Katsuki was five-years-old when he first developed his quirk. He'd been playing outside with stupid-Deku and a couple of the other neighborhood kids when it happened. He was just about to tag some redheaded girl 'it' when his palm suddenly felt too hot. It itched irritability, and then there was an explosion of red, yellow, and orange.
Katsuki still remembers how scared he was of the fact that he couldn't hear himself cry out when he was shot backwards by the force of it. How the high, painful ringing he heard instead first felt in his young ears. Sucking down a mouthful of smoke, he coughed. It was bellowing from his palm.
The girl was laying on the ground, staring up at the spiky-haired boy with wide, terrified eyes. Her cheek was turning crimson underneath her little hand, and Katsuki couldn't help but be reminded of his own irises as the warm liquid dripped down her pudgy chin.
So, Katsuki ran. It was the first time that he remembers running from something, someone other than his mother.
Somehow, Katsuki knew that Deku was going to follow him. Hell, the idiot would follow him anywhere, even after just witnessing him hurt someone like that. So, he didn't wait up for him. Instead he ran, and ran, and ran, counting all of his little footfalls that, to his still-ringing ears, sounded a lot more like craters hitting the earth, before:
“Kacchan! Kacchan, wait up!”
“Go away, stupid-Deku!” Katsuki snapped, and silently wished that he wouldn't actually listen to him this time. He weaved through a pair of bushes that led straight into the woods before collapsing into a nearby tree. Looking back, he knew that his mother was going to find him if he stayed there, but a part of him couldn't bring himself to care. After all, she found him even when he was trying his hardest to stay hidden. Why would he waste his time trying to find a hiding place that wouldn't even work?
Katsuki didn't need to look behind him to know that Deku was carefully pushing back the bushes that he just ran through so that he could step in between them instead; the green-haired boy was always insisting on being gentle with everything. Even stupid bushes.
“I just wanted to see if you were okay, Kacchan!” He fussed once he was through the cluster of bushes, rushing over to Katsuki's side. He wheezed, setting both hands on his scuffed-up knees. Still, he didn't sit down. The sun reflected off of the twin greenhouses in his eyes as they silently asked, ever patient: Are we hiding here, Kacchan? Is this our hiding place?
Katsuki locked eyes with him, pretending not to hear the distant sound of an ambulance; police. Yes.
So, there they were. Sitting huddled up against a tree in the middle of the woods, hiding from both of their mothers, and the police, and the poor little girl who now had a bloody cheek to match her hair color. Katsuki grimaced at the memory, silently wishing that whatever the hell just happened wasn't him unlocking his quirk. Meanwhile, Deku ranted excitedly about how whatever the hell just happened was definitely his friend unlocking his quirk, and how it was the most amazing thing he'd ever seen in his short, four-year-old life.
“That was sugoi, Kacchan! Like a firework! All red, and orange, and yellow! Like a light—” The green-haired boy giggled uncontrollably, as if the happiness he felt for his friend was going to make him combust into a million little star fragments, “Kacchan's got the quirk of light!”
“No, stupid-Deku! Not—” Katsuki sobbed, and then there were big, fat liquid rockets shooting down the curves of his cheeks. He squeezed his eyes shut, pressing the heels of his hands into his eyelids, and absentmindedly wondered if they'd go off in his face, too. The thought made him cry harder; a loud, all consuming sound. One that said: No, stupid-Deku, not light. If I was a light, I wouldn't have made her bleed.
And Deku—stupid, brilliant, and hilariously young Deku—understood. Because Deku had always understood.
Katsuki heard the crybaby's tell-tale sniffle before he actually felt him move closer. He would never admit it to the nerd, but it was oddly comforting; knowing that someone else was crying for him, too.
Deku stayed with him while he cried, and screamed, and cursed the world for giving him such a destructive quirk. He didn't scold him for kicking up the grass beneath his feet (even though he hated when he did that), or judge him for the snot that was now covering his t-shirt. He just sat there, huddled up against the tree that Katsuki had claimed as their hiding place, and listened.
It was well into the night when Katsuki's mother finally found them. Deku, of whom was about ready to fall asleep right there in the middle of the woods, perked right back up at the sight of her. Excitement restored, the four-year-old got to his feet and bounded over to her. "Kacchan got his quirk, Auntie Mitsuki! It's light!" He shrieked, and Katsuki wasn't angry with him for telling his mother that he'd gotten his quirk before he could. Somehow he knew that she wouldn't be interested either way.
“Do you have any idea how long I've been looking for you, you brat!?” Katsuki's mother's eyes were the color of blood and the explosion that erupted from his palm, and he was suddenly given all the more reason to hate having both.
She surged past the green-haired little boy, yanking Katsuki up off the forest floor by the arm. “I should've left the police to f*ckin' find you.”
She grabbed ahold of Deku next, and for a there-and-gone moment he actually looked angry. “Auntie Mitsuki! Kacchan's got the quirk of light!” He tried, yanking on the young woman's arm with all the exasperation of a child too oblivious for his own good.
His mother didn't respond, just dragged the two of them out of the woods. There were police cruisers parked everywhere; like whoever the hell was behind the wheel was too frenzied to really pay attention to where they were going. Katsuki recognized a couple of the neighborhood kids and their parents among the crowd of people searching for him and Deku, too.
Deku's mother caught sight of the three of them, then. There were tears streaming down her red, puffed-up cheeks as she bounded over to them, and she scooped the green-haired boy up into her arms with all the eagerness of a mother who was constantly being driven sick with worry. “Oh, Izuku! My baby!” She wailed openly, “Don't you ever scare me like that again, do you understand me?”
There were just as many tears as there were freckles on Deku's cheeks as he began to cry, too. “I won't, Mom! I'm sorry!”
Katsuki blinked owlishly at the scene, and wondered, for the first time in his short, five-year-old life, if his mother had been right when she'd said that public displays of affection were weak that one time. He then wondered what it would be like to be held by her—not just here, surrounded by all of these people, but also at home where they were not.
His mother's hand came down on the back of his head, and Katsuki stopped wondering about being held at the same time that he stopped wondering why his hands were now exploding at the palms. His mother; he was going to grow up just like his mother. He sniffled, because he'd never been so frightened by a realization.
“You brat, walk—"
“Hey!” The nerd's face scrunched up like he had just eaten something sour, the light in his big, lime green eyes flickering out to reveal something hollow; all encompassing and endless, and it made Katsuki falter slightly. “You be nice to Kacchan, Auntie Mitsuki!”
Katsuki's mother whirled around to face the green-haired boy at that. There was a pregnant pause as she considered him, and Katsuki knew that she was inwardly debating whether or not to unleash the hurricane that was her anger upon him. The spiky-haired boy was sure that the nerd was going to burst into tears.
But, he didn't. Instead Deku's face darkened even further as he glared right back at Katsuki's mother, and Katsuki knew then that there was no real way to unleash a hurricane upon Izuku Midoriya because he'd been the eye of the hurricane all along.
Katsuki also knew that his mother could never be that, and so neither could he.
The awkward silence was finally broken by a tired, but altogether still on her feet Auntie Inko. "Alright, Izuku," She started, setting a hand on her son's shoulder. "Let's say goodbye to the Bakugous for the night, okay?"
Katsuki's own thoughts drowned out Auntie Inko and Deku's gentle (albeit wary) goodbyes as he was dragged away from them. He allowed himself to be taken over to an ambulance, not looking back to see if the nerd was watching him. He knew he was.
Explosion. That's what the doctor had called his quirk, which made the spiky-haired boy seethe. He'd stomped his feet on the floor with all the weight of an avalanche as he cried, near hysterical, “No, dummy! It's light! It's light, stupid-Deku said so!” He launched himself at the doctor's poor filing cabinet, fists poised to strike. Because he wanted so badly to take back what he'd yelled at Deku earlier that day; he just wanted to have the quirk of light.
Katsuki punched the filing cabinet until he accidentally set off another explosion from one of his little palms, and there it was again: the white-hot pain in his palm, the horrible ringing sound that embedded itself into his earlobes, and the terror that came with not being able to control himself. But, more than that, the terror that was written on his mother and the doctor's faces.
He finally accepted that his quirk was explosion, then, as he saw the damage he'd done to the doctor's filing cabinet.
It was still dark outside when they arrived home from the hospital, Katsuki remembers. His mother flung him inside the house as if he was nothing more than a sack of potatoes, and he was no longer sleepy from the long car ride home. She barked sardonically, “‘Light’, huh!? Tell me why ‘light’ had a little girl sent to the emergency room, then!"
Katsuki's heart thrummed in his little chest, and he suddenly saw Deku's stupid face, telling him that his quirk was sugoi!
His mother brought down the flat end of a hairbrush on his head, bristling angrily at his lack of response. He didn't even see her grab it. “I have to pay for her hospital bill, brat! And that little stunt you pulled in the doctor's office, don't even think I've forgotten about that!"
Katsuki didn't fight back against the hairbrush being driven into his head. He was terrified that he'd set off an explosion in his mother's face, or worse—her favorite vase. So, he just took it.
Katsuki Bakugou's quirk was not light. It was the fire that peeled away flesh, and the smoke that coated lungs, and the power that killed in an instant. It was definitely not light. And yet, stupid-Deku had seen a light.
Well, then, Katsuki thought stubbornly as the hairbrush came down on his head for the fifth time that night, I'll just have to work at it until I see a light, too!
