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agent-cupcake · 4 years

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Dimitri and mental illness

**Warnings for Blue Lions spoilers and armchair psychology

Depending on who you ask, Dimitri is an innocent sweetheart whose actions are entirely excusable and justified or an unforgivable war criminal and overall terrible character. Arguments for both sides have been exhausted, usually in the form of the popular Edelgard versus Dimitri debate, but I feel that both statements are heavily flawed and, truthfully, I think I take more issue with the former. Does it strike anyone else as rather patronizing that the audience (and the game, to an extent) treats Dimitri like an innocent, broken uwu soft boy both before the time skip and once he begins his recovery arc? Of course, a lot of this can be blamed on the awful pacing and poor writing of said recovery (which is the most valid structural critique of his character imo), but there’s a lot to be said about the fan depiction of Dimitri and the way people treat his mental illness. I think the reason this gets me is because I see it as an extension of the problems I have with the romanticization of male-specific mental illness. In this case, “all depressed boys are emasculated, soft, sad bois” and “anger is an accessory that is vanished once the cute boy takes it off” with the related sentiment of “the only two real mental illnesses are depression and anxiety, with a splash of PTSD for argument's sake”. And, speaking of arguments, while many people bring up mental illness in regards to the discussion around Three Houses characters, it is often supplementary to support their points rather than the main point unto itself. Dimitri’s mental illness (aka, the thing his entire arc is predicated upon) is mostly given only a passing recognition in the discussion of his actions. Even then, it’s often used as a justification to defend or lambaste him.

TL;DR Dimitri is a flawed person with a debilitating and incredibly well written mental illness that, while not excusing his actions, allows for further exploration of his character and a well-deserved shot at a recovery arc that is not usually awarded to people with the “non-traditional” mental illnesses. Furthermore, the game offers a wealth of insight as to what they intended his mental illness to be, the symptoms that manifested, and a plausible background to match up with it all and I have the receipts to prove it. Let’s go~

“Me? Oh. Um. Please forgive me... It's difficult to open up on the spot, don't you think? I'm afraid my story has not been a pleasant one... I do hope that doesn't color your view of me, but I understand if that can't be helped.”

I know that mental illness can be singularly caused by a traumatic event or events. That is, generally, how I see people framing Dimitri’s mental illness. My argument, however, is that the Tragedy of Duscur was not the genesis, but the trigger for issues that would exist otherwise. Perhaps it’s due to my own personal experience with mental illness, but I’m almost always more inclined to believe that issues stem from an unlucky combination of many things.

Regardless, my evidence to entertain the idea that he would be naturally predisposed to mental illness is slim. Aside from arguing that it wouldn’t be out of the question for his mother to have been unwell while she was pregnant with him considering she would later die of plague (a cause that in and of itself is subject to skepticism), I would bring up his Crest. In-game there is clear proof that Crests have wide-reaching effects on the person, there are actually a few analysis posts that hypothesize that Crests could be the reason for certain character motivations. In ng+, the Crest of Blaiddyd is called the Grim Dragon Sign. There’s no definitive proof to point to here, but if his Crest was one of the reasons for his mental deterioration it would follow other rules set in-game. Rather than inherited human genetics creating the blueprint for mental issues and the writers having to face that issue on its own terms, it was the Crest’s influence. This goes along with the fact that the game never overtly references Dimitri’s illness, essentially using “the dead” as a blanket symptom of his problems. Both these things are cool ways to imply a possible way to read more deeply without having to use anachronistic medical terms.

Side note: There’s something uncomfortable about the idea of a Crest that gives the individual inhuman strength and mental issues. Grim Dragon indeed.

My next point is one that I don’t see being brought up too often in regards to how it might have affected Dimitri, likely because the events that came later in his life far overshadow it, but Dimitri lost his mom when he was young. The date is not given, but I think it’d be when he was about six-ish. Admittedly, the timeline is strange and non-specific around here but if that were true, it would mean that the plague, Dimitri’s mother’s death, and Lambert and Rodrigue’s war campaign to subjugate the southern half of Sreng would all have happened around the same time. Dimitri says he doesn’t remember it, but that doesn’t necessarily matter. At six years old he had lost one parent and the other one left him to go on a battle march, leaving this child without any sort of parent figure to console him in a country that is culturally opposed to expressing emotion. Lambert will probably always remain a mystery, but I think it could be fair to say he was a poor father. Or at the very least a distant one. Dimitri was undoubtedly a sensitive child (if we’re to judge by the sensitive person he grew up to be) and during the years where he was actually becoming old enough to remember, he had nobody to teach him how to properly navigate and manage his emotions. Emotional neglect in a child who is predisposed to being emotional and empathetic can leave them suffering from a sense of isolation, an inability to ask for help, and a predisposition to having break downs as they get older.

But three-ish years later, possibly one of the best things that ever would happen to Dimitri came to pass and Lambert married Patricia. Dimitri adored her.

“I share no blood with my stepmother, but to hear you say that... It pleases me greatly. She was the one who raised me. I suppose it makes sense that we would share certain mannerisms.” (Dimitri’s B support with Hapi)

I don’t think Dimitri’s feelings about Patricia can be overstated, as I feel it’s one of the most defining aspects of his reactions to things that happen later on. Dimitri talks about Patricia more lovingly than he talks about Lambert. She was in his life for around four to five years but had such an impact on him that even his mannerisms are similar.

Soon after, a ten-year-old Dimitri made his first friend that wasn’t knightly, who didn’t embody those Faerghus ideals of stifling emotions and swinging swords.

People point out the Faerghus crew as Dimitri’s best friends, and yet Edelgard is the one associated with his best memories. It’s just my own assumptions, but I think that it’s because both Edelgard and Patricia gave Dimitri space to be an emotional child, to not have to be the knightly prince who had no emotions and engaged only in the most masculine of activities. And, I mean, look at them. He’s learning to dance and she’s bossing him around, absolutely no regard for propriety.

It’s pretty clear that Dimitri doesn’t feel romantic feelings towards Edelgard in the academy phase, but I think it would be fair to say she was his first love when they were young. He essentially says this was the best year of his life and establishes Edelgard as someone very precious to him (as well as the daughter of one of the most precious people to him). Strong feelings beget strong feelings, do they not?

Google says that eleven to fourteen is the general age of male puberty. It’s the time that kids begin to more fully define how they’re going to emotionally interact with people and the world at large. Meeting Edelgard was at the cusp of this period of Dimitri’s life, and the Tragedy of Duscur was right in the midst of it.

And we all know what that turned out.

Dimitri’s accounts of what happened during the Tragedy are... conflicting. This CG of an unharmed Dimitri in a field of corpses is... conflicting.

“My father...was the strongest man I knew. Someone I loved and admired deeply. That said, he was killed before my eyes. His head severed clean off. My stepmother, the kindest person I had ever known, left me behind and disappeared into the infernal flames.”

I’ve seen people create a plausible scenario in which Dimitri’s recollection is entirely accurate, where he saw Lambert call for revenge and get beheaded, saw Glenn’s ruined body and face twisted in pain, saw his step-mother disappear into the flames, and all despite the raging chaos of the battle and how people would undoubtedly be targeting the prince, but I think it makes more sense that his memories are unreliable. Dimitri suffered a severe head injury (very important to keep in mind) at Duscur. Maybe that happened early on, after seeing who attacked Lambert but before he was an actual target himself, which merely made him look dead. Maybe he saw a version of the events he described, but through the filter of confused head trauma, smoke inhalation, and intense terror. To think that his recollection isn’t exactly entirely reliable sets a precedent for his later skewed take on reality.

Regardless of opinion, though, the facts are that Dimitri left Duscur with a traumatic brain injury and post-traumatic stress disorder.

After that, from thirteen to seventeen, Dimitri was pretty isolated. Most of the people he cared about were dead. His entire emotional support system (Patricia) was gone. He saved Dedue (although they were definitely not on even terms, that relationship is unbalanced to the extreme) and occasionally saw Rodrigue (who I have no reason to believe was emotionally accommodating in any way considering the way he sees Dimitri as an extension of Lambert to his dying breath). Again, it’s strange. People act like Dimitri was super close friends with the Faerghus crew, that he was surrounded by people who loved him (although it is clear there is a lot of love there), but he never presents things in a way to imply that’s the case. In fact, he highlights his isolation:

“In Duscur, I lost my father, stepmother, and closest friends. I didn't have many allies at the castle after that. In truth, I had only Dedue for companionship.”... “I once had people I could confide in. Family, friends, instructors, even the royal soldiers. But they were all taken away from me four years ago.” (Dimitri’s C support with Byleth.)

Two years passed before the next time Dimitri saw his friends and it was a war campaign, putting down the rebellion in western Faerghus. Dimitri speaks about those battles from a place of deeply affected emotion, expressing empathy, pain, and disgust with his actions and the killing.

“I recall coming across a dead soldier's body. He was clutching a locket. Inside was a lock of golden hair. I don't know to whom it belonged. His wife, his daughter...mother, lover... I'll never know.... in that moment, I realized he was also a real person, just like the rest of us… Killing is part of the job, but even so... There are times when I'm chilled to the bone by the depravity of my own actions.” (Dimitri’s B Support with Byleth)

I love this support, honestly. It’s so very telling about the destructive quality of empathy. Although caring can be a good thing, it’s also arguably one of the most destructive of Dimitri’s qualities. His empathy is what presents him with situations he cannot accept, the thing that pushes him to disassociate from reality so he can be rid of it and fight without remorse like he was taught to do by his father and other soldiers. Dimitri is a man of extremes. Either total control or none, without any room for error. This dialogue is also the first time Dimitri brings up reconciling himself with reality and hints to the fact that he has been unable to do so. This is contrasted perfectly in this line from Felix,

“The way you suppressed that rebellion... It was ruthless slaughter and you loved every second. I remember the way you killed your victims. How you watched them suffer. And your face...that expression. All the world's evil packed into it...” (Dimitri’s C Support with Felix)

Dimitri doesn’t deny this. Just like all of the other terrible things Felix says, he takes it without protesting in an act of what I think is stilted contrition. Although, it’s not just in supports that Dimitri’s contrasting behavior is brought up. The Remire incident probably works as a good reference for what Felix saw all those years back.

This is the first time we see Dimitri’s darker side in full. The similarities in the situation to what is shown to have happened in the Tragedy of Duscur are interesting. The fire, the utter chaos, strange figures watching it all from above. This is another case of a perfect disaster. I wonder if his ultimate snap would have been so destructive if not for Remire.

Anyway, this draws parallels to his and Felix’s separate recall of the rebellion because later Dimitri apologizes.

“Professor... I...I'm sorry you saw that side of me in the village… When I saw the chaos and violence there...my mind just went completely dark.”

Dimitri is unreliable. A lack of control, a separation of self, and becoming consumed by a dark rage only to come to his senses later, full of shame and a sense of confusion about why. From my own experience, it’s not unnatural to come out of an episode like this without being able to explain what was happening and being baffled by your behavior. This firmly establishes Dimitri’s uncomfortably fast mood shifts in relation to his trauma from the Tragedy and confirms all of the warnings Felix had given. When Dimitri was faced with a reality he could not accept, he lost control of his emotions and his mental state shifted to adapt accordingly.

This is when I’d also like to note something interesting about how Dimitri discusses his trauma. He is very honest and open about his experiences, explaining exactly what happened to him to Byleth. However, he uses the truth to hide. In recounting the events of the Tragedy of Duscur, in talking about how his family died and saying how badly it hurt him, he does not make himself vulnerable. When he admits weakness, he does so in the past tense or apologetically, vowing to be stronger. “Stronger”, aka, he’ll be better in suppressing his emotions.

“I always strive to keep my emotions at bay, but... Sometimes the darkness takes hold and...it's impossible to suppress. It just shows you how lacking I am... I have much to learn.”

Dimitri lies by using the truth, shoving down his feelings, and blaming himself rather than attempting to figure out how to handle his emotions. In his own words:

“Everyone has something that is unacceptable within them. I certainly do, and I'd wager you do as well. I wonder which is best, Professor... To cut away that which is unacceptable, or to find a way to accept it anyway...”

Good advice Dimitri. Might want to keep that in mind.

It is at this point is when I’m going to get into my personal thoughts and armchair psychiatry nonsense.

First off, when I mentioned earlier about “non-traditional” mental illness, I did not mean abnormal or rare. Although people mostly just point to Dimitri having PTSD (and depression) as the source of his issues, I’m going to use all of my above information to make the (decently common) argument that Dimitri is schizophrenic, which is, contrary to popular belief, not too unusual. I state that with the caveat that I understand that there’s a lot to be said about schizophrenia and the tumultuous relationship between mental health and fiction. However, now is not really the time to go into mental health politics and representation or the many lies spread about the illness so instead, I recommend that you read into the topic if you’re personally interested (This has some good information).

At the very least be aware that this IS sensationalized.

That said, Dimitri does not, to my understanding using grossly simplified terms, meet the qualifications generally (very generally) used to diagnose schizophrenia through the majority of the White Clouds chapters. These qualifying symptoms include, but are not limited to, the duration of the psychotic episode, the concurrent presence of hallucinations and delusions, and a greatly lowered ability to keep up with basic quality-of-life tasks. You only see these symptoms in the final chapter of White Clouds and the first few of Azure Moon. This isn’t unusual, however, because schizophrenia manifesting fully in younger individuals is extremely uncommon, sometimes taking years to trigger during a person’s late teens. And since the diagnosis generally relies on the occurrence of a psychotic episode, it can be mistaken as other mood disorders. Actually, the idea of him having a mood disorder was one of the things that caught my eye originally. Prodromal symptoms such as depression, irritability, headaches, sleep disruption, and mood swings are common in bipolar disorder (and, of course, schizophrenia).

Still, I don't deny that Dimitri has PTSD and depression, only that I don’t think PTSD is his main (or only) issue. In reality, PTSD and schizophrenia are closely tied. They share many symptoms, even the symptom of psychosis. There’s also evidence that those with genetic precedent to develop PTSD overlap with those at risk for schizophrenia, and that the nature of PTSD triggers can act as a severe stressor to aggravate a schizophrenic episode.

(From here)

This falls into the realm of being uncertain where one ends the other begins, highlighting the lack of concrete understanding about schizophrenia and the dependency of diagnosis and treatment to rely entirely on the individual experience, but that’s not a conversation I’m actually qualified to have.

The study that truly caught my eye and while researching for this was one called “Psychiatric disorders and traumatic brain injury”. As I mentioned, at some point during the Tragedy, Dimitri sustained severe head trauma. We know this because of his development of the rare inability to taste called ageusia. I was originally interested in following this narrative thread because, as you might know if you follow true crime cases, there are many murderers who recall having sustained a head injury as children. Not that Dimitri shares similar psychology to people that kill and eat their victim's feet... Although his body count is higher. Besides that, head trauma, in general, is known to be linked to mental illness and altering a person’s behavior. There is even a correlation between TBI (traumatic brain injury) and schizophrenia.

From the study I linked above:

To put it more simply, patients in the study who had suffered TBI and developed schizophrenia reported that their most common symptoms were delusions of persecution, auditory hallucinations, and aggressive behaviors. The auditory hallucinations were often voices. Many of the subjects experienced psychotic episodes two or more years after the initial incident (although, as I mentioned, Dimitri’s age could also have something to do with the timing as children rarely have fully developed schizophrenic episodes). Furthermore, the behaviors classified as an absence of normal behaviors called “negative symptoms” (which include apathy and disordered speech) were rare in this testing group.

Dimitri exclusively displays “positive” symptoms of schizophrenia (“positive” meaning the presence of symptoms such as hallucinations and delusions). He also clearly suffers from delusions of persecution in his belief that Edelgard is the sole instigator of Duscur and the war and that he immediately accuses Byleth of being an Imperial spy upon meeting them post time skip. I think it’s pretty fascinating how closely Dimitri’s symptoms follow the outline of the study, especially with the aggressive behaviors, as those aren’t actually very common in schizophrenics.

In very, very simplistic terms, if I’m right and Dimitri was born with the genetic blueprint for schizophrenia/PTSD (through Crests, inheritance, or environmental causes) and later suffered severe head trauma in an event that also gave him PTSD in combination with his pre-existing parental issues and stilted emotional development, then this could definitely create the type of person who loses all sense of reality, can’t control his emotions, and is prone to episodes of murderous rage when being reminded of the trigger (however tangentially) of losing everything he loved.

However, I’ll add real quick that the study I mentioned should be taken with a grain of salt.

I use it mainly because I thought the similarities were interesting and it shows that there was more thought put into Dimitri than maybe people appreciate.

This brings us to my final point; Some kind of twisted joke.

A major point I saw being made as proof of how terrible Dimitri is as a character was that he blamed Edelgard for the Tragedy of Duscur (a time where she would have been twelve). More accurately, he blamed her for everything that had happened and the thing is, I don’t disagree with that critique entirely. However, this is a case of him being a bad person, not a bad character. This might seem like an odd distinction, but I think it changes the scope of deserved criticism.

As I’ve been trying so desperately to illustrate, Dimitri snapping wasn’t just because of Edelgard being revealed as the Flame Emperor. Rather, it was an unlucky combination of many things. His grasp and interpretation of reality were already hazy at best by the time she was unmasked, slowly falling apart as his prodromal symptoms worsened. Going into the fight, he believed the Flame Emperor to be responsible in whole or in part for the worst thing that had ever happened to him, guessed at Arundel’s involvement, had found (and lied about) the dagger, and was rapidly mentally deteriorating. While Dimitri suspected Edelgard’s involvement to some degree, he did his best to act like it wasn’t true.

Dimitri didn’t want it to be true. To the extent that he was willing to lie to Byleth (and to himself) to avoid reality. He cared deeply about Edelgard. The best year of his life was spent with her, she was his first love, and she was the daughter of the step-mother he adored. Strong feelings beget strong feelings, do they not? This reveal confronted Dimitri with something that he could not accept, so his mind sidestepped the issue altogether. Delusion convinced him that all of the fears and worries he had beforehand were related, all into one larger delusion that Edelgard had sole responsibility. It’s not right and maybe not even excusable, but it falls in line with everything else.

Edelgard and Dimitri. Bound by some twisted fate but forever doomed to be separated, unable to understand the other’s chosen path.

I do recognize the flaws of Dimitri’s character and arc. There are some pretty major flaws. I have parts of a post typed out about his shoddy recovery and how I’d fix it that, hopefully, one day will see the light of day as well as many complaints about the way the story is hindered by the need for flexibility to accommodate gameplay and a happy ending.

But, despite that, this has all been a very long-winded way of praising Dimitri’s writing. His mental illness has a surprising amount of depth and I loved studying it as intently as I did. I learned a lot about his character as well as about mental illness in general.

Ultimately, Dimitri is neither an innocent sweetheart whose actions are entirely excusable and justified or an unforgivable war criminal and overall terrible character. You can feel bad for his pain and his struggle with his illness and understand that as a reason for his actions, but you shouldn’t use it as justification. He had the opportunity to seek help before things got too bad. He was selfish with the mismanagement of his emotions and goals. However, he also was a victim. Dimitri worked to recover and mend the mistakes he made while he was unwell, which is a side of this mental illness that is rarely shown in media.

I wholeheartedly believe that, love him or hate him, Dimitri is the most well-written of the Three Houses characters,

#dimitri #fe dimitri #dimitri alexandre blaiddyd #fire emblem 16 #fire emblem #FE3H #fire emblem three houses #i spent an ungodly amount of time on this feel free to share your thoughts

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neuroticpige0n · 4 years

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Chapter 2 of “And The Leaves Would Grow Again”

Coming Through and Once Again

Read on AO3: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26089138/chapters/64388188#workskin

“His hair is soft, like those clouds up in the sky, and his eyes reflect the illumination of a thousand fucking suns..”

If the blueprint had been a little more obscure, the sun would rise from the West and set by the East. Certainly, if life had been a little harsher, the rain would fall more often and the rooftop would have its gutters leaking water drops under the grey sky. The stooges of class 2-A wouldn’t climb up every day, their respectively vibrant personalities (and I would personally exclude one of them, looking into the definition of ‘vibrant’) and their strange ways of tricking teachers into letting the school building be used as their own little treehouse up in the clouds mash up to create what could have been the best memories of the seventeen years of life spent by Oboro Shirakumo.

“He does look nice- I suppose.”

The boy was something of a legend between everyone that had the honour to have known him. If I had been any more poetic, I could barely attempt to describe him as “an academically flunking star in a plain of hundreds and hundreds of what could have been blackholes, fleshed out meteors and planets.” And perhaps, the two idiots that orbited him were somewhat reflective, somewhat.. Impressionable towards their glowing peer. They would always hold up, far from anyone that strayed away from his light, far away from those who would stone the sun instead of bowing down before its heaviness. Perhaps, those two were merely his moons. Perhaps, they would be the one keeping his light alive when he wasn’t there anymore.

“Pfft- what are you on about, Yamada?”

The crow-like teenager propped himself on his elbows on the ground of his dorm room, watching his blond friend as he worded his uncertainty out with the same old, unusually theatrical meek mutter. It would never fail to bring a smile to his face, at least a crafty one as he narrowed his eyes, watching his friend rest on his side, facing away from him. Shouta had grown into this sort of cold affection as a kid, but actually practising it with his friends had rooted on him. Made him likeable among the others, and not only the ones he showed his true colours to. Lucky was he about actually having the stamina to keep up with two restless morons. Or whatever you could call them. Tactlessly, he took another swig from the beer bottle in his hand as he waited for a response, which arrived pretty quickly after his question.

“You know- It’s pretty clear that you like him so much.”

“Of course I like him. He’s our best friend, loudmouth, you like him too.”

“No- uhm! like. Not like that.”

This made so much sense in Hizashi’s head. The way Shouta spoke about their friend, his hair and all. His stupid soft floaty hair or whatever. Oboro this, Oboro that. Something was building up inside him whenever he heard about it, but he couldn’t quite tell what it was. He liked Oboro too, very much- but it could never reach the level of Shouta’s slightly tipsy speech about him. Sure, what a beautiful fella. What a nice guy. A true delinquent hero. Hizashi was about to explode from the knot inside his stomach that kept getting tighter and tighter every second he spent with his friend now. If he didn’t have so much alcohol in his system, he would possibly crumble under the pressure of his own confusion and stress. Yet, snapping him out of his thoughts was Shouta’s delayed answer, which sounded more serious than he thought it would.

“Oboro? I mean, not really. He’s a really cool guy, but he’s not exactly my type. He’s not uh.. annoying enough.”

Annoying enough- what? My god. Suddenly, Hizashi’s stomach would drop so abruptly. What did that mean? So far, the only thing he knew about Shouta’s bedroom preference was that he was kitchenware-sexual or whatever, but the two had never really had that conversation about romance and sexuality. Hell, he didn’t even know why he had opened this type of conversation out of nowhere, and he was quite sure that Shouta felt the same way. He didn’t really know what it was that undid his limbs right now, but he laid on his back again, glaring at Shouta as he murmured. “People that are your type? Who is your type if not him? I couldn’t possibly see you going on and on about anyone else.”

“Well, I like someone else. Don’t even try to read my lips and try to understand who it is, but I could almost say that he would outdo our dear Shirakumo if he spoke a little less and smiled a little more. It’s just.. refreshing, really. Refreshing my ass- Infuriating is the word.”

That was a dear laugh, oh dear Lord. Hizashi could almost swear that this rare Shouta smile surpassed the magnificence of any of those stupid Christmas lights to hang from the gutters around December’s time, for whatever reason. He didn’t even know, you couldn’t tell him that, but his heart held this value so dearly that he wouldn’t let anyone hurt him, not today and never, ever. Everything clicked all of a sudden. The cocky, loudmouth bother could sense his own frown turning upended. As Shouta smiled, Hizashi could see a faint luminosity shine inside of Shouta’s cornea. Was it the sunlight? He reached his hand and poked his friend a few times, before the loner faked an exaggerated scowl, looking like the most dignified bastard on the goddamn planet.

The sun would never fade away. The night would arise, and the black fog of the evil would cover the face of the earth. But when the morning comes, the awakening light would be brighter than any eye had ever seen before.

October 16th, no school, work until midday. 7AM.

“Himiko Toga. The doll girl with amber eyes. Toga-chan.”

“Uhm.. Ocha-chan.”

God, it felt like forever since she felt something so profound birth inside of her. That sweet rush of shivers down her spine, that determination for absolutely nothing at all. The music inside her head, that romanticization. It had been far longer than years since Ochako had these feelings pent up inside of her. She could have sworn that she had replayed the same moments inside of her head so many times by now that she had her words memorized. She had imagined different scenarios where she’d fantasize about how it would have gone if she was a bit earlier to find her, or if she had said something slightly different. Ochako could have at least flirted with her. All she had done was to prevent her from taking over the conversation. She could have danced with her, danced on her- But who was she kidding? She had never learnt how to dance or flirt with someone, so much for all those teenage years she spent learning useless algebra.

“What are you inside your head about, Ochako?”

When you thought about it, the girl didn’t even know her name. Ochako possibly repeated Himiko’s name about a thousand times by now, it simply rolled off the tongue. The girl’s bold behavior, her lack of recognition for danger. Or the lack of- care? A combination of a lack of care towards her high functioning recognition for danger. Something in all of that had stuck in Ochako’s mind ever since she and her friends stepped out of that god forsaken gay bar. She didn’t exactly know what it was that had captured her so easily, but there was something in her that stuck in her mind, pulling her to that bar once again. She was thinking of what all of this meant- trying to lay it off as a simple admiration. The questions she had answered back in the club by Himiko’s side could really easily answer all of these things she had begun questioning, but it would be far too easy to call it a crush. There was some flesh in there that she didn’t exactly understand, some sort of codependency. It floated somewhere in her subconscious mind that there was something off about this, but there was a driving force that kept her up to be willing to see this girl with twin buns and a taste for adrenaline.

“The girl with twin buns and a taste for adrenaline.”

“Are you listening?”

The sudden remark had disrupted Ochako’s stream, which resulted in her getting a bit rosy in the cheeks. Oh dear- was she zoned out? She was suddenly left facing two of her friends once more, sitting by the breakfast table. The concerned looks had remained the same, but they were more skeptical too this time, as if they were trying to understand what all of this talking was about. Izuku, in difference with Tenya, actually knew what she was talking about quite briefly, and that even brought an amused expression to his face. Izuku had only seen this type of senseless rambling once, and that was when she had a crush on him. When you thought about it, it was very funny that Ochako had been ranting about her crush to her crush without giving out a name, even more hilarious on the behalf of Izuku’s oblivion. Regardless- he thought that this was quite strange of her, he hadn’t seen her so worked up about anything ever since high school had ended. It was simply too nice, really. Izuku was still a bit worried that she was falling too easily for a girl that she met in a club, and club-relationships weren’t supposed to last that long by nature, but he would support her feelings as long as they lasted. They were best friends after all, it would mean that he’d be by her side for any struggle like she had been by his side for all these years during high school.

“Uh- sorry! I wasn’t, it’s really early. Could you repeat that?”

“Ah, it’s alright! Iida-kun wrote in the groupchat that the reunion could be over in our apartment, so I was asking you if you could buy Kirishima’s cake? Maybe some booze?”

“Yes- that would be alright, I’ll do that when I’m back from work?”

Izuku readjusted on his chair before looking at Tenya, looking as puzzled as he could on why Ochako was constantly murmuring and fidgeting. It certainly wasn’t usual to Tenya, who was devoid of that sort of empathy. It made Izuku smile to himself. When Ochako left for work, Tenya and Izuku were left eating their breakfast. There wasn’t really a conversation at first, as Izuku was still thinking about what Ochako was going through. I mean, if he hadn’t known what Ochako was going through, he would also be confused by his friend’s strange antics. Questioning one’s sexuality though, that was hard. He could remember when he had figured out he was bisexual, he didn’t even feel ashamed of it. That lack of shame caused him to put himself in a situation where he’d tell everyone without any sort of caution, which everyone could expect how that ended in a slightly homophobic country like Japan. Even his classmates in 1-A were sort of shocked by the news, as they all were all work and no fun during their first year and they didn’t really have the time to question those types of things. It wasn’t like he was the only LGBTQ+ person they knew; some of the others in class 1-A were also open about what they liked, and Mirio and Tamaki, two of the most successful students of their high school were clearly something more than just friends. Their homeroom teacher and english teacher were another thing to talk about. But most of them would expect Izuku to be either more closed-off or mindless about his sexuality. He was even remotely bullied, had dick jokes from some of the upper class students, strangely even one of his own classmates that was infamous for his disrespectful comments about the girls around, but his success in his classes had him sort of invincible among the others. Slowly, his classmates had also started to come out to him and to each other and queerness was more or less accepted around in their year. It was a shock for him too that he could only figure out what Shoto felt when he was a senior, and that was when they started dating. Lost in thought, his subconscious had him calling for Tenya to ask him about something he had been wondering for some time now.

“Tenya?”

“Yes, what is it?”

Izuku arched his eyebrows a little, leaning forward and clearing his throat before gaping his lips to speak. He wanted to be sort of careful-like, knowing that Tenya wasn’t exactly good with personal questions. He didn’t have many things asked of him, especially when he was the type to keep his problems to himself in order not to be a burden to anyone else. Izuku had made the mistake of not questioning a suspiciously emotion-filled smile Tenya had given off in the past and it ended up turning into something of a self-destructive fiasco. Ever since then, Izuku had gotten to know him better, and he knew when and what was to be questioned. He planned his words in his head before he could let out the query. “So- Were you and Hatsume Mei ever an item? Did you like, date?”

“Me- her? No, not really. We barely even talked outside of our firsthand bickering, but I think she’s a nice girl. She is very smart, I admire her level of skill. She gave me a call the other day and told me that she had gotten into a prestigious engineering school though, and I couldn’t be happier for her!”

Izuku crossed his arms on the table, his facial expression turning more baffled into the conversation. “Oh, that’s.. great. But, and you don’t have to answer me if I’m going too far, I’ve never seen you date anyone. Was there a reason for that, or did you never think of dating in that school environment, or..”

Tenya fiddled with his fingers and tilted his head slightly as he thought of the answer to that question. It was true, he had never dated anyone in the school or outside. He had never thought of it either, but it wasn’t because he was so busy from school or because he wanted to keep everything to himself. “I guess I never really had what you call ‘crushes.’ I’ve never felt that kind of attraction, and I don’t think I ever will! I value my friends a lot, but romance or sexual relations are not on my watch as a person. It’s okay though, I accepted how I felt that way! It’s not like I didn’t accept it before, but- Am I overtalking?”

This was a whole new vision for Izuku. He had never seen someone with no sexuality at all before, but this didn’t change how he felt about Tenya at all. He was still the same person for him, and him fitting in that rare demographic only made him more interesting and being the highly analytical person he is, he wanted to learn more and ask more about how his life differed from the others on the sexuality spectrum. It was for another day though, Tenya had a certain limit of tolerance when it came to invasion of privacy. He decided to let lone of Tenya’s last question, but answer briefly. “So, you are aromantic asexual?”

“Upon thinking of the meaning of those words, I guess I am!”

“I am happy you told me now! I mean, it is better to know what your friends are into before setting them up with the wrong people- or in your case, setting them up with anyone.” The two laughed it off, and that sort of became the first ever casual coming out Izuku experienced, after his own. But Izuku didn’t bully him or neglect him like the treatment he received back when he was just a kid, he welcomed him with open arms.

***

The shame-like feeling could be explained by mentioning how Kyouka had never been exactly used to getting dolled up for special events like this, for she had lots and lots of other things that caught her interest and occupied her time. Staying with people that she didn’t know half of the time, not really having a job besides the band she worked with taking stage in those newly opening indie bars around where she lived. She didn’t have an idea of a stable life, most of the time, it could be said that she lived paycheck to paycheck. College was too much work, it was also too much money. She sort of knew what she had to do, and that was enough to live with. The idea of actually studying for college without a clue of her future was somewhat more unsettling than the idea of being homeless a few days a week until her band gets their pay from one bar or another. She travelled with a former classmate by the name of Tokoyami, who also played guitar for her band. Unfortunately, he had to visit his friends back where they hustled, and he wouldn’t make it to Eijirou’s birthday reunion. Kyouka could have sworn that she wouldn’t come back to this city without him.

Yet, here she was, looking for a last minute birthday present to spend the only money in her bank account on. She didn’t want to embarrass herself, and another thing was that she didn’t want her friend to assume that she didn’t care about him. But frankly, the only thing she could do to buy a present as expensive as the others’ would be to spend all of her food and accommodation money on this. Her only hope was that Tokoyami would have some money for the duo to live on, or they’d have to spend another week by the parkside. It was a sweet memory that they even had police called on them by the rich folks around once. It was somewhat uncomfortable to be woken up by the police pouring fountain water on you, especially for her friend, who was quite fond of his personal space. If that were to happen again, they could even have to pay fines for it. But, you know. Fuck the police.

Holy shit- She didn’t remember what Eijirou liked. That was embarrassing. Kyouka hadn’t been around her friends for so long, she only remembered so many things remotely. It wasn’t like she was thinking of that when she came to the city either, her mind was completely swamped with other things that she’d rather not disclose. Crocs? Did he like red crocs? That wasn’t a good enough present though now, was it? It could have been a good joke of a present, but not enough for an actual apprising of gratitude for his existence. Maybe if she could remember anything else..

“Jirou-san? Is that you?”

“Huh?”

The moment Kyouka turned around was when she faced an uncannily similar young woman in a red-tinted, floral sheath dress, complimenting her body perfectly. Look up. If she could stare up respectfully towards her face from her body, she’d see her hair in a tightly and neatly done ponytail, the dewy-eyed smile and the clear reddening on her cheeks. She was bashful in a way, but stood with a clear, erect posture. You could tell that she was noble from the way she had her chin up, wearing her dress with a self-assured, yet highly modest attitude. Kyouka could feel her cheeks heating up in the presence of her friend Momo, who she hadn’t seen for such a long time. This girl- uh, woman now, definitely brought a sense of grace to every room she walked in, and it was quite a mystery to Kyouka as of how she did that, but the way she presented herself would never fail to cause Kyouka’s head to spin. When she could break free from the trance could she lay a word, her hands shaking behind her back.

“Yao-momo! What are you doing here?”

“Oh, I’m looking for a present, which I assume you're doing?” She slightly brought her hand to her lips as she giggled at the absurdity of the question and the nervousness that came with it, told easily by the other’s voice, but wouldn’t let her eyes part away from Kyouka after her laugh faded away. Under Momo’s glare, she almost felt like she was being held captive, like she couldn’t move.

“Y- Yes! I was looking for a present, but I’m not the best at remembering my friends’ interests, let alone actually having enough money to buy them..”

This confused Momo a little, especially because of how different she was financially. She had almost forgotten that Kyouka wasn’t as supported as she was, and that was the way it had been during their high school years. She, alongside Shoto Todoroki and Tenya Iida were the rich kids of that class, but their intentions were never to hurt anyone there, strangely enough. Shoto hated his dad and didn’t claim the money he had, and even spent his money on other classmates that were struggling financially. Tenya was extremely modest and he didn’t really care about the money he had, he would never show off with that money. His friends had the idea that he was slightly innocent, and didn’t really understand how having more money could create a class difference. Surely, he was best friends with the poorest girl in class, who he would often help when she was short of money. Their fellow comprehension and sensibility towards economic differences helped them bond between class differences, and Momo wouldn’t ask for anything else. Besides, she would rather die than be stuck with only rich people around her. Those people had her sentimental nature suffering for years on end. When her confusion disappeared, she raised her finger, responding back to her friend’s worry.

“Don’t worry, we can buy our gifts together! I tell you what- You don’t even owe me anything back, I’ll help you buy whatever you’d like!”

Kyouka felt a tiny weight in her abdomen after that offer, which she’d usually panic and reject in order not to be rude, but it was true that she really needed that money. She was frozen in confusion, and it wasn’t too soon that her face had gone entirely red. What was she supposed to say? She was only upset at herself for mentioning that she had a problem with paying for her gift. Momo though, could understand that this was stressing her out, and she ended up placing her hand on her shoulder before putting on a comforting smile and speaking up to calm her friend down. “It’s okay, we can go to a cafe afterwards and you can tell me about how you’re doing! You’re with Tokoyami, right?”

“Yes, no! No but like- Yes, not like that.” Kyouka panicked as she tried to explain the situation, completely messing it up once again. Was the weather too hot today? Oh gosh.. She had no idea why she was so frustrated with herself, but she soon stopped herself from talking, glaring down as she thought about what she was trying to say. Did Momo always have such a nice smile- Okay, no, okay. She sighed in disappointment and fiddled with her fingers as she attempted to speak once again.

“Like, we are not dating. We don’t like each other like that. He’s like- my best friend. He is with Shoji now, so I’m single.”

Momo placed her hand on her chest as Kyouka answered properly, her eyes widened and her eyebrows heightened with shock. Was that true? Momo would expect Kyouka to have a girlfriend by now, especially being the badass she is. Kyouka was just so awesome. She could play all this music, and she was so cool in her eyes. When they were still studying, it made Momo so happy that Kyouka thought she was “super punk rock.” Kyouka was the definition of cool, and she didn’t even know about it. And the fact that there wasn’t a queue of guys and girls wanting to date her was just mind-blowing to her. She remembered that Denki had a huge crush on Kyouka when they were freshmen, it was often embarrassing for both sides because of how much he messed up trying to pursue that relationship. He was very respectful when he got rejected by her, and that sort of helped them remain close friends. They were punk buddies, they could find a Black Flag record and listen to it for hours together. He had gotten off that crush soon anyways- there was clearly something else that occupied him for the last two years. Momo would love to be as close as they were with Kyouka, but they had parted ways after high school. It seemed like the unlucky fate of everyone that found each other cool during high school but never had the courage to get closer than the “very good friends” level.

Momo was single as well, but she didn’t think that way about herself. She had gotten into that high school with word reference letters from big names, but was both astounded and defeated by the performances of the ones who had barely even gotten in. It was a huge disappointment for her, as she had the idea that she’d at least be one of the good ones. Academic success obviously wasn’t everything, but the way she was proven wrong felt like everything she thought she was good at could just be her lying to herself. That included her smarts, her ability to make friends, her appearance.. Her confidence had dropped immensely, but she was getting help for it. Her homeroom teacher had encouraged her to get help from some therapy, the school counselor and that had been going on for several years now. The cost was all on her now, which she paid by working in her parents’ company, climbing up the stairs as she learned how the business world worked.

“I understand.. Well, boys are a headache. Do you remember Itsuka Kendou from the B class? The big sister? We are opening up a company together in a few years, and I could say that it is a feminist statement, you know? Two women up there, rivaling men.” When Momo finished her statement, she added a little wink, which made Kyouka’s heart skip a beat. She must have been doing that on purpose, knowing how many explosions she could create on her heart. Kyouka, with the heat of the moment, smiled meekly and tugged her hair behind her ear before murmuring. “Those men need a lot of work to do until they can climb high enough to be your rivals, Yao-momo..”

Momo thought that Kyouka was just so sweet. She giggled at her shyish statement, narrowing her eyes before tilting her head to the side and biting the inside of her cheek. “So! Do you want to start shopping?”

“Yes, let’s start shopping!”

***

Fumikage Tokoyami had been sitting in front of that flat door for approximately five minutes now. The same wooden door that was painted in a different shade of dark green every year, out of the fund shortage and the lack of a consistent officer to check on the clownery. And every single time Fumikage visited the flat, the door would reek of the paint that still wasn’t dry on the wood (out of the amateur thick layer of paint, he was assuming), and he had to cut himself short in order to remind himself not to touch the paint. He remembered so many times where he’d gotten his hand or shirt on the paint and had to strip naked the moment he went inside. Regardless of how he dealt with paint, the door’s paint was already sort of damaged. There were so many writings on it by now, it had become like a shared property between the commoners that just liked sabotaging and vandalizing, and the actual owner of the house, who wasn’t that much different from a commoner in his treatment of the house, sharing their taste of sabotaging and vandalising. The house had a general condition of a dying man’s months old hospital bed, which could sort of display a minor idea of the resident here that was being dealt with.

But the paint wasn’t the only thing that kept Fumikage from getting in, it wasn’t even close. He’d get in regardless, he could even jump in from a window if he wanted. There wasn’t that much of an intimacy problem here. The problem was a cloud of anxiety that was hovering over him for absolutely no reason right now, as if someone was holding him from doing so. It was helpless to explain without the context he had been in, but I could only foreshadow it by saying that the case was nothing less than his fear of a possibly blown-out magnificence clouding his vision. And even worse, the idea of that being disclosed was just as bad of a threat to his mind as the former. Here’s the thing: Tokoyami was broke as fuck. He had been this way for the last three years of his life, where he kept hopelessly wandering. His friends had warned him, his teachers had warned him, but being an ineffable bastard wasn’t too easy either. After so many years, he had decided that he would finally let his guard down and talk to someone about it. It was a movie tradition that one’s life would suddenly blossom after the protagonist had one old wise man talk to him about their childhood trauma. Well, Keigo Takami wasn’t an old wise man. He was a twenty-seven year old deadbeat that had lived through basically every sort of shitty situation that comes to mind, and had gained more connections than he even really wanted, to the point where his only close friends were either an entire convention of flat earthers or a criminally wanted group of first degree arsonists. But Fumikage wasn’t exactly the protagonist either. If anything, he was one of those characters that had a half-assed character arc before getting killed off in the third movie as a tearjerker. It didn’t really matter at this point if they both got what they wanted. But hey, once again, he had ended up, once again, sitting on the stairs that climbed into the house door, smoking his brains out impatiently, and slowly rocking back and forth as he tried to close his eyes, hoping that this time, it would be different, that maybe he would have more to offer than himself with his nicotine addiction and not more than an adequate amount of money for a daily meal sequence on his bank account.

“Tokoyami?”

But it just never came true.

“Kid, is that actually you? I haven’t seen you in months, my god! Could you have at least texted?”

The man standing casually in a morning robe at 12PM, a mug in his hand and a very, very comfortable smile on his face. It took a while for Fumikage to actually turn around to look at his face, especially around his eyes- yeaaah, he was higher than a kite. This man could have been the most comfortable man in the world. He wasn’t exactly living in high class luxury after all, but he wasn’t really complaining as to how his life had gotten either. Clearly, he was happy in his own bubble of weed, low rent and coffee. Red around his eye sockets, dead knuckles, his blonde hair slightly messed up from perhaps just nearly waking up? Fumikage actually felt as if he had woken him up and it was a pretty shitty thing to do- and that made his decision to visit even more regrettable. The moment he would open his mouth to say something, he’d bury himself in more and more of his shame and feel too irrelevant to lay a word. Okay- this time was all or nothing, he would talk and get his ass handed to him if he needed to.

Eventually, he decided that he’d get in without a word, his chin down, which the man examined. Fumikage was always so sad when he visited. He would pretend to be happy or whatever, but it wasn’t hard to understand that something was keeping him under the weather. This time, it was like he wasn’t even pretending. Keigo absolutely hated when he couldn’t make people happy. Especially someone as close to him as this kid was, since he would empathize with this boy a lot. He slowly managed to get out of the way for him to enter the house, closing the door behind him and speaking very quietly as the duo walked into the kitchen, both of their eyes apart from each other.

“What’s up with you? Why are you so down again? Is it your boyfriend or?”

“No, no, Shoji and I are fine. I’m fine. Let’s just sit.”

It was hard. Talking and emoting was really hard. Fumikage was absolutely enraged at himself for the way he was with emotions, how absolutely cold hearted and unbreakable he was, but he also really wished that everything emotion related wasn’t so necessary in one’s daily life. Some weren’t built to talk, and some were built by life out of having the necessity to talk. Only if people attempted to communicate less, his life would have been a lot easier than how it was. But this was really the only reason why he was here anyways. Nevertheless, Keigo wasn’t really answering, and he wouldn’t talk until Keigo was really ready for this conversation. That could be only by relying on his own instincts.

They sat in the kitchen together as Keigo prepared tea for the both of them, the silence louder and bitter than any word Fumikage was preparing himself to say. He could feel this lack of communication drill into his head now, as if it would have been better if he knocked it out the moment he arrived into the house. That way, it would also be easier to run away after his speech was finished. He wouldn’t face any consequences whatsoever. Dang it! He wished he could think of that the second he arrived. This didn’t last very long though, as the moment Keigo had the tea ready and served, he turned a chair away and sat backwards, directly staring into the eyes of the younger man. This was meant to explain to him that there was no way out of this. There was no way he was letting Fumikage get away with an inability to communicate his feelings.

“Spill.”

Fumikage took a deep breath, gathering his fingers together under the table. God, would this be so awkward for the other. It wouldn’t be- he knew it- but he still had this remote anxiety that this time would be different. Here goes nothing. “It’s just.. I’m so broke all the time. I’m homeless sometimes too. I can’t see my boyfriend for a half of the year because he lives in an entirely different city and I don’t even have the money to travel there. My classmates are having a reunion and with all of our money collected, Jirou and I could only have enough money to send one person there. She was willing to stay with me because ‘it would be unfair’ but I knew how much she wanted to go, I lied and told her that I had some friends to visit.”

Keigo chuckled in pity for a bit, his eyes narrowing in care as a half-smile was formed on his face following the chuckle. When Fumikage’s sudden pause ended, he sighed again and his voice got a bit more quieter, they were more like murmurs the way they had ended up. “I don’t think I have anything to give you. You took me under your wing when I first met you, and you basically raised me here and there. But I don’t think I have anything to return to you and make you all proud. Everytime I come here, I’m still broke and homeless and unhappy as fuck. Can’t even buy you weed.”

That’s the cue. “Do you think I am not proud of you the way you are? Have you even seen what I look like?” This really was a valid thing to be worried about, Keigo would also be worried about this if he was the one in Fumikage’s situation. God, he probably didn’t have the words to end his worries by whole but he supposed he could do anything in his power to reduce them to a little. He kept that compassionate smile on his face and shifted himself on his chair, rubbing the back of his neck as he spoke. “Of course I am not glad that you ended up so unhappy, that would be the very least of my wishes for you, but that is my only concern for you. I don’t really care if you never find a stable job or make a family. I would be happy for you, but it’s not like you are a disappointment in my eyes just because you’re lacking a few.”

Fumikage’s chin raised slightly, relieved that there wasn’t any awkwardness about him talking about how he felt. For some reason, he thought it would be weird for him to tell Keigo how he felt, as if he'd get mad or something. Logically, Keigo most likely couldn’t get angry. He just physically couldn’t, that man was the word definition of “chill” in the dictionary. But it was quite impossible to prevent yourself from feeling that anxiety when such a sensitive subject was acting up. When Fumikage looked up, his eyes had diverted directly to Keigo’s face, who still kept that gentle look on his face, which was, frankly, quite comforting for him once again. Keigo himself was also amused by this. He had no idea why the kid thought he was disappointing him. Still, he was quite happy that Fumikage had chosen to share his feelings with him, he was always happy to be a mentor figure to this kid. He knew that it was quite rare for him to talk about these things, and it made him feel special that Keigo was the one he had chosen to do this with. And still, Keigo wasn’t that successful after all, he couldn’t expect Fumikage to be much different from him. He had always supposed that success wasn’t at all important when you couldn’t fly free. Freedom was the most valuable thing life had granted to the ones who had no choice but to get back up after they had been beaten down. He felt like there was a common sort of understanding between the duo from the friendly looks exchange.

“Keep your chin up, hey. You and Jirou can stay with me as long as you want if you’re homeless again. Now, drink your tea. I’ll show you off to my friends tonight.”

Fumikage never had a family that supported him, not a biological one anyways. It was either shattered or torn apart, taken away from him in one way or the other. The plans he made were always thrown away, the opportunities he was given, he had given up on. But it didn’t have to be this way. These things, they seemed to be looking up for him. It wouldn’t always be like this, and it didn’t mean that this talk would change everything so quickly. It would go down and up, it would transition mercilessly. However, the trust in Keigo’s eyes was pointing at a light Fumikage hadn’t seen in years. The absurd, ridiculous light you could see in the silence of the eye of the hurricane. The first ever sunlight to break through before the clouds broke apart.

“Yeah, okay, alright.”

***

“Hey, Mina, could you be any slower than that ?!”

This was the last summer class 1-A would be spending together. The last one, after those three years that had built a line of bonds so special and memorable that, it almost felt like a total idiocy to let this go. You couldn’t help it, though. You couldn’t help but feel that something would be downhill from this. When all of these people had gathered up, spending time on such a summer that wasn’t anything to waste, something in Mina’s head would tell her to stop. Take a look, a mental image, and hold onto it for as long as you can. This was the last time she would see them so close. What was it after that? All of them parting ways. They’d talk about reunions but a reunion meant that crowded, yet so empty, that awkward, yet falsely hopeful room. The wish that a crowd of stale adults could go back to that idea of the teenage dream they were lucky to live through. It was looking into the eyes of your best friends but seeing nothing more than dozens of identities, struggling to crawl their way out of their anxieties. Give it a year or two, they’d be completely different people. With different friends. She could just see it.

“You guys can go, I’ll catch up!”

“Okay then!”

So, take a look, a mental image, and hold onto it for as long as you can. You couldn’t ever see this much happiness with two of your eyes ever again. Mina sighed as she looked behind her friends. A guess was a guess, but it would be fun to shove it in people’s faces if it came true. A win-win situation. Or something like that in the lowkey. There were some things she knew, though. They were clear, even if they weren’t always spoken. Momo would go off to become a businesswoman, be a badass one, if you will. Kyouka, Fumikage and Mezo would definitely all end up around the same place. Eijirou and Katsuki would move in together for sure, even though she couldn’t really tell where they’d be. Denki would try to move in with them. That was a failed attempt right there, even Denki knew that it was impossible. Izuku and Shoto, Ochako, Tenya, Tsuyu, whatever, that certainly was a group. She didn’t see herself a future. Nothing with any of them. They all had chances to grow out in little groups. She was entirely left alone after these moments she was wasting.

“Hey, Mina, I waited for you!”

Huh?

“Okay, Shitty Hair, now make a wish.”

“Wish.. hmm. I wish for a-”

“Do not fucking tell us! Do you even know how birthday wishes work?!”

The sound of nostalgic laughter had filled the room so easily, as if nothing had changed, as if it was all the same as they left it. ‘Shitty Hair,’ huh? It was weird to see that Katsuki had kept that. Shouldn’t have they gotten married by now or something? Mina didn’t know if Katsuki called his boyfriend by that name back at home, but it was certainly funny for all of these people gathered up in the kitchen of Ochako, Deku and Tenya’s flat. She actually had most of these futures correctly, in a funny manner. People always assumed that Mina was subjective as hell, but she knew her friends and she knew where things were going when they escalated.

It would mean so much if she could have fun herself, right? Soon, the laughters would turn into conversations, the music would open up. There would be a certain number of “chug! chug! chug!”s followed by a Katsuki lecture at Eijirou about drinking safely, or actually grabbing the drink from his hand in order to maintain that drinking safely. Yet another set of “chug! chug! chug!”s, Katsuki not being able to reject any challenges and shotgunning three cans of beer to spite.. literally nobody. That man was a closeted nerd, but he couldn’t handle a dare, whether it was responsible or not. Not only that, but the wretched place added to the atmosphere. Watch it, this flat was crumbling from side to side, clearly afforded with student money. Tenya would never settle to live in a flat he bought with money he didn’t earn on his own. But it mattered to people. Houses could really change with the people in them, no matter how depressing they are. Laughter could turn a shed into a goddamn mansion, hell if this place was even better than a shed. The night has slowly spiraled away from Mina’s predictions of how it would be. So many were still up dancing, and some had gotten squiffy and settled down a little. The balcony and there was its group of people who were wasting their lungs away. You know, she had facetimed many of these people on her own and seen them in misery, and tried to use that to justify her own fears, but it was like they had become these children again the moment they reunited. Something in her head told her to join their fun, but then something was telling her not to. As if it was just.. Disrespectful? In a way?

This all was very fresh for the crew. They never had a reunion with drinks, as most of them were only recently legal. They wouldn’t care about what was legal if it was a bar, but actually buying drinks and walking under the influence was a new ability that they had acquired. They had an appreciation for this type of party though, the stress seemed to really go up after school had ended. Laughing at your pain was already quite common in 1-A, especially when they were still all together. They’d gather in the common area and do all of their homework. Some would even cry out of stress, especially Deku and Ochako, but it wasn’t that hard for any of them to make the others laugh. It was dark humour, but it still was, regardless, a defeated type of affection. Like a common understanding of the pain and the willingness to face it together. It was sort of nostalgic, thrilling even. When the night was about peaking, Mina found herself sitting by the door, further away from action. That never used to happen before.

“Why are you alone?”

“Hey.” Mina sort of chose to keep the question unanswered, and let the conversation go its way. She didn’t want it to lead somewhere she didn’t want it to go, and that could certainly be respected. She was sure that Katsuki would be understanding about it, as he had those moments as a kid where he’d rather be left alone. This wasn’t that sort of situation for her, but some questions weren’t meant to be answered until conversation had matured enough. Their mutual comprehension after so many years helped Mina communicate with her friends without using so many words. Katsuki nodded relatively, before sliding down and sitting on the floor with her. As soon as he was on the floor, he mimicked her, drawing his legs to his chest. Soon, Mina was handed a red cup semi full of a mystery drink, which she appreciated by shining out a half smile. She really wasn’t fooling anyone today.

“Don’t you enjoy the party?”

Huh?

“Don’t you enjoy the vacation?” Sero, no one other than Hanta Sero would actually sacrifice their fun to stay behind for the others. At least not for Mina. The signature plain smile on his face remained alongside the question he asked, not out of little to no empathy, but for a hope to actually have Mina mirror his happiness. Hanta did more for people than most people did for him, but he didn’t really care, he liked seeing a smile on people’s faces. Mina assumed that was why he was so close with Denki, he was more or less always happy. It was an angelic preference for mediation in a way. A good one, though. Certainly a very selfless one. He was clearly out of breath, as if he ran back to her, but he wasn’t really trying to hide his exhaustion. The classic old spontaneous boy. His antics made her smile a lot sometimes, especially after those little actions and details that highlighted how easy-going he was. Still, his quick question deserved an answer, and she felt like he hadn’t done all this running to be shut down and pushed away.

“No, no! Just a bit bugged that it’s almost over, you know.” Mina spoke, looking away from her friend. She didn’t want to look dependent or anything, or clingy, or whatever embarrassing feeling it was that kept her from appreciating her friends so vocally. She was almost clear that Hanta wouldn’t be the one to judge, but you couldn’t shake a fret off like that. “Don’t worry about it though, I’m probably just very anxious out of nowhere. As if we will grow apart, you know, aha.” God, this was awkward. It was somewhat true that Mina always had friends, but they would mostly be boys, both during middle and high school. But clearly, she was pretty iffy about talking to boys about feelings. Only Eijirou maybe, but that was because she had known him for the longest time. They really didn’t have anything to hide. But girls just made it easier somehow, she felt like she didn’t really have to make anyone uncomfortable when she talked to girls about her feelings. So, it was a slight surprise to see, when she had the courage to look back at him, that Hanta wasn’t uncomfortable with her sharing her feelings. She wished she knew a way to make this slide better.

“I mean, I get how you feel. But we won’t all disappear, you know? We’ll be one call away! Plus, I still don’t know what I’ll do after this break, I’m also still sort of questioning my future too..” You could see Hanta rubbing the back of his neck as he talked, quietly sharing Mina’s worry. It was sweet. He could jump from one emotion to another so quickly while still displaying a sort of big brother maturity some of his friends lacked. It was a skill or whatever. “But hey! Look at it this way. If you need someone to live or travel with until you find out what you want to do, I’m always here! I believe in us!”

“Mhm, oh yeah?”

Mina giggled ever so briefly as she responded to his awkward enthusiasm. It was so strange, the angle they stood at. The light was coming directly behind Hanta, as if the light was outlining his figure and shining from his behind into Mina’s eyes, making it hard for her to see him too clearly. A golden hue fell upon him, his shadows lightening in her eyes. What.. was this? Her stomach sunk so far, but her limbs had become lighter than a feather for that sole instance. But the view of the sun and the boy in front was somewhat dream-like, blurry in its sharpest edges. All of the flags in her head waved white for a single second as she felt that this was a much more magnificent concept to her. She wanted to cry. She wanted to laugh, too. All of this was attacking her from such a soft, indescribable spot that was absolutely so ridiculous. She was so damn heavy, in an unease trying to keep herself up. And something inside her head was telling her that this was permanent. This was reality, more than anything she had ever felt. That sort of feeling got her to think so mindlessly that she moved a single muscle, Sero could even disperse into the afternoon sky. Mina didn’t want this over, at all. If she could take a picture with her eyes, this was where. If she could save this moment and live it again a thousand times, she would enjoy every repeat of it. The thought of an angel looked to the bare human eye not much different from what she had experienced in a matter of the passing moments.

“Of course! I’ll always be here for you, Mina.”

Huh?

“No, no, not really. It’s fun, it’s not exactly my thing.”

“Well, it used to be.”

He wasn’t lying at all. Mina was genuinely so adventurous back in her days, and she guessed that she could still go out there and do her old thing. It kinda fit, like puzzle pieces. If she had reformed, the puzzle wasn’t complete anymore. They could pull her out and replace her with a different puzzle piece that did fit. But then the complete picture would be incomplete. She felt like she didn’t really have an out of this specific situation. It would be best to keep her quiet once again, because there wasn’t really anything she could say to him. There wasn’t a conversation anymore either, it was just a calmer Katsuki trying to get Mina to talk to him. It was almost ironic that an ideal high school conversation was the exact opposite of what this was. She didn’t want to remember that, so she drank from the cup in her hand. God knows what she was drinking. A fun game of “make me forget.”

“Look, I’m sorry I left you here. We just couldn’t stand to be around after-”

“Please just don’t say it.”

Mina took a deep breath as she leaned her back on the wall, grounding herself for a second. This was where the mountain peaked. She had heard that when you were so far up, near the clouds even, you could hear the silence. And the silence was just so, so loud. “I will go away for a while, y’know, maybe a few months. To somewhere around the Pacific. Look for a reason to stay.”

“Well, he’d be proud of you for that.”

“Oh, don’t mention it. He’d be thrilled at the idea of me becoming a total vagabond. As if I have the money to travel all that way.” The duo shared a quick chuckle, a tint of melancholy easily picked from both of their tones. My god, was this unusual. Katsuki actually being side by side with someone to witness their suffering. Trying to help in his own little unapologetic ways, even. It was clear that he was trying to keep himself collected, but Mina would rather have him put together anyways. Katsuki unraveling wouldn’t exactly be fun to watch for anyone in this party, they all had their respective experiences with something like that, but especially about an event so outrageously horrific. It was compassionate of him, but it could be told that he was also doing it for the sake of his own mental health. But you know, coping was coping, Mina wouldn’t be the one to judge anyone’s mechanisms. After they shared that moment of silence, Katsuki rested his chin on one of his knees as a sigh escaped his lips.

“What were you two doing together anyways? Were you dating or something?”

“I, uh..” That was hard to answer. There really wasn’t a true answer to return that question, and she didn’t know if she wanted one either. It wasn’t that she didn’t feel that way, but the way she had learnt to grieve was much different from what it would be if she actually was dating him. What the hell was dating anyways? Was it always such a clear difference to a very close friendship? Maybe a certification that you could fuck one person and no other? Mina truly didn’t know, and she didn’t want to care about it. No matter what she did, everything was in the past now, and there wasn’t a way to change that. “.. don’t know, really. Maybe?”

Katsuki preferred to keep quiet at that vague answer. It was more so that he didn’t want to get on her nerves or confuse her more, as he had been a victim of her wrath a few times during high school. Let me tell you, it was very far from fun, and the ones who had been there couldn’t have agreed more. Nonetheless, Mina wasn’t exactly in the mood to unleash the monster either, but Katsuki still respected her boundaries when it came to this soft nerve of a subject. “You know, Denki’s holding on fine. He seems to have gotten over it, and Hitoshi is doing his best to take care of him.”

“Pfft- Shinsou is willing to take care of Kaminari? Wasn’t the first thing he said to us ‘I will destroy all of you if you get in my way’ or some shit like that? You type of beat?”

Oh my god, yeah- that was embarrassing. Katsuki couldn’t hold in a sly smirk at the memory, followed by Mina’s giggle at her own joke. People really changed, huh. Katsuki himself had said some pretty cringy things in the past as well, he was very well immature, but luckily: His friends could actually let some things slide and put them in their goddamn past. It was a matter of transitions from a period of time to another, and Katsuki knew that he was so ready for a change when him and his boyfriend had decided to let this trauma stay in the past. Dealing with something like this was a massive pain, more than something any of those kids could handle, but it was reality, and you couldn’t reverse realities. That was why he was internally worried about how Denki was holding up, especially during a friends reunion. He really must have missed his best friend. Seeing him good had made everyone’s hearts blossom, since all of them had that subconscious concern that he wouldn’t be able to make it. The crew still had some things left connected.

“Come on, dance with us. You’ll be in Cambodia or something the next time you facetime me, I know you want tonight to be fun.” He slowly got back on his feet, trying his best to keep his balance after that hell of a conversation. No matter how much he complained and yelled, Katsuki had the emotional range of a carrot; any conversation that included an emotion more than anger and happiness, he was allergic to. When he managed to stand up after furious attempts at squatting back up, he stuck out his hand for Mina. She needed a dance, and a drink, hopefully. They both did.

“Fine, but just one dance. Then I go back to my depression corner.”

Mina laughed, which ended up in Katsuki ruffling her hair like a little child. God, had she missed all of the crap she wouldn’t take from these people. She had missed being with her friends, and funnily enough, she was definitely the one pushing them away. It was the way she imagined her future that made her do nothing to change it. She felt absolutely so defeated all this time that she wouldn’t even see the friends that encouraged her with open arms. Her pessimism fueled action was the reason why it all came true. Mina rubbed her knuckles and strolled the corridor. She had missed the sound of her friends’ laughter. She had missed how it felt like to be around people, and she had missed not isolating herself. This moment could be somewhat of a blend of so many emotions Mina had kept inside for a matter of years, but she wouldn’t trade any of it. It was time to stop neglecting some things that should have been addressed so long ago.

“Are you two leaving already?”

“Yeah.. ‘toshi had a few drinks, we gots to go home.”

Katsuki passed Denki, with a clearly very, very drunk Hitoshi holding on to his shoulder. My god. The boy couldn’t even walk properly. What was all of this anyways? He felt like he shouldn’t have gotten so amused by this image, but he had never seen Shinsou so out of control before. It was even more hilarious that everyone that was looking forward to this meeting was expecting Denki to be the one getting shitfaced after all, not the other way round. This really wasn’t the time, but it sort of entertained Mina out of her mind to see Hitoshi collapsing with every step, so Katsuki wasn’t the one complaining. With slower music starting in the background of Tenya’s low budget apartment, he pulled his friend into a slow dance. Eijirou gave a few subtle and ironic winks at his boyfriend, and Katsuki blew yet an aggressive kiss back. Whatever therapy did to him was somewhat working on that maturity. The old Katsuki would have flipped after irony was even in his sight. Nailed it.

Mina rested her head on her friend’s chest, moving from side to side with the music as the others could be seen picking each other up to dance. Izuku and Shoto moved near the windows as Ochako swirled Tenya up towards the counters. Eijirou was tipsy as hell, dancing with the cat that he had found on the street, and brought up to the apartment to celebrate his birthday with him. Kyouka even had the courage to ask Momo for a slow dance. You could hear the red-haired birthday boy complaining about how he was having his boyfriend stolen from him. It was funny. In a way that Mina hadn’t experienced for all these years.

“Get up, ladies. Someone should dance with the lonely birthday boy!”

“Shots high for the birthday boy!”

When she turned her head to the other side, her eyes drafted out of the windows into the night sky. Not only anything, but towards that one specific star that shone so brightly. This was something she had seen before, that she said she would rather forget. The feeling of being blown away so hard that you could almost float out of your body. That gentle paralysis, as if your touch could have it disperse into a million pieces. She knew, for a second, that the star she saw wasn’t anything all that common. It outshone every light in the city before her eyes that it was the only one sharing that sky tonight. Only maybe, could it have been an angel, but Mina knew she was ready.

Hanta Sero had died in a car crash on his way back to the apartment he shared with Mina Ashido, his girlfriend. He was only nineteen years old when he passed away. His body was buried where his best memories had been, the festival area near the U.A. high school.

And for that split second, she could swear that he was smiling at her. She smiled back, and turned away.

***

“Hitoshi, please- We are very close. A few steps.”

“Have I ever told you about that time Eri held my hand when she got scared of the thunders? It was so cute, I was like, so cute. She- She even hugged my whole arm.”

“Yes- yes, very cute- but let’s not start crying about it-”

God fucking damn it, purple boy was inexplicably tiring. Not only was he heavy as hell, but he was also completely unable to walk, moaning out random enigmatic crap most of the times he opened his mouth, and would go on the verge of tears every time anything even slightly reminded him of Eri. This would be very funny to watch if he wasn’t the one that threw up on the subway, threw up once again on Denki’s shirt, and had him stuck in the middle of the road at 3 AM. Only if he could walk, this would most likely be much easier than the way it was right then. They weren’t that far from where they lived, but it was still taking so much time to have Hitoshi go a few steps. The boy’s knees and hands were already covered in blood from all that falling down on the concrete, and he would yelp quite loudly every time he fell down once again. Giving the next-door neighbours so much to work with in the middle of the night, and giving Denki an opportunity to practise his argument skills against angry old Japanese ladies with rolling pins that had a stand-by lecture about how the new generation was so irresponsible with their partying.

“I.. what the hell, ‘toshi?”

He was genuinely in awe of this situation. Hitoshi had never been so out of control before, especially not next to his friends. He would drink around Denki, but drinking this much, and around the 1-A crowd? That wasn’t him, now. He would always be walking on eggshells around anyone that wasn’t Denki or Izuku, as if showing any sort of emotion would kill him. This took some courage, he’d admit that, but it wasn’t exactly the time to go all out like this. He was now wondering what had happened. Hitoshi was happy earlier before going to the party, so did something happen there? I mean, he was messed up, so there absolutely was something happening. So, what now? Would he even be able to have him spill it out when he was drunk- no- that was wrong- but letting him neglect the fact that Denki was upset with him would also be wrong as hell. He didn’t know if he had to let this slide.

Walking fast, carrying his very drunk friend clung over his shoulder, he was so lost in thought and worry. How the hell were they supposed to go to college tomorrow like this? Denki was trying his best to imagine a reason to call in sick, he didn’t think his grades could handle another absent day. This wouldn’t be a reason to fail a class. When Hitoshi had finally shut up, it was easier to carry him, as he was basically focused on his half-assed walking. Everytime he fell down, he would shut up and get back up. He could be sobering up, but that didn’t make the situation better. They kept walking, and Denki kept pondering with his own tipsy brain. He had no connection going on between his thoughts, but he could still think himself into insanity if he went any further than this. He couldn’t afford another slip. For the last mile home, he held his friend over his back and made him grip onto his shoulders. This was absolutely the worst night out of his life.

When they reached home with Hitoshi half-fainted over Denki’s back, you could sort of guess that they got pretty weird looks from those on the damn lift. Denki sort of felt like they should be asking themselves what they were using the lift for at 3 AM in the first place. It didn’t matter, though. The two never got along with their neighbours. It was either fighting or sex noises at five in the morning, and it wasn’t the best sounds to wake up to. Especially when they couldn’t sleep back, and they had to get dressed and sit awkwardly in the kitchen, listening to whatever shit that was going on upstairs. It would be cute- though. Not the “I owe them” level of cute, but it would usually have Hitoshi reddening out of embarrassment, trying to keep a straight face regardless. Denki knew that Aizawa also wasn’t exactly open with sex (Sex-Ed class was clearly such a painful time of the month for him) and it made sense why Hitoshi was similarly flustered. He didn’t know why he found it so cute. It made him smile to unfathomable senses. He felt his hands getting so warm around Hitoshi’s knees, a smile quietly placed on his face. The memories felt nice. It took him a few moments to get back to his senses, because this really wasn’t the time to be smiling, but Denki sort of managed to carry him back to the apartment door. This was a wild fucking ride, huh. He never wanted to do this again. He would do it for Hitoshi if he had to, but he was definitely hoping that this was a one time thing. The door was challenging as hell, though. He didn’t really know how to open it without letting his friend down on the floor.

“Hitoshi, can you stand up for one single second, please?”

“Mhm..”

Denki would take that as a yes. Fair. He didn’t think much of it, there was no other way to think of this in such a situation. He let his friend on his feet again, not without gripping under his shoulders to keep him standing. With his free hand, he grabbed the keys from his pocket and inserted it into the hole, attempting to pull and turn it a few times before actually getting it to open. This was the last time Denki was taking any sort of responsibility ever again. He would never, ever think of himself as a responsible adult, this was the hardest thing he ever had to take the responsibility of. And people still thought that he could actually be reliable to take care of himself. Hitoshi was right, Denki would forget to breathe if he wasn’t there. Not only that, but he hadn’t realized that he was barely ever standing at that point. He had forgotten about the fact that he was ever the one holding him up, so that went down a little. By ‘that,’ I mean Hitoshi. Hitoshi was the one going down.

“Shit! Okay- fuck!” Denki exclaim-whispered lightly as Hitoshi tripped and took a fall right next to the doorway, which ended up in him falling back onto his knees and hands. My god, those wounds needed attending. He didn’t know how to explain it to him the next morning, but he felt like there wouldn’t really be any retaliations to “you were drunk, you fell on the concrete countless times.” There didn’t really seem to be any farther carrying business than this. Hitoshi was still conscious, a little bit sober. He still couldn’t move that well, but he could pick himself up enough to lean over to the wall behind him. Denki had already gone in to get Hitoshi a blanket and cotton to clean his wounds with.

This was sort of nice. It felt bad to think about it, but he didn’t mind taking care of him in such times. It was usually in reverse. Especially after the whole thing with Sero, Denki had gotten drunk the night when he got the news, and a legion of times after that until his grieving was less prevalent. Hitoshi was the one helping him out during those times, when he knew that almost all of his friends were a little too depressed to talk someone out of misery. Denki recalled how bad it had gotten around the winter time especially, and genuinely appreciated how Hitoshi had been around to help him with his mood swings. He was sure that Hitoshi wouldn’t stay to listen to him rant for hours if he didn’t care. He wouldn’t sleep all that much or have nightmares, and that returned to him with his grades dropping so low, but his friend was always there to find a way to cheer him the hell up. Listen to his tantrums and all, call him out on his shit if he had to. He had no idea why everyone thought of Hitoshi as a heartless, or cold, or whatever type of person when he was much far from that. Sure, he was distant, but that had a certain limit. Like anyone else did.

“Hey- I’m back. Let’s clean up.” Denki sat down on the floor with the cotton and the antiseptic solution before gently wrapping the blanket around Hitoshi, who was semi-asleep, clearly exhausted, leaning down on the thin skin of wall behind him. He wasn’t talking, staring around, that specific expression on his face. He felt like his friend knew he fucked up pretty bad. Denki pressed his lips together, his head pillaged with sympathy, but didn’t settle to stop what he was doing. It was strange to just clean someone’s wounds. He hadn’t seen so much blood in a very long time, the last time was a tragedy. He didn’t want to think about it at all. After slowly pouring the solution onto the piece of cotton, he grabbed Hitoshi’s right hand lightly, opening up his palm with his fingers. It was.. warm. He had nice hands when they weren’t wounded. Denki didn’t know why he hadn’t noticed that earlier. He felt a heat sensation rush to his own hands as he cleaned up the cuts, with the teeny noises of pain his friend would let out regarding the antiseptic. It was a sudden urge he felt that got to him, as if he wouldn’t be able to get this close again and that he should hold onto it as much as he could. He didn’t know why this proximity was nice, but he got distracted from the idea soon enough anyways.

Hitoshi was still staring into the room with almost empty eyes, and that was what he had picked up on after that. He knew that feeling, sort of. When you were devastated, and you drank, you had that peak moment of reaching ecstasy. A dissociated feeling, more or less, it stopped the pain by something close to a whole. The problem wouldn’t be there anymore, you’d be on cloud nine but it never lasted, because you couldn’t just disappear as a whole. You wouldn’t really want to anyways. You would eventually drop off of your peak and end up in that shitty hole you were when you started drinking. The problem would heighten again. But this time, you couldn’t move your body under the influence. You would realise how much you had fucked up in the past hours, and what you would have to pay for because of your failure self-medication on this miserable injury that would possibly destroy you if you didn’t put an end to it somehow. Everything was so painfully real again.

Denki sighed. He wanted to know everything. After putting on the bandages around Hitoshi’s hands and knees, Denki leaned back on the wall, right next to Hitoshi. He genuinely didn’t know what to say. It was goddamn late as well- but he couldn’t give a fuck. If it meant to get him to talk, he would possibly stay up all night to do so. “Do you want to tell me how you feel, or should I get it out of you?”

Silence. Denki could predict that Hitoshi had gotten sober enough to talk without slipping back into nonsense, but kept his mouth shut about it for a while, perhaps to when he was comfortable talking about it. It was clear that he was miserable, there really had to be a reason for that. Hitoshi wasn’t the type of person to risk his life out of nowhere. The silence remained set on stone for the next few minutes like that, so much so that Denki could hear the clock ticking aggressively from the corridor’s wall, as if to lecture him about all the things that had happened that night. Goddamn, was the guilt overwhelming. It really was, he felt like this would never have happened if Denki wasn’t fucking around with the others. He should have been more careful with Hitoshi for sure. “You know when- you really want something. You really want it.. But then you know it’s so far. And then, you won’t accept that you want it.”

It was just mumbling on Hitoshi’s part, and trying to decipher this on Denki’s. What the hell could Hitoshi want? He was smart, he had friends, he had a job. Hell, he was fucking gorgeous, Denki had been saying that for years. There was nothing in Denki’s eyes that he could have been yearning for. He looked so sad.. It was hard to stand it. He suddenly could feel an inner urge to cry as well, but he tried to ignore it for the sake of keeping strong. It was clear that he was the one being held on at that moment. “And then, it just really hurts?”

Denki had this reasonable internal compulsion to stop all of this. He hated it and he couldn’t understand anything from it. Hitoshi was in pain, now too for sure, and there was nothing he could really do about it. But.. At least he was near? He wasn’t far where Denki could reach, he wasn’t dying or anything. He could suppose that going through pain was a tiny bit better than not being able to feel anything anymore. He reached his arm around his shoulder, hesitantly and gently, pulling him closer into the side hug. It was just so warm with him. So, very real. He didn’t know what it was, but there was something keeping the inside of his abdomen very, very warm. And it was even stranger, because he regretted everything building up to this moment, but he didn’t want this to end. He had so many questions to the sober Hitoshi, to fish for more hints on what the hell was going on, but these several seconds were to be spent carefully. They would never come back, and neither would the fluttering inside his stomach.

“Well, I think you can have anything you want, ‘toshi. You’re strong like that, yeah?” Naturally, Denki didn’t get an answer. His friend had fallen asleep leaning on his shoulder. It was sort of adorable- to be fair. He slept curled up like a cat, and that wasn’t a resemblance you saw every day. He didn’t even care if he didn’t get sleep if he could witness something like this. Pfft- he had never seen that guy sleep that well.

***

“We had the couch open for Kacchan and Eijirou-san, Tenya made all of your beds. Would you mind sleeping in Ochako’s bed for tonight?”

“I don’t mind, old memories and all.”

Izuku returned Mina’s giggle at the end of her words, slowly closing the door of the room where Tenya slept. This was just entirely new, especially with how rare nostalgic moments like these were to be seen. He was glad, though. It was a good type of change. He sort of knew how anxious Ochako was about seeing her friends all at the same time again. It was clear that Mina felt the same way about this, especially after the loss she had been through. Not only them, but he could imagine Denki or Kyouka feeling the same way. The way this situation had escalated had comforted him a little bit, he really had that fear that it would be sort of boring and no one would really end up having fun. That would ruin everyone he knew that already had horrible anxiety about this meeting. “So, we’ll take you three out for breakfast tomorrow morning. And you are leaving on Monday, yes?”

“That is about it, yes! Thanks, Deku, for everything.”

“We love having you here, it’s our pleasure.” Izuku opened the wardrobe to grab a bunch of bedcloth and hand them to Mina, before walking her over to the room where he and Ochako’s beds were. This was nice and all, you know, wistfully. He didn’t have this many quotas of freedom or ability when he was back in school’s dormitory, but it was similar to how it was in a way. They would still be helping each other with stuff like this when they were back at school. I mean, they would, but this was more.. adult. He was into it, it made him feel somewhat in control of things he was insecure about when he was younger. Subsequently, he was exposed to the sight of Ochako in her coats, walking near the front door. He could ask her for a reason about her going out at damn near 3AM, but he decided not to. She could be going out for a smoke or a brief walk. It was an exciting yet overwhelming night, it was possible that she’d feel swamped with thoughts. He went back to his regular business, all on about setting Mina off.

“Goodnight, Mina.”

“Goodnight, Deku-chan! You’re the coolest.”

And then, he undressed with the lights off, got under the sheets, and lied next to his boyfriend who was too intoxicated and tired to go back to his flat. Everything had fallen into place. It was approximately all well now. When it all wasn’t too well, there was a way out of it. Izuku knew that five seconds later, he could feel different, he could suddenly fall into that hopeless mood again. Just like all of his friends, he wasn’t invincible to sadness or hopelessness. He knew that he had people that held on to him, though, and he would rather keep his own pain on the down low to be able to help the ones that needed him. But, he would regardless appreciate this one second in which he could feed into his love of the moment. It was one of those rare moments, one might say. He was peaceful in the head. It was all quiet, finally.

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