I should’ve been happy.

Wasn’t it what I wanted all along ?

I wanted him far away from villains, far away from Japan and anything else that could’ve been a threat to his well-being.

I wanted him peaceful, resting, and enjoying his life as he deserved for his twenty-five years of hard work as a Hero ; I wanted everything but to see him hurting and shedding blood and sweat for undeserving people.

Yet it wasn’t how things had gone.

Instead of peacefulness, he’d found sorrow ; and worse, he’d found it at the hands of those that he’d sworn to protect.

Hadn’t he already been through enough ? Hadn’t he already given enough ?

As soon as I’d taken the piece of bone out of Touya’s throat, he’d been as good as dead.

What had laid in this hospital bed had been nothing but an empty shell for somebody who’d left long ago.

There was no need to destroy it.

It only hurt those who had cared about him.

Dad should’ve quit long ago ; I should’ve found a way to put things to an end before those he’d protected all his life turned their back on him.

Wasn’t he worth being told beforehand ?

Or was he worth so little in their eyes that they didn’t give two shits about the hurt he’d feel at knowing they’d put his fucking child in a box ?

Shirai’s face appeared in my mind.

A slow, insidious kind of anger started boiling in my stomach, mixing up with the acid taste of resentment.

He shouldn’t have been told in front of all of these strangers that his son was dead.

He shouldn’t have had to drive anxiously back to a hospital where they’d barely had the courtesy to leave him a jar on a bed as if it was a fucking present.

I hated them for making me see how weak it’d made him, how devastated he was.

My first reaction had been to retaliate ; his had been to grieve.

My hands clenched on the cheap urn, and the coldness of its surface managed to snap me back to reality before I’d broke it absentmindedly.

Those were Touya’s ashes between my hands.

What the hell was I supposed to do with them ?

I vaguely considered exchanging them with dog ashes and pissing on what was left of him before throwing everything in the gutters ; that’s what I’d promised myself I’d do all these weeks ago.

And the more I thought about it, the more I wanted to do it.

I wasn’t above pettiness, and especially not for a dead fucker.

Yet Dad still hadn’t paid his respects to him - and neither Rei nor Fuyumi and Natsuo.

It would be too disrespectful to let him cry while holding dog’s remains.

Still doesn’t tell me what I have to do with this.

I understood why Dad had left without even touching it ; there must have been something terribly twisted in knowing that your child’s corpse was contained in a twenty centimeters jar.

I watched the urn for a bit, undecided, both disgusted and repulsed by it.

I genuinely wanted to throw everything in the trash.

I sighed and took it with me before leaving.

*

“I’ll take two double-cheese burgers, a bucket of twenty wings of hot chicken, one fish wrap, one coke, and three sets of fries”

I looked down to the young cashier who, though typing my command, was looking unabashedly at the urn held under my arm.

I patted it with one hand like one would a nice dog.

You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.

“Yeah, that’s my dead brother. I’d say he’s happy to see you but I’d be lying because he’s always been a douche”

She shot me a weird-out glance and finished typing quickly.

I took my ticket and felt the urge to pee.

Once in the bathroom, I put the urn between my urinal and another one that was empty, shooting it a nasty glance :

“Stay here and behave, or otherwise I’ll wash you down the drain”

Behind me one of the toilets was flushed out ; I heard the guy getting out stilling abruptly before he hurried out, zipping up his pants with one hand.

I chuckled and shot a happy glance at the urn.

“Why is it that we can only see eye to eye when you’re dead ?”

Because I’d died once I knew that Touya was already in his next life and that he had certainly forgotten about everything.

He was a blank slate, everything but the one he used to be.

And wasn’t this ironic ?

For someone that had hurt so many people, he’d died so peacefully.

Well I mean, except for the part where he’d choked on his blood.

It was still extremely peaceful compared to what I’d planned had Keigo not managed to end him.

Still, I felt I had the right to desecrate what was left of him.

People may have been looking at me as if I were a psycho, but I had this gut feeling that Touya -wherever he was - would still be able to feel how disrespected his body was.

Once Dad had paid his respects, I wondered if I could make some jewelry out of the ashes.

Maybe I could make a necklace out of Touya – or worse, some cheap belly ring that a teenager would wear for two weeks before she’d lost it somewhere incongruous.

I knew some people used to make jewels out of dead bodies ; a weird practice, but in Touya’s case I’d be thrilled to know he was worth nothing more than a clipboard.

Even feeding the earth would be too good for someone as shitty as him.

A few drops of piss fell on the whitish lid : I finished my business and then considered leaving the stains on it, but the idea of carrying it around while my piss touched me disgusted me to no end.

I washed my hands and then washed the urn with a bit of paper.

My mind went to Dad and then shifted to Shirai.

I wondered what had crossed his mind for him to accept something like that without informing us about it beforehand.

He should’ve at least had the consideration of telling us what the sentence was without letting Dad humiliate himself in front of such a large audience who were his colleagues.

I’d had wrongly believed Shirai and us had a common understanding, that he’d valued us ; now I understood that his ‘presents’ were nothing but placating gifts to keep us on his good side.

If he had to hunt us for the good of this country, he would.

Nezu's words came back to my mind.

'They see your usefulness and they all know your true and only weakness'

This life truly was only an eat-and-be-eaten game.

At the scale we were playing, no one was friends with anyone.

I still remembered the rats under Nezu’s desk ; even he was too fucked up in the head for me to fully trust him.

I got out of the bathroom, took my food, paid, and left.

I ate while walking through the city, my appearance hidden under a henge.

I’d gone through Léo’s house earlier and gotten new supplies.

Natsume had been there, too.

They’d wanted me to stay with them but when I’d grazed the urn with my knuckle and told them I wanted to take my dead brother on a stroll they’d been unsettled enough to leave me alone.

Touya is truly revealing itself as an invaluable people-repellent.

I considered training but, because of how weird this day had been until now, it seemed wrong to do so.

I could find out who’d killed Uraraka – Katsuki was still waiting for me to drop a name – but I had a hunch I shouldn’t search too hard.

I could find Dad.

I had a rather good idea where he was.

But if he’d wanted me with him, he would’ve told me so.

I patted the urn.

“Guess we’re going to see your best friend”

When I showed up with the urn, the nurses looked at me as if I’d grown two heads.

They had to bring in someone with a specific Quirk to analyze before letting me go upstairs ; and even then they barely let me up, clearly wondering about my sanity.

Keigo’s room was, as usual, empty.

The flowers I’d brought the last time I ‘officially’ came to visit him had wilted.

Except for the synthetically clean smell of the nurses and doctors, there was no one else's lingering presence.

No one ever bothered to visit him or send him cards.

Not as if he could’ve read any but still – at least once he’d wake up he wouldn’t feel so alone.

I brought a chair close to the bed and sat on it, urn propped up on my left hip.

Keigo was sickly white, a different shade than he usually looked at night.

I tapped my fingers against my thigh, wondering.

Then I leaned forward, smiling, and wrapped my arm around the jar like I would around a friend’s shoulder, showing it off to Keigo.

“Look who’s there to see you”

I took the lid off and clapped it to make it seem as if the urn was babbling.

Only the life monitor’s regular beeps echoed through the room.

I waited a bit more, eyes locked on Keigo's.

My smile turned sour and I sighed, straightening up, and putting the jar on the ground.

“I believed that if one thing could’ve woken you up it’d be his dead body in a box”

My voice sounded lonely in this room, maybe a tad bit desperate.

I straightened my smooth pants repeatedly and looked out the window, trying to take my mind out of there.

Weren’t we supposed to be in a magical world where miracles happened every day?

Touya's decaying smell should’ve magically woke up Keigo.

Hell, this bastard’s death was so important it should’ve ended wars, worldwide hunger, and racism.

Yet I was the only one – aside from Dad – who cared about it.

And I am the only guy on earth fucked up enough to thrive while all the people that matter to me are suffering.

Why was it that when things went well for me they were shit for everybody else ?

“You would’ve made a better brother”

Silence answered.

I pursed my lips and looked down at the jar.

I’d spent my day carrying a dead body with me : there truly was something wrong with me.

Maybe I should-

My phone buzzed against my thigh.

I unlocked it, hoping it was Dad, quickly reading the text.

It was from Nezu.

He needed to see me urgently.

Under was written an address.

“Tokyo’s central hospital, fourth floor, Dr Shigaraki’s office”

*

A/N : This is the second chapter written directly in English (and corrected with Grammarly).

Tell me if you like it better - if it seems better written - or if it doesn't change a thing for you.

See you monday for the next update !