When you're afraid, your pupils expand.
It's not a voluntary action or a reflex or anything.
It's the brain's way of telling you that there's something dangerous in front of you. Something to be wary of.
But, to most it isn't noticeable;
Only a barely increased circumference of an already insignificant black hole in the center of an iris.
To you, however, it was the most apparent detail in a person's face.
Not their mouths or their noses or the way their foreheads folded into expressions.
It was their eyes, that singular detail within them you always paid close attention to.
Afterall, most people can't remember anything before the age of four.
That's when your quirk happened.
That's when those pupils slightly expanding became the only looks you could recognize.
In the eyes of your mother.
In the eyes of your father.
In the eyes of everyone who ever met you.
Even in the eyes of the first person from whom you ever felt love.
So what else were you supposed to know?
And now, as you stood, paralized in that hallway with nothing but mustering nightmares, that was the first thing you saw once you turned around.
Eyes so frightened, they were glistening.
Blue and grey, tarnished by red and white.
You blinked a few times, you recognized that look so much that for just a moment you thought it was Shoto.
But it wasn't.
You blinked a few more times, forgetting to breathe in between the seconds.
Once your thoughts were cast aside, you realized it wasn't Shoto standing in the hall, facing you like that.
It was someone who didn't know you like he did.
Green hues of innocence and dreams still bright on his body
They weren't Shoto's eyes, fear induced and panicked.
They were Midoriya's.
***
It was like he'd walked into the wrong room.
He was more petrified of not knowing what to say rather the situation he was slowly beginning to become a part of.
Swallowing down his inhibitions, Deku tried to look past your stance, the fight or flight in the way you shook, your petrified expression.
"You heard us." He whimpered, like it was one of his own affirmations. "By the exit, in the corridor, Todoroki- You heard him say all those things."
"Izuku." You sighed, half in relief, half in shame.
You shut your eyes, shaking your head, and turning to face the wall rather than the boy.
He couldn't be here.
He couldn't talk about these things.
If Endeavor knew he heard- He had to leave.
"Your fights next, you should get down there." You said, putting a hand over your mouth and the other against the wall. You left your mask up at the stands, it was the only way to focus on your breathing.
"Y/n," Midoriya said your name, his voice high and sweet as it always was. There was a slight connotation of pity in his tone now, and though it would have bothered anyone else, all it did was make you want to sink to your knees and into someone's arms.
The boy got closer, slowly, as if approaching a wild animal with a broken leg.
"I-is that why you're acting like this? B-because he didn't mean any of what he said, I know he didn't, he's just angry at his dad and--
