The first time Kouji met Midoriya Izuku, he'd thought Midoriya might be a ghost.

Which was pretty silly, looking back on it, but what else was one supposed to think when they decided to make a visit to the abandoned shrine in the heart of the woods near where one lived, and found a mysterious young boy there? He was huddled up against the honden, the structure housing the kami, his knees drawn up to his chest and his head resting on them. After his momentary fright, Kouji noticed that the boy's shoulders were shaking, and he could hear quiet sobs coming from his thin frame.

Feeling concern build up in him, Kouji approached the strange boy, wondering if perhaps he was one of the boys from town who had gotten lost in the woods.

Reaching the edge of the steps that led up to the platform the honden had been built on, Kouji was about to reach out to him, when suddenly it seemed the boy noticed his presence, his head jerking up.

And oh.

Oh.

Bloodshot green eyes looked back at him, face red and puffy from crying. Black curls, wet with tears, stuck to his cheeks and all Kouji could think to do was offer the boy a handkerchief. The boy hesitated only a moment before accepting the handkerchief with a shaky smile.

Kouji smiled back reassuringly, and climbed to sit next to the boy he now knew was Midoriya Izuku, whose father had just recently been gravely injured in a world-shattering fight against the villain known as All for One. He longed to ask Midoriya the same questions the entire rest of the world had been contemplating the past few weeks, but he held his tongue.

The boy next to him hardly needed more stress at the moment.

Midoriya sniffled, wiping the last of the tears away, and offered another slightly less shaky smile to Kouji.

"I'm Izuku," he introduced himself quietly, looking at Kouji apprehensively. It was obvious he didn't want Kouji to know his full name, so the bigger boy just accepted what he got with a smile.

"I'm Kouji," answered Kouji quietly, and then pointing in the direction he'd come from, he said, "I live a few minutes down that way."

Izuku's smile wavered, and he looked down. "I live far away from here," he admitted, fiddling with the sleeves of his sweater. "But my daddy got hurt, so now I have to stay with my grandpa for the summer. I wanted to stay back home with my best friend Tenya, but grandpa said it was safer for me here."

Kouji remained silent, not exactly sure what to say to that. And when Izuku didn't offer anything else, the two lapsed into a slightly awkward silence, broken only by the chirping of birds overhead and the rustle of life in the forest surrounding them.

Fretting silently, Kouji wondered to himself if perhaps he should have just left Izuku alone – he certainly didn't have the social skills necessary to cheer him up.

Suddenly, a flicker of pale brown in the corner of his eye caught Kouji's attention and he perked up, reaching almost on reflex towards the doe standing at the edge of the tree line.

It didn't take much coaxing for her to approach – Kouji was sure most of the animals in this area knew him by now.

She was a young one, not even a year old, and as she walked towards them Deku let out a delighted little gasp and scooted forward, sprawling out on his belly so that he could poke his head off the side of the platform to get closer to the doe.

Kouji watched Izuku giggle as the doe licked his face, tears long forgotten, and in that moment he knew how he would be spending the rest of his summer.

It was a sunny afternoon some time near the end of August when Toshinori woke up to a nurse checking his vitals, and a small body curled up next to him in bed, fast asleep.

His eyes fell on messy black curls and cheeks sprayed with dark freckles, and despite his initial shock, Toshinori felt something inside him relax at finally having his son safely with him (not that he had any doubt in his father's abilities, it just felt nice to see it with his own eyes).

He looked up at the nurse, who looked as if she was just about finishing up her routine checks.

"Iida Tensei-san brought him about an hour ago," she offered with a soft smile, answering his unasked question. "We asked him if he wanted us to wake you, but he declined, saying you needed your rest."

Toshinori laughed at that, running his hands through his son's hair and hugging him closer.

God, how he'd missed him.

He knew that sending Izuku to Iwate prefecture to stay with his grandfather had been the right choice, especially after the incident with the media (Toshinori had almost destroyed his hospital bed and had earned multiple warnings from the nurses when he'd heard about it from Aizawa), but that didn't make it any easier to go a whole month without his precious son. Izuku was a sensitive soul, and Toshinori had lost many nights of sleep wondering if he was doing alright, wondering if he was off somewhere crying by himself.

But unfortunately, Toshinori was in no condition to even look after himself, let alone a ten-year-old. So in the end, he just had to settle for being eternally grateful that he had an amazing support system in his father, and in the Iida family, whom Izuku would be staying with now that he would be going back to school.

As he contemplated, Toshinori felt his eyelids slowly start becoming heavier, and he couldn't help but grumbled unhappily to himself. He'd wanted to stay awake a while longer, in case Izuku woke up again.

But with all the surgeries, and the medication he was on , Toshinori was feeling constantly exhausted these days.

Might as well take a nap though.

Sleep meant healing, and the sooner he got better, the sooner he and his little Izuku would be able to regain some semblance of normalcy in their lives again.

Bakugou Katsuki stared (or maybe glared).

There was a boy sitting on a bench by himself at the park, swinging his legs back and forth and humming quietly to himself.

There was something maddeningly familiar about him, though Katsuki couldn't quite put his finger on it.

The boy was wearing the uniform of Soumei Private Elementary, so that ruled out the possibility of it being someone from his school.

"Oi! Katsuki! The hell are you waiting around for? Hurry up!"

The boy's head turned towards Katsuki at the call, expression curious, and his eyes met Katsuki's for a moment.

Katsuki sneered at him as the feeling of familiarity only increased, and turned to catch up to his friends, deciding he didn't care anymore.

"CAN IT, MORON!" he called to his friend, putting the strange boy to the back of his mind. "I'M FUCKING COMING!"

SkyGem: That's all for this chapter! Lol, this fic is almost starting to feel like a revolving door of characters XD I promise there's a reason behind all the meetings though! Seriously! Anyways, please do leave a review and let me know what you thought, yeah? And I'll see you guys next time!