Wednesdays tended to go slowly for Izuku. Not many people showed up to the flower shop, and when they did, it was usually for something simple. Izuku spent most of his Wednesdays sitting around and waiting for something interesting to happen. On this particular day, there was only one interesting occurrence.
If Izuku had a nickel for every Hero that walked into the store while he was working, he would have two nickels. One, after meeting the kindly Koda (also known as Anima). And the other, from meeting the Hero 'Vine'. Being the second time this kind of thing has happened, Izuku wasn't that surprised.
Vine introduced herself as Miss Ibara Shiozaki. She kad a kind voice, and spoke softly. She asked if Mr. Krelborn was around just as the man in question entered through the back door. They exchanged pleasantries until the reason for her visit surfaced. She wanted to see what kinds of flowers grow on vines. Mr. Krelborn let her know that all of his flowers were potted, but slyly hinted that his assistant might know some.
The Heroine looked at Izuku with such hopeful eyes that he couldn't help but rattle off all the kinds that came to mind. He went on until their legs began to grow stiff, and the two had to sit down. Izuku continued talking at length about the various different kinds of vines, and how each accomplished the same thing in different ways. Miss Shiozaki listened intently throughout, hooked onto every word (although she admitted that she probably wouldn't remember much). She thanked him many times on her way out. Before she left, she also bought a large and beautiful bouquet and promised to return often, "if only to help the business," in her own words.
The rest of the day continued as normal. That is to say, painfully uneventful. When the time came to a close, Izuku hung up his apron and, stifling a yawn, wished Mr. Krelborn a good night.
The route Izuku took home brought him down a busy street. Shops both big and small lined the sides, and though the busy hours had passed, there were still plenty of people around.
As he trudged along, his energy sapped from a days worth of boredom, a sound drew his attention.
Turning his head, he was greeted by a wall of television sets behind a paned window. They all played in usison, and every screen showed the same poorly–edited explosion. As the smoke cleared, it revealed a woman standing in the center of the frame.
Izuku would have turned away then, had the woman on screen not seemed so familiar. She had bright pink dreadlocks, and her piercing yellow eyes held an intensity behind them. There were smudges of oil covering her face and neck. She was holding a grimy wrench, which she promptly tossed over her shoulder. She placed both fists on her hips and looked to address the camera.
"Hi!" Her voice was full of energy. "I'm Mei Hatsume, Founder and CEO of Hatsume Industries!"
Suddenly, her face clicked in Izuku's mind. He knew her from the UA sports festival Battle Trials, which he was permitted to watch while he was in the institution. Every year, she made it to the first round of Battle Trials. Every year, she held her ground against one of the infamous Class A without breaking a sweat. And every year, she disqualified herself before she could move on to the next round. It was a strange advertising technique, but Izuku couldn't deny the results. Hatsume Industries had only been around for less than a year, and already it was popular among Heroes. Most of the top twenty Heroes had at least one support item with 'Hatsume Industries' branded on it.
"Do you want a job at Hatsume Industries?" she went on, "of course you do! Now, let me ask you this: do you have skills that you can't seem to put to use? Something only you can do but no one seems to care? Well, you're in luck! Hatsume Industries is now hiring, and we want the most idiot-sin-catic people there are!"
There was a muffled voice from offscreen, and the woman leaned off to the side with a perplexed look on her face. "What? Idio-syn-cratic?" and then distantly, "There's no way that's how that's said!"
The sound of shuffling papers, along with an abrupt cut, and she was back in the center of the frame.
"Anyways! Do you want a job at Hatsume Industries? You already answered that! Why wouldn't you?! Just go to our website–" a bright website link flashed obnoxiously on screen "–and send us a resume! It can be typed, written, fancy, crappy, drawn with crayon, a sentence long, a novel long, just a picture– anything! Just show us what you can do. We'll consider everyone!"
The ad ended, and another began. Izuku turned away.
"It's worth considering, you know." The words came out of his mouth, but were not his own.
Izuku clamped a hand over his mouth, frantically looking to see if anyone heard. There were dozens of people around, but none seemed to pay any attention to him. He spotted an empty side street and ducked into it.
"Are you crazy?" he asked in a hushed voice. He spotted a puddle and looked into the reflection to give Deku a glare. "We are in public. In broad daylight. Are you trying to bring attention to us?"
"She says they'll consider anyone. It's really worth considering."
"We are not talking about that now. What the hell is wrong with you?"
"What's wrong with me? What's wrong with you? You were just gonna ignore that perfectly good job offer?"
"That was not a job offer, that was an advertisement."
"But they're looking for people to hire."
"That doesn't matter! What would I have to offer anyways? Did you forget that I'm a quirkless florist in south-end Mustafu? Do you even know where Hatsume Industries is based? Hosu, Deku. Hosu. What, am I gonna drop what little I already have just to run away and chase some fleeting fantasy?"
Izuku had plenty more he wanted to say, but Deku slapped a hand over his mouth just as two people walked past the mouth of the alley, giving looks to the strange man glaring at a puddle.
Izuku only just noticed them as they left his view. He wanted to say something to Deku, but he had no air in his lungs. His heart was drumming fast. His hands were shaking.
"Let's just get home," said Deku. Izuku agreed. They walked home in silence.
When they arrived, Deku was asleep, and Izuku was too tired to wake him. He sat on their couch and thought back to Deku's words. He still didn't think it was necessarily worth considering, but it would be a shame to simply write it off, right?
He got up and turned on his laptop. He took a deep breath. With steady hands, he typed the URL of the Hatsume Industries website. There, in the middle of the screen, in big, bold, comic-sans font was a link labeled "RESUME SUBMISSION". Izuku took another deep breath. He clicked it, and it brought him to a submission page. There was a place to fill in his personal and contact information. There was a text box that would let him write up to five hundred thousand characters. Below that, it seemed like he could also attach as many as fifty different files of any kind. At the bottom, there was a chart of random statistics, including some that counted up in real time. One read: "# of Submissions: 13824"
Curiosity satisfied, he closed his laptop. It wasn't like he had anything worthwhile to submit anyways.
Izuku sighed and looked at the time. Still an hour or so from sundown. He looked at the unfinished cover letter sitting on the dining room table. It was for a small diner not far from his apartment.
Izuku stood up and cracked his back. Sitting down on an uncomfortable dining room chair, he got to work.
-=0O0=-
Deku peered over the edge of the apartment complex. Three stories down, he could see the street dimly lit by old lamp posts.
He looked up and across the way to the other rooftop. He guessed the distance to be around four meters, and the roof across the way dropped about half a meter.
Moving back towards the middle of the gravel rooftop, he drew two lines about four meters apart. He took a running start and lept at the first line… only you fall short of the second.
Huffing to himself, he took another charge and lept again.
He did this for a dozen or so times before he could clear the second line with little trouble.
When he felt ready, he turned back to the other roof again and hyped himself up. He backed up until his heels met the opposite edge.
"It's no different," he said to himself as he pictured the lines in the gravel. "It's no different," he said again like a calming mantra.
Deku took a deep breath. And another. He tried stepping forward. But his feet wouldn't move. "The hell?"
He glared down at his feet as if they had just insulted him. Was he… hesitating? Deku slapped himself. He couldn't afford to hesitate. What was he going to do if someone needed his help on the other side of that gap, sit there and cry about it?
With renewed determination, Deku ran forward.
He planted a firm foot at the ledge, and leaped. He felt himself rise above the rooftops. He was airborne. Then he was falling. And he realized he wasn't going to stick the landing.
He reached out to grasp at the ledge. His hand slipped. His other hand caught it just in time. Deku scrambled over the edge and laid on his back, breathing heavily. His heart raced in his chest.
When he did catch his breath, he sat up, and looked back at the jump he just made. From this new angle, it definitely looked way more than four meters.
He stood and walked to the opposite edge of the roof. It seemed to be about eight meters across.
"Yeah, fuck that." Deku took the fire escape down.
Every night after that, he would make that jump again. He would make the jump until he could do so with no difficulty whatsoever. But he wouldn't spend any more time on it tonight.
Tonight, he had an errand to run.
-=0O0=-
"Hey, Deku?"
"Yeah?"
"Did… anything happen last night?"
"Not really, no."
"Oh."
"..."
"So… nothing happened."
"Yep."
"So you just… went walking around?"
"Yep."
"And you didn't do anything else?"
"Yep."
"And absolutely nothing interesting occured?"
"I don't know why that's so hard to believe, but yes."
Izuku knew why that was so hard to believe, and Deku knew why, too. They were both looking directly at it, after all.
"Okay…? let me try asking a more direct question." Izuku took a deep breath. "Deku, why is there a hunk of garbage in the living room?"
"It's on a stand."
"Yes. I see that you put it on the dresser. Which, by the way, I have no idea how you moved to the living room by yourself. And that still doesn't answer my question."
"It's a TV."
"Yes, I can see how it used to be a TV." The thing was old, for one. It was distinctly cube-shaped, and there was a huge crack running down the screen. The edges were caked with rust, with flakes beginning to peel away; as if it were tearing itself apart at the seams. "Oh, God. I see wires."
"That's how you know it can still work."
"Did you actually check if it works?"
"I mean, I plugged it in."
Izuku followed the electric cord with his eyes to find it lying on the ground. Izuku raised an eyebrow. The question went unasked.
"There were sparks."
"Christ, Deku."
"But I got a picture for a second."
After some interrogation on Izuku's part, he found out that they lived fairly close to a garbage dump. A garbage dump that, according to Deku, was "super easy to sneak into. Like, seriously. They don't even close the gates."
Izuku spent several evenings afterwards doing research on whether or not the TV even could be fixed. The consensus seemed to be: yes, but they would need to replace a lot of parts.
Some nights, before Izuku went to bed, he found a picture of a component he needed and showed it to Deku. In the morning, Deku would usually have three or four items strewn about the dining table. Usually, only one of them was what Izuku needed, and from there it was about a fifty-fifty chance whether he could use it or not.
It took about a month to get the TV working, and another few weeks to save enough money to buy a cable box. (Deku wanted to take one from the dump, but Izuku couldn't guarantee that it would even work). He bought the second-cheapest bundle they offered. It had some news stations, a few Hero-related channels, and half a dozen various other channels.
The day they finally plugged it in and got it all working, Deku grabbed one of Izuku's old notebooks and laid it before them on the coffee table.
It had not been used in years, and the age showed. Burn marks could be faintly seen along the edges. Across the cover, in bold, faded marker, read: Hero Analysis for the Future No. 13.
Deku took a pen and messily scratched out a portion of the title, making it read: Hero Analysis XxxXxxXxxxxx No. 13.
"Deku, wha–"
"Don't think about the future. Just think about now."
Deku turned the TV to a news channel. They were running a story about two rookie Heros – UA alumni, mind you – who had partnered to start their own co-agency. Izuku supposed that it made sense. Their quirks were so similar that people got them confused anyways.
Deku picked up the notebook before them and flipped to the next blank page (nearly two-thirds were already filled with years-old notes).
Izuku sighed and gave in. There was no point in arguing with Deku, anyways. Izuku clicked his pen and started writing.
It didn't take long for this to become a daily occurrence. On days when Izuku worked, he came home and turned the TV on while he worked on other things. On other days, Deku might turn it on to catch a movie.
Throughout the week, every evening, the TV was on and Izuku was taking notes. Izuku did admit to enjoying such a familiar task, and Deku was overjoyed to hear so.
Deku did not bring up Hatsume Industries again, but Izuku knew that was what this was all about. Izuku may have been humble, but he wasn't a fool. Far from it. He knew very well that his analysis and note-taking skills were above average. He also knew that these skills could be put to use, and he also knew that if anyone could use them, it would be Hatsume Industries.
But then he thought of the people who could do those things so much better than him. Cognitive-based Quirks weren't all that rare. It wouldn't be hard to find someone else who worked half as hard to be twice as good.
These thoughts, of course, he kept to himself.
Since he started watching the news again, Izuku saw Heros he hadn't even heard of in years, and Deku saw Heros he had simply never paid attention to before. Sometimes he would ask Izuku about them, and Izuku would rattle off a few facts from memory. Deku was often quick to decide whether he liked them or not.
Izuku found that the list of Heroes Deku openly respected was small, and the list of Heroes Deku liked was even smaller.
One time, Toshinori Yagi, the former Number One Hero, made an appearance. Even after retirement, All Might fell on the broad spectrum of Heroes that Deku didn't quite like but still respected nonetheless.
For Izuku, All Might fell on the vast spectrum of Heroes he both liked and idolized. Yagi was speaking on what it meant to be a hero – an idealized speech that both Izuku and Deku ate up in full.
As soon as Yagi left the screen, Izuku flipped to one of the last pages of his notebook. It was a section he decided to dedicate only to All Might. Over a weekend, he went through his old notebooks and copied any relevant information he could find. In the densely structured block of information, he found the 'Psychological Analysis' sub-section. As he wrote, he would occasionally flip to a previous page and jot something in the margins.
Deku chuckled, "You still really like this guy, huh?" He got no response, nor did he expect any from the mumbling mess of a man. Deku propped his foot up on the table and tuned back into the news.
It was then that a piece came on about underground Heroes. Some kind of movement was happening to show appreciation for the lesser-knowns.
As the piece went on, a few images of said Heroes flashed by, including a familiar tired-eyed face.
"Holy shit!" Deku exclaimed, making Izuku drop his notebook in surprise.
"What?" Izuku asked hurriedly.
Deku pointed at the TV. "That's the Hero I ran into!"
Izuku looked. "What, Eye-Bags?"
"Huh?"
"You're talking about the guy with purple hair? And the scarf like Eraserhead's?"
Deku nodded.
"Eye-Bags is his Hero name."
"...Oh."
"Wait, that's the guy who tried to steal your voice?"
"Yeah! And he stole the villain's voice, too."
"But Eye-Bags doesnt have a voice-stealing Quirk. He has a mind control Quirk."
There was a moment of silence. "What?"
"Eye-Bags has a mind control Quirk. I remember him using it when we watched the sports festival. Hold on…"
Izuku got up and grabbed his laptop. He pulled up a video of the sports festival from a few years ago and played it. Sure enough, the tired-eyed boy seemed to exchange a few words to his opponent before they just… walked out of the ring. Izuku clicked on another video that showed his defeat. The guy almost made it to the final rounds, too.
"It seems like he needs a response to activate it," Izuku mumbled aloud, "Then again, that could be a red herring. But that doesn't seem likely. It's probably just the condition for his Quirk's activation. It looks super easy to avoid as long as you don't speak to him, but that could be tricky if you didn't know how his quirk worked…" Izuku mumbled for a while, and Deku picked up his notebook so he could write some of that down.
Meanwhile, Deku thought of what that meant for him. At least he didn't have to worry about his voice getting stolen anymore. But if he ever ran into the Hero again, he couldn't speak to them. And there was another thing on his mind:
"What the hell kinda name is Eye-Bags?"
"Hm? Oh. Uh…" Izuku gave it some thought. "I dunno. Maybe it's an inside joke? Underground Heroes don't usually take their names seriously anyways."
That did make sense to Deku. They were not talked about as much as other Heroes, anyways. Like that other Hero Izuku mentioned. Eraserhead? Erasurehead?
Deku shook away those thoughts. They were for future-him to think about. He again propped his leg up on the coffee table and tuned into the news.
More stories were being run on a 'Trigger Epidemic'. The only parts of this Deku really caught were "highly illegal and dangerous," and "located primarily in Kanto and southern Chubu."
Now Endeavor was there, talking to a reporter about his up-and-coming retirement. He talked about his son, the No. 18 Hero Shoto, and how the boy was moving up in the ranks and would be the next Number One in a few years.
The news closed with the weather, which was a time Izuku used to overview the day's notes, and a time Deku used to plan for the night ahead. Tonight was going to be cloudy, and the moon was waning. The streets were going to be very dark after daylight.
Deku reached over to the remote and turned off the TV. The sudden lack of background noise broke Izuku out of his muttering.
An hour afterwards, Izuku would be asleep, and Deku would be far away.