#dekukbaku

[anjumstar]

Just like the little preview scene I posted a month or so ago, I’m back with another snippet post. These are deleted scenes from the fic I wrote for Deku’s bday in 2021. I had originally written flashbacks to four of Deku’s past birthdays that I cut for the sake of the fic. But they’re still perfectly good scenes, so I thought I’d post them for Deku’s bday this year! Enjoy (the melancholy).

Four years old

They were running and running and running until Izuku’s heart finally felt like it was going to burst through his throat and out of his mouth.

He bent over on his knees, nearly wheezing as he panted for breath. The midday July air was thick and seemed like hot soup to his little lungs. Meanwhile, Kacchan was circling back around to him with an arm outstretched, clenched around a villain’s imaginary wrist. Or wrists, because they’d be handcuffed. That’s what happened to bad guys.

“Toldja I was gonna get him first!”

Izuku hadn’t expected Kacchan to go easy on him just because it was his birthday. No, it was enough that Izuku had kept up just behind Kacchan, even if he hadn’t been able to be the one to get the villain. Actually, it was exciting enough just to get to be hero partners with Kacchan, instead of having to play the villain like he so often did.

“You did, Kacchan,” Izuku panted as he stood up straight.

“Now we gotta give him to the police and then you get to do the paperwork.”

“Paperwork?” Izuku asked.

“Yeah, it’s the boring stuff where you write about work things for people,” Kacchan explained. “All grownups have to do it.”

Izuku frowned. “What’re you gonna do?”

“I’m gonna catch more bad guys.”

“No!” Izuku gasped. “We’re partners!”

Kacchan rolled his eyes, letting his whole head loll dramatically as he did so. “Fine, we’ll make a sidekick do it. We still gotta take this guy to the police.”

“Where are the police?”

Kacchan pointed to where their moms were sitting at the picnic table. “There.”

Izuku followed as Kacchan marched the villain over to their moms before shoving him forward. “We caught a villain.”

Their moms looked down at them and Auntie Mitsuki asked, “Both of you?”

“We’re hero partners,” Kacchan said, making Izuku’s heart beat fast again. “You already knew that, dummy.”

“Katsuki,” his mom said in a warning tone. “Not nice.”

Kacchan crossed his arms and pouted. “I’m always nice.”

“We’ll take the villain,” Izuku’s mom said, standing up and grabbing the villain Kacchan had let go of. “Thanks for bringing him in, boys.”

“You’re welcome!” Izuku cheered.

Suddenly, Kacchan was dragging Izuku by the wrist and pointing up ahead. “There’s another one! We gotta get him, Izu-chan!”

Izuku took off running again. He really hoped that he’d be able to get this one first, but it would be okay if Kacchan did instead. After all, they were partners.

Six years old

The funny thing was, he’d still expected Kacchan to come.

Izuku had bawled a few days ago, on his actual birthday, when Kacchan had walked out of the courtyard, looking at Izuku with that mean expression Izuku had never seen before. He’d cried and cried that afternoon in the courtyard before walking back up to his apartment, certain he was hiding his sobbing session. But, somehow, his mother had known and immediately asked Izuku what was wrong. He’d said nothing more than that Kacchan had to leave before dinner.

He’d never imagined that Kacchan wouldn’t show up for his party.

The courtyard was filled with kids whom Izuku had known for only three months. Fun boys, but none of them liked All Might as much as him and Kacchan. Lots of them had no interest in being heroes. They didn’t play the same games or like the same movies.

They weren’t Kacchan.

Worse than that, Izuku kept being asked, “When’s Katsuki coming?” and Izuku didn’t know what to say.

Kacchan could still come, right? Surely he knew that Izuku wouldn’t mind if he was late.

Izuku went over to his mother, pulling on the edge of her skirt to get her attention.

“Mama, do you know when Kacchan’s coming?” he asked. “Should we call him? Did you hear from Auntie? Should we call her?”

His mother had looked down at him, her face all wobbly. Her lips were twitching, eyebrows rising and falling so strangely. “Oh, Izuku,” she said, crouching down to his level. She put her hands, both so warm, on his cheeks. “I don’t think Katsuki is coming.”

Even then, Izuku didn’t give up hope. Even after the cake was cut. After the presents. After all the other boys went home. Izuku took one of his new All Might figures and stood by the window, waiting to see Katsuki’s parents’ car or, better yet, Katsuki himself. He didn’t even give up during dinner—maybe Kacchan wanted to come to dinner instead of the party, since that was what he’d missed on Izuku’s real birthday.

Then it was time to go to bed. And for the first time in Izuku’s young life, he’d given up.

Fifteen years old

Izuku didn’t know what to do with himself.

He was staring at fifteen candles, all of them lit and glowing in his mother’s hopeful eyes from where she was sitting kitty-corner to him. The first candle she’d lit was already dripping on the cake, but Izuku couldn’t blow them out. Not yet, even with his mother staring at him, her eyes wide and hopeful.

He still didn’t have a quirk. He still wasn’t a hero.

But he was going to be.

He’d always felt, always hoped, always wished for both those things. And this year, they were finally coming true, even though they weren’t true yet. He’d been working out with All Might for three months, and he could already see the effect on his body. He’d gained weight. He had to, for all the calories he was suddenly eating—his mom had been concerned but she was getting used to it. Slowly.

Of course, he was still on the scrawnier side of thin. But his arms were starting to gain some shape. If he clenched his abs really hard, he almost had a visible four-pack. He was starting to enjoy running, finally learning what that runner’s high was all about.

He was going to be the next carrier of One for All.

So what was there to wish for?

“Izuku?” his mother prompted, brows furrowed in concern.

“Right, I got it,” Izuku said, breathing in a full breath of air with his increased lung capacity. He didn’t want to worry his mom, not on the first birthday in forever where she actually had nothing to worry about. The best birthday he’d had in a decade.

He had a wish.

I wish to be the best hero ever.

And he blew out the candles.

It felt like blasphemy to wish to be better than All Might, especially now that he knew him. It was more real now than all the times that he and Kacchan had naïvely claimed that they’d be “the best, better than All Might!”

But he was going to do it. Whatever it took, he was going to be the best hero of all time.

And now, of course, he knew that wishes came true.

Sixteen years old

Izuku supposed Kacchan’s birthday set the tone for the year. In that no one had celebrated it.

Well, Izuku couldn’t really say that. Kacchan had probably celebrated with his parents and it was always possible that he’d done something with his middle school friends that, of course, Izuku hadn’t been invited to.

But he was certain that no one at U.A. had known about Kacchan’s birthday.

It must have been something about high school. U.A. was serious. The incident at the USJ had proven just how much. Maybe they all had outgrown birthdays and wouldn’t celebrate another until they had partners to go on dates with. That wouldn’t be so bad. It wasn’t like Izuku’s most recent birthdays had been anything other than him and his mom anyway.

And it was looking to be the same this year.

Izuku had friends now—real ones, for the first time in a long time. It would be nice to celebrate with them. But birthdays just weren’t something one really advertised; other people were supposed to do that for you.

Besides, his birthday happened to land on the week of the written portion of final exams. He found himself forgetting his birthday for most of the day himself anyway, his brain apparently making room for rescue training strategies instead. Passing would be gift enough.

At one point on the train ride home, Izuku noticed Kacchan standing across from him. Not directly—there were bodies between them—but much closer than Izuku was used to. Kacchan usually seemed to stand as far away from Izuku on the train platform as he could—Izuku never made the same effort. But today, they’d made it onto the same car.

Suddenly, Kacchan’s eyes flicked up, locking on Izuku’s immediately. Izuku could see the white reflection of Kacchan’s phone screen and wondered if maybe he was looking too close, if maybe he should look away.

But he didn’t back down from Kacchan anymore.

One eye twitched a little and then Kacchan looked back at his phone. He brushed right past Izuku when they got off at their stop, and that was the last he saw of Kacchan that day.

Given their history, Izuku deemed it an improvement.

And somewhere within him, there was hope that things would continue that way.