Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

In a random coffee shop, his life blooms with color on a cold Tuesday morning.

A man enters the cafe and the bell rings overhead, drawing Shouto’s attention. The stranger surveys the room the way one does when entering a new space and his eyes meet Shouto’s by chance in a moment that should pass quickly and without note.

He’s heard stories over the years. Stories of how seeing color for the first time was simultaneously the most breathtaking and devastating experience of a lifetime because it wasn’t just the sudden vibrancy of the world, it was also the inexplicable helplessness of being thrown face first into unyielding destiny.

Once, when he was small, he’d asked his sister how he would know who his soulmate was and she’d smiled, You just will.

And he does. The world slows, his vision tunnels until the space around him , his fated one, falls away. Hair like sunshine and ready to be wished upon dandelions. Wearing a jacket that feels like earth, and a scarf that reminds him of the way dark chocolate tastes, wrapping around a mouth that is shaded like a first-kiss.

But it’s his eyes that hold Shouto prisoner. Their color is made of intensity. Burning hot with danger and crashing in waves like passion. It dances with desire - tempting, aching with the need to be close. The color of a coy smile that promises mischief and excitement. Fire, the very essence of life captured within something untouchable.

It engulfs him, pulls him in and under and drowns him. In a single moment he becomes a slave to those eyes. To that color. To this man.

Now he knows rapture, he knows ecstasy - understands how he’s heard this moment described as both fear and bliss, the marriage of those two emotions being exhilaration.

But the man looks away, pulls his phone from his jacket and tucks his head as he begins to scroll casually - as if he’s not the reason Shouto’s world has just expanded in a way that has left him fundamentally changed and as if he hasn’t just experienced the same shift of his reality.

Blinking himself from his daze, Shouto pushes back from the table at which he’s transferring his written notes into a word document on his laptop. He walks up to the man with sunshine hair, his movements are clumsy as he accidently knocks his hips into chairs and tables. “Hi,” the word rushes from his mouth and Shouto feels as though he’s lost complete control of himself. He’s not the type to start conversation with a stranger in the middle of a coffee shop.

Sunshine looks to him from the corner of his eye and his disinterest could not be more apparent. “ ‘Sup.”

“Uh,” he replies with all the intelligence of a wet rag. “I’m writing a book.”

Sunshine’s face pinches, eyebrows drawing together as his expression narrows. “Good for you,” he turns to face forward. 

“Well, I mean, it’s not really a book.” Shouto feels like a fucking nussiance. He may be a bit slow on the uptake with sarcasm but he’s very familiar with the feeling of general irritation and his presence being unwanted. But he can’t help himself, he’s compelled in the same way animals are when they migrate south for the winter. “It’s more like a booklet .”

This time Sunshine does not turn around and so Shouto is forced to continue making himself feel like a complete dumbass. “I’m Shouto.”

They move forward in line and Sunshine sighs heavily as he pockets his phone. “Yeah, and I’m not interested.”

A few of the people around them visibly cringe at how hard Shouto is bombing. He’d cringe himself if his sole focus wasn’t on - he’s not really sure what . Trying? Talking? Getting any sort of reaction from his soulmate other than complete dismissal? “I’m, uh, I’m not - do you - Can you tell me what color my sweater is?” It’s a pretty standard question as far as unfated dating goes, universal code for, hey, wanna waste time together until we find our soulmates?

This at least gets a sharp, though utterly exasperated, smirk from the man he is clearly bothering. He turns on him, looks at Shouto’s sweater and then pins him with that inferno-like gaze. His eyebrows scrunch together, his frown deepens and he even pulls his head back as if truly inspecting his clothing. This makes Shouto hopeful but then the man clicks his tongue and his expression hardens into one of annoyance, “I have no fucking clue, man.”

Shouto looks down at his sweater, “Oh, well, neither do I.” 

He takes a moment to consider the color and after some thought he remembers it being labeled navy on the tag and, upon seeing it for the first time, he decides he likes it quite a bit. Though he wonders if the orange pants beneath him match. He thinks that he must have misread the tags that would indicate if they belong to the same clothing collection.

With a roll of his eyes, Sunshine scoffs, “I gathered as much.” Turning away again he steps up to the counter where the barista asks him a question. Though Shouto can’t make out what it is she says her face says it all, excited eyes and the same smile that is worn by the cat that ate the canary. “Don’t.” Sunshine says with a heavy, warning growl, “Just get me the same as usual.”

Shouto steps up close, knowing he is behaving like a creep who can’t take a hint. “Can I pay for your coffee?”

A whole conversation passes in the locked gaze of Sunshine and the beaming woman manning the cash register. With a lazy roll of his head, “If I let you pay for my order, will you leave me the fuck alone?”

Resolutely, Shouto nods his head, “Yes.”

“Fine,” Sunshine looks behind Shouto and addresses the next person in line. “You want a coffee man?” He tilts his head in Shouto’s general direction. “This dipshit’s paying.”

“Oh, a large vanilla latte but I was also going to get a bagel with cream cheese.”

“Perfect.” Leaning a bit further out he speaks to the person taking up the back of the line, “What about you?”

They wave their hand in an attempt to not get involved, “I’m fine.”

“Suit yourself.” Sunshine turns back to the cashier, “Did’ya get that, Mina?” She nods, a bitten smile on her face as he continues, “Add in a breakfast burrito and make my coffee a double.”

“Sure thing, Katsuki,” she says with an entertained lilt in her voice.

Slowly, barely above a whisper, Shouto repeats his name. “Katsuki.”

“Fucking hell,” Katsuki mumbles to himself. “What? You plan on saying some dumb shit about liking my name or whatever?”

“Uh,” Shouto finds himself struck dumb so, unsure what to say, he continues with his first tangent thought, “No. I was just thinking that I really like cats.”

“Cats?”

“You know. Cats like Katsuki.”

Katsuki stares at Shouto like he’s just admitted to being a flat-Earther and the barista slaps a hand over her mouth in a poor attempt at containing her laughter. Shouto doesn’t quite understand what’s so shocking or funny but trying to figure it out distracts him and he ends up handing over a few too many bills to the cashier, Mina as he’s learned, and mumbles, “Keep the change.”

They step away from the counter and Katsuki snorts, “You know you just gave her, like, a three hundred percent tip, right?”

Shouto glances fleetingly at Mina as she counts her tip bill by bill. “Oh,” he says a bit dumbly. “Well, that’s okay I guess.”

“You guess?”

“Well,” he says again like he has the vocabulary of a middle schooler, “she’s the only reason I know your name now.”

Scoffing, “Lucky me.”

Remembering what Katsuki said earlier. “I do.”

“Do what?”

“Like your name.”

Katsuki pinches the bridge of his nose and makes a noise that’s part way between a groan and a chuckle. To himself, “Fuck me, man.” He sighs. “Thanks or whatever.”

Shouto can’t help but to smile, “It’s not just because I like cats either.”

“But liking cats is part of it?”

He takes a moment to think this over seriously, “Yes, I suppose it is.”

A small shake of his head, “Good to know.” Shouto hovers awkwardly and just when he’s about to say something else that’s undoubtedly embarrassing, Katsuki speaks. His tone is mostly disinterested in the way you might make conversation with somebody in an elevator, “What’s your book about?”

He perks up, heart jumping with unwarranted excitement when one takes into consideration how bland the question is. “It’s - it’s not exactly a book. More like -”

“Kats,” Mina calls loudly, “Anybody by the name of Kats. ” 

Katsuki scowls and then pushes forward to where she has set down his coffee and burrito. He snathes both items away from her and drops his voice to a dangerous tone, “You aren’t cute, you fucking alien.”

Sunshine incarnate turns around to clear the space in front of the counter and takes a small sip of his coffee, the taste of which seems to melt away his frown. Picking up where Shouto left off, “Yeah, it’s more of a booklet. You already said that.” He walks past Shouto towards the door, “Get some new material next time.”

Shouto feels his heartbeat increase, “Next time?” A grin spreads over his face, “I can talk to you again?”

Katsuki reaches the door, pushes it open with his hip and shrugs without once looking at Shouto. The bell overhead jingles and he takes another sip from his coffee. “Maybe.”

He watches Katsuki walk past the storefront window and then he’s gone. Behind him Mina giggles and Shouto turns just in time to catch the expression of utter amusement playing on her face, “Good luck, lover boy.”

Shouto spends his entire evening on various message boards trying to find any sort of indication that he is not the only person to experience this kind of unorthodox encounter with his soulmate. He’s made at least a dozen posts over just as many message boards, all with the subject line of: Help, my soulmate doesn’t appear to have gained colored sight upon meeting.

Most responses are just condolences or replies of ‘ I’ve never heard of that happening. Crazy.’ And Shouto already knows it’s crazy! He doesn’t need more people piling on to how bizarre his situation is. He’s looking for an explanation.

Just as he’s on the verge of sleep his phone pings with a notification. He doesn’t even have to open the app to read the response: Maybe he’s not your soulmate.

The thought hadn’t even crossed his mind. The pull in the coffee shop had been so strong and visceral that he can’t even remember what any of the other people looked like, let alone had enough presence of mind to consider that his soulmate might have been one of those faceless people.

He replies back: He is.  

Shouto sets his phone down with a finality, somehow the very suggestion that he’s wrong about Katsuki being his soulmate has only served to make him more certain of their fated connection.

But when he wakes in the morning there’s another reply: Then maybe you aren’t his.

The thought is so jarring that Shouto can do little more than stare blankly at his phone. That doesn’t happen, he thinks to himself.

Late in the day, he gets a response on one of the forums that’s just a link which takes him to the website of The Jackson Partners Institute for the Study of Soulmate Bonds. Specifically, he’s been linked to a page dedicated to the study of Abnormal Soulmates . But even reading he finds the phrases inconclusive or insufficient data used over and over again. The only real statistic he can find is still vague: Abnormal Soulmate bonds occur in every 1 out of 500,000 to 700,000 thousand fated partnerships and can often be most commonly explained by a genetic predisposition for color blindness. Cases that cannot be explained by this rare, genetic, occurrence often lack a definitive cause.

The statistics are reassuring, if only because they exist. What he’s experiencing is rare but not so rare that he’s the only one to have ever experienced it. Still, what is he to do? He doubts that Katsuki would be thrilled by him coming out and insisting they are soulmates - no. He knows Katsuki would be the extreme opposite of thrilled. Then the image of Katsuki as an enraged persian cat comes to mind and he thinks that the risk might be worth the reward.

He makes another post across the various forums: My soulmate doesn’t know we are fated because he is color blind, what should I do? This time he gets his first reply within minutes: Tell him, duh.

But, again, he doesn’t imagine this going over well: I think that might scare him off.

Seconds later: ...then maybe just court him like colorless people do and then tell him?

When he reads it, the answer seems so obvious. He’s dated a few people over the years only for them to meet their soulmates and break things off, which is the inevitable outcome of colorless relationships, but courting his soulmate under the guise of colorless dating- well, that will be an interesting story to tell later. 

It’s easier to return to the coffee shop with the semblance of a plan in mind. Shouto can’t help but to wonder how long he’ll have to wait to see Katsuki again. Days? Weeks? Certainly not months though. Since Katsuki had been so friendly and familiar with the barista, Shouto reasons he has to come relatively often. Even so, he can’t believe his luck when Katsuki walks into the coffee shop not thirty minutes after Shouto has sat down. 

“Kats!” He nearly springs from his seat and manages to hit his elbow on the edge of the table in the process. If Shouto calling for Katsuki hadn’t been enough to draw his attention then Shouto hissing as he holds his elbow and rocks back and forth in his seat certainly would have been.

To his credit, Katsuki doesn't laugh at him like Mina does from behind the counter, but his face does morph in a way that clearly communicates: yeah, that was fucking embarrassing for you. At the counter, Mina grins at Katsuki like a Cheshire cat ready to pounce and starts chattering animatedly when he steps up to order.

When they finish with what largely seems like a one-sided conversation, Mina shoos Katsuki away with a flick of her wrist and in turn Katsuki only glares back at her before she dramatically mouths the word GO. At least Shouto thinks that what she mouths, it’s a little hard to tell from behind pain-squinted eyes.

Katsuki comes to stand by Shouto’s table and it takes everything in him not to stumble over himself and declare the existence of their never-ending bond. Instead he says, “I hit my elbow.”

With a roll of his eyes and a near-humorous snort, Sunshine speaks, “Yeah. I saw.”

Shouto interprets this as, tell me more . “It hurt.”

“I can imagine.” Katsuki looks off to a corner of the cafe, the color of which Shouto can now identify. It’s the same color as Katsuki’s mouth: pink. Now that Shouto knows what various colors look like, it’s almost overwhelming to be in the tiny cafe which, thanks to a book entitled So That’s What I Call Color , he now knows is wallpapered in a tie-dye pattern of orange, pink, and light green - because apparently there are nuances to color. Like how Katsuki’s hair is a variation of yellow that they call blond, a word that is much less accurate than sunshine.

He hasn’t memorized all the colors yet. He knows blue because it’s the color of the sky and everyone is told what the color of the sky is. It’s also the color of only one of his eyes, the other is still gray which is strangely disappointing in the same way that half of his hair has remained white. He’s seen those colors his whole life and they’re still a part of him. Though the romantic part of his psyche has managed to find some beauty in it, they are still grayscale and that’s how Katsuki still sees the world. So, at least in those features, Katsuki sees him for what he is.

All that aside, there’s red . His favorite color. He’d spent what felt like hours in his car after having bought his book on colors just flipping through the section of red objects. Cherries, strawberries, chilli peppers, roses, poppys, blood, rubies but, most importantly and not in the book, Katsuki’s eyes.

“Tch.”  Katsuki rubs a hand over his face before it comes to rest, covers his mouth and - Shouto’s breath catches - there’s more red, it dusts over the tips of Katsuki’s ears and cheeks. 

“Stop staring at me, you look like a fucking creep,” Katsuki grunts. 

“Oh,” he responds simply. “Sorry.” But he doesn’t look away. Can’t really. He could probably stare at Katsuki for hours which is a bit concerning when he considers he has other things to do.

Katsuki scowls, “You’re not even going to try and deny it?”

The menace on his pink lips doesn’t quite reach his eyes and Shouto reasons that he must be embarrassed. That’s yet another red thing: embarrassment . “Why would I?”

This time Katsuki snaps his head in Shouto’s direction and actually looks at him, and wow - Shouto’s having a fantastic day. “Because it’s the decent thing to do!” Katsuki’s whole expression falls in a fraction of a second to one of horror-stricken confusion; jaw slack and eyes wide as they flit across Shouto’s face. Katsuki blinks twice with purpose, each one tight and forceful, before his whole body seems to relax. That relaxation lasts only moments before unfiltered rage makes it taught again. “Mina!” Katsuki shouts so loud that it startles Shouto as he stomps over to the counter, “I know my coffee is ready you meddling bitch so hand it over!”

Mina shuffles over sheepishly and slides a coffee across the counter. “You don’t have to be a dick about it.” Then she turns away and walks into the back.

Katsuki’s expression softens marginally, “Mina, wait-” he calls after her but the door to the kitchen is already swinging shut. “Dammit,” he hisses under his breath and then turns bodily on Shouto. His mouth is rolled tight and his eyes don’t look angry as much as they appear distressed. “Tch,” Katsuki clicks and then turns to walk out of the cafe.

Shouto stands quickly, “Bye, Kats!”

The bell over the door rings. Katsuki screeches. “Don’t fucking call me that!”

Shouto notes that Katsuki likes to get in the last word.

Mina comes out of the back and sighs loud enough to draw Shouto’s attention when she leans over the counter. With a cheeky grin, “Such an asshole, huh?”

He tilts his head and one corner of his mouth pulls up in a tentatively fond smile, “Yeah.”

When he arrives the next day, Katsuki is leaning against the counter. He and Mina are having a conversation, his eyebrows are drawn together but his expression is otherwise soft. The bell overhead makes Mina look up with a smile but when she registers Shouto’s presence she looks at Katsuki, drums her hands against the counter with a bitten smile and backs away.

Shouto’s mouth feels dry - he’d spent the rest of yesterday thinking very seriously about what could have caused Katsuki to go from mildly annoyed to outwardly enraged so suddenly but had come up short with an explanation. Katsuki looks at him, gaze not un inviting, and then casts his eyes downward.

He doesn’t walk up to the counter, he walks up to Katsuki. “Good morning, Katsuki.”

“Pft,” he taps his toe against the ground and shoves the hand not holding his coffee into the pouch of his sweater. “What happened to Kats?”

“You told me not to call you that.”

Katsuki sighs and finally looks up to meet Shouto’s eyes. “I didn’t think a dumbass like you would actually listen.”

“So I can call you Kats?”

“No.”

“What about just Kat?”

“I’ll beat you within an inch of your life.”

Shouto tilts his head and feels himself smirk, “Okay.”

Katsuki makes a noise of acknowledgement that amounts to little more than, “Nnn.”

“Just so you know, Katsuki - ” Shouto says his name because he’s basically been given permission to use it at will and it feels good in his mouth, “ - I’m not exceedingly dumb.”

Raising an eyebrow, “Is that so?”

“Yes. In fact, I graduated at the top of my class in both high school and college.”

“Oh, yeah?” A feral grin splits his face and he finally kicks off the counter to stand up straight. “What was your class rank?”

“Fifth in high school.”

“Uh-huh, and in college?”

“Fourth.”

“I win.”

“Win what?”

“Academics, fucker. So I still get to call you a dumbass because, by comparison, you are.”

Shouto blinks and takes a moment to digest what Katsuki has said. “You have a volatile personality.”

Katsuki’s face tints red, just as it had the previous day, at the same time Mina snorts behind the counter while making a coffee. “What!” He demands with indignation.

Outwardly, Shouto continues calmly, “It’s okay. Your volatile personality makes you unique.” Inwardly, he’s begun to wonder if Katsuki is always this easy to rile up.

“Is that how dumbasses talk to people they’re trying to -” Katsuki’s mouth snaps shut.

“Trying to what?” Shouto tries to sound casual, he’d intended for Katsuki to become aware of his intentions but he hadn’t anticipated it would be so soon. After all, he thinks he’s managed to remain relatively subtle. Regardless, there’s not much to be done.

Katsuki snears, “Nothing. Just forget about it.”

With a shrug, Shouto looks off to the side. “Okay.” His eyes fall on a round, mosaic tiled table not too far from the counter. There’s a blue vase on it with a red flower and, he’d thought it before but feels more certain now, decides those two colors look very nice together.

Shouto redirects his attention back to Katsuki when Mina sighs. The sound evidently marks a whole conversation between the two of them because Katsuki rolls his eyes, clears his throat and, “Your booklet.”

“Oh!” Shouto perks up and starts to shuffle through his bag. Until he finds a small bundle of index cards.

“What are those?” Katsuki sips his coffee.

In an attempt to confirm his earlier inquiry, Shouto dawns an impassive expression and  says without any intonation, “Index cards.”

In response, Katsuki’s mouth rolls together and he breathes out heavily through his nose in a way that reminds Shouto of an old cartoon character, “Oh-my-fucking-god. I know what index cards are! What’s on the index cards?” 

“Parts of the booklet.”

Katsuki looks unimpressed but when Shouto doesn’t make any indication he intends to elaborate Katsuki starts to look like he might actually beat him within an inch of his life. “ And!”

Shouto’s has begun to wonder if he’s some sort of masochist. Katsuki’s always smouldering rage is just too enticing not to stoke into a flame. On second thought, perhaps that makes him a sadist. He makes a mental note to look up the definition of each word later. “I organize my notes into instructions.”

Katsuki bites his lip in a poor attempt at suppressing his rage. Shouto worries that if he bites any harder he might draw blood. Mina chooses that moment to come over and set down a saucer atop which is a large mug containing a latte. “Min a ,” the sound of Katsuki whining is enough to make Shouto’s heart flutter. 

“Don’t mind me, just keep talking.” 

Katsuki watches as Mina slides the lapis colored saucer close to the edge as though captivated by its movement then quickly, and just as upset as he had been when Mina came over, Katsuki continues as if Shouto can’t hear him, “Talking to him is like pulling teeth!”

Walking away, “I can’t hear you!” She sing-songs in return.

Shouto checks his general area to see if there’s anybody who appears to have been waiting for a coffee but none of the few patrons in the shop move to stand. 

“It’s for you, dumbass.”

He turns to regard Katsuki who scratches the back of his neck. “For me?”

With a groan, “Don’t make a thing out of it - I was just -” Katsuki stumbles and starts again, “Yesterday I was -”

“An asshole,” Shouto finishes for him. 

Katsuki levels him with a look of displeasure. “Sounds like something Mina - ,” he says her name pointedly, “- would say.”

“You must know her very well,” Shouto surmises.

“Unfortunately,” Katsuki huffs around the lid of his to go cup.

Shouto thinks that, between himself and Mina, maybe Katsuki has been teased enough for one day and doesn’t want to push his luck much further. So, he picks up the ceramic mug offered to him and brings the conversation back around, “I’m a technical writer. I put things together and then write instructions in layman's terms about how I was able to do that so that others can put it together on their own.”

Katsuki straightens up and a flash of surprise crosses his features before his face settles back into a scowl. Albeit, a less intense scowl. “Why couldn’t you have said that five minutes ago when we started this conversation?”

“Well,” Shouto shrugs, takes a sip of his coffee. “Where would the fun have been in that?” 

Katsuki’s face goes slack like he’s just been told something completely abhorrent. Slowly, quietly and to himself he repeats what Shouto had said, “Where would the fun have...” He trails off and after a moment his face twists into an expression that actually makes Shouto recoil. “You did that on purpose?”

Truly, he speaks before he thinks, “Not at all.” Perhaps he should be concerned that he’d made the conscious decision not to tease Katsuki just moments ago and twice he’s done it without meaning to within the following thirty seconds.

Slamming his, presummedly, empty to-go cup of coffee on the counter, Katsuki wipes his mouth with the back of his wrist. “Un-fucking-believable,” he growls. “Having a conversation with you is like trying to put a square peg in a round hole: pointless !” 

Shouto fights to keep his face neutral. “That’s a relief,” he says and then continues without giving Katsuki a chance to reply, “It could have been boring.”

A few different emotions flicker across Katsuki’s face but none of them linger long enough for Shouto to put a name to them. Ultimately, Katsuki lands on rage which is an expression that’s quickly lost it’s impact over their few encounters. “Mina!” He bellows and he stomps to the door, “I’m fucking leaving. Don’t try to stop me!”

Shouto waves, “Bye, Katsuki. See you next time.”

Katsuki groans and practically rips the door off its hinges as he makes his dramatic exit from the building. There’s a brief stutter to his step as he begins walking down the street and his head tilts up towards the sky and his face takes on a look of utter shock that fades rather quickly. Then he frowns and continues on just as suddenly as he had stopped.

Shouto can’t help but to smirk as he sips his latte. Without checking to see if she’s there Shouto speaks, a definitive pleasure in his tone, “I think that went well.”

Mina practically throws herself onto the counter, “That went great!”

Katsuki doesn’t come Friday and when he looks at Mina, whose presence he has quickly come to appreciate, she shrugs and says, “He’s just being dramatic.” She also tells him that Katsuki doesn’t come on the weekends which is just as well because Shouto generally has family obligations both Saturday and Sunday.

Shouto returns to the cafe on Monday, earlier than usual just to make sure he doesn’t miss Katsuki. Mina waves to him and he steps over to his regular table near the window. He likes this table - square with worn wooden planks and painted with vines and roses of different colors that start in one corner and bloom diagonally across its width.

He traces the lines of neon with his first two fingers, caught up in the strange mix of colors. They’re fascinating in their contrast, neon shadows and lines with matte colors taking up the space inbetween. He can’t remember what this table looked like the first time he’d sat at it, before his world became full of color. Had he even noticed the difference in brightness between the neon and matte?

He pulls his hand away, swivels his head to look around the coffee shop and takes in all its color. The vibrancy of the walls is one thing but every piece of furniture is a new dot of color, pattern and texture. Color makes the world different - or maybe it’s just something to be appreciated differently.

He chooses a table adjacent to a bright red bookcase today. This table is round, the top made of iron that’s twisted into branches and spray painted a bright bluish green. There’s a name for this color he thinks to himself as he sets up his laptop.

The cafe starts to get busy and after looking up from his work for the fifth time at the sound of the bell he becomes immune to it’s call, which makes it all the better when he hears the unmistakable grumble of Sunshine behind him. “You look like a fucking stalker, you know that?”

Shouto turns to regard him over his shoulder and he wonders if this fluttering feeling in his chest will ever stop occurring when he sees Katsuki. Maybe it’s a soulmate thing, maybe it’s a him thing - either way, if it never stops he would be okay with that. “Awfully bold of you to assume I’m here to see you. The coffee is quite good.”

“Oh, yeah? Then where is it?”

“Where’s what?”

“Your coffee.”

Shouto looks at his table and realizes that despite having arrived forty-five minutes ago he’s failed to order himself something to drink. He blinks, then looks up to Katsuki, “I finished it.”

With a roll of his eyes, “Fucking stalker.”

“I can’t help myself.” It’s true. Shouto can recognize how, not only, out of character his behavior is but how it toes the line of being inappropriate. They lapse into a silence that Shouto breaks with a quiet but serious question, “Do you want me to stop coming?”

Katsuki glances away, something Shouto has identified as an action he does when uncomfortable. After a moment of consideration he sighs then mumbles, “Do what you want. It’s a free fucking world.”

There’s an immediate sense of relief. He can’t help the broad smile that graces his face before he quickly reigns it in. Perhaps he’s making more progress than he’d considered. “Do you want to sit?”

“No. I’m just waiting for my coffee. Don’t get any big ideas about us being friends or something.”

“If not friends, then what?”

Katsuki rolls his head back in Shouto’s direction and looks at him, “You’re just the guy that’s here when I wait for my coffee.” His face blanks as if suddenly perplexed and there’s a quality to his ruby-colored eyes that feels familiar.

“Something wrong?” Shouto asks, curious as to what that look may be.

He watches the way Katsuki’s Adam’s apple bobs in his throat as he swallows. “ ‘s a different table than you usually sit at,” he says as his fingers trace the iron of the table.

“Oh,” Shouto lifts his laptop and peers down at the table top. Teal, he finally recalls the color. “Yes, I decided I liked the -” color , his mind supplies. 

It’s useless to hope that Katsuki doesn’t pick up on how he’d awkwardly cut himself off, “You liked the what?”

This is a hell of a time for his mind to get caught up in the expression on Katsuki’s face, mouth pulled down in a scowl but eyebrows high and eyes open with suspicion. Shouto licks his upper lip, “The - the -”

“Blasty!” Mina calls from the counter.

Oh, good , a distraction. “Blasty?” Shouto questions.

“Goddammit,” he mutters under his breath and then locks eyes with Shouto. “Don’t even fucking try it.” He stomps away and Shouto hums humorously to himself when he decides that Katsuki seems to always be stomping. At the counter, Mina leans in conspiratorially and Katsuki ignores whatever question she’s asked in favor of pulling her hand out from under her elbow and inspecting her nails. She pulls her hand from his grasp easily and he says something to her that makes Mina’s expression go slack. Then Katsuki picks up his coffee and hurries out the door.

Strange , Shouto thinks to himself.

When the crowd has thinned, he goes to the counter to order his own coffee. Mina looks at him shiftily which he also finds strange. There seems to be a few strange things today. Ultimately her face dissolves into a soft smile. “You know,” she begins with a playful tone as she makes change, “I didn’t even bully him into talking to you today.”

Shouto’s mouth rolls into a thin smile. “He’s not the easiest person to talk to.”

“That’s one way of putting it, lover boy.” She finishes making change and he notices the color of her nails as she drops it in his hand.

Chipped, cotton candy blue.

On Wednesday Katsuki arrives late but with flowers. Explosions of red and yellow and orange tulips. Shouto wonders if when he picked them out he’d read the color tag on them and wondered what those colors looked like when paired together. Vibrant is what he would tell him if Katsuki were to ask.

When Katsuki nods at him it makes Shouto sigh a bit dreamily, shocking to even himself but, still, he twiddles his fingers in a soft hello. Across the restaurant Katsuki ducks his head but Shouto spots the flush on the tips on his ears. Whether he’s embarrassed for Shouto or just in general is difficult to be sure of. 

He stops at the counter to place his order and Mina greets him with a bright smile. They chat briefly and Shouto marvels at how easily she’s able to draw a smirk on those lips. Katsuki offers her the bouquet and Mina’s mouth pulls up in delighted consideration before she takes a  yellow flower and tucks it behind her ear. The flowers hang at Katsuki’s side as he turns and approaches Shouto’s table. “You have flowers today,” he states simply.

“How fucking observant of you.”

Unphased, “Who are they for?”

Katsuki sighs, long and tired and for the first time Shouto sees sadness amongst the fire. “Mostly for myself at this point.” His response feels honest, tone open and bare. It’s in the way that Katsuki blinks himself back into awareness that Shouto gets the impression that Katsuki hadn’t meant to be any of those things. Quickly, as if righting a ship, “It doesn’t matter, stop being so goddamn nosey.” 

He lets his eyes drift down to the flower buds, some at full bloom, others at half or even fully closed to preserve the longevity of the bouquet. “Are they for your mom?”

“I just told you not to be nosey. But no.” Katsuki raises the bouquet and looks down at the center of it. Thoughtfully, “My mom doesn’t like tulips. Old hag would bitch thinking I forgot she likes lilies.”

Shouto hums, “Hyacinths.”

“Hyacinths?” Katsuki lowers the bouquet and casts Shouto a questioning gaze.

“Hyacinths are my mom’s favorite. The blue ones. I always get them for her when I go visit on Sunday.”

“Huh,” Katsuki emotes. Mumbling, “Cold color.”

Shouto’s eyes widen and his heart beats powerfully in his chest. “What?” He struggles to get the word out past the barely restrained hope in his throat that Katsuki can  see color. 

“That’s what I always imagined it would be.”

He thinks of his eye, a brilliant blue like that of the ocean, and wonders if it’s for the best that Katsuki can’t see it’s color. Would he look at Shouto and think cold? Aloof? Uncaring? “You’re wrong,” the words push past his lips without warning and makes him choke.

“Oh yeah?” Katsuki tilts his chin up and a cheeky grin pulls over his mouth as though he’s entertained by the disagreement. “Then what do you think it is, dumbass?”

For a moment, Shouto can only hold Katsuki’s gaze. Before color he’d imagined blue as sadness, tears and fears, but he knows what it really is now. “It’s calm. It’s stability.” His tongue feels thick around his words, “It’s comfort.”

Katsuki’s smile slides off his face and his mouth settles into a thoughtful line. His eyes stare into Shouto’s own as if appraising the value of his words. Then, steadily, “Maybe it is.”

“Yoohoo!” Mina calls from the counter, her head is propped up on her knuckles and she wears a smile that threatens to crack her face in half. “Blasty, I’ve called you like a billion times.”

“Tch,” Katsuki snarls and walks over to her. “You did not, you fucking slimy troublemaker.” He growls at her like an actual animal and Shouto feels strangely charmed.

Shouto watches Katsuki go to the exit but this time he pauses in the doorway and glances over his shoulder. Red eyes are sharp, contemplative and then in a brief and decidedly irritable sendoff, “Later, shithead.”

His eyes go wide as Katsuki leaves the cafe and then his mouth stretches into an astonished grin. Katsuki said a real goodbye to him . Behind the counter, Mina grins back just as shocked and ecstatic then squeals with delight. “Holy shit! That was amazing!”

Shouto pushes the hair off his forehead, he feels suddenly hot. “That was...” he trails off.

It felt red.

Chapter Text

Shouto continues edging his way into Katsuki's life. That isn’t to say that Katsuki makes it easy. He still blows off a lot of Shouto's conversation starters with gruff answers. There's still an edge of impatience, even annoyance in their interaction. But that edge softens day by day, each time they meet Katsuki opens up just a bit more. He begins answering Shouto's prying questions honestly if at times still tersely. The atmosphere around them slowly changes to something playful, almost comfortable.

Despite the new feeling of familiarity, Shouto can’t bring himself to bring up the subject of their bond and the longer he waits the harder it is. In the beginning, he’d been caught up in the rush of emotions that came with meeting his soulmate but, now that he’s had time to get to know Katsuki for the person he is, the continued harboring of this secret has begun to feel more and more like a breach of trust. If there’s one thing Shouto has learned, it’s that Katsuki doesn’t trust easily. This is what he thinks about during the ten days he ends up unwillingly spending away from the cafe. 

The end of the month had come more quickly than expected and it was only then that he realized he was about to miss the deadline for an employee handbook he’d been hired to write. Evidently, his time at the cafe in addition to the time he thinks about Katsuki and the unusual circumstances surrounding their soulmate bond had become a distraction from his work.

Even being away from the cafe is a different kind of distraction. His time in the cafe has become special to him over the last month and being away from it leaves a distinct feeling of loss in his chest, even if he knows it’s only temporary. He’s well aware that feeling is mostly due to the connection he has with Katsuki but he's also grown fond of Mina and the general atmosphere of the cafe. He loves being surrounded by the chaotic mishmash of colors that make up the interior and choosing a different, uniquely painted table everyday. He’d asked Mina once who had painted the tables and she’d responded with a wistful sigh, “A few friends of mine. The three of us set up this whole place together.”

When Shouto is finally able to go back to the cafe, Mina greets him with a full body motion. “Shouto!” She squeals and throws her arms in the air as she rounds the counter to come hug him.

Shouto staggers a bit under her weight when she launches herself at him but regains his footing to say, “Good morning, Mina.” He pats her shoulder awkwardly. His family had never been particularly affectionate and by extension neither had he but this doesn’t feel terribly unwelcome.

She releases him from her embrace and starts chattering as she walks back to the counter, confident in every way that he’ll follow her. “Oh, Shouto~” Mina coos happily with a mischievous look over her shoulder. “You have been missed this week.”

“Oh,” Shouto looks away bashfully. “Thank you, that’s a very nice thing for you to say.”

With a roll of her eyes, “That’s not what I meant.”

Another, “Oh,” this time tinged with disappointment. 

“Though I did also miss you and your poker face.”

Now he’s really confused.

Mina takes her place at the register. “You want your usual?”

“Yes, please.”

Shouto finds a table while he waits and makes himself at home. His eyes keep wandering to the clock as it approaches ten. Katsuki isn’t usually this late and he starts to wonder if maybe he isn’t coming.

Mina startles him when she sets down his latte, “It’s Wednesday. He’ll be here soon.”

Shouto hums in acknowledgment, thankful for having been reminded.

Minutes later, the bell above the door chimes and Katsuki walks in. Today he’s carrying a complicated bouquet of flowers that are a cheery combination of yellow, white and blue. He looks bothered which makes Shouto tilt his head with a small smile as he considers what could have possibly set him off so early in the day. His soulmate may be difficult enough to talk to without having to navigate his patented brand of irritation but Shouto would be remiss to say he doesn’t enjoy listening to Katsuki rant passionately about the things that inconvenience him.

At the counter, he sets the bouquet down and rests his head heavily in his palm as he, very obviously, complains to Mina. She nods along sympathetically then responds with something that makes Katsuki go stiff. 

Slowly, he turns in Shouto’s direction. When their eyes meet Katsuki sucks in a breath and his cheeks turn pink. Shouto cocks his head curiously and considers what a strange response that is. In return, he moves his hand in a tight wave. 

Even from across the room he can hear Mina’s shriek of laughter. Katsuki turns to her bodily and reaches over the counter as though he has the intention of mauling her - well, Shouto doesn’t think that Katsuki would actually maul Mina but whatever he’s trying to do is both endearingly and troublingly violent in nature. Mina enthusiastically fights Katsuki off by using the rag tucked into her belt as a whip before he angrily grabs the bouquet. He only pauses to point at her menacingly and get in the final word. 

Katsuki approaches the table with theatrical nonchalance and Shouto wonders idly how upset he would have to make Katsuki in order for him to be mauled in retaliation. Adjacently, he considers that being mauled is a strange thing to hope for. He did never look up the definitions of sadist and masochist so he makes yet another mental note to do so - perhaps that would help explain the feeling of wanting to be touched under those pretenses. 

“Well!” Katsuki’s rough voice makes Shouto jump and he realizes that his gaze had been locked on Katsuki’s sunshine hair.

With a soft smile. “Good morning, Katsuki.”

Shouto watches as he sighs with great exasperation, kicks out the seat opposite him, plops down and sets the bouquet on the tabletop. Immediately, Katsuki starts inspecting his nails as though he can’t be bothered with further conversation. To be frank, Shouto isn’t even sure what kind of conversation he could carry at this moment because in the month-plus they’ve known each other Katsuki has never once accepted Shouto’s invitation to sit and now he’s done so without being prompted.

“Stop staring,” Katsuki groans and stuffs his hands into the pockets of his jeans. “How many times do I have to tell you how creepy it is before you get it through your fucking skull?”

He wets his lips, “I can’t help it.”

Katsuki rolls his eyes, “Yeah, yeah. Whatever you fucking freak.” He finally shifts to meet Shouto’s eyes and though he can’t pinpoint what it is there’s something shy in Katsuki’s tone. “Were you coughing up blood or something for the last week?”

His question leaves Shouto baffled. “What? No - I - Did I seem sick?”

“No,” Katsuki tuts. “But Mina was bummed because you just stopped showing up or something like that. I don’t know. I was only half listening.”

He blinks, “How can you only half listen to somebody?”

“You tell me, you’re doing it right now.”

“How so?”

“I just told you that you were missed for whatever god-forsaken reason and you decided to focus on the part where I said I was only half listening.”

Shouto shakes his head and hums, “No, my mother calls that selective listening. That’s different.”

With a resigned sigh, “You’re so fucking annoying.”

They fall into silence and Shouto takes a sip of his latte, carefully balancing the mug with both hands.

Unprompted, “You should have called.”

“Hmm?”

“If you weren’t going to show up for over a week. It’s common fucking courtesy to let people know you aren’t dead in a goddamn ditch.”

Shouto sets his mug down. “Sorry, there wasn’t a way for me to get in touch with anyone.”

“Could have called the cafe.”

Perplexed, “That’s a business line.”

“So get a different phone number, jackass!”

For a moment Shouto is struck speechless by the opportunity that has dropped into his lap but he recovers quickly. “In that case could I-”

“No. You can’t have my number.”

Shouto wonders if Katsuki’s difficult attitude is calculated or instinctual. He knows that his own is calculated. “That’s fine. I was going to ask you for Mina’s number so I can call her next time.”

Katsuki’s eyes bug with annoyance and his face starts to redden, “Ask her for it your-fucking-self then!” He falls back heavily against the chair and crosses his arms. To Shouto, he looks like an angry dandelion. Katsuki’s tongue rolls in his mouth and then, “I only give my number to my friends-” his eyes shift to Shouto’s then away to look at a spot on the wall “-and my clients.”

Oh. Shouto should not be this charmed by how Katsuki insists on being the most laborious person in existence. “Your clients ?”

“Yeah. My clients.”

“Clients for what?”

“My art.”

This is perhaps the first personal detail that Katsuki has ever shared with Shouto. “What kind of art?”

“I’m a painter.” He sighs. “ Was a painter. Still a painter but - you know what it doesn’t fucking matter, I’m still a big deal.”

Shouto’s mouth pulls into a half smile, sometimes Katsuki will talk in such a way that seems conversational but is really much more something he’s saying for himself. The things he says always feel a bit revealing, as if Shouto is being given a direct line to his inner thoughts. Though those thoughts are often lacking a deeper context that leaves Shouto pondering for hours what it is Katsuki hadn’t said.

He wouldn’t have imagined Katsuki as an artist. In his mind artists are wispy and drink kombucha while doing yoga and discussing the indistinguishable difference between various shades of white. It’s possible that, until this moment, the words ‘artist’ and ‘hipster’ had been synonymous in his head. Shouto hums. “So, if I commission an art piece from you, you’ll give me your phone number so that I can call you in the event that I’m dying in a ditch or coughing up blood.”

“No. I would give you my number because you would be my client .”

Shouto looks over Katsuki’s shoulder to the coffee counter and watches as Mina helps a customer. He pretends to mull over his response and inwardly delights at how Katsuki scrunches his nose with impatience. “Okay.” 

Katsuki snorts, “Not even gonna ask about the price first?”

More to himself, “I didn’t realize I was going to have to pay for your number.”

“You’re paying for my art, ” Katsuki argues emptily and it makes Shouto feel light.

“What do you base your prices on?”

“Size.”

“Oh,” Shouto muses to himself. He holds up both hands and adjusts how far apart they are from each other until the gap is as wide as his shoulders. “What about something this big?”

Katsuki blinks at him but Shouto can see the entertainment in his bitten smile. “You want it to be the same height or double?”

“Double,” he says with confidence that would suggest he’s been thinking about getting a commissioned art piece for months instead of minutes.

Across from him, Katsuki smiles wide and feral. “Consider it done.” He checks his watch, glances behind himself, and nods at Mina. Standing, he pulls out his wallet and drops a business card on the table, “I’ll see you tomorrow.” Katsuki pauses when he grabs the bouquet. He looks at the bulbs deeply as though confused by what he sees. Raising his hand, he runs a finger over the edge of a blue petal. 

Katsuki startles from his stupor when the door swings open and the bell dings. His eyes sway to Shouto and then back to the bouquet where he carefully pulls out the stalk of the same blue flower he’d been fascinated by. “It’s a blue delphinium,” Katsuki says, offering it to him.

Shouto’s stomach flutters and he suddenly understands the appeal of receiving flowers, something picked just for you. “Blue?” He pinches the stem and their fingers brush. It’s the first time they’ve touched and Shouto’s mouth runs dry.

“That’s what the florist said.” Katsuki lets go of the flower and steps back from the table. “Don’t call me but, if there’s an emergency, and Mina doesn’t answer her phone, you can text.”

“Right,” Shouto replies stupidly. “Bye, Katsuki.”

“Later,” Katsuki waves him off, grabs the coffee waiting for him at the register, and leaves.

This time when Katsuki leaves it feels purple.

It’s nice returning to his daily routine of going to the coffee shop and seeing Katsuki but come the following Monday he finds that his routine is, once again, disrupted. “Blasty isn’t going to be stopping by today,” Mina sighs dramatically and flings herself onto the countertop when Shouto approaches the register.

Stopping short, “Oh.”

“Don’t look so disappointed, lover boy.” Mina peels herself off the counter and smiles at him conspiratorially. “You didn’t hear it from me but I guess I wasn’t the only person he wanted to text this morning.”

Shouto rolls his lips together. He can hear in Mina’s tone that he’s supposed to be understanding something that she isn’t saying. Cautiously, “Who did he want to text?”

Mina blinks at him blankly. “You sure are lucky you’re cute, Shou.” She presses her hands together and holds the tips of her fingers to her mouth as she thinks. “Okay. Let’s try this.” She drums her hands against the countertop, “A little birdy told me you have been gifted the ability of phone to phone communication with our favorite walking explosion~”

Shouto believes he has gathered that both the ‘little birdy’ and the ‘walking explosion’ are Katsuki and tentatively taps the counter in a similar gesture. “That is correct,” he nods.

To her credit, until now, Mina has never once looked at Shouto as though he is an idiot, which could be considered an achievement of sorts considering her close relationship to Katsuki and the fact that he only ever looks at Shouto like he’s an idiot. “Oh sweet baby Jesus. I’m really going to have to spell this out.” She meets Shouto’s eyes seriously, “Have you used his number?”

Shouto scrunches his brows, despite being told not to call if he was coughing up blood -“I was under the impression it was for emergencies.”

Mina bites her lip as laughter starts to bubble up her throat and then bursts out through her mouth like a shaken soda. “Geez!” She wheezes when she’s able to catch her breath. “One himbo is fate, two is a type.” 

Shouto presses his lips together and deigns to venture, “What’s a himbo?”

Another short round of laughter from Mina and then she dabs at her eyes. “Go sit down and have a good think. Coffee’s on me today.”

He feels a bit like a scolded child as he sets up his laptop at a table in the far corner of the shop and has a good think. It’s not as though he hasn’t wanted to contact Katsuki, he’s read over the business card Katsuki gave him enough times to have memorized the number, it’s just that he hadn’t thought it would be that easy. He’d been waiting for a good reason to text Katsuki because he couldn’t imagine receiving a response otherwise.

His phone feels heavy in his pocket as he poises his fingers over the keys of his laptop. He rolls his lips together weighing the pros and cons of texting Katsuki.

Con: Katsuki might get annoyed and block him.

Pro: Katsuki might get annoyed and respond to him.

Shouto likes the odds. Taking his phone from his pocket, he creates a new text log and sends Katsuki a message:

>Are you dead in a ditch, Katsuki?

>This is Shouto.

He sets his phone down and lines it up with the edge of the table. The screen stays dark a long time. Long enough for Mina to bring over his coffee and for him to resign himself to not getting a response. He’s halfway through typing up a section about consumer liability when his phone buzzes.

>>Yes.

Katsuki doesn’t come to the cafe for the remainder of the week and Shouto finds that he’s actually able to get quite a bit of work done when he’s not waiting for him to walk through the door at any moment. It’s not nearly as lively without him, though. Even Mina, the single most energetic person Shouto has ever met, seems a little less effervescent with each passing day - which is an observation he texts to Katsuki as he waits for his coffee on Friday.

>>Is she playing sad music in the cafe?

>No.

>>She’s fine. 

>I think she misses you.

>>Leave me alone.

Shouto smiles fondly at his phone and looks past the counter to where Mina is making his coffee. Though absent from the cafe, Shouto has been texting Katsuki. He’s been pushing the boundary of what he texts to him and, currently, cat memes seem to be the upper limit of ‘the bullshit’ that Katsuki is willing to deal with.

His phone buzzes as Mina starts finishing up his drink.

>>I’m finishing up your commission today. Come by tomorrow, I’ll send you the address

Shouto nearly drops his phone and has to reread the message six or seven times to make sure he’s read it right. Mina sets his coffee down on the counter and he hurries to type out a response. 

>Yes. Thank you very much

He rereads his response and, maybe he’s being overcritical, but even he thinks he sounds a little awkward.

“That Blasty?”

“Yes,” he swallows. “It’s Katsuki. I told him you miss him.”

“Oh~” Mina trills. “And what did he say back?”

“He told me to leave him alone.”

Mina laughs. “Yeah, that sounds like him. He’ll be back Monday, did he tell you?”

Shouto takes a sip of his coffee and shakes his head.

“Yeah, he’s finishing up the commission he’s been working on.” She stretches her arms above her head in a way that reminds Shouto of a cat. “I can’t remember the last time he worked on something that took this long.”

He hums along conversationally and sets his mug down. “If I had known it was going to take so long to complete I wouldn’t have ordered a painting.”

Mina goes eerily still. “Wait - you’re the client?”

Shouto glances away awkwardly as there’s a sudden dip in the atmosphere. “Yes, I think so. Unless he has others.”

Her jaw goes slack. “And you said you ordered a painting ? Katsuki is painting you something, not drawing you something?”

Shouto takes half a step back, the growing seriousness in Mina’s tone is unsettling. “He told me he’s a painter so I assumed -”

Mina inhales suddenly and slaps both hands over her mouth. He can barely make out what she’s saying behind her hands. “He’s painting again.”

He’s almost certain he’s not supposed to respond to that but he still manages to try, “What do you-”

All at once Mina gasps again, eyes bugging wide as she grips her hands over her heart. “You can afford a painting done by Katsuki?”

The direct question catches him off guard but gone is the strange seriousness from a moment ago. “We didn’t discuss an exact price, he just asked me how large I wanted it.”

“And what did you say?” Mina leans in with wily intent in her eye. Shouto uses his hands to demonstrate the width and length they’d discussed and Mina cackles in return. “Holy shit! You must be loaded!”

The sudden rise in Mina’s energy is like getting whiplash and he finds himself feeling like he’s being teased, “I do okay.”

She tilts her head as though picking up on Shouto’s uncertainty. Her voice takes on a partly soothing tone, “You really don’t know.”

“Don’t know what?”

“Katsuki-” she giggles and Shouto imagines what it would be like to be a person who is able to bring themself this level of entertainment. “He’s kinda a big deal.”

Shouto wraps his hands around his mug once more and flexes his fingers. “He said something like that but I just thought he was being arrogant.”

He really wonders how Mina can look at him with both pity and wonderment.

Cautiously, “How big of a deal?”

Mina practically vibrates, “Let’s just say that if I was him and I sold a painting that size in a gallery I could pay all my bills and still have enough money leftover to take myself to dinner.”

A cold wave rolls through Shouto’s body. “I can’t afford that,” he says mostly to himself but the panic Shouto feels must show on his features because Mina launches into a fit of laughter. 

“I know!” She squeals in response but before Shouto can say anything in return a customer enters the shop and Mina floats away on a cloud made of entertainment at Shouto’s expense.

Shouto shows up at Katsuki apartment building and his hands begin to sweat. He’d tried his best to keep himself busy and go about his usual Saturday routine of shopping, cleaning, and calling his sister but, he had still been on edge. However, despite how much thought he’d put into visiting Katsuki he had still managed to miss his train. 

Stepping up to the buzzer he finds Katsuki’s name and hits the call button. 

“You’re late.” Katsuki’s normally rough voice is made even more jagged by the distortion of the speaker.

Shouto leans right into the mic. “It wasn’t intentional.”

He can hear Katsuki tch through the speaker. “Stop leaning so close to the callbox, you look like an idiot. Come up the elevator.” The staticky sound of the active call box goes dead and there’s a resounding buzz at the door.

The elevator ride is short and when the door slides open he steps into the hall. There are only two doors on the floor and Katsuki stands with his arms crossed, leaning against the door jam, at the one on the left hand side. Without waiting, he turns and walks back through the door leaving Shouto to follow after him.

The inside of the apartment is expansive and industrial. The ceiling is unfinished, revealing metal air ducts that hum as they pump warm air into the space. The floor is covered in tarps that are stained a multitude of colors that overlap in layers. Off to his immediate left are dozens of canvases of various sizes leaning up against the wall in stacks, though none of them are as large as the tarp covered canvas against the wall on the right that runs perpendicular to the door. It reaches nearly a third of the way up the massive wall and there’s a paint splattered ladder on the far side of it.

There’s a couch on the far left side of the space that faces a large TV that’s hung on a wall as well and a well sized kitchen in the corner. The vast majority of the space is left open and in the far right hand corner there’s a deep alcove that Shouto can just make out as the bedroom area.

“Sorry about the mess,” Katsuki mumbles as Shouto steps inside and he closes the door. He walks deeper into the apartment. “There’s water in the kitchen if you want it.”

Shouto tears his eyes away from the large canvas, “No, thank you.”

“Suit yourself.”

He lingers awkwardly by the door, unsure where he’s supposed to go considering the couch feels unnaturally far away to walk to and there doesn’t seem to be a table.

Katsuki walks to a support beam in the center of the apartment and picks up a canvas. His eyes glance up. “Well, come fucking look at it.”

“Right,” Shouto clears his throat and comes to stand shoulder to shoulder with Katsuki. He hadn’t been sure what to expect from him considering they hadn’t even discussed what the contents of his commission would be but what he finds is a black and white image made of paint that’s layered heavily and sculpted into valleys of texture that make up the overall image of a man - well, part of a man. His head isn’t in the frame, instead his clothed chest and torso take up a bit more than half the length of the canvas until it’s cut off by a table that seems to extend off of it, where the man’s hands rest around a cup of coffee.

Shouto is not a connoisseur of art but even he can tell that this isn’t something to be bought at the local art fair. It’s practiced and masterful in it’s execution. He finds himself wondering how Katsuki was able to create such natural nuances of light and shadow, and the feeling of depth with just a limited palette. And despite the paint that seems spackled to the canvas in mounds there are still delicate details in the fingers that grip the cup, the grain of the wooden table, even the vertical lines of the turtle neck sweater. 

He’s awestruck and there are hundreds of praises he could sing to Katsuki but what comes out of his mouth is a question tugging at the back of his mind. “Is that me?”

“Tch.” Katsuki scowls and hands the canvas off to Shouto as he walks to the kitchen. “It’s a guy drinking coffee, get over yourself.”

With the canvas in hand he can feel the hardened, almost rubbery, texture of the dried paint and then a grin crawls across his face. “It is, isn’t it?”

Katsuki flips on the faucet and fills a glass with water. “Don’t fucking flatter yourself.”

He can’t look away from it. He wants to take a photo of it and send it to Mina who’s number he had managed to acquire over the course of Katsuki’s absence. Then he remembers the conversation he had with her just yesterday and his blood runs cold. Despite her he’d held out hope that perhaps she’d been exaggerating but seeing the painting now he realizes that, if anything, she’d undersold him. This is art . Real art. The kind that hangs in a museum where people with way more expertise than him come and stare so that they can write entire opinion articles about it.

Turning to Katsuki with the canvas held in front of him awkwardly, “Katsuki I can’t afford this.”

With a shrug, he sets his glass in the sink. “Don’t worry about it.”

“What?” Shouto’s eyes bug. “This -” he looks back to the painting, “I can’t take this without compensating you.”

Katsuki turns around and leans his back against the sink. “I said don’t worry about it. You did me a favor.”

“I don’t see how,” Shouto argues.

With a sigh, Katsuki starts walking across the apartment towards the alcove with his bed.  “That’s a hard color palette to work with. Most people can only hope to do mountains with those colors and that technique.”

“I can imagine, which is why -”

“I hadn’t tried to do something like that with that palette before and I fucking killed it after trial and error. So you did me a favor. Just take it.” Katsuki disappears behind a dressing screen and reemerges in jeans and a jacket. “If you feel like you have to pay me, buy dinner. I’m starving.”

“I-” Shouto tries to continue arguing but the way Katsuki levels his eyes at him makes him stop short. “Do I take this with us or-”

“Don’t be an idiot. Come back for it later or something.”

“Okay.” Shouto sets it back down against the support beam and, for the first time, he notices a handful of more canvases painted in a similar style with varying results. He looks up and sees on the wall behind the beam that there are dozens of papers of graphite drawings tacked on the wall above an illustrating table and a handful of portfolios underneath. What was it that Mina had said? 

He’s painting again.

“Hurry up, loser.” Katsuki has managed to walk to the door and is slipping on his shoes.

Shouto turns away from the wall of drawings and follows him out the door. 

Katsuki takes him down the street to a ramen shop and they get seated at the bar. The space is small, a long rectangle with a few secondhand tables and the bar. The counter is crammed with seating and their shoulders brush together. 

“This is the best ramen shop in the city,” Katsuki has to lean in close to be heard over the sound of patrons and kitchen movement.

“Do you come here a lot?”

Katsuki shrugs, “I used to come here more.”

“Why’d you stop?”

He sighs. “I don’t know.” Looking off to the side, Shouto can barely make out what he says next. “It’s complicated.”

Shouto hums and picks up the menu that doubles as a placemat. “Maybe one day you’ll tell me,” he mumbles, unsure if Katsuki can hear him but when he chances a glance in his direction he’s cracking apart a pair of chopsticks with the breath of a smile tugging at his lips.

Katsuki orders appetizers and drinks for them; gyoza, edamame, kurage, and two beers. “That’s a lot of food,” Shouto observes when the server comes back and starts laying it out in front of them.

“Told you I was hungry. Besides, isn’t this my payment for the kickass painting I gave you. That’s a Katsuki original. Wait a few years and the resale on it will be insane.”

Shouto sits up straighter and sucks in a breath, affronted. “I will not be selling it. Ever.”

Katsuki snorts, rolls his eyes and stuffs a piece of chicken in his mouth. “Your loss. They’ll say it was from my black period and have college freshmen write analysis pieces on it.”

He squeezes free a bean from the edamame pod and chews it carefully. “You’re well known enough in the art world to be taught in school?”

Katsuki ponders the question for a moment and swallows his food. “Depends on who you ask.”

Shouto smiles with unrestrained softness in his features. “I really admire your confidence, Katsuki.”

Next to him, Katsuki chokes on his beer and starts coughing. Shouto reaches over and pats his back with his hand, which Katsuki swats away once the coughing subsides. “You’re so fucking awkward it makes me gag.” His face is pink when he speaks but whether that’s from nearly choking or embarrassment remains to be seen.

They make their way through the appetizers and at one point the server comes to take their ramen orders but, to Shouto, their presence is unimportant and he just orders a standard tonkatsu bowl since he’d hardly looked at the menu. Katsuki is more engaged here than he has been before and Shouto finds himself hanging on every offered word, every motion of his body and expression that passes over his face.

“Why’d you start coming to the coffee shop?”

The question catches him off guard considering the majority of his focus just a moment ago had been on the cadence of Katsuki’s voice as he vehemently insisted he isn’t a glutton. Something Shouto might have conceded to had Katsuki not asked the question while savagely ripping into the last piece of gyoza of which Shouto had none.

But, to answer the question, “I went left that morning.”

Katsuki rolls his eyes, “Fine. Be a cryptic fuck. See if I care.”

“I’m serious,” Shouto insists. “I-” he starts and stops short for no other reason than realizing the strangeness of his own answer. Though that doesn’t make it less true. “When I left for coffee that morning, I went left instead of right like I normally would have.”

With a skeptical gaze, Katsuki watches him for a moment. “Why?”

Shouto hadn’t given much thought to the events of the day he met Katsuki that had preceded their actual meeting but, now that he’s giving it thought - “I don’t know. I just felt like I should.”

“Are you trying to bullshit me and tell me it’s fate you ended up a pain in my ass?”

“Maybe,” Shouto teases knowing damn well the response will push Katsuki’s buttons. 

“Fuck fate,” Katsuki says and then throws back the rest of his beer. “It’s bullshit.”

“You think so?”

Katsuki snorts with a tinge of bitterness. “You know, we live in this world where we are all raised to believe in the - fuck. The good of a single moment.”

Shouto stomach turns. “You mean meeting your soulmate.”

“Yeah. That. People build their whole life around that. They plan futures and take chances because there’s some fucked cosmic inevitability that you’re going to find this person and everything is going to work out when you’re with them.” He pauses, takes a breath and picks at the label on the beer bottle. “What happens when shit doesn’t work out? People don’t prepare you for that.”

What Katsuki says terrifies him because there’s something raw and hurting in his tone. Something he tries to mask behind a gruff voice and feigned indifference. Something that Shouto wants to ask about, wants to reach out and comfort but senses he shouldn’t because if Katsuki isn’t saying it outright, it’s something he doesn’t want to discuss with any further detail. Instead, Shouto offers a part of himself. “My parents are soulmates but they can’t be in the same room with each other for more than five minutes. I used to be afraid of meeting my soulmate when I was little because of that but, my mom’s perspective on it is that soulmates are fated to bring something into our lives that help make us whole, not make us whole by existing.” 

Katsuki is quiet for a moment, tongue poking visibly at his inner cheek. “What does she think your dad brought her?”

Shouto can clearly see the strange mix of sadness and pride that had played on his mother’s face when she answered that exact question. “He brought her us. Her children. She always wanted to be a mother.” Katsuki hums and Shouto swallows, his tongue feels thick as he continues, “It doesn’t always work out, but that doesn’t mean there’s nothing to be gained.”

There’s a silence between them that even seems to mute the noise that surrounds the two of them. A seemingly unending moment and then a tiny half-smile tugs on Katsuki’s lips the feeling of which reaches his eyes. “You know,” he turns to look at Shouto head on, “you aren’t as stupid as that pretty boy face of yours makes you seem.”

His face heats up and Shouto knows he’s blushing but knowing that blushing makes a person’s face turn red makes him blush even more. Katsuki’s half-smile turns into a smug grin but Shouto is saved from any teasing when the server comes by with their ramen.

He’d known the food would smell good but it looks fantastic, colorful toppings arranged artfully over thick broth. Shouto turns to Katsuki to make a comment about it but he catches him studying a singular piece of corn, holding it up to the light between his chopsticks. Katsuki’s eyes shine and his features appear soft and thoughtful. 

Katsuki lowers his chopsticks, hovers them over the bowl and says, “Did you know that corn is yellow?”

Shouto knows better than to hope Katsuki is a moment away from revealing that he’s able to see in color so he stays quiet and lets him continue. 

“What do you think yellow feels like?”

They’ve had a similar conversation before. Shouto doesn’t have to think long to know his answer. “Like sunshine.” Katsuki turns to regard him and he continues, “Like happiness.”

With a huff of humor, Katsuki pops the piece of corn in his mouth. “I think it’s more like optimism.”

Chapter Text

The following Friday, Shouto enters the coffee shop to find Katsuki already seated in the corner of the cafe in a large, cushiony chair as he stares lazily out the window to watch the passersby. It’s a curious sight, seeing as Katsuki rarely arrives before Shouto due to the strict routine he keeps, or so he has learned. He casts his eyes to Mina to try and gage the energy of the situation he’s walking into and finds that she is comically pulling the entirety of her bottom lip into her mouth like some horny cartoon character. He’s mildly concerned but raises two fingers in greeting and walks over to sit adjacent to Katsuki.

Sunshine doesn’t so much as twitch when Shouto sits down and he finds pleasure in Katsuki’s nonreaction. Weeks ago, simply being in Shouto’s presence would have made Katsuki tense but, here he is now, relaxed as he projects an aura that feels unguarded. On the table between the two chairs sits a saucer and mug, “Is this for me?”

“It ain’t fucking mine, that’s for damn sure.”

“Mmm,” Shouto smirks to himself as he sets his satchel to the side. “Feeling shy today, Blasty?”

Katsuki groans but it’s an empty attempt at annoyance before the corner of his mouth draws up. “Don’t be a dick and drink your gross coffee.”

He notices that Katsuki has a mug of coffee cradled in his hands as opposed to a to-go cup and Shouto’s heart clenches for no reason other than contentment. “I will,” he responds with a thinly veiled smugness, “and I’ll enjoy it for all it’s grossness.”

They sit and talk over their coffees. Katsuki even stays a little longer than usual today which fills Shouto with a childish kind of warmth. It’s been like this all week. A deeper level of comfort and interest swimming in the space between them and Shouto has started to feel the very beginnings of bravery building in him - bravery he intends to use to ask Katsuki on a proper date... or maybe just to hang out again. 

Shouto curses himself for his inaction. He’s no closer to telling Katsuki about his color vision and their soulbond than he had been last week or the week before and he feels the door on being able to tell Katsuki without his confession resulting in irreparable damage getting dangerously close to clicking shut and locking in place.

A silence falls between them and Katsuki starts to become visibly agitated so Shouto waits with carefully concealed excitement to hear what Sunshine has on his mind. 

Katsuki is aggressive when he speaks, cheeks turning red and expression souring quickly. “I got tickets for the amusement park so you better be here tomorrow at eight.”

Shouto’s whole face goes lax with astonishment as his brain trips over a million possible responses before daringly landing on, “Is this a-”

“No!” Katsuki seems to nearly choke on the word. “It’s not! It’s definitely not!”

The more Katsuki insists it isn’t a date the less inclined Shouto is to believe him. Still, he responds with a tight-lipped smile, “Okay.”

“Good.” Katsuki throws himself from the chair. “See you then. Don’t gossip with Mina, she’s practically salivating at the mouth.”

Shouto looks over his shoulder and sure enough, Mina is watching them with a crazed expression. Looking back at Katsuki, “I’ll try but she won’t make it easy.”

His response makes Katsuki snort and amusement flash in his eyes. “Don’t let her win. You’re better than that, aren’t you?”

Shouto’s heart shouldn’t race at his question but it does. “I will be,” he says with an obedience that, embarrassingly, reminds him of a dog.

“Yeah, you will. Bye, loser. See ya’ tomorrow.”

“Bye,” Shouto waves even though Katsuki isn’t looking at him. As soon as he’s left the building Mina is rushing over. 

“Tell me everything!”

Shouto has to admire her audacity. “I can’t.”

“Oh c’mon!” Her face falls, “Haven’t I been in your corner this whole time?”

“Yes,” Shouto casts his eyes away thoughtfully, “you’ve helped me get this far but I think I have to continue on my own.”

Mina sighs. “You’re too good for him.”

Shouto thinks to himself that it certainly doesn’t feel that way. 

The amusement park is a cluster of colors and sounds and Shouto finds himself feeling a bit out of his depth. There are families with children of various ages sitting off to the side, resting with colorful sweets and differing levels of patience, and packs of teenagers making their way through the crowds with giant smiles on their faces and laughter ringing from their mouths between bites of greasy food.

His family had never been particularly pleasant in a group, so family outings had been few and far between and never centered around events he and his siblings would have found enjoyable. Mostly they went out for family dinners at nice restaurants that required them to dress up in stuffy clothes that Shouto remembers hating and playing out some sort of happier version of themselves for the public. Additionally, Shouto hadn’t had many friends in school as he grew older and so he had never come to a place like this as an adolescent either.

He can feel Katsuki’s eyes on him as they shoulder their way through the throngs of people in the main food court of the park. “I can’t believe you’ve never been to a theme park,” he says as though personally insulted by the notion.

“You don’t have to believe me for it to be true.”

Katsuki’s eyes roll up with a groan. “We’ll just have to make up for lost time. Get ready to stuff your face with fried food your thirty year old stomach is going to hate you for later.”

Petulant, “I’m not thirty.”

With a smirk, “Yeah, yeah. Go find us the least sticky table you can.”

They’ve been there a few hours now. Shouto’s face is sufficiently frozen by the chill spring air coupled with the wind speed from riding coasters. He’s decided that, in fact, roller coasters are not nearly as fun as they seem in movies but he keeps suffering through them because Katsuki gets a maniacal grin on his face with every loop, turn, and dip of the track. Suffering aside, he’s just happy that he hasn’t vomited yet.

Shouto straddles the bench of an empty table and casts his gaze around casually in search of which stall Katsuki has wandered off to. When he doesn’t find him, he lets his thoughts wander as he mindlessly pokes his fingers into the oblong gaps. A small girl runs by and accidently shoulder checks him from behind as she races to catch up with her family. “Sorry, mister!” She calls to him without stopping but Shouto’s not concerned with her apology considering the force of her bumping into him has lodged his finger securely in one of the gaps.

He panics and starts trying to yank his finger out but it’s really stuck in there. From behind him, “Are you five?”

Shouto whips his head around to look over his shoulder where Katsuki is holding a tray with two shallow baskets of food. “Katsuki,” he whines. “My finger’s stuck.”

“Jesus fucking Christ,” Katsuki sighs in return. He sets the food tray down and straddles the same bench so that he faces Shouto. With gentle pressure, Katsuki pinches Shouto’s finger where it meets the bench. “Just relax,” he says, then quickly pulls the finger straight out of the gap.

Shouto snatches his hand back and sucks on his finger where it’s been scraped by the rough seam of the bench. He hisses and Katsuki rolls his eyes. “Boo-fucking-hoo, don’t be so dramatic.”

“It really hurt,” he insists as he inspects his finger. “Look!” He shoves it in Katsuki’s face, “There’s a red abrasion around it.”

Katsuki snatches his wrist and holds Shouto’s hand still. With narrowed eyes he checks his finger. His face relaxes and his grip adjusts as he brings his other hand up to cradle Shouto’s palm on both sides. Carefully he applies pressure at the base of Shouto’s finger. “Does that hurt?”

Shouto, to his credit, is doing an excellent job of not saying something stupid and offputting. The tradeoff to that however is that he can’t answer at all, nor look away from where Katsuki is holding his hand. The touch is warm and makes his skin tingle with tiny explosions.

“Seriously!” Shouto’s eyes snap up to Katsuki’s face, expression twisted with a deep snarl but flushed pink as he looks up at Shouto from beneath his lashes with angry eyes. Katsuki looks away and mumbles, “Be less fucking obvious you piece of shit.”

“I don’t know if I can,” he returns honestly.

“I know.” Katsuki lets Shouto hand drop away from him, grabs a soda and takes a long sip through his straw. “And I hate that I know that about you.”

Shouto smiles softly. “Are you flirting with me, Katsuki?”

“Pft!” He scoffs. “You fucking wish. If I was flirting with you, which I’m not , you would know.”

“Mmm,” Shouto finally looks at the food and realizes how hungry he is. He grabs the cordog by the stick, “You’re such a nuanced person. It’s one of the things I admire about you.”

“Yeah, well, you’re not so bad yourself. I guess.”

Shouto takes a big bite of his corndog and nearly chokes. Katsuki doesn’t help him, just laughs.

They spend the rest of the day on the midway playing carnival style games of which Katsuki is unfairly good at considering they’re rigged. At least that’s what Katsuki says when Shouto has spent over forty dollars trying to knock over a stack of blocks with a softball.

“I can do it,” Shouto insists, and throws the softball yet again. Even the attendant looks like they feel bad for him.

“Really? You’ve already paid double what any of the prizes would cost. Just let it go.”

“That’s easy for you to say!” Shouto feels the bitterness in his voice and looks pointedly at the midsize dinosaur held in the crook of Katsuki’s arm.

With a shrug, “What else can I say? Sucks to suck.”

Shouto frowns deeply and then deeper when Katsuki very obviously bites back a smile. He turns back to the game and throws the remaining softball. When the blocks don’t topple the attendant visibly cringes. “They really are rigged,” she says. “I’m not supposed to tell you that though.”

He takes a calming breath, “Fine.” Turning on his heel Shouto stomps away, though where to? He doesn’t know.

Katsuki follows after him and Shouto’s can feel the delight he is taking from the situation radiating off of him. “Hey,” Katsuki calls after him and Shouto pauses enough for him to catch up. He’s grinning and even in his unreasonably upset state, Shouto finds him unbearably attractive. “You need to stop pouting.”

“I’m not pouting,” he lies.

“Here,” Katsuki shoves the dinosaur into Shouto’s chest. “Take it.”

Shouto grips the prize in both hands and looks down at the bright green and orange triceratops. “For me?” His heart skips a beat and Katsuki scoffs.

“Fuck no. You’re a grown ass adult. Pick out a kid to give it to like a decent human being.”

Shouto pushes his lower lip out then looks up to meet Katsuki’s eyes that are such a gorgeous red in the glowing lights of the midway. “I don’t want to.”

For a moment Katsuki just stares him down and Shouto tries to imagine what’s going through his mind. He’s either going to be berated or teased so he tries to prepare for both scenarios. “Whatever, have it your way, scum.”

Shouto absolutely beams and he’s suddenly hit by the intense desire to record this moment. He fumbles trying to take his phone from his pocket. “Here,” he slaps his phone into Katsuki’s hand, “Take a picture.”

“Are you serious?”

“Yes, I am.” Shouto raises the stuffed animal to his cheek with both hands wrapped around its belly and grins.

It’s delayed but Katsuki raises the phone and snaps a photo. When he lowers his arm, he’s frowning and unable to meet Shouto’s eyes. He decides to take it as a good sign. He steps forward, “Let me see.”

Before he can take the phone from him though a group of teens passes by and one of them coos. “Ooo~ do you want me to take a picture of you two together.”

They look at each other, Katsuki’s eyes are strangely serious, as though trying to solve a rather complex puzzle. “Sure,” he says without looking away from Shouto and hands the phone over to her. She takes a few steps back and calls for their attention. Shouto tears his eyes away and smiles softly at the camera. 

She takes more time than Katsuki did and then hands the phone back. 

“Thank you.” Shouto sets the phone in his pocket and she waves him off with a, “No problem.”

An upbeat instrumental song plays through the speakers in the park and Katsuki tugs on his arm. “C’mon, the fireworks are going to start.”

The remaining people in the park seem to split into two groups, those that are travelling deeper and those that are walking decidedly towards the exit. Katsuki continues to pull him along and they eventually split from the majority of the group. They come to rest on a bridge in a much less crowded area.

He watches Katsuki lean against the railing and Shouto follows suit. He holds his dinosaur with both hands over the barrier and Katsuki snorts. “Don’t drop it. I’m not getting you another one.”

“I won’t.”

“You sound confident.”

“I’ll protect it with my life.”

Katsuki laughs, it’s a breathy, hardly there sound but it makes Shouto feels on top of the world. “You’re such a pain,” he says without an inkling of irritation. A few other people walk across the bridge looking for a space to watch the fireworks and a calm settles between them. Katsuki watches the small river beneath the bridge. “This was -” he cuts himself off with a sigh. “This was nice. Today, I mean.”

Shouto feels his heart beat wildly against his ribs. He wants to say something but he wants it to be the right something

More to himself than Shouto, “I wasn’t sure it would be.”

His whole body feels hot and despite wanting to say the right thing he responds with, “I changed my sweater three times this morning.”

Katsuki turns to look at Shouto, a sly and curious expression slipping into place. “That doesn’t surprise me at all.”

There’s a sudden whirring noise across the expanse of where they are to the center of the park. Shouto finds a quickly traveling spark in the sky and follows it up until it explodes into a white shower of sparks. Then there’s another in sky blue, another in bubblegum pink - mystic purple, chameleon green, sunshine yellow - over and over again the colors burst in the sky and Shouto feels emotional. Not as emotional as he had when he first saw color but very close because he’s never seen color in this way before.

Next to him there’s a shuddering breath and he looks out of the corner of his eye so see a single tear fall down Katsuki’s but he doesn’t look sad or any other version of upset really. Shouto knows that this moment isn’t for him to see and it breaks his heart because he wants it to be. He wants all of Katsuki - the strength, the fire, the warmth and protection. Even the lesser shown parts of the sadness he carries and his vulnerability. Everything.

But he turns away, and continues watching the rainbow of colors that light up the sky.

Katsuki invites him back to his apartment by reminding him that he never did come back for the art piece that Katsuki spent, a lot of fucking time on. The apartment is dark except for a dim light that overhangs the large canvas that leans up against the wall.

He watches Katsuki navigate deeper into the apartment until he becomes a silhouette against the darkness. Shouto intends to follow after him but in that moment the heater kicks on and the edge of the tarp covering the larger than life canvas falls away, revealing layers and swirls of orange and red and yellow. It reminds him of lava. Of fire. Of passion and romanticism and he’s suddenly unable to look away from what feels like an unending emotion captured on canvas.

 “You better frame this. Professionally. This is fucking art. ”

Shouto tears his eyes away and turns to face Katsuki. He looks at the painting in his hands as he approaches, eyes roaming over it with a pleased smirk on his face before looking up to meet Shouto’s eyes. Something unspoken passes between them and Shouto feels a lump of anxiety forming in his throat.

But then Katsuki looks past him, eyes landing on the exposed corner of the canvas. “ Shit .” He leans the painting in his hand against the tarp, “Hold the ladder.”

“Okay,” Shouto follows him and gets a firm grasp on the legs of the ladder so that Katsuki can climb it securely. He grabs the fallen corner of the tarp as he climbs and tucks away the warmth of the image behind it. Shouto watches the action, almost entranced as a feeling claws at the back of his mind. As if he should be connecting various pieces of information and forming a question.

Next thing he knows Katsuki has descended the ladder and Shouto is still holding it. He can feel his own heartbeat as it drums through his veins, rhythm increasing when Katsuki turns bodily and meets his eyes. Neither of them say anything and Shouto finds himself getting lost in the impassioned red of Katsuki’s eyes.

The touch of Katsuki’s fingers on his cheek makes him shiver but it also makes him daring. Shouto’s hand travels to rest high on the other’s hip as Katsuki’s palm flattens against his face. 

Katsuki cocks his head and stares unflinchingly into Shouto’s eyes. His thumb, calloused and strong, brushes under Shouto’s lashes. His voice is rough in a way that Shouto hasn’t heard before. He might describe it as sultry if he was capable of complex thought at the moment. “Has anyone ever told you how gorgeous your eyes are?”

A bit dumbly, Shouto swallows, “I don’t think so.”

Katsuki’s hand guides him in closer, “Stability. Calmness. Comfort.” Their faces are so close that Shouto can feel the air that carries Katsuki’s final word before their lips touch. 

Their kiss is tentative, gentle, careful and absolutely all consuming. Katsuki noses at Shouto cheek, guiding them into a more comfortable position. Slow and unhurried they test the boundaries of their kiss. Tugging each other’s lips, delicately kissing the corners of their mouths, small tempting wetness licking at the apex of a cupid’s bow. Katsuki relaxes against the ladder and pulls Shouto with him so that they begin to meld together. It’s perfect. 

It’s near perfect. Shouto wants to fall into it but the guilt that’s been accumulating due to his dishonesty grows with each earth-shattering pull of Katsuki’s lips. 

Forcing himself to turn away from Katsuki is like denying himself warmth in a blizzard. Katsuki’s mouth chases him, kisses his cheek and jaw as though enticing Shouto to come back. He sets his hand on Katsuki’s chest and in return he pulls away red eyes sliding open, “What’s wrong?”

Shouto takes a breath. “Katsuki - I -” The confession dies in his throat but the atmosphere is tensing. 

“You what?” His arms fall from around Shouto’s shoulders.

He swallows down his cowardice. With desperation, “Katsuki, when I met you, I saw color for the first time.”

Katsuki seems to seize up, body going taught as his eyes go wide. He doesn’t say anything and so Shouto continues. 

“You’re my soulmate and I’ve been unsure about how to tell you because you - you don’t see color.”

Katsuki’s eyes snap to the ground and Shouto feels his heart drop.

“You -” he pauses to lick his lip with uncertainty. “You don’t, right?”

When Katsuki speaks his voice is cold. “You need to leave.”

Shouto feels the beginning tendrils of panic rising in him. “I’m sorry, I wanted to say something sooner but I wasn’t sure you’d believe me.”

Katsuki’s eyes have fallen closed and his mouth is twisted in a painful grimace.

“Katsuki, please. Say something.”

The irritation that begins to roll off of Katsuki is stifling but it’s nothing compared to the rage in his eyes. “Leave! I don’t want to fucking look at you right now!”

Shouto steps back as if he’s been shocked. Shame crashes over him and his very core feels an all consuming pain. All he can do though is turn on his heel and leave.

It hurts beyond words.

Chapter Text

Monday comes but Katsuki doesn’t, not on Tuesday or Wednesday either. By Thursday Shouto has to face the reality that Katsuki is avoiding him. 

Mina acts as friendly as she ever has but there’s something locked behind her eyes and Shouto wonders how much she knows. He asks her on Friday, “Have you heard from Katsuki?”

Her face falls into a sad smile. “Not really. He’s-” she pauses and starts ringing Shouto up at the register. “He seems upset. Not returning my calls or texts except to tell me to stop bothering him.” Mina tries to hand him back his change but he waves her off. 

“I tried texting him on Tuesday but he didn’t respond,” Shouto responds solemnly. 

Mina looks at him cautiously. “Did the date not go well?”

Shouto’s stomach flutters as he recounts their day at the park in vivid flashes and then he blushes when he remembers Katsuki’s hand on his cheek and the gentle press of their lips.

“Oh~” She teases. “It went very well, I see”

“It wasn’t a date.”

“Pft. Yes. It was . Katsuki just can’t be bothered to be straight forward when it comes to things like that.” She collapses to the counter, supporting her head with her upturned hands. “Hard to blame him though. He’s never had to do it before. Not all of us-”

The bell over the door jingles and Mina freezes. “Speak of the devil,” she whispers in the space between them and her words make Shouto’s body begin to thrum with uncertainty. 

He looks over his shoulder and finds that Katsuki is staring him down from the door, his eyes pin him with their burning determination. He’s reminded of the first time their eyes met in this coffee shop, how everything had dropped away and the air had grown thick with an inexplicable force, and that’s how it feels now as they look at each other unwaveringly.

“I think he wants to talk to you,” Mina says and Shouto hears her but feels worlds away. “Should I make your coffee to go or...”

Katsuki backs out of the door without looking away and Shouto moves after him without hesitation. “Sorry, Mina,” he calls to her half heartedly as he pushes the cafe door open. Katsuki is waiting for him just past the storefront and when he sees that Shouto has followed him he makes a gesture with his head that says, well, c’mon.

Shouto falls into step with him easily, the sidewalks aren’t particularly crowded at this time so they are able to walk side by side. The tension he would have expected is there but, not nearly as hostile as he’d built it in his mind. Instead of the anger and betrayal from the last time they saw each other there’s a sadness to Katsuki’s energy. The kind that’s quiet and tender.

They’ve walked a whole block and are turning a street corner when Shouto finally tries to say something, “Katsuki, I know I upset you-”

“I need to show you something.” Katsuki cuts him off but his eyes glance to look at Shouto. Irises that he’s seen hold such strong, red emotions are now swimming with something that makes Shouto think of a dark blue. Open, fragile, vulnerable .

They come to an expansive plaza spotted with stone statues of what appear to be amorphous blobs. The space is dotted with benches and flower beds planted beneath shade trees. The scenery is enough to distract him from the name on the large building they’re approaching until they reach the door and then it’s plastered across the glass doors in vinyl stickers: Hendrick’s Museum of Art.

He can’t even get in a question before Katsuki is continuing inside, leading him to the ticket taker where he presents two pre-purchased tickets. They get in the elevator, “Which floor?” 

Katsuki is fidgeting, hands stuffed in his pockets as he shifts his weight on both legs. “Five.”

Shouto presses the button and reads the text next to it: Modern and Contemporary Art.

The doors open up and Shouto is immediately hit with vivid color. There’s a large painting of butterflies hanging on a pillar right outside the elevator. Their wings shimmer and, when he gets closer, he sees that there are flecks of gold in the paint. To his right there is a floor to ceiling window and he can only imagine what the painting looks like in the light of the setting sun. 

Katsuki scoffs but there’s humor in his tone. “You got colored sight and you didn’t immediately go to an art museum?”

The lightness in Katsuki’s tone makes him relax, “I bought a book?”

“A book?”

Shouto hums and follows Katsuki as he takes them deeper into the gallery. “Yeah, Now That’s What I Call Color .”

Katsuki shakes his head with a small huff. “I don’t even know where to start with that.”

They come to a stop in front of a sleek white bench. Katsuki sits first and then Shouto follows. Across from them is a painting, lit from the front. The background reminds him of rainbow sherbert ice cream except melted and mixed together in minimally textured swirls of orange, green and pink. The bottom edge of the painting is a white tea table - mostly white. It’s confusing but the table is shadowed and defined with less pigmented versions of the colors that make up the background layered together in a way that still reads as white.

Sitting on the right hand side of the table is a tall, messy stack of brightly colored and damaged papers. The way the paint is layered, maybe even cut somehow, adds texture to each individual sheet. Shouto feels as though he could walk up to the painting and pull a piece out to hold in his hands. 

The top of the stack seems to tilt. The papers push inwards to create a curve, over which the top most paper, the color of candy apple red, has just begun to slip off, as though catching a breeze. 

He must stare at it a long time because when Katsuki speaks it startles him from his own thoughts. “What do you see?”

Shouto swallows, unsure of how to answer. “What do you mean?”

Katsuki shrugs and adjusts his posture. “Just what I said, ‘What do you see?’ There’s not a wrong answer so don’t overthink it.”

“Okay,” Shouto turns back to the painting and tilts his head how he imagines an art critic would. “I-” he starts and pauses once more, scrunching his eyebrows and thinking hard. His eyes are drawn to the divots that separate the papers. The careful lines of black and brown that make the corners of some sheets look burned. The spackled layers that create creases on other pieces of paper. “I see lines.”

“Lines?” Katsuki raises an eyebrow and his voice sounds vaguely amused. 

“And layers,” Shouto is quick to follow up.

“Huh.” Katsuki turns back to the painting. “Lines and layers.” He seems to consider Shouto’s answer and then looks at him sideways, “You wouldn’t last a day in art school if that’s the best you got.”

Shouto feels himself flush hot. “That’s - you -” He groans a bit childishly. “What I mean is,” he bites his lip and gives the painting one last look and continues. “I know there’s a larger picture but, when I look at it, I find myself focusing on the technical elements. I wonder how much time, skill, and - and passion ,” his voice grows with his conviction, “that the artist must have poured into creating this.” 

He points at the painting as if from this distance it’s clear what he’s gesturing to, “Look there, the colors in the background are the same colors that make up the table but the table still looks white . How did they do that? The paper, too. Each sheet looks so thin but all of the paint is smeared on top of each other in layers. It’s as though, to the artist, color is everything.”

Meeting Katsuki’s eyes, he sucks in oxygen having not breathed through his entire defense. “Anything else?” Katsuki asks simply.

With a small shake of his head, “No.”

Katsuki hums placatingly then repeats the last of what Shouto had said. “Color is everything. Huh. Never heard that one before.”

Confused, “What?”

“When my alma mater was using my painting to teach one of their modern art intro classes for colored sight, most people wrote that love was everything. Shit about layers of color representing moments in a relationship to create something both strong and fragile.”

Selective hearing, “This is - You painted this?”

“Yeah. Six or seven years ago. I’d just gotten out of school.”

“But -” Shouto feels his brain treading water just trying to keep up. “It’s in color.”

A little rough but not truly antagonistic, “I know, I’m the one that painted the damn thing.”

Shouto doesn’t know what to say but he gets the feeling he’s not supposed to say anything. He gives Katsuki a few more moments and then he continues. “I met my soulmate already, Shouto.”

Shouto feels the blood drain from his face and his whole body go numb but Katsuki continues to stare forward, eyes locked on the painting but not really seeing anything.

“Eijiro. I met him when we were thirteen. First day of school.” Katsuki rubs his mouth. “It was like drowning and having life breathed into me at the same time.”

“Fear and bliss.” Shouto’s words are but a whisper.

 “Yeah. Exactly.” Katsuki looks at him sadly. “You would know.” He swallows thickly, “We came here after school the day we met. They had an exhibit at the time called Impasto in Color .” A small laugh, then, “We must have spent three hours in there and after that I knew I wanted to become a painter. I wanted to keep creating that moment of everything being new. Exciting.”

A silence falls between them and Shouto has a moment to sit with his thoughts. It’s impossible to even begin trying to unravel the threads of inexplicable devotion he feels for Katsuki from the ones of utter heartbreak and loneliness. There are so many questions to be asked but no way for him to really grasp what his focus should be. 

Then he looks at Katsuki and sees a similar heartbreak, a similar loneliness. He’s not the only one confused or hurt and he reasons that if he’s fated to love Katsuki he should start by trying to be understanding of his pain. “Something happened. It’s not that simple.”

“No,” Katsuki sighs but not of relief or exasperation, maybe resignation. “He died. Almost three years ago. Motorcycle crash. I was-” Katsuki takes a deep breath and lets it out slowly, like he’s practiced what he’s telling Shouto and is recalling his lines. “I was in the middle of painting that large canvas, the one in my apartment. The one the tarp fell off of. And my vision went grayscale and there was just pain . I felt like something was being torn out of me. I didn’t know what to think or do but a few seconds passed, the pain stopped and the color came back. But it was wrong. Everything was faded.

“Then it happened again. Only this time when the color came back it was spotty, fading in and out. And the pain wouldn’t even let me breathe. Even after it was gone again I still couldn’t catch my breath.

“And it happened again. My vision went blurry. The pain kept pulling at my chest and then it felt like something snapped and the pain went away but I felt empty.” 

Katsuki rubs his hands together, mind only half with Shouto and the other half lost in a memory. He tugs the elbow on Katsuki’s jacket. “What about your vision?”

“Complicated. It was grayscale but color floated on the edges. Kind of like how you can see those muddled murky colors on top of oil if the sun hits it right but on the edges. When I look at things head on they’re grayscale.” Katsuki pinches the bridge of his nose and grimaces. “Uh, so minutes later I get a call from the hospital. I didn’t even have time to care about my sight or the empty feeling because all I heard was motorcycle crash and extensive trauma. My mom met me at the hospital, came with me when they brought me to Ei’s room and-” Katsuki cuts himself off, voice going tight. “And, uh, that’s when they told me about his injuries and how he coded three times, how they tried to save him but that he was - his body was still there but he was...gone.”

Shouto isn’t sure what to do, he wants to comfort Katsuki. Pull him into his chest and let him cry the tears he’s so obviously holding back but they suddenly feel so far apart and he’s unsure how to bridge the gap. Katsuki does it for them, he grabs Shouto’s wrist and doesn’t let go.

“Everyone wanted me to withdraw care but I was weak ,” he sounds angry now, ashamed, “and I couldn’t do it. You know,” he continues and his hand slips into Shouto’s, “people don’t usually lose their color vision when their soulmate dies. It’s rare. So there I am, twenty-six, widowed, mostly colorless, lost - and the only thing I have left of Eijiro is the color on the edge of my vision. And I was afraid I would lose that too if I let him go. So, now he has a permanent room at the hospital - I go sit with him after getting coffee in the morning and bring him flowers I couldn’t even see the color of on Wednesday. Every Wednesday. For the last three years.”

Shouto squeezes his hand and Katsuki returns the gesture before pulling his hand away and running it through his hair. “You don’t have to tell me, Katsuki.”

“I do, though - because that’s not the end of the story anymore.” Katsuki shoves the heels of his hands into both of his eyes and hisses as he breathes. “When I met you - I felt something. But, I want to be honest, it wasn’t like what people talk about or even how it had been when I met Ei. It was calming. Soothing. Like that emptiness was being slowly filled up or some bullshit like that. But I thought that maybe I was just attracted to you. I never thought about dating or romance after Ei’s accident and it bothered me that you made me start thinking about that shit. 

“I mean, what kind of soulmate wants to date other people after their partner fucking... after they’re gone .” Katsuki slaps his hands against his thighs and sits up straighter. “Mina saw it right away though, she’d been wanting me to ‘get back out there’ for a long time. I thought it was pointless though. Thought, ‘So what? I meet a colorless person and eventually they find their soulmate and leave me? What’s even the point?’” He scoffs.

Katsuki takes a moment to collect himself, breathes out the bitterness and continues, “Then I started seeing color. I started seeing blue.”

Shouto’s heart drops to his stomach, shock, hope, and grief pooling in there. He thinks of Katsuki and how he must have been scared and confused with nobody to talk to about what he was experiencing. Not dissimilar to how Shouto had first felt. 

“I’d never seen blue before. Even when Ei was still with me. Blues were always a steel gray. Even purples were a bit dull.” He gestures vaguely to his painting, “I never used them in my work.”

He looks at the painting again and, sure enough, there isn’t a trace of either color in it.

“Greens were hit or miss for whatever reason but that doesn’t really matter,” Katsuki continues a bit casually but the seriousness of his tone returns quickly. “They say that people usually see one color as more vibrant than others; with Eijiro, it was red. With you it’s blue. Everytime I look at you, the color of your eye is - it’s stunning.” Finally he turns to look at Shouto once more, “But I don’t see red. Orange is a bit dull.” With a small smile, “There are a lot more greens though. Teal for example - like the table in Mina’s cafe. Halfway between green and blue.”

“There were other blues too. The sky. Mina’s nail polish. The delphiniums.” A chuckle of mild exasperation, “Your sweater the first time we met. At first I only saw blue in flashes and now I see blue all the time. Then green. Yellow. Orange.” He sighs, there’s a tiredness to the sound. “Sometimes I don’t see those, but they come back. Stay longer. Disappear less.”

There’s a long pause between them and then Shouto voices the question at the forefront of his mind, “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Hey!” Katsuki raises his voice but there’s no heat in it. “You didn’t tell me either.”

“I didn’t think you would react well to, you’re my soulmate, let’s go on a date. ”

Katsuki laughs, a small sound but no less mirthful. “Probably not. I know it seems obvious that I started seeing colors because of you coming into my life but you never hear of people having a second soulmate - it didn’t even cross my mind. That morning we met, I had made the decision to take Ei off life support. I set a date for it because even though I was set in my decision I wanted a little more time to come to terms with it. So, I thought maybe this was the universe’s way of rewarding me for not being weak. For moving on and letting his body rest.”

“You’re not weak, Katsuki.” Shouto takes his hand, kisses his knuckles and Katsuki lets him. “And, um, I don’t know that it would have been obvious to me either so, if you’re worried about me -”

“Shouto - stop. I - I know you must have been hurting this whole time. Been unsure and a bunch of other shit and - God, fuck-” Katsuki uses his freehand to rub his forehead. "I don’t know what to do because I want to be with you but learning that we're soulmates brought another layer of bullshit feelings and questions.

“They say you’re fated to your soulmate from the moment you’re born. That’s why even kids will gain color. So if that’s true, then -” Katsuki grips Shouto’s hand tighter, bites his lip to hold back a broken sound. “Then that means Ei was fated to die. And for what? For loving me? I’m the one with the second soulmate. I’m the one that was destined to bond with another person and - and he had to die for that to happen? And what if he wasn’t fated to die and it was just an accident? What would have happened then? Would you have never found me? And If you did, would I have lost my bond with him? Would I have left him because - because soulmate bonds are unavoidable? You can’t ignore the pull.” He looks at Shouto again and there are tears in his eyes. “I didn’t see you for less than a week and I - I fucking missed you.”

He can’t be sure it’s appropriate but Shouto can’t stand to see Katsuki suffering and do nothing. Taking Katsuki’s face in both hands, he wipes away the tears in his lashes and presses his lips to his forehead. “It’s okay, Katsuki. It’s okay,” he breathes the words against Katsuki’s skin, and his hands come up to anchor himself to Shouto by grabbing his wrists.

Katsuki tilts his head and kisses Shouto softly, fleetingly on his lips. “I need time.” He swallows and Shouto knows what he’s going to say. “Away from you. Ei - I’m withdrawing care from him in a few days and - I need to answer those questions. I need to be... I don’t know. I need to be at peace with my answers.”

Tears prick Shouto’s eyes and he sniffs to clear the lump in his throat. “I understand.” Belatedly, “I’ll miss you.”

Katsuki nods and their foreheads knock together, “Me too, dumbass.”

Before they pull away, their eyes meet and Shouto can only think of one thing to say. “So, which is it? Is it love or color?”

With soft eyes, Katsuki laughs, small and light before he sets his face into vague amusement. “You really want to know?”

“Yes.”

“Okay,” He leans in to whisper conspiratorially against Shouto’s ear. “It’s a stack of fucking papers.”

The first week is hard, Shouto’s heart aches for Katsuki both in longing and concern. He worries about him and how he’s handling Eijiro’s passing. Mina closes the cafe early on Wednesday and Shouto has to assume that’s the day Katsuki had chosen to withdraw care and when she returns the next day her eyes are puffy but she smiles anyway. He asks her how Katsuki is and all she tells him is, “He had plenty of time to prepare for that moment and it still hadn’t been enough.” 

Shouto feels sick hearing that and that sick feeling stays with him throughout the entirety of the second week. He stops himself from texting Katsuki to ask how he is more than once but, he’d agreed to give him space and he wants to give Katsuki space to heal and process. Shouto just wishes there was a way to help him that wouldn’t add additional stress to his mental state.

The third week is easier, if only because Mina has finally spoken to Katsuki. “He’s painting again. With color. ” She emphasizes the word and waggles her eyebrow. Shouto spends hours thinking about what Katsuki could be creating. He wonders if Katsuki is still able to express passion the way he used to. The security guard at the art museum knows him by name by the end of the week and Shouto has studied every brush stroke of Katsuki’s painting.

His curiosity about Katsuki’s art carries into the following week and when he mentions it to Mina she balls up her fists and jumps for joy. She walks him over to the red book shelf that he’s probably sat by a few dozen times and pulls out a book containing the entirety of Katsuki’s body of work. It contains a bit of everything - portraits, figure studies, landscapes, abstract, among others, all executed in the style Shouto has come to associate with Katsuki. At Mina’s insistence, he takes the book with him when he leaves.

Week five makes him feel tired until Mina mentions she’s talked to Katsuki again. “He asked about you this time. Said to, ‘Tell that half-assed pretty boy I’m fine or whatever.’” 

Shouto smiles and thinks about how Katsuki’s charm has no limitations. “Will you tell him that I miss him too?”

Mina blushes, “Oh my God. I’m the quirky friend in the rom-com. I love it!”

And maybe it’s hearing that Shouto misses him that makes Katsuki come to the coffee shop the next day. And maybe it’s the time apart that makes seeing him again feel like he’s being torn open and put back together all at once. 

Shouto’s on his feet and standing by him faster than he can think. With Katsuki finally in front of him, with a lopsided grin on his face and challenge in his eyes, Shouto feels whole. 

“Who the fuck said I missed you at all, shithead?”

Shouto smirks, “I knew it the whole time.”

“You’re a confident motherfucker.”

“Only with my feelings towards you.” They both grin at each other and Shouto finally says something he’s wanted to say since the first time they met. “Your hair reminds me of sunshine.”

Katsuki’s eyes go wide with astonishment as a deep blush takes over his face. “Shut up! You’re so goddamn embarrassing, I can’t stand it.”

“I can’t help it, Sunshine.”

Katsuki narrows his eyes but he doesn’t look all that upset. “Just kiss me hello already.”

They fall into each other, right in the same spot they’d first met, and Shouto does just that.