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Katsuki had always seen people. Well, not necessarily always, but for the majority of his life he'd seen them. Migi had been with him the longest.
By seeing people, he meant people no one else seemed to see. They were real though, everything pointed to them being normal.
Except the ghost-like inability to affect the living world.
Katsuki didn't dare tell anyone about it, he'd mentioned as a kid a few times and he was told to stop believing in imaginary friends.
So it was his little secret.
"Hey 'Tsuki! Let's go on an adventure!" He heard Migi say. He let his gaze shift over to wear the boy sat.
'No talk in class' He tapped out on his desk. 'Lunch'.
The boy nodded with a pout, but decided on something that had his pout morphing into a smug smirk. Katsuki sighed, watching the boy jump up to stand on top of his teacher's desk.
He'd watched the boy preform these acts many times, it had taken practice and lots of mistakes for them both to figure out how to handle the 'tricks'.
Katsuki used to tell the boy not to, but that had caused many unwanted attentions over the time it took to retrain himself to keep silent. Migi, on the other hand, had spent much time on learning how to do various different actions.
The boy couldn't really get hurt, they'd found out. Migi had thought he was real for a long time, but the whole 'can't interact with anything' thing really set it in stone that he wasn't.
They'd then moved onto the theory that Migi was a ghost. They'd searched for years before abandoning the idea. There was no way to figure it out.
So he sat there and watched as the boy practiced backflips from his teacher's desk.
"Bakugou? What are you looking at?"
He blinked, gaze quickly moving away from Migi. "Nothing, just bored"
"Me too" He heard Migi complain. "I'll go look around the school! I'll be back!"
As much as he didn't want to, he shifted to once again watch Migi. The boy patiently waited for someone to walk in or out of the classroom to slip out the door. No one did and he could tell the boy was getting antsy.
"I'm gonna go to the bathroom" Katsuki casually announced as he stood. His teacher was asleep, having given the simple instructions to 'complete unfinished work', so he didn't need to formally ask.
Migi beamed at him, hopping from foot to foot as he waited for him to near. When he left the room, lingering for a moment to let Migi go first, Katsuki let out a sigh.
"If you're not back by lunch, I'm leaving your ass here forever"
"My big brother; my loving, caring, bestest friend. You'd never do that. You love me this much" The boy spread his arms out with a bright, cheeky smile.
"I'd leave your ass here in two seconds, don't kid yourself"
The pout was back. "Fine! I'll be back by lunchtime. Not like I can do anything anyways"
"Migi?" Katsuki said as the boy turned to leave. "I'll find a way to make you real, I promise"
The boy simply shrugged. "I know"
When Migi skipped away down the hallway, Katsuki found himself feeling bad. It'd been years and no matter how much research they put into it, there wasn't even a shred of hint as to if they could make Migi real.
He knew the boy had given up, all hope gone long ago. It was obvious but Migi pretended to be just as hopeful as he'd first been.
"It's okay" Katsuki looked over. "I'll keep an eye on him"
"Where have you been?" He asked. Iya, the middle aged woman who always took care of them, smiled at him.
"I had to find Jin, they ran off last night to visit the library"
He huffed, "And? You left them there?"
"They'll be fine, they're gonna stay nearby the campus now"
"But..."
Iya leant over to smooth her skirt. It was a habit of hers. She couldn't change clothing, but she couldn't dirty it either. She complimented the ability a few times.
"Nana's around"
With that said, he nodded. She gave a mock salute and left to locate Migi. She had joined him not long after Migi, promising to always be there and watch over them. Nana came during middle school, Jin having joined his posse within the last year.
Jin was different, though. Jin was real. He didn't know how, but they could also see and communicate with Nana, Iya, and Migi.
When he returned to class, having given enough time to have actually pretended to go to the bathroom, the room was quiet.
Too quiet.
In his seat sat a young man; late teens, early twenties, Katsuki never bothered to ask.
"I tried to stop them, I'm sorry" Nana stood nearby. The window was open.
"Jin, what the fuck are you doing?" Katsuki asked, his eyes narrowed at the obvious intruder. "How'd you get past the gate?"
"That's a dumb question. Where's Migi? I have something for him" He pulled Jin up and out of his seat, leading him to the classroom exit.
"He's around, come back later"
Katsuki pushed them out it the classroom, beginning to close the door. "As in 'never' right? It's important"
The door he'd been closing halted. "Then..."
Jin gave a serious nod. "I found something"
He turned to glance at his classmates, then to Nana. She had a grim look, her lips pressed together tightly.
"We found him. We found who he was"
Katsuki could only let out an 'oh'. This was both amazing news and a horrible realization that he couldn't make the boy real. There was no way to tell how Migi would act.
He looked from Nana to Jin a few times before sighing. "Fine, go find 'im. Should I come?"
Nana shook her head. "I think it would be easier if we went"
With a barely noticeable nod, Katsuki moved aside for Nana to pass through the doorway. Once she'd crossed the threshold, he closed the door.
"Bakugou, are..." He turned, his teacher was staring at him with his lips pulled tight, eyebrows furrowed. "Are you schizophrenic?"
"Hah?" Katsuki blanched. "I'm not a schizophrenic! They're just..."
"Invisible?" Hagakure quietly voiced. "Can you see them? Can you see me?"
He kept quiet, he'd never found an explanation as for how he could see Migi and the others. It wouldn't make sense to just say he saw ghosts without it being a quirk. Unless he had a second, undiagnosed quirk...
He couldn't see Hagakure, though, so he shook his head. "It's different, but I don't have schizophrenia"
"How long have you seen them?" Aizawa pressed, seeming to ignore Katsuki's firm disagreement on being schizophrenic.
"Forever, I guess" His eyes widened as he thought about it. His stomach twisted. Migi might not be a real... No. No, he could see Nana, he knew who she was. Jin could see them too. He had to word this better.
"I can see Nana Shimura, I'm not schizophrenic" He finally said, pushing back the small voice in his head that whispered that there was no proof of Iya being real.
Jin found something about Migi, and he knew for a fact that Nana had been a real person. Who was Iya? Was Iya a hallucination?
No, she just hadn't been found yet, just like how he searched for Migi's true identity.
They were ghosts. Souls that remained here to walk alongside the living.
"I can see ghosts" He finally said. "I don't think it's a quirk, I've always been able to see them"
"Did you have a near death experience? Or maybe you actually did die for a few minutes. You could be a half ghost"
Katsuki eyed Ojiro. "That sounds stupid"
"No! It would make sense! If it isn't a quirk, then you've probably died" Ashido burst in. Katsuki sighed. He'd ask his mother after school.
What a pain, why couldn't Jin have waited until he left? Katsuki didn't want to spend centuries talking about his ability to see the dead.
So annoying.