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Life isn’t very fun.
It hasn’t been since he was four years old. At first, it was a little difficult, but still fun. It doesn’t matter if the kids at school teased him and kicked him around a little. He still got to sit with Kacchan at lunch and follow him around!
Then it became hard. Nothing is fun when you dread getting out of bed every morning. It becomes a cycle.
Wake up, go to school, hide from the bullies, come home and bandage the injuries homework, go to sleep.
Maybe, just maybe, on his birthday, would he get treated kindly? Would birthday wishes be sent his way, thanking him for being born?
Would he see his mother? It’s been a whole week by now. Would his mother take the day off, to celebrate her only child’s birthday?
Eventually, this day too becomes a routine. Wake up, stare at his gakuran, and put it back in his closet, choosing to suffer the consequences tomorrow.
He makes his annual trip to the market to get vanilla cupcakes. The old man at the register waves to him. They’re out of vanilla cupcakes. He buys chocolate instead. He hates chocolate.
He makes the walk back home. He shivered an awful lot while walking back, and his hands were shaking. It’s Summer. He wonders if that’s something to be searched up later.
Carefully placing a candle on top of a single cupcake, he grabs the lighter. It takes a couple of tries. His hands are still shaking.
The candle gets lit, but it’s sinking into the chocolate cupcake. He tries to fix it but the flame gets too close to his hand.
It’s no use. He sits back in his chair. A fragment of a smile appears on his pale face.
Happy birthday to me.
His eyes close.
I wish for…
He blows, the single flame flickering, so desperately holding on to life. Maybe it’s begging him to make a wish. Maybe its life would’ve been meaningless without one.
No wishes today.
His eyes open. He got himself a present today. He retrieves it from his room and returns to the table.
It’s a notepad, one he dug up from when he would still do hero analyses.
The first page gets addressed to his mother.
The second page is for Kacchan.
Days later, with a bright red pair of shoes, set neatly with two notes inside, Midoriya Izuku gets as close as he can to a fun life. Both everyone and no one mourn.