Catfish

by Green Kneesocks

Serizawa knows he shouldn't be doing this. SerizawaXSuzuki Touichirou (one sided) SerizawaXReigen (one sided)

Serizawa knew that he needed to stop doing this.

'Hi, I'm Katsuya.'

He really needed to stop doing this.

'Hi Katsuya, how old are you?'

He really, really, needed to stop doing this.

'12 and a half. How old are you?'

He really, really, REALLY needed to stop doing this.

'Would it bother you if I was a little older?'

No. No it wouldn't have. That was the point.

Serizawa knew what he was doing was wrong. He knew that he needed to stop. He wasn't twelve and a half anymore and hadn't been for eighteen years now. He wasn't a kid anymore. He wasn't THAT kid anymore. He wasn't that lonely little kid anymore who spent all of his time in his room. He didn't live in the dark anymore. He didn't live locked away anymore. He lived in a room, yes, but the lights were on and the curtains were opened. He could see the sky, the lights of the city, the stars. He could see how it all just kept going, immeasurably, and he wasn't scared anymore. He wasn't scared of the world anymore and he wasn't scared of himself either. Not anymore.

He wasn't that person anymore.

He wasn't Katsuya anymore. No, the only person who had ever called him that was Mom and she was all the way in Baked Goods City. No, he was just Serizawa now. He was Serizawa at work, Serizawa to his friends, Serizawa to the people at school, and Serizawa on his mailbox. He hadn't been Katsuya in years and he…he knew that he didn't get a do over. There were no do overs in life. You couldn't just make another save file or look up the save codes so you could move forward and back at will. There weren't any warp pipes to take you back to when things were easy and safe…or to skip you ahead to the very worst of it…or to skip past it.

World eight wasn't that bad.

He had been twelve when he'd finally discovered the warp pipe, the hidden one, that took you right to world eight. True, the first time he had gone, he hadn't had anything to help him. He had been tiny Mario, not even a single mushroom to his name, and the Castle had been….a lot. Intense. There had been so many obstacles from all sides, ones he hadn't even seen yet, ones that he didn't even know if he could survive…and he didn't. He died. A lot. He died but he kept warping forward. To get to the end. To finish something. To feel like he had accomplished something.

He had.

It hadn't taken him very long, looking back, to get the hang of it. Games from that era were a lot simpler. You really just had to train your reflexes. He hadn't even turned thirteen when he beat it. He hadn't played a lot of games before that. Mom used to only let him play for an hour a day back when he'd been in school, and all of his consoles had been old second hand ones. That was all that he, well that mom, could afford. Dad had left when he'd been a baby so it had always been him and Mom. Mom had loved him a lot but she'd always had to work hard, too, because it was just the two of them and he had always been breaking things on accident….he had always been causing trouble for her. Never on purpose…it had just been too much…being who he was…what he was….

He had been cursed, back then.

That was what he had called it. He had never met anyone like him before. He didn't know if Dad had been like him or not, Mom said that he had never said anything to her but they hadn't known each other for very long. They had only dated for a year before he got there…and then they had stayed together for a year afterwards. Serizawa was a hard person to love, he knew it. Since he had been a baby he had always been causing trouble for Mom. The house had been full of things he'd broken. Tiles that didn't match, holes in the walls that hadn't been patched over because it would have been pointless, windows with taped up cracks, cabinets without doors…he hadn't been a very good kid. He had always been afraid of himself, of the curse he had, of…everything. He had never known what it might have been that would have set him off. A loud noise startling him, a bug running across the floor, another kid trying to touch his hair, even Mom telling him to put his Gameboy down….

He wasn't that person anymore.

He didn't get upset when he lost at games anymore. He didn't break things….that often. He was better about that. He wasn't afraid to be around people anymore either. People were a lot nicer when you grew up. People didn't try and touch your hair, he kept his a lot shorter these days but still, or trip you as you walked by or throw things at you when your back was turned or push you off the top of the slide so you fell and….and then bad things happened. No, adults were really nice. They asked you how you were, they wanted to spend time with you, and they never teased you. Even the other members of the Ultimate Five had been nice to him, as nice as any of them had been capable of being, and his new friends were nice to him too. He should have been happy, now, being who he was. He shouldn't have thought about what could have been…who he could have been…what he could have been….

He wasn't Katsuya anymore. He was Serizawa. He should have been grateful to be Serizawa.

'No, that's ok. I have lots of friends who are older than me.'

He really needed to stop doing this.

'I bet you do.'

He really, really needed to stop doing this.

'I liked your Mario Maker world. The part with all the shy guys was hard.'

He really, really, REALLY needed to stop doing this.

He wasn't twelve and a half anymore. He was old enough that he didn't need to do this anymore. He could talk to other people now, he had friends, and he could have met new people if he had wanted to. He could have gone out and made friends with anyone…well not anyone. He didn't want to be friends with just anyone anymore. The old him had jumped at the chance to be friends with the Ultimate Five even though they were kind of….not nice. Minegishi had always been really grumpy no matter how much sleep they got. Shimazaki had always been…kind of crazy. He loved to pop up and scare Serizawa even though he knew how dangerous it was. He had always said that he had just been kidding, though, so…so that was ok. Hatori had liked games too but he had always been cheating at them or stealing things from people in MMOs or crashing servers just because…so maybe he hadn't been that nice at all. Shibata had been nice and all but he hadn't been happy that Serizawa had taken his job as President Suzuki's personal body guard. President Suzuki…he had been the nicest person that Serizawa had ever met in his entire life.

He knew better now.

President Suzuki had never been his friend. Even in those quiet times when it was just the two of them and President Suzuki told him things. Things like how great it was going to be when espers ran the world…when Claw ran the world. Things like how the rightful order would finally be restored. Things like how it would only be a little while longer before espers didn't have to hide and then everyone would learn to live together….with espers on top, which Serizawa hadn't really cared about. He had just liked hearing the President speak. He had a different sort of voice when it was just the two of them. Quieter. Not as…not as scary as when he spoke to everyone at once. He was a lot different when they were alone, too. He had let Serizawa sit close to him, right next to him, sometimes even in the same bed as him. Sometimes he would even let Serizawa lean on him, rest his head on his shoulder, and sometimes the President would ever run a hand through his hair.

But not in a mean way.

President Suzuki had never once been mean to him. No, he had always been nice…even by Serizawa's new standards. He knew that his normal meter had been very broken back then, his therapist had said so, and he knew that President Suzuki was anything but a nice person. Nice people didn't try and take over the world, they saved it. Nice people didn't beat their sons half to death, they protected them, and if they knew that they were going to be bad at it then they left when their sons were babies and too young to remember them. Nice people didn't collect people who had no choice but to be friends with them, they made friends with people who they were equals with. His therapist had said so, you always had to be equals with your friends or else it wasn't real friendship. What he and President Suzuki used to have, back then, hadn't been anything close to real friendship.

Even if it had felt like it.

Even if there had been times when President Suzuki let him rest his had on his shoulder, or his lap, and ran his hand through his hair like he'd been a cat. Even if there had been times when President Suzuki told him things, personal things, not just 'take over the world things'. Things like about how girls were the worst sometimes, how they pretended to love you and married you and had your kid but then they left. How scary it could be to have a baby, how they were little and easy to break, and how no matter how much they cried you had to never throw them…even if you really wanted to. How hard it was to watch your son grow up, how no matter what you did he would never become the person you wanted him to be, how you had no choice but to live with him because you could never have another one. How sometimes for your own son's good you had to do bad things to him like drown him or electrocute him or…or the other things that they did to awaken people….

Serizawa was never having kids.

That was what he had taken from those talks. He was never having kids for as long as he lived. He didn't even know any girls, first of all, and also girls were really scary. They were always laughing and it was so hard to know if they were laughing at you or some other guy and how…and how even if they said that they loved you enough to marry you and have a baby, a whole new person, with you they could still have been pretending the whole time. Serizawa never wanted to end up like President Suzuki…so sad and alone….he never wanted to have kids.

If someone as strong as President Suzuki hadn't been able to handle it then how could Serizawa have?

'It couldn't have been that hard if you beat it XD'

Serizawa knew that he needed to stop doing this.

'I've had a lot of practice, I play this game a lot.'

There was no question that he really needed to stop doing this.

'What else do you play? What else do you practice?'

Any minute now he was going to stop doing this.

This wasn't the way to be. Lying like this. Lying for…for the reason he was lying. He wasn't after making friends, well he was always after making friends, but that was not what this was about. That was how this had started, all of those years ago, but that wasn't what it had turned into. Mom had gotten him a computer two weeks after he had first locked himself in his room. To do schoolwork on, she had said. It had been a big thing, they hadn't even had dialup internet yet, let alone DSL but mom hadn't wanted him to fall behind. The last thing that she had wanted was for him to drop out of school at twelve and a half…well that was what had happened. He had found out, pretty quickly, that there were games on the internet and as soon as that happened any and all thoughts of his schoolwork had gone down the drain. He had never been good at school anyway. He had never been able to focus on anything school related long enough to be good at it.

Games were much easier.

When he played games he was all on his own. Nobody was there to bother him, to pick on him, and he didn't have to worry about himself either. He didn't have to worry about getting scared and losing control. He didn't have to worry about making things float, or shake, or break. All he had to worry about when he was in his room playing games was getting to the end. If he died then he could just start from the beginning. If his save file got corrupted then he could always make another one. if a game was too hard then he could just put it down and pick it back up again when he felt like it. It was always so much easier, everything was easier, when he was on his own….

But he did get lonely.

But this had been in 2001 and one. There had been forums by then, gaming forums, and on those forums there had been people to talk to. The internet had been amazing to him back then. The only times he had ever been on it, before locking himself away, was when they'd had computer class at school. They hadn't been allowed to do anything fun, then, just research. Researching things had been a lot harder back then. It had been hard to know where to go, what was real and what was lies, even searching something up had been harder when he'd been little. It had been amazing to him, back when he'd been a kid, how things had changed. How there had suddenly been so many people on the internet. People who liked the same things that he liked, who went through the same things that he went through, that were kids just like he'd been a kid.

Well…they hadn't all been kids.

'I like Minecraft a lot.'

Serizawa needed to stop doing this.

'What I coincidence. I like Minecraft too .'

He had a paper he should have been working on.

'Do you want to see my Minecraft world?'

He had other things that he had to do...

He had things to do with his time now, and ways to meet other people, he didn't have to hang out on forums anymore. He wasn't a kid anymore. He didn't need to come here to meet people his own age who liked the things he liked. That was how this had all started…and that where this should have ended. He wasn't twelve and a half years old anymore. He didn't need to go here to meet other kids.

Other adults.

He had gone to forums, back when he'd been little, looking to meet kids but instead he'd found…well a lot of people lying about being kids. His first clue, though, should have been that he had been talking to 'other kids' during what should have been school hours…or at three in the morning. That was before he'd had to disable the date and time on everything he owned. That had been back when there had still been hope, from him and Mom, that things would have gotten better. He hadn't meant to hurt those other kids, it had been an accident, and he hadn't meant to send Mom flying either. He had just been scared and…and his powers had been getting worse. His curse had been growing, and it hurt, like growing did sometimes. Like when your joints hurt and your back hurt and you got covered in weird stretchmarks that made it look like someone had stretched you out like taffy. Mom had said that they were called growing pains…that maybe his abilities would calm down as he got older…that maybe they just had to wait out the growth spurt.

There had been a lot of hope back then.

That was before he'd given up hope completely. Before he turned off the date and time on everything he'd owned. Before he asked Mom to stop brining him the puppy and kitten calendars from the bank. That was back when he had thought that there might have been some hope of rejoining society. Back when he thought that there might have been some hope of living a normal life. Back before the loneliness had become just another part of his life. He hadn't been used to it yet, being lonely all the time, even though it wasn't like he'd had any friends. No, back in school even sitting near him had been considered social suicide. He hadn't been confident enough to approach people, even now he had a lot of trouble with that, and even if he had approached someone there would have always been that danger to them. There would have been that chance that Serizawa could have lost control and hurt them…maybe badly….but it had still been nice to be around other people. At least if he had been near other people then he could have pretended that he actually had friends. That people liked him.

There was way to play pretend when he was all on his own.

So he had tried to make friends with other kids online and, instead, found other adults. Nice ones. People who listened to his troubles. People who told him their own. People who told him how mature he was, how he must have been very strong to go through so much, how they wished that they could have met him in person. How they would have been such good friends…it had been nice. Getting attention from other people, having people seek him out. He used to stay up for days fueled by nothing but tea, cup noodles, and the elation of having another human being there who liked him. Who wasn't scared of him. Who he didn't have to be afraid of hurting.

He had that now.

He had that now in his life as an adult. He didn't have to be afraid of hurting any of his friends. Shigeo, first of all, was unhurtable. He was stronger than even the President had been. That had been the first person he'd never had to worry about hurting. The first person he had ever been able to get close to, close enough to touch, and the first person he had ever touched who hadn't been Mom…and Mom had stopped hugging him back when he'd been five and he'd accidentally sent her through the storm door. She had snuck up on him…but he was older now. He didn't have to worry about things like that. He couldn't hurt Shigeo or any of his other friends. Everyone but Reigen was an esper and Reigen…well Reigen was the bravest person he'd ever met in his life…

Reigen wasn't afraid of him.

Reigen wasn't afraid of anything. He had fought the President after all…and he didn't even have any powers. He had tried to hit President Suzuki, actually hit him, with his fists. It hadn't worked and…and Reigen had been afraid…and then Serizawa had acted without thinking. He had betrayed the President, the best friend he'd ever had, without thinking. He knew by then that the President was a bad person…that they weren't really friends…even if it had felt like it. Even if they had spent countless hours curled up together. Even if he knew everything about Suzuki Touichirou. How when he'd been a kid he hadn't been able to control his powers either. How he had never had any friends growing up. How even his own parents had been afraid of him. How he was happy that his parents had been afraid of him. How he hated his hair and eyebrows. How his wife had been the only person to ever look past all of that. How he missed his wife and tried not to. How he didn't know what to do about Sho and how that bothered him. How he had known for his entire life that taking over the world was his destiny. How his parents had thought that he was crazy and tried to stop him. How he'd lost control and hurt them, too, worse than Serizawa had ever hurt his Mom. How….how he knew everything about President Suzuki and President Suzuki had known everything about him…and how that hadn't been friendship.

Now he knew what it was like to have friends.

'Invite me and we'll play together.'

Serizawa needed to stop doing this.

'Ok, I'll send you a link.'

He knew better than to do this.

'Can I see a picture of you, too? It's weird talking to someone I can't see.'

That part of his life was over now.

He had real friends now.

This was not the way to make friends…but he wasn't after making friends when he did this….and a lot of people weren't after making friends with him either. He had learned pretty fast that people online…weren't always who they pretended to be. The first thing they did was pretend to be his age, and he hadn't understood why at the time. He had been happy that adults had wanted to talk to him and amazed that it was still ok to like games when you grew up. He knew better now. After telling him how old he was they asked to see him. He hadn't had a webcam back then, he'd had to wait a while for Mom to get him one, they had been really expensive back then and hard on the internet too. They had never had a lot of money. All of his clothes had been second hand, and his consoles, and his school books and…and just about everything. Mom had always worked very hard for him and he was, and always had been grateful. She had been happy to make him happy, she had said so himself, and she had been happy that he was making friends. He had been happy to make friends too.

He hadn't told Mom about what happened after he'd started making friends.

He knew to keep that to himself, nobody had told him to, he just knew. Mom had always warned him about talking to strangers. Looking back, he knew why. They had told him, when he'd been a kid, that he had been so mature and brave...and he'd listened. They had just wanted to see what he looked like, that was all, and he hadn't thought it suspicious that none of them ever turned their cameras on. Well, some of them did, and it had been... something. Something that he hadn't known how to process. The way he felt.

He still don't know how to process the way he felt.

He knew that he liked girls. He had always liked them, they were really pretty, and he had always wanted to talk to them... but he had never really talked to one period. They had also been scary. Girls were mean, they laughed at you, and they said really mean things about you both to your face and behind your back. Boys are easier understand. They kind of just picked on you, hit you, threw things at you, but they never did what girls did. Girls used their words, not their fists, and words hurt. As much as he had wanted to talk to one, for as many girls as he'd liked, he never had.

Not even through forums.

Well, there hadn't been a lot of girls in the forums to begin with. There had been a lot of girls on the Internet back then, not like there were now, Not that he even talked to them now. They were still scary. There were plenty of boys who pretended to be girls, though, even back then. Honestly, it had always been a relief to realize that he had been talking to a boy the whole time. Boys were just easier to talk to, to make friends with, he figured. Since they were the same and all. It had made sense back then, most things had, pretty much everything except for the way he felt about boys, sometimes. Sometimes when he thought he had been talking to a girl, and it turned out to really be a boy, he had felt relief and... a feeling that he had only known as Doki Doki.

Boys did not feel that way about boys…not back then.

He still didn't know how he felt. He liked girls mostly but…but not all the way. He knew that he liked…that he had liked President Suzuki. That he had liked him as more than a friend. That he had wanted to hold his hand, to kiss him, and to maybe do all of the other stuff with him. Stuff that he had never, and would, try….and not just because President Suzuki was in prison now. And also not his friend anymore. And also had never been his friend. And also probably only liked girls since most people only liked girls. He still didn't know if he actually liked President Suzuki like that or if President Suzuki had just been the only person he had ever been without outside of a computer screen. Liking people from forums didn't count and….and they hadn't really liked him anyway. They had just liked how young he was, the things that he had been willing to do, and he had just liked the attention…probably.

Feelings were complicated.

It was important to tell, to figure out, if you liked someone as a friend or as a boyfriend…or if you just liked their attention. His therapist had said so. Just because someone made your heart go doki doki it didn't mean that you were in love with him. Maybe he was just really nice. Maybe he was just really funny. Maybe sometimes he just looked at you like you were the only two people in the world. Maybe you just really wanted to be his friend…maybe dreams didn't mean anything. Daydreams and the kind you had at night. Maybe….

Maybe this wasn't something that you should ever have been asking yourself.

'Sorry, I'm not allowed to do that.'

Serizawa knew better.

'Nobody has to know.'

He didn't need to do this anymore.

'Mom says I'm not allowed. I have to go now.'

That part of his life was over.

He closed his laptop. He had started a new level in his life and…and he didn't need to go backwards. He didn't need to warp back to an easier time even though he wanted to. He had everything he needed already. He had friends, he had a life, and he had a place in society. He had the things he needed…and he had new challenges too. Feelings about people he shouldn't have had. Feelings about people who had never liked him…feelings about people who didn't like him the way he liked them…and feelings about a time he had hated. He thought about it a lot, the portion of his life he'd skipped. The portion he'd warped out of….what it could have been like. The person Katsuya could have been if things had gone differently. If he hadn't been cursed, no, if he hadn't been born with his powers. If his control had been better. If…if so many things had been different. He thought about what could have been and he thought about, too, what actually had been. How easy it had been…how parts of it had felt good…and how it would have been nice to go back for just a little while…but he wasn't going to backtrack. He wasn't going to go back to any of…any of that.

Serizawa Katsuya knew that he needed to stop…so he was going to. At least for tonight.