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Kirishima Eijirou likes to think that he is strong.
It’s his whole thing, isn’t it? Being manly. Being a protector. Being a hero.
He knows that he is physically strong. He doesn’t go to the gym every other day for nothing — Eijirou can bench press his bodyweight and then some. And with his quirk, he’s so strong it feels impossible; nothing can touch him when he’s unbreakable. He is a shield. He is stone. He is, by definition, strong.
But he has a secret: he isn’t strong. Not at all.
Kirishima Eijirou is secretly a coward.
He is, actually, so pathetic it’s funny. Ironic, in a way. He’d laugh if it didn’t hurt so terribly.
Because, down to his core, he is scared. When it comes to fight or flight, Eijirou freezes. He does not move. He does not save. He is not a hero.
It’s gut wrenching, really — that no matter how hard he tries, he cannot shake off the fear that grips his heart. He wants, more than anything else, to be strong enough to charge in headfirst without a second thought. He has the perfect quirk to run into danger, guns blazing, unable to be damaged. But it’s wasted on him. Eijirou wants nothing more than to help people, but the second he gets a chance to, his traitorous body refuses to move.
Maybe that’s why he was so drawn to Midoriya Izuku on the first day of school.
Eijiou knew immediately that the boy with green hair was meant to be a hero. He knew it when he saw the newspaper talking about a villain made of sludge, and he knew it when a girl with rosy cheeks thanked him right as he walked into the classroom for saving him from a zero-pointer during the entrance exam.
There’s something about Midoriya that’s hard to name. It permeates the air around him, like an aura of grass and lightning. If one looked at Midoriya they would think: that is a scared kid. That is a kid who trembles at the world.
And they wouldn’t be wrong, not exactly. Midoriya comes into UA hunched over and quiet, curled into himself as if he could become unnoticeable. Like if he tries hard enough, he’ll disappear somewhere safe. Eijirou notices, though. He thinks he might be the only one. No one else seems to be aware of the way his hands shake when a teacher calls on him, or how he breathes a little faster in crowded spaces. Eijirou doesn’t know why someone so great is so filled with nerves, but he does know that anxiety doesn’t discriminate.
But he sees what everyone else sees, too — the version of Midoriya that charges into battle headfirst with the intention only to save. Below the fear, there is a creature made of pure force of will, that will stop at nothing except death. And, maybe even then, it would still carry on.
Eijirou can see it: Midoriya Izuku is made of brittle bones and unwavering determination.
Midoriya Izuku is a hero.
Midoriya Izuku does not recognize his own worth.
Kirishima Eijirou thinks that Midoriya might be the strongest person he’s ever met.
Underneath the layers of heroism and self doubt, there is a fundamental misunderstanding of how appreciated Midoriya is.
He doesn’t think Midoriya knows just how much people care about him, and that might be the worst crime of all. He acts as though his self worth is tied to how many people he saves, like if he’s not a hero he’s dirt under their shoes.
Eijirou thinks — no, he knows that Midoriya is worth far more than that. Nearly everyone in their class would jump off a cliff if he so much as asked nicely. Which leaves Eijirou with the question: why? Why is someone so wonderful filled with sorrow? How could the world beat down such a bright soul as it has?
But most importantly: why does nobody see Midoriya’s struggle when it’s so easy to just look?
It doesn’t start as anything big.
It never does. It begins as small greetings in the mornings and high fives during paired exercises in heroics class. It’s so small, at first, that Eijirou doesn’t notice the little flutter of his heart whenever Midoriya looks his way. And when he eventually does notice, he locks it away in the back of his mind, where not even he can reach it.
Because Eijirou is a coward, he does not confront the piece of him that does cartwheels when Midoriya smiles, just as he doesn’t confront Bakugou and his harsh words towards Midoriya. He hears the name Deku, and wonders how anyone could call Midoriya useless when he does more for their class than anyone else. Midoriya is, if nothing else, an overachiever.
Midoriya brings Kaminari fidget toys when he notices the blond struggles to focus, carries around nausea pills for Uraraka and Aoyama, and always has heat packs for Asui when she gets too cold and ice packs for Iida when his engines overheat. He pays attention to the little details, the finer parts of people that tend to remain unseen. He even seems to know when their teachers are having bad days, and responds accordingly with coffee or jokes or raising his hand more during class.
Midoriya could probably take over the world with how observant and smart he is, but he instead uses that intelligence to make people smile.
That just makes Eijirou respect him even more.
Eijirou watches Midoriya break himself apart, bone by bone, just to help someone a little.
His fingers are a darker purple than ever before as he shouts at Todoroki words that are lost amongst the cheering from the stands.
Todoroki bursts into flame, and the sports festival arena explodes, and Eijrou thinks that the teachers playing referee probably should have stopped the match when Midoriya was mangling his hands beyond repair. Instead, the people gasp in equal amounts awe and terror as two burning stars collide.
“Did he just… get Todoroki to use his fire?” Ashido asks beside him, staring in disbelief along with the rest of the class.
“I think so,” Sero replies, with some mix of respect and fear in his voice.
They watch as Midoriya collapses on live television with a smile on his face and blood on his arms. Todoroki is declared the winner and Yaoyorozu is the first to speak. “He really is something else.”
Eijirou can’t help but agree. He could search the entire globe and never find another person so wholeheartedly good as Midoriya is.
Midoriya leaves little pieces of himself in every person he meets.
He freely gives and gives and gives, ready to help whoever he sees fit. When Midoriya comes into class a little worse for wear one day, Eijirou can’t help but notice nobody says anything. There are no questions of how he is, no shows of extra support when he nearly nods off in the middle of English class. Despite his state, Midoriya still gives the utmost care to his friends.
And, because Eijirou is a coward, he says nothing either.
After the Kamino incident, the invisible weight on Midoriya’s shoulders grows heavier. It weighs him down a little more, and still, Eijirou is the only one who notices.
With the addition of the dorms, Midoriya’s tiredness only becomes more obvious. Eijirou doesn’t know if it’s from the mental stress of the kidnapping, or All Might’s retirement, or even the slightly resigned way he had told Eijirou that he’s the only one Bakugou would listen to.
But even still, Midoriya shines through it all like the sun. He stays bright and supports everyone as much as he possibly can, glueing them all back together with the precision of a surgeon.
Eijirou can’t help but wonder if Midoriya has anyone piecing him back together, too.
Eijirou likes to go to the gym on the weekends. He spends longer than he usually would, because it’s just so calming to space out while running on the treadmill or doing crunches. It makes him stronger (the physical kind, not in the way he really wants) and half the time one of his friends is there, too. It is, overall, a good experience and every time he leaves he’s counting the hours until he can go back.
It’s a few days after they learned about work studies and got their asses kicked by the blond third year that Eijirou returns to the dorms to Midoriya leaning against the kitchen counter.
The class litters the main floor, with Yaomomo tutoring Jirou and Hagakure at one of the tables, and Shinsou taking a nap on the couch while a few others are watching some animated movie at a quiet volume. Midoriya is the only one in the kitchen, scrolling on his phone with one hand holding his head up.
He’s the first to notice Eijirou’s return, green curls bouncing as his head snaps up. “Kiri!”
A bright smile takes over his face and he straightens out his posture, phone forgotten on the countertop. He’s wearing a light blue shirt that says ‘shirt’ in English across the chest and baggy sweatpants. His compression sleeve covers one of his upper arms, and he’s definitely talking, and Eijirou is definitely not listening. At all.
Eijirou is far too captivated by the excited way he speaks, how his eyes seemingly light up and his hands move about in the air. It’s always incredible to watch how animated Midoriya gets when talking about his passions. Much too often he’s witnessed from afar his friends brush him off when his muttering gets a little too quick to fully comprehend — Eijirou never says anything, because it’s not really his place (and he’s a coward). Midoriya never seems too put out about it, like he’s just used to being ignored, and, really, that’s the worst part of it all.
“Kiri? Are you alright?”
He blinks back into existence from his Midoriya-induced trance. “Huh?”
“You spaced out there,” Midoriya’s beautiful smile turns into a worried frown. This is a tragedy, Eijirou decides.
“Sorry, just a bit tired from training. What were you saying?”
“Oh, um,” He stutters, “I finished the book you lent me. About retired heroes.” Midoriya holds out the book Eijirou had failed to notice on the counter next to him. The bright yellow cover is worn and folded, but Eijirou’s pretty sure that damage is from his own readings. In fact, it looks more pristine than it had before Midoriya borrowed it.
Eijirou grins. “Dude! What did you think?”
“It was great! I see why you like it so much. I hope you don’t mind, but I wrote some of my thoughts down on sticky notes and put them on the pages. And I know that Crimson Riot is your favorite, so I read that section three times and would love to talk about it with you.”
It is at this moment that Eijirou realizes he is completely, hopelessly in love with Midoriya Izuku, and will probably never recover.
The look on Midoriya’s face when Nighteye explains their run in with the little girl is only describable as intense, burning frustration. Both at Overhaul, and turned inward at himself. Eijirou understands it — the helpless, crushing feeling of not doing enough.
And he understands it even more when everything Eri is going through is laid out on the table. God, it’s heartbreaking.
After the meeting between agencies on the train back to UA, Eijirou wants to offer support. He wants to give words of comfort; we’ll save her soon, you did everything right, it’s not your fault. But he doesn’t say anything at all. Not because he is a coward, this time, but because he knows no amount of condolences could help up against this.
Instead, Eijirou walks a little closer to Midoriya than he usually would, and bumps their shoulders together in some attempt to just let him know that he isn’t alone. Eijirou thinks it works, because Midoriya walks a little closer, too.
The amount of determination in the group of heroes for the raid is probably enough to power all of Tokyo for a month straight.
From Aizawa-sensei to Fatgum to Nighteye, everyone is dead set on saving Eri from the nightmare she’s living in. Eijirou feels far more angry than he does afraid, for once in his life, and wants to storm the yakuza compound immediately and disregard waiting for a signal. He remains patient, though, because Midoriya looks ten times as anxious as he does and isn’t charging in headfirst.
It goes well, at first. Ryukyu’s team and the police handle the front while the rest of them follow Nighteye through the secret entrance until the walls start rebelling and gravity turns sideways.
And then everything goes to shit, really.
Amajiki is left behind, and Eijirou’s sure he can handle himself, but it still unsettles him. Eijirou finally moves in the face of danger for once but he can’t even do that right — he just got in the way of Fatgum trying to protect Aizawa. And then there’s the asshole with the shields and the other asshole that wants to fight to the death. Eijirou barely puts a scratch on them, but he’s pretty sure he bought enough time for Fatgum to beat them as he uselessly passes out from quirk exhaustion.
It’s not until he wakes up later in the hospital that he learns what went down.
Mirio lost his quirk, which is terrifying, and Nighteye’s on his deathbed with maybe twelve hours left to live, which is awful. But they got Eri out, and Eijirou might have teared up a little when he was told. He asks about Midoriya — of course he does — and is surprised to hear that he sustained barely any injuries.
Once he’s cleared to move and has the most restrictive of his bandages off, he immediately heads towards where Midoriya is being kept for observation. He knocks on the door and enters when he hears a faint come in.
“Midoriya?” He says, cautiously, “Hey, dude.”
“Hi, Kiri,” Midoriya says, but it’s lacking his usual enthusiasm. There are dark circles under his eyes.
Eijirou sits on one of the chairs next to Midoriya’s bed. “How are you holding up?”
“I’m alright. Eri’s quirk kept me from getting too hurt.” He doesn’t look at Eijirou’s face. His hands fidget in his lap and Eijirou knows that he is definitely not alright.
He pulls one leg onto the chair to rest his chin on. “Yeah? What’s her quirk?” He asks, knowing that talking about quirks is a good way to get Midoriya in a better mood. Instead of lighting up like Eijirou expected, Midoriya seems to dim even more and shrink into himself.
“It’s rewind,” He says quietly, “She can turn things back. She kept me from getting too injured while I fought Overhaul.”
“That’s a great quirk! She could help so many people with it.”
“It is. She—” Midoriya’s breath hitches. He bites his lip nervously, and Eijirou wants to hug him and squeeze out all of the sadness. “She thinks it’s a curse, Kiri. She thinks she’s bad.”
Eijirou instinctively reaches out to grab Midoriya’s hand in an attempt to comfort him. “She’s out now, Midoriya. We can make sure she never thinks like that again.” This seems to be the wrong thing to say, because tears start to slowly trickle down Midoriya’s cheeks. Eijirou internally panics until he speaks again, voice cracking.
“She was so scared. I just — I should have done more. I should have gotten to her sooner.”
“Don’t say that. You did everything you could. You saved her in the end,” Eijirou squeezes Midoriya’s hand, “You’re her hero, Midoriya.”
At this, Midoriya bursts into full, Midoriya-style tears and throws himself at Eijirou for a hug. He buries his face into Eijirou’s shoulder, and he can’t find it in himself to be upset about how damp his shirt gets. He holds Midoriya as he sobs and shakes and thinks that Midoriya hasn’t cried like this in a very long time. Eijirou also thinks that he would hold Midoriya through his tears a hundred times over and let him ruin all of his nicest shirts with snot.
Eventually, Midoriya pulls away. “Thank you,” he whispers, avoiding eye contact.
“Any time,” Eijirou replies, equally as quiet. He brushes the last of the tears off of Midoriya’s cheeks and Midoriya leans into the touch.
“Hey, Kiri?”
Eijirou looks up from where he sits across the table, homework spread around them. “Yeah?”
“Your roots are growing out,” Midoriya says, “Do you need help re-dying your hair?”
He does not. He’s become incredibly skilled at dying his hair on his own. Eijirou likes to quietly sing along to his favorite music in the bathroom in the middle of the night when he touches up his roots.
“Sure,” Eijirou replies, “Help would be nice.”
Eijirou can’t help but notice the way Midoriya’s hands shake nonstop while he slathers red dye onto Eijirou’s hair. Midoriya’s gaze is focused solely on his task while Eijirou watches him in the reflection from the mirror. He’s wearing an old blue shirt that’s covered in stains from previous attempts at fixing his hair. Quiet music plays in the background, echoing softly off the bathroom tile.
The feeling of someone else’s hands running through his hair is possibly one of the best things Eijirou’s ever felt. The fact that the hands are Midoriya’s is irrelevant.
Unfortunately, all good things come to an end, and his hair is fully lathered in red goop. Eijirou excuses himself to take a shower, and is surprised to see Midoriya still in his dorm at Eijirou’s desk when he returns. “Midoriya?”
“You’re back!” Midoriya shoots up from the chair, “Sorry, I wanted to see your hair dried. I hope I did a good job.”
“You did great!” Eijirou’s hair is fully dried, courtesy of the old hair dryer Mina gave to him when she got a fancier one from her parents. He usually doesn’t use it, but he figured it would be best to make sure no dye gets on anything other than his designated shirt and towel.
A grin lights up Midoriya’s face. “I’m glad! You, um, your hair looks really nice down. Without the gel, I mean. Not that it looks bad with it! It’s just— just different, in a good way.”
“Oh,” Eijirou blinks, sure his face turns the same shade as his hair. “Thank you, I mean.”
They spend a minute just… looking. Eijirou wouldn’t call it staring — staring is rude. This is more of a soul-searching kind of thing where Eijirou gazes deep into Midoriya’s endlessly green eyes, and can see all the little pieces of Midoriya in the various shades. It’s cheesy and cliche, but Eijirou thinks that he could look into his eyes for the rest of forever and never get bored. Eventually, though, Midoriya’s phone chimes and he takes his leave, promising to return another day to hang out.
Eijirou watches the door close behind him and decides he’ll wear his hair down more often.
Eijirou firmly believes that Midoriya Izuku is too good for this world. It is a day like any other when he thinks this, not for the first time and surely far from the last.
Midoriya carries himself into the classroom like his body is a little heavier than it was yesterday, and his hands shake so hard that he struggles to write things down. During break he asks Iida to borrow his notes, and Eijirou watches as Iida reprimands him for not paying attention rather than asking what’s wrong. It makes a little piece of Eijirou’s heart shift.
So, he does what any normal person would do — he creates a second set of notes (that are considerably more understandable than the first), tears them out of his notebook, and hands them to Midoriya during lunch. “Oh!” He says, blinking at the papers in surprise.
Eijirou runs off to his own table before Midoriya can ask questions or insist Eijirou takes them back.
The problem is, really, that nobody seems to be aware of the effect their words have on Midoriya.
“I can’t even understand your mumbles,” Uraraka tells him.
“You know everything about every hero ever, it’s kinda creepy,” Kaminari says.
“You’re not focused enough, Midoriya!” Iida scolds.
Every word looks like it crushes Midoriya’s spirit a little more, even the ones not intended to hurt. Especially the simple, offhandedly-made comments about how much he talks or his enthusiasm. Eijirou watches the way Midoriya deflates a little, and loses some of the excitement that lights up his eyes. Each time it goes unnoticed by the speaker, by everyone but Eijirou.
It’s not hard to see. Eijirou doesn’t understand how nobody else notices, when Midoriya doesn’t even try to hide it. Or maybe they do, and they’re all cowards, too scared to say something — just like Eijirou.
It is with this thought that Eijirou decides that he, for once, is going to be brave. Because Midoriya deserves that much, at least.
“Hey, Mido, what are you doing down here so late?”
Eijirou enters the common room in the middle of the night, searching for the cure to his insomnia. It’s not often he has sleepless nights, rare enough that he hasn’t figured out a solution to them yet aside from wandering the house and praying he’ll pass out standing up. It’s the first night so far in the dorms that sleep has eluded him.
“Oh, Kiri,” Midoriya startles, looking up from his seat on the couch, pausing whatever he’d been watching on the TV. It looks like some sort of All Might documentary, which is very on brand. “Couldn’t sleep.”
Eijirou flops down on the couch next to him. “Me neither, man.”
Midoriya hums and wordlessly plays the documentary, leaving them to sit in their shared sleepless misery. Eijirou doesn’t pay much attention to the video, never one to be very entertained by informational media, and instead watches Midoriya from the corner of his eye. Usually, Midoriya would be staring with rapt interest at anything including the former number one hero, but even in the dim light Eijirou can tell he’s lost in his own head.
He wonders what’s kept Midoriya awake. General insomnia? Nightmares? Eijirou knows that Midoriya has plenty of things to have nightmares about. More by far than he should. He wants to ask, but he knows when it’s best not to pry. The TV drones on in the background about America and costumes and other things he doesn’t listen to.
“Do you…” Midoriya starts after an undetermined amount of quiet, “Do you think I’m strong, Kiri?”
Eijirou blinks. “The strongest,” he answers without hesitation, “I don’t think I could name anyone stronger, even if I went through every person in the world.”
It’s a crime, he thinks, for Midoriya to be filled with self doubt. Midoriya — the strongest, purest, most incredible person Eijirou’s ever known — doesn’t know how good he is. He finds that he wants to take anyone who’s ever said otherwise, tie them to a chair, and play a slideshow of every good thing Midoriya’s done ever. And then beat them up a little, maybe. Just for good measure.
“How can you be sure?” Midoriya asks, voice weak.
The voice of the narrator drones on in the distance, slow and boring. Eijirou, for all his pining, for all his waxing poetic, is rather speechless. Because there’s so many things that make Midoriya good, lots of small details and big actions that add up into the person Midoriya is. He can’t condense it all into a single sentence, because that would be downplaying just how strong Midoriya is. There aren’t enough words in the dictionary to convey it all. It may be the sleep deprivation talking, but he swears Midoriya leans a little closer in anticipation.
“It’s… not just one thing. It’s like, in your bones, dude.”
“The bones I break all the time?”
“Yeah, man, especially those ones. You wrecked your body and still keep going. That’s strong as hell.” Eijirou says.
Midoriya still seems doubtful, so Eijirou keeps talking. “Not even just like, physically— don’t get me wrong, you have crazy muscles, but also your brain. Like how you smile when Eri talks about Overhaul and take care of everyone even when you’re having a bad day.”
“Oh,” Midoriya whispers. A tear rolls down his cheek, reflecting the light of the TV, and Eijirou doesn’t resist the urge to wipe it away with careful fingers.
Now that he’s started, Eijirou can’t keep his mouth shut. All the things he’s been thinking and noticing come tumbling out before he can stop them. “You’re so good, Midoriya. You just give and give, even when you have nothing left. I think even if you were starving, you’d give someone else your last piece of food. Anyone who can’t see that is stupid.”
“You’re— you’re strong too, Kiri, so strong,” Midoriya’s breath hitches.
Eijirou refuses to accept it, for a moment. Midoriya, of all people, calling a coward like him strong? “Midoriya—”
“Izuku,” He interrupts, “Call me Izuku. Please.”
“Okay,” Eijirou says, because he couldn’t deny Izuku of anything if he tried. “Then you call me Eijirou.” He’s losing it, he thinks, he’s hallucinating from his lack of sleep. Izuku leans in a little closer with wet eyes and a small smile on his face. Eijirou’s probably crying, too.
“Thank you, Eijirou.” He kisses the corner of Eijirou’s mouth softly, like Eijirou could fall apart, like he’s something breakable and not made of stone.
Eijirou can’t help but believe that maybe he is a little strong, a little less of a coward, when Izuku says it with so much conviction etched on his face.