Chapter Text
Shortly after bidding farewell to his friends and cleaning up the apartment, Izuku began his trek over to the Bakugou household.
He was not looking forward to the rest of the holiday. So far, Izuku had been able to at least partially ignore every part of his brain that was reminding him of the fact that Kat wasn’t there, but now he was going to Kat’s childhood home, where his parents — along with Izuku’s mother — were all waiting for him to show up.
Where was this night going to go? Would he have a breakdown again like on his birthday? Who would be the first to cry? Should he try to break some tension with a pleasant memory of Kat? Or perhaps that would just add to the tension… Would they do their usual Christmas traditions, including eating Kat’s favorite foods and watching his favorite holiday movies? Izuku wasn’t sure if he could handle watching ‘All Might Saves Christmas’ when the man failed to save the person who mattered most to him. Would the family even acknowledge that they were or weren’t doing them? Or just pretend that everything was normal, like they had been doing since he died?
Izuku didn’t want a repeat of his birthday. He didn’t want his body to blindside him with too many emotions for him to handle. He didn’t want to cause a scene. He didn’t want to go. He didn’t know if he could go without everything he didn’t want to happen, happening.
A part of him wished that the day could just be over already. Have it end on the pleasant note of him having a great afternoon with his friends.
But the other part of him knew that wasn’t possible. Even if he was able to just turn around now, put on the new pair of pajamas that Nei had gotten him — he knew how much Izuku wanted to steal his so he bought him a pair of his own — turn off all his lights, crawl into bed and just try to leave this day as is, waking up to a new day wouldn’t change a damn thing.
For one reason, tomorrow was Christmas, so the reminder would still be there, and he’d nevertheless have to be with his family. But also, if Izuku was in bed right now, more alone and caught up with his thoughts than he currently was, there was no doubt that he would break down. He hoped he wouldn’t, but he knew himself better than to think of those hopes as anything concrete.
Izuku’s therapist liked to remind him every once in a while that he could not control what happened to him, but he could control how he reacted. Sometimes that was true. If someone was being rude or annoying for seemingly no reason, he could easily just breathe and remind himself that he can’t control how they act, so there’s no point getting himself worked up about it. But in other situations, like this — where Izuku was left thinking in spirals about Kat, and Kat only — he thought that the advice was all bullshit.
Izuku didn’t control Katsuki dying — even if sometimes he felt as if he could have changed things had he gone about that day just a little bit differently — but all in all, the situation was this: his best friend was dead, and Izuku couldn’t do anything to change that. That made Izuku — in simple terms — sad.
Did that mean that Izuku should just ignore his sadness and move on with his life? No. That wasn’t grief. Putting rotten food in a box wouldn’t stop it from rotting, and pushing down all his negative emotions wouldn’t stop him from having them. There wasn’t a trashcan in his mind to simply throw them away.
So the question was this: When acknowledging the missing pieces of his heart made him feel as cold as the snow currently falling on him, what else could Izuku do aside from stuffing it with cotton and acting like nothing was wrong?
All these thoughts and questions with no answers were filling his mind as he looked up at the sun-setting sky that made the snow reflect an almost golden glow on the Bakugous’ towering home.
He pulled out the key from his pocket. The once brightly colored paint chipped and faded with age, the metal as cold as the body of the boy who once gave it to him. Izuku took in a deep breath before putting it into the lock.
There was no talk of him. No talk at all, really. Through dinner and during the movies they all watched together after the meal — excluding All Might Saves Christmas, thank Kami — Katsuki’s name was never mentioned once. They weren’t even attempting to pretend it was a normal meal, like they had been for months. The only audible sound was the serving bowls being passed around as they spooned Katsuki’s favorite dishes onto their plates, and not a word was spoken when they put on his second favorite Christmas movie.
Izuku thought that he might have seen Mitsuki wipe away a tear or two during the more emotional scenes, but he did nothing more than discreetly pass her a tissue.
It wasn’t until they moved on to their last Christmas Eve tradition — opening up a single present of their choice — that Katsuki’s name was spoken aloud.
“Izuku,” Mitsuki started softly, her voice thick. “I was, uh… I was in Katsuki’s room the other day, just uhm, tidying up.” She paused to let out a wet laugh. “And I found this.”
Izuku looked down at the small box his aunt pulled out from behind her back. It was a rectangular box wrapped in All Might-themed decorative paper — the Golden Age colors, his retired favorite of all the costumes. A yellow ribbon in a shade similar to the number one hero’s hair was wrapped around the box. The ends were even wisped up to reflect his signature bangs.
Izuku wasn’t sure if he was still breathing when Mitsuki continued on, gripping the box like it was something precious she refused to let go of. How she was holding herself together as well as she was, no one knew.
“It was in his closet. I’m not sure if it was for your birthday or, or for something else but…” She shrugged hopelessly, biting her lip with a wobbly smile and ignoring the tears that threatened to fall down her cheeks. “It’s for you.”
Izuku took a moment in the quiet living room to simply stare at the neatly wrapped box. It was slightly dusty from lying undisturbed for who knew how long. Was it hidden behind a pair of running shoes? Atop a box on the shelf in Kat’s closet? Somewhere out of reach where Izuku couldn’t randomly stumble upon it? Did it even matter where it had been? It was sitting in front of him now, still in Mitsuki’s offering hands instead of Katsuki’s, and he had to figure out what he was going to do about that.
He forced his lungs to take in the warm air of the living room. Is it getting a little hot in here? Maybe they should open a window. His fist — which was clenched in his lap — slowly unfurled. His right hand twitched and trembled as it made its way over to the box. He thought maybe he could be quick about it. Tear through the wrapping like the child he was expected to be. But as the tip of his index fingers touched the smooth end of the jaundiced ribbon, his hand pulled back to his chest as if he had been burnt. He held his wrist and looked at Auntie Mitsuki with wild eyes.
“Could I maybe open it later?” He spoke fast, barely able to get the words out as his chest rose and fell rapidly.
“Of course you can.” Mitsuki smiled in understanding, placing a firm grip on Izuku’s shoulder, grounding them both.
Izuku quirked his lips up into a grateful smile as he grabbed the first present he could spot with his name on it. It was a set of very nice — and very expensive — quick-drying gel pens that Izuku had had his eyes on for years.
“For your analysis notes,” Masaru explained with a calm smile as he rubbed his wife’s back with a comforting hand.
Izuku wished he had the ability to tell them the amount of gratitude he had for the well-thought-out gift. He wanted to tell them that they didn’t have to spend an obviously large amount of money on a single gift for him, but since they did, he would be sure to make good use of them.
Instead, he lunged forward into them with a tight hug, clamping his eyes shut and not allowing a single tear to escape. He wondered if they could somehow understand everything he could not convey into words at the moment. He hoped they could. Something told him they did.
The night before, Izuku had only shed a few tears. More than he would have liked, but hey! It was way less than he had expected!
So that was something.
Still… as his eyes opened and blearily welcomed the warm sun rays shining through the gap in Kat’s curtains and the glowing numbers of his alarm clock — along with the shelf on the wall that held shoujo manga Izuku had never touched, there was no easing the stab that pierced at his heart from the fact that Katsuki wasn’t there beside him.
What he would give for one more morning of fighting over blankets in the chill of December or covering his face with a nearby pillow while Katsuki and Mitsuki yelled at each other through the door.
Izuku rolled onto his back and hot tears streamed down his temples, wetting his baby hairs and causing a small, salty puddle to form on the pillow below his ears. The edges of his lips trembled into a tense, downward frown, and his teeth ground together as he clenched his jaw tight.
He wasn’t able to pinpoint the exact cause of his tears. His mind was by no means blank, but it felt muddled. Perhaps he was still feeling foggy from sleep, but maybe his brain was trying to protect him somehow by keeping the thoughts racking his body with tears from coming up to the forefront of his mind.
Izuku wished his mind would just get on with it already. He would much rather feel everything at once or keep it all hidden somewhere inside than have his emotions leak out of him at the most random of times.
There was nothing more difficult than having a plethora of unexplainable, overwhelming emotions.
With his tear ducts showing no sign of stopping, Izuku decided to succumb to his body’s depressing desires and feed his mind small crumbs of Kat. Thoughts that he shut down the night before.
The gift box.
What was in it? Was Izuku ready to know? And were there any other secrets hidden in the confines of Katsuki’s room that Izuku didn’t know about? The notebook and the present were one thing, but Izuku didn’t know if his heart could handle any more semi-annual reminders of Kat.
Part of him just wanted to tear apart the entire room. The other wanted to keep it exactly as it was forever. Was this how Mitsuki felt? Izuku always thought he’d known the ins and outs of Katsuki’s entire being. Apparently, there had been more for him to learn.
What could he have found had they just had a little more time?
It was hard enough going to his house every week without getting gifted something that made it feel like he was still around somehow. Here. With Izuku.
Would it be wrong to search his room? Everyone deserved some form of privacy, but, well… Kat wasn’t around anymore, no matter how much anyone wished he was.
He would never actually turn the room upside down! Lord knows Izuku would rather die than make life any harder for Mitsuki or Masaru, he would just… Do a little snooping. Shine a light under his bed, maybe dig through the drawers a little? Try his best to sneak a peek on the top shelf of his closet. Completely harmless!
Hoisting himself up with a shaky breath, Izuku wiped at his tears the best he could and crawled onto the floor. He was momentarily welcomed with a dull pounding in his head and a vision swarmed with black — blood rush, his mind supplied.
Blinking a few times and grabbing his phone from where it had fallen on the floor in the middle of the night, Izuku turned on the flashlight and began his search.
It was with little surprise that Izuku found absolutely nothing under the bed. Shiny, pristine floors and nothing else. Katsuki had always preferred to keep clutter-free. His room was full only of necessities and items that he regularly used. Sure, he had some hero merch, figurines, and old photographs, but he was nothing like Izuku, who couldn’t part with anything and had random trinkets shoved in every nook and cranny of his room.
Still, it couldn’t hurt to double-check.
He moved onto the dresser with a sigh, only to find himself in a similar situation with the dresser being void of anything except clothes.
That left Izuku with the final search point. The place that was most likely to have anything secretive and the place that was least likely for Izuku to ever come across something by accident. The very place where Aunt Mitsuki had found the still-unopened present for Izuku: The Closet.
Going up to the closed closet door filled Izuku with something eerie. Almost like when he and Kat were little and would play hide and seek. As if the moment he opened the door, Katsuki would jump out and tackle Izuku with a grin.
“Ha! Gotcha!” He’d always say in lieu of getting upset at being found. He got more pleasure from seeing Izuku’s shocked face than he did from sulking.
And when Izuku would tease him about having such an easy-to-find hiding spot, Katsuki would simply shrug.
“I knew that anything I came up with would be too hard for you. I made it easy for you on purpose!”
Izuku would always roll his eyes and suggest they do something else, but now… He would do anything to get that back. Anything.
He shook the thought out of his head. No use wishing for something he would never get back. Izuku blinked more tears out of his eyes as he dragged Katsuki’s desk chair over to the closet. Was it by any means the smartest idea to stand on a rolling chair? No. But Izuku wasn’t really in a state of mind to care? Also no.
Luckily, he had gained some amount of agility from his months of being Null. Standing still on a chair was a piece of cake compared to some of the tricks Izuku had been forced to learn to survive.
Finally making it to eye level with the shelf, Izuku wasn’t sure what he had been expecting. More notebooks, maybe? A secret hobby Katsuki had that Izuku previously had no idea of but was about to discover?
However, there was none of that. A couple of shoeboxes filled with various knickknacks retired from Kat’s bedroom, some action figures he and Izuku used to play with, hero trading cards they had collected together in their childhood, but nothing that Izuku wouldn’t have found back home in his own apartment a few minutes away.
The collection was so similar, in fact, that Izuku even found Katsuki’s half of the pair of sweaters Inko knitted for them the Christmas prior — folded, unlike Izuku’s, so the hanger wouldn’t stretch the collar.
Izuku reached for the knitwear and hopped off the chair with a grace he hadn’t previously possessed. He moved the chair back where he found it and sat back on the bed with his anti-climactic discovery.
The sweater was soft in his hands. Kat had worn it for months after Inko gifted it to him. He tended to do that when it came to clothing. He would find what he liked and take good care of it, only getting something new when he outgrew it.
Izuku squeezed the sweater to his chest and buried his nose in it. It still smelt like him. The whole room did. But the sweater held something more personal, more comforting. Unlike the air that still held his scent, the sweater was like holding Kat himself. Almost like receiving the rare hug from the blond.
He was never big on touching, but Katsuki never complained when Izuku latched onto him. Not really.
“Get off of me, Nerd!” He would growl without any real bite to it, shoving Izuku like you’d nudge a cat from your spot on the bed.
In the end, he would always give in to Izuku’s affections and simply turn his face to hide the fact that he was enjoying it too.
Izuku slipped the sweater over his head and — had the sweater been a few degrees hotter — he could close his eyes and almost imagine Katsuki was in the room with him now.
Most people would find the mixed aroma of nitroglycerin and whatever floral fabric softener Aunt Mitsuki had been using for as long as Izuku had been alive off-putting. But not Izuku. Wherever Katsuki was had always been Izuku’s home, and it hurt like nothing else that his body now welcomed back the scent like some sick form of nostalgia. Like something that now only belonged in the past.
Would Izuku one day lose that smell? Would Katsuki’s room and all his possessions one day wear it off?
Even the idea of that happening made Izuku sick to his stomach.
He unwrapped his arms from around himself and looked down at the sleeve, noticing something rather curious.
The cuffs reached to the end of his wrists.
But it wasn’t just the sleeves. Everything from the collar to the way it hugged his torso made it seem as if it had been tailor-made for him, rather than the few inches taller Katsuki.
Izuku knew he had grown. His family had all said so at one point or another in the past few months, but he had just chalked that up as the usual grown-ups-seeing-a-teenager greeting. He didn’t think he had actually grown all that much.
And Izuku couldn’t be that much bigger, right? It was perfectly normal for a boy his age to grow, but, come on. To be as big as Katsuki used to be…
And then it hit him. Not like a ton of bricks but something just as crushing. A soul-deep swirling inside that came to remind him, make him realize, hey, your best friend is dead.
Katsuki was dead. Izuku knew that. Of course he knew that. Every day without Kat reminded him of the fact. But the implications of which had only just reached the surface.
His… body, lying cold in the ground as it decomposed, was one thing. Knowing he would never get to be a hero was another. But he wasn’t just lying there. He wasn’t growing or thinking or anything. Because he was gone.
Izuku didn’t know what he believed came after death but the fact of the matter was that Katsuki and Izuku would never meet again. Not in this life, at least.
Izuku would continue to grow and change, and Katsuki would forever be stuck as only the memory of a fourteen-year-old boy who died too soon in an accident that should have — could have — been avoided or stopped.
A memory resurfaced. One from last year, before everything went to shit. Izuku was in the kitchen, doing his best to help Katsuki cook their lunch when he asked Izuku to grab a spice from the cabinet.
The few inches that Katsuki had on him made all the difference when he effortlessly grabbed the spice himself, reaching behind Izuku, who had been struggling on the tips of his toes.
“If I knew you were gonna strain yourself, I wouldn’t have even asked.” Katsuki smirked, tilting his head up so he could look down on Izuku.
Izuku glared, viridian meeting scarlet eyes. “Just wait, Kacchan! One day I’ll be so tall you’ll have to crane your neck to look me in the eye!”
Katsuki huffed a laugh as he took a step closer, forcing Izuku to either look up or turn away. “You sure about that?”
He didn’t want it to happen like this. It was supposed to happen naturally. Katsuki and him growing together side by side until Izuku got a random growth spurt that he could quite literally hold over his head. But nothing about this was natural. Nothing at all.
Izuku hurried out of the bedroom, only barely remembering to grab the still-wrapped gift sitting on the desk. He scrambled down the stairs with no care in the world about how much noise he must be causing at such an early hour. Everyone was already downstairs anyway, but he didn’t give them so much as a passing glance in his rush to the door.
“Izuku?” His mother called out as he slipped the first of his red sneakers on. “Where are you going? You haven’t even eaten yet?”
“I have to see Kat.” He chokingly muttered, getting his other shoe on with a sniffle. “I’ll eat later. I won’t be long.”
“O-Okay…” Inko spoke gently, sending a worried glance back to Masaru and Mitsuki, who only had heartbreaking looks of understanding on their faces. “Just, don’t be out too long, okay? It’s cold out, we don’t want you getting sick.”
Izuku simply nodded before exiting the household.
Walking down the streets of Musutafu on Christmas morning found a chorus of neighborhood children laughing and playing with their newly gifted toys, smoke from warmed houses wafting into the cold air as families and friends alike celebrated the merry holiday. The usual shops were all closed sans the convenience store and some bar Izuku didn’t know the name of.
As he ventured further into the city, heroes on morning patrol were bombarded by adoring fans, all wanting to get their own personalized present into the hands of the heroes they knew truly nothing about.
Izuku kept his gaze forward and suppressed the chill — which had nothing to do with the bite in the air — that went down his spine, pulling Kat’s gift closer to his chest.
As the graveyard came into view, Izuku made the now familiar trek over to where Katsuki lay. Uncaring of the thin pants he wore or the snow on the ground, Izuku took a seat and brushed the cluster of white stars off the top of the stone with his ungloved hand.
“Morning Kat,” Izuku whispered, taking notice of the containers holding some leftovers from the night before: a few unpeeled oranges, Katsuki’s favorite brand of canned tea, flowers, and a kōro holding the stub of a burnt-up incense. “I see your parents already came by. You probably know then, but it’s Christmas.”
Izuku spoke with false cheer, which was only further punctuated by the lack of noise in the yard. A family of three stood together from the other side but not a cry could be heard. Izuku was grateful for it.
“Last night was a little different than usual, o-obviously…” His voice cracked a little, but he held strong, even as his nose started to itch and tears began to bud up from his ducts. “But when we were doing the gift exchange, your mom handed me this.” Izuku didn’t dare set the gift directly on the ground. Instead, he kept it firm in his lap. “She said she found it in your closet, of all places. What other secrets were you hiding from us?”
The words were spoken with a light, teasing tone, but the cement block in his chest gave him away. Izuku couldn’t help but think of what Katsuki would have said to that. To Mitsuki’s going through his things. To Izuku attempting to do the same.
The sweater suddenly felt colder and stiffer around Izuku’s body.
“I hadn’t realized…” He whispered, staring blankly at the engraved dash between Katsuki’s birthday and the day he died. His whole little life was now defined by a single line drawn in stone. No one would know how truly amazing he could have been had he been given just a few more years. Izuku would trade his whole life to bring him back. Every single second. “I knew you were gone, but it just felt like that. Gone.” His eyes were clenched shut. “Not- not gone gone just gone, like you were visiting some place, or… something. I know you’re not coming back, fuck, I know. But… It wasn’t like this.”
Izuku placed a hand on the snow in front of him. As if Katsuki could feel Izuku’s love and warmth through the layers of wood and frozen earth separating the two of them. Could it offer him some comfort, wherever he was? If reincarnation was true, could Katsuki feel bursts of affection through his body? Was he looking at Izuku from the afterlife, some other-worldly plane, thinking he was being ridiculous? Maybe he was sitting next to him as a ghost, looking at him with faded red eyes.
Izuku suddenly felt sick to his stomach as tears welled up in his eyes as his fingers grazed the scrawl of Katsuki’s handwriting.
To Izuku,
For the future!
Love, Katsuki
“I don’t know what to say,” Izuku muttered, gripping the snow like a lifeline with his other hand, effectively numbing his reddening fingers. “I miss you. I love you. I wish you were alive, but you’re not. What am I supposed to do, Kat? Whatever’s in that box, what do you expect me to do with it?”
Izuku took a deep breath and rubbed at his eyes, shocking his system out of his panic with his freezing hands.
Maybe it had to be like ripping off a band-aid. Swift and easy, pull the ribbon, unwrap the gift, and deal with the aftermath.
But Izuku had never been one to get things over with. That was Katsuki’s role. Izuku would just make himself miserable with worry and theories and slowly edge to the center of things until they were revealed.
With shallow breaths, Izuku’s hands fluttered over the two yellow ends of the ribbon. He pulled at a snail’s pace and the ribbon fell loose around the box. Izuku stuffed it into his pocket and moved on to the paper. Flipping the gift over, Izuku used his fingernail to tear away at the tape holding the pristine wrapping flat to the surface. He unfo l ded the gift wrap and folded it again, stuffing that into his pocket as well.
The box itself was small and matted black. One of those kinds where a smaller box had a slightly bigger box on top of it to seal it shut. Izuku could almost see Katsuki leaning casually against the grave in front of him. His arms crossed over his chest and his eyes encouraging. “Well? Fucking open it already, nerd! Bet it's gonna blow your mind.”
The smirking Katsuki of Izuku’s mind gave Izuku the strength he needed to edge the top of the box off.
Inside was a black, metal face mask obviously made to cover one’s mouth. The design was sleek with the bulkiest part being around where Izuku’s mouth would sit and around his ears. Carefully lifting the support gear out and turning it over in his hand, Izuku found that it would wrap around his neck and should he need it, he'd be able to pull it up and click it into place around his face.
Holding the device in a firm grip in one hand, Izuku lifted a card out of the box detailing the functions and care of the mask.
According to the card, when the device was on, any sounds Izuku made — like his muttering — would be not only silenced but recorded on a drive inside the mask that had to be taken out and transferred to store elsewhere. It would allow him to analyze in the field without villains hearing, be able to listen to his findings at a later date to do further research, and if the mask was ever destroyed, any untransferred recordings would go down with it.
“H-How did you even do this?” Izuku wondered aloud, staring between the device and Katsuki’s grave in awe. “Auntie said she didn’t even know what this was, you-” He cut himself off with a wet laugh and a shake of his head. Carefully sliding the device back into its box and making sure the information card was still inside, Izuku wrapped his red-clad arms around himself, wishing more desperately than ever that Kat was there so he could thank him properly.
Izuku sat up abruptly, holding the box tight in his grip and bowed. “I promise you, I’ll do amazing work with this, Kat.” He looked up and grinned, leaning forward to press a chaste kiss to the granite hedge. “You’ll see.”
Wherever he was.