Trigger Warning: Sui-cide

"You don't have to leave, you know that right?"

The words came out, dripping in pain and sorrow. But she couldn't hear them, not a single word, as she set her phone face-down on the countertop.

Everyone was white.

From the paint on the walls, to the curtains hanging up motionless. The tiles on the floor, the towels folded up on the shelved, the shiny lid of the toilet, the knob on the door, the bathtub hidden from view. It was all white, leeched of colour from everything that wasn't alive.

She was the only vibrancy in the room, and yet it seemed drained. Desaturated blue-violet hair, deep grey eyes that looked black, even the purple of her jacket was duller than it usually seems.

Her hands were shaking as she got on her knees, pulling out the blank sheet of paper she had brought with her. She already drafted the message in her mind countless times, but it wasn't until she was there on the bathroom floor did it really hit her. What she was doing, what she was leaving behind, the damage she could be causing.

She stared at the reflection in the mirror, tears welling in her eyes. The person staring right back wasn't her. It was the shell left behind, marred with scars that framed her cheeks. Missing space covered by long hair, shunned away from the sight of others, of her own. A pale hand moved her hair back, in the motions of tucking her hair behind her ear. Even after months of adjusting, she always forgets the tiny fact that she can never do that again, as her hair falls back into place.

The remains of her ears were gone, removed the day she was admitted into the hospital. Nothing left behind, too damaged to save anything, effectively removing any ability to hear. Sealed from the rest of the world, cursed to never hear a sound again.

Her quirk, yanked away from her in the span of one fight. One very unfair fight.

The damage she was leaving behind was inevitable,

Ink hit paper, and she began to write her heart out. Tears started to stream down her face, stinging her eyes with heat and emotions that had been pent up until this second. The words flooded out of her, dragging across a white surface.

Dear Katsuki,

I know this letter is probably coming to you at a bad time, but there is no good time for this. Or for me.

I just wanted to start by thanking you, for being here. For reaching out a few years ago, because I stopped talking and you had noticed. I was in a bad place. I didn't want to be here anymore. You were right, for being worried. For changing, for wanting to help. And you helped. You saved me while you could.

But I can't do this anymore. They took everything I worked for away from me. Forced me into retirement. They knew what they were doing, the attack wasn't a mistake. They took my quirk, the reason I was a hero. I want it back but there's nothing anyone can do, no matter how hard they try.

I can't do this, Katsuki. I'm so sorry, this isn't fair to you.

You saved me. For a few years, it was the best friendship I could have asked for from the most unexpected person to have it with.

Thank you. For teaching me to sign. For trying your best to make what you could of the situation I had given you, to the new life we had to live. For caring enough to stay, when people left me because I couldn't know what they were saying, when they tossed me and diagnosed me quirkless by mishap. I owe you so much that I can't give.

So I'll wish you a good future, a better life.

Good luck getting to number one. I believe in you, Katsuki.

See you on the other side, my aro-love,

Kyouka.

She stood up, folding the paper and tucking it behind the faucet. Her lips were trembling, no doubt the unheard heavy breathing from crying slipping through. She had to keep wiping her eyes, blurred vision from tears getting in the way of writing. Dark purple ink smeared across her hand at some point, but she couldn't tell when it happened.

She stared at the note for a while, focusing on breathing. This was going to hurt him so much, her chest ached just thinking about it. Her best friend, the only person who cared enough to stick with her. Dare she say he even loved him, the way she would love a sibling. He was stupid, cocky, assholish, but he was the person who clicked with her. Quick witted, snarky, both willing to sing karaoke at 1 am in a bar on a Thursday night.

She missed him so much, even though he never left her. She was leaving him.

Her eyes fell on her phone, and she decided to pick it up. The screen was pulled up on her old playlist of foreign music, though she had forgotten the tune for most of the songs. She scrolled, until she finally decided to click on one. No noise reached her, the full volume on her phone having no meaning. A song covered, turned sad by the singer. A song that meant so much to her heart before it left her in a wave of pain.

Cups.

She read the lyrics, over and over, before setting her phone back down. Though silent, she knew the music kept playing. Her phone held too much pain for her to keep looking at it.

When her parents texted her this morning, asking what she had planned today, she had told them that she planned to decorate the bathroom. She never cared for the colour red, but maybe that's what the blank white bathroom needed, as she pulled the shiny metal of a gun from her pocket.

She'd hear his voice again, on the other side, as she whispered her last goodbyes.

Jirou Kyouka didn't know if the gun left a noise, but she left this world silently.

-

She discovered that heaven looked an awful lot like a graveyard.

The first thing Kyouka noticed, that nearly made her break down crying, is the sound of crickets. They chirped mindlessly, to an audience of one, the delicate sound twirling in the midnight air. Peaceful, calming.

So loud.

She felt fuzzy and lightheaded, the overwhelming nature of hearing dancing across her ears.

Oh my god, she had ears. Her hands reached up, tangling in cords made of skin, fumbling with the flaps of an elongated earlobe. The feeling was soft, bittersweet emotions boiling over the top and spilling out in white hot tears.

She was free.

It took her a moment to realise just how high she was, floating above the world. Her legs were misty, she could barely see the outline of her bare feet in the dark. In a moment, she remembered she's dead. The euphoria of hearing has erased that memory for only a moment, as she remembered what she left.

But did she really leave? She looked down past her feet to see the familiar plot of land she had visited many times before. Never had seen a birds eye view, but she'd recognize the stones of her dead classmates.

Hers was a new edition.

Tentatively, she made a motion to step forward. She felt stairs beneath her feet, invisible to the world, as she started to descend to the dark graveyard below. The further down she got, the more a pulling sensation in her heart started to blossom. It was subtle at first, pulling her up towards the sky, but it was manageable. By the time her feet hit grass, the pulling was mildly distressing. It was like it wanted her to go up, not down.

It was probably telling her to move on. But she ignored it, in favour of looking at her own grave.

The invisible stairs ended only a meter or two from her stone, and she took a mental note of where it was. She could feel the grass below her feet, though she noted how mildly disturbing it is to feel grass going through her toes and not between.

The words on her stone stung a little as she read them. 'Taken Too Soon; Died a Hero' hits differently when you're dead and staring at your own grave. Even worse, she was technically standing over her own dead body.

Gross.

She paced the yard after a bit, noting the stones. 14 in total, each of them names of people she knew personally. Went to classes with, shared a dorm with for 3 years. It was odd, seeing their stones when she was also dead.

She knew a couple of them had gotten close to Katsuki, and she was close to some of them too. Kaminari was her previous best friend, before he had died, though they weren't by any means the same kind of friends like her and Katsuki.

Though she rarely called either of them by their first name, and it probably hurt more that her note addressed Katsuki as by his first name.

"So you're stuck too, huh?"

The voice was sweet, soft and kind. Like the petals of a rose freshly picked, the colour of warm black tea steaming in a tiny porcelain cup. For a moment, she almost didn't recognise the voice.

She spun on her toes to look right at Yaoyorozu, a stone throw away from her, who was about as translucent as Kyouka herself. Another ghost, dead as she was, who looked like she's seen better days. Yet even after death, she was still stunning, her hair done up in pearls and diamonds.

"You can hear me, right?"

Kyouka nodded, but her voice failed to leave her. The other ghost just smiled.

"Oh, it might be hard to adjust. It's okay to take your time."

She didn't say anything. Yaoyorozu crossed her legs, her dress ruffling in the motion. She was atop her own grave, hovering just above the stone. She was seated as if she were on a throne, her back straight, politely settling her hands in her lap.

She looked like a queen.

"I heard what happened," She started, her smile turning into a sad look. "I'm so sorry, Jirou-san."

Kyouka still didn't know how to answer, or even if she wanted to in the first place. She fumbled with her hands, defaulting to small signs she had learned throughout the months. Yaoyorozu watched, though the small furrow of her eyebrows indicated she had no clue what Kyouka was trying to say.

"Would you like paper and pen? I can still make things with my quirk, but it's odd." She waved a hand. "I still have a delay, I still need to know the compounds involved, but… I don't need to eat. It's weird, being dead."

Kyouka just nodded, quietly taking a step forward. Yaoyorozu's arm sparkled, and she pulled out a small notepad and a pen. She held it out, the objects just as ghostly as herself. Kyouka took them, but instead of writing she just held them to her chest.

"You haven't seen the others yet, they usually don't stick around here. A lot of them hate seeing their own graves, but some have moved on. Thank god Mineta never stuck around, heavens know that is a recipe for disaster."

Kyouka just nodded.

"By the way, as a forewarning," Yaoyorozu's voice was soft and dainty. "You can still see your fatal wounds, and you can see yourself in the mirror."

Kyouka felt sick. That means…

"You… probably should wait a bit before you look at it. It's pretty bad, but it's not the worst I've seen. Kirishima-san was pretty bad, before he moved on."

She just nodded. She held the notepad to her chest, clutching it tightly.

Her mind was scattered, and not just physically. Was her injury tied to her lightheadedness? How about the pulling sensation, the feeling of a string running though her head and pulling her up.

Yaoyorozu got up, floating off her stone and gently landing on the grass. Graceful, elegant, royal in nature.

The gate to the graveyard creaked, the sound tingling her ears. It was rusty, scratchy, and overall unpleasant to hear. She turned to look at it with a scowl, and noted that Yaoyorozu didn't pay it any mind.

Kyouka's heart dropped and bounced at the same time, forgetting her distaste at the sound, as she saw the familiar tuff of white-creme hair at the otherside.

Katsuki.

She nearly lurched forward to tackle him when a hand grabbed her wrist. Yaoyorozu pulled her back, and shot her a warning look when she looked back.

"He can't see you."

Oh.

Katsuki closed the gate behind him, as he didn't bother to be quiet. The rusty gate made her teeth itch from the noise, almost making her wish she could turn off her hearing.

Almost.

Yaoyorozu sighed, letting her wrist go. "Kirishima-san tried, Urachan tried, even Tsu-chan tried. It doesn't work, he'll never be able to see us. He doesn't know we're here. It might get distressing when he starts 'talking' to us, but it's one sided. I'm sorry, Jirou-san. I know you two were close."

Tears welled up in her eyes as she watched Katsuki instead of looking at Yaoyorozu. While the latter was talking, the former had gone straight for Kyouka's grave, placing a pair of headphones down on the ground, along with the note. He was still dressed for work, looking pretty beat-up. A bruise was forming on his forearm, just under his elbow. A gauze patch on his cheek was already spotted red by blood that had leaked through, the edges of the tape peeling and dirty from being picked at. There were scuff marks on his legs, presenting themselves through torn fabric that no doubt was going to be a pain to fix.

His eye bags were dark, she couldn't tell if it was from lack of sleep or getting punched in the face. Might as well be both, knowing Katsuki and his nature. His already explosive hair was more teased than usual, making him look like an off-white cotton ball. She noted it was kinda cute, dismissing the state of the rest of his body.

He looked exhausted.

He shouldn't be at a graveyard in this state, let alone at night. But there was no one to stop him as he pulled out a flask and unscrewed the lid.

Yaoyorozu made a noise of disapproval. "Bakugo-kun please, this isn't the place to drink."

He, of course, didn't hear her and slipped a sip before sitting down in front of Kyouka's grave.

One word was all it took to break her heart, and unfortunately it was the first word she's heard from him in months.

"Why?"

Yaoyorozu didn't stop her when she lurched forward this time, running straight for Katsuki. She slid to her knees, to be beside him, to try to hug him. Her arms passed through him without so much as disturbing his clothes, or even bringing a slight wind. A choked sob left her, as she felt hot tears fall down her cheeks and splatter across her knees.

"Please, I'm so sorry." She screamed, but her only audience is another ghost who could only watch her in pain. Katsuki was deaf to her, deaf to her pleas and sobs.

She just wanted to tell him she's not gone.

Just dead.

Yaoyorozu eventually left the two alone, as Katsuki gradually became more drunk as the night passed on. At some point, Kyouka had also stopped crying, and was sitting on the bottom step of the invisible stairs, staring at him. Every now and then, he'd let out a small grumbly sentence, but mostly he was quiet. A few hours into his stay, he elected to lay down on his back and look up at the stairs quietly.

"I miss you."

Her heart was already shattered to pieces, she didn't need more of the pain.

"I miss you, too," she said, knowing he can't hear her.

Sunrise came, uninvited but welcomed. Katsuki looked up, squinting at the sun like it had told him an offensive joke, before sighing.

"I'm gonna regret this." He grumbled, getting up and dusting off his torn pants. She watched him, bouncing a leg out of boredom. "I should've taken a nap, or something."

"Dammit Katsuki, did you sit in front of my grave when you work in the morning?"

She didn't get a reply to her statement, but Katsuki monologued an answer for her anyways.

"Shouldn't have taken a morning shift, I'm gonna die."

She scuffed, kicking her feet out.

"Should probably get myself coffee, or something. Maybe I'll stop by tonight if I can get out of bed later."

Kyouka sighed. "You're a dumbass."

No reply, she was going to have to get used to that. Katsuki gathered himself together, rubbing the tiredness from his eyes. It didn't work, but it was the best he could muster.

She wondered, for a split moment, if she could just follow him around.

Only for a split moment, because immediately she decided she was going to anyways.

And thus started a train of events, ones that sucker punched Kyouka (and Katsuki) in the gut multiple times.

Like Dabi being Shouto's brother. That was a fucked up discovery. She did find Toga to be cute and endearing, though still slightly creepy. Watching Aizawa beat himself up was tragic, she could feel his drunken pain sink into her soul. And Izuku… well, he moved on near immediately, but it hurt so much to watch him die.

But what really hurt the most was watching Katsuki spiral down a path she couldn't save him from. The drinking only got heavier, amplified by the blame of Izuku's death. He grew distant from his friends, his family, locking himself in a room with paperwork. Cigarettes piled in ash trays left forgotten, never emptied, as he let his life slip away with each puff.

She tried. She really did. She tried to move papers, knock over cups, pick up pens, write on windows. To let him know he wasn't alone. It was no use, nothing ever happened.

One by one, she watched her dead classmates move on. Yaoyorozu walked up the invisible stairs with her hands grasped in Izuku's. Ojiro waved her goodbye from the top. Iida never even showed up, which says a lot about the man's previous life.

Not only was Katsuki alone, but so was Kyouka. She was left following her old friend, someone she had loved in a way that no one understood. Not romantic, not sexual. But it was deep in her bones, she didn't have anyone as close as Katsuki.

She'd kill to be able to talk to him one more time.

But she quickly regretted that, the night before he turned 30.

Despite being a heavy-case of an alcoholic, with a bad craving for cigarettes and a lack of respect for a sleep schedule, he managed to stay number one. All the way up to now, 4 years later, he held onto that title.

She rarely strayed away from him since her death, forcing herself to watch his spiral in pain. His public persona was so lively, he seemed fine. His smile was unbreakable, his eyes sparkled with life.

He was a good actor, she wondered if he had thought about pursuing acting. Behind closed doors, his life was tragic and generally pathetic.

April 19, the night before he turned 30, she decided to leave him alone for just a few hours.

When she came back, the only thing she could feel was numb.

Katsuki lied on the kitchen floor, on his side with his face against a pillow. He was curled up, clutching a dark brown bottle of something that must have been strong. His breathing was ragged, riddled with small hiccups and quiet sobs. Tears stained his cheeks, the pillow wet from them. A few bottles were empty nearby, and there was a picture frame that its glass had shattered.

It was a picture of her.

His sobs were calming down, and she stood there at the kitchen door. She couldn't move, having trained herself not to leap forward to comfort.

She saw the note, written in red ink, and stuck to the fridge with a magnet.

Can't do this anymore, I'm sorry.

Tell the world I will miss them.

- Ground Zero.

No one came to rescue him, his only witness a ghost left to watch him suffer.

He pulled the trigger with a bottle, downing the rest of its contents, before he let himself fall into a sleep he'll never awake from.

She didn't leave until he was found, only 3 days later when Shinsou Hitoshi broke into his apartment only to discover a dead body.

A few weeks passed, as she slowly retreated back to the graveyard. And she waited.

And waited.

Waited.

The day of the funeral finally happened, and her heart dropped.

No one showed up, because he had explicitly written in his will that he didn't want a funeral.

He was buried quietly, unseen to the living world beyond employees that worked for the funeral business.

It was months before she saw him again. He appeared at sundown, sometime in November, his knees to his chest. He looked terrible, curled up with his back to a stone with his name on it.

20 stones, all with names of classmates dead before 30.

"Katsuki?"

His head snapped up, and he stared at her. The colour was drained from his face, his eyes bloodshot, his lips chapped.

He couldn't say a word as Kyouka walked up to him and offered a hand.

"It's time for us to leave."

"I'm sorry."

His voice was broken, slurred like he was still drunk. He might still be, if the nature of fatal wounds stayed behind in the form of drinks too.

"I know." Her voice was small. "I know how it feels. But it's time for us to go."

"Were you there?" She paused at the question, as he stared at her. "Were you?"

"Yes."

A tear ran down his cheek.

"I'm so sorry."

Kyouka could barely take the pain in the back of her throat as she held back tears.

"I love you, dork."

"I love you too, nerd."

"We have to go."

So he took her hand, and together, they walked up the invisible stairs to join their friends at the top.