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Midoirya Izuku is okay. He does not have monsters living in his mind. There are no monsters here, or there, or anywhere else for that matter.
Trust him, he’s looked. He’s laid in his bed during the dead of night with nothing but darkness surrounding him, and searched his mind for anything out of place, crooked, wrong .
At least, not with his actions or thoughts. He knew that there was plenty wrong with him. He’s known since he was four years old. He was quirkless. Used to be quirkless. Now he’s in his dorm room residing on U.A.’s campus.
He’s not strong enough, or fast enough, or smart enough, or useful enough, or in control enough-
There’s plenty that’s wrong with him. But he’s trying to fix it. Trying to fit the puzzle pieces together without having any idea what the big picture was supposed to be.
Right now, he’s studying. His teeth are clenched and his hand is cramping terribly. He still holds onto the pencil and writes.
The lysosome can be found in the eukaryotic cell bounded by a single membrane. They lysosome helps digest materials and is key in apoptosis: cell self-destruction.
He feels like he’s being encircled by love, but it also feels wrong. Like bugs creeping up his spine. How could something feel so good yet so bad at the same time? An addiction to a drug.
Izuku knows he should go to sleep, but what’s the point? Even if he tries, he doubts he’ll be able to fall asleep.
Instead, he goes downstairs to the dorm’s kitchen and steeps some lavender tea. As he waits for the tea, his eyes travel to the pantry without his permission. His stomach growls and all he can think is good . Hunger is the key.
He does not open the pantry door.
Izuku cradles his tea as he sits on one of the many couches, his All Might blanket that he keeps down stairs wrapped around him. The mug radiates warmth, and it’s heaven on his freezing (always freezing), brittle hands.
Loneliness has followed him his entire life, but this. This fills a hole that he didn’t know had been there. He laughs, thinking about how funny it was that being empty could make him feel so full. Something he’s been missing had finally come to him- in this body he calls home
For he could not control the villains or expectations or anything else for that matter, but he could control his body. It was his , and he wouldn’t let it rule him forever. Not anymore.
How could monsters, known for being hideous, grotesque things, create such beautiful people? Such wonderful heroes?
He takes a sip of his tea, relishing in the warmth that slides down his throats and pools into his empty stomach. He thinks of the heroes in his notebooks. He thinks of the ones he sees everyday. His friends, his teachers, his mentor.
They look like everything. Strong and capable and beautiful. They look alive .
His mug is empty, tongue burning. He doesn’t want to go back to his room, so he stays. Letting his fuzzy, tired mind wander without any true destination. He thinks he dozed off because hours have passed and the sun is rising, but isn’t quite sure.
Izuku knows he should probably get up now. Before people start congregating and the food makes an appearance. The thought of eating right now seems impossible. He wants to avoid it at all costs. Even if that means withdrawing from his friends.
They never cared about him anyway. Why would they when he is who he is?
He stays on the couch. Fighting with himself. He’s always battling against his own thoughts and it never gets less draining.
He slowly gets up. A small victory. Just as he does, he sees Kacchan, Todoroki, and Momo make their way downstairs. He’s not surprised- they’ve always been early risers.
“Midoriya. Good morning,” Todoroki greets. Izuku smiles at him.
“Morning, Todoroki.” He hugs the blanket around him, and feels his arms bump against his hip bones. They jut out like rocks in the ocean. He frowns, looking down. The feeling of his bones was something he hated, which seemed so stupid when he was the one who wanted to see them.
He glances at his chewed up fingernails. They’re disgusting. Half of each nail is gone, leaving red scabs in their place. They pulse with pain.
“Everything alright, Midoriya-San?” Momo questions. She’s beautiful in ways that he’ll never be. They all are. He does not loathe them for it, nor is he even jealous. He tells himself that he’s getting better. That with pain comes progress. Breaking bone after bone held the same reasoning.
He thinks of these monsters (not monsters) and knows that they can make him into who he wants to be.
“Of course,” he says, smiling bigger, but not brighter.
He ignores the way Kacchan stares at him as he makes it up to his dorm room once again.
And then he’s alone.
___________
He’s in the cafeteria. Sitting with his friends and Kacchan’s friends, who are becoming his friends, too.
He hates the cafeteria. He hates what it entails. He sits, and he talks. But it isn’t really talking when he can’t even recall what he’s saying, or what the conversation is about.
Something about assignments and how Aizawa was going to kill them all someday. He smiles, and he nods.
He tears his food into tiny pieces. Moves them around the plate. Picks up the chopsticks as if he’s going to take a bite and then puts them down to add something to the conversation.
“Damn, Mido-bro. You better hurry up before lunch ends,” Kirishimia jokes. Izuku laughs and tells him that he’s right.
He’s learned to turn his problems into laughter.
Izuku shoves a bite in his mouth, practically melting at the soft, warmth of the rice. He almost swallows, but something revolts in him.
Quickly, he picks up his napkin with his scarred fingers and puts it to his mouth. It’s a struggle to get it to open- his tongue hesitant to let the taste go.
He removes the napkin and scrunches it up. No one knows.
He’s too afraid to touch the plate again.
__________
It’s during hero training when he realizes that the laughs and the napkins and the comments are getting too cumbersome. It brings him too close to letting go- to this thing called nourishment.
He could practically taste it: the happiness he doesn’t deserve.
Izuku has learned his lesson and puts an end to lunch.
He goes through the training that day with a new-found determination. He completes the races with incomparable speed and wins the sparring matches with grace.
He tries not to think about how when training was over, Kacchan bumped into him. Black spots covered his vision and he stumbled. He stopped walking and leaned over. He was terrified of passing out.
The black spots faded, but his knees remained weak. His brain was static and ears were slightly ringing.
He looked up when he felt a hand on his shoulder. It was Kacchan, his face twisted into a snarl. “Oi, Deku! Are you deaf? I’ve called for you three times already.”
Izuku waves him away and straightens up. He tries his best to ignore the nauseating dizziness. He starts walking to the lockers with the blonde slightly in front of him. These days, he usually walks side by side with his best friend (although Katsuki refuses to admit it), but he can’t seem to muster up the energy to match his speed.
“Sorry, Kacchan. I got a little dizzy.” He doesn’t know why he tells the truth. Maybe because it doesn’t matter, or he doesn’t have the energy to think up an excuse.
Katsuki looks back at him, glaring. “That’s probably because you haven’t eaten shit.”
Fear crawls up his spine. He’s not sure if it’s because they’ve just entered the locker room (they’ll see his body again. They’ll be judging. They’ll hate him) or because he forgot how observant Kacchan was. Maybe both.
“I eat,” he whispers. He sounds weak even to his own ears.
“Tch. I’m making katsudon tonight. You better eat it.”
He smiles. It’s like pins and needles. “Of course I will.”
All he can think is I won’t I won’t I won’t I won’t fucking eat that.
____________
Weeks pass. He forgets what lunch means and has become familiar with late nights turned into early mornings.
He’s avoided Kacchan like the plague. He was too observant, and always made food for him, eating with him while also making sure Izuku finished his serving.
It made Izuku hate him, but also love him more than he thought was ever possible.
He does not go into the cafeteria anymore. He now knows every spot in the school where no one will bother him about eating. It’s not like he has the energy to converse with them, anyway. Not when his head feels so heavy and forming words don’t feel so important anymore.
The monsters (not monsters) have taught him that water is a blessing. He drinks glass after glass, almost tricking himself into thinking it was a sweet glass of lemonade.
He tries not to think that with every sip he takes, he is costing the rest of his life just to be beautifully hollow.
Izuku worships it. He knows by now that he is no longer in control, but he’s in too deep. So he tries to convince himself that he is, and sometimes he does. Most times he doesn’t and the water he drinks turns into salty tears.
He can’t avoid the classrooms, where his friends ask him why he looks so tired.
He’s looking better than he’s ever had before. He doesn’t understand the concerned looks they throw his way.
He’s exhausted, but at least he’s doing something. At least he’s becoming less of a waste of space.
It’s the end of the day. Aizawa wants to talk to him.
________
“Something’s going on,” Aizawa states. Izuku gulps, picking at a hangnail. He plucks it and looks down, seeing the blood well up into one singular bead.
“What is?” Because so much is going on and Izuku can’t keep track of it all. The only thing it seems he can keep track of is time. The hours between meals, when he can go back to sleep (or attempt it), and when he can burn what he’s eaten off.
“Midoriya, you don’t look well.”
Izuku could laugh. He looks great compared to those people that he looks up.
Izuku has always liked to do research. In the hours when it seems he’s the only person in the world awake, he searches up number after number.
It morphs into a dead hero, dead girl, dead boy, dead person.
He will never be those people. Izuku is not sick. And if he is, then he’s not sick enough .
Aizawa talks. Izuku squints, not quite understanding what he was saying.
“I think you have a problem.”
“A problem?”
“Yes.”
Izuku laughs. He doesn’t have a problem. He is a problem. His entire life is one screwed up mess.
“You’re wrong,” he says.
And he walks out.
_________
Before he goes to bed, he memorizes everything he will eat the next day. He will repeat to himself all of the lies he will tell. On the nights where he’s so restless and claustrophobic that he swears he will die if he stays in that room a moment longer, he goes downstairs.
And he counts. He adds, subtracts, multiples, divides everything in the kitchen. He imagines what each item tastes like. Sometimes he’ll pick the safest option and eat a small portion of it. That small portion slowly becomes larger as hunger takes control of his body.
He spends the rest of the night hating himself. He hyperventilates and cries and curses.
He will never be normal again.
__________
He doesn’t go out with his friends anymore. Because going out means food and food means giving up.
He avoids anything that involves celebration. He brushes off Kacchan’s snarky comments, Ochacko’s invitations, and Iida's concerns.
There’s days where he wants everything to stop. He wants his heart to give in so he can stop living this vicious cycle.
A hero cannot live like this, he learns.
But he doesn’t know how to stop. He can’t stop.
___________
“Deku, you have to stop it,” Katsuki tells him one night. He had managed to get out of dinner, telling everyone he had snacked throughout the day. Now Katsuki is standing in front of him with a bowl of hot stew.
He tries not to notice how amazing it smells. How his stomach cramps and his hands twitch.
“Kacchan, you can’t tell me what to do. Not anymore.”
He closes the door to his room and cries.
The not-monsters were feeding him lie after lie after lie. He couldn’t do this anymore, but how could he stop when it was all he knew to do?
He ignores his bony shoulders and hips. His muscles had long ago deteriorated. The not-monsters leaving clumps of hair in his shower. Far too much to be normal.
He’s curled up in his bed. He wants to sleep and sleep and sleep.
He never wants to open his eyes.
When he opens them it’s morning. He remembers that the class is going out today. He knows he can’t. Not when the numbers haunt him.
One-hundred, two-hundred, three-hundred. His breath constricts when he counts anything larger.
Even if he did think he could handle it, there’s the fact that every time he stands up, black spots paint his vision like the stars in the night sky.
Izuku knows that he is too weak. He’s crumbling. He hopes that his cracked hands will grow beautiful lilies. Maybe his empty stomach will even grow a garden.
Gardens grow, and soon it’ll grow to choke him. Lucious flowers billowing out of his throat. He thinks that would be a beautiful way to go.
But Izuku is happy . He tells himself this over and over again as he lies in his bed freezing. Tired despite just waking up.
There’s a knock at his door, but he doesn’t have the energy to say anything let alone open it.
At least he’s not eating anything. He’s been so good about that. Who cares about the consequences he’s now facing. At least he knows he can do this. That he’s at least good at something.
He’ll decompose into the ground, and he knows that he will become a skeleton like all the others.
“Deku-kun? Are you ready to go? The rest of the class is already downstairs waiting.”
He knows he should say something, anything, to get her to go away.
I want to shrink into nothing, I want to be in control.
He doesn’t wish to make anyone worry, though. He doesn’t want his mother to cry when she sees what he’s been doing to himself.
He musters up his small, frail voice, “I’ll be down in a minute.”
___________
They’re at the farmer’s market. The class had separated into smaller groups, teachers looking over each one. Izuku was just with Kacchan. Everyone else wanted to explore, but he was content with just sitting at a nearby park.
In truth, he didn’t trust his legs enough to carry him around.
Kacchan was sitting with him on a wooden bench that was painful to sit on. Aizawa wasn’t too far away, giving each of them privacy while making sure they weren’t getting into any trouble.
He looks down at his bony legs and then moves his gaze to his scarred arms. He was a wreck. Broken. A disaster in its own making.
No one would understand why he does this to himself.
He doesn’t understand why he does this to himself.
“Izuku,” Katsuki says, breaking the rare silence between them.
He looks up at his friend, “Hm?”
“You have to tell me what’s going on.”
So, so many things. Izuku looks towards the children playing at the park, ice cream melting onto their hands. Izuku wonders how people can just eat without guilt. He used to be able to do that. How had he been able to do that?
He had considered himself smart. But would someone smart google how many calories are in every single thing that is put in front of them?
“What do you want me to tell you?”
Katsuki runs a hand through his spiky hair, “God, I don’t know. Why you look like you’re about to drop dead? Why you’re scaring me so much?”
He never thought he could scare Kacchan. Never thought that what he was doing could worry someone so much.
He doesn’t get it. It’s his body. Why can’t he do what he wishes with it?
He sees all of these beautiful people. It doesn’t even matter what they’re body looks like, or how much they weigh. It’s that they know that they are okay.
Then there are those like him who only want to be enough while slowly becoming nothing.
“I want to be worth something,” he says. He knows he will never amount to anything. People have told him how useless he was since the ripe age of four. How could he believe anything else?
“You are worth more than you will ever know.” The sentence was filled with passion and truth. He doesn’t remember the last time Katsuki someone said something so gorgeous.
He thinks about these people who are so beautiful.
These pretty, skinny girls, boys, heroes, people.
These pretty dying girls, heroes, boys, people.
“Not enough,” He replies. He knows that these are monsters. There is no more denying it. And maybe they could be restrained, but they will never die.
He doesn’t think he wants them either.
“Izuku, you’re disappearing.” He sounds desperate. He doesn’t know what to do. He’s stuck.
He doesn’t think he’ll be able to give up the beautiful thing of being made of porcelain. Of knowing how he caused this, and that he deserves it.
“Good.”
Hands take hold of his. He looks up and sees Kacchan looking at him with so much sadness.
“You don’t really believe that? Do you?”
Izuku rips his hands from Katsuki’s, and stands up. He wobbles for a second, but refuses to sit down.
“With all my heart.”
He starts walking away. He needed to get out. Out of this conversation, out of this park, out of this life.
He’s so damn exhausted. Pain covers every inch of his body. He’s weighed down by the want to become something better than he is.
Izuku knows he’s chasing an impossible image. One that gets further and further away. But he can’t stop. He feels as though his whole life would crumble and fall if he does.
He is nothing without this self-destruction.
Katsuki stands up and catches up to him easily.
“I don’t know what the fuck you’re doing, but it needs to stop.”
Izuku whirls around to face him. He tumbles a bit, and Kacchan’s hand shoots out to steady him. He brushes it off and takes a step back. Creating more distance.
He laughs, but it sounds more like a sob. Self-deprecating and shattered, “God, I don’t know what I’m doing either! I just want to feel something that isn’t hatred for everything that I am. I can’t survive with myself anymore. And I sure as hell can’t just ‘stop’ what I’m doing. Not when I’m in so deep.”
Through the whole thing, he doesn’t cry, but he swears he’s drowning. Kacchan is left speechless. Hurt swirling his ruby eyes. Izuku hates himself even more knowing that he put that hurt there.
He wants these monsters (monsters, monsters, monsters-) to swallow him whole. He wants to go to sleep and never wake again.
Aizawa walks over to them, probably thinking they’re conversation was about to get physical.
He looks between the two and frowns. Izuku wants to run, but he doesn’t think he can.
“What’s going on here, problem children?” He asks.
He scrunches his eyes shut for a second. Just a second. Then he opens them and offers his best smile. It feels pathetic even to him.
“Nothing. We were just arguing about some hero.”
Katsuki frowns. Izuku realizes that he could say anything. He isn’t in control of this situation.
Aizawa looks towards Katsuki, “Bakugou. Is this true?”
Katsuki looks at Izuku, and he knows. He knows that he won’t like what comes next.
So he walks away. Saying something about finding Todoroki or Uraraka.
They don’t follow him. Izuku figures that this is the end. Katsuki will say something, and Aizawa will put the pieces together.
They’ll find out out weak he is.
He can’t do this.
He thinks of those pretty skinny boys, people, girls, heroes and wishes he were like them.
He thinks of those dead skinny girls, people, heroes, boys, and wishes he were like them, too.