There’s an emptiness that hollows within Katsuki’s heart on the nights he can’t sleep.
No matter what he does—play a game on his phone, watch youtube videos, listen to music, journal, he even tries to pleasure himself in the way everyone says feels good—that hollow, nothing persists.
It’s like his stomach is eating itself from the inside out, but he is certain he was not hungry. He tries to eat to see if the physical sensation of something in his stomach is enough to lull him to sleep right after, but here he was staring at the ceiling 6 hours later.
Katsuki wants to cry, but it’s like he is missing that switch that allows himself to feel something enough to make him tear up. He’s not frustrated, or angry, or excited, or anything. He just feels nothing.
Perhaps this was the residual effects of having his heart shredded during that day in The Coffin, finally catching up to him. Perhaps this was divine retribution subjecting him to a life of reliving the sensation of death for his audacity of conquering it.
Though the heart is really only responsible for pumping blood throughout his body, not his gnawing apathy.
The blame shifts to the brain.
Somewhere along the way, between graduation and realizing his Pro-Hero dreams, it’s harder for Katsuki’s brain to feel satisfied. The waves of life push and pull at his limbs, tumbling his body with no gentleness, and spitting him out to a monotonous routine.
Wake-up. Eat. Work. Shit. Almost die, again. Go home. Sleep. Then, repeat, because he has to. Because that’s how it is. You pick a path. You stick to it. You clench your jaw and suck it up, no matter how much he wants to scream at the frustration of feeling nothing.
Katsuki is sad all the time.
And he doesn’t intend to be, nor is there anything that really triggers him. It is like a persistent weight on his shoulders that he can’t seem to explain—a headache that travels from the left side to the divot between his ear and neck, a sore pang on his shoulders, a numb leg, stomach acid threatening to climb up to his mouth and make him gag.
It gets unbearable many, many days.
Sometimes, he sees something similar deep within Izuku’s eyes when they lay shoulder to shoulder on his duvet. When the night gets quiet, and they don’t feel like kissing, and just want to enjoy each other’s presence, Katsuki catches it between the crevices of Izuku’s beautiful smile.
That’s when Katsuki’s apathy breaks like a cloudburst punctuating a drought. And Katsuki gets choked up—feels it in his throat, feels it everywhere. And is reassured that he is human still.
He grieves, knowing that the person he loves more than life, carries sorrow so heavy and waning, and just as persistent as his sadness.
He wants to soothe it, so that Izuku could never feel the numbness that he feels. He wants to shield him from it, carry it for him, love it away for him.
And it angers him so much.
Frustration grips his childish little heart, knowing the reality that some problems simply just can’t be fixed with a sweet kiss, or a great fuck.
“I love you.” Katsuki means it the more intertwined their lives become. “Everything is better with you, you know that?” And it’s the truest fact Katsuki knows.
Izuku looks at him with amusement as they scoot closer together, “I love you too. I will always love you. Forever. Is that cringe?”
Katsuki feels lighter. He snorts as he pinches Izuku’s cheek “Nothing fucking cringe about it.”
Izuku’s replying laugh is a windchime swaying gently in the country breeze. The grass is green, the clouds are cotton, the creek flows so naturally.
Katsuki is still sad. The hollowness comes back on the nights he can’t sleep, but Izuku’s love is eager and a salve, and his love for Izuku is stubborn as hell.
Neither of them can love their sadness away completely, and maybe they don’t need to. Maybe love just makes it easier to carry it.
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