Chapter Text
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A golden glow warmed the grass beneath Monoma Neito’s feet as he ran across the wide open park, bare foot, chasing after a run away ball he'd thrown too high and too far. His head bobbed as he followed the bounce and roll, arms reaching up and then down as he attempted to aim his trajectory to catch it precisely when he'd encounter it. The ball, however, seemed to get further and further away, at times melding against the sun and blinding him temporarily. In one of those unfortunate moments, he slammed into something.
He gripped onto it, so as not to fall. The skin he touched sent an energetic prickling along his own and he took in a sharp breath as his quirk activated involuntarily.
Copy.
What was theirs, was now his.
“Electa-buzz … oh, sorry!” The voice was bubbly and zipped across his consciousness with a wash of nostalgia at the same speed an electrical pulse zoomed across his hand, up his chest, and shot his deep umber locks into the air with a soft snap that sizzled as it left his scalp.
A hand grabbed his shoulder.
His eyes opened, blinded by the sun. It created a haze around the figure in front of him who was now giggling, each laugh creating another spark that shot into the air.
Monoma tried to see through the light, but the sparks had turned to fireworks, bursting inches from his face, obscuring his view.
The hand slipped from his shoulder, falling onto a strap around his body, tugging him along.
A breeze whipped up. The air grew cooler. The crunch of fall foliage echoed below each step. “Come on Ito-chan!” He stumbled. His eyes opened.
It was still unnaturally bright, but the outline of the boy in front of him was becoming clearer. Cornflower yellow hair that stuck at odd angles. It led him. To where? He was unsure.
Hadn't they only just been in the…
He blinked.
The hand moved again, this time along his arm, snagging his wrist.
It pulled him down.
They thumped onto a wooden floor that sank below his body, then bounced back.
Everything was fluid. The ground. The air. His very being.
They were surrounded by long coats, suit jackets, and furs.
One of the furs was gripping his shoulders.
It laughed.
The bright light in front of him laughed too.
He was so full of joy that he simply couldn't contain it.
He laughed as well.
They were a mess of guffaws and snorts, crashing into one another. The fur wrapped around him and snuggled near his ear, howling with glee. The walking ray of the sun took a more defined form as it leaned into his side. A sunkissed tan underneath a natural glow. Lanky arms. That welcomed hum of energy that shook through to Monoma’s core.
A finger pressed to his lips.
A paw pressed against his eyes.
The laughter ceased.
“Damn it Denki! Get out here with your little friends, Short Circuit! I swear Mom and Dad are going to hear about my skateboards going miss-”
They all rolled as a mass through the hanging clothes. Wood turned to pavement, and the wheels below him bumped and banged along the cracks and crevices of a well traveled sidewalk. His feet dragged along the concrete until they came to a stop.
The paw slid around his throat and morphed into thick knit, loosely bound around his neck to keep out a chill as the temperature dropped drastically. His fingers should have been freezing, exposed to the air, but they were warm. They tingled. They clasped around the hand that had silenced him moments before.
He was yanked off the board and fell against the body as bright as the snow resting on the boughs of the trees overhanging the walkway.
Honeyed amber eyes were mere inches from his own. He felt warmth crawl along his chest and up to his cheeks, hidden behind the oversized scarf. The eyes crinkled in a smile. A card between them. “Look! It's you Ito!”
The card was lined in an iridescent foil, highlighting a brown creature reminiscent of a rabbit, but with a fox-like demeanor. Plumes of white fur wrapped around its neck, similar in color to the scarf Monoma wore. The creature had a determined expression, dichotomous to its soft and cuddly nature. Eevee was scrawled across the top. A thin yellow ribbon was tied diagonally with a lopsided bow, fraying at the edges.
“You’re going to be the best hero, because you can be everything!”
Monoma smiled.
“I like being you the most.” Monoma heard his voice, far away, like a recording lost to time.
The boy smiled back.
Then lips and a nose squashed against his cheek.
He felt that surge of electricity through his body once more as a quirk washed over him.
Then a fluttering of his heart, which brought a different warmth to his system. The kind that had burned across his face now sank into his whole body.
A head popped up between them, separating the sparks that flew into the air and crackled like a summer firework. Black ears flopped across their skin, static erupted across the fur.
“Kage!” Monoma and the other boy chided at the same time.
“I heard there's a new machine at the arcade! Let's go!”
They all laughed. Wheels popped up under their feet. The scenery rushed by, snow melting from trees, sprouting new foliage, leaves falling. A cycle.
Flashes of bright light hit at varied intervals. Their arms were wrapped around one another’s shoulders. Flash. Monoma held a baseball bat in his hands. Flash. The blond boy stood in midair, gripping the bottom of a skateboard with a yellow, ape-like beast across the bottom covered in black streaks of lightning. Flash. The heteromorph dog-boy stood in front of a claw machine filled to the brim, holding up a stuffed lion-esque blue and black toy with a yellow star hanging on the end of its tail, his canines stretched in a wide smile. Flash. Ice cream and sparklers on a beach. Flash. Sheets and blankets piled into a fort. Flash.
Photographs rained from the sky, each appearing after a shuddering of thunder rocketed across the clouds overhead. They clung to their clothes as they flew by. Memory after memory holding onto the boys who were filled from the toe to the crown with merriment.
Flash.
Monoma’s forehead pressed against the shining boy’s.
Flash.
A shove against the cherry colored railing of their bridge.
Flash.
Dark figures. Ill-defined. Ominous. Hands pushing and pulling.
Flash.
A growl. A whimper. Black fur. Falling.
Flash.
A pounding in his ears. His heart racing. Running. An electrical storm running across his arms. His legs. His heart.
Flash.
Blood in the water.
Blood in the air.
Blood washing onto the shore.
Flash.
Pain. Loss of breath. Snap. Crack. Hair wet. Skin tinged crimson. Pink. Vision doubled. Two boys with long snouts. Silken cheeks. Empty eyes. Unmoving. Like him.
Flash.
“NEITO!”
Flash.
Earth. Sky. A halo of light. Searing flesh. Tears like raindrops on his nose. His lips. Gasping. Hands across his heart. Bolts across his skin. Fear across his mind.
A scream.
His own?
His?
Flash.
An empty beach.
Flash.
Pictures fell from his body. One after the other. Unstuck. Dropping onto the sand. Washing into the sea. Hollow photographs fell from the sky.
Flash.
Skateboards void of travelers rolled beside him. Water flooded toward him, pulling them away.
Flash.
Lights dropped one by one in a round room full of arcade machines. Sounds of laughter faded as each was snuffed out. Machines crackled before screens became blank.
Then there was one.
It turned off.
Became a mirror.
Behind him he saw two figures turned around. A blond head for one. Flopping black ears on the other.
Blood streamed down the sides of the machine.
Flash.
Monoma shot up in his bed, covered in a sheen of sweat, clothes sticking to his body in every place the liquid had pooled. His hair clung to his forehead. His heart was a beating drum, wracking against his chest with powerful bursts, begging to be set free to feel everything his subconscious had been ruminating on.
It was still dark outside. Moonlight shone into his room, illuminating a school bag meticulously placed on a chair which had a fresh school uniform hanging from the back. Smart, deep sea oceanic greens and blues covered his slacks and lined the stripes of his pewter jacket. A single golden button on each epaulet glinted against the filtered light. Underneath, a crisp white shirt with a scarlet tie lay below.
He’d wear it for the next three years.
He’d prove he was worthy of it for the next three years.
He’d cover his scars and press the tie against his chest every day to remember why he was there for the next three years.
Because he was going to be the best hero.
Because he could be everything.
However, there was no possible way he’d be getting back to sleep as soaked as he was. His clock read that it wasn’t more than a couple of hours past midnight. He still had plenty of sleep ahead of him.
He went through the motions of a ritual he’d conducted at least once or twice a month. Strip the bed. Grab the extra sheets from his closet. Clothes in the hamper. New clothes from his dresser.
The actions gave him time to calm down. Time to think. Time to remember that the past was unchangeable. Memories would linger. How he chose to process them when awake was under his control. He had control. Over making his bed. Over organizing his bag. Over combing his hair, which had become unruly in his sleep.
His hair. Blond. Bright. Not a single hue of brunette left behind.
There were still some things he would never control.
That made the past flood back.
Every day when he saw himself.
He turned away from the mirror and shut the desk lamp off that he’d turned on to navigate the darkened room in the dead of night.
His palm rubbed against his chest, fingers twisting into the fabric.
He could control what he remembered. Only the good. The joy. He could do that.
He shuffled over to his school bag and unzipped it, reaching into an inner pocket, pulling out a notebook. Collapsing onto his bed, he held the object to his face and took in a deep breath, closing his eyes, trying to will away demons, darkness, and tainted endings.
Red water washing ashore.
He opened his eyes immediately and turned to the back of the notebook.
Old photographs, crinkled on the edges from being held more times than anyone could count. Faded coloring along the sides signaling the wear and tear of natural oils as Monoma, once again, slid his thumb along the outer rim of a moment from years ago.
Blond. Brunette. Black.
Three heads pressed side by side, with baseball caps and blue pinstripe uniforms to match.
Monoma wore his cap twisted at an angle, pushing his bangs into his eyes, covering them in a way that highlighted his smile below. His arms draped over his friends’ shoulders.
Kage had his cap on straight, though the brim was high. He flashed a peace sign in front of Monoma, tongue waggling out, ecstatic at their victory.
Kaminari Denki, the blond boy that featured heavily in his dreams, his past, his childhood… his cap was backwards, cornflower strands pulled through with a distinct black bolt of hair hiding in the fray. He held up one finger. Number one. Since they’d done just that… won.
His other hand was wrapped around Monoma’s waist.
What looked like an imperfection in the film, was in actuality a spark at the tip of Kaminari’s fingers.
Monoma had one too. Right at the end of his hair. He swore it looked like it wanted to jump straight from his head, over to the blond boy.
He wondered why his hair had not turned a similar shade of sunflowery yellow. Why was his so bright? Why wasn’t Kaminari’s? Though perhaps, after that afternoon, it was.
Wherever he was.
Wherever he’d gone.
Did he have a copy of this photo and only remember Monoma as he had been?
As they had been?
Did he want to remember?
Was he even allowed?
After all, he’d been moved away so fast.
Trauma.
It was all too much, is what Monoma’s parents had told him.
As if the whole affair hadn’t been for Monoma.
As if ripping away his best friend wasn’t an added layer of hurt.
As if he didn’t spend that summer crying himself to sleep, and the subsequent years resigning himself to a friendless existence. His middle school years had been filled with gossip that hounded him still. He wondered if it would follow him into his new hero school.
He couldn’t be anything without someone else.
That’s why he’d lost his friends.
That’s why no one talked to him.
He’d tricked people and they say he’d made people disappear.
With a quirk?
Probably.
Not to be trusted.
This wasn’t going to help him sleep.
He concentrated on the photo.
On the smiles.
On the sun streaming across the field.
On the days where he laughed with his two best friends.
“You’d both be pretty proud of me.” He whispered to the photograph, “I did it. I’m kind of a big deal.” He smirked, eyes lighting up at the shock and awe he could hear in the voices of the past. “I’m going to save people… Be a hero.”
He took in a deep breath and rested his arm with the photograph behind his head, the other pressing the journal against his chest.
He was controlling this.
This moment.
His fate.
His future.
“I’m going to be everything.”
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