RESURGENCE - MHA x FReader

Chapter XVI: Too Close

The sky was unusually blue that morning.

Not the garish kind of blue that demanded attention—loud, artificial, the kind you'd expect on a postcard. No, it was softer. Pale and patient. Like it had nothing to prove. You only noticed it because you weren't really paying attention to anything else. Your elbow rested on the desk, chin propped in your hand, eyes half-focused on the clouds beyond the smudged glass window. The math worksheet in front of you may as well have been written in another language.

You weren't sad. Just... elsewhere.

Eleven was a strange age. Too old to be coddled, too young to be trusted. And when you'd already lived a life once before—whatever that meant now—it felt stranger. Like you were stuck performing in a play you'd already seen the ending to, still mouthing the lines like clockwork.

A nudge brought you back.

"Y/N," Izuku whispered, voice soft and nervous. His green eyes darted to the front of the classroom. "Sensei just asked you what the answer was to number six."

You blinked down at the paper, letting your pencil hover just long enough to seem like you'd been doing the work. "Twelve point four," you said quietly.

The teacher gave a distracted nod, already moving on.

You let out a slow breath. Izuku smiled at you, that gentle, honest smile of his—like it never once crossed his mind that you'd get it wrong. You gave him a thumbs-up, small and half-hearted, and he returned it with a grin too big for the moment. His pencil clattered to the floor.

That was Izuku for you.

Clumsy. Earnest. Kind in a way that didn't make sense sometimes.

You'd known him since you were three. But lately, something between you felt quieter. Heavier. Not dramatic. Just... deeper. Like if the world cracked in half tomorrow, he'd still be standing beside you, holding your hand while everything burned. Like no matter what happened—no matter how much you remembered or forgot—he'd still look at you with that same trusting, hopeful light in his eyes.

And it terrified you sometimes, how safe that felt.

Because you weren't sure you deserved it.

....

Lunch break found you beneath the half-dead tree at the back of the schoolyard—its crooked branches barely stretching far enough to offer shade, its bark dry and flaking like it had long since given up. Most kids avoided it. You loved it for exactly that.

It was quiet here. Tucked away, forgotten. A perfect little pocket of peace.

Izuku sat beside you, cross-legged on the grass, the sun brushing the tops of his sneakers as he unzipped his bento with quiet care. He always did things that way—gentle and precise.

Inside, his lunch looked like something from a cooking blog: rice balls shaped like little cats, each with seaweed eyes and nori whiskers, nestled beside slices of rolled omelet and perfectly blanched vegetables. One of the rice cats had gotten squished in transit—its face a bit lopsided, its seaweed smile halfway peeled—but that just made it more endearing.

"My mom made too much again," he said, scratching the back of his neck, clearly a little embarrassed. "She, uh... gets excited sometimes."

You leaned in, your smile already tugging at your lips. "It looks like an entire bento café moved into your backpack."