Chapter Text
Izuku was finally nine years old! Or at least, he would be turning nine in a few days. He didn't think much would change, really, but at least he was this much closer to being old enough to become a hero!
As he jumped out of bed, he noticed that his mother hadn’t woken him up like she usually would.
“Maybe she’s sleeping,” he mused, as he rolled himself out of bed.
Making his way out of his room, he slowly made his way over to hers. After his father ‘left’, he had noticed that something at the core of his relationship with his mother seemed to have changed fundamentally. But for the most part, things had stayed the same, like her knocking on his door in the mornings with a gentle, “Breakfast is ready, Izuku! Come on out and eat!”.
Until today, he supposed. Loads of things had changed recently, maybe this was just one of them.
As he knocked on her door, he called out. “Mom? Are you there?” The only reply was silence.
It's okay if I open the door if she's not answering, right? What if she's having a medical emergency or something” Opening the door, it was all he could do to stare in shock. Where there had previously been Inko Midoriya’s room, there was now… nothing.
The room was just… empty. All of the personal items that had made it his mum’s room were gone.
Her green coloured alarm clock (”It reminds me of your eyes, Izuku”), gone like it had never been there.
The room had been stripped down all the way to what Izuku imagined it had looked like before it was bought. He had never seen it in this state, how could he when he grew up in this house? The only thing that remained of her existence was an envelope on her bed, on top of a stack of cash.
The first test that he had gotten full a perfect score on, barely beating out Kacchan’s score, taped to the front door of her closet (”You’ll always be my perfect little boy”), only a residue of the adhesive remained.
Izuku,
I know that you must be wondering why I left. I'm sorry to say that I don't really know why myself. All I know is that it felt right. I had you when I was still in university, before I could even live my life properly. You're a mature boy, Izuku, I'm sure that you can live on your own for a while. I will come back and visit, definitely! I'm just really not sure when. The apartment and utilities are paid for, and I will send you money every month. You can take care of yourself, right? You’ve always been my smart little boy.
Love,
Inko Midoriya, your loving mother
Izuku didn’t think he did anything for the rest of the day. Not for the next few days either, really. When the occasional thought made it through the haze that was his mind, telling him to focus, to plan out something so that he wouldn’t starve, he pushed them all the way into the back of his mind and told them to fuck off.
Maybe Kacchan is teaching me bad habits, after all.
The thought made him giggle a little, before the guilt kicked in. But he did feel a little better, and the haze lifted a little. Which immediately let him know that he was starving. And thirsty.
Rolling himself out of bed, Izuku was embarrassed to find that instead of landing on his feet, his limbs had quite willingly given up on him and let him collapse onto the floor in a tangled mess with his bed covers.
Shit.
Surprisingly, going a few days without food or water hadn’t helped in performing physical tasks. Who could ever have known?
After a slow extraction operation to get himself out of his blankets, Izuku stumbled over to the kitchen and got a little energy back into his body. The snacks wouldn’t sustain him forever, though. Izuku would have to start learning to cook. Well, it was a good thing he had unlimited access to the internet, since he spent the rest of the day watching recipe videos to postpone leaving his house. It worked.
Sadly, the house’s supply of snacks did run out eventually, and he had to venture out of his house alone to head to the supermarket.
It felt like stepping into a brand new world. Everything he did felt new. At his back, he no longer had his fiercely protective father and his mother who would fuss over every small thing happened to him. He was now Izuku, alone.
The trip to the supermarket went well, he supposed. Even a fraction of the money left in the envelope was easily enough for the groceries he was buying despite him buying what he assumed would last him for the next two weeks. The hiccup in his flawless plan (Go to supermaket, buy ingredients, go home) occurred when, despite being as aware of his surroundings as ever, a large man bumped into him on the way home. And caused him to subsequently drop all of his bags. Great.
He stammered out a quick “I-I’m so sorry, I’ll pick thos-”
“No worries, my boy! I am certain you didn’t bump into me on purpose. Here, let me help you carry these, it must be difficult for a young boy to be carrying home this many bags.”
Izuku was pretty speechless. Why was this giant man helping him carry his groceries? How did he get so tall? How could Izuku get as tall as him? Was he trying to kidnap him? But he asked none of those, and instead looked up at the man.
“I’m nine!”
The man just chuckled. Walking home next to the man, he reflected on how he had gotten himself into this situation. The (old?) man was tall, even compared to most people with heteromorphic quirks. Along with his relatively built body, he also laughed really weirdly. Most people Izuku heard sounded like they had been laughing their whole lives, because they had, but this man sounded like he was purposefully changing his laugh or something. His hair was blonde, which, while not as rare in Japan as it used to be (Exhibit A: Kacchan), was still fairly uncommon, and his bangs fell down onto his forehead like… huh.
“Mister, are you All Might’s long lost less muscular twin?”
It was worth the look of complete shock on the man’s face up until he choked and spit out blood onto the pavement.
After a surprisingly entertaining back-and-forth that consisted of “No, of course I’m not- Why would you think that?”s and “I don’t believe you”s, they finally made it home, and it was Izuku’s turn to choke when the man pulled out a key and opened the door of the apartment next to Izuku’s.
“Well, young man, it seems it is my turn to surprise you now,” he said, chuckling. “I was planning on passing you your groceries and splitting up when our paths diverged, but it seems that this is a happy coincidence, isn’t it?” and smiled at him. His mother’s smile was warm, but always on the verge of breaking, and his father’s smile was strong, predatory, powerful. This smile was warm and powerful, but it also felt safe, comforting. Izuku liked his smile.
That was the day Izuku Midoriya met Yagi Toshinori.