You're Pretty Dumb For A Smart Guy [KamiDeku]

4.

Back in his room, the previously uninteresting journal that had been sitting on his desk all week was now glaringly right there. It was practically mocking him with a chorus of "you're not good at reading people" and "I wonder if you can read at all"

Midoriya picked up the book, frustratedly, and cracked it open to another random page, desperate to disprove it and this was just some random journal that had no connection to anyone he knew.

Dear hello,
Im still kinda dumb rn but I thot I should rite--

(he must've dragged his pencil and paused before continuing)

This fucking hurts. And not just my pride.
Constantly being pumped with electricity and expelling it to the point when I can't function properly fucks you up. It's painful and when I'm on the verge of being braindead I can't tell people that. And I'm not gonna do it after the fact either.
I use my quirk for everything, charging phones, being an outlet for the electric kettle or toaster or whatever all the time. And I use it confidently so if I were to say my quirk caused me pain, no one would believe me. Oh but Denki! How could you possibly know? You must be wondering, journal, but trust me.
I know
I've already tried to tell mom and she outright laughed in my face, I can't imagine my friends or teachers reacting too differently. It's hard to imagine the kid who uses his quirk for nearly everything to be constantly being hurt by it at the same time, especially since he never shows any sign of his suffering.
I'll just live with it, like I've been forced to do for forever already.

Izuku felt sick after reading that entry, visibly shaken. Not only did this confirm that this was indeed Kaminari's journal but it told him that he was in pain, a lot of it, all the time. Not just this, he has gotten use to it and is both willing to and planning on not telling anyone out of fear he wont be taken seriously. It was all really sad and made Midoriya's feelings for the electricity user change, though what it changed into was up for question.

Did Izuku pity him? It was definitely sad to be sure but pity wasn't quite it. Respect? Being in constant pain, powering through it, and not giving any indication what was going on underneath the surface was impressive. Midoriya himself has faked being okay and/or happy during particularly stressful times and even just that put it's toll on him, but Kaminari? He was happy, or at least acted that way, all the time. He was energetic and friendly despite nonstop pain going on in the background and that had to be difficult especially since no one has noticed anything wrong.

Once he had pin pointed what his feelings toward Kaminari were, Midoriya had something else nagging him. Both of the entries he had read so far had mentioned his parents and neither scenarios were pleasant. The first one he read implies a mangled marriage and an even less stable family, where the second showed how his mother was hardly caring of him. Of course, Izuku himself didn't have the exact same problem, but unhappy marriages and broken families is something is something he's got vaguely, though his mother was quite caring (unlike Kaminari's) so the least he could do was roughly relate to him.

He'd have to find a way to bring this up to Kaminari without revealing he read his journal.