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The air tasted grey since they’d lost him. It was the only descriptor Aizawa found fitting, no matter how illogical it sounded when articulated. Every breath was tainted now, no longer crisp and fresh as usual, but musty, stale, unfulfilling, as if living with his head in a plastic bag. Aizawa wondered if it was a subtle message from the universe: Everything’s set to die, even the color in your lungs. Even him. Even you. Every day, you’re a little closer to joining him.
“Hey Shou, I think this one would look nice…”
Aizawa glanced up from his spot on the floor to the wild-haired boy across the room. From his station in the closet doorway, Yamada held up a dark navy suit-vest and a slightly wrinkled white button-up, waiting patiently for a response.
Aizawa shook his head. “Too small. Got that for some middle school piano recital, no way it’ll fit now.”
“Whoa,” even Yamada’s astonishment was laced with an uncharacteristic quiet; grief strikes even the most optimistic, Aizawa supposed. “I didn’t know you played.”
“It was short-lived,” the somber boy said quickly. “Don’t go blabbing about it. I don’t…” A shaky sigh. “…I don’t want anyone asking me to play for the funeral.”
A silence blanketed the room, save for two quiet pairs of lungs, pulling in that stale, dead air.
“I won’t,” Yamada promised, and he returned the outfit to Aizawa’s closet.
Aizawa’s eyes drifted mindlessly across his bedroom, taking in the floor paved in dirty laundry and unfinished homework. He was grateful his boyfriend hadn’t commented on the state of his room when he’d arrived; cleaning hadn’t exactly been his priority recently, but it seemed Yamada understood. With a sigh, Aizawa cupped his hands in his lap. He wasn’t sure if they were trembling from heartache or exhaustion—he just knew every time he’d shut his eyes since the incident, he could taste the brittle cloud of crumbled brick on his tongue. Even now, his mouth and eyes both felt caked with dusty rubble, agonizingly dry. He couldn’t imagine how it had been for Shirakumo, lungs crushed under debris, wheezing in nothing but grit and dirt and blood—
“Shou?” Yamada’s voice sounded far off through his grime-clouded thoughts.
“Just tired,” Aizawa said, drifting back to reality. He glanced up at Yamada, eyes vacant. “Sorry, did you find something else, or…”
A formal grey jacket dangled from a hanger in Yamada’s grip, but behind his glasses, Yamada’s concerned eyes rested solely on Aizawa. Without a word, Yamada hooked the hanger back on the rack. Cautious feet crossed the room, taking special care not to step on the debris scattered about, and the blond boy settled next to Aizawa on the floor.
“We don’t have to do this right now, y’know,” Yamada said, leather jacket squeaking as he hugged his knees close. “I…It’s hard, man. Believe me, I know.”
Aizawa said nothing, mindlessly studying the footprints matted into his near-ancient rug. He wondered if any of them were Shirakumo’s.
“Besides, you know Oboro,” Yamada said, “he’s not gonna judge you for what you wear to the service.”
“He’s not going to judge me for anything,” Aizawa said stonily. “He’s dead.”
Avoiding the truth wouldn’t bring Shirakumo back, so Aizawa hadn’t felt the need to suppress it—but seeing the ache seep into Yamada’s eyes like that, Aizawa wanted nothing more than to rip out his own throat and never speak again.
He opened his mouth to apologize, but the gentle hand that uncurled next to him was a silent reassurance that he was forgiven. Yamada’s open hand rested on the ground, thumb lightly brushing the pads of his fingers in anxious invitation, and swallowing thickly, Aizawa laced his fingers between his partner’s.
They sat like this for some time, Aizawa’s shaky sighs earning a gentle squeeze or stroking thumb from Yamada. He didn’t want to think about this anymore. But as the assembly line of thoughts crawled through his mind, it seemed like they all were tainted with reminders of Shirakumo, corrupted somewhere along the way into ugly, defective things. Even the most forced distraction he could muster—some nameless cat in an internet video he’d seen—twisted into the memory of Sushi’s confused mewls when Kayama had last brought him to school, sniffing for Shirakumo’s absent touch the entire lunch period. The memory stabbed into Aizawa’s gut with a visceral pain, and he quickly pulled his own legs close, burying his face in his knees as he tried to breathe through the nausea. The grip on his hand squeezed tighter.
It baffled Aizawa how quickly happiness had become some abstract thing to him. It made him think of some sea creature he’d heard about once, eyes adapted to see colors that humans couldn’t even perceive. Happiness, too, was now an invisible color: It existed somewhere in this muted world, perhaps he even knew it once, yet he couldn’t imagine the sensation to save his life. Only the crushing weight of this moment on his chest…of he and Yamada, sitting silent in his sorrow-wrecked bedroom, choosing an outfit for their best friend’s funeral.
And yet…the warmth against his skin. Aizawa raised his head slightly, pondering the sensation of Yamada’s hand in his own. It was like tiny clips of streetlamps lighting a midnight drive: not enough to bring the world to color, but enough to make the ride a bit less dark.
It wasn’t enough, though. It wasn’t being happy, it wasn’t tearing through that nausea in his stomach, the curtains of breathlessness in his lungs, the salty guilt astir behind his eyes. And he found himself drifting towards Yamada’s shoulder, nestling his cheek against the rough folds of leather, still gripping the other boy’s hand tight.
“…Shouta?”
The hand in Yamada’s was trembling. His hair stuck to the jacket in prickling strands, but Aizawa didn’t dare move as he felt Yamada’s breath against his scalp, soft and warm. Still, as much as he cherished it, it wasn’t enough. He wanted to see again. Vibrant and bright and in all the hues he’d forgotten. For grief to be the unfamiliar color and for happiness to flood his eyes, his ears, his gritty, death-dusted mouth—
And before he knew it, his lips crashed against Yamada’s, earning a muffled gasp from the latter. A sharp hiss to catch his breath, and Aizawa plunged back in, free hand slipping needily into Yamada’s hair, and the other one practically crushing Yamada’s thin fingers. Aizawa fought to press his entire soul into the kiss, clumsy, desperate, shoved so close that his mouth ached. Yamada struggled to keep up, and Aizawa drank in every gasp of air the boy heaved out in the process, close and deep and alive.
But once they entered his lungs, he tasted nothing but grey.
A sob spilled from him, a sharp, shuddering noise into Yamada’s mouth before Aizawa finally pulled back, body shaking. Aizawa scrunched his eyes shut in shame, gripping Yamada’s shoulders and feeling the stitches of his jacket digging into his palms. Yamada’s hands found his wrists, and Aizawa finally opened his eyes to see Yamada’s own, shimmering with tears. Aizawa forced down another sob, throat aching under the strain.
“I just…want to feel better,” he whispered.
The first tear trickled down Aizawa’s cheek, and Yamada cupped the boy’s face gently as his own began to spill.
“I know, Shou,” Yamada said, voice breaking. “I do too.”
“But…we won’t,” Aizawa’s eyes lowered, another tear sliding past his jaw. “Will we?”
“I mean,” Yamada said, thumb brushing the delicate skin under his boyfriend’s damp eyes, “I wanna think so.”
“But you don’t know.”
“…I don’t know.”
Aizawa’s body tremored, hands slipping limply from Yamada’s shoulders, and Yamada instantly scooped him into a hug, fists clenched tightly at his back. It was Yamada who first let the sobs flow freely, and Aizawa settled his chin on the boy’s shoulder, hugging him close as Yamada wept against his chest.
“B-but I’m with you, okay?” Yamada whimpered, and the tears pooled even more precariously in Aizawa’s eyes. “With you ‘til the end, and that’s gonna be a long time from now, y-you got that?”
Aizawa felt his own face start to crumple, grey breaths seizing in his throat. Yamada’s forehead pressed against Aizawa’s shoulder, and Aizawa clutched the hunched boy like their lives depended on it.
“Even if we never feel better again, man,” Yamada choked out, “I—I promise…”
“Hizashi—"
“…I—I’ve got you.”
A grievous exhale tore from him, as if a cork in his lungs had been wrenched free, and all the grey air inside was spilling out in gusts. There was no suppressing the pained cries that followed, breaths and tears gushing from Aizawa’s shuddering body, and Yamada buried his face in the crook of Aizawa’s neck, laying a gentle kiss against the tear-streaked skin as he wept in tandem.
Aizawa let his eyes fall upon the open door of his closet, tears still pouring past his breathless lips. They’d have to face it sooner or later, black suits and grey ties and their best friend’s funeral, a once blush-bright body crumbling to colorless ash. But for now, Aizawa’s only focus was Yamada’s tight arms around him, the quivering mouth pressed against his jaw, and the rainbow of outfits across his room, swirling into vague blobs of tearful color.
“…I…I’ve got you too, ‘Zashi,” Aizawa whispered, watercolors dancing in his eyes, hues melting warmly around their steadfast embrace. “I’ve got you too.”