Sunday Snippets: DEADICATION ch31

Hi folks! I'm still sticking with this as the name... Sunday Snippets, Timelapse Tuesdays, WIP Wednesdays. So cringe.

Anyway! I wanted to share a small snippet from the coming chapter of DEADICATION, which I am planning to have available to read fully on the 15th. Planning. There's a lot happening in this chapter, and I have to admit I'm still getting used to having more characters than just Izuku and Kacchan around. But Kaminari being his dumb self is making up for it... I love writing Kaminari, I love him so much.

Right, I'll get on with it.

DEADICATION Ch31

Izuku traced his finger along the map, picking out the train line he had travelled almost every day for an entire year, back to the station near his home.

“That’s me,” he said, pointing to an area just right of the Daiya river. “Ikeda.”

“Hah?!”

Kacchan pushed himself off of the wall, indifferently shoving into Izuku’s shoulder as he stared down at the map to where Izuku was pointing.

“What?” Izuku asked.

“No fucking way do you live in Ikeda,” Kacchan snapped, looking pissed off.

“I, uh, think I’d know where I’ve lived my whole life, Kacchan,” Izuku replied, confused.

“Well obviously you were a fucking shut in or some shit because I’d have known you!”

“Wait, you’re from Ikeda too?”

Kacchan had pushed Izuku entirely to the side now, pulling the map towards him and glaring at it, before jabbing at it roughly with a wide finger.

“There, that’s me, by the shrine.”

Izuku’s eyes widened in understanding. “Oh.”

“Oh? What the fuck do you sayin’ ‘oh’ like that for?!”

“Yeh, I lived in the apartments near the river,” Izuku said. “I didn’t spend a lot of time over where the rich kids played.”

“Excuse me, rich kids?” Kacchan turned to him, looking affronted.

“Yeh,” Izuku continued with a shrug. “It’s all parks and big houses that way.” He sighed. “I bet you have a really lovely house, you’re so lucky, Kacchan!”

“Sure, but I didn’t hang out there all the damn time!” Kacchan snapped back, looking far angrier than the situation warranted. “Fuck you, Deku! I ain’t no rich kid!”

“But your parents had money?”

“I- well yeh, but-”

“Kacchan’s a rich kid,” Izuku said with a wide grin, enjoying the flustered look on Kacchan’s face.

“This is fascinating,” Kaminari said, resting his chin on his palm as he watched the two of them. “He just called you a posh boy, you gonna take that lying down, Baku?”

“Stay out of it, bastard!”

“I still can’t believe we lived so close to each other,” Izuku said, his voice a little higher. “We might have seen each other all the time and not known it!”

“I think I’d remember you!”

“Why?”

“Yeh, why would you remember him, Kacchan?” Kaminari asked, teasing lilt to his voice and smirking over his palm. Kacchan hesitated for a moment, his face looking suspiciously pink.

“Coz how many people you know with green fucking hair?” he ground out, before pushing away from the table and stalking back to his favoured spot against the wall. “Whatever, just make a damn plan already.”

Izuku still felt the grin on his face as he looked back down at the map.

“Well, Kacchan’s place is closest,” he said, “so we should aim for his place first. Plus, it might be a little bigger for us to stay in if we need to.”

“No,” Kacchan said so suddenly, it made Izuku jump. “We ain’t staying at my place, we should look for something close by that’s safe first.”

“Why, you got embarrassing posters up on your bedroom wall or something?” Kirishima said with a snigger.

“Big muscular All Might on the ceiling,” Kaminari added, laughing too.

“And if we all get there and my parents are dead in the damn house, what then, hah?” Kacchan said coldly. At that, the smiles quickly fell from their lips, and all of a sudden the reality of it came crashing back in on them again.

“Sorry, Bakugo, I didn’t think…” Kirishima started, but Kacchan spoke over him.

“Yeh, well if you wanna come with you should probably start giving thinking a fucking try,” he said.

An awkward silence followed, Izuku looking over to where Kacchan stood, resolutely not meeting his eyes. Izuku had been so focused on finding out what had happened to his mother, that he hadn’t even considered the possibility of… finding her. He swallowed.

“W-well, good news is we can just follow the train line from the bridge all the way to Higashi station,” he said, pushing his hair back from his eyes. “We could probably come off before then, find somewhere close by that seems safe.”

“Won’t we be really open on the tracks?” Mina asked. Izuku thought back to how he and Kacchan had gotten around when they had been looking for Shouto.

“Yeh,” he said, “but it’s the quickest route, and it also means we can get a good look at what’s around us. It’ll be much harder for a group of zombies to sneak up on us that way.”

“But easier for people to spot us,” Kaminari said. “Right?”

“If there are any groups here, they’ll be keeping an eye on the main routes in,” Kacchan said. “The highway is pretty close to the tracks, I’d bet anyone here would be more concerned about groups coming in by road than on the train tracks.”

“The problem is, if we go along the streets, not only will it take us much longer, but we’ll be walking blind pretty much the whole time,” Izuku explained. “I know the tracks are risky, but it’s how Kacchan and I got into Shinigawa.”

“Well, if you’re confident,” Kirishima said, clapping Izuku on the back. “I’m with you, Midoriya.”

“Ok,” Izuku said, feeling somewhat nervous at the confidence that Kirishima had in him. It was great to have their friends back, but feeling responsible for more than just Kacchan and himself was doing a huge dis-service to his nerves.