Chapter 2: Gym Rat Confrontation
The Shiketsu gym smelled of effort—old sweat, industrial cleaner, and the iron scent of weight plates. It was a temple of grunts and echoing clangs, where the only music was the rhythmic thud of feet on treadmills and the metallic symphony of racks being re-loaded.
Kaito Ishikawa was currently adding to the chorus. He was on the flat bench, a considerable load on the bar, his breathing controlled as he pressed the weight up. His muscles corded, defined under a sheen of sweat, and the wavy black strands of his mullet stuck to his neck. He locked out his arms, re-racked the bar with a solid clank, and sat up, reaching for his water bottle and phone with equal hunger.
The phone won. A grin, wide and predatory, split his face as he saw the notification. Izuku’s reply. A simple heart. That was all it took.
He wiped his hand on his shorts, tapped the screen, and started typing, his thumbs moving with aggressive speed.
Kaito: That little heart is gonna get you in so much trouble. Two days. I’m counting the hours. Gonna ruin you. Gonna make you forget your own name.
He hit send, took a swig of water, and immediately started another.
Kaito: Been thinking about that stupid white hair of yours fanned out on my pillow. And the way you make that noise when I—
“If you’re texting a recipe, you’re taking too long. If you’re texting my best friend, I will drown your phone in the water fountain.”
Katsuki Bakugo appeared at the foot of the bench, a towel slung over his shoulder, his expression one of profound annoyance. He’d been working on deadlifts in the corner, the only UA student frequenting this Shiketsu-adjacent gym, a territorial anomaly everyone had grudgingly accepted because nobody was stupid enough to try and eject him.
Kaito didn’t even look up, his grin turning wicked. “Just making plans for Saturday. You got a problem with that, Blasty?”
“I got a problem with the second-hand embarrassment. Your entire vibe is pathetic.” Katsuki’s eyes narrowed. “What are you even saying?”
Kaito, shameless, tilted the screen toward him. Katsuki’s crimson eyes skimmed the text. His face underwent a rapid transformation from annoyance to sheer, unadulterated disgust.
“Are you kidding me?” Katsuki snarled, his voice low but vibrating with outrage. “That’s disgusting. You’re disgusting. He’s gonna read that and short-circuit.”
“He likes it,” Kaito said, chuckling as he sent the message. “Makes him all flustered. It’s cute.”
“It’s verbal diarrhea. You’ve got the romantic subtlety of a sledgehammer.” Katsuki watched as Kaito, emboldened, began composing another message, his thumbs flying. “What now? You describing the molecular structure of your dick? Stop. Typing.”
Kaito ignored him, his focus absolute. Kaito: Seriously. Two days. I’m not letting you out of my room. Gonna have you begging in that sweet voice you think is quiet.
Katsuki leaned over, reading the new text in real-time. A vein pulsed in his temple. “That’s it.” He snatched the phone from Kaito’s hand.
“Hey!”
“You’re done. You’re officially cut off.” Katsuki held the phone aloft, glaring. “I will vomit directly into your protein shake if you don’t tone down the horny, Pretty Boy. This is a place of fitness, not your pathetic sexting den.”
Kaito stood up, his considerable height matching Katsuki’s. He wasn’t smiling anymore. “Give it back, Bakugo. That’s none of your business.”
“It is my business when I have to live with the fallout!” Katsuki hissed, keeping his voice down but losing none of its intensity. The gym hummed around them, oblivious. “You send him that garbage, he gets all worked up and spacey, and then Round-Face Uraraka uses it as an opening to try and braid his hair or some shit. You’re creating a hostile living environment for me.”
Kaito blinked, the anger shifting into confusion. “The fuck is ‘Round-Face Uraraka’?”
“The girl. The one who’s glued to him like a lost puppy. The one who doesn’t know he’s thoroughly, disgustingly taken.” Katsuki finally lowered the phone, but didn’t hand it over. “It’s a whole thing. A bad thing. He’s trying to be ‘nice’ and not hurt her feelings, which means he’s letting her orbit him like a doomed satellite. It’s painful to watch.”
A dark cloud passed over Kaito’s features. The vulgar, texting shamelessness evaporated, replaced by something sharper, more possessive. “She touching him?”
“She was practically in his lap during movie night. I had to intervene with extreme prejudice.”
“What’d you do?”
“Told her he was allergic to desperate bitches. It was a public service.”
A slow, appreciative smirk returned to Kaito’s face. “Nice. Brutal, but nice.” He held out his hand for his phone. “C’mon. I’m done. For now.”
Katsuki scrutinized him for a second, then tossed the phone back. “You’re a animal.”
“You’re just jealous my texts are more creative than your cooking,” Kaito said, catching it. He didn’t open the messaging app again. Instead, he sat back on the bench, his demeanor shifting. The bravado dialed down a notch. “So it’s bad, huh? This girl situation.”
“It’s a ticking time bomb.” Katsuki grabbed a nearby kettlebell and started doing one-handed swings, the movement fluid and powerful, his words punctuated by the whoosh of the iron. “He’s stressing. Got your text about Saturday, was over the moon for two seconds, then remembered she’s been planning some ‘class outing’ for the same day. He’s gonna try and weasel out of it without hurting her feelings, which is impossible. He’s gonna fuck it up. And then I’m gonna have to deal with the awkward fallout in the dorms.”
Kaito watched him work, his own playful energy settling into something more thoughtful. “He should just tell her he’s busy.”
“He will. But she’ll ask ‘with what?’. And his brain will melt. He can’t lie for shit. He’ll stammer and turn red and say ‘stuff’ and she’ll take it as a challenge.”
“So he should say he’s got a date.”
Katsuki stopped mid-swing, letting the kettlebell hang. He gave Kaito a look that was pure, unadulterated ‘are you stupid?’ “Oh, brilliant. And when she asks who with? What’s her name? What’s she like? You want him to invent a whole fictional girlfriend? That’s a pyramid scheme of lies that collapses in a week.”
Kaito leaned forward, elbows on his knees. The gym’s fluorescent lights gleamed off the sweat on his shoulders. “So what’s your genius plan, then? Since you’re the expert on his social life.”
“I told him to be vaguely discouraging. Plant the idea that he’s not into girls. Without, you know, saying the words.” Katsuki resumed his swings. “But he’s Deku. Subtlety is a foreign language to him. He speaks in dialects of Anxiety and Overthinking.”
A silence fell between them, filled only by the gym’s ambient noise. Kaito spun his phone in his hands. The possessive jealousy was still there, a low burn in his gut at the thought of some girl hanging all over Izuku, but it was being overridden by a more practical concern. He knew Izuku’s tendencies—the desire to please, the aversion to conflict, the deep-seated fear of exposure that had nothing to do with shame and everything to do with protecting what they had.
“Saturday,” Kaito said, his voice lower, losing its performative edge. “It’s the first whole day we’ve gotten in a month. I’m not letting some… group museum trip screw it up.”
“Then you better give him a script. Because left to his own devices, he’ll cave and go look at dioramas of All Might’s early career just to avoid making her sad.” Katsuki set the kettlebell down with a definitive thud. “And I refuse to listen to him mope about missing you for another week. It’s nauseating.”
Kaito’s phone buzzed. He looked down. A new message from Izuku.
Izuku: Kacchan is probably yelling at you, isn’t he? Sorry. I can’t wait for Saturday. Really. I’ll handle things here.
Kaito’s smile returned, softer this time. He showed the screen to Katsuki. “See? He’s handling it.”
Katsuki read it and snorted. “‘Handle things.’ He probably means he’s going to draft twelve different non-confrontational ways to tell her, then panic and delete all of them. That’s his version of handling it.” He grabbed his towel and wiped his face. “You finish your workout or are you just gonna sit there making heart-eyes at your phone?”
“I’m motivated now,” Kaito said, standing up and stretching his arms over his head. “Gotta be in peak condition. For Saturday.”
“I don’t want to know.”
“You really don’t,” Kaito agreed, his vulgar grin flashing back. He moved to the pull-up bar, gripping it. “But thanks. For looking out for him. With the Uraraka thing.”
Katsuki froze for a half-second, caught off guard by the sudden, stark sincerity. He recovered with a scowl. “I’m not looking out for him. I’m looking out for my own sanity. The second-hand anxiety was giving me hives.” He turned to leave, heading towards the locker room. Over his shoulder, he barked, “And for the love of god, keep the Saturday details to yourself. I eat in that dorm.”
Kaito laughed, a loud, genuine sound that cut through the gym’s monotony. He began his set, pulling his chin over the bar with powerful, controlled motions, each rep fueled by a simple, focused thought.
Two days.
He’d let Izuku try to handle it. But if that girl so much as looked like she was going to interfere, he’d have no problem being the villain. He wasn’t the top of his class for nothing. Strategy was just applied force to a problem. And Izuku Midoriya, with his white hair and wine-red eyes and heart too big for his own good, was a problem he’d dedicated himself to solving, permanently.
He dropped from the bar, landing lightly, and grabbed his phone one last time. He typed a final message, a compromise between his instincts and Katsuki’s threats.
Kaito: Tell Round-Face you’ve got prior commitments. Non-negotiable. If she pushes, tell her it’s classified. Then turn off your phone. I’ll be waiting. And I’m not thinking about pillows anymore. I’m thinking about the shower in my apartment. And you. Water. Soap. My hands. Two days.
He sent it, picturing the furious blush that would spread across Izuku’s face, the way he’d probably glance around the common room as if the words were projected on the wall.
Perfect.
He tossed his phone into his gym bag, the mundane clatter of it against his water bottle a sharp counterpoint to the vivid, specific promise now traveling through the digital ether. The countdown, for him, had well and truly begun. The rest was just noise.