Song: Twisted - The People's Thieves

Being connected to Deku 24/7 was a whole new experience to learn in a hurry and it was a constant struggle to not slip up around the others. When I was alone I would sometimes catch myself replying to Deku out loud and I would always grit my teeth with annoyance when I did. If I didn't get better at hiding it, hiding him, then I would be drowning in questions and unless I revealed the secret of One For All, most would probably assume I had lost my mind.

Sure, I could make it out that Deku's quirk some how allowed him to transfer his soul to me, but that wasn't very believable and if they knew he was with me I would be pestered with constant questions as the extras would try to interact with him through me and I was not about it.

Following that thought process, Deku wasn't annoyed and he didn't whine about my choice. He understood and most of all keeping One For All secret was more important. Even if I did catch him watching his friends with a sad expression often while their lives moved on without him and despite how much I tried to ignore his feelings, some of the sadness flowed over into me and I felt weighed down by it. He would always apologize profusely when he realized he was doing it and I would just snarl back at him.

Dreaming was something else though.

Like before, if I closed my eyes for a bit or to sleep, I would be with Deku. We would meet on that familiar hill but my dreams started to evolve beyond that. Now when I slept, Deku did too. He found himself unable to stay up without me, falling asleep involuntarily with me, but with us both asleep our dreams seemed to melt together.

Sometimes I would have my own dreams and that was fine. It was a nice break from seeing the nerd's face all the time, but other times, our memories and dreams would mix and I would dream of our childhood. I dreamt of Deku sleeping over as kids. Sitting together under the blanket after my mum had put us to bed as we played with our All Might figures with a torch under the blanket, only in the dream, my mum never caught us.

I dreamt of Deku and I running through the trees and across the fallen log that crossed the river, only this time I didn't fall in while we ran and laughed like the small children we were. Catching bugs and picking flowers to take home to our parents.

I dreamed of Deku cleaning up a beach till he was done and then running along it with him with and All Might until we turned to the water and splashed at each other with wide smiles.

I dreamed of Deku's parents arguing when he was little and he was crying, only this time he wasn't alone and I took his hand, his watery green eyes turning to me as I watched with him so he wasn't alone.

I dreamed of our middle school years, but rather than me bullying him, we were friends who chatted and laughed together as we geeked out over heroes together during lunch.

I dreamt of that day Deku stood on the edge of the roof again, only this time I wasn't frozen in place and could reach out to take his hand and he would fall back into me with a smile.

I dreamed of the day the sludge villain had me and I was suffocating when Deku charged in wearing his hero costume and this time he pulled me free from the slime with ease, his smile and eyes warm and comforting while I caught my breath.

All of our merged dreams started the same. They started as memories before the other would find their way into it and the dream would be redirected whichever way we wanted. It was like we were rewriting all of our memories into happier ones together.

Our childhood memories remained untouched by the sour moments that had ruined them.

We could imagine how life would have been if I had never pushed him away. If we had remained friends.

We could pull each other out of our bad moments and replace them with something better.

Together we were rewriting our past into what we wished it could have been, becoming closer, rebuilding the friendship we had lost and as I met him on that hill each night to lay down and sleep with him near and I couldn't help the small smile that spread across my face. My shoulders and chest felt lighter as each night passed when I would wake and feel that step closer to repairing things with Deku. I felt I could think clearer, I could walk taller, I could breathe easier. I had never known how much weight I had been carrying with me until it was lifting piece by piece.

Weeks passed of Deku living with me in my mind and things were coming smoother. Shitty Hair and a few others made remarks on me being in a better mood and when they did I would make a point of being shitty to them for a few days to teach them to know their place. Deku would try to scold me but would always end up laughing instead so it wasn't very effective.

There were a few issues though.

Sometimes I wanted to be alone but I didn't really want to share with him why. Guy stuff. And I guess he would get that, being a guy but it was not something I wanted to bring up. So I buried everything down as low as possible so he wouldn't catch wind while in my conscious. At the very least, if Deku ever noticed my 'morning wood' he never mentioned it. I would get by in the shower most times when Deku would leave to my sub conscious but it was stupid. I felt like I was sneaking around with my own damn body which made me groan.

Deku was also too attentive to the point where if the slightest thing irritated me he would notice and either try to figure out what had affected me or outright ask me about it which was annoying. I didn't need him mothering me every time I scowled at someone and it would take me yelling at him to finally drop it.

He analyzed my moves during practical classes.

He'd mutter away during classes.

He would pout when I would go to bed earlier than he was used too.

He was constantly dragging my attention away from my own group of friends to see what his were doing.

He whined to me for how aggressively I brushed my teeth.

And pointed out the slightest bit of hearing loss he had picked up on in my right ear.

I was reaching my limit.

I had been the one to invite him to live with me 24/7 but my patience was wearing thin. I had not thought things through and I didn't know that this was how things would turn out but I wasn't about to ask him to leave. Deep down I was too afraid of losing him forever. I was afraid that he had separated himself from One For All and what that really meant in the long run. But I needed space.

I enjoyed Deku's company. I enjoyed how we recreated memories together and bonded like true friends and it felt like we were making up for all the years which we had lost and I liked that. I liked waking up feeling lighter and happier than I did before because of him. I liked hearing him laugh and how he shot retorts back at me with a smirk. I liked feeling it when he radiated happiness at seeing his friends happy around us.

It was all the small things that made his presence a blessing and a curse and I just needed a break from it. Just for a bit but I didn't know how to broach the subject.

The final straw was when he invaded a dream of mine. We shared dreams often but we also had our own. As Deku put it, he usually wouldn't enter a dream of mine unless he was there to begin with, like our combined dreams, or if he felt he was needed or being called by me, like when I was having a nightmare and he showed up in it to change the outcome.

But this time the dream was more personal and Deku wasn't a part of it. It wasn't my intention, but after being so pent up my mind just kind of went that way once I was asleep when Deku interrupted and the dream faded away in the blink of an eye and we were back on that damn hill again.

"What the fuck Deku?" I hissed as I turned on him. I was feeling a wave of anger swell up inside me and I was sure he was feeling it too judging on how he backed away a few steps.

"I-I just came because-" he stammered, his green eyes growing wide. He looked panicked and confused.

"I didn't call you!" I yelled back and he raised his hands in surrender.

"But I felt-"

"You didn't feel shit" I hissed through clenched teeth

"I-'m sorry" he stammered on, "did I interrupt something?" he asked innocently and I could feel it was genuine. His confusion and honestly. He hadn't seen anything because the dream had ended the moment he had entered it. Thank fuck. But I was still irritated and done with it.

"Just fuck off" I turned my back to him, ready to stalk away.

"Kacchan?" he called after me.

"Stay out of my dreams Deku" I snarled

"Kacchan!"

"Just leave me the fuck alone for a while" I called back over my shoulder and before he could reply I woke up, blinking up at my ceiling in the dark.

I rolled over to pick up my phone to check the time. Only just past midnight and worse, I woke up hard still from the dream. The woman I had dreamt of was nameless. Some model I had seen somewhere no doubt, but it was embarrassing regardless if I had control over it or not. And then I paused, cursing myself for thinking about it so openly but then I noticed the silence in my head. The lack of a pout or the feeling of green eyes focusing on me. My head was empty and at first I felt my chest tighten with panic but then I recalled that I had asked, or more so yelled, for space and I reminded myself not to panic. Deku had just moved to my sub conscious to comply with what I had said and if I panicked over him, he would feel it even if he was sleeping and would come back. I felt a pinch of guilt for yelling at him but swallowed it back down as I rolled over to sleep.

In the morning, Deku was still gone and I felt like I could breathe fresh air and for the first time in a long time I could jerk off in the morning and after sneaking around for so long and holding off it felt good. A trickle of guilt rose again and I pushed it back down as I got out of bed to start the day. I worked out, showered, changed and ate in peace. Class was distractedly quiet without Deku paying attention, relaying information to me and mumbling. I had Deku in my head for so long that as the day progressed the lightness of my head was starting to become a little irritating. It felt like the anchor holding me down had been lifted and now I was floating away with the breeze. Or more so, maybe I had just grown too used to Deku paying attention for me and had forgotten how to do it. Which was stupid.

Days passed of silence. I felt the occasionally pull from Deku and I knew he was dreaming, wherever he was in my sub conscious. I had felt that pull before, the pull of when one of us was dreaming and sub consciously calling to the other. The only times I had felt it before from Deku was when he was having a bad dream but that pull had felt much stronger, much more desperate and it had felt strong enough to wake me from my own dreams and allow me into his.

The more time that passed the more empty I was beginning to feel without his constant presence. The more fear chewed away at the edges of my mind that if I left it too long he may not be able to come back. What if the other vestiges from One For All hadn't given up on him and were trying to drag him back to them. But I was being stubborn and I knew it. I didn't want to call him back yet. Not until I figured something out.

From the emotions I had picked up from my yelling at Deku he had been confused and sincere. He didn't see the dream. Didn't understand what he had done wrong. And I had called to him. But how? I had been dreaming of a girl. Kissing her and touching her. So why did Deku feel pulled to me at that moment?

"Bro, you good?" called Shitty Hair as he sat down opposite me with Sparky at the dorm's dining tables. It was Friday night and dinner was up. I had been too lost in my own thoughts that I hadn't noticed my face scowling into the table like I was trying to burn a hole into it with my eyes.

"Yeah, you've been quiet for days" added Dunce Face and took a mouthful of his food. I lifted my gaze to him, my scowl giving way to a warning glare. They both noticed my lack of intensity as I lifted my head and they blinked at me.

"You alright man?" asked Hair For Brains with a smaller smile, radiating seriousness, "you know you can talk to us about anything right?"

"Yeah sure" I replied flatly and stood. Their eyes followed me again, no doubt surprised at my lack of snapping back. I got my own plate of dinner and returned to my seat. I ate in silence while the others talked around me.

I texted All Might that night, cancelling our weekend training plans.

Saturday I went home. I packed a bag for the night, stuffing Deku's red shoes inside, and caught the train home. My parents were surprised to see me rock up, letting myself in with the keys I still had and while my dad looked pleased, mum scolded me for not telling her I was coming.

"And what's with the bag, you planning on staying the night? Great" she threw up her arms in annoyance at me, "Now I need to clean up your room" she turned to leave in a huff.

"Don't bother," I spoke up, "I'll clean it" I kicked off my shoes at the front door and stepped inside, going straight down the hallway to my bedroom to drop my bag on my still made bed. I heard my mum muttering that I was a brat, but that was nothing new as I opened the window to air out the space and got busy giving the place a dust and vacuum and shook out the bed covers. Once I was done I showered and settled on my single bed and passed the time scrolling through my phone, catching up on any hero news when I was called out for dinner.

"So what brings you home?" asked my dad over dinner with a welcoming smile. Mum was smiling peacefully beside him. Despite her words, I knew she was glad I had visited.

"I had something to return to Deku's mum" I answered back as I scooped more rice into my bowl and sprinkled it with meat, vegetables and spices.

"For Inko?" my mum repeated and I nodded without looking at her. I guessed my parents exchanged a look because there was no more talking or eating for a few seconds. If Deku had been here he would have been able to pick it up without me looking with his Deku-dar. I could already picture how he frowned at me almost comically whenever I called it that.

"How have you been anyway?" asked my mum to cut off the growing silence. I just hummed an answer and shrugged my shoulders back. I didn't have an answer. My feelings about Deku were becoming too complicated.

I stayed the night in my old bedroom, going to bed the same time I usually did but sleep was harder to come by this time as I thought about everything I planned to do the next day, mapping it out in my mind starting with Deku's mum.

Sunday morning I called to my parents as I left the house that I would be back later to grab my stuff before I left for school and my dad pushed for me to stay for dinner at least which I agreed to, which surprised him more than anything and his jaw practically dropped.

Deku's place was a short walk from mine. I passed the playground we used to play at on the way, pausing to look it over. It had aged, the paint faded and peeling in places. In my dreams with Deku when we played here as kids everything had seemed so much brighter and sunnier. Now the place looked sad in comparison.

I passed the street that led to our kindergarten where we had first met and had quickly bonded over our love for heroes and All Might and our childhood friendship had only grown from there when we learned that our mums walked us home the same way and that there was a park in between our house. For that short period of time we had been almost inseparable. The thought of what we had become, how everything had fallen apart because of me made it feel like there was a pit forming in my gut and I walked on.

I reached Deku's apartment, remembering the way like it was yesterday when I had last visited and I trudged up the stairs rather than using the elevator until I was in front of the door and knocked. I heard a faint 'coming' on the other side of the door. Deku's mum opened the door, her surprised face looking up to me as she stepped back to let me in. I offered her a small nod as thanks as I slipped off my shoes just inside the doorway.

"Katsuki, how nice to see you," she smiled to me warmly, "though I am surprised to see you here" she faltered a little bit, looking flustered in a way that reminded me so much of Deku.
"Would you like to stay for lunch?" she asked.

"No thanks. I don't plan on staying that long" I replied flatly.

"Oh," she raised a bent finger to her chin, such a Deku think again, "well please make yourself comfortable" she added and turned for the kitchen to make tea. She asked if I wanted any and I nodded to her. She perked up a bit with something to do though I didn't think I deserved to be treated like a guest. Not here.

"Auntie," I called her and she spun on her heel to face me while the kettle boiled. He green eyes opened wide and brimmed with tears and she clasped her hands over her mouth and I gulped. I hadn't called her that since I was a little brat playing with Deku inside her home years ago. I hadn't expected it to affect her so much. I didn't know what else to address her as. Inko was too informal and Mrs. Midoriya was too formal. The rest of the words I was going to say died in my throat.

"Oh," she sniffled as she noticed how uncomfortable her reaction was making me, "Katsuki sweety, it's been years since I've heard that from you" she smiled through her teary eyes and I frowned and turned my face away, busying my eyes with staring at the wall of photos and auntie took the hint and went back to her tea happily. I stepped closer to the wall of photos that seemed to grow with Deku from the left to the right.

On the left side were embarrassing baby photos, naked in baths and crying over dropped ice cream, working up to when we first met. A picture of us together with our feet in the stream holding pebbles we had picked out from the river bed. Another of us passed out on top of each other, sprawled across the couch after a long day at the beach.

Moving on Deku grew throughout the pictures. Deku blowing the candles out on an All Might colored cake. Middle school graduation picture with his mum. Deku posing in his hero costume with his mum smiling and teary beside him while he beamed at the camera. He held his provisional hero license in his hand. That same night I had lead him to Ground Beta and fought with him.

"He grew up so fast" I heard auntie speak behind me and I almost jumped. Almost. I turned back to face her and she handed me a warm mug that I accepted.

"How embarrassing" I mumbled back and auntie smiled.

"I'm sure Mitsuki has a wall dedicated to you too" I grumbled into my mug as I sipped. She did and I hated it. I swear every time I came home the collection had grown.

"You can put the bag down" added auntie and I stepped back to the dining table in the middle of the space and put the mug down and shrugged off the bag.

"I brought these back" I said as I unzipped the bag to reveal Deku's red shoes and auntie's breath seemed to hitch.

"Oh sweety," she breathed, "I said you could keep them"

"I don't need them," I replied, looking down to them, "I can't do anything with them anyway" I couldn't wear them, not that I wanted to, and they were just taking up space in my closet. I had the real thing so I didn't need any reminders of Deku lingering in my room. Despite everything they still make my chest ache when I looked to them.

"Alright then" she replied softly, "Feel free to pop them in his room. I haven't had a chance to do anything with it yet" her voice trembled a little bit, "I haven't had the heart to go in there" she added and I nodded, picking up the bag and stepped past her to the hallway.

"Katsuki," she called and I turned back to look to her, "take all the time you need" she smiled and I turned back to head down the hallway.

Deku's room was easy to find even if I didn't already know where it was, with the big All Might plague hanging on the door with his name on it. I opened to door and stepped into the dead space in the apartment. Or at least it felt dead. It felt devoid of life and it felt cold. I flicked on the light, closed the door gently behind me and dropped the bag onto the All Might spread single bed before opening the curtains and the window to air out the place. The room was filled with Deku's scent, even if it was a little stale.

I had come to drop off the shoes that belonged here more than anywhere else but looking at the space that looked just as unclean as mine had I felt the desire to clean and that's what I did. I went back out to the kitchen, auntie watching me curiously from where she sat at the dining table with her tea as I riffled through her cupboards till I found cleaning spray a cloth which I dampened under the tap. I swear I heard her hum to herself happily as I passed her again to return to Deku's room.

I shook out his bed covers and laid it out again neatly to free it from dust. I wiped down his desk and lifted each of his All Might collectables to wipe down the shelves. I stuck my head out again to ask auntie where the vacuum was and she pointed out a small cupboard tucked away at the end of the hall with a smile. I vacuumed and put it all away.

Auntie came in with another fresh mug of tea and I thanked her as she surveyed the room with teary eyes and warm smile and then departed again. I watched her go silently and felt a pain in my chest. I had never thought about it before, how hard it must be for her. Deku was all she had and now he was gone and she was alone. If I died, at least my parents had each other still. I wanted to do more and so I busied myself unpacking the boxes on the wall beside the door that were from Deku's dorm room.

I unpacked clothes that I put away in the wardrobe along with his shoes. Books that I put on the space on his shelves, figures and other collectables that I put with the others and notebooks that I opened the top drawer of his desk to tuck away when I spotted it. That same old charred, wrinkled notebook he had in middle school that I had throw away. I put his other notebooks down and picked his hero notebook with the number thirteen scrawled on it. I stood while I flicked through the pages, seeing notes and illustrations of pro heroes like Kamui Wood and Mt. Lady and an All Might signature scrawled across two pages and then the rest was empty. I flicked through to the back, knowing what the nerd was like and there I found another hero analysis page. Mine. From middle school. And the next page over, a rough design of his own hero costume. His page was note-less, only a sketch while mine was littered with scribbles. Notes on how my quirk worked, how the seasons affected me and more. Middle school me would have been disgusted but now, I was enthralled by it. By the amount of detail he put into it, seeing how much of me he had observed over the years. The words 'amazing' , 'cool' and 'awesome' were littered throughout his notes on me.

I reached back into the drawer, pulling out a stack of similar note books going back to his first one and flicked through them. There was a page dedicated to me in several of them from back when we were still friends. Back then his earlier books had been more colorful, covered in crayon illustrations and the first one, book number one, I saw the pathetic drawing of me with a misspelled version of my name scrawled above it but that wasn't the part that made me choke. He had drawn me as a pro hero and the costume was eerily familiar. Deku couldn't have been more than four or five when he had started his first note book, starting with me. The crappy crayon drawing below was black with an orange cross and sported a belt of grenades and black eye mask and my breathe felt trapped in my chest.

I remembered this now. How could I have forgotten. Deku had been so proud of his drawing of me as he envisioned me as a pro hero that he had come over with his book in hand and shown it too me and I had fawned over it with him. I put the book down, backing up until I sat down on the edge of his bed, a hand clasped over my mouth to muffle any sound that escaped me. I didn't want auntie seeing me like this. I was hit in the chest hard with the painful realization that I had forgotten the memory yet it had stuck with me sub consciously to the point that I had based my actual hero costume off of Deku's stupid design and my vision was blurring from the tears forming as I tried to blink them away. I had no intention of crying over Deku anymore.

I sat and focused on breathing deeply for a minute before I got up to place the notebooks back in the drawer along with the ones from his dorm room and closed it. I flattened the boxes and moved them into the hallway to be taken out later, downed the lukewarm tea so I wasn't being wasteful like I had been with the first and went back out to the main room. I rinsed and dried the mug, taking auntie's empty one from the coffee table as she had moved to the living room and she smiled and thanked me. I hummed back a reply.

Afterwards I picked up the boxes and my empty bag and headed for the door. Auntie got up in a hurry to see me off, thanking me generously with tears in her eyes for cleaning the room I stayed silent and nodded more deeply to her and she came forward and embraced me. It was awkward. My body went stiff as a board having not expected it and with the boxes tucked under my arm I couldn't exactly do much in return. She pulled away with a sniffle and told me I was welcome anytime and I told her that if she ever needed help clearing out Deku's room, that I would help. She thanked me again and I left.

I dropped the boxes into the recycling downstairs and caught a bus to the next item on the agenda, Takoba municipal beach park. I had recognized the place from Deku's dreams. This was where he had trained with All Might for months on end until his body was strong enough to accept One For All. I had visited to beach as a kid with Deku, but not long after that it had become over run with trash to the point where the local council gave up on it. I hadn't visited it since, but now it was clean and wide open, the sun blinding me as it headed down.

It was later than I had expected. I had wanted to make a few more stops for the day but I had worked right through the day cleaning Deku's room, my stomach reminding me of the fact that I had skipped lunch.

But here I was. Standing on the same beach where Deku's journey of becoming a hero first started. Back in middle school when he had first started training I had noticed. I had noticed him hovering over his seat instead of actually sitting in it, squeezing hand grips under his desk, how he had improved in PE classes. But I had never cared enough to look into it beyond figuring he was just being an idiot.

Deku had worked so hard to clear the beach that the locals now enjoyed and yet no one even knew or cared who had done it. I stepped down onto the sand, reaching down to pull off my shoes and socks to not get sand through them. The current still managed to wash up trash here and there and I walked along the water line while the sun set and picked up whatever crap I came across, feeling annoyance that it dared to dirty Deku's hard work. I walked until the sun had set and the sky had turned dark before I turned back for home.

Dinner was ready when I walked in through the door and we ate as a family. Auntie had called my mum telling her about how I had cleaned Deku's room for her and unpacked his stuff and when she asked me about it I just shrugged it off that I was only trying to be helpful after dropping off the shoes. She cocked an eyebrow at me and I honestly couldn't blame her.

After dinner I showered and returned to my room to gather the few things I brought to take back to the dorms with me. As it was, I was already going to be getting back past my bedtime. I was almost done when a thought occurred to me.

I recalled the photo's on auntie's walls. The one of Deku and I standing in the stream, presenting our chosen pebbles to the camera with wide smiles. I remembered that day. We had been competing to see who could find the coolest pebble. A stupid competition that Deku had won. The pebble he had chosen, rather than one flat and perfect for skipping like mine, he had found one that was shaped like a perfect round oval, ovoid I think the shape was called. He had won because it could have passed as a small, fossilized egg which of course did make it so much cooler that my smooth, flat red pebble. I had thrown my losing pebble into the water to see how far I could skip it before we turned to our next game. We picked new pebbles and more jagged rocks and rubbed at them to engrave our own marks into them. At the end of the day as our mum's pulled us home in different directions Deku had called to me, rushing over to hand me his precious winning pebble that I accepted and took home with me.

The memory itched now and I scowled as I scanned the room, pulling open drawers and scouring shelves till I found it. The ovoid pebble that was so much smaller than I remembered now that my hands were bigger. I rolled it in my hand, taking in the smoothness of its perfect round egg shape when I felt something more, something not so smooth and I opened my hand to look. Faded with age were marks scratched into its surface. A simple design that you can see in just about any public space if you were looking for it.

K+I

A/N: I'm sorry if this chapter feels a little out of place with it's flow - less dialogue and all, but we are getting places!