When he was younger Izuku had asked his mother every single year if he could go and see the UA sports festival, and every year the tickets would sell out far before he got home from school or his mother home from work, it usually ended in having Katsudon for dinner to make it up to him. Now that he was here in person he could safely say it wasn't all that exciting, the seats were crammed too far together and put him a lot closer to the surrounding hero worshippers than he'd have liked.
On top of that the heat and noise of the festival had him taking a break from the student section of the stands as often as he could manage just to get some much needed alone time in an empty bathroom, letting the thumping of blood in his ears calm down a little and hoping to himself that he didn't have to reset today to live through it again as he splashed tap water on his face to cool down faster.
Only one thing made him crack the slightest bit of a smile that day and that was the uproar from the crowd when Katsuki gave his opening speech, why he was trusted with such an important role Izuku would never know, consisting of him bluntly declaring that he intended to win and nothing more. It was an almost nice change from the usual speech given every year, all of them sounded like one was copying just enough from the other to not get caught by the people who likely screened whatever they came up with in preparation. The rest of the day was, unfortunately for him, a lot less fun in the overly warm and crowded stadium that smelt a little like crappy fair food, this was courtesy of some vendor a few rows below him who Izuku would assume was enjoying many sales since it lasted the whole time, that or he badly needed to replace whatever extraction fan he was using.
The first section of the sports festival was the one Izuku spent flipping through the scarce messages with the league to give himself an unneeded refresher on what his purpose was that day, since it involved a lot of students and no real close ups of them or their quirks it was mostly useless to him save for a few displays of power from Todoroki and Katsuki but even those would have been gathered from the upcoming stages.
Whilst most people in the kind of hard and packed together seats were fully invested in the race shown on large screens in front of them, the yells of their cheering for whichever student they were most invested in grating more on his nerves with every passing moment, Izuku thought that the end of the race couldn't come sooner- he already knew who was going to win down to two students and it was no surprise that Katsuki came out second of the three part race with Todoroki on top.
When President Mic announces the second part of the race it results in both a sigh of 'finally' and a small wince after pain erupted in his ears, and for the fourth time that day he wished that the student seats with one of the best views wasn't so close to the announcement speaker.
Izuku opened his spare notebook and held his pen ready in hand, prepared to write down anything and everything that came to mind when he watched and trying not to think about the task of sorting every note into sections and re-writing them later in his more professional looking book.
At first they just announced how the point system worked and that only the top four scoring teams would move on to the final stage, expected yet the crowd gives a loud response as always, again Izuku is reminded of how much he dislikes massive crowds- why had he wanted to go when he was younger again? This was really turning out to be a chore, one that was far longer than he'd like. It'd have been much easier just to comb through the recordings but being in person gave him a better angle, annoyingly students were given the day off and expected to go anyways so he'd have had to come and endure it either way to maintain his 'good student' image.
When the second section finally starts up he's leaning forward in the hard chair and taking any note that pops into his mind no matter how useless it might be, he needed to get everything down and worry about sorting through the scribbles later that night.
The cavalry battle was much more interesting and provokes significantly more thought than the obstacle race, it lasts every second of a full fifteen minutes with team Todoroki keeping the 10 million point headband the majority of those seconds and, when the whistle sounded for time up, winning by a landslide. By the end of it his hand muscles ache, not surprising since he's filled up six full pages with notes about the students- even the ones he had the remotest amount of interest in are in the messy block of black writing somewhere.
As he did in the time space between the two previous events he shimmies his way past seated students debating who they think is going to win the festival and speed walks to the bathroom, building ball of aggravated tension seeping out of him with every step he puts between himself and the festival.
The temporary bathrooms set up for the sports festival will likely be every bit as loud and stressful as the festival itself, knowing this Izuku he opts to take the walk back inside the school, the halls are completely void and it's an oddly peaceful walk as his heel-and-toeing slows to a stroll. It takes longer than before to arrive at the bathroom closest to the entrance, he knows they leave a good half hour between events for students to recover and to allow time to set up the next stage but he reminds himself to walk back quicker to make sure he can recover his seat.
It's a background thought as he places his notebook on the windowsill, putting the plug in and running a tap that squeaks just a little in protest, promptly splashing a handful of cold water on his face as the tap continues to run meekly.
Izuku rubs his eyes and dries his face off on the back of his uniform sleeve, lethargically looking up to his reflection in the mirror with a long crack running up from the left bottom to the middle, spidering out in tens of smaller cracks that distort the image of him looking at himself.
It's not something he does often and it almost doesn't feel real, it feels like he could peel back the skin on his face and there would be another one under, it feels like he's wearing a hyper realistic mask stapled to his face. Looking at his own dark green eyes with eye bags darker than his hair hanging under them like weights it feels like he's looking at a stranger. Were those slightly sunken cheeks really his? It certainly didn't feel like it.
Water splashes onto the floor and he's jolted out of such useless thoughts, he silently curses himself for zoning out and turns the tap off before it can completely soak part of his uniform through. He pulls the plug on the sink and watches for a couple seconds as the water begins to swirl down the drain, gaze lingering as the water disappears and leaves him with nothing but the sound of his own rhythmic breathing.
Izuku snaps himself out of his thoughts before he can get caught up in them again, he only had fifteen minutes to get back and prepared for the next stage he didn't have the time to waste it staring at himself or an empty sink, he needs to get his notebook and speed walk back and get to his seat.
He grabs his notebook from its place away from any spilled water and leaves the bathroom, walking slower than he said he would to selfishly revel in the brief calm of the world he so rarely got to experience without it being skull numbingly boring.
By the time he gets back it's only five minutes until the third event starts and a small clump of students have invaded his previous seat, he can barely find a seat that has a good enough view and isn't completely surrounding by students who'd nose into what he was doing before President Mic announces the final part of the festival, these seats are even closer to the speakers and warrant a harder wince than the previous two announcements.
'Every action has a reaction' he thought to himself almost a little bitterly before he clicked his pen and hovers it above the paper in anticipation to write down anything that came across his mind.
The third part of the festival is probably his favourite- though it really isn't saying much looking at its competition- , in a sense it was cathartic to see people lay a few hits on Katsuki and when he eventually won the whole festival after Todoroki refused to use his left side the crowd wasn't exactly cheering like the years prior- usually when the sports festival ended many pro heroes who attended made a note of people with potential and the crowd often devolved into cheering no matter which individual student people were rooting for, however this year the crowd was more than a little apprehensive seeing Katsuki be crowned winner whilst he objected the position violently saying that Todoroki hadn't taken him seriously. Izuku had the feeling this would only serve to detour pros from offering him anything but it was mildly amusing nonetheless and briefly distracted from how uncomfortable the seats were.
The moment whatever enjoyment he found from the situation had ran out he stood up from his seat and walked out of the stadium, though he'd much rather head to a quiet bathroom and unwind he'd previously agreed to meet Katsuki in one of the waiting rooms meant for competing students when they had to wait between events. He got there quickly, notebook tucked tightly under his arm and pen behind his ear and tangled up in some of his hair.
Izuku put his notebook on a pulled out chair and rubbed his writing hand a little, taking fourteen pages of notes had done a number on it, a relatively painful number at that.
After three minutes that seem to crawl by agonisingly slow Izuku leaves the room, quickly finding the bathroom and reminding himself to be quick as he ran the hot tap and put his writing hand under it, rubbing it a little as the water warmed.
After a quick moment of heat aided massaging the tension in his muscled lessened and her turned the tap off, thankfully not interrupted by intruding thoughts this time around.
He shakes his hands dry and then wipes any remaining moisture off on the legs of his trousers, coming back to the door of the second waiting room a few moments after leaving the bathroom.
Izuku pauses before he opens the door and readies himself if Katsuki has arrived in his short absence, shoving as much emotion as he can muster after such a tiresome day into his expression as he opens the door and sure enough there stands Katsuki, he's got his back turned to him and seems to be invested in something.
"Congratulations on the win" even Izuku can hear how flat its delivery is but Katsuki barely seems to hear him as he closes something and turns to face him with a face that certainly doesn't look happy despite his very recent win
Katsuki holds up an off-white notebook, nothing fancy and not even labelled but Izuku immediately knew what it was - had he really been careless enough to let Katsuki snooped through his stuff? After spending the whole day being doubly careful so he didn't have to reset and re-live it was something he kicked himself over even harder than he usually would have, it must have happened when he left for the bathroom.
If that was the case Katsuki must have been suspicious of him beforehand, Izuku mentally slapped himself over not keeping it in his view at all times and made a mental note to take any and all important or personal things with him everywhere, or to hide it really damn well whenever the blonde was around.
"Izuku are you… are you with the league of villains?"
His two options were very quickly narrowed down to reset and live through the dragging day another time or lie through his teeth to try and explain this one away, Izuku did not like the sound of either options and that reoccurring thought of 'just kill him', although shot down quickly as always, popped up for a brief moment.
In retrospect Izuku should have guessed this would happen, expected it even- expected that a week of relaxation would be met with something like this, expected that it had to be met with this- after all, for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. Though knowing it was just logic, not just the world hating him, didn't make the words that had just tumbled out of Katsukis mouth with all the grace of an untrained ballerina any sweeter in the slightest- if anything it made them worse, now he could kick himself over not expecting it for however this glaring problem tangled up in all the things he couldn't just die and fix lasted.
'Note to self-' Izuku thought to himself for the second time in a minute as his mind raced to shamble together some lie, some excuse, some explanation from the thin air around him '-Always remember Newton's Third Law'.