Between Two Lungs | Kiribaku

Breath Three

Inhale, exhale... If only it were that easy

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Katsuki couldn't get Kirishima's voice out of his head. No matter how much music he forced himself to listen to or how hard he tried to distract himself with his treatments or his hobby, playing in the most distant part of his head was Kirishima's singing. In all it's raspiness and imperfectness, Katsuki found himself to like it more than he should. Much more than he should. And he was more than a little disappointed when he said they should meet at the piano again.

During their treatment that morning neither of them spoke to one another. They both sat in their chairs, heavy-lidded and tried from the night before. Or at least Katsuki was tired, he wasn't so sure about Kirishima. He looked... sicker than usual.

Kirishima's treatment ended early and was taken out of the room in a wheelchair. Katsuki was going to ask what was wrong and where they were taking him but he kept quiet for he wasn't entirely sure if it was his business or not. When walking passed Kirishima's room, Katsuki could see him inside, hooked up to an IV drip. He had been sleeping.

A nurse caught him staring and shot Katsuki a smile. "He's got a fever," she told him. "They started him on antibiotics. He'll be okay."

He'll be okay.

Will he really?

While in his room, a nurse showed up with a stack of printer paper she managed to swipe for Katsuki. Grateful, he took it from her and looked up a video on how to make paper cranes. In one try, his piece of folded paper looked pretty close to the one on the screen and from there he continued on, keeping track as his small pile grew. He figured it was okay for him to catch up to Kirishima since the redhead got a head start.

One of them turned out perfect. So perfect that Katsuki felt the need to capture it. He placed it on the windowsill when the sun was high in the sky, creating perfect lighting, and snapped the photo on his phone instead of his camera. He needed to save his film for more important things.

In one of the photo editing apps he gave it a black and white filter but coloured the crane red, a colour that would make it stand out against the dull backdrop. He stared at it for some time, his fingers tracing the red on the screen as he thought about what to do with the photo. Save it, of course, but then what? Would he post it or simply keep it to himself?

Katsuki called for Manaka and asked her to give him the permissions needed to print it out. It didn't take much convincing, just a faint please before she walked off and then walked back with the picture in hand. She had asked why he wanted it printed and he gave a small shrug. "For someone."

With one of the pens he swiped from her when she wasn't looking, he wrote on the back of the photo in bold writing "GET WELL SOON, SHITTY HAIR" and then he signed it with the first letter of his name.

He felt like a child when he snuck out of his room and down the hall towards Kirishima's room. Katsuki felt like a child even more as he slipped the photo underneath the door, like a child passing notes to his friend in class. He stood by the door, listening to Kirishima's feet smacking the floor as he moved around his room. A chuckle could be heard. He liked it.

He liked it.

-

The days that came were slow, almost as if they were in a standstill. Kirishima didn't show up for treatment. So Katsuki was alone like before.

In his room, he stopped working on the paper cranes after a while because he didn't want to get ahead of Kirishima, not while he was sick at least. With that time killer set aside for the time being, he wasn't left with many options to help time go by. He started working out the day after Kirishima got sick, but that only helped so much. Taking photos on his phone became a bore and the air had started to chill, making it harder to breathe outside.