No one would have believed it possible.

Not his classmates, not his teachers, not the heroes who admired or feared him, not even his own parents.

Katsuki Bakugo wasn't the type of person who fell in love.

He was pure fire, always on the verge of exploding; a hurricane wrapped in skin, too proud, too violent, too much himself to let anyone get close enough to touch him.

He himself never imagined he could love like this.

But love doesn't ask for permission. It seeped through the cracks in his courage, slipped through the cracks in his silences, settled into his routine storm until it became bearable.

And of all the places, of all the people… he fell in love with him.

The boy who seemed to understand him without forcing it. The only one capable of silencing that constant noise in his head.

A warm presence that, without knowing when, became essential. Katsuki let him into his life with an ease that would have horrified anyone who knew him. But it didn't matter. Because, for the first time, being with someone didn't make him feel trapped, but free.

What Katsuki didn't know was that the world doesn't always align with the truths one constructs for oneself.

The revelation came on a tense night, during what they thought was a routine operation.

The most elusive villain of recent months finally appeared: a masked figure, responsible for precise, clean, calculated attacks… but without a face, without an identity.

Bakugo was the first to confront him, driven by that instinct that made him run toward danger without hesitation.

From the start, something was wrong.

The villain dodged more than he attacked. He wasn't using his Quirk with the force reported in the intelligence reports. His movements were defensive, almost desperate.

It was as if he didn't want to hurt him.

Katsuki didn't realize the obvious until it was too late.

A poorly calculated explosion—more impulsive than strategic—hit the wall where the masked figure was trying to retreat.

The impact was precise. The mask, already cracked, came off and fell to the ground. It rolled only a few centimeters before stopping in front of Katsuki.

And in that instant, the world became unbearably silent.

In the center of the smoke, amidst the orange glow of the still-spitting flames, a face Katsuki knew all too well was revealed.

There was no room for misunderstanding.

It was him. His partner.

The boy he had let in where no one else could. The one who had seen him cry without judgment, the one who had shared his bed, his routine, his peaceful nights.

The villain they were chasing… was the boy Katsuki loved with all his heart.

And in that second suspended between reality and denial, Katsuki understood things he wasn't ready to accept.

He understood why the villain had never attacked with force. Why he avoided any blow that could harm him. Why his movements seemed more like silent pleas than attempts to escape. He understood that this boy had been fighting on two fronts: against the heroes… and against the love he couldn't relinquish.

When the backup heroes arrived, the figure before him didn't resist. He didn't counterattack. He only retreated, as if the ground itself were crumbling beneath his feet. And he vanished in the smoke without explanation, without looking back, without trying to defend himself.

Since that night, Katsuki has lived trapped between two irreconcilable forces. His duty as a hero, which demands that he pursue and stop whoever threatens the world. And his heart, which pulls him with equal intensity toward someone he should never have loved… but still loves.

Because the hardest, cruelest truth is that even after seeing that mask fall… his heart didn't.

And Katsuki still doesn't know if what burns inside him is rage, love, betrayal… or an incendiary mixture capable of consuming him entirely.