Chapter Text
The hospital waiting room was too bright. Everything smelled like antiseptic and rainwater.
Shouta sat hunched forward in one of the plastic chairs near the wall, elbows resting against his knees while dried blood cracked stiffly across his hands.
Not his blood. He couldn’t stop thinking about that.
Across from him, Hizashi stared blankly at the vending machine near the corner of the room like he’d forgotten what it was for. Neither of them had changed clothes yet. Rain still clung damply to their jackets. Dust streaked their sleeves gray.
Oboro sat between them silently. Too silent. That frightened Shouta more than anything else tonight.
Normally, Oboro filled every room he entered without trying. Talking. Laughing. Moving constantly. Now he just sat there staring at his own shaking hands, like he still felt Izuku hitting him hard enough to shove him clear of the collapse. None of them had spoken properly since arriving.
The children survived. The civilians survived. Heroes kept saying that part gently, like it was supposed to help.
Shouta thought he might start screaming if one more person called tonight a success.
Footsteps approached quietly.
Nedzu.
The principal looked almost unnaturally composed despite the late hour, though exhaustion lingered visibly beneath his eyes now. He stopped in front of them carefully.
Nobody asked immediately. Nobody wanted to hear it said aloud.
Then, Oboro broke first. “…Did they find him?”
His voice sounded wrecked.
Nedzu was silent for half a second too long. And just from that, Shouta knew. The search teams had found debris. Blood. Torn fabric caught beneath collapsed steel.
But no body.
One crew believed a lower section of the structure may have collapsed into underground utility access during the secondary cave-in.
Another insisted there simply wasn’t enough left to recover. Nobody agreed. Nobody knew.
The uncertainty poisoned everything.
“…We’re still searching,” Nedzu said carefully.
Not we found him. Not he’s alive.
Still searching.
Oboro folded forward abruptly, hands covering his face.
Hizashi looked away hard enough his chair screeched sharply against the floor.
Shouta stared at the wall because if he looked at either of them right now, he thought something inside him might finally break apart completely.
“He pushed me.” Oboro’s voice came out muffled behind trembling hands.
Nobody answered, because they all saw it happen.
“He—” Oboro swallowed hard. “He looked right at me.”
Rain tapped softly against the hospital windows.
Shouta remembered it too.
Izuku smiling. Small. Terrified. Apologetic. Like he already knew what was about to happen.
The memory made nausea twist violently in Shouta’s stomach.
Nedzu remained with them quietly instead of leaving. Not as a principal now. Just… there. Present. Somehow, that helped a little.
Minutes stretched painfully. Eventually Hizashi laughed weakly. The sound was awful.
“He hated the cafeteria coffee,” he said suddenly.
Oboro lowered his hands slowly. “What?”
“The first day.” Hizashi stared at the floor. “Remember? He drank it anyway because he thought it was rude not to.”
A broken smile flickered weakly across Oboro’s face before collapsing almost immediately. “…Yeah.”
Silence again. Then, quietly: “He started carrying extra sugar packets after that.”
Something in Shouta’s chest twisted painfully. Because he remembered that too. Tiny stupid things.
Izuku quietly pushing paperwork into neat piles while waiting in Nedzu’s office. Falling asleep during movie nights because he never seemed to sleep enough otherwise. The way he lit up whenever someone used his first name.
All these little pieces suddenly mattered unbearably now. As if losing him had sharpened every memory into something dangerous.
Oboro wiped roughly at his face before laughing once under his breath. “He kept apologizing every time he existed near somebody.”
Nobody smiled. Because that was true too. And somehow remembering it hurt worse than the rubble did.
—
Morning came quietly. Not peacefully, just inevitably.
Gray light filtered through the hospital windows while the city outside continued moving forward like nothing catastrophic had happened the night before.
Shouta hated that most.
People still laughed outside. Traffic still moved. Phones still rang.
Meanwhile, something enormous sat rotting open inside his chest.
A nurse eventually convinced them to move from the waiting room into one of the quieter recovery lounges reserved for heroes and families involved in major incidents.
None of them protested. Mostly because they were too exhausted to.
Oboro fell asleep first. Not properly.
He’d been sitting beside Hizashi one second, then suddenly his head tipped sideways against Hizashi’s shoulder as exhaustion finally dragged him under.
Hizashi froze immediately. Like moving might somehow break something fragile.
Shouta watched silently from across the room. Oboro looked terrible even asleep.
His face was pale beneath bruises forming along one side of his jaw. Dried rain still clung unevenly to his hair. One of his hands twitched occasionally like he was still trying to reach for something in dreams. Or someone.
Hizashi stared downward quietly. “…He’s gonna blame himself.”
Shouta’s throat tightened. Because he knew. Oboro would replay those final seconds forever.
If I moved faster. If I reacted sooner. If I protected the children differently. If Izuku never met us—
“Don’t let him,” Hizashi said suddenly.
Shouta looked up. Hizashi still hadn’t moved. His voice remained soft enough not to wake Oboro.
“Promise me,” he whispered. “We don’t let him carry this alone.”
Something sharp lodged painfully behind Shouta’s ribs. Because Hizashi was grieving too. Terrified too.
But even now, he was thinking about them first.
Shouta looked toward the sleeping figure between them, then finally nodded once. “…Yeah.”
The word felt small. Important anyway. Hizashi exhaled shakily.
For a while, nobody spoke again. Then quietly: “Do you think he was scared?”
The question almost didn’t register at first. Shouta’s eyes shifted slowly toward Hizashi.
Hizashi still stared ahead blankly. “I keep thinking about it,” he admitted weakly. “Whether he knew.”
Shouta remembered Izuku’s expression right before he ran.
That awful smile.
"I’m sorry."
His stomach twisted violently. “…Yeah,” he said honestly.
Hizashi’s eyes squeezed shut briefly. Rain tapped faintly against the windows again. Neither of them mentioned how Izuku had looked lately.
The panic attacks. The exhaustion. The way he flinched whenever storms started rolling in.
Shouta suddenly remembered sitting beside him on the rooftop only a week earlier.
Izuku had been half-asleep against the fence while the sunset turned everything gold.
“You trust people too easily,” Shouta had muttered.
Izuku laughed softly without opening his eyes. “No I don’t.”
“You followed Oboro home after knowing him for like thirty minutes.”
“That was different.”
“How?”
A long pause. Then, quietly: “You all kept asking me to stay.”
Shouta hadn’t known how to answer that. Looking back now, maybe he should have.
The lounge door opened softly. Nedzu stepped inside carrying paper cups of coffee. He paused briefly upon noticing Oboro asleep before lowering his voice automatically.
“Aizawa. Yamada.”
Neither moved much. Nedzu handed them coffee anyway. Shouta accepted his mostly for something to do with his hands.
Hizashi stared down into his coffee quietly. Then, after a moment: “…You think he’s dead?”
Direct. Brutal. Necessary. The room went silent.
Even asleep, Oboro shifted slightly at the words.
Nedzu’s expression softened almost imperceptibly. “We don’t know,” he answered honestly.
And somehow, that hurt more than certainty would have. Because grief needed somewhere to land.
But there was nothing. No body. No goodbye. No proof. Just rain. Rubble. And an absence large enough to swallow all three of them whole.
Nedzu didn’t leave immediately after that.
The coffee cooled untouched in paper cups while rain continued tapping softly against the windows.
At some point, Hizashi fell asleep too.
Shouta looked over to find him unconscious against the back of the couch, one arm still awkwardly wrapped around Oboro like his body refused to let go even in sleep.
Something about that nearly destroyed him. Because they were still here. Still together.
Izuku had made sure of that.
The realization sat like broken glass beneath Shouta’s ribs.
Nedzu watched the three of them silently for a long moment before speaking.
“You should rest as well, Aizawa.”
Shouta didn’t answer. Sleep felt impossible now.
Every time he closes his eyes, he saw it again:
Izuku running toward the collapse instead of away from it. No hesitation, no panic. Choice.
“You knew,” Shouta said suddenly.
Nedzu’s ears twitched slightly. Shouta stared down at his bloodstained hands.
“…something was wrong with him lately.” he continued, “…and you noticed it too.”
Not accusation. Just tired realization.
Nedzu was quiet for a moment. “…Yes.”
Shouta swallowed hard. “And you didn’t say anything.”
Another silence. Then, carefully: “Because he asked me not to.”
That made anger flare briefly through the numbness. Sharp enough to hurt.
“You let him carry that alone?”
Nedzu’s expression tightened almost imperceptibly. “No,” he said quietly. “I tried to help him carry it all.”
The anger vanished immediately afterward, leaving only exhaustion behind. Because that sounded just like Izuku. Trying to make himself smaller. Less troublesome. Easier to lose.
Shouta hated suddenly how obvious it all seemed now. Like the signs had been sitting directly in front of them the entire time.
He looked toward the sleeping pair across from him.
Oboro’s head had slipped against Hizashi’s shoulder now, both of them exhausted enough not to notice.
Alive. All of them were. Because Izuku made sure of it. Guilt crawled viciously beneath Shouta’s skin.
Nedzu’s voice interrupted quietly. “He cared about all of you very deeply.”
Shouta laughed once under his breath.Broken sounding. “Yeah,” he whispered.
That was the problem.