Izuku is in his classroom, alone. When he turns to look out the window, he sees nothing. It's completely dark outside.

How did he ended up there?

He gets up, leaving his notebook open at his desk and tries to get out of the classroom but the door is locked. He insists, but the handle does not move.

He knows that he shouldn't be at school so late and if it's nighttime outside, it must certainly mean that he's late. He is already shuddering when he imagines what may happen when he gets home.

He realises that he is completely naked when a shiver runs through him and when he looks over the empty classroom, he does not see where he could have forgotten his clothes by accident.

Behind his back, a familiar voice makes itself known, laced with annoyance and disdain and he quickly turns around when he hears it.

He knew that he would be punished for being late.

"You little shit."

The man approaches and pulls him by the hair, making him move forward and then bending him down until he is on all fours on the ground, thrown violently on the slightly dirty hardwood floor.

His heart knocks against his ribs as he feels his presence in his back and then his heavy hands are thrown on his hips to grab him and keep him on the ground as he spreads his legs.

His beard scratches the edge of his ear when he insults him with his jerking voice, putting all his strength to try to immobilise him while he struggles.

He doesn't want that. He is terrified.

He's so terrified he's cold.

And the tip of his dick presses against the other end of his body that begins to give way.

It hurts to the point of dizziness, hot then boiling then freezing and he hits the ground with the flat of his hand so hard it hurts to try to handle it.

Nothing helps.

He hears laughter and he raises his head, surprised for a few seconds to see the familiar faces of his classmates before being swallowed up by shame when the man's rutting movements remind him of the show he's giving them.

He wants to scream but he can only moan as he feels the hands on his cheeks groping his flesh and he sees the red light of a camera shining in one of the hands of one of his classmates.

"Says hello to the internet, you quirkless abomination," says a voice that he does not recognise but that makes him want to cry.

"I told you he was a slut," says Mona, looking at him without flinching as he cries, shaken by his sobs and the violent back and forth.

He cries and struggles while Marcus is on him but it just seems to spur him to continue.

The pain is more and more virulent and he screams as if to tear up his lungs as the students seem to shout with him, encouraging the man in each of his movements.

Katsuki suddenly wakes up feeling Deku struggling in his arms crying and twisting in all directions.

"Deku? Hey! Wake up... come on, everything is fine..." he says still half asleep, passing his hand behind his back.

He is in such a state that the blonde is afraid that he will have an anxiety attack and that's what wakes him up completely.

Suddenly, the boy opens his eyes and stops breathing, and throws himself to the other end of the bed when he sees him, crying.

Katsuki approaches but Deku kneels on the ground, to keep distance between them.

"Deku? Everything is fine, okay? It was just a nightmare. Calm down..." says Katsuki who doesn't quite understand the situation but who can't really stand leaving him longer in this state.

"Ka-Kacchan?" He manages to say between two sobs.

"Yes, it's me. Come on, go back to bed, everything is fine."

Seeing that he doesn't move, he gets closer, continuing to reassure him but as soon as he touches him, he starts crying again.

Katsuki is about to step back but the teenager puts his arms around his neck, blocking him where he is.

He awkwardly moves his hand on his back and he gradually calms down.

"Shall we go to bed?" He asks in a whisper.

He nods his head and gets up, still clinging to him as if his life depended on it.

The alarm clock shows 2:46 a.m. when he lays down and he hopes to be able to go back to sleep quickly.

Deku clings to him and, tired, he takes him in his arms, passing his hand on his back several times until he seems to regain his mind and stops crying.

"Are you feeling better?"

"Yes...I'm sorry, I...I had a nightmare and-"

But Katsuki does not have the strength to listen to him now and he almost unhooks his jaw yawning.

"We'll see later, sleep."

Deku places his head on his chest in silence after nodding.

Katsuki does not want to forget about it nonetheless and he promises himself that, once he wakes up again, he will force himself to talk about it with him, more concerned about the panic attack he has just witnessed than he would like.

He tries to repeat it several times in a row so as not to forget it in the early morning, making sure that he will remember it while sleep hins all his thoughts.

Izuku wakes up in Kacchan's arm without first remembering how he got there, then his nightmare comes back to him and he gets closer in the arms of the blond in spite of himself fighting a shiver.

He has most certainly been very pathetic and it makes him want to hide under his blankets to never reappear again.

And as if that were not enough, his alarm clock displays the date of the day in red letters when he turns and he feels the tears behind his eyes without being able to do anything about it.

May seventeenth shines in the darkness of his small room, reminding him that it's been nine years.

Nine years and memories.

Hopes.

Regrets.

He feels Kacchan tense and he turns his head towards him just in time to see him wake up.

"Hello Kacchan," he says, whispering.

"'llo...what time is it?" Growls the boy.

"A little before six. The alarm clock hasn't ringed yet..."

"Great, so you have time to tell me about your nightmare!" Says the teenager, rubbing his eyes.

Izuku tenses.

"It's nothing! I don't remember anymore anyway... You should go back to sleep, you must be tired."

"Do you really think I'm an idiot, Deku? You had a panic attack and you clung to me as if your life depended on it!"

"And I'm sorry Kacchan, but-"

"Stop apologising all the time! Explain yourself for fuck's sake!"

He said this sentence almost shouting.

"Calm down! You're going to wake everyone up! I-"

A shrill noise cuts him off and Izuku Midoriya could bless this alarm clock.

He turns it off and realises that he is nearly not in pain anymore.

At least, less than yesterday.

He goes downstairs without answering the teenager, and unsurprisingly finds his mother standing and already eating breakfast.

As soon as she sees him, she smiles sadly at him.

He doesn't know how to respond other than by doing the same thing.

She takes him in her arms and he hugs her against his body, breathing against her neck.

"Be strong baby...it's going to be fine..."

At her words, a tear, the traitor, runs down his cheek and Izuku guesses that it is the first of a long series.

"It's already been nine years," he says in a breath, as if it would become false if he expelled it from his body.

"I know baby, I know..." can only answer his mother with this disarmed voice that adults have when they have no solution.

"Can you pick me up there after class?"

She nods that yes and the boy turns to Kacchan, who clearly does not understand what is happening.

He does not have the strength to explain it and leaves the blonde in his confusion for breakfast.

Once ready, he goes to the cliff where he lets his legs hang in the void.

He blames himself a little, he knows it's his fault.

The sound of a text message takes him out of his torpor and he panics when he sees that it comes from All Might.

He almost runs to the beach and sees him in his skinny form, waiting for him and looking at the waves.

"You wanted to see me?"

"Yes. My boy, I see that you cleaned the beach, and it's very good!" He says with too much caution for it to be good news.

If only he could prove him wrong.

"However, your body is not yet strong enough to receive my power and I am afraid that the consequences will be too great for you if I entrust it to you now."

"I'm sorry..."

He has the impression that the world is collapsing around him. He is losing everything, seeing pass before his eyes the only thing that still pulls him forward.

He is not up to the task, he failed.

He has never wanted to die so much.

"It doesn't matter! You still have a month before the entrance exam and I would like for you to take the opportunity to train as I saw you do."

"...Do you mean the jumping around and climbing?"

He gives him his famous smile and a breath of hope that he felt go out comes back to life in him.

"By the way, I will be absent for a while. But I will come back the morning of the exam. I'll wait for you here."

"Are you leaving? But why?"

"A friend... strongly advised me to go on vacation. Given my state of health, I must agree with him and a little rest will do me good. And he has wanted us to leave for months, now..."

"A friend? Who?"

"Oh! Uh...my brother."

He looks at him as if to gauge his reaction and Izuku must not seem very convinced because the adult sighs and confesses.

"My husband. I'm talking about my husband."

Izuku tries to camouflage his astonishment and tries to look normal and not to scream or seem to judge him.

It would be terrible and now that he thinks about it, he is convinced that he's going to make a stupid mistake.

"I didn't know you were married! Congratulations!"

"Thank you! Glad to see you take it well, even if I would like you to keep it to yourself, do you understand?"

"Oh, yes. Of course," he says, nodding so hard that he hurts his neck a little.

"And you?" He said with a strange glow in his eyes.

"You know, it's not really something I think about..." he says, looking down, a little embarrassed to talk about this kind of thing with someone he admires so much.

"Of course! And then you are still young. Focus well on your training, that's the most important thing!"

"I promise you I will!" Assures him Izuku. "I'm going to train tirelessly, you'll see!"

He hopes so much that it will be enough.

A quick glance at his phone and he runs to the bus stop, and gets in his place, trying to ignore the remarks of the other students.

This morning he does it rather well, too shaken to think of anything other than all the efforts he will have to make in the coming month if he wants to deserve another chance.

All Might owes him nothing, he knows it and if he does not prove himself, it will be normal for him to withdraw his proposal.

The class day goes by faster than usual and after what feels like three blinks, Izuku is already leaving middle school. That or the feeling of being outside one's body makes time pass faster.

He watches the students get on the school buses while waiting for the the city one and realises that Kacchan did not speak a word to him today when he sees him get into the one he usually takes.

Kacchan who is going home tomorrow.

He doesn't know why it makes him sad.

Maybe it's because it reminded him of simpler times.

Perhaps because he had the hope that they would find their old dynamics again and that they are still strangers to each other.

Maybe he should stop having hope.

The bus arrives and he lets himself be carried by it without really being present to the outskirts of a small forest that he knows very well, away from the town.

He has the bouquet of roses he bought after the end of classes in his hands and even if they were a little roughly handled, they are still very beautiful.

In any case, he does not think it is of great importance if the petals are a little crumpled and he tightens his grip on the stems as he pushes the cemetery gates.

He passes near different graves without paying attention to them and automatically stops in front of a familiar gray tomb decorated with a photo.

He puts the flowers in the vase that he fills with water, sits on the floor and stares at the portrait of the man in front of him.

"Hi, Dad..."

He sighs. Exhales.

He never knows what to say to him... or what to say to the wind that doesn't answer him so he always talks about everything and often nothing.

He says he misses him.

He doesn't say that he doesn't really remember him anymore.

"Your picture is dirty."

It is.

It would be surprising if it were not but it is and Izuku needs to see his frozen face that he sticks on all his memories.

He can't imagine another expression on the man's face, what he looked like in motion.

He takes his sleeve and cleans the photo.

"It's better... I miss you, you know?"

Tears flow from his eyes when he speaks.

He imagines the life he could have had with this man who no longer is and with whom he cannot even imagine sharing his daily life.

He doesn't know him. Neither he, nor his manias, his way of speaking or the way he would have pulled him against him without ever dreading to feel him hard against his thigh.

He will never know him, but he could have.

"Even... even if Kacchan is nice, even if I know it's not going to last, I want to believe it..." he says, feeling his voice break but continuing to speak because it's the only thing he has left. "Marcus is getting worse and worse but there's All Might. I told you about it, do you remember?"

He feels stupid talking to a stone.

"I'm scared dad... I can't take it anymore, I'm going to fall apart... I've already tried to join you and I didn't succeed but I can't hold on and I know I'll try again. Mom never realised it. She sees nothing. You know how well he knows how to manipulate people. I love you, Dad... I wish you had loved me too. Why did you leave me? Why wasn't I enough? I'm sorry I didn't have a quirk. I'm going to have one now... if you hadn't done that, we would all be happy... but I also know that if you did it, it's totally my fault, so..."

The teenager gets up drying his tears and quickly leaves the cemetery, ignoring the other graves again and gets into his mother's car waiting for him outside the wood.

Once at home he goes up to his room stopping only to take off his shoes. He already told his mother that he was not hungry in the car. She said she understood.

He doubts it.

Once in his room, he lets his father's favourite song loop on the computer, the volume low.

He manages to hear it from his bed but if it stopped it would not be a bother because he knows every note by heart.

He takes his plushie, hidden in a wardrobe so that Marcus does not take it and lies down in his bed crying.

He feels like his emotions have been sucked out of him with a straw.

Katsuki is sat at the table with Deku's parents when they hear a piano tune rise in the air and break the silence of dinner.

He looks up from his plate to see the reaction of the parents of the boy who supposedly does not feel well enough to eat and where he expected to see surprise or anger, he only sees Inko whose gloomy face gradually decomposes, her expression going from apathy to a collapsing sadness, not without having tried to fight it.

The woman gets up from the table and leaves crying after apologising.

Katsuki turns to the last person who stays at the table and who is already looking at him.

"What's going on with Inko and Izuku?"

"I can't talk about it. Go see him if you want to know."

He finishes his plate then climbs the steps without waiting and opens the bedroom door.

He comes in to Deku crying in his bed, a plush in his arms while the computer plays the piano.

"Is that the moonlight sonata?"

Deku stops crying and turns to him, eyes red and swollen.

"You know it?"

"My father likes classical music."

The melody sends him back to his piano lessons and he sees himself playing the few melodies he knew to his smiling father. It didn't last long and he quickly got tired of it, much to his father's sadness.

Deku cracks a discreet smile.

"Do you like Beethoven?"

His smile disappears and his lips start trembling again.

Katsuki hides his grimace.

"It was dad's favourite piece..."

Katsuki understands in a quick succession of thoughts that he is talking about his biological father and that with the state in which the other spent the day, this sudden wave of mourning must not come out of nowhere.

"It's been 9 years today..." adds Deku, swallowing a sob and proving him right.

"How did he died?"

"Suicide..." whispers the teenager's broken voice.

Katsuki doesn't know what to answer.

"He killed himself because I had no quirk..." he starts crying even louder and collapses on the duvet.

"Are you telling me that you think it's your fault?!"

"B-But it's my fault..."

The blonde does not know what pushes him to act but it is instinctive when he sees him collapse on himself and that he can almost taste the guilt that emanates from the boy on his tongue. All he knows is that it's unbearable.

In three steps he sat on the bed and he takes him in his arms to rub his back firmly.

"It's in no way your fault, you were 5 years old... Deku, stop. You don't have to blame yourself for something you're not responsible for..."

"How can you be sure it's not my fault?"

He drowns in his tears. Deku hiccups and chokes in his sobs and begs him to get him out of there.

"You didn't kill him, he killed himself."

He starts crying again, stifling the sound of his crying in his t-shirt where he remains hidden.

Katsuki wants it to stop. He has never seen someone cry like that and it's barely bearable.

"Cry Deku, cry... you'll feel better letting go."

Katsuki feels his arms around him respond to his embrace and he supports him even when his eyes no longer have tears to shed and his body still cries.

He takes the plush he had dropped and looks at it with a teasing smile, gently pushing it into his arms to try to distract him.

"You kept it?"

"Yes, I mean... you gave it to me for my birthday."

The tremolo in his voice is too loud for him to ignore but they both try anyway.

He observes the red rabbit with button eyes.

It has small signs of wear but it's clearly loved and that's why he pushes it against his face, and also to annoy him a little.

He should not find him adorable because it is not an adjective he should use for another guy his age but it is still the first one that comes to his mind when Deku clings to the plush while closing his eyes.

"You really carried it everywhere with you."

"Hm. I couldn't live without it."

There's a few seconds where he only breathes deeply against him and then he gets up and puts the plush in his closet.

"I'm gonna go eat something," says Deku, turning to him, his voice hoarse after crying.

Katsuki gets up in turn, deciding to go take a shower when his top wet with tears touches his skin but he is interrupted on his journey to the bathroom by the other who calls on him.

"Kacchan!"

He looks at him, waiting for him to continue.

"Thank you."

He doesn't know what to answer him so he says nothing and continues on his way, trying to forget the red in his eyes and the weakness of his body that holds on the frame of his room.

He remembers a time when he looked at him with stars in his eyes, those same eyes that he found so dull this morning and that seemed to come back to life with this simple thank you.

He doesn't know what to think of it because even if deep down he is well aware that it caused something positive in the hollow of his core to see him get better, he is not really interested in the idea of repeating this process and acting as a bandage every time he feels a little meek.

And Katsuki is not someone who comforts.

He intimidates, he impresses.

He is strong.

Some look at him with admiration, others with fear.

So even if he feels a strange impression of accomplishment that he does not understand so much, even if a part of him that had disappeared has just been fed, he does not intend to change his way of being.

It would be ridiculous, unpleasant and it would destroy all his efforts.

When he get out of the shower, his thoughts are interrupted again by the melody of a violin.

The melody is sad, heavy... heavy with the mourning of his musician and he can only follow the notes to the room of the teenager who plays in front of the window, his back to him.

He hears him sniffing, he sees him shaking.

But he stays silent and listens.

Leaning against the door, he waits for him to finish and turn around to see him.

He ignores the start that takes him when he understands that he is not alone.

"I'm tired, are you coming?"

It is better to avoid talking about this moment.

He understands that Deku thinks he will never get better.

Katsuki doesn't have the heart to tell him that he doesn't know anything about it.

He focusses on the reddened cheeks of the other, ashamed to have been caught and who joins him under the blanket after turning off the light.

It was not an easy day for him.

He does not know if he will be as benevolent if he is in the same state tomorrow. He hopes but he isn't sure.

His patience has always been fluctuating towards the other boy.

They look into each other's eyes and, despite his attempts to hide it, he clearly sees that Deku is at his wits end.

That even when his eyelids try to close, he does not find sleep and he releases a nervous energy that bounces on him, almost like to try and push him to do something.

He is fragile, like crystal and if the blonde reaches his hand towards him, he could crush him into a thousand pieces.

He doesn't understand why he thinks he's responsible for his father's death but Katsuki is almost sure it doesn't come from him.

Deku may be twisted, but he wouldn't have thought of something like that alone.

Aware that every move could destroy him, he tries not to let his turmoils appear while he is still looking at him.

They stare at each other one moment and the next, Katsuki slowly passes an arm around the teenager, tacitly encouraging him to snuggle up in his arms.

The most fragile of the two does not need much time to be convinced and the blonde quickly finds his arms occupied by his trembling body.

He feels him relax little by little, almost being able to see the tension that evaporates from his body as his fingers pass against his neck.

He was so alone and so sad in his room before he went up to ask him what was wrong.

"I miss him so terribly..." he whispers in the dark of the night.

He rubs a hand on his back and comes a little more closer against him.

Maybe if he squeezes him hard enough, he will no longer have room to think of his father's ghost.

"Thank you for not leaving me alone Kacchan..."

He does not answer but as he falls asleep, he briefly remembers the time of their childhood when it was not surprising for Deku to compliments him and to found himself asleep just as he is now, against him.