Work Text:
Those four...they had something I never had when I first entered U.A: determination. Even if they were afraid, even if they were nervous, it never showed. If there was anything behind those confident smilesーa final toast for everything we all had been throughーcould it be sadness? Hesitation? Regret?
Knowing them, even if there were anything behind their displays of confidence, they were still great people who will make history, people with enough potential to be awknowledged by both the present and the futureーvessels of bravery and of triumph.
One of them was Katsuki Bakugou.
//ground zero//
He was a man of worth.
Yes, definitely worth. A man that reminds me of gold medals, trophies, and victory. A man that smelled of sweet, sweet triumph and honour. Someone who could be remembered for years to come. Someone worthy of remembrance, especially for his uniqueness as a hero that never really had a hero-like attitude. He was a great hero, nonetheless.
That was just who we was at first glance, though.
Inside, he wasn't exactly all victory, all success and all wins. On the contrary, he wasn't that far either.
He was New Year's Eve. Yes, New Year's Eve. The sound of firecrackers and the white noise laying low behind the children's laughter; the spark that enlightened the otherwise dark field where people gathered to celebrate another year of staying alive. The calmness you feel when fireworks were exploding in the sky and people scream numbers counting down the final days of the year. There was something bittersweet in having "explosion" and "final" in a sentence that describes an event so happy. Bakugou Katsuki was that bittersweetness because believe it or not, the livid-by-default Katsukiーout of all peopleーhad the most remarkable calm side out of anyone I knew.
He held a certain kind of excitement within him. A calm side of excitement. Something like...
Something like wonder of seeing something for the first time. Yes, that kind of excitement. When you are so amazed you could only stare.
He was the surge of excitement when your parents drag you to the streets to watch the colorful parade floats go by, catching glimpses of people in creative costumes dancing a unique dance you never had the chance to learn. He was the smiles on the satisfied adults' faces, and he was also the wonder in the eyes of the children who had seen such festive atmosphere for the first time. He was the silent, shy hand reaching out to yours when you seem too caught up with the giant floats and music, because you might get lost in the dense festival crowd.
In a way, maybe he himself is bittersweet. In the years I knew him, he had always been kind of mean to me. I admit I got incredibly angry at him once or twice before, and we never really got on exactly good terms, but I knew enough. I knew enough to know who he really was, just like how everybody else knew enough as well. He extended a shy hand out of a small crack in his heart and invited us in, and after some adjusting he finally accepted it.
I admit I like it that he was still the same Katsuki, because he acts like he did not cry his heart out to us once.
He was so conflicted that he might as well replace Shouto as Half and Half. He was silent, then he was shouting, then he coughs and he was silent again. He is still having issues, but who doesn't?
I remember his screams. It was full of anguish, as if he was been burning in fires as hot as hell's ever since he was born. As if rats lively scratch his chest out in search for his heart to feast on. It was full of pain.
His screams when Deku fell down the building was the same as the scream he heaped up his curses with on the same guy. Both were full of pain in varying amounts and visibility. It was actually good for him: he finally accepted in that moment that he is concerned for someone else but himself for once. He accepts that Deku wasn't the one that changed, because it was him all along. He finally accepts he was the one that was wrong.
I know I was in no place to speak; it was a matter between childhood friends whose friendship I only witnessed for three out of twelve-something years. But as a classmate, and as Deku's close friend, I had the place to speak that I was glad he improved. I actually had the opportunity to see him accept his inner conflict, and even though I hate him (less and less), I'm still happy for him.
He held both peace and war. He was the silence that hang over a fighting newly-married couple. After their throats were rashed, after they shouted all the worst things one could say to someone they loveーafter they ran out of words to say, Katsuki was both the screams and silence that follows. It was utterly amazing and I doubt someone else could have noticed that too.
Oh, and another thing: if Deku was the day...
Katsuki was the night.
He is quick. Quick in running, quick in moving past hurdles, quick in thinking, all that stuff. If he was a heart monitor, the heart would race. He was like the night, dark and silent, but it had always been up to you whether or not it held meaning.
Katsuki was actually mysterious, his words never really solidified any assumptions of what could be inside his mind and heart. If there was anyone who knew, it would be Kirishima or Deku. In those rare silent moments, where he was actually calm enough to teach Kirishima quadratic functions without Kirishima being shouted at, I remember something like night beach walks. A couple walking at the shore barefoot, leaving their footprints for the waves to erase, whispering inaudible declarations of love.
Not that Kirishima and Katsuki never actually did that before.
He was also the fear you feel when your lover disappears by your bedside the next morning. He was the longing feeling that makes you hug the clothes your lover purposefully left for you to hold while they were gone.
He was the notebook on your dresser that was filled with sticky notes filled with little messages your sneaky lover left. Sometimes those sticky notes were left right at your bedside, or stuck to the mirror and sometimes, even to your bedroom mirror. I don't know why, but when I was alone with Katsuki on that one evening at Deku's for a project and I was left alone with him in utter silence, he just gave off that feeling. I feel like he would leave soon. Not that I'd miss him or anything, but he gave off that temporary atmosphere just by being silent.
And to add, when we rescued a children from a burning orphanage from one of our last year internships, I saw him kiss a crying infant's head so gently only for it to stop crying. If anything, I could joke by myself that the child was only crying because it was Ground Zero who is holding him, but the expression on his face that isn't a scowl or a smirk was rare.
And from that kiss, I concluded that he was the kiss your sneaky lover gives you in the morning. The one that is both a goodmorning kiss and a goodbye kiss. You would never know, of course, since you are still fast asleep and clinging to their chest, but they will and always be gone the moment the sun rises.
And that one time I was partnered up with him at this one twisted game of hide and seek All Might organized as a training? We spent serious alone time in the woods in silence and I could still remember how weird it was for him to purposefully avoid stepping on the flowers, even if it meant he might get seen (he did). Back then, I thought he just had a thing for flowers because he used to take care of his mother's garden or something, but when Deku and I entered his room to fetch something he needed (it was a miracle he let us enter his room), I saw small tin cans by his window and I just had to spend a short while staring into the feeling of relaxation seeing flowers at Katsuki's window.
He had a small potted plant that looked like vines by his window pane, on a shelf beside a tin robot figurine I remembered as a common middle school project. To think he was just as sappy as the rest of us somehow made me...nostalgic for the girl I once was. Heck, it was bizarre for me to feel nostalgic for the girl I am not yet.
Now that I thought about it, it just occured to me that Katsuki isn't always angry anymore. Todoroki-kun could even wake him up nowadays without being shouted at or being punched in the baby-maker. He was still silent in terms of how often he spoke, but when he did he still had that large volume on his natural voice alone. One thing that makes him silent is when he is drinking or eating.
It all started on second-yearーthat when someone mentions Bakugou Katsuki to me, I would picture a blond guy with a soda can on his hand and kicking pebbles as he went back to his home from the convenience store vending machine at midnight. At first year, he wasn't exactly silent in any way, shape or form. But life happens and even the most stubborn have to grow up, too.
He would probably kick the pebbles as far as he could; he would be that absent-minded late night urges.
"Uraraka?" he mentioned, turning to me as leaves fell down onto piles on our ankles. "You haven't touched your drink at all."
Finally, when he had that one mini-play at second-year, he got the lead role: a man who is feigning happiness just to cheer up the woman he loved. In one of the musical scenes (he refused to sing, so it was him lip-synching Ojiro's voice), he pulled up a pierrot's mask on his face and that was the most memorable part in the play for me.
Because for me, Bakugou Katsuki is the pierrot mask which inside was stained with black tear stains.