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You hold the letter in shaking hands.
“Unfortunately, UA is not able to offer you a spot in our school at this time due to…”
You laugh. You laugh, and laugh, and laugh so much it turns into a sob that wracks your body, and then just a feeling of “Of course, why would I expect anything different?” that weighs you down.
All you can see in the letter is excuses that ring sharp in your ears, as familiar as the back of your hand. You know you got enough points.
You would rip the letter in half, or burn it, or something, but you don’t have the will at this point. All emotion in you has been replaced with a dull nothing. You worked for this all of your life, yet all you got was a placation, and it should hurt , you should be swearing and snapping and shouting, but you just can’t.
You can only wipe your eyes and stare at your phone (an unsuccessful attempt at distraction) until your vision blurs.
You somehow scrounge up an online course with the help of your mom.
As the days pass, you can only force yourself to do the assignments, sometimes not even that. You wouldn’t be eating if it weren’t for your mom making you.
Any thought of doing something else is met with your newfound void of purpose and energy, and the latter always wins.
To pass the time (since you can't force yourself to be productive, a fact that continues to gnaw at you with guilt that never forces you to do anything, just festering and itching), you continue watching the hero news, despite the fact that you can't bring yourself to analyze without your former reason to.
The internet bursts with words on the UA attack, some blaming UA for it and some not, arguing just like the internet always does.
You watch as hero fans share their predictions on the sports festival as they do every year.
And then, on the day of, your mom cajoles you out of bed to see the sports festival, and you manage your first smile since you got UA's letter. Mom's food was always the best.
The third years are first. You and your mom see them use their quirks in ways even you didn't think of, deftly averting obstacles and battling in ways that seem almost like a blur to you. Muttering slips past your teeth as it always does, noting new techniques and certain people, and your mom gasps over the students' feats in an endearing way that brings a smile to your face, unbidden.
Next are the second years, and though you can easily see areas of improvement, the difference between them and the third-years stark, they still amaze with their flashy quirks and fighting.
Last are the first years. You hear Present Mic call out the classes, placing too much emphasis on the UA attack class, and then you see them enter, and something in you aches more than before seeing them interact, carefree.
Bakugou is there too, seeming to entertain people trying to be his friend in a way he never did to anyone else, to you. He lets a boy with a shock of spiky red hair on his head close to him, and something in Bakugou is almost - soft, despite the fact that the boy is as bright as you had been, before.
You could have been part of this class. You should have been part of this class. If Bakugou weren't such a… well, Bakugou, you might have been talking to him just like the red-haired boy is.
If you weren't quirkless, you would be racing through that obstacle course too, doing all you could to get first.
But, instead, you're a bystander. The knowledge you can't do anything just hurts, a pain you should have been familiar with the moment you got your diagnosis. Instead, it stings anew, fresh. You'll get some dead end job as a cashier if you're lucky, and die either at your hand or someone else's, and there isn't anything else you can do.
And so, you watch, longing washing over you as you see the UA attack class and 1-B, mainly, compete. You would cry, but for once, you just can't.
You can't act, so you watch. That's all you do, because it's all you can do. Watch.