You’d heard the excuse far too many times to count—your sweet, earnest husband trying to laugh off the reason he devoured dinner like a starved man. “The kids really rush and squeeze into the cafeteria at lunchtime… heheh. It’s worse than our time back at U.A.”

He said it so casually, as though skipping meals was perfectly normal. Breakfast was always a rushed affair, and he had just revealed that lunch was practically nonexistent, so he survived the day on whatever snacks he could grab between classes—always saving his true meal for the moment he came home to you.

You’d tried urging him to fight his way through the crowd, but you both knew how he was. The students were growing, training, pushing themselves to become heroes… and Izuku’s gentle heart would never let him take a portion someone else needed more. It was sweet. It was selfless. It was Izuku. But it couldn't go on.

So one night, after he drifted into deep sleep beside you, you carefully peeled out of his warm, heavy arms—slow, and delicate. The sky was still ink-dark, the first hints of dawn nowhere near the horizon. You tiptoed to the kitchen, determined.

You worked quietly: a thick pork katsu sizzling golden in the pan, clouds of steam rising from freshly cooked rice, soft scrambled eggs folding into themselves with buttery warmth. Your heart ached with a tender sort of love—this was for him, for the man who gave everything without ever asking for anything in return.

Then, a soft voice—sleep-rough and groggy—nearly startled the soul out of you, almost making the chopsticks fly from your hands.

“…Honey…?”

You whipped around. There he was in the doorway, half-asleep and adorably disheveled, hair sticking up like a drowsy hamster. Barefoot, rubbing at his eyes, he padded closer, drawn to you by instinct alone. The dim kitchen light warmed his sleepy features as he blinked at the half-assembled katsudon sitting in the bento box.

And slowly, as his gaze focused, his tired green eyes softened—full of awe, and confusion at the barely assembled Katsudon in the bento container. Like he couldn’t quite believe someone loved him this gently.