fic commentary: i hear the ocean

[dayflies]

in honor of i hear the ocean (bnha, tdbk) passing 69 bookmarks i have decided that i have become sufficiently uncool enough to post a fic commentary on dreamwidth (i'm kidding, well not really, it makes ME uncool, but all my friends and mutuals who post fic commentaries are not uncool for doing it, it is only me because i am a hypocrite <3)

the fic isn't that new and no one here knows it exists unless you've seen me cry about nice comments people have left (of which there have been A LOT??? still dumbfounded by that one) on priv, but look the commentary wrote itself like the day after i posted it and now it's been Existing and it's like why not just post it here bc this is here ALL my longform content goes 

writing process 

ig i'll start with the title since it's the first thing u see. my google doc was just called “two bastards” because at its core that is what it’s about dsjdhj. i landed on i hear the ocean and i really like that title: it’s nostalgic and tranquil and is also the japanese title for ocean waves which is a Not Good film (even tho i really REALLY wanted it to be good </3) but conveys the emotions and the vibes, yk it has the spirit

i didn’t mean for this fic to turn into what it is now (that is, a 14,7k character study of bakugou katsuki lol). at first i just wanted to write a short bite sized thing because that’s probably what the prompter expected, and i was pretty stressed about trying to reach the deadline. obviously it is not a short bite sized thing - i think i might be incapable of writing something that is short and sweet because i suffer from can’t shut the fuck up syndrome <3

anyway, this was the prompt i chose: canon divergent au where Bakugou accidentally injures Todoroki severely during practice, and out of guilt, tries to make it up to him in subtle ways. However, this only prompts him to eventually realize that his feelings for the candy cane are a lot more complicated than he thought.

tbh i can't rmbr why i chose it. i think my thought process was "pick something simple so you can finish it in time" and i DID finish it in time but the end product wasn't simply so um. anyways

when i began writing i started out with a basic outline: injury → favors consisting of All The TDBK Tropes; cooking, katsuki helping todo w/ studying, katsuki taking his place in cleaning duty etc etc → feelings realization → avoidance → Big Talk where they make up → get together and ending. then i started writing bits and pieces from those scenes. i wrote the ending (which back then was them sitting alone in the training grounds - there was no pier scene which is like my favourite scene now), and already back then i had this idea of Things To Come and being on the cusp of something new. i ended up changing a lot of things, like i took out the cleaning duty stuff, i made the tdbk talk a kiribaku talk, and then i had the godforsaken idea that kat and todo should have a FISTFIGHT BC WHY NOT. i think i'd read everything i never told you a few months ago at that point, and nath punching jack and jack just LETTING HIM BC HE'S SO IN LOVE WITH HIM AND HAS BEEN FOR YEARS was a major source of brainrot and i was like ".... i Need someone to throw a punch or else i will die". neither katsuki nor shouto would just stand there and Take It so it had to derail into a fight. originally it took place behind the school, and i was actually going to start the fic with it. very bad first draft of the beginning:

Bakugou Katsuki and Todoroki Shouto from class 2A are beating the shit out of each other behind the school.

That's the short version of it anyways, the singular statement that travels from mouth to ear to mouth to ear until everyone in Yuuei knows.

What really happens is more convoluted.

i could never really figure out what katsuki would have to do to send todo to the infirmary. i’m not good at writing fight scenes so at first i just went for the “shouto is in the infirmary” route from the beginning, skipping the fighting altogether. i’m glad i managed to write something (TWO FIGHTS…. who am i), although i still don’t think it’s very good </3 the fights are definitely one of the weakest aspects of the fic. that and the mistakes that slipped past me while editing, which were… A Lot. sometimes you just dont have the energy to read through a 14,7k monster 25 times and i think that’s okay

things only really started to fall in place when i decided to center it around an unbearably hot summer. summer last year was fucking insufferable, and the bnha universe is so far into the future the environment is probably all kinds of fucked up, so a boiling hot heatwave causing shouto’s temp. regulation to malfunction isn’t that out there? once i’d gotten that down things started to fall in place - katsuki’s air con being annoying, todoroki being bedridden, the soup thing (yes, i am very self satisfied about managing to shove soup into my fic), the overall feeling of heavy sluggishness, the beach scene etc etc.

i'm Not Great at dialogue, especially not the witty banter todobaku have going on in ficdom, so things were going REALLY slow for me at first (actually for most of the fic fest things were going pretty slow lol). then i wrote the study scene and started subconsciously switching into some Introspectiveness about katsuki's self-destructive behavior and then it was practically smooth sailing T___T idk, i suck at dialogue but hey, at least i’m decent at projecting my own feelings onto fictional characters and amplifying them by like 4857 lol

but then i realized i had a bunch of fluff with like… 10% introspection which felt weird and out of place. I Needed To Make It A Recurring Theme and it was a lot easier than trying to come up with funny and clever dialogue. i’m just not a witty person 😔 we can't all be perfect

the last scene i wrote was the kirishima scene. as mentioned i initially imagined the Big Talk would be katsuki and shouto talking it out, but as kirishima became more and more prominent it seemed more natural to have him seek out katsuki and talk to him. it was super short at first, just a few words about todo, but as i was editing i added the whole thing about loneliness and what it means to be happy. i felt like this conversation was important, not just for katsuki’s relationship with todoroki, but for katsuki’s relationships with everyone in his life, and with himself.

while editing i kept getting confused with the dates so i made a calendar so everything would remain consistent (ty to eri's writing cc's). can't post it here bc the html formatting keeps fucking with the cut tag if i do, but it Exists and it was super helpful for me. now i know that the entire fic takes place over the course of three weeks, starts on a tuesday, ends on a saturday, and katsuki spends almost an entire week avoiding todoroki bc he's Repressed 👍 last thing sounds p canon if u ask me

my #propaganda and personal agendas

• handwriting: i mention handwriting as an extension of someone three times in this, for aizawa (lazy, slanted characters), katsuki (sharp, precise, neat) and shouto (sloppy, unintelligible), which wasn't a purposeful thing but it will go into the list anyways
• the waterbottles: kirishima just seems like the type of person to own all the bootleg merch of his faves? kaminari on the other just uses whatever plastic bottle he has lying around.
• katsuki-eyerolls: he does that A Lot. i blamed it on how he was irritable due to the heat, but really i just tend to repeat myself when i write? lol
• sero's dumb wristwatch: initially i just wrote “sero’s wrist watch” and left it at that, but as i was editing i realized no one would wear a wrist watch to training. so it became the dumb explosion-proof watch, specifically gifted to him by kaminari bc there's just NO WAY sero would have gotten it for himself
• midoriya eats cereal and drinking milk seperately: he WOULD do that also i just needed something extremely stupid for bkdk to argue about just for the sake of arguing and that was the first thing i thought of
• bakusquad folds wontons as a bonding activity: i usually have wonton soup at an uncle and aunt’s home. they live four hours away so i’m always late to the wonton folding, but my aunt and the youngest kids in the family will usually fold them together like a fun little family thing. i wanted to add something about katsuki doing it with his parents when he was younger which was why he began doing it with the bksquad but i forgot </3
• katsuki’s animal obsession: just kind of happened and as soon as i had that idea it just Made Sense. it's like.. a crucial part of his character for me now, which u could argue is dumb bc it isn't canon but i forking donot care 😂😂😂🤣🤣🤣. i've been learning about how it’s pretty common for kids to be fascinated by animals/monsters bc of Evolution so not only is it backed up by SCIENCE??? katsuki also canonically uses q.e.d. in non academic contexts and the only people who would do that are loser nerds
• bakusquad likes playing obscure uno: their friendship matters a lot to me :( they just Know each other in that intimate way people living together know each other yk. i stole the obscure uno rules from games i've played w/ my own friends and family. the seven rule i believe is pretty widespread. the yes/no thing is horrendous, you should totally try it, it's a blast to play with friends. the obscure trivia thing is something i made up - i imagine katsuki just knows a lot of random facts and wants to take advantage of that.
• kirishima’s dramas: i took “what if kirishima loves to watch k-dramas in his free time” and fucking ran with it. his favourite is age of youth because he has TASTE and LOVES FRIENDSHIP <3 he's currently watching the one everyone's obsessed with (hometown cha-cha-cha)
• todoroki’s noodle stash is maybe a little overused but who cares, its funny >:)
• kirishima Himbo: it's funny and true <333
• todoroki's numbers are unintelligible: once again stating that his handwriting is ugly. to the point where he can't tell what he wrote himself lol. i have a friend from high school who did the exact same thing with the fours looking like nines and threes being weird squiggly lines. idk if she still does it bc whenever we're tgt it's obviously not for the purpose of sitting down to do physics hw
• katsuki's favourite nickname is bastard: IT'S JUST THE BEST ONE like be honest with yourself. NO this is not bc i’m not creative enough to find funny nicknames... </3. additionally i feel like in ficdom katsuki’s nicknames tend to veer towards the Affectionate (e.g. peppermint and candycane etc etc... they're not roasts, they're just cute), which is fine but it doesn’t really work when he’s trying to be all grrr go away stupid torodoki >:( which he is in this fic. but bastard.... it's a classic and it’s good, it's funny, it works. [in cheshire cat voice] We’re All Bastards Here…..
• kirishima accidentally spoiling movies because he likes talking about them just feels like a very Him thing? he's the type of person who'd like "bro i was so sad when the dad died.... WAIT SHIT DUDE I'M SO SORRY" and you can't really get mad at him bc he's so genuine. he knows he tends to do this so he mostly talks to katsuki about movies he's watched bc katsuki simply Doesn't Care about his movies <3
• shouto forgetting to convert his units was an actual issue for me and my classmates in high school physics class. IT SUCKED SO BAD bc it's like "what the FUCK and i doing wrong" and then u realize it after half an hour and u have to recalculate EVERYTHING. and i had a-level physics god… never again. don't know why i did that to myself
• katsuki's palms are always sweaty: tmi lol overly sweaty palms was also an actual issue i had in high school and middle shcool. my palms are just super sweaty?? they still are but in uni i mostly just use a laptop so i don’t have to deal with it as much. but yeah, katsuki sweats a lot + he’s annoyed + it’s too hot + he’s nervous about shouto being there + he’s 17  → not a good cocktail ??? what can i say, i just like embarrassing him tbh

my characterization of katsuki

this was my favourite thing to write, and probably also the thing that came to me the easiest (again….. Projecting <3) my characterization of him is basically um.... the great king of superiority/inferiority complexes and imposter syndrome and general emotional headassery lol

the study session: you know how katsuki is like that kid in P.E. who takes football too seriously, except he does that with everything in his life bc he wants to be the best. he's at a point where he knows his behavior might be a bit self-destructive but he also feels that he can't stop running or else he'd 1)  stagnate forever and amount to nothing in the end, 2) let everyone and their Expectations to him down 3) watch all his friends pass him by. he doesn't mind running until he's run himself into the ground bc he believes that's what it takes to be the best

shouto does things differently - he only seems to work hard @ things that actually matter to him, and doesn't bother with anything else, and yet it has always seemed like he could surpass katsuki, which scares him. on top of that he's overthinking everything about shouto because he's beginning to realize he Likes him (although he doesn't actually relize these feelings for what they are at this point). he has no idea how to combat his feelings other than to work harder than he already does so shouto won't surpass him. it's just his standard response to everything that seems to threaten his position

dreams versus happiness: aka ao3 user inblue is extremely unsubtle about how much she likes kirishima and Friendship (real).  katsuki believes the top is lonely and at this point in his life he's p set on being no 1. anyways

he often thinks about the dumb shit he does with the bksquad as something temporary that will only last while he's a student, bc once he gets graduates he can't afford to waste his time on anything that won't contribute directly to his ascent to the top. he doesn't realize he Needs people around him

this is why the conversation between him and kiri is so important -  bakugou "if he crashes he'll crash hard" katsuki versus kirishima "but of course. who else will get him back on his feet when he stumbles?" eiji lol. the kiribaku conversation makes katsuki begin to understand that maybe the whole thing with the top being lonely is a myth. obv these things are always gradual realizations and lots of unlearning but i think kiri nudging him in the right direction is very crucial for his growth <3

tbh i was worried the whole conversation with kiri would be too preachy - it's like a p common concern i have with a lot of my fics lol, like esp sunflower fic and this fic??? idk man, sometimes u just need the encouragement. and kiri would def get a little preachy if he felt it was necessary, he's a bro like that

in the kiribaku talk, kiri also mentions how he'd felt down a few days ago and katsuki had let him talk about some movie he'd watched for like half an hour which had made him feel better. katsuki obviously had no idea kiri wasn't feeling so hot - he just let him say whatever he wanted bc they're friends. he Does care for his friends, even if he's trying to convince himself that Human Connection isn't beneficial for him lol 

breaking down imagery, recurring motifs, Tropes etc etc

the beginning, "this is how it starts, or rather how katsuki believes it starts: with a fight" ties into him entering his Gay Avoidance era and attempts to analyze the situation he's in to figure out what caused everything in the first place. katsuki is a very logical & intelligent person so it feels like a very Him thing to analyze a situation to find the primary cause. i think deep down he knows things don't really work like a math problem lol, but sometimes it's just nice to pretend there's a primary cause and a logical solution for everything <3

italicized oh from shouto's end: can't really decide if this is shouto realizing he likes katsuki (i too would fall in love with a person who unprompted made soup for me when i'm sick <3) or him realizing katsuki likes him. either way i've written a few other fics in my lifetime (not many bc i'm unfort what the kids refer to as a slow writer) but i've never actually used the oh moment, which is like a fic staple. ig it's bc most of what i've published are gen fics so why would there be one. i really Really wanted an oh-moment so i could cross it off the fic writer list so it's here now

"it's not as bad as it looks": this one is no liam just payne bc i had to go back and edit it post-publication so it made sense lol. when u read through 14.7k words 30 times and still manage to miss things. ANYWAY it's said twice, the first time by shouto when katsuki lends him his notes, and the second by katsuki in the locker room. when shouto says it almost like a joke bc it's p obvious that it isn't true. when katsuki says the same thing post-fistfight he's being genuine, and todo responds with "that's good. i'm glad", also genuine. they're beginning to Heal from the wounds they gave e/o and some of their own mental wounds

the air con: not gonna stand here and say katsuki's broken air con is any form of imagery or motif lol, it is just a normal air con, but it IS the thing that causes a lot of their interactions so when it's fixed it's as if things have really gone back to normal. katsuki has no more reasons to talk to todo

fighting and patching e/o up again: katsuki and shouto are both ppl who struggle a lot with verbal communication so there was just no way they were going to talk things out lol. they do Not use their words lol. the thought of them punching whatever weird state of limbo they were in out of e/o is just funny and after that they reach common ground and they patch e/o up again... speaking through their actions!!

childhood & motherhood: nostalgia is kind of a big thing in this fic which i didn't even realize until ppl commented on it lol. it makes sense that the nostalgia propaganda would shine through subconsciously though, i am Me after all. i mention katsuki’s childhood a few times (his animal obsession) as well as his relationship with mitsuki, and how she calls him whenever he’s on the news. i love mitsuki. she’s definitely not the best parent, and as with every parent ever she has had some (um a lot) of missteps, but i like to believe that she still tries to reach out to him in her own way. especially because seeing your child put his life on the line time and time again can’t be easy. as a thematic motherhood enjoyer i had two themes in mind while writing:

1) Invisible Sacrifices: for mitsuki, i think letting katsuki chase his dreams of becoming a pro-hero was one of those invisible sacrifices. katsuki obv has never thought about what it means for a parent to let their child become a pro-hero bc he is 17 lol, but i think every parent of the 1a kids share the same general sentiment of "man should i rly let my kid pursue this line of work? they could literally die" 

2) growing apart: “as with most mothers and children, she knows that when she calls him, reprimanding him for being careless again, he will not tell her”. i guess it’s just something that Happens. as you grow up there comes a point for both child and parent where they realize they don’t know each other that well. especially with katsuki moving out at such a young age, they’re both leading these lives that the other doesn’t know at all, and i think it really hurts as a mother to experience. but also, it’s just something that happens as you grow up, and for katsuki’s family i don’t believe it has made his parents love him any less.

routines: katsuki loves routines, ig he's just the sort of person who thrives in order. the bksquad have a lot of routines tgt (i don't think any of the others actually consider them as Routines as much as just regular hanging out, but this is katsuki we're talking about). and when he and todo are in the lockerroom: "another person in katsuki's orbit. that is what he has feared, but it's more than that, he understands now: katsuki likes todoroki, and todoroki likes him back which is even scarier. and maybe that is okay. he'll grow used to it, like routine." mostly i just wanted to emphasize that this love is a form of gentle, careful love. they lower themselves into it gradually, and eventually it will wash over them until it's part of them

water: nice element 👍 i think i was still in everything i never told you mode, bc for some reason i was so obsessed with water and lakes and swimming when i wrote this lol. nath yeeting jack into the water.... the pool scene with the DROP OF WATER IYKYK. my water metaphor count goes up to 5 and a half:

1) "he is so close to the truth, like staring down at something in the water, watching the lines and curves of its shape shift and change along with the gentle waves. all he has to do is reach down and close his hands around it." which is just him being like ??? towards his own feelings as always, nothing new there. i've always found it cool how your feet look weird when you're standing in water, like i mean they are def feet but they look weird. okay anyways enough about feet

2) "katsuki glances at todoroki out of the corner of his eye, elbow brushing against elbow, feeling restless. he feels like running away. he attempts to read the next paragraph in his textbook, but finds the words slipping through his fingers like running water." he’s kinda beginning to lose his grip on things here i feel like. he’s someone who likes being in control of things, so when everything becomes intangible he’s uneasy. it's also related to the whole deal with being analytical and expecting things to have one clear answer

3) "'if you’re gonna be a fucking sap then get out.’ he says. kirishima only laughs, used to katsuki’s harsh words. they contain no edges, like a rock that has long been smoothed out by gentle waves rolling over it."............ local bts stan is not sublte at all!!! this metaphor connects directly to no 4

4) "he gets it now, with todoroki’s lips touching his, like he is being held and cared for, like he is a rock on a beach, gentle waves rolling over him. lulling him to sleep. eroding his edges." okay um general cheesiness aside. lol. i think this softening of edges is a form of love in itself. you know how in trivia: love namjoon goes: "i'm just a human, human, human / you erode all my corners / and make my into love, love, love"... yeah. Yeah. love of different shapes: katsuki is surrounded by love. his friends love him, his parents love him, and shouto is on his way towards loving him - they erode his corners, but he also makes a conscious effort to be softer around them

5) the entire pier scene where they are... LITERALLY... in the water. katsuki stares down and thinks about how he can’t tell how deep it is - what’s between him and todoroki isn’t quite clear yet, he’s missing That Final Step, and in the end he makes the Conscious Choice to take it by jumping into the water. as with all things, he does it headfirst <3 

5.5) “it feels, for both of them, as if something is beginning to settle, as if something has finally come to an end, leaving room for other things to begin.” i imagined this as waters settling after a storm but i didn't write it bc there has to be SOME limit to how many metaphors a 14.7k work can contain lol. i'm emphasizing beginnings here because healing is a slow process. not to be too prose-y but something something baby plant sprouting from the soil something something

deleted scenes

largely unedited lol. i think they could've been really funny to have in the fic but alas i couldn't really find space for them so out they went. back then katsuki was bakugou but then i changed it bc i felt like katsuki would make more sense since it was all from his perspective

katsuki's first good deed for todoroki:

And he knows, as surely as everyone else in class 2A knows at this point, that Todoroki’s favourite dish is cold soba because he won’t stop fucking talk about how good it is, Bakugou thinks with an exagerated eyeroll as he pulls open the fridge with a tad too much force, making the juiceboxes and milkboxes and ketchupthings and jars of fishsauce standing in rows on the [whatever those shelves on the inside of the fridgedoor are called] shake and rattle. Not because he is angry, but because he is absentminded. 

He slides a plate of cold soba covered in plastic wrap onto the middle shelf, moving around a net of tangerines and a jar of jam, right in eye level so there is no way to miss it, even for Todoroki. Then he sticks a note onto the plastic wrap. “TODOROKI” it says, in big, bold letters, underlined multiple times so there will be absolutely no way for him to miss it. 

“That should do it,” he says, shoving the door of the fridge closed (the boxes and jars rattle loudly, as if telling him to be a little more gentle). He does not stick around to see whether Todoroki actually eats it - he doesn’t need to know it was me, he tells himself.

Still, the next time he enters the common room, the same empty plate stands on the coffee table, next to Todoroki’s propped up feet. He and Midoriya are playing the new videogame Midoriya has bought, the one where you play as different heroes who try to save Tokyo from imminent doom. 

“Hey Kacchan,” Midoriya says, looking away from the screen where a giant slime monster is terrorizing an alleyway. Bakugou shivers a little involuntarily, remembering his own, frankly quite gross run-in with a slime monster. 

“You wanna play?” Todoroki asks, mismatched eyes glued to the screen. 

“Fuck no, I ain’t playing some fucking kid’s game,” he mumbles. Todoroki shrugs indifferently. 

“Okay.” he says. “Do you mind putting my plate in the dishwasher, then?” 

He says it as if he doesn’t expect Bakugou to do it at all. There’s a pause where no one says anything.

“Do I look like a fucking servant.” Bakugou finally says, completely devoid of any emotion. “I’m not putting your goddamn plate away.” He’s about to stomp over to the elevator when he remembers that he’s trying to do make it up for Todoroki. Tipping the scales or whatever. He clenches his fist, unclenches it and huffs. 

“Fine. Whatever. It’s not like you know how to use a dishwasher anyways.”

Bakugou wishes that that had been an insult, but it is merely a fact. Todoroki does not know how to use the dishwasher. It’s almost as if he opens the dishwasher fully intending on arranging things in the most impractical way possible. 

Todoroki and Midoriya both stare at him in confusion, and it is with extreme willpower that Bakugou manages not to groan out loud. 

“Oh. Thanks, Bakugou.” Todoroki finally says, slowly, and Bakugou wants to yell at him to talk faster. He wants to force his mouth open, grab his words as he forms them on his tongue and pull them out.

cleaning duty

That afternoon, he finds Todoroki as he is mopping the floor in the entryway.

“Yo, bastard,” he starts out. “Switch with me,”

Todoroki stops mopping, frowning a little. “Why?”

“I have cleaning duty in three weeks. I’d rather get it over with now,” replies Bakugou. It isn’t the best excuse he’s ever come up with, but it’ll have to do.

“But then I’ll have to clean in three weeks,”

“My partner is Deku, don’t you wanna work with him?”

It’s a lie, but Todoroki doesn’t need to know that. He’ll just convince someone else to take his shift instead, so Todoroki won’t have to cover it. Problem solved.

“I can just talk to Midoriya at literally every other hour of the day,”

He looks genuinely confused and Bakugou wants to shove him a little bit. Here he is, trying to be nice and all, and he insists on making it difficult. If it had been Kaminari he’d have accepted at once.

“God fucking damnit, fine, I really don’t wanna work the shift in three weeks for personal, private reasons,” he says, feeling like he’s grabbing random words out of the air. “Private, as in they are private reasons.”

This seems to confuse him even more. “Are you and Midoriya fighting again?”

When are they not fighting? Yesterday they’d had a fight about whether an orca is a whale or a dolphin. (Dolphin, obviously. While Midoriya had spent his childhood gathering obscure facts about quirks and heroes that no one cared about, Bakugou read children’s animal lexicons. Also space.) He chooses not to say this because it’ll drag the conversation out even further, which Bakugou does not have the patience for.

“No, it doesn’t have anything to do with him. Look, just switch with me fucking half’n’half, I’m trying to-” be a fucking decent person to you he cuts himself off, choking the words before they can escape.

“What?” Todoroki says, eyes narrowed.

“Fucking-” he sputters before rolling his eyes. “Just give me the fucking mop, bastard,”

Does calling him names cancel out any of his good deeds?

“I mean, if it’s that important, you can just switch with me?” a third voice cuts in, and Bakugou mentally goes over obscure facts about dolphins to prevent himself from tearing his own hair out. Dolphins name each other (according to some scientists). Orcas are fucking dolphins. Dolphins recognize themselves in the mirror. Dolphins can move each eye independently.

“Fine. Fine.” he says, unclenching his jaw. “Thanks Tapeface.” he adds in because he is acting, he reminds himself as Todoroki does a weird half shrug and continues mopping the entry.

“You’re welcome man,” Sero says, putting a hand on his shoulder. “And listen, whatever it is… if it’s something with Midoriya or whatever else it is, you can talk to me, alright?”

He sounds so genuine and worried Bakugou almost feels a little bad. Almost.

“It doesn’t have anything to do with him, Jesus fucking Christ. It’s just, um. My mom really wants me to come home. During that entire week. I’ll still be going to school just uh. Um.”

He finds himself wondering when he became someone who said something to make someone feel better. Sero decides to take pity on him: “Yeah no, understandable. Family stuff.”

And because he is such a stand-up guy he offers to clean this week and in three weeks too so Bakugou didn’t have to do anything at all.

“What the fuck, no. It isn’t like that, alright? My mom’s just being annoying, it’s no big deal, shit.”

This isn’t at all what he’d had in mind. He finds himself wondering when he became someone others were willing to do favours for without expecting anything in return.

katsuki's plan backfiring

And so it goes. They spend that week together, clearing out the trash, going over homework.

If Bakugou were to decide, he’d say his little experiment is going pretty successfully. In fact, after a week of emptying the trash with Todoroki, he’d say he has just about made up for sending him to the infirmary. He can go back to being a prick, he thinks, picturing a set of scales perfectly balanced. His debt has been paid.

But here’s the thing about favours: they never go full circle. It’s like sitting on a seesaw with someone: you owe someone a favour and the weight of it will make your side heavier until you pass it over to the other person, and they will pass it back to you when they hit the ground and it’ll keep going and going until someone decides to get off. It’s human nature.

Bakugou has spent a week being inexplicably nice, almost pleasant towards Todoroki. Todoroki’s side has hit the ground, and he passes it back.

final scene

They are just teenagers; still growing and learning, forced to learn how to pull weights meant for people who are years older and wiser than them.

Maybe they already knew how to. But they are kids regardless, and when Todoroki leans forward to kiss him, it is with the inexperience and blissful curiosity of one.

And when Bakugou leans in to reciprocate, he forgets all about scales and obscure facts about space and animals and equations and lists. Instead, he places hesitant hands and fingers on the side of Todoroki’s face, as gently as he can muster, and it feels like holding something sacred; like a treasure chest washed up on the shore just for him.

Within it lies everything he knows: his favourite dish is cold soba, his right eye is grey-ish and his left eye is blue-ish, he loves his siblings, he visits his mother in the hospital every week.

And everything he will come to know: the exact shade of blue-ish, grey-ish of his mismatched eyes, that he catches spiders and releases them outside instead of vacuuming them, that he genuinely cannot cook, not for a lack of trying, he simply can’t.

songs i listened to while writing

i dont really look at lyrics that often, i mostly just go by Vibes so if the lyrics don’t fit that would be why

trivia: love by rm: it’s so happy and carefree and such a beautiful expression of love. there’s a ton of lines i love in it but i already mentioned my favourite one - you erode my corners and turn me into love [cries and doesn’t stop]

hear the sea by red velvet: title track or smth this is a nice song, so cute and lovely. has the exact feeling of young, new love

家を買うby yeye and ayatake ezaki: i showed this to river ages ago and they described this song as feeling like being a little kid again, guided towards their first stable steps and YES that’s exactly it. it’s so pretty and whimsical but nostalgic

月の丘 (a hill of the moon) by ichiko aoba: sorry for literally having ichiko aoba in every dw post that mentions any form of music. again a song that’s just incredibly soft, tender and nostalgic, like visiting an old childhood playground and sitting on the swings or something (not the cursed swingset of the childhood friends to lovers, just the general but still cursed swingset of your childhood)

a town with an ocean view from kiki’s delivery service: idk why i listened to this one lol. mostly for the [bass boosted] n o s t a l g i a  ig. i listened to the orchestral version but i think a classical guitar version would fit really well with the rest of the playlist

jewel by adam melchor: this is just cute. it’s a gem, you might even say jewel lololol

moon by akmu: i think this fits the porch scene. it gives very Quiet Late Night Talks energy, and not just because it’s called moon T___T 

i know people generally tend to make tdbk playlists a lot more angsty because they just radiate that Energy. alas, i do not radiate that energy, and for the purpose of this fic in particular i feel like these songs fit perfectly, even though they aren’t usually associated with the #tdbk trademark

misc

i posted ocean fic back in march so as of rn it has 2.3k hits, around 300 kudos and as i mentioned we just passed 69 public bookmarks which is p cool lol. it's the most Anything i've ever gotten for a fic bc 1) the bnha fandom is huge 2) it's a romantic fic as opposed to my gen fics. also it was posted in a fic fest which also gave it a bit more traction. i dont think stats mean anything, my favourite form of feedback will always be comments even if i suck at writing them myself hdsjdh but i do think it's cool that so many ppl have read it and were affected by it?? but also it's like "man um. feeling oddly perceived rn" which ig is inevitable. some comments have told me they felt Seen by it and i can only assume it's bc they relate to bkg's emotional headassery which means i'm perceiving them too, it's like equivalent exchange

#ragrets i have about the fic are mostly just things that could've been fixed with editing lol. also, as i mentioned i was worried the kiribaku conversation would come off as too preachy, but i don't rly regret making it the way it is. i'm also weirdly insecure about scenes that were v tender and intimate bc i want them to be tender but not overly sappy and i think they might've accidentally become overly sappy HELP. it's fine. i still love those scenes, even if can never read them again bc they make me go "god. why did i write that", and tbh i feel like a lot of ppl who write romance feel the same way?? or maybe it's just me which wouldn't be surprising either T___T also last thing i look back at thinking hmmmm idk is the prose which i feel like might've been too purple prosey?? but i always feel that way and i am OVERLY CRITICAL TOWARDS MYSELF so maybe it's just the right amount of metaphors???

on a more positive note i AM really really proud of ocean fic. it is my pwecious baby. it's also the longest finished fic i have posted ever, which it wasn't supposed to be lol, but it is 14,7k words written with Love <3

my favourite thing about the post-posting has been THE COMMENTS <33 where would i be without them. i rmbr shortly after i posted it one of my favourite tdbk writers left this REALLY LONG COMMENT and man.... i will never recover from it. every comment that said it took them back to being 17 added several years to my lifespan. also if u are reading this RORY!! i think about ur comment daily, it is very near and dear to my heart <3

okay anyways, this was incredibly long. no one is surprised. sorry for being all over the place, i feel like i kept switching between saying todoroki and shouto lmao, usually i just stick to todo(roki) so IDK WHAT HAPPENED