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The problem isn't that Katsuki's ikemen impression is very dangerous.
That would have been fine, and everyone could have lived in peace, even with Katsuki doing his best popstar idol imitation every now and again when they least expect it.
The actual problem arises when Katsuki catches on to the fact that his Prince Charming routine is single-handedly more devastating than the force of ten 100% One For All Smashes combined; and from that point onward, Shouto and Izuku are screwed.
It's Kirishima who lets the secret out. They can do nothing to stop him. They're studying in the common room when they overhear him laughing about something with Katsuki; it's so rare to hear Katsuki laughing about anything that Shouto and Izuku can't help but notice.
"Seriously, you should've fuckin' seen it," Katsuki wheezes. "He looked so dumb—"
"Ah," Shouto says, and Izuku smiles in fond exasperation.
"The Camie thing again?" he asks.
"Must be." Shouto shrugs. "I still don't know what was so funny about it."
"I don't think it's dumb!" Kirishima is saying. "It's manly!"
"You idiot, how is that face manly?"
"It is when you do it!" Kirishima says. "It's so handsome! Like an idol or something, you know?"
Katsuki blinks at him, looking utterly miffed. "The hell I know—what are you talking about?"
"It's like…" Kirishima makes some vague gestures in the air with his hands. "Like you're irresistible! If you wanted me to do something, there's no way I could say no!"
Katsuki crosses his arms. "That so?"
Izuku and Shouto look at each other.
"Did you just feel…" Shouto starts to say.
"A cold, inevitable sense of oncoming dread?" Izuku finishes. "Yeah. But I'm sure it's nothing."
"Right," Shouto nods. "It's nothing."
*
It's not nothing. Katsuki becomes a menace.
Kirishima was right—when Katsuki turns his sparkling charm on anybody, it renders them completely powerless to his whims, no matter what he wants or more importantly, what he's done to make someone mad at him. As a general rule, Katsuki doesn't really seem to give a shit if anyone is mad at him in the first place—so the Class 1-A theory is that he actually just finds the whole thing hilarious. Which is unnerving, because none of them had even been aware he had a sense of humor up until that point.
"Do you think it's some kind of quirk?" Sero wonders. "Like, a secondary one?"
The theory holds water, if only because so far Aizawa-sensei appears to be the only one unaffected. The one and only time Katsuki tried to charm him out of having homework, he was given extra laps around the field during quirk training.
Izuku doesn't think it's a quirk; he suspects it's just Kacchan's raw magnetism and charisma that make it all work.
("What charisma?" Mina asks, but he doesn't seem to hear her.)
Izuku discovers his own particular weakness to it after Katsuki pisses him off in class one day they have a test. Katsuki, naturally, is the second one to finish (after Yaoyorozu). He spends the rest of the period flicking wads of paper at Izuku's forehead while Aizawa is curled up in his sleeping bag.
"Kacchan, that wasn't funny, " Izuku seethes later, as they make their way back to the dorm. "It was an important test!"
Katsuki sticks his tongue out rudely. "You're enough of a nerd not to let that distract you!"
"Yeah, well, see if I share notes with you for that class next time!"
"I don't need your notes," Katsuki scoffs.
Shouto, walking on Izuku's other side, says, "Then why do you always want to check yours against his?"
"Was I talking to you?" Katsuki snaps. He glances sideways at Izuku. "Besides, Deku…"
"No," Izuku says instantly. "I know what you're about to do and I'm not going to fall for it this time."
"We're onto your tricks, Bakugou," Shouto says.
"Oh, really now?" Katsuki sneers. When the two of them don't dignify him with a response, he huffs. "Fine, then. But you know…"
His footsteps slow, and at that exact moment, a warm breeze blows. Izuku turns, and Katsuki is standing there, like he's waiting, his eyes nearly as soft as the red-orange late afternoon sky. He smiles, and holds out his hand. The breeze carries his voice to them like a memory on the wind.
"Is it so wrong of me to enjoy studying together like that?" he asks.
Izuku reaches out and grasps his hand, linking them together. Fates intertwined.
Katsuki's benevolent smile turns evil in an instant. "NERD!" he hollers, dragging Izuku closer easily, now that they've clasped hands, to put him in a headlock and grind a fist into his hair.
The battle lost, Shouto watches on in despair.
*
Besides Izuku, there is one other frequent victim of Katsuki's attacks. The rest of their class all seem amused by the antics to no end, but though they all admit his Charming Gaze really is hard for anybody to resist, everyone else seems to be developing at least some kind of tolerance towards it. Everyone besides Izuku, and Shouto.
"Bakugou, why do you keep doing that?" Shouto says at lunch one day. They're all sitting clustered together at the tables, and Katsuki keeps stealing soba from Shouto's tray with his chopsticks and cackling in a self-satisfied sort of way every time he manages a successful swipe. "You can just get your own from Lunch Rush."
"Tastes better when I can see that sad look on your face, Icyhot," Katsuki says, unrepentant.
"It tastes exactly the same," Shouto says. "You're being a brat."
Katsuki puts down his chopsticks. Izuku senses a shift, a change in the air, almost—as Katsuki slowly raises his eyes to gaze deep into Shouto's. The red of his eyes may as well be the red string of fate linking them together.
Oh no.
"Good luck, Todoroki-kun," Izuku whispers, even though he already knows—this fight is over before it started.
"Todoroki…" Katsuki says, and then his eyes do some impossible, shimmery-sparkly thing, and he holds out his hand imploringly, gently, and asks, "You wouldn't want me to go hungry, would you?"
Shouto lasts about half a second.
"No," he says, as he folds Katsuki into a warm hug, "of course not. Eat all you want."
Katsuki pats his back and shoots Izuku a very satisfied grin, and Izuku sighs.
They may be doomed.
*
If you can't beat them, join them. So goes the saying, or at least, so Shouto and Izuku think. They'll just out-charm Katsuki; whenever he's beaten at his own game it makes him so bitter that he gives up on it, insisting that it wasn't worth it anyway. And besides, Shouto is technically the one who inspired this entire thing (even if it wasn't actually him… they're keeping the option of calling Camie in for back up in their back pocket).
All they have to do is develop their own charming facades, and whenever Katsuki tries to use it on them, they'll hit him right back. He's sure to be so mortified that he'll give up. Now, they just need a good practice run and they'll be good to go.
"Okay," Izuku says, "hit me with your best shot."
Shouto nods. Think of how Katsuki does it… He's not just cute, not just handsome—he's irresistible. He stares down at the floor for a few seconds, gathering his energy, his resolve, his willpower.
He looks up at Izuku, directing the full force of his shining aura at his friend.
Izuku stares at him intently.
Any second now… Shouto envisions the irresistible-ness flowing out of him, like a really sparkly wave… or something. Soon, very soon, Izuku will fall victim to his wiles…
"Do you need a couple seconds?" Izuku asks.
Shouto blinks. "Huh?"
Izuku blinks back. "Are you… going to do anything?"
"I…" Shouto opens his mouth, then closes it. Opens it again. "I was doing it."
"You… were?" Izuku asks.
"Yes. That whole time, I was doing it."
"Um." Izuku shakes his head. "It just… it just looked like your normal face, Todoroki-kun."
"Oh…"
"Ah—" Izuku gasps. "Not that—I'm not trying to say you're not handsome! P-please don't feel bad, it's just that—m-maybe you're so handsome normally that it doesn't work when you just…"
"Maybe you should try," Shouto says glumly.
Izuku looks woeful. "Okay, I'll give it a go."
He turns his back to Shouto, clenching his hands into fists at his sides. Shouto waits, on the edge of his proverbial seat as Izuku takes a deep breath, shoulders rising and falling.
He spins around suddenly and holds out his hand, a pretty spot on imitation of Katsuki's usual way of doing things. He has the posture mimicked exactly, and Shouto realizes that with Izuku's eye for detail, it would be perfect, but for one fatal flaw.
"Oh!" Izuku is saying a moment later, voice muffled, face pressed into Shouto's shirt as Shouto hugs him. "Did I do it?! Are you hugging me because I did it?"
"No," Shouto says. "It didn't work."
The image of Izuku beaming ear to ear at him, face radiant and glowing is seared into his mind. It's too much to handle, like looking into the sun, dangerous in its own way. But it's not the same.
Midoriya, I'm sorry, Shouto thinks. You're just so round.
Izuku is far too adorable to ever be an ikemen. Their experiment has failed.
*
They never really get a chance to work out a counterattack. Things continue on like that for awhile, with Katsuki running amok and everyone else being more or less unable to stop it. But slowly, a change starts to surface—one that seems to center around his easiest targets.
Oddly enough, he stops messing with Izuku and Shouto little by little, until the attempts cease entirely. It would almost be a relief, if not for the fact that Katsuki's favorite pastime is angrily involving himself in their business, regardless of what they've done to him personally.
"Do you think something's… wrong?" Izuku asks.
"I don't know," Shouto says. "We could always ask."
"Ask him? Just like that?" Izuku sputters. "You know Kacchan—that'll just make him even angrier!"
"Probably," Shouto says with a shrug. "But how else are we supposed to find out?"
"There's got to be a better—"
"Bakugou," Shouto says, grabbing Katsuki's sleeve as he walks by, "are you upset with us?"
Izuku chokes on air. "Todoroki-kun—"
Katsuki yanks his arm away. "What the hell? I'm always upset at you, why the fuck would you even ask me that? Get lost!"
"We were just wondering—" Izuku says quickly, since he might as well try, now that Shouto has ripped them an opening. "You don't really, ah—you haven't tried to use your Charming Gaze on us in ages…"
"Stop calling it that," Katsuki says, annoyed. "Who even started that shit? Was it Kaminari? I'll kill him."
"Uh…" Izuku hesitates. It was Kaminari. "Well, that aside, we just wanted to make sure you're… okay…?"
Katsuki snorts. "Weirdos. I just got bored of you two, that's all."
"You're bored of us?" Shouto asks. "But… it's fun when we sit together at lunch. Or do homework together."
"Of course you'd think that's fun," Katsuki says. "Your idea of a good time is probably watching paint dry."
Shouto puts a hand to his chin in thought. "I don't think I've ever done that."
"Forget it," Katsuki says. "I'm not gonna play this little game anymore. Stopped bein' funny when you guys started liking that stupid impression so much. You're both creeps so I'm not doing it for you."
He glares at them fiercely, as though daring them to question his decision.
They look at him, then each other, then back to him.
"Ah!" Izuku says. He thumps a fist into his palm in understanding. "That's okay, because I like Kacchan when he's normal the most."
Katsuki wrinkles his nose. "That's not what I—"
"Me, too," Shouto says. "At least, normal when he's not being an asshole."
Katsuki scrunches his entire face up in disgust. "You idiots—"
"Kacchan, don't worry!" Izuku says, and beams. "You're fine as you are!"
"YEAH!" Kirishima yells in agreement from out of absolutely nowhere.
"I don't need your fucking approval!" Katsuki shouts at them.
"Bakugou, we were wondering, though," Shouto says, completely serious. "Can you show us how to do it? We tried, and—"
"NO!"