Don't Be Afraid of Shadows (BakuDeku)

◅ Chapter 7 ▻

'Everyone knows that ice cream is worth the trouble of being cold. Like all things virtuous, you have to suffer to gain the reward'
Brandon Sanderson

The Squad - and de facto member Tokoyami - had met at their favourite diner after school so that Katsuki could catch them up on his phone call with Yagi. They were all in agreement that it sounded more like he was desperately heartbroken than anything else, while they shared a plate of fries and drank their sickly sweet milkshakes - Except Katsuki and Kiri who had water, because they mostly eat clean for the sport; that and the fact that Katsuki isn't really a fan of sweet shit.

Tokoyami had made a note of the name 'Aizawa' and the word 'precinct' while Katsuki was talking, and he was staring at it intently while the others blathered on, switching to talking about some end of term party Denki was planning.

He pulled out his phone to do a quick search for something he thought would push them closer than they'd ever been to helping Inko.

"And Sero, your mum will buy us the booze right? My mum said if she finds out I had a party in her house she'll beat me with her slipper." Denki frowned as Tokoyami tapped away on his phone.

"Sure man," Sero nodded, as Mina cut in, "Thank god some of our moms are cool."

Katsuki rolled his eyes, "Well I mean it's not great parenting dipshits, but fuck it, if it means we can blow off some steam then I'm glad the idiot's mum is 'cool'." He emphasised the sarcasm in 'cool' and scoffed at Sero's mock offence.

"Hey, Moma Sero provides a safe space for all the children!" He laughed, chasing his straw with his tongue, making Denki giggle despite he himself having a strawberry milkshake mustache from where he'd gulped at the frothy head of his drink - he argued it was the best bit of the milkshake, and he didn't wanna let it go to waste at the bottom of his glass.

Katsuki was shaking his head with a faint smile curling the corner of his lips when Tokoyami slid his phone into the blond's view.

"The closest precinct to us," he paused as everyone stopped talking to listen to him, "not that long ago they broke a major case involving a missing child. I thought I recognised the name. 'Aizawa'." He nodded back down to his phone.

Katsuki read the article in front of him, 'Detective Aizawa led the case...'.

"Fuck, so he was telling the truth." Katsuki grumbled, scrolling through the article to see if there was any other helpful information.

"He investigates missing persons cases. I think it's safe to posit that at some point Mr. Yagi took this as a missing persons case to the police. If this was indeed what occurred and Aizawa investigated it, he clearly found that nothing was untoward. We found no media coverage of it, nor any missing person reports."

Tokoyami's face darkened, anger pinching his brows, "Obviously he was terribly wrong."

Kiri took the phone to read the article for himself, "Then what now? I mean, we can probably presume Yagi didn't do it if he reported her missing, right?"

He didn't look sure of his statement, and neither did anyone else.

Tokoyami shook his head, "It could have been a ruse to throw off the police. Maybe he thought reporting her missing himself would be less suspicious."

Kiri hummed in thought, "Then what now?" He asked no one in particular,feeling lost on how to proceed.

Tokoyami caught Katsuki's crimson eyes, a fire glinting in the darkness of his own red irises.

"It may sound crazy, but we're not going to get far if we don't start making bigger moves. I say we approach Aizawa, tackle this head on."

His voice was low and Katsuki hung his head in thought - the goth had more balls than he'd thought, he could respect that. We're they really gonna do this though? Were they really gonna go running around like the fucking Scooby Gang and bother a real detective with their ghost problems. He would definitely think they were 'meddling kids' and that they were fucking loco. But wasn't Katsuki the one who said hey had to see it through? And his friends had all stood by him, they had stayed.