#hurtangst

You could barely see. Your sight was never impeccable to begin with, but the mixture of snow and rain flying at your windshield in the 40 mile-per-hour winds definitely didn't help.

You tried not to push your car (which you'd named Daphne) too hard, just easing her through the slush at a gentle speed, trying to ignore what road you were on. You weren't on it for the reasons you used to be. You were just on it now because it was a short-cut from work to home, and you needed the fastest route possible to avoid the storm.

Obviously, that hadn't worked.

"Fucking shit." You muttered to yourself as you hit a particularly wet patch of slush, your tail end swerving just slightly. You corrected yourself with shaky, panicked hands, somehow managing to keep yourself on the road.

Daphne was an old girl, a fixer-upper. But you knew how to handle her wheel.

The headlights of your old sedan cut twin, wavering tunnels through the horizontal sleet. The wipers groaned on their highest setting, fighting a losing battle. You were gripping the steering wheel so hard your knuckles ached, every muscle in your body tensed against the skid and sway of the tires.

You knew this road, sadly. Every pothole, every leaning fence post, every mailbox with a dent from a long-ago baseball. You’d memorized it in sunshine, in twilight, in the deep, comfortable dark of summer nights. You’d ridden down it with your heart full and your hand in his, music blaring from his shitty speakers.

Now, you drove it with your heart in your throat and your eyes straining to see five feet ahead. You just had to get past it. Past him.

The familiar, ramshackle outline of the Munson trailer came into view, a darker smudge against the storm-grey sky. A single, yellow porch light was on, a lonely beacon in the maelstrom. Your foot instinctively eased off the gas, as if slowing down could make you less visible. You held your breath, a stupid, superstitious gesture, as you passed the driveway.

You’d made it maybe two hundred yards past when Daphne gave a violent, shuddering cough. The engine spluttered -- a wet, guttural sound of pure protest. The lights on the dashboard flickered crazily. Then, with a final, dying wheeze, the engine cut out completely. The headlights died, plunging you into near-total darkness, save for the sickly green glow of the radio display.

Silence, except for the hammering of ice and rain on the roof.

“No. No, no, no, come on,” you pleaded, turning the key in the ignition. The starter gave a weak, clicking whirr. Nothing. You tried again. Click-click-click. Despair, cold and sharp, joined the chill already seeping into the car.

You were stranded. In a storm. On this road. Approximately a one-minute walk from the one place in Hawkins you’d said you’d never set foot in again.

You laid your forehead against the freezing steering wheel. A hysterical laugh bubbled up, but it died in your throat. You were well and truly screwed.

Outside, the wind howled like it was laughing at you.

You would not be approaching his door. You knew Daphne was old and at times unreliable, so you kept emergency gear in the backseat. A blanket, a heavy winter jacket, a few bottles of water. A blunt and a lighter for stress. Huffing, you pushed your seat back just enough so that you could climb into the back.

You'd wait the storm out until the morning. Then, you'd walk down the road to the gas station, which opened at 5AM, and call your brother. Or your dad. Or a fucking tow truck. Whoever you thought of first.

The backseat was cramped and smelled of old vinyl and the faint, lingering scent of the pine tree air freshener you’d bought last winter. You wrestled the blanket around your shoulders, then pulled the puffy jacket on over it, creating a sad, bulky nest. The cold was insidious, creeping up through the floorboards, seeping in through the window seals. You could see your breath, little ghostly puffs in the greenish dark.

This was fine. This was manageable. You’d been through worse. A little cold, a little storm. You were tough.

You fumbled for the pre-rolled joint and the lighter in the side pocket of the door. Your fingers were stiff and clumsy with cold. It took three tries to get the flame to catch in the howling draft whistling through the window frame. Finally, the end glowed orange. You took a deep drag, holding the smoke in your lungs, willing it to burn away the panic, the humiliation, the sheer, cosmic unfairness of it all.

The familiar, earthy warmth spread through your chest, taking the sharpest edges off your anxiety. You slumped against the door, watching the sleet paint icy patterns on the window. You were a statue in a glass coffin, waiting for the storm to pass.

You lost track of time. The joint became a stub you carefully extinguished and tucked away. The cold deepened, becoming a tangible, aching presence. You pulled your knees to your chest, tucking your hands under your armpits. The blanket was thin. The jacket helped, but your legs were freezing in your jeans. You started to shiver, a fine, constant tremor you couldn’t control.

This is stupid. This is prideful and stupid. You’re going to get hypothermia over a boy.

But it wasn't just any boy. It was Eddie. And the wound of your ending was still too fresh, too raw, to face the possibility of his pity, or worse, his indifference.

You'd be fine. You weren't freezing to death, you were maintaining body heat. Just a few more hours and you would--

A sharp knock on the window made you yelp.

No. No, no no. It's not who I think it is.

Your heart slammed against your ribs, a trapped bird. Through the ice-fogged glass, distorted by the rivulets of sleet, a dark shape loomed. A familiar silhouette, backlit by the distant, buzzing porch light.

It is. It’s exactly who you think it is.

You stayed perfectly still, a rabbit hoping the predator will lose interest. Maybe if you didn’t move, he’d think you were asleep. Or dead. God, maybe dead is better.

The knock came again, sharper this time. Insistent. Accompanied by a voice, muffled but unmistakably his, cutting through the wind’s howl.

“Open the door, Y/N. I can see you shivering from here.”

The command, the use of your full name -- it brooked no argument. It was the same tone he’d used when you’d tried to walk home from a party in the rain two summers ago, when he’d scooped you up with an exasperated, “Don’t be an idiot,” and driven you home despite your protests.

Defeated, you unlocked the door and pushed it open.

The storm rushed in, but so did he. Eddie filled the cramped space of the open door, dressed in a thick flannel over his t-shirt, a beanie pulled low over his curls. He was holding a massive, industrial-looking flashlight. His eyes swept over your pathetic nest -- the blanket, the jacket, the discarded joint stub on the floor mat -- and a smirk bloomed onto his face.

“What the hell are you doing?” he asked, his voice low, but it wasn't a question. It was an amused accusation.

“Waiting out the storm,” you said, your own voice thin and reedy from cold and disuse. “My car died.”

“I know she died. I heard Daphne cough her last breath. I’ve been watching your sorry ass freeze for the last twenty minutes from my window.” He shook his head, a mixture of disbelief and humor flashing in his eyes. “Get out of the car.”

The smirk. The absolute, insufferable smirk. It ignited a fire in your chest that had nothing to do with warmth. All the cold, all the fear, condensed into a single, white-hot point of pure indignation.

“I’m fine here,” you snapped, your voice gaining strength from the fury.

He leaned further into the car, the flashlight beam highlighting the amusement dancing in his eyes. “Oh, you’re more than fine. You’re a picture of survivalist elegance. The blanket really ties the ‘soon-to-be-icicle’ look together. But see, here’s the thing -- Wayne’s on night shift, and I have a strict policy against letting girls freeze to death within spitting distance of my home. Bad for my rep. So, for the last time: out.”

“My well-being is no longer your concern, Munson,” you shot back, wrapping the pathetic blanket tighter around your shoulders as if it were armor.

“It becomes my concern when you’re littering my view with your old ass car,” he countered, his tone light but his eyes holding yours with an unnerving intensity. “Now, I can do this the easy way, where you walk your proud, stubborn self into the warm trailer like a rational human being. Or I can do it the hard way, which involves me, this flashlight -- which is heavier than it looks -- and a very undignified extraction. Your choice, sweetheart.”

The old pet name, used now as a weapon, stole the breath from your lungs. You stared at him, this infuriating, beautiful, impossible man, standing in a storm offering you shelter you didn't want to need from him.

Another bone-deep shiver rattled through you, betraying your bravado. You saw his smirk soften, just for a second, into something that looked suspiciously like concern before the mask of amused detachment slid back into place.

With a sound of pure, exasperated defeat, you kicked the blanket off your legs. “Fine.”

You climbed out of the car, the wind immediately whipping your hair across your face. You didn't look at him as you slammed the door shut harder than necessary and started stomping through the slush toward the trailer. He fell into step beside you, his longer strides easily keeping pace with your furious march.

“You know,” he said conversationally, as if commenting on the weather, “most people, when their car breaks down in a storm, go to the nearest house. They don’t stage a one-woman Arctic expedition in their backseat.”

“Most people don’t have to worry about the emotional fallout of seeing their ex,” you muttered, staring straight ahead at the glowing porch light.

He snorted, as if it didn't mean much. As if you hadn't been the center of his life for three and a half years.

"I don't bite. Unless you ask me to. You've known me long enough to know that, haven't you?"

The casual, suggestive barb hit its mark, a different kind of chill skittering down your spine. You stopped on the bottom step, looking up to face him. The porch light cast harsh shadows on his face, but his eyes were bright, challenging.

“I know you,” you said, your voice low and steady despite the tremor in your limbs. “That’s the problem. I know exactly what your ‘not biting’ looks like. It looks like… this.” You gestured vaguely between you, at the storm, the trailer, the unbearable tension. “It’s never simple with you, Eddie. It’s a whole production.”

He leaned against the doorframe, blocking the entrance, his arms crossed over his chest. The flannel sleeves were pushed up, revealing the familiar tattoos on his forearms. “And sitting in your car until you got frostbite was the simpler option? Come on. Even you’re not that stupid.”

“It was the safer option!” The words burst out of you, raw and honest. “In there, the only thing I had to fight was the cold. Out here? With you?” You shook your head, a helpless gesture. “It’s much worse.”

The smirk finally vanished. His expression shifted into something unreadable, intense. He studied you -- your wet hair plastered to your forehead, your jacket soaked through, the defiant, fearful light in your eyes. The wind howled around you both, but on this small, lit porch, the world had narrowed to this standoff.

“You’re shaking,” he observed, his voice dropping, losing its edge.

“I’m cold.”

“Yeah.” He pushed off the doorframe and reached to open the door. Warm air, carrying the scent of him and home, rushed out to meet you. “Get inside. Before you really do turn into an icicle. We can argue about the meteorological properties of my personality when you’re not at risk of hypothermia.”

It wasn't an invitation. It was a command, but it was also a retreat. A concession. He was giving you the out, focusing on the practical, immediate danger instead of the emotional minefield.

You hesitated for one more second, then stepped across the threshold into the past. He followed, closing the door firmly on the roaring night, leaving the two of you in the sudden, overwhelming quiet of the trailer, with only the drumming of sleet on the roof and the heavy weight of everything left unsaid between you.

The smell of him was everywhere -- clean laundry, weed, curl product, and the delicious cologne you'd never figured out how he could afford. The memories you'd fought to avoid for about four months now closed in around you. You blinked in surprise at the photo of you two, from when Eddie finally graduated high school, still hung above the kitchen sink. He hadn't taken down the photos. The sight was a physical blow. It was a candid shot -- you were laughing, your head thrown back, and Eddie had his arm slung around your shoulders, grinning at the camera like he’d just won the lottery. It was perched right where it had always been, in the spot of honor where Wayne could see it while he washed dishes. The fact that it was still there felt more intimate, more revealing, than if he’d torn it down in a fit of rage.

You opted to pretend you didn't notice. Anything to avoid a tense conversation. You quickly averted your eyes, focusing on peeling off your soaked jacket. Your fingers were numb and clumsy. The zipper stuck.

“Here,” Eddie’s voice came from behind you, closer than you expected. Before you could protest, his hands were there, brushing yours aside. His touch was efficient, impersonal, as he worked the frozen zipper free. The back of his knuckles grazed the wet fabric of your sweater, and you stiffened.

The jacket came off. You were left standing there in your damp sweater and jeans, feeling more exposed than ever. The trailer’s heat was beginning to penetrate your clothes, a painful thaw that made your skin prickle.

“Bathroom’s the same,” he said, his voice carefully neutral. He pointed a thumb over his shoulder. “There’s towels in the cupboard. You can wear something of mine for the night. It won't hurt you." He asserted, looking at you with an expression that left no room for argument. "You're not wearing the wet shit."

The command in his voice, the sharp practicality of it, was a lifeline in the sea of awkwardness. It gave you a directive, something to do instead of just standing there marinating in regret and residual attraction.

“Fine,” you muttered, not meeting his eyes. You snatched up your purse and made a beeline for the bathroom, needing the space.

The small room was exactly as you remembered. The same slightly-mildewy shower curtain, the same chipped tile, the same half-empty bottle of your shampoo on the edge of the tub. He hadn’t thrown it out. The observation sent a fresh, complicated pang through you. You ignored it, focusing on the task at hand.

Stripping off the wet, icy clothes was a relief. The hot water in the quick shower you took made you feel like you were falling off the bone. You towelled off quickly, the rough fabric bringing you back to reality. Wrapped in the towel, you hesitated. The idea of putting on his clothes… it felt like a surrender. An intimacy you’d forfeited.

A knock at the door made you jump. “It’s on the hook,” Eddie’s voice came through the wood, muffled but clear. “Don’t overthink it. They’re just clothes.” The teasing air to his tone infuriated you.

You unlocked the door and cracked it open. Hanging on the outside hook was a faded, soft-looking gray hoodie and a pair of plaid flannel pajama pants. They were clean. They smelled like his laundry detergent, not like him. It was a small, considerate distinction that somehow made it worse.

You pulled them on. The hoodie was huge, the sleeves swallowing your hands. The pants were too long, pooling around your ankles. You rolled the waistband and cuffed the legs. Looking in the foggy mirror, you saw a ghost -- a version of yourself from years ago, when you’d steal his clothes just because you could, because you loved being surrounded by him.

When you emerged from the bathroom, scrubbed clean and drowning in his clothes, you found him in the kitchenette. He’d put the kettle on and was leaning against the counter, a smirk already playing on his lips as he took you in.

“Well, look at that,” he drawled, his eyes doing a slow, appreciative sweep from your rolled cuffs to the hood swallowing half your face. “The lost princess of Hawkins, slumming it in peasant garb. It’s a good look. A little… derelicte, but it works.”

You scowled, tugging at the too-long sleeve. “Shut up. You’re built like a scarecrow.”

“A scarecrow with impeccable taste in loungewear, thank you very much.” He gestured to the kettle with his chin. “Tea? Or I think Wayne might have some of that horrific instant cocoa you used to love. The kind that’s mostly sugar and artificial flavor.”

The mention of your old preference, the specific memory of you curling on this same couch with a mug of too-sweet cocoa, was a tiny landmine. You ignored it. “Tea’s fine.”

He busied himself with mugs, his back to you. “So,” he said, his voice deliberately light. “What’s the verdict? Is the storm outside still worse than the storm of my terrible personality in here?”

“It’s a tie,” you shot back, settling onto the far end of the couch, tucking your feet under you. “The sleet is less predictable, but you’re louder.”

He barked a laugh, a genuine sound that felt like a shockwave in the small space. “Fair. I’ll take it.” He brought over two mugs, handing you one. His fingers brushed yours. Neither of you flinched. He sat on the opposite end of the couch, leaving a respectable, cavernous gap between you. He took a sip, watching you over the rim. “You know, for a minute there, I thought you were really gonna try to wait it out. I had a whole running commentary planned. ‘Hour one: the princess develops a slight shiver. Hour two: regret sets in. Hour three: a single, frozen tear…’”

“You were watching me?” You tried to sound annoyed, but it came out strangely breathless.

“Entertainment’s slim during an ice apocalypse,” he shrugged, but his eyes were sharp on yours. “Besides, it was like a nature documentary. The Tragic Pride of the North American Ex-Girlfriend.”

“You’re an asshole.”

“And yet you’ve come right back to me.” He grinned, unrepentant. “Seems like we’re both dealing with unfortunate realities tonight. Daphne threw you to the dogs.”

You rolled your eyes, glaring at him.

"Don't talk shit about Daphne."

He snorted back, tilting his head back to glance out the window at said object.

"I knew as soon as I met Daphne that she'd screw you over one day. Wayne said he'd get you something new," he shrugged. "But nooo. You loved the death-trap too much."

The barb landed differently this time. It wasn't just about the car; it was about your stubbornness, your sentimentality, your refusal to let go of things -- people -- even when they were bad for you. It was a mirror held up to your own choices, and the reflection stung.

“I don’t just throw things away because they’re old or unreliable,” you shot back, your voice tight. “Some things are worth fixing.”

The moment the words left your mouth, you realized your mistake. The air in the trailer seemed to freeze solid, thicker than the ice on the windows.

Eddie’s grin vanished. His eyes, which had been sparkling with mischievous challenge, went flat and dark. He leaned forward slowly, placing his mug on the coffee table with exaggerated care. The click of ceramic on wood was deafening in the silence.

“Is that so?” he asked, his voice dangerously quiet. All traces of teasing were gone, replaced by a cold, simmering anger. “Things worth fixing, huh? That’s a fascinating philosophy.” He tilted his head, his gaze boring into you. “Tell me, then. Where’s the line? At what point does something become so fucking broken it’s not worth the effort anymore? When it leaves you stranded in the cold? Or is it before that? Maybe when it makes you feel so shitty you have to lie to get away from it?”

Each question was a lash. He wasn't talking about Daphne anymore. He was talking about you. About him. About you and him.

You flinched, pulling the oversized hoodie tighter around yourself as if it could shield you. “Eddie, that’s not what I meant--”

“Isn’t it?” he interrupted, standing up in one fluid, angry motion. He began to pace the small length of the living room, his movements restless, charged. “Because from where I’m sitting, it sounds exactly like what you meant. You’ll nurse along a shitbox car because it’s familiar. You’ll fight for it. But a relationship? A person? Nah. That you just… walk away from. No repairs. No fixing. Just a clean break and a bullshit excuse about ‘different paths.’ Or 'going nowhere.'” He stopped pacing and turned to face you, his chest heaving. “So forgive me if I’m a little fucking confused about your automotive morals.”

The raw pain in his voice, the accusation that cut straight to the heart of your own guilt, was too much. The tears you’d been fighting since you arrived sprang to your eyes, hot and immediate.

“You think it was easy?” you choked out, surging to your feet to face him. The blanket pooled at your feet. “You think I just woke up one day and decided to ‘throw you away’? I was terrified! I loved you so much it felt like I was drowning, and everyone was telling me you were a lost cause! I didn’t know how to fix us because I didn’t even know what was broken!”

“You could have talked to me!” he roared, the sound raw and startling in the small space. He took a step toward you, his hands clenched at his sides. “You could have fought with me! Instead, you just… left. You handed me a note written in fucking platitudes and disappeared. That’s not fixing something, Y/N. That’s scrapping it for parts.”

You were both shouting now, four months of suppressed hurt and anger erupting in the warm, claustrophobic space. The storm outside was nothing compared to the tempest in the room.

“I was trying to save myself!” you cried, the confession ripped from you.

“FROM WHAT?” he yelled back, throwing his hands up. “FROM ME?”

The question echoed, brutal and final. You stared at each other, breathing heavily, the truth of his words hanging between you like a guillotine.

From me.

In your darkest moments, yes. From the chaos, from the uncertainty, from the sheer, overwhelming force of loving Eddie Munson. You’d been trying to save yourself from the very thing you’d missed every single day since.

The fight drained out of you as quickly as it had come, leaving you hollow and shaking. You looked at him -- really looked at him -- seeing not the infuriating, teasing boy from the porch, but the man whose heart you’d shattered with your fear. The man who still had your picture on his wall.

“Yeah,” you whispered, the admission a surrender. A single tear traced a path down your cheek. “From you.”

He recoiled as if you’d struck him physically. All the anger bled from his face, replaced by a wounded, devastating comprehension. He took a step back, then another, until his back hit the wall. He slid down it slowly until he was sitting on the floor, his head in his hands.

You stood frozen, the weight of what you’d just said crushing you. A moment passed.

You glanced at him, hearing movement. He was looking the other direction, his profile painful to see. The flickering light of the lamp caught the silver in his rings, the curve of his lower lip. He was still so beautiful it hurt.

The silence fell upon you. Tense. Pregnant with too many emotions to name. You looked away, but you could feel him turn to you, his gaze heating up your skin. His sight was always so perceptive, so thoughtful and warm. You were afraid of him watching you, afraid of his intelligent brown eyes deducing things that you didn't want deduced.

You fought the urge to get up and hide from his eyes. In the bathroom. The spare bedroom, hiding under the covers.

"You cut your hair."

The statement was simple, but heavy. You could hear the suppressed anger in his tone. The hurt. The ache. The holding back of tears, the holding back of a rage fit. His voice was a broken rasp, a quiet devastation that was worse than any shout. It wasn't just an observation. It was an accusation of a change he hadn't been part of, a loss he'd had to witness from a distance. You cut your hair. You changed. You moved on without me.

Your hand flew self-consciously to the ends, now resting just above your shoulders. "Yeah," you whispered, your own voice trembling. "A while ago."

He didn't look at you. He kept his gaze fixed on some distant point on the wall, his jaw working. "I liked it long."

Three words. They held a universe of grief. I liked it. I liked you. I liked us.

A sob caught in your throat. This was agony. This quiet, raw aftermath was worse than the screaming. It was the autopsy of your relationship, performed in the cold, clear light of shared pain.

"I did it after," you admitted, the words tumbling out in a rush. "I thought... I thought if I looked different, I'd feel different. But I just felt... bald. And sad."

He hummed.

"Had to erase anything I touched, huh? I was that bad?"

You shuddered, looking up at the ceiling.

"Stop it, Eddie. Fucking stop it."

He laughed humorlessly, his eyes finally locking back onto yours. The predatory fire was back, the ruthless analyzing.

"Stop what? What part of this is what you didn't want? You chose it," he said, his voice raw.

"Stop, Eddie!" You cried out.

He was never a good listener. Especially not when he was hurt. Especially not when the armor of sarcasm had been stripped away, leaving only the raw, pulsing nerve of his own perceived worthlessness.

He surged to his feet, a sudden, violent motion that made you flinch back against the couch cushions. He loomed over you, his hands clenched into fists at his sides, but he didn't move closer. The threat wasn't physical; it was emotional, and it was crushing.

"You want me to stop?" he demanded, his voice a low, dangerous snarl. "You want me to pretend like you didn't look at our life together and decide it was a fucking prison sentence? Fine. Let's play pretend. Let's pretend you're just a girl whose car broke down. Let's pretend I'm just a guy being hospitable. Let's pretend the last three years never happened. Is that easier for you? Is that safer?"

He was breathing heavily, his chest rising and falling in sharp bursts. Every word was a jab, designed to hurt because he was hurting, and he wanted you to feel it, to own it. You couldn't take it anymore.

You stood, grabbing your wet jacket and clothes.

"What are you doing?" He snapped.

"Leaving," you said, your voice surprisingly steady as you shoved your arms into the damp, cold sleeves of your jacket. The fabric felt like a slab of ice against your skin, a shocking contrast to the warmth of the trailer. "You win, Eddie. Always."

He crossed the distance in three steps, grabbing ahold of the jacket. Quickly and efficiently, he yanked it off from you, tossing it to the floor.

"You're not."

His voice was final. It wasn't a plea this time; it was a decree, forged in the fire of his own panic. The sight of you actually leaving, of you choosing the literal storm over his emotional one, had short-circuited his anger, replacing it with something more primal: possession.

You stood frozen, the sudden absence of the jacket leaving you exposed in the thin, borrowed hoodie. You could see the wild, frantic beat of his pulse in his throat. His hands, which had just stripped the jacket from you, hovered in the air between you, as if he wanted to grab onto something else -- your arms, your shoulders, you -- but was holding himself back by a thread.

"You're not leaving," he repeated, quieter now, his eyes locked on yours. "You walk out that door, you'll freeze. And I… I can't…" He swallowed hard, the sentence dying in his throat.

The raw, unspoken terror in his eyes undid you. The proud, furious exit was forgotten. You were both trapped -- by the weather, by history, by this devastating, inescapable connection that neither rage nor distance could sever.

A shuddering breath escaped you. "Then what do you want from me, Eddie?" Your voice was a broken whisper. "You want me to stand here and let you flay me alive? Because I can't do that either."

The fight seemed to leave him in a rush. His shoulders slumped, and he took a step back, running both hands over his face. When he looked at you again, he just looked exhausted. Defeated.

"I don't know," he admitted, the confession hollow. "I don't know what I want. I just know I can't watch you walk into that."

The silence stretched, thick and painful. The wind howled a reminder of the impossible choice: stay in the emotional warzone, or flee into the physical one.

Finally, he gestured vaguely toward the couch. "Just… sit down. Please. I'll… I'll shut up. We don't have to talk. We don't have to do anything. Just… exist. Until morning."

It was the barest minimum. A ceasefire with no terms, no resolution. Just a mutual agreement not to destroy each other -- or yourselves -- for the next few hours.

Slowly, feeling numb, you walked back to the couch and sat on the very edge, as far from his side as possible. He didn't sit next to you. He sank into the armchair opposite, putting the width of the coffee table between you. He picked up his cold mug of tea, stared into it, and said nothing.

Katsuki clicked his tongue, a sudden surge of stubborn affection overtaking his usual rigid boundaries. Without warning, he reached out, wrapping his calloused fingers firmly around (Y/N)’s hand. He laced their fingers together, pulling (Y/N) just an inch closer so their shoulders brushed.

Instantly, he felt it. It was subtle—so subtle that anyone else walking past them on the bustling campus wouldn't have noticed—but to Katsuki, it was deafening. (Y/N)’s hand went rigid. The muscles in his forearm locked up, a sudden, microscopic jolt traveling through his frame. (Y/N) didn’t pull away; in fact, after a beat of heavy hesitation, his fingers squeezed back, offering a tight, manufactured reassurance. He even turned his head, offering Katsuki a small, faint smile that didn't quite reach his eyes.

But the tension never left. (Y/N)’s shoulders remained high, his gaze darting subtly to a group of passing students, his posture shifting as if he were waiting for a blow to land.

Katsuki dropped his hand a few minutes later when they reached the steps of the humanities building. (Y/N) offered a quick, distracted wave, muttering something about film study with the team, and disappeared into the crowd. Katsuki stood on the steps for a long moment, staring at the space where (Y/N) had just been, a bitter taste rising in the back of his throat.

"Hey, Blasty! You trying to burn a hole through the concrete with your mind, or are you actually going to come inside?"

Katsuki didn't turn around, but he grunted, recognizing Mina Ashido’s voice. She bounced up the steps, her bright pink hair catching the afternoon sun, flanked by Kirishima, Kaminari, Sero, and Jiro. They were his crew, the loud, obnoxious idiots who had somehow wormed their way into his life during freshman year and refused to leave. They were also the first people Katsuki had told when he and (Y/N)—his long-time friend, the guy he’d known since middle school—finally stopped dancing around each other and made things official.

They had been nothing but supportive. Kirishima had practically thrown a party; Mina had choked him in a hug; Kaminari had made a joke that got him sparked; Jiro had given him a rare, genuine smile; and Sero had just laughed and said, About damn time. Even Aizawa, their gruff, permanently exhausted academic advisor, had merely looked up from his grading, sighed, and muttered, Just don't let it distract you from your midterms. His parents, too, had welcomed (Y/N) with open arms, Mitsuki treating him like a second son and Masaru quietly offering him the best cuts of meat at dinner.

They had a village. They had a safety net.

So why did it still feel like they were walking on a tightrope over a canyon?

"Shut up, Pinky," Katsuki snapped, though the fire wasn't really in it. He turned and trudged into the building, the group falling into step around him.

They crowded into their usual corner of the student lounge. Kaminari and Sero immediately started arguing over a statistics assignment, while Kirishima began rambling about his latest weight-lifting plateau. Katsuki sat on the edge of a couch, arms crossed, staring blankly at his laptop screen.

Mina watched him. She had a keen eye for dynamics, far sharper than her bubbly exterior let on. She noticed the way Katsuki kept glancing toward the windows, the way his jaw was clenched tightly enough to crack a tooth.

When the guys got distracted by Jiro showing them a video on her phone, Mina slid into the empty seat next to Katsuki. She didn't push him, just leaned her chin on her hand, looking at him with a softness that made Katsuki instantly defensive.

"What?" he growled, keeping his voice low.

"Everything okay with you and (Y/N)?" she asked softly.

Katsuki’s shoulders stiffened. "Fine. Why wouldn't it be?"

Mina hesitated, twirling a strand of her hair around her finger. "I don't know. I saw you guys walking earlier. Near the library. You held his hand, and... I don't know, Bakugo. I’m not trying to interrogate you, seriously. I love you guys. But I’ve noticed it a few times lately. Whenever you do stuff like that in public—hand holding, or when you gave him that peck on the cheek last week by the gym—he freezes up. It’s like he’s playing a part, but he’s totally stressed out inside. Is he... is he 100% into this relationship? Like, the way you make it seem?"

The words hit Katsuki like a physical strike to the chest. His immediate instinct was to yell, to tell her to mind her own business, to blast her through the window. But the raw, uncharacteristic honesty in Mina’s eyes stopped the shout in his throat.

He looked down at his lap, his fingers curling into fists against his jeans.

"I've noticed it too," Katsuki said, his voice dropping to a gravelly whisper that Mina had to strain to hear. It felt like tearing out a piece of his own throat just to admit it. "He thinks he’s hiding it. He thinks he’s being smooth. But he’s stiff as a board every damn time. I touch him, and it’s like I’m a live wire shocking him."

Mina’s expression crumbled into deep sympathy. "Have you talked to him about it?"

"No," Katsuki muttered, staring at the floor. "Because I’m a coward. Because I know exactly what it is, and I don't want to face it."

He didn't say the words out loud—internalized homophobia—but they hung heavy in the air between them. Katsuki knew (Y/N) loved him. He knew it in the quiet moments, in the dead of night when they were wrapped up in Katsuki’s bed, away from the eyes of the world, where (Y/N) would press his face into Katsuki’s neck and breathe him in like he was oxygen. In the dark, (Y/N) was soft, pliable, and entirely his.

But the daylight brought the rest of the world.

(Y/N) wasn't just Katsuki’s boyfriend; he was a starting linebacker for the university’s football team. He existed in a world dominated by loud, aggressive, hyper-masculine energy. And while the campus itself was generally progressive, the locker room was a different beast entirely.

Katsuki had passed by the athletic wing a few times to wait for (Y/N) after practice. He’d heard the casual, careless slurs tossed around like footballs. He’d heard some of (Y/N)’s own teammates—guys he shared a defensive line with—making snide, mocking comments about (Y/N) being "soft" or "fruity" because he didn't join in on their crude jokes about women, or because someone had spotted him talking a little too closely with Katsuki. (Y/N) always laughed it off or ignored it, but Katsuki had seen the way those words settled like toxic ash in his boyfriend's eyes.

Worse than the teammates, though, was (Y/N)’s father.

Katsuki had met the man exactly twice, and both times had left him wanting to break something. (Y/N)’s father was a traditionalist in the worst sense of the word—a rigid, overbearing man who viewed his son not as a person, but as a legacy to cultivate. He was openly, venomously homophobic, frequently making remarks during televised sports or family dinners about how "the world was soft" and how he "didn't raise a degenerate." (Y/N) lived in perpetual terror of that man finding out the truth. He lived with a heavy, suffocating blanket of shame draped over his shoulders, trying desperately to balance his love for Katsuki with the desperate, deep-seated urge to please a father who would hate him if he knew who he truly was.

"He's drowning in it, Mina," Katsuki whispered, his chest aching with a rare, terrifying vulnerability. "And I don't know how to pull him out without drowning him completely."

Mina reached out, gently placing a hand on his shoulder. "Just be there for him, Bakugo. Don't push him faster than he can go. But don't let him break himself, either."

The day of the championship game arrived with a tense, electric energy that swallowed the entire campus. It was the biggest game of the season, and the stadium was packed to maximum capacity.

Katsuki sat in the front row of the family and friends section, flanked by his parents. Mitsuki was wearing a jersey in (Y/N)’s team colors, shouting loudly at the field, while Masaru sat quietly beside her, offering a calm anchor. A few rows back, Kirishima, Mina, and the rest of the squad were making enough noise to wake the dead, holding up a massive, poorly painted sign with (Y/N)’s jersey number on it.

On the field, (Y/N) was a force of nature. He moved with a brutal, calculated efficiency, tearing through the opposing team's offense, his performance fueled by a manic, desperate energy. Katsuki watched him through narrowed eyes. He could see the strain in the way (Y/N) stood during timeouts, the way his shoulders were hunched under his pads. He was playing like a man running from a ghost.

In the VIP box directly above them sat (Y/N)’s parents. Katsuki had caught sight of his father earlier—a tall, stern man with a permanent scowl, watching his son’s every move with a critical, unforgiving glare. (Y/N)’s mother sat beside him, looking anxious and small.

The final whistle blew, a deafening explosion of sound echoing through the stadium as (Y/N)’s team secured a hard-fought victory. The crowd erupted. Players stormed the field, dumping Gatorade over Coach Endeavor’s broad shoulders. The towering, fiery coach actually cracked a rare, terrifying smile, clapping his players on their backs with heavy, booming hands.

Katsuki didn't care about the trophy. His eyes were locked on (Y/N), who was taking off his helmet, his hair soaked in sweat, breathing heavily.

The barrier separating the stands from the field was opened for families. Mitsuki immediately pulled Masaru along, dragging Katsuki down to the turf. The crowd was a chaotic sea of jerseys, pom-poms, and roaring fans.

When (Y/N) caught sight of them, a genuine, blinding smile finally broke across his exhausted face. The defensive walls he usually wore seemed to crumble under the sheer adrenaline of the win and the sight of the people who truly cared for him. He jogged over, dropping his helmet to the grass.

Mitsuki threw her arms around his bulky, padded shoulders first. "You did amazing, brat! Absolutely crushed 'em!"

"Thanks, Mama Bakugo," (Y/N) breathed, his voice rough.

Masaru stepped up next, offering a warm pat on the shoulder and a quiet, prideful smile. "An incredible game, son. We're very proud of you."

Then, (Y/N) turned his eyes to Katsuki.

The adrenaline, the euphoria of the victory, the sheer relief of the game being over—it all seemed to culminate in a rare moment of absolute abandon for (Y/N). He didn't look around. He didn't scan the crowd for his teammates or the stands for his father. He just looked at Katsuki.

Before Katsuki could even say a word, (Y/N) stepped forward, wrapped his large hands around the back of Katsuki’s neck, and pulled him in.

It wasn't a hesitant, tense touch. It was a real, solid kiss, right there on the open field, under the blinding stadium lights. (Y/N)’s lips were warm, tasting of sweat and sports drink, pressing against Katsuki’s with a desperate, hungry sincerity. Katsuki froze for a fraction of a second in pure shock before his own instincts kicked in. He grabbed the front of (Y/N)’s jersey, pulling him closer, melting into the kiss with a fierce, possessive intensity. For a beautiful, fleeting five seconds, the rest of the world ceased to exist.

Then, reality shattered.

A heavy, low voice cut through the surrounding noise like a chainsaw, instantly freezing the blood in Katsuki’s veins.

"What the hell do you think you're doing?"

(Y/N) ripped himself away so fast Katsuki almost stumbled forward. The euphoria vanished from (Y/N)’s face, replaced instantly by a pale, sickening mask of absolute terror.

Standing a few feet away, having pushed through the lingering crowd, was (Y/N)’s father, Kouji. His face was a dark, mottled purple with rage, his veins standing out on his neck, his eyes wide and burning with a toxic, venomous hatred. (Y/N)’s mother, Yua, stood a step behind him, her hands clasped over her mouth, tears already welling in her eyes.

"Dad," (Y/N) choked out, his voice instantly dropping all its strength, sounding like a terrified child. "Dad, wait, let me—"

"Shut your mouth," Kouji snarled, stepping closer, his presence towering and suffocating. He didn't care that they were surrounded by hundreds of people. His fury was a localized storm, entirely focused on his son. "I come out here to watch a championship game, and I see my son—a starting linebacker, a man I raised—acting like a disgusting, pathetic degenerate on the open field? With him?"

He hurled the word him at Katsuki like a curse, glaring at the blonde boy with an intense, violent disgust.

Katsuki’s temper, usually a raging fire, instantly ignited. He stepped in front of (Y/N), his chest heaving, his palms sparking slightly with nervous adrenaline. "Watch your mouth, old man. You don't talk to him like that."

"Katsuki, don't," Masaru said quietly but firmly, stepping up beside his son, while Mitsuki moved to place herself between Katsuki and the enraged father.

"You stay out of this," Kouji barked at the Bakugos, before pointing a thick, shaking finger directly at his son's face. "I am going to give you one chance, and one chance only, boy. You walk away from this freak right now. You pack your bags, you come home, and we get you sorted out. You choose right now. You choose your family, your future, our name—or you choose this disgusting lifestyle. Choose."

(Y/N) looked like he was suffocating. He looked at his father, then at his mother, who was weeping silently, shaking her head as if begging him to just submit, to just lie, to save himself. Then he looked at Katsuki. Katsuki’s heart was hammering against his ribs, a cold, sharp dread piercing his chest. He didn't say anything. He wouldn't force (Y/N). But the look in Katsuki’s eyes was pure, agonized pleading.

Don't let him break you.

(Y/N) took a ragged, trembling breath. The shame that had weighed him down for years seemed to curdle into something else—a desperate, cornered survival instinct. He stood a little straighter, though his hands were shaking violently.

"No," (Y/N) whispered.

The man’s eyes narrowed. "What did you say to me?"

"I said no, Dad," (Y/N) said, his voice cracking but louder this time. "I’m not leaving him. I’m not... I’m not going to pretend anymore."

The reaction was instantaneous and violent. Kouji let out a guttural roar of pure rage, lunging forward. He didn't even aim for (Y/N) first; his blind fury drove him straight toward Katsuki, his large hand reaching out to grab the blonde by the collar of his jacket to rip him away.

"Get your hands off him!" (Y/N) screamed.

Before his father could touch Katsuki, (Y/N) stepped into the gap. With a massive surge of his athletic strength, fueled by pure panic, (Y/N) slammed his hands into his father's chest, shoving the older man backward.

The man stumbled back two steps into the grass.

A heavy, suffocating silence fell over their immediate vicinity. Shoving his father was a boundary (Y/N) had never crossed, a taboo written into the very DNA of his upbringing. The moment his hands left his father's chest, (Y/N) froze, his eyes widening in horror at what he had just done.

"You piece of trash," Kouji whispered, his voice trembling with a terrifying, quiet malice.

Before anyone could react, the man lunged back forward with terrifying speed. He caught (Y/N) completely off guard. His large, calloused hands slammed into the hard plastic of (Y/N)’s shoulder pads, using the boy’s own momentum against him. He drove (Y/N) backward with brutal force, slamming him hard against the concrete base of the nearest stadium wall.

The impact echoed with a sickening, hollow thud. (Y/N) gasped, the air completely knocked from his lungs.

"Hey! Stop!" Mitsuki screamed, lunging forward, but the man was already moving.

With a curled, heavy fist, (Y/N)’s father threw a brutal, full-force punch directly into his son's face.

The sound of flesh striking flesh was horrific. (Y/N)’s head snapped back against the concrete wall, a sharp, spray of bright red blood exploding from his nose and split lip. His knees buckled instantly, his body sliding halfway down the wall, his eyes glazed and unfocused.

"Stop it! Please, stop!" Yua shrieked, grabbing at her husband's arm, but he shook her off like a leaf.

"Get the hell off him!" Katsuki roared, his vision going completely red. He lunged forward, ready to tear the man to pieces, his hands igniting, but before he could reach him, a massive, towering shadow fell over the entire group.

"That is enough!"

Coach Enji Todoroki stepped into the space like a brick wall, his massive, imposing frame completely cutting off (Y/N)’s father. The coach’s face was set in a terrifying, thunderous scowl, his large hand wrapping around the father's forearm with a grip that looked capable of crushing bone.

"Lay another hand on my player," Endeavor rumbled, his voice vibrating with a dangerous, authoritative heat, "and I will have campus security and the police throw you out of this stadium in zip-ties. Do you understand me?"

Right on cue, Masaru stepped up beside Endeavor, his usual gentle demeanor completely gone, replaced by a cold, rigid fury that Katsuki had never seen in his father before. "We are witnesses to an assault. Move away from him immediately."

Kouji looked at the towering coach, then at the furious Bakugo family, and realized he was entirely outnumbered, surrounded by a crowd that was now turning to stare in shock. He pulled his arm out of Enji's grip, his face still twisted in disgust.

"Keep him," the man spat, wiping a stray drop of his son's blood from his own knuckle. He turned his freezing gaze down toward the boy slumped against the wall. "You’re dead to me. Don't ever come back to my house. You're no son of mine."

He turned on his heel, grabbing his weeping wife by the arm, and dragged her away into the crowd, leaving a wake of stunned silence behind him.

"Oh my god, (Y/N)," Mitsuki gasped, immediately dropping to her knees on the grass beside the boy.

Katsuki was already there, his heart thrashing frantically against his ribs like a trapped bird. "Hey, hey, look at me," he choked out, his hands trembling violently as he reached out to touch (Y/N)’s face.

(Y/N) was shivering, his breath coming in ragged, shallow wheezes. Blood was pouring freely from his nose, painting his chin and the white numbers of his jersey a horrific, stark crimson. His lip was split wide open, swelling rapidly. But it wasn't the physical injuries that made Katsuki’s stomach drop into a bottomless abyss; it was the look in (Y/N)’s eyes.

The eyes were completely broken. The shame, the terror, the sudden, violent destruction of his entire world had shattered something deep inside him. He looked up at Katsuki, and instead of finding comfort, he looked like he was looking at his executioner.

"Hey, let us help you up, sweetheart," Mitsuki murmured softly, her voice full of maternal heartbreak as she reached for his arm. Katsuki reached out too, trying to cup his cheek. "Come on, let’s get you to the training room, get you cleaned up—"

"Don't," (Y/N) croaked.

The word was small, wet with blood, but it carried a desperate, violent finality.

Before either of them could stop him, (Y/N) scrambled backward against the wall, using his remaining strength to push himself up. He shoved past Mitsuki’s hands, and when Katsuki reached out to grab his waist to steady him, (Y/N) violently slapped his hands away.

"Don't touch me!" (Y/N) shouted, his voice cracking into a raw, agonized sob.

Katsuki froze, his hands hovering in the air, his chest feeling like it had been pierced by a jagged piece of ice. "(Y/N)... please, just let us—"

"I can't do this," (Y/N) wept, blood leaking down his face, dripping off his chin and leaving a stark, terrifying trail of red droplets on the green turf beneath him. He was shaking so hard he could barely stand, his eyes wild and unfocused as he looked at Katsuki. "I can't. Look what happened. Look at what this did. It’s over, Katsuki. We’re over. Just... leave me the hell alone!"

"No—(Y/N), wait!" Katsuki screamed, stepping forward, but (Y/N) was already turning.

He didn't run—he couldn't, his body too battered and broken from the impact—but he stumbled away into the chaotic sea of the stadium crowd, his broad, padded shoulders hunched, his head down. Katsuki tried to pursue him, but the crowd closed in like a wall of water, and Coach Endeavor placed a heavy hand on Katsuki’s shoulder, holding him back.

"Let him go, kid," Enji said, his voice unusually quiet, devoid of its usual harshness. "He’s in shock. Pushing him right now will only make him run further. Let my staff find him. We’ll take care of the medical."

Katsuki fell to his knees on the turf, staring at the small, dark spatters of red blood drying on the grass. The stadium around him was still cheering, music still blaring from the loudspeakers, but to Katsuki, the entire world had just gone completely, terrifyingly silent.

Three days.

For three agonizing, endless days, Katsuki existed in a living nightmare.

(Y/N) hadn't returned to his dorm room. He hadn't answered a single one of Katsuki’s a hundred phone calls or texts. He hadn't responded to Kirishima, Mina, or even Coach Enji, who had quietly informed Katsuki that (Y/N) had cleared out his locker in the dead of night following the game. Aizawa had checked the university system; (Y/N) hadn't formally withdrawn from his classes yet, but he hadn't shown up to a single one.

He had simply vanished into the concrete expanse of the city, leaving nothing behind but the memory of his blood on the grass.

Katsuki hadn't slept. He hadn't eaten more than a few forced bites of toast his mother had shoved down his throat. He spent his days sitting on the couch in his parents' living room, staring blankly at his phone, his mind replaying those five seconds of euphoria on the field, followed instantly by the horrific sound of (Y/N)’s head cracking against the wall.

The guilt was a physical weight crushing his lungs. If he hadn't held his hand on campus, if he hadn't pushed for PDA, if he hadn't leaned into that kiss... if he had just been content to keep them a secret, hidden away in the dark where it was safe, (Y/N) would still have a family. (Y/N) wouldn't be bleeding somewhere in a cheap motel room, broken and alone.

It was late afternoon on the third day. The sky outside the large living room window was a bruised, heavy purple, twilight settling over the quiet suburban neighborhood.

Katsuki was sitting on the floor, his back pressed against the base of the sofa, his knees pulled up to his chest. Masaru sat on the couch behind him, a warm mug of tea resting untouched on the coffee table. The house was quiet; Mitsuki had gone to the grocery store, leaving the two men alone in the heavy silence.

Masaru watched his son. It broke his heart to see Katsuki like this—stripped of his usual explosive fire, reduced to a hollow, silent shell of misery.

"Katsuki," Masaru said softly, his voice a calm, steady presence in the dim room.

Katsuki didn't look up. He just tightened his grip on his own shins.

"If he comes back," Masaru began slowly, choosing his words with immense care, "if he walks through that door, or calls you... would you take him back?"

Katsuki’s shoulders hitched. He let out a ragged, trembling breath, his forehead resting against his knees. "He hates me, Dad. He told me it was over. He said it was my fault—"

"He didn't say it was your fault, Katsuki," Masaru interrupted gently, leaning forward to place a warm, comforting hand on his son’s shoulder. "He was terrified. He was a boy who had just watched his whole life shatter in front of him, violently, by the person who was supposed to protect him. He didn't hate you. He hated the pain. He hated the fear."

Masaru squeezed his shoulder. "So I ask you again. If he comes back to apologize... would you take him back?"

Katsuki lifted his head, his eyes red-rimmed, dark circles carved deep into his skin. His jaw clenched, a tiny, familiar spark of his true self flickering back to life in his chest.

"In a heartbeat," Katsuki whispered, his voice cracking with an intense, fierce certainty. "I don't care if he never wants to hold my hand in public again. I don't care if we have to hide from the whole damn world. I just want him back. I want to make sure he’s safe. I’d take him back in a fucking heartbeat."

Masaru smiled, a soft, incredibly tender expression. He didn't say anything for a moment, his eyes shifting away from Katsuki to look out the large front window that faced the street and the small covered porch.

"Well," Masaru said quietly, tapping Katsuki’s shoulder and pointing a finger toward the glass. "Then I suggest you get moving. Because your chance is currently pacing on our porch, and it looks like he’s about to walk away."

Katsuki’s heart stopped.

He lunged to his feet so fast his knees knocked against the coffee table, rattling the tea mug. He spun around, his eyes locking onto the window.

There, standing under the dim yellow light of the porch lamp, was a tall, broad silhouette.

It was (Y/N).

He looked smaller than usual, his large shoulders hunched inside a heavy, oversized hoodie, the hood pulled up high. In his large, trembling hands, he was holding a small, tightly bound bouquet of deep purple hyacinths—flowers Katsuki knew from his mother’s gardening books carried a traditional meaning of deep regret, a plea for forgiveness.

(Y/N) was staring at the front door, his feet shifting nervously on the wooden planks. He took one step forward, reached his hand out toward the doorbell, and then froze. The sheer weight of his hesitation was visible from across the room. He slowly lowered his hand, his head dropping, his shoulders slumping in total defeat. He turned around, stepping off the porch, preparing to disappear back into the shadows of the street.

Katsuki didn't think. The universe, his breathing, his doubts—it all evaporated.

Masaru swore he had never seen his son move so fast in his entire life.

Katsuki tore across the living room, his socks sliding wildly on the hardwood floor. He threw himself at the front door, ripping it open with so much force the handle slammed against the interior wall with a deafening slam.

He didn't care that he was barefoot. He didn't care that the late autumn air was freezing. He sprinted down the porch steps, his feet hitting the cold concrete of the driveway.

"(Y/N)!" Katsuki roared.

The figure down the driveway froze. (Y/N) spun around, his hood falling back from his head, his eyes widening in pure shock.

The porch light illuminated his face, and Katsuki felt a fresh wave of agony hit his chest. (Y/N)’s nose was slightly crooked, taped up with a small medical strip. His lower lip was split, a jagged dark line of stitches holding the skin together, and a massive, deep purple bruise bloomed across his left cheekbone, stretching down to his jaw. He looked battered, exhausted, and utterly broken.

But as Katsuki ran toward him, (Y/N) didn't move. He just stood there, clutching the purple flowers to his chest like a shield, tears instantly filling his eyes.

Katsuki didn't slow down. He closed the distance between them in a desperate blur, throwing his entire body weight into (Y/N).

He slammed into the larger boy’s chest, his arms flying around (Y/N)’s neck, gripping him with a terrifying, crushing strength. The impact forced a small, breathless gasp from (Y/N)’s lungs, and the bouquet of hyacinths crinkled loudly between their bodies.

"You absolute fucking idiot," Katsuki sobbed, his voice breaking completely as he buried his face in the crook of (Y/N)’s neck. He hid his face in the soft cotton of the hoodie, breathing in the familiar, comforting scent of soap and cedar that he had missed for three long days. "You stupid, miserable bastard. Where the hell were you? I thought you were dead. I thought... you hated me."

(Y/N) stood rigid for a fraction of a second, his hands hovering in the air, before the dam completely broke.

The flowers fell from his grip, scattering softly across the dark concrete of the driveway. (Y/N) wrapped his massive, heavy arms around Katsuki’s waist, lifting the smaller boy slightly off his feet, pulling him so close there wasn't a single inch of space left between them. He buried his face in Katsuki’s messy blonde hair, his entire frame racking with violent, heavy sobs.

"I’m sorry," (Y/N) wept, his voice rough and distorted by the stitches in his lip. "Katsuki, I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry I screamed at you. I’m sorry I pushed you away. I was just... I was so scared. I didn't know what to do."

"Shut up," Katsuki ordered, though his tone was entirely devoid of anger, choked with his own tears. He dropped his feet back to the ground but didn't loosen his grip for a second, his fingers clawing into the fabric of (Y/N)’s hoodie. "Just shut the fuck up. You don't apologize to me. Not for that."

They stood there in the freezing driveway for a long, unmeasured time, holding onto each other like survivors of a shipwreck clinging to a lifeboat. (Y/N)’s tears were hot against Katsuki’s shoulder, his heavy breaths shaking his entire body.

Slowly, Katsuki pulled back just enough to look at him. His hands moved up, framing (Y/N)’s face, his thumbs brushing very, very gently against the edges of the dark purple bruise on his cheek, avoiding the stitches on his lip.

"Does it hurt?" Katsuki whispered, his eyes wide with a soft, aching tenderness.

"A little," (Y/N) choked out, offering a tiny, watery smile that winced at the movement of his lip. "Coach Enji's team doctor fixed me up the night of the game. He... he kept me at his house. Coach wouldn't let me go back to a motel. He said I was part of his team, and he wasn't letting me sleep on a floor. He’s been watching over me."

A small, heavy breath of relief escaped Katsuki’s lips. Thank God for that stubborn old man.

"Why didn't you call me?" Katsuki asked, his voice dropping to a fragile whisper.

(Y/N) looked down, his eyes filling with fresh shame. "Because I thought... I thought I was toxic. I thought about what my dad said, about how I was disgusting, and I looked at my face in the mirror, and I just thought... 'if I stay with Katsuki, I’m going to drag him down into this. I’m going to make him miserable'. I was ashamed, Katsuki. I’m still... I’m still so scared of what people are going to say."

Katsuki grabbed his jaw, firmer this time, forcing (Y/N) to look him dead in the eye.

"Listen to me, you moron," Katsuki said, his voice ringing with a fierce, absolute conviction. "I don't give a single, solitary fuck about what your garbage father thinks. He’s a pathetic piece of shit who doesn't deserve to even breathe the same air as you. And anyone else—anyone on your team, anyone on this campus who has a problem with us—I will personally blast them into the next hemisphere. Do you hear me?"

(Y/N) let out a wet, breathless laugh, a tear spilling over his eyelashes.

"We don't have to hold hands in public," Katsuki continued, his voice softening, his gaze dropping to (Y/N)’s stitched lip. "We don't have to kiss on the field. We don't have to do anything that makes you freeze up or feel like you’re waiting for a blow to land. If you want to keep it in the dark, we’ll stay in the dark. I don't care about the rest of the world. I just want you."

(Y/N) stared at him, the heavy, suffocating blanket of shame that had draped over his shoulders for years finally beginning to fray at the edges, torn apart by the absolute, unwavering certainty in Katsuki’s eyes.

"No," (Y/N) said softly, his voice steadying. He reached up, placing his large hands over Katsuki’s. "I don't want to hide anymore. It was... it was the scariest thing that’s ever happened to me, Katsuki. But when I kissed you on that field... before everything went to hell... it was the first time in my entire life I felt like I was actually breathing."

He took a deep, ragged breath, his chest expanding against Katsuki’s. "I’m still scared. I’m going to need time. I’m going to be tense sometimes, and I’m probably going to look over my shoulder. But I don't want to go back into the dark. I want to be with you. In the light. If you’ll still have me."

"I told you, you idiot," Katsuki muttered, his own tears finally stopping, replaced by a deep, glowing warmth that spread through his entire chest. "In a heartbeat."

He leaned forward, moving with immense care, and pressed his lips gently against the uninjured corner of (Y/N)’s mouth. It wasn't a fierce, desperate kiss like the one on the field; it was a soft, lingering promise, a quiet vow of safety and protection. (Y/N) sighed into the kiss, his body finally, completely losing its rigid tension, melting against Katsuki’s frame like water.

The front door of the house clicked open again.

Masaru stood on the porch, a warm jacket thrown over his shoulders, holding a second jacket in his hands. He looked down at the two boys, his face full of a quiet, relieved happiness.

"It's freezing out here, boys," Masaru called out gently. "Bring him inside, Katsuki. Your mother is bringing the good beef, and she’s going to want to make sure (Y/N) eats a real meal."

(Y/N) looked up at Masaru, then back at Katsuki. The fear didn't completely disappear—the road ahead was going to be long, filled with therapy, rebuilding his life from scratch, and navigating a world without his birth family—but as he looked at the warm, glowing light spilling from the Bakugo home, he knew he wasn't walking that road alone.

Katsuki bent down, carefully picking up the scattered purple hyacinths from the driveway, keeping one hand firmly locked around (Y/N)’s fingers. This time, when Katsuki squeezed, (Y/N)’s hand didn't go rigid.

His fingers squeezed back, warm, relaxed, and entirely safe.

"Come on," Katsuki said softly, pulling him toward the steps. "Let's go home."

Extra: The graduation pavilion was a sea of black gowns, fluttering caps, and the chaotic roar of hundreds of families cheering for the departing senior class.

Katsuki stood just outside the main gate, his arms crossed over his chest, his eyes fixed like a laser on the crowd pouring out of the arena. He was a junior this year, still having one more long, grueling year of university ahead of him, but today wasn't about his schedule. Today belonged entirely to you.

"Look, there he is! There’s our graduate!"

Mitsuki’s loud, boisterous voice cut through the ambient noise as she pointed toward the steps. You were walking down the concrete incline, your graduation gown fluttering around your ankles, your mortarboard cap tilted slightly back on your head. The dark purple bruise on your cheek from a year ago had long since faded into a faint memory, and your posture was completely different now—upright, relaxed, and entirely unburdened.

"Hell yeah! Let's go, dude!" Kirishima roared, instantly cupping his hands around his mouth to bellow across the plaza. Mina was jumping up and down beside him, waving a makeshift sign she had smuggled into the arena, while Kaminari, Sero, and Jiro cheered loudly beside them.

When your eyes caught the group, a massive, genuine smile broke across your face. You adjusted the heavy diploma cylinder in your hand and hurried down the steps, immediately getting swallowed into a chaotic group hug by the squad. Kirishima practically lifted you off the ground, thumping your back with a heavy, proud hand, while Mina squeezed your waist.

"You actually did it, man," Sero laughed, throwing an arm around your neck. "Leaving us behind to suffer through another year of Aizawa's midterms."

"Someone had to pave the way," you teased, your voice warm and clear.

As the group let you go, Mitsuki stepped up, her eyes uncharacteristically soft as she reached up to adjust the collar of your gown. "We are so incredibly proud of you, sweetheart. You worked so hard for this."

Masaru stepped up beside her, offering a warm, steady handshake and a proud smile. "A wonderful achievement, son. You've earned every bit of it."

"Thank you, Mama Bakugo, Papa Bakugo," you murmured, your chest swelling with a deep, profound gratitude. For the past year, they had been your rock, stepping into the void your old life had left behind without a single moment of hesitation.

Then, you looked at Katsuki.

He was standing a step back from his parents, his hands shoved deep into his trouser pockets, his jaw set in that familiar, stubborn line. But his eyes were wide, burning with a fierce, quiet pride that belonged entirely to you.

You stepped closer to him, the space between you closing naturally. Katsuki didn't say a word. He just reached out, his calloused fingers wrapping firmly around your wrist, pulling you in just enough so your shoulders brushed. There was no tension. No microscopic jolt of fear. Just a deep, grounding comfort.

"You didn't trip on the stage," Katsuki muttered, though the corners of his mouth twitched upward into a rare, soft smirk. "S'pose that means you actually passed."

"Barely," you chuckled, leaning your weight slightly into his side. "Just wanted to make sure I gave you something to live up to next year."

"Like I need the motivation, dumbass," he grunted, but his grip on your wrist tightened affectionately.

The group chatted for a few more minutes, making plans for the massive celebratory dinner Mitsuki had been organizing for weeks. But as the crowd around the pavilion began to thin out, your eyes drifted toward the edge of the plaza, near the brick columns of the main campus entrance.

A woman was standing there, looking nervously at the crowd. She was dressed in a simple, elegant navy blue dress, holding a small clutch purse in her hands. She looked smaller than she used to, but her shoulders were straight, her head held high.

Your breath hitched slightly in your throat.

Katsuki noticed the sudden shift in your posture instantly. He looked up, his crimson eyes following your gaze to the edge of the plaza. His grip on your wrist loosened into a protective, questioning squeeze.

"Hey," Katsuki murmured softly. "Is that...?"

"Yeah," you whispered.

Mitsuki and Masaru noticed as well, the group's boisterous conversation trickling down into a respectful, quiet hush. Over the past six months, you and your mother had slowly, painstakingly begun to rebuild a bridge across the canyon your father had created. It had started with tentative text messages, then secret phone calls in the middle of the night, and eventually, quiet coffee dates on the weekends away from the city.

You took a deep, steadying breath, looking at Katsuki. He gave you a firm, encouraging nod, his hand sliding down to squeeze your fingers once before letting you go.

You walked across the plaza, the black fabric of your graduation gown snapping softly in the afternoon breeze. As you drew closer, your mother’s eyes locked onto you. The anxiety on her face completely melted away, replaced by a raw, overwhelming emotion.

"Hi, Mom," you said softly.

She just let out a small, breathless sob and threw her arms around your neck.

You buried your face in her shoulder, wrapping your arms tightly around her, holding her close. The scent of her familiar perfume hit you, bringing a sudden, sharp sting of tears to your eyes. For a long, silent moment, neither of you let go. It was a hug that carried the weight of a year’s worth of separation, of unspoken apologies, and of a quiet, fierce survival.

When she finally pulled back, her hands remained on your shoulders, her eyes scanning your face, lingering proudly on your graduation cap.

"Look at you," she whispered, her voice trembling as she wiped a stray tear from her cheek. "My graduate. You look so handsome."

"I'm really glad you came, Mom," you said honestly, your voice thick. "I know it wasn't easy."

A small, triumphant smile broke through her tears, and she reached into her clutch purse, pulling out a folded piece of paper. She handed it to you with a steady hand. You unfolded it, your eyes scanning the legal header at the top of the page.

Decree of Divorce.

Your eyes widened, looking up at her in pure shock.

"It's final," she said, her voice carrying a newfound, fierce independence that you had never heard from her in your entire life. "I left him, sweetie. I realized... a man who would strike his own son for loving someone is a man who doesn't deserve a family at all. I packed my things. I have my own apartment now. I'm taking my life back. Just like you did."

A massive, overwhelming wave of relief washed over your chest, so profound it made your knees feel weak. You pulled her back into another fierce, crushing hug, laughing softly against her hair. "I'm so proud of you, Mom. You have no idea."

"I did it for myself," she murmured, kissing your cheek as she pulled away. "But I also did it because I want to be a part of your life. The real version of your life."

She glanced over your shoulder, her eyes softening as she looked at Katsuki, who was still standing a few yards away, watching over you, his family and friends giving you space but remaining a solid wall of support behind him.

"He's a good boy," your mother said softly, her smile widening into a knowing, gentle expression. "He took care of you when I couldn't."

She reached back into her purse one last time. When her hand came out, she wasn't holding legal papers anymore. She pulled out a small, square box made of deep, rich red velvet.

She pressed it firmly into the palm of your hand, wrapping your fingers around it.

"I think it's time you take the next step," she whispered, giving you a sly, affectionate wink. "Go on. He's waiting for you."

Your heart skipped a beat, its rhythm instantly accelerating into a frantic, ecstatic hammer against your ribs. You looked down at the red velvet box in your hand, feeling its weight, before looking back up at your mother. Your throat felt completely dry, but a profound, blinding certainty settled deep in your chest.

"Thanks, Mom," you choked out.

She stepped back, giving you an encouraging wink as she moved to stand closer to Mitsuki and Masaru, who welcomed her with warm, open expressions, instantly bringing her into the fold.

You turned back around, facing Katsuki.

He was standing alone now, his friends having subtly stepped back into a semi-circle, their eyes wide and excited as they noticed the small box in your hand. Mina was clutching Kirishima’s arm so tightly her knuckles were white, a massive, silent grin plastered across her face.

Katsuki watched you walk back to him. His crimson eyes dropped to the red velvet box, and you saw the exact moment his brain registered what it was. His shoulders stiffened. His breath catching visibly in his throat. The usual fierce, unyielding composure he wore like armor cracked completely, replaced by a raw, stunned vulnerability.

You stopped exactly two feet in front of him.

"Katsuki," you said, your voice remarkably steady despite the frantic racing of your heart.

"What the hell are you doing?" he whispered, his voice rough, a sudden, fierce moisture glistening in the corners of his eyes. His hands were shaking slightly as he pulled them from his pockets.

"A year ago, I told you that kissing you on that field was the first time I felt like I was actually breathing," you said, taking a step closer, your eyes locking onto his with a deep, unwavering intensity. "And for the past year, every single day I’ve spent with you has felt exactly the same. You gave me a home when I didn't have one. You loved me when I was broken. You stood by me when the whole world went dark."

You took a deep breath, slowly sinking down onto one knee on the cold concrete of the plaza.

A collective, sharp gasp echoed from Mina and the squad behind him, but Katsuki didn't hear it. His eyes were glued to you, a single tear finally escaping his lashes, tracing a path down his cheek.

You flipped the red velvet box open, revealing a simple, thick silver band with a small circular diamond resting inside, catching the afternoon light.

"I don't want to wait until next year," you said, looking up at him, your smile blinding and full of an absolute, fierce devotion. "I don't want to wait another day. Katsuki Bakugo... will you marry me?"

For a second, the entire universe stood completely still.

Then, Katsuki let out a ragged, choked sob. He didn't even give you a verbal answer. He just huffed, a fierce, emotional sound, and threw his entire body weight forward.

He dropped to his knees right in front of you, his arms flying around your neck with so much force he nearly sent both of you tumbling backward onto the concrete. He buried his face in the crook of your neck, his fingers clawing desperately into the fabric of your graduation gown, his frame shaking with violent, happy sobs.

"Yes, you fucking idiot," Katsuki wept against your skin, his voice cracked and raw with an intense, overwhelming joy. "Yes, of course I will."

The plaza behind you erupted.

Mina let out a deafening, glass-shattering shriek of pure excitement, jumping up and down before throwing herself into Kirishima, who was openly wiping tears from his own eyes while cheering at the top of his lungs. Kaminari and Sero were high-fiving, shouting loudly, while Jiro smiled widely, clapping her hands. A few yards back, Mitsuki was crying openly, hugging your mother tightly, while Masaru stood beside them, a warm, incredibly proud smile on his face.

You wrapped your arms around Katsuki’s waist, pulling him so close you could feel the frantic, heavy rhythm of his heart matching your own. You pressed a warm, lingering kiss into his messy blonde hair, breathing him in, feeling the absolute, undeniable weight of your future settling into place.

You pulled back just enough to slide the silver band onto his finger, his hand trembling violently in yours before he grabbed your jaw, pulling you into a fierce, breathless kiss right there in the middle of the open plaza.

There was no tension. There was no fear.

As you held him under the bright afternoon sky, surrounded by the family you had chosen and the mother who had chosen you, you knew that the dark was finally gone. You were in the light, and you were never going back.

“Be careful, that sounded like concern.”

He gives you a look that would seem flat to anyone else. “Don’t start.”

You grin and take the hoodie from him anyway. The sleeve is still warm from wherever it touched his arm on the way over. You put it on without thinking. It smells faintly like the soap he uses and his house.

He moves past you toward the drum riser, setting his coffee down on the floor before unzipping his stick bag. He has a routine with his kit, the exact same, every time. Within a minute, he checks that the snare is adjusted, makes sure the hi-hat is checked, that the cymbal angle is well shifted by half an inch and that the kick pedal works, with a quick test of two taps of his foot. When he's done, everything looks exactly the same as it did before to you, but you know from experience that if anything is off, he feels it immediately, and is a pain about it.

You watch him while pretending to fiddle with your mic cable.

He catches you looking after about fifteen seconds. “What.”

“You’re pretty.”

He stares at you for a beat, expression unreadable, then drops onto the drum stool. “You’re prettier.”

“You never say thank you,” you raise an eyebrow.

“Because you never stop after I do.”

That is true enough that you cannot argue with it.

The others arrive in pieces. Nobara barrels in with too much energy for the morning and a breakfast sandwich in hand, already talking before the door closes behind her, Yuji follows carrying a crate of water bottles in case a fire starts, apparently and Maki comes last, nodding once at everyone before heading toward her amp.

Within minutes the room fills with the usual sounds: tuning strings and half-finished jokes.

It feels ordinary, and that’s part of why you love this part of the day so much.

Before there are cameras or promoters, or before anyone asks you who inspired your lyrics, or whether the band has plans to “break into the global market,” (which is a phrase you hate so much it makes your teeth hurt). In here, there are no media trained answers, just the band. Sweatshirts and coffee and cables underfoot. Megumi spinning a drumstick once around his fingers while pretending not to listen to the argument Nobara is having with Yuji about whether his playlist is embarrassing.

“Listening to Disney in the morning is not embarrassing!” Yuji hisses. “Some of us like starting the day with a little hope.” You catch.

When you finally start with the first song, he’s already watching you.

Not in a way anyone else would notice, no. Megumi never stares, instead, he looks and then looks away and then looks back when it matters. He tracks your breath more than your face, he sees the slight lift of your shoulders before the chorus and the way your wrist tenses when you are about to come in early because you are excited and trying not to be. He misses very little. He adjusts before you even realize you are drifting, he pulls the whole song back into shape from behind the kit with that steady control he seems to use on everything in his life.

Halfway through the set, you miss a cue because Nobara makes a face at you from across the room. Megumi shifts instantly, changing the fill and giving you room to come back in clean. You do, and by the end, nobody but the two of you knows there was a mistake at all.

When the last note rings out, Yuji lets out a low whistle. “That one actually sounded good!”

Nobara throws a guitar pick at his head. “You say that every time, like you’re shocked we’re talented.”

“I’m shocked you’re consistent,” he fires back.

Maki is already checking something on her phone. “We need to tighten the bridge on the third song.”

Megumi twirls one drumstick once, then points it at you. “You rush the second verse when you’re tired, be careful.”

You put a hand over your chest. “And good morning to you too.”

“You asked me last week to tell you when you made a mistake.”

“I know. I just wanted to act offended,” you smile at him.

His mouth moves, not quite a smile, but close enough that warmth spreads through your chest anyway.

Practice drags into noon, and by the end of it, Yuji and Nobara leave to get lunch, Maki follows after taking a call from the manager, and suddenly the room is quieter than it has been all morning. You sit on the front edge of the low stage, one leg swinging over the side. Megumi stays where he is behind the kit, tapping an idle rhythm against his thigh with one stick while he checks something on his phone.

With him, silence is still a kind of conversation. You used to think it would, before you knew him well enough that you knew that he just does not fill space unless he means to. Truthfully, it makes every word from him feel chosen, even the blunt ones (maybe especially those).

You lean back on your palms and look up at him. “You hungry?”

“In a minute.”

“You say that every time and then forget.”

He slips his phone into his pocket and tilts his head. “Then remind me in a minute.”

“Maybe I want to see what happens if I don’t.”

“You’ll get dramatic when I don’t eat.”

“You know me so well.”

He hooks one stick into the little loop on the side of the snare, then hops down from the riser. You hold a hand out toward him without thinking. He glances at it like he is considering whether to be difficult on principle, then takes it and steps closer.

His hand is warm and rough where his fingers meet his palm. Drummer’s hands, you think. You used to tease him about them and he used to deny he was self-conscious. You used to kiss the calluses anyway.

Now you tug him lightly until he stands between your knees.

He looks down at you, guarded by habit even here, even with nobody around. “What.”

“Nothing.”

“You’re looking at me weird.”

You grin. “Come here.”

You do not have to pull hard. Megumi leans in enough for you to rest your forehead briefly against his stomach through his shirt. His fingers pause against your shoulder. Then, with the slow care he uses when he is tired, he touches the back of your head.

You stay like that for a few seconds while the room hums around you. After a few seconds, Megumi’s thumb moves once against your hairline.

When you lift your head again, he is looking at you with that quiet, unnerving focus he gets sometimes.

“What,” you murmur.

“You didn’t sleep much,” he simply states.

You laugh softly. “That obvious?”

“You get restless when you’re writing.”

There it is again. He rarely asks direct questions about your songs because he knows you talk when you are ready, but he notices the side effects. He’d seen the bitten skin around your thumbnail or the way your mind wanders in the middle of conversations.

You reach for the sticks in his hand and steal one. “Play something.”

He leans his hip against the stage. “You’re the one writing.”

“Exactly, my brain hurts,” you sigh.

“You say that like it’s my fault.”

“It usually is,” you wink at him, grinning;

He snorts under his breath, then, he takes the stick back from you and starts tapping a pattern against your knee, softly at first. A lazy four-count, then something more dramatic. You feel the rhythm through your denim and skin alike. He does this a lot when you are alone, like your body is just another surface for him to test out an idea on. Sometimes it is absentminded, sometimes it means he is thinking too hard to say anything and needs to let the feeling go somewhere.

You rest your hand over his wrist, stopping him after a few measures. “Keep that one.”

Megumi glances at your hand and then at your face. “For what?”

“I don’t know yet.” You smile a little. “Something.”

He accepts that because he is used to you building songs from moods and half-lines scribbled in the margins of receipts. “Then write it down before you forget.”

“You write it down,” you say, pretending to be offended.

“I’m not the songwriter.”

“You’re not not.”

He looks like he wants to deny that, but he knows you will argue and you know he knows, so neither of you bother. Instead he sets both sticks on the stage beside you and, after a second, he bends to kiss you.

Megumi kisses the way he does most things: restrained until he is not.

There is always that first touch, always pretty careful, as though he is giving you a chance to pull away even after two years of learning you never do. Then you slide your hand up to the back of his neck and he exhales against your mouth and the whole thing shifts. His hand closes around your jaw and he leans in harder. 

When he pulls back, you are smiling before you mean to.

He notices that too. “You look smug.”

“I am smug.”

“Why’s that?”

“Because I’m dating the hottest drummer alive.”

“There are definitely better drummers.”

“That wasn’t the category,” you deadpan, half annoyed and half amused.

He rolls his eyes, but color rises faintly high on his cheekbones all the same. It is one of your favorite things about him, how embarrassment on Megumi is never loud, it just appears quietly, betraying him against his will.

He picks up his sticks again. “Come on, baby, you need food.”

“You say that like I’m a stray.”

“You do act like one,” he says as he offers his hand again anyway. Obviously, you happily take it.

The offer comes three weeks later, on a Thursday evening after a show so good it leaves your nerves buzzing long after you get offstage.

The venue is bigger than the rooms you started in and smaller than the ones you still daydream about in the worst possible moments, when wanting things turns embarrassing inside your own head. Eight hundred people, the kind of crowd that is big enough to roar when you say the city’s name and intimate enough that you can still make out individual faces under the lights.

Afterward, everyone is half-drunk on adrenaline and heat, backstage is a blur of sweaty congratulations. You notice Nobara stealing your water because she finished hers or Yuji trying to recount a story from mid-set that nobody else had time to experience because they were busy performing.

Your manager, Kento Nanami, appears in the doorway with the expression he wears when something serious has happened and he is trying to package it in a way that will not make musicians impossible to deal with.

“Meeting,” he says strictly.

Nobara groans. “Can the meeting wait until I’m less damp?”

“No.”

“That’s not an answer to the spirit of what I asked.”

“It’s the only one you’re getting.”

You laugh and follow the others into the green room. Megumi comes in last, toweling the sweat from the back of his neck.

He drops into the chair beside yours with a kind of contained tiredness you know means the show took a lot out of him even if he would never admit it. His knee brushes yours once and stays there.

Nanami closes the door.

“I’ll keep this brief,” he says, which means he is about to say something that will ruin the concept of brief for the rest of your lives. “Promoters are offering a global run, to make you guys more international.”

The room goes quiet around the words. Nobara lets out a disbelieving laugh, Yuji actually says, “What?” twice in a row, louder the second time and Maki goes very still, which for her means she is paying full attention. Also, beside you, Megumi’s knee stops moving.

Nanami keeps talking : dates, cities, a run across North America first, then Europe if the numbers hold. Venues bigger than anything you’ve played before but not so large they feel impossible, the kind of rooms bands grow into when something finally starts moving for them.

An eighteen-month touring cycle, with short breaks in between each continent, press appearances between shows, the label willing to push international promotion if the first round goes well.

The scale of it starts to sink in piece by piece, until your pulse is beating so hard it feels almost ridiculous, like your body understands the weight of it before your mind does. Your hand finds Megumi’s without looking, and his fingers close around yours automatically, but his grip is lighter than usual.

“This is huge,” Yuji says, stunned.

“No shit,” Nobara snaps, though she looks just as overwhelmed.

You hear yourself laughing under your breath, not because anything is funny, but because the alternative is crying in front of Nanami and giving him a story to tell for the rest of his life.

“Who’s putting it together?” Maki asks.

Nanami tells you and the room breaks again.

There is talking over talking after that, questions, too many all at once. Logistics, rehearsal timelines,which cities come first,when contracts would arrive, whether the label is officially backing the international push, how many shows they’re actually talking about, and Yuji asks something so poorly phrased that Nanami pinches the bridge of his nose before answering.

You ask questions too, though you barely hear your own voice over the noise building in your chest.

Excitement climbs higher with every sentence Nanami finishes.

One minute you are sweating through a show in a venue you know by heart, and the next, you're trying to picture your band’s name on posters in cities you have only seen through airport windows and movies.

You turn to Megumi at one point, needing his face in the middle of all that noise.

He looks calm, too calm, maybe. Listening with his elbows braced on his knees, one hand folded over his mouth as Nanami talks schedules. His eyes flick toward you when he feels you looking.

You squeeze his hand. “Can you believe this?”

He lowers his hand. “It’s real?”

Nanami hears him. “As real as it gets at this stage, yes.”

Megumi nods once and looks back at the manager. “How much downtime between dates.”

Nanami tells him.

Megumi’s expression does not change. “And travel days.”

“Built in where they can be.”

“Where they can be,” Megumi repeats, absently.

He says it in the same quiet way he always does when everyone else starts getting ahead of themselves, the kind of grounding question that usually keeps the rest of you from running straight past details.

Still, something in you lingers on it for a moment longer than it should, not because of the question itself but because of how he sounds when he says it, quieter than the rest of the room, as if some part of him has already stepped back.

Well, that is until Nobara is grabbing both of your shoulders and shaking you hard enough to make you yelp. “Do you understand what this means?”

“Apparently I’m going to need a passport holder that doesn’t look humiliating,” you say, and she laughs loud enough to bounce off the cinderblock walls.

Later, when everyone has scattered into smaller conversations and Nanami is stuck in the corner explaining visa timelines to Maki, you turn toward Megumi fully.

“Well?” you ask.

He looks at you. “Well what?”

“Say something normal,” you say, slightly annoyed by his nonchalance.

“I asked questions.”

“That’s not normal, that’s admin.”

He studies your face for a second, like he’s deciding how honest to be. “It’s big,” he finally says.

You laugh, half in disbelief, half because the understatement is so him. “That’s what you’ve got?”

His mouth tilts faintly. “You want me to start yelling?”

“Maybe a little.”

“I’m happy.”

The words are simple, and true, probably. But there is a reserve to them you do not know what to do with. Maybe because you are too full of your own excitement to make room for anything quieter.

You lean into his side anyway. “We’re going on a world tour.”

Megumi’s shoulder settles against yours. “You’re already saying it like you’re trying to convince yourself.”

“I am convinced.”

“Then why do you keep repeating it?”

“Because I can.”

That gets a small breath of laughter out of him, better than most people can claim.

On the ride home, you sit in the back of the van with your thigh pressed to his and your phone glowing bright in your lap while messages pile up from everyone who has heard whispers already. Nobara is in the row ahead, texting like she is being paid by the word. Yuji has fallen asleep against the window with his mouth open. Maki is on a call with someone and sounds like she is negotiating a hostage exchange.

Megumi sits beside you in silence, just quiet in the way he gets when too much is happening inside him at once. You know him. So when you rest your head on his shoulder and say, “You’re thinking too hard,” it comes out fond instead of accusing.

His cheek brushes the top of your head when he answers. “You’re not thinking enough.”

You grin. “I’m allowed one night of being stupidly happy.”

“I didn’t say you weren’t.”

“Then be stupidly happy with me.”

Megumi turns his face slightly toward the dark window. You can just make out his reflection there, shadowed and thoughtful. “I am.”

And you accept that, because deep down, that's all you wanted to hear.

For the first week, everything feels touched by possibility. You start measuring time differently almost immediately, not in months anymore, but in before and after. Before the tour announcement and after the tour announcement. Before you knew this could happen and fter you have proof that it can.

Meetings multiply, calls with the label, and everything that comes with planning a tour. Discussions about stage design, marketing angles, whether the setlist needs to shift for bigger venues and new audiences.

It is exhausting, but it makes you feel sharpened instead of worn down.

Every part of you seems awake. You start carrying your notebook everywhere again because lines arrive while you are brushing your teeth, while you are waiting for coffee, while Nanami is droning through budget forecasts and you should definitely be paying attention and are instead writing half a chorus on napkins.

At first, Megumi only seems quieter.

You tell yourself that because it is easier than examining the shape of his silence too closely. He comes to the first few planning sessions and he asks the practical questions nobody else thinks of until they become a problem : Storage for gear, recovery days, whether the rental kits at the overseas venues are actually reliable or just cheap, whether there is room in the transport budget to move his own snare and pedal instead of gambling on inconsistent equipment.

Nanami starts looking at him with the kind of respect managers reserve for band members who understand that dreams still require functioning logistics.

You love that about him, the way Megumi does not get dazzled into stupidity. The way he can stand in the middle of a life-changing moment and still remember to ask who is carrying the weight of it.

But after those first few sessions, he starts opting out.

Not dramatically, no, never. It’s not the obvious “I’m not coming because I hate this and everything it represents”, instead, he says he has classwork to finish, says he wants to use the time for individual practice and they are all reasonable and technically true, as far as you know.

The first tim you come back from a meeting and find him alone in the rehearsal room, running the same fill over and over until it tightens into muscle memory, you stand in the doorway for a second and watch him.

He does not notice you immediately, which means he is fully inside whatever he is doing. Shoulders tight, the sticks moving with that precise intensity he gets when he is working irritation out through rhythm. You know him well enough to see the edge of it even if nobody else would. The extra useless force his uses on the snare or the way he resets too quickly after each attempt.

You step inside. “Hey.”

He stops on the next beat, not because you startled him but because he heard you as soon as the door opened and chose to finish the pattern first. “How long have you been standing there.”

“Long enough to know you’re taking your mood out on the kit.”

Megumi sets one stick across his lap. “You don’t know what happened before you entered the room. It’s not cooperating with me.”

You laugh and move closer. “Productive meeting report.”

“Was it?” he asks, uninterested.

“It was, actually.” You climb onto the edge of the stage, facing him. “They’re talking about adding two more European dates if pre-sales are good enough. And Nanami thinks we should workshop one new song into the set before summer.”

Megumi’s expression gives nothing away. “You have one in progress.”

The sentence lands strangely. It’s just flat in a place where you wanted enthusiasm.

“I know,” you say. “I’ve been working on it extra, lately.”

“I noticed.”

Something in his tone makes you look at him more closely. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

He shrugs, eyes on the drumhead instead of your face. “You’ve been somewhere else all week.”

The defensiveness rises in you faster than it should. “I’ve been busy.”

“I didn’t say you weren’t.”

“Okay.”

Megumi’s jaw shifts, like he is grinding down whatever else he wants to say, then he picks up the other stick again. “Forget it.”

Usually, with him, you know when to let something drop and when to tug at it until he admits the thing underneath, usually you are better at this.

Today you are tired and over-caffeinated and still carrying the high of a meeting where someone said the phrase international press strategy without laughing.

So instead of crossing the room and putting a hand on his knee and asking what he means, you say, too lightly, “You’re sulking.”

That gets his attention.

Megumi looks up at you then, dark eyes steady enough to make something uncomfortable twist low in your stomach. “I’m not sulking.”

The restraint in his voice makes you straighten up.

You hop off the stage because standing over him suddenly feels wrong. “Talk to me, Megumi.”

“I am talking.”

“Stop that.”

Megumi breathes out slowly through his nose. “You want me to be excited the way you are.”

“I want you to be here.”

“I am here.”

“You’re physically here,” you say before you can stop yourself.

The words hang between you, harsher than you intended. His gaze drops for half a second and comes back colder. “Right.”

You regret it immediately. “Megumi.”

But he is already standing up from the stool, stick bag in hand. Not storming, instead, he moves with that shut-down calm he gets when something has cut deeper than he wants it to.

“I’m going to get food,” he says.

“I didn’t mean it like that.”

“Okay.”

“Can you not do that?” you say, accusingly.

He pauses. “Do what?”

“Act like you don’t care and then make me guess what I did wrong.”

His face changes and anyone else would miss it, but you, you, oh know the signs.

“I said okay.”

“That’s not talking to me.”

Megumi looks at you for a long moment. “I don’t know what you want me to say.”

“Whatever you’re actually thinking.”

He gives a short, humorless breath through his nose. “You don’t want that.”

And then he walks out. You stand in the empty rehearsal room listening to the door shut behind him, your own pulse suddenly too loud in your ears.

What you tell yourself for the rest of the day is that it was nothing. A bad moment. The result of two tired people talking past each other, yeah, that was probably that.

The song starts as a line you write on a train and nearly cross out and you keep it because it bothers you.

It is too bare, a little self-serious, probably trying too hard. You keep it anyway

You write around it over the next week, whenever you have like thirthy seconds: in the green room while Nobara does her eyeliner and complains about a blogger who compared her stage style to someone she hates or in cabs. The words come easier than they should. 

The first verse settles around distance before you consciously choose the theme. Not physical distance, exactly, but stranger. The feeling of standing beside someone and still losing your sense of where they are. the panic of recognizing a shift before you can name it, the awful selfishness of wanting someone to stay in the shape you understand because you do not know what to do if they grow away from you, or them.

You tell yourself it is not about Megumi, maybe because you believe that or maybe because you need to.

When you bring the bones of it to rehearsal, you do it casually.

“I’ve got something new,” you say, flipping the notebook open on the mic stand.

Yuji perks up immediately. “Is it sad?”

“Why is that always your first question.”

“Because your best songs are sad.”

“That’s insulting to both me and my emotional range.”

Nobara points at him with her pick. “He’s right, though.”

Maki looks up from tuning. “Play it.”

You glance toward Megumi without meaning to. He is adjusting the hi-hat clutch, head down, listening.

Your throat feels dry, ridiculous. After all this time, after all these songs. But new work always does this to you, especially the ones you do not fully understand yet.

You play the progression on guitar first. Sing through the verse once, not quite meeting anyone’s eyes. By the second chorus, the room is very still.

When you finish, there is a beat where nobody speaks.

Then Yuji says, softly for once, “Oh.”

Nobara recovers first. “That chorus is disgusting.”

You squint at her. “In a good way?”

“In a way that makes me hate you, so yes.”

Maki nods once. “Bridge needs work. The rest stays.”

You look at Megumi.

He is already thinking, you can tell. Stick tapping soundlessly against his thigh, eyes on some point just past you. When he catches you waiting, he says, “The chorus needs more room.”

“What kind of room?”

“Less guitar under the second line, let it breathe before the drums come in harder.”

You blink. “That’s good.”

He gives you a look. “Obviously,” he smirks then.

The others laugh and rehearsal moves forward. You build the song together the way you always do, piece by piece, until it starts to have a pulse outside your notebook. On one hand, Maki thickens the bridge while Nobara finds a sharper countermelody on guitar. On the other hand, Yuji, miraculously, suggests a harmony that does not make anyone threaten him. And Megumi... He’​​​​​​​s building the song spine.

You should know better than to be surprised as he does this all the time. He hears structure where you hear feeling, finds the frame that lets the rest of you throw yourselves into the walls without bringing the whole thing down. But something about this one seems to catch in him. He strips the rhythm back, then rebuilds it with a restraint that makes the chorus hit harder when it finally opens up. There is one fill he keeps adjusting, only slightly different each time, until on the seventh try it lands and a chill runs over your skin.

“There!” you say.

He glances at you from behind the kit. “Yeah.”

That night, after everyone leaves, you stay behind with him to run it once more. The room is dimmer with only the side lights on. Your voice sounds different in the mostly empty space.

You sing and Megumi plays, and because there is nobody else there, the song feels uncomfortably intimate all of a sudden. The lyrics feel too close now, close enough that you stop wanting to look at them directly

When the last note dies out, Megumi stays still for a second, sticks resting against the snare.

Then he says, “Who’s it about?” He asks without accusation, but your whole body goes alert anyway.

You busy yourself setting the guitar aside. “No one.”

“That’s a lie.”

You laugh weakly. “All songs are lies.”

He does not return the joke. “Not yours.”

You look at him. “You say that like it’s a compliment.”

“It is.”

The directness of it catches you off guard. Megumi is not generous with praise. 

“I don’t know,” you admit after a second. “It started as one thing and now it’s…” You wave a hand vaguely, irritated by your own inability to pin it down. “Messier.”

He watches you with that steady focus again. “You usually know.”

“Yeah, well, maybe I’m branching out into confusion...”

His mouth moves almost into a smile, then the expression fades.

“You should keep the drum part in the second verse sparse,” he says. “If you fill too much there, it’ll bury the words.”

It takes you a moment to catch up to the shift. “Okay.”

Megumi stands, stretches one arm over his head, and reaches for his bag. “You heading out?” you ask

“Yeah.”

You want to ask what he is doing. Why every conversation with him lately feels like stepping across boards you thought were solid and finding them give slightly under your weight.

Instead you say, “Come over tonight?”

He hesitates just long enough for you to notice. Then, “I’ve got an early morning.”

“Oh.” You force a smile that probably looks thin. “Right.”

He nods once and lifts his hand briefly in goodbye.

You watch him leave and tell yourself not to make more of it than there is.

That is becoming a habit you hate.

The contracts arrive on a Tuesday.

Nanami sends a message to the group chat that says only, Conference room. 4 p.m. Read everything before you sign.

Nobara reacts with three fire emojis and a knife one. Yuji sends a thumbs-up and then, almost immediately after, asks if this means he should dress nice. Maki tells him no. You stare at the screen a second longer than you need to, your heartbeat already starting to climb for reasons you do not want to examine too closely.

By the time you get to the label office that afternoon, the conference room table has already been set up with neat folders, bottled water, and enough pens to make the whole thing feel less like a discussion and more like a decision someone expects to leave in writing.

Nanami passes the contracts out.

The legal language would starts blurring if you look at it too long. Conduct clauses, cancellation penalties severe enough to make your skin go cold, blah blah blah. You force yourself through it anyway, line by line, even when the words begin to swim together and your eyes start crossing over the same sentence twice.

This is what you wanted, you remind yourself.

Maybe not the paperwork itself, nor the strange weight of your own name waiting at the bottom of the page, but what it means and protects.

After forty minutes, Nobara signs first with a flourish so dramatic it looks like she is stabbing the paper. Yuji goes next, too quickly, like he is afraid he will somehow jinx it if he hesitates. Maki signs after one final question you do not bother to listen. If it’s important, she’ll say it again one day.

You sign fourth and you set the pen down and glance toward Megumi.

His folder is still open, the contract untouched except for the page corners he has turned, his signature case still empty.

At first you think he is just reading slower than the rest of you, being careful the way he always is, but then you realize his eyes are not moving at all. He is looking at the page without really looking at it, one hand flat on the table beside the contract like he is holding himself in place.

Nanami notices a second later. “Megumi.”

Megumi lifts his gaze.

“I’m not signing today.”

The room goes quiet in a way you have never heard it before, like the sound has been sucked out of the air all at once. You let out a short breath that almost turns into a laugh, because sometimes shock arrives wearing the wrong face. “What?”

Nanami folds his hands together on the table. “Explain.”

Megumi does not look at you. He looks at Nanami. “I need more time.”

“For what.”

“To decide.”

The words land so heavily you actually feel your stomach turn.

Yuji straightens in his chair. “Wait, decide what?”

Nobara’s voice cuts in sharper than his. “Megumi.”

He still does not look at you. “The tour.”

The sound that leaves you is small and humiliatingly wounded, not quite a laugh. “You’re deciding now?”

His jaw tightens. “I’ve been deciding.”

Nanami’s voice goes flatter than usual, which is saying something. “You should have raised this before contracts were issued.”

Megumi’s expression does not change. “I know.”

“Then why didn’t you.”

There is a pause.

Megumi’s fingers curl slightly against the edge of the table. “Because I knew how this would go.”

That hits harder than the refusal. Before you can stop yourself, you say, “How what would go?”

This time he looks at you and you almost wish he had not.

There is no anger in his face, and that would have been easier somehow. Anger gives you something to push against. What is there instead is restraint pulled so tight it has started to look like exhaustion, and something in it makes your stomach turn over again.

“You’d act like I’m ruining everything,” he says.

You stare at him. “You are,” The second the words leave your mouth, you want them back.

Megumi’s eyes flicker once, so quickly no one else would catch it, but you do.

Across the table, Yuji mutters, “Jesus,” under his breath.

Nanami cuts in before anything can get worse. “We are not finishing this conversation here.” He looks at Megumi. “You have forty-eight hours.”

Megumi nods once. After that, the meeting does not really end so much as fall apart. Nobody seems to know where to put their hands or their eyes. Nobara gathers her papers too quickly while Yuji looks like he wants to say something and cannot find a version of it that would help. Maki’s mouth has gone into the hard line it gets when she is both irritated and concerned and would rather die than admit to either one directly.

You say nothing, because if you do, you know something ugly is going to come out.

Megumi knows it too. He keeps his distance in that infuriating way of his, and under any other circumstances you might have hated him for it.

By the time you leave the building, your chest feels too tight for your lungs, he catches up to you at the curb.

“Y/n, can we talk?”

You do not stop walking. “Oh. Now you want to?”

“Don’t do that.”

You turn around so fast a couple passing on the sidewalk glances over. “Do what? React like my boyfriend just waited until everybody signed a world tour contract to tell us he might not go?”

Megumi takes the hit without flinching. “I said I needed time.”

“You’ve had time.”

“I know.”

“Then what have you been doing with it?”

A cab passes too close to the curb, sending a gust of cold air against your legs. Megumi shoves his hands deeper into his pockets.

“Thinking.”

“That’s not enough.”

His eyes darken. “You think I don’t know that.”

The force of it makes you stop for half a second, and then the hurt comes rushing back so fast it almost makes you dizzy. “Then help me understand, because right now it feels like you let all of us build around something you knew you might tear apart.”

“I didn’t know.”

“You just said you’ve been deciding.”

“Because I keep trying to get there and I can’t.”

You shake your head hard once. “But why?”

Megumi looks away toward the street, jaw working. For a second you think he is not going to answer at all. Then he says, quietly, “Because I don’t want this.”

“What?” you whisper, and everything in you goes still.

“I don’t want eighteen months of airports and hotel rooms and being told where I’m sleeping a day in advance.” His voice stays level, but you know him well enough to hear the strain under it. “I don’t want every part of my life scheduled. I don’t want to wake up six months from now and realize I haven’t had one quiet day that actually belongs to me.”

Your first feeling is not empathy, though maybe later it will be, maybe later you will hate yourself for that. Right now all you can feel is disbelief, immediate and almost insulting in its scale.

“You’re in a band,” you say.

Megumi’s mouth hardens. “Yeah.”

“So what did you think this was leading to, big brain?”

His gaze snaps back to yours. “I knew we’d get bigger.”

“That’s not an answer.”

“I didn’t think it would have to be like this.”

You let out a short, disbelieving laugh. “Like what. Successful?”

The second it leaves your mouth, you see the anger flare in him for real. Megumi’s anger almost never looks like shouting, instead, it looks like his whole body pulling tight around something dangerous. Every word after that comes out quieter which somehow makes it worse.

“Do you hear yourself right now?”

“Do you?”

“Yes.” His voice stays low. “Now, do you?”

There are people moving past you on the sidewalk. You take a step closer because distance suddenly feels unbearable. “You don’t get to make me feel guilty for wanting this.”

“I’m not.”

“You are.”

“I’m telling you the truth.”

“Now,” you say, and that is the wound under all of it. “Now, when everything is already in place.”

Megumi looks tired all of a sudden, more than angry. “I know.”

“That doesn’t fix it.”

“I know.”

The repetition makes something inside you want to scream.

Instead you say, “Then what am I supposed to do with that?”

For a moment neither of you speaks. You become aware of stupid, useless things all at once: the way your fingers hurt because your nails are biting into your palms or even the way the cold air catches in your throat and does nothing to cool you down.

Megumi’s eyes drop briefly to your hands and then back to your face. He notices everything, even now.

When he speaks again, his voice is quieter. “I wanted to want it.”

You close your eyes. That hurts more than if he had refused outright. There is something unbearable about effort that still fails.

You look at him again. “So what? You just don’t come? You stay here and the rest of us go?”

“I don’t know.”

“Then figure it out.”

“I’m trying.”

“No,” you say, shaking your head. “You’re hiding.”

The words leave you on a breath of pure frustration. The second they are out, you hate them, but you cannot take them back. Megumi’s expression blanks in a way you know better than to mistake for calm, it is damage.

“Okay,” he says.

Your throat tightens. “Don’t fucking do that.”

“Do what?”

“Shut down and make me sound unreasonable.”

His laugh is so brief it almost does not register as one. “You really think that’s what I’m doing?”

“What else am I supposed to think?”

He looks at you for a long moment, and when he speaks again there is something frayed in his voice you have almost never heard before. “That maybe this matters enough that I’m trying not to say something worse.”

You swallow. “Megumi.”

He rubs a hand over the back of his neck, eyes on the pavement now. “I can’t do this out here.”

“Then come home with me.”

He hesitates for a second and it is enough.

ut you know then, before he says anything else, that the real argument has not happened yet.

Your apartment is too small for anger.

You think of it the second the door shuts behind the two of you. Two mugs in the sink, his charger still plugged in by your bed from three nights ago. 

Megumi stands just inside the living room with his hands still in his coat pockets while you put your bag down too hard on the table, you do not know how to start.

Or maybe you know exactly how and hate it.

“So tell me now,” you say finally, turning to face him. “What happens if you don’t sign.”

He looks around the apartment once before his gaze settles back on you. You know why he does that. He always looks for something steady when he is trying to collect himself.

“I leave the band,” he says.

You stare at him, the room seems to tilt very slightly.

“No.”

“It’s the only option.”

“No, it isn’t.”

“It is if the band is going.”

“Megumi.”

“You can’t drag a drummer through a tour he doesn’t want and expect that to end well.”

You take a step toward him. “So you’d rather leave.”

His jaw flexes. “I’d rather not be there.”

You laugh in disbelief. “That’s not what I asked?”

He exhales sharply, frustration slipping through now too. “Then don’t ask questions you only want one answer to.”

The anger that has been sitting high in your chest all afternoon rises fast and ugly. “Do you hear how selfish this sounds?”

Megumi’s eyes flash. “Selfish?”

“Yes.”

He goes very still. “Right.”

“You let us build toward this. You let me-” You stop, swallow, start again. “You knew what this meant to me.”

“I know what it means to you.”

“Then how can you stand there and tell me you’d walk away.”

“I’m trying not to lie to you, because I love you, Y/n.”

His voice is still controlled, but you can hear the edge of his temper now, dangerous because he is doing everything he can not to let it loose, that almost makes you pull back.

Almost.

“You could have said something sooner.” you say, accusing, still mad.

“I know.”

“You keep saying that like it helps.”

“Because it’s true.”

“Truth after the fact doesn’t fix anything.”

Megumi drags a hand through his hair. “What do you want from me?”

You do not answer immediately because the answer is too obvious and too impossible at the same time. You want him to want what you want, you want this dream to fit both of you the same way.

Instead you say, “I want you to try.”

He stares at you. “You think I havent?”

The hurt in that is so naked it almost undoes you., then your own frustration rushes back over it, because if you soften now you are afraid the entire conversation will collapse before you get to the thing that scares you most.

“Trying quietly where no one can see it doesn’t count if nobody gets to respond,” you say.

Megumi’s mouth parts, then shuts. He looks away, and when he speaks again the words come clipped. “So I’m supposed to say every ugly thing the second I think it?”

“No, but maybe before contract day.”

“You were gone.” The words land flat and hard.

You blink. “Gone where?”

“Everywhere.” His eyes are back on yours now, exhausted. “Meetings, calls, interviews, writing until two in the morning and then staring through me the next day because you’re still in your own head. Every time I tried to talk about this, you were already ten steps ahead.”

“That’s not fair,” you say.

“It’s true,” Megumi replies.

“Because I’m working,” you shoot back, frustration rising faster than you can soften it.

“So am I,” he says.

“That isn’t what I meant,” you insist.

“I know what you meant,” Megumi says, and there is something tired in the way he looks at you that makes the words land harder than they should.

You bite down on whatever comes next because it would be mean and frightened and too close to panic. You pace half a step toward the kitchen and stop again because turning your back on him feels worse. Megumi watches you move and then stop. When he speaks next, his voice is lower, and harder to hear.

“I’m not asking you not to go.”

You let out a breath that trembles despite your best effort. “Then what are you asking?”

His face changes, only slightly. “I’m asking if there’s still room for a life in there, for us.”

You do not answer. Not because you do not care nor because you do not love him.

Because the truth is horrible and too damn complicated. There should be room, of course, there should. You want to say that and you almost do. But the image that flashes through your mind is not of the two of you finding quiet inside the tour. It is airports, hotel doors clicking shut at midnight, rehearsals in borrowed studios, your pulse racing with every new city, that hunger you have spent years trying not to admit is this big.

And he sees that you do not know. It is small, barely there at all, just the slightest drop in his face like something inside him loosens not in relief but in resignation. He nods once.

“Megumi,” you say, because suddenly you need to stop whatever just happened. “That’s not-”

“Do you want the tour,” he asks quietly, “or do you want me?”

The question hangs there. You have imagined versions of this argument before, in the half-formed fears you never let yourself look at directly. In none of them does he ask it like that. No raised voice, no accusation.

You open your mouth and nothing comes out.The silence is not long. Two seconds. Three seconds.

It is enough.

Megumi looks at you with an expression so unreadable it becomes worse than anger and so much worse than pain.

“Yeah,” he says.

You take a step toward him. “That’s not what this is.”

“What is it, then?”

“I just-” Your throat closes around every answer. “You can’t ask me like that!”

He lets out a breath that almost sounds like a laugh and does not. “How should I ask?”

“That’s not fair.”

His eyes narrow faintly. “You’ve said that every time I say something you don’t want to hear.”

Something hot stings behind your eyes. “Because you’re making this sound simple!”

“I’m not,” he answers calmly, quietly.

“You are!”

“Then tell me the complicated version.”

He waits and you fucking hate that he waits. That he makes room for the truth instead of filling the silence with his own. That he knows if he stays still long enough, you will have to look directly at what you mean.

You press the heel of your hand to your forehead. “I want this tour,” you say at last, the words ragged. “I have wanted something like this for years. I can’t pretend I don’t. And I want you too, but I don’t know how to answer a question that asks me to cut myself in half and then act like one side matters more.”

Megumi’s face does not soften. Maybe because your answer, as honest as it is, does not actually change what he needs to know.

“So if it comes down to it,” he says, “you go.”

You look at him helplessly. “I don’t know!”

He nods again. “That’s enough.”

“No, it’s not. Megumi, listen to me!”

“I am listening.”

“Then don’t decide what I mean before I can say it.”

A sharp edge slips into his voice at last. “You already did.”

“What is that supposed to mean?”

He takes one step back when you move toward him. That hurts so badly it wipes your mind blank for a second.

Then he says, with a tone that makes every word feel carved out of stone, “You made room for the tour in your life the second it was offered. You never once asked whether there was room for me in the version of you that wanted it.”

You flinch, and like always, he sees it. He closes his eyes for half a beat, like he hates that he said it and also means it too much to take it back. When he opens them, the anger is still there, but buried deeper, almost.

“I’m done fighting to be considered after the fact,” he says.

Your whole body goes cold. “Don’t,” you whisper.

He looks at you for a long moment, you can almost see him forcing the next words through his teeth.

“I think we should end it here.”

You shake your head before he has even finished. “No.”

Megumi’s mouth tightens. “Don’t make this harder.”

“Harder than what.” Your voice cracks and you hate it immediately. “You ask me one impossible question and decide that’s enough to throw away two years?”

His eyes flash. “You think this is one question?”

“Then tell me everything else.”

“I tried.”

“You didn’t fucking try enough!” The second it leaves you, you know it is cruel.

Megumi goes very still. Then he nods once, almost to himself. “Right.”

He bends to pick up the charger by your bed and wraps it carefully around his hand. The sight is so ordinary it almost knocks the breath out of you. This, apparently, is how people leave. With chargers and the extra toothbrush in your bathroom and the sweatshirt you never really stopped borrowing.

You follow him into the bedroom. “Megumi, please.”

He does not look at you while he opens the drawer where he keeps a few things. “Don’t.”

“I didn’t mean that.”

“I know.”

“Then stop acting like you don’t care.”

That makes him turn, yhe hurt on his face is so raw you almost wish he had shouted instead. That he had broken something or done anything easier to survive than standing there looking at you like you have managed to touch the one bruise he could not protect.

“You really don’t know me at all when you’re angry,” he says.

The room goes silent except for your breathing and Megumi looks away first.

He packs quietly after that. He never kept much here, because half his life was already split between your apartment and his. You stand there uselessly, wiping the tears at your face once in a gesture so impatient it almost feels violent.

When he shoulders his bag, he pauses at the door. For one impossible second, hope rises in you anyway. That he will turn around, that he will look at you and say none of this is too broken yet.

Instead he says, without looking back, “You should take the song up half a step if you’re opening with it at the concert. You strain on the last chorus when you’re tired.”

The practicality of it hurts worse than if he's said something straight up cruel. You laugh once, helpless. “Are you serious?”

Megumi finally turns then. His expression is exhausted and more devastated than you have ever seen him let himself be. “I always take you seriously.”

Then he leaves.

The door shuts.

You stand in the apartment and listen to the sound fade from the hallway until there is nothing left to hear.

The practical cruelty of it nearly takes your knees out from under you. You laugh once, helpless. “Are you serious?”

Megumi finally turns then. His expression is exhausted and more devastated than you have ever seen him let himself be. “I always take you seriously.”

Then, he leaves.

The door shuts.

You stand in the apartment and listen to the sound fade from the hallway until there is nothing left to hear.

You do not sleep.

You lie awake until dawn with your notebook open on your chest and the lyrics of the new song blurring in and out above you every time your eyes sting hard enough to force themselves shut. At some point you realize your phone is still face-down beside your hand. There are messages on it, you think, probably Nobara first, maybe Yuji trying too hard to sound normal, maybe Maki saying only what matters and nothing more. You know that there is nothing from Megumi.

You do not check.

By late morning, you are at the rehearsal space because the alternative is staying in your apartment with his absence sitting in every corner like a second piece of furniture and everyone is already there. Conversation cuts off the second you walk in.

Nobara is the first to really look at you, and concern on her always comes out looking irritated, like whatever hurt you has personally offended her. Maki watches you with that quiet, direct focus that means she already understands enough to stop asking pointless questions. Yuji straightens too quickly from where he is sitting on an amp

Megumi is not there.

You knew he would not be, at least not yet, but the empty drum stool still hits you harder than it should.

“Did you sleep?” Nobara asks.

“No,” you say.

“Obviously.”

Yuji winces. “Nobara...”

“What? She looks like shit.”

You try to smile and fail halfway through it. “Good morning to you too.”

Maki sets her pick down. “What happened?”

You try to swallow, your throat still hurts. “He broke up with me.”

The room goes still. Yuji says, “What?” so softly it almost does not sound like him.

“Because of the tour?” Nobara asks.

You nod once and Maki’s eyes flick briefly toward the drum riser. “Did that emo say anything about the band?”

“If he doesn’t sign, he leaves.”

Yuji mutters something under his breath that sounds a lot like a prayer. Nobody says the obvious thing, which is kind and awful at the same time, the obvious thing being that the show is in three days. The obvious thing being that your private disaster has somehow managed to become a problem for everyone else too.

Nobara comes over first and squeezes your shoulder hard enough to hurt a little. “He actually said leaves?”

“Yes.”

“What a fucking idiot!” she states.

You laugh weakly despite yourself. “That’s not helping.”

“It’s not supposed to help, it’s supposed to be correct.”

Maki glances toward the door. “He coming today?”

Yuji checks his phone. “He texted Nanami. Said he’d be here.”

Your stomach knots. Of course he would come, of course Megumi would still show up. He could be furious, halfway out the door already, and he still would not let the band suffer for it. 

He arrives twenty minutes later and no one says anything when the door opens, for a second, it feels like the whole room is holding itself still for him.

Megumi looks like he slept even less than you did. His hair is damp, probably from a shower taken instead of rest, and there are shadows under his eyes that he clearly did not bother hiding. He nods once in the general direction of the room and starts setting up without looking at anyone for very long.

He does not look at you.

That hurts more than you expect. You thought anger would hurt most, but instead you get distance and professionalism. Megumi moving through rehearsal prep with the same quiet precision he always does, as if he did not leave part of himself behind in your apartment a few hours ago.

Practice starts and it is excruciatingly normal.

No one mentions the contracts, no one mentions the breakup. Nobara swears when she misses a chord and Yuji loses his harmony halfway through one of the older songs and pretends he meant to do it while you sing because there is nothing else to do.

Megumi plays like his life depends on it.

Maybe it does.

He is sharper than usual, if anything, every beat exact, every transition clean, every tiny flaw in the room caught and corrected before the rest of you can drift too far and he barely looks at you unless the song forces him to.

Halfway through the second run of the new song, your voice catches on the last chorus. You recover fast enough that almost nobody would call it a mistake.

Megumi stops playing and the silence that follows is immediate.

He sets one stick across the snare and says, without looking at you, “Take it up half a step.”

Your whole body goes rigid. No one else reacts, because no one else knows that was the last thing he said to you before he left your apartment. Or maybe Nobara figures it out from your face, because her expression darkens all at once.

Maki breaks the moment first. “He’s right.”

You swallow. “Okay.”

Megumi nods once and counts the song back in.

That is how the next few days go.

Nanami corners you after rehearsal the night before the show.

“Can you do this?” he asks.

You almost laugh. “That depends what you mean by this?”

“The concert.”

You know what he is really asking. Whether the band is about to implode in public. Whether Megumi is going to vanish before a sold-out show. He is asking if this shit is about to be expensive. You look past him toward the stage, where Megumi is packing up in silence.

“We can do the concert,” you say.

Nanami studies your face for a second. “And after?”

You look away first. “I don’t know...” you sigh.

He nods once, like he expected that answer. “Then do the concert.”

The day of the show, you throw up in the venue bathroom before soundcheck. Nobara holds your hair back and says, “If you pass out onstage, I’ll drag your corpse by the ankle and make you finish the set.”

You laugh weakly, wiping your mouth. “You’re so kind.”

“I know.”

When you come out, Megumi is at the end of the hall talking to one of the techs about his monitor mix. He glances toward you once, his eyes flicking briefly to the paper towel in your hand and to the color in your face. Concern moves through his expression so quickly you almost think you imagined it. Then the tech says something and Megumi looks away.

You stand there for a second longer than makes sense before forcing yourself toward soundcheck. The venue is the biggest you have ever played on your own.

By the time the lights go down, your pulse is beating so hard it feels like it has moved up into your throat. Backstage, everyone has gone quiet. Megumi stands a few feet away, checking the tape on one of his sticks.

Someone calls places.

The room shifts.

Then you are moving, because there is no other option.

The first half of the set passes almost on instinct. The crowd is loud and so generous. Your body knows what to do even while the rest of you stays horribly aware of where Megumi is at all times, of how little you look at him and how much you still feel him anyway like the way he still adjusts when your breath runs shorter than expected after crossing the stage too fast.

By the time you reach the new song, your throat hurts in a place that has nothing to do with singing and Nobara glances at you while she retunes.

You nod, to reassure her, to also reassure yourself, maybe.

The crowd quiets when you step to the mic. “This next one is new,” you say, and your voice sounds steady enough to fool strangers. “We haven’t played it live before.” They cheer anyway.

♫⋆｡♪ ₊˚♬ ﾟ.

When the last note cuts off, there is half a second of complete suspension, then the room explodes.

The crowd screams so loudly it almost shoves you backward, the energy crashes over the stage in one huge wave and all you can do is stand there breathing hard, staring out into the lights because if you look at Megumi again you are not sure your face will hold.

Beside you, Nobara leans just enough into your space to mutter, “Holy shit.”

The rest of the set happens anyway, of course. You finish, you bow, you leave the stage to the sound of people chanting for one more song, and backstage the adrenaline drains out of you so fast it leaves you cold.

You find Megumi in one of the side rooms near the cases and he senses you there almost immediately and lifts his head. So, you close the door behind you, neither of you speaks at first. Until, your voice comes out thinner than you want it to. “That song wasn’t supposed to be about you, you know.”

Megumi looks at you for a long moment, then he says quietly, “It is now.”

“I mean it,” you say, throat aching. “When I started writing it, I wasn’t thinking-”

“About me?” he asks, “That’s worse.”

You flinch. “Megumi.”

He stands slowly, and somehow that is worse than if he had done it fast. Megumi laughs once under his breath with no humor in it at all. “That’s the worst part.”

“What is?”

He looks away for a second, jaw tight. “I still knew where your voice was going to break.”

The grief of that goes through you so cleanly it almost feels simple. You step toward him without thinking. “Megumi, please.”

His eyes cut back to yours. “Don’t.”

You stop and he breathes in slowly, like he is restraining himself from saying something worse, and when he speaks again his voice is steady in a way that hurts even more. “I gave Nanami my answer this afternoon.”

Your skin goes cold. “What answer?”

“I’m out after tonight.”

You stare at him. “No.” He says nothing. “No, you don’t get to tell me that after the show like it’s some schedule change, what the fuck is wrong with you?.”

“What did you want me to do?” The anger flickers through him then. “Tell you before we went on and wreck the set?”

“So that’s it?” you ask. “You leave and that’s cleaner?”

“Cleaner than dragging this out while everybody waits for me to become someone I’m not.”

“That’s not what I wanted.”

“Maybe not,” he says. “Doesn’t change what happened.”

Your voice breaks despite yourself. “You’re punishing me.”

Something sharp flashes over his face. “You think this feels good to me?”

“I’m sorry,” you whisper. You do’nt say why. You don’t say that you are sorry for wanting this so badly and sorry for making him play that song in front of thousands of people before either of you understood what it really was.

Megumi hears all of it anyway. He always hears what you mean underneath what you say. “I know,” he says.

You wipe the tears off of your face. “What am I supposed to do with that song?”

His eyes flick briefly to yours, then away. “Whatever you want.”

“That’s not fair.”

He lets out a tired breath that almost sounds like a laugh. “No.”

“You built the drum pattern.”

“I know.”

“It’s yours too.”

His jaw tightens. “Not anymore.”

For a second anger flares through the grief. “You don’t mean that.”

He does not answer.

Megumi glances toward the door. “They’ll need us out there.”

You stare at him. “That’s all?”

For the first time something naked appears through his face. “If I say more,” he says quietly, “I won’t leave.” He looks away first. Then he reaches for the door, and, you do not stop him.

He’s gone by morning.

Nanami sends a message to the group confirming that Megumi has officially withdrawn from the band and that rehearsals for a replacement will start after a short pause.

You do not hear from Megumi again.

The clip of the new song from the concert is everywhere before the week is over.

Fans post slowed-down videos of the two of you looking at each other across the stage like they are witnessing romance instead of collapse. 

Then the label wants to release it as a single.

You hear yourself answer before you think too hard about it. “Then release it.”

The song comes out two weeks later.

It climbs faster than anything you have ever done.

Biggest debut week yet and added to major playlists.

You hear it in cabs and in convenience stores, where no one notices your face until the chorus is already halfway through the room. Every time it starts, your whole body recognizes Megumi before your mind does. 

Even when another drummer plays it live now, the shape of him is still there, and that is the cruelest part.

The song that finally gives the band everything you worked for becomes massive only after Megumi is already gone. The song becomes theirs before it stops hurting you

You open your mouth and sing anyway.

a/n : thank you guys so much for all of the likes of my first tumblr post!! i got so excited that i needed to put this one out as soon as possible. Hope it's not too long/too much. i'm going to try to do shorter ones also haha. thanks for all of the reblog and comments, it means so much to me !!!