Chapter Text
It begins one summer afternoon.
"The fuck is this?"
"The fuck is your language, you fucking brat?"
There’s silence, then a tiny little exhausted sigh pierces through it.
"Why are you both like this." One Masaru Bakugo bemoans at the two other members of the household glaring death and gloom at each other.
He gets no answer. The mother and son duo are too busy trying to assert dominance over each other to bother with him. It’s a familiar tug of war in this household that most often than not Masaru wanted nothing to do with and yet? Here he was. Stuck in the middle between the love of his life and his beloved son, both ready to tear each other’s throats out.
So, the resigned father leaned forward and tapped his wife gently on the shoulder, whispering something softly into her ear. Mitsuki quickly lost her angry expression and that made it all the more confusing.
Katsuki watches this in befuddlement, lost by sudden change. His shitty ass parents were never affectionate out in public, nevertheless in front of him. At least, not unless they wanted to embarrass him, because his mother was just that kind of sadistic woman. It took quite a few drinks to get his mother to mellow out, so seeing she like this was a first.
Mitsuki sighs after a moment, pulling away from Masaru and urging him forward with a flick of her wrist. "Just, just come here, brat." She says, beckoning him to come over.
Surprised by her unexpected gentleness, Katsuki complies and walks towards her, only to have her bypass him and go towards the living room. Feeling even more lost, Katsuki can only follow.
His father is close on his heels, carrying the cause of their argument; a big cardboard box, larger than Katsuki’s head. The man carries it with some difficulty but limitless care, being extra delicate with his package as he lowers himself to set it gently on the floor, in the middle of the room.
Katsuki eyes it; for a large bare box it held quite the mystery to it -especially given how his parents quickly backed off to sit on the couch, leaving him standing there like an absolute idiot in the middle of their living room, the strange box at his feet.
His father smiles at him in that way that makes the corner of his eyes crinkle. That combined with his mother’s passivity does little to quell his dubiousness about the whole situation.
What are they planning to do?
"Open it!"
Katsuki's first thought in response is
how about no.
The youngest member of the household stares at his parents, then turns to look at the box. He knows he's eyeing it like he's expecting a clown to jump out of it, but his parents were acting like complete and utter creeps at the moment so he can't really blame himself. He has some self preservation skills, damn it.
Ha. Self preservation skills.
Funny.
…not like it saved him last month.
Shaking away that particular train of thought he absolutely
didn't
want to get into, Katsuki points at the box and looks at his parent, unimpressed.
"I'm not opening that shit." He tells them firmly. His mother's left eye twitches. A dangerous sign for anyone but Katsuki, who had been dealing with her since he’d been born. "For all I know, you put draft papers in there and next morning you're going to stick me in the military." Katsuki finishes, tilting his chin up. They had threatened to do it when he was younger and rowdier so fuck it, this was a perfectly valid response.
At the snide comment, his father makes a coughing sound and nearly drops his phone. A muttered
Katsuki
reaches his ears from his exasperated father and he watches as the man shakes his head, defeated. Standing resolutely at his side Mitsuki growls, low and displeased. The strange kindness of before had faded, thank fuck. It had been just too weird for him.
"Just fucking do it, Katsuki!"
"Why you getting all worked up, ya daft woman?!"
If he’s bristling, Mitsuki is a rattlesnake with the way she hisses at him. "What did you say, brat!?"
Katsuki bares his teeth in response. Just as Mitsuki seems to be ready to climb over the couch to strangle him, there's a loud, fake cough that makes them pause.
"Now, now!" His father raises his hands in a placating gesture. Both blondes turn to glare at him. "Just, please?" His eyes meet Katsuki's, gentle brown clashing with red. "It's not draft papers, I promise. It's just a gift, from us.
Please
open it."
Katsuki narrows his eyes at him. Still, the mollifying tone of his father has him relaxing his shoulders. Of his two parents, Masaru was the one he trusted more. He didn’t twist his words and try to trick him into doing things he didn’t want,
unlike
the old hag. Out of all three of them, he was the most sane.
"Fine."
The wide smile Masaru gives him as a result makes him snort. Soft bastard. How the man managed to survive Mitsuki for so long, nevertheless marry the crazy hag, he didn't know. And frankly? Katsuki didn't give a fuck. It wasn’t his problem what his parents’ relationship was like.
Katsuki looks down and eyes the box.
This though.
This he was giving just the slightest bit of a fuck.
Feeling like he's sitting down in front of the chopping block, Katsuki rests on his knees in front of the box. He spies Mitsuki taking out her phone, now pointing it at him alongside his father. Okay. Weird.
It doesn’t help his apprehension.
Annoyed, he barks out as he reaches for the top of the box, starting to open it:
"Why are you fucking filming this sh-"
The next thing he knows, his head snaps back as the top of the box comes flying off and smacks him in the face.
"Motherfucker!"
As he holds his bruised face with one hand, he hears Mitsuki howling like a demented hyena somewhere in front of him. Irritated, he turns bleary, rapidly blinking eyes towards his mother, ready to yell at her to fuck off before he flushes her phone down the toilet. But just as he tries to get up to give her a piece of his mind, Katsuki registers something.
There’s something moving on his lap. And it’s about to fall off, the strange mass tilting to the side; almost automatically Katsuki grabs the object, hands sinking into something incredibly soft and faintly wooly.
It squirms in his hands.
Holy shit it’s alive.
"What did you..." Opening his eyes, Katsuki starts talking -only to be rendered silent as he looks down and takes a close look at what’s on his lap.
He stares at the three black dots, lost.
Two of them blink back.
The third twitches.
It takes a few seconds for the teen's mind to register that these weren't black dots but instead two little dark eyes and a shiny wet nose.
What.
The squirming thing sniffles at him. Short, stumpy things that could barely be described as front legs wiggle pathetically inches from his chin.
"You got me a dog."
If his voice was higher pitched than usual, neither of his parents commented on it.
That's a first, because normally his mess of a mother would never miss an opportunity to laugh at his expense. Knowing this doesn't make Katsuki feel any better. He holds the thing up by under the shoulders, staring at this floppy, vaguely pillow-shaped thing with disgust.
Again, those two stumpy legs wiggle, quickly followed by its tail.
"Yes.” Mitsuki’s triumphant voice reaches his ears.
"A
dog.
"
"And we love you very much." His father says, gently but still in a way that made it seem like it was painful.
Katsuki grunts halfheartedly, examining his gift dubiously.
He's not sure what breed it is. In fact it didn't even
look
like a dog, more like a ball of cotton with six points for the legs, head and tiny stubby tail. Actually, everything looked stubby on this thing. The ears didn't even raise right -they were flopped down, framing the face of the animal. It looked more of a white, black and cream colored plushy than a living animal. It was a utter disgrace to all of its ancestors, truly.
Once, Katsuki contemplated getting a dog.
This fucking pincushion wasn't it.
"What do you think?"
It looks like something you'd find in those shitty claw games in the arcade.
“It's shit.” He says, setting it down. Katsuki eyes it as it wobbles away on its stubby legs, sniffing the ground. More to himself than his parents he mutters. "You're fucking hopeless. I hope you die."
The rat on legs seems to agree because the next thing he knows, it rams itself headfirst into the couch.
.
.
.
The inevitable comes up a few minutes later.
"What are you going to name her?"
"Queen Explo-"
"No."
"Fine. Queen Mu-"
This time it's Mitsuki who responds with a furious screech. "Fucking no! Don't be a brat!"
"Am not, hag! It's a perfectly accurate name!"
"Katsuki, please." His father pleads nervously from in between the two warring blondes. He turns pleading eyes towards his child. "Don't be like this. Give her a good name, son."
Quirking up an unimpressed eyebrow, Katsuki stares down at the offending piece of fluff at his feet. Said offending piece of fluff at his feet stares right back, all while happily chewing on the bottom of his left shoe. It sniffles it's nose at him, brown eyes blinking slowly with lazy pleasure as it continued to sharpen its tiny needle teeth on his boot.
Said owner of the molested boot looks up to meet his mother and father's expecting gaze. Masaru looked hopeful while Mitsuki waited at his side, her impatience betrayed by the sharp click of her painted nails against her phone cover.
"Well?"
He doesn’t like her impatience. Fine. Two can play that game.
Katsuki looks at them solemnly.
"Mistake."
Mitsuki gives up and chucks her phone at his head.
.
.
.
Eventually, Mistake gets shortened to Missy.