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It’s cold.
That’s really all he could feel when he opens the window.
The day is dreary, the sun hidden behind the clouds. Has it always been like this? The world feeling like it’s written in black and white?
It hasn’t mattered.
Nothing has mattered in weeks. Nothing has made sense. Nothing has felt warm.
...not since he went missing.
“And come the fuck back. You hear me?”
Those had been the last words Katsuki had said to him. The last threatening sentences of care he had uttered out of his lips and he thinks about them every day.
Every day for the last month he’s thought about them.
Why is he like this? Why couldn’t he have said, “I love you, come back soon. I’ll miss you.”
What the fuck was wrong with him?
Days of screaming, crying, aching from right inside of himself, and what good is he? He still can’t do anything.
Nothing was fulfilling. No amount of patrol or drinking or smoking could stop the pain.
He was gone.
And for all Katsuki knew, he wasn’t fucking coming back.
~
“Um…I don’t know why the fuck I’m doing this. I know it- I can’t even-,” a sob wracked through his body as he tried to get his words out. The news was fresh, just moments ago he had gotten the call from his agency but, Katsuki couldn’t believe it. He didn’t want to believe it. It just…he was always so smart. Katsuki was the dumb one.
It had to be some cruel joke.
He’d called twice already. Hoping, praying, that it’d pick up after one ring. That he would be there and Katsuki could stop this sinking feeling in his stomach as reality set in.
He didn’t want reality.
“Pick up the fucking phone, Ei.”
~
He’d tried going out.
Mina had brought him along for her patrols. Denki invited him to a game night with Sero and Shinsou. Even the fucking nerd had reached out to him but it didn’t feel the same. Everything had felt so empty.
And his messages were still going to voice mail.
“I…I know you’re there. Somewhere.”
He paused, sucking in a breath. The night was dark like the stars just refused to shine.
“If this is because of what I said before you left. That argument we had I…fuck, Ei. You know I didn’t mean that shit.”
He felt the anger rise in his chest, a feeling that’s been dormant since he graduated from high school. It was irrational and hot and he wanted to scratch at it until it went away.
“I mean seriously Eijirou this is just stupid. You can’t just, disappear and not tell anyone where you’re going I mean, fuck! You couldn’t have at least given me a heads up? If you’re gonna do this underground mission shit, give me something to decode don’t just- don’t just leave me!”
He knew there was no underground mission.
He knew that even with all of his wishing, it was real. Eijirou was missing.
But he wanted him here. He didn’t understand why he couldn’t be here.
“Fuck this. Fuck all of this. You fucking come home you hear me? You come back here where I can see you and I know-I know you’re safe.”
“I need to know you’re safe”
~
Katsuki was starting to think illogically. He couldn’t work. He couldn’t sleep. And he knows his eating habits well enough to know that they could be much better right now.
Everything was hard. Everything took more effort than it should and he found himself hoping, no, wanting, to trade places right now.
It should be him. He should be the one lost. He should be the one stranded somewhere or tied up. He had done it before, he knew how to handle himself in that situation but, Eijirou. His Eijirou…
He knows it's dumb but all he can think about is how scared he must feel. How alone and confused and hopeless it feels to be apart like this.
It keeps him up at night.
All night he thinks, “If I could trade his life for mine.”
It seeps into his everyday life more than he could ever mean for it to. He starts to lash out again, he takes long hours. The days blend together, the same routine, the same motions.
He’s just endlessly floating in the ocean, water clogging his ears, salt in his eyes.
Maybe he deserves the pain.
~
Izuku finds him crumbled in the bathtub. The water from the shower running, hot enough that Katsuki should have known to get out when it burned to touch.
The phone beeped on the counter, Izuku hearing the last few seconds of a message.
“We’re sorry but the mailbox is full. Please try again later.”
Just how many messages had he left? Izuku’s eyebrows knit together, turning the phone off after the water. He wasn’t sure what to do next. Seeing Katsuki like this, curled in a ball, hiding his face from the light, wasn’t something he’d ever thought he would see.
He honestly hadn’t realized just how much his friend had cared.
And that scared him.
“Katsuki?” He tried. “Kacchan, come on. You have to dry off.”
There was no response, not that he had been expecting one.
“Come on, let me help you.”
Izuku was startled when deep red eyes met his sharply.
“Why?” his voice sounded so broken, frail. “What’s the point?”
If Izuku had been any other person, if he hadn’t been as kind and caring as he has always been, he might have laughed. He would have said something ironic about how Katsuki is the one crying now, how he’s the one being weak but…Izuku wasn’t evil. And Katsuki wasn’t his enemy.
He was his best friend.
So, he did what any best friend would do and met him on his level.
The water soaked into his pants but he couldn’t bring himself to care about it. There was something much more important shoving his way into Izuku’s arms.
He hugged him as tightly as he could, patting his friend's back as he cried into his shoulder. It was a surreal feeling but Izuku could think about that later. Every other thought that raced through his head was second to the thought of, “how can I help?”
The answer, he would find out, wasn’t written in any book or website. Every article told him he just needed to be there, to hug him close when he would break down but, every time Izuku came around, it was just getting worse and worse.
It came to a peak when he walked into the room, the smell of burning throwing him back to days in high school that he’d much rather forget.
“Kacchan!” He raced into the kitchen, followed the pained cries to find him leaning heavily against the kitchen counter. Angry red bubbles raised off of his arm but Katsuki kept him at a distance.
“I need to get you to a hospital,” his voice sounded urgent, even as his hands shook to dial the number into his phone.
“No!” The same broken air resounded in his voice but this time it was different. It was pained and maniac and final.
Katsuki had made up his mind.
“It’s my fault. Fuck, it-it’s my fault, Izuku.” He fell into the counter, arms giving in from holding him up. The pain was more than likely too much to bear. “I fucked up. I fuck everything up!”
“Kacch-”
“No! He left, because of me! He took that dumbass job because I just had to open my stupid fucking mouth and argue over what? Something petty?”
The words hung in the air and Izuku tried his best to keep it together.
“All I want is for once to do something right. So let me have this .”
Katsuki turned to face Izuku now, eyes desperate for a feeling Izuku knew too well.
“Please,” Katsuki sobbed, face twisting. “Please, please, please.”
He sank to his knees, hitting the linoleum with a thud.
His whole body shook as the begging turned into more sobbing and Izuku had to pick him up from off the floor to make sure he got into the ambulance.
Never in his life has he felt like a worse friend than this moment right now.
~
“Pro-hero Dynamight, I know you were very close to him so let me in, what can you tell me about the absence of Pro-hero Red Riot?”
A perfect image of a perfect man flashed across his memory as the reporter stuck her stupid microphone in her face.
It was his first outing out since the incident a few weeks ago and while he didn’t feel as terrible, Katsuki still felt bad.
“There ain’t much to say. He’s doing his work. Leave it at that.” The gruff act he wore, his friends knew it was a facade. It was easier to put up a familiar wall than to be vulnerable to people who didn’t know him, who didn’t deserve it.
They didn’t care about Red Riot. They didn’t give two shits about the fact that his Eijirou has been missing for five months. They just care about their next story. That’s it.
It makes him sick.
He goes back to his apartment, stripping off his sweaty suit, tucking it away in a bag. Most of his things are at Izuku’s now, he’ll have to remember to do laundry.
He couldn’t bring himself to give up the apartment, even if he does understand living alone really isn’t an option at the moment. There were too many memories here, too many things he never wanted to forget, ever.
Eijirou was implanted in every single little thread, every spec of glass, every stain. And he needed that. Katsuki needed to know that he was here. He had been here.
And he had loved him.
They had loved each other.
The dial tone rang out, the sound of a beep.
“I don’t know if you’ll ever get this. I don’t know if you’ll ever want to but…I’m waiting for you. Just…give me a call when you get this message. I’ll answer. Every time Ei, I’ll answer.”