✓THE SPACE BETWEEN THE STARS|| BakuDeku Au

Chapter Nineteen: Naked Drawings 'n Shit

The double-meaning behind his words drove Izuku mad, doing nothing to ease the war of fear and lust in his mind. Why couldn't he just get through this drawing session without any words being exchanged—why did they need to talk? Talking led to his inevitable train-of-thought, said train swerving down a track of uncertainty until it was enveloped by a cloud of darkness.

Fuck.

"I know what you're doing," Izuku commented, adoration blooming in replacement of his previous emotions. It was this specific part of this drawing session that Izuku was most looking forward to—drawing the boy's infinite amount of tattoos.

Arching his wrist, he allowed his pencil the trace the outlines of the bigger ink blotches painted across his skin. Delving back into them, in attempts to replicate their intricate detail. However, as he sketched said tattoos this prompted a question to form on the tip of his tongue.

"When did you get these?" Izuku asked softly, again, ignoring his conflict of mind.

"Hm?" Katsuki examined himself, "Get what?"

"The tattoos,"

With wide eyes, Katsuki mutters a string of incoherent phrases. His apprehension twisting away at his antecedent light-hearted mood. "Do you hate them?"

"Trust me—" his pencil dipped a little too hard into the paper, "—hate is not the way I'd describe my feelings for these tattoos. But you never answered my question, Kacchan,"

"I didn't get them all at once. But it started around a few months after you . . . well . . . is 'died' the right word?" he tilted his head slightly, searching his own mind for a better substitute for the word.

A chuckle left Izuku's lips. "I'm not entirely sure what the right word for any of this would be,"

"Someone should write a book about us," the blond quipped, "I'm sure it'd make a lot of money."

A smile broke out onto the freckled male's lips, his pencil softly shading in an area on the paper. "Yeah—I bet everybody who read it would call you a dumbass for not telling me about my amnesia sooner. I know I would have,"

Katsuki stiffened, going unnoticed by Izuku seeing as though he had already been rather still to begin with. He knew the other boy was joking, that much was clear by his tone of voice and breathtaking grin. Be that as it may, it did nothing to ameliorate the abnormal amount of guilt and self-deprecation he harbored—something that would take quite a bit of time to dissipate. For the young man had many regrets in life, not telling Izuku from the start was the biggest of them all. 

He opened his mouth—seemingly conflicted as he battled with the apology that teased the tip of his tongue. But he decided against it, knowing the last thing Izuku wanted or needed was another series of apologetic words.

"I have another question," Izuku blurted out, flipping onto a clean page after he filled his former one to the brim. 

"Of course you do,"

Taking his answer as a path to continue forward, Izuku cleared his throat. "Those songs that you wrote over the past few years . . . Were they about me?"

Slowly and deliberately, Katsuki mulled over the question. It was simple enough, a brief yes or no would suffice; but the tenor of it was one not to be taken lightly, it was something that required . . . so much more than Katsuki could give him. His mind had fleetingly transported him to the other day—remembering Todoroki's odd explanation for the two and the love they shared.

You look at him like he's the stars and you're just now seeing him for the first time.

"Izuku, every-fucking-thing I did was either about you or for you. There was not a day that went by that you weren't on my mind, like a song stuck in my head playing on loop for years. Everything . . . kind of revolved around you—I don't know if that's a good or bad thing but it's true," adoration and mirth danced in the blazing flames of Katsuki's red eyes. "You're my stars,"