Chapter Text
It is said that the difference between orderly civilization and violent anarchy is seven missed meals.
Coincidentally, it is said that the difference between a brilliant hero and an unspeakable villain is seven bad days.
These are just sayings, of course. You couldn't even call either of them proverbs, really. They have the gravitas, certainly, but they do not have the same weight to them; they do not have the same feeling of history to them. These are not turns of phrase you would hear from the wrinkled lip of the wizened elder, imparted as words of great wisdom upon the malleable mind of the young child. But that is not the reason that these quotes remain simple turns of phrase, unable to bridge the gap to true greatness; to true wisdom.
Nor do these phrases get down to the root of what they are trying to say as quickly as they should. They do not have the concision, the brevity, the pith. To put it bluntly; they're too damn long.
Take, for instance, the preeminent proverb of the English language: ignorance is bliss. Look at this marvel of expression. Its construction is a thing of utmost beauty. Noun, verb, noun. There is no fat anywhere to be seen on this phrase; no unnecessary adjectives or adverbs in sight. This proverb is kilograms of succulent meat enveloping three words of sturdy bone. Truly delectable.
But these two phrases we have here? You cannot even begin to compare them! Just look at all the unnecessary words on these things! "Orderly"? "Brilliant"? "Unspeakable"?! How are you supposed to digest these phrases with the sheer volume of fat that must be cut out? There is no flavour, no substance, no meat to be had here. To refer to phrases that waste this much of your time as proverbs would be an insult to the term itself.
But that is not the reason that these quotes remain mere turns of phrase.
The real problem is that these phrases do not carry the same universality as a true proverb. Once again, one should consider the most universal proverb of them all: ignorance is bliss. The meaning of this phrase is one which every human on this earth can relate to, regardless of whether they are familiar with the specific phrase itself. Even if you do not understand the English language, if someone were to accurately explain its meaning in your preferred language, you would understand wholeheartedly. Every human on this earth can metaphorically point to a moment in their life where they learned something they were better off not knowing. Everyone has experienced regret. Everyone understands regret. Not everyone has experienced true hunger, the pain that wracks your body when it is deprived of the energy it needs to function. Not everyone understands the desperation that sets in when your body has begun to consume itself for lack of alternatives.
But Midoriya Izuku does.
Not everyone understands what it is to be brilliant. Not everyone understands what it is to be unspeakable.
Not everyone has the potential to be a hero or a villain.
But Midoriya Izuku does.
Bakugou Katsuki does not understand.
There really should be another word or two there at first glance, but if you think about it, more detail really isn't necessary. There are just so many things that this young child does not understand that to list them all would be an even greater waste of time than writing two pages of text about what is and what isn't a proverb.
The worst part is, two pages wouldn't even be enough. Not even close.
Regardless, we have to talk about some of the things young Katsuki does not understand. Though the list of Things Which Bakugou Katsuki Does Not Understand is long, we can save a lot of time by rewriting it as a list of Very Important Things Which Bakugou Katsuki Does Not Understand. You could still find a handful of useless tidbits of information here; we do not need to know that this seven-year-old does not understand trigonometry despite his attempts to wrap his head around the concept (although it is very admirable for him to even try). To correct this, we need to rewrite it again as a list of Very Important Things Which Bakugou Katsuki Does Not Understand, Whose Very Importance Bakugou Katsuki Does Not Understand.
A bit of a mouthful, but now we're at the good stuff. At least this list is much shorter than its gargantuan title would imply; only four entries to be seen. Though you should not let the brevity of this list lead you to believe that its contents are somehow unimportant. That would be silly; the word important is in the title. Twice! They are especially important concepts for young Katsuki, who wants more than anything to be the greatest hero the world has ever seen, to understand. After all, you can't be a great hero—or at least, the kind of great hero young Katsuki envisions himself as—without understanding pain.
I don't mean for that to be interpreted as "Katsuki needs to understand what it's like to feel pain"; while it is certainly quite important for a hero to be able to handle physical and psychological pain in healthy ways, it is not what I mean at this time. He needs to understand what pain is like for others, not just himself. He certainly understands what it feels like for himself to make others feel pain, but we're talking about things he doesn't understand here. He doesn't understand how much more intense pain is when the source of it is something—or someone—you care about. It hurts more when something you care about is broken.
It hurts more when someone you care about breaks you.
And Bakugou Katsuki understands neither of these things. Perhaps one day, he will. Perhaps one day he will truly understand the pain he has inflicted on people; the pain he does inflict on people; the pain he will inflict on people.
But that day is not today.
And that is a tragedy.
Nor does he understand what it means to be brilliant. He understands what it means to be bright, at the least (he did find himself in a position where he reached out to trigonometry at the age of seven in search of a challenge, after all) but being bright is not the same as being brilliant. A match is bright. The sun is brilliant.
Bakugou Katsuki is bright.
All Might is brilliant.
Young Katsuki doesn't really understand All Might either, but that isn't very important right now. He certainly thinks he understands the Symbol of Peace. He certainly thinks he understands the hero who defeats every villain with the same practiced ease, who strikes fear into the hearts of every person whose actions are anywhere near what can be considered villainy, who saves every single person every single time he appears, who always wears the same perfect smile that puts hope in the eyes of every single person who sees it.
He certainly thinks he understands the components that make up the pillar of society's hope. But he focuses too much on the first and second components, and not at all about the third and fourth. Why should Katsuki care at all about the people he saves when there are still villains they need to be saved from? Why should he even think about smiling when there are so many people in the world who would feel excitement at the thought of taking his smile and putting it in the dirt? Why should he worry about any kind of hope other than the hope that villains feel when they think for just a moment that they may have escaped the notice of the great hero Bakugou Katsuki; the hope that is so thoroughly crushed when the great hero Bakugou Katsuki himself knocks down the villain's precious walls of safety and gives the villains exactly what they deserve? Why should he think about the civilians when he needs to prepare for the villains?
Why should he think about the weak when he needs to prepare for the strong?
And that is why Bakugou Katsuki does not understand how to be brilliant. Perhaps one day, he will. Perhaps one day he will truly understand that being brilliant is more than just fighting villains; that it is more than just being victorious. Perhaps one day he will understand that a truly brilliant hero helps people not to because they want to be victorious, but simply because they want to help.
But that day is not today.
And that is a tragedy.
One thing young Katsuki does understand, however, is what it means to be unspeakable. He understands what it means to be so awful, so terrible, so dreadful that people are unwilling to even speak your name for fear of the consequences. He understands very well what it means to be unspeakable, and I am not certain he even realizes it.
And that is the greatest tragedy yet.
I hope none of this gives you the idea that young Katsuki doesn't care about the weak. He cares a great deal about the weak; they're a large part of why he wishes to be strong, after all. In his young mind, it is only through the efforts of the strong that the weak are even able to safely be weak. Without strong heroes around to defeat those who see the weak only as tools or play-things or perhaps even fuel, who knows what would happen to them?
And speaking of the weak and of caring, there is one particular person young Katsuki does not understand, has never understood, and perhaps never will understand. And that brings us to the third entry on the list.
You see, Bakugou Katsuki understands every single individual on this earth more than he will ever understand Midoriya Izuku.
That really shouldn't be on this list, seeing as Katsuki realizes that he doesn't understand Izuku. But his understanding is so far in the negatives that I'm going to count it anyway.
There are many reasons why he doesn't understand Izuku, of course. The most straightforward reason is that Izuku, in young Katsuki's mind, is the very definition of weak. He breaks out in tears at the drop of a hat. He falls over so frequently you'd be forgiven for thinking that he doesn't know what to do with his feet. His stuttering and stammering leave him using more syllables on each word than the average person uses per sentence. He would never be able to beat a villain; all they'd have to do is make fun of his mom and they'd be able to get away scot-free, with Izuku so distracted with his grief to even remember what the villain looked like. Hell, he doesn't even have a Quirk. He's at such a disadvantage that he wouldn't even be able to take on a violent cat, let alone even one of the leagues of villains that are easily defeated by the hero he idolizes.
And Izuku doesn't even care about any of these things. He isn't even aware of any of the things that make him weak. And he still thinks he could be called a hero the way he is; he still thinks that for someone so weak to call themselves a hero isn't an insult to those who are truly heroes. To those who are truly strong.
But most bafflingly of all-
"Why don't you even try, Deku?"
-is that Izuku doesn't even try.
Despite how he may look, young Katsuki thinks about a lot of things. Rather, he thinks a lot about some things. Mostly trigonometry as of late, as it's one of the two major puzzles in his life that he hasn't been able to solve quite yet.
Today, however, young Katsuki is thinking about the second major puzzle in his life. One he's been trying to solve for as long as he's known what a puzzle even is, one which frustrates him more and more every time he takes a crack at it.
And right now, for the third time that day, said puzzle is crying on the ground after tripping over a stray rock.
And Katsuki was ready to take another crack at it.
"God, have you ever seen yourself? Do you realize how pathetic you are? How can you expect to ever be a hero when you're this weak? When you haven't even tried to stop being weak?"
Izuku wasn't crying anymore, but Katsuki didn't notice. Now he was listening.
And Katsuki didn't notice.
"You're a stuttering mess; when you get distracted you distract everyone else with you; you fall over so much it's like you don't even know how to use your feet; if someone made fun of your mom they'd be able to do whatever they wanted in front of you because you'd be too busy crying; you can't even run two laps without needing to sit down for half an hour to rest; you'd lose a fight with a cat if it stood still and ignored you-" and the rant continued. Perhaps this rant wasn't even meant for Izuku's ears; perhaps Katsuki simply wished to vent some of his frustration so it would shrink enough that he could fit a leash around it.
But Izuku was listening.
And if only Katsuki noticed.
"-you don't know how to do anything except read and talk and you're not even very good at that second one," Katsuki finally paused for a moment to catch a breath. "And you don't even have a damn Quirk! There are so many things that make you weak, and you haven't even tried to overcome any of them! How can you say you're going to be a hero when you don't even try?"
Katsuki finally ended his rant, huffing and puffing as Izuku sat in silence. But Izuku didn't sit for long. It was only a few seconds after the end of Katsuki's rant that Izuku quite literally fell over himself trying to get to his feet, before he ran off in the opposite direction of where they were going. Katsuki could only sigh in disgust. They were already walking home to begin with; it was just like Izuku to get upset and run off to God-knows-where for God-knows-how-long. Now it was once again up to Katsuki to find the little shrimp and drag him back home before his mother flooded the neighbourhood with her tears. At least Auntie Inko's gonna make some good food when we get back, he thought to himself.
But young Katsuki wouldn't get his delicious bowl of katsudon as he brought Auntie Inko's useless son back from the woods he got himself lost in.
What he got instead were the shouts of an angry mother as she vented her fears about what could have happened to Katsuki for him to make it back home so many hours after they were supposed to be back; so many hours after Izuku had already made it home.
And so, rather than feeling satisfaction at having possibly solved the puzzle who called him Kacchan, he was feeling exhausted at having wandered around lost for hours trying to find someone who had already made it home safely. He was feeling hungry at being sent to bed without supper for scaring his parents so much. He was feeling frustration at useless Deku for tricking him like that, pretending to get lost in the forest so he could make Katsuki look like an idiot.
And after some screaming at Izuku the next day for reasons Izuku pretended he didn't understand, Katsuki would never look back on this day again.
But we aren't done here yet. I told you there were four things on the list, remember? Very Important Things Which Bakugou Katsuki Does Not Understand, Whose Very Importance Bakugou Katsuki Does Not Understand.
He doesn't understand the meaning of pain.
He doesn't understand the meaning of brilliance.
He really doesn't understand Midoriya Izuku.
And he doesn't understand exactly what had happened that day.
But of course he doesn't understand what happened that day. He would never look back at that day. Even if he did, he would only think of the feeling of being sent to bed sick and tired and hungry because useless Deku decided to pull a prank on him. He would never think about what the prank was, or about any of the things he said to Izuku that day. He would never think about how much of an impact the words he said that day would have. He would never realize how many tragedies could be connected to those words from that day. He would never realize how great of a catastrophe would occur in the future as a result of the things he said that day. He would never be able to count every death that would occur in the next decade, nor would he realize how many could be traced back to those five careless words he said to young Midoriya Izuku that day.
After all, why would he ever think about that day? It's not like useless Deku ever listened to anything Katsuki said, right?
But Izuku would.
And Izuku did.