Chapter Text
The air is heavy and the sky is grey.
Midoriya Izuku, age sixteen, has been found dead in his dorm room after missing his early morning run this morning.
His skin had been tinged grey and his body had already gone cold and not even Recovery Girl had been able to do a single thing to so much as even attempt bringing him back.
Ochako can’t believe it.
Just yesterday Deku had been so vibrant and full of life— if a bit quieter and more tired than usual. He’d even gone off to the library with Yaoyorozu for one of their weekly study sessions, how can he just be gone like this?
It doesn’t compute, it doesn’t make sense, it—
Ochako presses a shaky hand to her mouth in an attempt to stifle her sobs.
It’s not fair.
It’s simply not fair.
***
Eijirou’s fist impacts the punching bag so hard it goes straight through the reinforced material.
For a moment there’s silence, save for the slow trickle of sand leaking out around his hand and Eijirou’s own harsh panting breaths.
Then…
“Dammit,” Eijirou chokes out, rubbing at his eyes with his free hand.
The bag slowly relinquishes its grip on his wrist as the leaking sand loosens the hole he’d punched through but Eijirou makes no move to pull it out.
“Stupid fucking dammit.”
Off in the opposite corner, punching his own bag on a repetitive loop that already has his knuckles bleeding, Bakugou says nothing. Not even a hiss of pain escapes through his gritted teeth; the only noises coming from that section of the room are the barely controlled inhales and exhales.
In his periphery, he sees Yaoyorozu get up, cross the room, and approach Bakugou, seeming to flounder helplessly for a second before offering bandages in a quiet, shaky voice. When Bakugou brushes her off sharply, she makes a motion as if to turn toward Eijirou before apparently deciding the better of it and hurriedly exiting the room.
Eijirou returns his attention to his own buried fist and the small pile of sand that’s pooled at his feet and he can’t help but think of burying–
“Arrgh!”
He wrenches his hand free and hits the bag even harder, uncaring of the sand that erupts everywhere.
***
Tsu sits with her eyes closed, her entire body nearly frozen still, and even her heart only beating along at a sluggish pace. She’d gone into shock when she heard the news, barely managing to make it back to her room before everything entirely shut down. Everybody else was devastated enough; they didn’t need to deal with the issues from her physiological reaction on top of their own grief.
At least sitting alone like this gave her time to process her thoughts — but what use did it do anyway when thinking wouldn’t bring Midoriya back?
He was gone, gone just like that, gone without a final word to any of them. It makes Tsu almost wonder if he’d known something was wrong, if he’d been trying to protect his friends and make sure nobody worried about him until the end. Probably he did. Of course.
If she could have done something — anything — had he bothered to tell her.
She debates asking Yaoyorozu whether Midoriya had said anything suspicious during their study session, which was the last time any of them had been alone with him. Ultimately, though, she decides the better of it; the vice representative must be grieving too, and surely has the added weight of the guilt from being the last person to talk to Midoriya. There’s no use rehashing something that can’t be changed.
This is the way it is, the only thing left to do is carry on. To figure out what a life without Midoriya even looks like for them. She knows the void he leaves behind will be huge, whether the class and his friends overcome it well remains to be seen.
***
Tenya isn’t ready to accept the news.
He had heard it, had understood what the words meant, but he cannot wrap his mind around a world which no longer contains his friend in it, someone who had seemed so much larger than life. The one of them who would carry on through anything and come out the other side somehow. A world without Izuku in it seems utterly untenable, a complete impossibility that shouldn’t be possible.
Yet here they are.
His friend dead at such a young age, and Tenya left reeling with no one to blame and nothing to do but reel, unmoored and in denial. The only thing he can even attempt to manage is to check on the classmates left behind, those who Tenya knows must be suffering every bit as much as he is. Most of them seem to be working things out in whatever way suits them best, Bakugou with violence of course, Shouto with sparring. Typical.
Ochako gets a hug before she sends him off to check on Yaoyorozu, citing that she had seemed extremely upset earlier. Of course she is, being the last person to see him alive.
So Tenya goes to check on her, finding her staring out at the campus alone. When he tries to speak to her, she won’t even meet his eyes.
Unusual.
She only sits with him a moment before getting to her feet.
“I…” she starts, stops, starts again. “I should…”
Again she trails off and Tenya is hit with a flash of alarm at the way she suddenly sways in place.
He reaches out a hand to steady her but she startles at it, almost flinching back from his touch. “I should go,” she finally finishes, turning away and doing just that.
Tenya watches her go and can’t shake the feeling that she’d been remarkably unsteady today, almost unmoored and adrift like a ship without its anchor.
Making a mental note to himself to keep a closer eye on her, Tenya gets to his feet as well and moves on to checking the next classmate.
***
Hitoshi stumbles into the kitchen at whatever the fuck hour it is and fumbles with the coffeemaker, battling a soul deep desperation for it that he’s honestly never felt before.
The image of Midoriya just laying there like—
He slams his mental door shut on the very thought of it because nope nope nope not thinking about that!
Coffee is what he needs, coffee will keep those pesky nightmares at bay. Sleep’s for the weak, Hitoshi had always said that. It’s just now that he’s gotta put his money where his mouth is because dammit he’d known he’d be in for a treat what with being the one to find the body and all but fuck he’s not doing this.
His movements as he starts up the coffeemaker are made difficult by the panic still coursing through him and dammit he’ll never sleep again if this is what’s waiting for him when he finally manages to shut down at the end of the day.
There’s a clatter from just behind him and Hitoshi full body flinches, his empty mug at the ready to defend himself from villains—
Only for all that adrenaline to leak back out of him in a whoosh at the sight of Yaoyorozu puttering by the stove making tea.
Right, of course, Hitoshi was silly for jumping to villains, it’s the UA dorms at 3am, of course it’s just—
Hitoshi frowns.
What the fuck is Yaoyorozu doing making tea at 3am?
So he decides to ask her.
“Hey—“
And that’s as far as he gets because Yaoyorozu flinches so badly she drops her teacup, shattering it loudly against the floor.
“Whoa hey whoa!” Hitoshi yelps, suddenly wide awake again in a way that even coffee has never achieved. “Are you okay?”
Upon closer inspection it is clear that she is not in fact okay, in fact she’s probably the furthest from okay than she’s ever looked.
“Shinsou…” She looks up at him with wide watery eyes and she’s trembling so hard he almost wants to hold her still before she shakes herself to pieces.
“Shinsou I need to tell you something…”