Chapter Text
I was 5 years old when I finally got my quirk. I had expected it to be some big moment where everyone finally became nice and welcoming to me. I had imagined it a million times. Maybe I would get my dads fire breathing quirk. Or some kind of telekinesis quirk like my mom. Or even a cool mix of them. But instead I ended up with a curse of a quirk. It wasn’t a day to celebrate when I got it. Instead it was a day of questions.
It was a sunny Monday and I was hanging out with kacchan and a few other kids. Well less like us “hanging out” and more like them tolerating me being there. Suddenly one of the boys(who had recently got his wing quirk) jumped off of the play set, trying to fly, and landed on his left leg wrong. He tried to hold his tears in front of kacchan but eventually he let his tears fly loose. As I watched his leg bleed while he held it, suddenly pain surfaced in my right leg. It was extremely painful, like I had landed on it roughly even though I had been standing still the whole time. I dropped down to my butt, holding my leg. The other kids stared at me like I was crazy.
Questioning glares were thrown in my direction as I tried to calm myself down.
Why does my leg hurt so much?
“What are you doing damn deku?” I heard kacchan say.
But I didn’t answer because I didn’t know what I was doing.
Both me and the boy got sent to the nurses office, but she couldn’t figure out what was wrong with my leg. Yet when the boy got his leg bandaged and he stopped crying I was perfectly fine.
I spent the rest of the day confused, up until my mom picked me up and I was able to tell her about the weird events that had happened. She also found it quite weird and decided to ask about it during my routine check up, which had luckily been scheduled the next day.
As we walked towards the hospital doors I found myself looking around, looking at the blue sky and the way the sun seemed twice as bright today. The way the breeze tickled my hair in an almost endearing way, and the soft comfort that only the hands of my mother could provide me.
Waiting in the doctor's room was excruciating. I just wanted to know the why on what happened yesterday. It felt like hours had passed when finally the door opened, revealing my doctor.
“Hey Izuku, what brings you in here today?”
“Well, we’re just here for a checkup, but something recently came up.” My mom answered for me.
“Oh, and what seems to be the problem” He says, getting out his equipment.
“Well, His right leg was hurting a lot yesterday during recess, but the nurse couldn’t figure out why.”
The doctor thinks on it for a moment. “Well did anything happen before your leg started hurting, Izuku?”
I kick my legs back and forth as I recall yesterday’s events. “Well this one kid hurt his leg by jumping off of the play set.”
I think for a few more seconds before deciding that’s the only eventful thing that happened.
“And do you know what leg he hurt?”
“The left one” I say after a few mere seconds.
“ okay and do you remember which of your legs was hurting”
“Umm this one” I say as I hold up my right leg.
The doctor nods and writes something down in his notes before looking back up, turning to my mom.
“Do you mind if I run a quirk test?” Mom makes a face before slowly nodding her head, not knowing why they would need to run a quirk test.
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After quirk test
The doctor comes back in, results in hand, and his face knitted together, a frown present. It’s quickly replaced with a smile though as he makes eye contact with me.
“Good news, someones just discovered their quirk”
I bounce up and down with excitement and anticipation as my mom smiles with joy and pride in her eyes. As well as a tint of relief.
“But-”
I immediately tense up.
“The quirk makes it so that you feel whatever someone else is feeling. Like a mirror.”
I feel my mom tense up beside me as well, her face now contorted into that of worry. I wait for him to continue but with a new sense of dread.
“I can’t get all the details from quirk tests, but I was able to come up with a few conclusions based off of the data I was able to collect. Izuku, you can feel the physical pain of others like yesterday, but on the opposite side. Like if I hurt my right elbow, your left elbow will start hurting. This also applies to emotions, like if someone is feeling worried, you’ll also feel worried because your quirk mirrors others.”
I try to take in the information but it’s difficult as a 5 year old who just discovered he has a quirk.
“I know that’s a lot so I apologize for that, but is there anything you want to name your new found quirk?”
I think for a moment and it hits me, honestly it’s a pretty simple name but most quirks are.
“Mirror!”
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Suddenly my world is shifted, and nothing feels it’s mine anymore. My feelings, even my injuries. They are now that of others.
Eventually, the details of my quirk makes its way all through the school. People mistake it as mind reading, and some think I’m lying. Teachers started to become wary of me, and suddenly it felt like the only thing adults ever talked to me about was how sorry they were for me. Like now that I had this quirk, I was nothing more and nothing less. I was now a sad child, someone they all felt bad for.
But not kacchan.
“I mean it’s not as cool as mine, but doesn’t that mean you can understand the survivors more or something? “ he said to me.
“What! It’s basically mind reading, so creepy” someone said.
“Eww yea, that’s not heroic at all!” Another said.
I felt it too, I felt how creeped out and disgusted they were. So when people would come up to me to say they actually thought it wasn’t that bad, I knew they were lying.
“That’s stupid, that’s not even his quirk you loser wannabes” kacchan said, and I was glad he did. I don’t want people to be scared of me.
With my quirk I felt more attached to kacchan than ever. His emotions weren’t rapid fire, and most of all I liked feeling confident, even if it wasn’t my own. Kacchan also always said exactly how he felt. I wasn’t scared of being lied to or anything(that would be silly) but I liked not having to second guess. Not hearing one thing and then feeling another.
Getting older didn’t make me more resilient to my quirk. The older I was, the stronger the quirk became. When I looked at people I almost forget my identity. All I can feel is them. Their happiness, their excitement. And the pain, the sad, and even the emptiness. I started to isolate myself. Being by myself meant I was myself. But I knew it couldn’t be that way for the rest of my life. I wanted to be a hero, but now I don’t think I ever could be. Even being around my mom is too much for me now. I feel her guilt so wholly it consumes me.
In elementary I got homeschooled, and now in middle school I don’t know if I’ll ever go back to public schooling. But I won’t, I can’t let my quirk control me. So slowly I start taking walks. I look at dogs first. I feel their joy, sometimes I feel their hunger. So I feed them. Sometimes I can feel a strays pain, so I take them to a shelter or a vet.
(If I have any money). Then I look at other animals.
Slowly I learn how to feel the emotions. I learn how to differentiate mine from theirs.
Slowly I start amping up the walks into parks instead of my neighborhood. I watch kids and adults, sometimes teens being teens. It’s a lot at first. But some days I have kacchan by my side.
I thought he would’ve left me by now, like everyone else. But he stays. He stays and he comforts and his presence grounds me. Kacchan loves me. I know I know. That’s crazy right? Two boys, both on very different paths. But I can feel it when I look at him. His love is there and it feels warm and intoxicating, but also scary. I can feel the fear. So I don’t tell him that I love him too, not yet.
You might be thinking that I don’t, because I’m just feeling his love and not my own. But I do because that feeling is there when he’s with me and when he’s not. But I’m okay with just existing beside him for now. I’ll wait forever if I need to.
“Kacchan I don’t know if I can do it.”
He rolls his eyes at me and pushes me to open the door. Cute decor spread all over the walls, cat pictures littering the back wall and yarn plowed across the floor.
“Hello! Welcome to cat cafe, how may I help you?” It’s a girl with a cute brown bob, and two star clips pinning her hair back. Her big doe eyes stare into my soul and I’m hit with immediate comfort in her presence.
Confidence, happiness, and fatigue. Her right knee is sore but not in a lot of pain, and nothing else stands out about how she’s feeling. Her and kacchans confidence combined and I think I can do a flip the first try.
“One large matcha latte.” Kacchan says for me.
“You don’t want anything kacchan?”
“Nah”
“Alrighty then, that will be 400 yen!”
I go to grab my wallet but kacchan beats me to it.
As she reaches for the yen she stubs her toe and immediately my left toe hurts. I try to conceal it as best as I can, over the years I’ve gotten used to it.
“Ouch” she says.
Eventually she leads us into the room with all the cats, my matcha in one hand and a cup of treats in the other.
The room has at least 12 cats in it, which is quite a bit for Musutafu.
Kacchan immediately sits in the bean bag chair, leaning back and resting his head.
I’m hit with tiredness and join him on the bean bag beside him.
“Geez kacchan, why are you so tired.” I realize how that sounds after I say it but I stay true to what I said. Because his tiredness is making me feel like I could sleep for a decade and wake up tired.
“Was working out late”
I roll my eyes and get to work. I pull out my journal from my bag, take a sip of matcha and start cat-watching.
Notes- cat cafe
6 cats are tired
2 cats are feeling playful
3 cats feel wary
1 cats paw is bothering him/her?
Smells are weird
Wait-
“Kacchan!” I yell.
He jumps a bit, but tries to act nonchalant( I can feel his pain I don’t know why he’s trying to hide it).
“Damn what are you yelling for?”
“I can feel their smells!”
He takes in the sentence for a moment. His face contorts and scrunches, confusion lacing his features.
“Hah?”
“See that cat over there?” I point to a brown haired cat, that’s sitting on a counter, a treat beside him. The cat slowly eats the treat and I smile wide.
“Uh yea”
“When he was smelling that treat I could feel exactly what he was thinking. Also like I was also smelling it! It kinda freaks me out because for a second it felt like I WAS a cat who was making sure I wasn’t poisoned. Like I could understand the process of if it was bad or-“
“IZUKU! “
I pause.
“Ah, sorry” but I know he’s not annoyed necessarily. Well mostly at least.
“Whatever, but I can’t understand half of what your saying, so calm the fuck down.” It was said harshly but I know it’s because he was genuinely trying to listen to what I had to say.
“Right. Well basically I felt like I was a cat who needed to check the food out. Like scarily”
He narrows his eyes at this and takes it in.
“So your quirk is getting stronger again then?” He says, and I can feel his excitement but there’s fear there too. Deep down.
“Uh yea, I think, but this time it’s in a positive way!” He tilts his head, and it’s so cute that I could die.
“Like, um I don’t feel overwhelmed or anything, just like in tune? Or something? I don’t know maybe I’m just-“
“No, I get it. That’s good then?”
I smile, and a rare yet beautiful smile takes up my whole vision.
“Yea kacchan, that’s good.”
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“Izuku! Are you sure you have everything you need?”
I smile at my moms antics., and pull on my shoes. Red and chunky shoes that kacchan got me two years ago. I still wear them, for good luck.
“Yes mom, I’m sure”
“Okay, but-“
“Mom. I promise I have everything I need, I’ll be okay. I swear.”
She smiles, wiping a tear away with her sleeve. She grabs my cheeks and my head down to kiss my forehead.
“My grown up boy, I’m so proud of you”
Her emotions flood into me and tears well up in my eyes. She lets go and turns around. Something I’ve realized is that when I’m not face to face with people, there emotions become less prominent. So essentially, easier to deal with.
I put my backpack on, grab lunch, kiss my mom and head to my new life. But not before I trip and fall straight into kacchan. “Damn Deku , what have you been doing to be so heavy now?”
I pout and stand up, with all of my own pain mixed with kacchans, it’s a lot. But not enough for me to cry. So I call that a win.
“Muscles kacchan, ever heard of them?”
He smirks and punches my shoulder, albeit lightly.
“Fucker, I could kill ya with my pinky toe”
I laugh but I cover it with an eye roll.
We banter a bit more, talking about things like the new AllMight comic, and the latest hero news. Eventually we make it, and we stand face to face with a building. But not any building, UA.
Yes, I know. How did a kid like YOU make it into a school like UA. Easy. I got into the support course. Surprising, I know. But you’d be surprised at what you can learn when you’re holed up in your room 24/7 for years. I knew I would never be a hero. When I’m in a crowded room I’ve blacked out, so a crime scene with injured, and traumatized hero’s? Yea, I would die. So I’ve settle for the next best thing. Which turned out to be one of the best things. I found I loved finding stupid or difficult problems and finding solutions. The first thing I made was a badly made action figure. Then I made even more bad action figures. Eventually I tried to make actually helpful things. Then I found a passion in creating suits for specific quirks. I even helped kacchan create his. For his physical exam, I made him a smaller version of the gauntlets the agency was going to make him. It worked great, and so did the inventions I made for my own exam.
So here we are, a hero and a support hero. Where we probably would always end up. Next to each other. Even if that meant something a little different than how we originally imagined it.
A side effect of my quirk is sensory issues. So I have headphones and an eye mask in my bag ready for use. The closer we get, the more I feel. I hold kacchans hand and look at him. I feel grounded in his confidence. He’s nervous too but overall he’s ready. And I really need that right now. I need to feel ready.
He squeezes my hand, and I keep holding on. That is until we get to the entrance. The hero course is upstairs on the left. And the support course is downstairs on the right. A part of me wants to force kacchan to walk to class with me. But I know that’s unfair. This is his new start too.
“Headphones?”
“check!” I say
“Mask?”
“Double check!”
He sighs and squeezes my hand one last time. It’s warm and gives me some strength( his or mine I don’t know).
I watch as he walks away, I want to say something, but I don’t know what. So I say nothing.