"C'mon, brat."

Shinsou smirked and looked up from the rack of sweaters. A teen was dragging a little kid - his brother, probably - along by the arm. The kid had freckles and eyes fascinated by absolutely everything. He happily let himself be tugged through the mall, too distracted to use his legs properly anyways. Suddenly, he froze. His eyes shone and he nearly vibrated with energy.

"Kacchan! That All Might shirt." He pointed into the clothing store Shinsou was perusing. "Do I have it?"

The teen - Kacchan - also stopped. His eyes found the shirt and he headed automatically into the store. "Nope. And you can't get it cause I am."

"Kacchan!" the kid pouted. "I saw it first."
"Well they don't have brat kid sizes anyways."

"They have high-school me size!"

"I don't know what that is. You grow up to be a dweeb."

Well, that was odd. Shinsou knew fans got hard core, but he didn't think buying your older self clothing was normal. Though the kid's brother or whoever showed no signs of outgrowing the All Might phase so maybe it was a safe buy.

"That's not true!" the kid shouted back.

"Shut up and I'll buy you an ice cream."

There was a pause.

"Alright," the kid agreed happily, "I'll just come back and buy it, anyways. And then we can match!"

There was a small scuffle Shinsou couldn't see through the clothing racks. Wait. Why was he trying to watch like a creeper? Shinsou pushed the strange conversation to the back of his mind and considered a sweater with coffee scrawled across it in five different languages.

Half an hour later, Shinsou was sitting beside his shopping bag and waiting patiently for a tabby at the mall's pet store/cat rescue center to notice him. A blur of green barreled through the door. It was the kid from earlier, the teen hot on his heels. The kid made a beeline for an angry ball of fluff and the older blond scooped him up just in time to avoid claws. "Deku! Leave the fluffy fuck alone!"

Shinsou raised an eyebrow. "Should you really be cursing in front of a pre-schooler?"

Angry red eyes met his. Whoops. He'd said that aloud.

Shinsou looked closer. Wait. Now that the guy's face was twisted into a scowl he looked familiar. "You're the explosion kid from the hero course."

"Who the fuck are you?"

The little boy - Deku, Shinsou supposed though it wasn't exactly a conventional name - stepped forward and distracted the teens from their stare down. "Do you go to UA, too? Do you want to be a hero?"

Shinsou shrugged, uncomfortable with the joint question and the boy's enthusiasm. Then, Kacchan - Bakugou Katsuki he realized, now - recognized him. "You're the brainwash fucker."

The green-haired kid's eyes lit up. "Brainwash! That quirk's so cool. Tell me all about it. Can you brainwash multiple people? Have you ever made a villain turn themselves in? What happens if you use it too much? Do you get headaches?"

Deku looked like he was about to hyperventilate. The kid scooted into Shinsou's space and the purple-haired boy watched sadly as the tabby he was trying to befriend stood and wandered off. Shinsou glared at Bakugou with narrowed eyes. He owed him a cat. But the blond showed no signs of recognizing the tragedy his failure to control the green fluff ball had caused.

Shinsou looked back into the kid's earnest, freckled face. He could swear he had seen it before. "Wait. Are you Midoriya's brother?"

The kid shook his head no, but grinned. "We know each other?!" He bounced in place and tugged at Bakugou's sleeve.

Shinsou cocked his head in confusion and Bakugou sighed. "This little fuck is Midoriya. He got his dumb self hit by a de-aging quirk and now I'm stuck on baby-sitting duty."

Shinsou sat back. "Huh." But, he supposed, from the little he knew, Midoriya would be an enthusiastic ball of energy.

For his part, Midoriya was undeterred. "Uh huh. And I don't remember being old. But Kacchan says I get a super cool quirk" - Bakugou looked shifty and Shinsou suspected he hadn't explained the broken bones part, whatever was going on with that - "and I keep meeting super cool people who say they're gonna be my friends and I'm so excited to turn back and be friends with them!" He stopped, "We're friends right?"

Shinsou was about to scoff. But Midoriya's eyes were wide and his lower lip wobbly. Shinsou paused. He remembered his one interaction with Midoriya - the boy's defiant face as he broke his own finger and snapped free of Shinsou's quirk at the sport's festival. He hardly thought that qualified. He struggled to rein in his tongue and let the four year old down gently, when Bakugou caught his eye. The blond was mouthing viciously over Midoriya's shoulder. Shinsou couldn't tell quite what he was saying but he was pretty sure it amounted to tell the kid yes or die a fiery death. Shinsou raised an eyebrow. "Yeah, we're friends."

Midoriya beamed. Shinsou blinked. It kinda hurt to look at the kid's face. He lowered his head to rub at his eyes. Suddenly, Bakugou snatched Midoriya away. Shinsou looked up in confusion. "What?"

Bakugou was holding a pouting Midoriya by his shoulders. "Ask, freak. This is why cats don't like you."

Midoriya turned back to Shinsou. "Can I pet your hair?"

Shinsou eyed the kid's fingers. He was pretty sure they'd mentioned ice cream earlier. Midoriya caught him and held up his hands. "I washed them cause cats don't like sticky fingers."

"You do realize I'm not a cat."

Midoriya nodded. "But you're purple!" He said it as if that explained everything.

Shinsou supposed to a four year old, it did. He sighed and waved at his hair. He let the kid thoroughly muss it for a few seconds before Bakugou stepped in and pulled his tiny friend away. Shinsou straightened his hair somewhat and Bakugou snickered. "Thanks purple freak. See ya."

The tabby eventually wandered back to Shinsou and was nearly convinced to settle on his lap when loud giggling across the store startled her away. Shinsou rolled his eyes. Fucking disruptive. When he looked up, however, he grinned. Midoriya had found the pet costumes and stuck a lion's mane on a growling Bakugou. Shinsou pulled out his phone immediately. The blackmail possibilities were endless.

Eventually, Bakugou and Midoriya were chased out of the store for making a ruckus. Shinsou hesitated a moment then changed his phone background to Bakugou chasing a laughing Midoriya. Now to casually make sure Bakugou saw it.

It turned out to not be hard at all. At school on Monday, Shinsou was eating outside when Midoriya plopped down beside him.

"Hi!" he greeted cheerfully before rubbing the back of his neck, "I wanted to say, uh, sorry, uh, for trying to pet your hair without asking this weekend. And well, for petting your hair. I still remember most of what happened when I was hit with the de-aging quirk. It was, uh, strange."

"Yup," a girl from the hero course with short brown hair joined them. "He cried when he saw how many All Might posters he had."

"They were happy tears!" Midoriya protested.

He turned to Shinsou again. "I also wanted to say I'm really happy you consider me a friend. We haven't got to hang out much but I thought you were really cool at the sports festival so I want to get to know you better!"

Before Shinsou had a chance to respond, the rest of Midoriya's entourage was crowding in around them.

Shinsou's mouth dropped open a little as loud conversation washed over him. Everyone greeted him casually as they sat and he was too stunned to do anything but nod slightly. Someone nudged him with a knee and Shinsou shifted automatically as Bakugou dropped into the empty space. "Shut your trap shitty eggplant. Something'll fly in."

Shinsou glared at him. This was all Bakugou's fault for not wanting to upset Midoriya. Slowly, Shinsou grinned. Bakugou leaned back a bit, apprehension darting across his face before he hid it behind a scowl. "What."

Shinsou slid out his phone. "Hey, Midoriya. I got some pictures of you and blasty in the pet store."

Bakugou dove for the phone but the girl with the bobbed hair grabbed it faster. Then, Bakugou dove for Shinsou and the purple haired boy saw his life flash briefly before his eyes - so worth it - before a red head wrestled his explosive friend back. He pinned Bakugou to the ground as everyone cooed over Shinsou's lock screen.

"Do you have more?" the girl - Uraraka - asked. Shinsou smirked and looked over at Bakugou who was smoking slightly. "Yes. I think he might even be smiling in one."

Before he knew it, Shinsou was being added to a group chat whose most recent activity seemed to consist mostly of blurry around-the-corner pictures of Bakugou and de-aged Midoriya. Shinsou's contribution was definitely the most quality. Then everyone was trading cute Bakugou stories from the weekend while the boy in question fumed and stared daggers at Shinsou.

Soon, lunch was over. Shinsou stood up, the flurry of activity around him slightly dizzying. Midoriya waved farewell and Shinsou hesitantly waved back. He felt his mouth fall back into its normal expression and was surprised to realize that he had been smiling.

Shinsou turned to go and nearly ran into Bakugou. He wondered if he was about to be murdered. But the blond boy only shoulder-checked him lightly and muttered, "Later, fucker," as he passed. Shinsou felt the corners of his mouth turn back up.