Work Text:
–A FLOWER FOR A FLOWER–
He gave her a cluster of forget-me-nots.
He didn’t know why.
He didn’t understand romance. His worst fear was him doing something stupid while trying to be romantic, and she’d know too much about romance and see right through him. She’d know he was an idiot. She’d know he was grasping at thin air–she’d know he was fumbling.
He was always fumbling. He couldn’t even tell her he loved her. Just handed her the flowers–“Uraraka! I– uh, I got you something.”–with no explanation as to why it had to be flowers. No explanation of what those flowers meant. He just left it open for guessing. If she wanted to see it as a gesture of friendship, then he was safe. If she wanted it to be more than that, then he’d not only handed her his heart on a plate, but he’d left it with her with no further clue as to what to do with it. Eat it? Smash it? Give it back? Why had he not stayed longer after giving her the flowers?
Coward.
He was a coward.
Poor Ochaco. She’d looked so happy and flustered, then more flustered than happy, because why would a nerd like Izuku, one of her friends, just give her flowers for no occasion, then excuse himself?
Izuku had a habit of acting before thinking. Or overthinking. Or overthinking after he’d flubbed a thing.
What was he thinking?
He wasn’t thinking.
He just…
It was…
It was such a fine cluster of flowers. Pale pink with bright yellow stars in the center. Perfectly shaped among the other kinds of flowers in the park. Petals soft like damp skin. He plucked a cluster by the single stem. He twirled it between his fingers absentmindedly on his way back. He gave it to his brown-eyed friend in the hallway of their dormitory.
He didn’t speak romance. He spoke the wrong things, used the wrong words. He gave mixed signals. He hoped he wasn’t leading her on.
She started blushing more often. She behaved like he did, starting and blurting out nonsense. The girls would snicker behind her.
He hadn’t meant to strike the match of his affection alight. But it was lit now, eating away at the match, and it would burn him if he didn’t do anything about it soon.
He loved her. He hadn’t meant to.
He gave her forget-me-nots. He hadn’t meant to.
He exposed his affection for her with that gift. He hadn’t meant to.
The poor girl was probably waiting for him to do something. He'd see her eyeing him from afar, and he'd pretend not to notice. He was panicking. He’d done this to both of them, because of course Izuku ‘Deku’ Midoriya just had to make things complicated. He could’ve left things as they were. He’d still have his best friend. Things would be simple. Or as simple as they had been. He wouldn’t be having a crisis about their relationship. What if he told her liked her in the way that made him really want to kiss her? What if he was reading this all wrong, and she didn’t want them to be anything other than friends?
What if he just… waited it out? Would the flame tucker itself out before reaching him? That was the coward’s way out.
And he was a coward.
If he’d remembered a neglected flower would wilt eventually, maybe he wouldn’t have been a coward.
–TO PLUCK PETALS–
“Stop the patrol. Stay on hold until further notice,” Shouta Aizawa’s voice sternly ordered through the children’s earpiece.
Class 1-A had been divided into groups and assigned areas for them to patrol. Said areas already had Pro Heroes on duty. This was just an exercise. An easy, uneventful one at that, considering what this group of teenagers had gone through already. It wasn’t two hours in before the call had come in, awkwardly stopping everyone in their tracks. Izuku glanced at Hanta and Toru, his partners for today. There was visible confusion amongst them. They’d stopped between a shoe store and a food stand by the street. All Izuku could smell was grilled squid. People walked around the three of them, preoccupied with everyday life.
“What d’ya think happened?” Hanta asked, scratching his forehead.
Izuku’s brows furrowed. Their homeroom teacher hadn’t given them any reason as to why he ordered everyone to halt. Izuku got his phone out of his red utility belt and checked for any notifications. Aside from an assault case that had happened an hour before this exercise had started, there was no Villain warning in any areas his friends were in.
“I don’t know…” Izuku admitted. His Sensei was probably looking into the matter. Whatever the matter was.
Five minutes. No updates.
Ten minutes. The three of them ordered Ikayaki from the stand.
Twenty-five minutes. The three kids leaned against the wall of the shoe store so they weren’t causing a foot traffic jam. Hanta crossed his arms behind his head and leaned back against the wall; Toru squatted and was playing with the stick which used to have a soy sauce-covered grilled squid; Izuku twiddled his thumbs and tapped the toe tip of the ironclad sole of his shoe against the pavement.
Izuku checked for notifications again. There was one: a low-level crime of assault, sent just a few minutes ago. It was nearby, but just out of reach from the designated area of Izuku’s team. An update message popped up stating that the incident was over and that the police were handling it. It wasn’t clear if this was related to why his teacher had to put everyone else on pause.
A man walked by with a phone to his ear, holding hands with a little girl no older than five. She saw the elaborate costumes the teenagers by the store wore. She must’ve assumed they were full-fledged heroes or, at least, she connected them to the Pro Heroes she saw on TV because her eyes sparkled, and she enthusiastically waved at them as her father continued pulling her with him. Izuku gave her a gentle smile and a friendly wave. He cherished the little giggle she made.
After another ten minutes, his earpiece crackled to life. All three teenagers perked up.
“Alright. Pick up where you left off,” was all their teacher said.
The three kids exchanged looks. The teacher hadn’t provided any explanation.
Toru was the bravest to reach for her earpiece and ask, “Sensei, what happened?”
“Mild mishap.” He didn’t sound alarmed, just slightly exasperated. “Get back to your duties.”
There was no stopping the questions going through Izuku’s mind. He thought with his hand cupping his chin, a habit of his whenever he wanted to think.
“Something differently went on,” Hanta commented nonchalantly. He was relaxed. Not too concerned. After all, their teacher had handled whatever it was.
“Bet somebody got in trouble,” said Toru, her gloved hands just fists in the air.
The patrol was uneventful. Some little kids got excited seeing teenagers in Hero costumes. One even wanted a picture with the three of them, which the Heroes-in-training couldn’t decline–not when the kid looked so eager, and the parent so grateful. The three greeted a Pro Hero on duty who simply nodded a greeting back at them.
After an hour, their homeroom teacher announced that the exercise was over and instructed everyone to regroup around Downtown’s central plaza. Izuku and his team took a bus; he and Hanta could’ve parkoured it, but that wouldn’t be fair to Toru, the least athletic of the three of them.
Their homeroom teacher was standing with his arms crossed, waiting. A few kids had already made it back. Some surrounding Ochaco, in fact. She was sitting on the fiberglass wall of the plaza fountain, sheepishly waving off the concerns of Tenya who seemed serious about something. He was serious about everything, so that wasn’t anything new. The pink oval print on Ochaco’s forehead was, though. Mildly concerned, Izuku’s walk turned into a light jog.
He heard Eijiro tell Tenya, “-was so weird, though. Lady just came outta nowhere at her.”
That didn’t sound good.
“What happened?” Izuku asked.
Ochaco was startled by his arrival. There was an immediate shift in her eyes when she looked at him. The familiarity and friendliness she had with Tenya got swept away. She just looked at Izuku in puzzlement. Izuku hoped this wasn’t about the flower. It had been weeks since he’d given her that. There was always that lingering awkwardness about it. At least, Izuku thought that was what he felt looming down at him whenever it suddenly got quiet between him and her. Eighty percent of the time, she behaved normally with him. The rest of it? She’d squirm and look away. She’d act like him: awkward. A little sad. But he wasn’t good at reading social cues. He was probably misreading this, overreading it.
But she’d never looked at him like this before.
Tenya adjusted his glasses and respectfully explained, “Uraraka, Kirishima, and Koda had gotten into an altercation with a civilian.”
An altercation. With three of the most passive people Izuku knew in his class?
Seeing the bewilderment on Izuku’s face, Eijiro said, “There was some lady harassing this girl at a restaurant over the girl having a service dog? Was being passive-aggressive and all. Something about the girl not looking disabled. We tried to step in, ‘cause it looked like the stress caused the girl to have a panic attack, and the lady wasn’t letting up. The manager was on the phone to get the police while we were busy trying to de-escalate. The woman got a bit physical. Aimed at Urara– Uravity. She didn’t land a punch. Uravity grabbed her wrist, but, uhh…”
Ochaco chuckled meekly, brushing her bangs out of the way to show off the little bruise on her forehead. “She headbutted me. Didn’t see that coming. Bit dizzy, but I’ve had worse. Looked like she hurt herself doing that.”
That incident explained the few minutes the exercise was halted.
“Are you okay?” Izuku couldn’t help but ask.
Again, she looked at him in a way that itched something uneasy in his gut. He couldn’t put his finger on what it was that made him feel tense.
She nodded. “Yeah. It was nothing. Just a little bump. Nobody got hurt. Had to fill the police in on what happened. The girl with the service dog was okay.”
Tenya interjected. “I’m happy to hear the situation has been sorted. But I insisted you seek a doctor. You might’ve sustained a concussion!”
Ochaco laughed it off. “She didn’t hit me that hard. I feel a little confused, but that’s about it.”
Izuku sighed, his shoulders sagging in relief. “That’s good to know. I’m glad you’re okay.”
She was still looking at him like… like she was trying to find something about him.
She then said, in a friendly tone, “Hey, have we met before?”
Izuku didn’t understand at first. Maybe it was one of those social situations he didn’t understand. The ones where everyone seemed to get but him. Everyone else instinctively knew how to wire social information, and he’d be the only one who didn’t even know there were wires to connect.
He looked like an idiot, standing there, blinking. The fact that this was Ochaco, however, was reassuring, because she was too kind and considerate to think of him as an idiot. She never got annoyed at him just being him. It was what gave him the courage to say, “What do you mean?”
The look in her eyes. She was being friendly, but something in her eyes wasn’t right. He finally understood what it was. Blankness.
“You feel familiar,” she said. “You’ve got a costume on. Are you from another class?”
He couldn’t swallow, couldn’t think of what to say, if there was anything to say at all. For once, he wanted this to be one of those moments where he was the only one out of the loop. But that’s not what he saw when he looked at his classmates and saw the shock on their faces, too.
Ochaco caught onto the shift in the atmosphere. “Guys? What’s… going on?” She understood something was amiss.
“Wait, wait wait wait–!” Mina interjected. She pressed her fingertips to her forehead, took a deep breath, bracing herself, then asked, “You–” she pointed at Ochaco with two finger guns, “don’t remember him?”
Ochaco now looked nervous. “I… no. Where did we meet?”
There was silence between the rest of the students. Izuku tried to swallow. He couldn’t. There was a rock in his throat.
“Do you remember us, kero?” asked Tsuyu.
Ochaco looked even more confused now. It looked like she wanted to answer ‘Yeah’ but stopped herself. Her eyes roamed over the rest of the students. It took a while of anticipation before she said. “Yeah. I know you guys.” She took a moment. She looked at Izuku. Blankness in her eyes. She looked at her lap. “Something’s wrong, isn’t it?” she concluded quietly.
Tenya swallowed hard. “That’s Deku.”
She didn’t react to that.
Tenya clarified, “Izuku Midoriya.”
She gave a slow shake of her head.
He added, “He’s a classmate. He’s our friend.”
Again, she shook her head. She turned to Izuku with sadness in her eyes. “Sorry… I don’t know you.”
It crushed him. His hand reached for her, stopping before he could make contact.
“…Fuck,” someone breathed.
The realization of what this meant struck everyone.
“Sensei?” Momo remembered the adult still waiting for Minoru, Yuga, and Shoto. “Sensei, something’s wrong.”
That headbutt had left more than just a bruise.
–THE LONE SUNFLOWER–
He was the only one she didn’t remember. It was like he never existed in her life at all. There was nothing medically wrong with her. Not through brain scans, anyway. It didn’t seem like she forgot anybody else. Just him. Just Izuku. Why, they weren’t sure. Everyone knew the culprit for this; the woman who’d verbally harassed a girl at a restaurant. Their homeroom teacher had to contact the police department to get to the bottom of this. In the common area at the dormitory, the more extroverted classmates quizzed Ochaco on even the tiniest, most insignificant events, and she still remembered them.
Eventually, Tenya asked her, “Do you recall the Zero Pointer?”
She said, “Yeah. Someone saved me.” She paused, then pressed her fist to her temple. “I can’t remember who.”
It hurt Izuku so much, hearing that she didn’t remember when he'd had saved her. Tenya gave him a worried look. Ochaco followed his eyes and saw how defeated Izuku must’ve looked.
“That was you, then, wasn’t it?” she guessed sadly.
Izuku gave her a single nod.
“I’m sorry,” she said sincerely, rubbing her arm. “I don’t remember.”
“You tried to give me your points,” Izuku said, his voice a shaky whisper. “Do you remember that?”
She paused. Thought about it. “I feel like I did try to do that? It’s fuzzy. I don’t know who I was trying to give it to…”
Izuku’s fists clawed at the knees of his pants. “The entrance exam… I tripped. You stopped me from hitting the ground.”
Her fingertips touched her chest, as though her heart remembered this. She didn’t. She shook her head, a sorry look on her face.
“Provisional Hero License Exam?” he tried desperately.
Another shake of her head.
“…Joint training?” He was grasping at straws.
“It’s… messy in my mind. There’s a lot missing. I’m sorry. I don’t mean to forget you, Midoriya.”
His world tilted.
Midoriya.
Not Deku.
Just Midoriya.
That’s how she saw him. Just some guy in her class.
The lit match he’d had with her had been extinguished, just like that.
He heard her saying something, asking if she’d said something wrong. He wasn’t paying attention. She looked at Tenya; he seemed heartbroken by what had just happened.
Izuku politely excused himself. He went to his room, sat on the floor with the bedframe against his back, arms against his bent knees. He clasped his hands and leaned his forehead against his knuckles.
It started raining outside his window.
It would keep on raining through the night.
–PRESSED BETWEEN THE PAGES–
The Quirk made her block out any memories of a person she cherished deeply. That was what they were told. It was tragic, to hear that she held that close to her heart, and to know that now she didn’t even know who he was.
He could hear the sympathy his classmates radiated around him and Ochaco.
“How long until she gets her memories back?” Tenya asked their teacher.
The answer was: she wouldn’t.
There was something ugly swirling in Izuku's gut.
It wasn’t fair.
She was his best friend. His first real friend.
It was just a little civilian standoff. It wasn’t a Villain. It wasn’t anything big. It was just some lady who couldn’t mind her business. How did it escalate to this?
On the weekend, he stayed in his room unless he needed to use the gym.
Seven p.m.– Tenya approached him and gently advised, “You need to talk to her.”
In all this mess, while Izuku had been grieving, he had neglected the person who must’ve been going through worse. He’d been a coward again. Too scared of the thorns that came with the rose that was Ochaco Uraraka. It never did him any good.
He wasn’t sure what to tell her.
He knocked on her door. Waited. Contemplated. Scolded himself for contemplating so hard. Scolded himself some more for thinking in circles. When the door opened, all of his thoughts evaporated. All that thinking for nothing when it really came down to it.
Ochaco didn’t look surprised by him being there. She didn’t greet him with her usual happy tone, either. There was a thoughtful, bittersweet look in her eyes.
When she spoke–“Hey.”–it was quiet, accepting. Like she was expecting him.
“Hey,” he awkwardly said back. “I, uh… are you busy right now? I can come back later if–”
She gave a breathy chuckle and opened the door wider. “It’s fine. I was actually hoping to talk to you. Wanna come in?”
He stammered a bit, momentarily reminding himself that his Ochaco did not know who he was, that he was just a stranger to her, and she was inviting this stranger into her room.
“It’s okay,” she reassured, with a kind smile. “We were friends, weren’t we? I trust you. Come in, please?”
That gave him a confidence boost. He walked in. He’d been in her room before, when she still called him ‘Deku’. He’d sat with her on the floor to do homework together. She didn’t have much. But he could tell some things had been moved a bit. Subtle changes, like the note arrangement on the pinboard, and how her pink pigeon plushie had moved from the top of the drawer to the bed.
Before he could think of what to say, she started first with, “I found something in the storage part in my belt.” She sat down on her rolling chair, picked something off the desktop table. The netsuke she’d gotten from him on Christmas. “It’s from you.” It was a statement. She wasn’t asking.
Hope blossomed in his chest. “You remember?”
“No,” she said sadly. “I just… had a feeling it was yours.”
“You can tell?” He wondered aloud.
Instead of answering, she opened a drawer and pulled out a book. A novel. A Japanese edition of Andy Weir’s The Martian. She opened it without flipping through the pages thanks to the bookmark. It wasn’t a bookmark. It was flattened flowers. Pink forget-me-nots had been pressed between the pages. The stem had been cut shorter so the flower could fit into the book.
The pink flowers he’d given her. She’d preserved them.
“You gave me these,” she stated.
“I did.” He wasn’t sure why he was scared out of his wits, nor why the fear didn’t show in his voice.
She wasn’t surprised by his answer. She looked sad when she delicately traced a finger over the petals. “Why?”
He spoke with utmost sincerity. “They reminded me of you.”
She didn’t reply right away, just kept looking at the flowers, knowing this was more than just a friend handing her a present, coming to the conclusion that she hadn’t just forgotten a friend, but someone who meant much more. “I don’t remember,” she finally admitted. “I know you gave them to me, but I don’t remember how or when. I tried remembering. Looked at the photos on my phone. The texts we had about school. I don’t remember any of it. But…” She curled a fist over her chest. “I think my heart knows more than I do.”
Without thinking, his hand reached for her but stopped midway. What was he supposed to do? What could he do?
“I’m sorry,” he said. “This must be hard on you, and I’ve been too busy focusing on myself.”
She smiled sadly. “You know, I even know you’d say something like that. Apologize for something that’s not your fault. I forgot you, but I didn’t forget you’re a kind person. I’d like to remember you if I could. You seem nice.”
He reached for her hand again. This time, he grabbed it. He held it between his hands like a delicate flower. “If there’s any way I can get your memories back, I promise I’d do it.”
–SWEET DREAMS, DARLING–
There was a way, according to that woman’s file. There was more context to it, it turned out. According to the Quirk specialist Recovery Girl had spoken with about the situation in her efforts to help, the memories hadn’t been destroyed, but simply locked away. The Quirk specialist referred Recovery Girl to a neurologist suited for the task: Doctor Yoshizuki.
They had a way, they said.
It was experimental. It wasn’t clear if it’d work.
But Izuku made a promise, and Ochaco had determinedly said, “We’ll never know until we try, right?”
So, there they were, in the neurologist’s clinic, Ochaco in a hospital bed, hands folded over her midsection. She was connected to an EEG machine with a net made out of a number of electrodes taped to her scalp. Another bed had been wheeled in specifically for Izuku. Recovery Girl was there, sitting on a rolling chair that Doctor Yoshizuki had lent her.
“Just to reiterate,” said Doctor Yoshizuki, “if the monitors indicate things have gone out of hand, I’m stopping everything and pulling you both out. I can’t see what’ll go on in there. Understand that, like dreams, this will feel real to you. I can guide you in, that is all. From there, you find your way around. It could be a maze. It could be a desert. Who knows. If you take more than two hours, I’m pulling you out. Do you understand?”
Izuku nodded, a determined look in his gaze.
The doctor looked over at the short, old woman on his rolling chair, as if waiting for her to state her opinion on all this. She tapped her cane against the ground. One firm tap. “Well? What are you waiting around for?” she asked impatiently.
The doctor scratched the side of his head. “It’s just… it’s all a lot of effort for a handful of memories, is all. I’ve worked with total amnesia from Quirk effects. This is a delicate procedure for a very mild case.”
Recovery Girl raised a wrinkly brow at him. “What are you trying to tell me? Spit it out, boy.” She was gentler to her child patients, calling them ‘dearie’ and using a tamer tone. It was amusing seeing how she spoke to another doctor. He looked forty-something, but she talked to him like he was a naughty child.
Abashed, Doctor Yoshizuki cleared his throat and said, “It’s just a lot of work and expenses for the memories of one person. One person who isn’t even a family member to the patient, might I add.”
“I don’t care,” Ochaco said, confident. “I want what was mine back. I want to remember my friend. Please, Doctor. I want this.” She looked over to Izuku. “Do you?” she asked with a playful smile. She already knew his answer. Her heart knew what he’d say.
“Yeah.” He beamed, nervous yet excited. “I’ll find them. Don’t worry.”
“Don’t mess anything up in there, okay?” she joked.
He gave a shy chuckle. “I won’t.”
The doctor looked back at Recovery Girl.
“You heard them,” she said.
Doctor Yoshizuki sighed. He took a moment, looking first at Izuku, then at Ochaco. Then said, “Alright.” He flipped a few switches on the machine He clicked around on his computer, still standing on his feet. He grabbed a plastic cup by the rim. Something rattled inside, like pebbles. Pills. “Each of you take two. Should put you to sleep in ten or so minutes. I’ll use my Quirk when both of you’ve entered REM stage. Good luck to you. I’ll be monitoring.”
Ochaco took two. She handed him the cup. He took the rest by tilting the cup over his mouth, letting them fall in. Recovery Girl folded her gloved hands over the cane’s knob and leaned her chin against her knuckles. Yoshizuki went back to his computer. With a few mouse clicks, the audio recording of rainfall started playing. White noise. He turned off half the lights, primarily the ones over the two beds.
Izuku suddenly felt a bit apprehensive. He looked over at Ochaco, and he could tell she, too, was nervous now, her hand on her chest, reminding him of when he’d glimpsed her trying to calm herself back during the entrance exam.
He was doing this for her.
And, really, selfishly, for himself.
He couldn’t withstand the grief that came with the memory loss of him.
Feeling a spike of determination, he reached a hand toward her. “Hey,” he said with a smile he hoped to save many lives with, “let’s do our best.”
Her pupils dilated for a second. She smiled, her shoulders relaxing. “Yeah.” She reached for his hand, grabbed it. Finger pads brushed against a scar. Two unique hands linked the patients on separate beds together.
They wouldn’t hear the whistle of a Quirk activating; they’d already be asleep.
–MAY I COME IN?–
He was floating downward. His hair wafted like underwater kelp. His sleepy eyes found faraway stars in a pitch-black sky. White specks over a black canvas. The more his eyes focused, the more he saw–a line of smoky purple that cut through the sky; blue, yellow, and orange stars that shone brighter than the rest; a traveling meteor; golden spiral galaxies. There were so many stars, he might as well have glitter in his eyes.
He forced his body to move. It really did feel like being underwater–slow and uncoordinated. He looked down at himself. He was in his Hero costume. His Air Force gloves. His iron soles. His hood was rising up the back of his head, waving as if it were swimming. He was gently drifting, on his back. It all felt murky in his head. His thinking was molasses slow. He turned his head, looking toward the floor. It didn’t look like there was one. It was all empty space.
“Hello?” he called. The air was so empty; his voice sounded louder than intended. There was no echo.
His eyes looked around, noticing a few more objects that he was sure did not belong in space: detached doors. They had frames and nothing else as they floated in space. Wooden doors. Steel doors. Vintage style. Sliding. Golden double doors.
A meteor caught his eye. It didn’t glow like a meteor. But it moved too much to not notice. His eyes focused more. What he was looking at was human-shaped with a feminine frame he knew all too well. He always thought she looked cute in her costume. He’d admit to nobody that it made him feel all flustered and, shamefully, a bit of a pervert for accidentally checking her out.
That was Ochaco in the distance, no doubt about it. she drifted down with purposely and agility, boots pointed down like a ballerina would stand on their toes. Her hair waved weightlessly. It was like watching an angel descending. She didn’t seem to take notice of him. Izuku watched her go down, down, down. He had to turn his head and look over his shoulder to see where she was going. A bit of panic set in.
“Uraraka?” he called, but he was so unused to the quietness that he had instinctively used his indoor voice. He swallowed and tried to yell. “Uraraka! Wait–hold on!” He flailed but went nowhere.
She didn’t acknowledge him. Izuku kept his eyes on her, afraid he’d lose sight of her. He gaped dumbly when the tip of her boot made contact with what looked to be transparent water the exact color of the space around them. Golden water ripples spread out around her feet as she gracefully landed. She didn’t fall in but stood atop two inches of the clear sea. She dropped to her knees, then plunged her hands into the water, and there was no explanation as to how she got in there elbows deep, or where her hands had gone. Small golden waves obscured her hands as she fished around for something.
She eventually found what she was looking for, pulling out a basketball-sized, yellow orb. She looked up and all over, her eyes passing over Izuku too quickly to register him. Supposedly finding what she was looking for, she hugged the orb, the little star, to her chest and jumped, flying in slow-motion. She grabbed one of the doors by the frame while pressing the orb against her side. She opened the door, tossed the orb in, and closed it before dropping back down again in the same motion she’d done before: toes pointed down.
Something clicked in Izuku’s mind.
Okay. Okay, just do what she’s doing.
He angled his feet down, his arms up, and sure enough, he started to sink with a bit more direction. His feet landed over the sheet of transparent liquid. He didn’t feel his full weight in his legs.
Ochaco came back down and was digging through the water again.
Still not sure what she was doing, Izuku scratched the back of his head awkwardly. “Uhh… Uraraka?”
She perked up. “Oh! Hey!” She smiled at him but went back to fishing around, pulling out another orb.
“What, umm, what are you doing?”
“Just tidying up. I got a lot of work to do.” She wasn’t masking her Kansai dialect. Twice, she floated to doors and threw those orb-like stars in.
Izuku watched, unsure of what to do. “Can I help with anything?” he asked hopefully.
She laughed lightly. “Nah! It’s okay. It can be confusing figuring out what goes where.” She pulled out another star.
He looked at it with a questioning head tilt. “What are they?”
“Oh, these? They used to be in other rooms. But they fell out for some reason. Gotta put them back in again.”
That… didn’t exactly answer his question.
Fell out, she said…
It suddenly occurred to him that he was in her head. That had escaped his mind until now. “Uraraka?” he approached carefully, hand half reaching for her. “Uraraka, do you remember me?”
She paused and looked at him. “You don’t look familiar. I mean... you kinda do, but also don't?”
His hand dropped to his side, disappointed. “Oh…”
She looked at him in sympathy, seeing the sad look on his face. “Hey, what’s wrong?”
He rubbed his arm in discomfort, looking off to the side. “Sorry… I was just… looking for something… I don’t know what to do.”
She looked saddened by that. “Oh.” After a minute, she walked up to him and grabbed his hand. She sat down with her legs folded to the side, propping the star between the water and her elbow. She tugged at his arm. “Sit with me,” she urged gently.
Perplexed but too familiar with Ochaco’s usual kindness, he obeyed, sitting crossed-legged. The water rippled gold.
“Tell me what you’re looking for,” she said. “Maybe I can help you find it.”
The gentle smile she was giving him made him blush and look down. “O-oh. Thank you. I–uh, she–my friend–she can’t remember me anymore. Her memories of me are here somewhere. Do you know where I can find them? Or where I can look?”
“Memories of you?” She hummed and looked up at the doors. “That’s gonna be tough. I went through all of these. Can’t remember seeing you in any. But don’t give up! Is there something else we can work with?”
Izuku thought so hard, he leaned his forehead against his hand. “Has there... been any place you hadn’t been to in a while?”
“Not really, I–” She suddenly went quiet. Her eyes became more dull, less cheery. “Oh… You mean the moon. I don’t go on the moon anymore.”
That. It had to be that! “Can you take me there, please?”
She hesitated. “I don’t know if that’s a good idea…”
He squeezed her hand. “Please? It would really mean the world to me.”
She looked a bit troubled. “It’s… it’s not stable. Something’s wrong with it.”
“That’s why I’m here, Uraraka. I need to make things right. Will you take me to the moon, please?”
She looked into his eyes, saw the pleading in them. Her shoulders sagged. “Okay…” she relented.
He beamed at her. She stood up, leaving the star to bob over the water. She gave him a hand. He took it, heaving himself up. He got confused when she put her arms behind his back. He then yelped when she picked him up bridal style. She jumped, and the two of them floated up into endless space. He gazed up at her face, her eyes focused on the mission, her hair waving. The heat in his cheeks let him know he was blushing. He forced his eyes off of her, swallowing hard. Ochaco used a suspended door to kick herself higher, kicking off the next few doors to keep climbing up. She hugged him tight when doing a summersault in space to right her angle.
They approached a moon. It had patches of brownish yellow. Dead grass, Izuku realized. Dead grass and wilted roses. Ochaco landed softly over the patch of dry grass and put Izuku down. There stood a Viridian double door, padlocked shut. There was a golden peg where Izuku assumed a name tag or label hung off of.
Flexing his shoulders, Izuku firmly grabbed the padlock and squeezed it, releasing a spurt of his Quirk to crumble the lock between his hands. He grabbed the handles, taking a deep breath to steady himself.
“Wait!” Ochaco piped up, placing a hand on his shoulder. “You don’t know what’s in there. I don’t know what’s in there. But… if it can do this to my moon…” she gazed down at the dead roses, “you don’t know what it can do to you.”
Izuku grabbed her hand off of his shoulder and held it between his own. He gave her an encouraging smile. “It’ll be okay. I’ll make it okay.” He leaned his forehead against hers. “I’ll be back soon.”
She just looked stunned. She stared at him, unsure how someone so brave, so bright existed. She watched him open those doors and walk into the blinding light shining from the other side, the door slowly closing behind him. For some reason, watching his back be the last thing she saw triggered something within her. By the time she reached her hand out, he was already gone, and all that she whispered was, “Who are you?”
–CAN YOU SEE THE HILLS?–
The chugging of a train.
The green hills passing the windows in a blur.
It was an empty train, as far as Izuku could see. Empty seats. Cushions dented in from age.
He stood there for a bit, blinking. He caught his reflection in the train’s window and startled himself with how he looked. He was slightly smaller, wearing his old black gakuran uniform. Huh. It seemed like it’d been ages since he’d worn that thing.
He scanned the train one more time.
There. A few seats ahead. The girl was taking up the window seat, her pink backpack worn in reverse, hugging it to her chest. She was wearing the tracksuit he’d seen her in during the entrance exam. She kept tapping her foot anxiously. Her glazed-over eyes, which were staring out the window at nothing, suddenly came back to life when she spotted Izuku’s reflection. She whirled around to face him.
“Hey,” he said softly.
“Hey,” she whispered back.
He awkwardly gestured to the seat next to her. “Is it okay if I sit with you?”
“Yeah. Sure.”
He sat. She went back to looking out the window.
“Where are you going?” he asked.
“Home.”
He took a quick glance at her tracksuit again. “Did you just take your high school entrance exam?”
She perked up a bit and looked back at him. She looked him over, trying to recall if they’d met before. “Yeah, actually. How do you know that?”
“I was there.” When he remembered why he was here, he looked down with a sad smile and spoke more to himself. “That’s right. You don’t remember.”
He felt her staring intently at him.
She finally said, “But you do, don’t you?”
He gave a light nod.
“I know something happened. At the exam,” she said. “But… I got on the train, and now… it’s like I know I’m forgetting something, but I don’t know what. It’s important, I know it is. I’m so confused. It’s like… a piece of me is missing.”
It broke Izuku’s heart hearing her say that. He reached for her hand on her lap and whispered, “I’ll find it. I’ll fix everything. Don’t worry. Leave it to me.”
His hand over hers. Even though he was younger here, he still had his scarred, misshapen fingers, he still felt the tightness of the muscles on his scarred arm, the slight numbness and pain from nerve damage.
She looked at him in surprise. He gave her an encouraging smile, making her blush.
“Who are you?” she asked.
“Someone I hope stays in your thoughts a bit longer.” The train slowed. Izuku gave her hand a single, gentle pat and stood up. “I have to go now. I’ll see you soon.” The train stopped, but none of the doors opened. He looked around and spotted the only door that didn’t showcase a rural landscape through the window. Blinding white light shone through the door, way at the back of the train. The emergency access door. Izuku went to it, pulled the red handle on the wall, and watched the door pop open. He turned and waved at Ochaco. She held a hesitant hand up as an awkward wave back.
He stepped out.
–ROCKET SHIP–
He was running, wearing his costume. The very first one, made by his mother. His hightops clapped the floor, the sound echoing through the building’s gray halls. His mouthpiece was down, around his neck. His hood flapped behind him like a short cape.
Ground Beta.
He knew this building. Only, it wasn’t the same as he remembered. There were turns and staircases where there shouldn’t be. There were no windows when he was positive a window was how he and Ochaco had gotten in here before. There were weeds growing through cracks in the hard floor. He didn’t have his earpiece like he had before to speak with Ochaco. No matter which way he turned, the hallways just seemed to go on and on. He was sure he was going in circles looking for her. He’d wanted to comb through the ground floor first, but the building obviously didn’t want him to keep wasting his time down there.
He took a random set of stairs to go up, skipping steps as he ran. There was no end to those steps. looking up, all he could make out was the staircase continuously stretching up and up. After a few minutes of climbing up stairs, his patience had run out. A growl ripped out of him as green energy crackled throughout his body. If this maze was adamant about making him run circles, then he wanted to see it try and keep up with him. The rapid clapping of his shoes became disturbed by the occasional cracks of his feet breaking indents into the steps. He became a brightly lit blur. His arms clawed at the walls on either side of him, pulling him up and aiding his speed.
He was going so fast he couldn’t see right.
It was all black.
He slowed down just after crossing a cased opening. He’d outrun the stairs. Somehow. If it was possible for anyone to outrun stairs of all things.
He was in the room where the decoy bomb was. Only, the bomb was floating close to the ceiling. He’d forgotten its rocket ship design until he saw it hovering the way it did around rocky debris that was stuck in time.
He heard Ohaco’s voice say, loudly and clearly, “You’re here.” She was sitting cross-legged on the floor. She was wearing her Hero costume, the one with the visor helmet. She looked glad to see him. “I was wondering who I was supposed to wait for.”
“You were waiting for me?” he asked, approaching.
She nodded. “Hmm! I knew I was waiting for someone. I didn’t know who.” She had a piece of rock in her hand. She fiddled with it. she pressed it to the floor and drew a few overlapping criss-crosses, the lines powdery and dark gray like weak crayon. “Wanna play with me?”
He stared at her at first. Then it recognized what she drew: the framework for tic-tac-toe. “Oh. Oh, sure. Umm, okay.” He sat in front of her, crossing his legs as well. He watched her draw a heart before she handed him the rock.
“I know you from somewhere, don’t I?” she asked.
He didn’t think much of where he decided to put his symbol: a four-pointed star. His free hand scratched the back of his head. “Yeah. You just forgot me.” He handed her back the rock.
“Oh… I’m sorry.” She drew another heart, passed him the rock. “What were we like?”
Izuku struggled to put a relationship description into words. He fidgeted. He wasn’t looking when scribbling his turn. “Friends. My first real friend, I think.” He used to have Katsuki. But Katsuki and him turned sour before anything good could come out of it. He hadn’t had friends up until high school. “And my best friend.” He blushed admitting that.
“I was?” She looked surprised. Astonished.
“Yeah… I was really happy when you talked to me. I’m… not good at talking to girls. I don’t think I managed to say anything to you at all that day.” He gave a nervous chuckle, not daring to look her in the eyes. This was the flower incident all over again, him admitting to something, then squirming about it.
On the ground, between the two of them, Ochaco drew a horizontal line over three hearts in a row. She’d won. He didn’t really care about the game. He wasn’t here for that. They scooted to the side and started another round.
“We were best friends?” she asked.
“Yeah.”
“Was it fun?”
He chuckled. “Yeah. A lot. I’m a bit awkward with people. especially when I hyper-fixate on things and I just go mumbling a lot. You didn’t mind. I don’t think you ever understood whenever I talked so much. You’d just sit there and smile.”
She giggled. “I wanna remember that. Sounds like we had a good time.”
“Yeah… We did.” He thought back to the flower he’d given her. The awkwardness after it. His stupidity around it all. “I think… I did something wrong, though.”
“How so?”
She won the second round of tic-tac-toe when there had clearly been an opening for him to win. They started a third round for the heck of it.
“I think…” He hesitated. “I… acted on my emotions without thinking it through… then… I got scared and backed out.” He was being vague. Even now, he was still a coward.
Ochaco hummed thoughtfully. “What were you scared of?”
That was the big question, wasn’t it? He gave a light shrug of his shoulders. “That I’d mess up. I… There’s a lot I don’t know how to do. I don’t want to lose my best friend because I was dumb.”
“So… what’d you do?” She tilted her head curiously.
“…I messed up anyway. You were waiting for me to talk about it–what I did, I mean. But I held back. And now it’s all a mess.”
“Would you have still held back if you knew it would turn out this way?”
Izuku grimaced. “I don’t know. What if it turned out worse?”
She smiled sadly. She tapped his hand, getting his attention, then gestured to the game on the floor. She’d won again. “You’re not paying attention, are you?” she said lightheartedly.
Her hearts had won.
It then occurred to him she might’ve not been talking about just the game.
He gave a breathy laugh, blushing lightly. “I guess not.” As much as he loved talking with her, he couldn’t stay here forever. He was on a timer. “Hey. Do you know where I can find a door around here?”
She smiled. “Yup!” She pointed up.
At first, Izuku didn’t see what she was pointing at. The floating fake bomb looked the same as it did. But as it slowly turned, Izuku caught sight of the metal door on it.
“Oh,” he said.
They both stood up.
“Thanks for playing with me,” she said.
He had hardly been playing. That was his fault. He used to play video games with her. One-on-one, or in teams. They had their stupid moments where they’d laugh so hard, they’d be wheezing. “Maybe we can play again some other time?” he suggested.
“I’d like that.” She giggled, clasping her hands behind her back and swinging her foot about.
For a moment, he wanted to hug her. He almost did–his foot took a step forward without him meaning to. He stopped himself from reaching his arms out. Instead, he said, “I’ll see you later.” Still a coward.
While she was smiling at him, there was a hint of disappointment in her eyes. “Alright. Good luck.”
He walked to be right beneath the rocket ship bomb. All he had to do was jump. He watched Ochaco go back to sitting on the ground and fiddling with the rock, her back turned to him.
His shoes squeaked at his abrupt turn and lunge. She didn’t make a sound when he dropped to his knees and embraced her from behind and squeezed her tightly, his eyes squeezing shut and his cheeks a bright pink. She laughed lightly and patted his arm.
“Thanks,” she said. “Go on, now.”
He reluctantly let her go. With a newfound determination, he snapped Blackwhip out of his wrist and lassoed the metal door’s handle. He pulled himself up and latched onto the side of the rocket ship and pushed at the door with his shoulder.
–SKY FALLING–
The door he walked out of was attached to a rocky wreckage that had once been the wall of a building before its collapse. He flexed his fingers in the long-sleeved gauntlets of his Costume Gamma, reminiscing on the familiar feeling of having those gloves and how his permanently damaged hands felt in them. He remembered the Provisional Hero License Exam being a jumbled mess of adrenaline-fueled dodging, well-practiced smiles, and ever-present determination.
He hadn’t had the time to memorize every bit of the area. It had been a mess–that was all he could recall. But it was safe to assume the mess hadn’t been in the sky, too, like he was currently seeing. Broken buildings and rocky islands floated in the sky, most of which were upside-down or tilted at an angle. The entire sky looked like cracked glass, with clouds that seemed to be neatly cut in the middle and the other halves floating elsewhere in the sky. He almost stepped right into a sinkhole with a bottomless pit. Looking around the ground, he noted there were many holes. Where they led to, he wouldn’t know.
It was eerily quiet, a stark contrast to the hustle the exam had actually been. There was no one but him.
At least, he thought he was.
A shuffle came from behind him. The millisecond he turned his head, he caught a glimpse of pink lunging at him and a hand swiping at him. He instinctively jerked out of the way, his muscles tensing in an instant. Ochaco’s swipe missed, and she caught herself landing in a crouch with the tips of her fingers touching the floor to catch herself.
The look on her face threw him off.
He’d never seen her angry at him before. He’d seen her determined. He’d seen her agitated during a battle. He’d never seen this, her face all scrunched up and red with rage, her cheeks glistening wet, her eyes red-rimmed like she’d been crying. Her hair was disheveled, and her Hero costume was dusted with dirt. Her Hero suit had a fist-sized hole ripped out of it on the upper left side of her chest, just above her breast, where her heart would be. She was panting, like she’d been fighting before he came here.
Her appearance stunned him to the point where he threw away any attempts of his brain trying to rationalize why she’d just attacked him.
“Uraraka?” he breathed, his shoulders tight with stress.
“You can’t be here,” she warned through gritted teeth, her voice strained like it hurt her to say those words. “Get out.”
He took a hesitant step forward instead, perplexed by her behavior. He reached a hand toward her, noting her aggressive stance hardening at the action. “Do you… know who I am?” he fearfully asked.
“I know you shouldn’t be here,” she said in a pained whisper, tears clinging to her lashes. “Get out. Please.”
“Uraraka…” He couldn’t. She was crying. He couldn’t leave her. “Uraraka, what’s wrong?” he begged to know. How could he help if he didn’t know what to do?
“Get out,” she repeated firmly.
He couldn’t help himself. He took a step forward, wanting to help her.
She didn’t like that. “Get out!” she screeched at him, causing him to flinch back with a pained look on his face. “Get out, get out, get out!” She charged at him. There was a shattering sound from the sky; something akin to a glass cup breaking over tiles.
Izuku didn’t have time to understand what that sound was. His arms flew up to protect his face and he began backing up. He didn’t want to fight her. She was angry–he could tell that much. But all the rest didn’t make much sense. Instead of slamming a hit at him, he felt her hand grip his wrist in a deathly-tight hold and she pulled at his arm, exposing his face. Her other hand attempted to clamp onto his neck. His respirator had been in the way of her aim, and she ended up grabbing that instead.
She pushed him to the ground and straddled him, continuously pulling his arm away from him. Her tears landed on his face as she stared him down. He wasn’t struggling, partially because this Ochaco was confusing him, and partially because he didn’t really feel threatened. He didn’t believe his best friend would ever harm him.
Behind her, the sky had cracked further. Giant pieces of it were falling in slow motion.
He refocused on the girl over him. He saw pain in those normally gentle brown eyes. Her grip on his respirator pushed him firmly against the ground, and he let her. His respirator was shaking. Which meant her hand was shaking. He glimpsed the hole in her costume again, and he noted how it looked like she’d been trying to claw her heart out.
She looked so sad.
While she stared him down with teary eyes and a snarl on her face, his eyes melted with understanding. He cupped her cheek with his free hand. She instantly froze at the touch.
“I really upset you, hadn’t I?” he said, his voice clear as day.
Her bloodshot eyes widened. Her breath caught in her throat as he rubbed his thumb over her hot cheek. The sky was falling, sparkling like mirror pieces behind her, her world falling apart, and all he saw was her.
“I think I understand now,” he said, glancing at the hole over her heart one more, at the aftermath of someone’s effort of trying to restrain one’s own heart. “I’m sorry I never noticed.” And then he’d given her flowers, then left her like it hadn’t happened. “I never meant to hurt you. Please don’t push me away.”
Her jaw hung open, struggling with herself to say anything. For a while, nothing came out save for a choked sound. A shard from the sky crashed into the ground a few feet away from them, embedding itself into the dirt and sending a gust of wind thrashing all around it. Neither one of the teenagers paid it any mind, their hair and clothes momentarily flapping with the wind.
“Stop,” she begged, her throat closing on her, making her voice sound pained. Her hand let go of his respirator and fisted the front of his costume instead. Her hold shook in internal agony. “Stop talking.”
It saddened him even further. “You were holding yourself back.” From me. “And then I led you on.”
“Stop it.”
He sat up, ignoring her tight fist on his chest. Her grip on his other hand loosened, releasing it. His arms wrapped around her, and he placed his palm on the back of her head, tucking her face against the crook of his neck. “You’re hurting from all this. I’m sorry,” he said. “Can you find it in your heart to forgive me?”
She was shaking violently in his hold. He heard her sniffling in his right ear. She was scared and confused and frustrated.
That hole over her heart told him what he needed to know.
That she loved him.
That she’d been caging her heart.
That he’d tempted that poor heart with a pink forget-me-not: the flower of love and loyalty.
Then he left her like that.
Then, her memory of him got ripped out of her, leaving her heart to go into withdrawal, angry and frustrated and alone.
“It’s going to be okay,” he promised with a soft smile, and was relieved to feel her shaky hands wrap around him and grip the fabric on his back.
After a minute, she drew away, sniffing. She lamely tried her wet cheeks with the back of her fist. Her face had relaxed considerably. It was nice, seeing her finally at ease.
“You need to get up there,” she said, gesturing to the sky which was still falling apart in sparkling shards.
Izuku searched the sky, the sharp pieces of it drifting down like floating glass. He spotted the door, its handle facing downward. It was attached to nothing, yet it stayed in place. Izuku looked back at the girl and asked, “Will you be fine here?” Her world was falling apart.
She smiled softly. “As long as you find me, I’ll be fine.” She started trotting ahead, briefly turning back to him and saying, “Let me give you a boost!”
Grinning, he nodded and ran after her. Another shard the size of a car crashed into the ground with a shrill shattering sound. The two of them ran around it, slowing down just as they made it right beneath the door. She offered him her hand. He high fived it, the sound of her Quirk activating echoing. She crouched and weaved her hands together, creating a launchpad platform for him. “Good luck!” she said.
He stepped onto her hands and let her fling him into the sky. He was sent rocketing upward, past the parts of the falling sky. When it looked like he was leaning slightly off-center in his trajectory, he pivoted to the side, planting his feet against a falling shard and kicking off of it, aiming for the next shard, then the next, zigzagging his way up until he latched onto the door, his back facing the ground below. He craned his head to glance behind him. On the ground, a smiling Ochaco gave him a nod. He gave her one in return.
Grabbing the doorframe, he kicked the door open, revealing a peachy sky. He reached in, and when his fingers clawed at dirt and grass, he knew his gloves had vanished. He pulled himself up, Ochaco’s Zero Gravity power on him vanishing just as he went through the door. He flopped onto his back, over the grass, his limbs out like a star. Damp air hit his bare legs and arms. He didn’t have to look at himself to know what he was wearing. He knew the familiar feeling of wearing a simple T-shirt and shorts.
He shifted his hands, felt petals beneath them. He plucked a flower and looked at it. A pink forget-me-not.
He sat up, finding himself on a grassy hill with patches of forget-me-nots spread about. He found Ochaco sitting on the ground, hugging her knees. She was wearing some of her casual clothes–the pale pink button-up with black shorts. Her back was to him, her eyes staring out into the distance, waiting for the sun to come up after a night of stargazing.
Izuku quickly came over to her and sat beside her, resting his arms over his bent knees. He looked out in the same direction she was looking. A cool breeze ruffled the grass, the flowers. The flower he’d plucked was still in his hand. He twirled it between his finger and thumb. With his other hand, he gently grabbed Ochaco’s hand.
“I’m sorry I left you waiting,” he said, forcing the flower into her hand. “I won’t do that again. Just please don’t forget about me.”
She finally turned to him, her bright eyes wide with intrigue. She glanced at the flower in her hand, then back at him. She smiled with all the happiness in the world and said, “Of course I’d never forget you, Deku.”
Warmth flooded his cheeks, relief and pride and joy bubbling in his chest. He’d found her. She’d been hiding out here this whole time, out where he’d gotten her the flower before this whole mess had occurred.
“I–I know I’m late but…” A nervous, giddy chuckle rippled out of him. “Do you want to go out with me sometime?”
Her blush marks deepened in color. Her body vibrated with restrained happiness. She gave a firm nod. A relieved laugh slipped out of him, and he laughed a bit harder when she playfully tackled him in a hug.
This whole time, he’d been a coward… over this?
This. This joy and love and affection.
Something bloomed in his heart, and he didn’t need to retrace his steps to know the joy was spreading, repairing the broken sky, rearranging endless staircases, opening those train doors, reviving those dried-up roses on the moon, putting all the orb-like stars back where they belonged.
The sun peaked on the horizon, lavishing the landscape with a brighter orange. With happy tears threatening to spill, and Izuku pressed his smiling face against the girl in his arms, leaning their foreheads against one another, the both of them smiling so hard their faces hurt. The light around them brightened in intensity; a warning of time running out.
“Hey, Deku?”
“Yeah?”
“Thanks.”
“What for?”
“Being back in my life.”
The light engulfed them.
–PETALS, FLY WITH THE WIND–
Laughter echoed through the park, their voices swallowed by the clammer of the rides and chatter of the amusement park. A morning of a weekend. They sat on the bench, wearing goofy animal-eared headbands. The cone strawberry crepe had a few bites taken out of it, the vanilla ice cream in the middle of the strawberry slices now mushy.
Izuku had managed to smear a white mustache onto his face when it was his turn to take a bite, which Ochaco had found absolutely hilarious, falling into fits of giggles, prompting him to start laughing, too. She slipped a handkerchief out of her pocket and messily cleaned his face.
They finished the cone before ending the night in a yellow Ferris wheel cart shaped like an air balloon. They got halfway up when fireworks began popping in the night’s sky. He looked away from the sparkling colors and saw the absolute wonder in Ochaco’s eyes that reflected the sparks, unaware that he was gazing at her, wondering how in the world they’d gotten to this point.
Things had just… happened.
He didn’t understand romance.
He didn’t need to, it turned out.
He’d just had to let love do all the talking.