Fruity

fruity

I absolutely adore realistic backgrounds like these with fictional characters😍

Maybe if things went differently they could've reached the shore

Alternative version

Kacchan becomes rather quiet for a long while after that.

He still uses his quirk, but as far as speaking, he kind of goes a bit mute.

What were the last things he was going to say to Deku? He wasn’t sure, but he knew they weren’t kind. What was the last thing he said to him, anyway?

Of course, he knew what Deku’s last words were.

“Kacchan!”

In a panicked tone, a little breathless from running up to him so suddenly and shoving him.

Right before a near deafening thud and the feeling of something wet on his cheek.

It just…

It really happened so fast.

And it all ended with Deku saving his life.

Usually, he’d be angry. He’d throw a tantrum over the uppity idiot thinking he needed saving.

But that could’ve been him.

That could’ve been him.

That should’ve been him.

A splatter on the concrete. A little arm, separated from the rest of his flattened body.

They had to scrape him off the walls and ground.

Deku saved him. Deku died saving him.

And where he’d usually be angry, he was only empty.

Because if “useless” Deku could save his life and die, how much more useless was he, someone with a quirk, that someone quirkless had to die for him?

…Katsuki doesn’t talk about heroes for a long while after that.

—

“Bakugou-san, your quirk is amazing!”

“Bakugou, you made it to the top of the class again. You’re very smart!”

“Bakugou-kun, you’re a very good student with a strong quirk. Have you ever been interested in being a hero?”

People tell him these things often, now that he thinks about it.

But every time they mention these things, he imagines himself below the debris that should’ve fallen on him.

“Your quirk is amazing!”

It wouldn’t have saved me.

“You’re very smart!”

But too stupid to avoid getting someone killed.

“–Interested in being a hero?”

…He made a great one, in the end.

Perhaps it wasn’t healthy, being so preoccupied by thoughts of someone who could never come back. Someone that Katsuki himself basically killed. He wasn’t strong or smart enough when it counted most, and Deku picked up the slack when no one asked him to.

…Now that he thought about it, Deku didn’t have a quirk, but other than that, there wasn’t anything to excessively bad about him. In fact, he saved him even without one. So what exactly was so bad about Deku?

What had been bad about him?

…A lot of things.

He was nosy. He was a creep. He didn’t know better when it counted. He couldn’t leave people alone. He always tried to be a hero, practically obsessed with it when people kept saying he couldn’t be one. 

Deku proved them all wrong.

Deku proved him wrong.

Maybe…if he hadn’t tried so hard, things could’ve turned out differently.

Katsuki knew he was part of the reason Deku tried so hard. After Deku turned out quirkless, Katsuki was among the first people to tell him he couldn’t be a hero. So he kept trying, over and over again.

…Well, he proved him wrong.

But Katsuki, when his spiraling thoughts went especially far, wasn’t sure he was quite worth saving.

After seeing Mina leap into action in an emergency, Kirishima felt discouraged but still had UA listed as his first choice for high school. He hadn't given up his hero dream yet.

It was only after Kirishima heard about another middle schooler jumping into action to save a classmate even without a quirk that he crossed out UA. Some people think of this moment as Kirishima being inspired by Izuku. But at least at first, this interpretation isn't supported by the text.

When it was just Mina beating him to the punch, he could chock it up to Mina being an ideal hero for modern society anyway. He could justify it by thinking "well not being faster than someone like her doesn't mean I'm not hero material too."

But then, a presumably quirkless kid had the guts to save someone when Kirishima could not. There were no excuses to make after knowing that. It forced Kirishima to reckon with the fact that he was weak in spirit. As much as Kirishima declared that quirks don't matter, in truth they did matter to him. Izuku going against the grain during the sludge incident demonstrated to Kirishima how complacent he was in his own assigned role and he felt ashamed.

Kirishima's view of Izuku (while not knowing it was about Izuku) was similar to Izuku's feelings about Mirio. It was not inspiration: it was discouragement. They felt they couldn't measure up to Izuku or Mirio either in spirit or in talent and almost gave up on their dreams as a result.

On another note, here are several other reasons Kirishima and Bakugou became fast friends. Kirishima thought of the moment in Bakugou's life that Bakugou was most ashamed of (until Kamino) as manly. Kirishima and Bakugou both felt insecure about people who embody this idea of a strong heroic spirit because at some level they both knew they lacked this trait in themselves early on in the series.

happy pride to all the gay people who believe in lifetime committment

how can you look at me like that