The Future Firecracker

63 | FUTURE TIMELINE

CHAPTER SIXTY-THREE
'future timeline'

Katsuki looked at his son for the first time in a week while his former classmates around him saw the boy for the first time since he disappeared in early October. The six years raising this boy made him learn that masculinity didn't mean that he couldn't cry, which was why when he took in the boy's healthy appearance, the tears fell from his bruised cheeks and onto the ground.

His calloused hand found a place on the back of the boy's head, pushing him to his torn hero costume. He enveloped him in a hug, one he needed more than he realised.

Katsuro couldn't help but hug him tightly as well. His work, his days spent with that bird-mask-wearing freak, his training, his— wait...

Something was wrong.
Something was missing.

You. Older you. Sasaki [name].

Where were you?
Where was the older Epochary?
Where was his momma?

Surely if you were here, alive and breathing, you would be here cuddling with him and Katsuki too?

He placed his hands on his dad's chest, pushing himself off and away from the warm embrace. He glanced around him, his small quiet breaths became a heaving panic. Only then did he realise the partially collapsed building he and his family were standing in.

Looking up, the ceiling and roof were no longer there, instead, the pale moonlight shone through the hole that was barely holding itself together with the scaffolding. To his left and right, rubble and smashed bricks lay cluttered like broken puzzles to what this place was once. And behind him, lit up candles in jars placed among and hidden between the flowers of his parents' signature hero colours.

"It didn't work right..." he whispered, raking the ash-blond spikes on his head, glancing at his surroundings in circles until he fell to his knees. "Momma is still gone, but dad is... I did it... b-but... I-I... failed too."

Katsuki kept his eyes on his son. Now that he was closer to him, he could see the fear and sadness in his [e/c] eyes. — They were just like yours the last time he looked into them.

"You know I love you, right?"

By the pained looks on everyone else's faces, Dynamight's theory on what had happened was confirmed. Katsuro went back in time after he got another park of his quirk, then without a solid plan and an absence of experience, he changed certain events leading him to come back alive.

The gold Sasaki family pocket watch around his neck proved it true. There was also a bracelet on his left hand, one where a small locket between the beads popped up to reveal a picture from the first-year festival he felt he never spent with Katsuro.

As he also checked the pockets of his hero costume's trousers, there was also the empty velvet box where he had put the engagement ring he planned on giving you. The simple band with the orange diamond was missing from the small cushion.

He remembered giving it to you.
He remembered when you started to fade from existence, the halt of your breathing and the shutting of your eyes.

It was vivid and heart breaking.

You were gone before he was able to say 'will you marry me' on one knee.