Meanwhile as Hawks was mentally celebrated in his head, Izuku who dashed away and hid himself away in a bathroom stall and now held a hand over his mouth in an effort to muffle his choked sobs.
He was failing.
But that hardly mattered to him as wept curled up in the stall, a picture pressed almost painfully to his chest and further protected by both of his legs, what with both of his knees also pressed tightly against his body with how he was sitting.
Was this an overreaction?
Perhaps.
Did Izuku care?
Not even a little.
Because after bottling up his emotions for so many years now, Izuku should be allowed to have just one moment in private to just let the dam burst at the seams right?
Probably, though it would be very hard to clean up after it and fix the dam to what it once was before it broke.
So, in a moment that was probably long overdue if Izuku was being cruelly honest with himself, Izuku let himself silently wail as he was overwhelmed by all of the emotions that just kept hitting him over and over today.
Izuku had been sitting on pins and needles ever since Nezu informed him last minute about Kayama-San unfortunately waking up sick with food poisoning and that he'd have to take over as the umpire.
He dreaded the idea but understood why Nezu had to do it. Almost all of the other teachers were already busy with their own jobs and him taking over would cause the least amount of trouble in the grand scheme of things.
It didn't make Izuku want to throw up any less from his nerves at being on stage for the whole world though.
Izuku tried hard to remind himself that it would just be another layer of protection against All For One as he paced in his shared office with Riya and Mido this morning.
Both of them had offered to go in his place once they saw how shaken he was over this, but Izuku couldn't do that to them.
Riya was shaking at the thought and Izuku caught the way that Mido's hands twitched like he was holding back from trembling himself that he knew they were just as terrified of doing this as he was.
It was very sweet of them to offer though, and they insisted that he could call them and tap out if it got too much for him.
An offer that Izuku paradoxically relieved by and hated himself for not taking once he was revealed as the umpire to the crowd.
Izuku had long since stopped kidding himself when it came to being accepted as a two-toes by others.
The fact he was not, was well beyond rubbed into his face and the especially wicked people left more than salt in his wounds.
But there was a tiny piece of him that stubbornly hung on to the idea of being a hero one day, a real one with a license and everything, also tightly held onto the idea that maybe he just was with the wrong people and that people couldn't really hate him that universally because he was a two-toes.
Then for the first time Izuku could ever recall in his entire life the crowd of the sports festival fell dead silent without the use of a quirk and... stared at him.
They just... looked at him.
Hundreds of heroes from all over the country, thousands more civilians from all walks of life and even people from all across the globe.
And they all looked at him like his teachers used to... sneered at him like his classmates once did, back when he was still in school at least.
Izuku was fairly certain that he'd developed a thick skin to this treatment, he joked about it more than once.
He was a two-toes after all.
But even he couldn't lie to himself that something in him just... broke when he went out there on that stage and couldn't see one person out there that accepted him being there, everyone he didn't know clearly didn't like him for what he was born being.
His students would be utterly heartbroken if he started crying on stage and with his enemies out there and no doubt watching his every move Izuku knew he couldn't show even a moment of weakness.
So he fell back on old habits and blocked it all out for the sake of his students.
Choosing to look towards where his friends were sitting and then over to the commenter booth where Yamada-San and Takami-San sat before picturing his mom, auntie and uncle all cheering him on where they sat at home.
Then once he had a level of calm he spoke and motioned for Haku-San to come on stage with him.
And was subsequently struck by the second emotional curve ball of the day as Haku-San, a very sweet and excitable girl, suddenly turned on the crowd and bit them.
Hard.
Izuku could only watch on in utter disbelief as Haku tore into the heroes that she was supposed to be trying to impress, risking her entire career as a hero by snapping at them and further going on to swear she wouldn't use her quirk at all on one of the most important days in her life.
All for him.
Because she refused to just stand by and watch as the crowd around them wouldn't give him his due and was willing to risk it all just to protest on his behalf.
It wasn't the first time a student had done so for him, many of his students would go to war for him against All For One, but that was because they lived in the districts.
Haku lived in an entirely different world compared to most of his students and yet here she was, just as willing as any other of his students to throw everything she had been working for away on a whim for him.
Izuku couldn't find the words to even describe what that was like.
Then if that wasn't overwhelming enough, the rest of the students began to cheer for Haku and her speech, clapping for her and supporting her words.
And as Izuku looked over the groups of students he didn't see one face that didn't burn with indignant fury or determination gleaming in the students eyes.
A suffocating lump formed in his throat as he remembered it.
Even now an hour later Izuku could hardly wrap his head around it all.
That each and every single student from the first year was angry for him and were banding together against the heroes they were meant to be looking up to.
He had only been an assistant teacher here for one month, barely that long, and he hadn't even spoken to quarter of the students for this year, much less seen them in person before now.
And yet in some hardly believable moment, each and every one of them banded together under him and were ready to spit in the face of all of the heroes that came today.
Some of which went so far as to not use their quirks even if it hurt them in the rankings just to take up the pledge to show them what a two-toes was capable of and defend him.
It just... it was completely surreal.
Izuku had no idea how in the world he didn't break down on the stage then and there.
But in some kind of miracle he didn't and continued on as the umpire almost completely dry eyed.
Today still wasn't done hitting him with an emotional payload of a supernova exploding though.
Because a couple of minutes ago he ran into Takami-San in the halls.
Izuku had froze on the spot, his mind torn between going up to him and running away so he didn't have to face him and do something stupid, like reveal their secret meetings when Takami-San's wings were chalk full of listening devices attached to him.
In the end Takami-San had made the choice for him as the guy and all but ran over to him with his eyes constantly cycling between different emotions himself.
Izuku's first thought was that perhaps that Takami-San had a mission to get close to him but the desperate look Takami-San's eyes tugged at his heart in all of the wrong ways so Izuku couldn't react completely cleanly in the moment.
Only for Takami-San to seemingly crumble as fear instead took hold of Takami-San's eyes, making Izuku realize that even if Takami-San was on mission it wasn't the main thing he was worried about and he'd completely misread Takami-San's desperation to see him.
He was shocked but let his mask slip off and offered his hand to Takami-San and felt it as Takami-San gave him something secretly while they had a silent conversation.
Promises to meet later as they did once before he got sent away by the commission.
Izuku had gotten away as soon as he could and waited until he was all alone to see just what Takami-San gave him that was so important that he risked his life just to sneak it by secretly.
Which was the paper he now had clutched to his chest.
It was a photo of his two favorite heroes.
It was blurry, yes, but the two people in it were distinct enough for him to identify one as Aizawa-San and the other as Takami-San. A picture was likely taken during the mall attack that Masao-San told him about.
And honestly, that would have been more than enough of a gift from Takami-San, but it wasn't just that the picture also had two things drawn on it.
One was Eraserhead written in one corner in what he recognized as being in Aizawa-San's typical style from the documents he skimmed through.
Which probably would make this one of the rarest pieces of hero merchandise to ever exist for Eraserhead.
But then there was the other thing written on the paper.
For my best friend Zuri
Tweety3
And reading that had finally broken the camel's back and tears finally started rolling down his cheeks as he broke down.
Takami-San saw him as his best friend?
Sure, heroes often wrote 'to my good friend' so-and-so, or 'to my dear friend' blank on autographs.
But this wasn't just an autograph.
This was a secret thing that Takami-San likely agonized over for who knows how long after he got it for him and wrote that just for him and him alone since it wasn't likely that Takami-San thought their real connection could ever be shown.
And what did Takami-San choose to say?
That he was Takami-San's best friend.
This fact made his heart wrench in his chest aching ever so much as well as made him overjoyed.
He was someone's best friend, someone as amazing as Takami-San thought that Izuku was his best friend, something he never would have thought possible.
But then there was the flipside to this knowledge that caused his chest to ache.
Because the only reason he was Takami-San's best friend was the man's horrid circumstances.
Takami-San was bought as a child and spent most of his life crushed by whatever pressures the commission forcefully placed on him for over a decade, the only people he had interacted with before shaming him for his baser needs and warping him into the hero 'Hawks'.
Izuku really didn't think he was the first person to be kind to Takami-San, but he couldn't say he wasn't for certain, and if he was...
Izuku didn't let himself finish that thought.
Shaking his head Izuku tried to get his breathing back in order to calm himself down.
It took him a few minutes until he could wipe away his tears, a weight of sorts having been lifted from his shoulders.
Having reeled himself in, Izuku carefully placed the picture away in his pocket and exited the stall to rinse his face with some water to get rid of the tear tracks on his cheeks, then looked at himself.
His nose scrunched up when he saw his puffy red eyes and took out some makeup to cover up, he normally wouldn't since his students were so used to it, but not the one's here at U.A. and he didn't want anyone to think he was crying since people might come up with crazy reasons for it.
Especially Takami-San, wouldn't want to worry the man over something like this.
Once he was done and fully cleaned his hands of the makeup Izuku lightly slapped his cheeks and took one last breath before he headed out.
Ready to face the crowd and the world once more.
200 chapters, quite the milestone.
Unfortunately I'm going to have to take a tempory hiatus, RL is getting a bit busy with me getting a 'promotion' at work which requires training, and will only get busier during the holidays.
So I'll be skipping over December for small break to keep from burning out that I'm sure my beta will probably appreciate as well.
But I'll be posting like usually in Januray afterwards.
Apologizes for any disappointment over this, hope you all will have a good December and a happy new year.