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The thing was, Izuku was very bad with directions and the passing of time. Dinner is in half an hour, his mom had told him, make sure you can see this building at all times. Well, he couldn’t see the cottage anymore, and that had been the case for a long time now. A lot longer than 30 minutes, judging by the fact that it would have been almost pitch dark in the forest if not for the moonlight.
He was so utterly lost.
Izuku had never really been afraid of the dark, but he was really starting to get tired of walking. Something in his 6-year-old mind told him the best thing to do was stop and that way not get further from everyone else, but there was still the possibility that this was the right direction. So he kept on walking, trying to ignore the hunger and tiredness creeping up on him.
It took a few dozen more steps before he realized something was up ahead. Something other than just trees and rocks and even more trees. It was a small clearing, with a few flowers trying to defy the still lingering cold of the past winter. And there was someone sitting there, leaning back on their hands, looking up at the sky.
The grass felt extra soft under Izuku’s shoes after the uneven forest floor as he stopped at the edge. Why would anyone be here, he wondered, ignoring the fact that he was here himself.
A tentative step towards the center, then another one. The other person gave no indication that they knew of his presence. A third step, and a fourth one. Don’t talk to strangers. His mom’s words rang in his head, but he was already lost and so very tired.
At the fifth step the strange person spoke up – still not looking at Izuku though – and he almost jumped out of his boots.
“Do you like the stars?”
Izuku opened his mouth a few times before managing a quiet “W-what?”
The Moon was out, and even though it wasn’t full, it had given him enough light to not trip on every root on his way there. In the moonlight Izuku could see his companion well enough. As the other boy turned his head, Izuku could see his shortish light blue hair shift, as if a wind was picking on it. Stranger danger didn’t apply to other kids, did it? Because this boy was definitely not an adult. Older than him, but still pretty young.
“The stars”, the boy repeated and turned his gaze upwards again. “Do you like them? I think they are very pretty. I like to come here and just look at them from time to time.”
Izuku was now standing beside this kid and looking up, and wow. He had never seen so many stars; it never really got dark in the city. Looking up was almost overwhelming.
“They... are really nice.”
There was a small laugh from the other kid as he slowly got to his feet. The chilly night air didn’t seem to be much of a bother to him, even if he was wearing only jeans and a T-shirt. Izuku could see a silver necklace with a small cloud pendant stark against the dark blue of the boy’s shirt.
There was a hand offered to him. He looked at it for a second before cautiously shaking it, which made the older boy chuckle. “My name is Oboro, nice to meet you. Now, are you lost?”
Izuku nodded, introducing himself more to the grass beneath his feet than to Oboro. It somehow felt embarrassing, and he didn’t want to look the other in the eye.
“Hey now, Izuku, that’s okay! Because lucky for you, I know this forest like my own pockets!” Oboro said cheerily and grabbed Izuku’s hand. The hand was cold, but not uncomfortably so. “I assume you were at the camp before wandering off?”
“I- yes. Mom told me not to go far but then there was this bird and I followed it and suddenly I didn’t know where I had come from and now I've missed dinner and-” The hand holding his gave a little squeeze, and Izuku looked up.
“It’s okay, I'm sure there will be food waiting when you get back. Shall we go?” Something about Oboro’s smile and way of speaking was very comforting, and Izuku simply nodded. The older kid started to lead them into the forest, left of where Izuku had been coming from.
They walked for a while in companionable silence, the only sound being Izuku’s steps. The other boy’s sneakers didn’t appear to make any noise at all as they walked hand in hand under the moonlight.
“Did you know that the light from the stars is actually really old?” Oboro asked suddenly. Izuku looked up at him, but quickly turned his gaze back to the ground to not fall over. His confusion must have been answer enough, because Oboro continued:
“For example, the stars in Pleiades are so far away that it takes over 400 years for the light to reach us. Pleiades is a constellation”, he added after receiving another quizzical look. “It’s actually really easy to spot, and then there’s Orion, named after a hunter in Greek mythology... And you can use stars to navigate pretty well...”
The boy went on a tangent about all things stars, but Izuku didn’t mind one bit. Hearing someone talk about things they were passionate about was really nice, even if he didn’t really understand everything.
Izuku kind of wanted to ask the other boy how he knew the forest so well, but he figured he must just come here very often. Thinking of him living in the forest felt weird, because he must have a family who he lived with since he was so young. Still, Izuku was glad he had someone guiding him in this foreign place. The cool hand in his was oddly comforting.
He didn’t know how long they walked for, but suddenly he realized the hold on his hand wasn’t there anymore. They’d stopped at the edge of the woods, and there was a red building across the little grass lawn.
“Here we are! Go now, Izuku, I'm sure you had people worried.” Izuku turned to his strange friend, and again the boy’s hair was shifting as if by a wind despite the air being completely still.
“Thank you!” He didn’t know if he should hug Oboro, when a voice cut through the night air.
“Izuku! Oh thank goodness, are you alright?” Izuku’s attention was snapped in the opposite direction, where his mom was running towards him. There were others too, everyone with some kind of flashlights and relieved expressions. People were also coming from his side of the forest, which was a little weird. How had they not seen him and Oboro?
“I’m okay!” he said as he was wrapped in a tight hug. “I was lost but then I found Oboro and he knew how to get here!”
His mom put him down and looked concerned. “Who’s Oboro?”
“He’s right ther-” He turned and pointed to nothing but trees. His expression changed to confusion and he looked around, but there was no sign of the other kid. He let his hand fall. “He told me about stars...” he added quietly.
His mom gave him a strange look and picked him up again. “Come on, let’s get you inside. Dinner is waiting.” Izuku nodded to his mom’s shoulder, but his gaze still lingered on the forest, though there was no sign of the blue-haired kid anywhere.
* * *
Shouta had been looking for the little boy for over an hour along with the others when the kid had emerged from the forest. He was relieved to find out he was unharmed, if a little exhausted from walking for so long. Of course he was also a little annoyed that the kid had even managed to get lost in the first place, but at least this hadn’t gone on for too long
He would maybe have thought no more of the case after the day, if it hadn’t been for the words he heard the boy – Izuku – tell his mother.
“-is real! He brought me back here and told me that light is a slow runner!”
That caught Shouta’s attention. Were there others in the forest as well? This was going to be a long night if that was the case.
“Excuse me?” he asked and hurried to the pair’s side. Both of them looked at him curiously. “Sorry, I overheard you talking. You said you were brought here? By whom, exactly?”
That made the mother sigh deeply. “He has quite the imagination-” she started explaining but was cut off by her son.
“There was this other boy and he said his name was Oboro! But then he just disappeared...” The mother gave Shouta an apologetic look and assured him her son must have made this other kid up. Shouta realized he’d stopped walking and found that he could just stare at Izuku, who was still looking at him over his mother’s shoulder. His mother glanced over at where Shouta had suddenly stopped, with a look of puzzlement on her face.
“Ah, sorry, I just...” Shouta found his voice and ability to walk again. “Could you, maybe, describe him?” He gave the boy’s mother an apologetic look, but he just needed to know this. It was probably just a coincidence, wasn’t it? It had to be.
“Umm, blue shortish hair, dark blue shirt”, he told Shouta, eyes wide with enthusiasm over someone possibly believing him. Shouta’s face paled already at that, but those words were nothing compared to what the kid said next. “A little cloud necklace.”
Shouta struggled to keep his face straight as he thanked the boy and walked away. Those words were still playing in his mind when he got home a few hours later. Izuku’s mother might have been able to brush her son’s words off as just a child’s imagination running extra laps in a scary situation, but Shouta... he couldn’t do that. He wished he could, but it was impossible. But even so, believing the kid’s words should have also been just that. Impossible. Irrational. Still… it wasn't. At least not to Shouta.
For no particular reason whatsoever he went to dig up his old school photos from the depths of the garage. It took him a while, but eventually he found the old cardboard box behind some skiing equipment that hadn’t seen snow in years. The lid was very dusty, and he coughed a little as he opened it. Positive it was the right one, he brought it inside and placed it on the dinner table next to the plates from earlier in the day. Should do the dishes before Hizashi gets home, he thought.
Shouta might not seem like it, but he was quite a sentimental person. And so, even though he wouldn’t admit it, he had kept practically every photo he had ever gotten. The box was pretty messy, but eventually he found the class photos from middle school. Nineteen students in 9th grade, same for the 8th. Then there was the 7th grade photo; twenty students.
At the far-right end of the middle row, next to a tired looking black haired boy, stood a kid with light blue hair, a big grin and a blue hoodie. What couldn’t be seen in the picture was the necklace with a little silver cloud, but Shouta knew it was there. It had been there since 3rd grade, every single day. There is a box on Shouta’s desk, where an identical one lies alone. Where it has been for five years.
“I wish I knew what happened. I wish I could have said goodbye.” The whisper was barely audible, but there was nobody to hear it anyway.
Somewhere in the house was probably still a poster with a cropped version of that 7th grade class photo. Have you seen this kid? it read, but nobody had. Not for fifteen years.