Chapter Text
“I have more important shit to do.”
“I’m not important enough for you?”
“I’m becoming a fucking hero, Deku. That’s what important to me.”
Izuku drummed his fingers once, twice, three times against the body of his crappy acoustic guitar bought secondhand (more like ninth-hand) from the tiny music shop tucked next to the konbini a few blocks down from his apartment, slumping his shoulders forward and letting out an irritated huff at the notebook on the floor in front of him. The familiar prick of tears at his eyes, partnered with the tingle in his nose that meant he was about to break down, only served to irritate him further, and before he thought it through, he shot his leg out to kick the notebook across the room.
“Write something happy, Izuku,” he muttered to himself a mocking voice that didn’t suit the polite boy his mother raised, flopping backwards until his head landed on his beanbag chair, his guitar laying across his chest. He gave a half-hearted, disjointed strum. “La la la, butterflies and unicorns, do doot doo.”
He stared up at his blank white ceiling for a while, glaring a bit at the sloppy design of glow-in-the-dark stars he would’ve taken down if they hadn’t molded themselves into the plaster by virtue of being up there for eleven years. He sighed again. I sound like him.
The realization was an unwelcome one, so he forced himself to sit up more in the beanbag chair and try to improvise a riff that didn’t sound entirely too depressing. It ended up…melancholy, at best. And that certainly didn’t help his wandering mind, which lately loved to wander right into the comforting arms of that specific kind of sadness. The kind that felt like a blanket, or sinking into a mattress, but more in the way that you were resigned to it than enjoying it.
Or just back to him.
“And I knew how you took your coffee and your favorite songs by heart,” he murmured to a tune, letting his mind tune out for a rare moment in his life, “I read all of your self-help books so you’d think that I was smart. Stupid, emotional, obsessive little me.” Another breath. “I knew from the start this is exactly how you’d leave.”
He was interrupted by a soft knock on his bedroom door, making him stop playing and glance up, momentarily disoriented. He cleared his throat and sniffled a bit, glad he hadn’t started crying yet. “Come in.”
The door cracked open to reveal his mother, dressed in her nightgown and a worried look. “Hey, honey. You going to sleep soon?”
He did his best to muster up a smile. “Yeah, in a few minutes.”
“Okay,” his mother answered, obviously hesitant to leave him alone in the way her hand remained on the door, eyes scanning him up and down like she’d find any physical evidence of the ending of a relationship her son hadn’t even told her he’d been in. As far as she knew, he was just growing apart with an old friend. “Are you doing alright?”
His fake smile faltered, but he forced himself to perk up a bit. “Yeah, mom, I’m good.”
“Okay,” she repeated, not looking or sounding very convinced, “Good night, Izuku. I love you.”
“Good night, mom,” he responded, “I love you too.”
She closed the door, but her shadow underneath only left a few moments later, and when the lights outside flicked off Izuku set his guitar aside and shoved himself out of the beanbag chair and into his bed.
He was fine.
“Deku-kun!”
Izuku slowed his walk, glancing behind him to find a smiling girl with short brown hair jogging up beside him. She was wearing the UA uniform, and Izuku hated the fact that his heart sunk when he saw her. None of this had anything to do with Uraraka, and she didn’t deserve any negative feelings from him just because he happened to know her through his ex – or more like through his ex abandoning him at every chance and her being the only one kind enough to talk to the random quirkless kid that appeared every so often.
“There you are!” Uraraka exclaimed when she reached him, clapping him on the shoulder with a grin, “You went and disappeared for a while there!”
“Yeah, I..,” Izuku started nervously, rubbing the back of his neck, “I took a different way to school for a bit. Just because.”
“Oh, that makes sense,” Uraraka responded coolly, making him deflate a little with the lack of questioning, “I’m glad you’re back though, I was starting to get a little worried.”
Izuku felt himself start to fluster a bit, simultaneously taken aback by the sentiment. “You did?”
“Yeah!” Uraraka answered, “Didn’t help that Bakugou totally blew up on me when I asked. No pun intended.”
And there goes the happy feeling. “Oh.”
“He’s an ass,” Uraraka grumbled, mostly to herself. She suddenly jolted up straight and clapped her hands together. “Anyways! I was wondering if you wanted to hang out sometime?”
This conversation was a damn roller coaster for Izuku at the moment, and he hoped to god that he didn’t show it on his face despite that being unlikely. A friendly person asking him to hang out in a friendly way like they were friends. He was…making friends. Or maybe being made friends with, he felt very passive in this situation. That probably wasn’t the best way to become a friend but he’d never really done this before, give him a little adjustment time.
“Deku-kun?”
Izuku blinked a few times and realized he’d just completely ignored proper conversation etiquette in favor of a miniature internal freak out. “Sorry. Uh…sure, what do you mean?”
“Well,” Uraraka grinned, “we got our hero licenses recently – or at least most of us did, so we were thinking we could have a little celebration or something!”
Roller coaster on the down-curve again. Kacchan got his hero license and Izuku didn’t even know.
He shook his head a tiny bit. He had to stop focusing on him and start focusing on himself. And his new friend! “Congratulations!” he smiled, “But, uh…who’s ‘we’?”
“That got our licenses?” Uraraka clarified, not giving Izuku time to correct her, “Everyone in the class but Bakugou and Todoroki. They got into a fight or something and screwed themselves over. Fighting during the exam, can you believe it?”
What.
“N-no, I meant, uh,” Izuku tried to say over another internal freak out, “I meant the celebration thing.”
“Oh, just me, Tsuyu-chan, and Iida-san!”
Izuku hardly knew who those people were, but maybe this would be good for him. “O-okay.”
“Great!” Uraraka exclaimed, “Let me get your number so I can text you details!”
Izuku complied, listing off his phone number as Uraraka plugged it into her flip phone, then gave him a cheery goodbye as she jogged off down a different block towards UA. Meanwhile, Izuku did his best to recover from whatever that was before he got to his own school. Kacchan didn’t have his hero license yet. Kacchan failed the exam. He got into a fight with Endeavor’s son and failed the licensing exam. And Izuku just got invited to a friend thing. What the hell.
Despite all that, he went through his school day as normal until he eventually ended up in the music room during club hours, meeting with the school’s band club that he’d joined impulsively after the breakup. He’d probably never had gotten the confidence to do so under normal circumstances, but something in his emotional turmoil convinced him it was a good idea. In the end…it kind of was?
“So!” Narumi, a girl with hair made of literal infinitely flowing water with roots of sand, chirped, gaining the attention of the very small group of high schoolers – there were only four of them in total. As one might’ve guessed, they were very happy to have Izuku on board. “I’ve got an announcement to make!”
She paused almost long enough for it to get awkward, until finally Izuku realized she was waiting for some kind of response and said, “What?”
“I got us a gig!” Narumi exclaimed, grinning wide. Izuku felt his heart skip a beat. “It’s at the local music festival, if you can believe it! We’re one of the opening acts for, you know, the actual more famous bands.”
“Fun,” the other girl in the group deadpanned. Fukui, who’d chopped her purple hair into a mullet and who’s quirk lent her an extra set of arms – very helpful for drumming.
“Wait, like actual famous people?” the fourth member of the group asked, a boy named Asa with a quirk that gave him the mildest of super strengths and not much else. And then there was Izuku, the plain old quirkless one.
“They’re known around the prefecture and stuff,” Narumi shrugged, “We’re not opening for Ado or anything, but it’s still cool.”
“Wait…,” Izuku said, raising his hand a bit, “does that mean…who’s gonna be the lead singer?”
Narumi gave him a look and a tiny sigh. “You, obviously. You’re the best singer here!”
Izuku felt his face flush red. “Oh. And…how many people come to this thing?”
“I don’t know, a couple hundred or something,” Narumi mused, “it’s not a terribly huge stage.” She smiled at him, an attempt at calming or comfort. It did not help. “You’ll do great, Midoriya-san.”
“We probably only got this because of you, man,” Asa commented, making Izuku more embarrassed, “Takata-sensei didn’t think we were shit until you joined.”
“I’m not-I didn’t,” Izuku stuttered, “I’m not anything special.”
“No one likes humble people,” Fukui said, poking his shoulder with one of her hands. He blinked at her.
“I thought…you were supposed to be humble.”
“Not when you’re talented,” Fukui muttered, “then it’s just annoying.”
Izuku stared at her for a second longer, then tried, “Thank you? And…sorry?”
“Anyways,” Narumi said, drawing their attention back to her again, “the gig means we have to make a setlist and practice! Any suggestions?”
“Asa-kun’s songs are cool,” Fukui said, twirling drumsticks in two of her hands. Asa perked up a bit at the compliment, his chest puffing.
“Thanks, Fukui-chan!” That earned him a drumstick to the head. “Ow!”
“Don’t hit each other!” Narumi admonished.
“It’s Fukui-san,” Fukui snapped as Asa rubbed his head and pouted at her.
“But you let Narumi-chan call you that,” he frowned, receiving another light whack for the comment. Izuku stifled a laugh and didn’t miss the darkened color of Fukui’s ears.
“Shut up.”
Asa snickered, then jolted his hand up to block another drumstick.
“Fukui-chan!” Narumi scolded, “This is not productive!” Fukui huffed, crossing both sets of arms across her chest as Asa chuckled again, and Izuku just sat by them and enjoyed the feeling of something trivial and happy, even if he wasn’t quite a part of it.
“Okay, okay, back to the songs,” Asa said, “I was meaning to ask Midoriya-san something.”
Izuku, not expecting to be brought into the conversation, blinked at him in surprise. “Me?”
“Yeah!” Asa grinned at him, “You write songs, right?”
“I-what-uh,” Izuku spluttered, “How did you…I mean kind of? They’re not that good, though. I just…scribble words.”
“What else are you supposed to do?” Asa pointed out, leaning back on the choir bleachers.
“That’s so cool that you write!” Narumi exclaimed, her hair swishing and gurgling with her excited movements. Izuku sometimes wondered if you could put fish in it and keep them alive there. “Would you ever share any of them?”
Izuku froze like a deer in headlight, swallowing nervously. “Uh…maybe? Not…not right now, though.”
“That’s okay,” Narumi assured him, “Right now, we should start practicing!”
Uraraka texted him the next morning about meeting up that day after school, which his mother seemed very happy to hear about. Izuku was…feeling quite a mess of emotions, but he tried to shove out the anxiety and dread and just look forward to a new experience. New friends were good, even if they were from the hero course. And they all already knew he was quirkless, so that hopefully wouldn’t be an issue.
Unfortunately for him, though, Uraraka asked him to meet her and her friends outside of UA, and he was too awkward and anxious to make up an excuse as to why that was not possible. So there he was, walking down the sidewalk right by UA high school, keeping his head down and eyes locked on the ground until he made it to the entrance and leaned up against the wall. To keep himself occupied, he hummed the song he’d been practicing with the band the hour before, and eventually started miming the chords on an invisible guitar.
“There he is!”
Izuku’s eyes shot open and he jolted out of his relaxed position, whipping around until he spotted Uraraka waving at him from the entrance to the school. Next to her were two other students in UA uniforms, one with long, deep green hair and huge eyes, the other a tall boy with broad shoulders and glasses.
“Good to see ya, Deku-kun!” Uraraka greeted when they reached him, “This is Tsuyu-chan and Iida-kun, my classmates!”
“I, uh,” he cleared his throat and bowed awkwardly, “nice to meet you formally.”
“The feeling is mutual, Deku-san!” Iida practically yelled, startling him half out of his mind.
“Yes, kero,” Tsuyu added, and only then did all the frog-like features make sense. It was a quirk, of course. He bit his tongue to stop himself from launching into a thousand questions about just how frog-like the girl was.
“Th-thanks,” he managed, “and, uh, my real name is Midoriya Izuku. But you can call me Deku if you want.”
“Midoriya-san would be most respectful,” Iida announced, like that was anything to announce. Izuku smiled a bit nonetheless. Kindness was kindness, no matter how forceful or loud, and he could use a little more kindness at the moment.
“FUCK ALL THE WAY OFF, ICY-HOT.”
Izuku felt his heart plumet into the depths of hell, but despite how much he knew he’d regret it, he couldn’t stop himself from whirling around to the find the source of the familiar voice. It was like an instinct, not a choice, and he hated it. He hated it even more when his eyes landed on spiky, ash-blonde hair and mess of a school uniform, and it only got worse from there.
Kacchan was standing with three other people outside of a bus, and one of them had an arm around his shoulder. A girl with bleached blonde, pin straight hair, holding up a phone to snap a picture of the two of them, and instead of shoving her away, Kacchan just glared at the camera and hip-checked her off of him. The massive guy behind the two of them, wearing a Shiketsu uniform like the girl, laughed loudly and clapped the fourth person, Todoroki, on the shoulder, making him stumble forward a bit.
“Deku-kun, what’s up?”
Izuku didn’t turn to look at Uraraka behind him when he flatly asked, “Who’s that?”
“Oh, that’s the remedial squad. They all failed the licensing exam and have to take a make-up course together.”
Kacchan said something Izuku couldn’t quite make out, face contorted into its usual scowl. Then the girl waved her hand about casually and made another comment, and Kacchan laughed.
He laughed. One hand going up to cover his mouth, the other to hug his side as he laughed so hard he nearly doubled over, while the Shiketsu girl stood off to the side and looked very pleased with herself.
Kacchan looked happy, and Izuku felt his blood run hot. Half of him wanted to stalk right over and punch his shitty ex-everything in the face, the other half wanted to break down in tears right then and there. He did neither, thankfully.
“Midoriya-san, are you alright?” Iida asked, “You’ve been staring for quite some time, which-”
“Sorry,” Izuku interrupted, drawing in a sharp breath and forcing himself to turn away from Kacchan, “sorry, but I just remembered my mom wanted me to get groceries tonight, and I don’t have much time before the store closes. I’ll have to do this another time.” He sounded about as apologetic as a robot, but it was all he had in him not to sob at the moment. He gave a small bow for good measure. “I really am sorry about this. Thank you for inviting me.”
“Oh,” Uraraka said, frowning with brows furrowed, “okay…well, I’ll see you later then, Deku-kun.”
“Yes, bye,” he answered curtly, nodding at the three of them before booking it down the sidewalk in the least I’m-escaping-from-my-ex way he could imagine. He only took a full breath when he was sure he was out of sight, making a split-second decision to head for the park because he knew his mother would ask questions if he came home earlier than expected.
Kacchan had new friends. Kacchan had a new…girlfriend? Whatever she was, he was comfortable with her, and she made him laugh. Kacchan used to never laugh, and when he did, it was with Izuku. He didn’t much like to be touched, except by Izuku on certain occasions, he hardly smiled, and he never laughed. But Izuku had just watched all of those things happen.
The fact was plain and simple and painfully in his face; Kacchan had moved on.
It took him three and a half fucking weeks to just find someone new. Three and half fucking weeks to replace Izuku, who’d been following him since they were four damn years old. Three and a half fucking weeks to get over what he had claimed to be love, and Izuku was the only one heartbroken about any of this.
Izuku sat down on a bench and ripped his notebook out of his bag, flipping it to the first blank page he could find and beginning to scribble down words without much thought. Just the instincts and feelings.
Good for you, Kacchan.
The next time he had band practice, Izuku presented his song. He didn’t want to perform it in the show, he hardly wanted to share it all, but he wanted to play it. He wanted to sing it, desperately hoping it would give him some sort of release when he did. His bandmates didn’t question him, thankfully, though there were a few concerned or confused looks sent his way that he didn’t miss.
They thought it was a good song, though, which was surprising. And they thought the same about the few other songs he worked up the courage to share with them. He did get the impression that they were slightly concerned for his mental health upon seeing them, but that was an entirely fair assessment. He would agree with them. He’d been avoiding rescheduling a hangout with Uraraka for weeks now, far past long enough for it to be incredibly rude, just so he didn’t have to come across Kacchan again.
Feeling a little guilty for that, he decided to invite her to the music festival so she could see the show. Thankfully, she seemed elated at the prospect and promised to come. It made Izuku happy that he still had a chance at a friendship with her despite his screw-ups.
Speaking of friendships, he also got the feeling that sharing things with his bandmates – and dramatically increasing the amount of time they spent together as their show approached – made him feel quite a bit closer with the three of them than he thought he would. Narumi seemed like the kindest person to ever exist, Fukui obviously had a crush on her and was trying to be cool about it, and Asa was cheerily along for the ride and happy to drag Izuku in with him. He found that he actually enjoyed spending hours with them after school.
He got so close with them, in fact, that when Narumi invited him over to her house to prep for the show a few hours before it started, he felt excitedly nervous instead of anxiously full of dread. It was quite a nice feeling, actually.
“You would look so good with earrings, Midoriya-kun.”
Izuku smiled at her nervously from his seat on the carpet in Narumi’s bedroom. He’d never been in a girl’s bedroom before. “Oh…you think so?”
“Absolutely!” Narumi exclaimed, jumping to her feet and moving to shuffled through her desk drawers, “Look, you can wear these!” She turned around and presented him with a few different kinds of gold clip-ons, from studs to tiny rings to chains. His eyes widened a bit.
“You’d totally look badass,” Fukui agreed nonchalantly from Narumi’s bed where she sat using one hand to hold up a mirror and another two to do her makeup.
“Like a real rockstar,” Asa agreed, adjusting the tune of his electric guitar.
“I’m not…not really a rockstar,” Izuku said, the excitedly nervous feeling returning to his chest. He seriously wasn’t used to this.
“Not yet you aren’t!” Narumi grinned, plopping herself down in the floor in front of him and holding out her hand with the clip-ons in it. “Pick some.” Izuku, too out of his element to really say anything, just pointed to a few random earrings and shrugged. “Great!”
“We should just cover you in jewelry,” Fukui suggested, “and cool makeup, like an idol.”
“Why me?” Izuku asked, then sucked in a sharp breath as Narumi leaned in close to clip the fake earrings on. Her hands were cold, and he was incredibly warm.
“Because!” Asa said, “You’re the lead, dude!”
Izuku had no idea what to say to that. He’d never been good with compliments, seeing as for most of his life the only person he received them from was his mother. “Oh.”
“I think eyeliner would look great on you!” Narumi chirped, finally finishing with all the earrings – Izuku was pretty sure he didn’t point to that many, but he didn’t say anything to stop her – and leaning away, allowing him to start breathing properly again. She narrowed her eyes at him like he was being inspected. “How do you feel about your clothes?”
“What?”
She waved a hand and stood up again. “Nothing crazy, I actually kind of like the cool nerd look you have going on right now.”
Izuku glanced down at his random pair of basketball shorts and slightly oversized All Might t-shirt, wondering what the hell she meant. “Thanks?”
“Here, try this on,” she said, tossing something back at him from her. He didn’t catch it, just flailed his arms a bit as it hit him in the face. When he did get ahold of the item, it turned out to be a black jean jacket with gold buttons that matched his earrings. “Then come up here if you want me to do your eyeliner!”
Izuku blinked up at her, then shook his head a bit and got to his feet, slipping on the jacket and plopping himself into the chair at Narumi’s desk. “Uh…okay.”
“Hell yeah!” Asa encouraged, pumping his fist, “We’re gonna look so cool.”
An hour or so later, the group had piled themselves into the train with their guitars and keyboard piano lent from the school and finally arrived at the festival stage to set up their stuff. They were on after a different school’s band, and Izuku was starting to feel his normal anxiety again. The pit of dread in his stomach, am I going to throw up, why can’t I stop shaking my leg type. He’d never sung in front of anyone that wasn’t his mom or Kacchan before the band, and he’d certainly never sung in front of more than a hundred people at once. So this was…a lot.
“Hey, Midoriya-kun, you good? You look like you’re gonna pass out.”
Izuku glanced behind him to find Fukui watching him from her seat, fiddling with her drumsticks as Asa and Narumi worked on making sure they wouldn’t have any technical difficulties. He took in a shaky breath. “I’ve never really…done something like this before.”
Fukui made a humming noise, nodding her chin at him. “You’ll do fine.”
He tried for a smile. “I hope so.”
“I’m serious, dude,” she said, “Your singing is amazing. And the songs you write are awesome, even if you don’t want to sing ‘em in front of crowds and shit.”
“Oh,” Izuku said, taken aback and not sure how to respond, “thank you.”
“Don’t mention it,” Fukui said, tossing her drumstick in the air and getting out of her seat, “just…do your best or something. I don’t know.”
“Sure thing,” Izuku muttered, bouncing his leg up and down again. I can do this. I’ll do great.
Or at least I won’t screw up too badly.
“Midoriya-kun! Get over here, we’re up soon!”
I hope.
As soon as the band onstage had finished their set and said their farewells to the cheering crowd, it was their turn, and Izuku found himself being dragged onstage by Asa’s grip around his wrist. A microphone was shoved into his hand as he stared out at all the people and felt the heart palpitations begin. There. Were. So. Many. Directly in front of the stage was the standing room, spanning back to a drink bar near the front entrance of the theatre, but an upper floor with seats allowed for even more people to fit into the audience.
“Good evening everybody!” Narumi called into her own mic by the keyboard piano as Izuku forced himself into some breathing exercises, scanning the large group of people for reasons unknown. The crowd cheered back at them. “We are Collision Course from Horikoshi High School, and we are very excited to be here tonight!”
Right, yes, he’s excited to be here. This is very fun. He kept scanning the crowd, maybe in hopes to find Uraraka, but she was nowhere to be found. Maybe-
Izuku suddenly felt his heart stop beating, breath catching in his throat. Lo and fucking behold, standing in the crowd below and looking directly at him, was not Uraraka or her friends, but Kacchan. Next to him was the blonde girl from Shiketsu.
What.
The.
Fuck.
What the actual fuck was he doing here? With her, of all people – not that Izuku was one to make judgments on people he doesn’t know, but Kacchan hates things like this. And yet for her, apparently, he’d come to one.
Not for Izuku, though.
Izuku wasn’t important enough.
Izuku wasn’t worth improving for, trying for.
Without thinking, he whirled around to face his bandmates and motioned for them to stop playing what they had been about to start. They stopped, but gave him confused looks, and before he could chicken out, Izuku told them, “I want to do my song. The first one.”
Narumi and Asa blinked at him in surprise, but Fukui just smirked at him and shrugged. “Alright.”
“Wait, you’re serious?” Narumi whispered at him.
“Yes,” Izuku whispered back, solid in his choice. There was some unfamiliar burning sensation in his chest, and he needed to get it out. She paused for a second, then nodded slowly, and Izuku turned back around to face the crowd.
He met Kacchan’s eyes.
Here goes.