Chapter 2! Woohoo!

This one's a little shorter than the last one, but I didn't want to force anything more into the chapter, so…

Anyway, I hope you enjoy!

Chapter 2: Crawling Beneath the Flesh

Despite running away, Katsuki ended up outside the apartment the next day and the one after that. It seemed that regardless of where his wandering began or what his thoughts were along the way, he ended up outside the rather bland building.

He hadn't seen movement since that first visit, and part of him was still that cocky brat he had always been, so he had been creeping closer and closer each day as though tempting fate to unleash its darkest punishment. If that punishment took the form of an aging green-haired housewife then that was only as much as he deserved.

By Thursday he had progressed to the point where he was blatantly just sitting around on the second floor of the apartment complex, staring occasionally at the red door with the familiar name plaque hanging beside it but primarily looking out at the street below. He sometimes thought he recognized the faces that passed along, but that could have easily just been his imagination wanting to think everything in this place was familiar.

He watched for a long while even as the shadows grew longer like fingers stretching across the spine of the street, reaching for something they could never touch.

It was only out of pure coincidence that Katsuki happened to be looking at the door when it began opening. For a moment the shock overwhelmed him, preventing him from moving or doing anything at all. That moment was long enough for her to see him.

Their eyes met, complimentary colors spiraling with the same overwhelmed emotions. Both in shock- albeit most probably for vastly different reasons- they could say nothing at all for a long while.

She was the one to recover first, gasping just a bit as though she still wasn't quite sure that he was real. "Oh!" She peered at him as though trying to discern his thoughts, trying to peel back the facades upon his face. "Katsuki…!"

The boy's mouth gaped wide, jaw working soundlessly as though words that couldn't pry themselves from his mind were tickling his tongue. He licked his lips, chewed on them, opened his mouth, closed it again. His mouth did everything but speak.

"It's you," she stated redundantly. It seemed that she too was trying to work through her shock. At least she could vocalize it.

"Ah," Katsuki nearly groaned, forcing some sound to finally land in the tense air between them. He perpetuated the redundancy, "Well, yes, erm… H-hello Mrs. Midoriya."

The older woman shifted where she still stood, trapped in the liminal space of the doorway. She was between the safety of her home and the possibility of distress of Katsuki, trapped between continuing her previous facade and shattering it with something new. She didn't yet know which she would choose. She was nervous to do so, scared of what it would mean if she didn't.

"What…" She struggled over how to begin the conversation she didn't know if she wanted to start. "What was it you wanted?"

And wasn't that a loaded question! What did he want? Well if Katsuki knew that he wouldn't be there; he wouldn't be in therapy. Maybe that wasn't accurate but still. There were a lot of things that Katsuki wanted, and he truly believed in his heart that absolutely none of them was realistic.

Katsuki was the one to shift awkwardly now. "I- er- just was in the neighborhood, and I wanted to, uh, well, I wanted um- it doesn't matter!" He cut himself off, getting ready to run once more. That was all he was good at these days, and really that was the only true choice here. He quickly continued, anxious to escape. "I'll just go now. Sorry for bothering you; this was stupid."

Inko burst out of the door, arm coming up to try to prevent him from leaving. "No! Wait."

He couldn't get past her without physically touching her, and that was even more terrifying than the concept of talking to her. His gaze shifted around the hallway, looking anywhere but at her. He tried to scoot and squeeze past, looking for a way to escape as he stumbled over his excuses. It was pure word vomit at its finest. "I really should have thought about this before I came to you and there wasn't really a reason and I'm sorry for bothering you or whatever-"

"No, really. It's alright Katsuki-kun." Inko assured him, her gaze softening at his sincerity.

"But it's not!" He made the mistake of looking her in the eyes as he argued. Katsuki was suddenly drowning in the empathy that swirling in the emerald orbs. His excuses started to sound even more rushed and desperate even to himself. "I'm just showing up here and didn't even think about how you'd feel or what I'd say to you or that you'd have something else to say or, or- or…"

"Really. It's fine." Katsuki could feel the last of his arguments die at those words. What was the point in denying the inevitable when it was in fact exactly what he wanted.

"Would you like to come inside?" Inko asked as she watched the tension to escape drain from him.

Katsuki nodded wordlessly, suddenly feeling much more exhausted. Arguing about anything was useless.

She turned back to the front door that still hung ajar, making her way into the familiar hallway with a familiar occupant following behind her.

The apartment was much the same as Katsuki remembered though the hallway that they walked in order to reach the living room seemed much shorter, much smaller. Had it always been like this? Of course it had. He had just grown up.

Mrs. Midoriya had aged too. There were a few noticeable streaks of grey streaming amongst the many strands of green hair. She had pronounced lines on her face that only aged her even further.

She seemed to Katsuki to be much like the apartment itself. They were both much smaller and more fragile than he remembered, dappled with dust and age that seemed beyond their years. Stress did that to houses as much as to people. They were familiar but changed. Too same, too different.

They reached the living room quicker than he would have preferred. He still didn't want to face the inevitable.

"Here." Inko said as they entered the cozy room. She gestured to the couch. "Make yourself at home. I'll make us some tea."

"No, it's fine. I'll just-"

"No, no, I insist."

"Mm," Katsuki wordlessly agreed, relenting. It seemed they both didn't want to begin this conversation. Or maybe Inko was just much more attuned to other people and could sense his need to have a moment to organize his thoughts. Based on his performance outside in the hallway just minutes before, it wasn't very difficult to see that Katsuki may benefit from just a moment to compose himself and his ideas.

So Inko left him alone in the living room while she made tea in the kitchen. Katsuki looked around from where he sat awkwardly, primly perched on the edge of the couch. He didn't want to get too comfortable. His mind was restless, and so his body could do nothing to argue but instead just follow suit.

He looked around and saw various nicknacks that hadn't changed since as far back as he could remember. Amongst them were many framed photos. There were two set apart that Katsuki couldn't help but focus on. The first was a new one amongst them that Katsuki could not say he recognized. It was too recent, too exact. The one beside it was from a memory so intimate that it cut to his soul. It was too familiar, too nostalgic.

Inko soon came back with the tea. She could have taken an eternity, but Katsuki was too lost in his own thoughts to notice or care if that was the case.

They sat in something that approached comfort for the first couple minutes as they nursed their cups of tea. The beverage was too hot for them to really sip from it yet, but it was better to pretend that they had this task than to focus on the real topic at hand.

In the end, it was Inko who began the conversation, of course.

"So what was on your mind?" she asked.

"…" What was he supposed to say to that? He felt his eyebrows curving inward to form a frown.

"Katsuki-kun…" she tried to prompt him.

"Sorry," he instinctively apologized, shaking off the lines on his brow. "I just… I don't know anymore."

They sat in silence for a long while once more. Katsuki sighed. "I just wandered here and really I didn't mean to bother you. But I've been thinking a lot recently about a lot of things, and- I don't know really anymore. Maybe something was calling me here as though there were something I had to do or something. It's stupid, but it is what it is."

It was a pathetic excuse and did nothing to explain the truth of the situation. Katsuki knew somewhere deep in his mind exactly what he wanted to say, but he couldn't vocalize it. Or perhaps more accurately he didn't want to voice it. Voicing it made it real in a way it wasn't yet. He couldn't. He didn't know if he could handle if it was real.

"What've you been thinking about?" It was soft in a way that Katsuki had grown unaccustomed to, sincere and earnest and full of warmth. People didn't often direct words towards him these days, and even when they did, they never sounded like this unless they were paid to do so.

It was as though that had been the prompt that Katsuki was waiting for, the cue to let loose the torrent of thoughts that now flowed from his mouth. "I needed to do something for you, say something," he had to say this now. There was an incessant need, a necessity for these thoughts to escape his skin and let the words finally be aired.

"I just don't really know what I should say. I don't know what I can say. Everything sounds wrong in my head, and I know it'll never be enough. But I guess I'll just say it as simple as I can make it because there's nothing else, and you deserve so much more, but-" He took a deep breath and blurted out, "I'm sorry!" It came out louder than the rest, the volatile chemical of apologies being exposed to air resulting in an explosion of sound.

It left him feeling weary once it was said, and his next words dragged themselves into the world, conjuring despair to land heavily in the air. "I can't do more, can't make it right or change the past or fucking anything. Sorry, language. God I'm such a screw up. I can't even apologize right. I'm sorry. It'll never be enough but there's nothing else I can say. I'm just so sorry, so, so, so, so, so…"

Katsuki's words devolved into sobs, face buried in his open palms. He pushed against his closed eyelids as though trying to force the tears to keep themselves inside his body. It was a futile effort. His shoulders quaked as he tried not to voice the cries.

Suddenly arms, familiar and strong and warm, were engulfing him. Startled, his breath hitched into a gasp as he looked up, confusion blowing his eyes wide. All he could see was the dark green of Midoriya Inko's hair.

"W-wha-?" The word trickled out in bewilderment.

"It's a hug, Katsuki-kun," he could hear the grin on her lips, easy sarcasm breaking the anxiety that had edged in with the confusion before it had the time to settle.

Her humour did nothing to ease the sheer befuddlement her simple action of genuine affection had created within Katsuki however. "B-but I don't-" he stuttered. "I'm not- you shouldn't…"

"There's never anything wrong with giving a hug to someone who needs it." Inko gripped his shoulders and pulled him back so she could meet his gaze directly. She needed him to realize her sincerity. Her emotions as real as the tears in her voice and eyes.

Katsuki closed his eyes as she pulled him close once more. He did nothing to fight it, but instead he leaned in, burying his face into her shoulder and hair. He closed his eyes as he brought his hands around her in return, gripping tightly at her shirt. She grounded him to the shattered reality that they both shared. It did nothing to erase the past mistakes, but neither did it ignore the very real emotions of the present, and it promised hope for the future.

He needed this. Oh God, did he need this.

He gripped her even tighter as his shoulders began to shake. He could feel as here body also began to quiver. Sobs sounded in the air, both of their voices mixing together until it was impossible to tell them apart. They were the only two people who could feel these emotions; they were the only two people who could fully understand each other.

By the time they finally calmed their cries, Katsuki felt entirely drained of energy. He was weak and tired, but he was more whole than he had felt in months. It was late. He didn't want to think about what that implied. He didn't want to leave this moment as though if he did, it would somehow dissipate back into nonexistence.

It was made even worse somehow by the first words that were uttered into this new, altered state of reality that Katsuki now found himself in. She couldn't have known, so he couldn't find it in himself to blame her.

"Do you want me to call your parents to let them know you'll be back soon?" Inko asked, looked concernedly at the late time.

"Won't matter," Katsuki muttered simply.

"What do you mean?" Inko's brow furrowed in that way it did whenever she was growing concerned over someone else. He recognized it from all those many injuries from childhood. He never liked whatever followed. An righteously angered Midoriya was always a rather terrifying sight.

"They don't really care anymore, not really," Katsuki sounded resigned. "I don't blame them. I don't care either."

Inko sighed, "You know that's not true."

He scoffed, glaring at the floor. "They haven't hugged me like that since a year ago. Mom won't even look at me."

"Katsuki-kun…" It made Katsuki feel bad that Inko sounded so broken at that statement, but there was nothing to be done. There was no changing the truth, and he was beyond caring.

"It's fine," It was all the solace he could offer. "It's my problem. I brought this on myself."

"Well," There was that conniving tone in Inko's voice that had always terrified Katsuki just a bit when he was younger. (If it had the same effect now, Katsuki wasn't sharing.) "If you need another hug, I guess you'll just have to come back and visit me."

"You-you'd want that?" When he had finally encountered her, he had never dared hope that this would be the result of their conversation. He had only dreamed of being yelled at for a short time before being sent away with a threat to never return again. Anything more wishful would seem an improbable fantasy, and yet…

"I can't say I'd mind some company every now and then," Inko prompted again.

"I won't bother you too much," Katsuki promised, fearful that he'd screw this up too before it even really began. He met her eyes to ensure she knew he was taking this very seriously.

"You're not a bother," she promised.

Katsuki hesitated for a moment before he voiced his desire. "C-can I stay? Just a little longer tonight?"

"Mm." Inko hummed in agreement, nodding softly just once. There was a warm smile on her lips. "You stay as long as you like. I can get out of a futon if you need it."

While her offer was undoubtedly appealing, Katsuki couldn't force himself into this house any longer. If he stayed the night, she might change her mind; she might realize the mistake she had made in extending such kindness. And besides, Katsuki didn't know if he could handle sleeping over either. There was something too familiar about that that wasn't the same as just talking with Inko.

"No." Katsuki finally said. "I can't impose any more than I already have. Just a little longer. Just… just until I have the strength again to leave."

"I suppose that's good enough for now," as though eventually he would spend the night, as though things would go back to how they once had been.

"Mrs. Midoriya?" Katsuki called out hesitantly.

"Yes?"

"Thank you." Words out of his lips had never sounded so quiet and sincere.

"Of course," she could hear all the words in his gratitude that he hadn't voiced.

They sit in content silence for a long while, neither willing to disrupt the ease that now lingered in the air. The emotions still hung around, but they weren't the only thoughts now present in the room. Those new thoughts weren't enough to fully heal the wounds caused by the old emotions, but it was a start. Neither wanted to upset the current equilibrium, scared that one word could send it toppling back into an even worse state than it was previously.

Finally, Katsuki looked at the time again. "I really should go."

"Of course," Inko agreed.

Despite their words, neither moved.

Eventually, Katsuki sighed again. "I have school and-" therapy "stuff tomorrow."

"Alright."

He did manage to stand this time, stretching as he did so. He felt lighter than before, but there were new knots in his shoulders. Perhaps they weren't new, but now he could finally notice them for once. Regardless, he felt weary and sore.

They walked to the door in silence.

Katsuki turned back to face Inko when they reached the door. He still had more that needed to get out. "Good night. Thank you for everything. For letting me stay, for listening, for not immediately kicking me out. You're too nice for your own good. And like I said, I really am sorry. I know it's not much, it's never going to be enough, but I need to say it as many times as I can. Maybe someday it'll be enough times." He doubted it.

Inko looked thoughtful. "Katsuki?"

"Yeah?"

"I visit him every weekend." There was no need to say who the "him" was. "Would you like to come with on Saturday? He'd appreciate it, I know."

"I shouldn't," was Katsuki's immediate response. He suddenly found it hard to look her in the eyes again.

"It'll be good for you, I think," she tried to reason.

"I don't deserve it." He didn't.

"But he does."

Katsuki had no argument for that.

He sighed and looked up at her again, "Maybe you're right."

A content smile spread across her cheeks. She looked genuinely excited. "Then I'll see you Saturday morning!"

"I guess so…" he was still hesitant.

He turned and opened the door, moving out into the hallway in silence. He looked back one final time to where Inko stood reminiscent to when he had first encountered her that day. She stood in the liminal space of the doorway, but she seemed much more vibrant and certain than earlier. He had done that, done something good for once.

"Have a good night Katsuki," she said one last goodbye.

"You too," he offered back simply.

It wasn't enough.

Katsuki couldn't believe that anything he could ever do would ever be enough, but here and now, this seemed even less sufficient. She had offered him so much, so much to share and to heal, but he could do nothing at all it seemed. She would never tell him that either, but he knew the truth of that fact. It was ingrained in him.

When he exited his house the next morning, Katsuki turned the opposite direction than he usually went. For the first time in a long while, he walked past the apartment building that still housed one Midoriya and the memories of another.

He took the short route to school.