quantumsuplex

[quantumsuplex]

Like a Box of Old Building Blocks - Chp 2

Relationship: Midoriya Izuku / Jirou Kyouka

Rating: M

Notes: Aged-up Characters, Post-Canon, Fluff, Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Roommates, Friends to Lovers

Summary:

Seven years after she graduated, Jirou Kyouka’s life has stalled; she’s getting nowhere as a hero, recently got dumped by her girlfriend, and spends all her free time doing absolutely nothing in her filthy apartment. Her only saving grace? No one is around to see her failures firsthand anymore.

Until she gets contacted by an old friend, Midoriya Izuku, Japan’s greatest hero, asking if he can move in with her. Despite her reservations, she agrees – she probably owes him that much, after everything he’s done. Now all she has to do is hide just how bad things have gotten for her from the most meddlesome hero to ever exist.

Chapter Warnings: Minor manga spoilers for Izuku's quirk

Chp: 2/26

_________

Izuku wakes up at 5:59am sharp.

He disables his 6:00am phone alarm before it rings. It hasn’t gone off it a long time, but he can’t bring himself to completely deactivate it. Just in case, he tells himself.

Then it’s an hour for his morning workout. He’s got more than enough space for all his stretches, body weight exercises, dumbbells, calisthenics. He’ll do full weights later in the day. During the cool-downs he checks his news feeds, makes sure there isn’t any ongoing emergencies. Like most days breakfast is an omelet, filled with whatever veggies he’s got on hand, then it’s a 10 minute cold shower. By 7:30am he’s ready for the day. It gives him half an hour of pure free time until he has to go to work. What a luxury!

He usually spends the time catching up on what his friends have been up to. News, social media, announcements, whatever he can get his hands on. He doesn’t need it so much for his closestas often as he’d like these days – some of them he hasn’t seen in years – so he makes up for it how he can, whether it’s tracking Aoyama’s exploits a frienne else.... Well. It’s been seven years since they graduated, seven years of moving and dating and agency changes. Seven years of life. He doesn’t see many of them s friends, and eone of Germany’s top 50 heroes or Shouji’s rural hero work in the far corners of Japan.

He stands in front of his big display case. It was once a shrine to All Might, but as friends accomplished more and more, he changed which heroes he idolized. It takes up a good portion of the north wall, and it’s filled with all the best stuff he can get to represent his friends, and everything they’ve achieved.

It’s primarily photos: Shouto with fiery sidekicks on his left and frosty ones on his right, Tenya leading his crew at Idaten, Mei making support gear in her new lab, Hitoshi teaching a few students how to use his capture scarf, Ochako and Tsu receiving an award for their rescue work, and dozens more of everyone from his old UA class. Hundreds of photos, of his friends just hanging out, receiving awards, even a few blurry ones of them actively saving someone.

He’s also got figurines, one for each of them – though, Kacchan’s is a bootleg ‘Die-No-Myte!’. He would have more, but Ochako talked him down to 1 per friend a while back. There’s also some of his friends’ passion projects in there, like a pair of sneakers from Kaminari’s sneaker line, Satou’s cookbooks, a piece of Hagakure’s jewelry, vinyls of Jirou’s two albums.

So much stuff from his friends, as much as he can cram in there. Recently he’s had to resort to taping photos on the edges and sides, just because he has no more room in the case itself. Maybe he can get another one.

It’s as he’s standing there, taking in his wonderful friends, when something crashes into his apartment.

A bright yellow ball cracks through the concrete floor of the balcony and the glass doors leading inside, aiming up towards the ceiling. It slams into the surface hard, leaving jagged lines of torn plaster, then ricochets off and collides with his couch, splitting it into two pieces of ruined wood and fabric. It spins to a stop, burning the tile on the floor through the friction. The floor is covered with glass and bits of concrete rubble, and plaster dust floats down from above.

Izuku stares at the ball in pure shock as it bulges outward like something trapped in rubber. Arms crawl out with awful squeaks, then legs, then a torso forms, all bursting out with sounds like pinching balloons. Finally, a head pushes out of the torso with one final *pop*, and the figure stands there with his arms against his hips, as if in triumph.

It’s a heavy, bulky man in a yellow body suit that covers every inch of him, except for his face. It’s craggy from old acne scars, his nose is large and crooked, and his lips are chapped and cracked, yet the most distracting thing about it is his striking, beautiful light blue eyes. They’re bright, and comforting, and completely outshone by the gross yellow of his too-tight suit.

Ugh, not THIS guy again.

“Can we please not-”

“HERO DEKU!” the man interrupts. “It is I, your GREATEST nemesis: THE RICOCHET VILLAIN: RUBBER RAMMER!” He speaks in a deep, blubbery voice that clearly pronounces both colons.

Izuku cringes. “You really need to change your name, Rubber!”

“NO!” he shouts back. “It is a name that exemplifies my fighting spirit!” He clenches a fist and holds it out in front of him. “A man who rams himself into his foes, over and over, until they can no longer move! That is I: THE RICOCHET VILLAIN: RUBBER RAMMER!”

“Okay whatever! Can we take this outside please, I don’t-”

“SILENCE!” he says. “I may have been unable to defeat you before, but today is different! Today I strike when you are most vulnerable: BEFORE YOU’VE HAD YOUR MORNING COFFEE!”

“I don’t drink coffee!”

“Now now, do not try to fool me! It is unbecoming of a hero such as yourself!” He wags his finger in disapproval.

“Now: I ATTACK!” Rubber shouts, perfectly pronouncing the colon.

“Wait, no, don’t-”

Rubber pops back into himself and forms a ball once again, before shooting towards Izuku with blinding speed. He slams into Izuku’s forearms, crossed over his chest to guard it, and bounces off with even more speed, crashing into the opposite wall. He reflects off and shoots through the room, colliding with furniture, breaking through walls, smashing apart kitchen appliances. Dozens of black tendrils burst from Izuku’s arm and lunge after the ricocheting yellow ball, but every time they wrap around him he squeezes out like he’s covered in oil.

This guy has attacked Izuku before. Never seriously, but previous encounters have Izuku worried whether he can do anything about this guy. He’s a heteromorph with a body made of tough but slippery, flexible rubber, and it makes pinning him down incredibly hard. Izuku times a leap when Rubber is flying through his apartment, but when Izuku wraps himself around the ball, then wraps blackwhips tight around the both of them, he feels the rubber struggle and squish itself through the tiniest gaps. It takes him seconds to free himself and return to bouncing around, shattering through the wall into the washroom and bathroom.

Izuku can hear porcelain and plastic shattering, then the sound of water gushing out. He sends a message out to his agency, letting them know he’s being attacked, but it’s unlikely it’ll amount to anything. That’s what always happens. There’s a few heroes Izuku is pretty sure could actually trap him, but this guy only goes after him when he’s alone, and leaves before Izuku can get anyone else to help. The only saving grace is that this guy doesn’t seem to want to kill him. All Rubber has ever done is pummel him for a bit until he gets tired or bored.

He hears more crashing from the bathroom, hears the splintering of wooden supports, then Rubber Rammer (ugh) bursts through the wall again back into the living room. He ping pongs through the room a few more times before he’s shooting northward, towards-

Towards Izuku’s display case.

Gearshift activates, Fa-Jin and One-For-All explodes through his legs, and with a leap so powerful it shakes the room and widens the cracks, he dashes in between his treasures and the ball shooting towards them. He unleashes a colossal punch dead center of Rubber’s oblong body, squishing him into a near perfectly flat disk that then wraps around Izuku’s fist like a glove.

And then the rubber man shoots away, faster than he ever was before.

He tears through every wall in the apartment. Wires are ripped away, pipes are cracked, and every piece of furniture, every appliance, every other thing he owns, shatters into pieces as Rubber bounces around like a pinball moving at hundreds of miles per hour. It’s all Izuku can do just to keep him from smashing through his display case, or through to his bedroom on the other side, yanking himself around on black whips while slapping the yellow ball away every time it gets close like the worst game of tennis imaginable. Everything on the opposite side of the apartment slowly dissolves into millions of little particles.

Rubber eventually slows to a stop in the middle of the living room. He unfurls, his chest heaving at the effort of demolishing Izuku’s apartment. His eyes shift around the ravaged apartment. He has the good sense to look embarrassed about what he’s done, at least.

Izuku stares at him in disbelief.

“Was this necessary, Rubber?!”

“O-of… of course, hero Deku!” he responds, breathing hard. “I uh… I will not stop until I defeat you, whatever it takes!” He shakes away his brief hesitation. “I may have failed this day, but I shall return when I have recovered my energies! Never forget me, your GREATEST nemesis: THE RICOCHET VILLAIN: RUBBER RAMMER!”

He balls up and shoots through a piece of the glass doors he hadn’t shattered yet, flying over the balcony and off into the distance, leaving Izuku with only two thoroughly enunciated colons.

Izuku just stands there, his eyes scanning his ruined apartment. The kitchen is covered in food from the fridge, from the cupboards. The floor is littered with shattered furniture and glass. The lights are all broken, both the bulbs and all their wiring. Water creeps slowly from the bathroom area, puddling across the floor.

Someone bursts through the front door.

“Deku! I’m here to help! Where is he?!” his sidekick, Shadowbind, yells.

Izuku leans his head back, onto the case behind him, and stares at the ceiling with pure, unfiltered exasperation.

-

Hours later, he’s managed to finish packing most of the stuff that wasn’t broken or busted. His agency hired a cleaning company that’ll come by later to clean up everything for real, but he did what he could to help out. He mopped up most of the water, had it shut off along with the power, and swept away as much trash on the floor as he could towards the ruined kitchen. He… hasn’t touched that part. It’s still covered in food, filling the apartment with a lingering smell of spoiling fish and vinegar. He’ll leave that to the professionals. His goal now is just to leave, get somewhere actually livable for the near future. He’s… not sure where yet.

He hears his front door open, and someone shouts into his apartment for the second time that day. Third if he counts Rubber.

“DEKU! Are you still here??”

Ochako, one of his closest friends. He had called her soon after Rubber left to let her know his apartment got smashed up, and even though he told her he’d figure things out himself, here she is. He smiles.

“I’m in my room!” he shouts back. “If you’re coming in, you should keep your shoes on!”

He hears her footsteps squeak and crackle through the damp, gritty floor. She spins around the doorframe from the living room into his room with a deceptive speed and launches herself into him, clutching at his torso. He hugs her tight, letting her warmth bleed away some of his frustrations, her short hair tickling his noise with strawberry. She hums roughly against him, an assurance that she’s giving this hug her all.

A full minute later she gently pushes herself off. He didn’t notice until now that she’s wearing her hero suit, the one with the new thrusters on the palms. He feels a bit bad for distracting her while she’s working.

“Deku, you really undersold how much damage he did!” She looks back through the doorway into the living room. “There’s not much of an apartment left.”

He nods, and gives her a brief rundown of all the stuff Rubber had broken.

“What the heck is that guy’s problem?!” she asks angrily. “How’d he even find out where you live??”

“I… really don’t know, Ochako. On both counts. He keeps saying he wants to ‘beat me’ but he doesn’t ever say why!” He shakes his head. “He’s never caused this much trouble before though.”

“No kidding,” she says. She looks at the assembly of boxes on his mattress, his floor. His room is pretty bare now, everything packed away in cardboard or in the dressers.

She sighs.

“Well… at least you’re okay?” she reasons.

He chuckles.

“Yeah, just a bit sore.” He rotates his shoulders with a few cracks. “I just don’t know what to do now. I mean, I can probably store my stuff at my agency for now, but I need to get back to work soon, and I don’t know when I’m gonna have the time to find a good hotel.”

She looks at him blankly. Her eyes squeeze with suspicion.

“...Are you serious right now, Deku?”

“Um… yeah? Why wouldn’t I be?”

She eyes him for another few moments, then lightly smacks his arm.

“I can’t believe you!” she says. “You’re standing there talking about hotels, did you even consider asking to stay with me and Tsu for a while? You’re more than welcome!”

“...Oh. Really?”

He honestly hadn’t, not really. He knows they don’t have a ton of space, and he doesn’t want to be the guy crashing on the married couple’s couch, getting in the way of their relatively new life.

“Of course!” Something seems to occur to her. “I mean… if it’s too weird for you, staying with us, I guess there’s nothing I can do, but we’d absolutely love to have you until you can find a more permanent solution! Tsu’s already given her approval!”

He’s hesitant to agree right away, but he can’t help but smile at his amazing friend.

“...Are you sure? I don’t want to impose.”

“Deku, impose on us, please! At least for tonight, that way you don’t have to worry about it while you go back to work. Which is insane by the way. Just take the day off!”

“I can’t! I promised I’d help Hitoshi with a gang problem he’s been having, and I’ve got to do some patrols with Platformer so she can get as much out of her work-study as possible, and I-”

“Yeah yeah, I get it” She shrugs. “I know I’ll never be able to talk you out of a day of work. But I will talk you into staying with us if necessary! So, how about it?”

He considers it for a bit as his thumb fidgets back and forth across his fingertips, wondering if there’s a way to convince her that he doesn’t want to invade their space but not because it’s too weird for him or anything, that he’s just doesn’t want to be a third wheel, that-

He stops himself before his brain spins out of control.

“...Okay. But just for a bit! I’ll find a place as fast as possible so I can be out of your hair, I promise.”

“Pssh, our hair would love to have you! At the very least, we can help you find something while you’re with us.”

“...Thanks, Ochako.”

She smiles and tackles him with a hug again.

-

It’s not until late that he makes it to Ochako and Tsu’s apartment with just a couple of bags to live out of. They welcome him in with warm embraces and kisses on the cheek, and walk him over to a little nook they’ve created with some curtains. It has a small sofa set up with a table in front of it, and a rolled up futon has been set on the cushions along with some blankets.

It’s the best thing they can do to give him some privacy in their small home. They’ve only got the one bedroom, the both of them used to living compactly; Ochako from sharing a room with her parents, Tsu from sharing rooms with her siblings. The rest of their apartment is a combined living room / dining room / kitchen area, with the little nook tucked away in a corner. It’s thoroughly lived in, with every table and counter filled with framed pictures, knickknacks, and various projects of all sorts.

Next to the area they’ve set up for him there’s a large 20 gallon terrarium, the bottom third of which is filled with water, with land portions sloping out of the makeshift pond. Long branches lay across the tank making small pathways, with bright green moss and ferns covering every solid surface. He can see a few little frogs, newts, and snails crawling around, with a couple of shrimp twitching to and fro in the water. It’s been a while since the last time he’s been to their place, and the terrarium is new.

He chats with them for a bit, thanking them profusely for their hospitality, but it’s late enough that it’s already past the time he normally goes to sleep. Luckily Tsuyu is an early sleeper, early riser just like him, so he’s not messing with their schedule too much as he starts to get ready to retire. Tsuyu’s off to bed first, and as he comes out of the washroom from changing into sleepwear and brushing his teeth, he finds Ochako fondly staring at the glass tank, her eyes attuned to a little blue frog with black speckles.

“Tsu got a terrarium, huh?” he asks.

“It’s called a paludarium, actually,” Ochako says, “and it was my idea! Tsu’s always been lukewarm at the idea of pets since she wasn’t sure if we’d have the time to properly care for anything, between our busy schedules and having to leave every so often for rescue missions. But I did some research, and came up with this!”

He looks at the numerous small critters moving around in the tank.

“...Is this easier than a normal pet?”

She laughs.

“Well, not necessarily,” she says. “But nothing in there needs direct attention the way cats or dogs do. And worst case scenario, if we’re both away from home for a while, they can handle being on their own for a bit. And Tsu’s definitely warmed up to them! She’s been fussing over them even more than me the past few weeks!”

Ochako sighs dreamily as she follows a shrimp poking around with its antennas.

“It’s just… nice, to care for something together. Makes me think about the future.”

He’s hit by something powerful, standing there next to his best friend, watching her point such raw devotion toward her little charges. Towards Tsuyu. It’s an exhilarating, daunting thing, the feeling that grips his heart. A realization of what the two of them have started, of where they might go.

He wraps his arm around her shoulders and hugs her to his side, so completely proud of her, of both of them, so utterly glad to be a part of their lives. He feels her loop her own arm around his side.

“Whether it’s these little guys, or… something else, they’re lucky to be loved by you and Tsu.”

She squeezes him a little tighter.

“...Thanks, Deku.” She pokes him in the nose. “That includes you too, by the way.”

He chuckles. “I love you guys too.”

They stand there for a few more moments, Ochako pointing at each creature in the paludarium and telling him their names, before she heads off to bed herself, shutting off all the lights. They left him a futon just in case but he sets up on the couch, and slowly drifts to sleep as he stares up at the glow in the dark stars scattered like galaxies on the ceiling.

-

He skips his morning workout the next day, opting to look up apartment listings instead. When Tsuyu wakes up they chat a bit while he eats a quick breakfast, and he’s off to work before Ochako wakes up. He goes back to apartment hunting during whatever down time he has, along with sending a few messages to friends asking if they know anyone who has an open room. He’d prefer another 1 bedroom apartment, but it’s unlikely he’ll find one he can move into quickly. And if he has to have a roommate, he’d prefer to keep it within the hero community. He’d rather not have what happened yesterday happen while living with a civilian.

By the time he heads back to Ochako and Tsu’s place he’s not any closer to finding a place, something which he apologizes for as he settles in for the day.

“I think it’s fine you didn’t find a new home in a single day, Izuku,” Tsuyu says with a ribbit.

Ochako hums in agreement.

It’s not long until Ochako starts making dinner. Rice slowly cooks in the cooker while she dredges chicken cutlets in egg wash before coating it with panko breadcrumbs. He’s about to offer to help when Tsuyu goes up to Ochako from behind and wraps her arms around her wife’s torso. The two of them nuzzle and giggle as Ochako places the chicken in the pan, hot oil crackling loudly. Tsuyu assists halfheartedly, more interested in bothering Ochako than anything else. He decides not to interrupt them.

He wonders if he’ll ever have what they have, someday.

Soon the chicken katsu is done and they all sit at the table for dinner, and he thanks them before digging in. Ochako starts to tell Tsuyu about some ongoing workplace drama through a full mouth, gesticulating wildly with her chopsticks, and while he keeps one ear toward the conversation, he pulls out his phone to flip through apartment listings again.

“Deku, no phones at the kitchen table!” Ochako says after a few minutes. She still has food in her mouth. “It’s one of our rules.”

“Another one of the rules is to not talk with your mouth full,” Tsuyu adds, smiling at her paramour.

“That’s not a rule, it’s a guideline!” Ochako swallows, then points her chopsticks at Izuku. “Now, put your phone away, mister!”

“Sorry! I was just apartment hunting again. I don’t want to be a burden to you guys for longer than I have to.”

“Deku, I know the idea of being a burden is like your worst nightmare, but you’re not, I promise!” Ochako scoops some rice into her mouth. “You can stay as long as you need to, okay?”

He glances at Tsuyu, hoping to draw her attention towards the crumbs spilling from Ochako’s mouth.

“Sorry, I’m on her side. Even if she had terrible table manners, ribbit.”

Izuku sighs, and puts away his phone.

“Okay okay, thank you. I appreciate it, I do. But I still want to find a place as soon as possible! I’d like to have a room again.” He taps his chopsticks against his chin. “Besides, I’m not totally sure Rubber won’t attack again, I’d rather not get you guys involved in that. It’d be bad if he smashes your stuff too.”

Ochako gasps.

“You’re right… if that weirdo shows up again, he might smash our little ones!” She gives him a grave look. “We’re gonna have to kick you out, Deku.”

He knows she’s teasing him, but he can’t stop his eyes from widening slightly. Tsuyu waps the side of her wife’s head with her tongue.

“Don’t even joke about that, he’ll take it too seriously.” Tsuyu turns to him with a finger on her chin. “Although, you’ve been searching for people who need a roommate too, right? Wouldn’t they be at risk at getting their stuff smashed?”

“Well… yeah, but that’s why I’m only considering rooming with another hero, preferably one who can prevent this guy from doing too much damage if he shows up again.” He shakes his head. “But I don’t really know any heroes who are in a place with an open room. I’ve got some people asking around, but… no luck yet.”

“Well, like Tsu said, it’s only been a day! Just give it a little time.”

He nods hesitantly, then pours some katsu sauce on another piece of chicken and shoves it into his mouth. Tsu still has her finger on her chin though, and sits contemplatively for a bit before she starts talking again.

“You know… I think there is someone we know that has a place.”

“Really?” he asks, chewing on his food. “Who?”

“Don’t talk with your mouth full, ribbit.”

He’s taken aback, and points at Ochako accusingly, but all he gets back is Tsuyu’s blank face and Ochako’s smirking.

He swallows.

“Who?”

“…I think Kyouka might have a free room,” Tsuyu answers. “Though it might be a bit awkward to ask about it.”

“Ooh, true,” Ochako says, steepling her hands and tapping her fingertips together. “I forgot about that.”

Jirou? It’s been a while since Izuku’s talked to her. The last time they were even in the same place at the same time was Ochako and Tsu’s wedding over a year ago, but he doesn’t remember saying anything other than some brief greetings to her and her girlfriend. He keeps up with her exploits as much as he can, like he does all his friends, but she’s not in the news or on social media much these days.

“How come?”

“Because the only reason she would have it is that she and Juno have broken up for good.”

“...She and her girlfriend broke up?” he says. “What happened?”

Ochako cuts in. “Well, she’s been kinda… distant, recently, so we don’t have the full story. Momo’s the only one who might, and she’s only given us a few details. It happened maybe 4, 5 months ago?”

 “...Wow, I didn’t realize she was having relationship problems,” he says. “They’d been together for years, I wonder what happened.”

“If you really need a room badly, you might end up finding out,” Tsuyu says. “She lives across the bay in Tarisu, but I’m sure the extra distance isn’t a problem for you.”

“And at the very least, she’s a friend you can trust, instead of someone you don’t know!” Ochako says. “Plus, I don’t know if she can do anything to stop the rubber guy, but she would definitely be able to hear him before he busted in. That’s something, right?”

He frowns. “...I don’t know. That whole situation seems like something I don’t want to get in the middle of.”

“Well then you clearly aren’t in that much of a hurry to get a place, are you? If you’re gonna let a bit of social awkwardness get in the way of you being homeless.”

She gives him a look that says ‘prove me wrong,’ and he’s not totally sure he can.

Still, she was right that Jirou is someone he trusts, even now. Despite the both of them not being close, it’s hard to go through the things they’ve gone through together without coming out of it with something unshakeable.

All he has to do is call a friend he hasn’t spoken to in forever and ask if her breakup means he can room with her.

“If I can’t find anything promising tomorrow, I’ll… give her a call. I guess.” It’s three days later before he calls.

[quantumsuplex]

BNHA side story

[quantumsuplex]

Like a Box of Old Building Blocks - Chp 1

Relationship: Midoriya Izuku / Jirou Kyouka

Rating: M

Notes: Aged-up Characters, Post-Canon, Fluff, Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Roommates, Friends to Lovers

Summary:

Seven years after she graduated, Jirou Kyouka’s life has stalled; she’s getting nowhere as a hero, recently got dumped by her girlfriend, and spends all her free time doing absolutely nothing in her filthy apartment. Her only saving grace? No one is around to see her failures firsthand anymore.

Until she gets contacted by an old friend, Midoriya Izuku, Japan’s greatest hero, asking if he can move in with her. Despite her reservations, she agrees – she probably owes him that much, after everything he’s done. Now all she has to do is hide just how bad things have gotten for her from the most meddlesome hero to ever exist.

Chapter Warnings: Depiction of vomiting

Chp: 1/26

_________

Chapter 1 - The Right Impression

The first thing she’s aware of – the first thing she’s always aware of – is the rumbling.

A note, between G1 and G-sharp-1, groaning low and deep in Kyouka’s ear. Before her eyes even know they’re still closed, before she feels the chill on her clammy skin, before she realizes she’s stopped sleeping and started being awake, she hears the sound. She’s never not hearing it.

Then, it’s the nausea.

There’s poison in her gut. It’s ripping her apart from the inside out, crawling up her chest with a million tiny claws, leaving burning, jagged edges in her throat. Sour acid splashes into her mouth, scorching her tongue and stinging her teeth, and reflexively her lips purse shut. Some spills through before they close, drips down her chin, but the brutal process has her pulling herself to the edge of the bed, still half asleep. There’s something over the threshold, something that isn’t the floor, and she pours her bile into it with an awful retch.

More poison bubbles up from her stomach. It comes it waves, filling her mouth with sludge before being emptied out into the container by her bed with a splatter. Some of it gets in her hair, before she scoops it back with her earjack, holding it away from where she’s spewing. The taste of sour vomit coats her tongue, the insides of her mouth, and her sinuses burn from the awful stench. Her fingers grip the sheets of her bed like iron, knuckles cracking painfully from the force. She vomits until her stomach is voided, but her muscles keep twitching with empty spasms, painfully drawing out nothing but small globs of mucus and bile that drip down in long, disgusting strings.

It’s not until then she even realizes what she’s puking into. A trash can, placed beside her bed. Thank fucking god. She must’ve had the foresight to put it there before she went unconscious. It was mostly full, and now wet, liquid vomit coats everything she’d thrown away, trickling down to the bottom with gross plops. It’s worse than seeing it in a pile at the bottom of an empty can.

It takes another few minutes of dry heaving before her body calms down. Her chin is moist, so she pulls her sheet up and wipes her face, because she already got some on the bed, what’s a few more drops. Her arms are shaking, she’s taking in ragged breaths, and her throat is burning sore, but the whole thing is finally over.

Now she just has to get up, and exist.

She throws her head back onto her pillow and lays there, wallowing in the stench of bile and alcohol that fills the air.

-

It’s hours later before Kyouka finally pulls herself out of bed.

Hours of lying on her side, hoping nothing else comes erupting from her throat, wishing she could fall back asleep for just a few more minutes. But her stomach hurts too much, her head is pounding, the buzzing is bothering her more than usual, and it’s so warm she’s sweating uncomfortably into the mattress, so she finally forces herself to get up, carefully avoiding the biohazard she’s left by her bedside. She balls up her sheets and leaves them on a corner of her bed, then hobbles out of her room with her arms crossed over her stomach, as if that could hold back the painful grumbling.

The soreness in her stomach had been stealing her attention, but now that it has subsided a bit, her headache takes the stage, booming in her skull like she’s being trampled by a drum line. It makes it hard to focus, the edges of her vision a fuzzy vignette that squeezes the world smaller. She keeps stumbling, her bare feet stepping on all the random shit on her floor that she can’t quite see. She kicks away what she can, leaving a small, clear trail through the living room to the washroom.

She doesn’t bother turning the light on; there’s still enough natural light coming in through the window, at least for another hour or so. She turns on the faucet, fills her palms with water and sips it, swishing it around her mouth. She spits it out along with most of the taste of vomit, before splashing the rest of the water over her face and squeezing her wet hands through the bit of puke in her hair. She wipes herself off with a hand towel.

She feels it on her tongue still. Sticky, putrid acid. She clumsily grabs her toothbrush, squeezes a heavy glob of toothpaste onto it, and shoves it in her mouth. It’s been longer than she’d like to admit since she last brushed her teeth.

She stands in front of the sink roughly brushing every spot inside her mouth. Her eyes focus on the mirror in front of her. Her violet hair is greasy, filled with oil and sweat, hanging off her head in long tangled strings that go down past her shoulders, mostly covering up her audio-plug-like ears that naturally dangle down to her collarbone. Her black irises are surrounded by a web of bloodshot red, the lines leading to the puffy corners of her eyes. Her nostrils are just as red, raw from tissue paper, and her nose is still runny, like vomit found its way through her sinuses to leak out from there too.

Her mouth is full of minty foam. It’s spilling down her face messily, but it’s nothing compared to what dripped out earlier. She brushes until she can’t stand it anymore, which is still probably not as long as it should be, and forcefully spits everything in her mouth out. She rinses her face and hands once again, dries herself. That’ll be good enough for now. She’ll take a full shower later, maybe.

She manages her way back to the living room then to the kitchen area, shoving more shit on the floor away, goes through some cupboards to find some ibuprofen. She swallows it dry, then grabs a few leftover slices of pizza from the fridge and sets up a quick mug of instant coffee. She can barely stand the thought of eating anything, but experience tells her she should get something in her stomach or else she’ll just throw up the medicine she took.

She sets up at her tiny dining table, shoving the old dishes and bottles aside. She doesn’t bother heating up the pizza, just eats it cold with big, messy bites, swallowing before it’s fully mush. It tears down her sore throat and settles uncomfortably in her belly. Her head is still throbbing. One of the bottles nearby isn’t fully empty, and she pours some of it into her coffee. Hair of the dog, and all that.

It’s a good thing she doesn’t have to work today. Then again, she likes to think she would have made different choices last night, if she did.

She sits at her dining table for who knows how long, shoving cold pizza into her stomach as she prays for her headache to lessen, when she hears something ringing. Not in a single tone; a song, of some kind. Her ring tone. She groans, then pushes herself up off the table with her hands. She walks back to her room and hopes it’s not a work emergency, because she’s not sure she can come up with an excuse good enough to get her out of it.

It’s somewhere in her room. She follows the noise as best she can, and it leads her to a pile of clothes on the floor. She has to dig a bit, but finds a pair of sweatpants with a slight glow coming from the pocket. She reaches in and pulls out her phone with exasperation, willing the universe to make whoever’s calling anyone other than her boss.  Waiting one last desperate second, she looks at the phone, and freezes.

It says “Midoriya Izuku” on the screen. Below his name his picture pulses lightly, cropped from a candid photo taken by Mina at their graduation party all those years ago.

It’s the last name she expected. Outside of what she hears from the literal news, she gets updates about him sparingly, gossiped through a chain of friends to her by way of Denki or Mina, but she hasn’t spoken to him directly in years. She can’t imagine what he wants with her right now.

The ringing stops.

Shit. She doesn’t know why he called but if he is calling her it can’t be good.

She taps her phone to call him back as she walks back to her dining table. The call go through before it even starts ringing, and she speaks into the phone before he says anything.

“What’s wrong?” she says, her voice raspy and strained.

“...Hi?” he says back. “Jirou, is that you? You sound kind of….”

She clears her throat, swallows hard.

“Just a sore throat. What’s wrong?” she repeats. “Is everyone okay, is anyone hurt?”

It’s the only thing she can think of, for why he’s calling. One of those calls every one of them hopes to never get.

“O-oh, no! E-everyone’s okay, sorry! I didn’t… really think of what it might seem like, getting a call from me out of nowhere! Everyone’s fine Jirou, nothing’s wrong.”

A small panic that she hadn’t realized had been building in her chest dissipates. She’s not sure she could handle that kind of news, right now. She’s not sure she could handle not handling it either.

It still leaves a big mystery.

“Oh,” she says, wrapping her good jack around a finger. “Then, what’re you calling for?” It sounds harsher than she meant it, but she doesn’t have it in her to lighten her tone.

“Ah, well, funny story,” he answers. “So, I don’t have a home anymore. Ochako used the word ‘homeless’ but I’m not sure that gives the right impression, and-”

“You’re what?!”