Not A Bad Idea

Not a Creature was Stirring...

CyberLife.Co Christmas Gala is a party filled with sparkling champagne, surface-level conversations, fake smiles, stuffy suits, and comparing everything from the size of one's house to the grades of family members.

Also, Shouto's personal little hell, the New Year's Gala a close second but the plethora of drunk rich people make it enjoyable, and the fact Tenya and Momo go to the party so they judge people's drunken mistakes together.

Shouto was able to get out of his father's debate about academic achievements when he was able to bring up the fact Natsuo made the top 10 in his engineering class exam, effectively throwing his brother under the bus when his Enji spotted him and called him over. Shouto slowly stepped back from the conversation, then easily pinpointed his sister's location by the refreshments.

Fuyumi looked to be actually enjoying the party while she chatted with someone her height, but by the looks of it, could snap somebody in half. The lady had long white hair and arms carved by God themself. And once Shouto noticed his sister's signature 'you're caring, funny, sweet, and also my type' hair behind the ear tuck, he left them alone making a mental note to pry for more information later.

As Shouto attempted to move himself to the sidelines of the party to become part of the wall for the better part of the gala, someone decided to collide with his back.

•• ━━━━━ ••●•• ━━━━━ ••

"But you don't get it Katsuki!" Sakiko screeched across the table, game pieces moving when she slams her hand on the table. "Leaving the piece on the fucking board after you kill it, instead of placing it back at the home is rude and disrespectful."

"I see no rule, I see no problem," Katsuki shrugged, eating some of the cookies.

"You're lucky all the kids are in the basement with your uncle Murray, he's the only one that actually likes hanging out with them," Hikari scolded, slicing some more rum cake for herself.

"How did all of you snag some nice, quiet, peaceful person, and convince them to marry you?"

"What the fuck you talking about, I married an unstable dork," Tadashi, one of Katsuki's older cousins, scoffed as he pointed to the sliding door to the backyard. "See that person who is currently playing in the snow, trying to make this entire family into snow people, yeah that's my husband."

"Saying that like you won't hug and kiss him, take photos with 'em too," Mistuki cooed as she teased her nephew.

"At least your husband can cook," Tadashi pointed to the kitchen where some adults were preparing the food for tomorrow.

"Yeah, she can't cook for shit, the old man had to teach me," Katsuki snarked as got up to get more juice for himself and escape whatever rant his mother was about to go on.

"Hey! You little prick-" Mitsuki cut herself off with a sigh and shook her head fondly. "He's just like me, ain't he?"

"Carbon-fucking-copy," Hikari chuckled. "But he's a good kid nonetheless, head might be upside down, but not backwards. Shame he ain't a Nakatomi, don't know why I got rid of that name when I was married, it just rolls off the tongue."

"Stop making him seem like a wonderful child born from the tears of angels," Sakiko groaned as she got up, "Speaking of angels, I'm continuing to harass Kat into showing me a picture of that mystery man who called him that sounds like one."

"Katsuki has friends?" Tadashi squawked. "I only thought he hung out with that green hair boy, who's like the sun, but human."

"He's got a few actually, I've seen them outside a lot when they wanted him to join them in the summer, they looked like a swell bunch of kids," Mitsuki mumbled a bit as she sipped her wine, red of course.

"Tell me about it, Sakiko friends are not allowed to hang out here unless they have parent supervision cause they once almost set fire to the house."

"I ain't letting a single one of Kat's friends into my house unless I know they're nice, I no longer trust Izuku, he never told me he had a boyfriend, I had to find out through Katsuki. I'm his favourite aunt, I feel betrayed."

•• ━━━━━ ••●•• ━━━━━ ••

"Shit," the person cursed under their breath as they steadied themself. "I'm so sorry, I didn't mean to run into you."

"No, no, it's alright," Shouto reassured as he turned around to look at them, quickly noticing something rather funny. "You have really nice eyes."

"Than-" they were going to say, as if on autopilot, then they looked Shouto in the eyes. "Oh, you have heterochromia too, you're not using the one compliment that makes me want to gouge my eyes out."

"Tell me about it, I have a perfected fake smile so I don't seem completely put off by it."

"People can't be creative, eh?"

Shouto narrowed his eyes at the person in suspicion. "You're not Canadian are you?"

"You can tell?" they lowered their voice into a whisper. "I thought I was doing good."

"The unnecessarily excessive apology early was smooth, the 'eh?' was really clunky. Accent was a little scratchy too."

"I've been practicing, but I guess my friends were lying to me."

"I'm Shouto, but you can call me Todoroki," Shouto stuck his hand out as a greeting.

"Markus Manfred," Markus shook his hand. "And I'm from Detroit, not Canada."

•• ━━━━━ ••●•• ━━━━━ ••

"Everyone up to bed, or you're all going to pass out as soon as the presents are done tomorrow," Tadashi said as he herded the kids with Murray. "Also the parents want to play Just Dance for some reason."

"Can I not see that?" Takayuki groaned as he walked back to the stairs with the wave of children.

"No one wants to see you either, two left feet makes you seem like fish on land," Sakiko called out as he walked upstairs.

"I'm gonna wipe the floor with your mother, Jenga was a fluke since her leg was touching the table!" Mitsuki pointed to Sakiko as she moved to grab a Wii remote. "No new Just Dance, bring the older ones, other ones got too many flashy colours."

"That's cause it's for kids, flashy shit and worse music is all they got at this point," Katsuki pointed out as he got his bag with his iPad and headphones. "If I get hit by a remote, I'm suing."

"Kat, where did you get those from, and do they come in blue?" Sakiko plopped down beside him to poke at his headphones. "I feel like I would rock 'em way better than you."

"Can't buy 'em."

"Why? They seem trendy, how haven't I seen them before?"

"They were a gift."

"Where did they get them? Can you ask for me?"

"Custom made, no clue who did it, I was just given it," Katsuki sighed as he got out a stylus. "Now can I get started on this?"

"Are you dating someone or something? Is that who the boy on the phone was, your boyfriend?" Sakiko continued to ask as she plucked the iPad out of his hands. "I haven't seen you draw in a while, what are ya making?"

"One question at a fucking time," Katsuki hissed as he grabbed the tablet back. "It's payback, in some twisted way."

"Payback?"

"No one can beat me in presents, late or not, one way or another, I will win."

"All right Megamind, finish up soon, I gotta beat ya on Jump again."