Chapter Text
Midoriya Inko had been cooking dinner when she got a call.
She huffed, knowing that those pork slices would be burnt if the cook wasn't there to flip them in six minutes. Inko dreaded phone calls when she was cooking, even more when it was her son's favourite dish. Izuku may not have lived with her anymore, but it was nice feeling a little part of him in their home. After their talk the day before, her longing for hugging her baby seemed to have sky-rocketed.
Izuku was literally the world's most precious and cute being in the world. Him asking about her day, concerned about his mother overworking herself or feeling lonely, even willing to listen to Inko's hospital stories. That just made her feel like the luckiest woman in the universe. Even if it was a phone call, Inko could picture her son and his freckled cheeks. Her son was wonderful.
The woman with slight wrinkles and pronounced eyebags went to the table in the living room, where she had left her cellphone, still ringing with the music box version of some opening from an All Might show. Inko couldn't help but laugh a little. Izuku had changed her ringtone when he was six, and even when Mitsuki gifted her a new phone —supposedly the one Inko had was 'utter and flipping bullshit'—, it was a whole adventure to download the same little theme.
Inko loved her Izuku more than anything. How did he get so big? Did her work really result in failing to see her son's growth?
Inko sighed yet again, taking her little phone in her chubby and calloused hands, answering without reading the caller's ID.
Inko really didn't want to mess up the pork.
"Good evening?" Saluted the woman, absently waiting for the unknown someone to speak. Hopefully it wasn't the stove propaganda again, she prayed in her head.
"Good evening" The voice was firm. Robotic even. So Inko waited. "Am I talking with… uh, Miss Midoriya Inko?"
"Yes, you're talking with her." She had to put it on speaker and place her phone on the counter so that the pork wasn't going to turn into coal, so Inko's attention wasn't really on the voice from the phone.
"Ma'am, can you find a quiet place where you can sit?" Inko frowned slightly, deciding to turn off the stove and go to the couch in the living room.
"I am. Now, who are you and what do you need?" Inquired the short woman, rapidly recording the call if it turned out to be someone dangerous.
"I am Shinsato Miyako, Miss Midoriya." The voice was now less robotic, like a gust of wind had given it little life out of nowhere. However, Inko grew restless after the next sentence. "I am from the Nakamura hospital in Musutafu."
That was the hospital that treated quirkless people. Izuku had been treated there.
Why would they call her? Maybe there was some bill she forgot to pay? Were they doing some kind of research with past patients?
Izuku wasn't quirkless anymore, so there wasn't any reason her child would be there.
Or well, there was.
But Inko refused to even consider such a horrendous option.
"This call is because we need you to come to the hospital, since Midoriya Izuku's emergency contact is the one you answered."
"Okay." Mumbled Inko without registering her words. She just wanted to know if her baby was alright. Her cheeks were starting to feel wet, but her body wasn't truly conscious of anything.
"Uh, Ma'am?" Since she knew how hospitals worked, she guessed the one calling her was a nurse, although very new or very sensitive if they weren't going to the point of their call. "Your son had an accident, so we need you to come right now. He's in the ICU and his condition is not promising. We still don't know what happened with exactitude, but the police is on the case too."
Inko felt her throat close, like a cheap hose with something stuck in it. She knew she needed to go, but wasn't sure about what she had to say. Maybe thank you? Or curse? Crying was possible too. Telling the one through the phone that a nurse wasn't supposed to show doubt or a lot of details when calling a patient's family, since that would only end in a panicked person with no medical help present.
"I'll go. Tell my son to wait for me."
Inko hung up.
Almost automatically, her feet led her to the main door, where her shoes were. Her green eyes were devoid of emotion, but her cheeks stained with salty tears told the turmoil happening inside her head.
Inko wasn't ready to face the pain of knowing her son had gotten injured again, maybe losing his quirk or something like what happened to some pro heroes when the League of Villains was active. Maybe he only needed a long rest and he was sent to a hospital without a lot of technology because his wounds weren't serious.
Or maybe he was dead.
Her child, the same smiley and empathic child with freckles and messy hair, was now gone.
"Shut up." Exclaimed Inko, trying unsuccessfully to open the door with shaking hands.
She felt angry.
She felt furious with herself.
She needed to shut up and go help her child! What a useless mom she was! Shut up! She needed to stop shaking, stop crying, and go stay with her Izuku.
With rage in her movements, the door opened hastily, letting the short body leave their house.
Inko didn't look back, not even thinking about the katsudon she was making for dinner.
After all, she would have time to eat again with her son when he was fully recovered. Just like all the other visits to the hospital.
Just like every single time.
÷
"Hello ma'am. How can I help you?" A tall woman stood before Inko, disheveled green hair and her work uniform as her insignia look.
Inko just looked dead in the eyes of the tall nurse, pale and unfocused gaze. The nurse wondered if the stranger needed medical help.
"I'm looking for my son." Pronounced Inko with much more effort than she thought was needed. Her words were slurred, almost indecipherable if the nurse didn't have a quirk that allowed her to listen almost everything in her surroundings.
"And who's your son Ma'am?" Asked, always nice and calm, looking for any signs that the short woman was about to collapse just at the entrance of the hospital.
"Midoriya Izuku. ICU." Murmured Inko. "They told me ICU. He's there. Izuku is there."
The nurse couldn't help but feel sorry for the mother in front of her. She had heard how a tracker had been activated at six pm or a little earlier. When the paramedics arrived at the scene, they needed to climb into an abandoned building just to find a kid lying on the floor with the space surrounding his head flooding with blood. There was no sign of him having shot himself. Only a yellow old backpack and a pencil case near the edge of the roof.
They had brought him to the hospital, having revived him two times in the ambulance and one when he was in surgery.
They tried everything they could to repair the bleeding in his brain, but the damage done and time he spent without medical attention left him brain dead, without a chance to wake up and be the same boy he was.
He was now a vegetable. A body in a hospital bed, connected to a hundred devices so that its organism was still viable for transplants.
A body that looked just like Midoriya Izuku.
Just like the son of Midoriya Inko, who now was sitting in the room in silence, looking at how a dead body had stolen his child's life.
The nurse had led her to the room and explained the situation, signaling Izuku's favourite backpack, shoes and pencil case. She then had left the room after saying something Inko didn't quite understand.
She didn't understand.
How was the person in front of her, Izuku? Maybe it was a misunderstanding. His son had four freckles that stood out in each of his cheeks, but this one in the hospital bed seemed to have only three. She was counting and counting again.
When did her Izuku develop such prominent eye bags? And did the freckles in his nose lose their color? How was it that his hands were a little too big?
She didn't remember her Izuku being like this.
This was another person.
This was not her son.
Her son was alive.
So when she pulled her cell phone out and pressed the contact of her son, she could have sworn she heard the sweet voice saying hello through the phone.
But the All Might theme in the piano version started to play from the plastic bag with her son's belongings.
Her son was alive, so she didn't hesitate to walk to the small table the melody was coming from. Her child was alive, so when she saw that the caller ID in the strange phone marked 'Mom', she hung up from her cell phone.
Her son was alive, so she felt guilty when the locking screen only needed a little swipe to see the home screen.
The notepad was open, but she didn't want to pry into her Izuku's stuff, so she tried to put it away without batting an eye.
She really tried.
But when she saw the sentence on the screen, her gaze couldn't distract itself and ended up making sense of the letters and words in the note.
If you're reading this, then you unlocked my phone. That means you are on the roof where my body probably lies. That, or you are seeing through my stuff in the hospital. Dead people can't really be angry when you're prying in their stuff, huh?
Anyway, this is a note to explain why my head isn't a broken ping-pong ball and probably clarify that this was a suicide and not a murder.
I had a quirk. I am a late bloomer, so that's why I have the tracker for someone who is in medical trouble and is quirkless. Maybe you have seen me on the news or the Sport Festival Broadcast, so you may know about the first part already.
The League of Villains have been quite inactive these few months, so this was my chance to be alone and outside of UA. I also didn't want to traumatise or make anyone pay a huge amount of cash for technically killing me, so that's why I did it in a very desolate part of Musutafu.
I think I went off topic there. I really don't know. Sunsets are pretty distracting with how magnificent they are. Whoever you are, you should try it.
Then, following with my possibly suspicious and weird conditions of death, I may clarify that, if my body was found on the rooftop of the building, is because my quirk activated when I was falling.
My quirk has this thing that it activates when I am in danger, however, since it has weakened for reasons unknown to me, it probably tried to stop the fall but couldn't save me from hitting the rooftop's ground when it worked like a slingshot.
Let me elaborate.
Imagine my quirk works like the bands of a slingshot. They can save me from falling to a certain death by holding onto a surface and launching me in the opposite direction. However, even if the energy collected by these actions ends up in the air or the soil, it will still make me fly in the opposite direction.
Taking into account that brief explanation, my quirk ends up in me falling, then going back up again, and then falling into the surface I first fell off. This last landing cannot be dampened considering its weakened state, so it depends on my ability to land safely.
However, my plan was to die, so it was pretty easy to position myself so that I would fall in my head. Maybe I broke my neck and my body looks like a broken plank. Maybe I just hit my head hard enough and I ended up being unconscious, then taken to the hospital and there they tried to fix my severe concussion.
They either failed, and my body is now in the morgue, or succeeded and I am brain dead. If it's the second circumstance, then please tell my mom to donate my organs.
I know she knows I am not there anymore. There's only a body that can save lives by giving away its organs.
It's what I always wanted. To save lives. So I know that even if it hurts like hell, she will do the right thing.
Now, if you're a stranger or medical staff, please stop reading and call my mom immediately. I suppose my body is now in the hospital, connected to a lot of machines that stop it from totally shutting down, if it ends up being the second circumstance I mentioned.
—
If you're my mom, then please, read these last paragraphs and let them do what they need. Take your time. In the end, I have no right to ask anything from you when the thing I have done has broken your heart and your mind into tiny pieces.
Mom, I am sorry. I am sorry for hurting you this much. I am sorry for everything I put you through when I was alive and even now that I am dead. I am sorry for all the years you had to suffer in silence because I was quirkless and you didn't want to hurt me. I am sorry for being such a bad son.
I am truly sorry Mom. This is probably the most horrible thing I will have done in my life, but believe me when I say I am happier.
Living isn't made for everybody.
I am sorry I couldn't be a person who wanted to live. But I am not sorry for leaving when everyone I know would be okay, even you.
You will get through this Mom. You are strong. You taught me how strong you are with every breath you took. I am thankful. For everything you did and didn't for me. I am thankful you loved me even though I made a great part of your life a little too much to carry.
I am grateful you were my mother. You were the best mom anyone could have. So thank you for that and everything else I can't talk about without spending two or three days more.
This is the most glorious sunset I have ever seen Mom. I wish you were here to see it with me.
Please, don't isolate yourself when I'm gone. Don't overwork yourself either. Go and date and hang out with Aunt Mitsuki. Go and live your life, since you will know how to enjoy it for the both of us.
I didn't write you a letter. Not a physical one at least, because now I'm writing and tears can't stop falling on the screen. That's because I know you would try to analyse every bit of it, searching for a sign that would've been able to keep me alive. I know you would blame yourself every time you see that piece of paper.
So, Mom, I'm going to play the card of the dead one.
Please, for my spirit, don't blame yourself. Look at our every picture and remember all the happy moments we shared. That's everything I want.
I will always remember you as my angel, Mom. I will always remember you as the one that stood with me every single step of the way.
I love you Mom.
I love you more than you could ever imagine.
You did every single thing right, Mom.
You were the best mom anyone could have ever asked for.
Goodbye Mom. I will stay with you if I actually become a ghost.
Inko cried her heart out.
Inko cried, knowing that, even if her child would have made a bible telling her not to blame herself, she would have done it anyway.
Inko was Izuku's mother. But now Izuku was gone.
The body that now felt just like a stranger seemed to watch her every single movement. Her tears were unstoppable.
Her eyes were puffy and her lips cracked. How could she let her little baby go? How in the world was she supposed to live without her child? How was she supposed to breathe?
Her wails filled every single hall in the hospital.
Nurses and doctors swore that the cries of a mother were just as haunting as the very same devil. They had heard them a lot, but every time it was horrible.
Inko's cries were heard until the next day, when at two AM, the nurses decided to take a look and tell the woman to let them take their child to transplant his organs.
The same boy who had called Inko to tell her to come to the hospital was now watching as the broken, short and hurt woman cuddled next to his dead son's body.
His heart broke.
He heard the tiny pieces go and get lost in some part of himself. His partner was in no better condition, since they had heard the woman cry for almost six hours straight.
When she felt the new people in the room, she couldn't help but hug her baby tighter, careful of every single cable and device that kept her Izuku breathing. She just wanted her baby back.
She just wanted to see his beautiful jade eyes again. Was that too much to ask?
"Miss Midoriya, I am deeply sorry for your loss." Mumbled Shinsato, trying to hold his tears back, but failing.
Silence ensued in the hospital room, only leaving the beep in the monitor to fill the air between the two nurses, a mother, and her son.
Both nurses were about to leave, when the weak voice of Inko stopped them.
"Kids." Sighed the lost and old woman. "I am a nurse. So please, take this advice and do not show the emotion you're showing right now."
Her words surprised the two rookies to the core, knowing that the hospital didn't have enough budget to hire experienced staff. They were ashamed. They were simply embarrassed with themselves, knowing that the tone of the woman who had just lost her child wasn't filled with anger or disdain.
Just, so much exhaustion.
"The patient's loved ones will break when they receive this kind of news." Inko gulped, feeling her throat closing yet again. "So you are the ones in charge of being there. Being stable and strong. You are the ones that, even if one life has been lost, try alongside doctors for it not to happen again."
Inko couldn't go on. Her organism was too tired to keep her conscious, so she fell asleep with her baby next to her.
÷
When the clock marked six o'clock AM, Inko woke up. She felt sore. Her throat was dry and every part of her itched.
For a moment she hoped it had all been a nightmare, one that would make her arrange two days of the week to go visit Izuku at the UA campus. But the fluffy green hair, being different from the oily and dirty green strands from her, couldn't keep the ilusion.
The beep in the monitor and the continuous sound from the ventilator made her eyes crystallize.
Slowly, she stood up from the bed with the body of her son and just looked.
Looked at the long eyelashes and dry lips. Admired the four pronounced freckles in each cheek alongside his round face. His hands, painted with scars and muscles that seemed to be getting smaller.
Her lips curved upwards slightly.
He seemed to be at peace. Just like when she tucked him in his All Might themed bed when he was younger.
She liked knowing her baby was at peace. That he didn't suffer when he died, even when he did when he was living.
Inko, with her prominent eye bags and slight wrinkles, left a kiss on her son's forehead. Two little fleeting tears fell in the green bright strands.
Without hurrying, she took her son's backpack out of the plastic bag it had been resting in, and put it in her back. She had to adjust the straps so that they would fit her chubby arms after all of Izuku's belongings were inside of what seemed to be the heaviest thing she had ever carried.
Her movements were slow. They screamed 'exhaustion' as loud as it was possible. But her eyes? Her eyes were extremely sad. The loss of her child was reflected in her green and a little dull eyes.
However, she kept going.
Her body once again commanded Inko to turn and see Izuku, now resting in some place she didn't know, only with his body left in that physical realm.
With the most heartbreaking and bittersweet smile, she turned and left the hospital room.
Shinsato told her, now calmly, that he would call her when the extraction of Izuku's organs were done, so that she could come back and decide how to deal with the kid's body.
Inko could only pat him in the shoulder, looking extremely lost with a yellow backpack and sad eyes.
"Good job."
And like that, she left where the only physical remnant of his child lain.
÷
When she got home, she didn't take off her shoes or his backpack. Instead, she made a beeline for Izuku's bedroom.
Without slowing down, making her moves look swift and gracious, she left the yellow backpack on the floor next to the bed. Just like she remembered.
Then, with the few pillows she had left when Izuku went to UA campus, Inko started to stuff them within the covers until it seemed like someone was sleeping there.
She then left for the study and brought the chair she used to sit on when Izuku couldn't sleep and asked for a song.
Inko checked twice, confirming that everything was in place. Just like in her memories.
Then, she sat and waited there until it was night-time. Her muscles ended up sore, but her appetite was lost. She just wanted it to be like she remembered.
Then, when the sun had set and the sky was obscure, her mouth started to move, forcing her dry throat to work.
"Once this walls were grey
But you made stars and skies and snowflakes
We found a rainbow everywhere
You made a place so we could hide away"
Her voice was rough, unlike how her young self sang, but the tears in her eyes and how she could almost hear Izuku's laugh when she messed up was good enough to keep going.
Her baby. The one that should have been there instead of a creepy pile of pillows, was now gone.
And it felt like she was dying. Like she had forgotten how to even exist.
"And if you stay right by my side
We'll make it through the night
And you'll never have to feel alone again
So before it's time to leave
Would you build a little world with me?"
She kept singing until her phone rang and the same Shinsato told her to go to the hospital at eight o'clock PM.
However, before arranging the cremation of her child, she paid her neighbour to give Izuku's backpack with everything he had left in there to UA, except his red shoes of course. The young man worked as a delivery guy, and he was about to deny Inko's request, but her tone and looks made him feel sorry.
She promised a good amount of money, so he didn't hesitate to take it all in a large bag and mount his bike until he reached the school.
Inko saw how the young man's back kept getting smaller and smaller. She made a sorey excuse of a smile once again, and turned back to start her way to the hospital.
She had left a little card in the yellow backpack with the place where Izuku's ashes would be. Maybe someone in UA would want to visit him.
On her way to the place she dreaded silently, Inko couldn't help but end the song she had been singing for most part of the day. She just loved singing it to Izuku.
"Now it's time for me to leave
I'm glad you built this little world with me."