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“Happy birthday to you~” His classmates start to sing and Izuku tries his best to cover up his disgust with a smile. He loves his friends, truly, he does and he appreciates them celebrating his birthday. He’s never had friends to celebrate his birthday with before and he’s excited to be doing so this year...which is why Izuku is just so bothered by the cake.
It’s gorgeous, really. Simple in design and his favorite flavor - and the fact that his friends know him well enough to choose a birthday cake in his favorite flavor practically makes Izuku’s heart melt right there in his chest. The only problem is…
It’s red .
Contrary to popular belief, Izuku doesn’t like the color red. Honestly he despises the color with his entire being. It was not only the color of the blood that ran down his face when he endured a beating in middle school, but also the color of the horrendous shoes that Izuku’s been forced to wear ever since he was young.
Izuku’s lip curls slightly before he covers it up by smiling bigger, he looks around to see if any of his classmates had caught his momentary slip, but they all are smiling brightly at him as they continue to sing the song. Izuku’s eyes snag on Kacchan standing in the back of the group and staring at him with a scrutinizing gaze. Izuku chooses to ignore that, though his childhood friend (could he even call him that?) had probably noticed his discomfort.
The final notes of Happy Birthday are sung and Izuku closes his eyes before making a wish and blowing out his candles. Immediately after, the class erupts into cheers and Izuku’s pulled into three separate hugs by Uraraka, Iida, and Kirishima before being pulled into one massive group hug that contained the entire class - including Kacchan.
Izuku let out a laugh at the antics of his friends, allowing himself to be grateful that he had gotten into UA after it being such an unattainable dream for so long.
“Okay! Okay!” Uraraka exclaims as she pulls away from the hug. She claps her hands excitedly. “It’s time for presents!” She runs over to the counter where the packages had been placed earlier - most of them being noticeably red which makes Izuku’s skin tingle - and touches them all so she can move them over easier. When all the presents are placed in front of Izuku, she nods, satisfied with herself.
“Oh me! Me first!” Kaminari starts, raising a hand excitedly as he leaps forward on the table to grab his gift. He hands it over to Izuku. Izuku smiles before ripping the wrapping open excitedly and peering at the gift inside.Once opened, he’s hit in the face with confetti and Kaminari bursts out laughing, a couple of his classmates joining in too.
Izuku laughs as Iida and a couple of others start berating Kaminari for ‘attacking Izuku while he was undefended’ and a prank being ‘not birthday-like behavior’. Kacchan even goes as far as hitting Kaminiari in the back of the head. Izuku looks back into the package and, in addition to the confetti, there’s a whoopee cushion hidden at the bottom.
Izuku makes an exaggerated cooing noise, holding the whoopee cushion - which was red, ironically - to his chest as if it were precious. “I’ve always wanted a whoopee cushion! Thank you, Kaminari!”
That seems to break the argument Kaminari was having with Iida as he shoots Izuku a thumbs up, a crooked smile on his face. Hitoshi steps forward, rolling his eyes, before placing another gift in front of Izuku. He simply smiles when Izuku looks up at him excitedly.
“It's nothing special.” He drawls, a hand coming up to rub at the back of his neck. “I thought of you when I saw these in the store the other day so…” He gestures his hand and Izuku breaks into a grin. He tears into the present with renewed vigor.
Inside, there’s a pair of earbuds that Izuku remembers mentioning to Hitoshi when they were on their last patrol together and he complained that the quiet was unnerving and made him uncomfortable. Izuku looks up at HItoshi, feeling his eyes water with unshed tears. He just...he feels so loved . The fact that Hitoshi had remembered something so trivial made him want to cry.
“I love them!” He exclaims, voice wobbling along with his smile as he tries to hold the tears back. “Thank you so much!” Hitoshi, despite the display of waterworks, seems to relax at that.
Izuku’s still smiling as he looks down to the earbuds once again. He realizes that the earbuds are a deep shade of red, maroon. While the color still irks him, he puts the thought away in the light of his friend getting something so considerate for him (besides, it was a more tolerable color anyway).
“I can’t believe that you remembered…” He whispers mostly to himself, but he can tell that Hitoshi still hears him by the way that his smile becomes a bit more smug. Said resident tired boy reaches over and ruffles Izuku’s hair.
“Me next!” Sero interrupts, pushing Hitoshi who goes somewhat willingly to the side, and presenting his gift in front of Izuku.
And so the cycle continues as each one of Izuku’s friends continue to place a present in front of him. He opens each one with excitement pulsing through his veins only to be disappointed when the gifts turned out to be red or some kind of variant of the color - a different shade or saturation. Still he pastes on a smile and continues to open the presents and react in a way that would make his friends feel happy and satisfied.
But as every gift turns out to be red, red, and more red, Izuku feels himself growing more irritated.
It becomes harder to continue to smile every time he opens up a gift hoping that it will be some other color. And it’s not like his friends are giving him stuff that he wouldn’t want. Yaoyoruzu gifted him a new (red!) notebook since Izuku was nearly finished with his current one and Ojirou had gotten him a new (red again!) arm brace. Real thought went behind the presents Izuku was receiving and he was currently battling with his affection for his classmates and his knee jerk reaction at screaming when seeing the horrid color.
Red. Red. Red.
Finally there’s only one present left and Uraraka pushes her present in front of him. He balks at the size of it. It’s not exceptionally huge or anything, but the other presents have been small and relatively cheap (something Izuku was grateful for. He didn’t need anyone spending money on him thank you very much). And the idea that Uraraka had spent so much money on him made him feel guilty.
As if sensing his aversion, she smiles. “Todoroki pitched in to help me pay for this so it’s a gift from the both of us!”
That makes Izuku relax slightly and he sends her a relieved smile. WIth his worries out of the way, Izuku tears into the paper, revealing a shoe box. Immediately a sense of dread drops into his stomach and his heartbeat begins to speed up. He has a sinking feeling about what’s inside the box. He hopes - no he prays - that he’s wrong
He shuts his eyes tight against what he knows is in the box and opens it. His surrounding classmates 'ooh’ and ‘aah’. Izuku reluctantly opens up his eyes only to see red sneakers.
There’s white noise in Izuku’s ears, blocking anything else from permeating the fog in his mind as he stares at the gift. His breathing picks up slightly, he knows, but he can’t help himself. There’s only the constant ringing of red red red red. The words are just repeating over and over again in his mind. Red. Red. Red. Quirkless. Quirkless. Quirkless. Red. Red means Quirkless. Bright red shoes.The doctor all those years ago saying You have to wear these so people are aware of your….condition.
The red shoes that ruined his life almost as much as his diagnosis had crushed his dreams. Red shoes that he was forced to buy over and over again because no other brand would accommodate the needs of his extra toe joint. The red shoes that he continues to buy because of that same reason despite no longer being quirkless.
Distantly, Izuku is aware of Uraraka continuing to talk.
“I tried to find some that looked like the ones you wear all of the time!” She chimes, grinning and spurred on by the class’s reaction. She pauses, frowning slightly as she taps a finger to her chin in thought. “Weirdly, these are custom made. We had to get them from a quirkless store and-”
Izuku stands up so quickly that his chair falls back and the sound of wood splintering can be heard as he crushes the table in his vice-like grip. He can feel how wide his eyes are and knows he must look manic. There’s panic thrumming through his very being. His quirk springs up and creates electric green lightning that races across his arms and shoulders. There's a couple of yelps of surprise but they're near silent through the ringing in his ears.
“What’s wrong? DId I get the wrong size?” She worries. Though the questions sound more like a cover-up than an actual theory. There's worry in her voice that Izuku picks up on.
His head snaps to her at the sound of her voice before looking back to the red shoes like it’s the only thing he can see as he continues to stare at the box in front of him. His vision has tunneled and his he feels faint. Red shoes. That they had to get from a quirkless store. They know. They all know. How could they not when it's just so obvious? They all know he's quirkless and soon they're going to turn on him and he's going to loose the only friends he's ever known and go back to seeing red every day in the mirror and-
“Deku.” At the insulting nickname, Izuku flinches so hard that he almost falls backwards. His eyes snap to Kacchan before he’s even regained his balance. You never take your eyes off of your opponent. Izuku had to learn that lesson when he was very little. Kacchan's hands are held out in front of him and it takes everything in Izuku to stop himself from bolting, terrified of how much damage the boy would inflict on him this time. And hey, maybe some of the others will join in with the beating. Then Izuku's really going to become accustomed to the color red. Kacchan must see the absolute fear in his eyes because he stops his approach. Something flashes on his face but Izuku doesn't have the presence of mind to determine what it is. He's taking little half-breaths, gasping for air but succeeding in only inhaling more panic.
Most people would think that raising your hands in surrender would show that you mean no harm, but Izuku knows that Kacchan’s power comes from his hands. In his eyes, the danger is at its highest when Kacchan’s hands are raised. The fear he feels is only abated slighlty when he sees Kacchan slowly lower his hands from where they were positioned. His eyes track the movement with sharp eyes. They're still visible, but they're pointed down now and Izuku can feel some more air enter his body at the relief he feels.
“Izuku-" Kacchan tries again. Izuku's immediately on edge again; It's been years since Kacchan has called him that. Whatever he was about to say was serious. Kacchan nods when he sees that he has is attention. "let go of the table before you break your fingers again.” Despite it being a command, Kacchan’s voice is the softest that Izuku has ever heard it. Izuku gradually loosens his grip, the splintered wood underneath his hands cracking as the pressure is released. “There. Better. Now focus. You need to get your quirk under control.”
Izuku nods, a little jerkily and without really meaning to but Kacchan nods back anyways. He continues talking. “Take a deep breath, okay? And focus on calming yourself down.” He’s exaggerated his breathing and Izuku takes that as his cue to try and follow him. Deep breaths in and deep breaths out and Izuku slowly feels himself begin to calm.His muscles slowly relax and his breathing begins to even out. The fuzziness in his mind is slowly melting away and suddenly he can see again. However, he refuses to take his eyes away from where Kacchan's staring at him, watching as he slowly regains controll. Without the fuzz blocking the noise from penetrating his mind, Izuku takes stock of the room. It's completely silent and suddenly he has the strongest urge to try and fill it.
Despite the panic being gone, Izuku's words still come out strained and with the weight of a sob. He starts shaking his head frantically, hands coming up to grip at his elbows in an attempt to keep his calm. “I can’t. I can’t do it. Not again. Not now.” He chokes out, not really understanding what he’s saying, but saying it anyway. “Please.” He begs. He’s close to tears again, but he forces them back.
Something breaks in Kacchan’s gaze, but he nods. “You won’t have to. It’s not like that anymore.”
And Izuku, despite everything that's happened between them and everything he fears will happen, believes him. He smiles, a little shakily, and then remembers that his entire class is still in the room with them. It's still completely silent. He looks around to see their shocked faces. Half of the class looks close to tears - Uraraka being the most mentionable. The other half looks ready to leap into action and they all look so so confused. Izuku grimaces. They looked scared, though he's not too sure he wants to entirely examine why they are.
The silence lingers on for a moment and none of them look like they know what to say. Niether does Izuku, but suddenly that feeling from before of needing to fill the silence comes back. He's swaying on his feet and he's suddenly he's exhausted. Izuku doesn't want to deal with the aftermath of his panic attack - doesn't want to deal with all the questions that he can see brewing on their faces. He just wants this day to be over with already.
Amazingly enough, it's Shoto that opens his mouth first, and Izuku knows that once he asks whatever he's about to that there's no help stopping the rest of them from doing the same. So immediately starts talking, cutting him off.
Izuku forces false cheer into his voice as if it can cover up what they just witnessed. "Thank you for celebrating my birthday, everyone. I appreciate it.” He feels like he’s lying through his teeth but he wanting to belittle their efforts. Though he guesses he already has. The thought is bitter and immediately he lets the smile and happy tone drop. “I have to go.”
And with that final farewell, Izuku turns and runs out of the room, not caring to look at anyone’s faces for any longer.
Happy fucking Birthday, he thinks.