The pencil makes a soft whirring noise as it rolls across his desk. Katsuki watches it hit the spine of his math workbook and roll back to him only to flick it away again. The metal surface of the desk had been refreshingly cold against his face when he'd first let his cheek hit it, but it's warmed up now. After having spent most of the last few nights lying awake, it might have been comfortable enough to sleep on if not for the boiling rage keeping him going.
The video playing on the phone in his lap ends and an ad begins to play, some new pro's voice peppy and bright as she goes on and on about some new clothing brand. His cheek squishes uncomfortably and his tooth clacks against the desktop with the force of his scowl; he hates it when HeroTube monetizes videos like this one. He waits for the ad to run its course and jabs blindly until he manages to hit the play button.
"So this guy's been talking to this kid for, like, a suspiciously long time," the voice says. He had been right in thinking that the original video would be online without censoring. The woman's voice is much deeper without the modulator.
HeroTube watchers are eating the shit up and news stations are milking it for views since it combines their two favorite things: over the top drama and pro heroes. Katsuki has picked meticulously through each and every news article and commentary video and repost of the original video he can find, though he's not entirely sure what he's looking for. All he knows is that he's furious with what he's seen. The three new holes blown into the wall of his bedroom are testament to that.
If she wasn't so busy screaming into the phone and pacing the living room downstairs, he's pretty sure his mom would have busted the locked door down to strangle him herself for the damage. He's already deducting the cost of the replacement drywall from his allowance for the next six months. Not that it matters. Not that he cares.
The top comment on the original video is some moron waxing poetic about how handsome Ingenium looks without his hero costume on. That was hole number one. The next hole was when some shit-for-brains asshole started in on how handsome the fucking villain who took Deku and attacked Ingenium was.
The ad starts to play again. He peels his face from the desk, the chair creaking a little bit as he sits up, and brings the phone to hover mere centimeters in front of his nose. He hits play. In this video, Izuku's face is not censored. He can watch his profile and read every quiver of his lip and widening of his eyes. He can see how he wraps the massive coat tighter around him like it will protect him from the world, watches the blood drain from his face a half second before Ingenium is attacked from behind. Katsuki sees the brief spark of hope flare right before fizzling out, all the fight leaving him as he is snatched up and taken away. That was hole number three. There are scabs on his knuckles and blood dried into the lines of his palm, but he can't seem to find the energy needed to stand and wash it from his hands. All he can do is press play again and again, as though if he just watches it enough the outcome will magically change.
Katsuki doesn't get why he feels like this. Izuku hadn't been his best friend for months even before he disappeared. He had other friends back then, stronger friends who could keep up with him when they played heroes and villains and who had something to offer besides smiles and praise. They were the sort of friends who never offered a hand when he fell, because they knew their place and knew he didn't need any help. Friends who were nothing like stupid Deku, though he gets the feeling that the stupid icy-hot siblings probably would have tried some of the same shit if any of them had stuck around long enough.
As it stands, he doesn't have a best friend at all anymore. It's not worth it. All the other kids his age are petty and shortsighted. They are nothing more than stepping stones on his way to the top, just like Izuku was supposed to have been.
He gets angry when he thinks about all the promises Izuku had made to him, back when they were younger and still best friends. He had held out his hand and smiled and said they would make it to the top together. He had promised that he would help Katsuki rise to the number one hero spot, and that he would be there as his sidekick, his number two, and Katsuki is furious that he lied. It's better to just not think about Izuku at all, and for the last few years it has been working. He had managed to push Deku to the back of his mind and could finally walk past the park without his throat closing up. Whenever his mom dragged him to Aunty Inko's house, he'd do his best to ignore the way her eyes would linger on his face because he could just tell she wasn't really looking at him; all she was seeing were the days when he and Izuku would play together. Despite that, she and his mom had begun laughing with each other again.
Things had finally been getting easier. People had finally begun moving on. Aunty had taken Izuku's picture off the living room wall. There was no longer an empty desk in his classroom. People stopped whispering about the boy who went missing from the park.
There was a part of him that felt angry about that. He wanted to forget in order to push away the pain in his lungs, to leave Deku in the past until he was a pro hero who could hunt down the person who made him disappear and kill them himself. He just knows that revenge will make him feel better. The fact that other people are forgetting Izuku is infuriating, but with all the time that's gone by things have finally started getting back to something like normalcy and he was prepared to let those assholes forget him so he can move on, too.
But now Deku's shown his face again without having the fucking decency to actually come home, and he's fucked everything up all over again.
Katsuki's hands tremble as he jabs the play button, but the second that Deku's face appears in focus on the screen he lets out a strangled scream and throws the phone across the room. His mom yells something from downstairs but her voice is muffled and he can't make out the words. He roars back anyways, wordless and raw, and isn't sure how to feel when he hears nothing in response.
The math textbook still sits accusingly on his desk, homework waiting to be done. He can't be the best if his grades begin to slip, and there's no way in hell that he's going to let Deku of all people be the reason he doesn't make it to the top. With a ferocity that threatens to tear the book in half, he flips it open and glares at the page, watching the numbers swim before his eyes. He only manages to answer three questions before he finds his attention wavering, eyes drifting towards the closet as the pencil stills against the paper. Seconds tick by before he snarls and slams the textbook shut with far more violence than the situation calls for, knowing that he won't be able to focus until he's gotten this out of his head.
Double checking that his bedroom door is locked, Katsuki stomps over to the closet and flings it open. Taped to the inside of the closet door and hidden away from his parents' prying eyes is Izuku's missing poster, back when he was four and his smile was blinding. Right next to it is the last group photo he had taken with the Todoroki kids, Fuyumi sitting primly on the edge of Aunty Inko's beaten up couch while the four boys around her are a mess of slightly blurred motion as a fight broke out. A picture of him, Tsubasa, Yota, and Deku from before Katsuki had gotten his quirk and Deku didn't is pinned beneath it. Deku is smiling shyly towards the camera, Katsuki's arm slung across his shoulders and Yota pressed in close on his other side, long fingers bent and caught mid-wave. Tsubasa has a wing spread behind them, the thin skin stretched and the spider web of veins catching the sunlight that's shining brightly behind them. They look happy, and it makes his stomach churn.
He stares at the three pictures, heart pounding in his chest and sweat collecting on his palms. He wipes them absentmindedly against his pant legs.
Ever since the fire, Shoto, Fuyumi, and Natsuo are only allowed to use their phones for 15 minutes once a week. They usually use that time to check in, sending a quick text to Aunty Inko or Katsuki to say they're okay, but Katsuki isn't allowed to say anything back in case their father finds out they're texting people they shouldn't be. Apparently anything having to do with Katsuki or Aunty has been banned in their stupid shitty house by their stupid shitty dad.
They are all tight lipped about their home situation and who their dad really is, but he's scoured the internet and even though their last name isn't really all that unique, he hasn't been able to find any trace of the right Todoroki family. In an age where most parents start their kid's life by announcing their existence online before they're even born, that's pretty much unheard of for the average person, which tells him that their dad is either a hero or a villain; no one else would bother having their children scrubbed from the internet. He's not sure which option is worse, but either way he is already making plans for the future that involve wiping the old man off the face of the earth.
Sometimes Shoto sends a selfie along with his texts and Katsuki has seen the bruises and burns and scrapes that litter his skin every so often. He says they're from training and Katsuki hasn't asked about it – hasn't been allowed to – but seeing them makes something ignite in his gut and on his palms.
None of them ever say anything about Touya, but it doesn't matter because Katsuki is too scared to ask. He doesn't know what he would say, anyways. He hasn't had to deal with death like that. Absolute and final. Deku's disappearance was always so uncertain, hanging in the air all around them like a nebulous cloud, until just a few days ago when it was confirmed that he was definitely still alive. Hope still lives when it comes to him despite how he haunts their lives like a ghost.
Touya, however, is gone. Absolutely and without a doubt. Katsuki had heard his mom whispering away with Aunty Inko about how the fire had destroyed everything, about how the body had been practically cremated by his own unstable quirk, how there had been nothing but splintered bone left. He stares at the tiny explosions sparking in his palms before wiping the sweat away again.
Unlike Deku and Touya, Tsubasa hasn't been reported missing or anything like that. He was just there one day, gone the next. When Katsuki had gone to his house to demand that he come out to play, the whole place had been empty. It looked like his family had moved in a hurry, and he knew for a fact Tsubasa would have mentioned something if he knew they were planning on leaving. It didn't sit right with him.
No matter how hard he tries, he can't stop thinking about them.
Deku.
Shoto and Touya and Fuyumi and Natsuo and their mom.
Tsubasa and the rest of his family.
All of them disappeared or dead or out of his reach in some other way. Katsuki feels itchy as he thinks about it, heat crawling up the back of his neck and sweat gathering beneath his shirt collar. He tears his eyes away from the pictures and back towards his desk, where his math homework is waiting for him. He's always been top of his class, even in the advanced ones, and he's always been quick to wrap his head around new concepts. They've been studying fractions, and there's one lesson he just can't seem to get out of his head.
The common denominator in all these weird disappearances is him.
He doesn't tell mom, because then she'd just tell her therapist friend and they'd try to get him to go again, which would be a stupid waste of time because he already knows that she would say he's just imagining things. Projecting. Manifesting. Letting guilt and loss eat him alive and burn him up inside, or some other dumb bullshit mumbo jumbo.
The thing is, he knows that his thoughts are ridiculous. Aunty Inko knew Deku and the Todoroki's and Tsubasa, and so did his mom and dad and a bunch of other people. There's no real reason for him to feel like this is his fault, but he just can't seem to shake the feeling that the blame must be his, and it weighs upon his shoulders more and more with each reminder of them.
He groans and buries his face in his hands, eyes squeezed so tightly shut that explosions of blue and red dance in the black behind his eyelids.
"Fucking stupid," he mumbles, words trapped beneath his hands. His mind and his feelings are both betraying him with these ridiculous thoughts and it makes him ANGRY. He breathes deeply, trying to get a handle on himself before he can blow yet another hole in the wall and tries to focus on what's going on around him like his dad sometimes tells him to do when he's so angry that he can only see red.
The slightest smell of curry lingers in the air, sharp enough to burn in the back of his throat. The room feels stuffy and hot, though whenever the wind rattles the windowpane he can feel the tickle of a cool breeze against the back of his neck. He can hear the shower on the first floor running, which means that his mom is getting ready for bed and his dad is probably already in their room with the tv on, watching the news or whatever it is that grown ups do in the evenings.
Once the wall is out of imminent danger, Katsuki slams the closet door shut. Something falls from one of the shelves with a suspiciously glass-breaking sort of sound. He has no idea what that could possibly be, and he's not really in the mood to deal with it right now. If anything, he would love to slam the door again just for the joy of destroying something else. However, his allowance is already in the danger zone and his mom's definitely gonna be pissed when she sees the wall so he needs to find something else to do that won't cause her to ground him for a month.
He doesn't technically have a bedtime since his parents know he's always in bed by 8:30, and the analog clock sitting on his bedside table declares the time to be just barely 9:30 in bright red and yellow and blue. It was a gift Katsuki had given Izuku for his third birthday, but after he'd been gone two years Aunty had given it back and said that he should have it. He doesn't know why she'd thought that, and when she'd handed it to him he hadn't known how to say no. Even now, he doesn't know why he hasn't just thrown it away or at least hidden it in a drawer where he can't see it.
He turns away from the useless thing with a scowl, hands shoved deep in his pockets to physically restrain himself from blowing up any more of the room. If he stays cooped up here another minute, he's pretty sure not even that will stop him. Careful not to make a sound, he creeps into the hall and shuts the bedroom door behind him. He avoids the two creaky steps on the way down the stairs and manages to make it to the front door without alerting his parents.
Slipping on his shoes and shoving his house key deep into his pocket, he listens for the sound of running water, just to make sure his mom is still busy. She loves her long showers, so she might not even know he's gone as long as he doesn't stay out too long. It's not like he's really going to go anywhere; he just needs to be out of the house for a little while. Maybe he'll take a walk down to the park. Maybe he'll blow up a few of the trees bordering the playground and give the creeps who hang around waiting to snatch kids up a few less hiding places. Maybe, if he's lucky, some creep will try it on him and he'll have an excuse to blast them to hell and back.
It takes everything in him not to slam the door on his way out of the house. He's not used to having to stay quiet when he's leaving; usually he just yells at his mom that he's going out and she screams at him not to leave without doing his chores, and he screams back that he's already done them, which she would know if she bothered to actually pay attention, and then she yells at him for being disrespectful and to remind him to be back before dinner, and on and on until he gets tired of it and slams the door in her face. It feels strange to disappear without a sound.
His breath fogs in the night air as he takes his first step onto the walkway outside their front door and he thinks briefly that he probably should have grabbed a coat. The streetlights that line their quiet road don't cast enough light to chase away the overwhelming mid-winter darkness, but he doesn't let that scare him. The fire burning low and hot in his gut propels him forward, and tinges the monochrome night red around the edges. He needs to do something to relieve the heaviness clinging to his shoulders and the tightness in his chest and the fire scorching away at his insides or else he might just tear the house down around their ears for lack of any other way to get rid of the terrible feelings.
Not knowing what else to do, he takes off running into the night and lets the feeling of it swallow him as he tries to convince himself that the only things that matter are the pavement beneath his feet and the way every one of his breaths echo through the empty streets. After a while he stops noticing the cold, though his nose keeps running and the tips of his ears have gone numb. The fire that has been tearing through his insides ever since that video started playing on all the news stations begins to move away from his belly and throat, migrating instead towards his legs as he forces himself to push onwards and his lungs as he does his best to keep himself from heaving with every breath. The pain is more tolerable this way, but his palms still itch with the need to tear, explode, destroy. He just knows that it will make him feel better. Blowing up enough shit will cure him of this gross feeling that clings to him like a second skin and makes him think too hard about too many things (and too many people).
He wanders the streets until he runs out of pavement, weather worn steps leading him down to sand that looks white only beneath the moonlight. The sound of waves crashing against the sand seems muffled and distant beneath the pounding of blood in his head, but he can tell it must be deafeningly loud regardless. He turns on the spot, surveying the garbage-strewn beach with a critical eye and taking in the massive piles of junk. As his heart rate and breathing slows, the cold begins to make itself known, but sweat is still gathered on his palms and beneath the collar of his shirt from his long run. Controlled explosions spark in his palms, warming his hands. His grin turns feral as he realizes that this place is exactly what he's been looking for.
.
The night is quieter than anything he's ever experienced. He's never been outside of the city before, not even when Chizome had stolen him and hidden him away where nobody could ever find him, but now he is secluded in this old boarded up house with nothing but trees around it as far as the eye can see. The only sounds are the soft creaking of aged wood beneath his feet as he aimlessly wanders the rooms, finding most of them empty of everything but dust. One room has their packs tossed carelessly into the corner and has been swept clean from the first couple of days in this new place when they rolled their sleeping mats out at night and huddled together against the winter chill. Izuku slept with his back pressed to Chizome, soaking up his warmth while stubbornly refusing to face him head on. He has refused to meet the man's searching gaze since the moment they arrived and the lock turned in the door with a terrible sense of finality.
After those first days, once he was sure that Izuku wasn't going to do something stupid if left unattended, Chizome left, claiming he had to find work so he could buy supplies for them to live there comfortably. Izuku wondered if he was telling the truth or if he was just off to burn down another building or kill another high schooler. Even so, he still lingered at the door once it closed behind the man, listening to the crunch crunch crunch of heavy boots over dead grass as he walked away. He had tried the doorknob, disappointed but not surprised to find it locked from the outside, just like it always used to be.
Wherever the car is parked, it's far enough away that Izuku doesn't hear the roar of the engine whenever it starts. That tells him that he won't know when Chizome is coming or going, or even if he's truly left in the first place. Maybe this is all a test. Maybe, if he behaves and does a good job while his mentor is gone, they'll be able to just go back to the way things were before. He'll throw away Ingenium's coat and they can pretend like it never even happened.
He spends the next few days alone, walking from room to room, listening to the creaking of the floorboards with every step and creating a mental map of the quietest routes through the house. His breaths are too loud. The blood rushing in his ears with every pump of his heart feels deafening. When he gets bored of his pacing he unrolls his sleeping mat and he sits and he waits and he waits and he waits. He does not cry or beg; he has long since learned that no one is listening and no one cares to hear either.
There is no notebook. No electronics. No villains to fight or people to protect. Nothing to occupy his time except the training equipment, still packed away in its duffle bag in the corner of the room. No matter how long he stares at it or how bored he gets, he can't find the motivation needed to unpack it. When the stillness gets to be too much and the thoughts chasing each other in circles through his mind turn too sour to bear, Izuku stands and kicks the pile of blankets aside.
He returns to his routine of idly pacing room to room, listening to the creaks of his steps getting steadily quieter with each rotation as he figures out how to move across the old wooden floorboards. He presses his palms to the dirty window and tries to open it to let in the cold wind. He just wants to air the place out so it can smell like something not long abandoned. Outside there is nothing but a field of brown grass ringed by barren trees. It feels strange to finally have a window only for this to be the view.
The window does not move no matter how hard he tries. After a few fruitless moments of struggling he moves to the next room, each step leaving another mark in the dust that coats the floor. He presses his palms to the next window and checks if this one opens, feeling nothing at all when it doesn't budge, and moves to the next one to repeat the action until he's made his rounds through the whole house. There's a trail of hand-shaped smudges in his wake, marking his intentions more starkly than the dusty footprints ever could.
He goes back to his sleeping mat and lays down for a while, counting the cracks in the ceiling. When the quiet gets too oppressive and his thoughts get too loud, he stands and begins his exploration anew with a goal in mind. With a more thorough search he stumbles upon a broom tucked into the recesses of a closet, spiderwebs in the bristles and cracks in the wooden handle. He sweeps away the evidence of his steps through the house. Then he takes his All Might hoodie, the gift from Chizome on his first birthday in this new life, now stained with blood and filth, and he uses it to wipe away his handprints from the windows.
He continues to pace even as his mind cycles through a hundred different thoughts, each one fleeting and only half formed. He listens as the wind rattles the windows and shivers as the draft hits him, pulling Ingenium's massive coat tighter around himself and reveling in the clean laundry scent that still lingers beneath the smell of smoke and rot. It helps, but is not quite enough.
A blanket, wrapped tight around his shoulders and trailing behind him like a cape, joins his endless loop around the house. If he listens carefully, he can pick out small sounds he hadn't noticed before. The country-side had seemed silent at first, but all the small noises now seem overwhelming: the rustles of wind through the trees, the chirps of birds still clinging stubbornly to barren branches, and the whisper of animals moving through the underbrush all just remind him that he is now in a place that is nothing like he's known before, far away from home. He wishes for the sound of cars, a constant dull roaring like how he imagines the ocean might sound, interspersed with the occasional screech of brakes and angry yells. He didn't know he would miss that sound.
When darkness creeps in, he huddles by the door and tries not to imagine monsters hiding in the corners of every room with their glowing orange eyes and clawed hands, just waiting for him to let his guard down so they can leap out and attack him. He holds his breath, listening for any sound of life, and releases it with great heaving gasps once he is convinced he is alone.
He's used to being alone. It stopped being scary a long time ago.
He pulls the blanket tighter, shoulders hunched against the cold, and squeezes his eyes shut so he doesn't have to face the absolute black of the night. There are no more headlights or streetlights or flashing billboards and neon signs left to slip their tender light between the cracks in the boards over his window, just bright enough to chase away his fear of the dark. If he closes his eyes against this awful darkness and if he tries hard enough, he thinks he can remember a hand with painted pink nails switching on an All Might nightlight, and a soft voice that has no sound in his memory telling him to sleep tight. He holds onto that fragment of a memory, and it's almost enough to loosen the ball of anxiety that has been building itself bigger and bigger within his chest.
As long as he keeps his eyes shut, he can almost see All Might's glowing smile and those pale pink nails keeping him company. There's no need to face a reality where he is alone and cold, helpless and trapped once again. He'll be okay.
He's used to being alone, after all.
He's okay.
I am back! Thank you all for the lovely comments and well wishes both! I am now happily married and ready to jump back into our regularly scheduled nerdom. I hope you enjoyed the chapter. ^_^
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As always, I owe it all to my wonderful betas, TheFoxyPirateFox and Shaegal.
See you next time!