Chapter Text
Katsuki was angry. All. The. Time.
Most of the time, he didn’t know why. He wanted to break things. He wanted to scream. He wanted to smash his fists into the goddamn wall.
Instead, he lashed out at people. Said things he didn’t mean. Pushed people away. Sobbed on his fucking bathroom floor for hours at a time, unable to understand why he was the way he was.
He did it before showers so the sound of running water would muffle his whimpers, the hot tears stinging his eyes as they fell down his cheeks. He did it every other day as if a routine, planning his sleep and homework schedule around his breakdowns. And then he sat on the floor, leaned against the wall, and let it all out - all of the pent up emotions he’d been feeling since his last cry.
His fists banged lightly on the floor in defeat, sparks popping from his palms against his fingers, curled tight. He wiped at his eyes with the back of his hands, dropping them back down to his sides to sit limply and stare into space for a bit.
Before he dormed at UA, his parents had caught him crying a couple of times. They wanted to send him to therapy. Get him help. Maybe put him on medication. But what kind of a number one hero goes to therapy? Took medication? He wasn’t a weakling, he could handle it on his own, and so he started getting better at hiding it - at bottling it up, choking it down, stifling it into silence. Enraged, trapped silence.
Sometimes he thought maybe he was mad at Deku. That Deku was suddenly so strong, was the one All Might chose, was still so fucking nice to him. But he couldn’t ignore the fact he was angry before Deku was given One For All - he’d been angry for years, and it always boiled right back down to how much he fucking hated himself.
It was his own fault. No one else’s.
Lost in his thoughts, he didn’t even realize he was still crying, tears streaming down his face steadily as small fireballs popped and danced on his palms. He was broken, defenseless, the warmth of his own heat tingling against his skin. It was then he felt a burning sensation for the first time in his life, unsure what it was at first.
Katsuki had always had the ability to protect himself from his own explosions. The bursts he produced never burned his skin, his skin never blistered. But as he sat on the bathroom floor producing tiny pops on the pads of his fingers, the skin of his hip responded. Tentatively, he gripped at his hip, thumbing the bone protruding out, and let out an experimental mini explosion.
It hurt. Stung. Katsuki winced, sucked at his teeth, tilted his head back and squeezed his eyes shut tight.
And then he did it again. A couple more crackles against his milk white flesh, and then he pulled his hand away to see what he’d done. Fingerprint shaped burns stared back at him, bright pink and already threatening to boil. As he assessed the small wounds, he realized he’d stopped crying. He felt a calmness wash over him that he’d never felt before.
If he’d known his own quirk could bring such relief, he’d have started doing this a long time ago. Who knew letting down his defenses for a minute or two was all it would take for him to feel strong again, regain power over himself?
Katsuki stood up and took his shower. The warm water burned at his hip, reminding him of his newfound control. He pulled on a pair of sweatpants, tugging the waistband above his fresh burns, then headed out to the common area where the others were playing video games and studying.
He sat next to Kirishima, picked up a controller, and had fun. For the first time in a long time, Katsuki had fun. He laughed instead of yelled, he smiled instead of scowled.
And a few days later, when he felt the first signs of returning anger, he locked himself in the bathroom and added two new burns to his hip, right in between the barely healing wounds from the first time.
Burning himself seemed to last longer than crying - he could go nearly a week without having a breakdown if he burned himself, releasing so much in so little time and feeling alive instead of angry for a split second before a wave of being purely content kept him at bay.
It was faster, too - he used to spend nearly an hour before showering just getting the whole crying thing out of the way, and then he found himself unable to do anything but sleep afterwards. The breakdowns were debilitating - they took a lot out of him, and he felt like he’d just gotten the absolute shit beaten out of him after.
But when he burned himself? The relief was immediate, and he could go about his day within minutes. Sure, the burns were a little inconvenient - they were sore and itchy, but it wasn’t anything he wasn’t used to. He had healing wounds all the damn time. He could handle it. It was worth it, anyway - he was finally able to focus in class, have normal conversations with his friends, enjoy hobbies again.
Any time Katsuki felt something other than bliss at his newfound addiction, he burned himself again as a reminder. And so, the cycle continued, his life blooming all around him - blossoming friendships he’d never let himself nurture, already high grades skyrocketing to perfection, and a joy washing over his life like a watercolor portrait being painted.
He compared it to heroes risking their lives for the sake of others - sure, he was hurting himself, but if it was helping him be a better version of himself, it was worth it in the end. It was the same concept as All Might diving into danger - just because in Katsuki’s case it was self-inflicted, didn’t mean it wasn’t similar.
At least that’s what he told himself to convince himself he wasn’t a fucking idiot, an absolute weakling resorting to self-harm. The thoughts only made him hurt himself more. And more. And more.
And then he was months deep into burning himself, unable to stop.