"Be realistic," Izuku mocks, kicking a pebble with his shoe, "oh, I'll be mighty realistic on this rooftop alright."
Izuku is tired, has been for a while, but it seems like his energy is at an all-time low. He is in pain from the school day, his face, torso, and shoulder all burning in different ways, the pain in his torso throbbing in time with his heart beat. All Might's words are ringing through his head continuously and he laughs. It's bitter, dark and spiteful, but he can't bring himself to care.
It's so stupid, really. He doesn't admire the man, anymore, doesn't idolize him and acknowledges he's a person. Izuku knows All Might is a man, a human person, just like him, with feelings like panic and love and hate and righteousness. He knows he is a person with opinions, but he can't help but think that since he's the number one hero, he should be telling him he can do anything.
It's selfish, his brain hisses. It's selfish to expect anything of the man because he is Izuku and he is quirkless. It's selfish because the man's time was wasted on him, a nobody. It's selfish because he is destined to be nothing in this superpowered world, he is destined to live a lonely life and die a grotesque death. It's so, so selfish to expect the man to lie, to tell him that he will get what he wants, just this once - it's selfish to expect him to be dishonest and tell him he will amount to something.
Izuku wonders whats so different between him and his interviews online. He famously says anyone can be a hero, no matter what, so why is Izuku different? Though, that's a stupid question, he knows why he's different. He's a ten year old quirkless child with no one waiting for him at home, with scars adorning his skin and more one-sided hatred than anything else. He's quirkless, the bottom of the food chain, to be disregarded like a dog.
Selfish little Izuku, wanting the world he doesn't deserve, wanting the world that all the other kids get but he will never have, wanting a world where he is somebody and not just Deku.
He's quirkless with wounds on his skin and a burnt and wet uniform, quirkless with no use in the world. He's quirkless with nobody there to support him, somebody perceived as less than. He is less than, because society makes him think so, because they treat him like he is. It's sickening, honestly, that most people are in agreement that the quirkless are nothing but a mere pebble under their shoe, a hindrance in life, a dying breed.
Izuku thinks it's ironic, a sick fucking joke in this cruel world, that he still wants to be a hero. He still wants to be a hero, even after that one sided conversation with a man whose word is practically law, even after being told by everyone he can't. He still wants to save people, even though nobody saved him, even though he is a bitter, bitter boy who hates the pedestal heroes are placed on. He still wants to save people, the flame that is his determination flickering but never being snuffed out.
He knows there are many people who would have jumped, who would have turned to the other side, who would have just given up and stopped chasing a dream. But, Izuku is not other people, and he is not normal. He has that extra joint in his foot, the extra organ that only the quirkless have, and yet he is still burning with fiery determination and need to do good, to salvage the unsalvageable. Izuku is not other people, and he will chase that fever dream until his legs are numb and he doesn't know why, and he will keep going.
And, god, he doesn't even like the man. He hasn't for a while, hasn't worshipped the very soil he walked on, hasn't sang his praise for years. He does not like All Might, a somehow naive man with the unwavering smile, all muscle and no brain. He does not like All Might, because he is not a cautious man, favoring brute strength while dealing with villains instead of agility or strategy. It will get someone killed, has gotten people killed, people on the outskirts of the fight who were just a bit too close to be out of range of All Might's range.
He doesn't like the man, sees all of his faults and his humanity, what reminds Izuku that he will always be human and not trustworthy, another vile creature in an already vile, vile world; and yet, he still felt so much betrayal when he was told no. He felt a large coil of dread and anxiety and worthlessness in his gut when he was left on the rooftop, as All Might jumped off and away with the villain like nothing had happened.
He exhales deeply as he takes another step on the uneven, cracked sidewalk. He doesn't like All Might, doesn't like limelight heroes in general, and yet it still meant so much to be told to give up. He knows a lot of the heroes in the top ten are shady, their wrong behavior being ignored because they are celebrities, they have money and can buy anyone's silence. Some, with smaller offenses, he knows will become much, much worse. They pay their way through small situations that they could get out of, and he knows that will lead to a much larger problem, and they will be another person indebted to the devil.
(In the privacy of his mind he thinks behavior like Bakugo's is what created Endeavor. The fact he was treated like a God, could get away with anything and everything because he will be a hero, has a strong quirk, and he is good. The untreated inferiority complex because he's filled with fear when he's not number one because that's all people have told him he is. People have only told him he's the best, and he better be because if he isn't, what is he? And that behavior, of needing to be the best so he doesn't break, is what formed Endeavor. Because at his core, Endeavor is insecure because he's not the best and will do anything in his power to become the best, to have that power and knowledge, but even then it won't be enough because there's always that lingering fear of 'what if'.)
Some part of Izuku, a much more bitter and spiteful part of him, the part he conceals because it is not good, doesn't want to be a hero. That part cries when he takes another step, cries out when his determination does not waver. That part wants to shy away from heroics, because it is a grotesque path, with blind followers, with a large divide between the heroes and the civilians. It is repulsive, and their minds will change, will mold to what they are told, and they will be another contributor to a corrupt society.
But he will power through and take the heroics society by storm, and change everything they thought they once knew and make it better. He will make it good, make it something to adore, even if at the finish line he has bloody hands that have been worked to the bone because he is only one person. He will give hope to those who have been outcasted, and he will lend that hand that he so desperately needs but hasn't gotten. He knows there will be more quirkless people, no matter how scarce, and it will get worse for them. He wishes it was different, that the quirked and quirkless and mutants and villain quirked could just live in fucking peace, but humans are never that easy.
He will force people to change their ways, to stop and look and realize they are putting massively unrealistic expectations on others. He will force them to realize they have created a corrupt society, a society that indulges into god complexes and rebells against hurt people who had no way out. He'll do it alone if need be, if nobody supports him, but he will do it - will try, because he needs to. He won't let another person suffer because of society's mindset, let another hero get away with a crime because they are a hero, because they have done some good.
It hits him, then, that he probably should not have this mindset. He is ten, should be playing with his friends and laughing along with his mother, not thinking about how horrid society has become. Maybe it's gotten to him, too, just in less obvious ways. Greed and dehumanization run rampant, sinking sharp toxic claws into the neck of society, and nobody is exempt. It makes him dirty, disgusting and repulsive like the people he hates with a fiery passion.
He shouldn't be thinking like this at ten, but he is not a normal child, is not someone who is blindsided to the jaded ways of the world. He is a ten year old quirkless child who does not go home, but returns to a cold house with an absent mother. He is a ten year old quirkless child and he is not a normal child, he has different expectations, has been on the other side. He does not have friends to play with, he does not have a mother to laugh and joke with. He has himself and his analysis and nothing more, and he is content.
(He has to be. He has to be content, and not just dealing, not just surviving.)
He is a quirkless child, and his biggest worry is if the kitchen has any food or if mom has paid the rent, but it could also be avoiding bullies at school and making sure his injuries get treated well enough. His biggest worry could also be when he can't evade an attack, and it hits hard, and he thinks he needs medical attention but he can't go to the hospital because they don't accept quirkless patients and their lesser evolved bodies.
He is not a quirked child, with the biggest worry is what time their parents will be home, or perhaps when they will see their friend again.
He's not sure how much more he can take, stress weighing him down and making his stomach feel empty and yet so full he's nauseous at the same time. He's not sure how much he can take, with his mother avoiding him and having no support system whatsoever. He doesn't think he can take much more, honestly. He think's he'll break soon, break down and become unrecognizable to who he once was.
It's sickening. It's sickening that society will sit back and watch as this little boy tears himself apart, as others help his destruction. It's sick how they will watch with indifference or perhaps amusement. It's sickening how those who care will not help, will only watch as he is burnt time and time again, until he is nothing but a shell, merely surviving while everyone else lives, like he so fears.
"ALL MIGHT CAPTURES SLUDGE VILLAIN!"
It's like a slap in the face, seeing the headline in a storefront. There are people gathered around, watching like it's the most interesting thing ever as All Might recalls a parodied version of the capture. He does not mention the victim, does not mention how he was almost too late, does not mention how he told a quirkless child to be realistic on a rooftop. He says he was a purse-snatcher.
A photo of the man holding out a soda bottle with green liquid and an eye in it, smiling like he has no care in the world - like he is not holding a person with a mutation in a bottle, like he is not supplying the world with more corruption than it needs - flashes on the screen.
Izuku scowls down at his shoes, his ratty red high-tops with holes in them, the only pair he has because quirkless shoes are so expensive. It's dehumanizing, in a way, that only the capture is reported on. The victims do not matter, the life and family of the villain do not matter, only the hero matters.
He hates it, how life will continue going, unaware of what happened, how he got attacked and suffocated. He hates how the world will keep spinning because he is just a quirkless child with no significance to the world. He hates how, even if these people did know about what All Might just said, - just did, because he can still feel some liquid in his lungs that he wasn't able to cough up and it makes him want to vomit - they wouldn't care. They would keep blindly worshiping the man, like he once had, because one quirkless child doesn't matter in the grand scheme of things.
Izuku rubs his jaw, irritated from the school day. He needs to stop drowning in his teenage-but-not-quite-teenage angst before it consumes him. He needs to stop wallowing in self-pity because he needs to get home and clean his burns and cuts. God, it's so stupid, being tortured because he has an extra joint in his feet, because he has an extra organ, because he does not have an otherwordly superpower.
He wants to laugh at how horrible the world is. People blindly believe they're safe, that the heroes will protect them, but that's never how it works, not with quirks. Quirks will determine your status and how you're treated, they determine whether a hero will scoff at you while you're in danger or immediately jump in to save you. Quirks determine who will turn a blind eye, who is corrupt and who is too kind for the jaded world they live in. Quirks are the social hierarchy of today's world, putting people down for how 'weak' their quirk is. People believe heroes are exempt from this mindset, but, really, they enable it.
Heroes will turn the other way when faced with discrimination. They turn the other way as children are belittled, are told they will never amount to anything, and they feed into that mindset. At best, they will simply ignore it and give awkward half-answers to pointed questions in interviews. At worst, they will be open about it, will spew nonsense about villainous quirks, how some quirks will never be wielded by a hero, will only be used for villainy.
Heroes are human, and they are of differing opinions - they will be open or reserved, peaceful and violent, but what they have in common is the fact they will never step in the way of discrimination unless they have a death wish. Discrimination is a controversial thing, for some reason, and limelight heroes more often than not favor their image than doing the right thing morally. Many people have that mental divide between quirks, useless, villainous, heroic - and the heroes don't dispute that, because that would be going against people and taking sides, wrecking their image to for some people.
After all, they wouldn't want to drop in ranks because they said no quirk is villainous and quirkists started hating them, would they?
Quirks have created a different hierarchy, even when the world already had so many. It's a hierarchy that everyone follows, judging people by how their quirk could be used on a surface level for heroics, to save people. Their quirks are judged, and their quirks are apart of them, so the wielders are judged just as harshly. They are useless or villainous or the prime example of a hero, no matter the personality.
It's sick. It's vile, absolutely repulsive, and it makes Izuku want to burn the world to the ground, to scream until his throat is raw and bleeding. It makes Izuku spiteful, a bitter feeling all consuming and clouding his thoughts. He falls at the bottom, worse than useless, worse than villainous - he doesn't have anything, so therefore he is nothing. He is not a person who won't amount to anything because of their useless quirk, he is not a villain, and he is not a hero.
Though, despite that, despite the heroes trying to save their public image and ignoring civilians in distress, there are people that are kind to the villainous, useless, and quirkless. They are people with kind, kind eyes, with gentle voices and soft hands, giving to people who need - but they never last long. They never last long because they are naive, and they aren't. They want to believe they have a place in the world, the villainous and useless and quirkless, they want to believe that they can help enough to change it all.
They are naive because they want to believe that people are good, will look past the bad of the unfortunate because these people want to be good. They will be kind to the small boy with a bruise over his eye who claims his mother hates his quirk and yet also has a loaded gun. They will believe because they see a boy who is from a bad household, not a potential threat like everyone else. They want to believe that these people who have been hurt are sad and skittish, want to believe they will look at the ground as they walk and mask their presence. They do not account for those who resort to violence - who resort to scathing words and intimidation, making themselves known and big, untouchable. They do not account for those who have become like their abusers, taking vengeance from the society that has wronged them, developing their unhealthy views.
They're naive, despite facing similar discrimination first-hand. They are naive, despite the people who glare at them for trying to give undeserving people a place to feel safe, a place with first aid and food and everything people like them could need. They're naive enough to believe that people will help, believe that people will care about the kid with the hypnotism quirk who is getting robbed. They hold onto those childish beliefs that these kids that they help will make it big in life, will survive past thirty.
It's childish and naive, reminding Izuku of the days when he was five with large green eyes and a mother who was nervous but still indulged him when he said he wanted to be a hero - and it is sad. It's sad because they are willfully ignorant, they know, deep down, that their efforts are for naught. They know that these children are spiteful and not homing pure hearts of gold, they know these children have seen things nobody should, they know these children know the streets like the back of their hand with the places that are silently safe and the places that are loudly violent.
They know these kids will not live long, will die one way or another due to discrimination, whether it be a kidnapping, hate crime, or suicide, they know. These kids do not live long, but these people hope. They still cherish the children that come in and treat them the best they can, with the hopes that one day someone will make it, will become happy or perhaps change the world like they all so desire but have given up on.
The places are not safe havens like they want them to be, but rather places to avoid because you never know when it's going to go up in flames. You know that these places, these people, will not last long, will die within the year more than likely. They know, too, but they do not see, and they die for it.
Izuku craves that naivety that these people are gifted, and so he skips over cracks in the sidewalk and pretends he is a normal, quirked pre-teen. Maybe he has a minor mutation, or a minor intelligence quirk, or the ability to control toxic acid. He pretends he got a test back today, one that had a messily scrawled good job! under an 100% in the corner.
He pretends he does not have sludge in his lungs due to a heroes negligence, and he pretends his mother will dote over him when he gets home. He pretends that nobody scowls at him on the streets, that there is no throbbing all throughout his body. He pretends that he is normal, that he has friends, and his house is not empty or cold. He pretends for as long as he can, until that same man in the alley with the cigarette offers one, just like clockwork.
He stops pretending, because he knows this man, vaguely - Takahashi-San, he lives down the street. Izuku is the only child the man will ever offer to, only one he has ever offered to. He knows Izuku is quirkless and bullied and so very susceptible to accepting one day. Izuku know's he's right, that one day he will accept the man's offer, will get dragged down into places he swore to never go down. His resolve will one day crumble, and he will be at rock bottom, and he will accept Takahashi-San's offer.
But, just like earlier that day, Izuku just smiles at the man and shakes his head. The man scowls, his yellowing teeth showing, and looks away, just like every other day before. It's just like every day, with the uneven sidewalk and the alleyways in between the buildings that are wet and smelly, and the sky is a light blue that harshly contradicts the sheer horror of the day he's had. His gaukuran smells of smoke and caramel, but unlike every day before, it is not just a caramel scent that follows him, nor is his uniform just burnt.
Today, his uniform is wet and he smells of wet sewage, his hair is drying stiffly to his head and he can see the singed ends in his eyes. His legs are wobbly, his face throbbing from the contraption held on him all day, and the feeling of the sludge seeping into his clothes and drying them to his skin makes him shiver. His head and heart feel heavy, like he's swallowed a thousand stones. The ringing in his ear hasn't left, he notes dryly.
The sidewalk is cracked and uneven, and Izuku continues to jump over the cracks in it like it was some cruel joke. Izuku hopes he doesn't come across any other villains who wish to hijack his body and make him into a meat suit. The walk to his apartment is long and cold, Izuku shivering by the time he closes the door and takes off his shoes.
"I'm home!" He calls, voice raspy and desperate, hoping his mother was home, despite knowing she wasn't. He didn't see her car in the driveway, didn't see her shoes by the door, and the house was cold as it commonly was when it was just him. The whole situation brought tears to his eyes, thinking that he just got attacked by a villain, and went home without any medical attention to an empty house.
The walls are bare, just like always, with cold and indifference seeping into them. The house does not smell sterile, despite it's appearance, but rather of dust and a faint smell of lavendar. It's fitting to his mother, when she used to have vases of flowers on their dinner table, with her lavendar perfume she favored because her grandmother used to wear it. It's completely Inko Midoriya, and he wants to sob.
The flowers in the vase on the dining table have long since died out, a lone, glass vase that is slowly yellowing sitting in the middle of the table. Izuku remembers when the last flower had wilted and he reminded his mother, who had locked herself in her room and cried for hours.
He cannot stomach to look at the bare walls and unused dining table any longer, and makes his way to the small bathroom at the end of the hall. He needs to shower, to scrub his skin of all of the sludge, because he feels overwhelmingly dirty. It's a weird feeling, the bugs crawling under his skin and under his clothes, the sticky and tacky sludge that sticks to him lie glue.
His mind is screaming at him, yet there's an almost silent, mind-numbing static all the same. He doesn't bother to turn the lights on in the hallway, and has the fleeting thought that he's sulking like some sort of spoiled, angsty teen, but he thinks it can be excused just this once.
He just wants to bundle up in his blankets and have his mother hold him. He wants to go back to when he was young and naive, when it didn't matter that he didn't have a quirk because he wasn't four yet. It's stupid, he thinks, to wish he was three again. Most kids don't think about that time, they were too young to really remember anything, anyways. Plus, why would they want to go back to a time where they were powerless?
He wants to pretend again, to pretend like the scathing words from the kids at school aren't spoken or don't hurt him, to pretend like his mother is asleep in her room. He craves that false sense of security pretending gives him. Izuku is a liar, lying to himself that his mother will love him, but he is not naive and knows he's lying.
Izuku looks up in the mirror, flinching when he meets his own, dull green eyes. They've lost that wondrous quality most children have, and he yearns for it so desperately. He looks like hell on earth, with the waxy skin, sunken in face, and disheveled hair. His hair, once green but now a faded white, sticks up in every which way stiffly. He scowls at himself, at the red marks and burns he can see from the hot iron of the contraption he was placed in, at the burn mark he can see on his shoulder.
He hates it, hates the way he looks, it makes him sick. He has the same face as his mother, with beautiful emerald green eyes and a rounder jawline, the same thick eyelashes and freckles. He looks like that woman, the woman with disinterest and something akin to hatred in her eyes when she looks at him, the look foreign because his mind still wants to believe she's the bright-eyed, smiling woman in his memories, who would play heroes with him and hug him and love him.
He can't find it in himself to think of himself as that innocent, wide-eyed kid he once was - that he, arguably, should still be. He doesn't see any connection to the hero admiring kid he once was, with his scarred skin that clings to his bones, unlike many children his age. He also can't bring himself to think of himself like his mother, with her faded smiles that he barely remembers.
Izuku turns on the sink faucet and cups water in slim, shaky hands, before splashing his face. He jolts, the water icy cold and not helping his shivering. He splashes water on his hair as well, just to get the stiffness gone, even if it falls directly back onto his forehead coldly. He wishes his faucet would get warmer water, it doesn't even have to be hot, just lukewarm, but no. Of course he can't have warm water in his sink, god forbid.
He sighs, turning the faucet off in turn for the shower. The water sputters on, the water pressure weak. He puts his hand under the icy water, waiting for it to warm up, before pulling a towel out of his cupboard and undressing. The water is still cold and he hugs himself. The shower curtain makes it dark, the stained porcelain being even more obvious in the darker lighting.
He can't help but think back on the day, and everything that came with it. His body is sore and his bones feel brittle and cold (he feels like a broken record), and his mind feels like a thousand pounds. The water pelts on his scarred back, the temperature a sharp contrast and making him hiss. His shoulder and face burn violently, pulsing rhythmically in time with his heartbeat. It stings in a weird way, icy hot in his wounds - he knows the sharp temperature change can't be good for him, but it can't be helped.
He wishes the landlord - or whoever the fuck controlled their water, he doesn't really know - would grant them better water. He hates either being deadly cold or boiling alive. He was already shivering today, after everything, he really doesn't need to be even colder. He wishes he could talk to his mom about it, get her to do something, but she's rarely home and often takes showers at work - he thinks, though she hasn't talked to him in a while.
The shower is unfulfilling, and he gets out as soon as he's clean. His towels aren't soft, and he loathes them as he bundles himself up. He looks in the mirror once again, wishing he had the luxury of wiping condensation from the glass because of a warm shower. His arms are marred with white and pink raised scars of all different shapes and sizes, and he can see the veins in his face and wrists with how pale his skin is. He grimaces at his body, nausea churning in his gut just thinking about seeing it from someone else's point of view.
He tries to not think about it - the searing pain in his back as he bled, the doctor indifferent to his pain as he carves that godforsaken word into his back to mark what he is, to brand him. He shudders involuntarily at the memory of his government mandated torture.
He opens the cabinet under the sink and retrieves a first-aid kit, sighing when he sees the vaseline is empty and the alcohol is on it's way out as well. He looks up at the mirror again, wincing at the sight of himself. His arms have small, surface cuts on them from the faceless children, and his stomach burns. He looks down, seeing Deku carved into his skin, and tears prick his eyes. Izuku can't treat everything, and wouldn't, even if he could, but he has to patch up the burn and the carving.
He puts vaseline and a bandaid on the burn, hissing at the feeling of his fingers on the sensitive flesh, before looking down at his torso. He doesn't quite know what to do with that one, with the large gashes in his abdomen. He quickly disinfects it, gritting his teeth hard enough he's sure they're grinding down to dust, and slaps a few bandaids on it. He should go to the store and stock up on gauze wrap and bandage tape for that, to make it easier.
The sterile bathroom feels uncomfortable, now that he's sitting on the floor with his treated wounds. He quickly dresses, not wanting to look at his skin - his body, his scars - and leaves the room. Izuku's still shivering from the shower and the sludge, but at least he's not crusty and burnt anymore, right?
He looks out the window and mentally curses himself - the sun is setting, which means the store he normally goes to is closed. He's restless, but also anxiety filled, and decides to go on a walk to the sketchy part of town. Well, he lives in the sketchy part of town, the part that's still inhabited, but he favors the area with the rundown buildings and beautiful wild rose bushes. It's a long walk for his skinny legs, with their shaking and all, but he manages.
He ignores the fact that he brings his phone, like he would ever update his mother on his whereabouts, like she would care if he did. He ignores it because he is looking for serenity and beauty, and that is not beautiful - it is hurtful and dirty, like bugs crawling and biting from under your skin, it is sad and wrong, and with the day he's already had he thinks he might just break.
He steps out of the apartment building, putting his keys in his hoodie pocket. The sky is a beautiful mess of blues and pinks, and Izuku wonders how such a hurtful Earth could house a view so sun shines down on the pavement despite the colder night air, already tucking itself behind the trees on the mountains beyond the city.
There aren't as many people out, now, only kids playing in their driveways rather than people finding their way to work or back home. It's not loud, but it's not quiet, and Izuku can pretend he belongs. Like he's a normal person walking alone, listening to the laughing kids and commotion of life, like he has an average quirk and isn't bullied on the daily, like his mother will text him in a few minutes asking where he is because she's concerned.
He looks down at his battered and torn shoes, and idly thinks he needs to get a new pair soon. They're much too small, and one doesn't have a sole in them, the dull red faded from the brilliant vermilion it once was. He kicks a rock into the road as a car passes, looking both ways before crossing the street.
The wind whips through his hair as he walks, strands falling in his face and around his head like a halo. The air is cold, biting at his arms despite being covered, ripping at his face and making his nose burn and go numb the longer he's outside. The town feels deserted, with it's run down buildings that are rotting and falling apart at the seams, with it's people who scurry inside at the first sign of dusk in fear of what lurks at night, because the area is not safe. The people who live here, the people like Izuku, can not sleep at night knowing they are safe. They live in a wasteland, one day to be taken over, to be rioted, to be destroyed in a passing villain attack and never to be looked at again.
They fear each other, their neighbors, because they do not know who and what they could be. They don't talk, they keep their heads down and walk the other way. They look the other way at night, seeing and hearing things in alleyways that they probably weren't supposed to. The empty streets give a sort of serene, melancholic feeling, feeling of fear etched into every wall and every door rotting on it's hinges because the people here are not rich. They live here because they are not lawful, because they cannot afford anywhere else.
(There is a stupid family, on the other side of the town, the somewhat nicer yet still run down will get fucked over one day, with their small construction company and golden hearts, giving and giving and giving, empathizing when they shouldn't. They are beautiful brunettes with baby faces and wide, wide eyes. They look naive, but knowing where they live, who they live with - the people your parents will warn you about as a child, the streets your parents tell you not to go on because of how dangerous they are, because of the rampant crime that nobody monitors - they have seen far, far more than any stable family has.)
He observes the buildings as he passes. He wonders the inhabitants of them, wonders who once went into that run down convenience store, wonders who originally lived in the rickety old yellow house with the peeling paint and pink door. He wonders when the houses and buildings will come down, the wood of the buildings rotted years before, unattended to because it's a bad town with the criminals, with the jaded. The trees are large and some are broken, merely stumps or collapsed in the yard of one of the houses from lightening.
Izuku lingers at the old hotel on the corner. It's old, probably the oldest building he's seen, and it's obvious from how it looks. The door is completely rotted, black with large and small holes, some wood ripped off, sure to give you a large splinter if you so much as touch it. The doorknob is old and jiggly, a faded and dull gold, about to fall out, and the door is barely on it's hinges. The weeds at the back of it are large and overgrown, growing over the small building quite beautifully. There are vines and thorns running up and down the building, weaving into the holes in the walls and the empty window-sills.
Some windows are boarded up, some are littered with broken glass and dried blood, and other's are covered in prickly vines. Izuku had always liked the rickety old hotel, found the plants around it simply divine. His mother had always scurried away when he tried to get a closer look, telling him it wasn't safe. And it wasn't, the building was due to collapse at any time now, each storm shaking and breaking down the foundation even more.
There is graffiti covering one of the walls, large black and red letters adorning it, as well as lots of crude drawings. There's a quite detailed, wrinkly penis on the door that Izuku chooses to ignore with not more than an eye roll and a huff. He can't read most of what is written, but then the street light flickers on and the front of the hotel is illuminated in a weak, yellow light. We will rise, it says, with thick, blocky black letters messily scrawled, almost as if in a haste. Like there was no time.
Izuku chuckles, imagining an edgy kid like himself spray painting onto a building in an angst fueled anger, shaking in his little booties with fury too much for his tiny little body and thinking scrawling some threatening words into an abandoned building would help.
The building is barely holding up, brick crumbling to the ground under it. The foundation is worryingly fragile - just like him, he thinks wryly. Fragile, just like his mind, shaky and small, so, very fragile after being neglected for years and years on end. Fragile and yet unbearably strong all the same.
He opens the door, using the sleeve of his hoodie to cover his hands so he doesn't get scratched. It creaks open unsteadily, and the inside is dark and dusty. The floorboards are uneven and wood is sticking up in places, making Izuku cautious as he moves inside the building. The old counter is run-down, cracked and chunks taken out of it. There are small patches of grass and moss in between the floorboards, though they're hardly seen in the dark.
The stairs are still extravagant, despite them being uneven and some missing. They were spiraled and the railings were gold with marvelous carvings on them. The building smelt faintly of disinfectant, though the mildew and dust covered it up. Izuku slowly walked up them, the creaking sounds bringing a sense of peace to him. The upstairs had a single, long hallway with doors on either side, golden numbers carved into the top of them right above small peepholes.
Izuku made his way to a room that he knew was unlocked, 203, and pushed the door open. It had a large bed in it with numerous blankets he's acquired since he found the place, with some drinks that don't need to be refrigerated in the broken cooler. He loved this room, this hotel - it was more like a home than his house ever had been.
It was cold and still melt of mildew and dust, yet more cleaning products than he can count, but it was comforting. The cold was from the weather, and the mildew from disuse. His house was cold because of his mother, from nobody actually living in there but surviving. His house wasn't physically cold, but more mentally, like a stage set, with no personal artifacts or knick-knacks.
The hotel room is relatively empty, but it screams him with a ferocity he never knew possible. His notebooks are there, hidden under two loose floorboards, and the walls have been painted a saturated light brown. They're cracked and it needs fixing that he can't afford right now, and the walls are thin making the noises of the town heard, but he adores the little room he's made for himself.
Here, he allows himself peace. He allows himself to not think about his mother, or school, or having to fear for his life like he does on the streets. He pretends he's the only one around, that he's all that matters, that there are no heroes or quirks. In the room he is not a ten year old quirkless child with no support, instead he is Izuku. He is himself in this room, with notebooks on heroes and hyperfixations he's had in the past, and a cd player on the stand next to the bed.
There are posters of pre-quirk bands he likes but never dares to listen to outside of the room, cds of his personal playlists and albums that he's collected over the years. He presses play on the cd player, laying down to the music playing. He can't remember what he was last listening to, considering he hasn't been here in a while, but he's pleasantly surprised with what comes on to lull him to sleep. It's sad, with a brittle voice and quiet tune, but he adores the singer.
The hotel is unprotected, and anyone could hear the music or break in, or it could be caught in a villain attack while he's asleep, but he pushes those thoughts out of his mind. It's not like anybody would notice if he were to not come back, anyways.
'You're cold on the inside,
There's a dog in your heart and it tells you to tear everything apart,
My body's covered in teeth marks, your bite's worse than your bark'