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Shouto met Midoriya Inko for the first time at her son's funeral. In person, she was shorter than he’d pictured. She was tired. She was crying. Nonstop crying. Despite himself, he couldn’t cry. No matter how much he felt like he should. Bakugou was crying. Not in the way Mrs. Midoriya did. He was silent, stoic. With small teardrops slipping down his face onto the cuffs of his suit. Aizawa was crying from his one good eye. Eri was sobbing. He should be crying.
But Shoto couldn’t. His head felt fuzzy and spaced like he was walking through an inescapable dream. His therapist would say he was dissociating, he should try to ground himself. He would try, use that sensory count-down technique he’d learned. But all he could see was Izuku’s closed urn. He felt like he could almost smell the smoke of the cremation fire. The air suddenly felt gritty in his nose.
You wouldn’t think the number one pro heroes funeral would be such a small affair. You would imagine crowds of mourning citizens, fans, fellow heroes, and friends. You would picture an event for the ages, a fanfare of grief and hysterics.
Izuku’s funeral was quiet.
In a sick sense, it brought the old class back together. Iida and Ururaka are there. Tsuyu’s there and they're all crying. Shouto didn’t want to talk to them. Not his friends.
All Might’s there. He’s crying too.
The sky’s gray and cloudy. His head feels gray and cloudy. A raindrop landed on his nose. The sky was crying.
He couldn’t think of anything to say to Midoriya Inko at her own son's funeral, so instead he bowed. He slurred out condolences, and he was the first to leave.
But he had nowhere to go.
He remembered how much Izuku had wanted him to meet his mother. He’d plead to Shouto, “Just come with me to visit her, she’ll love you.”
And every time he refused. He couldn’t say why, exactly. Truly Shouto wanted to meet his best friend's mother. Truly.
But the crushing weight of anxiety kept him in their apartment every time. It would pick up extra patrols. It would forget the dinner plans. Volunteer to cover for his sidekicks.
Izuku deserved far better than the shitty mess Shouto was. Inko Midoriya’s son deserved more.
He pulls out his phone,
Your moms crying for you zuku.
Sent 2:24 PM
I miss you
Sent 2:45 PM
He could remember everything about Izuku so vividly. The way his nose scrunched when he smiled, the way his voice squeaked when he was embarrassed. He could picture Izuku’s face in the summertime, and how his freckles took over in the sun. He remembered Izuku’s smile so vividly.
He remembered the way Izuku cried. Shit, he’d cry over just about anything. Izuku’s heart would bleed proudly on his sleeve. Shouto can still see him bleeding out.
He died a hero. Isn’t that what everyone dreams of?
He can’t go back to their apartment now. There's nothing there for him.
Izuku died a hero, on the field, saving people.
“I think that’s how I want to go, you know? Saving people. If I have to die someday that’s how I want to go.” He’d once said, late at night after patrol drunk on white wine, sloppily draped over each other. “Then by dying I do something good.”
“Don’t talk like that, please.”
Both of them always knew dying was just an occupational hazard when it comes to heroics. On the first day of high school, Aizawa made that fact crystal clear. Every lesson and exercise had some aspect of self-preservation as a core objective. Izuku had such a shit sense of self-preservation.
Now he’s dead.
When he thinks about it too hard his head hurts. Even at sixteen Izuku was saving people. At sixteen he was acting as a hero. At sixteen he was put on the front lines against powers greater than him. At fourteen he was given a power destined to end him.
He doesn't know how long he’s been walking, or even where he is. It’s still raining.
i think i wish we were never heroes.
Sent 5:34 PM
If we’d never met
Sent 5: 37 PM
You’d still be alive
Sent 5:58 PM
It was their second year when Shouto started crushing on Izuku. He fell hard, he fell fast. Izuku was the one to finally take the chance and ask him out. Their first real date was at a coffee shop hidden away in the busy streets of Mustafu. It was awkward and horrifically tense, and it was amazing, aside from Aizawa chaperoning from a few tables away.
In Between coffee dates, they were fighting villains twice their age with twice their capabilities. They were kids. They were only kids.
He can’t help but hate All Might. The irony hurts.
Shouto never felt like a kid before he met Izuku. Izku let him be young. He let him live as if all those horrible things never happened. He was happy, and he thought, if Izuku could love him then there was something about him worth loving underneath the anger and angst.
Oh.
He was standing in front of that coffee shop. The people inside were going about their lives like nothing had happened, drinking their coffee as if Izuku had never died.
A man sat in the alley on a piece of cardboard. He took out his wallet. Front and center is a picture from their graduation day. Izuku beamed brighter than any sun or star.
He put the picture in his pocket before walking towards the man. Shouto ignored the man's questions as he set his wallet next to him. And he walked away.
i wish we’d never been heroes izuku
Sent 6:00 PM
i love you
Sent 6:00 PM