Work Text:
New Post: explodofficial
Workout interrupted by a friend
“Did you seriously just post that video?” Katsuki snapped from his place on the floor. He had his arms crossed in front of them and his chin propped up on them. Kicho was settled peacefully on his shoulder blade, curled up and contently nuzzling the back of Katsuki's neck.
“Definitely,” Hitoshi nodded. He finished tagging it and hit the post button. The video appeared at top of the feed and started playing, sounds coming out through the speakers on Hitoshi's phone.
It was a short video. They both agreed they should do something like that with Katsuki working out or some other thing. So that's what they did. Hitoshi got his phone out when Katsuki was going through his usual routine in the afternoon and started recording it. Katsuki was counting pushups as he did them. He still had his hearing aids in—it was only four days after Hitoshi's birthday, after all—and was dressed in just a tank top and sweatpants. The video was fine for the first half, then Kicho walked into the room. She had a habit of wandering the apartment while they were working until they came home. Then she usually settled down next Hitoshi since he was always home first. So they didn't think they'd have to worry about that.
They did. Kicho strolled into the room, meowed at Hitoshi and walked over to where Katsuki was doing pushups. She sniffed around him for a few seconds before hopping onto his back. Katsuki cursed at the sudden added weight. It wasn't much, but she did it when he was going down, so it pushed him down a little further. Katsuki called her a stupid cat as she pawed at his hair before getting settled. He huffed and adjusted how his hands were placed before continuing.
When Hitoshi said the video was done, Katsuki just flopped onto the floor and groaned. Kicho was unbothered, cleaning her ears until she started nuzzling Katsuki's neck. Hitoshi laughed at the display as he went to enter the caption.
Now, Hitoshi was scrolling through the account's notification. Katsuki started to push himself onto his knees and Kicho whined at that, standing up to walk onto his shoulders and head.
“Get off, you damn cat,” Katsuki growled. Hitoshi just glanced up and snickered. “Hitoshi help me.”
“Nope, I have an account to run,” Hitoshi said.
“Toshi please, she already doesn't like me,” Katsuki said. Hitoshi rolled his eyes, put his phone down and leaned over. He picked Kicho up, who meowed and let herself be put in Hitoshi's lap back on the couch. Kicho moved around a bit before settling down again, and nuzzling Hitoshi's thigh. “Thank god.”
Katsuki stood up and ran his hands through the back of his hair where Kicho poked him. He walked over and sat next to Hitoshi, who was already back to scrolling through notifications. Hitoshi liked certain comments, and laughed at the ones that said Katsuki was “drop dead gorgeous” or other things like that. Katsuki rested his arm around Hitoshi's shoulders and his chin on his shoulder.
The account thing had been going very well. Hitoshi tried to post at least one thing a day, whether it was Katsuki prepping his gear in the morning or working out in the afternoon. He got some Dms from media accounts wanting to know about him specifically—probably trying to dig up dirt or a story. He responded to all of those in the same way.
I'm a close friend of his, and he gave me permission to take over running his account. You will not be knowing my real name, because this is not my account and it's not about me. If you're looking for a story, do it elsewhere.
Katsuki got a call from his agency the day after Hitoshi's birthday—which was his official day off anyways, so they slept in and missed the first time they called. He listened to the voicemail, and winced. It was the guy every one of them had to report to, and he sounded a little pissed. Katsuki had to call him back, and Hitoshi watched and listened to his side of the conversation. It was pretty back and forth, and Katsuki had to promise that Hitoshi would behave himself and not do anything that would reflect badly on the company. Hitoshi would also have to meet the head of the agency and their account admins. They could deal with that.
Despite the small backlash from the agency, a lot of Katsuki's followers welcomed the idea of seeing more of Katsuki, even if it was through another person that just knew him. Some said they liked his hair color and called him lucky for knowing Katsuki. If only they knew. Another thing Hitoshi and Katsuki agreed was to keep the exact specifics of their relationship vague as possible. A lot of fans would flip if they knew the two of them were dating, and Hitoshi didn't want to try and keep the shipping backlash hidden from Katsuki. It wasn't like Katsuki didn't know it existed—they went through it in high school before Hitoshi shut down his old account and started a new one.
Hitoshi's new account was nowhere near as popular, and he wasn't completely happy to abandon the old one, but his posts had slowed down and he just fell out of the loop. Then people were harassing him after more word spread of who he was and things like him having a traditional villain quirk. It got to him really badly and he ended up not posting for almost a year before announcing the account was shut down due to personal reasons.Any fans he had left after that whole situation eventually vanished and Hitoshi decided it was for the best what with his relationship with Katsuki and the fact he was going pro very soon. Katsuki told him repeatedly that it didn't matter and if having a blog was what made Hitoshi happy, that he should keep going. Hitoshi waved it off though, and didn't post on his new account for ages. It was a bittersweet day when that all went down.
When he got his job as a web page admin for a magazine, he had to link that account in his profile. He slowly started posting more there while also running the official website. He got active online again. He kept his appearance and Katsuki's relationship with him hidden as he went to university and Katsuki went pro. They both agreed on that back then, too, so it was only natural it applied to the new account.
Back to Katsuki's account. Hitoshi posting even got attention from the media company he worked for. It was a bit awkward trying to explain to his manager why he couldn't do a story on the “new admin for Explodokill” while not saying who it was. Eventually, someone else was assigned to report on it and Hitoshi just proofread before posting it. He tried not to change any of the speculation the other person made into truths, and just posted it. Katsuki found some of it hilarious. Hitoshi did delete those claims.
As Hitoshi kept posting, a lot of people asked how often he posted. He told them as often as he could, or at least once every day. That got a lot of them excited. Some of his posts were pictures he managed to get Katsuki to let him orchestrate and take. Katsuki reluctantly admitted Hitoshi knew what to do when it came to pictures. He even managed to get one decent enough to replace Katsuki's old profile picture—the official hero one they get for their pages on the agency's site. Other posts were Katsuki at the apartment, doing the usual stuff that the fans just ate up because they got to see him when he wasn't in “hero mode” as some phrased it. Hitoshi only got one other video Katsuki approved. It was of Katsuki doing a stupid plastic cup stacking thing when Midoriya and Todoroki stopped by. The stacking was a challenge thing Hitoshi found online, and when he told the three pros, Katsuki and Todoroki jumped at the chance to beat each other. Midoriya had to go out and get four packs of cheap red-solo-cup style cups. The kitchen counters were cleaned off to use.
It lead to Katsuki standing on a chair when his pyramid got too high and Todoroki doing the same. Hitoshi started recording it for the fun of it from a safe distance. He and Midoriya were both just standing back as the two of them piled the cups up higher and higher. Katsuki as almost a ceiling level, and that was deemed the victory one. Then Kicho hopped on the counters. Usually, Hitoshi would grab her before she could cause chaos, but he was on the other side of the room. First, she nosed the edge of Todoroki's and he stilled, staring her down. Then she just went for it, and down went his stack. Katsuki didn't even have a second to laugh as the crashing spooked Kicho and she jolted back, slamming into Katsuki's.
There was a lot of screaming, and Hitoshi got it all on video. The next day he asked if he could post it, and Katsuki gave him the go ahead. A lot of fans liked that. Partly for it showing that Todoroki's and Katsuki's rivalry continued to petty things outside of hero work, and partly for the shippers. They flipped out about Katsuki, Midoriya, and Todoroki being in the same house and Hitoshi was surprised at how fast they acted on that concept. He probably should've been upset that he was cut out of the picture as the weird roommate, but he was cool with it. Mostly because it was hilarious. He may or may not of liked some of the fanart using Katsuki's account by accident. He unliked them the second he noticed, but the internet was faster.
With all of that chaos, Katsuki's reputation was improving, too. It was slow, since he caused a lot of chaos anyways, but the account was helping to counteract that. The hearing aids were, too. Most were surprised that Katsuki needed them, since he never wore them and acted like they didn't exist before Hitoshi's first post. Others were very understanding, but there were the few haters that said it was weak of him and that if his hands could withstand the blast, his ears could take the noise. Even if they could, he'd been dealing with the noise his whole life and the small damage added up fast, especially when he went pro.
Katsuki didn't think it was that big of a deal until he and Hitoshi went out one day to get food and wander around. Katsuki got recognized, took pictures and signed autographs for kids and teens—even a few adults approached him. Hitoshi got noticed by a few of the people, and they asked if he was the one running his blog, which he admitted without protest. One group of teens even asked Hitoshi to be in one of the pictures.
As they were starting to head home, a small boy no older than seven ran up behind them and tugged on Katsuki's shirt to get his attention. Katsuki turned around, and was a little surprised when he had to look down. Hitoshi noticed him stopping a second later and turning to see what was going on.
“You're Explodokill!” the kid said, smiling with awe filled eyes. Katsuki nodded. The kid's mother came up behind him, running to catch up. She grabbed her son's hand and tugged him back a little, giving Hitoshi and Katsuki an apologetic look. “We match!”
“Huh?” Katsuki grunted. The kid wriggled his arm free from his mom's hold and pointed to his hears.
“See!” he said. Katsuki's eyes widened and Hitoshi smiled. The kid had blue hearing aids in his ears. He started bouncing in place and lowered his arms to clasp his hands together in front of him. His smile faltered a bit but he looked hopeful as he stopped his bouncing. “If you have them, too, does that mean I can be a hero even with them? Like you?”
Katsuki crouched down and ruffled his hair. “Course you can, something like hearing can't stop you,” he said, smirking a little. The kid lit up at that and giggled. He jumped and hugged Katsuki's, arms slung around his neck. Katsuki jolted a little at that and the kid's mom hurriedly apologized. Katsuki pat the kid on the back and eventually he let go.
“Hold up, I'm getting a picture,” Hitoshi said. He pulled his phone out and crouched down a little to get a better angle. The kid smiled widely and Katsuki smiled, too, but only a little. He pushed some of his hair out of the way of his ear to show his own hearing aid better. Hitoshi quickly snapped the picture and stood up.
The mother apologized for approaching them out of nowhere, but was waved off and then the kid and her left.
When Hitoshi posted that picture with a simple caption of “Met a lot of fans while out today, including this one,” there were a lot of comments. Both of their hearing aids were visible, so it was kind of obvious why Hitoshi chose that one to post. It had yet to appear in mainstream media, but Hitoshi bet that he'd be editing it for the website soon enough. The picture also shot up Katsuki's approval ratings, but Hitoshi noticed that Katsuki wore the hearing aids maybe a little more confidently than he might've before. He didn't say anything about that.
At the moment, it was only a day after that, so a lot of comments were still coming in from that post. Hitoshi wasn't surprised they got a lot of them, but the actual amount was a little shocking. As Hitoshi was scrolling through those notifications, a DM alert showed up. He switched over to it, recognizing the name as a children's medical care company. Katsuki now had his face buried into the junction of Hitoshi's neck and shoulder, so he didn't see.
“Hey, we just got a message from some kid medical thing. Want me to read it outloud?” Hitoshi said. Katsuki didn't move to look, just nodded slowly. He was tired when he got back from work, so Hitoshi wouldn't make him even if it was a small thing. “Hello, we are representatives from a company that focusing on the care for children who are mute or have hearing issues. We understand that you use hearing aids, correct? We were wondering if you would be willing to make an appearance for some of the kids. An answer will be required by Friday so we have time to plan. Please consider our offer, and thank you for reading our proposal.”
“...Seriously?” Katsuki mumbled. Hitoshi nodded. He reached up with his free hand and messed with some of Katsuki's hair. “Come with me to work tomorrow, you can show 'em and they'll sort it out.”
“And because I have to meet your boss, right?” Hitoshi sighed. Katsuki nodded. “Wanna watch some shitty TV?”
“Yeah.”