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You never think of how monumental small details can be until it happens to you. Seeing Izuku cry wasn’t anything huge. Was it sad? Sure. Did it worry class 1A? Definitely, but nothing could compare to the pure dread they felt when they saw Katsuki cry for the first time.
Small little salty droplets, small little things everyone sheds for so many different reasons. Tear ducts run over the smallest and largest things, depending on who you are. So knowing that Katsuki can cry is so different from seeing it actually happen, so different that it feels like two entirely different topics.
It wasn’t even a huge moment, no big gigantic danger they could fight to ‘turn that frown upside down’. No loud dramatic sobbing, no big life altering moments. They were just sitting in the common room, talking about the last few years they’ve had as a class.
Katsuki had just been talking, talking until he seemed to struggle with his words. Talking until his face went blank, as if someone had forcefully removed his emotions from the memory. Talking until the first tear ran down his face, tracking a line that shined just so under the harsh fluorescent lights.
Class 1-A had faced many different villains and dangers. None of them had ever wrought such emotional turmoil and dread upon them, not like this. None of them could even hope to compare, to even hold a flicker of candle light to this. It was as if time itself had frozen mid gasp, as if even the air couldn’t help but take a moment of shocked silence. For everything to still, as if that single tear held control over the entire universe.
It felt as if the events had finally loaded for the class. Felt as if they just now realized how truly horrible what they went through was. For it finally, to truly , click. If it was bad enough to make the strongest among them cry then that means it was horrible, right?
Izuku was, as always, the first to move. All but tackling Katsuki in his rush to hug him, ugly sobs already pouring out of his throat. Such a contrast to the silent shoulder shaking, to the quietly trembling lip and scrunched face. Next was Ashido, then Denki, then Kirishima and Ochako, eventually the entire class. One after the other until they were wrapped up in an inseparable sobbing knot.
Tears are small insignificant things. Little droplets of water anyone can shed, no matter the issue. Sad or happy, big or small, loud or silent, real or fake, crying comes in many different forms. For class 1A and Katsuki crying is a form of release, vulnerability, trust and validation.
Because if even the strongest among them, their symbol of invulnerable and perfectly absolute victory, can cry, then so can they. If Katsuki is willing to let down his walls, is willing to validate their pain- even if indirectly-, then they will be willing too.
Class 1A has been through so much that they forgot what small but large moments were. They forgot how a simple joke can mean everything, they forgot how small memories can mean so much. However, they’re willing to relearn. Starting with the full realization that what happened was horrible but, so long as they have each other, they’ll be ok. That there’ll always be someone to help and be there.
If Shota came in around midnight to join a movie night, that is definitely not supposed to be happening, then that’s no one's business but theirs. So class 1A is going to be ok, they might not be now, but they know they’ll be ok. Why? Well, because they’re a family of course, and this family is sticking together.