Work Text:
I wish you were still here.
Shouta found himself thinking everyday after the accident. Everyday since the accident. Blue eyes and misty hair never left the space behind his eyes, and eternal torment of the boy who would never grow old alongside him.
Shirakumo Oboro. You were meant to have more time, weren't you?
People would tell him that it wasn't his fault, Hizashi told him it wasn't his fault — in a sense, that was true. He hadn't been the one to threaten the building's stability, had he? But he couldn't tell his friend that. No, that would be selfish. That would break them both.
But Shouta couldn't believe that he didn't have some hand in his best friend's death. Surely there was more he could've done that day — something that would've changed everything. Made it so Shirakumo was still whole, instead of a mangled corpse beneath the rubble.
Shouta missed him. Missed him more than anything else in the universe, because to him, Shirakumo was more than just a friend. He was Shouta's sun and stars at bright summer days — life revolved around that boy, and without him? Shouta felt like he was spinning out of control.
It got easier to handle over the years, and the few grief counsellors he did speak to did help, but Shouta never stuck with them for long. It was too personal — the whole point, but Shouta couldn't help but resent it either way.
I wish it had been me.
The first time he had that thought it didn't scare him like he thought it should've. He didn't even flinch. It just made sense. Shirakumo should have lived, and Shouta should have died in that building collapse. Everyone would be better off.
There was never a last time when it came to that line of thought, because it was something that Shouta believed so deep in his bones that it had become a part of him. As much as the scars on his arms were a part of him — scars made from the guilt of surviving something that he wasn't meant to.
He had joined U.A. as a teacher, following Hizashi's footsteps into the profession, but he couldn't deny that part of him had done it for Shirakumo too. To live out the dream they had shared together as students. To become the hero Shirakumo never got the chance to be.
If Shirakumo couldn't be here, Shouta would force himself to be — after all, if he died, what would be the point? He made a promise to himself, though: no one would die under his watch ever again.