Chapter Text
Aizawa sat beside Katsuki's hospital bed long after everyone else had drifted in and out of the room. The fluorescent lights had dimmed for the night, leaving the room washed in pale blue shadows. The steady rhythm of the heart monitor was the only thing stopping the silence from becoming unbearable. Katsuki hadn't woken yet. He hadn't moved beyond the occasional unconscious shift beneath the blankets. He just lay there, impossibly still.
The folded note rested in Aizawa's hands.
It had been passed to him by a tearful Midoriya hours earlier, the green-haired boy unable to speak without his voice breaking. Aizawa hadn't opened it immediately. He'd been afraid of what it might confirm. Now the paper was worn soft around the edges from how many times he'd unfolded and refolded it, each crease feeling like another failure he hadn't noticed until it was too late.
His thumb brushed absentmindedly over one of the sentences.
"The last few weeks have been the kindest people have been to me in a long time."
The words lodged somewhere beneath his ribs. A child shouldn't have been able to write that. A child shouldn't need to. Not one living in a school built to raise heroes. Not one under his care.
He closed his eyes.
He'd known something was wrong.
He'd seen the hesitation whenever an adult raised their voice. The way Katsuki expected punishment before concern. The bruises that never quite made sense. The excuses that grew thinner every week. The exhaustion. The shrinking version of a boy who had once filled every room with impossible confidence. He had seen all of it, recognized that the pieces didn't fit... and then he'd waited.
Waited for Katsuki to trust him.
Waited for the right moment.
Waited because he believed pushing too hard would only make the boy retreat further.
Now all Aizawa could think was that perhaps waiting had been its own kind of mistake.
"You stubborn kid..." he murmured, his voice barely audible in the quiet room.
"You carried all of this by yourself."
His gaze drifted to the teenager sleeping beside him.
Without the scowl, without the constant tension in his shoulders, Katsuki looked painfully young. Younger than sixteen. There were still fading marks scattered across skin that should never have known them. Bandages disappeared beneath the hospital gown. His hair was flattened awkwardly against the pillow instead of pointing defiantly toward the ceiling. For a fleeting moment, Aizawa didn't see one of the strongest students in U.A.
He saw a child who had spent years convincing himself that surviving alone was the only option.
The thought made his chest tighten.
He thought of Eri.
Of how fiercely she had believed she didn't deserve to be rescued until someone proved otherwise, over and over again.
Maybe Katsuki wasn't so different.
Maybe the only difference was that no one had reached him soon enough.
Aizawa leaned forward, resting his forearms on his knees.
His mind drifted back to Eri's sleepy little voice.
"I hope your monster leaves you alone."
At the time, he'd thought it was the innocent imagination of a child. Now, with the note resting in his hands, the words landed differently. Katsuki had written about monsters too. Instead of falsities, they sounded real. Like someone lurking in the corner, he memorised how Katsuki promised to protect Eri from her monsters. He read that Katsukis monster can't touch him anymore.. Aizawa didn't know every detail yet. He didn't know every scar or every memory. But he knew monsters didn't appear out of nowhere. Someone had taught that boy to believe he deserved to be afraid.
Aizawa looked over at the sleeping teenager, his chest rising and falling beneath the hospital blankets. Katsuki looked impossibly small in the bed, stripped of the armour he'd worn every day at U.A. Whatever monster had haunted him this long had stolen enough already. His confidence. His trust. His childhood. It wasn't taking anything else.
He didn't say the promise aloud.
There was no one to hear it except the sleeping boy and the quiet room around them.
But Aizawa made it anyway.
Whoever taught you to fear yourself... whoever made you believe you were alone... they don't get another chance. Not while I'm here.
The door opened quietly, and Hizashi stepped back into the room carrying two coffees. His usual bright smile was there, but only just. It sat awkwardly on his face, held together more out of habit than sincerity. He offered one of the cups to Aizawa before glancing toward Katsuki, who still hadn't stirred. "Recovery Girl's running one more test," he said softly. "Then she's going to come talk to us."
Aizawa accepted the coffee without drinking it. The two men stood in silence for a while, listening to the monitor mark each heartbeat. Neither of them spoke about hero work. There was nothing heroic about this room. No villains to fight. No civilians to rescue. Just a teenager asleep in a hospital bed and two teachers wishing they had recognized the depth of his pain sooner. For all the years they'd spent training to save people, neither of them could shake the feeling that they'd arrived far too late.
Hizashi let out a slow breath, his eyes never leaving Katsuki. "I keep thinking we're supposed to be heroes," he admitted quietly. "But right now..." He trailed off, swallowing hard.
Aizawa finished the thought for him, his voice rough with exhaustion. "I don't feel very heroic." At that moment, they didn't feel like pro heroes at all. They felt like bystanders who had watched a child carry far more than he ever should have, and were determined not to stand on the sidelines again.
The knock on the door was so quiet neither teacher heard it at first.
Jirou slipped into the room a second later, shoulders hunched as though she was expecting to be told to leave. Her eyes immediately found the hospital bed. Found Katsuki. For a moment she just stood there, fingers twisting nervously in the sleeves of her jacket. She looked smaller than usual. Younger. The confident sarcasm she normally carried around nowhere to be found.
Hizashi's expression softened instantly.
"Hey, Jirou."
She nodded once in greeting, but her attention never left Katsuki. Her throat felt tight. She hadn't been able to stop hearing it. The moment outside his dorm. The terrifying slowdown. The awful silence that followed. Every time she closed her eyes, her mind replayed it. She hated it. Hated that the thing that normally comforted her most had become something she couldn't escape.
Slowly, she moved closer to the bed.
One of her jacks slid free and rested lightly against the mattress.
There it was.
The rhythm made something in her chest unclench.
Enough that she could breathe again.
"I know we're not best friends or anything," she said quietly, eyes fixed on the sleeping boy. "But you're still my friend, idiot."
Her voice wobbled.
"We eat lunch together. You sit with us during movie nights. You let people steal your plate and pretend you didn't." A weak laugh escaped her. "You yelled at Kaminari for nearly setting the microwave on fire last week."
The smile vanished as quickly as it appeared.
"We hang out on weekends."
Her eyes burned.
"And I know you act like you hate all of us, but..." She swallowed hard. "You're part of our group."
For a moment the room was silent except for the monitor and the heartbeat beneath her jack.
Jirou closed her eyes and listened to it.
Not the memory. Not the nightmare.
The one that meant he was still here.
"Just be okay," she whispered.
A desperate, frightened hope from a girl who hadn't realized how much she cared about her friend until she thought she was about to lose him.
The door swung open again, and Recovery Girl stepped inside carrying a clipboard tucked beneath one arm. She spared Katsuki a brief glance before looking to the others gathered around him. "Jirou," she said, her voice gentler than usual, "if you're alright with it, I'd like you to stay with Bakugo for a few minutes." Jirou nodded immediately, moving her chair a little closer to the bed. Recovery Girl gave a small, approving hum before turning toward the two pro heroes.
"Out."
Present Mic blinked. "Pardon?"
"You heard me." She pointed firmly toward the door with one gnarled finger. "Out. Both of you."
Aizawa frowned, his eyes flicking instinctively back to Katsuki. The idea of leaving him, even for a few minutes, settled uneasily in his chest. Hizashi looked no happier, lingering where he stood with his coffee still untouched. They had spent the last several hours unwilling to let the boy out of their sight. Walking away now felt wrong.
Jirou noticed the hesitation and stood a little straighter. "I'll stay with him," she said quietly. "I won't leave until you're back." Her voice was nervous, but certain. "He... he won't be alone."
Aizawa met her eyes for a moment before giving a slow nod. "Thank you, Jirou." With one last glance toward the sleeping teenager, he and Hizashi finally stepped out into the hallway, the door clicking softly shut behind them.
The second the door shut behind them, the hallway became suffocatingly quiet.
Present Mic leaned against the wall and rubbed a hand over his face.
Aizawa folded his arms.
Neither of them spoke for several seconds.
Then Recovery Girl emerged from the room and closed the door softly behind her.
The look on her face made both heroes straighten immediately.
"What is it?" Aizawa asked.
Recovery Girl looked from him to Present Mic.
Her expression was grim.
Recovery Girl looked between the two of them before letting out a slow breath. "Do either of you know one of the stranger side effects of Bakugo's quirk?" she asked.
Present Mic and Aizawa exchanged a glance.
"No," Aizawa admitted.
"The glycerin-like properties involved in his sweat don't just help with creating explosions," Recovery Girl explained. "In some cases, they can contribute to faster recovery of superficial injuries. Cuts close quicker. Bruising on the surface fades faster than it should. Small injuries disappear before most people would think to question them." Her expression darkened. "It's convenient for a hero. It's also very convenient for hiding a pattern."
The hallway went silent.
"Because what I'm seeing isn't the bruising that's visible today," she continued. "It's what's underneath." She held up the scan she'd been reviewing. "There are signs of previous injuries. Old breakages. Areas that healed improperly before correcting themselves. Scar tissue beneath layers of newer tissue. Internal damage that can't simply be explained away by training accidents." Her eyes hardened. "And there is a lot of it."
Present Mic's stomach dropped.
"A lot?" he repeated quietly.
Recovery Girl nodded grimly. "Enough that I need access to his previous medical records. All of them. I want timelines. Injury reports. Hospital visits. Anything that might explain why a sixteen-year-old has the body of someone who's spent years getting hurt." She paused. "Because right now, I don't like the answers I'm coming up with."
For a long moment, nobody spoke. Then Aizawa's jaw tightened.
His gaze drifted toward the closed door behind which Katsuki was sitting alone.
When he finally spoke, his voice was frighteningly calm.
"I have a feeling," he said quietly, turning toward his husband, "that I know exactly who's been causing this."
Present Mic's expression fell.
Because he knew too. Or at least, he was starting to. And the more the pieces fit together, the more sickening the picture became.
—
The room was quiet again.
Jirou sat beside the bed with her head lowered, listening to the steady rhythm she'd been so desperate to hear. Relief should have been enough. It wasn't. Tears slipped silently down her cheeks anyway, landing one by one on the back of her clasped hands.
Something brushed against her face.
Softly.
She froze.
A rough thumb clumsily wiped away another tear.
Jirou's head snapped up.
Bright red eyes were looking back at her, tired and unfocused but unmistakably awake.
"Bakugo..."
The dam broke.
Her tears came harder than before as she hastily scrubbed at them with her sleeve. "I-I can go get Midoriya," she blurted out, words tumbling over each other. "Or Kirishima. They'd know what to say better than I do. I know we're not... we're not that close, I just..." She laughed shakily through another sob. "I just wanted to hear that you were alive again. After hearing your heart stop and seeing you there motionless. I-I just needed to know."
Katsuki listened without interrupting.
His hand fell back onto the blanket, exhausted by even that small movement.
When she'd finally run out of words, he gave the faintest shake of his head.
"You can stay."
The sentence was barely above a whisper. Jirou nodded immediately, pulling her chair a little closer. "I'm not going anywhere."
For a while, neither of them spoke. The silence wasn't uncomfortable, it was heavy. Too many words left unsaid.
Eventually Katsuki drew in a careful breath. "...I'm sorry."
Jirou looked at him, confused.
He kept his eyes fixed on the ceiling.
"I'm sorry you heard all that." His voice was hoarse from disuse. "And... saw it too."
He didn't need to explain what he meant.
She had already told him in her panicked rambling. About hearing his heartbeat. About hearing it change. About being the one who knew something was wrong before anyone else did.
"I can't imagine..." He swallowed. "I can't imagine what that was like. I'm sorry."
Jirou stared at him for a long moment before shaking her head so firmly her hair bounced.
"Sorry?" she echoed, almost incredulous. "Why are you apologising?" Fresh tears welled in her eyes. "I'm sorry you didn't think you could talk to any of us."
The words hung quietly between them.
Katsuki let out a weak, raspy laugh that dissolved into a cough.
"Maybe..." he murmured once he'd caught his breath, "...maybe we can just both be sorry."
Jirou laughed too, watery and uneven.
"Deal."
Neither of them noticed how much the room had changed at that moment. Just two teenagers who had seen one at their worst, quietly deciding to stay anyway. And though Katsuki didn't realize it yet, as Jirou settled back into her chair without another word, something had shifted between them.
A friendship had taken root. Quiet, steady, and stubborn enough to survive the silence.
Aizawa came back into the room alone, shutting the door behind him with a quiet finality that made the space feel smaller. “Jirou, if you wouldn't mind. I need to speak with Bakugo” Jirou hesitated near the bed for half a second, still clearly torn between staying and being told to leave. She left softly, smiling slightly at Katsuki whispering promises of coming back tomorrow.
Aizawa didn’t waste time. “Kid,” he said, voice low but firm, “we need to talk about this. It doesn't have to be with me, I can set you up with Hound dog.”
Katsuki didn’t react at first, he just shrugged, “I'm fine”.
Aizawa stepped forward slightly, voice softening in a way that was meant to be grounding. “Please, I just want to help.”
That was when Katsuki laughed.
It wasn’t loud. It wasn’t amused. It came out sharp and cracked at the edges, like something breaking under pressure rather than humour. His head tilted slightly as he finally looked at Aizawa properly, eyes guarded and tired in a way that didn’t match the defiance in his voice. “Help?” he repeated, like the word itself didn’t belong in the conversation. “I’m too old, Aizawa.” His jaw tightened. “You’re not going to help me. No one has before.”
The air in the room shifted.
Aizawa didn’t speak immediately.
Katsuki’s fingers curled against the blanket, knuckles whitening slightly as something older than anger flickered behind his eyes. The kind that came from knowing what happened when adults got loud, when they got angry, when they decided they knew better. Even now, even here, that instinct didn’t leave him.
“So I’ll repeat myself,” Katsuki said quietly, voice flattening again, sealing itself off. “I’m fine.”
Aizawa didn’t look away from Katsuki, but his anger wasn’t directed at him. It was controlled, contained, focused on something bigger that Katsuki couldn’t see but could definitely feel. And that was what made it worse. Because Katsuki didn’t trust anger from adults. Not anymore. Not like this. Not when it was aimed at the situation he refused to name.
Aizawa’s gaze shifted, slower now, more deliberate. Not scanning him like a hero in an emergency anymore, but like someone refusing to miss what was right in front of him. “What about the scar on your arm?” he asked quietly.
Katsuki didn’t even glance down. “Shrapnel,” he said immediately. “Like I said.” A shield worn so many times it barely needed thought anymore. Aizawa didn’t react the way he expected him to. Just a quiet, steady refusal to accept it.
“Kid,” Aizawa said after a pause, voice lower now, careful in a way that didn’t feel like weakness, “I know that’s not true.” That landed heavier than anger would have.
Katsuki let out a small, sharp sound through his nose. “Tch,” he muttered, but it lacked bite. His eyes flickered away for a second too long, jaw tightening as something inside him pulled in two directions at once. Anger wanted him to stand his ground. Habit wanted him to shut down. But underneath both of those was something older and more exhausted, something that didn’t know what to do with an adult who wasn’t yelling, wasn’t leaving, wasn’t breaking under his deflection.
So he stayed silent.
And for the first time in a long time, Katsuki didn’t know which version of himself was going to win.
Aizawa found himself at an impasse. Every instinct he had as a teacher, as a hero, as someone responsible for the kids under his care, was screaming at him to do something. To fix it. To drag the truth into the light and make it stop. But none of that mattered if Katsuki refused to speak. The kid sat there like a fortress built from old disappointments, every answer rehearsed, every wall reinforced long before Aizawa had ever entered his life. Pushing harder wouldn't help. If anything, it would probably drive him further away. That realization sat heavily in Aizawa's chest.
Aizawa had learned quickly that pushing Katsuki only made him close off further.
Every question about the injuries. Every careful attempt to ask what happened. Every offer of help. Katsuki had met them all with the same walls he had spent years building. Short answers. Deflections. Silence.
So Aizawa stopped trying to force open a door that wasn't ready to open.
Instead, he picked up on the one thing Katsuki had said without being asked.
"The letter," Aizawa said quietly. "You mentioned three years."
Katsuki's expression hardened immediately.
Aizawa didn't push.
He simply waited.
For a long time, Katsuki said nothing. His eyes stayed fixed somewhere past the hospital window, distant and unreadable.
Then, so quietly Aizawa almost missed it, he spoke.
"Three years ago..."
His voice caught. "My only friend died."
The words seemed heavier once they were out.
Aizawa stayed silent.
He didn't rush to fill the space afterward. He didn't offer a comforting phrase that might accidentally make Katsuki shut down. He just let the boy have the moment.
After several seconds, Katsuki finally added:
"Kariage."
Aizawa repeated the name softly. "Kariage."
There was something careful about the way he said it, like he was making sure he remembered it correctly.
"That's a nice name."
Katsuki looked down.
"Yeah."
A pause.
"He was a nice person."
The simplicity of the answer hurt more than anything else.
Aizawa leaned back slightly.
"Tell me about him."
Katsuki froze.
The request was so unexpected that for a moment, he didn't know how to respond.
Not what happened?
Not why did you let it affect you this much?
Not why didn't you move on?
Just...
Tell me about him.
His fingers tightened slightly around the blanket.
"Why?"
Aizawa's expression softened.
"Because you loved him."
The word made Katsuki look away. After three years of carrying Kariage's memory alone, someone was finally asking him to share it instead of asking him to leave it behind.
Katsuki swallowed.
"He was annoying."
Aizawa's mouth twitched slightly.
"That sounds promising."
A tiny, broken laugh escaped Katsuki.
And slowly, carefully, he began to talk.
Once he started, Katsuki couldn't seem to stop.
It was strange. Almost uncomfortable. He had spent years forcing himself not to say Kariage's name too often, not to bring him up when people didn't ask, not to admit how much he missed him. But now someone had opened that door, and everything he'd kept locked away came rushing out. "He was so stupid," Katsuki muttered, though the faintest hint of a smile crossed his face. "Always acting like he knew everything. Always trying to fix things." His eyes drifted toward the window. "But he was good. Like... actually good."
He talked about the little things first. The stupid things. The afternoons they spent hiding away from everyone else. The places they would go when home felt unbearable. The arguments they had over nothing. The way Kariage would call him out whenever he was being cruel, but never in a way that made Katsuki feel like a monster. He talked about how they would sit together and imagine their future, two kids who had no idea how they were going to survive but were somehow convinced they would.
"We promised each other," Katsuki whispered. "That we'd get out." His fingers curled against the blanket. "That we'd save up and leave. That I'd become a hero and we'd get some awful apartment and just... live." His voice softened. "We didn't need anything fancy. Just somewhere that was ours."
Aizawa listened quietly as Katsuki continued, because for the first time, he wasn't hearing the angry boy everyone else saw. He was hearing the child underneath him. The kid who had found one person who looked at him and didn't see a problem to fix. "He was the only person I ever had," Katsuki admitted. "The only person who knew everything and stayed anyway." His voice cracked slightly. "He didn't look at me like I was too much. He didn't look at me like I was broken. He just... saw me."
Aizawa listened until Katsuki's voice finally faded, until the memories became too heavy to carry out loud. For once, he didn't see the angry student who challenged everyone around him. He saw someone grieving someone who had mattered more than anyone else in his life.
"He sounds lovely," Aizawa said quietly.
Katsuki looked down, but he nodded.
"Yeah," he whispered. "He was."
Aizawa was silent for a moment before speaking again.
"I lost someone too."
That caught Katsuki's attention.
Aizawa rarely spoke about himself. Not like this. Not when it came to the things that hurt.
"Shirakumo," he continued. "We were students."
His voice remained steady, but Katsuki could hear the weight behind it.
"He was my friend."
The room went quiet.
"There isn't a timeline on grief. It's been thirty years," Aizawa said. "And I still miss him. I still think about what he could've become. I still wonder about the things he would've done, the person he would've grown into."
Katsuki stared at him.
Thirty years.
The number didn't make sense in his head.
"You... still do?"
Aizawa nodded.
"Of course I do."
Katsuki didn't know what to do with that.
Because nobody had ever told him that.
Everyone else had treated grief like something with an expiration date. Something you were supposed to get through. Something you eventually packed away because enough time had passed.
But Aizawa was sitting there telling him that thirty years later, someone could still matter.
That missing someone didn't mean you were broken.
For a while, Katsuki didn't say anything.The sentence seemed to settle somewhere deep inside him, somewhere he couldn't immediately fight against. Because if that was true, then maybe missing Kariage wasn't something pathetic. Maybe it wasn't proof that he was weak or stuck. Maybe it just meant that someone had mattered.
Aizawa watched him carefully.
"Bakugo?"
Nothing.
The blonde didn't move. Didn't look up. His eyes stayed fixed on the blanket, completely lost somewhere in his own thoughts.
"Katsuki."
The change was subtle. Almost impossible to notice. But Aizawa saw it. The way his shoulders stiffened. The way his breathing caught. The way his eyes lifted just slightly.
Aizawa leaned forward, voice lowering.
"Please let us help you."
There was no authority behind it. No teacher speaking to a difficult student. It sounded like a man asking someone he cared about not to disappear.
"You nearly died, kid."
For a long moment, Katsuki stared at him. Then he laughed.
Aizawa froze.
It wasn't a normal laugh. It wasn't the sharp, mocking sound he was used to hearing from him. It was broken.
A painful, disbelieving sound that barely sounded like laughter at all.
Tears slipped down Katsuki's face as the laugh grew, his shoulders shaking as he tried and failed to contain it.
"I haven't been called Katsuki in three years."
Aizawa frowned.
The sentence confused him more than anything else Katsuki had said.
"What do you mean?"
But Katsuki couldn't stop.
He laughed harder, crying harder, like the realization itself was unbearable.
"I haven't..."
His voice cracked.
"Kariage was the last person who called me that."
Aizawa went quiet.
And suddenly the pieces began falling into place. The scribbled out bakugo in his note, the way he tends to glare at his own name.
For three years, Katsuki hadn't just been grieving a friend. He had been grieving the last person who made him feel like he was more than his anger. More than his mistakes. More than the version of himself everyone else expected.
The last person who said his name like Katsuki was someone worth knowing.
His eyes drifted toward the ceiling again. "My parents don't say it." His voice grew quieter. "Deku calls me Kacchan. Auntie Inko calls me honey or lovely or whatever." A shaky breath escaped him. "I don't think I've heard my actual name in years."
His eyes began to sting.
"It was nice." The confession came out before he could stop it. "The way he said it."
A tear rolled down the side of his face.
"Katsuki."
He could practically hear it.
"Like I mattered."
His voice cracked violently.
"Like I was someone worth talking to."
More tears followed.
Unstoppable now.
"He'd say it when I was upset. When I was angry. When I was being an asshole." A weak laugh escaped him before dissolving into a sob. "Didn't matter. He always said it the same way." His shoulders shook beneath the hospital blanket. "Like I was still me."
The room blurred.
Aizawa stayed silent.
And Katsuki cried, because for three years there had been nobody left who said his name the way Kariage did.
And suddenly that loss felt fresh all over again.
“Why was it him?”
Katsuki’s voice came out broken, barely holding itself together. His hands gripped the blanket like it was the only thing anchoring him to anything real. “He saved me,” he whispered, more to himself than to Aizawa. “And now he’s gone.” His throat tightened painfully as the words kept spilling out, faster now, like he couldn’t stop them even if he tried.
“But you had to save me.” His breath hitched, turning sharp and uneven. “I didn’t ask for it. I didn’t need it. I just…” His eyes squeezed shut, tears slipping down anyway. “I just want my friend back. I want Kariage. Please.” His voice cracked completely on the last word. “Why?”
Aizawa didn't answer immediately.
Because suddenly, pieces that had never quite fit were starting to come together.
Kariage hadn't just been a friend.
He had been the person who saw Katsuki before the anger, before the walls, before the reputation. The person who made him feel like he wasn't too much. Like he wasn't something that needed fixing. And Aizawa finally understood the weight behind every time Katsuki said no one was coming to save him. The person who had once made him believe they could escape together was gone, and Katsuki had been carrying that loss alone.
His own friend had died, and everyone had expected him to simply keep moving.
Aizawa's chest tightened painfully.
Then his mind returned to everything else Katsuki had said.
I haven't been called Katsuki in three years.
His parents didn't call him that.
They didn't say his name.
And suddenly that detail hurt more than it should have.
Because a name was such a simple thing. Such an ordinary thing. But to Katsuki, it had become proof that someone had looked at him and seen a person. Not a problem. Not a disappointment. Not a child to control.
Just Katsuki.
And Aizawa couldn't stop thinking about how long this boy had been asking for help without ever actually saying the words. How many adults had looked at his behaviour and decided he was difficult instead of wondering why. How many signs had been dismissed because he was loud, because he was angry, because people found it easier to blame him than understand him.
No child should have had to become this good at surviving alone.
Something inside Katsuki snapped.
The grief that had been sitting in his chest twisted into something sharper, something easier to understand. Anger. It surged through him because anger was familiar. Anger didn't make him feel helpless. Anger didn't make him feel like a child who had been hurt and didn't know what to do with it.
"Why did you have to help me?"
The words came out broken, caught between a sob and a shout.
"I didn't want help!"
His hands clenched against the sheets, his breathing becoming uneven as everything he'd been holding back crashed over him at once. The tears didn't stop, but neither did the anger. It was messy. Desperate. A child lashing out because the one thing he had been preparing himself for had been taken away from him.
"I didn't ask you to save me!"
Aizawa stayed still, even as Katsuki's voice rose.
"Get out."
The words were quieter this time.
But they hurt more.
"I want you to leave me alone."
Katsuki looked away, wiping at his face angrily.
"I don't trust you."
A pause.
"I don't like you."
The lie sounded almost convincing, if not for the way his voice shook.
"Just... leave me alone."
Katsuki didn't know what to do with someone staying. He only knew how to survive when people left.
Aizawa didn't move toward the door.
Not because he wanted to ignore Katsuki's request. Not because he didn't understand how much the boy needed space. He understood that pushing too hard would only make Katsuki retreat further.
But leaving him completely alone wasn't something he could do.
"I know you don't trust me," Aizawa said quietly.
Katsuki's shoulders shook, but he didn't turn around.
"I know you don't believe me when I say I want to help. I know right now you probably think I'm just another adult who showed up too late."
A pause.
"But I can't leave you by yourself."
His voice softened.
"I'm sorry. I know that's not what you want to hear. But someone needs to stay."
The words only seemed to make something in Katsuki break further.
"I don't want anyone."
His voice was muffled against the pillow.
"I want Kari."
Aizawa went still.
"I want my friend."
The last word came out as barely a whisper.
Katsuki curled further into himself, turning onto his side so his back faced Aizawa. Like even being seen while he fell apart was too much. The anger was gone now, leaving behind only exhaustion and grief. A small, broken sound escaped him.
Aizawa had heard Katsuki yell. He had heard him threaten, argue, and challenge anyone who got in his way. But this was different. This was a child grieving the one person who had made him feel safe.
"I know," Aizawa whispered.
Because some losses weren't fixed by forgetting.
"I know you want him back."
Katsuki didn't answer.
He just lay there, crying quietly into the pillow.
And Aizawa stayed.
He stayed because, for once, Katsuki needed someone who wouldn't disappear when things got difficult.