Shackles of the Past

Sticks and stones might break my bones, but words will always hurt me

The bullying only got worse.

Without Shinsou, the children in his classes had gotten more bold. After all, there was no one there to threaten to brainwash them. Midoriya was helpless on his own, too mild to fight back, too willing to take the blame for whatever was thrown at him, too nice to do anything besides tell the teachers.

Midoriya was tripped in hallways, had basketballs thrown at his face in sports, had his worksheets were soaked when someone spilt water on him, had gotten scalded by burning hot soup because someone "accidentally" dumped the entire bowl of pipping hot noodles on him.

Midoriya never fought back.

He accepted it.

I'm quirkless.

I'm useless.

I deserve this.

They're trying to tell me not the be a hero.

Without power, I can't save anyone.

Still, he never gave up hope.

Midoriya still wrote to Shinsou. Every week, he would skip happily to the post office to pick up the letters, immediately identifying Shinsou's from the pile of bills from the messy scrawling on the envelope. He loved reading the stupid jokes Shinsou sometimes added in the letters, or the variety of things Shinsou did in his new school.

Apparently, on the very first day, his teacher had introduced him and his quirk. The cycle repeated itself, and no one was willing to talk to, or even get near Shinsou in fear he would brainwash them. That letter had almost been crushed into a ball, one of the only letters that had been crushed before it had been hole punched and filed neatly in a folder in his room.

The second letter to be handled with so much anger had been that Shinsou had gotten detention for a whole week. Apparently, a whole group of students had gotten into a fight with another class, and they had pinned the blame on him, saying that he had brainwashed them to fight. Because no one had any proof, the teachers just decided to stick him in detention to placate the entire class.

He never told Shinsou about the bullying getting worse. He told him it was the normal, stationery thrown at him, mocking him in front of the class, etcetera.

Toshi already had his own problems to worry about. He doesn't have to worry about me. Midoriya thought, as he penned down his own replies despite the sharp ache in his ribs from when Yoku had tripped him and he fell down the stairs.

He tried to train himself, going on runs around the dump near his house. The dump had become more like a safe house for him, whenever he didn't want to hear his mother wallowing to herself in her room. The sound of the beach calmed him, but he had wrinkled his nose at all the unsightly rubbish that littered the beach.

He tried to clear it. Bit by bit. He wasn't strong enough to carry washing machines and trucks or anything. But he tried. He had tried to dismantle all the items that were too large for him to move. It had an unintended outcome. Midoriya had gotten curious about the inner workings of the machinery, slowly pulling wires and bolts apart as he slowly ventured into the machine. First it was his head, then his torso, then legs.

He didn't realise that he actually fit in a washing machine.

He admired the maze of colourful wires, the glinting screws and bolts, his brain automatically making connects as he peered and prodded the insides of the machine.

He stored the information away for future usage. Any kind of knowledge was useful, after all. Maybe one day he'll need to fight a villain with a washing machine quirk.