Notes: Yesterday I saw the third movie for a second time and even though best girl wasn't really in it, I felt motivated to finally finish this thing I started writing years ago. So here we are!

I thiiiiiink this was originally a writing prompt suggested by my brother, but I really can't remember at this point.

I've written this in second-person primarily because I just didn't want to bother coming up with an OC to intrude on the canon universe! So I'll just leave it up to the readers to imagine what the POV character is like!

I hope you enjoy!

(Oh, and... apparently this is my first time uploading MHA fic to fanfiction dot net? Nice to meet you all, then!)

Invisibibble

"Y'know, I'm prolly gonna disappear someday!"

At three years old, you only have the slightest awareness that those words, in any other context, should probably cause alarm. They were delivered with such flippancy and cheerfulness, however, that you simply raise your gaze from the sand you were so intently packing and cocked your head at your friend. "Huh? Why?"

"When I get my quirk!" Toru Hagakure grins at you from across your shared sandcastle, round, rosy cheeks straining from the force of her smile. "Because Mommy and Daddy are invisibibble. So I'm prolly gonna be invisibibble too!"

"Oh..." You frown, trying to imagine what "invisibibble" it would look like. "So... your clothes are gonna float in the air and stuff?" you ask, drawing on what you've seen when Toru's mother picks her up from school.

"Um, kinda! I'll still be wearing my clothes, I think. You just won't be able to see me!"

"And that's... a good thing, right?"

"Of course, silly!" Toru slapped sandy hands over her mouth to suppress her giggles. "It's my quirk, of course it's good!"

"Oh! Okay, then." You shrug off the issue easily enough after hearing that. She has a point; quirks are good, happy things.

So you don't understand why it makes you a little bit sad.

Some time later—days, weeks, months, it's all the same to a toddler—Toru comes to school, positively bubbling with even more joy than usual.

"Look, look!" She bounces right over to you, hands held up with palms facing forward, and you can see the edges of her dimpled grin through the hazy holes in her hands. "I'm getting my quirk! Didn't I tell you? I'm turning invisibibble!"

And even though quirks are good, happy things, you break down into loud, heaving, painful sobs.

Over the following weeks, Toru gradually disappears, just as she said she would. One day it's her hands, the next it's her ears, and at one point her knees disappear before the rest of her legs, resulting in an illusion of disjointed shins and feet that the boys think is cool and the other girls think is kind of creepy. Toru is cheerful as can be the entire time, loving the process as she comes into her quirk, and you try to be just as happy for her, even though you can't help feeling like you're losing your friend somehow.

Still, whenever the ever-more free-moving kindergarten smock races up to you, eager to show off whatever new trick she can pull off with her quirk, you try your best to respond with equal enthusiasm.

Then, one day, you finally realize why it all feels so wrong.

"Well?!" Toru gushes, by this point little more than a pair of wildly flapping shoulders that sometimes peek out when her smock slips. "Really cool, right?!"

You smile up at the empty space above her smock, but whatever response you were about to give immediately slips your mind, because suddenly—

Suddenly, you can't remember what her face is supposed to look like.

It shouldn't be so sudden—her face had already disappeared a while ago—but before today, you had been able to imagine her smile where it should be, as if it was there the whole time. But today you can't. The memory has already grown too distant.

You're terrified, and the rest of the day is a blur until you're inside for drawing time. You grab for the wax crayons desperately, putting them to paper in hopes that you can leave a picture of what Toru is supposed to look like before you forget completely. You can draw her smock easily enough, as well as the same arms and legs that most of your classmates have, but when it comes to drawing her face your crayon stops mid-stroke.

What color were her eyes, again?

You try to push through, but you can't remember. The shape of her face, the angle of her smile, the exact shade of pink coloring her dimpled cheeks... Angry tears burn at your eyes, and in your panic you can't even remember the hairstyle she used to wear. Why? Why?! Her hair had only disappeared a few days earlier, why can't you remember?!

With a strangled scream you break the crayon you're holding and tear up the piece of paper, and you're put into time-out for your tantrum. The teachers try to ask you why you're so upset, but you say nothing, because you know that grown-ups will think it's stupid if you say, "I'm mad at Toru-chan's quirk."

After that day you're mostly numb to the situation. You're not sad or angry anymore, but you're not happy, either, even though you smile when Toru's around. It's hard not to, and you cling to that like a lifeline as you slowly come to accept that even though her physical form has disappeared, her bright personality has not.

At some point you start to feel silly and embarrassed for how you had acted at three years old. Because isn't that the most important thing? Toru is still happy and cheerful and she shares that joy with others, and as long as people can see that, it doesn't matter what they can't.

Over the years you slowly grow apart—by the end of elementary school you've formed separate friend groups, and then you both enroll in different junior high schools. You still see her in town sometimes, and you exchange friendly greetings when you do, but otherwise she's just someone you knew as a young child.

You don't really think about her much again until one day in your first year of high school, when you take a short break from homework and turn on the TV to find that nearly every station is broadcasting the U.A. Sports Festival. The cameras are mostly focused on various shots of the tournament battles happening in the main arena, but every so often you can catch a glimpse of a cheerleader uniform on the sidelines, worn by what appears to be nobody at all, moving of its own accord.

It's not a surprise in the least—you had heard that Toru Hagakure had been accepted into U.A., after all. Especially unsurprising is that she's still the bubbly, cheerful girl that she had been when you were both young, and for you, her tiny, effervescent corner of the screen commands far more attention than the main event.

For a brief moment, it's not a cheerleader uniform hopping joyfully up and down, but a kindergarten smock—and for an even briefer moment, you think you can remember the corporeal girl who had worn that smock, too.

You smile fondly and return to your homework.