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After Izuku graduated from UA alongside the rest of the class who would forever be known as 1-A, he left Japan.
Katsuki often still didn't know what to do with himself. They had always been a pair, inseparable in their youth and the wonder duo in their later years.
He respected Izuku’s decision, he really did, unlike America where he went to follow in All Might's footsteps, there wasn't culturally room for another quirkless hero in Japan.
That didn't change the fact that he left, though.
Katsuki glances back at his agency behind him, back lit by the glowing sun.
In hopes of removing himself from the past, Izuku had nearly entirely cut off contact with those from Japan. Not that Katuski necessarily wanted to see him.
He didn't want to see how Izuku had changed in their years apart, he didn't want to see how time had begun to wear away at Izuku. He didn't want to see how much his other half had diverged from the path that once belonged to them both.
1-A would be having a reunion soon and Izuku had never indicated if he would be returning for the event or not.
He opens up the door to his childhood home, the smell of katsudon wafting through the air due to Auntie Inko's presence in the home that night.
That wouldn't ever change. Nothing relating to Izuku ever would, not as long as they remained apart.
There’s a ritual to the way Shouto ends his days now that Izuku is well and truly gone.
It doesn’t matter what time it is when he finally makes it home to his apartment made cozy with knickknacks his friends keep dropping off.
Everything follows a very strict schedule that soothes something missing within him that feels like it’s now a plane ride away.
He finishes his shift in varying stages of injured depending on the day and drops his costume off with the maintenance department where it will be checked, cleaned, and fixed as needed before being replaced in his locker for tomorrow. Next is his shower, shorter or longer per day depending on exactly how much blood or grime he needs to scrub away. Last he heads for the medbay where he is checked over, bandaged up as needed, and sent on his merry way.
Once home he always settles on the couch first, a warm microwave meal on his lap that he may or may not finish as he scrolls on his tablet for any and all mentions of Izuku.
Has he learned to read and navigate American social media platforms in English solely so he can internet stalk his best friend? Yes. Yes he has.
He starts with the hero tags first, checking for battles and televised interviews and if he actually finds anything he immediately forwards it to Tsuyu with an annotated translation that he quickly types up for her.
No one else ever wants to hear about his findings aside from Tsuyu and honestly Shouto doesn’t really understand it. It’s like they’re content to keep his memory as it was, unchanging with the passage of time if they don’t look into him at all.
That’s not Shouto’s style nor has it ever been.
He’s methodical, inquisitive, with a never ending thirst for understanding. The curiosity of what’s going on with Izuku would eat him alive if he didn’t take the time to feed it himself. Tsuyu seems much the same.
As for the rest?
Sometimes it feels like they’d rather he never come back if only so they don’t have to face how much he’s changed.
Toshinori is aimless now. For so long, he'd committed his life only to training Izuku and ensuring that his successor was as strong and well as possible.
Ever since he'd given up One for All, that was all he'd been able to do. He taught and passed his knowledge along to the youth so that they could also be heroes.
And then Izuku graduated.
And then Izuku left Japan.
His boy didn't cut contact completely, Toshinori still heard small snippets of daily life from Inko, but it was never anything significant.
It was never anything enough to make it seem as though Izuku had even so much as changed despite the time passing.
For as long as Izuku wasn't in Japan, he would remain in Yagi’s mind as the boy who had left just after graduation. Izuku would simply remain his boy, their relationship unchanging for as long as they didn't see one another.
He simply continues to try and be the best teacher he could possibly be because that's what he thinks is what Izuku would have wanted of him.
Ochako, no matter how terrible it sounds, is content to let Izuku go.
He needed to move on in order to escape the weight of Japan's expectations, she knows this, she'd expected it even.
He was one of her closest friends, certainly that was true, and he was always a bright light in her life.
But he was also a reminder of the past through all those years. As a person, he was inherently tied to his own past. It made sense, it was fine, really, she understood.
She wouldn't ever move on from Himiko but she tried not to base her entire life around the girl.
Ochako is on a mission to save as many people as she can, in honor of the people who had never been saved at all, and she cannot be held back by such insignificant things like grief.
She gets together with Bakugou now, the two of them silent and mindless in their relentless attacks on whatever punching bag had been unlucky enough to draw their attention that day.
It’s a different kind of hangout then she’s used to but still she can’t say that she doesn’t like it.
They understand each other, Bakugou and her, they see eye to eye on more than just Izuku.
But at least when it comes to Izuku, they never have to say a word.
They stand side by side throwing punch after punch, they pass each other water and watch each other drink, and silently they both know that they aren’t the sparring partner the other wishes to truly have.
But that’s okay.
Because Izuku isn’t here and though Ochako catches glimpses of his ghost at the edge of her vision when she’s training and training so hard she could puke, it’s still fine.
The pictures Ochako has taped to the inside of her locker of her Izuku and Tenya taken at all of their hangouts back in high school are more than enough Izuku for her.
She slams the locker door shut and imagines she’s closed the door on her once very best friend.
Izuku often regrets leaving.
It wasn’t an easy decision to cut himself off from 1-A, from Yagi, from Aizawa, from every single person who had become his family over the past three years. For so long, they had been his motivating factor, his push to become a better and better hero.
But at the same time, there just wasn’t room for both him and Mirio in the hero leaderboards. Despite being instrumental in the war, he hadn’t ever fully regained the public trust. It was a hard thing to get back, he supposed, when to the public eye he always seemed to know just a little too much.
He was Japan’s hero, a certain symbol of hope, but he couldn’t ever do that again. He couldn’t meet the expectations placed upon him. He couldn’t be the No.1 hero and save everyone with a bang. He simply didn’t have that power anymore.
As for him cutting himself off from the rest, it really wasn’t to remove himself from Japan’s eye or out of the public persona. He was all the way in the States now, it wouldn’t be a concern. It was more simply that he doesn’t want to see how they moved on without him.
He didn’t want to see Shouto grow into himself, see Kacchan become No.1, see all of 1-A become the heroes they always wanted to be. Because that meant they all did it without him.
He wasn’t planning to return to Japan for their five year reunion. He wasn’t really sure if he’d ever be able to return.
For as long as he never saw them again, 1-A would continue to be exactly who he had left. They would be the same people in the same roles, the same relationships, the same lives he had left.
Yagi and Aizawa would forever be their teachers who cared a little too much.
His family would remain unchanging.
He had to be content in that. He didn’t have another option, not without causing himself more pain.
He makes his way up to the rooftop of his new agency, watching the setting sun which was just beginning to rise upon U.A..
He would remain in their pasts and they would remain in his.
That was simply how it had to be.