*Izuku's POV*

"Bye! See you later Dad!" I shouted into the house, my voice echoed around the house before my dad called back, "Stay safe Izu. Remember to be home by 7:00." He replied as I shut the door and sprinted down the pavement towards Kyoka's parent's studio.

"About fucking time!" Kacchan shouted from his position leaning against the black concrete of the modern style building. I stopped in front of him and breathed deeply, I had been running for 10 minutes, and whilst my stamina was amazing for my age, I had been sprinting for a majority of that time. I wasn't too winded, I just need a moment to breathe. "Do you ever arrive anywhere on time?" Kacchan jested teasingly. I shot him a playful glare as I opened the door to the studio and waved to the Natsu, the receptionist. Natsu smiled and waved back as Kacchan and I walked through the entrance area and into the stairwell.

When we arrived at the recording studio which we frequented, Kacchan and I heard Kyoka plucking the strings of her bass. The sound resonated around the room, creating a mournful tune which hurt my heart. When Kyoka played such depressing music, Kacchan and I knew that her mind had wandered back to the year she spent in a toxic relationship with Akashi. Even though she was out of the relationship and Akashi hadn't been near her since the start of 3rd year, the effects of the ordeal ran deep in Kyoka. "Are you ok, Kyoka?" I asked gently as I walked up to her and placed a soothing hand on her shoulder. Kyoka lifted her face and I saw tear streaks on her cheeks, her purple eyes were damp and held torrents of pain in them. "I'll be fine." She responded quietly. I was about to say something more when she walked away, causing my hand to drop down to my side limply. I knew that she was in a dark place at that moment. Nobody knew the full extent of what Akashi had done to Kyoka. She refused to speak to anyone about it. As far as I could figure out, he hadn't done alot physically but had abused her mentally. The thought wounded me, but without knowing what Akashi had said I feared I wouldn't be of much help to Kyoka.

Once Kyoka calmed down, we jumped into our practice. Over the years, I'd like to think we had become pretty good, of course, we weren't at any sort of professional level, but we were good enough to get a few gigs in cafes and the likes. We started off playing one of Jiro's original songs which she had written when she was 13. Neither Kacchan or I knew what her inspiration for the song was but we loved playing it. It was called 'Longshot' (by Catfish and The Bottlemen) and it was one of our most requested songs at the cafe which we frequented. As I strummed along to Kyoka's husky voice and Kaccahn's drumming, I felt a deep sense belonging in my stomach. I felt like I was exactly where I was supposed to be with who I was supposed to be with.

I chugged down my water and wiped the perspiration off of my forehead as we finished band practice for the day.  We usually practised for 4 hours but since the UA entrance exams were so close we decided to cut down the band practice so that we could study and train in preparation. "We should head for Dagobah now, today is endurance training without quirks." Kacchan commented as he hefted his workout bag onto his shoulder and waited patiently for Kyoka and me to collect our stuff before we left the studio.

"Ok, so today dad said that we should run up and down this portion of the beach 20 times. If we need to stop that's fine but for every minute you're standing still you have to do 5 push-ups." I read from the instruction sheet that my dad had given me earlier that month. Shota said that we were old enough to complete our training on our own and that if he ever found out we were slacking he'd string us up by our feet. We all thought that the threat was a bit unnecessary since we all had motivation enough. We all wanted to be heroes and we already knew the dedication and effort we would have to put in to reach our dreams. "READY!" Kacchan shouted as he prepared himself to run. Kyoka and I followed suit and got into a running position, it was an unspoken rule that whoever finished last had to pay for the other two's post-training meal. "3...2...1...GO!" I yelled. Sand flew up behind us as we propelled ourselves forward and began running up and down the beach, going 200 meters each way.

In the end, Kacchan came last because he burned himself out within the first couple of sprints up and down the beach. His reasoning was that if someone was in trouble he had to get to them as fast as possible,  I countered him by pointing out that it's unlikely that you'll have to sprint 4 kilometres to save someone. He just crossed his arms and scoffed, a sign that he was conceding for the moment, but I knew that he would argue his point again. "Let's go to the usual cafe and then we can head go home." Kyoka called as she hefted her bag onto her shoulders. With slightly shaky legs, I followed after her as she walked up to the beach wall and vaulted over it.

"Aren't you nervous about the entrance exam?" Kyoka said nervously as she played with the stripy paper straw in her oreo milkshake. I could hear her beat-up purple converse tapping together in a musical beat under the table, it was a nervous habit of hers. Whenever Kyoka was nervous, she made some sort of music with her surroundings. "Well, sort of..." I trailed off awkwardly, I wasn't going to deny that I was scared and nervous. The mere thought of sitting in an examination hall or fighting with my quirk in order to pass an exam made me queasy. But I didn't want to express that to Kyoka and Kacchan, at the time, I thought they might perceive me as weak or something along those lines. More so Kacchan than Kyoka. "Well, I'm scared shitless." Kacchan burst out unexpectedly which caused several glares to be aimed at us, Kacchan glared back with the same amount of heat, causing several people to shrink in on themselves. "Yeah, I'm so nervous. If we can't get into UA then we've wasted all that time for nothing, ya know. I mean, sure there are other hero courses but not being at UA would just feel like a huge letdown." Kacchan continued on as if nothing had happened. He stirred his drink with a pensive look on his face. I nodded my head in agreement and took a sip of my coffee. I had despised coffee with a passion until the start of middle school. It was at that point when I started staying up later to study and write training plans. My dad said that it was unhealthy for me but he really wasn't one to talk. I swear he drank enough coffee to keep an elephant awake for days and he still looked tired. "It's natural to have some nerves. Don't stress it." Kacchan said dismissively. Kyoka nodded absent-mindedly before we started a conversation on who would win between All Might and a T-Rex. 

"I'm home!" I shouted into the house. The quiet murmur of conversation which had been coming from the living room stopped for a second as Shota yelled a greeting before it picked back up again. I hung up my jacket and was about to put on my house shoes when I noticed the three extra pairs of shoes on the mat. One pair clearly belonged to Papa and the other two pairs looked to be female shoes. It clicked in my head that Auntie Joke and Kayama must have been visiting. I quickly dropped my bag into the laundry room before rushing into the living room and pulling Auntie Joke and Kayama into a tight hug. They laughed gently before squeezing me back. Once the hug was over I settled into my favourite armchair and scrolled through my phone, occasionally stopping to read an article about a new hero. The adults were having a random conversation which in all honesty sounded extremely dreary. They may as well have been talking about the stock market or inflation. "Izuku," Kayama poked my arm, drawing my attention to her, "Could you go and get the tea tray, we need to speak about something.". I nodded my head and skipped into the kitchen to make a pot of green tea for the adults. I wondered what they were talking about, I was usually allowed to sit in with them no matter what they were discussing. I was only exempted from conversations if they were discussing hero work or something that 'wasn't Izuku friendly'. I shrugged my shoulders and continued to prepare the tea. It really wasn't any of my business as to what they were discussing, I shouldn't put my nose where it didn't belong. 

I carefully picked the wooden tray and walked towards the living room. As I got closer I could hear Papa talking in a melancholy voice, the complete opposite to his usual chipper attitude. "What are we going to tell Izuku?" he lamented solemnly. I stopped dead in my tracks. Why were they talking about me? Had I done something wrong? I didn't usually like to eavesdrop on private conversations, but the mention of my name had peaked my attention. "Well, we're going to have to tell him, he deserves to know. It does directly affect him, but we can wait till the entrance exams, it's only 3 days away. After we'll tell him." Dad's voice replied, his voice held concern and it was slightly bitter. I thought I should make my presence known, so stepped back a few steps and entered the room with a sunny smile on my face. "I've got tea!" I cheered. As soon as I set foot in the room the sombre faces of the adults morphed into smiles which reflected my own. I knew that in that room not one of the smiles was real.        

I'm not sure where to end this book. If I were to catch up to the manga, it would take ages and I would most likely lose passion. What would be the best place to end this book? If I ended this book and wrote a sequel to it, continuing the story, would you read it? I'm not ending it yet, but I guess it's something I need to consider. Have any of you watched Beastars? I really love the opening song, it's stuck in my head. I also love one of the openings to Fire Force, its called 'Inferno', I really love the chorus. I also finally started watching Black Clover and I'm now hooked on it. So hooked in fact, that I've started to neglect my school work... whoops. Anyway, thank you for reading chapter 17 and I hope you have a lovely day wherever you are.