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Bakugo Mitsuki had not always been a Bakugo, she’d not even always been Mitsuki. Before she was a Bakugo, she had been a Jansen, Marjolein Jansen, and her parents had moved from the Netherlands to Japan for her fathers job.
But that had been when she was eleven and she was fluent in Dutch, teaching it to her son when he was young.
They were a multi-lingual household with Mitsuki swearing in Dutch as she stubbed her toe while Masaru told Bakugo to put on his shoes in Japanese.
Katsuki took great pride in the fact that he spoke two languages, often teaching swearwords in Dutch to the other kids on the playground.
However, after a few years the novelty had worn of for most and it became just another fact of life that Kastuki would sometimes swear under his breath in a different language or forget an easy word only to grumble a weird word until he had found the translation.
Being in a Japanese school and watching Japanese media, however, ensured that Katsuki was much more comfortable in Japanese than Dutch. Even if Dutch was the language he spoke at home, so by the time he entered UA, he hardly ever spoke Dutch outside of his mom and grandparents.
Since he hardly ever spoke Dutch, it took a long while for everyone in his class to even notice that he could speak another language.
Of course, when you were running for your life it was hard to notice that your friend was chanting “kut, kut, kut, kut,” under his breath instead of a more familiar swear and you didn’t see them talking to their mom at school.
So, it wasn’t until they moved into the dorms together that people started to notice it.
The first instance was mostly brushed off. Bakugo and Midoriya had been talking about hero training classes when Bakugo said: “We never really did more- more- more,” he snapped his fingers, obviously annoyed, and grumbled, “godverdomme, reddingswerk, wat is dat ook alweer?” he looked at Midoriya and repeated, “Reddingswerk?”
Midoriya shrugged, he didn’t know what the Dutch word meant. Bakugo groaned, before explaining: “What we did with Thirteen.”
“Rescue?” Midoriya offered.
“Yeah, that’s the bitch,” Bakugo said, “We never really did more rescue work after that, now did we.”
“Hmm, yeah, we should ask Iida about that, as class rep, he might be able to do something about it,” Midoriya agreed and the conversation continued normally.
He already knew of the Dutch and hadn’t been phased by it, while most the class had only heard the tone Bakugo used, which was as usual annoyed and angry, not really registering the language as different.
The next time someone could have noticed, but didn’t was when he was helping Kaminari with his English homework. Kaminari groaned: “How can you keep track of all these letters? It’s so confusing.”
“I already knew the alphabet,” Bakugo shrugged, remembering how his mother had showed him how to write down his name differently and the fairytales she used to read to him.
“That’s nice, wish that were me,” Kaminari said miserably, looking at his homework.
“It’s still fucking confusing,” Bakugo huffed, thinking of the English pronouncing ‘a’ as ‘e,’ while pronouncing ‘e’ as ‘i,’ or why they couldn’t say the ‘w’ like a normal person. He blinked out of his thoughts and said: “Oi, focus again, Battery-boy.”
Kaminari startled and whined, but turned back to his homework with much displeasure.
A few days later, Bakugo stubbed his toe on the table near the couches when he got up to grab himself something to drink. He grabbed his foot and swore: “Godver de tering zooi. Kut, kut, kut. Holy shit, godver. Wat een tyfus tafel. Fuck that hurt. Klere ding.”
Everyone blinked at the outburst, before Mina asked: “What the fuck was that?”
“That’s called swearing, Raccoon,” Bakugo glared at her, “Who even put this table here?”
“The school, idiot,” Jiro shrugged, not really looking further into the weird noises that had come out of Bakugo’s mouth, because she didn’t think it above him to know obscure swears, just to add to his repertoire.
Bakugo glared at her as well, but the throbbing in his toe had subsided and he wasn’t really looking to pick a fight when they were about to watch a movie. So he dropped it and just went to grab himself a drink.
It was not until his mother called him that people truly caught on to the fact that it was an entirely different language, instead of some weird swears here and there. His phone rang while on the couch and he groaned when he saw who was calling.
Kirishima asked: “Who’s mama?”
“It’s my mom, dumbass,” he said, before swiping to pick up and saying: “Hallo met Katsuki, waarom bel je me, heks?”
The person on the other side of the line said something, while Kirishima and Mina stared in confusion at the incomprehensible babble coming out of Bakugo’s mouth.
“Kon dat niet wachten?” Bakugo replied after a moment, getting up to get a bit of privacy as he spoke, “Ik zit hier beneden nu met mensen, we zijn ons huiswerk aan het doen. En dat is pas over een week, ook nog, by the way. Waarom val je me daar nu mee lastig?”
Midoriya came in and Mina whispered to him: “What’s he doing?” with a nod to Bakugo.
The other boy looked at Bakugo just as he said: “Nee, ik heb het al met Aizawa besproken, ik kan gewoon dat weekend naar huis komen. Hij snapte ‘t toen ik uitlegde dat opa en oma van ver komen.”
So, Midoriya shrugged: “Talking with his mom, I suppose. I don’t speak Dutch, sorry.”
“Why is he even speaking Dutch?” Kirishima asked, completely confused.
“Because his mom is Dutch.” Midoriya was confused by Kirishima’s confusion, surely they knew this already?
A few more people walked in and looked between the three confused teens and Bakugo, who was oblivious to the stares Mina and Kirishima were giving him.
He nodded even though his mom couldn’t see and said: “Ja, dat weet ik. Ik heb het opgeschreven. Ik ben niet achterlijk hoor, heks. Natuurlijk vergeet ik ‘t niet.”
A silence fell, in which the newcomers also had a chance to be confused. Then Bakugo hung up with a: “Ja, ja, doei, spreek je later. Doe de groeten aan papa enzo.”
Bakugo turned back to see half the class looking at him and he snapped: “What are you all looking at, eh?”
Midoriya, god bless his heart, spoke up for everyone and explained: “I think they only just realized you’re half-Dutch.”
“Why? Are they dumb?” Bakugo frowned, he hadn’t made the conscious effort to hide it.
“Oi, we’re not dumb,” Mina got out of her stupor.
“Yeah, Bakubro, you could have told us,” cried Kirishima.
“What is that thought?” Bakugo said, “Should I have made an announcement out of it? Do the klompendans while hanging out the Dutch flag? Like what do you want from me? I didn’t even try to hide it.”
It was quiet for a moment as most had to concede that was a pretty solid point. In the end Tsu asked him: “Can you say something in Dutch?”
“Am I a circus monkey or something?” Bakugo growled.
Hagakure jumped in as well: “Please, Bakugo, I missed most of the phone call, I wanna hear what it sounds like.”
More people rallied behind her and Bakugo gave in, saying: “Jullie zijn allemaal stom en ik haat het hier.”
“What did you say?” Mina asked.
“I said that you’re all stupid and I hate it here,” Bakugo said, before turning to walk away.
During dinner that evening more people nagged him. Mina and Kirishima wanted to know what the phone call was about (it was his mom asking if he had gotten permission to come home to see his grandparents next weekend) and the people who hadn’t been there to see wanted to hear what Dutch sounded like (Bakugo hit the closest of said people and told them nothing).
After a while, Momo mused: “I thought your mother’s name was Mitsuki. That’s a pretty Japanese name.”
“Her actual name is Marjolein, but no one ever pronounced or wrote it right, so she just says it’s Mitsuki,” Bakugo shrugged.
“How do you even spell that?” Kaminari wondered.
“You’re not good enough at the Roman alphabet for me to spell it out to you,” Bakugo told him, before adding: “And I’m not sure if it’s the long ij or the short ei.”
Kaminari frowned at the insult, then said: “You just made the same noise twice.”
“Yeah, but one is i j and the other is e i,” Bakugo explained, “It’s the same sound, okay. You just write it differently. I think it’s the short ei, but I never use that name for her. I’ve only heard opa en oma call her that.”
“Who?” Kirishima asked.
“My grandparents, like grandpa is opa and oma is grandma,” Baugo said, hoping they would stop asking him questions, because he was tired of explaining and he just wanted to eat his dinner in peace.
Luckily most had caught on to his annoyed tone and left him alone, but Bakugo could feel that this was something new and interesting that would hold their attention for a while.
He was right, because that week he was often asked what the Dutch word for something was or what the thing he just said was (it was usually swears), but he managed to survive ‘till Friday when he got to leave campus for the weekend.
They were walking back to the dorms, so that Bakugo could grab his stuff, before leaving to go see his grandparents, when he got a notification. He looked and said: “Fuck yeah, m’n opa en oma brought me hagelslag.”
“What is that?” Kirishima asked.
“It’s- uhm, beleg- stuff you put on bread,” Bakugo explained, knowing this was very a Dutch thing and was already pretty weird in countries that ate bread regularly, “I’ll probably bring it with me Monday.”
The others nodded and Bakugo said goodbye, before leaving, excited to see his grandparents again after so long. They had moved back to the Netherlands when he was five, saying they missed their country. He didn’t understand, because it always rained in the Netherlands when he’d been there and he got nearly hit by a bike multiple times.
He had a blast that weekend by excluding his dad from as many conversations as possible while catching up with his grandparents.
Returning on Monday, he had to do a double take when Kirishima greeted him in Japanese and asked how his weekend had been, before he remembered that it wasn’t all Dutch anymore. He said it was good, before sliding into his seat.
That lunch break he got out some sweets from his bag, reluctantly sharing them with his friends: “They gave these to me, something about their youth and shit. Whatever.”
Mina held up a little brown stick like candy and asked: “What’s this?”
“A kaneelstokje,” Bakugo answered, seeing her helpless look, he expanded: “It’s - what that fucking word again - kaneel, uhm… ah, yeah, cinnamon. It’s a cinnamon stick. When you bite it feels weird, but they’re nice. I also have the cherry version.”
With a curious hum Mina stuck it in her mouth, then she bit and grimaced, before mumbling: “That was harder than I expected.”
“Your mistake,” Bakugo shrugged, shoving a stroopwafel in his mouth.
A few tables over Midoriya spotted them and skipped over, asking Bakugo: “Did they give you those pig head candies?”
“Biggetjes?” Bakugo asked, “Yeah, here. I don’t like these, but they keep giving me them. I would much rather have the monkey ones.”
“Those have licorice on them, Kacchan,” Midoriya made a face.
“They’re nice, now fuck off, nerd,” Bakugo grumbled.
“Pig heads?” Hagakure asked.
“Yeah, it’s in the shape of a pig head and it’s a fruit gummy,” Bakugo shrugged, “The ears are slightly different and the monkey version is part licorice.”
“That’s weird,” Mina told him.
“Then you’re not getting more candy,” Bakugo shot back.
“No, I wanna try the cookies. I’m sorry,” Mina quickly said.
With an eyeroll Bakugo handed her a stroopwafel, explaining that it was a hard waffle with hardened syrup between it. He had eaten them hot and soft once and he didn’t get the rave about them fresh of the hotplate, he much preferred them cold.
They ate the foreign candy with interest asking about them and laughed about the guttural pronunciation that it had to them, marveling how Bakugo could make the hard ‘g’ sound, while they struggled.
And the next morning the whole class came together to stare in horror at Bakugo’s breakfast. He had put butter on a slice of bread, then put chocolate sprinkles on it. When Jiro had asked what the fuck he was eating, he scowled and said: “It’s hagelslag, okay, Earbuds.”
“That’s hagelslag?” Kirishima asked, stumbling over the word.
“Yeah,” Bakugo, “Almost everyone eats it. You also have vlokken, but that’s just hagelslag except flat and a bit bigger, though they also have hagelslag XL. There’s also a fruit version, but that’s just flavored hardened sugar.”
Uraraka looked at Bakugo’s plate and said: “This just feels off.”
“Well, then don’t look at, ey, Round-face,” Bakugo growled as he hunched protectively over his plate.
“Can I try?” Kirishima asked.
Bakugo eyed him suspiciously, before handing him a bit of his bread. He watched as Kirishima tried it, face morphing into a grin as he said: “Dutch kids are lucky. They get to eat chocolate for breakfast. Are you sure parents condone this?”
“My grandfather has never eating anything different for breakfast in his life,” Bakugo said.
“Nice.”
And with that they decided that this wasn’t really something to get on the blond’s nerves about, since it wasn’t really a big deal, and the conversation moved on to different topics.
But the knowledge that Bakugo was multilingual settled as normal in the group over time and explained how here and there he would say something incredibly weird, seemingly thinking it’s normal.
No one had commented on it before, but now it was easier to understand why.
For example, when they were having a collaborative training with class 1-B, Kirishima punched Bakugo’s arm and said: “You should give a pep-talk. Come on, Bakubro, inspire us.”
“Nah, Midoriya is better at sticking a heart under someone’s belt than I am, he should do it,” he replied.
“What?” Kirishima asked, confused
“You know, encouraging people and shit?” Bakugo asked, only getting more confusion back, “No, not Japanese?”
“No, bro,” Kirishima grinned.
“Well, it still makes sense,” Bakugo grouched.
“I would say no,” Mina commented.
“Shut up, Raccoon,” Bakugo huffed, “It makes sense. You give someone your heart for courage and the best place to store it is on your belt. Like in Medieval times.”
“Still weird.”
“And you still have to shut up,” Bakugo shot back, “Just focus on beating those pompous motherfuckers.”
Because in the end, it didn’t matter which language he spoke, he stayed Bakugo. Swearing and competitive Bakugo.