Katsuki Bakugou
An abominable feeling has saturated my mind ever since I left Todoroki's dorm. Like thorns sprouting perniciously from my chest, I've been unable to effectively remove the bramble from where it's manifested.
Dammit, I can't shake this feeling, I think to myself as consternation seizes my chest. I should text him and make sure nothing is wrong. He didn't look good when he said he wanted to retire early. God, I almost feel nauseous. Is he sick?
Kirishima: Somethin up man? You dont seem like yourself.
Me: I have a bad feeling about Todoroki. I'll talk later.
Fumbling to my previous conversation with Todoroki, I swiftly open it up. I briefly skim over the available messages from our previous conversation that are currently present on my screen.
Todoroki: Again, you don't have to do this.
Me: Again, I want to do this, so shut it. Besides, I'm willing to bet you wouldn't if I didn't.
Todoroki: Fair enough. Still, I feel like a burden.
Me: I know you do. But trust me when I say you're not, 'kay? Maybe that's asking a lot. Whatever. I'm working on it, too.
Todoroki: Right.
I now send a new message to him.
Me: Oi. Everything all right?
Five minutes pass, and I receive no response.
Well, shit, I think while dialing him. If he doesn't pick up, I'm hauling my ass over there. The call rings out until it hits his voice mail. Fuck. He could just be sleeping for all I know, but something leaves an acerbic taste in my mouth. He could've taken a walk and left his phone in his dorm. Tch. I'm hyper-focused on this, but I still don't trust him to make the right decisions for himself. His judgment is impaired by his damn self-loathing. I get it, but even so...
Springing from my bed and flying out the door from my dorm, I bolt through the dormitory to Todoroki's dorm. Upon arriving at said dorm, I uproariously pound on the door. When no response can be heard, I vigorously try the knob, bashing it to the left and right and realizing a moment too late that the door is unlocked. Throwing open the door, the impact of the knob slamming into the wall is like a hammer jamming a nail into my chest. The door languidly sways back towards me.
Frost clings to the hollow air.
What...the fuck?
Silence drips slowly down.
It can't...
A spear of ice impales my chest.
...be true.
Memories.
Huh?
No.
A body.
A body.
"Mom?"
Todoroki?
"H-Hey..."
Is this...
"Are you..."
...a dream?
"...still there?"
A body that I had once been talking to dangles slowly from the ceiling. A body with a blue hue staining its strained face creeps back and forth. With arms mangled by long, visibly deep gashes streaming in a lush, stomach-churning scarlet, lips coated thickly in saliva snaking down the chin and gradually dripping to the floor, and a neck chained by a noose, the body belongs to none other than Todoroki.
Repressing the thoughts erupting from my mind like a voracious wildfire, I sprint towards Todoroki and lift his body into the air. Using an explosion to decimate the ice binding the noose to the ceiling, Todoroki's body lifelessly lays atop my shoulders.
Setting his body on the floor, I desperately scour for a pulse and his breath, even though I'm painstakingly cognizant that I arrived without enough clemency from reality to save him. With trembling hands, my fingers press into his warm skin. Something flicks at me, and although I initially presume my shaky-ass hands to be deceiving me, something evidently enervated flicks at me again.
Holy shit. He's...fucking alive?! Move, Katsuki! Do something! Do what? Goddammit! What do I do? Fuck! Please, for the love of God, move!
"H-Hang the fuck in there!" I mewl with irate vehemence while dialing for an ambulance.
They're not...gonna make it in time, are they? I cogitate once my call ends. He's not...gonna make it... No. Don't think like that. Why the hell are you so convinced? He's alive. He's gotta fucking make it. Cracking sobs pour from my mouth. Ever since then, I... I can't take the bereavement again. You have. To. Fucking. Make it, h-hear me? He can't hear your fucking thoughts, Katsuki.
"You're gonna make it!" I vociferate while smearing away the tears staining my cheeks. "Keep fucking fighting. Don't... You can't die, you asshat! You have to survive! Don't you u-understand?"
After twenty seconds, however, I am unable to locate another flicker of life in his mutilated, warm body. I frantically begin to press my hands down onto his sternum in rhythmic motions, heaving my shoulders up and down. His frail body jerks about beneath my hands.
"GODDAMMIT, YOU NEED TO LIVE!" I bellow, thinking back to the day I'd forced him to expose his scars and acute loss of weight to me. "LIVE, DAMMIT!" Throaty and strained, my roars begin to crumble like cracked monuments. "WH-WHO THE HELL DO YOU THINK YOU ARE?"
Another thirty seconds pass, but Shoto Todoroki is dead.
"FUCK!" I ululate, driving my fist into the floor as if to rend the earth while livid tears trickle down my cheeks.
If I had trusted my gut and just left, I-I...I could've made it! I could've made it. Todoroki, this wasn't how it was supposed to end! This wasn't how it was supposed to fucking end! Your story wasn't...supposed to end like this, goddammit! Shit. Where did I go wrong, Todoroki? Where did we go wrong? I know it isn't fucking easy to tell someone you genuinely wanna die, but... Good God, why is this so hard for me?
A heaving twist jerks my stomach like a dog being yanked by the collar. Hunching over, I can feel as a vile bile jolts through what feels like my entire body. Curling down towards the floor, I retch up rancid splatters of the contents of my stomach.
Goddammit. God... God fucking damn it! He was there. He was alive! Even though I know there was nothing I could have done by that point—he was so far gone that he wasn't struggling whatsoever—I could've made it in the nick of fucking time. I could've!
While sulking away in my lachrymal misery, I finally notice the blood-stained notes strewn across the floor. I notice the white bottle on its side on the floor with a few capsules leaking out of it. I notice Todoroki's sweatshirt crumpled on the floor, and the dissected, fake potted plant.
Reading over the notes, there are two that are written in a different format from the rest—two poignant pieces of poetry that crush my heart with a pair of blades from scissors. Even if I was never in any sort of romantic relationship with Todoroki, seeing his dying thoughts on paper transfixes my chest with hot shards of glass.
Scraping away the tears squirming free from my eyes, I can't bring myself to look at Todoroki's body again. "Don't you remember when I said that you're gonna hurt a lot of people if you do this? If you thought I wouldn't be sad, then HELL were you WRONG! Todoroki... I thought you were making progress. I didn't know...that the pain I couldn't see was only being exacerbated. Did it feel like I was making your life a living hell? Is that what it felt like to you? Deku... Dammit. I couldn't stop him. Had I been just a minute or two earlier... It's all my fault. I knew he didn't sound the same. Something was wrong. Something was wrong! Dammit. Dammit!"
Pressing my forehead into the ground, I can only rebuke my own misinterpretations of Todoroki's behavior. I can only blame myself.
Two months since Todoroki's suicide have passed. Class 1-A had never been more crestfallen after the onslaught of brusque deaths plaguing the news. While the few attempted to maintain the structure of the class, the majority couldn't help but fear for the future and brood over the past. At Todoroki's funeral, the detrimental, abject agony present in his siblings' eyes was incredibly difficult to witness. Even Aizawa struggled to maintain a phlegmatic countenance. We all seemed to have an unspoken, mutual agreement not to speak of his death, and instead to attempt to act as if nothing happened; I could understand, but I still couldn't act like one of our own classmates—the student at the top of the class—never committed suicide.
Even now, the pain in all of our hearts for the losses we've endured lingers. Still, time moves forwards, and so do we. Through achromatic dolor, we still stand with faded, vivid colors. It isn't that we forget what happened, but more so that we gradually accept that we can do nothing about what happened, and that there are preventative measures we can learn so as to not repeat ourselves.
In the sunlit morning of the spring as birds pour melodic chirps from their throats and flowers perk up their heads, I visit the gravestones of Todoroki and Deku with those two poems in hand. The soughing of the nearby and distant trees faintly tinges the cool air. Light evanesces into softly swaying shadow across the ground from the gentle jittering of the new leaves waggling on the tree branches.
Gazing at my surroundings steeped in green, gray, pink, and harlequin specks, I can almost picture Todoroki and Deku leaned up against their gravestones. With their backs facing me, yet obscured by the stones with their names engraved on them, between said stones peeks a translucent pair of hands interlaced. The figure with "floofy hair" of a rich emerald green turns towards the figure with sleek hair of effulgent fire and serene snow. Finally, the dual-colored figure faces his partner, bringing tight to his chest their locked hands. A smile, wondrous and free, ghosts his lips before he reels his partner in and fastens their lips together.
"I'm back," I announce with a snicker as the avid, yet eternally desiccated figures dissipate. "You assholes miss me?" Glancing down at their gravestones, I sigh a warm breath through the crisp, yet dampened air.
Leaning back against the nearby tree with branches beginning to regenerate their leaves that had been shed away in autumn, the morning dew gently seeps up into my clothing.
It's a damn shame... I was looking forward to spending those days with you two. Deku, you, me, and my dogs were gonna go to the arcade. Todoroki... Damn your dark 'hanging' pun. I don't know why I'd ever think spending time with you two extras sounded appealing, but it did. Tch. Maybe I really am soft on the inside. Pfft. Yeah, right.
Holding up the notes in my hands, they read:
Am I good at hiding the pain?
Or is ignorance a factor into their gain?
Everyday, it's harder to breathe.
If this is what you want, I'll leave.
It's my fault that I don't scream.
Hearing my true voice is a dream.
I know we're both misunderstood.
You're torturing me, as you should.
Your words cut me until I bleed into the day.
But that's perfectly okay.
Living is absolute agony.
It's superior to being empty.
Pain is the only thing I feel.
It reminds me that I'm real.
Do you hurt me because I cannot retaliate?
Or is it desire that you wish to sate?
If you set me aflame, I won't complain.
The pain is what keeps me sane.
The rancid words you spit at me reek of deceit.
I'll swallow and vomit them in a vicious cycle on repeat.
Forgive myself I cannot.
A disgrace deserves to rot.
You are the dealer of my greatest scar.
With this damage, I will not make it far.
I am the one you detest the most.
Is that why I am your living host?
There is only one way to dispose of you.
Yet another method existing is true.
Acceptance is no longer an option.
You are the monster leaving me with nowhere to run.
Destroying myself will set me free.
Because you are me.
"Don't give up on yourself."
My emotions collect dust on the shelf.
"There'll be a day when it doesn't hurt."
My senses are numbed by the weight of dirt.
It doesn't matter what you say.
I won't believe it, anyway.
The cuts on my arms hurt in a way so good.
I could never stop like you said I should.
I see myself only as worthless.
I brought upon myself this mess.
I'm the image of perfection.
So why do I hate my own reflection?
I'll protect the people at my side.
I am an obsolete object swept into the tide.
I've learned to bring joy to those around me.
The destruction I bring upon myself is what they don't see.
I'll only lie if you ask me how I truly feel.
"Others have it worse, and yours is no big deal."
It matters not how much you love me.
I will remain lonely with my heart empty.
Hurt me until I'm bleeding and broken.
It matters not when I'll be forgotten.
Self-loathing is a simple task.
I'll hide it from the rest with a blissful mask.
For loving others I receive an encore.
All I want is to hurt myself more.
The person they see is a complete lie
Unless happiness provokes the urge to die.
Step into the dark and turn off the light.
Maybe the pain will vanish for more than a night.
A year has passed since the day Todoroki succumbed to death in my grasp. Standing now in the tangerine twilight painting even the clouds with refulgent hues, I stare at the familial, distant names engraved onto the two gravestones before me.
Oi. I had a dream about you two. Both of you damn extras were smiling. I was on the sand with Kiri and Kami. You two were wading in the ocean. I don't remember much of what happened, but I can't forget how much Todoroki fucking smiled for the nerd. Out of all of us, Todoroki smiled the most. He looked great. Finally, he wasn't so damn skinny, and his smile was genuine. Tch. I cared about him so much more than I thought. Maybe he reminded me of myself and my own damn mistakes. Regardless...could we have all been like that? Could we have all shared a day like that together? Had none of that happened, could this have been possible?
Blinking, I realize now the small orbs of white steeped in orange fluttering through the winter air.
Tch. Wherever you two are, he'd better be smiling at you like that. If not, I'll beat his ass when I join you two. That won't be for a long time, but one day, we'll all be able to share that kind of day together. You, Todoroki, Kami, Kiri, and I are gonna have those days we'd planned together.
You'd better be smiling, Todoroki. Give your heart a damn good rest. How long were you struggling not to drown beneath the adhesive waves of depression? How long were you shielding yourself from the daggers of suicidal thoughts being abruptly thrown at you? How long were you wanting to die? However long it was, it was for way too fucking long. Every time I saw your eyes, they were empty—they'd been torpefied. You suffered through enough in this cruel world. 'Power doesn't equate to perfection.' The world made you want to die, but you blamed your own damn self for that. Wasn't your fault that you were a damn human. Wasn't your fault that humans can feel pain. Wasn't your fault that humans can break and fall apart. Todoroki, it wasn't your fault that hearts are so fucking hard to have and live with. So you'd better not feel that agony anymore. Wherever you are, you'd better be smiling.