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Izuku doesn't notice it at first. He tells himself it's the fatigue, or maybe a bad patrol. That explains the hollow feeling in his chest, the way he feels distant even when you're near. He still remembers your smile, he reaches for you and he still remembers those little habits that make you you. None of that has changed. It's the way he feels that has.
At first, it's small. He notices when he hesitates before hugging you back, when his mind wanders when you're talking to him. What used to be instinct now requires deliberation. Love, he realizes, shouldn’t feel like effort.
He does his best to ignore it. Maybe he's just tired. Maybe it'll pass. But it never does.The drift becomes noticeable in quiet moments—when you’re talking about something trivial, when your presence fills the room, when the world should feel brighter simply because you are there. Instead, he feels a distance that isn’t yours, that is entirely his own.
At night, he lies awake and recalls what love felt like before. Your laughter, your gentleness, the look of fondness you'd give him. Now, it lingers faintly. Like a phantom.
He tries to pinpoint when it changed, but there isn’t one. You didn’t do anything wrong. It just happened—gradually, quietly, eating at him.
He starts noticing it in small things. His heart doesn't tighten when you're away. He forgets to text you in the morning. Your absence feels normal instead of heavy. That realization eats at him more than panic ever could.
Izuku doesn't feel the affection anymore. You don't feel as important to him anymore.
He still cares. That's the worst part. He still wants to protect you, make you feel safer in his arms, but it isn't like before. It's smaller—contained. Like something that's been preserved. Not actively burning.
Midoriya understands now that what he feels is familiarity, not longing.
That thought keeps him up at night. He turns it over and over again, hoping something'll change, hoping he's wrong. But the feeling stays the same. Love isn't supposed to disappear. It's supposed to fight, claw its way back. But the harder he tries, the emptier he feels.
He hates himself for it. You haven't changed. You're still Y/N, The person he's loved for so long. You give without hesitation, without restraint. And he receives it knowing he can no longer return it in the same way.
At night, the guilt is loudest. He lies awake beside you, hearing your breathing, wondering when the love ended. When he stopped smiling when he heard your name. He remebers the times when it was just you two. When his love felt the strongest.
That's when he realizes it.
Izuku Midoriya doesn't love you anymore.
Not in the way that once defined him. Not in the way that made his heart race and his world narrow down to you alone. What remains is care, memory, and the echo of something that used to be everything to him.
The realization doesn’t shatter him all at once. It settles into him, quiet and devastating, leaving behind a hollow space where certainty used to live.
And he carries it alone, knowing that the absence of love can be heavier than its loss.
END