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“You know that only one of us can go through, right?”
Midoriya nodded, shoulders hunched up to his neck.
“Well, I guess I better prepare for a goodbye, huh.”
Shinsou smiled softly, a not-so-well hidden tinge of bitterness coating it.
“You’ll have fun in heroics, right?” He asked, deliberately avoiding the smaller’s eyes.
Midoriya laughed. Unlike his usual ones, it was corrupted with a sick sense of irony.
“We both know I won’t be the one getting through, Shinsou-San.” He stepped close enough to lay a reassuring hand on his classmates shoulder.
“Just don’t forget about me, okay?” He whispered, close enough that Shinsou could feel warmed air brush by his ear.
“You’re acting like this is our last goodbye,” He teased, tactically ignoring the beginnings of a tear forming in his eyes. “We’ll still see each other, you know.”
Midoriya gave a noncommittal hum. It was a fair response given the situation.
Meeting again was a pipe dream, Shinsou would be too occupied to see him again with all the villain attacks directed toward that class, not to mention how it was his time to leave.
Midoriya had found that there was a time for everyone, a time they’d leave him. For Bakugou it was the day after his fourth birthday, for Hino, the one kid who'd talk to him normally, it was one week after they’d met. It shouldn’t have hurt as much as it had.
His mother was drifting away, submerging herself in work just so she wouldn’t have to face him at the end of the day. And that /burned.
Four months was a decent amount of time for a friend to last, especially for him.
He sighed, turning away from Shinsou.
“Well, your appointment is before mine so you better get going.”
It was a sad attempt at changing the subject, but successful nonetheless.
“Yeah. See you at lunch.”
Shinsou knew it was more than staying in general education that was hurting Midoriya, but he didn’t know what it was, and that frustrated him to no end.
He was snapped out of his thoughts by the sound of a door opening, and a beam of golden light brightening the wall in front of him.
Shinsou wasn’t very smart, but he was pretty sure that meant he was supposed to go in.
He took a deep breath and went in. The principal was sitting on his (Quite literally) high chair, looking down on him with a passively sadistic grin.
He was so fucked.
Empty hallways were nothing new to Midoriya, he used to be late to middle school all the time from inconveniences that were far from his own fault, but this time was different. He just couldn’t bring himself to walk into the classroom and sit next to Shinsou who probably didn’t want to see him either.
He sighed, curling up further in his corner. The walls were cool but not cold, and he could feel their rough edges through the thin fabric of his shirt. His blazer was probably burned up in a bin somewhere.
He buried his face into his knees, ignoring the sharp pain from where reddened skin met fabric.
As tears bubbled up in his eyes, he wondered why he ever thought applying to this school was a good thing. Walking into the home turf of Bakugou was never a good idea, even worse when your name was Midoriya Izuku.
A anguished sob broke from his lips, despite his best efforts to stay silent. Shit.. If someone overheard.. He slammed his palm over his mouth, biting into it slightly, just to muffle the sounds of pure hopelessness by even a little.
He was thankful that the corner he resided in was right under the stairs; it lowered the chances that someone would find him, but as his sight was becoming blurred with tears and black spots, he thought it might not be so smart after all.
If this were happening a month ago, he would’ve fought it with all the strength he had. But it wasn’t and Midoriya was /tired.
That didn’t stop his breathing from speeding up, nor the shaking tremors riddling his body and Midoriya could /really use a cat right now.
Soothing darkness chased away all hints of chromatic light, leaving nothing but emptiness behind. In the last moments of his consciousness, he remembered that he’d missed his meeting with Nezu.
Midoriya wasn’t in the classroom when he got back from his meeting. That was the first red flag. The second was that there was a singed blazer, no doubt belonging to the greenette, draped over his desk in a careless fashion. He furrowed his eyebrows, but nobody else, including the teacher, seemed to be concerned in the slightest.
He knew Midoriya had it worse than him, but Kami, at times like this he wondered if he’d be the only one to notice if he died.
Shinsou rested his head in his hands, waiting for the teen to arrive.
He did not.
He sighed, turning his head to the window and waiting for the excited chatter of students to fade.
Midoriya never missed lessons. He’d even come in with a broken arm once, (Which he firmly refused to state the cause of.) So an unexplained absence wasn’t his style.
With no friend in sight, Shinsou lay his upper half across his desk and closed his burning eyes.
Midoriya was missing.
Nezu sipped his tea slowly, relishing the sweet flavours.
The boy was supposed to be in front of him over ten minutes ago, and he wasn’t still in class.
In fact, he hadn’t been seen since break, and that was a cause for concern.
He placed his cup on the matching saucer with a soft clink and hopped down from his unnecessarily tall chair.
He always loved a good game of hide and seek. (As long as he was the hunter.)
His journey around the school started with the most obvious places. Although someone as intelligent as Midoriya was unlikely to hide in practically plain sight, the principal would feel like an idiot if he turned out to be.
The library was his first stop, but most of the cameras covered it, so there weren’t many places left to hide.
Next up were the empty classrooms, but they too held nothing unexpected. (Not including a strangely sized purple raccoon filled with the softest stuffing he’d ever laid his paws on.)
He tapped his mouth with a claw, trying to think of places to hide.
A memory came back to him, a painful one filled with hurthurthurt, but it was useful.
He had been cowering under the steel stairs after making his last, and successful escape attempt, the loudloudloud footsteps were pounding in his ears, taptaptap, but no-one had seen him in their rushes, he’d been left alonealonealone, freefreefree.
He blinked.
Ah.
He cursed himself internally for his stupidity. Under the stairs, where nobody thought to look as they were trying to go somewhere, never having time to notice a small figure curled up in the corner.
He changed his direction, and his search plan in favour of locating the hiding teen.
There were a few ways he could handle this, Nezu thought.
Anger wasn’t one of them, nor would it ever be.
Comfort was his best option, and he felt as though there’d been a few.. Miscommunications about their meeting. Namely the entirety of it.
For an animal, Nezu was rather adequate at calming humans, which was ironic in a sense.
A hug may be proper compensation for the mental stress placed on the boy. (Perhaps Nezu could give a couple head pats too. (He hoped he’d get some in return, but nobody needed to know that))
His ears flicked in the direction of muffled breathing.
That was faster than he’d been expecting, but he couldn’t complain.
Glancing between his suit and the slightly dusty floor, he sighed, getting on his hands and knees to reach the teen.
Midoriya was sleeping, or unconscious, in the corner furthest away from him.
An inconvenience, but nothing more.
It took a few seconds of awkward shuffling for him to be able to retrieve the boy. Nezu was rather glad nobody had seen him, or the last shreds of self respect he owned would go up in flames.
Back with the problem at paw, he had no way to move the crumpled form in front of him. This.. was an issue. Midoriya obviously had a reason why he’d hidden, Nezu wasn't going to mess that up for him.
He hoped Midoriya wouldn’t mind the dust on his shirt, he thought, as he picked up the collar of his top and began a long journey along the floor to his office.
Midoriya woke up and the first thing he noticed was that he’d moved.
Instead of being in a secluded, dark place, he was laid out on a spacey sofa, a soft grey blanket covering him. He propped himself up, looking around the strange room.
His eyes scanned the office, until they met another pair.
“Hello, Midoriya. I’m glad you’re awake now.”
Midoriya barely swallowed a squeak of surprise, looking up at Nezu.
Particles of dust drifted towards his eyes in the air, but he still didn’t blink.
The teen was frozen in place. He glanced between the door and the principal, attempting to calculate how far he could get before Nezu caught him. (The answer was ‘not very’)
“I apologise for not explaining what this meeting would be about sufficiently. It seems there has been a misunderstanding.”
He clasped his paws together.
“We do, as you know, only have one free space in our heroics course, and-”
“And Shinsou-San got it, I know.”
Nezu held up a claw, efficiently silencing the boy.
“Well, actually, he wasn’t the one to get in, however-”
Midoriya cut him off a second time.
“But he has to get in! He can’t… not!”
“Please, Midoriya, let me finish.”
The greenette shut his mouth without another sound, hunching in on himself in shame.
“Yes, Shinsou-San was not the one to receive a place from the sports festival, and yes, you did, but he still got in.”
His voice was soothing, lacking its usual high pitch, probably to comfort the nervously shifting Midoriya before him.
A cracked sob broke from Midoriya’s lips, a fresh tear pooling in his eye in preparation to fall from his face.
“You did it, Midoriya, and so did Shinsou.”
The floodgates opened, and droplet after droplet tumbled from his eyes, dripping through his hands attempts at controlling them.
Nedzu crawled across his desk, hopping down to cautiously pat the back of the weeping boy.
He let out a muffled squeak as he was immediately brought into a tight hug.
Oh. Oh. It was nice.