Minnwii - Minnwi

BAUGOU DRIVING!!!

Deku vs Bakugou round 3

This is Not Divine Intervention

18+ minors DNI. bakugo x gn! reader. established relationship

1.5k words

you can tell he’s upset just by the rough sound of dishes clattering as he puts them away in the kitchen.  you actually noticed something shift within katsuki’s demeanor about near the end of the dinner you just hosted with friends.  you don’t know what did it, but something caused his expression to go from neutral and pleasantly calm in the way he normally is around your friends to clenched fists and a twitch in his jaw to form that hasn’t stopped in the last twenty minutes.

“i was gonna help with those, babe.” you say as you enter the kitchen where katsuki’s back is turned to you as he finishes putting the last of the plates away.

“-t’s fine.” he states without turning his head. okay, so he’s upset with you since he couldn’t be bothered to turn his head to face you for a response.

just as he closes the cabinet you wrap your arms around katsuki and he noticeably stiffens before relaxing in your arms. “hey. what’s up? talk to me.”

katsuki lets out a huff of air before turning to face you. his lips are in a thin line and rolls his eyes before actually looking at you. “do you really think what you said earlier is true?” the look of confusion in your eyes prompts him to clarify. “the thing you said when your friend was talking about soulmates and that stuff.”

clued in on what he’s referencing, you remember how earlier in the evening when your relationship-obsessed friend was going on about soulmates and fate after one too many glasses of wine.

“i’m so serious! you and katsuki are the definition of a perfect pair. fate made the two of you just for each other! im soooo jealous. hey universe! when is it MY turn?” your friend said before pouting and leaning on your other bestie who was the designated driver for the night.

you chuckle a bit before smiling and giving your friend a response. “haha, yeah. i guess it is nice to have found someone who is so easy to be around it’s like breathing. i couldn’t have asked for a better soulmate.”

because you can’t help but agree. katsuki is the perfect person for you, and you can’t imagine life with anyone else at this point. loving him and feeling the love from him comes so naturally to you at this stage in your life that you do feel the two of you were always meant to be together.

it’s the way you both spent your youth so emotionally guarded just to let your walls down around each other after a month of knowing each other. when you would hang out with katsuki and not judge him for his harsh words or blunt personality the way other people would just write him off as mean upon first meeting him.  when you’d go out with friends and make silent comments to yourself that he’d always seem to hear and chuckle at the sarcastic remarks you’d make that you didn’t think anyone else would hear.

it's the memory of how nervous you both clearly were on your first official date and had random pauses of silence during your coffee date but they didn’t feel awkward. and before you knew it, the two of you had been hanging out in the corner of that café for hours, only leaving when a server politely informed you the shop was about to close.

katsuki walked you home from that first date and before you could walk inside he asked you to be his girlfriend because he wanted you to know he’s serious about being with you and doesn’t want you “chatting up any other losers in a coffee shop on dates besides him.”

after that first date, your relationship with katsuki just felt so easy and right. talking to him is easy. holding him in your arms always feels right. and it’s still smooth sailing three years later, so calling him your soulmate just makes sense.

but you know he hates hearing this cheesy kind of stuff so you’re grateful your friend brought this up while he was out of the room and couldn’t hear.

or so you thought.

and the timing starts to make sense of how you noticed the slight frown on katsuki’s face upon his return. the lack of one of his hands in your lap the way he normally does is apparent and the way his fists clenched at his sides for the rest of the time your friends were over.

you start to feel your face heat up at the realization that your boyfriend heard admit to saying something as corny as the two of you being meant for each other.

you still have katsuki in an embrace in the kitchen and now his arms have latched onto you as well. there’s nowhere to hide from his stare. “is that what made you upset this evening? that i said we’re soulmates? does that bother you?”

“it does, actually.”

now its your turn to tense and feel a sense of dread fill up within you.  “is there something wrong with saying we were made for each other?” katsuki rolls his eyes and you hear him “tch” as a response. “do you…not think we’re soulmates?”

“hell no.” the reply is immediate. you blink and try to take a step back but katsuki holds onto your waist a bit tighter with one hand and holds your face with the other so you can’t look away from him. apparently he has more to say.

“saying that we’re soulmates is crediting something else with the fact that we’re together. which is bullshit, because i chose you. and everyday i wake up and decide for myself that i love you, that i want to be with you. not destiny or some ‘string of fate’ crap. me.”

the whole time he’s talking, katsuki’s eyes are locked on your own. the look on his face is so sincere and you note that it’s as if those crimson eyes are searching for something in your own. the hand resting on your cheek pulls you closer until he’s pressing his forehead onto your own.

“katsu…” you say his name barely above a whisper because you don’t know exactly how to respond.

“i love you. and no one or nothing else decided for me that i wanna love you forever.” the last few words from katuski’s mouth comes out a bit shaky before the hand on your waist leaves your body only for katsuki to pull something out of his pocket and you see a box in his hand. “i wanna marry you because that’s what i want to do. not because some unknown force brought us together. and i want you to choose us too.”

you let out a shaky breath you hadn’t realized you’d been holding in. of course the stubborn man in front of you would be bothered by the idea that something he couldn’t control made you think he loved you. and he won’t say it but you know that those searching glances were his way of seeking assurance that you actually choose to want him the way he wants you.

the realization that tears are falling down your face only hits you when the pad of katsuki’s thumb steadily brushes them away from your cheeks. you start crying a little more and let out a small laugh before saying “i want to marry you too, you jerk. had me worried you were actually mad at me.”

a gruff noise leaves katsuki’s throat. “i was mad at you, dumbass. crediting my love for you to something else as useless as ‘fate’ and shit.” you lightly smack his chest before pulling him closer and placing a kiss on his lips.

katsuki’s hand moves from your face to the back of your neck so he can hold you there and deepen the kiss.  you let out a soft hum before moving just an inch away from those lips you want on your own for the rest of your life to say one last thing.

“the choice to love you forever is all mine, katsuki. no one else’s.” you place a hand on top of his that’s holding the box with a ring in it. katsuki places your engagement ring on your finger and you look back up at him as he tosses the box somewhere else in the kitchen.

the corner of his mouth ticks up in that smirk he knows drives you insane. suddenly your feet have left the ground as katsuki pulls you up to hold you in his arms and start walking you towards your bedroom. “good. because now i’m gonna show you all the ways i choose to love my fiancée.”

you giggle before kissing him again on the way to your room. you also realize that loving katsuki bakugo is something more romantic than the idea of finding a soulmate.

feels so strange coming back to this platform after 8 years but also kinda cozy :)

anyways here’s a pomeranian

there's this video you've probably seen already where a woman is shaking in front of a microphone and delicately tries to ask - how can i make my husband listen to me, i've tried everything, i don't want to seem ungrateful and the other man laughs - the problem is that you married a man, we're only listening 25% of the time and we only understand 5% of that! and the audience laughs and the woman laughs and you just sat there, phone in your hand, letting the sound of it echo

and the thing is that people make think-pieces about it (isn't this one of them) and satire versions and "flipping the script" which is good and fun but at the end of the day, there's some truth in that man's response about men-not-listening. and you have tried to language that feeling for years, this sense that you can only take up 33% of a conversation before others view it as being "dominating".

it's not that they aren't listening, it's that the action they're taking is purposefully silencing. it's different. you accidentally-don't-listen a lot; just because the world is loud and you're distracted. you don't mean anything by it. and the truth is that the man who spoke is relying on that to be true of you; the way it's true of everyone. but there is a different undertone to his kind of not-listening. what he means is they don't respect you and you shouldn't expect them to. there is a difference between oh shit i forgot to take the trash out and why didn't you remind me to do it, just like there is a difference between i didn't realize you wanted to go out this weekend and why do you expect me to plan things why can't you just tell me where we're going.

and the thing is that it isn't just him, and it's actually not just because of your gender - your skin, your class status, your weight, their ableism - it happens often. so often it feels like a tightness around your throat and a weight in your stomach. you're not even "really" allowed to be upset about it, because to them it's a joke. and they laugh. and you know exactly the amount of work that goes into every conversation. how you have to work to condense down your thoughts into intelligent, crisp soundbites; worried someone will try to swoop in and cut you off. and there's this sense from everyone else - oh stop being so sensitive, are you really upset just because they weren't listening and you don't know how to say the way that feels when it happens constantly.

there's that video of the science summit where a woman in the audience finally says let her speak please! and the whole crowd bursts into applause and the man leading the summit holds up his hands and bows his head and says oops, sorry! like what he did was awkward and embarrassing, a little social gaffe that happens easily. later in your meetings, you're asked to take notes, and you don't say anything, you just hear let her speak please! ringing in your head and know that you'll never be brave enough for that kind of thing. and besides. think of all the people who agree this was a one-off, he just got excited and all of the people who say one man is not indicative of all of society

at the dinner table you're talking about someone you don't like and how he's not good to his girlfriend and how she always has to remind him to put the effort in and before him, she was glowing with curiosity and passion but now she just seems... tired, unhappy. that he likes the way she burns out; she stays home and takes care of him and their 2 kids. and your father sniffs and says that men take a while to learn those kinds of things. and you just stare at him and think about your childhood and are like - no wonder i turned out like this

and you want to say - there's no fucking secret school or mystic form of communication. i was not sent to Rearing a Child University. i did not graduate from Getting Chores Done College. i ask questions and i listen and i pay attention, because that's basic fucking human decency. it stems from respect, and how i respect others and their agency. i clean the house because someone should clean. not because it comes "naturally".

hell, you had to google "how to boil an egg" the other day, just because you usually make them scrambled. you can never remember which of the 2 bathroom cleaners make chlorine gas, only that two of them definitely do. you've accidentally bleached your clothes. it took you like 3 years of self-teaching before you figured out how to actually cook things correctly - for that whole time, you burnt or undercooked everything. but you did teach yourself; just like you taught yourself how to listen with empathy. just like how you taught yourself to think before you speak. to be kind first, to be better at communicating. it seemed like a good thing, an adult thing.

the joke the man in the video makes is that women say i'm fine! when they are not fine. and you think about the 150 conversations that happened around that; about how she probably has had so many arguments with her husband. how she said i'm upset you don't take me anywhere and he got mad at her because of course i do, you made me go to that stupid restaurant like last week and she probably said that's not what i'm saying and he said now i'm supposed to be psychic or something and she said no of course not and he said how am i supposed to know what to do when you don't even like everything and she said i do like things and he said well how am i supposed to win? and her pastor probably told her to be more grateful because they do things at all, even if she has to plan them and her mom probably told her that's just how men are honey and she probably cried over her journal, trying to figure out why the fuck she "has everything" and is still so bitterly, horribly unhappy

and how, in your life, for so many reasons, you looked down the barrel of another argument; of explaining yourself and being vulnerable and begging for help again. how many times you just said i'm fine because it was better than doing that again; it was better than wringing yourself out when it's literally easier to just pretend. because he wasn't going to listen. your father wasn't going to be better and your boyfriend wasn't going to be better and your boss wasn't going to be more respectful.

and you sit in front of a video of a woman shaking, looking horrible and guilt-wrought that she's even asking this question. and you know; deep in your heart - that's you. in a different life, you are her. you've stood in her spot. and you had to listen while someone else cackled - why would we bother to notice when you talk?

There is a new Katsuki spread in Volume 40

กาตุ่ยเด

don't give up

It was inevitable, you just chose to cover your eyes and ears when he showed you. Tight skirts, crop tops and eyeliner —a costume, armour— to face the unfaceable. The Unfaceable sits at the corner seat at the local coffee shop. The Unmovable: every Saturday, since 5:30 pm, he is always there.

In front of Bakugou, lies his calculator, computer, homework, and sometimes a drink. You look at him carefully —arduously— while you can, earphones in and his hair pushed back, rough, blonde, gravelly next to the window.

You think of the inevitable. When the question tumbles out of your lips, the vowels and fricatives that lay foreign and slimy on your tongue. Then the inevitable answer: yeah.

It’s why you don your costume; your armour: of tight skirts, tight tops, and tight eyeliner. They squeeze the fat of your thighs, the meat on your shoulder, and at your tear glands. The inevitable and imminent answer. But you walk in anyway, you let your legs rest on the wooden stool, your elbows against the sticky residue of sweet drinks. Your costume clings onto your skin; your armour cups itself around your dignity. Mold. Mockery.

“You’re aro ace?”