Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Izuku is emotionally and physically exhausted.

He woke up and went to school early, so he could avoid being asked to have breakfast, he doesn’t know how he got to this point, he just needed something he could control.

Now he can’t even chew gum without thinking about how many calories are in it.

He just wants it to end.

Why does he have to be quirkless?

It’s just not fair. He feels like he’s stuck in an endless loop. Wake up, go to school, get bullied, go home, lie about what he has eaten, cut himself, and stay up late online until he eventually falls asleep.

He hasn’t even had the energy to do the things that he used to enjoy doing anymore.

He just knows he won’t make it to the end of the school year. He’s interrupted from his thoughts by the sound of the bell ringing.

He approaches his desk, and sees the derogatory messages on his desk, tears well up in his eyes.

He's used to his desk being vandalized, but it never gets any easier. Deep down he still hopes that maybe things will change, but he knows they won’t.

The teacher enters the classroom and stands at his desk, “You guys are all third-years now, so it’s time to for you all to start to seriously think about your future. I would hand out these future career forms, however.. I already know that you all  want to be heroes!” He declares to the class. The students in the classroom immediately show off their quirks, until the teacher eventually stops them. ”Yes, you all have wonderful quirks, but you know it’s against the rules to use them in school!” He postulates. 

Katsuki interrupt him “Hey teach! Don’t lump me in with these extras! I’m the real deal, and these guys will be lucky to end up as sidekicks to some shitty D-lister! He shouts.

“Get over yourself, Katsuki!” One student says.

”Let’s go, I’ll fight you all at once!” Katsuki says, his voice just as arrogance as always.

“You’ve got impressive test results, Bakugou, you of course must be aiming for U.A. High school.” The teacher says.

Katsuki smirks and jumps onto his desk “Obviously I am! I aced every mock exam! I’m the only person in this entire school who deserves to go to U.A.! I’ll be even better than All Might himself!” He boasts.

When the teacher reveals that Izuku also wants to go to U.A. the class bursts into laughter.

”Is that a joke!? One student says.

“There’s no way he can get into the hero course without a quirk!” Another student adds.

Izuku’s face flushes with embarrassment “Th-that’s not completely true! It’s never happened before, but..” he starts to say, being completely honest, he’s stopped believing in himself anyways, it doesn’t matter what he thinks though because Katsuki launches an explosion into his desk.

“ARE YOU FUCKING SERIOUS DEKU?! FORGET THE SHITTY QURIKS! YOU’RE COMPLETELY FUCKING QUIRKLESS!! DO YOU SERIOUSLY THINK YOUR FUCKING WORTHLESS EXISTENCE COULD POSSIBLY MAKE IT INTO U.A.!?” Katsuki shouts.

Izuku stumbles backwards, eventually hitting a wall “Wa- wait, no, Kacchan.. I promise that I don’t think I can compete with you! I promise!It’s just… I’ve wanted to be a hero for as long as I can remember.. and I guess that I just want to try..” Izuku pleads, desperately trying to calm Katsuki down.

However hearing this just made Katsuki more angry “TRY!? FUCKING TRY!? FUCKING TRY WHAT!? THE FUCKING ENTRANCE EXAM!? ARE YOU SERIOUSLY TAKING THE FUCKING EXAM TO TRY!? WHAT THE FUCK CAN YOU EVEN DO!?” Katsuki screams at him.

Eventually the lesson starts, the teacher goes on about something.

Izuku tries to pay attention to the lesson, he truly does, starting ADHD medication was supposed to help him focus, but it’s hard for him focus when his mind is so fuzzy, either from how little he’s been sleeping, the deficiency of important nutrients in his body or how loud the classroom is.

He looks at the clock on the wall, counting down the seconds for the school day to end.

He just wants to get home can lock himself in his room and rot in his bed for hours, he wants to go to sleep and never wake up.

However he knows that it won’t be that easy, he knows that before he’s able to get home, he’s going to have to go through getting bullied by Katsuki and his friends again.

After what feels like an eternity the school day finally finishes. Izuku begins to pack up his things, just as he’s picking up his notebook he hears someone. 

“What the fuck do you think you’re doing, Deku!? We’re not done!” Katsuki sneers.

”What’s that, is it his diary or something?” One of Katsuki’s friend #1 jests.

“C-come on guys, please give it back!” Izuku practically begs.

Instead of listening to his pleas and giving Izuku back his precious hero notes, Katsuki blows it up.

”Why?” Izuku asks, even though he already like knows the answer, Katsuki is a fucking asshole, of course Izuku would never say this thought out loud, he doesn’t want to get beat up.

“The best heroes show great potential early on, I’ll be the only student from this fucking shithole of a middle school to become a hero! Everyone will talk about how amazing I am, and I’m not vain, it’s a fact that I’m fucking awesome!” Katsuki brags carelessly tosses Izuku’s notebook out the window.

“Arrogant..” Katsuki’s friend #2 says.

Katsuki mockingly puts his hand on Izuku’s shoulder burning it with his explosions “Let me dumb it down for you, don’t you fucking dare even try getting into U.A.” He threatens.

Izuku winces in pain, unbeknownst to Katsuki, the area of Izuku’s body he was currently burning was already covered in open wounds from self-harm.

Finally Katsuki and his friends decide their done and start to leave.

“Yikes, classic, just say something already.” Katsuki’s friend #2 expresses

“He’s so pathetic, maybe he’s finally accepting it, he will never be a hero.” Katsuki’s friend’s #1 explains.

Katsuki glances back slightly, not even bothering to turn around completely, “If you want to be a hero just take a fucking swan dive off of the roof, maybe in your next life you’ll be a hero!” He ridicules.

Izuku turns around, tears in his eyes.

Katsuki smirks “Fucking what!?” He taunts, his hands cracking with explosions.

Izuku tenses up, his body trembling, he doesn’t want to say anything that sound get in trouble.

Izuku goes to the koi pound to get his notebook, “Now my hero notes are all wet.. honestly why would he say something stupid like that, I mean when I kill my self, I don’t want to do it in a way that’ll fuck up my corpse too much, I’m down to three options on how to kill myself now, I’m going to overdose, hang myself, or drink some drain cleaner. Overdosing would be my first choice but if it’s unsuccessful I’ll try one of the others.” He thinks to himself.

He eventually heads home, taking a different route than he planned.

He never goes to that underpass.

Chapter Text

On his way home from school Izuku stops at a “7/11”

He plans to buy food, take a picture of it to prove that he ‘ate’ something and then throw it out instead of actually eating it.

He feels terrible about both wasting food and lying to his mom about what he is eating, but he just can’t bring himself to tell the truth about this.

He hates lying, he truly does, and he also hates wasting food.

It makes him feel extremely guilty to do either of those, lying makes him just feel wrong in a way he can’t describe, and wasting food makes him feel guilty because all he can think of that he could have given it away instead, but he doesn’t know who he would even give it to, throwing it away is just the easiest option.

Despite how guilty he feels doing either of those, he feels even more guilty after eating.

When he was younger, lying was extremely difficult, it felt almost impossible for him, however ever since he developed an eating disorder, lying has become a like second nature to him.

When Izuku enters the 7/11 he can’t help but to check the calories on everything that he would want to eat, however he knows he’s going to feel like every thing there is to high even if it really isn’t.

Eventually he does everything he needs to, he buys the cheapest meal, because he doesn’t see the point in buying something nice if he’s just going to throw it out.

He saves the rest of the money he brought to buy a new figure, it might sound stupid but whenever he buys a new figure it gives him a quick rush of dopamine, even though it doesn’t last long it’s a nice feeling, even though lately he hasn’t even had the energy to actually buy one.

He opens the meal and takes a picture of it, then he throws it into the garbage before he takes a single bite. 

This has become a daily routine for him, he has to save his calories for the weekend, because on weekends it’s much harder to avoid eating, he can sleep in to avoid eating breakfast however he can’t get out of lunch and dinner on weekends.

He hates school, he hates it more than almost anything else, he hates being bullied and tormented by his Katsuki, and his friends, however it’s so much easier to avoid eating.

On school days he can wake up ridiculously early and just pack himself some shirataki noodles, the single serving package of course.

Izuku decides to buy himself some water, honestly he would prefer one of those zero calorie drinks, but he’s worried that if he buys one it might actually be a regular full sugar drink that was incorrectly packaged.

When he gets  to the drink section he is excited to see that some of the water bottles have  figures on top of them.

It’s obvious that the water bottle he picks was one of the ones with the All Might Mini-Mini collectible figures attached to the cap.

He opens the water bottle and carefully places the figure in his backpack, he doesn’t want to risk losing it.

Izuku decides that he should finally go home for real now, it's getting late and he doesn’t want to be out of his apartment after dark. 

He knows that his mom must be worried about how late it was getting, so he sends her a message explaining that he is on his way home and he just got a bit distracted.

He wants to go lock himself in his room for hours and shut the world out, he wants to rot in his bed for hours scrolling on social media wishing that things could be different.

He takes the longest route possible, trying to burn as many calories as possible, he knows that he didn’t eat the meal yet he’s worried that the water he drank might have been flavoured even though he knows it wasn’t.

Even though it was just regular water he still checked the calories on it multiple times, more times than he would like to admit, he feels embarrassed about how many times he checks, but he has to make sure that it’s just water.

After about fifteen minutes Izuku eventually arrives at his apartment, he’s relieved that he can finally lay in his bed and waste away for the rest of the day.

He retrieves his key from his pocket, then he unlocks the door and walks into his apartment.

Once he gets inside he takes off his shoes, and places them neatly where they belong.

His mom is clearly worried about him “Izuku? How was your day?” She asks him.

Izuku forces a smile that he can only hope is convincing “It was fine mom.” He lies, “I’m really tired though so I’m going to my room.” He adds, as he hurries into his room, locking the door behind him. 

Chapter Text

When Izuku enters his room, he immediately changes out of his uniform into a tee-shirt and long shorts.

After he changes he collapses on his bed.

He has been wanting to rest all day.

He’s both exhausted and relieved, he’s exhausted because he’s not eating enough and he’s not sleeping enough, but he’s relieved that he can finally rest.

The first thing he does is take out his phone and message his closest online friend.

Unfortunately they live in a different country than he does, but their time zone is close enough to his time zone, that he can message them easily.

Words can’t describe how much he wishes he knew them in real life, they are really and truly the one of only reasons he’s made it this far.

They are one of the only reasons that he’s still alive.

Eventually, after messaging with his online friend for a bit, Izuku scrolls through the ‘Hero News’ and heroes social media pages, he wants to take out his notebook and write down information about heroes in it, however he knows that it’s extremely unlikely he will even have the energy or the motivation to do so, and the fact that his notebook was burnt earlier today definitely isn’t helping to motivate him.

He tries not to think about this, he knows how much he loves taking notes on heroes, and it genuinely upsets him that he isn’t motivated anymore, he’s just too tired.

After a couple hours of rotting in his bed, Izuku takes a pencil sharpener out of his backpack, he uses a pair of scissors to unscrew it, then he takes out the blade.

He sits on the floor, hiding in the corner of his room.

He rolls up his shorts and presses the blade against his thigh.

Then he digs the blade into his skin then pulls the it across his thigh, being careful to not cut where the shorts won’t cover. 

When he finishes, he has made 20 cuts, even though They are all fairly shallow, he knows that they deep enough leave a scar, he wishes that he had something he could use to go deeper however all he has access to, that he knows works is a pencil sharpener.

He rolls his shorts back down, trying to ignore the feeling of his shorts sticking to his fresh cuts.

He knows that he should clean and take care of his cuts but he just can’t, he doesn’t have the energy to do the things he loves, and he’s certainly not going to waste his limited energy, on something like cleaning his cuts.

He goes back onto his bed, hoping that he won’t bleed through his shorts and get blood from his self-harm onto his blankets.

That would be extremely hard to find an excuse for.

Izuku goes back to scrolling on his phone, his online friend is not currently online so he scrolls through a few heroes social media accounts.

It doesn’t take long until he’s looking up “low calorie foods” trying to find something for the weekend, however everything he finds either disgusts him or is way too high in calories for him to even consider eating.

He also looks at the calories of the foods he used to love eating and is horrified by the amount of calories in it.

He can’t believe he used to be able to eat, without feeling guilty after it.

He knows that he should take a shower, and even though he never has the energy for it he somehow manages to force himself to take one every day.

He’s procrastinating taking the shower for as long as possible, he doesn’t feel like he even has the strength to get up currently.

Eventually he gets up, gets a change of clothes and heads to the bathroom.

When Izuku heads into the bathroom he drops his clothes and takes out the scale, he weighs himself multiple times.

First he weighs himself fully clothed, and reads “33.8kg” on the scale, he’s satisfied to know that he’s lost 0.4 kg overnight.

Yes he’s aware that weight ranges and that it was likely just water weight, but any weight loss counts to him.

When he gets undressed to weigh himself a second time, he is only 33.3kg.

He is fully aware that weighing this little is extremely dangerous, however he can’t help feeling happy about it.

He did this to himself, he controls what he eats and as a result of his self-control he managed to get to this weight.

After he’s finished weighing himself he goes into the shower.

Being completely honest, it doesn’t even feel like a real shower to himself.

He just sits on the floor of the shower, lacking the energy to stand up in it, and he just allows the warm water to rinse himself off.

He doesn’t even really have the energy to properly wash himself off with soap, so he just hopes that the water will do enough. 

When Izuku finishes his shower, he looks at him self in the mirror, checking his collar bones and rib cage, after he’s done body checking, he gets dressed into a comfortable tee-shirt and a pair of sweatpants.

He opens the up cupboard and takes out a bottle of ibuprofen, he opens it and checks how many pills are in it.

Inside the bottle there is about fifteen pills, he hopes that it would be enough to kill him, this isn’t the date he was originally planning on killing himself, but the thought of it being over now is just too tempting to resist.

He takes all fifteen of the pills, and puts the empty bottle back where he found it.

Then he goes back to bed and sends an apology message to his online friend, explaining what he did.

He googles how long the ibuprofen will take to kill him and just gets fucking helplines.

“You’ve got to be kidding me” he thinks, frustrated.

He wants to know how long until he’s dead, he doesn’t want help, he doesn’t want to get better.

He gets a notification from his online friend, who’s obviously terrified.

Izuku feels horribly guilty for dragging them into this, he didn’t mean to scare them, he just wanted to let them know that he wasn’t online anymore, it’s not because he was ignoring them, or mad at them.

He messages with his online friend for a few hours, he’s honestly disappointed that he hasn’t died yet.

Before he even gets a chance to go to sleep, his alarm goes off for him to wake up.

He feels so cringe, because he didn’t die.

Next time he will have to plan better.

Chapter Text

Izuku gets out of bed, he feels so lightheaded that he collapses back onto his bed after standing for a few seconds.

He gets back up, slower this time and takes two ADHD pills instead of just one, hoping it’ll make up for the fact that he literally got no sleep.

Both tea and coffee have too many calories to him, even if it says “0 calories” on it, he knows that’s not true, only water has 0 calories.

When he reads the nutrition facts of anything other then water, that claim to have calories, he always counts it as 5 calories, and that’s too much for him on a day when he’s fasting.

He changes into his gakuran, then he heads to the bathroom.

When he gets into the bathroom he brushes his teeth, trying to get this weird taste out of his mouth, he doesn’t know how to properly describe it, but no matter how much he brushes his teeth, the taste won’t leave.

Strangely he never worried about the calories in toothpaste, in fact, he often puts some toothpaste in his mouth to try to get rid of the taste, even though as soon as he spits the toothpaste out, the taste doesn’t take long to come back.