Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

Izuku woke to something wet dabbing at his temple. He blinked, turning his head, and looked up into a pair of slitted pupils. There was a white cat leaning over him, sniffing his face.

"Hi," Izuku said, then grimaced. His head hurt. His everything hurt. He was talking to a cat.

The cat jumped back at his voice, but it didn't go far. Izuku watched it stop just in the lee of a dumpster and turn to stare at him again.

Gingerly, Izuku peeled himself off the asphalt and sat up. From here he could see the papers littering the alleyway. With a sinking feeling, he recognized the pattern of the printed lines, the style of the handwriting. They had come from one of his notebooks.

A single drop of water fell beside him, printing a tiny dark circle on the ground. Izuku looked up, saw the monotone sky, and decided right now was a really good time to gather his things.

Quickly, he stood up—but the movement unsettled him, and he staggered into a wall. His headache was making him dizzy. Or maybe his dizziness was giving him a headache. There wasn't really time to take stock of himself, which was just as well. He would feel different in the next twelve hours or so anyway.

The cat meowed in the sort of plaintive, kitten way that only domestic cats retain into adulthood.

"Oh, sorry," Izuku said, shoulder pressed against the wall for balance, "I didn't mean to ignore you. Do you live here? Are you hungry?"

The rain picked up a little. Out of time and still not sure if standing was a good idea, Izuku lowered himself back to the ground and started crawling after the loose papers. Likely, they hadn't scattered very far. Whoever ripped them out must have thrown them down in one place and let the wind do the rest.

The cat meowed again, but this time the corner of the dumpster blocked it from view. Izuku crawled forward and stuck his head around to see if it needed anything. To his delight, he saw his backpack sitting there, wedged up against the side. Izuku let out his breath in relief—he had been starting to wonder if his backpack was inside the dumpster, or if it had been taken away somewhere. Pulling it toward him, he opened the zipper and stuffed the papers he had gathered inside. If he could make it to class in time, the fabric of the backpack might provide enough protection from the rain to keep everything dry.

Izuku looked up and down the hallway for something to dry his hand on, but there was only the metal of the trash cans, the laminated posters stuck to the bulletin board. He wiped his hand off on his uniform, just in case it was slightly less wet than his palm, and tried the classroom door again. No, it wasn't just that the handle was slick with rain. It was locked from the inside.

Before he could think too hard about it and get scared, Izuku knocked on the door. He heard the pause in the lecture, the murmur from his classmates, the footsteps moving toward him, and he took a deep breath, hoping the air would settle whatever was stirring in him.

Tokunaga Sensei opened the door. "Late again, Midoriya?"

Izuku bowed his head, enough to indicate his remorse without drawing extra attention. Then he moved past his teacher, trying to make it to his desk before anything else could happen. His classmates were whispering to one another, but they stopped when he passed, looking down at the trail of water dripping behind him.

"Where are you going, Midoriya?" Tokunaga Sensei said.

Izuku stopped. He had almost made it to his desk. Shoulders drawing up to his ears, he slowly turned to face his teacher.

"We've talked about your tardiness," Tokunaga Sensei said, "You know that it's disrespectful. Have I done something to lose your respect?"

Izuku opened his mouth to reply, but the words got stuck. He couldn't think of anything to say that was true and nice at the same time. Someone behind him snickered—he heard the sound cut off as they covered their mouth with their hand.

"Alright Midoriya," Tokunaga Sensei said, waving his hand in dismissal, "You don't want to talk about it. I'll put the mark in your record, and we'll move on."

"Yes Sensei," Izuku said, and then sat down as fast as he could.

At lunch, Izuku found an empty table in the corner to spread out his notebook pages and assess the damage. Inside the backpack, they had been kept fairly dry during his trek to school, but as he had sat through his morning classes the water had soaked inward, blurring ink and sticking pages together. So Izuku placed his empty backpack over the back of a chair to air out and set about organizing everything else. The torn pages had gotten wildly out of order, and some of them needed to be pulled apart and flattened out.

"What've you got there, Midoriya?"

Izuku turned. A group of girls were standing behind him, trays full of the food they had just bought. Mogami stood in the front, drinking from a small milk carton with a straw. She had limp, shoulder length purple hair, and she had to flick it out of the way every time she took a sip.

"Um," Midoriya said, realizing he had just been staring and wringing his hands. He didn't feel like talking to anyone just now.

Mogami stepped forward, slow and deliberate, like a boat built to cut through ice. She was shorter than Izuku, so she couldn't really tower over him, but that was the feeling she gave off when she leaned forward to inspect the table.

"I got caught in the rain," Izuku said, "So—I'm trying to fix—the pages were sticking together, and—"

"Oh!" Mogami yelped, and she dropped the carton. In half a second she had grabbed it again, turned it back right side up, but most of the contents had already spilled out over the drying papers.

Izuku was already moving, grabbing at the outer ring of pages, the ones not quite ruined, and pulling them away from the spreading liquid. There weren't any paper towels nearby, so Izuku had to give up on the ones in the center of the blast zone. At least they were absorbent, and would help to protect the rest.

Then something cold covered his ear.

Izuku jerked away, Instinctively reaching for the thing on the side of his head. His hair was dripping wet.

"You didn't even notice!" Mogami blurted. With one hand she covered her mouth, as if to quiet her own reaction. In her other hand she held the carton upside down, but it was hardly dripping. The straw lay between them on the floor.

"I told you so," Machi said. She was still standing with the rest of Mogami's crew, holding her lunch tray with two hands and gesturing with a third. "Deku's really obsessed with his notebooks."

"What a creep," Chiura said, flicking her orange hair out of her face. "What's he even putting in there? All the things he'd do if he actually had any friends?"

Izuku didn't really have a good answer for that, mostly because he had already gone back to salvaging his work, and he wasn't having an easy time of it. His hair made his hand wet when he touched it, and the first page he grabbed after had been left with little ridged circles where his fingers pressed.

Behind him, his peers started laughing, and he decided to just keep ignoring them. It wasn't like there was anything he could do to make them stop.

When his final class period ended, Izuku already had his things packed up. The second the bell rang he jumped up out of his desk chair and hurried for the door. Unfortunately, Izuku's desk was on the far side of the classroom, closer to the windows. By the time he made it across the room, his peers had already congregated around the doorway, eager to move on with their day. Izuku stepped forward into the middle of them, trying to weave his way through the crowd and escape.

A hand closed over his shoulder. Izuku jerked away, and nearly choked on his collar.

“Where are you running off to?” Kariage asked, reeling Izuku in by the fabric of his uniform.

“I was just,” Izuku started. Swallowed. “The day is over. I’m just leaving.”

He felt the weight shift on his shoulders, but when he spun around to stop it, his backpack slipped off with the movement. Toujou—his classmate with the extendable eye sockets—had pulled it down. Izuku reached to snatch it back, but Kariage yanked him away. His fingers brushed the fabric, but they couldn’t quite close over the strap.”

“Boys,” Uchino Sensei called, glaring up from his desk, “If you’re going to be rowdy, take it somewhere else.”

“I don’t think,” Izuku said.

“Yes Sensei,” Kariage interrupted, pulling Izuku out the door, “We wouldn’t want to disturb you!”

On the bottom floor of the stairwell, there was an alcove that led to nowhere. The floor dipped down and carried on like it wanted to be a hallway, or a door to the courtyard. Instead there was a wall, and about ten square feet of space behind the last set of stairs. It was completely useless—whatever wing of the school was originally supposed to have attached here had never been built.

Maybe that was why people kept bringing Izuku here.

Kariage hit him again, in the soft space just under his last row of ribs.

Izuku twisted his shoulders, but Toujou's grip was sure, and his elbows stayed pinned together behind him. Next Izuku tried to hook his foot around Toujou's ankle and trip him, but he couldn't make contact. He was facing the wrong way to see what he was doing, and Toujou was dexterous enough to just step out of the way.

Kariage hit him again.

It was all so stupid. Distantly, Izuku could remember times when he had seen his classmates getting picked on, when he had inserted himself into this exact scenario to help them get away. There had been a point back then. But now, Izuku wasn't saving anyone, and he wasn't going to be cowed. Everybody was losing here.

Still, it wasn't like he was about to advise Kariage to go pick on someone else.

"What are you doing after this?" Toujou asked, like he was making conversation over ping pong.

"Not sure," Kariage said, shaking out his hand. "I was thinking of going to the arcade, but Bakugou said something earlier about swinging by the comic store."

Izuku considered the benefits of letting himself go completely limp. Toujou would probably drop him, but he would fall directly into kicking range.

Something dinged, and Kariage reached into his pocket for his phone. "Oh—that's him now," he said, "We've got to meet him at the corner store. Come on!"

Toujou threw Izuku to the side and hurried after his friend—to his right side, away from the blank alcove—and Izuku smacked his head against the underside of a stair.

In hindsight, if he had been a little less focused on pulling out of Toujou’s grasp and a little more focused on keeping his own balance, he might have avoided it. Toujou probably didn't even mean to hurt him that time—he and Kariage hadn't stuck around to gloat about it. At least, Izuku didn't think they had.

Actually, now that he was considering it, Izuku couldn't remember how long he had been laying here in the useless stairwell. It was probably time he started heading home.

Gingerly, Izuku pushed himself off the tile and sat up. He didn't really want to take stock of his injuries—they'd only be different by tomorrow. The fact that he could sit up meant it was probably fine for him to stand too.

Reaching up to grip the stairs. Izuku pulled himself to his feet. Then his vision fogged over—black pushing from the edges like a vignette until it swallowed everything. He kept his grip on the stairs as an anchor. He wasn't going to fall over. It was fine for him to stand up and go home.

After a moment, Izuku's vision cleared, and he glanced around at the alcove. There weren't any windows, so it was hard to tell what time it was—but based on the silence in the building around him, most after school clubs were probably over.

His backpack was leaning against the opposite wall, basically intact. Izuku's eyes clouded again, this time with tears. He was so sure it must have been taken somewhere, and he would have to spend time looking for it. Now he could just go home.

Izuku crouched facing the corner, one hand on the wall to steady himself as he vomited onto the pavement. The convulsion sent a shock of pain through his already bruised abdomen, but there wasn't much coming up. Distantly, Izuku tried to remember if he'd eaten anything yet today.

The sun had fallen in the sky, and this alley was at just the right angle for the light to slide in and strike at his face. It was hard to concentrate. The light hurt. Why did the light hurt?

Something warm and dry brushed against the side of his leg. Izuku didn't react—he couldn't think how to react—and then the white cat from that morning walked past him.

"Hi again," Izuku said. His voice felt all wrong.

The cat turned to look at him, tail pointed up like a flag, and then it walked back the way it had come, brushing up against him again.

"Is this where you live?" Izuku asked. His stomach had settled a little, but he still felt like he might tip over if he let go of the wall.

The cat meowed, and Izuku had the sudden thought that it might have been abandoned, that it could be hungry right now, and hoping he would help.

"I don't have any food," Izuku said, "But if I can make it home, then—I'll come up with something. I can find a way to help you."

The cat brushed by again and stopped to stare up at him quizzically. It had green eyes.

Izuku reached his hand up the wall and hooked his fingertips over the edge of a brick. Then, inch by inch, he pulled himself to his feet. When his legs straightened his vision grayed out at the edges, and the rolling of his headache crested, and something in his gut twisted—but he kept his grip against the mortar, and after a minute the pain leveled out into something bearable.

"I can make it home," Izuku said, sliding his hand forward along the wall, sliding one foot along the ground to follow it. "I can make it. I can get there."

He wasn't sure which of the two of them the promise was for.

The elevator at his apartment building was out of order, so Izuku dragged himself up two flights of stairs. When he eventually reached the right landing and turned the corner to find his apartment, he stood there for a moment, slumped against the alcove where the door was set. Probably he should have been frustrated—but all that he could think of while he rummaged in his pocket for the key was how glad he was that his apartment was on the third floor and not the fifth.

The lock was sticky—there was a certain way you had to maneuver the key, back and forth with just the right amount of pressure—to get the bolt to jiggle open. Izuku knew how it felt to do it right, but today he had one palm pressed against the wood to steady himself, and his backpack was sliding down onto his arm, and he couldn't quite grip the key tight enough to hold it steady. Over and over he turned it, back and forth and back and forth, and each time the door said, "I don't care how hard you worked to get here. You aren't doing it right."

"I'm trying," Izuku insisted, turning the key again.

The door swung open—Izuku had been leaning all his weight against it—and there was nothing to hold it once the lock gave way. Izuku stumbled and fell down onto the mat by the shoe rack. It had a good texture—rough enough to feel real, but not gravelly enough to skin yourself on. Really, it was the most comfortable ground Izuku had fallen on all day.

The apartment was blissfully dark, but the fluorescent lights from the hallway fell in through the open door and sliced at his face. Without getting up, Izuku reached over and pushed the door closed. Then he let his eyes slip shut.

When he woke up the apartment was even darker—the daylight that had been slipping through the living room curtains was gone. Izuku pushed himself upright, feeling for his backpack to be sure he hadn't let it get stolen earlier. Luckily, it was right nearby, pressed between him and the shoe rack.

His ribs were already aching from the effort of sitting up, and his head was still pounding, but right now, Izuku was most concerned by the fact that he'd barely eaten all day and he still wasn't hungry. There wasn't anything he could do to make himself want food more, but he did need to go eat dinner anyway. He wasn't going to be strong enough to save people as a hero if he didn't get good nutrition while he was still growing.

Grabbing a shelf of the shoe rack, Izuku pulled himself to his feet and started walking along the wall toward the kitchen. When he made it out of the hall, he grabbed onto the counter and pulled himself around the end of it until he was standing parallel with the fridge. There was a terrifying moment where he had to step across the center of the kitchen to reach the fridge handle—but thankfully he reached the other side without falling.

Izuku pulled the fridge door open, and light shot out at him. Wincing, he glanced over the contents of the shelves. There were vegetables, unwashed and unchopped, and a leftover packet of sauce from a frozen meal—and there in the back corner was a tupperware of leftovers. Izuku pulled it forward and pried open the lid. It had probably been beef stew once. The mold covering the top made it hard to tell.

Briefly, Izuku considered boiling it for a while and then eating it anyway—he didn't quite feel up to making another meal from scratch—and then his stomach did a weird little flip. Quickly, Izuku shut the lid before any more of the smell could leak out. He probably wouldn't be able to keep it down long enough for it to do him any good.

In the cabinet next to the fridge, Izuku found a box of uncooked noodles. That was something he could eat after boiling it—but now that he was really considering it, he realized he would have to find a pot, and fill it with water, and carry it around, and not spill any hot liquid on himself. There were so many steps involved in that, and most of them involved standing up. But sometimes when he was younger, and his mother was cooking, she'd let him have a noodle to chew on while he waited for dinner to be ready. So it couldn't hurt him to eat them like this.

He sat back against the fridge and began breaking off bite sized pieces of noodle, crunching them between his teeth. It was nice that there was so little flavor, that it took him so long to chew. His body hadn't quite realized he was eating food, and the underlying nausea that had been swelling inside him all afternoon wasn't rising high enough to stop him. Everything was turning out alright.

After dinner, Izuku pulled his backpack into his room and began laying out his papers across the floor. Some of them were still damp from lunchtime—Izuku had a feeling he would never quite get the smell out—but overall they were in a better state than they had been that morning. He began to sort them into categories, separating his homework into subjects, his hero notes by incident, but it was very difficult. The bulb of the overhead light in his room was dying, and it kept flickering, once every few seconds. Normally he could have ignored it, but tonight it bit at him. Soon he could barely make out his own handwriting, and the whole process became pointless. Sighing, Izuku turned off the light and staggered into his bed. He'd have to figure it out in the morning.

"Late again, Midoriya?"

Izuku dipped his head and muttered, "Sorry Sensei." Then he stepped past to head for his desk—but he had to stop almost immediately and steady himself through another dizzy spell.

Tokunaga Sensei clicked his tongue. "Your homework was due at the beginning of this period. I won't accept it now."

Izuku bit his lip. It had been all he could do to drag himself back to school this morning. He'd forgotten there was homework. He'd forgotten to eat breakfast. If he hadn't fallen asleep in his school clothes, he'd probably still be wearing pajamas.

"...you even listening to me?" Tokunaga Sensei continued.

"Sorry," Izuku said, pulling his hand away from the desk he had grabbed and turning to bow at his teacher again. "I'm—really sorry."

"Oh, save it," Tokunaga Sensei said, moving back to the blackboard. "Just sit down, Midoriya. I'm sick of your excuses."

Izuku turned to continue toward his desk and discovered that the worst possible thing was happening. Kacchan was staring at him. Right away, Izuku flicked his gaze back to the floor, but the damage had been done. Kacchan had been thinking something, and Izuku knew it, and Kacchan knew that he knew it.

Kacchan hated when Izuku knew things about him.

Tokunaga Sensei resumed the lecture before Izuku made it to his desk, but to be fair, walking was taking him longer than normal. When he got to his seat, Izuku reached into his backpack to grab his notes for this class, and realized that he'd forgotten to put most of its contents back in. But there was one notebook there, and a few pencils—he'd just put everything in with his literature notes today, and then make notes about what happened in his other books later so he knew where to find the material. His missing lunch money was more of a problem, but at least nobody would be able to steal it at home. Maybe he could start saving up and get something for the cat that had been nice to him yesterday. And anyway, he needed to focus now. He was planning to apply to U.A. and it wouldn't do to let his grades slip.

Movement caught in the corner of his eye, and Izuku glanced up just in time to see Kacchan turning around again.

At lunch, Izuku started on his homework, determined not to miss any of it again. It was difficult, since he'd had trouble paying attention in class. Also, the cafeteria was pretty distracting. The noise throbbed around his ears, and he was sore from sitting up for so long. A part of him really wanted to go find a big dark broom closet and lie down until everyone went home. But that wasn't going to help him get into U.A.

"Whatcha up to today?" Machi said.

Izuku startled—he hadn't noticed Machi approaching, and she was standing right behind him now. She must have put her lunch tray down somewhere else, because she wasn't holding it, but the orange juice carton in her hand must have come with the meal.

Machi leaned forward to look over his shoulder at his homework, and Izuku flipped the notebook shut. He had the vague notion that if he didn't let on what he was trying to accomplish, then Machi wouldn't be able to thwart him.

"Hey!" Machi blurted.

Izuku turned just in time to see Kacchan wrest the carton from her hands.

"That's mine!" Machi insisted, stomping her foot, "Give it back!"

Kacchan didn't say anything—just looked her in the eyes and took a big sip of orange juice.

Izuku blinked. He should probably intervene somehow, but he was so tired. He couldn't quite visualize what kind of action would help here.

Machi threw up her hands—all four of them.

"What?" Kacchan demanded, "You weren't planning to drink it."

"You aren't any fun," Machi said, and stalked off.

Kacchan sat down in the chair next to Izuku. He took another sip of orange juice.

"That's Machi's," Izuku said, "You should—"

Kacchan looked at him. Izuku couldn't parse it. He wasn't angry—nothing in his face was scrunched up—and it left his whole expression sort of blank.

Izuku hesitated. He couldn't tell Kacchan to give it back—Machi would hardly want her juice now. And he couldn't tell what Kacchan was thinking. He finally settled for, "You should get her another one."

Kacchan scoffed, and he leaned back in his chair so far that two of the legs came off the ground. And then he didn't do anything else.

"What?" Kacchan said.

Izuku realized he'd been staring. Quickly, he turned back to his homework. The notebook was closed. He didn't want to open the notebook. Kacchan was right there—he would see that Izuku needed it.

"Well?" Kacchan demanded, "You gonna stare at the table all day?"

"Leave me alone," Izuku said, considering. Maybe he could just keep staring at the table.

Kacchan's chair squeaked along the floor, getting farther and farther away. By the time Izuku looked up, he had set it down at another table, and his friends were moving their trays to make room for him.

Izuku took a deep breath and let it out slowly. He felt like the mouse that the kite hadn't swooped down on. He wasn't sure he would still be safe when it made its next circuit.

A hand closed over his shoulder.

"Oi!" Kacchan shouted, "Deku wants to sit alone!"

Izuku sat very still. He couldn't see who was standing behind him from this angle, but he was afraid that shifting dramatically would draw the wrong kind of attention.

"And?" the kid behind him said, "Not like I'm sitting." It sounded like Sawada—and he wasn't normally that terrible, all things considered. Sawada would say something mean, and laugh maybe, and then he'd get bored and go away. No, the real problem here was—

"Get lost," Kacchan said. He was standing up now, either to confront Sawada, or because he hadn't quite sat down yet. His fists were clenched, one of them around the carton he was holding, and the cardboard warped, ready to explode.

Izuku held his breath.

"Whatever," Sawada said, and his hand moved away. Izuku heard his footsteps as he wandered off, saw Kacchan sit back down in his chair, and he grabbed at the front of his uniform, trying to still his racing heart. Tomorrow, he needed to find a less distracting place to study.

"Where are you going?" Kacchan said.

Izuku kept shoving his books and pencils back into his bag. "Class is over, Kacchan," he said, "People go home when that happens."

"Wait here a second," Kacchan said, sitting down on someone else's desk nearby.

Against his better judgment, Izuku slowed his packing. It was easier to keep from bending any pages that way, at least.

When the classroom had mostly emptied, Kacchan stood up. Izuku slipped his backpack on, and when Kacchan grabbed his arm to pull him forward, he followed. For some reason, he always followed.

"Hey Katsuki," Toujou said as they passed, "When you're done with—"

"Scram," Kacchan said, and kept walking.

Izuku blinked, trying to process what was happening through the burning fluorescent lights in the hall. Kacchan was going to hurt him again. Right? That's what this was. That's what this always was. So why weren't any of his friends invited along? Why was Machi walking down the hall ahead of them, drinking an unbent carton of orange juice?

Kacchan towed him down the stairs, down the next hall toward the doors. And then Izuku shook his hand off.

"What?" Kacchan asked, and he looked around, like he thought Izuku must have noticed something.

"Leave me alone," Izuku said, surprised at his own boldness. But there had always been something of a scientist in him, some well of curiosity his exhaustion tried to bury. He had to know if what happened at lunch could be repeated.

Kacchan stepped forward and Izuku flinched. They both froze. Something passed across Kacchan's face then—his eyes went wide, like he was the one who had been startled—and then it was gone. Kacchan walked past him and headed back up the stairs.

Izuku let out the breath he had been holding. Then he realized that the door was just down the hall, that nobody was standing between him and freedom yet, and he hurried for the exit before that could change.

Izuku wasn't sure how much cat food cost, but after about two weeks of saving his lunch money, he figured it was time to go shopping.

He left for school an hour early so he could stop at the corner store along the way. Then he spent a good twenty minutes searching the place before he realized they definitely didn't carry cat food. In hindsight, he should have considered that possibility.

Approaching the check out, Izuku carefully slid the stacked cans of tuna from his arms onto the counter.

"Careful," the cashier said good naturedly. He put down the book he had been reading and began scanning them one by one.

"Is your book any good?" Izuku asked, noting the name on the man's name tag.

"It's awesome," Shigaraki said, blowing his unruly white hair out of his eyes, "At least, I thought so when I was a kid."

"Does it not hold up now?" Izuku asked, pulling his money out of his pocket.

"It would," Shigaraki explained, "But I'm missing the last couple books in the series, I think. I remember it having a happy ending—but I can't find it anywhere. Things just get worse and worse." He scanned the last can, and looked up at the display. "That'll be—"

"I got it," Izuku said, handing him the exact change. "And I hope you find the good ending!"

"Yeah," Shigaraki said, smiling as he looked down to count the money, "Me too."

Rokuda frowned in concentration. He had the front of Izuku’s uniform clenched in one fist, and was trying to pull him up and back, make him lean out farther over the gap in the center of the stairwell. It wasn’t working.

Izuku had his foot hooked in the bars of the railing.

“You aren’t that heavy,” Rokuda said, confused and straining.

Izuku reached down and grabbed the railing with his free hand too. Rokuda’s strength really was impressive—though he could probably stand to improve his situational awareness.

“Oi!” Kacchan shouted, “You extra!”

Tilting his head back, Izuku looked up and saw him—a flight and a half above them, leaning over the railing and looking down. When Rokuda didn’t react at all, Kacchan pushed away from the edge and started running down the stairs toward them. That was kind of strange. Kacchan had been pretty distant for a couple of weeks now.

“Hey,” Rokuda said, slowly turning his head down, “Are you holding on?”

Izuku let go and held his hand up as evidence. With his other hand, he kept prying at Rokuda’s thumb.

Kacchan rounded the last landing. “I’m talking to you!” he shouted.

“Me?” Rokuda asked, and pushed Izuku away.

With no hands on the railing and only one foot on the ground, the push was enough to make Izuku lose his balance and fall down the stairs. Luckily he didn’t go far—his foot stuck between the bars and caught him. It was just like tripping, only with the ground a little farther away.

Rokuda grunted as Kacchan shoved him to the side. “What do you—“

“Go to class,” Kacchan told him.

Izuku pushed himself up on his elbows and tried to untangle his foot from the railing. That was when he realized something was wrong.

“I thought,” Rokuda said, and then his voice petered off. Quietly, he made his way up the stairs. He must have realized Kacchan didn’t actually have a use for him right now.

Izuku could sympathize.

“You need to stand up,” Kacchan said, “You can’t pull it out that way.”

Carefully, Izuku got his free leg under him and started to stand, grabbing the railing to pull himself up. Kacchan was right—the bars ran up and down, and with his foot twisted sideways, it was too big to fit through. Standing, Izuku was able to change the angle and pull it out. Then he set it down on the stair and almost fell over again.

“You’re kidding me,” Kacchan said.

Izuku made sure he had a good grip on the railing, and then he used his good foot to hop up to the next stair.

“Hah!” Kacchan barked. “No. You’re going to the nurse.”

Izuku grimaced. “I don’t think—“

Kacchan grabbed his arm. “Not a question. Come or I will drag you.”

“It’s not swollen,” the school nurse said, tilting her head to the side to look. “Be careful for a few hours, but once you’ve walked on it a bit the soreness should wear off.”

Izuku nodded. “I’ll be—“

“You’re not even looking,” Kacchan insisted, crouching to pull Izuku’s sock down. “Look—see there?”

“You want to be a hero, don’t you Bakugou?” The nurse said, smiling down at him. “Your compassion is admirable, but—“

“My what now?” Kacchan blurted.

“—it’s not swollen,” the nurse continued, “Midoriya will be just fine when he gets over himself.”

“Yeah Kacchan,” Izuku retorted. What he didn’t say was I tried to tell you.

“Were you always like this?” Kacchan said, standing up, “How are you not fired?”

Before he could stop himself, Izuku grabbed his arm. “Kacchan—let’s just go to class.”

For a second, Kacchan stood there, not doing anything. Then he turned around and towed Izuku back out of the room. “She doesn’t know what she’s talking about,” Kacchan said, starting to walk a little faster.

Izuku tripped—it was hard to follow with one foot working—but he caught himself on the wall.

“Hurry up,” Kacchan told him.

“I can’t go any faster,” Izuku bit out, “If you’re in such a rush then just leave.”

Kacchan rolled his eyes. “Hey moron—you’re the one who's gonna be late for—“

The bell rang then. Lunch period was over.

“You’re the one who wanted to go to the nurse!” Izuku insisted. “Did you really think I could make it back that fast?”

“She should have given you a note!” Kacchan shouted, “It’s not my fault that woman is completely incompetent!”

“Why do you even care?” Izuku shouted back, “When did you decide to start caring? This isn’t even your problem!”

Kacchan’s whole face shut down, melding into that carefully blank look he had been wearing so often recently. It was incredibly disconcerting—suddenly, Izuku couldn’t predict what he was going to do.

“What do you want,” Kacchan said, voice level.

“Um,” Izuku said, not sure what he was allowed to answer, “To go back to class? Slowly?”

Kacchan nodded. “Okay then. We’ll do that.”

After their last period, while their classmates were talking and milling towards the door, Kacchan came over and stood next to Izuku’s desk. “Everybody’s going to the arcade,” he said.

“Okay Kacchan,” Izuku said, still packing up his things, “Have fun with your friends.”

“Not me, idiot!” Kacchan said, sneering and pointing at his chest with one thumb. “Don’t lump me in with those extras.”

“Then I don’t know what you’re trying to say,” Izuku said.

Kacchan stepped closer, and Izuku automatically leaned back in his seat.

“Wait here,” Kacchan said, face blank again, “Until they all leave. Make sure you don’t pass them on the way home.”

Izuku stopped for a second to process this. He’d given up trying to avoid his classmates long ago because they didn’t move predictably—sometimes they waited for him here after class, and it was best to get out right away—and other times they went somewhere in town, and he ran into them on his way to something else.

“See you tomorrow,” Kacchan said, turning to walk away.

“Wait—Kacchan!” Izuku said, standing up and tripping immediately. He’d been sitting down so long that he’d forgotten about his foot. By the time he had grabbed his desk and pulled himself back up, Kacchan was standing and waiting for him again.

“Where are you going?” Izuku asked, trying not to grimace, “I mean—if it’s not the arcade."

Kacchan shrugged, hands in his pockets. “Donno.”

“But you’re leaving—like you’re going somewhere,” Izuku insisted.

“Just leaving,” Kacchan said, cocking his head to the side. “Class is over. People leave when that happens.”

“Okay,” Izuku said, lowering himself back into his chair, “I guess—yeah okay, that—it makes sense.”

“What,” Kacchan said, stepping closer again.

“Nothing,” Izuku said, fiddling with his hands, “I mean—I was thinking—“

“Don’t you want me to leave?”

Izuku’s mouth dropped open before he could think of what words to put in it. “Wait—Kacchan—that was ages ago! I just—I just wanted to see if you would or—if there was something else that you were—were you—this whole time you were—“

“If you’re trying to tell me to hang out here then you’re doing a bad job,” Kacchan said, and he sat down across the aisle on someone else's desk.

“Um,” Izuku said, looking away, “If you want to then—yeah that would—I mean, I’d like it if—“

“You haven’t finished packing your bag,” Kacchan said.

“Oh right,” Izuku said, reaching to right his backpack. Some of the contents had been knocked out when he fell on it. “Um, thanks.”

“Don’t say that,” Kacchan said, pulling out his phone, “I haven’t done anything.”

They made it all the way to the underpass before Kacchan gave up. He’d been clenching his jaw and sparking small explosions in his hands—not enough to be intimidating, but enough that Izuku could tell he was frustrated. Finally he had screamed, sworn, and turned to run back the way they had come. Izuku couldn't blame him. Hopping was a really slow way to travel, even when he was pushing himself for Kacchan's sake.

Now that he was alone, Izuku decided to sit down and catch his breath. He pulled out his homework and picked up where he had left off after class. It was a nice day today—the overcast sky kept it from getting too hot, kept the light from hurting his eyes. Instead of stark shadows, there was a sort of gray haze over everything. It made Izuku want to get a warm drink and watch All Might cartoons on the couch all day. This was close enough—he was sitting, and this homework would help him become a hero himself in the long run.

About twenty minutes later, Izuku heard footsteps pounding toward him. Quickly, he started packing up his things, sure that one of Kacchan's friends must have split off from the arcade group. Then he looked up at the street behind him, and realized that something way weirder was happening.

Kacchan ran back up the street and stopped in front of Izuku. He was breathing too hard to get any words out. There was a cardboard package in his hand.

"What happened?" Izuku asked.

In answer, Kacchan threw the box at his face, but not hard enough to hurt. It bounced off of Izuku's forehead and landed on the ground beside him.

Izuku turned over the package so he could read the label on the front. It was an ankle brace.

"This is not," Kacchan said, panting, "Gonna fix it—got that? You've got to—rest and—and all that."

Slowly, Izuku picked up the box, held it carefully before him in both hands. It couldn't have been that expensive. Kacchan must have run to whatever store was closest and grabbed the first thing that would work. Izuku wasn't sure if it would even be effective. That wasn't really the point.

"You're gonna rest when you get home, you hear?" Kacchan said, pointing down at him accusingly.

Izuku couldn't say anything. He didn't know how it was possible that other people had been getting onto him for incessant muttering his entire life. He wasn't sure his mouth had ever formed a sentence before.

Crouching down, Kacchan snapped his fingers in front of Izuku's face. "Oi—are you hearing any of this?"

"What happened?" Izuku asked, but he meant something different now.

It must have come out in his voice, because Kacchan rocked back and sat down on the ground. "Does there have to be something?"

"Yeah," Izuku said, running his thumb down the edge of the box. There was a plastic adhesive there, taping the end closed. He could probably break it with his nail, if he did it right. "Otherwise—nothing makes sense."

"You really wanna do this right now?" Kacchan asked, leaning his head back to stare up at the roof of the overpass, "Can't you walk home first?"

Izuku tore the package open. The brace fell out in a jumble—there were more pieces to it than he would have expected. He glanced back at the picture on the cover—it looked like the brace laced up in front, and the other ribbon parts pulled around the sides and velcroed. It shouldn't be too hard to replicate.

"You know how those work?" Kacchan asked. He leaned forward into a crouch again, and for just a second, when Izuku first glanced at him, he had almost been grinning.

"I can figure it out," Izuku said, pulling loose the laces of his shoe.

He probably would have figured it out, given enough time, but Kacchan was a really impatient person and also absolutely convinced that he knew the only right way to do things. About halfway through, Izuku got tired of his loud and insistent assertions that Izuku was doing everything wrong.

"You do it then," Izuku said, crossing his arms. He wasn't really upset though. Given everything that happened today so far, he thought Kacchan had earned the right to be a little bit annoying.

As it turned out, Kacchan was really good at putting on braces. Even though he started by undoing all the lacing Izuku had finished, he still got the whole thing on correctly in less time than it had taken Izuku to get as far as he had.

Izuku hadn't even considered that putting on braces was a thing you could be good at.

"Your shoe might not fit over it," Kacchan said, picking up Izuku's shoe and tossing it at him. "Put it in your bag. We won't be running or anything."

"Okay Kacchan," Izuku said, unzipping his bag and packing his shoe away. Then he braced his hand against the wall of the underpass and started the slow process of standing up.

Kacchan stood up first. Then he held out his hand.

Izuku stared. He couldn't shake the feeling that this was some sort of trick.

"Don't make it a big deal," Kacchan said. He wouldn't quite look Izuku in the eyes.

Izuku laughed—short and sharp. Was it really this easy? Had it really been this simple all along? Then he weighed his two options—sit and think about this impossible thing until it got dark, or ignore it for now and go home—and he took the hand Kacchan was offering.

“Did you move or something?”

Izuku paused with one foot in the air. It was way easier to walk with the brace—it took most of the weight off of his ankle—but he didn’t want to push his luck.

“You don’t live that way,” Kacchan insisted, pointing down the street Izuku had turned on to.

“Oh!” Izuku said, realizing that he'd forgotten to explain, “We have to take a detour.”

“Right now?” Kacchan asked, incredulous.

"We have to feed Neko," Izuku explained, turning into the alley where she lived and making his way forward toward the dumpster.

Kacchan walked after him, passed him, and turned around to walk backward just ahead. It wasn't too hard, since Izuku was moving pretty slow. "Who is—"

Neku came up from behind, and Kacchan nearly tripped—he only kept from falling over by using his explosions to propel himself up and over until he caught his footing again.

"Kacchan!" Izuku said, "I didn't know you could—"

"That's Neko?" Kacchan shouted, pointing down at the white cat, "That's the best name you could come up with?"

Offended by the noise, Neko walked over and rubbed against Izuku's leg.

"Don't listen to him," Izuku said, reaching down to pet her chin, "I bet Kacchan couldn't come up with a better name."

"Yes I could!" Kacchan insisted, charging forward.

Izuku pushed past him and walked over to the dumpster. Reaching his hand into the space underneath, he pulled out one of the cans of tuna he had stashed there.

"Why does your cat live in a dumpster?" Kacchan asked, crouching beside him.

Izuku shrugged. Then he pulled open the lid of the can and set it on the ground. "You'd have to ask her—I think Neko belongs to herself."

"Wow, that door hates you," Kacchan said.

Izuku turned the key again. Nothing happened.

"Auntie Inko!" Kacchan shouted, "Come open the door for us!"

"She's still at work," Izuku said, pulling the key out and inserting it again.

Kacchan's eyebrows scrunched up, one a little higher than the other. "What, still? We took forever getting here!"

The door finally gave, and Izuku pushed it open, stepping forward onto the mat. "She works late a lot," he said, "I think maybe rent went up."

Brushing past him, Kacchan walked forward about halfway down the front hall. He reached up onto the wall, tracing over the spots there with his fingers. “Is that mold?”

Izuku shrugged, shutting the door and tugging off his shoe. “The ceiling leaks sometimes. I tried telling the landlord, but—“

“Okay, stop there,” Kacchan said, pushing off the wall and rounding on Izuku, “Why are you talking to your landlord?”

“Um, because of the leaks?” Izuku said, pushing his shoe forward until it sat in its place.

“No, idiot,” Kacchan said, marching forward and poking Izuku in the sternum, “Why isn’t your Mom doing something about it?”

Izuku held up his hands like he was going to pat Kacchan on the shoulders, talk to him the way he spoke to Neko and tell him everything was fine. But that would never work on Kacchan, so his hands just kind of hung there. “I told you—she’s been working late—she’s just really busy and—“

“Tough,” Kacchan insisted, “This is her job too.” Then he bent down and pulled Izuku’s phone from his backpack. He flipped it open, and his brow furrowed. “How do these turn on?”

“Oh,” Izuku said, wringing his hands, “It stopped working a while ago.”

Tossing Izuku’s phone to the side, Kacchan pulled his own phone out of his pocket. “What’s your Mom’s number then?” When Izuku didn’t say anything, Kacchan looked up at him, searching his face for the answer.

“It—um, it’s in my phone contacts,” Izuku said.

Kacchan spun, charged down the hall, and burst through the door at the end. Izuku hurried after him, but his hurrying was slow, and by the time he made it out into the living room, Kacchan was slamming open the cabinets in the kitchen.

"Kacchan?" Izuku asked. So far Kacchan had been unpredictably nice, but that didn't mean he wasn't dangerous anymore. It was safer to stay here, with the counter between them.

"Isn't there a paper taped to the back of one of these?" Kacchan demanded.

"A paper?" Izuku said, tapping his chin, "Oh, like with emergency numbers? I don't think—"

“Then how are you supposed to talk to her!” Kacchan shouted, slamming his hands down on the counter.

Izuku flinched.

For a moment, both of them stood there, not quite looking at each other. Smoke drifted up from Kacchan's palms, still flat on the tile.

"Okay," Kacchan said, slowly sliding his hands off the counter and shoving them into his pockets, "Okay. When will she get home?"

Izuku looked down at his hands, started pushing back his cuticles with his thumb nail. "After I go to sleep."

"Why don't you want to tell me?” Kacchan said.

Izuku bit his lip. He really did want to tell Kacchan—but he didn’t actually know when Mom got home these days. Once he had determined to stay up until she arrived, so he could know when it happened, so that he could see her face. She’d never come. That day his lunch money hadn’t been left out for him in the morning—so he knew something unusual had happened. She must have had a business trip he didn't know about, or gotten held up helping a friend. Still, illogical as it was, Izuku couldn’t shake the feeling that it was his waiting that had kept her away.

“Okay,” Kacchan said, “Then let me tell you what I think is happening.” He leaned forward, resting his forearms on the counter, like a librarian trying to see the child on the other side of their desk. “I think you know this isn’t right. I think you know that your Mom isn’t taking good care of you.“

"No—she's doing her best," Izuku said, each syllable enunciated, "I don't know any of that. I don't know what you mean." He could feel his breaths losing their rhythm, his caution slipping away. Soon it wouldn't matter if Kacchan was a safe person to be upset around.

"Izuku," Kacchan said, expression serious, "Does she know that you get beat up at school all the time? Is she even gonna notice what happened to your foot?"

"Shut up about my Mom!" Izuku shouted.

Kacchan's face twisted up, and then he pushed off from the counter, marched around and back down the hall he had come from. When he reached Izuku's room he slammed the door open.

Izuku sat down, set his elbows on his knees, and tried not to tear up. Kacchan didn't get it—he couldn't. He didn't know Mom like Izuku did. She would never let anything bad happen to him if it was at all within her power to stop it. It was her best and worst quality.

Something slammed inside his room, and Izuku realized that maybe it wasn't a good idea to leave Kacchan alone with all of his most prized possessions. Pulling himself up from the ground, he hobbled down the hallway after him, caught his hand on the doorframe and swung into his own room.

Nothing was destroyed. Kacchan had pulled open several drawers. There was a random assortment of objects in a pile on the floor—mostly clothes. He had moved on to the bathroom now—Izuku could hear him rummaging around under the sink.

"I bet you have an All Might themed toothbrush," Kacchan said, "Where is it?"

"Uh—the other cabinet. Above the sink," Izuku said, entering his room and cautiously toeing at the floor pile, "But I have better merch than that, if you wanted to see—"

"No, you dumb nerd," Kacchan said, slamming a cabinet closed, "You're staying over at my house."

"Hag!" Kacchan shouted, kicking open the door, "You need to take us to the hospital!"

Izuku peered over his shoulder, trying to see if he could locate Kacchan's Mom and figure out what her reaction to any of this was. Maybe that would let him know what a hospital had to do with anything.

Kacchan's Mom emerged from the kitchen, drying a pot with a towel. "Where were you, brat?" she said, "I saved you some dinner, but it'll be—"

"We gotta go," Kacchan insisted, pointing over his shoulder with his thumb. "Izuku broke his foot or something."

"Oh, the Midoriya kid?" Kacchan's Mom said, seeming to notice Izuku's presence for the first time, "Was he playing hero again?”

Kacchan strode forward into the house, finally freeing up the doorway—but he stopped just past the welcome mat at a row of hooks on the wall.

“Serves him right,” Kacchan’s Mom said, turning to walk back into the kitchen, “Maybe he’ll finally learn to face reality.”

Kacchan froze with his hand on a set of keys. Then he yanked them off the hook and rushed around the corner after her. “Mom—what is wrong with you?”

“What?” Kacchan’s Mom said, her voice floating disembodied from the adjacent room, “You really think that quirkless kid is going to make it as a hero?”

“Pretty much!” Kacchan insisted, voice rising.

Stepping over the threshold, Izuku quietly closed the door behind him. He walked up to the edge of the welcome area, just shy of the place where the wall opened up into the kitchen.

Kacchan’s Mom sighed. “Look, brat—“

“And I honestly could not care less if you believe it,” Kacchan continued, the keys in his hand rattling as he moved, “Take Izuku to the hospital!”

“I’m sure he’s fine,” Kacchan’s Mom said, “You boys walked all the way here, didn’t you?”

“I thought you were better than this,” Kacchan said.

Izuku put his hand on the wall and leaned his ear up against it. From this angle, he could see that the hook Kacchan had pulled on was slightly dislodged from the wall.

“Down that hall,” Kacchan said, bursting back around the corner.

Izuku started, but he noted the direction Kacchan was pointing.

“Oi—brat!” Kacchan’s Mom called after him, “Don’t think you can mouth off to me and then just walk away!”

“First door on the right—go,” Kacchan said, and then he went back into the kitchen.

Izuku took a deep breath. Then he stepped out into the open air of the living room. Luckily, Kacchan’s Mom had started yelling, so she was probably too absorbed in her current conversation to take much note of him. Kacchan’s Dad was sitting on the couch reading a book, trying as hard as Izuku to block out the noise. He didn’t look up as Izuku passed.

The first door on the right was Kacchan’s room. Izuku could tell by the All Might poster that was taped up over the bed. He stepped inside, cracking the door behind him as he came. He wasn't sure what to do next—Kacchan hadn't given him any other instructions, and he felt hesitant to touch anything without permission. Eventually, he found an empty spot on the floor, sat down, and pulled out his homework.

When he had nearly finished with everything that was due tomorrow, Izuku was interrupted by something large and soft dropping on his head. He scrambled to push it off, and the futon came unfolded as it fell, draping itself over his notebook.

"We can set that up later," Kacchan said, crouching beside him and setting a bowl on the ground, "Eat this first." Then he stood up and marched back out of the room.

Izuku pushed the futon off of his lap and leaned over to examine the contents of the bowl. There was rice, colored with some kind of flavoring, and there were pieces of meat and vegetables in it. Maybe it was stir fry?

Glad to have some kind of direction now that he had basically finished his own tasks, Izuku grabbed the chopsticks set on the lip of the bowl and took a bite. It was really good—well, it was spicier than he would normally like, but it was warm, and he hadn't had to do anything to get it.

When Kacchan came back a few minutes later, he stopped short in the doorway. "Oi—don't eat it if it's bad!" he insisted.

Izuku sniffed, wiped at his face, and tried not to look like he had just been sobbing.

"It's too spicy," Kacchan said.

"No, it's—it's really good!" Izuku said, and he did mean it. He wasn't crying from the spice.

"I'm sure there's other stuff," Kacchan said, turning to go.

"What happened?” Izuku called after him.

Kacchan stuck his head back around the corner. “Huh?”

“You didn’t tell me before,” Izuku said, setting his bowl on the ground.

Kacchan walked back into the doorway. For a moment he fiddled with his hands, like he didn’t know what to do with them—and then he shoved them in his pockets. “There wasn’t anything.”

“Then—why?” Izuku asked. A lot had been going on this evening, but Izuku had plenty of time to think on the walk over and while he did his homework. Kacchan didn’t just use Izuku’s real name, not even to be serious. He didn’t just go around telling people Izuku would be a hero.

“Does there have to be a reason?” Kacchan said, staring sideways at an empty corner of the room, “Can’t I just—be better?”

Izuku bit his lip, considering this. It didn’t really explain why this change had come on so sudden—but if there was anything Kacchan wanted, it was to be the best. And he didn’t tend to do things by halves.

“You don’t have to accept it,” Kacchan said. Then he turned and walked off down the hall.

Izuku turned back to his bowl and scarfed down the little that was still there, just in case Kacchan had left to get different food. He could hardly be told not to eat this genuinely yummy dinner if it was all gone. When he had finished, Izuku set the empty bowl on Kacchan's desk and set about arranging the futon.

When Kacchan returned, he had a glass of milk in one hand and a lumpy towel in the other. "Do not spill this," he instructed, passing the glass to Izuku, "The smell never comes out of things." Then he grabbed the end of the futon and pulled it around so it lay perpendicular to the bed instead of parallel.

Izuku tilted his head to the side, trying to see if the new angle would change his perception of the room's layout. No, there was definitely more room to walk around with the futon pointed the other way.

"Finish that," Kacchan said, pointing up at the glass in Izuku's hand, "Then you gotta lay down."

"It's not that late," Izuku said. He knew Kacchan went to bed early, but Izuku wouldn't be able to sleep for a few hours at least.

Kacchan rolled his eyes so dramatically that his whole head went with the motion. "No, stupid nerd—you broke your foot, remember?"

"Right," Izuku said, biting his lip, "But what you said doesn't really make sense."

"Hah?" Kacchan said, jumping to his feet.

"Well nerds are usually kind of smart—so if I'm stupid, then how—"

"Shut up," Kacchan said, rolling the towel across the floor. There was something coconed inside it that Izuku couldn't quite make out. "Anyway, you can't wear the brace all the time. Your foot will get all stiff, and you won't be able to move it right."

Quickly, Izuku gulped down the milk. Then he set the glass on the side table, sat on the ground, and started working at the bindings of the brace. Maybe if he figured out how to take them off, he'd be able to put them on again later.

Kacchan was sprawled on the ground now, legs kicked up on the bed to rest his feet on the mattress. He was scrolling through something on his phone, and Izuku felt a sudden pang of longing. When was the last time he had scrolled through his old forums? He had used to do that before falling asleep, right? What had happened to all the internet friends he hadn't heard from in ages? Would they think something had happened to him, since he had fallen off the face of the earth?

"Elevate it," Kacchan said, pointing up at the mattress, still looking directly at his phone, "And there's ice in the towel."

Izuku looked at him, then down at the futon next to him, turned so Izuku's feet would face the bed. "Kacchan's so smart," he said, scooting over to sit on the futon.

"Hah!" Kacchan exclaimed, "You've got one thing right. Did you see All Might Vs. the League of Super Evil yet?"

"No!" Izuku said, sitting all the way up and rolling onto his knees, "Did you see it? Was it good?"

In response, Kacchan turned his phone around. There was a bright cartoon splayed across the surface, paused at the beginning credits. "The hag got it digital," Kacchan explained, "Now lay down."

Shaky with excitement, Izuku had a lot of trouble maneuvering the bag of ice in the towel to stay on top of his foot. It kept slipping off and falling onto the mattress as soon as he laid back down. Once he looked over to Kacchan, wondering if he would get sick of the wait and do it himself, but Kacchan only snorted and kept staring at his phone.

Finally, Izuku got himself situated. Kacchan turned the light off, handed over one of his earbuds, and started the movie. Three seconds in, bright light flashed across the screen to signal All Might’s arrival, and Izuku had to screw his eyes shut.

Kacchan paused it. “You better not be crying just because All Might showed up. This whole movie is about him.”

“No—that’s not it,” Izuku said, “It’s just bright,”

“Really?” Kacchan said.

“Yeah,” Izuku said, considering his options. He should explain himself—Kacchan would probably figure it out anyway. “Um, don’t get upset.”

“Sure,” Kacchan said.

Izuku covered his face with his hands, hiding from the light and from Kacchan. “I hit my head a while ago, and now I can’t look at bright light.”

Immediately, Izuku discovered a flaw in his plan. He couldn’t see what face Kacchan was making with his hands over his eyes.

“De—Izuku,” Kacchan said, “You’re the worst.”

In spite of himself, Izuku started giggling. "Don't hurt yourself—if you have to call me Deku, that's fine."

Kacchan snorted, but he didn't say anything, so Izuku spread his fingers apart to peer out through the cracks. The phone had fallen over on Kacchan’s chest, and there was only the smallest sliver of light lining the edge of it. It wasn’t enough to illuminate Kacchan’s face.

Izuku pulled his hands away from his eyes, brought them down to rest on the edge of the futon. “I can accept it,” he said.

“Shut up,” Kacchan said, clambering to his feet, “Don’t say that. I’m still mad at you.”

“You said you wouldn’t be,” Izuku insisted.

"I shouldn't have agreed," Kacchan said. His phone screen flashed in the darkness, like a glowstick on a summer evening. "You coerced me."

"Sorry," Izuku said, leaning up on his elbows. He still couldn't see. "I'm really sorry—I didn't mean—"

"I know!" Kacchan said. The mattress shifted as he climbed into his own bed. "You're always completely sincere. It's infuriating."

"Sorry," Izuku said again. He felt bad about the movie—Kacchan had probably been looking forward to it too.

Kacchan leaned back onto his pillow, holding his phone up in front of his face. It cast a glow like a spotlight, but Kacchan was focused now, and that expression hid anything else he might have been thinking.

In a moment, the sound of the movie started back up in Izuku's ear.

"So All Might just jumped down from a building," Kacchan explained, "The pavement cracked under him. There's a big villain a ways down the street."

They made it about half an hour in before Kacchan threw his phone at the door. "Waddya mean you can't defeat this villain and save the children?" he shouted, "That's the dumbest thing I ever heard!"

"Oi!" Bakugou's Mom shouted from somewhere in the ether, "Have quieter opinions!"

"Then stop buying the worst movies ever to exist!" Kacchan shouted back.

Izuku covered his face to keep from giggling. The movie was still running, but without Kacchan's commentary the fight scene noises were impossible to interpret, so he pulled the earbud out of his ear.

Kacchan flopped back down onto his bed. "I'm sure stuff like that happens in real life—sometimes there might not be enough heroes in a situation, or something, and you have to prioritize—do the thing that's gonna save the most people. But if that's the story you wanna tell—what are you doing writing All Might cartoons, huh? Pick a different genre."

"Yeah," Izuku said. He'd seen the scene Kacchan was talking about one day when he walked by a store with televisions in the front window, and thought about the same thing. So it was weirdly validating to hear Kacchan have this reaction, even though it meant he hadn't just misinterpreted the scene out of context.

Something plonked against the door again. It took Izuku a moment to work out from the noise that Kacchan must have thrown his earbud too.

“Anyway,” Kacchan said, “I thought of a better name for your dumb cat.”

“Oh?” Izuku asked, genuinely curious. He hadn’t expected Kacchan to take him up on his challenge—though in hindsight, he probably should have.

“Eternal Winter Death Demon Blizzard,” Kacchan said.

Izuku burst out laughing. “What—is she a mech pilot?”

“Maybe!” Kacchan insisted.

“Is it—is she like—in a human robot?” Izuku asked, gasping for air, “Or a giant cat?”

“It’s a winter demon,” Kacchan said, “Pay attention!”

“Oi,” Kacchan’s Mom shouted again, “I can still hear you, brat!”

Izuku pressed his arms over his shaking sides. He couldn’t remember the last time they had hurt because he was happy.

"I think it's going to rain," Izuku said, taking another bite of onigiri.

"Hurry then," Kacchan said. His school bag was slung over one shoulder, but he was carrying Izuku's backpack under his other arm. Apparently, it was a hostage to force Izuku to eat breakfast.

"This is hurrying," Izuku said, pointing at the food in his hands, "You didn't even let me sit down to eat."

"You were just gonna sleep through breakfast," Kacchan said, rolling his eyes, "It's no wonder you're always—"

Izuku stopped walking. Kacchan had frozen next to the koi pond, but he didn't look like he had noticed something, or like a thought had just occurred to him. More than anything—and the notion made Izuku shiver—it was like nothing was going on in his head at all.

Then Kacchan threw Izuku's backpack into the water.

For a moment, Izuku didn't react—Kacchan had been doing things that seemed mean all yesterday, and they had all turned out to help Izuku somehow. But for the life of him, he couldn't figure this one out.

While Izuku was still hesitating, Kacchan grabbed his arm and flipped him over the edge of the pool.

The water was fairly shallow, but Izuku had instinctively pulled his free arm up over his head, so it was his elbow that rammed into the brick at the bottom instead of his skull. For an instant, Izuku almost panicked—water was pouring into his nose, and he couldn't figure out which way was up. Then his hand found the slimy surface at the bottom, and he pushed off of it and sat up. The water didn't quite reach his shoulders.

Something quick moved in the corner of his eye, and Izuku moved his head just in time to avoid Kacchan's palm. He pushed off of the side with his foot, scrambling back into the center of the water, the explosion he had just missed still ringing in his ear.

Kacchan had one foot up on the wall of the pond, one hand still raised to strike, but he didn't make any move to follow Izuku into the water.

"Kacchan—what?" Izuku sputtered. He had swallowed more water while dodging. "What are you doing?"

"Don't call me that," Kacchan said, setting a hand down on the edge of the brick to steady himself. "Don't you dare call me that. What, do you think we're friends or something?"

Izuku's mouth dropped open. He tried to pull it up again, to make it move and form some kind of coherent response, but instead he started coughing. There was water rattling around somewhere in his sinuses.

Seeming satisfied with his work, Kacchan stepped back onto the ground and shoved his hands into his pockets. "You're so pathetic, Deku. You walk around all the time like you think you're something special—like everything's gonna turn out for you if you just keep hoping hard enough. Don't waste my time."

"That's not true!" Izuku said. He tried to stand up, but his feet couldn't find purchase on the bottom, and he slipped back down again. "You were the one—you were helping me! You decided to help on your own!"

Kacchan smiled down at him. "Come on Deku—when have I ever done anything like that? You're so gullible."

"Shut up," Izuku said, hating how his voice wavered.

Kacchan shrugged. "One of these days you'll learn to face reality."

"Shut up!' Izuku insisted, "That's what your Mom said—and you—Kacchan you—"

"Don't call me that," Kacchan said, eyebrows narrowing, "What, don't you get it? You're just some extra. You're worthless. Nobody wants you."

The five minute bell rang, soft and muffled by the walls of the school. Kacchan reached up to adjust the strap of his bag and started heading away from the pond, away toward the entrance of the school. "You're a waste of space!" he called over his shoulder, "And we'd all be better off if you didn't exist."

Izuku watched him round the corner of the building. His vision was blurring, and snot was clouding his nose, making it harder and harder to breathe. His arm stung where Kacchan had grabbed it—he could tell already that the fabric was melted, that it would stick to the blister forming underneath and make the sleeve hard to pull off. His backpack was drowning somewhere—it wasn't tall enough to peak over the surface, and it didn't really matter. There was too much water for any of the contents to be recoverable.

None of that was why he was crying. None of that explained the weight settling in his stomach, forcing the air out of his lungs.

When the second bell rang, announcing the start of class, Izuku was still sitting in the pond, watching the ripples spread around the surface as it started to drizzle.

Izuku didn't see Kacchan after school, but that might have been because Kariage held him up for a while. That hadn't happened in a couple of weeks, and Izuku found himself wondering if Kacchan had been doing something to stop it. Then he decided that he didn't want to think about that anymore.

The sun hadn't quite set when he finally dragged himself back to Neko's alley, but the cloud cover darkened the sky anyway. It had veiled the whole day in a sort of twilight haze that never gave way to dawn.

"Neko?" Izuku croaked, looking around for his friend, "I'm here now. Sorry that I'm late today!"

Neko didn't emerge from her home behind the dumpster, didn't call back to let him know she was hungry. Maybe she was asleep? That would make sense. It was a sleepy sort of day.

Hobbling toward the crevice where he had stashed the tuna cans, Izuku rounded the corner of the dumpster.

A noise burst out of him, some chimera thing stuck between a cry and a sob. Quickly, he covered his mouth with his hands, ready to choke any other sound that might come.

Neko was there, lying stiff on the ground at his feet. Her fur was mottled, pushed back by a pattern Izuku knew, the same one pressed into his own arm. Her eyes stared forward, unseeing.

Somehow between thinking about washing his clothes to get the fishy smell out and dressing his injuries properly and the fact that he was already soaked from walking home in the rain, Izuku found himself sitting in the shower with all of his clothes on. It kind of made sense, in hindsight. If he only had the energy to do one thing, then at least he could accomplish all his goals together.

He’d thought about trying to give Neko a proper burial, but he didn’t have any way to cremate her, any place to put the ashes. In the end, he’d placed her carefully in the dumpster. It was the home she had chosen.

“I’m so stupid,” Izuku muttered, wiping uselessly at his eyes. “I shouldn’t have shown him where you lived.” He kept running over it all in his mind, and no matter how he turned the matter over, he couldn’t find any way to excuse himself. He’d known to hide his homework—he should have known better than this.

Not that an excuse would have fixed anything.

Above him, the lightbulb in the bathroom flickered and went out—but a softer light fell from somewhere above, spilling out over the tile. Slowly, Izuku turned his head, trying to find where it could be coming from. There was a hole in the ceiling, set at just the wrong angle for Izuku to see out of.

Struck by sudden inspiration, Izuku reached up and turned off the faucet, grabbed it as an anchor to drag himself to his feet. Then he leaned back against the corner, tilted his chin to look up.

The sky was still a monotone gray, only darker now that the sun was set. The light from the city caught in the clouds, washing them out until all the mystery was gone. Izuku didn’t know why he was disappointed. He already knew it was cloudy out. Of course he wouldn’t be able to see a star.

All at once, a thought came crashing down on him, and Izuku reeled, almost falling over with the weight of it. As quickly as he could, Izuku scrambled out of the shower, crawled through the house and back into his own room, hair and clothes spilling a train of water behind him.

He used his desk to pull himself to his feet again, only to notice that the All Might poster taped above it had come dislodged from the wall and was hanging by a corner. With great effort, Izuku balanced with one hand on the desk surface and used the other to reach for the renegade poster side, intending to press it back into its rightful place. Instead, the other end loosened, and the whole thing came off in his hand.

Izuku stumbled backward, catching himself against his bed by the elbow. Falling to his knees, he turned and spread out the poster over his comforter. His wet fingers had left little ripply circles where he held it.

“All Might,” Izuku said, unsure who else to address his revelation to, “You have to help me remember this. I have to remember all of this, for when I become a hero.”

All Might didn’t respond, which was really polite of him, honestly. Izuku wouldn’t be able to get this out if he had any interruptions.

“When you save somebody,” Izuku continued, hands shaking with the effort of their grip on the comforter, “It’s not enough just to save them physically. You have to—inspire them somehow, like you do—you have to save their smiles. And I wouldn’t know how to do that if—“

Izuku’s legs gave out, and he sat down all the way, caught his balance by leaning his head up against the side of the bed. He was crying again. Why did he always have to be crying? Weren’t there enough other things going on?

“If I was saving someone who was in trouble,” Izuku said, wiping at his eyes, “If they’d been in trouble for a long time—and I told them things were going to be better—how could I make them believe me? How would I know how to do that, if I hadn’t been here myself?”

The wind picked up. Izuku could hear it outside, rattling at the walls, tearing off the shingles. There was a taste in his mouth he couldn’t wash out, salt and metal, blood and tears.

“But now I’ll be able to say it,” Izuku said, smiling to himself, “I can say it and mean it for sure. When I’m a hero, I can tell people that things really do get better. I can tell them that this isn’t the end of the story.”