"Ah. You're awake."
When Katsuki opened his eyes. It was to see a somewhat familiar head of brown hair.
"Uh...what happened?" He rubbed his eyes, vision clearing, allowing him to recognize the person at his bedside. "Aren't you the doctor from..."
"It's Ochacho. I've been working here since you left your castle." She answered firmly. "You were running around the manor for hours in a frenzy until you finally wore yourself out. We took you back here after that."
"So...uh..." Katsuki didn't know where to start. "This wasn't a prank, was it?"
"What wasn't?"
"He's really...gone isn't he?"
"Yeah. I'm sorry."
Katsuki sighed, pulling the blanket over his head as he came to terms with this awful truth. Eijirou was gone. He had been gone for a year...no...three years and now he was never coming back. Katsuki would never again be able to curl up next to him when one of them couldn't sleep. He would never share a meal with him, bathe with him, dance around how he really felt about him. The Eijirou he had been with since then was nothing more than an illusion he created so he wouldn't feel so damn alone.
"Before he died...he said my name. Was that real?"
"I don't know. You were the only one there." Ochacho whispered.
"I need to know."
"I'm sorry. But there's no way of telling for sure."
"Fuck."
"I know you want a conclusion, but you'll just have to let it go. Pretend he DID say your name if it helps you heal."
"I can't...just keep pretending like this."
"I know."
"Can you leave? I just want to be alone right now."
"Uh...yeah...sure..." Katsuki heard Ochacho stand. "There's food here for you when you're hungry."
"Yeah."
As soon as he heard the door close, he curled up around himself, feeling a heavy pain in his chest. His best friend was dead, and everything was worse now. How could he go back to the castle like this? How could he face all those halls where he and Eijirou used to play, the gardens where they would run around, the secret passage ways they would hide in?
Without Eijirou, who was he? Just a king who wasn't even that good at his job? The thought of that future paralyzed him to the very core. There could never be another Eijirou. The world was too harsh to create another so pure.
And Katsuki had been the one to lose him. If Katsuki had've checked on that noise that day, so long ago, Eijirou would have never been taken. If Eijirou had never been taken, they would have been so happy, forever. The thing Katsuki regretted the most was that he could have done more to help him, that he allowed Eijirou to go through so much suffering. Maybe he should have waited to do the dental work, maybe he should have taken Ei outside sooner, maybe he should have kept Eijirou awake that day on the cliff, spoken to him, healed him. He would give the rest of his life for just another day with his best friend.
But now it was too late for that.
Eijirou was gone.
