Chapter 46
₊˚⊹✷ 𝐂𝐇𝐀𝐏𝐓𝐄𝐑 𝐅𝐎𝐑𝐓𝐘-𝐎𝐍𝐄
⤷ how the tables have turned.
KATSUKI WOKE UP to the alarm screaming at exactly 6:30 a.m., the same shrill, rage-inducing sound it always made, and for half a second his brain did what it always did and cataloged the problem in the wrong order. First: noise. Second: weight. Third: warmth that absolutely should not be there.
His eyes snapped open.
He was buried against Edogawa. Again.
Not just close—fully pressed in, face mashed against the center of the bastard’s chest, nose brushing fabric, breath rising and falling against his forehead in a slow, steady rhythm. One of Edogawa’s arms was trapped under Katsuki’s head, bent at an awkward angle and being used as a pillow, while the other was slung over Katsuki’s shoulder in a loose, lazy hold that screamed unconsciousness rather than intention.
And the worst part?
Katsuki didn’t even flinch.
He laid there, wide awake, listening to the alarm blare and Edogawa breathe, and felt nothing but a dull, irritated awareness settle into his bones. No spike of panic. No instinctive explosion. No violent urge to shove the other boy off the bed.
That alone pissed him off.
“Goddamnit,” he muttered under his breath, voice rough with sleep.
The nightmare came back to him in fragments as the seconds ticked by. He didn’t remember details—he never did. Kamino dreams didn’t come with clean images or coherent narratives. They came with weight, heat, and the feeling of being trapped while everything fell around him. They came with hands grabbing him, sludge in his lungs, the echo of All Might’s voice breaking apart in the air.
He remembered waking up in the middle of the night, heart pounding so hard it felt like it was trying to punch its way out of his ribs.
He remembered rolling over.
And he remembered—clear as hell—being relieved that Edogawa was there.
That memory made his jaw clench.
He didn’t like the twerp. Not even a little. Edogawa was irritatingly calm, annoyingly self-aware, and carried himself like he was already resigned to some awful ending Katsuki hadn’t been clued in on yet.
But during Kamino, when everything went to hell, Katsuki had been painfully aware of one thing over and over again.
There had been a very real chance Edogawa was going to die back then.
The kid had already been injured. Already someone the villains had taken an interest in. And the idea of dragging a corpse out of that mess—of carrying that weight instead of a living, breathing idiot who still had the nerve to snap back at him—had lodged itself in Katsuki’s head and refused to leave.
He swallowed and shifted slightly now, careful not to wake him.
Edogawa didn’t stir.
Of course he didn’t. The meds had him out cold. His grip didn’t tighten or loosen, his breathing didn’t hitch, his face stayed slack and unguarded in a way Katsuki hadn’t seen until now.
The alarm kept screaming.
Katsuki reached across Edogawa, stretching awkwardly to turn the phone off before it could wake half the damn floor. His arm brushed Edogawa’s shoulder as he did, and the other boy let out a quiet sound—something between a breath and a hum—before settling again.
Katsuki froze.
Slowly, he tried to extract himself, to lift the other boy’s arm and slide out from under it. It didn’t work. The bastard was heavier than he looked, dense in that irritating way, and Katsuki’s movement only made Edogawa shift closer.
For a second—just one—Katsuki closed his eyes.
“Unbelievable,” he whispered. “You dead weight.”
Edogawa didn’t respond. Didn’t even twitch.
Katsuki carefully pried the arm off his shoulder and rolled onto his back, staring up at the ceiling with his teeth clenched. His heart was still beating faster than it should have been, adrenaline lingering from a nightmare he couldn’t fully remember and a reality he didn’t want to examine.
He glanced sideways.
Edogawa was still asleep, hair a mess, face calm in a way that felt wrong for someone who lived the way he did. The blanket was twisted around him, one hand curled loosely in the fabric where Katsuki had been moments earlier.
The blond swung his legs over the side of the bed and stood, running a hand through his hair as he forced himself back into the present. House arrest. Chores. The consequences of his own goddamn actions.
Behind him, Edogawa shifted, letting out a soft, unintelligible sound as he turned onto his stomach, still asleep.
Katsuki paused at the door, hand on the handle, then glanced back one last time.
Then he left the room, shutting the door behind him with a quiet click.
When Katsuki came back from the showers, steam still clinging to his skin and hair damp enough to drip down his neck, Edogawa was gone.
The bed was empty, sheets kicked into disarray like someone had woken up late and left in a hurry, which tracked. The second alarm always went off ten minutes after Katsuki’s—louder, more insistent. Katsuki stood there for a moment longer than necessary, eyes flicking over the room like he expected the idiot to still be there somehow.
Nothing.
“Tch,” he clicked his tongue, annoyed at himself more than anything.
The air felt different without him. Colder. Quieter. Like something had been removed that Katsuki hadn’t consciously noticed was there until it was gone. He shoved the thought away immediately, yanking on his clothes with more force than required and scowling at the wall as if it had personally offended him.
He wasn’t allowed to go to class. He wasn’t allowed to train. He wasn’t allowed to do anything useful.
House arrest.
The words burned worse than any insult. Katsuki Bakugo, benched. Sidelined. Told to sit still and think about what he’d done like some idiot extra who couldn’t control himself. The only reason he was even awake right now was because he refused—absolutely refused—to let his sleep schedule slip. If he slept in, if he got lazy, if he let himself rot in bed while everyone else moved forward, then what was the point?
So he stayed up.
He paced his room after getting dressed, cracking his knuckles, rolling his shoulders, feeling energy coil uselessly under his skin with nowhere to go.
The dorm slowly emptied out.
Doors opened and shut. Voices echoed down the halls. Someone laughed. Someone complained about breakfast. Someone shouted about being late. Katsuki sat on the edge of his bed, elbows on his knees, jaw tight, counting the minutes by the sounds fading away.
Eventually, silence.
That was his cue.
He grabbed the cleaning supplies Aizawa had dumped on him like an afterthought—bucket, rags, disinfectant—and headed for the common areas with a scowl carved into his face. The living space was trashed, as usual. Empty cups, crumbs on the floor, someone’s jacket tossed over the couch like they owned the place.
“Bunch of slobs,” Katsuki muttered.
He worked aggressively, wiping down surfaces like they’d personally wronged him, scrubbing harder than necessary, dragging chairs back into place with sharp, irritated movements. It didn’t calm him the way training did, but it kept him busy enough that his thoughts didn’t spiral completely out of control.
Still, they crept in.
Edogawa’s stupid calm face. The way Katsuki himself had said “Yes” without hesitation the night before.
Katsuki slammed the rag down harder than needed. “Damnit.”
He moved on to the kitchen, scrubbing counters, muttering under his breath.
By the time he finished the first round of cleaning, the dorm was spotless and Katsuki was still wired, still restless, still painfully aware that everyone else was out there doing something that mattered. He dropped onto one of the couches and leaned back, staring up at the ceiling.
“…This is bullshit,” he said to the empty room.
No one argued.
He glanced at the clock. Still early. Too early. He’d have to do all of this again later, morning and night, like Aizawa had ordered. He flexed his hands, feeling the familiar prickle of explosions restrained under his skin, and exhaled slowly through his nose.
Four days. He could handle four days.
𓏵
EDOGAWA CAME BACK from classes early.
Everyone else had gone to afternoon training that day, meaning the dorms were still quiet. There was no noise anywhere, aside from Deku’s shuffling as he cleaned the middle floors. That and the dull echo of Katsuki’s own footsteps as he dragged a trash bag down the hall, jaw tight and shoulders tense.
House arrest sucked.
He rounded the corner into the common room, already annoyed, already bracing himself for something to piss him off—and then he saw him.
Edogawa was sitting on the couch, hunched forward with his elbows on his knees, surrounded by scattered papers. Not neat stacks. Not organized folders. Just loose worksheets, notebooks cracked open at awkward angles, margins filled with cramped handwriting.
Katsuki stopped dead.
“What the hell,” he muttered.
The trash bag sagged in his grip as his eyes flicked over the mess. At a glance, none of it was new. He could tell by the dates stamped at the top of the worksheets, by the units listed in the corners, by the topics he remembered from weeks ago.
Weeks.
Edogawa looked up at the sound of Katsuki’s voice, blinking like he’d been dragged out of a trance. “Oh. You’re here.”
Katsuki scoffed. “I’m on house arrest, idiot.” He jerked his chin toward the papers. “What’s all this?”
Edogawa hesitated for half a second too long, which was answer enough. “…Late work,” he said finally, tone flat.
Katsuki’s irritation flared hot and immediate. “You’re kidding me.”
“No,” Edogawa replied, eyes dropping back to the page in his hands. “I’m not.”
“You’ve been pulling straight A-level combat scores, passing exams, nearly killing yourself in training,” Katsuki snapped, dumping the trash bag by the door, “and you’re telling me you’re sitting here drowning in shit from weeks ago?”
Edogawa shrugged, the motion small and stiff. “It piled up.”
Katsuki clicked his tongue sharply and stalked closer, looming over the couch as he scanned the papers more carefully. Math worksheets half-finished. Science notes with entire sections blank. Japanese essays with red ink slashed through paragraphs.
“This is basic stuff,” Katsuki said, scowling. “You just… didn’t do it?”
“I skipped middle school,” Edogawa replied, too quickly. “I’m like three years behind in stepping stones.”
Katsuki’s jaw clenched. He hated that answer. Hated how familiar it sounded. Hated that it made sense.
“So what, you just figured you’d fail quietly?” he demanded.
Edogawa finally looked up at him then, dark eyes sharp despite the exhaustion clinging to his face. “I figured I’d deal with it when I could.”
“And now?” Katsuki pressed.
“And now I can’t train,” Edogawa said simply. “So I’m catching up. Todoroki’s been helping me with the current stuff but obviously I’m still behind.”
Katsuki stared at him for a long, heated second, irritation warring with something else he refused to name. Then he swore under his breath. “Tch. You’re unbelievable.”
“If you’re just gonna be a bitch, go away” Edogawa said, already turning back to his notes.
The blond didn’t leave.
Instead, he bent down, scooped up one of the worksheets, and dropped onto the arm of the couch with a huff. “Move.”
Edogawa blinked. “What?”
“Move,” Katsuki repeated, sharper. “Scoot over.”
“…Why?”
“Because clearly if I don’t get involved, you’re gonna sit here staring at this crap until midnight and still not understand it,” Katsuki snapped. “And I’m bored.”
That was a lie, but Edogawa didn’t call him on it.
Slowly, cautiously, he shifted to give Katsuki space. “You don’t have to—”
“I know,” Katsuki cut in. He scanned the worksheet again, lips moving silently as he read. “This is algebra,” he said finally. “Why the hell are you stuck on this?”
Edogawa leaned in despite himself, eyes following Katsuki’s finger as it tapped a line on the page. “Because the variables don’t make sense.”
Katsuki snorted. “You have to isolate them.”
“I would, if I knew how to do that,” Edogawa snapped in return.
“Well, why don’t you shut up and I’ll tell you how to do it?”
Despite seemingly not liking his answer, Edogawa let him do it anyway.
Katsuki grabbed a pen, scribbling aggressively in the margins as he explained, voice rough but precise, breaking the problem down piece by piece. Edogawa watched him closely, brow furrowed, asking questions under his breath when something didn’t click.
Minutes stretched into longer than either of them expected.
At some point, Katsuki realized he’d stopped being pissed.
He didn’t acknowledge it.
“Try it again,” he ordered, shoving the paper back toward Edogawa.
Edogawa hesitated, then worked through the problem slowly, carefully. When he finished, he glanced up. “Is that… right?”
Katsuki scanned it. “…Yeah.”
A quiet, almost imperceptible relief crossed Edogawa’s face.
Katsuki looked away immediately. “Don’t get used to it,” he muttered. “I’m not your tutor.”
“And thank God for that.”
He reached for another worksheet anyway.
𓏵
THE WEEK BLED into the weekend in that slow, aggravating way where every day felt like it was deliberately dragging its feet just to spite him. Deku was allowed back into classes by Friday, which Katsuki noticed immediately and pretended not to care about. He watched the nerd disappear into the morning rush with the rest of them, backpack slung over his shoulder, trying not to look guilty every time their eyes accidentally met.
Katsuki stayed behind, arms crossed, leaning against the wall outside the dorms like a caged animal while everyone else went on with their lives.
House arrest until Monday.
It pissed him off more than he wanted to admit, but he swallowed it down the way he always did. This was the price. He knew that. He’d chosen the fight. He’d chosen to let everything boil over instead of keeping his mouth shut like usual. And if he was being brutally honest with himself, he was lucky Aizawa hadn’t gone further. No expulsion. No suspension. Just chores, confinement, and a bruised ego.
Still felt like hell.
By the second day, cleaning the common areas morning and night became automatic. Vacuum, wipe counters, take out trash, repeat. It kept his hands busy, which helped keep his head from spiraling too hard. What he didn’t expect—what irritated him almost as much as the punishment itself—was how often he found himself sitting in the common room afterward, papers spread across the table, Edogawa hunched beside him with that stupidly serious expression on his face.
It started unintentionally.
Katsuki would finish cleaning, drop onto the couch, and Edogawa would already be there, buried under assignments that looked like they were trying to crush him through sheer volume alone. Katsuki told himself the first time was a fluke.
The second time was coincidence.
By the third time, it was a pattern.
“This is from before midterms,” Katsuki snapped one afternoon, flipping through a packet with dates that made his eye twitch. “What the hell were you doing instead of this?”
Edogawa didn’t look up from where he was scribbling notes. “Recovering. Training. Not sleeping.”
Katsuki scoffed. “Yeah, well, shocker. That caught up with you.”
Edogawa paused, then muttered, “You’re welcome to leave.”
“Tch. I know.”
He didn’t.
By Wednesday, it was routine.
Edogawa would come back early because he was banned from training, drop his bag, and immediately start pulling out notebooks like he was bracing for impact. Katsuki would finish his chores, linger, complain loudly, and then inevitably end up correcting equations or rewriting explanations in the margins because Edogawa’s notes were technically correct but overcomplicated to hell and back.
“You don’t need three paragraphs for this,” Katsuki grumbled, dragging a pen through half a page. “Just do it like this.”
“That ignores the underlying principle,” Edogawa argued mildly.
“And it still gets the right answer,” Katsuki shot back. “Which is the point.”
They bickered constantly, but it wasn’t the sharp, explosive kind. It was low-level, steady, almost… functional. Katsuki hated that realization and shoved it away every time it surfaced.
On Thursday night, Katsuki tossed a worksheet back across the table. “There. Done.”
Edogawa stared at it for a second, then at him. “You didn’t have to rewrite the whole thing.”
“I know,” Katsuki said, already leaning back in his chair. “Your handwriting sucks.”
“That’s not true.”
“It absolutely fucking is.” Katsuki stood up instead, grabbing the trash bag and slinging it over his shoulder. “You’re still behind,” he muttered. “But… it’s not as bad.”
“I’ll take that as encouragement,” Edogawa said.
“Don’t.”
By the time the weekend rolled around, Katsuki realized—much to his annoyance—that helping Edogawa had become the only thing breaking up the monotony of house arrest. It gave him something to focus on besides his own thoughts, besides Kamino, besides the fact that he wouldn’t be back in class until Monday while everyone else moved forward without him.
He didn’t like that he didn’t hate it.
𓏵
THE ROOFTOP WAS QUIET in that heavy, late-evening way. The sky stretched wide and dark above them, scattered with stars that looked sharper the farther you got from the city lights. The concrete still held onto a little warmth from the day, just enough that lying flat against it didn’t feel miserable. Edogawa took full advantage of that, sprawled out on his back, one knee bent, the other leg stretched long. Smoke curled lazily from the cigarette between his fingers, drifting upward and dissolving into the night air.
Katsuki hovered near the doors for a second longer than he meant to, hands shoved deep into his pockets, shoulders tight. From here, Edogawa looked smaller somehow. Less like the infuriating, unflappable bastard Katsuki dealt with during the day.
He watched the slow rise and fall of Edogawa’s chest, the way the red markings along his cheeks glowed faintly in the dark like embers that refused to go out, and felt that familiar irritation stir in his gut for reasons he still refused to name.
Finally, he broke the silence.
“It’s my turn, you know.”
His voice came out rougher than he intended, carrying across the open space of the roof. Edogawa didn’t react right away. He didn’t sit up or even turn his head. He just lifted the cigarette to his lips again, inhaled slowly, like he had all the time in the world.
“Your question?” Edogawa asked, tone easy, almost lazy, smoke slipping out on the exhale. He stared straight up at the sky as he spoke, as if Katsuki wasn’t standing there at all.
Katsuki clicked his tongue softly and stepped farther out onto the roof. He stopped a few feet away, close enough that he could smell the smoke, far enough that it didn’t feel like he was crowding him. He rolled the question around in his head one last time before letting it out.
“What were you doing before you came to UA?”
For the first time, Edogawa moved more than just his hand. The foot propped on his knee started bouncing, a small, restless motion. He stared up at the stars a moment longer, cigarette hovering just above his lips, before answering.
“You remember the alternative to UA I told you about?” Edogawa said. His tone stayed light, almost conversational, “That was the before, and it’ll be the after until I debut.”
The answer landed harder than Katsuki expected.
He felt it in his chest first, a sharp, uncomfortable jolt he immediately tried to squash. His jaw tightened without permission. When Edogawa had told him about Tartarus before, Katsuki had been pissed, sure—but hearing it framed like that, like a straight line with no detours, made something twist ugly in his stomach. This wasn’t a temporary thing. This was Edogawa’s entire life neatly boxed in before and after UA.
“And before that?” Katsuki asked anyway, the question slipping out before he could stop it.
Edogawa hummed quietly, a sound more amused than annoyed. “That’s two,” he said. “It’s my turn.”
Katsuki scowled, shifting his weight. “So?”
The black haired boy went quiet again, the bouncing of his foot slowing as he actually thought about it. The cigarette burned down another fraction, ash clinging stubbornly to the end. When he finally spoke, his voice was softer, stripped of some of its usual bite.
“What are your nightmares usually about?”
Katsuki stiffened.
Of course it would be that. Of course this bastard would go straight for the throat. Katsuki stared down at him, irritation flaring hot and fast, even as he recognized the unfairness of it. He’d asked questions that cut deep. He didn’t get to pretend this one was out of bounds.
“Kamino,” Katsuki answered after a beat. The word tasted bitter. “You know that.”
Edogawa let out a quiet huff, the corner of his mouth twitching. “Boring,” he said flatly. “Come on. Gimme something more. It’s only fair since everything I tell you is gonna get me another month in prison.”
Katsuki snorted despite himself, a sharp, humorless sound. “You’re in a mood tonight.”
“Got a call from someone close to me,” Edogawa replied, finally turning his head just enough to glance at Katsuki from the corner of his eye. “Haven’t heard from her in years so I’m in a high spirits. Answer my question.”
The blond let out a long breath through his nose and tipped his head back, eyes tracking the same scattered stars Edogawa seemed fixated on. They looked smaller than they should have, dimmer against the glow of the city, but they were there all the same.
“When it started it was mostly about All Might’s fight and the first time I saw his weak form.” His voice came out slower than usual. Saying it out loud still felt wrong, like admitting something he’d sworn he never would. “They’re different now though. It’s more like I’m reliving trying to get away from the League but shit just keeps going wrong. That magician guy gets me or the girl stabs me when I’m not looking. That or I drop you. Shit blends together so it all feels like one thing.”
The silence that followed wasn’t empty. It screamed the things Katsuki hadn’t said and the images he refused to let surface fully while he was awake. Edogawa didn’t scoff or make a smart remark right away, which somehow made it worse.
“Huh,” Edogawa finally let out, voice thoughtful rather than dismissive. He stared up at the sky again, as if replaying Katsuki’s words in his head. “At least reality is better than the nightmares, though, right? You wake up and it’s over. It’s worse when the nightmares are just a retelling of what happened.”
Katsuki’s eyes flicked back down to him. “Is that what yours are?”
“Yeah,” Edogawa answered simply, without drama, without hesitation. “But I’m not going to explain anything more about that so I hope that’s not your question.”
Katsuki snorted softly and looked away again, jaw tight. “No. I’m holding onto it.” He glanced toward the building, then back at the sky. “It’s almost eight.”
Edogawa scoffed, finally shifting his weight. “Jesus, what are you, an old man?”
“You sleep with my schedule and I’ll help you with your school work. How’s that?” Katsuki shot back immediately, the sharp edge returning to his tone.
“I’ve got Todoroki for that,” Edogawa fired back without missing a beat.
Katsuki turned on him, bristling. “What? You think that icy-hot bastard is better than me?”
“He’s a nicer tutor,” Edogawa replied flatly, like that settled it.
Katsuki barked out a humorless laugh. “Which is why you’ve definitely told him how damn far behind you actually are.” He shook his head, already knowing the answer. “Gimme a break. It’s easier this way. I can catch up on what I missed this week.”
Edogawa stared at him for a long second, the glow on his cheek markings dimming as a cloud passed overhead. He let out a slow sigh, the kind that came with surrender rather than agreement, and pushed himself up to sit. He crushed the cigarette out carefully against the concrete before standing, dusting his hands off on his pants.
“Fine,” he said at last. He shoved his hands into his pockets and walked past Katsuki toward the door, shoulders drawn up against the cooling night air. “Guess I’ll tell Aizawa.”
“Mm-hmm,” Katsuki hummed, already turning to follow.