Cheshire Smile: Chapter 3
3 Months later….
Izuku wasn't sure he liked America.
Barring that leaving Japan felt like running away from Kacchan with his tail between his legs like a coward of course.
It was just so… so different.
In Japan the use of quirks is restricted. Restrained. In Japan any quirk use by an individual without a government sanctioned license are automatically labelled criminals. At best vigilantes.
He just saw his new neighbors in their 5th floor apartment hop out of their living room window like they were stepping off a curb and sprout winds from their ankles.
Needless to say Izuku was feeling a little out of his depth. Culture Shock is a bitch.
When he read that unrestricted quirk use in America -as long as it didn't put others at risk of course- was not only legal but encouraged he thought he would be walking into a chaotic hellscape wrought with vigilantes and criminals.
Turns out out the opposite was the case.
No criminal is willing to walk into a public place and rob the joint where even the customers are packing genetically gifted heat.
Izuku's former pastime of Hero Chasing was a thing of the past, yet another thing this move to America has cost him. What confrontations did occur were smaller in scale, or resolved with much less fan-fare than the villain attacks in Japan. He had always heard that American Heroes were much weaker in general when compared to those in Japan.
Maybe it's his Japanese pride speaking but he still considered Japanese Heroes stronger, but it could be that since everyone in America could freely use they're quirks it was even harder to stand out than back home.
So yeah, Izuku is a little bitter about moving overseas.
Being quirkless, Izuku had thought he would stand out here in the USA, because everyone and their mother was using their quirks in public without a care. To his genuine surprise that wasn't true either. America has the highest concentration of Quirkless individuals in the world, with 8% of the total Quirkless population having been born in country. 8% out of 20%.
He didn't know the reason why. No one did. It was mathematically improbable, or even impossible, that a single nation would hold nearly half of the world's quirkless population.
In Japan he was taught that most of the quirkless were from the previous generation, with about 5% -a fourth from the past generation- to be born quirkless from the current generation. When he got to the USA he found that statistic to be a bit skewed. A good 15% of kids his age in America were born quirkless.
He wasn't the only useless one in the neighborhood now. Joy.
"Izuku? Honey?"
Izuku looked away from his bedroom window and hopped out of his plain blue bed with a yawn rubbing his sleep-encrusted eyes. "M'up Mom." He mumbled.
Inko edged his door open and poked her head in. "Time to get up Izuku. It's almost time for your first day of school. Your father is downstairs making breakfast." Then she slips out, closing the door.
Your father. Her words echoed in his head.
Izuku couldn't describe how bizarre those words sounded coming out of his mom's mouth. He can count on one hand how many times he had sat down for a meal with the man, now this virtual stranger is making him breakfast. Like it was normal or something.
I just want to go back home.
He missed Japan and its familiar routine, longing thumping him in the gut like one of Kacchan's nitroglycerin-fueled love-taps.
Getting beat up is so much easier than moving on, than change.
Throwing on a pair of new jeans and a t-shirt (because most of the american education system doesn't even have uniforms for some bizarre reason. How do people here even know what to wear?) Izuku trudged out of his bedroom and down the stairs to the kitchen.
Then walked in on his father, dressed in a dark green business suit, breathing emerald fire over a pan of toast, as if it were merely part of his morning routine. Hisashi cut off his flame, green light crawling down his throat and flipped the now golden slices of toast over. satisfied with his work he smiled. Then he spotted Izuku from the corner of his eye and his smile turned a little crooked and awkward- a Midoriya social staple- before busying himself around the countertop.
"Morning s-son!" Hisashi chirped, forcing out the clearly foreign endearment and flashed Izuku with another quick, unsure smile. "Go ahead and take a seat, I'm plating the food now." He gestured with the pan of toast and yelped, barely saving the golden slices from sliding right off the end of the pain and onto the floor.
Izuku snorted in bitter amusement and landed in a chair around their spacious dining table, next to the wrap-around counter.
Inko popped into the kitchen practically vibrating with nervous energy. Izuku knew why. He and his mother had barely moved into the apartment Hisashi had acquired a week before. With everything going on with setting up him going to New Savannah Middle School and his and Inko's family visas they hadn't actually had a morning like this yet. A morning where they had to act that they were a family, breakfast together at the kitchen table and everything.
Hisashi threw an equally nervous but hopeful smile at his estranged wife as she sat next to Izuku (Next to Izuku and across the table from him he noticed sadly) and bustled around with two plates of an American breakfast staple, sausage, eggs, and toast. He set the plates down for his family and grabbed his own plate before sitting down.
A mumbled "itadakimasu" and the Midoriya family then proceeded to have the most awkward and silent meal in the history of man. No one mustered the courage (or in Izuku's case, the energy to care) to make eye contact with anyone else or break the stalemate between the three of them.
Izuku couldn't stand it.
He inhaled his breakfast, hardly tasting it as it went down. Unfortunately, this morning he couldn't leave ahead of his parents and this terrible awkward quiet. They wanted to take him there for the first day of school to make sure everything was settled right. It was his last year in middle school, and with how America does their public education semesters he is actually starting a year back, in 8th grade.
Hisashi noticed Izuku's aloofness. How withdrawn he'd been ever since he had said that they were moving. He knew Izuku wasn't happy right now, but he knew it was the right thing, especially after he heard exactly what happened from Inko. His son will get better. Doesn't mean it won't be hard though, but he has faith in his sunshine gremlin.
Inko saw this too, her genuine excitement and giddiness over finally eating like a real, actual family was dulled by her son's misery. It made her want to cry... again. She traded a look of concern with her husband and both polished off their plates and started to gather their things to leave. Izuku darted to the door as soon as his parents' pitying eyes were off of him, tapped on his red sneakers, grabbed his backpack (Plain blue, no All Might merch in sight) and raced outside to the parking lot.
Another thing that Izuku found jarring was the abundance of cars in America. Even in the suburbs of New Savannah where he could basically walk anywhere he wanted in the city it was still more common to just drive to their destination instead. Hisashi wasn't an especially wealthy man but the shiny new matte gray hatchback sedan in their designated parking spot seemed extravagant to Izuku. Wasteful.
Or maybe he was just projecting. Objectively he knew he was just angry and bitter for no good reason, but he couldn't do anything to do about it, or find the energy to give a damn.
"Hey Son." Izuku stepped aside for Hisashi as he stepped out, juggling his keys. The older Midoriya's hand hovered awkwardly over Izuku's greenette bird's nest of hair, weary of his boy's plunging mood.
He chickened out in the end, his arms flopping back to his side. He sighed and hit the car remote on his key. "Hop in." In an effort to stay positive he added, "Let's go see your new school! I hear it's one of the best in the state!"
"Yeah." Izuku mumbled, slipping into the back seat as his parents climbed into the front. He curled up against the door as Hisashi pulled out of the drive.
Izuku didn't care about this new school, or how great Hisashi says it is. It may be great for normal people, but for a Useless Deku like him it doesn't matter. Every school is the same.
Even halfway across the world, Kacchan always wins, and tiny, worthless, shitty, Deku always fucking loses.