Chapter Text
Katsuki had been staring down at Aiko’s messaging app for about 30 minutes. He hadn’t even attempted to type anything. His mind was completely blank. He glanced back up at his birth mother’s phone number again before sighing under his breath. He hadn’t expected this to be easy but he thought he would be able to think of something . Now that he was starting to get frustrated, it was even harder to think.
He had plenty of memories of Aiko setting up meetings with Mitsuki only to get a text just minutes before they were supposed to see each other with some excuse. At first, he was upset that she’d forgotten about him or just simply had better things to do. However, after a little over a year of blown off meetings, he wasn’t even bothered when her visitation rights got revoked. He’d always wanted an answer though. He’d always wanted an explanation. His party might be his chance to get one. If he could just figure out this first step.
“Still stuck?” Aiko asked as she walked by with a fully loaded laundry basket.
“Yeah.” he huffed, laying the phone on the arm of the chair. “What am I even supposed to say to her?”
“Maybe you should start by asking how she’s been? Then let her know that you heard about her wanting to come to the party.”
He picked up the phone again but just stared at it before sighing heavily. His eyebrows were furrowed together and his lips were pressed into an unhappy line as he tried to focus on the screen again. She knew exactly how he felt. He despised not being able to do something, especially something he knew needed to be done. It was an unfortunate drawback at being naturally good at everything.
She readjusted the basket on her hip as she added. “I know it’s not easy. Don’t rush yourself. You have plenty of time.”
“I know. Maybe this is a bad idea.”
“If you’re having second thoughts about her coming, that’s okay. You can still change your mind.” she told him again.
“I can handle it.” he assured. “I just don’t know what to say right now.”
As he leaned his head back against the chair and growled softly in aggravation, she sat the basket down. “Here. Let me help you out a little.”
“You don’t have to do it for me. I’m not a little kid.”
She walked around the chair to sit on the sofa. “I’m not doing everything for you. I’m just giving you a starting point. You can change anything you need to.”
He looked at the phone then back at her. Maybe it won’t hurt to let her assist him just a bit. He certainly wasn’t getting anywhere on his own. So he relented and handed her the phone. She typed for a moment as Touya entered the room.
“Mom, can you run me to town really quick?”
Without looking up from the phone, she answered. “I’m helping Katsuki with something at the moment. What did you need?”
“I’ve been thinking that I want to dye my hair. I was going to grab some box dye.”
“You know that stuff is bad for your hair, right?” Katsuki said.
He gave him an unamused look. “Don’t you have homework or something to do?”
“What color are you thinking about doing?” Aiko asked, trying to defuse the tension before the already annoyed Katsuki took his irritation out on his sibling.
“Black probably. I thought it would suit me.”
“I think that would look great on you. If you’d rather go somewhere and have it professionally done, we can do that next week. It might be less stressful than trying to do it yourself.”
“It’d be cheaper to just get the stuff from the store.” he said, crossing his arms.
“Well, yes, but I don’t mind paying for it. If that’s what you want, I can see if Kyo will take you on her day off. Here, Firework, read this and see if it’s okay.” she replied, passing her phone back over to Katsuki.
He read it over. It was simple enough but didn’t seem cold. It read: ‘Hey, it’s Katsuki. I heard you were thinking of coming to my birthday party. I wanted to see if it was okay to talk to you beforehand since it’s been a while. Is that okay?’
It didn’t quite sound like him so he deleted the last line and reworked the line before to ‘ Can we talk first? ’. That was better. It sounded less professional that way. Not that he could really blame Aiko for that. She sent a lot of time writing formal emails, not impersonating 13 year old boys. It would work just to get the conversation started. He took a deep breath in and hit send before handing the phone back with a quiet ‘thanks’.
“No problem at all. I’ll let you know if she texts back, okay?”
“Yeah, I know. I was going to go see one of my friends for a while. I’m not going to be gone long.” he said as he got up.
“It’s about to rain. Maybe you could just call him instead? I know how much you hate being out when the weather is bad.”
This was important though. At least, he was pretty sure it was. If the conversation was going the way he expected, he didn’t want anyone to overhear it. So he grabbed a jacket off the rack and opened the door anyway.
“I’ll be quick. I’m not going far.”
“I’d really rather you didn’t.” Aiko stated, picking up the basket again.
“Hey, that’s Mom code for ‘don’t go’, brat. Just call your friend and tell them that you can meet them tomorrow when the weather is better.” Touya said.
“I don’t want anyone eavesdropping on me! I’d rather just talk to him in person.”
“You can go into my bathroom if you want. No one will be able to hear you if you close the bedroom door too.” Aiko suggested.
With that, he relented and hung his coat back up before heading to her bedroom. He sat on the counter by the sink and pulled up Kariage’s number before taking a deep breath and hitting the call. It went to voicemail the first time so he tried again. This time, he got an answer.
“Hey, sorry. I was helping my dad with something. What’s up?”
“Hey.” he said, voice coming out a little cracked for some reason. He cleared his throat and added. “It’s about to rain. Just tell me whatever it was over the phone.”
Silence filled the line for a moment before he asked, “I kinda got tied up with something anyway. I just wanted to ask if you think your moms would let you go to a concert a few towns over.”
“What makes you think I’d want to go on a little road trip with you and Ryo?”
“Oh, no. It’d just be me and you.”
Why was his heart starting to thump hard again like it had at the pool? There was no reason to think he meant anything by it. They were just going as friends. Which is all they were and that’s what Katsuki wanted them to be. Right?
“I’ll see what I can do. Is that all you wanted? You could have just said that in a text.”
“Yeah, that’s all. Sorry for almost dragging you in the rain just for that.” Kariage laughed.
Even his laugh sounded different. Katsuki genuinely started to wonder if he could handle being alone with Kariage that long.
“You’d better be glad you didn’t.” he replied, standing up and walking over to the door. “If that’s all you wanted, I’m gonna go before my brother comes to bug me.”
“Alright. The concerts next weekend. Not this one because it’s your birthday obviously. I mean the one after.”
“Yeah, I get it. I’ll let you know what they say.”
“Okay, good. Bye, Katsuki.”
“Yeah, bye.”
He hung up and rested his forehead up against the door. He got a glimpse of his reflection and rolled his eyes when he realized that his cheeks were a little pink. This whole thing was ridiculous. It came out of nowhere and he didn’t know how to make it stop. He didn’t want anyone to know about this. Touya would have an absolute field day. Aiko and Kyo would find it cute. Shoto would probably just ask a ton of questions. So it was better to just keep it to himself for now.
He heard Aiko call for him so he headed back into the living room. Shoto was in there now, playing on his phone. Probably texting Deku. He fought the urge to look over his shoulder and went into the kitchen to find Aiko who was grabbing a glass of water.
“You called?”
She sat the glass on the counter before reaching into the pocket of her pajama pants. “I did. She texted back. I didn’t read it. If you want to go ahead and reply, you can. I’ll leave my phone on the counter. I’m not using it much today.”
“Okay. I’ll read it in a few minutes. I’m gonna grab a snack first.’
“I got more grapes since Sho finished them off the other day. I’m about to have to go to the store again for your party stuff. You still want the stuff you asked before, right?”
“Yeah, I haven’t changed my mind. Even if Touya did get me shit for picking a vanilla cake.” he said, getting a small plastic bowl down from the cabinets.
“He just has a bit of a sweet tooth so it’s probably hard for him to understand why you don’t like chocolate that much. He just got his own cake in January, so he’ll survive.”
While putting some grapes in a bowl, he replied, “He gets his way enough as it is.”
“You two are always at odds. I wish you two wouldn’t argue so much.” she sighed.
That wasn’t the first time she’d said that. It always made him feel a little bad when she did though. He wasn’t really good at being friends with anyone. He and Shoto didn’t fight constantly, but he wasn’t sure if you could call it ‘getting along’ most days. Shoto got along with other people, like Deku and Touya. So why couldn’t he? It wasn’t necessarily that he didn’t want to. He just… didn’t. Was that the reason he’d never wanted a relationship? Because it didn’t feel possible? Great, now he couldn’t stop thinking about that .
“You seem a little anxious. Is everything okay?” Aiko asked suddenly, voice soft and maternal enough not to startle him despite being neck deep in his own thoughts.
“Just a lot on my mind.”
“You know, Wednesday is visitation day for Touya and Shoto. Do you have any plans for that day yet?”
Every two weeks, the other two got to go see their siblings for a few hours. Ever since they were little, Aiko made it a tradition to do something with Katsuki while they were gone. Even if, occasionally, it was just running errands for the most part. He’d genuinely hoped that she hadn’t noticed that he never had plans on that day. As childish as it was, he liked having time alone with her since her time was always so divided. This time was no different.
“No, I don’t. What did you have in mind?”
“Well, since you’re so passionate about it and we’d get to visit Kyo’s new office, I was thinking about going on a tour of the U.A. if you want to.”
Well, of course he wanted to! She could tell right away too because his eyes lit up before he had the chance to try and bury his reaction. It was one of the things she admired about him. No matter how hard he tried to keep his emotions under wraps, his eyes always gave them away. True to form though, he shrugged his shoulders as he picked up a grape and inspected it.
“I guess that’d be fine.”
She hummed fondly before rinsing out her glass and sitting it back on the drying mat. “I’ve been meaning to ask. Are you planning on inviting Izuku this year? I know you two haven’t really been talking much.”
He looked toward the living room. “You really think Sho would talk to me if I didn’t?”
“Have you been talking to Mrs. Tanaka about this?”
“Yes.” he lied without hesitation. “Can we not talk about this right now? I have enough on my mind as it is.”
“You’re right. I’m sorry.” she said, about to exit the room. “Is there anything else going on that you’re not telling me?”
He hated when she did this. Because he knew as soon as he answered, she’d look at her nails to see if he was lying. Her quirk made her a great therapist but a frustrating parent sometimes. He thought about it for a moment as he went over his answer in his head.
“There’s nothing I want to talk about right now.” he replied, hoping the wording was vague enough that her quirk won’t catch it.
He noticed her glance down subtly before nodding. “Alright. I’m here if you need me.”
“I know. You tell me that all the time.” he replied, eyeing her phone on the counter. “I think I’m ready to see what she said.”
Aiko passed the phone over to him and he read over the message. Sure. What do you want to talk about? She had no idea how annoying that question was considering how much he’d struggled with this today. Nevertheless, he thought about it for a moment before typing something back.
How’s therapy going?
Good, I feel like I’m making a lot of progress. How’s school?
It’s fine. I’m on track to go to U.A
Good to hear. I have someone that I wanted you to meet. Do you mind if I bring them with me?
He rolled his eyes. Probably a new boyfriend or something. Considering that she’d liked his dad, her taste in men wasn’t terrible so he said she could bring whoever it was. Then he sat the phone down and went to get more grapes. He had a lot to be thinking about. For right now, he was just going to focus on making it to Wednesday.