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It isn’t odd for Yamikumo to snap awake in the middle of the night feeling like the weight of the entire world is crushing him. Sometimes he feels like he’s in a very small box, stuck and trapped and unable to escape; other times he feels so small, and everything else feels so incompassably big, and no matter how he spends the rest of the night afterwards—curled in the corner of the room on his phone or throwing up in the bathroom—he’s always left feeling empty.
Tonight, he curls himself by the head of his bed and scrolls through the messages on his phone. It’s late—or, rather, early, 2:34am to be precise—and, as always, he’s warring between sending a message, or playing his accursed Animal Crossing game until he hurls his phone across the room in frustration.
He decides on the former, tonight. For now.
[Yamikumo]
You awake?
He’s expecting a snap, “barely three seconds have passed how did you write that so quickly” response—it’s what he’s gotten used to expecting—and it’s exactly what he gets.
[Katsuki]
Hahaha I guess a better question would be when am I not awake? Finals are so much fun, gotta love ‘em. What’s up with you?
Yamikumo used to feel bad about waking up Katsuki at ungodly hours, but now, after being friends with him for so long, and after Katsuki messaged him at ungodly hours, usually begging for help on a school assignment, Yamikumo can’t bring himself to feel guilty about it anymore.
Besides, Katsuki is always awake, it seems; never once has Yamikumo woken him up.
[Yamikumo]
Nothing much.
Just, one of those nights.
[Katsuki]
I feel you, my dude.
...Wait.
Is it one of those nights or one of THOSE nights?
[Yamikumo]
What
[Katsuki]
Insomnia or panic attack?
[Yamikumo]
Um
[Katsuki]
Crap. Hold on.
[Yamikumo]
Wait. What are you doing?
He doesn’t get a response, so he sets his phone down on the floor beside him, pulls his knees against his chest, and wraps his arms around them tightly. Katsuki has always been a very impulsive, “go with the moment” kind of person, which can sometimes be nice considering that Yamikumo has always been the exact opposite.
He wishes he could be more like Katsuki, in a lot of ways for a lot of reasons. His throat burns with acid, and he swallows once or twice, but it doesn’t do much to help; he rests his forehead on his knees and takes in a deep breath through his nose, shutting his eyes.
Mom is out on business, so he’s alone in the house, in the dark, with nothing but his own thoughts and insecurities to keep him company. He’s been enrolled in U.A. for the past couple of months now, but still; even though he’s one of the top students, even though he’s recognized as one of the smartest kids there, even though he has friends and even though he knows he’s well loved and cherished,
Well,
Sometimes he wishes he could be more. Sometimes he regrets not being more, not being better.
These are the kinds of things that keep him up at these ungodly hours, the kinds of things that send him into panic attacks if he can’t get himself under control in time. The kind of things that generally end with him either in the bathroom, or playing dumb games on his phone to pass the time.
The kind of things that generally end with him texting Katsuki, if just for a split second of validation.
He curls in tighter on himself, fingers grasping handfuls of his sweatpants. He’s exhausted, but the thought of sleeping, just...it sends an icy bolt through his heart and another, fiery one through his stomach, so he doesn’t try.
Instead, he sits.
He sits, and he tries to forget.
And then something taps on his window.
He raises his head slowly, not bothering to brush his hair out of his face.
Perched on the windowsill outside, barely visible in the dark, is Katsuki.
Yamikumo blinks. Katsuki blinks back at him, then smiles and waves enthusiastically.
After a second, Yamikumo gets to his feet (his legs are shaking, but he maintains his balance) and crosses the room towards the window. With trembling fingers, he undoes the lock, and in tumbles Katsuki.
“I have a door,” Yamikumo says flatly, shutting the window as Katsuki gets to his feet and brushes himself off. “You could’ve just texted me, I would’ve opened it.”
“Yeah, but if you ended up falling asleep on the floor again, I wouldn’t’ve wanted to wake you up,” is Katsuki’s answer, and he says it with such matter of fact-ness that it almost, almost convinces him. “Anyway, what’s up?”
“Both of us.”
“No, I mean—” Katsuki sighs, shoulders slumping. “You know what I mean. You alright?”
Yamikumo considers lying, but at the last second, decides against it. “I just, y’know, it’s…” His eyes burn and he does his best not to let it show. “It’s just...one of those nights, I-I guess.”
Katsuki hums and nods simply. “Do you, um, wanna...do you wanna talk about it, or…? Do you want me to find some dumb cat videos online or something? I mean, or, like—”
“There’s...not much new to talk about,” Yamikumo answers, shifting his weight. “I just...don’t really...feel like I should be there.”
“...Be...where?”
“U.A.”
At this, Katsuki clicks his tongue and rolls his eyes with a grin, reaching out and taking Yamikumo’s shoulder. “C’mon, dude, you know you belong there,” Katsuki says, still beaming. “You worked harder than anyone else to get in there, so don’t say you don’t belong.”
“But, I-I don’t have a—”
“Listen, you have a brain, and that’s already more than half the people over there have,” Katsuki interrupts. “So you don’t have some crazy superhuman ability like the rest of us, who cares? That doesn’t make you any less a hero, and it definitely doesn’t make you any less a person.”
It’s these seconds of validation that keep Yamikumo going. Just a reminder, even if it only lasts a minute, or even a second, that he belongs where he is, that he isn’t a vapor in the wind, that who he is, what he’s doing, matters.
And maybe it’s stupid, to keep needing this kind of validation, but he does, and Katsuki has never minded being the one to give it.
His eyes burn, and he ducks his head, though he doesn’t let the tears fall. He whispers a thank-you that he isn’t sure Katsuki hears, and a second later, Katsuki is leading him by the shoulder.
“C’mon, we’ll watch some stupid cat videos. I’ve got a million of ‘em.”
“You didn’t bring your phone.”
“I’ll use yours, I have the websites memorized.”
Yamikumo pauses a moment to pick his phone up off the ground, and then he and Katsuki sit by the headboard of the bed, sides pressed against each other’s, phone now in Katsuki’s hands.
“Okay, okay, so you have to watch this one, this one’s my favorite—oh, this one’s funny, too, I think you’ll like this one—maybe it’ll finally get you to smile—”
Yamikumo snorts and shakes his head.
“Speaking of,” Katsuki says, turning to him, “are you ever gonna do something about that crazy hair of yours, because half the time I can’t tell what you’re thinking because your hair is always in your face.”
Yamikumo shrugs. “Maybe,” he says, brushing some of said “crazy hair” out of his face, only for it to fall back a second later. “I don’t really feel like having it done, though.”
Katsuki sighs, but doesn’t argue. “Anyway, if you can see through that hair, I really love this video, here—it’s really short but it’s hilarious, watch—”
And it’s nice, Yamikumo thinks, that Katsuki doesn’t once draw him back to the original subject—the fact that he’s insecure, that he feels worthless sometimes, that he isn’t sure he belongs in a hero academy like U.A., surrounded by people his age with outstanding Quirks and capabilities.
Katsuki is here for him as a friend, a light to Yamikumo’s ever-consistent dark, and honestly, he appreciates Katsuki’s friendship more than he could ever fully explain.
(And, not gonna lie, the cat videos are a nice little bonus.)
Yamikumo wakes him up all the time.
Katsuki never tells him this, of course; he always plays it off as an “I never sleep, always up late trying to study” kind of thing, which sometimes it is, just, not all the time.
In reality, he knows the kinds of things his friend goes through. Ever since the first time Yamikumo called him in the dead of night, breathing heavily and on the brink of a panic attack, Katsuki always made sure to keep his ringer on at full volume at all times.
Yamikumo has woken him up several times since, but Katsuki isn’t complaining. Not one bit. He’d complain more if Yamikumo didn’t text him or call him when he needed someone to talk to.
Yamikumo is sleeping now with his head on Katsuki’s shoulder, and after a second or two, Katsuki sighs and sets Yamikumo’s phone on the table by the bedside, careful not to jostle him. Yamikumo doesn’t stir, and Katsuki reaches for the blanket, which he then pulls over Yamikumo’s shoulders.
There isn’t much light in the room aside from the moonlight, but Katsuki can still make out prominent, bruise-like crescents beneath Yamikumo’s eyes that never go away, and he sighs again, wrapping an arm around his friend’s shoulders and pulling him closer.
“What am I supposed to do with you, huh?” he asks, even though he know Yamikumo can’t hear him. He doesn’t mind it at all, though, being here when Yamikumo needs a friend, when he just needs someone to talk to.
He’s been friends with Yamikumo for quite some time now, and he’s in it for the long haul. Even if that long haul is an uphill battle in which he and Yamikumo are carrying hundreds of pounds worth of weight.
He’ll be here for every second of it, and when Yamikumo needs him—which he does, and he will—Katsuki is more than willing to be his split second of validation.
To be the person who tells him that he can become a hero, even when everyone else—including Yamikumo himself—says otherwise.