Work Text:
It had been four months, two weeks, five days, seven hours, and thirty two minutes.
Midoriya Izuku looked at the timer ticking up each second on the app in his phone. His mother made him get it when she found out about his “addiction”. It was a self help app that kept progress of how long you have been clean before.
It had been four months, two weeks, five days, seven hours, and thirty three minutes.
Izuku understood what it was supposed to do. Give you a reason to not fall back into your habits, to show you how much progress you’ve made by telling you how long it’s been. He understood why it was supposed to work. But he didn’t feel like it worked.
Especially the timer.
It was supposed to show progress but all Izuku saw when he looked at those numbers was how long he had been “fine”. Because in his utterly depressed and guilty and irrational mind, he felt like unless he had evidence he was depressed, ie. the cuts, then he was just faking it. It was just him being dramatic. After all, who was he to complain? Those self help books always said to think of the things you have to be grateful for and it will cheer you up but all Midoriya could think about was how he had no right to feel like this.
Logically, he knew he did. That feelings couldn’t be helped and sometimes you just feel a certain way. But that didn’t stop him from thinking things.
‘ I have a nice apartment. I have a mom who loves me. I get fed three times a day. I get to go to my dream school. I have a phone and a tv and a nice, soft bed to fall into. Why do I get to complain when there are millions of people who would kill to be in my position?’
It had been four month, two weeks, five days, seven hours, and thirty seven minutes since he had last raked a razor blade from his little box across his arms and thighs in small, semi deep strokes.
It had been four months, two weeks, five days, seven hours, and thirty eight minutes since Midoriya Izuku, resident golden boy of 2A, the smiley child, and one of the big three for his year, had watched with satisfied, calm, gratification as red rivulets of blood ran down his appendages and dropped onto the bathroom tile.
And he wanted to make it zero months, zero weeks, zero days, zero hours, and zero minutes since he had last sliced his skin open over and over. He kept telling himself that he couldn't. He was doing so well. He was making so much progress and it would be a waste to throw it away and get out the blade. It would disappoint his mother, and send her into a crying fit, and it would disappoint himself too. He knew he shouldn’t. He couldn’t. He wouldn’t.
But he wanted to. So. Goddamn. Much.
He wouldn’t because he knows he can’t hide it in the locker rooms and someone would see and tell someone and they would talk to him and offer him support and he would go home and want to do it again because how could he be so stupid.
So he wouldn’t. Because he shouldn’t. Because he couldn’t. But he wanted to.
It had been four months, two weeks, five days, seven hours, and forty-seven minutes.