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Izuku woke up staring at a ceiling he didn’t recognize.
He pulled his hands up from under the covers and rubbed at his eyes. This happened sometimes, usually in a new place. It had taken several months of living in his new apartment before he’d stopped waking up disoriented. He squinted. The ceiling didn’t seem like his ceiling though. The lighting felt too warm.
Belatedly, Izuku realized there was an easier way to approach this. He sat up, shoving the covers away. He still didn’t recognize the room—there was a desk along the wall across from him, but it wasn’t his desk. The surface was too clean. Next to it was a mini fridge, but he didn’t own one of those. He looked to the side—there was a window to his left, a dark sliver of sky peaking out along the edge of the curtain, and a side table against the bed. The lamp there was turned on.
Izuku slipped out of bed, ready to investigate more. His feet hit the floor, catching his weight, and he nearly tipped over. He was dizzy. It was a familiar feeling—sometimes when he was in the hospital he tried to walk before he was supposed to, while he was still injured and on heavy meds. This was like that.
Izuku looked down at himself. It didn’t feel like he was hurt, and he was wearing normal clothes, not a hospital gown. Still, he needed to be careful not to activate One for All—he wouldn’t have the control he needed to wield it accurately right now. He could slip up and knock down a wall onto someone.
Setting a hand on the bed for balance, Izuku walked over toward the desk. Then he looked to the right. There was a door there, down a short hall. Some infographic was attached to the middle of it, probably a fire exit route. Down near the baseboard were his red sneakers, lined up like he’d set them there after coming inside.
That was it—this wasn’t his apartment, and it didn’t belong to any of his neighbors or friends. Those shoes were the only thing on the floor. If somebody lived here, there would be more—stuff.
Izuku closed his eyes. There were other places like this, other reasons he might be in them, but he was having trouble putting thoughts together. It was like pushing through fog, trying to catch the wisps of it as you went.
His hands were uncoordinated, stiff from lack of stretching, but he pulled out the chair at the desk and sat down. There was a landline phone at the desk, and a pad of paper. Izuku leaned closer, squinting. Something was written on the pad, hard to make out at a distance in the dim light.
Moruchisu 9-13-6, the paper said. Then, on the next lines, Room 302 and Haneda Hotel.
The first friend Izuku made after kindergarten was Uraraka. He could tell because when she’d grabbed his phone that first week of high school, all she’d done with it was make a contact for herself. He’d gone home that day and sort of stared at it for a while—a fifth entry after his Mom, All Might, Auntie Mitsuki, and the local hero hotline (in case he ever needed to report something).
Later, Iida had become class president and made a group chat, and his contacts quadrupled overnight. He texted all his friends after that, but he never got quite as good of a look at their cell phone numbers.
He still knew Uraraka’s by heart.
Uraraka picked up on the fourth ring. “Who’s there?” she asked, bleary. “How’d you get my number?”
“Hi Uraraka,” Izuku said, and then he blanked. He hadn’t planned out what he was going to say.
Something rustled as Uraraka shifted around. “Deku?” she said, a little clearer, “You there? You okay?”
“I’m drunk,” Izuku blurted. He couldn’t think of another explanation.
Uraraka snorted—it was a half-aborted laugh. “Really?” she said, containing herself, “That doesn’t seem like you.”
“I know!” Izuku agreed. He’d only been to one party after graduating from UA—he’d been dragged along by the other young staff members at his new agency, and he’d gone mostly to humor them. He’d spent the whole time standing against the wall, watching the commotion, tracking who used each point of entrance. It had been more of a social experiment than a good time.
“Is this like,” Uraraka continued, “Are you calling to gush about our friendship? Or do you need someone to pick you up?”
“The second one,” Izuku said, and then, “I’m really glad you’re my friend.”
“Me too Deku,” Uraraka said. “Okay give me a second—where are you?”
“I don’t know,” Izuku said, and then he remembered. “Wait—it's written down. Moruchisu nine-thirteen-six, room three hundred and two, Haneda Hotel.”
Uraraka was silent for a moment. Then she burst out laughing for real.
“What is it?” Izuku said. He didn’t mind, but he’d missed the joke.
"Deku," Uraraka managed, "I just—I looked it up and—you're in a totally different prefecture!"
"From you?" Izuku asked. He was pretty sure that was normal.
"No!" Uraraka said, "Well, yes—but I mean, you're not anywhere near your agency! Did you take a train? Wait, is anyone with you there?"
"I don't know," Izuku said, a little desperate, "I don't remember anything."
"Don't worry about it," Uraraka said. Her tone had changed. "You're actually very close to Jeanist's agency—I'll tell Bakugou to come get you. Does that sound good?"
"Yeah," Izuku said. He did want to see Kacchan.
Uraraka went quiet again, but Izuku could track the meaning now. She was probably using her computer.
"He's just left the agency," Uraraka said, "He'll be there in four minutes. You're in a hotel room now? Are you safe?"
Izuku stared down at the desk—the notepad and the phone stand sitting there alone. He should say yes—whatever he was missing, someone had clearly set this up for him. Nothing about this looked seedy. No one was here to hurt him.
"Deku?"
"I think," Izuku said, mouth moving like molasses, "Uraraka, I think—something's wrong."
The dial tone sounded. Izuku pulled the phone away from his ear to stare at it. For a second, he considered keying Uraraka's number in again.
But there probably wasn't time for that.
Jerkily, Izuku pushed his chair back and stood up. He stumbled forward, across the room and down the short hall at the end of it, until his palms pressed up against the door. He looked down for the knob.
There wasn't a knob.
Izuku reached for One for All, ready to risk the danger now. It sputtered and didn’t come—whatever drugs he was on must be interfering with it, like the opposite of trigger. He kicked the door anyway, but it stood solid, laughing at him.
Frustrated, Izuku turned and stumbled back the way he'd come. His coordination was all off right now, and he couldn’t rely on his quirk, but he was still strong. He could use that to his advantage. So when he made it back to the chair, he grabbed it by the seat, picked it up and carried it with him. He came to the window. The curtain was drawn, and he didn’t think he could maneuver well enough to pull it back. That was fine—it might protect him from any pieces that shattered outward.
Izuku wound his arms back and stabbed the legs of the chair into the glass. He heard it shatter, but not enough. He tried again, the same movement, This time the chair pushed farther through the opening. The curtain caught on the end of it, and the bracket above pulled off the wall. Izuku stepped back and let the chair drop. He grabbed the curtain and yanked it the rest of the way down. Then he climbed up onto the window air unit, knees on the edge of the jagged opening, and stuck his head out. Could he climb down? It was far—it didn't seem like there were any pipes or railings.
Then he heard the boom, and his head turned to look before he could think to tell it too. There over the rooftops was a banner, a bright flare. It was Kacchan, almost here. He was out of time.
Instinctively, Izuku tipped forward and dropped down out of the window.
His stomach jolted. He hadn't planned this—could he land safely without float? He had to try. Quickly, Izuku twisted, angling himself so that—
The impact came, but he hadn't hit the ground. Izuku watched it shoot past, flying sideways, a little dumbfounded. Then the moment snapped, and he hit the ground for real. It wasn't as bad as he'd been anticipating—it made him think of crashing his bike as a kid, the momentum skidding you forward over the sidewalk, scraping off a layer of skin.
Slowly, Izuku picked himself up. He could stand up on his own—and though he felt a little worse for wear, it didn't seem like he'd broken anything.
A hand grabbed his arm, and Izuku startled.
"Izuku," Kacchan said, “Are you hurt?” There was a scrape over his temple, just starting to bleed.
Izuku blinked. Then he shook his head.
Kacchan yanked him back. A second later, Izuku was pinned up against a wall, Kacchan's hand fisted in his shirt. He wasn't quite sure how it had happened.
"What was that!" Kacchan demanded, "What was that!"
Izuku's brow furrowed. He felt like he could hold only one thought at a time, and now that he wasn't trying to land, space had cleared up. "Kacchan," he said, remembering, "You should go."
"I should go?" Kacchan spat, "That's it? I should just leave?"
"Yes," Izuku said, trying to make it sound forceful. This was important.
"Fat chance," Kacchan said. His volume had leveled out, but somehow, Izuku wasn't sure that was a good thing. "Like I'd let you out of my sight."
The words were like a switch flipping, the light coming on. "I'll come," Izuku said, "I can come. Kacchan, we have to leave."
Half of Kacchan's face scrunched up, but his hand loosened, just enough for Izuku to pull out of his grasp and dart forward.
"Wait—wait!" Kacchan yelled. He grabbed Izuku's arm again, yanking him back. "Don't run out into the street! You moron!"
"Sorry!" Izuku yelled back, but he was still pulling, trying to get Kacchan to move with him. "But we have to leave! Please—Kacchan—you have to listen to me!"
Kacchan looked back and forth, up and down the street. Then he strode forward, dragging Izuku along. They crossed quickly—Izuku felt the jolt in his stride as they stepped up onto the opposite curb.
"Where are we going?" Kacchan asked.
"Away," Izuku insisted, "Right now."
Kacchan grabbed him with one arm and blasted them forward with the other. The sound of it echoed strangely—maybe it was this unfamiliar location, or maybe being drugged did something to your perception. Izuku wasn't sure. He'd never been on quirk suppressants before.
After a little while, they landed. Kacchan set him down. "Far enough?" he asked.
Izuku tried to get his bearings. He didn't recognize anything, and it was taking most of his focus to balance. He could feel little imperfections in the sidewalk poking at his heels.
"Hey, Izuku," Kacchan said, and that was it. He didn't shout. He didn't snap his fingers in front of Izuku's nose, impatient.
"You're upset," Izuku said. The thought had been sitting there, queued up, waiting for its turn at the front of his mind.
Kacchan scoffed, grabbing Izuku's arm again. "And you're high. Come on—let's get you off the street."
Izuku woke up staring at a ceiling he didn’t recognize. The dim light on it came not from the center where a bulb might be, but from the wall behind him, like it was spilling out of a window.
Instinctively, he reached for One for All. It responded, spilling out over his skin like an aurora, dissipating as he released it. Next he sat up—he needed to figure out where he was. Then his eye caught on the color of his shirt, and he looked down at himself. It was the 11th edition All Might M block letter t-shirt from eight years ago, the yellow version. Izuku didn’t have one, but Kacchan did. So he must not be in any danger.
There was a bandage on his arm, where he’d scraped it on the sidewalk after Kacchan caught him. He could feel them on his knees too, where he’d set them over the broken window. And he was sore all over. He hadn’t felt that way last night—though sometimes bruises took some time to set in, and whatever he’d been on might have taken the edge off.
Izuku pushed the duvet back, slipped out of the bed and looked around. He was in a studio apartment, messy enough to be lived in. Kacchan was here too, sitting at the kitchen table, staring up at him.
Izuku could tell right away that there was something wrong.
“Hey Kacchan,” Izuku said. He walked over—it was a short distance. The room wasn’t large.
It was all there in Kacchan’s face. He looked gutted. Wrung out. Defeated. Izuku hated it as much as he was terrified of it. What could have happened to make Kacchan look like that?
“Hungry?” Kacchan said.
Izuku shook his head, stomach twisting. “Who died?”
A part of him, selfishly, hoped it was one of Kacchan’s relatives, and not All Might.
“Nobody,” Kacchan said, and then, “Barely.”
Izuku let out his breath, but his insides were still curdled. “Were they hurt badly?”
“You tell me,” Kacchan said. Then he pushed his chair back, stood up and walked over to the fridge. “What do you want to eat?”
Izuku’s mind was turning—was Kacchan talking about last night? He didn’t think anything really terrible had happened, but then, he’d been a little out of it. Maybe his agency had contacted Kacchan earlier in the day to say Izuku was missing, and Kacchan had been worrying for a while. But would that really have upset him this much?
Kacchan opened the fridge door. “There’s eggs, rice, fruit—probably cereal somewhere. Or we could order something. It’s lunchtime already.”
“Whatever’s here is fine,” Izuku said.
Kacchan grabbed the egg carton and closed the door. Then he produced a frying pan from the cabinet next to the stove, set it over the burner and cracked two eggs in. He still hadn’t turned around.
Carefully, Izuku crept forward behind him. He was on edge—not an unfamiliar feeling around Kacchan—because he still hadn’t managed to figure out what was wrong.
“I’m sorry,” Izuku said. Whatever it was, he knew that he’d done it.
Kacchan turned the burner on. “After we eat, we’re calling All Might and your Mom. And you’re gonna tell them what happened.”
Izuku’s brow furrowed. “Wouldn’t it be better if you—“
“No,” Kacchan said, forceful, “You’re gonna do it.”
“Okay.” He didn’t understand at all, but—last night he’d told Kacchan to leave, and he’d done it, even though Izuku couldn’t explain why. Izuku had the same kind of trust.
Kacchan nodded, accepting Izuku’s answer. Then he reached over and grabbed a wooden spatula from the jar of large kitchen utensils.
“You should probably debrief me first though,” Izuku admitted, “There’s a lot that’s still kind of hazy for me and—well my Mom already worries. I don’t want to make it worse by explaining poorly.”
Kacchan turned to stare at him. “You don’t remember?”
“Um,” Izuku said, “Well—probably not all of it.”
Kacchan put the spatula down on the counter and stuck his hands in his pockets. He looked down at the eggs, still translucent in the slowly heating pan. Then he said, “Last night you tried to kill yourself.”
“What?” Izuku blurted, “No I didn’t! Why would I do that?”
Nothing happened. Kacchan stood there, staring at the eggs, like something had come and turned him to stone, like he hadn’t heard Izuku talking at all.
“Why would I do that?” Izuku repeated.
Kacchan took a breath. “Don’t make me say it.”
Now the spell of stone had come down over Izuku. He stood there, mouth dropped open, trying to backpedal into the right mindset—he hadn’t seen this coming at all. How could he?
“I wouldn’t do that,” Izuku finally said.
Kacchan scoffed. “What, now you’re sure? I thought you didn't remember.”
“I think you should tell me what you saw,” Izuku continued, ”Maybe there was a quirk effect involved.”
Kacchan looked up, like he wanted to roll his eyes and was restraining himself. Izuku wished he’d just do it—it was unnerving how subdued he was acting.
“You jumped out a window,” Kacchan said, “And Izuku—not everything is about quirks.”
Izuku’s hands came up—ready to grab something, to write—but he pushed them back down, held on to the edge of his shirt instead. “Kacchan, that’s not why I did that. I was trying to get away from the villains.”
“The villains?” Kacchan said, finally looking at him again, “There were villains? Could you ID them?”
“I never saw them,” Izuku admitted, “But there had to have been—it’s a process of elimination.”
Kacchan narrowed his eyes.
“Listen Kacchan, something was really wrong with One for All last night—I don’t think I’d been out drinking. I don’t even really go out drinking, and if I did I would have gone out with my friends nearby, not come all the way here alone. And if I had come here, I would have invited you. And I told Uraraka last night—there was something wrong about that room. There wasn’t a doorknob on my side, and the location was all written out by the phone, and it was so close to your agency—it was like someone wanted you to come find me there. And Uraraka gave your ETA over the phone, and I knew they’d been listening because of when the line cut, and so I had to get out of there before you showed up. I couldn’t let you go in there. And then I saw you coming, and I panicked.”
“Okay, walk me through this,” Kacchan said, holding up one finger, “You freaked out about villains.”
“Yes,” Izuku said. He could contest Kacchan’s view of his analysis after he convinced him of his mindset.
“Then,” Kacchan continued, holding up a second finger, “You stopped and methodically took off your shoes.”
Izuku threw up his hands. “I was asleep! Do you wear shoes to bed?”
“What bed?” Kacchan said, “Izuku, that building was abandoned.”
“So then it was definitely a setup!”
Kacchan picked up the spatula again, started poking it at the edges of the eggs, getting them ready to flip.
“I don’t want to die,” Izuku insisted.
Kacchan shook his head, almost amused. “You’ve gotten better at lying.”
“And I’m not looking down on you either,” Izuku continued, “Could you maybe stop making things up about me and listen to what I’m actually telling you?”
The spatula stopped. Kacchan froze there for a second—then he swung his arm out, shoving the spatula at Izuku’s chest. “Watch them,” he said, dropping the spatula and walking away.
Izuku fumbled the spatula, barely catching it before it hit the ground. He stepped up to the stove, but Kacchan had already gotten the eggs unstuck from the pan. All that was left was to flip them.
Kacchan walked up from behind him and set a laptop on the counter space between the oven and the fridge. “I’ll look up the building,” he said, “If villains set something up, there might be records of their activity there before yesterday—just coming and going, not anything they could get arrested for, but enough that now—“
“I know how the hero network works,” Izuku said.
The keys of the keyboard clicked. Izuku took a breath, in and out, and then he picked up the pan, ready to get the eggs to flip.
“Deku,” Kacchan said.
Izuku put the pan down and crouched to peer over Kacchan’s shoulder. The laptop screen had a picture of the outside of a building, in daylight. One of the windows was blackened, burst open like an empty fruit peel.
Kacchan scrolled down the page. There were pictures of the room’s insides. It looked like the front of it had been reinforced, since they were mostly intact. The interior walls had been completely blown out. Most of the room’s contents had been reduced to ash, but there were pieces still—the remnants of a bedframe, one knob from a door, missing its pair.
“Did they pin down a time?” Izuku asked, setting his hand on his chin.
Kacchan scrolled back up. Estimated 4:15am, the writeup said.
“Is that,” Izuku started, realizing he was still clueless, “When were we there?”
“I heard it,” Kacchan said, “When we were running away, and I used my quirk—the sound covered it, but I heard—I thought it was construction. We’d gotten a ways away.”
“I thought I was hallucinating,” Izuku said. He had noticed a strange kind of echo. “That’s pretty close timing—but they must not have had visuals.” After all, the villains hadn’t seen that Kacchan never went inside.
“If I’d gone up the stairs,” Kacchan said, and didn’t finish the thought.
He didn’t need to—Izuku had thought a version of it first, somewhere around 4am last night. If Kacchan had blasted up the stairwell and found him, or even come in the window and argued for a while, then the timing would have worked out. Kacchan maybe could have made it—he had some innate resistance to explosions because of his quirk, and it was possible that the villains were only going for a career ending injury. But Izuku definitely would have died.
“Good thing I jumped out the window,” Izuku said.
Kacchan pinched the bridge of his nose, and he didn't say anything. It took longer than it should have—Kacchan was leaning down over the tiny strip of counter, facing the wrong way—but then he breathed in and the sound was wrong. It was too big of a gulp. That's how Izuku realized he was crying.
"I—sorry," Izuku said, hovering his hand over Kacchan's shoulder, not quite sure if he should pat it or not. He never should have said something so petty. "I'm really sorry. Kacchan, I—are you—do you want a hug?"
Wordlessly, Kacchan stood up straight, turned and set his forehead down on Izuku's shoulder.
For a long moment they both stood like that. Izuku almost mentioned that Kacchan was going to get snot on his All Might t-shirt this way—and then he decided that since it was Kacchan’s shirt anyway, that he could make his own choices in that regard. Because it didn’t seem like Kacchan wanted to move.
“I thought,” Kacchan finally said, and he didn’t get any farther than that.
“That was never reality,” Izuku said, “You—all of that was made up.”
Kacchan grabbed the side of Izuku’s shirt, tethering him down. “I don’t want you to be gone.”
“I know,” Izuku said.
“I—“ Kacchan started, and then he swore, suddenly pushing Izuku back.
Izuku almost lost his footing—he hadn’t been expecting it—but he found his balance. Meanwhile, Kacchan was back at the stove, pulling the smoking pan off of the burner. He reached over, snatched the spatula from Izuku’s hand, and quickly turned the eggs over. They sizzled, the raw side cooking on the heated pan. The sides facing up now were black.
“I can still eat it,” Izuku said. He’d had one job.
Kacchan looked over his shoulder at him, face contorted asymmetrically. “Are you crazy?”
Izuku wanted to laugh. It was the relief settling over him—that sounded more like Kacchan. “Or I can order something.”
“With what wallet?” Kacchan said, carrying the pan toward the sink.
Quickly, Izuku felt for anything in his pockets. There was nothing—Kacchan’s sweatpants didn’t have pockets. “Do you have it? Or is it with the police?”
Kacchan stuck the pan under the faucet and ran cold water over everything. “Donno—I never called them.”
Izuku bit his lip. It made sense—Kacchan didn’t realize there had been villains. But the fact that this had gone a whole twelve hours or so unreported meant the odds of catching the villains were a lot slimmer. “Maybe I left it back at my agency,” Izuku said, “I’ll call my secretary and—ah. Um.”
“I really messed this up,” Kacchan said, pouring the water out of the pan.
“You caught me,” Izuku said. Even if things could have gone a bit better, it would have been worse if Kacchan hadn’t come.
Kacchan lifted the pan over the last piece of the counter and dumped out the eggs into the trash. “You can call from my phone,” he said, “Think yours got blown up?”
Izuku shook his head. The villains wouldn’t have left him with his own phone—they’d wanted him to use the tapped landline. “Oh, but I think my shoes were.” They’d been sitting by the door.
“Typical,” Kacchan scoffed. He tossed the pan back into the sink and it clattered, rang out, metal on metal. “You come all this way to visit and don’t even bring anything—think you can just use my stuff, huh? That’s some entitlement, Deku.”
“Sorry,” Izuku said. He was grinning.
Kacchan sighed, hands on his hips. “This is gonna cause so much paperwork.”
Izuku started to laugh, but it turned into a groan partway. “Don’t remind me.”