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Once upon a time, Katsuki had been kind.
It was what heroes did: stopping bad guys in their tracks and then turning around to comfort the civilians they had just saved. Heroes were kind. They answered questions for the press with smiles that only looked a little fake in the face of probing, too-personal questions. They talked to the people at the edges of crowds that tends to gather around the scene of a fight and signed autographs for their fans and held meaningless conversations with strangers over and over again.
Because it was kind, and heroes were always kind.
And Katsuki—Katsuki had always known he was going to be a hero. He was going to be the best hero, the indisputable number one. That meant he had to be the best at being kind, too.
For a while, it worked. He drew a lot of attention, even before his quirk came in. He led the other kids around on adventures on the playground, took them out in the woods where he walked the trails, played make-believe that they were already heroes and all they had to do was knock out the villain to win.
Then he got his quirk, and suddenly it seemed like everyone had something to say about it. Katsuki had known, even then, that he was going to be the greatest, but now others started to believe it too.
He got a little mean, after that. At least, that's what he calls it in hindsight. Five year old Katsuki was still clinging to the notion that everyone who wanted to be a hero was kind, and what better to make them feel safe than the knowledge that he was going to be the best? He was there, and that meant no villain stood a chance.
Six year old Katsuki had a revelation the first time he made a classmate cry. She was smaller than him, with long black hair done up in a braid and a pretty pink skirt. She trembled with the effort of restraining her sobs, knees scraped and nose bloodied after taking a tumble playing tag.
"K-Kacchan," she sniffled, running her sleeve beneath her nose. Katsuki couldn't remember her name. "Can you help me up?"
He shook his head. "Get up on your own," he said, standing resolutely at her side. Her hand reached out for him. He didn't take it. Katsuki knew she was strong enough to do it by herself. After all, she wanted to be a hero someday, too.
It was best she learned to be self sufficient now, when she didn't need the help. That way, she would learn what she was capable of and know when she really needed to ask for help. Heroes had to rely on themselves first and foremost!
But the girl didn't get up. Instead the tears she had been working to keep at bay overflowed, mixing with the blood on her face and making ugly pink droplets that fell off the tip of her chin and onto her skirt.
It was then that a teacher finally noticed what was going on. She rushed over and ushered the girl towards one of the other playground monitors, saying something about the nurse and taking care of the problem.
Sensei bent down to talk to him. "Katsuki-kun, why didn't you help Minami-chan when she fell?"
"I did," he said, confused. The girl—Minami-chan—had to learn how to be a hero somehow, and since Katsuki was the best, she should learn from him.
She looked troubled for a moment. She pressed her lips together like Tou-san did when people got angry at him on the phone. "Okay, Katsuki-kun," she said eventually, smiling a smile like the ones heroes wore when they were pretending to be happy. "Next time, just come get one of the teachers, okay? We're here to help you guys when you need it."
"I'm enough help for everyone," he told her. "I'm gonna be a hero!"
And she kept smiling that smile even as she told him that she was sure his quirk would make him a great hero.
Later, his parents asked him the same thing, embellished with other questions that made him feel guilty and then angry for feeling guilty.
Why didn't you help? Why weren't you kind? I thought you wanted to be a hero.
Katsuki's kindness didn't look like theirs. Maybe, he thought, that was okay. He could be kind his own way, just like he would be a hero so great he would change the definition of the word.
Like everything else Katsuki learned, he took the information and worked it until there was nothing left for him to know, until there was nothing more he could do to better himself. If he perfected himself, there would be nothing for Sensei or Kaa-san to be angry about. Tou-san told him that not everyone was as fast as him, as smart as him, as good at adapting as him. They needed more time, and sometimes wouldn't be able to do it at all. Katsuki thought that was silly. All they had to do was keep trying. Katsuki was the best teacher in the world—he taught Deku how to tie his shoes even though his fingers were too clumsy to make the bunny ears right.
If people couldn't understand his kindness, he would just have to keep showing it to them until they learned to recognize it on their own! That's all there was to it. Adults were silly and always over-complicated things. He would teach them, too.
/
Years later, he's still haunted by that fucking question.
"Why is it so fucking difficult for you to just be nice, Katsuki?"
By now, his mother has to be as tired of asking it as he is of hearing it. She must be more patient than he is (hah!). Or just more stubborn. He never answers it, because they all already know the truth.
The million yen question. It'd stump anyone on one of those trivia shows that plays in the middle of the night when no one's awake to complain about there only being trash on TV. Why can't Bakugou Katsuki be kind? Is it A, because he thinks he's better than everyone else? B, because no one has ever managed to stand up to him without their spines wilting like dead grass? Or maybe C, because he was always a bully and would never be anything else?
Ah, audience poll? Looks like it's special answer D, because he's destined to be a villain!
(Katsuki's write-in answer would be E, none of the above; clearly, success is written into his genetic code and that means he'd never be able to appreciate the common man's struggle.)
The real answer is much simpler than any psychologically charged bullshit an extra could cook up. People always over-complicate things that are best left to their simplicity.
Katsuki can't be nice because Katsuki isn't a nice boy.
He wasn't made to be kind. It's useless to try and change his nature when he could spend that time perfecting flight with his quirk. Katsuki thought he had been kind, once, but as with every other lesson life has taught him, he caught on quickly.
It isn't worth it to pussyfoot around making sure no one's feelings get hurt when there's work to do. Katsuki never does anything by halves; he's a creature of extremes. If he can't be nice he'll focus on winning instead. Isn't it more important, at the end of the day, to make sure everyone gets out with all their limbs intact?
Kindness doesn't belong in battle. In the wrong hands, it's deadly. Winning is brutal and ugly and in a fight there's no place for niceties. That's why Katsuki will be the Symbol of Victory—it fits him closer than a second skin. Katsuki was born to win.
He's taking care of the problem.