Chapter Text
The boy stood under the gate, shivering in the early morning chill, looking incredibly small.
After living his entire life under the shadows of his home Katsuki didn't notice their enormity anymore–the high arches, the massive rooms covered wall to wall with decorative tapestries and the rooms that stretched endless in sunlight and even longer at night had never managed to faze him.
The strangers were a sudden apparition like a dent on a brand new shield, looking defenseless against the grandeur of the palace that suddenly seemed to loom over the training yard.
Katsuki parried a blow from Master Yagi with his eyes still focused on the gate. "Who the fuck are those?"
His master's next hit fell squarely on his shoulder, almost knocking him off his feet.
"Language!" he warned him cheerily.
"Fuck off."
Another blow, this time over his helmet. The sword was a training model, but it still made Katsuki's ears ring.
Yagi hummed. “I think you would do much better if you focused, Your Highness.”
Katsuki ignored him. “Are we getting new servants?” Damn it, he almost liked the staff they had now. What the hell was this skinny kid and the frail looking lady supposed to be for?
A crow cawed somewhere on a tree, startling them to the point of jumping. Katsuki sighed. “Hit me harder, old man,” he taunted. “I know you still have it in you.” His words dripped sarcasm thick enough to melt the old snow that crunched under their feet.
To an untrained eye, Yagi seemed weaker than most; he carried an old injury hidden silently under his robes. He was young, however; most masters presented to Katsuki for training had been men bent over with age, carrying decades of knowledge and yet quick on his feet. He had sent them away one after the other, refusing to accept any until Yagi showed up. The man hadn’t been afraid to hit where it hurt, and Katsuki had liked that.
He gave no warning before charging again. Katsuki found himself surrounded by a flurry of blows, and the strange presence under the gate took a back seat against more pressing matters.
There was still sweat cooling on his neck when he walked into the meeting room, not bothering to announce himself. His father looked up at him with a defeated sigh clear in his face, but Katsuki only had eyes for the strangers that were now standing slightly removed from the circle, almost blending with the guards, shrinking under the gaudiness of the room.
“–finally got him to come,” was saying his mother. Her voice was as clear and resonant as always.
“Whatever this is, it better be worth making me stop training,” Katsuki sighed.
Her mother’s eyes could’ve bored holes on his armor, even as she continued talking to the woman. “As I was saying, we’ll make sure you get paid what we accorded after today. You may exit now.”
The woman’s hands seemed to be glued to the boy’s shoulders, but she let go when he turned around slightly and reassured him with a nod. His eyes were a bright green, Katsuki noticed amid a haze of confusion. What the hell was going on?
“What the hell is going on?” he demanded as soon as the woman left.
The meeting hall had a ceiling tall enough for a fully grown tree to fit comfortably, but it seemed to be too small to fit the Queen Regent and Katsuki at the same time. She raised herself from the throne and looked down on her son as if she was examining an interesting rabid dog.
“I’ve been told you’ve been skipping your lessons again,” she said, rage barely contained in her voice.
That was all? A pang of irritation surged up Katsuki’s throat, and he gritted his teeth. “Ain’t a priority,” he muttered.
“Excuse me?”
“It’s not a fucking priority,” he repeated. His feet left wet, muddy prints all over the carpet as he walked closer. “If I wanted to be taught about ancient Imperial history and spells and fucking–healing herbs I would’ve been born a fucking monk.”
The King deflated further, and a bright fire flared in the Queen’s eyes. “Must we have this conversation every time?”
“If you didn’t–”
“Don’t talk back! You insolent brat.” Her voice was loud enough to rattle the doors now.
Anger flowed thick in Katsuki’s veins, and he knew that his face was twisted into a snarl that could’ve mirrored his mother’s perfectly.
His father made a valiant effort to get a word in. “The position you will have after our deaths will require you to make use of a vast spectrum of knowledge, we’ve told you this.”
“Ask me if I give a shit! Let me fucking train, that’s all I need,” Katsuki hissed.
“I’ve had enough.” Queen Mitsuki’s words echoed in the vastness of the room. “You’re going to attend your lessons, and you’re going to start caring about your responsibilities, and you’re going to start today.”
“Or what?” he snorted. “You’ll pull my breeches down and spank me?”
“Not you, him.”
She motioned with her head toward the side of the room, where the boy in tattered clothes was still standing. A strange embarrassment flowed through Katsuki when he realized that he’d been present for the whole exchange; the constant fights and screaming matches with his parents didn’t usually happen in front of an audience.
Green eyes found Katsuki's gaze, only to break contact immediately. The boy looked like he didn't know if he should kneel, run away or cry, but he stood still under the sudden royal gaze.
"I hope that you understand that you've left us with no other choice," the Queen continued. "People are beginning to talk, you know? There's whispers and rumours about the rebel prince who refuses to take his place and settle down."
For the thousandth time, Katsuki longed for the freedom of sitting in a crowded bar down in the town and being recognized by nobody. He didn't know how that felt, he'd been robbed of that chance the moment he'd been with the shadow of a crown looming over him, but he'd heard the servants talking about it enough times for it to become a fixed daydream in his mind. A crowded bar, a cold beer and not a single person looking at him.
"Your father thought this might help you see the error of your ways," she continued, on and on. The exhaustion of the training session began to seep into Katsuki's core, mixed with disgust.
"You got me a fucking whipping boy?"
Green Eyes flinched at the words, twisting his fingers around. They were scarred, Katsuki noticed, rough cords of old marks seared into the skin. A whipping boy.
"What am I, a fucking toddler?"
His mother sighed. "As I said, it was your father's idea." She briskly motioned with a jewel-covered hand. "Come here, boy."
He moved like a dog terrified of a kick, teetering between fear of going forward and fear of staying back. His eyes found Katsuki's again, making his guts twist with discomfort.
Where had the switch in his mother's hand come from? Had she kept it hidden through the whole talk, waiting to reveal it dramatically? Katsuki didn't put it past her.
"Your clothing, now."
There was no way they were going to make it happen right there. Katsuki was frozen to the floor. The scene in front of him was happening too fast to parse and too slowly to escape it, the boy slowly rearranging his clothes until his ass and legs were bare.
"I believe twenty hits would be a suitable punishment for skipping your lessons today?" The Queen's voice hadn't lost its edge.
"Stop, I–" Katsuki managed to protest.
The cane fell.
The noise it made as it cut through the air was sickeningly hypnotic, a sudden rush of air finding its way to Katsuki's lungs along with its whoosh. It snapped against tender flesh with a sound like a broken twig, and Green Eyes bit down a scream.
"Mother, fucking hell, this isn't–"
The cane was in the air, and then it cracked down again. The boy hissed, clearly swallowing down the pain, and Katsuki felt his anger swell.
Snap.
The first pained moan broke the silence of the room, small and broken and yet so loud. Katsuki felt his heart beating painfully in the pit of his stomach.
The next swing made the boy cover his mouth with a balled fist. Gods, she had said twenty. Katsuki felt sick.
The air tasted surreal, like rusted metal and a badly remembered dream. Katsuki couldn't move, couldn't hope to process what was going on, and the cane fell again, and again, and one more time, and the screams that escaped the boy's mouth were like fiery arrows in Katsuki's throat.
He felt ire crackling in his palms, taunting him, daring him to try and stop this mess when deep down he knew it would only make it worse. It was impossible to not see the reddening skin from his position, and he couldn’t look away, and every crack seemed louder, falling over the same spot and making the boy scream.
Somewhere between the hits that stretched eternally, the boy looked up, his eyes swimming with unshed tears. Katsuki’s heartbeat rushed in his ears.
“This is ridiculous.”
The cane crashed louder than ever, and the boy almost fell forward. The Queen Regent seemed to pay no mind. “This is simply the consequence of your actions, brat.”
The icy dread that gripped Katsuki’s throat seemed to snap in half. He saw red, and then nothing. The boy was tearing up properly now, and his father still hadn’t fucking moved, and the short, strict sound of the switch against skin followed Katsuki like a sick melody when he found himself running away like a coward, the heavy doors slamming behind him.
The air was cold enough to hurt when it hit him like a slap to the face. There was still sunlight, but it felt distant and frozen when it tried to get through the wind that cut daggers over his skin, his thoughts still too tangled to process.
Katsuki found himself sitting on the ground, unable to do anything about the relentless cold that seeped slowly through the layers of clothing. He grit his teeth tightly enough to crack, rage pulsing through him in a heavy, steady pulse. His mother with her fucking demands, and the ridiculous whipping boy business, and the fucking rumours through town, and that fucking defenseless kid swallowing tears that made his eyes look huge.
Breathing hurt, his body still reacting to the foreign cold, but Katsuki let himself feel it.
The snow hadn't melted off the ground yet when Katsuki was called to the meeting room again. His mother met him in full regal garb this time, and a snarky reply about what he was being summoned for was already on his throat when he saw the kid and felt a dizzying, strange feeling rising in his stomach.
“Fuck off, I’m not going through this circus again.”
“Katsuki.”
The boy’s eyes found him, and this time they didn’t look away. He’d never heard him speak, Katsuki realized. Just those pained moans.
His gaze was heavy enough that Katsuki felt it physically pressing down on him. He gave in and looked at the floor in front of him, embarrassed for having lost such a pointless tug.
“I had to lash him more than I had planned for, last time,” the Queen continued. “Did you think running away without permission would’ve gone unpunished?”
Oh, that fucking burned. Katsuki’s mind got stuck in the unfairness of it all, the kid biting down on his lip to stop himself from screaming, and anger boiled in his throat.
“Fine, then,” he muttered, still finding it too hard to look up. What else could he say? “Fucking get on with it.”
It didn’t get any easier by knowing what was coming, by remembering exactly how the kid sounded when he gasped and whined. The cane fell, and the swoop of air that came with it knotted Katsuki’s stomach with dread, and he tightened his fists until his fingernails were prickling into the skin. Such a small dose of pain, that one was.
“Skipping lessons again,” his mother was saying. Snap. “Insolent, disrespectful, careless for your responsibilities.” Snap.
Breathing was like forcing your body through armor much too small. Katsuki wanted to scream.
Snap.
And then, in the middle of it, mixed with the anger and the nausea, something compelled him to look up. It was almost physical; as if a rope had been tied to his neck and it was being tugged from the other end. Katsuki raised his head and he found himself looking directly into the kid’s eyes.
Gods, why was he looking at him? Unmoving, barely flinching with every hit, trapping him hopelessly. The scream in his throat grew louder.
He stayed, that much he could say. Big fucking accomplishment, to stay still and observe as someone else gets hurt for you. Bile rose to his throat and didn’t leave him, the sound of the cane still ringing in his ears even after he was able to look around and realize that his mother had left. The room was so empty, but not empty enough.
His eyes refused to focus even as he forced himself to walk away.
“Wait.”
He froze in place.
The voice sounded clear, even if a residue of tears muddled it. “I don’t think you even know my name! I’m Izuku.”
Reality tilted in its edge, and Katsuki decided he was done trying to understand it. The boy getting hit for his mistakes was introducing himself to him, now. As one does.
“I’m–” his voice sounded like gravel under a boot. He coughed. “I’m Katsuki.”
The boy giggled. “I know.”
Right.
“I just wanted to make sure you knew me, right? Because I know I’m just another citizen, but I saw you and I thought, oh, maybe I should introduce myself to him? Would that be polite? Your Highness?”
His voice rose in the last question, as if he had suddenly remembered who he was talking to. Katsuki frowned. “Where the hell did they find you?”
“Oh, some workers were going around town asking! They promised a really nice reward, my mother and I are very grateful, Your Highness.”
“Stop that.”
He tilted his head in confusion. “Huh?”
“Stop the “Your Highness” bullshit. Makes me think of… just–stop that.”
They were still meters apart, but Katsuki felt trapped in a vortex he had no hopes of escaping. He wished he knew what the fuck to do with his hands as he awkwardly stood there. He wished he knew what the fuck to do with himself.
The knot in his stomach was still wound tight. The kid who a minute ago had been shaking under the Queen's hand was just… looking at him. It was intense, and he didn’t know what to do under that stare.
“Dunno what the fuck I’m supposed to do now,” he muttered, and as soon as the words were out he wished he could catch them and swallow them back down. The kid didn’t need to fucking know that.
“Oh, I can just… find my way out, I guess!” the boy smiled. “Goodbye, Your Highness.”
The knot cinched tighter. Katsuki grappled with the flurry of thoughts in his mind–not for long, though, not when everything inside him felt sharp and brittle.
He turned around in time to see the boy walking out, the arch of the royal doors framing him on the way out.
Whispers ran fast in a castle that was always hollow. It didn’t take long for the servants to find out that the Royal Prince was using the service of a whipping boy, and in the course of a week Katsuki heard everything from how he had apparently hired the boy himself out of cruelty to how a kitchen maid had seen him crying on the way out.
Katsuki didn’t remember if he’d been crying. Tears came easily to him, the burn in his chest sudden and oppressive and crowding behind his eyes with a strength that he hated, infusing his anger and despair and exhaustion with their salty aftertaste. He hated it.
This time, he was beginning to think that Professor Aizawa’s lesson on the history of two quarreling factions whose names he couldn’t hope to remember would be able to drive him to tears of boredom for the first time.
“Your Highness, should I repeat the question?”
A tangy, prickly fuck off was ready on Katsuki’s tongue before his teacher had stopped talking. His head hurt after hours of actually trying to focus on the lessons, and he longed for a breath of fresh air.
He grunted.
“Your Highness, you are aware that your parents asked me for specific reports on your performance, are you not?”
There it was, the anger again, like a dry bush suddenly caught by a spark. “M’ fucking here, aren’t I?”
Aizawa raised his eyebrows imperceptibly. “Well, I was appointed with the task of teaching Your Highness, not simply talking to empty air as he naps.”
Katsuki scowled. “You know I’d be less sleepy if you ever taught me something useful.”
The air was heavy and stagnated, making the light fractalize strangely, motes of dust hanging if suspended over nothing. It was a stalemate, it always was, and Katsuki hadn’t gained an inch of territory in his whole life.
Katsuki needed some fucking air. “You’re dismissed.”
Aizawa sighed. “You know I shall report to your parents about–”
“Leave.”
Outside, the sky swelled heavy with the promise of rain. It was barely midday, but dark clouds threatened to swallow light completely, menacing in their immensity. There were patches of mud here and there where snow had given way to a watery slush, but Katsuki managed to avoid them even as his mind ran faster than he could catch it.
The swish of the cane, watery eyes behind a smile, the thwacking against the skin.
He’d be summoned again, now.
The thought made the strangest swirl of apprehension and desire spiral in Katsuki's stomach. Over him, the first flash of lightning scared a flock of birds into scattering away. He didn’t look up.
Snap.
“Perhaps we shall go with thirty this time, since not only you disrespected your teacher but you chose to embarrass yourself by doing it in front of the servants.”
Snap.
“Katsuki! Can I call you Katsuki then, since Your Highness doesn’t want that title from me?”
Snap.
“This is your future as a ruler that you’re jeopardizing, Your Highness. Do try to be more aware of it.”
Snap.
“Oh, no, that’s ridiculous, honestly! They shouldn’t have to punish you for something as small as leaving early to go to the market, I mean, I know it’s a pretty poor market, but they have those really nice honey cakes, of course the Prince should be able to visit if he wants–oh, I’m sorry, I forgot you don’t like being called that–but, honestly! I don’t blame you for wanting to go!”
Snap.
“I saw some really nice flowers on my way here, Kacchan! It feels good after all that snow, doesn’t it?”
Snap.
Katsuki stumbled brusquely into reality with a gasp. His bed covers were tangled around him, and his mouth tasted disgusting, and whatever tumultuous dream he’d been having dissipated before he could grasp it.
“Your Highness, your presence is required.”
He struggled to process the words, his surroundings still refusing to focus. “What time is it?” he slurred.
“Breakfast will be ready soon. Your mother requests you before the meal.”
Sleep ran away from him all at once, his guts twisting into something uncomfortable. There was no way his mother knew, was there?
He was there, as unreadable as always, his face glazed darker than usual. For a moment Katsuki wondered if he’d been raised out of bed as well and dragged all the way to the castle, as his hair was even more tousled and messier than usual and he seemed to be wearing what could’ve passed for a sleeping gown.
Deku refused to look at him.
“Was yesterday not enough, Katsuki?” The Queen’s voice was all jagged edges and an explosion waiting to happen.
Deku’s legs shook more than usual when he was made to walk closer. Lifting his gown bared a mess of tangled welts and old bruises, and the sight made Katsuki’s heart leap to his mouth with a barely contained shudder.
As he’d ran away last night, surrounded by shadows, aching for a moment of relief away from the official dinner party being held in the main room, the thought that he was bringing more pain to Deku had crossed his mind.
Because he called him Deku, now, a sharp-edged nickname that was probably not really ocurrent but that the kid had never complained about. Because they talked, now. They talked, and Deku told him what happened back in town with a twinkle in his eyes even if he was just relaying the blandest gossip, and he went on tangents about his dreams and the future and spoke more than enough for the two of them, and the whole situation made Katsuki’s stomach knot with a confusing flavor of uneasiness.
Katsuki fucked up again and again, and he saw Deku again and again, and as much as he hated to admit it he actually found himself at peace when he came. He spent every waking hour with ten pairs of eyes on him, following protocol after protocol and forcing himself to act as it was expected of him until his head throbbed and his back went stiff, but a strange calm fell over him whenever he heard Deku babble on and on about some obscure folk hero from the legends that he adored.
For as long as he could remember he had treasured his precious moments of loneliness, the stolen hours of sleep where he could breathe for a moment. Where his entire self wasn’t being built up and then torn down by the eyes that were always on him.
After a while, he could feel that hushed ease even when he was not alone, even when he knew Deku was watching. Deku was just different. He asked questions with an innocence he probably didn’t have the luxury of really feeling, and Katsuki didn’t falter under the familiar rush of stress to his spine trying to figure out the right answer–he could just be himself. Whoever that was.
As he’d ran away last night, he had thought about Deku’s whimpers that very evening, muffled screams of pain that he couldn’t silence completely. What had brought him to the chambers had been a minor offense, something that would’ve been ignored if it had been anyone else, he was sure of it. And yet Deku had been there, and the cane had cracked dully against his skin again, and again, and again.
Afterwards, he’d told him more about the scars on his hands. Katsuki could still almost hear him, his words echoing in the bare room.
“Kacchan, don’t make that face! It’s just really easy to get injured, working in the factories. Not that big of a deal!”
Nobody had ever called him Kacchan before.
That voice, that sweet tone that was always eager to learn more about the palace and Katsuki’s life, that same voice that cracked into a sob after the first two hits.
Sometimes Katsuki wished he knew how to feel beyond anger. Rage was all he could feel now, sizzling hot and heavy in his throat as he saw tears running down Deku’s face.
The Queen’s hand didn’t falter when striking over freshly blooming marks. Katsuki couldn’t bear to watch. It had been less than a day, and Deku had already been dragged back to be tortured, and it was all Katsuki’s fault. It always was.
What kind of fucked up sadist put an innocent soul through hell over and over just to enjoy his company afterwards? How did Deku not spit on his ugly, twisted face every time he got close?
Pained whimpers turned into sobs, and sobs turned into openly crying. Katsuki toyed with the idea of snapping the cane in two–a coward hiding in his futile daydreams, standing still with his hands hanging helplessly on his sides.
No words were spoken that day. Katsuki somehow found himself holding Deku in his arms, and the warmth of his breath and his tears soaking through his sleeping gown was too overwhelming to put it into words.
He realized that he had expected Deku to feel frail under his touch, but he was anything but weak as he shook in his embrace. His tears didn’t take anything from the strength that Katsuki could feel vibrating under his skin.
Spring always came, no matter how dark winter had been. The world was governed by forces that nobody could really decode–eggs cracked to give way to hatchlings, tides rose and even the oldest trees had to dry up and die at some point.
And in a room that glowed with the mid-morning light, hidden from everyone’s eyes except their own, Katsuki’s lips found Deku’s and stayed there.
There were forces that nobody was meant to understand, that could only be experienced. Whatever whim of the universe was playing this sick joke on Katsuki was one of them.
Deku tasted sweet, shockingly summery, and he reciprocated every move Katsuki dared to make with a kiss of his own. He was still hiccuping through some stray tears, and every little sound was a thorn burrowing more deeply in Katsuki’s flesh, but even if guilt gnawed its way to his mind he couldn’t make himself stop.
He might’ve had his fair share of fooling around with the years, but Deku made him feel like an inexperienced brat all over again. Deku’s teeth dug into his bottom lip until it stung, and when he pulled back he looked at him with a spark in those pretty green eyes that made Katsuki’s heart feel like a foregin weight in his own chest.
If magic existed, it definitely shone through that smile.
No words were spoken that day, but even the air around Katsuki felt different as he watched Deku walk away without looking back, as his insides knotted into a ball of doubt.