After flustered looks up to the store's goods and down to the ground, sweat rolling down his face and the weighing feeling of pressure on his shoulders, the boy finally made up his mind and reached for a pack of neodymium magnets. Just as his trembling hand was mere milimeters from the product he fuzzed about buying or not, he heard a familiar grunt behind me.
Shaking vigorously at the unexpected encounter, he only slowly turned around; his hand still holding out shyly for the product he had just wanted to buy as quickly as possible. He cursed himself for not having decided quicker. His voice, shaking just as much as the rest of his body, squeezed out a dry greeting.
"Hello Kacchan...! What are you doing here...?"
"What are YOU doing here, Deku?"
Katsuki clicked his tongue. It was both mocking and a genuine question, delivered with the harsh, vile tone that the young green-haired kid came to both know and fear.
"Well...", Izuku searched for an acceptable explanation. It was a futile search in his brain and his eyes browsing the store for clues didn't help either. His hands fidgeted around while his throat dried up.
"I asked you something!", exploded Katsuki. Where his demeanor had been simply annoyed and confused, it had now turned on a more aggressive note.
"I-I as-s-ked f-f-fir-fir-f... bef-f-fore you", Izuku dodged with a counter question, albeit he feared his stuttering might make Katsuki even angrier.
"I just wanted to get some stuff!", Katsuki proclaimed. "It's got nothing to do with YOU anyhow!"
"Of course not...", Izuku chuckled uncomfortably. His childhood friend didn't bother with even reacting to that comment.
"It's your turn now, Deku!", demanded Katsuki.
"Well...", Izuku desperately tried to think of what to tell him. There was no way he could be honest to him, could he?
"Oh, by the way...", Katsuki slipped into his sentence with a smirk, "last week was the entrance exam for U.A., remember?"
Izuku felt his heart plummet into his stomach and its digestive acid sprinkle holes in every kind of words he would have tried to muster.
"I got the results the other day and passed", Katsuki continued oblivious to the sudden cold surrounding them. He shrugged. "Not that it's much of a surprise. Told you all that I'd make it. As the only one from our school, that is."
A wide smirk formed on Katsuki's face as he watched Izuku desperatly averting his eyes.
"C-congra-gra-gratulations-s-s!", Izuku tried his hardest to get that simple word through his lips.
"Heh. And where were you? I didn't see you at all during the exam. Don't tell me. You didn't make it?"
"Mm..." Izuku gulped. He had nothing to answer him.
"A quirkless nobody like you could never pass, anyway. So, what exactly ARE you up to?"
"I was just... buying some stuff, like you I suppose."
"Are you shiting me? Like me? You aren't even close to my level! You didn't even qualify for the exam, did you? You're nothing but-"
"Just because I didn't manage it this time-!", Izuku spoke up. Tears had already formed in the corner of his eyes as he finally talked back. "I! I can still... E-even if I don't have a quirk, I can still become..."
"As if! Give up already!"
Katsuki interrupted him and flung him into the storefront just behind them. Luckily nothing was broken, neither the shelves nor any bones in Izuku's body. Other shoppers shot judging glances at them, some whispered gossip. Nobody however decided to help up the kid on the ground.
Careful and trembling, Izuku stood up and put the magnets back on the shelf. His hand had finally reached for them, and now he was absolutely sure about his decision.
Disgruntled by the crowd around them's action- or rather, in-action-, Katsuki sighed heavily and also picked up some of the goods they had knocked off the display.
"So you still want to be a hero?"
Izuku didn't answer, focusing only on putting everything back on the shelf.
"Are you building yourself a hero suit to make up for your lack of a quirk?"
Nothing but rustling and silence.
"Hey, those kinds of magnets are really strong, do you want to use them to hold your suit together or did you plan to use those as a quirk replacement? That's laughable."
Izuku held on tight to the small package of neodymium magnets. They were quite powerful indeed;
they had possibly one of the strongest magnetic attractions for magnets that you could purchase in a regular store.
Katsuki glared at the people that had gathered around them, but he didn't say anything. The crowd understood his message by just his enraged expression alone. As the people dispersed, Izuku shyed away towards the cashier.
"Really, you shouldn't just stand around and watch; that's not what a hero would do!", Katsuki complained, more tlaking to himself than anything. He already had enough trouble surpressing his outbursting nature. He hadn't even noticed that his middle school classmate had already bagged in his purchase and left the store.
Frantically he ran after him. He hadn't finished talking to him yet. And it wouldn't be this easy for the nerd to escape from him. As he called out to the back of his classmate, Izuku only shot him a quick glance before running off.
It had been just a quick glance, merely a few seconds, but the tears that glinted in the evening sun drilled their image into Katsuki's mind. Those were tears. Not just sweat. Or a flustered face. No, those were actual tears. He couldn't help but wonder if he thought of it as pathetic or was concerned about his childhood friend.
Their chase ended abruptly when Izuku stopped in his tracks, nearly throwing Katsuki off his balance, too. The plain looking child hold one of his hands over his mouth while tears streamed down his cheeks.
"What is up with you?!", Katsuki yelled. He wanted to sound more considerate bu he just couldn't help but blurt out.
"Kaccan... You're right."
"What?! About what?"
"...Everything."
Izuku lowered his hand and faced him. It wasn't even that his eyes were filled with despair, it was more like he had tried to convince himself of his utter patheticness.
"I am not capable of becoming a hero", Izuku finally admitted to himself, after all these years chasing his childhood dream. "I can't save anybody."
Katsuki grew angry.
"What's suddenly up with you? Did the exam really screw you up so much? You knew from the start you wouldn't make it, so don't be a prick about it-"
"I hoped. I just hoped and prayed and wished! For a miracle, for anything to come, because I didn't want to accept things as they are! But... no miracle ever came to be, and I can't do anything but accept the pathetic loser that I am."
"Come on! Don't act like that!"
Katsuki grew awkward. He was at a loss what exactly he should reply to his classmate's confession. Sure, he was just a pebble on the road but... Katsuki couldn't help but marvel at this pebble. For the dreams and hopes it clung to even though they were out of reach. He envied it, even though he was supposed to feel superior to it. In the end, he always came back to comparing himself to this pebble.
Even if he wouldn't want to admit it, Katsuki needed Izuku.
"Hey!", Katsuki shouted again as he noticed Izuku's moving again. "What do you think you're doing?"
After a short pause, he got a reply.
"Saying goodbye."
"What?"
"You were right. I can't be a hero. I can't. I'm quirkless. I don't even know if I should hope for a good fate to befall me. I have to let go of it all, because it's so pointless. It's impossible for me to save even a single person. I can't even save myself. And that's why...this is my decision." Izuku painfully formed a broken smile under the stream of tears dwelling from his eyes.
"Please become a great hero, Kacchan."
Izuku swallowed what his hand had been holding onto til now. Katsuki only realized what was happening as he watched his classmate's gory body deteriate and deform. Neodymium magnets. That's what the nerd had bought. Magnets with such a strong attraction, they were able to crush your intestines.
He called out his name. He reached his hand out, in that weak, weak hope that his friend wouldn't have gone already. He held his body. He buried his friend's head deep in his chest. Even if he could have never said it out loud, he needed him. Katsuki held onto the futile sliver of hope that Izuku would wake up again. But the coldness that settled where there used to be a warm pulse; tears made their way down his cheeks.
He tightened his grip and cried. Even if it was pathetic.