Izuocha's Love Stories

12 - AN ANSWER I'VE ALWAYS KNOWN

By Miyo02

They say that when someone is about to die, the life they lived flashes right before their eyes. But as Izuku takes his fall, all he sees is...?

[Based on Hori's exhibition art posted on February 12, 2021]

This world holds all things uncertain.

Unknown and yet-to-be-discovered sites are shrouded in mystery for sure, but even well-known places have their own fair share of secrets.

With technology barely progressing and the natural curiosity for answers dissipating with years passing, a lot of things will remain hidden and untouched in the dark. But really, why search for the billions and billions of unknown answers out there, when humanity itself, which exists right here and now and unique to one's self, is one huge mystery?

Izuku asks this in the most uncanny timing.

Why is his hair fluffed that way even when damp and soaked? Why does his mouth never tire despite the countless words and phrases that left it during his episodic mutters? Why does he have symmetrical freckles on each cheek, four dark dots arranged in a diamond formation?

Sure, those are probably the weirdest and funniest questions to ask about his humanity but sometimes those thoughts pass by his mind from time to time. Harmless thoughts that are enough to pique his interest but not enough to trigger his passion into knowing more about it or giving some time to ponder about it.

But also, in his day-to-day life, those kinds of questions are better asked, instead of things that are inevitable... Things that are actually certain in this world of uncertainty.

Things like,

"Am I going to die?"

Izuku chuckles bitterly as the air hitting his form starts to feel like thousands of needles grazing his skin, dangerously feeling like consecutive punctures in increasing speed. Ironically, he barely feels that particular pain when his whole body is heavy, falling in despair, and is just ready to meet the ground that is equally prepared to accept whatever his remaining brokenness will be, minutes from now.

The question itself is probably the weirdest he has asked in these seconds of focusing on nothing but himself in mid-air. That is because, humans die and that is a fact. He has not only heard about it or read about it somewhere, but he has witnessed death itself fetch individuals, just leaving a lifeless body that will never wake up from an eternal slumber.

With all that, there is not much of a point in asking something that has one true answer.

"I'm really going to die, aren't I?"

He smiles while he barely feels it with his swollen face all numb from the battle that just ended.

To think that his end would be in the form of falling. How dramatic and tragic.

This sure brings him back. Takoba Municipal Beach Park. UA Entrance Exam.

Two different locations but three different instances of him falling all in the same day. If one thing was consistent in that fated day is that someone always saved him from falling.

Whenever he looks at the mirror, a part of him thinks and recognizes that he has changed. All the muscles and the scars are testaments to such differences in the old him and the current him. Even the more genuine smile on his face tells him that a lot about him has changed and that only made him happier. Yet this whole fiasco as he descends from the thrones of the blue sky just tells him that maybe he has not learned his lesson.