Every time Katsuki breaths in all he can smell is overwhelming burnt flesh and hair, it surrounded him when the flames roared in his ears, fills his lungs until they can't take any more and there's no room for anything other than guilt and dread with no room for air in between.
When he gets home he's coughing as silently into his hand as he climbs into his bedroom window and instantly strips his clothes soaked in memories and dumps them into a plastic bin bag before he goes to the bathroom and desperately tries to rid himself of the feelings filling his lungs into the sink.
He ties it and throws it into his school bag, ready to dump them on the way to school the next day and then try to rid what he'd helped with off his conscious in the same way- knowing it would eat at him in the back of his mind and question every tiny move Izuku made.
Katsuki had peeled back another layer of Izukus mind and just as every other time he'd done the same it only served to tear down the fabricated humanity he'd painted over Izuku in his own mind, to try and pretend that he was still the same person as when they were children.
It was impossible to ignore the threads of darkness weaved into Izuku that shined through after what he'd witnessed, after he'd seen him staring at a burning body that smelt rancid and relaxed as if it was one of the only calming situations in the world, acting as if he were burning incense rather than a corpse .
Impossible to ignore the strikes of cold fear that coursed through his body when he'd told Izuku, the harshness to his eyes and demands thinly veiled as questions, he'd expected him to reach into a pocket for a reason he couldn't remember- but from the way his blood ran cold whenever he reached into a pocket of any sort he could only assume Izuku had done something and it was bad, no matter how hard he tried to bury that assumption under a pile of lies and excuses in his own brain cold fear didn't lie.
He could practically still feel the smell invading his lungs, weighing him down from the inside as we walks the usual track to UA as if he was in a sort of autopilot- the only fully conscious moment of the day is when he takes the bag of stinking clothes out of his bag and dumps them into a random bin when nobody is looking and feels the memories tighten his lungs and turning his organs over.
Katsuki tries to swallow it down, to dissipate the ball of nerves tensing every inch of his body with uncomfortable anticipation that only heightened when ever he caught a glance of Izuku or smelt even the slightest hint of smoke.
Adrenaline courses through him steadily and makes him want to move whenever they talk for longer than a short exchange of pleasantries, every response is auto and he feels like he's watching the two of them talk from outside of a one sided glass, like it isn't his mouth saying those words, like it isn't his hands touching Izukus shoulder and assuring him it'd be alright and that he'd fix it- from outside of the glass he can think 'fix you' in private, but as most everything else it only makes his head overflow with more questions.
For two days his head feels submersed in water, almost like everything is a long dream he can't wake up from. His limbs sag and eyes droop with the effort of living and for those two days it feels like he isn't- somewhere in the conscious part of his mind outside of the glass he wonders if this is how Izuku feels.
He's suffocating on air that tastes like burnt and smoke and as the days go by he feels less and less like he's the one on the outside of the glass but more on the inside, just watching helplessly as his body goes through the auto movements, responds to everything just as usual and sees nobody but Izuku notice that anything is off.
All his mind is filled with is replays of those two nights, how when the body was moved he could just about make out the wound on his neck before Izuku lit him on fire, how it had been a deliberate slash most of the way across so deep he could see the inner workings of his throat.
The smell of stale blood, the light shade of blue the mans whole freezing body had gone, his eyes that had still been open but held nothing in them- it was all like a vivid picture that had been burned into his mind
Sometimes Katsuki thinks that Izuku might actually be dead, in the private dark depths of his mind he thinks that maybe he is completely crazy and that Izuku did die after he'd pushed him so far and told him to, thinks that maybe remembering flashes of the other boys death is his minds way of breaking through the protective shell about it he'd built around himself to tell him the truth in the blanket of lies he'd let himself drift off under.
He thinks that and wonders, but then Izuku will do something the one he'd painted in his own mind could never do and thinks that maybe this is worse- maybe watching Izuku twist and warp into a stranger is worse than him being in the ground, he thinks that maybe if he was in the ground at least he would have something physical to mourn but for all of what made Izuku himself had departed nobody else seemed to notice.
Nobody else seems to notice the dullness to his eyes, the tightness to his smile, the way the emotion in his tone doesn't quite pull through the way it does for everybody else- the way he seems to be missing something that everyone else had that made him seem almost inhuman.
With the way he twists the things around him, kills a man and has Katsuki jumping to be useful and help him cover it up going against every moral fibre in his body, Izuku feels like somebody he barely knows despite spending hours with him every day for a year.
Everything about Izuku felt too perfect, too well said, too rehearsed, too much like it had happened before- everything but those tiny moments of imperfection where he could drop his shoulders and relax that he'd intruded on.
Katsuki could feel it in the deepest parts of himself that something was off with Izuku, something that he knew he couldn't just sweep under a mental rug like he did with every other odd thing Izuku had done over the past year, every tiny slip up that made his lungs clench, heart beat and mind overflow.
It was a gut feeling that twisted his organs around each other and threaded strings of nerves into every part of him as he stood in his glass cage he couldn't escape from, head foggy with the effort of existing and wondering if he was ever going to get out, if he was ever going to do anything about Izuku whoever he had become or if he was just going to be there to bury a body whenever it was needed and left to pick apart the actions by himself as Izuku went around his days as nothing had happened at all- until he'd told him that he knew he'd even seemed more relaxed which only made him force more suspicions down and forcefully tell himself over and over again that Izuku is a good person, Izuku is his friend
It's a Wednesday afternoon when Katsuki feels like he can finally breath again and he's glad he's in the privacy of the schools bathroom when he's gulping for air like a fish who's just been pulled out of a river, every movement he's hyper aware of happening- every single breath is heavy and strained like it takes all the effort in the world.
When he's finally gotten a grip on how to breath again Izuku walks into the room with the usual tired expression and dark eyes that don't change a single bit when he lays eyes on Katsuki
"Come on, lunch is going to end soon"
The words aren't kind, they feel more like a parent scolding their child but Katsuki forces a small smile and nods
"Lets go"
Izuku has turned around without a care at all before Katsuki can even finish his words, the smile on his face falters and as he jogs a little to catch up on aching legs with lungs that can barely work he repeats a single thought in his head like a mantra to block all the other ones out-
Izuku is a good person, Izuku is a good person, Izuku is a good person-
-He catches a glimpse of Izukus dull eyes and smells a hint of metal in the air around him-
Izuku is not a good person, and it's a thought he can't ignore and block out with pointless mantras anymore
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If this fic isn't for you and you want to review I only ask it's constructive, if it's mindless hate I will ignore
