Music Flows Through Him

Chapter 1: Trying my Best

UA is one of the most renowned hero schools in the world. People from all over competed for spots in their classes, fighting tooth and nail to get taught by the illustrious staff, to get that one of a kind UA training, to get a basically guaranteed job as a hero after graduation.

Everyone wanted to be at UA.

But that day I wished I was literally anywhere else.

"Yo, Denki!" Kirishima said with a shark-toothed grin, his smile lighting up his face. He was waving at me from the doorway, Bakugou standing a little behind him and scowling in my direction.

"What's up, bro? You've seemed really glum lately. Did something happen?" His head was tilted slightly to the side, his eyebrows scrunched and his eyes filled with worry.

I...didn't know what to tell him.

How do you tell people?

"I'm good, bro," I responded, giving him a weak smile. "Just a little tired."

I could tell he didn't believe me. That was fair, I wasn't being very convincing, but I wanted more than anything in the world for him to drop it.

I pointedly turned my eyes back to the paper in front of me, not really reading the assignment but hoping it would be enough to deter my determined friend.

He sighed, disappointed.

"Just let us know when you want to talk about it, okay?" he said, placing his hand on my shoulder lightly. "We'll always be here for you."

I looked back up at him, offering a half-hearted smile. "I know. Thanks for putting up with me right now."

He gave me a sad look, that worry still present in his eyes.

"Always."

Bakugou sighed heavily, probably tired of all this "sappy shit" as he liked to call it. He grabbed Kiri's hand and dragged him over to his seat, ignoring his protests and leaving me alone at my desk.

I sat there again, eyes blankly staring down at the assignment on the desk in front of me. My unfocused gaze made the words on the paper seem blurry to me, the ink distorted like I was looking at it through someone else's glasses.

I kind of felt like a shitty friend right about then.

My friends were worried about me, I knew that, but I didn't know how to tell them what was happening.

So much was happening.

So much was happening and where does one even begin when talking about it?

How are you supposed to talk about something when you can't even think about it without having a complete mental breakdown?

How are you supposed to talk about something when you haven't even had enough time to process it yourself?

How are you supposed to talk about something that has completely changed your life like that?

I just...I couldn't tell them. I didn't have it in me.

I should have tried to tell them, I know, but...

I just couldn't.

My mom died.

She died about two weeks before school was supposed to start back up again. I found her body in her bedroom in our little apartment downtown. I tried to call an ambulance for her, tried doing CPR and all of that other first aid stuff we had learned in class. I held her close as the sirens started getting louder and louder until they were blaring in my ears and echoing around my head and all I could hear was sirens, and I held her body until they pulled it out of my arms, and even though they had stopped at that point my head was full of sirens, pounding against my skull as if trying to escape.