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(Cold bones
Yeah, that's my love)
“He left the other day,” Midoriya tells him, the pain in his eyes poorly masked. “Said he needed some time alone. He’ll be back. I know he will.”
He doesn’t sound so convinced.
“What were his words?” Eijirou whispers. “What were Katsuki’s own words?”
“Said he needed some time alone,” Midoriya repeats hoarsely. “He’ll be back.”
Does Midoriya realise his own lie? Is he that far gone in his own futile hope?
Eijirou leaves him to his thoughts. He has to find Katsuki.
(He hides away, like a ghost)
Katsuki doesn’t want to be found. At least, that’s how it seems to Eijirou. They could exist in separate realities for all that his searching has done. He has no direction, no clue.
Eijirou’d found the note Katsuki had left the others, yesterday.
‘Don’t do stupid shit whilst I’m gone,’ it read. ‘Look after each other’.
It stares them in the face, and yet no one notices the signs. Katsuki isn’t―
He won’t―
(Does he know that we bleed the same?)
Katsuki’s pain is Eijirou’s pain, and the note is the very essence of heartbreak. Eijirou has done this to Katsuki.
Toothy grins and bright laughter ― that’s who Eijirou is meant to be. That’s the Eijirou that Katsuki made friends with. The blond never signed up to the man beneath the mask. Eijirou should never have broken the illusion. He should never have―
Why did he―
(Don't wanna cry, but I break that way)
Eijirou doesn’t miss the darker patches, the dried out areas where Katsuki’s tears have stained the page. It reminds him of that night.
“I’m not the person I was!” Katsuki had screamed. “I’m not someone who lives to make others miserable! I’ve done enough shit to Deku. I wanna make people smile, for fuck’s sake!”
“Well, I’m not smiling, am I, Katsuki?” Eijirou had cried back.
Why did he have to―?
If he’d held out for the smallest while longer, Katsuki would be here.
But Eijirou hadn’t. And Katsuki isn’t by his side.
The more he considers it, the more he feels...numb. He thinks about it until all he can feel anymore is the wet slide of tears down his cheeks.
(Cold sheets
But where's my love)
Whenever Eijirou has a nightmare, he goes to Katsuki’s room. They lie there together, in the early hours of the morning, content to find comfort in each other’s presence. Katsuki tells him the same thing every time.
‘You’re my best friend. Don’t you fucking forget it.’
When did he stop believing it? When did the words become empty? When did Eijirou lose the warmth he’d found?
Cold sheets are colder when you’ve gotten used to the presence of another person. Eijirou fears he may never find that warmth again.
And it’s his fault.
(I am searching high
I'm searching low in the night)
“Kirishima?” Tokoyami asks, concerned. “How do you find yourself out here so late?”
“I―” Eijirou starts.
How did he get here? How did he find himself on the training grounds at two o’clock in the morning?
“Sorry...I must not be thinking right,” Eijirou mutters in apology, and swivels to go back indoors.
The memory of a late night sparring match is pushed firmly out of his head.
(Does he know that we bleed the same?)
Eijirou’s pain is his own to own. Why he ever tried to tell someone about it, he doesn’t know. Smiles are a thing of the past now. Smiles require energy, strength. Eijirou has neither.
He thinks about it all the time. What compelled him to think that he could show his hurt to Katsuki? What naivety in him convinced him to open up? He should’ve kept his feelings to himself. He should have shouldered his own jealousy, his own anxiety, his own uncertainty.
He’d never meant to hurt Katsuki.
But not even closing his eyes erases the image of Katsuki’s pain. It’s omnipresent.
Eijirou can’t deal with it.
(Don't wanna cry, but I break that way)
“Why, why, why?” Eijirou sobs into his pillow. “Why would you leave me like this? Why would you leave me without a chance to redeem myself?”
(Did he run away? Did he run away? I don't know
If he ran away, If he ran away, come back home)
“Katsuki, come back,” Eijirou mumbles into his pillow. “Katsuki, let me explain. I’m your best friend, aren’t I? I―I’m so sorry!”
The tears come back with a vengeance.
(Just come home)
Eijirou is tired. He’s tired all of this. He wants to see Katsuki again. He wants to―
He wants to be at peace. He wants to feel his love again.
(I got a fear
Oh, in my blood)
What if Katsuki doesn’t return?
The question is the subject of his nightmares for the nights to come. What if it was final?
That broken smile, the smile that was all Katsuki could manage before he left, cannot be his last memory of Katsuki. It just―
Can’t.
(He was carried up
Into the clouds, high above)
Does Katsuki breathe the fresh air that Eijirou struggles to find? Is Katsuki recovering alone, ready to come back to his best friend? Or is he―
Is he―
The thought doesn’t bear completing.
(If you're bled, I bleed the same)
The scars aren’t completely healed. Some of the brightly coloured bandaids have half peeled off, and yet, in the photo, Katsuki is smiling.
Eijirou wants to be able to smile like that. Katsuki holds the sunshine that Eijirou emanates, and only once Katsuki returns will Eijirou feel the light return to his soul. Until then, even the sunlight against his skin is cold.
(If you're scared, I'm on my way)
“Kirishima! Kirishima!” The voice startles him out of his sleep, and he sits up blearily. The ache in his muscles make it seem as if he hasn’t rested at all. But Midoriya wouldn’t wake Eijirou up without reason.
“W-What is it?” he calls out, voice raw from misuse.
“He’s back,” Midoriya exclaims frantically, and even from outside, Eijirou knows that Midoriya is crying.
But he doesn’t check when he flings the door open to sprint downstairs, to where Katsuki will be. Katsuki is back, Katsuki is―
He begs whoever is listening above that this isn’t a cruel trick.
(Did you run away? Did you run away? I don't need to know
If you ran away, if you ran away, come back home)
His golden hair rustles in the wind, the blond colour of it highlighted by the rising sun. As exquisite as the sight of the colours filling the air may be, nothing compares to the silhouette of Katsuki himself, the sheer regality of it momentarily taking Eijirou’s breath away.
“K-Katsuki,” Eijirou murmurs, terrified that even the smallest sound will shatter everything that the moment holds.
Katsuki turns, the picturesque smile from the photo that Eijirou keeps on his bedside table mirrored perfectly.
Tears rise to his eyes. He’s home, Katsuki’s home, Katsuki’s―
He blinks, and the scene is gone.
Katsuki’s not coming home.
Eijirou sits in his bed and mourns the loss of his best friend.
(Just come home.)
Katsuki sits outside his best friend’s room, back leaning against the doorframe. He’s been gone for three weeks. Judging by Kirishima’s tears, he might as well have been gone for a century.
But he knows how to fix this.
He knows how give Kirishima Eijirou his love back.