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Quite frankly, this is utter horse shit.
There’s a million things Katsuki could be doing right now, starting with that damn report he has to write for bagging that elusive-ass villain after one long fucking week of cat-and-mouse… Or he could be out sightseeing in this little city—Sōma, it’s called—where he’d managed to bag said villain.
He could even just be munching on pork buns in his hotel room or sneaking in some extra push-ups in front of the TV to kickstart the weekend.
But instead of doing anything productive—or even just something sensible—he’s standing here like a fucking otter on top of some solitary hill, collecting pampas grass scratches on his calves and salt water in his eyes…
All for a goddamn phone booth.
For the record, he’d never intended to come here in the first place. When fucking Deku’d sent him a link to this place saying he thought it could help deal with Sh— with the Incident, Katsuki’d taken one look at the title of the article and deleted it.
Cuz there’s no way in all hell that Bakugou Katsuki would suffer a six-hour drive to go make a fool of himself and talk into some disconnected phone smack dab in the middle of nowhere, thanks.
Like—what the fuck?
What would that even do?
Only make him feel like a fresh wound, probably—just raw and bleeding, and so ludicrously pathetic.
So… why did he even come here in the first place…
He’d only really meant to go to the convenience store down the hill—cuz yeah, homemade meals are the fucking bomb but damn hotels don’t come with fully packed kitchens—when he’d seen it.
That booth.
Fucking— the Phone of the Wind or something pretentious like that.
And then his traitorous feet had done the rest, sore muscles and grumbling stomach be damned.
But now that he’s here, taking in the glass window panes and white structure topped with this fucking quaint little rooftop, well he’s just suddenly livid cuz this phone booth looks like every other phone booth he’s ever seen in his life. And frankly, he’s not sure what he’d expected in the first place—not that he’d spent any time expecting anything from this fucking pointless concept—but he just knows it’s so fucking insulting that they’d advertise this useless-ass shit to people who’re actually grieving—
And he sees red for a second.
Because yeah—fuck—he’s…
He’s—
Grieving.
Bakugou fucking Katsuki is actually in mourning.
Has been for fucking six hundred and forty-five days.
Though if you asked Deku or Eijirou or any other member of the Idiot Brigade, they’d say he’s in fact the furthest thing from that—Pikachu might even say he’s actually so knee deep into denial, he spends his time frolicking with fairies out in the woods—
But fuck them all very much, cuz there ain’t no manual for dealing with the loss of—
Fuck.
He can’t even let himself go there.
Coming here in Sōma was actually so goddamn hard in the first place cuz he’d… Cuz that’s where he’d—
Oh fuck it.
Bottom line is, Katsuki didn’t wanna come… but he did cuz he’s a hero and life goes on.
It fucking goes on and he doesn’t have a choice but to go along too, alright?
Even if he feels so fucking empty all the time, even if he wakes up to cold sweats and colder sheets, even if he still can’t bring himself to make food for one or to not utter a “Tadaima” when he gets home or to stop leaving the toothpaste on the right side of the sink to make it easier to reach for Sh—
FUCK.
Life fucking goes on, ok?
So Katsuki does his fucking job—does it even better than most of those extras in the business—and he soars through the ranks like the hard-working prodigy he is. He keeps moving, dodges all those sucker punches life throws his way because he keeps his eyes on the fucking prize and he doesn’t deviate, doesn’t stop.
And yeah, so he moved when the silence in their his apartment got too loud, what’s the big deal?
The Idiot Brigade made it sound like a funeral in and of itself, making it all so fucking dramatic—and they keep doing that too, making big deals out of things, which is so fucking annoying.
Take Soba Sundays for example—Deku’s taken it upon himself to come and visit every Sunday, as if his presence could ever be welcomed or distract Katsuki from what day it actually is—or was.
And there’s Soy Sauce and Pikachu, who keep roping each other into “dares” to shower Katsuki with affection, be it with ruffling of his hair or one-armed hugs.
(As for Ashido—well since that blind date stunt she pulled, she ain’t in the picture no more… but Katsuki still receives red and white poppies for the butsudan every two to three weeks, and he only knows of one person whose family keeps a flower shop…)
But worst one, frankly, is Eijirou, who keeps looking at him every day with fucking gentleness and those pinched eyebrows as if he’s expecting him to get all emotional and start mopping the floor with his fucking tears or whatever—but that just ain’t gonna happen.
Cuz yeah, maybe he’s not at a hundred percent, but he’s not at zero either—he can still be useful, so he fucking puts a lid on it, and he keeps moving.
Simple.
Except, it seems, when he stumbles upon a fucking useless-ass phone booth, cuz then he just suddenly can’t seem to walk away…
It’s actually kind of pathetic, really, how he’s just become a fucking statue of salt, huh.
“You’re just taking in the sea breeze, fucker,” he mutters to himself, trying to calm his racing heart without even understanding why it’s so rebellious. “Now you’re gonna walk away—”
And he doesn’t get to finish his sentence that there’s a gust of wind, powerful enough for him to lose his balance and stumble forward—forward towards the booth, naturally.
Indignant, Katsuki straightens himself back up in a flash, but decides to run a calming hand through his hair that’s now become unpleasantly sticky from the humidity and salt. “Fuck, I need a shower—and sleep,” he remarks, taking stock of the fatigue sitting so deep in his bones that the wind can so easily displace him—
But it happens again.
The wind, hitting him square in the back, pushes him forward again—as if someone had bumped his back…
But… no.
“Fucker, that’s just pathetic fallacy,” he snaps to himself, because ain’t no way the wind’s got a mind of its own—
“Fucking leave me alone!” he shouts into the air when he’s pushed forward again, this time so violently that his baseball cap is almost sent flying. And then reality sets in—that he’s talking to the fucking wind—and he suddenly wants to kick something so bad because fuck if he’s gonna let himself start imagining things, stoop so low as to imagine him in the wind—
But said wind picks up again—this time more angry, less like someone’s pushing him and more like he’s standing in the heart of a budding storm—
So he just…
He does the first thing that comes to mind to save himself from the wind’s fucking wrath—
And rushes into the booth.
Irony is a funny thing until you’re the one being laughed at.
And right now, Katsuki feels like a fucking joke.
But really, that’s nothing new: he’s been one ever since that fateful night, six hundred and forty-five days ago, when he’d sat on his ass in some nameless izakaya with the Idiots and missed the most important call of his life.
He doesn’t know how long it rang.
Only that it didn’t go to voicemail.
Next thing he knew, there was a tsunami report from right where he’d been stationed up in Sōma, a request for pro-hero Dynamight to come on the scene, then a call for Bakugou Katsuki to come at the hospital to find this—
This mangled, unrecognizable body lying still on a slab.
And a ring.
Unmarred silver sitting in a plastic bag.
So unbearably cold.
Deku’s take is that even if Katsuki’d taken the call, he wouldn’t have been able to change anything. And that may be true on a… cosmic scale or whatever but…
But Katsuki knows he’s wrong—because it wasn’t the cosmos that had called…
It was Sh—
Fuck.
It was him.
It was him.
And frankly, the cruellest part of it all, the punchline of this fucking joke that was now Katsuki’s life is that he doesn’t even know—
He doesn’t know his last words.
Doesn’t know what he was thinking, what he was seeing or feeling, if he was hurt or scared (fucking hell, of course he was scared—fuck), if he was trapped underwater in a dome of ice or running for his life to reach a rooftop and save civilians or if…
If he knew he was going to die.
No, the only thing he knows is that whatever those words were, he’d meant for Katsuki to hear them—
And Katsuki’d let him down.
He’d let the fucking love of his life down.
And there are frankly no words to describe how much he hates himself for it.
Hates himself so fucking much that it sometimes gets just too hard to even breathe, hard to watch civilians smile, full of hope and adoration, and thank him—hard even to just put his hero suit on and hear his name acclaimed by the media.
Because…
Because what if that’s why he didn’t leave a voicemail…
Katsuki’s been wondering that since day one: why he didn’t leave him a voicemail, when it seemed to be one of his favourite pastimes. At first, Katsuki got so annoyed cuz he got voicemails for the most trivial of things—a bear crossing the road on his patrol, or no more “Three Musketeers” bars at the store even though neither of them liked these chocolates, or even just because he’d thought of Katsuki on one of his nights out with Izuku.
Yeah, he loved the damn things…
So why—
Why would he not leave one when it mattered most—
—Unless he felt… betrayed.
Betrayed by Katsuki.
The thought is so unbearable, so devastating that Katsuki has to brace himself on something—anything—because his legs are giving out under him. He hasn’t noticed his vision had blurred until a black rotary phone comes into focus at last, and he clenches his hands on the tabletop supporting it. His left hand grazes something metallic, and he jumps, oddly skittish—only to realize that there’s also a pen and a large notebook where handwritten messages are displayed.
He’s not interested in those, though.
No.
No, the moment his breathing has evened out, he stretches his right hand forward, feeling almost feverish from the pain bursting in his heart, and he reaches over the notebook to grip the handset of the black, inconspicuous phone and bring it to his ear.
It is cool on his skin, but it trembles so much that Katsuki has no choice but to press it more firmly to his skull.
“I—”
His voice comes out strangled, shredded by the razors in his throat that make it so hard for him to breathe.
So he swallows, coughs crisply, and tries again. “I’m sorry Sh—”
This time, it’s not his voice that stops him, but something else. Something that has so unfairly stolen his voice every time he’s tried saying it—saying or even just thinking his name—in the past years. He doesn’t know what it is, maybe shame or pain or self-hatred, but in that moment, he really doesn’t care.
He needs to apologize.
And he needs to do so properly.
Nails digging into his left palm, he takes a steeling breath, and tries again.
“Shouto I—” he manages to shakily say.
And just like that, the air disappears from his lungs, like how a sucker punch makes one breathless but lucid and alert and completely there in a single instant—
Because he’d meant to say… something more: another apology with maybe a love confession or a question or just something but… but the name, that name he uttered so simply like a prayer…
Well it suddenly it feels like it’s shattered his world.
…
Six hundred and forty five days.
That’s how long it took for him to say that name again. To hear that name from his own mouth.
His name.
And suddenly it’s like a dam has broken in Katsuki’s brain, like a hole’s been jabbed into his heart and his life force is just uncontrollably pouring out of it…
Because suddenly—
“Oh my God, Shou—Shouto—”
—he can’t stop saying his name.
Something burns in him, something bursts and breaks and completely shatters because—because how did he go so long without saying his name?
How did he go so long without—without him?
He doesn’t know.
He truly has no fucking clue because his name—his magnificent name—is quite frankly the most beautiful word in the English language—or in any language, at that. Shouto’s name is a promise he made himself, a vow he took to always be strong and steadfast and true, an oath to always strive to be a hero in more ways than society could ever perceive—
And that name, it’s also part of Katsuki himself. It’s the actual motherfucking key to his heart, the prayer he’d whispered and laughed and moaned countless times before, the anthem he’d decided to make his own—the love letter he’d spoken on the day he’d cracked himself open in front of all their family and friends to let Shouto in.
Shouto was and is a part of Katsuki.
And to have lived six hundred and forty five days without a part of himself—
How…
How utterly cruel.
Absolutely unfathomable.
But suddenly, the idea of living another day—another second—without that name… well it just feels completely and utterly unbearable.
So…
“S-Shouto—Shouto—”
Katsuki breaks.
He fucking weeps like some fucking baby as he repeats again and again and again the word he never let himself utter even though he wanted to so fucking badly.
He doesn’t know how long he stays there, doesn’t know how or when he ends up on the dirty ass floor of this inconspicuous-looking phone booth on top of this fucking pampas grass hill…
But it sure as hell is clearly too fucking long because—
Because by the time he hears it, his head’s throbbing, his throat is aching, his voice is fading and his brains… well they gotta be nothing more than goo at that point because…
Because he honest to God hears it clear as day, coming through that tinny microphone…
Hears—
“Katsuki?”
And his heart positively stops beating right then and there.
“Kacchan, I—”
“You bastard fuckmunch nerd, how could you do this to me, huh? Send me on a wild goose chase so I can fucking lose my mind, that it? You want me to lose my fucking mind, Deku? Cuz that’s exactly what’s happening, bastard, I’m actually standing here in the middle of fucking nowhere and properly losing my fucking marbles—”
“KACCHAN!”
And that—Deku’s voice, panicking yet so strong—stops him talking long enough for Katsuki to take a breath and—oh, that feels good actually. Lungs are burning less and all that. But Deku…
Deku.
“How could you do this to me Deku?” Katsuki breathes into the receiver, his fingers throbbing with the strength of his grip on his cellphone as his wounded heart steadily pumps vitriol into his veins. “How could you fucking do this to me—”
“Kacchan, I swear, I don’t even know what you’re talking about!”
He sounds breathless, borderline frantic.
Fucking good.
At least Katsuki’s not the only one here.
“I… Fuck-ass Deku, I… I actually fucking went,” he explains, voice evaporating into the wind as pain colours his words.
And Deku gasps.
So Katsuki closes his eyes in a vice, draws his eyebrows so taut that it hurts but… But fuck, this is so fucking desperate of him to have actually come here—and it’s actually shameful that he… succumbed.
That he turned out to be gullible enough to go and look into that inconspicuous link Deku’d sent him a year ago, that link he’d sent while saying stuff like “I think it could help you Kacchan, you never talk about him,” and “It’s just symbolic, the phone’s not actually connected to anywhere but some people like to go there, to talk to their loved ones and… well since you didn’t get to say goodbye, I thought this might help.”
What a fucking clumsy-ass well-meaning asshole.
“To the… the Phone of the Wind?” Deku asks after a moment, actually sounding brittle, and fuck how dare he—how fucking dare he sound like that when he didn’t even have to…
When he didn’t actually hear—
Hear what?
What did Katsuki actually hear?
The answer seems much too good and impossible to be true, so Katsuki forces himself to push his complicated feelings away and focus on the present…
“—chan, can you hear me?”
Deku’s voice drifts, floats around in the air for a bit until it carries words with actual meanings to Katsuki’s ears. ”Yeah, fuck, I can— I’ve got ears, I hear you fucker,” Katsuki whispers then, breathless, as he viciously rubs his eyes till yellow stars erupt on his eyelids.
A beat passes, there’s rustling on the line, until the nerd’s voice resonates again in Katsuki’s skull.
“Ok Kacchan, I want you to turn on your GPS, ok?”
And fuck, turning on his GPS means—means Katsuki’ll be forced to entertain the fuck-ass nerd in a not so distant future… But regardless, Katsuki’s fingers respond immediately, like his body’s actually aching to not be alone right now.
Which…
Which maybe is—
Fuck.
“Ok. Ok, I’ll be there in five hours thirty-six minutes, ok Kacchan?” the nerd’s mumbling cuts in, movement picking up on his end of the phone like he’s just randomly shuffling around wherever he is. “Actually, that’s what my phone says but I’ll get there faster, so you just… Um… I don’t think you should stay there actually— Oh, is that the beach near you? It is, isn’t it. Ok Kacchan, you hear me? Why don’t you go sit there a little, the saltwater always does you some good, right? I’ll be there as soon as I—”
“Deku,” Katsuki blurts out then, eyes still closed. “Deku, I heard him.”
And the shuffling stops on the other side of his phone.
“Heard… who?” Deku asks haltingly.
(“Katsuki?”)
And Katsuki grips his hair viciously with his free hand, scraping harshly, trying to distract himself from—
“Shouto.”
And silence reigns, a vacuum absorbing every sound, every breath between them until—
“You… Oh. Is that— Are you—”
“Shut up, Deku,” Katsuki snaps instantly—but the tears start flowing once again and…
And suddenly he feels so fucking alone, so utterly unhinged like he’s actually going insane, like he’s just aimlessly drifting in this ocean of feelings without an end in sight, and there’s no way for him to take control, to man the helm of his mind because he’s—he’s so fucking alone and—
Fuck, he just wants—needs to just… not be.
Alone, that is.
He really doesn’t fucking want to be alone right now.
“I’m on my way, Kacchan.”
There’s a tonkatsu sauce stain on his tea cup.
It’s dried and slightly discoloured, just this tiny blemish over an otherwise perfectly smooth expanse of ceramic. Around him, the bistro is bustling with noises of life, of people talking and dishes clinking but…
But all he can see is the stain.
A tiny bump.
It looks like a scab.
…
“You’re not eating.”
With eyes both heavy and groggy, Katsuki manages to drag them to the face the voice belongs to. “No,” he answers.
Deku doesn’t flinch at the gravel lodged in his throat, so Katsuki doesn’t clear it.
“You should eat.”
“Yeah, should do a lot of things according to you.”
And Deku sighs—sighs like something’s hurting deep in his chest—as he lays down the tonkatsu strip he’d seized in his chopsticks.
“Kacchan,” he begins, and the remorse is already so palatable that as fast as his body will permit it, Katsuki purposefully grabs his spoon, making it ring as it hits his plate, and shovels curry rice in his mouth. Sure enough, that shuts up the nerd, as Katsuki is thus saved from hearing another set of apologies.
The curry doesn’t taste like much—not many spices in it and it actually manages to lodge in his oesophagus, sending waves of pain in his back as he swallows too much too fast—so he reaches for his tea to wash the food down, and swallows unceremoniously.
It helps after a while, and he manages not to grimace when he feels the food dislodge so as to pass under Deku’s something’s-wrong-with-Kacchan radar undetected.
And when Katsuki settles the cup back down, his hand ghosts over the stain—
The scab.
“I did some research yesterday,” Deku pipes up again after having chewed on his last tonkatsu strip, cheeks still munchkin-shaped as if he couldn’t wait to share the information in an orderly, polite way—which is utter bullshit cuz he’d just spent a proper ten minutes silently eyeing Katsuki worriedly, the annoying fuck.
Deku stares at Katsuki’s full plate, watches Katsuki set the spoon down defiantly, then meets his eyes. “It’s possible it was really him,” he says at last, and Katsuki’s chair suddenly seems like it’s tipping over even though he knows it’s objectively still firmly planted to the ground.
“Explain fucker,” he grits out.
And Deku’s eyes tighten. “There’s no clear explanation for it, only speculation for now,” he begins, and Katsuki slams his fist on the table because that’s just not good enough, but Deku, unflinching, continues. “It might be a Quirk, or maybe ghosts do exist but… you’re not the only one to have heard a loved one… speak to them through the Phone of the Wind.”
And…
And what’s he supposed to do with that?
“How many,” Katsuki settles on without even thinking about it because he doesn’t really know what else to say to that…
Deku’s eyes flash. “A few,” he answers cryptically.
And Katsuki’s blood boils. “Answer me you asswipe!”
“It doesn’t matter, Kacchan—”
“Course it does! If it’s two, then that just means we’re just crazy—but if it’s twenty, then maybe this is actually—”
Maybe this is actually real…
But…
Does he want it to be, though?
Because if it is, would it mean Sh—Shouto’s been stuck here?
Stuck somewhere that’s not quite the happy afterlife Katsuki had wished for him?
Dammit, would it?
“I’ve read and heard about… three people who’ve experienced it—” and Katsuki’s house of paper hope crumbles without him even noticing he’d built it, “—but Kacchan, that doesn’t mean it’s a fluke or a result of foul play or a… figment of imagination.”
And honestly, Katsuki’s never been one to run from a fight, but he really, really doesn’t want to see the nerds eyes brimming with naïve hope so he averts his gaze to settle on—
On that stain.
That damn tonkatsu stain.
“Don’t do this Deku,” he pleads warns , but the fucker’s always been persistent, dead set on making Katsuki’s life simply miserable.
So of course he answers, “But what if, Kacchan.”
And Katsuki’s heart drops like a stone because…
Because yeah.
What if.
Katsuki doesn’t look at him, but he hears him shuffle forward, hears his voice come closer. “What if it’s true. Don’t you wanna at least take a chance on him?”
And how dare he say that—because if there’s anyone in this goddamn world on whom Katsuki would take a chance over and over again, anyone he’d entrust his whole life to—it’s goddamn Shouto.
His vision, frustratingly enough, blurs like fogged-up glass, but he blinks once, twice and sees once again the stain—and it hasn’t moved, though it’s maybe dried a bit more since the start of this fucking conversation…
It’s dark, red hues turned to brownish tints, dried and still so… scab-like.
…
And honestly, if there’s one thing Katsuki knows, it’s that picking at old scabs is a sure fire to make wounds bleed again.
But…
But dammit, he wants to pick at it.
It takes a while...
But he finds himself back there at nightfall two days later.
There’s no wind this time, no wind chimes or groaning in the air.
Simply silence.
Until the phone booth door grinds open, an awful screech resounding in the void like an open wound carving itself into the very fabric of space.
And Katsuki steps in.
At first glance, everything looks unchanged: inconspicuous black phone still sitting on this inconspicuous wooden table, pampas grass brushing upon slightly hazed windows, and this one nondescript pen sitting beside this large open book.
Until something new catches his interest in said book.
“Say hi for me Kacchan ᕙ(⊙‸⊙)ᕗ!“ is written in slightly lopsided chicken scratch, and Katsuki snorts loudly, something both violent and relieved bubbling in his chest.
Damn nerd.
With a slightly more steady hand, Katsuki closes the book and in the same motion, reaches for the phone’s handle.
There’s no buzzing in the receiver, no indication that the phone itself is working or that there’s anyone on the line—
No, only silence.
And Katsuki’s never been one to be bothered by silence—he actually relishes in it, to most people’s surprise—but this one, it presses in on him, threatens to squeeze his ribcage and hunch his shoulders… He knows an easy way to break it is to talk, but right now his voice seems so so far away, elusive and brittle…
He knows he could also just leave.
But…
But he doesn’t want to.
His eyes fall upon the rotary dial, and a wave of resolve crashes over him as he steps ever so slightly forward—because maybe he can’t really find his voice right now, but he knows he will.
He has to.
The number comes naturally to him, he doesn’t even think about it. Even though it’s been almost two years, even though it’s not exactly muscle memory since he’s never dialled it using a rotary phone, he finds it like one finds the light switch at home—that is, by reaching without looking, by pressing without hesitating.
And find it he does.
The machine resonates in the booth, metal grinding on metal as he works, and the sound soothes his rapidly beating heart—
Until he’s done and the line doesn’t ring.
And no voice answers.
Only silence.
Suddenly, he feels like the stupidest man on earth, standing here all alone with no one to talk to—
But stupid as he may be, Bakugou Katsuki certainly isn’t a quitter.
So he grips the receiver like a vice, squares his shoulders and presses his lips together before using the momentum like a spring to suck in a breath and open his mouth—
And speak.
“Shithead, you there?”
It’s… not exactly what he’d been going for—but this way his voice remains steady, strong, resolute.
It echoes in the booth, the sound trapped like he is, in hapless limbo—
Waiting.
And wait he does—though he could not say how long, as he normally counts heartbeats to pass the time, but his are currently too frenetic to discern… His hand only tightens in angered despair.
“Fucker, if you’re here you better answer me,” he gripes, shoulders taut, and he hears himself snort harshly—
Except…
Except he’s almost sure he… didn’t…
“Don’t hang up on me then,” comes a voice so fond and gentle and so completely magnificent that it punches the air right out of Katsuki’s lungs—
And suddenly the receiver’s on the ground, Katsuki’s hand shaking and slack beside him as his widened eyes fill to the brim in both shock and blessed relief.
It’s not like it was completely unexpected, to hear his voice, but…
But it is.
It absolutely is.
And in that moment, Katsuki is so desperate to hear it again that he practically dives to grab at the dangling handset and imprint it into his skull.
“Shou?” he asks, so obviously and pathetically asking for confirmation, for reassurance, and—
“Yeah,” comes his answer, a smile colouring that single word like a rainbow in the sky. “Yeah Katsuki, I’m here.”
And that gentle voice, its deliberate cadence and breathy tone—even the spaces between each syllable—is all so obviously Shouto that Katsuki unconsciously reaches forward in the air in a futile attempt to trace that smile he can hear, trace that mouth he can feel, trace the features of his one and only Shouto.
But—
His hand grasps only silence.
“Fuck, I need to sit down,” Katsuki blurts out, heart suddenly aching like a motherfucker, but he hones in on Shouto’s light chuckle, which makes his knees give out entirely—
And yeah, that’s fine, he was probably gonna end up on the floor either way.
“Comfortable?” Shouto’s disembodied voice then teases fondly, and Katsuki snorts.
“You’re insufferable,” he grumbles, but his back isn’t in it… because he wants this.
Wants his mocking and pettily insufferable Shou just as much as he needs air. He wants anything and everything Shou has to offer and more because—
Because he never thought he’d get to have it again. Never thought he’d get to hear Shou’s voice in a new light, saying words in sentences he hadn’t memorized already. No, he thought he’d be cursed for the rest of his life to only ever relive Shouto’s voice and smile and features in tattered old photographs and videos he’d either filmed or memorized.
He thought he’d be cursed to only ever live the past with him.
To never walk the future together.
Yet now…
Now he’s somehow allowed to.
And there are simply no words to convey how blessed he feels to be unable to predict what Shou’s going to say next.
He’s just so fucking ecstatic that he’s actually shaking on the ground like some fucking loser.
“Shit,” he whispers, and a tear streaks down his face. “I missed you so fucking much, you fucker.”
And he hears a chuckle, soft and watery and so goddamn beautiful, fill his ears and carve itself into his heart. “Six hundred and forty-eight days,” Shouto agrees shakily, and he says it so easily that something both breaks and settles into place in Katsuki’s chest.
He wants to ask him then, wants to ask how he’s been doing, where he is, if he’s sleeping well and eating—if there even is cold soba or strawberry ice cream where he is—and if he’s taking care of himself…
Just…
If he’s doing okay.
Except he suddenly can’t find the words…
Dammit, he can’t find his voice.
Not when there are so many things to say.
The line goes silent once again, but Katsuki somehow knows with complete and utter certainty that he’s not alone.
Knows that Shou’s still with him.
It’s in the silence.
Their silence.
It wraps around him like memory foam, palpable comfort hugging his frame and supporting the weight of his burdens. He wants to fall headfirst into it, wants to let himself forget all about the days where he’d been deprived of it…
But the wounds are too fresh, too deep, too harrowing to forget.
And that’s how he finds his voice again.
He finds it trapped underneath the weight of the missed phone call and its missing voicemail that started it all.
Katsuki breathes in then, smells the stale air of the phone booth as he knocks his head back against a window pane. “You called,” he says at last. He doesn’t specify when—there aren’t many phone calls he could be talking about in this moment—and he waits in silence until his heart is stabbed when a wet sniffle comes from the receiver.
He closes his eyes.
“I did,” comes the quiet answer.
A moment passes.
Katsuki sees mismatched eyes turn to him in his mind’s eye, honest and open.
“And you hung up.”
A hum.
“I did.”
Somehow, Katsuki’s heart remains steady as he himself opens his eyes, pampas grass instantly coming into focus. It’s brushing up against the glass in slow movements, noisy and mesmerizing.
Lulling him into a sense of security, granting him the strength to ask what he’s wondered every single day, every morning when he woke up and every night when he fell asleep—
“What—” he clears his throat, “What were you going to say,” he asks at last—at last—and waits with bated breath.
But the answer doesn’t come.
So he waits in silence.
Because he knows sometimes, Shou needs his time. Needs it to sift through and organise his thoughts.
He also knows that if he doesn’t want to answer, he’ll tell him so—tell him to back off, to please change the subject.
But he does neither.
So Katsuki waits.
And at last, Shouto’s voice comes back to him.
“I didn’t know where to start,” he says full of an emotion Katsuki can’t place, and—and he’s not given any time to, because Shouto’s voice fills the air once again in a rushed whoosh. “I wanted to tell you that— I just… I wanted to hear your voice, Katsuki. You have no idea how much I wanted to,” Shouto begins, and Katsuki’s vision blurs of its own accord, something steadily pressing on his chest and windpipe as he hears the turmoil in his husband’s voice. “I wanted to tell you that…”
He hears Shouto’s voice catch, and Katsuki’s about ready to blast the skies to hell and back just so that he can get to hold him, so that he can brush his hair back and catch the tears on his cheeks and trace tiny soothing circles on the back of his neck.
Just so he can tell him—
“I love you.”
He says it in a whisper, but finds its echo in Shouto’s voice in that exact moment.
And a huff—probably from him—fills the silence just as a chuckle bubbles from the other side of the line.
“Feels good to say that again,” Shouto pipes up again, and he sounds both happy and wistful. Katsuki hums.
Because it does.
He waits then, waits for Shouto to start talking again, because he knows better than to interrupt when he’s finally opening up about his feelings.
He doesn’t wait very long.
“But I just… I wanted you to remember my love for you not as these rushed, fearful final words,” Shouto continues, and Katsuki has to force himself not to actively imagine his Shou hurt and afraid and dying alone and—
“I wanted you to remember my little voicemails instead,” Shou soldiers on, anchoring Katsuki’s thoughts. “To remember my late night chili pepper runs when you needed spicy popcorn, and how my kisses on your left midriff made you laugh till you snorted like a horse. Oh and how I gave you those feet rubs in spite of my better judgement—”
“Oi,” Katsuki half-heartedly protests, smiling at Shou’s infamous aversion to feet.
“—or that polaroid I took of the pimple you got on your nose when you had your modelling debut,” Shouto laughs, a tinkling sound that makes Katsuki close his eyes in painful contentment.
Still, his smile doesn’t fall.
“I wanted you to remember our love—to remember my love for you—for what it was,” Shouto says at last. “Not for how it ended.”
“It never ended,” is what Katsuki answers immediately, and Shou’s breath catches on the other side of the line.
Which Katsuki will just not tolerate.
“Our love never ended, shortcake,” he repeats.
And he hears a hum.
“You’re right, it never did.”
But that’s not enough.
“And it never will either,” Katsuki proclaims then as a defiant fuck you to the fucking universe itself. “Death tried to do us part and yet, here we fucking are.”
“Yeah, here we fucking are,” Shouto repeats again, this time oh-so fondly.
And Katsuki smiles, closing his eyes and trying to remember which of Shou’s smiles would match his current tone. Probably the one that crinkled his eyes and brought out those tiny dimples on the side of his mouth. That one was rare but it was always one of Katsuki’s favourites…
“You should know,” Shouto pipes up then, voice sifting through Katsuki’s pleasant thoughts, “I wasn’t afraid in the end, Katsuki.” A breath filters through the phone, steeling enough for the both of them.
Then…
“I was thinking of you when it happened.”
And for the umpteenth time, Katsuki feels this sharp pain stab right through his heart.
“Yeah?” he asks brokenly.
“Yeah,” Shou responds calmly.
“Ok,” he whispers back, and he wants to say more but… but for some reason, he starts sobbing right then and there like an explosion’s been suddenly set off. It’s like those words were the final straw, the final tug to release the grenade pin, sending devastating shards into the remains of his composure and sanity—breaking him from the inside out.
And so very pathetically, he wants a hug.
He wants a Shouto hug.
Wants to feel his warmth against his skin, his weight circling him, his solid shoulder under his chin and his chest glued to his own.
But instead, he gets something he’d forgotten he could even have again.
He gets Shouto humming for him.
The timbre of his voice is just so soothing, riveting as it transports Katsuki’s mind to a place where they’re together, where there are no barriers between them and they can simply be. It’s not a song he recognizes, but its melody rises and falls in a steady manner that comforts him, that envelops him and lulls him and staves off his cries till they slowly taper off into shaking breaths.
And still, Shouto doesn’t stop humming.
Frankly, Katsuki could fall asleep to this…
But as his eyes, sticky and puffy, start to close, his gaze falls on the counter before him, on the heavy book he’d closed earlier and—
“Oh, Deku says hi.”
And much to his chagrin, Shouto’s voice stops in its tracks. “Izuku?” he breathes incredulously, as if he’d forgotten about their third musketeer completely.
Katsuki snorts. “Yeah, he… he’s helping me out.”
He doesn’t say with what. It doesn’t need to be said, Shou clearly gets it.
But he doesn’t answer, not for a long time. Katsuki expects to be given a whole-ass dictated letter to transmit to him, but is proved wrong when Shouto speaks again. “I’m happy you’ve got each other,” he says, and Katsuki hears what Shouto doesn’t say, hears the ‘I’m sorry for the inconvenience’ that isn’t said because it’ll simply be shot down the moment it’s uttered.
He also hears the wistfulness, hears how much Shouto wishes he could see Deku again.
Wishes they could have their OG Soba Sundays together and exchange coffee cups in their shared agency like in the olden days.
He hears it so well, because it’s the echo of what’s written in his own heart. A reflection of simpler times they took for granted—
“Katsuki?”
“Hm.”
“You should get to sleep.”
And it takes time for his meaning to cross the cloud of haziness in Katsuki’s mind.
“’M not sleepy, fucker,” he ends up saying.
A huff. “Whatever you say, Kat. But this booth can’t be good for your neck—”
“Don’t care.”
“But I do,” is Shouto’s fond reply.
“Sap,” Katsuki answers, but hunches forward to placate said sap. “What ‘bout you though,” he asks then, newfound fatigue clearing just in time for him to start worrying about where Shouto actually is, how he goes about his days, if he gets to sleep or rest or—
“Don’t worry, love. Nothing’s gonna happen to me,” Shouto replies oh-so vaguely.
“Wait, no—” Katsuki startles as alertness seeps back into his bones, “is this—”
“It’s not goodbye,” Shou rebukes, voice firm, full of certainty. “Not if you don’t want it to be.”
“I don’t,” Katuski answers resolutely himself.
And Shouto huffs once again, though this time there seems to be an air of sadness seeping through the microphone. “You should know though, Katsuki… I’m not… coming back. We can never have what we had before—I can’t give you what you need.” His voice is thick, and he hesitates a moment before continuing on. “So I will understand—I already understand that you’ll move on from me—”
“Shut the fuck up you half-baked, pasty ass strawberry shortcake bastard. No one’s moving on from anything. You’re it for me, got it?”
“Katsuki—”
“I said got it?”
This time, the silence is the tensest it’s been in their whole conversation, which isn’t to say much really because both parties are still running on the high of being reunited to really start anything with one another… But that said, Katsuki’s really not taking a no for an answer.
And Shouto knows it well. It’s in the sigh he lets out, just loud enough for Katsuki to know that he’s exaggerating to indicate his (fond) frustration. “Yeah, got it,” he relents, and Katsuki’s shoulders sag without him realizing he’d even raised them in the first place.
“Just promise me this, though,” comes Shouto’s voice again, and Katsuki hums to let him know he’s listening. “If you ever meet someone—”
“Fucker I will hang up this phone, don’t test me.”
And laughter fills his ears, as melodious as the humming Shou’d gifted him with earlier. “Ok, we’ll talk about it next time then,” he placates, and the promise of a next time manages to overshadow whatever the hell he’s promising to talk about.
“Don’t get lost in some goddamn limbo or whatever, Shou. I’ll be back, next week at the most, I swear.”
“But aren’t you in Sōma right now?” Shouto asks then. “That’s what, six hours from Shizuoka?—”
“Bastard, you said it yourself, we’re six hundred and forty-eight days in and actually defying death, I think six hours’ transit ain’t gon kill me."
“That’s twelve, counting the ride back,” he retaliates in his annoying-as-fuck tone of voice that tells Katsuki he knows he’s being annoying…
And Katsuki knows that Shouto's current levity deserves levity from himself in return, but to this, he has no quip to give. Only the truth. “Maybe I’ll just move to fucking Sōma then.”
And honestly, he’s never been this serious in his life.
But Shouto just chuckles. “If you say so, Kit Kat.”
And the pet name settles in between his ribs like a balm, soothing his soul and building it back together one puzzle piece at a time.
“Take care, shortcake.”
“Talk to you soon, love. Say hi to Izuku.”
“Oh no, we’re not finishing this call with shitty Deku's name being the last word!”
And Shouto laughs. “Ok boo.”
“Ugh, you’re insufferable.”
“I know,” Shouto chuckles, voice like honey. “But it’s only because I love you.”
“Yeah I know," Katsuki smiles softly. He closes his eyes, content. "Love you too, Shou.”
And it's to the sound of an obnoxiously loud kiss sent to him over the phone that Katsuki hangs up, only now realizing that his cheeks hurt as all fuck from all the exercise, and that his heart is simply out soaring in the sky.
The day is ending. Streetlights buzz overhead under the red and blue hues of the sky, their reflections dancing on the windshield in endless waves. It looks like a rain of coloured light is falling upon them. He knows if Shouto were here, he’d lean forward in the passenger seat, mouth hanging slightly open as he’d look upwards with twinkling eyes and snap a picture—and he also knows he’d get disappointed, frowning deeply at his phone’s inability to properly capture the fleeting beauty of the moment.
And the thought as well the memory his mind conjures both stab at his heart with fond despair—and he knows he doesn’t manage to keep it from his face.
But this time, for the first time in so fucking long, he doesn’t push the feeling away—no, he just… lets it be.
Lets himself feel it seep into the spaces between every single atom in his body, lets it reach into his soul and settle there…
And it hurts.
Fuck, it hurts so fucking much.
But he lets it be.
Because that’s where Shouto is, after all—buried in the hurt, buried in his heart.
And Katsuki doesn’t want to live without Shou anymore.
So he lets it hurt.
Without even looking, he feels Deku’s eyes dart to him, to where he knows his face is betraying him—but those emerald eyes, calculating and observant, silently dart back to the road.
Katsuki waits for the comment, waits for the “Do you wanna talk about it?” or the “How did it go Kacchan?”
After all, it’s pretty impressive how much the nerd’s kept his silence up until now, how much he’s kept himself from meddling—so Katsuki wouldn’t hold it against him if he asked now.
But still, the comment doesn’t comes.
Only the hum of their engine fills the air, the rush of the wind racing against the windows and the powerful whooshes of other cars speeding past their own.
And Katsuki is filled with gratitude for the fucker.
Because for all his initial meddling, for all his clumsy-ass and misguided attempts to make Katsuki come to terms with his grief or to even just acknowledge it in the first place, he hasn’t once asked about the phone call.
Oh, he’s been a real pain in the ass, yeah—forbidding Katsuki from taking his own car back to Shizuoka, forcing him to get in the car with him for the ride back and going behind his back to request a day off for tomorrow—but he hasn’t asked.
He’s let Katsuki have his privacy.
Has let him keep Shouto in his memories, keep him in a pocket in his heart meant for himself only. Let him replay their conversation, replay every intake of breath, every inflection in Shouto’s silken voice—every millisecond of melody he heard and every chuckle or laughter—and he’s let him keep it all for himself.
And Katsuki…
He appreciates it.
More than words can convey.
So he decides to… give back a little.
“Shou says hi,” he reports then.
And at first, nothing happens. No smile, no words, no fireworks to celebrate the occasion.
But then, a sniffle.
And another.
Katsuki doesn’t look, deciding to return the favour and give the nerd his privacy.
It’s only when their car starts to slow down that he decides he just can’t ignore it anymore cuz he’d rather not die by cause of momentarily visually-impaired driver. “Oi, you better not cause an accident, nerd!” he warns, turning his head round to face his friend—
Only to find him digging a hand into an eye socket, shoulders shaking.
And before he can intervene, Deku brings the car to a halt on the side of the road.
Katsuki doesn’t say anything—only slams his hand on the hazard lights—but…
But he grins in manic delight as the words settle in his lungs.
Shouto said hi.
Shouto was there.
“I’m…” the nerd begins, and Katsuki looks at him, now hunched over the wheel, shoulders shaking with more vigour. “I’m so glad, Kacchan. So happy you got your call,” he wobblily says to the wheel, and Katsuki is suddenly filled with this urge to ruffle his hair.
Wait what the fuck, no not in a million years.
“Next time, you’ll get yours too,” he promises instead, knowing Shouto would want to talk to him, to his best friend.
Next time.
Maybe he could even bring the Idiot Brigade too. Eijirou would bawl his eyes out, Pikachu too for sure, and Sero would probably bring a manga with him, the moron.
And Mina.
Yeah, he could bring Mina too—as an… apology. For his asshole-ness.
The nerd is silent as he cries, only occasional sniffles bubbling to the surface, and Katsuki looks back outside, to the horizon vanishing under now violet skies. He fishes a packet of tissues from the glove compartment, throws it at the nerd’s head and then unceremoniously opens the door.
Leave him his privacy and all that.
Fresh saltwater assails him then, a cool breeze lightly tousling his hair as he breathes in and pushes the car door closed. The rush of the sea fills his ears, birds chirping in the wind as the sun starts to retreat behind the horizon in warm hues.
It’s just… breathtaking.
And he really doesn’t know when was the last time he stopped to appreciate something as trivial as a sunset…
But he knows someone who used to want to.
Appreciate every trivial thing in life, that is.
So Katsuki leans on the hood, crosses his arms to keep them from reaching for—
For the one who isn’t here.
And though he knows he’d normally get a swap on the arm for doing so—”You’re missing the show, Katsuki!”—he closes his eyes. Basks in the warmth, in the rush of the sea and the caress of the wind on his cheek.
That’s how he hears it, the laughter. Sounds like people on the beach, a young couple probably, chasing each other and bickering in the sunset.
They sound happy.
And Katsuki’s heart mourns the fact that that will never be them again.
It can never be them again.
But…
He opens his eyes once more, and finds the two youngsters—a girl in a midi dress, and a guy half naked running after her—both falling into the waves of the sea together…
And he thinks—
He thinks: it doesn’t have to be us.
Because even through all of the sounds around him, enveloping his chilled frame, he can hear it.
Their silence.
“You’re still here, aren’t you Shou,” he says to the void.
And no answer comes to him.
But in the sky, a bird catches his eye. It’s alone, circling overhead, letting out tiny chirrups into the almost-night—
Until another bird joins it.
And through the contentment that fills him then, Katsuki smiles, head falling down.
“Pathetic fallacy,” he warns himself.
But he looks back up, and lets his eyes follow the two birds fly off towards the falling sun, circling each other while chirping happily.
And a warmth steadily envelops his frame, seeping into his bones like water on a paper towel.
“Talk to you soon, shortcake,” he promises into the sunset.
Smiling still.