Chapter 59

When I left about an hour later, I felt a tug at my jacket. I threw a glance to the side and found Midoriya-san there, staring up to me with wide, teary eyes. "Katsuki… Let me talk to you for a moment." I nodded lightly and she dragged me to the outmost corner of the kitchen.

"W-when Izuku first started telling his story, I was mad at you, reasonably. But now… I'm just sorry for you. Y-you got more back than you deserved. I h-hope he doesn't hurt you anymore…" Her voice was quiet, fast and laced with concern. I threw a glance over my shoulder. "Not that way, no."

Her head dropped. "Earlier… Does that mean you two are together? If he loves you, why would he t-torture you?" "Because it's the other way around. Deku doesn't love anyone or anything anymore. I'm the one who wanted… that." I crossed my arms in front of my chest and avoided Midoriya-sans eyes.

I noticed how her eyes started dripping. "I'm so s-sorry, Katsuki… If I had just noticed the problems you two had… If I had seen how much Izuku was hurting…" I sighed, lightly shaking my head. "If anything, it's my fault. But that doesn't matter anymore. About the charge…" Midoriya-sans head shot up. "Y-yes?"

"I might have an idea how to bail him out of that. Don't intervene please, no matter how strange what I'll say might seem to you." I nervously shifted my weight to the other foot. Dekus mother just nodded. Then she grabbed the front of my shirt, tears streaming down her cheeks. "Please save Izuku…!"

-/-

"I'm sad, Izuku."

"You should be sad."

"Is this the person you wanted to be?"

"I don't know. But maybe it's the person I have to be."

-/-

Everyone was preparing for the trial the next days. Kirishima and Kaminari wrote testimonies, Bakugous parents still tried to squeeze the truth out of Bakugou, Midoriya stared at the ceiling for hours, internally taking notes on what not to say and his mother ragged her brain on how to veil her sons messed up story.

Bakugou meanwhile made up stories over stories until he finally had something believable. Everything fit with the law. Midoriya had no fault. His story made everything seem like a tolerable mistake. But he would never be able to look into the eyes of anyone who heard it again.

Then the day of the trial came. Doomsday.

-/-

About a quarter of an hour after I had arrived at the courtroom, I saw Deku and his mother coming in and taking their place on the defendants' side. While his mother was wearing rather fancy clothes, Deku hadn't bothered wearing anything formal. It was just his usual shirt-pants-boots outfit in combination with a quality pokerface.

I noticed my mother and my two ex-friends giving him death glares, but he stayed unbothered. He didn't even budge. His mother on the other hand was ashamed to death and got a pitying smile from my father. Good for him. If anyone dared to blame this shit on Inko Midoriya, I'd beat their ass. This situation was mine, Kirishimas and maybe even Kaminaris fault, noone else's.

I shot a glare over to Deku and he caught it, responding with an honestly cute little smile. His mother gave me a shaky smile aswell. I could see how she was already close to tears and had a hard time containing herself. God, I felt so fucking bad for her right now…

The judge entered, along with two associate judges. Once they had taken their places, she requested silence and the real shit began.

Kirishima, as the plaintiff, was asked to tell the circumstances of the offence and told the judge everything about the scars on my back and Dekus knife. Aizawa-sensei testified that Deku had a knife, but also had to admit that it was legal. The judge was handed a photograph of the cuts on my back, but when she asked for evidence about the knife, nobody had anything to show her.

I stared over to Deku, result: Pokerface. He refused to say anything when he was asked. And so it went on. I was asked to tell what happened, but just like with my parents, I stayed silent. My parents said what they had to say, Midoriya-san did, Kaminari testified and Kirishima answered questions about his testimony.

Deku just sat at his place, head resting in his hand, refusing to give evidence every time he was asked to testify. The judge aswell as 'his' lawyer were becoming unnerved by his behavior. Sounds a lot like him, huh?

Eventually, the judge turned to me. "Katsuki Bakugou, you refused to testify at first. Will you give evidence now?" I inhaled sharply, internally bracing myself for my ultimate humiliation. Not to mention that it was all a lie. All eyes were on me, maybe excluding Deku. He just smiled to himself, curious what I'd do now.

I nodded, and the lawyer my parents hired was immediately at my side. Before he could ask me to tell him what I had to say, I stood up. "I'm saying it myself, thanks." The lawyer stepped back with the most disappointed expression the world had ever seen, and my mother started impaling me with her eyes.

I straightened up. "Your honor, do you know what knifeplay is?"

If the room was silent before, it was deadly quiet now. The judge raised her eyebrows. "Uh…" She turned to the associate judge to her right, and started whispering something like "BDSM *incoherent mumbling* cutting up *incoherent mumbling* dirty teenagers these days." Then she turned back to me. "Yes, I do know what that is. Go on."

I stared at the wall behind the judges' seats. "Well, Midoriya and I are together… And we were kinda… experimenting? Shit happens, I guess." I was the only one who noticed Deku was trying hard to suppress a laugh, because all the others were busy staring holes into me. The judges' expression was pricelessly disgusted.

"Izuku Midoriya, is this what happened?" Deku nodded lightly, taking the job of his lawyer away too. "Yeah. Kirishima and Kaminari must've gotten it wrong when we chose not to explain it to them." He didn't seem the slightest bit embarrassed. Deku really was impressively shameless and a divinely gifted actor.

The judge got her stern face back. "What happened to the knife?" Deku grinned. "Funny story, I don't have it anymore." "Explain that." "As you may know, I was rendered missing the last three years. I lived on the streets for that time. When I reconnected with Kacchan, my things were left unsupervised where I had been sleeping before. I had left my knife there a few days prior and it was stolen."

Deku didn't even bat an eye while spewing out this barrage of lies. His mothers' eyes became wide, but she didn't intervene. The three judges stood up. "We will consult about the verdict now."

One would've needed a chainsaw to cut the silence in the room after the judges left. Everyone but the Midoriyas were impaling me with disappointed, disbelieving and uncomfortable stares. It was making my skin crawl, but I kept my head held high and my eyes straight forward. Talk about ragged pride…

Finally, the judges entered again and sat down. All of them were visibly uncomfortable. The main judge cleared her throat and put a pokerface on. I held my breath. Finally, she slammed her hammer down. "Izuku Midoriya is not guilty of the crime he's been accused of. Case closed."