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Toshinori was in a staff meeting when he got the message.
He quickly fished out his phone from his pants pocket and saw the notification. It was from Izuku.
'Help'
It took only half of a second for his brain to register the one singular word displaying on his screen. The next thing he knew was that he was dashing out of the meeting room.
He usually kept his phone on total silence but any calls and messages from his protege were always welcomed with a familiar ring of, "A text message is here!" Or a, "A phone call is here!" The rest of the staff gave him skeptical and or annoyed looks whenever his phone rang but he liked to think it was funny. Nighteye thought it was funny and so did Izuku, that was enough evidence that it was indeed funny. Though that wasn't the concern right now, Izuku needed help. His boy rarely ever asked for help. He rarely ever reached out unless the damage has gone too far, unless he has been hurt, unless he felt the pain — Izuku had a very impressively high pain tolerance which might or might be the cause of a few white hairs on Toshinori's head but his boy didn't easily feel pain.
It scared Toshinori when he did feel it.
Because how much did it have to hurt for Midoriya Izuku to admit he was in pain?
To top it off, there has been nothing else from the boy's end except for the 'Help,' message. Toshinori had tried to text with shaky fingers, asking him where he was and if he was injured. There were no replies. He felt his heart beating louder and louder in his chest as he crossed the halls of UA in a frenzy. He tried to call him. One ring, two rings, nothing and then straight to voicemail. Toshinori did not give up. He tried again and again and again but all in vain. Izuku did not pick up his calls. Not a single message from the blonde was marked seen.
He felt blood rising at the back of his throat, he suppressed a cough.
Toshinori just wanted to find his boy.
He made it to the dorms first. It was Saturday afternoon, the boy should be in his dorm room writing an English essay or studying for maths with Tenya. Toshinori has known him long enough to know there was rarely ever a tweak in the boy's routine. Toshinori threw the doors and ran up the stairs to Izuku's room, not caring for any of the confused looks sent his way. Izuku needed his help, his boy was in trouble, nothing else mattered more than to find Izuku. With one swift motion and whatever strength is left in his scrawny arms, he opened the door to Izuku's dorm room.
He found nothing but his own face smiling back at him. No sign of a mop of green hair in the room. Toshinori felt blood trickle down his chin, escaping his mouth as he could no longer hold it back after running for so long and suddenly coming to a stop. As he whipped out a handkerchief to wipe it off, Toshinori noticed the window open. Chilling breeze came in through it and collided softly against the blonde's skin. He shivered, it was getting cold.
Shit, he wondered if Izuku was cold too?
Toshinori was sprinting again.
He flew down the staircase quickly, reaching the common room in no time. There he saw Tenya, the boy looked up at him with a confused expression. Just like every other student present there (Every other student that wasn't Izuku) It was when Toshinori stopped in front of the boy when he realized how shallow and quivering his breathing was. His entire frame shook with each and everyone one of them, his fingers had gone cold and beads of sweat were lining his forehead. He gulped before asking, "Have you seen Young Midoriya?"
Despite all the confusion, Tenya fixed his glasses and replied in an even voice, "Yes, we were studying about twenty minutes ago but then he suddenly got a text and left. He said something important came up and he will try to get back soon."
"Did he say where he was going?" God, his voice sounded so desperate.
"Okay… Okay…" Toshinori took a few deep breaths to ground himself before leaving the dorms. No deep breaths could actually help him right now, nothing but seeing his boy was going to help. "Where are you, kid..?"
Eventually, after a long while of stumbling around the UA campus, Toshinori found himself at their usual training spot among a cluster of trees. He sighed, letting his back against one of the stark trunks of wood as his brain spiralled with worry and every worst case scenario his boy could possibly be in. Toshinori felt his heart drop, he couldn't. He just couldn't sit down when his boy was in trouble. Izuku had asked for help for how long now? Toshinori didn't know, he couldn't think straight anyway. All he knew was that perhaps his powerless, useless body was not enough to find and help Izuku. He reached for his phone, thinking of alerting the staff. A man alone, quirkless or not, wasn't going to do things as fast as the entire UA faculty together. They could find Izuku much faster than he could, no matter how bitter it felt.
His fingers hovered over the call button—
A sudden angry hiss made Toshinori almost drop his phone.
The man pocketed his phone and stood up to investigate the noise. Just a little distance away, he found a cat. An angry little thing, he wondered what got it so moody. The cat growled at him as soon as the stray saw him. Toshinori put up his hands in surrender, not wanting to fight a cat when he had other things to tend to. He was about to leave when he heard another hiss that wasn't coming from the cat he just saw. It was soon followed by another hiss. A few more growls and soon came a few content meows. Toshinori found it quite weird so he decided to go a bit further into the forest to investigate the cause.
He froze as soon as he reached there.
Stray cats, lots of them. Toshinori knew there were a lot of them around the campus but he never saw them all together, he also heard that students came to feed them everyday and that fact was what made him crack a smile after a long while of constant worrying.
They were piled on top of Izuku.
Cat food lay forgotten on the ground, all spilled over while Izuku's phone was lying on the grassy ground far far out of his reach. A good number of strays have decided to snuggle up between the boy's Arms and over his legs. Two bigger ones slept comfortably over his stomach while three kittens played with his face — two in his curly hair and one sitting on his chest, pawing at his face. The sight was something Toshinori never thought he would see in his life but it was so adorable and funny to him, he couldn't help but stifle his chuckles so Izuku wouldn't notice his presence just yet.
Over thirty minutes of agony and just for this? What was he going to do with this boy?
"Come on… I'm not that soft, get off of me…! I just came here to feed you," Izuku whined underneath all the furballs of death, "Dammit, Shinsou. The things I do for that guy…"
"You're wrong there, you look very soft and cuddly." Toshinori walked a bit closer with a fond smile on his face. Izuku quickly recognised his voice and tried to turn to look at him with big wide eyes but his face was being squished by kittens so couldn't fully look at his mentor, "All Might! Please help me get them off, I just came here to feed them because Shinsou asked me too since he's sick and Recovery Girl told him to get rest but they jumped me as soon as they saw me and haven't let me up since then. I'm sorry, I couldn't even pick up your calls but I really need you to get them off me. Do they think I'm a couch or someth— This isn't funny, stop laughing!"
Toshinori let out a boisterous laugh in disagreement. This was indeed very funny to him.
A few minutes passed and Toshinori's chuckles subsided while the cats mewed at Izuku. The boy had resigned to his fate, wearing a stoic expression as if he was betrayed in the worst way possible and now has given up on life as a whole. Toshinori picked up on his sour mood as he wiped away a tear and kneeled beside him, "Now, now, don't make that face, my boy."
"... Are you going to help me or not?" He pouted. The kitten on his chest, patted his freckled cheek with a small paw.
Toshinori didn't reply. He just pulled out his phone and started taking pictures.