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Liquid courage. That was what people called it, the bravery found at the bottom of a bottle, the kind that only appeared when judgment disappeared. Katsuki Bakugou had always laughed at the phrase.
Now he wondered if there was enough of it left in the bottle resting in his hand to silence every thought, every memory, every voice clawing at the walls of his mind.
He had never been a good person.
Not kind. Not gentle. Certainly not easy to love.
Everyone knew the loudmouth and the arrogant boy whose anger arrived before his words ever could. The one who barked instead of spoke, who shoved people away before they had the chance to leave on their own.
What nobody knew was why.
People had tried to understand him. They had reached for him with patient hands and open hearts, but the thought of someone seeing the frightened, broken thing beneath all the smoke and explosions made his stomach twist.
If they truly knew him, they would leave.
And Katsuki wasn’t sure he could survive losing anyone else.
So he climbed.
Perched upon the edge of a rooftop with a bottle of Hanazake cradled between trembling fingers, he let his legs dangle over empty air. The city glittered beneath him like scattered stars that had fallen to earth, blissfully unaware that another was preparing to fall with them.
His heartbeat echoed louder than the traffic below.
He had made too many mistakes.
He had broken the only boy who had offered him unwavering kindness.
He had driven away the crimson-haired idiot who somehow managed to wedge himself into every corner of Katsuki’s life, all sharp smiles and shark teeth and relentless loyalty.
He had screamed.
He had pushed.
He had destroyed.
Every cruel word had been another brick in the wall he’d built around himself, convincing everyone that the monster was all there was.
Maybe it was.
So why, if he hated the person he’d become, was he so afraid to leave him behind?
His gaze drifted toward the horizon.
The sun was sinking.
Funny.
He had never cared much for sunsets. They happened every evening, dependable as breathing. Why admire something that would always return tomorrow?
But tomorrow had become a privilege instead of a promise.
And suddenly the sky looked like it had been painted by hands afraid they would never hold a brush again gold melting into crimson, violet swallowing amber, clouds burning before surrendering to night.
It was breathtaking.
Perhaps everything became beautiful when you knew you were seeing it for the last time.
The tears surprised him.
Katsuki Bakugou didn’t cry.
Not because he couldn’t, but because he never believed he’d earned the right to.
Still, the tears came anyway, carving silent paths down his cheeks as though his soul had begun mourning him before the world ever could.
No one would see.
No one would stop him.
No one.
No one.
No one.
His fingers tightened around the bottle before letting it slip away, watching it shatter somewhere far below.
If ending his life was a mistake…
…could one final mistake swallow every one that had come before it?
Could a single fall bury years of cruelty?
Could one ending erase an entire lifetime of failures?
He closed his eyes.
Drew one final breath.
And stepped into the open air.
There was no regret.
No anger.
No fear.
Only silence.
For the first time in years, the war inside his head had finally gone quiet.
He fell like a dying star, swallowed by the evening sky that had welcomed him only moments before.
He never saw the hand reaching for him.
Eijirou Kirishima’s fingertips brushed nothing but empty air.
Too little.
Too late.
The distance between them could not have been more than inches, yet it stretched wider than eternity.
All Kirishima could do was watch as gravity claimed the boy he had spent years trying to save.
The sound that followed did not leave with the wind.
It rooted itself inside him.
Forever.
Every time he closed his eyes, he would see the sunset.
He would see outstretched fingers.
He would see blond hair disappearing into the abyss.
And he would remember that sometimes love arrives only a heartbeat too late.