Chapter Text
Chapter Two: Burn the Innocence
"Why is it that the answer to a lie told in the present lies buried in the past?"
— Alex Michaelides, The Silent Patient
That morning, Katsuki felt no urge to rush. He had spent the entire night wide awake, pouring over years’ worth of criminal profiles that various detectives had compiled on Midoriya Izuku. Now, splashing cold water on his face, he still had a few hours until their scheduled meeting.
As he stared at his pale, wet reflection in the mirror, the strange feeling from his last encounter with Izuku clawed deeper into his gut. A sickening sensation—like missing a step in the dark. That dreadful moment where you feel your body freefall and there’s nothing you can do to stop it.
He curled his lips in a grimace and looked away from the mirror.
A few minutes later, the scent of freshly brewed coffee filled the apartment. In the stillness of dawn, Katsuki leaned against the kitchen counter, eyes fixed on the soft drift of clouds through the window. November had brought a crisp, dry cold to Tokyo, and somewhere in the cluttered background of his mind, he made a mental note to grab his jacket after seeing the thick gray clouds rolling in.
The coffee machine beeped softly, pulling him out of his troubled thoughts. Katsuki picked up his mug and walked back into his study, ready to sink once again into the brutal, almost unbelievable case files that painted a portrait of Midoriya Izuku.
That beautiful, deceptively sweet man who had somehow, with just one glance, managed to occupy the mind of Bakugou Katsuki—the man known for his unshakeable focus and discipline—like a persistent, haunting obsession.
November 10, 2023
Saint Diego Psychiatric Hospital, Tokyo
That day, when Katsuki saw Izuku through the glass, he wasn’t as tense as he had been during previous sessions. He’d left his notes at home, and his glasses sat on the table beside him. Rain, which had started a few hours earlier, continued to lash hard against the single window of the room. The weeping willow outside swayed in the wind, and Katsuki already knew Izuku was going to mention it.
The curly-haired man sat down calmly, flashing a charming smile at the two guards as they chained him to the table. They glared at him with the same hostility as always. Katsuki nearly chuckled at the audacity but instead bit the inside of his cheek and waited—as usual—for the guards to leave before speaking.
“Good evening, Mr. Bakugou. You're looking handsome today!”
Katsuki barely restrained an eye-roll and replied pointedly,
“Good evening, Izuku. You seem... chipper.”
Izuku gave a careless wave of his hand.
“Nothing major. My lawyer managed to convince them to give me my painting supplies back. I think the psychologists and the cops are hoping I’ll reveal where the bodies are hidden in my artwork.”
This time, Katsuki couldn’t hold back his smirk.
“So… are you actually going to show them?”
Izuku shrugged, speaking in that same blasé yet playfully cryptic tone.
“Who knows. Maybe I’ll sketch a couple of them. Or maybe I’ll throw them off and have them digging in the wrong places for a while. Anyway… did you bring what you promised?”
The blond man gave him a mock glare but said nothing. Instead, he reached into the bag hanging from the back of his chair and pulled out a small music player. With a press of a button, Beethoven’s piano melody began to float softly through the room.
A genuine smile—different from his usual sly, knowing grins—broke across Izuku’s face. As his eyes fluttered shut and his body began to gently sway with the rhythm, he mouthed something under his breath.
The mixture of rain, music, and the clean golden light that made Izuku’s face glow with almost angelic innocence caught Katsuki off guard.
Could something this beautiful… really have done those horrific things?
The contrast was so overwhelming it challenged every logical thread in Katsuki’s mind. Those bright green eyes, framed with thick curled lashes, looked like they’d only ever seen wonder—not blood. Katsuki analyzed every move this man made. And yet, it baffled him.
Izuku’s entire demeanor—his way of looking at the world—was so convincingly pure that Katsuki was sure any other man, unaware of his true identity, would see him as harmless. Not as someone who had once, with those very eyes and hands, sewn the lips of his victims shut while they were still alive.
Still… Katsuki was here to understand. To uncover what caused such a devastating fracture—what corrupted something so mesmerizingly beautiful and turned it into humanity’s most seductive trap.
He blinked, trying to shake off the scene like fumes from some hallucinogenic gas, and said,
“Alright… we’re short on time. Where were we?”
Izuku opened his eyes slowly, staring long and deep at the blond. After a pause—and a brief glance at the swaying willow outside, muttering something under his breath—he said,
“Tokai. That boy.”
Katsuki nodded in encouragement.
“Right… you said he was the one who changed everything. Who exactly were you talking about?”
Izuku smirked faintly, seemingly unaware of the cold shiver that slid down Katsuki’s spine.
“Oh Bakugou, I’m pretty sure you already know who I mean…”
Katsuki raised an eyebrow and shifted slightly in his seat.
“You know the deal. I want to hear everything from your own mouth.”
Izuku’s smile deepened. In that same soft, unnervingly melodic voice that somehow matched Beethoven’s rhythm, he said:
“Alright then… Like I said, that summer was scorching, and fall didn’t bring much relief either. I was just starting school for the first time, wearing new clothes for the first time. The whole world of school felt like a strange planet. For someone like me—whose favorite pastime was collecting dead bugs around the house—making friends didn’t come easily. But he… he came to me. He was the one who, with every word and gesture, tempted me closer to that line.”
He glanced at Katsuki’s curious face and added, with a glint of mischief:
“You know, Katsuki… he used to look at me a lot like you do.”
And what should’ve struck the blond man in that moment—but wouldn’t register for years—was that this was the instant he stopped being Mr. Bakugou and became Katsuki. A shift too subtle to catch… and never fully understood.
“Shouto was a very beautiful boy. That soft, fragrant hair always neatly combed… those expensive clothes… and his natural, almost painful innocence… Hmm… I remember the first time I saw him really well. It was still the first week of school, and most of the kids were already avoiding me—small town, and people had seen me around Desiree too much. As usual, I was sitting under the tree in the corner of the yard, watching everyone else, when out of the corner of my eye, I noticed he was watching me too… He was wearing a crisp white t-shirt and spotless shoes, and he looked at me like I was the strangest thing in the world. That day, and the days after, I kept catching him staring at me, but I ignored him. Still, every day he stood a little closer—until one day, he was right there under the tree beside me. Without me saying anything, he sat down on the ground and, just like me, stared at the other kids running around and playing. It was like he enjoyed trying to figure them out just as much as I did. There was something strange in his gaze—a kind of innocent naivety, but not completely untouched or pure, you know? With those two-toned eyes of his, he stared at me with dumb sincerity and the first thing he said was:
‘I have heterochromia.’
I remember the way he looked at me, like he was waiting for me to either punch him or reward him. I had no idea how to respond, but then he added:
‘You have freckles.’ And I laughed.”
Katsuki hesitated for a second, then cut in:
“Did you guys become friends?”
Izuku looked thoughtful.
“Hmm… I don’t think friend quite describes what we had.”
“Love?”
“That might be a bit much—but something close… I mean, what do two seven-year-olds even know about love, right?”
“You never really know.”
Izuku’s pupils twitched slightly—something Katsuki wouldn’t have noticed if he weren’t so sharp—and then he said:
“But yeah. We became friends that day. That’s when the long walks and forest wanderings started. We’d talk for hours and collect animal carcasses. You know… even someone like me could feel the miracle and power of that connection. It was like something tied us together from that day on, and something between us just… formed. It was strange—I’d never experienced anything like it, and every day with him was something new. His dad was the town sheriff, and his mom had left them years ago. Before she left, she’d burned Shoto and his older brother pretty badly. His sister raised him, and she really liked me. She’d always buy me chocolates, like she was trying to pay me for being friends with Shoto. She’d cook us amazing meals too.”
Katsuki gently bit at the skin of his lip, trying to control himself so he wouldn’t sound rushed.
“What about your dad? You said he didn’t like you at all. What did he think of Shoto?”
Izuku let out a mocking laugh, almost like he was putting on a show to highlight how obvious the answer was.
“Him? As long as I wasn’t getting in the way of him having sex with Desiree on every surface in the house, he didn’t care. In fact, he was glad I wasn’t hanging around, stealing attention from his half-naked girlfriend. Though I did piss him off now and then by messing with Desiree… Anyway, life had settled into a routine. I had a friend. I had a sort-of mother figure who looked after me and kept me fed. I was going to school. What more could I want? And I had Shoto—the boy who seemed to get more attached to me every single day, and I loved that. I could’ve told him to throw himself in front of a bus, and he wouldn’t have said no. He was like wax in my hands, and I was addicted to the feeling. He even wrote me a poem.”
Katsuki’s blond eyebrows shot up and disappeared behind his hair.
“He wrote you a poem?”
Izuku gave him a smug, victorious smirk, like he was proud and showing off.
“Yeah. I think we were in fifth grade. His Japanese literature was better than anyone’s. The things he wrote always got published in local magazines… He could’ve become the greatest writer in Japan. One day he came up to me, handed me a page written in his perfect handwriting, and left… I remember every single word.”
I want to flee from you—
You, draped in the black rot of a swamp,
Adorned with deceitful lotus blooms.
From the vibrant void buried in your silence,
I cradle a monstrous thought of you—
A thought sickened, festering, foul.
I want to consume you whole,
Like the twitching meat behind your ribs.
To drown you in my lungs.
Be still.
Let me infect you.
And then discard me.
Spit me out and try to fill the hollow I leave
With the poisoned filth inside you.
Scrub me out
Like I was never born, never bled into you.
But you know—
You know there’s something alive in that rot.
These green waters reek of decay,
And they call me into the black beyond.
Devour me.
Try to bury me.
But you’ll see—you can’t.
Because I am carved into you.
I always was.
And always will be."
"So I did what he asked. In July of 2004, Under a rock, I opened his chest. Took out his heart and ate it.
Filled the hollow space with stone.
He was right.
It couldn’t be filled..."