Chapter Text
Far and away, Deku’s favorite chore—if you can even call it that—is going down to Grizzly’s farm on Inko’s coin. Yeah, it sure does suck that he has to make the trip to the far end of town in the dead of morning, well before any wanderers get it into their heads that, hey, maybe a nice kickstart to their day would be mugging some guy with a leather pouch slung across his waist. Deku isn’t that stupid, by the way—the pouch is tucked under his shirt, which is covered with some ratty cloak Inko dug out from under one of the beds. It took a good five washings and some beating against a rock, but the thing’s good as new now. Covered in moth holes and a little sicklier than the kelly green it began as, not to mention the rusty red stains along the hem and the worsening holes at the bottom of the pockets, but that’s neither here nor there. Point is, Deku feels really cool sweeping it out in an arc around his feet as he kicks a puff of dandelion seeds into the breeze.
At least this morning was a fairly early start. Inko dragged him out of bed by the ankle to free the spider building a web in the corner behind the bar—and, no, she didn’t give any shits about his argument that there’s probably five hundred spiders more waiting to continue the web. “It’s different when you can see the little things,” and all that. Could’ve been worse. Could’ve made him kill the poor guy.
“And since you’re already up,” Inko continued, in such a forced oh-by-the-way tone that it had to have been put on, “you might as well nip over to Grizzly’s. We’re running low on some things.”
“And you wouldn’t happen to know what those might be, would you?” Deku asked as he swapped out his sleep shirt for something he was willing to be caught dead in. He hadn’t been surprised in the slightest when she presented him with a piece of parchment, the list of ‘some things’ running well past half down the page.
He runs the edge of the parchment under his thumbnail now, picking at a stubborn spot of dirt along where white meets pink. Actually, it might just be a bruise, or maybe a blood blister. If he thought he’d remember, he might make a mental note to swing by Himura’s to pick up some salve for it. As it is, he’ll have to hustle just to make it to Grizzly’s and back with all his goods in hand.
Grizzly, to his credit, is already outside when Deku wanders up, his checkered shirt hanging on by a thread. Well, no—it’s very well put-together, actually, and it looks to be in absolute mint condition, and this mental correction on Deku’s part has nothing to do with his knowledge that Inko was the one who last stitched up the gashes Grizzly tore through the fabric.
“Heya,” Deku calls out, waving one hand over his head as if that would make his approach louder. Grizzly glances back over his shoulder, the look in his eyes similar to when a cat is deciding whether to hiss or bolt. It vanishes when he recognizes Deku’s face.
“Why didn’t you tell me you were coming?” Grizzly asks as he rises. He arches his back and relishes in the loud crack of bones against the soft morning, none of which make Deku wince. Rather, he returns them by clasping his hands behind his back and bowing forward to press his nose between his knees. He hadn’t noticed how tight his joints felt on the walk over, spurred on by the urging from Inko.
“I didn’t even know until I was already leaving,” Deku explains. Grizzly takes the offered parchment with one gloved hand—a glove of leather, its holes patched with what Deku is pretty sure is silk, but whatever—and plants the other in a fist against his hip. As he pulls the bag over his head, Deku continues, “I don’t think any of it’s too urgent? The main thing is just the gooseberry, which, obviously.”
“Which, obviously,” Grizzly agrees. He holds his free hand out for the bag, hefts it up and down a couple times, then shakes his head. “You know this is too much.”
“And you know how much she hates that I let you let her short you every time.”
“Do I?” With a shrug, Grizzly shakes some of the coins out of the bag, then hands it back to Deku. “This’ll make it even.”
“You say that every time we do this.”
“And every time it’s true. C’mon, you can have a seat while I gather everything.”
Deku shoots a look at the horizon, where the sun is already almost in sight. “Just for a little bit.” Grizzly makes no indication as to whether he hears this as he leads the way to the squat building at the edge of the field. On the far side, Deku can make out the dusty path, beaten into shape by hundreds, maybe thousands of hooves and feet and who knows what else tromping through. One of Grizzly’s oldest gripes—‘perfectly good growing ground, and they had to go and ruin it for the rest of us.’ When prompted about why he didn’t just put an end to it by planting something when the problem first arose, Grizzly would only respond with grunts and shrugs. His usual mannerism, actually—he’s in abnormally high spirits this morning.
Deku makes a beeline for his normal spot in the dark brown chair, up against the table in the middle of the leftward room in the building. To the right is a bed, and past that is a partial wall that Deku knows better than to ask about. In front of polite company, the left room is the dining area, but behind closed doors, Grizzly delights in his little dealing room. He pins the parchment flat to the table with the mortar and pestle he keeps as a centerpiece—mortar at the bottom of the page, pestle at the top, in case you’re curious. As he watches him putter about the room, Deku bends down to tuck the returned coins down the side of his boot. He’s well past being annoyed about the feeling of stepping on them. After the walk to Grizzly’s and back so many times, it almost feels stranger not to be walking on weird, shifting lumps.
“Where’s Mouse?” Deku asks. He looks around his feet, figuring the cat’ll probably appear at the sound of her name—materializing from a hole in the wall and what have you—but she’s nowhere to be seen.
“Think I last saw her wandering out the back door?” Grizzly shrugs as he drops a double-layered hessian sack on the table in front of Deku. “She’ll be back once I start getting her food ready.”
“You haven’t fed her yet?”
“I’m a monster, I know. Your mother didn’t say what counts as ‘other berries,’ do you…?”
Deku cranes his neck to see the paper as Grizzly holds it back out to him. “I would assume a little of everything? We’re definitely low on loganberries and grapes for sure—um, I wanna say we’re hurting more for green grapes.”
“So a little of everything,” Grizzly says, apparently ignoring the rest of it. No harm, anyway—Inko sent him along with more than enough to cover it, even after Grizzly’s insistence that Deku skim a little back off the top. Worst case is there’s a little too much in the pantry, and aw, man, Deku has to eat extra pies and tarts before they go bad. Boo hoo.
“Y’need any help around here today?” Deku asks. “I’m not really in any rush to get back.”
“He said, despite being the one basically running the show over there.”
“Inko can hold it down.”
“But she doesn’t have to when you’re there.”
“Do you need help or not?”
Grizzly frowns at Deku over the bag, then pushes it toward him. “If I didn’t say yes the first time—”
“Then you wouldn’t’ve meant it the second time, I know, I know.” Deku shakes his head and gives Grizzly a wry smile. He’s heard that one plenty of times now, enough that he’s almost caught himself saying it to Inko now and again. “Is that everything?”
“Should be.” Passing Deku the list, now with neat lines through each item to mark them as In The Bag, Grizzly presses his other hand against his back. The sound of his bones cracking isn’t exactly comforting, and in fact merely hurries Deku along in gathering the bag into his arms and making for the door.
“I’ll probably be back sooner than you want,” Deku warns him.
Grizzly shrugs as he holds the door open with his foot. “You can come by for fun, you know. Doesn’t always have to be a fetch quest.”
“Come over and help you clean out the attic sometime, got it.”
“I will pay you so much to do that for me.”
“Promise?”
“Yeah, yeah, get out of here.” Deku doesn’t have to turn back to know that Grizzly doesn’t wait at the door to see him go, instead already heading back to where he’d been crouched when Deku first wandered up. Probably waiting to leap out at little children passing by or something.
Deku sticks to the well-trodden path on his way back, knowing there’s shortcuts past houses and shops but not quite confident that he can weave through them like this. Empty-handed, sure, it’s easier to take the pleasure paths, especially when he’s out before the rest of the world is awake. Now, though, with both arms fully occupied by the bag of goods, and the sun peeking into view to herald the morning, there’s every possibility that he bumps into somebody and drops everything all over the place. Better to just take the main path, in plain view for people to dodge out of his way.
He doesn’t usually mind the longer walk. He rather enjoys it, actually, on a nicer day. Today’s shaping up to be on the ugly side, though—he can feel the moisture in the air pressing against his skin, his cloak hugging a little tighter to his elbows. The sun struggles to burst through the clouds lingering above, sparse though they are, and a hesitant breeze bites at the dew cooling on Deku’s ankles.
All that coming together to mean that Deku is in something of a hurry to get back. Not because he wants to help out Inko (he does), or because he feels bad when the tavern opens late and understocked (he does), or because he hopes to chat with some regulars before they disappear on some deadly jaunt again (he does), but because he doesn’t feel like being out if the weather takes a turn from almost-decent to outright horrible. This to mean that his feet move a little faster than usual, which combines with the coins literally underfoot (Grizzly doesn’t normally refuse this much) and throws off his usual ease of pace.
Deku trips on a pebble.
A string of curses escapes his mouth as he struggles to right himself mid-fall, keeping the bag upright before anything else. The only thing worse than a bruised ego is a bruised apple, and this is only because one leads directly to the other, with the added detriment of having a bruised apple.
He catches himself directly on his left hand—could be worse, there’s no telltale crunching or sudden stabs of pain—and only loses a few apples. There’s no telling why Grizzly thought it would be a good idea to stack those at the top, instead of, y’know, at the bottom, where they wouldn’t crush everything else, but Deku isn’t one to hang onto something like that if he can help it. They don’t roll that far, besides. He takes a quick survey of his surroundings and finds a few sparse trees and bushes dotting either side of the path, but no obvious lurkers about to jump him and steal his bag when he isn’t looking. Selecting the strongest-looking tree, Deku hugs the bag to his left side and, ignoring the dull twang in his wrist, tugs himself up a couple branches. It’s only far enough that his feet can’t touch the ground with his arms straight, but it should be good enough to deter anyone long enough that he can go grab the apples. Pretend you didn’t notice that Deku could’ve just carried the bag with him to collect them, because he probably wouldn’t have an answer if you asked about it.
With the bag safely nestled on a sturdy branch and pressed up against the trunk, Deku hops down and rolls away from the tree—he has no illusions about sticking a cool landing. No point screwing up his knees just to impress the pebble that got him into this situation.
Distracted as he is with picking up and dusting off the apples, Deku doesn’t hear anything out of the ordinary until he’s bending down to grab the third one. They all look fine, probably because he swung the bag down with him so the contents wouldn’t have as far to fall. Less bouncing, more rolling, so any imperfections from evil pebbles can be blamed on the human error from Grizzly’s part. Right. Like Inko would believe Grizzly sold damaged goods. Maybe Deku can just make sure these ones go toward a pie filling, or he can float the idea of warmed cinnamon apple slices. Been a while since Inko did those, what with the approaching summer scaring off the idea of anything hotter than necessary. Admittedly, Deku can understand where she’s coming from—what person would wander off the battlefield, sword freshly polished on the tunic of a fallen enemy, sweat dripping from nicely tousled hair, muscles aching with the weight of their armor, and think, “Oh, man, I gotta get some warm, toasty apples in my gut or I’ll drop dead right now?”
Dumb question. Deku’s met those kinds of people, and he’s almost certain at least one of them would say something like that. Maybe he can use that outlier to convince Inko to agree to the warmed cinnamon apples. Provided they even have cinnamon, since he didn’t get any from Grizzly, and—
Deku snaps out of his thoughts, unsure if he’d been staring off into the distance or at anything in particular as he dusted off the apple for far longer than he needed to. Longer than no time at all would probably be too long, since he’ll dunk them all in a basin for a good rinse once he gets back, anyway, but that’s beside the point. He tucks the apples into the pockets of his cloak, checks that the holes haven’t ripped enough for the apples to fall out, and inches farther off the path and into the weed-ridden grass. He hardly notices how it scratches at his legs, more focused on trying to call back the sound that had made his ears prick up in the first place.
The issue is that he hadn’t really noticed he’d heard it—it was more like his body picked up on it, and froze for him, such that his mind didn’t have to think about it. It could’ve been a stray animal picking at some grapes he didn’t notice dropping, or an early riser catching some sunshine before the clouds move in thicker, or he could’ve just made the sound up to begin with. He doesn’t think so, though. Deku’s usually pretty good about trusting his senses, regardless of his brain’s input.
Realistically, it wouldn’t have been anything artificial, because the wind isn’t strong enough to—there. Right there. Deku holds himself as still as possible, only turning his head such that the breeze against his ears doesn’t drown out the sound. His eyes unfocus, aimed somewhere around the horizon as he listens for—there, again, a little ways farther down the path.
Deku drops his eyes to the ground ahead of him, seeking out the shortest patches of grass in which to step, that he isn’t any louder than he has to be as he draws near to the small buildings marking the edge of what technically constitutes the town. Grizzly only counts as part of the town because Inko would have his head if he denied it, but that greying building, its roof sunken from years of rain and its door bowed from the weight, that’s the first actual structure, and it’s the thing preventing Deku from knowing what his ears think they hear.
He’s wise enough not to drop into a crouch or lean up against the wall or something when he gets close enough—any unnecessary motion is bound to tip off the subjects to which Deku is listening, not to mention that he’s pretty sure the whole building would come crumbling down at the slightest breeze, let alone a person putting their full weight against it. Heck, even part of their weight. No, no, Deku opts instead to keep his usual poor posture as he picks his way through the grass, taller here than out by the path. Whoever frets about the upkeep around here obviously wasn’t interested in the entire upkeep, since some of the grasses swish against Deku’s elbows. Tiny cuts, imperceptible now but sure to make their presence known when he’s washing up later, slash through the holes in his cloak and his sleeves.
Deku quiets his breathing as best he can when he creeps up to the corner of the building, straining his ears to make out anything more. Footsteps, for sure. One loud set, unpracticed, unbalanced, but there’s a softer set beneath that, intentional in their falls. So at least two people, minimum one adversary—if Deku even gets involved. Inko’d surely have his head on a platter if she knew he was seeking out this kind of trouble without so much as a weapon to protect himself.
More than anything, he’s surprised he doesn’t hear voices. No grunts of battle or hisses of pain, no clashing of metal on metal or shifting of armor. Even two completely bare people fighting only with fists would make some kind of noise. Maybe they aren’t fighting, then, but Deku has a strong feeling that his brain wouldn’t have nudged him in this direction over nothing. If he’s trusting his brain today, anyway, which is always a fifty-fifty shot.
He dares a quick glance around the corner, long enough to take in the scene before yanking his head back. One tall, hulking figure, decked out in a too-bright white tunic with shiny leather boots and a heavy leather belt to match, prowls in a meandering circle around the other. The absence of clanking means that belt is either empty of weapons or very well padded, both of which probably spell a strong sense of confidence for the owner. Their footfalls are careful, poised, obviously the one in charge.
The other is short, lanky, bones pressing up against the ratty grey top and too-big trousers, both bitten through with holes from something that definitely wasn’t a moth. The trousers hang off one overloaded hip, awkwardly large hands trembling around the belt half-hidden beneath the shirt.
Deku’s eyes unfocus again as he listens for anything more, mentally reviewing the scene. Too-white shirt, so either they aren’t fighting, or he’s a very clean fighter, or a total newcomer with outerwear that hasn’t seen actual hardship outside of a scuffle with their buddies. That leather belt wasn’t pulling down at them, though they did favor their right side in that stilted circle around their prey. Injured, or lopsided in loading their weapons. Perhaps unpracticed at being the predator, at having control. Perhaps just really bad at coming off as intimidating.
He doesn’t even consider the implications of the other guy—skinny, unarmed, wearing clothes he probably stole off someone’s clothesline on his first day in town. It’s an obvious conclusion to draw. Picked a fight with the wrong person, one who was probably looking for that fight, but this isn’t what concerns Deku. No, he’s a little more uneasy over the fact that he made eye contact with that one.
Wide eyes, deep as pits and twice as dark, save for the cold blue specks peering out from the shadow of their prominent forehead. Framed by stringy blond hair, too long in the front, uneven and hastily cut in a choppy halo around his face in back, those eyes didn’t just look at Deku. They saw him, and worse, Deku isn’t sure that was an expression pleading for help. It was hardly one of fear. Just one that made him deeply, deeply uncomfortable, and put absolute panic into his feet, which try now to carry him back to the tree so he can grab his bag and get out of here right this second. Absurdly, Deku grips the corner of the building to hold his torso in place despite his lower half’s protests, and this is very much not the right move, because the shuffling footsteps halt.
Deku freezes, knowing there’s no sense in dropping his hand and pretending like they didn’t just see his fingers there, much less hear the groan of protest from the rotting wood beneath them. Hard to dismiss that as ‘just the wind’ when there’s dirt-caked fingernails spying on you to say otherwise.
His mind flits through the possibilities of where he ought to go from here. He can’t not go over there now, not when they’ve obviously both picked up on his presence. If he goes in guns (or lack thereof) blazing, he has to pick a side immediately, or else deal with both ganging up on him. If he sides with Sparkles McClean, he has to remember those empty eyes staring at him for the next few fortnights, until something stranger replaces them. If he sides with Gaunt McGee, he has to take on the guy that’s clearly already winning this fight, plus remember those eyes anyway. Deal with them longer, even, if Gaunty is the loudly thankful type. The smallest amount of damage Deku could walk away with would be those eyes, but aside from that, it’s a total wash to help the guy that’s already down. This is what he tells himself, and because it’s his brain deciding this, of course it agrees.
Unfortunately for Deku, his brain and his body are not exactly on speaking terms.
He shuffles past the building and into clear view of the other two, now able to get a much better look at everything than his brief look-and-get-out-of-sight glance granted him before. A few scraggly trees dot the area around them, almost a stage for whatever Deku stumbled upon. There’s a couple buildings a good ways out from them, in very slightly better shape than the one Deku hid behind, but no one out to see what’s going down yet. In part, sure, because it’s still pretty early, and most people are only just starting their days, but also because who in their right mind would come out this far? Deku, to get a bag of produce for his mom, that’s who.
The tall one has advanced a few steps toward Deku, one hand toward him and one toward the man on the ground, somewhere between trying to keep them at a distance and trying to calm something that’s caught their scent. Distantly, Deku notes that neither hand twitches toward the leather belt, so he feels a little more vindicated in assuming it’s empty, especially with how their weight is on their left foot. And those eyes, piercing and vanishing all at once, are still carefully focused on Deku, not a care in the world for the person that very well could have been about to kill him. God, Deku hates those eyes already, and regrets the few moments they’ve spent in his life so far.
On its own, Deku’s right hand slips into his pocket, rolling an apple between his fingers. He doesn’t have time to hope it’s the already-damaged one before his arm is pulling back, poising the apple beside his ear, his left hand drifting up to guide his eyes to their right foot. Deku takes a half-step backward, not bothering to grin when they match it by moving to follow him those few inches. He throws the apple square at their foot, watching them step just a little too early on the surface, the fruit just a little too close to the inside arch. Panic flits through their mercifully normal eyes as their foot jerks into a sickle before gravity takes over, yanking the outside of their foot down to the ground. The sickle shape worsens as their weight acts against them, right side going down first, going down hard.
So much for Deku being unarmed.
He darts forward, one hand still in his pocket to ensure that at least one apple doesn’t fall out, just in case the other guy turns out to be a problem, too. The big one barely has time to register hitting the dirt before Deku is upon them, pressing his knee into the small of their back as he holds both their hands over their head by the wrists.
“This is the part where you tell me if he’s a good guy,” Deku informs the other guy’s mouth, doing everything he can not to have to meet those eyes. This turns out to be remarkably easy, as that mouth drops open and a decent wave of blood rushes out. “That is far more concerning, actually. I’m—yeah, I’m just gonna go. Uh, no, thank you. Sorry if you were actually a good guy, bud.” Deku nods to himself and gets off the person beneath him, who luckily doesn’t seem to be in any hurry to pull out a fatal weapon and take him down. Rather, they just groan and draw their right leg up to their chest. To his credit, Deku has the conscience to feel a little bit bad about it, but not so much that he sticks around.
He doesn’t waste time trying to be quiet as he walks back to the tree with his bag, only belatedly realizing that he’s now one apple short. Inko probably won’t kill him over that, though, and Deku isn’t about to risk going back there for an apple that only measures the difference between ‘probably’ and ‘definitely.’
“Hey, hold on!” a voice calls out. Deku doesn’t have to look back to know it’s the man that was on the ground. For one, that voice is shot through with age and overuse alike, and for another, those footfalls are far too noisy to be the one Deku took down. ‘Took down’ might be a little generous, actually. ‘Hit with an apple, exploiting something they likely had no control over,’ more like it.
“Seriously, wait,” the voice insists.
Deku wipes one hand over the front of his face, trying to figure out an appropriate way to respond that’ll get this guy off his tail. The last thing he needs is some stalkerish shadow following him all the way back home. “Look, it’s—unless you two’re partners, and you want me to apologize? We can be done here.” He pointedly does not look back to ensure the guy heard him.
The guy has no qualms about making this certainty assured. Deku keeps his eyes on the top of his tree as the guy trips over himself. “That sure was something. Most people wouldn’t get involved in a scuffle like that.”
“Hardly a scuffle,” Deku dismisses as he jumps to get one hand around the lowest branch. Now that he’s got an audience, of course, he misses on the first pass, and bashes his knuckles against the wood on the second. He grumbles to himself on the third, but at least he gets up there this time.
“Still, you didn’t have to jump in. Mighty respectable that you did.”
“Uh huh.” More focused on getting up to his bag, only a couple branches away, Deku doesn’t really hear anything the guy is saying.
“You make a habit of helping passerby?”
“Not when those passerby turn out to be sociable, no. Do you need something, or…?” Deku wouldn’t mind hanging out in this tree all day until the guy takes a hint and gets lost, were it not for Inko waiting at home. They can’t exactly open without the provisions she’d sent him to get. Realizing how odd it is that he hadn’t questioned it sooner, Deku wonders why she hadn’t gotten ahead on this order like she usually did. Inko rarely waits until the last minute to restock, especially on staples like gooseberries. He makes a mental note to ask about it later and ignores the voice in the back of his head that points out how unlikely he is to remember that note.
“Oh! Is—should I go, then?”
Staring at the horizon as he is, like he’d be able to see home from here, Deku doesn’t know that the man is glancing around himself like a lost puppy. “Yeah, that’d probably be best. Try not to provoke strangers in the future, okay?” Then we won’t have to do this again, he doesn’t say. He keeps his eyes trained on a faraway point until those lurching footsteps sound once more, eventually muffling in the grasses before disappearing. Deku dares a look down, and the man is nowhere in sight. His absence does nothing to quell the memory of those eyes in Deku’s head, stuck like sunspots every time he blinks.
“Well, that’s gonna suck,” Deku informs himself as he clutches the bag and scoots down the tree.
Of course, the rest of the way back home is completely uneventful, because why wouldn’t it be? Deku doesn’t make the mistake of looking behind him—who knows what you’d see back there?—and it’s much easier to write off strange sounds around him when he gets closer to the heart of town. People are coming out of their homes, kicking off another day with complaints of tired bones and musings of finally ditching this old place for something new, all sounds welcome and familiar to Deku after so many years entrenched in them.
If nothing else, he takes enormous comfort in not seeing hide nor hair of that man with the eyes the entire way back.
“Heya!” Deku hollers as he bumps open the side door to the tavern with his hip. Inko is already there, smacking at something in a pot with all the conviction she has swatting at spiders and flies. The ones that don’t get her mercy in being shooed outside, anyway. If the pot bites back, maybe she’ll be shooing that out the back door tonight, too.
“What took you so long?” Inko asks, leaving the pot to simmer and burble in peace. Deku isn’t entirely convinced it didn’t just wink at him, but he tables the concern for later.
“Oh, you know. I thought I’d murder Grizzly and take over the farm myself, so everything could be free instead of using a middleman, but the cleanup took longer than I thought. The usual.”
Inko tuts as she accepts the bag from Deku and places it on the counter running the length of the west wall. “You really do have to stop killing that poor man. It might start to damage our reputation at this rate.”
“Our reputation,” Deku echoes, half-listening as Inko upends the bag and prods at everything. She doesn’t notice when he toes off his shoe to grab the coins Grizzly refused and scatters those on the table, too.
“Speaking of which, we might already be ruined.”
“Might we?”
“Look at the state of these apples!”
Deku glances back to see Inko holding three apples in one hand, a look of indignant disgust on her face. “Oh. Yeah, that reminds me—here.” He presents her with the two apples from his pockets. “I mean, by comparison, those ones are basically perfect.”
“When you say you’re off to kill people, I normally assume you’re kidding.”
“And that’s your fault for making an assumption, isn’t it?” Deku dodges Inko reaching out to muss up his hair as he deposits the two apples amidst the others. “Anyway, I was thinking we could do some warmed cinnamon apples, if you’re up for it? Just to make use of the bruised ones, I mean.”
Inko purses her lips. “It’s hardly the season for that, Izuku.”
“When has that ever stopped you before?”
“I’ll think about it.” In a show of mercy (or a show of sucking-up), Izuku lets her at his hair this time, even bending down so she doesn’t have to reach for it. “Just get started on the pike, would you? It’s already ground, but—”
“It’s better when the berries are fresh,” Deku finishes. “On it.”
The two fall into an easy quiet as Inko fills the space with clattering dishes, dusting more sugar over the simmering pot of berry compote here, dropping a used fork into the bucket of water there. Between smashing the gooseberries down and straining out the seeds, Deku sneaks in behind her with his own little adjustments. More sugar in a dish beside the bubbling compote (Inko always forgets you’re supposed to wait to add it until after it’s off the heat), scrubbing the grime off the fork (Inko refuses to acknowledge that letting the gunk soak doesn’t automatically make it sparkly clean), all that fun stuff. Between corrections he’s careful not to let her see, he pokes his head out into the seating area.
There’s only a couple people filtering in so far, most of them nursing little flasks that wrinkle their noses. The early crowd, taken care of by Inko well before anyone else will begin thinking about dragging themselves out of bed. Deku catches the eye of one of them, a hat pulled low over their forehead as they pick at a loose curl of wood on the edge of their table. They mime taking a drink from their thumb, pinky extended. Deku nods and ducks back into the kitchen.
“It’s starting,” he tells Inko as he grabs a mug and holds it under the spigot of the freshly-steeped pike barrel. He lets it fill up halfway, sets it on the counter beside the barrel, and grabs another mug, letting this one fill to the brim. “Fresh off the top on the left,” he adds on his way out. He doesn’t have to glance back to know Inko is already darting over to get the first sip of the day.
On his way through the swinging door to the main area (and ignoring the squeaky hinge that really needs to be oiled one of these days), Deku takes a careful stock of the patrons so far. Not too many, honestly, which is great in the sense that he doesn’t have to run himself ragged this morning, from the kitchen to the tables and back. Shitty, though, in the sense that once everyone’s been helped, there won’t be much to do besides sit in the back and wait for someone to need him. Maybe he could use the free time to convince Inko more on those warmed cinnamon apples. Start them himself, even.
“One gooseberry pike, no room,” Deku’s mouth says of its own accord as he thunks the mug down on the table. They offer him a ghost of a smile, then stick their pinky into the drink.
Long since used to whatever ritual that’s supposed to be, Deku turns on a heel and heads for the next occupied table. A woman with spiky brown hair grins at his approach, absently petting the pink fur draped over her head. Not a monster hunter himself, Deku might not know better, but he’s pretty sure bears don’t tend to look like furry clouds, much less furry clouds that adapt into wrist warmers. Maybe less monster hunter, more creature wrangler. Either way, he isn’t confident that he recognizes her well enough for that getup to stand out so much.
“What can I get started for ya?” he asks, pressing one hand against the edge of the table. An old trick of Inko’s—if people recoil from the hand, or shift in their seats, you keep an eye on them. They aren’t expecting to deal with other people in the midst of whatever they’re trying to do. Deku hardly thought this made any sense for them, specifically—who would come to a tavern and not expect to deal with people?
“Hm!” she declares in a voice entirely too perky for this early in the morning. She leans toward his hand, which Inko taught him was code for ‘watch out,’ too, but for a completely different reason that she refused to elaborate on. “I think I’m torn between the fright perch and the cheesy nut bread. What do you recommend?”
“The fried perch,” Deku says, “is about as fresh as can be, since we brought it in last night, but you’re gonna want a side, since the perch on its own is pretty mild. I can sub in the berry compote for the cheese with the nut bread, if you want?” Against his better judgement, Deku leans in closer, dropping his voice to a whisper. “That’s definitely the best we’ve got this morning. Snuck some off the top myself.”
“Sounds perfect!” she decides. “And, um, I didn’t see a drink menu…?”
Okay, so that cements Deku’s assumption that she’s a total stranger around here. Somewhat reassuring. The list of offers tumbles from his tongue without him having to think about it, more interested in getting to the kid at the next table over—yeah, kid, which doesn’t particularly make sense, given their usual clientele. Well, maybe a little. A would-be adventure-seeker, for example, trying to look like the old pros by sulking in a tavern all suspicious. “Water, mead, ale, some fruit juices, a clockwhistle, a virgin clockwhistle, and gooseberry pike. I can try to whip up something else, depending on what you’re in the mood for.”
“Wait, gooseberry pike? Like—” She gestures toward the front door and cocks her head to the side. “Like, because—”
“Yep,” Deku interrupts, well used to this rigamarole. “Exactly because. So, to drink?”
“Well, obviously I have to try that, if you name the whole building after it!”
“Sure thing. I’ll have it out in just a minute.”
Halfway through swinging around to the next table to figure out what that kid’s deal is, Deku’s eyes catch on a visibly uncomfortable figure lingering near the entrance. Well, isn’t that just perfect.
He takes his sweet time taking the rest of the orders—the kid is just waiting for their dad to come back, which sets off a couple alarm bells in the back of Deku’s head—dragging it out before he has to go deal with the newcomer. He’d put it off ’til the sun sinks below the horizon again, were it not for Inko flagging him down through the window into the kitchen. It’s not like she hasn’t been waving for the guy to take a seat anywhere, besides.
“Go help that man,” she insists, pressing her weight into the countertop. Deku pretends not to notice the creaking of the wood beneath her. He instead fakes a yawn, hiding both it and the followup smile in his elbow when Inko mirrors it with her own, pushing back from the countertop to stretch her arms over her head. “He’s been standing there for who knows how long, he probably can’t read the sign!”
“Or the sign is too small,” Deku suggests. He’s always been of that opinion—who would notice such a tiny thing with even smaller lettering, much less squint to make out the instructions to find any open seat?—but Inko’s more dedicated to the traditional side of things. She raises an eyebrow, and up with it comes the other, almost as an afterthought.
“Oh, and on your way, take this to table three.” She nudges a tray crowded with mugs across the counter.
Deku swallows a groan and takes it. “Okay, fine.”
He doesn’t bother plastering on a happy expression for those bottomless eyes as he turns around to call out, “You can just sit anywhere!”
The guy shakes his head, then waves his fingers in a ‘come here’ gesture.
“No, really, you don’t have to wait to be seated, it’s—” Deku gives up on the hope that the guy might just get the picture already, and all but throws his arms in the air as he makes his way across the floor. Tragically, table three isn’t remotely in that path, meaning some poor souls have to wait even longer for their drinks while Deku sorts this out.
“Interesting cover story you’ve got here,” the guy says. At least there’s no blood pouring from his mouth this time.
“Uh,” Deku says. “Right. So you’ve clearly lost it, since you followed me here for no apparent reason, and you’re also taking up my time until I can get this stuff to table three, so what do you want?”
“Most adventurers wouldn’t hide themselves under wraps like this.”
Deku shifts his weight between his feet, debating the merits of dumping the tray over his head. Table three would probably understand, right? “Look, I don’t even know who you are, for one, and for another? I’m not an adventurer. I don’t give two shits about whatever you think is going on here, I literally just want to set down this tray which is very heavy—”
“You know!” The guy claps his hands together, his voice now booming and drawing the eyes of pretty much everyone in the room. “I was quite the adventurer myself, back in the day! I took on all the quests everyone else was too smart for. Lots of death wishes, you know how it goes!”
“Uh huh. What, exactly, do you want me to do with this information?”
“Toshinori Yagi!” he declares, sticking his hand in Deku’s face. For a brief, impossible moment, Deku considers biting it.
“Right. Um. So, do you want a table, or…?”
“I want you to tell me what the hell you think you’re doing here!” The beam on Yagi’s face does not match the insistence in his voice. “You could be doing so much more!”
“All I did was throw an apple at some guy who probably didn’t even deserve it.” Deku flicks the edge of the tray weighing down his shoulder. “So, seriously, if there’s nothing else—”
“I want to take you on a quest with me.”
“Ha! No.”
“Come on, my boy! It’s—”
“No, we’re done here, that’s it.” Deku turns on the ball of his foot and makes a beeline for table three, which had been watching whatever that was with great interest. “Okay, so we had a couple clockwhistles right there, perfect, and then a few gooseberry pikes, two, three, four, and one apple juice for the little lady right there.” He surveys everyone sorting out their mugs amongst themselves, checking that the apple juice goes to the little one and the pike fixins are in their proper places. “Anything else for us this morning?” At the halfhearted chorus of mumbles and shrugs, Deku tucks the tray under his arm and backs away. “Just holler if you need anything, then.”
He turns and walks smack into Yagi.
“Dude, what do you want?”
“I told you, I want to take—”
“You will literally die. I could snap your bones like a stick. You would shatter with a sneeze. I am not doing that. Take a seat and tell me what you want to eat or drink, or get out.”
The sound of tearing fabric is enough to finally draw Deku’s eyes, and oh, how he wishes it hadn’t. Hulking muscles replace spindly arms, that grey top pulling and splitting at the seams to reveal tanned skin smattered with scars, the trousers reaching a point of tightness uncomfortable for wearer and onlooker alike. Those eyes hardly change, which is perhaps worse—they shrink back into small craters under that forehead, the blue dots hardly visible anymore, making it impossible to discern anything about them. Their absence from sight does nothing to quell the knot of discomfort Deku has at the thought of how they looked before. It also doesn’t help that there’s smoke curling up from Yagi’s skin.
“Recognize me now?” Yagi asks. His voice is probably supposed to sound buff and intimidating, but it’s closer to strained as he forces those muscles to bounce.
Deku’s lip curls of its own accord. “Uh. No. Please leave. You are making me very uncomfortable.”
“I am the great All Might!” Yagi declares. “Savior of thousands, and always with a smile on my face! Does this not strike fear and awe into your heart?”
“It’s striking something, alright.” Deku fidgets with the tray, spinning it in a slow circle and running his thumb over the imperfections along the edge. “I’m the great Deku, server of drinks, and always with the expectation that it’ll be met with coin. Does this not strike the urge to please leave my tavern already into your heart? What is—what is that. What are you doing.” He takes a few small steps back when, in a sudden burst of the accumulating smoke, Yagi pops back to his skinny, hunched-over self from before.
“Ta da!”
“I am the furthest thing from impressed, or whatever it is you’re trying to evoke. Just—come back after we close, okay? I’ll—I’ll deal with you then, I’m busy right now.” Deku shoos him toward the door before booking it back to the kitchen, hoping Yagi might take the hint this time and beat it.
Mercifully, when he dares a glance through the kitchen window, Yagi is nowhere to be seen.
Unmercifully, when Deku slips out the back with two oversized garbage bags at the end of the night, Yagi is not nowhere to be seen.
“Hello!”
“This might be a good time to mention that I’m not a fan of malicious compliance.” Deku raises the bag in his left hand in lieu of explanation, and to his credit, Yagi sidesteps out of the way. As Deku slings the bags down against the side of the shack back here, he waits for Yagi’s voice to descend once more. When it doesn’t, not even once the bags are down and the tops partially untied (for good luck), Deku makes the regrettable choice of looking at him. “Well?”
Yagi shrugs, spreading his hands out at his sides. “You’re a tough customer.”
“Not to be too literal, but I’m clearly not buying whatever it is you’re selling.”
His hands come together in a thundering clap, beneath that huge, jaw-creaking smile, and Deku wonders whether Yagi even knows he’s doing it at this point. The difference between it being a show for others and entertainment for himself is surely a thin one. “Adventure! Intrigue! A chance to step outside the small world you’ve always known and search for something bigger! An opportunity to find your place beyond the straight and narrow!”
“I don’t understand why you’re being so persistent about this. I already said no, and I don’t need to step outside my ‘small world.’” To drive it home, Deku puts air quotes around the words. “I’m pretty happy here, actually. Maybe if you showed up, like, ten years ago, but since you didn’t…” He trails off and looks at the back door, debating if he’d be able to make it inside and lock it behind him before Yagi caught up. Almost definitely, if he trips him on the way, but that probably counts as playing dirty, and that’s basically the golden rule around here—‘don’t play dirty, something something I’m better than you.’ Truth be told, Deku ignored the second half when Kacchan told him it didn’t matter, and Kacchan’s word was law.
“Well?”
“I forgot you were here. Uh, yeah, so thank you for the offer, if that’s what it was? But no, nah, I’m good. Thank you, though.” That’s probably polite enough, right? Bound to get Yagi off his back. Deku humored him three times in one day now, and he tried being distant, being rude, and now being cordial. Statistically, one of those has to have worked. Violence should be his next tactic at this rate, but he really doesn’t feel like wrecking shop on some frail old dude, no matter how strong a puff of smoke makes him look.
“Alright,” Yagi says, holding his hands out as if to placate a wild animal. Perhaps the least appropriate time to behave so, given that Deku was genuinely considering beating him to bits a couple seconds ago, but whatever. “Alright,” he says again. “I can see you’re not interested, and I know when I’m not wanted.”
Do you? Deku is wise enough not to ask.
“If you ever need me again—”
“I won’t.”
“—all you need is this.” Yagi lifts a hand to his head and plucks out a limp strand of hair, then holds it out to Deku. Against his better judgement, Deku takes it. Don’t make that face—he can always throw it away, but if this is what it takes to get Yagi to leave him alone in the meantime, then so be it. “You can hide it in a fruit cake, if you prefer. I hear that makes it go down easier, but I did it dry when my time came.”
Deku can feel his expression tripping from one emotion to the next, passing briefly through confusion and disgust before detouring into horror and settling on being totally blank. Easier not to have any specific look in front of the dude who suggests you eat his hair. “I am not going to eat your hair.”
Yagi shrugs again. “Time will tell.”
“No, it’s—this isn’t—I am seriously not going to do that.”
“Maybe you will, maybe you won’t.”
“Stop saying little one-liners. I am not kidding, I will not be eating this hair.”
“Then why haven’t you dropped it yet?”
“Maybe I want to make sure I have evidence lying around for my mom to find when I inevitably go missing. Look, just—” Deku shakes his head and tries to ignore the unbidden mental images of the strand of hair turned into a writhing yellow snake, wrenching around to sink its fangs into his wrist. “Can you go? Are we done here?”
Yagi’s grin broadens as he shrugs yet again, then starts walking backward. It’s probably supposed to look all cool and intimidating, what with him slowly disappearing into the night while those beady blue eyes peer back until Deku tears his gaze away, but the effect is somewhat ruined by Yagi stumbling on a loose rock. The curses under his breath as he recovers put the first genuine smile on Deku’s face that he’s had since dealing with the guy. He heads back inside, taking care to lock the door behind him.