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Izuku rubs his nose gently, sitting criss-cross in the snow. He forces a smile, staring at the headstone in front of him. The family’s private grave; the big one is for the fans in Tokyo.
“Good morning,” he greets quietly. “It snowed last night, my love.”
The words on the stone mock him. His very own surname but not his given name. Instead, carved boldly, was hers.
“You would’ve loved it. I… I was kind of crying the whole night,” he admits sheepishly, though it wasn’t the first or last time he told her that, “The snow reminded me of you. Our first kiss back in high school; do you remember it? On that day school was canceled because of the snow? Yeah…”
Izuku stayed quiet and looked down at his calloused hands. These hands that only stop evil nowadays. These hands that used to be so gentle on her skin.
“Christmas is coming up… and your birthday… I think I’m gonna spend it with your parents this year. Mom wants to come along, of course, so she’ll be there too. I’m sorry I haven’t spoken to them in a while. It hurt to hear your mom’s voice. Not just ‘cause you sounded like her, but ‘cause I can hear how broken she is.”
Izuku clears his throat.
“And I feel so… guilty…” he sniffles quietly, rubbing his hands together to create some sort of warmth. “And, God, I can’t even look at your dad in the eye. I swore to him that I’d protect you with my life and…” his eyes burn, “I failed him…”
When it happened, Izuku drowned himself in work. He cut off every single person in his life, including his own mother. He would take long missions that required his full attention. He wasn’t eating or sleeping well. He didn’t take care of himself at all. Not until Katsuki literally broke into his apartment on the extremely rare occasion Izuku was home and practically spoon fed him like a baby and threatened to do that every single day until Izuku did it for himself.
Izuku didn’t mourn her death until half a year later. He’d saved hundreds and hundreds of lives that day. One casualty. A little girl. He doesn’t know what about it set him off that he collapsed upon those news and wailed in front of all the too heroes. He went home that night and sobbed through to the next day, finally starting the grieving process.
A gust of wind howls through the cemetery. Izuku closes his eyes, teeth clattering, and with goosebumps appearing all over his skin. As the wind blows, he hugs his arms closer to his torso and tucks his face further down into his scarf.
It feels the way his life has felt since that day in the hospital. Cold, bitter, lonely.
He hates the cold so much. But he loves it at the same time because it was his wife’s season. The season in which she took her first breath. The season they met. The season they confessed. The season they wed.
Her passing came in the spring. It didn’t taint the goodness of the winter season. Izuku hates that he’s thankful because should be thankful his wife died in the spring? No. Not at all. But he’s adapting, trying to live on past it, and is trying so desperately to hold on to the goodness of her life before he lost her.
The wind passed and Izuku sits for another moment before hot, painful tears flood his eyes and rush down his red cheeks. He arches his back, leaning forward.
“I miss you so much, ‘Chako,” he says between broken sobs. “So damn much. This morning I woke up wishing I was with you instead. I’ve been thinking bad things recently and I know it’s bad; you’d be so mad at me if you could hear the things I think,” he confesses, “You’d hate me, probably. Because I know you told me to keep fighting and keep living for you but it’s just too hard…
“It’s too hard. I can’t do it without you. Every day, I feel the life draining from me and it hurts physically. I sound so selfish right now, but it’s only now that I realize how much I relied on you. How my entire existence revolved around you. And now you’re gone. I’m like a planet that has no sun to travel around, to live off of. It sounds so bad but it’s true. You were my lifeline and now you’re gone. What do I have left to keep living for?”
Instantly, Izuku can practically hear her telling him to shut up because he knows damn well that he has everything to live for. His mom, her parents, his friends, Japan, even the world. Izuku has people to save from the same death she faced.
“It won’t ever stop hurting, huh?” he whispers, ignoring his tears that refuse to stop. He feels his phone buzz in his pocket. The train leaves soon to Ochako’s hometown, so he has to leave. Izuku looks back up at her headstone.
Midoriya Ochako. Beloved wife, daughter, friend and hero.
He smiles very faintly at her quote he chose for it.
“Protecting smiles and happiness is a hero’s job, just as it is protecting lives.”
It’s simple but it’s what she always stood for. To her, preserving lives was just the tip of the iceberg. Preserving smiles was everything. She said humans were beautiful when they smile so joyously. Ochako wanted to ensure that they’d never lose those smiles.
Izuku stands up and wipes his hands over his pants to clear them of the snow that stuck. He then tucks them into his pockets and looks at the stone sorrowfully.
“I wish I could’ve protected your smile the way you protected mine for so long… I’m sorry, ‘Chako. I’m so, so sorry.”
With that, he ducks his head and stalks to the entrance of the cemetery, having fully lost the strength to be here anymore.
Izuku knows she wouldn’t blame him. She would’ve held his hands and smiled at him and asked him to never blame himself because it wasn’t his fault. But that doesn’t change what happened, does it? Doesn’t change the fact that he was right there. Doesn’t change the fact that he couldn’t get her to the hospital fast enough. Doesn’t change the fact that she took her last breath in late April, holding his hand.
Ochako’s gone now. She has been for almost two years. In a week, she would’ve been celebrating her twenty-seventh birthday. Instead, Izuku’s going to face the very people that rose her into the world and entrusted him with her life.
His mom is standing by the car, her figure looking smaller than it already was because of his added height. He forces a smile as he approaches her, but she frowns in response upon seeing the tears on her son’s face.
Izuku looks exhausted and sickly. This face was thinner because of the eating problems he’s been struggling with. Unlike her, his guilt caused him to feel sick when he ate so he just didn’t which led to more problems now where he eats once or twice a day, each small meals. Izuku’s been working on eating more but the process is going slowly.
“Are you ready to go?” Inko asks softly once he reaches her.
He nods sadly. “Yeah, please. I don’t feel very well anymore.”
As they get in and prepare to head to the train station, Izuku looks back at the cemetery.
‘I love you,’ he thinks before driving off.