weary travelers.

SCARRED HANDS, BLOODIED EYES

The clock in the back of his mind ticks effortlessly, it sounds too much like his old classroom. It scares him because he cannot see the numbers lining his walls. He can only hear the ever-present tick-tock in his head. So he throws the clock to the ground. It shrieks back, falling from the edge of his school roof.

(H̶e̶ ̶r̶e̶a̶l̶i̶z̶e̶d̶ ̶i̶t̶ ̶w̶a̶s̶n̶'̶t̶ ̶a̶ ̶c̶l̶o̶c̶k̶ ̶o̶n̶e̶ ̶s̶e̶c̶o̶n̶d̶ ̶t̶o̶o̶ ̶l̶a̶t̶e̶.̶)

(Thud. The sound is fake, an imaginary vision of his body hanging limp on the concrete floor. Blood pools at the end of his eyes, his arms tangle the wrong way, like his fingers. All gnarled and broken, bone peeking through pierced skin and blackened eyes. His teeth have shattered, cracks widening as they dig into his face, his jaw juts in. Green hair turns a mushy sort off grey. Like the clouds on a rainy sky during winter.

His brain peaks from his skull, he is a smear on the pavement and they are all none the wiser. A thirteen-fourteen-fifeteen-year-old crushed head first with mounted in cheekbones and a bloodied face. His eyes have not changed from when their body was alive. Cold, sad, skeptical.)

Then he blinks, the ticking resumes and he looks back at the almost-finished homework on his floor.

P̶a̶n̶i̶c̶ ̶w̶a̶s̶h̶e̶s̶ ̶o̶v̶e̶r̶ ̶h̶i̶m̶.

It's a sunny day, a good day. Natsuo let's Izuku call him by his given name. It's a good day, yellow is a happy color. He is a child-but-not, running through fields. He does not think of his own death, he does not think about how easy it would be to dye his hands in his own blood. He is happy, smiling his ever-present smile. The curve of his mouth is something he'd learnt didn't have to be real.

It would be painful, he coaxes himself away from a very dangerous game, if I were to die like that.

A supernova dulls behind his eyelids. His hands are still shaking, they always are.

_

Uraraka rushes into his apartment with the happiest expression he's ever seen. Her fists pumped into the air and her red spots are redder, possibly from running. She heaves in front of him, hands on her knees, crouched over. Her head is probably spinning, and she jumps on his with stars in her eyes.

"Midoriya! It was so cool! Thirteen was there! Thirteen! And they were so nice!"

Izuku's Midoriya smiles with her. His front teeth are chipped because Kacchan hits hard― he has never held back, not when Izuku screamed or cried or begged ―but Mom said it made him special. That it was cute, like his freckles. Izuku doesn't like his freckles, they're from Dad (and Dad is gone). But he didn't say anything to Mom, not when she would cry over it. He didn't have the right to make her sad, not when she has done so much for him.

(Like mother like son.)

"That's awesome, Uraraka!"

She closes her eyes and her grin stretches across her face like putty. Her hands are covered in scars―or maybe he's staring at his own hands. There's scar tissue over his arms and legs, over his fingers that never set straight, they were broken one-too-many times. He remembers back when he could feel them, back when he didn't have burns scattered throughout his body and he didn't have a blotchy scar on his arm and shoulder and collar-bone. Back when night meant that he could count stars with Mom and he would walk home with Kacchan on the good days; on the days where Kacchan wasn't a bully and Izuku wasn't a victim; on the days where they were nothing more than children-but-not. 

"You finally dropped the 'chan' Midoriya! I'm so happy!"

She hugged him, and for what felt like the millionth time today. He turns red with glee. His arms wrapped gingerly around her waist and he hugs back. He buries his face in her shoulder and spins her around in circles. She shrieks like a child-but-not in sunlight, it is completely pure. Her eyes twinkle like stars on the midnight sky, glittering and shiny. He thinks this is what pure euphoria feels like, but he wouldn't know.

(He wonders if the night ever stole her muse like it had his, wonder if the stars have burnt out in her eyes, exploding and leaving her as carnage.)

He thinks he's smiling for real, but the feeling of his lips twisting up has become so foreign to him. He doesn't smile as much as he did when he was a child-but-not; he smiles more than he did when Kacchan was still around.

"The Sports Festival is coming up, Uraraka!"

"Oh yeah!"

But they still spin and spin and spin until Midoriya feels his arms collapse under him. Then they hug until she says she needs help with homework and he offers. He was always good at helping others, it was why he wanted to be a hero, so nobody lived a life like he had to endure. He knows he cannot save people; not like this.

("Take a swan dive off the roof and pray you'll be born with a quirk in your next life!")

That doesn't mean he isn't willing to help whenever someone needs it; and he will ask for nothing in return because he is not selfish. He will never crave anything. Touch-starved and boney, everything prickles and he wonders if it's all a lie. It wouldn't be the first time someone was faking friendship. Faking something.

(There was a girl― no, a lot of people did it, but she was the main instigator ―who would doodle her letters. She would swirl the kanji like a child-but-not. He doesn't remember much about her; she had white-grey skin and snake-gold eyes, her hair was midnight black with streaks of silver. She would give him fake love notes, he doesn't remember her name. He believed it the first time, kept it close to his chest. He never knew her name, he's almost glad about it.

(Then there was a letter with the same handwriting scrawled on his desk NO ONE WILL EVER LOVE YOU.))

Izuku hopes with all his heart that Uraraka won't do the same. Hopes that he isn't left to the dust again because of his acursed genes.

"C'mon, I'll help you," He shows her to his room.