in tune. Like whispers I can’t fully grasp but know are there, flickering at the edge of my consciousness.

Stay.

The word isn’t spoken. It isn’t heard. But it’s there.

A plea.

A prayer.

A quiet, desperate hope.

And it nearly fucking kills me.

I should move.

I should pull away.

But I don’t.

Instead, I let my fingers twitch, barely moving, just enough to tighten my grip around his waist, just enough to hold him closer.

And even in his sleep, he reacts.

A sharp inhale.

A slight shift, a deeper press into my chest, like he knows, like he can feel me too.

The whisper between us grows stronger.

A soft, tentative Kacchan…

A pulse of warmth.

A weightless, impossible, devastating affection that is not mine.

But I feel it like it is.

And for one long, slow second, I let myself believe it.

I let myself sink into it.

I let myself pretend that this is something we can have.

That I won’t wake up one day with an empty bed.

That this isn’t temporary.

That I won’t lose him.

And then—Izuku stirs.

His breath hitches. His fingers flex against my chest. His mind brushes against mine, raw and unguarded in sleep, completely open to me.

His eyes flutter.

And I know.

I know the second he wakes up.

Because the warmth between us shifts.

Because his thoughts sharpen, realization hitting him like a live wire.

Because for a single, earth-shattering second, I feel it.

The same unbearable, impossible, overwhelming fucking love that’s been clawing its way out of me for years.

And it is not just mine.

It is his.

It has always been his.

His lashes flutter against my collarbone. He swallows, breath shaky, and I do not fucking move.

Because I know—if I move, I will not be able to stop myself.

And then, in a voice so soft it barely exists between us, he whispers, “Kacchan…”

And my fucking world ends.

KATSUKI

I should let it go.

I should let the quiet settle between us, let the warmth anchor me, let his heartbeat slow against mine until we both drift back into sleep.

But I can’t.

Because there’s something else sitting heavy on my chest, something I’ve never let myself say, something I never thought I’d have the chance to ask.

And now—**with him curled against me like this, with our minds bleeding together at the edges, with the truth laid out between us in a way it has never been before—**I don’t know if I can keep it in.

So I don’t.

I breathe in the scent of my own goddamn shampoo.
I press my forehead against the messy tangle of my own curls.
And I let the question slip out of me like a whispered secret to the dark.

“Did you ever stop?”

Izuku—**in my body, in my fucking skin—**tenses.

Not the way he does when he’s startled.
Not the way he does when he’s caught off guard.
Not the way he does when someone asks him something he doesn’t want to answer.

No.

This is different.

This is sharp inhalation, trembling fingers, the slow but undeniable curl of his body pressing closer against mine—his, but also still mine.

This is my heartbeat, stuttering beneath his ribs like it just tripped over something enormous.

This is the bond cracking open between us, pouring his emotions into me like a flood I don’t know how to hold back.

I feel it before he even thinks the words.

The answer.

I feel it in the ache buried deep inside my own chest, because it’s his chest right now.
I feel it in the warmth that flares, unbidden, undeniable, in my skin, because it’s his skin right now.
I feel it in the echo of a feeling that never faded, that never died, that never went anywhere at all.

And then—finally, softly, reverently—

Izuku, in my voice, in my breath, trembling, barely audible—

“…No.”

I squeeze my eyes shut.

Because I shouldn’t be this relieved.
Because I shouldn’t be feeling this much.
Because I shouldn’t let it mean everything.

But I do.

And it does.

I exhale against my own damn hair, and I know he feels it.
I tighten my hold on my own damn body, and I know he understands.
I press my forehead against my own and know he hears what I can’t say yet.

We should sleep.
We should stop.
We should talk about this in the morning.

But instead—I just hold on tighter.

Because I have my answer now.

And for tonight—that’s enough.

BREAKFAST – THE ATMOSPHERE IS SUFFOCATINGLY INTENSE