"You can't be careful on a skateboard."
- some kid
—1—
NOON OF A SUMMER DAY / IRUSU, JAPAN
Deku stood in Kaminari Denki's bathroom, looking at his lean body in the mirror over the sink. He went through the motions of styling his hair, washing his face, brushing his teeth robotically, feeling drained.
His chest was hairless, and like his face, dusted with freckles. His thighs and legs were lean, but taut and muscular. There were scars here and there, including a thin white line on his cheek from when Shigaraki Tomura nailed him in the face with a rock. There was another one of these thin lines on his chin, from the time he flipped over Sero Hanta in the July of 2005 and busted his chin. He touched them both gingerly, and felt sorrowful.
'Still,' he thought, 'it's an adult's body we've got here, no question about that. There's the bags under your eyes. Your hand is aching again- it's the carpel tunnel knocking on your door once more. You're too old for what you've got in mind, Deku. You'll get the both of you killed.'
He traded his loose-fitting pajama pants for a pair of grey slacks.
'If we'd believed that, we never would have killed It.' He argued with himself wordlessly.
Ochako was sitting downstairs in Kaminari's easy chair, her hair hanging limply over her thin shoulders, staring with rapt attention at the TV, which was currently showing some game show involving trivia and punishments for wrong answers. She didn't speak and would only move if you led her.
'This is different. You're just too old. Believe it.'
'I won't.'
'Then die here in Irusu.'
He put on his button up, black in color. He buttoned each clear button up placidly, his thin fingers moving nimbly. He slid on another vest, grey, and finished off the outfit with a pair of black loafers and the custom bolo tie Ochako had bought him a lifetime ago. He sat down heavily on Kaminari's bed- the one he had shared for the last week with his warm but corpse-like wife- and he found that it was very difficult to stand back up.
He eventually did stand, and looked at himself in the mirror again. He saw a man nearing thirty with the face of an eleven year old boy who's sister had just been murdered by a clown.
He sighed.
'You look terrible.'
'Yeah.'
'You're no kid. Give this up!'
"I think this is the last plan I'm ever gonna come up with." Deku mused softly, and left the room.
—2—
In the dreams he will have in later years, he is always leaving Irusu alone, at sunset. The town is deserted; everyone has left. The old elementary school and the houses on West Broadway brood black against a lurid sky, every summer sunset you ever saw rolled up into one.
He can hear his footfalls echoing back as they rap along the concrete. The only other sound is water rushing hollowly through the stormdrains.
—3—
He rolled Silver out into the driveway, put him on the kickstand, and checked the tires again. The front one was okay but the back one felt a little squishy. He got the bike pump that Kaminari had bought and firmed it up. When he put the pump back, he checked the playing cards and the clothespins. The bike's wheels still made those exciting machine-gun sounds Deku remembered from his boyhood. Good. Great, even.
'You've lost it.'
'Maybe. We'll see.'
He went back into Kaminari's messy garage again, got the 3-in-1, and oiled the chain and sprocket. Then he stood up, looked at Silver, and gave the bulge of the horn a light, experimental squeeze. It sounded good. He nodded to himself and went into the house, satisfied.
—4—
Inside, he grabs the photo of all seven loser's club members Kaminari had on his refrigerator. He stares at it for a long time, brushing his his fingers over the young, living, faces of Iida Tenya and Kirishima Ejirou. He slips the photo in his pocket, leaving Kaminari a note that he'd mail it back once he had a professional copy made. Deku thinks he might be crying, but he isn't certain.
'Leaving, leaving Irusu,' he thinks. 'We're leaving Irusu, and if this was a story it would be the last half-dozen pages or so; get ready to put this one up on the shelf and forget it. The sun's going down and there's no sound but my footfalls and the water in the drains.'
—5—
The trivia game show had turned into a drama. Ochako sat passively in front of it, her brown eyes never leaving the set. Her demeanor did not change when Deku snapped the TV off.
"Ochako," he said, going to her and taking her hand gently in his own. "Come on."
She didn't move. Her hand lay in his. It was warm, which was the only indication that she hadn't died while Deku was busy fixing up his bike and stealing stuff from one of his friends. Deku took her other hand from the arm of Kaminari's chair and pulled her to her feet. He had dressed her that morning as he had dressed himself- she was wearing jeans and a pink T-shirt he'd bought earlier that week. WHERE THE HELL IS IRUSU? was written in big, white, lettering on the front. She would have looked quite lovely in the causal outfit if not for her wide-eyed vacant stare.
"Cuh-come on," he said again, and led her through the door, into Kaminari's kitchen and, eventually, outside.
"I'm sorry about what I said." He murmured as he guided her carefully down the steps- she would have plunged off the back porch stoop and gone sprawling in the dirt if Deku had not put an arm around her waist. "When I left, I mean... about never forgiving you... I just didn't want you to follow me... but- well... I do forgive you... in fact, I shouldn't even be the one forgiving... it's my fault you're like this..."
Her expression didn't change.
He led her over to where Silver stood heeled over on his kick-stand in the bright summer noonlight. Ochako stood beside the bike, looking serenely at the side of Kaminari's garage.
"Get on, Ochako."
She didn't move. Patiently, Deku worked at getting her to swing one of her legs over the back wheel where Bakugo Katsuki used to ride double. At last she stood there on the spokes, the back wheel between her legs.
Deku swung onto Silver's saddle and put up the kickstand with his heel. He prepared to reach behind him for Ochako's hands and draw them around his middle, but before he could do it they crept around him of their own accord, like small dazed mice.
He looked down at them, his heart beating faster, seeming to pump in his throat as much as in his chest. It was the first independent action Ochako had taken all week, as far as he was aware...
"Ochako?"
There was no answer. Deku tried to twist his neck around and see her but couldn't quite make it. There were only her hands around his waist, the nails showing the last chips of pink polish that had been put on by one of the women in the salon directly below their apartment in Tokyo.
"We're going for a ride," Deku said softly. He grabbed one of her hands, kissed it, and let it fall. It found its way to his waist again, and his eyes widened. With a shaking breath, Deku began to roll Silver forward toward Omagari Drive, listening to the gravel crunch under the tires. "I want you to hold on, Ochako. I think... I think I may go sort of f-f-fast."
'If I don't lose my guts.'
He thought of the kid he had met earlier during his stay in Irusu, when It had still been happening. 'You can't be careful on a skateboard,' the kid had said.
'Truer words were never spoken, kid.'
"Ochako? You ready?"
No answer. Had?... Had her hands tightened the tiniest bit across his middle? Probably just wishful thinking. He shook his head, trying to clear it.
Deku reached the end of the driveway and looked right. Omagari Drive was closer to the outskirts of Irusu, and the neighbors were few and far between. However, it intersected with Ori road, where a left turn would take him onto the hill running downtown. Downhill. Picking up speed. He felt a tremor of fear at the image, and a disquieting thought-
('Grownup bones break easy')
-ran through his mind almost too quickly to read and was gone. But...
But it wasn't all disquiet, was it? No. It was desire as well... the feeling he'd had when he saw the kid walking along with the skateboard under his arm. The desire to go fast, to feel the wind race past you without knowing if you were racing toward or running away from, to just go. To fly.
Disquiet and desire. All the difference between world and want- the difference between being an adult who counted the cost and a child who just got on it and went, for instance. All the stuff in between. Yet not that much difference at all.
Disquiet and desire. What you want and what you're scared to try for. Where you've been and where you want to go. Something in a rock-and-roll song about wanting the girl, the car, the place to stand and be.
Deku closed his eyes for a moment, feeling the soft dead weight of his wife behind him, feeling the hill somewhere ahead of him, feeling his own heart inside him.
Be brave, be true, stand.
He began to push Silver forward again. "I think you actually might like this, Ochako."
No answer. But that was okay, he was ready- and he hadn't been expecting one anyway.
"Well... hold on, then."
He began to pedal. It was hard to at first. Silver wobbled alarmingly back and forth, Ochako's weight adding to the imbalance... yet she must be doing some sort of balancing, even unconsciously, or they would have crashed right away. Deku stood on the pedals, hands squeezing the handlegrips with maniacal tightness, his head turned skyward, his eyes slits, the cords on his neck standing out.
'Gonna fall splat right here in the street, split her skull and mine-'
('no the hell you aren't. Go for it Deku. Go for it. Go for it. GoforitGoforitGo-')
He stood on the pedals, revolving them, feeling every cigarettes he'd smoked that week making their harmful presence known in his lungs. He coughed, but pushed against it, and the rush he got made him grin.
The playing cards, which had been firing isolated shots, now began to click faster and faster. They were new and they made a good loud sound. Deku felt the first touch of breeze blow through his hair, and his grin widened. 'I made that breeze,' he thought. 'I made it by pumping these pedals.'
The STOP sign at the end of the lane was coming up. Deku began to brake... and then (his grin still widening, showing more and more of his teeth) he began to pump again.
Ignoring the STOP sign, Midoriya Izuku swept to the left, onto Ori road. Again Ochako's weight fooled him and they almost overbalanced and crashed. The bike wavered, wobbled, then righted itself. That breeze was stronger now, cooling the sweat on his forehead, evaporating it, rushing past his ears with a low intoxicating sound that was a little like the sound of the ocean in a conch shell but was really like nothing else on earth. Deku supposed it was a sound the kid with the skateboard was familiar with. 'But it's a sound you'll fall out of touch with, kid,' he thought. 'Things have a way of changing. It's a dirty trick, so be prepared for it.'
Pedaling faster now, finding a surer balance in speed. The ruins of several businesses on either side, he felt a laugh bubble up and escape his throat.
Ochako's hands tightened around his middle; he felt her stir against his back. But there was no urge to turn and try to see her now... no urge, no need. He pedaled faster, laughing out loud once again, a tall man on a bike crouched over the handlebars to lessen the wind-resistance. People turned to look as he raced towards the dip of up-mile hill.
A voice inside whispered to him that if he didn't brake soon he would find himself unable to; he would simply go sweeping into the sunken remains of the three-way intersection, which over the course of the past week, had spread to the edge of Ori Road.
Instead of braking he began to pedal harder, urging the bike to go even faster. Now he was flying down up-mile Hill and he could see the white-and-orange crash barriers and sawhorses marking the edge of the cave-in, he could see the tops of buildings which jutted out of the streets like the figments of a madman's imagination.
Deku laughed deliriously, and rushed down the hill toward whatever there would be, aware for one last time that Irusu was his home, aware most of all that he was alive under a real sky, and that all was desire, desire, desire.
He raced down the hill on Silver: Midoriya Izuku raced to beat the devil.
—6—
THE OTHER / ?
Children, I love you. I love you so much. You all did so well. You all fulfilled your duties to the end.
So drive away quick, drive away while the last of the light slips away, drive away from Irusu... but not from desire. That stays, the bright cameo of all we were and all we believed as children, all that shone in our eyes even when we were lost and the wind blew in the night.
Drive away and try to keep smiling. Get a little rock and roll on the radio and go toward all the life there is with all the courage you can find and all the belief you can muster. Be true, be brave, stand.
All the rest is darkness.
—7—
"Hey!"
"Hey mister, you-"
"-lookout!"
"Damn fool's gonna-"
Words whipped by in the slipstream, as meaningless as pennants in a breeze or untethered balloons. Here came the crash barriers and sawhorses. Deku saw the overwhelming darkness where the street had been, heard water gushing and rushing down there in the tangled darkness, and laughed at the sound.
He dragged Silver hard left, so close to the crash barriers now that the leg of his slacks actually brushed along one of them. Silver's wheels were less than three inches from the place where the tar ended in empty space, and he was running out of maneuvering room. Up ahead the water had eroded all of the street and half the sidewalk in front of the police station. Barriers closed off what was left of the sidewalk; it had been severely undercut.
"...Izu...ku?..." It was Ochako's voice, dazed and a little thick. She sounded as if she had just awakened from a deep sleep. "Izuku?... where?... where are we?... What are we doing?..."
Deku threw his head back and laughed, the wind streaming passed his face. He pointed the rushing bullet that was Silver directly at the crash barrier jutting out at right angles. "Yeah!"
Silver struck the barrier at better than forty miles an hour and the hulking bike went flying, the centerboard went in one direction, the A-shaped supports in two others. Ochako cried out and squeezed Deku so tightly that he lost his breath. Up and down Main Street, Center Street, and Taiko Street, people stood in doorways and on sidewalks, gawking.
Silver shot out onto the bridge of undercut sidewalk. Deku felt his left hip and knee chip the side of the Police station. He felt Silver's rear wheel sag suddenly and understood that the sidewalk was falling in behind them-
-and then Silver's forward motion carried them back onto solid roadway. Deku swerved to avoid an overturned trashcan and barrelled out into the street again. Brakes squealed, and he passed by a car so close he could feel the heat of its engine against his side. He saw the grille of a giant truck approaching and still couldn't seem to stop laughing. He ran through the space the heavy truck wound up occupying a full second before it got there. Shit, time to spare!
"Izuku, you're going to kill us both!" Ochako cried out, and although there was terror in her voice, she was also laughing.
Deku heeled Silver over, and this time he felt Ochako leaning with him, making the bike easier to control, helping to make the two of them exist with it, at least for this small compact moment of time, as three living things.
"Do you think so?" he shouted back.
"I know so!" she cried, and held onto him tighter, burying her face in between his shoulder blades.
Silver's speed was bleeding away, the heavy roar of the playing cards becoming single gunshots again. Deku stopped and turned to her. She was pale, wide-eyed, obviously scared and confused... but awake, aware, and laughing.
"Ochako," he breathed, laughing with her. He helped her off Silver, leaned the bike against a handy brick wall, and embraced her. He kissed her, and then pulled her close again, burying his face in her hair. She hugged him back.
"Izuku, what?... what happened?... I remember getting off the plane... but I can't remember a thing after that... Are you alright?"
"Yes."
"Am... Am I?..."
"You are now."
She pushed him away so she could look at him. "Izuku, are you still stuttering?"
"No," Deku said, and kissed her again. "My stutter's gone."
"For good?"
"Yes," he said. "I think this time it's gone for good.'
"Did... did you say something about forgiveness?..."
"Yes." He nodded, and hugged her tighter, lifting her enough that she had to balance on her tip-toes.
"I love you," she said.
He nodded and smiled down at her. When he smiled he looked very young. "I love you too," he said. "And what else matters?"
—8—
DECEMBER 15TH, 2027 / HIDA-TAKAYAMA, JAPAN / 5:13 A.M.
Deku awakens from this dream-memory, feeling both scared and content. He reaches over and touches his wife's smooth back as she sleeps her warm sleep and dreams her warm dreams. He tries several times to go back to sleep but finds he can't, a sudden urge to write overtaking his mind. Deku quietly creeps out of bed, and makes his way to the door. Ochako stirs, but doesn't wake.
He walks down the hall of their home towards the kitchen, yawning, in need of caffeine. On his way he passes their coffee table, which is splayed with a multitude of things. Scripts, story-boards, an invitation to a Christmas party at the Kaminari-Todoroki residence (The two of them had gotten married five years earlier, marking the first time the five remaining loser's were together as a group since that time in Kaminari's hospital room), tickets for the Supercar reunion tour that came in the mail from Osaka, and the blueprints for the addition to the anime studio in Tokyo 'Wilting Flower's' had been adapted in seven years before.
Deku yawns, sighing happily at the scent of coffee beginning to waft through the house. He turns to grab the sugar and creamer, and pauses, a smile working its way onto his face. "What are you doing up?"
A little girl, age six, stands in the hallway rubbing her tired eyes. She lets out a monstrous yawn, her hair cascading in chocolate curls over her shoulders. Her green eyes are like lamps in the darkness, her freckled face is barely visible.
"You woke me up." She mumbles, and wobbles into the kitchen. She winces against the light, eyes slit, and collapses against her fathers leg.
"Did I?"
"Mhm... you did... bad, dad..." she says, and lightly hits his thigh in a non-serious reprimand.
Deku laughs, and scoops her up in his arms, coffee all but forgotten. She yawns in his ear, and wraps her thin arms around his neck, nuzzling into him. He smiles and nuzzles back, walking over to the couch and laying down with her on his chest. She cuddles into the warmth.
"Dad?"
"Hm?"
"How'd you get that scar?" A small hand belonging to a very sleepy girl lightly slaps his face, causing Deku to wince, eventually it finds its mark on his chin.
Deku looks down at her curiously, unconsciously touching his chin. He opens his mouth, hesitates, and then closes it again. His eyes drift towards the storyboards on the coffee table, a rough sketch of seven children holding hands in a circle while their palms bleed into the water around their feet is on top. He uses his foot to push it out of view.
"Dad?"
Deku sighs, and gives her a warm smile. He plants a kiss on her forehead, and rubs the scar on his chin again, memories flooding through his mind- both good and bad. He holds his daughter closer, a deep feeling of love overtaking his being.
"...It's a long story..." he yawns, starting to feel tired again. "... I'll have to tell you about it sometime, Eri."