(Eventually) wholesome baby bkdk thread I was compelled to throw together

Izuku invited the whole class to his birthday party…but only one kid came.

No Quirks AU

Izuku and his mother had moved to the area in the spring, right at the start of the school year.

The boy hadn’t made many real friends during the three months he had spent in the class, so when the time came to think of who to invite for his birthday party, mother and son decided not to discriminate and simply invite everyone.

Izuku painstakingly created a hand-drawn invitation card for each and every kid in his class, all of the cards featuring a unique All Might illustration. He worked hard on getting the kanji right, although his mother had to help him with some of the correct stroke orders for --

-- the first couple times. She praised him on the cards, saying anyone would be grateful to receive such a wonderful invitation. Izuku beamed with pride.

Two weeks before the big day, Izuku went around the class and handed every kid their invitation.

He smiled widely as he welcomed everyone to celebrate his eighth birthday.

After school, he found a couple of the cards lying on the grounds, slightly crumpled and left at the mercy of the summer wind. That should have been a sign…but Izuku was still very young.

/Oh, the cards must have dropped out of the backpacks,/ Izuku thought. He had better return them.

Izuku picked up the cards and went back to the classroom, putting them inside the desks of the addressees.

He could remember the recipients from the illustrations, because he had put a lot of thought into each and every one of them.

Satisfied that he the cards hadn't accidentally gotten lost, Izuku returned home.

As the much anticipated day neared, Izuku and his mother grew busier by each passing day. They brainstormed fun (and affordable, although Izuku didn’t really take notice of that) activities for a children’s party.

They spent hours making decorations out of colourful paper Inko had bought from a wholesale office goods store. The entire evening before the party, Inko worked on making healthy snacks for two dozen ravenous children.

The fridge looked like they were expecting a visit from a small army: every shelf was packed with cellophane-wrapped plates and trays.

Before bed, Izuku laid out half his wardrobe and spent the better part of an hour trying to decide what he should wear.

He fell asleep with a smile on his face. His mother always said it was important to take the first step.

Maybe after this, he would finally get invited to other kids’ parties and make friends.

--

They day of the party was a sunny Saturday in July.
Fifteen minutes before the time the guests had been asked to come, everything was ready: the decorations were in place, food was on the table or still waiting in the fridge, all pillows available in the house had been --

-- spread around the living room because there was no other way to seat more than a handful of people otherwise.

Izuku sat in the genkan, hugging his knees and swaying his body from side to side.

Who would be the first one to show up? What would they think of the decorations? Would they bring him presents?

Minutes dragged on, but the doorbell wouldn’t ring. Ten minutes past the announced time, fifteen, twenty, twenty-five. It was deathly quiet.

Inko peeked at Izuku every now and then, frown on her face deepening every passing minute.

“Izuku, dear, you don’t have to sit there,” she said, putting on a cheerful face. “Come have some chirashi-zushi, it’s very good.”

She held out a plastic cup for him encouragingly.

“Thanks, maybe a bit later,” Izuku muttered, only pressing his face against his knees. There was an achingly familiar wobble in his voice.

Inko tried to hold back tears of her own as she stood in the kitchen, unsure what to do with herself.

The amount of food on the table suddenly seemed excessive. Itching for something to do, she quietly began to pick up the pillows on the floor and putting them in piles.

Twenty-five. Twenty-five kids, and not a single one came? What even were the odds of that?

She almost had a heart attack when the doorbell sprang to life.

--

(tbc because i still need to work on something else tonight! don't worry it will be ok in the end!)

Izuku stared at the door with apprehension. During the few short months of living in the house, he had never heard the doorbell rung that loudly.

When he finally opened the door with trembling hands, his eyes widened at the sight of the person on the other side.

“I’m late, but it’s because the hag took too long to wrap!”

A hand extended a small package towards Izuku, who stared at it with a mortified expression.

Bakugou Katsuki was one of the biggest personalities in Izuku’s class. He was good at both sports and academics. Even the music teacher praised him for his clear voice and precise sense of rhythm.

He was the type of kid that just demanded attention with his mere presence – Izuku’s polar opposite. And yet somehow /he/ was the one who was standing at the entrance of the Midoriya household, with an actual present in hand, expecting a /real/ birthday party.

This was even worse than having no one show up at all – now Izuku would have to reveal the humiliating truth to the person that had caught his eye more than anyone else in the class.

“I’m- I’m sorry,” he said, eyes dropping towards the floor as he felt tears welling up again.

“No one came, so…the party is…”

Izuku’s voice trailed off and only an awkward silence remained.

Would Kacchan laugh at him? Would he get angry for Izuku wasting his time with a stupid invitation to a stupid party that no one wanted to go to anyways? Or would he-

“Well /I’m/ here so, what? Are you going to just slam the door to my face?”

“Izuku? Who is it?” Izuku’s mother’s voice sounded strangely thin as she called from the other room.

Izuku turned sideways to answer, but he hesitated for just a moment.

Everyone always called Katsuki “Kacchan”, but Izuku had never actually called the other boy anything. They had never really talked. He had no idea if he would be allowed to speak out loud the nickname that he had whispered under his breath so many times.

Before Izuku managed to decide, a blur of blonde hair passed his field of vision as Kacchan just walked through the doorway and began taking his shoes off.

“Ah- Kacchan! Hold on!”

Having lost his window of opportunity, Izuku had little option but to close the door and awkwardly follow in tow of his guest as Kacchan made his way towards the living room, where he was greeted by Inko.

“Nice to meet you, I’m Izuku’s mother,” she smiled enthusiastically.

“Bakugou Katsuki,” Kacchan said quickly as he spun his head left and right, taking the room in. Izuku was still hanging on the edge of the room, shifting his weight from side to side.

A strange silence continued for a few moments until Inko finally cracked.

“Y-you boys just settle down and I’ll bring you something to eat!”

Izuku’s first instinct was to grab onto his mother to stop her from leaving him alone, but that would have made him look like a baby.

Instead, he sat on one of the pillows on the floor and tried not to look too nervous.

Kacchan circled around the room once before plopping onto a different pillow and putting the little wrapped package on the low table between them.

“…You didn’t take it before,” he pointed out.

Izuku’s cheeks felt warm. He really was bad at this birthday stuff, wasn’t he.

“Yeah…thank you, Kacchan. I’ll open it now.”

As Izuku pulled the wrapping apart, he gasped. He /knew/ what the package contained.

(almost done now, the last bit will be up tomorrow! tysm for all the lovely feedback on the first part, i'm sorry it was sad like that but the only way is up!)

“This is…the Limited Edition charm from All Might Silver Age Anniversary Festival gacha charm!”

“It sure is,” Kacchan puffed his chest. “I got it on the first try!”

Izuku had used several coins on the machine, but it had refused to grant him the treasure he had craved. To think that it was possible to get it on first try…?

“That’s amazing,” Izuku whispered. “Kacchan’s amazing.”

--

Inko had to admit that she had been nervous about how the two boys would get along. Izuku had looked supremely uncomfortable and little Katsuki had been… well, he hadn’t exactly seemed like Izuku’s type of friend.

But while she was in the kitchen, putting a selection of everything on a serving tray to take to the boys, her ears picked up something that sounded like a genuine conversation, an upbeat one, even.

She heard Izuku’s excited voice, talking about – All Might, what else. He only really got like that when it was about his favourite superhero character. But what was new was the other, similarly enthused voice joining in.

This Katsuki kid was not only able to follow Izuku’s train of thought, but it sounded like he was /keeping up/, actively participating and bringing up different viewpoints.

She had never been able to do that, and not for a lack of trying.

She would always confuse the different eras or mess up a minor character’s name or completely forget about some detail that seemed meaningless to a casual observer but made all the difference to Izuku.

When Inko went to take the snacks to the party of two, only her fingers gripping the tray a bit too tightly could give away her nerves, the repeated prayer that this wouldn’t blow on her son’s face.

--

The party that had started out so miserable changed beyond recognition. As soon as the ice had been broken, the two boys could barely let the other finish his sentence without responding to something.

They gorged themselves the snacks and danced around the table while pretending to be superheroes, they used the tools the Midoriyas had prepared for the activities and invented whole new games out of them, perfect for two participants.

Their fun continued way longer than an average birthday part was expected to last, and eventually Kacchan’s mother used the contact info sheet they had received from school to call Izuku’s house.

Izuku heard his mother apologizing profusely for keeping Kacchan so long, but it didn’t seem like Kacchan’s mother was angry. In fact, her laughter could be heard from the receiver.

“Oh by all means! I was only thinking it’s about time to give you a rest from the little powder keg.”

“Tch, /hag/,” Kacchan rolled his eyes under his breath. Izuku stared at him with wide eyes, but nodded just in case.

As Kacchan put his shoes back on, Izuku felt a little bit wistful. He had had so much fun, but now the party had come to an end.

“I hope I can come to your birthday party next, Kacchan!” he said. Kacchan straightened his back and gave him a strange look.

“My birthday’s in /April/.”

Izuku’s face fell. Now that he thought about it, he remembered hearing congratulations shouted across the hall right at the beginning of the school year.

Izuku had still been so new he had mostly been looking at his shoes, so he hadn’t realized who the birthday boy had been.

April… that was so far away.

“Anyway, you better come to my place tomorrow! I’ll show you the game I talked about.”

...Tomorrow.

The word rolled around in Izuku’s head for a moment before he realized its meaning. He was going to be able to spend time with Kacchan again, /soon/.

“Tomorrow! I promise!” he gasped just as the door was about to close behind Kacchan.

He was leaning forward with such enthusiasm that he narrowly avoided tipping over and falling from the elevated floor into the genkan.

When he turned around, he saw his mother looking at him with a soft smile on her face, holding two cups of chirashi-zushi.

“Happy birthday, Izuku.”

For the first time in a long while, the words rang true.

~end

This was actually based on a song I really loved as a tween! This artist's lyrics taught me so much about storytelling in clever ways, I remember being so impressed when I listened to them...