Chapter Text
Katsuki shot up out of his sleep with a gasp as another round of vibrations, immediately followed by what could only be described as screeching, coursed through the house. Instinctively putting his hand up to stop his head from colliding with the ceiling beam, Katsuki snatched the All Might clock off the side table and squinted at the red ‘5:32AM’ blazing across the figure’s chest before immediately throwing it on to the side table causing it to mutter a distorted, ‘I Am Here!’.
“For fucks sake,” Katsuki grumbled as he rolled out of bed and grabbed his ear plugs before shoving them his ear plugs and shuffling over to the attic’s singular window. A yawn ripped through him as he pulled hard on the blinds string and with the dawn beginning to break, he could just barely make out the silhouettes of his step siblings, Sachiko and Yo, training in the backyard.
Katsuki held onto the window frame, his fingers settling comfortably in the grooves that had formed years ago, as the house continued to shake every time one of the twins set off their quirk, his eyes following the pair around the state-of-the-art training court that was currently getting obliterated. No matter how many times Katsuki had seen them, he couldn’t help but stare at the twins while they trained. Almost every morning he’d watch as Sachiko and Yo essentially performed the same fight over and over again. More often than not Sachiko would get the first attack out, bellowing out a scream with only enough power to shake Yo with no serious harm. Yo on the other hand, rarely ever saved his power, almost always hitting his sister back by driving his hands into the ground and violently vibrating the concrete. And despite this, or maybe even because of how routine their fights felt, Katsuki couldn’t help but wonder what being part of one of their training fights would be like, especially in the training park his step dad had built in the backyard. Considering Tekai had paved over his parents vegetable garden to build it, Katsuki thought he should at least get to use it.
With both of the twins having vibration quirks, he knew from a distance, it would take him a while to get a solid hit on them, but up close? All he’d need was one perfectly timed shot. Katsuki’s eyes continued to bounce across the training ground as he watched their fight, his eyes ghosting over to the next spot he expected them to be in before they had set their path in that direction. As he continued to watch them, a familiar heat began to creep through his body. Just like always, from the moment the heat in the house went on it began to rise into his bedroom up in the attic. But something about today’s fight had infected his mind, completely distracting from the sweat that always began to form on his skin and the desperate heat and crackling trying to radiate their way off his palms, his body desperate and practically pleading with him.
Katsuki didn’t even notice his breathing start to pick up as he seemed to focus all his energy on the fight below him, his hand slipping from the frame and onto the pane itself as he tried to keep himself balanced. Like clockwork, Yo’s next earthquake caused him to aftershock himself, sending him to the ground, leading Sachiko to use the opening to attack, both of them in the perfect spot for,“...Just one well aimed, perfectly timed-.’
“Katsuki!”
Katsuki sucked in hard and fast as he pushed himself away from the window, whipping around to face his bedroom door and expecting to see Takai standing there, fuming. The heat in his palms instantly faded in his panic but as soon as his eyes landed on nothing but the All Might posted on the back of his door, he let out a sigh of relief.
“Katsuki!” Takai’s voice roared through the intercom again causing Katsuki to roll his eyes. Both at the fact that Takai was yelling at him over the intercom because nothing else could be heard over the screeching and rumbling coming from the training grounds and also at the fact that he had actually been afraid that Takai had come all the way up to the attic to yell at him, as if Takai could be arsed to do even that instead of barking at him like a dog.
Katsuki walked over to the intercom speaker on the far wall and sighed before pushing the call button, “What is it, Takai?”
“Oh good, you’re up. Yo and Sachiko are almost done with their training for the morning so you’re going to need to make their breakfast shakes before you leave for the restaurant.”
“Motherfucker,” Katsuki muttered before pushing the intercom’s call button again, the static notifying him that it was on, “Takai, I told you I can’t work today. The UA entrance exam is coming up and I-”
“And y-you-you’re what, Katsuki? Going to miraculously get in?” The laughter in Takai’s voice seeped through the intercom and into Katsuki’s bones causing his fists to clench, already feeling that oh-so-familiar heat desperately clawing its way back into his palms.
“Just come down here and make these shakes before you’re late for work.”
Katsuki cursed under his breath again before walking over to his dresser.
“Oh and Katsuki?”
Katsuki looked back up at the intercom. A beat passes and then another. By the third beat, Katsuki realized that this silence was determining which of them was going to swallow their pride first. With a full minute having gone by, Katsuki sighed, walking back over to the speaker and pushing the ‘talk’ button, “Yes Takai?”
“I highly suggest you be wearing your rings when you come down here,” Takai threatened, the mockery in his voice from earlier now gone, “Don’t think for a moment that I didn’t notice you weren’t wearing them at the restaurant last night.”
The heat that was simmering in Katsuki’s hands immediately drained, almost as if it was running. Taking a deep breath, he once again pressed the ‘talk’ button, “...Yeah. Sorry Takai, won’t happen again.”
Katsuki couldn’t believe how sloppy he had gotten. It had been months since the last time he had forgotten to double check his rings before going out in public and even longer since he’d forgotten to do so before being in front of Takai. But in between almost constant shifts and the looming UA exam, he had been in and out of the rings so often and due to the subsequent lack of sleep, he could barely remember when he did and didn’t have them on.
Katsuki stood at the pa speaker for a moment, awaiting yet another call for Takai, but when he opened his eyes and waited for Takai to call him again. But after a minute of waiting, he had started to become frustrated again, knowing that the moment he’d walk away would be when Takai would call for something else because why wouldn’t he.
Feeling the heat coming back to his hands in his frustration, Katsuki shook his head and stomped back over to his dresser to start getting ready for school and his now unexpected prep shift. Trying to find something that he could wear both to class and to this shift was only frustrating him more, to the point that crackling was starting to come off his hands and was only louder as he got dressed.
“I ask for one fucking thing and he can’t give me one-”
“KATSUKI! Shakes!”
Katsuki jumped at Takai’s voice roaring over the pa again, little explosions flying off his fingers in surprise. He growled walking over to his desk, his quirk desperate to be fully let out. Preferably against Takai.
Reaching his desk, Katsuki stared down at the two black rings in the trinket bowl on the desk and sighed.
“….One month to the exam…Six months to graduation.”
Katsuki repeated it to himself over and over as he slipped the rings on. First the left one and then the right. Instantly, the heat vanished from his palms and the little explosions ceased, his quirk canceling out completely.
The ‘Yochiko’ prep kitchen was a little more lively than usual for an early Tuesday morning. Most of these mornings consisted of Katsuki and his best friend, Mina Ashido, burning through the lunch rush food prep before heading off to school but on that particular morning there were upwards of fifteen people already going in and out of the prep kitchen alone.
As far as Katsuki could tell, every single Yochiko prep cook was on the clock, which only seemed to fuel his anger from earlier. Every single prep cook on duty and he couldn’t have the three hours off?
“Katsuki, what are you doing here?” Moe Kamiji asked immediately upon spotting Katsuki coming through the prep kitchen doors.
“Asking myself the same fucking thing,” Katsuki growled as he walked over and dropped his backpack behind the bar, seeing that Mina’s was already there. Punching in, he whipped his apron off its hook and headed back through the prep kitchen.
As Katsuki arrived at his prep station next to Moe, she looked around before whispering to him, “I thought you were supposed to be training this morning?”
Katsuki clicked his tongue against his teeth in annoyance as he looked down at the black ring on each of his ring fingers, “Yeah, so did I,” He sighed. Cracking his neck, he looked down at what was set up at his prep station. His eye twitched seeing the bin of now chilled jumbo blue crabs,” You’ve got to be fucking kidding me.”
“Kats!”
Katsuki looks towards the voice just in time to see Mina barreling towards him, a crate of fruits in her hands. Her pink hair was up in a hair net, her horns clearly tearing through the holes and beginning to defeat the nets' purpose.
“Since when have you been wearing a hair net?” Katsuki snorted.
Mina’s arms dropped and bumped the crate against her legs, the exasperation clear across her pink face and yellow eyes, “Since your dick of a step dad found a hair in a dessert. Mind you, it was blonde hair but I’m the only one who has to wear a hair net. Do you know what color my hair is Katsuki?”
Katsuki blinked at her question, assuming it was rhetorical but when she just stared at him and raised her eyebrows, he snorted, “...It’s pi-”
“It’s fucking pink! Moe doesn’t have to wear one! And yes I know her hair is flames but Takai is just fucking up my shit before school and you’re supposed to be fucking train-”
Katsuki’s eyes widened as he shoved his hand over Mina’s mouth, “Can you rant fucking quieter?” He scolded through gritted teeth.
Mina’s eyes widened as she realized how loud she had been. As Katsuki pulled his hand away, MINA took in a deep breath and pulled the fruit crate back up,”....I apologize for yelling…but also you’re fucking lucky acid really only comes out of my hands and feet, do not ever put your fishy ass hands on my mouth again.”
Katsuki turned back to his station, reminded of the sheer number of crabs he had to shell, “I won’t if you stick to screaming in the fucking car, raccoon eyes.”
Mina rolled her eyes but nodded, “Deal, I’ll come get you when we gotta head out.” And with that she made her way back to the dessert side of the prep kitchen.
Moe blinked at the two of them before shaking her head and going back to her own set of crabs, “...The two of you might be the Wario and Waluigi of the twins..”
Katsuki scoffed, “Fuck you…We’re Mario and Luigi…”
Moe laughed, “Very fair, the two of them are why I’m glad I don’t have kids.”
It wasn’t long before Katsuki was starting to get agitated again. The prep gloves always felt weird against his skin, never really fit right with the rings on, and he wasn’t used to this many people, or more specifically this much noise, in the kitchen during his morning shifts, “I just don’t understand who the fuck could possibly be coming to this dinner tomorrow that the entire time to be here right now… Everyone is here, I couldn’t take off for two fucking hours?”
Moe shook her head, “Whoever it is, Takai is really trying to butter them up. This is all prep for some of the most expensive shit on the menu…”
Talking to Moe made Katsuki’s morning shift go by quicker as it often did when they were on the evening shifts together. Even with the bin of crabs being replaced with yet another every time Katsuki finished, he didn’t mind it as much since he could offload his complaints about the twins and Takai to someone other than poor Mina who usually had to deal with his morning ramblings.
“And I know I can ace the written exam but with-”
“Kats, we have to go!” Mina interrupted as she rushed past Katsuki, to slide the last container of fruits she had prepped into the dessert fridge. Whipping her apron and gloves off, she weaved her way through the kitchen shouting, “Behind!” as she made her way back over to Katsuki’s station.
Katsuki looked down at his station and grimaced but continued cracking the shells and pulling the meat out of the crabs he was working on.
“I’ve still got four crabs left and I’m not dealing with Takai’s bullshit if-”
“You’re gonna smell like the fucking ocean all fucking day, lets go!” Mina faked a gag as she walked over and attempted to pull the tools from Katsuki’s gloved hands. After her fourth pull with Katsuki not relaxing his grip or even looking up at her, she let out a huff, “You’re about to walk to school.”
Katsuki’s eyes immediately shot up to look at Mina’s face, “You wouldn’t fucking dare.”
“I wouldn’t?” She raised an eyebrow at him, “Remember when we got into that fight about who was a better hero, Mirko or All Might?”
“I was right! The charts and the world agree!” Katsuki yelled, throwing his hands up and throwing crab meat onto his station and the floor.
“But Mirko is MIRKO and I’ll leave your ass right here just like I did that day!” Mina threatened.
“I love you both dearly” Moe interjected, her own crab shelling tool in hand, “But I need both of you to shut up and go to school.”
Katsuki rolled his eyes at the victorious smirk on Mina’s face before pulling off his gloves, each of them snapping against his fingers as he did, “Tch. You’re a fucking brat, you know that, raccoon eyes?”
Mina laughed as she swung her car keys around her finger, “Of course I know that. Now let’s go! We still gotta pick up Denks.”
“Can you finish up these last couple crabs for me, Moe?”
“Yes, Katsuki. Now go before you’re late… or worse, Takai shows up.” She fake shuddered and laughed, waving as Katsuki and Mina went around to the front of house to grab their stuff for school.
Pulling his back onto his shoulders and following Mina out to her car, Katsuki scoffed, “Dunceface better not be late again.”
“Considering I just had to threaten you off of station you do not get to call out Denki for lateness.”
“Hey! If he knows we’re coming, he should be dressed and ready outside!”
“We’re his friends, Katsuki, not the fucking bus. You can grow a little patience for our best friend.”
Katsuki grumbled as he pulled open the passenger door of Mina’s teal hand-me-down compact suv, tossing his backpack into the back seats.
Katsuki slammed the car door shut whilst Mina closed her door as softly as possible before turning to him, “What the fuck is wrong with you?”
“Sorry.”
Mina shook her head as she started the car up and headed in the direction of Denki’s house, “So what were you talking about with ?”
“The usual shit. Yo, Sachiko, Takai…She said that you and I are like the twins’ Wario and Waluigi”
Mina’s mouth dropped, “Fucking rude… We’re Mario and Luigi.”
“That’s what I fucking said.”
“And Denki is Toad…”
Katsuki snorted before turning to look out the window,“...And we uh, we talked about the UA exam.”
Mina made sure they were safely stopped at the stop light before looking over at him, “...You’re not worried about that are you? You know you’re gonna get in, you’ve said it a thousand times that you’re going to.”
“No, I’m not fucking worried about it!” He snapped and whipped around to look at her but his features quickly softened as he saw the concern across her face, “Light’s green…”
Mina sighed as she started driving again, “Kats, listen, that wretched man is not going to be in your way forever. Before I even knew you, you had been screaming at the top of your lungs that you were going to be the number one hero.”
Katsuki turned the ring on his left hand as they pulled up to Denki’s house, “I know, there’s just no oth-”
Mina slammed on her brakes, throwing Katsuki forward,“AH! None of that! I dunno what the fuck Takai did with my ‘asshole with a god complex’ best friend in the last 24 hours but I want him back and you’ve got until we get to school to find him, alright?
Katsuki glared at her, “Now what the fuck is wrong with you?”
Mina shrugged smugly seeing Katsuki’s temper instantly coming back, “You should’ve put your seatbelt on.”
Realizing Denki still hadn’t come out of the house, Mina began wailing on her horn,“Denki, hurry up! Come on!”
Katsuki grabbed Mina’s hand as she went to honk again and all but growled, “Raccoon eyes, if you honk one more time, the steering wheel in this fucking hunk of junk is going to fall off. I promise dunceface heard it the first 200 times.”
Mina gasped at Katsuki insulting her ‘baby’,“Hey! First of all Alien Queen is doing her fucking best okay! Maybe she’d live longer if you wouldn’t slam her fucking doors and second of all, If you wanna be mean to her you can walk to school from now on. I’m sure Denks would be very happy to sit up front!”
And as if on cue, the sound of Denki’s front door slamming open burst through the open car window. Katsuki and Mina stared wide eyed as their electric friend barreled out of his house donning a white button up with the sleeves rolled up past their elbows and a yellow plaid skirt with black high top platform sneakers. Flinging the door to the back seats open, Denki threw their book bag and then himself into the back seat.
Katsuki peered into the back seat to see Denki slamming the car door shut before peeking through the window. The beat up SUV creaking as the door shut,“Dunceface, how did you run in th-”
“No time! Dad was in the kitchen when I came down stairs and is probably still processing what I’m wearing, go!”
Mina nodded quickly as she put her car back in drive. She quickly whipped a u-turn and yelled out the window as Denki’s dad appeared in the doorway, “Bye Mr.Kaminari!”
Denki sighed happily as he sat up, “Phew, that was a close…” Denki stopped for a moment, his nose and eyebrows scrunching as he breathed in, “Which one of you smells like the fucking aquarium?”
“HA! Told you!” Mina pushed Katsuki’s shoulder as they rounded the corner on the main road, “ Kats was shucking crab meat all morning.” As they were pulling up to a red light Mina expected Katsuki to hit her or at minimum push her back but looking over to the passenger seat she saw Katsuki completely focused on his phone. It was as if she and Denki weren’t even there. Katsuki was holding the phone barely a few inches from his face and a small smile played on his lips causing Mina to smirk, “Ooohhh There he goes again.”
Denki immediately craned himself over the passenger seat, holding on to the headrest to keep himself stable, “Oooo!! He’s texting Riot again, isn't he!”
Denki’s teasing broke Katsuki out of his trance, causing him to immediately lock and drop his phone into his lap, “I am not, fuck off!... And put your fucking seatbelt on, you know raccoon eyes drives like a maniac.” Katsuki turned and pushed Denki backwards into the seat. Denki landed with a light thud, sticking his tongue out at Katsuki as they pulled their seat belt into place.
Mina snorted, rolling her eyes at the two of them, and pulled off as the light turned green, “Oh come on, Kats. Ya don’t gotta lie to us.”
Katsuki clicked his tongue and sank as far as he could into his seat as he looked out the window, his face flushing from having been caught. He wasn’t lying to them. At least not completely, anyway. Katsuki wasn’t texting the boy that he had met in a UA University Class of 20xx message server. The one he only knew by the ID “Riot.” Oh no, Katsuki wasn’t texting him. He was simply rereading the texts they had stayed up all night sending each other. If Katsuki was going to allow this guy to throw off his entire sleep schedule, of course he wanted to read the messages again. And again…And again.
As Mina pulled into their school parking lot, Katsuki could see a familiar car careening through the lot towards the same parking spot Mina was already heading towards. His eyes widened as he realized the car wasn’t slowing down. Katsuki shouted, causing Mina to slam on her brakes just in time to watch Yo’s car narrowly miss hitting them before tumbling into the parking spot.
“Motherfucker! Katsuki, one of these days I’m gonna run them over, I swear!”
Katsuki laughed dryly, “You already know you’d be doing me a fucking favor, Make sure you hit Tekai too, just to cover all your bases… Look there’s another spot.”
Just as Katsuki went to point, a large deep red jeep swooped into the spot causing the three of them to groan.
“It’s always them, isn’t it…” Denki sighed.
The trio watched as the school’s most popular friend group rolled out of the jeep. They were an eclectic group whose popularity didn't really make much sense but it’s easy to be popular when everyone assumes you’ll be famous one day… And having the child of the number one hero in your friend group also helped with popularity.
The first to appear from the jeep was Hanta Sero aka “Tape Face” as Katsuki had dubbed him. Hanta never failed to be the life of every party he went to or any space he existed in for that matter. He was the “artist” of the friend group and if he wanted to paint something he was going to get it done one way or another. There were parts of the school that had giant murals crafted with spray paint on the ceilings and while the school administration loved to pretend as if they didn’t know who had done it, the student body knew Hanta was one of the only people with the skill to paint it and the quirk to get him up there.
“And wherever there is Hanta,” Mina started.
“Icy Hot is never far behind.” Katsuki muttered as he watched Hanta help the split haired girl get out of the car.
‘Icy Hot’ or Shouto Todroki was the real reason Hanta never got in trouble with the admin for his artwork. Yes, she was Hanta’s girlfriend but she was also the youngest child of number two Pro Hero Endeavor. Though if you brought that up to her she might’ve killed you and if you brought it up to her around Hanta, he would kill you. And honestly, that was fair. Shouto had made a name for herself having spent the first two years of high school climbing to the top of their class ranks as well as helping put the school on the map with it’s first ever nationally ranked Quirk Battle team. She had also become a bit of a fashion queen after her coming out, running up her father’s credit card bills almost weekly on a new couture piece just to wear it to her nine AM chemistry lab.
And from what Katsuki could see, the two love birds had been crammed into the back seat with none other than one Izuku Midoriya and upon seeing him get out of the car, Katsuki’s jaw clicked. The two of them made eye contact before returning to their usual routine of pretending the other didn’t exist. And in a way, they didn’t. They hadn’t existed to each other for years and Katsuki preferred to keep it that way.
“...You know I can hit him too if you want?” Mina offered.
Katsuki shook his head, “No that one’s…warranted…”
While Katsuki tried to avoid looking at Izuku and tried even harder to not anticipate the man who yet to get out of the driver's seat, Denki on the other hand couldn't stop himself from staring as a purple haired man got out from the passenger side, “He wants me so bad.”
Katsuki rolled his eyes and scowled as he looked into the back seat to see Denki’s face practically pressed against the window and just short of having hearts in their eyes, “ Are you eye fucking eye-bags right now? Does he even know you exist?”
As far as Denki knew, no, Hitoshi Shinsou had no idea who he was. And why would he? Hitoshi had one of the most powerful, and honestly scariest, quirks in their grade, was the adopted son of two pro heroes, and honestly didn’t seem to like or even talk to anyone outside of his core group… But none of that mattered to Denki.
“He wouldn’t even have to brainwash me. I’d just do whatever he wanted.”
Katsuki and Mina shared a look with each other before snorting and going back to trying to find a parking spot but as they drove by jeep,Katsuki looked back out. And as he expected, he got distracted by the driver that was finally getting out of the jeep.
‘Stupid red hair, stupid muscles rippling out of his tank top, stupid beautiful smile,’ Katsuki thought to himself as he watched Eijirou Kirishima pull on his varsity jacket and give his friends a sharp smile. Everyone knew Eijirou was the glue that held that friend group together. He got along with everyone from teachers to coaches to other students.
And while at first glance you’d never know that those five were at the top of every mission simulator, the best academically, and in Eijirou and Shouto’s cases, the stars of the school’s Quirk Battle teams, that was why those five made sense to people at the end of the day. Hanta, Shouto, Izuku, Hitoshi, and Eijirou. They were the five that were going to make it. They weren’t just going to be pro heroes one day, they were going to top the hero rankings and everyone knew it.
Katsuki scoffed as he watched his step siblings and his step sister’s best friend, Tatami, saunter over to the quintet. Katsuki faked putting his finger down his throat and gagging as they watched Tatami all but throw herself at Eijirou, “All of them are so fucking gross. We get it you’re all so fucking perfect and have the egos to match it.”
“Imagine what they say about us…” Denki mumbled as he watched Hitoshi run his hand through his already disheveled hair.
Katsuki clicked his tongue “Please,” He laughed dryly, “They don’t even think about us…”
After finally finding a parking spot, the three started heading towards the school but could hear…sniffing?
“What smells like rotting fish?”
Katsuki squeezed his eyes shut and let out a sigh as the trio tried to pass by the group unnoticed.
“Oh.. it’s Katsuki and his crabs .” They heard.
Katsuki growled, walking faster towards the school.
“Kats! Wait up!”
Katsuki shook his head, calling back to Denki and Mina, “I gotta go… scrub myself in a sink, I’ll talk to you guys later.”
Katsuki made his way into a bathroom and desperately tried to wash his hands and arms, glaring down at the two black rings, “Shouldn’t have even been in the fucking kitchen today…”
After drying himself off and hoping that the fucking seafood smell had dissipated, he made his way to his room and collapsed into his chair just in time to feel his phone buzz.
Pulling it out of his pocket, he smiled at the notification.
Riot Has Sent You A Message