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"Whenever I look at you, I..." Hitoshi trails off, unable to form the words, to put the ache in his chest into something that could spill over his lips without being too ugly, too sharp, too melancholy.
"I think of all the things that could have been."
He shifts in his seat, tugging the blanket closer around his shoulders. Shit, but he's exhausted.
If he's honest with himself, he's still a little bit terrified too.
It's hard not to be, in a situation like this. But the heart monitor, for all that it's an aggravating sound in and of itself, is a steady reassurance, echoing Izuku's sheer existence through Hitoshi's head, something that is so undeniably there that he can't truly begrudge the sharp, piercing edge of the noise. Not even with the headache it's given him.
He lets himself slump down, then, arms folded on the edge of Izuku's bed, blinking up at the pale face, moon-sweet, and how his eyelashes fan out, shadowing a few of the tiny freckles around his eyes. Izuku is just so very pretty. Neither the little scar crescent-curling into his hairline or the faint burn creeping up the very corner of his jaw ruin the beauty of it. (Hitoshi remembers how a large patch of Izuku's hair had been fried off entirely, and he can see how it's still thinner there now, traces of the skin still too scarred for the hair to grow back. And Hitoshi knows that he got it in the line of duty, protecting children from a villain, he watched it on telly, terrified. He knows that it's half a thing of pride, half a thing of grief, because Izuku has lost so much to be the hero that he is, and yet he would never truly be himself if not for that very same heroism.
It's what has threatened to tear him from Hitoshi, from all of his friends, time and again.)
It's this thought, this lingering ache, that has Hitoshi speaking once again, the words bittersweet on his lips,
"Sometimes I think about how I could have protected you, although I doubt you would have let me. And you have needed it, sometimes, if only from yourself." That thought makes Hitoshi feel more than a little sick, if he's honest with himself, thorns and knots tangling around the base of his spine,
"I would- I would have held you, if you'd let me, whenever you wanted or needed. I'd have done lots of things, I think."
Shit, he wasn't meant to get this upset. Hitoshi doesn't want his eyes to burn, or to feel queasy, or to be such a fucking mess. Although, in his defence, one of his closest friends (the person that he loves more than perhaps anyone else in the world-) is in a coma right now, and it's far from the first time one of their class has been in a medicine-induced coma, but it's still a horrible, awful thing to have to see, to be so painfully aware of.
"And it's not your fault we haven't had that. I know that," Hitoshi affirms, finding himself oddly strict about it despite Izuku not listening to him right now. Izuku always has blamed himself for far too many things that aren't actually his own fault.
"I guess it isn't mine either. I still just wish, sometimes, that it didn't have to be this way."
Hitoshi will never regret his decision to be an Underground Hero. He knows that Izuku will never regret working his way up the rankings to be Number One by the time he's twenty three, the youngest ever to reach that level. It was their dreams, their destinies, the one thing that meant the most to them both.
That doesn't stop Hitoshi grieving the things that cannot be.
(It would be dangerous for Hitoshi to be publicly seen with Izuku. The more time they spend together outside of flats, agencies, and places like this Hero Ward of the hospital, the more chance there is of someone seeing Izuku, and recognising him, and digging into who Hitoshi is.
It was different for someone like Mic-sensei or even Midnight-sensei. Their hero personas are such exaggerated, pick-and-choose parts of themselves, that to see them out of uniform is to be unable to recognise them, and that meant that Aizawa-sensei is safe too.
But Izuku has been in the spotlight since he was fifteen, since before his voice so much as broke, since that day that he shattered himself to challenge a classmate enough to use his full Quirk. Izuku is Deku, and Deku is Izuku. There is no safety, no sanctity, to that, even more so than for any of the rest of the class. No, anyone that Izuku loves is at risk, anyone he is seen to associate with.
And, if nothing else, Hitoshi is unwilling to put that burden of guilt upon Izuku's shoulders, even if either of them were actually willing to take the very real risk to their lives in the first place.)
There isn't a reply to any of his words, of course. And Hitoshi is glad for that, truly, because there is a reason that he's never said these words to Izuku's face, has hardly ever even considered it, in the... roughly six years that he has loved his friend as, well, not more than a friend, but as something else as well. Still, he can't help but think of what it would be like-
That line of thought has no benefit now, however, and he's wallowed for long enough. He's here for Izuku, to keep him company, technically in a coma or not, not for his own melancholy wonderings.
"Hey, Izuku, you'd better wake up you know. Sensei's going to be pissed if you don't."
Hitoshi doesn't say that it would break his heart. He doesn't need to, not when he can feel it so deep in his marrow that it feels more a part of him than his own flesh. He loves Izuku. It's been years, and will probably still be years yet, and to truly, irrevocably lose him... Hitoshi would survive. He would survive to support Inko-san, and to save people, and because Izuku wouldn't forgive him if he didn't, but it would perhaps be the most difficult thing he could ever do.
So he'll allow himself to hold his friend's hand (to press two fingertips to the pulsepoint on his wrist, a steadying confirmation of the heart monitor's noise-), and will talk quietly to him about some stray cats he's found recently, and how Kouda and Shouji are planning a small surprise for Dark Shadow' and Tokoyami's birthday that they'll all be invited to, hoping for the best of scheduling. He met someone with a really interesting Quirk the other day, and he thinks Izuku would have had an absolute field day, but all Hitoshi knows is that they had gossamer wings and a tilt to their voice and eyes that shuddered in opalescent tones.
The night will be a long one, and his voice will begin to fade long before sunrise, and yet Hitoshi will not look away from Izuku's too-pale, too-calm face, will not let go of his friend's hand even when his fingers start to cramp.
Hitoshi won't regret it, not for a single moment.
It takes Izuku two more days again to wake up.
Hitoshi is still there, for all that he's spent every night patrolling, after that first one. He's reading aloud from one of Izuku's favourite fantasy novels (he may or may not have bought his own copies a few years ago, just to be able to try and find what Izuku loved so much about it; there was something, in the themes, in the way that the main character surrounded themselves with so many wonderful people, that Hitoshi could see appealing to Izuku, but to be honest he's never really been a fantasy reader, and that's okay, he's content enough to read it aloud for Izuku's sake rather than his own-), feet propped up on the bed so that they're pressed to Izuku's thigh.
That latter fact is what allows Hitoshi to feel the twitch and shift of Izuku's legs, and he looks up in time to see the matching spasm of scarred fingers. He's sitting forwards before he can even truly process the movements, shifting halfway to his feet, placing the book aside so that he's ready to help however needed.
"Izuku, hey, you're alright, everyone's safe. Nobody's hurt, Izuku. I need you to listen to me right now, everyone is okay." It's a familiar rota of reassurances, because over the years, the entire class have learnt that the thing to most soothe Izuku, to most pull him into current reality, is that everyone else is okay, that the only thing needed of him is to listen, to rest, to stay calm. It's an odd, frankly difficult thing to reassure, because all of their training is to assure people that they themselves are okay, that they're safe and being looked after. But Izuku, in true Izuku fashion, has never quite followed the standard, and it's no different for this.
Finally there are green eyes staring at Hitoshi, half-glazed, unfocused, but they're there, and Hitoshi nearly collapses just from the sheer relief of it all. (The fact that Izuku took an entire day to wake up after the actual sedatives wore off was... not entirely surprising, but still concerning, admittedly.)
And then it only gets better, because a scarred, callused hand reaches out, latching around Hitoshi's wrist, slightly too-tight, fingertips dragging, but Htisohi doesn't mind, particularly when Izuku is smiling at him like that, with now-bright eyes, and a grin so wide, crooked or not, that there are deep crinkles around those beautiful eyes, the sky wrinkling around aurora, and Hitoshi's heart melts.
"Hi, 'Shi."
"You're such a sap," he huffs, because that wording wasn't just his sleepy slur, not when it's exactly his nickname (that sort of sheer affection is all Hitoshi needs, in all truth, no matter what their exact relationship is-), but he can't help but reach up to nudge fingers through Izuku's hairline, along that scar, the freckles, the warm skin,
"Hello, Izuku."
Htioshi takes a few long moments to breathe, to process that Izuku is breathing and blinking and smiling at him in return, before he starts turning his attention to pressing the call button and making sure that Izuku is actively responding to him, rather than just vaguely so.
He seems okay, Hitoshi thinks. It's undeniably a relief. Because above all else, Hitoshi loves Izuku, as a hero and a friend and as so many more things, and he's beyond glad to have him awake and mostly-okay, no matter what else is going on. To have Izuku smiling at him... It feels a little like the best sort of miracle.
Hitoshi is truly, genuinely happy with what he has right now: he loves Izuku, and that's enough for him.
(Izuku is so glad to see Hitoshi, that the other man is the one to be here when he wakes up.
Despite how much he has pushed away, or rather just neatly side-stepped, his friends over the years, they have all stuck by him, and no more than Hitoshi. Because Izuku wouldn't be able to live with himself if his mere presence around Hitoshi got the taller man hurt, but that doesn't make it easier to not be able to just invite Hitoshi for coffee, or to offer to go shopping with him or the like.
It's difficult for their friendship to be so limited.
They have found a balance over the years, of course. Even when Izuku was at his most self-sacrificing, to the point where he was pushing away even his limelight friends for fear of how they could get hurt, Hitoshi never stopped bugging him enough to make sure Izuku remembered that it was a risk that his friends were willing to take, that they were hurt by the separation just like he was.
It took a few too many early morning and late afternoon surprise visits from Hitoshi for it to get through Izuku's rather thick skull, but they got there in the end. They carve out time for each other, and Hitoshi visits Izuku's flat, or they meet at the Agency building, and they do simple things together, cooking or reading or just talking about their days.
And it makes it harder for Izuku not to fall further and further in love with Hitoshi. With the way that he looks after stray cats, or always brings Izuku extra food shopping, some of his favourites inevitably included, or just how he looks when he's reading a book or scrolling through god-awful memes, head tilted just-so, hair shadowing across his face, sunset or sunrise a bronze cast, setting his silver eyes alight like a hearth.
Izuku always finds himself thinking, in those moments, that his home is most full of heart, with warmth and happiness and safety, when Hitoshi is in it too.
He really does love Hitoshi. One day, perhaps, he will be able to fully show that.)