Chapter Text
Izuku Midoriya wasn't a coward.
He was many things, but a coward was not one of them.
Even when he was a blubbering, incoherent mess choking on every stuttered word and plea. When his small frame was trembling like an earthquake exploding along each cracked rib.
When Izuku always found himself standing between perceived enemies and whatever pathetic charity case he deemed worthy of the inevitable bruises and spilled blood. It never mattered that they’d turn on him the first moment they were able and spat on all his pointless efforts.
Even when he was beaten into the ground, body curled around itself to hide from the punches and kicks and quirks, he never knew how to give up and stay down.
He was a useless crybaby chasing fruitless dreams far beyond his reach, but he was never a coward.
So when Katsuki heard the news that Izuku Midoriya—Deku, that damned Deku —was dead, he didn't believe it.
There were always so many whispers trailing in that nerd’s shadow: the hushed, sickly sympathetic murmurs, the taunts clawing at his heels, the snickers and the harsh, grating laughter and the cruel jokes just within earshot.
This time they were whispering about the roof of their middle school building.
That Izuku had jumped—just like the little four-year-old version of him had jumped off the swings, bright red shoes blocking out the sun as he let go, as he tried to fly.
He fell.
He always fell, gravity stealing the flight out of imaginary wings and grounded the hopes that one day, maybe, he’d stop falling and begin something new.
They said he fell that day too, and Katsuki was waiting for the punchline of their terrible joke. Waiting for someone to cackle and recount every tear Deku had cried as he stumbled away. Waiting for Deku himself to pop six feet out of his hiding place: laughing, smiling, alive.
Heartless pranks happened all the time.
Misunderstandings happened all the time.
So Katsuki waited for the punchline.
But there was only a quiet funeral with a closed casket.
Izuku’s mother, Auntie Inko, was sobbing beside him, face buried in shaking hands, but the truth refused to settle home in between his ribs. It just lingered helplessly in the air like the scent of those stupid spider lilies their classmates left on his desk the whole week before the announcement.
Deku was determined to achieve his dream, eyes stubbornly set on this impossible goal. Nothing could ever stop him when he got like that.
So tell him how it was possible.
How could anyone expect Katsuki to just accept that Izuku Midoriya would abandon everything at the teetering, rocky edge? Like his dreams were fleeting thoughts discarded like nothing, like trash instead of something he had spent his entire life sprinting breathlessly towards?
He watched as Deku’s body was lowered into the ground, heard the creaking of the pulleys like the rusted, clinking chains of that old swing at the playground.
Handfuls of dirt, then shovels full were piled onto a silent coffin, but there still wasn’t a punchline.
Katsuki stood before the loose dirt; a harsh, dull gray gravestone etched with his childhood friend's name glimmered in the cool, autumn sunlight. There was nothing special about the grave compared to the others around it. It was just another chunk of carved stone hammered into the ground, etched with pretty words to comfort the living.
It only happened to be newer than the rest of them, a bit shinier, not yet worn by time.
It wouldn’t last long though. Soon it would match all the others, and maybe one day, Katsuki wouldn’t be able to recognize it, to pick it out of the crowd.
They said that Izuku Midoriya was obviously depressed, that something was wrong with his mind. He was isolated from his peers, a loner, antisocial.
They said he must have been fighting a long, treacherous battle all on his own, and in the end, he lost the war. Never daring to reach out for help.
They said it probably started when he found out he was quirkless.
It only ended when his skull shattered against the concrete.
He wanted to end his pain the only way he was able to.
The signs were obvious from the start.
Bullshit.
His quirklessness would never push Deku to commit suicide. He had lived with it for so long, had lived with the fact that there was nothing that could make him fly or breathe fire or move small objects.
He was living with it.
Nothing in this world could push him over the edge.
But what if—
Izuku Midoriya wasn't a coward; he'd never kill himself.
Not when he had a single mother waiting at home.
Not when he still needed to complete his 'Hero Analysis for the Future #13' with the latest information of the debuting heroes, mind whirling with thousands of theories and eyes darting across blank pages.
Not when he was so persistent and determined to accomplish his hopeless dream despite every single odd stacked against him.
Not when the last thing Katsuki ever said to him was . . . was . . .
Deku was too goddamn kind to pull a selfish stunt like that.
A cold sort of numbness seemed to consume Katsuki as he gazed down at the remnants of his oldest friend, the one he had pushed and abandoned so long ago. It crushed his pride like fractured glass, leaving the broken shards on the ground surrounding him.
The chilled air pierced his lungs as he breathed it in almost as if it was a silent reminder that Izuku Midoriya would never again be able to do the same.
It didn’t seem fair, but then again, things like these never were.
Katsuki was the only one still around. His parents had left a while ago, taking an oddly quiet Inko Midoriya with them.
Few others had attended the funeral. A handful of classmates with glistening eyes dripping with fake tears or quiet gossip. Pretenders for sympathy’s sake only, for a free show. None of them actually knew who they were burying.
A huffed breath escaped Katsuki's chapped lips, almost resembling a choked sob, but he'd never admit that aloud. "You damned Deku," he hissed beneath his breath, but there was a lack of malice lacing his tone. "You useless moron, why did you go do something so stupid? You left your mom alone, you know. Are you happy now, with that decision? Did you really leave everyone behind? Did you really leave me behind, you worthless Deku?"
There was no response; there never would be.
Not from Izuku Midoriya.
Tears spilled shamefully down his cheeks as the tightness in his chest crescendoed to an indecipherable cacophony of white noise. He was quietly glad that he was alone so no one would have to see such a pitiful sight from the infallible Katsuki Bakugo.
He roughly shoved his hands in his pockets to conceal how they shook, but no one was around to witness the sight anyway.
Without another unanswered plea from him, Katsuki turned on his heel, leaving the freshly planted gravestone and the remains of a boy who once jumped out of swings believing he was something more than he was.
And despite having seen his childhood friend buried before his very eyes, despite hearing all the rumors and stories encircling him, Katsuki Bakugo was still waiting for that damned punchline.