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“Hello,” the boy with the green hair greets, grinning from ear to ear. He doesn’t look injured, though he’s a little bit pale. But his smile still holds the same intensity as the summer sun outside. “I’m Midoriya Izuku.”
Shouto never smiles, or at least, he rarely does. There’s not much that can make him laugh nowadays. It’s better for him to hide his true feelings, as to not make his father exploit them.
But when the boy smiles at him—Midoriya, his mind supplies—there’s something in his smile that makes his own tugged up into a faint echo of a smile.
And the way Midoriya grins back at him makes him feel like he’s conquered the world.
Their friendship is a strange one. Forged with only two-hours meetings in the physical rehab department two times a week. They talk about nothing and everything. When Shouto’s foot is healed enough, Shouto comes to visit Izuku in his hospital room with books and comics.
Izuku always greets him with a smile.
Oh, how powerless the words “I love you” are, when even now I don’t want anything but you.
Shouto loves the way his emerald eyes sparkle when he laughs, dancing with merriment. Every time he laughs, Shouto always joins, the happiness contagious that even him, the most unapproachable guy in school, can never resist the pull.
Izuku loves to tease him, from the way his hair often gets messy with the slightest bit of wind, to Shouto’s obsession with cold soba. The teasing is never harmful, just something fun that Izuku likes to do. It always makes him laugh.
Shouto loves laughing when it’s with Izuku.
They confess under the maple tree outside of Izuku’s hospital room. There’s a bench, and Izuku likes sitting there, sketching or painting with his watercolors. Shouto always sits beside him, providing warmth. Izuku’s fragile body can’t stand the drop of temperature.
“You know, Shouto,” he starts quietly, his hand moving over the page with practiced precision. He’s drawing Shouto, of course. He has a sketchbook dedicated solely for Shouto. It used to make Shouto blush and freeze, but now he accepts that this boy simply loves drawing him a lot. Still, it’s disconcerting to see his face staring back at him from the pages of Izuku’s sketchbook. “You don’t have to waste time with me like this.”
“I’m not wasting my time,” Shouto says. “I love being around you.”
Izuku chuckles. “The sick me?” There’s a note of sadness there.
“Your body may be sick, but your mind and your heart aren’t,” Shouto states quietly. “I love you, sick body and all.”
They both freeze. Shouto wants to kick himself in the ass for speaking so boldly and honestly, ready to apologize to Izuku and tell him not to think about it, when Izuku drops his sketchbook to the ground and weeps into his hands.
“It’s unfair!” He sobs out. Shouto’s heart twists so painfully hearing him cry. “I’m dying, Shouto. I don’t want to die! I want to spend a lifetime loving you!” Izuku lifts his face toward him, green eyes glinting with his tears. Shouto carefully wipes his tears away. “I love you! I love you! I don’t want to leave you!”
Even when his heart aches and screams and rages for the injustice of it all, Shouto embraces the boy who holds his heart, kisses him on the lips, and promises to not leave him.
There’s magic in the way Izuku’s scarred hands held his, gentle and careful like he was holding a treasure. Shouto loves to trace the veins and the scars, feeling each discoloration and bump. Izuku once said they were his badge of honor, and Shouto is inclined to agree. Those hands knew how to protect, how to love.
His heartbeat always trips whenever Izuku is so much as looking at him, feels the slight jolt of electricity across the skin whenever Izuku touches him. There’s also the rush in his veins when he kisses Izuku. It feels like riding the roller coaster—thrilling, scary, amazing. Izuku always kisses him back, softly then with more pressure. They part and grins into each other’s lips, before leaning in for more kiss.
Winter passes so quickly and rapidly. They spend time inside Izuku’s room, Shouto often bringing his laptop to watch movies with Izuku. His chest aches when he has to leave Izuku in the hospital, and Izuku only offers him a sad smile whenever Shouto lingers.
“I’ll still be here tomorrow,” he says, every time. Shouto believes him.
He overhears Inko talking with one of the doctors, and he bolts to the bathroom to cry.
“The medication doesn’t work well for Izuku-kun.”
Shouto presses his fist to his mouth, trying to hold back his sobs. It’s no use. It takes almost thirty minutes for him to calm down, and he heads back to Izuku’s room when he feels like he’s not looking like a mess.
Izuku looks at him like he knows, green eyes sad and holding a thousand emotions.
Shouto falls into his embrace and murmurs into his ear. “I love you, Izuku. I love you so much.”
On a warm spring morning, Shouto and Izuku lay down under the maple tree, Izuku with his head on Shouto’s chest. Shouto has the urge to hold him tight and not let go, and he does just that. Izuku doesn’t protest, as if he understands how unbalanced Shouto feels right now.
“Do you think we could be reborn again?” Izuku asks, hand outstretched as if to touch the cloud.
“Hmm?” Shouto strokes his hair, sinking his fingers into soft green curls. “You mean like reincarnation?”
“Yeah.”
“I believe so,” Shouto muses. “It would be neat, wouldn’t it? To be reborn. And find each other again?”
“Yeah,” Izuku sighs. “A second chance. I would love that for us.”
Shouto kisses the top of his head, heartache pulsing into his boodstream with each of his heartbeat.
“Our souls will find each other in our next lives,” Izuku adds. Shouto grins a little.
“Are we talking about soulmates now?”
Izuku nods against his chest. “Yeah. I believe we’re soulmates.”
“Then we’ll find each other. Always.”
Izuku slips into coma three weeks later.
Shouto doesn’t leave his bedside.
He neglects his classes, and he doesn’t care. His father had disowned him anyway. He doesn’t give a fuck. Let the old man rage.
The most important thing is Izuku.
Izuku, who’s having difficulties to breathe that he has an oxygen mask strapped to his face. He looks too pale, like a weak imitation of the Izuku he met months ago. He holds Izuku’s unresponsive hand, only leaving for the bathroom or when Inko forces him to eat.
“You promise you’ll be here tomorrow,” he whispers into the quiet of the room. The only sound responding is the constant beep of the monitor. “Hold on for me, Izuku.”
Izuku doesn’t answer, and Shouto weeps silently.
Midoriya Izuku dies at the age of twenty, after Inko makes the hard decision to pull him off life support after a month in coma.
The funeral is a small affair, only family and two of his friends from high school attending—Iida Tenya and Uraraka Ochako. He’s met them before, both of them always visiting Izuku together on the weekends.
Shouto is numb. His eyes stay on the picture of a smiling Izuku, taken after his high school graduation. It feels like he’s floating above his body, not quite understanding what’s happening.
Izuku is gone.
He can hear his heart cracks.
He can’t be gone.
The cracks widen, spreading through his body. Numbing him from inside out. The roar in his head gets louder and louder with each and every breath he takes.
Izuku is gone.
He’s gone.
And Todoroki Shouto is lost.
To the dawning sky, I wish for a tomorrow unknown,
“Farewell, My Dear” – I offer these words so that I can move forward again
The weight of something jumping onto his chest jerks him awake. Someone grunts when his elbow connects to something soft—hopefully not something on the face. The weight on his chest meows loudly, kneading his chest before settling again.
“Shou?” The voice is groggy and cracked with sleep. “Love, are you okay?”
Shouto blinks down to the man beside him. Izuku’s awake, green eyes hazy with sleep. There’s a healing cut on his chin, a result from the altercation with a villain yesterday, and a fresh bruise around his right eye from a sparring session with Bakugou. He looks soft from sleep, hair mussed and messier than normal. He’s wearing one of Hero Shouto’s merch as pajamas, the shirt big enough to engulf him.
To Shouto, he’s never seen a more gorgeous sight.
“Just a weird dream,” Shouto finally says. “Go back to sleep, Izuku.”
Izuku eyes him sleepily. “One hell of a dream if you elbowed me in the neck.”
“Are you okay?”
“At least you didn’t burn or freeze the bed,” Izuku snickers, and warmth floods his chest.
“Izuku?” Shouto says after a few heartbeats. Izuku hums next to him.
“Yeah?”
“Do you believe in soulmates and reincarnation?”
Izuku hums again, face smushed into Shouto’s chest next to their cat’s curled up body. “Yeah. Why?”
“Do you think we’re soulmates?”
Izuku peers up at him, smiles a soft smile. His hand reaches for Shouto’s, rubbing the wedding band that Shouto only wears around the house. “I do. I feel like I’ve known you for a long time sometimes, not just ten years.”
Shouto ducks his head to kiss him gently.
“I love you.”
“Love you too, Shouchan.”