hero's shadow // mha

12) parallels

(warning: mention of overdose)

Izuku has a tendency to notice every little detail. He magnifies small nuances into major things, largely because small nuances can quickly become breaking points for strangers and villains.

When he's going undercover, or when he's trying to sneak in somewhere for a job, he has to be careful. He has to be able to see.

He's learned how to manage moods and read the room. He can perceive danger in just the order of words that people say. He can read body language and see what other people usually can't—or, won't. This is all a natural outgrowth of him trying to stay alive during his missions and encounters with strangers on the streets.

It's not that everyone else is oblivious, no, of course not. Izuku isn't that naïve. It's more that he has to be like this. It's just that this habit of his is what keeps him alive. This attention to detail that has made him over analyze minor nuances to the extent that it gives him much more anxiety than he would have otherwise—it's kind of like a safety net.

It prevents certain events from happening, and under the worst case scenario where something bad happens anyway, it helps to handle those issues and stop the situation from escalating.

So, in short, Izuku stays alive solely because he can see.

This ability of his also allows him to draw many different conclusions and patterns from events that he's witnessed even the first time around.

Izuku sees things in high definition, and sometimes he sees things that he'd rather not. He can notice and create patterns simply by watching and listening—a skill that has helped him grow into the successful vigilante he is today.

Well, that last part is debatable, but whatever.

Right now, sitting in the library and chewing on his pen, he's noticed another pattern. Though this time he can't really see the advantage from pointing this one out to himself. There's no villain he can use it against, no question he can avoid. It's just kind of sitting there, weighing at the back of his mind like a pile of bricks over wet cardboard.

It'll fall eventually, maybe even sooner rather than later, and Izuku will start to spiral into that awful feeling he gets when he doesn't understand something. When he doesn't know why things are happening.

It seems that the newest adults in his life have been doing similar things to him without Izuku realizing it. They've been joking and conversing with him, either making small talk or just being a genuinely good person around him, and he doesn't mind that, obviously. That's normal, that's polite, that's decent, and that's not why he's so frazzled.

All Might, Present Mic, and Eraserhead are all amazing people. They're great heroes, sure, but just about anyone can be if they try hard enough or have the right mindset. But to be a genuinely good person? That's when it gets a little harder.

They were nice to him. Still are, in fact. It's just that once they deemed it safe, they moved closer.

Both metaphorically and physically.

The first one was Present Mic. Which, now that Izuku has the opportunity to truly think about, isn't surprising. The man always sits in the same seat two spots over from Izuku at the laundromat. He's never sat anywhere else; that's just his spot now, same as how Izuku's spot is near the corner and just out of sight of the door—Izuku can see anyone coming in, but they can't see him.

Yamada never gets too close unless he's passing by or showing him something on his phone. At least, that's how it was for a while. But then, during one of their laundry meetings, he just... moved closer.