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The day passes long and slow and thick like syrup; sticky and much too sweet.
Izuku does as he should; he wakes and he dresses and he eats and he goes to school. He writes notes and ignores the whispers behind his back. He stops himself from reading the words that are written on his desk, carved in sharp and painful. He raises his hand even though he knows the teacher won’t call on him, and tries not to flinch when Kacchan’s friends slap their hands down too hard on the lunch tables. After lunch he rinses the milk out of his hair in the school bathroom.
He tries not to think too hard about it.
Why not hope for a quirk in your next life and take a swan dive off the roof of the building!
His mother says that kids are just mean.
The principal glares at him when he walks through the dull hallways.
He thinks it is not just children who act that way.
The cherry blossoms are falling now. They tumble uselessly to the ground, and get trampled on for their troubles. Izuku walks in the spaces between them.
He’s stuck.
Every day is the same. So bland, so tiring. Words— words words words— they ring in his ears so loudly.
—hope for a quirk in your next life and take a swan dive off the roof of the building!
They run into his ears, clog his brain. He can’t think. He can’t breathe.
—next life and take a swan dive off the roof of the building!
Breathing hurts.
—take a swan dive off the roof of the building!
Everything hurts.
—swan dive off the roof—
It is about twilight when he does it. A purplish haze has settled deeply over the city. He looks over it, feels the gravel under his socked feet and the breeze that swipes at his hair. He didn’t write a note— his hands were shaking too much.
He feels something heavy in his chest— is it fear? Anticipation? The ground looks inviting from the top of the school building. It looks like a promise.
Of what? Of something better? Of something worse?
The thought makes Izuku nauseous.
The door behind him— the one that leads to the rooftop— opens.
“What the fuck are you doing?”
Izuku closes his eyes. He breathes in deep, breath hitching somewhere in his chest.
“What the fuck are you doing?!”
“Kacchan.”
“Answer me, Deku!”
He hears Katsuki’s steps, rushing towards him, so Izuku steps forward as well. He is met with the edge of the building.
“Any closer and I’ll do it, Kacchan.”
The footsteps stop.
“You— you— fuck!”
Izuku is crying; he can feel it in the burning just behind his eyes, in the dry ache of his throat. His cheeks are flushed and covered with cooling tears. He can taste the salt of them in his mouth. He finds it funny, almost.
“Get over here, dipshit.”
Kacchan sounds furious.
Kacchan sounds scared.
Izuku can picture him so clearly, without even turning around. The downturn of his brow, the way his skin creases just between his eyebrows and his nose. He’d probably be flushed peach and violet from the sunset, sweat dripping down his temple to the cut of his jaw. He’d been on his evening run. Izuku knows this.
Is it sick that he did this on Kacchan’s route? When he knew Kacchan would be there?
He doesn’t know if he did it for some sort of revenge, or if he did it because he doesn’t want to be alone.
One foot goes over the edge. Izuku doesn’t open his eyes.
“Fuck— Deku, shit, I’m sorry, just come back here, okay? Come back here. Everything will be fine.”
“Kacchan,” he says again. It’s quiet— a whisper swept away by the wind. He isn’t quite sure Kacchan even hears it.
Kacchan is scattered, Izuku knows. His brain is struggling to come up with a plan, struggling to understand the situation. He’d do anything, at this point, Izuku is sure, though he doesn’t know if he’d do it because he cared or because he was worried about the repercussions.
“Deku. Fuck. Shit, shit shit—“
He’s spiraling. Izuku is tired.
“Deku, I—Izuku,” he says it like the word is foriegn, says it hurried and slurred as if he’s worried he’d pronounce it wrong. “Look, I’m sorry, okay. I didn’t mean it. Don’t do this to— don’t do it.”
So, so tired.
“If you come back here everything will be fine, okay! I’ll— I’ll make sure no one is ever mean to you again. It— we— it could be me and you again, right? Like you fuckin’ wanted? That’s what you wanted?”
Izuku is silent.
“You— you love me, right?”
Of course.
“I love you too! I love you!” Katsuki says. His voice cracks a bit in the middle, and it is laced with desperation and sweetness that makes Izuku sick.
He doesn’t.
Katsuki knows this.
Izuku knows this.
“You shouldn’t say things you don’t mean,” Izuku whispers. It comes out harsher than he means it to.
“I do mean it!”
Lie. Katsuki has always been so bad at lying; that’s why he hates it.
“I do, I swear! Just— just fucking step back from the edge! Please!”
When Izuku opens his eyes he is met with the sight of stars.
The city around him glows, from the lights of apartments and the lights of the street lights and the lights of the cold and silvery stars.
Izuku is scared.
Izuku is tired.
One wins out over the other.
“Don’t.” Katsuki says it with such conviction. His voice trembles. He sounds angry, he sounds horrified. He sounds upset.
“It’s not your fault,” Izuku says in response.
“Deku.”
“It’s not your fault,” Izuku says again, quietly. For himself. There are goosebumps on his arms. His chest aches.
“Izuku.”
“Katsuki.”
The ground is warm, and inviting, and Izuku is no longer scared.
Katsuki can not say the same.