Because of you {Tododeku/kiribaku}

Chapter 12

For the next two days, everything other than training was seemingly put on hold. Aizawa put them through workouts from hell starting before sunrise and only ending when the moon was already fairly high in the sky.

Midoriya pushed all of his frustration into doing the exercises Tiger had set out for him, his muscles clawing beneath his skin in a desperate attempt to get him to slow down enough to recuperate. But he couldn't do that. He, of course, wanted the muscle improvement so that he could continue honing his quirk, but he needed the distraction more than anything else.

He could hear Kacchan screaming in the distance and smiled despite the situation with Todoroki. Two people could rile him up into desperation, and it felt nice knowing that one of them was being as loud and brash as ever.

He dared to look at Todoroki next. The poor teen looked plum miserable in his barrel of water, slapping his hand down on it over and over to change it from hot to cold and then back again. It almost made him smile, the teen looked cute even when he was pushed to exhaustion, not to mention incredibly attractive in his muscle shirt.

More than anything, it made Izuku want to cry though. He threw himself back into the awkward, flailing muscle workout after forcing his eyes away from the teen. Every time he looked he felt those strong muscles under his hands and soft lips on his own. "Kacchan... I know you said to just give it time but, I don't think I can..."

He hated that Todoroki had practically disowned him after they finally admitted their feelings for each other. In Midoriya's mind, it didn't make sense. Shoto was almost always rational, approaching every problem with a cold and calculating outlook. It was one of the qualities that made him such a formidable opponent in battle aside from his quirk.

So, for him to admit his mutual love only to insist that they couldn't even be friends anymore, it meant that he'd weighed pros and cons and decided that abstaining from their relationship was the most logical option.

That knowledge made Izuku shiver. Endeavor must have really done something terrible for Shoto to have come to such a heartbreaking conclusion. But, Midoriya couldn't fathom what it must have been. He knew Todoroki had already withstood fifteen years of abuse and had remained rebellious, even going so far as to repress his fire quirk.

"He... He said he loved me, but... Am I not enough? He's defied Endeavor before so... Why not for me?" he wondered sadly, his eyes closing when more tears threatened to fall. The self-pity was quickly replaced by self-loathing, however.

"What is the matter with me? Hasn't he suffered enough? How can I be that selfish? Gods... Todoroki shouldn't suffer because I want to be with him... I'm a terrible person for wanting him to..." his thoughts continued, scolding himself for pinning after the forbidden fruit.

Izuku shook his head to clear it, his gut twisting painfully with emotion. He felt so conflicted about the whole situation. "Think about something else! Anything! Oh... What should I do about Kota? Yeah... that's good... Poor kid; what would All Might do to help?"

Todoroki and Bakugo side glanced at each other bitterly, both equally as displeased about being paired up for the test of courage. The blonde attempted to switch with someone but didn't have any luck since Kirishima was the only person other than Midoriya that would bother putting up with his temper.

He watched longingly as his redhead walked away to do his extra study sessions, wishing that he could be curled up somewhere kissing him into delirium. Some of his best memories were watching scary movies with Kirishima and allowing his boyfriend to cling to him during jump scares and tense scenes.

"Fuck," Bakugo growled, turning back to Todoroki with a deep scowl. He could see Midoriya freaking out behind them and almost snickered at him. The teen was either terrified about going wandering through the trail by himself or, more than likely, what might happen between him and Todoroki once they were alone.