𝕯𝖚𝖘𝕶 𝖙𝖎𝖑𝖑 𝕯𝖆𝖜𝖓 [𝖇𝖆𝕶𝖚𝖉𝖊𝕶𝖚]

I'm not trying to hurt you

The door rattled on its hinges as Bakugo slammed a fist against it. He yelled incoherently through the wood between them but all that reached Izuku's ears were the reverberations of his low tone. The words were white blurs of broken sentences that his exhausted mind couldn't hope to piece together.

Judging from the warmth spreading over his bare arms and shoulders, it had to be dawn. He had made small alterations to his room and home such as that help him in various ways. For example keeping the curtains open to allow the sun to beam in at morning, and it did help that is was currently summer.

Bakugo's voice called again, this time louder and angrier but again was silent to Midoriya. He simply laid there, eyes open and unfocused, staring at whatever was in front of him. He'd stayed like this for more than a good few hours, simply staring. Unmoving. What else was he supposed to do? He could hardly fall back into a pleasant slumber after such a panicking and petrifying moment. Every time his eyes closed, although it didn't change what Izuku saw, he felt indescribable terror. He trembled with the sickening inclination of fear, of grief, of worry. And the little amount of sleep he did manage to get were plagued with nightmares. Nightmares of falling or of dying. Nightmares of all the horrors he'd witnessed as a pro hero. Nightmares of guilts he could never let go of.

Izuku's eyes began to water with the need to blink. He'd been frozen for so long that he almost appeared dead. Maybe that would be better. At least if he were dead he wouldn't have to worry about being blind anymore.

And then returned that sick churn. That wave of suffocation that drowned him and threw him about like he were in a washing machine. That immediate crescendo of destruction that settled into his system and drove him far beyond madness.

In a panic he jumped up, grabbing at his chest when his heart pounded so fast he thought he was going to die again. His head spun at the sudden action which only worsened the situation.

"St-stop...stop it, please," he pleaded in a whisper. Begging anything that could possibly hear him. But it was only wishful thinking that it would even make any slightest difference at all. He was so distraught and desperate at this point that he'd take anything he could get. Just the slightest slither of light peering through that black, black ocean.

Izuku stumbled over with shaking legs to the bathroom, the intense urge to throw up building up in the back of his throat. He searched for the sink, gripping the cool porcelain surface until his knuckles turned white.

"Come on, Izuku, get it together," he spoke out into the blindingly white bathroom, facing the mirror hung above; casting the image of a person that could no longer be associated with Midoriya. No, Midoriya was happy, smiling, cheerful, beaming; not broken, bruised, bleeding like a disguarded ragdoll.

"Something, just any-fucking-thing, I don't care. Just take me out of this perpetual night...please."

He didn't really know why he was still doing this. This morning routine of his, staring blankly at the mirror in the hope that maybe this time he'd be fixed. He'd be cured. He wouldn't have to suffer anymore. Because it hurt. God does it fucking hurt. It bleeds and burns like ashes.

He placed a trembling hand up against the reflective glass, able to feel it at every point it connected to his skin, able to imagine in very intricate detail the replication of himself staring back. So much so it almost felt like he could still see, but then he'd blink and it'd all fade away faster than he could reach out to grab it.

"Anything..."

But alas, the world doesn't work like that. It doesn't make anything easy for anyone.

In frustration, tears fell from his hopeless eyes, blank and dulled from that last ounce of optimism now wasted. He clenched his jaw, slamming a fist into the mirror, hearing it shatter beneath the unexpectedly powerful force. He felt his quirk activate on impact, the shards slashing open his bruised skin as he clawed a fist around them. The rhythmic drip of blood was the only sound to fill the room, Izuku frozen with a raging unacceptance that this was it. That this was his life from now on. That he was stuck in this darkness. He knew from the doctors that this was irreversible but there was still that slight inclination of hopefulness.