“How did you find me ?”

The cold wind was billowing around us.

“I do hope you’re not here to kill yourself”

Katsuki, hands in his pockets, standing on the edge of the roof, snorted.

I was a few feet behind : the door to the roof was still slamming against the wall, its hinges screeching.

“Not gonna”

I walked up next to him and jumped on the edge too, watching the sun setting on the other side of Tokyo.

The sky was gray and dark, and the city still busy with construction workers finishing their day. Golden rags of light burst through the clouds.

It was weird how everything we spent our time building could be shattered as easily as a deck of cards by a gust of wind.

A small explosion at the wrong place and at the wrong time could send the world into full chaos.

One wrong person dying could provoke the extinction of humanity.

“I’m sorry”, I said

The wind was whistling in my ears. Locks of my hair were flying all around my face.

“Don’t be. I should’ve listened to you”

I said nothing.

He could have, but I also could have insisted.

I let him get into the situation fully expecting to kill Uraraka myself and dispose of her body.

I’d rather have had Katsuki thought her wronged, a victim, rather than him knowing the truth.

“Did you love her ?”

“I don’t know. Maybe.”

The golden rays of the sun were now smothered by the growing darkness of a day ending.

“I think I hate her”

I said nothing.

“I don’t even think I really knew who she was. She may have been playing a role all along. Maybe- maybe she was using me to get to you, seeing how All for One is crazy about you”

The idea had crossed my mind a while back.

“She was not”

“Don’t lie to me”

“She was not”

I had threatened her, and yet she’d kept seeing Katsuki.

If I’d felt she was trying to use him against me, I would’ve killed her – and she knew it, too.

The risks were far too important for her to lose her time on such meaningless strategy.

“I-

Katsuki cleared his throat repeatedly, as if something heavy was preventing from breathing properly.

He shot me a scared, confused and wondering glance ; the kind of glance that asked if he could trust me with everything he was.

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I nodded slowly and severely.

His eyes shone, and he bit his lower lip while his shin shook, looking up at the sky as if were trying to push back the tears inside.

And then it was as if the dam preventing him from speaking properly broke.

“I don’t understand. I just- She was… And all the moments we spent together, were they false too ? I’m second guessing everything she has ever done or said, and yet I keep on feeling like shit because she’s dead and there’s some part of me that miss her too-”

He shut up.

“And I hate that I miss her. And I hate that I couldn’t tell her goodbye. And I hate that she didn’t tell me herself she was a traitor. And I hate that I hate her and I- I just miss her so, so much that it physically hurts and I hate myself for that too-”

He licked his dry lips, gaze growing unfocused and maddened.

“We could’ve find a solution together. We could’ve worked it out.”

And now anger brewed in his voice, making him shake from head to toes.

“Anything would’ve been fucking better than her dying on me and now I’ll spent my life wondering-”

He said nothing.

His hands, which had been vividly moving around while he spoke, closed to fists then fell helplessly to his sides.

“I don’t get it. Yuei wasn’t supposed to be like that. I was supposed to be the best, the brightest, the next All Might and now that everything is at hand’s reach I’m wondering if that’s what I really want”

“Don’t be stupid. You can’t mess up your whole life for someone who’s dead”

“I feel I could. It would be so easy to just let go off everything”

I felt that, deeply.

“I know"

The dark clouds were rumbling. A few drops of rain fell all around us.

“We’re fucking sixteen”, he said “And I feel fucking sixty. I just- I’m just so goddamn tired of everything”

I smiled bitterly.

“Is that wrong of me ?”, he said “Is that wrong if I miss her ?”

“It isn’t”

“It should be. Aizawa’s eyes have been gouged out right while he was conscious and yet I’m here crying over a traitor. I didn’t even ask him how he was. I couldn’t bring myself to care. I still can’t”

The rain was now pouring.

My wet clothes were now a new layer of skin.

“I don’t think I want to be a Hero anymore”

Thunder flashed across the sky.

Katsuki’s lighted face was turned right at me, water running down his cheeks and pooling under his chin.

“What should I do ?”

I think you’re lost. I think you need a purpose.

“You’re my friend and I-”

He pursed his lips and closed his eyes for a moment, Adam apple was bobbing up and down.

His red, pleading eyes, locked up with mine.

“Tell me, Shoto. What should I do ?”

He was putting me on the spot.

He was trusting me with was probably the most important decision of his life.

The new Shoto would’ve told him to quit if he wanted to. The new Shoto would’ve told him that it was okay, that things would be fine.

But something in the back of my head was buzzing ; something unsettling, dark, refused to let Katsuki quit so easily.

She died, so what ?

Plenty of people died everyday. He couldn’t crumble at the first setback

It was too fucking easy.

“It’s not my decision to make”

The weight of the consequences would be mine to bear too.

“I trust you”, he said

I shifted uneasily, shook my head, resentment starting to boil up in the pit of my stomach.

“That’s not about trust”

He couldn’t avoid making his own decisions, couldn’t thrust them on other people and expect things to be fine.

“You need to choose your path. Only you will be held accountable for what you do with your life, not me nor All Might nor whoever else”

It wasn’t fair that he had the opportunity to stop when things got hard : it wasn’t fair that he could say no and nothing tragic would ever happen again because other people would be there to pick up the broken pieces.

In the grand scheme of life, Katsuki quitting or not would mean nothing.

I felt I should tell him to quit and let him unravel himself until he was everything but the one I knew, yet I couldn’t stand being the only one of us two that had to stay.

It wasn’t fucking fair that I was the only one that had to grow the fuck up.

He should too.

“I need the help of a friend. I can’t- I’m just so lost. I don’t know what to do”

Katsuki and I were alike.

I felt that thanks to Uraraka’s death, he could grow to understand me better.

For a moment I considered a future where he and I stood atop of the world, strong and equals.

I saw a path where him and I would understand each other ; I saw the possibility of getting someone else on my side.

I wouldn’t let Katsuki quit – I couldn’t let him quit.

He wanted me to find the answer to his problems ? Fine.

But I ever only knew one way to move forward in your life, and that was to bring in more chaos.

“If I told you she didn’t die the way they told us she did… what would you say ?”

Katsuki perked up.

His hunched back straightened, and his dull gaze grew sharp.

When you hurt, it was fair that you hurt other too to make them feel your pain.

Katsuki needed an outlet, something to evacuate all his anger and frustration on.

“What do you mean ?”

He needed a purpose.

I would give him one.

*

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