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If there’s one word Katsuki can think of that will effectively describe Mikumo’s beauty, he would choose: otherworldly.
Mikumo would say he’s delusional, but Katsuki would like to think of himself as perceptive… and with a functional pair of eyes, thank you very much.
Midnight black hair at first glance, bathed in sunlight and a glimpse of dark mulberry will show, bringing out the color of his eyes, a compliment to porcelain skin. Curly hair, only wavy enough to frame his heart-shaped face just right. Dark lashes that accent a pair of rubies embedded into his face, some gems fit to be the younger man’s eyes — it’s almost unfair, Katsuki muses, that his beauty seems beyond comprehension, because people choose to overlook that the moment they learn of his quirklessness.
(To call it a defect would be a lie — imperfections are what makes Akatani Mikumo perfect in many ways.)
But maybe not everyone, now.
“Akatani looks really pretty, doesn’t he?” on his left, Kirishima at least has the decency to look a little bit embarrassed by his admission, despite the lack of hesitance in the way he’d said it, but Katsuki only nods, because he agrees.
Kaminari, who’s just joined their table, hums dazedly, a hand on his chin looking at the subject of their conversation with scrutiny. Mikumo, who’d chosen to sit with Uraraka and Iida for the time being, laughs at something that was said, oblivious to the attention at their table.
Katsuki should be there, with him, but Mikumo convinced him to accept Kirishima’s invite to sit with them at lunch.
“It’s your chance to make more friends.”
Katsuki wanted to point out how the optimism in those words did not reflect in Mikumo’s wobbly and uncertain smile, but the determined glint in his eyes had stopped him.
“It can’t always be us, you know.”
‘But you’re all I need…’ He’d wanted to say, but refrained. He knows Mikumo harbors some misplaced guilt in him, blaming himself for how the two of them were isolated in middle school.
Nobody wanted to be acquainted with the quirkless, and Katsuki didn’t want to part with Mikumo, ergo, everyone wasn’t worth his time or attention. He didn’t need friends; he had Mikumo.
“I mean… he looks like a girl, doesn’t he?” Kaminari grins, raising his hands for good measure, fingers forming a sort of frame as though to capture Mikumo from a distance.
Ashido bristles at that. “He doesn’t look like a girl, he’s just pretty!”
Sero snorts nearby. “His hair has gotten longer…”
Ashido opens her mouth, but then pauses in thought, prompting Kirishima to look at her in question. “He… would look good in a dress, come to think of it…”
Kirishima laughs nervously, a look on his face shows he’s wondering if he should stop her. Katsuki hopes he doesn’t, the thought of his friend wearing a flattering dress much too enticing to dismiss.
“What do you think, Gougou?” Sero turns to him, mid-bite.
His attempts to dissuade them from calling him Gougou, or any variation of what his friends used to call him at a younger age was in vain, but at least they’d chosen a rather tame one compared to the childish Goucchan he’d rather leave behind.
Katsuki shrugs in response. “If you can convince him…” he says simply, earning a resigned sigh from Kirishima, so he says, playfully, “Consent is important.”
A pouting Mikumo, while cute, would only look like a kicked puppy, especially with the rather meek way he holds himself. Katsuki, who’s used to those kinds of displays from his childhood friend, even actively trying to elicit such reactions for his own entertainment, has the immunity his classmates do not have. Subjecting his newly-made friends to that guilt will only ruin the fun.
Lunch proceeds with excited, hushed chatter, and Kirishima gives up trying to defend Mikumo’s honor. He’ll claim that a boy wearing a dress does not make him any less manly, if asked but in truth, it’s because he also wants to see the result, even if he won’t say it out loud, Katsuki knows anyway.
(He wonders why that bothers him.)
“I hate you.”
Harsh words, but he can’t take him seriously, not when Mikumo is pouting without much bite in his tone. Katsuki chuckles.
“I’m hurt, Yami.” He mock-pouts, grinning when the shorter scrunches his face cutely. “You looked like you were enjoying yourself.”
Mikumo purses his lips, then turns away to avoid eye contact.
The impromptu dress-up with the girls, while taxing, seemed like a fun experience if Mikumo’s tired but content smile at the end of the session was anything to go by, and Katsuki knows him long enough to see beneath his pouting and grumbling, knows enough to understand that, while completely embarrassed from the attention he’d garnered when he’d walked out in the dresses the girls made him wear, the experience will not serve as a bad memory.
Maybe something to tease him with, to Mikumo’s chagrin, but also something to look back at with a smile.
Dainty hands raise to take hold of some strands of black hair hanging by his eyes, a look of contemplation on Mikumo’s face.
Katsuki tilts his head, watching from his place in front of his study table, the two having taken refuge in the taller one’s room to escape from the excitement of the day.
“What are you thinking?”
Mikumo makes a noncommittal sound, but later answers him after some quiet thinking.
“Do you think I should cut it?”
Quirking a brow, Katsuki asks, “Why?”
Pressing his lips together, Mikumo pulls the strands of his hair he’s holding straight, like that’s where he can find the answer to the other’s question.
“They told me, I look like a girl…” He trails off, and Katsuki knows he doesn’t really mind what others think of him, so he waits. “And, I think, my hair will only get in the way.”
“Eraser-sensei has long hair.” Katsuki points out. He doesn’t add that the length of the older man’s hair is a liability, the weakness that brought him to the ground when villains invaded their school trip at the USJ.
That would be cruel.
But more than that, he loves Mikumo’s hair. Their classmates got to touch it for a few, fleeting moments, but only Katsuki can run his hand through it, feel the softness of silky, ebony strands, watch Mikumo melt from the soothing gesture, see his sharp eyes soften as he lets his guard down, and, if lucky, even watch him fall asleep.
Another reason, a more selfish one, is that it hides things about the shorter boy that only Katsuki gets to see. His freckles, like scattered stars on his face, although prominent, anyone can look, but they’ll never be close enough to admire. Crimson eyes, a simple pair of red pools in the distance, no one will ever see how it shines a pretty carnelian in the sun. Small little treasures that Katsuki would like to keep to himself if he could help it.
But Katsuki can’t be selfish.
Not now, when the world is finally starting to accept Mikumo.
Katsuki shrugs. “In the end, it’s up to you.”
Mikumo frowns, letting his hair go. He turns to Katsuki.
“Did Auntie teach you how to cut hair?”
She didn’t, but Katsuki likes to think it’s in his blood.
Hero Course is far from the fashion industry, but he wouldn’t be his parents’ son if he knew nothing about style.
After all, Mikumo would never allow anyone with a razor near his face but Katsuki.
“Ah? Akatani-san, you decided to get a haircut after all?”
It is Yaoyorozu who notices first, looking both in awe and worried that she and the others may have been the driving factor for such change. Mikumo, knowing where her concern lies, empathy being his strong suit, assures her that he’s in no way ashamed of having long hair.
“It’s just convenient.” He reasons, bowing his head forwards to allow everyone a closer look, even letting a few hands pat the still-fluffy tuft on top of his head. “And I like it more like this, that’s all.”
And Katsuki does, too.
So does everyone else.
Because now they can see the way a rosy blush colors his cheeks, making his freckles more prominent, the way he averts his eyes shyly to the side with no hair to hide from, how dark lashes flutter, showing how long they were and how his petal-like lips twitch, shy of a smile that they normally wouldn’t be able to detect unless they were right on his face.
The class practically surrounds him, throwing compliments all around, managing to not overwhelm the inky haired boy as Katsuki watches content from a distance.
“Why are you upset?”
Not one to beat around the bush, Katsuki startles from Mikumo’s sudden appearance.
He raises a brow in question. “Upset?”
“You smile like you’re sad.” Mikumo observes. “But it’s not fake enough for anger. So,” he tilts his head, a few strands from his bangs falling over his forehead. “Are you going to tell me?”
Katsuki doesn’t speak, letting his body sway as the shorter lightly nudges him by the shoulder.
“Are you upset that my face isn’t hidden anymore?” Mikumo knows him well, enough to know that Katsuki isn’t ashamed of him, and enough to see the jealousy from a mile away, it seems.
“I’m not.” And it’s the truth. The new hairdo really suits him… a little too well.
“Then there’s no reason to be.” Simple and straightforward, Mikumo says so, leaning his whole body weight on the taller teen, prompting the blond to wrap an arm around his shoulder.
“Cold!” Katsuki gasps, hushed in his usual dramatics. It’s a quiet night. He pouts, not sure himself if it was fake or real now. “Be a little more considerate with my feelings, Yami~”
Mikumo rolls his eyes, clicking his tongue. “I am.” is whispered.
Katsuki looks down when he feels a thump to his chest, realizing the shorter had let his head fall on his chest, completely in his arms now, head tilted backwards to stare at him in the eyes.
Deliberately, Mikumo makes a show of leaning a little closer, the strands of hair hovering over his left eye falling at the side, his face now fully exposed under Katsuki’s gaze.
“That’s why I’m letting you keep this for yourself.”
His attention falls on his lips, first, because of course it does. It looks very tempting. But when Mikumo nudges him with his head, Katsuki’s stare shifts to…
He blinks. ‘Oh…!’
Something no one knows about Mikumo, is that he’s got his looks from his father. From his freckles to his piercing red eyes, to the curls on his hair and the inky black hue, but his personality leans more on his mother’s. Without the man in the picture, one would think Akatani Inko had adopted a child not hers.
But that’s not completely true, because there is something that he got from his mother.
Something he’d chosen to hide for himself, as a person who’d rather not catch attention.
Emerald eye, hidden now under a red contact lens that matches the shade of his other eye.
His most prized possession, the one feature that reminds him of Inko.
A single glance closer would reveal the presence of the lens, so he kept his bangs to shadow the eye, not quite hiding it when he asked Katsuki to cut his hair shorter, but it will still take some focus to notice.
It’s an open secret, something Mikumo would not deny if someone were to ask, but it’s something he’s shared freely with only Katsuki.
A prized possession that’s not just his.
But Katsuki’s as well.
His own little jewel.