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No matter how high his name places, nor how big the number ends up being. Who he is now, could never erase the kid he was before. The smiles he spares to everyone will never fill in the emptiness he himself feels, the look of awe and the words of each praise can never make him forget how lonely he truly was.
They say that it’s easy to catch someone hurting, the pained look on their faces, or the shaky smile that runs over their lips. They say it’s easy to find all those little faults in someone, like finding a wrong stroke in a painting. Like it was as easy as finding the animal in those children books.
That the mask was so visible for everyone to see, that it was so tangible, like it could be taken away in any given moment. That they could see the different cracks running through the white porcelain, the paint fading, smearing around. They say they could see it, but no one ever reaches for it.
That, or no one really can see it. That it was lie, that it really wasn’t easy finding the sadness in someone’s person. Even looking at them, straight in eyes they can't find a hint of sorrow. Despite the fact that he was already consumed in dismay.
No matter how many times he re-dyes his hair to a color so vibrant, so loud and beautiful, roots still come in black. That no matter many times he wakes up to set his hair in the three minutes it takes, it still falls in seconds. It always goes back, to its originality.
So, no matter how many times he does his best, no matter how many times he does one goddamn thing right. He’ll eventually fuck up. He’s seen it before, been through it before, and it will happen again and again. He won’t be those heroes who’ve only been the best, he won’t be someone who’s unlimited. He’ll be grounded from where he is. No matter how many times he tries to move, the reminder of who he was, will always bring him back to the ground.
To reality.
Those kids who look up to him, who wave their hands high in the air won’t ever know the real him. They never will, it would be impossible, because unlike the myth that spreads through society, he’s façade is impenetrable.
No matter how much it slips through, no one reaches for his hand, no matter how heavy it gets, no one carries half the weight for him. No matter how loud he yells, everyone will think that he’s just having a moment of sadness. They won’t understand that the pain that spreads throughout him is slowly killing him.
That the smiles he loves to give aren’t a call for help. He sincerely wants to spread happiness, and he can. It’s proven by the way they smile back, the way they return his hugs and laugh with him. The same goes for him, the way Kaminari cracks a joke and it makes him laugh. The times Mina shares all those little inspiring stories she seen in the streets makes him feel hopeful.
The way Sero throws his arm over his shoulder, it comforts him, making him feel relaxed. The times Bakugou calls him an idiot but smiles, all of it, all of it truly makes him feel happy. Content.
But that doesn’t change anything. That doesn’t change the fact that he’s the same.
It was odd thinking about this now, it was weird that there was a time in his life that he thought none of it actually mattered. But when he was lounging around on the sofa, a rare sight of him some say, that he works too much and could never seem to catch a break. He was thinking to himself, hair down with no phone in his hands, completely distracted from the real world, that he could do nothing.
He could stop working out with Mina, stop studying with Bakugou, that he could just simply stop. That it was plausible, that he could get up now, drop out of U.A and go home. He could just automatically stop talking, stop moving, that he could do all that without even feeling a thing.
He could just completely shut down now, and not a single voice in his head would scream at him to get up, to do something. That nothing inside of him with break out a tear. And it doesn’t bother him for a second that he thinks like this. He thinks its normal until Sero is standing before him, bent down a bit, looking concerned. Sero raises up an eyebrow, smile replaced with worry.
It’s a slip up on Kirishima’s part. He didn’t mean to look out of place, to make Sero concerned, but it’s an easy fix up. He raises his own brows, eyes wide and shocked, then he chuckles a bit nervously, “Whoa, I totally zoned out man, what’s up?” He smiles, bright and like the ones he practiced in front of the mirror. Sero still looks concerned, but Kirishima already has this planned, steps ahead of anyone.
“Are you sure? You looked really scary man, lifeless even.” Sero’s voice quiets down even more. His stare doesn’t stray.
But neither does Kirishima’s façade. He shakes his head, scooting back up on the sofa to look like he has a fixed posture, he raises his hand and looks away from Sero to look at them. “Nah man, seriously, I was just thinking how I don’t have my phone with me. And then I started thinking about what if I had the quirk of teleporting items? I had this entire scenario in my head,” as he continues to tell his story, Sero visibly relaxes, his smile returns, and he’s no longer tensed as before.
Sero even talks about how sometimes he does too, zone out and play crazy scenarios in his mind. Thinking about what ifs and what could. They fall back into comfortable conversation, Kirishima’s dark thoughts pushed away, distracted with Sero’s words.
Once it’s late, and they go their own separate ways, Sero to his room, and Kirishima’s to his own.
That’s when Kirishima starts to notice that it is when he’s alone, his thoughts start being the one to distract him from the world. That when he’s alone, he starts to feel the way he does. Although when he wakes up it disappears, Bakugou is at his door waiting for him to get to class, and everything under the sun gets to distract him from himself.
Besides, what value is there in those depreciating thoughts of his? It had no worth to him unlike the ‘real’ world. A world filled with such heavier problems, colder complications, how little it was compared to the world around him. Who does he think he is, to think that those meaningless thoughts had any value?
He wasn’t depressed, he didn’t think he was depressed.
He didn’t feel lifeless, nor was he lazy. He worked so hard out in training. He ran in the track, hearing all the birds sing and watched the clouds slowly flow around him. He woke up every morning to his alarm to get ready for class and eat his fill. He wasn’t depressed, how could he possibly be?
He had so many friends back in junior high, he can remember all of them cheering him on, slapping his back and giving him all sorts of hugs. Congratulating him for getting accepted in U.A.
But where were they when he was still Kirishima Eijirou, the kid in their class who sat in the middle of them all? If anything, he really only had two friends, two friends that didn’t really believe in him. Two friends who discouraged him from applying to U.A, two friends that agreed that none of them could really be anyone like those who did get into U.A.
But they didn’t mean anything by it. They were just saying what they believed, they were just saying the truth, weren’t they?
There’s a rock in the track he runs in, out of place and in the middle waiting for Kirishima to fall over it. He hits the ground hard, not activating his quirk at all.
He feels pain for the first time in a long time. He feels his elbow that landed first push in deep into the gravel, he can feel it push forward into his skin, some skidding, cutting him just a bit. His hip and knee hurts too. It feels a little wet after a few seconds, but he doesn’t go and look, thinking that it had to be sweat.
He’s not depressed, he doesn’t think he was depressed. He doesn’t physically harm himself, there are accidents sure, but accidents he doesn’t purposely go looking for. But he had seen that rock feet away. He knew it was there, and he thought to himself to just skip over it like he did in the first five laps
Maybe he’s tired, he has been running for thirty minutes now. Maybe his leg couldn’t pick himself up, or maybe his brain simply didn’t respond fast enough. Maybe he forgot that rock was there.
And he didn’t activate his quirk simply because it was just a fall. What pain couldn’t he bare from a fall so small? It’ll heal quickly anyways if any damage was done. It would go away, and it will just go back to how it was before.
He lays on the ground, turning his body so that his back was against the uncomfortable ground. The sky a beautiful baby blue, clouds so fluffy they look painted by God himself.
A lot of the time, they say that it just takes one little slip, one little fall, one tiny fuck up for everything to come crashing down. But there’s nothing to fall, fuck there’s nothing there to let go. Breathing heavily, Kirishima searches for anything like how people describe it, to find that one thing to let it all go, to just scream, to yell for help, but there’s absolutely nothing for him to call out to.
No one who could possibly answer him, so what is the point?
Why call when no one is going to pick up?
Why cry, when no one is going to hear it at all?
When he walks into the dorms, there’s no one there waiting for him. Everyone is either in their own rooms, sleeping or keeping up with the thousand assignments, other’s busying themselves with activities to keep them from boredom in the lounge area. He smiles and passes them all by, a little wave greeting there and here.
But once he leaves them all he goes to his room.
There are times when he thinks about leaving this place. As in graduating and leaving for good. He wonders who would keep a smile on his face, who would throw their arms over his shoulder, and tell him little stories of the day. He wonders who would keep him company in the kitchen or play video games in the living room. He wonders who would smile and train with him, who would pat him in the back and encourage him.
He wonders what would happen when everyone he knew was gone, leaving him to their own world. He wonders if he would fall deeper and deeper into this place he buried himself in already.
Lifting his right hand, he places it over his chest. It feels tight, like something inside was struggling to get out. But it had its chance, he thinks to himself, it had the opportunity to yell and cry all it wanted when they were alone. But even he knows it’s because there’s people around ready to hear him.
There’s two different worlds revolving around him, one that wanted to yell, one that wanted to stay quiet. One that was so tired and pained, one that couldn’t risk its happiness. Because of…what if…what if he accepts the fact that he does have depression, what if he lets everything in his chest go, and it won’t stop?
Accepting it, will only make him more aware of it. Accepting it would only make him feel like he was wrong, stupid, and weak.
It would make him less of man.
What if, what if letting it all out doesn’t give him the relief that it sought out for. What if he’s only brought disappointment, something that will push him over the ledge to despair?
What if everyone will treat him like he was fragile, they’ll stop treating him like Red Riot, and start looking at him like he was Kirishima Eijirou.
There are so many people, who can tell you that you’re brave, so many people can tell you that you're fearless, that nothing could stop you, that you’re immovable. That you can be, something…anything you want to be. But that’s all they say, they don’t tell you how, or where to look for your courage, too look for your boldness. They only compliment you, but never look deeper than that.
Reaching out to grab the knob to his door, he twists his wrist feeling a little tinge of pain through his arm. He ignores it, it’ll go back to normal, back to what it was. It always does.
But when he looks up into his room, ready to take a step forward he pauses. He stops and is completely surprised to see Bakugou sitting on his bed, playing with a roll of bandages in his hand. Throwing it with one hand and catching it with the other, he doesn’t look up to greet Kirishima, but he notices that Bakugou’s frown deepens even more somehow.
He chuckles to himself when that thought crosses his mind.
“Saw you fall dumbass,” he says as he scoots himself off Kirishima’s bed. He pulls himself forward, holding the roll in one hand as he stands in front of Kirishima, not at all too far, but deep into his room that clearly says, “I’m not leaving until I bandage you up idiot.”
Kirishima smiles, he feels warmth flow through him. Turning around slightly to close the door behind him, he feels it.
There’s not one, or two, but a trail of tears appears in his eyes and falling as soon it get’s heavy from where it is. Kirishima scoffs, his head tilting downward, looking to the floorboards. Eyes wide in surprise, he laughs as the tears continue to fall.
He doesn’t turn around to face Bakugou, his body feels so heavy for some reason. Like he can’t move it for anything. His shoulders tensed, as he quickly wipes his face, but the tears don’t stop, no matter how much he blinks and dries his eyes. It’s usually easy to stop crying, really was, he has done it thousands of times before, but for some reason he can’t stop it right now.
His emotions won’t listen to him, he can’t calm down.
He can’t stop…
Soon a choked sob leaves his lips instead of a laugh he intended. He shakes, and his arms pull away from his face to grab hold of his body. Fuck.
“Kirishima.” Bakugou’s voice is barely heard, everything feels so quieted down around him. Everything but the sobs that he tries so hard to control. He feels like he’s the only one making noise, the only one making sounds so loud.
“Kirishima,” Bakugou calls out to him again, and Kirishima can feel him behind him, closer than before but he doesn’t touch him. God please don’t touch him, he feels like he would flinch away, yell at him even. But Bakugou doesn’t, he keeps his distance, inches away. “No one is one hundred percent happy, not even ninety or eighty.” He mutters it, but Kirishima can hear it clearly.
“Shit, if anyone was like that, it would be maddening, wouldn’t it be?” Bakugou snorts, looking away from Kirishima’s back but not moving away. But he quickly comes back to face the man, and no he wasn’t looking at him directly, but this proximity was enough. “Us heroes, we people, we can’t always be happy. We can’t always laugh and joke like nothing is wrong, but sometimes, finding that little light, that one thing that makes us pull through is enough.”
Kirishima wishes he can turn around and smile at Bakugou, tell him he was right, but that would only be lying to him. He wishes he can go and just hug him and let all the sadness disappear. But he knows it won’t, he knows Bakugou isn’t his savior in this.
“We can’t always be sad, just like how we can’t always be happy. But you don’t deserve to be alone in this, you don’t deserve any of that shit. I can’t promise you, that one day you’ll be happy and never feel the way you do now, but I can promise you that I’ll be there for you.” Bakugou’s voice starts to sound solemn as if his little talk with him was coming to an end, so when Kirishima turns around to finally face him, he’s surprised that Bakugou was staring back at him, a glare profound on his face as he says one last thing.
“And I’ll tell you, every fucking time you need to hear it, you’re ridiculously strong and yeah there’s gonna be a ton of fucking setbacks, but your Kirishima fucking Eijirou, the man makes Red Riot, and you’ll break through it all. No, I can’t fix you, no one can. I can’t tell you’ll get better, but I know for a fact, that you're gonna be okay.”
There’s a hand on Kirishima’s shoulder, one he can’t see from the blurred vision he creates in himself. But once he feels the warmth, the support of Bakugou Katsuki, everything does come breaking down.
And having the warmth surround him, embracing the man in front of him, he feels slighter better today.