"Remember what I told you," his mom hisses as she knocks on the front door. Katsuki rolls his eyes.
"Yeah, yeah. Don't say anything about his face or you'll make me model all your stupid girly outfits for a month. Whatever. He's got a dumb face anyways."
He can practically feel her anger as it sparks, her fingers curling tighter around his hand. Sweat is forming on his palms from her warm grip, and he wants to wipe them on the leg of his jeans. When he thinks about the panicked expression his mom wears when she loses him in a crowd, he decides not to. He knows why she keeps such a tight grip on his hand, even though he is eight and practically a grown up at this point. It's annoying, but he can deal with it if it means he doesn't have to see his mom cry again.
Her mouth opens, lips already curled into a sneer and cheeks flushed with anger, when the door swings open. Katsuki stares in confusion at the strange girl standing awkwardly in the doorway. His brow furrows.
"You're not Aunty Inko," he says. The girl's lips twitch up into an uncertain smile.
"You must be the Bakugos," she says, and steps aside to allow them entrance to the apartment. Katsuki glares at her as he shuffles past but she only smiles in return. "Midoriya-san is making lunch."
His mom grins at the girl before shooing him off towards the living room to "play." She then shoots towards the kitchen with a yell of greeting to Aunty Inko. Within seconds he can hear them bickering about what the spice level of the food Aunty Inko is making should be.
The strange girl looks baffled, then shakes her head and turns her attention towards him. She smiles as she pushes red streaked bangs out of her eyes.
"You're Katsuki-kun, right? My brother has told me a lot about you."
Kasuki takes a second to scowl at her before he shoves past, stomping towards the living room. He hears her yell after him, sounding surprised. He rolls his eyes, then freezes in the doorway at the sight of yet more strangers crowded into the otherwise familiar space. Checking over his shoulder to make sure his mom isn't near enough to hear him, he crosses his arms over his chest and glowers at the newcomers.
"Who the fuck are you losers?"
From the kitchen his mom yells a warning to watch his language. He darts into the room, preferring to face these strangers over having his mouth washed out with soap again. It's not fair, considering his mom is the person he learned all the bad words from in the first place.
The two unfamiliar boys look up from their cards, one grinning broadly while the other scowls. It's obvious which one of them is winning the game. The smiling one lays his cards down and says, "I'm Touya."
The other boy frowns down at his cards again before heaving a sigh and leaning back. He smiles as he slides a hand through his white hair, slicking it back. Katsuki notices that it looks sort of wet, and there are crystals of frost stuck to strands of hair that catch the light and glitter.
"You must be Katsuki-kun. Shoto's told us about you. I'm Natsuo, and our sister's Fuyumi."
"I can speak for myself," Fuyumi says as she slips past Katsuki. She settles down on the sofa with Shoto, though she sits on the opposite end of it, as far from him as the plush pillows will allow. Katsuki eyes the newcomers, curious but hiding it behind an angry expression, before turning his attention towards Shoto. The other boy doesn't move. He doesn't talk. He just sits huddled on the sofa, head turned deliberately away from everyone else and a blanket draped over his shoulders like he's some sort of king.
Katsuki storms up to Shoto, annoyed that the asshole thinks he is too high and mighty to even say hello anymore. He stands before him, arms crossed and eyes narrowed angrily, doing his best to loom the same way he does with the stupid lackeys at his school when they get in his way.
"Hey," he says. Shoto doesn't so much as twitch. "Hey!" Katsuki can feel the others' eyes watching him, can feel the tension rising, but he doesn't care. He stomps his foot, hands sparking, and shouts at the top of his lungs, "HEY!"
"What do you want?" Shoto snaps back, and he turns to look at Katsuki at last.
Katsuki feels his anger drain away, replaced by surprise. His mom had told him that Shoto had been hurt, but she hadn't said how bad it was or what happened. Katsuki takes in the bandages covering half his face, the dark bag beneath his one visible eye, and the haunted look on the parts of his face that he can see. The expression reminds him of someone else. For a second, when he looks at Shoto all he can think of is the last time he saw Izuku, hurt and scared, staring up from where Katsuki had pushed him into the dirt as he tried to protect some random weakling. It makes his stomach churn.
He blinks and shakes his head as though to clear his vision, pushing away the intruding thoughts.
Just as quickly as it had disappeared, his anger comes roaring back. He embraces it, preferring the heat of his fury over the chill of his memories. His wide eyed expression is quickly replaced by a scowl as he leans forward, getting right in the other boy's face. Shoto flinches back, but Katsuki grabs hold of his collar and hauls him forward again, displeased with this new jumpy version of the boy. He reminds him too much of someone else, now.
"Hey! Knock it off you jerk!" someone yells, but Katsuki doesn't care enough to check which one of the brothers it is. He wants to roll his eyes at the thought that someone would dare to talk to him like that.
"You don't get to act like you're better than me," Katsuki hisses, teeth bared inches away from Shoto's face. "You're not. I'm going to be number one, so you can take your shitty attitude and your shitty Quirk and shove it up your ass."
This is how he has managed to rise to the top in school. Anyone who thinks they are better is cornered and beaten into submission. They have to know their place, and they have to know that Katsuki will alway be at the top. It's the only way he is going to get better. The only way he can be the best.
(He has to be the best, so that his mom and dad and Aunty Inko can smile freely again. They can't ever be happy if all they ever do is worry about him and wonder where stupid Deku wandered off to.)
Katsuki waits for Shoto to lower his gaze, to turn away and admit defeat. Their gazes lock and the moment draws on and on, but he never backs down. Then, much to Katsuki's shock, a tiny smile begins to twitch at the corners of Shoto's mouth. His tense frame relaxes as he says, "You're just as noisy as ever. You can let me go now. I already knew that. Besides, I don't want to be number one anyways."
Katsuki catches the girl's shocked expression from the corner of his eye. She looks dumbfounded at her brother's words. One of Shoto's brothers lets out a low whistle while the other says Shoto's name, low and cautious. Katsuki huffs, blowing hot air into Shoto's face as his scowl melts into a broad grin full of too many teeth. He straightens up and the tension bleeds out of the room.
"I'm glad you know your place," he sniffs, crossing his arms over his chest. There's another offended "hey!" from behind him, but no one pays it any attention. Shoto rolls his one visible eye, then winces like it hurt him.
"Just sit down. We'll watch a movie or something."
Katsuki plops down in the center of the overstuffed green sofa immediately, jostling both of its current occupants.
"Watch it," the sister grumbles from his right. Her attention is on her phone now that she's stopped acting like Shoto's some helpless baby that can't fight his own battles. He hates it when people hover. Katsuki jabs an elbow into her ribs just because. He doesn't feel bad when she yelps, rubbing at her side. He was here long before any of these losers were, anyways, so he can do whatever he wants when he's in Aunty Inko's house. She swats at him without looking up, ice crystals forming and then almost immediately melting, leaving Katsuki's shirt sleeve soaked.
"You b —" (Katsuki's mom yells a warning from the kitchen.) "—rat!" His teeth are clenched, cheeks hot and sparks jumping in his palms. She doesn't seem to care. She glances at him from the corner of her eye, smirking. The two idiots on the floor are howling with laughter.
"I think you need to chill out." Fuyumi says, right before Natsuo freezes him to the sofa.
The room descends into chaos, ice exploding in chunks all around them as Katsuki fires off one explosion after the other. Natsuo keeps freezing his hands as he rubs them together to create more sweat, then his feet to the ground as he tries to charge him, and then his hair. Katsuki's not sure what purpose that serves. Probably just because.
"You icy asshole!" Katsuki spits, trying to free his socks from the carpet. Fuyumi is curled on her side, clutching her ribs as she laughs.
"Hey, hey Natsuo," she says, gasping for breath. "You remember that time—"
"Don't say it."
"—that you froze yourself—"
"FUYUMI DON'T YOU DARE!"
"—to the toilet seat?"
"He really did that?" Shoto asks, head cocked curiously. Fuyumi nods, forcing her words through uncontrollable laughter.
"He was stuck there for almost three hours before anyone figured out where he'd gone!"
"We agreed to never talk about that!" Natsuo shouts, face cherry red against his white hair. He throws a wall of ice towards his sister, who melts it with a casual wave of her hand. Katsuki screams as the icy water crashes over him.
"Icy asshole," Shoto ponders in that weirdly monotone way of his. "Maybe I'll call him that from now on."
Natsuo is too busy trying to pull Katsuki off of Fuyumi to respond. Fuyumi is still laughing. From the other room, Aunty Inko yells, "You five had better not be destroying my house!"
"We're not," Touya calls back cheerfully, flames dancing merrily in one hand and Katsuki's phone in the other. He grins as he waves it at the blond. "Get your hands off my sister or you'll never see this again."
Katsuki turns away from Fuyumi and Natsuo, lunging for Touya instead. He is shouting threats and obscenities, jumping to try to reach his phone, which the red headed asshole is holding above his head and far out of reach. From the sidelines Natsuo is jeering as he creates little patches of ice at Katsuki's feet to try to trip him up.
"You should give it up," Fuyumi calls, wringing water out of her hair. "Touya perfected that move when he hit his growth spurt." Her cheeks are flushed and she is smiling broadly. Shoto grins at her, another tiny little thing, and leans in conspiratorially.
Through all the shouting, Katsuki hears Shoto say, "He hasn't changed at all." Katsuki whirls on him, shooting off a blast from his hands and practically foaming at the mouth as he shouts, "Yeah, well you're the same freezer burned bastard as ever!"
It's like the air goes out of the room. Everyone freezes. The ice starts to melt as the temperature rises, and the deck of cards sitting on the table bursts into brilliant blue flames. Katsuki looks around, thrown by the sudden shift, and sees that the three older kids all have their attention focused solely on their youngest brother.
Katsuki looks too, brow furrowed in confusion and agitation. The ice on his clothes is beginning to melt, yet Shoto seems completely frozen. His gaze is unfocused and glassy, mouth parted slightly as he stares at some distant horror that Katsuki can't see. His breathing is beginning to pick up, faster and faster, thin chest heaving and sweat beading at his brow.
Katsuki looks around, waiting to see what Shoto's siblings will do. No one moves. Fuyumi's eyes are welling with tears. Natsuo looks panicked, gaze darting around uncertainly as though searching for answers. No one is doing anything, and Katsuki is confused and a little scared, so he reacts like he always does when faced with uncertainty; he gets mad.
"If this is you trying to get out of cleaning up, you can think again!" he shouts, stooping to pick up a chunk of ice. He lobs it at Shoto, who doesn't wince as it goes whizzing past his head and hits the wall behind him. Katsuki's wet sock hits its mark, though, slapping Shoto square in the face.
Slowly, his eye refocuses and his breathing evens out. He blinks at the four of them, as though only now remembering that they are there. Shoto is still breathing as though he just ran a mile, but at least he doesn't look like he's going to fall apart anymore. He lowers his head, hugging his knees to his chest.
"What the hell was that?" Katsuki demands, starting forward. He is stopped by an arm across his chest, and follows it to find Touya looking at him. The older boy's lips are pursed as he silently shakes his head.
"Can we just watch the movie now?" Shoto whispers. So they do.
About an hour in, Katsuki hears Shoto's quiet voice as he mutters to himself, "Freezer burn."
He turns to look, confused, and sees Shoto smiling to himself like he's just now getting the joke. Katsuki turns away with a huff, rolling his eyes. This guy has always been weird, anyways.
Guys I was going to go to bed like three hours ago but then that good old fashioned chronic illness flared up and I was in too much pain to sleep, so I edited this instead. My pain is your gain. I hope you enjoyed! Please feel free to leave a review to make me feel better. :')
Katsuki and Shoto are buddies because Katsuki acknowledges that Shoto has a super powerful Quirk but is like "BUT I'M STILL BETTER" and Shoto is like "sure you are buddy" to appease his ego. So it all works out.