Dearly Beloved {Kiribaku - BNHA}

-X-

I remember dying, even though I was asleep. I remember it like an out of body experience—literally, because whatever remained of me... my soul, I guess, had left the broken shell that was me before that shell had taken its last breaths. I floated above myself (and him) for a while, lying together in that stark white hospital bed, feeling strangely at peace yet knowing what would come when he woke, because he would sleep through my last breaths. My last heartbeats. And would awake to find me cold.

I died in his arms. I watched the last shallow breaths move my chest, felt the last weak thumpings of my own heart before it went still. And he was undisturbed, at some sort of peace in his slumber, still in a fleeting bliss of not yet knowing. As I watched him sleep, the transparent, light version of me that remained floating back to the ground once my body had ceased motion, I could only imagine what was to come upon his waking and even now, without the heavy burden of a physical form, I feared it.

But I wouldn't leave him. Even if I felt liberated from the constant aching in my side from the fatal wound I'd sustained and the heaviness of that body holding me down to earth, the love for him I've held all these years remained with me, in this form... whatever it may be. And I didn't want to leave him.

And yet... because I was no longer blessed with that body, all of the abundant emotions I've carried with me from it had no outlet. I couldn't cry, as much as I wanted to. I had no means of releasing all of the regret and terrible, potent sadness I held for dying, for leaving him alone like this. For breaking my promises to stay with him. Though I would, it wasn't like he knew it. It wouldn't be in the way that he wanted—that I wanted.

I'm so sorry, Katsuki.

I felt it build up. There was some sort of dam holding it back, and it was slight, but definitely there. Too much, and I knew I'd crack. I had to be gone before then. I didn't know how I knew, but I knew.

When his chest lifted more than normal, his eyes flicking beneath their lids and his fingers twitching where they were laced with mine, I knew he was beginning to wake up. And I wasn't ready. I knew I'd never be ready to watch him discover my lifeless body pinned up against him.

As soon as he was awake enough, he knew something was off. I could feel it. He could feel it. He shook me—the shell me—and mumbled my name. Eijirou . Sat up a little when I didn't move. Shook me again, a little harder. A sliver of panic made itself known in his voice the second time he said my name, a little louder. Eijirou . A curse. No no no. No. Wake up, Ei. C'mon, you idiot...

The pressure built up a little more. I—the me that I was, witnessing all of this—moved a little closer. I wanted to touch him, find a way to reassure him that I felt okay... other than this. This part of me was peaceful, at least. Because there was nothing else I could tell him, yet I couldn't even tell him that.

I watched in an unknown kind of agony as he fumbled for the nurse's button, pressing it at least six times before shaking me—the shell of me—more. Placing his hands on my face, trying to coax me awake though I knew he knew, he just didn't want to believe it. And I couldn't blame him. I could never blame him.

He was a mess of tears and pain before the nurse even arrived, one arm curling protectively and desperately around my shoulders, the other hand slipping into mine to hold up to his chest. He hid his face, tear-streaked and portraying so much agony, in my hair. The nurse immediately called for backup, but she couldn't seem to bring herself to say anything to him. Quietly she placed a half empty box of tissues on the bed near him, but he ignored it.

He shook. And shook. And shook. Until gradually his body relaxed, though he never let go of me. Everyone who came in and out of the room looked at him with pity, with so much sorrow that it cause the room to fade into blue.