"Want it gone?"

Katsuki raised his brow at Mina after taking off his shirt and kicking his boots to the side. "What gone?"

She smiled and patted his cheeks. "This scruff. I could trim it for you if you want to keep it."

"God, no. Gone."

Mina laughed, bumping her hip against his as she walked passed him. "I'll be right back. Comb it out while I'm gone. Hair, too."

Katsuki huffed and rolled his eyes, but smiled. He grabbed the comb out of the bathroom, doing as told. Mina was one of the few people who could tell him what to do without getting some bite back.

She came back quickly, arms full of her supplies. He almost rolled his eyes again, but she didn't give him time. "Sit and let me get busy."

He chuckled deeply, pulling the chair away from the desk to sit. She scattered her things about, pushing books and papers aside, then flounced off to the bathroom, coming back with a towel.

"You would have made a great stylist," Katsuki muses softly as she pins the towel around his shoulders.

Mina grins, taking the comb and raking it through his hair herself. "I know. You guys tell me all the time. Shame I decided to be a nurse instead."

Katsuki hummed, closing his eyes. "The best fucking nurse, too."

She smiled softly, taking her spray bottle and blocked his eyes as she wet his hair and beard. "You know it. Think we would have worked together someday?"

"It would have taken me a damn long while to catch up to you, but I'd request you in a fucking heartbeat."

Mina laughed, trimming carefully. Both stayed quiet for a few minutes, Mina focused on her work and Katsuki relaxing in the chair, hands limp in his lap.

"So..." and here comes the question. Damn, and she's only half-done. God, she's smart. Got him pinned. Can't escape. He sighs and she places a semi-sympathetic hand on his shoulder. "Who is Izuku?"

"Fuckin' no one."

"Katsuki." Her voice rarely ever becomes stern, but when it does, even Katsuki knows to respond accordingly.

He breathed deeply, eyes cracking open to stare forward at the blank wall. "Ochako and I went to highschool with him... I was worse in highschool than how I was when you guys met me. Practically a fuckin' terrorist. He moved into our district halfway through freshman year. I liked him right away. So quickly..."

Mina nodded, not that he could see. She listened attentively as she worked, humming softly. "Liked?"

"He was cute. Small, freckled, carried around an arsenal of books... flustered easy, shy... For that first week, everything was great. We were friends. I could be around him and pretend like my infatuation was just a short phase. It'd go away because he wouldn't return my feelings. But, uh... a week in, this bitch he went to school with previously - the school he had to move from - she sent a video to humiliate him. It went all over school and I became terrified. I had to accept my feelings for him and face them, or squash them down and shut him out."

"And you shut him out."

"I fucking tormented him and the entire fucking school followed my lead." He pursed his lips. "His step-dad was All Might, by the way. My fucking hero growing up."

Mina paused, brows furrowed as she thought. "As in... the football star? Are you fucking serious, Katsuki? You could have married the son of your hero and hung out with him all the time, but you chose to hurt him instead?"

"Look, I know it was fucking stupid, okay?" He waved his hand. "I just- I didn't know what else to do. I had it beaten into my head this perfect picture of exactly how I was supposed to be and Izuku couldn't fit in it... I felt like I had to... it's a stupid reason and doesn't justify shit. I was a complete dick in highschool."

"You still are."

"Thank you."

Mina patted his head with the hand that did not hold the scissors.

Katsuki sighed again, entwining his hands. "Things slowed down a lot junior-senior year... I didn't see him much, so I couldn't hurt him much anymore. It got better. We graduated, I moved down here. He and cheeks apparently dated, then they split-"

"Bisexual?"

"Yes. Are you going to keep interrupting or can I keep going?" She shut her mouth and started on his beard. "He dated Shindo fucking Yo after that... Up until the Start, I guess. He was with his parents and... his dad died saving him, mom killed herself because she got sick... wasn't getting better and he refused to leave her. But he needed to go down to the C.D.C."

There was a pause, then she swallowed and tilted her head. "Any particular reason?" She asked almost carefully.

Katsuki rubbed his hands together. "He's immune to the infection. He got bit when his dad died, bit... escaping a group, and bitten a third time with me... escaping the same motherfuckers."

She froze, brows pinched. She licked her lips, starting back slowly, processing his words. "He was bitten three times and never turned?"

"Yeah... took me a while to believe it, but he's not the only one... There's more immune out there."

"Okay..." Mina rolled her shoulders. "Why did he need to escape this group?"

This felt like something he shouldn't share. This is Izuku's story. But Lord knows Mina will leave him with half a beard and take his sharp tools so he can't finish on his own.

"He found Shindo after his mother died. His boyfriend. Shindo took him back to his own group. Izuku was still small... still 'cute.' So, they..."

"Oh my God..." Mina's hand came up to cover her mouth.

"For months... he's not sure exactly how long, but months was for sure... locked him in a room, barely fed him, rarely gave him something to drink, bucket in the closet for a fucking toilet... it wasn't until another group attacked that one, using the infected as weapons that he was able to finally escape. He was bitten a second time during his escape and left for dead because they didn't know he was immune..."

He could feel Mina holding back tears, a trembling hand on his shoulder. She's grounding herself more than comforting him.

Thinking about how many nights Izuku spent thrashing and crying, begging invisible men to stop had his stomach clenching.

"He holed up in a motel until another group found him... took him in, though he says it took a while to trust them... There was where he first met someone else that was immune. They taught him a lot. How to shoot different guns, create traps, hunt, fight in close combat, everything. Everything he needed to survive. After a while there, he left, on his own, needing to go to the C.D.C." He figured he could leave out the whole suicidal thing. He can tell the story without it. Give Izuku some strength.

"Gathered supplies, found good weapons, hunted... then saved my ass that day with the hospital. I'd have been dead if it wasn't for him. I got hurt while I was running. If he was just seconds later, the Runners would have gotten me." He swallowed hard, letting her tilt his head as she needed. "I was... so shocked that it was him, and... so disbelieving. He was so different from what I remembered, and... I thought about him all the time in between, so seeing him like that... I didn't know how I felt and so I just decided to be angry... I was the same dick from back in Highschool.

"But Izuku wasn't putting up with my shit this time. Set me straight, called me on my b.s. and taught me about the apocalypse. That thing back there, that separated us, it's a Brute. Pretty common apparently. There's also... something called a Mimic. We have to be careful of those. They're the most alive. Oh, and none of those things are actually dead. Just partially brain dead. They do sleep and they can bleed out, they just can't feel any fucking pain."

"Oh..." Mina swallowed, working slowly as she listened. "And he's going down to the C.D.C. to get a cure?"

Katsuki huffed. "Not a cure. Vaccine for the ones still not affected. Can't bring back someone brain dead, Mina." She nodded, combing her fingers through his hair. "We, uh... we started getting along, though... and I learned of everything that had happened to him... aside from the immune part. He didn't tell me that. It was becoming so easy to be around him... Talking to him, was..." he breathed deeply during his pause. "Then Shindo's group found us. Tried killing me. Izuku managed to escape and we found each other. We released the infected they had captured, we ran, then he got bit for the third time. I freaked out big time. That was when I found out, and I shut him out again. Of course, for my own stupid reasons. He called me on my shit, nearly slapped some sense into me, and things went back to being easy and nice. Then I kissed him."

Mina fumbled with her scissors. "Really!?"

"Oh my God, could you be any louder?"

She giggled, hugging his head. "Sorry. I'm sorry. Keep going."

Katsuki rolled his eyes. "We both had confessed a lot of things to each other. I had admitted to him that I was gay, and in another confession, that I was in love with him during school... and that Hobe reminded me of him."

Mina stopped again. "Hobe..?"

The blond licked his lips, looking up to the ceiling. "Not only did Shindo Yo hurt Izuku... he was the one that killed Hobe. He told me himself."

She gasped, covering her mouth once again. Tears in her eyes.

Mina was there that day, with Hobe. She, Hanta and Shoji had seen him killed.

"I finally felt free, though... and like myself... With Izuku, I didn't have to hide anything. And he felt the same. Then, we... we helped some guys that were also immune... and they told us that the C.D.C. was gone."

"Oh, no..."

Katsuki hummed, fiddling with his thumbs. "Yeah... he took it really hard. So we drifted for a bit, after that. More focused on finding a place for all of us. We found the truck, found the supplies, and... during all of that, we were... we were in that couple phase that everyone outside the couple hates."

Mina grinned, carefully running the razor along his jaw. "You two couldn't keep your hands off each other, huh..?"

He smiled slightly. "Yeah... he was scared at first... Touch was really hard for him, because of Shindo and his group... but he slowly got more comfortable. I let him sort of... take charge and move at his own pace. There was a lot of really heavy make-outs that I'm really glad none of you could have seen because none of you would let me live in peace."

She laughed, tilting his head up to get under his jaw. "You are correct. We would not."

"Yeah... but I was really fucking happy, Mina... Getting to hold him all the time and him being so comfortable around me... and because we were told the C.D.C. was gone, I thought it was going to stay that way. We'd find a place, then come back together..."

A frown slowly pulled the corners of her lips down. "So... What happened, then?"

Katsuki swallowed hard, staring at the ceiling. "We found the place. He found it first, having gone out of the house we were already in while I was sleeping. We cleared it, set everything up, and..." He was quiet, brows pinched.

Mina could see how distant he had gotten, gently wiping his face. "Did you two have sex..?"

"It was perfect, Mina. So fucking perfect, you could've pulled it straight out of a fucking romance novel..." He looked up to her as she removed the towel. "We were talking after and... I found out he still planned on going south... I fucking blew up on him. I think I hurt him more with that one fight than with everything else I've ever done... I ran off to a room... hoping to convince him in the morning to stay with me after I'd calmed down, but..." He shifted and pulled Izuku's note from his jeans.

So carefully, Mina took the note and unfolded it. She read it over, tearing up more. "He didn't finish it..."

"He tried to throw it away... he left all the supplies... even his dufflebag full of weapons..."

Mina licked her lips, sitting on his bed. Katsuki stood and joined her, rubbing his clean-shaven face. "I can't imagine how hurt both of you were to separate like that."

"Like hell, Mina." Katsuki fell backwards on his bed and stared at the bottom of the top bunk. "But I still cared enough that I fucking murdered people."

"What!?" She turned quickly, eyes wider than ever.

Katsuki pursed his lips, tears finally building up in his eyes. "On my way back here... I ran into Shindo... and the man that terrifies Izuku more than anything else. The one that hurt him the most. The man he sees in every Goddamn nightmare. Mina, I can't tell you how many times I had to hold Izuku down and cover his mouth in the middle of the night because they got so bad... and I was so angry and so hurt, that I called the infected over. I destroyed the door and shot Shindo, and I hid. I heard as they were all torn to pieces and eaten. I fucking murdered four people in cold blood, Mina... No second thoughts... I almost didn't even regret it..."

Mina licked her lips and faced him. "Katsuki..."

"Just... why did he leave me like that, Mina..?" His voice broke slightly and fell into a whisper.

She whimpered and lay beside him, nuzzling his chest. "I think... he felt like he had to..."

"But he didn't-"

"Katsuki." She propped herself up and grabbed his face. "I don't know Izuku... but do you really think he'd up and leave because of one fight?" He just stared up at her. "This is also something he had been working towards, fought tooth and nail for two years, and one person tells him it is gone? Would you just stop?"

He didn't have to even think about it. No. If it was him, he wouldn't either. He gulped, steadily relaxing. "No..."

Mina sighed and pet his hair back. "Katsuki, it sounds like he felt he needed to get to the C.D.C. for you... It wasn't just for all the people still struggling that he didn't even know. Now he has you to protect and keep safe. He needs to get to the C.D.C. now more than ever to make sure you can stay with him. Trust in him, Katsuki. Believe he can do this."

Katsuki looked back to the top bunk as Mina lay back down, holding onto him. He breathed deeply a few times, running his hand up and down her back.

She's right. She always is. He needs to put some faith in Izuku.

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2573 words

I didn't mean for it to be so long