The Universe Listened | Kiribaku

I guess space, and time, takes violent things, angry things and makes them kind

"Can I come in with you?" Mina asked.

"No." Kirishima shook his head and handed the handle to Mina. "I'll be a minute."

He stepped into one of the three stalls and slid the lock into place before stripping from his hoodie and jeans. His hands fumbled with the buttons of the shirt and the cuff, and, very quietly, he googled how to tie a tie for he had never done it on his own before. With the volume as low as it could be without being completely off, he held the phone up to his ear and listened to the instructions. Spending more than most of his life without sight taught him how to hear someone's words, how to visualize their actions without actually witnessing them. He never thought the skills he was forced to learn as a way to negative life would prove to be useful now that a great deal of his sight had been restored.

Now dressed, he took in a deep breath and turned to view himself in the full length mirror stuck to the side of the stall. He stared at himself. At his fading red hair that desperately needed a recolour, the broadness in shoulders gained from relentlessly working out with Katsuki in the mornings before starting their days, the stubble on his chin screaming to be shaved, the suit hugging his arms and chest. The tie hanging crookedly from his neck. The cuffs of the jacket messily rolled and buttoned up. He was looking at himself, dressed in a suit he knew he was going to wear on his wedding day the moment Kaminari had him look at it.

It was like he could see a younger version on himself standing in the reflection somewhere. Kirishima could see the flat, dark hair, the many fresh wounds stripped along his arms, the sadness that stood out in the way he slumped his shoulders, wishing that things would just end because the time, he didn't know how to cope with the enormous loss resting on his shoulders. Nothing, no training, no councling, nothing could have ever prepared him for it. Going back in time and warning himself what it would be like wouldn't have changed a thing.

How do you cope with being blind? You don't. He didn't. Kirishima just pushed through, and he was so glad he did. It led him here:

Standing in a disheveled suit and dress shoes a size too small while his friends, both of whom were happily married, chatted on the other side of the door, and somewhere in the city, his fiancé was probably doing the same thing. And he was seeing himself. So many versions of himself in that one mirror within that one moment before he found the courage to unlock the door and show himself to his friends.

An audible gasp from Mina, and a high pitched whistle from Kaminari. Close to what Kirishima had expected.

"Kiri!" Mina shouted and wrapped her arms around his shoulders. "You look so handsome."

"She's right, man." Kaminari and nodded in agreement. "You almost better than what I did in my suit."

Mina clicked her tongue. "Oh please. You looked like a lighting bolt."

"And you looked like strawberry ice cream! What's your point?"

"At least that isn't blinding!"

"Everyone was blinded by my beauty!"

"Bullshit, Kami."

Kirishima chuckled, shook his head at the absolute ridiculousness of his friends, and stowed away in the stall once again to strip from the suit, do his best to hand it back onto the plastic hanged, and get back into his normal clothes.

Before leaving, he glanced at himself, one last time with the suit draped over his forearm. Sometimes reality felt fake, like an elaborate dream that was endless. There were times when something truly felt far too good to be true, and he would pause for a moment, waiting for his brain to snap out of it and wake up. Then, Katsuki would come up from behind him and wrap his arms around his stomach, kiss the side of his head like how he always did, and just stand there with his head against his shoulder. It was rare, for Katsuki to be that affection, but having that contact felt like touching the tip of his tongue to the end of a battery and feeling the slight jolt of the electric current flash through his nervous system. Every time it told him that life was real, he wasn't dreaming.