Between Two Lungs | Kiribaku

Breath Four

Endings make the whole experience worth it

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Spread out on the comforter before him were the pictures he had taken the day he went out with Kirishima. They taunted him. Every piece of paper had Kirishima's stupid fucking face on it and that make Katsuki want to throw up. His smiling face in the car when they drove around the city, his face when it was at rest, his face when he was stuffing his face full of popcorn during the movie. His face. Everywhere. The heartache he felt just by looking at the photos... the heartache he felt when he tried to throw them away.

"Fuckin' stupid," Katsuki spat the pictures for the hundredth time that day.

"What's stupid?" Manaka asked. She was making her rounds of checking his blood pressure and his lungs.

"Shitty Hair. His face is fucking stupid and I hate it," he mumbled and rubbed the back of his head.

"No you don't," she whispered.

His heart clenched and skipped a beat. He couldn't decipher between his arrhythmia as the culprit or if it was Kirishima. He didn't want her to be right. Katsuki knew that if she was it would mean so many things and he was terrified. Feelings... feelings weren't his thing, they never were.

His disease, Kirishima's disease, watching each other die. He didn't want that. The thought alone made him sick.

No one will ever like you. Kaminari was probably right. Those words pissed him off that day for they made him realize that not only would Kirishima not return any of the feelings Katsuki had but that he probably didn't even see him as friends. Right? Right? He didn't even fucking know.

"No... I don't," he whispered back. The words he finally out there... someone other than himself knew. Actually, from the start Manaka had an inkling that Katsuki felt something for the redhead but now it was official. "But what if he hates me?"

"But what if he doesn't? Hun, you can't build a wall around yourself like this. You're not only hurting yourself but him, too. He cares for you, Katsuki. And I doubt his friend meant any harm by what he said," she tried to reassure.

Katsuki shook his head and sucked in a breath."'S not just about that. I've been thinking, a lot. About him, about us. It'll end in disaster. One of us is gonna die before the other and we're gonna have to watch. Our lives are gonna be too short... we won't grow old together and shit. We're gonna be limited. All that romantic shit... we won't be able to do it all. I don't wanna watch him die, Manaka. I came to that revelation all at once after the cafe. And I don't want him to watch me die, either." His heart... it felt like it was getting ready to fall out of his chest. It was so battered and bruised and so close to breaking he was sure all the bits and pieces that were holding it together were close to falling apart.

And he was the one who caused it. It was his fault. Yet it needed to be done. Someone had to create the distance so they could avoid suffering... enough though they were both suffering but it wouldn't be as traumatic or long term. This way they'd be able to move on quicker, easier, with nothing really holding them back.

"I dunno what to do anymore," Katsuki continued, "his face... his stupid fucking face. I feel the urge to punch it and to hold it in my hands at the same fucking time."