EᑕᕼOᒪᗩᒪIᗩ

𝚂𝚝𝚘𝚛𝚖𝚜

𝓔𝓲𝓳𝓲𝓻𝓸𝓾 𝓚𝓲𝓻𝓲𝓼𝓱𝓲𝓶𝓪

I always felt that meeting parents of friends or partners was an important thing. Gaining their approval meant a lot to me in particular. I was close to my mother, and the idea of family was important to me. So, when Katsuki asked me to have dinner with him and his mom, I felt a wave of anxiety crash over me so suddenly that I didn't know how to respond at first.

I wasn't sure why meeting Katsuki's mother had me in such a nervous state of mind. I had met and wooed all of my friend's families, but Katsuki was different. Not 'different' because of his Autism; Katsuki was different in a way that I didn't fully understand. I liked him. I liked Katsuki more than I liked Izuku or Kaminari, or any of my friends. 

It was a little frightening. My feelings towards Katsuki only grew since meeting him. I didn't care about his diagnosis or his strange habits. When I was with him it was a breath of fresh air. Katsuki took my mind off the mundane things that usually held me up and worked on my nerves. If he only knew how many times I went to school just to see him, he'd surely think of me as some kind of loser. It was quite pathetic, but I didn't mind. 

Mitsuki was charming when we met more officially. It was on slightly better terms than the last time I remember seeing her in the school office. Katsuki was having a bad day. We fought, and I remember seeing his mother's horrified expression when her son told me to go away. To be honest, I was pretty horrified as well. I never knew how Katsuki would react. Every day was something different and I liked that.

I wasn't sure what I expected going into this. When I met Katsuki I just saw him as a cute, timid boy with a big mouth and an even bigger attitude.  He caught my attention and picked me apart without saying a word, and it scared me.

As far as what I expected now, after getting to know him more, I still wasn't sure. I didn't know how Katsuki felt about me. Regardless of my own feelings, if I were to pressure Katsuki in a romantic way, I was sure things would be more complicated than dating a neurotypical person. 

Neurotypical: A term for people who have no cognitive disabilities or mental illnesses.

I was learning more and more simply from being around Katsuki. Words I would have previously brushed off suddenly meant something to me. I wanted to understand him; not just because of my interest in him, but because he mattered. Katsuki Bakugou mattered, and I would be damned if I just sat around without educating myself to be a better human being in a world of shitty people. 

Katsuki, from society's standpoint, wasn't 'normal'. I've never liked that word. What did 'normal' mean? My life was anything but normal. If there was a scale that measured people and their levels of normalcy, I knew the majority of the world wouldn't fit in their box. I sure as hell wasn't 'normal' and neither was anyone I knew. 

The more time I spent with Katsuki, the more I became afraid of my own feelings. Was it selfish to be worried about how others would see our relationship? I worried for Katsuki's sake; not my own.

I worried that people would pity him, and then I worried about people who might target him more physically. To be Autistic was one thing, but adding homosexual on top of that might as well put a target on his back, spelling out 'dumb and going to hell'. People could be cruel and I was scared that Katsuki would just get hurt. Katsuki was far from dumb, and I wasn't going to hell for liking guys. I knew what being targeted for my sexuality felt like, ad the idea of Katsuki experiencing it made my stomach twist.

Maybe I was getting ahead of myself. Sure, I liked the guy, but that didn't mean anything if Katsuki didn't return my feelings. I wasn't even sure if he had those types of thoughts or urges. Did he care about relationships?