Echo | BNHA Deltarune/Undertale AU

Chapter 59: Homework

Izuku was back to square one as far as walking-home-from-school-without-passing-out-on-top-of-his-sheets-as-soon-as-he-got-there went. At least until his head stopped hurting like a bitch. Inko wasn't home yet, wouldn't be until after he was normally home, so he didn't have to worry about explaining anything to her. He hated making her worry about him.

He laid in his bed, in his full uniform and shoes, for maybe ten minutes before he got impatient and went to dig around in the medicine cabinet for benadryl. Physical exhaustion, it seemed, wasn't enough for him to be able to sleep, and he was sick of being awake. He realized offhandedly that, if Recovery Girl had used her quirk on him and he died, he'd have to redo yesterday first and then today, since he hadn't been prompted to save the night before. He made a face when he found they only had the syrup, but his apprehension disappeared with another pulse of stabbing pain. He poured out the proper measurement and swallowed it in one go, the taste just as bad as he remembered.

Knowing it wouldn't kick in for another thirty minutes or so, Izuku decided to actually bother with getting undressed. He didn't change into pajamas, not wanting to make his mother suspicious, instead deciding to sleep in a random t-shirt and shorts. He had a thought, hesitated, then grabbed a random textbook from his backpack and opened it to a random page. Inko worried about him too much, especially recently, with his new "quirk" that came out of nowhere and contradicted the diagnosis that had been so indisputable, that she'd been worrying about for over ten years now, extra toe joint and freckles and illness and weakness all pointing to it like a flashing neon sign. She worried about him at UA, even though he wasn't in the hero course or the support course. And then there was the USJ incident. She just about went into cardiac arrest after what he pulled there. He tried to tell her that if anything bad was going to happen to him, he would know before it happened, and he wouldn't do something if he didn't know he would survive, but it didn't seem to put her at ease. It was just a headache, really, it wasn't anything to worry about, but she would worry about it, and what was the point of being functionally immortal if his mother would still worry about every little thing that hurt him?

When she came home and found him asleep with a textbook in his lap, he would play it off as him taking an accidental nap while he studied something boring.

Before he knew it he was greeted by a four-pointed star surrounded by darkness. He saved, watched the star expand, taking over his vision, the white light melting away to reveal his room.

He wasn't greeted by Inko, as he'd expected, but instead by his phone ringing from wherever he'd set it down.

Sliding out of bed, the textbook he'd forgotten about dropping the floor with a thud, he looked around a bit frantically for his phone. A thread of anxiety pulled tight through the cloud of his mind, he felt very odd, nervous as his phone ringing always made him for whatever reason but too groggy to really feel it. It wasn't on his desk, wasn't on his chair, wasn't on his bed, wasn't on the floor. He eventually found it in the pocket of his uniform jacket, hanging on the back of his chair, and picked up without looking at the caller ID.

"Hello?" His voice came out hoarser than he expected.

"Hey, Mido," his mind sluggishly identified the slightly distorted voice as Hitoshi's, "heard you went home early. How are you holding up?"

Hitoshi maintained his usual casual tone, but it was forced. He was actually concerned. Izuku stared at his carpet for a moment before remembering to respond.

"Yeah. Recovery Girl sent me home when the painkillers she gave me didn't do anything."

There was a beat. "...And how are you feeling now?"

Right. Hitoshi had asked how he was holding up. How was he feeling? Taking stock of himself, he found the headache to be completely gone, thank fuck. He felt slow and drowsy and a little dizzy, but that could be attributed to the benadryl. "Right. Sorry. I took a nap and I feel okay now." He stared at his carpet some more, head starting to swim a little. "Thanks for checking in."