Katsuki didn't become an official hero. He got certified with a shrine in Hisegawa, and we moved closer to the forest. Taking care of the Shrine was something he could be paid to do now. I thought it was sweet, that he gave it up for this little girl's spirit that introduced him to a shrine in the middle of 青木ヶ原, and now it was his space. The place he went when he felt like he couldn't go any further. Where he flourished. Grew like a vine. Nothing stood between him and what he did. To that little girl however? Well, he was as much of a hero as he'd wanted to be.
I like to think it was better that way. That things worked out. I got a job at Hero Magazine as a journalist and Kat seemed happier tending to the shrine than he did doing hero work. We still sparred, and trained as if we had become heroes, but we never made rankings. Kat suggested I became a vigilante. Told him no, that I didn't want to be any kind of hero if it wasn't with him. He told me I already was one. In his eyes. A genuine hero. There wasn't much else we wanted in life. I had three main concerns. Him, my job, and our future. He had his as well, though I didn't prod at what they were. I was just happy to see the smile on his face when he would come back with a handful of spider lilies and whatever new trinket the little girl had given him. Sometimes I went with him to the shrine, but let him attend the lake on his own. I usually opted to sit and play with the little girl's spirit, and the little foxes that gathered at her grave. One day, Kat wasn't feeling the best, mentally, so he had gone to his lake. She waited until he left, and got up. Walked right over and stopped in front of my feet, that sat crisscrossed on the stones.
She gave me a hug that day. Thanked me for watching over him. For being with him. Asked her how long he'd been coming here. "Since he was 11" she'd said. Katsuki had made this his life. Sometimes I still wonder what it would have been like if we ever really became heroes together. Other times I wondered why Kat liked this place so much, aside from her and the lilies. Maybe it was the lake, or the fireflies. Maybe it was just that it was far enough away for only us to know about. Either way, he had loved it, and that meant I did too. Albeit inadvertently, it grew on me.
And while my memories of Kat tending to this little girl's ghost are irreplaceable and dear to me, nothing will ever beat the one I have of Kat on the very first official date that we had ever really went on.
He never much cared for coffee. Said it was too caffeinated for him. Told me he didn't like it. But he loved sour things. That was one thing about him. You never knew what to expect.
Neither did I, either.