The Art of Listening

Chapter 8 - Get Bent, Old Hag

Izuku

"Let's go over this again to make sure that I'm not messing anything up," Izuku said, sending the blond beside him a worried look. "Your parents are fashion designers. Your dad has always been designing, and your mom used to model. She's since switched over to designing."

"Uh huh," Katsuki said in a bored tone.

"And you used to model for them when you were a kid," Izuku mused. "I wonder if there's any pictures? Should I ask them? I think that that would be a good thing to bond with them over. I'm sure you'd be really cute-"

"Absolutely fucking not."

"But Kacchan!" he said, taking hold of the blond's hand and intertwining their fingers together.

The pair had just stepped off of the train into the warm, afternoon sun. The summer breeze blew through their hair, messing with the styles that Kacchan had spent too long on that morning. It was an amicable walk through a small, cozy town, one that Izuku could honestly see himself living in in the future. But the end destination had his stomach in knots.

Nervous was the simple way to explain his current feelings. A twisted, convoluted web of anxiety and fear was the complex way. How was he supposed to feel when meeting his boyfriend's parents? They were the people who had raised him. The people who had shaped him into the person that he had become in his adult years. They were the people who, ultimately, would approve or disapprove of him. It didn't matter if Katsuki liked him. It mattered if he gave a good impression on them. He wouldn't be able to live with himself if he didn't.

"They're just my parents, Deku," Katsuki groused. But he didn't shake away Izuku's hand, which made the shorter of the two smile. "I don't know what you're getting worked up about. They're nothin' special."

"They're not 'just your parents'. They're important, and I have no idea how to impress them or even make them like me," he bemoaned. It only earned a sly smirk and a few chuckles from his boyfriend. "Why are you laughing at my pain and suffering, Kacchan?"

"Sorry not sorry, Freckles. It's fuckin' funny. The old man and the hag aren't anything to get this bent out of shape over," Katsuki said.

Izuku pouted slightly. It was something to get bent out of shape over. He'd been dating Katsuki since mid-May. It was now the end of June, and they had just decided to meet each other's parents. Seeing as his parents lived a heckuva lot farther away from the school than Katsuki's parents, they decided to visit Izuku's parents over his birthday weekend. It would kill multiple birds with one stone, visiting for his birthday and introducing his boyfriend, among other things. Of course, Kacchan had fought him on the date a little bit, but he'd eventually conceded. They'd decided to have dinner with the Bakugous first. That meeting was tonight. That meeting was about to be absolutely terrifying.

Izuku couldn't exactly assume it would go well based on the result of the phone conversation his boyfriend had had with his mother. He'd called just last week to try and get the plans in motion. From the sound of it, it didn't go well. There seemed to be a lot of yelling, and seeing as his hearing aids wouldn't pick up the small sounds coming from the blond's phone, he'd only heard the one half of the conversation. But. Katuski had yelled. A lot. At his mother. Many choice words had been said, and that didn't lead Izuku to believe that this would go just fine, as the other had insisted it would. He was nervous and worried and a boatload of other emotions despite Katsuki's assurances that absolutely nothing would go wrong.

Katsuki breathed out a sigh beside him, and his fingers tightened around Izuku's. "They're not going to hate you, Izuku," his boyfriend said. "I think they're really going to fuckin' like you, actually."