A Silent Kind of Strength

Chapter 45

Izuku and Hitoshi were splayed out on the break couch at the shop. Kaminari was helping Kuroyama through an english lesson at one of the work benches while Mei was setting off controlled (for once) explosions in the tiny testing room. "I still don't know what to do about a name." He confided, slipping his hearing aids free to toss them onto the messy coffee table. His tinnitus had been acting up for the last hour and listening to the muffled booms was only making things worse.

The lanky boy shifted a bit so signing would put less of a strain on his shoulders, moving so he was sat more up right. "Why don't you try the same thing you did for Kaminari and I? Just think of what you want to convey and throw out synonyms until you find something that sounds cool?" Freckled hands threaded through wild curls in irritation and he huffed. "That's great and all. But I don't have a quirk to convey!" He knew his signs were a bit sloppy and wide with his frustration, but he also knew Shinso would catch his meaning. 

He could almost hear his friend's long suffering sigh as he sat up straight, turning to face him fully and bringing his legs up to sit cross-legged. "I never said anything about a quirk Izuku. I said, 'think of what you want to convey'. So, what do you want people to think of when they think of you? Who do you want to be? Think on that for a while, ok? See if that leads you anywhere." With that Hitoshi flopped back onto the cushions and closed his eyes, obviously going to try for a nap.

The greenette sat back thoughtfully, taking in the advice and rolling it around in his head for a minute or two before he reached down to snag a notebook from the coffee table. By this point he barely bothered to label the things. He had 3 'sets' and each had up to a dozen notebooks already filled. Heros, support, and class were scrawled haphazardly over the covers. He managed to reach a hero one from his seat and opened it to the last few clean pages at the back. This was heros #13 which meant it was mostly full of sketches of class 1B and ideas for improving their quirks. 

Absent-mindedly he jotted down some buzz words. Things he thought a hero should convey, things he wished he could be. Things he thought of when his friends popped into his head. He filled the whole first page with just random words before he paused and went back to look it over to see if anything stuck out to him.

By the time he had it narrowed down to three or four themes to play around with, Hatsume-san had already ordered dinner for those who were allowed to stay that night and he was trying not to get distracted with thoughts of the Italian food heading his way. He had never tried Italian before he started hanging out with Mei, but Mia was obsessed with good food and insisted on any kids in her vicinity trying a variety of things to expand their palates. And now he was drooling at the thought of chicken piccata with artichoke hearts. No. Bad Izuku. Focus.

But garlic bread.

Names. Names. Themes. What kind of hero did he want to be? When he was a kid he wanted to save people with a smile just like All Might. But now he knew better. Now he knew how much of that smile was fake. So, now that he had a second chance, now that he was actually in the hero course at his dream school. What did he want to do? Who did he want to be?

He didn't realize he had been staring blankly at a wall for ten minutes until Mia leaned in to block his view. "Izuku-kun? You ok there kiddo? Having trouble with a code or something?" He smiled a bit and shook his head. "N-no. I'm just- I have t-to choose a hero name and…"