Chapter Text
Of course, nothing good ever lasts long, not for Keigo.
Suicide. That’s what Endeavour said in the official report some days later.
Quirk accident. That’s what the school had announced that morning.
The morning after they had officially become Touya and Keigo.
Well, never again, for Touya Todoroki was dead.
The morning after the Hair Salon Day (as he had insisted they called it), Keigo woke up walking on clouds. Big, fluffy, bubblegum colored clouds. He was ecstatic. His usual morning routine flew past him in a blur, and the walk from the dorms to the classroom had never felt this long. He arrived at the door ten minutes earlier and stood there, greeting his classmates as they entered, waiting for Touya.
His boyfriend. Not only his best friend in the entire world, but the person he loved the most out of everyone, and he loved him back. Keigo hid his smile by burying his face in his scarf. He still couldn’t believe it, it had to be a dream.
And then, he wished it was a dream. An awfully cruel joke. A nightmare. Anything but reality, because Touya loved him, and he promised that he wouldn’t leave him, and now they were telling him he was dead. Gone forever.
The single breath he let out was visible due to the cold weather, and when his hands came up to furiously try to dry the steady stream of tears rolling down his cheeks, his cold fingertips made him shiver, and he wished Touya was there to warm him up. He cried harder.
What Keigo couldn’t stand was how after some time, things seemed to go back to normal. The wind kept blowing and the sun kept rising every morning, not that it mattered, in Keigo’s humble opinion, for the brightest star was no longer there by his side.
How dare life continue without Touya? How could he ever continue without Touya? The only constant in his life, always had been, and he was supposed to always be. Until he wasn’t, not anymore, and not ever again.
The coldest winter he had ever gone through passed, and Keigo felt numb. A spot on his inner arm stayed constantly bruised, from the repetitive pinching he did to try to wake himself up, because this dream had lasted long enough and he wanted off. He wanted to fall asleep in class and wake up in his own bed, feeling too hot and a little clammy under the covers, with a human furnace clinging to him like a lifeline. I wanna go home, and I want you to be there.
He wasn’t invited to the funeral. He wasn’t planning on going, anyways. He didn’t visit the grave either, beacuse seeing it there, it would make it real and this wasn’t real, he just needed to wake up, for fuck’s sake.
He graduated. Alone. At this point the loneliness was a constant, taking the spot that once belonged to him, and it stung. He was used to it but it still stung. Keigo had always been alone, until he wasn’t, but good things never last long, not for him.
He became Hawks and, with the help of the commission, he opened a hero agency and began climbing his way up the hero ranks. The numbness never really went away, and he still didn’t visit Touya’s grave, but his inner arms were spotless. His apartment didn’t feel like home, it was always too damn cold, but it was his and it was real.
There was no more Touya and Keigo.
He wasn’t even Keigo anymore. Just Hawks. And it was fine. He was fine.
And then he Infiltrated the League of Villains.
And then he met Dabi.
The bruise on his inner arm returned, because, a couple of months after their first meeting, he could have sworn he caught a glimpse of bubblegum pink hair coming out of Dabi’s scalp and there was no fucking way.