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It starts off fairly fuckin’ innocuous. Frankly, Katsuki doesn’t expect to have everything he stands for attacked at 10:35 on a Saturday morning. While his life does casually and abruptly vacillate between mortal danger and the expected amount of teenage woes, Saturday mornings at U.A. are generally safe. As long as he stays away from whatever unhealthy sugary monstrosity Pikachu is making himself for breakfast.
So.
Yeah.
Generally fucking safe.
This particular morning, though—
Deku is sitting in the middle of the dining table, surrounded by ponytail and round face. Shitty hair and four eyes are sitting across from them. Katsuki opens the fridge for a glass of orange juice when Deku excitedly proclaims, “Todoroki-kun is just so fluffy, you know?”
“Excuse you,” Katsuki hisses, without even meaning to. “He’s squishy.” Like, so squishy it should be fucking illegal, actually. It’s bad for Katsuki’s health.
Silence. Katsuki closes the fridge door and turns to face everyone. “What?” he asks.
“Um,” Deku says, “Kacchan…”
“What?” Katsuki hisses. “Todoroki is squishy.”
“But,” Deku says, invigorated anew, “his hair is getting longer. It’s almost long enough to braid now. It’s really nice to run your hands through it. You know, fluffy.”
Katsuki’s eye twitches. “He lets you touch his hair?”
Slowly, Deku nods. “Yeah, Todoroki-kun likes it when I play with his hair. Says it helps him fall asleep.”
And—
Like.
It’s not new. The sharp pang at the idea that Deku has something he wants. The bitter ache. Katsuki’s been getting better about it. About realizing that it’s okay to take his time getting where he wants to go. About realizing that he would never be content taking what someone else has for himself without working for it, without earning it. About realizing that it’s okay, really. Okay to look at the feeling, let it go where it needs to, and not drown in it.
But with Todoroki—
He—stubbornly and petulantly, like a little kid—doesn’t want to share. Or—well. It’s not so much about sharing as it is about, like. Hypothetically speaking, under gunpoint, Deku’s the person he would least mind sharing Todoroki with. But still— He wants to get there first. To be the first one Todoroki lets in.
And judging by the surprisingly smug look on Deku’s stupid, freckled face, Katsuki is not as far ahead as he would like.
Katsuki crosses his arms over his chest, fully aware they’re about to enter the territory of kindergarten pettiness levels. “Well,” he says, “halfie told me he likes it when I feed him.”
Sparky chooses that precise moment to come down the stairs, stop right in front of Bakugou, and gape. “You feed him? I knew you were whipped, Bakugou, but this—”
“Shut the fuck up,” Katsuki hisses. “He had a fever.”
Deku places a hand on his chin. “Ah yes,” he says. “Todoroki-kun mentioned that. He said he likes your hands. He also said he likes the way you look at him when you think he’s not paying attention, Kacchan.”
That’s—
Katsuki might have liked to hear that in person, if he’s being honest. Somewhere he can close the door and cover Todoroki’s mouth with his own and explain in careful detail just what he would like to use his hands for if Todoroki were amenable to the idea. And now it’s looking a lot like he might have to share that with Deku, who would probably sit in the corner and take notes to make sure he can improve upon the initial results or some shit like that.
It doesn’t even—
It doesn’t even sound nearly as horrible as it should.
But the point remains that Todoroki fucking Shouto is squishy. For a future pro hero, someone who has to harden his body as much as his heart, Todoroki is soft all over. Soft when he wakes up in the morning with the most offensive bedhead Katsuki has ever laid eyes on and stretches until his sleep shirt rides up, soft when he gets sick and sniffles into his handkerchief and pouts at being served warm food, soft when he steps into the shower after a long day of practice and the water hits his hair, drips down his shoulders, makes Katsuki wonder about coming up behind him and pressing his mouth to the back of Todoroki’s neck and—no, not allowed.
“Whatever,” Katsuki says. “He’s still a squishy bastard.”
“He’s fluffy,” Deku insists. “Last night, when he fell asleep on the couch and Yaoyorozu-san brought out that pink blanket, he looked so fluffy. Kacchan, you have to see my point.”
Deku looks about ready to pull out a whiteboard and start making lists. He would probably bring etymology and semantics into it. Something like why fluffy is the objectively better descriptor for Todoroki Shouto-kun, by Midoriya Izuku (hero name Deku).
The vultures (occasionally also known as their fellow classmates) all look too much like they’re trying desperately to stifle their laughter, too. Katsuki sees only one viable solution to this.
He turns without a word, marches up to Todoroki’s room, wakes sleeping beauty up, and unceremoniously drags him down, eventually threatening to carry him down the stairs if he doesn’t cooperate. (He cooperates, just barely. Katsuki tries not to feel too disappointed about it.)
“Look,” he says, gesturing to Todoroki in all his sleepy, disheveled, baggy pajama pants-clad glory. He cups Todoroki’s face with one hand, and emphatically squeezes his cheeks. “Squishy.”
This breaks shitty hair, who starts laughing uncontrollably while four eyes worryingly rubs at his back.
Deku pushes himself away from the table, standing up and walking over to them. “You do have a point,” he concedes, reaching up to ruffle Todoroki’s already hopeless bedhead, “but have you considered: fluffy?”
Todoroki, wholly squished and fluffed up, makes an unintelligible sound. Reluctantly, Katsuki pulls away. So does Deku.
Todoroki blinks. “You woke me up,” he says, rather accusatory, “on a Saturday, to settle whether I’m more squishy or fluffy?”
Katsuki stiffens. When you put it like that—
“We’re so sorry, Todoroki-kun,” Deku rushes to say. “But you are very fluffy.”
“Squishy,” Katsuki insists.
“You two realize,” Todoroki says calmly, regarding them with his arms crossed over his chest, “that I can be both without any major conflict?”
Deku goes wide-eyed. “You can?” he asks, suddenly eager, eager, eager.
Todoroki nods. “Yes,” he says firmly.” Then his left hand intertwines with one of Izuku’s, and his right finds Katsuki’s. “Now can I go back to bed?”
“Like hell you’re going anywhere without me.”
“I should come too, to make sure Todoroki-kun can fall back asleep.”
“Oi, shitty nerd—”
“Kacchan, don’t be mean—,”
“Squishy and fluffy,” Todoroki reminds them. “Right?”
Katsuki sighs. “Right,” he says. “Whatever you want, halfie.”
“Right,” Deku says cheerfully. “Listen to Todoroki-kun, Kacchan.”
“Don’t push it, nerd.”
It’s—
Well. At least none of their idiot friends laughed themselves to death. Yet.