Chapter Text
The tepid blonde slumps down onto the suede couch with a huff, averting his eyes to the worn-down carpet underneath the woman that must be his newly assigned therapist. The office is simple, white walls decorated with small and inoffensive trinkets, a few photos, and a group of succulent plants. The therapist’s sturdy-looking desk is fitted into the corner of the room beside a window with the office chair tucked in and a file organizer and laptop occupying the back half of the workspace. Too tidy to be realistic. I bet she never even uses that thing, Katsuki thinks to himself. Instead of setting up there, the woman only affirms the boy’s thought by sitting in a deep green armchair—because of course it’s green, of course it is—across a low coffee table from the loveseat sofa he now occupies.
“Katsuki Bakugou, yes?” the woman asks, clicking a pen on and jotting down his name on the small notepad she holds in her lap. After a beat, she glances up, carob-colored eyes boring through square-framed glasses and into the boy with a professional but relatively soft gaze.
With a tch, Katsuki nods but doesn’t speak. The brown eyes glance back down to her notepad briefly, jotting down one note before clicking her pen back off and setting the items down on the coffee table between them. It doesn’t seem to be a coincidence that the pad is angled in such a way that Katsuki could easily read it. Not wanting to give her the satisfaction of looking, but ultimately overpowered by curiosity, Katsuki’s eyes dart briefly down to the page facing up to see a single note marked under his name: “Quiet.”
The boy can’t help but scoff. No one in his life has ever deemed him to be a “quiet” person, given his quite literally explosive nature. This hag must have something wrong with her brain. No wonder she committed her life to a pointless livelihood.
“Katsuki—if you’re okay with me calling you that. If not, please let me know what name or honorific you’d prefer me to use instead—, my name is Dr. Taku Ochitsuki. You may call me Dr. Ochitsuki, or Taku-san, or whatever else is most comfortable to you. I’m a professional therapist and I have worked exclusively with pro heroes and heroes-in-training for the past fifteen years, with my first five years of practice being focused on adolescent youth and their families.”
Katsuki nods again, looking down at his hands where his cuticles have suddenly become very interesting. God, why am I here? He thinks to himself. There’s nothing fucking wrong with me, I’m not traumatized or broken or whatever the fuck the teachers at U.A. think is wrong with all of us. My heart can take my “moods” just fine, it always has. The more time I waste in here, the less time I can put toward actually working on my schoolwork and training. This is such a shit idea.
“What was that?” The woman asks, black eyebrows furrowed slightly. “I didn’t quite hear you.”
“Hah?” Katsuki replies, thinking the woman really must have something wrong with her. He didn’t say anything.
“You were muttering something under your breath, and I was asking what it was you said? Unless you didn’t intend to share it, then my apologies.”
Katsuki tightens his jaw, hands involuntarily curling into fists. Muttering? The fuck? What was he, the damned nerd? Katsuki Bakugou doesn’t fucking mutter.
“Nothing,” he replies gruffly, crossing his arms and not contributing to the conversation any further.
Dr. Ochitsuki adjusts her glasses up the narrow bridge of her nose and switches which leg she has crossed over the other. She continues to stare at Katsuki, saying nothing but seeming to study him intently. Much to his dismay, he feels himself squirming under her gaze.
“Well?” He says finally, bringing his gaze to meet hers from under his ever-lengthening hair. “Are you gonna talk? Get me to answer weird questions so you can make up some connections and tell me what you think is wrong with me?”
Dr. Ochitsuki hums lightly, a smirk tugging slightly at the corner of her mouth, which only serves to irritate Katsuki more. The fuck is there to laugh about?
“Katsuki, have you ever been in therapy before?”
“No.” His voice was firm, his facial expression solid as stone. “Don’t need it, don’t want it. Never have, never will. I’m just here because the doctor said I need to…‘tamp down my anger’ to avoid worsening my heart, and after the war, the school said they’d pay for therapy for any students that wanted it. You do the math from there.”
“Okay,” the doctor replies in stride, not breaking from her kind tone despite the insult to her career. “And why do you think U.A. is now encouraging all of the hero course students to attend therapy? Do you have any idea what their goal is?”
“Shouldn’t I be asking you that?” Katsuki rolls his eyes, seeing that the woman is playing the game already, but in a way that she thinks will appeal to him. He’s not fucking dumb, he knows a strategy when he sees one.
“Sure, I know what the school told me they wanted to achieve when they proposed the idea to me. However, I want to know your perception of the situation. I’m far more interested in what you think about this than the generic statement they provided me.”
That takes Katsuki slightly by surprise, but he makes sure not to show it. A professional therapist hired by the school to keep the kids from having mental breaks left and right didn’t seem like the type to ridicule the professionalism game. It could still fit within the strategy of trying to get him to talk for sure, but he’s surprised she would speak with such frivolity.
“I think,” he begins, shifting to sit up straighter and look at the doctor more directly. “After everything that’s gone down this past year, the school knows they can’t handle any bad press and wants to cover their asses in whatever way possible. They won’t be able to deal with the public response if anyone takes—” ...A swan dive off the roof. Fuck. Katsuki’s breath hitches for a moment, and he blinks his eyes rapidly as he tries to recenter himself, clearing his throat in the process. “They don’t want people losing any more faith in them, and getting kids who have been to war and back in a matter of months into therapy seems like a safe-bet to say they’ve done everything they can to avoid anything worse happening.”
“I’d say I agree,” Dr. Ochitsuki replies, and Katsuki almost misses the slight tension growing in her jaw. She’s pissed too, he thinks. Good, everyone fucking should be after this shitshow. He still doesn’t trust the woman, but she gets a few points for maintaining enough conscience to not just eat up whatever U.A. tries to force-feed her in all this.
“Yeah,” he mumbles, bringing elbows to knees and hands clasped together as he leans forward. Eyes on his feet, Katsuki lets out a sigh he didn’t know had been weighing on his shoulders. Recently, he always feels like he’s carrying something extra. Every single day, exhaustion and paranoia and anger and guilt circle around within him endlessly. He can’t catch a fucking break. Not that anyone else can, either.
Katsuki is not the “woe is me” type. He will never sit there and wallow in his misery, no matter how abundant it may be. There are classes to attend, training to be done, villains to be captured, and civilians to be saved. Why the fuck would he waste his time licking his mental and emotional wounds when there’s nothing he can do to change them anyway? Life is fucking hard, shitty things happen to good people and vice versa, and the world doesn’t stop spinning just because humans are conscious enough beings to be aware of our own suffering. Another day will always come, and Katsuki sure as shit isn’t gonna fall behind on it just because of some feelings.
“You look thoughtful,” the doctor observes after a moment, breaking Katsuki from his thoughts. “Care to speak to what’s on your mind at all?”
“Not really,” he grumbles, running his good hand through his hair. “Is it gonna be a problem if I don’t?”
“No, of course not,” Dr. Ochitsuki assures, a soft smile alighting her gentle face. “I’m just inviting the opportunity for you to share, since I can tell you’re working through something up in your head. These are your sessions, and we will only ever discuss what you want to when you want to. I’m just here for you to soundboard off of and, if you seek it, provide advice. You can say nothing, you can talk the entire 50 minutes, or somewhere in between. None of that will change the fact that I’ll be here.”
Something pangs in Katsuki’s chest, and he’s mildly uncomfortable with the warmth he feels at the woman’s words. He’s never really been given the opportunity to just talk before, free of judgment or repercussions. Whether it be with his parents, his teachers, or his friends, he always has to bite his tongue about something, can never just fucking vent without someone interjecting or criticizing. Of course, that restraint always tends to lead to an outburst of some kind or another…
Katsuki thinks back briefly to Ground Beta. To the implosion of emotions he felt at ending All Might’s career. Or at the hospital, when he found out Izuku had lost One for All, and yet another great hero was ended and he hadn’t done enough to stop it. He had been overwhelmed by guilt and self-directed frustration toward how he’d treated Izuku all their lives, so much so that he recounted all of the moments that led them here. He wasn’t sure what he was supposed to do with all of that, all he knew was that it had festered long enough that, in those moments, the emotions were stronger than his will and had overtaken him entirely. While he’d felt a little better after getting it out, it sure as hell wasn’t an ideal way of coping.
Another sigh escapes the boy’s lips, though he doesn’t really notice it. If he has to be here, maybe…maybe it would be worthwhile to just verbalize his thoughts? Even if he doesn’t listen to a damn word the woman says, because surely they will be useless, it could be nice to just get the thoughts outside of his own mind before they reach a boiling point for once.
“Question,” he begins, looking skeptical.
“Answer,” the therapist responds simply.
“The school doesn’t get to know what I say in here, right?” Something twists in Katsuki’s stomach at the thought of his teachers knowing the inner workings of his brain. Thoughts he would never share with them, for so many reasons. If that’s what he wanted, he’d just talk to them directly. No, this would have to be so fucking private, no one could get a glimpse into his mind if they tried. Except this woman—who is, in fact, a total stranger, but somehow has put a relative amount of ease on Katsuki’s conscience in a mere 30 minutes.
“No one will know anything that is said in here, except for you and me,” the woman states, a genuine and understanding emotion passing through her eyes. “In the event that you share something that leads me to believe you are a danger to yourself or others, such as serious intent to harm yourself or someone else, I may need to break that confidentiality to select parties, but it is otherwise completely secret. Just us and your thoughts, no one else.”
Okay, no using the word “murder”. Got it. That, I can manage, I guess. Katsuki nods once, swallowing around a lump in his throat. Coming to a decision, he lifts his head with a new light behind his eyes.
“I’m not ready to talk today, but I will be next time,” he says, seriousness evident in his tone. “I don’t buy this whole ‘healing and feeling’ bullshit, but it’s hard to keep my thoughts organized when they’re just swirling around in my head. I’d like to use these sessions to sort my mind out a bit. I don’t want advice, I don’t want suggestions, I just want a place to put my thoughts other than my own fucking brain. Got it?”
Dr. Ochitsuki nods sharply, picking up her pen and notepad once more to jot down a few words, likely about what Katsuki just said. When she looks up, she wears a genuine grin, though there is a hint of scheming determination in her eyes. “Got it. If that’s the case, you may leave early if you like. It’s only our first day, and since you’ve indicated you don’t want to talk, I don’t want to keep you here against your wishes. However, you are more than welcome to stay if you choose to.”
“Nah,” Katsuki says, rising immediately and slugging his bookbag over his shoulder. “We’re doing this once a week, yeah?”
“Yes,” she nods, rising from her own seat and walking over to the desk in the corner.
“Alright, I’ll see you next week then.”
“See you next week, Katsuki.”
The boy hesitates when he reaches the door, turning to look back at the woman who is now opening her laptop and setting herself down upon the desk chair.
“Oh, and Doc?” He begins, then continues without waiting for a response. “I’m not fucking quiet. Not in the least. Better be prepared for that moving forward.”
As Katuski heads out the door, smirk pulled wide across his face, he swears he can hear a chuckle escape the woman in the room behind him.