Moments Between

Eijiro Kirishima

Eijiro had nothing better to do than watch Izuku train his mind with Chrome's older brother, Rokudo. Chrome busied herself pushing buttons from the ante room where they stood, navigating her peers through their training.

Until Izuku collapsed, crying, an odious howl tearing from his throat. Rokudo stood there, ghastly pale, clearly trying to hide the emotional turmoil going on in him.

Chrom scowled and spoke in rapid french. She slammed her hand on an imposing red button, the fastest he's seen her move. "Abbort! Abbort! Abbort training!"

... That doesn't sound good.

"What's happening?" He asked the frantically muttering lady.

"Zuu-kunishavingapanicattack," she replied fast, too fast that Eijiro only thanked his growing alertness after spending some time with the admittedly lunatics of this Vongola Fort that he could understand what she said. She turned to him, face grim, lips pursed into a very thin line. "Can I leave him in your care? I'm going to have to do Feral Sky-Boss control. Thanks." Chrome whirled and went inside the training room, picking Rokudo up by the back collar of his button down shirt, and dragged him out.

Eijiro never knew Chrome can be aggressive. She's one scary woman with the face of an angel.

Izuku let out another lugubrious wail that had Eijiro bolting inside. The greenet was crouched down into a fetal position. His breaths were short and ragged, almost like he was straining to chase after each breath. Tears and snot covered his face, and hands.

Eijiro kneeled beside the teen. He knows nothing on how to deal with panic attacks since they haven't covered mental and psychologicalrescue materials yet. But common sense told him that hyperventilating should be stopped first and foremost.

Eijiro tentatively reached out a hand. A light pat on the shoulder and Izuku is rounding up fast enough to give the both of them a whiplash. His eyes were scattered, scared, and widely blown.

"Tsuna!?" He yowled in between steep gasps of air.

"No." Eijiro can't apologize. Whatever illusion Rokudo made had Izuku scared for Sawada. If he apologized now it would only make matters worse; Izuku might think that the illusion was true. "Izuku," he called to him, voice firm to pull him back to reality. "Look at me."

Izuku wasn't listening to him. His eyes were moving, looking, searching. When it was clear Eijiro was blocking his view, he tilted his head repetitively.

Eijiro grabbed his face and positioned him to see only him. He stared at those swirly greens, stern and firm. "Eyes on me, Izuku. Eyes on me."

Izuku slowly recognized him. Who he is. "... Eijiro...?"

"Yeah, that's me," ge confirmed with a small soft smile, considerate that he wouldn't overwhelm the still panicking teen. "We're going to do deep breaths, okay? Slow and deep. In through the nose and out through the mouth, you follow? I'm going to count and you're going to breath with me, okay? Breath in, 1... 2... 3... Breath out, 1... 2... 3... In through the nose, 1... 2... 3... Out through the mouth, 1... 2... 3... In, 1... 2... 3... Out, 1... 2... 3..."

They did the breathing a few more times before color returned to Izuku's pale skin. "Wh-what happened...?"

"You were training illusions with Rokudo."

"Illusion... Tsuna isn't dead?"

Izuku's voice came as a shattered croak, a child's whimper, sounding so small and scared it broke Eijiro's heart. Izuku had no one else, and he was made to feel that way. And that alone made Eijiro ache for him, ache for the implications that turned a once exquisite masterpiece into a dishevelment in a fit of rage.

His body moved on its own accord, embracing the bleating teen in what he hoped is a comforting hug. Eijiro wanted to go on a rabid dog rampage for him, to seek those who hurt his Sky and make them pay a hundred fold, but he knew he couldn't.  Who was he, the plaintive looking, goofy Eijiro Kirishima, to be allowed to pulverize the whole world?

Beceause that's the thing. Eijiro didn't have any actual good qualities to him. He dyed his hair red to be seen, but in this world riddled with colorful quirks, his bright red hair wasn't as eye-catching as he thought it would be. What it feels like to be invisible is feeling like fading into the background. You feel like you are part of the picture without mattering. You feel like you are fading into the air, silently and unnoticed. That's exactly how Eijiro is feeling.

Even in UA, in the hero course, he was always the bencher. Sure, he was leader material for some, but he was always third choice. Don't get him wrong, it does feel like they see him as an ace, not a pawn that can easily be discarded, but that wasn't enough to satiate him. Why is he being a bloodthirsty attention-seeker hound? He doesn't even know! Did he just want others to see him, to acknowledge him?

All that changed when he met him - like, actually see him eye to eye. He met him, Izuku Midoriya, and suddenly everything made sense. Every mistake, every disappointment, every feeling of lackingness; the paths he's taken, the people he's met and the decisions he's made - all those led Eijiro to Izuku.

All the wrong turns became the right ones because they pointed him to his Sky, for his eyes - his eyes held everything his soul thirsts for.

And Eijiro didn't even know what did his soul wanted, just that when he saw those emerald eyes, there was just this distinctive feeling of "mine", and that Eijiro wouldn't function if he wasn't able to act on those urges.

Izuku Midoriya is the end of the road. After a lifetime (and boy doens't it feel like a lifetime already, when he's just a teenager) of missed exits and wrong turns, Eijiro felt like he's finally home. One journey ended, and another begun with him.

It doens't matter if Izuku is broken. It doesn't matter if the strings of his soul were played by careless hands. It doens't matter if he spilled his blood all over and his existence orchestrated a symphony of uncontrollable melancholy.

Nothing mattered, nothing but Izuku, because Eijiro believed that there's nothing more heroic than the ones who have survived destruction and rearranged the rubble into something beautiful. The ones who conquered the shitty hands they were dealt, and won at life anyway.

Izuku is the prime exapmle of that. Sure, he may still feel depressed, still curl in on himself and hide himself to the world to protect himself, or even poke at the world and taunt it to give its worst at him, but whenever his downtime is done, he always came out shinning brightly. He's human, like the rest of them, after all. He was allowed to feel like being caged in by the bottomless pit of void consuming him.

Even still, Eijiro didn't fault him for that, for Eijiro was sure he cannot heal whatever damage has been inflicted. However, he knew he can love him in his darkness, hold his hand while he processed the pain. He can be the silk in his hands while he closed the wound.

Eijiro is the Lightning to Izuku's Sky, and he will fulfill his role of not only taking the flashes, but also the damage of the family, like a lightning rod.

~~~

I am aware of the typos. Too lazy and too busy to edit and I got no motivation coz no one's reading this anymore. If you're still here, thank you.