How I Stole Your Mother (IzukuxMitsuki)

11: Second Attempt

*DING-DONG*

"Yes!" Replied Masaru from the second floor of his home, the thudding steps of his feet heavily creaking and pressing the stairs on his descent to the first floor. What was once a home full of amenities was now semi-barren and mostly relieved of the items once occupying the space within, memories now mixing into the wind without a glance back. Difficulty was without question, but a new chapter required a new beginning, no matter how much it tested one's own strength. "I'll be there shortly!"

Making for the front door Masaru twisted the knob and pulled the door open to reveal Midoriya standing outside in his hero outfit, his left glove being removed as he did the same to his right glove. In the corners of the hero's face were small patches of soot and dust, though they were not enough to prevent him from smiling proudly as he always did. "Hey Uncle, sorry if I'm bothering you from anything."

"Nah, it's alright." Masaru assured. "If anything I could, probably use something to bother me from all this. I certainly wouldn't complain, come in."

The man retreated into his home as Midoriya entered after him and shut the door behind him, bending down to untie his shoes, take them off and place them to the side with gloves over them for now. As he stood straight back up and his eyes fell onto the living room, he stopped. It was gone now, everything. The couches, the tables the television, the bookshelves and other things that made a living room a living room, it was gone now. And the realization that his second home was on it's journey to not being a second home anymore hit him harder than any villain he's ever faced before. It choked him like an iron grip over his throat.

He was expecting this, he told himself many times over that he should expect a sudden shock of reality punching him in the face like a freight train with faulty brakes. But now that it's here? Now that what he said was going to happen is actually happening? It's impossible to think and grasp the fact that his childhood was slipping away from his fingers, after all the childhood is one of the most crucial pieces of a person's life. To see this place that has long since rooted itself amongst the seeds of his youth now be torn apart and scattered to the winds, there are no proper words to describe it.

"It's...strange now, isn't it." Masaru commented from a seat at the dining room table, this yet to be removed but will in due time. "You walk into a house so many times for so long you've come to know where everything is like it's the back of your hand. You move one little piece and it's like everything moved from it's place, you move everything and it's something entirely different."

"Yeah, it is." Midoriya agreed as he took his spot on the opposite end of the table. Both men were sitting in a manner that their knees faced the empty living room, a picture so odd it could never feel right no matter how many times they looked at it. "Thought I walked into the wrong house for a moment not gonna lie. But, this is it now, not really anything anybody can do to change it."

"Sorry that you have to see the house like this, I never expected it to be this way either when you and Katsuki were growing up. As the man of the house I thought I'd be able to just, hold things down, you know? Keep the family running, making sure everything goes smooth for us that's what I was supposed to do. Now though, seeing the house all barren and empty like this because of the way things have played out is...really makes you feel like you messed up being the man of the house."

"You didn't mess up any of it Uncle, you didn't mess up any of it. It's just the way things played out back then that ruined everything for everyone. If I didn't get snagged away by Toga, I would've been there at U.A with Kacchan and everybody else to deal with Shigaraki. But that didn't happen, and even though he tried his best to save him Edgeshot unfortunately wasn't enough to bring him back. None of this fell onto anything you did Uncle. None of it does."