The Story Of Us (Todobaku)

Takoba Beach

"Yeah," Denki answered. "Why?"

Hands in his lap, Shouto balled them into fists. He stared at the Nok Hockey board even though the boys had paused their game. He pressed his lips together and then relaxed them, repeating the motion two more times before he worked up the nerve to get the words out.

"That's where Touya, um...well, it was that crosswalk."

Katsuki's mouth fell open. The six of them sat in silence, yet the sound of their classmates screaming and giggling as they played in the background was muffled as the world fell still. It was like Katsuki wore invisible noise canceling headphones.

It was the middle of March, the beginning of spring, the tail end of the school year. Touya Todoroki had been dead for three months now, and it had been nearly just as long since Shouto mentioned him. It was an unspoken rule among Katsuki's friend group not to speak about Touya. Occasionally someone slipped, but Katsuki directed the conversation to a different topic immediately afterwards.

Still, for someone who hardly knew Touya, processing his death was harder than Katsuki anticipated. That was mainly due to Shouto's approach to the situation. He figured it probably hurt the boy to be reminded of the tragedy, but he just couldn't understand how Shouto went from idolizing his brother to pretending he never existed in the span of a few months.

But that ended today. Katsuki knew Touya was killed while crossing the street in the middle of the night, but he never knew where. Until now, at least.

"Oh," Denki replied. The color drained from his face. "Um, we can talk about something else. Katsuki's right, it probably was just my imagi-"

"Can we go check it out?" Shouto asked.

Eijiro tilted his head. "What? You actually want to go?"

Shouto nodded. "Maybe we won't find anything, but if Denki really did see a ghost..."

He didn't finish his statement, though he didn't need to. Katsuki knew what he meant. If there was even a one percent chance that there was a ghost haunting Takoba Beach, and even if there was a less than one percent chance that the ghost was Touya, of course Shouto needed to see it for himself.

"Well, I'll go if you guys go," Hanta said.

"Me too," Izuku added.

Eijiro nodded. "We can go this Saturday." He turned to his best friend. "You should come too, Katsuki. It won't be as fun without you."

Katsuki rested his cheek in his hand as his eyes scanned the group of boys around the Nok Hockey board. A persistent Eijiro, an enthused Denki, a nonchalant Hanta, a sheepish Izuku, and a desperate Shouto.

It was those eyes. Those big, dual colored eyes that shot a dagger through Katsuki's heart and filled it with pity. Why did their dynamic turn out this way? Things were much simpler when the two boys avoided each other. Now whenever Shouto sported those sad puppy eyes, Katsuki did whatever he could to get the boy to stop. Shouto suffered enough in life already, and his sad face was even more annoying to look at than his normal one.

Katsuki was almost convinced the boy was doing it on purpose. Either way, it worked on him every time. And Katsuki hated it.

How badly he wanted to say no. While he admitted it was an eerie coincidence that Denki claimed to see a ghost in the same location Touya died, he still knew that ghosts didn't exist. He didn't want to be present when Shouto realized that fact, that he got his hopes up for nothing.

And yet, he sensed in the boy's eyes that Shouto really wanted Katsuki to tag along with them. And for some reason, that outweighed his own feelings on the matter.