As Midoriya cares for his wound, Paul watches in numb quiet, as attentive to each detail as the other boy is, and he thinks: is this safety?

The question echoes in the sting of disinfectant he bears without a flinch or a sound, in the sponging away of blood, in the way he is raised up and carried and settled. He closes his eyes when Midoriya cleans them, still shivering, but the shivers have shuddered to nothing by the time he is done. Paul doesn't open his eyes to watch him depart, shuffling to the far side of the truck. Others join them, the last departures from this shadowed house, and the truck rumbles to life underneath them all.

The rattle of metal, the thump of wheels on a road not meant for them. Paul pulls the blanket closer around himself. He's still cold, under the summer sun, cold enough not to feel the pain in his palm or inside his chest.

Perhaps that is what safety is, this lifeless distance between himself and everything that he might feel. He hovers somewhere above himself, observing his own skin as a stranger, and he wonders if it hurts.

He opens his eyes and looks at nothing, and that is how he stays, for a while.