Chapter Text
Three sharp succinct knocks to the front door tore Izuku out of his haze. He blinked, dazed, and glanced from his spot on the couch. The tv was on, a low murmur in the background, he hadn’t been paying attention in god knows how long, probably not at all. It was there more so to instil a sense of normalcy into his day, though it had not worked. No noise could penetrate his mind enough to quiet all the thoughts.
He took a slow breath in, and a long sigh out. Curled up on the couch- not cosy, yet he still did not want to move. To go and open that door. To face someone, even just the postman, made his insides twist uncomfortably. Nobody should see him like this- weak, and tired, and so ridiculously sad . There was just so much of that.
That horrible, horrible, horrible sadness. This despair, to him, was worse and more all-consuming than any pain he had been in before. Physical pain, he knew. He understood . Somebody crushes your arm. It snaps. Your arm is broken. It hurts. There is a reason why it hurts. You put it in a cast. You wait. It gets better. It heals. The pain is gone. The arm is normal again. You can punch again. You nearly forget your arm was ever broken in the first place.
There is a start, a middle, and an end to this sort of pain. There is a reason for it. You see it. Everyone else sees it. They believe it.
This pain he felt now, this despair . Well, it was entirely different.
Why did he feel this way? At what point did it start to heal? Would it ever? He felt as though there would be no end.
There simply couldn’t be. This pain, he felt everywhere- i n the throbbing headache behind his eyes, through every shaky breath in, as constant as the beating of his heart; by now the pain flowed through each and every inch of him, making his veins as much of a home to it as was his blood. He was heavy all over, and groggy. Almost as though he was ill with a fever.
There was no wound to bandage, no knife to blame. Unless the wound was his soul and the knife was the betrayal of all those people he thought he knew. Though clearly did not. He did not know a timeline for this healing, did not think there could be one. This felt like it would be an unending pain- as what caused it would never leave. Those moments in the interrogation, those days in school, lost and wondering what he had done wrong. The memories of this would do more than haunt him. They would hurt him, again and again and again. Salt in the wound. Stab to the heart. Kick to the stomach. To so much as look at his classmates or teacher and even All Might would be sure enough to kill him all over again.
His destiny and future and all that was once so bright ahead of him now felt bleak and buried six feet under. His reputation was ruined, as was his spirit.
His life was over, and he had never felt so low.
What was there to live for? What was he made for now, without this? Without anything .
He simply couldn’t bear it. He wanted nothing more than to shut his mind off and stop thinking about anything for the rest of eternity, yet he found himself doing nothing but thinking about it for the past three days.
Honestly? He wished he was dead. Better off that way. Everyone else probably agreed.
That was the consideration he had to keep in mind for another moment, because right now, the issue of the door knocking and whether or not he should answer managed to seep into his mind and take over his thoughts for just a minute or two. Or ten. Time no longer felt real. He could have been moving in slow motion for all he knew. Most likely was. Still somehow felt too fast.
One leg out, and then the other, they hit the rug below hard and heavy- pins and needles trickling throughout. He wondered when the last time he got up was. Decided not to remember the answer. Slow and melancholy, he dragged his way over towards the door. If a package was to be delivered, he supposed the least he could do would be to bring it in- rather than force his mother to go to all the extra effort of having to go collect it at the post office.
He’d done enough to stress her out as it was. Would not allow himself to be even more of a burden.
He clicked the lock. Opened the door.
And there stood Aizawa and Toshinori.
Izuku’s eyes widened, and the world fell apart around him all over again.