Someone I Used to Know (Vigilante Deku)

~chapter 11~

~~~~~~~Bakugou~~~~~~~

Darkness...

All I see is darkness...

"Hello?" I call out, only to hear my voice echo back at me, "is anyone there?"

"Kacchan," I hear in the distance.

"Deku?!" I call.

"Kacchan come find me," Deku says.

"Where are you?!" I call, "Deku?!"

"Kacchan, I'm here," Deku says.

Suddenly, Deku appears out of nowhere, covered in blood.

"Kacchan, how could you do this to me?" Deku asks. His eye sockets are empty, a black void. "Kacchan, I'm leaving again... and this time you won't be able to find me."

"No, Deku! Dont... DON'T LEAVE ME AGAIN!" I scream, begging for him to stay.

"I won't leave," Deku says, the blood vanishing as his body shrinks. I also feel myself shrinking, turning into a younger version of myself. The darkness turns into light, and we are now in a beautiful grassy clearing where we used to play superheroes. Deku hums softly and wraps his skinny, freckled, arms around me. "It's okay, Kacchan. I'm here," he assures.

I cry into his shoulder as I clutch on to his shirt, tears pouring from my eyes. "I love you, Izu," I mumble.

He kisses me on the forehead, "I love you too, Kacchan." I smile and let his soft humming lull me to sleep.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"IZUKU!" Bakugou screams as he shoots up in a cold sweat. Kirishima looks at him with worry.

Bakugou stares at Kirishima for a bit, not yet understanding where he is.

Eventually he registers that he's in the nurse's office and lets himself calm down. "Just a dream..." he mutters under his breath. Tears squeeze their way out of his eyes and track their way down his cheeks. He sobs silently, wishing he had his blades with him.

"Hey, it's okay..." he hears. He looks up to see Kirishima. "Can I hug you?" Kirishima asks, expecting Bakugou to say no. He's pleasantly surprised when Bakugou nods his head and buries himself in Kirishima's arms. Kirishima gently rubs Bakugou's back, trying to calm him down.

"Fuck..." Bakugou mumbles, obviously crying. His shoulders shake as another sob wracks through his body. He clutches Kirishima's shirt tightly, not wanting to be alone. Kirishima smiles warmly and sits on the hospital bed to be closer to Bakugou. He leans against the headboard and pulls Bakugou to his chest, rubbing his back gently.

"Want to talk about it?" Kirishima asks calmly.

"You're just like him..." Bakugou whispers.

Kirishima realises that Bakugou is probably talking about an old friend that he lost. "Is that so?" he says, "what was he like?"

"He was the nicest person I'd ever met..." Bakugou mumbles, "he always apologized, even when he wasn't at fault... he loved everything and everyone... he admired heroes and wanted to be one... but he was quirkless..."

Kirishima is shocked, it's extremely uncommon to be born quirkless now.

"His dad took him away when he was diagnosed quirkless and he was never seen or heard from again... he was presumed dead just recently, the police gave up." Bakugou says, "before he left, we traded hair clips," he takes the green hair clip out of his hair and looks at it, "it's all that I have left from him..."

"Can I see the hair clip?" Kirishima asks.

Bakugou warily hands Kirishima the hair clip, "don't break it..." he warns.

Kirishima examines it closely. "Huh?" he mumbles when he feels an unnatural indent at the side. He picks at it and the back comes off. A small, folded up piece of paper falls out and onto the blanket in front of them. "Do you know what that is?" Kirishima wonders.

Bakugou picks up the piece of paper and slowly unfolds it. He reads the writing out loud in a hushed whisper,

"Kacchan,

I no u'll find this 1 day. I want u too no that dad is knot tayking me to new sitee. He's tayking me to a bad place. Thay're gunna due sumthing too me thare, I just no it! I herd him talking to sum 1 the uther day, a man in a wite cote, 'soon we'll have hour own special wepan,' he sad, 'he'll b compleetely under hour cuntrol'

Kacchan, I culdn't tell u in persun. Thay're ulways wahtching me. Thay scare me. U're my only hope, Kacchan. Plees find me before I becum a monster.

I wont to help peepol, not hurt them. Plees sayv me,

Frum ur furst luv, ur husband, Izuku 'Deku' Midoriya."

Bakugou's eyes are brimming with tears by the end. He notices some tear stains at the end of the paper, as well. He wipes his eyes before the tears can reach the paper. "I'm giving this to Mr. Aizawa," Bakugou says.

"What? Why?" Kirishima questions, confused.

"He was the pro hero in charge of Izuku's case," Bakugou provides.

"Okay, just don't forget pants," Kirishima jokes.

Bakugou looks down and blushes bright red when he realises he's only wearing his gloves and his all might underwear, his chest and torso covered in bandages.

He grabs the gym pants that were set aside for him and throws them on. He grabs the hair clip and puts it back in his hair before taking the note and running to the teacher's room. He slams the door open and stomps over to where Aizawa sits, slamming the piece of paper onto the desk. "You need to reopen the Izuku Midoriya case," he demands.

"Can I have an explanation as to why you came barging in here with such a request? We've already closed the case. Izuku Midoriya is dead, Bakugou," Aizawa insists.

"I have some evidence that could help, though," Bakugou says.

"Then show me and I might reopen the case," Aizawa says.

Bakugou slides over the note, "I found it in the hair clip Izuku gave me before he left," Bakugou mutters.

~~~~~~~Aizawa~~~~~~~

I began the letter, but instantly stopped when I saw the word 'Kacchan'. Didn't Deku say that was the name of his friend? I continued reading the note, cringing at the horrible spelling and grammar.

I was taken by surprise when I read "from your first love, your husband, Izuku 'Deku' Midoriya."

"You two were in love?" I decided to focus on that because I didn't want to think that Deku and Midoriya could possibly be the same person.

Bakugou just looked at me, confused, "yeah, didn't I tell you guys that during the investigation?"

"You were six, how were we supposed to believe you?" I groaned, "for all we knew you could have just been joking around."

"Yeah, well, we were in love," Bakugou says, "we even had a pretend marriage once," he said with a small smile.

I looked at the paper again and realised that it said "your husband" I glanced back up at him and joked, "you're the wife?"

His face turned bright red and he took the paper from me, reading it over. "FUCK." he shouted, "I READ THIS OUT LOUD TO SHITTY HAIR!"

I bursted out in laughter, "why would you do that?"

"Tch. just reopen the case, Mr. Aizawa!" Bakugou yelled.

"Alright," I said, "I'll photocopy this for you."

"Thanks," Bakugou mumbled.

"You should head back to class," I told him.

Bakugou agreed and left. I realised that I probably should have told him to change, but he already left so it didn't really matter.