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It was a barking night. The stars sparkling against the sky with the determination of chihuahuas. Small creatures using smaller teeth to tear into the big beast before it. Tiny things that clung desperately to their prize, despite impossible opposition. Growling with conviction that they would triumph, that the dark would not have all the night. Vowing that there would be more. That, despite the lack of moon, there would still be light.
It was this night, barking with the determination of stars long since dead, that Kirishima visited the park.
The stones that called out names.
“Do you remember the rules?”
The words were not spoken aloud. They were an echo in his head, shaking slightly in his heart. As if speaking the words and shaking him might wake him from his numbness.
They hadn’t.
But they’d come close.
“Yes,” he had replied. The word haunted his steps as he walked between the rows, the darkness glaring at the intrusion as the stones whispered their names.
“Repeat them to me,” the man with the strange quirk had challenged, holding the token tight within his hand. And, though he didn’t say it, Kirishima knew the token would remain in the other’s hand unless he took the challenge. Unless he completed the man’s test, his token would not be returned to him.
So he had.
As his words came calling back to him, he kept his eyes down. Kept his walk steady, eyes on his feet despite the whispers tickling his ear. Keeping true to the rules as he went. The rules that pounded steadily with his pace, biting deeper into his mind with every step.
“Do not enter before the dark settles in. Do not make promises to anyone I see. Do not speak the incantation more than once. If the stars begin to bleed, run. Do not leave the park before first light.”
He’d paused then, just as his heart did now. Not wanting to say the last two, not wanting to hear them echo in his voice. Not again.
He’d felt that speaking them would make him responsible for them somehow. As if by excusing himself from repeating them, he might evade the consequences of breaking them.
A childish notion. One that Bakugou would laugh at him for, if the blonde knew he’d had such thoughts.
Of course, Kirishima’s hopes were doused. The childish notion shot down by reality.
When he’d stopped speaking, the man with the token had glared. Purple eyes glinting like fangs—the gaze of a man who owned a fierce soul. Piercing, and powerful as it demanded answers from the hero.
Fierce enough to make demands of death itself, Kirishima supposed.
“The last two. Say them.”
That was the moment he’d started feeling the shaking in his chest. The moment the numbness nearly receded. It’d have been replaced by anger, but, at least it would’ve been something.
Instead there was…
Nothing.
Rather than allow anger to take root, Kirishima had sighed. Not in defeat. Not in exasperation. Not even out of fatigue. He’d sighed simply because he didn’t want the air that had been collected in his lungs, and that was all. It was the only reason there was for such a hefty breath.
And what a pitiful reason it was, too.
The present Kirishima stopped. Standing underneath the poorly lit gazebo at the end of the park as the last two rules echoed at him, replaying in his own limp voice.
“It only lasts till first light. But only if I can follow the last rule.”
“And? That is…?”
“Do not kiss.”
“Good,” the man had complimented, throwing the token at Kirishima. The token that still sat in the muggy grip of his palm, garnering a collection of Kirishima’s grimy sweat and grim determination.
It didn’t belong to him. Not really.
It belonged to Bakugou.
A small badge with his symbol on it, shadowed by Kirishima’s. The symbol of their old hero agency. A symbol of honor, of chivalry, of manliness, as Bakugou had once said. A symbol of peace, and friendship, and trust.
A symbol of love.
This one had belonged to Bakugou.
And Kirishima owned its match, its pair.
It sat in a drawer at home, slowly rotting away the wood of Kirishima’s desk.
A symbol of short-comings. Of failure. Defeat.
Loss.
—he didn’t want to remember.
Quickly, he skipped forward. Moving on with an empty inhale, and heavy words filling his exhale.
Magical words, he supposed.
Under his breath, Kirishima spoke them. Spoke aloud the incantation that was now attached to the token. The Latin words he’d been given by the man with the balls to demand of death, with a quirk that Kirishima knew should never exist. He spoke the words the man with the purple eyes—eyes that pulled at the heart of Hades, itself, they say—gave him.
And then, he waited.
Luckily, not for long.
Around him, the stones yawned, waking. Reaching to the sky that growled with stars as Kirishima was blessed by a familiar shadow. One that was cast by the dim lamps that sat on either side of the gazebo’s path. The shadow he thought he’d never see again. A shadow with a fierce, hungry lean to it. One that filled the space of his chest so quickly, he felt it was unnatural that he didn’t physically burst.
Full as he was, he could only give one breathy exhale. A name tumbling from the reverse-gasp.
“Katsuki.”
He didn’t have a chance to say much else before Katsuki was groaning, leaning against the handrail of the gazebo as he did.
“My leg feels like hell,” the blonde grumbled, rubbing at his right thigh before groaning once more. “What the fuck happened? What’d we do? How’d we get here?”
Pointless questions. Wasteful of the short moment.
Kirishima ignored them.
Instead, he ran forward, collecting his husband in his arms and—oh fuck—
He was solid.
Firm.
Complete.
“Katsuki,” he sobbed into the blonde’s hair as he wrapped his arms tighter around his back. “I’ve missed you. I’ve missed you so much.”
“Where’ve I been?” Katsuki asked, a bit perplexed.
Another wasteful question. Another answer best forgotten. Another memory he desperately wanted to avoid.
Kirishima shook his head, leaning back to give his husband a watery smile. “Doesn’t matter. You’re here now,” he insisted quietly. Trying to move forward before Katsuki grasped what was wrong.
But Kirishima’s husband had never been a fool.
Suspicion stirred beneath the star’s gaze, threatening to choke their hold and give away the night. In response, the dimly glittering lights growled louder, filling Kirishima’s chest with their relentless conviction.
Do something, they begged.
Their light wouldn’t last under the dark cloud of suspicion.
And so, knowing he needed the stars to last, Kirishima did something.
Grabbing his husband by the hand, Kirishima pulled him into the gazebo. Gently, but insistently, pulling Katsuki along with him. Once caged between the pillars and roof, he swung his husband around.
“Dance with me,” he said to Katsuki.
Leering, Katsuki complied. Humoring his love.
Though he knew something was off.
“You’re being weird.”
“I’ve always been weird. It’s what you love about me.”
Katsuki snorted a laugh. The sort that Kirishima replayed in his mind when he needed a lullaby, when he was sinking against the dark nights and caught in the throes of this void. This void that he, himself, had created. He grabbed the sound of Katsuki’s laugh, tucking it away somewhere inside, knowing he’d need it later. Because—damn—
He was still so in love.
Heart lifting, blood running warm once again, Kirishima could feel the way his mind sighed out the darkness. Bled it out of his system, at just the sight of the handsome, angry boy before him. Never mind the fact that the blonde’s touch was smoothing all the knots that had bound up his heart. Katsuki’s presence alone banished the poison that seemed to seep from his chest, lifting the weight that had settled in his absence.
…yeah.
He was still very much in love.
Very.
The duo danced. Feet moving lightly over the wood, between the paint-chipped pillars of the gazebo, bantering lightly as Kirishima adored his husband. Forever struck by his beauty and grace.
When they’d first met, Kirishima had had none. Grace, that is. He’d been nothing but a bulldozer. A rhinoceros at an operating table. A buffalo writing in fumbled cursive. Big and dumb and unsuited for the finer, more delicate things the world had to offer. But he’d only been that way because he’d been told he was that way, and he’d began hearing it and believing it at a stupidly young age.
Katsuki had changed that for him.
Trained with him. Showed him he had more to offer than brute strength. Than harsh skin and moral support. He could be brave. He could be bold. He could be a leader, Katsuki had told him. And then, Katsuki had showed him. Showed him he could be those things. That he could be tender. That he could be gentle. Katsuki showed him the other side and, fuck, was it blissful.
Kirishima sighed again, but not because he tired of air.
He was… wistful. That young man in love again, dazzled by the ferocity of the man before him. Completely struck, once again, by his hunger to be and do and excel.
Of course, Katsuki took note and, true to form, smirked. Made a snarky, cheeky comment.
Fuck.
It only made Kirishima miss him more.
“What’s up with you? What’s wrong?” Katsuki asked, trying to glare away the tears forming in his husband’s eyes.
Kirishima side-stepped again. Landing them at the steps of the gazebo, facing the lake.
“Can we sit for a while and just… hold hands?”
His husband took only a heartbeat to assess.
“Tch, yeah, of-fucking-course Ei,” Katsuki replied and, oh hell, it was glorious to hear his grumpy blonde say his name.
Fuck, this night was too good.
He didn’t want it to end.
They sat, and Eijiro leaned heavily on Katsuki the moment the blonde’s ass settled on the rickety steps. Content by the lack of cicadas screaming, by the wind whimpering in his ear, and the lake pooling darkly in front of them. It seemed sinister to Eijiro in the lack of light, the waters moving oddly like a cartoon villain’s hands when conniving.
So strange.
Did the water usually look like that? Eijiro didn’t much care, but the question breezed by anyway.
Katsuki snagged his attention swiftly, his rough hand brushing over Eijiro’s own.
It was… warm here. eerily quiet, but warm. Not what Ei had expected. It surprised him, and he sighed again.
And it was the third sigh that did it.
It was a sigh that wasn’t tired of air, and wasn’t longing for a different breath, it was a sigh that was pushed out because the heart became too full to bear all the air. The good kind of sigh. They type one only had a few times in their life.
And it was this sigh that gave Katsuki enough courage to shut out the stars.
Lovely as they were, Katsuki didn’t need distant lights. He needed something that was near, that was stronger. He deserved something better than already-dead stars.
And so did Eijiro.
“I’m dead, aren’t I Ei?”
It sounded numb, but it was a different breed of numb than the kind Eijiro had adopted in the absence of the blonde boy who held his heart. Not the numb that had ever felt before, like a frost-bitten toe turned bitter with the lack of blood, but rather, this was the sort of numb icebergs operated in. As long as it had existed, it had been numb. Cold. Uncaring as the weather dropped, and seals swam from sharks, and as ships broke their hulls against its unseen hands. More concerned with the truth of steel than it was with life.
That was Katsuki.
That had always been Katsuki.
That was the kind of numb he held when searching for fact, the kind of numb his voice was now. Iceberg-numb.
And Eijiro was forever a ship, rocking against the cold.
“Yes,” he admitted, never able to lie to his partner, his best friend, his husband, his love. “You died. You’re… dead.”
It was harder to admit than it should’ve been.
Eijiro felt Katsuki’s stiff nod, even if he didn’t see it, rested as he was on the blonde’s shoulder.
“How’d it happen? I can’t… I can’t remember.”
“I… don’t wanna talk about it.”
“Please Eijiro, I wanna know.”
Which shocked Eijiro.
Katsuki never asked for anything. Ever.
With a bitter poison biting into his chest, Eijiro realized that his husband never would again.
How cruel of fate.
He only wanted a few more good moments with Katsuki. A way to say goodbye. Why did it have to be like this? Why did he have to remember? Why did he have to recall the loss?
Why?
Of course, he’d been cautioned. “The dead are even more selfish than the living,” the man with the ghostly quirk had warned. “Make no promises to the dead. And don’t be surprised if he asks for what you can’t give.”
But this…
Was this really something Eijiro couldn’t give?
Didn’t Katsuki deserve to know?
“I…” he began. And, truly, he tried.
But…
Sobs ripped from his chest, rendering his words a babble of nonsense and tears and snot rather than a comprehensible recollection. In under two seconds, Katsuki was wrapping Eijiro in his arms, shushing him, soothing him. Forgetting his desire for an answer.
“Never mind Ei, never mind. You don’t have to tell me. I don’t need to know.”
But he knew Katsuki. If anyone knew him, it was Ei, and Eijiro knew:
That wasn’t true.
Try as he might though, he couldn’t bring himself to talk through the whole ordeal. He wouldn’t get the whole story out, so he did the second-best thing instead.
“It was my fault, Katsuki. My fault. But you—you died a hero,” he managed between sobs.
It had Katsuki shaking his head. “Unless you stuck a knife in my heart Ei, I doubt it was your fault. Don’t ever say that again, you hear me? Or I’ll… I’ll send the ugliest specter ever to haunt your ass. You got me?”
Through a sob, Ei managed a startled laugh. He couldn’t help himself. It was such a Katsuki style reply. So typical of the man he loved. He couldn’t help it.
Wiping at his eyes, he nodded. “Yes sir.”
Katsuki smirked. “Good. Now pull your shit together and we’ll just… sit. Okay?”
“Okay.”
It worked for a while. Contentment leaked in, in spite of themselves, before the night thickened. Gripping their hearts tightly as the dawn began to threaten the border of the sky above the gazebo’s lake. But…
Time was pressing on them.
They both felt it.
“How… how long do we have?” Katsuki asked reluctantly, desperately wishing the answer could be forever.
Eijiro repeated exactly what he’d been told. “First light.”
“Bet you don’t know what that means.”
Ei gasped another surprised laugh. “I don’t,” he admitted.
He could hear the chuckle behind Katsuki’s words as he said, “Dumbass.”
It was good. Familiar. Normal. It warmed Eijiro in a way he hadn’t felt in months. In a way he swore he’d never feel again.
It was exactly what Ei had been after.
Exactly what he’d needed, too.
“How long has it been seen I’ve…?”
The question was asked trepidatiously. Open at the end. Spoken with the option of pleading the fifth, if need be.
Eijiro answered though.
“A little over a year.”
“A year? And you still haven’t gotten over my shitty ass?”
“It’s not shitty! It’s amazing. I love your ass. And you,” Ei protested, pouting.
Katsuki smirked, rubbing Ei’s shoulder affectionately. “I know babe, I know.”
It was almost over.
They could both feel it.
They were so very, very close.
The stars’ yapping was quieter, and the lake’s movements stilled, and the graves began yawning again. Settling down in the background of dawn.
“Am I buried here?”
“They never found your body.”
“Oh.”
“You have a marker here, but no grave. You also have a statue in the city. Pretty near All Might’s, actually.”
“That’s cool.”
It sounded like he was cool with it, much to Ei’s surprise.
It worried him.
Shook him like nothing else had. The fear returning to him, threatening to tighten around his throat and steal the last of his breaths.
“Katsuki—”
“I think I… I think I’m at peace Ei. Almost, anyway.”
Selfishly, Eijiro hated those words. Despised them. Something in him wanted them to be false. Wanted Katsuki to haunt him in a more physical way than he previously had.
Damn him.
But, the part of Ei that was always clinging to love argued back. Katsuki deserved to be at peace, his heart whispered.
His love deserved rest.
“I just need one more thing,” Katsuki said.
“What?” Eijiro asked. Curious, more than anything. He didn’t intend to truly listen. He didn’t intend to try. Didn’t intend to promise—he didn’t.
But, when Katsuki’s eyes hollowed out, becoming red pits, and first light began tugging at night’s hold of the sky, and the sun began flirting with the horizon, he couldn’t help but hear the plea.
“Be happy Eijiro. Keep breathing. Love until you die, alright? Don’t lose your fire, your light—your manliness. For as long as you can, fight. Please do that. Do that for me. Promise me Ei, promise me you’ll move forward. That you’ll be happy someday. That you won’t give up. Promise me.”
Ah.
Eijiro was wrong.
As it turned out, his husband had only ever asked for two things. And this, the second, was the last.
He begged Eijiro to move on.
To keep living, in spite of his absence. To move forward, even with the approaching dawn. To love, despite the lack of his lover.
Somewhere in Eijiro, something recoiled.
Afraid.
Was this the thing, Ei wondered? The selfish request? It certainly seemed selfish. Katsuki didn’t seemed to be suffering without Ei, not the way Ei suffered without him.
It wasn’t fair, he decided. Eijiro felt strongly that that, at the very least, was true.
But…
Was it impossible?
That was the real question.
He’d been warned not to make vows to the dead. He shouldn’t. It was a rule for a reason, he was sure. But…
How could he deny Katsuki?
“I… I promise to try.”
A cold hand that felt like an echo of his husband’s rested against his cheek. Katsuki wore the saddest smirk Ei had ever seen as he drifted. Fading against the peaking, prodding gaze of what must’ve been first light. In the waking of dawn, Katsuki’s words quieted as they traveled, playing back hollowly in Eijiro’s ears.
“Good enough.”
And then, at last, that was it. That was all.
Katsuki was gone.
After that, Eijiro found he wasn’t numb anymore.
He was in complete agony.
Sobbing, his stomach clenched so tightly he fell on his face. Nose to the floor of the old gazebo, first light crouched over him. Proceeding with caution, wrapping around him with concern.
But he was… alright.
He would survive.
After all, he was still alive, wasn’t he?
And he was shocked to find that he was okay with that. That he felt a need to be. Maybe it’d been his half-vow to Katsuki’s ghost, or maybe it’d been because of the closure he’d received, but somehow, when the daystar boasted of its light, Ei didn’t shy away. Didn’t glare balefully at the glowing sky. Didn’t think it was a mistake, didn’t think the sun didn’t belong. Instead, Ei stood at the gazebo, staring out over the sparkling lake. Realizing that night was not all there was. That it wasn’t all he had to hold onto.
Finally, after all these months, he felt again.
He felt… alive.