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For the record, Katsuki thought all of this was a stupid idea from the start.
Everyone argued with him then—no Kacchan, I think he’ll like it! He won’t.
It’ll be fun! Not to him.
Who doesn’t like surprise parties?
Shouto. Shouto does not like surprise parties.
His point is proven about halfway through the stupid party, when Katsuki takes a second to look around the common room and realizes the birthday boy is nowhere to be found. He’s been doing a lot of that lately—looking for Shouto in every room. It’s a mixture of curiosity and something else, something a little more pathetic that squirms and tightens in his chest when Halfie isn’t near. The desire to keep him at arms length is relatively new, but constant nonetheless. Call it whatever you want—a crush, a bad habit, some weird coping mechanism after the war—doesn’t matter. It’s there.
Regardless, it’s a birthday party for Shouto, and everyone else is having too much of a good time to realize he’s stepped away somewhere.
Katsuki can’t blame him. If anyone were bold enough to throw a surprise party for him, he’d do the same. That’s why it’s easy to find him—Kastuki would pick the outside stairs to sit on too. It’s quiet and cool, a respite from the chaotic warmth of inside.
As he opens the front doors, Halfie turns to look and see who’s blowing up his spot, and Kastuki tries not to overanalyze the way his body relaxes when he realizes it’s just Katsuki and not some extra who’s gonna ask him to come back to the madness. He sits down next to him, and the silence settles between them for a few moments.
“Too much?” Katsuki asks quietly, his breath fogging in front of him into the icy January air.
Shouto shakes his head. He glances Kastuki’s way for a second, and his mouth flicks up into a polite smile. “No. It’s nice.” The smile falls away. “I just needed a moment.”
Katsuki nods. He’s content to leave it at that, and thinks it might be best to fuck off and leave him be, but—
“I’ve never had a birthday party before,” Halfie confesses quietly, though he doesn’t seem to feel one way or another about it. Katsuki could’ve guessed as much. Hard to imagine Endeavor blowing up balloons and baking funfetti cake with a party hat on his big head every January.
Halfie fiddles his hands in his lap for a little while, before glancing at Katsuki again. “I’m not sure if I like them.”
“I know,” Katsuki answers. Icy Hot looks confused for a second, so he goes on. “If I had to make a ranked list of things you hate, ‘surprise’ and ‘party’ would probably be somewhere in the top three spots.”
He smiles for a second, air huffing out of his nose in a cloud. “And the third?”
Katsuki thinks about it, and smirks. “Hot soba.”
The sound of his laugh, a tiny, short-lived thing, warms Katsuki to his core.
“You know me well.”
“Well enough to think of better shit to do for your birthday than some lame party, anyway,” he says, nice and casual, as if Katsuki hasn’t spent the better part of a year trying to interact with Icyhot like a normal person who definitely doesn’t fall asleep every night thinking about blue and grey eyes and hot and cold hands.
Shouto smiles at him again. “You don’t have to do anything for me.”
“Shut up. I want to. How about you meet me out here tomorrow afternoon,” Katsuki says, hoping the low light will hide the hot flush he feels rising to the back of his neck. “Birthdays are pointless if you’re just gonna pretend to enjoy ‘em. Might as well do shit that’s actually fun.”
Halfie nods in agreement. He looks thoughtful for a minute, staring up at the night sky. Katsuki would almost say his expression looks sad, though he’s not sure why. He takes that as a cue and stands up, patting Halfie’s shoulder as he goes.
“I’ll leave you be. Need anything?”
“No, thank you,” Icyhot says, and his tiny smile returns. “Thanks for the company.”
“S’whatever,” he answers, opening the front doors and hoping the ruckus inside hides the sound of his heart pounding away in his chest.
The following day, Katsuki gathers as many idiots in the dorm as he can find, and tells them all to get their ass outside. A snowman-making contest is what he advertises, but in reality he just wants Shouto to feel comfortable out there too, like he can conform with whatever task the class as a whole is participating in and not feel like he’s pulling everyone’s focus. Katsuki grabs him from his room and lugs him outside, leaving no room for argument. He intends to win this stupid thing, obviously, and Icyhot’s quirk is uniquely suited to excel at snow-sculpting.
He’s quiet this morning. Katsuki watches him out of the corner of his eye as they roll around their snowman’s ass. He’s got that same look he had on last night—not exactly sad, but not happy either. As they build their sculpture he doesn’t say much, and after McSnowy’s scarf is tied around his neck, Halfie politely excuses himself once again, and makes his way inside.
It sucks knowing that Katsuki’s efforts to make this birthday a good one aren’t working at all. He can’t even be annoyed, he’s just— it’s just a fuckin’ bummer, honestly. The rest of the class is having a blast in the snow, but all Katsuki can think about is Halfie’s pale face, cheeks reddened by the cold, lost in thought.
He tries again later with something different, something less involved—hot chocolate making with everyone in the common room. Shou takes a singular sip of the drink and tells Katsuki he likes it, but does nothing more than politely play along with the event before retreating to his room again. Katsuki looks around the room after that, seeing the smiling, comfortable faces on everyone else, and feels resoundingly shitty once more. This was all for Shouto, and he’s not even enjoying it.
He makes a second hot chocolate, one with lots of whipped cream and sprinkles and all of the stupid disgustingly sweet things that he knows Shouto gets a kick out of, and makes his way to the elevator.
The doors open on the fifth floor, and Katsuki makes his way over to knock on Shouto’s door.
“It’s me,” he says. “Brought you somethin’.”
The door opens. Shouto stands there, wearing what Katsuki has dubbed his fancy-pants turtleneck—black and fitting. He doesn’t let his eyes linger where they want to.
His lips quirk up for just a second, and it immediately makes Katsuki relax. “Another one?”
Katsuki would make him frilly, overly-sweet hot chocolate every day of his life if he wanted. Perfectly curated. Sculpted by the gods.
“S’whatever. Needed to use up all this sugary garbage, and you’re the only freak who likes it.”
Shouto invites him in and returns to his desk, which has textbooks and notes sprawled all over it.
“Are you really doing homework right now?” Katsuki jeers. “No days off, huh?”
Halfie looks down at the sheets in front of him. “I wanted something to occupy my mind.”
There it is. A glimpse. A thread to pull.
Katsuki leans against his desk, right next to him. “Occupy your mind from what?”
Shouto doesn’t answer. He stares off into space like he does sometimes, his pretty eyes glazed over as he thinks about god knows what. The silence stretches on, and Shouto fiddles with the pen in his hand.
“You kinda seem… off, these last few days,” Katsuki offers. It’s all he can do to nudge him forward towards talking about whatever’s bothering him, but the desire to offer physical comfort buzzes in Katsuki’s palms—he could reach out. Rub his back, pet his hair—something other than clunky fucking words and awkward platitudes. Despite this, he keeps his hands clenched at his sides.
Shouto nods to himself, and looks down at his lap for a long time, considering Katsuki’s comment. The careful, slow way that Shouto speaks used to piss Katsuki off endlessly—his responses always felt inauthentic, like the true meaning of whatever he was saying went through five or six different filters before leaving his mouth, diluted, edges buffed, lacking color. As time went on and Katsuki spent more time listening, it became clear that that wasn’t the case at all; in fact it’s the opposite. Shouto is so careful with his words because he puts a lot of thought into saying exactly what he means. It’s something Katsuki really appreciates about him—he’s honest. Ridiculously so. Authentic down to his bones, but only if you have the right tools to pry him open.
Looking up at Katsuki, Shouto finally answers in a quiet voice.
“I’ve been thinking a lot about Touya lately.”
Katsuki freezes.
“His birthday was very close to mine,” Halfie continues, his eyes looking off into the mid-distance. “It’s strange—everyone is doing these nice things for my birthday, but all I can think about is how he never had the opportunity to do any of this.” He folds his hands into his lap, his head hanging. His voice is even smaller when he continues. “I—I feel guilty.”
Katsuki bites his lip in an effort to keep his face neutral as the words settle over him like a layer of hot ash, stinging and heavy. He chews on them, turns them over in his head to determine what angle to approach them from. It’s all still so new—it hasn’t even been six months since Shouto came back to the dorms after a hospital visit last summer with tears in his eyes and no color in his face. Katsuki had asked him what happened—only two words came out of Shouto’s mouth. He’s gone.
“What day?” Katsuki asks.
“January 18th,” he answers easily. “My mother used to say children born in January were hard workers.”
He paws at his eyes discreetly with his sleeve while Katsuki stands there, trying to think of something to say. It’s such a small thing, a shared birthday—but to Shouto, who never shared anything at all with Touya other than a couple of fights to the death and a decade’s worth of resentment, it’s huge. One last commonality. One last connection that he can hold onto, year after year—a mirror Shouto can hold up in which he sees his brother, just another hard-working January baby, like himself.
Katsuki sits down gingerly on his futon. Through his frosted window, the lights of campus twinkle in the dusk winter sky.
“I didn’t know him well,” Katsuki says, voice low, “but I think he’d be on board with you doing something selfish for once.”
Shouto blows air out of his nose, and the corners of his mouth quirk up. His eyes flick up to meet Katsuki’s for just a second, shimmering with moisture. “You’re probably right about that.”
Fat tears escape down his face, and in a moment of bravery Katsuki leans forward, settling his hand against the side of Shouto’s jaw, running a thumb across his pale cheek.
“No crying allowed on your birthday, Icyhot. You know the rules.”
Shouto had said that to him, once. Having a birthday right after the war amidst intense physical therapy wasn’t exactly a happy time for Katsuki. He had Shouto there for him then, so he’ll be damned if he doesn’t return the favor now.
As they sit in comfortable silence while Halfie wipes his eyes, Katsuki inspects the calendar on Shouto’s wall. The 18th is this Saturday, huh?
Katsuki stands, stretching his arms over his head. “I’ve got one more birthday gift for you this weekend.”
Shouto just blinks, sitting up straighter. “It’s not even my birthday anymore. You’ve done too much already.”
“Too bad,” Katsuki teases. “One more, and then all the hoopla will be over. I’ll be here at noon on Saturday. Dress warm.”
He nods. “Okay.”
“And don’t give me that ‘I have my quirk’ nonsense. If you come without a coat I’m kicking your ass.”
“I’m sure.” He smirks for a second, and Kastuki does too. The room falls quiet again.
“I’ll leave you be,” Katsuki says eventually, allowing himself one cursory pat on Shouto’s shoulder before heading towards the door. “Don’t stay up too late.”
“I won’t,” Shouto says. “Thank you for checking up on me again.”
He smiles, sitting there, unfairly handsome and sweet as can be, even when he’s feeling like shit. Kastuki’s chest feels like a drum head, stretched thin and pounded by his own heart that beats Shouto’s name over and over.
He smiles. “G’night Halfie.”
Everything is set in place. Aizawa’s waiting with a car downstairs. The details are prepared, the scene set. All Katsuki has to do is grab the birthday boy.
The drive is pretty quiet—Halfie spends most of it staring out the window at the falling snow. Katsuki had to do some research to figure out exactly where to tell Aizawa, but his teacher was familiar with the location. He tries his best to tamp down his nerves on the drive by going over the plan in his head.
When they arrive at the cemetery, Kastuki watches recognition fall over Shouto’s facial features, and holds his breath. A layer of snow blankets the ground, continuing to fall in fat fluffy snowflakes, which gather on the dark fabric of his jacket. Looking through the wrought iron gates, Shouto grips the bars and lets out a stuttered, clouded breath.
“I haven’t been to see him yet,” He says, so quiet. He’s looking across the grounds, snow gathering on his hat, his shoulders. “I just—I didn’t feel ready.”
Katsuki’s heart jumps in his chest, suddenly not so sure this was a good idea. “Look—we don’t have to, I just—thought you might want to—”
“I do,” he interrupts. He looks at Katsuki, snowflakes sticking to his long eyelashes. “I do want to. I’m glad to be here with you.”
Katsuki lets out a breath, feeling his cheeks redden and ducking his head to hide it. “Well good. Let’s get a move on; I’m freezing my ass off out here.”
They walk in comfortable silence through the graves, snow crunching under their feet. It’s awfully peaceful—he and Halfie are the only living souls here. The snow muffles the world around them, dampening even the loudest car horn or bird call as it falls, steady and tranquil.
It takes a few minutes to make it to the correct headstone. It’s small but ornate, the etched stone still buffed and new-looking. The top of the hakaishi is capped with a layer of snow, as is the base. Flanked by a small itatoba, the front of the gravestone has “Todoroki” written in large, artful Kanji. When Katsuki was setting this up, he filled the bamboo vase to the side of the grave with cattails and purple irises. The florist he spoke to earlier rambled on and on about flower meanings and colors and tons of shit, so he’s confident that the bouquet is both elegant and appropriate for the setting. The whole thing looks pretty damn good, if he does say so himself.
He takes off his backpack, and kneels down to set up the rest of it—he didn’t want the candles and incense to get waterlogged by snow. He places each one, lighting a handful of them with a spark from his fingertips. The thermos he packed is still warm in his hands, and he sets it down on the ground along with three mugs.
Standing back up, he wipes the snow from his hands on the front of his jacket, and takes a deep breath before looking at Halfie.
Shouto’s standing there, staring at Katsuki already. His eyes are brimming with moisture, bright in the reflection of the snowy ground. He flattens his lips into a thin line, keeping his jaw from quivering.
“I know it’s stupid,” Katsuki says, his breath clouding in front of him as he sticks his hands in his pockets, looking away. “Just figured you can still spend time with him on his birthday even though he’s not, like, here, or whatever.”
It’s a stupid little gesture—maybe Katsuki was a bit presumptuous when he assumed Touya’s ghost would be eager to celebrate a birthday he never got to experience in the living world. Maybe this was a stupid idea, and he trudged all the way out here in the dead of winter just to make two Todorokis uncomfortable and sad. S’not the first time he tried to be nice only to misread an entire fuckin’ situation. Touya better not haunt him for this. Is it possible to even fight a ghost? Shit.
In his uncertainty, Katsuki glances up at Shouto’s face, and suddenly his doubts float away like the fog of his clouded breath. Shouto’s smiling, actually smiling, and he steps forward to wrap his arms around Katsuki’s neck, squeezing tight. Their winter jackets bunch up around their necks, cradling Katsuki’s face in puffy, snow-dampened warmth as Shouto’s chest presses against his. Breathing in the smell of his shampoo, he eagerly hugs back.
He can’t help but bury his face in Shouto’s shoulder, trying to hide how pink he knows the tips of his ears are. Shouto’s so warm. His shaky exhale across the side of Katsuki’s neck sends shivers all the way down to his snow covered boots.
“It’s not stupid,” Shouto breathes, grabbing the back of Kastuki’s head and tangling his cold fingers in his hair. “I love it.”
And then he—he fucking turns his head towards Katsuki’s face and presses his lips right on the apple of Katsuki’s cheek. His heart pounds and pounds, doing summersaults against his ribcage. He just kissed him. Shouto just— Did he just— Was he imagining—
He tries to take a step back, but Halfie doesn’t let him go far, keeping his arms loosely around Katsuki’s neck.
“What the hell was that?” Katsuki asks once his mind catches up, ears ringing, heart pounding.
Halfie shrugs, an easy smile spreading across his face, eyes still watery. “I wanted to give you a kiss.”
“Yeah?” Katsuki says, lost for words, barely breathing.
Shouto steps closer, very much in Katsuki’s space now. “Yeah,” he answers. “I think I want to give you another one, if that’s okay.”
God, he’s gonna fucking die here. Is it taboo to die in a graveyard? Probably not, right?
“Yeah, it’s fucking ‘okay’,” he says, because that’s all the brain power he can muster. He steps forward and places his hands on both of Shouto’s cheeks, and shows him exactly how a proper kiss is given, god dammit.
Together their lips move unhurried, soft, gentle in the quiet morning snow. Katsuki feels the need to cradle this moment in his hands, shield it from the churning of time and grief and all that threatens to taint something he’s been dreaming of for the better part of a year. To have Shouto in his arms, happy, cared for—it’s everything he wanted. It’s perfect.
…It’s also short-lived.
A breeze picks up, and a chunk of powdery, fluffy snow dislodges from the top of Touya’s hakaishi and smacks both of them right in the face.
Shouto immediately laughs as he wipes snow from his eyes. “Sorry, Touya.”
“What an asshole,” Kastuki grumbles, spitting snow off his lips. Once he’s done wiping his own face, Shouto helps Katsuki brush the icy powder from inside his collar.
“Natsuo told me that when Touya was a child, he would use his birthday as an excuse to boss my siblings around for the day,” Shouto says, smiling at the memory as he looks down at the grave. “I definitely believe him now.”
Katsuki sits down on the base and grabs the thermos, opening it up. “Well then I guess we better fucking pay attention to the birthday boy.”
He fills three mugs with the Jasmine tea he brought with him, still nice and hot. Shouto joins him, grabbing one of them and sitting close enough that their thighs are touching. He holds his steaming mug out towards Katsuki.
“To Todoroki Touya.”
His dampened hair and rosy cheeks and bright, beautiful eyes stare back at him, and it knocks the wind from Katsuki’s chest. God, he’s so in love with him. Even outside in the wet, cold winter, just looking at him feels like stepping into an onsen, warm and comfortable and perfect.
“To Todoroki Touya,” he repeats when his voice comes back to him. “A menace even in the afterlife.”
He taps his mug against Shouto’s and then against Touya’s, which sits on the base of the headstone for him, and Shouto smiles.
The past is the past. New traditions, new memories, some hard work and effort—Katsuki will do what it takes to shape Shouto’s future into something a little bit brighter.