Chapter Text
The Alf District was full of laughter that afternoon, which rang in the air for too long to not turn into tears.
A little boy who was climbing a wall that was reaching into the air, encouraged by his friends, slipped. His blood-red eyes widened as the old wall beneath his small palm turned to dust and he fell to the ground, more precisely on his knee from which a burning pain shot out.
Katsuki Bakugo, who had recently turned seven years old, remained crawling on the ground while his group of friends ran away in fear, leaving him alone looking at the blue sky with white clouds running across it. Slowly, the sky laughed at him for not reaching it.
The golden-haired boy sat up with a hiss of pain, watching his knee from which blood was pouring, a few pebbles and dirt that were on the wall he was trying to climb ,mixed with the blood that was pouring out, dripping onto the green grass. Katsuki had been taught not to cry, not to show any sign of weakness. Future Alphas don't cry, but for the almost seven year old boy, the pain was unbearable at this moment.
Even though Katsuki involuntarily allowed himself to show weakness, a few tears ran down his cheek, but that was all. Katsuki bit his lips so hard that he could taste metal in his mouth. From which he let out a silent sob.
"Are you okay?"
A soft boy's voice sounded from a distance and Katsuki turned around in surprise, expecting one of his friends to return, but his surroundings were empty.
"Hello?" Katsuki asked in confusion. "Don't hide like a coward, show yourself!"
"I'm behind the wall."
Six-year-old Izuku was pressed against the wall, his yellow school backpack at his feet, trying to reach with both hands for a pipe that was too high for his age. Izuku knew he couldn't be near the wall, there were warning signs all along the wall. Large billboards forbidding any contact with the other side. But Izuku was six, and little kids don't understand danger the way adults do.
So when he heard a bang from behind the wall and then a scream that sounded like someone needing help, Izuku took action.
His mother had taught him that helping each other helps us survive, Izuku. When someone needs help, we always lend a helping hand.
She didn't mention to Izuku that this only applied to the Omega district.
"Are you hurt, do you need help?" His voice was high, full of the concern that his district was full of.
“I don't need help, go away!” The boy on the other side replied, Izuku heard the boy kick something on the other side and then a painful hiss.
“Does your knee hurt?” Izuku asked again.
“I told you I don't need help, go away!” The boy shouted again, but for Izuku the urge to help was always greater than the judgment that should have pulled him away from the wall to going home.
Letting go of the pipe, which was too high, so Izuku had to be on his toes to be able to talk and hear the boy on the other side, Izuku bent down to unzip his backpack, rummaging inside it. It wasn't long before the green-eyed boy found a patch among the heavy books, old pens, and papers with corners that had been forcefully thrown into his bag.
With colorful cars racing on a white painted road.
"For you "
Izuku pushed the small patch into the hole in the wall, hoping to reach the boy on the other side, who was impatiently waiting for whatever the child had come up with who had been taught since childhood that he was just a weakness, a flaw in the system, and something to be avoided.
Izuku managed to push the patch through the walls, its artificial wrapper sticking out of the dirty wall like a flower that always found its way to life.
Katsuki reached for it in annoyance, pulling it out.
"A patch with cars? Are you serious?" Katsuki growled back at the wall, looking at the red and green car drawn on the horrible white road.
"If it's a patch with cars, the wound will know to heal faster," Izuku replied cheerfully, hearing the boy on the other side struggle with the plastic wrapper.
“ That’s stupid” Katsuki told him.” Nothin can make the healing faster.”
"First you need to get the rocks and dirt out," Izuku informed him, listening to the angry mumbling of the boy on the other side.
"I'm not stupid."
"I didn't say that," Izuku defended himself, hearing a soft hiss of pain as Katsuki used his fingernail to pick out the rocks that were stuck in his bleeding wound.
"Done," Katsuki said involuntarily, not even knowing why he was informing the boy on the other side, covering the wound on his knee with a plaster with cars.
He stuck it upside down, the cars mocking him as Katsuki watched them.
"If it don't heal faster, I'll come complain about your stupidity," Katsuki angrily snapped at the boy who was still waiting on the other side of the wall.
He didn't wait for Izuku's answer. With the pride and arrogance that had been given to him since birth, Katsuki ran back to the Alf District, leaving the boy on the other side of the wall standing in the tall grass, his own district reeking of sewage and rot.
"Izuku!" Izuku jumped at the call of his name, quickly throwing his backpack back on his back, running to his mother.
Leaving behind the boy who was too proud to cry, but not enough to not accept the car patch.