Need You (ShinDeku)

Ch. 131 - Premeditated

A/N: ...yeah, so, not really sure where this came from. It just happened.

Trigger warning: this chapter explores a little bit of how trauma can affect the people around the person who experienced the trauma. Because it's hard to see other people go through unimaginably terrible things too. They might not be the 'victim' and they may never quite be able to understand what it's like but it can be upsetting all on its own to see it happening or even just to know it's going on while there's nothing you can do about it. It is built up throughout the whole chapter so there will not be individual sections labeled.

Have fun reading!

Kayama POV

     Midoriya is a good kid. An amazing one, actually. One of the brightest, strongest and most positive I've ever met, and I've taught a lot of kids. When I first saw him, on one of the many little screens monitoring the physical portion of the school's entrance exam, my first thought was that in a world of quirks and the boundless desire for self-expression in teenagers, he was a little plain looking. He wasn't one of the students I was supposed to be monitoring, so as he sprinted behind a wrecked robot and out of the range of the recording drone, I let him slip from my mind.

     The second time I saw him, he was a name on a page with a little middle school photo on the top right corner. I was reviewing the admitted first years' info sheets, because I liked familiarizing myself with the new students and understanding their quirks and backgrounds. His page said he was quirkless. I thought about flagging it with Nezu, because surely there was a mistake, but the word 'quirkless' didn't seem like a typo and these pages were rigorously reviewed prior to being released to the staff.

     My eyes flicked back up to his picture, and I pushed my glasses back up my nose. Most of the other students smiled in their middle school photos, although the posh kids from private schools with rich parents sometimes posed more like CEOs on the 'about our leadership staff' pages of MNCs.

His lips were pressed into a thin line, and his eyes were big and wide, but not with innocence, or even excitement or surprise. Nervousness and discomfort radiated from the photo, like he was waiting for the other shoe to drop.

     Not that I had any idea what the metaphorical first shoe had been, but something had clearly happened to cause the reluctantly expectant look on his face.

     My eyes flicked back down the page. There were no mental or physical health issues noted in his file, but without having even met him it seemed like he had anxiety. I remember thinking it would be strange if he didn't have any mental health issues, growing up without a quirk in public school in this day and age. Maybe he didn't want to tell the school. Or he's not diagnosed. I pulled myself back after that, because it's not fair to be making assumptions about the mental state of a kid I've never met based on a few lines and a school picture on a piece of paper.

     The first time I met him I took back my thoughts about how plain he looked. His face was so expressive that it would have been funny to watch, if it weren't for the fact that he always looked so nervous and guarded. However, my thoughts about his mental health were absolutely further cemented. Bakugo—the other kid that came in through Midoriya's middle school and who sat in front of him in class—seemed familiar with him and his quirk situation. He immediately proved my theory on how Midoriya must have grown up. Except, as it turned out, Midoriya was not in fact quirkless and Bakugo seemed just as confused about it as the staff were upon learning the files were wrong.

     A meeting with school admin later in the first week gave us the revelation that his info sheet was filled out with what he believed was the truth at the time, but that somehow on the day of the entrance exam his quirk—super strength—manifested for the first time ever. In short, he was just as confused as the rest of us.