Kiss Me Apart (At The Seams)

so i ate myself, bite by bite, & the tears washed me, wave after cowardly wave,

Izuku and Kacchan are dating.

Or, well. Sort of.

It's kind of complicated, to say the least.

Though, then again, when have they not? They've always been complicated—an absolute mess of a thing, too intertwined to simply cut out of each other. Izuku thinks that he'd bleed out if he tried to—Kacchan is too deeply embedded into his soul. Even if he were to manage to gouge out every last trace of him—like a bloody vengeance, he wouldn't be fully whole ever again; there would be parts of his heart, his ribs, parts from every cell in Izuku's body, that no matter how hard he tried, he'd never be able to recover. They'd forever be gone, dead things, stained red like the parts of Kacchan he'd ripped out of himself.

So yeah. Izuku is sort of dating Kacchan.

It all started on that night—Kacchan had passed by Izuku in the dorms, telling him to meet him out front to talk about his Quirk.

From that moment on, Izuku had no idea what to expect from Kacchan. He seemed to always be doing something out of character for him lately—like the Kacchan-standard compliment he gave Izuku after the first part of the provisional license exam—so Izuku braced himself for the absolute worst.

Never in a million years did he ever anticipate what really happened—Kacchan connecting the dots about One For All, Izuku, and All Might; Kacchan challenging him to a fight, screaming out all his shoved down emotions, all of them now bursting straight out from the seams; fighting Kacchan, screaming at him to tell him that he didn't ever look down on him—how could Izuku ever do that? Kacchan was always amazing; a shining beacon of light in Izuku's life, drawing him in the way a sunflower will follow the sun across the sky, and ache when it sets and leaves it in darkness, patiently awaiting its return.

How could Izuku ever look at Kacchan, and not think he was the most amazing thing out there? Sure, All Might was his hero, but Kacchan was right there, in his life—winning, slowly shaping into victory—his image of victory.

Maybe that's part of why Izuku isn't surprised when Kacchan grabs his shirt, twisting him around in the air and blasting him down into the ground. The smoke and dust clear, and Izuku's head fills with a dull sting from its impact against the harsh, cracked asphalt that grates against his back. His lungs burn for breath, even with every gasping pant of air he tries to gulp down. Kacchan's hand is splayed out across his face, pressing him into the ground, and his other hand tightens around his wrist. His foot presses down on Izuku's other hand, right above the thrum of his pulse in his wrist. His other leg pins down Izuku's own legs, leaving him splayed out on his back.

Izuku coughs, his own spit threatening to choke him as Kacchan finally speaks up.

"That's it, we're done here. I won this fight," he growls out, taking in a heaved breath amidst his panting. Izuku's mind is still spinning, the dull sting in his head beginning to throb, opening his mouth to reply.

"I—"

"You have All Might's power," Kacchan interrupts. His voice is deep, jagged and achingly raw. "But even using his strength—even after making it your own, somehow you still managed to lose to me." Kacchan's hand on his face grips harder, fingers digging into Izuku's skin as he presses his head harder into the pavement.

"Why?" Kacchan hisses out—he's angry, and his voice shakes with tears, yet it's the most open Izuku has ever heard Kacchan speak. "How could you lose?"

Izuku strains ever so slightly against Kacchan's grip, twisting his head to properly look up at him, and his breath catches in his throat.

Kacchan's face is filled with scrapes and scratches, sweat beading all across his face. A trail of blood, dripped out from one of his nostrils, now lies still, cracked and dried over. His eyes—