Gówno

13

As Izuku laid in bed that night, all wrapped up in cozy sheets and staring at the ceiling, he found himself struggling with the same problem he did the night before. Namely, he couldn’t sleep—though this time it wasn’t due to racing thoughts so much as it was the fact that he’d only woken up around five hours earlier.

Although he knew Katsuki meant well, he couldn’t help but feel a bit aggravated with him. After all, if he hadn’t been so insistent, Izuku wouldn’t have this problem now.

With a sigh, he leaned over and switched the bedside lamp on. For a few minutes, he just sat there propped up against the back of the couch, twiddling his thumbs and gazing at nothing. Eventually, he stood and wandered over to the window, gently pushing the curtains open.

Outside, the city was alive and vibrant, downtown lights twinking like glitter. Izuku raked his hands through his hair and turned away, eyes roaming aimlessly around the quiet apartment. He paced around a bit, and then wandered over to Katsuki’s door. He pressed his ear against it, but could hear no sound coming from within. Shaking his head, he padded over to the large bookshelf in the corner on the living room and began to scan the shelves.

It hit him, as he was standing there, that for the first time in his memory, he could read anything he wanted.

Every book before him was his to experience, if he so desired. It was so bizarre, Izuku almost didn’t know how to process it. He kept having to remind himself of that fact every time he reflexively skipped over a title that felt like it’d be off-limits. It was strange how that worked—even with total freedom, his mind still operated as though he were in chains.

The top shelf was mostly cookbooks, it seemed, along with some faded copies of books with Russian-sounding authors. Curious, he picked one up, opened it to a random page and began to read.

In the United States, in the Democracy that authoritarians hold up to us as an ideal, the most scandalous fraudulency has crept into everything that concerns railroads. Thus, if a company ruins its competitors by cheap fares, it is often enabled to do so because it is reimbursed by land given to it by the State for a gratuity. Documents recently published concerning the American wheat trade…

Izuku closed the book, and put it back on the shelf.

Taking a deep breath, he moved on to the lower shelves, where most of the books appeared to be fiction. He wasn’t really sure where to begin with those, and so he decided to just close his eyes and grab the first one he touched.

That ended up being a novel titled Hiro Worship. It wasn’t particularly long, and so Izuku shrugged to himself, climbed back in to bed, and began to read.

He was surprised to discover that it was a romance novel. It became apparent rather quickly, just based on the way the two male leads were introduced and how they interacted. Still, it was surprising—Izuku hadn’t pegged Katsuki as the sort of person who’d want to read something like this. But then, there was probably a lot he didn’t know about him.

The book told the story of a young police officer, Shun Yamazaki, and the elusive thief, Hiro Nakamura, who he’d spent the past few years trying to catch. The two crossed paths at the scene of many of Hiro’s heists, each time growing a little bit more familiar with one another.

After some amount of time, Hiro began regularly breaking into Shun’s apartment. At first, he would simply sneak in to leave the officer notes or gifts, but eventually, the two began to spend deliberate time together. There was a bit of a ritualistic aspect to it; every time Hiro broke in, Shun would up his security measures, but when the time came, Hiro always found a way.

The tension between them was palpable.

Izuku found himself growing invested in the story rather quickly. The mystery surrounding Hiro, the constant will-they-won’t-they. He was shocked by how quickly he’d managed to burn through the bulk of it.