The Serpent in the Garden - [todoshindeku] - Villain Izuku

Chapter Ten

Rain was beating down, drumming loudly on the thin, tin roof of the apartment. The sound had been comforting, maybe, for the first few days that it kept up, but now after over a few weeks of an almost constant downpour, the noise was more suffocating, a prison rather than something that soothed. Not to say that having a good excuse not to go outside wasn't nice, but after a week or so of being almost constantly trapped inside, or dashing to the train station under three different raincoats, respectively, the inactivity was mind-numbing. Izuku's body had begun to ache for a way to release some of the built-up tension in his limbs, and even his mother was getting slightly irritated by his near-constant jitteriness.

Izuku sighed, leaning over his desk to draw a half-hearted smiley face in the condensation on the windowpane, then rubbed it out and drew a sad face instead. He leaned back and watched with a sort of detached disappointment as the rain hit the "eyes" of the face and made them run, mimicking tears, before the window fogged up once more.

All the rain wouldn't be all bad, really, if not for the new... problem. Usually he and Shinsou would just hang out, finishing homework or just watching movies, Izuku making it his personal mission to find all the weirdest movies the internet had to offer. Inko had occasionally joined them, but after she had walked in on them watching Mosquito Man, she'd been strangely absent. Though, Izuku usually preferred comedies — they made his friend's face light up with laughter, lavender eyes widening every time something inappropriate was said, or someone did something ridiculous. Izuku would usually catch himself watching his friend more than the movie, when this happened, but he didn't want to — couldn't, maybe, even if admitting to such was embarrassing even to himself — stop. Izuku loved Shinsou's smile, if only because of how little it made a genuine appearance. It was something rare that was made to be treasured.

And Izuku wasn't an idiot; he knew what that familiar fluttery sensation inside him was, knew what the constant longing to be around the other meant, but he also knew how to ignore it. Why ruin such a rare thing as their friendship because of something so mundane as simple attraction? Well, maybe not mundane. But definitely something that didn't, wouldn't, get in the way of anything.

But recently those smiles had been appearing less and less, taken over by an almost perpetual veil of well-concealed hurt and anger. At least, well-concealed if one didn't know how to look, of course.

And Izuku knew why this was happening, but that didn't stop the aching feeling of utter helplessness over it, and didn't help the bitter taste of anger at Satoru Sho for doing this to his own son, no matter how justified he believed himself to be. Izuku wanted to help, wanted to somehow make Shinsou understand that he was someone the other boy could confide in about this.

He also wanted to, however irrationally, march into Kakureta and punch the CEO right in the face for even thinking that this was the way to go about things. But he couldn't, even if Shigaraki would probably be all for a random attack, a chance to "stretch his fingers" as he, disgustingly, said. So he tried to do the next best thing, and help out his friend.

Except apparently he couldn't do that either. It was infuriating — Izuku wasn't used to being so powerless, and the knowledge that he was ate away at him until he was even a bigger jittery mess of pent up frustration.

From what he'd been able to figure out, it was most likely that Shinsou, bless his big, dumbass heart, didn't want to get Izuku involved, probably didn't want Izuku to be sucked into the web of the underworld with him, even at the expense of his own emotional wellbeing. Which would have been really sweet — still was in some warped, irony coated way, but he didn't need to. And from his reluctance to speak about it, it was most likely that Sho hadn't mentioned Izuku's involvement in this, which Izuku hadn't expected him to do anyway. It was probably for the better, actually, since the information would probably be better received from him, anyway.