A/N: Double Upload- yay!

(this and the next two chapters are some of my favorite parts of the entire book and a big reason why i decided to do this AU in the first place, so I hope you all enjoy them as much as I do!

—
Irusu Japan
June 14th, 2005
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—1—

After a thorough chewing out curtesy of the tiny, but intense, Mr. Torino about the back up they'd caused at the water treatment center between them and Ashikawa, the five of them were forced to kick down the dam. It didn't take long at all, which sucked, considering how long they'd spent working on the thing.

Now, Bakugo was walking with Deku up Shinrinyoku street towards their neighboring homes. Deku was pushing Silver; after first building and then tearing down the dam, he simply did not have the energy it would have taken to get Silver up to cruising speed. Both boys were dirty, disheveled, and pretty well used up.

Iida had asked them if they wanted to come over to his house and play Monopoly or take turns on his brother's game cube playing smash bro's or something, but none of them had the energy to. It was getting late. Sero, sounding tired and depressed, said he was going to go home and see if anybody had returned his summer reading book. He had some hope of this since the Irusu Library insisted on writing in the borrower's street address as well as his name on each book's pocket card. Kirishima said he was going to watch reruns of Takeshi's Castle episodes.

And here were Deku and Bakugo, headed in a direction which would bring them home after a while, neither of them talking much. Bakugo found himself thinking about Deku's story of the picture that had turned its head and winked. And despite his tiredness, an idea came to him. It was crazy... but it also held a certain attraction.

"Oi, Deku." he called. "Let's stop for a while. Take five. I'm tired, and you look dead."

"No such l-l-luck," Deku smiled, but he stopped, laid Silver carefully down on the edge of the green lawn belonging to elderly Mr. and Mrs. Nakano who had once marched up to Bakugo's house and blamed him for graffitiing their fence with slurs. Bakugo had been grounded for two weeks when the real culprits had been Shigaraki and his gang of fuckwits.

The two boys sat on the wide stone steps which led up to the small home. Luckily, the couple were on some sort of cruise around the Caribbean and wouldn't be home for a few weeks- so they weren't at any risk of being falsely accused of stupid shit like graffiti or loitering.

"What a d-d-day," Deku said glumly. There were dark purplish patches under his eyes. His face looked white and used. "I'll need to put silver up before going to yours for dinner."

"Yeah. You bet. Listen, Deku-"

Bakugo paused for a moment, thinking about Sero's decapitated head balloons, Kirishima's leper, and whatever Iida had almost told them. For a moment something swam in his own mind, something about that Kitsune statue by the koi pond in the middle of Ukiyo Park. But that had only been a dream, for fuck's sake.

He pushed away from such irrelevant thoughts and plunged. "Fuck it- Let's- Let's go to your house first- into Eri's room. I want to see that picture."

Deku looked at Bakugo, shocked. He tried to speak but could not; his stress was simply too great. He settled for shaking his head violently.

Bakugo's eyes narrowed, an edge of frustration working its way into his tone, "You heard shitty hair's story- and stickman Hanta's. Do you believe what they said?"

"I don't nuh-nuh-know. I th-ink they m-m-must have sub-seen suh-homething."

"Yeah. Me too. All the kids that've been killed around here, I think all of them would have had stories to tell, too. The only difference between Skeletor and Shark teeth and those other kids is that they didn't get caught."

Deku raised his eyebrows but showed no great surprise. Bakugo had supposed Deku would have taken it that far himself. He couldn't talk anymore, and he annoyed Bakugo to no end, but he wasn't an idiot.

"So now think on this awhile, Freckles." Bakugo started, doing a rare switch-up of Midoriya Izuku-specific nicknames. "Some fucker could dress up in a clown suit and kill kids. I don't know why he'd want to, but nobody can tell why batshit people do things, right?"

"Ruh-Ruh-Ruh-"

"-Right. It's not that much different than the Joker in Batman comics." Just hearing his ideas out loud excited Bakugo. He wondered briefly if he was actually trying to prove something or just throwing up a smokescreen of words so he could see that room, that picture. In the end, it probably didn't matter. In the end, though he would never admit this out loud, maybe just seeing Deku's eyes light up (really, light up) with excitement for the first time since the previous December was enough.

"B-B-But wh-wh-where does the pih-hicture fit i-i-in?"

"Where do you think it fits?"

In a low voice, not looking at Bakugo, Deku said he didn't think it had anything to do with the murders. "I think it was Eh-Eh-E-Eri's g-ghost."

"A ghost in a picture?" Deku nodded.

Bakugo thought about it. The idea of ghosts gave his child's mind no trouble at all. He was sure there were such things. His parents would probably disagree, Deku's as well most adults would say they were bugging and just had "wild imaginations"- "But you said you were scared. Why the hell would Eri's ghost want to scare you?"

Deku put a hand to his mouth and wiped it. The hand was trembling slightly. "Shuh-She's probably muh-muh-mad at m-m-me. For g-getting her kin-hilled. It was my fuh-fuh-fault. I s-sent her out with the buh-buh-buh-" He was incapable of getting the word out, so he rocked his hand in the air instead. Bakugo nodded, wincing a little- uncomfortable- to show he understood what Deku meant... but not to indicate agreement.

"Shut up, idiot," he said, still feeling uncomfortable by the sudden, heavy, blanket of emotion sitting on top of both boys. "If you stabbed her in the back or shot her, that would be different. Or even if you, like, gave her a loaded gun that belonged to Yagi to play with and she shot herself with it. But it wasn't a gun, it was just a lame-ass paper boat. You didn't want to hurt her; in fact-" Bakugo shoved Deku, though it was weak, and not very heartfelt. "-you just wanted the kid to have a little fun, right?"

Deku thought back-thought desperately hard. What Bakugo had just said had made him feel better about Eri's death for the first time in months. Despite Bakugo's rashness and outwardly rude demeanor, Deku could tell he cared. He was the only one out of their school friend group that hadn't walked on eggshells around him after it happened. His teachers had shot him pitying looks and didn't even bother to grade his work until school had already been in for a month. His parents, also still in the process of grieving, had become suffocatingly sad and distant. But Bakugo- Bakugo had been the grounding presence Deku had so desperately needed. He still called him Deku, he still made fun of him (and even got to add stuttering to his roster of things to make fun of), and he still tried to turn everything the two of them did into a competition. And Deku would forever be grateful for it.

...but there was a part of him which insisted with quiet firmness that he was not supposed to feel better. 'Of course, it was your fault,' that part of him insisted; 'not entirely, maybe, but at least partly.'

So he went over what he had done and felt and said on the day Eri had died, part of him hoping that what Bakugo had said was true, part of him hoping just as hard it was not. He hadn't been a saint of an older brother to Eri, that much was certain. They had had fights, plenty of them. Surely there had been one that day?

...No. No fight. For one thing, Deku himself had still been feeling too punk to work up a really good quarrel with Eri. He had been sleeping, dreaming something, dreaming about some

(turtle)

funny little animal, he couldn't remember just what, and he had awakened to the sound of the diminishing rain outside and Eri muttering unhappily to herself in her bedroom. He had here her through the wall that their rooms shared. He asked Eri what was wrong. Eri came in and said she was trying to make a paper boat like the one she had seen on tv but it kept coming out wrong. Deku told Eri he knew how to do it. And sitting next to Bakugo Katsuki on the steps leading up to the Nakano's house, he remembered how Eri's eyes lit up when the paper boat came outright, and how good that look had made him feel like Eri thought he was the smartest person in the universe, a straight shooter, the guy who could do it until it got done. Making him feel, in short, like a big brother.

The boat had killed Eri, but Bakugo was right-it hadn't been like handing Eri a loaded gun to play with. Deku hadn't known what was going to happen. No way he could.

He drew a deep, shuddering breath, feeling something like a rock-something he hadn't even known was there-go rolling off his chest. All at once, he felt better, better about everything.

He opened his mouth to tell Bakugo this and burst into tears instead.

Bakugo's eyes widened. He opened his mouth but closed it again soon after. He raised an arm, and looked away awkwardly, running it through his hair. Finally, after a glance around to make sure no one was watching, he put an arm around Deku's shoulders- very tense, and looking extremely out of his element.

"Don't- shut up- it's fine- you're good-" he said in what Deku assumed was somewhat of an attempt to sound comforting- Bakugo's cheeks were beginning to burn as he glanced around anxiously. "You're okay, Deku, right? Come on. Turn off the goddamn waterworks before someone comes around the corner and snaps a picture."

"I didn't wuh-wuh-want h-her t-to g-g-get kuh-hilled!" Deku sobbed. "TH-THAT WUH-WUH-WASN'T ON MY M-M-M-MIND AT UH-UH-ALL!"

"Fuck- Deku- I know it wasn't," Bakugo said. "If you'd wanted to off her, you woulda pushed her down some stairs or something." Bakugo patted Deku's shoulder clumsily, hesitated, and gave him a strange little side hug before letting go. "Come on, quit bawling, okay? You sound like a baby."

Little by little Deku stopped. He still hurt, but this hurt seemed cleaner as if he had cut himself open and taken out something that was rotting inside him. And that feeling of relief was still there.

"I-I didn't w-want her to get kuh-kuh-killed," Deku repeated.

"I know-" Bakugo coughed, running his fingers through his spikey hair again and looking away. "-if you tell anybody I hugged you I'll bust your nose."

"I won't tell." Deku smiled, Bakugo shoved him again. "Thank you, Kacchan."

"Yeah yeah... you were crying about your dead sister for fucks sake- I'm not a monster."

"No, you're not."

Silence fell between the two of them for a while. Bakugo eyed Deku wearily, nervous he'd begin crying and he'd have to comfort him again- something he very clearly wasn't good at doing.

"All I had meant was that I don't know why Eri would want to haunt you. So maybe the picture's got something to do with... well, with that other. The clown."

"Muh-Muh-Maybe Eh-Eri d-d-doesn't nuh-nuh-know. Maybe sh-sh-she th-thinks-"

Bakugo understood what Deku was trying to say and waved it aside. "After you die you know everything people ever thought about you, Deku." He spoke with the indulgent air of a great teacher correcting a country bumpkin's fatuous ideas. "I dunno how it works exactly, but it's true."

"Hm."

"So what do you say?"

"Huh?"

"Let's go up to her room and take a look. Maybe we'll get a clue about who's killing all the kids."

"I'm s-s-scared to."

"I am too," Bakugo said, thinking it was just something to say that would get Deku moving- but then something heavy turned over in his midsection and he discovered it was true: he really was scared.

—2—

The two boys slipped into the Midoriya-Toshinori house like ghosts.

Yagi was still at work with plans to arrive at the Bakugo's place half-way through dinner. Inko was in the kitchen, reading a paperback at the kitchen table. The smell of lavender incense drifted throughout the bottom floor

"Someone there?" Inko called. They froze, eyeing each other- suddenly feeling as if they were about to do something wrong- almost blasphemous. Then Deku called: "M-Me, Mom. And Kah-Kah-K-K-Kah-"

"Katsuki!" Bakugo yelled.

"Oh- I was just about to head over to your house, Katsuki!" Inko called back. Bakugo winced, her usual kind tone was crackling with grief.

"We'll be over in just a bit, I left a jacket in Deku's room last time I was over here and we decided to come by and grab it before I forget again."

"Oh... I wish you had said something sooner, I would have had Izuku run it over to you sooner."

"It's no big deal."

"C-Come on," Deku whispered, tugging gently on Bakugo's shirt. "That's enough s-small talk."

They went upstairs and down the hall to Deku's room. It was boy-neat, which meant it would have given the mother of the boy in question only a mild headache to look at. The shelves were stuffed with a helter-skelter collection of books and manga. There were more manga, plus a few models and toys, as well as a binder displaying his full Pokémon collection. An identical binder was displayed next to it, this one displaying Yu-gi-oh cards. He had a work desk shoved into the corner, a sketch-book (different and much more professional looking than the spiral notebook he had taken with him to the barrens) sat open on top of it, unfinished manga panels littering the pages. He did this a bit more frequently since Eri's death. The pretending seemed to ease his mind.

There was a laundry basket on the floor across from the bed with a pile of folded clothes stacked on the lid. Deku put the clothes in the drawers of the chest that lived in the back of his closet. On top of the chest was an antique record-player Yagi had won for Deku at an auction down at town hall two years prior. Deku moves towards the record stack beside it and shuffled through them. He finally settled on one and in a few moments time, the Japanese cover of "Rock Around the Clock" was drifting through the air.

Bakugo wrinkled his nose. "Why can't you just have a radio or an iPod like a normal person?"

Deku grinned despite his thumping heart. "I-I luh-like this beh-better. P-plus she'll t-think w-we're i-in my ruh-room if she h-h-hears the Mu-Mu-music."

Eri's room was just on the other side of the wall Bakugo was leaning against. Bakugo wet his lips nervously at the thought and pushed off of it. The two of them headed out the door and to the right to Eri's room- the door was the same shade of white as Deku's, but it had yellow and pink butterfly wall decals plastered on it.

"They don't keep it locked?" he whispered to Deku. Suddenly he found himself hoping it was locked. Suddenly he was having trouble believing this had been his idea.

Deku, his face pale, shook his head and turned the knob. He stepped in and looked back at Bakugo. After a moment Bakugo followed. Deku shut the door behind them, muffling the cover floating out from the other room. Bakugo felt every hair standing on end.

He looked around, fearful and intensely curious at the same tune. The first thing he noticed was the dry mustiness of the air-No one's opened a window in here for a long time, he thought. Heck, no one's breathed in here for a long time. That's really what it feels like. He shuddered a little at the thought and licked his lips again.

His eye fell on Eri's bed, she had a Sailor Moon bedspread. He thought of Eri sleeping now under a comforter of the earth in the cemetery behind the Irusu townhome. Rotting there. Her hands not folded because you needed two hands to do the old folding routine, and Eri had been buried with only one.

A little sound escaped Bakugo's throat. Deku turned and looked at him enquiringly.

"You're right," Bakugo finally spoke. "Fuck- It's spooky in here. I don't see how a baby like you could stand to come in alone."

"Sh-she was my sis-sister," Deku said simply. "sometimes I w-w-want to, is a-all."

There were posters on the walls-little-kid posters. One, as Bakugo suspected after seeing the bedspread, depicted all of the sailor Moon characters standing in a sort of power pose. Another depicted Team Rocket from the Pokemon anime, A third, which Eri had colored herself, showed "Mr. Do." holding up traffic so a bunch of little kids headed for school could cross the street. MR DO SAYS WAIT FOR THE CROSSING GUARD!, it said underneath.

'Kid wasn't too cool about staying in the lines,' Bakugo thought, and then shuddered. 'The kid was never going to get any better at it, either.' Bakugo looked at the table by the window. Inko had stood up all of Eri's report cards there, half-open. Looking at them, knowing there would never be more, knowing that Eri had died before she could stay in the lines when she colored, knowing her life had ended irrevocably and eternally with only those few kindergarten and first-grade report cards, all the idiotic truths of death crashed into Bakugo for the first time. It was as if a large iron safe had fallen into his brain and buried itself there. 'Holy fuck, I could die!' his mind screamed at him suddenly in tones of betrayed horror. 'Anybody could! Anybody could!'

"Fuck..." Bakugo whispered, feeling dizzy and a little nauseous.

"Yeah..." Deku gave him a sympathetic look, before sitting on Eri's bed. "Look."

Bakugo followed Deku's pointing finger and saw the photo album lying closed on the floor. MY PHOTOGRAPHS, Bakugo read. TOSHINORI ERI, AGE 6.

'Age 6!' his mind shrieked in those same tones of shrill betrayal. 'Age 6 forever! Anybody could! Shit! Fucking anybody!'

"It was oh-oh-open," Deku said. "B-Before."

"So it closed," Bakugo said flatly, feeling uneasy. He sat down on the bed beside Deku and looked at the photo album. "Lots of books close on their own."

"The p-p-pages, maybe, but n-not the cuh-cuh-cover. It c-closed itself." He looked at Bakugo solemnly, his eyes very dark in his pale, tired face. "B-But it wuh-wuh-wants y-you to oh-open it up again. That's what I th-think."

Bakugo got up and walked slowly over to the photograph album. It lay at the base of a window screened with thin, shimmery, white curtains. Looking out, he could see the cherry blossom tree in the Midoriya-Toshinori back yard. The swing he had spent countless springs and summers standing on, shoving Deku off of, and all sorts of other things, rocked slowly back and forth from one gnarled, black limb.

He looked down at Eri's book again.

A dried maroon stain colored the thickness of the pages in the middle of the book. It could have been old ketchup. Sure; it was easy enough to see Eri looking at her photo album while eating a hot dog or a big sloppy hamburger; she takes a big bite and some ketchup squirts out onto the book. Little kids were always doing stupid shit like that. It could be ketchup. But Bakugo knew it was not.

He touched the album briefly and then drew his hand away. It felt cold. It had been lying in a place where the strong summer sunlight, only slightly filtered by those light curtains, would have been falling on it all day, but it felt cold. Bakugo didn't like it. It made him feel icky.

'Well, I'll just leave it alone,' Bakugo thought, his usual sense of pride completely drowned out by instinctual alarm bells screaming at him to put the book down and walk away. 'I don't want to look in some dead girls stupid old album anyway- all I'll see is a lot of people I don't know. I think maybe I'll tell Deku I changed my mind, and we can go to his room and read manga or battle Pokémon or something and then we'll over to my house and eat dinner and I'll go to bed early because I'm pretty tired, and when I wake up tomorrow morning I'm sure I'll be sure that stuff was just ketchup. That's just what I'll do. Yes.'

So he opened the album with hands that seemed a thousand miles away from him, at the end of long plastic arms, and he looked at the faces and places in Eri's album, the aunts, the uncles, the babies, the houses, the old Fords and Studebakers, the telephone lines, the mailboxes, the picket fences, the wheelruts with muddy water in them, the Ferris wheel at the culture festival held at the Kanazaki Ironworks all those years ago, the Standpipe-

His fingers flipped faster and faster and suddenly the pages were blank. He turned back, not wanting to but unable to help himself. Here was a picture of Ori Road and Kanazaki Drive, the bridge that Deku stashed silver under when going down into the barrens was the center focus- it looked to be around 1930 in the photo- beyond it there was nothing.

"There's no school picture of Eri in here," Bakugo said. He looked at Deku with a mixture of relief and exasperation. "What kind of bullshit were you feeding me, Deku?"

"W-W-What?"

"This picture of Irusu from eons ago is the last one. All the rest of the pages are blank."

Deku got off the bed and joined Bakugo. He looked at the picture of Irusu as it had been almost 75 years ago, old-fashioned cars and trucks, old-fashioned streetlights with clusters of globes like big white grapes, pedestrians on the bridge stretching over the Shibui caught in mid-stride by the click of a shutter. He turned the page and, just as Bakugo had said, there was nothing.

No, wait-not quite nothing. There was one studio corner, the sort of item you use to mount photographs.

"It w-w-was here," he said and tapped the studio corner. "L-Look."

"Ugh- What do you think happened to it?"

"I d-don't nuh-nuh-know."

Deku had taken the album from Bakugo and was now holding it on his own lap. He turned back through the pages, looking for Eri's picture. He gave up after a minute, but the pages did not. They turned themselves, flipping slowly but steadily, with big deliberate riffling sounds. Deku and Bakugo looked at each other, wide-eyed, and then back down.

It arrived at that last picture again and the pages stopped turning. Here were Ori Road and Kanazaki drive in sepia tones, the city as it had been long before either Deku or Bakugo had been born.

"What-!" Bakugo exclaimed suddenly and ripped the album back from Deku. There was no fear in his voice now, and his face was suddenly full of wonder. "Holy-fucking-shit!"

"W-What? What ih-ih-is it?"

"Us! That's what's fucking what! Use your goddamn eyes!"

Deku took one side of the book. Bent over it, sharing it, they looked like boys at choir practice. Deku drew in breath sharply, and Bakugo knew he had seen it too.

Caught under the shiny surface of this old black-and-white photograph two small boys were walking along Kanazaki Drive toward the point where Kanazaki and Ori Road intersected. The two boys showed up clearly against the fence on the far side of the bridge. One was wearing a white button-up tucked into black slacks. The other was wearing something that looked almost like a sailor suit. They were turned in a three-quarter profile toward the camera, looking at something on the far side of the street. The boy in the button-up shirt and slacks was Bakugo Katsuki, beyond a doubt. And the boy in the sailor suit was Deku.

They stared at themselves in a picture almost seven times as old as they were, hypnotized. The inside of Bakugo's mouth suddenly felt as dry as dust and as smooth as glass. A few steps ahead of the boys in the picture there was a man holding the brim of his fedora, his topcoat frozen forever as it flapped out behind him in a sudden gust of wind. There were Model-Ts on the street, a Pierce-Arrow, Chevrolets with running boards.

"I-I-I-I d-don't buh-buh-believe-" Deku began, and that was when the picture began to move.

The Model-T that should have remained eternally in the middle of the intersection (or at least until the chemicals in the old photo finally dissolved completely) passed through it, a haze of exhaust puffing out of its tailpipe. It went on toward Up-Mile Hill. A small white hand shot out of the driver's side window and signaled a left turn. It swung onto Court Street and passed beyond the photo's white border and so out of sight.

The Pierce-Arrow, the Chevrolets, the Packards-they all began to roll along, dodging their separate ways through the intersection. After seventy-five years or so the skirt of the man's topcoat finally finished its flap. He settled his hat more firmly on his head and walked on.

The two boys completed their turn, coming full-face, and a moment later Bakugo saw what they had been looking at as a mangy dog came trotting across Ori Road. The boy in the sailor suit-Deku-raised two fingers to the corners of his mouth and whistled. Stunned beyond any ability to move or think, Bakugo realized he could hear the whistle, could hear the car's irregular sewing-machine engines. The sounds were faint like sounds heard through thick glass, but they were there.

The dog glanced toward the two boys, then trotted on. The boys glanced at each other and laughed- it sounded like their voices, but higher pitched- like chipmunks. They started to walk on, and then the Bakugo in black slacks grabbed Deku's arm and pointed toward the bridge. They turned in that direction.

'No-' Bakugo thought, 'don't do that, don't-'

They went to the low concrete wall and suddenly the clown popped up over its edge like a horrible jack-in-the-box, a clown with Toshinori Eri's face, her hair slicked back, her mouth a hideous grin full of bleeding greasepaint, her eyes black holes. One hand clutched three balloons on a string. With the other, she reached for the Deku in the sailor suit and seized his neck.

"Nuh-Nuh-NO!" Deku cried, and reached for the picture.

Reached into the picture!

"Stop it, Deku!" Bakugo shouted, and grabbed for him.

He was almost too late. He saw the tips of Deku's fingers go through the surface of the photograph and into that other world. He saw the fingertips go from the warm pink of living flesh to the mummified cream color that passed for white in old photos. At the same tune, they became small and disconnected. It was like the peculiar optical illusion one sees when you thrust a hand into a glass bowl of water: the part of the hand underwater seems to be floating, disembodied, inches away from the part which is still out of the water.

A series of diagonal cuts slashed across Deku's fingers at the point where they ceased being his fingers and became photo-fingers; it was as if he had stuck his hand into the blades of a fan instead of into a picture.

Bakugo seized his forearm and gave a tremendous yank. They both fell over. Eri's photo album hit the floor and snapped itself shut with a dry clap. Deku stuck his fingers in his mouth. Tears of pain stood in his eyes. Bakugo could see blood running down his palm to his wrist in thin streams.

"Shit... why did you reach into the photo, idiot?," Bakugo muttered more to himself than to Deku.

"Hu-Hurts," Deku said. He held his hand out to Bakugo, palm down. Ladderlike slash-cuts were running up his index, second, and third fingers. The pinky had barely touched the surface of the photograph (if it had a surface), and although that finger had not been cut, Deku told Bakugo later that the nail had been neatly clipped, as if with a pair of manicurist's scissors.

"Fuck... Deku," Bakugo said. Band-Aids. That was all he could think of. God, they had been lucky-if he hadn't pulled Deku's arm when he did, his fingers might have been amputated instead of just badly cut. "We got to fix those up. Your mother can-"

"Neh-neh-never m-mind m-my muh-huther," Deku said. He grabbed the photo album again, spilling drops of blood on the floor.

"Don't open that shit again!" Bakugo growled, grabbing harshly at Deku's shoulder. "you almost lost your goddamn fingers!"

Deku shook him off. He flipped through the pages, and there was a grim determination on his face that scared Bakugo more than anything else. Deku's eyes looked almost mad. His wounded fingers printed Eri's album with new blood-it didn't look like ketchup yet, but when it had a little time to dry it would. Of course, it would.

And here was Kanazaki Drive and Ori Road intersection scene again.

The Model-T stood in the middle of the intersection. The other cars were frozen in the places where they had been before. The man walking toward the intersection held the brim of his fedora; his coat once more belled out in mid-flap.

The two boys were gone.

There were no boys in the picture anywhere. But-

"Look," Bakugo breathed, and pointed. He was careful to keep the tip of his finger well away from the picture. An arc showed just over the low concrete wall at the edge of the bridge, the top of something round.

Something like a balloon.

—3—

They got out of Eri's room just in time. Inko was a voice at the foot of the stairs and a shadow on the wall. "Have you boys been wrestling?" she asked. "I heard a thud."

"Just a lih-lih-little, M-Mom." Deku threw a sharp glance at Bakugo. 'Be quiet, it said.'

"Well, I want you to stop it. I thought the ceiling was going to come right down on my head."

"W-W-We will."

They heard her go back toward the front of the house. Deku had wrapped a rag from the hall closet around his bleeding hand; it was turning red and in a moment would start to drip. The boys went down to the bathroom, where Deku held his hand under the faucet until the bleeding stopped. Cleaned, the cuts looked thin but cruelly deep. Looking at their white lips and the red meat just inside them made Bakugo feel sick to his stomach. He wrapped them with Band-Aids as fast as he could.

"H-H-Hurts like hell," Deku said.

"Well, why'd you want to go and put your hand in there, fucktard?"

Deku looked solemnly at the rings of Band-Aids on his fingers, they were white with pink and yellow butterfly's that matched Eri's door art on them, then up at Bakugo. "I-I-It was the cluh-hown," he said. "It w-w-was the c-clown pretending to be Eh-Eh-Eri."

"That's right," Bakugo said. "Like it was the clown pretending to be the bitch from Elfen Lied that string bean saw. Like it was the clown pretending to be that sicko shitty hair saw."

"The luh-luh-leper."

"Right."

"But ih-is it r-r-really a cluh-cluh-clown?"

"No, you idiot- it's clearly some sort of monster," Bakugo said flatly. "Some kind of monster right here in Irusu. And it's killing kids."

—4—

—
Irusu, Japan
June 24th, 2005
—

On a Saturday, not long after the incident of the dam in the Barrens, Mr. Torino, and the picture that moved, Bakugo, Sero, and Todoroki Shouto came face to face with not one monster but two-and they paid to do it. Well, Bakugo did, anyway. These monsters were scary but not really dangerous; they stalked their victims on the screen of the Aladdin Theater while Bakugo, Sero, and Todoroki watched from the balcony.

It was an "old movie" weekend, where they'd screen older films from around the world for half off the regular ticket price. One of the monsters was a werewolf, played by David Naughton, in the movie "American Werewolf in London"- Bakugo enjoyed this movie the most out of the two they saw. The other was this movie called "The Blob" that Bakugo thought was alright but didn't find it all that scary.

Sero was very quiet during the showings. Ole stickman Hanta had nearly been spotted by Shigaraki, Twice, and Kurogiri earlier, and Bakugo assumed that was all that was troubling him. However, Sero had actually forgotten all about the creeps sitting in the rows the beneath them- instead he was overcome with an intense feeling of irrational guilt as he (properly) hung out with the love of his best friends' life without him. He thought later that those three hours in the theater had been the longest three hours of his entire life.

Bakugo, unaware that Sero was in deep throes of guilt, was feeling just as fine as rain. In his book, a couple of horror pictures in a theater filled with kids, all of them yelling and screaming at the gory parts, was the most fun a person could have. He certainly did not connect any of the goings-on in the two International pictures they were watching with what was going on in town... not then, at least.

He'd gotten the flyer for the reduced showing cost of the older horror films in the mail the Friday before, and after almost a week and a half of horrible sleep, he'd managed to score some cash off his parents and called Kirishima to ask him if he wanted to go with him.

"Sorry Katsuki- my mom's dragging me to my aunt's house for the entire weekend."

A pang of crushing disappointment shot through Bakugo chest. "Well fuck you too, then."

"It's not like I can help it- I honestly wouldn't go if I had a choice, she's gonna pinch my cheeks and coo about how "handsome" I am."

Bakugo responded, tone as mocking as possible, "That's cause they know how cute you are, Shark-teeth- just like me. I saw what a cutie you were the first time I met you."

"Sometimes you're a jerk, Bakugo."

"It takes one to know one, shitty hair, and you know em all. You gonna be down in the Barrens next week?"

"I guess so, if you guys are. Want to play guns?"

"Maybe. But... I think me and Deku have got something to tell you."

"What?"

"It's really Deku's story, I guess. I'll see you. Enjoy your aunts."

"Very funny."

He called Deku next, but he was also busy. He was being driven up to Ashikawa for Speech therapy, so Bakugo responded in his best Deku Voice: "G-G-Give em h-h-hell, Deh-Deh-Deku."

"S-shut up." But Bakugo could hear Deku's smile through the phone.

Finally, he tried Iida- it took everything in him to push away his pride and ask Iida to hang out with him- but even he rejected the offer. He and his family were going to Sapporo to watch his older brother (who played on a local baseball team the next town over) play in the semi-finals.

Bakugo started to leave the living room, then thought of Sero Hanta. He thumbed through the telephone book and found a listing for a Sero Izumi. Since she was the only Sero listed, Bakugo figured it had to be Sero's number and called.

"I'd like to go, but I don't have any money," Sero said. He sounded depressed and ashamed by the admission.

Bakugo, who was rolling in dough (and who really didn't like to go to the movies alone), said: "Fine. You'll just have to owe me one."

"Yeah? Really? You'd do that?"

"Sure," Bakugo said. "Why not? But I collect interest after a certain amount of time."

"Okay!" Sero said happily. "Okay, that'd be great! Two horror movies! Did you say one was about a werewolf?"

"Yeah."

"Man, I love werewolves!"

"Jeez, Bean pole, at least hang up the phone before you finish."

Sero laughed, though it sounded a little confusing like he wasn't quite sure what Bakugo meant. "I'll see you out in front of the Aladdin, okay?"

"Yeah, great."

Bakugo hung up and looked at the phone thoughtfully. It suddenly occurred to him that Sero Hanta was lonely. And that in turn made him feel rather heroic. He was whistling as he ran upstairs to get some Manga to read before the show.

—5—

The day was sunny, breezy, and cool. Bakugo walked along Ori Road toward the Aladdin, singing "STROBOLIGHTS" by Supercar under his breath. He was feeling good. Going to the movies always made him feel good-he loved that magic world, those magic dreams. He felt sorry for anyone who had dull duties to discharge on such a day-Deku with his speech therapy, Kirishima with his aunts, Iida with his brother's baseball shit.

Bakugo had his yo-yo tucked in his back pocket and now he took it out and tried again to get it to sleep. This was an ability Bakugo lusted to acquire after seeing some grade nine showing off on the playground right around when school started back again, but so far, no luck. The crazy l'il fucker just wouldn't do it. Either it went down and popped right back up or it went down and dropped dead at the end of its string.

When he made it to the town center, he saw a boy in grey-wash Levi's, the knees busted and tattered, porcelain pale skin covered in scrapes shining through. He had a plain white t-shirt and was wearing a varsity jacket so oversized the ends hung off the sides of the bench he was sitting on outside of the drug store owned by Aizawa Shouta. He was eating an ice cream sandwich. Bright red and white hair hung in his eyes. Bakugo knew only one person with hair like that. It was Todoroki Shouto.

Bakugo hasn't liked Todoroki much when they had first met in grade three. Todoroki has the weird ability to be amazing at every sport he tried, and it had grated on Bakugo's naturally competitive and "Have to be the best" nerves all year. It didn't help that Todoroki's stoic demeanor caused him to come across as rude and arrogant to anyone that didn't know better.

However, as the years went on, the two of them had warmed up to one another a little. They were still competitive, and Todoroki's personality still irked Bakugo to no end, but they had their moments.

So, yeah, they tolerated one another- maybe Bakugo could admit that they were somewhat acquainted, but it felt like a little bit of a stretch. He admired Todoroki's looks (and knew he wasn't alone- girls and guys alike were driven to mad jealously over his looks), but the one thing he truly liked about Todoroki was that he was tough. He could respect it to an extent. Also, he usually had cigarettes.

God, he really was gorgeous, wasn't he?

Approaching the bench where he sat eating his ice cream, he shoved the back of his head forward and into the last few bites of his ice cream sandwich, causing vanilla coat his chin.

Todoroki sighed and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. "Hi, Katsuki," he turned to face him, expression as blank as ever, and Bakugo could now see a large purple-blackish bruise on his collar bone- like the shadow of a crow's wing, almost as if he had been shoved into something. Bakugo was again struck by his good looks... Perhaps it was the bruise that allowed him to see the possibility of Todoroki Shouto's beauty-an essential contrast, a particular flaw which first drew attention to itself and then somehow denned the rest: the gray-blue eyes, the rare genetic phenomena that caused his split features, the creamy unblemished child's skin. The burn scar on the left side of his face only accenting his features, creating an asymmetry in the otherwise perfect half and half split. "You're an asshole."

"Takes one to know one, half and half." Bakugo shrugged, taking a seat on the bench next to him. Todoroki gave him a tired look. "You going to the movies?"

"I don't have any money." Todoroki responded curtly, before shifting his mismatched eyes to Bakugo's yo-yo "Can I see that?"

Bakugo suppressed a groan, already knowing what was about to happen. "Fine." He dropped it unceremoniously into Todoroki's lap.

He poked his finger through the loop of string and Bakugo watched, already annoyed beyond belief. He turned his hand over, palm toward the sky, the Duncan yo-yo tucked neatly into the valley of flesh formed by his cupped hand. He rolled the yo-yo off his index finger. It went down to the end of its string and fell asleep. When Todoroki twitched his fingers in a come-on gesture it promptly woke up and climbed its string to his palm again.

"Honestly? Fuck you, Half and Half." Bakugo said hotly.

"That's kid stuff," Todoroki said, and Bakugo could feel his blood pressure rising- why had he sat down here?

(Because something had compelled him too)

"Watch this." He snapped the yo-yo down again. He let it sleep for a moment and then walked the dog with it in a smart series of snap jerks up the string to his hand again.

"Ugh, just fuck off-" Bakugo said. "I get it- you're perfect."

"Or how about this?" Todoroki asked, the slightest hint of a smile on his face. He got the yo-yo going back and front, making the red wooden Duncan look like a Bo-Lo Bouncer Bakugo had had once. He finished with two Around the Worlds (almost hitting a shuffling old lady, who glared at them). The yo-yo ended up in his cupped palm, its string neatly rolled around its spindle. Todoroki handed it back to Bakugo and sat down on the bench again. Bakugo sat down next to him, his jaw tightened with annoyance.

"Sorry for showing you up again, Katsuki."

"Didn't I tell you to fuck off?"

Another hint of a smile. "Honestly, that last part was just luck. First time in my life I did two Around the Worlds in a row without fizzing out."

Kids were walking past them now, on their way to the show. Monama Neito walked by with Kendou Itsuka. They were supposed to be going together, but Bakugo figured it was just that they lived next door to each other on West Broadway and were such a couple of assholes that they needed each other's support and attention.

He glanced over at Bakugo and Todoroki sitting together on the bench and snorted, opening his loud mouth start something: "Awe, aren't you two cute together~"

"Sit on this, Monoma," Todoroki deadpanned and whipped the finger on him. Kendou, who had just begun to raise her hand to strike Monoma on the back of the head, lowered it and dragged him away in an embarrassed flush- however, Monoma was able to get one last word in before being dragged around the corner.

"Maybe we'll see the two of you around sometime! We should try a double date!"

"Maybe you'll see your mother's girdle!" Bakugo called back, grinning a little at the small glimpse of anger that flashed across Monoma's face before he disappeared. Todoroki smiled softly at Bakugo. And to his honest surprise, Bakugo found himself smiling back.

"What an idiot," Todoroki said.

"Yeah, I think Monoma pisses self-obsession," Bakugo said, and Todoroki's smiled widened just a little bit more.

"Probably."

There was silence for a moment before Bakugo finally broke it with: "So, are you gonna be some shitty sports god in middle school or something? I mean- you've already got a varsity jacket."

Todoroki smiled again. It was a kind of smile Bakugo had never seen before. It was wise, cynical, and sad all at the same time. He recoiled a little from its unknowing power, as he had recoiled from the picture of Irusu in Eri's album when it had begun to move.

"This is my brother's jacket, first of all," Todoroki said, pointing to Natsuo's embroidered name, his voice was Icy and Bakugo could feel the hair standing up in the back of his neck. "And that's what my dad wants me to do, so I guess."

"Is it what you want to do?"

"I don't have much of a choice, so sure. I guess."

Bakugo frowned a weird feeling flooding through him- something he couldn't quite place, something icky. "That's depressing."

"Thanks. I hadn't noticed."

"I was trying to be sympathetic, you fucker."

"You should stop because you aren't very good at it."

Bakugo raised his arm to shove Todoroki but stopped when his eyes landed on the bruise on his collarbone. He let it fall to his lap awkwardly and looked away. Bakugo looked at the large clock on top of Aizawa's drugstore and Pharmacy and jumped up, stuffing his yo-yo into his back pocket. "Shit, I've gotta get goin, Half and Half. I'm supposed to meet Skeletor. He'll think I changed my mind or something."

"...skele...tor?.."

"Sero Hanta."

Todoroki frowned at him. "That's not nice. I like Sero."

"Doesn't change the fact that he's sickly-looking."

"Katsuki," Todoroki said thinly.

Bakugo sighed and looked around to make sure no one could overhear what he was about to say. "I like him, too, okay?" he said. "We all built a dam down in the Barrens a couple of days ago and-"

"You go down there? You and Sero play down there?"

"Sure. A bunch of us do." Bakugo glanced at the clock again. "I'm going now."

"Okay."

He paused, thought, and almost as if he didn't have complete control of his mind and body, he felt lips, tongue, and vocal cords work together to form: "If you're not doing anything, come on with me."

"I told you. I don't have any money."

"I'll pay your way. I got a couple of bucks."

Todoroki tossed the wrapper from ice-cream sandwich in a nearby trash can. His eyes livelier than Bakugo had were seen them, turned up to his. They were coolly amused. "Are you asking me on a date, Bakugo?" He had the slightest hint of a teasing edge.

For a moment Bakugo was uncharacteristically flustered. He actually felt a blush rising in his cheeks and a deep, clawing sensation of shame trying to force itself through the barrier he'd begun to build up three months ago after coming to a startling realization during a game of kickball. He had made the offer in a perfectly natural way, just as he had made it to Sero... but somewhere deep down, he knew that it was different with Sero- Just as it were different with Deku and Iida- when it came to Todoroki and Kirishima (and eventually, as he would find out, Kaminari Denki)- simple things like asking to go to a movie together held a different weight- it was like- it was like there was some sort of energy that only the four of them were able to sense.

Bakugo suddenly felt a bit weird. He had dropped his eyes, retreating from his amused glance, embarrassed. He was angry at himself for getting so flustered over a joke- a joke made by Todoroki Shouto of all people.

Bakugo, as he usually did in times of intense, unwanted emotion, channeled it into anger.

"Shut the hell up- you know that's not what I was asking, dumbshit."

"' Dumbshit'... huh... that ones weak, I'm kind of disappointed," Todoroki said, small soft smile returning... but weren't his cheeks also a trifle flushed? And was that... anxiety in his expression? If so, it made him look prettier than ever. Had he even meant to make that joke at all? Something told Bakugo the answer was no.

He looked at Todoroki again, He felt as if his equilibrium had returned. A little foolishness always helped when you had a dizzy spell, he believed. "You coming or what?"

"Sure," he said. He didn't refer to it as a date again, which Bakugo was extremely grateful for. He glanced at the two-toned haired male out of the corner of his eye as they walked towards the theater. Todoroki was looking in the shop windows-at the dresses and nightgowns in Cornell-Hopley's, at the towels and pots in the window of the Discount Barn, and he stole glances at Todoroki's peculiar hair, the line of his jaw. He felt everything that had happened in Toshinori Eri's bedroom temporarily slip into his subconscious for the first time since it had happened. It was time to go, time to meet Sero, but he would live here in the moment for a little while longer- because for these few fleeting seconds- everything was normal again.