Saying Their Goodbyes: Shouto, Katsuki

Saying their goodbyes: Shouto, Katsuki

Shouto

Nee-san spoke first, “Please be careful, Shouto. I... I’m so sorry for being such a useless older sister. I wish, I cou-"

"I will. And you're not useless." That felt insufficient. Shouto tried moving his hand over his sister's head, like he had seen Asui doing with some of their classmates when they got upset. "Please teach me how to make soba properly, when I get back."

At this, Fuyumi's eyes turned watery.

Shouto faltered. Then he froze.

Natsu-nii had pulled him into a hug.

Perhaps not wanting their sister and mother to hear, Natsu-nii said into his ear: “Punch him in the face. Pummel his ass." And with an even lower voice, his brother whispered: "And if there's any possibility… please drag him home.”

Shouto flailed. Then he remembered what he did, when okaa-san had asked for his permission to hug him during one of his first visits, and put his hands lightly on Natsu-nii's back. For few seconds, his fingers gripped his older brother's sweater tightly.

Shouto turned to their mother. She had lagged behind his siblings slightly.

He knew that the loss of Touya-nii back then, had completely shattered whatever small parts of their mother had been left, that hadn't already been broken by their father. But Touya-nii had killed so many people. And his flames were so strong, surpassing those of Endeavor's.

Shouto didn't know what to say to his mother. But he had to say something, so he settled on, "Okaa-san, I won’t let our family hurt any more people. I promise.”

“I know. I’m sor…” His mother stopped. Instead, she reached out to wrap his left hand between her own smaller ones. “Thank you, Shouto. I’m grateful for having you.”

Shouto swallowed hard. His hand stayed in between his mother's palms, until the heroes were signaled to move out.

Katsuki

“You will win.”

“What do you take me for?! Of course I will!”

For that, the hag decked him over the head.

Katsuki was about to let his mother know, that she hit like a ninety-year old. But before he could, his old man caught his gaze. Something in his father's eyes made Katsuki close his mouth again.

With her hands on her hips and her chin tilted up, his mother said: “Absolute victory. That's what you've always spouted. And absolute victory requires making it back. Preferably, in one piece. Although I don't expect that - no, I'm not underestimating you. But I'm also not an idiot. And neither are you."

At this, Katsuki averted his eyes. The hero students involvement in the PLW was still kept secret from the public. Aside from Icyhot, none of the students who got hospitalized had been allowed visits from their families.

Katsuki knew from his old man, that his mother had stood in front of the hospital every single day, until they learned that their son had been released and escorted back to his dorm.

During phone calls, he had tried to downplay his injuries. It wasn't because he agreed with the Commission's dumbass decisions.

It had been futile anyways. Katsuki saw from the expression of his mother's face, when she first laid eyes on him after UA's emergency shelters went into effect, that she had guessed the severity of his injuries right away.

His mother combed her hand slowly through his hair. Katsuki fought against the urge to tilt his head towards her.

"So. I expect an absolute victory, where as much of you makes it back as needed... to take the decking that you’ll get for being disrespectful to your mother. Got it?”

“…yeah, yeah. Just watch me.”

The hag gave his hair a slight pull.

And so, Katsuki's schoolmates, teachers, and anyone else in their vincity, got subjected to an encore of the Bakugou-screamo-musical, until it was time for the son to leave.

Shouto and his adoptive sisters, part 1

I headcanon that Todoroki is especially protective of Uraraka (e.g. in Movie 1 he intentionally placed himself right in front of her) and Asui, because they remind him of his sister, who is both cheerful and caring, and to whom he couldn’t be close to in the past. Despite being the youngest Todoroki sibling, and the one who received the brunt of their father’s abuse, I think Shouto might still feel partly responsible for the distance between him and his siblings.

It seems like Todoroki joined Deku & co for lunch regularly, right after the back-alley trio returned from Hosu. I headcanon - especially since I've watched their background shenanigans in the BNHA stage plays (the plays are hilarious, go look them up on yt!) - that Uraraka started to uraraka-handle Todoroki around the place, just like she has been doing with Deku and Iida since the start.

And no, their friendship doesn’t consist of Todoroki buying her expensive shit with his father’s credit card. Todoroki was someone who rejected his father’s instructions for years, even though it would have benefitted his hero training greatly (makes 100 % sense from the emotional angle, and 0 % sense from a sheer utilitarian angle). I headcanon that he also refuses to ask his father for money for anything. Fuyumi took care of that, otherwise Todoroki might have just walked around in clothes that he's grown out of, just because he didn't want to ask the old man for anything.

I also don’t think that Uraraka would accept huge amounts of money/monetary gifts from her friends, no matter her own financial circumstances. Even - or rather especially - if she'd thought that Todoroki's spending his father's money on her to piss of the latter. I think Uraraka would have an outlook like, “Don’t do things mainly to oppose someone. Do things for yourself!” which redirects Todoroki’s actions away from his father but turns his focus towards himself.

Uraraka would grab Todoroki and their friends, and they would go to the nearest playground. Each of them teaches Todoroki how to play their favourite (and entirely free of costs) childhood games. The games he wasn’t allowed to play, when he was younger.

He will catch up on them now. Together with his friends.

...

In my mind, this was canon:

For sure, Uraraka's first impression of Todoroki is of him being an awkward oddball... which I headcanon is one of the reasons why she went out of her way to befriend him.

Who got Bakugou to wear a tie?

My money's on Iida.

I headcanon that Bakugou didn't wear it, because Iida wore him down. The latter only asked him once.

But Four-eyes looked like the embodiment of "worried sick," when he explained that their class should present themselves as responsible and united in front of the principal.

So Katsuki wore the damn tie, just to give Four-eyes a modicum of peace of mind: The feeling of being able to control, or rather to influence, things, people, outcomes... hopefully, a dear friend, who lost his way home.

Beautiful, thank you for sharing this with us!

I added colors to another panel because I felt inspired

I also made one with Aizawa

Katsuki’s precocious crush

If I were to ship Bakugou with anyone, it would probably be Fuyumi.

To be more precisely, if Bakugou were to develop a crush on anyone, I’d like to headcanon it to be Fuyumi.

Simply because the comedic potential is too great to be ignored:

1. In Fuyumi’s eyes, Bakugou is her baby brother’s friend. A boy, who seems to know and appreciate the labour behind a good meal more than most. A kid, who (kinda) complimented her cooking skills - and then insulted her family's hosting skills within the same breath. A child, whose self-awareness about his own lack of manners, seems to be virtually non-existent.

It is almost comically endearing, because that feature reminds Fuyumi a lot of "her own" kids.

But it's also slightly worrying. Afterall, Shouto insisted that Bakugou Katsuki is his friend. But a refined palate aside: This kid clearly has the rabies.

= Fuyumi wouldn’t notice Bakugou's big fat crush on her for years.

I can see Bakugou (the guy who probably decided that he would surpass All Might when he was still a toddler, and then actually stuck to it) as someone who can harbor an unrequited crush for years. Which is fine, because Bakugou would probably need a good while to come to terms with something as mundane as a crush.

2. Fuyumi is Icy-hot’s sister. Who’s even more clueless. Until Deku accidently points it out to him, that their mutual friend like-likes his sister. Afterwards Icy-hot tries himself at the “protective-brother”-thing. But instead of confronting Bakugou, he does petty stuff to test the latter’s temper endurance, e.g., intentionally repeating sentences over and over again, when Fuyumi’s with them. This theatre lasts for half a day, until Icy-hot decides that he’s ok with Bakugou crushing on his sister. Because deep, deep, deep² down inside, "Baku-bro" ("Stop copying shitty hair!!") is a kind-hearted person.

~Senpai, pay attention to ME! ME!! MEEE!!!~

3. She’s Endeavor’s daughter. Who is Bakugou's mentor-boss. Whom Bakugou finds to be kind of a dick. Which he has told Endeavor to his face. On his very first day of work-study. At what has been their very first face to face meeting. The comedy basically writes itself.

Look at this gremlin, grinning like a little dipshit smiling at a lady for the first time.

Generally, I can see Bakugou developing attraction to either: Someone nurturing and sweet like Fuyumi, or someone who doesn’t take his crap and sasses him for it, e.g. Burnin, Mirko.

Personally, I’m more inclined towards nurturing-sweet. At the very least, Bakugou seems to hold some respect for Fuyumi: Bakugou's indignancy regarding Todoroki's knife skills (Sub, AND dub: "You shamed your sister!"), are among the funniest - and strangely sweetest? - things he's said over the entire series.

Wdym, yellingly demanding your crush to teach you their recipe isn't romantic? That's just Bakugou asking for a date.

Anyway, apparently my brain pictures him going for someone slightly older? He wouldn’t even be on their radar for years. Like, until he’s been well out of school for a while.

... I just like to imagine him suffering like that for some time.

Or idk, if I would want him to suffer a bit less… maybe Utsushimi might work with Bakugou too?

Class 1-A band

One last band reunion... before they're all shipped of to war.

I have wondered about this group’s dynamic:

Kaminari, Jirou, and Yaoyorozu first established a bond through surviving USJ together.

After that, Yaoyorozu and Jirou are often seen together, and the two of them might be each others closest friend in 1-A.

But Kaminari is probably the only one, who's friends with all of the band members:

I don't think I need to elaborate much on Kaminari and his electric bond with Jirou. Semi-canon shipping aside though, they're definitely friends.

Same with Bakugou. To him, Kaminari's probably the second real friend that he made in his life. (Or rather, Kaminari made himself Bakugou's second real friend.)

Tokoyami and Kaminari apparently got closer to each other through the band. Tokoyami's thoughts during Kaminari's big (that should've could've been more elaborated on) badass scene during the Gunga Mountain raid, outright stated, that he views the latter as a very good friend.

In one of my previous posts, I headcanon that Kaminari is one of Class Mom's favourite children. Canonically, Kaminari and Yaoyorozu are actually depicted as laughing with each other in the background more than a few times. I find KamiMomo to be an underrated background friendship, as I can see them being good for each other: Both are sensitive souls and often try to encourage others.

Kaminari also was the one, who immediately interupted Yaoyorozu, when she attempted to give 1-A and 1-B the "you are not obligated to fight against a lethal opponent with me" - speech. He instead assured Yaoyorozu that she would not face off against Gigantomachia alone.

But the rest of them? Aren't really close to each other.

...

Let's move from the most easy-going to the most difficult 1-A band member. In contrast to Kaminari, I feel like Jirou, Yaoyorozu, and Tokoyami would have a more “normal” reaction to the snappy Pomeranian.

As in, backing away and leaving it tf alone.

Because most people can't/ don't want to put up with unwarranted anger and disrespect repeatedly – understandable, especially if there's little to no positive feedback ever.

After the cultural festival arc, Bakugou and Jirou were put into the same team during the joint training arc. In which they were not shown to interact in any manner, that could be interpreted as significant to the relationship between them. No, I don’t count Bakugou saving Jirou by stepping on her, as a sign for a budding friendship.

I headcanon that Bakugou feels slightly uneasy around Yaoyorozu, ever since her assessment of him at the start of the school year. I don’t think that he held a grudge against her for that. But Bakugou is a very proud individual, even after his extensive character development. Having someone - especially someone who’s not a senior but a peer - rip apart that superior self-image he had of himself with such laser-sharp accuracy and soberness, seemed to have been… kinda traumatic to Bakugou and his gargantuan ego. I feel like he would subconsciously avoid being alone with Yaoyorozu. As in, if they happen to find themselves alone with each other in the common areas of their dorms, he will try to leave quickly.

Beyond each other's battle prowess, I don’t see Bakugou and Tokoyami having much respect for each other. Or to put it more mildly: Neither of them has patience for the other's antics.

Tokoyami is not amused. Funnily enough, in the gag comics, Dark Shadow - in the form of a little girl - made a ranking list of who/what she likes the most: Apparently, Bakugou ranks third, just behind Tokoyami himself, and Todoroki.

In short: Kaminari gels with everyone. Bakugou gels with no one... except those, who just blend out the majority of his verbal abuse.

No surprises here.

What about TokoJirou?

These two don't interact a whole lot, but the drama CDs gave us Tokoyami accompanying Jirou to a haunted house alone (Kaminari chickened out). It includes Jirou asking to hold onto the hem of Tokoyami's uniform and him reassuring her fears. (It's all very cute, go look it up on yt!)

Main media-wise, Tokoyami and Jirou had a moment of joint badassery during the final war. From that sole interaction, I’d say his dramatics and her snark go well with each other - be it directed towards each other, or united against the big bad.

Aside from that, we haven’t gotten much of Tokoyami and Jirou together, unfortunately. However, I believe they get along well. Based on the drama CD, it could even be inferred that they are friends, and most of their friendship just never made it on-screen.

What about TokoMomo?

We know that Yaoyorozu's self-confidence took a critical hit, after she lost against Tokoyami in the sports fest at lightening speed. She seemed to have been very shocked about how the match play out. We could assume, that she had been relatively self-confident previously. But we actually don't know, if it used to be more stable. And while Yaoyorozu's match with Todoroki against Aizawa gave her back some self-confidence; from then on, we're privy to more of her thoughts - most of them centered around self-doubt.

So either she'd never encountered a roadblock before losing against Tokoyami, and their match was to her, what her own assessment of Bakugou was to the latter. Or, Yaoyorozu has always been prone to second-guess herself a lot after encountering setbacks.

While he probably didn't pay half as much mind to his quick victory against Yaoyorozu as she did, we know that Tokoyami can be quite observant. I would have find his thoughts about their match, as well as the resulting consequences for Yaoyorozu's self-confidence, interesting.

How would these two interact, if they were to be alone with each other? How could they become closer friends?

During the festival, Tokoyami called Yaoyorozu "Yaomomo", using the affectionate nickname given to her by their classmates. Albeit not close, this might suggest a warm relationship between them.

Tangent: In contrast, Tokoyami still uses "Asui" instead of "Tsu-chan", despite Asui calling him "Tokoyami-chan". On the other hand, "Yaomomo" doesn't sound as intimate as "Tsu-chan". Thus Tokoyami might feel more comfortable using one nickname, but not the other. - Tangent end.