Chapter Text
Katsuki hadn’t expected to see him.
Not really.
He’d spent the better part of the night cultivating a very specific kind of apathy—the kind that took effort, the kind that gnawed at the edges of his patience like rust on metal, slowly eating away while he pretended everything was fine. Because pretending was easier. Pretending was better than dealing with the tight ache in his chest or the itchy, uncomfortable truth that no matter how many drinks he had or how many stupid conversations he got dragged into, Izuku Midoriya still wasn’t fucking here.
Four years. That was how long it had been. Four years since they’d tossed their caps into the air and walked away from the safe, structured hell of U.A. High. Four years since Katsuki had last seen that freckled face, heard that voice—outside of the filtered, scripted, emotionally sterilized interviews that played too often on Hero News Network. Izuku on late-night talk shows. Izuku shaking hands with foreign officials. Izuku plastered on subway posters, beaming like he’d already saved the goddamn world and didn’t even break a sweat doing it.
The reunion had been Kirishima’s idea. Of course it had. A big, nostalgic gathering at a shitty bar near their old school—sentimental and loud and soaked in cheap beer and memories Katsuki didn’t ask to relive. Half their class had shown up, milling around with drinks and catching up like they hadn’t all watched half their mentors die before they were old enough to rent a car. But the people Katsuki actually gave a shit about? Already in his life. Already texting him memes at two a.m. Already showing up to movie night without being asked.
So no—Izuku didn’t need to be there.
But he should have been.
And Katsuki noticed. Fuck, did he notice. He told himself not to care, swore he didn’t, swore he wouldn’t—but there was a space carved out in the room like a wound, and no matter how loud Kaminari got or how hard Mina dragged him into the middle of a group photo, his eyes kept flicking to the door. Kept hoping. Kept waiting.
When he finally stepped outside for some goddamn air, it wasn’t because he was expecting anything. It was because his blood was too hot, and the room was too loud, and someone had laughed just like Izuku used to—sharp and bright, like it cut through the dark—and it made Katsuki want to break something.
The air was crisp, a proper late-autumn chill, not yet bitter with winter but enough to bite at his skin through his hoodie. It felt good. Grounding. He shoved his hands deep in his pockets, trying to shake off the phantom buzz in his limbs, trying to focus on Kaminari’s rant about overpriced cocktails and weird flavored beers that “tasted like ass,” whatever that meant. He wasn’t really listening.
Kirishima clapped him on the back, too hard like always, and opened his mouth to say something. Katsuki barely registered it.
“Oh, hey—”
And then time cracked open.
Izuku Midoriya, like something conjured out of pure spite, walked right past him.
No warning. No sound. Just there.
He looked almost exactly the same, which was maybe the worst part of all. A little taller, maybe. A little broader through the shoulders. But his hair was still a mess of curls, a little shorter than it used to be but still defying gravity in all directions. His face was softer, somehow—less pinched with tension, less haunted. And his smile—fuck. That same stupid, earnest, dazzling grin like he didn’t know how to do anything halfway. The kind of smile Katsuki used to hate, because it always felt like it was aimed at the world instead of him.
Izuku wasn’t looking at him. Wasn’t looking at any of them. He breezed past, light on his feet, practically glowing with energy, and zeroed in on Uraraka like a missile. She stood near the curb, scrolling through her phone, and when she looked up, her whole face lit up like someone flipped a switch.
Katsuki’s lungs stopped working. It felt like someone had taken a crowbar to his ribs and pried them apart, wide and raw and empty. All the breath he had left hissed out through his teeth. His voice came without warning, sharp and ragged and cracking at the edges.
“Oi.”
Izuku turned.
His eyes found Katsuki’s, like they always did.
And nothing.
There was nothing in his expression. No flinch. No widening of his eyes. No quiet fury or cautious hope or even the barest twitch of recognition. Katsuki might as well have been a stranger. Someone asking for directions. Some forgettable face in a crowded bar.
“…Uh. Hi?” Izuku said, voice unsure, brows knitting together.
What the fuck.
It burst out of Katsuki before he could stop it, before he could hold it back or smooth it over. “What the fuck.”
Izuku took a half-step back, visibly unsettled, and glanced at Kirishima like he thought he was on camera or being pranked. Like maybe someone would jump out with a microphone and yell Gotcha! and it would all make sense.
“Izuku, it’s me,” Katsuki said, slower now, like it was a password or a plea. “Katsuki.”
Something flickered. There—just for a second. A crease in his brow, a twitch at the corner of his mouth, the barest shift in his posture. But then it was gone, smoothed away by confusion and polite discomfort.
“Sorry,” Izuku said, shaking his head. “I think you’ve got the wrong person.”
He turned back to Uraraka.
And walked away.
-
Katsuki drove like he was trying to outrun something that had already sunk its claws into him. His hands clenched the steering wheel so tightly his knuckles were bloodless, pale against the faux leather. The city rolled past in a blur of color and motion—streetlights flickering overhead like dying stars, storefronts and neon signs bleeding together in the dark. The car was too quiet. No music. No laughter. Not even Kaminari’s usual garbage playlist. Just the engine humming low and steady, and the quiet buzz of three men pretending not to breathe too loud.
He knew they were looking at each other.
He didn’t have to turn his head to see it.
That was what pissed him off the most.
“What,” he bit out, not even trying to hide the edge in his voice. His eyes didn’t leave the road.
Silence.
More of that fucking silence.
“What the fuck aren’t you telling me?”
Kirishima shifted in the passenger seat. Kaminari, slumped in the back, let out a long sigh like he was counting the seconds until Katsuki exploded.
“I swear to fucking god, I will crash this car,” Katsuki snapped.
That did it.
“Alright, alright! Just—don’t freak out, okay?” Kaminari said, fumbling in his jacket pocket.
Katsuki heard the sound of paper. Felt something press into his right hand, light and cold and clean. He didn’t look at it right away. His fingers curled around it slowly, like he already knew it was going to hurt.
A card.
Plain. White. Crisp edges. Thick, expensive paper that screamed professional in that quiet, smug way. The font was small. Minimal. The kind of thing that made you lean in to read it, to pay attention. Katsuki’s eyes scanned the words once. Then again.
Then again.
Each time, they hit harder.
The card trembled slightly in his hand. Not from the road. Not from the car.
His hands clenched around it, crumpling the clean corners as his stomach turned to lead and sank somewhere below his ribs.
“What the fuck,” he whispered.
There it was, in neat, perfect lettering:
Izuku Midoriya has had Katsuki Bakugou erased from his memory. Please never mention their relationship to him again.
Below it, a date.
One year ago.
Katsuki couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t think. All he could do was stare at the paper and see the way Izuku had looked at him—like he wasn’t there. Like he had never been there.
Like they were strangers. Like none of it ever happened.
-
Katsuki hadn’t let go of the card.
At some point, he’d registered that he was driving again—smooth and quiet, like the world outside had decided to carry on without him—but everything else slipped sideways. The streetlights smeared into streaks of gold and white, neon signs bled into the dark, and buildings melted into one another like a city painted in watercolors. He didn’t know how long he’d been staring at the same patch of text on the smooth white cardstock, but it had been long enough. Long enough that Kaminari had stopped trying to make jokes. Long enough that even Kirishima had run out of things to say. They were just shapes now—blurry and quiet, sitting in silence with him as if mourning someone who wasn’t dead yet.
The words didn’t change.
They sat heavy and final on the card, crisp and professional, like they hadn’t just knocked the air out of his lungs. He flipped it over, reading the back.
Lacuna Inc.
Selective Memory Removal & Emotional Recovery
Midoriya, Izuku — Client ID #0873432
Client.
The word twisted in his head like barbed wire. Not “patient.” Not “victim.” Just a client. A transaction. A decision made and processed and archived like any other. As if erasing Katsuki from Izuku’s head had been as easy as booking a dentist appointment. As if it hadn’t meant anything.
He kept reading it, again and again, waiting for the letters to rearrange themselves into something else. Something that made sense. Something that hurt less.
But the sentence didn’t change. The paper didn’t disappear. The past didn’t rewrite itself, no matter how long he stared.
Katsuki’s jaw was clenched so hard his teeth throbbed, his molars grinding like they could chew through the truth if he gave them long enough. His shoulders were tight, back rigid, fingers curled so tight around the card they trembled.
“Uh, maybe—maybe we should—” Kirishima started, voice cautious, like he already knew it wouldn’t end well.
“Don’t.” Katsuki’s voice came out low, a blade against skin. “Not now.”
Kaminari went silent immediately, the air going thick with tension. No one moved. No one breathed. Just the faint hum of the engine and the low, distorted echo of traffic rolling by.
They didn’t speak again the entire drive to Kirishima and Mina’s apartment.
When they finally arrived, the sounds of the city faded behind them like a door slowly creaking shut. Katsuki moved on autopilot—out of the car, through the front door, past the warmth of familiar walls and shelves lined with dumb shit Mina liked to collect. He didn’t bother to take his shoes off. Didn’t even feel the moment he dropped onto the couch like something hollowed out and discarded.
He sat there, stiff and silent, as if anything less than total stillness might shatter whatever fragile hold he had on himself.
His fingers still gripped the card.
That fucking card.
He didn’t even remember pocketing it.
Mina appeared beside him, her presence a sudden weight on the cushion. She placed a cold beer in his hand with practiced ease, her own already cracked open. He took it without looking up.
“So,” she said after a beat, dragging the word out like it could soften the blow. “That was weird.”
Understatement of the goddamn year.
Katsuki didn’t reply.
She kicked her legs up onto the coffee table with a dramatic sigh, tilting her head back to stare at the ceiling. “I mean, on the bright side, you never have to talk to him again.”
Katsuki’s fingers tightened around the neck of the bottle.
She nudged him with her elbow. “Right? That’s a good thing.”
A good thing.
Sure.
Izuku didn’t remember him. Didn’t recognize his face. Didn’t blink when Katsuki said his name like it meant something. There was no spark of confusion, no hesitation. Nothing behind his eyes but polite discomfort. The kind reserved for a stranger with too much to say and no right to say it.
He wasn’t mad about that.
He wasn’t.
Why the fuck would he be?
This was what he’d wanted, right? To let go of the past? To move forward? To stop carrying the weight of everything they never said to each other? They were never good at talking. Never good at anything that wasn’t fighting or bleeding or nearly dying. Maybe this was better. Cleaner.
Less painful.
“Right,” he muttered, and it sounded like someone else’s voice.
Mina grinned, proud of herself, and leaned back, satisfied. “See? Silver linings, bro.”
Kirishima and Kaminari were still in the kitchen, pretending to clean up takeout containers while stealing glances every few seconds. They didn’t say a word, but Katsuki felt them watching him again, cautious and quiet and afraid to push too hard.
He ignored them.
The card was still in his hand, smudged now from the sweat on his palm, edges curling just slightly. He could feel the weight of it in his bones. He should burn it. Rip it into a thousand pieces. Pretend it didn’t exist. Pretend none of it ever happened.
Instead, he reached for his phone.
The website was easy to find. Lacuna Inc. Minimalist layout. Pastel colors. Friendly, reassuring copy in clean sans-serif font. “Move forward. Heal. Let go of what no longer serves you.” Like the pain was a sweater you could just take off.
Just a few clicks. One short online form.
And then the screen flashed:
Thank you for your submission. A specialist will contact you shortly to schedule your consultation.
Kirishima looked up from the counter just in time to see it.
“Dude,” he said, voice tight with alarm.
Mina sat up straighter. “Wait. Wait, you actually—”
“Fuck it.” Katsuki locked the screen and shoved the phone into his pocket, jaw set. “If that idiot can do it, so can I.”
Silence dropped like a hammer.
Mina looked like she wanted to argue. Kirishima opened his mouth twice, then closed it again. Kaminari just whistled low, the sound sharp and uncomfortable in the quiet.
“Well,” he said, because of course he did. “Shit.”
-
The Lacuna office looked… normal.
That was maybe the worst part.
Katsuki had expected something else. Cold, sterile walls. A room that smelled like antiseptic and false promises. Maybe even a sketchy little back alley place with flickering lights and a receptionist who didn’t ask questions. But this? This was just a building. A regular, boring-ass office building, sandwiched between a yoga studio and a law firm. The kind of place you walk past every day without noticing.
The lobby was quiet. Clean. A little too bright. A little too welcoming. Calming pastel artwork hung on the walls—probably selected by some intern to create a mood of trust and safety. It didn’t help. The couch he sat on was cheap and soft. The kind of furniture that didn’t expect anyone to sit there long enough to get comfortable.
He tried not to squirm.
There was a fish tank in the corner. Tiny orange fish swimming in slow, hypnotic circles, bubbles rising in time with the hum of a hidden motor. Katsuki stared at them without seeing anything.
His hands were in his lap, fingers curled tight. The urge to punch something sat heavy in his chest, coiled and ready. But there was nothing to hit here. No enemy. No villain. No one to yell at. No one to blame.
Just a choice.
His. Stupid. Fucking stupid.
Before he could stand up and storm out—before he could remember all the reasons he shouldn’t be here—the door beside the receptionist’s desk opened.
“Katsuki Bakugou?”
The voice was smooth. Calm. Like he said names like that a dozen times a day.
A man stepped into the waiting area. Mid-thirties, if Katsuki had to guess. Blond hair pulled into a loose, professional style. Sharp eyes. He wore a collared shirt and slacks and a smile that didn’t quite reach his eyes, like he’d mastered the expression a long time ago and never bothered to update the software.
He held a tablet in one hand. Offered his other like they were meeting for coffee.
“I’m Dr. Takami. Right this way.”
Katsuki hesitated.
Then stood.
His boots were heavy on the tile.
He followed.
-
Dr. Takami’s office was as dull and sterile as the rest of the building. Not cold, exactly. Just… neutral. Bland. Comfortable in the way a hotel room might be, deliberately curated to look inviting without ever revealing anything personal. A simple desk dominated one corner, an ergonomic chair behind it, all brushed chrome and clean lines. The shelves were lined with neat rows of psychology and neuroscience texts—nothing Katsuki could imagine the man ever reading. And on the far wall, a trio of framed degrees, their glossy certificates and embossed seals polished to a bureaucratic shine.
It was all a performance.
Just like everything else in this fucking place.
Takami entered behind him, walked like a man who never rushed. He moved with the ease of someone who had said the same sentences a thousand times, someone who had seen every variation of heartbreak and self-destruction that could walk through his door and still found the same voice to greet them all.
“First things first,” he said, settling into his chair with an effortless smile, “I need to confirm that you understand what we do here at Lacuna, Inc.”
Katsuki didn’t answer right away. His tongue felt dry. His shoulders were rigid, like they’d forgotten how to relax. He gave a low grunt—half assent, half warning.
Takami didn’t blink. He took the sound as confirmation.
“Our process is highly specialized,” he continued, folding his hands atop a thin folder. “We locate and remove targeted memories—sensory, emotional, and cognitive links. The goal is seamlessness. Most clients won’t notice any gaps. The brain compensates. It restructures timelines, patches holes. Your mind will do the work for us.”
Katsuki’s jaw clenched. The words were clinical, too clean. Like they were talking about erasing a file from a hard drive. Not him. Not Izuku. Not everything that had passed between them—fists, blood, laughter, silence.
“You won’t know anything’s missing,” Takami added.
And that—that—made something twist in his gut.
He didn’t speak.
Takami leaned forward slightly, brows lifting with a practiced calm. “And you’re absolutely sure about this?”
Katsuki didn’t answer at first. He didn’t move. Just sat there with his arms crossed and that same small, stiff card burning in his back pocket like a curse he couldn’t put down. His mind flicked back to it—Izuku’s card. The one with that neat, sterile font, like it hadn’t carved a fucking hole in his chest the second he read it.
He thought of green eyes that didn’t see him. Of a voice that used to spit his name like it was holy, reduced now to a single, hesitant syllable: Hi?
Of a polite smile that held no recognition.
He thought of how easy it had been for Izuku to walk away.
“Yes,” Katsuki said, voice flat.
Takami nodded with the detachment of a man who had stopped asking why a long time ago. He made a small note in the folder and pushed back from the desk. “Then let’s begin.”
-
The test was bullshit.
They hooked him up to a mess of wires and sensors, some lightweight headband designed to monitor neural activity. It all looked fancier than it felt—like some sci-fi film set—but the questions were basic. Too basic. He was expecting some complicated, cerebral extraction process. Something that would justify the weight of what he was doing.
Instead, it felt like therapy pretending to be science.
“Try to think of your first memory of them,” Takami prompted, his voice low and even.
Katsuki closed his eyes.
And it was there. Immediate. Unavoidable.
Dirt. Hot sun. Grass stains on tiny knees. That dumb, bright voice calling out his name. A small, sticky hand reaching for his, soft with trust and laughter. A smile too wide for his face.
His heart kicked up, a slow thud against his ribs.
Takami made a soft, approving sound, clicking something on his tablet. “Alright. Now, something more recent.”
Katsuki’s throat tightened.
Recent?
His hands curled around the arms of the chair.
There was nothing recent.
There hadn’t been anything recent for four years—not since graduation, not since the war, not since the days when they used to crash into each other like planets with too much gravity. No calls. No texts. No reunions. Just that final moment in the dorms, back turned, bags packed, words unsaid.
And then the years had crawled past like ghosts. Izuku had vanished. Midoriya had taken his place—smiling for cameras, giving interviews Katsuki refused to watch, showing up on magazine covers with heroes that weren’t him.
And now?
Now he couldn’t even see Katsuki.
“There’s nothing recent,” Katsuki muttered, voice like gravel.
Takami didn’t react. “That’s fine. Any emotionally resonant memory will work.”
Emotionally resonant.
What a fucking joke.
Katsuki forced his breathing to slow. He pressed his tongue to the roof of his mouth, willing himself to focus.
He remembered shouting until his voice cracked. Fights that felt like they were fighting for each other and not just against. Laughter so bright it burned behind his eyes. Movie nights, stupid jokes, the way Izuku leaned in when he was excited about something, the way he said Katsuki’s name like it was more than just a name. Like it was his.
And then—
Silence.
A gap.
Four years of nothing.
And now, that blank look. That confused, polite tone. Like Katsuki was just some guy at a bar who’d had too much to drink and couldn’t take a hint.
Takami watched the monitors as he worked. No emotion showed on his face—just clinical interest, the kind of detachment that probably made him good at this job. He made another note.
“Alright,” he said eventually, “we’re all set. We’ll map the memory clusters over the next few hours. The procedure will be scheduled once we complete the segmentation. When it’s done, you won’t remember coming here. You won’t remember any of this.”
Katsuki didn’t speak.
He couldn’t.
There was something stuck in his throat—too sharp to swallow, too heavy to cough up. The weight of grief for something he was choosing to kill.
But this was what he wanted.
Wasn’t it?
Takami leaned back in his chair and folded his hands. “Last chance to back out,” he said.
There was no malice in the question. No challenge. Just the routine confirmation of consent.
Katsuki stared at the floor.
He thought about the way Izuku smiled.
Not at him. Not anymore.
He thought about the ache in his chest when that smile passed him by like it had never belonged to him at all.
His hands curled into fists.
“Do it,” he said.
And it felt like letting go of a knife that had lived in his ribs for years.
-
Katsuki knew the procedure had started the moment he stepped into his apartment.
Everything was exactly where he’d left it. The warped floorboard near the entryway still creaked beneath his boots. The half-done laundry pile was slumped against the wall like a defeated opponent. His coat—creased, worn at the seams—hung off the back of the couch in a way that made it look more like a discarded version of himself than just a piece of clothing.
But something was wrong. Something was off.
There was no smell, no sound, no movement to give it away, and yet he could feel it. Like the room had been cracked open and poorly resealed. Like someone had shifted the gravity just slightly—enough to make his heart race and his breath come shallow without knowing why.
He didn’t have to look far.
The note sat on the kitchen counter, crisp and white, folded once down the middle with neat precision. It wasn’t addressed to him, didn’t have his name scribbled across the front. That would’ve been too sentimental. Too personal. Instead, it simply waited.
He opened it with the kind of dread that had settled into his bones over the last few days, the dread that had clung to him since the moment he’d handed over his memories and signed on the dotted line. Inside, the message was typed in clean, emotionless font:
We’ve completed the mapping. Please take all six capsules before sleeping. You will not recall this note. You will not recall this procedure.
And beside the note, placed deliberately and unceremoniously, was the orange prescription bottle. His name was printed on the label in bold black type: Bakugou, Katsuki. The instructions underneath were short and clinical. As if he were preparing to take a flu medication or mild sedative instead of erasing an entire goddamn person from his head.
His throat was dry.
Katsuki ran his tongue over his back teeth, grit catching between the enamel like the last remnants of some distant war. His eyes didn’t leave the bottle. His hand didn’t move. For a long moment, all he did was breathe—slow and even and shallow, like breathing too deep might bring back everything he was trying to destroy.
Not yet.
He left it on the counter.
-
He found them at a bar a few blocks from Kirishima’s place. The same dive they used to hit up after patrols during their first year out of school—back when all they needed was cheap beer and the company of people who wouldn’t flinch at the smell of smoke and blood.
It was instinct more than anything. He didn’t text. Didn’t call. Just walked in and let the noise of the crowd wrap around him like armor.
Mina saw him first.
She was halfway through a story, all big gestures and crooked laughter, but her words caught on the rim of her glass the second her eyes met his. Something in her expression faltered—subtle, quick—but he caught it. She knew. Of course she did. The three of them always fucking knew.
“Bakugou,” she greeted, the corners of her mouth twitching toward a smile that didn’t quite make it.
Kaminari turned in his seat, blond hair sticking up in every direction, half a french fry dangling from his mouth. “Oh, shit—hey, man.”
Kirishima just looked at him.
And Katsuki—he just walked forward, pulled out the chair across from them, and dropped into it like he’d been doing it every night for the last ten years.
“Got any whiskey?” he asked.
Kaminari blinked. “Uh. Yeah, I think—”
“Good,” Katsuki cut in, reaching across the table and taking the glass without asking. “I’m drinking it.”
No one stopped him.
The whiskey was smooth, high shelf. The kind of thing Kirishima pretended not to splurge on. It burned its way down his throat, sharp and fast, like it had somewhere to be. Katsuki didn’t wince. He just breathed through it and set the glass down harder than necessary.
“So,” Kirishima said, the quiet in his voice louder than it had any right to be. “It’s happening?”
Katsuki exhaled through his nose, his gaze fixed on the table. “Yeah.”
Mina leaned back, folding her arms across her chest. She studied him with that look she got when she was trying to see through his bullshit—head tilted, brow drawn, all pink hair and perceptiveness. “And you’re sure?”
His hand curled around the base of the glass, the condensation seeping into his palm. “It’s already done.”
Not the pills. Not the sleep. But everything that came before—the appointment, the signature, the mapping. It was in motion now. A boulder tumbling down a hill. He’d tipped it himself.
Mina’s shoulders sagged just slightly. Not in relief. Not even disappointment. Just a quiet, exhausted kind of understanding.
Kirishima rubbed a hand through his hair, visibly trying to find the right words and failing. “I don’t know, man. It just—it doesn’t feel right.”
“It feels kinda permanent,” Kaminari added, poking at a now-cold pile of fries. “Y’know? Like there’s no going back.”
That was the fucking point.
Katsuki scoffed, grabbed Kirishima’s drink too, and took a sip before the idiot could protest. “Good.”
Silence settled over the table like fog. No more arguments. No more questions. Not because they agreed, but because they understood it was pointless. The choice had already been made.
When he stood to leave, no one told him not to. They didn’t follow. They didn’t say goodbye.
He didn’t look back.
-
Back home, the note and the bottle were still waiting.
The pills sat neatly inside the orange plastic, six of them lined up like teeth in a jaw, ready to bite down and devour everything that had ever mattered. Everything that had ever fucking hurt.
He sat at the edge of his bed, staring down at them in his hand.
He could still back out.
He could pick up the phone, call the number they gave him, tell them he made a mistake. Tell them he didn’t want this after all. That the anger had faded. That he wasn’t ready to let go.
But he wouldn’t.
Izuku had erased him first.
And if Izuku could live with never knowing he existed—never remembering what they were, what they could’ve been—then Katsuki sure as hell could return the favor.
The pills went down easier than he expected.
No taste. No bitterness.
Just gone.
By the time he crawled beneath the covers, the edges of his body felt strange. Heavy. Not tired, not exactly. Just… blurred. Like the lines of his existence had started to smear.
He closed his eyes.
The last thing he saw was the ceiling above him, a flat field of shadow and nothingness, before it all slipped away.
-
The air smelled like cut grass.
Warm. Damp. The kind of scent that filled your lungs and stuck to your skin in early summer. The sun was high, brilliant, making the sky above stretch wide and endless and blue.
Katsuki blinked.
He was outside. Somewhere familiar and not. A playground—flat and sprawling, surrounded by chain link and lined with trampled green. The kind of place he hadn’t seen in years. Not since—
A laugh broke through the haze.
High-pitched. Joyful. Not his.
He looked down at his hands.
They were small.
Tiny fists, caked in dirt. Scraped knuckles. Nails bitten down. His knees were scuffed, the fabric of his shorts stained with grass.
No.
Not his hands.
He looked up.
There was a bench. Wooden, peeling at the edges. And beside him sat—
Izuku.
Not grown. Not the man he’d seen at the reunion. This was a boy. Younger. Smaller. His hair was even messier than usual, curling around his ears, sticking to his forehead with sweat. He was kicking his legs idly, sneakers knocking against the wood.