Chapter Text
With absolute precision, he packed the lacking pile of bland clothes into an equally bland duffle bag, making sure there were no creases and that there was enough space for everything else - not a centimetre more or less. He didn't like that. He didn't like it when there was too much or too little space.
The bag was large and was a light khaki colour with dark straps winding around it as though it were the only things keeping the albeit strong material together. It could quite easily handle the weight of his clothes and other trinkets.
The other trinkets were small handheld things such as complex Rubix cubes, his textbooks and oddities like pens and clips. The last thing he placed carefully at the top of the bag was a single photo frame with a yellowing picture of two young boys with the same unruly ebony-green hair and curious green eyes. They were in a dusty, grimy looking bus with blankets and boxes strewn everywhere and a single ray of sunlight filtered through a greasy window, illuminating the bus and the two occupants.
Although the photo frame was the last thing he packed, it wasn't the last thing he took with him.
He looked down fondly at a bright blue cloth which encompassed a plastic toy scalpel which had a bright orange handle. It was impractical and it was fragile but he kept it wrapped securely in the blue towel. He would often unwrap it and just rub his thumb along the length of the toy, relishing in the little nips from the softly tapered point. It reminded him of simpler, happier times.
Of times when he wasn't alone.
He smiled tightly down at the scalpel before wrapping it back up in the blue cloth and stowing it away in his coat pocket, zipping it up. He had only two things left to do before he left what he had called his house for approximately eight years.
He rolled his sleeves up around mid-wrist-elbow and washed his hand methodically under the kitchen sink. He made sure all surfaces of his hand was submerged in water and used antiseptic soap to scrub at them harshly. He made sure he got between every finger and that the digits were smothered in white soap suds.
It smelt like chemicals.
Once his hands were washed and dried, his sleeves were rolled back down and he put a small brush to his dishevelled locks, taming the wild green forest. He looked absently into the mirror as he combed through. He was average looking enough - green hair, green eyes, white complexion and a permanent expression of confused contentment.
But he wasn't average.
He wasn't normal.
A soft meow sounded from the far end of the room and he turned slowly, already knowing what it was. The neighbourhood scrounging cat sat perched upon the railing of the window bars, its thick brown fur ruffling in the wind and its deep yellow eyes blinking at the man slowly.
It almost looked like it was asking him where he was going. Why hadn't he fed him yet?
The cat didn't belong to him but instead belonged to everyone. It had been known for visiting every house around the block, mewing for food and water despite being a healthy fat size. The green-haired man knew it was illogical to feed the cat if it was being fed by everyone else but he found himself leaving cans of tuna out for it regardless.
Maybe he would make friends with it.
He regarded the brown tabby feline before looking back at the mirror and giving himself another look down. After establishing in his mind that he looked presentable, he nodded once and turned around, heading for the front door where his duffle bag was waiting patiently.
But he turned right back around and carded a hand through his green locks, messing it up from its previous immaculate state. He didn't look any worse - but he felt better somehow. His smile was more genuine now, anyway.
The world outside the screen door of his house (Which he had just closed behind him) was dreary and grey, rain spitting down from the sky and setting a thin fog low on the ground. It smelt like dirt and grass. The young man stood absently on his porch, looking up at the miserable sky, expressionless. Droplets splattered on his cheeks, rolling down his face like tears and he rose a hand to them, catching the rain in the tip of his fingers. It was cold.
The cat from before mewed again and he saw that it was still perched on the railing, rolls of fur and fat encasing the white metal bars. It was under the shelter of his house roof so its fur wasn't wet - yet it acted like it was with its distressed whines. The man paid it no mind and started his journey with the duffle bag hanging at an acceptable weight from his hand.
The rain got no worse and drizzled down on him and dampened his already messy hair - he mused only briefly that it was a smart idea that he didn't decide on keeping his hair straight; it would have been a waste of time.
His path was simple, his footsteps were methodical and his pace didn't let up, except for when he passed the threshold of a school playing field.
The grass was sodden and thick with mud but a group of children still played football, kicking the ball around the mud pit with reckless abandon, screaming at their goals and crying at their failures with mirth. The man's eyes flashed briefly with the image of a group a children running along the path in front of him, yelling their own merriment.
Among those envisioned children were two boys with messy green hair - one taller than the other.
A soft thud emanated from the ground in front of him and he saw a heavy football collide with his foot softly, recoiling backwards in a lazy roll.
He was laying there in the mud. The same mud. The same field. Different children. Different ball. Same football game.
They weren't nice. They weren't nice.
Pain. They were kicking him. They were punching him. His face was caked with mud and blood. He wasn't crying. He was confused.
They were screaming at him. They were calling him a moron. They were pointing and laughing.
He didn't know what to do. He was stuck. He was in pain. He was scared. He was confused.
Confused.
Confused.
Suddenly light. Another was there. His little brother. He was saving him. He was pushing the others away. They were stopping. Everyone was disparting. They left him there in the mud.
His brother held a hand out to him. His face was light. He was smiling. Why was he smiling?
Don't regular people frown when something traumatic happens?
Why was he smiling?
"Mister... Hey Mister!" The man's eyes flickered and he returned back to the present. The air was still heavy with rain and fog and his face was wet with more droplets. He rose a hand to his face and rubbed at the water. In front of him was a small boy with a shock of blond hair.
He looked rather gormless and sported football socks and mismatch clothing, but he had a hopeful look on his face, his eyes switching between the man and the football at his feet.
The man hesitantly pulled his foot back and kicked the ball in the child's general direction, and it rolled back right into the child's embrace. The blond gave the man a small smile before he began dribbling the ball back to his friends who were waiting anxiously to continue their game.
The green-haired man watched with emotionless eyes before his lips quirked upwards into a meaningless smile and he continued on his way. Not much longer now.
___
The airport was crowded with noisy holidaymakers and marketers and the air was thick with deceit and children's screams. The green-haired man stood in the middle of it all, not moving an inch. He wasn't so fond of the deafening noise, much less so when it was unwarranted. There was no reason for it to be as loud as it was.
He mused that even university, which had about the same amount of people roaming around as this airport, was nowhere near as loud.
He could hear the grating sound of suitcase wheels against the marble flooring, he could hear the idle chatter of those around him and he could hear the distinct sound of construction sirens. The repetitive beeping went right through his bones and churned his stomach.
With slow, yet hasty movements, he unzipped his pocket and pulled out the cloth, clutching it tightly in his hand to his chest. He could feel the outline of the toy scalpel between his fingers and he could feel his heart rate decrease with each long second.
This place was too much for him. Luckily he only needed to be here for a few more minutes. He just needed to wait for his ride. The airport from before (the one that had brought him to his airport mere minutes ago) was much less noise - almost devoid of all activity.
Well, it was a rather receding town, where he previously lived, so minimal activity in that airport was understandable. But it would have been nice to be informed of the cacophony of irritating noises.
The construction workers were currently taking down an airport sign which pointed the ways to the baggage areas and to the restaurants that provided rather unsatisfactory food. He wasn't so sure about this particular airport but he had been to enough to conclude that the majority of them did not put a lot of effort into their food service.
He didn't know why they bothered in the first place. This place was for planes, not for lunch.
The sign creaked under their weight and as they put an electric drill to it, unscrewing the metal support, it suddenly buckled and swung back on its hinges, slamming into the wall next to it. A shower of glass followed almost immediately afterwards. Falling directly onto an unsuspecting boy who toppled down, sprawling across the floor surrounded by glass shards.
Almost immediately, the entire vicinity was filled with shocked gasps and sharp intakes of breath. Almost everyone was crowding inwards, whether to help or simply feed their curiosity was up to interpretation.
"Aito! Aito!" Came the screams from two dark-skinned people. They were most probably the boy's parents and they shouldered their way through the crowd towards their son. They were greeted with a steadily growing pool of dark blood lapping around his neck and head and the father gently pulled aside the collar of his son's jacket.
He was met with slit sinew and flesh and a spurting of fresh blood as it streamed out of the young boy's neck.
The father looked around at the crowd with crazed eyes. "Somebody call 911!" He cried helplessly. The mother sat beside him, tears streaming down her face, a hand in her closely cropped black hair.
"Oh my god," she breathed in despair.
Suddenly, another man pushed through the crowd. He was clad in a grey tweed suit and had a thin suitcase in his hand. "I'm a doctor, let me take a look," he said quickly and quietly, "Let me take a look." The father hastily backed away and allowed the other man to pull back the boy's collar to see for himself.
He too was greeted with another splash of crimson which was quickly dying the boy's white shirt and was matting his frizzy brown hair.
The older man inhaled quickly and muttered with confidence, "His jugular vein's been cut," and then much louder, to everyone else in the crowd who a few had taken out their phones and were filming. "Does anyone have a clean cloth?" There was no answer except for soft muttered - nothing the doctor could understand. "Please, someone!"
The mother turned to him frantically, "I have a fresh change of clothes in my bag." The doctor nodded along to her fast words.
"That's great."
Without another word, the woman reached for her bag and pulled out a lemon yellow scarf. The father watched on in earnest as the doctor unfolded the scarf and placed it directly across the boy's throat, pressing down to stop the blood flow and to prevent any more blood loss.
The crowd was thickening and the green-haired man, the one turned off from crowds and found noise to be irritating, found himself pushing forward more and more into the crowd. He watched as the doctor pressed the cloth down. He watched as the boy refrained from moving still. His chest was stationary.
"You're killing him."
Everyone turned at the sound and saw that green-haired man standing there, twisting his hands together as he watched the scene unfold. He had blurted the words out as soon as he had realized what was going on.
The doctor shook his head vehemently. "I'm saving his life. He's bleeding out," he said pointedly. The parents beside him nodded and watched their son as he continued to bleed.
The other man shook his head, disagreeing. "You have it in the wrong place," he said simply, pointing to the scarf.
"I think I remember enough of anatomy 101 to know where the jugular vein is," the doctor retorted with annoyance.
By now, almost the entire crowd hand their phones out and were watching intently, waiting for the other man's reply. The parents had little to say. It was to be expected of - their son was dying.
"You would be in the right place if you were an adult," He answered. He pointed to the child on the ground. "He is not an adult, he is a boy, which means you're also putting pressure on his trachea which means he's not currently breathing."
The air was pungent with tension by this point. The doctor regarded him, dumbfounded, but his eyes shone slightly with little understanding.
"You have to put the pressure higher up." The man continued.
He hesitated a few moments before he approached the scene, falling down on his knees and placing his hand gently on the doctors and moving the scarf upwards, closer to the boy's chin. They both pressed down softly and the boy beneath them took a staggered breath as oxygen filled his lungs once more.
The mother released a small sound of relief whilst the father exhaled as though he had been holding his breath.
"There," the green-haired man said quickly, a small smile on his lips. Without missing a beat, his training habits came out he found his hand tracing the sides of the small boy, pressing into his ribs and his abdomen. When he came to his stomach, he was met with a fresh blood stain seeping through the boy's white shirt.
He lifted it and there, protruding from the child's stomach, was a chunk of glass, blood pouring around it in rivulets. The man looked up to the doctor.
"There's some glass." The doctor nodded. "He'll be fine," he said confidently.
The doctor eyed him curiously, as did everyone else.
"Who are you?" He asked.
The green-haired man looked up slowly and gave the other doctor a small smile.
"Hello. I'm Dr Izuku Midoriya. I'm a surgical resident at Musutafu Yuuai Hospital."