I Will Never Find Another You {Kiribaku - BNHA}

Epilogue: you'll always be my memory

A warm breeze drifts through a quiet field, lifting a few long, loose strands of hair. The day is warm, cloudless. A cicada buzzes nearby. Spring is nearing its end, making way for summer to swing in at full speed. It's hard to believe it's been six months.

Eijirou's chest is somewhat tight, the way it always feels when he visits this 30 acre field littered with headstones. It's not enough to get him to stop coming, though, once a month at the minimum since Katsuki's last breath. In fact, the peaceful nature of the area is part of what brings him back. It clears his mind. Revitalizes him somehow, though he can't help but find that ironic.

Each time he visits he's always got something different in his hand, though they all have one thing in common-they all remind him of Katsuki. A notebook, from when the school forced him through an anger management course. A glove from his hero costume. A frayed toothbrush from a long time ago, before Eijirou guilted him into brushing his teeth more gently. It seemed silly, but they made him feel closer to Katsuki, and he needed it. It kept him going while, months after the other's departure, he's still learning to deal with his grief. Learning to navigate the world without him. And it's proving harder than he ever anticipated.

Eijirou never brings flowers. He knows Katsuki would hate that. Sometimes he'll bring letters and things addressed to Katsuki and delivered in the mail since the world was made aware of his condition and even after his passing-ones that he never got to read-and reads them aloud. Hoping Katsuki can hear him, somehow. Wanting him to know just how much of an impact he had as a hero. As Ground Zero.

This time, though, in his hand Eijirou carries something a little different. It's something he hasn't touched in years and even forgot about for a while, but found stashed in the back of the front closet in their apartment. He's honestly surprised it hadn't been crushed by accident, never having been in a case and having had things stuffed in around it over the years. But there it was, almost good as new, albeit bearing a few new scratches. It even still has his name scribbled in sharpie on the back.

He holds the thing gently as he treks quietly through the neatly mowed grass, careful to remain a safe distance away from the headstones he passes out of pure respect of other fallen and past heroes. At this point he's got the path memorized and doesn't really have to think about where he's going as he makes his way there, allowing him to take in the warmth of the sun. The humidity of the air. The sound of the cicada and birds...

The headstone isn't far from a cherry blossom tree, its flowers already having shed and been replaced with maroon-colored leaves. Of course the groundskeepers had already removed the petals from the ground and the stones around it.

Katsuki's headstone was in the shade at this time of day, just as the sun is making its descent back toward the horizon. His is unmistakable among the ones surrounding it, with the spikes jutting out of the top corners of it, much the way the back of his mask looks. On the front, just beneath his name, hero name, and his birth year and death year is the engraving of a grenade, mid-explosion, rather than a quote like most of the others surrounding it. Eijirou was at a loss for what to put there for a while, and since Katsuki hadn't any special requests (they rarely talked about it beforehand), he went with the best he could think of. All he can do now is hope Katsuki would like it.

Quietly, Eijirou sinks to the ground a few feet in front of the headstone, pulling in a deep, gentle breath of grass-scented air.

"Hey, Katsuki," he murmurs. He almost hates to break through the peace of the field with his voice, but he always talks when he's here. It's become normal. Routine. He feels closer to his late partner this way. "Man... I can't believe 's been six months. Kinda feels like I was still waking up to you just yesterday."