Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

When the war ended and the dust settled, it seemed like everyone got something back. Things that were lost, things that had been forcibly taken away. It seemed more and more obvious that there wasn’t a single person who could understand the deep aching chasm that had opened up in Izuku’s chest the minute the anger dissipated. The doctors had tried very hard to restore his memories the same way they restored his body, but his mind had refused to process the events that followed seeing Kacchan’s body on the ground. 

The last thing he could see clearly, fresh in his mind like it was a picture painted into the inside of his eyelids, was Kacchan’s corpse. His chest mangled and gaping, with limbs twisted at unnatural angles, and the blood… The blood was the worst of it. Izuku could still see the deep crimson that stained Kacchan’s mouth, the pool of it that had formed beneath him, soaking through his hero suit and into the dirt underneath. The colour had drained out of Kacchan’s face, the flush that always took over his cheeks during a fight paled to a sickly white, leaving him looking more like a macabre statue than the boy Izuku knew so well. 

The day Izuku finally managed to sneak away from the constant watchful eyes of his mother and All Might, he had been able to get his hands on a tape of the events of the war. He had sat on the floor of the morgue every night after that, clutching the tape case to his chest, watching with wide eyes as Kacchan fought and died. He watched it on a loop, a constant repetition of Kacchan’s bravery and his final moments. Izuku’s eyes would fill up with tears the very second his blonde would show up on screen, and he would bite down on his lip hard enough to taste blood every time Kacchan stood back up, every time Kacchan put his body on the line to protect everyone else, to buy Izuku more time. 

“Kacchan, why?” Izuku would sob, crushing the case in his hands.

“You know why.”

“But you could have waited for me,” Izuku protested further, shaking his head and curling into himself as he rewound the video. “You didn’t have to do THAT!”

“Izuku, you know I did, he would’ve killed everyone there if he didn’t have someone to focus on. We needed to buy time for you, we needed to keep things going until our hero got there.”

“I’m not a hero,” Izuku would sniffle and lie down on the cold tile of the morgue. 

It was late, nearly midnight, when he considered it for the first time. This floor of the hospital was empty. Reserved for fallen heroes from the war, a place for them to rest until those of them who had lived had the space and time to properly bury them. Excavations were still happening all over the country, rounding up villains who had escaped during the scuffle, saving people who had gotten stuck in natural disasters, and treating those who had been injured in and as a result of the war. Everyone was busy; there was so much to be done before they could even consider returning to society as normal. 

Burying the dead was, unfortunately, not at the top of anyone's list. They would keep the dead preserved until they could be buried with all the respect and pomp they deserved. Izuku sat up and turned to face the freezers lining the back wall of the morgue. 

Kacchan was in there. 

Eighth freezer from the right, sixth from the top; his body was there. Kept frozen and waiting for a proper burial, waiting for his final rites, waiting to be laid to rest the way he deserved. Izuku stood up and walked over to the freezer, his bandaged fingers brushing past the cold metal. He gripped the handle, hands shaking with emotions he wasn’t even sure he could name at that point, as he considered opening the freezer. 

“Don’t, Izuku.”

“I want to see you, Kacchan,” Izuku protested, his voice wavering as he kneeled before the freezer and pressed his forehead against it. “I need to see you, I can’t-”

“I’m right here.”

“You’re not, though, not really.”

“Izuku, please just look at me, this is how I want you to see me. Please don’t open that.”

He stayed still for a long moment, until his knees began to ache and the cold of the freezer bled into his forehead. When he finally turned his head to the right, there he was. There was his Kacchan in his UA uniform, no trace of the blood and gore that was seared into Izuku’s mind. Instead, he was surrounded by a faint golden glow. 

A vestige. 

“Kacchan…”

“It’s okay, Izuku.” Kacchan moved towards him, shuffling closer until they were sitting shoulder to shoulder. Kacchan hadn’t quite figured out how to touch him just yet, so they did this more often than not. Kacchan hung around like a ghost that talked to Izuku and only Izuku, sitting beside each other and pretending they could feel the other's body heat. Pretending they were truly moving forward and healing when Izuku knew all he was doing was sitting still. Sitting, stuck in a dream that was bound to end. 

“Don’t go, Kacchan,” Izuku whimpered, reaching out to touch his friend's hand and crying out when his hand passed right through. “Please.”

“I’m here, Izuku. I won’t leave,” Kacchan said, shuffling closer until the edges of his vestige form blurred where their knees would have met. “I promise I won’t leave.”

-

A month had passed since that night. Izuku was released from the hospital, but not yet cleared for hero work, so he still found his way back most days. He didn’t go down to the morgue as often anymore; they didn’t really allow him to go. Someone had complained about hearing crying from down there at all hours of the night, and it was apparently disturbing the other patients. 

“You’d think being a war hero would get you some privileges,” he muttered, kicking rocks as he took his usual path back from the hospital to Katsuki’s parents' home. Something else he did most days. “I don’t know why they can’t just let me in. It’s not like I’m taking you out of the freezer. They let other people in there. They let Mina in to talk to Midnight just yesterday. If she can talk to someone she knew for less than a year, why won’t they let me in?” 

Izuku had grown… bitter. The bags under his eyes had deepened to the point where it seemed like those wide bug eyes Katsuki loved so much had turned to half moons, constantly hooded, constantly squinted, and worst of all, constantly suspicious. It was like that never-faltering belief that good existed everywhere had muffled into a quiet suggestion at the very back of his mind, and it scared Katsuki. Even the version of him that only existed as a vestige within OFA and spent all his time trailing behind Izuku as he went through his days could see he was destroying relationships and being cruel to people who only wanted to help. Pushing away his mom and All Might when they tried harder than anyone else to understand, snapping at Shoto every time he tried to relate losing Katsuki to losing his brother, breaking Iida’s glasses when he dared to suggest that the amount of time Izuku spent in the morgue was unhealthy. 

All Katsuki could do was watch, stand by Izuku and try to reach him, try to touch him somehow and convince him that it was going to be okay. That Izuku would be okay, and that Katsuki would always be around. That Kacchan would always be around.

Lately, though, Katsuki hasn’t been so sure. The only person Izuku really talked to anymore was Ochako, and there would have been a time when Katsuki would have been happy about it. A time when he would have considered it good for him to spend so much time around such a positive and cheerful presence, but something had shifted in Round Face too. They didn’t say much when they hung out, just sat near each other while lost in their own thoughts. 

-

“You know her blood is in me,” Ochako had said one of the times they hung out, hidden away from everyone else and their prying questions.

“Toga?” Izuku asked, his eyes focused on the laminated card in his hands.

“Himiko,” Ochako corrected as she picked at her nails. They were worn all the way down, red and raw, the skin around her nailbeds tattered and constantly bleeding. She brought her finger up to her mouth, sucking the blood into her mouth as she watched Izuku from the corner of her eyes. 

“Right.”

“She gave me her blood before she died,” Ochako continued, a humourless laugh escaping her lips. Izuku looked up, cringing at the way the crimson from her fingers had stained her teeth. “Well, I guess she died because she gave me her blood. It's all in me now.” Izuku watched as Ochako trailed a finger along the long blue vein on her inner arm, pressing hard at the crook of her elbow. “Flowing through every vein and circulating my oxygen.” She dug her nail into the soft skin until it left a crescent-shaped indent. “Keeping me alive.”

“You’re lucky,” Izuku had muttered, looking back at the card and rubbing his finger over the old blood that had stained the edge of the card.

“Elaborate.”

“You still - You have some of her left.” Izuku continued, his thumb working to straighten a crease at the edge of the card. Kacchan would hate that his card was such a mess, but Izuku couldn’t bear the thought of washing away the blood. Of getting rid of the final piece he had of Kacchan; of his bright smile and loud mouth, of the way when he blushed it started at the tip of his ears and worked its way down to his neck, of how Kacchan could run a mile with a dislocated leg but needed to hold someone’s hand when he got shots. 

A reminder of how alive Kacchan had been, and now, with his body several floors underground, all Izuku had left to hold onto was this piece of plastic with his blood dried across it. “At least for as long as you carry her blood, you’ll never really be apart from her.”

Ochako stared at her nails, at the droplets peeking out of the fresh wounds, and she smiled. Something watery and unsure but a smile nonetheless, “Yeah, I guess you’re right. Himiko-chan is in my blood, tied into the fabric of my existence.”

“Lucky you,” Izuku snorted, the bitter tone that was new but quickly becoming familiar seeping into his words. 

Ochako bumped her shoulder with his, giving his arm an apologetic squeeze. “Hey, I’m sorry I didn’t mean to… brag… I guess.” 

Izuku sighed heavily, running a hand through his hair and tugging hard at the ends. “It’s fine,” he muttered as he inspected the strands that had come loose in his hands. “I just… I wish I had something to hold onto. A part of him in me like you do.”

It was quiet for a moment, almost like the trees themselves were holding their breath, and then Ochako chuckled. “You could always eat him.”

-

Now, the problem with suggesting cannibalism to your friend who is already struggling with the loss of a loved one is that in the dark recesses of the night, it becomes less of a joke. Ochako’s words had seared themselves into Izuku’s mind, and the longer he thought about it, the harder it was to laugh it off.

“ You could always eat him.” 

He wanted to push the thought aside, brush it off as Ochako failing to understand. He tried to convince himself that she couldn’t, that the things he felt were far beyond what she could grasp, but each time, he was forced to confront that maybe she was the only one who really did. Izuku could see it in the way she kept tearing open her nailbeds and sucking the blood out, he could see it when she tripped on the stairs, and instead of cleaning herself up, she painted her own lips with the crimson that spilt out of her knee. The longer he thought about it, the less it seemed like she was joking. 

It was nearly midnight once more, and his home was quiet; his mother had gone to bed hours ago, and their little residential neighbourhood was deep in the throes of slumber. All the lights in all the houses turned off, the soft whizzing of electric fans and buzzing of the street lights the only sounds that populated the night. It should have been peaceful, it should have been comforting and familiar, and until about a month ago, it was just that.

“Kacchan,” Izuku whispered as he lay awake in a bed that he had outgrown. When Kacchan did not respond immediately, Izuku opened his eyes, waiting a moment for them to adjust to the dark of his room. “Kacchan?” He called again, a little louder this time, though he knew as a vestige, Kacchan would hear him even if he only thought about calling out for him. 

The minutes ticked by, the whizzing of his fan growing louder and blurring with each leaden heartbeat. It never took this long. For the month that Izuku had known vestige Kacchan, it had never taken him so long to appear, for the warm golden light to appear in the corner of Izuku’s eye before enveloping his line of sight entirely. Izuku sat up in bed, reaching under his pillow for the card and clutching it tight. “Kacchan, where are you?” He asked, anxiously rubbing the creased edge as he waited. 

Izuku knew that OFA was fading; he knew that the embers had very little life left, and he knew that when it did finally leave, so would Kacchan. A few of the other users had already become unreachable to Izuku; only Yoichi, Nana and Kudo were left, and he suspected they stayed out of sheer willpower to watch over him. He could hear them speaking in his head sometimes, urging him to seek help, to stop holding onto this mistake, but Izuku knew better. 

He knew Kacchan’s death wasn’t a mistake, and as many times as Kacchan tried to convince him otherwise, Izuku knew that he was to blame. He should have been there faster, should have paid more attention to what was happening and not gotten nabbed by Toga, should have tried harder, should have never let Kacchan fight alone, but too little, too late. Izuku looked down at his lap to see more strands of green, once luscious and curled, but now dying and dirty. A ghost of what it once was.

“What’s wrong, nerd?”

“Kacchan!” Izuku exclaimed, a sob breaking past his lips at the sound of his voice. Izuku looked up to find Kacchan sitting opposite him, his legs crossed under him, head tilted to the side, and his eyebrows furrowed in concern. “I thought something happened to you.”

“What’s gonna happen to me now? Can’t exactly hurt a ghost.” Kacchan teased, the corner of his mouth pulling upwards into a smirk. It was everything Izuku had always dreamed of. This playful, friendly dynamic where they could tease and needle each other, and it seemed that somehow, after death, Kacchan had found enough peace to reach that place. 

Without Izuku.

Izuku frowned at the joke, reaching out to place his hand on Kacchan's knee and grimacing when it went straight through to land on the bed instead. He closed his fist, digging sharp nails that hadn’t been cleaned in weeks into his palm and screwing his eyes shut. He could feel the panic rising in his body, feel the way it clawed up from his stomach, churning the remaining food digesting in there and up into his lungs. It suffocated him, flooding his chest cavity with what felt suspiciously like when Blackwhip first manifested, threatening to explode out of every orifice until he was nothing but a puddle of it on the ground. It wasn’t enough, it would never be enough to have Kacchan this way, to never be able to touch him again. “I miss you, Kacchan,” Izuku whispered, squeezing his eyelids harder until the veins in his forehead began to throb.

“I’m here, Izuku.”

“No,” Izuku snapped, opening his eyes and glaring at the other boy through tears that threatened to fall. “It’s not the same, and you know it! I can’t touch you, Kacchan, I can’t feel your hands in my hair, I can’t feel your breath on my face when you yell at me, you’re not warm-” Izuku’s voice broke as he hunched forward, wrapping his arms around his waist as though trying to hold himself together. “You’re so cold, Kacchan…” His voice dropped to something barely above a whisper, a weak replica of the bright bubbly sound that used to bounce around the walls of his childhood bedroom. “I can feel it, I can feel him calling me and begging me to save him. He’s frozen in time, and he’s waiting for me, and I’m sitting here playing pretend with you .” The desperation in Izuku’s voice, fused with the venom from his grief, created something so hateful that it forced the vestige to falter. 

The glowing golden light around Katsuki flickered, and his form glitched, fading in and out of view for a moment. Izuku’s eyes widened in horror as he watched, lunging forward in an effort to keep him there, to stop him from leaving again, but he crashed through the vestige and off his bed, landing in a heap on the floor. “Ow…” he whispered as he curled into himself, hugging his legs up to his chest and burying his face between them. “I have to save him.”

“Izuku…” 

-

“Izuku, I don’t think this is a good idea,” Shoto said nervously as they stood side by side in the elevator. 

“Come on, Sho, you promised you would come with me,” Izuku insisted, rocking back and forth on his heels as he tried to temper his anxiety. “They won’t let me down here anymore, and you have… certain privileges.”

“Endeavour has privileges,” Shoto corrected, clenching his fist at the very thought of his father. 

Izuku rolled his eyes, grateful his friend was too focused on his own teenage angst to pay attention to Izuku’s. “Yeah, well, his privileges extend to you. Please, Shoto, I just- I need to see him.” Beside him, Katsuki rolled his eyes as well, though his irritation was aimed towards Izuku rather than Shoto. 

An irritation born out of a long and fruitless conversation where Katsuki had tried to convince Izuku that he didn’t need to touch, that this whole thing was a bad idea that would snowball into something worse. It was beyond difficult to try and get Izuku to understand that this was enough, that seeing Katsuki’s body in such a state would not bring him any comfort; no, it wasn’t just difficult, it was impossible. He had tried everything from pleading to bargaining, but every time Katsuki pushed the issue too far, Izuku would get mad, and when Izuku got mad, his vestige form would falter. This would result in Izuku’s resolve to see the real body strengthened. His need to touch skin, no matter how cold or painful it may be, in hopes that the soul would anchor itself tighter and the cycle would repeat. 

“Izuku-”

“Shoto, please!” Izuku exclaimed, cutting his friend off and slamming his fist against the elevator wall. He turned to look at Shoto with a fire in his eyes that seemed to reopen Shoto’s own burns, something so scathing and accusatory he couldn’t do much but nod and hit the button for the morgue. 

Neither of them spoke until they reached the sterile white door with a metal nameplate denoting what lay beyond. When Shoto put his hand on the door handle, Izuku reached out and stopped him. 

“No,” he hissed before softening his tone at the hurt that flashed on his friend's face. “Sorry… just, you stay guard. I’m not supposed to be down here and I… I need to see him. Alone.” 

“He was my friend, too, Izuku,” Shoto replied, his fists clenching beside him. 

Izuku felt the all too familiar bitterness build in his throat again, the same one that bubbled when Kirishima dared to insinuate that he related to what Izuku felt. The scorching heat that seemed to burn from within when Jirou fell to her knees, crying at the news that he had really, truly died. He had even felt it when his parents agreed that Izuku was spending too much time in the morgue, when they told him that they understood the need to see him, but it was getting out of hand. He had chewed on the inside of his cheek then, drawing blood until his breathing evened out again. But he couldn’t get angry at Shoto, not now. Not when he needed his help to get in there. 

“Please,” Izuku whispered, keeping his eyes focused on the door handle. “Please just let me see him first. Please, Shoto.” He looked up at his friend finally, eyes wet with tears that refused to fall. 

It took a moment, a long moment of tense silence, before Shoto nodded and removed his hand from the door. “I’ll stand guard.” 

Izuku let out a breath of relief, nodding at Shoto gratefully before pushing into the cold room. The morgue was dark; the only thing providing him a line of sight was the light from the open door. Izuku took three steps in, rubbing at sore eyes before the door swung shut behind him and plunged him into complete darkness. 

“Kacchan,” Izuku whispered, closing his eyes and pressing the card to his thigh. “Kacchan, please, I know you’re upset with me, but I need you here. I can’t… I can’t do this without you.”

A second passed, then two, then three, all denoted by the barely there ticking of the clock on the wall. Izuku squeezed his eyes shut harder, feeling around in the dark as he made his way over to the freezers. His hip smashed into something sharp and cold. Izuku chalked it up to an embalming table and kept moving, the pain helping him focus his panic. Only when his fingers brushed past the frigid metal of the freezers did a golden light finally appear. It leaked in under his lashes, forcing him to open his eyes. Izuku felt a brush of air on his shoulder and he knew Kacchan was trying to touch him again. 

“Izuku, please don’t do this,” Katsuki tried once more, his voice softer than he had ever heard it before. Seeing in front of him not the sixteen-year-old veteran but rather the little boy he knew at four and then again at seven and thirteen and so on and so forth until his own road had come to a screeching halt. “Please-”

“Kacchan, I need you,” Izuku mumbled, though it wasn’t clear whether he was talking to the body that lay stoic and silent within or the glowing vestige behind him. “I need you to be here with me, even if you don’t think this is right. I need you to please just be with me.”

The seconds dragged by once more, both their voices silenced by the almost oppressive ticking of the small bedside alarm clock on the far table. It seemed to stretch on endlessly until Katsuki sighed and nodded. He moved to stand in front of Izuku, in his peripheral and knocked on one of the freezers. 

Eighth from the right, sixth from the top. 

Izuku took a deep breath and walked forward, the room illuminated only by the glowing light of Kacchan’s form. His fingers brushed against the freezer that held his body, and he swallowed hard. 

“Izuku…” Katsuki started again, but he went quiet at the sight of Izuku’s fingers curling around the handle. Holding on so tight that his hand was shaking, knuckles turning white for reasons completely separate from the cold, and then he pulled. 

The freezer door opened, and though Izuku opened his mouth to scream, no sound came out. 

There he was. Kacchan, his Kacchan. 

Naked as the day he was born and paler than snow. His eyes were closed, beautiful, long, blonde lashes resting on his cheeks as though he were asleep. His hands folded onto his stomach, and his toes tied together with a thin piece of string. Izuku’s breathing got heavier as the suffocating panic began to climb again. He stared, for what felt like years, he just stared, tears streaming down his face and echoing like gunshots against the tile below in the cold room. There was a long stitch down the centre of his chest where they sewed him back up, closing the hole his exploded heart had left. The black thread was stark, almost offensive against the pallor of his skin, and Izuku longed to reach out and rip it away. He wanted to see, he needed to see the damage. Needed to know what had happened to his Kacchan, what was so unfixable that he lost. 

He reached out, his hand shaking violently as it neared the frozen corpse. He could hear Kacchan behind him, a resigned sigh like he had given up on talking sense into Izuku. Like he already knew this was the sight that would greet them, and he was tired of seeing it. In some ways, Izuku figured that was true. Of course, Kacchan would know what his dead body looked like, and of course, he was tired of seeing it. Tired of reliving what had happened, what Izuku had allowed to happen. He wanted to stop; you have to believe that Izuku wanted to close the freezer and turn around. Forget this entire thing had happened, and be content with the vestige that he was so lucky to have. He knew he was being selfish, knew that he had more than most people did. Even Ochako, with the blood of her lost love in her veins, even Shoto, with his brother barely alive but still breathing, he knew he had it better. 

Izuku knows he’s being selfish, but that doesn’t stop him; nothing could at this point. His hand shakes so much, he can’t move anymore. He’s stuck in limbo, arm outstretched, floating above his Kacchan’s corpse as he tries to find a way to touch him. To see through the blur of tears so that he could reach down and run his hand over the frozen skin, but his body refused to obey. It won’t stop shaking, won’t stop screaming at him to close the freezer, to turn around and walk away. The ticking of the clock has become so loud it’s all he can hear anymore; it drowns out the sound of Kacchan breathing behind him, the sound of Shoto’s feet tapping impatiently outside the door, all he can hear is the overwhelming ticking until it feels like it’s coming from all sides. Izuku wants to run; he wants to sink into the ground and be buried alongside Kacchan. He aches for the dirt to cradle him like a womb and take him back to a time before conception, before this pain became all he knew. 

“Izuku.” His voice was soft, but it reached through the panic like a ray of golden light. Izuku blinked away the tears clouding his vision, and he turned his head ever so slightly to see him. To see the vestige of his beloved standing beside him, wearing an expression that was so sad, so painfully understanding, it was like a shock to his system. “It’s okay. He loves you, he’d want you to be the last one to touch him.”

Izuku cried out at that, the first sound he’s made since opening the freezer. His hand seemed to be moving on its own, finally descending from where it had been hovering. The first time he made contact with Kacchan’s corpse is longer in his memory; it was something that seemed to happen to someone else entirely. The way the chill jumped off Kacchan and crawled into him via his arm, he could almost see it. Could almost see the frozen tendrils latching onto him and shooting up his arm into his heart. He shivered, the shaking that was confined to his arm now spreading to the rest of him as his legs gave out from underneath and he fell to the ground with a clatter. 

“Izuku?!” Shoto’s worried voice spoke through a crack in the door, but Izuku didn’t respond. The door creaked open further, and he heard tentative footsteps walking inside, but Izuku stayed frozen on the ground. Unable to speak, barely able to breathe as he felt that ice spread through his chest, threatening to stop his heart. Shoto walked all the way up to them, flicking on the light switch by the door and kneeling near where Izuku fell. He wisely kept his eyes focused on Izuku and not the open freezer that housed their dead friend. “Izuku, let’s go.”

Izuku turned to look at him, eyes wide with fear and brimming with tears. He opened his mouth to speak, to tell Shoto to get out, to ask him for help, to at least cry out again, but he found himself unable to once more. Instead, he just pointed, stretched out a shaky hand, and Shoto followed his gaze to the open freezer. Izuku saw the lump in Shoto’s throat as he swallowed, and he wondered if the ice was working its way into him, too. 

Shoto stared at the freezer for a few moments longer before shaking his head and helping Izuku up, his hands strong and firm on the other boy's waist. “Let’s go, okay? You’ve been in here long enough. You’re freezing.” 

Izuku nodded in a daze, allowing himself to be led before jumping back and out of his hold. “Wait!” He exclaimed, putting his hands up as though getting ready to fight Shoto off if he needed to. “I- I need to-” Izuku stuttered his way through his sentence, a habit he hadn’t defaulted to since middle school. Something he was sure he had outgrown, but here it was again. Twisting his tongue and forcing him into corners where he couldn’t get the words he wanted to say out, forcing him to stay stuck and timid in a world that didn’t understand him. “Goodbye,” Izuku finally croaked out, tears spilling from his eyes. 

Shoto’s lip quivered at the sight; this was his closest friend. The first person to ever truly know him, to see him and see someone beyond his father and his family. This was the boy who had stood tall and told him to take control of his own destiny, to stop hiding behind fears and guilt that had no place in his life, and he was falling apart. He reached out again, intent on getting him out of this room and somewhere where he could get real help, but he faltered. Izuku was just so pathetic , so scared and upset that he couldn’t even beg. Shaking so hard, Shoto thought he might crack like glass, but his eyes were what stilled Shoto’s hand. They were wide open and full of fire for the first time since the war ended. 

So Shoto nodded, he forced himself to take a step back and keep walking until he exited the room again, switching off the light as he went. This was not his place, as much as he loved both Izuku and Katsuki, this was not the place for him to be involved. Not when Izuku needed to say goodbye to the person Shoto suspected he loved more than he had even begun to really understand. 

Izuku turned to the freezer once more, walking over at a snail's pace, having to put active effort into each step he took until he was finally at its side. “Kacchan,” Izuku whispered, a faint green glow providing light. 

Blackwhip. 

Or at least whatever was left of it. Kacchan had always been Blackwhip’s favourite. The quirk that felt almost like it had a life of its own had fallen in love with Kacchan all on its own. Figuring out what it wanted before Izuku even had the chance to, and it was here again. Here to say goodbye to the source of its love, mourning what could have been, the same way Izuku would later. When Izuku reached out again, a green tendril wrapped around his arm, urging him forward as though it needed to touch him just as badly as Izuku did. Whether it was with the help of blackwhip or if it was his own force of will, Izuku finally placed his hand down flat on Kacchan’s chest, feeling that now familiar cold settle in once again. 

“Oh god, Kacchan,” Izuku whispered, gripping the open freezer with one hand while his other explored the dip and swell of the blonde’s chest. His hand trailed upward, cupping the back of Katsuki’s neck as he leaned closer, his tears rolling off his cheeks and settling on Katsuki’s chest. His hand moved even further up, coming around to caress his face. Finger tracing the jagged scar that was left on his face, the only real reminder of the war, had he survived. Izuku touched his own scar as he watched Blackwhip branch out from around his finger to thread through Katsuki’s hair. 

Izuku’s was still a little sore; being alive means wounds have to heal on their own. They don’t just stitch you up and stuff you in a box, preserved until it was time to be put underground. Izuku watched as Blackwhip touched the scar, tentative like a child reaching out for something they had never seen before. It traced the jagged ends, taking infinitely more care than Izuku could with his shaky human hands. Blackwhip made its way down Katsuki’s body, gently like the hands of a mother cradling it’s newborn until it reached his hands. It engulfed his hand whole, covering them in a cocoon of warmth, shielding them from prying eyes that included Izuku’s, it seemed. 

“I miss you, Kacchan,” Izuku whispered, tearing his eyes away from his hands to focus back on closed eyelids. “I miss you so much every day. I feel like I can’t breathe anymore,” Izuku said through a shuddering breath. “Nothing feels real without you here. Nothing hurts the way it's supposed to because nothing hurts more than knowing you aren’t here anymore.” He swallowed hard, trying to speak past the mess of tears and snot that was forming on his face. “I want you back. There’s no one… there’s no one who understands me like you, and I just want to talk to you again. I talk to your vestige, I talk to him all the time, but… I don’t know if he’s real,” Izuku’s voice cracked on the final word, and he fell to his knees. Blackwhip wrapped around Katsuki’s hand, the only thing keeping him tethered as he broke down once more.

Izuku hugged himself tightly, hands clinging to his sides in a desperate effort to pull himself together. To be okay enough to speak to him, to say goodbye properly, but it was no use. The tears had begun, and there was no stopping them. It tore a blazing path through his body, breaking him down to his very atoms and laying him bare and empty at the altar that was Kacchan’s corpse. “I’m so sorry,” he whispered, his words barely coherent through the sound of his cries. “Take me with you,” Izuku begged, looking up at the cold, unyielding metal of the freezer. “Please, Kacchan, take me with you, I don’t… I don’t want to be here without you, please.”

There was no response, of course, there was no response. Even his vestige seemed to be hiding, disgusted by the extent of Izuku’s weakness, he was sure. Of course, Kacchan did not want him; of course, he would not respond. Kacchan had fought until his final breath. He had died brave and proud on the battlefield, and here Izuku was, curled up on the floor, coughing and pleading with a dead man to save him. 

Pathetic, he was pathetic, and everyone could see it. He had never been able to save anyone, never been deserving of the title of hero and here lay the most visceral evidence of his failures. The corpse of the person who was more Izuku than he was on his own. The one who was tied so intimately into Izuku’s identity that he didn’t know who he was without him. Begging that very corpse to save him once more, to leave the peace he had found, to come back and save Izuku for one last time. 

“Izuku,” Shoto’s voice cut through the dark again, more urgent this time as he hurried into the room and hauled the other boy up. “We need to leave. I think someone’s coming.” Shoto thrust his right hand out, a small burst of ice closing the freezer as he all but dragged Izuku out. 

Blackwhip retreated from Katsuki’s body just as the freezer shut, the snap of bone not heard under Shoto’s rushed footsteps and Izuku’s now muffled cries. It returned to Izuku entirely, crawling up his leg and depositing something small and cylindrical in his pant pocket before extinguishing. 

Shoto did not notice, nor did Izuku. 

Chapter Text

It was late when Izuku got home that day. His mother had already started calling people, searching for him, frantically pacing outside their apartment complex while tugging on the ends of her hair. Izuku wondered if that’s where he picked that up from. Did he pull at his hair the way he did now because he watched his mother do it as he grew up? The same way he took off his shoes, left first. After all, that’s how she did it, how he cried at the drop of a hat, because that’s always been how she behaves. He wondered if he got his propensity for failure from her, too. 

“Don’t be an asshole.” 

Izuku didn’t turn to face the voice; he knew who it was. He always would, “You’re back?”

“Where am I supposed to go?”

“Huh,” Izuku grunted, a bitter smile on his face as he continued to watch his mother pace. He could almost hear the frantic way she’d be speaking from how she moved her hand. Gesturing wildly, her eyebrows furrowed together as she whispered angrily into the phone. No. Angry is the wrong word for what she does. Izuku has never seen his mother angry. Irritated? Yes. Judgemental? Many times. But anger was a rare emotion in the Midoriya household, practically nonexistent. Izuku wondered if the woman who raised him with such kindness and care even knew how to be angry. 

“She’d be angry if she knew you brought it back with you.” 

“Brought what back with me, Kacchan?” 

“You know what I’m talking about, Izuku,” Katsuki urged, stepping forward to stand directly in his field of vision. “In your pocket.”

“I don’t-” Izuku didn’t get to finish his sentence. His fingers brushed against something that felt like a cold pipe… it couldn’t be a pipe, though; the texture of the thing was different, it was too small. Izuku closed his fingers around it entirely, for some reason, nervous to pull it out and look. His grip tightened slightly, index finger brushing over the surface as he tried to make sense of it. His finger moved higher, running over the slick surface. He figured something was melting; had he bought an ice pop and forgotten about it? No, that couldn’t be it either. It didn’t feel like plastic, and an open ice pop would have melted through and soaked into his skin already. 

“Izuku-”

“Just give me a second, I can’t-” His finger brushed over the smooth texture of what he was suddenly sure was bone. More specifically, a fingernail. Izuku wanted to tear his hand free of his pocket; he wanted to scream, wanted to throw the morbid thing far away and run into his mother's arms, but he stood frozen as sweat beaded on his forehead. It was as though the gravitational force of the Earth had focused all its attention squarely on him, like it was pulling him in, keeping him stuck in place, rooted to the ground. He felt it again, clawing up through his chest, shredding the soft tissue protected by his ribs to ribbons, replacing his blood with that black sludge that threatened to choke him from the inside out. Izuku’s breathing got heavier, rapid against his chest cavity, even as a part of him groaned at the repeated behaviour. How many times would he have a panic attack? How many times would this paralysing fear consume him from the inside? 

“ Izuku!” Kacchan snapped, reaching out to try and touch him, only to pass right through. “I- why isn’t it-”

Izuku looked down to see where Kacchan’s arm was now lodged in his chest, where it had definitely slipped through the mass of his shoulder and… gotten stuck? So maybe not passed right through. Izuku looked up at Kacchan’s ghostly form and noticed how the edges seemed to be clearer, how the golden glowing smoke that used to always cover his visage was more tangible. 

“Kacchan, what-” and Katsuki removed his hand once more. When he tried to touch Izuku again, his hand went right through, just as it had every other time. This time, Izuku noticed that both his own hands were up in the air, hanging between them as though trying to reach out and grab Katsuki. “How did you… How did you touch me just now?”

“I didn’t, not really,” Katsuki refuted, rubbing his arm as though trying to work heat back in. “I just… got stuck.”

“But how, Kacchan, you haven’t been able to-”

“IZUKU!” 

Izuku winced at the sudden interruption, a voice that was sharp and loud and watery in a way that he knew only his mothers to be. He forced a smile back on and turned away from Katsuki’s careful poker face. “Hey, Mom.”

“What do you mean, 'hey, mom'?” She asked, smacking her son’s arm, though you couldn’t even really call it that. Inko’s hand barely connected with Izuku’s bicep before she pulled him into a crushing hug, burying her face in his shoulder and inhaling deeply. “Where did you go, baby? I was so worried.”

“I was just…” he paused, wondering if he could tell her the truth. Tell her that he was saying goodbye to Kacchan, tell her that he had apparently stolen a piece of his friend's dead body, that there was a steadily melting frozen finger in his pocket. “With Shoto, Mom.” 

“Are you sure, baby?” She asked, pulling back just enough to look at him. Izuku knew that his mother didn’t believe him; he could see the suspicion, followed by guilt for being suspicious, warring on her face. 

“Yes, Mom. God, it’s like you don’t trust me anymore!” It’s always easier to convince someone they’ve done something wrong when they already think it. It was easier to make her believe that his teenage angst was just that, run-of-the-mill teenage angst, rather than the sinful thoughts that spun around inside his head. “Just give me some space, okay? I needed to see Shoto today, and I didn’t want you to follow me there like last time.”

Inko shrank back as though struck, her shoulders bundling together and her lower lip trembling as she tried to hold it together. Izuku knew he was being an asshole; he knew that his mother, of all people, did not deserve to be on the receiving end of his venom, but he had gotten so comfortable with it. So reliant on fighting and lashing out to keep people at arm's length that it was almost comforting now. His feelings had all blurred until he couldn’t really tell them apart anymore, comfort in his loneliness, guilt at his cruelty, longing for space while craving touch. It all stirred together in his gut until it made him nauseous, and the familiar feeling of bile rising in his throat forced him to stop thinking. 

“I— well, if you’re sure, Izuku,” His mother whispered, clearly struggling to hold back tears, struggling harder to hold back questions about where her sweet baby boy had gone. 

“Thanks for understanding, Mom,” Izuku said, stepping around her to walk into their home. He didn’t want to talk to her, didn’t want to see the hurt and the worry in her eyes—the beginnings of fear that seemed to be creeping in through the corners of her sclera. 

Izuku kept walking, focused on putting one foot in front of the other until he reached his bedroom and slammed the door behind him. It was only then that he put his hand into his pocket again, cringing at the wetness he found there. 

“What the fuck,” he whispered to himself as he pulled out the little piece of horror nestled in his pocket. It was the tip of Kacchan’s pointer finger, so small that it sat in the centre of Izuku’s palm like a pill. Pale, but not cream like Kacchan’s skin usually was, like it used to be. No, it was closer to the colour of bone, ashy and empty. He weighed it, tossing it up in the air softly, ever carefully, before turning it over. 

“Izuku, stop it.” 

Izuku paid the vestige no mind as he continued his inspection of the piece of his Kacchan in his hands. It really was him, as little colour as there was, as little warmth as there was, it was still him. It was a piece of him that had touched Izuku, both in anger and in compassion. It was a piece that had been nestled in his hair, had scarred his notebooks, and had pushed him into the ground when they fought. It was a piece that had reached out to him, a piece of home in the form of a cadaver. 

“IZUKU!”

“WHAT?!” 

It looked to Izuku like Katsuki had flinched just then, like the sharp point to Izuku’s tone had shot out and cut him. Izuku shook his head. There was no way he could make Kacchan flinch; Kacchan wasn’t scared of anything, much less pathetic, weak little Izuku. 

“What is it, Kacchan?” Izuku asked, softer this time. 

“Stop fucking… playing with that thing,” The vestige whispered, his nose wrinkling in disgust as he watched Izuku’s pointer roll the little bit of Kacchan around. “That’s so fucking morbid, Izuku, just throw it out.”

He laughed in response, convinced that Katsuki was obviously joking. There was no timeline that existed where Izuku could just toss Kacchan out , even if it was just a piece of his corpse. No, Izuku needed to keep it safe. Keep it protected somewhere until he could… what was he even planning to do? He couldn’t exactly keep it in his room; no matter how small the thing was, it would start to smell soon, and as much as his mother respected his desire for space, she would never let him be if she found this. He considered wrapping it up and popping it in his freezer, keeping it safe and sound, tucked away right at the back and telling his mom it was for school. An experiment he was doing with All Might to try and preserve OFA, but no, that wouldn’t work either. His mom had been spending too much time with All Might recently. She would ask him, and he would have no reason to lie. He didn’t need two parents worrying about him. 

“Izuku!” Katsuki hissed again, reaching out to snap in front of Izuku’s face. His pretty face was twisted into a sneer, like he was upset with Izuku for ignoring him. The sight made something wicked twist in Izuku’s chest. He liked that look on Kacchan, liked seeing him upset because he wanted Izuku’s attention.

“Yes, Kacchan?” He asked, moving to sit on the bed and patting the space beside him. “What is it?”

“What is it?” The inflexion in Katsuki’s voice made Izuku want to laugh aloud. He was irritated, ticked off, in disbelief. 

It had been a while since Kacchan had spoken to him like this, or at least it had been a while since Izuku had had the wherewithal to notice. Ever since coming back as a vestige, Kacchan had been quieter, calmer. He didn’t push back against Izuku as much, didn’t show him clear signs of displeasure or disgust and as strange as it was to admit it, Izuku had missed it. He had missed all of it. Had missed Kacchan’s fire, his anger, his disgust, most of all, he had missed Kacchan’s warmth. So when the vestige sat down on the bed, copying his exact form and glared at him, Izuku could do nothing but grin back. 

“Izuku, you need to get rid of that thing. It’s… It’s gross, man,” Kacchan’s nose wrinkled again, and he pulled his chin back into his neck as he watched. “What are you even going to do with it? You can’t exactly keep it here. Can’t hide it anywhere. You’re gonna get in trouble, Izuku, just throw it. Or maybe we can bury it- Hey!” Katsuki snapped again, his irritation rising when he realised that Izuku was not listening. The glazed, dopey look in his eyes as he seemed to be staring past Katsuki at some distant point beyond him. The way his fingers kept toying with the piece of gore in his hand, caressing it, cradling it, it was all getting to be too much. Rising to a fever pitch, until, without really thinking it through, Katsuki reached out. To his surprise, his palm connected with Izuku’s cheek and a resounding THWACK echoed through the silent room. 

The silence hung heavy for thirty seconds, thick in the warm room like condensation on a summer day, until finally, to Katsuki’s horror, a smile broke out on Izuku’s face. “You… you hit me,” Izuku murmured, his hand moving up to cradle the side of his face. 

“Izuku, I’m so sorry, I don’t know what I was thinking,” the apologies rolled off Katsuki’s tongue like glass shards, each one cutting open his tongue and bleeding through with guilt and shame. “I’m so fucking sorry, Izuku, I shouldn’t have-”

“Kacchan, it’s okay!” Izuku exclaimed, laughing as the sting on his cheek faded to a pleasant buzzing through his body. “You touched me! You can touch me! Everything's okay, I don’t care. Here, do it again,” Izuku’s laughter rang through the room, almost hysterical in the way he fell backwards onto the bed, clutching his sides. 

Katsuki watched as what seemed like a fit of giggles overtook the other boy. He couldn’t help the way the edges of his lips quirked upwards at the sight. It had been months of sullen silences, bitter looks, and heartbreaking sobbing, so to see him laugh was a welcome sight. To see his Izuku really let go and laugh the way he was, was more than Katsuki could have hoped for. He watched the tip of the finger roll out of Izuku’s hand and fall onto the plush carpet at the foot of his bed, and he hoped that Izuku would just forget about it. Hoped that he would get rid of it now that they could touch, hoped that he would be enough now. 

“Izuku shh,” Katsuki hissed, though there was no edge to his tone as he reached out. “Aunty will hear nerd, you need to-” Katsuku cut himself off for the nth time that day when, instead of wrapping around Izuku’s wrist, his fingers just went right through. 

The cold returned like a snowstorm atop a mountain in the most isolated forest in the world when Izuku’s laughter cut out. Katsuki tried again, reaching for Izuku’s wrist, trying to haul him up. He grabbed at the other boy's thigh, his knee, even reached for his face as frustrated tears began to pool in his eyes. “Why,” he whispered to himself as he tried again and again, his fingers slipping through the solid warmth of Izuku’s body like it was made of soft butter, like he wasn’t really there. “Not again, fuck not again. Please.” Katsuki begged, getting up on his knees and trying until the tears dripped down his face, sizzling when they fell on the bedding. 

“Kacchan,” Izuku finally spoke, sitting up on his own and staring down at Katsuki’s hands. “I think I know what it is.” His voice was low; it didn’t sound like it came from inside him but rather from somewhere far away. Somewhere distant and hidden, in a place that Katsuki couldn’t reach. 

“What do you mean, Izuku?”  Katsuki asked, sniffling and wiping his nose on his sleeve.

“It’s you,” He whispered, “or… I guess it’s him.” Izuku looked up to meet Katsuki’s eyes, a glimmer shining in their green depths that sent a shiver down Katsuki’s spine. “Think about it. The first time you were able to touch me was when the fingertip was in my pocket. When I was fiddling with it, your hand got stuck in my chest. When I let go suddenly, you just went right through despite doing the exact same motion and right now,” Izuku’s voice got more animated as he spoke, his eyes sparkling in that unnerving way they did when he started talking about heroes, “when you slapped me, I had the fingertip in my hand. I think it’s him. When I’m touching him, I can touch you. ”

“Izuku, that’s not- I mean, you don’t have any actual evidence for that. It’s circumstantial,” Katsuki knew Izuku was right, though. He knew that something about touching his human body made his vestige stronger. He wasn’t sure whether it was because of the actual act of touching or if it was because being able to be in physical contact with his body gave Izuku some kind of hope. All he knew for sure was that it definitely had to do with the body. 

You could always eat him.

It started in his gut, the slow tendrils that felt like Blackwhip and sounded like his friend, climbing up. “No, no, Kacchan, there’s something to this,” Izuku insisted as he began to look around for the fingertip. “I can feel it. I knew there was a reason why I couldn’t stop looking at it, why Blackwhip brought it back,” He stopped midway through flipping his blanket in the air to look up at Katsuki, eyes wide and alight with an energy that made Katsuki squirm. “Don’t you get it? He wanted me to bring it back.”

“...he?” Katsuki asked tentatively, worrying his bottom lip under sharp teeth. 

“Kacchan!” Izuku’s eyes landed on the fingertip on the ground at that moment, and he bent down to pick it up. It was entirely thawed now and fleshy in his hold. Izuku squeezed slightly before squealing at the feeling of it squishing between his fingers. 

“Izuku… what are you going to do with it?” Katsuki asked, swallowing the lump that was forming in his throat as he watched Izuku turn the thing over in his hands again. 

“I don’t know, honestly,” Izuku murmured, his attention now entirely focused on the finger as though trying to pull it apart to its atoms and molecules so he could understand. 

You could always eat him.

Izuku shook his head, the thought crawling up from the recesses of his mind, branching out across his insides. He needed to focus on this discovery, not Ochako’s jokes. The body had some kind of connection to the mind, to his soul. Kacchan’s soul was in the vestige; Izuku was sure of that already, so when he could touch his body, the vestige was able to manifest strongly. It must be because of OFA fading; the difference between how Nana was able to touch him and Katsuki not being able to must be because his powers were fading, but if he was touching him. If Izuku had a piece of Kacchan, then his soul would never leave; he could keep the vestige here forever, even after OFA leaves, even once he’s all alone, he would still have Kacchan’s soul. 

You could always eat him. 

Izuku shook his head again before his thoughts came to a screeching halt. The sharp points of her voice pierced through his conscious thoughts, sending what felt like blinding pain shooting through his eyes. 

You could always eat him. 

I could always eat him. 

Izuku stared at the piece in his hand, rolling it around one more time. It was about the size of a big pill, and about just as hard, too. It wouldn’t be difficult to swallow if he focused on it, might get stuck in his throat. What if he got sick? This was sick. It was sick! There was no way Izuku could do something like that. He couldn’t eat Kacchan, couldn’t just pop his finger in his mouth and swallow like it was a piece of candy. No, no, it wouldn’t work. It wasn’t like Ochako drinking her own blood, no, this was something he could not do; he wouldn’t do it. It was wrong, it was immoral, it was disgusting, he’s pretty sure it’s a sin, it’s definitely a crime. He can’t just eat Kacchan.

“Izuku?”

Izuku looked up, only then realising that his eyes had begun to water. Kacchan looked… scared. He looked like he was a second away from tears, too. Izuku nodded; he understood. He understood why Kacchan was sad; he knew, he could feel it too. He could feel that emptiness in his chest, feel that fear, that suffocating need reverberating from within until it beat in his ears like his heartbeat. 

“It’s okay, Kacchan,” He whispered, a small smile twisting on his lips. “It’ll be okay.”

The fingertip disappeared behind Izuku’s lips before Katsuki could react. He had been smiling one second, and the very next, his lips had parted, and the little piece of bone and flesh passed beyond the open cavity and down his throat. Katsuki watched in horror as Izuku swallowed hard, his throat bobbing as it travelled down his food pipe and into the dark emptiness of his body. 

“WHAT THE FUCK IZUKU?!” Katsuki screamed, jumping forward to tackle the other boy to the ground. 

His hands connected first, then his body went crashing into Izuku’s, and soon enough, they were sprawled on the floor together. Katsuki pinning Izuku’s arms to the ground, his knees bracketing the other's hips. “Spit. It. Out.” Katsuki growled, using one of his hands to pry open Izuku’s jaw and force his fingers inside, trying to make him throw up. Forcing him to correct what he had done, fix what Katsuki had to believe was a mistake, but Izuku only laughed. 

He laughed until he cried, and he let Katsuki do whatever he wanted. He went pliant under the blonde’s hold, let Katsuki open his jaw, and accepted the fingers in his mouth happily. It was all okay, it was all fine. Kacchan could beat Izuku within an inch of his life, and it would be okay cause he could finally feel him. Kacchan could finally touch him. 

Katsuki gave up after a few minutes of this, falling back onto his ass and running a hand through newly dishevelled blonde hair. He stared at Izuku in horror as the other boy sat up, the grin on his face so wide it turned his eyes into crescent moons. 

“It’s okay,” He giggled, he fucking giggled, as he crawled over to sit beside Katsuki. Their knees finally touched, and Izuku let out another pleased sound. “It’ll be okay, Kacchan.” 

-

Katsuki lay on the bed that night; he didn’t return to the vestige realm like he usually did or linger by the edge of the bed. He tucked Izuku into his side, wrapped his arms around the smaller boy and threaded his fingers through stringy green locks until his breathing evened out. Katsuki didn’t exactly sleep anymore; it was more like going quiet. Like, he didn’t need to be tuned into Izuku’s emotions anymore. 

It was strange being a vestige. He could still feel his body, could feel the warmth of blood running through his skin and how his lungs would expand when he took a breath, but he also consciously knew that neither of the organs required functioned. He knew that his actual heart and lungs were in that freezer, eighth from the right, sixth from the top. He knew that he wasn’t actually alive, but it didn’t stop him from feeling like he was. The only thing that reminded him of what state he was actually in was the quiet that settled over his chest. Every time he got irritated or something happened to upset him, this sense of nothingness would wash over him within seconds. Katsuki really had to fight it off to stay angry on his own, so when he had managed to get irritated with Izuku, it had shocked him almost as much as Izuku eating the finger. As he watched the other boy sleep, he felt that nothingness again. Katsuki had had the opportunity to talk to some of the past OFA users before he was able to fully manifest as a vestig,e and what they had said above all else was that OFA is alive. 

As alive as Izuku is, OFA was as well; the quirk reacted to Izuku’s emotions before Izuku could even really recognise them himself. Katsuki wasn’t sure what that meant for him, whether Izuku’s emotions affected his own. Whether his anger was just a reflection of Izuku’s, whether the deep aching pain he felt in his chest whenever he looked at Izuku was just the other boys' yearning mirrored back. He wasn’t sure. There were a lot of things that Katsuki wasn’t sure about anymore. 

Death does that. It tends to twist things up and make it confusing in a way that you’re never really prepared for when you’re alive, especially when you exist as a… projection of his childhood friend's desires? An apparition of the form he took at his most happy? He wasn’t sure anymore, and Katsuki hated it. He hated being so unsure of what had happened to him, of why he was around, why he could suddenly touch Izuku, why he felt so horrible all the time. He hated the uncertainty of his existence, but, for some reason, that didn’t anger him. He was used to anger. Katsuki had always been used to translating difficult feelings into anger, but now, it was like he just couldn’t be angry about any of it. 

He was just… sad. 

Melancholic in a way he’s never known before, lonely in a way that he still doesn’t really understand. He pressed his lips against the top of Izuku’s head, letting his eyelids flutter shut as he savoured the warmth of his skin. He realised, as he held him, that it was everything Katsuki had ever wanted, everything he needed to feel whole. The weight of Izuku nestled in his arms, the feeling of his hair tickling his nose, the soft puffs of air that escaped Izuku’s lips and brushed against his neck. It was all so new, so foreign, but it felt so correct, like they had been waiting for this their whole lives, like it was what was meant for them. 

He tightened his arms around Izuku and buried his nose in his hair, screwing his eyes shut as he inhaled. The weight on his chest was unbearable; they had had so much time to fix things. So many chances to make things right and be together. Even if they had never made it to this place, they could have at least been friends. They had been given so much time, and Katsuki had squandered all of it from the very beginning. He had wasted every chance he was given because he was too scared, too cowardly, too weak. And now… now all they had was this liminal space in between. Katsuki sighed and shifted slightly so his feet were tangled with Izuku’s. 

The one good thing about this whole post-death business, he thought, was that his fear had left him. His fear about Izuku’s feelings, about whether he deserved to receive Izuku’s affection or be beside him. Something about becoming a vestige had suddenly made Izuku’s devotion to him very clear, and that had eased the living ache he used to carry around like an open wound. 

Katsuki sighed again, pressing another kiss to Izuku’s skin. He couldn’t sleep, but he could pretend. As long as Izuku stayed in his arms this way he could pretend it was okay, that they were just boys finding home after too long spent adrift. Everything would be okay if they could just stay like this, Katsuki would make sure of it. 

-

“I’m thinking of moving back into the dorms,” Izuku murmured, bumping the tip of Ochako’s slipper with his own. They were sitting in her room this time, on the edge of the bed as Ochako obsessively filed her nails into sharp points. “Ocha,” He said, louder.

“Hm?” 

“Stop ignoring me, man!” He complained, knocking his shoulder against hers in an attempt to get her attention.

“Sorry,” She murmured, turning her head and dragging her eyes along behind it. “What’d you say?”

Izuku sighed and fell back onto her bed, his hands flat on the mattress as he stared up at her ceiling fan. It was old, and it creaked as it spun. The first time he had come to her house, Izuku could tell she was nervous about the rickety state of certain things from the way she darted around trying to clean up. He had decided then to never comment on any of it, it’s not like he really wanted to anyway. So he lay there, on her bed that seemed to dip under his weight and counted the seconds as the blades of the fan spun in dizzying circles. 

“Deku,” Ochako urged, kicking off her slippers and turning to sit cross-legged on the bed. “What’d you say?”

Izuku was silent for a beat longer before looking at her through his bottom lashes, “I’m thinking of moving back to the dorms.”

“The UA dorms?” She asked, her eyebrows furrowing together as she leaned her head on her elbow. “Why? I thought you said it was nice being at home.”

“Well, it is,” He conceded with another put-upon sigh and turned his eyes back to the fan. “But my mom can just be So Much sometimes, you know?” 

Ochako’s hand cracked against Izuku’s thigh with a sharp thwack, making the boy yelp and glare at her. “What’d she do?”

Izuku sat up, holding his glare as he rubbed at his thigh, “Why’d you whack me if you weren’t gonna tell me off?”

Ochako shrugged before pressing her finger down onto the spot where she had hit him, “Tell me!”

He stared at her for a moment, weighing the consequences of telling her to fuck off and decided to take the less painful route, “She’s just all over me right now, she followed me to Shoto’s place last week and day before I was kinda late to get home and she freaked out and called everyone,” Izuku explained, dragging a hand over his face. “I know I’m being selfish and that she’s just worried about me, but it’s just… It’s a lot.” 

“Yeah,” Ochako murmured, leaning back on her hands. She looked up at the ceiling, tracking the fan as Izuku had a moment ago, as she considered his words. “My parents, too. I know why they’re worried, I get it, we all… we all went through a lot,” her voice faltered, but Ochako pushed through, “and I know that they just want to help. Be there for me and all that but I feel like I can’t breathe sometimes. Between all the checking in and family bonding activities, there’s barely any time for me to just… think.”

“Exactly,” Izuku lay back on the bed, joining her in tracking the movement of the fan. “Everyone’s so damn worried all the time. Even Shoto and Iida won’t back off. It’s like everyone’s on some kind of mission to crack my skull open and sift through the thoughts.”

“Well…” Ochako trailed off, worrying her bottom lip between her teeth.

“What?” 

“It’s just that… you have to admit you’ve been acting a bit strange, Deku,” She said, choosing her words carefully. Ochako could already feel the irritation rolling off Izuku as she broached the topic, “What, with the falling asleep in the morgue and snapping at anyone who tries to ask you how you’re feeling and…” Her voice got significantly quieter as she continued to speak, the sharp edges of her newly filed nails digging into the callouses on her palm. “You even fought with Bakugo’s parents.”

“This isn’t about him!” Izuku snapped, sitting up straight to glare down at his feet. 

“Deku-”

“No. It isn’t about him,” He insisted, clenching his hands together until his knuckles started to turn white. “Kacchan isn’t- he isn’t a problem, Ochako. I just… miss him.”

“I get it,” She tried, her voice gentle despite the alarms going off in her head at the tension coiled in his shoulders. “I miss her too-”

“NO!” Izuku’s voice broke out like a blade, aimed with deadly precision as he turned around to sneer at her. “You don’t fucking get it! ” Izuku stood up, his fists clenched tight at his sides. His breathing had gotten heavier, and Izuku could practically feel the poison dripping from his eyes, “You don’t miss her like I miss him. You didn’t… You barely got time with her, Uraraka. You barely knew her. Kacchan was-” Izuku’s voice cracked, gaze shooting to his feet. His knees buckled as he spoke, forcing him to reach out and steady himself on the closest solid surface, which just so happened to be Ochako’s shoulder. 

“Everything?” She asked, reaching up to wrap her fingers around Izuku’s wrist. 

“Y-yeah,” He breathed, sinking back down to sit on the edge of the bed beside her. 

“Yeah,” Ochako sighed and swung her legs over the end of her bed as well. She was silent for a while; they both were. Both seemingly content to just count the twisting patterns in the wood flooring. “She was everything, too, you know.”

Izuku swallowed the venom that rose in his throat and nodded, “I know.”

“So it isn’t fair,” She murmured, digging her nails into her palms. “It’s not fair for you to act like you have a monopoly on grief, Izuku. I understand that losing Bakugo was earth-shattering for you, that you can’t ever hope to replace him, but you’re not the only one who lost things in the war. You’re my closest friend — and I love you,” she told him, knocking their elbows together, “I really do, but I’m not going to sit here and let you make light of what happened to me and what I felt- feel for her just because you’re in pain.” 

Izuku could hear the anger in her voice, could feel the way she trembled beside him, taking immense effort not to lash out and tell him where he could stick his pain, so he took a deep breath. He forced himself to remember that he could still go home to Kacchan even if he was only a vestige. At least now he had a plan, at least now Izuku wasn’t just hurting without end. Now he knew what he had to do to make the pain stop, to keep Kacchan around. So the least he could do was be kind to his friend, who couldn’t even hope for the same. “I’m sorry.”

Ochako let out a breath, wrapped in a watery laugh. “Yeah?”

“I am, Ocha,” He promised, peeking at her through the corner of his eye. “I shouldn’t have made light of what you and Toga went through. It wasn’t fair.”

“Himiko.”

“Huh?”

“Call her Himiko,” Ochako said softly, her irritation giving way to insurmountable grief. “She liked both of us, called us both by our first names. I think she would have appreciated us doing the same.”

Izuku nodded slowly, lifting his head for just long enough to see the tears that had begun to shimmer on Ochako’s lash line. He turned his eyes back to the floor, “Himiko, then.”

They sat like that for a while longer while Ochako cried, silent but heartwrenching in its intensity. She wiped her eyes with the collar of her shirt after about ten minutes. “I’ve been considering sharpening my teeth.”

“Hm.” 

-

The first thing Izuku noticed was the smell, a sort of stuffy, stale stench that permeated the common room. It wasn’t exactly pungent, didn’t make his eyes water or move him to cover his nose or anything of the kind, but it wasn’t… pleasant either. He figured that made sense; the last person to move back home was Yaoyorozu. Ever the responsible one, she had stayed until the very end to ensure that no one was left alone. It had been three months since she moved out, and the doors to the UA Alliance were shut after her. Izuku took a few tentative steps inside, carrying his duffel bag over his shoulder. His eyes trailed over the familiar furniture, memories of parties in the common room, group dinners around the obnoxiously large dining table, game nights in front of the TV, even a memory of Sato trying to teach him to bake, all sprang to life around him. All in the form of hazy images, wrapped in that golden light he had come to associate with vestige Kacchan. 

He smiled to himself as he traced a finger over the kitchen counter. Someone had cleaned up recently. Most likely, Aizawa had assigned one of the custodial staff to dust the place and open some windows. He wondered if his teacher was trying to atone in his own way, a way to apologise for not being able to keep Katsuki safe. He hadn’t seen Aizawa since he woke up. Though most of his other regular teachers had stopped by to see him, whether it was to congratulate him or offer their condolences and wish him a speedy recovery, they had all stopped by the hospital room. Not Aizawa, though.

At first, Izuku thought it was out of anger. That the older man was angry with Izuku for not getting there on time, for dilly-dallying with Toga when Katsuki needed him most, but Monoma had let the real reason slip one day while at his bedside.

“I’m sorry,” He had whispered after sitting in sullen silence for close to fifteen minutes.

“...for?” Izuku asked, turning to face Monoma, only to find that the blonde boy was staring at a point beyond the open window. 

“For not being strong enough,” He murmured, “for not saving him. I’m sorry.”

“Oh…” 

The silence stretched on for another ten minutes. The soft metallic sounds of Monoma’s bracelet joined the rhythmic beeping of the various hospital machines Izuku was hooked up to and created an unsettling symphony. Izuku could still hear it when he was alone, the sounds of the hospital like distant, droning war drums, reminding him to stay alert. Holding him hostage and lighting a fuse in his nerves anytime he dared to calm down. 

“Don’t be angry with Aizawa sensei.” 

“Why would I be angry with him?”

“He wanted to save him too.”

Izuku had tried to see Aizawa, back when the wound was still fresh and festering; he thought maybe he could take it out on his teacher. Maybe if Aizawa was already holding all that guilt, Izuku could find a place to put his own as well. He had tried to see him again once the anger had fizzled out into a numb sadness, trying to find someone who could relate, who had seen what happened and could tell him. He had tried to find Aizawa’s home, tried to talk to Present Mic, even tried to follow his car home from the hospital one day, but none of it really worked. Three months had passed since he saw Aizawa, and it didn’t feel like he could anymore; the gulf between them had grown far too wide, dug by his guilt and Izuku’s desperation. 

“Kacchan, are you here?” Izuku asked as he walked up the stairs to where his old room was. 

“This isn’t a good idea, Izuku,” Katsuki materialised on Izuku’s left side, keeping pace with him as they climbed. “Being here all alone… You need people. It’s not good for you to be alone like this.” 

“I’m not alone,” Izuku corrected with a measured smile, the kind a parent would give to their young child who simply did not understand the enormity of the situation they were in. “I’m with you, Kacchan. This is better.”

“What if something happens to you? What if you get hurt and you need someone to help huh?” Katsuki asked, climbing up in front of him and blocking his path. “ You can’t live here alone, Izuku, you’re going to go stir crazy.”

“Kacchan, I’m not just going to sit around and waste time,” Izuku insisted and pushed past Katsuki, relishing the brush of their shoulders and the solid weight of Kacchan’s arm against his. “I have you to talk to, and I can… get started on school work or something for the next year. It’s fine. I had to come back here eventually; I’m just getting a head start.”

Katsuki sighed as he watched Izuku continue his determined trek up the stairs until he disappeared round the bend. He wasn’t sure what Izuku had planned, but he could tell it wasn’t just getting ahead of his schoolwork. Even if Izuku had figured out how to shut his thoughts and feelings off from the vestiges, they could all feel a wicked excitement building in Izuku. He was restless in a way he hadn’t been in months, basically vibrating with the effort of holding back from spilling his secrets. He followed Izuku up, counting the steps as he went, trailing his fingers along the walls and bannister. It should have been painful, being back here, knowing that he would never truly be back, knowing that the memories he had would only ever remain as memories now. 

He could almost feel the ghosts of Mina chasing him down, trying to wrestle a Christmas hat on, or Jirou dragging him into her room to practice for the festival. He could hear Sero and Kaminari scream laughing as they ran full speed into Kirishima’s room to hide from Katsuki’s rage. He could see Ochako and Tsuyu whispering aggressively as they walked together with their heads pressed close. Katsuki could smell the very pungent tea that only Shoto and Momo seemed to like. 

It should have all been beyond upsetting, tugging at his heartstrings until he unravelled completely, but all Katsuki could feel was a strange sense of calm. That nothingness that settled over his heart mixed uncomfortably with his memories to create a sadness that allowed him to do nothing more than remember. He didn’t yearn to return to those times or try and find his friends; it felt like he was simply content to let these ghosts play out their parts. Repeating scenes in his head like he was watching a TV show he really liked, revisiting and remembering, but never really missing any of it. It didn’t make sense; most things that Katsuki felt in this form didn’t make sense. 

Izuku was already unpacking his bag by the time Katsuki walked into the room. He looked around and let out a small chuckle. He had never been in this room before; they had never had the opportunity to really become friends before the war started in earnest. They were still more rivals than anything else, and going to the other's bedroom just seemed like something that couldn’t happen until they talked. Katsuki and Izuku had spent so much time training and helping each other get stronger that they never actually had the chance to speak to each other before everything went down. Katsuki never had the chance to tell Izuku that he loved him, though, thinking about it now, Katsuki wasn’t really sure if he even knew at that point. He walked over to sit on the edge of Izuku’s bed, watching as the other boy folded away t-shirts and shorts.

He had always known, on some level, he had always known that his feelings for Izuku were anything but normal. They had always been insurmountable in a way that left him reeling and confused. Back when he thought he hated Izuku, when he felt like Izuku was leaving him behind, even when they had finally found some kind of common ground, it had always been something so much bigger than Katsuki could ever put into words. Their fight at Ground Beta was the first time Katsuki really understood Izuku; it was like iron gates that had always denied him entry had swung open on creaky hinges. Soon enough, though, he discovered that Izuku was more complicated than he had ever expected the boy to be; it was an endless maze behind those gates. Twisting and turning with dead ends and traps hidden in corners, all waiting to deter Katsuki every time he pushed a little further. By the time the war had started, Katsuki had done the unthinkable and come within touching distance of the beating heart of the maze. 

But it didn’t matter. There was so much else going on, so many people to save and battles to win, neither of them had the time to untangle the mess that Izuku was caught in at the centre. 

So he kept it to himself. Katsuki chose to wait and watch and do his part in this fight; he chose to hold his tongue until they were done. He believed that they had gotten so much time already, they would surely get more. They would always be able to get more time; to speak to each other, to explain things, to ask questions. To finally, finally confess these horribly difficult and confusing feelings that refused to let him be. 

What he didn’t expect was the complete startling clarity as he walked into what he knew would be his last moments on earth. He knew when he stood up again that he would die; he knew that what he was planning would result in the end of his story, and worst of all, he finally knew that those horrible feelings? The ones that made his chest burn and ache like he had drunk soda too fast had always been love. 

Katsuki Bakugo was in love with Izuku Midoriya, and the cruellest part of it was that he only realised moments before he died. 

-

“Izuku… what are you planning?” 

“What do you mean, Kacchan?”

“You know what I mean.”

When Izuku detangled and pulled back from where he was buried in Katsuki’s chest, his eyebrows were furrowed together as though genuinely insulted by the accusation. His eyes seemed to be glowing in the dark, the viridiscent light in them reflecting off Katsuki’s own to create a ghostly kind of shine. He tilted his head up further, the column of his neck stretching far enough that the way his Adam's apple bobbed and strained was visible. “I really don’t, Kacchan,” He promised, bringing a hand that was previously wrapped around Katsuki’s waist to rest on the blonde’s chest. He couldn’t feel a heartbeat, but he ignored it. Kacchan was warm, at least he was warm, and Izuku’s hand could make contact. Small victories were still victories; he would not be selfish or greedy. This was more than anyone else he knew had, more than anyone else could even hope to get back. 

“I just…” he trailed off, chewing on his bottom lip and sitting up. He pushed off the covers and got off the bed, pacing up and down the length of his room as Katsuki watched. “I just wanted to spend time with you, Kacchan.” He said after a prolonged moment of uncomfortable silence. 

“We spend every second of every day together?” Katsuki asked.

Izuku shook his head and continued to pace, muttering under his breath, too low and too fast for Katsuki to keep up. Kacchan didn’t understand. He could talk to Izuku without anyone looking at him weird, he could reach out and touch Izuku, and it wouldn’t raise any suspicions, but it wasn’t the same for Izuku. The people around him, the ones who were always, always, watching would notice. They would whisper more than they do already if they saw Izuku talking to the empty space that always seemed to follow him around. They would mutter and gossip if Izuku wrapped his arms around shimmering air; they would try and get him committed. There were already conversations going around about sending him to therapy; his mother had brought it up, and he had overheard a phone call between her and All Might discussing whether it might be good to take him away for a few weeks. 

No. He couldn’t let them figure out what was going on with him; he wouldn’t let them figure it out. Kacchan was his now, his to see and touch and keep, and he wouldn’t let them take him away from him again. Izuku walked back over to Katsuki and sat on the bed beside him. He stared down at his open palms for a long moment, listening until Katsuki’s breathing merged into one rhythm with his own. 

“Kacchan,” Izuku began, “I can’t lose you again.” 

“Izu-”

“No, let me speak,” Izuku interjected, gathering his courage for what he was about to confess.

Katsuki bit down on his bottom lip, hard enough that he knew he would have felt pain, but stayed silent. He nodded and folded his hands in his lap, waiting to hear what Izuku had to say. 

“This thing between us. With you being a vestige, being something only I can see, something only I can touch… it makes everything more confusing. For the longest time, I’ve wanted that, I’ve wanted to be the one who understands you perfectly, the one who you go to for everything and now — I have it. But it's not because you chose it.” Izuku’s eyes flickered over to Katsuki’s folded hands. He had no clue if this was a good idea, couldn’t even begin to untangle the mess of emotions that threatened to choke him, but he knew he needed to get this out. If Kacchan was ever going to understand why he did the things he did, why he behaved in such confusing ways, he needed to know about the mess, even if he couldn’t fully comprehend it. It wasn’t like Kacchan could go anywhere; he convinced himself and took a shuddering breath. 

“I need you, Kacchan,” Izuku continued, the tip of his pinky toe pressed against Katsuki’s. “I’ve always needed you, and there was a time when I didn’t really know what that meant. I had… have all these confusing feelings, these gross feelings, and I didn’t think I could share any of them with you. I was scared that they would push you even further away, and the distance between us was already killing me.” He turned to face Katsuki now, eyebrows knotted together as he tried to explain, “It was like you had created this gaping cavern between us, but the chains that bound us together never broke. No matter how beaten up or rusted they got, they still remained clamped around our ankles, and every time you pulled away, it pulled me closer to the edge.” 

Katsuki’s own eyebrows met as his shoulders drooped. He had always known that Izuku never really let him go; hell, Katsuki had made sure that Izuku couldn’t let him go. When he could have easily ignored the other boy, left him to his devices and his hapless dreams, Katsuki chose to torment him. Katsuki made the active decision every day to keep Izuku within arm's reach because then, at least he would still be there. Even if Katsuki hadn’t known then that that’s what he was doing, he kept Izuku close enough to touch, to topple over or caress. He swallowed hard, pressing his palms together as he tried to guess where this was going. Was this some kind of reckoning? Had the hatred he so dreaded finally caught up, and was this the moment where Izuku would finally tell him that he had hurt him beyond reconciliation? 

“Now you’re here,” Izuku spoke, twisting his body entirely and lifting one leg onto the bed. “You’re here with me every day, and you understand what I’m thinking before I even say it, you listen and you joke with me, and you talk to me,” Izuku’s voice wavered, his lower lip quivering as he spoke. “You like me now.” 

Katsuki felt a sharp pain in his chest as he watched Izuku’s eyes fill up with tears. He wanted so badly to reach out, to promise that he had always liked Izuku, that he was coming to understand now that he had always loved Izuku. Katsuki wanted to wrap Izuku up in his arms and apologise again and again, wanted to kiss it away until all the pain he had caused drained out of his body, but he knew he couldn’t. He knew the most he could do was to listen, so he kept quiet. He did what Izuku asked, and he kept his hands in his lap and his lips sealed as he listened. 

“And I can’t lose you again, Kacchan,” Izuku confessed, shaking his head, “not now. Not when I finally have you.” 

“You won’t,” Katsuki promised, reaching out to cover Izuku’s larger hands with his own. He had never been very good at controlling his impulses anyway. “No matter what happens, I’m here. In whatever way I can be, Izuku, I’m here and I won’t leave. Whatever you need,” He could feel in his gut that this was wrong, that this promise was going to do more harm than good, but in that moment, he would have promised Izuku anything. If the boy he had loved since he was a child asked him to cut out his heart and place it at his feet, Katsuki would have done it. “I’m here.”

Izuku fell into Katsuki’s arms next, tears and snot running down his face in equal measure as he sobbed loudly in the blonde’s arms. It was something he would never have believed could happen, something he used to dream about when he would cry into his pillow and now here Kacchan was. Touching him, caressing him, promising him eternity, and all it took was to die. Izuku cried harder at that realisation. Knowing that Kacchan had to die for them to finally be in sync, it broke him then, and it shattered him now. 

They stayed that way for a while, long after Izuku had stopped crying. Katsuki’s hand found its way into Izuku’s hair, stroking the locks gently, carding his fingers through the stringy texture, frowning as he mourned the bouncy curls that once were. He knew Izuku needed this, that he needed support now more than anything else and with his shirt still damp from Izuku’s tears, he couldn’t bring himself to act sensibly. 

“Kacchan,” Izuku spoke softly, his words partly muffled by Katsuki’s shirt. “Kacchan, I want to bring him home.”

Katsuki’s fingers paused in Izuku’s hair, and he looked back with a curious expression on his face. “Bring who home?”

“Him.” 

They stared at each other as the sound of Izuku’s heartbeat grew louder in the loaded silence between them. Izuku waiting for Katsuki to realise what he already knew, and Katsuki waiting for Izuku to say otherwise. “You’re serious?” Katsuki asked, mercifully breaking the silence. 

“He’s alone there, Kacchan,” Izuku insisted, sitting up to face Katsuki properly. “I can’t be here with you and be happy when he’s sitting there alone and frozen. I can hear him. Every time you touch me, every time your warmth seeps into my bones, I can hear him, and I can’t leave him there.” Izuku sniffled, his words changing from insistent to pleading as wrinkles formed around his eyes and he pressed his lips together. 

Katsuki sighed. Maybe this was a trick, a needling voice in the back of his head suggested that maybe everything Izuku had said up until now was just a ploy. A way to get Katsuki on board so Izuku could get his real prize. “Alright, Izuku.” It didn’t matter, though, whether it was all manipulation or whether Izuku had spoken from the heart; none of it mattered because he already knew that he couldn’t say no. 

Not tonight. 

-

It happened at night, the macabre heist that had no chance of working if it was done by anyone other than Izuku. He still didn’t know how he pulled it off, didn’t really understand how it was possible for him to not only sneak in and out of a bustling hospital in the dead of night, with a stolen cadaver on his back no less, but he had done it. He had managed to get Kacchan out of the freezer and into one of the bags the medics used to transport dead bodies. He had tied the dead weight to his back and snuck onto the terrace, mask pulled over his face, skirting security cameras with a determination and level of skill only his specific life experiences granted him. Izuku had brought Kacchan's body back to the dorms, all the while ignoring the disappointment he could feel boring in from the vestiges, and deposited him safely in the large walk-in freezer in the kitchen. 

“Now what?” Katsuki asked, materialising beside him and staring at the perfectly preserved cadaver with undisguised unease. 

“Now…” Izuku trailed off, pushing his hands into his pockets to stop from reaching out and touching Kacchan. “I don’t know.”

“What?” Katsuki asked, whipping around to face Izuku in disbelief. “You stole a fucking DEAD BODY and brought it here without a plan?!” 

“Kacchan, don’t yell,” Izuku chided, ducking out of the way when Katsuki lunged for him. “You can’t back out now!” He exclaimed, his hands coming up to create a barrier between them. “You said you would help me, Kacchan. You promised that you would be here with me for whatever I needed, and this…” he trailed off, eyes drifting to the corpse before settling on Katsuki again. “This is what I need right now.”

Katsuki shook his head and looked between Izuku and his own dead body. It was propped up against the back wall in the empty freezer, eyes closed, and arms folded in its lap as though he was just asleep, but the pallor of its skin gave it away. The way the body was weightless and drooped entirely onto the wall, the blue in its lips and the way its hair had lost all shape and shine. Katsuki’s lips twisted into a disgusted sneer, “This is sick.”

Izuku nodded. He knew what he was doing, knew that if anyone found out, he would definitely be shipped off to some facility, but with Kacchan barely five feet away, he couldn’t find it in himself to care. So he nodded and wrung his hands in front of him, keeping his head hung low and accepted Katsuki’s judgement. As long as he had Kacchan, it was fine; Katsuki would get over it. He would understand why Izuku needed this right now, and he would help him like he promised. Izuku believed he would. He had to. 

-

Over the next two weeks, Izuku had developed some kind of schedule. Splitting his time between Kacchan and Katsuki. He would have loved to be with them both at the same time, but Katsuki refused; he couldn’t even bring himself to go down to the freezer, much less be present when Izuku was talking to the corpse like it could hear him. 

It was a special kind of torture for the vestige. Hearing everything Izuku said to the corpse, knowing that even though he was talking to Katsuki, he wasn’t talking to him. Every time Izuku cried and begged for Kacchan to come home, every time he laid his head in Kacchan’s cold lap or held his hand, Katsuki could feel it. He could hear the desperation and the all-encompassing need that kept Izuku from seeing how twisted what he was doing really was, and he couldn’t do a thing about it. Katsuki roamed around the dorms when Izuku was down there. Going back to the vestige realm was difficult in a different way, with the expectant looks Kudo and Yoichi would give him, their questions and demands for him to do something. They didn’t understand that if Katsuki truly put his foot down and gave Izuku any kind of ultimatum, he might truly lose Izuku entirely. They didn’t understand that Katsuki was afraid Izuku would choose the corpse over him. 

So he roamed around the familiar hallways, going into his friends' empty rooms to lie on their beds and sit at their windows. One time, while seated at Jirou’s windowsill and staring out at the trees shedding their leaves, he realised that he was finally coming into his role as a ghost. He had laughed and then sniffled, wiping his eyes on his sleeve. 

Katsuki didn’t want to be a ghost. He didn’t want to haunt the places that once held his childhood; he didn’t want to be stuck in this body, in this place, forever as everything changed and grew around him. He cycled through his memories as he familiarised himself with each route through the dorms once again. Feeling that now familiar ache of nostalgia in his muscles with every pass of his friend's rooms and stop on the terrace. He missed them; he knew that he missed them. It had just become difficult to feel the sadness that came with it in this state. Everything felt like air now. Like a wistful sigh was the most he could conjure despite knowing that he should be beyond melancholic. 

“Kacchan will come around,” Izuku’s voice echoed in his head when Katsuki let his guard down for a moment. He felt a sharp stabbing pain in his chest as anger, fear, and despair mingled. Not everything , Katsuki scoffed to himself and rubbed his chest as though trying to get rid of heartburn. After Izuku brought the body back, that lightness that came with his emotions turned into a crushing, piercing weight that threatened to shatter him if he did not give in. But only when it was about Izuku, he was the only one who affected him this way, and Katsuki couldn’t decide whether it was because of the OFA connection or just because it was Izuku. It was like Izuku’s will was battling with his, trying to beat his resistance and suspicion into submission, and it was getting harder to withstand with each passing day. 

“He doesn’t get it just yet,” Izuku promised the cadaver sitting in front of him, “It’s difficult. You can’t blame him for not understanding why I need you here. Why he needs you here, too. He doesn’t get that for us to be together, you need to be a part of it. The body and the soul, it’s all connected,” Izuku rambled, tripping over his own words as he spoke a mile a minute, trying to convince Kacchan that this was all in everyone's best interest. 

He needed it to be. Izuku needed to believe with full certainty that what he was doing was good, that he hadn’t lost his mind entirely, that this was helping. “Kacchan, aren’t you cold?” Izuku asked, rubbing his own mittened hands and tightening the jacket around his shoulders. The freezer was perfect to keep Kacchan from rotting, but it was wreaking havoc on Izuku’s immune system. He had already caught a cold once, and his nose was now constantly runny, but that didn’t stop him from going in there every day. For a few hours every day, he would go down to the freezer, bundled up in his winter coat and mittens and sit down opposite Kacchan, and they would talk. Well, Izuku would talk, and in his head, he would hear Kacchan respond but Izuku knew it wasn’t real. He hadn’t gone that far off the deep end yet. He knew that if he wanted to have a real conversation with Kacchan, he needed to leave the freezer and go find the vestige. Katsuki would reply to him, he would tease and prod and hold him at night. The cadaver couldn’t do that, no matter how much Izuku might have wanted it to. 

“Come on, I’ll warm you up,” Izuku muttered, shuffling over to Kacchan on his knees. He took off his scarf and wrapped it around Kacchan’s neck, carefully manoeuvring his head to twist the All Might themed garment around and tucking it in at the ends so it would stay. Once he was done, Izuku sat back on his haunches, a small smile playing on his lips at the sight of Kacchan asleep in his scarf. He giggled softly and reached out, taking Kacchan’s hands in his and rubbing warmth into them. Just cause they had to hang out in this freezer doesn’t mean they had to be cold! “Don’t worry, Kacchan, I’ll take care of you. Just trust me,” He muttered, squeezing Kacchan’s hand carefully as he blew on them between rubs. 

An uncomfortable thought that had been plaguing Katsuki’s mind over the last week had taken root and refused to be ignored. He wondered if the real reason behind Izuku being able to touch Katsuki was that he believed he could. Katsuki thought back to what Yoichi had told him about OFA being a living entity. The quirk was intimately tied to Izuku’s emotions, his sense of hope, his guilt, and his grief. Whatever he felt, OFA would multiply by a hundred and react accordingly. Katsuki had seen the manifestation of this with how Blackwhip reacted when he was hurt, the video footage of OFA going berserk after Katsuki died was further evidence, and now… well, now Katsuki couldn’t help but wonder if the vestige world worked in the same way. The more hope Izuku had, the more he believed that things would be okay and he would be okay, the easier it was to touch Katsuki in his vestige form. Like a reward almost, as though OFA was dangling Katsuki in front of Izuku and telling him to make the right choices, to follow the path of hope and get the prize he wants. 

He shuddered at the thought, the idea of being something that was just an annexe to Izuku, something to be used as bait or a reward rather than a whole person, disgusted him to his core. He lifted his hand, moving it back and forth slowly and watching the golden mist shrouding it move as well. Katsuki sighed and lay back on Kaminari’s bed. Maybe he wasn’t a whole person anymore. His body was two floors down, stuck in a meat freezer, and he was — Katsuki wasn’t even sure what he was anymore. A soul? A manifestation of Izuku’s desires? The humanisation of disjointed memories and feelings? None of it felt like being a person.

Katsuki didn’t really feel much like a person anymore, either. Not in the way he remembered. 

This line of thinking was more often than not followed up with worries about the state of OFA itself. With every passing day, he could feel the quirk weakening inside Izuku. He had used up most of it to win the final fight, and whatever was left was holding on by a thread. Katsuki wondered if Izuku’s faith and hope had something to do with it in this situation as well. He wondered whether Izuku’s emotional state determined how strong OFA was. If he were, for example, feeling hopeless about the state of things and did not believe in himself or in his power, it would flicker and die, but if he chose to hold on. To believe that he will heal and things will get better one day, believe that Katsuki would stay regardless of what he did. If he accepted Katsuki’s death and tried to heal from it, would OFA be stronger? Would it allow Katsuki’s vestige to be stronger?

He sat up and looked at the wall clock opposite the bed. It was coming up on two hours, and he needed to get Izuku out of the freezer before he actually froze to death in there. He pushed the confusing thoughts about the nature of this quirk that only seemed to increase in complexity the more he got to know it, to the back of his head and focused on what he could do. Katsuki wondered idly as he walked whether Izuku would join him in the vestige plane if he died. What would happen to all the vestiges if the user died without passing it on? Would they remain in that liminal space, or would they ascend on toward whatever was next? He shook his head; there was no point in these musings. Whether they stayed as vestiges in OFA or moved on to some type of afterlife, or they just returned to the dirt, it was all uncertain, and Katsuki didn’t like that. He didn’t like the uncertainty of whether or not he could be beside Izuku. 

“I know it’s really cold,” Katsuki heard Izuku’s voice in his head as he got closer to the freezer. It was propped open with a brick they had found outside, even though Izuku had wanted to close the door to ensure complete privacy. Obviously, Katsuki did not agree, and he had kicked up a huge stink about it, demanding that he was being unreasonable and Katsuki was putting up with so much of Izuku’s shit, the least he could do was listen to him about this one thing! Izuku had agreed, albeit grudgingly, and thus the brick and the small gust of cold air coming out from the crack. 

Katsuki knocked on the door. He felt stupid every time he did it, but it was an uncomfortable sight. Seeing Izuku in such an intimate moment with a dead body, with his dead body, made Katsuki’s skin crawl. He understood, or at least tried to, why Izuku needed this and that he was just dealing with his grief, but Katsuki did not like seeing it. There was something almost voyeuristic in the act, and he just wasn’t sure he could keep his mouth shut if he was forced to see them in that intimate, private atmosphere. When no reply came, Katsuki knocked once more. Had Izuku fallen asleep? His heart raced at the thought. Logically, he knew that if Izuku was truly in any danger of dying, OFA would alert him, but the sheer terror of losing Izuku overturned any rational thought, and he pulled the heavy door open. 

Katsuki Bakugo is not and has never been someone who’s easily spooked; he had a strong stomach and was braver than most people. He could handle a lot of fucked up shit. What he couldn’t handle, however, was the sight of his best friend, the boy he was now sure he was in love with, kissing a corpse. 

“IZUKU!” Katsuki yelled, rushing into the freezer and pulling Izuku back. He threw him off the body with a roar before whirling around on him, nostrils flared and eyes blown wide. “WHAT THE. FUCK. DO YOU THINK YOU’RE DOING?!” He demanded, clenching his fists so hard his knuckles would have turned white. 

“Kacchan I—I wasn’t, it’s not…” he trailed off, his hands turned upwards helplessly. 

Katsuki snarled at the pathetic response, stalking forward and crouching in front of the other boy. He grabbed Izuky by the collar and pulled him up until they were face-to-face. “What the fuck is wrong with you?” He demanded, shaking Izuku as though trying to force sense into him. “This isn’t okay, Izuku, you can’t fucking do this.” Katsuki stood up and lifted Izuku with him, throwing him over his shoulder and carrying him out, silently nervous about how much weight Izuku had lost over the past months. 

Katsuki ignored Izuku’s protests and the wetness seeping into the back of his shirt. He kicked the freezer door shut, leaving the cadaver behind, still wrapped in Izuku’s scarf and a phantom print of Izuku’s lips against its own icy blue ones. Katsuki walked straight to the living room, depositing the other boy roughly onto the couch and looming above, hands on his hips as he glared down at him. 

“Kacchan, please just let me-”

“No!” Katsuki hissed, cutting him off, “What the fuck do you think you’re doing? Do you even realise how fucking sick this is?” Katsuki had begun to pace now, walking the length of the sofa, his hands clasped together to stop them from shaking. It didn't work, and Katsuki wasn’t sure if they were shaking out of fear or anger. All he knew was that he was confused. He was angry, he was disgusted, he was so fucking terrified. The image had burned itself into his mind, the sight of Izuku leaning over Katsuki’s body; his hands bracketing either side of the body's hips, his face covering the cold, ashen face as he leaned closer. Katsuki shivered at the memory, picturing the moment when Izuku’s lips would have pressed against lifeless ones. Katsuki turned around, ready to give Izuku another verbal lashing, only to come to a skidding halt at the sight of him. 

Izuku had folded his knees up to his chest and buried his face inside; his entire frame shook, and Katsuki realised that he was trying to cry quietly. The anger drained out of him almost as quickly as it took over, and he sighed, running a hand through his hair. “Hey, I’m sorry,” Katsuki said, his voice gentler now as he walked over and sat down beside him. “Izuku…” He trailed off, unsure what he could even say. 

It was wrong. Plain and simple, what Izuku had done was wrong, and Katsuki couldn’t enable him further; he knew he had to shut this down. Knew that he should set an ultimatum, make it clear that he didn’t agree with this, but looking at him now, it was nearly impossible to do. He sighed again, resting his elbows on his knees and pressing the pads of his palms to his eyes. Katsuki was still scared. The intensity of Izuku’s reaction had only served to further his fears that if he asked Izuku to choose, he would pick the corpse. So instead, he took a deep breath and closed his fists as tight as he could, “Tell me why.”

The speed with which Izuku’s head snapped up sent Katsuki careening backwards before he steadied himself against the armrest of the couch. “Re-ally?” Izuku asked through a tearful hiccup. 

“Yeah,” Katsuki sighed, running his hand through his hair again. It was beyond obvious that he was nervous, from the way his foot kept bouncing to the dishevelled mess he had made of his hair. Katsuki had no idea what he was getting into by agreeing to this; he couldn’t even begin to understand what could have possessed Izuku to do something like that. “Fuck, Izuku, just… explain yourself,” but he wanted to, and that had to count for something. 

“I-I don't know Kacchan,” Izuku muttered, staring down at his knees once more as he tried to form the words. “I was… I was fixing his scarf cause, cause he looked so cold, and I didn’t want him to be uncomfortable. I just wanted him to feel good, you know? I wanted him to feel okay and be comfortable here with me, so I wanted him to be warm and I wanted… I don't know, I wanted him to be okay and he was so close and,” Izuku was breathing rapidly by that point, his chest heaving as he tried to speak through the swirling mess of emotions choking him from the inside out. “He was there and I was there and I was fixing his scarf and I-I just… he looked like he wanted me to and I don't- Kacchan, I don't know,” Izuku’s voice broke as tears streamed down his face. He buried his face between his knees once more, his frame shaking violently. 

His cries echoed in the silent room, bouncing off the furniture and lodging in Katsuki’s chest in a way that was all too familiar. He moved closer, carefully, like approaching a wounded animal and slowly wrapped an arm around Izuku’s shoulder. He didn’t know what he could possibly say, didn’t know how to comfort Izuku without implying that he was okay with what he had done. But he also couldn’t just sit there; he had watched from the outside for so long as Izuku struggled on his own, and he couldn’t bear to do it any longer.

“It’s okay,” He murmured, trying to make his words sound as believable as he possibly could. “I understand, Izuku, I really do.” When Izuku’s cries only got louder and he curled into himself further, Katsuki cursed under his breath and slid off the couch to kneel in front of him. “Izuku, please just look at me.” He begged, gripping the other boys calves as tight as he could. “I promise I’m not mad at you, I just… I was shocked and a little scared. Just help me understand, okay? I’m here for you.” 

Izuku warily lifted his head, peeking out at Katsuki like he expected it to be a trick, “You understand?”

“I do,” Katsuki grit out, his fingers digging into the flesh on Izuku’s calves as he tried to deliver the lie. To make him believe that even if he didn’t agree, he understood.

“So you’ll come with me then! You’ll come to see him?” The hope blooming on Izuku’s face was a stark contradiction to the horror on Katsukis. Izuku's hands flew to cup Katsuki’s jaw, his eyebrows raised and eyes shining as though Katsuki was finally coming around. Like, he finally saw what Izuku saw. 

“Fuck! Izuku no!” Katsuki exclaimed, shoving Izuku off and standing up again. “That's not the answer. I understand why you did it, but you can’t keep going back there. I can’t let you go back there.”  

“I…” Izuku trailed off, hope twisting into confusion and then anger as he stood up as well, “I thought you understood?” He asked, pushing forward until they were toe to toe.

Katsuki took a step back, suddenly unsure if what he was doing was right. The look in Izuku’s eye, the barely leashed anger that made the corners of his eyes glow a sickly green. All of it served to frighten Katsuki, an emotion he never expected to feel around Izuku. “I do, but that doesn’t mean I approve of it. You can’t go back to see it-”

“Don't call him that!” Izuku cut him off, his fists clenching at his sides as he tried to stop from flat-out snarling at Katsuki.

“What?” 

“Don’t call Kacchan an it,” Izuku growled, baring his teeth like a wild animal would.

“Izuku… that’s not — he’s not me.” Katsuki tried again, his voice gentling the way one would when trying to convince a child to put a toy back. “He’s just a body, a dead body. He’s flesh and bone, and the only reason you can even stand to be around it is because you’ve stuffed it in a freezer.” It didn’t last long however; despite Katsuki’s best efforts to be gentle and coaxing, the insanity of the situation was more than he could handle. He could see the way Izuku’s fists were clenched and shaking in his periphery; he could feel the aggression coming off him in waves. Katsuki’s own frustrations at his pathetic situation mixed in an ugly way with his fear for and of Izuku. “It’s just meat now, Izuku, you’re clinging on to fucking meat!”

The next thing Katsuki knew was a stinging pain in his face as he stumbled back. He reached up to cup his nose, surprised that he wasn’t bleeding, then grateful that he couldn’t. He looked up at Izuku with wide, shocked eyes, unable to reconcile what had just happened with the boy he knew and loved. 

“Don’t fucking insult Kacchan,” Izuku growled, cradling his fist close to his chest as he stared Katsuki down as though daring him to do it again.

“Izuku I’M KACCHAN!” Katsuki insisted, fear growing at the wild look in Izuku's eyes. He stormed forward and grabbed Izuku by the collar, bringing him close. “He’s fucking meat, he’s not your Kacchan. He can’t give you what you want!”

Izuku shoved him off with a grunt, “THEN WHO WILL?!” he yelled. “Will you?! You don't even have a body without him! He’s REAL.”

Katsuki blanched at his claim before shock quickly gave way to anger. His fist connected with Izuku’s face this time, the crunch and subsequent blood leaking from Izuku’s nose making something perverse curl in his stomach. 

He didn’t stop to apologise this time. 

He shoved Izuku back, advancing on him with clenched fists, “Does that feel fucking real to you, asshole?!” he demanded, pushing him again, “You little freak, you’d rather kiss cadavers than deal with the feelings you have for me, right?” he tried to shove him again, but this time, Izuku caught his wrists and pulled him forward. He headbutted Katsuki hard enough that when he let go, Katsuki stumbled back. 

“You don’t understand,” Izuku spat, closing the distance once more. “You’ve never fucking understood what I felt, what I feel. You don’t feel anything for anyone, so how could you right? At least he doesn’t HURT ME.” Izuku knew that was a low blow. He knew that he was using Katsuki’s guilt against him, but he couldn’t seem to stop. When Katsuki didn’t say anything in response, Izuku turned away, running a hand through his hair as he tried to control his breathing. 

“You piece of shit,” Katsuki muttered through clenched teeth. Before Izuku could react, they were both falling to the ground. 

Katsuki had tackled him from behind. Izuku flailed as he hit the ground, twisting his body just in time to turn onto his back. He tried to grab Katsuki by the waist to flip him off, but Katsuki kept a tight hold of Izuku. A sense of deja vu hit them both as Katsuki pinned both of Izuku’s wrists to the side of his head and held his legs down with his knees.

 Izuku fought back, of course, he tried to dislodge Katsuki, to free himself by jerking his hips around and pulling at his trapped wrists. “GET OFF ME, KACCHAN!” He yelled, snarling and trying to bite Katsuki.

“SHUT UP!” Katsuki yelled back, pulling his head back from Izuku’s gnashing teeth. “STOP IT!” He yelled again and lifted Izuku’s wrists only to slam them back onto the ground. 

It went on that way for a while longer, Izuku thrashing around with no rhyme or reason, entirely focused on trying to get Katsuki off him. Finally, by the time Izuku stopped trying to bite Katsuki and let his head fall back onto the floor, they were both panting heavily, chests heaving and breathing ragged. Katsuki kept him pinned. 

“You’re so cruel, Kacchan,” Izuku said softly, turning his head to the side. Refusing to meet Katsuki’s eyes. 

“That's rich coming from you.” Katsuki scoffed, loosening his grip on Izuku’s wrists ever so slightly.

“How am I cruel?”

“You’re the one picking a cadaver over me,” Katsuki pointed out with a bitter laugh as though it was the most obvious thing in the world. When Izuku opened his mouth to argue, Katsuki cut him off, “You are Izuku. As much as you want it to be anything else, what’s in the freezer is a dead body. It’s a corpse, and it's cruel that you would rather be with something that can’t hear you or speak back to you than be with me.” Katsuki’s voice took on a desperate kind of tilt as he sat upright. 

“I…”

“Why? Seriously, this time. Just tell me why you keep choosing him over me?” 

Katsuki thinks he could drown in the silence that followed. His heart bends and aches at the distress reflected in Izuku’s eyes, and he knew that what he saw was just a mirror image of what he felt himself.

“He doesn’t scare me…” Izuku confessed at last, his voice so much quieter than Katsuki thought it could be any longer.

“And I do?” 

“You’ve always scared me, Kacchan.”

There was a moment between Izuku’s words and Katsuki’s response when every bad thing he’s ever done flashed through his mind. A film reel of every harsh word and painful touch he’s inflicted, every fearful look, every flinch and grimace. It played through his head like it was projected onto the inside of his eyelids, and suddenly, guilt became the only thing Katsuki could feel. “Oh,” He moved to get off him, but Izuku grabbed him this time, pulling him back so Katsuki was straddling him properly. “What are you-”

“Because I don’t know how you’ll respond,” Izuku clarified, his hands shaking where they held Katsuki’s wrists. “I don’t know what you’ll say, and I can’t — I can’t risk you hating me again.”

Katsuki was grateful he couldn’t blush in this form because he’s sure he would have, “I wouldn’t do that.”

“Yeah?”

“Never again, Izuku.”

“Even if… even if I asked you to kiss me?”

It was silent again. The grandfather clock that sat nestled in the corner didn’t work anymore, and the weight of undeclared feelings pressed down on both of them like anvils.

“N-never mind!” Izuku spoke in a rush, letting go of Katsuki’s wrists and trying to slip out of the awkward position, only to find himself held in place by warm hands on his face. He opened his mouth to speak again, to question what Katsuki was doing, but no words came out. They lodged in his throat, stuck when faced by the look in Katsuki’s eyes. 

“You want me to?” Katsuki asked, his eyebrows furrowed and lip trembling as though he was going to cry.

Izuku tried to speak again, to express how desperately he wanted that. How he’s wanted that for as long as he could remember, but found himself only able to nod, to reach up and tangle his hands in Katsuki’s shirt, tugging pathetically. To his relief, Katsuki obliged and closed the distance. 

It started slow, a soft brush of Katsuki’s lips against Izuku’s. His fingers moved down from where they cupped Izuku’s face to meet at the nape of his neck, tangling in the short hairs he found there. Izuku’s hands moved as if with a mind of their own to wrap around Katsuki’s waist, pulling him closer with such urgency, it made the blonde yelp into his mouth. Izuku let out a small laugh as the tears that had been pooling spilt down his face and trailed into the crevice between their lips. Katsuki groaned, low and deep in his throat at the salty taste, his fingers tightening their grip on Izuku's hair, using it to tilt his head back and deepen the kiss. Izuku parted his lips readily, silently begging Katsuki to slip his tongue inside, and of course, Katsuki obliged without further provocation. 

Once they started, it didn’t seem like they could stop. Years spent repressing their affection, their anger, the guilt and longing. All of it crashed down on them from all sides, sweeping them up in a storm of emotion that had them clawing at each other's clothes. They were on their knees soon enough, pressed so close together it felt like they were merging into one being. Izuku’s t-shirt was the first to come off, thrown to the side haphazardly as he popped buttons off Katsuki’s, tearing some in his rush. There was a quiet desperation that grew in volume, both of mass and sound, until it was like a cacophony only they could hear. Until it felt like hands, bigger than their bodies, were pressing them together from both sides, forcing them to confront their history, forcing them to feel what they’ve kept suppressed for too long. 

“Kacchan,” Izuku whimpered when Katsuki’s mouth moved away from his lips and began to trail kisses down his jaw and neck, down to where his collarbone began. His hands flew to tangle in Katsuki’s hair, tugging harshly as the warmth of his tongue met Izuku’s skin. Izuku felt like his legs had turned to jelly, as though he could melt into the other's hands and it wouldn’t matter because he would be safe. Because he would always be safe in Kacchans' hands. 

Katsuki surfaced soon enough, unable and unwilling to be away from Izuku’s lips for longer than a minute. He nipped at Izuku’s bottom lip, smiling at the way Izuku returned the bite with twice the force. It would always be this way with them, he thought to himself as he slipped his leg between Izuku’s and pushed his thigh up against the other boy's groin. The breathy gasp that escaped Izuku had Katsuki’s head spinning, and when Izuku followed up by pulling away from his mouth, Katsuki chased after his lips. The infuriating smirk that graced Izuku’s lips dragged a growl out of Katsuki, and he ground his thigh against Izuku harder, pride filling his chest at the way Izuku buckled. 

“Shitty nerd,” Katsuki whispered, gasping when Izuku pulled him flush against his body again. Izuku’s lips found their way to the column of Katsuki’s neck, biting and licking with the kind of single-minded focus Katsuki knew could come only from him. It was like they were fighting, trading blow for blow, trying to get the other to submit without ever wanting it to end, and it set Katsuki’s skin on fire. The knowledge that the way they fought translated into how they would fuck was intoxicating, and it made Katsuki dizzy. 

“Kacchan, you’re so pretty,” Izuku muttered against Katsuki’s neck, his hands trailing down the other's chest, tracing the lines of muscle he had admired from afar for so long. Izuku’s hands stopped at the bottom of Katsuki’s chest, his thumbs rubbing circles around his nipples. Katsuki’s leg faltered, a whine escaping his lips as his nails dug into the skin on Izuku’s shoulders.

“F-fuck Izuku,” He whimpered, trying to regain control, trying to keep himself steady even as Izuku applied blinding pressure against his sensitive peaks. 

“What is it, Kacchan?” Izuku asked, tilting his head up to look at Katsuki with that know-it-all smile that made Katsuki’s blood boil. 

“Asshole,” Katsuki cursed, using all his willpower to grab Izuku by the back of the head and bring him back up. He crashed his mouth against Izuku’s, one hand tangling in his hair and the other curling around his neck as he kissed him with the urgency of a drowning man trying to resurface for air. 

Izuku kissed him back happily, large hands spanning the width of Katsuki’s ribcage as he savoured the taste of his Kacchan in his mouth. He sucked hard on Katsuki’s tongue, moaning softly at the steady pressure of Kacchan’s thigh against his twitching cock. He needed him, needed Kacchan so desperately he felt the ache in every bone in his body. His nerves were drawn so tight he felt like he could snap in half if he didn’t get to taste Kacchan soon. Feel his essence on his tongue, merge with him in every way that counted. He bit down on Kacchan’s lips, giggling at the yelp that left Kacchan’s mouth. 

Izuku wanted it; he wanted to taste Kacchan, wanted to feel the wetness of his blood, his saliva, his cum, whatever Kacchan deigned to give him. He knew he did not deserve it, knew that Kacchan could string him on like this forever, and Izuku would follow with his eyes closed and hands outstretched until the day he died, but that didn’t stop him from trying. It didn’t stop him from sinking sharp teeth into the pillowy softness of Kacchan’s bottom lip until it broke skin. He felt alive in a way he didn’t know he could feel again. The light in his eyes that had died that day when Kacchan did, blazed behind closed eyelids, and Izuku pressed harder. He pressed his palm against Kacchan’s chest, above where his heart should be, chasing the beat he craved to hear. Needing to replace the sound of hospital machines and jangling bracelets that haunted him these days with Kacchan’s moans, with the resounding beating of Kacchan’s heart, but it never came. 

Izuku’s eyes fluttered open at the realisation that he couldn’t feel Kacchan’s heartbeat. He strained his ears, silencing the sounds of his own pleasure and drinking down Kacchans as he tried to hear the faint beating, but all he could hear was his own. The beating got progressively louder, more urgent and distressed as he realised that he couldn’t really taste anything either. That the warmth of Kacchan’s lips pressed against his was just that. It was warm and it was wet, but there was nothing else there. He bit down harder, determined to draw blood, determined to find some evidence of life, but the coppery taste he was chasing remained stubbornly absent. Despite himself, Izuku cried out, anguish suffocating the lust that had built up in his veins.

“W-what?” Katsuki asked, his voice somewhere between a gasp and a moan, when Izuku suddenly pulled back and buried his face in the crook of his neck. “Izuku, what’s wrong?” Katsuki tried to lift Izuku’s head, his leg stilling the persistent rhythm it had found as he cupped what he could of Izuku’s jaw. 

Mere moments after the question left his lips, Katsuki felt a wetness against the skin of his shoulder, and he knew immediately that Izuku was crying. Alarm bells went off in Katsuki’s head as he cycled through every worst-case scenario he possibly could. Had he gone too far? Gotten careless and disregarded Izuku’s needs in his desperation for him? Had he hurt him? Was Izuku not ready to do this? His phantom heart thundered in his chest, resounding inside his head with a rhythm only he could hear as Izuku’s cries got louder and his fingernails dug into Katsuki’s chest as though he was trying to draw blood. 

“Izuku,” Katsuki called again, trying to pry him off, “Izuku, look at me! What’s wrong?! Did I do something?” His voice was thready and panicked now, fear and guilt surfacing like old friends and looming over him. Feeding him insecurities he carried around like the devil on his shoulder. “Izuku, please,” He begged, his own words cracking on a tearful plea. 

But Izuku did not answer; he merely sank until he was crouched on his haunches, his clenched fists pressed tight against his chest as he cried harder. Katsuki followed him down, trying to calm himself enough to speak, to be there for Izuku. He couldn’t fall apart now, couldn’t start splitting at the seams when Izuku clearly needed him to be strong. Katsuki mirrored Izuku’s position, crouching as low as he could and ducking his head as he tried to catch Izuku’s eyes. To at least get him to look at him. 

“You’re dead,” Izuku croaked out, his cries coming harder at the admission. “Kacchan’s dead, he’s not here. You’re not alive.” He sobbed, banging his hands against his chest as though trying to get the damned thing to stop. “None of this is real, you’re not real. You’re not real, he’s not here. You’re not him.” 

The words find their mark in Katsuki’s chest; it doesn’t matter that there is no beating heart present within his ribcage because he can feel the stabbing pain that shoots through. “Izuku, I am,” Katsuki insisted, reaching out and grabbing the crying boy's hands, pulling them away, trying to get him to stop harming himself. “I am here, I’m sitting with you. You can touch me, you can feel me,” Katsuki cried as he pulled harder, forcing Izuku to look at him. 

Izuku fought against Katsuki’s touch, struggling in his arms as he tried to break free. “You’re not real,” He whimpered, his voice barely audible above his tears as he tried to wrench himself free from the ghost that hung around his neck like metal chains. “He’s gone,” Izuku sobbed, “he’s gone and he’s never coming back. YOU’RE NOT HIM!” He screamed, finally looking up and pushing Katsuki away with every bit of strength he had left. 

Izuku curled up on the ground, pulling his knees to his chest and wrapping his arms around himself as his tears soiled the carpet below. This was reality, he thought bitterly to himself, Kacchan was dead. Kacchan was dead because of him, and he would never come back. Izuku would never be able to kiss Kacchan; he would never be able to feel his heartbeat under his palm or feel the blood that pumped under his skin. Izuku would never be able to share crepes with Kacchan or have sex with Kacchan; he would never be able to build a life with Kacchan, and it tore at him from the very structure of his being. 

He felt like he was unravelling from the centre of himself, like everything that conspired to create him was crumbling under the weight of his sorrow. It was a contradictory kind of pain, something that made no sense but existed despite it, like he was being flattened and pulled apart at the same time. It ripped through worse than when he was learning to use OFA, worse than when he had to fight Muscular with every bone in his arms broken, worse than when those same arms were ripped from his body. 

Izuku wailed, unintelligible curses and wishes echoing in the room that just moments before had been populated with the sounds of desperate passion. “Come back, Kacchan,” Izuku begged, his voice a pathetic rendition of what it used to be, “Please, god, please I’ll do anything, Kacchan, just come back. I can’t do this without you, I don’t know how to, so please. Please just come back to me, okay? I need you here, I need you to see me again, please Kacchan please come back, I can’t-” His words broke off as he felt arms wrap around him and he realised the vestige had lain down behind him. 

Izuku struggled weakly, not wanting to settle for this fallacy, this fake prophet who sought to confuse him, but there was no fight left. When the vestige tightened its hold around Izuku and turned him around to tuck him into its chest, Izuku could do nothing but lie limp like a doll. His limbs were heavy, weighed down like they were filled with lead, but he managed to tuck his hands between his thighs, refusing to touch the vestige. 

It wasn’t him. When the warmth of the hands wrapped around him faltered for barely a second, Izuku cried harder. It would never be him. 

You could always eat him. 

Chapter Text

“He’s down there again, it’s three times a day now, and I don’t know what I’m supposed to do to help him,” Katsuki had taken to talking to the walls of Jirou’s bedroom. When Izuku bundled up and disappeared into the freezer, Katsuki would walk upstairs and sit on Jirou’s bed or lie on her floor and talk aloud to the walls. It was the closest he could get to speaking to her again. 

It wasn’t lost on him that he was essentially doing the same thing Izuku was. Talking to a ghost that couldn’t respond, reaffirming his own thoughts and beliefs and pretending it was another doing it for him. At least he wasn’t talking to a dead body, he thought as he bounced a rubber band ball he had lifted from Sero’s room off the wall opposite him. Katsuki wasn’t the one who had broken into a hospital and stolen a body out of the morgue; he wasn’t the one who had then stashed that body in a meat freezer and spent hours upon hours talking to it. Katsuki wasn’t the one who had kissed a cadaver. He felt a shiver go up his spine at the memory. 

It had been a week since the incident. Since Izuku had done the unthinkable and kissed Katsuki’s dead body, since they had gotten into a fight which led to them kissing for the first time. Katsuki felt dizzy as he remembered the feeling of Izuku’s hands on him, warm and alive as they grabbed him by the waist and tangled in his hair. It had been exhilarating. Being close with Izuku like that was something he didn’t even think was possible until it happened, and now he couldn’t stop yearning for it. 

Every night when they would lay down to sleep in each other's arms, Katsuki’s head on Izuku’s chest sometimes, Katsuki spooning Izuku from behind other times. More often than not, they would lie together in a tangle of limbs, their breath mixing in the minute space between them. Whatever the position, Katsuki watched Izuku sleep every single night, tracing the lines of his face, kissing away the tension that wrinkled his forehead even as he lay unconscious. 

It was his favourite time. Izuku’s dreams did not intrude on Katsuki’s mind the way his thoughts did, and he did not speak of the cadaver. Katsuki could just pretend they were two boys in love in those moments. Just hold the one who held his heart and watch as he slept. If it were up to Katsuki, he would keep Izuku locked up in that state with him forever. Calm, peaceful, safe in his arms and away from the horror that leaked further out of the freezer doors with every passing day. Because that is what it was. No matter how much Izuku wanted it to be something romantic, what was really happening was a horror movie. Katsuki was trapped in this scene, he would have run from or at least fought against in any other situation, but the love he felt for the boy he held in his arms kept him stuck. 

Katsuki sighed and threw the ball at the wall again, reaching up above his head to catch it in one hand. “He cries every time we kiss,” he continued, “it feels like shit, Ears. He’ll kiss me, push me down on the bed, even slip his hands under my shirt, but every single time, there’ll be a moment when he realises that I’m not alive and he’ll start crying again. And it’s not like I don’t get it,” he sighed, letting his head drop back onto the sofa and stared up at the glowing stars he had helped put on her ceiling. “I know it’s hurting him, but it’s hurting me too. When he talks to me like I’m not real, like I’m a ghost, and then run off to the freezer. I know it’s crazy to think, but I really do think he prefers that fucking thing over me.” Katsuki groaned aloud, pulling his knees up to his chest and pressing his palms against his forehead. “I’m not jealous of my dead body.” 

Katsuki could hear her in his head; he could see the way Jirou would roll her eyes and feel the weight of her impractically heavy boots as she kicked him in the shin. He heard the way she drawled while leaning back on her hands and told him that he was being fucking insane. That if he wanted to deal with this, then he needed to accept that he was, in fact, jealous of his dead body. That he wanted Izuku to prioritise him, wanted Izuku to kiss him without crying, without wishing for more.

“Ugghhh,” He groaned again, throwing the ball too hard against the wall. 

“He’s mad at me,” Izuku said, leaning his head on the body's shoulder. Kacchan was dressed perfectly for wintertime now with a nice thick coat and a scarf. Izuku had even gotten him mittens when he went home last week. He went when he knew his mother wouldn’t be there; he didn’t need to add her probing questions on top of Katsuki’s. One worrying tail was enough. “He doesn’t like that I’m down here so often, but I don’t understand why he doesn’t just come with me.” 

“He’s probably just getting used to it still,” Kacchan spoke in Izuku’s head, “he’s not like you. He doesn’t love me the way you do, so he can’t look past his morals. He’ll come around, Deku, don’t worry.”

Izuku sighed and reached over to hold Kacchan’s mittened hand in his own, “You know he’s talking to Jirou?”

“Huh?” Kacchan asked in response. Izuku could almost see the way his eyebrows furrow in confusion if he focused hard enough.

“I don’t know,” Izuku shrugged, “I guess they were friends. I didn’t know you even really knew her, to be honest.” Izuku sat up and looked at Kacchan, smiling when he saw that he was already looking at him. Eyes open, red irises looking back at him, and his lips turned upward in a grin. “How come you made so many friends at UA?” 

“They’re not really my friends,” Kacchan replied, smiling at Izuku and kissing the back of his hand. “Not like you are Deku.”

Before Izuku could respond, a knock on the door of the freezer pulled his focus away, and when he looked back, Kacchan was gone. His eyes were closed again, his lips blue and frozen. 

Dead again.

Izuku swallowed the lump in his throat and let go of Kacchan’s hand, pressing a kiss to the ice-cold skin of his forehead and stood up. He forced himself to move, one foot in front of the other, until he reached the door. 

“Izuku, you need to eat something.” Katsuki’s voice came in through the open crack, and Izuku swallowed hard again, pushing the door open and stepping out into the warm kitchen. He smiled at Katsuki once the door was closed, shedding his coat and removing his gloves. “What do you feel like eating?” Izuku asked as he looked through the cupboards. 

It was a proprietary question, and they both knew it. Katsuki could neither eat nor cook in this form, but he always hung around. Lingering behind Izuku and telling him to add more vegetables or use less butter. Guiding his hand while he chopped things to get even cuts. It was romantic in a sad kind of way; both of them knew this wasn’t real. That cooking together was just another dream that had been snuffed out too early, and this was a pale imitation. 

They made the most of it, though. When Izuku was out here with Katsuki, he tried his damndest to push Kacchan out of his thoughts. To really immerse himself in the moment with the version of Katsuki he still had. 

“Stir fry?” Katsuki asked, leaning against the counter as he watched Izuku crouched in front of the fridge. “Not too hard, and you only really need a cutting board and a wok.” 

Izuku nodded and pulled out the vegetables he preferred: mushrooms, red capsicums and broccoli, and placed them on the counter. He moved around gathering the utensils he would need, all the while overtly aware of Katsuki’s presence behind him. “So… what did you talk about today?”

“Huh?” Katsuki asked, furrowing his eyebrows. 

Izuku almost cried at the sight. The sting of his nails in his palm kept him steady, “With Jirou. You know? When you hang out in her room and talk to the walls.” 

“Jesus, Izuku, stalker much?” Katsuki scoffed, though there was a pleased lilt to his tone as though he secretly enjoyed that Izuku was keeping tabs on him. Katsuki pushed off the counter and walked up to Izuku, fiddling with the rubber band ball in his hands as he went. “Nothing much,” He said, shrugging, “talked about you some, talked about the guys. About being a ghost.”

“You’re not a ghost, Kacchan,” Izuku said quietly, turning to look at him. His eyes widening slightly at the sight of the ball in Katsuki’s hands, “How are you touching that?”

“Oh, I have a theory about that,” Katsuki stated, his shoulders straightening out a little at the chance to show off. “I helped Soy Face make this. I think if it’s something that meant something to me when I was alive, I can interact with it in this form as long as I can interact with you. I can touch the dumbbells Shitty Hair left behind in his room, too.” 

“Why with me?” Izuku asked, tilting his head to the side as he watched Katsuki play with the ball. 

“You’re kind of my baseline for this world,” Katsuki told him, shrugging and placing the ball down. “Like when I can touch you, I can touch other things. No one's closer to me than you are anyway,” Katsuki realised what he had said too late to take it back.

“Aww, Kacchan, do you really mean that?” Izuku asked, his face splitting into a wide grin. He abandoned the vegetables he was going to wash to throw his arms around Katsuki’s waist instead, burying his face in the crook of his neck. “Even more than Jirou?”

Katsuki scoffed, wrapping his own arms around Izuku’s shoulders, his fingers finding their way into his hair and scratching at his scalp gently. “Yes, more than Ears, what is it with you and her anyway?”

“What do you mean, Kacchan?” 

“I mean, you keep asking about her weirdo,” Katsuki clarified, pulling back enough to look at Izuku. “You jealous or something, nerd?” He asked, a wicked smirk stretching on his lips as Izuku blushed bright red and tried to squirm out of his hold. 

“N-no! Why would I be jealous of Jirou?!” He exclaimed, though the high-pitched, squeaky nature of his voice gave away his embarrassment at being caught. “It’s just that… you guys became so close so quickly, and I guess… I guess I was wondering how she did it.” 

Katsuki’s cocky smirk melted into something warm as his hands moved up to cup Izuku’s cheeks, one thumb tracing the lines of his scar and the other moving over his freckles. Katsuki missed Izuku’s freckles; there were only five left now, and it upset him more than he thought something so inconsequential ever could. He considered drawing them back on sometimes. “I don’t know Izuku,” He confessed, “Kyoka was just persistent I guess.” 

“I was pretty damn persistent,” Izuku grumbled, a petulant edge to his tone. 

“What did you say about not being jealous?” Katsuki asked, laughing at the way Izuku turned his face away. “It pissed me off that you were persistent, Izuku. Ears, Shitty Hair, they all met me after I was forced to learn that I wasn’t on top of the world… even if I acted like I was. Besides, none of them intimidated me the way you did.” 

“Intimidated you?” Izuku scoffed, raising his eyebrows at Katsuki and digging his fingers into his hips. “Does being a vestige mess with your memory or something, cause I can’t remember a single time when I intimidated you?”

Katsuki laughed in response, rolling his eyes at the sarcastic tone, “You think I picked on you cause it was fun, shitnerd?” He asked, tilting Izuku’s face up at a sharper angle. “You scared the living daylights out of me cause I couldn’t fucking figure you out.”

“I wasn’t that confusing, Kacchan.”

“Not confusing? Izuku, you were the single most infuriating puzzle I’ve ever come across.” He paused, squeezing Izuku’s cheeks, “Still are.”

Izuku squirmed when Katsuki squeezed his face, though it was more for show than in real discomfort. He enjoyed being the target of Katsuki’s attention; always had. Even when that attention was painful and left him aching, he wouldn’t have traded it in for the crushing loneliness that came with being ignored. “In what way?” He asked, tilting his head defiantly. 

This kind of attention was his favourite. To be looked at and touched by Katsuki like he were the centre of his world. Teasingly, almost seductive in the way Katsuki’s eyelids would droop and his fingers would caress over Izuku’s scarred skin. It set Izuku alight for as long as he didn’t think about it. 

“Because I don’t ever really know what you’re thinking,” Katsuki explained. “Your motivations, your feelings. Every time I think I’ve started to figure them out, you go and confuse me again. I used to think you were trying to embarrass me back in middle school. That you thought you were better than me because you were kind, and every time you reached out, it was in an effort to remind me of my place.”

“Kacchan, you’re crazy.”

“Hah,” Katsuki scoffed. “You make me crazy, nerd. It’s just the way things have always worked for me, you know?” He asked, his eyes turning wistful as he dropped his hands from their place on Izuku's cheeks to rest on his shoulders. “Do everything yourself and, if anyone else needs your help, that’s because they aren’t as capable as you are. Help, support, teamwork, all these things were weaknesses. Things that I did not need, things I shouldn’t need.”

Izuku listened intently, his lips pressed together, “Boy, you’re mom really did a number on you, didn’t she?”

Katsuki laughed at the jab, shaking his head fondly before responding. “Yeah, I guess she did.”

“But you don’t think like that anymore?”

“No,” Katsuki said immediately, so comfortably assured in the knowledge that needing help was not a weakness, it would have sent his younger self running. “You, All Might, the guys. All of you helped me realise that I need people. That we all need people to help keep our heads on right, to depend on and hold onto.” 

Izuku’s heart ached as Katsuki spoke. He had never seen this kind of self-assuredness from him before. Sure, Katsuki had always been confident, to the point of arrogance most times, but this was new. It wasn’t born out of a need to prove anything to anyone else or to himself. He just was confident, sure of who he was and what he would always be. It broke Izuku’s heart to know that Kacchan would never get to grow up with that knowledge. Izuku would grow and change, so would all their other friends. They all would be lucky enough to take the lessons they learned over the past year and use them to become whole people. They would falter and make mistakes and change even further, but Kacchan was done. 

He would not grow any further, did not have the opportunity to make use of his hard-earned lessons or make changes in himself the way he wanted to. He was dead, and no matter what the vestige said, he would always be dead. Stuck at sixteen, stuck in that damn UA school uniform, stuck in a world that never really changed and forced to watch while everything around him did. 

“You wanna know something?” Katsuki asked, a small laugh escaping his lips as his fingers tangled in the hair at Izuku’s nape. 

“Tell me.”

“When you got there,” Katsuki began, “to the Coffin, I mean. When you reached, I was still awake. Edgeshot was still trying to save me, and I could hear you, I think.”

Izuku let out a shaky breath, tears pooling in his eyes and heart hammering in his chest as Katsuki recounted that horrible day. 

“I think I heard when you landed and you apologised,” Katsuki laughed again, shaking his head as though he was sharing an amusing anecdote. “Of course you fucking apologised. I heard the way your breathing cut out, and I think… I think I heard you call for me.” Katsuki’s bottom lip began to tremble at this and he forced Izuku’s head back with a light tug at his hair, “I’m sorry I didn’t get back up. I wanted to help you Izuku. Wanted to be the one to save you,” he pressed his forehead against Izuku’s, tears leaking from closed eyelids and falling onto the shorter boys cheeks. “I’m sorry I couldn’t do more.”

Izuku kept his eyes wide open as Katsuki spoke; disbelief, anger and devastating hopelessness, all fighting for their place at the surface. Kacchan was apologising to him. Saying sorry to him for dying. “I love you, Kacchan,” Izuku whispered, not able to say anything else, not even knowing what else he could say. He closed the distance between them and pressed his lips to Katsuki’s. “I wish I could have told you before,” he murmured, the words searing into Katsuki’s lips like a brand. 

When Izuku pulled back, he tracked the path Katsuki’s tears had made on his cheeks, and he smiled. Kacchan had always been one to cry when he felt too much all at once, and it pleased Izuku to know that even if everything was different, he still remained who he was. 

“I love you too, Izuku.” 

-

Katsuki sat backwards on one of the dining chairs, resting his chin on the backrest as he watched Izuku eat. They had figured out through trial and error that Katsuki could interact with the furniture as long as Izuku was also touching it, so they sat there, with Izuku’s foot resting between Katsuki’s thighs on the chair while he ate. 

“So why do I confuse you now?” Izuku asked, covering his mouth with his hand as he spoke. 

“Don’t talk with your mouth full. What’s wrong with you?” Katsuki grumbled, cringing at the muffled question. 

“Ya can’t see it, Kacchan,” Izuku countered, making sure the food in his mouth was covered with his hand. “If you can’t see it, then it’s not bad manners.” 

“Disgusting,” Katsuki persisted, “I know your mom didn’t raise you to be so nasty.”

“I don’t do everything according to what my mom says,” Izuku said, rolling his eyes and shovelling another spoonful into his mouth.

“Yeah, clearly,” Katsuki’s response was weighted. Heavy with the implication that there were more important things that Izuku’s mother wouldn’t approve of, sharp and pointed as his eyes flickered to the freezer and back to Izuku. 

“Don’t start.”

“You’re impossible,” Katsuki muttered, standing up and pushing the chair away as he began to pace. 

“Can we not fight?” Izuku asked, putting his spoon down to follow Katsuki with his eyes. “Just – listen, just tell me why I’m confusing to you now.”

Katsuki stopped in his tracks, turning to face Izuku with a disbelieving expression on his face. “Why you confuse me? Because of all this, Izuku!” He exclaimed, gesturing around in the general area. “I thought I had a pretty good idea of who you are, and then you go and pull some shit like this.”

“Like what, Kacchan?” Izuku asks, his fist clenching as Kacchan's words played in his head. (“He can’t look past his morals. He’ll come around.”) That’s right, Izuku just needed to be patient. He just needed to wait until Katsuki’s love for him caught up, and it would be fine. 

“Like this.” Katsuki repeated, jabbing his pointed finger in the direction of the freezer, “Stealing dead bodies, talking to it all the time. Fuck, Izuku,” The sharp glare softened as he walked back to the table. “I want to understand.”

Izuku’s foot hooked back on the chair’s leg automatically, pulling it closer as Katsuki sat down. The plate of stir-fry lay forgotten on the table, all of Izuku’s attention on Katsuki and all his willpower going into remaining silent and patient. 

“I promise I want to understand,” Katsuki repeated, reaching out to hold Izuku’s hands. “I want to be here for you and support you in the ways you need, but it’s so much more than I ever expected, Izuku.”

“You’re saying I’m too much?” Izuku asked, hurt settling on his features at the accusation. 

“No!” Katsuki exclaimed, squeezing Izuku’s hands and pulling him closer. “Never that. I just… I need you to help me. You need to meet me halfway here, Izuku. I’ll find a way to get over my judgments about how you’re choosing to grieve, but you need to work on moving on, too.” Katsuki’s voice was a soft plea now, eyebrows meeting at the centre as wrinkles formed in the space between them. “You must have realised that you can’t keep it- him, forever, too right?” 

“I…” Izuku trailed off, Katsuki’s words bursting a bubble he hadn’t been ready to lose just yet. “Yes?” He choked out the word, ripe with insecurity. “I know… eventually I have to, but,” Izuku paused, trying to swallow past the lump wedged in his throat. It was like the finger was back there, like what he had already swallowed had come back up and was forcing him to confront it once more. “But not yet.” He finished, finally speaking past the suffocation brought on by the phantom sensations of his own actions. 

Katsuki sighed and nodded. He squeezed Izuku’s hands once more before letting go, returning to his position to watch Izuku eat. “Finish your food,” He ordered, pointing at the cooling plate. “You’re too thin.”

“So bossy, Kacchan,” Izuku quipped back in an attempt to return to the cheery atmosphere from before. Inside, though, all he could think about, all he could feel was the gagging tightness in his throat. Like the food he was eating stayed stuck there, piling up on top of the finger. A thought dawned on Izuku as horror spread across his chest: what if his body wouldn’t accept anything other than Kacchan? What if this choking sensation was his body's way of telling him that he needed to eat more? That, in order to move past Kacchan, he needed to keep Kacchan. 

Forever. 

-

The next three days passed in a blur, all of Izuku’s thoughts consumed by thoughts of consuming Kacchan. It was like his body had already made the decision and was just waiting for his mind to catch up. It was sickening, the way his mouth watered when Katsuki leaned back and the skin on his neck went taut. He felt like a monster, like whatever was inside him that hungered for Kacchan was consuming him first. It was eating him up from within his body, starting with his organs, spreading to his bones and eventually entering his bloodstream. 

Izuku couldn’t stop thinking about it. It didn’t matter that the thought made him nauseous, didn’t matter that every time Katsuki caught him staring in that ravenous manner, guilt flared up hot and bitter. Nothing mattered except for the way his stomach growled and his teeth ached for Kacchan. It all came to a head when Katsuki flickered one morning. 

They had awoken early despite Izuku’s preference to sleep in, to stay cuddled with Katsuki. Close enough that Izuku could graze his teeth past Kacchan’s skin, and it wouldn’t be weird. Katsuki had insisted, though, so he dragged himself out of bed and got dressed in joggers and a hoodie. Maybe a run would be good, he thought to himself. There was so much troubling him and clogging up his mind; maybe a run is exactly what he needed to feel okay again. The problem arrived when Katsuki kneeled to tie Izuku’s laces for him, and his hands went through the shoe instead. 

“Kacchan…” Izuku trailed off, his chest tightening immediately at the sight. 

“It’s nothing,” Katsuki insisted, trying to swallow his own rising sense of panic. He tried again, and again it went through, the laces unmoving and loose despite Katsuki’s fingers attempting to pick them up. “Don’t- Izuku don’t freak out, this isn’t-”

“I told you,” Izuku whispered, his eyes wide as he looked down at Katsuki’s kneeling form. “I told you it wasn’t enough.”

Katsuki stood back up, swallowing hard at the mad glint in Izuku’s eyes. “What do you mean it isn’t enough? What isn’t?”

“Him. You. It’s not enough for him to be here,” Izuku began to pace, his laces dragging on the floor as Katsuki watched in growing horror. “Don’t you get it, Kacchan? It’s a sign. One for all is talking to me; it’s how it’s always been. Cryptic message, signs, and metaphors that I need to figure out on my own. It’s not enough, but I know,” He said, his voice taking on a manic pitch, “I know what it’s telling me this time. I know what it wants.”

“What is it telling you, Izuku?” Katsuki asked carefully. He already knew, deep in his heart, he knew what the answer would be, and he could feel the phantom pains in his muscles already. When Izuku did not answer right away, Katsuki forced himself to move and, by sheer force of will, reached out and grabbed Izuku by the arm. “Talk to me.” 

What Katsuki considered proof of will, Izuku took as confirmation. He took it as a reward from OFA for figuring out the puzzle. Kacchan had always been his gift after all, always been the thing Izuku chased and fought so hard for. “I have to eat, Kacchan.” 

Katsuki stumbled back at his words, the fear that had been slowly rising in his body wrapping around his throat like claws. He tried to speak, to scream at Izuku that he couldn’t, that Katsuki wasn’t okay with this, but no sound came out. All he could do was try and put distance between them, try and get away from the terrifying clarity that took over Izuku’s eyes. 

Izuku nodded. Of course, Kacchan would understand. Of course, Kacchan would move out of the way so Izuku could do what he needed to do; he had told Izuku he would come around after all. He just needed a little time, just needed to understand what was really at stake here. Izuku took the space created as a boon and shot out of the room, running so fast he wondered in the back of his mind whether OFA was back in full force again. Before he knew it, he was at the freezer, hauling the heavy door open and stepping inside. 

It was freezing, the temperature set so low Izuku could see his breath form little puffs of mist. The tips of his fingers and nose were the first to feel the biting cold; it spread through his unprotected body rapidly, but none of that mattered. All that mattered was the body in front of him. 

Kacchan. 

Kacchan, with his eyes wide open, the red glinting like rubies amongst the frigid blue of the freezer. Kacchan, with his arms outstretched as though inviting Izuku in. As though welcoming him home. A strangled cry escaped Izuku’s throat as he took a step forward, his own arms raised as he prepared to embrace Kacchan. To accept what he had to do, to follow through in the way he was now sure he had to. 

“IZUKU NO!” Katsuki tackled Izuku to the ground, pouncing on him from the back. They crashed to the ground with a loud thud that echoed in the otherwise silent building. 

“Get OFF ME,” Izuku screamed, his movements vicious and uncontrolled as he tried to fight the vestige off. It was in the way. It was stopping him from getting to Kacchan because it was jealous. Because it knew that Izuku wouldn’t need it anymore if he had Kacchan. “HE WANTS ME TO DO IT.” 

“No, Izuku,” Katsuki tried to reason with him as they struggled, rolling around on the frozen floor, both panting heavily. “You want to do it. You’re not well, Izuku, please. You need to get help; no one wants you to do this.” 

“You’re wrong,” Izuku snarled, elbowing the vestige in the face and scrambling off the ground. He looked back at Kacchan and then at the vestige, which was already on its feet. “I know what Kacchan wants, I’ve always known. He wouldn’t leave me. He wouldn’t want me to leave him. You’re the monster,” Izuku lunged first. He threw himself at the vestige with such force that it knocked them both out of the open freezer onto the ground in the kitchen. 

“Izuku, please,” Katsuki pleaded again, trying to speak while ducking away from Izuku’s fists. “I’m Kacchan, it’s me. I’m the real one, Izuku, not that thing in there.” 

“LIAR!” Izuku growled, glaring up at the vestige when it managed to roll free and stand up. “You’re just pretend, you’re a fake, and I’m not going to let you trick me again,” he rose to his feet, advancing on the source of all his anger and hatred. “You won’t keep me from him. I won’t fucking let you.”

“Izu-”

Katsuki’s words cut off when Izuku’s fist connected with his face with such strength that it sent him crashing to the ground. Before he could consider getting up or even put his hands up in defence, Izuku was on him again. Straddling him like he did when they kissed, but there was no love in his eyes now. No tenderness in the way he touched Katsuki, no longing painted in that beautiful shade of green. Now it was just rage. Pure, unadulterated rage as he grabbed Katsuki by the collar and slammed him back onto the floor. Katsuki groaned when the back of his head smashed against the tile, trying in vain to grab Izuku and roll him off. 

Izuku was relentless, whatever weight and muscle he had lost over the last few months, not even a factor in the face of his anger. He pinned the vestige down, hips pressed against its in a mockery of intimacy as his fists connected. The sound of bone cracking mingled with its cries, but the pathetic begging of the devil sent to tempt him to sin did nothing but fuel his rage. He rained punches down on the vestige's face, his knuckles long since cracked and bloodied, it didn’t matter, though. Izuku barely even noticed the pain that should have laced through his fists. All he could think of was Kacchan. He needed to get to Kacchan, and the vestige was in the way. 

He needed to clear the obstacles; he needed to win. He needed to be on time; he needed to save Kacchan this time. He wouldn’t be too late again. He would win this fight; he wouldn’t fail. 

Izuku will save Kacchan. 

“Deku,” The watery call of that name clears the haze of rage like the sun coming out on a cloudy day, and Izuku’s fists stop midway. “Stop… please…”

Anger is replaced with horror so quickly, it turns Izuku on his head, and bile rises in his throat. Izuku falls back, terrified at the scene in front of him. “Kacch-oh god,” His words barely make their past his lips as he crawls forward. The sight is appalling, blood covers Kacchan’s face, and Izuku does not know if it is his own or if he somehow made the vestige bleed. He’s a mottled tapestry of gore, black and blue covering every inch from hairline to chin. Izuku kneels beside Kacchan’s head, lifting it with trembling hands and cradling it on his lap. He can barely stand to look at the way Kacchan’s eyes are swollen shut, at how he struggles to breathe. “I’m…” he trails off, hands hovering above Kacchan’s face as he tries to find a space that is safe to touch. “Kacchan, I’m so sorry.”

“Izuku, please.” Katsuki’s words are nothing more than a broken whisper, but he tries anyway. “Please… let this go… It’s ruining you.” He coughs, his ribs rattling painfully, protesting his attempts. “You’re not yourself anymore, please, Izuku, you have to stop. You need to let go.”

Izuku tries to listen. He really does try to say yes, to promise Kacchan that he will let it go, that he will move on, but the words won’t cross the threshold of his mouth. Instead, he traces the seam of Kacchan’s split lip, “I can’t Kacchan,” he whimpers, finger following the path of destruction on Kacchan’s beautiful face. “I can’t lose you. I need you, I’m not me without you, Kacchan. I need you so I can be me.” 

“You have me, Izuku,” Katsuki gurgles, trying to keep himself in solid form, holding on with sheer will. “You always have me. It’s not him that’s letting you keep me, it’s your hope. It’s always been your hope. OFA relies on what you think about yourself. It’s not him it’s-”

Izuku cuts him off with a soft kiss, tasting blood this time. The gentle press of his lips against Kacchan’s undid him, the tears that had been pooling in his eyes dripping onto Kacchan’s face. “He gives me hope,” Izuku trails off, sitting up straight and turning his head to look at the body inside the freezer. “I don’t – I don’t want hope without him.”

Something flickers in Izuku’s head, a familiar prickling of his skin warning him that he’s in trouble. Danger Sense, he realises with a pained laugh and lies down next to Kacchan. “I’m sorry, Kacchan,” He murmurs, cradling the vestige in his arms and burying his face in the crook of its neck. “I’m so sorry.” His breathing comes out as ragged gasps between words, “I’m sorry, I’m sorry. I need him, I’m sorry.” He presses his lips against the vestige’s neck, leaving kisses like he knows it will be the last time.

“I love you,” Izuku’s voice cracks, and he sobs now, sobs into Kacchan’s neck as he apologises, begging for forgiveness, begging to be understood. “I’m sorry, I love you, I need him.”

The vestige makes a noise, something that sounds vaguely like Izuku’s name.

“I love him.”

-

Izuku stirred a few hours later, bleary and disoriented as he realised that he was lying alone on the kitchen floor. He tried to sit up and felt a shooting pain in his chest, an emptiness that seemed to be spreading. His knuckles ached, a sharp stabbing sensation flaring through his hands when he tried to flex them. “Kacchan?” Izuku looked around, his eyes sore and dry like he had been crying for hours. 

Where was he? Why had he got up and left while Izuku was asleep? Izuku got to his feet, dragging his body through the kitchen, calling out for Kacchan as he went. Was Kacchan mad at him? Had Izuku crossed the line and done the unforgivable? He shook his head as he peeked into every single room. Kacchan wouldn’t ever leave him entirely; even if they were fighting, they would be able to fix it. They were Deku and Kacchan. It would be fine; he just needed to find him. Once he found him, it would all be fine, and this would be over. 

“Deku.”

Izuku whirled around, his eyes locking onto red ones. There, at the bottom of the stairs, stood his Kacchan. No sign of the injuries from the fight, a smug smirk on his face, and somehow, he had changed clothes. Something in the back of Izuku’s mind tingled, telling him that something was off. That the vestige couldn’t change out of the uniform, but here he was, wearing that black and white skull t-shirt he liked so much and a pair of sweatpants. 

“Kacchan!” Izuku exclaimed, running forward. He threw himself at Kacchan, wrapping his arms around the other and burying his face in his chest. “You’re okay!”

“Hah! Of course I’m okay, stupid nerd,” Kacchan snorted, cupping the back of his head and holding him close. “What? You think a twerp like you could keep me down? Please.” 

Izuku laughed, the sound overflowing with relief as he pulled back to gleam up at him. “Of course not, Kacchan. I’m just happy you’re okay.” Izuku reached up to cup his jaw, his thumbs running over his cheeks. “I’m so so sorry. I don’t know why I did that. I just couldn’t think straight after you started fading today, and I needed to keep you.”

“Shh shh,” Kacchan murmured, taking Izuku’s hands off his face and holding them in his own. “It’s okay, Deku. I understand, I’m not mad.” 

“Y-you’re not?” Izuku stuttered out, eyebrows knitting together in confusion. 

“Of course not,” Kacchan assured him with a squeeze of his hands. “I know we didn’t exactly… see eye to eye on this before I get it now. I understand why you have to do this. I agree.”

Izuku’s heart thundered in his chest. Was this real? Had Kacchan finally come around? Did he finally understand the importance of what Izuku had to do? “Are you… Are you sure, Kacchan?”

“Of course, Deku.” 

There was that name again, the tingling in his head spiked up again, raising concerns and questions. Why was Kacchan calling him ‘Deku’ again? How did Kacchan manage to change his clothes? And most damningly, what made Kacchan change his mind. He opened his mouth, trying to voice these questions aloud, but Kacchan acted before he could, closing the distance between them and pressing their lips together. He nipped at Izuku’s bottom lip, tightening his hold on Izuku’s nape as he kissed him hard. When Kacchan finally pulled back, Izuku was panting. He reached up to touch his lip, half expecting to find blood there, but it came back clean. 

“Let’s get you cleaned up first, okay?” Kacchan urged, pulling Izuku along up the stairs to the communal washroom on the first floor. “Then we can get some food in you.”

Izuku’s stomach turned at the mention of food, the implication of what he would be eating heavy in the air around them. He followed Kacchan, though. Feet moving obediently as he was led to the washroom. He stood beside him and watched as Kacchan reached up into the shelf. Izuku was silent. Doubts and concerns ran through his mind, but he kept his lips locked together out of fear of the answers. When Kacchan led him to a stool and sat him down, he obeyed once again, allowing him to take his hands and clean his knuckles. Izuku watched quietly, tracing the lines and planes of his face as though trying to find discrepancies, but it was Kacchan. 

For all intents and purposes, it was Kacchan who was kneeling in front of him and cleaning his knuckles. It was Kacchan who plucked small pieces of debris from the open wounds, Kacchan who pressed a cold gel pack to the aching knuckles. Even if he wanted to believe otherwise, it was Kacchan. 

“What are you thinking about, Deku?” Kacchan asked once he was done wrapping up his hand. 

“Just… I used to dream about this,” Izuku replied, laughing softly. 

“Dream of what?”

“Of this,” He said, gesturing between them with his free hand. “Of you cleaning me up, taking care of me like I mattered. Like I was something precious.”

“You are precious,” Kacchan confirmed immediately, rising to his feet and cupping Izuku’s face. “To me, you’re precious. The most a person could ever be, Deku. Don’t ever doubt that. You’re the only one I would do these things for, the only one I would allow to see me like this.” 

“Kacchan…” Izuku trailed off, tears spilling down his face and pooling where Kacchan’s hands cupped his cheeks.

“I love you.”

“I love you too, Kacchan.”

-

When Izuku opened his eyes next, he was back at the freezer with no idea of how he even got there. The last thing he could remember was sitting with Kacchan in the washroom, the soft skin of Kacchan’s palms pressed against his cheeks, the promise of value Kacchan had made to him. He couldn’t remember walking down to the freezer, couldn’t remember pulling open the heavy door and least of all, moving Katsuki’s body. 

But there was no denying what had happened. The spot where the body had been resting for all this time was empty; in fact, the freezer was empty save for Izuku. He looked around, the pounding in his head getting worse the longer he stood in there, his teeth chattering and fingers shaking. 

“Kacchan?” Izuku called out, the tail end of the word pitching upwards as his confusion manifested itself in the world outside his mind. No answer came, nothing aside from the rattling of the vent in the ceiling. It was eerie, almost haunting in the way everything seemed to be standing still, like the air around him was holding its breath and waiting. When Izuku finally turned around, taking careful, cautious steps out of the freezer and into the kitchen, he nearly screamed at the sight that awaited him.

Kacchan was there, his body at least. He was sitting in one of the chairs, slumped over like he was asleep. Izuku walked up to the body and raised a shivering hand, meaning to touch him like he had done so many times before, but something about the stark contrast of that icy skin against the warmth of the wooden dinner table gave him pause. It was wrong. All of this was wrong. Kacchan shouldn’t be slumped over a table like this, he should be sitting on top of it or at least, he should be leaning back with his feet kicked up. 

“Deku.”

Izuku jumped, his hand shooting back to nestle against his chest as though he was caught with his hand in the cookie jar. He turned around tentatively only to see Kacchan standing behind him. His skin was pale, but in the way it normally was, his hair bright and ashen blonde, his eyes alive. He was there, but he was also… Izuku shook his head and turned around completely to face the Kacchan he wanted to see. 

“Kacchan, how did,” Izuku started, gesturing back with one of his hands, not daring to look upon the body again. 

“Oh, I moved it,” Kacchan’s response was entirely devoid of urgency. He shrugged like he was talking about moving laundry off Izuku’s bed, and as much as Izuku wanted to be irritated, he couldn’t find it in himself to be anything but grateful. 

He had wanted to do it anyway, needed to move the body out of the freezer so it could thaw. He wouldn’t be able to cut into it if it were still frozen. The thought sent a wave of nausea over Izuku. 

Cut into it. Right. 

Izuku needed to cut into Kacchan’s body, needed to carve out pieces of meat so he could eat it. Eat him. Izuku put a hand over his stomach, grimacing at the very thought. How was he supposed to do this? How could he possibly look at the face of the boy he has loved for as long as he’s known what love means and cut into him like he was just another piece of meat from the butcher? He felt that tightness in his throat again, though this time it was more like fingers were wrapped around and squeezing. Like the very air around him was punishing him for even entertaining such thoughts

“Deku,” Kacchan’s voice came through once more, shaking him out of the thoughts that threatened to send him spiralling. “What are you thinking about?”

Izuku was quiet for a second, just long enough to wonder why Kacchan was even asking him this question. He always knew, Kacchan always knew when Izuku was struggling with something, and somehow, he always knew what he was struggling with, too. He never had to ask. If anyone had had any trouble understanding Izuku, it had always been himself. Izuku was always the last person to realise what his own thoughts and feelings meant. Why would Kacchan ask him?

“I don’t know if I can do this,” he finally said, his voice so much weaker than it had been. “He’s just… I can’t eat him.”

“Why not?” Kacchan asked, tilting his head like he genuinely could not think of a reason why Izuku would be hesitant. “You ate the finger just fine. It’s the same thing.” 

“That wasn’t-” Izuku cut himself off, thoughts drifting to the finger. To what had started all of this, and he felt it in his throat again, clogging up his food pipe, forcing him to confront what he pushed down deep. “It’s not the same. I just had to swallow that this is… he’s a body.”

“Mhm,” Kacchan nodded and walked over to the body slumped over the table, lifting it up and resting it back against the chair. “It’s just a body, it’s not actually him. He’s not there.”

Izuku’s eyes followed the movement of the body, grimacing at the way it slumped back bonelessly. Kacchan’s words seemed to be poking at something in his head, like they were warning him that something just wasn’t right. “He?” Izuku asked, looking up at Kacchan. 

“Me.” 

“Right,” Izuku chewed on his lip, wincing when the skin that had just begun to grow back tore again. He raised his finger to his bottom lip, confusion marring his face when it came back bloody. Why hadn’t it bled when Kacchan kissed him? Why was Kacchan calling him Deku?

“Deku,” Kacchan interrupted his train of thought for the third time, his voice taking on an exasperated tone as though Izuku was misbehaving. “Listen, forget about it,” He walked over to Izuku and placed his hands on his shoulders, “how about instead of focusing on this, we go take a bath? We can let the meat thaw, let some of the ice melt away so it’ll be easier to cut, and I can help you relax, yeah?”

Izuku swallowed hard, forcing his eyes to stay focused on Kacchan and not on the body behind him. A bath. A bath with Kacchan. How many times had he dreamed of being able to do just that? To be able to sink into warm water with Kacchan beside him, to wash his back, to have Kacchan wash his hair. To be vulnerable and open in a space where there was no option but to be. He nodded and let Kacchan turn him away from the kitchen; the sound of a single pair of footsteps echoed softly as they walked up the stairs and to the boys' communal wash on the second floor. 

Izuku moved almost as though he was in a trance, his eyes glazed over, and feet shuffling as he stumbled through undressing. He could feel Kacchans' hands on him, but it was like he couldn’t see him. He felt it, he really did feel Kacchan helping him remove his shirt and unbuttoning his pants, but when he looked down, when he forced his eyes to focus, it was his own hands. 

“Deku, stop thinking about all that,” Kacchan said, and Izuku turned to see him standing near the Ofuro. He had changed. When had he changed? Izuku rubbed at his eyes, rough enough that the sensitive skin under his lash line burned. “Come on, get in the water.”

He was still there, still naked save for a towel wrapped around his waist and still calling for Izuku to get in the bath with him. He wanted to. Izuku wanted to more than anything and it's easier to do what you want than follow the breadcrumb trail. So he took the easy path, he told himself that he deserved to take the easy path every once in a while. He had done the hard thing, had done the hard thing over and over again until he physically could not anymore. He deserved it, just this once. He forced a smile onto his lips and nodded, “Of course, Kacchan.” 

Kacchan’s resulting grin made Izuku’s heart clench painfully in his chest. He would do anything to keep that smile on his face, to keep his lips stretched so beautifully it stole the breath from Izuku’s lungs. He ran to Kacchan, scooping him up and jumping into the water with a yell. 

When they both resurfaced, Kacchan splashed the warm water against his face, making Izuku giggle joyously. “Deku, you fucking loser,” Kacchan exclaimed, advancing on him menacingly. His eyes glinted with wicked intent, and Izuku knew instantly he was about to get pushed under the water.

He didn’t fight it, though, couldn’t find the will to fight it, even when his head was pushed under, and it became harder and harder to breathe. Finally, when Kacchan let him back up, he surfaced with an exaggerated gulp of air, still laughing, and he threw himself at the other boy. 

“Kacchan, let me wash your back,” Izuku asked once they were settled against the wall of the bath, Kacchan’s head resting against his chest as Izuku’s hands traced patterns on his chest. He was still cold somehow. It made no sense; the water was warm, and so was the bath. “You’re cold,” He murmured, pressing kisses to the back of Kacchan’s neck. “Why are you cold?” 

“You ask too many questions, Deku,” was Kacchan’s response. He turned his head to glare at Izuku in that playful way Izuku had always dreamed of. “Just be quiet and wash my back. Warm me up.” 

Izuku chuckled, pushing the fuzziness of his thoughts and tightness in his chest aside to comply with Kacchan’s wishes. He would wash him. He would warm him up. He would do anything Kacchan asked. 

I hate to be the one to break the fantasy, but if Izuku won’t tell it as is, it falls to me to do so. When Izuku walks up the stairs that day, it isn’t with Katsuki’s hands clutched in his own, led by his lover to the warmth of a bath. It’s with his own two feet, carrying the body of the love he had lost in his arms. He lifts Katsuki’s body off the chair where he had propped him up and carries him up the stairs, down the corridor that led to the bath and lays him down on the ground while he undresses himself. 

Izuku turns to face Katsuki, blinking hard at the sight and twisting the reality he wasn’t ready to face into something nicer. Something he could find comfort in, so when Kacchan asked him to get in the bath, Izuku could convince himself that he was only doing what he wanted. That he was only giving Kacchan exactly what he asked for. 

“Of course, Kacchan,” Izuku’s voice is the only one that rings out in the silence of the bath. He’s the only one who’s speaking after all.

He carries the body into the water, struggling under the weight of it, diving under to get it when it sank, moving so fast he hit his head on the bottom. Dead weight, it wouldn’t float. Katsuki doesn’t float, Katsuki doesn’t speak, Katsuki doesn’t ask for anything because it’s not Katsuki. No matter how much Izuku wants to be it simply is not him. Never will be him. 

“Kacchan, let me wash your back,” Izuku laughs at a conversation he’s made up inside his head. He nods along to consent he’s manufactured. When he notices how cold Katsuki is, there is a moment of questioning. A moment where he wonders why Kacchan would be so cold. Why is he so stiff? Why can’t Izuku think properly? 

It fades as soon as it arrives, though, because what Izuku needs to do is thaw the body. He needs to soften the flesh so he can cut his pound of meat. So he floats in the bathwater with Katsuki. With the body he has twisted and positioned like some kind of macabre doll, and he waits until Kacchan is warm again. He laughs at jokes and jabs that he wishes would be said to him, and he pretends that the water cradling him are the arms of the one who never will again. 

They spend almost an hour in the water together, in a world that Izuku has entirely fabricated so he doesn’t have to face the horror of what he’s really doing. When the hour is up and Katsuki’s body feels warmer by comparison, Izuku decides it’s time to get up. He laughs at some joke Kacchan has made within his mind, and he carries Katsuki out once more. Patting him dry, dressing him up in clothes he took from Mitsuki. He dries Katsuki’s hair, presses a kiss to his forehead and pretends that there is life in the eyes that he convinces himself are looking back at him.  

“We should get out, nerd,” Kacchan said, breaking the comfortable silence they were soaking in and lifted one of his hands. “Look at this shit, I’m already all pruned up.” 

Izuku laughed and stood up, water sluicing down his abdomen. “Alright, Kacchan. Whatever you want.” He offered Kacchan his hand and pulled him up as well, stepping close to brush the hair off his face and press a kiss to his temple. 

By the time the two of them returned to the kitchen, Izuku noticed that the body had been moved once more. It was no longer slumped over the table but rather lying face up on a carving table in the freezer. Izuku swallowed hard, looking around for Kacchan, needing to ask if he had moved the thing, but he was nowhere to be found. “He must’ve gone back to the vestige realm,” Izuku told himself, placating words he didn’t even really believe but needed to. 

His heart hammered in his chest as thoughts of ghosts and haunted dolls ran through unbidden. Why had he called Kacchan’s body a doll? He wasn’t a doll, wasn’t something to be played with or posed. Izuku would never do that to Kacchan; he would never go so far as to disrespect him by treating him like he had no will of his own. He just wanted what was best for Kacchan; he wanted Kacchan to be happy, to do anything and everything Kacchan wanted. So when he walked over to the body and pressed his finger against its arm, he shivered at the way the skin gave. The body was no longer frozen. He could cut into it. 

“You can take what you need now.”

Izuku jumped at the sudden appearance of Kacchan’s voice once more; it was as though he was determined to give Izuku a heart attack today. He turned around to look at Kacchan, tilting his head as he tried to make sense of why Kacchan’s hair was damp. The vestige didn’t get wet or hot or cold or bleed. He didn’t yet anyway, Izuku would change that soon. He had figured out what the riddle OFA presented to him and he knew what to do. He knew how to strengthen their bond, how to tie Kacchan firmly to this plane of existence and he would do it.

By eating more. 

Something flashed over Kacchan’s face, looking almost like a wicked smile. As though Izuku was playing into his hand, but he shook his head, banishing such thoughts and looked back at the body. He swallowed hard, tempted to reach out and touch again. He wasn’t sure why. Perhaps to ensure it was really there? That he wasn’t imagining the situation he had backed himself into. He shivered and turned back with eyebrows knitted together in worry. 

Before he could speak, however, Kacchan reached out and grabbed him by the shoulders, “You have to do it, Deku,” He said in a firm, commanding voice and pressed a large boning knife into his hands. Where did he get the knife? “You can’t be a coward now, you know you have to eat him to make sure I stay. To make sure we can stay together.”

Kacchan’s words were hurtful; they cut into Izuku like the blade in his hands would. Starting at one ear and slicing across his neck to the other, creating a wide, gaping wound so the blood could flow out and pool around the table, spilling down onto the floor until his body was empty. Until his feet were slick with the cold, viscous liquid. He felt Kacchan’s hand guide him, leaning over his back as he made Izuku repeat the gesture over the body, slicing open the tough skin to bleed it out. It was like watching another do it, like Kacchan had stepped into his body and took over to make it easier for Izuku. To shield Izuku from the terrifying reality of what was happening and all Izuku could do was watch. 

He watched as Kacchan sliced his own neck open. Distantly, he wondered how Kacchan was touching the knife; was this knife of some special importance to him? That line of thinking was broken when Kacchan gathered up the blood in buckets and disposed of it as and when it filled up. Izuku wasn’t sure where he was spilling it, a voice in the back of his head told him the sinks would be a bad idea, that it would clog, and he would get in trouble. He should pour it out in the nearby forest area. Izuku rubbed his temples. He didn’t need to know this. Kacchan was taking care of it. Izuku only had to watch; he didn’t need to worry about this. 

When Kacchan was done bleeding the body out, he began to feel around on it. Izuku wondered if he was looking for the meaty parts, the parts that would be easier to cook. Bile rose in his throat at the thought, breaking the haze that had taken over his eyes. When he looked down at his hands, they were soaked through in red, and Izuku did throw up this time. He ran to the kitchen and threw up in the sink, banging on his chest as he tried to get it out. Tried to get the bile filling up his throat and the tar in his lungs out. He couldn’t do this. He couldn’t cut Kacchan up, couldn’t cook him. He couldn’t eat him. This was crazy, he was being crazy, he couldn’t, he wouldn’t-

“Deku.” 

Right. 

He wasn’t the one doing this. Izuku’s hands were clean. Kacchan was doing it. Kacchan was doing it, so Izuku wouldn’t have to. It was okay. He decided he would stay there. He would stay at the sink, safe in the kitchen, while Kacchan did what he had to do and cut out what Izuku could eat. 

Kacchan wanted this; he wanted Izuku to eat him. He had told him as much. He was doing it for him because he wanted Izuku to eat him. It was okay because Kacchan wanted this to happen, it was okay because Kacchan loved him, and he wanted to stay. This wasn’t for Izuku. Izuku wasn’t the one doing it. His hands were clean. 

His hands are clean. 

We know that this is not the case, though, don’t we? Izuku walks back from the kitchen, the boning knife clutched in his hand, traces of vomit smeared on his shirt and blood caked in his nails. He walks with his back straightened, his stance wide and intimidating, the way he’s always known Katsuki to walk. He walks back in silence, leaving his consciousness standing hunched over the kitchen sink, and he returns to the freezer. When his hands move over the body, it is with the cold detachment of a butcher carving up livestock. 

He feels around on the arms for where the meat is focused, thinks back to when he had seen his mother breaking down a chicken. He doesn’t want to break the carcass down entirely; he doesn’t have any way to dispose of bone and sinew, and he doesn’t have the resources to discard leftover meat. No, Izuku needs to be smart about this. He needs to cut out small slices of meat that he can freeze and eat over time. 

So that is what he does. His knife moves over Katsuki’s bicep first, slicing into the now bloodless body and cutting out a thick piece of flesh. It cuts easily, the sharp blade sinking in like butter. He’s grateful that he bled the body out first. It’s not messy. 

As he removes pieces of meat from Katsuki’s body, he thinks he can see rot begin to form at the toes. It makes no sense. The body has been frozen and perfectly preserved until mere hours ago, and even still, he has been working inside the freezer. He sniffles and wipes his nose on the back of his arm. Rubs his eyes with the neckline of his shirt, but it’s still there. Distantly, off in the safety of the kitchen, he wonders whether the rot was because Kacchan was no longer around, because the vestige had disappeared. The thought is snuffed out immediately, unable to exist within the reality he has created for himself. 

Of course, Kacchan was still here; he was the one carving up the body after all. 

He focuses his attention back on the carcass, continuing to slice thick cuts of meat from both biceps until he feels there is enough. The process of thawing the body takes too long; he doesn’t want to freeze it again just to have to repeat the entire ritual. This should be enough, though, Izuku convinces himself. Tells himself that Katsuki is the one to make the decision. Kacchan knows best after all, and it is easy to make someone believe something when they already think it. 

He leaves the body on the carving table when he returns to the kitchen, the floor now cleaned and any trace of the macabre dissipating, save for the body. The body that is now translucent without its blood and missing obvious chunks of flesh on its arms. 

Izuku cleans the cuts of meat in the sink, washing it thoroughly with water and vinegar, the way his mother has taught him to do with chicken and pork. Once it’s washed, he peels the skin off, the slippery membrane of fat between the flesh and skin causing the meat to slip in his hands. He grumbles as he works, complaining of always having to do the gruntwork. 

“Why can’t shitty Deku do this himself?” He asks aloud. 

We know that there is no response. That there never will be. 

“Deku, you’re burning it,” Kacchan pointed out and smacked him behind the head. 

“Ow Kacchan,” Izuku mumbled, rubbing where Kacchan's hand connected with him, but it’s okay. It doesn’t actually hurt. Doesn’t really feel like anything if he’s being honest. “I’ve got it, stop worrying.”

Izuku’s eyebrows furrowed as he looked down at the cooking meat. When had he turned on the stove? When had Kacchan even returned with the meat? Izuku felt that splitting pain between his ears again, like his thoughts were warring with each other, refusing to sit still in his mind, refusing to let him enjoy this moment with Kacchan. He dropped the spatula and pressed the fleshy part of his palm between his eyes, stumbling back from the stove and gripping the counter. He was sure there would be a knife stuck in there if he opened his eyes right now; the pain was blinding. It reached inside and rewired his brain, like it was trying to force Izuku to concentrate. To think in a certain way, to think differently. 

He was breathing heavily by the time it finally subsided, and he could see again. Bent over, clutching at his chest as he panted. There was a small puddle of drool on the floor below him, and Izuku realised with a grimace that it was his own. Kacchan would be mad. Izuku looked around. Where was Kacchan? Why hadn’t he helped when Izuku was struggling? 

Something popped on the stove, and Izuku turned his attention to the pan. To the meat. He needed to finish making dinner. When had it gotten dark outside? Izuku shook his head and walked back over to the stove, flipping the meat so it grilled perfectly on both sides. It smelled weird, not like any meat he was used to. He shrugged. It’s not like Izuku cooked often. He could just add some soy sauce, maybe he would dice up the leftover mushrooms, and capsicums in the fridge. It was just like making pork stir-fry. 

Kacchan liked stir fry; they had made it together. Izuku smiled. Kacchan would like this when he got back. 

-

Three more days passed, and Izuku’s headaches had only gotten worse. The pain that started between his eyes, branched out to his temples and up to his hairline brought him to his knees at the best of times. Sometimes he would open his eyes and suddenly he would be in a completely different location, engaged in some activity or the other that he had no memory of beginning. Izuku didn’t know what was causing it, he didn’t know what he could do about it and worst of all, Kacchan refused to talk about it. Every time Izuku brought it up, Kacchan would change the topic; sometimes, he would flat out tell Izuku that he was just tired. That he hadn’t been sleeping properly, or that he needs to eat more, and that’s why he’s been feeling like this.

But Izuku knew it wasn’t that, as confusing and disorienting as everything around him seemed to be, he knew with startling clarity that the headaches weren’t about anything physical. 

Kacchan was right about Izuku not sleeping well, though. The nightmares that had subsided when he would sleep with Kacchan were now back in full swing. They were realer somehow. Tangible, like he could touch it. Seeping between his fingers, filling up his mouth and coating his tongue. It pierced through the skin on his ankles until Izuku could feel the terror these nightmares brought with them in his bones. But what really tripped him up is that he couldn’t remember them. When he woke, screaming, and Kacchan wasn’t there, he didn’t know why he wasn’t there anymore. No matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t remember them. 

The fear remained, though. The rapid beating of his heart as he sat up in bed, drenched in sweat, with tear tracks cutting through the buildup on his face. All of it remained save for the cause. It was a special kind of exhaustion where his body knew, his body remembered what it felt, but his mind refused to give him the reasons for it. 

He wasn’t eating well either, Kacchan was right about that, too. Cooking and eating took a toll on him greater than anything else he’d ever experienced. The pockets of time where he would go blank and wake up in a different spot, doing something he hadn’t started, were most prevalent when he dealt with food. 

Izuku knew, on a very conscious level, he knew that the meat he was eating was Kacchan. He knew that when he cut up a thick portion of it, it was likely muscle from Kacchan’s arm or his thigh. He knew when he bit into it, and he knew when he swallowed. When he would slap his hand over his mouth and run to the washroom to throw up, he knew that what came back up was Kacchan, too. But he couldn’t seem to stop. Couldn’t shut the part of him that wanted to eat up, and it was a part of him. It didn’t matter how hard he tried to deny it when sickening reality took over; it was he who wanted to eat. 

Izuku had begun to form some doubts. Doubts about Kacchan’s intentions, about who it really was that was urging him to cannibalise his best friend, the love of his life. Small things, inconsequential actions, words that just didn’t make sense, memories that didn’t line up properly. Doubts that began as minuscule seeds had taken root in his mind and refused to let up now. They snaked through the ridges and curves, forcing him to confront what was going on. Forcing him to think about why he was doing what he was doing. Would Kacchan ask him to eat this way? Would Kacchan cut his own body up to become one with Izuku? 

It made no sense. Kacchan’s brightest flame was always his individuality. It was always the fact that he knew exactly who he was and what he wanted, and this… this couldn’t be what he wanted. The trouble was that every time Izuku would start to untangle these knots, Kacchan would appear. He would say something to convince Izuku this was all okay and that he was just overthinking it. Appearing at the end of his bed as though from thin air to tell him that the dreams were just that, dreams. Concocted by his subconscious to make him feel things like guilt and shame, but he didn’t need to do that. He didn’t need to feel shame about this. 

Kacchan wanted him to; he wanted Izuku to eat. To sink his teeth into the tender flesh and rip it straight from the body. Kacchan wanted to live, and if that life came through the process of becoming food, of becoming nourishment for the man he loved, then so be it. He wanted it. He wanted to be food. 

But Izuku was starting to realise the folly in his words. It had been getting harder and harder to believe him. Something about the red in his eyes, something distorted about the way he smiled. Izuku still couldn’t understand why Kacchan had gone back to calling him ‘Deku’ all the time after making such a conscious effort to use his real name. 

At first, it hadn’t seemed that weird. After all, Izuku was used to that name. What he had to get used to was Kacchan calling him ‘Izuku’, so when he slipped back into using ‘Deku’ all the time, Izuku didn’t really notice. And even if he did, he didn’t really care. It was only after Izuku started thinking about what Kacchan would want, why Kacchan would behave in the ways he was, that it seemed– weird. It seemed so out of character for him to return to that name when he had made such a big deal about it being a challenge. 

Izuku was at the dining table, stabbing the cut of meat on his plate as his mind raced with these thoughts. He wondered why Kacchan hadn’t shown up to distract him yet. This kind of spiralling usually demanded his attention, like it called out to him from Izuku’s mind and dragged him out of those murky depths. He had cooked the meat into a creamy curry today, the taste and texture of the meat almost entirely overpowered by the garlic and onion. It was good. He hated that it was good, but the unfortunate truth of it was that Izuku couldn’t get enough. 

He enjoyed it as much as it sickened him. As long as he didn’t think about it, he enjoyed the food, and some part of him warmed at the thought of it being Kacchan. It was a small, whispering portion of his mind. Safely nestled away from the branches that had begun to form from seeds of doubt and guilt. It told him how romantic this was; it told him how special it was that Izuku was eating the person he loved. That now, he would always be with him. Be with him in a way that Kacchan never could have been in life. A tiny part of him that, despite his misgivings, suggested relief at the fact that Kacchan had died.

No one could hurt him anymore. No one could misunderstand him or corrupt him. He was perfect, and he would be untouched by the cruelties of growing up. Kacchan’s body would wither and rot, turn into carrion, not fit for consumption or storage, but he would live on forever. Inside Izuku. Wasn’t that just the most romantic thing you’ve ever heard? A shiver ran down Izuku’s spine, and he bit down on the fork as he took another bite, the cream of the curry smearing over his now dry and cracked lips. He hated to admit it, would never say it aloud even to himself, but it was romantic. It was sick and deranged, and Izuku knew that if anyone found out, he would be locked away forever. But he couldn’t help it, couldn’t help the way his heart fluttered in his chest when he thought about getting to keep Kacchan. 

“You wanna know what would be really romantic?” 

Izuku whipped his head around to find Kacchan sitting just outside his line of sight, feet kicked up on the table and balancing the chair precariously on the back legs. His face broke out in a wide grin. His doubts and fears may exist, and they may be taking over the part of him that trusted this image of Kacchan implicitly, but nothing could compare to the relief that flooded his senses at the sight of him. “What would Kacchan?” Izuku asked, dragging his chair around so he could look at the blond. 

“If you ate my heart.”

Izuku blinked, rubbing his eyes and then his ears as if he had missed a pocket of time again. Surely, that’s not what Kacchan said. When Izuku continued to stare at him in blatant confusion, Kacchan stood up and dragged the chair closer. He sat down, straddling the chair and leaned in close until his lips were a hairsbreadth from Izuku’s. 

“Eat my heart, Deku.” 

The words lodged where they were meant to this time, and Izuku jumped up, frantically putting space between them. “What the fuck are you saying, Kacchan?!” Izuku demanded, the hairs on the back of his neck standing at attention as his racing heart ran away from his rapid breathing. He shook his head, trying to make sense of the sudden barrage of emotions: disbelief, guilt, shame, fear. Ice-cold fear filled his veins, freezing him up from the inside, and suddenly, he was back in the morgue. In what seemed like a lifetime ago, he was standing in front of the freezer. 

Eighth from the top, sixth from the right.

Ice coursed through his body and rendered him rigid, stuck to the spot as his mouth moved uselessly. Kacchan watched him, an amused glint in his eye. He made no move to help, to reassure Izuku that he was okay, and he hadn’t really meant that. He just sat there, straddling the dining chair like a living reminder of Izuku’s worst impulses. 

“N-no!” Izuku managed to stutter out. 

“No?” Kacchan asked with a scoff, and he stood up as well. He grabbed the meat off Izuku’s plate as he went, tossing the fork aside. The red curry dripped down Kacchan’s arm and formed a trail on the floor, turning dark and thick, starting to resemble blood way too closely. “What do you mean, no? You’ve been chowing down on me for the past week, haven’t you? So what the hell do you mean no?” 

Izuku backed up against the wall, his heart thundering in his chest. Kacchan seemed to get bigger as he approached, looming over him in an unnatural way until Izuku was entirely covered in shadows. This wasn’t real; it couldn’t be real. The vestige couldn’t do things like this, and Kacchan wouldn’t do things like this. Not anymore. He wouldn’t try to scare Izuku into doing what he wants anymore. Right?  

Izuku pressed his palms flat against the wall, the sweat slicking his skin and causing it to slip. “Kacchan, stop. What are you-”

Izuku’s voice cut out as the shadow Kacchan’s body projected engulfed the entire room, somehow blocking out the setting sun outside and the artificial light of the bulb. His eyes were glowing. That warm red that had always served as a comforting hearth for Izuku, like a lighthouse flame that called him back to the safety of a home, was now glinting with wicked intention. 

“You poor thing,” Kacchan sneered, his hands slamming against the sides of Izuku’s head, caging him in against the wall. “Did you think you could just quit this like you’ve quit everything else? That poor pathetic little Deku could just run away when things got too scary?” Kacchan laughed, and it sounded nothing like his laugh. It was distorted and painful, the sound penetrating through layers of skin and bone to reach inside Izuku’s cranium, to lodge inside the soft meat of his brain. Its laughter was pitched both high and low somehow, twisting and turning like it was coming out of three different people.

Izuku tried to open his mouth. To deny what it said? To beg for mercy? For forgiveness? He wasn’t sure. He didn’t know what he wanted to say or do; all he knew was that he had to try. That he couldn’t just stand there, helpless and useless, like this thing claimed he was. But when he opened his mouth, the shadows slithered their way inside, filling him up and jumping from limb to limb like some kind of infectious disease. Izuku coughed and sputtered, clutching at his throat with his hands as he tried to breathe again. He fell onto his knees, that grating laugh surrounding him from all sides as the darkness that had slipped inside suffocated him. He pushed his fingers in his mouth, trying to spit it out. To throw up. Maybe if he could get the meat out, the darkness would follow. 

He gagged and heaved, choking on his own fingers as the spit inside his mouth dribbled out and made a puddle on the floor. Even that looked black. Like tar was spilling from inside him. Like his very being was rotting. 

The thing that was pretending to be Kacchan grabbed him by the face and pulled him back up to his feet. It held him up against the wall, his feet dangling under him helplessly, and Izuku watched as it reached inside its chest and pulled out a bloody hunk of meat. Izuku knew immediately what it was holding. A heart. A heart that was somehow still beating, still pumping blood despite not being connected to anything. He watched as the blood dripped down the thing's hand, and coated it way too fast for this to be real. This couldn’t be real! Izuku had to be dreaming. Kacchan would never do this to him. No matter what happened, no matter what Izuku did, Kacchan would never ever be this cruel. 

“Open,” the voice that came out of it was not Kacchan’s voice. It was warbled and contorted into something almost unrecognisable. Almost. “Open, you useless waste of space.” The voice that came through should not have been familiar; it should not have sounded like anything other than a monstrous manifestation of his worst fears, but it did. Under the varying pitch and the distorted sounds, it sounded like him. It sounded like the voice Izuku heard every time he stood in front of a mirror and picked at his skin. The voice that played in his mind when he had run from his friends and tried to take everything on himself. The voice that blamed him for Kacchan’s death, the voice that blamed him for Tenko’s death, the voice that told him he never deserved to have One For All. 

Izuku forced himself to look upon the monster again, to see past the shadows and the warped features, and what he saw was not blonde hair and red eyes. The eyes that looked back at him were his own. The hatred he saw burning in them was the same one he saw in every reflection he had had the misfortune of looking in since the war. He saw tears reflected in them, no doubt mirroring what was already streaming down his face and when Izuku opened his mouth to scream, so did it. 

In all his shock and terror, he had forgotten about the pulsing, oozing organ the thing held in its hand. When Izuku opened his mouth to scream, it forced the heart past his teeth and down his throat, clamping its hand over Izuku’s mouth and forcing him to eat. Blood streamed down Izuku’s jaw as his teeth tried to tear into it. It was somehow both rotting and hard at the same time, turning to mush in his mouth but never reducing in size. His eyes bulged out of his head, his face turned red from a lack of oxygen, and he tried desperately to swallow. 

“Useless Deku.” 

-

“Deku?” A muffled voice played outside his mind. Like someone trying to speak to him through a window, or from above water, under which he was submerged. “Deku!” There it was again. Soft and feminine but urgent in the way it said his name. Izuku felt something touch his shoulder and shake him. All he could do in response was wonder if this was how Kacchan felt when Izuku had clutched him close and begged him to wake up. When he knelt on the blood-soaked dirt of the Coffin in The Sky and held Kacchan in his arms, screaming and pleading. Izuku felt his eyes become wet again, and he knew he was crying once more. When the shaking didn’t stop, he finally allowed the voice to breach the haze in his mind and coax him out of this deep slumber. Izuku cracked his eyes open a sliver only to be greeted by brown eyes, rife with worry and a pair of swollen lips, dotted with blood and twisted into a frown. 

“Deku!” Ochako exclaimed, wincing at the way Izuku grimaced. “Why are you lying here? What happened?” 

She helped him sit up against the freezer door and kneeled in front of him. Izuku could see the way her eyes were flickering over his body, pausing at his neck, his wrists. She was worried. Izuku could see that she was worried; he knew that he should explain, calm her down and talk her through whatever she was thinking, but he could barely process those thoughts. His mouth felt like it was full of cotton, and the pounding in his head had gotten unbearable. He blinked up at Ochako as her soft fingers brushed past the bloody scratches on his neck. Izuku sat still, limbs heavy and mind still bleary, and he allowed her to move his jaw this way and that. Allowed her to look him over, allowed her to ask her questions and express her worry. 

“Have you been sleeping at all?” Ochako asked and leaned minutely closer to inspect the dark circles under his eyes. 

A necklace dangling around her neck caught Izuku’s attention as she continued her inspections and reprimands. It was cylindrical, a small tube attached to a silver metal chain. There was something wet inside it, a liquid that sloshed to and fro as Ochako moved. He found himself mesmerised by it. The way it swung back and forth kept his attention focused until Ochako snapped in his face. 

“W-what?” He stuttered, blinking rapidly. 

“What happened, Deku?” She asked and sat down, cross-legged opposite him. “You look like utter shit, and it has not been long enough for you to rot this much.” 

Ochako said it like it was a joke; the upward tilt of her lips and the small chuckle that punctuated her words made it clear she meant it as a joke, but Izuku couldn’t help but fixate on the word. Rot. Was that what was happening to him? Had he been rotting without Kacchan? Izuku stared at her, his eyes glassy and jaw clenched tight like he was afraid of what he would reveal if he opened his mouth. He could see the vein in Ochako’s jaw flexing, see the gears in her head turning as she tried to hold back the barrage of questions. 

He sighed, “I’ve just had a rough few days.”

“Days?” Ochako asked, furrowing her eyebrows. “Izuku, it’s August. It’s been almost a month since I saw you last.” 

A month. That couldn’t be right. Izuku shook his head, sitting up straighter and counting on his hands. No, it couldn’t have been that long, Izuku was counting the days. It couldn’t have been more than two weeks since he moved back to the dorms. He looked back at Ochako, eyes wide with worry as though begging her to give him an answer. 

Ochako’s face contorted further in pity, and Izuku wanted to run. He hated this. Hated the way she was looking at him like he was something broken that needed to be fixed, like he was a child she needed to take care of. He wanted to push her away, yell at her until she left him alone. He wanted Kacchan. A choked sound escaped Izuku’s lips at the thought and he curled forward, “Kacchan,” Izuku whimpered. 

Ochako moved immediately, surging forward to wrap him up in her arms. She held him as she felt tears soaking through her shirt and into the skin on her shoulder. Soft whimpers turned into wailing, and Izuku clung to her, his fingers digging into her shirt as he sobbed. 

“H-he’s gone,” Izuku hiccuped.

“I know Izuku,” she murmured, reaching up to stroke his hair. 

“No,” He shook his head, sniffling and pulling back to look at her. “No, you don’t understand. He left. He was here, Ochako. He was here with me, and he left again. I chased him away again.” 

Ochako swallowed hard, her throat bobbing as she listened. Izuku couldn’t make out the thoughts reflected on her face; he could barely see through his tears anyway. He shook his head and wiped at his face, trying to clear the mess of tears and snot. He disentangled from her entirely and stood up on shaky feet, back still pressed protectively against the freezer. 

“Izuku…” Ochako trailed off, worrying her bottom lip once more as she got up as well. “When’s the last time you showered?” She asked, deciding it was safer to tackle his physical health first. Then they could get into whatever was going on with him. Once he was clean, fed and rested, they could talk. When Izuku didn’t respond, she asked again, reaching out to brush her fingers along his arm. “Come on,” She urged, wrapping her fingers loosely around his wrist. “I’ll go get something to eat while you shower. You’ll feel better once you’re clean.” 

Ochako succeeded in pulling him away for about four steps before some realisation dawned on Izuku. He ripped his hand from her hold and threw himself back against the freezer door. Ochako’s eyebrows knitted together once more as she turned around to face him, concern quickly turning to a twisted suspicion. He didn’t look like the boy she had grown to know over the past year. Sure, he had physically changed; they all had, but there was something haunted in his eyes. Something she had only seen in cornered animals, something terrified and skittish, like he had done something she shouldn’t know, something she couldn’t know. Something he wouldn’t let her know. Her eyes drifted past Izuku’s shaking hands and flitting pupils to the freezer door. 

It was the meat locker; they had barely used it when they were living in the dorms, but it had been put in all the dorm buildings in case any students with animal quirks or food-based ones needed it. A large, frozen meat locker that one could walk inside and store all kinds of meat for long periods of time. A thought bobbed in Ochako’s mind, a memory of something she said in passing.

“You could always eat him.”

She swallowed hard and looked back at Izuku, at the state of disarray he was in. His words from earlier played in her head, “He was here with me.” What had begun as a tingling suspicion was quickly growing into an all-consuming realisation, spreading through her mind and to the tips of her fingers at the rate of a forest fire on a dry day. 

“Izuku…” Ochako began, walking forward slowly, carefully. “What’s–” She stopped, licking her lips, taking a moment to steady herself, “what’s in the freezer?”

The way Izuku’s eyes widened in fear and how his breathing turned frantic only confirmed her doubts, sending a chill down her spine. Izuku put his hands up as though getting ready to fight her off. When she stepped even closer, he snarled, teeth bared and spittle flying from between cracked lips. 

“Izuku, I won’t hurt you,” She promised, swallowing hard. “Or him.”

Izuku lunged at that, arms outstretched like he planned to choke her out, but he was weak. Ochako easily sidestepped him and pressed all five fingers on his back as he fell. She darted past his floating form, her heart racing as she listened to the pained howling that left her friend. Sounding more like a wounded animal than a person. Ochako wrapped her fingers around the handle of the door, ice cold to the touch, and pulled it open. 

She blinked a few times, needing a moment for her eyes to adjust to the dim lighting inside the freezer. The first thing she saw was her breath coming out in thick puffs of mist in front of her. She rubbed her hands against her biceps as she stepped further inside. Izuku’s wails faded into choked sobs and pleas as her sight adjusted. 

“What–” Ochako cut herself off, and the building went silent. The air itself held its breath as her brain tried to make sense of what she saw before her. And then, a scream cut through the air like a dull knife through warm butter, shrill and terrified, followed by the loud thump of her knees hitting the floor.

Chapter Text

When Ochako woke up that day, she had two things in mind. Repair the sole of her favourite sandals and check in on Deku. It had been nearly a month since she’d seen him last, since he had come to her home and they had argued. Since he told her he was going to move back to the dorms. Deku’s mother had told her last week that he did, in fact, move back, and did so almost immediately after he returned from her place. She had meant to go see him then, text him to see when he’d be free and drop in. If the PlayStation was still there, maybe they could play something for a while, go over the syllabus that had been mailed to them for the new year. Something normal. 

He didn’t respond to her messages, though. Ochako had even tried to call a few times, but it always went straight to voicemail. It wasn’t like this was a new occurrence; over the last year, as things had gotten more and more stressful, Izuku had gotten harder and harder to reach. And when things took a turn for the worse with Bakugo’s death… well, it made sense, is all. So she let it be, figured he would call back or text her when he felt up to talking, and it wasn’t like Ochako didn’t have her own things to deal with. 

She hadn’t gotten as badly banged up as the others; her biggest health worry was that lack of blood, but that had been rectified on the battlefield itself. By the time they got her back to the hospital, they only really needed to treat minor wounds and a small infection that had started in the stab wound on her stomach. The doctors had asked her if she wanted them to graft over it. They had the technology to smooth it out and make it disappear like it was never there. They said they’d be happy to do it. 

“We know how important things like this are to you girls,” one of her doctors, an older balding man who smelt of antiseptic and gasoline, had said. Ochako was grateful she was on such a strong combination of drugs; otherwise, she’s sure she would’ve punched the man in his fat nose. 

She had turned down the offer. Spouted some nonsense about battle scars being sources of pride and convinced both him and her parents that she wanted the scar. In reality, it was about her. Always about her. Before Ochako had fully come to her senses and was reminded of everything that had happened, she thought that scar was all she had left. The only thing left to hold on to. Soon she learned about the blood transfusion, discovered that it was Himiko who flowed through her veins, giving her life, keeping her breathing, and she had become catatonic. 

The realisation that Himiko had not only died but had died trying to save her had been too much, and suddenly the world around her went quiet. She didn’t move from that hospital bed for almost two weeks after that, long after her wounds had become non-threatening, long after she was physically cleared to go home, Ochako remained. She woke up every day when the nurse came to open the curtains and sat there, head turned to the left as the sun climbed higher and higher in the sky. They tried to get her to move around, even let Tsuyu in at one point to try and talk to her, but Ochako was like a doll. Functioning limbs, but nothing behind them. No interest, no motivation, nothing beyond a glassy look in her eyes and slow, sluggish blinking. She stayed that way for sixteen days, locked away in her own mind as she replayed the fight over and over until it all blurred together. Until the stabbing muddled into a kiss and then back to a knife plunging into her abdomen over and over again. Until she heard Himiko tell her she loved her and hated her at the very same time. By the time Ochako had begun to speak again, there wasn’t a clear timeline of events in her head. 

The only thing she knew for sure was that Himiko existed, that the love existed, and it had done nothing and saved no one. 

That was all months ago, though. She was okay now. Better now. Her memories weren’t fully back; there were still pieces that lay buried or muddled, but the therapist she had started seeing was helping. Helping to sort through the things she couldn’t remember, if not helping to alleviate the grief. To be fair, she didn’t want to lose the grief. It kept Himiko close. Kept her tangled up in Ochako’s veins and stuck between her teeth. 

Classes where to start soon. She had gotten that email last week with an attachment of her schedule. An announcement that Aizawa wouldn’t be coming back to teach for the first semester, that he needed some time to heal. Ochako wondered if it had something to do with Bakugo. She wondered if Kirishima would return, if Jirou would. She wondered what they would do to his seat. Would Deku now sit behind Hagakure, or would they leave the space empty? She wondered if Deku would even be okay enough to go back. That was what prompted her to check in on him. Ochako wasn’t ever that close to Bakugo; she had talked to him a few times, had fought beside him and against him, and sure, she respected him, but she never really connected with him. That was okay, though; he wasn’t her favourite person to be around anyway. Too much teenage angst, too much work required to get close to and it seemed like there were more than enough people who were willing to put in that work. 

She realised that she thought about him more in death than when he was alive. She wondered if that was cruel of her, whether it was unfair to think of him in the past. 

Those answers evaded Ochako, but that wasn’t a surprise. She had been doing that a lot recently, wondering, thinking, asking questions she couldn’t track down the truth behind. She had so many questions sometimes it felt like they were pressing against the back of her eyeballs, demanding to be seen and answered. She didn’t know the answers, though, couldn’t even begin to unravel the mess of memories and emotions needed to find them. So instead, she created task lists. She went to buy her new textbooks, and she worked on fixing the tear in her uniform skirt. Ochako started working out again, started studying the first few chapters for the next semester, she even went out with the girls a few times. Anything to not think, anything that would keep her busy and moving. 

It was during one of those outings when she found the pendant. Mina had convinced her to go along on a shopping trip. They perused the various little shops that lined the streets, trying to keep up simple conversation, trying even harder not to talk about the war. Ochako did not ask why she had heard about Mina visiting the morgue, and Mina did not ask about the way Ochako kept picking at her fingernails until they bled. They didn’t meet each other's eyes either, they didn’t hold hands like they used to and above all, they did not talk about Bakugo.

She found the pendant in a discounted pile at a small jewellery store. Most of it looked like costume jewellery, things Mina would use to accessorise her horns a few times and toss once they started to change colour, the kind that populated her own jewellery box back home. She picked it up and held it up to the sunlight coming in through the door. It weighed next to nothing, cylindrical in shape and had a small stopper, and Ochako couldn’t stop staring at the way the sun seemed to fracture as it shone through the glass.

“What’s that?” Mina asked, nudging her shoulder. 

“A pendant, I think,” Ochako murmured and turned to the old lady at the counter, “can I open this?” 

The woman shrugged before turning her attention back to the newspaper open on her desk, leaving Ochako to her thoughts once more. She looked at Mina, who shrugged as well, nudging her again as though encouraging her to follow through. So Ochako did, she wasn’t sure why she wanted to open it or why she was even looking at it. She wasn’t really a necklace person, much preferring bracelets and rings, but something about this simple, unassuming vial had caught her attention. She opened it, careful not to let the stopper fall and peered inside. Empty. Of course, it was. The thing was see-through, she already knew it was empty. Ochako didn’t really know what she was expecting from it anyway, but when Mina moved to leave the store, she couldn’t leave it behind. 

“Excuse me, how much?” 

Over the next few days, she kept the pendant on hand. Fiddling with it constantly, looking inside, holding it up to the sun. She hadn’t put it on a chain yet, hadn’t even tried it on to see if she liked it. It didn’t feel right yet, like there was a purpose for the silly little thing, and it hadn’t made itself clear yet. 

One day, when Ochako was cutting onions, she accidentally nicked her finger, and the sight of the blood flowing out sent her into a panic. She fell backwards onto the floor, the knife clattering out of her hand as her heart rate picked up, and she could hear the rushing of the blood in her ears. The pendant slipped out of her pocket when she clashed with the counter. The sound had brought her parents running into the room, memories of her zombie-like state all too fresh in their minds. They crowded her, checking her finger, flashing light in her eyes, talking to her and trying to coax out any kind of response. All Ochako could focus on was how the pendant had rolled a few inches down and lay in a small pool of her blood. 

A few days later, Ochako had a new necklace. The small cylindrical pendant had gone from transparent to red. Filled halfway with the blood from the cut on her finger, she had ripped open again that night, and halfway with rubbing alcohol; the stopper sealed with wax and a little space left right at the top. It sat snug just below the space between her collarbones and went with her everywhere she went. 

It helped. She didn’t tell anyone about it, didn’t expect anyone to really understand, but it helped keep her grounded. When her mind decided to play tricks on her, when she couldn’t trust her memories and when the nightmares became so poignant that even waking up didn’t seem enough to drive the shadows away, the pendant helped. 

Ochako fiddled with it as she watched the cobbler repair the sole of her slipper. It was nearly twelve already, and she wanted to get a move on, check in on Deku and get home before dinner. Her mother had developed a nasty habit of calling her friends if Ochako was out later than eight. If the war had left Ochako in a fugue state, it had sparked paranoia like nothing she had ever seen in her parents. She should have gone to see Deku first, would’ve had the excuse that she needed to get her slipper fixed if it got too weird. 

Everything was weird with Deku nowadays. She had never known him as an angry person and definitely not as a petty person. Deku had always been… nice. He was encouraging, supportive, nice and silly, and she had enjoyed that. Had enjoyed being around someone who wasn’t constantly bogged down by his own angst, but recent events had caused her to rethink that. Maybe, just like her, Deku was also playing a part. Pretending that the things that worried him and kept him up at night did not exist so as not to worry the people around him. Maybe the weight of everything he had to carry was slowly bending his bones, testing his mettle until he snapped. He was weirder now, but he was familiar, too. 

The reason why it was so much harder to be around Deku now was that she couldn’t look at him without seeing her own grief reflected back. The prickling of insanity at the corners of his eyes, the fear and anxiety his bouncing leg housed, the barely leashed irritation in the way he would avoid prying questions and say he was tired. It was all too familiar, and if Ochako looked into that mirror for too long, she wasn’t sure she would be able to keep moving. 

“It’s ready, miss,” the cobbler called out, breaking Ochako out of her thoughts and holding the slippers out. 

She pasted on a smile that didn’t reach her eyes and took the slippers back, tucking them into her bag with a murmured thank you. She paid and ducked out of the shop, a voice in her head telling her the cobbler knew who she was. Knew what it was that sat on her chest, knew who it belonged to. Ochako ran to catch the bus just as it pulled into the stop and climbed on, covering her hair with the hood of her jacket. She didn’t like being recognised, didn’t like the pity people held in their eyes even as they sang praise to her face. She especially didn’t like it when they tried to touch her. A grandma pinching her cheeks or a small child tugging on her sleeve made her skin pebble. Someone's mother ruffling her hair had her wanting to scream, and when older men would slap her on the shoulder and tell her how brave she was, she felt smaller than the weeds that grew through the cracks on the pavement outside her house. She hated the attention. Wished they would stop, would turn away from her and let her melt into the shadows or the ground until she ceased to exist. 

“Shizuoka prefecture,” The automated voice rang through the bus and prompted Ochako to move, eyes focused down on her feet, hood pulled down low,  and hands gripping the straps of her bag so tight her nails had begun to leave indents in the worn cloth. She scanned her card and got out, squinting against the bright evening sun. Thankfully, Musutafu wasn’t that far from the bus stop, just a twenty-minute walk. 

It was quiet when Ochako got there, and the quiet was unsettling. In all her memories, the dorms were bright and loud, filled with life and students running back and forth. Now… it was quiet, almost like a ghost town, only populated by the memories they had all left behind. Memories of different people, Ochako realised. Not a single one of them would return as the people they had left, and in some ways, it was comforting to know that they all shared that. That it wasn’t just her that had changed irrevocably. The sense of community was nice. On the other hand, it was scary that they would never be those kids again. 

“Deku?” Ochako knocked on the front doors, not wanting to startle him if he was downstairs. No response came, so she knocked harder, called out again and tried hard to push the paranoia spiking down. She wouldn’t be like her mother; she had promised herself that a long time ago, but now, especially, she would not be like her mother. 

After about five minutes of nothing, she pushed the door open, her nose immediately wrinkling at the musty smell that hung in the air. The curtains were drawn closed, and the only light in the whole building seemed to be the dim glow of the stove top lamp. Ochako wrung her hands in front of her as she walked, picking open the scabs around her nails, using the pain to ground her in reality. She didn’t see him immediately when she entered the kitchen; the smell of food starting to go bad wafted in from the table, and she covered her nose as she tossed it into the garbage. 

“Deku?” Ochako called again, trying her best to combat the fears she had been harbouring since the war. What if someone came for them again? What if AFO had sympathisers and lackeys still left in the wild who were waiting for a chance to attack the kids who had embarrassed their leader? What if they get Deku, and he doesn’t have it in him to fight anymore? Her fears shifted to a different kind when her eyes finally landed on the figure slumped against the freezer door. “Deku!” 

Ochako ran over to him, the pungent stench forgotten as she kneeled beside her friend. She checked his pulse, murmuring prayers under her breath as she did. Ochako let out a relieved sob when she found a pulsing vein under his pale and ashy skin. It was weak, barely there, but she could feel it. Evidence he was alive, evidence that the unthinkable hadn’t happened. Ochako lifted his shoulders, propping him up against the door with a grunt of effort. 

“Deku, wake up,” She said, shaking him carefully and pressing one hand to his forehead to stop his head from drooping. “Fuck,” she murmured under her breath, “What happened, man? Come on, open your eyes.” Ochako’s eyes flickered down to the scratch marks on his neck; they matched the angry red scars on his wrists. She knew in her gut he had left them there himself. She shook her head. This wasn’t the time. She didn’t need to diagnose him right now; she needed to wake him up, and then they could worry about getting help. 

Lists. That's what she needed right now. Order and lists, so she could keep her own anxiety under check, and so she could help.

Wake Deku up.

Find out why he was on the floor.

Get him some water.

Help him off the floor.

Open the curtains and windows.

Order food. 

Take out the trash.

Everything else could be handled after they dealt with this first. Order helped, order always helped. 

Ochako’s eyes focused once more when Izuku twitched, her hands moving to push his hair off his forehead and tap his cheek lightly, “Deku?” She called, her rapid heart rate calming slightly when his eyes fluttered. He was waking up. A red pen pressed down on the first point in her mental list, ready to cross it out. Slowly, torturously, Deku opened his eyes, blinking harshly at her like he didn’t recognise her. The empty, faraway expression on his face ached somewhere in her chest, but she pushed through. 

“Deku!” Ochako exclaimed, wincing at the way Izuku grimaced. How long had it been since he passed out? How long had it been since he had talked to another person? “Why are you lying here? What happened?” 

Wake Deku up.

Find out why he was on the floor.

Get him some water.

Help him off the floor.

Open the curtains and windows.

Order food. 

Take out the trash.

Ochako settled him against the door better, ensuring he could sit up on his own before sitting down cross-legged in front of him. “Do these hurt?” She asked softly as her hands moved to carefully brush against the scratches on his neck. One look at his face, though, and she knew he wasn’t listening to her. The circles under his eyes had caved in to a worrying degree. Darker than they were when he had run away. He was skinnier, too; the muscle definition she had once admired was basically nothing. He looked so much like the weird, lanky little boy whom she had saved from falling on his face nearly a lifetime ago. 

Except for his eyes. “Have you been sleeping at all?” They were empty, the light that always shone in the squashed out by a darkness that seemed to come from inside, barely open and crusted in the corners. His eyes had drifted away from her face, down to where her pendant swung between them. She tensed, instinctively wanting to clutch the thing and hide it from view, but the list helped. She had to move on to the next point. The pen was uncapped and waiting; it would dry out if she didn’t work faster, so she snapped, inches from his face.

“W-what?” He stuttered, blinking rapidly. 

“What happened, Deku?” She asked. “You look like utter shit, and it has not been long enough for you to rot this much.” Ochako meant it as a joke, but the way his eyes drifted again told her it was the wrong thing to say. 

“I’ve just had a rough few days.”

“Days?” Ochako asked, furrowing her eyebrows. “Izuku, it’s August. It’s been almost a month since I saw you last.” 

She watched as Deku tried to make sense of what she told him, watched him count the days on his fingers, her frown deepening with each second. She should have come sooner. Should have gotten off her ass when he had stopped responding to her texts and come down here, helped him somehow. Maybe if she had come sooner, he wouldn’t have gotten this bad. What was wrong with her? What was she thinking, going to the gym, hanging out with her friends, when her best friend was wasting away like this? She should have been better, done more. Why couldn’t she save anyone-

“Kacchan,” Izuku’s voice came out as a whimper, and he curled into himself.

Ochako moved immediately, her spiral screening to a halt as she surged forward to wrap him up in her arms. She tightened her hold when tears began to seep through her shirt to the skin on her shoulder. Soft whimpers turned into wailing, and Izuku clung to her, his fingers digging into her shirt as he sobbed. 

“H-he’s gone,” Izuku hiccuped.

“I know, Izuku,” she murmured, reaching up to stroke his hair. Distantly, she recognised that this was the first time she had ever referred to him that way; even further in her mind, she smiled at the thought. Misery does love company, and she was happy to be his company.

“No,” He shook his head, sniffling and pulling back to look at her. “No, you don’t understand. He left. He was here, Ochako. He was here with me, and he left again. I chased him away again.” 

The pen stopped, ink blotching the paper with her list, and Ochako swallowed hard, her throat bobbing as she listened. She watched as he shook his head and wiped the mess of tears and snot away. What did that mean? How could Bakugo be here when she had seen his body? They all knew he was dead, they had all said their goodbyes, cried with his parents, cried with each other and cried in private. Was there a chance he wasn’t dead? Izuku disentangled from her entirely and stood up on shaky feet, back still pressed protectively against the freezer. 

“Izuku…” Ochako trailed off, worrying her bottom lip once more as she got up as well. She needed a new plan. Clearly, he was in no place for questions and pushing any further seemed like it was only going to make things worse.

Wake Deku up.

Find out why he was on the floor. 

Get him some water.

Help him off the floor. Get him to the shower.

Open the curtains and windows.

Order food. 

Take out the trash.

“When’s the last time you showered?” She asked. When Izuku didn’t respond, she asked again, reaching out to brush her fingers along his arm. “Come on,” Ochako urged, wrapping her fingers loosely around his wrist. “I’ll go get something to eat while you shower. You’ll feel better once you’re clean.” 

She managed to pull him off the freezer door for a few steps, just enough to cause a spark of hope in her mind that maybe he wasn’t too far gone. That with a little support and company, he would be fine. It was smothered immediately when he ripped his hand from her hold and threw himself back against the freezer door. Ochako’s eyebrows knitted together once more as she turned around to face him, concern quickly turning to a twisted suspicion. There was something in the way he pressed back against the metal that gnawed at the edges of her mind. It wasn’t anything special; they hadn’t even used it when they all lived here, and Izuku definitely had never been anywhere near it. Her eyes focused on the freezer door. It was the meat locker. A large, frozen meat locker that one could walk inside and store all kinds of meat for long periods of time. A thought bobbed in Ochako’s mind, a memory of something she said in passing.

“You could always eat him.”

The phantom arm in her mind dropped the pen, and as it rolled away from her list, so did her thoughts. She swallowed hard and looked back at Izuku, at the state of disarray he was in. His words from earlier replaced the neat script that made up her list. Messy and hurried, like it didn’t want to be read, “He was here with me.” What had begun as a tingling suspicion was quickly growing into an all-consuming realisation, spreading through her mind and to the tips of her fingers at the rate of a forest fire on a dry day. 

“Izuku…” Ochako began, walking forward slowly, carefully. “What’s–” She stopped, licking her lips, taking a moment to steady herself, “what’s in the freezer?”

The way Izuku’s eyes widened in fear and his breathing turned frantic only confirmed her doubts. The writing was getting clearer, written over and over in a column that started as illegible chicken scratch and cleaned up into five words that seemed to point the finger at her.

“You could always eat him.”

Izuku put his hands up as though getting ready to fight her off. When she stepped even closer, he snarled, teeth bared and spittle flying from between cracked lips. “Izuku, I won’t hurt you,” She promised, swallowing hard as the writing turned into a cacophony. Voices telling her it was her fault, that she had caused this. “Or him.”

Izuku lunged at that, arms outstretched like he planned to choke her out, but he was weak and slow. Ochako easily sidestepped him and pressed all five fingers on his back as he fell. She darted past his floating form, her heart racing as she listened to the pained howling that left her friend. Sounding more like a wounded animal than a person. Ochako wrapped her fingers around the handle of the door, ice cold to the touch, and pulled it open. The voices in her head were getting louder, warring with each other as one faction told her to leave and the other told her to fix. The cold hit her like a truck barreling towards her in the mist and made her cough.

She blinked a few times, her eyes taking a moment to adjust to the dim lighting inside the freezer. The first thing she saw was her breath coming out in thick puffs of mist in front of her. She rubbed her hands against her biceps as she stepped further inside. Izuku’s wails faded into choked sobs and pleas as her sight adjusted. 

“What–” Ochako cut herself off, and the building went silent. The air itself held its breath as her brain tried to make sense of what she saw before her. And then, a scream cut through the air like a dull knife through warm butter, shrill and terrified, followed by the loud thump of her knees hitting the floor.

The smell is what hit her first, subtle enough that one wouldn’t notice if they didn’t know what to look for, but now that she did, so pungent it filtered out the clean air from her lungs. Her eyes locked onto the body lying atop the meat stripping table in the far back, and no matter how hard she tried, no more sound would make its way past her lips. A second thump came from outside the freezer, where, in her shock and horror, Ochako had released her quirk, and Izuku crashed to the ground. Ochako didn’t notice, though; all she could focus on was the familiar outline of a classmate, someone she knew in passing, someone who, when he left, had left a space so deep and glaring it was impossible to walk around it without peering in. 

The carved spaces in the outline stood out like they were outlined in red, like it was a diagram, and there was a pen circling the pieces that were missing. Forcing her to look, forcing her to see that he had been cut up like an animal. She felt bile climb up her throat, bitter and urgent, and Ochako clamped a hand over her mouth, shooting to her feet as it pushed against her teeth. She ran out of the freezer, vomit dribbling past the gaps in her fingers and trickling down her hand. There was no time to make it to the washroom, so she made a beeline for the kitchen sink and exploded into it. Ochako retched violently as the puke seemed to be suffocating her, she held onto the sides for dear life, tight enough to dent if she had been a little bigger. 

She could feel tears rolling down her cheeks and burning in her throat as she threw up whatever was in her stomach. It did not stop until she was expelling only water, clutching at her throat as she sobbed. 

Wake Deku up.  Your fault.

Find out why he was on the floor. It’s your fault

Get him some water. You told him to eat

Help him off the floor. Get him to the shower. He ate him

Open the curtains and windows. Izuku cut Bakugo up and ate him

Order food. Izuku ate Katsuki’s corpse

Take out the trash. Izuku cannibalised Katsuki

Her list had turned blood red, like the pen that circled the missing flesh had exploded all over the paper and smeared the new words into the wet ink. It was her fault. This was her fault. She turned to look at where Izuku was lying, where she had dropped him, but found no one there. He must have run away when she was busy throwing up her insides. Ochako washed her hands, cleaning the area around her mouth once she was done and slumped down to the floor, exhaustion crashing over her body like a tidal wave. He’s eating Bakugo, Ochako thought, running a hand through her hair. Izuku is eating Bakugo. A laugh escaped her lips, crazed and terrified. She had come here with the hopes of cheering Izuku up a little, to maybe take him out for dinner, check up on whether he was planning to come back to school, but she had walked into a horror movie. Her stomach churned again when the image of the food she had thrown away earlier flashed through unbidden. Was that Bakugo? Did Izuku pass out midway through eating his friend? Had Ochako thrown a piece of her classmates cooked flesh in the trash? The questions piled up in her head, and she gagged once again, hand flying to her mouth, but there was nothing to spit up, nothing left inside her to violently expel out of her body, so instead she cried. 

She buried her face between her knees, and she sobbed loudly. How could she possibly start to fix this? How could she ever make it right and help her friend? What use was she when she herself still refused to deal with what was hurting her? Ochako’s sobs turned into wet hiccups as she tried to answer the questions that barricaded her out. Refusing to let her get to Izuku, to where she needed to be, so she could help. Her own self-doubt, her guilt, her fear, every insecurity she’s ever had linked arms and pushed her back until she reached the very edge of a tall, unforgiving cliff. 

Maybe it would be better if she were unresponsive again. Maybe if she had never woken up from that dream, she wouldn’t have suggested something so horrifying to Izuku, maybe then she wouldn’t have let down another person. She wouldn’t have failed to save another person. The scratchiness in her throat didn’t subside, no matter how much water she gulped down; the rancid taste in her mouth wouldn’t leave. Punishment, Ochako thought to herself. Punishment for being the one to start this chain of events, punishment for being too weak to do anything, for ignoring him, for being selfish. 

“Ochako-chan.”

The voice first came as a tickle against the shell of her ear, just loud enough to make arm hair bristle but not so loud that it demanded her attention. It was the gust of wind that shook Ochako out of her ocean of self-pity, a wind that came from seemingly nowhere. She looked around like she was ensuring that she hadn’t left the door open, but it was shut tight, and so were the windows. There was nowhere for this warm wind to race in from, but it cradled her regardless. Held her like a pair of arms she barely knew and eased her ache. 

“Ochako-chan.”

Ochako heard it this time; she heard the sweet sing-song nature of the voice as it spoke near her ear, and she whipped around. No one there. No open windows. No apparitions trying to reach her from the beyond, but she knew she had heard it. Ochako knew with vicious certainty that she had heard her voice. She didn’t know whether it was in her mind or not, but really, she didn’t care. It wasn’t like things in the real, tangible world were that much better right now, so if her mind was going to conjure up a hallucination, at least it was her. 

“H-Himiko-chan?” Ochako asked, leaning back against the counter and closing her eyes. Waiting for the wind to return, waiting to hear warm breath ghost over her ear. 

“Don’t cry, Ochako-chan,” her voice said, cradling Ochako’s face in her hands. The warmth that seeped through to Ochako’s bones felt real, realer than any other time people had tried to hug or hold her recently. “This wasn’t your fault.”

Ochako’s eyes flew open, only to immediately regret it. The warmth was gone, and so was the air against her ear. “Wait,” she cried, reaching out for dead air. “Don’t go just… tell me how to help him.” Ochako closed her eyes and waited for an answer as the minutes dragged on, but nothing came. “Help me,” she asked this time, running a hand through her hair as she slumped back against the counter again. 

“You tried,” Her voice returned, wrapping around Ochako from behind. What felt like a face nuzzled into the crook of her neck. “You tried to save me, Ochako-chan. It wasn’t your fault; it’s what I chose. I wanted you to live.” 

Ochako whimpered, pressing her nails into her palm, forcing herself not to open her eyes.

“You’re a hero,” she continued, “you’ve always been one, but you can’t do anything if you don’t let this guilt go. You’re my hero, Ochako-chan. Please don’t give up on my hero, please don’t let her suffocate under your pain.” 

And it was quiet again. The warmth faded slowly, lingering in her bones like it did not want to leave her alone but had to. Like it had to leave her to grow on her own, to help herself and become the person it knew she could be. Ochako took a shuddering breath and turned around to brace her hands on the sink. She counted her breaths, coming slower now. She could do this; she could help him because that’s what she did. That’s who she was. She stepped up even when it was hard, and she would get it done no matter the cost. This was her best friend, this was someone who had inspired her throughout the time they had known each other; she wouldn’t let another person she loved die. She wouldn’t allow them to fall victim to their own thoughts and choose that way out. 

“Okay, Ochako,” she muttered to herself, washing her face in the sink. “First things first, we need to talk to Izuku. We need to figure out why he’s doing this and what he’s dealing with right now. Once we know that, we can help unravel the mess. Izuku isn’t evil or malicious; he would never do something like this out of ill intent, and especially not to Bakugo. Just stay calm, make your list, and we will get him back from whatever ledge he’s stuck on.” She repeated the words over and over like a mantra until they burned themselves into her tongue and behind her eyelids. She could do this.

Find Izuku.

Make him feel like he was safe.

Let him speak.

Listen.

Get him to rest.

Clean up the dorms.

Burn the body.

Ochako went through the list point by point as she made her way out of the kitchen and to the stairs leading up to the bedrooms. Just as she was about to step onto his floor, a thought flashed in her mind, and she cursed under her breath.

Call mom.

Find Izuku.

Make him feel like he was safe.

Let him speak.

Listen.

Get him to rest.

Clean up the dorms.

Burn the body.

-

Down the corridor, Izuku was sat inside his wardrobe, shivering despite being wrapped in his blanket. He didn’t know what would happen now. The memories from before he passed out came flooding back once the immediate threat of Ochako’s presence was gone, and he knew with utmost certainty that it wasn’t Kacchan. It hadn’t been Kacchan for a long time, since the second fight, he thinks. What happened, the monster that forced its heart down his throat had never been Kacchan. He had never carried out Kacchan’s will. Flashes of memories that were, till now, buried in his psyche had begun to resurface. Cutting into Kacchan’s body with his own hands, disposing of the blood, cooking up the meat, it had all been him. When the memory of his bath with Kacchan began to split between reality and imagination, Izuku broke down crying, curled in on himself like he was trying to disappear. He had carried Kacchans' body up the stairs, played dress up with him like he was some kind of doll. His wails got louder, apologising, begging for forgiveness for defiling Kacchan’s body that way. For stripping him of his autonomy and refusing to listen to his warnings. He was a mess of snot and tears, saliva dribbling from his mouth as he wailed, open-mouthed and loud. 

He heard it when Ochako entered his room, stiffened at the sound of her footsteps coming closer to the wardrobe. A small part of him tried to prepare, tried to be ready to fight, but the exhaustion was too severe. The weight of his actions and the guilt were eating him alive, and he couldn’t find it in himself to fight anymore, so he waited. He waited for her to open the door, to scream at him for being a disgusting monster, to call the cops, turn him in. Maybe she would kill him, do the world a favour and get rid of him. Do him a favour and end this miserable life where he seemed to only be capable of making one horrible choice after the other. 

It never came, though. The door remained closed, but he did hear the soft thump of someone sitting against the wood. There was a soft knock, three times on a spot right next to his arm.

 “Izuku?” 

He held his breath, slapping a hand over his mouth as he listened.

“What happened, Izuku?”

He came undone once more at the tone of her voice. Soft and understanding, like she was trying to reach out, like she just wanted to understand him and then help him. Ochako didn’t say anything more as Izuku cried, sobbing into cupped hands as the voices in his head told him he didn’t deserve this. Reminded him again and again that he was a disgusting, cruel monster who had done the unthinkable to Kacchan. That he had stolen Kacchan’s autonomy, and for that, all he deserved was to suffer, not kindness, not understanding. The door opened a crack, and Izuku’s head shot up like a skittish animal. He watched as two fingers slipped inside, a tube fell onto the floor of the wardrobe, and then the door shut. He leaned closer, squinting his eyes to try to see what exactly it was. 

Izuku picked it up gingerly and realised it was her necklace from before. The one that had transfixed him so while she checked him for fatal wounds. Barely the size of his pointed finger and sealed with wax. It was silver and glass, and the red liquid inside sloshed ever so slightly in the little space left on top. The tube was connected to a silver chain, thin and dainty, easy to break. He could see the colour was fading near the clasp, and a memory of his mother telling him she needed to get her ring cleaned because it was fading from extended wear. She must have had this on for a while, Izuku thought, if it has only been a month since we saw each other and it's already changing colour.

“It’s Himiko’s,” Ochako’s voice returned, and she knocked once again. “Remember when we talked outside the hospital? When I told you her blood was in me?” 

Izuku stared at the necklace in his hands, her words clicking into place. “Oh,” he muttered, raising his head to look at the door, as though he could see her. 

“Yeah,” Ochako chuckled. A different thump came from the door, and Izuku figured she must have let her head fall back onto it. “I found the pendant at a little store when I was out with Mina,” Ochako explained, “and it just felt important, ya know? Like when I was holding it, I just knew that it was meant for me. I was meant to do something with it, but I couldn’t really figure it out until I accidentally cut myself while cooking one day and saw the blood. Seeing her blood spill out of my fingers freaked me out real bad.”

Izuku listened, mirroring her position with his back to the door where he approximated she would also be sitting. Her voice sounded different now. Lighter than when she had first come in, like they were back in her room, or at UA, sitting around a lunch table and sharing bento’s. It eased his own beating heart. 

“I think it was guilt…” Ochako continued, “Guilt that she had died to save me, and I was wasting that blood on something as meaningless as an accidental cut. Like if I was going to bleed, I should at least bleed for a good reason.”

“Ochak,o that’s-” Izuku heard himself say before he could even fully process it. He hadn’t planned on speaking to her. Had hoped that if he sat there quietly for long enough, she would just leave, but instinct moved him like it so often does. Reach out, reassure, support, help, save. It played on a loop in his mind. The things he had promised to do, the things he had always tried to do and now the things he knew he failed to do. 

“I know,” She replied, cutting him off. “I know it doesn’t make sense and that that’s not how these things work, it's just– it’s weird, isn’t it?” Ochako asked, waiting a beat to see if Izuku would reply and continuing when he didn’t. “Guilt, grief, shame. All these things, they’re so overpowering they twists up what we think we know and put these seeds in our heads. Like some kind of fucked up farmer.”

Izuku chuckled at that, surprising himself when he realised his breathing had slowed down. He wrapped the chain around his hand and held it carefully; maybe she could understand. Maybe she was the only one who could. 

“What happened, Izuku?” Ochako asked again, and Izuku heard the creaking of the door once more as if she had moved away from it. Like she was giving him space to come out if he wanted to, and in that moment, he did want to. Maybe it was just the feeling of owing her, like she deserved more than a one-sided conversation with a piece of furniture, or maybe it was because he needed her. Needed someone to understand and listen, needed to talk to someone that didn’t exist inside his head. Either way, Izuku pushed the door open and got out slowly, his eyes downcast in shame as he sank onto the floor. 

“I-” Izuku coughed, his voice rough from all the crying. She passed a water bottle to him in silence and sat back, legs crossed and arms placed in her lap. “I went to see him… in the morgue.”

As he recounted the events of the last two months to Ochako, he found it got easier to speak as he went on. She remained still, only ever moving to get him a box of tissues and refill the water bottle. Otherwise, she stayed perfectly silent and listened, not a flash of judgement or pity on her face. Just patience. Just a willingness to listen. He wondered if this was how she managed to reach Toga, whether it was this silent patience that made the villain feel like she could open up and trust her. 

Of course, Izuku would never know that it wasn't Ochako’s silence or patience that reached Himiko. She would never tell him that it was loud, impossible love that ripped through her with the force of a tidal wave or a forest fire. Aggressive and impatient, desperate to catch up, desperate to tell Himiko what she felt, what she thought, and to get her to listen. Selfish love that allowed her to focus only on the girl she held in her arms allowed her to forget about her mission to be a hero, even if it meant dying, as long as she got to speak to Himiko like this. That was just theirs to share. The intensity of their feelings, the reality behind how Himiko had changed Ochako at a molecular level, was theirs, the way she knew that whatever Izuku was telling her was just his. She listened, confusion, fear and sadness swirling inside her, but she did not pretend to understand it any more than Izuku would be able to understand what Himiko meant to her. 

When he told her about the fight with Vestige Bakugo, she felt the bitter tang of envy in her mouth before it gave way to an ache in her chest. He had gotten him back only to lose him again. Ochako didn’t know if she could survive that. Her hair stood on end when Izuku relayed what happened with the hallucination, how he had completely lost track of reality and was splitting between two people in an effort to keep the trauma to a minimum. His mind had been working overtime trying to cope with what he was doing, and it had turned against him in the end. His fear and anguish manifested themselves in a living nightmare that left him fighting with himself. She wanted to cry, wanted to wrap him up in her arms and a hundred blankets and cry and cry and cry, but she held herself back. Ochako remained quiet and listened as Izuku kept talking. She didn’t interrupt when he stopped talking to cry, didn’t offer suggestions or verbal support when he met her eyes and flittered away just as quickly. 

Finally, after what felt like days had passed, Izuku finished his story. She noticed how his fingers had left crescent-shaped cuts in his palm; it was clear how difficult this had been. That everything he told her, he had to fight against himself to say, to finally come clean to someone outside his head. No matter what else she didn’t understand, Ochako knew she respected the hell out of him for it. She recognised the strength he held in his body even in such a pitiful state, and it broke her to know that he didn’t see it himself. She wondered what Bakugo would say if he were here. How would he react to seeing Izuku in such a broken down hopeless state? A hypothetical without need for an answer, because for as sure as she was of Izuku’s strength, she also knew that if Bakugo were still here, this would never have happened. 

“Izuku,” Ochako began, moving closer, slowly so as not to startle him. “We have to burn him.” She waited, her breath caught in her throat as she watched Izuku cycle through a range of emotions. When he didn’t speak or run away, Ochako continued, “He deserves to be laid to rest properly, and we can’t bury him, not in the state he’s in. So we should burn him. Do a little funeral, just us.” Ochako reached out and took one of his hands in her own; her pendant nestled between their palms. “No one else ever has to know. I’ll help clean everything up and to send him off properly, but you have to do it with me.” She squeezed his hand, hoping he would look at her. A small smile appeared on her lips when he did, “It’ll be okay. You haven’t failed him, I don’t think you ever could, but let’s end this now, yeah? I think he deserves to rest now. I think you do too.” 

Izuku didn’t know why he wasn’t crying. He should be; he could feel the heaviness behind his ears, felt the tightness in his chest as her words found their mark, but he couldn’t cry. So instead, he nodded and squeezed her hand back. He knew she was right, knew that he couldn’t go on like this. Now that Izuku was aware of everything that had happened and was conscious of his actions, he knew with a clarity he hadn’t felt in a long time that he couldn’t keep putting Kacchan through this. He had lost Kacchan twice already. Once in the Coffin and then again when Izuku chased him away himself. He had held on with the same chains Kacchan kept tied around his legs back when they were children, and it had done nothing but hurt him. Hurt them. His obsession, his refusal to see past what he needed and wanted. It had all hurt them, sullied the relationship they had, the one they were painstakingly rebuilding. A stain on what Izuku meant to Kacchan, on what Kacchan was to Izuku. 

He couldn’t do it anymore, wouldn’t. 

“What do we do?” Izuku asked, his voice in a low register as the exhaustion of keeping himself conscious for the past week or so crashed over him. 

“You should sleep first,” Ochako told him, “Sleep for a while, and once you’re awake, we can start cleaning.” 

Izuku wanted to argue, wanted to tell her that they didn’t have time for that, and they needed to do this now. They had to clean things up now or it would never happen, but the steely look in Ochako’s eyes told him she wasn’t going to budge. So he nodded again and stood up, swaying slightly. Ochako was there, holding out her hands to steady him. She deserved so much more than this. More than a friend who couldn’t do anything but fall apart and rely on her to pick the pieces up. He would make it up to her, Izuku thought as she helped him to his bed, “When this is over. When I’m okay again… whenever that is. I’ll make it up to her and be there for her the way she always has been for me.”

“Do you have a sleeping bag or something?” Ochako asked once he was sitting on the bed. 

“Uh…” Izuku trailed before nodding, surprised by the memory. “I do actually, it’s over there,” he told her, pointing at a shelf in the far corner of the room. 

“Why do you have a sleeping bag, weirdo?” She asked, bracing to see whether he would react badly to the name or not. To her relief, he chuckled again.

“It’s from when I left UA,” Izuku explained, rolling the pendant between his fingers. 

“Hm,” was Ochako’s only response. She carried it over and unfurled it, “Can I–” she asked, pointing to the pendant and laughed slightly as Izuku hurried to give it back to her. “It’s okay, I just– I can’t sleep without it now.” Ochako slipped it back around her neck, kissing the side of it softly.

“I get it,” Izuku replied, nodding his head as he watched her open up the sleeping bag. When she finally turned off the lights, leaving the door open just a little so they weren’t submerged completely in the dark, he lay down as well. Izuku got under his covers, curling up immediately around his extra pillow, missing Kacchan’s warmth. Warmth, he’s not even sure he ever really knew. Was the vestige real? Were the moments he shared with the vestige really with Kacchan, or was it just more of his own consciousness creating a version of Kacchan who would do those things with him? 

“Hey,” Ochako’s voice broke through the spiral that had followed the darkness in like a bad smell that lingered. “What are you thinking about?” She asked. 

Izuku opened his mouth to tell her, but it was difficult all of a sudden. The ease with which he had relayed everything else that had happened was nowhere to be seen, and he found himself choking on the size of his anxieties. “Will you speak instead?” He asked finally, his voice a low rasp. 

Ochako was silent for a moment. “Alright,” she said, turning in the sleeping bag to face his bed. She couldn’t see him; he couldn’t see her either unless he peered over the side, and to be honest, she preferred it this way. If she was going to speak to him about this, it would be easier if she could just pretend she was speaking aloud to herself. “I used to have a really big crush on you when we started school,” she admitted, her cheeks flushing with adolescent nerves despite the weight of everything else they had already discussed. 

“Y-you did?” Izuku sputtered, and Ochako laughed. She could almost imagine his flushed and sweaty face, and it soothed something in her soul. They were still kids, no matter how difficult and scary everything else was, they could still just be kids. 

“Yeah,” she said, “you were just really cool, Izuku. The way you knew exactly what heroism meant to you and who you were. It was inspiring, and I wanted to be that, I wanted to be like you and help people like you. It seemed like every time you fought a villain, you managed to reach them even as you defeated them. Everyone in class liked you because of how nice and supportive you were, and I guess… I thought you were cute too,” Ochako blushed even harder. This crush was long since snuffed out, something she had gotten over and forgotten about, but talking about it was still so embarrassing. She could hardly believe they were talking about something as stupid as a high school crush, given the circumstances, but she pushed ahead. “It really freaked me out. Liking you that way, getting so caught up in my feelings and emotions that I couldn’t do my job properly. I wanted to be like you, but I didn’t want to think about it like that. Does that make sense?” 

Izuku nodded, then spoke when he remembered she couldn’t see him. “Yeah… yeah, I think I get it,” he told her, memories of his fight with Kacchan at ground beta flashing through his mind unbidden. “These feelings are gross.” Those were the words that erupted in that moment, when he thought about how desperately he wanted to be like Kacchan. When he considered his idea of her and only saw Kacchan, all he could think about was how he did not want to think like this. How, he didn’t want to make his growth Kacchan’s responsibility? Izuku realised Ochako had continued speaking and shook his head to focus on her words again. 

“-and with Himiko,” she said, her voice suddenly in an entirely different cadence. The nervous, shaky demeanour had faded away to a new kind of conviction he had never heard from her before. “It was like I couldn’t stop thinking about her, no matter how hard I tried, even when she was nowhere around, all I could think about was her. I didn’t want to be her,” she clarified, “I wasn’t looking for answers to who I am from her either, it was more like I wanted to know who she is… was.” Ochako’s voice cracked, and Izuku considered offering her his hand. In the end, he stayed still. 

“I wanted to know what made her do the things she did, what love meant to her, why she wanted to know me,” Ochako continued, “I couldn’t figure any of it out and then that day. When she stabbed me, I know I should have been angry, and I know that the only reason she had the chance to stab me was because I wouldn’t let go, but I wasn’t thinking about any of that then. All I knew was that I needed to catch her and listen to her, not to subdue her, not to arrest her or to hurt her. Just to have her.” Ochako sighed and turned onto her back, “I’ve gone mad, haven’t I?” She asked. 

“No,” Izuku replied, “I think you just fell in love in a difficult situation and your brain didn’t have the time or blood to logic your way out of it.” 

Ochako chuckled, and it was quiet again. 

“I loved him.” 

“I know.”

-

Izuku doesn’t know when he went to sleep, but when he opened his eyes and saw he was buried halfway under sand instead of his covers, he knew he was dreaming. This was a new setting, though. Usually, he would open his eyes in a dream and find himself back at the Coffin, or when Kacchan got stabbed for him, sometimes he would even be at school, and Kacchan wouldn’t know him. He had never been in any kind of expansive desert with no end in sight. Izuku tried to get up, but the sand cover was heavy and weighed him down. He tried to clear it away with his hands, scooping it up and tossing it, pushing it away, but it wouldn’t change. No matter how much Izuku got rid of, it would just remain the same size and shape. He could feel his breathing pick up as he tried harder and harder. Would he be pulled under if he couldn’t get out? Would he suffocate and die? Would he die in his sleep? Just as he was about to reach the peak of his anxieties, a figure bent down next to him. Izuku looked up to see Kacchan. 

Wrapped in a faint golden light, dressed in his UA uniform, hair ashy spiked, his red eyes bright and alive. So alive. Izuku whimpered when Kacchan began to push the sand away without a word. “Kacchan?” Izuku called in a broken voice, “Are you mad at me?” He asked, trying to reach out and touch the apparition, but his hands went right through. “Please don’t be mad, Kacchan,” Izuku begged.

“Why wouldn’t he be mad?” Kacchan’s voice asked, but it didn’t come from him, not from the one kneeling beside Izuku anyway. He turned his head to see another Kacchan, dressed in the skull shirt and baggy sweatpants, and he seemed to be covered in shadows. 

“What-”

“You gave up on him,” The shadow version of Kacchan said, walking over and sitting cross-legged on the other side. He made no move to help, though.

They flanked him now, a Kacchan on either side of Izuku as he lay stuck under the sand. Vestige Kacchan kept up his task quietly; he paid Shadow Kacchan no mind, and he didn’t answer any of Izuku’s questions. Just focused on the sand and getting Izuku free, or at least that’s what Izuku hoped he was doing. Shadow Kacchan, on the other hand, had folded one leg up and propped his elbow on his knee, “What’s wrong, Deku?” He asked, resting his chin on his palm. “You’re the one who wanted Kacchan so desperately, this too freaky?” 

Izuku shook his head slowly, dragging his eyes over from Vestige Kacchan to meet the shadow's eyes. They weren’t red in the way Izuku remembered. It was a muddy, dirty red, like the colour was mixed with the darkness inside the form. “What do you want?” Izuku asked finally.

“Me?” Shadow Kacchan asked with a laugh, reaching out to pat Izuku on the cheek condescendingly. “I want you to admit that you’re just a coward who couldn’t do anything to completion,” he told him with a shrug. “Couldn’t save us when it mattered, couldn’t listen to us when we begged you not to go down this path and couldn’t even eat us properly. You’re just always going to be poor, stuck, useless little Deku, aren’t you?”

Izuku flinched away from the shadow's touch and squeezed his eyes shut, “You’re not Kacchan.” 

“Then what am I, Deku?” 

“You’re me,” Izuku forced out, his eyes flickering over to Vestige Kacchan, but there was no change there, so he turned back. “All my fears and guilt, you’re all of that rolled into one. You’re not Kacchan, not my Kacchan. He wouldn’t say this to me, not anymore.” 

The shadow scowled and looked over to Vestige Kacchan, “And you think that is?” He asked, pointing at the vestige sharply. “You think he’s not just a manifestation of everything you wish you were to us? Everything we would be for you?” 

“N-,” Izuku paled. He didn’t know. After everything he had done and everything that had changed, he couldn’t be sure whether he was even worthy of having Vestige Kacchan love him like he craved. What if all he had been doing for the past two months was creating increasingly grotesque scenarios in his head to cope with Kacchan's dying? What if Kacchan had never even loved him?

“Izuku.”

Izuku’s head whipped around at the sound of his name. Vestige Kacchan was still working on the sand, but his lips were moving now, “Don’t listen to him.”

“K-Kacchan?” Izuku asked, his voice shaky and wet as tears filled his eyes again. “Kacchan, I’m so sorry. I shouldn’t have done what I did,” he sobbed and reached out to try and grab his hand again. “I should have listened to you. I’m so sorry.” 

“It’s okay,” Vestige Kacchan said softly, his words barely audible. 

Izuku blinked away the tears that would not stop forming as he watched the vestige, “Do you… Do you hate me for it?” He asked, voicing the fear that had plagued him since he woke up earlier. 

Vestige Kacchan’s hands stopped at this question and clenched into fists. A voice in his head told Izuku to flinch. Told him to duck out of the way, but he stayed still. If Kacchan wanted to punch him, he could; if Kacchan wanted to kill him, he could do that, too. Izuku wouldn’t mind, not after everything he’s done. Instead, the vestige looked up at Izuku, and tears shone like crystals in the sun against the red of his irises. 

“You could never make me hate you,” Katsuki said softly, “you are me and I am you, nothing you do will ever change that.” He wiped away the final bits of sand pinning Izuku to the ground and knelt before him, cupping his face in his hands. “We have been the two of us for as long as I can remember, and we will be that way forever. I know why you did it. I'm not angry at you, I just wish there was another way for you to be okay.”

Izuku shattered and threw himself at the vestige, now free of the sand. He crashed into Kacchan, and they tumbled to the floor together. “I love you,” Izuku promised against Kacchan’s neck. “I love you so much, and I’m so scared that nothing will ever be the same.”

“Everything changes, Izuku,” Katsuki reminded him, holding him close. “You, me, the earth itself, even Round Face has changed. You can’t avoid it.” Katsuki shifted their positions so they were both lying on their sides, facing each other, fingers and feet tangled together. “I know you’re scared, but that’s okay. You have me, you’ll always have me, and now… as much as I hate what it did to you, I’m a part of you now, aren’t I?”

Izuku blinked, unsure if he had heard Kacchan right. “What?”

“The whole,” He trailed off, gesturing vaguely with his hand, “cannibalism thing. It’s kinda romantic.” 

“WHAT?!” Izuku yelled the word this time, sitting up straight in disbelief, “NOW YOU THINK IT'S ROMANTIC?”

“Calm down, I’m not saying I approve of it or even that I wouldn’t have tried so hard to stop you.” Katsuki stopped and propped himself up on his elbows, “I understand why you did it and knowing that you would go to such horrifying, and it was horrifying Izuku, lengths to keep me. I don’t know, I’m a little flattered.”

Izuku couldn’t believe what he was hearing. This had to be some kind of trick or joke. Why now? Why would Kacchan be saying these things to him now, after all this had already happened? “You’re not Kacchan,” Izuku insisted and scrambled back, “You’re… you’re the shadow Kacchan. The hallucination that one tried to get me to eat your heart. Said it was romantic, you can’t fucking trick me again!” He exclaimed, his breathing heavy and erratic.

“Izuku the shadow isn’t me,” Katsuki replied, “It’s you. It’s an image you created so you could deal with the things that scared you, so you could manufacture my consent to cannibalise my body. It’s you.”

“Then WHY are you talking like him?!” Izuku demanded, clenching his fists and squeezing his eyes shut. This was a trick; his mind was messing with him. Twisting up his guilt and shame with the sick need to follow through. The clawing of hunger in his stomach that refused to go away and echoed, telling him to eat. 

“Because I see what it’s done to you,” Katsuki sighed and got up to sit, cross-legged. His palms lay on his lap, facing up. “You’re still hungry, aren’t you? Now that you know everything, now that you’re conscious of everything, you can feel how strong it is, can’t you?” 

When Izuku tried to shake his head and argue against Kacchan’s words, he found himself pulled down to sit beside him again. Kacchan held his hands tight between both of his and kissed the knuckles of his thumbs. Izuku tried to pull away. He didn’t need this. He didn’t want Kacchan to say it was okay and let him off the hook. Kacchan should be angry, disgusted; they should be fighting. Where was his fight? What happened to his anger? This wasn’t Kacchan; this couldn’t be Kacchan.

“Izuku, please,” He pleaded, “Look at me. You know it’s me. Even when you thought the hallucination was me, you knew something was wrong. You had to force yourself to look the other way, and now you’re doing the opposite. You know it's me in your bones, your body knows mine, your heart is mine. I told you, there is no me and you, not anymore. We begin and end in the same place, and we always will, so I don’t want you to kill yourself over this. Whether you do it quickly or slowly over time, I don’t want that for you. I hate that you had to do it, but I forgive you and if you…” Katsuki closed his eyes and took a deep breath, “If you still feel like you have not seen it through, like you are giving up on me, then I want you to eat my heart, Izuku.”

Izuku tried to pull away again, anxiety and fear coursing through him. But there was another feeling, something much more potent and urgent, pricking at the lining of his stomach, making his teeth hurt and mouth fill up with saliva. Hunger. Deep aching hunger that Izuku did not know he was even capable of housing, but now that it was here. Now that it had made itself known to Izuku, there was no ignoring it, no putting it back in the cage. Kacchan held on tight, pulling him closer and cupping the sides of his neck.

“And then you will burn my body,” Katsuki continued, his eyes barely a needlepoint distance from Izuku’s, “If you have to, then you will eat my heart, and you will burn the body, and you will never come back to this. You will live with me inside you, and you will carry on living. That is my condition, Izuku,” Katsuki’s grip tightened, almost choking Izuku. “Swear to me that you will not let this end you. That you will try to be happy again. If you swear it, then I give you my permission. Eat my heart, close the distance, there will be no beginning and end, only us. Together.” 

Izuku wanted to speak, to deny the truth of his words and beg him to take them back, but his words failed him again, and all he could do was desperately close the distance. His lips crashed against Kacchans in a messy, wet kiss as saliva and tears mingled in the tight press of mouths. He loved him. Izuku loved Kacchan, and Kacchan loved Izuku. He would do it, he would do it for Kacchan, and then he would live for him too. Izuku’s hands moved over Kacchan's shoulders and back with a feral intensity, terrified of what he had been given permission to do, terrified that he would wake up and Kacchan would be gone, and worst of all, terrified of the hunger that festered inside him.

When Izuku opened his eyes next, he was back in his be,d and his pillow was wet. 

“Kacchan,” he whimpered, curling up into himself and crying softly into his hand. Of course, it was all a dream. Kacchan was gone, and he wouldn’t come back, no matter how badly Izuku wanted it to be true. It had felt so real, though. How Kacchan had felt in his arms, the softness of his lips, the grip he had on Izuku’s neck. It had all felt so real. Izuku couldn’t believe it was all just a dream. Why would his own mind be so cruel as to give him these visions and pockets where he could be happy, only to bring him back? Izuku turned over onto the other side and startled at a strange texture by his pillow.

Sand.

He sat up in bed and peered closer, the soft light coming in from the hallway barely enough. He scooped it up and knew for certain that’s what it was. Sand. Like the kind that had buried him, like the kind that Kacchan had cleaned off him. It was real, in some strange, metaphysical way, it was real. He paled. That meant Kacchan had been real, and so were the things he said. 

“I want you to eat my heart, Izuku.”

“Eat my heart, Deku.” 

They had both said it. Both the twisted version of Kacchan that Izuku had created and Kacchan’s vestige. Both had given him permission, had all but put the knife in his hand and shown him where to cut. Izuku leaned over the side of the bed to check on Ochako and found her asleep, one hand gripping the corner of his blanket that lay close to the ground. His heart ached. She cared so much, and she had tried so hard, but this had never been about her. His eyes flickered to the pendant resting on her chest. Just like they had never been about him. 

Izuku swallowed what was left of his inhibitions and carefully got out of bed, slipping past her and out the door. He walked quickly, excitement or eagerness to finish it; he wasn’t sure. All he knew was that he was given a mission, given strict instructions, and he was going to follow them. He wouldn’t let Kacchan down again. He would take everything Kacchan wanted to be, everything he wanted to do, and he would put it inside him. He would carry Kacchan with him no matter what he had to do for it to happen. 

Izuku grabbed the sharpest meat cleaver he could find in the kitchen and made his way to the freezer, feeling, perhaps for the first time, sure of what he was about to do. Kacchan was him, and he was Kacchan. This would be the end of it. Izuku would follow through on what he started, and it would be enough. It had to be. Izuku shook his head and gripped the knife's handle tighter. 

He would make sure it was enough. 

The door swung open slowly, and he stepped in, the cold hitting him immediately. He had forgotten to bundle up in his rush and was regretting it now as his hands and legs shook. Izuku’s eyes finally adjusted, and they landed on the frozen body at the very back. 

“Kacchan,” He whispered and walked forward, the cold forgotten. 

Izuku walked up to the table and took a deep breath. This would be the last time he sees him. After this, they were going to burn his body, and it would be a thing of the past. They would never talk about it again, and Izuku had promised that he would move on, but for these few hours before the sun broke and Ochako woke up, he could be with Kacchan. Izuku pressed felt around on Kacchan’s chest with his fingers, looking for the exact spot where his ribs ended. It was tough; his skin was pretty much frozen, and Izuku wondered if he could even get his knife through. He couldn’t turn the freezer off or move his body again. He wouldn’t disturb him again. He needed to find a way to do this.

Izuku applied gentle pressure to Kacchan’s chest, increasing bit by bit as he tested its strength. The frozen plain was slippery, but it did not show signs of shattering, so Izuku placed the blade of his knife against the same area. He needed to be methodical; he could feel everything he needed to once he was done. He couldn’t ruin Kacchan’s body any more than he already had. Izuku pressed gently at first, only to have the knife slip out of his hands and clatter to the ground when he got a little bolder. 

This wouldn’t work. “Maybe if the knife was hot,” He thought to himself and walked around to pick it up again. Izuku left the freezer door propped open when he walked out to the kitchen. If Kacchan could thaw just a little without the heat of the dorms causing him to rot or moving his body, then that was fine. Kacchan would understand. Izuku was trying his best. He walked over to the stove and turned it on. Izuku watched the flames for a few seconds, seeing what they were going to do. Seeing how they would build a funeral pyre with the thick branches in the forest and lay Kacchan atop it. The flames would catch, and he would watch until he burned all the way through. 

Izuku placed the knife on the stovetop and waited until the blade turned a dangerous shade of red. He slipped an oven mitt onto his hand and picked it up. “It’s a good knife”, he thought “, the handle isn’t hot at all.”

Izuku carried the knife back, careful not to touch the blade and began the promise against immediately. This time, the knife sank in. Not smooth and quick like he had hoped, but it was progress. He would do this over and over again if he had to, until he had cut through the muscle and thin layer of flesh. Izuku’s plane was to create an opening just under the ribcage, big enough for him to slip his hand through and pull the heart free. It would not be too grotesque a change to Kachan's body, and he did not want to crack open his chest. 

It took almost two hours for Izuku to cut through all the frozen parts of Katsuki’s chest cavity, and the muscles in his arm were sore by the time he was done, but he had succeeded. As he worked, Kacchan had begun to thaw as well. Not enough to rot. No, Izuku left the door open, but he had also kept the freezer on. Kacchan was still mostly frozen; it was just a little easier for Izuku to reach in and find what he was looking for now. He had worked for two hours with clinical focus and precision, working his way through every layer and beating back any fears that threatened to surface. 

He was going to see this through. He had promised Kacchan. He had to. 

When the knife had cut through the final resistant layer, a drop of hesitation entered the calm ocean he had cultivated in his mind. The ripples reached all the way down to his fingers, making them shake ever so slightly. He closed his eyes and pressed his hand flat over Kacchan’s chest and leaned down to press a kiss to the body’s forehead, “I love you,” he whispered, “it’ll be over soon, and I’ll honour everything I promised you.” 

Izuku reached inside. It was dry, unsurprisingly, since he had drained all the blood back when he began this sick culinary journey. But the warmth was what surprised him, though, at this point, Izuku couldn’t be sure whether it was actually warm or if it was his mind playing tricks on him. Making him feel what he hoped it would be like. Warm and comforting inside Kacchan’s chest, a home calling for him to return and nestle. He reached through, breathing through his nose, and he searched. When his fingers finally made contact, he knew. He didn’t know how he knew it was Kacchan’s heart, but he did. Izuku wrapped his fingers around the organ and pulled it free, arteries snapping as he did. 

“Kacchan,” Izuku whispered once he had gotten it free. He held the heart in his hands, cradling it like it was a newborn child, but far more precious. This was it. Izuku could feel in his bones that this was the end to this twisted dance he had been doing since Kacchan died. He brought the organ to his mouth, brushing a reverent kiss to it before parting his lips. He would have the first taste here, with Kacchan present. With Kacchan as his witness. He sank his teeth into the thick organ, gagging at the back of his throat as it filled his mouth. Izuku tore out a small chunk and swallowed without chewing, breathing through his mouth as he tried to keep it together. 

“You could never make me hate you.” 

“It’s kinda romantic.” 

“You’re still hungry, aren’t you?” 

“You will try to be happy again.” 

“I give you my permission.”

Izuku carried the heart out to the kitchen and laid it down on the counter as Kacchan’s words played on a loop in his head. 

“We begin and end in the same place, and we always will.”

Izuku raised the heart to his mouth and tore into it once more, the taste and texture becoming less of a bother the further he got into it. It had lost its novelty too quickly for his liking, but this wasn’t about just Izuku anymore. It was about them. The two of them and the one life they had always lived. 

“You are me and I am you; nothing you do will ever change that.” 

-

When Ochako awoke the next morning, she instantly knew something was wrong. The door was ajar, and Izuku’s bed was empty. A thousand thoughts flashed through her mind as she shot out of the sleeping bag and ran down the hall, “What if he had turned himself in?” “What if he killed himself?” “What if he ran?”

She raced down the stairs, calling his name, only to come to a screeching halt at the sight that awaited her in the kitchen. Izuku was curled up just outside the open freezer door, clutching his hands to his chest. There were bits of… something stuck around his mouth, and a sick feeling in her gut told her that she already knew what it was. Ochako forced herself to keep walking. She stepped over his sleeping form and entered the freezer again. Her eyes located Bakugo easily this time, and she moved closer, her nails ripping open the skin around her fingernails. 

She knew what had happened once she saw the knife and the cut. She should have screamed. She should have run out of there and called the police or a mental hospital, or, better yet, his mother. Instead, she stayed perfectly still and stared down at the body. It was disgusting and twisted and a hundred other synonyms, and it was wrong, but all Ochako could think about was how strong Izuku must have been to be able to do this. How scary and obsessive and fucking insane his love for Bakugo was. Is. 

She touched her fingers to her necklace. 

She understood. 

She would turn around in the next few seconds, and she would continue with her list.

Call mom.

Find Izuku.

Make him feel like he was safe.

Let him speak.

Listen.

Get him to rest.

Clean up the dorms.

Burn the body.

Ochako understands.