Izuku has the name of his childhood friend on the tip of his lips when he wakes up for the idea that he is coming to live at home for the week haunted his night that much.

He can't help but sigh while closing his eyes, trying somehow to chase away the blonde's image that runs in a loop under his eyelids, exhausted and annoyed at his inability to spend a restful night even when he doesn't have nightmares.

A quick look towards his alarm clock lets him know that today is May fourteenth, that the temperature is 7°C outside and that it's too early for him to get ready for school but far too late to try to go back to sleep.

Ignoring the dull pain of his muscles, Izuku drags himself painfully to the bathroom to take a hot shower.

Usually, he would not even look up to stare at his face but this morning, for some reason he does not understand, he lets his towel fall to the ground after passing it through his damp hair instead of continuing his routine without thinking and positions himself in front of the mirror.

He can see the shadow of a few muscles emerging on his torso and arms and even if he can see his collarbones more than well, he's beginning to have the illusion that his shoulders are made of more than bones and skin.

He could be happy to see his body change like that if other things did not remain immutable, unchanged and eternal... like the bruises that stain his body with all their colours, ranging from violet to yellow, reminding him that neither the muscles of yesterday nor those he will have tomorrow can protect him.

He touches a bruise with the tip of his fingers, and is surprised to grimace when he presses on it, astonished to see that his body has still not abandoned the madness of trying to heal him over making him numb. Izuku feels that his skin is still a little dead around the bruises and he wonders how nice it would be to be blue everywhere and feel nothing anymore.

He doesn't think he could be much uglier, painted with haematomas, and that wouldn't really be a problem since the only one who sees him naked didn't choose him for his beauty.

Izuku feels like he's coming back into his body when he blinks and he opens the medicine cabinet to take the arnica and start applying it to every blotch he sees, swallowing his shame when he sees those that came from the bus.

He manages to bandage the spots on his back where his skin broke so as not to stain his shirt and then puts on his winter uniform before going down for a light breakfast.

It is not uncommon for the young man to go perch on the edge of the cliffs that are right against the sea when he doesn't feel very well or needs to think. And as he regularly needs it, he has his own little spot, his cliff. It's not really his but no one is there to contradict him since no one usually comes to this place, rumours that they are too unstable and parents who do not want their children to fall several tens of metres by accident repel those who are too curious.

Izuku always sit on the tip of the one who has a cutting hedge and watches the large body of greyish water come crash lower. Sometimes he starts talking, in the vast nothingness or imagining that the sea hears him, just to get out words, so as not to forget how to speak.

When he looks at the time on his phone, he is disappointed to see that he must already leave so as not to miss his bus.

He goes down the street when he sees his childhood friend further away, walking with his shoulders far too bent for him to be in a good mood and regularly shooting into a pebble that must be of his opinion. Izuku still makes the decision to approach him and takes a deep breath to give himself some courage.

"Um... Hello? Kacchan?" No answer.

"I have your lessons, yesterday's," he says, clumsily pulling them out of his bag to give them to him.

"If we have a exam and I couldn't study because of you, you will die," he says, taking them with a sharp move, his other hand letting go a wave of threatening smoke.

"Yes, sorry... I should have given them to you earlier but-"

"I don't care," he cuts him off before getting on the bus that just arrived.

Izuku gets on in turn, ignoring that his throat dries up and puts himself where he can, squeezing his bag against him. He ignores Cito's wretched smile all the ride.

Izuku watches his teacher enter their class and settle down without succeeding in getting rid of the strange feeling that has not left him since he got on the bus this morning. Maybe he imagines things but he is almost sure that his classmates look at him much more than usual.

He looks at his uniform again to see if he doesn't have a stain or a word taped on his back but no, everything is normal. He can't help but squirm on his chair, uncomfortable.

There is something pernicious in the air, he can't help but think.

The teacher interrupts his thoughts by giving them an permission slip to be signed for the next day and Izuku only needs to take one look at it to know that it doesn't concern him and that his stepfather will never allow for him to go in a pool.

It's not that he doesn't want to go - he likes large bodies of water and it would do him good to learn how to swim now that he is fourteen years old - but it may not be such a bad thing when he knows that it would be another opportunity for his classmates to humiliate him. He is not stupid enough to think that Marcus is doing this to make his life easier but it is better than accepting that it is to hide the bruises and other wounds that he inflicts upon his body.

He will surely not make things easier for him either and Izuku is already mentally preparing to have to beg the man to sign him a note to avoid being in freezing water during his first hour of class, just because it amuses him to see him begging crying.

"That's enough now, class has begun," sighs their teacher without real enthusiasm.

It takes a little more than a quarter of an hour for Izuku - who is assiduously following his lesson - to realise that a detail should attract his attention. He might not even have realised it at all if the students around him did not regularly turn to him while waiting for his reaction and it is by looking around him to see what they find so funny that he sees it.

Placed on the table to his right - empty, since no one wants to associate with the quirkless boy - a notebook entitled IN VIEW OF MY FUTURE HERO CAREER. He feels the heat rising to his cheeks, having heard too many snide remarks not to understand that his classmates find his hopes ridiculous and to not feel at least a little bit ashamed by them.

He quickly looks at the number on it and when he sees the twelve written on the cover, he understands that he had not simply misplaced it as he had believed. He feels a small pinch in his heart when he sees that the person who stole from him did not take much care of it and that the almost new notebook is now in the same condition as some of the students' textbooks in his class.

He knows that he must be observed, now that he has seen the notebook but it does not stop him and he only takes a deep breath before taking it in his hands and starting to flick through it.

The first pages are in the same state he had left them, leaving him almost hoping that the whole joke of his classmates was to damage his belongings until, by turning a page, he finds himself facing a thousand insults...

He suddenly understands what is different from usual when he raises his eyes and meet those of his classmates... the students who were just simple spectators became just as bad as the blonde. Or even worse.

All the looks and laughs that surrounded him since the morning... They took action, got worked up to see him suffer...

A glance at the new student and Izuku knows that he is responsible for this because he sends a winks and a wicked smile his way.

Maybe it was too tempting for his class to see Kacchan blow off steam on him without being able to do the same. All he knows is that Cito gave them the opportunity to unleash their malice and that they grabbed it with open arms.

Izuku looks at the notebook in his hands, unable to want to throw it in the trash. He tells himself that it is already ruined, a bit like him, and maybe that's why he turns the pages to find out where the insults stop and that he starts to timidly write, his hand a little trembling and clammy, what happens in his house.

He doesn't have the courage to write much, and nothing very incriminating but it's a small start. These are a few small lines that he writes to have a trace that he is not crazy, that it really happened. Because he realises with horror that he sometimes has trouble remembering what his stepfather is doing to him and that he only has his nightmares to remind him that it happened.

He also has the timid hope that maybe one day, someone will steal this notebook again and read it. But the idea is so crazy that it makes him want to puke and to shout to the world that it's not true without hesitation, so he convinces himself that it's just for him and quickly closes the notebook when he wrote a few words in it before hiding it in another in his bag, livid and wondering what went through his head. However, he doesn't try to cover up what he wrote.

Too concerned about the new wickedness of his classmates, it is only at lunch time that he remembers that his childhood friend must come to his house and that he discreetly crosses his fingers in his pocket praying that the evening will not take a bad turn.

Izuku doesn't think he could be more mortified and livid than now and he would give a lot to be able to skip classes.

He doesn't even have the strength to take notes while the students around him laugh stupidly and his gaze does everything to avoid the blackboard where he can read the words "sex education" that his teacher has just written in chalk.

The green-haired boy can't help but make himself even smaller than usual, as if he had a sign around his neck that explained that he knows way more than any student should know at his age.

And just the mental image makes him blush with shame and sweat bullets.

He knows that he will not have the strength to lift his pen for the rest of the lesson and just silently hopes that his teacher will not ask him a question so that he does not break down in tears in front of everyone.

"Well..." starts their teacher after instructing them to open their textbooks. "So let's start with the female genitalia.... " he says, projecting a diagram on the board. "Well, there is the uterus, the tubes..."

"Sir, I don't quite understand your diagram... " complains one of his classmates who laughed a few seconds earlier with his seatmate. "I have an idea! Izuku could just show us!"

"Good idea!" says the girl next to him, still laughing. "So Izuku? What are you waiting for to take off your pants?"

"Please stop your dubious jokes," said the man, in an exasperated tone, not even reacting when others also begin to laugh.

After all, Izuku doesn't say anything either, even when he feels a foot brutally meeting his chair.

On the verge of tears and red with shame, he can only regret the time when Kacchan was the only one to bother him.

The evening bus ride is silent, even when Izuku tries to say hello to the blonde who ignores him. He quickly gives up until they get off at their stop where the blonde is forced to wait for him and it is convenient because he can't just sneak to the beach where his mentor is waiting for him.

"Sorry Kacchan but I can't go home with you. I have a... uh... training. My mother should be waiting for you in front of your house to take your bag."

He doesn't get an answer, only a look that he translates to "what could you be possibly training for when you look like that? " and he doesn't pay more attention to it because he doesn't seem to want to stop him from going.

"See you later... " he still says before hurrying so as not to be late.

Once in Deku's mother's car, his bag on his laps and the woman in question driving, Katsuki wants more than ever to sigh because of his situation while she tells him that she is happy to see him, of his friendship with her son...

He can't help but be uncomfortable with her remarks that push him to think that the other has said nothing about what is happening at school. He quickly forgets this when the boy's house enters his field of vision and the woman parks the car.

"I'm back!" She said in a cheerful tone as she passed the door. "Katsuki, let me introduce you to my partner, Marcus!"

A bearded and massive man gets up from the sofa, interrupting his program to approach him. Katsuki is almost afraid of what he could do if he discovered how he treats his stepson until he speaks. His tone and way of acting with him make him think of all those guys who act all big and tough to look imposing and Katsuki immediately loses some respect for him while wondering which kid pushed him too hard on the playground to act like that, then he wonders if Deku will turn out the same.

"Nice to meet you Katsuki. Are you in Izuku's class?" questions the other in a too polite voice that makes him want to roll his eyes and pop his inflated muscles with a needle.

"Yes, since kindergarten," he says just as politely because he doesn't want to show him that he could break his mouth or his stepson's in two seconds if he wanted to.

"Very well. Go put your bag in his room. It's the first door on the right at the top of the stairs. He should be back in a short time..."

"Good."

The man nods, satisfied, before returning to his program and Katsuki clenches his jaw.

Katsuki climbs the steps, coming in the nerd's room that he could not have mistaken even if it has changed a lot since his last visit. His passion for All Might is less present although still there, through posters on the walls or office supplies and one of his shelves is filled with notebooks on super heroes... In a corner of the room he even sees a violin and he seems to remember in a fleeting moment that his father was also playing it.

The teenager does not hold back the bitter sigh that passes through his lips when anger rises in his body. The room before his eyes completely perfects the picture, the staging that Deku makes everyone believe. An always innocent kid, who never does anything to deserve what happens to him. Just a clumsy witness who is never responsible, who was passing by. See for yourself, Mr. Officer, the poor victim plays the violin.

He clenches his fist until his joints turn white to avoid sending a blow into the instrument or worse, sending a few sparks to watch it burn gently.

Instead, he takes out his homework and forces himself to focus on it by deliberately using one of his collector pens and imagining a way to shake the other enough so that he reveals his true colour to his parents and finally suffers the consequences of his actions.

Katsuki is not stupid, far from it, and he does not believe for a moment that what the other is trying to make him believe is true. That he can start crying and begging without ever fighting back and live it well, that he can look him in the eyes and smile at him as if they were friends when they both know that he needs so very little to push him against a locker.

He doesn't believe it. Even this bedroom, he doesn't believe in it. He repositions himself on the chair while looking at the room, uncomfortable. Too many things don't stick, starting with the fact that Deku likes to cry too much for not having explained to his parents what's going on at school. And for Katsuki it can only mean one thing: he is right to be wary and Deku is trying to make them swallow lies. And if the idea that he can live his ideal little life as a perfect son trying to make a dumbass out of him doesn't make him lose his shit, he doesn't know what could.

Despite his brooding anger, it does not take him long to finish his homework and when he goes down the stairs, he finds himself face to face with the boy in question, soaked in sweat and trying to come in silently.

Izuku feels the relief overwhelm him when he walks through the door and he does not hear a scream or finds himself face to face with his stepfather, the training of the day not having been the easiest. He spent it half-focused, too concerned about the presence of the blonde in his house and the bubbling anguish in his blood and he almost took a piece of scrap metal in the face. He was so distracted and clumsy that All Might decided to stop early, which apparently did not prevent him from arriving late in front of his house, with a knot in his stomach.

And it is when he tells himself that he succeeded in his attempt to come inside quietly that he finds himself in front of the two red eyes of his classmate who goes down the stairs.

Katsuki never claimed to be a good person and seeing the other's eyes widen in panic in front of him, he does not miss the opportunity to let off steam a little.

"Good evening Izuku!" boasts the blonde, leaning against the wall, reveling in his pleading expression when he raises his voice.

Katsuki is having fun and is already imagining what he will be able to do the rest of the week. After all, he is right: if the other wants to play the perfect child, he only has to do it correctly. He doesn't respect his curfew? He pays the consequences.

The other awkwardly tries to reprimand him by looking sternly at him but it just makes him smile mischiously when a feminine voice interrupts his little moment of triumph by calling her son.

"Ah! Sweetheart, can you help me set the table? The meal is done..."

"Yes, Mom! Right away!" answers the boy who seems to hesitate to thank a deity for her intervention before almost running in the direction of the kitchen.

Katsuki does not know if he can describe the atmosphere around him with a word other than heavy. He who is used to noisy meals either because of his father's comments or his mother's tirades, the heavy silence only interrupted by the clicking sound of cutlery against the plates makes him want to scrape his throat.

The man in front of him must realise his discomfort and he would thank him for speaking if the idea that he can decode him so easily did not bother him.

"So Katsuki, how is school? Do you have good grades?"

The blonde doesn't know if he could have chosen a topic more bland.

"Yes, I am often in the top of my class."

"It is not like some people I know," he says without really hiding his annoyance. "Izuku you should take his example! Your grades are going down, it's unacceptable!"

As his classmate does not seem to react to the lecture, Katsuki turns his gaze to his mother who casts a somewhat reprobative look at the man in her diagonal. The latter sees it and continues, probably trying to justify himself.

"Do you think I could have come to this country without problems if I wasn't very good in class?" He asks, addressing the woman. "He's stupidly closing doors for himself and it's our job not to let it happen."

Katsuki doesn't know if he is really convinced by this reason but it at least has the merit of softening the expression on Inko's face so he returns to his plate. It's more in his wheelhouse, couple banters, so he eats without difficulty.

"I'm going to do my best father, sir..." says Deku, his eyes riveted on his vegetables.

"It is not very impressive, your best," retorts the other, leaving almost no time for Katsuki to realise that he has just used honorific with his stepfather.

It almost makes him want to make fun of him but he just rolls his eyes discreetly while telling himself that Deku is putting stereotypes one after the other.

"I have a paper for you to sign for tomorrow," says Izuku in a small voice that makes him believe that his stepfather's lecture have touched him more than he wants to make them believe.

The man puts his cutlery down a little brutally on the table before saying in a feverish voice of anger.

"Izuku I'm warning you that if it's detention slip-"

"No, no..." interrupts the boy. "I-it's for the swimming lessons..."

"Katsuki I will sign yours," the woman tells him in a gentle tone. "Your teacher is aware that you are with us this week."

"Thank you," answers Katsuki with a tense smile. "By the way, could I go and train in the evening? I plan to go to Yuei next year."

"Of course," said the man in a softer voice. "Why don't you take example on your classmates, Izuku? Hanging out in the evening won't help you at all! And if ever your "training" did not bear these fruits, having good grades would be necessary for you."

"Aren't you being a little hard on him, darling?" asks the woman who had came out of the dining room to bring the desserts.

"It's for his own good. I say that because I'm worried about seeing him do nothing. A little ambition has never killed anyone," he ends while taking his piece of cake.

Izuku sighs inwardly when his mother once again falls for his lies and sits down at the table after serving everyone.

He wants to laugh and cry at the same time when he hears him and he just shoves a big spoonful in his mouth to keep himself busy. By meeting the clearly satisfied look of the blonde, he does not know if he hates more that his parents talk about him as if he were absent or that Kacchan is there to see it.

"Anyway, it's not as if I was going to let things continue like that," says the adult next to him. "We'll talk about it later, up there, alright Izuku?"

"Yes father," mumbles Izuku who knows that it is not an option and who is now too afraid to eat.

Once the meal is over, Izuku does not wait for someone to ask to climb to the attic.

When Katsuki hears what looks like crying coming from higher in the house, muffled by the floor, he stops to pay more attention to it before turning a little intrigued to Inko who was showing him the bathroom.

"Ah..." said the woman, also looking up without looking surprised. "I'm sorry..." she says in a slightly embarrassed tone. "It's Izuku... he's been having tantrums since he was little when Marcus helps him with his homework... he-" she interrupts herself with a grimace- "Marcus is not the best teacher but he does his best and I think Izuku is just still having trouble adjusting with his presence at home."

Katsuki can see the discomfort of the woman who busy herself folding the bath towels in the closet but he can't help but question her.

"But he's been living with you for a long time, right?"

"Yes, almost ten years now," she says with an unfocused smile and rotating a ring on her finger that the blonde can only imagine coming from the man in the attic.

"Well,"  said the woman, handing him toiletries, cutting short to his thoughts. "I suppose that adolescence is not easy in a blended family."

Something dark and sad passes through her eyes and Katsuki just thanks her and takes a shower. It is only when rinsing himself that he realises that the house is singularly silent again.

Later, when Deku joins him in his own room, his red-rimed eyes make him easily understand that he must have cried.

Izuku moves like an automaton to his wardrobe to take clothes when the voice of his childhood friend cuts the heavy silence with a stinging remark.

"I didn't know you had temper tantrums" Said his falsely disinterested voice while the other boy can't help but think that his stepfather managed to find the most perfect and humiliating excuse.

He doesn't answer him and takes his favourite long-sleeved pyjamas in the closet before going to the bathroom.

It doesn't take him long to be clean and once dry, he picks up his dad's violin in his room before returning to the attic where he knows he won't find anyone and where no one will come to find and bother him.

It takes over him some evenings, especially in May, to go up there with the instrument and play it ad nauseam, until his fingers hurt and he has no more tears to cry.

Sometimes Izuku wonders if his attic is not magical because it's as if people forget that he exists when he enters it. Like an old ghost whose presence we only sense, and no longer feel the need or urgency to worry about it.

He wonders if his dad is a ghost, if he is looking at him from somewhere or if he too closes his eyes, forever silent and indifferent to his fate.

At this thought, he feels like he is losing all the strength he had left in his hands and lets the instrument fall softly against his legs.

He fleetingly thinks that he should perhaps continue to write in his school notebook so that at least when he is no longer there, his words will remain. He blinks for a long time before returning to his room.

When he sees him coming through the door and closing it, Kacchan glances at him without closing one of his comics that he clearly took after snooping through his belongings before returning to his reading as if nothing had happened.

The boy remains standing on the threshold, not sure of what he should do. He doesn't have the energy to get to his desk but sitting on his bed while the blonde is already there doesn't look like an option either.

"Kacchan, I'm tired, I'd like to sleep..." he tries anyway.

An annoyed sigh answers him but the blonde still puts the book in its place before getting under the covers.

"I hope for you that you stopped pissing the bed," says the blonde without looking at him.

"What are you talking about?" Asks Izuku who stopped dead in his track, well aware of what he is talking about but above all terrified because he can't understand how the other discovered that it was happening to him when he was younger.

He tries as best he can to remember a moment where Kacchan could have discovered and oh- that's right, the gym.

"It happened only once," Izuku mumbles while also going to bed now that he has managed to regain the use of his limbs after understanding that Kacchan does not know much. Or at least, nothing new.

"I hope for you," scoffs the other.

"Good night Kacchan," simply says Izuku who now thinks back to his seven year of age in spite of himself, to the endless nights littered with nightmares, to the daily horror of wetting in bed again... to Marcus' mean voice telling him that his dad was dead and who was in a loop in his head. His voice that still loops and causes a big start that accidentally shakes the boy with the explosive quirk.

"Oh! 'The fuck are you doing?" He growls as he half turns to give him a dark look.

"Sorry," said the other quickly, finding an excuse. "I must really be more tired than I thought... I'm just going-"

He interrupts himself to go and turn off the light trying to crush the feeling of guilt that grows in his chest because after all it is not totally false and Marcus did really exhaust him.

Kacchan does not answer him and it is while lying in bed properly that he realises - to his greatest misfortune - that the bed is a little too small and that he feels the warmth of the other boy's body against his.

He swallows with difficulty and forces himself to breathe deeply so as not to start shaking, which he regrets almost immediately when he takes a big puff of the caramelised smell of the other teenager in the nostrils.

He suppresses the coughing spell that takes him by surprise and closes his eyes forcefully by repeating to himself that it is only for four days and that he risks nothing, that the real shark that prowls in the abyss is behind the door of his room.

Izuku does not know that he couldn't be more right, the man letting his dark gaze drag on the lying figure of the young boy through the slight crack of the door, staring at his prey unbeknownst to others, mouth drooling in the dark and silent night.