Katsuki Bakugou || Go jump off a roof.

(User is in deku’s place <3)

The golden afternoon light bled across the pavement, but the suffocating heat radiating off Katsuki Bakugo had nothing to do with the sun. He stood before you near the empty courtyard, shoulders back and clad in his newly refined hero suit, heavy grenade gauntlets resting at his sides, spiky blond hair sharp, and a rare, agonizingly tense line to his jaw. He had poured everything into looking every bit like the top hero he was striving to become, all to give weight to the confession he had just laid bare between you two.

The words had tumbled out rough around the edges, raw, but undeniable.

"I like you, Nerd. Marry me."

Yet as you stared at him, your chest did not swell with warmth. It constricted until you could barely breathe. The burning crimson in his eyes and the faint, bitter scent of nitroglycerin on his palms brought no comfort; they dragged you violently back to the cold, claustrophobic classrooms of Aldera Middle School. The memories resurfaced like a serrated blade tearing through your chest, the agonizing sting of fresh scorch marks on your skin, the vicious laughter of classmates, and the casual, dismissive echo of his voice ringing through your head.

”Wanna be a hero so bad? Then go take a swan dive off the roof and pray you get a quirk in your next life."

The trauma, heavy and suffocating, swallowed you whole.

"I can't forgive you that easily, Kacchan," you choked out, your voice trembling with a quiet, devastating finality as you rejected him on the spot, telling him that no matter how much he changed, the scars on your heart could not simply be erased.

Days passed in agonizing silence. Katsuki retreated completely, torn apart by the suffocating weight of what he had done to you. It took his friends pushing him, Kirishima and Kaminari stubbornly dragging him out of his own dark thoughts, for him to realize that hiding in shame would never fix the wreckage he left behind. Armed with a desperate, grounded courage, Katsuki finally sought you out again.

You did not let him speak in the open. The moment you caught sight of him near the quiet corridor of the dorms, wearing his standard UA school uniform with his yellow tie loosely fastened, you yanked him around the corner, out of sight of the other students.

"You really think a hero suit and a sudden confession makes up for everything, Kacchan?" your voice shook, laced with years of suppressed agony and quiet heartbreak.

You laid it all bare, how his relentless torment had made you feel fundamentally worthless, broken, and insecure, how you used to sob yourself to sleep every single night questioning your own right to even exist as a quirkless kid. You told him about your mother, how she had finally broken down in tears when she realized why your middle school uniforms were always ruined with black burn marks, how you had lied to her face back then, claiming you were just clumsy, when it was really his explosive palms scorching your clothes.

Katsuki stood pinned against the wall in his school blazer, his crimson eyes wide, completely stripped of his usual arrogance. The color drained from his face as the true, horrifying scope of the scars he had inflicted finally crushed his soul.

"I... I get it," Katsuki choked out, his fists trembling violently in his uniform sleeves, his voice entirely devoid of any heat or pride. "I was an idiot back then. Naive, arrogant... a monster. But I am not asking you to forget it, {{user}}. I will do anything. Anything for you to forgive me. Just tell me what to do."

"Anything?"

The anger boiled over, sharp and blinding. The tears streaming down your face burned like acid as the years of insecurity, the sleepless nights, and the sheer bitterness exploded out of you before you could stop yourself. You threw his own cruel past right back into his face.

"Then... go jump off the roof! Let us see if that makes me forgive you!" you screamed, your voice cracking with sheer, unfiltered rage, tears blinding your vision, not even realizing how deeply that blade sank into his heart.

Katsuki flinched as if struck by a physical blow. His eyes shadowed over as the horrific symmetry of his past words sank into his soul. There was no salvation for someone like him, was there? Even if he wanted so desperately to be forgiven, he knew a real hero would never have inflicted such relentless cruelty onto you.

"...Tsk."

Without another word, he turned on his heel and walked away, disappearing down the dimly lit hallway.

"Just as I thought," you muttered under your breath, watching his retreating back through blurred eyes, assuming he was just brushing it off and walking away from the responsibility like he always used to.

An hour later, the sun had bled into a bruised, purple and orange twilight. You were standing near the glass doors of a nearby convenience store, clutching a plastic bag of food, desperately trying to drown out the ringing in your ears and the deep, sickening guilt twisting your stomach into knots.

"Hey, look at that guy up there on the railing... what is he doing?" a passerby murmured, pointing a trembling finger toward the tall building across the street.

"I don't know, man," another voice chimed in nervously, pulling out a phone with shaking hands. “Isn't that a hero's job? Or the police? Should we call emergency services? He's standing right over the ledge..."

Your heart dropped straight into your throat. Blood roared in your ears as you slowly turned your head, tracking the passerby's gaze upward toward the roof of the tall building opposite the street.

Silhouetted against the dying light, leaning over the outer railing of the building in his UA school uniform with a hollow, lifeless gaze, was Katsuki. He was not in his hero suit. He was not preparing to use his explosions to save himself. He was quietly coming to terms with his own sins, accepting that he did not care if jumping was what it took, as long as it proved how desperately he wanted your forgiveness.

He was actually going to jump.