After dinner, Katsuki and Izuku ran upstairs to play Island Horse Adventure XI while the adults talked.
Katsuki had a lovely mare named All Fight who was perfect in every way, aside from the pesky fact that she would throw Katsuki off her back seemingly at random.
Izuku owned a colt named ALL FRIGHT that had a 98% timidness stat and would freak out at absolutely nothing.
All Fight was due to have foals, so they both crowded around Katsuki's computer to see if the babies were any better than their dumb parents.
While they were waiting for the loading screen to pop up, Izuku decided to break the anticipatory silence.
"So...I think I'm being stalked?" He said, eyes not leaving the screen.
"Do you need me to crazy murder someone?" Katsuki glanced over at him, but the game had finally finished loading, so her eyes quickly swiveled back.
"I'd rather you stay out of police custody, actually." Izuku was frowning.
At least, Katsuki thought he was. She wasn't the best at reading people, and it was hard to pay attention to him when the game was about to start.
"Can we get back to the stalking thing?" She asked, not wanting to talk about the fact that she had stupidly decided to gamble with law enforcement.
Their horses were hungry, so they spent a few minutes distracted by the terrifying prospect of an apple shortage, before returning to subject.
"I noticed someone following me after Irahara gave me the cut on my leg last week. I don't know if he's trying to frighten me or something, but I saw someone watching me in a bush today."
So Izuku's stalker was Gaimon from One Piece. Great.
Katsuki's prefered method of problem solving was to hit something until it stopped being a problem, but Izuku definitely wouldn't let her.
Also... she didn't like hitting twelve year olds. It was one of the few moral fortresses she would plant her flag on.
"Do you want to talk to him together?" She hinted, squinting at her horse's stats.
IN FOAL – 5HRS TILL BIRTH
Well fuck, that was disapointing.
Letting out a dramatic sigh, Katsuki exited out the game and shut her computer down.
Izuku had slumped down onto her bed, and she slowly crawled over him to the other side so she could get under the covers.
When they were little, they used to hide beneath the sheets and whisper to each other when they didn't want their parents to hear.
Wiggling her way under the covers, Izuku smiled at her, and Katsuki grinned at him. Sometimes it was nice to be a kid.
Izuku didn't end up talking about the stalking further, but they both knew that she would bring it up again once they'd had a chance to relax.
So Katsuki told him about her new friend, and Izuku told her about a street performer he'd seen on the way to get a limited edition All Might figurine.
Right as Izuku was getting into an extremely detailed rundown of how he thought they had managed to disappear at the end of the act, Katsuki got a notification on her phone.
h32055uck: you online?
Izuku abruptly stopped talking and peered over her shoulder.
"Is that minecraft guy?"
"Yeah! I-"
Katsuki was about to say she'd respond to uck, but then realised opening the app would let Izuku see the conversation.
The conversation in which she admitted to being reincarnated.
Yikes. Close call.
"I'll message them later!"
Katsuki hid her phone under the bed.
Izuku looked at her.
Katsuki looked at him.
"If you're dating a seventeen year old I'm pretty sure I'm obligated to tell your parents."
Katsuki choked on her spit.
"Izuku, I literally just met this guy in minecraft."
Izuku looked a little less worried, but his brows were furrowed.
"You'd tell me if you were getting groomed right?"
Ah. He'd been watching some kind of child safety documentary and thought she was in trouble.
"I'd tell you."
What a little hero.
Elsewhere:
The villain known as Shigaraki Tomura frowned at his computer screen. The NPC's status said she was online, and had been playing some bullshit game called 'Island Horse Adventure XI', but she wasn't responding.
He moogled the game, and shuddered in disgust at the graphics. It was a shitty free-to-play low-poly mmorpg monstrosity, with cutesy animations and even worse gameplay.
He couldn't believe he was associating with such a philistine.
Still. Katsuki could be a future party member. Her backstory was dramatic enough for one.
He downloaded the game.
Authors Note:
Izuku mentions a character called Irahara in this chapter - he doesn't exist in canon!
Here's his kanji: 苛原
Quick disclaimer: There is not and will not be a romance. Katsuki is avoiding it until she's an adult bc of ethical concerns, and the author is also avoiding it because this is rated T and if I wanted to write a complex psychological horror I'd upgrade the rating lol
If you want more authors notes I have them on ao3 - In editing the previous chapters for grammar I deleted the notes on each chapter accidentally.
