Chapter Text
“Huh?”
Hospitals were never Hizashi’s favourite place, and after Shouta turned thirty and started regularly visiting them in critical condition, Hizashi started disliking hospitals even more. So, hear him out, he wouldn’t be here right now if his sleeping pills would be working. But they didn’t. And he was hella tired and Shouta was tired of him being awake, so here Hizashi was, trying to get a new prescription for better pills against his insomnia.
Sue him if the words his doc was saying didn’t make sense to his tired brain.
“We need to make more tests to be sure, but from your EEG and symptoms that you were describing, my guess is that your diagnosis might be worse than usual insomnia, Yamada-san.”
“Uh, okay?” He is so damn tired, he just wants to go to sleep. Hizashi had a hard week, working overtime because of the case with the group of villains that he took over from the police. And finally he had a free evening, but he couldn’t even go to sleep, since Takeda-san wanted to kill him with the lack of sleep, for some reason.
“We should do more tests before I start explaining to you my theories. I need a couple of scans and blood tests to make sure that my diagnosis is right and we will go from there. We can’t make a genetic test, since you don’t know your biological relatives, is that information still correct?”
Hizashi blinks a couple of times and nods, because he thinks Doc asked him a yes or no question.
“This might take a while. Do you want me to call your husband?” He didn’t even finish working on the last piece of information, but he shakes his head.
“I’ll be fine, Shouta is busy. You say tests? Let’s go do those and then we will see, yeah? I can’t wait to go home and take a nice 8-hour long nap.”
His leg shakes, while he waits in the hospital’s hallway after taking all the tests his Doc wanted. He didn’t really understand what exactly he tried to find, but Hizashi still didn’t have his meds and he needed those to sleep. He feels his phone vibrate and takes it out to see the message from Shouta.
>> Eraser, 04:36pm
finished patrol, going to take Eri from Togata and come home. meet you there?
>> Me, 04:37pm
Gonna be a bit late :( Doc wants to do some more tests on me
>> Eraser, 04:37pm
you okay?
>>Me, 04:37pm
Tired :(((( But yeah, I’m fine. Gonna be home late tho, don’t wait up!
>>Eraser, 04:38pm
ok
“Yamada-san?” Hizashi jolts on his place, looking up at his doctor, who asks him to go back into the examination room, where he jumps onto the bed. Takeda-san closes the door and sits on the chair, putting documents on the table next to him. Oh, this is gonna be a long and uncomfortable talk.
Hizashi spends his evening in the cat cafe next to the hospital, feeling a bit guilty that he didn’t invite Shouta, but he needed a moment to think everything through.
Honestly saying, his biological parents sucked. He got so many genetical skin problems that he was struggling as a teen with and now this? Fuck them.
Yamada reads his papers over one more time, mechanically putting notes into his notebook. The crazy thing, he thinks, is that he would not have noticed the symptoms if Shouta didn’t push him to visit the doctor. He probably would’ve only noticed it on the final stage, when dementia would start kicking in, since he always had perfect memory.
Fatal insomnia is a majorly familial disease that starts at problems with sleep and ends with death. The problems with sleeping typically start out gradual and worsen over time. (in my case it worsened from usual bad to unusual very bad). Eventually the patient (me) will succumb to total insomnia, most often leading to other symptoms like speech problems (okay cruel?!!), coordinational problems (fuck me ig) and dementia. It results in death within a few months to a few years (when have I ever been a lucky guy).
- First stage: worsening insomnia, panic attacks, paranoia.
He had trouble sleeping as long as he remembers himself, since foster care, before his moms took him in. He has three jobs and he was never a good sleeper, like Shouta. Hizashi was a hero, okay? What hero doesn’t have panic attacks and paranoia? A dumb one.
- Second stage: hallucinations and more panic attacks.
Well, that would be a bit out of ordinary, but he had hallucinations before, because of villains quirks or hitting his head too hard. Nothing that unusual.
- Third stage: complete inability to sleep and weight loss.
Again, sleep was always a problem for him. And he was always skinny, no matter how much he ate.
- Fourth stage: dementia, patient unresponsive or non-verbal.
Memory problems or unresponsiveness were never something associated with Hizashi. He was non-verbal when he was in foster care, but it was his only chance to stay alive back then.
Hizashi looks at the papers and his notes, writing down some more words from his doctor that he thinks will help him explain everything to Shouta. For fuck’s sake.
Yamada groans and lowers his face into the fur of a grey cat that sits in front of him on the table. He wants to sleep so bad. Maybe, if he sleeps, he will wake up from that terrible dream.
He comes home when he knows that Eri is sleeping. Shouta is in the shower, so Hizashi comes into the bedroom and changes his clothes, taking different pills from his pockets. He goes to the kitchen and makes tea, coming back just as Shouta comes out of the bathroom. His husband never leaves the bathroom not fully dressed, but it doesn’t make him less pretty. Hizashi gently smiles, accepting a small peck on his lips and giving Shouta his cup of tea.
“You got new medication for your insomnia?” Shouta sits down on the bed and yawns, taking a sip from the cup. Hizashi wants to forget about his diagnosis and go to bed to cuddle with his husband. But he can’t, he is only on stage one and dementia is a stage four. Hizashi also wants to laugh, because his type of insomnia doesn’t have a treatment anymore. So he giggles and sits down on a chair, putting it opposite Shouta, which causes the man to lift a brow in question.
“I got a new diagnosis. Kinda. It’s still insomnia though. Which is ridiculous, why don’t they give different names to things?”
“Hizashi.”
“Yeah, yeah. So, the thing is called fatal insomnia and it’s exactly how it sounds. They have all those Latin words and they don’t use them? That’s dumb!” He feels his mouth move and he knows he is babbling, but he can’t really understand what. God, he is so tired. “Too bad I can’t sleep, ha! They should have found something scarier, I already can’t sleep. Old news!”
“Hizashi.” He notices that his own mug and Shouta’s are standing on the table next to the bed. He didn’t put them there and he panics a little bit, thinking that the dementia phase came much sooner. “Hizashi, I put them on the table, not you.” There is a pregnant pause and Hizashi’s eyes snap up to look at his husband, when he finally says something. "Are you telling me that you are dying?”
“Well, now that you say it like that, it sounds terrible!”
“Hizashi, if you’re dying it is terrible. You said “fatal insomnia”?” Shouta reaches for his phone, but Hizashi gets his papers and a notebook first, giving it to Shouta.
“I wrote it down in easy words and better writing. Doc’s handwriting is worse than Ozawa’s from your class!”
Shouta furrows his brows, looking through his notes. Hizashi hears himself babbling, but his husband is used to this, so it doesn’t bother him.
“Can it be cured?”
“Sho, it’s called "fatal ". No, it cannot.”
“How long are all the stages?”
“They range from 6 months to 36 months. All the stages usually last the same amount of time, give or take.” All humour and his Mic’s persona slips down because, honestly, Shouta is pissing him off a little bit with those questions.
“Are there any symptoms you didn’t tell me about? How do you feel?” Shouta doesn’t lift his head up from the papers, like he can actually find a cure to this.
“I’ve been feeling as usual. Maybe a bit more tired.” There was no cure to this. He was going to die. He was going to die, as a civilian, no matter that he was a hero and a war veteran. He was going to die in 6 months or 3 years. “Fuck this.” Hizashi aggressively wipes his burning eyes, feeling his own tears on his palm and scrunching his nose. “Ugh. Sorry, it’s annoying.”
“Hizashi, you’re dying. It’s okay to feel mad or sad, you know?” He lifts his head and sees the exact moment of realisation in his husband’s eye. Shouta opens his mouth, but doesn’t say anything for a moment, loudly breathing out, then coming out with a whisper. “You’re going to die?”
“Yeah.”
There is a movement in the hallway, when Eri goes to the kitchen for a glass of water. They both hold their breath, until they hear her bedroom door close and whisper in unison:
“Fuck, Eri.”
Hizashi hides his face behind his palms and he feels Shouta’s arms wrapping around him. It would be so easy to go into oblivion and sleep in his husbands arms until morning sun or their cats wake them up.
But it’s not easy, and that’s the whole problem.
“Zashi.” Shouta softly whispers, squeezing Hizashi’s shoulder and leaving a kiss on the top of his head. “Which pills do you need to take to sleep?”
Yamada sighs, peeking his eye behind his husband’s biceps and pointing on the right tube of pills with his leg.
“Don’t let me go.”
“I won’t.”
Shouta moves with one hand around Hizashi, keeping the man grounded and putting pills into his mouth, then making him drink water.
“We are gonna talk about everything tomorrow, when Eri’s at school. Now rest, okay?”
“While I still can, huh?” Shouta does not answer him, but Hizashi can hear his heart skipping a beat. Shouta takes out his hearing aids and moves them both into the bed, curling Hizashi into himself and breathing out loudly in the silence of the room. He can feel Shouta mumbling to himself, before he falls asleep.
When Hizashi wakes up, his brain is mushy and his body is heavy. He hasn't slept like that in years. Which means that those pills are working for now. There is a nice warm presence next to him and he feels a rough hand massaging his stiff shoulder. Hizashi lightly tabs Shouta’s skin under his fingers and his husband is putting one of his hearing aids in its place.
“What time is it?” Yamada can barely move his tongue and it all comes out in sluggish whispers.
“Twelve. Don’t panic, I sent Eri to school, made her breakfast, called Nezu about our absence, same with our patrols today. We are having a day off. Do you want to go back to sleep?”
Hizashi has to feel bad about skipping a day, knowing that they are both workaholics to the core, but he feels so tired and heavy, he just sighs loudly.
“I think I won't be able to fall back asleep. But I kinda don’t want to stand up.” He licks his lips and lifts his head a bit, to look into his husband’s face. “Love.”
“I will not carry you to the toilet, don’t “love” me, Hizashi.”
Yamada sighs again and pushes his body from the bed, coming back from the bathroom in five minutes with his glasses on and minty breath. Shouta sits on the bed with his laptop and Hizashi’s notebook, which means they are not pretending that Hizashi is not dying. Ugh.
“We are talking, Hizashi. We need to, sooner or later. Please, sit down.”
“Okay, Aizawa-sensei.”
“You put your tongue in my ass, please, don’t call me sensei. That’s gross.”
“Okay, hun, I won’t.” Hizashi rolls his eyes but sits down next to Shouta and starts carefully massaging his amputated leg. “Did you take your meds? Sorry, I slept through the time.”
“It’s okay, I took everything in time, Eri reminded me.”
“Good. I know she will take good care of you when I am gone.”
He doesn’t need to be looking at Shouta to know that the man glares at him. Hizashi can’t face that stare right now, that sentence wasn’t a joke, he really hoped Eri’s presence would keep Shouta intact. Now, Shouta was a grown up adult, but after so many years of marriage it was an easy routine that now needs to be destroyed. Hizashi loved taking care of Shouta and Shouta loved sleeping. Of course he took over chores when Hizashi had too much on his plate and he wasn’t incapable, Hizashi was just a bit better at stuff like this. Now they need to relearn how to live without Hizashi handling most of the stuff, but he feels like he would be the one suffering the most from the change. God, he hates when things do not go according to plan.
“It says you are in the early stage, so you have around 18 months as the average estimate. So, around four-five months for every stage, if we calculate the medium.”
“Yeah, something like that. Doc said that they will see when I get to the second stage and how much time it will take, then they could tell me more about how much time is left.”
“Right.” Shouta writes something down on his laptop and wets his lips. “The next thing is.. I want us to quit our jobs.”
“What?? Are you insane? No way, Shouta, until the last stage I am almost perfectly capable of doing my jobs. And you? Why would you need to quit? You love your jobs!”
“I do. But I love you more. And I don’t want to spend your last year, maybe more, maybe less, too busy with grading or villains to be with you. It’s not insane, Zashi. I want to be selfish, as much as you let me.” Shouta doesn’t look up at him, but Hizashi sighs, thinking about his husband’s grief.
This does not sound good for him and he doesn’t want them to leave their jobs, but he can see where Shouta is coming from. He would drop his jobs in a second, if his husband was dying. But Shouta wasn’t acting rational right now, so it was Hizashi’s turn to do so.
“It would not be healthy for you to be with me all the time and it would be even harder on you, when I die. You need time to be alone, not only with me, here or at the hospital.”
“I don’t want to.” Shouta almost sounds childish and Hizashi moves closer to push his dark long waves behind Shouta’s ear and bury his fingers under them, massaging the back of his husband’s head.
“Don’t be stubborn, Sho. I get your point. What if I do my jobs for a couple of months so I can finish everything and prepare everyone for my leave?”
“You’re not going on maternity leave, Hizashi, you are dying.”
“I am aware. And I want you to work until I need you here all the time, until I’m unable to function properly by myself. You can leave your patrols, but you can’t leave kids for so long. They need you and you need them. Please, consider that plan?”
Shouta is silent for a bit, frowning at his computer. Yamada sighs and massages his knee reassuringly, giving him time to think about it. Knowing Shouta, he will agree, because it’s a compromise. Not perfect, but that’s how they took care of disagreements, by choosing something in the middle.
“I don’t like this plan.”
“I know, love.”
“But I guess it’s the best option we can agree on. So I will do it. You quit your jobs in two months, no later, even if you tell me you are not done with something. Figure it out.”
“Roger that.”
Shouta sighs loudly and rubs his eye with the palm of his hand and Hizashi leans in to gently kiss his knuckles, taking his hand in his own.
“What else?”
“When is your next doctor’s appointment, I will go with you.”
“Thought so. It’s Friday afternoon when you are free.”
“Mhm. When are we gonna tell Eri and your moms about it?”
“I would say, give me a week to prepare myself?” Hizashi is not looking forward to it. Eri would probably propose using her quirk, but he already thought about it. Even if she did that, returning him to the time when he didn’t have that illness, he would get it again and again, and again, because she wasn’t a healer and Hizashi would not use her for the fountain of endless youth. She was used enough in her life. He knows she would be devastated when he dies, but better him than Shouta.
His moms, on the other hand.. Damn, he can’t even start thinking about it. They did so much for him and he would die first. That just seemed cruel and unfair. He hates making his moms upset.
“I will be with you when you are ready, Zashi. You will not be doing it alone.” Shouta is looking at him, finally, with a determined look on his face that Hizashi adores. God, how much Hizashi loves him.
“I love you so much.” His words are easy on his lips, but he means every syllable. And he knows Shouta feels the same, when he responds without hesitation.
“I know. I love you too.”
“What’s that?” Shouta crawls into bed after his patrol a couple of days later, when Hizashi gives him a notebook.
“I was thinking about my memory loss and how it’s gonna be the last stage of everything. I thought that the sooner we know that I am having problems with my memory, the better, right?”
“Makes sense.” Shouta looks over pages from a notebook, scribbled with english words. “Songs?”
“It’s the songs that I can sing if you wake me up in the middle of the night. If I start forgetting the lyrics or the years of publishing, that means I’m losing my memory. You can ask me one song every day of stage three, so you can see when I stumble over it.”
Shouta is silent, going through the notes. Hizashi knows he recognises some of them, which is not surprising, that’s a list from Hizashi’s most repeated songs.
“That’s a good idea, Hizashi.” His husband says softly, leaving the notebook on the bedside table, before helping Hizashi take off his hearing aids. The moon shines on Shouta’s face and Hizashi is mesmerised once again, with how beautiful his husband is and how sad he looks.
“Hey.” Hizashi whispers, controlling vibrations in his throat without hearing his own voice. He takes Shouta’s face in his palms and gently caresses scars on the right side. “Please, don’t look at me like I am already gone, my star.”
Shouta looks guilty and nods, moving his head a bit to the side, to gently kiss his palm and mumble a small “sorry” into the skin.
They turn around in the bed and Shouta settles in Hizashi’s arms, hiding his face in his neck and falling asleep first.
2 months later
Hizashi lays in the hot bath, two months later, staring at the ceiling, when the door silently opens and Shouta sits down on the chair next to the bath.
“Hey, Zashi.” His voice is gentle and Hizashi forces himself to look at his husband.
“Hey.”
“How are you doing?”
“Tired. Embarrassed. Sad. Not only did I say goodbye today to my favourite jobs, but I also thought that the ceiling on the radio station would fall down. Almost evacuated the whole stuff.” Hizashi looks at the ceiling again, still feeling slightly worried, even though it was a different ceiling.
“Not your fault, Hizashi. Was it the only case today?”
Hizashi feels sick, because Shouta is talking so gently as if he is made from glass. He feels his anger bubbling in his throat and regrets his next words in a second.
“Can you stop fucking analysing me for a damn second, like you are my nurse and just listen to me like my husband?” Hizashi sits up in the bath and breathes out in silence. “I am sorry. I shouldn’t have raised my voice.”
“It’s okay that you are not always happy, Hizashi.”
“But I shouldn’t raise my voice at you.”
“That’s true. But I understand.” Shouta puts his hand on Hizashi’s wet freckled shoulder, drawing soothing circles and Yamada licks his lip, letting himself breathe out.
“I am sorry that I snapped. It was the only thing that happened today.” But the pills didn’t let him sleep through the whole night anymore and he was scared that the new stage was coming up soon. Hizashi wasn’t sure he was ready for hallucinations. He didn’t want to see or hear what they would bring.
“You want me to wash your hair?”
“Please.” Hizashi murmurs and feels his husband’s hands taking out his hearing aids. He was scared to take them out before, in case he will close his eyes and miss that the ceiling is starting to crumble. Shouta massages shampoo into his scalp and Hizashi’s thoughts slow down a little bit.
He knew there was nothing embarrassing about his paranoia and all of his colleagues (well, ex-colleagues now) knew about his diagnosis, but he couldn’t help the embarrassment. He felt like everyone was staring at him and judging him, which was not something that he usually felt being in his Present Mic attire. But his guess is that his illness doesn’t care about his persona. Not that he had a persona anymore, since ‘Present Mic’ was officially retired starting today.
Hizashi barely realised that Shouta helped him get dressed for bed and shoved him in the direction of the bed, putting his hearing aids to the charger.
Shouta tapped him on the shoulder, forming signs with his hands.
“Should we go on a small vacation? Just you and me. We can take the car and go whenever you want to.”
“You still have work, Sho.”
“I will ask for a week out.” Shouta sits down on the bed and he thinks about how nice it will be, to just drive around with his husband. Maybe stop at the beach.
“What about Eri?”
“We will ask Togata and Shinsou to stay with her. Don’t worry about the details. Do you want to go or not? I will take care of everything, if you want to. ”
Hizashi sighs and nods, getting into the bed and turning the lights off.
“I love you, baby.” He murmurs into Shouta’s lips, catching an answer on his own.
“I love you too.”
“FUCK YES!” Hizashi sprinted down the empty beach, feeling like a dog on its first time at the beach. He ran into the water, shivering because of the lukewarm water under his feet and turning around to see Shouta slowly walking in his direction. “C'mon, Sho, look alive!”
Shouta sighs and leaves their stuff on the sand, running towards him. Hizashi realises his plan too late and shrieks loudly, when Shouta bumps his whole weight into him, letting them both fall into the water. They go up at the same time and look at each other, before Hizashi bursts into uncontrollable giggles. He wants to see Shouta’s soft smile, because he knows it’s there, but his vision is blurry.
“My glasses!” Just as he starts trying to find them underwater with his feet, Shouta is holding his chin in one place and putting his glasses back on the pointy freckled nose, kissing it afterwards. Now Hizashi can see his husband in all of his beauty. Shouta is softly smiling at him, the corner of his eye wrinkling and his smile lines showing. Hizashi suddenly felt his heart ache, the thought of never seeing Shouta grow older filled him with sorrow. He ached to grow old together, to see first silver strands in Shouta’s long hair.
“Hizashi, don’t go from me now.” He felt cold hands holding his cheeks and returning him to reality. Shouta still had a soft smile on his face, gently squeezing his face between his palms. “You are not dead yet, remember? Please, be alive with me for as long as you can.”
Hizashi felt his eyes burn and nodded curtly, leaning in to connect their foreheads. “I will, my star. I am sorry. I promise.”
They breathe the same air and he moves slowly to softly kiss Shouta’s bump on his nose. He can’t be selfish, pitying himself, because he is not the one who will live with grief. Hizashi will die and leave his husband alone, breaking his heart. So he needs to make Shouta as happy as he can, while he still can. His husband, the rational man he was portraying himself as, was the kindest and purest soul he ever knew. Shouta did not deserve this and it hurt Hizashi so much to be the cause of his partner’s pain.
So Hizashi smiled and laughed, enjoying the beautiful view in front of him. And the ocean too.
“You are so stupid.” Shouta huffed a laugh, when they were sitting in the restaurant of a five star hotel, enjoying their dinner. Currently Hizashi was trying to feed his husband grapes with his bare hands.
“Hm, yes, maybe. But I am your stupid and you like it.”
Shouta doesn’t argue and Hizashi feels just how much he likes his stupid, taking the grape out of his fingers and softly smiling at him.
Half an hour later his husband moans under him, pushing Hizashi’s head closer to his sensitive neck, where he is slowly leaving hickeys, knowing that Shouta’s capture scarf will hide them perfectly. Shouta moans out his name, wrapping his strong arms around Hizashi’s bare back and pulling their chests together, mixing their heartbeats. Hizashi may be a hopeless romantic, but at moments like this, when he can see his husband’s pink dusted cheeks, can feel his rapid heartbeat and can hear his own name in the air, he knows the exact difference between “making love” and “having sex”.
Later, when he feels Shouta’s breathing slow down under his ear, Hizashi smiles genuinely to himself, feeling extremely lucky.
2 months later
Fortunately, or unfortunately, Hizashi can’t miss the start of the second stage even if he tried. He brushes his teeth, deep in thoughts, when he hears a deep masculine shout and the sound of the broken glass bottle. Hizashi rushes to the kitchen, before remembering that his hearing aids are already out for the night and halting in the entrance to the kitchen. He feels cold sweat collecting on the back of his neck and he covers his mouth to not let out a pathetic whimper. Hizashi can feel a faint white scar on his nose under his glasses and his stomach curls in fear, like he is a scared little boy once again.
As much as he dreaded losing his memory, Yamada knew hallucinations would not be easy for him, bringing back all bad memories that he tried to forget for so long. Well, judging by how quickly he got to the second stage, Hizashi won’t be waiting too long until the “forgetting everything” part. He huffs out a hysterical giggle, realising that he is having a full on break down on the cold floor of their kitchen.
Shouta finds him some time later, washing off dry toothpaste from his face and gently leading Hizashi to their bedroom, kneeling before him and Yamada reads his husband’s lips.
Hizashi, talk to me? What’s wrong?
He can barely concentrate on Shouta’s lips and if he was talking, Hizashi knows, his voice would be so so gentle. It makes him want to cry. His guilt of leaving that precious man alone is closing his throat more, than realisation of his own unavoidable death.
“Heard something. Hearing aids off.” Hizashi can see realisation hitting Shouta, because his mouth opens, but he doesn’t say anything, looking at Hizashi. He can see his husband breathing out and lowering his head, to hide his face in Hizashi’s knees.
Yamada puts his palms on the back of Shouta’s head, just sitting like that for a while, allowing the night to swallow their grief.
For a while, it’s not that bad. Hizashi hears music when nothing is playing. He opens a door a couple of times, sure that he heard someone knocking. His muscles spasm more frequently and more often than not, Hizashi can feel his eye twitching. His neck is stiff most of the time, even though he doesn’t carry his speaker anymore.
And he is so tired. His body feels heavy and it’s getting harder to lift himself from the bed every day. But he stands up anyway, because he can’t give up that early, he needs to keep going for as long as he can, for his family.
“Hey, little star.” Hizashi smiles, leaving a short kiss on Eri’s forehead and sitting next to her. Before their daughter can reply, Shouta gets out a notebook (where did he even get it from??) and turns around for the daily quiz. They decided to start doing it earlier, even though Hizashi was only on stage two, but he was paranoid about his memory.
“‘We’re not gonna take it’, go.”
“‘The Who’ or ‘Twisted sisters’?”
“”Twisted sisters’.”
“Album “Stay Hungry”, recorded and released in 1984. Glam metal. Written by Dee Snider.”
“Good.”
“I am hungry. ” Eri chirps in, looking between them and blinking her big red eyes. Hizashi giggles and looks at his husband, who looks a bit guilty, putting the notebook away.
“You monster, starving our kid! C’mon, we are waiting for breakfast!”
Shouta grumbles around the table, putting cat shaped pancakes on their plates, while Eri is talking about her guitar teacher and Hizashi feels his heart warm up. They eat breakfast and he wipes extra cream from Eri’s face, helping her choose an outfit for the day. Hizashi kisses her forehead again and the girl jumps outside with cheerful “bye-bye!”, waiting for Shouta to put his shoes on and take her to school.
“You are going to see Hitoshi today, right?”
“Yeah. We are gonna have some father-son awesome bonding time!”
“Does Hitoshi know about it?”
“Hey!”
Shouta stands up, checking the shoe on his prosthetic leg and leaves a dry kiss on Hizashi’s pouty lips.
“Have fun. Call me if you need anything and be careful.”
Hizashi scrunches his nose, but nods, trying to gently push Shouta outside. “Go, already! Time for school!”
“Yes, yes, I am going.”
“Is that Kirishima or a cat meme you are looking at?”
Hizashi was sitting in Shinsou’s kitchen, while the boy, barely an adult now, was making them tea, looking at his phone with a soft smile. Hitoshi jumped a little, sheepishly looking back at Hizashi with pink cheeks. Aw, young romance.
“Kirishima. Don’t smile like that, you are creepy.” Shinsou tugged on his hair, pouring the boiling water into mugs and giving Hizashi one of them.
“Excuse you! My smile saved lifes back in the day.”
“Right.”
“Little brat.”
“I am the same height as you, Yamada-san.”
“Yes, but I am still older, so you are still little.” Hizashi rolled his eyes, going to the bathroom to wash his hands (and to leave the losing argument). It was crazy how much Hitoshi reminded him of Shouta and himself, until he actually met Hitoshi’s parent. His mom, Hoshiko, had the same dry humour as Shouta, while also having an outgoing personality like Hizashi. And she was also from foster care, just like him.
His thoughts were interrupted by the strange ticklish feeling under his skin. Hizashi looked down at his hand, scratching his wrist and then seeing it. There was something crawling under his skin, bulging it and trying to get out. He felt tiny legs on his muscles and nerves, recoiling violently and suddenly feeling even more tiny creatures filling his lungs out and trying to crawl out of his chest. Hizashi couldn’t breathe. He barely registered landing on his knees in front of the toilet and shoving the whole palm into his mouth to try and puke the creatures out with his non-existent gag reflex. His throat and lungs burned, but he couldn’t get rid of those monsters under his skin. Someone stopped his hand from scratching and Hizashi heard a panicked voice, asking him something.
“Hel..” His mind went blank and he couldn’t feel his body anymore, which meant he couldn’t feel anything crawling on his skin or under it. Was he dead?
His vision was so mushy and his mind was silent, so Hizashi gave in, allowing his body to swim somewhere far away from him and out of his control.
When Hizashi came back to himself, he was laying down on the sofa, his throat hurt and his arms were burning a little. He also felt his knees ache with pain, like he was doing something inappropriate with his husband for hours.
“Dad?”
He heard a small whisper and turned his head a bit to see Hitoshi, his eyes red and full of emotions. Second thing he noticed was a first aid kit and a bloody cloth. This made him sit up very quickly, which was not a bright idea, but he cleared his vision fairly quickly.
“What happened? Are you okay?” Damn, his throat hurt like hell.
“I am fine, it’s your blood.” Hitoshi stopped him with arms on his shoulders, pointing down. Hizashi looked down to see his wrist wrapped up in bandages. Oh, that’s why his hands were burning. He tried to think again. “You had a hallucination..I think. I found you in the bathroom trying to..uh.. I don’t know, you were hurting yourself, like something was in your throat and under your skin, you know? I asked you a question and brainwashed you, I am sorry, I just couldn’t-“
“It’s okay, Hitoshi, it’s alright. Thank you. You did good.” Hizashi breathes out together with Hitoshi and hugs the boy tightly. Hitoshi is tall and filled with muscles, but he curls himself into Hizashi and hugs him back, hiding his face in the older man’s shoulder. “I am sorry I scared you.”
“I shouldn’t be scared, I am a pro. I don’t know why I panicked, I’ve been through worse.” Hitoshi doesn’t move away and Hizashi rests his cheek on fluffy purple hair. It’s getting longer.
“Pros are scared too, Toshi. Shouta is scared too. I know he is. Every time I react to something that is not there, I know he is scared and I know he is trying to hide it from me. But it’s okay. You did a good job, kid, I am very proud of you.”
They sit in silence and Hizashi has time to remember. He remembers how real those bugs felt. This is scary, but what Hitoshi saw was terrifying. It was just his luck that the kid saw his first really bad hallucination, but he was also glad that Hitoshi stopped this madness before Hizashi could faint and hit his head on the floor or the bathtub.
Ten minutes later, there is a quick knocking at the door that brings them apart.
“I called Aizawa-san. I am sorry, I panicked.” Hitoshi gets up and opens the door before Shouta can kick it out. Hizashi stands up, being checked all over with Shouta’s glare and then hugged, again, tightly, but by his husband this time.
“I am sorry I wasn’t here.” Hizashi hears a quiet mumble next to his ear and shakes his head.
“I am okay now. Hitoshi did a great job.” He rubs Shouta’s back and lets him go, so he can expect the wounds.
“It’s not very serious, but there was blood, so I cleaned it and wrapped it up.” Hitoshi is nervous again, tugging on his earrings until Shouta gives him a short and soft answer.
“It’s okay, you did good.”
The two of them clean up, leaving Hizashi on the sofa to “rest”. As much as he would like to do that, he can’t.
Hizashi is so damn tired.
As a pro hero, Hizashi has great balance. That said, he is tired of bumping into the stuff in his own apartment. So far, the hallucinations were pretty regular, but not nearly as bad as the bug incident. After that time Shouta became even more protective, hoarding around Hizashi and making sure he was taking his meds and everything.
The problem was that Hizashi kept seeing stuff where there wasn’t anything. The other day he saw their cat right under his legs, quickly changing the place where he was supposed to put his leg down, resulting in him hitting his shoulders with the door frame. Needless to say, their cat was peacefully sleeping in the other room and there was nothing under Hizashi’s legs.
So now Hizashi not only had regular muscle aches and stiffness, he also had bruises all over his body.
He closed the fridge door with a heavy sigh, looking around himself to double check the placement of cats, looking straight into Sushi’s eyes.
“I fed you, you bastard, don’t even look at me like that. You can’t trick me, I am not losing my memory just yet.” Hizashi looked under his legs, freezing at the sound of a painfully familiar voice, not daring to look up. He is not sure if he wants the hallucination to be visible or not, so he doesn’t look.
“He is just a little guy who wants some treats, Yamada. Look at his stupid face!” Hizashi can hear Kayama coo over Sushi and he feels his heartbeat in his own throat. He wants to throw up. “Your gay ass was always afraid of looking a pretty woman in her face.” She laughs and Hizashi can’t handle it, so he looks up and regrets it immediately. The image is so clear, for a second he believes that it’s real. Kayama sits on their kitchen chair with Sushi on her lap, like she has done many times before. She is wearing a big beige sweater and her favourite soft blue pyjama pants, gently smiling at her cat, her hair is up in a loose bun and she has her usual black glasses on the tip of her nose. She is not wearing any makeup and she looks so stupidly domestic and beautiful that Hizashi wants to cry.
“I miss you.” He barely chokes out, biting on his lip, because he doesn’t have enough energy to keep a smile on his face. She looks up and smiles at him instead.
“Don’t be stupid, hun, I am right here.”
“You are not real. You died.” Hizashi is afraid to blink, to breathe, to do anything at all.
“So will you. Isn’t that exciting? Maybe we will meet again after you die. Why wait?” Kayama smiles, but she doesn’t look at him anymore. Hizashi doesn’t need to look behind him to understand that she is looking at the kitchen knives. He suddenly doesn’t want to see or hear Kayama anymore and he feels so cold.
“I am not going to kill myself. I will not do that to Shouta.”
“What difference does it make, sweetie, you will die anyway. You are so tired. It’s easy. Just go to sleep early, you know methods to die as quickly as possible. You can even get a gun.”
“There is nothing easy about it. One thing is to die from the illness, another is to end your life. I have to live as long as I can for my family, I won’t leave them a day early.”
“Soon, you will be just a burden for them. You will just hurt them with your existence.”
“You are being mean.” He knows he sounds like a child on the verge of tears, but he can’t help it. Hizashi knows, the real Kayama would never say something like that, he knows his family won’t think of him as a burden, but it hurts, because it’s true. He will forget them, sooner or later, and he will just exist, like an empty shell, before his body finally gives up.
“Daddy?”
Hizashi jolts on the place, looking to his left and blinking rapidly at his daughter. He clears his throat, quickly looking to the chairs, where Sushi is licking his paw, and Hizashi plasters a smile on his face.
“Hey, little star. Wassup?”
Eri looks at him with pouty lips and turns to look at the cat with confusion.
“Were you talking with Sushi?”
“Yeah. The bastard was begging for food.”
“He always does. Can you help me with my homework, please?” Hizashi sees her polite little smile and his heart warms up a little bit. How can he ever go away early, when he can spend more time with that sweet little girl.
“Of course, munchkin. Let’s go!” He picks Eri up in a smooth movement, feeling slight spasm in his left arm as she giggles, clinging to him all the way to her bedroom.
His pills are not working anymore, so they go to the doctor and he gives Hizashi another set of pills, officially moving his illness from stage two to three. He knows he should be feeling upset or angry, but his brain is all mushy and he can’t wait to take the drug and go to sleep.
Shouta says something to him, when they are home, gently helping him to swallow pills, but Hizashi is not really processing information, just burying himself in their soft blanket. Shouta kisses his forehead and closes curtains, because it’s the middle of the day and the sun shines brightly.
Hizashi wakes up, because someone walks into the room. He curses Shouta, because he feels like he didn’t sleep at all, but then Hizashi reminds himself that his husband cannot be noticed, unless he wants to. The steps are heavy and Hizshi feels cold sweat dripping down his spine, when his blanket is ripped off. Big gross hands are covering his mouth and Hizashi feels the smell of beer feeling his nostrils. He can’t see who the person is, but it’s a safe guess that it’s one of his foster fathers from childhood. He feels small under those big rough hands that are squeezing his face and Hizashi can barely hear screams, because his hearing aids are off. He wants to beg, he wants to cry out for help, but he knows if he opens his mouth - the muzzle will come, no matter how quiet he is speaking. He can’t talk. It’s not safe. His quirk is the one for villains. Sometimes they beat him up so much for speaking, he thinks he will die. Sometimes they put a muzzle on him and push him down the stairs in the basement, where bugs crawl under his muzzle and he can’t do anything about it.
He falls down from the bed and hands disappear from his face, appearing on his back, while he pukes on the floor. Those hands are softer and Hizashi can feel his quirk dying on his tongue, when he is hysterically crying out. He doesn’t know if it was a nightmare or a hallucination, but it doesn’t matter, because he doesn’t feel more rested anyway. Shouta pulls him up, gently wrapping his arms around Hizashi and allowing him to weep in his husband’s hold.
Things started escalating quickly after that. First of all, Eri moved out to Togata’s house. She came over a lot, obviously, but they couldn't risk traumatising their daughter more than she already was and Hizashi had too many nightmares and panic attacks for the house to be safe. It was for the best. Eri was too grown for her own age and it broke Hizashi’s heart that she hugged him so tightly every time she went back to Togata’s, like she would never see Hizashi again.
He started to notice that food didn’t really taste good anymore and it wasn’t because Shouta was cooking. His husband was an okay cook, but Hizashi could barely chew and now that his nightmares became so vivid that he couldn’t tell if it was actually reality, he threw up regularly. Shouta patiently held his hair back and rubbed his back, staying silent.
It was an early morning and Hizashi crawled out of the bed, fighting nausea and closing his eyes to get his head to stop spinning. Today is gonna be hard. He slowly went into the bathroom, putting his hearing aids on the way and turning the small light on, feeling his eyes burn even from such a small amount of light. Hizashi felt like the whole bathroom reeked with the smell of puke, even though he knew it wasn’t true.
He looked up in the mirror, forcing himself to not wince at his own reflection. He didn’t recognise himself. Hizashi had enormous eyebags that no amount of makeup could ever hide, which only pulled attention to the new sharp lines on his face, contouring his cheeks and making him look like a cheap version of SmallMight. His long, usually golden hair looked bleak, even though Shouta made sure to help him wash and brush it just like before. Hizashi never was a Prince Charming, but he put a lot of effort to look nice and it was all going away, not only his looks, but his personality too.
He wasn’t the guy who Shouta fell in love with. He wasn’t the man Shouta married. He felt like a parody, a broken reflection of himself and he didn’t understand why Shouta didn’t just send him to the hospital. They had enough money for the nurse to keep taking care of him and Shouta could visit him whenever he wanted, instead of cleaning up his vomit everyday.
“You should just kill yourself and set Shouta free.” Hizashi didn’t flinch, because it wasn’t the first and not the second time he was hearing this voice.
“You know, just as well as I do, Shouta can’t let people go if he is not prepared. He will not be prepared if I kill myself, Oboro.” He lifted his eyes, looking at Shirakumo, this time in his school uniform, sitting on their washing machine behind Hizashi. Oboro started appearing about two weeks ago, at the start of the summer, when Hizashi’s diagnosis hit the ten months mark. Sometimes he appeared as Kurogiri, sometimes as Oboro. Sometimes something in between.
“He will be fine, you are just a burden for him anyway. He will grieve for a bit and move on. He has Eri and Hitoshi now. All those people around him, who care about him. Maybe before when it was just you and Kayama-sempai who were closest to him, but not anymore. C’mon, Hizashi, even AllMight cares about Shouta, he won’t die without you.”
“Shut up. Leave me alone.” He can’t argue that Shouta is not alone. It’s obvious. But he can’t leave, he promised he will fight till the end.
Hizashi leaves the bathroom, moving painfully slowly, because even though his body was lighter now, it seemed so much heavier. He opens the fridge, taking off the bottle of water and struggling to fucking open it. Hizashi puts it down on the table, staring at the bottle and then at Oboro, who was still talking about something. He doesn’t think about it, collecting his strength and throwing the bottle at Oboro, which doesn’t work, obviously, and it lands next to the couch, scaring one of the cats.
“Fuck me.” Hizashi mutters under his breath, looking at the open bottle of water on the floor and the puddle next to it. Of course, Shouta comes out of the bedroom with his prosthetic leg on and a toothbrush in his mouth. On any other day it would’ve been cute, but not today. Today Hizashi’s blood is boiling with irritation and anger. Today his body hurts and weighs too much. Today he feels like he is all alone, even when his husband stands in front of him.
“Hizashi, you..”
“If you ask me one more time if I am alright, I am gonna grip your fucking head and scream in your face until you bleed from your eyes and ears.”
It hasn’t been that silent around him since he got his first hallucination. Finally, everything shuts up for a minute and Hizashi suppressed a heavy sigh of relief, putting his head on a cold table. Maybe he just needed to let out his anger and then he will be normal again, at least for five damn minutes. Maybe Shouta will decide that it’s enough and will finally let him go. Shouta was patient, but he was never the one to let someone abuse him, mentally or otherwise. Hizashi couldn’t think, couldn’t hear anything except for his rage, pulsing in his ears.
“Just give me up into the nursing home already, why the fuck are you doing this to yourself, are you fucking insane?” He lifts his head to look at Shouta. “Hero fucking wannabe. Always saving people, huh, even if they don’t need you? Shouta, news flash, but all I need is for you to leave me alone, can’t you fucking understand? I would’ve killed myself a long time ago, but I am struggling, because I can’t leave your selfish ass alone! It was always like that, you know? Your mental health over mine. Because Present Mic is always smiling. Present Mic can have three jobs and live on coffee in his blood. Present Mic can take care of himself and his useless lazy husband that only mops and sleeps all the fucking time! Why can you sleep and I fucking can’t, you fucking bastard!” His hand moved to the mugs next to him, going to throw the object at Shouta’s head, or whatever. Shouta was a hero, he can fucking catch it. Hizashi looks at the mug in his hand and remembers all the time bottles, mugs and plates were thrown at him by his foster parents.
What the fuck was he doing?
Hizashi lets out a shaky breath, looking up to see Shouta in the same place, still looking at him, like he was just going to take whatever is coming to him, if it was from Hizashi. He swallows and almost runs to Shouta, bumping his hip on the table and seeing black from the quick movements, falling down to his knees.
“I am sorry!” Hizashi looks up at Shouta, even though he can’t see anything, but the figure looming over him, through the wall of tears and nausea. “I am so sorry, I am sorry, Sho, I didn’t mean that!” He knows he is bawling and clenching Shouta’s clothes, when his husband sits down on the floor and hugs him close and tight. Hizashi croaks apologies in Shouta’s shoulder, begs for forgiveness and sobs relentlessly, until he loses consciousness from exhaustion.
He wakes up in the hospital with an IV in his arm, pushing nutrients into his body and Shouta sitting on the chair next to him. Hizashi opens his mouth to apologise again, but his husband covers his mouth and caresses his cheek with his thumb.
“I know you didn’t mean it, Hizashi. I know. I love you. And I know that you love me.”
“So much.“ Hizashi uses his hands to sign and Shouta smiles at him, oh so gently.
“It’s okay. You are gonna sleep a bit more and we will go back home.”
Hizashi is so tired.
“I am so sorry I can’t let you go. Please, just be patient with me for one more time, Zashi.”
2 month later
It was a hot early morning and Shouta brought them breakfast in bed. Hizashi usually hated it, but he couldn’t find it in himself to care about crumbs right now. He was chewing on the tasteless toast, feeling Shouta’s firm fingers on his bare legs, massaging an aching muscle and the morning didn’t seem too bad.
“Zashi.”
“Hmm?”
“‘Let’s go to bed’.”
Hizashi pauses, looking at his husband with a lifted brow and then at the bed he was laying at.
“We..already are in bed?”
Shouta blinks at him, like he is saying something stupid.
“The song, Zashi.”
“The..oh! Sorry, yeah, The Cure. Right.” He feels a bit ashamed that he didn’t understand this at first. God, his brain really works slow now.
“And the year? Album?”
“Ah..1982. It was..’Pornography’ album, right?” Hizashi is not sure. It’s the first time he is not sure about something music related, but he knows ‘Pornoghraphy’ was released in 1982, so it must be that album. He looks at Shouta, who is silent for a second.
“It was a single.” His voice is quiet, Hizashi would probably not understand what he said, if he couldn’t read lips. It clicks.
“Right. I remember now, silly me.” He laughs, quietly, feeling his husband’s gaze on the side of his face. But Shouta stays quiet, kissing Hizashi’s cheek, when they finish breakfast and bringing a tray back to the kitchen.
They don’t talk about it and Hizashi thinks for just a second, that they can pretend it didn’t happen. Shouta seems to think the same.
It’s a couple of days later, when it all comes crashing down.
Hizashi is so confused. He looked at the dishwasher, then all the cabinets, even the living room. He hears Shouta’s bare feet on the floor, when he walks in the kitchen and Hizashi doesn’t turn around, still looking through the cupboard.
“Love, did you see my mug? You know, the black one with yellow kittens. I can’t find it.” Shouta doesn’t answer and Hizashi slowly crouches down to look at the lower shelves. He closes his eyes, feeling his head spin violently and breathes out a couple of times, before continuing his search. “Sho?” He turns his head, meeting his husband’s gaze and he needs to blink a couple of times, because Shouta looks on the verge of tears. Now, see here, his husband was not a cryer. He didn’t really bottle up his emotions, at least not like Hizashi did, he just tried not to cry, so he wouldn’t add more pain to his always dry eye. So Hizashi knew the exact look on his partner’s face, when he was about to cry, when he tried not to. His nose scrunched up and his lips twitched, just a tiny bit, corners going down in a pout. “Baby, what’s wrong?” Hizashi tries to stand up, but his legs are too weak and he barely catches what Shouta is saying, because his head is spinning again.
“Eri broke it two years ago. She was in tears and apologised hundred times, before you convinced her that it’s okay. You don’t remember, do you?” Hizashi couldn’t concentrate his blurry vision on Shouta’s face, but his voice was so raw and the amplification of the words was clear as day. He started losing his memory.
Hizashi comes closer, leaning onto the counter and taking Shouta’s hand in his own. He tries to dig deep into his memory, find something that will reassure Shouta that his memory is okay, but he finds nothing. They stay in silence for a minute, then two, until he hears a muffled sob and Shouta’s free hand comes to cover a half of his face. Hizashi pulls his husband closer, wrapping his arms around him and Shouta wails in his boney shoulder, for the first time since he was diagnosed. The hug is probably terrible with how skinny Hizashi is, since he lost his muscle and a lot of weight, but Shouta’s hold on him is so strong it probably leaves bruises on his pale skin.
“I probably won’t make it till Christmas, huh?” He asks softly and quietly, not sure if the other will even hear him, but Shouta takes a deep shattered breath, before sobbing even harder and shaking his head, bumping into Hizashi’s collarbone and neck.
“I am not letting you go. I don’t want to. You can’t go. You have to take care of Eri, go to her first concert. You have to teach Hitoshi how to drive your car, so he won’t crash it into the tree.” Shouta is pinning him against the counter now and it’s a bit hard to breathe with strong arms around Hizashi’s frail body, but he will die happily in his arms. “You can’t go, Hizashi, what am I going to do without you? How am I gonna live without you? I don’t want to, I can’t.”
Hizashi makes an effort of moving his husband away and cupping his face. It’s kinda disgusting, Shouta is all red from crying with snot and tears all over his face, but Hizashi can’t take his eyes away. Never could. “Let’s dance. A nice song is playing.” He puts Shouta’s hair behind his ears and wraps his arms around his shoulders, smiling and humming. Shouta looks at him, confused and sobbing, still wrapping his arms around Hizashi’s waist.
“Is.. Is it ‘Be my baby’ ?”
“You got it.” He moves along the music, seeing Shouta catch the rhythm from his humming. “Remember our first dance in this kitchen? It was more than ten years ago, god.”
It was a week after they moved in together, but Hizashi remembers it vividly. They were dancing and Shouta spun him around, holding his hand and kissing him softly at the end of the song. The kiss was terrible, because they were both laughing, but it never mattered. This kitchen held so many memories, so many dance moves, so many shared kisses Hizashi will soon forget.
“I remember.” Shouta whispers and hums, not in a bit with music in Hizashi’s head, but it doesn’t matter, because he sings next. “And if I had the chance I’d never let you go.”
Hizashi smiles and leans into the soft salty kiss, gently shushing Shouta’s sob with his own singing. “You know I will adore you ‘til eternity so won’t you please. Be my, be my baby.”
They dance until Hizashi is out of breath and the music goes silent.
From there, his memory is going downhill and so is his health. He doesn’t have any energy most of the days and the doctor is telling Shouta to put him in the hospital as soon as possible. On the days when he can stand up from the bed, it takes him almost half an hour, sometimes he can’t find the kitchen or recognise himself in the mirror. Shouta is hovering around him and Hizashi won’t admit that sometimes he has troubles remembering his name.
It’s three in the morning, when Hizashi wakes up. He is not sure if he slept, but he opened his eyes and he was on the bed. He rubs his burning eyes, slowly getting up and feeling a bile up his throat, holding it in. He goes to the bathroom, turning the light on and leaning on the sink, his forehead sweaty and his head pounding. He can’t hear anything for some reason, but the small light is throwing daggers in his eyes and he thinks that people need to take pills when it hurts. Hizashi looks around, vision blurry, finding an orange tube full of pills with the name on it.
Yamada Hizashi.
Oh, that’s him. He forgot for a second. How many pills does he need to take? He wants this pain gone, so it’s probably good to take more, right? One. Two. Three. Seven. One. How many? He looks at a handful of pills on his palm and puts it in his mouth, drinking some water from the sink to swallow everything. It goes down the throat pretty easy, so he must be doing it right.
Hizashi lowers himself on the floor, resting his head next to the cold wall. It doesn’t matter, really, he just wants this constant pain gone.
He is so cold, but his head is quiet and he thinks that it’s unusual for him. Is it?
There are voices around him or next to him, he can’t really tell. One of them is familiar, but when he reaches for the thought of whose voice it is, he can’t reach it. His eyelids are so heavy, but his head feels clear. He tries to remember where he is, but he can’t seem to be very successful at that, so he opens his eyes.
It’s dark in the room and he can only see one person, even though he thought there were two voices just a second ago.
“Hizashi.” He meets the tired gaze of his husband. Ah. He is Hizashi and his husband is..
“Hey, Sho.” His voice is all cranky, but the word seems right on his lips. “Where..”
“The hospital. You will be staying here for now.” He is wondering if the villain got him again, but he can’t find the words. It's not unusual for one of them to be at the hospital. Shouta seems to not be injured, so it's all good.
“My eyes hurt.”
Shouta is silent, taking his hand and giving his knuckles a gentle kiss. Nice.
“Yeah. You will just have to stay here for a bit and then we can go home.” His voice is watery for some reason, but Hizashi is too tired and Shouta is not looking at him, hiding his face behind his hair.
“Tired.” He wants to say that Shouta should rest too, but his eyes are closing and his mouth is slack.
“Yeah, I know. Rest well, Hizashi.”
He thinks he is in the hospital, but he is not sure. There is always someone next to him, but he is not sure, because he doesn’t remember how many times he woke up in the hospital. He thinks the person tells him why he is there. He can’t answer. He probably answered before, because the person always pauses so he can drop a word or two. He never does.
He is not sure who that person is, but he is not scared, he is just tired. But he thinks he is glad to have someone next to him. It’s nice.
He doesn’t open his eyes anymore. There is music playing and the voice is still talking. It’s nice and soothing, deep, soft and, he thinks, a bit sad.
There are more voices, all around, coming and going, but that one voice is stable and constant, never going away, same as the music.
In the end, he feels empty and non-existent. The only thing keeping him there are two arms on his face, warm and alive.
“You can go now, Hizashi. I’m letting you go, okay?” There is a drop of something wet on his cheek and a warm soft touch to his forehead, before everything goes silent.
He can finally rest.