Izuku is starting to think that Kacchan has some shit luck, because he ends up on the television. Again. Because of a villain attack. Again. This time, though, it's not just him, but rather the entirety of Yuuei's Class 1-A.

The first he hears of it is from his classmates. While Izuku hasn't actually made any efforts to know his classmates for the simple reason of not knowing how, he always has his eyes and ears open.

He's about to take out his phone after class so that he can see all of the latest news (a habit he couldn't get out of if he tried), when he overhears two boys talking about...the Universal Studios of Japan? No, no, that isn't right, Izuku thinks, inching closer towards the conversation. So maybe he's a bit of an eavesdropper. Sue him.

"Whoa, so Yuuei really got infiltrated by villains?" One of them says in awe. He has little mouse ears that twitch curiously along with his nose, mounted on top of a crop of fluffy brown hair.

"Yeah, I hear it was Class 1-A that was attacked," a boy with black hair in a ridiculous short ponytail and electric yellow eyes says. Izuku's heart drops, because he is fairly sure that Class 1-A is Kacchan's classroom.

"Awesome! Man, those guys have it way more interesting than us!"

Izuku can't stop himself from blurring out, "Are they okay?" He turns red when he realizes that his voice was loud enough to make everyone who was still in the classroom turn towards him. "The class, I mean," he says more softly. To his relief, the pressure of the stares directed at him is lifted, as people look away from him.

The one with the yellow eyes does the opposite, looking towards Izuku. Izuku can feel the considerate gaze slowly dissecting Izuku into pieces, the boy's eyes completely unmoving. If this is a staring contest, then Izuku is quick to lose, looking away after a few moments. "I'm pretty sure that two of the teachers are in critical condition and two of the students had injuries requiring proper medical care. Probably could find more information if I wanted to." Izuku isn't sure if it's bad that he hopes that neither of those two students are Kacchan. To him, it's like wishing that another student was harmed instead, in some roundabout way.

The mouse boy shudders next to Yellow-Eyes, "It's weird how you do that. All of the news reports only said that they were attacked."

Yellow-Eyes laughs nervously, rubbing the back of his neck, "I have my sources."

"Yeah, yeah," the mouse boy gets up and slings his backpack onto his shoulders, "That's what you always say."

"Aww, you're just leaving like that?" Yellow-Eyes whines, "I didn't get to tell you about the Kiyashi Ward hostage situation! Bye, I guess."

"I check the news too, you know? Bye, Kanai. And uh, Midoriya? I hope that's your name..." Mouse's last words are mutters that Izuku doesn't think he's suppose to hear, but he can't really blame the other for not knowing his name. He belatedly realizes that the boy left before he got the chance to say goodbye.

Kanai scoffs, "Idiot. He can hear you," speaking more to himself than anyone else. He turns to look at Izuku again, "So, why are you so worried about the USJ stuff?"

Izuku startles, pointing at himself a bit confused, "Me? I'm not worried," Izuku bites his lip, hoping that Kanai won't care enough to ask more about it, because Izuku is in fact very worried.

"Yeah, you. And I don't need to look through your eyes to know that you're nervous," Kanai says, tapping his head with his finger as if that's supposed to mean something to Izuku. "So spill."

Izuku stutters as he speaks, "W-well. My fr-someone I know is kind of in that class?"

Kanai whistles, "Damn, boy. Huh, tell you what. Take my phone number, I'll let you know how they're doing if I can find any information, yeah?" He holds out his hand. "Phone?"

"O-oh," Izuku's hands fumble as he places the phone in Kanai's hands, nearly dropping it. Kanai's focus is quickly taken by the phone, and Izuku almost peers over to watch the movement of Kanai's hands before he averts his eyes.

"You can look at me, you know?" Kanai says, not looking up from the phone. "It's like you're allergic to looking at people. I don't mind."

"What?" Izuku mutters, confused.

Kanai grabs Izuku's hands, which are nervously fluttering in a back-and-forth motion, and opens them up to place Izuku's phone in them. "Text me their name. I don't have your number so you'll have to text me first."

"Yeah..." Izuku starts, but is quickly cut off by his phone vibrating in his hands. He quickly types a response to the text that shows up.

Mom : Izuku, I'm in front of your school
You: are u picking me up from school?
Mom : Yes, I'll explain on the way home
You: k!

Izuku's eyes flicker over to Kanai, hesitant, but Kanai only waves him off. "Don't let me keep you. Don't worry, I won't feel lonely."

After giving Kanai a small nod, Izuku quickly packs up his things and hurries to meet his mom.

When Izuku sees her, he is a bit surprised to see her eyes completely filled with tears, and her skin a splotchy red. "Izuku," she sniffs, "Have you-"

Izuku cuts her off with words he can't stop from spilling out, "Is Kacchan okay?"

Inko's breath hitches, "I...I don't know, but Izuku, that's not...Your dad got into a car accident."

For a moment, Izuku wonders what this information has to do with him. Next, he feels terrible, because he feels nothing towards a man that means so much to his mom, enough to put her in this distraught state that he's only seen her in a handful of other times.

Izuku has never known what he was supposed to feel when it came to his dad. He isn't like his mom. All he has of his dad is the vague memory of being spun around in the air by a man with wild black hair and tired, tired eyes, and glimpses of photos of the same man looking into his mother's eyes with so much love. That's at least one emotion that Izuku holds towards him. Gratefulness. He's grateful for that carefree smile Inko gets on her face whenever he catches her looking at old photo albums. He doesn't really know what kind of person his dad is, but he likes to think that his father is a good guy if just the thought of him is enough to make Inko's worries disappear for a while.

But in all honesty, Izuku stopped registering his father as an actual person with any sort of connection to himself years ago. He's always been apathetic to the concept of the father. Izuku knows that he naturally has to have a male progenitor, that the sea of freckles on his face and his long lashes couldn't have come from his mom, but it's never quite clicked in his mind.

So right now, Izuku is struggling to connect a man of fable with a man who apparently got into a car accident. God, Izuku doesn't even know what the guy does for a living, let alone what he's been doing for all these years, because his mom always skirted around the subject. Yeah, all he's really feeling is confusion. And he feels terrible for it.

He puts on a front for his mom, though, because right now she needs comfort. "Is he okay?"

Inko nods, "He's in the hospital, but there's so much...There's so many things to sort out, I don't..." She runs her hands through her hair, and her appearance quickly goes from teary to very stressed. Perhaps both at the same time?

Izuku puts his hands on her shoulders and starts steering her in the direction of a bench. When they reach one, Izuku quickly seats her and sits down. It always scares Izuku when his mom is like this, because her anxiety just gives him anxiety which gives her anxiety which gives him anxiety which-. Izuku cuts off his thought process, before he does exactly what he was thinking about by stressing himself out. Great. But he has to pull himself together. He has to pull himself together, for his mom, so he does.

"What things?"

Inko turns the light touch that he used to guide her to the bench into a tight grasp of his hand, as she starts. "He's going to be okay, but he's in a hospital in America, and..."

Izuku stops her, "America?"

"He...He works abroad. I think he had some conference in America, but his insurance plan, there's some sort of problem with it. It's insurance mainly intended for Japan, but we thought that there was some level of national insurance, and now they need me to work through the insurance claims and pay any fees. He's not conscious enough to do it on his own, but..." Inko looks up at Izuku with dull green eyes, still clenching his hands with a death grip, "I need to go there to do it, they won't let me do it from here."

"I'll go," Izuku says hurriedly, "I'll go with you."

Inko shakes her head sadly, "You stay here. There'll be nothing for you to do here, and you can't miss the first few months of high school or you'll miss your chance to make friends."

"Months?" Izuku yelps, perhaps a little too loudly if the gazes of strangers following the sound are anything to go by.

Inko's hands slowly pull away from Izuku's, and they drop suddenly into his lap. She loosely clenches one of her hands into a fist in front of her chest and looks down at the ground, in that same way that she always does whenever there's some sort of news that she doesn't want to tell him about. With Izuku's overly observant mind and his lack of people to really get to know, he's more or less memorized all of her tells. This one is the one that hurts the most, because he remembers her doing the same thing on the night that he learned he was quirkless (the memory still stands out starkly in his mind, as many years ago as it may have been). "I want to stay with him while he's recovering, Izuku, it's been so long." She says softly. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, Izuku."

"It's fine, mom." Izuku says in a slightly wobbly voice.

Both of them know that it's really not fine. But what can they do, when the two of them are too scared to do more than just leaving it at that?

The house is far too quiet. Izuku doesn't know what he's supposed to do with the empty space in the house. His mom has been gone for a week already. After they got home from school that day, the apartment was filled with the frantic sounds of impromptu packing, as Izuku and Inko tried to gather as many clothes and daily necessities as she'd need for the trip. Now, it's just deadly silent.

It's not that he's incapable of taking care of himself. He's far from it, in fact. His mom always raised him to be able to take care of himself. He can make his own food, he can do his own laundry, and he's not the type of kid to take advantage of his mom's absence by not going to school.

But he misses the feeling of his mom tugging through his curls with a brush in the morning, because they're too wild for him to deal with on his own. (In reality, it's because he craves those few minutes in the morning with her, craves the feeling of her fingers in his scalp.) He misses hollering a quick goodbye to her in the morning, something he's already accidentally done four times by now. He misses seeing her curled up on the couch, tearing up over a romantic comedy book that she picked up from the bookstore. He misses her pressing a kiss into his forehead as thanks for him getting the groceries. He misses the taste of her cooking after a long day. He misses the way they'd giggle over a funny story she brought home from work. He misses his mom.

They say that you only realize the value of a person's presence in your life when they're gone, and right now, Izuku has never understood that saying more. His mom's presence is so strong in his life. She's one of the few people that Izuku actually interacts with on a regular basis, and he is...lonely. There's no other word for it. He is lonely, plain and simple.

They FaceTime every moment they can of course, but it's something they can only manage before Izuku goes to school. By the time he gets home from school, it's already midnight for her in America, and he'd hate to take away from the time she gets to sleep.

Izuku was initially planning on ignoring the contact that Kanai entered into his phone, because he still is not quite sure how to start the conversation. Now, though, he's bored (lonely, desperate, distressed) enough to ignore his anxiety over the matter. "YOLO XD", as the ancient greek scholars once said.

You: sorry! i was busy and kind of forgot to message you ;u;
Kanai Ayumu: who are u?
You: oh
You: sorry it's midoriya from school
You: midoriya izuku?
Kanai Ayumu: ohhh yea dont worry ik who u are lmfao
Kanai Ayumu: well i didnt know who u were but u told me and i know ur name that would be stupid if i didnt
Kanai Ayumu: uh. yeah so whos the person
Kanai Ayumu: unless youve got some other burning inquiries for me or just wanna chat
You: his name is bakugou katsuki, is he okay?
You: i tried checking the news but it said nothing and i don't have any of his family's phone numbers
Kanai Ayumu: k just gimme a hot minute

Izuku nervously sits in his bed, waiting for his phone to vibrate. Apparently "a hot minute" was a grand total of three minutes, which is honestly shorter than Izuku expected it to take.

Kanai Ayumu: alright ur boy is good
Kanai Ayumu: only asui tsuyu and shiozaki ibara were harmed apparently
You: how do you know?
You: not to doubt you or anything!
You: i'm just curious it's not on the news or anything
Kanai Ayumu: i have...sources? :D
Kanai Ayumu: actually fuck it u seem like a nice guy i usually dont say but tbh
Kanai Ayumu: ur into the same shit i am
You: ?
Kanai Ayumu: its probably up ur alley so look up the guard's archives
You: ?
Kanai Ayumu: shh just accept it

Bewildered. That's the only word to describe the emotion he feels every time he interacts with Kanai. He sends a few more messages to Kanai, only to get no response. In all honesty, he's starting to agree with that mouse guy (he briefly apologizes to mouse guy for referring to him as "mouse guy" in his head). The dude knows way more than he should.

At the very least, Izuku is relieved to hear that Kacchan is apparently fine, if Kanai's words are anything to go by. He's a bit curious about) and the slightest bit scared of) Kanai's source, though, and the credibility of it, so he does exactly what he was told to do. He pulls out his laptop, and runs a search on the phrase "the guard's archives".

It turns out that the Guard's Archives is an online forum, the kind that Izuku is very familiar with. In his many years as a hero fanboy, he has become very acquainted with hero forums. The people that he finds on them are very good conversational partners, and hero forums are one of the few places that he can find other people with a similar fanatic obsession with heroes (that are willing to talk to him, that is). He hasn't quite been visiting them at all lately, as he's kind of...lost a majority of his passion, but he sometimes checks up on a forum to see how some of his online forum pals are doing.

Within ten minutes of browsing this website, though, he becomes fairly sure that he's never visited it before, because he would have remembered it if he had. It's too different from what he is used to.

For starters, he quickly finds that there are roughly 2,000 people registered, which is a lot less than the typical forum. There's an entire subforum dedicated to footage of fights, and another that's dedicated specifically to discussing the weaknesses of heroes. Both features are typically banned from hero forums. Having an spot for footage is thought to encourage people to "hero-chase", supposedly causing people to put themselves in harm's way to obtain the footage. It still happens regardless, if the Izuku of eleven months ago was anything to go by, and Izuku has always thought it was stupid to think that not having a footage forum would stop people. He can't say there is any fault in the logic of banning discussing hero's weaknesses in public forums. There are obvious reasons to prohibit such discussion.

That's not where the differences end, though. Most forums have a hero leaderboard widget, but the leaderboard widget for this one has a scary amount of sorting options based on information that Izuku isn't sure is public. There is the official ranking, of course, but there is also ranking by income, total villains arrested, media coverage and...property damage?

Izuku isn't sure that the way they obtain the information is entirely legal. He isn't even entirely sure that this forum is necessarily filled with hero fans either, if the structure of the website is anything to go by.

Despite that, he finds his mouse hovering over the "Create Account" button. And god if he knows why he does it, but he gives himself the username of "Deku" of all things. Goddamnit. He didn't really feel like going with his usual All Might-themed username, but he didn't know where Deku came from.

He's now Deku on the forums, though, so he'll just have to deal with the consequences of his brief lapse in judgement. How sad is it that he's come to actually identify with the name that's been tormenting him for years.

At least it wasn't like Izuku was going to spend actual time on the forums.

With a sigh, Izuku shuts his laptop and places it on his desk. He can explore the forums more later, but right now he's just going take a small nap. He closes the blinds to block out the rays of sunshine that pour into his room.

He wakes up in the morning, stomach grumbling from a missed dinner. So much for a small nap.

things that weren't supposed to happen:

1. hisashi I'M SORRY but like u practically beg to be plot fodder cuz like. u don't rly do anything in bnha? askdjasasdlk inko was supposed to just pick izuku up from school bc of the usj shit but then i went "y'know what would suck"

2. ocs. actually, i was gonna try to avoid this but then a single sentence of description erupted into a full-blown oc. sorry for anyone who doesn't like ocs, i myself think that they tend to pull away from a lot of the fanfics i've seen whenever there's too much focus placed on them. it should be just kanai, but lmk if it gets to be too much! i'm at least gonna try to keep his presence limited to plot-essential stuff (unless u wanna see more of him, which. doubtful.)

also this is an early update, just so this story can catch up to how much i have posted on ao3. from here on out, i'm gonna try for updates on tuesdays.