Contentment coddled Izuku's heart and swallowed his stomach whenever he thought back to turning in his assignment this morning. A warm flush fills his cheeks and he was barely able to stop himself from grinning widely at his desk. His thoughts twirled around him as if they were ballerinas and it was hard to focus his attention elsewhere.
His eyes felt heavy in his skull, until they drew closed of their own volition. His thoughts cradled his cheeks and gave him warm hugs. A wide kernel of warmth floated somewhere between his chest and abdomen. His shoulders slouched further into his seat until it would have taken all of his effort and attention to raise himself back up.
And just for a moment he allowed himself to settle into a picture of peace. He felt hope sprawl from inside his intestines until he believed that just maybe he could be better than he was.
"You're also going for U.A., aren't you, Midoriya?"
Izuku jolts in his seat, opening his eyes to see a room full of people staring at him. He can feel their laughter reverberate in his bones and echo in his chest. He must have looked ridiculous, smiling at the air. Everything felt too loud, too bright, and too much. He felt as if he had been floating in a river when suddenly he started drowning and it became increasingly harder for him to gasp for breath. Colors wash over him in waves and for every shade there seems to be ten noises to tag along that wants to swallow him until he is well and truly digested. He buries his head in his arms trying to block out the sound and to cover his eyes until he feels a small semblance of relief return to him.
He hears a fist slam into his desk and his eyes startle open. He stares into malevolent red eyes and thinks of the bright red door from this morning.
So that's why I was so scared, he thinks.
Katsuki's hand reaches out and grabs at Izuku's shirt. He yanks at him until Izuku is roughly pulled halfway out of his chair, left to crouch in a position that burns his thighs. He can feel Katsuki's knuckles against his collarbone and his muscles shake like he's a worm trapped in a bird's mouth.
"Kacch- Kacchan. Please-"
Katsuki glares at him from above and Izuku can't help but feel like a pebble stuck in his shoe. He feels as if he were rolling around only to be continuously crushed underneath Katsuki's foot. The warmth in his body seeps out of him, coming to a point at his collarbone against Katsuki's fist. Katsuki's lip draws back as his eyes roam over the smaller boy's face. Disgust rolls off of him in waves, right alongside his anger. His fist clenches into Izuku's shirt.
"Y-You're going to wrin-wrinkle your-"
He stops when he looks into the blonde's eyes.
He just looked so mad.
"Auntie is a goddamn saint for dealing with your shit," he snarls. Izuku freezes.
That hadn't been what he was expecting.
His shoulders tense until it feels as if his spine was ironed out and delicately placed back. "She had to raise you by herself because your dad left the moment he found out you were quirkless." A hush falls over the class when he says that word. No one was laughing anymore. "And you're going to leave her by herself again when you get yourself killed."
Katsuki shakes Izuku off of him like he can't stand the thought of touching him anymore. He kicks back his seat, slamming his feet onto his desk, stubbornly refusing to look back at him.
Izuku slowly lowers himself to his seat, relieved that he can't hear his classmates laughing at him anymore, only to come to the realization a minute later that everyone was silent.
And they were staring at him as if they had orbs for eyes and he had triangles.
His heart beat feels painful in his chest. Everyone kept looking at him like they were expecting him to say something. Even the teacher looked uncomfortable, but Izuku would be wrong to assume that anyone would refute what the explosive blonde had claimed.
Why were they still looking at him? Couldn't they see that Izuku was cowering in his seat? Couldn't they see that the Great Bakugou Katsuki had defeated the Over-Ambitious Quirkless Deku that had stood in their midsts?
Their eyes felt sticky on his skin. He couldn't help but think back to his freckles and hair, dirt and weeds and the too big uniform on his back. His cheeks feel like they're covered in dust and his face itches just thinking about it.
He tucks his forehead against his palm in an attempt to keep people from looking at him, but it's no use - they continue to gawk at him as if they were on a school trip to the museum. Colors swirl around him so brightly that it burns his eyes to look at. He could hear some of his classmates awkwardly giggling in the still air. Every little thing drew his attention to the point where it was maddening. It was too much. The world felt as if it were revolving and he were staying still until he collapsed against the weight of it. His stomach dragged from underneath him. He felt like he was gonna be sick.
His chair drags against the floor when he stands up too quickly. Izuku flinches against the sound in his ear and he raises his hand quickly.
"Sen-Sensei! May I go to the…. nurse's office? My stomach isn't feeling, uh, well?"
Izuku reaches for his notebook and rushes to the front of the room, grabbing the pass from his teacher's hand and stumbling out the door in his haste to leave. The second he makes it out of the door the air immediately turns fresh and Izuku gulps at it as if he were a drowning fish.
Izuku had forgotten how strenuous stairs could be, but he's reminded as he jogs up them, his legs slowly giving out beneath him. By the time he reaches the top, his breath is coming in fast pants and his cheeks are tinted a soft pink.
For the first time that day, Izuku wishes that he hadn't run out of his apartment this morning if only to grab his lunch. His stomach is storming beneath him whether from nerves or hunger, he's not sure. He stops once he reaches the roof, glad for the respite. He crumbles his teacher's note in his hand, shoving it into the back of his notebook. Instead, opening the notebook to the first page. Tufts of All Might's hair poke out at him from the page, hidden behind a shaudily drawn green suit.
For a while he just sits there, staring through the page and wishing the future weren't so far away.
Izuku had all afternoon to make up a lie to tell Katsuki, but his mind had been drawing a blank all morning. The way Katsuki's shoulders tensed at the mention of high school applications, coupled with the fact that Katsuki could see right through him didn't lend him any creative strength.
But the real problem is that Izuku wanted to tell him. He wanted the words to pour out of his mouth until he had exhausted his vocabulary and needed to ask Katsuki for his dictionary. He could just imagine looking at him and spilling his every single thought until his soul had been dripped dry. But when he had looked at Katsuki this morning, the words had stuck in his throat like a stone in his trachea. And suddenly he didn't want him to know. He would rather everything be okay, and if not, then he wanted to at least act like it was, just to realize that pretending hurt even worse. But that knowledge didn't help the fear dissipate from inside his chest.
He wanted to shout from the edge of the roof that he had applied to U.A. and that he was going to work his hardest to make it. He wanted to be happy. But he wasn't and it was hard for him to understand the sap that felt like it was pouring out of his heart and coating his insides.
When Izuku hears the door to the stairwell open, it's a lot tamer than he would have been led to believe. The door clicks open, that small sound sending chills down Izuku's spine. His eyes snap shut, but when a bright red door blinks at him from beneath his eyelashes he slams them back open. A slow trickle of fear slides down the back of his throat, splashing around in his stomach before he has time to digest it.
"Deku," Katsuki growls against the lump in his throat.
Izuku turns his head towards him. He's not sure why, but just looking at him makes his eyes burn with the need to cry. Whenever he's around the boy, he can't help but feel overwhelmed with how many emotions swarm his brain and bat at his thoughts.
"Did, did you know that smiling will make you happier?" Izuku blurts. "Not the emotion- not, not that smiling is emotion, but not happiness. Like the action? Of smiling? Will make you feel better? Your mind will tell you that you're happy if you just smile. And I read that it only takes 12 muscles to smile- that sounds like so little. Don't you think, Kacchan? Doesn't it sound so easy?"
Katsuki's forehead scrunches over his eyes like he can't believe that Izuku is still talking. Izuku can't believe it either. He really wishes that he had shut up somewhere in that slab of words, or better yet, that he had never said anything at all.
Katsuki storms towards him, his steps cracks of thunder against the roof. He balls his fist against his side. Izuku's eyes flicker between his hands and his eyes. Despite how many times him and Katsuki have argued, he's always taken aback by the anger in his eyes. Izuku feels as if he were set on fire just from his looks alone.
Izuku sees Katsuki swing his right hook seconds before it hits his face, but he can't help but think that he deserves it. Izuku gets shoved away hard enough that he lands in a heap on the ground. He flinches when Katsuki's palms give off a loud blast above him. He can feel the heat on his face, but he's more concerned about the hearing loss that he's sure to have when he's older.
He hears his notebook hit the ground and he can see the pages swarming around him and Katsuki
Izuku hunches towards the ground, trying to get as far away from him without scrambling backwards. "P-please, Kachan, I dont-don't want t-to f-f-fight-" he sniffles. He was so tired of crying.
"It's because of U-fucking-A, is it?" He quietly growls, "You worthless piece of crap." He reaches down and pulls Izuku towards him by the collar of his uniform.
"I bet you left Auntie crying at the ass-crack of dawn," he spits towards him. "All so that you can chase some fucking pipe dream. You think you can get into U.A.? You think you can stand a chance against me?! You think you're better than me?!"
"That's not- that's not what I-I'm saying at all, Kachan! I think you're amazing!"
"And I think you're a piece of shit," he spits. "You think you can be a hero?"
Izuku doesn't want to look at him. He doesn't want to answer because he knows. He's heard what Katsuki has said his entire life and yet….
"It's worth a try," and he smiles against the grit in his teeth and the ache in his heart. He keeps his head downcast, but he's careful not to stutter his words.
"You're quirkless," he snarls. Izuku can see Katsuki's uvula when he opens his mouth that wide, and he can smell the cereal he had for breakfast on his breath. "You're useless."
Izuku wishes Katsuki would just hit him. He can feel the bruises forming around his heart until it feels tender and overused.
"You think you can beat All Might? You think you can beat me?! You're nothing. You're a stone beneath my foot and I'll crush you to dust until you're fucking dead."
He's right.
Izuku wishes it would stop.
You're nothing. You're not worth anything. He's right.
Izuku wishes his thoughts didn't sound so sad. They sound disappointed, saturated in the color blue and dipped in the ocean until they make his insides soggy and damp.
Katsuki grabs Izuku's notebook from the ground. His eyes focus on the title for a few seconds that drag into eternity. A loud pop goes off and Katsuki hurls the notebook off the side of their school building. The pages fly everywhere, along with Izuku's thoughts. He can hear it land with a splash in the courtyard and he wishes he could have gone with it.
"He-!" Izuku shuts his mouth with a click. He knows better than to speak. He knows by now that his mouth won't form the words, and Katsuki won't listen to him anyway.
Katsuki looks back up to where Izuku is cowering in front of him. Izuku can see the wall just behind his eyes.
He looks so mad.
"If you really want a quirk so bad," he drawls, "why don't you do us all a favor and take a swan dive off the roof and hope for one in your next life." He shoves Izuku out of his grip, letting him shatter to the ground and leaving him to pick up the pieces.
Izuku thinks back to why he was so scared of that bright red door.
Because he always says exactly what I'm thinking. And my thoughts are so ugly.
Izuku wishes that door had stayed shut.