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When Katsuki Bakugou was born, he was born with a soft tongue. Most babies are. It is one of their many vulnerabilities.
When Katsuki Bakugou was 3 months old, his first tooth grew in. It was early, and as his father soon found out it was sharp. More teeth grew in soon, and eventually baby teeth would be replaced by a brand new set. All his teeth had that same sharpness, an edge of danger.
As he grew older, people started saying he had a sharp tongue. People were wrong. He had a soft tongue and sharp teeth, and he kept both as he grew.
When Katsuki Bakugou was 4 and a half years old, his palms crackled with power for the first time. Little red eyes lit up with delight and his friends gathered round demanding he do it
again and again and again.
His quirk was bright, it was loud, and it was powerful. He loved it, loved watching the sparks fly from his hand and feeling the force of the explosion in his palm. Everywhere he went he used his quirk, you weren’t supposed to do that when you were older, but the adults just laughed and smiled. Some adults would stop and congratulate him, some would ask him questions, some would just stare. Some stared for too long, gazes heavy on his back. He didn’t like how those adults looked at him, as if he had something those adults wanted.
When Katsuki Bakugou was 5 years old, he found out why some adults looked at him like that. Those adults did want something after all; those adults wanted him. Or more accurately, those adults wanted his quirk. Nitroglycerin was valuable. An unlimited, untraceable, homegrown supply? That was almost too good to be true. The adults that approached him had been nice, telling him his quirk was cool and the adults thought he was cool too. The adult were nice, and nice, and nice, until he said no. Adults don’t like to be told no. One of the adults grabbed his arm, he had only a second to make his choice, and he sank sharp teeth into soft flesh. It wasn’t the first time he’d bitten someone, but it was the first time he’d remember once he grew up.
Little feet ran, and somehow he got away. He didn’t stop running until he was back to his house where he went and hid under his bed until his heart stopped pounding. Not long after he finally crawled out, his parents came home. His father asked about his day. He opened his mouth and found his tongue too soft to form the scary words he wanted to say. Instead, he grit his sharp teeth together and said it was fine. He got away. It was fine.
As he grew older, people would be nice to him more often, at least until he said no. Adults in particular loved to be nice to him until he said no. Some would just get angry, some would grab his arm, some would grab chains. He kept saying no anyways, and when people didn’t listen, he bared sharp teeth and he enforced his words. Afterwards, he told nobody. His tongue was too soft.
When Katsuki Bakugou was 17 years old, a bubble started forming in the center of a city. Every available hero was called in to help. Nobody knew what started the bubble, but it was growing. Inside the bubble, reality was breaking down. The ground broke, clocks stop, and the sky no longer was. All the heroes could do was evacuate people. There was no stopping the bubble.
Until one young clever hero saw a pattern in the breaking near her, a pattern to the bubble.
Crick-crack-crick-crack-crick-crack
It beat like a pulse, and she wondered. Counting the beats of the pulse, it was fast, like someone who was upset or scared. So she wondered aloud, at the edge of the bubble. Asking if there was someone in there.
The pulse went silent, the bubble kept growing. Just as it was about to reach the clever hero’s toes, an answer came in crackling beats.
Long-Short-Long-Long Short Short-Short-Short
Eyes wide, she asked if one of the heroes could help them. The answer came quicker this time.
Long-Short-Long-Long Short Short-Short-Short
Others had caught on now too, still evacuating people, but watching her converse with it. She asked if her teacher, a man who could cancel any quirk, could help. After several seconds, a new answer.
Long-Short Long-Long-Long
Her face fell as she tried to think of who else could help. She offered the fastest hero, one of the few who’d been quick enough to dart into the bubble for a few moments to pull civilians out.
Long-Short Long-Long-Long
The clever hero offered other names, other heroes, even a few of her classmates who were kind and gentle, even herself. The answer was the same each time.
Long-Short Long-Long-Long
The bubble was growing bigger, she had taken several steps back to escape it. Even though the growth was slowing, it was still huge. Finally she asked who could help, and the bubble went silent. Time ticked by outside the bubble, but inside everything held still. Until, just at the edge of the bubble, a foot or two away from her, an explosion appeared. She jumped back and there was another one, and another. The message was clear, but she had to ask anyways, if the one in the bubble was sure. If they really meant him.
Long-Short-Long-Long Short Short-Short-Short
Could he enter safely? Would he be able to come back?
Long-Short-Long-Long Short Short-Short-Short
Okay. She said. I’ll ask him.
When Katsuki Bakugou was 17 years old, his classmate who he knew to be incredibly smart found him and asked him to enter the bubble currently destroying the entire city. He thought she was joking. She was not.
His teacher didn’t want him to go, but the bubble had asked for him. What choice did he have? People got angry when he said no, and he didn’t want the bubble to get angry.
Before he entered, someone hugged him. A hero with red wings who’d overheard his plan swooped down to press a case into his hands. The case had a single needle and a vial of a rare substance that could destroy quirks. One made from a little girl who could turn back time. He was told not to ask where the winged hero got it, so he didn’t. Instead he took in a deep breath, air sliding through his sharp teeth to flow over his soft tongue, and he entered the bubble.
Outside the bubble, a crackle started. The heroes were worried, that broke the rules. Everything was supposed to stay in the bubble. Only the crackle wasn’t harmful, it was a signal. A broadcast. TVs started playing it, radios picked up the audio. All of it was coming from the bubble.
When the signal became clear, it showed a certain explosive young hero making his way inward towards the center. He seemed tense, but said nothing.
All the heroes could do was watch as the bubble kept growing. Watch and move people out of the way, hoping it would stop before there was nowhere to move people to.
When Katsuki Bakugou was 17 years old, he wandered through a bubble of broken reality feeling oddly at home. Gravity didn’t always work. The ground had split in many places to reveal an endless void beneath. Doorways were cracked open, and he could see different worlds beyond them. Sometimes he had a shadow, sometimes he had three. Sometimes he had none at all, and sometimes there was a darkness at his feet, but it was not his shadow. He kept walking forward, trying not to stare for too long at anything. He had a mission. No time had passed since he entered the bubble. His communicator didn’t work. He hadn’t expected it to.
When Katsuki Bakugou was 17 years old, he reached the center of the bubble. At the very center was a second bubble of sorts, a bubble of safety, where reality seemed mostly in place. The ground held beneath his feet, but his watch and communicator still failed. In that bubble of safety, while the world looked on, he found what he was afraid he might. Slumped against a brick wall, with handcuffs binding small wrists and blood coming from their head, was a child.
They looked about 5. Maybe 6 if they were just small. The age you learn why adults stare too long, if you have something adults want. They looked up at him when he took a step forward, and he understood the look in their eyes.
White teeth gave him a half-hearted smile. They were not sharp like his. Tears filled their eyes, and he knelt down beside them. He glanced at the case in his hand.
“It won’t work on you, will it?” He asked, knowing the answer, but feeling like he ought to anyways.
“No. It requires time. There is no time here. I do not know how to make time.” They replied, in a soft, sad, sorry voice.
Giving a nod, he shifted to sit beside the young child, setting the case aside. Red eyes looked from the handcuffs to the bloodstains on the brick walls. There was a bit of blood coming from the child, but not enough to have made that. Adults didn’t like to be told no, so you had to make adults listen. Sharp teeth or a reality breaking bubble, it was all the same.
“Can I get those cuffs off you?”
The child nodded in reply, and he used a little bit of his explosions to break the cuffs, tossing the broken metal away to be dissolved. Little hands rubbed small red wrists.
Their eyes drooped. The bubble grew larger. Red eyes glanced up at the patchwork sky.
“There’s a good couple dozen heroes out there who you coulda let through. I can’t help you like my teacher could, and I’m bad at emotional shit. Why ask for me?”
You weren’t supposed to curse around kids, least they repeat it, but that wasn’t a concern of his. Not right now. The child didn’t seem to mind either. Their smile changed, from sad to fond.
“I didn’t want to be alone.” They paused, and then added. “And I knew you wouldn’t stop me. You understand.”
Outside the bubble, heroes and civilians tensed, trying to puzzle out what that meant. Trying to puzzle out what the explosive young hero was doing. Why he was just sitting by the child’s side.
Inside the bubble, red eyes fell to the crumbling ground and a soft tongue let out a sigh.
"Guess you can read minds or somethin' too, huh?"
“Somethin’ like that.” The child agreed, shoulders slumping down a little further.
They sat in silence together as the bubble grew bigger but slower. It was the older one that spoke next, sliding a little bit closer to the child. His eyes studied the crackle of energy in the air.
"How long you got left?"
"Not much longer. I think.... I think maybe five or ten minutes?"
Time didn’t work here, but he nodded all the same. They were only a child after all, they were too young to relay ideas in a concept like energy. His eyes turned back to them.
"You want me to do anything but sit here, kid? Doing nothing seems like a waste of your last couple ‘a minutes."
That’s when everyone outside the bubble understood, at long last, what the explosive hero had known since he saw the blood dripping from their head. Since he saw the cuffs on their wrists. Since he was five years old.
The bubble was not meant to kill others, not anymore. It was too late for that. The bubble was meant to kill its creator. Sharp teeth poised over a soft tongue.
Silence overtook the strange pair, as the child’s eyes fell to the ground. They bit at their lip, before turning a nervous gaze to meet red.
"Tell me about how you made your choice. Tell me about your teeth and your tongue."
When Katsuki Bakugou was 17 years old, he sat in a bubble with a child, and reality crumbled around him, and he gave a sigh. For the very first time, he pushed his soft tongue to form scary words.
"Kinda pointless to tell a story you already know."
He said, and then he told his story anyways.
He told them about the first time when he was 5, and hiding under his bed. He told them of shaking in fear, terrified that the adults would come back and his teeth wouldn’t be enough this time. The fear only stopped when he came up with a plan so that his teeth would always be enough. If the adults came back, if the adults took him again to make him a weapon, he’d take his sharp teeth and bite his soft tongue. He’d tilt his head back just right, and the adults wouldn’t be able to take him any more.
When Katsuki Bakugou was 5 years old, he made a promise to himself, burned into him by the fire in his palms. Adults would not sway him, adults would not get him to say yes. Adults hated it when you said no, but he would say no until the end. He would say no with the end. If he could bite the adults and escape, he’d do that first. If he couldn’t, he’d bite himself. His sharp teeth and soft tongue would always be enough to give him freedom.
As he grew older, he got faster and stronger. Adults got more interested in him. His no got louder and more powerful, but adults still didn't want to listen. Four times, he held his teeth just above his tongue and he wondered if this was the time he’d need to do it. Once when he was 6, once when he was 8, once when he was 14, once when he was 16. Each time, he found another way to use his teeth. But each time he'd made his choice, and he'd been ready to follow through.
He’d only told one person about his tongue and his teeth before, about his plan. His childhood friend with demon wings who’d also had adults get too interested. That friend had said his plan was too much, too scary, too painful to consider. That friend had been taken the next year. That friend had been turned into a monster. That friend had burned.
That friend was how he knew that if he ever did use his sharp teeth on his soft tongue, he’d have made the right call.
He told his story quickly. Not wanting his audience to move on before they got to hear all of it, unaware of how many other people were listening in. When he told his story, he told it not as a sad story, but as a brave one. A story of will, power, and freedom. His tongue was too soft to tell the story of a victim, of a child hurt and torn apart by adults who refused to hear the word no. Here though, to someone else who understood, he could tell the story as he wanted to remember it. The story of a hero.
By the end of the story, the child was pale and weak. Reality crumbled around them a little further, invading the safety circle, but there was a real smile on that soft, young face. They were happy to know they weren't the only one forced to make this choice. Happy to know they wouldn't die alone.
When Katsuki Bakugou was 17 years old, he turned to look at the child dying next to him and couldn’t take it anymore. He scooped the child up into his arms. He was not the sort to give hugs or hold children, but this one looked like they really need it. Their smile softened as the child squirmed to get comfortable, eyes starting to fall shut. Their words came out soft, nearly a mumble.
"Promise you'll tell my story like that?"
“I promise, kid.”
Their breathing became labored. The bubble crackled and groaned. They were still smiling.
"I'm getting sleepy. I think- I think it'll be soon."
His soft tongue wasn’t strong enough to form a reply, so instead, the explosive hero just rubbed the child’s back to ease their breathing. On instinct, a hum rose up from his throat. The hum was quickly grasped by his soft tongue, which remembered a time before adults didn’t listen to no. Remembered a time before crackles of energy in palms or in the sky. Remembered a time before sharp teeth. That soft tongue curled around the hum and shaped it into a song, into half forgotten lyrics to an old lullaby, into the only form of comfort it knew how to offer. The words were stiff and stumbled over at first, but it got easier the longer he sang.
It didn't take long after that. The child’s eyes opened only once more, looking up at him with that special joy and wonder only children have. Their breathing got slower and slower, the bubble pulsing with each harsh breath. His soft tongue kept up the song, recalling more of the lyrics, voice growing stronger as careful arms rocked the child cradled in his grasp.
At some point, he heard a faint "Thank you",
a few shallow breaths,
and then nothing but the lullaby from his own tongue.
The bubble didn't pop, it faded away. The rules of reality were restored, but the world was left in ruins. The broadcast ended then too, but he didn’t know about that. He didn’t even notice the bubble’s disappearance.
The teenager with sharp teeth and a soft tongue didn’t pay attention to the world around him at all. All his focus was on the too light child still being rocked in his arms, his throat closing up and tears finally starting to force their way from his eyes as he tried to keep singing. Notes now garbled and weak as his tongue struggled to form the words.
His teacher was the first one to reach him, having seen everything on the broadcast. The same teacher who had protested against letting him go because of the risk, because of the danger. He had insisted, and so his teacher had relented. Even now, his teacher has no idea if that was the right call.
His teacher sat down beside the teenager who was too young to be there, cradling a child in his arms who was also too young. He felt his teacher put an arm around his shoulder, but no words came. There weren't any words for his teacher to offer. He was still clutching the child, unwilling to release them from his arms because then they would grow cold and everything would be real.
When Katsuki Bakugou was 17 years old, he sat with his teacher’s arm around him, a child’s body in his arms, and his soft tongue sang an old lullaby for as long as it could. It fought through the tears and the lack of breath until his lungs gave out, no longer able to produce the hum for it to shape. He didn't know how long it went on for, but by the time he broke down sobbing, his voice was raw and horse.
When Katsuki Bakugou was 17 years old, he leaned into his teacher's side and he cried. For the choice the child in his arms was forced to make, and the choices he was forced to make. For the smile he could still see on that small, young face, and for the sharp teeth he could still feel in his own mouth.
At some point, the body was taken away. He was brought back to UA, numb and quiet like nobody had ever seen him before. Nobody knew what to say, nobody knew how to help, or if there even was anything that could help.
When Katsuki Bakugou was 17 years old, he lay in his bed, and he pressed his tongue to his teeth. Not hard enough to cut, but hard enough to remind himself that he could. Remind himself he might have to someday too.
The next day, he got up. He brushed his sharp, sharp teeth. He showered to wash away the feeling of small hands, and he went back to living. Somehow, he recovered the fastest of anyone involved. Everyone else was left walking on pins and needles, unsure of how to tread in unfamiliar territory. He just kept pushing his way forward. This was not unfamiliar territory for him.
When Katsuki Bakugou was 17 years old, he went to a funeral for a child he didn’t learn the name of until after they were dead. The child’s parents were there. The parents thanked him with tear-stained faces, told him he was a true hero. He replied quietly that he wasn't the hero that day, he’d just been there to comfort the one that was.
The day after the funeral, someone finally broke and asked him how he could pretend nothing happened, how he could just move on?
Katsuki looked at that someone, and for a moment there was a glimpse of a child who was broken down and weary to their bones in his eyes. Then the moment passed and he shrugged.
"I've been living with this shit since I was five. You get used to it."
When Katsuki Bakugou was 17 years old, he put on his hero costume for the first time since the child. Since the bubble. Since the song. By habit he went through all his supplies, checking the pouches on his knees, only to find something that wasn't there before. A crystalline sweet pea flower, no bigger than his thumb. He closed his hand around it, and took a few shuddering deep breaths. He didn’t cry again, but it was a near thing.
When Katsuki Bakugou was 17 years old, he took that little crystal flower and he wrapped it up carefully. It stayed on his desk for a day before he decided what to do with it. The crystal flower was meant as a message, between two people that understood. So a message it should stay. He placed it in the box under his bed that has his will, a will he’d had since he started the heroics course. He had a sort-of will in his younger years too, a piece of paper with instructions on what to do if he died, but it wasn’t a formal document before. Just the words of a soft tongue put to paper.
When Katsuki Bakugou was 17 years old, he closed the lid to that box, he put the box back under his bed, he ran his soft tongue over his sharp teeth, and he went out to face the world once more.