Chapter Text
Kacchan,
I don't really know how to start this.
I've written and erased this letter so many times that the paper is starting to tear beneath my hands. There are crumpled drafts scattered around my room right now, shoved into corners and stuffed into drawers because every version sounded wrong somehow. Every sentence either felt too small for everything I wanted to say or too selfish for someone who has already taken so much from the people around him. I keep staring at the page and wondering how I'm supposed to fit years of memories, years of mistakes, years of things I've never managed to say out loud into a few pieces of paper. The truth is that there probably isn't a way. There probably isn't a combination of words strong enough to explain any of this. But if I leave without saying something, if I disappear without even trying, I think I'll regret it for whatever time I have left.
I guess that's fitting.
Everything feels like it's falling apart lately.
By the time you read this, I'll already be gone. The room will be empty. My desk will probably be cleared off. There won't be any notebooks left open with scribbled hero analysis in the margins. No muttering. No clutter. No evidence that I was ever here except whatever is left behind in the memories of the people I've already disappointed. I don't know if you'll be standing when you read this or sitting. I don't know if you'll crumple the paper in your hand the second you realize what it is. Honestly, I wouldn't blame you if you did. But even knowing that, even knowing there's a chance you'll never finish reading this, I needed to try.
I'm sorry.
I know that's probably the last thing you want to hear from me.
Maybe you're angry. Maybe you're furious enough to blast a hole through the wall. Maybe you're already halfway out the door trying to find me. Maybe you're reading this with that look you get when you're trying very hard not to show that something hurts. The one that most people don't notice because they're too busy looking at the explosions and the shouting. I've always noticed it, though. Maybe that's strange. Maybe I've spent too much time paying attention to you. Maybe I've spent years memorizing things I was never supposed to notice in the first place.
Maybe you're relieved. Maybe part of you thinks this is inevitable. Maybe you're wondering what stupid thing I'm doing now.
The truth is that I don't know either. I just know I can't stay.
I know everyone keeps saying we'll face this together. I know All Might keeps telling me that carrying everything alone isn't what being a hero means. I know Uraraka looks at me like she's trying to hold me together with nothing but determination. I know Iida would probably plant himself in front of the door and refuse to let me leave. I know Todoroki would quietly follow me anyway. I know every single one of our classmates would risk themselves without hesitation if I asked.
And that's exactly the problem. Because every time I look at all of you, all I can think about is what happens when I'm not fast enough. What happens when I fail. What happens when One For All isn't enough. What happens when someone gets hurt because they stayed beside me.
I thought I could handle that responsibility. I thought that was what inheriting this power meant. I thought that if I worked hard enough, sacrificed enough, bled enough, then eventually I'd become strong enough to keep everyone safe.
But lately all I can think about is how many people have already paid the price for my existence.
I started counting.
I started counting every scar left behind after every battle. Every hospital visit. Every broken bone. Every tear. Every moment where somebody looked at me and said they were okay when I knew they weren't. I started counting the people who stepped into danger because they believed in me. The people who got caught in battles they never should have been part of. The people who stood beside me when they had every reason to walk away.
Eventually I started counting all of you too, and then I couldn't stop.
Every time I looked at our class, I wasn't seeing future heroes anymore. I was seeing people I loved standing in front of a storm that should have belonged to me alone. People whose lives had become tangled up in mine. People who deserved so much better than what I could give them.
And that terrified me… but not as much as you did.
You were the worst one, because no matter how hard I tried, I couldn't convince myself I was willing to lose you.
I tried. God, I tried.
I told myself everyone was equally important. I reminded myself over and over again that I loved my friends and my teachers and my classmates. I told myself that if any one of them got hurt, it would destroy me. And all of that is true.
But every time I imagined you getting hurt because of me, everything inside me stopped. It wasn't fear. It wasn't guilt. It wasn't even grief. It was something deeper than that.
Something I still don't know how to put into words.
The thought would hit me and suddenly I couldn't breathe. My chest would feel hollow. My hands would shake. I would find myself staring at nothing for minutes at a time because my mind refused to move past the image. It didn't matter how many times I tried to rationalize it. It didn't matter how many times I reminded myself that you're strong and stubborn and more capable than almost anyone I've ever met.
The fear never went away. Because when I imagined a future without you in it, the world didn't just look sad. It looked wrong. Like something essential had been ripped out of it. Like the sky was the wrong color. Like I was looking at a life that wasn't supposed to exist.
And maybe that's pathetic. Maybe you'd laugh if you heard me say that. Maybe you'd call me dramatic and shove me away and tell me to stop being weird… but it's true.
You've been a part of my life for so long that I genuinely don't remember who I am without you somewhere in it. Even when you hated me. Even when I thought you hated me. Even during the years when speaking to you felt like trying to stand in front of a wildfire. You were still there: constant, loud, brilliant, infuriating, and impossible all at the same time.
The person I chased for so many years that somewhere along the way I stopped being able to tell where the dream ended and where you began.
You were the first person I ever wanted to become. Then you became the first person I wanted to stand beside. And somewhere along the way, without me realizing it, you became the person whose smile mattered more to me than my own.
Maybe that's why leaving hurts this much. Because when I imagine everything I'm giving up, somehow your face is always the first thing I see.
Not victory. Not hero rankings. Not my future. Just you.
Dammit, this so much harder than I thought it would be, but if I stay, someday I might have to watch you die.
I know that sounds dramatic. I know you hate when I do that. But it's true. The villains are getting stronger, the stakes keep getting higher, and One For All keeps dragging everyone around me into danger.
Especially you.
You've already almost died because of me. More than once, and I would have trade anything—anything—if it meant you got to live. So if leaving gives you even the smallest chance to stay safe, then I have to do it. Even if it hurts. Even if you hate me for it. Even if I spend the rest of my life wondering what would've happened if I'd stayed.
Because I'd rather miss you forever than attend your funeral.
I need you to understand that. I need you to know that this isn't because I don't care. It's because I care too much.
Maybe that's selfish. Maybe that's cowardly. Maybe you're reading this and thinking I'm running away.
I probably am but I'm not running away from the fight. I'm running away from the possibility of losing you. Because that's the one thing I don't think I'd survive.
You know what's funny? When we were younger, I used to think becoming the Number One Hero was my biggest dream. Now I don't even know if I'll live long enough to graduate, and somehow the thing that scares me most isn't dying.
It's disappearing. It's leaving behind everyone I love. It's never hearing your voice again. It's never hearing you call me a damn nerd again. It's never getting another chance to stand beside you.
I didn't realize how much those things mattered until I started losing them.
Maybe that's why I'm writing this, because if something happens to me… if I don't come back… then I need you to know something.
No matter what happened between us. No matter how much we fought. No matter how many years we spent hurting each other. You were one of the greatest parts of my life, and if I could choose again, I'd still choose the road that led me to you. Every single time. Every lifetime. Every universe. Every version of me.
I don't know what happens next. I don't know if I'll win. I don't know if I'll come home. But if I don't… please keep living. Please keep smiling. Please keep becoming the incredible hero you've always been.
Don't spend your life carrying my ghost around. Don't let my mistakes become your burden. Just live… for both of us.
And if by some miracle I do make it back… if I survive this… if the world gives me another chance… then maybe I'll finally tell you everything I was too afraid to say here.
Until then… Thank you.
For every fight. For every memory. For every moment. For staying in my life even when I made it difficult.
For being Kacchan.
Goodbye… or maybe just see you later.
Izuku
By the time Katsuki reached the end of the letter, his teeth ached from how hard he'd been grinding them together. The paper shook in his hand, the edges crinkling beneath his grip as his eyes remained fixed on the final line. For a moment, the room was completely silent except for the hum of the dorm's air conditioning and the distant sound of voices filtering through the walls from somewhere down the hall. Then something hot and vicious snapped inside his chest. It spread through him so quickly it felt less like anger and more like an explosion that had been waiting for permission to go off.
"The fuck is wrong with you?" The words ripped out of him before he could stop them. Katsuki surged to his feet so abruptly that his chair scraped violently across the floor, the sound harsh enough to make his ears ring. His room suddenly felt too small, the walls crowding inward while rage clawed at the inside of his ribs. He looked back down at the letter and felt another surge of fury rush through him. "Seriously, what the actual fuck is wrong with you, Deku?" he demanded of the empty room. "You were supposed to be in a damn hospital."
His eyes darted over the pages again despite himself, catching on lines he'd already read three times. Every sentence somehow managed to make him angrier than the last. The apologies, the excuses, the way Izuku had somehow convinced himself this was a reasonable decision. Katsuki wanted to crumple the pages into a ball and blast them into ash. He wanted to find the idiot and shake him until every stupid thought fell out of his head.
"'I'd rather miss you forever than attend your funeral,'" Katsuki read aloud, his voice dripping with disbelief. A sharp laugh escaped him, but there wasn't a trace of humor in it. "Are you listening to yourself?" He threw his free hand into the air in frustration. "You almost died fighting Shigaraki. We all almost died. Half the country looks like it got hit by a damn meteor, heroes are dropping out every day, and your brilliant solution is to sneak out of a hospital and disappear?" His jaw tightened. "God, you're such an idiot."
The worst part was that he could picture exactly how this happened. He could see Izuku sitting somewhere with that stubborn look on his face, convincing himself he was making the hard choice. Convincing himself that suffering alone somehow made him noble. Convincing himself that everyone else would be safer if he carried the entire weight of the world by himself. Katsuki had spent years watching him do it. Every time somebody reached out a hand, Izuku somehow found a way to shoulder more instead.
Katsuki began pacing the room. The letter remained clenched in his fist while a hundred different memories crashed through his head. The battlefield. The smell of smoke. The sound of buildings collapsing. Izuku's shattered arms. The sight of him throwing himself at Shigaraki over and over again even when his body had already reached its limit. Katsuki remembered standing in that hospital room afterward, looking at the bandages wrapped around Izuku's arms and wondering how much more damage one person could survive before there was nothing left to break.
And now he was gone. Not recovering. Not resting. Gone.
The realization settled over him like broken glass sinking into water. Sharp, slow, and impossible to ignore. While everyone else had been attending classes and trying to stitch together some version of normal life after the war, Izuku had already made up his mind. He'd written these letters. He'd planned this. He'd looked every single one of them in the eye and never said a word. The thought made Katsuki's stomach twist.
"Damn it." This time the curse came out quieter. Not because he was calmer, but because something underneath the anger was starting to hurt.
Katsuki looked toward the dorm room door where he'd found the envelope earlier that evening. Just sitting there. Like a package. Like a goodbye. Like the idiot hadn't turned himself into the center of everybody's world and then decided to vanish without warning. The letter crackled in his grip as he tightened his fist again.
"You don't get to do this," he muttered. The room offered no response. "You don't get to decide everybody's better off without you and then just leave." His throat felt strangely tight. That only pissed him off more, because the worst part of all of this wasn't the apology. It wasn't the dramatic nonsense about sacrifice. It wasn't even the fact that Izuku had left. The worst part was that Katsuki knew exactly why he'd done it, and somehow, that made it impossible to hate him for it.
The pressure inside him finally snapped. Katsuki grabbed the nearest thing within reach—a textbook abandoned on his desk after class—and launched it across the room with enough force that it slammed into the wall and burst open on impact. Pages scattered across the floor like frightened birds taking flight, but the brief satisfaction lasted less than a second before the fury came roaring back twice as strong. His chest felt too tight, his skin too hot, his thoughts moving so fast they crashed into one another before he could make sense of them. Every emotion seemed tangled together into a knot of barbed wire, impossible to separate without bleeding.
"Goddammit!" he shouted. The word echoed through the room as he swept an arm across his desk, sending pens, notebooks, and loose papers tumbling onto the floor. The crash barely registered. He kicked the leg of his chair hard enough to send it skidding across the room before it toppled onto its side, and still it wasn't enough. None of it was enough. The anger remained lodged inside him like shrapnel, sharp and burning and impossible to pull free no matter how much destruction he threw at the problem.
His eyes landed on the letter again—that stupid fucking letter. The pages had slipped from his grip sometime during his pacing and now rested on the edge of his bed, innocent and untouched despite the damage surrounding them. Something about that made him even angrier. Everything else in the room reflected the storm raging through him, yet those pages remained perfectly intact, carrying Izuku's neat handwriting as if none of this mattered. As if he hadn't just detonated a bomb in the middle of their lives and walked away.
"You think you get to decide this?" Katsuki demanded, staring at the pages like Izuku might somehow answer from the ink itself. "You think you get to sit there and write all this dramatic bullshit and then disappear before anybody gets a chance to say a damn thing back?" His voice grew louder with every word, years of frustration feeding the fire until it threatened to consume everything in reach. "Who the hell do you think you are? You don't get to make that choice for us. You don't get to decide what's worth risking and what's not. You don't get to look at everybody who nearly died fighting beside you and act like we're too weak to make our own decisions."
He grabbed a pillow from his bed and threw it at the wall, immediately hating himself because it wasn't satisfying enough. The thing bounced harmlessly onto the floor, accomplishing absolutely nothing. The uselessness of it only made him want to laugh and scream at the same time. He needed something bigger than this. He needed a fight. He needed somewhere to put all the rage clawing at the inside of his ribcage before it tore its way out on its own.
Because this wasn't fair. The thought arrived suddenly and lodged itself in his mind. It wasn't fair.
The country was collapsing around them. Cities were damaged beyond recognition. People were terrified. Heroes were quitting faster than replacements could step forward. The future looked like a horizon swallowed by smoke, and somehow Izuku had looked at that disaster and decided the answer was to carry it alone. Katsuki couldn't understand it. Worse, he understood it perfectly.
That was the problem. He knew exactly how Izuku's mind worked. He knew how many sleepless nights had gone into this decision. He knew how many arguments the idiot had probably had with himself before finally convincing himself it was necessary. He knew how much guilt had been poured into every line of that letter. He knew because Izuku had always been willing to carve pieces off himself if it meant protecting someone else.
And Katsuki hated him for it. No, that wasn't right. The realization hit hard enough to stop him mid-step. He didn't hate Izuku. He hated that Izuku genuinely believed this was the only option. He hated that after everything they'd survived together, after all the blood and pain and sacrifices and promises, the dumb bastard still couldn't imagine a future where he didn't have to suffer alone. It was like watching somebody stand in the middle of a crowd and insist they were drowning while refusing every hand reaching toward them. The image made something painful twist in his chest.
A frustrated noise escaped him as he dragged both hands through his hair and turned sharply away from the letter. The room looked like a disaster zone now—books littered the floor, papers were scattered everywhere, a chair lay overturned near the wall—yet somehow the destruction only made the silence more noticeable, like the aftermath of a thunderstorm where the sky remained dark despite the lightning having already struck.
Katsuki stared at the mess and felt exhaustion beginning to creep in beneath the anger. Not enough to extinguish it, just enough to make it heavier. Because nothing he'd thrown had fixed the problem. Nothing he'd broken had changed reality. The letter was still there, Izuku was still gone, and for the first time since finding that envelope outside his door, Katsuki realized with sickening certainty that he had absolutely no idea where to start looking.
He was halfway through shoving a pile of papers off the edge of his desk when a sharp knock rattled his door. The sound barely registered through the roar of blood in his ears, buried beneath the frustration still clawing through his chest. For a moment he considered ignoring it entirely. Whoever it was would eventually leave. Then another knock followed, louder this time, accompanied by the unmistakable sound of somebody trying the handle.
"Katsuki?" Kirishima's voice came through the wood. "Dude, what the hell is going on in there? I heard something hit the wall from three rooms down."
"Go away." The response came immediately, harsh enough to strip paint. Unfortunately, Kirishima had spent years learning when to listen to Katsuki and when to completely disregard him.
"Bakugo, seriously, open the door. You've got half the floor looking down the hallway because it sounds like you're fighting a damn bear in there."
"I'm not opening the fucking door." A pause followed. Then another attempt at the handle.
"Bakugo."
"No."
"Bakugo."
"No."
"Katsuki."
"Fuck off." The silence that followed lasted exactly three seconds, then the door opened. Katsuki had forgotten he'd never bothered locking it. Of course he had.
The moment Kirishima stepped inside, he froze. The room looked like a hurricane had decided to take up residence and then gotten angry about the accommodations. Books were scattered across the floor, papers covered nearly every visible surface, the chair lay overturned against one wall, several drawers hung partially open where Katsuki had yanked them too hard, and a crack now decorated one corner of his desk from a kick delivered earlier in the evening. The destruction wasn't catastrophic, but it was chaotic enough that even Kirishima looked momentarily stunned.
"...Damn." Katsuki immediately hated the look on his face. Not the surprise, but the concern. The concern was worse.
Kirishima slowly closed the door behind him and stepped farther into the room, carefully navigating around the debris littering the floor. His expression shifted as his eyes moved across the destruction. The confusion faded first, then the surprise, and what remained was something quieter and far more dangerous because it meant Kirishima was starting to understand that this wasn't just another one of Katsuki's bad moods.
"Okay," Kirishima said carefully. "I'm gonna ask a question, and I want you to answer honestly. Did somebody die?" The question hit like a slap. Something twisted sharply inside Katsuki's chest.
"No." The answer came too fast. Too defensive. Too loud. Kirishima noticed immediately. His gaze narrowed slightly before drifting downward toward the crumpled pages sitting on the edge of Katsuki's bed. The sight of them seemed to answer at least part of the question. Recognition flashed across his face. Not because he knew what Katsuki's letter said, but because he'd gotten one too. Every member of Class A had. The realization settled between them like smoke filling a room.
"Oh." That single syllable carried far more understanding than Katsuki wanted.
"Don't."
Kirishima held up both hands immediately. "I'm not gonna ask what yours says."
"Good."
"But mine wasn't exactly sunshine and rainbows either." Katsuki's jaw tightened. He didn't want to hear about Kirishima's letter. He didn't want to hear about anyone's letter. The thought of the others sitting alone in their rooms reading their own versions of Izuku's goodbye made something ugly twist inside his stomach. It painted a picture he couldn't stop imagining. Uraraka crying, Iida pacing, Todoroki staring at the pages with that unreadable expression he always wore when something hurt. The image only added more fuel to the fire already burning beneath his skin.
Kirishima took another careful step forward. "Bakugo, talk to me." The request sounded simple. It wasn't, because talking meant acknowledging why he was angry. Talking meant admitting this wasn't just about Izuku leaving. It meant admitting that somewhere beneath all the shouting and destruction was something much harder to explain.
Katsuki barked out a humorless laugh. "Talk to you about what exactly?" he snapped. "The part where that suicidal idiot was supposed to still be in a hospital bed? Or the part where he apparently snuck out without telling anybody and decided it'd be a fantastic idea to go chase All For One by himself? Maybe we can talk about the part where he writes this dramatic bullshit like he's already dead. Which part sounds the most fun to you?"
The words came faster with every sentence. Months of stress spilled out all at once. The war, the hospital, the funerals, the destruction, the exhaustion, everything.
"He almost fucking died, Kirishima. We all watched it happen. We stood there and watched him destroy himself trying to stop Shigaraki, and now he's out there doing this shit again." Katsuki dragged a hand through his hair so hard it hurt. "What the hell was the point of any of it? What was the point of surviving if he's just gonna throw himself back into the meat grinder the second nobody's looking?"
The room fell silent. Kirishima didn't answer immediately, and that alone made Katsuki look up. Because normally Kirishima always had something to say. Some reassurance or encouragement or stupid optimistic speech. Instead, he looked tired. Not physically, but emotionally, like somebody carrying a weight too large to fit comfortably in their own hands.
"Yeah," Kirishima said quietly. "I know." The anger faltered for the first time. Just slightly. Just enough for the exhaustion underneath it to become visible.
Kirishima's eyes drifted toward the letter again before returning to Katsuki. There was something knowing in his expression now, something that made Katsuki immediately want to throw him back out into the hallway. Not pity or sympathy, just understanding, and somehow that was worse.
"You're scared." Katsuki's entire body went rigid. The accusation landed with frightening accuracy.
"Shut up."
"You are."
"I said shut up."
"Bakugo, you're tearing your room apart because you're terrified." The words struck harder than any punch ever could. For a second neither of them moved. Neither of them spoke. The truth sat between them, ugly and exposed, impossible to shove back into hiding now that it had been dragged into the light.
Katsuki hated it, because Kirishima was right. He was furious. Furious enough to break furniture and scream at walls and pace holes into the floor, but underneath all that anger, beneath every curse and every shattered thought, there was a quieter feeling coiled around his ribs: fear… cold, relentless, and growing stronger with every minute Izuku remained gone.
The silence that followed felt heavier than anything Kirishima had said. Katsuki stood motionless in the middle of the wrecked room, his chest still rising too quickly, his pulse still pounding against his ribs like it was trying to escape. The anger hadn't disappeared. It was still there, burning hot beneath his skin, but now it had been forced to share space with something far more uncomfortable. Fear had a way of surviving every explosion. It lingered afterward like smoke trapped in the walls long after the fire had gone out.
Kirishima seemed to understand that pushing too hard would only make things worse. He didn't step closer. He didn't reach for him. He didn't try to soften the truth he'd just thrown into the open. Instead, he shoved his hands into his pockets and glanced toward the door before looking back at Katsuki with an expression that carried an unusual amount of seriousness.
"Look, man," he said carefully, choosing each word with more caution than usual, "you can keep tearing your room apart if you want, but it's not gonna change anything. Trust me, if smashing stuff fixed this, I would've broken half the damn building by now." Katsuki let out a sharp scoff, but it lacked its usual bite. "The others are downstairs."
The statement landed immediately. Katsuki's jaw tightened. "I don't care."
"Yeah, that's bullshit." Katsuki shot him a glare but Kirishima barely reacted. "They all got letters too," Kirishima continued quietly. "Nobody knows what the hell is going on. Everybody's freaking out in their own way. Uruaka and Mina have been crying. Iida looks like he's about to wear a hole through the floor from pacing. Kaminari hasn't stopped staring at the same page for twenty minutes. Nobody knows where Midoriya went, and everybody's trying to figure out what to do next."
Something unpleasant twisted in Katsuki's stomach. Not because he was surprised, but because he wasn't. Of course they were falling apart. Izuku had a habit of weaving himself into people's lives without realizing how deeply his roots had grown. Then he would act shocked when they refused to let him sacrifice himself alone. It was like watching someone spend years building a home and then genuinely believing nobody would notice if he disappeared overnight. The thought made irritation flare again, though now it felt tangled together with something much sadder.
Kirishima watched the conflict play across his face and pressed forward before Katsuki could retreat back behind his anger. "You don't have to talk if you don't want to," he said. "Hell, you don't even have to sit near anybody. Just come downstairs. Because right now everybody's sitting down there trying to make sense of this, and you're up here acting like you're the only person who got left behind." His voice softened slightly. "You're not."
The words hit harder than Katsuki expected. Not because they were cruel. Because they weren't. That was the problem. There was no accusation hidden beneath them. No judgment, just a simple truth. Katsuki wasn't the only one hurting.
For the first time that night, he pictured the rest of the class not as background figures moving through the same disaster but as people carrying their own versions of it. Every one of them had received a letter. Every one of them had opened an envelope expecting answers and instead found a goodbye. Somewhere downstairs were seventeen different reactions to the same loss. Seventeen different wounds wearing different faces.
"Fine," Katsuki muttered.
Kirishima blinked. "Fine?"
"Don't make me repeat myself." A slow grin began tugging at the corners of Kirishima's mouth. Katsuki immediately pointed a finger at him. "Don't."
The grin somehow widened. "Dude, was that personal growth?"
"I'm gonna kill you."
"There he is." Katsuki rolled his eyes so hard it almost hurt. The threat lacked any real heat behind it, and they both knew it. For a brief moment, something resembling normalcy flickered between them. It was fragile and fleeting, no more substantial than sunlight breaking through storm clouds before vanishing again, but it was enough to loosen some of the pressure suffocating the room.
With an irritated grunt, Katsuki bent down and snatched the letter from where it had fallen onto the bed. His fingers lingered against the paper for a moment before he folded it carefully and shoved it into the pocket of his sweatpants. The motion felt strangely protective, like he didn't trust anybody else to touch it and letting it out of his sight would somehow make everything worse.
Kirishima noticed. Thankfully, he didn't comment.
Together they moved toward the door. Katsuki stepped over the scattered books and loose papers littering the floor, avoiding the destruction he'd caused without really looking at it. The room felt different now. Still chaotic and angry, but emptier somehow. The rage that had filled every corner earlier now seemed too exhausted to keep screaming. All that remained was the aftermath.
The hallway outside felt unnaturally quiet. As soon as Katsuki stepped through the doorway, he realized why. People had been listening. Several doors slammed shut almost immediately, a pair of footsteps hurried away, and someone coughed suspiciously from farther down the hall.
Katsuki narrowed his eyes. A moment later, Kaminari's voice echoed from somewhere out of sight. "I told you he wasn't actually murdering anybody."
"I HEARD THAT!" A startled yelp followed. Kirishima immediately turned away to hide his laughter while Katsuki contemplated homicide. Then, with one final glare toward the hallway, he shoved past Kirishima and headed toward the stairs.
The closer they got to the common room, the quieter the building seemed to become. Voices drifted upward from below, hushed and uncertain. The atmosphere felt strange, like the dorm itself had taken a breath and forgotten how to release it. By the time Katsuki reached the bottom step, he could feel the weight of what waited beyond the doorway ahead. Not just the conversation. Not just the letters. The realization that this wasn't his problem anymore.
It belonged to all of them, and somehow, that made walking into the room feel even harder.
The conversation died the moment Katsuki stepped into the common room. Dozens of eyes turned toward him at once, some red from crying, others hollow with exhaustion, all carrying the same stunned disbelief that had settled over the dorm since the letters had appeared. The atmosphere felt heavy enough to choke on. It hung over the room like storm clouds trapped beneath a ceiling, dense and unmoving, pressing against everyone gathered below. Nobody looked comfortable and nobody looked okay. The war had already left fractures running through all of them, and now Izuku had managed to wedge himself into those cracks one final time before disappearing.
Katsuki ignored the stares and pushed past them toward the nearest empty couch. His shoulders felt tight enough to snap, and every muscle in his body still hummed with leftover adrenaline from destroying his room. The folded letter rested inside his pocket like a stone dragged to the bottom of a river, impossible to forget no matter how hard he tried. He dropped heavily onto the cushions and crossed his arms over his chest. The movement was defensive, instinctive, and completely useless because everyone in the room already knew something was wrong.
Nobody spoke for several seconds, then Uraraka broke first.
"I just don't understand," she said quietly, clutching her letter so tightly the paper had begun to wrinkle around the edges. Her voice sounded strained, worn thin from crying. "If he was struggling this much, why didn't he tell us? We would've helped him. We always help him." She looked down at the pages in her lap before swallowing hard. "I keep thinking maybe he just didn't want to burden us anymore."
Several people nodded, but Katsuki felt irritation immediately crawl up his spine. Wrong. The answer arrived in his head before he could stop it. Not because he didn't want to burden them, but because he already thought he had. The distinction mattered, and nobody else seemed to understand that.
Iida adjusted his glasses and exhaled slowly. The exhaustion etched into his face made him look older somehow, like the past few months had added years instead of weeks. "Midoriya has always carried an extraordinary sense of responsibility," he said carefully. "Perhaps the events of the war simply overwhelmed him. The pressure of inheriting One For All, the burden placed upon him by All Might, the realization that All For One continues to target him specifically. It is possible he simply reached a breaking point."
More nodding and more agreement. Katsuki's jaw clenched. Still wrong. Not entirely, just enough to miss the truth. They were circling the center of it without ever reaching it, like sailors navigating around a lighthouse while somehow failing to notice the beam cutting through the darkness. Izuku hadn't left because responsibility overwhelmed him. Responsibility had overwhelmed him years ago. He hadn't left because he reached his limit. He'd been operating past his limits since middle school. If that were all it took, he would've disappeared long before now.
"Maybe he thinks this is what a hero is supposed to do." The voice came from Todoroki. Everyone turned toward him. Todoroki sat with his letter folded neatly in his hands, his expression distant in a way that suggested he was still trying to solve a puzzle with half the pieces missing. "He always puts other people before himself," he continued. "Even when it hurts him. Maybe after everything that happened with Shigaraki, he convinced himself that protecting people means carrying everything alone."
That earned another wave of agreement. Katsuki looked away before somebody noticed the frustration written across his face. Because Todoroki was closer—much closer—yet even he wasn't quite there.
Nobody here seemed to understand the difference between what Izuku did and why he did it. Protecting people wasn't the reason. Protecting them from himself was. That was the part none of them could see.
The room continued discussing theories while Katsuki remained silent. Suggestions bounced back and forth between classmates like sparks caught in a windstorm. Some blamed All For One. Others blamed the state of society. Several blamed the pressure of One For All. The conversation twisted through a dozen possibilities, each one containing fragments of the truth but never enough to form the complete picture. Listening to them felt strangely exhausting.
Because Katsuki knew. Not everything. Not where Izuku was. Not what his plan looked like. But he knew why. He'd seen it written between every line of that letter. He'd heard it hidden beneath every apology.
The realization sat inside him like a blade pressed against old scar tissue. Nobody else had received the same letter, not really. Theirs might have shared the same beginning and ending—the same explanation, the same goodbye—but Katsuki knew with absolute certainty that none of them had received the words he'd read.
The thought made his stomach twist.
His gaze drifted across the room, taking in the faces of his classmates one by one. Uraraka looked heartbroken. Iida looked determined. Todoroki looked thoughtful. Kirishima looked worried. Every single one of them cared about Izuku. Every single one of them loved him in their own way. Yet despite that, Katsuki felt a strange distance growing between himself and the conversation unfolding around him.
Not because they were wrong, but because they were missing something. Something fundamental. Something impossible to explain without exposing parts of the letter he had no intention of sharing.
He thought about the pages folded inside his pocket… about the line that refused to leave his head. The worst one, because no matter how hard I tried, I couldn't convince myself I was willing to lose you. The words echoed through him again, sharp, heavy, and impossible to ignore.
Nobody else in this room knew those words existed. Nobody else knew that Izuku had spent nearly an entire page talking about him. Nobody else knew that somewhere beneath all the dramatic nonsense and self-sacrificial bullshit was a fear so specific it practically bled through the paper.
Katsuki hated how much that realization affected him. More importantly, he hated that it proved every single person in this room wrong. Izuku hadn't left because he was tired. He hadn't left because he broke. He hadn't left because he stopped believing in them. He left because he loved them enough to be terrified, and somehow that made everything infinitely worse.
The conversation drifted onward without him, moving in circles around the same questions none of them could answer. Every theory seemed to generate three more, each one trying to force meaning into something that felt impossible to understand. The room had settled into an uneasy rhythm, voices rising and falling beneath the warm glow of the overhead lights while exhaustion hung over everyone like a damp blanket. Nobody had the energy to argue. Nobody had the energy to stop talking either.
"I just keep thinking maybe he needed space," Yaoyorozu said quietly, folding her hands together in her lap. "After everything that's happened, maybe this was his way of processing it all. Midoriya has always been someone who carries tremendous emotional burdens. Perhaps leaving was simply his attempt to finally focus on himself for once." Her expression softened as she looked down at the letter resting beside her. "Honestly, if that's the case, maybe we should respect that." Several people nodded. Katsuki's eye twitched.
Tokoyami leaned back slightly in his chair, shadows gathering around him as he considered her words. "There is merit to that interpretation. The burden he inherited is unlike anything most people could endure. If he believed solitude was necessary for his growth, perhaps pursuing him would only interfere with whatever path he believes he must walk." He paused briefly before adding, "A person seeking enlightenment often separates themselves from others before returning transformed."
The urge to scream was becoming increasingly difficult to ignore.
Kaminari rubbed the back of his neck and sighed. "I mean, I kinda get it. Maybe he just wanted to prove he could do this on his own. You know how Midoriya gets. He probably thinks if he works hard enough he can fix everything himself. Maybe he left because he wanted to become stronger before coming back." He offered a weak smile that failed to reach his eyes. "That's sort of his thing."
Still wrong. Still missing it. Katsuki could practically feel his patience fraying thread by thread, then Sero spoke.
"Honestly?" he said, leaning forward with his elbows resting on his knees. "As much as it sucks, maybe this is just what Midoriya does. He sees a problem, decides it's his responsibility, and then runs off to deal with it before anybody can stop him. Maybe we're overthinking it. Maybe he didn't leave because of us at all." The room fell quiet.
Something inside Katsuki snapped. Not loudly, not dramatically, just enough. Just enough for months of understanding, frustration, fear, and anger to finally boil over. "The hell did you just say?" Every head turned toward him immediately.
Sero blinked. "What?" Katsuki sat forward slowly, his elbows resting on his knees now, his eyes locked onto Sero with an intensity that made several people visibly tense. The room suddenly felt smaller. The air felt thinner. The conversation that had been drifting aimlessly for the past twenty minutes abruptly found itself staring directly at the one person in the room who had finally run out of patience. "I said maybe we're overthinking—"
"No." Katsuki's voice cut through the room like broken glass. "Before that."
Sero hesitated. "That maybe he didn't leave because of us?"
A humorless laugh escaped Katsuki. The sound made several people exchange nervous glances. "You've gotta be kidding me."
"Bakugo—"
"No, seriously," Katsuki interrupted, dragging a hand through his hair. "Are you all actually listening to yourselves right now?" His gaze swept across the room, landing briefly on each of them. "You've been sitting here for almost an hour acting like this is some mystery nobody can solve. Like he just woke up one day and decided to leave because he wanted to become stronger or find himself or whatever other garbage you've come up with." Nobody spoke. The silence only encouraged him.
"That's not why he left." His voice wasn't raised. That somehow made it worse. The anger had moved beyond shouting. It had become something colder and sharper. The kind of fury forged under pressure until it could cut through steel.
Uraraka frowned. "Then why did he leave?" Katsuki stared at her for a moment because the answer felt so obvious to him that he genuinely couldn't understand how nobody else saw it.
"He left because he's terrified." The words landed heavily. Confusion immediately spread across several faces.
"T-Terrified?" Ashido asked.
"Of what?" Kaminari added.
Katsuki barked out another bitter laugh. "Of all of you." Several people recoiled as though he'd physically struck them.
"What?" Iida asked sharply.
"That's ridiculous."
"No, what's ridiculous is that none of you figured it out." Katsuki leaned back against the couch and crossed his arms. "You all keep acting like he left because he stopped trusting us or because he wanted to do this alone. That's not it. The idiot doesn't think he's protecting himself. He thinks he's protecting everyone else." Todoroki's eyes narrowed slightly as realization flickered there. Small and incomplete, but present. Katsuki noticed immediately.
"He thinks we're going to die." The room went completely silent. Nobody interrupted. Nobody moved. Nobody even seemed to breathe. Katsuki looked away toward the floor. His next words came quieter, not softer, just heavier. "After the war started, after everything that happened with Shigaraki, after finding out All For One has basically built his entire damn life around chasing One For All..." Katsuki swallowed hard. "He started looking at everybody around him and seeing targets."
The silence deepened. Uraraka's grip tightened around her letter, Iida slowly removed his glasses, Todoroki looked down at the pages resting in his lap, and Kirishima remained completely still.
"He doesn't think he's leaving because he doesn't care," Katsuki continued. "He's leaving because he cares too much." He laughed again, though this one sounded exhausted around the edges. "That's always been his problem. He'd rather break every bone in his body than watch somebody else get hurt. That's who he's always been."
Nobody argued because they knew that part was true. Katsuki rubbed a hand over his face and suddenly felt very tired. The anger was still there, so was the fear, but now both emotions felt exposed, dragged into the open where everyone could see pieces of them. "He thinks if he's gone, people stop getting hurt because of him." His voice dropped lower. "And the really screwed up part is that he probably believes that."
For the first time all night, nobody offered another theory. Nobody tried to explain Izuku's behavior. Nobody suggested an alternative interpretation. Because whether they agreed with Katsuki or not, they could all hear the certainty in his voice. This wasn't a guess. This wasn't speculation. This was someone who knew Midoriya Izuku well enough to recognize the shape of his self-destruction from miles away, and suddenly the room felt much quieter than before.
The silence lingered after Katsuki finished speaking. It wasn't the uncomfortable kind that came from disagreement. It was heavier than that. It felt like a room full of people suddenly realizing they had been looking at the same picture from the wrong angle the entire time. The weight of his words settled over the common area slowly, sinking into the spaces between them until nobody seemed quite sure how to respond.
Katsuki hated that they were all looking at him now. He hated the understanding in some of their faces. He hated the sympathy in others. Most of all, he hated that he'd spoken at all. Because now every eye in the room seemed fixed on him as though he'd become some kind of translator for a language only he understood. The attention crawled beneath his skin. It made him feel exposed in ways he couldn't explain, like someone had pulled open a door he preferred to keep locked and forgotten there was another person standing on the other side.
Todoroki was the first to break the silence. "You sound very certain." Katsuki immediately frowned. The statement wasn't accusatory, and that somehow made it worse.
"What the hell is that supposed to mean?"
Todoroki tilted his head slightly. "I mean exactly what I said. You've spoken more confidently about Midoriya's reasons for leaving than anybody else here." His gaze remained steady, thoughtful rather than challenging. "You don't sound like you're guessing."
Several heads nodded. Katsuki felt irritation flare immediately. Of course they were focusing on that. Of course they fucking were. The conversation had finally started heading somewhere useful, and somehow they'd already found a way to make it annoying.
"Because I'm not guessing." The answer came out sharper than intended.
Kaminari blinked. "Okay, but how do you know?"
"I know because he's predictable." A few people actually looked offended on Izuku's behalf. Katsuki almost laughed. Predictable wasn't an insult, at least not to him. Not where Izuku was concerned. The idiot practically left footprints through every decision he made. Most people just never learned how to read them. They saw the actions and missed the patterns beneath them. Katsuki had spent years watching those patterns repeat themselves until they became as familiar as his own reflection.
"He always does this," Katsuki continued. "Every damn time something goes wrong, he starts acting like he's personally responsible for every bad thing that's ever happened. Then he decides the solution is to carry more weight until his spine snaps in half."
Uraraka lowered her eyes, because she knew that was true. "He did it with the sludge villain." Katsuki counted on his fingers. "He did it with Stain. He did it with Muscular. He did it with Overhaul. He did it during the war." His jaw tightened. "Every single time, he looks at a situation and decides his life is worth less than everyone else's."
The room grew quieter. Not because they disagreed, but because they remembered. Katsuki could see it happening. Each person replaying their own memories. Each person finding examples. Each person realizing how many times they'd watched Izuku sacrifice pieces of himself without ever questioning why.
Then Ashido spoke. "Wait." Everyone looked at her. "If you're this sure..." She hesitated briefly before continuing. "What did your letter say?"
The reaction was immediate. Every muscle in Katsuki's body locked. The atmosphere changed so quickly it almost felt physical, like somebody had accidentally stepped onto a landmine and only realized it after hearing the click beneath their foot. His expression hardened instantly.
"No." The answer came so fast that several people visibly blinked.
Ashido raised both hands. "Whoa, okay."
"No." Katsuki repeated it again, louder this time. Sharper and more final. The room exchanged confused glances. Nobody had expected that response. Not because the question was unreasonable, but because the reaction was.
Kirishima's eyes narrowed slightly. He noticed it immediately. The defensiveness. The way Katsuki's hand unconsciously drifted toward the pocket containing the folded letter. The way his shoulders had become rigid. The way his entire posture screamed territorial.
"Bakugo—"
"No." There it was again. That same answer. That same wall.
Sero frowned. "It's just a letter." Katsuki's head snapped toward him. The glare that followed could have stripped paint.
"No, it isn't." The words landed harder than intended. Silence immediately followed because for a split second, something raw had slipped through. Something far too honest. Katsuki realized it at the same moment everyone else did.
"Deku wrote all of us letters," Yaoyorozu said carefully. "We're not asking because we're trying to invade your privacy. We just thought maybe there was something important in yours that could help us understand what he's planning."
Katsuki laughed. The sound wasn't pleasant. "Trust me. You don't need to read it." The statement only made everyone more curious. Of course it did.
The room seemed to collectively lean forward, and Katsuki immediately regretted speaking. Because now they knew. Not what the letter said, but that it was different.
Todoroki noticed first. His eyes narrowed slightly. "Your letter wasn't the same as ours." It wasn't a question, and Katsuki hated that.
The silence stretched. Nobody moved, nobody spoke, and in that silence, the answer became obvious.
Kaminari's eyes widened. "Wait."
Ashido looked between them. "No way."
Kirishima groaned. "Oh, you've got to be kidding me."
Katsuki wanted to leave immediately. The conversation was rapidly heading somewhere he had absolutely no interest in going. His pulse picked up, the folded paper in his pocket suddenly felt much heavier than before. Like it contained something dangerous. Like it was a live grenade hidden beneath fabric. Something nobody else could touch without setting off consequences he wasn't prepared to deal with.
"You are not reading it." His voice came out lower now, calmer. That was far more threatening than shouting. "I don't care what you think is in there. I don't care how curious you are. I don't care if the damn world is ending tomorrow." His gaze swept across the room one person at a time. "Nobody is touching that letter."
The conviction behind the statement startled even him, because it wasn't an act. It wasn't stubbornness. It wasn't pride. The truth was much simpler. The thought of somebody else reading those pages made something possessive and deeply uncomfortable rear its head inside his chest.
Those words had been written to him. Not the class, not UA, not anybody else sitting in this room… him. The realization sent another surge of irritation through his veins. Because he didn't understand why that mattered so much, only that it did, and judging by the increasingly suspicious looks spreading across the faces around him, everybody else had noticed it too.
The looks were what finally did it. Not the questions, not the curiosity, not even the realization spreading across the room that his letter had been different. It was the looks. The subtle glances exchanged between classmates who thought they were being discreet. The growing suspicion lingering behind their eyes. The feeling that the conversation had somehow stopped being about Izuku and started becoming about him instead. Katsuki could practically feel the walls closing in around him, every stare another hand reaching toward something he refused to let anyone touch.
"Oh, for fuck's sake." The curse exploded out of him before he could stop it. Several people visibly jumped. Good. Maybe that would remind them who they were talking to.
"You all seriously need to get over yourselves," Katsuki snapped, shoving himself off the couch so abruptly that it shifted backward several inches across the floor. His voice echoed through the common room, sharp enough to cut through every lingering thought in the air. "Deku disappears, nobody knows where the hell he is, and somehow you've all decided the important thing is what's in my damn letter?" He laughed harshly and dragged a hand through his hair. "Unbelievable."
"Katsuki, that's not what—"
"Save it." Kirishima didn't finish the sentence. Nobody did. The anger rolling off Katsuki had become impossible to ignore now. It wasn't loud in the way explosions were loud. It was something heavier than that. A storm cloud swollen with rain and lightning, hanging low enough to scrape rooftops, threatening to split apart under its own weight. Every emotion he'd spent the evening trying to hold together was beginning to unravel at the seams.
"I don't owe any of you an explanation," he continued. "And I sure as hell don't owe you access to something that wasn't written for you." His gaze swept across the room, daring somebody to challenge him. "You got your letters. I got mine. End of discussion."
Nobody challenged him. That should have made him feel better. Instead, it somehow made everything worse because beneath all the silence and discomfort, Katsuki could feel the truth pressing against the inside of his skull. They weren't wrong for asking. They weren't trying to hurt him. They were desperate too. Everybody in this room was grasping at scraps of information because none of them knew what came next. The understanding only made his irritation sharper, like a blade honed against stone until it became impossible to touch without bleeding.
Before anybody could speak again, Katsuki turned and headed for the stairs.
"Bakugo—" He ignored Kirishima.
"Baku—" He ignored Uraraka too. His footsteps thundered against the stairs as he climbed, each step carrying him farther away from the conversation and closer to something he couldn't quite name. Frustration still burned beneath his skin, but now it was tangled together with exhaustion and grief and a hundred other emotions he didn't have the patience to sort through. The evening felt like a knot pulled too tight. Every attempt to loosen it only seemed to cinch the strands together further.
The dorm hallway was quiet when he reached it. Most of the doors were closed. Most of the lights were off. The building itself seemed exhausted, settling into an uneasy stillness after the chaos of the day. Katsuki barely noticed any of it as he stalked toward his room. His thoughts remained trapped inside the common room, replaying fragments of conversations he wished he'd never had. Every sentence felt like sandpaper dragged across an open wound.
He shoved his door open harder than necessary and stepped inside. The room greeted him exactly as he'd left it: books scattered across the floor, papers abandoned in every direction, a chair still lying on its side. The destruction looked almost ridiculous now, stripped of the adrenaline that had created it. It resembled the aftermath of a storm that had burned itself out before reaching the sea, leaving only debris behind as evidence that it had ever existed at all.
Katsuki let the door slam shut behind him. The sound echoed briefly, then silence returned. For a few moments, he simply stood there, breathing, thinking, trying very hard not to think.
His hand drifted toward the letter still folded inside his pocket, fingertips brushing against the paper through the fabric. The motion happened automatically and unconsciously, like checking to make sure something precious hadn't disappeared while he wasn't paying attention. The realization irritated him immediately.
"Goddamn idiot," he muttered. Whether he meant Izuku or himself remained unclear.
Then something moved, the flash appeared so quickly that Katsuki almost convinced himself he'd imagined it. A flicker, a streak of green crossing the edge of his window that was gone before his brain fully processed what he'd seen.
His entire body went still. Every muscle locked, every thought stopped, and the room seemed to hold its breath around him. Slowly, Katsuki turned toward the glass but nothing was there, only darkness. The campus grounds stretched beyond the dorm building, bathed in scattered pools of light from distant lamps. Trees swayed gently in the evening breeze. Shadows shifted beneath branches. Everything looked perfectly normal and perfectly empty.
His pulse picked up anyway, because he knew what he saw… or at least he thought he did. Green, not bright or glowing, just a brief flash of movement carrying a familiar color. A color he knew better than most people knew their own reflection.
For several long seconds, Katsuki remained frozen where he stood. Then he crossed the room in three quick strides and yanked the window open. Cool air rushed inside immediately. The night greeted him with silence—no voice, no movement, no sign that anybody had been there at all, yet something in his chest had already begun hammering harder. Because for the first time since finding that letter on his door, a possibility had appeared. Small, ridiculous, almost impossible, but there all the same. And Katsuki had spent enough years chasing Izuku Midoriya to know that sometimes the smallest traces were the ones worth following.
Katsuki leaned farther out the window, his eyes scanning every rooftop, every shadow, every stretch of darkness the campus grounds had to offer. The cool night air brushed against his skin, carrying the scent of damp earth and distant rain, but it did nothing to quiet the restless energy coursing through him. His heartbeat had lodged itself somewhere in his throat. Every instinct he possessed screamed that he hadn't imagined the flash of green. It had been too familiar, too immediate, striking some buried recognition inside him before his conscious mind had even caught up.
"Deku." The name slipped out before he could stop it. Not an insult, not a nickname barked across a training field, just a name, simple and unguarded. The realization irritated him immediately, but not enough to take it back. His gaze remained fixed on the darkness beyond the dorm, searching for movement where there was none. The campus stretched before him like an ocean at midnight, quiet on the surface while unseen currents shifted beneath the waves.
No response came. Not a voice, not a sound, not even the rustle of fabric disappearing around a corner. The silence should have been enough to convince him he was alone. It should have been enough to make him close the window and forget the whole thing, yet something stubborn inside him refused to accept that explanation. He couldn't explain it. He couldn't prove it. He simply knew.
"Damn it, I know you're there." His voice carried farther this time, swallowed by the night and scattered among the rooftops. The words felt ridiculous the moment they left his mouth. If anybody heard him, they'd think he'd completely lost his mind. The idea should have embarrassed him. Instead, he found himself gripping the edge of the windowsill harder.
"You always do this," Katsuki muttered. "You leave just enough behind that people know you were here. Just enough to make everybody worry. Just enough to make people chase after you." Still nothing. The silence stretched, long and endless, yet somehow it didn't feel empty.
The sensation reminded him of standing on the beach before a storm, when the air became heavy and charged and every instinct warned that something was approaching long before the clouds arrived. He couldn't see Izuku. Couldn't hear him. Couldn't prove he was there. But every nerve in his body insisted otherwise.
His jaw tightened as the anger returned. Not the explosive kind, but something rougher and more exhausted. The sort of frustration that came from trying to hold water in your hands and watching it slip through your fingers no matter how tightly you squeezed.
"The hell are you even doing?" he demanded. "You write all that dramatic bullshit and then sneak around outside the dorm like some kind of creep?" His voice rose slightly with every word. "What, you wanted to make sure everybody read their letters? Wanted to check if your grand disappearing act worked?" He laughed bitterly and shook his head. "Congratulations. Everybody's miserable."
The confession hung in the air afterward, because that was what it had been. Not the words themselves, but the truth beneath them. Everybody's miserable. Everybody misses you. Everybody wants you back. The realization settled heavily inside his chest.
For the first time all evening, the anger began giving way to something else. Something quieter, something infinitely harder to fight. Katsuki lowered his gaze toward the dark grass below. The campus looked peaceful from here, normal, as if the world hadn't been ripped apart only a week earlier. As if people weren't still rebuilding entire cities.
As if Izuku Midoriya hadn't just vanished into the night carrying the weight of a collapsing society on his shoulders. The contrast made his stomach twist. It felt wrong, like a painting where one color had been carefully scraped away, leaving behind a shape everyone could still see even though it was no longer there.
"You're an idiot." His voice softened despite himself. Not gentle—never gentle—just tired. "So stop." The words escaped before he could stop them. Katsuki froze. For a second, he considered pretending he hadn't spoken, then he exhaled sharply and continued anyway.
"Just... stop doing this." His fingers tightened against the windowsill. "Stop deciding everything by yourself. Stop acting like you're the only person who gets a say. Stop carrying all this crap around like it's your responsibility and yours alone." He swallowed hard. "Nobody asked you to do that." The vulnerability of the statement made him immediately regret it. His pulse hammered harder as the night remained silent. Yet he kept talking, because somewhere along the way, it had stopped feeling like a conversation and started feeling like a confession.
"You think you're protecting people, but you're not." Katsuki laughed quietly, the sound rough around the edges. "You're just making everybody watch you destroy yourself from farther away." His eyes closed briefly. "Do you know how messed up that is? Do you know how angry that makes people?" He shook his head again. "You don't. Of course you don't." Still no answer. No movement. No green flash. Nothing.
The hope he'd been carrying since spotting that glimpse outside the window slowly began to unravel. Not all at once and not dramatically. It faded the way the final stars disappeared before dawn, one by one until he suddenly realized they were gone. The absence hurt more than he wanted to admit.
Eventually, Katsuki pushed himself away from the window. The room behind him felt darker now, quieter and lonelier. He stood there for several moments before turning away, shoving both hands into his pockets as he walked toward the center of the room, every step feeling heavier than the last. The conversation downstairs, the letter, the war, the possibility that Izuku had actually been there. Everything seemed to follow him like shadows stretched long by a setting sun.
At the edge of the room, he stopped, then glanced back, the open window framed the night like an unfinished sentence. Cool air drifted inside, carrying distant sounds from somewhere beyond the dorm. Katsuki stared at it for a moment before looking away again. He didn't close it. He told himself it was because the room was hot. Because he needed air. Because shutting it would be annoying. The lie was obvious, even to him, but he left the window open anyway.
For several minutes, Katsuki did nothing except stare at the open window. The night continued moving without him. Wind stirred the branches outside. Distant lights flickered across the campus grounds. Somewhere farther away, a siren wailed briefly before fading into silence again. The world carried on exactly as it always had, indifferent to the ache sitting beneath his ribs, indifferent to the fact that somebody important had vanished from it. There was something infuriating about that. Something cruel in the way life refused to stop even when it felt like a piece of it had been carved away.
His eyes drifted back toward his desk, then toward the letter in his pocket, then back to the desk again. The realization arrived slowly—not as an idea—as an instinct. The same stubborn instinct that had kept him standing after fights he should have lost and moving forward through pain he should have collapsed beneath. It settled inside him with quiet certainty, threading itself through the exhaustion and frustration until there was no ignoring it. If Izuku could leave a letter, then Katsuki could leave one too.
"God, this is stupid." The words came out under his breath as he crossed the room.
His feet carried him toward the desk almost against his will. The chair scraped softly against the floor when he pulled it out, the sound unusually loud in the quiet room. Pens were scattered everywhere from his earlier rampage, forcing him to gather one from beneath a fallen notebook. The simple act of sitting down felt strange somehow, as if he were stepping into unfamiliar territory despite having spent years at this same desk.
Katsuki stared at the blank page for an embarrassingly long time, but nothing came. Not because he had nothing to say, but because he had too much.
The thoughts crowded together behind his teeth and refused to form anything coherent. Anger tangled with fear. Relief tangled with resentment. Every emotion seemed to pull against the others until the entire mess became impossible to sort through. Writing suddenly felt far more difficult than punching something.
"The hell am I supposed to put?" He glared at the paper, but the paper remained unimpressed. His mind immediately supplied a dozen possibilities. Most of them involved profanity, several involved physically dragging Izuku back to UA, but none of them felt right. Because the truth was that every insult only seemed to circle around the same thing without ever touching it directly.
Eventually, he lowered the pen. The first words appeared slowly and awkwardly, like trying to force a rusted lock open after years of neglect.
The handwriting looked rough compared to Izuku's. The letters pressed harder into the page than necessary, leaving faint indentations beneath every stroke. Katsuki found himself stopping frequently, staring at what he'd written before adding another line. The process was irritating and uncomfortable, yet somehow he kept going anyway.
By the time he finished, the note wasn't long. Not compared to Izuku's, not even close. It was barely half a page, but it felt heavier somehow. The kind of weight that didn't come from length but from everything left unsaid between the lines.
Katsuki read it over once, then immediately hated it. He considered throwing it away, burning it, and starting over. Instead, he folded it carefully and stood from the desk before he could change his mind.
The window remained open, waiting. The sight made something tighten painfully inside his chest. Because now that the possibility existed, now that he'd seen that flash of green outside, he couldn't quite convince himself it had been his imagination. Hope was an annoying thing. It slipped through cracks you didn't know existed and took root before you realized what was happening. Once it was there, getting rid of it became almost impossible.
Katsuki crossed the room and placed the folded note on the windowsill. The paper looked small sitting there alone, fragile and ordinary. Just another piece of paper among millions. Yet somehow it felt important, like a message in a bottle cast into a stormy sea, launched toward a destination he couldn't see and couldn't guarantee existed.
"If you're out there," he muttered quietly, "read it." The words disappeared into the night. No answer came back. Still, he lingered there for several moments afterward, his gaze fixed on the darkness beyond the glass. Every shadow seemed capable of becoming a familiar silhouette. Every movement of the trees threatened to turn into green hair caught by the wind. The anticipation was ridiculous. Embarrassing. Yet he couldn't make himself walk away.
Eventually, exhaustion won, and slowly, Katsuki stepped back from the window. His hand brushed the frame as he passed, then stopped. The open space stared back at him, waiting, inviting, and hopeful. He could close it… he should close it. The night air was getting colder and rain was probably coming, leaving it open made no sense. Yet the thought of shutting it felt wrong in a way he couldn't explain, like locking a door against someone who might still come home.
Katsuki clenched his jaw, then dropped his hand. The window stayed open. He climbed into bed without changing his mind. The cool air drifted through the room, carrying the scent of rain and distant city lights. Somewhere outside, the darkness stretched endlessly beyond the dorm walls. Somewhere beyond that darkness was Izuku, hurt, alone, and chasing monsters with a body that still hadn't fully healed.
Katsuki turned onto his side and stared at the open window until his eyes burned. The note remained untouched on the sill, the night remained silent, and before sleep finally dragged him under, one thought settled heavily inside his chest.
If Izuku came back tonight, even for a minute, even just long enough to read the letter, Katsuki would never know. Because for the first time since finding the envelope outside his door, he fell asleep waiting for someone who wasn't there.
Deku,
You know what? Screw you. Seriously.
I spent ten minutes staring at this paper trying to figure out how I'm supposed to start a letter after reading yours, and that's the only thing that keeps coming back into my head.
Screw you.
Not because you left. Not because you're trying to protect everyone. Not because you're carrying another impossible burden that nobody else can understand.
Because you're acting like you're the only one who gets a say in any of this.
Because you sat there and wrote pages about how much everyone means to you, how much you care, how terrified you are of losing people, and then you made the decision for all of us anyway.
You always do that. You always decide what you're willing to sacrifice and then throw yourself onto the altar before anybody gets the chance to stop you. And the worst part? You genuinely think it's noble. You genuinely think this is what being strong looks like.
I don't know whether I want to hit you or drag you back here. Maybe both… probably both.
I kept rereading your letter trying to figure out where exactly you lost your damn mind. Was it the part where you started counting scars? The part where you decided everyone would be safer without you? The part where you convinced yourself you're some kind of curse? Or was it the part where you actually thought I'd let you disappear without coming after you?
Because that's the stupidest thing you've ever written, and you've written entire notebooks analyzing heroes for fun.
Do you have any idea what this room feels like without you in it? I didn't think it would bother me this much. I hate admitting that. I hate even writing it. But every time I look at your desk, I keep expecting to hear muttering. I keep expecting to hear pages turning. I keep expecting you to burst through the door looking like you've had six hours of sleep spread across three days because you got distracted analyzing somebody's fighting style.
The room is too quiet, everything is too quiet, and I hate it. I hate that you're gone. I hate that I found this letter. I hate that part of me understands exactly why you left.
Because that's the thing, isn't it? I understand. That's what makes me so angry.
You think nobody gets it. You think nobody understands what it feels like to wake up every day terrified that somebody you care about is going to get hurt. You think nobody understands carrying guilt around like a second heartbeat. You think nobody understands what it's like to blame yourself for things that aren't your fault.
But I do… maybe better than anyone.
Because I've spent so much time carrying my own version of that weight. Months wondering if All Might would still be standing if I hadn't gotten kidnapped. Years wondering how many things broke because of me. Years wondering if I deserved the people who stayed.
You aren't the only one who knows what guilt feels like. You're just the only idiot who thinks you have to face it alone.
And then you wrote about me. Of course you did. I should've known. I should've known that somewhere in that giant mess of self-sacrificial nonsense, you'd start talking about me like I'm already dead.
You said I was the worst one. You said losing me terrified you. You said the world looked wrong without me in it.
I had to stop reading after that. Not because I was angry, not because I wanted to throw the letter away, but because I couldn't see the damn page anymore.
You know what's funny? I spent years thinking I knew exactly how you saw me. The kid who bullied you. The asshole from childhood. The rival. The guy you could never catch.
Then we got older and I started realizing you were looking at me differently. Not better. Just... differently, like every version of me existed at the same time whenever you looked my way. The kid I was, the person I became, and the person I wanted to become and somehow you still stayed. Even when I didn't deserve it… especially then.
You wrote that you've spent years paying attention to me. I know. You think you're subtle but you're not. You've never been subtle. I always knew. Maybe not every detail, maybe not every notebook observation, but I knew.
I knew every time your eyes found me in a crowd. I knew every time you looked relieved after a fight because I was still standing. I knew every time you smiled without realizing it when I walked into a room.
I noticed. I notice more than you think I do, and maybe that's why reading this hurt so much.
Because buried underneath all your guilt and fear and self-hatred was something else. Something you've been trying not to say. Something you've been running from almost as hard as you're running from us. Maybe you're too scared to put a name to it.Maybe you think you don't deserve it. Maybe you think it'll ruin everything.
You're wrong. You're wrong about a lot of things, but you're especially wrong about that. Because the truth is that every time I picture the future, you're there. You always have been. I never planned it. Never meant for it to happen. Hell, half the time you drive me completely insane. But somewhere along the way, every goal I had started including you standing beside me. Graduation. Hero rankings. Agency work. Everything. You were just... there.
Like it was obvious. Like it was inevitable. Like there wasn't a version of my future worth imagining if you weren't part of it.
And maybe that's pathetic. Maybe if Kirishima read this I'd never hear the end of it but I don't care.
You want to know what really pisses me off? You wrote this whole damn letter talking about how much it would hurt to lose me, and not once did you stop to think what losing you would do to me. Not a single time.
You stupid bastard. Do you really think I'd be okay? Do you really think I'd just keep moving forward like nothing happened? Do you really think I wouldn't tear apart the entire country looking for you?
Because I would. I am. Right now.
As I'm writing this, somebody is probably trying to figure out where you've gone, and when I find you—and I will find you—you are going to listen to me for once in your life. You're going to stop carrying everything alone. You're going to stop deciding your life is worth less than everyone else's. You're going to stop treating yourself like something expendable.
And if you won't do it for yourself? Then do it for me.
Because I'm tired, Deku. I'm tired of watching you throw yourself into fires and acting like it doesn't burn. I'm tired of watching you bleed for people who would gladly bleed for you. I'm tired of pretending that losing you wouldn't destroy me.
You wrote that if the world gave you another chance, maybe you'd finally tell me everything you were too afraid to say. So here's my answer:
Come back and say it.
Come back and tell me.
Come back and stop making me read it between the lines.
Come back and let me be selfish for once.
Because despite everything, despite how angry I am, despite how much I want to throttle you right now, there's one thing you got right.
When I imagine a future without you in it—it looks wrong.
And one more thing. I know you were here. Don't bother pretending otherwise.
Maybe anybody else would've missed it. Maybe anybody else would've looked out that window and convinced themselves they imagined it. But I've spent too many years chasing after your reckless ass to mistake that kind of thing now. I saw the green. I saw the movement. It was gone so fast I almost thought I was losing my mind, but I know what I saw.
And if that was you, then you're even dumber than I thought. Because what the hell was the plan? Sneak over here. Make sure everybody got their letters. Watch from a distance like some kind of ghost haunting your own life then disappear again before anybody could stop you. That's not normal behavior, Deku. That's serial killer behavior. Get help.
I called out for you. You know I did. I stood there talking to the damn darkness like an idiot because part of me knew you could hear me. Maybe you were on a rooftop. Maybe you were halfway across campus already. Maybe you were close enough to hear every word and just too stubborn to answer. Honestly, that sounds like something you'd do.
You didn't come back. You didn't say anything. You just left… again.
So I'm leaving this here.
If you come back tomorrow, read it. If you come back next week, read it. If you come back a month from now looking half-dead and covered in blood because apparently that's your favorite hobby, read it.
Hell, if you come back and decide not to knock because you're being an idiot again, it's right here.
The window's staying open.
Not because I think you'll actually use it. Not because I expect you to suddenly start making smart decisions. And definitely not because I'm sitting here hoping you'll climb through it like some dramatic movie scene.
It's staying open because I know you. I know you'll check. I know you'll make sure everybody's okay before you make sure you're okay. And if you're going to keep doing that, then I'm giving you somewhere to come back to.
So if you're out there right now, lurking around like a creep and reading this over my shoulder somehow, just know that the window's open.
And maybe that's stupid. Maybe it's pointless. Maybe you'll never come back at all. But I couldn't bring myself to close it.
So come home. That's not a request, that's an order.
And for once in your life, Deku,
listen to me.
— Kacchan