Papa Meets Old Crush

Katuski's effort

After getting back home from the hospital, Katsuki found himself lost in thought about what he had heard. He lay on his bed in the darkness, pondering for a long time.

「His mother... She passed away a few years ago,」 Mitsuki's words echoed.

The car was filled with a heavy silence after she said that.

Masaru spoke up, his voice quieter, 「It was a sudden heart attack. Unfortunately, by the time the neighbors found her at the apartment entrance, it was too late.」

「I don't think it was all of a sudden,」 Mitsuki protested, her voice carrying a touch of sadness. 「I believe there were signs before. I had seen her looking unusually pale and losing weight too rapidly when I saw her at the grocery market before the incident.」 Katsuki could sense the sadness in her tone.

「But she didn't want to admit it, didn't want her son to worry. I knew her for a long time. She took so much pride in her pro hero son, and she had gotten used to putting on a bearing and smiling face for him. But it became too much, and then... this happened.」

Katsuki picked up his phone and searched for information about Hero Deku. He scrolled through his impressive achievements over the past seven years, but something caught his attention that seemed odd.

There was a gap in the record, about a year long, which was quite significant for a young hero. Then, suddenly, Deku's hero activities resumed, and he rapidly climbed the ranks, achieving so much in the following years. There were numerous incidents attributed to Hero Deku, more than enough to fill up the gap. Yet, as someone who was also a hardworking pro hero, Katsuki had his suspicions.

It was simply too much. Izuku seemed to have overworked himself for the years. It led Katsuki to wonder if Izuku had even managed to get proper sleep during that time, almost as if he was pushing himself to the brink. A sense of relief washed over Katsuki when he realized that the intense workload had stopped about two years ago. He guessed that it coincided with the time Izuku adopted the little girl, a detail he recalled from his parents' conversations.

"Damn it, you nerd..." Katsuki sighed heavily, feeling a pang in his chest.

Memories of Auntie Inko surfaced vividly. She had been one of the warmest and most thoughtful people Katsuki had known. Her welcoming greetings always made him feel at ease whenever he entered the Midoriya house. Even when he started bullying Izuku, he could only feel ashamed in front of her. Katsuki couldn't fathom the pain of losing someone like her, even someone who was the closest to Izuku.

Considering the records of overwork, it was clear that Izuku Midoriya had endured a living hell after losing his mother. It was painfully obvious.

However, Katsuki could find relief in the fact that Izuku seemed healthier now, perhaps thanks to the presence of the little girl.

Yet, as someone who had witnessed his own parents struggling to raise Tatami over the past seven years, Katsuki knew how challenging raising a child could be, even with two parents supporting each other.

And now, Izuku was handling it all alone, alongside his hero responsibilities. How did he manage everything? Did he find time for proper rest? How did he fit in extra workouts or training sessions?

Most importantly, Katsuki wondered,

'Is he eating well these days?'

The memory of Izuku's oddly thin form in his arms on the hospital balcony played over in his mind.

───

As the weekend passed, a new week began.

Izuku's Monday morning was quite busy. He carefully checked on Eri's condition multiple times, then contacted the mental therapy center to discuss the possibility of rescheduling her counseling session. Later, he found himself spending more time than expected filling out forms regarding Eri's updated medical records at the kindergarten. Upon reaching his office, he received an urgent call about armed villains showing up. After encountering them, he figured out that these villains were teenagers armed with BB pellets. Strangely, dealing with them proved to be tougher than handling adult criminals, as they defiantly refused to provide their personal information, almost as if they were challenging him, saying like this, 'I already know everything you don't know, dumbass.'