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Grief is something weird. It comes and goes in waves and Keigo doesn't really know what to do with it.
On some days he barely feels it, can look at the world around him and acknowledge its brightness, but then there are the days it feels like somebody dunked him in cold water, forced him to face all the ugliness crawling inside.
Like maggots that feast on a corpse. The body might look untouched but once you cut it open you'll be faced with the maggots making a home in the carnage left behind.
Grief makes him feel a little like that, on some days he's the untouched body, on others he's the wasteland.
A year has gone by since Touya took his last breath in his metal casket, and Keigo had known it would happen, thought he was prepared for it. Was almost grateful when it finally happened because Touya had been suffering, had been unable to breathe on his own, and even with the oxygen, each rattling breath had sounded like it might be his last.
The only thing that had made it bearable had been the cocktail of pain medication that steadily flowed into his veins, but even to this day Keigo is almost certain that even the numbness provided by the medication hadn't been enough to erase the pain, at least not the mental anguish. The knowledge that he would die, and rather than letting him go with dignity, they kept him tethered to this realm in the hopes that if only they wait one more day, try just one last new medication, he might show a sign of improvement.
It had almost been a relief to Keigo when the doctors finally decided enough was enough, and told them it was time.
It doesn't change the fact that most days Keigo misses him like he misses his wings, a constant ache he is trying his hardest to pretend he is getting used to. He had compared it to the overstimulation of his wings once and then never again, then the itching of the scars left behind by Touya, but that had gotten him even more weird looks, and so Keigo stopped comparing it to anything out loud. Only making up the comparisons in the solitude of his mind. Touya would have gotten a kick out of them, or at least snorted and called him a dumb pigeon, rather than trying to change the topic and looking at him with worry in their eyes.
Keigo has kept busy ever since the end of the war, and suddenly he finds himself staring at the date, wondering how a year has gone by without him realizing, makes him think he might have kept too busy. He's always been good at running away from his problems, piling up the work until he doesn't have the chance to think, and he might have done the same thing he promised himself he wouldn't do again.
His desk is covered in papers, drafts for new laws, reports he needs to go through, and his calendar is packed with meetings and conferences, lectures he is supposed to give, interviews, and then there's a small note in red ink for today's date; anniversary Touya's death. He had added it the previous year with plans to take the day off, but instead he's here at the office again.
Ink drips from his pen, leaving a stain where his signature was supposed to go, and the maggots wake up. Wiggling and starting to gnaw on whatever is left of him. Maybe they have consumed too much by now, it would explain the strange emptiness he feels more often lately, all those gray feelings he can never quite identify no matter how many times he tries to give them a name in the emptiness of his apartment.
It's been a year, and he should visit Touya's grave, shouldn't he? That's what people do on anniversaries, isn't it? That's what he should do for a person he loved once upon a time, and still loves now even though he is long gone.
But the thought alone has the maggots turn to lead, and it feels like he is fused to his chair, unable to move even if he wanted to.
He hasn't visited the grave in months, hates the silence, the eeriness, and most of all he hates the knowledge that Touya is buried there. Hates thinking about how they burned his body until he was nothing but ash. Hates remembering those last months when Touya had been barely alive, a shadow of himself, only kept alive by machines.
There had been nothing left of the person who kept Hawks on his toes, nothing left of the person Keigo couldn't help but fall for, nothing left of Dabi, and even less of Touya.
And even without visiting the grave it's been getting harder and harder to remember Touya, to remember Dabi. There are some pictures on Keigo's phone, the rare nights when it was just the two of them without the pretense of it being for the mission, but pictures are a bad substitute for reality.
Did he smell like smoke or did Keigo's mind make that up?
Were his hands cold or warm?
How did his scars feel under Keigo's hands?
What did his laughter sound like during those rare moments of true happiness?
What did his voice sound like?
Keigo can barely recall any it.
All he remembers on most days is the sickly version of Touya in his casket, bloody spittle and rattling lungs.
The ink keeps dripping, patterns on the paper, and Keigo fractures.
It's been a year.
And grief is still a stranger he invited into his house, begging for it to come in, and it has haunted him ever since. Never quite made a home in his bones the way Keigo thought or rather hoped it would. Instead there is the strange emptiness, like he has been carved out. The absence that keeps haunting him on some days, and doesn't even register on others. The flashes of pain that hit him at the weirdest of times.
It's nothing like he had been taught grief was supposed to be, it doesn't follow the blue print, doesn't follow any stages, it just is, and Keigo doesn't know what to do with it, and so he continues working. Forces his weary bones and muscles to move.
The clock already reads past midnight when Keigo finally puts the pen down. His desk is mostly empty, papers neatly stacked, and his secretary had been by to collect a few stacks before he left for the day. It was a strangely productive day, but the moment Keigo's hand lets go of the pen, he is overrun by a wave of guilt.
Touya's grave is too far away to reach at this late hour without his wings.
He should have at least tried when he still had the time, but instead he had chosen to work.
Just like any other day.
A dry sob claws its way from his throat but the tears never come.
Maybe next year he'll be able to go, maybe even next month, but not today. He doesn't feel prepared to be faced with his last memory of Touya again. The way his voice broke on every word, barely audible and interrupted by coughs that shook his whole body, the beeping of the machines that continued to monitor his vitals while his body slowly gave up. And worst of all, the sound the machines made after he took his last breath.
If Keigo is honest with himself he doesn't know if he'll ever be ready to return to the graveyard, and he is trying his hardest not to hate himself for it.
He doesn't sleep that night.
Instead Keigo sits out on the balcony, a blanket tugged tightly around his shoulders that does nothing to stop the shaking, and stares into the night sky.
Recalling the way once upon a time Dabi was right next to him, fingers intertwined as he pointed out the different constellations, voice barely a whisper as he told Keigo the stories behind every single one.
The ghost of the memory keeps him company as the cold seeps into his bones, but at least he doesn't feel quite as empty.
"I miss you…" '…even more than I miss my wings.'