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This is for the best...
Bullshit.
I don’t want anyone to be hurt.
Fucking idiot.
Katsuki yanks on his boots and laces them up with a groan, glancing at the crumpled up piece of paper in the corner of his pristine, tidy dorm bedroom.
He hates the sight - littering is against his nature, and so is indecision, but he can’t decide what to do with it. There is a war inside of his mind - half of him wants to blow it up to its atoms, obliterate the evidence of his weakness, another part wants to smooth it out and put away into the shoebox under his bed, filled with mementos of could-have-beens that he can’t look at without descending into a panic attack, but also can’t part with.
So the crumpled letter stays where it is - in the corner.
Kacchan, ...I know you understand why...
No, he doesn’t understand. Or he does, but that’s even worse.
He runs his fingers through his hair and rubs his tired, burning eyes. After the third sleepless night, he’s ready to fucking claw the useless things out himself. Him, Bakugou fucking Katsuki, who kept a strict schedule of rest to optimize his strength now spends his nights tossing and turning and staring at darkened ceilings while his mind is spinning around in useless circles.
He knows that he’s not the only one. The entire dorm has been groaning with sleeplessness every night. Instead of the usual normal buzz and laughter noise, it was wrapped in an oppressive kind of silence that also wasn’t really a silence. It was something disgusting and unnerving, a sinister pulsing of muffled cries, fists driving into walls and nightmares escaping through open windows. A collective sigh of sickening defeat.
Katsuki sighs as he steps out of his room. He pauses briefly in front of the neighboring door as he hears the rhythmic thumps of a fist connecting with a punching bag. Shitty Hair was never an early riser, but sleep clearly evades him too this time. Katsuki has gathered enough to understand what went down on the B-side of this clusterfuck to have a suspicion of what nightmare haunts the spiky idiot. He raises his fist to knock, but then hesitates and pauses. In truth, even if he knocked, he wouldn’t know what to say.
So instead, he turns and hurries down the stairs and enters the empty and dark common room. Scratch that. The common room is not empty, he notes, as he spots a sleeping Ponytail curled up on the couch, a thick chemistry book still open in her lap as if she could somehow make things right by memorizing more compounds.
It’s fucking obvious what haunts her, the same thing haunts Katsuki too, haunts them all. Wrecking their brains what they could have done better, more, different. Because heroes always win and smile and stand victorious with fists held high. At least that’s what they were led to believe.
And now? Now they have been tested by real fire and real villains and found themselves to be lacking.
So what does it mean? Where do they go from here?
There are many things Katsuki hates in life: neckties, sticky sweets and pointless chatter, but most of all, he hates losing. He hates the bitter taste of defeat. Like puke stuck in one’s throat. That nauseating squeeze in his stomach that tells him he isn’t good enough, that all the praise in the world can’t hide the fact that he is still fucking weak. Pathetic. Q.E.D. Exposed and proven as such.
I know … you’ll take care of everyone.
It’s all a fucking joke. As if he was the caring type. He grabs the light throw-blanket from the armchair and wraps it around Ponytail with a barely audible tchk. He takes the book from her lap and places it on the low table, making sure to bookmark the page it was open to. What a dumbass. As if late-night cramming changed anything for the better.
He combs through the kitchen cabinet and notices that whichever idiot was responsible for setting the rice cooker, forgot to do it last night. With Lunch Rush now taking care of the impromptu refugee camp on the UA campus, they did more of the cooking themselves. So Katsuki washes the rice, rinsing it five times, taking care that the water is clear and starts the appliance before he leaves. It should be ready by the time the others get up.
With no other options, he munches on a protein bar that tastes like sawdust while he waits outside, kicking a pebble on the concrete.
He snorts full of bitterness thinking back how he used to think Deku was the pebble. It turns out he was fucking wrong, once again. Because Katsuki is the pebble, thrown to the roadside once its usefulness is done.
He has been such a gullible idiot. Win and save, save and win, greatest heroes together - all this sappy bullshit - he believed it. He believed it and he put himself out there, busting his ass off, helping the shitty nerd with his training and exposing his darkest secrets to All Might. And now they left him behind like he was useless, just a pebble to be stepped on.
He is stuck here on shitty little missions, arguing with fucking extras who think black-market support items suddenly make them heroes, while stupid Deku is out there, slaying monsters and getting stronger, getting ready to save everyone…To win all by himself.
I have to make it right...
He feels angry tears bubbling up his throat and he swallows them down. He has given everything and it wasn’t enough. Why is he never enough?
His useless thoughts are interrupted by approaching footsteps echoing in the silence. Katsuki knows them well, the cadence, the rhythm - he heard it many times in the early hours of dawn bleeding into daylight.
The footsteps come to a halt when they reach him and Katsuki glances sideways. Todoroki’s face is a stony mask, jaws tight, gaze icy like a frozen pond, only the dark circles under his eyes bear traces of the sleepless nights that Katsuki knows about. Because the halfie bastard happens to be his upstairs neighbour and even the tatami mats don’t completely swallow his restless pacing.
Katsuki pulls himself out of his pity-party, because if there is someone who has more right to be miserable, it’s this stone-faced bastard who has been putting himself out there every day, doing their shitty little grunt-level job without a complaint, ignoring hostile stares, rude whispers, cutting remarks. And Katsuki bristles at the unfairness of it all, but he doesn’t say anything, because he knows Todoroki doesn’t want pity, and not giving him any is the only kindness Katsuki knows how to extend. He’s not cut out for caring.
“Let’s go. Burnin’ sent me all the zones we need to cover today,” Todoroki remarks without raising his eyes from his phone screen as they fall into step, their boots trampling over the carpet of wilted cherry blossoms.
Because his mind is a tired tangle of web connecting elusive past and a future that may never exist, Katsuki somehow thinks of a day only some weeks ago when the first buds appeared and when there was three of them trotting on this pavement, engaged in a cheerful three-way banter and for an ephemeral moment Katsuki felt like his life was finally on the right track. As a hero and as a person. That they’d be always like this; side-by-side-by-side and in sync, leaving behind the past scars and sins and walking towards something better and brighter.
That ephemeral moment of optimism seems like a far-away memory now, and the silence that stretches between him and Todoroki is tense, transporting Katsuki back to the days of the remedial course, when they walked like this all the time, hurt, shell-shocked, both of them imprisoned in self-built walls that did nothing to hide the shame and exposed nerves.
They will need you...
Katsuki thinks of what shitty Deku would do now. He would probably look at Todoroki with searching eyes, wide and soft with concern, and ask if he was OK, but Katsuki doesn’t deal in softness or compassion. He resents being left here to try to hold invisible threads; to make sure that they don’t come apart at the seams.
Deku should be doing this, because Todoroki is his bestie, not Katsuki’s. He has his own idiot brigade back at the dorm looking at him with questioning eyes like he has some answers, like he knows how to make it better.
Well, he fucking doesn’t.
All of this is bullshit. And Katsuki has been exposed for the impostor he always suspected himself to be. Greatest idiot of them all.
The morning breeze whirls the cement dust into the air, into his nose and mouth. It tastes like destruction that he didn’t stop.
The silence is broken by loud growling. Katsuki stops in his tracks and glares at Todoroki.
“You skipped breakfast, didn’t you?” he asks harshly.
The halfie bastard just shrugs, “I wasn’t hungry.”
Katsuki pulls an energy pouch out of his pocket, those disgusting orange ones Aizawa sensei favours and chucks it in Todoroki’s direction. “Eat.”
Todoroki returns the angry gaze and they are locked in a ridiculous staring match over an energy pouch, but then Katsuki’s phone chimes, and Todoroki blinks and sighs. He twists the cap off and sucks on the pouch without further tantrums, while Katsuki checks the phone.
It’s the hag, messaging him to go join them for dinner. Yeah, right. Never. The last thing Katsuki wants is to see his parents. He’s been on edge, and they are unbearable even on his good days. He leaves his mother on read and continues walking in the direction of zone 492, the first one of the day.
“He’s fine, you know…” Todoroki says quietly, the pouch still hanging between his teeth. Katsuki’s head snaps back at him questioningly. Did he hear something from Endeavor or Hawks? But Todoroki soon clarifies by rambling on that he doesn’t know shit either... “Probably… We would know otherwise...”
So Katsuki disguises his disappointment with a loud “tchk” and snaps at the halfie, “I didn’t ask.” He lets his palms crackle with explosions and boosts himself up the air. “Come on, let’s take a short-cut.”
Todoroki seems at loss for a moment as he contemplates the empty pouch and looks around trying to locate a trash can, which is ridiculous because the whole area is reduced to rubble. But then he comes to a decision and ignites it in his hand, reducing it to ash before leaping up in the air in a sharp, elegant arc.
Katsuki thinks about how the bastard kept flopping at first - was it barely three months ago? Still, he’s not as fast as Katsuki is, and has a ways to catch up when it comes to mid-air movement. So his palms crackles again and he twists and ducks just to clear his mind as the air whistles in his ears. From up here, the rubble is not so visible and the air is clearer. For a moment, it almost feels good to be alive.
-0-
Five cleared districts, twelve small-time shitty villains and countless whiny, passive-aggressie or just simply aggressive civilians later Katsuki is ready to deliver on the murder part of his new hero name. Which the shitty nerd didn’t even hear, which sucks because that was kind of the point in the first place. Delivering on a childhood promise…
Does Deku even remember?
Whatever. He’s not going to stew about stuff like that, when he has other things to worry about, like that shitty criminal that is currently squirming under his boot as he’s watching Todoroki trying to help the stranded extras from the crumbling building (demolished by misuse of the shitty support items) using an ice-slide he’s constructed for them. He holds his hand out to a little brat but his mother pulls the kid back hugging him close and Katsuki feels a violent urge to scream in her stupid, entitled face but Todoroki just pulls back and makes himself small, his features as impassive as ever.
Katsuki bristles quietly because none of this is fair and all of it is infuriating. They are busting their asses off for these extras just to be looked at as if they were lepers and as if…
Is this what they were fighting for? What was the point anymore?
And could this shitty, fucking day be already over?
-0-
It’s close to dusk when they make it back to campus.
They barely cross the gate before Todoroki splits off saying something about seeing his mother and Katsuki just shrugs because it’s not his business. He walks alone back towards the dorm, when his peripheral vision catches something hurling at high speed towards his head. His body moves on instinct before his brain can catch up and that’s how he finds himself glaring at an exploded football and two crying brats looking up at him through fearful eyes.
This is why the whole turning the school into a giant refugee camp was a really stupid idea… His instinct is to yell at the snotty kids to stop playing so close to their dorm but he grits his teeth starting to count back from ten, still locked in a staring match with the boys.
The deadlock is solved when Ponytail comes out of the dorm to investigate the explosion, and rolls up her sleeve to pull a football out of her arm. The boys look at her like she has just performed a miracle, unsure whether it’s OK to take the ball that she tries to give them with a reassuring smile.
Having had enough of this stupidly awkward situation, Katsuki takes the ball from Yaoyorozou. “Tchk. It’s just a stupid ball. Not gonna explode...”
To demonstrate this, he juggles the ball a couple of times, alternating between his feet and letting it touch his heel as well. The brats’ eyes go round as saucers and for a second, Katsuki can see Deku wide-eyed and amazed, his whole face telegraphing “sugoi”. He misses that little… shit… whatever...he doesn’t need Deku to tell him when he’s amazing. He kicks the ball in an arc and the boys take off chasing after it.
Yaoyorozou looks like she wants to say something, but then bites her lips. “Was it ok today out there?”
Katsuki is not stupid and he knows what she’s getting at. It irritates him nevertheless. “Fucking snooze-fest,” he replies with a shrug and walks past Ponytail to march into his room, hopefully without further interruption. He wants to close his door and try to gather his thoughts and maybe decide what to do with the crumpled letter on the floor.
But his luck runs out at the bottom of the staircase where he runs into the Nerd Squad. When he tries to push past them, Uraraka plants herself in front of Katsuki all puffed up and determined, while Glasses and Frog Face just look on worriedly from a few steps behind.
“Where is Todoroki?” she asks.
Katsuki lets out a pained sigh. First Ponytail and now these nerds. If they are so fucking worried maybe they should be the ones keeping an eye on fucking Icyhot.
“If you are worried, why don’t you babysit him?” Katsuki snaps back, sarcasm dripping from his voice and shit, it comes out wrong because now suddenly it sounds like that’s what he’s doing. That he’s fussing over Todoroki. Well, he’s fucking not. They just happen to have been on the same internship.
“Apologies. We just want to make sure he’s doing well. He has not joined for any meals and skipped on our study group, and I think he…” Iida waves his arms in concern and Katsuki only avoids being accidentally whacked in the head because his instincts are impeccable and he ducks on time.
“You are the only one he doesn’t avoid, ribbit,” Frogface interjects bluntly.
“And why is that you think? Maybe he just can’t take you all looking at him like he’s damaged? Maybe he doesn’t want your fucking pity? Have you thought about that?” Katsuki spits out the obvious. At least to Katsuki. Aren’t they supposed to be Icyhot’s sweet friends?
“Oh,” Glasses seems to ponder his words, “I haven’t thought of it that way…”
“Well, you fucking should…” Katsuki mutters tiredly. “Now let me through…”
“Being worried, being there for your friends is not pity,” Roundface still doesn’t move. She stares at him with fire in her eyes and then her lips tremble and her voice gets a weird tone and Katsuki fervently hopes that the question doesn’t come.
But of course it does. “Do you know something...have you heard… about Deku?”
Katsuki has fucking had it. He grits his teeth, “Move.”
As Uraraka stands aside, Katsuki keeps his gaze fixed on the emergency exit sign above his door, so he doesn’t have to see the devastation on her face.
He makes it to his room without further interruption, closes the door behind himself and slides down to the floor, head buried between his knees. The crumpled letter from the corner mocks him for having a mini-panic attack after every interaction with his dumbass classmates.
I know … you’ll take care of everyone.
“What do you know, Deku? You don’t know shit,” Katsuki whisper-sobs into the quiet of the room and great… now he’s crazy enough to talk to a crumpled piece of paper that he doesn’t want to finish reading, because apparently he’s too fucking weak even for that.
Because he knows what it will say.
You got what you wanted all this time, Kacchan. You finally got rid of me. Katsuki’s fist bangs on the floor, knuckles bruising and the pain is welcome, because Deku didn’t say that. Deku doesn’t think like that. It’s the monsters in Katsuki’s own mind that talk like that. Those fucking shady bastards that turn him also into a monster if he lets them.
It’s just the weird tiredness of the day of both too much and not enough happening and there’s excess energy still buzzing under his skin. He needs somewhere to channel it - preferably other than punching holes on his floor or on the wall.. So Katsuki decides that maybe running himself to exhaustion could earn him a good night sleep and quiet the demons. Yeah, a run would be good.
He changes into a tanktop and calf-length sweatpants, puts his phone into his running armband and earbuds in his ear. Once outside his door, he starts scrolling through his playlists trying to find the punk-rock running tracks that Ears sent him just a few weeks ago. He looks up when he hears the door handle click.
Kirishima sticks out his head and his shitty hair is not even in spikes, but lethargically flops down. It irritates Katsuki. He prefers those ridiculous horns that take 15 minutes to form every morning.
“Are you ok?” he asks much more quietly than his normal voice.
This is all wrong.
“Fine,” Katsuki says.
“I’ve heard...something..” Kirishima hesitates, but the question in his eyes is loud and clear.
Katsuki turns away. “Tchk. I was just getting changed to go for a run.”
“I could come with you,” Kirishima offers hesitantly.
Katsuki scoffs, “As if you could keep up.”
Fuck. That wasn’t… Katsuki is watching in horror as Kirishima’s face crumples when he was just stating a fact. A well-known fact that Katsuki is a much faster runner than Kirishima, especially when he’s wired like this. Why does everything feel so weird? He should say sorry, but that would be weird because he doesn’t really say sorry ever...
Katsuki inhales, “Look, I didn’t mean…”
“It’s ok.”
... But no it’s not ok. Nothing is fucking ok. And now Katsuki has to come up with something to fix this and also get the hell out before he blasts the whole place to pieces.
“I just need to push this one hard, and I… need to be alone, I think. But if you can get yourself out of bed tomorrow, we can go lift in the morning… or punch some shit…”
Kirishima looks up, this time a genuine small smile appearing on his lips. “Yeah, that would be good. I’ll be there.”
Katsuki nods and feels a bit lighter as he starts sprinting down the stairs and behind the dorm. He pushes himself to get his heart pumping hard to get rid of this naggly feeling. If he runs fast enough he surely can’t be left behind. He’s working up a good layer of sweat and focused on his breathing trying to keep a steady rhythm of exhales and inhales on every two steps.
Once he finds his zone, his mind starts to wander again, and if he closed his eyes, maybe he could hear the tiny, familiar voice behind him “Kacchan, wait…”
They were together always. In kindergarten. Elementary. Middle school. The nerd followed him even into UA. Two planets orbiting each other. Gravitational push and pull. For the first time they are misaligned, hurling into the desolate vacuum of the infinity with no reference point. It’s terrifying. Maybe Deku also feels the same. Probably not though. He’s got All Might all to himself. And the Top 3. He’s gone ahead to play in the big leagues, leaving Katsuki behind to take care of his dumbass friends.
Well, he’s not going to be left behind.
He increases his speed, muscles burning and the pain is welcome, focusing the chaos swirling in his mind.
As he rounds around Gym Gamma, smoke fills his nostrils. Alarmed, he goes closer to investigate it. He opens the door to reveal a raging inferno, with Todoroki standing in the middle of it, left arm outstretched, expression focused.
Katsuki did spend a long enough time around Endeavor to recognize Prominence Burn… or some version of it, as Halfie lifts his right arm and the room is engulfed in scalding steam.
“What the hell do you think you are doing?” Katsuki yells so his voice can be heard over the roaring, hissing sound created by whatever Todoroki is attempting to do.
“What does it look like?” is the deadpan answer he’s graced with.
“It looks like some fucking idiot who tries to do quirk training without supervision, that’s what… What do you think happens if you pass out from the heat or something? Have you thought of that?” Katsuki retorts angrily.
There are rules in place and it’s not like he’s a stickler for rules like Class Prez is, but some of them have good fucking reasons.
“I won’t pass out.”
Katsuki bites his tongue about the wildfire started by Todoroki’s undead brother, because it’s a wasp nest he’s not ready to poke.
He tries to take the empathetic angle instead. “Look, I get it. You and I - we should be doing this out there, not the grunt-level shit.”
Todoroki shrugs, seemingly indifferent. “It’s hero work and it needs to be done.”
“Yeah, and any scrub could do it,” Katsuki places his hands on his hips. “It doesn’t need to be us. Doesn’t it make you feel weak?”
Todoroki turns around to face him with a sigh. “Why are you doing this?”
“What do you mean?” Katsuki is taken aback by the question.
“You don’t have to babysit me. I can ask to be paired with one of the sidekicks...”
Indeed why. He could be out there with Kirishima or Kaminari, and yet…
“We are teammates.” It’s not the whole truth, but it’s close enough. They are in this together.
“Teammates,” Todoroki scoffs bitterly. There is an unmistakable flash of irritation on his face and it’s better than the expressionless robot Katsuki has spent the last few days with, so he sinks his claws in further to make sure to pull out whatever is festering there.
“Yeah.. you got a problem with that?”
“You don’t get to lecture me about teammates,” hisses Todoroki, stepping closer. “Teammates don’t ditch each other. Teammates don’t lie. Teams are about trust,” his voice rises with each word and his eyes are flashing with cold rage and finally there is something bubbling to the surface. But as sudden as the emotion came, he deflates. He steps back, slightly shaking his head. “I thought we were in it together, but now it’s all...”
“...broken.” Katsuki finishes for him quietly. “Doesn’t it make you mad?”
“Of course it makes me angry. It makes me furious,” Todoroki’s chest heaves as he speaks. “But I can’t.”
Katsuki steps closer this time, right into Todoroki’s space. “Why the hell not? You are not a fucking robot… This shit is all unfair and it’s not your fault…and just get mad...”
“What good does it do to be angry? So I can be like my old man or Touya?” The bastard shoves him away.
There is a push, but it’s not enough. They need more, so Katsuki pushes back. It’s like a playground squabble. It’s ridiculous, but maybe they both need something to fight against.
“It’s not the same. Fuck… you are not them…Don’t you get that? You are nothing like them... Shit… Avoiding your stupid friends who are chewing on their kidneys with worry and not eating and repressing shit...and not talking to anyone...”
“And you? Aren’t you doing the same?” Todoroki roars. And Katsuki stops in his tracks, but the halfie continues. “You think I don’t see what you are doing? Using me as a charity case so you can avoid facing all of them?”
“SHUT UP!!!” Katsuki raises his fist that shatters the ice Todoroki puts up to avoid the punch and it’s finally there. All out in the open. Something to push against.
Katsuki blasts himself to a platform and Todoroki throws more ice at him, still yelling. “And you avoid talking about Midoriya because you can’t even admit to missing him.”
Boom. “SHUT UP. He left.” The ice blasts into a million shiny diamond-flakes.
The ice crackles, ragged edges coming towards Katsuki. “He is freaked out. You almost died. He almost died. We all almost died.”
Boom. “Fuck, I know. I KNOW,” screams Katsuki and he flips around to perch himself on another platform. “More.”
Give me something to fight, so I can fight myself, he pleads silently.
Todoroki blinks, but he seems to understand as he stomps out a monstrous iceberg, a glittering target for Katsuki’s pent-up rage.
“Die!!!” he screams as he spins into a Horowitzer impact, blood pumping and he finally feels alive.
A good ten minutes later they are lying side by side atop a carpet of ice-splinters, trying to get their breathing under control.
“Are you feeling better?” Todoroki asks quietly.
“Nah…” Katsuki suppresses a grin as he rotates into a shoulder stretch. It feels looser than it has in a long time. “Maybe a bit. You?”
“No. I...do...” Todoroki says quietly and as Katsuki raises an eyebrow in question, he elaborates. “I do feel weak. That’s why I’m going to get stronger. Because whatever happens next, this time I will be ready.”
“Fucking straight, we will be ready. Shitty Deku thinks he’s hot shot, but he'll see. Just don’t try to do it alone, dumbass,” Katsuki shrugs. “By the way, you need to practice your shitty aerial turns, you lose too much momentum.”
“Yeah? Well, the timing was off on the last AP blast…”
“It wasn’t, shut up.”
Todoroki huffs, but stays silent. Katsuki clears his throat.
“I’m… not good at this mushy shit that you and Deku did...and friendship talks and pinkie promises...”
“We don’t…”
Katsuki pushes on before he can change his mind. “And I don’t do shit I don’t want to… So…”
“So?” Todoroki asks, still too dumb to catch on.
Katsuki meets his gaze openly, “When you go out tomorrow, I will be there.”
He hopes that Todoroki gets the message, and it seems like he does, because after a stretch of silence, he replies quietly.
“Thank you.”
Katsuki stands up heavily. “We should get back to the dorm.”
Todoroki sighs surveying the disastrous mess. “I need to melt the ice first… Will you help?”
“Like a fucking baby… Have to do everything for you,” mutters Katsuki stomping towards the cleaning supplies.
“Maybe you are too tired...” Todoroki shoots back and a ghost of a smile appears on his face.
“As if a shitty spar with a half-assing nerd like you could ever tire me out…” Katsuki grumbles, hoping his voice doesn’t betray the big grin on his face. Because this is good. This banter is normal. It feels like them.
-0-
When they get to the dorm, Katsuki pauses and looks at Todoroki.
“So you will talk to the nerds?”
“I will,” Todoroki affirms and turns the question back at Katsuki. “Will you?”
The little shit.
“As if I’d let you win.”
“How do you win or lose in talking to your friends?” There is mirth in Todoroki’s eyes as he asks.
“I’ll make you eat those words, shithead,” Katsuki snaps, just to make sure that whatever the fuck happened in Gym Gamma, it doesn’t give Todoroki free license to mock him. “You’ll see it when I do it. I will obliterate you.”
Todoroki doesn’t look particularly concerned, but Katsuki’s threats have always rolled off of the bastard.
As they step inside, the commotion in the common room stops and everyone falls silent. There is some nervous shuffling and Bakugou catches Sero pushing on Kirishima, and Kaminari coughs and Racoon Eyes whispers something and everyone just looks weird.
“What the fuck is going on?” Katsuki barks. “What are you dumbasses staring at?”
Iida clears his throat and steps to the front. “We were not sure if it was appropriate, and Aizawa sensei did not give clear instructions and nor did the school rules provide anything in particular, and well, we had a vote. The overwhelming decision was that no matter what…”
“Get to the point,” Katsuki enunciates. “What’s going on?”
Kaminari grins and claps Sato on the shoulder pushing him towards the front, and Katsuki’s eyes fall on a big cake… For fuck’s sake...
“Happy birth...!” Kaminari exclaims, but Sero wraps tapes around his mouth before he can finish that sentence.
“Todoroki, light the thing…” whispers Mina and the cake is illuminated with dynamite-shaped candles and sparkles and a big orange X frosting.
Katsuki blinks, because yeah, it’s his fucking birthday. And like an idiot dumbass he forgot it was his birthday. It’s the first birthday he can remember without Deku, but it’s also the first birthday with these guys, because last year on Katsuki’s birthday they didn’t know each other that well yet. And certainly nobody wanted to celebrate him.
And something in his chest squeezes as he looks at the garishly decorated cake and back to his classmates who stare at him nervously, waiting whether he would explode…and Katsuki feels the urge to run away but... also not...
I know … you’ll take care of everyone.
… after all he just told Icyhot he’ll obliterate him in this friendship talk and this collective moping has gone on long enough and apparently somehow it falls now to Katsuki to make this somehow right…
So he clears his throat.
“I…fucking hate... I fucking hate losing.” Ok, maybe this is the wrong thing to say as they all stare at him with blank faces. Whatever. He will ace this, so he goes on. “It sucks. And that’s why I know how you all feel. Because I feel the same way too. Shit… I don’t know if we did the right thing out there. Probably there is a ton of stuff that we could have done better. But you… what you did… is why I’m alive. Why Deku is alive, and Icyhot and all of us there. And we lost but… I…lived to fight another day. And everything is shit out there, but until we are alive, we haven’t truly lost. So...thank you.”
Stunned silence. Ok, maybe Katsuki wasn’t nailing this?
“Oh. My. God.” Kaminari screeches. “Did you guys hear it? Kacchan said the T-word.”
“Shut the fuck up, Pikachu or I’ll kill you.”
“But I thought you just said staying alive was winning?” smartasses Kaminari and relieved giggles erupt from the room.
“We’ll win first and then I’ll kill you,” retorts Bakugou fighting a smirk and there is more grinning. Yeah, he can ace this all right. "The losing streak stops here..."
There are a scattering of cheers and fist pumps, and maybe they are not fully believing it yet, but they will.
“Do you think Deku can do it?” Ururaka asks nervously.
The laughter dies and the somber mood settles back over the room. Katsuki bites his lips.
“I… Look, I’ve known that stupid nerd longer than all of you. All his life, people, everyone - me too,” he swallows and the room is dead silent, “me especially - told him what he couldn’t do and he did all those things anyways, every time. So yeah, the little dumbass will do his best,” it comes out much softer than he intended, so he frowns and raises his voice. “But I’m not gonna let him outdo me. Whatever happens next, this time I’ll be ready to take it head on.”
There are some nods, but Katsuki still sees the doubt in their eyes, so he continues, trying to un-jumble the tangles in his mind into something tangible.
“It’s not only up to Deku. That All for One bastard and his minions are strong. And have all kinds of cheating quirks. And when I came here, I said I will be the strongest and I will win,” Someone dare to snort and Katsuki glares at the group feeling raw and exposed. “And looking at guys like Shigaraki and the nomu, you probably think it’s a joke. Well, it’s fucking not. I’m not giving up on finding out how strong I can get. And even if I turn out to be a fucking weakling and can’t beat someone like that alone, all of us, together we can be strong and we can win. I am here with y'all dumbasses and we will take on whatever or whoever comes our way. And this time we’ll be ready to show the shitty villains what it means to be a hero. All of us. We will help the shitty Nerd. So the moping stops now. Fucking plus ultra.”
The common room erupts in cheers and happy birthday wishes and just normal chatter. Katsuki looks around their faces and sees tears, sees smiles, sees determination, sees hope, sees all of his own feelings reflected. And he knows that they are with him. It is terrifying to reveal himself like this, but what he said was true. He used to want to win alone, to stand tall alone, but now, when he thinks of winning, he thinks of standing with them, all of them, stronger and better. He tries very hard to quash that wobbly-sweet feeling that starts in his stomach and threatens to find its way to his tear ducts. He doesn’t need to channel Deku quite so hard, thank you very much.
“Now give me the fucking cake.”
Katsuki blows out the candles on the fifth try, because the dynamites are those stupid trick candles that keep reigniting but he manages. Because this shitty losing streak has to stop somewhere, so it may as well be here and now.
“What did you wish for?” asks Mina.
“That’s for me to know, and you idiots to wander,” Katsuki barks, because he’s already at his limit with the mush and they don’t need to hear that what he wished for was that they get to celebrate all their 17th birthdays. There is no version of victory unless they all survive.
He bites into the cake and it’s a fucking good one as cakes are concerned. Dark, bitter chocolate, with just a hint of chili. Satou outdid himself on this one.
As the party subsides into a steady flow of chatter, Katsuki relaxes, happy to observe from the sidelines. Ochako floats Sero who tries to tape a huge “plus ultra” sign onto the ceiling.
Todoroki plops down next to him on the couch.
“So it turns out you can win at talking to your friends, huh,” he remarks.
“I fucking told you I would, shithead” gloats Katsuki because he deserves it. After two swings-and-miss, he did hit a homerun. “So don’t ever doubt me.”
“I won’t,” Todoroki promises. “Happy birthday.”
-0-
It’s past Katsuki’s bedtime when he finally finds himself alone in his room. The crumpled, half-read letter in the corner is his last wall to scale for the night.
He picks it up, smooths it out, stares at the characters, some crossed out, others smudged with tears.
“I did it, Deku. I will take care of the dumbasses, not because you asked me to, don’t get a big head. I do it because I want to. We will get stronger, you’ll see. Because, as long as I’m alive, I haven’t lost yet. We haven’t lost yet. So when you are ready… I’m here. We'll be here.”
He puts the letter into the shoebox under the bed, among crumpled All Might trading cards and childishly drawn birthday messages he received from Deku throughout the years.
Kacchan,
You probably figured out already that I won’t be coming back to UA. I’m sorry, but this is for the best… I don’t want anyone to be hurt anymore.
Kacchan, ...I know you understand why…
I need to make this right. I feel like I’ve left everyone down. You told me never to lose again, and I still did. But I will get stronger, I promise.
I think the others… maybe they won’t understand. They will need you...Kacchan.
Uraraka, Iida, my mom. And Todoroki. I can’t imagine how hard it is for him right now.
But I know … you’ll take care of everyone. I know it.
Thank you… for… well you know everything. And sorry for missing your birthday.
Happy birthday, Kacchan.