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“Do you ever miss the sun?”
Yoichi looked over, startled. “I-” I haven’t even thought about the sun in years, he doesn’t say. “I guess?” It’s not like you can miss something you never really knew, he thought.
Glasses-covered eyes blink at him (Iida? That sounds about right), the expression on his face vaguely mournful. Around him, the rest of Izuku’s friends wear the same expression, some of them opening their mouths to ask another question before abruptly closing them again. Eventually, a girl (Uraraka, he thinks her name was) speaks up.
“How long has it been? Since you’ve seen it, I mean.” Her voice is quiet.
Yoichi puffs out a breath, thinking. “I think…” he trails off. When had he last seen the sun? Before he died, of course, but had he been able to see it after the Vault? He recalls that the skies seemed to always be filled with smoke or clouds on the rare occasion he went outside. So before he met Second and Third, then.
But before that had been the Vault, his brother limiting him to a single space for years. There was certainly no sun then. Before the Vault, then. Before the Vault he’d seen the sun.
“Must have been some two centuries ago, I think, when I was… oh, about twelve.” It was beautiful, he recalls. The light used to hit his face in such a pleasant way, warming him up in a way he hadn’t felt since before his illness.
Of course, a time before his illness was even more difficult to remember.
“When you were twelve?” one of them asks. “You look a lot older than twelve.”
“Yeah, well.” He chuckles humorlessly. “Hard to see the sun from the inside of a vault. Or several safe houses. Especially when everything around you is on fire.”
Silence reigns for a moment, and Yoichi looks up to see an array of shocked faces. It’s difficult to describe the emotion in their expressions. At first he thinks it’s loss, or pity; eventually, though, he recognizes it as sympathy. A few eyes look vaguely misty, and he tries to backtrack.
“I- I’m sorry guys, I didn’t mean to dump that all on you. That was wrong of me.” He shifts uncomfortably at their stares. “But I’m alright! The mindscape isn’t so bad once you get used to it, and I can make recreations of the sun in there so I can still get most of the experience, and-”
He’s cut off by the same girl from before (Uraraka, he needs to remember her name) jolting up, fire in her eyes. “We’re taking you to see the sun!” she says, determined. Yoichi’s eyes widen.
“You- we can’t!” he says. Then, quieter, “There’s no time.”
It was true. The fact they could all talk to him, all see him, at all, was a miracle in and of itself; a tight time limit was only natural.
Besides, they could only use this quirk once. Those were the rules. Once per person, for fifteen minutes, someone could air out their quirk – or quirks – as physical manifestations. Only once. The quirk had never worked twice on the same person.
All that still without considering the fact that they had no way to easily reach the sun, even if they had the time. Even if Izuku’s friends knew about his quirk now, it was still a national secret; they’d all been moved underground, stuffed into a safe house that only had a single exit or entrance. The time it would take them to reach the surface in the first place was already pushing their limits.
“I won’t- I can’t take someone else’s time – possibly everyone else’s time – just because I want to go see some- some random astral body. It’s fine. I’m fine. I’ll be fine.” He swallowed hard at their guilty expressions. “How about- how about I try some of those snacks, instead? I never really got to try junk food, when I was alive.”
If possible, their expressions seemed to become even sadder. Still, they very obviously pushed it aside to enthusiastically offer him some chips and cookies. Yoichi leaned back with a mouthful, humming contentedly. Those crazy bastards at the Oreo company had been busy in the last two centuries, it seemed; he’d never have thought that an apple flavored Oreo would work, but they’d achieved the impossible.
…has it really been that long, Yoichi?
Abruptly, he stopped chewing. Second? he prodded, mentally. Is that you, or am I finally losing it?
It’s all of us, actually. And wow, that was Third’s voice. Was this what Izuku felt like when they talked to him? If so, they needed to give the poor kid a break. This felt creepy as hell. Good to know, came Third’s dry voice.
He sent them a vivid mental feeling of disgruntlement. What are you here for, anyway?
We want to know if it’s true that you haven’t seen the sun since you were twelve, came Seventh’s reply.
That’s really depressing, dude. This was from Fifth.
It really is somewhat concerning. Fourth. And you say you don’t want to see it again? Not even once?
Yoichi swallowed, the Oreo tasting bitter now. I mean- I’m not going to take away the time you guys have. You deserve to be out here just as much as I do. My shitty pre-One for All life isn’t your fault, nor is it your responsibility.
There was a silence. So you’re saying you do want to see it, you’re just worried about us? Yoichi didn’t answer.
Abruptly, Izuku stood up. Yoichi hadn’t noticed the concerned glances his friends had been shooting him from the beginning of his little mental conversation; but now, they were split between him and Izuku in equal measure. The boy in question turned his gaze to his friends.
“We’re breaking Yoichi out of here. He’s going to see the sun.”
Now it was Yoichi’s turn to shoot up. “What? You can’t just- you can’t make a decision like that out of nowhere! And you didn’t even ask me!” And how would we even do it?, he doesn’t ask. Hope is a dangerous thing.
“Maybe not,” he replies, already inspecting the locks on the door. “But they did.”
Yoichi paused. “What?”
“Did you really forget that you all communicate with me, telepathically, all the time?” Now he was staring straight at him, deep forest meeting toxic green. “They told me, Yoichi, that you want to see the sun.” He pulled his arm back, green lighting arcing over his body. “They also told me they didn’t care about their time. Yoichi, you’re coming with us. Come on guys.”
Without another word, his fist broke through the door, hinges shattering to pieces. Yoichi had expected some sort of resistance or protest from the other occupants of the room, but instead they worked in tandem, immediately moving through and into the hallway beyond. Before he could so much as get a word in edgewise he was slapped in the back, a long tongue wrapping around his weightless body, trailing behind a small group of rampaging, maniacal teenagers.
He’d never admit how fun it was.
Before they were even out the door an alarm had begun to sound, the wailing almost unbearable. Lights flashed red, contrasting heavily with the almost total darkness everywhere else; the chaotic mix of visual and auditory input made him want to screw his eyes shut and cover his ears, but he didn’t want to miss a second of his time back in the living world.
In between flashes of red, he began to notice doors flash by, each of them opening one by one. People began to trickle out, only running after them once they caught on to what was happening.
Not that anyone really caught on. To them, this was nothing but a regular day; the facility was normally used for research and nothing more, so having a tiny group of Hero trainees tearing through their halls was far from anything they might have expected. He felt a little bad for them, to be completely honest, but he didn’t exactly have time to dwell on that thought.
Apparently, at some point one of them had swiped a security card, because there was barely a pause before passing through the thick metal doors that separated different levels and hallways of the facility. Floors kept flashing by, and Yoichi resigned himself to simply enjoying the rest of the ride.
For a moment, he questioned why they hadn’t just informed somebody of their wish to get to the surface; they could have, at the very least, avoided upsetting so many people’s busy days. But even if they’d had a way to contact anyone on the outside, permission would have taken too long; overall, this was the best way. The only way, really. Yeah. This was fine.
He wished he could ignore all the guilt, though.
-*-*-*-*-
All things considered, it really didn’t take them that long to reach the top level. By his count (and Second’s – he’d always been great at tracking time) it had been around ten minutes. Still, add that to the time they’d spent fucking around before the sun revelation, and the time it took to decide to leave…
They had only a minute or two at most.
But it was enough. Or, it would be, at least, once they actually got outside. Yoichi could already feel how much fresher the air felt, how the siren of the facility alarm had begun to be overtaken by the sound of what he assumed to be traffic of some sort. He… he’d be lying if he said he wasn’t excited. He’d missed the outside world. This was a gift he’d treasure, especially considering what everyone else had sacrificed for it.
They must have had some sort of timer on them, because the last few doors were simply blown through. Shards of ice rained down and exhaust fumes burned his nostrils, and Yoichi felt his weightless body get buffeted in several directions by the shock of the explosions. When he finally righted himself it was to the sight of a larger door, heavy wood instead of steel; he could see faint light coming through the cracks, smell the earth in a way he hadn’t in centuries, and he knew it was their last obstacle.
“Put me down,” he said, desperately trying to make his voice heard over the commotion that still followed them. He tapped frantically at the frog girl (Tsuyu, right?)’s tongue, yelling as loudly as his voice would allow. “Guys! Put me down here!”
It took them a little while, but they slowed, coming to a stop in front of the door. Uraraka (that was her name, right?) tapped her fingers together, and he was helped to unsteady feet by Izuku and the heterochromatic boy (Shouto. That was Shouto). The door in front of him suddenly felt impossibly big. He swallowed.
“Can-” he gestured vaguely at Izuku. “Can you open it for me? I may be a bit too weak to pull it.” Jokingly, he put up his arms, both of them looking like toothpicks. He chuckled nervously, waiting for an answer, and was grateful when the boy simply smiled and complied.
He waited with baited breath. What would it be like? It’d been so long, would it be wildly different from what he remembered? Would his expectations be blown out of the water? Did – did he even have the time to savor it, to lock it in his memory? He hoped so.
The door began to move, and he squeezed his eyes shut. He took a deep breath. This was it; he’d been waiting for this for years, even if he never wanted to admit it. It was time. He heard the door scrape the floor, followed by a tiny gasp, and he opened his eyes.
It was raining.
Pouring, actually. The sky was an angry gray, storm clouds rolling out in every direction for as far as he could see. In front of him, his hands felt damp; it took a bit too long for him to realize it was from his own tears, and not from the rain, and it took him even longer to notice the sad stares he was getting. He attempted a weak smile.
“I- it’s fine guys, really-”
“No.” Yoichi’s head snapped over to Izuku, who was looking at the storm with an expression worryingly similar to the ones he knew were normally directed towards villains. He continued. “But it will be.” He rushed out to the storm, arm already cocked back, veins glowing red and lightning crackling.
Yoichi threw himself out after him. “Izuku, wait!” His arm was outstretched, about to reach him-
A tongue wrapped around him and he slid backwards over slick ice, just in time to avoid the brunt of the punch. As a reflex he shielded his face, small shards of ice raining down on and around him. His breathing was heavy. Why had Izuku done that?
He kept his arms up for a little while longer, just in case of a follow-up. It never came, however; instead, the moisture left on his arm from the rain was almost gone, and his skin felt… almost warm. Tentatively, he lowered his arms, and had to blink several times to adjust to the brightness.
It… it looked incredible. Directly above them was a ring of clear, blue skies, surrounded on every side by dark gray clouds; small droplets remained in the air, and a large, beautiful, absolutely mesmerizing array of colors seemed to float at the edge of his vision.
More importantly, however, was the Sun itself; he couldn’t do more than glance at it, he knew that much, but it was still beautiful. It seemed like the only thing worth looking at; it absolutely dominated the sky, yet its rays were gentle, doing no more than caress his skin. He felt so warm and so, so grateful.
He turned to look at Izuku and his friends, all of whom were standing silently to the side. They were smiling. He smiled back. He tried to ignore the way Izuku’s arm looked, and how it was his fault.
“Thank you, guys.” He moved his eyes back to the sky, allowing the rays to fall gently on his face once again. He moved an arm to wipe the tears from his face. “Thank you so much.”
Nothing much was said after that. Still, when time ran out and Yoichi felt himself tugged back into the mindscape, he felt ready. He would miss the sun, he was sure.
But he was grateful he now knew it well enough to do so.