Hey guys! I'm terribly sorry about the lull in updates! School and life really got to me. I finally finished my finals and I found a nice group of people I chat to on discord. I worry about annoying them;;; ahaha but they've been a great help, and I don't know if I would've passed my final without them ;v;

Anyway! Sorry this is late, this fic will be coming to a close soon. ^^ This chapter is much shorter than all previous and I apologize for that! The next 2 (maybe 3) chapters will make up for it as I bring this story to a close!

If you wanna shout/talk with me about hc's, prompts and so on I made a blog just for that! It's starlitbun and yeah! ;v; it's mostly me rambling and reblogging prompts rn haha!

Enjoy!


Have you ever felt the ever pressing need to speak your mind? While anxiety seizes your heart and body? The need to speak on grounds of truth or morals, something that means something to you. Fighting to be heard, eyes fall on you, you're nervous, you can feel your cheeks heating and throat tightening. But you push, you push because it matters to you. You feel insecure, embarrassed and shaky from the experience, voice soft, the words will resonate louder and hit harder than any before.

You have fought yourself, and you may not have won the war but you came on out on top of this battle and will succeed until another day...

~.~

Unlike the stress-filled night before or any nights prior, Midoriya's dreams weren't weighed down by anxiety or fears from the day that had leaked into dreams.

Mostly void nothingness that then bloomed into memories of the not so distant past. Lunch outdoors with friends, his push to clean the beach, moments spent with his mother when he was a child. Her voice soft and gentle, a tone she used just for him when she read stories of heroes who always saved the day.

Midoriya enjoyed his first well rested uninterrupted sleep in the dorms and got the sleep his body desperately needed.

And it was when he finally began to drift back to consciousness that his mind shifted to the situation at hand.

It was funny, how much his thoughts and actions seemed to revolve so solely on Bakugo.

He'd like to say he didn't hate him, he never hated him.

But that would be an outright lie.

Hate was such a strong word, it didn't quite fit, but it was the closest feeling he could use to describe their relationship, and it'd be a lie to say he didn't hold even the smallest margin of upset towards him.

Largely, he never really hated him. Envious? For sure, anxious, aiming to please, and so on. But did he hate him when he was teased as a child? When he got left behind, or even when he told him to take a swan dive off the roof?

No, not even then.

It was hard to say he hated him, not that he didn't have any reason not to, but he just wasn't able to carry the feeling in him. He was certainly hurt and bothered by their shared past.

It was obvious they had bad blood, but Midoriya was lying to himself when he would downplay his actions, the pain, the trauma, as something insignificant he just needed to get over.

Except it wasn't insignificant, it mattered so much. His feelings mattered, he shouldn't have had to constantly adjust himself to another. It was why he was in the current predicament, bottling it up that lead to an impulsive blowout.

He spent so long obsessed with getting his former friend, his tormentor, his classmate's approval that it was hard to break for that mindset and do what was best for him. Not what might please another.

Midoriya knew in physical powerless he couldn't stand against him as an equal, not yet at least. But admitting, letting go of the bonds he held onto knowingly and unwitting, he would be able to stand toe to toe against him on an emotional equal that he so desperately needed.

He didn't know Bakugo's struggles, he couldn't understand his reasoning or the logic behind his choices. Why he treated him this way or that.

And frankly, in the end, Midoriya didn't care to know, it didn't matter what his reasons were. It didn't suddenly absolve the abuse of the past, it explained it, sure but explanations don't take away the trauma.

Midoriya couldn't condemn him, they were both two kids who wanted to be heroes.

But how do you let go of the past that looms over your present, that was ingrained in your behavior? It wouldn't be easy, but he had hope that it was possible...

Deciding, like he had done in the classroom, he would say "Not Today", he deserved better, he would be better.

He was ready to say no, ready to say Not Today, ready to create boundaries for himself and others, and ready to just try stepping out of his comfort zone and pushing to better not only himself but his relations with others.

He could do this, and he would.

It's so easy to get wrapped inside one's own head, sometimes it's one's own hell. Can't escape the thoughts of what if, maybe, should, and the need to break free. To do, to say I am, I will and so on and so forth.

Thoughts, so many thoughts rotating around in a cycle of things he understood, things he was trying to figure out and ones he couldn't even begin to decipher.

Was this life? A life filled with endless questions with no definitive answer? But wasn't that part of the beauty?

Yes, there are answers and truth, but there is no one answer for every person, and that was the beauty of things, that as a person, one got to choose the meaning, the beauty, and expression for how something works or how it made them feel.

Midoriya was soft-hearted, courageous and little, or LOT foolhardy and an anxious mess at times, but that wasn't all that made up his character either.

He wasn't perfect, and he didn't want to be, and he was learning that it was okay not to be okay, and once you accept that, things just might be okay...


I think...now, I only need about two more chapters to wrap this up ;v;

Thank you for reading, thank you for your patience and please review!