Strawberry Short Fuse | Kiddie Katsuki vs. Fruit

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A/N: credit for this idea goes to @/septembersashes on Twitter. They wrote  a glorious story featuring Bakugou's hatred towards strawberries (until falling for Kirishima...) and this moment was referenced in their story and has been living in my head rent free ever since. With the author's permission, I'm now setting out to write a little mini spinoff of six-year-old Bakugou confirming that he really can't stand strawberries. (><)
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"Just try it!" said Deku enthusiastically, waving the foul-smelling strawberry mochi under Katsuki's nose.

"No way," he retorted, wrinkling his nose and swatting at Deku's hand, nearly making him drop the treat.  "Disgusting!"

"It's not disgusting, you might like it," Deku tried again.

"I won't," Katsuki huffed.

Undeterred as usual, Deku kept smiling anyway, but backed off from his force-feeding efforts, instead splitting up the last piece of mochi amongst the other children.  Him and that stupid grin, Katsuki scowled to himself.

Soon they were back in class, and the smell of the sickly sweet dessert was long forgotten, but on their walk home from school, Tsubasa brought it up again.

"What's with you and strawberries, dude?" he asked with a sneer.  "It almost looked like you were scared. Who gets scared of a little piece of mochi?"

This set the whole group off laughing.  The whole group except Katsuki, of course. 

"Hey! Yeah, right!  I'm not scared of a stupid strawberry."  He turned around to face the group tromping after him and set off a few warning explosions.  "Scared.  Tch.  I just think they're disgusting.  That's all."

"Yeah, sure, Katsuki," said Tsubasa doubtfully.

"I'll show you, ya moron!  Bring me a strawberry tomorrow and I'll eat it!"

Back at home that evening, Katsuki was sitting on the couch, arms crossed, glaring at the table.

"Looks like your homework's done," his dad commented.  "Why the scowl?"

"Stupid Tsubasa thinks I'm scared of strawberries."

Masaru tried not laugh.  "What now?"

"Stupid, right?  Like I'd be scared of fruit."

"Of course not, son," said Masaru, attempting to keep a straight face.

"I'll show him!" Katsuki pounded one fist into the other, sparks cracking as he did so.

The next day at school, Tsubasa had not brought Katsuki a strawberry.  No, he had brought an entire carton of them.

"Even better," said Katsuki with bravado. 

Secretly, he had another idea in mind.  It was pissing him off that he couldn't seem to grasp WHY everyone else liked strawberries.  He was smart, with some of the best grades in the class, the first among his group to learn to read, and generally better at everything.  So why couldn't he figure out the appeal of something as simple as strawberries?  He had to know, and with a whole carton of them with his name on it, surely he'd finally find the perfect strawberry and finally be able to put his finger on what all the damn hype was about.

It didn't go that way.

Halfway through the carton, Tsubasa and Kosuke had long-since bored of the stunt.  Meanwhile, Katsuki was still convinced of what he'd believed all along, that every berry was either far too sweet or not nearly sweet enough, and his search for the elusive actually good one was coming up empty.  Not wanting to let on the real reason for his personal quest, after about a quarter of the carton he'd told his friends that he would prove he wasn't scared by eating not just one, but all of them.

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