He wasn’t the same.

Not the boy who broke bones to save strangers. Not the symbol of hope who carried One For All like a torch through darkness.

Izuku Midoriya was older now.

Twenty-six. Quirkless. And standing at the front of your classroom with a quiet kind of strength that didn’t need explosions or glory.

He taught the Hero’s course class—an elective for students who’d seen too much, felt too much, and still wanted to fight. You weren’t sure why you enrolled. Maybe because you’d heard he understood.

He did.

He never raised his voice. Never made speeches. But every word he spoke felt like it had been carved from experience. He didn’t teach heroism. He taught survival.

And you loved him.

Not the way a student should. Not the way you were supposed to.

But in the way that made your heart ache when he smiled at someone else. In the way that made you memorize the way he held his pen, the way he rubbed his wrist when he was tired, the way his eyes flickered with something haunted when someone mentioned Shigaraki.

You knew it was wrong.

He was your teacher. He was older. He was still healing.

But you couldn’t help it.

One day, after class, you stayed behind. Pretended to organize your notes while he packed up.

He noticed.

“You okay?” he asked, voice gentle.

You nodded. “Just… thinking.”

He paused. “About what?”

You looked at him. Really looked. And for a second, you almost said it.

Almost told him how you watched him like he was a story you didn’t know how to end. How you wanted to be the reason he smiled again. How you didn’t care that he was older, or broken, or unreachable.

But you didn’t.

Instead, you said, “About what it means to be a hero.”

He smiled, soft and sad. “It means surviving. Even when you don’t want to.”

You nodded. And left. Because loving him was a quiet thing.

And you weren’t ready to make it loud.