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The old shelves creak when Izuku stacks them with boxes full of healing potions and all sorts of amulets.
His mother's shop feels stuffy this afternoon, dust swirling in the air, and sunlight pouring through the large windows. The closed sign hung on the doorknob stands as a comforting barrier against the outside world, and in a few hours the sun will start its descent into sleep, the signal for Izuku to finally go home after a long day of cleaning and tidying.
“Come on, one last effort. You can do it,” he huffs, hoisting a particularly heavy glass jar onto his shoulder.
Izuku strains his arms far above his head to put the jar in its promised empty spot. The ladder he's tiptoeing on shakes under his weight.
“Come on, come on!”
The lid of the jar opens. Izuku blinks as a green gem falls from its container to bounce and clink on the wooden floor.
The crystalline noise reverberates inside Izuku’s head. It cuts through the heavy summer warmth that has been fogging his senses for hours. With a sudden clarity, Izuku realizes he knows that sound. He’s known it for a very long time. It’s engraved somewhere in a secluded part of his brain, irritating him like a scab that needs to be scratched.
As Izuku climbs down the ladder, his dry tongue rubbing against his teeth, he chases the memory in his mind, until finally, after long minutes of mental digging, he uproots it. Izuku squats on the floor and examines the fallen gem in his fingers; his reflection stares back at him in awe and confusion.
The memory he’s found is more than a decade old at least and connected to many others that unfold one by one behind his eyes.
The sensation of paper underneath his chubby fingers as he scribbled observations in his notebooks. His mother, carving precious stones, hunched over her workbench. Small scraps of gems cascading from the table to hit the bottom of a basin at her feet (rebellious ones managing to escape and roll on the floor for Izuku to grab and keep in his secret treasure chest). They looked so similar back then, two meticulous workers, completely devoted to their tasks.
Izuku can see it. He can see it all as if he was still there.
His childhood home. A small cabin, lodged in the middle of a meadow, abundant wildflowers sprinkled all around. In the distance, behind the dark blue foliage of giant evergreen trees, the Crimson Claws. A dangerous but beautiful canyon. Ruby red.
Like the cruel eyes of a blonde child with dragon wings.
Izuku groans and nestles his forehead against his knees, his body tense and curved like a tight ball. Perhaps, if he rubbed his forehead hard enough, the sneering golden boy would vanish from his mind.
No matter how long it’s been, you’ll always knock me off my feet, don’t you, Kacchan?
The gem in his clenched fist mockingly prickles his skin.