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Izuku doesn’t quite know when it started.
Maybe when he was younger. Watching all the kids in the courtyard practicing with their quirks, while he patiently waited for his. And he waited. And waited. And waited, until finally on his 5th birthday his mother brought him to the doctors and they told him he was quirkless.
Or maybe it was before then, when he noticed how sometimes Kacchan’s father would pick him up from daycare because his mom was finishing up work. Meanwhile, Izuku had to sit in the after school care waiting and waiting. It’s not that he hates his dad. He gets that his job is important and that he tries to visit as often as possible, calls him on his birthday and christmas and even halloween and valentine’s day.
He just wishes he were here sometimes.
Jealousy is what they call it. That burdensome envy that wraps around your heart like a vice, squeezing all the empathy out of you until you’re bitter and rotten, lashing out at anyone trying to understand.
Izuku of course doesn’t show it. He can’t. Not when his bullies sniff him out, eager to cause him harm, or the teachers already think less of him for breathing. So, he stuffs it deep inside himself. Swallows it down when he watches all the other kids get praise in school while he gets reprimanded. Swallows it when he sees Kacchan choosing a group of lackeys over someone who could offer him genuine friendship.
The sickness, the jealousy follows him to UA, as he watches Kirishima and Kaminari sit close to Kacchan. The blond doesn’t push them away, doesn’t hurt them, nothing. He just yells, all hot air, and then sulks when they stay anyway. Of course Izuku knows that the Kacchan from middle school and the Kacchan here are different. He’s grown.
He just wishes he’d have grown with him.
There’s small instances, like when he meets Mirio or when someone gets praised for something he also did, but it just wasn’t as impressive he guesses. These things are small though, petty in nature and he can quickly dispel them.
Then Shinsou Hitoshi walks into his life and turns it upside down.
Or well, he has been in his life for a while. The sports festival, the joint training, and all. But it’s not until they live in the same dormitory and spend a lot of time together that Izuku realizes he’s starting to fall in love. It’s little things, like the way he says some words, drawing out some vowels with his gruff voice. Or how he always orders coffee with an extra espresso shot. His cat themed casual clothes, or his obsession with true crime.
They are all big reasons and at the same time too small to carry the scope of Izuku’s feelings for him. And he thinks, maybe this will be okay. After all, no one else has been shown to express interest in the other so maybe he should just go for it.
He doesn’t take into account that Shinsou might not want him in the same way.
Izuku finds out the hard way, as he does with most of his life lessons, when he sees Shinsou and Kaminari alone together in the garden area of the dorms. He’s curious, so he watches and watches. He watches Shinsou rub the back of his neck while explaining something, before he’s pulling out a letter and a small box of chocolates.
Izuku watches, the bitter feeling bubbling inside, as Kaminari laughs and jumps into Shinsou arms and kisses him. He turns and goes straight to his room, skips dinner under the guise of a migraine and tries hard not to think about how nice yellow and purple looked together. He spends the hours contemplating everything he did. Was he not kind enough? Did he not make the other feel safe and loved? What had Kaminari done that he hadn’t? Deep down he knows that it’s not his fault, or Kaminari’s, or even Shinsou’s. After all, he thinks begrudgingly, you can’t help what your heart longs for.
He just wishes Shinsou’s heart would have longed for him.
In his darkest moments, his mind wanders to a note he wrote that’s safely tucked away in a burnt notebook. He wrote it back in middle school, long before Kacchan had ever uttered the words ‘swan dive’ to him, back when he was experiencing one of his very first bouts of depression.
It’s sloppy and if he went back to read it, it’d probably make no sense, but he keeps it. He thinks about it from time to time, the note, the process of writing the note, the plan, and feels angry. Sometimes, it’s because he knows some people never get to that point in their life, never experience the constant mental battle of choosing to walk away instead of taking an entire bottle of pills.
Sometimes, he’s angry he didn’t do it.
It’s a horrible thought, one he hates and doesn't share with anyone because he’s so ashamed of it but it’s true. When he thinks about it too hard he gets mad he didn’t jump, mad he instead went back into his apartment and smiled like there weren’t so many voices screaming in his head. Even as a pro he still thinks about it, as he floats through the air, wind in his face imagines how it’d feel like to fall. Every time a news channel reports a suicide, everyone around him whispers about it mournfully as if they would have done anything to prevent it.
And Izuku?
He just wishes he was brave enough to go through with it.