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Looking back, it started small.
Mezo hadn't paid it much mind. There wasn't anyone else in his life who'd seemed to care enough to ask about his day, let alone remember anything he's talked about, but.
Heard some group of villains attacked your class? What were they called again? League of Losers?
It started with inconsequential things like that. Probing, little things, sprinkled amongst the care. Deep down, Mezo'd been desperate for it. Desperate enough to forgo a few hours of sleep in the dead of night to shoot message after message just for that sense of being perceived, because even after everything... Iguchi was worth it and more.
He hadn't wanted to let go.
Hey kid, how's it hanging? Heard that Bakugou brat got chained up like an animal LMAO serves him right, huh?
But Mezo found it harder and harder not to, the more time that separated them. The more kindness he's been shown curtailing the beast lurking beneath his skin that Iguchi could only foster.
And then.
And then.
They took Bakugou. Iguchi helped them take Bakugou because. Because who else could that have been but him? Mezo would know him anywhere, and yet.
Mezo can still feel Tokoyami-the-marble in his fist, and Iguchi had grinned, mean and nasty and just cruel , as he pressed Mandalay's face further into the dirt. Just like always.
Hiding behind a mask now, huh? Pretty lame if you ask me. You shouldn't have to be ashamed of yourself. They… They should be ashamed. The whole fucking lot of them.
Mezo hadn't known how to ask him to stop, and almost hadn’t wanted to. He'd cared when no one else had.
Listen, just bite the shit out of them next time, alright? They'll think you're venomous or infectious or something and take off. Those Rejects value their own 'pure' skin more than anything… You've got the teeth to rend and tear.
Use them.
Sometimes Mezo wonders why he's still even here, though.
Here, being Yuuei as a whole. Here, ambling his way over to his gym locker after yet another muscle-aching class exercise with the rest of the stragglers. Sometimes he really wonders why when he tugs on the edge of his mask, still damp with sweat and chafing uncomfortably against clean skin.
When his face makes little kids cry, and his old matron only had a rolled up newspaper to swat the top of his head with instead of any sort of comfort. When he's a turncoat and can't even confess to his sins.
Not even a mother could love your face.
Even now Mezo hesitates. No one's looking, too busy tossing damp uniforms and swatting playfully at bare shoulders and ticklish bellies, and still, he hesitates. He shouldn't, but. He does.
He knows why he's here, but sometimes he really wonders why he isn't gone.
Huh, so they do let all sorts of morphies in… Not bad, I guess. Doesn't the one kid break his bones like constantly? Makes me wonder how he gets in but not others… Eh. Whatever, tell me more about their quirks, like to know what's a good quirk to a school like Yuuei, haha.
With a sigh, Mezo digs his phone free of his gym bag, the screen hidden in its depths as he kettles the door between himself and the webbing of his arms. He thumbs over the screen, taps the Beacon icon, and scrolls past the FREAKSQUAD chat; Kamakiri's blown up, and Mezo doesn't so much as blink at the lack of any other messages.
It's been months now. After Kamino Ward… Mezo hasn't heard a peep from Iguchi, and like a slackened leash… he finds he likes it that way.
Maybe Iguchi died. Maybe… he didn't. Mezo hates that he doesn't know, but he doesn't exactly hate the loss.
Iguchi-nii…?
Kamakiri gets it. Bondo, Kouda, and Tokoyami get it. Tsuyu, Honezuki, Fukudashi, and Shishida sort of get it. Tsunotori doesn't get it. Morphies, the lot of them, further and further from what might be considered human. Ugly, scary, misshapen, and a bother to the eyes. Iguchi got it, but maybe Mezo's just not worth it anymore. Maybe… he never was.
At least Hagakure's just invisible.
Someone laughs, loud and breathless, too close, and Mezo stuffs his phone back into the depths of his pants’ pocket before pulling them free from the neat folds of his uniform.
"Hey, hey, Shou-ji-kun," Kaminari chirps, tugging smartly at his uniform tie. Mezo peers down at him, one eyebrow raised. "Is it true…?"
Ah. Yes. That.
"Yes," the mouth by his waist says, and Mezo steps neatly into his pants as he fluffs his hair with another set of hands. "It's true."
Around him, oohs go up, and it's silly, but Mezo can feel the barest of heat crawling up his shoulders. One good thing about the mask, truly.
"Maybe Yaomomo has a thing for tall guys," Kaminari hums, and squints up at Mezo, hands on his hips. The disorientation from overuse of his quirk's decreased significantly in the past few months; Kaminari's becoming more and more of a threat every day. They all are. But… to who? "Can't be your face since we've never seen it!"
With a shrug of his shoulders, Mezo pulls his shirt to place, tugging the ends of his waistcoat free as he works his arms into the wide holes.
"Or a man in uniform," Sato suggests, and Mezo snorts.
They're all good people; they're his friends, and Mezo would die for them.
But, Iguchi was his friend first, when he had no one else, and the guilt is eating Mezo alive.
"C-C'mon, don't tease Shouji-kun so much," Midoriya says, towel draped over his head, and flashes Mezo an almost supportive look from his own locker.
"Is Gang Orca as much a hardass as he seems?" Sero calls, neatly rising to the occasion, and peels off the tape sealing his left dispenser from water.
Distracted, Mezo says, "Only because he needs to be," before he realizes it, and nearly draws blood when he bites down on his lip.
He can see Kaminari zero in on his slip, eyes narrowing. "What's that mean, huh?" he needles, poking Mezo's middle bicep. "Huh, huh?"
The orca chews up the cute little penguins, nearly leaves his mouth, and Mezo takes a deep breath as he shuts the locker door, shoes and socks in hand.
"He's scary looking," he murmurs, in the end, and Kaminari's eyebrows furrow.
"Well, sure, at first I was kinda surprised but he isn't that scary, especially compared to the nomu!" he laughs, and.
And, so does Sato. So does Sero, so does Ojiro and Mineta and Kirishima and—
They don't get it. They just don't… get it.
Mezo shrugs again, tugging on his shoes, and Iida takes that moment to burst back into the locker room.
"You all are going to be late for our next class if you don't hurry!" he says, hand slicing the air.
A chorus of Yes Prez Exit Sign follows, and Iida huffs, lips pursing as red scrawls across his face, protests, "That was one time and an emergency!" to peals of teasing laughter.
Mezo can't find the laughter in him, and doesn't know exactly how to feel when Kouda smiles wanly in his direction as the last of their shirts are tucked in, the last of their ties tied.
Winter internships are over and March is just beyond the horizon. Mezo still can't look Bakugou in the eye.
I won't be able to talk for a while. We're doing a forest summer camp session and will be without service. I hope everything works out with the group you've joined, Iguchi-nii.
It's hard to shake the thoughts away today, and the last classes pass in what feel like quick and dirty snapshots. When the day is over, all Mezo can do is rub absently at the back of his neck, suddenly unsettled, as it catches up with him, every little thing that screamed wrong.
Something's coming, he thinks, rising from his seat, and he can't be the only one who thinks that, by the thoughtful looks his classmates trade on the way back to the dorms across the snow-dusted campus. Something big.
If Aizawa had looked any more tired, Present Mic any less bright, All Might's smile any more forced; all of them more distracted in more ways than one, Mezo would have thought someone had died by now.
"—looking this way an awful lot," Sato's saying, dearly amused, and his elbow finds its way to tap against Mezo's side, refocusing his attention as he trades in his shoes for slippers. "Hey, Shouji-kun, look."
Mezo looks, following his gaze, and Yaoyoruzu's eyes widen, just a little, when theirs meet.
There's nothing to the moment, nothing that might make it seem anything special. Her cheeks pink, and Yaoyorozu ducks away to the wide and teasing grins of Ashido and Uraraka, who turn sly looks on him as he passes. Jirou frowns at him, eyes narrowing, but Mezo doesn't have time to be scrutinized.
He… has a date, if the guys are to be believed. Mezo doesn't think so, but if the crisp and wax sealed letter he found in his locker is to be believed, it certainly can't just be a simple wish for accompaniment.
Why wouldn't she just ask any of the girls? Or Midoriya, or Iida? They're all his friends, but even so, she's closer to them than him.
Sighing, Mezo shakes himself, tries to dislodge the bitter thoughts. First day of classes back, and he's still wallowing. Perfect.
The door to his room closes behind him with a soft click, and with more force than necessary, Mezo strips his mask from his neck. He tosses it aside and scrubs a hand over his face, grazing the tips of his jagged and protruding underbite.
"Nothing she could say would be anything I haven't heard before," he murmurs to himself, the sound filling the empty space of his room. "It's nothing. Just a tea run."
She just wants someone to go with her to get more tea. That's all. Mezo repeats that to himself as he sheds his uniform for more casual jeans, a clean mask, and a thicker undershirt, his winter camo poncho and thick mutant-heel-adjusted boots, his provisional license. Repeats it to himself as he wanders back down to the lounge area and waves absently to his watching classmates on the way out.
The gates are before him all too soon, and punctual as always, she's even beat him here.
Haloed by the late afternoon sun, Yaoyorozu turns in his direction. The chilly breeze ruffles the hem of her dress and petticoat jacket, long ponytail fluttering in the wind. She's dressed for the full strength of winter: earmuffs, thick scarf, leggings and all. Mezo feels drab in comparison, and tugs distractedly at the hood of his poncho.
He's still waiting for the other shoe to drop. For this to be yet another dare, another prank with Mezo the punchline.
Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me. What a load of shit, huh, brat?
He likes to think he's got the handle on his classmates, though. That he knows enough about them all. That, maybe in the end, he knows too much, and yet not a lot at all.
Mezo should have known better; that's what Iguchi has always loved about him, in the end. His perceptiveness and desperation.
"Shouji-kun, I'm glad you could make it," she says, and smiles sweetly, disarmingly. Classic vice president. "I feel like we don't get to speak often enough, so I hope you didn't mind!"
Her confidence has grown leaps and bounds since the beginning of the year, but that naivety, that self-doubt, must still be there, Mezo thinks.
But, then again, he's been surprised before.
Something's coming.
The mouth by his elbow hums. "It's no trouble," it says, and Mezo glances away. "I've never been to a tea shop before, so it's win-win, in my opinion."
By her suddenly aghast expression, one would think he just admitted to being the reason the summer camp was so thoroughly turned upside down. "I, well, that's too bad!" she cries, drawing up to nearly his shoulders in her determination and thick soled boots. "They're lovely places, I'm even more glad you could come with me, now."
She means that, he can tell. It means more to her than it means to Mezo, but as the breeze picks up and they turn away from campus, he finds that it's... okay. He listens, and she talks, and he lets her. The shame is still there, a nebulous knot wound tight just behind his heart, but the steeping times for various teas boil away the clinging thoughts of Tokoyami’s desperate yells. The cloying scent of sweet fruit and cinnamon of the shop chasing away the phantom smell of sweat mixing with blood.
Mezo can almost completely write the day off as lukewarm instead of exhausting by the time they leave with more bags than he thinks is reasonable, having been tricked into picking out a teapot stained with the curling tentacles of an octopus. It lulls him into a false sense of security.
Mezo should have known better.
"Oh, would it be okay if we took a small break here before going back?" she asks, unsure, as they cut through the edge of a park and come upon a bench. "I know we only just got back, but it's different, just being able to be out, you know?"
"It's fine," a mouth by his thigh says, and Mezo promptly settles down with his two bags. "It’s nice to be out."
She smiles again. Mezo wonders if she still would if he tugged his mask just two inches down.
The quiet that follows is light, and Mezo leans back to peer at the sky dwindling into near complete night. Soon, they will be second years. Soon, they will be third years. Mezo doesn't deserve it but by God does he want it.
A light buzz breaks the silence, and just as Mezo pulls his phone from his pocket, catches the front half of a text from Tokoyami saying "Aizawa-sensei’s calling a dorm…", Yaoyorozu clears her throat.
He looks away, sure that someone must be sending her a similar message, and frowns at the way she's glancing at him from the corner of her eye, furtive and unsure.
"Do you… ever think we're too harsh on regulating quirks?" she asks, light and airy, her breath fogging the air. "Even just a little?"
Caught off guard, Mezo shifts, his shoulders rolling with the movement. "... Weren't you worried about disrupting the chain of supply and demand?" he counters softly, the hairs on the back of his neck prickling with sudden unease.
Why… why would she even ask this? Let alone of him?
Yaoyorozu ducks her head. "W-Well, yes, at one time, but…" she murmurs, running a hand along her bangs, "... but I don't know. I just… wanted to vent a little. I had the thought you might understand, my apologies."
Something about how she says that hits Mezo wrong. It cracks apart his resolve, and before he can help himself, he mutters, bitterly, "You have a nice, non-morphic quirk, the least of any problem."
There's a long pause, and then, "... What do you mean, Shouji-kun?"
Ah. That naivety. Mezo chuckles softly and flexes his fingers. "I don't wear this mask because I want to," he admits, staring down at his hands. This is a rare allowance he barely tells himself. "I wear it because I'm scary, because I'm intimidating , because my face doesn't inspire hope; it inspires fear, and it's not—"
Yaoyorozu gasps, and Mezo cuts himself off, wrinkling what could barely pass for a nose beneath his mask. He glances at her, dread welling at what he might find, and.
She's smiling at him, positively beaming. He thinks only Jirou has ever gotten such a high watt smile before. "I, I'm sorry, I just," she says at Mezo's startled look, "I'm happy! I appreciate your honesty very much. I just didn't think I'd ever find a true friend here at Yuuei, and I had to be careful and make sure you were actually on board."
Mezo mentally stalls, blinking. "... On board?"
"Yes," she agrees, nodding. "Shuichi-sama vouched for you, of course, but there are many who are... sensitive, to the merger, so reaching out was deemed low priority, but things are changing; all hands on deck, so to speak."
His mouth goes dry. No. No. "Shuichi… Iguchi?" he asks, voice cracking. Pauses, swallows, then whispers, "The… League of Villains?"
With a laugh like tinkling glass, Yaoyorozu rises from the bench. "The Paranormal Liberation Front sends its regards," she says, still smiling, soft and serene, as if ice hasn't just dropped into the pit of Mezo's stomach.
White snow overtakes his thoughts, his heart beginning to race, and he doesn't move as she raises one hand to her forehead, thumb and first finger extended. As all of the movement around them just stops.
Eyes upon eyes swivel to pin them — pin him, pin him and only him — in place, and the world goes quiet. Their hands rise, thumbpad to forehead and first finger extended. All of them. Every single one of them, as far as Mezo can see, and what feels like the entire park, for what feels like an endless lifetime.
Oh, Mezo thinks, and then.
Then, it's over.
Like nothing ever happened, time restarts. The early evening sounds of Tokyo bleed back in, feet on concrete and the buzz of voices and cars and so many people. The mother with her stroller continues across the path, the couple in matching jackets snuggle back into each other as they walk away, and the pro hero in uniform smiles gallantly in their direction before resuming patrol, and.
And, Yaoyorozu, she—
She offers her hand to him.