Kei is in kindergarten when he first hears it.
"His father is an awesome Hero," the resident leader kid explains to his followers. Kei hates them so much yet can't for the life of him remember just why they deserved it. "So we gotta get him to our group. He can show us how to be a Pro!"
When he couldn't, he paid the price.
That had been his first and only setback.
One of his earliest memories is a taboo thought, something conjured out of shameful secrets.
He had said to Izuku, fearful, that he would never be a hero.
"I don't want to be a Hero…"
Izuku, his dad, had held a bemused light in his spring green eyes. They had been so soft, so gentle, so understanding. Kei was glad. His classmates, his teachers, other parents; all convinced that his destiny laid in greatness.
They were wrong.
Katsuki had been blunt. He usually is. Kei doesn't think it'd be a good sign if he ever speaks hushed.
"It's a hard path," Katsuki confesses, right after Kei's own confession. "Not everyone is suited to it. Not everyone can make it. Some don't have what it takes. You're a brave kid, Kei, but if you don't want to, nobody in the whole world can force you to become a Hero."
And that had been that.
Life goes on. Kei grows. It's a difficult road he walks, one of normalcy, though he somehow manages with what he has.
With both of his parents prestigious Heroes, people generally look at him, wielding their hopeful eyes like firearms, and say,
"He will surely be a great Hero."
'No he fucking won't, you sheep,' Kei always thinks as praises spill over their frothing mouths. 'Don't tell me I'm something I'll never be, something I could never be.'
Izuku is sometimes late to home.
It's inevitable when your father is the Number One Hero. TV shows fight for an interview with him, reporters and fans alike flock to him like moths to fire. Izuku, and by proxy Kei, is famous.
And he, in his less than optimal state, sometimes wishes his dad really had been Quirkless from his childhood to well into his adulthood. It's a damn terrible thing to wish; he hates himself for it, for wanting something that brought a colossal dismay upon someone he dearly loves. Yet it's how he copes, imagining a reality in which his dad is just another face in the crowd.
Katsuki is more confusing. He is his other dad; however, what does that mean to Kei? Katsuki is often silent when Izuku is not there. In only Kei's presence, he is more somber, more wistful.
( Kei hopes, so damn much, that he isn't visualizing a son who is less of a disappointment and more of a success. He hopes, he hopes, he fucking hopes and does nothing else because there is nothing he can fucking do-)
But he is a fair parent. Katsuki is the one who majorly sets the routine in the house of Bakugous. Bedtime and meals are all planned - well, as much as they can, what with their hectic schedule. He is also loving, in a rather subtler way than Izuku's style of giving affection. His love shows in his thoughtful gestures, his careful hand as he ruffles Kei's hair while taking care not to form knots. And Izuku only brings out the better in him.
Izuku, though, he is warmth. He is nourishing sunlight, he is a calm forest, he is a cat's blissful purr and so much more. Kei loves him so much he thinks he might just die if Izuku leaves the house one day and never returns.
They're his most precious people in this tiny world consisting of his home, school and yard.
When he is old enough, Izuku prepares them all a movie night, and sits them through a whole night of All Might marathon.
He knows Izuku is the legend's successor. Even though he has never met the man himself-
( Kei only remembers him through video calls, a thing of ancient times and long buried in the distant past. The only remains are a weary voice and a golden sheen. All Might receives treatment in Europe, not Japan.)
-he is aware that Izuku views him as his own personal hero. Katsuki seems to get it, even if Kei doesn't. It's alright. He isn't old enough to know. It's a thing belonging to their past.
(He knows they would tell if he asked. He just doesn't. He doesn't feel he belongs to that time.)
Kei is cleaning during after hours at his school when the news come in.
"It seems like a regular encounter between Deku and an unknown Villain," the news anchor informs. Kei keeps sweeping the polished marble floor, like a mindless zombie. He can never help but listen in when these channels are open. At home, Katsuki keeps track of them through his phone, not the television. But here Kei doesn't have a censor at all that'd spare him the gruesome details. Every shot of the fight is in 4K quality and unobstructed. He hates it. He wishes his dad wasn't a Hero.
(He just wants him to come back home.)
"Oh, oh my, is that-"
And as Kei turns around to sweep the corner, his eyes connect with the TV's shine.
And his heart stops.