Revelation

1 July: Believe Me

If I tell you I'm not who you think I am,

.

.

.

will you believe me?

—

The atmosphere is warming up and the sun is scorching. Cicadas screech like the buzzing of doorbells, and Izuku's life is finally on track.

Izuku's still striving for more. The internships, the thanks he still gets from saving everyone in the war, for saving to win, winning to save. Still fighting his way with Shoto and Katsuki for Valedictorian, with sleepless nights, caffeine, training and school. He's still healing, picking up the pieces with permanently scarred hands and getting cut by the shards on his crooked fingers, but he's better, compared to last year.

He'll be 17 in two weeks, graduate in 10 months, and go Pro because that's been his dream since young.

The air is fresh, and he's contented, happy, satisfied.

Summer has officially made its debut, and July has finally arrived.

Izuku can't consider himself anything less than lucky, because without Kacchan, Ochaco, Iida, Todoroki, All Might, his classmates, mother, teachers, all of them, he wouldn't be here.

"Class dismissed," Aizawa says, throwing his sleeping bag over his shoulder, and walks out the door.

The class explodes with its usual chatter, and Katsuki turns around to form conversations about training.

Yeah, everything feels...just right.

—

Everything was not alright.

Then again, things haven't been alright for a while now, and most of your feelings are numb, numb, numb because after a certain threshold, the rod breaks, the rope snaps, and suddenly, you just don't care anymore.

It isn't to say you weren't close to Izuku, but the gap is a chasm that can never be bridged. (Maybe another war would help, but your smile isn't worth the world burning.) Your relationship with Izuku now can't hold a candle to what it once was, because on the 15th of July, 7 years ago, you'd been at the wrong place, at the wrong time.

On the 15th of July, 7 years ago, Izuku had pushed you out of the way, and taken your place.

On the 15th of July, 7 years ago, Izuku had been hit by a quirk.

In each memory, each picture he remembers, every thought he's ever had of you in that one-year timeframe, you disappear. Because each year after that, at the stroke of midnight on the 16th of July, he'd forget you.

Even as nightmares of the war ease for some, yours is eternal, and you breathe every second of it. You want to kill yourself.

If I tell you I'm not who you think I am,

.

.

.

will you believe me?

You're writing on a post-it, and it's a bad habit of yours. Your game of Secrets that you'd incorporate through each year even though there's no one to play the game with now. Your laughs shared, and your effort that you'd build the bridge so painstakingly with the hands that tore your relationship up in the first place.