Kacchan
A Boku no Hero Academia oneshot.
Summary: Midoriya is dead, and now Bakugo is left to pick up the broken pieces the "idiot" left behind by dying so soon, all the things left untouched. An exploration into Bakugo's feelings after losing his childhood rival and the resolve he makes to never lose again.
Warning: Rated T for all of Bakugo's cursing. Since it's first person, prepare for a lot of it.
Fuck Deku.
I always hated that damn selfless grin, the way he was always running to help someone—dammit! I won't think about it! I am going to fucking drag him from the grave myself and kill him again!
I slammed my hands on the mirror and felt them crackle, but when I looked into the mirror I only saw him with his stupid ass hair and his stupid ass smile.
I clenched my fists around the edges of the surface and had half a mind to rip the fucking thing off and smash it on the ground, so I could stomp his fucking face from my memory.
Fuck Deku.
"Katsuki." Mom knocked lightly on the door, and I pulled away from the mirror. It was only my reflection now, but for some reason, it seemed much fucking worse. "Are you ready?"
No. I'm not fucking ready. It's not supposed to be like this. But I grunted and slammed the door open, flipping the light off. She was waiting in probably the only black clothes she owned, and she gave me a nod.
She didn't fucking understand. I don't want to go.
But this argument had raged the entire week, and two dining room chairs later, there was no way in hell I wasn't allowed to miss it if I didn't want my ass pulled from U.A. that second. Whatever, it just better be quick.
We decided to walk down the street together, my mom looking like she was a fucking daisy and me probably looking like I was out to kill; but the world kept moving on, people passing in cars, birds chirping, kids playing on their lawns, and something about it pissed me off. How can they just be so fucking carefree and happy?
By the time we got down the street, my shoes felt like they were replaced with lead, and she had to drag me inside. It was too fucking black and dreary, too many faces I didn't know or pretended not to see. Shitty Hair was already sitting in the back row with Duct Tape and Short Circuit, but I kept staring at the altar at the front and marched past them like I didn't know them.
They didn't try to stop me.
Fuck Deku.
His mother was already at the front, already doubled over on herself in tears and snot. I grind my teeth when mom goes to her side and consoles her. Why did I have to be here?
Then she started waving me over, and I pretend to ignore her, but she gave me a look that could overturn hell, and I knew I was nailed. I shoved my hands into my pockets and stomped over. She pushed me into the seat next to her, so she could sit next to his mom. I turned my head and saw the rows and rows behind me, barely making out a spike of red hair over some guy's shoulder. I wasn't supposed to be here, this was reserved for fucking family, and I was not his family.
I slammed my back into my seat, and mom slapped my knee so hard I would have yelled and cursed in front of all these people, but I didn't. Not when I saw the picture, the incense burning around it on the podium in front of a big, elongated box. I swallowed hard. Fuck Deku.
No one else joined us on the front row for a long time. I was bouncing my foot and cracking my knuckles the more mom silently rubbed her shoulders; but she never got up, and I didn't have much to look at besides the picture and the box. The smile was the same smile I saw in the mirror, probably taken shortly before he showed up on my turf at U.A.
It was supposed to be my place. Just fucking mine. And then he comes walking in, trampling on my grass before checking out again. My hands crackled again, and I scooted my knees back into my chair when mom threatened to slap them again. I grumbled, and then went silent, trying to think about anything else but fucking Deku—but everything was about him.
All Might joined us at the front, almost too big for his own fucking seat, and I wanted to laugh, ridicule him in front of the public. My palms burned as I imagined it, jumping from my chair screaming something along the lines of, "So much for being number one hero huh? Where were you? I guess you wasted your time babying him, didn't you? Because you didn't save him."
But I didn't move, my whole body weighing like lead as a man traveled to the front. I tore my eyes away from All Might consoling his mom's other side.
I didn't listen to a fucking word the man said. It was too goddamn plain and meaningless. If anyone said anything like that at my funeral, I would kick the casket open and smoke their ass; but not even the incense stirred as he prattled and praised and did things I didn't get and didn't care to get.
I was thinking about other things when they passed out a flower to each person on the first row and only the first row. I kept my hands deep in my pockets and didn't take it at first, but mom pinched beneath my knee, and I snatched the stem so fast the guy probably thought I was reaching to strangle him as he scurried off.
They were proteas, and they were ugly. I sniffed at it and wanted to crush the pedals, but mom yanked me to my feet. We were the only ones standing, and I hated it. My suit felt three times too small, and I knew their eyes were drilling holes in the back of my skull. I smashed the flower stem in my hand.
His mother went first. The man had moved the podium to the side, so she could access the box, and she stood there for a long time, wiping her eyes and staring at it forlornly before she sat the flower inside.
All Might went next, and I glared hard at the ground. If it burst into flames, can I go back home?
Mom laid her flower in the box relatively quickly and made way for me, and then they were all watching, waiting for me to move. No. It's not supposed to be like this. They're supposed to be watching me because I deserve to be the center of attention, not because of this, not because of him.
Fuck Deku.
I stepped once, and it sounded like fucking Present Mic's voice ringing out in all directions. But they still waited and watched, and I saw mom's hand moving behind All Might, ushering me forward.
I won't be fucking rushed.
I marched two more steps, but I could see the tips of his hair, and I wanted to take two steps back—but I wasn't a fucking coward, and with one stride I cleared the distance, and I was there, staring right into the coffin like it was a black hole threatening to swallow me whole.
I wasn't afraid of villains, never have been. Not before U.A., not at the USJ, and not facing my classmates at the Sports Festival. But this was nothing like an enemy, nothing like a villain, and I hated it.
He was still and didn't move, laying in a white kimono with one of his dumbass toys in his hand. No. No. No.
"NO!"
The silence was already around me, but now it was squeezing me. I felt like I was sinking, like something was trying to kill me, and I would fight against it, I would never stop fighting like he did—
"Fuck you Deku!" It wasn't in my head anymore, but I didn't care. Let them all see, let them all fucking know.
"You're a fucking liar!" I grind the flower in my hand, feeling the petals mush. It felt like blood. "You hear me Deku! You're a fucking liar!"
Everything hit me like a baseball bat, low and cheap shots for the gut. I could see him standing in front of me at the school entrance, talking about a quirk he never had before but just beat me with it.
"So what, you're one and done?!" I threw the flower on the floor. "You're just going to beat me with some cheap trick and call it quits?! What happened to you beating me with your quirk, huh? You're just as weak as Half and Half!"
My eyes burned too, and I wanted to turn the casket over, to grab him by the kimono and drag him out of it—but All Might made a step towards me, and I was gone. I stomped my way out the front door, down the street, the look on his mother's horrified face still staring back at me. It wasn't fair.
I kicked our mailbox, knocking the door off onto one hinge before going inside. I ripped the suit off as I went, dumping the shoes and the tie in the living room, the jacket in the kitchen, and I was already halfway to getting out of the damn shirt when I got to my room and slammed the door shut.
It all hit me like that, at that moment, as I sunk onto the bed with a half-open shirt. I could hear the TV dad left on in the living room, and I just listened, concentrating hard on the words.
But even they were about Deku.
I slammed my nightstand on the ground and ripped the door open, retracing my steps to the living room as the voice got louder and louder, and my palms crackled more.
"Today, Izuku Midoriya was laid to rest. The first-year U.A. student was killed attempting to save his friend and fellow classmate, Tenya Iida, from a villain."
I rounded the corner, and Deku's face was on the channel next to the demon captured by a shitty alleyway camera. No. They should not be on the same fucking screen together!
"Though severally injured in his final moments, he managed to save the life of his friend by—"
I grabbed the nearest thing, a book, and chunked it. The screen didn't break, but fell over, and then broke.
But his voice was in my head, and I couldn't get it out.
"Kacchan," he said, in that annoying voice, before it dropped down a few octaves and burned my ears. "You look like you were asking for someone to save you."
No! I wasn't! I never was! Not when I slipped off the path or was captured by the villain! I never asked for your help, but there you were, always holding your hand in my damn face!
Fuck Deku!
I grabbed my head and crouched, trying to banish his voice, everything, all of it, so I could just leave it all behind. But even now Deku managed to prove something again to me, and I grinded my teeth hard, my canines bucking over each other as I hunched down further.
Why did he always make me useless?!
Every time he tried to save me or tried to outsmart me with one of his stupid plans he wrote about in his notebook or tried to trick me with some fucking throwing trick, or trying to steal my movements, or analyzing everything I do to make me useless in every possible situation.
My teeth snapping against each other sounded like gunshots at my perfectly fine world, and it's all because of him.
Even now, I'm useless. I wasn't anywhere near that hero killer. He didn't even die anywhere near me, but he died protecting someone, and that burned. All that damn whining about him being a hero—you can't be a fucking hero when you're dead now can you?!
I pulled and yanked at my hair, but I didn't feel it, glaring at the floor like it would now burst into flames when I didn't want it to.
He made me the useless one while he died being a hero. He's always beating me, outsmarting me! I didn't even get a chance at redemption at the Sports Festival because of damn Half and Half! The score was still Deku one, me none, and he just fucking left it like that! How am I supposed to be a fucking hero now that he's made sure I'm nothing but a permanent loser!
Something started dripping on the floor, and the muscles in my face strained, but I refused to believe, refused to believe that he died a hero and left me with nothing.
"Kacchan," he said in my mind, and I wanted to scream at him, but my vocal cords were tied together in a knot.
I cried on the floor of my living room like the worthless person I was because that's all he left me with.
Fuck Deku…
School was canceled for mourning the next day, so I left as soon as it was light enough to. No asked me about the TV. I didn't offer either.
I had nowhere in particular to go, but I started cursing under my breath when I realized where I ended up—in the forest area of our childhood, smaller now because of urbanization, but still a pinnacle in childhood memories. I planted a foot and pivoted around hard, intent on going exactly the way I came, but I was five-years-old again in the place that was a mountain of possibilities.
"Kacchan!" Deku called, also five, and waved from the crest, running down to me.
He had no quirk, but he wasn't quirkless, and I flashed around some explosions just to see the bright lights shining in his eyes.
"That's so cool Kacchan!" He grinned from ear to ear. "I hope I have a quirk as cool as you do!"
I knew what I wanted to say, but the me didn't say the same things that floated around in my head.
"We'll have to see, but it's doubtful," I said. "No one is going to be stronger than me."
I was fucking wrong. There would be one person stronger than me, who took that with him to the grave. But we wouldn't know then. We were just fucking kids.
We played around, and I hated every moment it made my heart feel tighter and tighter. I didn't get it, and it pissed me off, acting like nothing happened. And I began to slow down and finally, finally, uttering something I had been trying to say all along.
"I don't think I will be a hero."
Deku perked up and turned towards me. His cheeks were red.
"What do you mean? Of course, you'll be a hero. You have an amazing quirk."
That's the truth of the matter, and I was staring at it right in the face. I should have known all along when I was assigned to a teacher like Aizawa. The words tasted like acid, and I'd rather suck on a battery than say them, but my younger version wouldn't suddenly shut up.
"A quirk doesn't make a hero," I said. "A person makes a hero. And my quirks not so great if I can't save people I care about with it."
My hands were small and puny then, but even in the present, no one would want to be saved by my destructive hands. But Deku grabbed onto both of them like he wasn't afraid of anything, and I hate him so much.
"I know you'll be a hero Kacchan!" He chirped with a permeant smile, never wavering, believing blindly and fiercely in every single word. "A great hero that will do great things. Promise me, no matter what, that you'll still become a hero."
He sounded older then, for a moment, before he tilted his head and his eyebrows pinched together. "Kacchan… why are you crying…?"
He reached out and touched my cheek, and that's all I had left when I blinked, and the world became smaller. I still felt the pads of his fingers on my skin when I realized I was sitting on the grass, crying yet again because of Deku.
I won't ever forgive him for dying on me, breaking every promise he ever made and becoming a liar while dying a hero.
"Promise me, no matter what, that you'll still become a hero."
I clenched my fists and raised one to the sky, wishing I was powerful enough to snatch the sun away. The tears felt strange on my face. Part of me wanted to spite Deku and not listen to him—but the other part, the stronger part, wanted to pick up where I—no, we left off, on the path of a hero.
I slowly laid back on the grass, my fist still extended high in the air; and for a moment, I felt like his little hands were touching me again.
"I will not be useless anymore…" I whispered at first, then shouted, shouted at the sun loud enough so I know he could hear me. "I'll be a fucking hero! Just you wait and see!"
I laid like that for a while, waiting. I thought about Deku, about the others at school, about the pro heroes already running around saving the world.
I slowly lowered my arm and hopped up, sliding my hands into my pockets.
A hero needs a real hero name.
I walked away from the pain and the memories, the bitter things Deku left behind for me to deal with, but I could feel him beside me.
I will surpass All Might and become the greatest hero in the world, a greater hero than anyone else; so maybe I could one day share a little with the boy I mockingly called Deku, but who wore the name like a fucking badge of courage he could use to face every new day.
I inhaled hard and released the breath.
My hero name would be Kacchan—my hero badge of courage.
From Deku.
This fanfic is dedicated to my best friend Saru, who has been with me through almost everything in life. I am a bit of a Kacchan to her Deku—sometimes brash, unappreciative, and rude towards someone I never want to truly lose. I hope you enjoyed this and know I'll always be around, and I promise I don't want to explode your face like Bakugo.
"I hate you" means "I love you" in Bakugo language. Probably.
Hope you enjoyed reading.
Soul Spirit