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U.A. High School
Class 2-A dorm building
Musutafu, Japan
Four and a half weeks after the final War
18:23
It’s so… empty. Quiet.
Both the building and Izuku’s mind. Without the previous holders of One for All, it’s so quiet.
Izuku stands in the middle of the common room, watching as his classmates pretend everything is okay. That nothing happened, celebrating their victory over the villains.
But was it truly a victory?
“Mido-bro! Are you gonna celebrate with us?” Kaminari-kun asks, with his arm wrapped around Kirishima-kun’s neck.
Izuku opens his mouth to speak, to ask them why they’re celebrating. But instead he just smiles politely, lips pulled taut. “I’m pretty tired. I might just head up to bed.”
“Really? Dude, you just got out of hospital! We were all waiting to celebrate with you!”
Izuku’s smile never quite reaches his eyes. “I’m sure. I’ve still got a lot of resting to do before I’m fully healed. We can celebrate another time.”
“You’re heading to bed without dinner?” Ida-kun asks.
He’s not hungry. He feels ill. “Oh, umm, I’ll eat later.” That’s a lie. “I promise.” His smile is tight, and forced.
How can they fucking celebrate?
Izuku leaves everyone to their devices, celebrating the loss of the villains. He heads up to the fourth floor, and stands in front of a door. He reads the name plaque next to the door.
Bakugou Katsuki
Is it ever truly a victory if people died? On either side? The villains lost people who were essential to them, and the heroes lost the same. Is it ever a true victory?
Does this not count as a tie, with the amount of casualties it has?
Izuku just stares at the door. He wants to find him laying in his bed, peacefully, before telling Izuku to fuck off.
He wants that so badly. He hopes for it.
He presses on, opening the door. The air is still, unmoving. The bed is unmade, the door to the bathroom slightly ajar, and one half of the closet open. There’s a water bottle, a quarter full sitting on the desk, next to a laptop and some glasses.
He can almost hear his voice asking him what he’s doing inside his room. But it’s not there. He’s not there.
Izuku takes a sharp inhale. He can hear the celebrations going on down below, it’s loud, yet it’s too quiet. Like background noise.
It’s going to remain forever too quiet. And that’s a fact Izuku can’t escape.
Izuku shuts the door with a click behind him. His breath and body tremble as he shuffles further in.
The room is cool, a chill settling under Izuku’s skin, seeping into his bones.
It shouldn’t have happened. Not like this.
Izuku makes his way over to the desk and very calmly runs a hand along the edge of it, taking it in.
Taking everything in.
He opens the desk drawer. His phone lays untouched. Izuku grabs it, and it’s almost dead.
The lock-screen photo is of him. It’s a stupid photo Izuku didn’t even know that got taken, of him in the Spring, cherry blossoms surrounding him like an aura. A beautiful aura.
He figures this must’ve been taken last year, at Hanami, from Izuku, to Kacchan, for his birthday. He wasn’t happy about it, and claimed he didn’t want to go, yet went anyways with Izuku.
He cherishes that memory a lot. Oh, he seemed so unhappy, but Izuku could see the subtle smile on his face that day, how his eyes were more full of life, and turned slightly more upward. It’s the little things he notices.
He knows Kacchan was a simple guy, and his passcode would be his own birthday. When he tries it, and fails, he thinks for a moment. He thinks, why not? And tries his own birthday. It works.
Kacchan… really had Izuku’s birthday as his passcode. Maybe that’s why this seems to be harder than it should be.
You can mourn a friend, but like this?
To mourn like this, feel a grief so deep that a piece of your soul has been torn and ripped from your body, and nothing will ever help it regrow properly. It will forever stay damaged, never again the same.
That kind of grief should be reserved for lovers and family, of which Kacchan is… was neither, right?
He looks at what the phone opened up on, and it is texts between his mother and him. One of the messages from Kacchan catches his eyes.
After the war, I’m going to confess to Izuku
He puts the phone face down onto the desk, stomach lurching. He uses the desk as support to not double over and potentially throw up. Once his composure is back, he goes to the bed, and sits down on the edge. He splays his hand against the sheets, everything still wrinkled from the last time it was ever used by Kacchan. And the thought puts Izuku into shambles.
The last time this bed… this room was ever used by someone… anyone… was before the war. The night before. It’s been untouched for weeks now, and Izuku has sullied everything with just his presence.
Kacchan was supposed to come back with him.
As Kacchan said, he was supposed to confess his feelings to Izuku, then they would’ve had a hero agency together after U.A., and lived happily ever after.
He’s gotten justice already, sure, but nothing… no one can replace the Kacchan shaped hole that’s been left to rot away his heart until nothing is left.
Shimura Tenko was a child who was found by the wrong person, but Shigaraki Tomura is the pure embodiment of pure fucking evil, and nothing will ever change what he fucking did. He deserves to fucking rot, maggots gnawing at his flesh, wriggling deeper to find the juicer parts of the body, blow flies laying eggs in every crevice imaginable, burrowing behind his eyes, and–
Oh, Izuku is getting off track.
He inhales with a tremble, and lays down in the bed. It’s nice, cozy and warm. He pulls the blanket over him, and snuggles down deep, burying his face into the pillow that smells of Kacchan.
He doesn’t know how long the smell will last but when it finally fades, it will be the last remnant of him, gone from the Earth. And Izuku doesn’t know how well he’s going to cope with that.
He tucks the blanket under his chin.
He knows he’ll have to leave the room at some point, but for the time being, he can pretend he’s still here. Pretend like everything is okay.
But it’s not. Nothing is okay. Fuck, he can’t even pretend.
Kacchan is gone.
He’s going to stay gone.
He’s always going to be gone.
And it’s Izuku’s fault.
Izuku just needed to be that little bit faster, but he wasn’t.
It’s all his fault. All his fucking fault.
He sobs silently into the pillow.