Work Text:
Midoriya Izuku was a talkative toddler. His mother swore he was saying ‘mama’ before he was even 1
The baby would babble nonsense to anything and everything as though he was telling the most interesting tales
By the age of 3, his mother would have a dry throat just trying to answer the young boy’s endless questions
Inko was such a patient woman for that, just happy that her son had such a creative mind he spoke out
At the age of 4, Izuku wrote his best friend
It was on an All Might themed notebook his mother got him when he started scribbling words and letters
a Saturday morning where the TV played his mother's favorite Japanese show
Izuku didn’t speak much Japanese but he had a vague understanding of the language growing up with his mother who spoke it occasionally
He had just learned the English alphabet and was trying to write words he saw on TV
He wrote his name
He wrote his mother’s name
He wrote small random words that came to mind
As he went to write his favorite food, the host on the TV let out a booming laugh that made the young boy lookup
He couldn’t understand why the host was laughing, but he could see they were teasing their co-host, calling them ‘Chan’ over and over again until the other host threw a cup at them
Izuku didn’t think much of it and went back to writing, but his ears kept picking up on the sound of the host
Chan
Chan
Kacchan
Oh
He accidentally wrote it
“Kacchan…” It was a random name. A random word, really. But Izuku couldn’t bring himself to correct it
“Kacchan?” His mother asked from above, looking down at her son with a fond smile “Is Kacchan your friend, Zuku’?”
Izuku looks at his mother, then at the silly little word on his notebook
His imagination wandered to an image of a boy
A friend
“Yeah! Kacchan is my bestest friend!”
And Kacchan sparked Izuku’s inspiration
—-------
Though talkative, Izuku struggled in school
He could never keep his mind from wondering
He struggled to focus on the work he was given and lagged behind the rest of his classmates
It didn’t help that he developed a habit of muttering everything and anything that came to mind
He was so used to always talking to his mother that he struggled to keep his mouth shut and his ideas to himself
He got made fun of for it
For his muttering
For his height
For his wild hair
For his strangely symmetrical freckles that looked drawn on by a sharpie
They made fun of his handwriting too
But he loved writing
He day he learned how to write sentences opened a pandora’s box
He could finally put his thoughts into reality!
He could finally show people the stories and scenarios that constantly plagued his mind!
Since then that’s all Izuku ever did
He wrote and he wrote in notebook after notebook, filling them with endless scribbles of incoherent sentences and misspelled words that he had just learned
His mother was happy to see her son diligently writing, finishing his homework fast just so he could scribbly into his notebooks
He wrote about creatures and people of all sorts of personalities and appearances
He wrote about magical lands that made no sense but were filled with wonder
He wrote about heroes and saving people from bad guys
And he wrote about Kacchan, a young boy his age with ashy blond hair and bright red eyes
He wasn’t sure where he came up with the description. The image of Kacchan just came to him one day while he idly scribbled about them fighting alongside All Might
He wrote them in this fantasy world
A world where everyone was born with superpowers! Just like the All Might Comics
And he wrote endlessly about Kacchan and his quirk
He imagined it would be something flashy! Something powerful and bright and cool!
He wrote Kacchan to have the power of explosives. Explosives would come out of his hands and would spark and flash bad guys away!
He wrote Kacchan to be brave and strong, to be loud and intimidating. Someone villains would fear because he was too powerful!
He wrote Kacchan to always win the fights he got into. That no matter what he would come out victorious with only little scrapes and scratches left behind
Kacchan, in Izuku’s mind, was undefeatable. A force to be reconned with and someone who never gave up no matter what the world pushed against him.
At the age of 13, Izuku was so absorbed in writing this character that he ended up isolating himself from reality
He was so caught up in this fantasy world that going to school and being with real people seemed so boring and bland
It didn’t help that his muttering never seemed to stop
He would get bullied for the random things he would say while he wrote
His peers would call him creepy, starting rumors about him writing strange gore-y and depressing things in the journals he would always hold close to his chest
They would make fun of the dialog he would mutter whenever he would write interactions between characters, calling him a freak for always talking to himself
It was hard making friends in middle school because of this
But it was okay. Izuku, as much as he wanted to make friends, was content writing his stories, especially as he grew into his writing style and developed his own little world
He was content just writing about Kacchan and his adventures with All Might
Then Izuku discovered something that would change his life
At age 14, Izuku discovered FanFiction