Chapter Text
Loneliness
Four-year-old Katsuki was convinced he was the best of the best.
A tiny voice at the back of his head warned him it wasn't possible. There'll be someone, a lot of people, in fact, that will eventually surpass him.
He shook it away.
He felt like the king of the world.
Deku.
That annoying quirkless loser who always tagged along behind him.
He couldn’t understand why someone so worthless could even come close to making him feel threatened.
Threatened by what? He didn’t know. He didn’t want to know.
He just felt belittled, vulnerable, weak, when he was around Deku.
So at age five, Katsuki decided that he hated Izuku Midoriya.
On his sixth birthday, Katsuki and the Bakugou Hero Agency, Deku included, were running around in the park when Katsuki and Izuku collided with one another.
They both fell hard onto the rocky ground. Bare skin scraping against the rough surface.
Katsuki immediately scrambled back on his feet and glared at Deku while dusting himself off. The skin of his palms and knees felt like they were on fire. He didn’t care to look. He didn’t want to see the damage.
But Deku burst into tears, he cried and cried and cried. He didn’t stop crying when his friends tried to pull him to his feet, he didn’t stop crying when a few adults nearby walked over to check if he was okay, he didn’t stop crying when Katsuki yelled at him to stop crying and grabbed his hand to lead him back home.
Mitsuki and Inko were chatting about their kids while enjoying tea when a bloody Katsuki and Izuku came tumbling through the door.
Inko comforted Izuku as she asked Mitsuki for disinfectant and bandaids, carefully cleaning up her son’s scraped knees.
Katsuki shoved his throbbing hands into his pockets, he turned away from Deku, and stomped off to his own room. He heard Inko call after him, asking whether he was hurt as well. He answered with the slam of a door.
It wasn’t until he was in the safety of his own confined space that Katsuki looked at his hands and knees.
It wasn’t that bad. Deku was just making a big fuss over nothing.
Still, the painful throb from undried scrapes made Katsuki wince a little.
He kinda wanted a bandaid as well.
Screw that.
Not wanting to touch anything to dirty the exposed wounds, Katsuki just sat on the edge of his bed, with his arms resting on his thighs, palms dangling midair, waiting for Deku and his mum to leave.
When he finally heard the closing of the front door, he went to the bathroom and washed the dried blood down the drain. When he turned off the tap, he turned to see his mum looking at him. She didn’t say a word as she sat back down on the sofa, watching TV.
There was a weird feeling in his tiny mind, a weird, weird feeling. A tingle, a throb, kinda like how his hands and knees felt, except the feeling was in his chest.
He didn’t know what it was. He didn’t want to know.
By age fourteen, Katsuki had had his life mapped out.
He was going to be the number one Hero, definitely.
To do that, he had to get good grades first, to get out of his shitty middle school and into the best high school in Japan, UA.
He also needed to pass the practical exam. He wasn’t worried about that. He was born for battle. His quirk is on a whole new level compared to the extras around him.
He was going to be the best, and there was no one who could stop him.
Especially not Deku.
Then it happened.
The sludge villain attack.
Deku.
All Might.
Katsuki felt his lungs burn, screaming for air, revolting slime slithering down his throat.
Hell no, I’m not getting taken down by a lame-ass villain like this.
I’ve still got to go to UA. This can’t be it.
He snapped his eyes open, staring wildly at the crowd looking at him.
They were smiling.
Some teenagers were excitedly giggling with each other, an old lady on the right grinning at him, as if marvelling at the entire thing. A man in the front shouted inaudible words to him, then laughed and waved.
Why are you smiling?
Why?
Katsuki felt his eyes water, whether it was from the slime forcing its way down into his insides or something else, he didn’t know.
He didn’t want to know.
Eventually, he was rescued.
Damn Deku. No one asked for his help.
His face was plastered over every local news channel and newspaper for the following week.
They called him, “The sludge victim” “Brave Aldera middle-schooler” “Slime hostage”.
He hated every single one of those labels that would stick with him well into his UA days.
The sports festival.
He had worked himself to the bone for two whole months before the event, not to mention the effort he had been putting into his quirk for the past ten years.
He trained every day at the crack of dawn and after school hours at ground beta.
Inside the destroyed building where he and Deku first fought.
He had considered it his first loss, apart from the whole slime villain deal. And he swore it would be his last.
He fought with all his might during the tournament.
He defeated opponent after opponent, fair and square. Until Todoroki.
The icy hot bastard.
“There’s no point if I can’t go higher than Deku!” He had yelled.
He regretted saying those words later on when he thought about it. How pathetic would he have to be to associate himself with a useless scum like Deku?
“Why are you even standing there in the first place if you aren’t trying to win?”
Katsuki lost that day. He knew he did.
He was no idiot. He had seen Todoroki’s power before, and shuddered slightly at the thought of it. Todoroki’s quirks were strong, much stronger than his.
He knew Todoroki was Endeavour’s son way before the tournament.
He assumed Endeavour must’ve trained him well. But not in the way it actually turned out. He heard every word of Icy hot and Deku’s conversation.
“Focus on the match, that’s all I give a damn about. Your family and your feelings, none of that crap matters.”
He thought it would’ve made a difference.
When he pledged to win before the fight, he was giving himself one last mental boost to face off Todoroki. Icy Hot was his biggest opponent.
Katsuki wasn’t sure if he could defeat him. But he had to try. Use the tournament as a means to finally get rid of his inner doubt of not being able to beat Todoroki. To preserve his pride.
He had worked so hard for this.
“The stronger the quirk, the more imprecise the attack.”
So hard.
“What, am I not good enough for your flames?”
This is what it all comes down to.
“Show everyone you’re trying to destroy me!”
Now.
“Howitzer Impact!”
No.
He didn’t win.
Clutching that cold piece of metal as he walked home, Katsuki wanted to scream.
Todoroki’s face. Deku’s face. Todoroki’s fire. Deku’s broken body. Todoroki’s indifference. Deku’s condescension.
It was all too much.
Katsuki growled under his breath. Infuriated, he chucked the gold medal in front of him as far as he could. It hit the sidewalk with a dull clang.
Katsuki looked around. People were staring at him, discussing in hushed whispers, and pointing at him when they thought he wasn’t looking.
Biting his lip, Katsuki walked forward until he was standing above the medal. It sparkled beautifully in the setting sun.
He had dreamt of holding that medal for months.
Now he just wanted to leave it there to rot.
People continued to walk past him, catching glimpses of his face as they hurried away.
Katsuki felt a lump rise in his throat. There was a squeezing pain in his chest.
He left that feeling and the medal there on that sidewalk.
The summer training camp. The League of Villains. Kamino.
Katsuki saw how his classmates were injured. He saw Deku, the way his arms hung uselessly at his sides as he was carried by Shoji. He saw the terrified expression Deku wore, screaming “Kacchan!” at the top of his lungs, as he was taken away by the throat through that damn black portal.
Katsuki wondered if, at that moment, his expression was the same.
He hoped it wasn’t.
Disgusting. Everything about the entire thing disgusted him to the core. There’s no other word to describe the way he felt.
Disgusted by the way his classmates risked their own lives for him, to fail nonetheless. He hated the wince on Todoroki’s face when one of Moonfish’s blades sliced through the ice and hit his shin. He hated how he felt momentary concern for Deku’s wellbeing when he saw him in that beaten state. All so fucking disgusting.
Why?
Why’d they all risk that much for him?
Was it even fucking worth it?
Wouldn’t they all be better off without him around?
Is fucking altruism the definition of heroism?
Was he wrong this entire time?
Is that why he’s being treated as a villain instead?
Or is it because he’s weak?
Strapped on a metal chair, feeling the tug of hard leather on his wrists and ankles, Katsuki’s body was still but his mind racing a mile a minute. He didn’t know what to think. He didn’t know what to feel. Fatigue was creeping up on him, coursing through his muscles and brain, so he let his mind go blank.
The rescue.
The moment Katsuki saw Kirishima’s extended hand and shout “come!”, he managed to feel the first positive emotion he had felt in the past two days of hell. He felt hope, actual hope as he grasped Kirishima’s hand. He couldn’t even hide the grin spread across his face.
He hadn’t realised he had actually felt hopeless before then. That a small voice at the back of his head told him no one was coming for him, and he was acknowledged by the world as one of the villains.
He felt relieved when they landed on solid ground again. Maybe it was all over.
Please no more. he still wanted his old life back. Please. Just let things go back to normal. Let him continue on with his life. Let him act like none of it ever happened. Please. Enough.
Then Kamino happened.
Everything that could’ve gone wrong fucking went wrong.
All Might’s smile was gone. His once muscular body replaced by a frail skeleton.
Hushed whispers around him.
Everyone’s eyes on the jumbotron, none were on Katsuki.
But he couldn’t help but feel like he was in the centre of it all.
No God please no.
It’s all his fucking fault.
Kamino happened so fast and ended so suddenly like a dream, more like a nightmare, actually. Katsuki could almost convince himself it was all in his head. That after everything blows over, All Might will still be how he’d always been, standing tall and victorious as the Symbol of Peace.
But he won’t.
Because everyone around him was cheering for All Might’s win. Everyone but Deku.
Deku was crying.
Something panged painfully in Katsuki’s guts. Something told him his façade of normalcy that he was desperately holding up had been completely torn apart in that moment. That nothing will be the same anymore.
Standing in a crowd of hundreds, Katsuki wished he could disappear.
No one asked if he was okay after he was brought away by the police for questioning. Not the police, not his fuming mother, not his teachers.
It’s not like they don’t care, right?
It’s just because he’s strong and they know it.
He doesn’t need their pity.
He’s perfectly fine.
Because Katsuki’s still Katsuki. He’ll still be the No.1 Hero.
He can still be a hero. Right?
Katsuki wasn’t sure if he believed himself. His definition of being a hero seemed cracked, on the verge of completely shattering, and he’s holding the pieces together with everything he had as he continued life from day to day.
What is he even, if he can’t even be a hero?
End of part one