Chapter Text
Katsumi Bakugo knew it was going to be an annoying day from the moment she woke up.
She’d been tossing and turning all night thanks to the fucking dreams, and when she’d finally woken up, she’d been wet again.
Just thinking of Deku was enough to make her horny these days. She’d dreamed of finally confessing to him, of making up for the years where she’d just ignored his existence as he was bullied for being Quirkless. In her dream, he’d reciprocated, pulled her close to kiss her, and then his hands had started going... lower.
It was infuriating. She was a damn third year student at UA University! More than that, she was one of the strongest students there, on track to be a top pro after graduation! In fact, she was part of what some people called “The New Big Three,” referring to the three overpowered students who had dominated UA during Katsumi’s first year. Now, she had replaced them at the center of attention, along with Deku and... her.
As she dragged herself out of bed, Katsumi’s eyes fell on a picture she had on her nightstand. Well, it wasn’t actually a picture, it was a drawing of her.
Deku had made it, back in high school. She’d found it in his notebook one day, after he’d had to leave it behind to escape a couple of bullies.
It had touched her; he’d captured her in a heroic light, and she was surprised by how good of an artist he was.
He’d even gotten her proportions mostly right (although she swore her ass wasn’t that big); Katsumi wasn’t sure how he’d done that when she’d barely exchanged a word with him in years. At first, it had been out of some belief that he thought he was better than her, then because he was being stupid and trying to be a hero.
Eventually, when Katsumi realized that she had a crush on him, and his stupid smile, and his stupid muscles, and his big, gentle hands that she wanted to feel on her-
Ahem.
Anyway, when Katsumi had realized her feelings, and then realized that her quirkless Deku was still trying to be a hero, she’d been terrified. She knew how dangerous heroics was; she knew she could handle it with her badass quirk.
But sweet, kind, quirkless Deku would never make it.
At first, she’d tried to bully him out of pursuing heroics, under the guise of wanting to be the only one from their school to become a hero. That had failed when she’d found herself unable to raise a hand against him. She knew she was an asshole, abrasive and rude to almost everyone, but she could never do that to Deku.
Besides, she knew her childhood friend too well; he was too stubborn for that to work. Instead, she’d tried to discourage him by ignoring him, hoping that either she’d stop having feelings for him so she wouldn’t care, or that he’d give up without support.
That had failed, and now Katsumi was here in UA with him, where Deku had all the power he needed to survive, and Katsumi had ruined her own chances to finally be happy.
As she pulled on clothes, she tried not to think about what her future held; there was nobody else she really thought she could love. She would end up comparing them to him, and find them wanting. But she had ruined her own relationship with him, to try and protect him, only for it to backfire.
Now, she didn’t know how to fix that relationship, even though her feelings got stronger with every day that went by.
And that wasn’t the only problem Katsumi was having.
She wasn’t the only member of the Big Three with feelings for the green-haired man, either.
Just picturing Shoko Todoroki was enough to make Katsumi grind her teeth. The perfect hero princess, who didn’t even respect anyone in the class enough to use her full quirk until the Sports festival.
Katsumi would be pissed off enough by Todoroki’s ice-queen air of superiority, if it wasn’t also obvious that the mismatched girl was trying to get her hooks into Deku.
Katsumi had overheard Todoroki at the Sports Festival, after all, even if the roar of the crowd had drowned out a lot of what the taller girl had said.
In the end, all Katsumi had been able to make out was Todoroki’s description of her father’s pursuit of a quirk marriage, and his eugenics program that had resulted in the heterochromic girl.
So when Todoroki started making fumbling attempts to try and talk to Deku, and making moon eyes at him, what the hell was Katsumi supposed to think, other than that Endeavor had decided that One For All would make a fine addition to his family gene pool, and ordered his daughter to make it happen?
Katsumi swore that Deku wouldn’t end up as a fucking stud horse for the bastard who thought she was better than All Might because her daddy got her a fancy quirk.
It still annoyed her sometimes that of all the people she had to fall for, it was Deku, the one person she was too proud to let herself have. If it had been anyone else, Katsumi liked to think that she could have ignored these damn feelings, or acted on them if she wanted to. But no, it just had to be the one man she’d tried for years to scare out of heroics for his own safety, and who happened to be so fucking sexy that he’d been the subject of Katsumi’s wet dreams for years now.
She was actually going to go insane if she bottled up her feelings much longer, she realized.
Finally dressed, she tramped downstairs, wondering if some breakfast would help improve her mood.
Instead, the moment she reached the base of the stairs, she froze in horror.
Shocked, she watched Todoroki pull Izuku into a side room in the common area, a rare smile on her face.
The door closed behind them, and Katsumi’s hands started to crackle, drawing concerned stares from her classmates.
She wasn’t going to let Half-and-Half steal her crush!
“Hey, Midoriya,” Shoko asked, “do you have the math homework from yesterday? I’m not sure how to do some of the problems.”
Izuku replied, “Sure! I’d love to help you.”
Shoko said, “Great! I’ll go grab it from my room, and come back down here, alright?”
Izuku nodded, and Shoko lingered for just a moment longer than necessary before turning and leaving, trying and failing to hide the blush that crossed her face, even though she didn’t know why she got it.
Katsumi stabbed one of the sausages she’d made with a vengeance, tearing off a piece as she chewed angrily.
How dare Todoroki try to get close to Deku! Katsumi had had feelings for him for years, why did she get to come in and...and…
“What claim do you have?” a voice whispered in her mind, “you, who helped isolate him for years, who turned your back on him when he needed you? You don’t deserve him.”
Like always, that thought instantly killed Katsumi’s anger, replacing it with guilt.
It was true. She’d never caused anything but pain for Deku, hadn’t she? Why did she think she had earned his love?
What if he chose Todoroki over her?
Her thoughts were interrupted yet again, though, when the door Deku and Todoroki had disappeared into suddenly reopened, and Todoroki exited, heading towards the stairs as Deku came out behind her.
Todoroki was blushing lightly, and it made Katsumi want to blow something up.
Instead, she put down her fork, and decided to get herself some answers.
Deku was only just walking away from the room he’d exited when she reached him.
Katsumi didn’t ask nicely or any of that bullshit. She just grabbed Deku, forced herself not to blush as she felt the muscles of his bicep, and demanded, “Shitty nerd, get over here.”
“W-why?” Deku stammered.
Katsumi snapped, “We need to talk. ”
The very door the green-haired man had just come out of swung shut again, and their classmates stared in confusion.
As she headed upstairs to grab her books, Shoko Todoroki felt a smile creep across her face, like it always did whenever she talked to Midoriya.
Why was that, anyway? It was strange, the happy feelings she got whenever she saw him; she felt like she was safe, that she wouldn’t have to be afraid as long as she was in his arms…
Why did she want to be in his arms?
For most of her life, Shoko had been isolated from the world, never learning about things that many people took for granted about society.
She knew that she was incredibly unaware of things like pop culture, for example, but it went deeper. She had received the driest, most clinical sex education possible, for example, and she didn’t know anything about relationships. The only tidbits she’d managed to pick up were from the teasing and the help of the other girls in her class, especially Ashido and Hagakure, who had helped her with some of the stuff she didn’t know, like crushes and dating. Oh, and memes, they’d also taught her about memes. Shoko liked memes, even if her attempts to use them tended to make people look like they wanted to die.
Even so, she just...didn’t know much. Most people chalked it up to her being a sheltered, spoiled princess, which Shoko wished she was.
Just because Endeavor had done much to set himself on a path to healing his family didn’t mean that there wasn’t a lot of justified resentment from Shoko, especially as she realized just how unprepared she was for some things.
Like how she felt about Midoriya. At first, Shoko had thought that the warmth she felt every time she looked at the green-haired boy was just what you felt when you looked at a friend. But over time, the warmth had gotten... hotter , somehow, hungrier. She’d started wanting to have more and more contact with him, too.
A conversation with Ashido and Yaomomo in second year had taught Shoko a new term: touch starvation. She supposed it fit her, who had received almost zero loving or even gentle touch for much of her life, and left her constantly wanting to be caressed, but unaware of how to ask for it.
Maybe that explained why she always wanted to touch Midoriya so badly, to let him know she wanted to be touched. Whether it was reminding herself that she couldn’t just run her fingers through his hair, to wishing he would hug her, to feeling the complaints of sore muscles after training and wishing someone was there to massage them, Shoko yearned for Midoriya to realize that she was okay with all sorts of affectionate gestures.
Then there were the dreams and the sensations that heralded a different kind of touch, one that Shoko found herself craving more and more.
Endeavor’s lessons on sex had been the most boring thing Shoko had ever experienced, but the dreams, which came more and more often and with increasing intensity as they reached their third year, made it seem incredible and desirable. More than once, Shoko had woken up with an achingly empty feeling in her belly, one that wasn’t related to hunger at all. It drove her crazy, especially as Midoriya featured so prominently in those dreams, doing things to her in her mind that Shoko didn’t even know existed, but wanted badly anyway.
Now that was something that Shoko had no idea how to ask for, or if she was supposed to. She knew what love was, theoretically, but she didn’t know what it felt like.
Or did she?
As Shoko made her way back downstairs, books in hand, she thought about a much less pleasant topic; Katsumi Bakugo, and the way she looked at Shoko.
Shoko had no idea why, but as she had gotten friendlier with Midoriya, Bakugo’s glares had turned from the hostile ones she gave everyone to downright venomous when she looked at Shoko.
The longer they lasted, the more Shoko found herself returning them, especially when Shoko caught Bakugo looking at Midoriya with very different eyes, ones that looked almost...longing.
Shoko knew the two had a lot of history, and she presumed that much of it was bad based on how jumpy Midoriya had been their first year, the cruel nickname that Bakugo had somehow turned into more of a fond-sounding one as the years went by, and of course, Bakugo being...Bakugo.
Shoko didn’t know much about social norms, she was aware of that. But she knew what bullies were, and she hated them.
Shoko had no idea why she got such an angry feeling whenever she saw Bakugo near her friend, but she thought her desire to keep Midoriya safe from Bakugo might have been why.
Finally, Shoko arrived back in the common room to study with Midoriya (which was partially because she did actually need to study, and partially an excuse to stare at his very nice face for a while.)
She looked around for Izuku, but she couldn’t find him. Then, she realized Bakugo was missing, too.
When she heard familiar popping sounds from the room she’d pulled Midoriya into to ask for help, her blood ran cold.
She put her books down and quickly raced over to the door.
“Get away from him!” Shoko thought.
As soon as they were alone, Katsumi hissed, “Why do you keep talking to her? You realize you can’t trust her?”
Izuku looked at his childhood friend strangely. “Kacchan, what are you talking about? It’s Todoroki , not some villain!” he said.
Katsumi replied, “Yeah, but you still can’t trust her! Who knows what her dad’s going to do?”
Izuku wrinkled his nose at the mention of Endeavor, but he insisted, “Todoroki isn’t her father’s pawn or something, Kacchan. She doesn’t even like him! Are you okay? It’s not like you to demand I stop talking to people.”
Katsumi paused; how had he seen through her so quickly? Honestly, her reasons for hating Todoroki seemed a little silly at this point; she definitely couldn’t tell Deku her suspicions, he would never listen to her.
Instead, she insisted, “I’m perfectly fine, Deku! I just don’t think you should be letting her get so close to you!”
Izuku was so confused. He asked, “Get close to me?” Kacchan, she was asking for help with homework.”
Katsumi snorted. “I’m sure she was asking for help with something,” she said, firecrackers going off in her palms on instinct.
Izuku’s eyes narrowed. “Katsumi, why do you suddenly hate Todoroki so much? ” he demanded.
She said weakly, “I...I just think you shouldn’t trust her so much, that’s all!”
Izuku took a step closer; his eyes were more concerned than angry. “Kacchan,” he said gently, “are you sure you’re okay? You’re acting really weird. Is there something I can help with?”
“I’ve barely slept in weeks because I can’t get the thought of your body out of my head,” Katsumi thought wryly, “but other than that, it’s really just years of built-up feelings, guilt, and self-loathing, no big deal.”
But he was getting awfully close to her, now, and it was taking all of Katsumi’s energy to not lean against him and bask in his warmth.
God, she wanted him so bad.
She stammered, “N-no, everything’s fine, I promise.”
“Are you sure?” he asked, “I’m always here to help.”
Katsumi thought to herself, “Come on, you might be able to confess now! He sure seems like he doesn’t hate you, and maybe you can at least keep Todoroki away from him. Do it!”
She began, “De-Izuku. I...I…”
But she couldn’t finish her sentence. She was still too afraid of being rejected to take the risk.
Deku’s eyes widened, and he opened his mouth to say something.
But they were interrupted as the door slammed open.
In the doorway was a furious-looking Todoroki.
She demanded, “ Bakugo, get away from him!”