Chapter Text
Katsuki POV.
Katsuki hates the color green. He has ever since he was four years old. But somehow, he still ended up adding the color to his hero costume while designing it for UA. Maybe it was to honor his friend, they would have been heroes together after all. But Zuku never had the chance to.
He knew it was stupid. He knew he was only four years old at the time and it wasn’t his responsibility to see the signs. But still, Katsuki wasn’t able to stop himself from blaming himself for not seeing what was going on in the Midoriya household sooner and doing something, anything to prevent the things that happened from happening.
Was it pathetic? How losing one friend eleven years ago cause him to never let anyone close anymore, how it caused him to hate the color green? Probably. But it's not like he would ever tell anyone about this so what did it matter?
His anger issues could easily be blamed on his mother anyway. Who hadn’t dealt with her best friend's death as well as others thought she did.
She had cried every night for years. Before that, he had never heard her cry.
It took a while before he got the full story, being too young at the time to understand that his best friend's father, who he had called uncle once upon a time, was a villain. How auntie had committed suicide to escape him and how his best friend was missing ever since.
Missing, and declared dead soon after. Even if they had never found his body, the police assumed auntie had taken his life as well as her own to spare him from Hisashi's cruelty.
His family knew better, Auntie Inko wasn’t like that. She would never do anything to hurt Zuku. But after years of searching without a single lead, there just wasn’t a point in looking anymore. Katsuki would never give up hope of finding him though.
He had thought about what he would do when he saw Zuku again after all this time. Would he hug the shit out of him? Punch him to see if he was real? Yell at him for not letting anyone know he was alive?
He had thought of a lot of possibilities, freezing and staring at him with wide eyes, was not one of them.
Katsuki had never doubted he would get into UA's hero course. He had a strong quirk that was perfectly suited for being a hero after all. He had blown up every robot in his path and easily scored first place in the entrance exams. He would say he didn’t even break a sweat, but considering how his quirk worked, that obviously wasn’t true.
He was probably the only one who noticed the caterpillar man crawling into the classroom on the first day while Glasses tried to lecture Katsuki about putting his feet on his desk.
He simply rolled his eyes; it wasn’t his problem how unobservant these extras were. The chattering among them only stopped when the caterpillar spoke up.
“Go somewhere else if you want to make friends, this is the hero course.”
The guy then unzipped the sleeping bag and made his way to the front of the class. Katsuki thought he looked like a hobo.
“My name is Aizawa and I will be your homeroom teacher.” The man then looked towards the entrance of the classroom as of waiting for something Katsuki couldn’t see. Aizawa nodded towards the open door and seconds after a lion walked in, quickly hiding behind their homeroom teacher’s legs. For as far as that was possible with how huge the animal was.
Katsuki couldn’t help the sharp sting he felt in his chest at seeing it. What were the chances of their homeroom teacher having a lion as a fucking pet? He wasn’t looking forward to being reminded of his best friend every day.
“The lion is with me. Don’t touch him, I gave him permission to bite if you get too close.”
Okay, Katsuki couldn’t help but grin at that even if some of the extras looked slightly horrified.
“What’s its name?” A girl with a round face asked.
Before Aizawa-sensei could reply, Katsuki caught someone with a rock-like face in the corner of his eyes moving his hands. He recognized it as sign language right away, his parents didn’t give him choice but to practice it when they found out his explosions were damaging his hearing and there was a chance he would go completely deaf in the future. But Katsuki isn’t someone to do things only halfway so he was fluent in JSL before his parents even had the basics down.
“He says his name is I-Z-U-K-U.” The rock-head signed.
Katsuki almost gave himself a whiplash with how fast his head turned back to the lion. Because there was no way, right?
But when the lion peeked his head from behind the teacher's legs to get a look at the class, his bright green eyes locked with Katsuki's red ones.
His eyes widened, and he froze.
They stared into each other's long enough for Aizawa-sensei to notice.
The man sighed, apparently used to this happening. “Bakugou, you can stop your staring contest and he will look away too.”
But he couldn’t. He couldn’t take his eyes away from the lion. Because there was no other lion with green eyes. Especially not one called Izuku.
“Zuku?” Katsuki finally managed to choke out under his breath. He doubted anyone heard him but the lion tilted his head. And blinked at him.
Then the lion- Izuku stepped away from his hiding place behind the teacher’s legs and stroller closer to Katsuki until he was right next to him.
Izuku locked eyes with him again, this time he was so much closer and Katsuki could see how much he had changed, or how much his quirk had changed.
As soon as Zuku's quirk came in the boy would use it at every chance he got. Not to show off, just because it made the boy happy.
It didn’t matter how long ago it was that he last saw him, they were basically raised together until... Well until Zuku and his mother went missing. All of his earliest memories had Zuku in them, or the lion cub with those green eyes. Those eyes that were staring into his own red once right now. They were the only thing about him that hadn’t changed a bit.
He was much, much bigger. He was starting to get manes and was no longer covered in spots that used to remind Katsuki of Zuku's freckles.
He blinked away the memories and as soon as his eyes opened again, Zuku moved his head to lean on Katsuki's lap.
Zuku sighed deeply, apparently comfortable enough to then close his eyes.
“Alright then.” Aizawa-sensei grumbled something under his breath that sounded suspiciously like ‘problem child' and then proceeded to tell them what they would be doing today but Katsuki was no longer listening.
His attention fully focused on his friend that currently had his head on his lap.
It was unreal. The only thing convincing him that this wasn’t some kind of dream was that pinching his own arm under his desk didn’t wake him up.
When everyone stood up to change into their gym clothes, the weight of the lion's head on his lap kept Katsuki stuck in his seat.
His eyes finally looked away from Zuku to glance at Aizawa-sensei who sighed again and made his way to Katsuki's desk.
“Alright problem child, do you want to explain to me why you’re holding one of my students hostage?”
The lion let out a huffing noise. Katsuki could see the green eyes looking up at the teacher without moving his head.
“I know I told you, you could stay in your lion form today but I’m afraid I’m going to need you to use your words.”
The only response Zuku gave the man was a grunt while he closed his eyes again.
Katsuki couldn’t help the corners of his mouth from turning upwards slightly.
Well, he guessed he could kiss his tough-guy act goodbye anyway.
Aizawa-sensei looked up at Katsuki then.
“I’m going to need to call Koda back to translate. Are you alright to watch him for a minute?” The man asked him.
“It's fine.” He replied, lowering his head again to look at Zuku who still had his eyes closed.
He wouldn’t lie, the lion was heavy. But he wasn’t about to complain. He wouldn’t trade this for a thing.
Katsuki should probably tell Aizawa-sensei about his situation. Was the man aware that Zuku had been officially missing for over a decade? If the man was a teacher, that meant he must be a hero, even if Katsuki didn’t recognize him. If the man was a hero, he should have easy access to information like that.
He wondered how Zuku had ended up with the teacher. Aizawa-sensei obviously knew about his quirk, so he wasn’t some kind of pet to the man like Katsuki had initially thought. That was a relief at least.
While he considered possible scenarios, the teacher had left the classroom to find Koda. Was Koda the kid with the rock-face? Not that he cared. It wasn’t like he would call anyone by their real name anyway. Too used to not letting people close to him to change that habit.
Soon after Aizawa came back inside the classroom with Rock-face. So, he had been right then. Rock-face must have some kind of quirk that allowed him to understand animals.
“Alright Koda, please just let me know what he says, and then we can all get on with our day.”
When Rock-face nodded Aizawa-sensei turned his attention to Zuku, who was now studying Rock-face.
“Izuku, can you tell Koda what this is about?”
Zuku lifted his head a little so that he could tilt it to the side, seemingly confused.
“It’s fine, Koda will be able to understand you without changing back.” The teacher explained and Zuku let his head drop back on Katsuki’s lap.
Then Rock-face started signing.
‘He says it’s the unconscious thing that the two of you talked about.’
“Alright, what did it say?” Aizawa-sensei apparently knew what that meant even if Katsuki didn’t have a clue.
‘He says that it told him he needed a K-A-C-C-H-A-N.’
Rock-face fingerspelled the childish nickname Zuku had given him when they were kids and Katsuki's chest suddenly felt warm.
“So, what’s a kacchan?” The teacher asked.
Zuku lifted his head again to look back up at Katsuki this time.
‘He says this is a K-A-C-C-H-A-N.’