weary travelers.

MIND TURNING IN AN UNPLEASANT DIRECTION

The bar is empty. A hum drifts from the creaky windows and birds scream out. It's an ungodly hour of the day―too early for anyone to be awake.

So, there he is. Thinking about a time before his fingertips caused his suffering―thinking back to a time when his pupils muddled with his iris, black and soulless as his hair. Thinks back to a time when his mother would hold him in her arms and tell him stories of The Boy Who Held Back, because he could not stop tearing himself apart with his hands. Because there was an itch that tore him apart and he wanted to watch himself break.

He thinks back to syrup and apple juice on stormy nights, thinks back to playing in the dirt―thinks back to his best friend. A creature seen as inhumane, with fur and a snout, walking on all fours. A boys best friend, with beady eyes and a friendly jumps. (Thinks back to holding and watching as that same best friend turn to a mess of ashes and blood as he sobbed.)

He sits and wonders, flipping his story to the beginning and wonders when he grew up from when he was a child-but-not. Grew up from little stories and a fear of lightning and thunder. Bloodstained hands have changed his eyes, stress has changed his hair. He is no longer the child-but-not who laughed with his sister and cried with his mother.

Grown―he's grown in height. He's grown, bones stretching with chapped skin and bruises under his eyes. He's grown, but he has not changed from the child-but-not born of broken steps and torn eyes.

Tomura sits on a stool cradling a cup of apple juice, drunkenly mumbling a curse at the birds outside. He's still a child-but-not―Izuku said that he doesn't have to act grown up when he's alone and there's nobody with him. He'll act like a child, then. Drinking apple juice and mumbling to himself in slurred words and broken syllables. It's sad, but Tomura has always been somewhat melancholic. Bitterness stings in him, but that's normal. Sensei is dead―gone, at last, the chain hanging around Tomura's neck has crumbled to ashes―it was not his hand that broke this chain. Now that he is free, he does not know what to do. A dog, but its owner is dead, should he rejoice in freedom or follow in the man's footsteps? What is he, a sheep?

No. Izuku said that sometimes listening to your compulsive thoughts is wrong. That you have the right to be stronger than your minds words. Tomura wants to be strong. Strong like Izuku, who is never selfish, who never thinks of himself. Strong like Izuku, who never gives up on anyone. Strong like Izuku, who knows that it's okay to cry. Strong like Izuku, who helps everyone else while a scar sits aching on his elbow. Strong like Izuku, who bandages Tomura with a broken smile, muttering 'you're fine, see? It's all better now.' while he curls and dies under the weight of his wounds.

Tomura wants to be strong like Izuku. He will try, then. Today he does not throw his glass of apple juice at the wall. Even if the voice in his head is screaming at him to do it.

(Screaming like the birds, screaming like Sensei, screaming like Father.)

This is the first step, he tells himself. A smile creeps on his face, joy stretches across his mind. It's euphoria, some part of him identifies, he's made Kurogiri's job easier. (Is this what it feels like to be good? If he were to save a life, how would people react? How would he feel?)

A bird tweets outside. A happy little chitter.

Tomura finishes his apple juice.

_

Ochako is finally dating Tsu.

She runs into Izuku's apartment to tell him the good news, but it's empty (nobody is there, Ochako. They left you, what did you expect? They don't like you, they never did. They never will.) of any life that was there. The haze is gone, she can see the cracks widen in the walls where pictures once were. She can see the indents with her feet, grooves and curves where a child-but-not ran around―once. Where a young Izuku maybe smiled with all his teeth full.

Hastily, she grabs her phone from her pocket (she ignores the lint in her nails) and searches for his name with vigor she did not know she possessed. Scrambling the buttons and dials. Her fingers misstep, but she's sure she picked the right contact―she only had so many.

It rings, it's a trill, grainy noise. Like the birds outside, muffled by the window. Once, twice, thrice-

"Yeah, Airhead?" A familiar scratchy voice calls out. It's not Izuku's, though. That definitely made her anxious. (Makes her pick on the lint in her fingertips. Making her want to pick, pick, pick away at the pads there.)

"T-tomura? Where's Izuku? He-he's not at his apartment and if you have his phone then―"

"Relax, Airhead, he's with me. I went to his apartment a few days ago and the kid was blue! Blue! He's apologizing to Kurogiri right now, I bet." Tomura grumbles like he does in every situation.

[ ―a voice in her head tells her he shouldn't speak like that, like he didn't just tell Ochako one of her best friends was dying a couple doors away and she didn't know― ]

She chuckles. He probably was, that was Izuku for you. To him, he always had to apologize. If she weren't into Tsu, then she's sure she'd definitely have a major crush on him. He was just so cute, how could she not? 

"Oh- right! Good news! Guess who has a girlfriend?"

There is silence on the other line, and for a second she thinks he might have hung up. Grainy static and a whisper of a thought. Scattered into millions of short noises that he can't hear.

"Natsuo? I always thought he was gay-"

"He's actually bi-- in any case I was talking about me!"

A pin drops in the room next to Izuku's. Or maybe her imagination was acting out again. God, she hopes she was. That room should always be empty in all circumstances (it's not but it should be). The first thing she would do when she got to school on Monday―now that she thought about it, she would tell Aizawa-sensei there was probably something shady going on around here.

"I'll text you the address. Come. Now."

The birds outside do not cease their singing. Ochako feels her heart break in her mouth, it falls from her eyes in glass drops and shaking hands. Tears crashing to the ground, her fingers slip over her twisting lips.

"I'm so sorry Izuku. I'm so sorry."