Not Yet

XLIV: Finding you

He backed away with a flinch, jerking away his throbbing palms from the hot iron.

Right. Enhanced security measures. He should have known.

After a second of shock, the pain did little to stop the resolution on his features, and his palms flew anew to bang against the huge port, despite the continuous electrification.

He had to see Izuku. He had to know. There was something important he was missing, he just felt it. He had to find out what his mother was hiding from him. He had to get to the bottom of the premonition he has been experiencing.

He was going for another -what he knew would be a painful- bang on the port before he heard metal zip, making the door unlock and opening it slightly.

He stopped mid-movement, landing his palms on the door instead to push it lightly.

He stared for a second, looking around to find no one on the other side, before he decided this must be an invitation inside.

Kirishima deactivated his quirk and walked through the long hallways he knew would lead him to the main door.

And right there, with a widely open entrance, was his missing teacher. With as unruly hair as usual and red irritated eyes, he stared at his student in apathy.

"Kirishima, what is it that you want?"

Something about Aizawa-sensei was... different. His monotonous voice, that has always been monotonous, had a quality that it did not usually possess. His dry, inky irises were dull and distant, his expression so empty and vacant.

"I... just as I told Mirio-senpai, I need to see Izuku. I think he knows something about... I don't know. Something important!" His negotiation was not effective and he knew it. He suspected he would need to keep going back and forth for a while before he was allowed to meet with Izuku.

Aizawa-sensei closed his eyes with a tired, bone-deep exhaustion, muttering something under his breath akin to 'of course he does' in bitter affirmation.

Yet to Eijiro's surprise, Aizawa-sensei didn't argue back, he just walked to Izuku's room and stood by the door, waiting for Kirishima to follow suit.

Eijiro steped forward slowly, weird out by his teacher's lack of stubbornness.

He stepped carefully into the dark room, seeing a still form on the bed.

First it was the stingy smell of the disinfectants that overwhelmed his senses, then it was the colossal number of machines that surrounded the bed, each registering its own data. A mix of subtle and loud beeps assaulting his unprepared ears.

He looked back at his teacher who was still standing by the doorframe, the only expression in Kirishima's gaze was of combined surprise and concern.

His sensei met him only with a cold look that was shrouded in shadows.

"I don't think you would be getting any answers, but tell him whatever you wanted to say," while you can, Kirishima could nearly hear the unsaid comment from his teacher's tone alone.

The redhead could feel his previous determination wavering as he crept closer to the green head, a sluggish emerald eye turning his way excruciatingly slow.

Aizawa crossed his arms while he leaned on the doorframe, refusing to look at the pitiful sight as he unconsciously digged his nails into his arm in frustration.

The deflated student let his shoulders sink and gaze lower in defeat, realizing his questions would remain unanswered.

Izuku opened and closed his mouth several times, trying and failing in making his vocal chords utter even the tiniest of sounds. Kirishima scowled at the miserable attempts in sympathy. Why was Izuku reduced to such a state? He had seen him not long ago at U.A, he had been doing very much better, he had been going out and interacting with people and talking to Eri! So why?!

"Izuk-" before he could finish his words, the petite boy in the bed freed his hand and stretched it toward Eijiro's arm, the nimble fingers ice-cold in contrast to his warm skin, much like a corpse's.

It's okay

A sudden voice rang through his skull. He jumped and looked around himself fretfully. He turned to look at Aizawa-sensei, who was still glaring at his crossed arms, still not looking at them and missing the shock of his student.

Kirishima turned back to stare at Izuku.

Is he talking directly to my mind?!

Yes, he received the answer before he had even articulated the question.

"Holy shit!" He voiced his surprise this time and alerted Shouta in the background, who was by his side in seconds.

"What happened?!"

Kirishima gestured widely with his hands, unable to describe clearly, when he realized he had lost his contact with Izuku and could not hear his voice anymore.

He stopped and crept closer again, putting his hand on Izuku's thin, limp arm this time.

"You can talk to me like that?" He settled on asking aloud to let Aizawa-sensei in on what was going on.

Yes.

"Wow, how do you do that!" It was not exactly a question, so he didn't mind the lack of answer.

You came to ask...

Again, that wasn't a question, it was as if the greenette already know what he wanted to say. Maybe he knew more than Eijiro himself, even.

"There's that...dream.... about... a fire? I can't stop thinking about it. It's like... I'm missing something important." He tried to explain.

Izuku looked at him with an emotion he couldn't quite place. The silence stretched longer than what he's comfortable with.

"You know something, right?" If Kirishima wasn't pretty sure about that statement from the beginning, he was sure now when Izuku had heavily closed his eyelids and sighed silently.

Why do you want to know?

That was a question he wasn't expecting.

"What do you mean?"

If it's something painful, if it makes your heart bleed and your mind shatter, if it would hunt you in your sleep and on every waking second, would you still want to remember?

Kirishima swallowed dryly. He didn't understand the sentements Izuku was describing, he didn't know what Izuku was referring to. But there was one thing he knew.

"If I have to lose something important at the expense of forgetting, then I would rather suffer as myself, instead of living as someone I'm not. I would like to hold to the memories that build the man that I am, even if they were painful, because every experience is a part of me, even the bad ones." He told him with an unwavering voice and a will of iron. He was unsure of many things that had happened recently, but this was not one of them.

Izuku had opened his eye to look at him, staring right at his soul, searching for the tiniest bit of doubt.

Okay

He said simply when he found none, before a cold dread washed over the redhead as he got back the missing puzzle piece he had unconsciously always longed for....

Hint: chapter 8 (؟smaerD : VIII)