In Loving Memory

Fallen Stars

Izuku had decided to return home after that. He had stopped being able to interact with things, so he decided it was a good time to stop and take a rest. He passed through the door at home. His Mom was eating some toast. He floated above the couch, attempting to sit next to her. Izuku pursed his lips, wishing he could give her a hug. He reached out to grab her hand, but his hand passed through hers. He sighed and floated up to his room. Meanwhile, his Mom shivered.

The room had hardly changed since his death, if at all. It was almost as if he was still there, if the world had frozen in time. Izuku was almost sure, if only for a few moments, that all was well and he could go back to reading All Might comic books and collecting the merch, and that everything was as it used to be. Izuku's mom seemed to be doing the same thing he wanted to do, pretending that the fateful few actions and Izuku's last few hours had never happened, pretending that Izuku could still give her a hug and chide her on her little bad habits and tell her everything was going to be alright.

Really, it wasn't, but the knowledge of that hadn't quite caught up with Izuku, or at least he thought so.

Izuku observed the room. It was uncanny how little had changed. Izuku was almost sure that his mother hadn't even entered it. However, the lack of dust on anything and the impeccable care of the figurines said otherwise. Each figurine was a few centimeters from where he had left them, meaning someone had cleaned them and tried their hardest to put them back where they had been. His bed in the corner was made, with a couple of green hairs that had fallen from his mom's head while she was making it standing out against the bright colors of a Pokemon comforter. He walked (glided?) across the room, looking over his figurines and the little trinkets set on his desk.

It was cathartic, sad, and a little strange. However, as sad as he felt at the scene, he was disassociated from it. It was less familiar, less like his room. Instead of his expected happy memories of his life, it was more of a funeral than anything. Izuku stared blankly at the remnants of his fond memories, an old feeling rising in his heart. He remembered a time he and his mom had visited a family whose child had died recently. He had wandered off when they were having a quiet party to celebrate their life and had ended up in the child's room. Old posters that had been torn down shortly before the child's death had been hastily rehung, a desperate attempt at clinging to Before. This, this was like that. Looking at a child's room and mourning for the child, pitying the loss of a soul so young.

Oh how sad, the adults at the attempt at a party must have thought. What a miserable thought, losing someone who had so much more living to do.

What a pity.

Meanwhile, Katsuki was picking at his lunch, pushing the bits of food around his plate with his chopsticks. "Katsuki, eat your food. You haven't eaten since breakfast."

"Not hungry," Katsuki said simply, picking up a morsel of meat with more grace than seemed possible for his bulky-looking body, stuffing the food in his mouth regardless.

"You still need to eat, though. You need to be healthy if you're gonna do your best at school." Katsuki merely grumbled in response, halfheartedly stuffing the food into his mouth. Mitsuki shuffled back and forth between the kitchen, and dining table, gathering together her own lunch while thinking carefully, Masaru was working that day, leaving her to take care of their teenage son who was clearly miserable and angry.

Mitsuki sat at the table with her own food, not quite feeling anything. Like her son, she wasn't all too invested in her meal. She sighed, munching on her food and thinking. Katsuki hadn't been quite the same since Izuku died. He was still angry, sure. He still cussed like a sailor in training. He still yelled and exploded things and showed off. But it was muted. It wasn't quite the same. His angry glares had flashes, quiet moments that lasted barely a second, but it was enough to show that he wasn't quite raging at his mom or his dad or whatever his latest tantrum was.

He was miserable, and Mitsuki hated it.

A week later, after Katsuki had shuffled back home remaining a bundle of emotional issues shambling around in the roughly bipedal approximation of a teenager with really bad posture, Mitsuki passed her son the letter he had received from UA, likely accepting him. A few minutes later, she heard a loud, explosive, and likely cheerful yell from her son's room. However, Mitsuki could have sworn she heard a second voice cheering.

Ochaco Uraraka had just gotten an appointment with the school a day or two after the test. She was sitting in the office, just outside the principal's office, waiting to be called in.

"Miss Uraraka?"

"That's me." She raised her hand to alert her presence to the secretary.

"You may go in to talk to Principal Nezu." Ochaco pushed herself to her feet, shuffling into Principal Nezu's office. The small mouse-bear-something grinned at the sight of her.

"Ah, Uraraka." He nodded, recognizing her. "Nice to meet you. What brings you here?"

Uraraka pursed her lips. "Listen, there was this boy at the practical exam. He had no points, but he stopped to save me. I think he should be able to get in. I want to give him my points."

Nezu looked at her quizzically. "Did you catch his name?"

"Yes, Izuku Midoriya."

"Give me a moment." Nezu typed something into his computer, then thought for a few seconds. "Miss Uraraka, I'm afraid I can't help you. There was no Izuku Midoriya taking the test at all."

"What? What about like a kid with fluffy green hair? Kinda scrawny, had a quirk that let him float and pass through things and go invisible?"

"Sorry, nobody by that name or quirk description was taking the test. But thank you for coming in."

Uraraka left the office confused and frustrated. How could Izuku Midoriya just disappear?