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When Katsuki gets angry, he becomes explosive. He’s like a ticking time bomb ready to explode at any moment. It’s like he can constantly feel all the fear, frustration, and anger building up inside of him. It's always been there. Like something rotting dead inside him that he could never get rid of. Overwhelming his senses, taking up space within him. But it’s always been there, extremely prevalent in him. As a kid he felt all of those intense pent up negative feelings times ten, like he was shutting down from the inside. And all he wanted was to release it.
He’d found those outlets at a young age. It felt easier to ridicule others for their faults and fragility. To taunt and humiliate those who were weaker, lesser than him. But, they also served as reminders of his own shortcomings. He was mean, violent, cruel, a bully. But when he looked down at those unfortunate enough to become another victim for him to taunt, he would ask himself, why could he not too be gentle? And everytime he thought that thought he felt disgust rise within him. That he could ask such a thing. That disgust turned to anger. And that anger turned to bloody knuckles washed away by the tears of those who dared to cross paths with him.
Deku was different from most of the helpless losers though. Sure, he cried like the rest of them, but he always had a way of standing his ground all the while. His tears were a product of the strength and care that grew in his heart. He was made of compassion. He cried because he had so much empathy and love for others. Even for someone as vile as Katsuki. When Bakugou cried, it was out of humiliation and hatred. How could he be so emotionally behind and incapable as the person who he was so far ahead of? For that reason he hated Deku the most. And when Deku dared to reach out his hand to him, Katsukis vision was blinded by red. That he could ever think Katsuki needed any of his help. It was a taunt. A big slap in the face. That no matter what Katsuki did, or how hard he worked he would always manage to be lesser than. A weak helpless loser at his core.
It felt like whenever Deku looked at him, he saw past the facade. Like when he looked at Katsuki, he could see all the insecurities that lay beneath his superiority complex. He felt naked. What everyone thought of him stripped away leaving him cold and bare.
In Junior high, he only grew angrier. It felt like it grew with him as he aged, neverending and inescapable, as did the bullying he inflicted, more violent, more ruthless. It should've been natural that at this point he would learn to control it. And in some ways, he did, but none of them came without consequence.
~~~
Katsuki always made a point of being early to class, not that he cared about gaining the teachers respect or whatever bullcrap people do to try to get on a teacher's good side. For him, he enjoyed sitting alone at his desk, basking in the quiet before anyone got there to start bothering him. He hated the people in his class, he hated his friends, he hated looking at Dekus stupid face. For just half an hour before class started he liked to watch the birds on the trees as he looked through the window, chirping away.
And it's nice until he sees Deku burst through the door, swinging it open and disturbing Katsuki’s peace with the loud entrance. Katsuki can see Deku’s face change from panic to annoyance as the pang of realization seemingly hits him, letting out a loud groan as he walks to his seat, collapsing in it like he had just ran a marathon.
Irritated as ever Katsuki yells from next to him “Way to fuck up the quiet you asshole, I can smell you from here, did you have to run here to get here 30 minutes before class?”
“Sorry Kacchan…” Deku sighs “My clock was all messed up for some reason, I thought I woke up late and started trying to get here as fast as I could..”
Katsuki is so mad steam could come out of his ears, and he wishes to himself that he could just hurl his desk at him right there.
“Well nice going, you fucked up my morning, damn loser”
Deku stares at him for a second, tired, and says “Can you stop saying nasty things for one minute?”
Katsuki is this close to losing his shit, and just looking at his stupid face he does, so he gets up from his seat, walks over to Dekus desk behind him, and pushes it over as Dekus falls to the ground with a yelp.
“That was uncalled for” Deku mumbles from the floor.
“So was you bursting through the door.”
“I thought I was gonna be late Kacchan”
“And I thought I told you to shut up!”
“..you didn't though”
Katsuki whips his head around from where he’s seated “Well now I am so shut the fuck up!”
It falls back into silence for a minute.
Katuki puts in his earbuds trying to ignore the fact he’s stuck with Deku for the next half hour and Deku takes out his notebook, going over the same old hero notes he’s read over hundreds of times before. For Deku, it always put his mind at ease to study his favorite pros. And for the amount of time that he was reading, he could forget the hurt he felt every time his childhood best friend picked on him. Even though at this point he’d gotten used to it since it practically became an everyday routine, there were still scattered times in between where he became emotional. He tried desperately to stop tears from falling from his eyes at the thought that Katsuki hated him so much. Knowing that if he heard him the ridiculing would worsen.
Of course, Dekus never had the best luck.
Katsuki immediately turns around to say “Do you ever stop crying?”
Deku wipes at his face quickly and retorts “Maybe if you weren’t so mean all the time I wouldnt have a reason to cry.”
“Oh I’ll give you a real reason to cry” Katsuki says with a sinister smile. “You’re just asking to get the shit beat out of you.”
“Wha-what?? But I haven’t even done anything!”
“You got a mouth on you, you know that right? You ruined my morning, you're talking shit to my face, and now youre fucking crying?”
Deku’s never one to usually get mad, but right now he can feel himself starting to boil hot as anger starts to course through him.
“Fuck you Kacchan” he says under his breath.
Unfortunately, Katsuki’s ears are still very well intact, even after all the heavy metal he blasts into his ears at full volume every day.
Katsuki’s eyes pierce through him and Deku can see his left eye twitching as he looks back at him in disbelief “What the hell did you say to me?”
At this point, there's no coming back from this, Katsuki’s already heard him so he might as well double down before he dies. He always knew Katsuki would kill him at some point anyways.
He just didn’t know he’d have to die so early.
“Uhm.. fuck you?” he says unsure, mentally preparing himself for his death.
And as expected, Katsuki completely loses his shit, and since there’s no one currently in the classroom or the hallways, Katsuki figures now is a great time to crack Deku's skull open on the dirty school floor.
The second he lunges, Deku falls backwards immediately, ending up on his back with Katsuki on top of him. Deku pushes him back, holding him up with his chest by his hands as Katsuki attempts to wail on him.
“You motherfucker, dont you dare talk shit to my face I’ll fucking kill your right now with my bare hands you!–”
With Deku’s arms stretched out pushing Katsuki, Katsuki gets a good view down into the sleeves of his arms, seeing lines over lines over lines. Some thick, some small, stretched across his pale skin and layered on top of each other. And when he first catches a glimpse of these lines on Deku’s wrists, he mistakes them for tallies, maybe a form of cheating?
Katsuki pushes all of his weight on Deku’s chest, sitting on top of him as he forcefully grabs his wrist.
Deku is confused, then fearful as he panics “What are you- get off Kacchan, you're hurting my arms stop!”
Katsuki squeezes his hands tighter around his wrists “What the fuck is on your arms Deku” He says sly, like he’s caught him.
Deku’s eyes grow wide as he seethes with pain. He tries to pull back, but it’s all in vain as Katsuki easily overpowers him. It ends up making it worse as Katsuki grips his arms even tighter. It’s not till katsuki can feel the blood start soaking onto his hands that he lets go.
Katsuki feels the dampness, immediately pulling back.
“What the hell? Is this.. blood?” He says dumbfounded, staring at his now red hands.
Deku looks back at him terrified.
He grips one of his arms, forcefully pulling down the sleeves of Deku’s uniform.
“Kacchan please don't-”
Big bloody gashes and scars stare back at him.
“I didn’t mean to get blood on you” Deku mutters under his breath.
“...did you do this to yourself?” Katsuki says, feeling the churning of his stomach as Deku awkwardly nods.
Katsuki had never seen anything like this before, he would never admit but it completely terrified him. To think that anyone would ever willingly hurt themselves like this. They ranged from mere scratches, to keloids, to open diamond shaped wounds separating skin, showing what lay underneath. It made him sick.
Deku layed there, embarrassed, and Katsuki wondered for a second why he wasn’t getting up, forgetting that he had his full weight on top of him.
“Do you mind if I stand?” Deku mumbles.
“Uh- yeah” Katsuki replies as he pulls the sleeves back up and pulls himself up from where he was sitting on top of him. Deku helps himself up and quietly sits himself back down at his desk.
“You’re not gonna get band aids or wash off your arms or anything?” Katsuki says slouching into the seat next to Deku.
“No, I dont put bandaids on them most of the time.”
“You're not even gonna bother wiping off the blood?”
“It doesn’t really matter-”
“Shut up.” Katsuki says, reaching around to his desk in front of him, grabbing his backpack and pulling it towards him. “You’re gonna get a damn infection” he says as he begins to pull out hand sanitizer, band-aids and gauze.
Katsuki is so confusing to him sometimes. He almost can't believe it. Katsuki was just about to kick his ass for crying and now he's going to tend to his wounds?? He thinks to himself what is with this guy? And also why does he just carry around first aid kits? Well, he guessed Katsuki had always been the type to be well-prepared. Even as a kid he always had the tendency to bring extra things “just in case”. The first time he was ever invited over to Deku’s house he brought 3 different types of knives in the emergency that someone tried to break-in or Deku’s mom actually turned out to be some type of murderer, so he guessed it wasn't really that surprising.
“You don't have to do that, it’s fine really I mean-”
“Jesus do you ever just shut up with your rambling?” Katsuki groaned as sanitized his hands before grabbing Deku’s arm as gently as he could so as not to open up any more wounds or put pressure on the ones that already had tissue exposed.
He opened up a packet of disinfectant and lightly rubbed the substance onto the cuts, cleaning away any blood left while also making sure the wounds were all covered with the disinfectant. The alcohol on the opened slits stinged and Deku couldn’t help but try to pull back.
“If you don’t stand still I swear to God, I will just burn these shut with my quirk” Katsuki says slightly annoyed.
“Please do not do that, and also I really am trying to be as still as possible, but it’s really hard.”
“You’re just a damn weakling.” Katsuki says as he finishes up applying the disinfectant, moving to grab the band-aids. He decides using the bigger bandages is better, a bunch of those tiny ones would just be a pain to put on over and over again. Plus it’s less of a waste anyway.
As he works on both arms he asks very bluntly “What's the point of doing this to yourself? You trying to drain all the blood from your body?”
He asks as if Deku isn't rattling with anxiety enough at Katsuki getting an up close look at each and every one of them. Nervously bouncing his legs up and down he says “Uh, yeah kinda? There’s a lot of different reasons, I can’t necessarily pinpoint one exactly. It just depends on what situation it was that led to me self harming I guess.”
Katsuki points to the one he’s working on “what about this one?”
”Me and my mom got into a big fight because I blew all the money she gave me to buy new clothes“ he lets out a little light laugh “on a rare All-Might figurine at the thrift store.”
“Really? You decided cause your mom was mad at you that that was a good enough reason to leave a scar on you forever?”
Deku shifts awkwardly in his seat “I’m not usually the most level headed when I’m upset. She doesn’t usually yell at me, especially that bad, and it was kinda a lot to handle I guess... It was worse when she started to emphasize how hard she worked for that money, only for me to selfishly buy some stupid toy.”
Katsuki smirks “Yeah you kinda are the asshole.”
“Shut up Kacchan I know that.” he groans “When I get emotional, I can go overboard.”
“I can tell.” Katsuki teases. Which is weird to hear. A nice weird. One that he can’t help but smile at. They used to banter like this as kids.
Katsuki moves over to an area with five incredibly thick keloids. They’re all of the same length and thickness, like Deku slashed them one after the other. They're all long and they stretch across his skin like shooting stars. You can tell they were all done at the same moment, from the same sadness. He drags his fingers over them, feeling each bump as they rise and fall.
“How about these?”
Deku almost decides against telling him, but it was getting close to the last day of school, and hopefully they wouldn’t have to see each other again. Or at least Katsuki wouldn’t have to see Deku again. Deku figured he would end up seeing Katsuki on the news or something as a pro hero, doing amazing things Deku wished he could’ve done. He figured it would be nice to see him on TV anyways though. Doing what he dreamed of as a kid. He probably wouldn’t be able to help but feel anything but happiness for him.
“...You told me to kill myself not to long ago.. y’know take a swan dive off the roof of the building.”
Katsuki's face didn’t change at all. Katsuki internally did not know at all how to react to that information, but for that moment he understood why Deku hurt himself. Cause right now, he wanted to do exactly that. To let out the pent up anger and rage he had for himself through self inflicted pain.
He finished up placing the last bandage, trying hard not to shake as he did so.
He let a few minutes pass before he said “You may not believe me, and I know you probably don’t, but.. I don't think you understand what I would do to myself if you ever did that.”
That startles Deku a bit “What do you mean?”
“I get what you mean. When you say anything can tip you over the edge, little or small. I feel a lot like that too.”
Deku stares at him for a minute, taken aback by Katsuki’s willingness to open up to him. He doesn’t say anything though. He knows he has to let him keep going, and he can feel that he probably still has more to say.
“Except I don’t let it out through stuff like that. I’m just.. explosive. I take it out on the people around me. I say things I don’t mean to say. I hurt people I don’t want to hurt. I destroy things that I value. I bang my head into my desk till I get those big bumps and I punch my walls till my knuckles bleed and bruise. I’ll even blow stuff up in the backyard till my hands are completely raw from the heat.
For the first time ever, when he looks into Katsuki's eyes all he can see is… fear. He tries not to focus on the fact that despite the visible effort that Katsuki makes not to, he is trembling.
“Ugh, I guess–” Katsuki rubs the bridge of his nose vigorously before covering his face with his hand, “I guess what I’m trying to say is that.. I’m… I don't mean it when I say things like that. I’m not.. I don't have that kind of hatred for you-“ Katsuki looks up at him with a troubled look, yet speaking with sincerity, “—I have it so much more for myself, and I would destroy myself if I ever ended up being the reason for you doing something like that or even just hearing you did anything like that. Just knowing that you would wanna inflict this much pain on yourself cause of some stupid thing I said when I was mad. I wouldn’t ever forgive myself.”
Deku could feel the tears welling in his eyes and he can’t stop them as thick teardrops stream down his face and drip onto the floor. He wonders if this is some cruel dream.
“I don't mean to make you feel bad or anything Kacchan. Or even make you pity me.”
“I said it cause I fuckin wanted to say it, and stop crying, once was enough.”
They fall again into silence minus Deku’s sniffling attempts to ease up on the tears and the early morning birds chirping. Deku tries desperately to hold in the question on his mind but, he can't help but ask, “I always thought you hated me.. why do you always pick on me Kacchan?”
Katsuki can feel his chest tighten at the words. He’s not even sure he can answer that. Doesn’t Deku deserve to know? Does he himself even know? How can he even be so vulnerable to someone who he was so cruel to just 15 minutes ago? He didn’t feel ready to face the jealousy and humiliation that he’d kept dormant inside of him for so long. Or the weakness he felt looking at Deku as he asked something so bold, meanwhile Katsuki could barely utter a word as he felt them close at his throat. He was still just a weak piece of shit kid.
So through shaky breaths all he can tell Deku is “You were always stronger than me.”
Katsuki can’t help it, but he’s always been extremely emotional and always one to cry at just about anything. Whenever his mom would put him in time-out as a kid, when he’d watch movies where the dog died, when he got anything lower than an A+ on a test. He cried. Bawled. And right now that really sucked. Because he of all people does not deserve to cry.
He turns his head away feeling the tears burn into his skin and the humiliation steam them away. He hates crying in front of other people more than he hates the crying itself. It’s the embarrassment that makes the ugliness rise in him again, “It was always you who pitied me. Always thought I needed help or some shit, well fuck that.”
Deku can hear the hostility in voice and treads lightly when he thinks of what to say next. They don't necessarily have to have the conversation right now, but their final year is ending and he might as well get out as much as he can before Kacchan leaves.
“I’ve always admired you Kacchan, as much as I wanted to have a cool quirk like you and as much confidence as you, I wanted nothing more than to just be your friend. Not because I pitied you, not to taunt you, just because. It just seemed like we couldn't get any closer and then..” Deku could try as much as he wanted not to cry, but this always pained him the most “..Then you just suddenly couldn’t stand me. And I’ve always wondered why. I guess it’s stupid to say I still cling to the more happier times we had growing up. When it felt like just you and me”
“How in the hell could you miss a dickhead like me? I’ve practically fucked you up”
Deku can't help but laugh at the irony, “You’re the one who apparently thinks I’m strong. You kinda are right Kacchan. I still think about a friendship from almost a decade ago, can’t get much more loser than that.”
“I’m right about everything dipshit.” Katsuki says, breaking a hint of a smile.
Deku smiles right back at him.
He pauses for a second and asks more seriously, “Will you always pick on me?”
Katsuki turns his head back to face him. “Are you gonna stop that bullshit with the cutting?”
“I’ll do my best.”
“Then I won’t beat you up or whatever, but I can’t help but make fun of you if you’re always walking around like a damn loser, pick yourself back up if you want people to go easy on you, and stop the damn muttering, it’s creepy.”
The bell rings for the other students to start heading to class and they begin to hear the shuffling begin of their classmates filling the classroom, but before Katsuki moves back up to his seat, he digs through his backpack and hands Deku nine more of those huge bandages he has.
Deku smiles brightly at him for the first time in a long time, “I will, don't worry Kacchan.. and thank you.”
“I’m not worried damnit.”
Deku wonders to himself if they could ever be friends again. If maybe Katsuki had done too much damage over the years. He can’t help but still care for him, when you love someone enough, they could hurt you as much as they’d like and you still can't help but try to understand them. Trying to understand why Katsuki tormented him so much led to a lot of self hatred. That if Katsuki felt the need to tell him constantly how much of a burden he was, that maybe there was a reason why. That maybe there was something wrong with him, and maybe he was right.
He knew Katsuki didn’t care about him as much as he did, but his words and actions just now gave him a glimmer of hope. That maybe someday they could laugh together again. That he didn’t have to be the lesser of the two. That maybe Katsuki could want him as a friend again, as an equal.
~~~
As Deku climbs onto the bus he finds Katsuki in the same spot he’s sat in for the past 3 years and he can see Katsuki side eyeing him as he walks all the way to the back. He plops down next to him trying to not be too obnoxious as he does so.
He smiles at Katsuki and he can almost see Katsuki smile back before he punches him in the shoulder and puts his earbuds back in, loud heavy metal blasting into his ears.
Deku thinks to himself if Katsuki wants to be the best hero he can be, he’s probably gonna wanna turn it down. It’ll damage his ears and that’s gonna suck in the long run. He keeps that to himself though. Katsuki would kill him if he ever bothered him just to critique his lifestyle.
He forgot how much he enjoys Katsukis presence and silently hopes to himself that Katsuki will let him sit next to him on the bus again tomorrow. He doesn’t know Katsuki is thinking the same thing next to him as he looks out the window. Katsuki feels like a kid. It reminds him how much he missed when he and Deku used to take the bus home together as children. And maybe, just maybe, he can undo all that he did and start again like they were back then.
He’s hoping he can start now.