Chapter Text
Chapter I: The Quiet Fall
Shota Aizawa was fifteen when the silence became unbearable. It wasn’t the kind of silence people noticed—it was the heavy, pressing stillness that creeps in when laughter feels like static and the sound of your own breathing becomes too loud. He didn’t know exactly when it started, only that one day the hallways of U.A. felt like a vacuum, voices muffled and distant, as though the world was happening behind a pane of glass.
He wondered if anyone else ever noticed how their footsteps echoed. He doubted it. Shota walked with his hands in his pockets, eyes low, feeling like every second he spent in a room was borrowed time. He didn’t know how to be in the world without shrinking from it, without filtering every word he said through the worry of being seen as weak or broken.
The silence followed him even when he was surrounded by noise. During class, the world receded into a blur of words he barely processed. Teachers praised his attention to detail, his consistency, but none of them saw the truth—that he listened not because he cared, but because the noise filled the void for a little while. He clung to those small anchors: the scratch of a pen, the rustle of a turned page, the flicker of chalk on board.
The silence wasn’t just outside—it was inside. It lived in the pit of his stomach, in the tightening of his chest, in the dull ache behind his eyes when sleep wouldn’t come. And worst of all, it spoke. It whispered that he wasn’t enough. That he was just taking up space. That no one would notice if he disappeared.
And Shota believed it. The world had grown muffled, like someone had stuffed cotton in his ears, and every sound—even laughter, even applause—felt distant. His thoughts echoed too loudly in the quiet spaces between classes, between conversations, between heartbeats.
He wasn’t loud like Hizashi, or effortlessly radiant like Oboro. He was just there—hovering in the corners of his class photo, existing without edges. To his classmates, he was a shadow. And to himself? He was a placeholder. Home was no comfort; school was just endurance. Every day, he performed “fine” with surgical precision—smiling when expected, nodding when prompted, disappearing when convenient.
But at night, the mask cracked. He’d lie awake, hands clasped behind his head, dissecting every half-conversation, wondering if anyone saw how empty he really felt. He made lists: calories, sit-ups, hours of sleep he could sacrifice. Each number a link in the prison he built inside himself.
He began skipping meals under the guise of disinterest. The numbers on the scale dropped. Instructors praised him: “Sharp. Lean. Efficient.” Their approval fed the hollow ache inside him.
He didn’t feel efficient. He felt empty. The self-harm started quietly—a broken compass needle, a sharp edge from a dismantled eraser case. It wasn’t about pain. It was about control. The blood whispered: This is real.
Some nights he wore long sleeves to bed, even in sweltering heat. The fabric clung to his wounds. But he liked the pressure, the secret reminder he could still feel something. He would count the seconds it took for his heartbeat to slow down after each cut.
He became obsessive about structure. If his push-ups were off by one, the night wouldn’t end. Perfectionism disguised itself as discipline. A way to drown the silence with routine. And the more he tried to feel in control, the more his world spiraled inward.
He never cried. Not once. Because tears would mean someone might ask what was wrong. And he wasn’t ready to admit he didn’t know. He convinced himself this was strength. But it was isolation—sharp and consuming.
He kept a box hidden under his bed, filled with meticulously arranged tools and a journal that no one would ever read. It held his darkest thoughts, scrawled in cramped handwriting. Each entry ended the same way: “Still here. Don’t know why.”
The emptiness began to define him. He forgot what laughter felt like in his chest, what food tasted like when it wasn’t a calculated threat. Some nights, he would stare at the ceiling and whisper apologies to no one. Other nights, he imagined what it would feel like to finally stop trying.
But he didn’t stop. Not yet.