I can't believe no one has written any "self-insert as Bakugou" fanfics yet what a bunch of cowards

Posted originally on the Archive of Our Own at /works/17662220.

Rating: Not Rated Archive Warning: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings Fandom: 僕のヒーローアカデミア Boku no Hero Academia My Hero

Academia Relationship: Izuku Midoriya / Self-Preservation, Class 1-A / Therapy Character: Bakugou Katsuki, Bakugou Mitsuki, Bakugou Masaru, Midoriya Izuku,

Midoriya Inko Additional Tags: Self-Insert, Gender Dysphoria, Anxiety, Fix-It of Sorts, Painfully erratic

update schedule, Bakugou Katsuki Swears A Lot, Bakugou Katsuki is Bad at Feelings, Bakugou Katsuki is a Dork, All of those tags still apply despite the SI, Bakugou does not change that much really, Bakugou Katsuki is a Good Friend, Sort Of, Fun reincarnation theories, wrote this to challenge myself, No beta I do what I want, haha gender roles, Mostly Gen, No pairings - Freeform, lots of jokes about shipping and various pairings though, in this house we hate Mineta but give him the opportunities to learn and grow that he deserves, Bakugou Katsuki is an unreliable narrator, Any shippy oneshots I write for this are AU to this AU so ignore them if you want, Oops there's angst now, Non- Graphic Torture, mentions of torture, Trauma, This fic is not sponsored by Taco Bell

Language: English Collections: self-inserts, oc self insertSI, Favorite Self-Insert and OC-Centric

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Stats: Published: 2019-02-04 Updated: 2021-12-07 Words: 74,362 Chapters: /collections/GoodieTwoShoes

I can't believe no one has written any "self-insert as Bakugou" fanfics yet what a bunch of cowards

by the_incidental_author

Summary

Ugh, I have to do everything myself around here.

Can't find a single Self-Insert as Bakugou Katsuki fanfiction, so here I am, doing God's work.

(cowards)

Notes

See the end of the work for /users/the_incidental_author/pseuds/the_incidental_author

Dysphoria (1)

Being reincarnated is like realizing you've been driving your usual route home without remembering the last several miles. It isn't until I'm almost three that I start to feel odd about the way I see the world. Like it's… different. Which is strange, because as a two-year-old child I have only rarely been outside of my house and certainly shouldn't have any frame of reference for comparison, and yet… sometimes when I look at Tou-san I want to call him Daddy and sometimes when I hear my Mother raise her voice, I go quiet and still and find myself surprised when… something fails to happen, although nothing has ever followed Kaa-san's frequent outbursts other than Tou-san's gentle laughter and some aggressive snuggling.

The feeling grows as I do, niggling at my thoughts as I occasionally fumble my words when sounds I've never made try to force their way in between syllables. R's and L's and Th's where there should be nothing but clean and precise Japanese. It creeps into my dreams when my mind borrows faces I've never seen to populate its storylines. It eats at me as I go through potty-training and keep accidentally making a mess because I forget that that part sticks out now it never stuck out before what-

I'm three years old when the feeling surpasses simple dysphoria and hits a new level of okay what the actual fuck? Kaa-san's old friend from college had gotten in touch and it turns out the other woman has a son my age – and as this sort of situation demands, the two of us are thrown together for a "playdate" so that our mothers can catch up over tea.

The names – Auntie Inko, Midoriya Izuku-chan – send alarm bells ringing through my mind, but it's the hair that stops me in my tracks. So far in my short life, I'd rarely seen anyone other than my parents up close, and those two… Well, Kaa-san's red eyes were a bit odd, but not unheard of, and her pale hair makes them seem… more normal, somehow. And Tou-san's hair and eyes were a natural, easy-to-swallow brown. But Izuku… Izuku and his Mom have green hair. Like, it's the same color as their damn eyes, and it's natural, based on the eyebrows and arm hair I can see growing on the two of them. My brain stalls as this attempts to compute, and I end up just staring at Izuku blankly in silence after our parents leave us to get acquainted.

The smaller boy looks more and more nervous as my silence continues, but I can't seem to get over his hair color. Not because it's green, no. Something about that feels less alarming than the fact that I think green is not a natural hair color.

Because even at three years old, I realize that this thought is not based on any sort of inexperience or naivety. It is a different feeling than I've never seen hair that color or I didn't know hair could be green. It is a distinct, wholly-formed fact that I believe hair cannot naturally be green, and the fact that I can't understand where it comes from has me more than a little freaked out.

The sudden feeling of hands on my shoulders startles me so much that I lash out without thinking, shoving the green-haired boy off balance (shaky at best when one is three years old) and causing him to land on his butt in the grass, staring up at me with shocked and watery green eyes. I suck in a shaky, gasping breath, only now realizing I had stopped breathing, and feel tremors running through my body. Panic attack? I think, and then quickly shove the thought away as my whole being screams about how I shouldn't know that-

Nope, okay. Focus. There's a small child crying in front of you. My stomach twists in half- remembered feelings of tenderness as the image of several different children (and I realize I've seen them before, in a dream…) staring beseechingly up at me are briefly overlaid on the one in front of me. Ellie... Sam… I shake off the strange sadness and focus on the urge to comfort,

kneeling down and wincing as the other boy flinches at the motion.

"Ah, umm…" I clench my jaw, feeling frustration rise at my stuttering. I hated feeling awkward more than anything. "I didn't mean to scare you." I manage, not quite an apology, especially with how my cheeks are puffed out poutingly to cover my embarrassment (although the warmth in them tells me I'm failing). I glare at the ground and feel my hands clench into fists as my discomfort rises. "Didn't mean to push you either." I mumble.

"I-It's okay!" The slightly shaky quality of the voice draws my gaze from the ground with a painful twinge of that same half-remembered care (Ellie… Sam…) "It… it was an accident. Um." And a new look overtakes his face, eyes widening impossibly more and his whole face melting into something soft and concerned that made me want to run away. "Are you okay, Ka- Kact- Katz- Kacchan?"

The name sends a jolt of alarm up my spine, and I stand up so suddenly Izuku flinches back again (I ignore the guilt this action brings up).

"I'm fine." I grunt. "Let's play swings." And with that incredibly smooth diversion, I successfully distract the other boy and we pass our playdate in an uncharacteristically (for me) subdued manner until our mothers return to the yard to collect us and send Izuku home. It's as Auntie Inko leans down and tells Izuku to "say goodbye to Katsuki-chan, Izuku." That I finally manage to muster up some of my usual energy in an effort to keep my mother from noticing anything off.

"G-Goodbye Kacchan." Izuku stutters, turning red as both Auntie Inko and Kaa-san "awwww" at the childish nickname. My cheeks warm as well, but I channel the embarrassment into annoyance as is my habit, and glare at Kaa-san for her teasing. This just manages to make her coo louder, to my chagrin.

"Bye, Zuku." I look away from the greenette, scuffing my toe on the ground. I feel like I should add something – I'm not usually so quiet. "Next time we'll play All Might and Supervillains." It's not an invitation so much as an order, but social graces are not my strong suit (never had been – no, stop.)

"Yeah!" The cheerful cry is enough to draw my attention to the other boy, and I regret it as soon as I lay eyes on him. His smile is blindingly bright, showing all his little milk teeth as his freckled cheeks dimple slightly from the force of it. He looks like I've just caught the moon for him, and I feel that strange deja-vu mixed with a healthy dose of panic flood my veins with embarrassed adrenaline, and in a brilliant attempt to cover up my discomfort, I pull a face and stick my tongue out, before pivoting on my heel and running into the house and away from the consequences of my actions.

I can vaguely hear Kaa-san apologizing for her "adorable little brat" before I crawl into the space under my bed and bury my face in my hands, slowly counting out each breath and desperately trying not to think about how I learned to cope with anxiety when I shouldn't even have it.

When Kaa-san finally calls me down for dinner that night, she decides to wait a bit before inviting Inko and Izuku over again. "Maybe playdates are a bit much for you right now, huh, Katsuki?" And although the hair-ruffle she follows with is infuriatingly patronizing, I can't argue. I had a lot to think about before I would be ready to face Izuku again.

After several more playdates and three months of thinking, I've come to terms with a few facts about myself:

1. My name is Bakugou Katsuki, and I am the only son of Bakugou Mitsuki and Masaru. I take after my mother in both looks and temperament, but my father is the one who can get me to open up when I'm in a Mood. Despite knowing that I am their son, and dealing with the obvious physical evidence of this fact every time I have to use the bathroom, I can't help but think that this seems… wrong, somehow. I look so much like my mother, and my eyes follow her graceful movements, her soft, manicured hands, the gentle swell of her breasts…

2. I'm three years old, I have white-blond hair so fine gravity doesn't seem to affect it, and red eyes that make me look like I'm glaring constantly. My parents are the only adults who ever call me cute, other than Auntie Inko. And yet sometimes I forget this and tilt my head, or widen my eyes in a way that I expect to get me what I want, only to have it backfire in my face as I only manage to look conniving. My fluffy white hair sometimes alarms me when I catch sight of it out of the corner of my eye, when I have the feeling that soft brown locks should be brushing my cheeks instead. I have the idea that I should be soft and cute and gentle-looking, and there's a strange disconnect that comes over me when people treat me so differently than I would expect based on this unfounded belief in my own cuteness.

3. I have anxiety, which tends to rise up when the feelings of wrongness get stronger. It can happen at unexpected times, like when I first saw a hero fight on TV and could only think that can't be real that can't be real that can't be real . It can also come on slowly, pushed down until it all bursts out the minute I'm alone. The second kind is the worst, but it's the one I prefer, as it allows me to hide while I wait out the panic. When the disconnect gets really bad, sometimes I don't panic at all, instead slipping sideways into a strangely distant feeling that my mind helpfully labels as dissociation. This usually happens when I spend too much time with Izuku, or I start to think about All Might, and his Quirk One for All and how I know so much about both of them that I shouldn't know I shouldn't know-

4. My best friend is named Midoriya Izuku. He's also three years old and he has green hair and green eyes and he calls me "Kacchan" because he can't say my name without lisping and he loves All Might more than anyone I know. He's also quirkless, although he doesn't know that yet, and he's going to be the greatest hero in our generation, and I'm supposed to be his rival and his inspiration and his tormentor all in one, but even as my mind screams I shouldn't know this I shouldn't know this an even bigger part of me screams I can't I can't I'm not him I'm not him and sometimes it all gets to be too much and I have to cut my time with Izuku short so that I can find a quiet place to sit down and hyperventilate. He's still my best friend though. Our Mothers wouldn't settle for anything less.

5. I'm going to get my quirk soon, and it's going to be amazing.

Dysphoria (2)

Chapter Summary

Slowly adapting to his strange knowledge only makes Katsuki even less connected to the world around him.

Chapter Notes

See the end of the chapter for notes

About three weeks after turning four, a spider lands on my shoulder. In a knee-jerk reaction based on a lifetime of being creeped out by anything with more than four legs, my hand comes up to smack it before I consider how I might regret it - how careful I've been with my hands since my fourth birthday has passed. Unfortunately for the poor spider, my precautions prove well-founded as my quirk decides to take this chance to activate. It's not a huge explosion, considering I'm only a kid, but the first time using a quirk is always a bit dramatic, as it's been building up for a while (or at least that's what Kaa-san says). It's enough to blow a smoldering hole in my favorite All Might tee shirt and reduce the spider to nothing but a memory. Thank god my skin is apparently at least partially resistant to my own explosions, as I am not missing any pieces afterwards, but it still leaves a mark like a bad sunburn where my hand had been.

Kaa-san screams and drops the pan she was washing when I decide to break the news by running into the kitchen clapping wildly to generate small explosions between my palms. Nitroglycerin, I know (in that eerie way I'm starting to get used to) is an explosive substance set off by concussive force – a contact explosive, and in its pure form one of the most powerful high explosives in existence. It has a high freezing temperature of only about 10 Celsius, 55 Fahrenheit, and can also be rendered inert by the addition of ethanol or acetone, in a pinch. The fact that I sweat out such an insanely unstable substance is bound to make life more complicated, especially when I factor in its historical use as a vasodilator for treating chest pain and lowering blood pressure. It had been easy to tell my quirk was coming soon when I had gotten a head rush any time I stood up too quickly, showing that my blood pressure was unnaturally low. It isn't a substance meant to be introduced to the body regularly, so I'll need to keep an eye out for any medical problems, but…

But this is amazing. I can't stop myself from grinning as I feel the miniature shockwaves sent out from every tiny explosion I produce. Nitroglycerin was not a naturally occurring substance. It had to be carefully derived from glycerin using only specific nitrate acid solutions, and even then, it's dangerous and difficult to ship and store safely. For my sweat glands to just casually produce it breaks so many laws of science and physics and logic that I kind of want to scream but at the same time the part of me that yells why did I even bother getting a physics degree?! Is also begging me to test, play, experiment. And oh how I can't resist that siren's call.

For the next few months, I forget about the ominous knowledge that sometimes rises up from my mind where there should be none. I forget about how green hair shouldn't exist and how nitroglycerin is too unstable a substance for me to be able to control my explosions as well as I can. (Because why the hell should my opinion have any effect on whether or not an unstable explosive substance is going to go off? Chemistry is not supposed to rely on willpower.) I forget about heroes

and villains and stories and protagonists, and all I can focus on is the both new and familiar need to learn.

I design all sorts of tests for my quirk, dutifully taking the pills my doctor had prescribed me to counteract my quirk's effects on my blood pressure. I start with simple variables, temperature, force, speed. Little calculations of momentum and carefully hidden graphs showing the distance a toy car will roll along my carefully marked-out track if I launch it with varying methods of producing explosive force. Out of a deeply-ingrained habit of lab safety, and a genre-savvy understanding that eyes are always the weak point, I beg Tou-san until he buys me a pair of All- Might safety goggles. I test out all the different methods of rendering my nitroglycerin inert that the quirk doctor recommended (which he totally just googled while my mother was looking over the rest of the paperwork) and, after finding that ethanol seemed to be the most effective, followed by freezing, I set out to find ways to reconstitute the desensitized solutions.

I'm so absorbed in my new project that it's a surprise to hear about anything else. Not that people never talk about anything other than my new quirk (I receive plenty of praise, but that would be a bit extreme, even for this illogical world) but I just tend to get tunnel-vision when I am interested in something. Other subjects roll over me without registering, greetings and small talk go in one ear and out the other, and very little manages to tear my attention away for longer than it takes to eat and sleep.

It's the strange, pitying tone to the teacher's voice that pulls my head up from where I'd been exploding blades of grass in an instinctively angry glare. A knee-jerk reaction from Kaa-san's teasing patronization. But it's not me the teacher is speaking to, instead he seems to be making an announcement to the class while staring directly at Izuku. He talks about how everyone is different and how we should treat our classmates kindly and play gently with those who might not be as strong or fast as we are with our quirks… Oh.

"Izuku-kun has been diagnosed as Quirkless." The teacher says to the group of impressionable kindergarteners as if he is announcing that the green-haired boy will be dying from cancer before the week is out. "So make sure to take care of him during playtime and share your toys, okay?" The kids chorus a confused "Yes, teacher." Before going back to what they were doing, but everyone is now shooting Izuku sideways looks, clearly trying to see whatever it was their teacher saw that made him so different. Izuku, for his part, looks like his entire world has just ended. He stares glassy-eyed into the distance like an empty puppet, and the image only seems to further the other children's conclusions that he is Different and Weird. I should feel bad for him, but I hate pity and I refuse to direct it at anyone else, so all I feel is vaguely annoyed that he's making this worse for himself than it already is

"Hey, Deku." I call out, standing up from my little experiment for the first time that day. The green-haired boy jerks to attention at the sound of my nickname for him. I'd pretended to misread his name the first time he showed me he could write it last month, and had continued using it as retaliation to his insistence on calling me "Kacchan" even though he can pronounce my name correctly now. If nothing else, having unique names for each other mean we can always get the other's attention. "Why are you acting like you've lost something? You've been quirkless this whole time. Nothing's changed."

My comforting shoulder-bump ends up being more of a shove and Izuku ends up face-down in the dirt. Oops. His comically splayed-out limbs pull a snicker out of me despite my best intentions, but the sound of laughter from behind me kills the mirth in my chest. That laughter sounds mean, sounds mocking… and compared to mine from an outside perspective, it would be awful hard to tell the difference.

The part of me that knows too much and understands too little feels like an old wound that's just been reopened. An aching, throbbing guilt rises up and memories of being a child, older than I am now, and the effects of callous words and actions swirl in my mind. These are not my memories, I don't know these people, but I remember how it feels to hurt someone else at the encouragement of the crowd, to go too far with jokes and teasing, to look into hurt and angry eyes and know I put that there-

But then Izuku looks up, and even though he's got tears running down his cheeks, his eyes aren't angry, and the hurt there comes from somewhere else, not me. "Kacchan's right, nothing's changed. I… I can still be a hero… right?" There's so much hope, so fragile and breakable, floating up from green depths and placing itself firmly in my hands. Hands that are constantly coated in one of the least stable and most explosive substances in the world at the moment. I am the worst person for this. I think, and something stabs into my chest saying this is important don't mess this up but the pressure is just too much and I turn away, wanting to run, and desperately holding myself in place.

"Tch." I scoff, throat too tight with anxiety to speak any more gently. "Who ever said you could be a hero, Deku?" I wrinkle my nose at my own voice, how squeaky and awkward it sounds to my ears, an obvious cover-up. "If you want to do that, you're going to have to learn not to cry over dumb things like this. You think All Might would cry during playtime?"

Somehow, despite all sane reason saying that he should not, this conversation leads Izuku to cling even tighter and follow me around even more carefully than he did previously. I regret trying so hard not to mess the situation up when the teachers start to refer to us as "Katsuki and Izuku" even when speaking about us individually, as if we are one single person. I just want to be alone, most of the time, and figure out how my quirk works without Izuku's unintentionally anxiety-inducing interrogations hovering over me like a Sword of Damocles.

Still, I do my best to play nice. For our mothers if nothing else. And because I seem to be the only person in the school who still wants to (and I use the word want extremely loosely) play with the damn freckled broccoli sprout. There's a rumor being spread around by the other kids that hanging out with someone Quirkless will make you lose your quirk, and they've all begun running away screaming and giggling any time he tries to approach them. Thoughtlessly cruel, the way children always are, but I feel less forgiving towards them than I usually would towards naïve kids. That part of me that knows these kids doesn't seem them as people, not really – only knows them as a concept, fill-ins for the more important characters to interact with during flashbacks. I call them Extras, especially the ones who bully Izuku, and I know that in another world Bakugou Katsuki called them Extras too, and he wasn't wrong. I just happen to know that the real main character isn't me, it's the green haired boy trotting along in my shadow, watching me with the kind of awe and longing that one usually reserves for the relics of saints.

I'm not a very good friend, despite my best efforts. I prefer to be alone, and having people follow me around is irritating. It's like an itch I can't scratch, having people around and worrying about how everything I'm doing is being interpreted. It's easier with the kids who flock to me at recess since I got my quirk, singing my praises and trying to show off their own. They're easy to read and easier to impress, and the compliments are a balm on my anxious nerves. But adults are different, always watching me like they're waiting for me to slip up. The weight of their unspoken expectations makes me restless, and I learn to dread school, but not as much as I dread spending time with Izuku.

I don't hate him, not really. It's just… he is so hard to be around. The boy isn't as transparent as

the other kids. Every compliment is paired with a sharp glint in green eyes, as if he's memorizing everything I did for… for who knows what reasons. I have no idea what that kid could be thinking most of the time. It feels a bit like being dissected, without the pain of actually being cut. Just opened up painlessly, baring the most private vulnerable parts of myself to the world without my permission or compassion, only the scalpel-cool gaze of this weird fucking toddler.

Some part of me finds the feeling familiar. Calls it intelligence, critical thinking, analytical skills… but the rest of me, both the present me and the strange feelings I got, feels uncomfortable under that level of observation.

I do my best to power through it. If I can't let my guard down, I can do my best to bond with Izuku in spite of it. Maybe I can't find it in myself to want to be vulnerable around him; I can't change that about myself. Feral cats stay feral. But sometimes you can still befriend them. Right?

He's trying so hard. I think, watching the green haired boy struggle to keep up with me. He isn't the most athletic kid, whereas I can't seem to find enough time in the day to spend all the energy my tiny body produces. The more time I spend with the smaller boy the more we seem preternaturally incompatible as people. And yet I try, because I know, even though I shouldn't, that Izuku is going to be a great hero one day. The best. And…

And I would sooner die than be nothing but "the foil to the greatest hero." I think bitterly. What a backhanded fucking compliment.

"Kacchan, wait up!" Izuku calls, and my feet speed up before I even decide to react. The cry of despair that rises up behind me brings laughter bubbling up from my chest, chasing away the strange thoughts I was beginning to get used to.

"You go faster, Deku!" I call back tauntingly, swerving between trees and jumping over low bushes in a merry game of chase. Even as I taunt him, I make sure to stay within sight and slow down occasionally to let him close some distance. After all, I'm not a very good friend, but I still am one.

Chapter End Notes

Deku is still Deku will always be Deku.

Kacchan has an alarmingly low consideration for the internal lives of minor characters.

Dysphoria 3

By the age of seven, I'm pretty sure God just loves me more than he loves other people, based on the absolutely unfair advantages I seem to have over pretty much everyone else I've encountered so far. I'm fairly sure I'm stronger, smarter, and prettier than like, 90% of the people I've met, and I haven't even come within a stone's throw of puberty yet. But what else can I expect? I've apparently been reborn into a world I'd only ever known about as a story in my past life.

And hadn't that been a difficult fact to accept. I was Bakugou Katsuki, seven-year-old hellion and #2 All Might fanboy (Izuku was a terrifying opponent in this arena if no other), but I had once been… someone else. It isn't as obvious as having memories of another life, at least not in a way that I can watch them like some sort of movie, or recall any events or names outside of the strange characters and happenings that sometimes invade my dreams. Nevertheless, I can't think of any other explanation for the strange sense of wrongness that things sometimes give me, or how I recognize so many things even though I'm seeing them for the first time, or how I know things I shouldn't, like how to cook American pancakes when neither of my parents have ever made them in their lives. I don't know what my name used to be, or if I was tall or short or thin or fat or whatever, but I can figure some things out about who I used to be based on some of my more irritating reactions to things.

One of said realizations happens in the already unfortunate situation that is me having a playdate at Deku's house. We've been friends for years now, and I really should be used to him, and to be fair I have gotten better about spending long periods of time in his company without having to force a pillow or something over his face just to get a break from his strange, invasive muttering, but it's still difficult. I'm still not a great friend, and Izuku is still, well, a kind of unlikeable little creep. But he means well and he tries hard and with how no one else in our school even talks to him unless they're trying to get close to me… Well, I would be a monster if I completely ignored him.

So I accept these playdates as semi-obligatory community service, and attend them with as charitable a mood as I can muster (which is admittedly poor). And Auntie Inko is a breath of calm and wholesome fresh air in my lungs even as I'm drowning between waves of Izuku's intense scrutiny. She has such an unassuming, un-invasive manner, it's amazing that Izuku can look so much like her while being so completely different. Well, until they start crying. They definitely have that trait in common.

It really makes me wonder what Izuku's father is like, though. Or was like. I'm not actually clear on the situation over in the Midoriya household, but Auntie Inko doesn't seem to work, and they can afford the limited edition All Might merch that Izuku loves to show off to me (especially since I hadn't managed to get it, something about "being a spoiled brat" and needing to "build character". Whatever. Izuku rubbing it in my face didn't help, although I had the sinking feeling that he actually thought he was being nice by sharing with me. What an oblivious moron), so I think he might still be in the picture, or Auntie Inko was just very sneaky with her prenup. Either way, I can't come right out and ask, so unless one of them lets something slip, Izuku's other parent is going to have to remain a mystery.

Auntie Inko, on the other hand, is ever-present and almost disturbingly open. She dotes on me as "Izuku's best friend Kacchan!" and teaches me how to cook simple dishes when I offer to help in the kitchen in a desperate attempt to catch a break from Izuku's chatter. These little lessons are so different from my time spent with Kaa-san, whose temper matches my own and results in the two of us escalating every conversation or interaction into some sort of argument or competition, much to my poor Tou-san's chagrin. Auntie-Inko is much more docile, with big doe eyes and a soft voice

that makes it easy to relax in her presence. I feel less restless when she's talking, like the itch under my skin is soothed by the sound. I don't even fight when she pulls me in for a hug and wraps her small arms around me, pressing me gently into her body. She's always so warm and soft, like a living pillow, it makes me feel… odd.

Kaa-san doesn't make me feel like this, although occasionally I would get a strange feeling when I see her dress up to go out with Tou-san, or when she decides to do her nails and hair for "self-care." I can't help looking at her perfectly-winged eyeliner and her flowy skirts and feeling… odd.

But it's Auntie Inko that finally breaks the fragile wall I've built around this particular problem. Knowing the terms for my mother's makeup and understanding why she's even more volatile than usual once a month is one thing, but it's Auntie Inko's softness that stirs something in me every time I see her, and it finally comes to a head when Izuku lights up at the sound of his mother's humming from the kitchen and takes off, calling out "Kaa-san! Kaa-san!" and begging her to "Sing for me and Kacchan, please? The song about the birds!"

She laughingly complies, dancing a little bit as she continues to put the clean dishes away, and the light on her hair makes a golden halo around the green locks and my heart aches. It hurts, it hurts, like someone stole my favorite All Might hoodie right from between my hands, and just like if someone had actually been stupid enough to take my shit, this feeling makes me angry. I want to punch Izuku for asking his mother to sing, for dragging me over here every week even though I don't even like him, for beaming up at her and only adding to the maternal, feminine aura around the scene. I'm grinding my teeth so hard my jaw hurts, and I can't stay here.

I'm outside before I really realize I've decided to leave, walking down the driveway with my shoes untied and my jacket on inside-out. My jaw is still clenched achingly tight, but at least I can't hear Auntie Inko singing anymore. That was… bad.

I've been trying to pay more attention to the strange feelings I get from my past life, hoping that understanding them will stop them from… well, from driving me out of the house in a poorly- thought-out retreat. But it's hard when I'm already so pent-up, full of this energy and the urge to run, climb, experiment and improve myself, and when every emotion, whether positive or negative, always seems to translate into anger. It's exhausting, and I get the feeling that it wasn't like this, before. That although I had the same bad habits, anxiety, and insecurities as I do now… I didn't used to get so angry. In fact, based on the lack of the usual familiarity most feelings are accompanied by, I have the sense that I hardly used to get angry at all.

It almost explains why I seem to have no idea how to handle it, if whoever-I-was didn't have a temper to fight against, and I seem to have gotten both lifetimes' worth at once.

"Kacchan?" A hesitant voice calls from behind me, and my hands curl into fists without conscious thought. Goddamn it. I silently urge him to turn around and go back inside, but my prayers go unanswered when something touches my shoulder unexpectedly. I jerk away, a small explosion going off from my raised hand in instinctive self-defense as I jump back. Izuku looks startled, even though this happens every time he touches me when I'm not prepared (and sometimes when I am prepared. Cut me some slack, I'm not a hugger, okay?). He blinks wide green eyes at me as I force my jaw to unclench so I can speak.

"I'm going home." I say, voice tight and shaking. "I'm bored." It's an excuse I've used before, when the other boy got to be a bit too much for me. He always deflates at the news, but a muttered "see you tomorrow" is enough to have him springing back up with a smile. This time, though, he doesn't even seem to hear me, wide eyes staying glued to my face and mouth slightly open in surprise.

"Kacchan…" He says hesitantly, and I have time to wonder if my usual explosive reaction really startled him that much in the pause that follows, but then… "Are you crying?"

Like hell I am.

My hands meet my cheeks with a slap as they jerk up to check, and I realize the dork is right. There are tears on my face. What the fuck? The anger swells up and pushes at my diaphragm, shame and embarrassment at my tears, resentment at Izuku for seeing them and for looking worried about me. As if he had hurt me! As if he could hurt me, that little dweeb! He'd cry before I ever did. He's the crybaby, not me!

But this, also, feels unfortunately familiar. As if whoever-I-was had a habit of crying when angry, and had felt this mix of self-loathing and fury before. I decide then and there that there's nothing I hate more than this. Nothing worse than being seen as weak when I'm furious. God, no wonder whoever-I-was never got angry, if this is what happens when I do. I must have had iron self control in my past life.

"Kacchan…" Izuku tries, hand raised between us as if he wants to comfort me, and that's the last straw. When this fucking crybaby thinks I need his help just because of a few tears, I'm out. This is bullshit. So I'm crying, so fucking what? Guys can cry. Men can cry. It doesn't make me weak or emotional or whatever and no one gets to patronize me for it, especially not Izuku Midoriya.

"Fuck off." I say, the first time I've used the word out loud. It feels good, sharp consonants bitten off to make the edges jagged. It helps me feel slightly more in control of the situation, seeing the shocked look on Izuku's face when I spit it at him. "I said I'm bored and I'm going home. That's all." And before he could get over being scandalized by my bad language, I slip out the front gate and take off down the street toward my house, tears streaming down my flushed cheeks from furiously glaring eyes.

Unfortunately, going home doesn't stop the realization from looming, and it doesn't stop me from having to go to school the next morning, where Izuku is waiting for me, wringing his fingers and muttering nervously to himself about how he thinks I'm going to react. I smack him in the back of the head with my bookbag as I walk past, muttering a "shut up, nerd" as usual, and heading to my shoe locker without stopping.

Since this is my usual behavior, none of the other students seem to think anything of it, greeting me with overly-friendly smiles and waves. I ignore them, grunting occasionally at the more persistent greetings and growling at the kid who slings an arm over my shoulders until he hastily backs off. All as usual.

"Kacchan." Izuku says, decidedly not as usual. He sounds determined, which is odd for the usually spineless loser. I turn slowly, enjoying the way he seems to pale as I take my time doing it. So I've got a sense for drama, what of it? I must have been an actress in my past life.

Actor. I correct, scowling even harder at my traitorous brain. Izuku starts to tremble in fear. Good. He should be afraid, ignoring my very obvious decision to not talk about what happened yesterday.

"I'm sorry." He says, at least smart enough to keep his voice low so the simpering idiots in our class can't hear. "I'm… not really sure what happened, but I know I upset you, and I didn't mean to and – "

"Shut the fuck up, Deku." I say, savoring the curse word on my tongue. Izuku's reaction is just as hilarious the second time, as he almost falls over in shock at the profanity. "The hell are you apologizing for? As if you could do anything to upset me." I scoff. "Get over yourself." And with a well-timed slam of my shoe locker door, I make my exit towards the classroom. Definitely used to be an actor. The best. Probably some sort of movie star. I hear Izuku jogging to catch up with me, taking his usual spot to the side and slightly behind me, but he doesn't say anything and he's not muttering so I let him be, musing on my previous profession and what it might have been.

When we get to the classroom and I move to take my seat, Izuku steps into my way, just slightly, and I pause.

"What?" I growl. If he tries to apologize again…

"Thanks." And now I'm the one who feels like falling over in surprise, although I hide it well enough except for losing my scowl for a second before forcing it to return. What? "I mean. Uh." Izuku's hands flap around uselessly whenever he struggles with his words. It's another annoying habit of his. "I must have made a mistake, thinking you were upset, and I just wanted to thank you for correcting me and um…" his voice trails off in a mutter but I think I hear for not being mad at me which almost makes me laugh because hello? At what point in the last 24 hours have I seemed not mad to you? Seriously, this oblivious moron…

"Tch. Stop with the muttering, Deku." I finally groan, when the green boy has become completely unintelligible. "And leave me alone until at least lunch." I order, shoving him toward his desk. The beaming smile I get in return is probably because he's willfully misinterpreting my words as an invitation again, but that's at least the usual level of bullshit I've come to expect from him, so I let it slide. I'm too tired for this.

I throw myself into my experimenting after that with even more vigor than usual. Not that anyone can really tell, considering my default setting is "Extra as Hell," but my parents and Izuku seem to at least sense that I am less willing to be interrupted than normal, and leave me alone. At first, I had only been able to trigger explosions by actually striking the palms of my hands with something, but I knew that there was some way for me to trigger larger explosions without even needing to use both hands. (The unsettling feeling of having seen something in a cartoon that I now had to take as a fact of reality left me compulsively writing out physics formulas for three hours, but I got over it. Mostly.)

It takes two weeks of useless theorizing before I finally get desperate enough to test a hunch I have. Each time Izuku's startled me, I've managed to set off a small explosion in self-defense. It hasn't ever been very big, even smaller than my usual, but it had notably been produced from the palm of my hand without needing contact to set it off. So, the key here is something I'm doing subconsciously, and if I haven't been able to deduce what it is from my experiments, then I'll have to work from the bottom up, so to speak.

"Alright, Deku." I say seriously, both hands on the smaller boy's shoulders. He trembles slightly under my palms. Wise of him. "Listen carefully. Under no circumstances, ever, will you be allowed to repeat this action outside of this experiment. If you ever attempt to hug me, I will not hesitate to feed you your own shoes. Understand?" It's a weird threat, but it does the trick. Izuku nods furiously, looking a mixture of confused and excited. "I know you're a creepy little shit, and that's finally going to work in your favor, so I'm telling you, just this once, I won't beat your face in for not holding yourself back. Got it?"

"Uh… kind of?" Izuku says hesitantly. "I… You're saying I can hug you?" He bites his lip. "Like, a real hug? If I want?" I don't like that starry-eyed look he's getting, so I shove him away from me with a sneer of disgust. Ugh.

"Just this once." I reiterate, holding a finger up threateningly until the other boy nods his understanding. I slowly lower it, eyeing him warily. He's practically vibrating in place, and I can already tell I'm going to regret this. "Okay, go ahe-"

I don't even get to finish my fucking sentence before I have a mouthful of dirty green hair. It tastes like shit, and his tiny little noodle arms are somehow a lot stronger than they should be, since they almost manage to lift me right off my feet (I ignore the part of me that points out I only weigh about 25 kilograms soaking wet). I can feel his breath as he lets out a sigh against my chest and nuzzles his face into my shirt and okay that's enough of that-

The explosion is big enough to startle us both, and Izuku jumps back with a squeak of fear and stuttered "b-but you said…"

"I know what I said." I grit my teeth, paying careful attention to the little pops going off in my palms, the tension in my wrists… "Calm down, nerd. I won't kill you this time." This time? He mutters to himself, but I ignore him, squinting down at my palms. The feeling is strange, but kind of familiar at the same time. I'm so close to figuring this out…

"Are you… testing your quirk?" Izuku ventures. I roll my eyes at him, but the sparks increase, so I can't really complain when the annoyance is actually helping me with my research.

"Obviously." I settle for. One by one, I try tensing the different muscles and tendons in my wrists and hands in different ways, attempting to set off the reaction in earnest again. I can feel something twitch with every spark, but I can't quite…

"I love you, Kacchan." A voice sounds close to my ear, significantly within the Do Not Come Closer on Pain of Death radius I keep around me at all times. A shudder of disgust races up my spine and my whole body locks in place in startled alarm at the creepy invasive nerd goddamn why does he not understand personal space –

Oh. So that's what it looks like. I blink down at the tendon standing out against the inside of my wrist as the explosion sends star-bursts across my eyes. Wrist flexor, palmaris longus – absent in around one-fifth of the population back… whenever. Made redundant by evolution, occasionally used in tendon transplants in other parts of the body. The half-remembered knowledge is as unsettling as ever, but I can appreciate its uses more and more as time passes. I must have had one before, as well, because I know exactly how to flex my wrist while touching the pads of my pinky and thumb together to make it flex and stand out against my wrist-

Bang. I wince at the pressure of the blast against my curled fingers. No explosions with close hands, then. I'll have to learn to flex that tendon without curling my fingers too much… But that's doable. Practically easy, compared to how much effort it took to just figure out that I had an extra tendon and that, ironically, it seemed to have a use in this new life of mine. A rather essential one.

I'm grinning maniacally as I look back up at Izuku, whose beaming smile slowly slips into a nervous little thing as he laughs sheepishly.

"Uh… haha. Sorry about that Kacchan, but I thought it would help…." He yelps as I set off two small explosions, one after the other, in my hands. Oh, hell yeah. My grin grows, and Izuku starts to look a little pale. Guess who's double-wielding, assholes?

"What have I told you about personal space, Deku?" I taunt. The green boy takes a step back, putting his weight on the balls of his feet in preparation to run. I let him.

"Of course I respect your personal space, Kacchan, but since you asked me to hug you and it didn't seem like you'd managed to figure out the problem, I thought that I could help you if I just-" A small pop pop bang from my hands has him changing tactics abruptly. "-but obviously I was wrong and I should never have invaded your space like that it was really entirely my fault I'm sorry-"

"Deku." I interrupt.

"…Yes, Kacchan?" He looks resigned.

"Run."

"Yes, Kacchan."

I give him a head start, as a reward for not acting like a scared little pansy at the threat of a beat down. And if I only rub his hair in the dirt a bit before letting him go after I've caught him, keeping my newfound ability to cause independent explosions in check while I handle him, well. The nerd did help me figure out my problem. It's only appropriate to show my gratitude.

He's still a creep though.