Mitsuki knows something's up when the doorbell rings and Katsuki bolts downstairs to answer it. At first, she thinks it might be the delivery man and scowls at Masaru for allowing their son to use his credit card again, but then Katsuki fixes his hair in the mirror and she reconsiders who might be outside.
She squints at the front door just as he opens it.
"You're late," he accuses, voice sounding off. She's never heard her son use this tone before. It's almost… flirty.
"I'm sorry," a bubbly voice replies. It sounds feminine. An actual girl might be outside. "I got lost."
"How?" he asks, stepping aside to let her in. "This is the only house in the neighborhood that isn't a total shit shack."
Mitsuki's fingers clench around the remote control, actively fighting the urge to throw the damn thing at his ungrateful ass. This is a gated community, goddamn it.
A short girl walks two steps into their home and pauses once she meets Mitsuki's gaze. She blinks her big brown eyes at her, then Masaru, then up at Katsuki.
"Your… parents are home?" she mumbles around a wobbly smile.
Mitsuki hates her already. They were originally supposed to meet up with a couple friends for dinner, but they had to cancel last minute, so they just ordered takeout and stayed in.
"Katsuki," she says, eyes still on the girl, "Who's this?"
The girl makes a short noise, somewhere between a gasp and a squeak, like she forgot her own name. She looks familiar, but Mitsuki can't quite place where she's seen her before.
"A friend." he grunts before the girl can answer.
She's never liked any of her son's friends. She adores Izuku, but Katsuki always makes it a point to remind her they are not— have never fucking been and will never fucking be— friends. Which is a shame, but it's his loss.
"Ochako." the girl says, slightly bowing her flushed face in their direction.
Now she remembers this girl. She'd watched her son nearly murder her on live television. She remembers sitting just as she was three years ago, hand clutched over the remote, ready to smash the screen because of how rough her son was being.
She seemed like a sweet girl. Mitsuki was actually rooting for her, if only to humble Katsuki a bit. But since she clearly doesn't have the common sense to stay away from boys like her son, she must be just as bad as him.
Somewhere in the keen outskirts of her memory, Mitsuki recalls another time when she'd briefly seen her leaving Inko's house, hair disheveled, face ruddy. She's wearing the same clothes as she was back then.
The white blouse and modest skirt are misleading. This girl is not as innocent as she seems.
"It's nice to meet you, Ochako." Masaru says, smiling at her from his glasses.
"Nice to meet you too," Ochako chirps. "A-and you, of course." she adds, smiling extra hard at Mitsuki.
Mitsuki feels herself smiling back. It's the same tightlipped smile she gives when Katsuki points out her nearly imperceptible crow's-feet. This is the face she makes before she's about to slap the teeth out of his mouth.
Katsuki seems irked with the pleasantries. He throws his arm around her shoulders. "Yeah, yeah. We'll be in my room. Don't bother us."
Mitsuki side-eyes the way his fingers wrap around her fleshy bicep, almost obscenely. "What are you two going to do?"
Ochako's face flushes deeper as she looks off to the side. "Um—"
Katsuki moves his hand down to the small of her back and guides her through the living room. "We're just gonna hang out. Don't bother us." he repeats.
She shares a look with her husband. Masaru blinks back before redirecting his attention to the television. As usual, he's of no help while disciplining their son.
If they're just gonna hang out, she doesn't see why they can't do that down here, but Mitsuki's not about to make herself look like a shrew in the comfort of her own living room.
She'll give her son the benefit of the doubt, since she's still not entirely convinced someone would actually sleep with him.
"Open door, Katsuki." she says preemptively, eyes locked only on his.
Katsuki holds her gaze for a couple bold seconds before succumbing to her scorching stare. He's uncharacteristically silent until he reaches the top the stairs and slams his door shut in response.
Mitsuki blinks at the television screen. "Did he just shut the door?"
Masaru clears his throat. "That… might be what that noise was."
She feels her skin grow tacky. Her body doesn't voluntarily secrete glycerine, her quirk is a metabolic response to the influx of cortisol in her bloodstream, something her son never fails to exacerbate.
It sounds terrible, but it's also what's kept her from developing any premature wrinkles.
"Katsuki," she calls, remote ready to slip out of her grip because of how much her hands are oozing.
She waits patiently for his response. A door opening, a curt reply, the window smashing because of another explosion thrown out of it, anything that would acknowledge what she'd said.
There's a soft bounce followed by a harsh bang. In her mind's eye, she imagines Katsuki throwing the girl on his bed and her skull hitting the wall.
Katsuki starts laughing and then makes a noise that sounds disturbingly like a kiss. "Sorry."
"Katsuki knows that word?" Masaru remarks as he kindly takes the remote to flip through the channels. She focuses on the screen until he finally settles on one. "Oh, look, Hero Homes is on."
Mitsuki takes a deep breath in, trying to stay composed at being unheard. They're lucky Mirko's showcasing her state of the art indoor volleyball court, otherwise she would've went upstairs and slammed his face in the wall for blatantly ignoring her.
In between quiet moments of the program, she makes out the distinct noise of girlish giggling to whatever unfunny joke Katsuki must be telling.
She allows a few more seconds to pass, just enough to hear them snickering and the mattress creak and— if she's not mistaken— that was the sound of a zipper gliding down.
Even if her hearing's a bit damaged from her son's default screaming, she's rarely ever mistaken.
She'll be damned if he thinks she's just going to sit here while Katsuki does exactly what she'd warned him not to, especially while she's home. Before she knows it, Mitsuki's storming out of the living room and up the stairs.
The sound of his stereo switches on and the dampened sound of something entirely too indie-pop for her edge lord son starts playing.
Is this the price he has to pay to get laid? Listen to music they play at the Uniqlo fitting room? The whole house has to listen to shitty payola pop?
"Katsuki," she barks, marching up to his bedroom door.
He groans, but she doesn't think he's responding to her. This is the type of noise she sometimes hears from inside the bathroom when Katsuki's taking an especially long shower.
"Hnngh," he groans, throaty and disgusting.
The girl has the sensibility to mask her moans with the beat of the song, but Mitsuki doesn't think there's a decibel setting loud enough to drown out her son's filthy mouth.
"Shit." he pants, "So… fffuckin' tight,"
Her hand flies out to slam the heel of her palm on the door. "Kats—"
"Mitsuki," Masaru calls from a few feet away. She continues banging on the door until he places a reassuring hand onto her shoulder. "Come on, give them some privacy. Let's go have a cup of tea."
Some people would call her husband easygoing, tolerant, a doormat, even. And while she finds his merciful disposition endearing, she has to admit that it's this same unconditional tolerance that enables this type of shitty behavior from their son. Just because he's a fucking pushover, doesn't mean Mitsuki's about to become a grandmother in her early forties.
"I don't want a cup of tea," she snaps, turning back to the door. "I want Katsuki to open. The. God. Damn. Door." Her fist knocks against the wood metrically as a violent way to punctuate her words.
Masaru wraps his other hand around her arm and gently guides her downstairs and into the kitchen, where a kettle is already on the stove.
Mitsuki stares only at the intricate grain of their dining table as the sound of her son's arousal floods through the house.
Masaru stays by her side to rub her shoulders and rises only when the kettle whistles.
"What kind of tea is this?" she asks as he pours two cups.
He stirs a teaspoon of honey into her cup and hands it to her. "Chamomile."
The music stops a few seconds later. She doesn't even think the song finished playing but they're apparently done.
Mitsuki sips her tea and sits through another couple minutes of their hushed whispers and rushed dressing and sickeningly sweet pillow talk.
Masaru refills her cup as the door opens. Mitsuki takes a large gulp as a means of holding her tongue.
The girl looks even more trashed than she did at the sports festival. Her once neatly combed hair is mussed and her shirt's inside out. The pink of her cheeks spread all the way down to her neck.
Katsuki guides her wobbling footsteps to the front door. She looks like someone needs to bring her out on a stretcher again.
Mitsuki takes her eyes off of the girl to scowl at her son. He walks her out of the house with enough casualness that this can't possible be their first time.
"Text me when you get home," he says before leaning in for a quick kiss that makes Mitsuki's guts churn. Then he closes the door like a civilized human being and lets out a content little sigh.
She gets a glimpse of him turning to go back upstairs. Her finger wraps around the handle tightly. He has some serious explaining to do. "Katsuki."
His shoulders droop, but he doesn't turn around. "What?"
"Come here."
"What?" he repeats.
"Come here." she snaps. Katsuki groans and throws an unnecessary fit over having to listen to his mother. She waits until he's in front of her.
He crosses his arms, he actually has the nerve to look pissed off at a time like this. "What's up?"
The teacup trembles in her grip. She's about to throw the tea in his face and smash the cup over his head.
Masaru soothingly strokes her arm with one hand while the other hand places the cup of tea safely away from their son.
She clears her throat. The honey really helped with her hoarse voice. "Why did you lock your door?"
He looks away, scratching his nose before shrugging. "We wanted some privacy."
"For what?" she asks as calmly as she can.
Katsuki frowns and looks over to his dad for support. Masaru is reliably useless.
"Well," she prompts, growing increasingly annoyed by him dodging the question. "What were you two doing up there?"
"Just hanging out—"
Mitsuki slams her palm on the table. "Don't you lie to me!"
"We were playing chess," he barks. "What the fuck do you think we're doing? I'm plowing that girl 'til I blow my load all over her tits. That what you wanna hear?"
She reaches for the nearest thing around to fling at him but comes up empty handed, so she yanks his ear and brings him close. "Excuse you?"
He grabs onto her wrist. "Let me go!"
She twists his ear and threatens to hurt him more if he doesn't take his hands off of her.
Masaru cuts in to detangle their limbs, delicately like he's disabling a bomb.
"Mitsuki, darling, let the boy go," he tells her.
She pulls away bedgrudgingly. If she had it her way, Katsuki would've been slapped across the other side of the room. "How long has this been going on?"
Katsuki sucks his teeth as he nurses his ear.
Mitsuki watches him whine about his pain in response. He needs to stop overreacting before she gives him something to really cry about. "Answer me, boy."
"I don't know," he huffs. "A few weeks? Maybe a month."
"A month?" she repeats, ready to grab his other ear. "You've been having sex for a whole month and choose now to let us know?"
"What was I supposed to do?" he sneers, "Give you the condom wrapper so you could glue it in your scrap book and write Katsuki Pops His First Cherry under it?"
Even Masaru frowns at that. "Katsuki," he says, the corners of his lips curling sternly. "Watch your mouth."
Katsuki rolls his eyes and shoves his hands back into his pockets. "Whatever. If you two had actually gone out like you said you would, we wouldn't even be having this conversation."
"You're telling me you sneak that girl over whenever we're out?"
Katsuki starts shuffling his feet. If they were outside he'd have dug himself four feet into the ground. "No. We do it at her place."
"And her parents are okay with it?"
"She lives alone."
Mitsuki rolls her eyes. That explains everything. "Of course she does."
"The hell's wrong with you?" he frowns, "You got a problem with her?"
"I have a problem with anyone coming into my house and disobeying my rules. Plus," she adds, "I've seen that girl leaving Izuku's house."
Katsuki's jaw tightens at the mention of Izuku, but he manages to give another dismissive shrug.
"So? I don't give a fuck." he says. "Whatever's going on between her and Deku is their business, just like whatever's going on between us is ourbusiness. Stay the hell out of it."
Mitsuki feels her blood thumping in her ears. She has half the mind to slap every tooth out of his smart little mouth.
Instead, she just reached for his ear again, the same one as before and hauls him near.
"Let me explain something to you since you wanna get smart," she hisses, twisting the tender skin. "It becomes my business when you do it under my roof."
She hears the familiar crackling of his palms. "Let go—" he cries before she shoves him away.
He hits the counter with enough force that she almost feels bad. Masaru shakes his head and hands their son a wet washcloth.
"This is the last time this happens," she says, rising up out of her seat. "I'm serious, Katsuki. I don't wanna see you bringing that girl or anyone else in here again."
With him slumped against the counter, they're almost the same height again. She stares him down with more intensity than before, trying to cut him down to size.
Katsuki scoffs as he runs the cool rag on his raw ear. She should've tore it off. It's not like he listens anyway.
"Then close your eyes."