you left a sour after taste || ladyofsnails ||

Chapter 3: enough for you

ao3 - ladyofsnails

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song in this chapter: "enough for you" by olivia rodrigo

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Izuku was halfway to having a panic attack in the middle of the department store, his hands shaking violently as he slowly lowered himself to the ground in a squat. 600 thousand people had seen him sing that song. Had seen him lose his marbles and scream at Kacchan. Holy fucking shit.

"Is he okay?"

No, he was not.

"Izuku, honey," his mother said quietly, kneeling down to meet his eyes and lightly grabbing his wrists, slowly to make sure it wouldn't make the situation worse, "look at me." He didn't. "Izuku, look at me."

He heaved in a deep breath and met his mother's eyes.

"Who's your favorite hero?"

He blinked at her, not understanding the question. "All Might."

"And why is that?" his mother asked gently.

"Because...he saves people with a smile," Izuku answered slowly, his eyes wandering until he finally remembered where he was. "Oh. Okay, I think I'm...I'm okay now."

His mother smiled at him. "Good to hear, honey. Let's stand up now."

"Alright," he agreed, allowing himself to be pulled to his feet and stabilized. The cashier gave him and incredibly guilty look.

"I am so sorry, kid, I thought you'd know," they apologized with a bit of a bow.

"I, uh," Izuku stuttered, "no, it's fine, no need to apologize. I just wasn't...that's a lot of people."

"You could try to get them to take it down if they didn't get your permission," the cashier suggested.

"I think the damage has already been done," Izuku muttered to the floor. Six hundred thousand.

"Izuku," his mother said quietly, rubbing up and down in his shoulder, "do you need to go sit down somewhere?"

"No," Izuku responded, surprising himself with the decisiveness, "I'm okay."

"You're sure?" his mother asked, concerned. He still nodded.

"Yeah, I'm sure," he said, taking in a deep breath, "600 thousand likes is 600 hundred thousand people that thought I did a good job, so...it's...good."

"You are incredibly talented," the cashier added, and Izuku smiled despite himself.

"That's...that's very kind of you," he managed with another shaky breath in. "Who knows, maybe this is our big break or whatever," he said, an attempt at a joke. His mother gave him a bright smile in response.

"That's what I like to hear," she said, "Now, how about getting those ears pierced?"

Izuku grinned, shoulders back in his best try at confident posture. "Yep!"

Nothing wrong with a little universal karma, right?

--

Universal karma sucked ass, and Katsuki wanted to commit mass homicide of each and every one of his classmates that lovely Monday morning where they all decided staring at him was a good, safe choice.

"Good morn-"

"Fuck off," Katsuki snapped, cutting off Mina's sing-songy greeting. She just laughed.

"Why so snappy, Bakugou-san?" she asked, though the shit-eating grin on her face led him to believe she fucking knew why, "You look like you're trying to burn your desk to ash with the force of your fiery gaze."