What Could Have Been (vigilante deku)

46

"Yeah, we're dating." Shinsou confirmed proudly and smiled down at his boyfriend.

Izuku smiled back, a happy gitty feeling swarming his insides. Like butterflies!

He never understood that term. He didn't understand how someone could make your stomach feel weird but now he was experiencing it first hand. He still had doubts about their relationship and he couldn't help but ponder all the what ifs, but he would be lying if he said becoming one with Shinsou didn't make life a little more worth living.

Izuku's gone as far as he could on this path alone. He's learned how to walk alone, how to carry others, how to cope with and solve his problems alone.

What's left is a form of loneliness that requires a lover to solve. It's the need for physical closeness, for touch, for emotional warmth from a partner in life. He finally has that now with Shinsou.

Jr, on the other hand, felt his heart plummet into his abdomen.

He had connected to a part of Izuku that others never feel. He saw parts of Izuku's soul the greenette never wanted to let out of the bag. He touched him and saw his reaction, beautiful and raw. For those moments he was more real than the blood in Jr's own veins, and he was like the beating of Jr's own heart.

Jr's soul had called for him, held out his hands and let his face become wet with untold tears; but Izuku would not or could not return his love.

In just a few seconds, his world had become blacker than it ever was before, darker for the greenette's absence, loneliness crippling his every thought.

His lungs struggle for breath against ribs of stone and his feet have lost their wanderlust. Before he met Izuku, his heart was soft, with him it became strong and vibrant, now it is simply broken.

Blinking back tears threatening to spill forward, Jr stood on wobbly legs. He avoided any and all eye contact before choking out a, "I'm going to the bathroom," and hurried away.

Izuku and Sensei were the only reasons he had returned to Musutafu. He always wanted to take his chances, but he never did. He never considered losing any ties he was beginning to knot when he fleed away. He was too late now, though.

He threw away the life he had created in Australia just to get his heart broken.

It may not seem like a big deal to everyone else, but Jr's own mental strength depended on Izuku. As crazy as it seems, it's true. Not everyone had the skill to do things alone like Izuku mastered. No, Jr had to have someone.

Because his own self wasn't enough.

He depended on his father before his father became what he was today. When his father switched up, he turned to Sensei and Izuku. After betraying Sensei, he only had Izuku.

He had no connection with anyone else, nor did he want connections with anyone else.

Izuku and Izuku alone was enough. So why..why did someone have to swoop in and steal him from him? He didn't want to pounce on Izuku and ask him out without giving Izuku enough space and time to process that they were friends and reunited. But he was too slow.

He was trying to not overwhelm him, but now he was gone.

Jr pushed open the boy's bathroom door and collapsed into a stall, hand placed over the heart racing in his chest.

His ribs felt like a cage as his heart pounded, trying desperately to break out of its confines so it could get a peak for itself at what was causing it so much pain.

He wanted to yell at it to stop. To stop going manic. This wasn't a big deal. People get rejected all the time. Everyday. People all over the world have gone through this, and if they didn't cry over it, neither should he.