Chapter Text
Ever since Shouto was able to wield a brush, he possessed the ability to harbor a deep appreciation for the written word.
The first thing he ever wrote was the character for his family name, Todoroki. His father, who from then on never contributed to his non-heroics studies, sat across from him at the endlessly long wooden table, brush in hand. This will be the most important word you will learn to write, he stated. His voice boomed throughout the study, filling every empty space and crevice with a tone that did not allow room for disagreement. Todoroki. It was a grounded character, one that commanded power and attention.
When Shouto learned to write the characters that comprised his given name, it was almost like an afterthought.
But even as his hand wobbled when the brush pressed against the paper, Shouto felt what he could only describe now as wonder. His father had drilled over and over that before all else, he was a Todoroki. Before Shouto had the capacity to fully understand that statement, before he identified the unsettling pit he felt in his stomach around his father, before he acknowledged the toxicity that festered like mold within the very foundations of his family, Shouto had already developed an appreciation for the written word. Despite existing as a Todoroki, when Shouto wrote the characters for his given name, he was essentially writing to the world, I am here.
.
Shouto remembered falling, but not in a smooth, uninterrupted trajectory. He felt a sudden panic, as if he had missed a step going down a staircase or stepped into a puddle deeper than he’d anticipated. The sudden fear he felt dissipated, bringing back a sense of calmness, only to be punctuated by another jolt of panic. Eventually, the primal shocks of anxiety both slowed in frequency and softened in intensity, allowing Shouto to finish his fall peacefully and without disruption.
A few miles away in the same city, a young boy had spotted a shooting star and made the same wish he always made before falling asleep.
.
“Izuku, honey! Breakfast is ready.”
Shouto groaned and rolled over. Usually, the moment he woke up, he’d get out of bed and start his morning routine. His father disapproved of sleeping in and wasting time, but this morning, his futon felt much more comfortable for some reason, as if he could burrow into the sheets completely.
That wasn't right.
Shouto pressed his palm into the sheets beside his face. His futon wasn’t this soft, nor did it sink like a cushion—it was usually firm and sturdy. He grabbed the comforter—also too soft. Even before Shouto opened his eyes, he realized this wasn’t his futon. This was someone else’s bed.
Shouto jolted up immediately and almost fell off the mattress. He whipped his head around and saw that this was…a normal boy’s room it seemed. Sunlight streamed through the window, illuminating posters of All Might covering the walls, All Might figures posing heroically on the desk and shelves, and other trinkets with his face or hero costume colors decorating the room. As reluctant as he was to admit it, the presence of All Might’s image made him feel safe.
“Izuku!” The faint voice he’d heard before called out again. “You better not still be sleeping.”
Shouto rubbed his eye, then ran his hand down the side of his face. As far as dreams went, this was one of the more realistic ones he’s had, but he wasn’t complaining. As long as it didn’t dissolve into a nightmare, as they usually did, Shouto was okay with a hyper realistic dream.
He made his way downstairs, following his intuition to where he suspected the voice from before had called from. He couldn’t help but notice, as he grabbed the handrail by the staircase, how modern the house looked—a stark contrast from his traditional Japanese style home. Following the sounds of plates and bowls shifting from surface to surface, Shouto peeked into the kitchen and spotted a short woman with dark hair tied up into a messy ponytail. When she noticed Shouto, she clicked her tongue.
“And what do you think you’re doing still in your pajamas? Go get dressed!” she said, waving a pair of chopsticks at him.
As she said, Shouto realized he was indeed wearing an oversized T-shirt over a loose pair of shorts. He muttered a quick apology and made his way back upstairs to his room (his dream room?). This time, he noticed the All Might themed name frame hanging outside the door with two iconic bunny ear-like hair pieces decorating a plainly etched Izuku.
Shouto searched through the room’s closet, took a guess, and pulled out the black school uniform, one that looked vaguely like the one Shouto wore to school. Unsurprisingly, it was a perfect fit for him.
Even though this was a dream, and an incredibly vivid one at that, Shouto made sure he looked presentable, in case the woman downstairs sent him back up again. While entering what he assumed was the bathroom, Shouto glanced at the mirror, tightened his clutch on the door knob, and froze.
Deep green eyes stared back at him, irises wide with awe. A mop of dark hair, its color the exact shade as the woman’s, curled in every direction, looking untamable in both its thickness and length. Speckled on both cheeks were light brown freckles that Shouto himself never possessed.
Slowly, the hand that gripped the door handle lifted towards his face, hovering in front of his left eye and staying wary, as if touching his cheek would shatter the mirror or blow the smoke from the illusion or plunge his consciousness back into a waking world where the possibility of a face not ravaged by an angry scar simply did not exist.
“Izuku!” the woman called again, breaking Shouto out of his shock.
He shook his head, which made him notice the curls bounce around his face. It was only a dream, but he couldn’t help but notice the eyes in his reflection, eyes that were both the same color, gleam with a hint of contentment mixed with longing.
The woman downstairs, whom Shouto assumed was his mother, had laid out a modest breakfast on the dining table.
“Thank you for the food,” he said awkwardly, to which the woman laughed.
“You sure are acting weird today.” she said. “Are you still dreaming?” Her voice held a warm tone as she looked at him quizzically.
This was a dream, wasn’t it? Weren’t you supposed to wake up the moment you acknowledged you were dreaming? Though for some reason, Shouto felt like he couldn’t say that out loud. Instead he responded, “I didn’t sleep very well last night.”
“That’s because you always stay up so late,” she huffed. “Don’t think that’s going to work out for you once you’re in high school. I thought for sure you were finally changing your sleep schedule. You’ve been out the house before I even wake up these days.”
Shouto didn’t know how to respond, so he simply nodded and apologized, promising her that he’d wake up earlier tomorrow.
The woman scrutinized his face in confusion and leaned forward. “Are you sure you’re okay, dear?”
For a moment, Shouto couldn’t discern the look in her eyes. Cautiousness? Fear? With a sudden realization coupled with self-pity, Shouto pinpointed the feeling behind her gaze as concern, something he hadn’t seen in a long time. At least, not in the genuine form presented to him now. Fuyumi often gave him the same look, but there was always something withdrawn about it, as if she wanted to say something but didn’t know how, or if, she could express it.
“I’m okay,” he said, suddenly restless under the woman’s stare. “I should probably start heading out.”
As quickly as her suspicion had appeared, it vanished, fretfulness taking its place instead. “Oh, you’re right! You’re going to be late if you don’t start moving,” she said.
Thankfully, the woman seemed just as urgent to get Shouto out of the house as Shouto was to leave. She handed him a yellow school bag and pushed him towards the front door.
“Hurry!” she said. “You don’t want to be late now in the year, just before your entrance exams. Go!”
When Shouto expected to hear the door slam behind him, the woman called out, “Oh, and have a nice day, dear!”
.
Izuku yawned as the sunlight shone through the curtains and into his face. Waking up early hadn’t been much of a hassle lately, as he spent most mornings training with All Might cleaning up the beach. Even on his resting days, his body naturally woke up when sun rose, and Izuku couldn’t tell if it was from habit or sheer excitement.
He desperately wanted to tell anyone about his training but at the same time, felt that keeping it a secret increased his motivation ten fold, as if the longer he hid this incredible stroke of luck, the bigger the surprise it’d be to everyone. For the first few days of meeting All Might, All Might, Izuku truly believed he was living in an unbelievably vivid dream borne from his many ‘what would happen if I met All Might’ and ‘what would happen if I suddenly had a quirk’ fantasies, none of which even came close to comparing with his reality. Really, what were the chances that this was actually happening to him?
He checked his alarm clock. It was still early enough to take his time getting ready for school. Downstairs, he heard his mom slowly starting her day and getting breakfast ready for the two of them.
After getting his uniform on, Izuku made his way to the kitchen, where his mom was rubbing the sleep from her eyes as eggs sizzled on the stovetop in front of her. She mentioned something about him being up early today and asked him how he felt, to which he confusedly responded he was fine.
“At least you seem more rested today,” she said, yawning.
“Yeah, no training today,” he said, reaching into the fridge for a carton of milk.
“And yesterday too,” his mom replied.
Izuku quirked his head. “No, yesterday was training day,” he said, his tone gaining a questioning lilt towards the end. Wasn’t it? He’d planned out his whole training schedule from the beginning, and he knew there were very few weeks that had resting days twice in a row. Unless there was a mistake somewhere? That meant everything else after today was probably messed up as well, which meant that he had to do his planning all over agai—
“You’re muttering again, sweetheart,” his mom interrupted. “It’s fine to miss a day or two, I say. You don’t want to overwork yourself.”
But that was the thing. Izuku intentionally made sure he wasn’t overworking himself by coming up with a training schedule. Honestly, he had to force himself not to go overboard at the beginning. This was the opportunity that he’d always wanted, always dreamed about—how could he not want to go training every morning? All Might had lectured him about the importance of a lifestyle that includes eight hours of sleep and a balanced breakfast! when Izuku showed up to training after being too excited to sleep or remember to eat before rushing towards the beach.
He shrugged it off for now and made a mental note to check his schedule during class later.
.
Izuku didn’t want to give anything away, but these days whenever he saw Kacchan, he immediately perked up. Much as Izuku admired Kacchan when he showed off his quirk, he wanted to show Kacchan his own, and maybe get the same amount of enthusiasm from him. Izuku knew that was wishful, very wishful, thinking, but he wanted to at least experience once what Kacchan must’ve felt everyday, the feeling of being secure in the strength of one’s quirk and being able to say, I am here! I can be a hero, too!
Kacchan was probably able to pick up on that thought, because despite Izuku wanting to greet him with enthusiasm, he only grew more and more aggressive lately. As Izuku sat down in his seat before class started, Kacchan stormed up and slammed his fist on his desk. Izuku jumped.
“Oh, now you’re scared?” he fumed.
“G-good morning, Kacchan,” Izuku replied.
“Don’t try to act all fucking nice today, Deku. Who do you think you are, huh?”
Panic welled up in Izuku’s chest (like it usually did when talking to Kacchan), and not for the first time in his life, he had no idea why Kacchan was so angry, and no idea how to respond as to not accidentally make him angrier.
So of course, he went with what made him the angriest.
“C-calm down, Kacchan!” he said, palms out in what he hoped was a calming gesture.
Kacchan kicked his desk.
“You think you can tell me what to do, you quirkless half-shit?” he yelled.
Thankfully, Izuku was saved from responding because in that moment, the bell signaling the beginning of morning classes rang, and Sensei like clockwork started telling everyone to settle down. He threw a look towards Izuku and Kacchan, and the Especially you, Bakugou, went unsaid. Kacchan made sure to kick his desk again before settling into his own seat a few rows behind him.
As Sensei began his morning lecture, Izuku let out a sigh. Kacchan probably just had a bad morning and was taking it out on him again, nothing unusual. Though from that thought, Izuku remembered what his mom said that morning about yesterday being a training day, even though he was 100% sure that it wasn’t. He pulled out his training planner from his backpack, placed it over his lecture notebook, and flipped to the current week. Just as he’d predicted, yesterday had not been planned as a resting day, but as one of the four training days this week. He tapped his chin, trying to remember yesterday morning, but for some reason, his memory seemed to fail him—yesterday seemed…far away somehow.
Before he could ruminate along that thought, something underneath the corner of his planner caught his eye. Something that definitely wasn’t his handwriting.
He lifted his planner and met with handwriting so neat and elegant that he thought it could almost be considered calligraphy, if only it was written with ink and brush, and not a graphite pencil. Izuku stared at the characters—whoever wrote this clearly had confidence in their writing, as each stroke commanded a sense of authority and belonging. Despite being written in a lecture note book, the words knew they were conveying something more important.
Who are you?
Izuku blinked. Who could’ve written this?
Who am I? This is my note book—who are you? His instinct urged him to write that underneath the elegant characters, but he felt that his own handwriting would look like clunky scribbles in comparison. Nonetheless, a few lines under that question, he wrote, I’m Midoriya Izuku. He faltered. Was that it? In a nervous attempt not to sound rude, he added, It’s nice to meet you!
Izuku thought back to his mom’s word’s from the morning, the discrepancy in his schedule, his inability to remember what exactly happened yesterday morning, and, now suddenly coming back to him, the strangely realistic dream he had last night.
Finally, he wrote, Who are you?