Why is Love so Complicated? (Bakudeku)

Chapter 4- Izuku

It's summer. Am I happy about it? I don't really know. I mostly just like it because I don't have to go to school till the fall. Man, it's hot out here!

Why did dad make me go to the convenience store? For context, it was "take your kid to work day" and I at first didn't want to go because he mostly works in the city. First week of summer, and I'm stuck at the office with an empty sketchbook on my lap. He promised he would show me how they manufacture toys, but it's already been an hour past that! If he told me it was going to be longer, then I wouldn't mind.

Yes, he works for a company that makes toys and are very memorable. As of right now, he's in a meeting with a huge announcement that his boss is telling everyone. I'm just sitting in a chair and staring at a blank page of the sketchbook. I got no inspiration whatsoever.

Then someone sat next to me. Oh no. Please don't talk to me, please don't talk to me, please don't talk to me. I squinted my eyes shut, waiting for them to talk to me. For the next few seconds, there was nothing. I opened one of my eyes and I saw him reading a book. Oh. Oh that's good.

Normally, I would ask what book it is, but considering that he's someone I don't know, I'm just going to try and draw. I've always wanted to draw a human, but I'm not great at drawing people realistically. With the pen in my hand, I drew the circle and then that's pretty much it. After I made the rough sketch of him, I would take quick glances at him while trying not to be too obvious. Line after line, things were starting to come together.

That is until he noticed that I was looking at him and he stared at my work in progress on his portrait. "Oh, this is a picture of you. Do you like it?" He didn't say much, but shrugged his shoulders and looked away. "You're not much of a talker, huh? That's okay, neither am I. It's hard to believe, but it's true." He never met my eyes, but that's okay, I wouldn't want him to look at me either.

The doors finally opened and my dad was the first person to walk out. He headed up to where I was and snapped his fingers, "Come on, leave the poor kid alone, Izuku." Huh? What did I do? While I did what my dad said, I looked back and he still kept looking at the ground.

"Dad, is he nonverbal? If that's it, then I'm sorry. I didn't know and—!" He looked over at me and sighed. "He is autistic, right?"

"Um... not exactly. That was my boss' son, and he has an anxiety disorder called selective mutism."

"What does that mean?" I asked and we stopped and he just leaned back on a wall.

"It's uh, a severe anxiety disorder where he can't talk in certain places. Like, he can talk when he's at home, sometimes, but he can find it difficult to talk in public places."

"Oh..." So that's why he didn't talk to me. I looked back at the way we came from and stared back. I glanced back at the picture that I drew and back at the hallway. I ripped the page out of the sketchbook and dashed down to find the guy I was sitting next to. "I'm sorry, but I have to do this!" I shouted as I kept running and saw him sitting down in the same chair still reading the book.

I panted and gasped for breath as I still had the piece of paper that had a drawing of him. I hold it out for him to take. "I made this for you," I finally said. He hesitated to take it for a moment, but he took the drawing out of my hand and looked back up at me with a soft smile.

"Izuku!" I jolted and stepped back a couple of steps away. "Why on earth did you do that? You have no idea where things are, it's easy for you to get lost in here," he scolded me as he made it to where I was. He turned to face the guy in a chair. "I'm sorry, was he bothering you?" The guy shook his head and smiled. Then he closed his book and set it aside for a moment. He got out his phone and was typing something. Flipping his phone to show us what he typed, "'It's okay, he didn't bother me at all. I also liked the picture he drew. And he can stay by me, I could use the company.'" My dad read aloud.