you'll regret it

The moment the words came out of Katsuki’s mouth, he immediately regretted them. Sure, he hated – no, disliked Izuku, but he didn’t want him to die! So why did he say that?

His gaze catches the sight of Izuku, the boy’s body shaking, and shoulders hunched up so high that they almost touch his ears. His hands are balled up into tight, hard fists, and Katsuki’s sure that Izuku’s nails are digging into his palms. Izuku whirls around, and his eyes are wide, his irises like floating emeralds in a sea of white. The emotion in Izuku’s eyes is something Katsuki can’t read. He’s never really been the best at reading people or dealing with emotions, as much as he loathes to admit.

Izuku makes a choked sound, a grunt or growl, Katsuki’s not sure.

“Something wrong?” he smirks, small explosions lighting up in hands and it’s hard to keep the look of malice and amusement on his face. Remember why you’re doing it, remember why you’re doing it! He repeats in his head.

He almost falters when Izuku whimpers, his lips trembling and his shoulders shaking. His face is horrified, and frankly, he looks exactly like Katsuki’s feeling. Katsuki turns away, his gut burning with regret. He feels as if he might throw up. He walks away, his body feeling heavy and his mind running a mile-a-minute. He wouldn’t have walked away if he had known that was the last time he’d ever see Izuku alive and breathing, not twisted and crumpled on concrete. He wouldn’t have walked away, damnit. He wouldn’t have.

But he did. And that’s something Katsuki has to live with for the rest of his meaningless, pathetic life.

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He shoves his hands into his pockets, keeping his head down as he walks back to his house. It’s drizzling outside, and Katsuki watches as little spots – Izuku’s freckles – of rain spill onto the sidewalk and on his shoes. He swallows down nausea for the hundredth time, closing his eyes.

“Goddammit,” he curses, standing still while rubbing a hand over his face. “Shit.” he pulls his hair roughly, nails digging into his scalp. He breathes in deeply and forces his tense muscles to relax. He sighs.

He starts to walk again, but something catches his eye.

Blood. Blood. Blood. God, Katsuki’s never seen this much blood before in his life. And there’s a body too, no doubt the source of the blood. Katsuki slaps a hand over his mouth, his eyes widening. The body doesn’t look like it belonged to an adult, but a child. Katsuki notices that the body is twisted in an unholy direction, it’s back curved at a sharp angle. Broken, definitely. Another thing that Katsuki notices is a patch of green hair.

Green fucking hair.

“No.” Katsuki whispers to himself, shaking his head. There’s no way. There’s absolutely no way that broken, crumpled body is Izuku. Katsuki didn’t even realize that he was walking forward until he was a foot away from the body – not Izuku, not Izuku, not Izuku. Katsuki drops to his knees, blood immediately soaking through his pants. He crawls forward on his hands and knees. He could practically taste the blood on his tongue, like pennies.

“No, no, no, please, no.” Katsuki says again, hating the way his voice shakes. With bloody hands, he gently grabs the shoulder of the body and twists so he can see the person’s face. Katsuki screams.

He wails, “IZUKU!”

Katsuki immediately pulls the body – Izuku – to his chest. He runs his hands through Izuku’s green curls, over his starred cheeks and down to his neck, searching for a pulse.

Nothing.

“NO! DAMMIT!” he shouts, and Katsuki realizes distantly that he was crying. Big, fat ugly tears rolled down his cheeks and hit Izuku’s cold face. He wipes away the tears as if they were Izuku’s, his hands holding Izuku’s jaw. “WAKE UP!” he yells.

Nothing. No flinch, no twitch, nothing.

Katsuki starts to shake Izuku, violently jerking him around, trying to wake him up. “Wake up, stupid Izuku! Get the fuck up and open your eyes, you coward! Be the hero you always wanted to be and get up! Please!” He begs. He’s sobbing, pleading for Izuku to just wake up.

Eventually, Katsuki stops screaming and shaking Izuku’s body. He just sits there, staring at nothing while clutching Izuku’s body like a lifeline. Katsuki feels like he’s in a void, and he’s being swallowed whole. He can’t hear anything, can’t see, can’t feel anything except this painful numbness that spreads through his body like poison. Katsuki cries, cradling his childhood friend. Izuku’s gone, and it’s all his fault.

Katsuki doesn’t remember when the ambulance arrived, all he remembers is a hand suddenly touching his shoulder. Katsuki doesn’t even flinch, just slowly turns his head and is met with wide eyes.

“Kid. . . what happened here? We got a call about someone screaming and. . .”

“I don’t know.” Katsuki lies, he knows exactly what happened because it’s his fault. “My friend,” he hears himself say, “can you help him, please? He won’t wake up.” Katsuki feels empty.

The look on the lady’s face says, no, she can’t. Katsuki feels tears well up in his eyes. Damnit. “Please,” he says again.

Suddenly, Katsuki is sitting in the back of the ambulance. He doesn’t even know how he got there. Someone is speaking to him, but he doesn’t hear it. He just stares at the dried blood on his hands and clothes. Light flashes in his eyes, and he blinks. He squints against the light – a flashlight? As his vision comes into focus and he’s pulled out of the numb void, he sees a lady standing in front of him, a worried frown on her face.

“There you are.” The lady says. She’s a brunette with green eyes. Not like Izuku’s. No one had eyes like Izuku. His were like all the greens mixed together to form something so unearthly beautiful that one could only stare into them like they held all the answers to every question in the universe. He looks at the lady’s forehead instead of her eyes. He feels himself start to detach from reality again. The world blurs. He feels like he’s not even there. For a moment, he could hear Izuku’s voice in his head.

It’s all your fault, Kacchan. You killed me.

“– your name?”

Katsuki furrows his eyebrows. “What?” he croaks, confused and disoriented.

“What’s your name, kid? And what’s his name?” the lady pointed to Izuku, whose body was covered with a sheet. Katsuki stares. Izuku’s hand is outstretched towards him, even in death. He gets a flashback of a cute, chubby-faced Izuku staring down at him, his wide eyes filled with concern as he held out his hand to Katsuki.

He pulls himself out the painful memory. Katsuki blinks and looks back at the lady, who had an expression of pity.

Surprisingly, Katsuki doesn’t feel anger building up in chest, not even a little bit. He feels nothing. “Katsuki Bakugou,” Katsuki says, pointing to himself. Then he points at Izuku. “Izuku Midoriya.”

The lady writes something down on a piece of paper. “Okay, Katsuki Bakugou, do you have any idea what happened to your friend, Izuku Midoriya?”

Katsuki startles. “How do you know he’s my friend?” he asks. The lady looks surprised for a moment, before offering him a sad smile.

“You told me earlier, sweetie. Remember?” Katsuki doesn’t remember, but he nods anyway.

“No, I don’t know what happened to him.” he lies again, “I already told you that.” he whispers.

“OH MY GOD!” Inko Midoriya’s scream cuts through the air and right through Katsuki’s heart. He watches as Auntie Inko cries and sobs and screams like he did, with tears in his own eyes.

“THAT’S MY BOY!” Inko sobs. “That’s my baby, oh no, no, please no!”

Katsuki squeezes his eyes shut, biting down on his lip to stop himself from crying with her. I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m so, so, so, so sorry. Forgive me, please, Auntie. It’s my fault.

“Katsuki?” his mother’s voice startles him. He gasps, jolting and snapping his head up to stare into his mother’s eyes. His mother looks exactly like him, even acts like him, too. They share the same spikey blond hair, the same explosive personality, but there’s one thing that makes him different from his mother. He murdered someone. He murdered Izuku. His mother never murdered anyone.

“Mom. . .” Katsuki mumbles. He stares up at her, his body trembling. “I-I. . .Mom, Izuku. He, he won’t – he won’t wake up, Mom. Izuku’s gone. He – he’s gone. Mom. Mom, he’s gone –” Katsuki chokes, letting out a quiet sob.

“Oh, Katsuki,” Mitsuki wraps her arms around her son and hugs him to her body, just as Katsuki did with Izuku. Katsuki wraps his arms around her in return, burying his face in her neck and cries. He takes advantage of this rare affection coming from his mother – from anyone, really. (He still flinches when she squeezes him tighter, instinctual fear making him tremble).

“I-It’s my f-f-fault, Mom. Izuku’s g-gone because of m-me. It’s m-my f-fault –”

“Katsuki Bakugou, don’t you dare blame yourself. It was an accident.” His mom tells him, tightening her embrace as if she could protect him from the harsh reality of the world. (Katsuki wonders for a brief moment if his mother is high; there’s no way she’d hug him while being sober).

But Katsuki had already been face to face with reality. His mom doesn’t know what he said. His mom doesn’t know what he did. Oh God, his mother would never look at him ever again if she knew how he treated Izuku. She’d hate him even more than she already does, he just knows it. She doesn’t understand. No one will ever understand. He killed Izuku. He might as well have been the one to push him off the building. She doesn’t understand, she –

“No, no, no, Mom, you don’t understand. It’s my fault! You – You don’t know what I did! You don’t understand, Mom, you don’t –” Katsuki hiccups, tears falling down his cheeks. He sobs and tightens his hands into fists on his mother’s back. “I’m a horrible person, Mom. God, I’m so horrible. You should hate me. I hate me. I killed Izuku, I killed him, Mom. I –”

“Shh.” He hears the tears in his mother’s voice. “You’re okay, Katsuki. You’re not a horrible person.” (They both know she's lying).

“But I am!” Katsuki cries. “I am, I am, I am, I –”

“K-K-Katsuki.” Katsuki gasps, opening his eyes and peering over his mother’s shoulder to see Inko Midoriya standing with blood soaking through her clothes and some blotches of blood on her face. Her eyes are red, and her cheeks are flushed from crying.

“Auntie,” he says, pulling away from his mother and walking towards Inko. He crushes her in a hug, burying his face into her shoulder. “I’m so, so, so sorry, Auntie Inko. If I had been there, I could’ve saved him. Please forgive me, I’m so sorry. I’m sorry.” Katsuki mumbles.

Inko starts to cry again. “N-no, Katsuki, it’s not your fault. Izuku... just couldn’t handle it anymore. My poor baby –” she sobs.

Katsuki sobs, too. They both end up on the floor, rocking each other back and forth. They cry for Izuku, they cry for what they could have done, and what they did. They cry for each other, for their loss. Katsuki and Inko cry for the future Izuku Midoriya wouldn’t have. Inko cried for her only child, the last person she had left.

And.

Well.

Katsuki cried for his lost friend, he cried because he could have done something to stop this from happening. He cried, because why hadn’t he just taken Izuku’s hand all those years ago when he fell into that river? And most of all, Katsuki cried because he never had the chance to tell Izuku that he was sorry.

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When Katsuki Bakugou goes home, everything feels fake. The house is fake, he’s fake, his parents are fake, everything. It’s not real. None of it. It’s just a dream. It has to be, there’s no way that Izuku’s dead –

“–suki?”

Izuku can’t be gone. He can’t be. He can’t. Not when Katsuki had so much to say to him. So much to do with him. This is a dream. This is a dream, damnit, none of this is real. Katsuki is going to eat dinner, brush his teeth, take a shower, and go to sleep and wake up the next morning and everything will be the same. Izuku will be in class tomorrow, with his stupid face and his stupid hair and his stupid notebook. Everything will be normal. This is just a dream.

“Katsuki? Can you hear me, Kat –”

This is a dream, damnit!

“Katsuki –”

“This is a nightmare, right?” His parents stare at him, silent. Katsuki twitches, their stares burning him like fire. “This. . .” he whispers, “this is just a nightmare. None of this is real, you wanna know why?”

His mother looks horrified, while his father is crying. He doesn’t know why they look so upset. Izuku’s not dead. “Because I say so. This is all in my head. Izuku isn’t dead, you’ll see. I’ll wake up soon and this will all be over.”

“Katsuki,” his mother is crying now too.

“What’s wrong with you, you hag? Why’re you crying?” Katsuki scoffs. His mother doesn’t answer.

“Izuku is dead, honey. I’m so sorry.” Masaru says, hugging his son. Katsuki closes his eyes and tries to pretend that it isn’t real. None of it is.

“You’re lying. You’re lying! Stop lying! Izuku isn’t dead! He isn’t! He can’t be! HE’S NOT DEAD! STOP LYING TO ME!” Katsuki screams, clawing and pulling at the blond strands of his hair. He hopes he pulls out big chunks of it, and he hopes he bleeds.

Katsuki can feel explosions building in his hands, but he doesn’t take them away from his head. He doesn’t care if he blows his brains out.

“KATSUKI!” His mother shouts, pulling his hands away from his head. Katsuki whines, yanking his hands from her iron grasp.

“LEAVE ME ALONE, YOU OLD, LYING HAG!” Katsuki spits and runs to his room and locks the door, breathing heavily with sobs tickling up his throat.

He whimpers, collapsing against his door, sliding down to the floor. Katsuki squeezes his eyes shut and brings his legs up, putting his head between his knees and breathes in deeply. “He’s not dead.” he whispers. “You’re not dead.”

Please let me have another chance, please. I’ll do it right this time, I promise. Just let me see Izuku again, please, I’m begging you.

Katsuki gets up and walks over to his bed and collapses down on it, instead. He stares up at the ceiling, numb. He takes a deep breath, holding it in. He doesn’t let it out until black spots appear at the corner of his vision and the room around him starts to blur and spin. He greedily gulps in air, gasping and panting. He closes his eyes and distantly hopes, prays that he doesn’t wake up tomorrow.

He does.

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author's note: and that's chapter one! see you guys soon! <333