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Good job, Ground Zero, they tell him after his shift is over, leaning against lockers and seated atop benches. Katsuki grunts and doesn’t bother making eye contact, roughly shoves his arms into tattered sleeves and his feet into scuffed shoes, and soon he’s left them all behind. The clean-cut, foul-mouthed hero morphs into a scruffy overgrown delinquent, all sneers and bared teeth, and it’s okay this way.
It’s fine, just fine, and Katsuki’s life is great as it is. He takes down villains, asserts his prowess and dominance over all the extras clamouring to become just as good as him, and he…
A flash of wild purple hair in the corner of his vision captures his attention. Katsuki whips his head around, startling a businesswoman who almost collides with his back, but—it’s just another unfamiliar extra.
“Are you alright?” someone faceless asks, and Katsuki snarls wordlessly back.
He had said that the hour before he’d left too, eyes lidded but gaze unwavering all the same. Katsuki still remembers the scents that had lingered, the cat fur stuck to practically everything and the coffee grounds he never cared for and still doesn’t, really, but they’re nothing more than ghosts now. His phone stays silent and the number doesn’t appear on his screen anymore—
There’s nobody to greet him when Katsuki lets himself into his apartment, a little too big for one but perfect for two, and he storms straight to bed.
(there is no reprieve in his dreams, either, but it was worth a try anyway)
It was a quiet night like this one when Shinsou had held his hand, stopping Katsuki from pushing his chair back and leaving with the empty dishes in hand. He still remembers the contrast—smooth white against his scarred tan, the brush of fingers on the back of his palm—and he remembers sitting down, something not quite a sneer but not quite a smile on his face.
Then talk, he’d said, all impatience and abrasive vitriol, and Shinsou…
“Hey, man, how’s it going?” Kirishima asks, sliding affably into the seat next to him like he did all those years ago. It’s moments like these that make Katsuki wonder where the time’s gone, how all those little pieces get frozen in time no matter how he tries to speed them up, and how others just—
“Great,” Katsuki grunts, and the train of thought dies a small and violent death.
It’s one of those stupid get-togethers again, all good cheer and wistful delusions. For all that the Big Evil was vanquished, it’s like none of them ever grew up—beyond a few growth spurts and costume changes, they’re all the same idiots they were before. All holding onto optimism and goodwill, all looking for that silver lining in the clouds, and he wants to scoff at them.
You’re all so fucking stupid, he wants to tell them, leaning away from Ashido’s too-loud cheer. So goddamn blind, he wants to yell into shitty fucking Deku’s face, all suffused with blood from one too many drinks.
To the graduates of 3-A! they all cheer, and Katsuki…
Food like ashes on his tongue and drinks like petroleum—he stands up to excuse himself and slips out the back without his jacket, shivering lightly but making no attempt to rectify it. There are only one set of footsteps on the pavement and, no matter how Katsuki strains his ears, only one accompanies him to the apartment he once called home.
“You’re fucking lying to me, goddamn fucking zombie!”
“I assure you, I’m not—”
“Then what’s this shit? You’re going to—”
“I’ve known for a while—”
“Then why fucking only tell me now?!”
“…God, Katsuki, can’t we just have a normal conversation every now and again?”
Of course it’s a dreary day when Katsuki walks out, decked in black and eyes a slash of red on his face. Conversation is sombre and everyone’s face are grey, and all he wants to do is shove his hands into them all and blast them to kingdom come.
What right did they have to be sad when they were the ones who drove Shinsou to this? When they were the ones who spat on his dreams and legacy until all that remained of him was this?
We gather here today to celebrate a life, the priest says, and Katsuki almost gets to his feet so he can punch the uppity old fuck in the face.
(but when they lower him into the ground—)
It was going to happen sooner or later, Katsuki’s told. It wasn’t something he could prevent, this slow crumbling of every dream he’d ever harboured for the only person he could comfortably say he loved, and—they went through hell and high water together for this. From hatred to grudging respect to companionship to love, and still it wasn’t enough.
The day Shinsou donned his suit and walked out that final day, back straight and head held high, he’d wanted to stop him. Wanted to take that last month off, wanted to enjoy what little he could with a person he could never spend the rest of his life with—
But since when was life so easy?
Since when did anything go Katsuki’s way?
Shinsou Hitoshi walks out of Katsuki’s life far easier than he’d entered it, and all he has left is…
and now he’s so devoid of colour, he don’t know what it means