- 2 years later – in a small apartment in the middle of Musutafu, Japan -
It was a quiet day for the part-time worker Inko Midoriya.
She had just returned from her part-time job at the convenience store around the corner of their apartment and was waiting for her little son to come home from school.
Izuku started school some weeks ago and was still happy to go every day.
Luckily, Izuku's school was only 10 minutes away on foot, and police and heroes regularly visited the route, so it was no danger for Izuku to walk home alone.
Since her son was diagnosed with an unknown quirk two years ago, her life changed in many ways.
Firstly, her husband, Hisashi, left their family after his coworkers mocked him for having a quirkless son.
Inko also found out why the word Quirkless still exists in their current age.
She read online that something like that would happen in many cases where people do not know their quirks.
They would just be labeled as quirkless by other people around them.
Of course, not everyone is like that, but the ones who aren't just don't go between it. It's not their problem, so why should they intervene? They are happy enough to live their own lives without intervening in some unseen trouble.
Many small children have to fight this kind of unreasonable problem.
People don't have the necessary knowledge and assume what they think someone has, and facts are not considered.
They ask a small child what quirk they have, and when the child doesn't say or show any, they automatically label them as quirkless.
Sadly enough, quirk discrimination is one of the most significant problems in their current age.
In Hisashi's case, his coworkers seemingly didn't want to hear Hisashi's explanations, or he himself didn't bother to explain it to them.
Inko didn't know if he tried to explain it to them, but after the ugly divorce disputes that stretched for half a year, she really didn't care anymore.
She was exhausted.
For her, the moment Hisashi suggested that they could give Izuku up for adoption, he was dead.
She will never forgive him for that.
After the divorce, Inko easily kept her surname as Midoriya, and nothing changed with that.
In the first place, she kept her surname after marriage, so it was hers to begin with.
Even her son Izuku had her surname from birth, so this didn't change either.
At least now she knew why her husband insisted their son and mother didn't take his surname from the beginning.
She even suspected he wanted to leave from the beginning, even if she didn't understand why he wanted to marry her if he would go anyway.
Simply said, he was an ass from the beginning and she couldn't see it with her pink tinted glasses on.
Inko easily got the sole custody of Izuku since Hisashi didn't want to see his kid anyway.
He even had the nerve to hate Izuku for tarnishing his image or some bullshit like that.
In front of the judge, he even played the victim card, saying that Izuku couldn't be his son and that Inko must have cheated on her.
After a paternity test, this argument was also over.
After the ugly divorce ended, Inko started working part-time in a small shop nearby.
Initially, after her marriage, she stopped working at her good-paying job in favor of being a housewife.
But now, after divorcing, she had to start somewhere again since the child support from her ex-husband wasn't enough for her and Izuku to live on.
Their small family of two didn't have much money, but it was enough for the two of them to live a low-to-middle-class life, and that was enough.
Both of them were happy, so they didn't bother to think about it.
While Inko was still stuck in old memories, she suddenly heard the front door opening with a bang.
"MOOOOMM, I am home!" Izuku Midoriya, who is currently 6 years old, ran into the room with a big smile on his face.
He also held a small banknote in his hand.
His clothes and face looked a bit singed, as if they had been burned.
"Momm! Look, I found a 10,000-yen note on my way home!" Izuku said proudly. It wasn't the first time he had brought home money he had found on the sidewalk.
Inko knew her son had been lucky since birth. Whenever he walked around, he often found discarded or lost money. Weirdly enough, the amount he found was getting bigger and bigger, but Inko didn't think much about it and just labeled it as his weird luck.
The currently more distressing thing Inko faced was the wounds on her son's face and clothes.
Sadly enough, it wasn't the first time she saw her son come home with some burn marks on himself.
It probably started when a childhood friend of his spread the rumor that Izuku is quirkless.
She even knew that this so-called childhood friend spread the nickname Deku around school.
It seems like this childhood friend translated Deku as something like useless.
Of course, she knew everything about that, even if Izuku wanted to hide it from her.
She was furious about the fact that her son was being bullied in kindergarten and now even at school.
In the past, she often talked to the kindergarten's caretakers, who always said that they would keep an eye on it. However, they never really did anything to help her Izu.
She hated the little brat who spread these rumors, but she hated the fact that Izuku called him a friend even more.
Inko even stopped being friends with her own childhood friend, Mitsuki Bakugo, because, sadly enough, her childhood friend's son was her son's bully, and she hated that Mitsuki wouldn't do anything about it.
'She always says that we should let kids be kids, but her son isn't the one who is always hurt! My Izuku comes home with wounds on his body and broken clothes almost every day, but she says I should calm down?!' Inko thought to herself angrily.
'We really need more money… I want to move from here to another city, leave the bad memories behind, and start a new life. But it is hard with only one part-time job and a small amount of child support,' Inko thought to herself, distraught.
She knew her son could start a new life in a new city and school.
Even though she knew nothing would likely change, considering that Izuku still didn't know his quirk, the chance was better than staying here and letting her son be bullied.
"Honey..." Inko said slowly while looking at her small and cute wounded boy.
"What happened to your face and clothes? Are you okay?" Inko asked with some sadness in her voice.
She already talked with the new school's teachers that they should watch after her son but it seems like always it was ignored since in the two weeks since school started, Izuku came home with wounds on his body on 4 days of them.
"Hmm? My face? Oh, right! I played with my friend Kachan, and he accidentally hurt me again," Izuku said with some guilt while dodging his mother's eyes.
Inko wasn't stupid, so she knew he lied to her. Again…
She knew he didn't want to get Katsuki in trouble because he still saw his friend as some idol, but that didn't mean she wasn't annoyed by it.
"Izuku. We already talked about it… Is Katsuki really your friend if he hurts you so much?" Inko asked with some self-blame in her voice.
"BB..uu.tt we are still friends. The show you watched with me also showed it! Luffy, Ace, and Sabo also fought against each other when they were young! And they were still friends and even brothers later on..." Izuku said with some worry and sadness, as if he wanted to convince himself of the fact that Katsuki was still his friend.
Inko could even see some tears in the corner of his eyes.
Many people didn't know that about Inko, but Inko Midoriya was and is, in fact, a nerd who loves animations from the pre-Quirk era hundreds of years ago. She watched many of them, and One Piece was one of her favorites.
That is also the reason why she watched it with Izuku, who also started to love it after the first episode.
While other kids run after the dream of being Heroes, her son would rather be the Pirate King.
Is it a good thing that her son wants to be a pirate?
Inko didn't know, but also didn't care.
Being a Hero is too dangerous anyway; she didn't want her son to be one.
Of course, Izuku watches some Hero videos and is also a fan of some of the bigger ones, but not to the point of wanting to be a hero himself.
She already told him that Heroes have a mortality rate of over 30% over their whole career and that many even go to jail for some stupid things that couldn't be prevented in their course of work.
"Izuu… You can't compare your relationship with the three brothers… Ace only hit Luffy since he initially didn't want to be his friend. It was only after Luffy defended them even at the threat of being killed that Ace really accepted him, and after that, they only battled each other for training, but never to purposely hurt the other. You were friends with Katsuki, but now he bullies and hurts you. Are you really friends? I also heard you stopped him from bullying other children. Do you really want to be friends with a bully?" Inko asked Izuku with some worry in her voice.
She knew some of the stories about that Katsuki brat, and they weren't pretty. He is lucky that he is still a small kid with a promising quirk; otherwise, he would probably be in jail already.
Inko even heard him once bullying a kid into the hospital.
She was scared of Izuku being the next.
When Izuku heard his mother's words, he also lowered his head. Inko could see some tears falling to the ground.
"But mum. If Katsuki isn't my friend, do I even have friends? Nobody else wants to do anything with me, and since Katsuki beats anyone that comes near me, nobody dares to befriend me. Not that anyone wants to befriend useless little Deku in the first place." Izuku said in a voice full of sadness.
Inko looked at her son with worry and anger. Of course, the anger was not directed at Izuku himself. She slowly embraced him in her arms while
stroking him behind his back, wanting to cheer up her crying boy.
"You know. Being friendless isn't the worst thing in the world… I don't have any friends either, you know. I am sure someday somebody will really want to be friends with you for yourself, and when that time comes, you will be thankful that you quit your friendship with Katsuki. Just think about when you find a real friend, do you want them to be bullied by Katsuki?" Inko said to Izuku in distress.
She felt like she had failed at her job as a mother. It's hard seeing your son being hurt but being unable to help in any way.
She knew it was hard for her boy, but what could she do?
After 10 minutes of embracing Izuku, he slowly removed himself from her arms and nodded with a forced smile on his small, cute, freckled face.
"You are right, mum. I am sure someday I will find a real friend, " he said, his eyes reddened by the former tears he shed some seconds ago.
"Okay. Go and do your homework while I go to the kitchen to cook your favorite today! Be ready for the best Katsudon you've ever had!" Inko said to her boy with a smile while turning around to walk into the kitchen.
She knew her boy had some things to go through, but she was sure he could do it!
Only five minutes later, she could hear Izuku screaming with joy from his room.
"Ohh wow, I won an online giveaway for a Luffy figure!!"
"Wow! Now I am jealous of my 6-year-old son for winning a figure. I also participated in this giveaway..." Inko thought to herself with a sly smile.
Her son's luck is still pretty good, and he once again won in a giveaway.
'Hmmmm. Wait, luck?'