Chapter Text
“In your opinion, what is love?” Interviews are held in the beginning of first year, at the end of their first semester. Aizawa speaks to each of his students individually in order to get to know his students. Each generation of classes is vastly different, while many have similar ideas and definitions of the world around them there is always a particular student who never ceases to amaze him.
This particular class had the most shocking responses of all. A 15 year old blonde teen with fierce red eyes answered the question, “Love is complicated,”
“Care to expand on that?”
“Does the walking speaker have to be here for this?” His student groans.
Aizawa sighs, “Yes, he is here as a witness,”
Hizashi laughs knowingly. His presence wasn’t required, but he wanted to sit in on this class’ interviews. Class 1-A managed to catch the attention of the entire nation, they merely had the privilege to be their educators.
The main point of these interviews was to figure out each of his student’s philosophies. If he understood their motivations and values then he could develop personalized lesson plans that would peak the interest of at least the majority of his students.
The student shifts in his seat, sinking into himself. “Love is a 99 cent can of Arizona,”
No amount of observation could have prepared Aizawa for this response. His gaze shifted, his eyes widening at the sentimentality his otherwise angry student was exhibiting.
“And religion?” Aizawa asked, writing the blonde student’s response on his notepad.
An anxious leg bounced rapidly under the table, making a dull thump each time his heel connected with the floor. “A pitiful scapegoat for belief,”
“So you’re a skeptic,” The teacher asked, copying his students' words onto his notepad again. He watched as his student looked around the room, purposely avoiding his eye contact.
He scoffed at the assumption. “No, skepticism is the beginning of faith,”
Hizashi looks between his husband and his student, reading the tension in the room as reluctance to trust.
“Then what are you?” He places his pen down in front of him, listening to the rhythmic popping of his student’s joints.
His student, Katsuki Bakugou, stares at him for a moment. The silence becomes deafening as the rhythmic tapping underneath his desk ceases. Katsuki’s eyebrows draw close together, his usual scowl softening.
“To define is to limit,” He finally says, quoting his memory.
“Oscar Wilde,” Hizashi comments. The writer was Hizashi’s favorite American author, a close second to Osamu Dazai.
Katsuki nods his head slowly, relaxing his stiff posture.
“What is your purpose?” Aizawa asks, putting his thoughts onto the notepad in front of him.
The question was a difficult one. There was no correct answer, completely dependent on the interpretation of the person answering it. “To love,” red eyes blinked up at his teacher.
“Is that all?” Aizawa questions, attempting to analyze the answer he’d received. The answer wasn’t expected from the brash teenager, he has always been open about his goals and desires and yet none of them correlated to his self-appointed purpose.
“Yes,” He replied with confidence.
Aizawa studied his student’s expressions, taking note of his body language. “Then you are free to leave,”
“What was all of this about?” He asks abruptly
“Excuse me?”
“What was the point of asking all those questions?”
“To get to know you,” Hizashi answers
“There has to be more than that, right?”
“There is, but the main objective is to create a connection with you,” Aizawa admits, clicking his pen.
“Why?” Katsuki asks.
“Because we will be working together for the next three years while I train you and your classmates to be functioning members of society as well as respected heroes,”
“The questions are too vague, I doubt you truly learned anything about me,”
“Would you like to know what I learned from your answers?”
“Sure, why not,”
“You said to define something is to limit it, you follow a philosophy that represents a blind faith to a higher power but you also said that religion is a scapegoat for belief. Many people would assume you were atheist, however I suspect that you believe in a higher power but refuse to define it,
I am an observant person, Bakugou. Meaning your answers cleared up a lot of questions I had about you, but they also gave me more questions” Aizawa explains carefully.
The blonde student sits up, tilting his head as he listens to his professor's reasoning. “Like what?”
“For the past few months you have walked into class after lunch with an Arizona Iced Tea.” His teacher says. “Everyday you wait until I’ve started class to open the Arizona and only drink half of it, and everyday you place that same can on Midoriya’s desk with a note,”
“That's not a question,” Katsuki deadpans.
“And everyday, Midoriya places the note in a folder. What is it that you write to him?” Aizawa continues.
Katsuki sighs, leaning back in his chair. “I write something different every day,”
“Today, Midoriya left his folder behind. A consequence of him rushing out of class, I presume,” Hizashi comments.
“He had shit to do,” The blonde rolls his eyes, crossing his arms over his chest.
“As I was saying, I let curiosity get the best of me and read through some of the notes you left him,” He explains, opening the orange folder.
“And?”
“I have a few questions about them,” Hizashi finishes.
Katsuki cranes his neck. “I thought the questions you asked me earlier cleared things up,”
“They did, and we’ll get there, but let me ask you a few questions first.” Aizawa takes over, “The oldest note in the folder reads: ‘I cannot fix on the hour, or the spot, or the look or the words which laid the fountain. It was too long ago. I was in the middle before I knew that I had begun,’ Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice,”
“That was the first day of classes,” Katsuki recalls.
“Why do you write poetry for Midoriya?” Hizashi asks.
“They aren't poems, they’re pieces of literature.”
“Care to elaborate,” Aizawa suggests.
“Deku is paradoxical—an enigma if you will—he’s difficult to understand but he’s also extremely straightforward. The perfect balance, like a piece of literature,” Katsuki explains half heartedly.
He wasn’t lying, not technically. Izuku Midoriya was an enigma, but so was Katsuki. The only difference was that they knew each other like they knew their own minds.
“I, along with all of your peers, are under the impression that the two of you are rivals and harbor some type of hatred for one another,” Aizawa addresses.
“We don’t hate each other, far from it.” Katsuki runs his hands through his hair, “Our relationship is misunderstood,”
“Then what is your relationship?” Hizashi asks, not purposely prying but merely asking out of genuine curiosity and interest,
“To define is to limit,” Katsuki repeats.
Aizawa flips through hundreds of pages before picking one that stood out to him. “A more recent note you left reads: ‘Is light truly the source of darkness or vice versa? Is the soul a source of hope or despair?’ Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Notes from Underground.”
The note was written in pink ink, the handwriting was a neat rendition of calligraphy. It was out of character for the brash blonde in front of them.
“I was feeling emo that day,” Katsuki responds.
“Do you remember the date?” Aizawa asks
April 20th , he remembers. “Can you get to the point already?”
“The note you gave Midoriya yesterday, do you remember what you wrote?” The dark haired professor asked, moving on.
“I would live a thousand lifetimes as long as it meant we would meet again,” Katsuki repeated, the words still fresh in his mind.
“You didn’t provide a source,” Aizawa comments.
“Because I wrote it,”
“There's a common theme in these quotes and poems that you’ve graciously gifted Midoriya,” Hizashi chimes in.
“And what's that?”
“Love,” He says confidently.
“Care to elaborate,” Katsuki mocks his professor, masking his interest in what Present Mic had to say.
“Everyday Midoriya leaves campus during lunch, he walks to a corner store 8 blocks away and buys a singular can of Arizona Iced Tea, and everyday he finds a creative way of giving you the iced tea. In return you save some for him and write him a poem.
The point I'm trying to make here, Bakugou, is that it's obvious you and Midoriya have an impactful history. The questions I asked you today are a reflection of that, do you know why?” Aizawa answers instead.
“Why?”
“Because Midoriya answered the questions the same way you did,” Hizashi reveals.
Katsuki allows his jaw to drop for a second before snapping it shut. “What?”
“Midoriya said that love is half of an Arizona Iced Tea and a letter,” Aizawa says softly.
“No, he didn’t,” Katsuki refuses.
“He did, he also said that religion is a fashionable substitute for belief. Midoriya believes definition to be limitation, as do you,”
“Great minds think alike,” he dismisses.
“Why is it that the two of you share these sentiments?” The blonde professor asks.
“We were raised together,” Their student answers half-heartedly.
“On May 12th you wrote: “Perhaps loneliness is the real proof that we belong to something greater than ourselves, the way absence is proof of what once was a presence,” Anne Michaels, Infinite Gradation,” Aizawa reads.
“So what if I did?” The teens attempts at deflection failed. He remembered reading the quote, obsessing over the many things it could mean.
Hizashi speaks up again. “What does this quote mean to you?” He asks.
“You’re asking too much of me,” Katsuki says, shaking his head.
“How so?” Aizawa asks, interlocking his fingers on the desk.
Katsuki thinks about his answer carefully before speaking. “You’re asking me to reveal a millennia of history that has never been discovered. If I told you, everyone would know,”
The duo had lived many lifetimes, forgetting the last one each time. No matter how they were reincarnated, as cats, as people, as ideas, they always found each other. It was one of the world's many wonders.
It would take an infinite amount of lifetimes for a pair of twin flames to find each other, but they met in every lifetime. In every reality and in every universe.
“What you say to us in confidence is between us, I won't repeat anything you say to us,”
“Deku and I are complicated,” Katsuki admits reluctantly. “My mother likes to say we were designed by fate, two souls connected through the trials and tribulations of a millennia of lifetimes. I never understood what she meant until Deku read me an excerpt of Oscar Wilde’s novel—The Picture of Dorian Grey.”
“What brought on this understanding then?” Hizashi asks.
“Oscar Wilde says that Love is an illusion in his novel, but he also says to define something is to limit it. Putting a name on love limits its versatility,”
“That's an interesting take,” The English professor admits.
“What did Deku say when you asked him what his purpose is?”
“Why do you ask?” Aizawa raises an eyebrow.
“Because it’s important to me,”
“Why is it important to you,” His homeroom teacher pries.
“Because he is important to me,” Katsuki says, the words coming off more aggressively than he intended.
“He said, ‘My purpose is nothing more than to be kind,” Aizawa says.
The blonde student laughs, “He's always been poetic,”
“What is the significance of an Arizona Iced Tea,” Hizashi interrupts.
“There is no significance,” Katsuki admits.
“Then what is the point?”
“The exchange is our constant. Deku and I fight a lot for many reasons, but no matter how angry we are with each other Deku will buy an Arizona at lunch and I will write him a quote from a piece of famous literature,”
“Why?”
“Because we can, there is no rhyme or reason to it, we do it because no one can stop us,” Katsuki explains. “You see, Mr. Aizawa, your observational skills are flawed,”
“Why do you think that?”
“You haven’t noticed one very obvious detail,” He says, holding up his index finger.
“And that is?” Aizawa’s eyebrows knit themselves together, his posture stiffening.
“Deku wrote those notes, not me.” He says “These aren’t the notes I write to him, those are the notes he writes to me, that's my folder,” He reaches into the backpack planted by his feet, pulling out a green folder.
“This is what I’ve written to Deku,” The folder thumps as he drops it on the table. The folder was thick, holding hundreds of letters. Each beginning with the same line: My dearest, Izuku,
Their eyes pop out of their sockets as Aizawa filters through the pile of looseleaf pages. Aizawa decides to read the first letter he saw, seemingly the most recent as it sat on the top.
My dearest, Izuku,
Does no one notice that you leave campus everyday? Does anyone notice that you come back with an Arizona that ends up in my hands?
Do they not notice your absence? Or that I look for you whenever you aren’t in the room?
Have any of our friends realized that we pass notes back and forth every single day? Do they know that we are close?
Do they not care to pay attention? Somedays I wonder if they are really our friends. Trust me I understand the irony behind that, considering I haven't been a good friend to you but I pride myself in knowing that I am growing.
Are we not worth the attention to detail? Or are we insignificant outside of our orbit?
None of ‘my friends’ actually know me, it doesn’t feel real. The friendship I mean. They do not know why I speak the way I do. Kirishima tells me I should stop being so blunt and rude, I didn’t realize I was being rude. They do not understand why I am so angry, Mina says I should get over myself. Most importantly, they do not talk to me. Yes, we all have conversations in a group setting but I do not feel like I am actually a part of the group. Kirishima claims to be my best friend but he does not know my mind.
Is this what a regular friendship is like? Am I spoiled for my preconception that all true friendships are like ours?
In retrospect, I would not necessarily consider us to be friends. My mom says we are like the sun and the moon, ironically I am the sun and you are the moon. I am the one people notice, I am the one people pay the most attention to, but you capture people's attention. You make them feel nostalgic, you make everyone feel limitless.
My mom also says that when we clash it's like a solar eclipse because when we do, people are advised not to watch. For if you look too long you may go blind, but people love to watch regardless. They love to watch a miracle, we are a miracle.
I cannot define our relationship because no title seems to fully explain the significance you hold in my life, no title can do you justice.
These questions have haunted me, I half expect Denki or Sero to ask me about us. They are more observant than the other ones. I sometimes think that Mina has caught on but they never say anything. They are gluttons for silence, even more so for things they have no business knowing. So why haven’t they noticed me?
After all, you were the only one to remember my birthday.
Yours and only yours,
Katsuki Bakugou
P.S. Do we have any plans for the break?
“Did Midoriya respond to this?” Aizawa asks, his mouth ajar after reading the letters' contents.
“He did,” Katsuki nods, handing him a piece of paper Aizawa didn’t notice he was holding. “Deku responded a little differently today,”
My dearest, Katsuki,
You should talk to them. You are easily misunderstood without years of experience, they can’t know you if you do not allow them to do so.
With that being said, you are right. I do feel the same way with my group of friends.
I think it is funny considering my friends call themselves the Deku squad and yours the Baku squad. I believe we have been conditioned since we were very young to only rely on each other, after all we have only ever known and cared for each other.
We have limited experience outside of each other, you are my constant in life. I like to believe that I am a constant in your life as well, but you are still something of an enigma to me—even with a decade of knowing you.
Your parents were never emotional people and my mother was overly emotional. We gained these traits from our parents, this is part of the reason we fit so well with each other. We balance each other out in the same ways our mothers balance each other out.
I agree with you, calling us friends would be limiting the true nature of our relationship. We are a complicated pairing, often blurring the line between platonic and romantic. We also have the tendency to hide whatever our relationship is. Perhaps it is done out of the desire to preserve what we have or maybe we’re scared of what our peers would say. Maybe it's a combination of both.
It is not a question that ‘my friends’ believe you to be a bad person and that ‘your friends’ believe me to be something of a stalker that is obsessed with you. They are all wrong, because whether you would ever admit it or not you are as equally obsessed with me as I am you. You haven’t always been good, but you’ve grown.
You and I know this very well, as long as we know this then their opinion doesn’t matter. They don’t know you like I do, and they do not know me like you do.
We are worth the attention to detail, but not everyone recognizes that. Sometimes we do not fit within other people’s realm of importance, but that is okay because more often than not they do not fit within our realm of importance.
I do not think you are spoiled, because if you are spoiled then I am spoiled as well. You are philosophical and they are simple minded. I do not mean any malice or offense by saying that, it is simply my view on your situation.
Your ideas and views are difficult to grasp without a certain level of worldly understanding.
Lastly, your birthday is something of a sore subject with ‘your friends’. They have each expressed their sorrow in forgetting about it until far too late, but I do not expect they have brought up their regrets with you directly.
That is their burden to bear, it is not something for you to take to heart. You deserve an apology nonetheless. We can talk about it more later if you’d like.
Yours and only yours,
Izuku Midoriya
“And when nobody wakes you up in the morning, and nobody waits for you at night, and when you can do whatever you want. What do you call it, freedom or loneliness?” - Charles Bukowski
P.S. No we don’t, did you have anything in mind?
“You use each other’s first names in the letters,” Hizashi comments.
Katsuki nods. “We do,”
“Why is that?”
“First names are intimate, a privilege neither of us give to just anyone. In private we say each other’s first names, in public we use nicknames,”
“Why?” Aizawa asks.
“You really like asking me why,” He says, rolling his eyes.
“I’m curious,” His teacher admits.
“First names are a declaration for us, it represents–”
Hizashi interrupts, “Love,”
“Sometimes, and sometimes it represents nurturing or concern,”
“But it's all derived from love,” Hizashi summarizes.
Katsuki nods, “If that's how you chose to view it,”
“How do you view it?” Aizawa asks.
The classroom door opens abruptly, “Sorry for interrupting,” Izuku says, scratching the nape of his neck.
“There's no need to apologize, Midoriya. How can I help you?” Aizawa asks, turning his body to face his student.
“Oh, it's nothing really but Kachann and I are late to a prior obligation,” Izuku chuckles softly.
Katsuki stands, collecting the loose pages and putting them in their respective folders. He gently puts both folders in his backpack before flinging it over his shoulder.
“Where are you two headed? I don’t remember granting you two permission to leave campus,” Their teacher scolds.
“We aren’t leaving the campus, Mr. Aizawa,”
“My bad, Deku. We got off topic after the interview,”
“Don’t worry about it. Everything okay?” Izuku asks, reaching over to hold Katsuki’s elbow. To their teachers’ surprise, he doesn’t flinch back at the contact.
“Yup, you were right. Aizawa noticed,” Katsuki laughs, using his free arm to grab IZuku’s hand and drag the younger teen away. “See you after the break, old man,”
“Be safe, you two,”
“No promises,” Izuku smiles as he’s dragged out of the room by Katsuki.