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Eijirou falls in love with Katsuki during the sports festival.
He notices that Katsuki is a little calmer around him and thinks that maybe, just maybe, that the blonde feels the same way. He thinks about how Katsuki lets him near him and even lets him hold him back when he starts getting angry at Izuku or anyone else. Eijirou doesn't think much of Katsuki's feelings towards Izuku since it’s not like they're positive.
But during the training camp he starts to notice that Katsuki looks towards Izuku a lot and sometimes he sees him with a soft look in his eyes when he stares at the shorter boy.
He feels his stomach tighten up during those moments and jealousy starts to rear its ugly head, because as far as he knows, Katsuki has never once looked at him that way.
When Katsuki gets kidnapped he feels like his world was taken away from him. He resents Izuku because he feels like he didn't do enough, but he plans to go after Katsuki and he knows he needs his help in order to find him. So, when they all go after him and Izuku tells him the plan and that it would only work if it was Eijirou reaching out to Katsuki he feels like his heart could explode with happiness.
Because even though it was stressful situation, he knows now that the blonde feels something for him and when Katsuki takes his hand and then makes a show of paying him back for using his money, his heart settles.
-
He sometimes feels bad about the fact that he’s happy when Katsuki's and Izuku's relationship seems to become even complicated after the whole ordeal. He sticks even closer to the blond now, but he still feels like something is off about their relationship. There's so much animosity that Katsuki emits towards Izuku, but even then, the blonde looks even more irritated when Izuku seems to get a little too close to Ochako or Shouto.
Eijirou starts to feel the tightness in his chest again.
-
When they go through the training simulation before they take their license exam, Eijirou feels like throwing up. Ochako has already made them float, there's no reason for Izuku to still have his arms around Katsuki's waist and for Katsuki's arms to be around his shoulders. He laughs along with his friends when Katsuki pulls at Izuku's cheeks to shut him up, but the blonde’s ears are pink, and he feels his heart start to crack.
-
Things change drastically after their fight in Ground Beta. When the class returns to the dorms, Eijirou is the first to notice that Izuku isn't wearing the same shirt that he had on that morning. He also knows it’s not his because Eijirou has seen Katsuki wearing it one too many times.
He feels like throwing up.
As the class files in behind him they all stop to stare at both of them. Izuku's face is overtaken by a deep red blush and you can see the bruises around his neck because the shirt is a little too big on him. Katsuki's smirking as he's picking up the garbage bags, but there's a light blush on his cheeks as well. They both pretend that the whole class hasn't just stopped to stare at them.
Denki is the first one to break the sudden silence in the room. "Holy shit”, he hears the blond whisper- and then all hell breaks loose. The girls rush to Izuku screaming and start asking him to tell them all of the details. Denki and Mineta flock towards Katsuki to make fun of him.
The explosion that follows their taunting isn’t a surprise to any of them.
The remainder of their classmates look like they don't know what to do, so one by one they start to make their way to their own rooms.
He doesn't know how long he stands there and stares at the couple, so when he feels a hand on his shoulder, Eijirou jumps at the touch. He looks over to see Mina and the pitying look in her eyes makes his eyes well up, and then she’s quickly ushering him away from everyone, taking him up to his room.
The door closes behind them, the tears start to fall, and when she wraps her arms around him Eijirou starts to sob.
He sobs into her shoulders for what seems like forever and when he starts to calm down, she moves them to his bed and lays down with him. She hugs him to her chest and waits until his tears stop before she says anything.
"I know it feels like your heart's been stepped on and crushed, but I'm here for you", she whispers. He whimpers and she starts to run her fingers through his hair.
"I know this isn't something you want to hear at this point, but I'm going to say it anyway because it will help you heal a little faster since it's the reality of it all, so please don't hate me”, there’s a strain in her voice as she says that and Eijirou’s heart starts to beat a little faster. “I'm going to be here for you every step of the way because you're one of my best friends", she says, and he holds her tighter.
"I know you're in love with him", she starts and squeezes his shoulders when she hears him start to cry again. "I would have to be blind not to, I saw the way that you stuck close to him and how much you pushed yourself into his orbit and how you blindly followed every step he took.”
“Sometimes I would want to step in to warn you, but you looked so besotted that I felt you would have pushed me away if I had tried to get in the middle of it", she continues and Eijirou feels himself tense up.
Had he really been that obvious?
"But", her voice cracks, "their relationship is something that nobody, and I mean nobody, could ever hope to come between.”
The way she emphasizes it makes it feel like she was prodding at his already broken heart.
"I saw the way that they looked at each other since day one. I don't think there was anyone that wasn’t aware of how complicated their relationship was”. “I never thought you would be so blind to it and for that I am truly sorry. I should have been there for you", she sighs and he felt her shoulders start to shake. Eijirou gently untangles himself from her arms in order to look at her.
"Why are you crying, Mina?", he asks a bit confused at her reaction. There’s a conflicted look on her face before she finally breaks down.
"Because you're hurting, and I could have been there for you. But I was too selfish and scared to do anything”, she sobs but continues on, "How could you have ever competed with Izuku? You were never even in the ring! I knew that and I still left you alone!", she cries out. Eijirou feels conflicted-because how could she have known that? "What do you mean by me not being in the ring?", he asks wearily, but he was honestly afraid of the answer.
“Because-", she looks hesitant and looks away, but something must have shown on his face because when she looks back at him, she looks determined to give him an answer. "they’ve been together all of this time, Eiji", she admits sadly.
Eijirou starts to shake but it doesn’t look like Mina is done talking.
“Ochako told me a while ago, but I didn't say anything.", she finishes. Eijirou can’t seem to stop the anger that builds up inside of him so he pushes himself away from her and jumps out of his bed.
"What do you mean they've been together all this time?", he hisses and watches as she sits up and looks at him. She looks worried, but Mina wasn't someone that backed down easily. "What I mean", she starts, and her tone is harder-“is that they've been together romantically for almost as long as they’ve known each other, Eiji”, her expression was pitying again, but it only makes him angrier.
Because how could Katsuki do that to him? String him along like that?
And how could he have treated Izuku that way when they've been together all this time?
Call him those names?
Physically fight him like that?!
Eijirou doesn't know what makes him do it, but all of a sudden, he's too angry to think and now he needs to go find Katsuki.
He storms out of his room and hears Mina chase after him, but he doesn't care. When he walks into the common room and sees Katsuki vacuuming the carpet he sees red. He runs up to him and when the boy turns around, he very calmly punches him in the face. He hears a few classmates cry out and watches as Katsuki falls to the floor, but before Eijirou can pull him back up and punch him again, he feels someone kick at his stomach and he goes flying against the wall.
"Are you okay, Kacchan?", he hears Izuku ask worriedly.
He groans and opens his eyes to see the green haired boy holding Katsuki's face and he feels bile rise in his throat.
"How can you forgive him?", is the first thing that comes out of his mouth. They both turn towards him at the same time. Izuku looks like he’s ready to yell at him, but Katsuki's expression looks pained.
"What the fuck do you even know about our relationship, asshole!", Izuku spits out and Eijirou reels back. He's never heard him curse at anyone that way and feels a chill run down his spine.
Mina comes over to help him up off the floor and Izuku is already picking Katsuki up as well. When he sees that Katsuki is steady on his feet Izuku turns towards him and Eijirou starts readying himself for the beating of his life, but Katsuki grabs Izuku's hand before he gets the chance to move and pulls him into his arms.
Eijirou watches as Izuku melts into his embrace as Katsuki whispers into his ear. He can't hear them very well, but he came make out a few words, "Its ok, 'Zuku. Let me talk to him", and Eijirou swallows around what feels like a ball in his throat.
Katsuki starts to walk towards the elevator and doesn’t even look back to see if Eijirou’s following him-he knows he will.
Izuku watches him every step of the way, a hard look in his eyes. The elevator ride is awkward and when Katsuki leads him into Eijirou's room and closes the door behind him it’s even more awkward. The energy in the room is charged with animosity, but most of it is coming from himself. He sits down on his bed and as he's about to open his mouth to tell Katsuki he can take a seat the blond holds up his hand to stop him from speaking.
Eijirou remains silent.
"I'm going to talk, you're going to listen and not interrupt, and then you can ask me questions” , he starts, “and I can’t promise you that I won’t tell you to fuck off if you go too far", Katsuki glowers while looking down at him from where he’s leaning back against the door, his arms crossed over his chest.
"Me and Izuku", Katsuki begins and then levels a glare at him when his eyes widen at the use of the other boy’s real name, " our relationship is fucking complicated."
Eijirou has to hold himself back from laughing, complicated, the asshole says. That's a joke and a half. Katsuki looks at him as if he knows what he's thinking and glares harder, but he doesn't say anything.
"We've known each other since we were toddlers. Our moms are best friends so there hasn't been a time in our lives where we haven't been together", Katsuki continues. “we grew up together- one of my first memories of him involves us playing at the park in our neighborhood”, the blonde looks like he’s lost in a memory, “with flower crowns in our hair as we held hands, we promised each other that we were going to be together forever", Katsuki's eyes fill up with tears and Eijirou gives him the curtesy of looking away.
"I didn't keep that promise", the way he says it sounds like it’s the biggest regret of his life.
"When I got my quirk, everything changed. I was constantly praised for it and it inflated my already huge ego", he laughs bitterly and scoffs. Eijirou doesn’t have the strength to look at him anymore, he remains staring at his bedroom floor. "I started bullying him because his quirk hadn't manifested after he turned five and I was embarrassed to be seen with him, but no matter how many times I pushed him away he continued to chase after me”, he laughs, but Eijirou thinks it sounds sad. “
Sometimes he did leave me alone, but when that happened I made sure that he always came back to me”, he sounds like he’s disgusted with himself as he says it,” because even though I wanted him to leave me alone, I hated it when he looked at anyone else but me". Eijirou finally looks up at his friend, there are still tears in his eyes but he's stubbornly holding them back.
"Our first kiss was in fifth grade", he runs a hand through his hair- Eijirou knows it’s a nervous habit. "A girl in our class had started to hang around him and when I saw her hug him my whole body started to shake. I was furious", he scoffs, “since we lived in the same area we always walked home together and when we got to the front of my house, I grabbed his hand, pulled him into my arms and kissed him", his face turns pink and Eijirou's heart skips a beat.
fuck.
"You're mine, Deku! You're not allowed to hug or kiss anyone but me!", is what I yelled at him and like the idiot that he is, he said “yes” and smiled like I was his whole world". The smile that overtakes his usually grumpy expression has Eijirou's heart beating faster, but now it hurt so much more.
"From there on I was constantly pushing and pulling him away, but one thing that didn't change was the fact that if I ever went too far I would always make him feel better afterwards and there wasn't a day that we didn't hold hands when we walked home together", he spoke with so much fondness and Eijirou felt like he was listening to something that was too private, something that the blond would only ever tell his family or Izuku, but he continued to listen to his story.
"When we got to middle school and it’s like something in my head snapped. I was horrible to him. I turned everyone against him and even then that idiot looked at me with stars in his eyes", he let out a self-deprecating laugh, "but we still held hands and we still kissed as if I wasn't making his life miserable".
"Then one day", the blonde says, and there was a hitch in his breathing, "one day I went too far". Eijirou knows it's going to be bad when the tears finally start to roll down the boy's face. "I told hi-", he starts to sob before he can finish, "I told the person that I've loved since I was four years old that if he wanted to be a hero so bad then maybe in his next life he'll have a quirk and to go take a swan dive off the roof", and then Katsuki breaks down in front of him.
A tidal-wave of emotions washes over him as Katsuki cries in front of him.
Outrage; how can someone say that to another person, especially someone they claim to love?
Pity, because looking at his friend's face right now, he's more than sure that he's going to live with that pain for the rest of his life.
And finally, he feels mournful, because Mina's right. He was never a competitor.
Eijirou wants nothing more than to pull him into his arms and comfort him, but he knows he has no right. He waits until Katsuki pulls himself together before he asks him the one and only question that he truly needs to know the answer to.
"Do you know that I’m in love with you?", and the shocked look on Katsuki's face breaks his heart a hundred time over.
Because if the blond was just being kind by not mentioning it to him, Eijirou would have been okay. That meant that Katsuki had paid attention to him and his feelings would have felt validated. But from the very beginning,Katsuki had never strung him along. Every interaction that they had ever had was the blonde’s genuine form of friendship. He thought he was done crying for the day, but when he feels the tears on his face he's not really surprised.
“No, I didn't know you felt that way about me", and Katsuki sounds sincere, he more than wishes that he would walk over to him and pull him into his arms in the same way he did to Izuku, but even through his blurry vision he could see that Katsuki just looks uncomfortable now.
"I think that this is our limit for emotional conversations today, Bakugou", he says to lighten the mood as he wipes away his tears. Katsuki snorts, but he still looks like he would rather be anywhere but here right now. Eijirou sighs and forces a smile on his face, and as he's about to tell his friend that he's sorry for punching him and to go back to his boyfriend, Katsuki stops him with a growl.
"Wipe that fake ass fuck smile off your face, shitty hair. It’s okay to hurt, you dumbass", he mutters and Eijirou feels his heart leap. "I'll send raccoon eyes in here to stay with you", he says as he opens the door to walk out of his room, but he turns back to him, looks him straight in his eyes and puts the final nail on his heart’s coffin.
"I know that in this situation I'm supposed to say that I'm sorry that I can't return your feelings, but one thing I'm not is a liar.”
“I'm not sorry that I can't return your feelings, because Izuku is my whole world and I'll never love anyone as deeply and as unconditionally as much as I love him, no one else can hope to compare", and then he walks out the door and not once does he look back.
Mina walks in a few minutes later and wraps her arms around him in hug that he so desperately needs; she stays with him throughout the whole night.