Chapter Text
In the coming days, Izuku finds that life in the apartment complex is different from what she’s used to. Her neighbors are separated by only a few walls instead of the unspoken boundaries of property and white picket fences; there’s less space to put her stuff, even if her apartment is relatively good quality; and, of course, with apartment life comes city life , which is much, much different from house in the suburbs life.
In the city it’s loud, and busy, and everyone has somewhere to go. Cars and buses race down bumpy roads. Traffic lights flicker endlessly. On the streets, men in suits and women dressed to the nines walk down cracked sidewalks, past rows of shops like they own the place. It’s nothing like the slow days of living in the house, cleaning and cooking and just… waiting for something to happen.
In the city, there’s nothing to wait for- everything is always happening, and all that’s left to do is catch up.
The bus, with its putrid odor and general air of discomfort, has been Izuku’s only mode of transportation as of late. This is new to her, but she finds it preferable to constantly hailing taxis or hitching a ride with someone else, especially with all the snow.
Shoto has been talking about helping her get a car soon, once she’s more settled. She’s been thinking of getting him a gift whenever she manages to get her first paycheck. For now, a thank-you note will have to suffice- and maybe a nice brand of tea leaves to bring over the next time she has tea with Momo.
In some ways, this newfound independence is nice; Izuku doesn’t have to worry about asking for permission to go out, or preparing something she doesn’t want to, or being dependent on anyone else’s whims. On the other hand, she’s run into trouble with the startling realization that not only is she no longer a wife- she’s not a hostess anymore, either.
It seems like a silly realization. But sometimes, Izuku catches herself making extra portions of food- for two people, for four people- before realizing she only needs one.
Sometimes, Izuku stresses about matching the plates to the tablecloths and arranging meals in a pleasing way, before she remembers that nobody but her is going to see it.
Sometimes, Izuku automatically reaches for a yellow dress and panics before it occurs to her that she doesn’t need to; she pulls away and reaches for something else.
Sometimes, she looks at herself in the mirror, more aware than ever of the fact that her hair hasn’t been professionally styled in months and she’s out of pills and her freckles and scars are as present as ever without the ready supply of her usual expensive cosmetics- and in between the thoughts of shame, she feels briefly terrified of what he’s going to say, before she remembers-
It’s just Izuku in this apartment. There’s nobody to entertain or impress, and as much as playing hostess used to stress her out, she finds that she misses the order of it.
Half the time, she just doesn’t know what to wear or what to make or what to eat or where the burgundy lamp she got as a wedding present - and subsequently ‘won’ in the divorce - should go. Her redecorating crisis aside, she needs to find a job. She doesn’t want Shoto paying her rent for any longer than the two months, no matter how insistent he is about it. She also desperately needs something to do that isn’t job hunting or belatedly remembering to get groceries or cleaning or cooking and then overestimating how much to make and then needing more Tupperware to store all her leftovers.
The containers pile up in her fridge. She can hardly bring herself to touch any of it.
Perhaps that’s why she’s here now, standing in front of her next door neighbor’s apartment door with an extra container in hand. The room number, 42 , gleams above her in the gilded lettering. Izuku, dressed in her a blue plaid shirtwaist dress, with her hair more frizzy than curled, feels exceptionally pathetic just standing in the hall. She’d knocked a few moments ago and is still contemplating whether or not it would be rude to try again. Or if it’s rude to offer leftovers at all, or-
“What the hell are you doing?”
The sudden voice makes Izuku jump, holding the Tupperware closer to her chest. She whirls around in place, eyes wide.
“Oh- Ka-Katsumi!” Izuku yelps. “You- uhm, you startled me.”
Katsumi is statuesque, sharp featured and blonde-haired- taller than Izuku by at least five inches, graceful and elegant and intimidatingly beautiful. As far as Izuku knows, she’s unmarried, which is not a shock to her but probably would be to anyone else. Katsumi is one of those women- the kind that can stop a whole room in its tracks simply by walking into it, drawing the eyes of men and women alike with her beauty. Every outfit Izuku has seen her in has been mirrored in trending fashion magazines, not a hair out of place or a smudge of poorly-applied makeup. And perhaps everything would just be easier if Katsumi just was that sort of woman and Izuku’s neighbor and nothing more- but she isn’t.
Izuku’s known her before.
They’d been friends, once upon a time- Izuku-and-Kacchan . They’d met when they were young children, and when Katsumi was not a girl; when they’d spend hours in the forest playing make-believe and adventurers and simply existing together, thicker than thieves, the way children are.
As they grew older, Izuku plain as ever and Katsumi a shining star, something changed. For as much as she’d admired Katsumi, for as much as she chased after Kacchan with stars in her eyes, she could admit that this admiration wasn’t returned. Katsumi hated her. Thought she was weird and ugly and creepy, and worth less than chewed gum on the sidewalk. And the torment began- the nicknames, the mockery, the stolen lunches and cruelty. This continued pervasively until their first year of high school, when-
(Don’t think about that. It’s the past.)
-When they had come to a tense, hesitant understanding . Then Katsumi had transferred to a prestigious all-boys school, and Izuku remained at their public high school. And then came university, and then Izuku’s marriage, and, well.
A lot had changed in the last twelve or so years, it seemed.
Their first proper reunion made that clear. They’d made eye contact, and for a startlingly brief moment, Katsumi’s face had just- dropped. And in that moment, Izuku knew that no , this wasn’t a look-alike or strange coincidence- it was Kacchan. Izuku had recovered- plastered on a careful smile and acted like nothing was wrong, like this genuinely was their first meeting. The age old housewife tradition of pretending everything was fine.
They were childhood friends. Then they had been bully and victim. And now they were nearly strangers. Izuku hasn’t forgotten the past, and she figures Katsumi isn’t stupid enough to think that Izuku hasn’t pieced together that past with the present. They both know.
But after everything, it seems easier to pretend that there never was an Izuku-and-Kacchan , or any kind of history between them. If Katsumi is a woman, then there’s no need to acknowledge the time when she wasn’t. No bad blood, no old grudges. A perfect, fresh start.
“This is my apartment,” Katsumi says, raising her eyebrow, mouth pursed like she’s resisting the urge to add on a dipshit to the end of her sentence. She crosses her arms, back straight, and everything about her is somehow, paradoxically, both incredibly familiar and strangely alien to Izuku.
“Oh. Right, of course,” Izuku says, feeling dumb. “I just. I didn’t realize you weren’t home.”
“Well, here I am,” says Katsumi, deadpan. “Whaddya want.”
Even after all those years of growing apart, it seems that Katsumi hasn’t lost her ability to make Izuku feel small without doing or saying much. Suddenly, Izuku feels ashamed of her divorced status and frumpy appearance. When she was young, she’d fantasized about growing up and becoming beautiful and getting married and being happy; about running into Katsumi at a luxury store or something, all calm and composed and perfect in contrast to Katsumi’s abrasiveness, her wedding ring gleaming proof that everyone had been wrong about her.
And now she’s here, divorced and alone, in an apartment she can only afford with someone else’s help, offering beautiful, female Katsumi Bakugo her crummy leftovers. Turns out they hadn’t been wrong, after all.
“… I just came by to ask if you wanted some casserole,” Izuku begins, holding out the small Tupperware. “I, um. I made a bit too much and thought I’d share.”
Katsumi squints down at the container, gaze scrutinizing, and Izuku resists the urge to shrink onto herself.
Fresh start, she reminds herself. You can’t be afraid anymore.
“What is it?” Katsumi asks, still eyeing the container, and maybe Izuku is going crazy but the furrow in her brow seems to have softened a little.
“Lemon- uh. It’s lemon chicken and rice.”
“Huh,” she says. After a few moments of agonizing, tense silence, where neither of them move and neither of them look at each other-
Katsumi takes the container. Her fingers are long and graceful and painted with red nail polish, and they brush over Izuku’s gloved fingers softly- briefly .
“Thanks,” Katsumi says gruffly, seeming awkward. Her face is impassive, unblemished and perfect, eyes just a little less sharp. It feels strange to see her like this, unguarded and not angry- not even scowling. Not smiling, of course, but it’s something Izuku has never really seen before. Something she struggles to connect with the image of Katsumi in her mind.
Katsumi clears her throat, and it occurs to Izuku that the silence has been sitting for too long, the atmosphere between them tense and awkward.
“Of course,” Izuku says belatedly, and she thinks back to an easy, generally welcoming phrase that Ochako had said to her when she’d first moved into that neighborhood. “That’s what neighbors are for, after all.”
She smiles for good measure.
Her neighbor does not smile. Abruptly the atmosphere goes tense again; her eyes harden, her mouth thins.
“Really,” she says.
“Of- of course,” fumbles Izuku, vaguely feeling like she’s missed something. “You know, it’s always important to be, uhm, hospitable, and…and, uhm…”
She trails off.
“See you around, neighbor ,” Katsumi says, and it might just be Izuku’s imagination but she seems to spit the last word almost derisively, stalking towards her door.
Izuku wordlessly steps to the side, heading back to her own apartment with a practiced smile and nod in Katsumi’s direction.
Katsumi does not reciprocate. She acknowledges Izuku for maybe half a second and then slams the door shut behind her.
She does eventually meet the rest of her neighbors. It was inevitable, really- Izuku’s almost always home, even on the days she spends drafting resumes and looking for places that are hiring. She hasn’t had much luck.
The neighbors are nice, for the most part.
There’s Mrs. Chiyo down the hall- a former army nurse who served during both wars. Izuku helps her with the groceries and chats with her about the more mundane qualities of life. She has one adult son who lives in Rye and pays her rent, and a tabby cat named Pudding (who Izuku loves dearly). Mrs. Chiyo, a widow herself, doesn’t seem to look down on Izuku for being a divorcee at all- it’s only come up in conversation once and then never again, and there haven’t been any comments about it.
It’s a surprise how normally most people treat her, especially since she still remembers what a scandal it was when a divorcee moved into her old neighborhood, and how people treated her mother when she was a child. Some are still standoffish around her - the wives in particular-, others pity her, but not as many as she expected. Perhaps it’s because it’s an apartment building full of singles and couples alike, and not a pristine suburb, but what does Izuku know?
A few doors down, there’s Mr. Shimano. He has two children and no wife, and perhaps that’s why Izuku receives such little attention for her own status. She hears a lot about him- pity and disdain from almost everyone. How hard it must be for him, how hard it must be for the kids, backhanded remarks about how much better it would be if he could just get remarried and give his children a mother…
Izuku feels bad for him, too. She can’t imagine it’s easy to not only have to balance being a father and working a nine-to-five and dealing with snide comments from neighbors. And she knows it weighs on him- Mr. Shimano is polite and cordial with her, with bags under his eyes and wrinkles on his forehead (even though he’s only a couple of years older than her), and is always either in a hurry to get to work or quietly making his way back to his apartment. He doesn’t seem to do much else. She’s only seen the children in passing- one boy and one girl, always together. They look so sweet. Izuku’s heart clenches a little whenever she sees them.
Other than that, there’s a couple of other divorcees’ on the floor above her, a couple of beatniks, and one or two couples who make it abundantly clear this is a temporary living situation for them and that they’ll be purchasing a nice house soon. Izuku knows she should be happy for them, but she only feels strangely bitter. And then she feels ashamed, so she tries to avoid them as much as she can.
The spot near the parking garage has become her go-to place to unwind- really, it’s just a place where she can smoke and think. She’s gotten used to the cars and horns, and even the cold is a little more tolerable. Her apartment has air conditioning and heat, which Shoto pays for, but the sooner she can get used to not having it, the easier it’ll be when she’ll have to start supporting herself. Yo had always complained about the prices of these things.
A sudden gust of wind startles her as she’s fumbling with her Chesterfield box, and she drops her lighter in a pile of snow.
“Shit,” she hisses, scrambling to pick it up. “Shit.”
She wipes it down with the back of her glove, and tries to light her cigarette again.
“Huh,” says a voice. “Well. Can’t say I was expecting company.”
Izuku jumps and turns around.
Behind her stands a man- dark hair poorly slicked back in a mess of cowlicks, pale-skinned with heavy bags under his eyes; he’s dressed in a heavy dark gray trench coat and a mess of scarves that conceal the entire bottom half of his face. He strolls over to her, and she can see a pack of Marlboros in his hand.
“Need a hand?” he asks, glancing at the lighter. Izuku, still gaping, absently hands it over to him. He’s not wearing gloves, and his hands are long and pale. The lighter sparks under the flick of his thumb, and Izuku presses her cigarette to the flame until it lights. He follows suit.
She takes a drag and sighs, eyes fluttering shut. “Thank you.”
“Hitoshi Shinso,” the man introduces himself. His voice is raspy and deep, and he eyes her inquisitively. “I’ve seen you before.”
“Uhm, Izuku,” she replies after a beat. “And- I just moved in, so maybe-”
“No, I have seen you before,” Hitoshi insists. “At that- that country club party. Izuku Shindo, right?”
“It’s Midoriya,” Izuku says, voice clipped. Trying to keep the frown off her face, she adds, “I mean- it’s Midoriya, now.”
A beat.
“Oh,” Hitoshi muses. He takes another drag. “I see. Sorry.”
“Don’t be,” Izuku replies awkwardly. She blows out smoke, and they stand in silence for a while, neither of them knowing what to say.
“Do you,” Izuku begins, pursing her lips. “Earlier, you said, uhm- do you come here often?”
He looks at her and shrugs. “I guess, yeah. It’s a good smoking spot. Ambient. Empty, most of the time.”
Izuku flushes. “Sorry.”
He waves her off. “You’re all good. So long as you don’t go telling everybody about this place. Then we might have some problems.”
Here he smiles a little bit, as if reassuring her that he isn’t serious. It’s a simple, almost charming, slight quirk of the lips. Now that his scarf is a little lower on his face, she can see the way the cold bites his cheeks a bright red.
“I won’t,” Izuku promises. “I just… I came out here for some quiet.”
“I get it,” Hitoshi says, dusting some ash off his coat. “Need to get away from the neighbors, right?”
She hides a smile. “They’re all very nice. Interesting.”
“Interesting is one way to put it. They’re all misfits. Unforgettable, really.”
Izuku takes a long inhale of her cigarette, smile dimming. She thinks of shiny blonde hair and flawless red lips and that fierce, familiar scowl. She thinks of a cruel sneer and cigarette smoke and pain. Unforgettable. Unforgettable, and right there.
How could she ever forget?
“Is something wrong?” Hitoshi asks. His voice sounds vaguely distant.
“No,” Izuku says after a moment. “No, everything’s fine.”