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The War Arc. it was hectic. And leading up to it was rough on Aizawa and Yamada, but this fic isn't about them as a pair but just Yamada. Finding out their best friend who was killed almost 15 years ago was not a nomu whose duty is to look after the leader of the league of villains was rough, he didn't take time off work to process it either, simply working more of his 3 jobs and not giving himself time to relax. And with the War Arc coming up he had other things to worry about.
Before all of this, his TikTiok was all upbeat, he had solid hundreds of thousand followers on the app and posted nearly every day, whether it being him doing something stupid like getting attacked by an alley cat on patrol and ending up in recovery girls office while the cat gets pet by Aizawa, or just like updates or fun things, doing trends and dances but always his twist on things, he rarely ever got negative comments anymore, did live streams twice every week, one just for fun and the other to help out students with English stuff regardless of their age or their school. Sometimes he would do the extra live stream and would just be getting ready or he was bored, and the lives were always great fun.
the first thing people noticed is that he would only do one live a week which was the English one, sometimes another one but not much, and soon it just changed into no live streams as well, not even the odd one. when people started asking him why he simply said he had more work on and didn't have as much time, and any free time he had he would catch up on sleep or just relax. of course, he just lied and made a cover story up because all he could think about was seeing Oboro appear from Kurogiri's body in Tartarus, it was all he could think off and at times it even distracted him from work.
After the War Arc, Yamada didn't post at all on any of his social media's, he was given time off work from all three of his jobs to heal and look after himself, but he ended up looking after Aizawa more than he looked after himself. Even after he went back to work he didn't post, not posting for a solid month before posting one TikTok very late at night/the early hours of the morning, sitting on his couch in his living room with his favourite fluffy blanket wrapped around him. he held his hand up before speaking
"put a finger down... put a finger down if 15 years ago your best friend died from a falling building because the hero you were interning with told you to use your quirk but then the villain used your quirk which used a building to collapse and hit your best friend in the head and killing them on the spot, then a few months ago you find out the villains wanted your other bestie because you were a trio, and the villains failed but instead they took the body of your dead friend and turned him into a nomu whose duty is to look after the leader of the league of villains and your dead friend now nomu gets caught and is now in Tartarus, then you and your bestie get called to Tartarus and you see your dead friend appear from the smokey body of the nomu and he needed help and you and your best friend are crying trying to get him to talk to you both but then he disappears and you to are left to suffer. Then during a big mission that happened last month your second 0other bestie that your dead bestie had a crush on dies from getting hit in the head from falling rubble and your bestie that saw dead bestie with you nearly died and is still in hospital and is very mentally unstable and then your left alone to be the one there for everyone else and now you very yourself to sleep pretty much every night and are questioning your life choices and just want your friends to be ok and your dead friends to be alive..."
somehow he fit that all into one minute, at the end putting a finger down as he was now shaking slightly and going to cry for whatever number of time that night, stopping the recording and just posting it with no caption or tags. he turned his phone off and left it on the table as he goes to bed. he was glad that it was a Friday night and that he didn't have work until Monday. he didn't post over the weekend. Previously his most liked video had been him in his casual clothes but not it was this video of him on the breaking point.
On Monday he went to UA and ignored every comment about the video, he ignored the video for another week before one night he started a live stream, watching as his followers joined and started asking if he was ok, he gave honest answers unless things got too personal or he didn't want to answer.
He didn't post much over the next few weeks on any of his platforms, but slowly he started to posy more, do more TikTok and stuff, but now he did a lot more on mental health and was more open about how he was feeling, his agency made him take days off and nezu wouldn't let him come into UA some days and made him relax at home. he would spend time with shota and do things that made them both feel better.
He knew he wouldn't be ok for a while, and others guessed that too, but he knew things would one day be better and he would be able to laugh and smile with Aizawa again, even if two of his best friends in the whole world weren't there, he would cherish the time he had with his friends now.