Chapter Text
Toyo is the most boring place in the world and the house Katsuki’s parents have rented serves as the epicenter. The hag doesn’t allow any running, any yelling, or any explosions at all. She keeps harping about this being some stupid “family bonding” activity as though every activity that they end up doing isn’t the lamest, dumbest thing on the whole planet.
This morning, they wanted to go to a stupid museum about the ocean. Why do they need to go to a building when they’ve got a house right on the beach? It’s so dumb.
He grimly considers the abject stupidity of his parents while he stomps off to the beach to have some time to himself. Fine, we’ll go without you! You’re free to dramatically sulk while we’re gone! Just don’t drown! the hag had shouted after him, miserable as ever.
The ocean is warm against his ankles—way warmer than the ocean up north, anyways. It’s heading toward high tide. That doesn’t bother Katsuki; he learned how to swim very early. Faster than anyone else in his class, actually. He’s always been ahead of everybody else like that.
It’s almost peaceful, looking out at the wide stretch of water. He’s read that it goes all the way around until it circles back on the opposite coast of Japan. He has a very high reading level for his age—almost three grades above—so he knows that the ocean touches far away places like India and Ethiopia. Even Canada.
It’s almost peaceful, with the exception of the unending screaming.
There’s a boy sitting farther out in the shallows, wailing as his arms flail. Whenever a wave passes over his head there is a brief silence, immediately followed by choking and more sobbing. Katsuki observes this for about a minute before coming to a conclusion:
That boy is an awful swimmer.
“Oi!” he shouts, stomping down the beach. When he gets to the water, it doesn’t take long to get to the pathetic boy. He looms over him, fists on his hips. “You suck at swimming!”
The boy ceases his crying, giving him a puzzled look. His eyes are large and watery, hair a matted mess atop his head like a cluster of beached seaweed. “Huh?”
“You suck at swimming!” Katsuki repeats. “You’re drowning in the shallows! Talk about useless! I could swim when I was just a baby; I don’t know what your excuse is.”
The boy just gapes at him. “...Huh?”
“Are you stupid?” he asks. He isn’t sure why he bothers; he knows the answer. “You are stupid. You’re gonna drown in this baby area of the ocean. Come on.” He grabs the boy’s arm and starts dragging him to shore. His skin is weirdly cold under Katsuki’s palm, clammy and incredibly soft.
The boy yelps, kicking out behind him. Water hits his back as he continues back to land.
Once Katsuki is free of the water, he drops the boy’s arm. “You’re welcome.”
The boy curls over his elbow, hacking water. It’s really gross, which just annoys Katsuki more.
“That’s what you get for being a dumb deku!” he snaps.
“No!” the boy sits up, head whipping toward him. He pouts, his freckled cheeks puffing out his already round face. “I’m not a deku! I’m a little boy, just like you.”
“I mean ‘deku’ like you’re a useless deku,” Katsuki says, propping his hands on his hips. “Only a deku drowns in shallow water!”
Deku sulks, shoulders raised.
“You’re lucky I was here,” Katsuki says. “If I weren’t, you’d have drowned like a deku.”
“Why’d you save me, anyways?” Deku asks, lower lip jutting. That’s fine. Not every rescued extra needs to be perfectly grateful. Some are just annoying dekus. Maybe most are.
“Because I’m a hero,” Katsuki replies, puffing out his chest. “Or I’m gonna be, when I’m all grown up.”
Deku blinks, eyes wide. That strange, glossy sheen hasn’t left them once. “A hero? Like a superhero? Like All Might?”
Katsuki perks up at that. “Yeah! Just like All Might. But better.”
“No way! Nobody’s better than All Might!”
He rolls his eyes. “Yeah, nobody’s better than All Might now. But someday, I’ll take his spot!”
Deku just stares at him for a moment. This isn’t that weird; Deku’s clearly a total idiot. Then he says, “Wow. So you’re an actual hero, huh?”
“Yup! I was just telling you, moron.”
“You help people,” Deku says, his voice finally appropriately in awe of Katsuki. “You save people in trouble!”
He nods. “Yup. I smash bad guys’ faces in!”
Deku sits up, spine straight. “You do?”
Katsuki grins. “Yup.”
Deku scrambles to his feet, wobbling as he tries to find balance. What a useless kid, if he can’t even stand properly! “M-my mom told me about All Might,” he says, stumbling forward. “She said he’s a human who stands up for everybody and stops bad guys.”
“All Might is the best,” Katsuki says. “He’s number one!”
Deku nods, smiling. “Yes! That’s so cool that you’re like him!” He pauses. “What’s your name?”
“Bakugou Katsuki,” he replies.
Deku makes a soft sound. “Ah…”
“My quirk’s Explosion. See?” He lifts his hand and lets out a sharp blast.
Deku yelps, falling onto his back. “Wow! That’s amazing!”
The damn kid is naked! What the hell? How did he not notice that until now? Katsuki takes a step back, startled. “Where the hell are your clothes?”
That just starts another round of annoying sobs.
“Shut up!” he yells, stomping his foot. “Wow, you’re so annoying!”
Deku sniffles, curling his legs under him. “I…” He taps his fingers together. “You said you stop bad guys, right?”
“Yup,” Katsuki replies.
“Well… I met a bad guy, this morning.” He peers up at Katsuki. “He stole something very important to me! I need to get it back.”
“A thief?”
“Worse!” His eyes flood with tears again. “He took me from my mom! I got away, but he stole my special thing that lets me go home! A-and…” He shudders, grimacing. “I can tell he has it. It’s awful!”
“What is it?” Okay, he’s actually a little curious now.
His face scrunches. “I don’t know the word in Japanese. But it’s my clothes!”
Katsuki stares at him. “A bad guy stole your clothes.”
“Not just clothes! It’s special, just for me! B-but yeah. I wear it. ’S why I’m naked, now.”
His parents have told him about this sort of thing, in vague terms. Sometimes adults are scary and they want to hurt little kids. They’ll take off their clothes like that. That’s a serious villain-villain. Like a real deal one. Damn.
“Wow,” Katsuki breathes, fists sparking at his side. “A real villain to beat up.”
Deku jerks at the sound. “Huh?”
“Sure, Deku, I’ll go clobber him for you.”
He stares up at Katsuki, eyes wide. “Wow. Katsuki-chan is so cool…”
Katsuki feels his cheeks flare. “Of course I’m cool! Now come on, let’s get something to cover your privates before the hag gets home and yells at me.”
Deku is scrawny, but Katsuki’s clothes fit well enough. He’d blushed like an idiot when Katsuki had tossed the clothing at him at first, babbling about “special somethings” again or whatever. Katsuki had told him to shove it; he couldn’t have him walking around naked or his mom would have a cataclysmic mom meltdown.
Now he keeps sniffing the burrowed shirt with a furrowed brow. Just another weird thing to tack onto the various dekuisms of Deku. He walks stupidly, too, like he doesn’t expect his knees to bend how they do. Deku truly is useless in every aspect of being alive.
He has not stopped complimenting Katsuki the whole time he’s been around him, though, so that’s something at least. Even if Deku is pretty annoying and bad at everything, he at least can recognize greatness when it’s in front of him.
“This is a really nice den, Kacchan!” He swings his head back and forth in amazement, mouth slightly parted. He hasn’t fully closed it once, probably because he’s a dumb mouth-breathing deku. “Where’s your mom?”
“My parents are at a stupid museum,” he replies, chucking a pair of socks at him from his suitcase. “Wear these. I got an extra pair of shoes for you.”
Deku cocks his head. It looks especially stupid with his skinny neck and his big, empty eyes over his open mouth. “A museum?”
He rolls his eyes. “A big building where you go to look at boring stuff.”
“Oh! Okay. Well, I’m glad you didn’t go. I wouldn’t have been rescued if you had!”
Katsuki grunts in agreement, closing his suitcase. When he turns back, he finds Deku wearing the socks on his hands. His hands! What a moron. “Oi! What’re you doing? Those ain’t gloves, dummy.”
Deku blinks. “Huh?”
Katsuki huffs, marching over and ripping the socks off of his hands. “These,” he says firmly, holding them in front of dumb Deku’s face, “are socks.”
“Socks,” Deku echoes.
“They go on your feet, moron.”
“Oh! Oh.”
Katsuki kneels, holding up a hand. “Gimme your foot. You’re so useless.”
Deku stares at him for a moment before he braces himself against the wall and shakily lifts a leg, slowly presenting it.
He rolls his eyes even harder, yanking Deku’s foot toward him.
Deku yelps, wobbling.
“What kinda mom raised you?” Kacchan snaps, roughly sliding the sock up Deku’s foot.
“A good one,” Deku replies, setting his foot back on the floor. He recoils a few times before settling it flat. “This feels funny.”
“Next foot.”
Deku braces his whole body against the wall and lifts his leg again.
“Your mom never taught you how to put on socks,” Katsuki says. “Or maybe she did and you’re just too stupid to know how to do it. I feel bad for your mom if that’s true. You probably can’t even wear shoes.”
“I can!” Deku says with a pout. “I’ve just never done it before. I’m new to all of this.”
Katsuki shakes his head, patting his knee as he releases his leg. “Whatever. You’re so weird.”
Fingers curl into his hair. Katsuki freezes.
When he manages to look up, head weighed down by Deku’s hands, he finds Deku staring down at him with dark, vacant eyes. He continues to breathe through his parted mouth like the dumb deku he is. There’s something about it, though, how black it is, the tiny sliver of a sharp tooth, that has Katsuki feeling weirdly energized. Like he needs to get up and get the hell out of here.
“You’re cute,” Deku says.
“Hah?” Katsuki jerks back, escaping from Deku’s fingers. “Who’re you calling cute?”
“You,” he replies. “You’re so cute, Kacchan.”
Katsuki can feel his face flush.
There’s this weird, kind of manic look to Deku’s large eyes.
“Don’t be stupid,” Katsuki says, standing up. He makes a show of brushing his knees off, allowing his eyes to sink to the floor. “Stupid Deku.”
“Ah! Wait, Katsuki-chan. Where are you going?”
He stops in the doorway, looking back at him. Deku is smaller than him when they’re standing. He stands on wobbly legs like he can barely balance, crimping the bottom of his borrowed shirt. Katsuki feels very stupid for getting that sick, weird feeling in his blood just a moment ago. There’s nothing remotely scary about Deku.
“Kacchan?”
“I’m gonna get ready to go beat up the pervert guy who stole your clothes,” Katsuki tells him. “Do you know where he is?”
“Ah! Um… I think so? I know where his house is.”
Perfect. “Good. Lemme get a map and then you can show me and I’ll go.”
“Wait! What about me?”
He arches a brow. “What about you?”
Deku stands taller, frowning. “I want to go with Kacchan.”
“You’d just slow me down.”
“No! I can help.”
Anger ignites in his chest. “I don’t need your help, dumb Deku!”
“Probably not,” Deku replies, eyes hard. “But I still want to help!”
“I don’t need you!”
“I’m not disagreeing! But it’s my special thing!”
Katsuki snarls, palms itching with sweat, waiting to ignite. The hag’ll know instantly if he detonates in the house, though; she has this weird sixth sense about whenever he does something she tells him not to. She claims it’s “mom sense.” Katsuki calls it “stupid hag mind powers.”
“Kacchan is so amazing,” Deku says, taking a shaky step forward. What a pathetic, stupid kid acting like he’s on the same level as Katsuki. It’s genuinely disgusting, that’s what it is. Gross. Deku is gross. “I’m grateful for you coming to save me, just like All Might. But I can’t describe what my special thing looks like; you might know what it is once you see it, but I can’t let anybody take it who isn’t my special someone. My mom told me that.”
“I ain’t taking it!” Katsuki shoots back. “As if I’d want to be your special someone.”
Deku stares at him with those dark, wet eyes. He just breathes, chest rising and falling. He isn’t scary—Deku isn’t scary—but he is fucking creepy.
“Fine,” Katsuki snaps. “Fine, you can come! But it’s your fault if we don’t get your clothes or whatever back. Got it?”
“Yes, Kacchan!” His voice is bubbly again as he toddles after him toward the genkan. He hesitates as Katsuki shoves himself into his sandals and grabs his sneakers for dumb Deku.
When he continues to not move, Katsuki huffs. “What?”
Deku fidgets, tangling his fingers in the shirt.
“What?”
“Kacchan,” he says, looking at him balefully, “I’m hungry.”
They grab onigiri from his parents’ kitchen. His mom must have made it this morning. Probably wants to take them to the beach or something. Whatever.
Deku eats four of them.
Katsuki watches him swallow them whole with a mixture of disgust and interest. “You got a big mouth.”
Deku hums, chewing. His eyes are large and glossy, pupils dark. Creepy, weird little kid. Not scary. He isn’t scary. He can’t even swim or wear socks. What a loser.
When he reaches across the counter for a fifth, Katsuki pulls the plate back. “No, you can’t eat ‘em all. My mom’ll freak out.”
He frowns, blinking slowly. “But…I’m hungry.”
Katsuki rolls his eyes. “I’ll get you something else to eat.”
He perks up. “Really?”
“Yeah. After we get your stuff back.”
Deku deflates at that. He tucks his hands in his lap, kicking his legs. “Okay, Kacchan.”
“Now lemme get a map and you can tell me where this villain is.” He hops out of his chair. Then he thinks better of it and grabs the plate of onigiri, putting it away. He doesn’t miss Deku’s disappointed hum. Loser.
The maps are all stuffed into his dad’s duffel bag by the couch. Easiest heist in history.
The pervert lives just a couple of blocks away, luckily. Or maybe unluckily. Katsuki doesn’t like the idea of vacationing near a boy-snatching villain. Not that he can’t take care of himself, of course—he’s going to explode this guy to pieces—but it’s still disquieting to consider. His mom would freak if he got kidnapped, even if it was just for a little bit.
He wonders how Deku’s mom is doing, right now.
“Where’s your mom?” he asks as they walk to the fisherman’s place, begrudgingly placing an arm behind Deku when he starts to tilt backwards too far again. Dumbass can barely walk in Katsuki’s sneakers. He takes huge steps like he doesn’t know how to feel the ground under his feet anymore.
“She’s in her den,” Deku replies. “I think, anyways. I don’t know where she is because that man took me away!”
“Does she got a phone number?” It occurs to Katsuki, halfway to this evil lair, that maybe they should have tried to contact Deku’s mom first. Or the police. Each thought settles like a stone in his stomach.
Whatever. It’s fine! He’s going to set everything straight with a big blast to this sicko’s face. Then they can contact the cops and get Deku back to his mom.
“I don’t know,” Deku replies. He stares intently at the ground, brow furrowed in concentration. Jeez, he really is stupid.
Katsuki sighs. This kid is worse than useless, seriously.
The lair is down an off-road path. Katsuki feels his heart beat harder in his chest, adrenaline surging as they have to pick their way through some tall grass to get onto the dirt trail. There’s a blue pick-up truck by the side of the road behind them; it looks like it hasn’t been driven in a while. Ahead of them rests a derelict, busted up shack that is absolutely perfect for a scary villain to hang out in.
“That’s it!” Deku gasps, looking up. He falls against Katsuki’s side, hands squeezing his arm. “Kacchan, that’s the place where the man took me! He has my special thing!”
“I know, dummy! Let’s go in and grab it.”
Deku shudders, shoulders hunching. “Okay. He isn’t near it, so that should be okay. We gotta hurry, though!”
“How do you know that?”
“I can tell when he touches it! It feels really gross!”
Katsuki gives him a weirded out look. “Is that your quirk?”
Deku blinks. “Oh! I never told you. No. I don’t have a quirk.”
“You don’t have a quirk?”
“Nope! My mom says it’s really rare, these days, but it does happen…”
Deku is beyond useless! Wow!
Katsuki shakes his head, dragging him along as he continues on to the creepy shack. “You really are the biggest loser in the world, Deku.”
Deku doesn’t reply, clinging to him so tightly that walking becomes more than a hassle. He hisses when Deku’s fingers seem to dig in past the fabric of his shirt. This dork’s mom probably never taught him how to clip his nails either. Ugh.
And of course he has to help Deku up the rickety steps to the shack’s porch, letting the idiot hang off of him as they slowly make their way to the door. At this rate, they’re gonna get caught by this creep. Not that Katsuki is scared, of course; he knows he can totally blast this guy to pieces. He’s definitely going to do it.
When he tries the handle, the front door swings open, leading into the dark, narrow entryway. Deku totters ahead of him, totally oblivious as he gets down on all fours to climb over the genkan step.
“Idiot!” Katsuki hisses. “You’re just gonna go right in? In shoes?”
Deku turns once he stands up again, cocking his head. “Huh?”
“You’re—” He groans, stepping inside. “It’s dirty to wear shoes indoors, idiot.”
He blinks slowly. “Why?”
“Because shoes are— Forget it.” He closes the door behind them. “We don’t want him to see that we’re here anyways. If he comes back, we gotta have the element of surprise.”
Deku nods, completely uncomprehending as ever.
“So do you know where your weird clothes are? Are they talking to you?”
“No,” Deku replies absently. He stares straight ahead, brain clearly offline again. Great.
Katsuki grumbles, snatching his smooth, thin arm and dragging him along as they nose around the living space. There’s a shitty couch and an old television, along with a low table that has a ridiculous amount of cigarettes clustered around an ashtray. Gross.
“It’s probably in his den,” Izuku says, voice distant.
He glances at him. “You mean like his bedroom or something?”
“Mm.”
Great. Thanks for the help, Deku. Ugh.
They continue to creep down the hallway. There’s a tiny bathroom with a washing machine. Deku shows no interest in it. The next door leads to a dark room, the curtain drawn tight against the window. Definitely the bedroom.
Katsuki squints, his eyes slowly adjusting to the low light. There’s a futon on the floor, sheets all mussed up. Then a nightstand, with a shitty looking lamp and a bundle of fabric stuffed next to it. Seriously, everything in this shack looks like trash. Katsuki’s only known his parents’ house, which is clean with fresh paint and new counters. This place stinks of low tide and nicotine; it skeeves him out.
The only thing that doesn’t look like junk is the lump on the nightstand, in front of the lamp. It’s silvery in the low light, almost shimmering. When he blinks, he finds he’s already started walking toward it.
Deku gasps. “My special thing!”
“Huh?” Katsuki steps closer, inspecting the fabric. It looks like fur. It’s pale gray with a smattering of spots trailing along it.
Deku makes a strange barking sound. He hurries to Katsuki’s side, paler than ever. All he does is make that weird barking sound again.
Okay. Whatever, weirdo.
Katsuki reaches up, snatching it off of the nightstand. It’s oddly heavy. The fur is soft under his fingers, dense and oily. Deku, beside him, blushes furiously. Idiot looks like an overripe strawberry. “Is this the dumb thing you wanted?”
“Y-yeah.” Deku gets a new, stupider look when Katsuki runs his fingers along the pelt.
“It’s soft,” he notes, rubbing along it the other way.
Deku makes a weird little chirp, ducking his head. “Mrp.”
Katsuki clicks his tongue. “Alright. We’ve got it. Let’s get out.”
“R-right,” Deku replies. “Thank you again, Kacchan.”
When he turns to lead the way out, he finds a man standing in the doorway. He’s tall—every grown up is tall to Katsuki, but the man is tall-tall—and gangly. This must be the villain, Katsuki thinks. That weirdo that stole Deku’s…whatever the hell this thing in his arms is. Deku said it was “like” his clothes, but this sure as hell isn’t normal clothing.
“Oi!” Katsuki barks. “Outta the way, pervert, or I’m gonna blast you to death.”
“That isn’t yours,” the villain says.
“It ain’t yours, either! Scram or—”
Something sharp flies past Katsuki’s face. He freezes, muscles locking up. When he glances to the side, he sees a thin string stretching past him. He traces it back to the man’s outstretched hand, the string hanging from his index finger.
“I don’t want to hurt you,” the villain says, “but you can’t be taking that. I pulled that out of the ocean myself. They told me I was crazy, but I knew they were in these waters. Saw ‘em before. Shame I got the little one.”
Deku makes a watery growling sound. Katsuki can’t bother to look at him; he’s too busy trying to figure out what the hell this guy’s quirk is.
Another sharp hook shoots out of the guy’s middle finger, answer that question very quickly.
It snaps past his other side, making a sick sound when it lodges itself into Deku’s arm. Deku, for his part, just lets out a huff, lips pulling back. His eyes are still wide, still dark.
“Deku, get out of here!” Katsuki snaps. “This is dangerous!”
Deku’s eyes dart to him, then to the heavy fur still cradled in his arms, before returning to the villain.
“You’ll wanna step away from that thing, young man,” Hook Pervert says to Katsuki. “They’re more dangerous than they look, even without their skin.”
Is he talking about Deku? The most useless babbling idiot possibly ever born? Clearly this guy has no idea what he’s talking about at all. And he’s also a weird pervert who steals little boys and their weird fur things, so it’s time to put a stop to all of this.
Katsuki clenches his free hand into a fist, feeling the clammy, warm press of his own palm. Explosion crackles between his fingers before he lunges, flinging a hand toward Hook Pervert.
He yelps when a blade breaks through his shirt, scratching his chest. Blood swells, tacky and metallic.
“Kacchan!”
Deku’s scream is ear-splitting. He stumbles back, momentarily blinded by his own explosion. He hears the man thud against the floor, sparse light flooding the doorway in the absence of his silhouette. His hearing is nothing but a discordant whine and muffled sound.
“Shit,” he distantly hears under the ringing. “Shit, no! No!”
“Kacchan! Kacchan!”
By the time he regains his bearings, Hook Pervert has gotten onto his kneels, lifting his gross knife hand again. Katsuki reaches for his quirk, but his free palm only sparks at his side, sputtering in the wake of the large burst he’d just let off.
Something launches itself past him, a dark blur.
The man shrieks.
Deku’s teeth are— Very long, Katsuki observes distantly. Sharp. Red with the man’s blood. He lets out a warbling growl, plunging his mouth into the fisherman’s shoulder again, snuffling as he wrenches his head and…and chews. Swallows.
Katsuki stares, arms curled around the soft, heavy pelt.
Deku moans around another bite. “Fank ‘ou, K’chan,” he says with bulging cheeks, stray bits of human meat tumbling from his bottom lip when he offers an open-mouthed grin.
Katsuki cannot tear his eyes away from the gaping hole that is Deku’s bloody mouth.
Deku lets out another weird little chirp, eyes slipping closed as he dives down again, pulling flesh from bone and ligament.
Finally, Katsuki’s legs remember themselves. He darts out the door, bare feet pounding against the deck, then the dirt as he flees into the daylight.
He keeps the pelt. There’s no real reason to keep it, beyond that it serves as proof. Proof he isn’t crazy. Proof that summer happened. Proof that Deku happened. It lies at the foot of his bed, then the foot of his dorm room bed, then quickly moved to an upper shelf when Dunce Face touches it with his grimy mitts.
As the years go on, the sting of the memory fades. The truth does not. And the truth is that it was just a stupid fucking nightmare. Nothing more. For all he knows, this thing is just some tourist item his mom bought him when they were on vacation.
He isn’t sure why he can’t will himself to throw it away. Even when he moves on from Yuuei, gets his own apartment, he keeps the pelt. During bad nights, when he can’t sleep, he finds himself running his fingers through the thick fur, brushing out dust until it glistens in the low light like liquid silver.
Sometimes, he dreams about it. Dreams that he’s lying in his bed and the window cracks open or the door or a vent and something scuttles into the room. Large-eyed, with a gaping mouth. Wide and hungry.
It doesn’t mean anything. If he happens to hold the pelt closer on those nights, that’s just because it’s there.
It’s probably a bad idea to keep it around, but he does despite himself. He doesn’t tell anybody about it because what is there to say? Maybe it’s cursed; who fucking knows.
All he knows is that whenever he touches it, it’s warm.