Chapter Text
It was time for my first day at UA High School.
I was jittery with nerves, tugging at my hair, wobbling at the knees, and the eggs on my plate were beginning to resemble mush from all the poking and prodding.
In simpler terms, I'm a wreck. And from the glances the kind man kept shooting me, I looked about as good as I felt.
I tried to steady myself, prepare myself, relieve a bit of my encroaching anxiety. I focused on the sensation of the cold and cheap plastic counter biting into my skinny wrists, of the way my collar slightly chaffed at the back of my neck because the tag was poking out, on the way the light filtered through the windows that morning, turning the dull tile floors into something slightly gold, on how I could hear the cats talking at each other a few rooms away . . . focus on anything but the pressing matter of school coming into session in a few hours.
"Stray." Shouta's eyes pinned me like a bug on a corkboard. His discerning gaze was as alarming as it was reassuring and familiar. At least I stopped fidgetting now that I had someone's direct gaze on me.
"It'll be fine."
And if Shouta says it, it must be true.
Biting my lip I turn my face down, raising a hand and tugging at my hair, the motion comforting in a way rocking was comforting to a child.
"It-it . . ." I didn't have the words, but Shouta seemed to understand anyway. He was great like that.
"Things may be hard in the beginning, but the first day is always the worst," Shouta says, scraping a last bite of food off his plate and into his mouth.
"Yeah," I agree weakly, trying to sound convincing. Shouta was kind enough to not refute the obvious hypocrisy in my tone.
Shouta makes a gesture to my plate with a flip of his hand. "Eat. When you're done, I have something to show you. To give you."
To give me? Curiosity fills me up, almost enough to completely edge out the anxiety. It was even enough to help me scarf down some more food as I rushed to find out what Shouta has for me.
The kind man always gave me good things. A candy, a new shirt or hoodie, a new notebook or some pens-- they were always thoughtful gifts when Shouta said he had something to give me.
Standing up fast, I dump my plate into the sink-- gently-- letting some water rush over it briefly before turning on a socked heal to stare eagerly at Shouta, eyes already wide and waiting. Shouta huffs at the look buts stands as well, having already put his dish in the sink while I was scarfing down my first meal of the day.
Shouta, as he turns to lead the way, has a look in his eye. I have come to recognize the look during our time together. It was a look I welcomed. One of soft eagerness and giving. It was the look he wore, subtly like an underskin, when he wanted to get a positive reaction from me-- be that by letting me have that one extra scoop of ice cream or by giving me a gift.
There was something I might identify as different about the look today though. More intense, more important. The gaze held more levity, but at the same time, it held a more rapt focus.
It gave me the feeling that whatever the gift was to be, it would be something to remember.
We are heading down the hall, the one that leads to the bedrooms, closet, and bathroom. Shouta stopped in front of the spare bedroom, boards creaking beneath his feet. It's the room that held some of the extra cat toys and scratching posts from hell.
Shouta's hand circled around the bronze metal knob of the door.
There is a pause, he seems to contemplate the weight of his own actions, and then he is opening the door. It must be worth the risks he was weighing.
The room itself had never been very special. Drab, off-white walls, the scratching posts stuck in a corner of the room, the carpet looking just as old in here as the rest of the apartment. And that hadn't changed (with the exception of the removed cat toys and posts) when Shouta opened the door. There was still the same old yellow curtains over the small window and the mirror on the sliding closet door still had a crack running diagonally across it. The water stain on the ceiling was still ugly as ever and the fake-wood ceiling fan was still missing half of one of its three blades, whistling funkily as it spun around it a tottering circle. Shouta said it didn't go any faster, and that if it did, that fan would probably fall right off the ceiling. I agreed.
But, it had also changed, and in all the best ways.
My heart stopped and I had to reach up a hand and press it over my chest to check it was still beating. I had to lift my shaking hand up to massage my starry eyes, to make sure what I saw wasn't a hallucination.
The room, a decent size, had been so empty and large before. Now, filling the space were items that I could barely bring myself to name.
A bed, covered in white sheets and a black quilt with yellow stripes, had been set snuggly into the corner of the room where the posts used to be, put up on a cheap metal bed frame with a fake wooden headboard. Situated right next to it was a dainty looking bedside table with a yellow lamp and what I could tell was a Present Mic themed alarm clock and, below that on the second level of the nightstand, a Present Mic themed radio.
Across from the bed, not very large and only with three drawers, was a dresser. I could tell it was old in that the blue paint was slightly flaking, and the surface was scuffed and one of the handles didn't hang quite right. I think it would be an accurate guess to say that it had seen many previous owners.
The walls, still that dreadful off-white, were now covered in posters. Present Mic, Midnight, Recovery Girl-- and many other heroes, they posed dramatically on his walls with their blinding grins and bright colours. The dead room glowed with personality.
But, while that was all amazing, that wasn't what caught Izuku's true attention.
No, two other things are what called his eyes so strongly.
A photo, framed cheaply in black plastic, is a 5x7 that is placed on top of the dresser. I was curled up in my blanket pile, head resting on a worn pink throw pillow, and beside me crouched the kind man, Hizashi, and Nemuri. They grinned at the camera that Nemuri had extended from herself to catch all of them as they beamed into the lens. Even Shouta, tired though it was, smiled. So small, it could barely be called a smile, but having known him for so long now, I could recognize it immediately.
The kind man had smiled for me.
I turned away before I started to tear up, turning to look at the last thing that had caught my attention.
A pair of sneakers had been put down on the ground at the foot of the new bed. Bright red, they looked to be exact replicas of the old battered ones I wore now. My shoes could barely be called shoes anymore, falling apart at the seams, made more of duct tape and prayers than faux leather at this point. The laces of them are frayed completely, the ones on the left shoes permanently knotted together in an attempt to keep them whole.
The ones on the floor weren't anything like this.
Picking them up, I handled them like the most precious cargo. The rubber soles are rough and unweathered against my hands, the bright red leather stiff and unbroken in. The clear plastic aglets at the end of the shoelaces are still present, shiny and smooth. The tongue of the shoe is still puffed and full, not yet squashed flat from use. Everything about them was so brilliantly new and clean. I couldn't help but run my hand over the tiny holes that dotted the top of the shoe-- breathing holes, so air could circulate, I think I remember reading.
Turning up my head, I met the waiting eyes of the kind man, their gaze gently inquisitive, waiting for a verdict I couldn't help but think was far too obvious.
"Thank you . . ." I say.
And then I was crying. Blubbering tears that made my cheeks red, made my eyelashes stick together, and made my nose clog up.
Hugging the shoes close to my chest, the rubber digging into my ribs uncomfortably, I babbled out again past the tears and the overwhelmed sobs of pure joy.
"Thank you!"
The comforting arm that went across my shoulder was more than I could ever ask for. It was more was than I ever realized I had wanted.
I'm home, and that really hadn't hit until now.
: : : :
The comfort of having such a permanent place with Shouta-- something more than papers or words-- was a welcome warmth to store in the back of his mind as I prepared myself mentally on the way to my first day of school.
It wasn't enough to quell all the anxiety though. I could still feel the building tension in my chest and shoulders that forwarned a day full of stiff movements, awkward smiles, and stilted breathing.
But I would get through it.
The kind man had left me to go through the front entrance on my own, opting to take a side door that was closely connected to the teachers' lounge. ("It'll be fine, Stray. You'll be fine.") So I was left to bite my lip and pull my hair as I tried to find my way through the giant maze of a school.
It was so needlessly big.
Only after several hapless minutes of wandering and trying to find a school map posted somewhere did I finally cave and ask an upperclassman for directions-- stuttering all the while and turning red as a firecracker.
At least they had the decency not to mention it, patting me on the shoulder and pointing the way kindly.
It's what led me to nervously gnawing on a knuckle and tugging at my innocent curls of hair as I stood in front of Class 1-A's door.
A list of possibilities ran rapid-fire through my head-- of every way this could go wrong. Of every way, I could mess it up. Of every way, I could be reduced to the same sad child of so many years ago . . .
But . . .
I had my new family. That I love more than the world and that I know loves me back.
And because I had them, everything would be ok.
Taking a deep breath, I pulled open the door and stepped inside the chattering classroom.
"DEKU?!"
Of course, that would be too easy.
The End.