Lonely.

Hanging on the underbelly of all his anger, wit, and sarcasm Izuku Midoriya felt nothing but loneliness. It was a sinking feeling, leaving him hollow and pale as if someone carved out all the best parts of himself and left a gaping hole in the essence of his soul. Not even bothering to patch him up. 

Of course, there was always some part of him that always felt this way―isolated and alone. He didn't have many friends growing up, kept to himself most of the time, his parents had been his friends. And as pathetic as that sounds it was all Izuku needed at the time. All he ever wanted.

Perhaps that had been because he always assumed a relationship―platonic and romantic alike―would form on its own accord someday. It wasn't something he felt the need to rush, because there was always time.

Clearly, that had not been the case.

He hadn't meant to become so vulnerable the prior night, prone and susceptible to taunting or provocation. But he couldn't help it. Izuku was tired beyond his limits, aching both physically and mentally, at a point where if he didn't get something off his chest he'd burst. 

And Katsuki had surprised him, too. Instead of the jeers he'd anticipated would come, all he received was silent comfort and consolation.

"For the record, I'm glad it was you that survived, Izuku." he had said, the words hanging in the terse air with such . . . sincerity. 

Izuku hadn't responded as he'd hoped to, no, he was too lost in his own mind. It was a series of never-ending mazes, shifting, curling, and turning on its axis at any given point in time. Never allowing him to go the same way twice. 

Never allowing him to escape.

He appreciated the gesture, appreciated immensely, in fact. Before that―that simple touch of hands that affected him more than he wished to concede―Izuku had not noticed how painfully comfort-starved he was. It brought back a string of now tainted, bittersweet, memories of his mother. 

Ruffling his hair in attempts to purposefully aggravate him, wiping his tears as they slid down his cheeks, always 'forgetting' to turn the lights off before he went to bed because he still had an unnatural fear of the dark. He'd get anything he could have, at this point, even from Katsuki.

Loud. Prideful. Self-centered Katsuki.

When he inevitably woke up, it was barely morning, the last dregs of moonlight disappearing beyond the horizon. It gave the sky a stark shade of purple, slowly fading into pink and orange. A wistful sigh left Izuku's lips upon seeing this―he'd never get over the beauty the outside world had to offer.

. . . Or the danger.

"You're an early riser,"

Izuku's eyes snapped upward, being greeted with a face dangerously close to his. He blinked once, twice, trying to pull the sleep from his eyes as he registered Zara's all-too-close features. She was hanging upside down on a low tree branch, her legs hooked around the bark, arms folded oddly across her chest, and wild hair falling forward in a mock-halo.

"Apparently, so are you," Izuku shot back in an early-morning drawl. "Zara, wasn't it?"

"The one and only," she chuckled, swinging back a little before hauling her body forward till she landed in front of the boy on her feet. She'd done it so quickly―agilely―Izuku nearly missed it. "How's the leg?"

It was then that Izuku realized he's hardly felt the excruciating pain he expected to feel upon being stabbed in the leg. While he didn't have time to do a thorough check-up of the damage that had been done the night prior, he assumed it'd be bad. A bundle of nerves possibly scarred, not to mention the layers of skin the dagger cut through. Gangrene should have been setting in by now―

"What the hell . . . ?" he murmured, examining his leg carefully. The dagger had been removed, a bad move considering he could have bled out and died, but that hadn't been the case.

No, instead his leg looked and felt, close to healed by now. A dull ache resonating from where the stab wound―now beginning to scab over at the skin―was. Small traces of the green substance from before, the mushrooms, still lingered on his flesh.

"That . . . shouldn't be . . . possible," Izuku breathed out, eyes comically wide. 

Zara frowned, trying to contain the way her lips wanted to tilt into a smile. "Oops, did I forget to mention that you'd be mostly healed by morning? My bad . . ." she didn't sound too apologetic.

"How do you forget to mention―" Izuku pressed his fingers to his temples, rubbing them accordingly. "―How is this possible?"

"Didn't we tell you about the chemicals in the water and how they affected the plants nearby?" Zara sighed with a smile. "Well, this is the result of those effects. But in my defense I forgot to mention it'd heal you because . . . well, because I'm a guard, not a healer―so, it may have slipped my mind,"

Izuku sighed shaking his head, this was so much to wrap his head around. He had been mentally preparing himself for months of physical therapy, crutches, pain medication he could scrape up from the Bunker. 

"Look, what I can tell you definitively is to take it easy for the next couple of days, yeah?"

Izuku nodded wordlessly, his mind elsewhere as he made mental notes of these mushrooms. He'd be back here again at some point, to run tests and conclusive theories about the plants that grow here. It was all too interesting to pass up.

"Where's Shoto and Shitty Bitch?" Izuku asked quietly after some time, Shoto and Soiren nowhere to be found.

"'Shitty Bitch?'" she parroted, fighting off another smile.

Izuku nodded, a smug grin plastered on his face. "Shitty Bitch," he said in a confirming tone, pulling a laugh from the girl. "But, seriously, where are they?"

"They came back for a little while an hour ago, but they left again to do perimeter checks and go back to the village for supplies and food," she explained, violet eyes wide and distant as she watched the sky slowly change a variety of colors. "I'm not sure what we're doing after this, they didn't say,"

A hint of bitterness was detected in her tone, clearly upset she was being left out of the loop. Petulantly upset, it seemed. It was cute.

Izuku let his eyes slip close at this, his head hitting the tree bark with a thud. Some traitorous part of him wanted to think everything through, the past few hours had been hell, the past few days had been torture, thinking was a good way to go, right? But the more Izuku thought about it―those thoughts being thinking about thinking―he decided that it wasn't worth it.

Why confront his feelings more when he could bottle them up?

To him, a very tired sixteen-year-old, this seemed like the best option at the moment.

And he was fine with this, at peace with it, that is until a rustling crack began to disturb that peace. His eyes flew open, everything on high-alert as he grabbed ahold of the nearest thing he could find―a very large stick.

"What's that?" Izuku whisper-shouted, eyes never leaving the bushes a few feet ahead.

Before Zara could respond, a small, white, animal leaped from the bushes. Leaves stuck to its fur―in all honesty, it didn't look too threatening, but by now Izuku knew better than to judge something by appearances. For all he knew, the little fucker could spit acid and kill them all within seconds. 

However, the black-haired woman seemed more at ease since the animal leaped from its position. Hell, she even took the initiative to beckon it over, clicking her tongue and slowly approaching with a smile.

"It's just a bunny, Izuku," she laughed quietly, gently scooping the creature into her arms. "This is a good thing! They're said to bring good luck upon those who find them,"

Izuku huffed, looking rightly confuddled by the whole situation as he racked his brain to try and connect her words into something more . . . lucid. While the teachers at the Bunker did their best to teach him about all the animals the outside world had to offer, it didn't do much for him considering he'd never actually seen one before.

He felt so embarrassingly bovine, his face flushed a deep crimson.

"Oh," he hummed, slowly settling the stick back onto the ground. "I knew that."

 "No you didn't," a gruff voice spoke up.

Izuku narrowed his eyes, feeling the tell-tale sign of annoyance igniting through his veins as he prepared to strike back at whoever the hell just spoke. A rather witty comeback―in his personal opinion―pressed pointedly like daggers at the tip of his tongue until he turned around. Only to be met with a pair of scarlet eyes.

Katsuki looked much better from the night before, his lips more red than a sickening pale; eyes wide, full, and attentive in that 'I just woke up' kind of way; and the scars across his chest had begun to scab-over now.

But, truth be told after his eyes raked over the boy he'd come to an unsettling impasse with himself. Because then Katsuki's words finally registered in Izuku's head, more specifically his voice, how deep and gruff it sounded when he just woke up. And his spikey hair now lay flat against his head, the tips flailing out around all sides like a pointy halo. And how―

What in the literal ass was he thinking, right now?

Izuku shook his head, whatever response he had dying out on his tongue. What the hell was that about?

"You look like shit," Izuku said, rather bluntly, after some time of staring like a madman.

Katsuki scoffed, rolling his eyes adorably―annoyingly. The younger male shuddered at his own train-of-thought, he really needed to get it together.

"Yeah, well you don't look so hot yourself, Crazy." Katsuki drawled, enunciating each word painfully slow as he regains full consciousness.

"Speak for yourself―" Izuku, throwing all caution to the wind, hoisted himself up. Finding that dull ache in his leg only amplifying with the added pressure, but he could walk on it. And there's no way he was back down now, not with Katsuki's eyes still on him. "―I look sexy as hell right now."

The blond grinned up, matching Izuku's outspoken arrogance with his own silent egotism. Clearly trying to annoy the boy further.

"Sure you do," mocking, always so mocking.

"I mean it," Izuku hummed, "I don't know what material you guys use for your clothes, but my ass―" he turned to look at the body part in question, "―has never looked better. It's like some type of super-fabric,"

While he was trying to come off as an egotistical prick, Izuku did mean what he said. The fabric, though a bit roughened and ripped from his ordeal, did an unsettlingly good job at keeping him warm throughout the cold night . . . As well as framing his ass in ways he didn't think was possible.

So, he was a little conceited. Sue him.

"Of course you would think about your ass at a time like this," Katsuki's voice sounded annoyed, though something told Izuku this wasn't the case.

Izuku's eyes darted up, nose twisting up. "Hm? At a time like what?"

"We literally just escaped my psychotic family and there's a traitor in my village?" the elder spoke slowly, gauging Izuku's expressions as he did so. 

There it was again―that traitorous part of him―clawing at all sides. He had given that part of him a taste last night, a taste of what it felt like to not hide behind the unforgiving mask of deception. It was like a drug, and god damn it, he wanted more.

And, for a split second, he almost gave him. Almost allowed himself to feel and think again as he did last night.

But then that second passed, and a smug smile drifted across his lips.

"This all sounds like a you problem, Katsuki," he teased, wiggling his eyebrows.

However, instead of responding in whatever bastard way Izuku had envisioned, Katsuki just simply stared at him. In that intense hypnotizing way Izuku had only seen a handful of times, not angry nor annoyed, merely intent and calculating. His eyebrows pulled tautly and his jaw rolling slowly.

Like he knew every deep, dark, secret Izuku had been harboring. Like he could see right through his façade.

"Hey, when you two are done measuring dicks, can you come over here?" Zara beckoned, voice far off and distant.

And fucks sake, Izuku was grateful for the distraction. The escape from reality.

Turning on his heel, he limped over towards where Zara was hunched back by another tree. She held the bunny over her head, glaring intently at its underside while the small creature kicked its hind legs. 

Izuku heard distinct rustling sounding off behind him, presumably Katsuki staggering up himself. As he knelt down, confusion was written clear as day on his face. Just as he was about to ask what was the matter, he paused dead in his tracks―he hadn't noticed the bunny too much upon its arrival, too scared to pay attention to trivial details. Now, he wished he had.

Its belly was matted down in a red liquid suspiciously close to blood. Trace amounts rested lightly on its snout and whiskers. Bunnies . . . He sifted through the onslaught of lessons he used to take on nature―seemingly so unimportant at the time―bunnies were herbivores. They only ate plants.

They couldn't eat anything that produced blood.

Just breathe. Just breathe. Just breathe.

". . . What the hell?" Katsuki breathed behind him. 

Zara frowned, cradling the bunny to her chest as she ran her fingers beneath its stomach. Holding up her fingers as she examined them in the stark light.

"It's fresh . . . Definitely not animal blood," she whispered, more to herself it seemed than the others. Violet eyes, so soft and innocent, now flared and determined. "Ductor, you and Izuku need to go for higher ground. Now. I'll go check it out,"

Katsuki scoffed. "Like hell I'm―"

"Katsuki," Zara pleaded, "Please don't argue with me on this. I'll be back soon, okay?"

And before either of the boys could add their input, she was gone.

And Izuku?

Well, whatever wisps of childhood innocence he was holding onto for dear life . . . seemed to go with her.       

Hello Cricket Cultists!!

I've been writing for like . . . almost five years now, and I still don't know the difference between effect and affect. What the fuck?

This chapter was short, only 2.4K words, but I think it was necessary. This was mainly to reveal how Izuku was doing in the aftermath . . . and clearly he isn't doing well. On a happier note, though not really, I know how I'm going to get the bois to bond individually and together in a trio!

That's coming up in maybe two or three chapters!

I'm probably going to be switching back to Izuku P.O.V for those, then we'll got back to Shoto. Because let me tell you, our baby is going through shit rn.

Thought/questions/comments/theories/anything at this point??

Until we meet again!!!