Chapter Text

Minoru couldn’t remember a lot about growing up, just a condensed blur of colour and faded feelings, yet he recalled random events with clarity. He couldn’t remember the name of his best friend in kindergarten, yet he remembered his mother had worn a blue blouse and spilled coffee on it one Sunday, back when they’d still attended church.

Everybody had a first memory. A faded and blurred image from their childhood. One they’d conjure up at the ready if they were ever asked.

Minoru didn’t really have one.

He had memories, of course, but he never knew what was real and what he had fabricated to fill the gaps.

If he had to pick a first memory in the mutilated mess of colour in his mind, he’d say it was mother. He remembered her crouched on the ground, arms outstretched with a big smile as he toddled towards her.

If he was being honest, this one was probably fake. Her face wasn’t right and seemed to shift and change every time.

Beside, had she loved him so much, she wouldn’t have left.

So he ignored that memory and shoehorned some bullshit about a bumblebee lifejacket and a trip to the ocean.

Just in case someone cared enough to ask.

-

Minoru hated the ocean, so had his mother.

-

He had her eyes, apparently.

His quirk had been a combination, but his mother’s was very strong. She could have been a hero.

He wondered if he had ruined that.

-

His father tried to raise him to be good, but his father was one man with his own demons.

Minoru had memories of sitting on benches alone, kicking his feet and watching the neon lights blur and twist as his eyes would drift closed.

Maybe those were his first memories.

He remembered his father decking a man who had tried to lead him away from his bench one winter, telling him they’d go somewhere warm.

He wondered about the man’s intentions many years later, how different his life would be had he just gone.

-

After that, his father made him sit directly outside the neon building. He missed his bench, there was less smoke there.

-

Minoru learned a lot growing up, and he learned fast. He always did, the one thing about him his teachers liked.

He learned that kids were cruel, especially when you didn’t have a mom.

-

Middle school was okay.

Sure, it sucked, but when he looked back as an adult, he barely remembered or cared.

It had been in middle school when some kids had goaded him into drawing his own blood. It was a self prescribed fix for his problem, or so he’d been told. It was bullshit.

(It had felt euphoric in the moment, but that, like everything else, faded.)

He only felt shame as he begged the principal not to tell his dad, and because his principal was both an idiot and his saving grace, it remained a secret.

-

(He’d later sit in a councilors office for a different reason, counting the scattered and faint scars on his wrist. Pitiful compared to his former classmates, but enough to be a cry for attention, apparently.)

-

It was somewhere in middle school, or maybe before, that he’d found a colourful card on the sidewalk of the neon building. There was woman with stars on her chest. Minoru didn’t quite understand, but he pocketed it.

-

It was a few weeks after that he’d stayed with his aunt for a weekend until his father could pick him up.

Minoru learned when went under the stars.

(He’d burned the card using his father’s beaten up bic lighter when he got home. Sometimes he regretted burning it, other times he wished he’d never found it)

-

After three more weekends, he stopped visiting his aunt.

-

Minoru discovered that kids liked stories.

He told them all they’d ever want to hear. He told them about his card, they called bs. He’d found different cards, different girls, in the alley behind the neon building, and, in a moment so sudden he’d nearly gotten whiplash, Mineta was popular.

-

He told them about his aunt.

He was a legend.

-

Someone told and he found himself sitting in a counselors office, lying through his teeth for reasons he still wasn’t sure about.

-

(His father had held his arm tightly before, apologizing with his eyes, even as he practically spat that Mineta had to lie or else they’d lock him up and he’d go into the system.)

-

He got out of therapy as soon as he could, and he left it all behind.

-

He was old enough to not sit outside the neon building anymore.

He’d wander, running his fingers along the bench in the park down the street and pressing his hands into the snow until he couldn’t feel them anymore.

-

He graduated eight grade, a toilet paper bracelet around his wrist and the sleeve of his silver gown blotched with crimson.

(How shameful.)

-

Minoru took a gap year.

(He left the only place he’d ever felt accepted with a cute ceremony from kids with lives way worse than his.)

(He didn’t think he was ready to leave, but his dad insisted and their insurance wasn’t covering everything like it should have.)

(He stopped wearing long sleeves and felt at home again. He, despite his stature and personality, felt loved by people for once.)

-

Yuuei had been an accident.

He’d wanted to be a hero once, back when his mother still loved him. Before the bench outside the neon building and before his group.

His father had suggested it, a hand on his shoulder in a gentle way. He’d become more gentle after Minoru was discharged. Minoru didn’t know if he hated it or loved it, but it felt nice to be cared about.

-

He’d gotten in.

He’d screamed reading the letter and the projection, showing it to his father with a sense of pride. His father had hugged him, squeezed him tightly and whispered that he was proud.

-

(He remembered the way that counselor had asked him in that sickly calm voice, as if he was a skittish animal, if his father had ever touched him.)

(He’d nearly thrown up in his mouth.)

-

On his first day he truly noticed how attractive his class was.

He knew he wasn’t like them. He didn’t have pretty eyes or a great body, a stunning personality or a boatload of charm, nor did he have a clique to be a part of. He wasn’t a punk, nerd, preppy, or even an alternative outcast. He was just Mineta Minoru.

They didn’t know him yet.

Perhaps he could have lied, faked it until it felt real. He could have pretended to be human like they were, feel like they did, be like they were.

Maybe he could have been pretty.

Maybe he could have been someone’s memory. A fond flame they’d never forget even after their life moved on.

(Maybe he could have been important)

But Mineta, despite all the proof otherwise, was a terrible liar.

The girls were pretty and he let them know.

-

It felt like a game sometimes.

(It was a game he used to play with his counselor. Not the nice ones from his group, but the legally appointed one that made him sick.)

The game was simple. How far could he push someone before they hated him.

(He didn’t see his game through with his counselor. He hated being called his counselor’s favorite patient for his snark, it felt like an insult.)

It didn’t take long with the girls in his class.

-

His game with Asui was his favorite.

She had elbowed him and made it clear she didn’t care for him, but she never seemed to hate him.

(Mineta watched with wide eyes as a pale hand reached towards Asui’s face. As deadly fingertips pressed against her temples and her terrified eyes stared at the sky. His blood had felt like ice and his heart had stopped.)

The game with Asui was fun.

(She sat with a shock blanket across her shoulders. People were talking, and she answered them with that calm voice she had, but Mineta had watched her hands grip the blanket like the lifeline it was. He could read people, and he knew she was scared. Whether she let herself realize or not, they both knew she had been seconds from irreversible damage, and maybe even her death.)

The game made him feel alive.

(She didn’t talk to him about it. Why would she? Instead she returned to her life, but he saw the way she stared too hard at her desk sometimes.)

He didn’t play her game much anymore.

-

His second favorite game was with Yaoyorozu.

She had a voice and a body like-

(Soft hands caressed his face and tousled his hair. He giggled, face burning red in embarrassment as those hands pulled his face upwards and a soft kiss was placed against his forehead.)

She was beautiful like-

(He let his hands be guided, wide purple eyes staring into the piercing neon blue before him.)

She-

(“Such a good boy, Noru.”)

He liked Yaoyorozu

-

He tried so hard.

He tried with every action to make her hate him.

He would grab her in ways he knew hurt and in way he knew wouldn’t. He’d poke her and prop her and try his best, but he’d learned that some people just didn’t hate.

He’d incurred others hate in his haste, many on her behalf, but she barred her punishment like she was built for it.

(Maybe she was. A gift to him from a God that didn’t seem to care about him much. A way for him to get back at a face he’d blocked from his memory.)

-

The first time Bakugou punched him was euphoric.

He stumbled back several feet, head exploding with pain.

It hadn’t helped that Bakugou’s fist was the size of his face.

His head was pounding and there was blood pouring from his nose and involuntary tears welling in his eyes.

Denki, his only friend, watched with a torn expression. They both knew he deserved it, Mina still seething across the room while comforted by Sero, but it still stung the slightest bit to have nobody on his side.

-

(Minoru was too short to deck someone. Punching futilely at someone’s knees was laughable at best, so he punched the wall in his room until he cracked the drywall. It felt good. Maybe that had been why Bakugou had punched him, maybe it felt good for him too.)

-

Later, after recovery girl had done her best and given him an ice pack, he laid in his bed.

He knew he shouldn’t be laying on his back, but he didn’t care.

A pin up girl was plastered to his ceiling directly above him. She was blonde, was relatively small chested, and had soft curves.

(He’d picked her up and realized how different she looked from Her. He’d bought her and the attendant hadn’t given a shit. He didn’t know her name, but she’d been given several.)

(In a way far more pathetic when put into words, he like to pretend she was only staring at him and not the faceless camera. That she loved him.)

(How pathetic.)

-

He pressed his fingers to his bruised nose.

He pressed until tears gathered in his eyes and the pressure engulfed his face.

It didn’t feel the same, but he liked it.

-

(There was something about pain. It didn’t feel the same to deal it to himself. That felt pathetic and cowardly. It felt different to receive.)

(He found what machoism was and decided that he was just kinky, not broken. Not a nutcase. Just into bdsm. Yeah.)

——

The beginning of the end was slow.

Maybe his tormenting just wasn’t working or the amazing feeling of being punch drunk didn’t do it for him anymore.

(Maybe he was missing a simpler time. When someone had loved him, even if it was a twisted sort.)

(It had felt nice to be loved)

He threw up into his dorms toilet, bracing himself so he didn’t face plant into the bowl.

-

The beginning of the end was slow and swift, crashing down like the weight of the guillotine blade, lingering like the slow, horror filled death of the semi conscious head laying in the dirt.

-

Mr. Aizawa had seen his cowardice in all its forms.

He’d seen Minoru turn tail and run when he should fight.

Seen him cower behind people who hated him.

(Seen the pathetic scars along his left wrist.)

-

Hound Dog was a strange creature.

He was unintelligible most of the time, yet Minoru would leave his office feeling better.

(He hated it, it felt like losing)

Hound Dog looked at him with disappointment when Mineta would show up with a black eye or bloody nose, tears always in his eyes.

(Mineta cried like a coward too.)

It felt nice to be cared for, but Hound Dog would move too fast sometimes. He’d block the door or they’d be alone and Mineta’s mind just wouldn’t shut up-

(Hound Dog didn’t let him pull his hair or twist his tie taught against his throat. It left him defenseless against his head)

He knew Hound Dog and Aizawa noticed.

-

He stopped going to Hound Dogs office.

-

He’d tried so hard to make Midnight notice him, but when she did, when she placed a uncharacteristically soft hand on his shoulder and asked if he was okay, he’d felt sick.

Okay.

The students had fought yet another battle they weren’t supposed to.

There was blood on his face.

Was he okay?

He shook her off and stumbled away, avoiding the incredulous eyes of Sero and Denki.

He was okay.

(He wasn’t.)

He’d live.

(He would. Despite it all, he would.)

-

(He’d promised his dad that he’d never try again.)

-

(He lied)

-

Minoru sat with glassy eyes, staring out over a world that didn’t know he existed.

He sat on a bridge, but he didn’t plan to jump or anything.

(With his luck, he’d just be paralyzed.)

-

The cars passing behind him occasionally ruined his sky, but he liked it that way. The way the stars would blink in and out of existence because of light in his eyes. As if he had any control over the sky.

(“Star light, Star bright.”)

He stared at the stars, an inky web that stretched on towards infinity.

(“I see the first star I see tonight.”

Stars never cared about what people thought of them. They never tried to prove themselves. Stars were just stars, and they didn’t try to be anything but.

(“I wish I may.”)

He stood, facing the stars. He reached up a hand, as if the sky was a pond he could run his fingers through, ripping apart nebulas and forming galaxies as the sky slipped through his fingers.

(“I wish I might.”)

He felt tears build up in his eyes. He was such a baby, crying because of stars.

(“Have the wish.”)

He brought his hands to his eyes, pressing his palms against them until the stars exploded behind his eyelids and pain shot through his head.

(“I wish.”)

His shoulders hitched with his sorrow. Perhaps he was mourning himself, his life. Perhaps he was rethinking his life, what had made him into what he was.

Perhaps if he’d never spent every Friday on that dirty bench in the cold, staring at neon lights.

Perhaps if he’d followed the man that had promised him warmth.

Perhaps if he’d never stayed with his aunt.

Perhaps if he’d told the truth.

Perhaps he could have been likable.

Perhaps he’d have been loved.

“Tonight.”

He turned to leave, turning his back to the stars and staring at the highway. Where people with lives went about them. He didn’t exist to those people, but that was alright.

“Daddy, do wishes come true?”

He wiped his tears and ever running nose on his sleeve.

He couldn’t spend the night staring at the stars, despite wanting to.

He had a test tomorrow.

He had some semblance of a schedule.

He’d be okay.

“Minoru...”

“Come on Daddy, I wanna know!”

“Well, sometimes. But you have to really want it.”

“Woah, like really really?”

“Really really.”

-

“I wish.”

-

“I wish.”

-

(He wished.)

-

Mineta went to step off his ledge onto the safe concrete, taking one last glance at the stars.

Maybe the balance Aizawa had drilled into them hadn’t been so great after all.

Maybe the stars had taken pity and tried to make him one of them.

Maybe his wish had come true.

(Maybe it hasn’t been his wish, but someone else’s.)

Mineta slipped.