Beta'd by Greed720 and HardwinPotter
Katsuki knew better than to get his hopes up about the spring break internship. Without a provisional license, he was nothing more than a glorified errand boy for whatever agency took him on. Still, it would have been nice to cut loose on a few sidekicks and show Best Jeanist exactly how much ass he could kick.
Instead, it all started with The Talk.
Right after the school year ended, Nezu, Best Jeanist, a police detective, and one of the commission big-wigs dredged up every act of harassment he had done in middle school. Edited teacher reports, hidden complaints from parents, they even had his ass in 4K, shoving Deku, breaking his stuff, torching his clothes with a stray pop of his Quirk. They said it had only taken this long for them to have this conversation because his middle school had buried everything for him.
As they reviewed each despicable thing he had done, they had also explained the criminal charges that could be leveled at him. The final tally was three years in a juvenile detention center, and that was only because he was underage. The grown-up sentence would've been two decades.
Through it all, Katsuki felt the building collapsing around him. He thought he knew he had messed up from his chats with Hound Dog, but this? Sitting in that tiny wooden chair, judged for every hair he scorched on Izuku's head, drove home precisely how much of a piece of shit he was. His mother was right. His shitty attitude did ruin everything for him.
And now, he had thought, it was over. The conversation was drowned out by a high-pitched ringing in his ears, and he could feel his breathing racing out of his control. The conversation had droned on until Best Jeanist noticed him spacing out. It had taken a long swallow of Nezu's tea to rope him back into reality.
Reality was, they didn't care. They were going to sweep it under the rug just like Aldera. He just had to be a good little boy, don't kick the Quirkless puppies, and behave for the nice denim-wearing hero during the entire month, not the two weeks like everyone else, the entire freaking month they had off from school. The boredom of sitting around and the frustration of having his mother harp at him for weeks straight, gone. Felt like a freaking reward.
Sure, they threw around excuses like 'he had shown remarkable progress over the past year' and 'your middle school failed to guide you as it should have' but fact was, he was messed up. He knew it, they knew it, and they were still letting him be a hero.
Granted, that hero status hung on a thread. A permanent red card was going on his record, to follow him for his entire career. One misstep, and he was done. He might have believed them if he hadn't mis-stepped his way through every ring of hell a long time ago.
After that, Best Jeanist brought him to his agency. Throughout the trip, Katsuki could feel the hero's eyes glued to him, judging his every twitch and facial expression. He did his best to meet that gaze, at first, but the guilt of kicking his best friend into the dirt for nine years forced him to look away.
When Katsuki first walked into the Jeanist Agency, he had nearly mistaken it for his mom's favorite salon. The walls were lined with mirrors and care products. Stray clumps of hair and discarded paper towels smudged with makeup littered the wooden floor around the chairs until a scrawny high-schooler swept them away. Hair stylists and makeup artists hovered around sidekicks in barber chairs, fussing over their appearances until they looked ready to stride down a catwalk.
"Is that all really necessary?" Katsuki asked as they passed through the salon to an office area.
"These days, appearances are everything," Best Jeanist said. "A well-groomed face is easier to recognize and distinguishes you from the villains."
Katsuki winced at the jab. The way Best Jeanist threw a bit of heat at the end drove home exactly how the hero felt about The Talk.
When Best Jeanist had him get into costume, Katsuki was thrilled. Finally, a chance to cut loose, to blast away the unpleasant feelings simmering in his chest. The private room Best Jeanist took him to, however, didn't have any padded walls or practice dummies. All it had was a mirror, a barber chair, and a thin, unassuming man in a barber's apron.
Confused, Katsuki got in the chair and sat patiently while the man slicked his hair into place with a liberal amount of hair gel. Once the man was done, Katsuki hardly recognized himself. The wild, spiky hair that he secretly loved had been matted down into a pale imitation of Best Jeanist's own style.
"This is your training."
"Huh?" Katsuki was too confused for anger.
"You won't be going on patrols. You won't be sparring either. Instead, you'll spend your time helping out the design artists."
Katsuki felt his blood boil. "What kind of shitty internship is this?"
The moment his anger bubbled up, his hair sprang back into its usual spiky shape. Katsuki reached up and felt it. His hair had a waxy texture, but it bent easily under his fingers.
"That hair gel is designed to unbind when you lose your temper. If you can go a full day without needing a new coat, we'll move on to the next step."
Leave it to the hero that looked like he subsisted on personal hygiene products to turn hair gel into a training regimen.
Katsuki had figured it wouldn't be that hard. It was just a hair salon, how hard could it be to keep calm? All he had to do was comb some hair and dab some eye liner. He might not care about the stuff, but his mom, a model to the bone, had personally made sure he knew his way around a makeup kit. The chief stylist was pleasantly surprised when Katsuki named most of the products in his drawer and left him to work on a sidekick.
His first dose of hair gel hadn't lasted thirty minutes.
All it had taken was a single sneeze. He was adding a touch of lipstick when the man sneezed, drawing a thick pink line all the way across his freshly-powdered cheek. Katsuki nearly burst a blood vessel at all the work undone. The second his hair popped, the chief stylist smoothly pulled him aside and took over for him.
Katsuki soon found that the styling profession was rife with minor irritations. Hair that refused to settle in the position he wanted it to. Dark bags under eyes that refused to disappear no matter how many layers of foundation he heaped on top of them. Cuts that stung at the slightest misapplication of makeup. Bruises that made him try multiple creams until he found one that matched the sidekick's complexion. Complaints about how slow he was moving, how they'd be late for patrol or a photo shoot.
Worse yet, some of the sidekicks, recognizing the exercise he was going through, made a game of riling up their new intern. Some critiqued every dash of makeup he applied or had him recomb their hair over and over into different styles before settling back on the first one he had started with. Others taunted him, telling him that when the hero gig didn't work out, he'd make a great stylist, or bragged about how many villains they had busted the night before. He got called names, like Blasty Boy, Pop Rocks, Sparky, and Boom Boom Man. It made him even angrier when he realized that was exactly what he had been doing to all his classmates.
Once the full eight hours was up, he got turned over to Hound Dog. They'd spend hours talking about the salon, or middle school, or whatever else tumbled out of his mouth as Katsuki unboxed his entire life. After each session, he felt wrung out, as if every word had been meticulously squeezed out of him.
It had been a proud day for Katsuki, two weeks later, that he finally went a full shift on a single dollop of hair gel. He had thought it an end to the tedium of hair styling. By the next evening, he was already missing it.
Phase two of Best Jeanist's training regimen from the tenth circle of hell, one that the hero had surely invented just for him, involved yet more of the cursed hair gel, a bunch of cameras and microphones, and the most singularly infuriating woman Katsuki had ever had the displeasure of meeting in his entire life. Considering who his mother was, that said a lot.
A former tabloid journalist turned PR specialist for the agency, Katsuki's new drill sergeant spent eight hours shoving cameras and microphones in Katsuki's face, needled him with an endless barrage of questions, and nitpicked his every action and word.
On his first day, Katsuki went through an entire bottle of hair gel. The woman knew which buttons to push and hit them all simultaneously with a road roller. It didn't help that she knew everything in The Talk and was not afraid to use it.
In the days after that, sometimes the torment lasted an hour, and he was sent out to the stylists. Some days, he got grilled the full eight hours, even taking questions around mouthfuls of food. Other times, he was let go entirely for sessions with Hound Dog. With his alternative being a firing squad of uncomfortable questions, Katsuki found himself almost enjoying the talks with Hound Dog about how he felt about himself.
It had taken blood, explosive sweat, and tears, but by the end of the internship, he could endure the fake press conferences. Best Jeanist had personally congratulated him on his last day before heading home.
"You've done well," Best Jeanist said. "My sidekicks will miss having a rookie around that actually knows how to style hair."
A month ago, he'd have blown up at that comment. Now, with his hair slicked down by the anger-management gel, not a hair popped out of place.
"What was the point of all that? To make sure I never get angry again?"
Best Jeanist smiled at him. "Of course not. Getting angry is perfectly natural, healthy even. It can help us do something about our problems."
From the way Best Jeanist emphasized his problems, Katsuki thought back to The Talk. All of that had been caused by being angry, wasn't it? How would getting angry help with that?
"Last I check, getting angry made me an asshole."
Best Jeanist raised an eyebrow but let the swear pass. "The point of the exercises was to teach you to control your anger, rather than letting it control you." The hero reached into one of his pockets and handed Katsuki a familiar bottle. "Take it from someone else who nearly ruined his career as a hero before it started. Anger has its uses, but only if you're the one holding the leash. Good luck with the school year, and I'll be rooting for you for the Sports Festival."
His mom was waiting for him back home, arms crossed, face etched into the 'you're in deep trouble' scowl. Katsuki supposed that the dog-mouse-bear-whatever-Nezu-was had ripped the metaphorical bag into smithereens.
She yelled. She yelled about how nice of a boy Izuku was, how Auntie Inko must feel, how he had come within an inch of getting thrown into juvie, yelled and yelled and yelled. So used to Katsuki matching her shout for shout, his mom took it upon herself to fill the gap he left, yelling louder and louder, longer and longer, until his father poked his head out of their bedroom to gawk at the one-sided tirade.
Once his mother had finally shouted herself hoarse, silence filled the house. Realizing for the first time that Katsuki hadn't actually said a word throughout her entire tirade, Mitsuki blinked confusedly at him and asked, "Well? What do you have to say?"
"What am I supposed to say?" Katsuki said quietly. "I'm fucked up, I get it. The only thing I can do now is pretend I'm not and hope they don't have me arrested."
Both parents were left dumbstruck by his calm statement. Sensing that the lecture was over, Katsuki turned away and said, "I'm going to bed."
Only when his head hit his pillow did he realize that he still had the hair gel on, but he was too tired to care. A quick morning shower before school got rid of it, but Katsuki had reapplied the Best Jeanist hair-do out of habit. Having to do push-ups until his arms turned to jelly every time he forgot had made the habit stick.
The hair-do, so out of place for Katsuki, was noticed the moment he walked through the door. Kirishima came up to him and said, "Wow, your hair looks weird! Trying to imitate your sensei?"
Katsuki didn't get angry. Objectively, he knew he should be ticked at Shitty Hair of all people commenting on his hair style, but the hair gel training had done its job. Now that his mind was clear, Katsuki could think about how he wanted to respond. Thinking back to Best Jeanist's advice, he decided that he wanted to be angry.
Like a switch was flipped, his hair sprang back into its natural spiky shape. "Look weird now, Kirishima?" Katsuki growled.
"Wow, it popped right back up! How did you - wait, you just said my name?"
"Yeah, what of it?"
"Dude, you always called me Spiky Hair. I thought you had a hard time remembering names."
Katsuki smirked and said, "I couldn't keep calling you Spiky Hair when mine had more hair gel in it."
Kirishima grinned and slapped him on the back. "Gotta say, the slicked-down look doesn't suit you at all. Your hair looks better this way."
"Same to you. Doesn't get much manlier than being able to impale someone with your hairdo."
Kirishima looked as though he had given him the world. Katsuki noticed the rest of the class giving him appraising glances, but he was mercifully spared from further scrutiny by Deku's arrival. While the class hounded him for details about his internship, Katsuki slipped into his seat and waited for classes to begin.
When lunch rolled around, Katsuki drifted into an open seat next to Kaminari and Mineta. As he tucked into his pork cutlet, Mineta said, "You seem a lot nicer than usual. Did something happen?"
"Do you want me to get pissed off?"
Mineta blanched and hid behind his milk carton. "No, I mean, it's not like there's anything wrong with it, I just thought it was a little strange, that's all."
Kaminari looked him up and down. "Mineta's right. Last year you would've blown up the classroom if anyone poked fun at your hair. Did something happen?"
Katsuki wasn't about to tell anyone about The Talk, but he knew better than trying to dodge the question. Better to give some version of the truth than let people come up with whatever stories they wanted.
"Had some sense talked into me," he said grudgingly. "And I decided I didn't want to be an a- a jerk anymore."
Mineta looked at him as though he had grown a second head, while Kaminari smiled and slapped him on the shoulder. "Good for you! So, I'm guessing it was the hero you interned under that, uh, helped you out with that?"
Katsuki shrugged, not trusting himself to say so. Kaminari nodded and asked, "How was patrolling with him? Or did you get left with a sidekick?"
Hiding a grimace, Katsuki said, "I didn't patrol."
"You didn't?" Mineta said. "Lucky! It was exhausting walking all over the place." With a shiver, Mineta added, "Worst of all, every time Midnight-sensei caught me looking at someone, she would…" his voice grew to a mutter too quiet for Katsuki to hear. Knowing the R-rated hero, Katsuki wasn't sure he wanted to find out what she thought of as a punishment.
"Well then, what did you do?" Kaminari asked.
"Hair styling."
Both his friends stared blankly at him for a moment. "Wait, that's it?"
No, it wasn't, but he was taking the hair gel training to his grave. Before he could elaborate, Kirishima walked up to their table and asked, "Hey guys, mind if I join you?"
"Sure, go ahead," Kaminari said with a smile. A smug expression crossed his face as he said, "Katsuki was just telling us how he spent the internship styling hair."
Mineta looked ready to bolt from his seat. Katsuki felt anger simmer in him, but it cooled as quickly as it came. Kirishima grinned and said, "You were with Best Jeanist, right? I use his hair gel and dye, best stuff around for their price. He has to have the best hair tips."
From there, Katsuki found himself talking about all the hair styling he did. An off-hand comment about mascara brought to light the rest of the make-up application he had been tactfully avoiding. Mineta had made some jabs about putting lipstick on guys, but after seeing how eager the other guys were to hear about Katsuki's internship, he refrained from mocking Katsuki's skills as a stylist. Just as well, since Katsuki felt his temper rising. He felt embarrassed at first, and he really hoped that they wouldn't catch on to the anger management half of the exercise, but for whatever reason, his classmates found his tales of makeup application riveting. By the end of it, he was actually feeling himself relax.
"Who would've thought that so much work goes into how heroes look," Kaminari said. "My hero didn't really put much stock in that, but I guess if you're like Best Jeanist, it's really important."
"Yeah, your internship sounds really cool," Kirishima said. "Not super manly, I guess, not like what Midoriya had. You guys heard about Hosu, right?"
And just like that, Katsuki's good mood from finding his classmates not only interested in the hair styling he did but also impressed by it, was gone. Of course he had heard about Hosu. Everyone and their mother saw shaky camera footage of dark-skinned monsters knocking down buildings and shaking sidekicks like dog toys. There was even a video of Izuku swooping down to catch ten people out of the air. It cut off before the three he had missed hit the ground. Katsuki busied himself with his food while the conversation steered towards the League of Villains.
The next day at school, Katsuki knew something was amiss. He had spent so long focusing on Deku that he did it out of instinct, and it was a testament to how unwaveringly bland Izuku had become that the slightest change in emotion registered on Katsuki's radar.
At first, Katsuki resolutely tried to ignore it. As class went on, however, he found himself glancing aside at Deku, wondering exactly what it was that had him on edge. On the surface, he seemed just as calm and reserved as usual, untouched by the world around him. Yet, Katsuki thought that the calm exterior seemed brittle. Something had broken inside him, like it had ten years ago when a doctor crushed his dreams.
Katsuki thought back to the Hosu videos and wondered if it was because of that night. However, it didn't explain why he didn't notice it yesterday. Had something happened yesterday? He tried to smother the questions buzzing in his head. He had to remember he was on thin ice. Doing anything to Deku would ruin his chance at being a hero.
At lunch, he saw Deku take a half-finished katsudon and leave behind a crowd of confused friends. Katsuki recognized that disappearing act. He had seen the tail end of it too many times back in middle school. Years of experience taught him that when Deku vanished like that, there was no finding him. It wasn't for a lack of trying on his end. The fact Deku was able to straight up ghost him so easily made it all the more infuriating during those times when he seemed to let himself be found.
Katsuki scanned the cafeteria, curious about what had prompted the reaction. Seconds later, Ashido walked up to Deku's vacant, looked around the cafeteria, and walked after where Koda had pointed.
He knew he should stay out of it. That didn't stop him from grunting about a bathroom break to Kirishima and walking after her. He caught up with Mina as she lingered outside the restrooms, no doubt thinking Izuku was hiding in there. Knowing Izuku, he was nowhere near them.
"Rac- Ashido-san," Katsuki fumbled out her name. "Did something happen between you and… him?"
Her jaw clenched and her eyes narrowed. "It's nothing. Why do you care anyways?"
Why did he care? Even after talking about it the whole summer, he still had no idea. Izuku's attitude pissed him off, but whenever he tried to put it in words, his tongue faltered.
Katsuki scoffed and turned around. "Fine, but you're wasting your time. He's long gone."
"What do you mean he's long gone?" Mina asked. "Do you know where he went?"
"Heck if I know. I've never been able to find him when he gets like that."
Ashido stared nervously at him for a moment, visibly debating with herself. With a deep sigh, she asked, "You went to middle school with him, right?"
Crap. How much did Izuku tell her? Did she guess? Would he get kicked out if his classmates realized what he had done?
"Yeah, not like we were close or anything, why?"
"Do you know why he gets, well, nervous?"
Izuku, nervous? He hadn't seen Izuku nervous, let alone any other kind of emotion, since that day a while after he got diagnosed as Quirkless. No, wait, he had seen him nervous a few times, around her. He had put it out of mind, focusing on the Sports Festival, but now that Mina brought it up, he remembered. There were a few times his mask fell, and every time, it was around her.
Part of him was dying to dig deeper. He knew something was wrong with Izuku, and this was the biggest lead he had ever seen since it had all gone wrong. Hell, he might even figure out why everything about Izuku made him so angry.
He took a deep breath. In. Out. He was going to be a hero. He couldn't afford to let himself get worked up over someone he stopped being friends with years ago. He had to let this go.
"I don't know, and I don't care. Whatever happened, I'm staying out of it."
Ashido glared at him, but she came up short for words. She strode past him, nearly bumping shoulders as she hurried back to the cafeteria.
Katsuki went through into the men's restroom. Out of curiosity, he checked around, wondering if Izuku was listening in on that whole thing, but he was well and truly gone. He didn't need to use the restroom, but he felt compelled to use a toilet anyways, as if to get rid of the lie.
Stopping at the mirror, Katsuki stared at himself. Muscles clenched around his jaw and cheekbones, but his eyes seemed more tired than angry. Taking the hair gel out of his pocket, Katsuki applied some light touches around his hair, just enough that he would feel it spring loose if he lost his temper while keeping its signature spiky shape.
As he headed back to the cafeteria, Katsuki firmly told himself that he was done obsessing over his childhood friend. He would leave Izuku behind, no matter how hard it was for him.
Mina didn't feel like sitting with friends. She felt terrible enough with how Izuku was avoiding her and didn't want anyone asking questions. She found an empty seat, but Tsuyu quickly joined her.
"You broke up with him," she said bluntly.
Mina groaned and buried her face in his arms. "I think he took it hard. I didn't want him to, I didn't think he was comfortable, well, moving forward, so I thought it would be fine. Now he's avoiding me, I can't apologize to him, and I feel like an asshole."
"It's probably better to give him some space. You did just break up with him after all."
"Yeah, but I still wanted to be friends! He's cool, just… not boyfriend material, I guess. Augh, I messed up."
"If you decided to break up with him, it was probably the right choice. A relationship you don't want to be in wouldn't work out for either of you."
Mina looked up at her from her arms. "How did you get so wise in the ways of romance?"
Tsuyu shrugged. "It's just common sense."
Todoroki walked over and asked Tsuyu, "Do you want to sit together? I don't know how dating works, but I think that's what usually happens."
Mina smirked at Tsuyu as she shooed him away, saying that Mina had something private to ask her. Once he was gone, Mina said, "You and Todoroki? Gotta say, I did not see that one coming."
Tsuyu gave her a flat look. "Say anything about this and I'm filling your costume with baking soda."
A/N: it's been a long weekend, my internet's been spotty tonight, and this week in general has been unproductive for me. More bad news, the better tech on my shift is transferring to another shift, leaving me short-staffed. Odds are I won't get another whole weekend off for… a minimum of three months. Yay.
Furthermore, timeline edits have, once again, bitten me in the rear end. It had very recently come to my attention that the Japanese school year does not, in fact, take three months off during the summer, nor does the school year start in the fall, a tidbit I missed in the canon. In short, my puny American brain can't handle cultural differences and had to tweak some things. To make it as plain as possible, this internship period is taking place for an entire month in the middle of the spring, with school starting up early May. What was formerly the spring retreat is now the summer retreat, shoved back a few months. This concludes the wacky Precognition timeline PSA. Thank you for your attention.
I'm never doing timeline tweaks again.
On the bright side, I now have 109 homemade oatmeal chocolate chip cookies. Make that 108.
Lot of reviews this time around, with quite a few boiling down to 'Nezu = badass'. That scene wasn't planned at all, it just kind of happened. I'm not complaining.
For the rest of the reviews…
To ObsceneAbsurdity, don't know if it's canon, but I wouldn't be surprised if it were true. Makes for a nice backstory.
To lahral, Nope! Don't know what you're talking about. Definitely didn't miss an edit when I polished up that chapter. Moving on!
To SandaKagami, pretty much spot-on analysis there. Failure's rather hard to accept when you haven't dealt with it in a decade.
To webzayne717, something new learned every day. As far as the technological stagnancy goes, that's canon. The dark ages of villainy in the wake of Quirks being a thing are largely to blame for this, I think. As for the social media platforms still alive and kicking, well, let's chalk that up to a stranglehold on the industry that has endured all this time. With no new tech, there hasn't been anything able to wedge them out of power. Yeah, let's go with that.
For your other critiques, it's all very fair. Giving Izuku character development is something I've been itching to do for a while now, and explaining EVERYTHING about the Quirk will wait until a time conducive for explanations. I'm glad you took the time to read it and provide your thoughts.
That's it for me, see you all next week!