I Like Bokuto Who Can Comfortably Rely On Akaashi

@probabydeadbynow i saw your user (though im now realizing i misread it, lol) and it sparked this short fic idea so i wanted to share it with you before i post to ao3 (bnha, no quirk AU)

There was a piece of graffiti Izuku always saw around town. Sometimes it’d be done in white, other times blue, but most of the time it was purple- each letter looped and sprawling and bleeding into the next. 

Probably dead by now, it always said. 

Izuku didn’t know why he liked it so much. It felt odd to smile at those words when he saw them spray painted underneath the Musutafu bridge but, then again, he remembered seeing those same exact words when he was being driven home from the hospital after breaking his arm for the first time, a lollipop between his lips and a new All Might plush under his arm. And then again the morning his Dad came home for Christmas, surprising Izuku at the door. And then again the day of Kacchan’s 10th birthday party. The one with the All Might impersonator that had carried them both around on his shoulders for a while, their sweaty hands linked behind his head for no other reason except that they were happy. 

White then blue then white again. Purple today. 

Probably dead by now, it always said. 

Probably not, Izuku thought back, peering out of the passenger window with a growing smile. 

Izuku had never seen the artist. Never even caught a glimpse, but their handwriting was paint-splattered over so many of Izuku’s brightest memories. 

“What’s got you so smiley, huh?” Kacchan asked. 

Izuku turned away from the window, watching the way Kacchan’s sweaty hands gripped the steering wheel like his life depended on it. He’d only had his license for a few weeks now. 

“I think something good’s going to happen today,” Izuku replied.

Privately, he was pretty sure it already had. 

Kacchan hadn’t invited Izuku anywhere since that 10th birthday party at the arcade and now they were on their way to tour a newly built school together. 

Kacchan scoffed lightly. “What’s so good about college?” he shot back. 

“I don’t know,” Izuku replied honestly, idly flicking through the UA pamphlet resting on his lap. “Maybe…” Izuku glanced towards Kacchan. Quieter, he said, “Maybe we’ll end up going there together. You know, like old times?” 

Really old times, anyway. When Izuku would trade his apple slices for Kacchan’s potato chips at lunchtime and they’d walk home together in their baby blue smocks, hands clasped firmly together.

Not like the way they’d make passing eye contact in the halls of their high school, always in opposite motion even if Izuku’s eyes would sometimes trail after Kacchan's back. 

Even if sometimes he caught Kacchan looking, too. 

Kacchan was quiet for a few moments, the careful tick of the turn signal a feeble echo of Izuku’s hammering pulse.  

Izuku was pretty sure he remembered seeing that same graffiti- purple, and nearly washed out by a recent rainstorm- the day Kacchan threw Izuku’s notebook from a third story window in junior high. 

“Just don’t expect me to fucking hold your hand,” Kacchan eventually bit out, eyes averted- his focus too intense on the empty road for it mean anything other than embarrassment. 

His tone too light for it to even feel like a denial. 

Izuku quickly turned his gaze to his knees, smothering a smile. The UA pamphlet creased beneath his fingers. 

Probably dead by now.  

Purple. Scribbled across the window of an empty storefront. 

Kacchan had grabbed Izuku’s hand two blocks later and shoved that same pamphlet at him, holding on for a beat too long. 

“You dropped that,” he’d lied. 

His hand had been warm. 

“My dad and I were gonna tour it this weekend but he’s got a work thing.”

Izuku’s eyes had been wide and curious. He’d held his breath while Kacchan scratched the back of his neck and scuffed the toe of his shoe on the ground, casting around for the right words to say. 

“I guess you could take his spot or whatever,” he’d continued with a shrug. “If you pay for gas. ‘Cause I’m going whether you catch a ride or not.”

Izuku had thought that Kacchan would probably leave him in the dust by the time it came to go to college. Or not go, he supposed, but…

Izuku lifted his head again, listening to the way Kacchan hummed softly along with the radio. His sunglasses were All Might themed- a custom release with a subtle design that Izuku hadn’t been able to afford. 

There was a second pair, just like it, shoved towards Izuku’s chest when he first climbed into Kacchan’s car, along with a muttered comment about how Kacchan didn’t want to hear any crybaby complaints about the sun. 

They rested comfortably on Izuku’s head now. 

Probably dead by now, it always said.  

Izuku pulled them down until everything in his field of vision was tinged a soft yellow. 

Life was funny that way, he thought.

Izuku Midoriya is such a cutie pie what do you meeean i only get three more chapters of him being in situations :(

what toga himiko said about becoming the ones she loved i guess

i feel like my writing has been on a steady decline lately, so pls enjoy this offering from a writing class that i took last spring (when i felt my writing was getting a lot better). it was one of the first, serious original writing pieces i worked on and i definitely leaned on bakugou katsuki's personality to help inform how i wrote Tony lol, but i was pleasantly surprised with the outcome!

i'd love to hear your thoughts (and if anyone's interested in beta-ing my i7 work, pls message me!)

it never got a title but i suppose ill call it...

In Ten Year's Time (1,737 words, original one-shot)

The bus was late.

Tony slumped further in his seat, trying to tune out the chattering next to him while the hard metal rungs of the bench dug further into his back. Tony didn't care if Maria's youngest child had finally started kindergarten or if the acne-ridden line cook sitting in between them was saving up to go to flight school. He did care that their conversation was making the words of his essay prompt swim on the page, 'night shift' and 'empty nest' burrowing an unwanted space between 'where do you see yourself in ten years?'.

Hopefully by then he'd be done waiting at this stupid bus stop.

Maria cackled loudly at something Acne Face had said and Tony took a deep breath through his nose, bouncing his left leg and focusing more intently on the notebook balanced on his right.

In ten years I will be, he wrote, pencil jerking when one of them- Maria, probably- began playing a video clip that started out like an air raid siren. Old people never knew how to fucking lower their volume in public. Tony didn't bother erasing the jagged line that streaked across his page or the one knitting his eyebrows together.

...in anger management, he finished wryly. Or jail.

Maria's shiny clump of necklaces caught the light as she leaned forward and Tony made the mistake of glancing up to investigate, caught in the headlights of her searching gaze while the large man in between them tried to respectfully shrink into nothingness.

"I'm sorry honey," she said apologetically, the remnant of a laugh still caught in her throat. "Are we being too loud?"

Tony grit his teeth against his instinctual, biting response. As much as she was getting on his nerves now, Maria was unbearably nice to him and always dropped off an apple pie during the holidays.

"A bit," he forced out, along with his best half-smile.

Her pleasant expression- endlessly patient while he searched his vocabulary for words that wouldn't sting- turned apologetic and Tony's stomach soured. "It's- it's whatever," he amended, turning away. "I was gonna wrap it up anyways. Bus should be here soon."

"Still," she said softly, followed by an awkward apology from the line cook that might have been the result of an expectant look from Maria. Tony couldn't be sure, eyes locked on an uninteresting pebble.

He rolled it around beneath the sole of his show for the five seconds it took for him to become bored, then kicked it and watched the rock skate clumsily over the curb and into the empty space beyond. Where the bus should be.

"Tory's not picking you up, today?" Maria continued pleasantly.

Tony shook his head, biting down a mean grin while imagining the way his mother's face would scrunch up at the nickname. "Nah."

"Well," Maria replied, the sigh and shifting fabric letting him know that she'd given up on eye contact, "might still be faster if she gets you from here."

"What?" Tony asked, turning his head only to be met with a pale, tattooed bicep. With a barely audible huff, he leaned forward to see around the line cook. "But the bus is supposed to come at four," he insisted.

The line cook chuckled and Tony scowled at him, unencumbered by apple-pie shaped shackles.

The man reigned himself in with an awkward cough. "I don't know where you heard that," he said, "but this bus never shows up earlier than five."

Tony stared at him, then Maria, then the line cook again. The man offered him a shrug.

"Five," Tony repeated blandly.

"Five," they agreed.

Tony clenched his fists, silently burying himself in his backpack to escape their sympathetic grimaces but he could still feel their eyes on the back of his neck like a rash. He rifled carelessly through notebooks and folders and textbooks, crumpling half of them in his wake before coming back up with a fresh sheet of paper and the stub of a pencil.

The stubs were harder to snap.

Tony chewed on the inside of his cheek and tuned out the tentative chatter starting up again on his right.

Where do you see yourself in ten years?

Tony scribbled his name on the top of the page, first and last. Then the date. Then the name of his homeroom teacher just for the hell of it, trying to at least look like he was busy and not avoiding the rest of the page.

"College applications, huh?" the line cook commented.

Tony's nostrils flared. Apparently he didn't look busy enough.

"Oh, Angelica had such an awful time with hers," Maria lamented. Tony had already chosen his prompt but he leaned further over his paper to write down the other two. "Something about who you'd want to have dinner with? Honestly, how a college can pick you based on your dinner guests makes no sense to me," she complained, huffing, "and if Mother Teresa isn't good enough for them then they're not good enough for my daughter."

The line cook whistled appreciatively, a bit of mirth slipping out in the shade of his voice. "You tell 'em."

Tony slowly uncurled from his hunched over position, not quite turning his head to face them.

"Angelica got rejected?"

"Mm," Maria agreed solemnly. "Three times." Then she shrugged, the bitterness alighting from her shoulders like birds on a wire. "But she'd happy where she is."

Tony tapped his pencil stub against his knee, retreating from the conversation once more.

Angelica was two years older than him and he only ever really saw her at church or the odd Christmas party but he knew for a fact she had ranked first in her year. Hell, he'd overheard her reciting her valedictorian speech instead of prayer during communion too many times to count.

Tony pulled out his phone, tapping until he found the right screen.

He held his breath.

S. Antonio, 42

And kept holding it, idly wishing that he could just pass out and not have to deal with college applications anymore. He imagined a puppet doctor in a crisp white lab coat saying, Sorry ma'am, turns out your kid's terminally ill and needs to be exempt from college applications. Bed rest only.

His little wooden limbs would jangle as he shrugged.

Then he imagined his puppet mother pointing in the doctor's face, demanding that they heal him because Tony wasn't allowed to die before becoming a doctor himself and the puppet doctor would droop like his strings had been cut and do as he was told because Tony's mother controlled the universe.

"Uh...hey, kid? Everything alright over there?"

Tony's head snapped up to the line cook, blinking away his daydream and the black spots while he heaved in a lungful of air as subtly as possible. "I'm fine," he spat on the exhale.

Tony's pencil stub lay on the ground between his feet, having slipped from his shaky hands. The sheet of paper, still mostly blank, lay plastered to his thigh.

"Essay that hard?" the line cook asked lightly, lips quirked up in a careful smile.

Tony sneered in the face of it, bristling. "No," he snapped. Heart pounding and lungs still trembling, Tony sat up straighter and gave the man a onceover. "I know damn well where I don't want to be in ten years."

The man's eyes widened but a chuckle was quick to follow. "On your way home to the love of your life after a good day at work?"

Tony's mouth fell open, letting loose a weak, "I-"

"Antonio!" his mother called, her sleek gray car pulling into the space in front of the bench. Right where the bus should be. "Get in, what're you waiting around for?"

Tony scrambled to shove his things back into his bag, staunchly avoiding eye contact and standing before he was finished, nearly tripping for his efforts. The back of his neck burned.

"Nice to see you, Tory," Maria called.

Victoria's mouth pursed, then smoothed out into what she probably thought was polite neutrality, fingers tapping the steering wheel at regular intervals. "You too," she said, voice so falsely sweet it could rot your teeth. Tony wondered if they could tell. "How's Angelica doing? I heard she moved back home?"

Tony paused, hand on the open frame of the passenger side door. His mother's interest might not have been genuine but Tony knew as soon as he was inside the car she'd be off without waiting for the answer. He stepped away to load his bag in the backseat, instead.

"She's happy," Maria replied, the serene smile audible in her voice. "Rediscovering her passions." Tony's mother offered a noncommittal hum, sharp eyes darting to her son's hesitating form. "And your children?" Maria inquired.

"Oh, they're wonderful," Tony's mother replied. "Brock's nearly finished with law school now. Columbia. And of course, Antonio here's getting ready to apply to all the best schools in the country." She smiled, polished teeth flashing. "A little doctor in the making."

Tony kept his eyes low as he slipped into the passenger seat and his mother hardly waited for the door to shut behind him before pulling away. For a few, long moments neither of them said anything, letting the quiet hum of the engine permeate the empty space the way other families listened to the radio. Tony's leg bounced silently.

"Maria's nice," he finally said, the statement hanging in the air like a reprimand.

His mother's grip on the steering wheel tightened. "Mhmm."

Tony rolled the words around behind his teeth, weighing the risks, before adding a careful, "So's her wife."

"Did I say anything unsavory?" his mother snapped. Tony shook his head, shifting in his seat to stare determinedly out the window, cursing his inability to disappear or turn back time or sew his mouth shut.

"Well?" she pressed.

Tony wished he hadn't said anything at all. "No."

"That's what I thought," she said shortly. Then she sighed. "I don't know why you always have to paint me as the villain, Antonio."

"Sorry," Tony muttered quietly.

In his head, he wrote, In ten years, I do not want to be like my mother.

In his head, he wrote, Maybe I'll sit on a bus bench with a friend after a good day of work and won't daydream about dying.

Maybe I won't even mind if the bus is late.

How the gentle wind, beckons through the leaves~

some more mhas

24hr Novel Challenge: Day 1 results

Goal was 8hrs, I managed 4 (note to self: start earlier in the day and do longer bursts, lol)

Also, writing for that long is hella hard and with all the little breaks for stretching/eating/water it's also pretty long but I managed to keep a pretty even pace of 1-2k words per hour which is fairly solid for me

Total WC for the day: 5,029

2,948 words towards my original WIP called Sealed (info below) and 2,081 for a bkdk post-war fanfic WIP

Sealed WIP info:

Title: Sealed Genre: thriller/mystery, queer romance, coming-of-age

One line summary: In a town where ghosts abound and mediums are detested, four teenagers are thrust into the heart of a deadly mystery that forces them to decide who they are, who they want to be, and how much they’re willing to risk for it.

Slightly sillier one-line summary: Toss together a shunned medium, a secret-keeping prodigy, a spitfire Catcher-in-training, and her boyfriend who really doesn’t wanna be involved, then sprinkle in a string of mysterious attacks and watch as shit hits the fan. *in this WIP “Catcher” is the term for ghost hunter

Characters: Nishtha- a young medium living by herself who is only ever acknowledged by her neighbor

Veronica: a new transfer student from a very long and very talented line of Catchers who keeps her cards close to her chest

Cherry: A Catcher-in-training who’s struggling to become stronger even while her boyfriend pulls away and her leader keeps ditching her to Catch solo

Carter: A conformist that’s afraid of change and whose family is forced to take in the medium cousin who almost killed him as a child

Want an ask about your writing and characters? No problem! Reblog this post with an emoji for a corresponding mystery question in your inbox!

🎆 Fireworks

❄️ Snowflake

🌒 Moon

(accepting requests until January 31st, 2025)

the way you jump from creating silly, hilarious fake tweets to really beautiful pieces of writing is so inspiring to me. I'm happy I could read ur stuff and deeply appreciate every comment you've left, even if it takes me a while to reply lol <3

tysm!! im glad that the things i create were able to inspire you this year! that’s so cool :)

and im really happy we were able to connect on here! i look forward to seeing what new things you write in 2025 (and the new bkdk things you reblog lol) <33

my other wips have been fighting me so i decided to return to this gem and it did not disappoint. i love being able to laugh while i write, lol

its also looking like this is gonna be a small series? (to be updated who knows when, but i'll create a taglist for it so lmk if you want to be added/dropped from that!)

part 1 is here

Taglist: @antsday :)

Katsuki contemplated the torn off receipt in his hand, slowly wrinkling the paper between his fingers and re-straightening it in even turns.

The ink was slightly faded- courtesy of an accidental encounter with his washing machine that nearly resulted in the machine’s death at Katsuki’s hands- but he could still clearly make out the string of numbers and the name Deku. The smiley face, however, had not survived. 

After twenty minutes of staring, setting it down, picking it back up again, and glancing consideringly towards his phone, Katsuki decided it was time to stop being such a fucking loser and call already.  

“I’m Katsuki fucking Bakugou,” he muttered to himself. “King of the jungle.”

“What jungle?” Kirishima asked with a snort. 

With a jolt, Katsuki spun on his heel, finding Kirishima sitting casually at his kitchen table, nursing a half-eaten bowl of cereal. 

“When the fuck did you get here?” Katsuki exclaimed. “I thought I fucking confiscated your key!”

Kirishima waved his- Katsuki’s- spoon around in a yes-and-no manner, crunching around another mouthful of cereal. 

Katsuki’s cereal, goddammit. And that shit was expensive. 

“You really think me and Denks didn’t make copies?” Kirishima finally replied.

Katsuki crossed his arms, scowling.

“Answer the other question,” he commanded darkly. 

Kirishima grinned without an ounce of shame. 

“Long enough to know that someone’s got a crush,” he replied, drawing out the last word like a fucking twelve-year old. 

Katsuki reached for the closest object- an apple, sitting nicely atop Katsuki’s fruit bowl- and lobbed it at Kirishima’s head. 

“Mercy!” Kirishima cried, laughing and ducking away from the projectile. 

“Fuck you!” Katsuki reached for a can of air freshener next, catching Kirishima in the shoulder with it. “Trespassers don’t fucking get mercy!”

“Bro,” Kirishima cried, crawling awkwardly under the table while Katsuki continued to throw things at him, bowl of cereal balanced in one hand while he dragged Katsuki’s chair legs around to create a half-hearted wall. “Can’t we just talk about our feelings like men?”

Katsuki practically growled in response, but the roll of paper towels in his grip lowered. 

“I feel like I need to change my locks,” he spat. 

“No!” Kirishima despaired. “But then how would I know my bro is having an emotional crisis?”

“I’m not!” Katsuki shot back, sticking out a foot to kick the chair in front of Kirishima, making sure that one of the legs rammed into his knee. 

Kirishima made a wounded noise at the attack, shuffling further under the table. Then he sniffed dramatically. 

“Bakubro, do you smell something burning?”

Katsuki turned suspiciously toward the oven, abandoning the paper towel roll on the countertop. “Are you fucking kidding me?” he asked, striding over to investigate. “You can’t leave a fucking hot oven unattended, dipshit.”

Katsuki pulled down the handle but found its contents cold and empty. 

“Oh wait,” Kirishima said in his most annoying voice, “it’s just your pants. ‘Cause you’re a lying liar. No emotional crisis, my ass.”

Katsuki slowly closed the oven but remained crouched in front of it, forehead falling against the door with an audible thunk of resignation.

This was just his life now. Trespassers and stolen food and schoolyard taunts he hadn't heard in over a decade.  

Fucking Kirishima.

“I don’t think your brain aged past thirteen,” Katsuki muttered scathingly. 

Kirishima loudly slurped at his cereal, unbothered. 

“So’re you gonna call this guy or not?”

Katsuki let his forehead begin to slide unpleasantly down the oven. 

“How the fuck do you even know about him?” Katsuki complained dismally. 

Katsuki could hear chairs being pushed away from the kitchen table and what was probably Kirishima’s empty bowl being tossed in the sink, but he didn’t bother to acknowledge the man until he had pried Katsuki’s head away from the oven door. 

“Denki glanced at the security tape,” he explained. “And then showed it to me and Jirou.”

Katsuki took a deep breath through his nose as he mulled over the new information, then collapsed unhappily onto his back in the middle of his kitchen. 

Kirishima dropped into a cross-legged seat beside him. “General consensus was that you had a flirty encounter,” he continued. “Oh, but Todoroki wasn’t convinced.”

Katsuki stared unblinkingly at his ceiling. 

“Fuck my life.”

“So’re you gonna call him?” Kirishima asked again, excited. 

“And say fucking what?” Katsuki bit out skeptically. “I’m cool, go out with me?”

Kirishima raised his eyebrows in surprise. “Well…he did give you his number, didn’t he?”

“Yeah, for the fucking bird.”

“Uh, what?”

Katsuki suddenly shot up, eyes wide. “The bird!”

Kirishima watched on in a mixture of confusion and concern as Katsuki quickly clambered to his feet and retrieved his phone and the scrap of paper he’d been obsessing over from the countertop. 

“I’m so lost,” Kirishima whispered. 

“Fucker’s a pet therapist,” Katsuki explained, somewhat manically, jabbing at his phone. 

“He’s a what?” Kirishima spluttered. 

“That’s my in,” Katsuki said, determined. 

“Wait. What happened to ‘I’m cool, go out with me’?”

Katsuki clicked his tongue and angrily flicked his hand at Kirishima. 

“Shut the fuck up, it’s ringing!”