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When the Slime Villain incident happened, everyone freaked out. His classmates were worried and didn’t want him to walk home alone, his parents were scared and didn’t want him to walk home alone, Deku didn’t want him to walk home alone.
No one wanted him to be alone.
Because if he was alone, he might get grabbed again.
The two boys that were with Katsuki that day apologized again and again and again and promised they wouldn’t leave him like that again.
Random strangers who were in the crowd said they were sorry it happened to him and told him to be safe everyday.
His teachers and classmates hovered over him like he was about to break.
Everyone freaked out.
But Katsuki didn’t.
Honestly, if you asked him, he hasn’t felt this okay walking home alone as he does after the incident. He tells his classmates and parents and Deku and teachers to leave him alone, to stop babying him, because he’s fine and he doesn’t know why they can’t get over it.
He hates that his mom, who wasn’t even there and didn’t find out about it until it popped up on the news, was more scared than he was.
He hates that Deku, who was apparently caught by the same Slime Villain but was held for a much shorter amount of time is more freaked out by it than him.
Katsuki doesn’t understand why he isn’t afraid. Why he isn’t hesitant. Why he feels indifferent when it literally happened to him.
It’s not that he doesn’t think about it. He does. A lot. Nonstop. He’s never watched so much useless TV or YouTube than he has since it happened because the constant noise of talking helps drown the thoughts out of his head. He used to be able to sleep in a quiet room. Now if a room is too quiet he feels like he’s back there, adrenaline racing through his veins, making his hands shake and sweat, like he’s choking again.
He sleeps with the TV on now. It’s comforting, being able to focus on the voices until he falls asleep.
But other than the quiet, he isn’t affected.
At least, that’s what he thought.
When he started at UA, the fear was gone from everyone else. No one hovered over him. No one offered to walk with him. His parents didn't demand he text him the moment he didn’t show up at the house at the time he normally does.
It was back to normal.
Except, not for Katsuki.
UA uniforms had a tie. And normally ties wouldn’t be a problem, Katsuki has worn ties before, he’s been to shitty fancy work events with his parents, he’s used to ties.
But that was before the thing happened. He’s never worn a tie since it happened.
But when he put one on the first morning before school, he almost vomited from the nerves. His hands were shaky. He was sweating a bunch and no amount of tiny explosions to clear his sweat would help. His breath was quickening. His brain felt like time was going too slow but also too fast and he couldn’t keep up.
He grabbed the tie and as he pulled it away from his body he let out an explosion that turned the red fabric black. And he threw it away and made his way to school.
He didn’t think about it anymore. It was just something that happened. He freaked out. That was all. It was just too familiar from the time, but now that it’s happened once he’ll be fine.
He was not fine.
In fact, he got much, much worse.
The Tie incident seemed to spark something in him that he had hidden away, not allowing it to see the light of day since the thing happened.
But it was free. And it was scared.
It got to the point where he couldn’t even have his shirt buttoned up all the way. He kept the first two buttons undone, and he knew the teachers thought it was some kind of rebellion against uniforms, but it wasn’t.
If the buttons were done fully he couldn’t breathe.
His hero costume, which he had originally designed to have a higher collar to help raise his body temperature to produce more sweat suddenly had a design change and was given a low V-neck.
The bracer on the back of his neck, which on record is designed to help his neck and shoulders not fuck up when he uses his explosions, was actually added to keep him from getting grabbed from the back of the neck.
The Sports Festival went awful. The feeling of getting forcibly knocked out by Midnight’s quirk sucked, but the kicker.
Oh, the fuckin’ kicker.
Waking up from Midnight’s quirk chained and muzzled was one of the worst things Katsuki has experienced, only just falling below the incident.
But the fact that there was an audience of that many people, of that many heroes , and they did nothing but call him a villain.
He’s just a kid, man. He’s only fifteen. Why does he have to deal with this shit when he’s only fifteen.