Chapter Text
Izuku did not feel his legs.
He was walking, he knew he was walking, but it felt distant, like watching someone else move his body from far away. The garden gate closed behind him with a soft click.Soft, mercifully soft, because if it had slammed, he was certain he would’ve shattered at the sound.
Kirishima stayed a respectful distance behind him, silent except for his footsteps.
Not too close.
Not too far.
A quiet sentinel shadowing a prince who could barely breathe. Izuku kept his head down as they crossed the courtyard stones. He didn’t dare look back.
If he turned around, if he saw Katsuki still standing there, devastated and furious and undone, his resolve would crumble like ash.
His throat tightened violently. He had never imagined that he and Katsuki would fight like that. Never imagined seeing him like that, eyes wild, voice broken, hands shaking with the force of everything he was trying to hold together.
Izuku didn’t know which hurt worse: what Katsuki had said, or how much of it was true.
His own words echoed mercilessly in his skull:
“I already chose.”
“My kingdom needs me.”
“I can’t be selfish anymore.”
He hadn’t realized until he heard them aloud how cold they sounded. How brutal. How they must’ve struck Katsuki like a blade.
His chest seized. He had hurt Katsuki. Truly hurt him. In an irreparable, unforgivable way. The realization was a physical thing, a hand around his ribs, squeezing. His breath stuttered, and he stumbled a little, catching himself on the wall of the breezeway.
“Your Highness?” Kirishima whispered, stepping closer.
Izuku swallowed hard.
“I’m fine,” he said. A lie. A flimsy, trembling, transparent lie. Kirishima didn’t call him on it. He simply resumed walking behind him, silent and steady, as Izuku moved through the dim corridors lit by torchlight.
Every flicker of gold made the tears in Izuku’s eyes shimmer. He blinked them away harshly.
His hands were shaking. He curled them into fists.
He could still feel the echo of Katsuki’s grip on his arms. The warmth of his chest pressed to his. His refusal to let go, and denial to believe Izuku would betray him like he did. The way Katsuki had grabbed him, held him, kissed him with desperation so deep it stole the air from Izuku’s lungs. He had tasted grief in that kiss, Katsuki’s and his own.
His breath shivered.
What had he done?
He had taken the most vulnerable, honest parts of Katsuki, the ones he’d waited a lifetime to see, and crushed them beneath duty. The corridors blurred softly. They reached the grand hall. Izuku kept his gaze fixed on the floor, unable to bear the idea of passing someone, of being seen like this.
In his mind, the garden replayed in broken flashes:
Katsuki stepping forward.
Katsuki’s voice cracking.
Katsuki whispering he couldn’t lose him.
Katsuki pleading, pleading, like he never had with anyone.
Then…
Izuku turning away.
His chest heaved once, a quiet, terrible sound, and he covered his mouth quickly. Kirishima pretended not to hear. Izuku walked faster. The palace felt enormous, labyrinthine, built entirely of choices he wished he didn’t have to make.
He felt the weight of centuries pressing down on him, kings and queens who had chosen duty above all else, rulers who had sacrificed their hearts for their people. He had always expected to be one of them someday. He just hadn’t realized how much it would hurt.
He blinked rapidly. Salt stung his lashes.
He had told Katsuki he loved him. Whispered it with trembling hands and a racing heart just nights before. Made promises with his mouth and body that his crown couldn’t keep. And Katsuki had loved him back, loved him fiercely, gently, honestly, completely.
Izuku felt sick. He hated himself.
He had chosen the kingdom.
He had spoken the words.
He had stood firm.
But each step deeper into the palace felt like a betrayal.
Not just of Katsuki. Of himself.
His voice, when it finally came, was barely a breath:
“…I’m sorry.”
Kirishima looked up, confused, concerned, but Izuku didn’t clarify. He couldn’t. He wasn’t sure who he was apologizing to.
Katsuki.
Kirishima.
The gods.
Himself.
Maybe all of them. They reached his bedroom doors. Kirishima opened one quietly, then stepped aside. Izuku walked in on trembling legs. For a moment, just one suspended moment, he stood in the middle of the room, staring at the shadows cast by the hearth embers.
His knees buckled. He sank onto the edge of his bed, breath hitching, hands gripping the sheets like he needed something to anchor him to the world. He felt like he was falling.
Falling through the aftermath of a choice that had ripped him in two.
Falling through the memory of Katiuki’s face breaking.
Falling through the knowledge that he had destroyed the one thing he wanted most.
Falling through the echo of a voice whispering don’t leave me.
Falling, falling, falling.
And knowing that tomorrow, and the next day, and the day after that, he would have to wake up alone and pretend he hadn’t just let go of the person he loved to protect everything else.
He buried his face in his hand and let himself cry.
Katsuki didn’t remember walking back to the palace.
He remembered the gardens, the way the lantern light hit Izuku’s wet cheeks, the shape of his mouth forming I choose my kingdom, the oak tree swaying overhead like it was mourning with them.
Everything after that?
Blank.
Just movement. His boots striking stone. His breath burning in his lungs. His fists clenching and unclenching. His heartbeat pounding like it was trying to punch its way out of his chest. He passed knights, servants, councilmen.
Someone asked, “Sir Bakugo?”
Another murmured, “Are you alright?”
He didn’t answer. If he spoke, he would scream.
He made it to the barracks hall. He forced himself down it, stiff and brittle as glass. Someone tried to ask him about patrol rotations. He ignored them. Sero opened his mouth to greet him, and shut it when he saw Katsuki’s face.
Katsuki reached his room. Shut the door. Locked it.
And then, everything detonated.
He punched the wall.
Once.
Twice.
Three times.
Knuckles splitting.
Pain blooming.
But pain was good.
Pain was grounding.
Pain was the only thing that felt real.
“FUCK!”
It tore out of him, raw and wild and unrestrained.
He grabbed his gloves off the table and hurled them at the far wall.
They hit with a heavy thud and fell lifelessly to the floor.
“DAMN IT!”
He kicked a chair.
It toppled.
Skidded across the boards.
Hit the dresser with a crack.
He dragged his hands through his hair hard enough to sting and dropped to his knees, the sound of the world pressing in on him too loudly, too sharply, too cruelly. His forehead touched the ground.
His breath was a mess, shallow, ragged, choking.
“Why?”
His voice cracked on the first syllable.
“Why the fuck-"
His throat gave out.
“Fucking prince. With your fucking morals.”
He slammed his fist into the floor.
Then again.
And again.
And then.
Stillness.
Only the jagged breaths. Only the shaking. He slumped back against the bedframe, chest heaving, sweat cooling on his skin, his pulse still sprinting like it was running from the truth. His mind kept echoing Izuku’s voice:
“I love you…
but I choose my kingdom.”
Katsuki’s chest caved. It physically caved. He clawed for breath. He leaned his head back against the bedframe and whispered, barely audible:
“…he loved me.”
That was the part that wouldn’t stop stabbing through him.
Izuku loved him. Loved him enough to give everything, to say everything, to touch him like he was something sacred. Loved him enough to sleep beside him, confess to him, let Katsuki see every part of him.
Loved him enough to choose him-
Right until he didn’t.
Katsuki swallowed hard. There was no comfort in knowing Izuku hadn’t chosen Ochaco over him, because that wasn’t the point. Ochaco didn’t love him. Izuku didn’t love her.
None of their relationship was about romance.
It was about duty. It was about chains.It was about the crown strangling everything else.
Katsuki dug trembling fingers into his hair. He couldn’t stop thinking about that night: their night.
Izuku laughing breathlessly beneath him.
Izuku whispering I love you against his mouth.
Izuku holding onto him like he was the only thing keeping him alive as he moved inside of him.
Izuku crying—not from pain, not from fear, but from the overwhelming force of feeling.
And Katsuki had loved him.
Completely.
Utterly.
Finally.
He had trusted that moment. Trusted that if they crossed that line, it meant something they could not take back.
And then, he lost him. He lost him the next damn day. Katsuki sucked in a shaking breath and pressed the heel of his palm to his sternum like he could hold the pieces of it together.
His voice was hoarse.
“Why wasn’t I enough…”
He hated himself for thinking it.
Hated the weakness in it.
Hated that he even wanted it to be a choice between them.
But gods, he wanted to be enough.
Even once.
Izuku had made him better.
Not by changing him, but by softening him where he’d never allowed softness before. Izuku made him gentle. Izuku made him patient. Izuku made him want to speak softly instead of bark orders, to cradle instead of fight, to protect without fear.
Izuku made him believe he could be more than a blade. And now that softness felt like a wound. His breath trembled.
And then a strange, unwelcome thought surfaced:
Toga would understand.
He froze.
But the more he thought about it, the more painfully true it felt.
Toga, of all people, would understand the kind of love that made you feral.
She’d understand devotion that made you irrational.
She’d understand wanting someone out of your reach so much you’d tear the sky open to get to them.
She’d understand instinct and longing.
She’d listen. She’d get it.
Unlike anyone else in this suffocating place.
Katsuki’s head dropped back, eyes squeezing shut.
He had no one to talk to.
Not really.
Not about this.
He thought about Kirishima.
His only real friend. His closest companion in the guard. The one he maybe, maybe, could have talked to.
And he had shoved him. Punched him. Thrown him aside like an enemy. Because his body went fully, monstrously wild at the idea of losing Izuku.
“What the hell did I do…” Katsuki whispered, voice trembling.
The memory made him sick. He never wanted to hurt Kirishima. He never meant to lash out.
But something primal had taken over, something older and deeper than logic. Something born the moment Izuku said goodbye.
He remembered grabbing Izuku by the waist. Pulling him close.
Snarling when Kirishima tried to intervene. Acting out of instinct, not thought. Acting like Izuku was something he had to protect, even from the people who were trying to help.
He had never been that man. Not before. He didn’t recognize himself.
But the truth was undeniable: Izuku wasn’t his. Not anymore. Not ever again.
“What was…” Katsuki choked.
“What was mine.”
He pressed the back of his hand to his mouth, breath shaking. He didn’t have anger left. Just grief. Just this hollow, howling ache inside him. Just the unbearable truth that he loved Izuku more than he ever thought he could love anything, and Izuku had done what Katsuki loved most about him:
Chosen others over himself.
Chosen the world.
Chosen what he believed was right.
Katsuki dragged his hands up over his face and whispered, small and broken:
“…I get it.”
It hurt.
It burned like acid.
But he meant it.
He understood why Izuku had done it.
He understood the burden of duty.
He understood Izuku’s compassion, his guilt, his fear of hurting the kingdom, of letting people down.
But understanding didn’t make it easier. Understanding didn’t make him feel any less gutted. It didn’t bring Izuku back.
Katsuki’s shoulders slumped forward, chin dropping to his chest. The tears came, quiet, steady, relentless. Not sobs. Not gasps. Just heartbreak leaking out of him because it had nowhere else to go.
He had always imagined the worst pain in his life would come from battle, a blade, a blow, a wound.
He never imagined the worst wound he’d ever suffer would come from the lips that had whispered I love you. From the hands that had held him like something precious. From the boy he had loved his whole damn life.
“Fuck…” Katsuki whispered hoarsely.
He curled forward, arms wrapping around his shins like he was trying to make himself smaller. His voice cracked on the last words he let slip into the empty room:
How the hell was he supposed to live with this?
He wanted to ask the question out loud, but no answer would come. Because Izuku was gone. Because love wasn’t enough.
Because Katsuki Bakugo, the strongest knight in the kingdom, was sitting alone on the cold floor of his room, breaking quietly, with no one left to hear him.
Izuku didn’t remember falling asleep. He only remembered opening his eyes and realizing he hadn’t slept at all.
His body felt heavy, as if someone had draped lead over his limbs. His mouth was dry. His heart was a dull, aching bruise beneath his ribs, not sharp anymore, not fresh, but swollen and throbbing like something wounded in the night and left untreated.
Light streamed faintly through the curtains.
Morning.
He hadn’t closed his eyes once.
Hours had passed in silence, each minute bleeding into the next until time lost its meaning.
He pushed himself upright. The movement hurt, absurdly, impossibly, like sitting up with cracked bones. He inhaled slowly. Even breathing felt different today. Thinner. Strained. Like something essential had been taken out of him in the gardens, and the world had rearranged itself around the absence.
Katsuki.
His name flickered through Izuku’s mind like a wound reopening. Izuku pressed a hand to his chest, as if he could quiet the echo of memory.
Last night replayed again: Katsuki’s voice sharp with grief.
His hands trembling on Izuku’s arms.
The way he’d almost looked frightened, Katsuki, who feared nothing.
The way his face had crumpled when Izuku said the words that would break them.
Izuku exhaled unsteadily.
He told himself he had done the right thing.
He told himself he had chosen the kingdom.
He told himself honor demanded it.
But he felt no righteousness.
No clarity.
No victory.
Only the hollow ache of someone who had cut out his own heart and tried to walk away as if the bleeding would stop on command. He moved slowly through the motions of dressing, like someone underwater.
Shirt.
Trousers.
Tunic.
Cloak.
Every piece of clothing felt heavier than normal. Every buckle seemed to take twice as long. At the mirror, he stopped.
He looked… pale.
Softer around the eyes.
Older.
Like the night had carved its own history into him.
His reflection looked like a boy pretending to be a prince.
He blinked, and images of Katsuki swarmed behind his eyelids, smiling, scowling, sleeping in his bed, kissing him softly in the dark, whispering I love you too into the quiet between them.
Izuku gripped the edge of the table to steady himself.
He had to move.
He had to function. He had responsibilities.
Meetings.
Reports.
Advisors expecting his voice to be steady and clear.
Duty did not stop because his heart had broken. He stepped into the hallway.
Kirishima was already there, standing at attention. Izuku couldn’t bring himself to meet his eyes.
Not after the night before. Not after everything Katsuki had said. Not after the way Izuku’s words had sliced through someone Kirishima deeply respected.
“Good morning, Your Highness,” Kirishima said softly.
Izuku nodded once.
The silence stretched between them like something fragile and sharp. He started walking. His footsteps echoed down the corridor, strangely loud in the morning quiet. Kirishima followed at the same respectful distance as before, unobtrusive, protective, patient.
Izuku wondered what he was thinking If he’d told anyone what he witnessed in the gardens. If he’d gone back to the barracks and found Katsuki still shaking with fury and grief.
His throat tightened at the thought. He wanted, irrationally, impossibly, to turn around and ask:
“Is he okay?”
“Is he angry?”
“Did he sleep?”
“Does he hate me?”
He said nothing. He kept walking.
Every corridor felt longer today, every window colder. The sunlight seemed too bright, too indifferent. The palace walls looked unfamiliar, as though the world had shifted during the night and become a place he didn’t quite belong to anymore.
He felt like a ghost in his own home. Kirishima finally spoke, quiet, sympathetic:
“Are you sure you want to start the day so soon, Your Highness? You look… tired.”
Izuku swallowed.
“I can’t rest,” he said.
His voice was thin.
“It won’t help.”
Kirishima hesitated, lips parting, maybe to reassure him, maybe to offer comfort.
Then he spoke softly, "Your Highness, I won't ask you more about what happened last night. It's not my business. But I know it deeply affected both of you.' He shifted a little closer, looking uncomfortable but determined. " You asked me once if Bakugo was my friend, and I said no. But the truth is, he's someone I care about. Just like you are. You're entitled to not feel okay after something so intense."
"But the last time the two of you stopped speaking, you stopped taking care of yourself. And it was my job to notice and I didn't." He shook his head, "I can't let that happen again. Your decision was final, I can tell. Which means you need to be in your best shape to do what you said you would, rise to the throne, and marry the Princess. You can't work yourself to death and forgo breakfast and pass out in the middle of a council meeting again."
Izuku continued walking, without slowing down. he didn't say anything until he made it to his study and paused, his hand on the handle. The he turned and looked Kirishima in the eye. "Did you tell anyone what happened?"
Kirishima stood straighter, meeting his gaze. "No. I figured if you wanted him to be punished you would say something yourself."
Izuku nodded. "Thank you for... defending me. And stepping in when you did. I'm very sorry you had to see that." He offered a small smile that actually was partly real because it offered him some comfort to know Kirishima was there and knew about them and didn't blame him and didn't blame Katsuki either and didn't mind and supported him.
He stepped forward and closed the door behind him, moving towards his desk, each step felt like moving deeper into a future he no longer recognized: a future without Katsuki’s voice behind him,
without Katsuki’s warmth beside him, without Katsuki waiting in his chambers each night.
He wasn’t sure how to live in that future. But he had chosen it. And now he had to survive it.
Even if every breath felt like a quiet kind of dying.
Three days passed with the suffocating, miserable consistency of a storm cloud that refused to move.
Breakfast.
Training.
Patrol.
Formation.
Sleep, barely.
Repeat.
Katsuki didn’t speak unless spoken to.
Didn’t laugh.
Didn’t snap.
Didn’t show even half the fire people expected from him.
He was quieter now, the kind of quiet that made even veterans glance at him with unease.
By the time morning formation rolled around, he could feel every pair of eyes on him. He ignored them. Kept his jaw set, his posture perfect, his hands clasped behind his back.
Captain Enji read from a scroll.
Announcements.
Rotations.
Supply updates.
Katsuki didn’t care.
He stood like a statue, hearing nothing until a line cut through the monotony:
“…and Master Aizawa will be departing tomorrow morning for the Northern Wilds. A retrieval and reconnaissance mission. He will take a small squadron of five, preferably those capable of long-distance travel and unarmed capture. The mission is expected to last approximately three weeks.”
Katsuki’s eyes snapped open.
The Northern Wilds.
Three weeks away.
Aizawa.
A small squadron.
Vacancy.
It was like the world sharpened in an instant.
A reprieve.
A distraction.
Distance from the palace.
Distance from him.
His pulse spiked, not from excitement, but from need. He needed to get out. Needed air. Needed to move until the ache inside him dulled into something he could swallow. Formation ended. As soon as ranks were dismissed, Katsuki stepped out of line and beelined for Aizawa, who stood adjusting his gloves and tightening his scarf with his usual tired indifference.
“Master Aizawa,” Katsuki said, voice clipped, steady.
Aizawa didn’t even look up. “Bakugo.”
“I want in.”
“On what?”
“The Northern Wilds mission.”
Aizawa stopped adjusting his gloves. Very slowly, he lifted his eyes.
“No.”
Katsuki’s jaw locked. “You didn’t even think about it.”
“I didn’t need to.” Aizawa shrugged. “I’m not taking rookies outside the capital perimeter. You’ve been here barely over a year.”
“I’m better than half the veterans.”
“Confidence isn’t a qualification,” Aizawa droned.
“I’m not asking for your approval,” Katsuki snapped. “I said I’m coming.”
Aizawa’s eyes narrowed slightly, not angry, not surprised, just… evaluating.
“You’re too inexperienced.”
“I fought in real battles before this kingdom even knew my name,” Katsuki shot back. “Not staged raids. Not drills. Actual fights. I’m qualified.”
“That’s not the point.”
“Then what is?”
Aizawa exhaled sharply through his nose, that quiet, annoyed sound he only made when someone was both wrong and painfully correct at the same time.
“Your head’s not on straight, Bakugo.”
Katsuki’s spine stiffened. Aizawa held his gaze, eyes half-lidded and too perceptive.
“You’ve been volatile.”
Katsuki’s jaw tightened further. “I’m fine.”
“You're hostile.”
“People get in my way,” Katsuki muttered.
“And every knight in this castle saw you walk around like a ghost for three days straight,” Aizawa added. “I’m not taking a ghost on a mission worth my life.”
Katsuki stepped closer, lowering his voice.
“If I stay here, I’ll be worse. I need this. I need out of this fucking palace.”
Aizawa stared at him for a long, heavy moment. Katsuki did not look away.
He didn’t blink. Didn’t breathe. Didn’t soften. He held that stare like it was the last rope left to keep him from going under.
Finally, finally, Aizawa sighed.
“Fine.”
Katsuki’s chest nearly loosened.
“But you take orders. Without argument. Without improvising. Without detonating anything that doesn’t need detonating.”
“Done.”
“And Bakugo,” Aizawa added, quieter, “,if your personal life bleeds into this mission, you’re on the next horse back to the palace. Clear?”
Katsuki swallowed hard. “…Clear.”
Aizawa clapped him once on the shoulder, not affectionately, but firmly.
“Be ready at dawn.”
Katsuki nodded sharply.
And for the first time in days, he felt something like breath return to him. Not relief. Not hope.
Just… movement. Direction.Something that wasn’t drowning inside the castle walls.
The barracks buzzed with that pre-mission electricity, knights scrambling, checking gear, stuffing ration packs.Katsuki’s bunk was stripped bare.
His armor was laid out with precision. He sharpened his short blade until the metal glinted like new snow. He packed his bedroll with movements too quick, too sharp, fueled by the restless fire eating him alive inside.
He worked in silence. His mind betrayed him anyway.
Izuku’s face.
Izuku’s voice.
Izuku’s lips trembling as he whispered goodbye.
He shoved the memories down.
Hard.
He would leave at dawn.
He would ride for the Northern Wilds.
He would put space, miles of it, between himself and the ache he couldn’t escape.
Distance wouldn’t fix anything. But maybe distance would hurt less. Katsuki exhaled. Shouldered his pack. And prepared to disappear for three weeks.
Izuku had just reached the end of reviewing a military supply proposal when a gentle knock tapped against his study door.
Not timid.
Just… careful.
“Come in,” Izuku said quietly, already recognizing the rhythm.
The door opened. Kirishima stepped inside. Not armored. Not smiling. Not carrying any reports. Just standing there, red hair tied back, eyes soft with something that looked like sorrow.
Izuku’s heart dipped.
“Kirishima,” he greeted, trying to keep his voice steady. “Is everything alright?”
Kirishima hesitated, a rare thing for him these days. His hands remained clasped behind his back, posture straight and knightly, but the tension around his eyes betrayed something heavier.
“Izuku…” he said softly, dropping the title without thinking, the way only someone who had watched him break could ever dare to.
Izuku’s breath hitched. Something was wrong. Kirishima took a small step forward.
“I wanted you to hear it from me,” he said gently.
Izuku’s pulse stilled.
“Hear what?”
His voice came out barely above a whisper.
Kirishima exhaled.
“Bakugo… asked to join the mission to the Northern Wilds.”
Izuku’s stomach dropped so suddenly he had to brace his hand against the desk.
Kirishima’s voice stayed low, steady, heartbreakingly kind.
“He leaves at dawn.”
Izuku didn’t speak. He couldn’t. He stared down at the parchment in front of him, the words blurring, the ink smudging where his hand trembled against the page.
He felt so small. Just… small.
Like someone had pressed a thumb into the softest part of his chest.
“I see,” he managed finally, soft, thin, resigned. Kirishima’s expression tightened, as if the simple words hurt him.
“I thought you should know,” he murmured.
Izuku nodded slowly. His throat felt thick, but he forced the words out anyway:
“I don’t blame him.”
Kirishima looked at him with something like heartbreak.
“I know you don’t,” he said.
Izuku swallowed.
Of course Katsuki wanted to leave. Of course he needed distance. Of course the castle walls must’ve felt suffocating after everything Izuku had done, after the fight, after the confession, after tearing the two of them apart with one decision he could not undo.
“I suppose…” Izuku’s voice faltered, “…I would leave, too.”
Kirishima’s jaw clenched, grief, sympathy, understanding all flickering through his eyes. Izuku forced a shallow breath.
“Is he… alright?” The question escaped before he could stop it.
Kirishima replied quietly, “He’s hurting. But he’s standing.”
Izuku nodded once, a small, sharp motion that looked more like a flinch. He pressed his fingertips to his temple, eyes burning.
“I never meant to cause all this,” he whispered. “I never meant to-”
Kirishima stepped forward just enough to interrupt him gently.
“I know,” he said. And he did know. He had been there in the gardens. He had seen the destruction in both their faces.
“Izuku,” he said softly, “people get hurt when they care. It doesn’t mean you were cruel.”
Izuku shook his head, voice trembling. “But it doesn’t make it any easier, does it?”
Kirishima didn’t answer. He didn’t have to. A moment of silence stretched between them, not cold, not awkward. Just filled with unspoken grief neither of them knew how to name. Finally, Kirishima straightened.
“He’ll be back in three weeks,” he said, voice measured. “Safe and sound.”
Izuku’s lips quirked into something like a smile, small, fragile, wounded.
“Thank you,” he whispered.
"You've never treated anyone in this palace as anything less than a friend. I hope we can do the same for you, Prince." Kirishima nodded once, deeply, respectfully, before slipping back through the door with quiet footsteps.
When the door shut, Izuku sagged into his chair, breath trembling.
He wasn't shocked, or angry, or betrayed. Just sad. A deep, aching sadness that settled into his bones like winter frost. He set his hand against his heart, not to steady it, but to honor what was missing.
“Katsuki…” he breathed, barely audible,
“…be safe.”
There was no one left in the room to hear him. And maybe that was why he finally let his eyes close and let the tears fall, quietly, steadily, the way heartbreak sometimes demanded.
Dawn came too quickly. The courtyard stones were still wet with night dew, lantern smoke curling into the pale light as the castle stirred awake around them. Katsuki tightened the strap on his horse’s saddle with a precision that looked like discipline but was really just a way to keep his hands from shaking. Around him, Aizawa’s chosen squadron mounted up, quiet professionals, their faces still half-dreaming in the early chill. Steam curled from the horses’ breaths. The air tasted like metal and cold beginnings.
Katsuki swung himself into the saddle, jaw tight. He didn’t look at the palace yet. Not yet.
He focused instead on the rhythmic clink of armor, on the soft rustle of saddle blankets, on Aizawa giving final terse instructions to the gate officer. He tried to focus on anything but the ache lodged behind his ribs. The knights who weren’t part of the expedition were already heading out to their morning posts. Katsuki spotted them crossing the courtyard toward their designated towers and wings:
Kirishima, eyes tired but steady.
Sero, yawning into his scarf.
Kaminari, rubbing sleep from his eyes and nearly tripping over a stray hay bale.
Iida, stretching his arms with a tiny groan. Normal morning things. The kind of quiet, ordinary rhythm Katsuki was usually a part of. Today, he wasn’t.
Kirishima spotted him first.
Their gazes met across the courtyard, Kiri’s full of a softness Katsuki almost couldn’t bear.
Sero lifted a hand in a hesitant little wave.
Kaminari smiled faintly, probably hoping Katsuki wouldn’t snarl at him for it.
Katsuki nodded once in acknowledgment.
It came out sharper than intended. Everything about him did, lately. Aizawa gave a sharp whistle.
“Mount up,” he commanded. “Form on me.”
Katsuki finally turned his eyes toward the castle. And the breath left him. The morning sun hit the towers, setting the stone aglow in soft gold. The banners stirred lazily. Windows glinted like shards of light.
Izuku’s windows. He didn’t know which room Izuku was in. Didn’t know if he was awake. Didn’t know if he was thinking of him.
But Katsuki looked anyway. Looked like the sight alone was something he had to burn into memory before it was gone.
He waited for movement. For a silhouette. A curtain shift. The faintest sign.
Something.
Anything.
He told himself he wasn’t hoping.
That he didn’t expect Izuku to come running.
That he knew better.
That it would be insane to believe the prince, the future king, would sprint through the corridors and down the steps to say:
Don’t go.
Stay.
I choose you too.
Wishful thinking.
Stupid.
So stupid.
But he still looked.
His chest tightened painfully when the castle stayed still. He exhaled through his teeth. Of course Izuku wasn’t coming.
Of course he had more sense, more restraint, more strength than Katsuki did.
Katsuki gripped the reins tighter.
He tried to remind himself that distance would help.
That being away would give him space to breathe.
That maybe the ache would dull when the horizon put itself between them.
He wasn’t sure he believed any of it. The courtyard bells tolled. Aizawa gave the signal. The gates began to open, the heavy iron groaning as dawn light spilled across the stone. The horses shifted, eager to move.
Katsuki kept his eyes on the castle until the very last second, until the gates yawned wide enough to swallow him whole.
Just one sign, a small, desperate part of him whispered.
Just one.
One more reason to stay.
One more moment to hold on to.
Nothing.
Only stone.
And sunlight.
And the memory of Izuku’s voice still echoing through him like a bruise that would never heal.
Aizawa rode forward.
The squadron followed.
Katsuki clicked his tongue to his horse.
The gate threshold passed beneath him.
And just like that, he was leaving.
Leaving the castle.
Leaving the life he’d had for a year.
Leaving the only person he had ever loved so completely it scared him.
The hooves struck the dirt road, the sound sharp in the morning quiet. Katsuki didn’t look back again.
But gods, he felt every step pulling him farther from home.