Izuku snorts as he watches a villain childishly stick his tongue out at a small-time Hero, causing the other to scowl and go to attack. A long yawn escapes his mouth, and he has to blink away the tears brought to his eyes. The school bell rings, and he turns his phone off, slipping it into his pocket. He rolls his shoulders back a few times before bring his arms on to his desk, propping an arm up and placing his chin on his left hand.
"WHOO! Good morning, everybody! Ready to start the day?"
Present Mic slips into the classroom with his usual excited greeting, while Izuku trails his eyes over to his right where one of his classmate sleepily rubbed his own eyes, raising from his hunched-over position. He notes that it seems he isn't the only one not getting a full-night's rest lately, though it seems this guy always has bags under his eyes.
'Maybe it's a new look? I must look stylish myself then.'
He lets an amused huff and returns his attention to his homeroom teacher (who just happens to be a popular Pro-Hero), twisting a green curl with a finger. Whenever Present Mic reaches his name on the roster, he answers with a lazy "here," slowly spinning his mechanical pencil in his right hand. Unfortunately, he hasn't practiced enough for his movement to not be stiff and awkward, but it's an easy thing to lose attention on regardless.
Soon, roll call is over, and Present Mic is reassuring the students that the huge clash at the school's training facility, U.S.J, is not something to be concerned over, and that there shouldn't be any future villain attacks that will take place on the main building. He also mentions how if anyone is feeling any sort of anxiety or panic, they are free to visit U.A.'s counselor, Hound Dog, or even come to him, during the lunch break or after school, if they feel comfortable doing so.
"Us Pros are gonna work hard to keep you all safe, so there's nothin' you need to worry about!" His grin dramatically falls, a grim expression replacing it. "Actually, there is..." The class of teenagers tense up, though Izuku just narrows his eyes, not finding any reason to start getting nervous just yet. "You guys need to worry about the U.A.'s Sports Festival!" He beams like the sun, and those who were worrying had relaxed, some even smiled back almost like sunflowers, as he goes on about the advantages of getting on the podium. Izuku decides to peek over at the panda-cosplaying classmate again, and even he's showing a bit of excitement, his half-lidded purple eyes shining in hope and determination.
As for Izuku, he could care less about the festival. He isn't aiming for the Hero Course; he didn't have any desire to become a Pro-Hero, at least not anymore. All he needs is to graduate and hopefully get into college, so he could somehow get a better job than the one he has at a fast food restaurant. If he has a little side business of helping people with small-time things, who cares? It's not like he has any good reputation at school. If he did, he probably wouldn't be all alone and friendless. People would probably stop looking at his quirkless status before looking at who he is. It's a good thing none of his classmates know about that. He doesn't want to add any type of bullying to the pitiful mixture, even if U.A. claims that they have a strict policy against it.
Being quirkless isn't a fun characteristic to live with―in fact, it is terrible. All because of not having something that eighty percent of the population has, his former friend decided to bully and basically ostracize him. All because of not having a quirk, almost everyone that found out, through him or other means, either hated or pitied him. All because he was quirkless, he couldn't save his mother from a stupid villain. But what can he, or anyone, do? Genetics is genetics; not like anyone can change it so easily.
He's lucky that he is somehow able to get away with hiding his "defect" away from those at work. Quirkless people are often pushed aside for someone with a quirk, leaving many without jobs or college degrees. After all, how could they let someone without a quirk take the place of someone with one? Can't waste potential, right?
He shakes his head, sighing. Instead of getting lost into thinking about quirks (or lack thereof), he thinks about his recent client, an old woman by the name of Sato Mio. One of her friends had shared the news of a kind, young teenager who went and found her dog (an angry pomchi, who reminded him to a certain hero-in-training) for a fair price, and she came with the quest of looking for her missing cat. Imagine her face when she met a tired, sarcastic teen who asked her to, "Come into my office. Yes, the restroom." He took the job, for the same fair price as the pomchi case, and now, after school, he has a calico to search for.
He thinks about the places the lost pet could be, the possibility that someone else already found the cat and was waiting for missing pet posters to go up before claiming the cat for themselves (of course, no one could blame Sato, she's just a poor old woman, who didn't even have her phone number or address on her cat's tag). The first thing he will do after school is print posters with the cat's picture (provided by Sato, she had many to choose from; he chose one where the cat was looking at the camera with a toy in her mouth), and put them up after doing a quick search. If the cat wasn't in any easy or obvious places, then he couldn't find her without a bit of help from neighbors (it'd be like trying to find a needle in a haystack). It was the same process as he did with the angry pomchi, and the same process he's done for past animals and will continue to use for future ones.
He pinches the bridge of his nose, Present Mic's loud voice and his running thoughts bringing an irritating headache. He feels the sun shining down on him, trying to lull him to a doze, perhaps even a full-on nap, and he lets it, setting his head down in his arms. It's not like his teacher is explaining anything he was interested in, and there is nothing wrong with getting a small nap in, was there? He feels someone's eyes on him, but he brushes the attention off, nestling into his arms more and breathing in deeply through his nose before exhaling, feeling his whole body untense.
It is going to be a long day.
He stretches, yawning widely. He feels slightly rested, somehow being allowed to sleep through all his classes until lunch. No one tried to wake him up; it's almost like his teachers saw how dark the bags were under his eyes and didn't want to get in the way of lightening them, even just a bit. Jokes on them, they're as dark as his soul, meaning they're never going away. He stands from his desk and takes note of how his sleepy classmate is sleeping once again, his face buried into his arms. Deciding to be nice, Izuku pokes his shoulder a few times, effectively waking him up. The purple-haired guy yawns, his eyes slowly becoming focused and quickly noticing Izuku standing beside him.
Izuku tilts his head, "You wouldn't know how to find a lost cat?" He mostly means the question as a joke, to confuse the guy really, but is open to any suggestions. What can he say, Mr. Sleepy looks to be a cat-person.
"You woke me up to ask how to find a cat?" Mr. Sleepy groans, rubbing his face in annoyance. He sets his gaze on the green-haired boy, almost glaring.
"Nah," Izuku chuckles, shaking his head. He doesn't blame the other for being a little pissed; most people don't' like being woken up for no good reason. "Figured you wouldn't wanna miss out on lunch. Lunch Rush's food is pretty good."
Mr. Sleepy lets up on his irritation slightly, muttering a, "Thanks." He brings a hand to rub the back of his neck, averting his eyes.
"So, what's your name? I'm Midoriya Izuku."
Izuku figures he could try to be polite. The other boy didn't seem to talk to their other classmates, unlike the others in this class, which is why Izuku was slightly curious by him. Humans are naturally social creatures, and this guy seems to be the complete opposite. In fact, it was almost like he was purposely distancing himself from everyone. Izuku wouldn't be surprised if he was though, seeing as how he's not doing any better.
"I'm not here to make friends."
That explains it.
"I don't remember saying that I wanted to be your friend." Izuku raises a brow before showing a harmless smile. "All I asked for was your name."
The teen sets another stare on him for a few awkward seconds. Then he averts his eyes again and settles with, "Shinsou."
"Nice to meet you, Shinsou."
Izuku allows his smile to widen a bit before moving on, following the last few students out of the classroom and down the hall to the large cafeteria. He angles his head down, his long, curly hair curtaining the front of his face, when he sees All Might walk out of the teacher's lounge with his typical grin on his face. He mostly likely doesn't know that Izuku made it into U.A., but he didn't want to take any chances. He is the last person he wants to talk to.
He continues down the hall, passing students from all different courses, including a few from 1-A and 1-B. He makes it to the lunchroom, but instead of getting an oh-so-delicious lunch from Lunch Rush, he goes straight to a deserted table. He can have all the cold french fries and chicken nuggets he wants when he goes to his shift this evening. He always makes sure his hours fall in line with the curfew set out for minors, allowing himself time to get back to his tiny apartment before then.
He brings his phone out, unlocking it, when he hears the soft sound of a tray being set down. When he looks up, he sees an apathetic male with red and white hair sitting as far away as possible from him. He shrugs before returning to his phone. He didn't really care as long as he doesn't try to start a conversation with him―he wasn't in the mood for one. He scrolls through Twitter, giving a few small smiles to the memes that pop up here-and-now, even liking a few. He doesn't bother sharing any tweets, seeing as how the few followers he has were random people that he didn't know nor care about. He's never posted about anything, only using his account for memes and to keep up with any news about Heroes and Villains that is recent, such as the newly debuted League of Villains, or how Endeavor just keeps fucking up.
As he's scrolling, he is tapped on the shoulder, causing him to move his eyes away to find one of his classmates looking down at him. He silently inhales before asking, "Do you need something?"
The classmate eyes the other male at the opposite end of the table before lowly saying, "At the end of school, all of 1-C is gonna block 1-A's doorways, just like what other classes in our year are gonna do."
"And why is that the plan?" Izuku sighs, feeling even more tired and doesn't bother hiding it.
"To declare war," he replies simply, like that answers everything, before adding, "You better be there, Midoriya." He walks off, leaving Izuku before he could get another word out.
Izuku drops his head into his arms and groans, "I have better things to do..." He lifts his head up, setting his gaze upon the teen eating his soba quietly. "Don't know if you heard that, but I'd get out of your classroom as fast as possible. That is, if you wanna avoid getting trapped by a bunch of students for while." The male doesn't say anything, barely acknowledging Izuku's poor existence, while Izuku goes back to scrolling through his feed until lunch ends.
He stands up, putting his phone away and pushing in his chair. He follows the mass of students exiting the room, keeping at the back while attempting to run a hand through the mess he calls his hair. Eventually, he makes it out and is casually walking down the hall, many students hurrying past him. There was a few minutes to the bell, and if Izuku cared enough, he'd be speed-walking to class too. However, he didn't care, therefore he was taking his sweet time to get back to 1-C. He makes it to the classroom at the same time that the bell rings, shuffling inside and heading to his desk with a yawn. He wonders if he can get away with sleeping in class again. He crosses his arms, putting his head down.
'Won't know if I don't try, I guess."
The next time he wakes up, he's being woken up by a finger poke him. He scrunches up his face before reluctantly rising from his desk. He blearily looks up to see Shinsou, blinking to clear his eyes. Rubbing them when blinking doesn't work, he asks, "Is it time to summon the demon that will end my suffering? If not, I might just cry."
He hears a snort, and with clearer vision, he looks at Shinsou. Shinsou is already angled away from Izuku, turning to the door. "School's over. If you're gonna come to 1-A, you better get up."
"Are you going, Shinsou?" Izuku stands, curious. Seeing the male give a tiny nod, he decides to follow, speeding up his pace to match the long strides of his classmate. He doesn't talk to Shinsou any further, instead thinking about the cat. More specifically, he was trying to recall what the cat's name was. 'Is it Yui? No... Yoko? Maybe Yuki? I can't believe I forgot, jeez.'
He pulls out his phone, pulling up a picture of the cat. He stares at her, random names running through his brain, before he looks at Shinsou. "If you had a calico cat, what would you name her?"
Shinsou looks at him strangely, furrowing his eyebrows. "Why?" Izuku shows him the picture. Shinsou squints, looking at something, before requesting, "Can I see your phone?" Izuku sets his phone in Shinsou's waiting hand, to which the male zooms in the picture. "Her name is Yuka." He hands back the phone before narrowing his eyes, "Strange that you don't know the cat's name, considering she's on your phone."
"You can't tell me that you don't save cute cat pictures from the internet on your phone―only heartless monsters don't." Shinsou only deadpans, and he seems to even speed up slightly. "Okay, okay," Izuku attempts to placate. "She's not mine." Izuku simply explains, before they see a large crowd of students blocking the doors to what is most likely 1-A's classroom. Shinsou pushes past the students, and Izuku follows, using his smaller stature to snake between people.
He could hear a familiar voice shout, "It's pointless to try, so why don't you just fuck off, ya goddamn mob." Izuku could recognize that voice anywhere, seeing as how he heard it continuously in the past years. He cringes into himself but knows it only looks like he's grimacing.
"I came to see what you kids are made of, true, but I didn't think you'd be this arrogant." Izuku snorts at Shinsou's words, keeping himself hidden behind him.
'Probably just Kacchan, to be honest. Doubt the other people in there were allowed to bully whoever they saw as weak.'
"I'm a bit disillusioned. So that's it, huh?" Shinsou rubs a hand against his neck, and Izuku concludes as a nervous tic. "There's lots of kids who wind up in the General Education Department or other departments because they failed the Heroics one." His tone is slightly bitter, like resigned resentment and hurt being drudged up again. "Did you know that? And based on the results of the Sports Festival, people can be even come under review to be transferred to Heroics, and the reverse is also a possible outcome..." Izuku smirks. Shinsou was gaining his interest, and whether that was a good or bad thing, no one would know. "Scoping out the competition? If nothing else, a General Ed kid like me is thinking, 'Hey, why don't I try pulling the rug out from under those Heroics kids while they're on their high horses?' Consider it a Declaration of War."
Shinsou turns and walks off, leaving Izuku to be seen by those at the door of 1-A. Izuku could see Bakugou tense and then scowl, but before he could say anything, Izuku gives a pretend smile and moves away, being swallowed in the crowd of students as one from 1-B shouts. He shoves his hands into his pockets.
'I have a cat to look for.' He smirks, green eyes full of amusement. 'Yuka, here I come.'
6.8 pages · 2386 words
May 3, 2020
Edited July 20, 2021
8.5 pages · 2,933 words
This chapter is mostly a taste-test for you as a reader. I have no idea when I'll post the next chapter, or even if I'll post it. I hope you enjoy my impulsive writing, and maybe come back for more, if I give it. Thank you for reading!
Edit: Hello! This is really important so be sure to read this!
All warnings (trigger warnings specifically-I don't want any of you to get hurt by reading something heavy! Do be sure to check that out!) and information (masterlist because this fic has ended up being more than I thought it'd ever be!) are in a separate book.
It's called: The Case of Midoriya Izuku - Information + Masterlist
I also have to say, there is more than this arc, meaning there is at least one book (right now) that is out, as this has been finished (yay!) Of course, I have (somehow) written this to where you can just read this book and it seem complete, so you don't have to read any other books. I would love it if you did though, ngl. Thank you so much for reading!