Dry Winter

Izuku decides to check in on some emo visiting his gravesite

Izuku Midoryia had been deceased for twelve days. Within the first week of his death, everywhere he looked had videos compiled together with sad music in the back. He never realized how annoying it would be to see his childhood face plastered onto every single thing around him. Spoiler alert, it was gross. Five days after he was presumed dead though, some outlets started to cover different things about Izuku. About how he left his Pro Hero Agency and got out of the public eye. How he would be seen here and there in dark alleyways, sinking away into the shadows. One outlet even tried to tie everything together into a conspiracy that Izuku had actually intended to die because he had dark secrets to hide.

His old friends who hadn't reached out to him once in the past ten months started appearing on interviews as well. It was an unsettling feeling, how suddenly everyone cared about him now that he was gone. But it was hard to hold a grudge when he saw Ochako burying her puffy face in her hands while a red-eyed Shoto Todoroki sniffled and yelled at the paparazzi to leave them alone.

Tenya Iida made statements on the big screens that though he was gone, Izuku would never be forgotten, with triumphant flags waving in the background. It wasn't until a reporter played a video of Izuku's time at UA with his friends that Tenya broke down, and said he felt like he didn't have time to mourn properly with all the interviews going on. Later he took a week long vacation from work, and was currently in some remote location where people couldn't reach him.

Not all of his old friends appeared on big screens though. Loads of them found their way to mourn on social media with others. Reposting pictures of Izuku or making long videos about how they can't believe what happened to him. He saw almost everyone he went to school with saying something about his death. Everyone but Katsuki.

It seemed, for the past twelve days the man had been missing in action. He didn't post anywhere, he didn't appear in a single frame on the TV's, and it got to the point where Izuku eventually figured out, due to a bit of illegal snooping, that he had taken a leave from his Pro Hero Agency. And while the matter of finding his old friend was pressing, there were other matters that were even more so at the moment. That was Izuku's stomach.

"I probably should have stocked more than a couple of cups of ramen back here," He yawned to himself, collapsing backwards in his chair. Izuku's living situation was far from fancy. He was in an extraordinarily old apartment complex, his room in the middle floor of the building. Where he was living in happened to be a cheap room that was where Izuku lived for two weeks when he was watching a villain who had lived right down the hallway on a mission when he first started at his Hero Agency. And not knowing how to pay mortgage for an apartment, he ended up paying the cashier way too much money for a two week stay upfront. Like three years extra money.

Needless to say, waiters loved it when Izuku tipped at dinners.

But the ratty apartment on the outskirts of Tokyo was a fine place to live, that is, when you are presumed dead. And the one bedroom doubled as a surveillance headquarters where dozens of files lay on the floor and two computers were on at all times. One over the gravesite, and another searching for dirt on the hero corporation.

The couches were where he slept, that was, if he didn't pass out in his chair in front of laptops. And he even installed a make-shift pull-up bar over his bathroom door. Of course, some supplies were becoming an issue. For one, while Izuku had probably a life time supply of deodorant and body wash along with hair soaps, he soon figured that he would probably need more than a three pack of toilet paper, and if he was going to live in a hobbit with all the curtains shut in his house, he would at least need to pick up some fruits and vegetables. It's a shame no one tells you how to properly fake your death.

Which is why, at eleven-thirty at night, Izuku was preparing to leave his house for the first time since he had died. He pulled his hair back with a rubber band, put on fake glasses that he had snagged before he 'died' and a black mask. He looked one last time at whatever was going on at his gravesite but only groaned when he saw that the same person was just sitting criss crossed in front of it. The same person who had been wearing all black and a hood to cover their hair. The same person that had visited every day from ten o'clock at night till sometime past midnight, before rushing off into the dark before Izuku could even get a good look at them.

But that person would probably remain sitting beside the grave long past when Izuku would return from his little trip, so he simply gave them one last look, before vanishing outside his window. It was dark enough that he was able to blend into the shadows and dark alleyways pretty easily until he saw the flickering fluorescent lights that beamed from the supermarket. Izuku gulped and prayed they didn't have a TV with the news on inside. And so, he slipped in, thankful for the warmth of the store. He wasn't exactly sure when it had happened, but winter had torn over Japan in a matter of days, bringing crisp air and harsh gusts of wind. But snow had yet to trickle from the sky.

Izuku picked up a basket and quickly started moving through the isles with his face down. He grabbed a sustainable amount of toilet paper, a handful of apples and oranges and bunch of leafy green vegetables that his nose wrinkled at, amongst other things. By the time he turned down the last isle, his basket was overflowing with foods and drinks and products that should be able to last him longer than twelve days. He was just about to checkout, when a black box caught his eye, and he smirked under his mask, throwing it in on top.

"That will be fifty-two thirty sir," The cashier sighed while Izuku pulled three twenties out of his back pocket, and quickly placed them in a tray, desperately avoiding eye contact. "Thank you, here is your change." Responded the cashier, dropping a few singles and some coins back into the tray for Izuku to take home. And departing a bit too fast, Izuku leapt for his bags before disappearing like a thief in the night, with the flickering lights of the shop behind him.

He took his time home, it was too dark now for anyone to see him unless they were a nose width away, not too mention the winter wind was too cold for anyone to explore outside at this time of night. So Izuku took a different way back home, one that would bring him right by the cemetery, where the cloaked figure would be sitting in the fresh dirt.

He appeared silently, many feet behind the person who was now laying with their back in the dirt staring up at the stars. But Izuku didn't have a doubt that it was the same person that had visited the grove every day prior, and it was the same grave that Izuku's body was supposedly buried at. He heard nothing for many minutes, and was contemplating leaving when a deep voice spoke. Cracking in the darkness with sobs that rang out like a horribly beautiful symphony.

"You dumbass, why am I the only one speaking?"