A Flower's Affection (KiriBaku Flower Shop AU)

Katsuki Bakugo-Downfall

        "I don't need you."

        Words pounded through his head, a heartbeat with every step, thump, thump, thump, thump.

        "Please, you have to promise me you won't fucking touch him."

        Why did he care? Why had he ever cared? Why did he care? If the man was a monster, why defend him? Why choose him? Why did he choose him?

        "SHUT UP!"

        His phone rang in his pocket. Was it Deku? Mina? Surely Eijiro wasn't calling to beg for him back already. Not after so throughly humiliating him in front of their entire class. His pride was wounded, but his heart was in shambles. He'd cared too much. He cared so much that Eijiro's pain became his own, heartstrings tethering him to this broken boy he loved with all his soul and—

        "I don't need you."

        Katsuki stopped, the slow pattering of rain suddenly stronger. Wind whistled through the trees, nipping at his ears, and he pulled his hood up over his head to protect his hearing aids. He started up walking again, not quite sure where he was going, his furious stomp slowed to a self deprecating walk now that the dormitories lay beyond the trees. The gates opened up before him, letting him off campus to freely roam the streets of Musutafu. His feet pivoted him left, and he was inclined to follow wherever his shell-shocked state wanted to take him.

        He stopped again.

Left would take him to Chivalrous Arrangements, where Eijiro had started keeping a spare key in the honeysuckle pot on the stairs. Left would take him to the cramped apartment above the flowers where his face often hurt from smiling, to the bed where he felt safe and loved and—

        "Fuck you. Fuck. You. Give me a goddamn break."

Small unexpected explosions had him ripping his hands from his pockets so he wouldn't singe his jacket, biting his lip to trap the sob that wanted to escape. He turned right, trekking down the roads to his family's home instead. If the sobs started, the tears would follow, and he'd already cried over that stupid boy enough today. He'd been such an idiot. Why had he invested so much of himself into a man whose redhead hair dye probably stepped into his brain? The one who smiled like the sun didn't give people cancer? Why did Katsuki keep fucking looking at it?

Well, look at that! Congratulations! Cancer! Love cancer! Feels so fucking great! What's the cure, doc? Oh, rip your heart out? That's cool, I didn't need it any way!

Fuck! How could he have been so fucking dumb?! So stupidly trusting?! And of what? Shit hair and a six pack? Great! That looks like 'the gym helps my trauma and the gay is showing through my crisis,' otherwise known as, a big red fucking flag! And not just any red. No, he had to go for manic-panic pixie-dream-girl depression red, didn't he?

        "I don't care! I don't care, and I don't need you."

He did sob now, his little bit of restraint and dignity left shredded from him by those piercing words. He'd been a downright moron, genuinely and concretely in love with the asshole. He'd even opened up enough to trust Eijiro with everything. His exes, his debut, his traumas, his fucking disability—and for what? Genuinely, for what? For Ei not to care. For Ei to take the countless nights spent in each other's companies, the horrifying bouts of nightmares that Katsuki had witnessed, the multiple times that he had allowed Eijiro to crawl sobbing into his arms seeking his comfort—for Ei to take all of those intimate, secret, personal encounters and dare to say—