Chapter Text
“Why don’t you try asking Koyo Shibori?”
Under the soft lighting of his apartment’s kitchen, Katsuki’s brows furrow, his fingers stalling on the grapes he’d been rolling around a napkin. “Who?”
Mina’s hesitance is palpable on the other line. “...Koi Fish.”
“Absolutely not.”
“He’s actually really nice!” She sweats. “I worked with him once before.”
“Yeah, once. He’s a stingy asshole. Flightier than a bird.”
“What is it you always say about not listening to rumors?”
“Alright, I’m hanging up.”
“No, wait!”
He tilts the phone back against his ear. Mina takes his silence as a prompt to continue, “Just give him a chance? He isn’t as bad as everyone makes him out to be.”
“No promises. Bye.”
“Baku–”
Katsuki’s had ups and downs in his career.
Of course, this was to be expected; bad press clouded the majority of his public opinion, rumors became nasty headaches, blah blah blah. But he always made up for it on the field. And so he was forever walking the thin tightrope of maintaining his top five pro-hero status on the account that some extras liked his attitude.
After a near decade since graduating and running his own agency, Katsuki had the rhythms down to a tee. While his reputation ebbed and flowed like the tide, he kept his own head and shut down any particularly outrageous claims on his name. He discarded his line in that people-pleasing sea ages ago.
While he never did sweat the criticism, or even straight up bad-mouthing – watching his name slip down the polls of top-ten in real time had him genuinely sick.
He learned to quit watching the news after that.
He didn’t give a shit about his reputation, anyhow. He’s perfectly content in knowing he’s the best. …Although, in recent weeks - the past three months, to be more exact - the uptick of villain attacks is blowing his schedule up into complete and utter chaos.
No matter how hard he tries, he can’t be in two places at once, and his phone has been going off nonstop since October. It’s stressing him out to the point of exertion, and has since taken a visible toll on him. His usually well-groomed appearance is slipping- along with his sanity- right through his fingers.
If he knew someone with a body-double Quirk, he’d pay a year’s worth of his earnings to request them.
Running out of options, he reached out to his friends for help. While he was able to catch Eijiro and Mina on the one-off occasion, it wasn’t enough. With schedules just as busy as his own, the rest of his old classmates were only able to respond with apologies – if they even responded at all. As was the case with Cheeks and Ears.
So his last-ditch resort was to reach further, to heroes he’d only heard of in passing, or not at all. And that helped, he got things cut down for a while. But villains seemed to be working harder than he was.
As if.
Shit, maybe the villains had a body-doubling quirk of their own. That would reduce his feelings of uselessness, at least.
Katsuki is good at everything. Hands down. No competition. And if he doesn't know something right away, he’s a quick learner. However, rejection has never been easy for him, and Koyo Shibori is currently title holder for most rejection applications sent to heroes asking for his aid.
Katsuki doesn’t know his reasons, and he doesn’t give much of a shit, either. Being rejected by him would be a hard blow to his own ego, though. Besides, he isn’t that desperate. Nevertheless, on a whim brought out of boredom, he entertains Mina’s suggestion and pulls up the hero’s website.
An elegant, pretty font spells out Samara Agency, with a headshot of Koyo himself.
“Koi Fish.” Katsuki snickers to himself as he squints at the photo.
Orange hair and olive skin blotched with white patches of vitiligo flash a toothy smile at him. Koyo’s nickname went back to high school, that much Katsuki knows. It was the only way he could recognize him in conversation, though the name came up very few times. While Katsuki had gone to UA, Koyo attended Shiketsu. They had unofficially met only once, during the sport’s festival. Not much to comment on about that.
Koyo’s young, and by the looks of it, completely carefree. Being a travelling hero had perks that Katsuki would salivate over; free to make your own schedule, take your own calls, or work basically from home if you so desire. The perks outweigh the cons – mileage and hospitality fees, unfamiliarity with foreign places, so on.
Needless to say, he hasn’t the faintest clue as to what Koyo’s quirk is. Judging by the corny, “in a sticky situation? I’ll come get you out!” phrasing plastered on the webpage, it probably isn’t the obvious. Closing the site with a small roll of his eyes, Katsuki resumes his evening tasks as best as he can.
Once a strict bedtime kind of guy in high school, he's been driven to near insomnia since his ever-growing list of tasks fell into his lap. All of the popular remedies don’t help; complete darkness made him anxious; utter silence was far too uncomfortable; warm milk just pissed him off; and melatonin only made it worse. A large dinner puts him to sleep with ease, but he doesn’t prefer to eat right before bed, and with no available time, he hasn’t set foot in a grocery store in weeks. Nor does he have any energy to workout his muscles into exhaustion, given his average four hours of sleep a night.
He feels like the shell of a man with work piling up, and it’s driving him into insanity. He needs an assistant. Or a career change.
The last task before calling it a night is to respond to emails from brands that want his face on their labels. It’s the thing he cares the absolute least about - no matter how much Eijiro insists that sponsors matter - so it’s always his last stop for the day, which entails staring at the screen for over an hour until he can barely keep his eyes open.
Like a broken record, he’ll wake up the following morning with his laptop fallen off his lap and a crick in his neck from an awkward position, forgetting most everything he’d done in the minutes leading up to falling asleep.
Pressing fingers into the knot behind his ear until it hurts, Katsuki grabs for his laptop to put it away.
The screen wakes up when his thumb bumps a key and his eyes briefly flicker to it. He pauses at an email notification in the corner, the thread initiated by him late into midnight. His initial confusion melts into clarity.
Right.
At some point in his sleep deprived and half-delirious state, he’d taken a chance.
you (@bkdynamight): at 1:48 AM
I require your assistance for the next few weeks. Let me know what dates work for you. I’ll fly you out if necessary.
Bakugo Katsuki, Dynamight
He doesn’t have the energy to regret last night’s decision as both his eyes and mouth widen at Koyo’s response.
from: Koyo Shibori (@samaraagency): now
Hi! Unfortunately, I do not accept your request for my assistance.
Five years ago, your AP Shot was improperly deployed and injured a dozen civilians. In the aftermath, you fled the scene. I would suggest you brush up on your civil duty to protect the public above all else, as well as the poor miscalculations of your Quirk.
Good luck!
K. Shibori,
Samara Agency, Independent Travel Pro-Hero
A spasm in Katsuki’s eyelid has him blinking the last of his fatigue off.
Again, Katsuki doesn’t take rejection well.