WARNING: Some darker themes. Should be near the front so if you wanna skip it, feel free.
They first met when they were five.
They didn't expect the next time they met to be so soon.
"Alright, class," Their caretaker said, "You all know each other from last year, and I believe you have met him last year as well from the two week long transfer. This is Shinsou Hitoshi."
The purple haired boy stood, solemnly beside the caretaker. His purple eyes swept over the students. He was hoping he was placed in the same class as -
He blinked, as green fluffy hair caught his eyes.
Midoriya Izuku.
Midoriya grinned as he ran over to Shinsou.
"Toshi!"
"Hi Izu.." Shinsou gave a small, sad smile.
"What... happened?" Midoriya asked, concerned. Shinsou's eye bags were a lot worse from the last time he had seen him, and he was slouching like he was really, really, tired.
Shinsou ran his hands though his hair.
"I... things happened. I was placed in some care taking home that just happens to be near here."
"Oh. I'm sorry." Midoriya sadly said, before wrapping the taller boy in a hug.
Midoriya didn't need to know. He didn't need to tell him.
He didn't need to know his father had visited home, and that when he left, his mother had suddenly snapped and stabbed herself, right in front of her son.
He didn't to know.
Midoriya was the best thing in the world. He didn't need to be tainted by such dark thoughts.
"Yeah."
They stayed together. Shinsou had been forced to move from foster family to foster family, either because they didn't like that he had a villainous quirk when he had used it by accident, or just grew tired of him being "weird" in general.
He didn't care. All his foster families had been in Midoriya's area, so the duo were able to stay together most of the time in school. It was annoying that he had to keep learning the new routes to and from school, but he didn't care.
It was when he was seven when he realised how bad the discrimination against Midoriya was.
He had gone to the bathroom, and came back, seeing several of his classmates ganging up against Midoriya. He had a black eye, and was sitting against a wall as a boy kicked him.
"Hey. Leave him alone." Shinsou stomped up to them.
"It's the villain kid! Get away!"
Shinsou visibly scowled at the statement, but he pushed that aside and moved to help Midoriya up. He frowned at the new bruises that Midoriya now had, as he tenderly handled the green haired boy.
"You okay, Toshi?" Midoriya asked, absently rubbing his stomach. No doubt there was a bruise there too, from that kick.
"Tch. You're the one who got beaten up and you're asking me if I'm okay, Izu? Really?" Shinsou raised an eyebrow.
"I mean... I know where they're coming from. I'm quirkless... and I wanna be a hero... They just find the idea silly... and I'm useless without a quirk and - " He was cut off when Shinsou's eye twitched and he grabbed Midoriya by the shoulders.
"You're not useless without a quirk. And you can be a hero without one."
"R...really? My mom... when I asked her... when I was four, she... left me in the room..." Midoriya looked at Shinsou.
"Don't mind her. You can be a hero."
Midoriya latched himself onto Shinsou, close to squeezing the air out of the purple haired boy's lungs, on the verge of tears. Shinsou reassuringly pat the shorter boy's back.
Who cares if he was only seven? He's adopting Midoriya, whether anyone would let him or not. Midoriya was his cute little brother and needed to be protected.
They were in their third grade of elementary school, and Midoriya had finally taken Shinsou's advice after two years of the taller boy nagging, and was in the staff room talking to the teachers about the ongoing bullying in school.
Shinsou had remained in the classroom, doing some math homework while waiting for Midoriya to be done.
Damn those multiplication tables. How was knowing wha was helpful in life? Don't they have like... phones? Or calculators?
"Ne, why do you hang around that quirkless loser that much?" A boy asked. Shinsou raised his head, seeing three boys in front of him. One had a wing quirk. The other was able to extend his fingers to ridiculous lengths. The one that had spoken was able to pull things around with weak gravity manipulation.
"He's my friend." Shinsou frowned. He did not like where this conversation was going.
"You should hang out with us instead." Shinsou raised an eyebrow.
"What?"
"We mean it." The boy stretched out his hand, "You're quirk is awesome. You can make anyone do anything you like. You can steal stuff, break stuff, make the teachers give you full marks, anything. And no one would know it's you."
Shinsou hissed.
They wanted to be friends to use his quirk? For bad things?
He swatted his hand away, "Look. I appreciate the sentiment, but I have no intention of using my quirk for things like that. I want to be a hero. If I need full marks, I'll study. If I need something, I'll buy it. I'm not using my quirk for things like that."
The boy with gravity had angry expression on his face, "How -"
He was immediately silenced with the finger boy, who clamped his hand over his hand and harshly smacked his other hand on Shinsou's table, scaring the purple haired boy, who yelped.
"Don't answer him, Yoku. He could use his quirk on you!"
Shinsou was seething internally.
Stop judging me on how I may or may not act based on my quirk.
"Toshi?" Midoriya peeked his head into the classroom and frowned upon seeng the three boys. "What do you want with Toshi?"
"What's it to you, you quirkless loser?" Wing boy shot.
"That's my friend, and you're harassing him." Midoriya pointed out, "That's what it is to me, Tsubasa-kun."
Ah... yeah... that's his name. Shinsou blinked. He had no idea how Midoriya was able to remember the quirks and names of every single person in his class. He still wasn't sure of the name of his teachers, even after six months of them teaching him. His memory was ridiculously good. He had memorised the entire multiplication table in twenty minutes, flat.
Tsubasa pushed him, and Midoriya yelped, falling on his butt.
Shinsou growled, and tried to get to Tsubasa, but Yoku and the other boy pushed him back, smirking.
"Sebi! Don't let him move."
Tsubasa kicked the smaller boy, and Shinsou couldn't even make a sound as Sebi, the boy with the finger quirk, covered wrapped his finger around him and Toku had him pinned to the ground with his gravity quirk.
Shinsou hissed as he watched Tsubasa abused his friend.
He hated doing this. It, in a way, was reinforcing to his peers that his quirk wasn't a heroic one. But he always used it as a last resort against his classmates if they ever went too far against Midoriya or himself.
He glared at Yoku and Sebi, growling, "Leave. Now. Or I'll use my quirk."
Yoku and Sebi didn't dare to respond. After all, that was how his quirk was activated. They motioned Tsubasa to leave, and walked out the classroom, jeering, "See. You're just a villain, threatening us!"
Shinsou picked himself off the ground, and went to help Midoriya.
The winged boy had done quite a number on Midoriya. His arm was bleeding when his wing scratched Midoriya, and his legs were covered in bruises. His uniform had rode up in the scuffle, revealing a multitude of ugly, black bruises that were starting to form.
"You can't keep letting them do this, Izu." Shinsou sighed, "It's not roughhousing anymore, or boosting their self esteem. They're hurting you because they can. One day, they're gonna break something you can't recover from." Shinsou said, as he helped the boy up, frowned as Midoriya favoured one leg over the other.
He must have injured it, or sprained it somehow.
Shinsou helped the injured Midoriya into the infirmary, and let Midoriya explain to the nurse what had happened. Despite adults supposed to be unbiased towards the students, almost all the staff was wary of Shinsou and his quirk, so he refused to speak unless he was spoken to, which was almost never. The teachers refused to answer any question that he had asked in class, so whenever he was confused, there was almost no one to help him. He was lucky that Midoriya was so nice and kind, and helped him whenever he needed it.
"You two need to stop getting into fights." The nurse sighed, as she applied antiseptic to Midoriya's cuts, "Trying to seek attention like this never works."
It's not like we wanted to start a fight! Shinsou was screeching internally. And Izu doesn't even like attention!
But he knew it was no use. Everyone would forever be prejudiced against the quirkless boy and the boy with the villainous quirk.
It turned out that Midoriya did have a sprained ankle, and Shinsou had gotten scolded for coming home late, as he had helped the limping Midoriya back home.
Shinsou wanted to cry when he heard the news.
They had just finished their fourth year in elementary school. Midoriya had gotten first in class, got beaten up again for being "a quirkless loser and useless and shouldn't be getting first." and he had gotten second. Or he was supposed to get second, but everyone was somehow convinced that he had used his quirk to cheat. Midoriya had gotten really mad over that, but he just complained to the teacher and avoided letting his displeasure out on his classmates.
Like that wasn't bad enough. But it wasn't important enough to warrant crying.
Shinsou had been transferred yet again to another household, and was being forced to move to another city. It wasn't far from Musutafu, but they wouldn't be able to see each other again unless it was the weekends, and that depended on whether Shinsou's new caretakers (He wouldn't say parents) would let him out of the city.
The five years they spent together in the same preschool and elementary school were the best times they ever had. They had gotten bullied as lot, sure. Bruises and injuries, yep. But they supported each other through and through when everyone else left them in the dust. That's all they wanted.
Why was the world trying so hard to pull them apart? What kind of god had they offended!?
At least they knew each other's addresses. And they knew how to write. So they could write letters to each other. They would only be able to get a reply once a week, but that was a lot better than no contact at all.
"Promise me you won't let them take advantage of you." Shinsou said.
Midoriya was crying. Tears rolled down his cheeks as his emerald green eyes watered.
"I... promise..." He hiccupped, hands wrapped around Shinsou as he bawled his eyes out into Shinsou's shirt.
Shinsou sighed, "You're way too good to anyone. If they hurt you, tell the teacher. Even if they don't do anything. Or tell me. I don't care what my new caretakers say. I'll come right over."
"That's... illegal... you're underaged... you need to be at least twelve...to take the train on.. your own..." Midoriya cried.
"Then I'll wait till I'm twelve, and then come over and kick everyone's butts for you." Shinsou softly ruffled Midoriya's hair, trying to remember the feeling of his hair twirling in his fingers.
Midoriya pulled away, and carefully dug out an old notebook, passing it to Shinsou.
"This ... take it... so you'll... never forget me... " Midoriya hiccupped.
"I'll never forget about you Izu, stop thinking like that." Shinsou sighed, flipping open the notebook, "Wait... isn't this..."
"Yeah." Midoriya nodded, "The one when we... were five."
His eyes stopped on the childish scribble from five years ago. The purple and black scrawls were ugly, and the paper was torn from Midoriya's carelessness as a toddler, but Shinsou could still remember the very moment that Midoriya had sheepishly turned to the page for him, saying that was his hero costume.
Shinsou flipped the book shut. He couldn't stop the rush of emotions that ran through him like someone had turned the faucet on full blast, and the tears ran down his face. He hastily rubbed them away, but the tears kept coming.
"I'm... sorry... I really don't ... wanna leave..." He cried. This time, it was his turn to envelope Midoriya in a hug, as he sobbed into his shoulder. "I don't... I'll miss you, Izu."
"Yeah..." Midoriya had burst into tears again, "I'll miss you too, Toshi."
