Chapter Text
Hitoshi thinks he’s had a nightmare like this before. The hallway to the principal's office is dark and unwelcoming and the officer is walking slightly behind him rather than leading him, almost like he’s getting arrested.
They’ve all been separated too; Hitoshi would have argued against that one except the way one of the detectives had pried Uraraka off of him so harshly she’d nearly fallen over had him clicking his mouth shut and following orders. Now that he thinks about it, that had definitely been at least twelve different favors of illegal.
He kind of hopes someone tries that with Todoroki, he’d love to see them lose two well deserved fingers and half an eyebrow. According to Iida, Todoroki has been strangely trigger happy with the fire half of his quirk recently and Hitoshi always thought he looked like one of those kids that bit people when provoked.
Finally, he is led into a room with a large table and spread-out chairs. Principal Nedzu sits at the head, on what is quite literally a booster chair, only no one is brave enough to point it out. In front of him are an empty teacup and a bowl full of hard candy that looks like the stuff his grandmother has had on her coffee table for the past decade. Next to him is a tired looking man in a wrinkled dress shirt, who nods at the officer leading him in.
“Thanks, you can leave him with us,” he sounds like Aizawa after not sleeping for a week, except Aizawa doesn’t try so hard to mask his exhaustion.
“Umm, the other officer who came in with that guy just manhandled my classmate down the hallway,” he mentions as soon as the door swings shut, “just thought you should know,” he tacks on, like the unassuming little snitch he is. Aizawa should be proud.
“Thank you for letting us know,” Principal Nedzu chirps with the kind of smile that says he’s more than understood what Hitoshi is trying to imply.
“Yeah, he definitely wasn’t one of ours. Sorry kid, I tried, but we weren’t completely able to keep the Commission out of this one,” the man sighs, “I’ll talk to them about it though, you kids shouldn’t have to deal with all that on top of...” He runs a hand through his close-cropped hair before smiling lightly at Hitoshi, “I’m Detective Tsukauchi Naomasa, why don’t you take a seat.”
Hitoshi takes a seat gingerly while the detective flips through the file in front of him.
“So, umm... what am I here for again?” he asks after several minutes of silence, broken only by the detective's increasingly frantic paper flipping. He’s already turned in his phone for evidence, told his version of the events a dozen times, and answered about half a million questions.
Nedzu continues to smile, unnervingly polite, and turns to the detective, who makes a sound of approval as he finds whatever he was looking for.
“Thank you, Shinsou, for your help and cooperation thus far,” the detective starts, fingers straightening wrinkles in the paper, “before we begin, I would like to offer my condolences, Midoriya was--”
He pauses, which is different. Shinsou has heard dozens of these kinds of platitudes over the past couple days, some of them generic, some of them sincere, but few people have actually taken the time to be thoughtful.
“Ah, he was a great kid wasn’t he,” the detective smiles sadly as he says it, which is another tick for Shinsou’s theory that he knew Midoriya personally, “Sansa was always telling Ya- my friend to let him know that if the whole hero thing didn’t work out, we could always use someone like him at the station. He was a real smart kid, and a kind one too.”
Hitoshi nods along like he doesn’t already know all of this.
“Listen,” the detective snaps out of his musing, sitting up straighter and adjusting his collar lightly, “I know this week has been a lot for you, even before this whole investigation, but there is something that we were hoping that you could do for us.”
He phrases it placatingly, but the innocuous statement ( Can you do something for us Shinsou? ) has his stomach turning. From what Aizawa has told him, it in no way should be a comfort, but all of a sudden, he’s glad that Nedzu is sitting in the room with them.
“Depends,” he tries to keep both his face and voice as bland as possible even though he’s pretty sure his hands are shaking, “it’s not like, illegal? Is it?”
The detective makes a face that absolutely does not inspire confidence in him, “It is, perhaps, a little out of procedure,” he admits, “but it is nothing that would cause you problems. If there are any repercussions then I will make it clear that I was the one that authorized it.”
“Okay,” he nods, then the important question, “Is it going to help you guys figure out what happened to Midoriya?”
“We,” he rubs at his face like it's going to smear the exhaustion off, it doesn’t work, “We’re not sure, but we would appreciate it if you gave it a try.”
“Ok,” Hitoshi nods again and resists the urge to turn and look to see what Nezu’s face (snout?) is doing, “what do you need me to do?”
The detective slides the paper over to him face down, for all of his fiddling, the edges are still creased, “It’s nothing much really, we would just like for you to read over this and let us know if you notice something out of place.”
“What is it?” he asks, pulling the sheet closer, it seems unnaturally bright under the fluorescent lighting.
The detective just gives him a ‘see for yourself’ kind of gesture, and Hitoshi takes a deep breath before he turns it over.
It takes him a second to comprehend what he’s seeing.
First, the image: it’s a photocopy of a notebook page, with cramped, messy handwriting. There is a header and footer separated by a single line that makes the text recognizable as a letter.
Second, the words: Dear Shinsou , the letter starts. I’m so sorry.
Hitoshi knows the paper is crinkling under his grip with how hard he’s squeezing it, but he can’t bring himself to loosen his hold as his eyes fly over the contents. He skims over the ‘ I’m sorry if you found out from someone else ’ and the ‘ I still think you would hate me for it ’ and ‘ I should be the one jealous ’ and ‘ I’m just going to be proud ’ and the ‘ I might not be cut out for it after all ’ and ‘ you’re going to be a wonderful hero ’ as he makes his way down and down and down the page until his gaze sticks on the last two words, working back and forth between them like a broken record.
Love, Midoriya.
Love, Midoriya.
Love, Midoriya.
“Shinsou?” the detective asks, then winces lightly as Shinsou gives in and finally crushes the paper in his hand.
“Did you--” his voice cracks embarrassingly and he almost loses the nerve to say it, “did you just make me read--”
The detective nods solemnly, face straightening out, “Was there anything, at all, that you found unusual in what you read?”
It’s the dumbest thing he’s ever heard, “Unusual? Do you like, regularly read your- your best friend’s dying words, like what the shit man--”
“Shinsou,” Principal Nezu repeats calmly, and it's only then that he realizes that he’s standing up, waving around the piece of paper as he speaks.
“Shinsou, please, have a seat.”
He slumps down in his chair, breathing loud, heart hammering fast and heavy in his chest. Midoriya wrote him a suicide note. And he just read it.
Almost automatically he smooths out the paper and reads through it again, once, twice, near half a dozen times. The whole thing is just so Midoriya . The guy is writing a farewell letter and all he can talk about is what a good hero Hitoshi is going to be. Just, the same stuff that he goes on about at lunch, or when he walks back with Hitoshi after his training exercises. Even all the concerning shit, the self-deprecation and apologies, none of it is out of place either.
Midoriya could have said all this to him out loud on their way to the library and he wouldn’t have batted an eye, just hummed and nodded in the right places.
It makes him feel like the worst asshole alive.
“No,” it’s heavy coming out, just like his phone had been in his hand last week as he and Uraraka ran to the 1-A dormitories, “no, there’s nothing really out of place. He literally talks like this in person too. It’s just- It's just.”
“I know,” the detective stares down at a spot on the floor, “I know. We were just wondering why...” he winces at what he was going to say as he trails off, but over the past week Hitoshi has been doing goddamn stellar at ‘complete the law enforcement officer’s sentence’.
“You were wondering why he’s saying all this stuff to me right?” he says, “Why he called me and wrote me a letter when by everyone else's observation we were barely even friends.”
“Yes,” the detective admits, “Although, I don’t think ‘barely even friends’ is an accurate description, he spoke of you often, and I was able to recognize you from pictures that he had both physical and digital copies of,” he pauses to chew on his lip, “Were the two of you together?”
“Together?” Hitoshi asks, voice high.
“Yes, were you dating, or romantically involved at all?”
“Romantically- no,” he almost wants to laugh at the thought of it, the hero course’s certified golden boy, Midoriya, and that creep from Gen Ed, Shinsou. Together.
“No, we weren't. We weren’t even proper friends yet. He literally didn’t even have my number until the weekend before,” his ears burn as he realizes how that might have sounded, “I uh, gave it to him on Friday, so we could talk. As friends.”
“Alright then.” The detective gives him a look, something between sympathy and pity that he doesn’t really want to think too much about, but doesn’t push further.
Hitoshi nods absentmindedly, as his gaze drifts back onto the paper, on those last two words, written by Midoriya. His mounting panic and remnant embarrassment draw back, tamped down by questions, because suddenly he needs to know. He needs to know...
“Hey is this, is this actually his last--?”
“No,” Hitoshi’s glad he’s sitting because otherwise his knees might have given out at the answer, “This was not the last note he wrote. There was a date on the top of the paper but it was blanked out following the copy being made. This particular note was written almost three months ago.”
Hitoshi squints at the top of the grainy paper and, sure enough, there is the rough swipe of cover up liquid he hadn’t noticed before. It’s not even the actual note, but the disfigurement of the page makes his stomach clench in anger.
“Can I take this with me?” He wants to show it to Uraraka. Uraraka who’s also seen that picture on his phone, of something that might as well have been Midoriya, cold and dead to the world.
It’s a stupid question, since the page in question is quite literally evidence, still, something in his chest flares when the detective shakes his head no.
“It’s classified kid, and as much as I want to, we really can’t have it floating around,” he glances out the corner of his eye at Nezu before he continues, “But, tell you what, once the investigation is wrapped up, we’re going to release the originals back to his mother, so you can ask her then. She’s a real nice lady, and since you were one of his friends, I’m sure she wouldn’t have a problem with you seeing it again.”
He’s barely made a dent in his list of questions, but the way the detective is looking at him, face set, posture straight, reminds him of the fact that he’s still in a police investigation. Maybe it is the better option, to back off right now, and go ask Midoriya-San about it later. He’s going to see her the day after anyway. For the funeral.
“Was that everything then Detective?” Nezu asks. Hitoshi nearly startles at the sound of his voice.
“Yeah, I don’t have anything else,” the detective rubs another hand over his eyes. Hitoshi has the urge to do the same, the room’s bright lighting has already started a pulsing at his temples, “You’re free to go kid.”
“Nice,” Hitoshi throws one last look at the paper on the table as he gets up. It’s impossible here, but maybe, in another world, he would have taken it with him, just, slid it into the pocket of his blazer, and walked out with no one the wiser.
It’s a stupid thought really. If he had the chance to make a reality where things went his way, Midoriya would be right there, thanking Nezu repeatedly and pulling Hitoshi out of the room with him, his hand wrapped around Hitoshi’s arm in a way that would have the detective looking back and forth between them, a wry smile on his face, brows raised.
Even better, Hitoshi wouldn’t be here at all. He’d be in second-period math, bored out of his mind, doodling idly in the corner of his page and Midoriya would be in his own classroom down the hall, taking rapid-fire chicken scrawl notes with his pencil clutched so tight it almost hurt to watch.
Hitoshi takes a deep breath and stands straight before settling into his usual slouch. When he gets out of here, he’s going to ask Todoroki how many fingers he’s bitten off and listen to Uraraka gleefully recount, in great detail, what she’d done to that officer that grabbed her by the arm. Later that evening, he’s going to find Iida and ask him how to properly dress for a funeral. And then, the day after tomorrow, he’s going to ask Midoriya Inko why her son claimed he was jealous of him.
“Umm, do you mind if I take one of those?” he points at the bowl of hard candies next to Nezu’s teacup. Now that he’s close enough, he can read that they're ginger flavored. He’s going to try and see if he can dare Todoroki into eating one to get the taste of cop fingers out of his mouth.
“Honestly kid,” says the detective, “take the whole damn bowl.”
-------
We’re friends now! Asui got you to admit it last week, but I still think that as far as relationships go, ours is probably a bit unequal. It always strikes me kinda unfair that I know how it feels, when you clam up and refuse to talk, when you try to push us away or look confused when we invite to things, or when you look around like you can’t believe the things that are happening to you are real. And really most of that is my fault for not telling you the truth. I still think sometimes, that you would hate me for it. But then, I don’t think you would hate me for it at all. I don’t think that you’re as capable of hatred as you try to convince yourself you are. You took all the people who belittled you and called you names and walked all over you and your ambitions and you just used them to pave your path forward.
At the sports festival, I remember during our match, you told me that you were jealous of me. I don’t know if you meant it, or if you were just trying to get me to talk but that part always struck me as ridiculous. If anything, I should be the one jealous. You struggled and worked and came out with drive, and all I was able to grab onto was hatred. Only, I’m not brave enough to hate others, so I suppose that meant that I had to hate myself instead.
But it’s a stupid thing to be jealous of your friends, so instead I’m just going to be proud. I’m going to be proud of you for your hard work and your dedication, and I’m going to be proud when little kids with the ‘wrong’ kinds of quirks hear about you through rumors and age-inappropriate online forums and save up their money to buy bootleg merch of you off of questionable websites. I want you to know that I would have done that too.
Like Uraraka-San said last week, ‘you’re gonna rock this hero shit’ and I’m sorry if I can’t be there, but, then again, I’ve realized recently that I might not be all that cut out for it after all. But, I think, out of all of us, you with your determination and drive are definitely going to make it all the way. Plus Ultra!
You’re going to be a wonderful hero Shinsou!
Love,
Midoriya
-------
Toshinori doesn’t know how to outlive people.
Honestly, it really hasn’t been a problem until recently. Nana, whom he had loved with all his heart in life, had been old enough to be his mother when they’d first met. Even though she’d been taken away all too soon, murdered, as he had told Young Aizawa, at the hands of All for One, he’d already settled the fact that he was going to outlive her, if only in the way that children outlive their parents.
With Izuku, the realization had come to him on the beach they trained, that one day he would be leaving his boy behind. But even then, he hadn’t dwelled on it, more worried about the fact that his young successor seemed very determined to give himself heatstroke. As far as he knew, All for One was dead, and, when it came time for Toshinori to go, Izuku would be ready. A man confidently bearing the power and potential he could see bursting in the child in front of him.
It’s after Mirai that it hits him. Mirai had been a young man, both physically and mentally fit, yet Yagi, with his broken body and half patched soul, had been the one that watched him fade away on that hospital bed.
He’s never been ready for Izuku to go first.
Even with all the kid had faced in the past year, Toshinori had somehow convinced himself that he would be there, with his stretched-out smile and embers of One for All to give Izuku whatever he needed to get a chance at his tomorrow.
But now, he’s standing at the entrance to the funeral home, ushering people in, and thanking them for coming. He’s caught sight of all of 1-A and more than half of 1-B sporadically, and he’s let at least five of the kids cry lean on him as they cried, or, in Young Bakugou’s case, ground the heels of their palms into their eyes and muttered about ‘damn pollen allergies'.
For the first time in years, the suit he’s wearing actually fits him. Inko had practically strongarmed him into bringing it over the other day and he’d sat holding a rapidly cooling cup of tea and watched as she’d opened up the seams and restitched them with measurements from his old tracksuit.
“I made his first costume you know?” she’d told him, squinting as she threaded a needle “I like to think that I’m an expert in everything All Might at this point.”
“I know,” he’d responded, and both of them had tried not to glance down the hall at the door with the All Might nameplate.
Toshinori can’t recall much of the service, but he remembers it being brief. He might have said something, he might have not, all he knows is that sometime between people arriving and people starting to leave, Inko leans over and tells him, “Imagine if Izuku knew that All Might had spoken at his funeral.”
It's his first solid memory of the day, and his first solid reminder since the ambulance had driven off: that his boy is gone while he is still here.
“If it were open casket, he might have gotten up to make sure,” Toshinori responds when he catches her for a moment between bidding the guests farewell. She makes the same face as Izuku when he’s worked himself into a panic and Toshinori tries to halt it by telling him the worst jokes he knows.
“He’d want an All Might themed coffin,” she tells him the next time they cross paths.
“He’d want to be buried in his hero costume,” Toshinori mouths to her across the room sticking two fingers up on top of his head to signal the barely discreet reference Izuku, ever the fanboy, had worked into the design.
“All Might picture frame,” Inko whispers, pointing to the picture as they fold the tables. It is indeed an All Might themed picture frame. Bronze age, though the colors are muted enough to be appropriate next to the picture of the newly deceased. It’s a nice picture, his boy is smiling, looking slightly off to the side, as if he is happy to see whoever is standing behind Toshinori. He’s glad they used that one, in the pictures where he has to look directly at the camera, Izuku always resembles a deer caught in headlights.
“All Might urn?” he offers as Inko grabs her coat from the back room. The body has already been cremated but the police haven’t released the remains yet. Naomasa had offered to show him the photograph that had the investigation reopened but he had refused. Now that the funeral is over, he supposes he’ll go down to the office to see it tomorrow.
“Do those even exist?” Inko wonders as they haul the flowers down to his car.
“Probably,” he shrugs. Just as quickly as it strikes him, the thought leaves, “Izuku would have known.”
“He would have.”
They drive back to the Midoriya apartment and he helps Inko arrange the flowers in Izuku’s room. She cries the whole time, but it isn’t new. Toshinori has watched her cry all day. Both she and Izuku never seem to run out of tears.
When she leaves the room Toshinori shakes his head at the picture of his boy they’ve set up on his desk, “A little troublemaker aren’t you, making your poor mother worry like that.”
His knees creak as he settles down on the desk chair, “Don’t think you’ll mind telling me what happened with One for All, will you? Gran Torino let it go last time because I was crying but he’s going to be on my ass about starting right next week I promise you.”
Izuku continues to stare right over his shoulder. Toshinori wonders what he sees there.
His knees creak again when he gets up, winding his way through the flowers overflowing from practically every horizontal surface. It’s a wonder the desk chair was empty to begin with.
“Goodnight my boy,” he says, like an idiot, when he turns off the room’s lights, "Say hi to Nana for me,” he closes the door behind him.
“Drive safe,” Inko reminds him as he collects his keys and blazer to leave. It’s too vague of a goodbye so he pauses right there in the doorway.
“This wasn’t supposed to happen,” Toshinori isn’t too sure what this is. Izuku dead. Him alive. Him darkening the doorstep to the Midoriya household at eleven at night.
Still Inko nods in understanding, “I didn’t think so either.” She sighs lightly and there’s a history there that Toshinori knows nothing about. He can make guesses sure, from Izuku’s medical files and the way some of the things Inko says hint that she and Izuku have talked at length about his funeral. But the truth of it is something he had hoped Izuku would share with himself one day.
“I wasn’t supposed to live past sixteen,” his boy might have said, and Toshinori would have told him that he wasn’t meant to live after sixteen either, then he wasn’t meant to live past forty, then he wasn’t meant to live into his fifties.
“But someone always pushed up the ‘dead’ line,” he would have laughed, “Nana, Gran Torino, Chiyo, Mirai, Izuku,” he would have grinned as he listed them off then the two of them would have cried about it.
“I wasn’t mean to outlive him,” he has to confess it to Inko instead, standing in her doorway with one of his shoes half on.
“I wasn’t either, parents are never meant to outlive their children,” her voice is firm but her eyes are wet.
Toshinori wonders if they’ll ever dry.
-------
Dear All Might,
I’m really, really, sorry, but before I continue with that, I have to make sure you know that this letter is for you. The real you that is, not the fake you, but not the fake you like in that one comic where the villain with the chameleon quirk impersonates you and takes David Shield hostage, I mean the fake you as in the vague ‘Symbol of Peace’ idea of you that they made cereal about because when I was younger, I wrote a bunch of these notes to him and you can see them if you flip back but this one is for the real you like the one who gave me you-know-what and helped me with figuring it out and stuff.
I’m really sorry. I feel really bad for wasting your time and accepting the you-know-what even though I knew I was going to end up like this anyway. I’m extremely sorry. I think I’m going to have to be sorry for the rest of my life to make it up to you. But, and this might be inappropriate for me to say, even more than I’m apologetic I am thankful. I need to be sorry for a lifetime but I want to be thankful for two lifetimes, or three, or however long it's going to take me on the reincarnation wheel to come back as a person so that I can thank you properly.
I am thankful that you saw me worthy enough to have you-know-what, and that you were kind enough to look after me since then. I am thankful for your instruction and all the times you took me out for skewers after training even though you didn’t have to. And I’m thankful you helped with my tie that one time and that you made a meal plan for me and that you showed me that breathing exercise for when I get too worked up about things because I used it a couple times and it really did help a lot.
Mostly I’m thankful that you believed in me. You looked at me, pathetic and small, and likely not to make it through the next year and believed that I too could build something with my own weak hands. And at the sports festival you told me to say ‘I am here’ and even though it didn’t work out all that well in the end because of the whole thing with Todoroki-Kun that I’m glad I did even though it put me out of the running, when you first said it, you said it with the belief that I would be able to reach that goal. You’re always believing in me and I’m thankful for it but I’m sorry because I’m about to go ruin that belief and
Note to self: (Rewrite)
-------
Shouto is sick of people not letting him see things.
First it was Uraraka, who he’s not sure counted, mostly because he really hadn’t figured out what she wasn’t letting him see until later on but it should probably still be a strike in her column. She’d said it was because she didn’t want him to have the image in his head, but they saw a movie once, as a class, about a lady who’d hung herself after her husband left her so now, he has that image in his head, but with Midoriya’s face stuck on top.
Then it was Shinsou, who wouldn’t let him see the picture, even though he’d walked back into the nurse's office just as he and Uraraka had run out and there was definitely enough time for them to stop and show him. They’d described it to him later, but awkwardly enough that he knew they were hiding something.
Now it’s Fuyumi and Natsuo who are bent over grinning at something on Natsuo’s phone and who quickly school their expressions when he walks in and picks a slice of carrot off of the cutting board to chew on. It’s more bitter than he usually prefers.
“What are you guys looking at?” he asks first before craning his head to try and catch a glimpse of the screen.
“Nothing,” Fuyumi says politely.
“None of your business,” Natsuo grunts, which kind of makes him sound like Endeavor, and shoves the phone into his pocket.
“Can I see?” he asks reaching for another slice even as Fuyumi bats his hands away with a ‘those are for stir fry not snacking’.
“No,” says Natsuo.
“Why?” he picks up a slice when Fuyumi turns her back.
“Because it was a picture of my girlfriend ok,” Natsuo throws his hands up and nearly knocks a glass off the counter, Shouto moves it back so the same thing won’t happen again, “you wouldn’t be interested in that sort of stuff.”
“What if I am?” he tries to go back to the carrots but Fuyumi has already transferred them all to the wok, “What if I want to see?”
“Why, you interested in girlfriends recently?” Natsuo grins at him, “there someone special in school?”
“No,” well, at least, not anymore. As far as Shouto was concerned the only use of him having a girlfriend would be that he’d have someone to split living expenses with when he became a legal adult and moved out, and he’d already been planning to do that with Midoriya anyway.
Maybe he did need a girlfriend now.
“So why do you care about my girlfriend? I can assure you she’s, like, totally not your type,” he snickers, “plus she’s a bit too old for you buddy.”
“I care about you,” Shouto explains, it’s perhaps a bit blunt, people tend to want to dance around these types of declarations, but he can’t think of any other way to say it. If anything, he should have said it more, “and you care about her. So, I care about her.”
Natsuo stares at him for a moment, mouth opening and closing. Even Fuyumi stops violently chopping cabbage behind them.
“Shouto-” Fuyumi starts but Natsuo cuts her off.
“It was umm, a totally weird photo,” he blurts, going red in the face, “like, it would be inappropriate to show you.”
“Why did you show Fuyumi then?” Shouto mentions as Fuyumi makes a gagging sound and throws a piece of carrot at Natsuo. It lands on the floor.
“Because she’s a girl?” Natsuo tries.
“You’re lying.”
“He better be, I don’t ever want to see that kind of thing. Ever. Understand?” Fuyumi snaps, coming over to swat at Natsuo with a towel. He tries to duck but he’s too tall. She turns back to Shouto when she’s made her point, “it was a picture of Touya.”
“Oh,” says Shouto. Natsuo huffs out loud and stalks into the living room.
They remain silent until they’re halfway through dinner. It’s not a bad silence. Not the looming oppressive kind they have to maintain when Endeavor is around, taking up too much space, and telling them what to do. But a calm, simple kind, almost like when Shouto goes to Midoriya’s room to study and after all the snacks are eaten and light conversation exchanged, they all just sit together and do their own work.
If he were at the dorms, this would be the point in the silence when he leans up against Midoriya and he wraps an arm around him in return, one hand playing with Shouto’s sleeve while the other traces the line he’s reading from his textbook.
But that doesn’t happen here, instead, Fuyumi leans over and transfers the pickled onions he’s meticulously picked out of his rice onto her own plate and Natsuo gives a deep sigh and pulls out his phone.
“Here,” he slides it across the table so Shouto can see, “he must have been like, eleven or twelve in this.”
Shouto doesn’t really know who Touya is, save for the few pictures in the shrine, or from stories he’s heard from Fuyumi and Natsuo. To tell the truth, if his siblings had decided to keep their older brother to themselves and if Endeavor had closed up the shrine, then Shouto wouldn’t have known he had a second brother at all.
He thinks he should have his own memories of Touya, but they are either too blurry, or too much like the hanging lady: like he’s just taken something similar and stuck Touya’s name and face on top.
In the picture that Natsuo shows him, Touya is standing in a stream, pale hair wild, one foot up, arms mid-pinwheel, mouth stretched in a shout as he tries not to fall over. It’s a funny picture. He says as much to Natsuo.
“Yeah, it's great, isn’t it? Mom showed it to me. She had a copy of it in that scrapbook she’s making and I took a picture of it to save digitally,” he grins, “I think we should replace that stupid middle school photo that’s up in the shrine with this one. How long do you think it’ll take dad to notice huh?”
Natsuo’s mood has bounced back, just as rapidly as it had deflated. Shouto almost feels bad for ruining it, but there’s something he needs to know.
“Did Touya kill himself?”
Natsuo’s grin falls and Fuyumi chokes on something, running into the kitchen for a glass of water. Neither of them says anything until she comes back.
“Shouto--” she starts, and, just like before, Natsuo cuts over her.
“Is that what that bastard told you?” he hisses, “That Touya killed himself.”
Endeavor has never said Touya’s name out loud where Shouto could hear it, “No, that’s why I’m asking.”
“Listen Shouto,” Fuyumi tries again but Natsuo isn’t done.
“No one really knows ok, he’s always going on about how it was an accident, but in the end, it doesn't matter if Touya did it himself or not,” Natsuo swipes angrily at his eyes and Fuyumi comes around the table to rest an arm on his shoulder, “what matters is that piece of shit drove him to it. He’s the one responsible, ok Shouto? It’s all his fault and don’t listen if he tries to convince you otherwise. If he- if he starts saying shit about Mom, or if he tries to blame you,” he leans forward so Fuyumi can put her arm around him properly.
“It’s all him trying to save his own ass alright? It’s all bullshit.”
Shouto nods slowly, picking the longest piece of carrot out of his bowl and transferring it to Natsuo’s so that it sticks right up out the top.
“It’s a flag,” he explains, “For the ‘Screw Endeavor’ express,” He looks away when Natsuo chuckles. Midoriya had come up with that one, only he’d done it with cilantro instead. Everything Shouto seems to do these days comes back to Midoriya. He wonders if that’s what it's like for Fuyumi and Natsuo as well, only with Touya.
He waits until they’re done eating to say it, if only because he doesn’t want Fuyumi to choke again.
“I wasn’t truthful with you this morning,” he starts out, and Fuyumi’s face falls lightly at that before she fixes her expression.
“About what Shou?”
“I lied about where I was going. I said I was going to a friend's house, but I wasn’t.” Does he even have friends anymore, without Midoriya? He thinks he does, but that’s something he might have to confirm with them later on.
“C’mon buddy the friend’s house excuse? That’s a weak one,” Natsuo pats him on the back, “but don’t lie to your sister next time, ok? Say whatever to the old shitbag, but you gotta let her know where you’re gonna be just in case right?”
Shouto nods even though it seems repetitive. Ever since he’d come home he hasn’t felt like moving around much.
“And like, let me tell you I have done everything in the book ever, so she’s not going to be surprised, cause she’s already seen it all. And she’s been pretty cool with it too.”
“Where did you go?” Fuyumi asks, voice even, but Shouto can tell that she’s disappointed by the way her lips are tilted down at the corners. He doesn’t know why he’d lied to her that morning. Probably because he’d said the word ‘friend’ since he was going to stop by Yaoyorozu's house first and Fuyumi had automatically assumed he was talking about Midoriya.
It wasn’t really a lie, he supposes. He did go see Midoriya in the end, in a roundabout kind of way.
“I went to school.”
“Aww did little Shouto finally get in trouble? I knew the goody-goody phase wasn’t going to last forever.”
“Why were you at school?” Fuyumi’s tone is gentler now, but for some reason, it makes him uneasy.
“They were holding a memorial there. I went earlier so I could help set up,” he keeps dancing around it, even though it's been his job to tell people the cold hard truth of it.
“Whose memorial was it?” Fuyumi’s guessed it; he can tell because she takes off her glasses so they don’t get in the way when she goes to hug him.
“Midoriya’s,” he whispers, but it travels, fast and heavy in the empty living room, “It was Midoriya’s one month memorial. Because he’s dead now. He killed himself,” he tacks on at the end, because that’s been his job so far: to tell people how it happened.
“One month?” Fuyumi gasps, eyes wet. She looks like their mother when she cries, stricken and silent, “Shou, it’s been a month? Why, why didn't you say anything Shou?”
Why didn’t he say anything? Maybe because this is the first weekend he’s been home since, but Fuyumi had called him before, only he’d heard her voice, slightly squeaky over the phone, going on about one of her coworkers, and Natsuo’s latest attempt at cooking, and that their mother had taken up knitting again, and had lost his nerve.
After that, they’d started the second investigation and everything he’d been holding back had been buried under a damn NDA. He still doesn't know if he’s allowed to be talking about it but he could care less. He just spent fifteen minutes today talking to a picture of Midoriya about rising apartment prices and Endeavor’s internship offer that he’d forgotten to tell him about before and how when he, Bakugou, and Uraraka had gone to submit their paperwork for it they’d seen Hawks walk face first into a glass door at least twice.
He doesn’t think he has much left in him to give a shit.
He shrugs as Natsuo glances rapidly between them, “Whoa, whoa, wait who’s this Midoriya? Is he like, a teacher or something? He’s not,” his gaze finally settles on Fuyumi, “he’s not that one, is he? Is he? Oh shit,” he curses when Fuyumi nods jerkily, confirming that Midoriya is indeed that one, or whatever his siblings refer to him as.
“Shit,” Natsuo repeats, “Shit kid, I’m sorry about that,” he shakes his head again, “shit.”
“It’s fine,” Shouto tells him. And it is. Everything is settled now. Midoriya isn’t coming back.
“No, no, it’s not man, and I was just making fun of you about the girlfriend thing and-” he sniffs loudly, “ shit !”
Shouto blinks, “What does this have to do with the girlfriend thing?”
Natsuo snorts even as tears drip down his nose and Fuyumi makes a light choking sound and throws her arms around both of them, pulling them in closer.
She doesn’t hug like Midoriya, who can never shut up or stay still. When Midoriya hugs him during an emotional moment he runs his hands all over Shouto, through his hair, down his back, and up his arms, and keeps up a steady stream of chatter until the two of them are ready to let go.
Natsuo is the one that flails around, patting Shouto on the top of his head then tapping Fuyumi’s cheek all while his elbows poke them both in the ribs. Fuyumi talks, but she just keeps saying the same things over and over again: ‘ one month ’ and ‘ I’m sorry Shou ’ and ‘ I love you ’ whispered to both of them.
“I love you too,” Shouto reminds them, patting them both on the back. It's just words but he tries to mean them as fervently as possible because he wants them to be true. He does love his siblings, even though he hadn’t talked to them for years and they still don’t spend that much time together. Even Touya, who he still isn’t quite sure is completely real.
Midoriya was definitely real, Shouto has met him and talked to him and touched him. But it occurs to him now, that years down line people he meets at the bank, or his future coworkers, or even the girlfriend who’s actually just there to split rent, might not actually believe him when he says it.
It's only been a month but people are already having trouble remembering things. Uraraka had asked yesterday if someone had a recording of his voice and Iida and Shinsou had gotten into an argument at the store because Midoriya had liked both lychee and pineapple flavored jelly but they couldn’t remember which one he liked better .
It’s going to be another one of his jobs then, he supposes, keeping Midoriya’s memory up to date. Just like Fuyumi and Natsuo do with Touya. He’ll be the one who reminds people that Midoriya sounded different based on how tired he was, and that he liked pineapple jelly better by itself but preferred lychee if it was in a drink, and when someone asks how he died he’s the one who’s going to look them in the eye while everyone else avoids their gaze and tell them that Midoriya killed himself.
Maybe, one of these days he’ll finally admit to himself that he hates having to say it.
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I think, Todoroki-Kun, that I have always been somewhat in awe of you this entire time. First, it was mostly because of your quirk, which sounds bad, but it isn’t I promise because I just thought it was super cool. It was like the kind of thing I’d make up when Kacchan and I were little and playing heroes and he’d just shoot it down because it was too OP and unrealistic, plus I was always the sidekick in those games anyway so my quirk really didn’t need to be all that special. But’s yours definitely is, special that is.
Recently, however, I have found myself in awe of your kindness. Ever since that time in the sports festival when you told me about your parents and what had happened during your childhood, I keep thinking about how it would have been if I grew up in a place like that and I can freely admit that I would not have turned out as good a person as you are. The day after the school festival I remember the two of us just loitering back by the Takoyaki stands and watching them pack up even though everyone had already left and I could kind of tell it was because your father wanted you to come home over the weekend but you didn’t want to go. I was supposed to go home that weekend as well but I didn’t because I waited with you and ended up missing the bus (lol). It wasn’t your fault at all though Todoroki-Kun because I was happy to wait there with you till the end.
I’m an only child, so at home I just have my mom with me. I love her more than anything but I always think what kind of life I would have had if I was scared of going back to my own house. It wouldn’t have been a pretty long one, I’m sure. I hid out a lot at home over the summer and sometimes I would fake being sick so I didn’t have to go to school. Have you ever done that Todoroki-Kun, stuck your fingers down your throat and made yourself throw up so you could stay home? I used to do it a lot. Sometimes I still think about doing it at UA.
I think I’m a bit of a coward, aren’t I Todoroki-Kun?
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