Chapter Text
Katsuki notices it again at the summer training camp--not the presence of scars but the curious feeling he gets when he sees them on Deku's hands.
If he were to pinpoint when they started bothering him, it probably goes back to their quirk assessment test. Such a simple task as throwing the ball totally destroyed the nerd's finger. Katsuki wouldn't admit it, but he hasn't known peace since.
He still has no idea what Deku's quirk is, and his best clue--his only clue, for that matter--is Deku's hands. If he's had it since they were young, why couldn't he seem to regulate it? How long has he had it? Why didn't he tell Katsuki?
And why the hell is the nerd letting his power break his body over and over again?
Katsuki figures that his best chance of finding out is by paying close attention to those ugly hands. Rough around the edges, unlike Katsuki's barely-blemished ones. Crooked in places and out of proportion. Too big for his own good.
Tch, easy. Shitty Deku practically flaunts it when he flails them about while talking with the extras, or when he pinches his bottom lip while muttering nonsense. And no wonder his handwriting is scrawny as ever, since he couldn't hold a pen without squeezing it close to breaking.
That's right--Katsuki will be the first to figure out Deku's quirk all on his own, and then he's gonna shove it at that stupid freckled face as soon as he gets the answer.
But by the time summer comes around, Deku stops relying solely on his hands. The rest of his body seems to have powered up, too, and it didn't make things easier for Katsuki to narrow down.
Yet Katsuki couldn't stop watching those hands.
They're stacking wood for the late night bonfire at camp; Deku had volunteered to collect and sort the branches while Katsuki is tasked with igniting the fire. Like a force of habit, as soon as Deku sets down the wood on the ground, he takes his hand between thumb and forefinger, steadily running them along the ridges from his wrist to the webbing of his fingers. Katsuki had noticed him doing it when the first training session concluded. His eyes follow the movement in the dim of the rising moon.
"Kacchan?" Deku says, tilting his head.
"Huh?" Katsuki growls, released from his momentary trance. Peripherally, he could see Deku keep at...whatever he's doing.
"Um, the fire... You're supposed to start it, right?"
"Tch, don't tell me what to do." Katsuki squats down before the pile of wood and opens out his palms, hands hovering mere centimeters away as though he is containing something very fragile in the space between. Deku gets down beside him, and as tiny sparks escape his heated palms, Katsuki swears he hears the nerd release a quiet gasp.
Katsuki spares him a quick glance as he controls the little explosions with precision, careful to create a flame that neither blows up the kindling nor dies out too soon. He wonders whether the glint in Deku's stupid wide eyes is from the reflection of his quirk or something else.
"That's really pretty, Kacchan," Deku says with awe.
"What, you've never seen me light a fire before?" Katsuki mutters.
For a moment, the two fall silent with only the sound of wood cracking between them as a bloom of light and heat sprouts up. Katsuki looks to his side, but his eyes instinctively fall on Deku's hands, folded over his knees as he watches the growing flame. They look battered and bruised, overworked from the day's labors, but amid the glow of warm colors and dancing shadows, a strange feeling overcomes Katsuki.
Those are the hands he used to take as a child, the hands that never failed to reach out to him. The hands that he keeps slapping away. And now, just like the boy sitting beside him, they've grown into something he could hardly recognize. What his power could do, what he hides from the world... None of it makes sense, but Katsuki could almost admit that it's fearsome, and admirably so.
Then, Deku exhales audibly, and Katsuki figures he must have debated in his head what he's going to say. Katsuki is about to tell him to shut it, but the nerd beats him to it.
"It's just that lately, I only see your quirk in its terrifying greatness," he says. His eyes soften, as though he is watching a pleasant memory unfold before him. "But when your hands do something like that, I..."
Deku's voice trails off as the other students call out to them and approach the bonfire. He gets to his feet so swiftly that Katsuki just barely catches the curious expression on his face. What was he going to say? What was it about Katsuki's hands...?
Deku walks up to his friends and takes the seat farthest from Katsuki on the opposite point of the circle, exactly where they would be obscured from each other's view. Whatever strange glimmer Katsuki thought he'd felt in his chest immediately dies out. He's probably just imagining it anyway, and more importantly, he hasn't made any progress.
Katsuki still doesn't know what shitty Deku's quirk is.