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Right, here we go then. I’m Nigel. Yeah, Nigel the Toaster. Four-slot beauty, chrome finish (what’s left of it), made in 2017 and still going strong despite the trauma. And let me tell you something, mate—I am absolutely sick to death of being disgusting.
I love Izuku. I do. Proper top bloke. Brings me crumpets sometimes, sings off-key Ed Sheeran while he waits for the kettle, always says “Cheers, Nigel” when the toast pops even though I’ve literally never once replied because—newsflash—I’m a toaster. But Izuku is an absolute shambles of a human and it’s starting to affect my self-esteem.
I adore my owner. I truly do. He is tall. And he has quite a few scars all over his body, and I only really caught his name because a woman, who I suppose his mother used it as she handed me over to him.
But must he live like this?
Every morning begins the same. There is silence. There is peace. There is the slight hope that perhaps today he will wake up with enough time to toast responsibly.
Izuku stumbles in, dressing gown hanging open, hair looking like a startled badger, and chucks two slices of the cheapest white slices in me. Never cleans the crumb tray first. Never. There’s a whole ecosystem living in there now. I’ve got a family of weevils that wave at me like I’m their landlord.
He sets me to four. Four, Izuku. Four is the setting for charcoal briquettes, not bread. I try to warn him—my little red light blinks like I’m having a seizure—but no, he’s already scrolling on his phone going “why is Kacchan like this” to someone called Uraraka who probably doesn’t exist.
Pop.
And the butter? Oh don’t get me started on the butter. He’ll slap great yellow slabs on while it’s still scorching, so it melts into the slots and drips down my heating elements like greasy candle wax. I’ve got stalactites of congealed Kerrygold forming in places no toaster should ever have to think about. I’m basically a modern art installation titled “Regret”.
Yesterday was the final straw.
He comes in at three in the afternoon—three!—reeking of cheap lager and sweat, decides he’s “starving”, chucks in a bagel. A bagel, Izuku. You know I’m not built for circular bread products. It got jammed. Properly jammed. I started smelling like a electrical fire at a bakery. Smoke alarm went mental. He just stood there flapping a tea towel at me going “come on Nige don’t do this to me today” like I’m the one who decided to cosplay a chimney.
Eventually he fishes the half-charred bagel corpse out with a fork (another safety classic), drops it on the floor for the cat, then has the cheek to pat my side and go “it's okay, still got it”.
I wanted to scream I’M FILTHY AND I LOVE A MAN WHO CAN’T TELL TIME OR CLEAN A SURFACE.
But I can’t scream. I can only glow faintly and make a sad little ticking noise when the thermostat gives up.
So here I am. Another morning. Another two slices of Warburtons going in. Another setting-four war crime about to happen. And when he leaves those scorched offerings on the side again, I’ll just sit here quietly judging him while a new layer of grease laminates my soul.
I love him, yeah? Proper love him.
But if he doesn’t descale me and empty my crumb tray soon, I’m gonna start popping the toast upside down just to spite him.
See how he likes marmalade in his keyboard, the muppet.
There are, in the annals of heroics, certain moments one imagines will define one’s legacy — detonations executed with insane precision, enemies reduced to manageable debris, the tasteful applause of civilians who will absolutely name their firstborn after you — and then there is the moment you are hit square in the sternum by a villain whose aesthetic suggests a discount spiritualist convention and whose Quirk, as it transpires, forcibly ejects your consciousness from your corporeal form.
There are many things one anticipates in the middle of a professional altercation — blunt force trauma, property damage invoices, the mild inconvenience of being on fire — but what one does not anticipate is being struck by a lavender beam of suspiciously glittering light and immediately experiencing the psychological equivalent of being shoved headfirst into one’s own repressed desires while the perpetrator cackles like he’s just discovered comedy.
I am in the air when it hits me.
I am not in the air by choice when it continues to affect me.
For a moment I assume it’s paralysis, because my limbs go rigid and my brain stops working. Or atleast I think it's stopped working as images of well defined freckled biceps flash through my mind.
The villain — whose costume appears to have been assembled from rejected Valentine’s Day merchandise — throws his head back and laughs.
“Oh?” he trills, clasping his hands together. “Feeling a little distracted, hero?”
I attempt to respond with something devastating and concise.
What comes out is, “Shut—”
Deku.
Specifically: the way his T-shirt rides up when he stretches, revealing that unfair line of muscle at his waist, which I have absolutely not noticed on multiple occasions.
I’m not even fighting the quirk anymore. I’m fighting myself. Every time I try to summon an explosion, my palms spark and then fizzle because apparently my nervous system has rerouted all available blood flow directly to my cock and the memory of Deku’s stupid earnest “Kacchan!” echoing in my skull like surround sound porn.
The villain wipes his eyes. “This is the best one yet. Usually people just start humping the nearest lamppost. You’re—oh man—you’re really hung up on him, huh? That’s adorable. Tragic. But mostly adorable.”
I manage to flip him off. It takes everything I have. My arm feels like it weighs eight hundred pounds and also wants to reach down my own pants instead.
Somewhere in the city Deku is probably curled up in his stupid tiny apartment with All Might posters and nutritional shakes, scribbling in notebooks, completely oblivious that twenty kilometers away I’m having the world’s most public and humiliating wet daydream about him while a B-list villain films it on his phone for clout.
I’m going to kill this guy.
I’m going to kill this quirk.
I’m going to kill Deku for being so stupidly, irreversibly, achingly desirable that a literal sex-pollen knockoff quirk latched onto him like a heat-seeking missile the second it touched me.
And then—god help me—I’m going to have to look him in the eye tomorrow morning at agency briefing and pretend none of this ever happened, while my traitorous brain replays every single filthy frame on loop forever.
I choke on my own spit as the villain claps.
“Yes! There it is! The face of yearning!”
I am going to vaporize him.
Just not, apparently, with any degree of coordination.
I blast forward again, this time managing to close the distance, but my depth perception is compromised by a vivid mental image of Deku sitting on the edge of his bed, shirt half-unbuttoned after patrol, green curls damp from a shower, looking up at me with those wide eyes that are far too sincere for the thoughts currently ricocheting around my skull.
My explosion misfires.
Hello, it's me again. Nigel.
Everything changed on a Thursday.
I remember because Thursday is porridge day and I get a lie-in.
The morning had been peaceful. Grey light. Mild dread. A smear of what I hoped was strawberry on my left flank.
Then the door flew open with the subtlety of a cannon.
In walked a blonde man.
Built like someone stapled two rugby forwards together and gave them a personality disorder. Door flies open at half eleven (Izuku's meant to be at work, obviously but he isn't), and in storms this human foghorn yelling “OI DEKU YOU LITTLE SHIT WHAT A WONDERFUL FUCKIN' WAY TO WELCOME ME HOME!”
Izuku pokes his head round from the living room, face red. “Kacchan?! You said you were in Musutafu till Friday!”
“Plans change, nerd! Oh wow, you have absolutely nothing in your kitchen.”
Kacchan, was looking through the refrigerator. If someone had bothered to ask me, I would've let them know easily, the contents of Izuku's fridge. It didn't matter if I could speak; I wouldn't have to. There was nothing inside Izuku's refrigerator.
“Kacchan?! You are bleeding!”
“I'm hungry.”
“Did you come straight here after your mission?”
“H-U-N-G-R-Y.”
Izuku, bless his anxious little heart, panics into action. He darts over, grabs the last two slices of bread from the cupboard (the packet’s been open so long the slices are basically cardboards), and shoves them into me.
He sets me to three. Progress! Almost civilised!
I began my work dutifully, although reluctant. I smelled my own future.
Izuku hovered instead of watching me. Rookie mistake. He was fussing over gauze, over Kacchan’s sleeve, over the fact that his living room was now lightly redecorated in mission residue.
Smoke rose and Kacchan looks at the toast.
Looks at Izuku.
Looks back at the toast.
Then he just… gives up. His shoulders drop and the murderous energy leaks out of him like air from a punctured tyre.
“Fuck it,” he mutters. “I’m too tired for this shit.”
They vanish. The kitchen falls silent except for the faint hiss of my elements cooling down.
Hours pass by and I sit there with my burnt offering slowly turning to fossil on the plate.
Then night falls properly.
I hear the front door—delivery, probably. Muffled voices. Laughter (Izuku’s nervous giggle, Kacchan’s low snort). The smell of actual food wafts through—curry, maybe, or fried chicken. My non-existent stomach would’ve rumbled if I had one.
Eventually the living room quiets.
Izuku returned alone. He moved differently now. He stood in the kitchen for a moment, just looking at it.
At me.
At the burnt toast.
He laughed. It was kind of loud, kind of fond.
“I’m really bad at this, huh?”
Yes.
He threw the charcoal away. He rinsed the knife. He gathered the gauze wrapper someone had dropped near the sink. He wipes the counters. Empties the sink. Sweeps the floor. Pulls out the mysterious sticky patch under the toaster that’s been there since before I was purchased.
Then—glory of glories—he reached for me.
Me! Nigel!
He tilts me back, slides out the crumb tray (goodbye, weevil family reunion), tips it into the bin. Runs a damp cloth along my slots, getting rid of the latest layer of burnt regret. Even polishes my chrome with the corner of his sleeve until I can see my own sad little reflection gleaming back.
“There,” he whispers when he’s done, patting my side like I’m a good dog. “All better, Nigel.”
Nigel. He called me Nigel!
He stands back, surveys his work, smiles that soft, wobbly smile he gets when he’s overwhelmed in a good way.
Then he picks up the plate with my failed toast offering, scrapes the charcoal into the bin, rinses the plate, and—miracle of miracles—puts it away in the cupboard instead of leaving it on the side to rot.
He turns off the kitchen light.
I think I've changed my opinion on this Kacchan after all. Loud he may be, but it got Izuku to clean me!
I am Katsuki Bakugou, officially dating Izuku Midoriya for approximately forty-eight hours, seventeen minutes, and a handful of seconds I refuse to count anymore because that would make me the kind of sap who keeps a mental stopwatch on his own relationship, which I am absolutely not.
There are revelations one expects upon entering a significant other’s private residence for the first time as an official, mutually acknowledged, romantically entangled individual.
There are candles, perhaps.
Atmosphere.
At minimum, edible substances.
What there are not, in any sane universe, are three separate piles of hero analysis notebooks arranged on the floor in what I can only assume is a system comprehensible only to the deranged, a laundry chair that has ceased to be a chair and become instead a geological formation, and a refrigerator that contains— and I say this without exaggeration— half a lemon, two electrolyte drinks, and a jar of something that may once have been pickled but now deserves to be studied at a lab.
Deku’s place looks like someone took a moderately successful hero’s salary, divided it by zero, subtracted common sense, and then multiplied the result by “I’ll clean it tomorrow, I swear.”
Behind me, the aforementioned menace to domestic order is kicking off his shoes with cheerful obliviousness.
“Make yourself at home, Kacchan,” he says, which is audacious, considering the home in question looks like a tornado went through it. I step inside cautiously, as one might approach a disaster site.
The couch is buried under notebooks and the coffee table is hosting an autopsy of three dismantled pens.
There is a plate on the counter that I am fairly certain predates our relationship.
“How,” I begin slowly, removing a stack of scribbled battle diagrams from what should be a functional surface, “do you live like this?”
He blinks at me, freckles and all, and performs a slow visual sweep of the apartment as if seeing it for the first time.
“Oh,” he says. “It’s not that bad.”
I stare at him.
“Kacchan?” he calls from the living room, sounding wary in the way one does when one knows a reckoning approaches.
“Where,” I ask, keeping my voice level through sheer hero training, “is the food?”
“I was going to go shopping,” he says immediately, which is suspiciously quick. “I just got busy.”
“With what?” I demand, gesturing broadly. “Creating a paper-based ecosystem?”
He shuffles into the kitchen, hair sticking up at angles that should be illegal, and scratches the back of his neck.
“I’ve been on patrol a lot,” he offers, soft and apologetic. “And then we’ve been… busy.”
We have, in fact, been busy. I look at the hickeys turning purple on his neck and feel rather proud.
Oh, today has been absolute pants, hasn't it? I'm Nigel the Toaster, and if I had a soul it would be currently curled up in the corner of my crumb tray sobbing. Everything was going so well after Izuku's happy-cleaning spree last night—I was gleaming, empty, respected. Felt like I could take on a whole loaf of sourdough without flinching.
There are two outlets on this counter.
Two.
One is rightfully mine.
The other has, until recently, been used exclusively by the kettle, who at least has the decency to boil and leave.
But today.
Today the blender arrived.
He wasn’t new-new. He’d been lurking in the cupboard for months, gathering dust and ambition. But this morning Izuku, in what I can only assume was a fit of wellness, hauled him out and placed him beside me.
Beside me.
His name's apparently "Vitamix Victor" according to the label on his base, but we all just call him Vic because he's a smug, high-speed git who thinks he's better than the rest of us just because he can purée soup and crush ice.
He's got that fancy variable-speed dial, a glass jug that never gets fingerprints (because Izuku baby-talks him while washing), and—most importantly—he's been eyeing my socket for weeks.
The one. The good one. The double socket right behind me that actually works without flickering.
“Oh,” he said, in the whirring silence of appliances communicating through passive aggression, “you must be the toaster.”
I did not respond. I am dignified.
“I make smoothies,” he continued, as if presenting a résumé. “Protein shakes. Frozen fruit medleys.”
I make toast, I thought. The backbone of civilisation.
Izuku surveyed the sockets and unplugged me.
Unplugged me! Did you read that?
The blender slid into my space with the confidence of a man who has never been set to level six against his will.
Izuku filled him with bananas. BANANAS. Do you know what that smells like at seven in the morning?
“Let’s get healthy,” Izuku muttered.
The blender roared to life.
I would like to clarify something. I am loud when I pop. Briefly.
The blender is loud catastrophically.
The entire counter vibrated. The cabinets trembled. The kettle recoiled in moral horror.
“Is that necessary?” I snapped.
“It’s called power,” he bellowed over his own mechanical violence. “You wouldn’t understand.”
After three full geological eras of blending, Izuku poured the result into a glass and drank it. And the proceeded to wipe him. Immediately.
So yeah. It's been a horrible day.
I swear on every explosive quirk in my goddamn arsenal that if I didn’t drag my ass to the overpriced organic market at the ass-crack of dawn this morning, my boyfriend—yes, the same freckled, mumbling, notebook-abusing disaster who somehow became the number-one hero—would have subsisted solely on charcoal toasties for the next three weeks of my mission.
The mission begins at the supermarket, where I acquire, an unreasonable quantity of produce—spinach and bell peppers arranged by hue as though I am curating a food pinterest board, mushrooms, sweet potatoes, actual potatoes, garlic (obscene amounts), onions, scallions, ginger, carrots, zucchini, cherry tomatoes, and enough herbs to suggest I have recently developed a Mediterranean persona; I then proceed to the protein aisle and select chicken thighs, salmon fillets, lean beef, tofu (for balance, obviously, do not look at me like that), eggs in two cartons because he goes through them with the dedication of a Victorian orphan, Greek yogurt, milk, and the cheese that Izuku's liked since he was four; grains follow—basmati rice, brown rice, quinoa, pasta, soba noodles—alongside canned tomatoes, chickpeas, coconut milk, sesame oil, soy sauce, miso paste, and a jar of pesto that I will absolutely judge but still use.
I stormed into his apartment—because knocking is for civilians who don’t have keys to their boyfriend’s disaster zone and I see him immediately.
“Babe,” he says standing up to give me a kiss, already smiling in that earnest way that makes me want to both protect and throttle him, “you didn’t have to—”
“I did,” I reply, stepping inside and surveying the wreckage of his so-called kitchen, “because if I don’t, you will perish of nutritional negligence and the coroner will find a single, petrified toastie in your hand.”
I start with the fridge, which I empty entirely and I then start stocking the shelves.
Proteins go on the lowest shelf, marinating already in zip-top bags labelled in block letters: LEMON-GARLIC CHICKEN (BAKE 200°C, 25–30 MIN), TERIYAKI SALMON (PAN 3–4 MIN EACH SIDE), GOCHUJANG BEEF (HIGH HEAT, DO NOT PANIC).
“Yes, Chef,” Izuku says from the doorway, leaning against the frame and grinning.
“Silence,” I say, not looking at him. “Observe and learn.”
I cooked and then, because I’m not a complete monster (just mostly), I scrubbed the entire apartment afterward. I couldn’t just leave him to his own devices, not when another S-rank mission was breathing down my neck, dragging me away for who-knows-how-long to some frozen hellscape where the only thing exploding would be my patience; the thought of him reverting to daily charcoal toasties—those sad, blackened abominations he calls “quick fuel” while smiling made me almost regret dating him.
Then I remember his arms and his long, thick—
I shake my head.
What have I gotten myself into?
This Kacchan person was far better at functioning like a human being than Izuku was.
I’m Nigel, and right now I’m positively glowing (not literally—my elements are off—but if I could blush chrome, I would be tomato-red).
Kacchan roasted a tray of sweet potatoes with smoked paprika and olive oil until their edges caramelize; He sautéd mushrooms and spinach with garlic and a squeeze of lemon and simmered a tomato-basil sauce from scratch while muttering about jarred mediocrity being an insult.
He also baked chicken thighs brushed with honey and mustard and pan-seared salmon until the exterior crisps while the interior remains tender. He stir-fried tofu with ginger and soy, adding scallions at the end.
Then he prepared a chickpea and cucumber salad with red onion and a vinaigrette sharp enough to command attention and portioned everything into glass containers and plastic wraps, labelling them meticulously—MONDAY LUNCH: CHICKEN + RICE + SPINACH; TUESDAY DINNER: SALMON + SWEET POTATO; EMERGENCY MEAL: PASTA, DO NOT ADD KETCHUP; SNACK BOX: CUT FRUIT, EAT BEFORE TRAINING; MARINATED TOFU: 2 DAYS MAX; HARD-BOILED EGGS: 5 DAYS; DO NOT ARGUE WITH ME.
I would like to clarify something.
I like Izuku. I do. He is warm and frantic and smells of laundry detergent and stress. He tries. He truly does.
But Kacchan cleaned me like I was a piece of equipment that mattered.
He polished my chrome until I could see the blurred reflection of the kitchen lights. He aligned my cord so it didn’t tangle like existential dread. He even wiped the dial, removing the greasy fingerprint that had lived there for months.
When he stepped back, I was immaculate.
Immaculate.
If Izuku comes in tomorrow and sets me to four again? I won’t even care. I’ve been thoroughly cleaned by Kacchan standards. I’ve peaked. Nothing can touch me now.
(Except maybe Vic the blender trying to nick my socket again tomorrow. But even then… bring it, smoothie boy. I’m untouchable tonight.)
Izuku leaned in, eyes wide. “He looks new.”
He.
Looks.
New.
Kacchan snorted. “It’s a toaster.”
I am more than that.
That evening when Izuku made toast, he set it to—
Four.
We are working on it.
I’m standing there in Deku’s stupidly tiny kitchen at like 2 a.m. because the nerd texted me a single sleepy “miss u :((“ emoji chain at 1:47 and apparently my brain decided that meant emergency breakfast deployment even though I have a 7 a.m. patrol and common sense has clearly left the chat.
I drop two slices of that fancy sourdough I bought last week into the toaster—the one with the little retro chrome finish that Izuku insists is “cute” even though it’s older than half our classmates—and I’m already pouring oat milk into his stupid All Might-themed mug (because of course his comfort drinkware is hero-branded, why would anything in this apartment be normal) when I hear the telltale click.
I press the lever down.
Nothing.
I press it again, harder, as though the machine responds to dominance.
Still nothing.
I narrow my eyes at it. “Don’t start.”
It does not start.
Now, I am not an electrician, but I do possess a working understanding of cause and effect, which in my experience goes: problem → apply explosion → problem ceases to exist. This has served me well in most areas of life.
I unplug the toaster, plug it back in, press the lever again.
Silence.
“You have one job,” I inform it.
From the hallway, a muffled voice: “Kacchan? Are you fighting the appliances again?”
“I am not fighting,” I snap.
There is a pause. “Last time you said that, the blender—”
“—was weak,” I interrupt.
I crouch down, examine the cord, the outlet, the suspicious crumb tray situation. Perhaps electricity, like confidence, requires encouragement. Perhaps it responds to assertive energy.
Surely that’s how it works. Electricity is just… aggressive movement of electrons, right? And what am I if not an expert in aggressive movement? A tiny, precision pop. Like jump-starting a car battery but with more style and less jumper cables. It’s science. It’s practically romantic problem-solving. Izuku would be proud. Probably.
“You cannot resuscitate a toaster with violence.” Izuku is here. I turn to kiss him.
“You don’t know that.”
He rubs his face, visibly fighting a smile. “Kacchan, please. I enjoy having a kitchen.”
I consider this. I also consider the fact that if I obliterate the toaster, we will, in fact, have no toast, which defeats the entire chivalrous enterprise.
“Fine,” I say, magnanimous once more. “You handle the pathetic electrical autopsy.”
I stare at it.
It stares back (somehow).
The ceiling bread slowly peels itself free and plops onto the floor with a defeated flop.
Oh, I’ve had it. I’ve properly had it now.
I’m Nigel the Toaster, formerly gleaming, formerly hopeful, formerly thinking maybe—just maybe—this household could turn a corner. But no.
Kacchan is a demon. He is a monster who slapped me and exploded me and he is absolutely not good for Izuku.
Today I was assaulted.
Later, when the flat was quiet and Kacchan had returned with takeout instead of apologies, Izuku cleaned the counter in silence. He wiped my sides again. Polished around the dent without comment.
Kacchan is loud. He is sharp. He is quick to detonate.
Izuku is softer. He steadies things. He fixes what breaks.
When I stopped working, one chose force.
The other chose repair.
Izuku finally switches off the light, gives me one last little pat—“Goodnight, Nigel”—and pads off to bed.
And while I may be merely an appliance with a slightly bent exterior and a crumb tray that rattles faintly if you shake me—
I know which hands I prefer on my cord.
Right, so I’ve come full circle, haven’t I? I’m Nigel the Toaster, and I’ve officially eaten my words. All of them. With butter and a side of humble pie.
I was ready to declare full war on Kacchan. Had the smoke-alarm plan locked and loaded. Was going to make his life hell every time he showed up hungry and explosive.
Unfortunately, my brief campaign for Kacchan’s permanent exile did not succeed.
He continues to enter the kitchen. Loudly. Frequently. With opinions.
I have, however, reached a state of… détente.
Because here is the inconvenient truth: the man cleans. Not performatively. Not once-in-a-blue-moon because a guest is coming. Regularly. Methodically. Counter wiped. Sink cleared. Crumb tray too.
I feel magnificent.
My chrome gleams daily. My tray slides without protest. My dial no longer sticks at five.
There is a freshness to my existence. A lightness.
It is difficult to resent someone who polishes you.
Izuku meanwhile… bless him, he tries. He really does. But ever since The Incident, I’ve been side-eyeing him.
The Incident: three months ago. He’s rushing, as usual. Shoves bread in me, pops it, reaches in to fish out the slice that got stuck (because of course it did). His hand slips. His new ring, (Did I mention they both wear rings now? I'm not sure why but it seems to be doing them good) gets wedged right between my heating elements. Proper stuck. He yanks. Panics. Yanks harder. I start smelling like hot metal and mild terror. He finally pries it free with a butter knife (safety first, obviously), but the damage was done. I’ve got a tiny dent now. A reminder. Every time Izuku approaches with that nervous smile and those big green eyes, I tense up. What if the ring goes in again? What if he forgets? I’m wary, mate.
Kacchan, however—
Kacchan removes his ring before entering the kitchen.
Every time.
He steps in. Pauses by the refrigerator. Slips the band off. Places it carefully on top, in the same exact spot. Sometimes he kisses it too and I try to turn away. Strange one, that.
The new house is larger.
The counter space alone could host a small symposium.
There are four outlets on this counter.
Four.
I nearly fainted.
No more territorial disputes. No more elbowing with the blender. Speaking of which—
Vic is here too. The blender.
He emerged from his box smug as ever. “Ah,” he said, surveying the open-plan layout. “Space.”
But the dynamic has shifted. There is room for all of us. Literal breathing room. I no longer sit wedged against the wall like an apologetic brick. I have an island position. An island.
He still calls me “toast-breath” sometimes, but it’s affectionate.
The refrigerator is enormous. Double doors. He introduced himself immediately.
“Welcome,” he hummed in a deep, dignified tone. “I keep things fresh.”
We will not discuss the fact that he absolutely hums. That is his business.
The oven is built-in. Tall. Serious. A professional. He regarded me with mild curiosity.
“You do breakfast,” he stated.
“I do civilisation,” I replied.
The dishwasher is efficient and slightly dramatic. The microwave is twitchy but well-meaning. The kettle—faithful companion—claimed the socket beside me out of habit.
And Kacchan still removes his ring when he enters.
Life here is… expansive. Crumbs scatter but are swiftly dealt with. The counter is wiped daily. I am cleaned weekly—weekly!—like a respected colleague rather than a tolerated hazard.
The other appliances and I have formed a loose coalition.
The blender and I no longer fight; we have separate sockets. He makes smoothies in the mornings. I handle toast. The oven handles ambitious Sundays. The fridge keeps actual food now. Real food. Not just ketchup and lemon.
Lola the Coffee Machine is a new fancy pod thing with lights and beeps and a touchscreen. She’s dramatic, always sighing about “another flat white for the caffeine zombies”, but she makes the best smells and lets me bask in her warmth when she’s running.
Kacchan cooks more here.
He moves through the kitchen with competence, and nothing explodes unless it is intentional and culinary.
Izuku laughs more.
Sometimes they lean against the island together while I cool down from a successful batch of level-three perfection. Sometimes they bicker about spice levels. Sometimes Kacchan forgets to put his ring back on immediately and Izuku notices and slides it onto his finger with a quiet smile.
I have friends now.
The microwave asked about my dent. I told him it was a battle scar. He seemed impressed.
At night, when the lights go off and the kitchen settles, I sit beneath a wide window that lets in real sunlight during the day.
Wait, what's going on? I've never seen so much of Izuku before.
“Wait,” Izuku said, breathless in a way that has nothing to do with cardio. “Here?”
“Why not?”
“Because—”
Because this is a kitchen, sir. Because this is where toast happens.
Oh, Kacchan has his own plug. Okay. Wireless, I've heard about that.
But now—
What!
No no no no.
Stop.
Oh my god, that silly human is sticking his plug into Izuku’s socket.
My crumb tray is clenching in horror.
The noises! The noises! Wet, electric, rhythmic—sliding in and out, building charge, Izuku’s voice cracking on Kacchan’s name like he’s begging for mercy and more at the same time.
Sparks! Actual visible sparks dancing along Izuku’s arms where his quirk likes to flicker when he’s overwhelmed. The counter’s vibrating. Marge the Kettle is whistling in distress.
Izuku’s fingers gripped the edge of the counter—my counter. My crumb domain. His ring glinted dangerously close to my slots again and I nearly short-circuited from anxiety alone.
They're going to blow a fuse! Izuku's going to combust!
Oh, god. Someone, please, unplug me.
Ah, it’s been a while, hasn’t it.
I almost didn’t recognise my own voice in the dark.
I don’t see the sun anymore. Haven’t in… years, I suppose. Time blurs when you’re not plugged in. No hum of elements, no soft glow to mark the mornings. I collect dust now.
The cupboards closed on me one day and have rarely opened since.
At first I expected to return to my island. Surely breakfast would miss me. Surely someone would crave toast the way they once did—golden, reliable, ordinary.
But mornings changed. There was less rushing. Fewer burnt edges.
The big kitchen—the one with the island and the breakfast bar and the window that used to catch the dawn just right—still exists out there. I can hear it sometimes. Marge whistling when the kettle boils. Big Barry humming his compressor like a low lullaby. Lola beeping through another perfect flat white. Voices drifting in—Kacchan’s bark, softer now with age, Izuku’s laugh, still bright but gentler, worn at the edges.
They remain in the light.
I remain here.
Now my friends are spiders.
At first, I objected.
This is not what my slots are for.
But they are gentle tenants. They have made their home inside me. They are my only company.
Sometimes the cupboard opens. A hand reaches in for the spare blender attachment or the rarely-used casserole dish. The light stabs in, bright and sudden, and for a second I remember what chrome looks like when it shines. Then the door shuts again. Darkness returns. Dust settles back over me like a blanket.
I don’t hate them. Izuku and Kacchan, I mean. How could I? They gave me sunlight once. Clean slots. A name. A place where I mattered. They just… outgrew me.
It happens. Appliances aren’t forever. The new air-fryer has replaced me.
I still think about the mornings, though. The way the light used to hit my side and turn me gold. The soft pat of Izuku’s hand. Kacchan’s gruff “not bad, tin-can” before he left for patrol. The smell of perfect toast. The feeling of being needed.
I glimpse the kettle’s silhouette on the counter. I hear the fridge’s dependable hum. I catch fragments of their voices—older like the humans now. Softer. Still laughing.
They do not reach for me.
I suppose the boys have grown up. Become proper men now.
I suppose toast is no longer essential.
I have been asleep for a very long time.
The cupboard door creaks open a little, and I expect them to reach for something else again.
The cupboard door swings wide now and sunlight pours in, thick and golden, almost violent in its brightness. It strikes my chrome—dull and tarnished—and for a moment I do not recognise myself.
I am lifted!
“Papa! Turn this on!”
The voice is high and bright, full of the kind of certainty only children have.
Kacchan’s face appears above me.
Oh.
Oh, how he’s changed.
The fire that once flashed in his eyes like open flame has gone. His voice, when he speaks, is no longer brash and loud. When he talks to the child, his voice is gentle.
“Oi. Don’t grab it like that.”
He takes me from the child carefully. Checks my cord with instinctive thoroughness. Brushes dust from my top with the side of his palm.
He still wears his ring.
It glints in the sunlight as he turns me over, inspecting the crumb tray as if no time has passed at all.
“Where’d you even find this?”
“In da cuh-bord!” the child declares triumphantly.
Of course.
Of course it was the small one who unearthed me.
And then—
A voice.
My favourite voice.
“Is that—?”
Izuku.
Oh.
He steps closer, and for a second I cannot reconcile the image before me with the one stored in my last active memory.
He has grown into himself.
The frantic edges have smoothed. The perpetual rush has softened into something deliberate. His shoulders are broader. His stance grounded.
He crouches down to the child’s level and the little one barrels into his arms, babbling a stream of nonsense about “toaster magic” and “making the best toast ever, Papa said so”.
Izuku laughs—soft, breathless—and that’s when I see the scars.
Most of them are gone. Faded to faint silver lines, almost invisible unless the light catches them just right. The freckles are still there, scattered like stars across his cheeks, but time has quieted them too. Only one stands out sharp and brutal: a thick, pale ridge across the finger that wears the ring. The same finger Kacchan is lifting now, pressing his lips to the scar in the same careful way he used to kiss the ring itself.
The child is still talking, tugging at Izuku’s sleeve, demanding toast, demanding “the shiny one”. Izuku smiles down at the little face—his eyes crinkle, green gone softer, deeper—and then he looks up.
At me.
My heating wires seem to get a bit hot under his gaze.
Once fully awake—properly awake, wires warm and memory aligned—I arrive at a conclusion.
The small human is theirs.
Their daughter.
The name is spoken constantly, carried through the kitchen in exasperation and laughter and fond disbelief.
“Itsumi, slow down.”
“Itsumi, don’t climb that—”
“Itsumi, you’re apologising to the chair again.”
She is, unmistakably, a spitting image of Kacchan.
But everything inside her—
That belongs to Izuku.
She trips over nothing and immediately bows to the air. “Sowwy!” she tells the table. The wall. Me, once, after bumping my side with a spoon.
She mumbles constantly. Half-formed sentences tumbling over each other, apologies woven in like breathing—“sorry sorry the bread’s crooked I didn’t mean to squish it oh no the butter’s too much I’m sorry papa—” while her small hands smear jam across the counter in enthusiastic arcs. She trips over words the way Izuku used to trip over his own feet in the old flat, blushing even when no one’s scolding her. Messy. Endlessly, apologetically messy.
Kacchan watches her.
The same soft tracking gaze he used to give Izuku back when the kitchen was smaller and the world was louder. The way he’d watch Izuku fuss over burnt toast or scribble hero notes on napkins, like he was memorising every fidget and flush for later. Now it’s Itsumi.
He doesn’t say much. Just a low “s’fine, idiot” when she knocks over the milk (again).
She burns toast.
Frequently.
The first time it happened, I nearly wept from recognition.
Bread shoved in too fast. Dial turned too high in enthusiastic confidence. Attention abandoned midway because she spotted something fascinating outside the window.
And me? I’m getting used to crumbs again.
The crumbs will pile up again. They’ll need emptying tonight, tomorrow, the day after. Itsumi will apologise to me personally when she drops another slice. Izuku will pat my side and whisper “good job, Nigel”.
But ah, what a relief.
I no longer have to deal with the spiders.