Chapter 30

"Midoriya, I am so sorry," Kirishima says, for at least the fiftieth time.

For his part, Izuku simply nods. He could probably manage speaking if he tried, but for now he's content to wait until the cops get there.

His throat burns from puking, and the skin on his neck feels horribly itchy, but other than that he's none the worse for wear. It's certainly a step up from the last time he saw Shigaraki. Whatever else happens, at least it's not as bad as the USJ, or Stain, or anything else. Nobody got hurt. Mom's going to panic regardless, and Uraraka won't stop looking terribly scared, but it's important to focus on the positives. To do anything else at this point would mean spiraling into a panic.

The police arrive quickly to secure the scene, shortly before his friends and classmates converge on him to make sure he's still alive. There's no sign of Shigaraki by then, as Izuku had expected, and he finds himself pulled away from his worried classmates and whisked off to the police station. Uraraka and Kirishima bid him a worried goodbye, Kirishima squeezes in one last profuse apology, and that's the last Izuku sees of them.

Tsukauchi Naomasa is there to take charge of him, and that's a relief. All-Might trusts Tsukauchi, so Izuku does too, though no one's bothered to tell him how and why they ended up as close as they are. He still feels safe around Tsukauchi, because he's a cop and he's All-Might's friend and, right now, he's one of the few people on the planet that knows at least one of Izuku's biggest secrets.

Ironically, it's that very relief that brings on what Izuku hesitates to call a panic attack, because he hates to be dramatic, but—what the hell, it's a panic attack. He's out of danger, he feels safer than he did before, and that means he feels safe enough to fall apart a little.

It sinks in deep, just how lucky he is to be alive, and Izuku has never been more glad that he can put his feelings on a temporary delay. Only Uraraka and Kirishima were there to see him stress-vomit into a mall trash can, and only Tsukauchi is here to see him descend into subdued hysterics in the middle of explaining why the leader of the League of Villains didn't murder him.

"Sorry," he gasps out, as soon as he stops feeling like he's suffocating on perfectly good oxygen. Small, cold fingers comb through his hair, and Rei's white noise falls comfortingly on his ears.

Tsukauchi grounds him with a hand on his shoulder, a single point of contact connecting Izuku to the real world, like a string on a helium balloon. For a wild moment he wonders if he'll go rocketing into the stratosphere if Tsukauchi lets go. But Tsukauchi doesn't, so Izuku stares at the floor in shame, traces the edges of the tiles with his eyes, and finishes telling him what happened.

"He said… he liked you?" Tsukauchi's tone is neutral, and Izuku winces.

"I wasn't trying to—to make a good impression," he says. "I just didn't want him to put his last finger down."

"I know," Tsukauchi assures him. "You did good—you did great, keeping your head for as long as you did." He gives Izuku's shoulder a light squeeze before letting go at last. Izuku, miraculously, stays rooted to the ground. "Now, I just have one last question, and I know it's been a long day, but I need you to think hard for me. Did he tell you anything else? Any kind of hint about what his group has planned?"

Izuku shakes his head. "I, um." he sniffles a little, embarrassingly enough. "Actually, it was sort of like… he wasn't sure? Like… like he was upset about something, and frustrated because nobody else was upset about it like he was."

"Like he was looking for validation?" Tsukauchi asks.

"Y-yeah, I think so. And…" Izuku thinks hard, mentally pummels his brain around, trying to knock something useful loose. "I'm sorry, there wasn't anything else. Nothing specific, anyway."

"Anything more general, then?"

"Well he's got something planned," Izuku says. His hands are in the hem of his shirt, working at it in agitation. "Or… or his teacher has something planned. I asked him, and he said maybe I'd get to ask him myself, so… yeah. There's something, but… but you already knew that, so that's not really helpful."

"It's not as useless as you might think," Tsukauchi tells him, and smiles. "Don't worry. Even if there's nothing new to add to our intel, you still kept your head and kept collateral damage to a minimum—to zero, actually. You're a brave kid and you have a good head on your shoulders—I can see why All-Might's taken a shine to you." Izuku's face feels wobbly, but he manages to smile back.

"Hey! Izuku!" And then Ms. Nana is there in the room, blinking in and out of view. She looks normal and unbloodied, so she isn't as agitated as she could be, but she still hovers around him, checking him from all angles.

He smiles, and signs a quick hello in his lap.

"Holy hell, sprout, I'm starting to think I've been shadowing the wrong trouble magnet!" She finally stops flickering and hovers there, wringing her hands. "Toshi's on his way, by the way. He's not quite here yet, but I got impatient and went on ahead. You okay?"

Izuku gives a tiny, nearly imperceptible nod.

"Something else on your mind?" Tsukauchi asks.

"N-no," he says. "I'm just… glad it's over. For now."

They meet All-Might outside, just as he's walking up to the front door. Izuku's still a little shaky from panicking, but at the sight of his mentor he forces himself steady. Not trusting himself to put on another proper smile, he smooths his face into a neutral expression. All-Might's gaunt face is hard to read, but Izuku is pretty sure he can see relief in it. There's no surprise there; All-Might isn't primed for a fight right now. He's powered down, and his clothes are loose-fitting but not so much that they would accommodate his hero form.

He almost looks… normal this way.

The touch to his head surprises Izuku, and he twitches involuntarily. He doesn't mean anything by it; he's just surprised, that's all. He didn't expect it. But he sees All-Might's face change just a little, and he realizes that his teacher's mistaking it for a flinch, an indication that the touch is unwelcome.

It's not.

He feels All-Might's hand start to leave, and he leans forward to chase it before he can stop himself. It's embarrassing, even more embarrassing than getting spooked by a simple touch to the head, and he shuts his eyes.

All-Might hesitates a split second more, then gently ruffles his hair. Izuku cants his head into the touch again and tries not to feel too pathetic.

"I'm glad you're all right," his mentor tells him. "And I'm sorry I wasn't there to help you."

"I think I messed up," he says.

"Hm?"

Izuku catches his lower lip between his teeth. "I think…"

I've decided. I think like you, Midoriya Izuku.

"I think I helped him," he says, and tries not to think of the manic smile on Shigaraki's face, his cheerful, almost friendly tone as they parted ways. "And—not in a good way. I wanted to buy time, and I figured I could do that by just… telling him what he wanted to hear. But I think I made everything worse." He swallows hard. "And I've made him notice me. And I know you said before that you wanted me to announce myself, but… not like this. Not to someone like him."

"It couldn't be helped, munchkin," Nana says gently, and All-Might's hand slides to the back of his head and rests there. "You kids have been in the spotlight ever since Toshi signed on as a teacher. And I know you can't help being you."

"That's the trouble with power like ours," All-Might says, before Nana is quite finished speaking. "It's loud, and bright. It rarely gives you a chance to properly hide."

"That too," Nana sighs.

"It's happening so fast," Izuku says. "I thought I'd be ready, but…"

"I know." The hand moves from his head to his shoulder. "And I've been putting a lot of pressure on you, because I've left this so long. That's my fault, not yours." He squeezes gently, making Izuku look up. "And whatever you said to Shigaraki, whatever that caused, it was only one conversation, my boy. I guarantee that what you said to him won't make him do anything he wouldn't have done on his own."

"You can't take all the responsibility for other people's actions," Tsukauchi adds. "Especially villains. They're unpredictable and dangerous, and the best you can do is minimize the damage—as you did, today."

Izuku nods.

"In any case, it's getting late," Tsukauchi tells him. "And I believe your ride's here."

His mother arrives, fighting back tears and not quite winning. She's not alone; Morino and old Mrs. Matsuda are with her, flanking her like an invisible honor guard. And just like that, it's easy for Izuku to bundle his own worries away for later, because his mom is in front of him, and she's crying and frightened, and it's easy to reassure her than it is to reassure himself. It's distracting and calming at the same time, and as Mom's tears dry up, he feels as if he might be able to breathe again.

"We decided to come with her, just in case," Morino tells him as one of the officers accompanies them to see them off. "I mean, I'm not sure what we could've done if something bad had happened, but we figured it'd make you feel better if she didn't come in by herself."

Officer Tamakawa is still within hearing range, so Izuku simply gives her a grateful smile.

"Where's the other one?" Mrs. Matsuda nudges him. Even in her spectral state, her hand is still gnarled and wrinkly. "Are they coming back with us, or what?"

Izuku blinks at her in confusion, glances around, and sees Rei flitting around Officer Tamakawa, fascinated by him because he has the head of a ginger tabby cat. Izuku points to her discreetly and looks to Mrs. Matsuda again.

"No no, I meant the other one," the old ghost says. "Thought I saw somebody else with you. Some other kid." At his confused look, she shrugs. "Never mind then. Must've been imagining things. Or some nosy kid hanging around and running off."

It's probably nothing, but Izuku finds himself looking over his shoulder a few times as they make their way home. He could swear, a couple times, that he sees movement.

Barely a full day has passed before Izuku decides that Mrs. Matsuda was right. And he is no stranger to being followed.

It's sort of inevitable, with the ability that he has. The dead get curious, if they're lucid enough to focus, and it's not like they have anything better to do. So they do as they please, and as long as they aren't distressed or hurting anyone, Izuku is content to leave them be and let them follow him around to their heart's content.

The thing is, though, it doesn't tend to last long. If they aren't lucid, then they forget him fairly quickly and return to whatever cycles of memory usually keep them occupied. If they are, then they eventually drift away when the novelty wears off.

There have been persistent ghosts before, but those ones tend to be chatty, at least. If they're persistent then it means they want to be seen and heard, as soon as possible. Three days of following is long enough to be an outlier. Three days without seeing their face or hearing their voice is enough to get his attention. And lately, he could swear that the strange telltale noises and split-second glimpses are getting closer.

Rei is just as perplexed as he is, and that's what pushes it into alarming. She's gone off to try and talk to them many times, but whoever they are, they keep vanishing on her.

"I wonder what brought this on," Izuku whispers to her one night, when he's up at barely five in the morning. He's had worse nights for bad dreams, but he still needs to settle his nerves over animals on Youtube, and it's doubtful that he'll get back to sleep. "How long have they been following us now?"

Four days, she tells him, and points to a promising-looking thumbnail. Izuku selects it, and the two of them watch a woman give her Samoyed a bath.

Izuku feels teased by the normalcy. He's been distracted lately, because the mall incident is fresh in his mind and the school trip is almost upon him. Even now, his bedroom floor is a mess of packing. Life and training are chugging along, heedless of the debris from all the bombshells that have been dropping lately. He's excited for the trip, but excitement gets lost so easily in his worries.

He won't go away, Rei continues. But he won't show himself either. He's getting closer but he's so slow.

"It's a he, then?"

I think so.

"It's funny, though," Izuku says. He shifts on his bed, uncrossing his legs when he feels his foot go to sleep. "Could just be a coincidence, but I could swear it's been happening since the mall in Kiyashi Ward."

Rei looks at him sharply, eyes dark and liquid. Flyaway strands of dark hair fall over her face.

"Could be wrong," Izuku says, eyelids drooping as the woman in the video explains the blow-drying process. "But there were a lot of ghosts that day, following Shigaraki. Maybe I picked up one of them."

Rei's eyes narrow. Why would any of them want you, when he's the one that killed them?

"We don't know that he did," he murmurs. "Ms. Nana said she recognized some of them, at the USJ. She probably means she first saw them when All-Might confronted All For One. If All For One's like a teacher to Shigaraki, then… I don't know. Maybe some of his ghosts transferred over." The video ends. His throat feels dry, and his room feels far too small. "Maybe the League of Villains just has a whole crowd of ghosts, and there's so many of them and they've been there so long that no one knows who they're supposed to follow and haunt anymore."

It's not pleasant to think about, mainly because it reminds him so sharply of tonight's nightmares. His lungs feel simultaneously too full a nd too empty, and it's not until Rei jabs another thumbnail on his phone that he's jarred back into proper breathing. The video comes up before he touches the screen. Ferrets this time, playing in a box of packing peanuts.

He goes out the next day, because it's probably his last chance before he has to leave for the summer trip. There's a dead woman whose young daughter lost her favorite toy somewhere in another part of town, and he would like to try and find it before he has to go. Rei comes along, for company and another set of eyes.

He knows they're following him again. Or he's following him, according to Rei. Izuku can't catch a good enough glimpse to judge for himself. All he knows is that they're close now but they won't talk to him, or appear to him, or do anything but follow him and vanish when he turns around.

For an hour he wanders the street shops, scanning the sidewalks and alleys for any sign of a well-loved stuffed dog. Purple with floppy ears, that was what Mrs. Shigeyama had told him. There's no sign of it in streets or dumpsters, and even the shopkeepers and vendors can only shrug at him apologetically.

Luckily, there's a park near here where Mrs. Shigeyama says her daughter loved to play. He can get to it quickly if he crosses a couple of busy streets. One of them has an underpass so he doesn't have to stop and wait for traffic. It's quieter there, away from cars and most pedestrians, so maybe he and Rei can hold a real conversation for a while.

Izuku hesitates as the path ahead dips downward, and he swallows against the sudden lump in his throat. The last time he ducked into an underpass like this, he was fourteen years old and nearly suffocated on someone's slime quirk. It's not a pleasant memory, for all that it led to his meeting All-Might, and he has combat training and a quirk now but he would still feel better avoiding that sort of thing.

Wait here. Rei, ever helpful, does a quick check for him and comes back to give him the all clear. Izuku's heart lightens, and he jogs down to pass through it as quickly as he can. It's not cramped enough to spook him, but the faster he gets to the other side, the better.

In the end, he doesn't know what triggers it. Maybe it's how isolated it is; the underpass is empty of people both living and dead. Maybe it's the darkness, or the closeness of the walls and ceiling. Or maybe it's finally had enough time to get close to him.

Rei shrieks a warning, and Izuku is hit from behind.

He has no time to react, to defend, or even to break his fall. The blow sends him sprawling, bloodies his nose against the cement, and pins him there with a grip that digs sharply into his back. He hears another shriek, grating high-frequency static that drills into his ears, as talons rake the back of his neck and wind buffets him from above.

Rei screams in fury, and all at once the clawing weight is torn away. Izuku rolls over on his back, tasting salt and copper, and has just enough time to raise his arms in a shield before he's struck once more from the front.

He scrabbles backward and nearly reaches the wall before it—before the ghost pins him flat on his back and rakes at him with grasping claws. And the wind…

Not wind at all, he realizes. It can't be. Wind doesn't sound like that—punctuated, rhythmic, almost like

wingbeats.

Clawed hands close on his shielding arms, wrenching them away from his face. Izuku opens his eyes, and stares up at the ghost.

His breath catches in his throat. He tries to gasp, but his voice comes out with it and it sounds more like a whimper. Rei grabs the frenzied ghost from behind and drags it off him, and Izuku crawls backward the moment he can move. He drags himself along the dirty concrete until his back is to the rough wall of the underpass, and he can see. It's impossible not to see.

Black pits stare back at him from a pale, distorted face. The ghost's form shifts, features changing and melting and unstable as it thrashes in Rei's grip. It's bigger than her, and she has always been strong, but she can barely hold it back.

Him, Izuku thinks numbly. Not it. Him.

The ghost's jaws part as he struggles and reaches for Izuku, deformed and mutilated and familiar, so familiar. Nothing but rattling and hissing emerges, and yet

And yet

It very nearly forms a word. It's a word that Izuku knows well, one that he has heard all his life.

"De… ku."

With a desperate heave, the ghost thrashes out of Rei's grip and lunges again—no, crawls, he crawls to him, drags leathery wings that bleed black from the ragged membrane, and his hands aren't clawing, they aren't hurting, they're grabbing, clutching him, clinging to him like the ghost is desperate. Like the ghost is afraid.

And why wouldn't he be? He can't be much older than Izuku is.

Izuku is crying, and he doesn't know when he started, but now he can't stop, because this face may be older now than when he last saw it, it may be shifting, melting, deforming and reforming before his eyes, but he knows this face.

"Tsubasa-kun," he gasps. "Tsu—Tsubasa. It's me. Do you remember me?" The ghost clings to him until his claws pierce through Izuku's sleeve, and Izuku whimpers with pain but lets him. "I-it's me, Deku. You remember me, right?" Tsubasa screams, and Izuku shakes and sobs as he speaks. "We were—" friends, he almost says, but they weren't friends, were barely even playmates, because Tsubasa either ignored him or bullied him the same as everyone else. "W-we all played together, with—K-Kacchan! Do you remember Kacchan?"

Tsubasa wails again. He looks so young, just a teenager like Izuku, and Izuku hasn't seen him since they were small but he still looks small now, too small, too young to look like this.

He's dead. The realization falls on him, almost belated. We played when we were tiny. He laughed at Kacchan's jokes. He's dead. I knew him alive, I saw him and heard him and talked to him and touched him, and now he's dead.

"What happened?" he chokes out. "Tsubasa-kun—what happened to you?"

"Deku," at least, that's what he think Tsubasa says. He clutches at Izuku's jacket. Desperate. Pleading. "Deku."

"I don't know," Izuku sobs. "I don't know how to help. Who did this to you?"

Tsubasa screams.

Pain nearly splits Izuku's skull in half, and he curls up against the wall and presses his palms to his ears, but he can still hear Tsubasa scream.

And then it's over. Izuku opens his eyes (when did he close them?) and Tsubasa is gone, and only Rei is there, shaking from a few feet away as she watches him with wide eyes.

"I don't know," he whispers, and Tsubasa is gone but he still can't stop crying. "I don't know, Rei, I don't know, I don't know."

All-Might isn't there to rescue him, not this time. This time, Izuku sobs until his tears are spent, drags himself up, and stumbles back out into the sunlight.

Tsubasa follows him home without a sound, close enough to touch.

Eijirou isn't usually the kind of guy who stresses over punctuality. As long as he makes it before the late bell, he's golden; that's his only criteria.

But today is a special case. He's a man on a mission.

It's been less than a week since what went down at the mall, and Eijirou hasn't had the chance to talk to Midoriya since. They've said stuff to each other, sure, but they haven't really talked. There just hasn't been time, or a good moment for Eijirou to pull the guy aside. Midoriya's been quiet and jumpy ever since then, looking over his shoulder like he thinks someone's following him, and Eijirou doesn't blame him at all.

If he blames anybody, it's his own damn self.

So he sets his alarm for the morning of the school trip, and for once he actually gets up the first time around, instead of rolling over and hitting snooze. He drags himself up, stumbles like a zombie through getting his stuff together, and gets to school twenty minutes earlier than he usually would.

He isn't surprised to see that Iida was one of the first (probably the first) people to get there. Dude's as crazy about being on time as Eijirou isn't. He's a little surprised to see Midoriya there too, especially since Midoriya looks kinda dead. He's got an even worse zombie look than Eijirou does, and Eijirou has to wonder 1) if he got any sleep at all last night, and 2) how the hell he dragged a full backpack and a big-ass duffel bag all the way here when he looks like a strong wind might knock him over.

Guilt twists in his gut, and he looks around. Iida, Yaoyorozu, and Todoroki are also there, but nobody else. He has plenty of time, probably.

"Hey, Midoriya." He sidles closer, probably not very subtly, but it still takes Midoriya a moment to register that he's there. In fact, he doesn't notice at all, until Eijirou reaches out to tap his shoulder. Midoriya startles at the touch, and Eijirou yanks his hand back like it burned. "Sorry! I'm so sorry, Midoriya, I didn't mean to spook you."

"I'm fine." If Midoriya looks bad from far off, he looks even worse when he's looking Eijirou in the eye. "Need something?"

"Uh, I was just—could I talk to you? For a sec?" Midoriya blinks owlishly at him, and Eijirou adds, "In private, I mean."

"O-oh. Yeah, sure." Midoriya looks over to Iida and opens his mouth.

"We'd be happy to watch your things," Iida says, before he can get a word out.

"Thanks." With that, Midoriya trudges to follow Eijirou a little ways off, far enough that anyone who isn't Jirou or Shouji wouldn't be able to hear.

Taking a deep breath, Eijirou launches himself straight into it. "Listen, I know I've said this a lot, but I'm really, really sorry about what happened at the mall."

"'Sfine," Midoriya says.

Eijirou shakes his head. "No, man, it really isn't."

"I don't know what you're apologizing for," Midoriya tells him. "You and Uraraka were the first ones to find me. And it's not like you knew there'd be a villain wandering around."

"Well, yeah, I mean after what went down with freaking Stain, I figured that if I received a cryptic text message from you then it probably meant you were in a jam." Eijirou shrugs uncomfortably. "And anyway, I wasn't really apologizing for Shigaraki, more just… before that."

Midoriya's eyes lose focus for a moment. "Before…?"

"The, uh." He takes the plunge. "The elevator."

Something about the way Midoriya's face shifts reminds Eijirou of heavy vault doors slamming. "Oh," he says. "That."

"Y-you don't have to tell me anything about it!" Eijirou says quickly. "Really! I just… I'm sorry for pulling on you like that. And freaking you out. I think if I hadn't done that then maybe you wouldn't have had to run off, and you wouldn't have… y'know." He shrugs again, feeling helpless and awkward. "I should've paid more attention."

"I don't like people to know," Midoriya says softly.

"I-I won't tell anyone!" Eijirou almost trips over himself to assure him. "Of course I wouldn't, that'd be the opposite of manly. Lips are sealed, promise."

"I don't mean—I don't like people to know, so I hide it, so you couldn't have known," Midoriya tells him. "You're not a mind-reader, Kirishima."

"Midoriya. Dude." Eijirou sighs heavily. "That's… kinda not what I'm going for. I'm looking for something more along the lines of 'I accept your apology,' not… not telling me there's nothing to apologize for."

His friend gives him an exhausted smile. "Okay, Kirishima, I accept your apology."

Eijirou lets out a breath, and his shoulders slump as the air leaves him. "Okay then. Cool. Good."

"I'm usually okay with tunnels," Midoriya continues.

"Huh?"

"I-I mean…" Midoriya shifts from foot to foot. "I just… I'm usually, um, fine. If I'm moving somewhere, and it's not too small. I just… don't like being somewhere that's really small, when I can't go anywhere. So like, closets. Or… or elevators. I-it's better if I'm moving through it. I still get nervous, but I don't, um." He doesn't finish that sentence.

"Got it," Eijirou says. "Thanks. For telling me."

"Thanks for… understanding, I guess."

"Hey, understanding's the easy part." Eijirou manages to grin at him. "So… a-are we cool?"

Another owlish blink. "Were we not cool at some point?"

"I mean, I dunno?" This conversation is starting to devolve into them asking each other questions. "Between almost yanking you into an elevator, and like, me being friends with Bakugou, I guess I'm never really sure?"

Midoriya frowns, confused. "You can be friends with Bakugou if you want." And it is a relief to hear him say that, and mean it, because that's been bothering him ever since the final exams. Hell, even before that he wasn't quite sure.

"A-are you sure?" His worries overflow and spill out before he can stop them. "Because I like to think we're bros too, you and me, but Bakugou kinda… isn't super great to you, and I completely don't like that he treats you like that, but there's other stuff I do like about him, and I just… I hope you know it's not all across-the-board approval, with me. If that makes sense." It's his turn to shift a little on his feet. "I know it's super awkward to be friends with people who hang out with people you don't like, so…"

"Kirishima, I'm glad you're friends with Bakugou," Midoriya tells him bluntly, and Eijirou has to stare.

"Um. Oh. R-really?"

"I don't get Bakugou's problems," Midoriya tells him, and for a moment he looks tired again, even more tired than before, if that's even possible. "I know he has them, and I sort of know what they are, but I don't know how to fix them. And—we used to be friends, but we're not anymore, and there's just too much bad stuff between us at this point for us to go back, and… sometimes I wish I could help him, but I can't, and I'm—I don't know what'll happen if I try. I don't think I'm the right person." He meets Eijirou's eyes, briefly. "You might be, though."

Eijirou's breath hitches. "Dude, I…"

Midoriya shuts his eyes, shakes his head vigorously. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't say that. Aizawa-sensei—he said he was wrong to make somebody else's growth my problem, so I shouldn't do that to you. But…" God, he looks tired. Eijirou hopes he can catch some sleep on the bus ride. "…he listens to you. And you're a really good person. So yeah, I'm glad you're friends with him."

Eijirou purses his lips and wow, he kind of wants to cry all of a sudden, isn't that weird? "I'm, uh. Really glad, man," he says. "And—listen, I know he gives you a hard time, like, all the time, so… if you ever need me to… I dunno. Step in? Just lemme know. I'll try and keep an eye out, but… yeah."

Midoriya blinks, and his eyes go a little cloudy for a moment. "Could I ask a favor?"

"I mean… I literally just said that, dude…"

"I wanted to ask him something," Midoriya says. "I don't know if he'll answer me. I don't even know if he'll answer you, but… there's just something that's been bothering me."

"Okay," Eijirou says, nodding. "What is it?"

Midoriya hesitates for a second, and his face freezes blank. "We fell out of touch when we were little, but before that, we had sort of a mutual friend. I haven't heard from him in a while, and I've just… been wondering what happened to him. Where he went."

"Want me to ask after him for you?" Eijirou offers. "I can totally do that. What's the guy's name?"

"Tsubasa," Midoriya whispers it first, too softly for Eijirou to hear, then coughs and tries again. "His name was Tsubasa. Just… could you see if Bakugou knows anything about where he ended up?"

"No problem!" Eijirou says eagerly. "I'll see if I can slip that into a conversation all sneaky and stuff."

His friend gives him another tired smile. "Thanks, Kirishima."

"No problem, buddy!"

Miracle of miracles, the smile stays where it is, and there's not a single trace of baby-eating in it. "For what it's worth, I'm really glad we're friends, too."

Eijirou chokes up.

The smile doesn't last long after that, and Eijirou's sorry to see it go. Midoriya spends the rest of the morning dozing on his feet as they wait for the rest of the class to arrive, apparently deaf to Iida's worried fussing about getting proper rest every night. (And really, has Iida met Midoriya? Guy wouldn't know a proper night's rest if it jumped up and bit him.)

Eijirou chances a glance over his shoulder when they're all settled in on the bus, and he can't help but grin a little at what he sees. The engine isn't even warm yet, and Midoriya's conked out on Todoroki's shoulder. Utterly dead to the world. It is undeniably adorable, especially when Todoroki looks so confused about it.

He ends up staring long enough for Todoroki to glance up and notice him. Eijirou flashes him a grin and a thumbs-up, and the two of them share a commiserating look from halfway across the bus.

Midoriya may be strong as hell, but that just means looking out for him has to be a team effort.