Chapter Text
There's a hill a few feet from the park they used to play at. A sad excuse of one, he could call it a bump in plain grass, but even that would be generous. Katsuki and him used to play there, as children. They were kings, no pirates, no— heroes on top of it all. They could swallow the world raw.
Sometimes, the sky would fall. The stars would litter the earth twice as heavy, little tears spreading through the world.
”make a wish," Katsuki would whisper, cupping his hands against Izuku's ears, his breath coming out heavy, tickling him.
And Izuku would, god, he would.
He would get on his knees, dirt and rock debris pressing against the skin, threatening to break soft flesh. His hands would clasp together tightly, shaking from excitement. His little eyes would squeeze shut, as if he was praying to a god and not the world.
" I wish to be heroes together,” he would say outloud, gaining a slight reprimanding from Katsuki, whose own hands had gone rigid and tightly grasped.
”Don't say your wish out loud, idiot. It won't come true if I can hear you!"
But how would Katsuki know? Hadn't Izuku said they were the same person? Same soul? He was sure to have mentioned it. Hadn't Katsuki known there would never be one without the other?
_____
“This isn't healthy," Ochako says.
Her words are liquid entering his ears; in for a second, out the other. He is much like a child in this way, refusing to let the words register in a sort of selective hearing manner. He cares too little for what she says. Katsuki is dead. He doesn't believe there's a healthy way to live this truth.
When Izuku speaks, he feels the vibration of his words start at his sternum, making their way up until they're at the center of his adams apple, pretending to hold weight when the world is weightless.
"Is anything really healthy?”
It's meant to sound like a joke, and comes out as anything but. Ochako's eyes are unwavering, she's tungsten metal unwilling to bend, mouth pursed in a frown. He sees Katsuki in her, personality wise, of course. Izuku hadn't noticed how similar they were until now. He feels sick.
"Izuku, I'm serious.”
Ochako's face does this thing, like she's trying not to cry. Her lower lip pushes forward,slightly protruded, while her tucks under. Her eyebrows draw together, and it's so clear she's trying not to cry.
In retrospect, Izuku should acknowledge she was his friend, too. They all lost something that day, didn't they?
“You should go to therapy; or something. This isn't healthy.”
Ochako's hands ball into fists.
She'd march into his apartment this morning, demanding he open the door or she'd break the fucking thing myself, Izuku, I'm serious.
Izuku had complied, but only because he'd finally asked someone to fix the hinges a few weeks after Katsuki's death.
“I suppose, yes," he says. Izuku's mouth turns downwards and he tilts his head just so, making a show out of listening, even though he isn't.
"Izuku–”
Izuku makes a scene out of listening. He pretends he isn't pretending, nods furiously because it's the only thing that will keep Ochako from turning his apartment into a miniature girl sized storm.
“I know, ‘Chako. I know," he says.
Ochako's words come through fast paced, angry in the way only a grieving person could be.
"No. You don'tknow. You didn't even tell us he was dying, Izuku, for fucks sake.”
Ochako pants, she squeezes her eyes tight. Opens them only to glare at him, pointing a finger at him.
Her acrylic nails shine against the reflection of his apartment lights. The glittery middle finger stares back at him like some sort of sick joke.
Guilt gnaws at his ribcage, it eats at the parts of him still breathing, still alive despite his lover not being.
He blames this all on Katsuki, really, even the small parts of his ridiculous life. The fact that there wasn't any coffee this morning, the fact that Izuku's patrols have been going terrible in the way that there's twice as many villain sightings despite his grievances. Even the fact that right now Ochako's glittery acrylic nails point at him, a silent fuck you if he's ever seen one.
He wants to say I'm sorry, but the words get stuck in his throat, right where his adams apple rests. When he swallows again it goes down so thickly, he wants to apologize for that, too. Something rotten lives inside him, and it apologizes for stealing the empty spaces of his stomach, and promises to not be of much disturbance. It leaves a gaping hole in the center of his being.
When the silence threatens to cut the circulation, to stop his bleeding heart, is when Ochako finally speaks.
“...Okay," she says, as if speaking to no one.
She leaves, then.
_____
"and that is Cygnus,” Katsuki would point at the constellation every night before going their separate ways, without fail. Izuku had a knack of forgetting, so it worked out well for both. And every night, Izuku's eyes would sparkle with a knowing glance, a look at the sky. Even then, he was infatuated with him.
"So cool, Katchan!”
He would kiss Katsuki's cheek, a shy goodbye and a wave, promising to see him the next day, without fault.
As an adult, now, Izuku wonders how he went so long without knowing of Katsuki's love of the stars, of stellar astronomy and black holes and galaxies beyond the Milky Way. He wonders if, partly, it's his fault that Katsuki never pursued that career.
No matter, now. He is dead, six feet underground, buried like he never existed.
____
The priest calls for a moment of silence, but silence does not come. Instead, tearfully whimpers leave the bodies of the people around him, like on autopilot, they squeak their grievances and dabble on the wet spot of their cheeks, careful to not let the fault of misery sink onto their pores. A facade if he's ever known one.
Izuku does not cry.
Irony settles itself onto the tombstone. Crying-adult Izuku, wailing child-izuku, crybaby-teenage Izuku, does not cry, instead he stares at the open casket, hoping that the future can swallow itself, hide itself in the tiny places of the casket and be buried with the only person he could ever have a future with.
this is life, uncrying, grieving Izuku murmurs. He turns this sentence into scripture, hoping that God isn't holding the pencil this time. He could turn this hurt into a Bible, but that would take so much healing.
this is life. It is not his lips that say this, but his amygdala. And indeed, it is the cycle of life. Death is continuous in the way life is continuous. Katsuki should have died long ago, it was a miracle he lived so long, but it hurts no less. Izuku's soft, plush, grieving heart says this, heartstrings tightening, as if to remind him that he is not unscathed of this.
The eulogy comes soon after, and Izuku is ashamed to admit he only listens to the important parts. The he was a strong man, and stronger hero and the he will be missed but no less remembered parts.
He spaces out after, willing to let his mind rest.
___
It's his mind playing tricks on him. It's the small peak of moon shaped rays showing him what could be. No matter, it is Katsuki.
Izuku stares wide-eyed at the ceiling, as fake Katsuki swims through his vision. As fake Katsuki makes a home out of his mouth. As fake Katsuki finds the covered parts of him and makes him weep.
Izuku is a lonely man, as any man is to be after losing his lover. It'd been days after the funeral, months that Katsuki had been dead. What difference did time make? Katsuki was still dead, and Izuku was still lonely.
His apartment had become a husk, a shell of nothing, and he'd allowed it. The wallpapers of his home screamed dead and alive as a contradiction. The wallpaper settled once Izuku soothed the word dead onto the rotting lily patterned paper. Dead, then he images the paper would say, unhinging its not-real mouth.
____
Mitsuki Bakugou's home smells like burning spices. It's the suffocating smell of entering a restaurant, eyes tearing up before getting used to spices and smoke filtering through your lungs.
It's the familiar smell of home, of begging for childhood sleepovers, of being afraid to ask for anything the first time, just to roam the house like it was his own after years of being invited. Of having a first fight, a first walk, a first love, a first bully. Izuku chokes through the memory, willing himself to hug Mitsuki. She smells like caramel and earth, like something that shouldn't smell good but does anyway.
The wall paint is chipped, somewhere between raising a child with an explosion quirk and Izuku being prone to chaos twice as much as any child with a quirk, the paint starting chipping and no one really got around to fixing it.
“Oh, Izuku, it's been so long.”
Her arms hold him and it is like coming home. Izuku thinks of his mother, how he could visit her next. He thinks about Katsuki, and the way that the walls in this house feel haunted as much as they do in his apartment. They rattle, move, whine at the loss of something so present.
Dead it whimpers. Izuku hears things.
“I'm so sorry, it's been so long, auntie. I missed you,” he says, holding on just a little longer and just a little tighter.
He swallows, smiles around the knot forming on his throat.
breathe the chipping paint says. Izuku does.
Mitsuki holds her hands out, caressing his cheek like his mother would. Izuku rests, forcing a small smile, looking at her.
Sorry, uncrying Izuku thinks.
“You've not been sleeping well, have you?" She says, accusatory. More statement than question. Izuku nods, the excuse squeezing past his throat.
"Hero work isn't easy,” he says, excluding the fact that Katsuki has all to do with his changing sleeping schedule.
Not that it was good before to begin with. Izuku always considered himself a night owl. Mitsuki clicks her tongue. Her eye bags are more prominent, red rimmed and heavy.
“Have you been sleeping well, auntie?" he says, rebranding Mitsuki's previous question as his own. It's a legitimate one, has she been sleeping well? Are the bags under her eyes all Katsuki's grief or just the doing of her job?
It's unnecessary to ask, knowing already the answer that will come out of her lips and the real one she won't ever say out loud. They're alike in this way, perhaps Katsuki has something to do with this, too.
"Ah, you know, work,” she brushes off, turning around to the living room, Izuku following.
Going further into the home, Izuku feels the stuffy smell of cooking Mapo Tofu before he sees it. Tears spring to his eyes, fresh. The smell of Katsuki's favourite food had brought tears to Izuku's eyes.
He's damn near crying over Mapo fucking Tofu, but could not shed a single tear for his boyfriends funeral. He takes a breath, willing himself to stop the tears in their tracks, surprisingly, it works.
"So, Izuku, what brings you here?” Mitsuki says.
Izuku looks up, eyes slightly widened as if he'd forgotten Mitsuki was here. He takes a breath, looking around for just a second, noting dumbly that Masaru isn't here.
"I, ah, well, I wanted to give you something?”
Confidence is not his key, not with the way he swallows half his words, shortening what he really wants to say into something more digestible that won't bring a fountain of tears to both their eyes.
Katsuki’s passing hurts. I'm bleeding everywhere and can't bear to hold the most precious thing to me. It should be yours. Everything should be yours.
"Well,” Mitsuki breathes, eyebrow slowly raising, perhaps against her better judgement. She's never been good at hiding how she feels, emotions showing on her face before she could even let the words out. Katsuki is almost the same, had been almost the same. His eyes could tell a story before he did, closed off, yes, but still so expressive Izuku could wonder how a person could be so contradictory.
"What is it?” She says.
Izuku looked at her once more, not having realized that his eyes had wandered. He swallows, bringing a shiny ring to the line. It was not a diamond, but Ruby. Ruby like Katsuki's eyes. Ruby like Izuku's favourite colour.
They'd talked about marrying, both Katsuki and him. A passing afterthought, foolishly thinking that life would be kind enough to wait. That had been their first year working as hero partners and lovers, at twenty. Izuku had waited exactly five more years before buying the ring, six months before Katsuki's sickness got out of control. And then he never confessed.
"Oh," Mitsuki says. Her eyes are glassy, nose scrunched up in an attempt to stop the expression of pain. Her mouth quivers. Izuku can almost believe Katsuki is still here, and that Mitsuki's tears are only of happiness. In another universe, he got to confess.
But not in this one.
“I thought of returning the ring, but it wouldn't be fair to let it go now," he says, words thick with guilt. He brings the ring to her, biting his tongue. Izuku hopes she knows how sorry he is, how much it hurts him to let this ring go, but he thinks it's only fair to give it to Mitsuki. She would have been their ring bearer. Mitsuki brings her hands to her mouth, shaking her head like no, no like that was my son, my only son like he was your lover, but he was my son first.
Her breath stutters, and for a moment Izuku thinks she would break, like a tower falling, like a lung collapsing, like a heart dying.
"Oh my baby,” she says, and Izuku realizes a hint too late that she's saying it to him, and not imaginary, dead Katsuki.
She brings her arms towards him, hugging him, most likely drawing snot over his hair, and then Izuku cries. And then their both crying and collapsing inwards, falling to the dirty kitchen floor, crying and demanding something be done, to let Katsuki rise again, to let Katsuki have his first breath again, to let Katsuki have his first steps again, his first cry again, his first laugh again. To let Katsuki marry and live long and healthy— but it never comes. It does not happen.
So they stay crying on the dirty kitchen floor, for a long, long time.
____
He visits his mum a few days later.
The room smells like floor cleaning fabuloso. The purple one. His mum smells like mint candy and hand sanitizer, perks of being a nurse. She looks as Izuku feels. Like Mitsuki looks. Red rimmed eyes, glassy, as if she had been crying before Izuku knocked.
He wants to say I've cried, too. But he doesn't. He hasn't been doing a lot lately. Stuck in time, almost. He's sure his couch has been laughing at this, sucking him in further and mocking his inability to cook or even sleep. He would be a rotting body by now if not for the hero work that follows him.
They talk for a while, about nothing, about everything. She's leaving overseas for work for a while, won't be near for a few months. Will come back before January hits. In time to celebrate Christmas and New Year's. She's sorry, she says, but it's an opportunity for a better salary at least for a few days, she says, and with everything that's going on letting Izuku be for a while might be best, she says.
Izuku nods when it's right, says don't worry and means it. She needs the breath of fresh air for a while. He knows the hallways haunt her with Izuku and Katsuki's childhood. Izuku thinks it's worse— to be surrounded by a childhood than by their adulthood. At least Izuku gets to forget their childhood on a good day.
They talk for longer. Izuku's mother invites him to stay over, like a sleepover but with his mother. He declines, quoting hero work as an excuse. He doesn't need more ghosts following him. His apartment is already enough.
_____
New Years comes and Izuku spends it in a graveyard. He does spend the majority of the day with his mum, and then his friends and some with Mitsuki and Masaru, but by the end of the day he slips outside, the night swallowing everything while and complete.
Katsuki's grave is beautiful, no doubt. Decorated in black and red with hints of green, like his costume. There's flowers that are already dying, left out for longer than recommended. There's balloons and stuffed animals and his hero costume lays neatly on the ground. No one had paid someone to clean. Izuku knows they all take turns taking care of it, and the public brings stuff and cleans occasionally
Izuku had thought about getting a personal grave just for himself, to mourn without the fear of a civilian looking at him. He'd shaken the thought, thinking of Katsuki, how his dream had been to be number one. How he cared about civilians more than he'd let out, and it hadn't seemed fair, to keep a grave to himself even if there was one of the public.
“Happy new years, Katchan," Izuku croaks, voice failing him. There's a bottle of beer in his hand, tear tracks on his cheeks. His heart hurts, throat burning with so many words he can't say now.
A shuttering breath leaves him, stuttering, he lets the words fall out of his lips.
"I love you. I wish we could have gotten married. I love you.”
He lets the beer seep to the ground. Katsuki wasn't much of a drinker, but he knows he would appreciate the sentiment of letting him have one drink before the year ends.
“Happy New Year's," he repeats, and the fireworks start.
____
The camera shakes before coming to a still. Izuku recognizes this as their collective bedroom. He can see himself on the bed, hair peaking out. Past-Izuki is sleeping.
Katsuki comes to vision, sitting down on a chair he probably brought from the kitchen.
“If you see this, I died," he says, wasting no apparent time. Present Izuku holds his breath.
“I'm dead dead, kicked the bucket, knocked on hell's door. Whatever metaphor suits best.”
This is said with a monotone voice, as if Katsuki only half cares about this portion of the video. Like it's mandatory to say this part.
Video Katsuki reaches for a paper, bringing it to vision, and then staring at it, frowning just a bit, like he can't believe he has to say this.
"Izuku,” he starts, and Izuku has to bite his tongue to keep from crying. He hasn't heard Katsuki utter his name for a long time.
Katsuki takes a breath, letting it out softly.
“Nerd, I wish I would have hidden this note for you to find instead of showing my face, but you will miss my voice and I won't pretend to be humbled. You loved me, and it goes without saying that I did, too. There's little things I regret in this world."
He takes a breath, here, face scowling in concentration.
“Like forcing you to keep this a secret. I regret that, and I'm glad you shared it with the old hag. I heard you guys though the bathroom. You're loud as fuck. I regret bullying you throughout our childhood. I'm still sorry, and you're still forgiving. The media will pretend I was an angel, and the public won't know half of my life. But you knew, Izuku. I was an egotistical motherfucker with the mouth of a sailor. I did not stop to show grannies the way or spoke softly to kids, and you loved me anyway. I didn't sugar coat shit, so I won't sugar coat this, either. I'm dead, Izuku. I'm dead and you are not, and you won't be for a long time. So stay number one for both of us. Don't let Half and Half bitch beat us, win for both of us, Izuku. I was your symbol of victory but you have always been better at winning. Show kids the way to school and pretend I'm scowling the whole way through. Turn the heat indoors during winter for me. Curse out the world in my name. Live for both of us, Izuku. Cry for both of us, Izuku. Visit the hag and remind her of our childhood. Visit Auntie and let the memories linger. Cry with the extra and your friends. I was loved against better judgement. I love you, and that will not change. My biggest regret was never marrying you. I would have loved to see you walk down the aisle. You would have looked beautiful, as always.”
Katsuki looks at the camera, then he holds a ring to the light. A morganite ring.
“This wedding ring is under our bed. I left it there in hopes that you would wear it, despite my passing. “
Tears spring to his eyes and he can't stop. They fall on the floor, on his arms. How unfair it is, that he cannot kiss his lover any longer. How unfair it is, that death did not take both of them. He shakes his head at nothing, making an ugly, desperate noise.
“Would you have married me, Izuku?"