Chapter Text
“- and take a swan dive of the roof!”
Izuku stared at his childhood friend with a quiet sense of disbelief. In recent years it had become more and more obvious that Katsuki Bakugou had more than a little mean streak. But to hear him actually say those words out loud, to hear someone whom he holds that dear tell him to just go and die was somehow still unbelievable to him.
With a numb feeling he grabs his bag and leaves the classroom, storming through the hallways to the kitchen he knows will be abandoned by now. Not like it’s the first time he’s hidden there from Kacchan and his little gang of followers. The lunch lady has long since left, the room as clean as you could possibly expect from a middle school kitchen, making it the perfect spot. Not even his teachers would think to look here. Especially not now school is officially done for the day. They’ll just expect him to have already gone home.
He doesn’t bother turning on the lights and goes straight towards the storage room on the far end of the kitchen. It’s windowless and small but perfect to separate himself from the world, from his childhood friend and those cruel cruel words.
Closing the door behind him he makes his way towards his usual spot right next to the trash cans, because that’s the only floor space this room has left that’s not just smack dab in the middle of the room. As an extra plus it’s hidden behind the door when opened so he’d know someone was here before they know he’s there.
As soon as Izuku sits down he leans his head on his knees and lets the tears that he’s somehow been able to keep at bay fall out. And before he knows it he’s out cold, crying himself to sleep wondering how this is his life. Why is this the treatment he ‘deserves’.
When Izuku opens his eyes again he somehow knows it’s been hours and goes to check his phone only to find out it’s dead. The school around him is silent, no footsteps, no talking, nothing, just the ticking of the clock in the kitchen barely audible through the door.
He grabs his bag and leaves the room, familiar enough with the path that he can kind of find his way back to the hallway where the lights automatically turn on the second movement is registered. On one hand he’s grateful for that, on the other hand, after spending hours in the darkness of the storage room, even asleep, the bright lights make him squint his eyes and gives him a low pounding headache.
Slowly he makes his way towards the main entrance and switches out his school slippers for his actual sneakers. He wonders if his mom has tried calling his phone already since it’s most likely been hours since the school day ended judging by just how pitch black it is outside of the glass doors.
Unsure of why he even bothers he tries to open the door to walk out of the building, only to find it locked. Not like that is surprising. Even before trying he knows that he won’t even be able to knock out the glass because of the mandatory safety glass that they are made off. Age of quirks and all that. You want to make sure people can’t just go and break In to (or out of) the building.
With a deep sigh he turns back around, not bothering to switch his shoes out again. The least Alderra Middle School deserves is dirty floors.
“Right… Guess I’ll check some of the other doors.” Izuku whispers to himself to try and make himself feel less alone.
He knows of a door at the back leading to the athletics track and soccer field. If those are open he could just crawl over the high fence and make his way to freedom that way. Otherwise there’s always windows to try and crawls out of, or maybe even check the roof to see if he can alert someone or make his way down from there.
Sadly, the door outside is locked as well and all the offices on the ground level are too, leaving him not even a window to crawl out of as the ones in the hallway on the first floor are unable to be opened. Again, wouldn’t want anyone just being able to get in or out through them. It makes him wonder which is Alderra’s priority. His experience tells him it’s to keep students inside more than it is to keep thieves out.
He makes his way towards the first floor, hoping that maybe he can reach the entryway roof through the windows at the staircase, but once again he’s out of luck and his pulse is starting to quicken. Breath coming out shorter and shorter as he feels himself panicking. He’s completely locked in, phone dead so he can’t contact his mom and he didn’t bring his charger today because of the rush he was in this morning.
By the time he reaches the door to the roof he’s completely out of breath, praying, begging that it’s open, if not for getting out of the building, then at least so he can catch some fresh air and try to get his breathing under control again.
It’s open!
Izuku releases a sob of relief as he pushes open the door completely and steps out into the chilly night air. He puts his backpack between the door so it that it at least can’t close and lock him up here and slides down against the wall, taking some time to count his breathing and calm himself down.
It takes him over 5 minutes to finally get his breathing under control again and it leaves him light-headed, so he stays seated down for just a little while longer.
He’s shivering by the time he decides to check if there’s any way down or if he can spot anyone to alert them to the fact that he’s stuck but it seems like once again his luck has run out.
The buildings nearby are pretty much all dark by now, telling him that it’s even later than he assumed. Probably way past bedtime for even the parents. Nobody around to walk their dog, not even teenagers lurking in the park nearby.
Izuku curses his rotten luck and walks back towards his bag grabbing it and stepping back inside the school building. He thinks about pushing the fire alarm before remembering that it’s been protected against ‘rowdy kids’ and can only be activated with a key he does not have. He thinks about going back to the kitchens and starting a fire to set of the automatic fire alarm but just knows that it’s too dangerous. If not for the fact that the fire could go out of control really easy and just burn down the whole building (again, it’s probably the least this school deserves, it’s already hell, might as well make it look like one too) then for the fact that it would go on his already extensive student files.
And while he can disprove the ‘he’s just looking for attention because he’s quirkless’ bullshit he knows his teachers have put on there (they have after all just blatantly told him that every incident ‘he has incited’ has been marked on his file), this would be something that he would have actually done. They’d brand him a ‘pyromaniac’ and he’d lose all chances of ever becoming a hero. Of ever achieving his dream. And that’s just not worth it.
He tries every door and window he can reach again, walks in all the hallways to make sure they light up in hopes of someone, anyone, seeing the school lights on and calling the principal or maybe even the police. But even after what he’s sure is more than an hour of doing this nothing happens; no cops, school staff or even heroes show up to check what’s going on and he starts working himself up to a panic attack again.
It takes him a lot less time to make it back onto the roof this time, once again stuffing his bag in between the doors before he lets himself slide down the wall.
Why does this kind of shit always happen to him? Life as a quirkless person was already hard enough on it’s own, but to also just have rotten luck on top of that?
Maybe Kacchan was right, maybe he should just hope for a better next life and jump off the damned roof. It’s not even the first time he’s actually thought about it, even if it’s the first time someone has said it out loud to him. His browser history is full of searches about how many pills to take and what kind, where to cut to avoid detection, where to cut to die as quickly as possible, which rivers are strong enough and which buildings tall enough.
As in a trance his stands back up and walks towards the edge of the roof, there’s a fence there but it’s about as useless as the anti-bullying speech the principal likes to give at the start of each year. It’s only about chest high and the netting has enough holes in it that they can actually help him climb over.
He stares down, calculations running in his brain. He knows that falling four stories is deadly about half of the time and he is a small and frail 14 year old so his chances of not surviving the fall are probably higher than that statistic.
He looks out towards the gate. It’s still dark and quiet, nobody around to see him on the top of the school that has once again gone dark as the timers of the lights have run out. Even with the clear skies and not quite full moon he would be hard to spot anyway.
As he looks down his heart rate picks up. His mind starts to catch up with where his body, his subconsciousness has just put him. Right on the edge between life and death.
Izuku minds less than he thought he would. It feels freeing somehow, to know that with just one step he could end it all. End his suffering. He knows his mom would probably be hurt by him doing this, but in the end she’d still get over him. She’s a strong woman. She survived his father leaving for America and she’ll survive him leaving for a better life even if it might take a while.
He wonders if maybe he should grab his bag so he could write a note to her, telling her that he’s sorry for the pain he’s about to put her through, that in the end he wasn’t strong like she is and could not go on, that his body decided before his mind that enough was enough. He’d suffered enough.
She probably knows though. He might not have told her about the hell Kacchan, her ‘second son’ puts him through, but she’s not a stupid woman, and she’s definitely not blind. She knows that he’s being bullied for his lack of quirk and although she tries her best there’s only so much her love can do to save him.
In the end it only takes him a second to decide that no, he’s not going to write a note explaining why. If he did, they’d have to put it on Kacchan’s file. No way of ignoring that he killed himself just hours after Katsuki told him to take a swan dive of the roof in that exact manner, no way of ignoring the bullying behaviour like they’ve been doing until now. There’d be no shoving this under the rug and Kacchan would lose his chance to become a hero, to become a better person.
Even after everything his childhood friend has put him through, for some reason he can’t bring himself to take the boy down with him. Best only one of them falls. Best it be him. So he climbs over the fence and takes a deep breath.