Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

‘I am not good, I am not virtuous, I am not sympathetic, 

And I am not generous. I am not good.’

His apartment building was not particularly lavish and it was cluttered, on top of being cramped. It overlooked a strip of businesses across the street, and they were all familiar with Miu. The blond runt with an attitude and perpetually swollen, exhausted looking eyes. He walked to the train station with his headphones on, listlessly passing by the tiny, boxy buildings, barely aware of the world as it whisked by him.

Once at school, it didn’t take long for the ever present boot lingering just out of sight to descend onto the skinny nape of his neck. He didn’t even fully make it onto the school property before a familiar shock of black hair and tawny skin tone came, uninvited and a harsh assault against his senses, into his line of sight. He’d entered the jungle, and the leopard was approaching, sunken low and muscles tensed as it braced to pounce. 

“Hey, Miu. How ya doin? How are the twins?” Nagai prodded, face split with an open wound of a smile, something pus filled and gooey. Flies landed hungrily on it, and crawled between his smooth, polished shiny teeth. He easily slung an arm over Miu, and dipped his grinning face into Miu’s personal space. “Hey, can ya hear me down there?”

The way Nagai talked was practiced and falsified in its thuggish-ness. Unauthentic predator, a coyote with a wolf’s hide slung over it, beady, crescented eyes, knife sharp features. Large, lanky, deceptively strong. “Get off of me.” Miu said, small words pushed between his teeth. Gaze downcast, as that familiar and stomach turning disgust took a familiar course. It traveled the old dirt paths of his digestive system as it stuck a hot hand into his stomach, and reassembled everything it touched. 

“Aw, ya think ya can tell me what to do.” Nagai clapped Miu on the back powerfully even to make him fumble forward, arms windmilling out to balance himself before he found himself with a mouthful of gravel. “Shit pisses me off. After school, I’m gonna give you the ass kicking of a lifetime. Write a will, you stupid pussy.”

Then he and his gang of other tertiary predators bled into the crowd of teenagers scuttling to class. Miu didn’t move with quite as much urgency. It was the weight, he was certain, keeping his feet tethered to the ground. He could skip class. But he was already so, so far behind. Too far behind to ever recover, not without…

Miu gazed into the scores of his classmates slinking through the small, unkempt courtyard, and wished he could disappear. Just for a little bit. Melt into the ground and re-materialize later. Maybe if he’d been born with a stronger quirk, that could be his reality, but it isn’t. He looked at the ground as he walked with heavy, leaded steps towards the front door. Once he hit the gold and red tiles of his Alma Mater, his mood only plummeted further, hit the bottom of his stomach like an anvil. 

He was late to class. He received his scolding with a bowed head, and ambled sluggishly to his seat. Miu dragged his pencil around in vague strokes of hardly legible writing, some of it just nonsense he was lazily producing to make it look like he could focus on class, on the teacher as her nimble form floated and squirmed like a maggot around the front of the streamlined, grayscale classroom. 

“… isn’t that him?” He heard a few desks down and didn’t lift his head in acknowledgment, or pulsing embarrassment. He used to. It used to stab him, it used to twist inside of him, it used to feel like divine punishment for something awful he had done. Now it just felt like standing in cold rain, icy droplets pelting like with the slicing force of a razor. “… definitely him. I’d be too embarrassed to ever go anywhere again.”

Miu wrote more illegible characters that didn’t form real sentences. Miu faked, pretended, and postured just as much as the scum he swore he despised. All just throwing on different pelts to brave the jungle. Anything to come out on the other side, scathed and scarred, but alive. 

At lunch, he ate in the broken bathroom with his knees pulled into his chest and the door locked. Nagai hadn’t been able to find him here, and so it became his sanctuary. There was mold in the corners, and a pelt of dust on the window that sometimes fell into whatever slop he was limply bringing to his mouth, his arm rotating on reflex as his utensils went from his container, to his teeth, and back again. 

He opened his phone and looked at his inbox. His gut, despite rapidly filling up with last nights leftovers, felt cold and hollow at the messages blinking back at him. He swiped them away, and opened any candy colored game that would hold his brain steady for a while. They were mind melting, useless puzzle games with no purpose, chock full of obnoxious ads. But they kept him distracted for a while. 

Then, it was back to hunching his shoulders, studying his shoes, and his eye occasionally twitching as he thought of how much better off the world would be without trash like Nagai stalking the streets, baring their teeth, howling their disgusting jeers. He kept his head up in history, and tried his best to at least absorb a sliver of knowledge. Despite how poor he did in his classes, his brain did sometimes ache to construct new synapses. He didn’t want to do poorly. That was just how it oftentimes worked out.

With everything. Talking to people. Sticking up for himself. Pursuing something he was passionate about. Gym class, being a hero, and pretending to be indifferent about the opinions of his peers. 

It was a little fascinating. They talked about colonialism, the birth of religion. Miu didn’t think about religion much, but when he did, it was bitterly. He did most things, considered most things, in a similar fashion. He tried to remember being anything else other than this scrawny, pale, glaring failure, finding new limbs on life to hate in new, varyingly disturbed ways. 

But it felt so far away, he could only catch fleeting sight of two teary, earnest brown eyes. Wide, doe-y, devastated at the injustice of this mangled world. The world—covered in the recurring and incessant itch of incurable meanness. Corruption. Broken promises glittering like glass dust across every continent, pumped into the sea like toxic waste, floating through the air and slicing up his lungs. 

“Hey, Miu.” Nagai greeted happily, attaching to him as soon as they left the premises. As soon as the security cameras could no longer hold proof of his terrifying streak of violence. According to murmurs, he’d been a cunt in middle school too. He’d bullied the living shit out of some quirkless loser, and he’d bragged about kicking the crap out of him with his friends. He’d looked at pictures on Nagai’s social media, and knew instantly his friends were even worse hellions than him. Or at least, they had been. Nagai’s cruelty had been since given ample room to grow like weeds, escaping the lushness of lawns, crawling up even stone stairways. He was an infection. He was- cracking his knuckles. Miu couldn’t help the flinch that struck him, the way his body learned the pattern. “Aw, ya scared? Didn’t seem scared earlier when you were runnin your mouth. Ya just don’t learn.”

Miu knew that. He’d known that for years. That although it seemed like he was tangled in a never ending race to make every mistake known to mankind, he never, ever seemed to learn from it. His parents told him as much nearly every day, and his brothers took turns warning him to get a handle on his so called nasty temper. His mouth worked faster than his brain and he did all he could to keep from lashing out, but something molten hot burned at the back of his throat. And he just wanted to eject the scorching phlegm from his throat, and now? He was going to pay for it. Just like always. 

There was a playground, always empty, swings hanging hauntingly, a rust covered slide, and wooden play hides chewed apart by termites. All the colorful equipment faded like a photograph left to collect dust in an attic. 

This was where Nagai took him to continuously enmesh the rules of the jungle into his brain and body. Teach him a lesson, that he never seemed to really learn. He’d been told once that he was allergic to it—learning. Seemed that way with his perpetually ailing grades. They didn’t used to be so poor. He even used to flourish in one or two subjects. But then his only friend darted towards the future, while Miu stayed dreadfully rooted in place, and words on paper began to seem like a meaningless means to a meaningless end.

Miu hardly blinked as Nagai bent down, perched like a hungry vulture over his curled up body, and let a globule of spit drip in a long, glimmering stream from his lower lip to Miu’s cheek, before it severed from its host, and conjoined with Miu’s forming bruises. He stared ahead, the acid bubbling inside him, threatening to burst out of his pores, while tears poured from his eyes. He didn’t sniffle, or weep, or cough as he choked on his blasphemous woe. He just laid there.

“Don’t ever forget what you are.” Nagai said and he was the same age as Miu, but something about him sounded ancient and hissing, like the devil. Like an amalgamation of every demon from every culture smattered across the planet, like solid wrath, like a cursed tombstone wretched from deep within the earth and cracked open to unleash snarling beasts with two many fangs and claws onto the mortal plane, as it trembled in fear. He spoke in piecemeal, grinding in every individual word with utmost precision, grinding it all in with a fistful of razor wire. “A worthless. Spineless. Back talking. Little waste of your dads cum. I’ve got video proof. And I haven’t even dropped part two.”

Miu gritted his teeth until his jaw ached more than it already did. But he said nothing. He just wanted to go home.

“Hear that, guys? ‘S what it sounds like when this mouthy little bitch goes hush mode. Let’s bounce. It smells like a quivering pussy in this dump.” Nagai said, standing easily, and dusting off his hands. 

At home, Miu said nothing about his swollen eye, or the purple contusion on his cheek. His mom didn’t ask. She made a bleak dinner, and they ate it in likeness. She didn’t eat much. She’d once been a model, and kept the same old habits. Miu didn’t eat much, but not for the sake of vanity. He just didn’t have an appetite after replaying the feeling of Nagai’s drool dribbling across his lip over, and over again. 

He was born weak, and he should never have tried to be anything else. Maybe he should’ve just laid down and died when his best friend started to leave him behind.

“Miu,” mom said absentmindedly, gesturing with her chin and her eyes still glued to her phone, “dinner. Eat it.”

Miu laid his utensils down, and felt impossibly worse. “Not hungry. I’ll take it to school.” He muttered, just loudly enough to hear, and started tearing through a drawer for some tupperware. Their quaint home was cluttered, and everything felt tight and suffocating. Even the walls were encrusted with old photos and shelves full of glass trinkets and bullshit. Some days, all he wanted to do was tear it all down and crush it beneath his shoes, everything his parents cherished.

Including his older brothers. 

Mom looked at him for a short moment. “If you don’t eat, you won’t grow.” The white spaces beneath her dark brown iris glinted at him tauntingly. Reminded him that they, his parents, were just as miserable as he was.

“I know.” Miu said, felt more inner strings snapping like a guitar gutted. 

“Your dad’s tall. You’ll grow, if you knock this off.”

“I know.” I know dad is tall. I know my brothers are tall. I know that when they were my age, they were the tallest kids in their grade, and stayed that height. You tell me all the fucking time. “I have homework.”

“Are you going to actually do it?”

No. “Yeah. Night, mom.”

“Sure, Miu.”

He vanished into his bedroom for the remainder of the night, even when he could smell the stench of his brothers returning from school late, heard the rowdy, classless sounds of them snuffling food from their trough like a couple of boars, and fought to lie as still as possible as he heard them enter their shared room.

“Christ, I could’ve sworn someone said third year was smooth sailing. Mirio kicked the shit out of you, Isao.”

“If you don’t shut up, I’m gonna kick the shit out of you. Can’t you ever just come home and go the hell to sleep?”

“Someone’s maaad. Heh, look at him, all peaceful. Must be nice to not have the weight of being worth a damn on your shoulders.”

“I’ll say. Yanno, mom said some little punks trying to beat some manners into him. Hate to say I wanna see if it works.”

“Pfft. Don’t kid yourself. Hey, can I borrow your chem notes? I gotta lock in and pass or I’ll get stuck getting tutored by some support weirdos.”

“Sure. I can help, too. Just let me know, Giyu.”

“Cool, bet.”

The two scribbled in silence for a while, ears likely plugged with earbuds that’d been bank breaking gifts for their 18th birthday. Miu kept himself tucked under his monsoon of blankets, and swiped away at his neon phone games. He hated them. He hated sharing a room with them. He hated sharing air with them. He hated how close, how familial, they were with each other. He hated that he wished they’d be like that with him. He hated that something fractured and flimsy inside of him wanted nothing more than gentle warmth. That part of him was even stupider than the rest of him. 

“Ready for round two tomorrow?” He could hear the grin in Giyu’s voice. 

Isao huffed, it sounded like he was stretching. “You know it, brother. Last year. Better make it count.”

“Make it count? Chamber invited us to her agency. We’ve already got it made.”

“Don’t be a dummy. We need to have options.”

“Fiiine. Goodnight, Isao.”

“Night, bro.”

At least when they slept, they slept heavily. Exhausted from their endeavors. Probably feeling suffocated from the cramped quarters of their home and looking for an escape anyway they could get it, which meant unconsciousness most nights. He’d heard them sneak out before, cackling and as thick as thieves. Miu never said a word. Even if his parents believed him, they’d come up with some convoluted excuse for why it was ok for the twins to do whatever they wanted, whenever they wanted.

The look on his parents face when they tested into UA was unmatched. No one had ever been so proud, so gobsmacked, so ecstatic. Miu had stared at those twin expressions of primal delight, and it had burnt a searing brand into the meat of his brain. Maybe that was when he really became stupid, when he forgot how to learn. Maybe the open wounds had left his mind a cesspool for bacteria to grow and fester, and now it was just rotting away, synapse by wrinkled synapse. 

Miu looked at the news and a wry smile pulled on his mouth. Stain kills again. 

He instantly swiped to an online message board, and linked the article. Instantly, dozens of people deep dived emphatically into his latest victim. Haywire the tech hero had two families, one with a disabled daughter that he’d abandoned. They’d been mostly rumors, but were confirmed by paparazzi when both families were pictured at the hospital as Haywire’s failing systems finally powered down. 

How Stain found something like that out? Miu had no idea. There were theories that he had someone on the inside. 

Ikeda: I bet he used to be a hero. 

Miu scoffed. Lunatic.

Masao: bullshit. Troll.

Ikeda: Lol im serious. I think he’s seen some seriously rotten stuff going on in the hero world. You see the most from the inside

Miu didn’t dignify that with a response, and powered off his phone, then closed his eyes. He didn’t sleep much. He got too antsy, worked up, or otherwise disturbed. Sometimes he started to drift slowly off, and the yanking feeling of cutting through air ripped him back into his shared bedroom, and the sounds of his brothers tossing and turning. Their beds, at least, weren’t much better quality than his. 

When he finally managed to get some rest, he was standing in the courtyard of Teiko Academy, and he was in a bustling gaggle of pimply middle schoolers, all tripping over each other to get a good look at the test score ranking projected across the building. He searched frantically for his name. He hadn’t slept in days, and he’d felt too nauseated from nerves to touch food. He’d taken a train and a bus just to get here, and he’d do it every day and every evening if it just meant not feeling like such a disappointment. Such a loser. Such a failure. 

And then the sinking feeling came creeping in, as he sifted through the names over, and over, and over again. 

“No.” He went chalky and teary eyed, and he was familiar enough with that incinerating feeling inside of him to know that it was about to tear out like a demon. Like a carnivorous alien from his gut, and he was just too exhausted to swallow it all back this time. Everything that had been building for months. Years. “No, no, no, no.” He repeated like a mantra, as if just saying it enough would reverse what was so clearly true.

Miu had taken the entrance exam for every hero academy in the region, and he’d failed every single one of them. 

He pictured his parents proud faces. The ones they’d never shown to him. 

And he screamed. 

Chapter Text

Nagai’s appetite was satiated for a while. He had a few pick me ups here and there, he performed petty acts of senseless teasing, he made lame fart noises whenever Miu made the mistake of entering a classroom, he laughed, he leered, he chipped away at Miu. Miu fell asleep in class, and was mortified when he woke up and he’d drooled a puddle off his desk and onto the floor. And someone had slipped in it. Everyone was howling with laughter, as the teacher tried in vain to wrangle them.

What would have been funny if he were someone else was just humiliating, and made him wish an asteroid would strike his school, killing everyone, and especially himself. 

Someone later that week walked up to him in the hallway, their phone volume on full blast, and shoved the screen in his perpetually glaring face. “Hey, this is you, right?”

His own screams filled his head, and he ground his teeth. His eye twitched. A string snapped. “Yeah.” He said tersely, and tried to keep walking. The screaming turned into pleading. He begged to retake the exam. They just told him to try again next year, and that was when the video went from good to great. Miu bursted into hysterical tears, manic, crazed, gasping for air tears. Apparently his mom acted similarly during her meltdowns. 

“Did you really act like this?” A chuckle. Miu studied his shoes, and remarked they were getting ratty. “In front of all those people? Aren’t you… embarrassed?”

Yeah, I walk around in a cloud of embarrassment all day and night. What else do you want me to do? 

“He’s gotta girls name.” A familiar voice wormed across the back of his neck and he shivered in his baggy gakuren. His parents ordered a size up for him to grow into. “Of course he’s embarrassed. I’m embarrassed for him.”

The teachers shooed away the growing cluster of students and Miu took the opportunity to slip away to the broken bathroom. The online message board had been more active than ever as Stain amassed more victims. Miu rarely felt more at peace than when he was watching the latest dirt on whatever sorry fuck had been skewered roll in. 

Lover: I heard Stainy was a vigilante.

Miu smiled. Now that theory he could get behind. 

Yams: Who cares who he was? Heard he crippled a guy. Not cool.

Masao: Whatever u fucking pussy. He had it coming. Grow up.

Yams: Ingenium isn’t hero scum. He’s one of the good ones.

Masao: There are no good ones. Hes a nepotism baby from a hero family. 

Masao: they’re all worthless, and I hope stain kills them slowly.

Yams: You guys are psychotic. I’m not doing this shit anymore.

[Yams left Stain Kill Count]

It was just one of many Stain chat rooms he was in. They were sometimes difficult to find, and they got shut down left and right but Miu always found his way back to them. 

Ikeda: Hah you chased another faker away, Masao. Good boy.

Masao: Kill yourself

Veal: Guess who found more dirt on latest victim. Stupid fuck. 

Veal: https://ww2.tokyorot.co.jp/article-1989203/nori-caught-with-illicit-substances-in-hero-ranking-after-party

Kira: Ohhh youre joking. Lmao. Nori is a coke head.

Masao: I bet he wasnt the only one doing it. Only a matter of time before stain gets the rest of those pathetic pukes. 

Kira: U can say that again. 

Veal: I bet I can dig up more. 

Ikeda: Yall are a riot. He hasnt even been dead for 24 hours hehe.

Ikeda: Bet Nori’s dealer is another hero

Kira: Such parasites lolol. Maybe theyll all destroy themzelves before Stain even gets a chance to.

Veal: Doubtful

Lover: Stainy is gonna carve the hero world up and suck all the putrid blood from It. I wish I could meet him. 

Ikeda: HAH u an interesting critter fr

Lunch ended, and Miu put his phone away with great disdain. The weight settled back over on top of him and he could barely lift up his feet as he forced himself back to his classroom. Back to the stares, the snickers, the jeers, each one mounting and twisting on top of him like a gnarled apparition made of multiple fragments of multiple tormented ghosts. Some of it was probably in his head. But it all felt the same—just as gutting. Just as lonely.

“Hey Miu-Miu,” a rotten voice sang, as the weight of a long, sun browned arm settled on his neck.

He didn’t yank away, no matter how viciously he wanted to. He allowed it to settle on him and pulverize him, just like everything else in his loathsome life did. “Hi.” Miu said, voice barely a whisper, and eyes trained to the floor. He hated to admit that if he were a dog mutant, his tail would be between his legs. His eye was still fat and shiny and mottled green as the bruises slowly slunk away at a snails pace.

“Don’t act too excited to see me. Hey, heard you’re not going on the class trip. Don’t tell me you’re tryna hide from me by staying behind.”

“I just don’t want to go.” Miu said, hardly any louder. They were in front of the school and the teachers saw and said nothing. Maybe they were dense enough to mistake it as a couple of friends excitedly sharing plans for sleeping arrangements on the short trip to Kyoto. Maybe they were just indifferent, and maybe they had a good reason to be. Miu wasn’t a good student, and he wasn’t a good presence to have in class. The world would be a better place if he disappeared completely. 

“Ya mutter like a bitch. No wonder you have a girls name. Aight, whatever.” Nagai disentangled his arm, then shoved Mustard forward hard enough for him to hit the ground. He gritted his teeth at the feeling of dirt caked on his palms, and a vague sting in his wrists and knees. “Piss off, now. Sick of looking at that nasty glare.”

So he took the nasty glare home with him and tried to make himself sparse quickly at the sight of his brothers at the kitchen table, but wasn’t quite lucky enough to make it past the kitchen before Giyu was standing in the doorway. 

“Hey, stranger. How was school?”

“None of your business.” Miu said, gaze downcast because he could barely stand to look at his older brother's identical faces. His fists curled up around the scrapes on his palms. “And I know you don’t care anyway.”

Giyu smiled a mirthless grin. “Mom’s at psychiatry, and she told us to make you do your homework. Have you ever done it before? Homework? Dipshit?”

“Knock it off.” Isao said and fixed Miu with a stare. “Come sit down and get it over with. Then you can rot under your covers for all I care.”

Already worn thin from Nagai and his cronies, Miu didn’t put up a fight as he slammed his backpack onto the table and ripped the academic guts out of it. His face was hot enough to cook bacon on, but he tried to rein it in. Isao was right. He just had to get this over with, and then he could lay down, and try his best to pretend he was an only child. 

“I could write better notes with my feet.” Giyu said, flipping through a notebook that Miu failed to snatch out of his calloused hands. “What do you even do when you go to school?”

Get my ass kicked, mostly. 

Isao looked troubled, and squared his jaw as he considered the pile of unfinished assignments, doodled on worksheets, and other trash. “Whatever. Just…”

And Isao tried his best to work through it with him but it was hopeless. Miu was a chronic space case and he hadn’t really paid attention since the year began. If he wasn’t nodding off, he was staring out the window, or looking at his desk and resisting the urge to carve more nics in it with his pencil sharpener. 

“Your brain’s probably dying from lack of nutrients.” Giyu said while he twirled a pencil on his thumb. “Mom said you eat like an anorexic. Guess she got the little girl she wanted after all.”

Miu stood up and stuffed everything back in his bag without a word. 

Isao huffed, and looked irritated at what he’d no doubt call Miu’s infamous ‘dramatics’. “C’mon, Miu, you’re almost done. Dad’s going to ground you soon if you don’t-“

“I hope, from the bottom of my heart, that we all burn alive in a house fire. And I hope you two die last, so it hurts the worst.” Miu interjected, then disappeared into their shared room, like he’d wanted to do from the very beginning. 

Although Isao was as much of a bastard as Giyu, he’d been right. Miu saw dad for the first time in weeks, mostly because he was usually gone at work all day well into the night, and got screamed at until he couldn’t stop the tears from pushing out from his bloodshot waterlines. It wouldn’t be the first time, and it certainly wouldn’t be the last. 

As per usual, Miu was a screw up. A disappointment. According to his dad, Miu was worse than his pain in the ass mother. Which were mighty big shoes to fill. 

“You know, I might lay off of you if you even made an effort.” His dad snarled, in his face, and Miu trembling as he fought with his body to hold his ground. There was nowhere to run anyway, and no reason to. Unlike Nagai, dad wouldn’t lash out at him. But this honestly didn’t feel much more pleasant. “But you don’t. You’re lazy, and mouthy, and worst of all, you are a colossal fuck up. And I am done pandering to it.”

Miu’s phone was confiscated, and he couldn’t say he was terribly surprised but was still crushed when he laid down afterwards. He wouldn’t be able to keep up on news about Stain. Some of those message boards could only be accessed after receiving an invite, after being vetted. He couldn’t just easily log into them from another device. 

It was childish, but he felt so utterly alone. So hollow and aching. He felt like one big bruise, even though the wounds from Nagai had all but healed. 

“Tooold you.” Isao said from his and Giyu’s side of the room. 

Miu thought he may have been asleep. The twins could sleep through stuff like this, usually. 

“Leave me alone.” Miu husked out, although he guessed he could have said nothing, and it’d probably be more effective. 

“Didn’t dad say? All you have to do is try. You don’t even have to be a straight A student. You won’t even do that much.”

I’m drowning.

I’m dying.

I want everyone to die, including me. 

“I can’t.”

“Is that it? You just think you can’t, so you don’t even try? How can you still be scared to fail, after everything?”

Miu wished he had said nothing. Being trapped in a conversation with Isao was bound to just make him feel worse than he already did. 

Mostly because he remembered slivers of being four years old. His dark, doe-y eyes, full of disillusionment and tears. And staring in amazement when Isao’s terrifying quirk saved him. 

He thought he might have looked up to Isao once upon a time. And nowadays, the older teenager just kicked him when he was already sniveling and bleeding on the ground. 

“Nothing to say? That never happens.”

“I wish I had a different family.” Miu admitted, and not maliciously. He was being honest and genuine. Maybe if he did, he’d be someone else. Someone with some sort of worth, talent of any kind. “A nicer one.”

“Hate to break it to you. But you’re gonna be a screw up no matter where you go, or who your family is.” Isao rolled over and grumbled, “Because you’re too chicken shit to be anything else.”

When the history trip came, Miu was grateful for the few days of solitude he was gifted. But it was hard to really appreciate the silence without his phone. There was no real timeframe for when he’d get it back and he held little hope that he’d be able to perform extensive enough surgery on his grades to earn it back. 

On his way home, he really began to miss listening to music. His taste in music was about as garbage as everything else about him but it helped. He liked to stare off and just think. Something, anything that could blast away all of his permeating darkness. The sinkhole in his stomach. The holes in his heart. The horrible rot in his soul.

And as a pastime, he stitched together videos. He didn’t bother posting them anywhere because he wasn’t really phenomenal at anything and it’d likely just give Nagai more ammo if he found out. He made edits of transformers, and mecha animes, and he used to make edits of his favorite heroes. But one day, heroes had lost their appeal. Maybe it was the day he realized he could never be like them.

Had Miu ever really wanted to be a hero?

Or did he just want his family to think he was worthwhile? 

He was itching for his digital escape from his dreary life when he opened the door and his heart climbed into his throat. He could have thrown it up in that moment. A puddle of bile, and a fleshy, pulsating muscle in the middle of the living room. It’d probably be an improvement.

“Hey kid. Long time no see.” His Uncle Kuro said.

Miu looked at his mom with mounting horror in his expression, and she just seemed as detached as she usually was. 

“Uncle has connections at an alternative school, for… slower kids. If you can’t get your grades up, you’re going to stay with him during the school year, and try that instead.” The white space beneath his mom’s eyes increased. She was at the kitchen table, looking dainty and shivery, and she used to look unstable, but now she had a psychiatrist to hash that out. But she still looked unwell. “Don’t- get upset with me. Wasn’t my idea.” Mom looked away. 

“Doesn’t have to be a death sentence.” Uncle Kuro said. He was at the table too, they were having tea. Miu felt unimaginably sick. “You look like someone just pissed on your puppy. Cheer up.”

Impossible. It was usually impossible but more so now than ever before.

“I don’t want to go.” Miu choked out through the heart in the back of his throat.

“If you don’t do something about school, you won’t have a choice.” Mom replied, gently, as if there was a single motherly thing about her. There used to be. Now Miu felt like he shared a home with a bunch of psychos and a drugged out stranger. “It’s for your future. We just don’t want you to drop out, and end up washed up.”

If only Miu hadn’t been born weak. Runt of the litter. An easy target. A cry baby, a loser, a pussy, a failure, a screw up—he held his hand over his mouth, certain he was going to throw up.

“Mom. Can I have my phone back?” Miu asked, knowing it was the longest shot in the world. Her eyes swam with confliction and he pressed. “I can’t focus without listening to music.”

“Don’t you want to catch up with uncle-“

“No.” Miu said without hesitation.

Kuro smiled easily. “It’s a lot to drop on a kid. Let him have a little wiggle room. I’ll tell Tadashi it was my bright idea.”

He crawled under his covers before he broke into shoulder shaking sobs. He would die if he had to live with him. He thought he was dying now, but it could always get worse. Everything just seemed to get so much worse. How much more harrowing could his story get? While wiping snot on the sleeve of the gakuren he had yet to take off, he shakily searched up Stain, looking for news but there was none. That only made him cry harder.

Next, he checked the message boards.

Ikeda: Haha look whose back. Did someone get their phone back from mommy and daddy

Masao: Eat my shit and hair

Kira: Yuck. 

Kira: Glad 2 have u back masao. Sassy little shit.

And Miu smiled a flimsy smile.

Masao: glad to be back I guess.

Masao: No stain news. Boooo

Hummer: Cant expect the guy to never take a break. Only human 

Masao: Nah. You kill this many pros, your more than human. 

Hummer: Lol. Sure loverboy

Lover: Sounds like someone has a crush on Stainyyy 

Masao: Ugh. Not you again

Ikeda: Down boy. 

Masao: Kill yourself.

Ikeda: Youre so pretty when you tell me to kms. I love you mwah 

Ikeda: Anyway scroll up. Veal looked more into Nori. 

And scroll up he did. His eyes chewed on the words with vigor. Naughty, naughty Nori. This guy wasn’t just a coke head, he was up to his neck in scandals. He was arguably more popular for the amount of screw ups he had under his belt than his hero work. Infamously promiscuous, ecstasy, spotted with yakuza, scrappy bar fights. It was honestly terrifying that a hero like this was just… out on the streets. Business as usual. And Stain put him down like the rabid dog he was.

Masao: Wow. Good riddance. 

Ikeda shot him a private message, inviting him to a new message board, this one called ‘Church of Stain’. He hesitated, thinking briefly back to his class discussion about religion through the ages. But that dissipated quickly at the opportunity to provide himself yet another distraction from the landslide that had quickly become his life. 

Isao and Giyu eventually came back from school, and Miu listened to the sounds of them all having dinner. He didn’t feel like eating, and could care less if it meant he’d never grow another centimeter. He couldn’t sit at the table with uncle Kuro and act like everything was ok. He couldn’t live with that foul man. He just couldn’t. He felt a ball of puke trying to climb up his trachea every time he so much as entertained the idea.

He’d have to get his grades up. But he didn’t even know where to start. 

Chapter Text

To Miu’s great disdain, Uncle Kuro became a recurrent presence in his already cramped household. He was tall and handsome, and working at an alternative school made him seem charitable and homely. His dad teased Uncle Kuro at family get-togethers for still somehow being single. Rather than pouring himself into his schoolwork, like he should be doing, he poured himself into another project. He used the mincemeat information from ‘Stain Kill Count’, ‘Bloodcurdle Red Room’, ‘The Hero Killer Cult’ and ‘Church of Stain’ and started to make an informational video about Stain. 

Something he thought he might post online. Something that, although Miu was generally unnoteworthy at everything he did, had the potential to become a creation worth being proud of. 

Though, there wasn’t much Miu actually knew about Stain. Theories, sure, but he didn’t know the mans civilian name. He filled the bare bones of a video, instead, with information about his ideals. The corrupt heroes he’d purged from the world. The nepotism baby he’d crippled. 

It distracted him from the handsome demon in his home. 

Uncle Kuro, if nothing else, was kind to Miu. He acknowledged him, included him in conversations, and he even picked Miu up from school once or twice. At the sight of Nagai, after witnessing the lanky monster smack him in the back of the head, Uncle Kuro made a face and said, “Huh. So, you’re getting bullied?”

Of course I am. Just look at me. I look like getting bullied is my favorite hobby. Miu thought but didn’t say. 

“It’s fine.” Miu said, determined to not say anything more on the matter. 

“Is it now? The school I work for doesn’t tolerate that.”

“Sure they don’t.”

“I’m being serious. Zero bullying policy. We get fights here and there, sure- some of the kids have anger issues. But none of what you’re experiencing now.” Uncle Kuro smoked out the window, and gray clouds curled from his lips smoothly. “Why do you take his shit, anyway?”

“He’s twice my size. What am I supposed to do?”

“Fight back. Even if it earns you an even more severe ass kicking.” Uncle Kuro said, as if it were that easy. “It’ll at least show pieces of scum like…?”

“Nagai.” Miu said quietly. It stung to even let the name cross his lips. 

“Right. Pieces of scum like Nagai feed off fear. If you give him exactly what he wants, he just becomes a bigger thorn in your side. Fight back, and he doesn’t get the satisfaction of you being too terrified to stand up to him.”

Miu didn’t reply and instead stared out the window, and wished Uncle Kuro would take his hand off of his thigh. 

The second he hit his room, he checked ‘Church of Stain’ to see what the bustling activity was about. Nothing interesting. 

He checked his DMs and was surprised to see that Ikeda DMed him. 

Ikeda: hiiii masao. 

Masao: what do you want ?

Ikeda: Chat rooms are boring rn. What are u up to?

Masao: Nothing. Being bored. 

Ikeda: Im curious. Why do u like stain?

Miu stared at his screen… intrigued by this strange attempt to reach out to him. He’d shared his age, sex and location with Ikeda, and the man had done the same right back. It was apart of the vetting process for their back alley chat rooms, illegal forums that the government was shutting down left and right. They were gushing about an enemy of the state, after all. A domestic terrorist. A villain. No, worse. A hero killing machine. 

Masao: Bc I’d bet good money most heroes are pieces of shit. I know 2 heroes. they’ve made my life a living hell. And bc i hate hero society. It all should be torn down. The people responsible for upholding it should get lined up against a wall and shot.

Ikeda: Hm. I think there are some good heroes. But i also hate hero society. Ive been wronged by it. I know so many people have been too. People born with dangerous quirks. Mutants. Quirkless. 

Masao: People born with weak quirks too. 

Ikeda: Yup. they all get screwed in this world. Anywayyyy. What do u do for fun. 

Masao: not much… read stain news articles. I make edits sometimes. 

Ikeda: ? can i see?

Masao: [video.attached]

Ikeda: woooow. Big Gundam fan?

Masao: I like mecha animes. They’re cool.

Ikeda: It was a cool watch. Ur good at that. 

Ikeda: U should make one for stain

Masao: I am making something... Theres not a lot of footage of him tho. 

Ikeda: yeahhh. But hey. pokes you. Show me when ur done. 

Masao: are you making fun of me?

Miu looked at his phone screen, a slash of pink across his cheeks and the bridge of his nose. He didn’t really know how to react. It was an absurd idea that some stranger on the internet was complimenting him over his mediocrity with video editing software on his phone.

Ikeda: No lol. I tease u sometimes. I do it to all my friends tho.

Masao: Are we friends?

Ikeda: Pfft. I consider u my friend. U may just consider me some weird 18 yr old who runs a bunch of even weirder chat rooms. 

Masao: I dont have a lot of friends. I didnt know you thought of us as friends. 

Miu thought for a second, growing pinker.

Masao: I want to be friends. If thats cool. 

Ikeda: Ur so pretty when u reveal bits and pieces of ur authentic self in DM.

Masao: kill yourself

Ikeda: ah its like music to my ears. Dont u have homework to do or smthn? Scram kid. 

It was so small, infinitesimally so, but Miu carried the warmth with him. The sort of warmth his heart gnashed its teeth for, starved and aching. But the second he left his room the next morning, he was reminded that he was caught between two vile creatures in his life. Uncle Kuro offered to take him to school and he wordlessly climbed into the car.

“You got a little girlfriend yet?”

Miu tightened his grip on his backpack and fought not to say something that could get him in trouble. Uncle Kuro waxed about Miu standing up to the dark forces in his life and was so completely tone deaf to his own not so small part he played in Miu’s writhing, ever present fear. A fear so severe and nagging it was nauseating, and most days he barely ate. And because of it, he was small and brittle, and that only worsened the terror, worsened the horrible ball of weakness he harbored inside of himself like a second heart. A heart that was more like a mortal wound that would inevitably kill him one day. Painfully. Agonizingly.

“… No.” Miu finally said. But maybe he should’ve lied. Yeah, he was definitely stupid, and belonged at the school for slow kids. Of course he should have lied.

“Aw. That’s a shame.” The words sat heavily on his tongue as his heart picked up pace behind his fragile ribcage. Uncle Kuro, don’t touch me. Setting a firm boundary was so foreign to Miu. And what if Kuro ignored him? His courage will have meant absolutely nothing. “You’re a pretty thing.”

I’m not a thing. 

Please take your hand off my thigh.

Miu stared ahead, frozen in fear. Just like he did every goddamn day of his stupid, miserable life. “Ok.” He said.

Uncle Kuro lit a cigarette and blew his smoke out the window as they drove. “The twins have their own charm. You’ve always been the cutest of the bunch. Even when you were little.”

Miu felt vomit tickle the back of his throat. The thought of his Uncle Kuro’s presence in his life when he was younger made him want to hurl so violently it shot through the windshield and shattered it like a bullet. 

“You don’t talk to me as much. We were closer back then.” More smoke. The car rattled onward, and onward, but Miu felt as if they would never reach their destination. This cold feeling of purgatory would last forever, leaving his insides bruised with pulverizing horror, and his thigh covered in hives from his uncles poison touch. “You can talk to me, yanno? You seem… different nowadays. Angrier. Sadder. Lonelier.”

“I don’t know, maybe it's because I get my ass kicked at school, and I share a room with two bastard hero students who hate me, and my parents think I’m a colossal fuck up. Maybe it’s because I have a girls name, my grades are shitty, and everyone picks on me because I’m barely 80 pounds and they know they can get away with it. Am I supposed to just smile through it all? What do you want from me?” The words geysered out of him like hot blood from a stab wound. He felt like a cornered animal and like usual, his mouth worked faster than his brain.

“I don’t want anything from you.” Uncle Kuro said smoothly. His cerulean blue eyes studied the front lawn of Miu’s school. “I’m just worried about you, kid. That’s all. I don’t want you to do something you might regret.”

Miu scoffed and rolled his eyes. He popped open the door. Usually, he could stand to wait to go to school, knowing the abuse that would be waiting for him as soon as he stepped foot on the premises. But he didn’t want to share air with his Uncle right now. “I’m not gonna kill myself. Don’t pick me up from school. I have nothing to talk about with you.”

And you make me uncomfortable.

“Guys are little jerks at your age. But you really have quite the mouth on you.” Uncle Kuro called out of the window, smiling unhappily and Miu fought not to let the revulsion overtake him, fought not to let vomit spew out of him in a hot, harsh pulse of disgust. 

Miu came home from school and didn’t climb under his covers, for a change. He spread his homework out over his tiny, cramped desk, clenched his jaw, and thought about where to start. 

His pride ached, but he needed help. He didn’t want to live with his Uncle and he needed to bend so he didn’t break. 

Me: Hey. Can you help me with my homework?

Juu: ?? lol this is the first time youve messaged me since the school year started. 

Me: Been busy.

Juu: okayyyy. (bad liar). I can come over? I have homework too.

Me: Sure.

Juu: dont sound too excited lolol.

Juu: I’ll be there in a bit.

While Miu waited, he scrolled through his collection of Stain clips, and thought about his former best friend. He wanted to grow apart from him, and he’d accomplished that. He hadn’t done anything to Miu. He’d just existed—just succeeded. Just was well liked, well built, and had gotten a recommendation from a pro hero to one of the top performing hero academies in the country. 

And although Miu knew it was wrong, he hated Juuzou for it. He hated Juuzou for having everything he wanted and more. He knew it was selfish, but wished Juuzou stayed behind and went to Henka High with Miu. It was an unnoteworthy high school and Juuzou was too brilliant to ever be wasted on it, but Miu’s heart cracked when Juuzou excitedly told him that he passed his exam, and would be attending U.A.’s heroics department in the upcoming term. 

He tried to be happy for his friend but that just hadn’t worked. Miu lacked the ability to be happy, let alone for other people. Juuzou worked hard, and got what he deserved. Juuzou was also born with a strong quirk, a handsome face, and he was an only child, too. Miu stopped responding to his texts when Nagai entered his life, and the smoldering hatred at his center outgrew his scrawny body. He knew it would incinerate Juuzou if he knew what Miu really thought about him.

Miu flipped through the assigned reading while he waited. It was about Buddhist monks burning themselves alive in the streets. 

Miu used to wish he was a pyrokinetic. The sight of Endeavor scorching villains half to death had been immensely satisfying to watch, before he lost his taste for all things heroic. He wondered what it would be like to be in Endeavor’s family. To partake in that much raw power. But he’d probably just be cursed to be a runt twice, and end up not fire proof, and he’d burn alive by his own flames as everyone watched and laughed in perfect echoing unison. 

“Miu?” His mom asked, and her thin, sunken voice sounded vaguely inquisitive. She was standing at the door, and hunching like a beaten dog. He hated how much of himself he saw in her. She had some sort of nervous melt down at the peak of her modeling career, and things spiraled quickly afterwards. “You have a friend here. Your friend- Juuzou?” At least she had the awareness to look happy for him in her pale, perpetually unfocused face. 

“Yeah. We’re gonna do homework.”

Mom smiled, and Miu hated himself for the tickle of warmth he felt in his usually glacial chest. “Good boy. Keep it up.”

It was more awkward than Miu could put into words. Juuzou was about the size of his older brothers, and looked like a giant in Miu’s tiny home. But Juuzou’s dad didn’t allow people over, and so they always met at Miu’s house. He’d grown since the last time they’d hung out. He even seemed a little broader, and definitely more muscular. Miu recalled seeing a similar change in his brothers when they started at U.A. and it made him want to puke.

“Hey.” Juuzou said, waving a little. He was comfortable enough to sit on the edge of Miu’s bed, piled high with blankets he was known to hide under. There were so many, his parents could barely tell when he was in bed, or out of it. “Been a while since we did homework together.”

“Yeah.” Miu replied coldly. He chewed the inside of his cheek, and remembered that he’d been the one to cut Juuzou off. And that he had been the one to reach out for his help. “… My parents are gonna make me go live with my uncle if I don’t get my grades up. So I can attend a school for screw ups and retards.”

“… Christ.” Juuzou said, and blinked. And frowned. As much as he could with his mutations. “Your- uncle? I think… you told me about him.”

“My weirdo Uncle is staying over for New Years.” At lunch, an entire table for just the two of them. Juuzou made the mistake of befriending Miu, but he seemed perfectly fine being ignored by others. 

“What makes him a weirdo?”

“He just… says weird things. He compliments me too much. He’s really touchy. I used to think maybe I just wasn’t used to attention from my family but… he said this really weird thing last time he visited, that I think even Isao and Giyu were creeped out by.” Miu put down his egg sandwich, because talking about this took away his appetite. “My dad asked him why he’s still single, and he started going on about his type. A skinny blond younger than him, with a small chest, and big brown eyes. And he was looking right at me. My dad got pissed because he thought Uncle was coming onto mom but… I think he was coming onto me?”

“Yup.” Miu said and pulled out a worksheet. 

It felt natural when they dove into Miu’s avalanche of assignments. Juuzou was scarily smart, always had the highest test scores, and studied like nobody’s business. He was armed with flash cards and textbooks and he religiously checked his grades. Miu would go as far as to say he was borderline obsessive. So, he’d helped Miu a lot. Wouldn’t ever let Miu cheat off of him, but helped him as much as he could. Miu’s grades were the best they’d ever been when he was best friends with Juuzou.

But that wasn’t the only reason he was friends with Juuzou. Miu was impossibly smaller and scrawnier in middle school, and that was when his parents interest in him plummeted, and they poured everything they had into Isao and Giyu. They showered them with praise and gifts and suddenly the intense loneliness he felt at school had chased him home, as well. He’d always felt a little standoffish with his family but… this was different. Worse.

And Juuzou was kind. Funny. Friendly—and honest. When Juuzou approached him on day one, Miu felt the radiating warmth of his incessant niceness, and although he tried to brush Juuzou off, he eventually relented to the pull, and had been better off for it. Juuzou lit up a room and Miu had just wondered why the guy had any interest in someone as gloomy and useless as himself. 

“I dunno. Never met another ash blond before.” Juuzou said, and Miu could’ve slapped him as he cackled. “What, I can’t just like hanging out with you?”

“No one likes hanging out with me.” Miu deadpanned. “But, whatever. You’re probably just clinically insane.”

“You’re just now realizing that? I've been writing our names in blood on parked cars for like two months.”

“Shut up, dork.” A pause, looking out at the crowd of classmates that wanted nothing to do with him. With either of them. “You want the rest of my dumplings?”

“Shit yeah I do! See, this is why I’m friends with you, Miu Miu.”

Nowadays, the only one who called him that was Nagai. Miu felt a hungry presence take residence inside of him. But it had nothing to dine on. Nothing of substance in this empty life. He had Ikeda, his online friend. And Juuzou, the friend he’d left behind because the gnawing bitterness had outgrown his body. Mom, who was a cold shadow of a pretty woman, dad, who spent his worthless days at work to avoid the sinkhole that was his family, the twins. The twins who had no identity outside of their heroic endeavors. The twins who used to be fully fleshed people but were now two carbon copies of the same scum Miu watched get their heads separated from their necks in a blast of explosive gore on dark web message boards. 

And about that… was Juuzou hero scum, too? 

Miu’s heart pulsed painfully, and he gripped it, and he wished his best friend could be anything else in the world. Anything other than a hero. Anything other than yet another boot in the stampede of shit kickers that’d been crushing him to death since his adolescence. 

“A’right, I think I’m homeworked out.” Juuzou said slumping backwards into Miu’s mountain of blankets and pillows. “So… what’s up? Why’re you ignoring me?”

“Busy.” Miu lied. 

“The real reason? I did just waste an entire afternoon spoon feeding you answers to your homework. Show a little decency.” Juuzou could always pry him apart easily, and Miu wasn’t particularly complex; he was curdled milk. Forgotten about until he spoiled at the back of the fridge. He was as one dimensional as his worthless quirk; a kid from an apathetic family searching for a millimeter of recognition in heroism, crudely deprived of it because of an unfortunate constitution, and instead of plastering a toothy smile on his face and pursuing something more realisitic, he decided to hate both his apathetic family and the heroism that’d chewed him up and spat him out in distaste. 

Miu hated the person he really was, the raw, gaping wound at his core. He left blood smears on everything he touched because at this point, even his skin was just a leaking laceration. He felt hurt, betrayed, belittled, eviscerated, he felt too much. And instead of facing the complexities of the multitudes of sorrow and agony that fiercely persisted within him, he just churned it into anger. Into hatred. Into disgust so potent he could hardly stomach a meager meal. He walked around hating the world, hating everything in it, and hating heroes most of all. For building this world that had gnawed him up beyond the point of recognition. At every turn, he encountered a different, towering, impressively terrifying hurdle, and it was all the hero’s faults. 

But Juuzou was a hero. 

So, where did he even start? 

“You probably have new friends.” Miu drawled, instead of any of that. 

Juuzou wouldn’t understand. He was born with a powerful quirk. He manuvered the world with a broad, powerful body. He had a handsome face, in spite of the mutations. He was charming, funny, and was recommended into U.A., something nearly unheard of if you didn’t have personal connections. 

“I do.” Juuzou replied, because he was honest, sometimes painfully so. He cocked his head as he leaned back onto his palms, his arm muscles flexing deliciously under his pale skin. Not paler than Miu’s own, though. That was a specific paleness reserved for chronic homebody’s who felt shunned by society. “But, you’re my best friend. So I reached out. Again and again and again. But you didn’t respond, even once. Even just a ‘hi, how are you?’. You’ve never been the type for small talk. But that was kinda brutal, even for you.”

“I… just have a lot going on.” Miu said, which wasn’t a lie. 

“What? Are you getting bullied again?” Juuzou shot out, and Miu felt his whole body go tense, bracing for a fist. 

Juuzou glared, not mad at him, but furious. “Are you kidding me? It’s bad, isn’t it?”

Miu felt his chest tremble as his heart bounced around inside of it, confused over whether to be terrified, or pissed. “It doesn’t matter.”

“It does. I…”

At the hesitation, Miu felt intrigued. Miu had never known Juuzou to hesitate. He dove in without reservations. He bit off more than he could chew often. He was thoughtful, and meticulous, until something colorful arose that made his resolve snap, and all of his previous provisions crumble. 

“What?” Miu asked, and Juuzou looked like Miu had just stabbed him. His skin turned chalky, and his expression and demeanor sallow, the heart torn out of him. Miu only usually saw such a shameful disposition in the mirror every morning. His flat, lifeless ash blond hair, the flat, lifeless espresso colored eyes sitting droopily on his paper pale face. His perennially frowning plum colored mouth. 

“I- he’s in my class.” Juuzou said, seeming as though the words were forced from his mouth. He looked so apologetic, it was nauseating. He looked so sorry for Miu, he felt like slapping the other student clean across the face. I’m not pathetic. And even if I am, don’t you ever look at me like that. “Kaibara…”

“Why don’t you go kill yourself?” Words so harsh they stung worse than cuts slicing out of a conventionally attractive mouth. Smooth, blemishless skin, peach colored lips, straight, angular nose. Flanked with friends, mindless minions sucked into the devices attached to their hands. The other boy ripped Miu’s pallid face out of the toilet bowl, and grinned wryly as he gushed out rivulets of toilet water mixed with drool and bile from his mouth and nose. Juuzou couldn’t protect him all the time. Juuzou could only give so much and sometimes, some days, Miu was as alone as the day he was born. “I can count on one hand the people that would miss you. Even dog shit can be used as fertilizer. You’re less than that.”

“Kaibara Sen?” Miu asked and the name left wide, weeping gashes on the veiny walls of his insides. Nagai was a brutal bully. Kaibara… Kaibara was a shark, covered in thick scar tissue as it swayed and cut through the water, prehistoric and perpetually hunting. His eyes were pure black, and beady. His face remained a stoic, unfeeling mask, but when a smile managed to pierce through his indifferent shell, it was usually when Miu was crying. His muscular tail sliced through the waves, Honenuki and Miu struggled to reach the surface, bleeding in dark plumes and spirals of fresh, hot blood. They never stood a stance against that cold blooded creature. Nagai once sounded like an ancient evil to Miu, like the devil. But that was only because he forgot about the haunting presence of Kaibara Sen, whose unholy stench of pure insidious rancor still clogged Miu’s sinuses to this day. “He’s… training to be a hero, huh?”

He wanted to laugh. 

He wanted to kill himself. 

He wanted to kill everyone else first. 

“He’s in my class. I… he’s quiet. I think he may be trying to change.” Juuzou said, and looked disturbed. “He does his work, he keeps his head down. But…”

“... He can’t ever atone.” Miu finished for him, and they sat in the stale silence of that sentence for a while. 

“He… in heroics, he debuted his costume. He has drill attachments on his hands. It makes his quirk- deadly. He’s terrifying to this day. He only smiles when he’s fighting. I don’t think… anyone else knows what he is.”

“Then, tell them.” Miu said simply.

“Should I? It might- ruin everything for him.”

“He would deserve it. He tortured us.” Me. “Shouldn’t he be shunned for that? Shouldn’t his classmates know that he’s just a psycho masquerading as a hero?”

“… If he saves people all the same- does it still-“

“Are you stupid?!” Miu’s temper flared out and he could feel his face getting hot. He snapped, just like he always did, leaving various amounts of destruction behind. “Of course it still matters! All the wrong things he did still matter! He could save the whole fucking planet from a civilization ending mass extinction event, and he’d still be the same cunt who made me live in hell just because he could! Just because he was stronger! He only wants to be a hero to be the most powerful person in the room in every room he walks into- how can you even consider being ok with that?! How can you call yourself a hero?!”

Juuzou looked ashamed, and like his heart was getting crushed in Miu’s fist. For most people, distinguishing Juuzou’s expressions was difficult but not for Miu. He’d grown accustomed to the way his eyes moved, crinkled, and scrunched. The way his cheeks bent around his outer teeth. Even his nose was expressive. 

“I guess it’s pretty selfish that I just wanna put it all behind me.”

“It is.” Miu gritted out, voice sharp and accusatory. “Because- I can’t put it behind me.” His tone faltered, became a weak and flimsy thing in his throat. He began to crack, as usual. “I can’t feel good about myself. I’m afraid of everything. I’m so hateful. Kaibara was screwing with me long before you came into the picture, and he changed me, and now on top of being useless, I’m- a mean person.”

‘I am not good, I am not virtuous, I am not sympathetic, 

And I am not generous. I am not good.’

The words reverberated in his skull and Miu suddenly tasted metal. His butchered inner cheek smeared a scarlet film on his molars. He chewed too much. He was a screw up in every sense of the title. 

“You don’t have to…”

“I don’t have to what? Let people like Kaibara, like Nagai, like Isao and Giyu, turn me into a rotten little bastard? It’s too late. That’s who I am. And it’s all their fault.” Miu felt like finding a paper shredder, and feeding all of his neat, freshly done homework through it. He didn’t want anything from Juuzou. Hero scum. An ugly stain on hero society, just like everyone else. They’d mangled and deformed the word hero, until it just meant a celebrity in a queer ass cape. Heroes didn’t save people. They stopped villains, sure, they lifted broken people out of rubble. But when it came to complex issues, abusive families, bullying, poverty—they just looked away. Even Juuzou. Even his best friend was no different. “You make me sick. Thanks for the help- I’ll never ask for it again.”

“Miu Miu-“

“Are you hard of fucking hearing?” Miu hissed viciously through gritted teeth. “We are not friends. You can leave, and ‘put everything behind you’. Including me.”

“You’re my best friend. I’ve made new friends but- I still think of going to get food after school, and watching bad ass mecha animes, and laughing until my stomach cramped because you’re so sassy, it’s hilarious. You’re not a bad person, and I want you in my life. Please, don’t-“

“Get out!” Miu screamed. He screamed because otherwise, he might cry. He was such a fucking idiot. Juuzou was never going to save him. Heroes were all cowards, every single one of them. "Get out, and go fuck yourself, Honenuki!"

He couldn't find it within himself to be nervous about his mom hearing him. She was crazy. So was Miu, it was how he knew he was even related to anyone in this family.

“Can I have the rest of your burger?” Juuzou was a bottomless pit and they were tucked away in booth seating, Miu was sitting on his knees, scribbling away at an essay. Something he was actually interested in. Pre-quirk era war.

“I’m not done with it.”

“Pfft, I know you better than that. Yes you are.”

“Fine. Scavenger.”

“Hey, I gotta keep you dainty so no one thinks it’s gay when I propose.”

“That’s definitely going in like, top three worst things you’ve said to me.”

“I think it’ll be a nice set up. My petite blond wife/male best friend in my double decker hero mansion, raising our beautiful ash blond spawnlings. No one will suspect a thing.”

“From the bottom of my heart, please kill yourself.”

“Aw, I love you too. In a not gay way.”

“Liar.”  And he didn't say it back, couldn't, but he loved his best friend. He had pipe dreams of growing up together, of sharing an apartment as young adults, of being happy in the future, somehow. And now he didn't even see a future at all, let alone one with the future pro-hero he used to know.

When Juuzou took his leave, Miu crawled into his bed and played stupid, colorful mobile games until he could stop remembering the good times that no longer were. And thoughts of Kaibara Sen’s cruelty eventually filled the vacancy. He was training to be a hero. U.A. was letting that sociopath train to be a hero. All the false idols Stain had cut down, Miu had been shocked at first that so many scum bags had clawed their way to the top. But now it all made sense. 

He eventually DMed Ikeda. It was pathetic, but he was all Miu had left. 

They talked about nothing but their passionate hatred of heroes until the sun crept down, and then back up. Ikeda was a stranger but in that moment, he was Miu's new best friend. 

Chapter Text

Things didn’t brighten. They never really did. The beauty had dripped off the world like melted candle wax, leaving only the ugly, gnarled bones beneath. Nagai still picked on him relentlessly, and he spent half of a school day crammed into a gym locker until Nagai saw fit to free him. New blemishes and bruises appeared, and his parents didn’t question it.

After snapping at him, Uncle Kuro disappeared for a little. That, at least, eased some of Miu’s pulverizing worries and punishing fear. 

He kept chatting with Ikeda. They had recently started talking about hero students—not a part of Stain’s victim demographic, but Miu thought they deserved to be knocked down a peg.

Ikeda: I wish the League of Villains had managed to kill a few of the little brats when they invaded UA. Mightve put them in their place and kept them from becoming Stains victims. 

Masao: Eh doubt it. Heroes are meatheads who will never get the picture. I say, just snipe em while theyre young, before they get too powerful to put down. I cant stand em as far as I could throw em either. 

Masao: Wish theyd invade more hero schools not just UA. Ketsubutsu, Shiketsu, Yotsuba, NHK, Teiko- kill em all.

Ikeda: I get why they dont. Attacking UA sends more of a message. 

Masao: sigh. A man can dream.

Ikeda: Holy shit. 

Masao: ??

Ikeda: ww2.tokyorot.co.jp/article-1083829/hero-killer-captured-by-endeavor

Miu’s heart dropped, and shattered at the bottom of his stomach. No. No way, this wasn’t real, was it? 

But there were videos of him being dragged into the bowels of Tartarus. Stain had lost and was sentenced to rot away in prison—though, Tartarus was more like a villain graveyard, from what he had heard. A dark, decrepit place where anyone who opposed heroes went to die. 

That was where Miu’s savior was going. 

He sat on his bed as it bulldozed over him. 

And then the frothing hatred began to bubble over as he watched the video of his capture again and again. 

The heroes didn’t like their dirty laundry being aired out, didn’t like being held accountable for their corruption, and now the only person who had really, truly stood up to them was going away behind bars, and he’d likely never be seen again.

The many chat rooms Miu occupied were exploding with activity, and he frantically tried to follow.

Veal: [image_attached]

Veal: Someone caught Stain w the League of Villains. Think they’ll carry on his legacy?

Lover: I hope so!!! I miss Stainy already :(((( 

Spinner: Stain was with the League of Villains?? 

Juicebox: Just found his arrest records guyz

Juicebox: Real name Chizome Akaguro. Used to be the vigilante Stendhal. Was training to be a hero before all this…

Juicebox: [image_attached] <- stendhal 

Alt: yeah stain and LoV leader were pictured together. It makes sense that they were working together. It wouldve been hard for Stain to get around to perform his cleansing without getting caught. 

Spinner: Yeah that does make sense…

Masao: I hope they keep killing heroes, then. Stains work wasn’t finished. There’s still so much trash to clean up.

Spinner: I’ll say. I hope they start with that flaming shitbag endeavor.

Masao: Me too. 

Veal: I heard a rumor that he wasnt even the one who put stain away. Hes just the one who took credit for it.

Pretender: So much for heroes having honor. Christ. What a waste of air

Juicebox: free my man. He didnt do nothinnnn

Kira: I wonder if the LoV will break him out of Tartarus.

Alt: Are u crazy?? Tartarus is the most high security prison on the planet. No one gets out alive. 

Lover: Stainy will be different. He has to be. It cant be over :((( 

Veal: [video_attached]

Veal: [video_attached]

Ikeda: videos of stain fighting in hosu?? Where in the hell did u get those??

Veal: I have my ways lol. 

Miu snatched them up, and started embedding them into his Stain video. It was almost done and although Miu was devastated, Stain’s capture provided all of the content he needed to finish it. 

He posted it in all of the chat rooms he was in, and watched the reactions roll in. He felt a surge of pride as everyone started going apeshit. It quickly escaped the confines of the chat rooms and were posted to social media, and from there, it only amassed more support for Stain, former vigilante, unfairly and unjustly crated off to Tartarus.  

Strangers praised him for getting the truth out there. Miu couldn’t remember the last time he felt worthwhile, and basked in it, rode the high for a few days as he happily made his way to school with his headphones on, and diligently did his homework.

Until the video was traced back to him.

He picked at his fingers in the principal’s office, and begged the universe to let up on him. 

When his dad got there, he shot Miu a murderous look and Miu just shrunk further in his chair.

Without further ado, Miu was expelled. 

His dad dragged him out by the scruff of his gakuren and although the man had never hit Miu, Miu certainly wouldn’t be surprised if he broke that streak today.

“Are you fucking serious?” His dad hissed through his teeth, in front of the school building. “Making a fan video for a serial killer? Are you out of your fucking mind? How can you be such a screw up?! Such an idiot?!”

Miu stayed silent, knowing nothing that he could say would soothe his dad’s eviscerating anger. He kept his head down as he was scolded.

“And more than that- how could you- worship him?! He kills heroes! Your brothers are heroes!” His dad looked disturbed, and swatted Miu in the side of the head. “Are you listening?! Do you understand how wrong this all is? That psychopath-“

“He’s not a psychopath! You’re more of a psychopath than Stain!” Miu snapped, then froze, then shrank when he realized what he’d done. 

At home, Miu iced his split lip while his parents talked. Isao and Giyu hadn’t looked at him since he’d come home and Miu was glad. He didn’t want their filthy hero eyes on him. 

“Hey.” Isao said and Miu ignored him. “I’m talking to you, brat.”

Miu looked up with a miserable gaze full of steaming hatred. “What? I’m a screw up? I know. I don’t need you to tell me that.”

“Do you really worship Stain?” Isao asked and his gaze was prying, and crinkled with concern. As if he was a real older brother, and not just yet another monster in Miu’s life. Miu nodded without breaking eye contact, and Isao deflated on the edge of his bed. “Did you ever really want to be a hero?”

“… I just wanted them to like me.”

“Them?”

“Our asshole parents.” Miu growled, the hatred growing and mounting. “They adore you two. I just wanted them to like me.”

Isao scoffed and shook his head. “They like you-“

“No, they don’t. They wish I was someone else. They wish I was more like you. They hate that I’m the screw up that survived.” Miu kept going, the hatred reeled out of his chest like wound up razor wire. “You think I don’t know? That mom wanted a girl so bad, that it killed her when she finally got one, and she fucking died? And she got me instead? Why else would I have a girls name?! Our parents can’t stand me and wish, that if I couldn’t be a girl, then I could at least be like you two! And I’m not! I never wanted to be a hero. I just wanted them to look at me. But I never get what I want.”

Before Isao could form a response, while Giyu was just whipping his head back and forth between the two and probably wishing he had popcorn for the show, his mom’s familiar sluggish knock cut the argument short. She pushed open the door a few inches.

“… Miu. Can you come into the kitchen?”

“Giyu and I are going to a friends house.” Isao interjected coldly, standing and grabbing his backpack and his brother, who blinked in confusion. “We’ll spend the night.”

“… Oh. Be safe, sweetheart.”

“We will. Bye, mom.”

The twins vanished, and Miu was alone with his parents. His dad was still too heated to even sit and just leaned against the counter, staring daggers into Miu as he sat at the kitchen table with his head bowed.

“You start alternative school next week.” Dad said and before Miu could form a rebuttal, continued, “Save it, and start packing. If you hate heroes so much, then congratulations. You don’t have to share a room with them anymore. It’s not safe.”

Mom said nothing, and picked at her fingers, the same way Miu did in the principal’s office.

Miu’s breathing picked up pace. “I can’t live with Uncle Kuro.”

“You can, and you will. Whatever you don’t pack is going in the trash.”

“Dad, please. Uncle Kuro-“ His breathing caught in his throat, and he choked on it. Tears filled his eyes and he tried viciously to blink them back. “He- I don’t like him. He makes me uncomfortable.”

“Having you in this house, in the same room as the twins, makes me uncomfortable.” Dad said glacially. “You should start packing. Kuro’s on his way and tomorrow, you’re out of here. You’re out of chances.”

The tears broke through and dad left to grab beer and meat for dinner. His mom reached across the table and held his hand. “… It wasn’t my idea.” When Miu looked up and held eye contact with her, he knew instantly that she understood why Miu didn’t like Uncle Kuro. Her usually vacant eyes were wet. “You’ll be ok. You’re strong.”

“No, I’m not.” Miu said snottily. The tears fell faster and faster until his face was soaked and his eyes were swollen and pink. “Why didn’t you fight for me?”

“I’m sorry, Miu.”

“I hate the name you gave me. It’s a girls name.” Miu sobbed. “Dad wanted to name me Masao. Why didn’t you let him?”

“… I thought it suited you.” Mom replied tearfully. “I still think it does. It… wasn’t her name, you know. Her name was going to be Yua. I didn’t give you her name, I swear.”

Miu just stood, and cried himself hoarse in his room until it was time for dinner.

Uncle Kuro joined them and, of course, looked like the cat who caught the canary. He drank and ate happily, his dad laughed along with him, while Miu and his mom remained solemn, and ate almost nothing. Miu despised how much he was like his mother most days, and especially right now.

“Hey, you’ll finally get your own room.” Uncle Kuro said, and Miu stared at him hollowly. “You can decorate it however you want. Hell, write on the walls for all I care. I own the place.” Kuro’s face was flustered from the alcohol and the sight made Miu unbearably queasy.

“See? I think you’ll be happier over there.” Dad said, leaning over to pinch Miu’s cheek briefly, and laugh. He was a happy drunk, at least. The cut on Miu’s lip stung. “This is a good thing. This is for your own good. You’ll adjust, and you’ll realize this was the right call.”

“Can I be excused?” Miu asked, looking at Uncle Kuro in his grinning face.

“You haven’t touched your plate…” His mom mumbled out sadly. She couldn’t drink, it didn't mesh well with her medication. 

Miu stood. “My stomach hurts. I’ll save the leftovers for the twins.”

But his dad and Uncle didn't notice as Miu cleared his plate straight into the trash, and pushed it down further with a napkin. 

He laid in bed, trying not to cry. His eyes were swollen and raw, his cheeks hurt, his brain was exhausted but restless. Everything that could’ve gone wrong did. He’d finally started succeeding in class and now, it didn't matter anyways. All because of a video he’d posted.

He got expelled over a video. Barely two minutes in length. An informational video about Stain, former vigilante, former hero student. All the world saw was a gruesome serial killer. They couldn’t see the truth; that Stain was cleansing the world with holy fire, purifying it. Just taking out the trash. 

He tried not to think about Uncle Kuro. About what living with him would mean. About the sultry glances, the suggestive lilt in his inquiries, his pinpoint description of his ideal woman, or the frequent, harmless touches. And now, he’d be home alone with the man every day after school. 

How was he supposed to survive this?

The night could’ve ended there and still been devastating. But the universe took the extra step just to really grind Miu’s helplessness into his eyes like broken glass. He was in his bed, under his pile of blankets, playing Tetris and sucking at it. 

When the door creaked open, and the smell of alcohol stung Miu’s nose instantly, his blood ran cold. 

“Hey, kid.” Uncle Kuro said quietly as he crept in, and closed the door behind him. Miu turned his phone off and pretended to be asleep. He even forced his lungs to do the deep, even breaths of an unconscious person, even though he wanted to hyperventilate. “Kid? You awake?”

No. Go away. Leave me alone. You make me uncomfortable.

Uncle Kuro didn’t hear Miu’s wordless pleas and continued to approach slowly, cautiously. A jaguar stalking delectable prey. Miu’s small bed creaked under Kuro’s weight as he sat down, and every blond hair on Miu’s body stood on end.

“You’re coming home with me tomorrow.” The odor of alcohol was impossibly more pungent with the proximity. A cold hand suavely pulled back the blankets and brushed Miu’s face, pushing his hair back, and Miu swallowed a fearful whimper. “Pretty thing. My dipshit brother doesn’t treat you right. I only put up with him for you, yanno. And your bitch mother… she looks at me like I’m the devil, sometimes.”

The springs creaked again when Kuro shifted, his weight fully unfurling across the mattress as he squished into bed beside Miu. He wanted to scream. If he hadn’t chased Isao and Giyu away, they would be here, and maybe this wouldn’t be happening. If he hadn’t posted that video, he wouldn’t have gotten expelled and if the world were kinder, he wouldn’t have made the video in the first place. So many ways to not end up here but the stars aligned in the most debasing way possible.

A long, curling hiss of an inhale. Miu tried not to shake. The man was smelling his hair.

“You feel so good against me. My ideal partner. Piece of shit always wants to know why I’m not married…” a soft, beer soaked laugh brushed across Miu’s nape. “It’s cos I want to marry your son, dickhead. Sometimes I mess around but nothing serious… I dunno. I just think you're hot.”

The metallic growl of a zipper dragging down. Miu opened his eyes and pleaded at the wall. Please, please, please, no. 

But no one listened. 

Uncle Kuro’s breathing picked up pace as the wet, vulgar sounds of him touching himself quickly filled the room. Eventually his arm looped around Miu’s waist and tugged him closer, until Miu could feel him beating off against the small of his back. Separated only by clothing and blankets. Until Kuro started to peel those away, layer by layer like dark rose petals splitting into a bloom, and rubbed up and down Miu’s shrunken, hairless stomach with his big, cold hand. Miu couldn’t see his eyes but could picture them vividly. Glacial blueness dripping with desire, with frothing want and perverse infatuation.

The spongy texture of the tip, and the hot, smooth flesh of the shaft rubbed along his spine every time Kuro thrusted deep into his fist. It was a revolting feeling. It was worse when Kuro abandoned his hand entirely, and began to rub off on Miu’s backside, his erection gliding along the back seam of his pajama shorts, and over the notch of his tail bone. 

And his bed began to rock. Gently, and quietly, so as not to alert his parents. It tapped the wall with every clumsy, drunken movement. Miu wanted to throw up. He wished he had eaten something so that he could.

“Almooost there,” Kuro drawled, voice taut and strained, “that’s my good, pretty Miu- so good and soft…"

The man tensed against him, and Miu tensed as well when hot seed shot across his lower back. Another shot blew higher, painted along his spine. Kuro’s hand returned to his cock and milked out the last of his orgasm, he rubbed the droplets off on the ass of Miu’s shorts, before exhaling a shuddering breath. 

Kuro laid his hand on his cheek—the same hand he’d just had on his dick. It wasn’t cold anymore, it was scathing with the heat of friction. He tugged Miu’s face towards his own and laid a wet kiss beside his slack jawed mouth. Gaping. Horrified. Violated. Eyes wide but vision blurry as he struggled to bring the fetid world around him into focus. “Get some sleep, Miu. We’ve got a big day tomorrow.”

Miu.

Miu.

Miu.

I hate that fucking name.

It’s revolting when you say it.

Foul, disgraceful name.

Miu.

When Kuro picked himself up and left, Mustard felt the already shattered disillusionment in his eyes get ground into glass dust. He, for a long while, thought about getting up, and finding some traffic to walk into, or a noose to wrap around his neck, so he wouldn't have to deal with the enormity of what just happened to him. But he realized when minutes passed that he couldn't move to do much of anything, and he felt like he was stuck pinned down to his bed like a butterfly on a cork board. Was he a pretty thing? Did needles belong in the delicate wings of pretty things like him? Maybe he was born just to be a melancholic ornament. Maybe he was born to be stuck. 

Trapped in his sullied body, Miu was only able to shake, and listen to the haunting howls of the sleeping adults in his home. Sleeping as he slowly fell apart. 

Chapter Text

Once again, Miu found himself feeling petrified, lost, trapped in a weak prison of a body. If he were Isao or Giyu, this never would’ve happened to him. If he were Nagai, he could fight back and things wouldn’t feel so endlessly hopeless and dreary. Every experience wouldn’t nail him in the gut with the bludgeoning force of a sledgehammer. Barely able to with his shaking hands, he picked a shirt up off the floor and wiped the rapidly cooling cum off of his back. He changed his clothes, but still felt disgusting—like a used tissue. Like a toilet.

On impulse, he grabbed one of Isao’s old duffel bags and started stuffing it full of essentials. Clothes, meager savings, toiletries, chargers and bus pass. Tears and snot leaked down his face in fat rivulets, painted his face until it looked like wetted marble. He had nowhere to go but sleeping on the streets would be preferable to enduring this hell.

Not hell as in flames because at least the flames would be warm as they cradled him. Hell as in the glacial look his dad gave him when he looked at Miu at all. Hell as in the abandoned playground where lessons were taught but never learned. Hell as in his only friend leaving him behind to pursue rotten heroism. Hell as in his uncle being the only one in his family who harbored even a sliver of affection for him.

Too much affection. Sensual affection. Putrid affection.

The waterworks cranked back on and Miu sniffed and hunched over the duffel. He had to leave. He had nowhere to go and no one to turn to…

Miu paused, looked with a watery gaze at his phone screen. He clicked on the only contact that ever reached out to him anymore. The one he’d heard radio silence from ever since he’d screamed at the hero student to get out.

Me: Can I stay over for a few nights?

Please. Please. I’m going to die here. I’m so useless at everything but you never seemed to think so. 

Give me one more chance, I’ll be good this time. I promise. 

Juu: ??

Me: I just need to get away. Really badly.

Juu: my dad doesnt let people stay over. Im sorry Miu.

Me: Can you talk to him? I wouldnt ask if it wasnt really bad. Im not safe. Please.

Juu: i promise, talking to him won’t change anything. I wish I could help. Do u wanna talk about it?

Me: no. Thanks for nothing.

Miu turned his notifications off, screamed a muted, grimacing scream through his gritted teeth, and continued stuffing his bag. His only friend? What a joke. Miu had cut him off for a reason. He was fucking useless. 

He, as a last resort, opened ‘Church of Stain’ and DMed Ikeda.

Masao: Weird question. Do you know anywhere in Taitou City that takes in run aways?

Ikeda: Huh. That is a weird question. 

Ikeda: Asking for a friend?

Masao: I don’t have friends. Im asking for me. If I don’t leave, I’m gonna die.

Ikeda: Sheesh.

Ikeda: Well. I actually have a proposition for you.

Masao: ??

Ikeda: My boss is an information broker, does odd jobs. He could use an errand boy. He’ll probably let you crash at his office if you do some favors for him here and there.

Masao: Favors?

Ikeda: He peddles drugs and illegal support equipment, weapons, whatever. Its shady business fs. But you seem kinda desperate.

Masao: Yeah I guess i am kinda desperate. 

Masao: Where does he work out of?

Ikeda: Yokohama. Can you get there on your own?

Masao: Yes. 

Ikeda: I’ll meet you at the train station. Hurry to catch the last one.

He left through his window, and did exactly that. This was how teenagers ended up on the sides of milk cartons but he didn’t even care. If he got murdered, if his organs ended up on the black market, anything would be better than this. He still heard Kuro’s sordid grunts. He still felt the warmth of his spend, the heat of his sex, and it made him want to break down. He didn’t only because his swollen eyes were red and cried out.

It wasn’t a long ride so he didn’t have much time to collect himself. To try and force his thoughts back into a state of cohesion, to get his nose to stop running, and to generally stop looking like such a doormat. 

When he stepped out into the heavy, humid night air, there was a lanky guy waiting leaned against a street light pole. His droopy eyes fixed on Miu and his pallid, wet looking face split in a smile.

“Masao?” Ikeda, Miu assumes, approached him and Miu realized he wasn’t just wet. He was covered in some sort of layer of slime. It dripped off of his neon green hair in fat dollops. “Funny. You’re about as short as you act.”

Miu glared coldly. “Really not in the mood.”

Ikeda laughed. “Sure you’re not. I told my boss about you. Aaaall about you, Momota Miu."

Miu froze and an icy sweat broke out all over his body. Ikeda just continued smiling an empty, mirthless grin. Miu realized that he met someone on the internet, someone he’d never met before and knew next to nothing about, and realized how big of a screw up this was. One of epic proportions, really. “I… How-“

“I vetted you for all those Stain servers. What can I say? I vet hardcore.” Ikeda took out a cigarette and offered Miu one, who looked at it uncertainly. But he took it out of the creeping nervousness suddenly infecting him like a vicious disease. “Anyway… Japan is a surveillance state. Let’s talk elsewhere.”

With great terror suddenly wracking his body, Miu climbed into a sleek gray car and clumsily smoked his cigarette, choking often, as Ikeda inhaled and exhaled smooth plumes of silver clouds. His hand hung out of the window as he zipped through the streets, into worse and worse areas until they rolled up to a shady looking building with a large, leering mutant stationed at the door. 

Ikeda pulled into a trash speckled alleyway beside the building, and then into a small parking lot behind it. “A’right. Put your game face on.”

“Whatever.” Miu muttered in a rasping voice from the cigarette, which he’d tossed out the window a while ago. 

“Hehe. You’re so funny.” Ikeda opened his door, and Miu followed suit, eyes downcast and trying to stop his hands from shaking. 

He was entering a lions den. He had no idea what kind of door he’d just opened. He was a twenty minute train ride away from his home, and he’d rather rip his own throat out than go back, but he still ached when he realized he couldn’t curl up under his covers anymore. Had he done that for the last time? Why was his last time of his self soothing behavior sullied by Kuro? Why was this world so harsh and jagged? 

“You look like you’re about to shit yourself.” Ikeda laughed. He was as lax and easy going as he was online, at least Miu could find some much needed familiarity in that. 

“I have no idea what’s happening.” Miu snarled and his shoulders folded in further as the mutant opened the door easily for him. Her face was gnarled with large, oni-like fangs, and her sneering eyes watched Miu with unabashed suspicion. “Of course- I’m… anxious.”

“More like scaaared.” Ikeda teased. “Maybe I was wrong about you. Maybe you’re a little bed-wetter with no backbone, who should just lay down and die in a puddle of peepee.”

“Shut-!” Miu fell silent as they exited a long, hollow hallway and turned into a well furnished office space stuffed with pungent smoke. At a rosewood desk, a man was sitting with one burner phone up to his ear, and another, sleeker device sat out in front of him. It was propped up against his computer, and a video was blasting across its screen. From sounds alone, Miu knew exactly what it was and melted as pale as a ghost.

It was his video. 

The viral video he made for Stain.

The man smiled a gap toothed grin at him and snapped the burner phone shut. 

“Heya. Come have a seat. I wanna have a chat with you, lil run away.”

Miu sat, and Ikeda stood near the door, mimicking his boss’s eerie expression. Subtly letting him know that he didn’t have a choice. He curled his hands in his lap, and swallowed hard. The weight of all his restless nights came crashing down on him, and made it impossible not to shake at least a little.

“… I need a place to stay.” Miu said, fighting to keep his voice steady, and the man cocked his head. 

“Yeah, I know. There's not much I don't know. I’m Giran.”

“… Momota.” Miu said quietly.

“Nu-uh. That won’t do.” Giran took a cigar out of his ashtray and took a long huff off of it, one that hollowed his cheeks and neck, then blew the smoke around his head in a semi-circle. It floated and squirmed around him like a ghostly, gray halo. “Not for what I’m offering. See, I looked into ya a bit. I got a bad feeling when I saw your brothers are heroes at U.A. Figured I might have a little rat trying to chew its way into my place.” Miu tensed. But Giran continued. “And then I dug some more, and found out- heh. You’ve been fucked over by hero society, haven’t you?”

Giran clicked on his computer and Miu’s own screams filled his ears. His eye twitched, and his hands shook harder, but not out of fear. The hot rage that filled every square inch of his small body was molten. He was so sick of hearing it, it turned his stomach.

His own voice, screaming that it wasn’t fair. That this was his last option. That he worked so hard, all for nothing? That he was born with this stupid quirk, and it wasn’t his fault that it was useless. That he never even wanted to be a hero, but he had to. He had to. He just- had to. 

“Yeah. It’s a hard watch, honestly. Makes me cringe.”

“Why do… why do you care?” Miu said, surprising himself with the growl building in his voice. “I failed six different hero school entrance exams. Do you think I’m pathetic?”

“I think yer a big fan of Stain cos ya have been shit on all yer life. Shit on by yer hero brothers, by yer parents, prolly, and everyone at school too. I can see it in yer eyes.” Giran leaned over his desk and smoke tore out of his nose, Miu shook harder. Trying, for once, to steel himself to fight back if he needed to. “And that useless quirk of yers… yanno, I think it’s kinda cool.”

Miu stiffened, and wet his lips. He averted his gaze to an empty, peeling wall. “Are you making fun of me?”

“Nah. Just cos yer not immune to it doesn’t make it any less cool. That’s an easy fix, partner. And more than that, I work with a guy who could really use a quirk like this. A guy named Shigaraki Tomura?”

Miu swallowed a squeak of shock, of fear. 

The leader of the League of Villains. 

“Wh-what does he want from me?” Miu asked, unable to mask his terror as his voice pitched. 

“Haha. Ikeda thought you might have what it takes to be a villain so I told Shigaraki about you. He wants you. Your quirk. Your power. Poison gas? It’s amazing, really.”

“My brother has it too.” Miu replied with disgust, Giyu’s haughty expression flashing through his head. “And he’s immune to it. I’m just a- worse version of him.”

“I don’t think so.” Giran said, smile still firmly seated on his mouth. “And, more than that… I don’t want ya as an errand boy. Too scrawny. But if you join the League of Villains, I’ll find ya somewhere to crash, consider it a form of payment. League of Villains pays me good money to sniff out fresh meat, and I either give new recruits a cut, or scratch their back. I’m a good guy like that.”

A good guy? Giran seemed like a crocodile waiting for Miu to dip his head too close to the watering hole. His eyes were beady and cold, just like Nagai’s. He stunk so strongly of nicotine, it was making Miu’s eyes water. 

But he stopped to consider everything being laid out before him. 

The League of Villains were interested in him? Because of his shitty, useless quirk nonetheless? His jaw would’ve hit the floor, if he weren’t so terrified of the implications of being on the radar of the most notorious group of criminals in the country. 

Stain was allied with the League of Villains. Stain, who was tearing hero society apart with his bare hands, Stain, who was keeping hero egos in check, Stain, who was performing a much needed cleanse on the rotten world they were all helplessly trudging through. 

Stain. His genocide on corruption was the only reason Miu even kept going some days. 

Would he follow Stain into places he wouldn't go, even with a loaded gun? 

In the notorious League of Villain's clutches?

Mustard didn't have to think much about that. Yeah, he would. 

If Stain ever returned from Tartarus… maybe he’d return to the League, and maybe Miu could meet him. Thank him. Pick his brain, or just… get to know him. He'd do anything for that opportunity. Even if there was only the slimmest chance of that ever becoming a reality.

“Do I have much of a choice?”

Giran hacked out a smokers laugh. “I don’t think you’d survive out there on the streets. Nah… you’d get snatched up in a minute flat. So, not really.”

“Then don’t give me the illusion of one.” Miu spat, and hunched over further. “I- accept. I want to join the League of Villains. To- continue Stain’s legacy. To hurt the heroes, in a way they will never recover for.” Throbbing flashes of hatred crackled through Miu’s diaphragm and he scowled. “To kill every stupid hero who stands in my way. They’re useless. They’re all- upholding a flawed system. Not a single one of them is innocent.”

Giran’s eyes glittered darkly. “That’s the spirit. Knew I was right about you. So… a name?”

Miu thought. He was four years old, and he didn’t remember much of his childhood, except the ache of constant, unending rejection, dark, tear filled eyes staring ahead in wounded dejection, and the sight of Isao’s dangerous quirk in action. They were playing in the woods in Kagushima while staying with extended family, the gnarled trees caging them in, and a mangy coyote was chasing Miu through the overgrown grass. He’d been warned not to go out, that a rabid animal was roaming around, dripping foam, acting strangely, and tearing small rodents to shreds but not eating them. 

The rabies had driven it mad and Miu was running, but madness could push even half dead creatures to their limits. Miu was sobbing grossly, barely able to see past the fat tears stinging his eyes. 

And then mist rolled through the woods, licking at Miu’s heels. He whipped his head around and a pale yellow cloud enveloped the canine, who had stopped, inhaled, and was now hacking wildly, trying in vain to eject the odorless mist from its lungs. Isao was standing behind the suffering animal, his young eyes hardened with a fierce determination, as the mist gushed from his fingertips. 

Miu watched in morbid amazement as the gas slowly killed the feeble creature. It was already on deaths door. Isao took it the rest of the way to the underworld. 

The hacking was now thick with dark blood, then the coyote was whimpering and screaming as crimson slobber dripped from its frothy maw. The coughing turned to vomiting, bloody puke ripping out from between its eroded teeth, then out of its black nose. And then diarrhea exploded from beneath its lowered, stick thin tail. The dog collapsed just like that, spewing rancorous filth from both ends, until its bony body finally fell limp. 

“I… think I like the name Mustard.” Miu… Mustard said. 

Mustard, as in his brother’s quirk. 

His brother used to not be a bastard. His brother saved him once, the way heroes are supposed to. But really, Mustard wanted to sully the word for his brother. Until he couldn’t use his quirk without thinking about the scrawny teenager he had countless opportunities to save and actively chose not to. 

“Interesting… sounds kinda silly. But hey, I’ve heard worse.” Giran put out his cigar. “Ya can crash here for tonight. Tomorrow… Ikeda takes ya on a field trip, little test of courage. And then ya meet the League. Understood?”

Field trip? Despite his trepidation, Mustard nodded and uncomfortably looked at the floor. He already knew that he was barely going to be able to sleep, and the fact that he’d be doing it here… he’d probably be so on edge that even a crickets chirp would make him jump and cower. 

“Oh, and another thing,” Giran held out his hand and loosely curled his fingers twice. “Phone. Give it here.”

Mustard’s brows knitted and his gut twisted. “Why-”

“Your folks may be a couple a’ assholes but they’re gonna try to track ya once they notice yer gone.” Giran said and Mustard scowled at how much sense that made. Giran smiled. “Maybe if I’m feelin nice, I’ll give it back when I’m done with it.”

Handing the man his phone felt like taking a large, terrifying leap. Into darkness. But it was a different type of darkness than he was used to. An even blacker void, but a promising one. 

Before Mustard’s hand could return to his lap, Giran’s other hand whipped out to grip it. Mustard froze, watched as the man brought Mustard’s hand to his mouth and… kissed it. Lips lingering a beat too long. Actually—any amount of time was too long for this strange mans lips to be on Mustard’s skin. 

“Happy ta do business with ya, sweetheart.” He smirked while Mustard watched with saucered eyes and a slackened jaw.

Something about this entire arrangement was strange, and unsettling. Mustard had plenty of time to mull it over as he curled up the couch in Giran’s office, and fought to catch some precious Z’s. He was covered in a blanket from home that was thick and soft and kept him reasonably warm. But he still missed his large thicket of blankets he kept layered on his bed. 

When did Ikeda tell Giran about him? What made him think he even wanted to be apart of the League of Villains? He admired Stain, and Stain’s work. But he didn’t for a second ever think he had what it took to be anything like his idol. He had pipe dreams, sure, about wielding a sword and donning a mask just like him. But the League of Villains was terrifying to him. Stain only killed heroes—The League killed whoever stood in their way.

Isn’t that admirable, too? A rotten voice in his head hissed. They do whatever they want. And that could be you. 

Then, Mustard was caught in a downward spiral as he considered what it was that he wanted. He wanted the heroes to feel fear as real and prickly as the pelt of terror he existed under everyday. He wanted everyone in his life to feel stupid for tormenting him. And… he wanted the world to change. 

Why was a hero the most desirable thing to be, when it was full of such intense corruption? When it was an objectively bad job, the garbagemen of the world, who faced the worst humanity had to offer and sometimes didn’t make it out alive, and still were expected to smile?

He really did try to sleep. His eyes were swollen and tender, his body and mind were similarly exhausted, he still felt the scorching weight of Kuro’s hands and sex on him. The most reasonable thing to do would be to sleep it all off. 

“Can’t sleep?”

Mustard startled as his eyes found Ikeda skulking around by the door like a dark, lanky shadow. 

“I didn’t know you were still here.” Mustard muttered. 

“Eh. Figured I’d hang around. Keep my eye on you.” Ikeda approached slowly, with the caution of a cat. One foot in front of the other. He flicked on the dim light on his way over, and Mustard took a moment to fully absorb his appearance. He was junkie thin with baggy clothes that hung off of him. His layer of slime made him look like glossy, lacquered furniture. He was the same shade of homebody pale that Mustard was. He had a decent bone structure that could've made him an everyday ikemen, but his quirk still made him look… pretty bizarre. “I’ll be pissed if you scurry back to your little burrow, bunny.”

Mustard shot him a disgruntled look. “I already told you, didn’t I? I’m not safe there.”

“Are you more safe here?” Ikeda inquired. He sat on the arm of the couch and pulled a knee up and into his chest. “I’m curious. Did something happen?”

“Yeah.” Mustard said with vitriol. “My parents are useless, and they wanted to send me off to live with my pervy uncle. I got expelled after posting the Stain video.”

Ikeda’s dark eyes minutely widened. “Ah. Yeah, that’ll do it. Well, anyway, I thought the League of Villains might find you useful. Young, impressionable hero hater with a long range quirk.”

“What if I don’t-“

“Well, good thing you don’t have a choice.” Ikeda grinned widely, maniacally. “You complain about everything. Now, you have the opportunity to change it all. If you can stop being a quivering pussy for more than five minutes at a time, of course.”

“I’m not-“

“Yeah you are.” Ikeda interjected seamlessly, leaning further back and observing Mustard from the corner of his eye. “It’s shitty no one helps you. But you don’t help yourself, either. That era, of trembling and crying and shitting yourself every time someone says a mean word to you, it’s over. Capiche?”

“Why the hell do you care whether or not I’m a pussy?!” Mustard snapped, humiliated heat flooding into his head, his already swollen, bloodshot eyes feeling even heavier in his skull.

“‘Cos you’re my friend.” Ikeda said simply. When he smiled, Mustard noticed he had tiny silver brackets glued to his teeth. Braces. Huh. “I don’t wanna be friends with some pants pissing loser. And I figure… if I’d hate to have a friend like that, you probably hate the feeling of living like that. Weak, pummeled by the world, cowering because no one taught you how to fight back.”

“And the League of Villains will change that?”

Ikeda cackled. “Heh, those stupid screw ups couldn’t change a caterpillar into a butterfly. The field trip we’re taking tomorrow will teach you all you need to know about standing up for yourself. Not letting the world kick your teeth in all the time. You should try to get some sleep.”

“I really, really can’t…” Mustard bemoaned, knowing he’d feel like a newly born man if he could just close his eyes and dream of nothing. 

Ikeda cocked his head and dug in his pocket. Suddenly, his laid back, carefree demeanor made a lot of sense as his spindly, pale hands smoothly lit a joint. Ikeda held it between his lips and took a long drag, then let silvery plumes of smoke roll out of his mouth and nose. He repeated the inhale happily, then he offered it to Mustard, who made a petrified face. “It’ll help you sleep. Promise.”

Mustard had never smoked weed before. Not for lack of interest, because anything that forbidden and criminalized was inherently interesting. He just didn’t run in the right circles to have access to stuff like that. He shot another uncertain look at Ikeda, before pinching the joint and putting it to his lips before he could think better of it, because if he thought too much about it, he’d talk himself out of it, fear and helplessness keeping him shackled. 

The smoke was inferno hot as he pulled it into his lungs, and it tasted earthy, and harsh. Somehow thicker feeling than trying his first cigarette just hours earlier. 

He sputtered out a few gray clouds and felt his already dry eyes get dryer. He stuck his tongue out. “Elch- it tastes awful.”

“You won’t mind in like five minutes.” Ikeda assured, taking the joint back to take a long, blissful looking drag, and handing the joint back to Mustard. 

Who, even though he was starting to feel an enormous tugging sensation covering his body like a weighted blanket, took two more, much slower and less frenzied inhales off of the joint. He realized this time that the joint was wet, and his lips were tingling. His eyes roamed back over Ikeda’s face as his mouth stayed perpetually split in a lopsided grin, linked together with several shimmering strands of that strange sheen he secreted. 

“What’s your quirk?” Mustard asked and Ikeda took a drag off the joint, before tapping the cherry off of it and onto the table he had his feet kicked up on, then spitting the ember out. And Mustard’s eyes clung to every second of that sequence of enamoring motions. Everything felt so interesting.

“Poison Slime. Gross, huh?” Ikeda asked, then pointed to his longish, shaggy hair. “It builds in my hair, for whatever reason?”

“Poison?” Mustard asked, and knew well that poison was an ambiguous word that could mean a lot of things. A lot of symptoms. 

“It’s not gonna kill you, or make your lips fall off. It’s more of a mild downer, with some reports of hallucinations.” 

“... I’m going to fucking hallucinate?” Mustard asked, feeling his face instantly grow pale and clammy. Or, paler and clammier than usual. 

Ikeda laughed. “No, but you look like you’re about to pass out. See? I told you it’d help you sleep.”

“... Holy shit, you are a jerk.” Mustard finally said only after a stunned silence had built up. He briefly buried his face in his hands, then dragged them down, tugging on his eyelids to expose the pink inner tissue. “I feel kinda like I’m melting. Is that your quirk?”

“No, that’s the pot, dweeb. My quirk really doesn’t do much.” Ikeda said. 

“Augh. Christ.” Mustard pushed himself deep into the cushions and furrowed his brow as he struggled to collect his thoughts, that were floating away like seeds being blown off a dandelion. “I can barely think.”

“That’s the point, smart guy, hehe.” 

“Well, it’s annoying.” Mustard snapped, and Ikeda took that as an invitation to light up, take a few drags, and pass it straight to Mustard. Who, although he was unsettled at how out of control he felt, was also interested in all of this and took the offered hit. He was interested the same way he had always been interested in stuff like this. In taboo things, that disturbed or repulsed some people, that Mustard studied with keen interest. The same way he was interested in Stain, and all of his beautiful violence. Yeah, violence had screwed Mustard at every turn; he licked his split lip. But Stain's violence, there was something sacramental and pure about it. Everyday, he was baptized anew by the blood of slain heroes... Stain, drenched in hot, red holy water, licking it off of his katana- 

“Ohhhh. You’re blasted.” Ikeda said and Mustard tried to shoot him a confused look, but he wasn’t sure if he fumbled it or not. He just felt so uncoordinated and he felt like he was blinking in slow motion, even though he desperately needed to blink because his eyes were so red- “Stop, this is so funny!”

“Why are you such a bastard?” Mustard gritted, but also had to acknowledge—he felt the sinking feeling that he was about to get the best sleep of his life. His head was full of such useless, light hearted thoughts, there was simply no room for the overwhelmingly dark ones he was usually plagued with. It was nice, but… an adjustment. “Why- are you friends with me?”

“Huh? I think you’re funny.” Ikeda replied, then inhaled another lungful. “I dunno. Why are you compliment fishing?” 

“Whatever. You’re impossible.” Mustard rolled his eyes and started getting comfortable. 

Ikeda stood and ruffled Mustard’s hair on his way up. “Get all rested up for our field trip. I think you’ll have a blast.” 

But he couldn’t deny a nagging sensation in his stomach. Something that wasn’t hunger, but was as gnawing as it. 

Something he didn’t spend a whole lot of time thinking about, because he just didn’t have energy to spare on worthless hyper critical thoughts that’d accumulate if he allowed himself to think about something so mundane and natural to most people. He felt a spark of arousal pulse through his stomach, up into his chest, into his throat and tongue. 

He thought of Stain, his tall, muscular body, battle scarred face, and viciously glaring eyes. This wasn’t unusual for Mustard. But this was also different, so much more vivid, so much more invigorating. He wanted to be able to smell the hot odor of blood and sweat caked on the man’s lean, well chiseled figure. And Christ, the sight of Stain’s battle wrapped fists tightened around the hilt of his sword during his fight in Hosu…

Would Stain find him worthy? He’d probably think of Mustard as the same spineless twerp everyone else saw him as. 

Maybe… Miu was a coward. But Mustard could become someone his idol wouldn’t find completely pathetic.

On that note, Mustard stuck his hand down his pants with giddy, high delight, and passed out into a dreamless sleep not long after.