"...Get up, De... you little shit."
In the midst of a daze, a dull pain hit my side. As I stumbled to my feet, my surroundings finally came into view after a moment.
A child with a fierce-looking face, appearing to be about 7 or 8 years old, glared at me with a displeased expression.
Feeling an itchy sensation on my forehead, I wiped it thinking it was sweat, only to see wet red blood on my hand.
That was why my head had been ringing. Besides the kid standing in front of me, I saw a few other children.
The kids stood beside the fierce one with surprised expressions. The fierce kid kept talking, but it did not register in my still-dazed mind.
Thinking it might be a dream, I turned and walked away for the time being.
It took a little while longer to realize it was not one.
As my foggy head cleared, the sky began to cloud over in proportion, and I felt something was off.
The realism that made it hard to consider it imagination, along with the pain on my forehead, told me this was no longer a dream. Only then did I look around.
Streetlights were on here and there. It was a residential area surrounded by walls. It felt more urban than rural.
Wondering why I was there, I racked my brain, and fragments of old memories started coming back.
"Izuku!"
A loud voice came from somewhere, followed by the sound of running, and then someone grabbed my shoulders firmly.
Reflexively turning my head, I looked at the person who had grabbed me.
A young woman who seemed to be in her thirties cried as she looked at me, and the moment our eyes met, she pulled me into a tight hug.
The strange thing was that the woman looked enormously tall.
"Izuku! What were you doing here?"
She grabbed my shoulders and asked, then noticed the scab of blood on my head, prompting her to flinch in surprise.
"Who did this? Are you okay?"
Her trembling voice showed how shocked and worried she was. Since I did not know who had done it, I shook my head, and from then on, the woman—who had started feeling something was wrong—began asking me questions.
"Izuku. Do you recognize who I am?"
Seeing her trembling eyes, I wanted to lie, but worried it would make things worse, so I decided to tell the truth, shaking my head sideways.
Upon seeing my reply, she shed tears and kept repeating that she was sorry.
The woman introduced herself as my mother, and even though it was night, there was apparently an open clinic. We went straight there after that.
At the hospital, I was diagnosed with concussion symptoms and memory loss.
The moment I arrived home and entered my room, I instantly grasped the situation.
All Might posters and figures had been placed everywhere in the room, and the young Midoriya Izuku stood in front of the mirror.
I had entered the world inside the manga.
A situation where what I had thought was reality now made me suspect it was a dream again. That made sense—because in my previous life, I had been hospitalized long-term due to illness.
With nothing to do, I had passed the time borrowing and reading manga from the hospital's rental library. When my condition worsened and even moving became difficult, I had just lain there day after day.
Few people would have considered this reality if someone who had been living day-to-day suddenly turned into a manga character. My previous life had been too vivid and detailed to dismiss as a dream.
Having grasped the situation, I quietly left the room, and I heard Mom talking to someone on the phone.
The gist of the call was this: she did not need treatment costs, but she asked them to make sure something like this did not happen again, urging them to keep their child away from me.
Mom ended the call firmly and let out a sigh.
The kid who caused my injury was, obviously, Bakugo, and Mom, finding out that Bakugo had been bullying me, had called his house to protest.
Spotting me, she smiled sadly and said she would prepare dinner.
For the next few days, I walked around the neighborhood with Mom to familiarize myself with the area, and learned that I attended elementary school.
The day I saw a person with a snake head jogging while out walking, I became certain, and that day I cleared away all the hero-related items in my room.
I had no intention of wasting this hard-earned second chance at life by recklessly aiming to become a hero.
It might have looked cool when reading the manga, but this world was by no means easy.
Though there had been no direct descriptions of scenes, mentions of hero deaths appeared frequently, and civilian deaths caused by villains were not rare either.
When a major villain rampaged occasionally, it was nothing short of a disaster.
Just watching the news, gruesome incidents appeared regularly.
Having died young in my previous life, all I wanted was to enjoy this new life as safely and quietly as possible.
When Mom saw me putting away the All Might posters and asked if I was not collecting hero items anymore, I replied that I lost interest. She looked somewhat relieved.
Of course—if her quirkless son kept talking big about becoming a hero, any parent would have worried.
Starting the next day, I began going to school, and perhaps still worried, Mom put a heart-shaped necklace with her phone number engraved on it around my neck.
It somehow made me feel like a dog that frequently ran away, but since it was obvious she would worry, I gladly accepted it.
Mom told me my grade and class, but I did not know exactly where my seat was.
In times like this, there was a simple solution: arrive late to school.
If I left late and walked slowly, it was just before class started, and the only seat left would be mine.
Perfect.
Praising my own plan in my mind, I opened the classroom door.
Probably because I was late, the teacher's expression had been anxious, wondering if I had gotten lost, but it brightened the moment she saw me.
I looked for an empty seat to find mine and encountered the first obstacle in my new life.
There were two empty seats.
My perfect plan was foiled by one delinquent kid who had not arrived yet, and I ended up being guided to my seat by the teacher who had been informed in advance.
When it was preparation time before class started, the teacher left, and I took out my textbooks according to the schedule Mom had told me and prepared for class.
Then the back door opened, and the owner of the remaining seat arrived.
"Bakugo, you're late!"
At that voice, I turned my head and saw Bakugo with a displeased expression.
It was surprising that an elementary school first-grader could look that fierce. It felt like that scowl was his default setting—it was that natural.
Bakugo glanced at me once, clicked his tongue, and turned his head away.
He seemed full of resentment, perhaps having gotten scolded a lot because of me, but what could I do? It was his own fault.
After that, he didn't put a finger on me (pause).
As time passed, I realized one thing.
I had no friends.
To correct myself: Midoriya Izuku had no friends.
Well, for a severe hero otaku, crybaby, and quirkless Midoriya, the only person he could have called a friend would have been Bakugo, a fellow All Might fan he had known since childhood.
And after Bakugou started bullying him in kindergarten, no kid approached him first out of fear of Bakugo.
That was how I began a life that was isolated but free from bullying.
With no friends and no hero otaku hobby, I focused on studies and started exercising as part of my life plan for a comfortable existence.
As someone without a quirk, quirk-specialized jobs were impossible, and if I ever encountered a villain, I would not be able to fight back—so a strong body was essential at least to run away well.
The original Midoriya had aspired to be a hero, but had not even exercised once despite being quirkless—what had he been doing? He had stayed scrawny until meeting All Might.
That was how I began my quiet school life. Since Bakugo left me alone and lived as if I did not exist, no one harassed me after that.