The Universe Listened | Kiribaku

To distract our hearts from ever missing them

The days fly by without waiting for you to catch up, without giving you the time to try to properly prepare yourself for the loss you're about to endureーthen again, you're not sure this is a thing you could prepare regardless of how much time you had. You could spend your whole life preparing, you could spend your whole life building up walls and tucking yourself away to try to ready yourself, but nothing will ever prepare you for loss and all the feelings that come with it. You could lock yourself away, hiding silently, and still, loss would come knocking at your door, scythe raised and laced in sadness. It would bring the blade down upon your neck and not care about the pieces it leaves you in when it walks away, off to complete another job.

Loss, despite your best efforts, it's not really something you can ready yourself for.

And just when you thought you were ready, when you were sure you could handle it, the final day came. The day Katsuki would leave and you were the furthest thing from ready. It was upon you and can feel the bile fluctuate in your stomach, rising and falling. Climbing up your throat, producing a horrid taste, falling back down to irritate the insides of your stomach.

Katsuki tries to ease the blow. He asks if you'd like to go on a date somewhere, some final fuck you to the world before he has to leave, and even though he's not gone yet, it feels like you've already lost him

-

Heat poured in from the sky. Like the yolk of an egg being broken, oranges and reds and yellows bled into the snow-white clouds in the distance high above the still, and always, slow capped peaks. The day was warm and for the first time since the first snowfall of the season, people crowded the small-town streets.

A cool breeze flooded the truck, weaving in and out of the four windows, all of which had been rolled down when the ride first began. The truck had been sweltering, the leather seats and metal seat belts too hot to touch, and Riot wanted nothing to do with it. After turning the A/C up and laying a thin blanket on the bed of the truck, they were finally permitted to travel.

"Where should we go for our last date?" Katsuki had asked Kirishima the night before, his head in his lap as he studied for a test he wouldn't have to take.

There was no deliberation. No moment of thought. Not a beat went by.

"The ocean," Kirishima said.

He'd lived within a two-hour driving radius of the ocean since before he'd gone blind, and never once had he ever been to it. He's never felt the sand between his toes or tasted the salt in the air as a breeze whipped around his head and tousled his hair. It never seemed like a possibility for some reason.

Katsuki didn't question it, and the next day they drove to the ocean without anything else planned. They had to be back at Katsuki's house by four, but the topic wasn't discussed anymore after that. Kirishshima's moms had packed a small lunch for them, if they were to get hungry, and gave them no choice but to take it and off they went.

Salt. It was the first thing Kirishima smelled when he exited the car and let Riot free of his harness. Warmth. So much warmth he found himself stripping from his long-sleeved and rolling up the legs of his joggers to his shins. Sand under his toes. He smiled as he curled and uncurled his toes, concentrating hard enough to see if he could feel each individual grain. A stupid thought.

Katsuki took him by the hand and pulled Kirishima closer to the water, the waves crashing into his legs before temporarily retreating back. His smile only grew as he dug his feet into the wet sand, lifting them up to flick away the clumps before repeating the action several times over. He didn't venture much further than the shin-high waters he was first introduced to, and he was quite alright with that. This, this moment and all it contained, was more than enough.